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So many of us learn early in our careers to put on a kind of professionalism, a polished version of ourselves that keeps us safe, earns approval, and helps us fit into the rooms we enter. But over time, that same persona can become a quiet constraint. It creates distance. It limits our expression. And it costs us connection, with ourselves and with others.In this week’s episode, I'm joined by Ken De Loreto, Founder of Provoke Learning, long-time facilitator of leadership and learning, and co-host of the GenX at 60 podcast. Over his 38 years of working with organizations and leaders, Ken has taken a profound journey from performing and “earning the right” to reveal himself… to beginning from who he really is.Ken shares about the masks he used to rely on, the inner protector he learned to listen to, and the surprising freedom that opened up when he stopped trying to be who he thought others needed him to be. We explore the relationship between authenticity and professionalism, the longing we all have to belong, and the ways we quietly limit ourselves without even realizing it.This conversation is for anyone who has ever felt pressure to manage their image, prove their worth, or hold back the truer parts of themselves.This episode invites you to trust yourself a bit more and to let a little more of you into the room.Thank you for listening to the Innerverse of Business and Life Podcast. For more resources like this, visit Barb's website at Barbarapatterson.com (https://barbarapatterson.com/).SHOW NOTES:[00:00] - The Journey of Transformation[04:44] - Unmasking Professionalism[07:51] - The Cost of the Mask[10:47] - Finding Safety in Authenticity[13:46] - The Courage to Be Real[16:32] - Shifting Perspectives on Professionalism[19:50] - The Dance of Authenticity and Professionalism[25:31] - The Balance of Professionalism and Authenticity[28:50] - Exploring Organizational Culture and Hidden Rules[31:46] - The Journey to Authentic Leadership[35:53] - Transformation Through Vulnerability[42:31] - The Power of Connection and Self-ExpressionSHOW LINKS:Provoke Learning Website (https://www.provokelearning.com/)Listen to the Gen X at 60 Podcast (https://www.genxat60.com/)Connect with Ken on Linkedin (http://www.linkedin.com/in/kendeloreto)
So many of us learn early in our careers to put on a kind of professionalism, a polished version of ourselves that keeps us safe, earns approval, and helps us fit into the rooms we enter. But over time, that same persona can become a quiet constraint. It creates distance. It limits our expression. And it costs us connection, with ourselves and with others.
In this week’s episode, I'm joined by Ken De Loreto, Founder of Provoke Learning, long-time facilitator of leadership and learning, and co-host of the GenX at 60 podcast. Over his 38 years of working with organizations and leaders, Ken has taken a profound journey from performing and “earning the right” to reveal himself… to beginning from who he really is.
Ken shares about the masks he used to rely on, the inner protector he learned to listen to, and the surprising freedom that opened up when he stopped trying to be who he thought others needed him to be. We explore the relationship between authenticity and professionalism, the longing we all have to belong, and the ways we quietly limit ourselves without even realizing it.
This conversation is for anyone who has ever felt pressure to manage their image, prove their worth, or hold back the truer parts of themselves.
This episode invites you to trust yourself a bit more and to let a little more of you into the room.
Thank you for listening to the Innerverse of Business and Life Podcast. For more resources like this, visit Barb's website at Barbarapatterson.com.
[00:00] - The Journey of Transformation
[04:44] - Unmasking Professionalism
[07:51] - The Cost of the Mask
[10:47] - Finding Safety in Authenticity
[13:46] - The Courage to Be Real
[16:32] - Shifting Perspectives on Professionalism
[19:50] - The Dance of Authenticity and Professionalism
[25:31] - The Balance of Professionalism and Authenticity
[28:50] - Exploring Organizational Culture and Hidden Rules
[31:46] - The Journey to Authentic Leadership
[35:53] - Transformation Through Vulnerability
[42:31] - The Power of Connection and Self-Expression
This podcast is a space to explore the profound connection between our inner world and our work in the world. We dive deep into the heart of what it means to live and work from a felt knowing of our essential selves – aligned, alive, and fully expressed. We’ll play at the intersection of business, spirituality, consciousness, and growth.
Through intimate conversations with thought leaders, change-makers, authors, and humans just like you and me, you’ll hear real stories of transformation and the internal shifts, “aha” moments, and wake-up calls that have helped them to access new dimensions of creativity, higher levels of intelligence, unlock dormant potentials and experience greater joy and fulfillment.
Barb Patterson (00:56)
Hi, welcome to the Interverse of Business and Life. This is Barb. Sometimes what we call professionalism is really a mask we've learned to wear, one that protects us, earns approval, helps us feel like we belong. But over time, that same mask can start to feel constricting and limit our expression, our aliveness, or our connection with others. My guest today, Ken DiLoretto, knows that journey well.
