Quantum Leadership and Embodying Soul Values | Jennifer Redden | Ep. 28 - Living Leaders

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nicole Bellisle (00:00):
Hey leaders, welcome to the first episode of
2024 on the Living Leaderspodcast.
I cannot think of a betterguest to be kicking off this
year with other than JenniferRedden.
Jennifer is a quantumleadership mentor and she is
working with executives,founders, leaders to uncover

(00:21):
their unique leadership.
Jennifer brings an amazingholistic approach to how she
thinks about leadership, takingthe whole person and their whole
well-being into mind.
She was a respiratory therapistfor 17 years, so she
understands embodiment, how touse the breath, how to navigate

(00:42):
our nervous system, more thanmost people.
Jen and I met on Instagram, ofall places, and one of the first
pieces of content that I saw ofhers was all about creating
energetic harmony.
I loved that she was talkingabout energy, because I do think
that as leaders, we are energymanagers.
Jen helps her clients tounderstand their unique

(01:06):
energetic signature as a leader,as well as develop a harmonious
infrastructure, that is, thepractices, the rituals, the
habits that allow a leader tofully embody these core values,
these soul level values, so thatwhen things get hard, when
trauma comes up or when burnoutis knocking on the door, that we

(01:30):
have the scaffolding and theself-resourcing to be able to
navigate that, to be able tofeel our emotions and lead
ourselves, show up for ourselvesfirst, before we ever show up
for or lead another person.
She also has amazing wisdom toshare around building coherence

(01:51):
within ourselves through havingenough spaciousness to really
know ourselves in the firstplace, to know what our soul
values are, so that we can makealigned decisions and be leaving
a legacy with each action,leaving a living legacy with
every step that we take as anembodied, authentic leader.

(02:13):
In today's episode, we get intoso many amazing topics, from
how to embody our soul values,how to make more aligned
decisions, how to heal burnoutby feeling our emotions and
stepping into a new way of doingbusiness, operating from a new
set of rules, one that weourselves create, and not simply

(02:35):
a set of rules that we adoptfrom the existing work culture
or a company that we might beworking within.
This form of honest,transparent, embodied leadership
is only becoming more importantbecause people can see through
it.
When we're not, when ourmessage or when our purpose
doesn't align with the actionsthat we're taking or how we're

(02:59):
living our lifestyles, there's acoherence that we get to
develop as leaders across ourwork, our relationships, our
lifestyles and beyond.
When this isn't coherent,people can feel it.
So let's become the type ofleaders that we want to be led
by.
Let's lead ourselves home Again.

(03:20):
I cannot think of a better placeto start off this new season of
living leaders.
Without further ado, let's diveinto the episode.
Jen, I'm showing up with somuch gratitude to get to speak
with you today.
You have such a remarkable andhealing approach to leadership
that I know is going to resonatedeeply with our listeners, and

(03:43):
I want to get into all of theincredible perspectives that
you're holding about whatleadership even is, how it can
include our whole humanwell-being, how we can show up
in a really unique, embodiedversion of our leadership.
There's so much that you aresharing and bringing to the

(04:03):
world through your message thatI know we'll get into today, but
I wanted to start with at ahigh level what is leadership to
you?
How are you defining leadershipthese days, and why?
Because I sense that we're inan evolution and I would love to
get your perspective on howyou're even defining leadership.

Jenn Redden (04:25):
I love how you went right for it.
You're like here, we're goingto jump right in.
I love it.
Oh I, as I formulate the wordsI'm going to say, I'm so happy
to be here, and Nicole and Ihave only known each other for a
short amount of time physically, but it feels like we've known
each other forever, yes, Liketruly sharing a fractal line of

(04:50):
this is a relationship thatholds so much power.
So this makes me so happy to behere and to have found you and
for us to be connected.

So like well, good things do happen on
Instagram sometimes.

Oh, and that goes back to our very first
conversation, right, we werelike the universe works.
It works in its most mysterious, unexplainable ways, and that,
I think, is the best way tosegue into leadership is you
being that emerging part of theuniverse that operates in your

(05:27):
own energetics.
And that, to me, is whatleadership really is going for
in the future, where everysingle person, every single
leader, is operating from theirown unique energetic expression,
each one of them, as they dothat, they understand the

(05:48):
importance of the other personoperating from their unique
energetic expression.
So, then, what we build andwhat we have and what we create
is this gorgeous tapestry thatis filled with so many different
colors, and we all appreciatethe value that each one of us
brings to the table, and we'reable to come together and say,

(06:12):
oh, this is not my strong suit.
Like I can say, research isn'tmy strong suit, it's not
something that I'm into.
My husband loves it and he'sreally good at it, and so I can
reach out to him and say, hey, Ineed your help in researching
this thing, and he can do it inlike two seconds.
It's something that would havetaken me like hours.
And that's that sameunderstanding of relationship

(06:34):
and what leadership really is.
But before we can get to thatpoint, I believe, of
understanding someone else'sunique energetic expression, we
have to understand what ours isand we have to strip away those
external circumstances, thoseexternal timelines, and really
come into our wholeness and whowe are.
And that's how we create thefuture, a regenerative future

(06:57):
that allows everyone to reallylive harmoniously and
holistically.

