Leadership in the 21st Century: It All Begins with You!
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome back everyone. We're so grateful that you have chosen to join us again and engage with us in these conversations. We're going to talk today a little bit about, you know, what is a leader and how do people define leadership and what does it mean to be a leader?
What, do you think of a lead? When you think of a good leader, what do I think of as a good leader? And just kind of run it from there. So I'll turn it over to you for a minute. Sounds
great. Thank you. Thanks, Cheryl. And yeah, welcome back, everyone. So where to start?I think I came across this model of three levels of leadership a while ago, and I've tried to go back and find where it originated from, and I haven't been able to, but it came across, it came to me in the corporate [00:01:00] context when I was training on leadership and it was these levels of leading self, leading others and leading a business or leading groups or communities, something larger, than just individual people.
And I, I love that model because it starts with this concept of everybody is a leader and it starts with leading yourself. And I think that's really, easy to overlook the importance of recognizing that, Hey, in my own life, am I showing up as a leader in all areas of my own life? Am I empowered in all areas of my own life?
And am I setting the example that I would be happy with? You know, am I happy with how I'm showing up and what can I do more in that space before I look to grab the influence outwards? You know, this idea of. resonating out.
Yeah, I like that. How you, it all starts with me. I think everything we come back to, it all starts with me.[00:02:00]
And I don't think we think in terms of leading ourselves. And it's important that we understand that concept of what does it mean to lead ourselves? What does it mean to, to look inward and say, you know, where am I showing up in the world? And how am I showing up in the world? I think. We're not very self aware sometimes, and I don't think, I don't think that's anybody's fault.
I think the world that we live in is just so chaotic that we just don't have time to stop and think about how we're showing up in the world. Or the first thing, I don't know why, but the first thing that came to my mind when you were talking was when I was in high school, I moved to a new town the beginning of going into high school, yeah, and I'm not a particularly outgoing person, and I would just literally show up to school about the time the bell would ring, and I would leave as soon as the bell rang at the end of the day, you know, and in between classes, I just went straight [00:03:00] from one class to another.
At lunch, my uncle lived across the street, so I'd go over to his house for lunch. It was like, I'm good, you know, and somebody said something to me one day. I mean, , I enjoyed being a cheerleader, so I tried out for a cheerleader and I won and I was like, wow, how could I win? How does anybody even know me, you know?
And then I got nominated as I don't know, Christmas Ball Queen or something along those lines. And I wasn't, obviously I wasn't seeking such a thing, and I was just amazed. I was like, wow, why do these people, I don't see myself clearly the way they see me. And so I started talking to other people and I was just like, tell me about myself.
I think that's kind of a weird thing, but in high school, that's kind of, you know, secondary school and depending on where you are in the world. we, we have a hard time looking inside ourselves and deciding who we are. And so it's helpful for other people to look inside of us and tell us who they think we are.
And they're like, you're just a nice person. You [00:04:00] just, you know, You just seem to, you know, want to be friends with people and you go out of your way to be nice. You see people who are, you know, struggling and you, and I'm like, people notice that you do that kind of stuff? Especially in high school, you know, when you're a teenager, nobody notices that kind of stuff.
And it just made me realize how important it is. to be self aware and how important it is to show up in the world the way we want to show up and in a way that hopefully other people will want to be around us.
Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does. It does. And I actually think there's not enough of that, happening in the world and I don't think we're actively taught to live from that place.
either. Sowhen I work with people in mentoring, a lot of the time it's that they've come across my work [00:05:00] because they're at a point in their life where things just don't work anymore for them. You know, that don't make sense, but the tools that they were using to cope with life and get through things and achieve and whatever it is, that's important to them.
They're just not, if they're not working anymore and they kind of, things stop making sense. Andwhen you're so used to this pace of life where you're constantly going from one thing to the next thing to the next thing. And also when you're used to being told, externally, who you are, what you need to do, how you need to show up, what's important, where to invest your time and all of those things.
And all of the outside stuff stops making sense. And you don't know how to go inside and define your own picture of what's important. Then, you know, there is a bit of a void. And I, we're not taught those tools of how to go. Inward and do the self reflection and figure out who you are and what's important to you.
And if you're [00:06:00] happy doing what you're doing, and if you're not happy with it, what do you do with it?
Yeah, I think about, you know, in the workplace, especially as, you know, we all have performance reviews and we do rely a lot on people around us to tell us. How to behave and what to do. And, you know, if we get bad scores on our performance review, you know, it's a reflection of, Oh, I'm not doing so well in this area or that area.
And we try to improve. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that inherently. But I find that the more we try to please others. There's something so, empowering about authenticity. It's okay to try to please others, but not when you lose who you are. And a person who has a really good, strong core and knows who they are inside, Can still [00:07:00] kind of adapt to the world around them because we all have to adapt in our homes, our families, our workplaces.
We can't just do anything and everything we want the way we want it, but there, I can't, I don't even know how to explain this. There's, authenticity is so important, knowing who you are for, and then when you have that solid foundation, then it's easier to make adaptations that still are true to your authenticity.
Absolutely. Absolutely. the people who are magnetic in life, the people who are the most authentic because they have tapped in at a really deep level to who they are, what's important to them, what they stand for, who they want to show up as. So when they speak, their speaking is from their heart, from their core, from their center.
It's not practiced necessarily or rehearsed. it's real and it comes naturally. And that's kind of this concept too. [00:08:00] You know, find your genius. Everybody has their own genius. And when you're living your life oriented around that place, that's when you can be truly authentic and you can speak your truth and people will magnetize towards you.
