Authoring a Self-Compassionate Story with Massimo Backus [Podcast]

Dr. Nathan Regier, your host, welcomes returning podcast guest Massimo Backus, a distinguished executive coach and leadership development consultant. He is the host of the Leadership Mind podcast and a documentary filmmaker who captures the essence of the human experience and an empathetic and holistic approach to leadership.

In today’s conversation, Massimo shares wisdom from his new book Human First, Leader Second: How Self Compassion Outperforms Self Criticism, underscores the importance of loving ourselves first, and offers insights into today’s leadership.

What’s In This Episode

• What surprised Massimo most about the process of writing his first book.
• The main message of the book.
• How Massimo designed the book and how hopes it will be used?
• Experiences that helped Massimo discover the power of self-compassion.
• How Massimo’s approach is different from other self-compassion models.
• The benefits of self-compassion.
• What is a WIMP?
• The three components of self-compassionate leadership.
• Common misconceptions about compassion.
• Why it is so important to normalize feelings.
• What is emotional fluency and why does it matter?
• Massimo’s WARD model – Three Dimensions and Six onramps for self-compassion.
• Massimo reads his Declaration of Self-Compassion

 

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Read The Transcript

Nate Regier:

It is such a privilege to welcome my friend Massimo Backus on my podcast for a second time. We first met in 2022, episode 37, when I invited him to talk about self-compassion. I was so impressed by his presence, humility, deep expertise, and I admired his openness about his own journey. We’ve been peers and friends since then and I’ve been a huge supporter of his book writing journey.

Hello, I’m Nate Regier, your host for the Compassionate Accountability Podcast. I’m the founder and CEO of Next Element, a global consulting and training firm helping organizations transform their cultures with Compassionate Accountability®. I’m the author of four books about compassion at work, including my new book, Compassionate Accountability: How Leaders Build Connection and Get Results. Thank you for joining me. And if you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, and review to help us reach more listeners. Also, be sure to visit our website at next-element.com where you can learn more about the work we do as well as find all of our previous podcast episodes.

Massimo Backus is a distinguished executive coach and leadership development consultant who’s worked with over 3000 leaders from Amazon, Cisco, Salesforce, United Healthcare, Sony, Nintendo, and Fox Entertainment. He holds a bachelor’s in psychology from Seattle University and a master’s in organizational behavioral psychology from Claremont Graduate University. He’s the host of the Leadership Mind podcast where he engages his audience with stories of growth and the power of overcoming limiting beliefs. His role as a documentary filmmaker capturing the essence of human experiences and his personal life as a father and husband profoundly influence his empathetic and holistic approach to leadership.

Massimo grew up in the Pacific Northwest and lives in one of my favorite places in the world, Seattle, with his wife and son. In this episode, we’re going to learn about what’s inside his new book, Human First, Leader Second: How Self-Compassion Outperforms Self-Criticism and hear about the latest insights on leadership in today’s world.

Massimo, welcome back to the Compassionate Accountability Podcast.

 

Massimo Backus:

Thank you, Nate. It’s really good to see you.

 

Nate Regier:

Yo, this is the second time you’ve been on my podcast and I believe you’re the only person that’s been on twice, so this is pretty special. And for my listeners, check out December 22, episode 37. It’s a wonderful conversation about your journey to discover the power of self-compassion in leadership. It’s a wonderful conversation about your personal journey to discover the power of self-compassion and leadership. And the book we’re going to talk about today was maybe just something in your imagination or something you’ve been about at that time.

 

Massimo Backus:

Yeah. It’s fun to look back and also see things from the perspective of the present. And what an honor to be the first to a second guest. It makes me think of the Saturday Night Live, the five timers club. You get a green jacket after five times.

 

Nate Regier:

Yeah. There we go.

 

Massimo Backus:

Yeah.

 

Nate Regier:

Well, now you’ve published your first book on the topic called Human First, Leader Second: How Self-Compassion Outperforms Self-Criticism. Congratulations.

 

Massimo Backus:

Thanks, Nate. As an author yourself, it’s unlike any other experience. It’s unique unto itself.