I love that, especially because I don't know
that we have many existingmodels of what regenerative
business or what regenerativeleadership actually looks like.
You know, when I think aboutbusiness school and the modeling
that I witnessed, theembodiment of leadership that I

(07:22):
saw growing up or on TV orthrough business school, it is
very different than theleadership style that feels
right in my own body.
When I think about the momentswhen I feel most aligned as a
leader, as a business owner, youknow, wherever I'm showing up

(07:43):
as my authentic self and I think, without that external model,
there really is this deep innerprocess of discovery, as you're
saying, and I'm wondering, whenit comes to identifying those
unique gifts and reallyunderstanding our unique
energetic signature orleadership blueprint there are

(08:04):
so many beautiful names we couldgive this.
What have you seen work well onthe journey to discovering what
are unique gifts and what ourenergetic blueprint even is?
Are there tools out there?
Are there practices that you'veseen?

work.
There are so many differenttools and so many different
practices.
It's so interesting.
I love the timing of thingsright, the synchronicity.
Just this morning, I wasthinking about this of like.
I think there for a while, onInstagram especially, we were
seeing these people having theselike long morning rituals and
all of these different ideas ofyou know what you need to have

(08:44):
in your ritual.
And I think, in the beginning,this is what I truly believe.
In the beginning, yes, youactually do need to have these
anchor points and this is verytrue in my own life, when I
first started reallyunderstanding my own energetics,
I did spend a lot of time withmyself, with my journal, with my

(09:06):
emotions.
What does that look like?
What do they feel like?
What am I feeling?
What did you know what I mean,going through all of those
questions.
And we need that space in thebeginning because we're learning
a new skill that we've neverbeen taught.
We're learning how to be trulyin our own fullness and in our

(09:29):
own unique expression, and we'venever lived our way like that
and we don't have examples ofthat.
Really, I mean, we have a few,but not as many examples of that
as we do other things.
Right, like we were talkingabout a rigid strategy of how to
get from point A to point B.
Right, this whole idea of goingto college and all of those

(09:53):
things are gonna get you on thepath to success.
We are seeing examples of that,but there's not as many as
there are other, and so we'restill learning this skill.
And think about, whenever you'relearning a new skill, the
energy that you have to put intoit, the time that you have to
put into it.
So this is you investing inyourself through time and space,

(10:16):
by taking the time with yourjournal, by taking the time to
cultivate a meditation practice,exercising in ways that feel
good, that don't strain you.
So even a simple walk versus,you know, feeling like you have
to go to the gym and lift heavyweights or overextend yourself
or really allowing yourself andfinding new healing modalities

(10:39):
maybe acupuncture, maybe havinga regular massage all of these
things can help you and theywill slowly start to create the
evidence for you that you arethe leader that you get to be,
and then, eventually, you won'tneed to spend as much time there
, right, cause you've developedthe skill, you've developed the

(11:00):
habit, the ritual of like ohwell, this is how I'm feeling
today, right?
So I'm feeling sad.
Is this a sadness of grief?
Or is this a sadness where I'mfeeling a little off right, like
there's something like?
This is more like an egosadness, right, or some sort of
other kind of sadness, and maybesome doubts are creeping in and

(11:22):
that's what's creating thesadness.
Okay, well, if it's grief, Iknow, with grief for me, sitting
with that grief and being withthat grief, finding someone I
can talk to about that grief, ishelpful.
If it's where doubts arecreeping in, I don't wanna shed
those doubts and just go.
Hey, those doubts don't matter.
I wanna be like okay, well, whyare you here?

(11:42):
But I'm also not gonna sit withit and sit in the dirty diaper
of it, either right, like let mego do the dishes or the laundry
, something that gets me movingand gets that energy moving but
also doesn't require me to likeheavily focus and concentrate on
something, or that's gonna diginto that wound a little bit

(12:04):
more.
And so once you get to thatpoint where you really
understand those things, thenyou don't need as much time.
You're not gonna spend as muchtime with your journal, or maybe
you will, but you will knowthat you'll be able to move
through those things faster.
So there's a ton of tools outthere and a lot of the tools
that I use.
Emotional Mastery is reallyunderstanding, and getting to

(12:24):
that point of understanding youremotions and how they show up
for you and what each one ofthem represents for you.

Amazing.
Yeah, emotions can be such awindow into our culture in a way
, or our programming, ourconditioning, and to really
start to work with that.
There's so many things that Ilove about what you're saying
and I do wanna zoom in on thisimagery that I was getting as
you were speaking aroundleadership being an energetic

(12:55):
practice, effectively anembodied energetic practice.
I don't think enough people aresaying that being a leader is
knowing how to lead or manageyour own energy and being
attuned to that, beingself-aware of that.
We get to lead ourselves beforewe ever lead another person in
a lot of ways, and I was reallyseeing almost like a guitar or

(13:16):
an instrument where theserituals or these practices is
almost an art form of getting totune ourselves to a different
sequence, to a differentenergetic signature of our own
leadership and that, as you said, yes, in the beginning, that's
gonna take time.
We're learning a new instrument, we're learning how to play a

(13:37):
new instrument and we're tuningthat to a much different
vibration and we might beplaying a new song and that
takes practice too when we learnthat for the first time and
it's scary when we play it infront of another person or a
group of people for the firsttime.
That is a whole process.
But if we cut to a year, twoyears later, whatever the

(13:58):
timeline might be, if we havereally mastered that energetic
signature, it is integrated inour body.
We have the muscle memory ofhow to play that song on a tuned
instrument, it becomes secondnature.
We might not be thinking aboutit as much, we might not need
the same warmup routine as kindof as you were saying with the
morning ritual and things likethis, and I just couldn't agree

(14:20):
more.
Like in the beginning of my ownleadership transformation, I had
to lean on what I call themorning rhythm for a while, for
years, where I had very specificroutines and I was cycle
syncing at the same time.
So I was choosing differentroutines depending on which
season I was in the annualcalendar but also which phase of

(14:42):
the menstrual cycle I was in,and that helped me attune to my
present self and the contextthat I existed in that moment,
whether it was my own physicalbody or the tasks or the
intentions at hand or the largercycle that I was in on my
project cycles or the cycle ofmy year, and that helped so much

(15:03):
to set my energy right and Idon't think I realized for a
long time that's what I wasdoing that it was actually an
energetic game that I wasplaying, so I just love that
you're bold and audacious enoughto use that word in the world
of leadership, and I wanna diginto that a bit more and ask

(15:24):
more about how you're thinkingabout this.
Where are you seeing energymanagement show up as a strategy
that works, and why do youthink that this is working so
well for leaders to manage theirenergy, to be attuned to their
emotions?
Where did the benefits turn upwhen we do that?

