Rick Smith: Awakened Leadership Starts with Welcoming Everything

On episode 22, we drop into the body and rediscover authenticity with Rick Smith, an Authentic Relating (AR) Expert with a background in classroom teaching and education consulting. Over the past twenty years, he’s spoken to over 100,000 people in fifteen countries on five continents. His best-selling book Conscious Classroom Management has now sold over a quarter million copies, and continues to touch the lives of teachers and their students.

This conversation is an experiential taste of authenticity (and how to integrate this into modern day leadership), much like a mindful yoga flow for communication. In this dynamic conversation, we unpack the true meaning of Awakened Leadership and how it all begins with learning how to lead yourself. We explore the power of listening, presencing and adopting the mantra “I don’t know” to cultivate this potential. Not to mention, so much of where we begin starts by fundamentally relaxing the nervous system in a new way. From here, everything else becomes possible. 

While AR began as a movement in San Francisco in the late 90s, it has grown worldwide to 14 different countries and is catching fire not just in New Age-y communities, but in spaces we’d probably expect least -- businesses, the corporate sector and conflict transformation. According to Rick, this has everything to do with “people discovering themselves and creating tools to carry it forward.” 

Key topics we cover include:

• Why Authentic Relating is so much more than “The Club Where You Bare Your Soul To Strangers,” as featured in The Atlantic

• How leaders can balance vulnerability and authentic power at the same time, especially when imposter syndrome kicks in

• The key qualities of stepping into awakened leadership, including “shifting from performance into presence” and “inner apology to inner authority” 

• The importance of presencing and calming the nervous system to tap into power (and practices to support this)

More about the show: https://www.digseedgrow.com/thealtnormal-podcast

Produced by Resonance™, the creative practice of Dig | Seed | Grow

This show is hosted at Destination Outpost, a coliving and coworking community based out in Bali.