 

Nate Regier:

Well, how’s it going?

 

Massimo Backus:

It took me four and a half years to write the book and I as many people are, here we are at the end of the year doing a lot of reflection on 2024, and I’ve just been reflecting so much on how much I’ve grown as a person, as a coach, as a leader myself, as a business owner, through the process of writing this. And for all the fears I had about the book and all the hopes and dreams, seeing the response from people that have read it and send me pictures of a dog-eared and marked up with highlighters and passing it on to their teams or more broadly in the organizations. It’s why you put yourself through the hard work of writing it in the first place is to get the information into as many people’s hands as possible and hopefully have the most positive impact with it.

 

Nate Regier:

Yeah. For sure. I’m curious, is there anything that surprised you the most about this process?

 

Massimo Backus:

I think that there was a beauty in the beginning of me even deciding to do this. It was so naive and purpose driven. And sometimes when we’re purpose driven, we don’t really know what we’re getting ourselves into. We don’t know what it’s going to take to accomplish something, but we know that we’re compelled to do it and that come hell or high water, whatever barriers get in the way, we’ll get it done. And so what surprised me is my own resilience and perseverance in continuing to push forward to finish a project that again, at the beginning I didn’t even know exactly what it was to become. I’m incredibly grateful to have had the clarity of what that purpose was because writing a book wasn’t necessarily a professional goal of mine until this idea hit me over the head and I just couldn’t let it go.

 

Nate Regier:

Yeah. Well, I speak with a lot of authors and that is a really common theme is the transformation happens within them and what they learn about themselves, about the process as much as getting a message there to their audience. So let’s dive in. What is the main message of your book? What’s the point you’re trying to make here?

 

Massimo Backus:

Yeah. Human First, Leader Second is really the core concept is that we are human first. In fact, that’s the one undeniable quality that we all have, that we all share if we’re looking for commonality. How can we be more compassionate towards one another? We’re so different. We’re actually all human. And in the context of leadership in the up into the right culture of most organizations, up into the right is more performance, bigger team, more status, more control, more money year over year over year. That is mechanistic and it’s not natural, and it’s in conflict with the very natural essence of what it means to be human. And self-compassion is the practice that allows us to accept our humanity and therefore access the tremendous resources that are available once we do that. But it’s very counterintuitive. And so many of the people that I’ve spoken with after the book coming out, and many of my clients, they think if I let go of this up into the right, this constant pursuit, that burnout is a byproduct of my success, but it’s a worthy sacrifice. Well, that is a myth and it’s a myth that we’ve ascribed to.

And Nate, I’m one of those people that ascribed to it for a very long time until it didn’t work anymore. And so I view myself as not a guru preaching about this from the mountain top, but as Dan Harris would say, someone who’s trying to share their lessons and the research from the fetal position. I’m not the expert, I’m just a firm believer, and the research supports that.

 

Nate Regier:

Well, you have a lot of expertise though. And you’re not apologetic about the book’s message. And you’re really clear that learning to love ourselves, self-compassion, is the beginning of flourishing, and it’s the key not only to wellbeing, but also to higher levels of authenticity and performance. And when this episode comes out … I can’t imagine a better time for this message and more needed message of that we are first human. When you think about all the division, all of the dehumanization going on, all of the othering, to focus on this is so important. In your book and also in the previous episode, you talk a little bit about your journey. Will you recap just briefly … You are living proof of the message here and this is your journey. Just briefly, how did you discover this truth that we are human first?

 

Massimo Backus:

Several years back, I was running a global leadership development practice within a large multinational organization and traveling all over the place, running workshops and seminars and coaching executives and being lauded and praised for what I was doing. I was the sage on the stage. And it felt great. And at the same time, I decided to participate in a 360 assessment to get feedback for myself just as all the leaders that were in my programs did. And the feedback that I got back from my team was very different than the feedback that I got from the leaders that I was coaching and helping to develop. And my team didn’t feel psychologically safe with me. I was defensive, I was controlling. I wasn’t fostering the type of environment that I wanted to. And my intention as a leader and the impact I was having as a leader were completely different. They couldn’t have been further apart.