I think the biggest example is we can see in the
world around us, right, look atthe leaders that we have and I
mean like the big leaders, lookhow many of them and you can
even see it in social media andpeople that have like massive
followings.
We no longer tolerate peoplewho don't walk the walk.

(16:06):
If they're only talking thetalk and there's nothing behind
it, we don't tolerate it anymore.
We don't want to be in thatenergy.
We don't want to be aroundthose people and this has been
the status of leadership fordecades, for centuries.
Right.
People and especially men thatwere do as I say, don't do as I

(16:32):
do, right, and we were like it'sinauthentic, why am I gonna
follow somebody that's preachingthat I should do something when
you're not doing it yourself?
And so that's why what I spoketo in the beginning of it
becomes a tapestry, because thenwe're all in our own unique

(16:52):
expression and then it becomes acoat of many colors you could
say Like it's beautiful, and weall look to the people that
ultimately, we all kind of wantto fill a hole, right?
So there's gonna be somethinginside of me that I need
somebody else to kind of give methat.

(17:12):
I need their help, I need theircommunity.
And you can think about it asfarming, right.
Like there's gonna be a farmerthat grows cows, there's gonna
be a farmer that grows carrots,there's gonna be a farmer that
grows wheat, and then they allkind of come together and they
help each other.
And that's how a system, that'show all systems work, that's
how we work as humans.

(17:33):
There's gonna be certain thingsthat I need someone else's
skill set for.
I need their ability to theirown art, the master of their own
energetic expression.
I need that to bring me into myown, to create a new network
for myself, right?

(17:54):
So we think about that withtrees, we see it in nature all
the time, right, but they allwork together.
None of them are competing.
That's where this is going.
That's the future of leadership.
Everyone's standing in theirunique energetic expression,
everyone giving the world theirunique art.
And it's not just about livingit, it's also being able to

(18:15):
articulate it and you knowing it.
So you can stand and say, hey,I'm really good at this, or hey,
I need some help with this onething, right, or I wanna bring
in my community to help me withthis particular thing, or a team
.
And when we look at leadershipfrom a regenerative perspective.
That's it.
We follow the cues of natureand we see how the birds and the

(18:40):
cows, and the dirt and thegrass and the worms, all of it
comes together and it's notseparate.
They all utilize each other.
And I don't even know what yourquestion was.
I've gone off on a whole thingthat I don't even remember where
we started.
That is perfect.

I trust it's where we were meant to go.

That's how I am, that's the future and that's why
we have to create that evidencefor ourselves and we do like
your work with cycle thinking.
That's a beautiful example ofcoming into a relationship with
nature and something that'sregenerative, that will continue

(19:22):
to grow and build from there,and teaching other people how to
do that is a beautiful gift andthat's a beautiful example.

Yeah, the way that you're painting the future.
I'm so hopeful for this, to behonest, because moving into
patterns that are morenature-based feel incredibly
healing to me from a culturalperspective, because I think
we've been, and this turns up.
We talk about this a lot in ourexecutive education and the

(19:53):
graduate level courses that weteach at Harvard on
sustainability leadership inparticular, we look at
biomimicry.
We look to nature as a mentorand as a model to learn from,
and what we find a lot in thoseconversations is that our
culture is operating on a set ofpatterns that nature herself

(20:13):
does not use right.
Nature is not overprivileginghierarchical systems or, as you
said, competition.
It has much more cooperative,ecosystem-based relationships.
So I'm feeling in thisconversation I mean we've
beautifully touched on this ideaof energetics and creating an

(20:37):
energetic signature or a uniquesong that we get to sing and
offer into the collective, aswell as form new relationships
to just about everything,including our own bodies, and
we've talked about this inprevious seasons on the podcast
too this pattern ofover-extraction that we have

(20:58):
been engaging in as humans inrelationship to nature
Over-extracting, taking beyondthe planetary limits of nature.
We have been doing this samething in our own bodies through
overwork, through overextendingbeyond our own physical,
emotional and mental limits inthe name of productivity or

(21:19):
profit or anything else and alot of those patterns.
If we can let go of the patternsthat are more harmful or sort
of keep us in the culture thatwe've been operating in and
shift into these patterns thatare more aligned with nature,
there's an incredible healingthat I've witnessed in people as

(21:39):
they went through not only therealization of, ah, I've been
over-extracting from my body.
I'm the one who has beenleading myself unsustainably.
Wow, that means I have a choice, but there's also probably some
grief I need to process in thatas well, because I feel bad for
my body and the way that I'vebeen treating it.

(22:00):
So how can I shift into aversion of self-leadership where
I am leading from love and withreverence for my own being, and
I'm leading myself and myprojects more cyclically so that
I include rest as a form ofintegration or quote-unquote
productivity?
That's part of the creativecycle and I've just watched

(22:24):
people get out of burnout andwork trauma and get into the
embodiment of this other way ofrelating to themselves and
relating to work, and I'mfascinated by the healing that's
possible in this transformationand in this deeper embodiment
of different patterns.

(22:45):
So I'd love to go there next, ifthat feels alive, to ask in
your work and in working withleaders, executives, what is the
healing journey that you'veseen most often?
Are there patterns or commonexperiences that you're seeing
leaders have as they go throughthis transformation?

(23:07):
And, yeah, if so, what are they?
What can we learn from them?

It's that same thing of like I've been living a
very extracted life, like I'vebeen following rules that are
not mine.
Yes, and yeah, the thing that Iyou said so many beautiful
things there and so much of itwas like yes, those are my words

(23:33):
Like the quote-unquote rest isproductive.
If there is one phrase that Iwish we could just scratch from
this idea of self-care is thatrest is productive.
Please stop saying it.
That's rest is rest.
You deserve rest.
It does not have to beproductive, it's you'll be, you
know, and that right, there isthat disentanglement that

(23:56):
happens through healing and thatI see all the time is that
we're disentangling our worthfrom all of these external
things.
We're disentangling our worthfrom this collective trauma
which has created so muchburnout.
And then, one of my favoritethings that happens because at

(24:16):
this point I don't know a singleleader that hasn't operated at
some level of burnout I thinkwe've all experienced every
human has.
It's a collective thing.
That's living and that's thething.
Burnout is a living entity, itlives inside of us and there are
stages of burnout where you'rean active burnout.

