Episode #67: How to Turn Your Family into a High-Performance Team with Anjani Bhargava, Partner in Evolution
Caneel Joyce:
Welcome to Allowed. I’m your host, Dr. Caneel Joyce. And I’m joined today by my friend Anjani Bhargava. You may have met Anjani in our previous episode, where we talked about teams. Teams in the broadest possible sense of how teamwork is actually built into our DNA.
The role of trusting teams, the challenges we face and the teams we’re in it work. Those can be very hard to go through and Anjani offered some very practical ways of understanding those dynamics, how to lean into them for our own growth and to improve the health of the teams that we’re on. At the end of that conversation, Anjani began sharing with me some thoughts that you’re going to get to hear today, we’re going to share that clip in this episode.
And those thoughts specifically were around turning your family into a high-performing team. A high-performing team in a very humanistic sense as well. This is a team that… and she’ll tell you more about it, but that trusts each other, that works well together. That can make decisions, move forward and really co-create the life and the impact that you want to have. Both of us are mothers of elementary aged children. Your kids are still home Anjani?
Anjani Bhargava:
No, they go to school. [crosstalk 00:02:40].
Caneel Joyce:
They’re now at school.
Anjani Bhargava:
Yeah.
Caneel Joyce:
So it was a little back and forth for a while. And so we’re here today to deep dive into how to turn your family into a team. And family could encompass you in a couple-dom relationship. It could encompass you with your family of origin, your parents, your brothers, your sisters, aunts and uncles, extended family, whomever you consider family.
I know for a long time really I had two families, I had my blood family and then I have my friend family. And some of them are so close that we literally, when we shop for houses, we’re like, “Where are they going to sleep?” Because that’s how close. So I think I want listeners to us to just think of, who feels like family to you, whatever the state that relationship is in?
And Anjani is going to share some of the methods and things that she’s done inside of her own family to create this really beautiful system, that I know is going to have a lot of positive impact for you and each other and also in the world. I’m so excited to learn from you. I also brought here, if you’re watching this video on YouTube or on allowedpodcast.com, I brought three of our four family notebooks that we’ve kept over the years, starting with my husband and I when we were dating, of our visioning and our goals.
And so fun to have these finally unpacked because I’m moving in, and maybe I’ll dive into those and share some personal stuff too. So Anjani thank you back to the show. Remind our listeners, please, who you are, what’s you’re about, why you’re here?
Anjani Bhargava:
Well, I’m here because I absolutely love you and love what you’re doing in this world. I am a mother of two young girls, six and eight. I work with CEOs and executive teams as a coach and as a culture changer. And who I am, I’m a human.
Caneel Joyce:
Yes. Oh, awesome. Okay. So let’s begin with, I see in the corner of your screen, there’s a plant behind you and there’s… it looks like a whiteboard, but I see some writing. What does that say? Because I know there’s a story there.
Anjani Bhargava:
Yeah. So I’m not a big, put words up on your wall kind of person, but this exists. My husband put this up in our bedroom because he was so moved. It says, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.” And I love, love, love this quote.
And if you really knew me, you would know that I love getting mugs with quotes on them, but this particular quote sits on my wall. And the story behind that is, my husband and I met at a wine tasting festival, and we live in Chicago so torrential summer, summer thunderstorms, and the sky turned green. And we were like, yes.
Caneel Joyce:
What does that mean? When the sky turns-
Anjani Bhargava:
Oh tornadoes, tornado warning.
Caneel Joyce:
Oh.
Anjani Bhargava:
Yes. And little old me who’s from LA, when I first moved out here, I was always watching for green skies because it’s so scary.
Caneel Joyce:
Oh my gosh.
Anjani Bhargava:
So the sky turned green and they were shuttling people back to the main center and he said, “Well, it’s just rain, do you want to walk?” And he’s like, “We’re Indian, like monsoons and stuff.” And so that got me to laugh. And we were walking and he starts belting out Bollywood music, like singing songs. And again-
Caneel Joyce:
Oh, fun.