And like any well-intentioned person, I was devastated to hear this. It was so different than how I wanted to show up. And I tried very hard to take that feedback and change, and I just wasn’t able to change. I didn’t know how. I couldn’t stop doing the things that I was doing because I wasn’t doing it on purpose. And maybe for people listening that’s familiar. We get triggered by something and we don’t want to, and yet it continues to happen over and over. And it wasn’t until I removed myself from having to have all the answers and believing that I could fix it myself and really surrendered that I opened myself up to learning different modalities, different philosophies, different approaches, and that’s when I was introduced to self-compassion. And I had an epiphany. And that epiphany was a moment where I realized that my negative self-talk, my inner critic, the judge in me was so hyperactive that I thought it was me. I couldn’t differentiate that from any other parts of my psychology.

And through a practice of self-compassion, I was able to silence that voice. And what emerged was a self-compassionate voice, which was, I’m not perfect, but that’s okay. And then I’m trying my best and I don’t need to be defensive and I don’t need to be the smartest person in the room. And that my perception that safety and security were coming from all of these maladaptive behaviors was not true. And I began to make that shift. And it changed the relationships with my team. It changed the relationship with my partner, with my family, with my friends, most importantly with myself. And from the day that I had that epiphany, Nate, I recommit every day as I do with my wife, to love myself as I do in any meaningful relationship. And my goal with the work that I do now is to help others have that epiphany so they can make the same choice.

 

Nate Regier:

Well, Massimo, the people in your life are certainly benefiting from that commitment that you’ve made every day and the discovery that you had and that you did something with that. And in a little bit, I want to get into some of the how your book offers some of those learnings. And you’ve created a model, a really great model for how people can get on this journey. I want to back up to maybe a 50,000-foot view here, and I want to read a quote from early in the book where you described the book and you say … I love this. This book is less prescriptive, inspirational quote over heavily filtered mountain top picture and more you and me in the kitchen tweaking the recipe together and taste testing as we go. I love that. Partly because I turn off at these inspirational mountain top quotes because it’s like, well, that’s not me. I can’t be like that. But also, I love to cook and my favorite conversations happen in the kitchen while we’re tweaking a recipe. So will you give us an overview of how you designed the book and how you hope it will be used?

 

Massimo Backus:

Absolutely. When I first started exploring what this book would be and what it would become, it came out of conversations with several clients that were asking for more information about self-compassion. They wanted to learn more about it. They had the epiphany and they’re like, “Now what? I’m making this commitment, but I need to make sure that I keep the momentum.” And a lot of the research that I found was the Instagram posts at the mountain top. It’s the statements like, “Just be and be here now and find presence.” And it all sounds good, but it’s not easy to apply. They’re platitudes. And so they can leave you with the feeling of, I would say, just ick. And there’s others that are in these soft-spoken … you imagine somebody wearing a lot of crystals and maybe a big scarf type tone. And that doesn’t resonate with many people either, especially those that are saying, “I don’t want to let go of my edge. This idea of being nice to myself really scares me because it means I’m going to let go of my competitive edge and look at all the success I’ve had so far.”

So I wanted to create something that was a clear roadmap, but it was a choose your own adventure, meaning I’m not going to tell you how you should practice self-compassion. I want to create a roadmap for you to try all these different ways and find out what works for you. Just like if you and I were in the kitchen Nate, we might say, “Hey, are we cooking Italian? Are we cooking Thai? Is it Mexican? Okay. Well, what region do we want to go with and what ingredients do we have in the cupboard?” And part of the fun of cooking is that when you make a dish once the next time, it might be a little bit different, at least for home cooks, right? And so we get to experiment and find out what flavor profiles work for each of us and what we like.

And so the book is intended to first give people the opportunity to have the epiphany. To have the acknowledgement that while it might be difficult and scary to let go of this self-criticism and drive, all of the research actually suggests you will be more successful if you practice self-compassion. All of it. In my finding of the research, Nate, it is the most powerful psychological construct I’ve come across. And that if you think about any competency that people want to enhance and improve, self-compassion has been demonstrated to improve that. It’s unbelievable.

