Inside Job

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Episode 118: WTF Face and Holding Space

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Two key moments when it’s helpful to hit “Pause”

This week on the podcast, we’re answering listener questions.

How to control your facial expressions so they don’t translate to WTF.

Kicking things off, summer isn’t always as slow as we always thought it should be and it led to an interesting question from a coaching client:

How do you control your face to not share any ‘WTF’ thoughts you might be having?

Even if you have a cartoon face and it’s REALLY easy to understand what you’re thinking, the question might strike you [and us] as funny. The deeper reality is that there are a few strategies to help have a better poker face during workplace conversations.

Listen in this week to get tips to help give yourself enough space to craft the reaction we truly want to present in any situation.

  • Have a neutral, go-to reaction. Eric shares a story about a manager whose expression for information he disagreed with or had a strong reaction to was always, “AH”

  • Develop your business, poker face by taking stock of your “Tells” and managing them

  • Make a difference in your experience by adjusting your expectations going into a conversation



We also learn to be careful who yah quote, because it wasn’t actually Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln, or Mark Twain.

Be curious and not judgetmental
— unknown

Our second question is about a phrase we use and encounter often in our coaching practices, “hold space”.

What does it mean to hold space?

In the course of a great conversation, “holding space” is most often, the gift of a pause.

This discussion centers around personal exploration as both the person thinking through an experience or emotion and as a person supporting someone else.

We outline actions that help you create the time in your daily life to listen to yourself and others.

Do you have ways to give yourself space to react? We’d love to hear about them at info@insidejobthepodcast.com

Resources mentioned in this episode:

  • The earliest known usage of the exact phrase, “Be curious, not judgemental”, was found in the January 1986 edition of the Charlotte Observer in the advice column by Marguerite and Marshall Shearer (Snopes).

  • Hold space to ask yourself these questions in just a few minutes every day:

    • What is my body telling me?

    • What are my thoughts that are top of mind?

    • What emotions am I experiencing?

    • What am I longing for? What emotions am I stuffing down?

    • What am I craving?

    • What am I longing for?

    • What’s my experience right now?

    • What am I avoiding feeling?

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