The Leadership Vision Podcast
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The Leadership Vision Podcast
How Transformation Takes Shape Through Listening and Story
In this episode, Nathan Freeburg sits down with Linda Schubring to talk about her new book Unfolded: Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane. They explore the philosophy and strategy behind the story, the metaphor of origami, and how deep listening and reflection help shape personal and team transformation.
What You’ll Learn:
- Why transformation begins with listening
- How mountain folds and valley folds reflect life’s high and low points
- The five stages of transformation: Dream, Play, Try, Fly, and Home
- How Unfolded applies to individuals and teams in transition
- The unexpected beauty of looking back on hard seasons with new eyes
Quotes from the Episode:
“We are not just listening to what people say—we're listening to what matters to them.”
“The creases in our story are what give us our uniqueness.”
“Play is just practice in disguise.”
Resources Mentioned:
- Pre-order Unfolded: Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane
- Learn more about Linda and Brian Schubring at Leadership Vision Consulting
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Read the full blog post here!
CONTACT US
- email: connect@leadershipvisionconsulting.com
- Leadership Vision Online
ABOUT
The Leadership Vision Podcast is a weekly show sharing our expertise in discovering, practicing, and implementing a Strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture. Contact us to talk to us about helping your team understand the power of Strengths.
Thank you. Visit us on the web at leadershipvisionconsultingcom. Today in the podcast, I am joined by Dr Linda Schubring for a conversation about transformation, the power of story and how listening shapes who we become. We're going to be diving into some of the heart behind Unfolded Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane, which is a new book coming out June 4th that Linda co-authored with Brian. That blends metaphor and meaning and strategy to help all of us reflect, grow and dream forward. Let's get into it, hi, linda.
Speaker 2:Hey, how are you?
Speaker 1:I'm great. How are you?
Speaker 2:It's just the two of us.
Speaker 1:It is just the two of us. It's easier to edit when it's just two people in conversation. That's not to say anything against Brian, but you and I have not done a solo podcast for a while, so I'm excited to talk to you today. I think we're going to talk about transformation.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You and Brian have your new book coming out here in a couple of months. I guess, at the point of what we're recording, this It'll be a month, yeah, of months.
Speaker 2:I guess at the point of what we're recording this.
Speaker 1:Something I've heard you say a bunch was how a lot of what unfolded in the book unfolded Lessons in Transformation from an origami crane, from listening, from the stories that you heard from clients. The characters in the book are not any one client, but like a whole bunch of clients together. Can you just talk a little bit or describe what that means and how listening the idea of listening kind of shaped some of what this book is about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's how we approach people. I think at Leadership Vision over the years. When we're sitting with people, we are not just listening to the words that they are saying, we're listening to what's important to them. We're listening to the tenor of their voice. We're listening to where they're coming from, we're listening to things that are important to them, and when Brian and I started writing the book together, there was a realization that we could do something with all this data that we had. The stories that we gathered, the stories that we heard could be integrated as kind of meta themes into our book.
Speaker 2:I think it's the craft of listening that we've been doing for so many years and, as you know about Brian and me, you know we listen and then we try to make meaning and then we want to do something with it. We want to use the lessons we're learning to help other people, the insights that we're gathering to invite people into a deeper story, and so I think about the people that I've heard about. I think about positive or negative. Usually someone's a shaping voice for the good or bad, as well as spheres of influence, many, many different things. The common thread, nathan, is that what makes us human is that we are growing and changing people, and obviously there's times in our lives when we get stuck. Yet, um, there's something that happens in places of growth and that's where we name where in our life, and that's why the, the origami animals, are made out of maps. Usually, growth happens in some specific place, and so all that came together in the creation of our story.
Speaker 1:I'm curious. In some ways we're doing a practice podcast here, for when you go on the podcast circuit promoting this. I want to talk about origami, when we were texting about this yesterday. It's the book's not about origami, it's about transformation. So can you tell me why did you choose origami to tell the story of transformation? Why maybe specifically an origami crane, and how did that evolve or come out of this whole idea of listening and hearing from other people's stories?
Speaker 2:listening and hearing from other people's stories. The heart of the idea was from brian right, so this thought that will be.
Speaker 1:That will be his, his to answer that later.
Speaker 2:Sure, we'll hit hit more of that later. But but for me, when brian said, okay, we, this is going to be origami and this is going to be a crane, and this is why and the story began to unfold in his mind and then he would pass it to me, I really started to look at elements of origami that were really beautiful and that is the simplicity and that is the elegance and that is components of every origami. Animal usually starts with a mountain fold and it also then is there's a valley fold. And as I was reading a little bit up on origami and trying to think about how this metaphor, how we could kind of pull a thread through the metaphor, I thought there are so many mountaintop experiences in our life and those usually are points of pivot and points of change, the things that we celebrate, whether it's a new home or a new partner, a new job, a new promotion, a new place, and all those mountaintop experiences.