 

Nate Regier:

We’re here with Massimo Backus, friend of mine, second time on the podcast, first one ever to be here. He’s got a new book called Human First, Leader Second. Sharing his personal journey of being a hard driving leader, had to be perfect, achieve, achieve, achieve, pursue perfection, and had a wake-up call, hit a wall, and has been on a personal journey. And his book shares what he’s learned through that journey. So Massimo, a lot of people have written about self-compassion. It’s a popular concept and including one of the gurus, we both know Kristin Neff, amazing author. And I actually had the pleasure of speaking with her on episode 41. So I’d love to hear what unique perspective or approach to this concept do you bring that you don’t think has gotten enough focus?

 

Massimo Backus:

So there’s two things, Nate, that I think stand out. And the first is the question of what gets in the way of us being self-compassionate? What is that’s blocking us from doing that? And as I’ve been talking about, we all have a relationship with being hyper self-critical or judgmental. And I have seen these parts of our psychology referred to as part of our ego, and we’re trying to achieve ego death or that the critic, we just need to silence it or that we just need to get it out of the way. And that leads people to, I’m going to try and consume more of this positive stuff and hope that this other voice doesn’t emerge. And the reality is that it serves a purpose. Our desire to be critical or perfectionistic or defensive or controlling or whatever your flavor is, it is well intended.

It is there to protect you. And at one point in our lives, it served a worthy cause. But it’s also misinformed because these parts of our psychology are developed when we’re quite young. And now as formed adults, we don’t actually need to control everything around us. We don’t need to defend, we don’t need to be perfect all the time. It’s actually getting in our way. And so I call these our wimps. Well-intentioned, misinformed, protector. And the reality is the wimp is not something that we need to kill or get rid of, it’s a part of us. So we need to be in relationship with it. And I think about my wimps and I have many of them. Controlling, defensiveness, being a hard ass, as roommates that are never going to move out. And so if they’re going to be my roommate for the rest of my life, what kind of relationship do I want to have with that roommate?

I want to have some boundaries. And I want to say, “Hey, if you don’t have anything nice to say right now and you’re not adding anything productive to the conversation, I’m going to go in the other room.” But not out of spite. Or, “Hey, you’re being really vocal right now. Maybe what you have to say is a warning sign. Maybe there’s something here that you’re trying to call my attention to. Is there a reason why I’m being very controlling in this relationship? Is there a reason why I’m pushing for such high standards and not recognizing what’s out of my control?”

So one aspect of this is around acknowledging what our wimps are. Well-intentioned, misinformed protectors, and changing our relationship to them. The second is recognizing that we have a roadmap. So at any given moment Nate, we can tap into aspects of self-compassion. It’s right there at our fingertips. And self-compassion is in conflict with self-esteem, which is what we all are programmed to look for. We’re looking for validation. I want to be perfect because I want to be validated. I want control because I want to be included from the group. I want to be seen as worthy. The problem is those are all externally contingent. Whereas self-compassion allows us to be internally resourced. And when we’re internally resourced, we don’t need the validation from others. When we get it feels great. Of course it feels good to be appreciated and seen and all of that. But when we don’t need it, we have a greater capacity to actually give and serve. And fundamentally, that’s what leadership is all about. So in the book, there’s three steps essentially that are the on-ramp into a practice of self-compassion.

 

Nate Regier:

I want to comment on both of these distinctions that you made. So important. I’m a therapist by training. So the whole idea of cognitive distortions or these mental glitches that we have, or maybe we call them that critical voice, the ego, there’s all these terms. But they’re so ethereal and it’s so difficult to know what to do. This concept of wimps just makes it so relatable. I think you’re really tapping into how we understand compassion, which means with struggle, with suffer. This is a relationship. It’s not throwing it to the curb, throwing the baby out with the bathwater or fully embracing everything about it. It’s about a relationship that has tension and growth happens in that relationship. I can’t say enough about how great that section is. Wimps is awesome. It will reframe your relationship with those voices and not make it such an adversarial thing.