Anjani Bhargava:
… if you knew me, I’m a pretty serious person. My life work is to dive into play and silliness, and my husband is all play and silliness.
Caneel Joyce:
So life work meaning, it’s not how you naturally orient.
Anjani Bhargava:
Mm-mm (negative). Correct.
Caneel Joyce:
It’s your journey. Okay yes.
Anjani Bhargava:
It’s my journey, yes. It’s the thing I need to keep chiseling into. And there was this big, giant noise like a Kaboom kind of noise and we both fell to the ground. And when we came back up, if you’re envisioning in slow motion, come back up, look at each other, and we just both started laughing.
Because we realized what had happened was a lightning bolt hit a tree that was less than three feet from us, and so we almost died. If we were any closer we would have died. And it was crazy. And you know Caneel, I believe in the universe very much so. And I believe in, all the signs are there, you just have to open your eyes and look and be willing to receive. And so, lightning does strike literally. And-
Caneel Joyce:
And this is the first night you met your husband?
Anjani Bhargava:
It was the first time I met my husband.
Caneel Joyce:
Wow. Amazing.
Anjani Bhargava:
Yeah.
Caneel Joyce:
Did he also see it as a sign?
Anjani Bhargava:
Yeah. His friends called me lightning girl. The lightning girl that he was going to marry.
Caneel Joyce:
That’s so hot, lucky you.
Anjani Bhargava:
And the weirdest thing was, so he proposed at that tree. The tree still exists. He proposed up that tree. And it was a bright sunny day. And when he proposed there was one cloud that came and started raining and then it went away. And when my daughter was born, we took her there, and the same thing happened.
Caneel Joyce:
No.
Anjani Bhargava:
Yeah. It’s really, really freaky. And his boss at the time, he is a beautiful man, he’s known my husband for his entire career. And it was weird because we didn’t get a wedding gift from him and it was strange. Like here’s this guy who’s made oodles and oodles of money building and selling companies, and it’s not about the gift, but we wanted to make sure we sent a thank you note, if there was one.
And there was nothing. And it was just weird. And then one day in the mail and we got this envelope and my husband starts crying and he’s not a crier at all. And he said, “Jeff just sent us the most amazing…” He wrote a poem, this Jeff Guy is like 6’5″, big burly dude. He wrote a poem, he sent it to the Chicago Botanic garden, told them our story and bought us the tree. And so now his poem hangs on the tree and it’s our tree.
Caneel Joyce:
Oh my God, you are liquid magic. Oh my gosh.
Anjani Bhargava:
Thank you.
Caneel Joyce:
That’s the most incredible story.
Anjani Bhargava:
I know.
Caneel Joyce:
Have you made a necklace that looks like that tree or?
Anjani Bhargava:
No. That’s a great idea.
Caneel Joyce:
That’s incredible.
Anjani Bhargava:
We go and visit the tree every once in a while.
Caneel Joyce:
It’s so beautiful. Well, all right. So there you go. So the quote on the wall to remind you of that special pivotal sign from the universe.
Anjani Bhargava:
And the quotes on the wall to… Yes. To say, trust in the universe. And it’s all about how you look at it because you could either say, “I need the storm to pass.” Or you can either say, “I’m going to dance right now.”
Caneel Joyce:
Yes. Oh God, I’m so about that. My family, actually, this is very relevant. My family has been in a form of rainstorm for a while, in the form of some water damage that happened in our house when there was a… It’s pretty gross. Before Christmas, our main water line broke. I needed to find that couldn’t figure out where’s the water? But you hear the water rushing through the walls, and we don’t know where the water is.
So eventually that was found, but in the meantime it was the holidays and COVID. And in LA, there is a construction boom, and everyone is building new houses and renovating and it’s impossible to get a handyman. So couldn’t find a plumber or anyone to come fix it. We had no water all through the Christmas holiday. So no showers, no dish washing.