(24:38):
Then there's recovery, whereyou think that you've kind of
healed it right.
Yeah, I think I'm good, I thinkI can.
You know, when you go back intoyour life, like it doesn't feel
as daunting, but you're notfully there yet, you're not like
in remission.
And then there's the part whereit's like it's gone.

(25:01):
Most people are living in thatrecovery stage, right Like, and
what that really looks like isyou keep living at those
external, you keep living atextraction.
You think you're not.
So you're like let me planthese next goals, let me do this
next thing, let me add to myto-do list.
Oh, my gosh, I've got all thisstuff right and you don't feel

(25:25):
completely depleted.
You're like no, I'm good, right, like there's this, like I'm
okay, I'm okay, but you're stillliving in burnout.
Once you've experienced burnout, it lives inside of you until
you clear it out of yourselves,until you fully release it from
your cellular structure, fromyour atomic structures.
It's there and you're just.
It's so easy.

(25:46):
It's like the idea of havingyour second pregnancy.
Once you've done it once, yourbody's gonna go right back to it
the second time and then youhave the third one and it's
gonna go right back to itbecause it's programmed in there
.
Now and as a society, burnoutis programmed into our
collective network, into ourcollective cells, into our

(26:08):
collective energy, and so itkeeps getting easier and easier
to live at stages of burnoutuntil now, until we're at this
point where we're like we can'tdo this anymore, we can't do
this.
I'm so.
We're all so hurting andtraumatized from the way that
we're living.
So that's what's happening inmy world, with my clients.

(26:30):
They're like I, they finallysettle things.
And I will tell you one of theexamples.
One of my clients this was eightyears before we started working
together.
Eight years prior, she was inmassive burnout.
She was actually dealing withsome health issues and things

(26:51):
like that.
It was when she transitionedinto management.
She felt like she had recoveredfrom that and she felt good and
things like that.
I was like, okay, yeah, I'mdoing well, I'm not in burnout
anymore, I feel pretty good,things are all right.
Then, after I worked together,she messaged me after one

(27:13):
session and she was like I heardmy ringtone and I realized
that's the ringtone I programmedwhen I was at my highest state
of burnout.
I've had that same ringtone forthe past eight years.
Every time I hear that ringtoneit just signals a trauma
response in me.

(27:33):
I can feel it now.
I can actually feel my wholebody tense when I hear that
ringtone.
That is the evidence that itwasn't fully healed, it wasn't
fully released from her cellularstructures.
She was still living in thatstate.
It's really hard to be in yourenergetic expression when you're

(27:56):
still living by someone else'srules and still living in that
burnout state, unconsciously.

That's huge.
I'm so glad that you've broughtthat in.
That burnout can almost livedormant within us until we do
have that trigger or thatenvironmental exposure.
I'm no scientist, I'm noepigeneticist, but I can't help
but think of how wise, on somelevel, our trauma responses are.

(28:29):
If we've been inside of asystem that has hurt us or over
extracted from us the body'swisdom to signal such a strong
no to that and put up thatboundary on one level is
absolutely incredible.
But on another, to your point,if we are ready to move beyond

(28:53):
these systems that are hurtingus and we want to start creating
new ones that are moreregenerative, if those triggers
still exist, I can't help butfeel kind of like what you said,
of it's hard to get in theright energetic signature if we
still have this living inourselves, if that trigger comes
up.
It's almost like an energeticdrain is kind of what I'm

(29:17):
hearing you, what you're saying.
If there's an energetic leakthat could at any moment turn up
and put us back in the oldprogramming or back in the old
body state that was harmful,where ourselves weren't in a
state where they were repairingthemselves, it's almost like,
epigenetically, we've turned onthese genes and this wisdom to

(29:38):
help us survive in that context.
But if we're no longer in ityeah to your point how do we let
that go?
I was burnt out for probablyeight years, was in an active
state of recovery on that, and Iknow that I even with all of my
work and all of the supportingother women especially to

(29:59):
recover from burnout throughpractices like cycle syncing or
more nature, aligned business,operational design.
There's so many strategies thathave worked for me and I know
that there's still some residualfrom that time and when those
triggers come up it's I almosthave to go into a mini moment of

(30:20):
recovery just to get myselfaligned with the task, work
through the fear, work throughthe trauma that came up and then
maybe make a decision ofwhether I'm going to do that
thing or say yes, and how I'mgoing to do it in a more aligned
way.
But yeah, I personallyexperience what you just said of
it living dormant, and so I'mcurious how do we release that

(30:45):
on a cellular level?
So that's not owning our timeor energy anymore.

There's many ways that you can do this.
I will speak to the way that Ido this with my clients, and I
breath, and for me it's thequantum breath, so it is a very
deep, meditative space.
You're in a complete, relaxedspace.
So the truth about the breathand this is one of those things
that another phrase that I'm nota fan of is breath work.

(31:15):
The breath is divine.
The breath is divinity itself.
It doesn't actually need to beworked, and after my long,
extensive career in respiratory,I know what working to breathe
actually looks like, and so theidea that we need to work the
breath really is just somisaligned in so many ways.

