​I hear motivational and inspirational used interchangeably as leadership modifiers and they are as different as carrots and peas.  Here’s a peak behind the curtain…since the age of 4, I haven’t liked the consistency of peas.  I willingly eat carrots, but if you want me to eat peas, you need to inspire the hell out of me.
 
A motivational leader gets a person to use their conscious brain to take action because it’s in their best interest.  The thought is something like, “yes I am motivated to buy another sandwich from that shop because I’m only two stamps from a free sub,” or “I will work to achieve the quarterly sales goals so I can go to Aruba.”  With motivation there has to be a carrot; a conscious reason for the person to act.  Anyone with a carrot can motivate.  But what if there’s no carrots or they don’t like carrots?         
 
An inspiring leader gets another person to use their unconscious brain to spontaneously act without thinking.  The person has no conscious idea why the leader made them act that way…they just did it.  Like really belly laughing at a funny part in a movie…the director ‘inspired’ you to laugh…you didn’t think, “oh I should laugh deeply here,” and then laugh.  You just laughed.  Or soldiers who follow their Army platoon sergeant who charged into gunfire.  The soldiers don’t consciously think, “I’m going to follow Sarge into this gunfire”, they just do it.  If you can find your way into that space…well you can write your own ticket.    

There’s plenty of room for leaders to be both inspirational and motivational as the situation dictates.   My experience is that for humans (I can't speak for flamingos), the possibility of becoming an inspirational leader can only happen when the person (re)learns to at least minimally speak the language of body and emotions because they’re the language of the unconscious.  Did you see how I slipped that (re) in there?  You spoke these fluently as a baby so they’re still in there, just have to find where.  It’s a lot easier to find slippers you misplaced in the house than to go out and buy them in the first place.  To regain fluency, ya gotta get in there and practice speaking it (with an Embodiment or Somatic coach…sometimes those regional dialects are tough!).  Otherwise, the leader will come off as inauthentic and a person who has only read about the body, emotions, and unconscious.  Like the difference between teaching how to skillfully play basketball because you’ve done it, versus having only read about it in a book. 
 
I was in the military and super analytical until I learned to work with my body, emotions and unconscious about 15 years ago.  I got the comment of inauthentic on more than one occasion because I was constantly in my head trying to guess and then perform the correct emotion based on the situation.  As if I was wearing a mask over my whole head.  Now I go around maskless….well, except when I’m in the grocery store in an N-95.  Hey-o!  Being analytical is not bad or wrong and I found it required a lot of work to maintain and wear that mask.  Learning to work with emotions and the body and stop wearing the mask as much just makes life easier. 

If you want to improve your access to these domains, then read my blog every week.  :) Additional suggestions are to take an improv class, read Leadership Embodiment by Wendy Palmer and the Leadership Dojo by Richard Strozzi-Heckler. 
 
p.s. turns out the chef who grilled mashed peas inspired the hell out of me and they were delicious.

Sobriety is a billion dollar industry in the US.  Alcohol, shopping, codependence, gambling, tobacco, the list is endless.  Congress has hearings, government makes policy, religious institutions and companies provide support for their people, films celebrate overcoming it.  Yet hardly anyone discusses the addiction so many suffer from....emotions.  Us humans can hold onto anger, betrayal, shame, fear, abandonment, etc, for dear life.  Deep down most of us know it's not good for us and yet we can't stop.  That's the real addiction hiding in plain sight in America.      

I've done plenty of fitness programs and lifestyle eating programs that call for a rigid 6-day eating plan with the 7th a 'cheat day' where you can eat anything you want.  The only thing more harmful for your longtime fitness goals than calling this a cheat day is calling it a, "you're a piece of shit day."   You are what you call yourself.  So if you call your plan (and by extension yourself) a cheat long enough, your system starts to believe it can only succeed by being dishonest.  And then you cheat on your cheat day because your system thinks you're already dishonest so what's the harm?  Your system literally self-sabotages your actions so they match what you say about yourself and eventually the wheels fall off the truck and you're shotgunning ice cream sandwiches while watching Wheel of Fortune reruns on a Wed.   

You need that 7th day to give your willpower a chance to recharge.  Call it a free day, me day, eat day, or Sunday.  Anything but a cheat day, because it's not.  

Tonite I dropped into a Facebook message thread discussing an improv article that basically said fidgeting and pacing in an improv scene is always wrong.  First comment I saw was from a fellow improviser who said she naturally paces a lot and what should she do?  And from that I've started a new blog feature, the Unintentional Mailbag!  Where I accidentally stumble into a facebook post while searching for something else and write a way too long for facebook answer so I make it into a blog post at 1am on a random Wed morning because it's such an interesting topic.  Now you're all caught up.  So the answer is, Yes, And Yourself.  Which is actually a short answer.  So my explanation of the answer was the too long part.  Now you're actually caught up.

Before we dig in, a key point is that no actions in improv (and most actions you'll make in life) are ever wrong.  However, they can be poor choices that make the scene/life a lot harder.  For example, fidgeting and mindless pacing are not wrong, and they do make a scene/life harder.  The majority of people are distracted by shiny things; it's not our fault, we're mammals.  Fidgeting and mindless pacing are distracting.  A distracted audience is thus paying attention to your movement and not to the scene.  You have to work that much harder to get them back.  And now you're chasing points like when the Eagles go for 2 in the first quarter and miss.  It sucks for everyone.  
      