Ken is the founder of Provoke Learning where for more than 38 years, he's been designing and facilitating transformational learning experiences for leaders and organizations all around the world.
In fact, that's how we originally met. Ken was a key part of a team that helped us lead a global initiative around sales. He's also the co-host of the GenX at 60 podcast, which I definitely recommend.
In our conversation today, Ken shares honestly about his own evolution from earning the right to reveal himself to beginning from who he truly is. We talk about mask, inner protection, safety, courage, and the intersection between authenticity and professionalism.
And we explore what changes in ourselves and in our work when we start leading from presence rather than persona. In this conversation, we invite you along with us to consider where you might still be managing how you're seen and what freedom becomes possible when you let a little more of your true self into the room. As always, I'm so glad you're here. If you know anyone that would benefit from this conversation, please share.
Barb Patterson (02:45)
Ken, welcome, welcome, welcome. I am so glad you're here.
Ken De Loreto (02:50)
You have no idea how happy I am to be here with you. You hold such an important part in so many transformational memories for me along my career. So many.
Barb Patterson (03:02)
Well, it's very mutual. I, you you also, you and your partner, Rich, hold like place in my heart around my time in Paris. And, you know, we were laughing the other day that I didn't drink coffee until my forties, until I moved to Paris. And Rich and Ken just really made me realize I cannot live in Paris without coffee. And I'm happy to say, even though I'm back in the States, I'm still very much a coffee lover. Yes.
Ken De Loreto (03:31)
Here's what I love about you. So in that moment, here you are, and it was so unfathomable to me that you did not drink coffee at all, and then we are in Paris and it's a cafe culture. You just took right to it. You just took that cup and you were in.
Barb Patterson (03:43)
I did.
You know, we got to be open to new experiences. Yeah. I couldn't do the cigarettes. I was too much like, thankfully, I guess I didn't adopt that. Yeah. Well, â you know, I know that we have a genuine love for development and facilitating other people's growth and development and.
Ken De Loreto (03:48)
No, you and you were.
That was a test. That was a test. And you passed.
Barb Patterson (04:09)
You know, I shared in the intro that also you, we met because â we hired you and your organization at the time to train our sales folks. And so it was a long, we worked together for a long time. And thankfully, because we traveled to all these different cities together, we had a chance to really get to know one another. So I'm so grateful to have you here because you've been on your own solopreneur journey.
You told me the other day, can't remember, how many, for how many years now? 22, which is amazing. That's amazing. Congratulations. Yeah.
Ken De Loreto (04:43)
22 I Know Thank you.
I only know that because I had to fill out a form the other day and I had to look back at my organization's foundation dot founding documents and I 2003 wait, that's even that's almost 23. So it's been a long time. It's been an interesting journey. I'm happy to talk about anything you want to know and See what comes up
Barb Patterson (05:10)
Yeah, well, I think
we'll go wherever, whatever comes up. I know I trust wherever we want to go. But I want to start with â where our conversation took us the other day. I think it's such a â idea and something that everyone will relate to. Hence why I chose the word relatable. But anyway, I think this idea we got into talking about professionalism.
Ken De Loreto (05:26)
Mm.
Thanks.
Barb Patterson (05:40)
and mask and persona and how, you know, as we've aged, as we've done this longer and longer, we have both felt the freedom, the liberation, but also the impact in letting some of those old ideas fall away. And so I would love just to dive right in there. And you talked about the idea of mask and professionalism, not only as a protector, but as something you thought was
Ken De Loreto (05:47)
you
Barb Patterson (06:10)
like a good thing inside of an organization. So I'm wondering, let's start there. Yeah. â
Ken De Loreto (06:11)
â I thought it made me a good employee. Yeah, I thought it made me
a good employee to take on the clothes, the attitude, the even speech patterns, cadence and words. And I drank that Kool-Aid full on to be a good representative of my company. What I never thought was happening was that I was losing elements of myself along the way. I didn't see it.
And maybe I was even, and I've had to reflect upon this, I don't think it's a maybe, think it's, I was definitely grateful for the mask to be put on. There were parts of me I didn't want to show, I didn't think were worthy of being in the room with me in a business setting. And so that mask was safe until it became a constraint.
Barb Patterson (07:07)
Yeah. And what was it like when you say that, what was the mask of professionalism? Like you talk about it in clothes and language, but what did it mean to you at that time?
Ken De Loreto (07:21)
Well, one of them, which is sort of at a core of just my, who I am was the part of it being gay that had to be ignored. worked, so this was at the Forum Corporation where you and I first met when I was an employee. I worked in our New York office for seven years. No one knew that I had a partner. No one knew because I was so stealth, or at least I thought I was, at hiding something that...
