The Future Of Wise Leadership With Dr. Emma Sappälä

In this episode of The Wise Effort Show, Dr. Diana Hill and Dr. Emma Seppälä explore the true essence of wise leadership. They discuss common misconceptions about leadership, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness, compassion, and positive energy.

Listen and Learn:

The Importance of Self-Awareness in Leadership
Positive Leadership and Energy
The Future of Leadership
The Impact of Emotional Connection Through Authentic Leadership

Transcript

What does it mean to be a wise leader?

That's what we're going to explore today on The Wise Effort Show with Dr.

Emma Cepalla.

Welcome back.

I'm Dr.

Diana Hill and I like to think of myself as a leader and I think of you as a leader too.

Many of us have these misconceptions about what it means to be a wise leader.

We think it means being financially successful,

Having a certain title or power or maybe having a corner office where somebody brings you coffee.

Actually someone does bring me coffee on a regular basis and it does show my leadership skills.

Thank you,

Honey,

For the decaf.

But wise leadership is so much more than that.

We discount all of the small ways that we lead every day.

So you are a leader when you are pushing that shopping cart back at the grocery store.

You know you are.

People see it.

Way to lead there.

But you're also a leader in your household when you acknowledge that you made a mistake to your kids.

You're a leader when you organize your book club and you work together to try and find a book that you all can agree on.

You also are a leader in the workplace when you take the time to get to know the people that you work with.

You care about their knee surgery.

You care about their sick cat.

But most importantly,

You actually really do care about their well-being.

I don't know if you've heard this term,

But there's a term in wellness now that came from a Harvard Business Review article,

Care washing.

So companies have caught on to seeing the link between employee well-being and productivity.

And as a result,

They are creating these workshops,

Webinars,

Interventions to show that they quote,

Really care about the people that are working there.

We know from a 2024 Gallup poll that the percentage of employees who firmly believe their organization cares about their well-being decreased from 49% in 2020 to 21% in 2024.

So even as these wellness workshops are rising,

People are more skeptical about,

Really,

Do you care?

And part of that is this care washing.

So they'll do things like ask you to do an hour long webinar on work-life balance while also sending you emails during that webinar that you have to respond to later that night.

That is not wise leadership.

Dr.

Emma Sapala today is going to talk to us about what is wise leadership,

What it actually could look like in your household,

In your book club,

In your workplace.

And it has to do with wise effort.

It has to do with being what she calls a positive energizer.

She's one of the first people that I've actually talked to about energy on this show.

And part of that is that she has her own contemplative practice and she gets it.

And she talks about energy being all bound up and energy being freed up when we are wise leaders.

Dr.

Emma Sapala teaches leadership at the Yale School of Management as well as serves as the science director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University.

Her newest book that just came out is called Sovereign,

Reclaim Your Freedom,

Energy,

And Power in the Time of Distraction,

Uncertainty,

And Chaos.

When you step into wise leadership,

You will be uplifted.

You will feel energized.

You will also be inspiring others to become wise leaders right alongside you.

If we need anything right now,

We could use more wise leaders on this planet.

So take a listen to Dr.

Emma Sapala,

All about sovereign leadership,

Wise leadership,

And how you can engage it in your life right now,

Right here today as a wise leader.

So what we're going to talk about today is what does it mean to be a sovereign leader?

And you have worked so much in the area of leadership and training leaders,

Working through Stanford and a lot of other different places,

And have a very different take on,

I think,

On leadership.

But maybe even just define sovereign first,

Which is the title of your book.

I mean,

As someone who's looked at the science of happiness and well-being and leadership for the last 20 years,

I just didn't find a word in psychology to be able to have that inner freedom.

And as a leader,

If you want to show up as the most powerful version of yourself,

Then it really behooves you to cultivate inner sovereignty,

Not just the outer.

In some ways,

That inner sovereignty then is in exchange with others to help them bring their inner sovereignty to the table too,

Right?

That's the sort of co-creation of leadership.

I mean,

I really think the best leaders are ones that have enough,

We could use the word,

Inner sovereignty to then create space for more leaders to rise.

And that's a very different model.

And you have to be able to tolerate things like self-doubt,

But also not believe that it's all about you,

Right?