We’re good campers, so we knew how to cope with it. and then right after that got fixed, the main sewer line backed up under our house. And so then they tore apart the floors and tore apart the walls. And then they like drying everything out, the whole process. And people, when I told them about it, and I realized I’m a dramatic person and things might sound worse than they were. People were like, “Oh my gosh, it sounds so horrible. I’m so sorry.” And I’m like, “I am so grateful for that.”
It was just hilarious. It’s like, “What’s this now?” My kids started being the same as me, they hear a little noise and like, “What does that, what does that mean? Is that water?” So like, “What’s happening?” But we flowed with it so much and it was just… It was universe is telling us, “It’s time for you guys to move on. It’s time for you to move on from this house.”
We were starting to debate, maybe we don’t want to sell our house, maybe we want to stay in this very house forever. But there’s also been all these signs and especially just pressure of all of us being home together. We’re like, “It’s time for a change.” So once the sewer thing happened, I’m like, “Okay, I won’t doubt anymore, we’re going for it. We’re going.” And so we’re out of there. So now we’re here in this awesome rental and looking for our dream home. And a client said, “I love how you flow with chaos.”
Anjani Bhargava:
Oh, I love that. I love that. I love that. Oh my gosh, I love that.
Caneel Joyce:
It’s just like rolling with it. And jeez, COVID such a guru. I think it really helped me with that. So really grateful. And I love that dancing in the rain image, I can’t wait to sing musicals with your husband. So let’s talk about now. So then kids come along.
Anjani Bhargava:
Yeah.
Caneel Joyce:
And you’ve developed some frameworks, I think. Teach us about how you’ve turned your family into a team?
Anjani Bhargava:
I don’t think it was intentional, but I think it’s just evolved and I think it can be intentional. So I don’t know if there are any frameworks, but I can just talk about some of the things that we do. So, as I said in the last episode, I just wrote down things that were important and really simple. And again, it just came through me.
There wasn’t a big planning session, there wasn’t like, “Oh, what are our family values? Yada, yada, yada.” Because my husband and I tried to do that, and it was a lot. And it’s a lot when you just articulate it. But I think the first thing I would say is, when something wants to come through you, just let it come. And so I remember I wrote down on this little yellow sheet of paper, the small notepads and it was just respect my family, respect my body, respect my mind, respect my house, respect my earth, something like that.
Five very clear things. And we’ve just kept it. We have it downstairs on that same yellow sheet of paper, we refer to it all the time. When my daughter’s doing negative self-talk, I will ask her, which one of those is she not paying enough attention to? And she’ll say, “Respect my mind.” I’m like, “Yep that’s right.” And when they will argue and say like, “Well, my friend can do so-and-so and I can [inaudible 00:14:53], we can’t do that?” And it’s like, “Yep, that family is different and we are different. And that family has different values and different edicts and purpose and boundaries, and we have these. So this is what it means to be part of our family.”
And as they get older, the conversations are less like, “This is the way we do things.” And they’re more, “How should we do things.” So incorporating and treating your children like actual humans, that have perspectives and points of views depending on the age, I think is important too. So those five things or those by forms of respect, they might morph over time. We might add some because my daughters think that it’s really important to have, but it would be a family conversation.
Caneel Joyce:
Family conversation, absolutely. I love the respect framing, so that’s really hitting me. And those sound like a set of shared commitments.
Anjani Bhargava:
Yeah, totally.
Caneel Joyce:
So-
Anjani Bhargava:
I actually like that better than even values. Yes, shared commitments.
Caneel Joyce:
This is what we’re committed to here. And commitment meaning, we are going to do everything in our power, everything in our control to live these commitments. So it’s not a rule list, which might be more like a set of agreements in a conscious leadership framework. So we did episode 59 a few episodes ago, it was all around creating clear agreements.
And I think that’s something I find myself doing often. And it’s part of the maybe the shadowy part of the culture of our little family here is, we’re always optimizing and finding new ways to make things just how we want them. And so my husband and I will often come up with, “Oh, if we just had this rule, then all of these things would work better.”