Even if they don't agree with what you're saying, it's because of how much of yourself you're showing up with. Right. And I think that's what great leadership is to me. It starts with how much of. themselves has a person connected with, because the more of yourself you've been able to meet, the good and the bad, the light and the dark, you know, the shadows and the really awesome stuff about yourself, the more of yourself you've been able to meet and integrate, what that does is it creates this increased capacity to meet others in their wholeness as well and see them as they are also and be more accepting of them as they are also and foster and facilitate an environment where their [00:09:00] genius can also come to the fore because you've connected to that experience within yourself and there's a balanced perception of everybody has good and bad, everybody has light it's how do we connect to what is, you know, most beneficial and useful for everyone in each and every moment.
I think really great leaders can do that for others because they've been able to do that for themselves.
Yeah. I've engaged with a program called Gene Keys recently. And, one of the, there's three different states, there's the shadow, the gift, and then the city. And I won't get into the other two, but the shadow is just basically, you know, things about yourself that you may not like, or you may wish.
Characteristics you may wish you didn't have and, you know, we're taught from the time we're young. Oh, if you don't like that, well then change that about you, you know, become something different and you read every self help book out there to try to help you [00:10:00] overcome all of these, you know, negative traits that you have either been told you have or you have decided that you have.
And they, he talks about just embracing your shadow. And I'm like, why would I embrace it? I don't like it. I don't want to embrace something I don't like. And it, but as I started to embrace it, it is true. It just kind of, I wouldn't say naturally falls away. That's not exactly the way I would frame it, but it, and it doesn't mean that, you know, it's not something you would hope that would at some point in your life would change, but it seems like the more you resist or, you know, and you try to fix it, the worse it becomes.
Instead of going with it and going, Hey, you know, this is who I am. and I know, like I think about in the workplace, you know, that there'll be times where you'll make a mistake and when you own up [00:11:00] to it, everybody's like, okay, everybody makes mistakes, no big deal. But if you try to cover it up or hide or, you know, whatever, then everybody's like, Oh, you know, that's not good.
And it's not. So I think it, it, that seems to be a better way of framing it. It's just kind of owning it.
Yeah. So Carl Jung's work is really powerful around this. And a lot of shadow work that people talk about comes from a lot of his body of work. And it's, the shadow is the shadow because it's unseen and you kind of need the light to reflect on it, to be able to see it.
And so that light is the, You know, people around you, environments around you, when you consider the reflection that you're seeing in your life experiences, not as something outside of you that other people are doing, or that the world is doing, or that's being done to you when you start to go, okay, well, Where in me is [00:12:00] this, where does this live in me and what is it telling me about me that I can't see except for the fact that it has to play out externally so I can see it like a mirror, just like we can't see certain parts of ourselves, we need a mirror to reflect it back to us.
Andwhen you begin to do that work of, okay, it's not something separate to me. It is part of who I am. Also, I am light and dark and shadow and, you know, illuminated. I'm all of those things. Then, yeah, you release this tension and resistance because what the tension and the resistance does is it keeps you stuck in those patterns of behavior.
So let's say, for example, you know, you look at someone who you might view as, you know, I'm a really angry person. I just, you know, constantly angry and tense and, you know, behaving in ways that affect you to then become angry as well. When you. And that archetype might come up in different areas of your life through different people [00:13:00] and, you know, different faces, but it's the same energy and what it is there's a stimulus that creates a reaction in you and then you react and then you're in this energy loop of behavior.
And so that work of self leadership of self discovery of pausing and finding some space and getting into more of an observational state is going.
This keeps happening and it keeps making me feel a way that I don't really like feeling. What if I just for once stopped, didn't react, pulled back a little bit, found some space.
So I'll look at these things happening again. And instead of reacting into it and going into it and getting yourself caught up in that loop again, getting some space and going, well, what else could be true? What else could be true? And just actually just getting curious and asking questions, finding enough space to say, what else could be true?
What else could be happening here? What's present that I'm not seeing? And openness, that curiosity, it's, you know, the space of mindfulness. [00:14:00] gives you the opportunity to see what you haven't seen before. And in that space is where you get to choose differently, to choose different options. Now you've got a bit more of a perspective that allows for more information to come into play so that when you respond, it is a response and not a, not a reaction.
And Viktor Frankl's quote around, you know, between stimulus and response, there's the space to choose. And that's what You know, it gives you freedom in life because when you choose differently, when you physically act differently, when you behave differently, it leads to different outcomes. You know, people want things to change around them or in their life and what they're experiencing and the.
instinct is to try and control what's happening out there. But really when you get enough space to go, I don't like this experience and maybe I've got a role to play in it. So how can I choose differently? How can I behave differently? How can I show up differently? Find a different [00:15:00] option that will create a different outcome, a different choice will always create a different outcome.
And you may not nail it the first time, but then you have this behavior, this experience of space perspective. some breathing space and choosing differently so that you can do that until you find the path that is more aligned to what you would like to experience.
And I think that's important, you know, what you would like to experience, you know, how would you like to show up?
And you also talked about energy. And I do think that when we're centered and when we're, you know, comfortable with who we are and we've, Embraced our shadows for whatever reason, then we just naturally let off a certain energy that is attractive. You know, you go back to the back. That's what's magnetic.
If you think about people in your, you know, your circle of influence or even out, you know, [00:16:00] work or wherever, What makes, why are you attracted to them? Why do you want to be, you know, think about somebody that you want to get to know, somebody that you want to be a, you think, wow, I want that person to be a part of my life.