And then self-esteem versus self-efficacy, we’ve been talking about that distinction for 15 years at Next Element. And I love how you talk about internally resourced versus that external comparison. Really, really great distinction. I think we continue to struggle with living in a self-esteem world where everyone is trying to say, “We can help you appear better, seem better, be liked better, and it all comes from the outside.” One of the things … And I think you’ve tapped into this and I want to go there. Is one of the things people like about our concept of Compassionate Accountability is that it rejects the notion that compassion means anything goes. Oh, now you’re just going to forgive yourself for everything, be nice all the time, just accept everything. But without accountability, there is no compassion and I’m sensing you have a similar view because you write about three components of self-compassionate leadership. You talk about awareness, acceptance, and accountability. Will you unpack this for us?

 

Massimo Backus:

And Nate, you’re absolutely right. And I think that the myths about self-compassion, which I know you’ve spoken about at great length, and Kristin Neff has spent 20 years demystifying it, is that it would entail someone not being accountable, but it’s the complete opposite. And so awareness, acceptance, and accountability. Awareness is around identifying what is going on now. And that could be a strong emotion you’re having. I think that another misnomer is that we often look at compassion as it’s only about suffering. I think it’s just as valuable to recognize when we’re having a really positive emotion. I’m feeling joy right now. Wow, what’s that like? What’s happening here? How can I be aware of what joy feels like? I went to the Grand Canyon last week. I saw my son experience awe when he first saw the Grand Canyon. It was a remarkable experience. I felt awe. I witnessed it in him. So I think being aware isn’t just about what are the negative emotions, the anxiety, the fear, but also being aware of what is this human experience when we’re human first, leader second? What are all the flavors of emotions that we get to experience? And what is that like? And what can I learn from that? So the first step is just being mindfully aware of what it is that I’m feeling in this moment.

 

Nate Regier:

I just want to reinforce that really quick. There’s a line in your book where you said feelings are for feeling. It couldn’t be better. Thank you for sharing that. I just had to throw that in there because such a great way of saying it.

 

Massimo Backus:

Yeah. And I think about our feelings as they’re just data points. It’s just data. And we live in a data-driven world. Well, we have all this rich data that is abundant inside of us, but especially an uncomfortable emotion, we try and suppress it or distract ourselves from it. It’s rich data. What is this emotion telling me? If it’s a positive emotion, it’s telling you that there’s something values aligned. If it’s a negative emotion, it might be telling you that you’re feeling a threat or a wimp is being engaged.

But then you get to be curious about that, which takes us to the next step, which is about acceptance. And acceptance is a very difficult thing to do. And I don’t sugarcoat self-compassion in any way Nate to say this is easy. It’s not. If I’m talking about an epiphany that leads to a lifelong commitment, where else in leadership context, do we talk about lifelong commitments? We’re going to talk about it in context of feedback or trust or difficult conversations or decision making. This is a lifelong commitment that we make, which means we need to be able to accept ourselves and accept that sometimes we’re not the smartest person in the room, sometimes we’re tired, sometimes we’re having an off day, sometimes we respond in an unkind way, but it is not acceptance with apathy. It’s acceptance with accountability. And the accountability piece is what will I do now that I’ve accepted what is here? This emotion, this action, this behavior, what are the accountability steps I can take?

And there’s two bends to this. And the model that I introduced in the book is called the ward model because each one of them is a direction towards something. And in accountability, it’s a direction towards leeward, which is the site of the building we go to for shelter, or it’s the site of the island where it’s more arid and dry and safe and warm. Or we go to the windward side, which is into the storm. It’s the side of the island where it rains more and it’s more abundant with rich green plants and life. And what that looks like in practice is an act of self-kindness. It could be something that’s restorative, regenerative, going for a walk, getting some sleep, drinking more water, calling a good friend, and that’s the leeward side. And the windward side is about being accountable in a way that sets a boundary that’s a bit courageous. Maybe it’s apologizing for what you did. Maybe it’s asking for what you need, even though that’s a scary thing to do. But both of those require action. And when there’s action, there isn’t apathy. There’s accountability.

