Applying Unfolded: Finding Agency in the Middle of Change

Change is inevitable—but agency is not automatic.

In this episode of the Leadership Vision Podcast, Nathan Freeburg is joined by Dr. Linda Schubring and Brian Schubring for a deep, practical conversation on how leaders can apply the principles from their book, Unfolded: Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane, when change feels disruptive, unexpected, or out of our control.

Rather than focusing on theory, this conversation explores how transformation actually unfolds in real life—through reflection, lived experience, community, and courage. Brian and Linda invite leaders to examine the people and places that have shaped them, recognize the patterns they carry forward, and rediscover their capacity to adapt, grow, and lead with intention.

If you’re navigating uncertainty, leadership transitions, or personal change, this episode offers clarity, reassurance, and practical next steps.

Key Topics Covered

• Why change often happens to leaders—and how agency still exists
• The power of reflection in understanding how we’ve been shaped
• How people and places influence leadership behavior and identity
• Why lived experience is a leader’s greatest teacher
• The role of community in personal and professional transformation
• Giving yourself permission to try, play, practice, and even fail
• How leaders can support transformation in others—not just themselves
• Choosing to give life rather than drain it through leadership presence

Key Takeaways

• You’ve already changed before—and you can change again
• Agency begins with awareness, not certainty
• Reflection helps leaders understand their strengths, patterns, and limits
• Transformation is sustained through community and shared effort
• Leadership includes becoming a supportive voice in someone else’s story

Practical Reflection Questions for Leaders

Use these prompts personally or with your team:

1. Who are the people who have most shaped how you lead today?
2. What places or environments have influenced your leadership patterns?
3. Who or what is shaping you right now—intentionally or unintentionally?

🎉 Unfolded is a National Bestseller!
#1 in Business & #5 Overall on USA Today
#17 on Publisher’s Weekly Nonfiction
📘 Grab your copy + get the FREE Reflection Guide!

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening Intent And Leadership Hope
• 2:53 Meet The Hosts And The Book
• 3:53 The Origami Map Metaphor
• 6:03 Change By Choice Or Circumstance
• 7:23 People And Places That Shape Us
• 10:13 Reflection As A Leadership Tool
• 13:23 Patterns, Folds, And Lasting Imprints
• 17:13 Coaching Stories And Through Lines

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:53

How am I gonna bring light to my organization today? Well, that's maybe just doing my job well. And at the end of the day, we just hope that leaders continue on this path to grow up, to explore their never-ending potential.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09

And in that exploration, the book does lean into the importance of not being afraid to try and not being afraid to play and to practice. And that's all hinged on our willingness to dream. And I guess for me, the importance of allowing ourselves to dream is so important because I feel that the dream can be a key inspiration for us to have the courage to try to play, to practice, and to make mistakes.

SPEAKER_02: 1:45

Our consulting firm has been doing this work for the past 25 years so that leaders are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. To learn more about what we do, you can click the link in the show notes or visit us on the web at Leadership Vision Consulting.com. Hello, everyone. My name is Nathan Freeberg, and today on the podcast, I am joined once again by Dr. Linda and Brian Schubring as we continue exploring the application of their book, Unfolded Lessons and Transformation from an Origami Crane. In this conversation, we move beyond the story itself and talk about what it looks like to apply these ideas in real life, especially when change isn't something that we choose necessarily, but something that's happening to us. We dig into how the people and places that have shaped us still influences how we show up today and how reflection, community, and courage can open the door to transformation. Now, if you're navigating change, uncertainty, or simply wondering what your next step might be, this episode is for you. If you're listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, let's get into it. Brian and Linda, welcome back to the Leadership Vision Podcast. We are doing another episode here on the application of your book, Unfolded: Lessons in Transformation from an origami crane. Do you want to briefly recap or tell us what the book is about, just in case somebody is joining us for the very first time? And they're like, they wrote a book.

SPEAKER_00: 3:12

Yep, the book is about personal transformation. The book is a story. And the story is about an origami crane who had a dream of flying like a paper plane. One of the key metaphors in the story is that our main character, the origami crane, is made of a map. And so principle to the book is us understanding that we are each made of a map, and that map represents our unique characteristics, the life lessons that we've learned, the experiences that we've had, the people that we've lived life with, and how those people and places have been shapers in who we are today. The book is also about how the power of a dream can transform us and release our greatest potential.

SPEAKER_02: 3:55

I love it. That's a very succinct recap. That's perfectly.

SPEAKER_01: 4:11

Wait for it. Unfolded.

SPEAKER_02: 4:14

Unfolded. Hence the name of the book. Yes. Yes. So we if you want to go to the show notes, you'll find a link to a previous episode where we talked about applications, maybe a little broader applications. And today I believe we're going to be speaking to an individual specifically and maybe give them some ideas or thoughts on how to apply the principles of dreaming, of trying, of flying, of coming home, a missing one. All the different pieces of this category. Play, that's the one. Play. There we go. So Brian, Linda, which one of you wants to kick it off and just sort of set this up, and then we can work through our outline.