And what is it about them that, that draws you to them? And, we always think in superficial terms like, oh, they have a good personality, or a good sense of humor, and those are part of it. I'm not saying that's not part of it. But, My experience has been that when I find that magnetic pull, it's because that person is a person that feels good about themselves, and that they, you know, are okay,
they're okay living with themselves. When you're okay living with yourselves, other people may want to live with you.
Yeah, yes. And, you know, you and I have done a lot of, you know, training in [00:17:00] corporate environments and leadership training, facilitated it, participated it and researched it. That's the space that we operate in.
And, you know, what I found really interesting is when you talk about, say, for example, empathy or emotional intelligence, the way that it's traditionally taught is that You need to show empathy to other people because that's how you collaborate, right? And yeah, of course, for sure. That's how you connect with people when you can understand the experience that they're going through because you've connected to it within yourself.
But that part there is the thing that most people miss. But the connection comes from, and the attraction and the magnetism comes from the fact that you have gone there within yourself, you have met those parts of yourself, if not the identical part, the energy of, hey, where am I? not so great, you know, like, where am [00:18:00] I an angry person?
Where am I a distrustful person? Where have I done things that I'm not so happy with about myself? and met yourself at that place and being able to bring that into a place of compassion and loving kindness within yourself so that you're not showing up to environments and, you know, You know, showing people empathy and putting on this like cape of empathy, you know, and trying to connect with people from that place.
It's, that's who I am. I've accepted and met enough of myself. Now I've got an increased capacity to meet other people in that way. and that's the difference. And so, you know, I always kind of struggled with, Teaching empathy or resilience even to people to say, here's how you make your team more resilient.
What worked better for me as a trainer and a facilitator was to take people there themselves. So find the anchor of resilience within you. Let's go to an experience in your life that wasn't so great, but you thought you weren't going to make it through, that felt horrible in the moment, [00:19:00] you know, and you thought it was going to be the end of the world or the relationship or the job or the financial situation, whatever it is.
And go back to that scenario and. How did you feel? What got you through it? How did you get through it? What happens on the other end? What did you learn from that experience? Hey, you know that? That's resilience. So now you've got that anchored within you. So how do you now take that and create that for other people rather than saying, Hey, This is what resilience looks like.
It's being, you know, like this in the face of adversity, it's very mental, it's very academic. It's not embodied and we're all resilient. You know, we are all empathetic. It's how do you get people to connect to that within themselves, embodied within themselves so that it's not superficial. They show up with that presence, they show up with that energy and they're able to guide people as leaders into that experience within themselves.
And I think, you know, as you talk about, resilience and [00:20:00] empathy, we always think I can be empathetic if I've experienced, you know, I had a loved one die, you had a loved one die. So we can be empathetic because we have that shared experience. And that's true that, you know, there's a lot to be said for that, but it doesn't really matter if you've had a shared experience.
I can't think of a person I've ever met on this planet who hasn't had hard times, who hasn't had come through something difficult in their life, who hasn't, you know, and the process of working through that. Although it's not exactly the same, the step by step process may not be the same, and it may not even be a step by step, it may be this circular process, or whatever it is, I know you're going through a hard time, I've been through a hard time, and because I know what it feels like to go through a hard time, I can be there with you.
I'm not necessarily going to say, here's all the great, wonderful [00:21:00] things I learned going through this for me. There's something about just simply saying, I'm going to be there with you while you go through this difficult time. You don't have to have the, and it's the same thing with resilience, is what works for you to make you a resilient person may not work for me.
But let's get to that shared space of. What was something you had in your life that was a hard time and how did you work your way through it? Well, great, you know, we have a shared experience because I may have experienced something totally different and I may have used a different process to get me to, you know, the next point where I was more resilient, but identifying that within yourself gives you that confidence to know, Oh, I am resilient.
Oh, I can trust you. Because even though. You may not be, you [00:22:00] know, ever had a loved one close to you die, or whatever you know has happened. I can trust you because I know, and I think that trust is so important.
trust is really important. , especially in leadership. Yeah. Yeah. And you can smell in auth, in authenticity.
While when someone is not authentic, you know, you can sense it when people are not showing up as. who they really are and there's this front and there's this facade and even if you can't name it and that, that does break trust. I, you know, I think when I was in My last role in corporate trust was the biggest, I guess it was the kind of like the buzzword or the trend at that time.
especially for larger organizations. How do you build trust on mass as a leader,of, you know, a team or a business? and why is it so important when there isn't [00:23:00] trust? What happens that is so detrimental? So, I dunno if you wanna talk to that at all, Cheryl.
Yeah, that's always an interesting one because.
What I found in most leadership programs that I either designed, you know, and having been an independent consultant, you can relate, you're not always going allowed to create what you think is the best program. You have to kind of go along with what the organization wants. And there's a lot of politics and things that go into all of that.
And I had to, that's another one of those shadow experiences that I had to learn the hard way and still I'm learning. But,at its core, trust is it's authenticity. And I don't, that's something I've really struggled to help people understand is how do you train somebody to be authentic?How do you teach somebody to be authentic and somebody's gonna trust you when they [00:24:00] know that?
you are okay. Think, I guess, think about a parent. A child inherently trusts their parent. Why is it because that parent's always there for them and is always gonna do something for them? They're a constant, they're a, they're a fixture, hopefully in the child's life.and they provide boundaries.