I felt was inappropriate. Now you could put it in parentheses, maybe shameful to share. And I think there were other elements of that. You know, where I came from was not the right, the right city, the right school, the right, et cetera, et cetera. And I spent so much time analyzing what wasn't right that the mask enabled me to just stand up straighter. And so
If people would ask me, and this was often the case back then, you meet a new client and they say, so Ken, where did you go to school? That was sort of a â first question and it would send a shock wave through my spine because that was definitely not where I wanted to go. So I learned how to teach our stuff, sell our stuff, talk to clients, ask questions to deflect, but also to diagnose. you know, questions became a really important tool.
for getting the light off of me and turning it on to them. I think it was only years later that I realized how much I was doing that out of defensiveness. I had one of my colleagues, Melinda, and this was when I moved from the New York office to the Boston office. And I had been there for maybe three or four months. And I would be doing work with people, but then you hang out with each other. You hang out at the lunchroom, you hang out at the front reception desk. And one day she looked at me and she said,
You're funny." And I said, well, I think so. She said, no, no, I didn't know you were funny. She said, we'd been together here for four months. The fact that I didn't know you were funny is not a good thing. It means you've not been showing yourself. And it just sort of hit me that the flip side of the taking on the clothes of professionalism, the allowing myself to wear and speak.
the forum way in that regard. And continuing to believe that the rest of myself was not worthy of presenting.
Barb Patterson (09:59)
Wow. So would you say like that was the start of you questioning that more deeply and starting to risk sharing more of yourself?
Ken De Loreto (10:09)
It was always, you know, I thought about this and I've known, and maybe some of your listeners know people who are masterful at continuing the masquerade. They do it really well. It becomes their persona. I mean, you and I, in some of the work we've done, we've worked with leaders, for example, who they, they'll talk to you one way and then when they get in front of an audience, it's almost like they're a different person and they, they're able to make that and continue that. I realized that
I never really let that happen fully. There was a mask, but I always try to over time.
build trust with a client or a colleague so I could iteratively, slowly reveal more and more of my true self to them to the point where I was as close to being transparent as I felt safe to be. So I never fully hid under a mask, but it was my starting point.
Barb Patterson (11:07)
And what do you mean by like that safety? What was at risk in your mind?
Ken De Loreto (11:15)
being found out to not belong in the room, being found out to not have, to being a fraud, to not being someone who graduated from the right school with the right degree program, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, there's a whole host of things. no one ever told me that. I never had someone point a finger at me and say, you don't belong. That finger was pointing from inside. And it just,
Barb Patterson (11:39)
Yeah, yeah.
Ken De Loreto (11:44)
Over time, just became, I think I tested not only the waters for my relationships with colleagues and clients, but over time I tested the relationship with myself. Is it okay? Did the ceiling just cave in? Because I showed myself to a group of leaders during a workshop. And I saw little by little that no, it didn't. In the beginning, it got cloaked in things like humor. I threw humor would show a bit of my true self, my...
Barb Patterson (11:58)
you
Ken De Loreto (12:13)
Accent from north of not the Boston would come out and it would be part of the story I was telling and they would laugh and that made me feel Safe and then I would start to reveal more and more But I realized it was a part of me that was it's like there were multiple. Do you know dr. Robert short Richard Schwartz's â Internal family system work So I think it took me a bit to realize that there were these and still are these
Barb Patterson (12:36)
Yes, yes.
Ken De Loreto (12:43)
multiple parts of me. There is this protector who knows how to come into the room, survey and scan, have conversations that are safe. And then there's sort of my inner child, little Kenny. And little Kenny, if the protector does a good enough job, little Kenny is able to come into the room and have some fun and help the learners have fun. Because as you and I know, when we're all having fun together, the learning's more profound.
Barb Patterson (12:51)
Yeah.
Ken De Loreto (13:14)
But that, it took me a while to realize what was happening. What was surprising to me as I thought about that Barb is as much as I thought little Kenny didn't belong in the room, I was still doing what I could do to earn the right to get him to be in the room. And I don't quite know why other than believing there was something worthy of him being there.
Barb Patterson (13:29)
Yeah.
Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. I think we all have our own versions of that, the part of us that wants to belong, the part of us that wants to be respected, â be seen, be valued, feel like our contribution matters. And really what you're pointing to are all the...
Ken De Loreto (13:59)
Yeah.
Barb Patterson (14:03)
extra things we think are needed for that to happen. You know, I've got to speak a certain way, I've got to look a certain way, I have to dress a certain way, I have to have a certain kind of education. And, you know, I think that there can be these sort of cultural conditioned ideas also that, you know, obviously support that.
Ken De Loreto (14:22)
Thank
Barb Patterson (14:27)
And I think what's so amazing about your story, and I'd love to hear more about this, it's like as you took those small steps, and it's never linear or all up. It's like this dance, as we all know. But â what started to happen for you internally is you started to let some of those layers and conditioned ideas fall away that
Ken De Loreto (14:42)
Yeah.