That there's something bigger than you.

I mean,

The first thing a leader needs to have is self-awareness,

You know?

Because as a leader,

You're being watched.

And research shows that as employees,

Watch their leaders carefully.

And you're being watched.

Some kids watch their parents.

Yeah,

Exactly.

Students watch their teachers,

Right?

Yeah,

Whatever leader you are.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And can we see through people?

A hundred percent.

We can see through people.

And so as the leader,

The most important work you do is your own inner work,

Is your own self-awareness,

Growing your own self-awareness,

Knowing yourself,

Knowing where you need help,

Knowing your state of mind at any given moment.

Because if you're going to show up in that meeting and you're stressed and burned out and your mind's all over the place and you're supposed to lead a team,

They're going to see through you.

They're going to feel not seen.

They may even feel disrespected because you may not show up with emotional intelligence or self-awareness that moment.

And so the most critical aspect for a leader is to have that internal work that they're doing,

Whether it's through meditative practices,

Where they get to know and understand and see their own mind so that they go throughout the day with greater self-awareness,

So that before going into that team meet,

If they check in with themselves and are like,

Oh,

Look,

I'm burned out and a little irritated and hungry,

They know to either take care of that before they go in the meeting or reschedule the meeting,

Right?

Because they want to be able to show up the best version of themselves.

And what we know is that when leaders have cultivated a greater calm and self-awareness within their mind,

They show up with more emotional intelligence and better decision making.

They show up as more creative.

They show up as having better cognitive skills like memory,

Attention,

And focus.

And they show up more present.

We know from research on charisma that if you break it down,

It's not like some God-given gift to the lucky few.

It's the ability to be absolutely present with somebody.

And when you talk about,

Oh,

Somebody who's very charismatic,

They'll say,

The person made me feel like I was the only person in the room.

How do they do that?

Because they're so fully present.

We live in a time and age where people are not present,

Not present at all.

Completely distracted.

And their mind is full of over 60,

000 gigabytes of information that we take in across media channels every day.

That's what the average American takes in.

So leaders can really stand out by doing.

So first of all,

Their inner work,

Right?

Leading from within.

That's one of the most important things to do.

Because what happens then is that when you show up as your best self.

That's one of the aspects.

One of the aspects of leadership that's so important and yet often not practiced.

Well,

It takes some humility,

Right?

Because I think that's related to the charisma concept.

Humility and openness.

So the humility is to say,

I'm actually in a spot right now where I'm not going to do a good job.

And because I care enough about the group that I'm in,

I need to either take a moment to re-center myself.

Or I need to take a week to regroup.

Or whatever it is,

That you have that humility.

No human is perfect all the time.

And that you need to step aside or step down or get help.

I actually think the best leaders are the ones that have therapists or have coaches or have a team that is giving them feedback and that they're leaning on.

But the openness,

Not just openness in terms of sharing vulnerability,

But actually physical openness.

When I think about somebody that is a good leader.

So I was just at a good friend of mine.

He started coffee farming across California.

And he now oversees,

I think,

Like 28 coffee farms.

It's like this new,

Innovative way of farming.

He's like this massive leader in the coffee industry,

Right?

But when you see him talk to farmers or talk to groups,

He has an energy to him,

An openness with his body.

He's not crossing his arms,

Closed off,

Looking down.

I mean,

There's not just confidence,

But I'm open to this moment.

And energy of what we're creating here.

It seems like another aspect to leadership that we have that awareness,

We have humility,

But then we also show up in an open way.

Yes.

And some of the research that I love teaching in our classes at Yale,

But also that I wrote about in Sovereign is this sort of new field of research called positive leadership,

Which looks at,

I think we all know,

We've all heard the term energy vampires,

Been around for 25 years or 30 years,

This idea of just how we feel depleted around certain people.

But what this research is showing is that around other kinds of people,

We feel enlivened.

We feel energized.

And when leaders are that,

When leaders are positively energizing,

Then what the research shows is that their companies do better.

They have more loyalty,

Less turnover,

And the employees are more engaged.

And the bottom line is better.

It's just financially makes more sense.

They're financially more competitive.