And I think we, we disregard this. We think, Oh, as adults, we don't need that anymore. Well, the best boss I ever had was somebody who I trusted that if I made a mistake, I could go to him and say, Hey, I made a mistake. And he's going to go, okay, well, let's fix it. You know, he's not going to, and you know, you know, you just cost the company this much money or whatever.
And I. I had made what his boss viewed as a huge mistake one day, and I found it, I think this was [00:25:00] probably the most rewarding experience I had in all my years, and it happened right at the end of my career, whatever we want to call it, was There was the big boss, and then there was my boss, and then there was me, and me and my boss were in with the big boss, and he was telling me exactly what he wanted, and I was furiously writing notes, and here's how we're gonna build this, and here's how we're gonna do this, and I went back, and I took all my notes, and I organized them, and I gave it to him, and I said, Is this what you want?
And he said, yeah, and he was in a hurry, and he left, and whatever, and I was like, okay, that's what I'm building, so I went I started to build it and started putting everything together and I was like, here, do you want me to show you? He's like, no, just go do it. Just go do it. You know, I was like, oh, okay, and as I,
one day it was time that he was like, okay, I'm ready. Sit down and show me what, you know, you've built. And I showed him and he's like, that is not at all what I wanted. [00:26:00] And I was like, oh, and I was. Went, you know, you have these little cubicles and then you have these little rooms where you go and whatever.
I can't remember what those rooms are called. But anyway. I got relegated to my cubicle. And, but I heard my boss talking to the big boss and he stood up for me. He said, I was there. I was there when you told her what you wanted, and she gave you exactly what you asked for. And she gave you multiple opportunities.
And I was like, okay, that built more trust. Because I knew he was kind of on my side, even though there was this huge mistake supposedly that had been made, I knew he had my back, and I think that's kind of what parents do, you know, even if your children [00:27:00] make mistakes, and sometimes you get mad at them, and you know, react in ways we all as parents wish we wouldn't sometimes, your child inherently knows that you have their back for the most part.
And that builds trust. And I mean, children who are raised in unfortunate circumstances, they don't have that trust because they don't have that parent who has their back. They don't have that parent who's consistent. And my boss was very consistent with me. You think as an adult, you don't need this consistency, but consistency was very helpful because I knew what the expectations were.
I knew how to meet those expectations. And when. You know, when I would do things wrong, because he sometimes he asked me to do things. I had no idea what I was doing. And I would come back to him and be like, oh, and he's like, no, that's not at all what I wanted, you know, but he was always so good at saying, here's what you did right.
Here's what you did wrong. And that built trust. And so when I try to [00:28:00] explain to people in organizations, like, how do you build trust? That's how you build it. My boss was confident enough, and he was, you know, authentic enough that he would go to bat for me at the higher levels, and yet he was still the kind of person I needed to make sure that I was staying on that path.
Do you know, does that make sense? I feel like I'm rambling.
Yeah. No, it does make sense. It does make sense. It makes a lot of sense. I mean, there's so many things that you said in there that are really important and I want to go back to a lot of them. And I would love to add something as well is what I've found that really great leaders do that builds trust.
That is again, something that's really easily overlooked. is that they have a cause, they have a vision, they have a purpose, and that is clear. And so the loyalty is to the outcome, [00:29:00] right? And to get everybody to the outcome in the best possible way. And so because they're so clear on where they stand within themselves and to others as well, they're clear to others as well, what it does is it creates this environment where it's not personal.
It's not about you and me. You know, things that happen, it's not you're a bad person and you made a mistake, or I'm a bad person and I made a mistake, it's, we're working towards an outcome and everyone's aligned. So they're very good at aligning people to the outcome, the vision, what the mission. And so when something does happen that could potentially break trust, it's not a personal thing.
it's a matter of fact that needs to be resolved. It's always this third thing. how do we preserve the integrity of this? What needs to happen? And it might be, even if that personal situation is not aligned, it's not a personal thing. It's like, [00:30:00] Hey, we're going here and that's not for you anymore.
And that's okay. You know? And. It's this balance of it being impersonal, so not personal, because the loyalties to the cause, and you can trust that no matter what happens, the loyalties to the cause, they're consistent and they're stable in that. And at the same time, there's enough humanness there to connect to people.
because they've gone there within themselves, they have the emotional intelligence and the empathy, and they've held themselves in that space of compassion. They've met their light and dark and shadow so they can see that in others as well. So again, even though it is, their approach is personal to each person, it's not personal.
So I think there's this degree of like, you know, where they stand, and therefore you can trust them. Even if it's bad news, they're going to give it to you in a way where it's, it, it makes sense. You know, you can, You can deal with the bad news or it's not an ideal outcome or it's feedback because they're not attacking you, they're helping you align to what is important.[00:31:00]
And I think that's what makes a really good leader because what happens then is that they take you beyond yourself as well. Right? Because they're operating in the future, they're operating towards an ideal and to get to the ideal, it's not current state, which means that you have to grow, you have to expand, you have to become bigger, you have to be challenged.
And so being around really great leaders who can facilitate that makes you grow as a person as well, as a professional, as a person, as a human as well. And I think that's another reason why we gravitate towards really great leaders and why they're able to increase their spheres of influence as well, because they're not.
Trying to control anything or anyone else around them. they're operating from, you know, from purpose and aligning themselves to their purpose and working with what is within their sphere of influence. to, you know, make sure that the outcome is delivered on.
Yeah. So if we take it and we flip the script, cause you and I've had these conversations [00:32:00] about, you know, bosses that we've had that we liked and bosses we had that we didn't like, or leaders, I should say.