Barb Patterson (14:53)
I mean, obviously we're having this conversation now because you see quite a distance, not that you don't have days where a mask looks like a good idea and we do it, but I'm just curious, like, what kept you moving in that direction?
Ken De Loreto (15:11)
I wish I could name that for you. â This is where I still have more reflection to do. I think it was simply, it better. I know that's kind of a curt answer. It felt better, that perfectionism, which was a part of, I don't know whether it's part of my protector or it's a separate entity, this perfectionist. It was exhausting. So I would have, for instance, before any gig, any delivery,
of learning for a client. would have one, two, maybe three anxiety dreams where what I was doing in the dream was leading the class I was about to lead and everything was going wrong. And I would wake up panicked and think, okay, it's not happened yet. It's not happened yet. In hindsight, that was my brain trying to prepare me for the worst so I could be prepared for whatever happens.
what I should have been able to do because I was teaching the class in my dream and then in life is I should have been able to invoice multiple times for that class. But what eventually started happening is I still would have those dreams and I still do have those dreams, but they're not as, â there's no panic in them. It's different now. So I think little by little, I just saw that the things that were,
Barb Patterson (16:13)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ken De Loreto (16:32)
making me nervous in a session where right before when we began, would have to flip an internal switch and the performer would have to come out. Then all of a sudden I didn't have to do that anymore. The place where I believe I took the first noticeable step in that transition to reveal more faster, to not go the earn the right route as quickly. Did we do?
for our work together, did we do a course on leadership courage?
Barb Patterson (17:03)
I don't think so.
Ken De Loreto (17:05)
So I thought it was you, it's someone else, another client, and there I am. We had designed this new class on leadership courage, not something that existed on the shelf, custom. And I was the pilot facilitator. So now here I am at the pilot. The room is getting filled up with â mid-level to senior leaders from the client organization. And the way in any of...
you listening in our world will know this, the way you typically introduce yourself at the beginning of a presentation is to state your name, your role, your educational background, your experience, some pithy points that make you worthy of being in front of the room. And that's the way we had always done it. And right before the session, I heard something in my head say, Kenny. Interestingly, said Kenny. Kenny.
This is about leadership courage. You have to begin this class by demonstrating courage.
Barb Patterson (18:01)
Wow.
Ken De Loreto (18:03)
Okay, I didn't know what that meant. But when the session started and the senior leader kicked off and then transitioned to me, I heard something come out of me that had never come out of me before and I did not prepare. It was, hi, I'm Ken DiLoreto. I'll be your facilitator of this leadership courage. I want you to be comfortable with me for the next two days.
And since we've not worked together before, rather than be boring you with my life story, which is long and arduous, I want you to ask me any question you want to ask me that's going to help you be comfortable with me. So I'll answer them all authentically. What do you want to know? And they asked me to do a silence, followed by the most beautiful questions that ranged from, where did you go to school? To why do you do what you do?
to what gives you joy in life, these beautiful opening questions. And I just sort of went and answered and stories unfolded as a part of that. And it immediately connected us, audience and me together. And what I realized, and this is by the way, the way I now open every session, every time, it has never left me. What happens is I...
Barb Patterson (19:21)
That's great.
Ken De Loreto (19:26)
show them it's okay to be â open, it's okay to be honest, it's okay to be raw, it's okay to not say the right thing. It's okay. Whereas before, I would have stood there and done my patented robotic introduction and then said, please ask your questions and share your examples. And how dare I, right? How dare I expect authenticity from them?
Barb Patterson (19:43)
Yeah.
Ken De Loreto (19:56)
and not have the courage to show it myself. I love that that moment happened and that it shifted so much. Do you remember Viv Price? Did you work with Viv? So Viv was in the back of the room. She was the designer of this. after when we got to break, morning break, she said, Ken, everything's going really well. She's, as you remember, British. Ken, everything's going really well. And just one thing, don't ever introduce yourself that way again.
Barb Patterson (20:05)
I do? yes. Great.
Ken De Loreto (20:24)
And we talked about it after and for her the reaction was it was so dramatically different than what the norm was. And she was so frightened for me as to what they were going to ask me. I wasn't frightened, but she was. She was frightened for me. And I think, you know, she became my protector in that moment because I was letting down my guard.
Barb Patterson (20:43)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
What a great story. I know when â I started working with a mentor about 15 years ago, and my mentor at that time, we started teaching. they really saw that I was, there was a layer of, know, George said to me, you're very approachable and warm. And when you share, like people, they get it.