So we’ll call out new rule and then everyone says, “New rule.” And then we’ll name the rule, but what’s missing there because as an Enneagram type four, there’s always something missing. What’s missing, that set of clear commitments. So we have values, but I love those commitments. So if somebody like myself or a listener wanted to approach that, I know it came through you, but if we have that intention, do you have any recommendations for how to get there?
Anjani Bhargava:
So just have a conversation with all the members of your family, of your team and say, “What’s important to each of us, and why is it important, and what do you want to live by?” And you’re right, an agreement would be, clean your room. Clean your room, by this time this should be done. And a commitment is, we respect our house. You live in this house.
Caneel Joyce:
And I love, there’s a certain spaciousness to it, but an accountability. So you could ask a five-year-old, what does it look like to respect your house?
Anjani Bhargava:
Yeah, totally.
Caneel Joyce:
What are some ways that we can respect our house?
Anjani Bhargava:
Totally. So to that end, we don’t have rules.
Caneel Joyce:
Wow.
Anjani Bhargava:
Right. We don’t have rules. We have, I love that word, we have commitments. I’m always going back to these commitments and they’re holding me accountable too. I have a very elaborate morning routine and my younger daughter will be like, “Mommy, you didn’t do your morning routine today. That’s not respecting your mind.”
Caneel Joyce:
Oh my God.
Anjani Bhargava:
… “and your body.” And I’m like, “You’re right.”
Caneel Joyce:
So awesome.
Anjani Bhargava:
Thank you.
Caneel Joyce:
Okay. Morning routine. Hashtag morning routine, we need to hear it. Tell us about your morning routine?
Anjani Bhargava:
Oh my God. There’s a short version and a long version. So the short version is breathing exercises, a little bit of meditation and Five minute journal.
Caneel Joyce:
Love that Five minute journal. We had [crosstalk 00:18:53] one of the creators of Five minutes journal on this show, a little bit ago.
Anjani Bhargava:
I know.
Caneel Joyce:
I am such a fan of that.
Anjani Bhargava:
Kids do it too.
Caneel Joyce:
Oh, that’s awesome. Did you get the Kid version?
Anjani Bhargava:
They have the kid version.
Caneel Joyce:
Yeah.
Anjani Bhargava:
Yeah. And then the long morning routine, which I’m lucky if I have like a day a week where I can do it because it’s like two full hours is, the breathing exercises then a round of yoga, I do 10 to 15 sun salutations. Then I dance and then I have intentions that I repeat, and then the Five minute journal, and then I take a cold shower.
Caneel Joyce:
Mm-hmm. That’s great.
Anjani Bhargava:
Yeah. I wish I had more, I wish I created more spaciousness to do that. It really feels good when I do it.
Caneel Joyce:
I’ve had all different kinds of morning routines over the years. And right now I’m doing very little, I’m constantly practicing, allowing it to be just as nourishing as my old ones. And literally what it consists of is I make lemon water and I drink it, and then I make coffee and I put all kinds of other things in it, and that’s it.
Anjani Bhargava:
That’s great.
Caneel Joyce:
But I’m very interested in returning to my morning pages.
Anjani Bhargava:
Speaking of which, the lemon water, I do that too, I forgot to say that. So warm lemon water, first thing. And then what I’ve been adding to that recently is… And I learned this from my dad because he’s convinced that this has cured him from all his high blood pressure and ailments of all sorts. I chop up raw ginger and garlic, and just scoop that up and eat it.
Caneel Joyce:
Yeah. You eat it?
Anjani Bhargava:
Mm-hmm.
Caneel Joyce:
You don’t put it in the lemon water?
Anjani Bhargava:
No. So no powder, no anything just chop ginger, chop garlic. Put it in a spoon, put it in your mouth and swallow it with the lemon water.