(31:39):
The breath, when we come into adeep, relaxed state and we
remove the tensions and we comeinto that space where the
tensions in our body and thefriction in our body can be
released, the breath will gointo the places that we don't
want to see.
It has the ability to go intoour unconscious.
It has the ability to move intoourselves, and then, through

(32:03):
that, what happens is thingsbubble to the surface.
All of that stuff that you'reready, all of that trauma and
old behaviors and conditioning,all of that stuff comes to the
surface, and so that's part ofthe work that I do also is,
before you can get to that pointwhere you're like, let me see
what I have here, there needs tobe some sort of sequence, there

(32:26):
needs to be something that youcan rely on so you know how to
face those things when theybubble up.
So that goes back to ourrituals, that goes back to how
do I handle this emotion andwhat does that look like and
what I tell everybody.
I say it on podcasts all thetime and I say it to my clients

(32:46):
all the time.
We want that stuff to bubble tothe surface.
We want it to come out ofourselves, we want it to come
out of those dark places, wewant it to come out of our
energy systems and our energypoints, because some of that
stuff will just come out andit'll go and you'll never see it
again and it's released andyou're done.

(33:07):
There's going to be some stuffthat requires you to spend some
time with and, like youmentioned before, grief.
So we want that stuff to cometo the surface and you'll notice
it.
You'll notice it when you'redriving and you get agitated by
somebody or you're in aconversation with somebody and

(33:27):
they say something and you feellike that trigger response.
You're like, oh well, that wastriggering.
Once you have that cognitiveawareness of what that trigger
feels like, you don'tnecessarily have to deal with it
in that moment, but you can belike I've got to come back to
that.
You can create something newwhere we want these things in
our life, and that's how webecome.

(33:50):
That's how we cultivate acapacity, hold our energetic
expression.
It's how we cultivate acapacity and increase our
capacity to lead ourselves andlead others, and in my world,
capacity is everything becauseit's what we want.
Right.
Burnout takes our capacity andit shrinks it, it fills it.

(34:13):
It's to the point that youcan't move, you can't funk.
When we start going throughhealing burnout like true
healing burnout and removing itfrom ourselves, we need to clean
that stuff up.
There's no more pushing itaside or pushing it down or

(34:34):
letting it be there.
We want it to be there and wewant to have the courage to face
it and see it for what it is.

It feels so important, because I think you
can design even the most robustaligned system for yourself or
have the rituals in your backpocket.
But if we're not actuallyletting ourselves feel the thing
or love it on the way out, Ialmost think of it as

(35:06):
off-gassing or it's sort of kindof like excreting toxicity in a
way, like you're really lettingthat toxicity from the previous
culture go, and that is aprocess.
If you think about the culture,the work culture that sort of
got us into this mess in thefirst place.

(35:27):
It wasn't a safe space foremotional processing.
In fact we were conditioned toleave your personal life at the
door and all of your personalrelationships sit below this one
on a hierarchy, and you dealwith that in the very limited
time and space that you haveleft, if you have any at all.
There's no room.

(35:48):
There's no room, there's nosafety to feel any of this in
the moment.
So no wonder it gets stuffeddown so deeply that we can't
even see it anymore.
So I love what you're saying ofwe want it to surface, we want
to give it the time and thespace to sort of off-gas or

(36:09):
release and witness it on theway out, because I find a lot of
these emotions, if I see it, ifI acknowledge it, if I forgive
it or love it.
That's all it wanted the wholetime anyway in a lot of the
cases.
So it takes the time that ittakes, but I find that the more
I do it and get into theserituals, as you're saying, the

(36:34):
easier it becomes.
It's never easy.

A massive disclaimer.
Yes, I'm afraid of it, you'regoing to find effortless ease,
but the reality is, especiallyin the beginning period, when
you're learning to play theguitar, it's like you're
exhausted from doing the work.
Well, yeah, you're learningsomething new, right?
Right, I think about whatyou're saying.

(36:58):
The only thing that kept comingto my brain is there's a reason
why we have a generation that'scalled the silent generation.
And when we think about thework that you are doing, that I
am doing, that the leaders thatwe're working with are doing,
we're also not just healing ourstuff.
We're healing the silentgeneration stuff and the
generation before, and so it canfeel daunting when you're like

(37:23):
the idea that I rise, you riseis very true and it can feel
very daunting to think that youhave to take this on for
humanity, right, and even as aleader, we sometimes feel that
responsibility, right, we feelthat responsibility oh my gosh,
like I'm a leader, I've got tomove through my stuff quickly

(37:45):
because I've got to get to thelesson, so then I can share the
lesson, or so that I can movethese other leaders ahead and be
the leader that these peopleneed, right, and it's this weird
paradox of like how to movethrough this and it can feel
really daunting in those momentsand this is why it's important

(38:07):
to come back to yourself andthis is why we talk about
self-leadership comes first,leave yourself first through it,
allow yourself the space.
And I tell everyone, one of mysoul values is spaciousness.
So I always talk about space.
I know it's not for everyone,but for me, like, the answer to
literally everything for me islike do I need to take some

(38:31):
space?
Right?
Yes, I need to take some space.
With this I'm with you.
I'm always gonna say, like,give yourself some space, move
through it.
Don't try to rush throughwhatever you're going through to
find some end result or hitsome milestone, or so you can,
you know, have the lesson.
Part of the lesson is be whereyou are right now, honor what's

(38:56):
coming up for yourself right nowand trust that whatever you
need will be there when it'sready.

Yeah, oh, I feel so strongly in that that it
kind of goes back to what youwere saying about planning
doesn't work Right, and how goshand I've been thinking about
this so much lately of how weget to practice leadership
across all of these scales ofwith ourselves, within our

(39:25):
families, within our community,our teams, our companies and so
on, right, our planet.
And it's so beautiful to sortof think about that fractal
which is a you know a pattern wesee in nature.
It's sort of resonates withthis idea that we exist in a
holographic universe as well,that there are kind of all these

(39:45):
holograms, and so when I thinkabout the scale of myself and
doing this work on myself andthat potentially being too small
or insignificant or I shouldget through that quickly so that
I can lead others and get tothe work, just like you're
saying, it's sort of a it feelslike a trap in a way of that's

(40:07):
just going back into a lot ofthe same patterns, but instead,
if we can go into the sometimesuncomfortable spaciousness
because space, I'm absolutelywith you, I think, as an
ingredient, as a like a mediumthat I can sit in spaciousness