When you break it down,

What my colleagues found was that when you look at organizations,

And there's always these subgroups that are super productive.

And whenever you look into what it is in those subgroups that makes them so productive,

It's this one person at the middle who they describe as sort of a positively energizing leader.

And they're creating life around them.

And it's just so powerful because the companies that tend to do better have more of those types of leaders,

Which just sounds like the person you're talking about has that.

And it's very inspiring to be around them.

It's life-giving.

And when you break down to what is it about them,

Yes,

They do the internal work.

They are self-aware.

They are humble.

But the other side is that they have these deep human values,

So kindness,

Compassion,

Empathy,

Forgiveness,

Humility,

And so forth.

Because they have those values,

People not only feel safe around them,

But also feel seen,

Heard,

Valued,

Appreciated.

It doesn't mean that those kind of leaders have to be charismatic or have to be great public speakers or anything like that.

But in the interactions they have,

Whether it's from a stage or one-on-one,

They leave the other person feel,

Again,

Seen,

Heard,

Valued,

Appreciated,

Uplifted.

And it's so powerful and has been so undervalued as a quality in leaders.

And yet,

It's the leadership of the future.

And it's also what Generation Z wants in their leaders.

Right.

And it's when we think about our own history,

The people that have the coaches,

The teachers,

The employers that we remember that shifted us in some way that we were like,

Oh,

I wanted to go to work that day,

Or I felt like I could push myself a little harder than how I was pushing myself in my sport.

It's from those leaders.

And it's a different kind of motivation,

That kind of like that energy that's pulling them than it is the punitive or,

Oh,

No,

I'm going to get in trouble motivation.

Oh,

Yeah.

That's depleting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so it's almost like there's almost,

With that inner awareness,

It's almost like you can have inner awareness of that energy,

What is energizing you,

What is resourcing you,

And then what is draining you and depleting you.

You can do that as a leader,

But you can also,

Like all of us,

Can be doing that on a regular basis.

When you think about like a toxic workplace,

You're like,

Okay,

There's a lot of people who drain your energy,

And then positively energizing workplaces when you have leaders or people who give you energy.

But you could think of the same thing with yourself.

Do I have a toxic relationship with myself by putting myself down?

Am I not listening to my needs,

My physical needs,

My emotional needs,

Et cetera?

Or do I have an energizing relationship with myself?

And when you have an energizing relationship with yourself,

You have more to give to others as a leader.

It makes me think about self-leadership,

Richard Swartz of Internal Family Systems,

Because he takes this whole model of a family system that exists within ourselves and that we have all these different parts,

Like the disgruntled employee in there and the burned out and the anxious one that's criticizing everything.

But then we have the capacity for self-leadership,

For our wisest,

Most compassionate self to come in and hear everybody out.

Like,

Okay,

You have a reason for being disgruntled and validate and hear.

But then also sort of wrap them all into more of a cohesive,

Like,

We're part of something here.

We're going to work together.

And how can we make this work in the best possible way for all of us,

Right?

And it feels like you could do that in the inner world.

And then that translates maybe also,

If you can do it in your inner world,

Translates how you see your outer world,

Your family system or your work system.

Yes.

And one thing I forgot to mention was that when positively.

.

.

So most energy depletes with use,

Like physical energy,

Emotional energy,

Et cetera.

But what the researchers have found who study positively energizing leadership is that as you engage with others and uplift them,

Energize them,

It actually in turn energizes you.

So it's not an energy that depletes with use.

So it both uplifts the other and continuously feeds you.

So that's the beauty.

And from research we've looked at on compassion,

We found that.

.

.

And if I could summarize the last 20 years of researching happiness,

I could summarize it in one sentence is that the happiest people who also live the longest and healthiest lives are the people who balance compassion for others with compassion for themselves.

And our society tells us buy this,

Do this,

Achieve this,

Look like this,

Whatever,

And then you'll be happy.

And yet what the research shows is that actually our greatest happiness comes from doing something beyond ourselves.

It's not just about us,

But uplifting others,

Being of service in some way.

And when we are,

It not only benefits them,

But ourselves as well.