And,I'm sure we've all worked for someone or, you know, not even necessarily work for somebody, but we've all had to interact with somebody that we didn't necessarily, trust. And what do you do? What do you do when you are, you know, you're not the person in charge? How do you create, an environment conducive to trust?
When you're not the person who can, I hate to use the word control, you know, the outcome, the project, whatever. And I think as I look back at some of the many experiences I've had where I've been in that situation and the person I was working with was not You know, I didn't trust them. I didn't trust that they'd have my back.
I didn't trust that they liked me as a person. I didn't trust that they, you know, could [00:33:00] provide me with the right guidance to get us where we needed to go, and have those guardrails and, you know, positive feedback, all of those things. And it took me a, and it's, you know, I'm not saying I'm good at it to this day, but I'm, I think I'm a little better than I am many years ago, was.
Okay, what can I do? How can I flip that script? And I found that when I made it not personal, just like you said, you know, it's about the project. It's about whatever we're working on. It's about this goal, this objective that we're trying to achieve in whatever, you know, capacity or environment that we're in, is that if they could learn to trust me, and I became a person who they could trust, then things changed.
And even though I wasn't, quote, the leader in the technical sense, I had a lot more influence over how things went [00:34:00] because that person learned to trust me, and I became a person of, you know, of trust.
Yeah, absolutely. So one of my favorite books of all time that I feel like should be on the high school reading list and every person should have it on their desk or in their pocket is Seven Habits of Highly Effective People from Stephen Covey.
So He created or popularized this model of spheres of influence, and it's just every, everything in that book is really relevant, and the spheres of influence model for me comes up so often in speaking to people because it's a model that helps you understand what you can really control and not control in life, okay?
So there's these three spheres of influence and on the, in the outside sphere are things that are really out of your control and out of your influence. Okay, so that might be world politics, world events, the weather. All of the things that are just beyond your immediate [00:35:00] control, the company strategy, if you're not on the executive team, you know, these are out of your control, they're top down and you don't really have much say in them, but they impact you inwardly.
Then you've got the next fear, which is things that you cannot control, but you may have some influence over. So if we're talking about it from a work context, you can't control the strategy, but you might be able to influence how it's implemented within your division or your team.or you might be able to influence what is watched within your house if you know,trying to be conscious of, you know, what type of information comes into your house and your family.
So you have influence, but you can't control every single person and guarantee the outcome and the impact. And then right at the center of it is what you can control and what you can influence. And really, if we think about it, honestly, the only thing that you can ever really hope to control and influence to any degree is yourself, your thoughts, your attitude, your behaviors, your [00:36:00] beliefs, your actions.
And if we're honest, even that is really hard for a lot of us, right? Because of this idea of how much of our beliefs are beneath our conscious awareness within our subconscious and how much of our lives we're just operating from a place of habit, a place of, you know, it's automatic. It's what we've always done.
We haven't actually stopped and looked at the reflection or we haven't stopped and questioned the belief, and we haven't stopped and looked at what our role is in the outcomes that we're creating in our life. and what we're experiencing in life. So it starts with getting a real big grasp on, am I aware of my beliefs, my actions, my thoughts?
Is it, are they aligned to what I would like to be experiencing? And as you start to get increased mastery of that, what actually happens is that central sphere of influence starts to expand so that instead of trying to now control everything else around us, I don't [00:37:00] like the way that person speaking, or I don't like this part of the strategy, or I don't like that part of the project plan.
Or instead of trying to control all of those things outside of us because we are more present and aware and coherent. And can express our ideas more effectively, and we are seeing more of other people, then we naturally start to expand that sphere of control and influence and have more accountability, right?
And that's what it's about. We become more accountable. As you become more accountable for yourself and every part of your life, then your capacity to take on more responsibility and more accountability increases, and therefore you have more influence. So instead of, again, graspiness outside, you start from the center, you work on being more accountable and more responsible, and then you're able to do outwardly influence more and more of what seems to be out of your influence falls into your sphere of influence.
And so, you know, that, that idea [00:38:00] of, what if I? Showed up as more responsible. What if I took more accountability? What if I became more empathetic? What if I just became more curious about why is this stakeholder or client or employee showing up in this way? What am I not seeing? What judgment, what lens is in front of my eyes that I'm perceiving?
And if I took that away and just became a bit more open and clear and curious. What else am I going to see that's going to help me get to the outcome, to the best outcome for everyone? And so I think that's why the work of self discovery is so important, because how else do you build those tools?
How else do you build that toolkit of getting space and not being reactionary to everything that is a stimulus in life?
Yeah, I think we live in a very reactionary world and, I think, unfortunately, so much of that does have to do with the fact that we just lead these really chaotic and hectic schedules, which we all need to get under control.
But I do think, you know, this whole idea of, you know, [00:39:00] You know, starting with yourself, and I don't know if you've ever worked in a place where, I don't know, just random, you know, the receptionist, the lowliest person, I guess you'd say at an organization sometimes, the person who greets the people who walk in the door or answers the phone or whatever.
I don't even, I don't think we have receptionists anymore. I think I'm too old school. If you think about who's the person, have you ever worked somewhere where the person who doesn't, isn't in the leadership position is the person everybody goes to when they, you know, have a challenge or, you know, it's like, and if you go back to the receptionist, sometimes she's because she's the point of contact for so many different places, everybody, whenever everybody wants to know anything, they come to her because she just happens to be the central point of contact.