Caneel Joyce:
Oh, that’s amazing, I’m going to start that. I do put ginger in, when I’m sick, I put the garlic with some cayenne pepper. This is interesting, so the morning routine, my below the line excuse for why I am not doing more that would serve my mind and my body right now is that, I will get interrupted by my kids. So I am in victim mode about that.
I’m on the drama triangle and it’s happening to me, and I am not willing to get creative and to stand for what I know is really important for me. So coach me through that please. How do you make it happen? So it’d be easy for you to give me some advice I’m guessing, but I know you to be an excellent coach.
And one of the big distinctions between a true coach and a person who wants to give advice is, a coach helps you find your own answers through inquiry and discovery and curiosity. So would you mind coaching me through that for a couple of minutes?
Anjani Bhargava:
Yeah, sure.
Caneel Joyce:
I really want to get there.
Anjani Bhargava:
So when you do your morning routine and when you feel all the glory of it, what are you feeling?
Caneel Joyce:
Inspired, clear, directed. I have this feeling like my cup is full, my energy reserves are full, so I can accommodate and respond to my family and everybody else’s needs throughout the day without going into drama about it because I have taken care of myself, so things don’t deplete me.
Anjani Bhargava:
So I hear you say is, it’s self-nourishing and it’s time where you’re giving to yourself, and you giving to yourself thereby gives to your family.
Caneel Joyce:
Yes, it does. Absolutely does.
Anjani Bhargava:
Yeah. And so what I also heard is that, your excuse for not doing it is that the kids interrupt.
Caneel Joyce:
Yeah. So when I sit down to meditate for instance, A, I have not recreated a beautiful meditation space like I used to have. So I make myself unhappy by telling myself it’s not beautiful. And I feel nervous when I sit down to meditate, anticipating interruption, and I become a little hypervigilant, listening for any noise outside my door, which might indicate that someone’s coming to barge in and ask me a question or something.
Anjani Bhargava:
What do you get from that?
Caneel Joyce:
What are the goodies I get for being a drama about it?
Anjani Bhargava:
Just some of those things that you said. So you’re in anticipation waiting for the kids to interrupt you. You are looking at the space saying, “Ah,” and there’s some self-criticism and self-blame that I hear. So how does that serve you? Because I do fundamentally believe that we don’t do anything that is out of service for us, it’s just mismatched. So how does that serve you?
Caneel Joyce:
Well, it buys me an extra hour of sleep in the morning. I’m a night person and so if I go to bed early, I will wake back up again for many hours. So I’ve found that my own rhythm works better if I go to bed a little later, like 11. And then I naturally wake up at 06:30 or seven.
Unfortunately that’s also shortly before my own kids wake up. So sometimes I beat them downstairs and I make the lemon water before they get there. But that extra hour of sleep, I’m really aware that the amount of sleep I get is so critical for me. And it’s also, I haven’t been a person who’s a fan of sleep I’m much more a fan of being awake. I even like the feeling of being really strung out and super tired. And sometimes I operate really, really well that way, but it’s not sustainable.
So that’s one thing I get is I get the extra sleep. The other thing I get is, I get to be of service to my kids and to my husband. And now that we have a dog, we’ve had a dog for about a year, the routine has changed a lot because he leaves the house and takes the dog on a walk, and he likes to do it a certain way and he likes to have the dog running and things I don’t want to do.
So because he’s gone, I stay home with the kids and I’m not out in my meditation shed because they get scared if I’m not in the house. So I like that there’s a way that I can help make the morning easier for him and give the kids some love before they start school and get them all ready.
Anjani Bhargava:
So as I hear you, what’s interesting to me is, when I asked you, “How do you feel when you do do this?” And what I heard was a lot around, “It’s my self-care and I’m giving to myself, so that I can give to others. And there was this balance between for myself, makes me a better mom and wife.”
And what I hear you saying that you’re replacing that with, it’s interesting. Because what I’m hearing you say is, “I’m giving myself sleep. I’m giving myself the permission to sleep.” And I’m curious if that’s a form of self-care so that is self-care, and I’m giving myself to my children.