SPEAKER_00: 5:03

Yeah, one of the ways I want to set up today is I want to remind all of us that we do have the power to change. There are so many forces in our lives that are informing us and shaping us. And the information and the messages and the stories that we're hearing, they do have a shaping impact on who we are. My invitation is to remind ourselves that we've all been through periods of our life where we've changed or transformed and that we still have that potential and to not be afraid of some of those first few steps of change may feel uncomfortable or awkward, but sometimes that first fold or two really begins to give us the momentum for the greater change that lies in front of us. The invitation is to pause and to reflect that we have the ability and the agency to change.

SPEAKER_02: 5:57

And we can only change by trying. So let's say that somebody wants to change, know that they need to change, they're a little bit confused or they don't know how to start, they just know that something needs to happen. What is the first step, or where do we begin in this unfolding process?

SPEAKER_01: 6:13

Well, no, no, wait a minute. So back up sometimes it's not even that you need to change. I think a lot of times, especially right now, change is happening to people. Change is a circumstance, it's not been a choice. And so sometimes the leaders that we've been talking to right now are just in the middle of this, like everything's changing. And then how do I either change to keep up or change to meet the moment?

SPEAKER_00: 6:41

Two of the themes that run throughout the entire book are these. Those changes are happening by the people and the places that are in our lives. And so when you think about the people that are shaping us, those are the influences that that's one of the set of influences. And the second one is illustrated by the playgrounds. That's the places that influence us. First, we invite people to think about the people and places that have shaped you, that have influenced the form and how you engage the world around you, and secondarily, to look around you at the people and the places that you are in right now and how those voices of the people and how the places are shaping us right now, too. Consider that first because that will help us understand maybe some of our capacities and the endurance that we have to change, and that kind of reflection on the past and the present will help us understand what our current capacities are or where the need for change may be.

SPEAKER_01: 7:42

Just earlier today, we were meeting individually with team members from a cohort that are focused on growing together and how are they going to grow up their leadership capacities and practice new things. And one of the things that Brian and I will often say is your lived experience is your best teacher. And so a lot of times we reach back to early professional experiences, early shaping moments, mentors, teachers, coaches, bosses, good, bad, or ugly. Um and and look at those shaping people and realize like where have they come? What who how are they acting back in the day? What were roles that they were playing? And is there a through line to how they show up today? And then we give the encouragement like, don't worry about how you change. You prove that you've done it before and that you can do it again. And so we often bolster their confidence by just having them look back and say, you've done it successfully already.

SPEAKER_00: 8:47

Because in that process of reflection, people are beginning to realize for themselves how they have been patterned to act a certain way, to have certain attitudes when things are happening and why they connect with some people and not others. And sometimes it's those dominant patterns, those deep folds and grooves in who we are. We're never going to be without those in our life. But how do we work with those patterns and preferences to then create a new way of engaging? That's why it's so important to reflect on these two matters.

SPEAKER_01: 9:20

Because the first thing that people will say, and I like, I haven't thought about that in 25 years. I haven't thought about that in 40 years. You're asking me to think back to what was happening in sixth grade, and they laugh about it, but we can watch our participants, our clients, go somewhere else in their mind and begin to look back on their life and let it teach them something.

SPEAKER_00: 9:44

Because a great example of this happened in just a recent conversation I had with one of our executive coaching sessions. And that was this leader, he was being reminded of a profound shaping moment. He was able to recall the different people that were on the team and what they were saying to contribute to his growth. And so those are the characters, and he was able to describe the place it happened, what was happening in the company, what the environment was like, what the dynamic was like, and how that shaped the way the team engaged as well. And the important part of that kind of reflection is then for me to ask them, well, what are some of the lingering influences from that early experience into your present way that you connect with and are a team member? And he's able to draw those lines. There are two things that happened in the past that he's definitely carried over, and that's the point. And in our book, our invitation is for people to pause and to ponder, to think about different places and people that have shaped them and how that's impacted who they are today and what those lasting impressions are.

SPEAKER_01: 10:49

And it's Brian and I listening to the answers of our clients that even paved the way for the kind of characters that we put in the story of Unfolded, where there are characters that are helpful, there are characters that are I it feels hurtful, but maybe that's a stretch, very critical, I guess. We can start to tag or name some of those characters as we are listening to our clients speak and saying, Well, that's just the voice of shame and criticism, or that's just the voice of encouragement. Like, where else have you had encouragement in your life?

SPEAKER_00: 11:27

And did that voice help you? Like, or in what way did that criticism help you? So we're asking people to take those deeper steps, and that's part of the application of this book is to listen, pay attention to the voices and how have those voices impacted you, hold it loosely, positively or negatively.