(40:28):
has also been one of the morehealing moves that I've been
able to move towards.
And yet there can also beincredible discomfort in hearing
myself talk, feeling the fearof my own insignificance, right,
which is often what's drivingme to get through that inner
work within myself so that I canget to the thing that's gonna

(40:49):
give me the self worth that I'moutsourcing externally.
And if we just sit in thestillness and the spaciousness,
all of that comes to the surfaceas well and it might not feel
productive.
I might not be making moneyduring that time, or at least my
logic brain doesn't think I am.
And yet being in that healingand leading relationship with

(41:13):
myself prepares me to be withchange, to be with discomfort
and difficulty, to be with theemergent quality of anything,
because planning doesn't work.
It's always emerging andrevealing itself.
There's always somethingunexpected.
Emotions are going to existalong the journey because we're

(41:36):
human.
So if I can be with myself inall of that complexity and all
of that dynamism that existsjust in one person, it's like,
of course, that exists in ourgroup dynamics as well and in
our teams or our families.
So I'm really seeing what you'resaying as a practice ground as

(41:58):
well, to be able to practice thestillness, being with emergence
relating to change in a waythat is loving, where I don't
have to bulldoze it, it's safeto be with it.
So I'm really cultivating thatinner culture of psychological
safety to be with what is andagain, this isn't something that

(42:21):
we're taught in business schooland yet I think a lot of the
times it can actually be themore efficient path, because on
the other side of that stillnessand moving through all of this,
I typically find more clarityand more like more clarity on
the vision, more clarity on thepurpose, coherence and alignment
within myself, within all of myrelations.

(42:44):
And, ironically, I actually getthere quote, unquote, there,
wherever there is.
I get there faster by movingthrough all of this rather than
hyper-productively and throughthis false illusion of control,
like trying to get around all ofthis to the end destination.

(43:05):
Yeah, yeah, so I've just, yeah,I'm so resonating with what
you're saying of like lettingthe planning go, being with the
emergence.
I think this is a new skill setthat I wish was taught in
business schools and that I wishI knew sooner in this journey.
Yeah, so I guess, yeah, just somuch resonance in what you're

(43:29):
saying.

I think these are the principles that we're
getting to, that we wanna beteaching our children, yes, just
when we get to be young adults,but when we're children and
that.
So this is where I really get.
I get super excited when Istart talking about legacy.
For so long we've been talkingabout change makers and we want

(43:52):
change makers and the emergingchange makers, but here's the
reality change is happening.
Whether we make it happen ordon't make it happen, it's
happening.
Right, we live within auniverse that lives within
cycles, so change is alwayshappening.
Things are.
You can see it.
You can see it in the energeticexpression that is coming

(44:15):
through us.
So we don't need change makers,we need those that are willing
to build a legacy and we wantthose that are willing to build
a legacy that don't have to seethe results of that happen right
now, because legacy building isgenerations down the road it is
.
You may never see the results ofthe work that you and I are

(44:38):
doing right now.
We may never get to that pointwhere we see we don't see big
hospital systems.
We see small clinics that housean MD and acupuncturists and
energy specialists and atherapist.
All of these things soundhealing.
We may never see that in ourlifetime.
That doesn't mean it's notpossible.

(45:00):
And this goes back to that ideathat it's daunting.
Right, it is.
It can feel daunting if youthink about it in that big
spectrum.
You can have that vision andthen be like I know that I can
make the change for that todaywith how I treat myself, with
how I honor myself, with howharmoniously I show up in who I

(45:24):
am and the work that I do andensuring that I'm leading with
my soul values and that I'mliving my life that way.
And that is how we get to thatfuture vision.
It is not through strategicplanning.
That's it's not possible.
If we keep doing that, thatdoesn't mean you don't have

(45:46):
plans right or you don't sayyou're gonna do something.
A lot of people get thatconfusion.
You're like you just want me tosit around and do nothing.
I'm like no, there's actionsthat go with that.
The rule of thumb is right nowwe live in a system that we're
doing 1,000 things to get oneresult.
We wanna reverse that.
So we're doing one thing to get1,000 results.

Yeah, really reversing that equation and
having that long-termmulti-generational view that
really struck such a deep chordwhen you said that.
Because I think the way thatwe've been running business and
being so obsessed with quarterlyearnings and short-termism and

(46:31):
all of the shouldism as wellthat comes from comparison Like
I think a lot of that turns upin a strategic planning process
as we map out our goals.
It's like if we're just lookingon paper and what we should be
doing, that the roadmap looksvery different, the results of
the KPIs we're after look verydifferent than if we were to

(46:53):
reverse that and take on thislong-term multi-generational
view.
And I think about hownourishing and healing it could
be not only for us as humans, ascreators, as workers, but also
for our planet, if we were tobake those values back in of

(47:16):
multi-generational viewpointsand nature's genius as well, to
really bake that into how we'redoing things as well as kind of
the energetics and the morespiritual aspects that can come
with how we lead ourselves andhow we align with purpose.
But I just, yeah, I've neverregretted moving from my sole

(47:39):
values and I often call them myguiding values and principles or
my North Star principles.
I feel so increasingly devotedto those, because of how good it
feels in my body to embody them, because of the mirror effect,
if you will, of how others arereflecting back my embodiment

(48:02):
and my integrity on those that,like there's so much gratitude
and appreciation when a leaderis walking the talk and is
making moves and decisions andsetting boundaries and like
doing the things that we say webelieve most in.
And I just find that, even ifsome of those feel scary or in

(48:23):
the moment, I've never regrettedmoving from those.
That has always led me in adirection where I'm discovering
even more alignment or moregrowth, or finding the people
who are most aligned andresonating with the stance that
I'm now taking in terms of myown standards and my own values.

(48:44):
So I guess I wanna dig intothat a bit more and just ask
when you say sole values, whatdo you mean by that and what
does that look like in thepractice of how you're living
your life and how you're runningyour business?