Ken De Loreto (21:12)
Thank
Barb Patterson (21:13)
like they're in there with you. And he said, but there's just this little bit extra that you're doing that has this sort of your on moment to it. And he shared that around transformational work. He shared that early on when he realized that the work he wanted to do was to create transformation in people, that there was a difference to appealing to the intellect than appealing to kind of
getting people in a more reflective internal state to see something they haven't seen before. And so he said that he would leave trainings or sessions â and he'd feel good about it. And he said, they liked me. And then he had a realization, well, wait a minute, I was funny. I was charming because he is really funny and charming and he's really smart. And you know, like,
just an amazing kind of teacher. And he said, so I knew they enjoyed themselves, but I didn't know if they had changed. And so he said, so I had to like just look at where I was leading with performance to try and win them over, right? Versus am I creating a dynamic and an exchange that has people like
see something different. I think your story is such a great illustration of kind of blowing up the model, blowing up the way it's usually done actually is a perfect place and having that authenticity and warmth of course, like that's part of it. So how would you describe the relationship now between authenticity and professionalism?
Ken De Loreto (23:03)
It's such an interesting question. Where my head immediately goes is to, and I've had so many client organizations with this as part of their sort of revitalized culture of asking people to bring their authentic selves to work. And I think about what that's actually saying. You know, it's like, if I reflect upon my own journey, Barb,
Barb Patterson (23:21)
Yeah. Yeah.
Ken De Loreto (23:29)
of having to let little Kenny feel safe, having to survey the room, the protector, and then little Kenny can be safe to come and play with the other kids in a workshop, for example.
For me to just thrust him on stage and say, hey, be authentic, go, would have been awful. That authenticity is earned, I believe. And if the culture and the organization, if the sense of â safety isn't around, how are we going to expect people to bring their authentic selves to work? So professionalism becomes the easier answer. Let me adapt. we, you many of us, it's just sort of built into our wiring.
If you adapt to those around you, you have a greater likelihood of surviving because you will be part of a group and resources are more plentiful and support is more available. So why don't you just adapt? I had a session years ago with a financial â investment organization and I was doing a two day leadership class and they were very, and are very conservative. That world is very conservative. And so the session ends.
Everybody's packed up. Thanks, Ken. Thank you so much. And they leave except for one participant who's sort of slowly putting his stuff back in his briefcase. And he, said, Hey, so â how was the workshop? And he said, it great. Blah, blah, blah. Great. He said, you're, you're sure.
I said, yeah. He said, what do you call that? I said, gingham. It was a purple and white gingham shirt. He went, wow. He said, yeah, here, everybody wears white button downs or if you're sort of looser, more casual, pale blue, Oxford's. And I said, yeah, I said, this is sort of how I dress. This is actually a little more of toned down version of how I dress.
And he said, and this is where it got weird. He said, and your pants? I said, yeah. And he's pointing at my middle section. He goes, what do you call that? And I looked down and I said, flat front pants? And he went, flat front pants? Yeah, there's no pleats. He said, everybody here wears pleats. And I said, well, what do you want to wear? He said, I want to wear what you're wearing. But I never could. I can't.
There was, he was so trapped and I don't know whether it was willingly trapped. If the trap felt safe, you know, I think about, I've rescued a lot of dogs and sometimes when dogs have been abused in the beginning, they need the crate, they need the constraint, the cage to feel safe. And that's so contrary to so many of us as humans. think freedom is desirable, but not there. And I thought of him in that moment as
someone who really needed the cage. And if I had said to him, well, just show up to work and wear those pants and wear a gingham shirt, it would have been completely the wrong thing for him. He needed that professionalism. And I don't think those two need to exist exclusively. I think they can merge together. You can be yourself and be professional and push some boundaries if that's your choice. But I don't think everybody feels
Barb Patterson (26:34)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Ken De Loreto (26:56)
safe to do that. And I don't think a lot of organizations give everybody that safety. I mean, what's your perspective on that?
Barb Patterson (27:01)
Yeah, no, I agree with that. And I think even being authentic and be yourself is in some ways becomes even jargon. But I think you're bringing up a really important point that in organizations, I think people are hearing more and more like there could be good intent, right, to try and say, be yourself.
there are still these hidden agreements and rules about what's appropriate, what's professional. And so, you know, we sort of mean it until we don't, right? And so I think that â the other thing I want to say though is being authentic doesn't mean â you're just unprofessional. You know, it doesn't mean you're like cray-cray or weird or, you know, it's like, I think that's the other part. It's just what we're kind of pointing to is
Am I moving forward in my work in a way that I'm doing a lot of extra management of persona and image? And that takes up bandwidth. It takes up connection. It creates a distance between us and other people, as you were sharing earlier. It takes up mental bandwidth, because we're constantly wondering where the lines are.
Ken De Loreto (28:06)
Thanks.