Again,

There's no marketing agents making a lot of money for us to learn these messages that,

Oh,

I don't actually need all that stuff that they said.

But man,

People are hungry for energy.

You know,

This feeling of spinning our wheels or working harder at something and getting nowhere.

And when we tap into energy as a renewable resource that's available right here,

Right now by the ways in which we're engaging in the world,

Then it's not about like,

Oh,

I'm going to make more money.

It's actually,

Wow,

I actually feel more energized in my life.

And that is priceless.

Like that is wealth.

At least that's wealth to me.

I can sit on piles of money,

Have vacations up the wall.

But if I'm like hating my husband on my vacation or hating my body or whatever,

That's not worth it.

Right?

So I was being interviewed.

They're doing a story on resilience.

And I was talking about this class that we were working on at UCSB,

Where it's part of a research study where we're looking at college students and resilience.

And when I started the class,

Teaching the class,

I thought there's no way I can add this to my schedule.

I'm overbooked,

Overloaded.

There's no space for this.

But inside of me,

I felt this like intense desire to do it.

It was like a whole body yes.

Yeah.

Right?

So what's going on here?

I have no space for this,

But it's a whole body yes.

So I decided to not follow my head,

But follow my body.

And that course,

Friday morning,

Teaching these college students,

Engaging with them in these resilience activities,

Fed me so much energy back that it carried me through the week,

Even though I was working at something.

I feel like that's what,

When you're engaging in that type of way as a leader,

I mean,

I was sort of a leader as a,

You know,

Leading this class,

You can do it in a way,

Even if you feel like it's an extra thing on your plate,

You can actually do it and be energized by it,

Which is like a total mind shift.

I had to move stuff around and not take on some other things.

But that's not what energized me.

What energized me was following the whole body yes.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

And you were helping them and it was helping you.

I mean,

It's just so,

And that is a form of leadership that,

Think about it,

Like that kind of leader,

If they're engaging with others that way,

They're not going to burn out.

Right.

And the country.

It's amazing.

It's the future of leadership.

That's what the research shows.

So,

Okay.

And we're facing,

I mean,

Even just talking about this concept of leadership is a little bit hairy because we're on the edge of,

You know,

In the United States,

Some big decisions around the leadership of our country.

And it feels like we're so far off from that type of leadership that you're talking about from sovereign leadership.

Right.

So how do you envision that shift happening?

I mean,

Does it happen at the grassroots level and then we all start feeling the energy of it and,

You know,

It spreads or.

I teach leaders,

You know,

At the Yale School of Management.

And I always think,

You know,

If we can teach,

If we can share this data,

Which has been,

Which is serious data that's been conducted in organizations on leadership.

We know this is the future of leadership.

So I teach leaders all the time,

This data.

They're like,

Oh,

Okay.

And I always feel like,

Great,

If we can get this information to leaders.

And we've written a couple of Harvard Business Review articles on this topic and they've both gone viral.

People want this,

They're hungry for this.

And this is all hard science.

And if the leaders understand this and interact with their employees like this,

Which a lot of them say,

Oh,

I do this already and it really works,

But maybe my larger system doesn't get it yet.

I'm like,

It doesn't matter.

If it's working for you,

You're going to be successful and other people are going to ask you what you're doing and you're going to ascend to higher leadership.

But what the research shows is that when leaders engage with their employees in this way,

Not only do their employees perform better and there's all these fantastic results,

But also the employee's family well-being is higher.

I mean,

This is how you create,

You really shift a whole society.

And so I do,

I mean,

The organizations that have more of these leaders are doing better and are going to be doing better.

So it is the leader,

The future of leadership.

Now in politics and the government,

We always know that moves slower than everything else.

But,

You know,

Hopefully as people- Semi-truck trying to make a turn.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We're all Vespas out here.

We're like,

Yeah,

We're on it.

Leadership.

Yeah.

But wait,

That's a semi-truck.

So when you're saying leaders like this,

Like concretize that for me,

And it's kind of- Positively energizing leaders.

Positively energizing leaders.

The ones that I just researched,

That I talked about.

Yeah.

And the self-awareness was one of the things that you were talking about.