 

Nate Regier:

This is inviting me to think about a dynamic we talk about a lot, and I think people really struggle to appreciate this. This idea that we are a hundred percent responsible for our emotions. And what does that actually mean? Sometimes when someone says, “You really made me mad,” I might be like, “Gosh. I appreciate how mad you are. I’m not responsible for your madness, but I am responsible for my behaviors.” And they’re like, “What do you mean? You made me mad? People can make you pissed. They can trigger you. They can do all these things.” And it’s almost like there’s a fear of really owning what that is and being there. I don’t want to be responsible for the acceptance and accountability part of it. If I become aware of it, then very quickly let’s find someone to blame. And I see that happening parallel with, when we’re working with leaders, this whole idea of feeling feelings is scary as hell. And particularly feelings like grief and loss. I’ve had people tell me, if I started crying, I would never be able to stop. That’s why I don’t let myself go there. It’s like an abyss that they could never recover from. It’s so scary. So what assurances or maybe wisdom do you have for folks that are on that precipice about how do I let myself feel it but then take responsibility for it and not lose control?

 

Massimo Backus:

So there’s two things that come to mind when you say that Nate and one is, crying is an uncomfortable experience. It is at the bleeding edge of vulnerability and yet it is a human response. So there’s nothing wrong with crying, it’s just we’re human. In fact, most of us, when we were born, we came out crying. Doesn’t matter who we are now. And if the idea of crying seems like such a scary thing to do because someone couldn’t stop, I would actually encourage them to go find a safe environment where they can cry. So they can be in relationship with what it means to feel that. Because there can be tears of joy and happiness. There can be tears of grief and loss. There can be tears of fear. But biologically it releases dopamine for us and it can be very healing. So that’s just on that point.

The idea around being accountable for our feelings. If you’re not tied into what your emotions are, like most leaders that I work with and you work with are. In fact, I was working with an executive team last week and I kept asking them, what are you feeling about this? And they could not answer the question. And it wasn’t because they were trying not to answer. It’s like they didn’t understand. What do you mean feeling? They kept telling me what they were thinking about. If you’re not attached to that, then it’s easier to label it on somebody else because you don’t know what’s going on inside yourself. So through this practice and self-compassion, understanding, I’m feeling mad and then being curious about that. So you have to accept it. I’m feeling mad. Well, what am I mad about? I’m mad because this other person didn’t respect me or they didn’t listen to me, or they went around my back or they did something that broke trust. That’s something that you can actually have a conversation about.

But the feeling, as you’re saying, is your own. I think about this as a… I all it emotional fluency. And I think about our emotions as a language that we should all learn with as much clarity as possible. So most people can say, mad, sad, angry, happy. Okay, great. Let’s just say that that is the entry level language. That’s how you ask for the bathroom and get directions and say good morning and good night in a language. But what if you had the capacity to write a beautiful story like some of the greatest writers throughout history with your emotions because you had that much fluency? And what you would learn from that data about yourself, and then how much more empowered you would be to navigate things?

 

Nate Regier:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’d give a plug for Brené Brown’s book, the Atlas of the Heart. It’s a beautiful book to go start building emotional fluency. She does a wonderful job of describing them, what they’re for, what they mean, how to express them. You alluded to your ward model. And your book isn’t just about laying out the benefits, it’s also about providing people with a practical roadmap and multiple entry points. And this ward model is such a neat thing. Will you say a little bit more? Because I remember seeing some of your initial diagrams. I remember you showing me these, and it’s so neat to see your final version show up in the book. Well, you described just at a high level how this ward model works.