SPEAKER_02: 11:45

I'm just thinking about what you're saying so much, and it reminds me of what one of my daughters right now is very into asking questions about my childhood. You know, what age did you start playing with Legos? What age did you stop? They did this reading thing for Christmas, and they're like, have you ever done anything like that? And so we've been talking a lot about my childhood and elementary, middle school years, and some of what you're talking about has caused me to be like, I haven't thought about that in decades. And I can, in some cases, I can draw a direct line to who I am today and how that started. And it's just fascinating when we, you know, think about this idea of a map and the creases and the folds, and it's like, I've always been this way. And this isn't something to run from. Maybe I need to lean into this or or think about this a little bit more. So, what kind of with those things in mind, the self-reflection, people are reflecting, what do you have people do with that? I know that over the course of recording all these episodes out the book of the about the book, I always want you to be like, so what do we do with this? How do we leverage this knowledge and information into a change, either one that's being forced upon us or that we are the ones instigating? Like, what do we do with this information? How can this be helpful?

SPEAKER_00: 13:07

One of the things that we ask people to do is to take almost like a reflective inventory, to name the names of the people that were there, that's an inventory, to name some of the elements of the places that these changes happened. That's an inventory. Um, what were the opportunities that were available to you in that place? What were the limitations? What did you like? What did you not like? Just to reflect on that, to name them, because the second step then is to ask that question in the present tense. Who are the people that you're listening to? Whether that is actively or reactively, and where are the places right now that are shaping you? And that can be a place like a home, it could be your community, the place that you work, it could be the city you live in or the suburb, whatever's happening in those places, they are shaping you. Inventory, name them without judgment, and then ask yourself, how am I showing up with these people? How am I showing up in this place? And is my showing up, or like with the book, the shape that I'm in, is that a clear and accurate representation of who I am? If yes, great. If no, then is there an opportunity here for some transformation or change?

SPEAKER_01: 14:22

What's the goal? To give you the courage to transform and to ask for help.

SPEAKER_00: 14:27

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 14:27

The allegory was designed that it is a story that you can see yourself in. And when people have this courage to like listen to a story, we have found that some of the leaders that we're working with, they're now letting go of stories that have confined them and that have prevented the transformation that could actually come. And so part of the invitation is like write a new story together. Or, you know, the next time your kid Nathan asks you a question about your childhood, tell the other side of the story, or you know, help give a vision of like, I'm still like that today. Like that's who your dad is. I think what comes in the middle of this, what we hope our story inspires people to think about is this freedom to fail, this delight in play, this I guess I can't go it alone, so I need some people with me. Am I listening to the right voices? And so it's not just an inventory, it's this courage and instigation to act.

SPEAKER_00: 15:35

And a second thing, third thing, or fourth thing, whatever number we're on. Oh I was in a conversation with someone the other day about our book, and the invitation that he and I were talking about was the permission that we can give ourselves to not be the main character. That perhaps our role is to be the voice and presence of another character. And in this case, this gentleman was really wrestling with his need to be more of the voice of Turtle. And in our book, Turtle is about growth and development, like the steps and being there, encouraging other people that you can do this. And um, that was new for him. And um, I think that typically we read stories and we find ourselves as the main character, but to give ourselves permission to have the voice and presence of someone else for the benefit of others is really key because I believe that we as human beings we have so many resources to give to other people. And one of the ways our book can be helpful is to provide an an image of what your voice might be like for someone else. It could be joy, happiness, and positivity, it could be growth. Maybe there is a role where your voice is going to sound critical to someone else because that just may be the moment, or this like euphoric in encouragement that you've arrived. So that's for the benefit of other people.

SPEAKER_01: 17:04

I remember reading once early on in my career, I can't even remember who wrote it. Um anyway, the the quote is you either give life, like in each moment, you either give life or drain it. Yeah. Oh, I know what um it was Brandon Manning. Um, and he went on to say there's no neutral exchange. You either give life or drain it, there's no neutral exchange. I remember reading it for the first time and thinking, yeah, but there's just average like there's no exchange. I thought, no, it's either positive or negative. And I wonder, you know, what it m means to read this story, be inspired, and say, like, okay, how am I gonna with intention bring healing to my communities today? And maybe that's just being kind to a neighbor. Um, how am I gonna bring light to my organization today? Well, that's maybe just doing my job well, and at the end of the day, we just hope that leaders continue on this path to grow up, to explore their never-ending potential.

SPEAKER_00: 18:05

And in that exploration, the book does lean into the importance of not being afraid to try and not being afraid to play and to practice. And that's all hinged on our willingness to dream. And I guess for me, the importance of allowing ourselves to dream is so important because I feel that the dream can be a key inspiration for us to have the courage to try, to play, to practice, and to make mistakes.

SPEAKER_02: 18:35

Well, Brian Alinda, thank you. Always gives me a lot to think about. I can see on your face 15 times. The uh final thought I want to leave our listeners with is our hope is, what you say in the book, is that our hope is you'll try, our dream is you'll fly. Thank you for listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. If you found value from this episode or any of our other materials, we would appreciate it if you would subscribe to our free email newsletter, Leadership Vision Consulting.com slash subscribe. Follow us on all the socials, YouTube, pass this on to someone that you think would benefit from this material. And who knows, maybe you will find a way to fly in some way this year. My name is Nathan Freebring. I'm Lydia Shoebring.

SPEAKER_00: 19:20

And I'm Brian Shoebring.

SPEAKER_02: 19:21

And on behalf of our entire team, thanks for listening.