Speaker 2:I think as humans we want to or we choose to celebrate. So we celebrate the graduations, we celebrate the retirements, we celebrate the weddings, the markers in our story where it is a point of transformation from one thing to the next. And when I started to think about the valley folds. I couldn't help but think about how disease and death and a diagnosis and suffering and a role being eliminated, or needing to ask for forgiveness, or realizing that we're not the same people that we were, that those, those parts of grief are about the, the valley experiences which we can track to a valley fold in in origami, and so I wouldn't say that we are the foremost experts on origami, but I would say that we tried to use components of the metaphor to really pull through and begin to speak about change, adaptation, transformation in some different ways.
Speaker 1:You know it's interesting. So part of the book is Unfolding. It's in the title. Is it fair to say that part of that process is realizing that a valley fold might actually be a mountain fold or vice versa?
Speaker 1:Because the reason I asked that is because it was my son's birthday yesterday and I can't believe it, I can't believe he's 12 wild, but something that I've done since he was one and I do with my other kids as well as I'll take all the videos I shot on my phone and edit it into a little three to four minute highlight video, and last night we watched all 12 of his Come on.
Speaker 1:And it was very emotional. I can't imagine what's going to be like in. I'm going to do it till he's 18. But where I'm going with this is that the one of the COVID year, so 2020, so he would have been. What is that? Seven into eight, his eighth year. I watched that.
Speaker 1:With such a mountain experience, that was an amazing year. I cannot believe how simple things were, but at that time I remember it being so difficult and being like dear God, I'm not going to get through this. So I don't know where my question is in this, other than to say can you sort of talk us through that process of humans realizing when you unfold or look at your map, look at your life experiences and be like, actually that was deeply changing and transformative. And without this little four minute video, like I don't know why it hit me so hard last night, but I was like good grief that I just remember that being so difficult, but it was like so powerful, so I don't know. Just I guess reflect on that or talk about that, or what does that have to do with anything here?
Speaker 2:It has a lot to do with things, because that is a point of transition, like I think that even your son's story maps a bit to our allegory, in that you know he is pursuing dreams through figuring out what he likes and that he's a little bit of a ham in front of the camera and he can command an audience and, um, he looks after his siblings.
Speaker 2:So there there's, there's some. There's some beauty in that, I think, when you think back to situations where, wow, that was really hard in the midst of it, but then, kind of this was the joy as a result. Or I remember for me going through and I'll come back to you, but for me going through cancer, I remember I would tell our daughter I would say, okay, remember, what's the best part of cancer? She's like you and me get to spend more time together.
Speaker 2:Right and I cherish that. So, although I was very sick for many, many of those days, the days, that. I felt good. She and I had so much fun. She had so much fun in her, her formative years and my points of suffering. So of course I can wax nostalgic and I can look back and think like, okay, yeah, I was getting killed, like that was chemo was trying to kill me, covid was trying to kill all families, it felt like, and so of course, looking back at some of those times and then wondering, wow, like we, there was goodness that came from it.
Speaker 2:I don't think it detracts from the fact that at a at the time it was a defining moment. It felt negative in the time. I think when you look back it could have been very pivotal in how close your family is.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, you're talking about being meaning makers and you're talking about making meaning out of something. How much does the book deal with or talk about that process? Because a lot of people, I think, just kind of zip through their life without taking a moment to look back and draw some connections, to make some meaning out of things that otherwise just flies by.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there is a practice of meaning making. We know that as humans, we are meaning making machines. However, sometimes the fast pace of our lives and the busyness of our lives just put us into survival mode. And even right now in our world, with everything changing so fast and a lot of uncertainty and a bit of chaos, it is okay. Where do I have a chance to breathe and how do I look around at what's happening now so I can take some more purposeful action forward? So I wouldn't say that we, you know an allegory will invite the reader to think about yourself or think about what might of story, and the gift of story allows us to step into a story wherever we start to resonate.
Speaker 2:So, I think there will be people that will read the story and when they look at one part of their life, they will say, oh yeah, those are the voices in my head. Or they might say those are the characters in my team. Or yeah, that is a similar dream that I had and how I wanted to navigate my life or my world. So, yeah, I'm curious about how people will take this and run with it. I think that there will be meaning to be made in so many different ways. Some of the things that we've intended to happen have come out in like people are seeing different things. I think that's what happens with art.
Speaker 1:That's what happens with story.
Speaker 2:My hope is that it would be a book that could be handed to someone who is at a specific pivot point, whether it's good or whether it's hard, whether it feels like a mountain fold at the time or it's really a valley fold. I hope that there will be people that will pick up a copy for their graduating seniors that they will. Maybe it's a graduation gift you give to people, or as you are getting ready to leave for university. Or the parents, right the parents that are now needing to find a different dream and think about what their life will look like without that person in the nest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to come back to that, but I want to bring something else up. You've talked about this as a philosophy and a strategy. Yeah, that's not a word I would think of. That would naturally come to mind when I think of a story like this. So what do you mean by a strategy? How does this book become a strategy for helping people meet their potential?