Caneel Joyce:
I feel what I’m doing is I’m back to the conversation about flowing with chaos, is I’m being with just what is right now. I have two little kids, I have a child who’s scared to be alone. I have a dog, I have a husband and we have school. So I’m instead of trying to fight it…
And we’re remembering now, when I had the really long morning routine, like the hour and a half, two hours, I would feel all those great feelings but then I started feeling a little nervous sometimes before I’d go back into the house, scared of what I was going to walk into, of how panicked everyone would be and stressed.
So I do like that there’s just an ease to it. And I think a lot of it is there’s identity issues I have around it. And I’m just like, “Okay, just you’re a mom. Just you’re momming right now. Yes, I dropped my kids off in my pajamas this morning, roll with it, it’s cool.” S
o there is a lot of self-care in it and I think it’s like… But what I don’t like about it is that victim-hood feeling of, I’m so scared of being interrupted, that I’m not even willing to do this thing I love so much.
Anjani Bhargava:
And I wonder though, is that a story that is just hanging out here? Because what I’m hearing again is you are giving yourself self-care. It’s the self-care that you might be needing like you sleep, and can you accept yourself for the chaos that you’re in and giving yourself… Could it be possible that you’re giving yourself exactly what you need?
Caneel Joyce:
Oh my gosh. I totally see how I’m being a four. I’m making something be missing.
Anjani Bhargava:
Something is missing.
Caneel Joyce:
I’m calling it missing.
Anjani Bhargava:
Mm-hmm.
Caneel Joyce:
Yeah.
Anjani Bhargava:
Yeah. Because what I’m not hearing you say like, “Oh, this morning routine gives me so much that is missing from my life today.” I’m not hearing that. And unless the pain outweighs the…
Caneel Joyce:
The gain.
Anjani Bhargava:
The gain.
Caneel Joyce:
True. So it is respecting my body and my mind and my family, totally.
Anjani Bhargava:
Sounds like it.
Caneel Joyce:
Thank you so much.
Anjani Bhargava:
Well, and I’ll say one more thing, so I’ll ask. There’s a willingness question. So given all of that, given that it sounds like you are doing what is in service of you and your family, and given that there’s this want to incorporate some of what you used to have back, even if it’s not a true gain want, what would you be willing to do?
Because right now it sounds like you’re unwilling to see your meditation area. You’re unwilling to prioritize your morning routine over your kids. And so if you really tune in to your want and your energy, is there anything that you would be willing to do?
Caneel Joyce:
Yes. What came up is, I’d be willing to write down one word. So that’s a substitution for 25 minutes of journaling, that feels interesting and I’d really learned a lot and discover a lot by having that constraint. And then I could put them on little post-its and stick them up in the kitchen because that’s where I’ll be probably when the word comes to me. And it’s just an opportunity to tune into what wants to come through me that day.
Anjani Bhargava:
Yeah.
Caneel Joyce:
Yeah.
Anjani Bhargava:
And in doing that, would you feel that self-care and that self-nourishment so that you can then go and provide to others as well?
Caneel Joyce:
I don’t know, TBD. What I do feel… in a certain sense, yes. Because I do feel my creative energy come up there and it’s more like it’s play. And I actually like that it is public inside of our family. And it’s me having a ritual that is creative that the kids can see and we can talk about, and maybe they won’t care, maybe they’ll tear them off the wall, but then I’ll get texts. I’ll get them texts.
Anjani Bhargava:
Yeah, that’s awesome.
Caneel Joyce:
Yeah. I love it. I’ll play with that, I’ll report back to you.
Anjani Bhargava:
That’d be great.
Caneel Joyce:
So I’ll report back to all of you.
Anjani Bhargava:
I’d love that.
Caneel Joyce:
So Anjani, thank you so much for that beautiful coaching. What I love about what we just covered there is it underscores how interdependent we are in our families and how teamwork is really this integration of the we, and the I, and the it. And the we being, all of those relationships in my family and how we operate as a family whole, and what it would take for me to create space and boundaries as a way to be of service. So that would be, how does our family operate around boundaries?