Barb Patterson (28:18)
You know, â we may not just allow a free flowing answer or response because, and wisdom and creativity is in the moment. It's in that energy. You know, it's like I worked with this organization once and they â hired me initially and they were like, yeah, you know, we're really bad hires. We don't do a good job and we need people to be more strategic. And it was this group of partners.
Ken De Loreto (28:24)
Mm.
and
Barb Patterson (28:46)
So I do intake interviews with the team and people throughout the organization. And what I discover is unconsciously, â they had created this sort of culture, this adversarial culture. So what I was hearing in those interviews was, yeah, if I don't, you have to show up and you have to have your ideas thought all the way through. You have to be able to defend them. You have to be able to go to battle with them. I mean, they were using these like words.
And the complaint of the partners was, you know, hey, we want them to do their best thinking, but they didn't realize that the way they were showing up to those conversations was completely going against what they were trying to create. And I said, now, do you think that people leave that conversation thinking about their own strategic leadership or thinking, or are they trying to please you the next time so that, you know, it doesn't go as friction?
Ken De Loreto (29:19)
it.
Barb Patterson (29:46)
you know, as it was. And so I share that just as an example of like, there can be good intent, but if there, we have to explore kind of those hidden assumptions and, you know, unspoken rules in an organization, in a culture. That's one piece. But the other, I think is like, I'm all those things. Like, you know, I'm, I can be funny, but I can be serious. I can be...
Ken De Loreto (29:47)
Thank â
Barb Patterson (30:12)
more reserved and then I could be more carefree. I can be really focused and present and I can be so distracted and restless. So I think that this idea of authenticity, what I really hear in the deeper point you mentioned at the start of the call is, can I be me? It doesn't mean I'm always going to be revealing everything about me. It doesn't mean I'll...
Ken De Loreto (30:23)
But.
Barb Patterson (30:41)
purposely provoke people, but is it, do I need all that extra around me?
Ken De Loreto (30:48)
And then within that, how are people around me going to, are they prepared to take the fullness of me in? You know, I think of, you know, trust being in some ways built on consistency of behavior. I know the Barb I'm going to meet when I meet you Barb. And if all of a sudden you show up with a different facet of yourself, am I prepared to accept that? Or is it going to feel weird and strange? What's up with Barb? Have you seen her today? Something's not right. Because you're...
Barb Patterson (30:55)
Yeah. Yeah.
Ken De Loreto (31:17)
behavior is is out of my norm in my span. So I
Barb Patterson (31:21)
But whose
â responsibility is that? Do I need to move around worried about that?
Ken De Loreto (31:30)
You know, I have always, no, not always, I have learned to opt on the side of disclosure about things to help people know who I am, to know what to expect. I remember years ago it started, I think I had just become a manager and we went through this 360 assessment about, you know, our style. So one of those classic things. And when I got my report, there was one page with my main results and I took it.
And I taped it to the door of my office because I wanted people to know what they were walking into to increase the likelihood that they were going to understand me and also know how to work well with me. I believe people are not mind readers. At least I haven't met any. So why am I going to leave that up to chance? The more I can disclose, hey, you sometimes I'm really passionate.
and you're gonna see this come out of me, sometimes a more introspective, and you're gonna see this come out of me, I think the more I help people just relax with me, as opposed to trying to diagnose or get confused by attempting to read my mind. At least that's been my approach.
Barb Patterson (32:42)
Yeah, and I think it's, you know, ultimately the, what we transmit is, you know, 95 % what's happening inside of us and where we're coming from inside of ourselves versus the words. So I think the more comfortable we are in our skin, as you're saying, the more like whether I choose to be reserved or not, whether I choose to be, you know, gregarious in a moment or
or not, like all those things. The more we're present, available inside of us, coming from that open space, I think we give other people permission to do the same. And I think you're right. think that, you know, how can I invite someone to say, you know, it's okay to be you while I'm adding a lot of extra around me to try and come off and appear a certain way.
You know, and I understand the desire for it and listen, I think we both just to clarify again, like there's no perfection here. There are times where it still looks smarter to me to do a little persona than the real thing. But ultimately what I've seen is my ability to build rapport and trust and credibility is absolutely related to me showing up honest, real, present. Not any of that persona stuff.
Ken De Loreto (33:39)
Yeah.
looks.
Barb Patterson (34:10)
doesn't lead, you know, it might reassure them about something, but the trust and the rapport comes from somewhere else.
Ken De Loreto (34:19)
It's risky though, right? You know, there's risk associated with that and there's a part of me and I think this is what took me so long and why I went with this approach of earning the right to reveal myself. I am by nature risk averse. So if I'm going to dare to show the soft underbelly of me to you because I know it's gonna help you open up more.