 

Massimo Backus:

Yeah. The idea is that I want people to understand that there’s multiple ways to do this. Just like we’re talking, we’re in the kitchen and there’s a lot of utensils and there’s lots of ingredients that we can use, and people need to be able to choose what works best for them. And so the ward model is laid out across awareness, acceptance, and accountability. So within awareness, there’s inward and outward. And inward is what is our inner experience? It’s our feelings, it’s our thoughts, it’s our assumptions, it’s our beliefs, and it’s trying to be as aware of those as possible. In executive coaching, there’s a lot of work around what assumption someone is making that are framing their worldview. And I always say to my clients, I won’t always believe that what you tell me, but I’ll believe that you believe it. I don’t think you’re lying, but I think there’s always more to the story. We all get caught up in assumptions. So that’s inward.

The outward piece is around what is our behavior, what are our actions and what is the impact of that? For myself, on my own journey, I was very disconnected from my inward and outward. I thought I was showing up one way and people were experiencing me very, very different. So I had to find alignment between those. And that’s a daily practice, and that’s around awareness. Within acceptance, it’s backward and forward. And backward is everything that has happened to us before today, before this moment in this conversation Nate. It’s our values, it’s our upbringing. It’s the cultures that we grew up in and accepting those for what they are. They have happened. We can’t go back and change them so what can we learn from them? What do we want to carry forward with us and what parts of our past maybe no longer serve us?

And then forward is about what is our vision? What’s our purpose? What are our goals? What are we hoping to achieve and accomplish in the world? And what do we need to accept now so that we can move towards that? Because if we don’t accept where we are today, then we’re not able to step into the accountability, which as I mentioned before, which is leeward, which is the kinder aspects of how we treat ourselves and recognizing that we’re humans. We’re organic beings. We need rest. We need nutrition, we need water, we need connection with people. We’re not machines even though we work in a very mechanistic world.

And then windward is about what are those courageous acts, and that also is an act of kindness. So this is what is a courageous act that is going to be beneficial and helpful for you? And when these are all done in concert, you develop this internal resource that gets you out of needing approval, seeking other people’s respect because you respect yourself. And we’ve all encountered those people that we describe in some form or another that is … There’s just something about them. They seem very comfortable in their skin. And when that’s true, we gravitate towards those type of people because they accept who they are. And that’s the core of this, because once we accept that, we’re no longer coming from a place of need, and then we can really give.

 

Nate Regier:

Yeah. I’m reminded of something that Stephen Covey, M.R. Covey told me the other day we were talking. He said, “Authenticity is not just about being open.” Sorry. “Not just about being true to yourself. A bull in a China closet can be authentic and knock everything over. You also have to be open and approachable and the kind of person that is available to other people.” And it seems like this idea of being comfortable in your skin means you’re true to who you are. You understand that, but you’re also available to the world. The ward model is … I love it because it’s about where we lean, where we look, and whether it’s an island metaphor, whether it’s a boat metaphor, there’s no wrong sides. They just each have their own views, their own perspectives, their own purposes. And so it’s a wonderful model, beautiful, beautiful, elegant thing.

 

Massimo Backus:

Thanks Nate. And the goal is that you can enter into self-compassion from any one of them. So depending on what you’re noticing, you might say, “Well, let me reflect on my past. Maybe that’ll inform how I’m feeling.” Or maybe you just jump into leeward because you know that you need self-kindness or maybe you need to be paying attention to how you’re behaving in a certain setting. And so you go to outward. They’re all entry points into the same thing. And it becomes a conversation piece for teams and organizations to talk about this as well. This isn’t just a model for individuals, but it can be used in concert with others.

 

Nate Regier:

Beautiful, beautiful. There’s so many places we could go and we got to wrap this up at some point. And I’m going to ask you something. I didn’t tell you about this ahead of time, and I’m curious if you’re willing to do it. So here’s again, the copy of the book, Human First, Leader Second. It’s amazing. How Self-Compassion Outperforms Self-Criticism. We can’t cover everything in the book, but there is a section that says it all so well, and it’s called Massimo’s Declaration. And I’m curious, Massimo, if you would be willing to read that for us today as a way of wrapping this up. It’s on page 217 because I got it dog-eared.

 

Massimo Backus:

Okay.

 

Nate Regier:

It’s such a beautiful thing, and to hear it from you I think would mean so much. And it just captures all of the lessons of the book.