There's one aspect,

Which is that self-awareness and knowing how to take care of your own state of mind,

You know,

Whether to contemplative practices,

Self-awareness,

Whether it's,

You know,

The therapy or coaching or whatever is being aware of your own self and knowing how to fill your tank.

That's on one hand,

Right?

And then the other aspect is how do you then,

From a fuller tank,

I mean,

We don't always have a full tank,

But that you're,

You know,

You know,

You're actively working on that.

How then to interact with others in a way that's also positively energizing,

Which research shows has a lot to do with your values and how you engage,

Right?

If you're engaging with compassion,

With empathy,

With humility,

With forgiveness,

Kindness,

You know,

Honesty,

Integrity,

Like those things you learned about like as a kid,

Like at your church or something,

But it's not Pollyannish,

It's hard data.

And if you think about it,

How do we feel around people who have those values?

Safe.

Seen,

Heard,

Valued,

Appreciated.

And I think after food and shelter,

Our greatest concern is safety.

So if we feel safe,

But if we don't feel seen,

We don't feel heard,

We don't feel respected,

We don't feel valued.

That's depleting.

That's still toxic,

Right?

But if we do feel those things because we're around,

We're working with someone who has values,

Then that's actually it.

It's not really hard.

Now,

It does come into play,

Right?

How do they interact?

What do they do?

I mean,

They acknowledge others.

There's generosity,

There's gratitude,

Those kinds of things.

I mean,

And there's a whole list of behaviors that go with that.

But the overarching is that it's led by these values.

Yeah.

So it's those times.

I mean,

I,

You know,

Think about,

You know,

Graduate school,

The times when a professor actually stopped and,

You know,

Pulled me aside and was like,

How are you really doing?

How are things going for you?

I mean,

These were rare,

But they did happen every once in a while.

And,

You know,

Asked about my dog,

You know,

Who was sick.

Things like that,

The human,

The humanness of us,

That bringing that into the workplace,

Which has so much,

I mean,

In my workplace,

That's all it was about,

You know,

In terms of therapy.

But in most workplaces,

That's something that's sort of either pushed aside or you're afraid that you're going to be either as a leader seen as weak or that you're wasting your time.

This is the other aspect of it.

We think that is a waste of time to check in with people,

To hear from people,

Or that we are wasting other people's time by sharing about how we're doing.

And what you're saying is actually these skills of empathy and forgiveness and compassion are the skills that will actually energize you to be a better leader and to make your team more,

Not make them,

But support your team in being more productive.

It's the same thing that we need to do as parents or also in our schools.

Same principles,

But somehow we forget it after preschool on.

We get it for preschool and that's about it.

Yeah.

It's very strange.

When I'm teaching executives,

I often ask,

Like,

OK,

So,

You know,

How do companies usually command loyalty?

So people usually say money or benefits,

Right?

And then I say,

OK,

So think back on a mentor who was there for you in your life.

Could have been in childhood,

Young adulthood,

Could have been in your professional work,

Who was there for you at no benefit to themselves.

They just saw you for who you were.

They sponsored you.

They mentored you.

They coached you.

They just saw you,

Whatever it was that they did,

And valued you for who you were.

If that person were to call you right now,

Would you just drop everything and pick up the phone?

If they said,

I have an emergency,

Please call me,

Would you call them?

Would you drop anything you're doing?

Yes,

Right?

The first type of loyalty that organizations try to command through financials or benefits,

That's not loyalty.

Because the next company over can buy your loyalty,

Right?

But that relationship with that mentor who was there for you is an undying loyalty that came out of a deep relationship with someone else where you felt that they had your back.

They saw you,

Heard you,

Valued you,

Appreciated you.

Uplifted you,

Wanted the best for you.

That's what loyalty comes from.

And so those interactions that you had with a graduate professor who showed interest in you beyond just what he had to do for his job or she had to do for her job,

That's something that we,

Those are moments we don't forget.

And so oftentimes leaders will be like,

Well,

I don't have time to like build relationships with everyone.

It doesn't take time.

Two minutes of you sharing concern or care or interest in someone else's life,

Especially if you're at a higher status than them or you don't need to be doing this,

They remember just like you remember that experience with your professor.

It's powerful.

And we remember it both ways.