And then the I being, me having that time and space, and all the inner work that I am trying to do here with Anjani’s coaching to get myself to that place where I am showing a whole. And the it, of course, it’s just the morning routine. So there’s so much stuff about morning routines and we’ve covered it. Episode 43 was all about morning routines, episode 44 was Alex Ikonn who created the five minute journal and I’m really into it. But I think sometimes in this busy commercial world, we get so tactical and it’s all about buying a bunch of products.
Anjani Bhargava:
Totally.
Caneel Joyce:
And so, but so much of showing up as a whole person so that you can really be a team player is the inner work. The morning routine is, could you create the space for yourself and are you willing to let it evolve?
Anjani Bhargava:
And willing, that’s the operative word. I love that word so much. Everything can be boiled down to that. What are you willing and unwilling to do? If there was no right or wrong, but just what are you willing and unwilling to do?
Caneel Joyce:
If you were allowed to do anything you wanted to.
Anjani Bhargava:
Totally.
Caneel Joyce:
Yeah.
Anjani Bhargava:
One other routine that our family has that might be of service, and I don’t know if you and your husband have this, I’m sure you have some version of it, is every Sunday morning as a team before the kids wake up, we do half an hour to an hour, it’s usually around an hour of conscious listening. Yeah. And we learned this-
Caneel Joyce:
How does that work?
Anjani Bhargava:
… at a CLG couples retreat and it’s like you’re in forum, and the most important person is just listening to you. And for my husband who always wants to solve things, it’s really taught him how to listen. And so we check in with body sensation, feeling state and that stuff, and then we just do a round of, if you really knew me, you would know that, and we just listen.
And sometimes we… the person says something, it’s like, “Well of course that’s what’s on their mind.” And sometimes it’s like, “Whoa, I didn’t even know that was swimming around.” And you do increments. And then the other person says, “What I heard you say is,” so then there’s that exchange, but it’s really, it’s lovely. It sounds cooky to say, but it’s lovely.
Caneel Joyce:
Sounds great.
Anjani Bhargava:
And we’ve been doing it now for 18 months, every Sunday.
Caneel Joyce:
Wow.
Anjani Bhargava:
And it’s lovely to be heard. It’s lovely to have space held by your partner and it’s brought us closer. And then our kids see us doing it, so they’ll wake up at some point in between and I think that’s important too. It’s all those things that little ones observe.
Caneel Joyce:
Yes. So beautiful.
Anjani Bhargava:
Yeah.
Caneel Joyce:
Well we’re nearing the close. So I would love, if you could share with our listeners how they can get in touch with you, follow you, learn more about your work. I have a gazillion questions I could continue to ask you about this topic of family as a team-
Anjani Bhargava:
Same.
Caneel Joyce:
… and how you create it. The architecture of that is so beautiful, the commitments, but no rules. Wow, mind-blown.
Anjani Bhargava:
Now, I want to know what’s in those books of yours that you shared. So I’m-
Caneel Joyce:
Oh my gosh, yes.
Anjani Bhargava:
… very curious.
Caneel Joyce:
Well I’ll just real quickly show you. So this is one of our favorite ones, because while we were planning our wedding, this was my journal for when we would have conversations together. And sometimes we have a frustrating pattern sometimes of debating and rehashing the same things again and again, and again, trying to make all these decisions about our life, where are we going to live?
And things can become existential quite quickly, which is super annoying. So now that we capture it in a some sort of a graphic form or a mind map or chart or table, I bring this stack of notebooks when we’re going to have one of these big conversations and I’m like-
Anjani Bhargava:
Wow.
Caneel Joyce:
… Look at how many years we’ve had that conversation for. And we land in the same place every time.
Anjani Bhargava:
That’s awesome.