Yeah, so sole values are different than core
values to some degree.
I think I'm sure anybody who'slistening to this in even you,
because even myself, at somepoint you were at a conference
or you were at some event orsome work thing where they're
like here, write out your values, right.
And so you were like sure,right, and you were given paper

(49:23):
and it had like some likedescriptive things on it, right,
and you're like circle the onesthat resonate with you, right?
I think value work iseverywhere.
Where I think we get it wrongis we do value work from a
mental, energetic place.
We do not do it from a verygrounded, really, an embodiment
of oh, this is who I am.

(49:46):
So before you can even reallyget to getting to your sole
values, there's a lot ofdeconditioning work that has to
happen.
There's a lot of healing thathas to happen, and especially
the healing around burnout,right, because you've been
operating from someone else'srules, from someone else's
blueprint, for so long.
Of course you're not gonna knowwhat your values are and of

(50:07):
course it's gonna come from avery mental place.
So there has to be that processto where you get to your sole
values and here's how you cankind of tell whether you have a
good foundation of your solevalues.
Your sole values are never goingto change.
They will never changethroughout your entire life.
If you want to find them, youcan see the evidence, not only

(50:31):
going back but also goingforward, of how they play out in
your life and you can be like,oh yep, that's something I've
always valued and it's alwaysbeen important to me.
Right, like you will see it andyou can pinpoint it throughout
aspects of your whole life.
And Then you get to that pointwhere you, you have to come into
that place.
Really, that is yes, and Own it.

(50:55):
Right, and that's thatembodiment piece.
And that again comes fromcapacity.
And if your value is based onother people, right, we like to
think like well, that family isour my value, family is my value
.
Well, yes, you might have avalue of like community and
building community.
That's never gonna be the why.

(51:16):
It's always gonna be about yourenergetic expression and how
you operate.
And one of the things that yousaid is like it's an operating
value.
It's one of those things.
It's like this is how I show up, and it's usually four or five
that you always go back to, thatyou're like Whenever I know

(51:37):
that I can lean on this, I Knowthat I'm gonna be making a right
decision.
Or if I'm hot, they're almostthey are your decision makers
and then it's your code ofethics that takes the action
from those decision makers, butyour soul values will never
change.
Your goals may change, yourpriorities may change, your soul

(51:59):
values never change and you canfeel when you're really
Operating from that place,because it's very harmonious and
you're able to speak about themopenly, like I'm open.
If I were to, if you were to seea sheet of Core values of
somebody, were to give me thatand a thing spaciousness is not
gonna be on there, I canguarantee you.
No one wrote spaciousness as avalue, right?

(52:20):
So it's not gonna be thesegeneral terms that we think of
values.
It's going to probably besomething that's very unique to
you.
It is going to be very notprobably, it is going to be very
unique to you.
So, like spaciousness, that isa value of mine and I know
whenever I'm going throughsomething or whatever, it is
something I always rely on alongwith harmony and coherence and

(52:44):
Individuality and uniqueness andall of these things.

And so those are the things that are, that
are I lead and how I show up inmy life it very much feels like
leading from the inside out aswell, as I receive what you're
saying, where, if we're makingdecisions from those soul values
, I just imagine that thecreativity that comes from that,

(53:10):
the people we meet, the legacywe leave, it's all coming from
the inside out in a way, asopposed to Looking out there
first to see what's available,what have others done, what are
the roles I might be able toplay.
Okay, let me fit myself intothat box and take on these rules
or these values.

(53:31):
It's as you said that thatdeconditioning or Programming
process feels so important toeven be able to see what that
operating system is Within.
And I know that you talk inyour content and in your work
you talk about leadership almostas a system as well, and so, as

(53:53):
we sort of wind down here inour time together, I want to
maybe land in Just getting intothat a little bit more of if
leadership is a system of wholehumanness or whole well-being
and we, through how we show up,are leading, are leaving and
leading, I guess a legacy momentto moment.

(54:16):
It's like what goes intocurating that system.
I know you have so many amazingpractices, so I want to dig
into what that really means toyou and also where people can
learn more On how to work withyou to build their unique system
as well.

It's so unique to every person, right like it's so
nuanced, and that's why I lovethe work that I do.
It's because it's so nuancedand building Building that
system.
So I don't use the word system,I use the word structure and
I'll Build structure.
That's what it is, thank you,and this I was like system isn't

(54:55):
landing and that's what it'sactually a structure, and I talk
about an infrastructure andwhat you, just a second ago, is
it's this inside out approach,and so we want to have a
regenerative and expandingCapacity and that comes from
having a harmoniousInfrastructure and that starts

(55:17):
with your cells, that startswith your atomic structures and
that starts with cleaning thoseup, doing the deconditioning
work, shedding other people'srules and standing in your own
expression, right, yourenergetic expression.
And there's so many things thatyou can start doing and we talk

(55:38):
of.
They're everywhere, right,their mainstream.
But Spend time with yourjournals, give yourself some
space, and that doesn't mean youhave to write the whole time.
One of the things that I reallyhave come to embrace is the art
of contemplation.
Richard red talks about thisand the gene keys.
He actually has a whole bookcalled the art of contemplation.

(56:00):
But can you give yourself thistime.
We're contemplating, you'rethinking, not even thinking.
It's like the thoughts areclouds and you're just Rolling
from one cloud to the other.
You're in this open space again.
See, space always comes up.
Release the idea that it has tolook a certain way.
Right, like I'm going tojournal for five minutes Now.