As you were saying that,

I was remembering Deborah Safer who,

When I was at CU Boulder,

She was my co-mentor.

She was at Stanford and she was my co-mentor on my dissertation.

So Deborah,

I'd go out to Stanford and train with her and we'd go to workshops and things like that.

And I remember at one conference,

She had like a new baby and she was walking me around,

Introducing me to all these people.

We're in our like power suits.

Right.

And then we'd go to the bathroom and she'd pump breast milk in the bathroom.

And like,

I knew this was happening for her because I was like her sidekick.

Right.

And then I remember her coming out and me just saying,

Thank you so much for modeling this to me.

Like,

I didn't know how I'm going to possibly do this.

I want to have a baby in the near future.

I think it was like 29 or 28 or something like that.

I want to have a baby.

And I didn't know how you do this.

Like,

And it also seems really hard.

Like I was giving her that moment of as a leader,

Seeing her as a human.

And then a few years later,

I'd written my dissertation,

Graduated,

Gone on.

I had a baby and she sent me the sweetest gift of a little embroidered towel for my baby with his,

You know,

His initials on it.

And just was this introduction to motherhood and,

You know,

All of these aspects of me as a PhD student,

Somebody from some hotshot from Stanford,

We had a connection and I would do anything for her.

I mean,

Now,

You know,

I think of that experience fondly to be able to see our leaders as humans and for our leaders to see us as humans.

And that made me be able to like integrate myself because I think,

Especially in certain types of settings,

We compartmentalize so much and it doesn't feel safe.

You know,

Like it doesn't feel safe to talk about motherhood when we're at a professional conference,

Even though it's consuming so much of our mind and our energy and our time.

And that's what we're thinking about,

Especially when you have a newborn and that modeling,

You know,

The modeling of being human.

Everything else is a show.

Yeah.

It's not,

It's a show.

It's toxic in its own way.

Why can't we just be authentic?

Why can't we be real?

What's wrong with that?

You know,

Like when I wrote my book,

People are like,

Oh,

You're so brave.

You shared all these stories.

I'm like,

Everybody's got stories.

Everybody's done something ridiculous,

Failed,

Whatever.

It doesn't,

You know,

The more we pretend that we haven't,

The less favors we're doing anyone,

Including ourselves.

You know what I mean?

You can't,

It's,

You know,

Of course,

There's like,

You don't want to be inappropriate and all that.

But the more real we can be,

Also the more guard we can let down on ourselves,

But on others.

Because the thing is,

Like I said earlier,

We see through people.

Someone's putting on an act or a show,

You can see it and you don't feel comfortable and you don't feel connected.

Research shows that,

And this is a study that in our,

In grad school,

In our lab that was conducted in our lab,

You know,

If somebody's hiding anger,

For example,

Let's say like I were hiding anger and I had a big smile on my face,

You wouldn't intellectually know,

But your heart rate would go up.

Because our heart rate goes up around it,

Around inauthenticity,

Because we registered as threat.

So in equine facilitated therapy,

Which I'm sure you've heard of,

You know,

In the therapist using a horse would say a patient and then the patient,

Let's say it's a kid who's scared of the horse and they show up and they're like,

Oh,

I'm not scared of the horse,

I'm just fine.

But they're scared.

The horse is all over the place.

The horse is moving,

Anxious.

And as soon as the child says,

I'm scared,

The horse calms down.

I'm like,

What's happening here?

The horse doesn't understand English,

But there are animals of prey and they register inauthenticity physiologically as threat because you don't know what's coming.

And we have the same exact response.

When someone's being inauthentic physiologically,

Our heart rate goes up,

Our fight or flight kicks in.

So,

You know,

When I think about all this sort of posturing,

Really,

Which it is that we do when we're pretending compartmentalizing like crazy,

Is that first of all,

There's no connection happening.

And we know that after food and shelter,

That's our most greatest need is after feeling safe is positive connection,

Including at work.

There's this idea,

OK,

Leave your emotions at the door.

Oh,

These are just work relationships.

They don't matter.

But research shows that your heart health is directly related to your relationship with your boss.

So your relationship with your boss directly impacts your risk of heart attack,

Heart disease,

High blood pressure.