And, I think that
when we. Embrace that, that role of being a leader within [00:40:00] ourselves and once again kind of back to that idea of energy and we project that kind of energy, then it is kind of magnetic and we'll get into this in future discussions. David Hawking. I always want to call him Hawkins. Is it Hawkins or Hawkins?
Hawkins. I always want to put a K in there. he has a levels of consciousness chart in a book that he wrote called Power Versus Force and or Force Versus Power, see? Power vs. Force, very deep book, hard to read, but very good, very good book. But he just talks about the different levels of consciousness.
And as we reach these higher levels of consciousness, we become, you know, the kind of leader just naturally that attracts people to us. And supposedly at the highest level of conscious, consciousness at the 900 level or whatever, there's only, I wouldn't even say a handful of people and throughout the world who've ever done that.
And Jesus Christ is the first one that they always mention. [00:41:00] Even if you don't believe he was, you know, from a religious perspective, your savior, you know, I don't think. Yeah, everybody, I don't think anybody would disagree with the fact that he was an amazing teacher and a good person and all of those things.
And yet look who he was. He was never, you know, one of those Roman centuries or he wasn't an emperor or, and he was never, you know, a leader of a great army or anything. He was just a man. And he lived amongst the lowliest of people. And that's where he chose to be. to live. I mean, he, that was totally by his choice that he lived there.
And then, you know, people like Buddha and, why is my mind gone blank?
Yeah, a lot of the prophets and sages and mystics.
Yeah, exactly. And you know, it's because they have learned how to, and like Mother Teresa, I guess is another one that comes to mind. [00:42:00] andthey're authentic. They're true to who they are.
They know who they are and they feel good and about who they are, even though they're not perfect, even though they may not, you know, they have plenty of shadows, just like all of us do. They still are okay with themselves. And I think another. The other key element to all of this that we haven't talked about a lot is these people have all been in service to someone else.
And I think when we embrace the idea of service, that is another natural, I think trust and service are just two of the most important things that you can have in an organization.
Yes, and this goes back to the idea of. Great leaders have an ideal that is beyond themselves, that they are moving themselves and others towards, and that is usually something impactful for others.
They want to be in service to others, to as many people as possible. And it's not a coincidence [00:43:00] that leads to the best financial outcomes as well. You know, there's a direct correlation there between, wanting to help people, wanting to actually solve the important problems and be of service to the most amount of people and from an organization's perspective, then, you know, making that financially viable as well.
And for me, that is a really, that's a really important discussion for where we're headed into as well, because I feel as though.for a really long time as individuals, we have had to be fragmented to a certain extent. So all these different parts of us, you know, the part of us that is spiritual and the part of us that are material, it's been very, it's been difficult for those things to coexist.
And there's a lot of false or unhelpful beliefs around money and spirituality that seem to spit, sit on opposite ends of some spectrum. when, Really, [00:44:00] you can view being in service and helping people as a deeply spiritual existence, and therefore, because you're creating value, know that you're going to be Appropriately rewarded and compensated and have equal and fair exchange for that as well.
And I think that's where we're moving into for individuals who are, you know, who are in this realm of wanting to increase their consciousness and increase their awareness. Yes, it's really an amazing thing to do for yourself and to show up for others in that way. And it's also okay to, want to be.
rewarded for that work as well, because you are in service. And, you know, whether you do that individually, whether you think about it from a corporate perspective, the more that you are able to impact people through the work that you do, the greater influence you're going to have. So, you know, it's not to say that you should [00:45:00] do it for financial reward, but also it's okay to want financial reward.
That's a lot of the. Unhelpful beliefs that I have to help people unwind as well. And I had to unwind for myself as well. You know, I don't think that we're meant to live in scarcity. If, you know, I don't buy into a lot of the narratives that are common amongst people who play in this space of spirituality and consciousness.
I think that the more, resourced people who have the good of all in their heart and in their intention and in their work, the more resourced they are. the better impact that can have on the world. So why wouldn't those people be aspiring to be very well resourced?
Exactly. And I think it's interesting.
money always is a, or, you know, financial resources, however you want to frame it, is always an interesting discussion. And I, you and I have developed a lot of leadership programs, like we mentioned, and so many of them are, [00:46:00] in my experience anyway, centered around like having better communication and having, you know, a vision.
And I'm not saying organizations shouldn't have a vision or what are they called? Mission statement. Yeah. I've been out of that a couple of years and I'm like, I forget it already. Yeah. So you have your mission statement and you know, all that kind of thing. And I'm not saying that's not important, but it's not really, you can be a great communicator and still not.
hit the mark. So much of what you and I talk about are values. They're not techniques. And that's where I think people have a hard time sometimes, is because they want a step by step technique. How can I, you know, give me this sequential, you know, step by step process I can follow, and I'm very much that way, and we'll get into that later on in different sessions, but is It's hard to say, how do you create trust?
How do you [00:47:00] build trust? And how do you, is it okay to want money? and, you know, so if I go back to a value, another value, and once again, doesn't matter whether you are religious or not, but if you go back to the Ten Commandments, they're just a good list of things to. Guidelines. Yeah, good guidelines.
But one of the ones that comes out to me the most people overlook is thou shalt not covet.
Most people don't even know what the word covet means and I found in my life, and I love my dad dearly, he's passed away, but he was always chasing, working overtime, chasing money. And it wasn't because my dad was greedy. My dad wanted lots of money so he could help other people and he did take his money and he did help other people.