Speaker 2:The way that the story unfolds, that it's going to be hard to use this word without, you know, feeling really cheesy about it. But the way, but truly the way that the story unfolds and we won't go into it now, but I will tell you is that it starts with a dream. It moves to a sense. The next chapter is called play, and so there's this sense of what does it mean? To kind of bump into what you love to do? So I will often call play practice in disguise. So that's the second chapter.
Speaker 2:The next chapter, chapter three, is try, and once again this tracks to a strategy, a philosophy, that it's one thing to have a dream, it's another thing to just kind of practice and figure out what you are enjoying in the, in the world.
Speaker 2:And then try is putting some intention behind it, like okay, if I need to get there, then what will I need to do? And so we would say that try really looks like practice with intention, like deliberately practicing something to get you to the next place. The fourth chapter is fly, and that is where there's the takeoff right. There is the pursuit and lifetime release of a dream and the final step in the strategy or a philosophy, as we are inviting the reader to think about is home. We know that it's one thing to live a dream and it's another thing to realize. Is this all that there is Now? What do I do? And we would say that home isn't that place of comfort, as much as it's a place to give your life away, to share the lessons that you've learned, to go home and help the people around you, in your sphere, in your circle, be better at what they are doing and what they are part of.
Speaker 1:How do you think teams can benefit from this? There's like in our notes here you talk about you know, unfolded is really for anybody in transition, anybody who feels like they're called by something, living their dream. There's a lot of language around kind of that personal journey we're all on. But I've also heard you talk about it this whole idea, metaphor, philosophy, strategy as being really beneficial for teams. How do you think a team say eight people or whatever can benefit from this same allegory, people or whatever can benefit from this, from the same allegory?
Speaker 2:The team can benefit, because rarely does everyone look the same, sound the same, yeah, and the cast of characters that we introduce in unfolded have a way of working together as a team where there's synergies between people and an understanding of why there's not synergy with others and and At the heart of it, I think we want to invite people to think about what they can learn about the dreams of people, and not you know, we know that there's a jobs to be done but to understand what motivates people, what gets them excited, what they were doing as a young child, even that they can kind of pull forward to today. I mean, you have the podcast, but when you were young it was stand-up comedy, right, so there's just opportunities to as a leader. For me, it is important to know what are some of the dreams of the people that I work with and work around by way of how am I getting in the way of someone else's dream?
Speaker 2:How am I helping someone unfold to be refolded into who they want to be in their next step in the journey? So, there's multiple bounces.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so many bounces to this, because I guess what I'm thinking of is. So the character of Origami Crane is optimistic, has the dream, is kind of in relentless pursuit of this. But then you've got the other characters that some of them I almost identified with more, and we're not going to go into the whole cast of characters.
Speaker 1:So I wonder if you know if a team is reading this. They can, and I don't think the goal is for everyone to become the origami crane, but there's elements of that that. It's like maybe you're got a little too much of the fox in you and maybe you need to figure out why that is.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:The fox is. If there's a villain, it's probably the fox.
Speaker 2:Is that accurate? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So anyway, I just I think that would be a uh could be a fun activity.
Speaker 2:It's a fun activity or it's a it would be fun it would be fun, it would be a meaningful activity to begin to consider who plays the different voices and if you're ready to put that voice to bed and and pick up a new voice yeah, um so.
Speaker 2:So I've had a shorthand with some of our pre-readers as I've been talking, and there was a younger professional that was reading the book and I was just telling her you are a young owl with a little bit of eagle, and it just seems like you're giving people numbers or assigning them a different personality type. But after this book, I think there's a shorthand that people of all ages will resonate with, and that's the part I'm really excited by, and I think, more than ever right now, people are being forced to dream and think and explore what their next chapter is going to be, and hopefully this will provide some universal handles for that.
Speaker 1:Well, linda, this is great. I'm excited that this dream has been realized your dream, brian's dream, the collective dream and I'm just excited to get a physical book in my hands I know you are too and then to actually get it out to a wider audience and get feedback and start interacting it, because that's when I think it will really come alive. So, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Nathan.
Speaker 1:And thank you, listeners, for listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast. You can click the link in the show notes or go to shoobringscom to pre-order your copy of Unfolded Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane, available everywhere. You get your books on June 4th 2025. We would also love it if you could share this podcast episode and any of our other material with someone that you think would benefit from this message. I'm Nathan Friberg.
Speaker 2:I'm Linda.
Speaker 1:Shubring and on behalf of our entire team, thanks for listening.