I need to make sure it's safe to do that. Those two exist at the same time. So back to sort of these, you know, these multiple parts of me, the protector has to read the room and make sure that the more vulnerable side can come out and do it in a way. Or as I've learned over time, it's okay to just start there. I'm fine. I have the skills to be able to improv and work with whatever happens to be able to either advance from a place where now they feel comfortable with me or if they don't, to recover and I'll be.
fine and the class will be good. But that, that realization and that sort of just really letting go is, you know, probably the past seven, maybe seven years. But before that it was, it was trial and error to your point. I was making it sometimes. Sometimes I was putting the performance back on because it felt comfortable. Tell the story, you know, already because you know what works, just do it. And now it's much looser.
Barb Patterson (35:28)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ken De Loreto (35:45)
And I love it.
Barb Patterson (35:48)
What do you love about it?
Ken De Loreto (35:50)
It's to your point about transformation. I get to see people really â dig into the learning. They're thinking at a deeper level than just, let's look at this model on a slide and let's talk through the five steps now. Now let's put you in a role play and have you practice the first steps. It's beyond that where they start to actually internalize, for example,
What often happens between day one and day two now is at least one or two people in the morning when I say, so what's sticking with you from yesterday? At least one or two people will say, you know, I was so exhausted, but I got home and I couldn't help but talk to my, my brother, sister, uncle about what we learned. And then we started talking and they, they've grabbed it more deeply, not because my organization says I must learn this in order to be effective. That used to be the reason.
And that never sat well with me. Like I don't want them to grab it because their organization is saying they need to or have to. I hate that kind of obligation. I want them to choose it. I want them to grab it. I want them to pull it in places in themselves that I could never push. That's for them to do. So I think it's about transformation. see them internalizing, interpreting, grabbing, and then using the stuff that we've worked on together.
more quickly and more profoundly than they did before.
Barb Patterson (37:24)
Yeah, that's my experience too, I think. And I also see it in kind of a relief in all kinds of settings when I just do the best I can in any moment, right? To just show up and get present and human to human, soul to soul with somebody regardless of the environment. â
Like I can do that. You know, the trying to come off a certain way, which I obviously, you know, happens, â is exhausting. You know, I think so often when you talk to people about burnout or feeling uninspired or feeling like they don't fit anymore, if you look, I think...
There's often a thread there similar to what we've been saying. It's because what isn't fitting, it's not about the job. It's the idea we have that we can't be who we are potentially. mean, sometimes you need to leave, right? It's the job. But a lot of times people don't realize how much they've been showing up with so much that isn't quite them or â not having the freedom to just
like be who they are in any given moment, feel that whatever that is. And again, I'm not saying work is a place for therapy. I'm not, don't go to the extreme for those listening. But â having to live in a place where you feel like you have to constantly prove your worth or have even a little bit of a layer of falseness around you or efforting into some kind of image or persona.
I think more and more of us are just tired by all that.
Ken De Loreto (39:18)
things are going through my mind right now. One, the last episode of the podcast I co-host, the guest is a sort of, you know, right in the middle of millennials, millennial. And she has none of what we're talking about. Like this is this thought of professionalism and fitting into a system and an institution and then adopting the dress, the talk, all of that in order to be seen as
high performing is not something that she was familiar with at all. So my hope is, now there were, before I say my hope, there were downsides to the fact that she doesn't have the institution to just slip into. There's something nice and comforting about that. She has to sort of make it all up as she goes along. At least she believes she does.
But there was something beneficial to it as well. I think it's about how long it exists and whether it's actually holding you back. The second thing, so some work I did with one of my clients for this was like, think maybe seven or eight years, we did this workshop on advanced facilitation skills. And this was for their tenured internal facilitators of...
technical training, sales skills training, leadership training for their own organization. They had all been through multiple courses on facilitation and I was brought in to help them go to the next level. So I had to first think crap, what's the next level? And try to reflect upon my own journey as a facilitator to realizing it's like, wow, what if we could actually teach them to let go?
What if we could teach them to show up more fully as themselves in the room, to let go of all the other restrictions? Never write in a flip chart with a red marker. Never stand on the right side of a screen. Whatever they had learned, and Barbit was fantastic, transformational for these people. Where at the end, well let me start with the beginning.
After we had done this a number of years, I would begin the class by saying, so how many of you know someone who's been through this class? And the hands would go up and I would say, what have you heard? And they would always say, first thing, people cry. And I said, well, how do you feel about that? That people cry? It's like, well, you know, it's a little worrisome. like, let's talk about why they're crying. And what's happening at the end of the class, we would talk about.
what they're taking away. And I had one participant, I remember him visually, we'll call him Jim.