Caneel Joyce:
And it is awesome because it’s a reaffirmation that we feel lost about the it, sometimes, but we still want to be the same thing. We still want the same things. And we have a north star is like six words, beauty, adventure, community, health, impact, and abundance. And so that’s on my blackboard in my office. And when we get lost, we look to that as a test of, are we living in line with those? I guess you could call them values or commitments. And-
Anjani Bhargava:
Yeah, it sounds very similar to the commitments.
Caneel Joyce:
I guess they are commitments. And so in this house hunt process that we’re in, it’s so fascinating because our little dark sides show up in the form of trying to make things really, really complicated and hard and time consuming. Because it always is shrouded in, it looks like an opportunity.
It’s like, “We could remodel this house like crazy, and that might take two years, but we double the value or whatever our story is.” And there’s like a pattern that we have some times of honoring optimization over lifestyle. And just over presence, really insanity, health. So this beautiful dream house presented itself to us, not once, but twice as our initial offer was rejected. And we’re grappling with, Is this too good for us?
Anjani Bhargava:
Oh boy.
Caneel Joyce:
Is this too beautiful, too abundant? And so I just keep going back to that list. And I’m like, “If I really surrender to these highest commitments that we share, if I’m really committed, then it’s not about me. And it’s about what a trust fall it is and how brave, how courageous it would be for us to treat ourselves so well.”
Anjani Bhargava:
I love that. What a great way to get out of upper limiting.
Caneel Joyce:
Yeah.
Anjani Bhargava:
Yeah, that’s so great. I’m curious, what Enneagram type is [Roy 00:39:27]?
Caneel Joyce:
He’s a three.
Anjani Bhargava:
He’s a three.
Caneel Joyce:
He’s a three with, I think he’s by winged. I think he has a two… So he’s a three, so he’s an achiever type. And we talked all about Enneagram and achiever types, I had Aaron Rookie on the show a few episodes ago. So he wants to do, do, do, go, go, go. And he’s a very high achiever, he’s achieved a lot in his life. He’s very like, go, go, go, and check things off the list.
And I was telling him last night, it feels like I’m running a marathon sometimes and I’m at the 26 mile, and I find out it’s actually an ultra-marathon and there’s 26 more miles ahead of me still, And I’m like I just think because it feels like it’s just like, because I’m just not, I’m not that. But he creates an awesome life for us. His willingness to work and logisticize is epic. His craftiness and cleverness and his productivity, it’s amazing.
So I like that I can rest into not being the one to do that. And we both are working with our shadows, especially with his four wing of being like me and sometimes there’s something missing and things are dark, that always comes up. And so we’re getting better and better at recognizing when is it our ego, when is it our higher self? When is it what just wants to come through us? And so just trusting when things come easily, that’s the right path.
Not… when things just show up and it’s like, “Oh my gosh, look at this first house we looked at, beautiful dream house. Okay. We’ll keep doing our work and looking, looking, looking, looking like [crosstalk 00:41:03],” No, just allow it, is what we’re trying to do.
Anjani Bhargava:
So great that you guys can do this work together. So great.
Caneel Joyce:
All right Anjani, we are done with this episode for today. It’s so great to have you back on the show.
Anjani Bhargava:
It’s so great to be here. This was fun.
Caneel Joyce:
I’m excited for our guests to get to know you more. So we’re going to link to Anjani’s work in our show notes. We’ll link to Evolution, which is the collective that she and I are associated with, www.evolution.team. We will also link to your brand new shiny website and your LinkedIn profile.
So please do get in touch with Anjani and we will probably be having her back on the show soon. I would love for you to join and get to be part of these conversations, and really applying the learnings of all of this work we cover here, conscious leadership, shadow, Enneagram, huge realm of really cutting-edge personal development stuff.
And applying it to your life in a way that recognizes and challenges you to be the CEO of your own life and to really lead and create the thing that you are here to create with ease and joy. All right, we’ll talk to you guys next time. Thanks for showing up for yourself, making time and I’ll see you next week.