But he was. this constant chase, you know, and I found that in my own life, I was following that in his footsteps, like we have a tendency to do with our parents. But one day [00:48:00] I really sat down and figured out what does this thou shalt not covet thing mean? And it was like, just be, not necessarily be okay with what you have.
I mean, that's a part of it. But the other part is, why do I want that? Do I want it because everybody else has it? That's coveting. Or do I want it, like, I've said many times over, I don't want, you know, this great big mansion, I don't want to live in it, because number one, I don't want to clean the thing.
I guess if I had a big mansion, I could hire a maid to clean it, right? You'd have a
cleaner.
Yeah, exactly. But I'm okay living in just a, you know, a small house and, you know, I don't need a lot of space. Sometimes I think the tiny house thing is kind of cool. But that aside, you know, so as I looked at acquiring things in my life, I really sat back and tried to evaluate why do I want something?
Is it because I really [00:49:00] want it? What am I going to do with it? Is it going to create value in my life? Or is it just another gadget to, you know, put on my wall and, you know, whatever, I don't know. But I think. You know, that's where I think if we get back to coveting, if we get out of the mode of coveting things, then I think financial prosperity, all of that just is kind of a natural outgrowth because we're not trying to acquire things just for the sake of having them or to compete with somebody else.
We're actually, they're useful to us.
Yeah, it's a really important thing that you've touched upon and that concept of. Contentment and covetingness and a few other concepts that tie into that, that you will find them in every religion and philosophy throughout time. And so one of the lenses and maps that I like to use is yogic philosophy.
And in yogic philosophy, it's referred to as a few different things, but one of them is grasping and aversion. [00:50:00] Okay. So, and the picture that I like to paint for people is. Grasping and aversion, it's like a pendulum that keeps you swinging between emotions because when you are coveting or when you're grasping, or when you are attracted to something, when you want something, when you're coveting it and you want more and more, that's pleasure seeking behavior.
Okay. So you're operating from your lower instinctual nature and you're seeking pleasure. It feels good. So you want more of it, or you think it's going to make you feel good. So you want more of it. And then you want to hold on to it. You don't need to become grabby about it. And then on the other side of the pendulum is the aversion, you know, I don't want it, that doesn't feel good, and that's where we're trying to avoid pain, so we're either seeking pleasure or avoiding pain, and it's the lower animal instinct nature of us that keeps us swinging between this feels good, give me more, this doesn't feel good, send it away, I don't want it, I don't like it, why is it coming at me, and you're in resistance.
And so when you're thinking about anything, whether it's [00:51:00] money or relationships or anything that you can experience in life, and you're coming at it from this perspective of, I want it because it feels good. I don't want it because it feels bad. You're constantly swinging between these emotional highs and emotional lows, right?
Mental highs and mental lows. And, you know, what we're talking about here through the work of self discovery and learning how to lead yourself and then finding a cause that's bigger than yourself and, you know, leading yourself towards that. And then you will naturally have people gravitate towards you because you're in your authenticity, because they see the passion that you have for it.
they will come towards you because they will align to that energy as well. And they will be brought outside of themselves. and. Have that experience for themselves. It's getting off the pendulum swing and tapping into your higher nature of your ideals. What would I like to experience?
You know, what would be really meaningful and impactful? What could create a legacy? You know what is transcendent beyond me that I would help, that would help me self-actualize, and figure out more of who I am? [00:52:00] And then you're on this like ascension path or this vertical path. And so even if these experiences happen down here, where you're going from.
I don't want to experience it because it feels bad pain go away or I want to experience it because it feels good. You're not going to jump on the pendulum swing and have these highs and lows. You're just going to be in a state where. Okay. That happened. Felt good. I can see it. I can enjoy it. I can recognize it without craving more of it and just be with it and then let it go because it is going to go, it's not going to last forever.
And then on the flip side, Hey, I'm in a tough time. This is sticky. This is challenging. It doesn't feel great, but I can also. Be with that and observe that, knowing that's also going to go and that, and Alan Watts calls it happenings. Life is just like all these happenings, they're all happening, but you are in the middle way on your ascension path aligned to your ideals and your high vision and your mission, and you're not swinging on the pendulum that's gonna get you off track from that.
And so. [00:53:00] You know, I think that's a really important part of being able to lead yourself when you do this work of self discovery is figuring out what is that path for you? what is, what are your ideals? What are your values?and showing up as that and using that as your compass to make decisions in life.
and that in itself builds trust because that is consistent behavior. People can expect that you are going to move in line with that thing. You know, they may not like it. But they can trust that you're going to be consistent. They may not agree with that, but they can trust that you're going to be consistent.
You're not going to waver and sway based on what's happening with these happenings around you. That builds trust.
Because you have values. And I think, I don't think I've ever built up until now, and I'll elaborate on a little bit on that in a minute, a leadership program that really talks about values.
They talk about techniques, they talk about ideas, they talk about, you know, soft skills [00:54:00] and those kind of things, and I'm not saying those aren't important, I don't want to discount those, but when you look at all of these kind of esoteric ideas, or religious ideas, or spiritual ideas, or, you know, however, you know, you want to frame them, they're all based on values.
And a person who is consistent in their values. is going to be a person that naturally attracts other people. And that's one of, you know, Meltem and I have had this discussion as I'm trying to build a leadership course, a conscious leadership course. And we'll get into a little bit more about what she does in the future.
And she's actually agreed to do a little session with me. So I'm kind of excited about that. I've already had one session with her and it was wonderful and it was very enlightening. So I'm very excited to do another one, but. As I'm building this conscious leadership program, I'm like, Oh, how do I teach people values?