 

Massimo Backus:

I love this idea, Nate. This came from Bob Dunham, who is a leadership development coach and expert. He’s the founder of the Institute for Generative Leadership. And I worked with Bob through the writing of this book, and he shared this with me as a declaration that he’s used with many, many leaders. I was so inspired by it because it really captured the essence of what this is about. And this declaration is something that I practice, but it’s really an invitation for other people to, again, take this dish, if you will, and adjust it so that the seasoning is just right for them. So here we go.

 

Nate Regier:

Before you start, I want to invite my leaders. This is a great time. If you’re multitasking, if you’re trying to do other things, if you have your email open, this would be a great time to just give yourself the gift of presence and shut everything else down. Pause this if you need to get to a quiet place. Because what you’re about to hear is a beautiful constellation of permissions, affirmations, and invitations to self-compassion. So this is Massimo sharing his declaration.

 

Massimo Backus:

I am a human being. I’m only a human being. I’m not a superman or a superwoman. I’m not perfect. Perfection is only a story good for suffering, and I’ve been living that story my whole life. But now I see that. It’s just my story. And I can be the author of my story rather than a victim of it. This old story is just an echo of an old conversation that got trapped in my nervous system and has been haunting me ever since. But it’s not the truth. It’s just a story. It’s not a machine. I’m a human being and human beings are finite. I can’t know everything. I can’t do everything. I can’t please everybody, but I can do a lot. I can make invitations, I can make requests. I can make offers. I can produce action with others to create a shared future that we care about and make it happen. That’s pretty freaking amazing. And so I hereby declare a new story that I am a human being, and that is enough thanks to life.

 

Nate Regier:

Wow. Let that soak in. Beautiful. Beautiful. Massimo, what would you invite people to do next after they are done listening to our conversation?

 

Massimo Backus:

As you go throughout the rest of your day, if you notice that you’re being unkind to yourself, pause and ask, how would a dear friend, someone that you love and you know loves you, respond in that situation? Because in its simplest terms, self-compassion is just treating ourselves with the same kindness that we do others and we are good at being kind to other people so let’s get good at being kind to ourselves.

 

Nate Regier:

Beautiful. Well, if you want to get a hold of Massimo, we’ll include his LinkedIn profile, his website, links to the new book. Is there any other advice you would have for people that want to get in touch with you?

 

Massimo Backus:

Reach out to me on LinkedIn or through my website, and if you do read the book, please tell me what you think. All feedback is welcome. I look at this as a movement, Nate. I think that if the last decade has been the decade of vulnerability, we’ve made some progress there. I strongly believe that the next decade is going to be about self-compassion, and it’s a movement much, much bigger than me, much bigger than the book. And I’m just one of many who are part of the broader conversation, and I invite people to join the movement. In January, I’m going to be starting a community around a regular practice of self-compassion in community, because I don’t think there’s any better way to actually practice self-compassion, but with others. And please reach out. And Nate, I think you’re just a tremendous human being yourself, and I am so grateful to be in relationship with you, and thank you very much for having me on today.

 

Nate Regier:

Thank you so much. Folks. Get this book, and when you get it, write your review on Amazon. You have no idea what difference that makes for us authors.

 

Massimo Backus:

Oh, thank you Nate.

 

Nate Regier:

It seems like a little thing, but if you do make the effort, go out there and write your review on Amazon, it means a lot to us. It helps the algorithms make this book visible to other people. Massimo, thank you so much for being human first and for providing such a relatable, authentic roadmap for leaders on their journey of self-compassion.

 

Massimo Backus:

My pleasure.

 

Nate Regier:

Thanks for joining me, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Compassionate Accountability Podcast. What struck you, what can you take and use today? I’d love to hear from you. And if you haven’t already, pick up a copy of my new book, Compassionate Accountability: How Leaders Build Connection and Get Results. If you’ve already read the book, I’d appreciate your review on Amazon. Contact us today to learn more about how Next Element helps companies transform their cultures with Compassionate Accountability. And remember, embracing both compassion and accountability is the secret to great leadership, and the roadmap for thriving cultures and strong brands.

 

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