Yes, And Yourself
Yes, anding yourself is the most important yes, and there is.  It means you practice self-care.  If you have a physical ailment, you take care of yourself and make sure you're safe.  It also means you accept all the urges, thoughts, emotions, and actions you have...without judgement.  At least that's the goal we're moving towards.  Trying to suppress a thought, urge, emotion or action does not work as a long-term strategy because it invites actual constriction, tightness, less blood flow in the body.  How?  Well, how do you suppress your body from physically moving?  You tighten your muscles.  Same thing happens if we try to suppress thought, urges or emotions.  Suppression degrades the strength of the connection to relaxed/in the flow/zone, a connection that great improv requires.  Instead of trying to stop judging yourself...can you spend one less second today judging yourself than yesterday?  One more second without self-judgement on stage this time?  One more second second in the zone?  One more second allowing?  One more second intentionally moving? You can totally do one more second a day of something!  

For your particular question, some part of your body has an urge to move.  So let the urge be there....and then choose to direct it, to move/not move in a way that works for you; that serves your life and the scene.  Here's one way to do it.  

Steps:
Everything in life is a practice.  No one learns how to drive or tie their shoes in one attempt.  Remember it took Harry Potter 7 books to learn to use his wand well enough to defeat Vladimir Putin.  It takes time and practice.  I bet you can do it in 5 books, and zero pressure from me.  The specific practice you're going to cultivate is the intentional movement muscle. 

The goal is conscious intentional movement.  Start small. Build up.  When you can do each step 3x for 2 performances in a row, move to the next step.  Start with step 1, then 1&2, 1&2&3, etc., until you are doing steps 1-5 each show.  The more you practice, the easier and faster it gets.

1.  Notice you have an urge to move while on stage 
2.  Say 'Yes, And' to that part of you that wants to move on stage.  Accept and allow it to be there...without judgment.  :)
3.  Take a slightly deeper than regular breath, and briefly pause
4.  Choose to move or not.  (Just because the voice is saying 'move' doesn't mean you need to listen.)
5.  If you choose to move, make it work for you and the scene.  Decide on the reason you're moving; even if you don't speak it, it transmits to your movements and they are more natural.

Here's a secret the Dali Lama told me....you can practice this at home!  Huh?!?!  Because how we are on stage is how we are in life.  I'm going to guess there's times in your day or week where you get an urge to move.  Use those times to practice the steps.  There's a whole industry of applied improv that teaches improv as a practice for life...who knew life could be practice for improv?!?!   

For extra credit:
Sit in a quiet place with eyes closed and ask what part of you wants to move.  Invite that part of you to sit with you and have lunch.  Ask what they want to eat and serve that.  See and imagine yourself sitting at lunch eating with that part of you.  Cultivate a relationship with that part of you.  Ask who that part is, what's it's name, what does it need, for what reason is it asking you to move.  Let the conversation wander from there. 

Good stories tell you what emotion you should have and when.  They are commanding and prescriptive.  Go buy this product.  You'll feel happy when you read this book.  March this way.  That doesn't make them bad, and they are less memorable.  Why?  Because humans (whether they realize it or not) care about having their own emotions, that they think of, and this emotion was provided courtesy the U.S. Army, et. al.

Great stories compel you to have your own emotion that just happens to coincide with the emotion the storyteller intended you to have.  These stories are inviting and generative.  They invite us in and ask us to experience emotions of our own free will, that we then just have to share on the Internet or in-person or we'll explode.  So why do we do that  even though we have no financial interest in whatever we experienced?  All humans (wether they realize it or not), have a need to be vulnerable.  It's in our DNA.  And telling stories is a way we get to share an emotion we had, which is being vulnerable btw, with someone in a way that's comfortable for us.    We are so excited by the story that we literally cannot keep ourselves from sharing it with others.  So, sorry to break it to you and that last time you talked to your buddies at the bar about how great the Spiderman movie was....you were being vulnerable.  A couple of people figured this out 6000 years ago and now we have an entire advertising industry co-opting this premise.

Good leaders tell good stories.  Great leaders tell great stories.  Which stories are you practicing?  

If you're driving a car from Kansas City to Philadelphia and get tired while passing through Indianapolis, you pull over and find a place to sleep for the night.  When you awaken in the morning, you're not magically sent back to Kansas, you're still in Indianapolis.  The same principle applies when life knocks you down.  When you get up, instead of thinking you're starting over or starting again (with the anxiety and judgement that often comes along in the back seat), see that you're actually starting from where you left off and with all your wisdom and life experiences to help guide you.  

Focus on how many times you got back on the horse of life, instead of how many times you got bucked off.  That's resilience.  

The number one problem with the military transition program is that it pathologizes normal human behaviors and marks Veterans as wrong, bad, or weak if they have a difficult transition to civilian life.  In this model Veterans are viewed as 'broken' and in need of 'fixing'.  This drives Veterans to ignore their own needs, pretend they are fine when they are not, and  not seek help for fear of being judged or looking weak.  The current transition process actually drives Veterans away from help.  Who wants to voluntarily seek help if they know  they're going to be painted as wrong or defective?  

A more effective model is normalizing depression, anxiety, uncertainty, and stress as common responses that all humans may have during transitions.  These responses are actually a signal that the human body is working exactly as its supposed to (and we can want it to be different).  Normalizing reduces the stigma around assistance by letting Veterans know they are not wrong or broken; they're simply humans who haven't yet been trained on how to move through a transition.  It says the Veteran is great just the way they are, AND  they can learn practices and skills to have more ease during a transition.