(56:23):
Maybe you do have a time frameon it.
You know If you've got kids oryou know you've got to go to
work or all these other tasks inlife, so maybe you need to have
a time frame in that essence.
But can you offer yourself fiveminutes, be with you, right?
Can you sit in your car beforeyou go into work or go into the

(56:43):
grocery store and do a breathcheck in, which is something I
teach my clients?
Can you Do that three times inyour day and set that sort of
structure where you're like?
I do this.
How can you tune into your body?
Can you go to a yoga class?
Can you go get a massage andmaybe not a massage where we're

(57:05):
like, because this is the theorythat I used to have.
I used to be one of those peoplethat would be like no, I need a
deep tissue massage, right?
So I'd go to the person, and myhusband is six, three, 250
pounds and I will tell you I'vegone to massage therapists and
I've had him go to you goes.
She hurt me so good.
But I realized for me I thoughtI had to like really press on

(57:29):
that wound and really work itout.
And that's not actually how weheal.
We don't feel by pressing onthe wound.
We heal by holding it in space.
And so even how I my massagetherapist and my Not my practice
but who I see and what's Ivalue as far as my massage work,

(57:51):
body work has changed.
I'm not looking for those peoplethat are going to dig it out of
me but that can hold me asleaders.
We need to find places where wecan feel safe to be led,
because we're so used to beingthe leader in all aspects of our
life.
We need to find those placesthat we feel safe so we can be

(58:14):
held, so we can be led, and thatalso starts with you holding
yourself.
Take five minutes multipletimes a day to check in, do a
breath, check in, do some sortof like coherence coming into
coherence practice and You'llstart to see the benefits of

(58:35):
that.
It does not have to becomplicated.
We think it has to becomplicated to make impact and,
honestly, the smallest thingsthat you can do consistently are
going to create the biggestimpact.
So that's the point of astructure.
And I look at structure.
We're so used and a lot ofpeople are traumatized by the
word structure because thestructures that we that exist

(58:56):
within us right now, are aroundus are so traumatic, right?
So I've used structure, as Isee it, as scaffolding, right?
You think about scaffolding ona building.
There's a ton of, like, openspace, but there's still
something that's secure, that issecure and anchors you.
So Find anchor pointsthroughout your day, throughout

(59:17):
your week, month and year whereyou can be like, am I checking
in with myself?
And that's part of the workthat I do with my clients, my
I'll dive into a little bitabout my work and how you can
work with me and how you can,you know, be in with my energy.

(59:38):
Amazing, I have a year-longprogram.
It's called quantum leadershipmastery and it is a year-long
and it's for pretty much all ofthe reasons that I've talked
about today.
I feel like, right, likethere's work that Before we get
to that point where you'retaking aligned actions with ease
, you got to know what alignmentfeels like to you.

(59:58):
So in my work there's fivepillars that we work on.
It's mastering the art of yourown unique energetic expression,
embracing your natural geniusto amplify your magnetic
presence.
Embodying your soul mission tocreate the legacy with

(01:00:20):
effortless ease.
And cultivating a deep sense ofself-worth and belonging to
elevate your self from external,to liberate yourself from
external circumstances and toestablish that harmonious
infrastructure for regenerativeand expanded capacity.
And that's why it's a year-long.

(01:00:41):
All of those things are verynuanced for my clients they're
very deep and I wouldn't bedoing it just if I said it was
here's 12 weeks and you're gonnaget all of this.
I feel my job is.
If you need to keep coming backto me, then I haven't done my
job.
So it is.

(01:01:01):
It's.
It's expansive in that timeframe of a year, which I know
feels so big.
But as time is speeding up, asour frequency of the earth
increases, time is like here weare four by time.
You guys are listening to thistotally.
So that is the work.
If you can always reach out tome, you can also join me on my.

(01:01:25):
It's a sub stack.
It's called expanded andembodied, and in my sub stack
you can have access to my wordsand my wisdom.
I do podcast on there, I dowritings, things like that, so
there's lots of content that youcan dive into in that aspect as
well.
So amazing.

Nicole Bellisle (01:01:45):
Thank you, yeah , thank you, for inviting this
community over there To and justall of the work that you're
doing in the language thatyou're using, the frameworks
that you are sharing.
That in and of itself, feels sohealing.
And even just interacting Witha human who's really embodying

(01:02:05):
what they're saying feels sonourishing.
Every time I come across oneand you absolutely are I
appreciate how, even in yourprogram Design, you're really
embracing and embodying thissoul value of spaciousness as
well, like really Really lettingthat breathe and having
integration occur along thatjourney.

(01:02:27):
So I'd, yeah, no doubt that thediscoveries, the structure, the
habits that people woulduncover in that would really
lead to A different version ofself is how I often think about
it kind of like leading us To afuture self.
That that is the living there,is the living leader, if you

(01:02:47):
will, that that we want to be.
That's one reason we've namedthe podcast and and the
non-profit living leaders,because it is A living journey
that we're on and it does takethe whole human to be
participating.
So I just want to, yeah, endwith such deep gratitude for the
work that you're doing and howyou're showing up.
I'm so grateful to have crossedpaths with you.

(01:03:08):
I know that I'll be coming tohang out In your community as
well, and I can't wait.
Jen, thank you so much forbeing on the show today.
This has been.
Yeah, I'm gonna be thinkingabout this for days, if not
weeks, to come.

Jenn Redden (01:03:21):
Hey, you have some time to do that right because
you've got some pop right.

Yes, exactly.
Yeah, I'll be integrating inthis spaciousness too.

I always love our conversations.
I really do.
It's something that I've like Isaid we've only met and really
this is like our secondconversation.
Yeah, we've had more than oneright like this is like we've
been in a couple of lifetimestogether, I'm pretty sure.

Yeah, yeah, definitely feeling that.
Yeah, this is certainly justthe beginning.

Yeah, and I can't wait to have you come over to
expanded and embodied, and Ithink we've got a couple of
things coming up for you toshare.
So yeah a lot of fun amazing.

Jen, thank you so much, and, listeners, thanks
for tuning in to another episodeof living leaders.
We will see you next episodefor more exploration through the
many dimensions of leadershipand all that we are
transitioning to in this newparadigm of work and of business
.
So, thank you and we'll see younext time.
We're

All Episodes

Quantum Leadership and Embodying Soul Values | Jennifer Redden | Ep. 28

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Quantum Leadership and Embodying Soul Values | Jennifer Redden | Ep. 28