2023.4 learnings from the silence part 2

Because business is personal. This newsletter is dedicated to your own alignment journey.

“Each of us has an enduring superpower: our voice. It’s not the one we hear when speaking with others. It’s the one we hear when listening within ourselves.”

Hi ! 👋

Happy February! After 30 days of vocal rest, today was my first day really speaking. For this month, each week is dedicated to delving into one of the learnings from my time of silence.

Initially, I wanted to put them all in one email and move forwards. And then I thought about the intention of this newsletter: to increase connection with ourselves and one another through creating greater alignment — which maximizes wellbeing, personal & business performance, value creation, outcomes, retention, engagement, etc.

Recognizing the integration of learning is vital to practicing alignment, we’re proceeding with a more bite-sized approach — allowing ample time for you to reflect, process and implement your takeaways into your own life too.

Data vs Discernment

Tests are not always accurate.

How you sample data can change the output/answer.

The questions we ask of the data can skew results we receive.

The process of gathering the raw information can skew results.

While numbers can approximate progress and be key indicators of outward success, they are approximations. And those approximations can be inaccurate. Data can inform us of the reality of the situation and it can also be misleading.

Checking in with your own discernment is always a critical check. When you know something in your bones, don’t let the data blindly supersede your own discernment. Question the data and/or result through questioning & examining the:

• Variables at play

• Assumptions at hand

• Collection mechanism

• Interpretation of the result

• Elements of the story not explained by the data or result

To keep students engaged when I was a teaching assistant in college, I used to teach students “how to lie with statistics”. This way they could be empowered with critical thinking, asking deeper questions, and understanding how to spot misleading assumptions & information.

Checking in with my own discernment turned out to be crucial to my recovery. I was faced with a negative test result for Strep A. While it made cognitive sense that this infection might be viral, I had a feeling it wasn’t. I also knew that a strep culture is dependent on the collection of the “right sample” so the test was not infallible. While my ego was eye-rolling at my decision, I went to a different practice and got tested again. It came back positive for Strep A. I had a deep feeling it was strep all along.

Think of the decisions you’ve made that went sideways. Was your own discernment (that deeper voice within yourself, not your ego) in complete alignment with those decisions? How can you better leverage your own discernment in decisions going forward?

I encourage you to ponder this as you find yourself relaxing into white space over this next week. This way you can ask questions, tune in, and listen deeper to your own realizations. You can integrate your takeaways into your own alignment practice — leveraging your own discernment to thrive more, personally and professionally.

Cheers,Rachel

P.S. I welcome any thoughts you’d like to share — I read them all, always. Just click reply. 👍

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