What do I do with old thought patterns?

I had a meeting this week with a very dear friend. I wanted to get some feedback from him about a new thing that I'm working on, and some old thought patterns came up.

This friend is a very successful person, and it occurred to me that he had the resources, team and experience. Tiny voice in my head said that he would take this idea and build it without me. This brought forth the thought that I shouldn't share this with him.

What if he takes this idea and runs with it? What if he someone works it into one of the companies that he's running? What if he's able to execute better and faster than I can? A lot of the wrong kind of what ifs.

It was scarcity mindset at the most basic level.

So what if he runs with this idea? Great. That means that it'll get built and I won't have to build it.

I had this internal dialogue before the meeting, recognized this old pattern and share the new thing anyways.

To take it one step further, I shared with him the entire internal dialogue and old thought pattern of scarcity along with a brief moment of not wanting to share it. We shared a beautiful moment, had a good laugh and it ultimately brought us closer together.

Of course I was meant to share this with him as he's been kicking around similar ideas. He mentioned a few investors he has lined up. And he we as far to suggest that we explore the idea of me transforming one his companies to build this internally there. Pretty incredible to see the abundance flow when we move past scarcity.

Recognize the old patterns. Flip it and reverse it. Instead of not sharing something, share the old thought pattern as well.

How was it received?

One of my favorite follow-up questions when a leader tells me about a difficult conversation that they've had is:

"How was it received?"

When having difficult conversations with people we care about, it can be challenging to just say what we want to say. We become completely focused on the content of the message.

The next level beyond that the content is understanding how it was received.

It is our job as leaders to be present to how we are being received. We have the opportunity to tailor our message and delivery so that the recipient can absorb our message, understand our position, integrate any feedback, continue an open dialogue, not feel attacked, and actually deepen the relationship.

When we first make a choice to have difficult conversations, we tend to focus all of our energy on getting our points out. As we become more experieced in having these conversations, it becomes important to understand how that message will be received and optimize for that.