That was his name, Jim. So Jim stood up at the end. You had to say what you learned to the rest of the group. And he started talking. He said, so I'm Jim â and he got choked up. And everyone in the rest of the group went, â This was the moment where someone was going to cry. Someone grabbed a box of tissues and went toward him and I sort of gestured, let him be. And he hung until he gained his composure and he said,
I realize how much I've been holding myself back and I don't know why. No one told me to do it. I told myself to do it. I said, and what do you feel now? And he said, free.
And what do you think that's going to do for you in the room? And he's, it's going to be amazing. I've never allowed, this is a tenured professional who had been going through the motions for all these years. Good morning. My name is Jim. Welcome to, for years. And had never allowed himself to show up in the room. I had another participant of that class, Diane.
And the next time I was in the organization, she heard that I was there and she came in the room at like 7.30 in the morning on the first day. She's like, hi Ken, do you remember? Hey, Diane, how are you? She said, I just wanted you to know I'm having fun at work. I said, what are you talking about? What do mean you're having fun at work? She said, I'm having fun at work. I said, what happened? She said, I realized I don't have to hide myself anymore. She had been a professional dancer. She had this whole artistic bent to her. She believed it was inappropriate.
to show that, let alone integrate it into how she showed up as a full professional in her organization and sort of link all that together, which could never have come from me pushing that into her. That had to be her grabbing it and playing with it internally. To have her actually go from a place where she was thinking of leaving the organization to having for the first time ever fun is...
One, it's why I love the work that we get to do. But two, it's both miraculous and really sad. Because I know that there are so many that never will get to that point.
Barb Patterson (44:30)
Yeah.
Ken De Loreto (44:42)
and I'm grateful that I get to be a part of it.
Barb Patterson (44:42)
Yeah,
I so love those stories and â I'm not surprised by them. I think that's the part why I was so interested in exploring this with you because it's my experience as well that when people, that this is ultimately what we crave, you know, connection. Connection to ourselves, connection to other people.
â the freedom to be expressive, to kind of be who we are, whatever that is. Yeah, exactly. And I think that Renee Brown quote is such a good one in the sense that we crave belonging, but we try to fit in. And it's just not the same.
Ken De Loreto (45:19)
to wear flat front pants.
It's not the same.
Barb Patterson (45:39)
Yeah. And often if you're feeling blah or uninspired or bored, I would love to encourage people to do what you were just sharing. It's like, are you containing yourself? I just did an episode where I shared about a realization that I had where I was kind of one step removed from life.
I was kind of in my mind a lot observing, interpreting, not really in it. And so when we allow ourselves to be in it, and part of that is, I just be myself rather than trying to be some image I think is needed here?
Ken De Loreto (46:27)
especially today, especially in this world.
So much curation of how we present ourselves, so much surface, for instance, in social media and how easy it is to pick and choose the elements that we think are â desirable to put forward and then to judge the rest of it. It's like I spent so much time early in my career judging Lil Kenny. He's a piece of magic, Barb. He's fantastic.
Barb Patterson (47:00)
Yeah.
Ken De Loreto (47:01)
Fantastic and
I am so glad that along the way I did not kill him That I you know, I think of this thought of â Protection and a protector not as being a cage for me, but it's like a runway Like let the protector allow little Kenny to then just know he can run into the room and And do great work and help people feel connected
and that they can admit vulnerability because he's admitting vulnerability and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But if I had not, and this is where I'm so grateful to the fates, if I had not ended up in this career, I don't know if I would have ever gotten to any of these realizations for myself. Like the gift that we get of introspection, which I hear you sometimes you can get lost in it, but the gift of it is not what a lot of people have. know, most organizations it's do, do, do, go, go, go.
Barb Patterson (47:42)
Yeah.
Ken De Loreto (47:56)
There's no time for reflection, let alone introspection. And for some it's too painful to do and they have no guide. So how grateful I am for the journey I've gotten to be on with that. For myself.
Barb Patterson (48:01)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, same. I feel the exact same way. know, Ken, I love this conversation so much and â as always love being with you and connecting. I want to just give you an opportunity before we end. Is there anything else that's present or alive that you would like to share?
Ken De Loreto (48:31)
You know, it's â
I guess not. I'm gonna pull something, but no. I think we've talked about what we need to talk about. I hope that it's resonated in some way for someone. I hope if they disagree, they'll comment and let you know. So, you know, I'm not speaking from a place of expertise from up on a pillar. I'm speaking from someone who's learning this stuff as he goes. And it's so much cooler when we can all do that together. So.
Barb Patterson (48:47)
Yeah.
Absolutely. think I've really appreciated your openness, your honesty, your vulnerability. And I think that's it. It's like we're all just doing the best we can every day, right? So if we can take some of those inner constraints away and allow the little Ken or that freedom inside, think â what a great gift. So thank you for inspiring us and thank you for sharing, Ken.
Ken De Loreto (49:28)
Thank you for inviting me to do so. Thank you for being with me.