I mean, you know, [00:55:00] if you're a religious person, you go to church every week and you hear the preacher get up there and talk about, you know, what values you should have and maybe give you some few tips here and there, you know, or you know, go to different programs, maybe yoga or meditation programs or whatever.
And there's a certain amount of technique involved in all of that, but it's still pretty esoteric. And, I'm coming up with more ideas and I'm excited about some of them, but I think most of it is goes back to what, you know, Meltem said at the beginning is just meeting people where they are. And when you meet people where they are, then it happens.
Yeah, it does. It does. It does. And. There's a really incredible researcher, author, thinker, strategist, consultant that I have, whose work I love is Jim Collins. So some of [00:56:00] his work includes Good to Great. it's one of the books that he's written, Beyond Entrepreneurship and then Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.
0. These are like stables, especially in the tech space, in terms of how to build really great businesses. And his work is so incredibly well researched. And in the introduction of Good to Great, what he talks about is that, So the premise of that work, Good to Great, is that they wanted to identify who were the companies at that point in time who had made the biggest transformations from just good companies, you know, well performing to really outstanding, great market leaders, you know, best returns for investors.
Really big impact in the world that had very clear metrics. So what is a great company and who are these great companies and how did they make that transformation from good to great? And they did an incredibly huge amount of research around this. And it's interesting to [00:57:00] me what he says in the introduction in that.
They were not looking for a strategy. You know, they were not looking for tactics. What they came up with is a set of principles and these principles were based in reality with evidence from all of the research that they did on these organizations. And they took lots of different data points, qualitative and quantitative data.
So, you know, actual metrics and performance as well as outcomes. a stack of interviews with employees and leaders from these organizations to come up with just this, you know, these principles that they came up with. And the principles, yes, they were on, has helped these organizations transform from good to great, but more importantly, they were principles of excellence.
He realized they were actually principles on excellence. How do we do something in an excellent fashion to the best way that we could possibly do it and just create this experience of excellence. And that [00:58:00] transcends business. That's also personal development. The principles in that book are not just for business.
The principles in those books, in that book is also relevant to us as human beings. How do we polish out, identify and polish our own excellence and brilliance? within us so that we're showing up and that's really the quest, right? It's to be the best that we can be and offer the most that we can and realize what is our potential and who can I be?
And I think that's where people get caught up in organizations and leaders get caught up in tactics. and strategy. You know, that if you're looking outside of yourself for the answer on what has everybody else done,that's led to their success or that's led to their excellence. You might get clues, but it's never going to be the same roadmap.
You have to go in to find out what is unique to me, and that's even in the model that they came up with. It's called the Hedgehog Model. It's phenomenal. You know, it talks about three concepts in the Hedgehog Model. What drives our [00:59:00] economic engine? what can we do better than anybody else in the world?
And the third circle in the Hedgehog has just escaped me. But that's, you know, the core of it is this, how all the decision making that these organizations made and that the leaders. Brought every conversation back to is what is it that we can do better than anybody else in the world? And therefore, when you come from that place, it's the question is not what do I need to do or what do I need to have?
It's who do we need to become? Who do we need to be? And that's the core of it. And then, you know, when you operate from that place, there is no competition. Because you are being the most authentic expression of who you are as an individual or a family or a group or a community or an organization.
You know, it's, there's no competition and there's no roadmap, , but there are princip, but there are principles of excellence. You know, and [01:00:00] there's many different frameworks you know, different references, whether it's business material, whether it's personal development material, whether it's religion, whether it's philosophy, and, you know, ultimately, they all sort of skirt around the same sort of principles.
And the core question is, who do I need to be? Who do I need to become? And I think that's a really good question. And I think I'm going to ask a question that not many people are used to asking. It's more like, what do I need to do?
Yeah, it's funny. I, and we've come full circle here so this is a good ending point, but I put together a course on resilience and one section of it was literally, it had a picture of, a boy and you know split down the middle and on this side is what do I want to be and the other side was who do I want to be and the whole program was centered around who do I want to be because you can become [01:01:00] anything that's the technique that's you know if I want to be a fireman I have to go learn all the things about you know being a fireman but over here this is a whole different and we don't I think that's something we've gotten away from in our world a lot.
And we need to get back to, I think, and a lot of that's going to come back to, you know, making the time and to really sit with yourself and be more reflective on those things. But
yeah, and to go into your internal landscape, because who do you want to be is a reflection of what are your beliefs?
That's the tie in. It's not about action first. It's about going all the way into your mental constructs and your concept of yourself and the world and others and how things should be and going, what are my beliefs that are driving my behaviors and decision making that's creating the actions that's leading to the results and outcomes that I'm experiencing.
So who do I need to be is, well, how does that person think, feel, [01:02:00] do? It's going
all the way
back.
It is. And the Japanese. Using a Suzuki, if you're not familiar with it, it's a method for teaching music that the Japanese use, and I, my mom was a piano teacher, and she always used to say this, she says, always leave people wanting more.
So we'll end on this note and we'll hope that you want more, but we've left you with just enough that you want to come back for more.
Amazing. That was a great conversation. Thank you so much, Cheryl. Hopefully, I guess there was some useful stuff and helpful and insightful things for people to do some self reflection on and come back to us next week.
We'd love to have you join the conversation.
Yes, absolutely. All right. Well, until next time, have a great week. Yes, do drop your comments and thoughts, in the comment section. We would love to have your opinions on anything that [01:03:00] we've discussed and yeah. We'll see you next time.