So just because it's a work relationship,

Your body registers it in the same way as it would a personal relationship that you're dealing with.

There's no such thing as compartmentalizing that.

And that's why as a leader,

If you can be a leader that's a really healthy leader,

An authentic leader who's leading with values,

Not only are you benefiting yourself,

But you're benefiting everyone around you.

You're creating a place that's conductive to work,

Conducive to work,

Conducive to innovation,

Creativity,

Emotional,

Intelligence,

Health,

A healthy culture,

Which of course becomes a highly productive culture.

That's what the data shows.

I love all of that.

The horse example is so good because in that example,

The horse is asking you to lead and to lead from a sovereign position,

Right?

Because it's so dangerous to the horse if you're going to get on it.

And if you're,

I mean,

My son horseback rides and he's talked about,

And he's had some emotional,

He's very sensitive emotionally.

And he's talked about how learning how to be on a horse and relate and connect with this horse has helped him so much in his confidence because he knows that it has to be from the inside out.

You cannot fake it on these animals.

You cannot fake it.

And so he has to have that strong posture,

That spine,

That sort of the,

I'm here and I'm also sensitive and aware to what's happening for you.

And I'm also trusting you.

I mean,

It's bidirectional,

Right?

Because the rider trusts the horse and gives a lot of trust to the power of the horse.

And I think a leader trusts the people that they are leading.

When I was working with that class of students,

I'm trusting them to show up and teach me just as much as I'm teaching them,

Right?

That this is the way that our classroom is going to go.

It could go really bad really quickly with a group of 50 undergraduates,

Right?

And so I have to also trust that they have wisdom that they're bringing and they know some stuff.

They know a lot more about what it's like to be a 20,

You know,

19,

20 year old than I do.

They're way advanced technologically,

More advanced than I am.

So this is the bidirectionality of it.

And you can't fake it.

And if you try and fake it,

They know it,

Especially.

Oh,

Absolutely.

I mean,

The only way you can get away with faking is when people are highly distracted,

Which our society is highly distracted.

So you can get away with it for a little bit.

But if anyone's paying attention,

And that's why leaders need to be really,

I think meditation,

Contemplative practices are so essential for leaders because then you're paying attention.

You're able to focus.

You're able to see.

Research shows that you're actually able to physically see more things when you engage in contemplative practices.

Some of my colleagues did a task.

It's called the attentional blink.

So if I were to show you a bunch of pictures of cats and embed two pictures of hats and tell you how many hats did you see,

The regular person would say one because we hook our attention on the first,

Skip,

Miss the second.

But after going through meditation retreat,

My colleagues found that people didn't show the attentional blink as much.

So literally,

When you calm your mind down,

You're able to see more things.

You can think about how that plays out as a leader.

You're working with your team and you look around the room and it's like you're present.

You're like,

Oh,

Look,

So-and-so who I see every single day.

Looks different today.

They look tired.

They look a little down.

Like what's going on?

Let me check in with them because they're also involved with one of the big projects we're leading.

Oh,

OK.

They were in the emergency room all night with their child.

OK,

So first of all,

Let me attend to them.

Make sure they're OK.

Give them some space.

Give them what they need.

With compassion,

Right?

And two,

Let me see if I can hand this project around so that others can also take the baton where this person needs to,

You know,

Check out for a few days.

So that's both.

But if a leader who's distracted,

Who's not paying attention,

Who hasn't,

Doesn't have those skills,

They wouldn't even see that.

You're like,

Why is that person?

Why is that person checked out today?

And be mad about it maybe,

You know,

Not curious,

Not or perhaps not even see it.

So there's a training of attention there that good leaders need to train their attention,

Not only their awareness of their inside,

But attending to the interactions with others.

But I also think,

You know,

I think mindfulness,

Meditation,

Meditation is often the thing that we talk about in terms of training our attention.

And I've also seen highly trained folks that do other things to train their attention.

So,

For example,

A photographer trains their attention on light and like being able to see light or see negative space,

Or be able to see moments that are really like sort of like this is that this is like an emotional moment that I should capture,

Right?

So doing something where you're honing your skills in photography,

Or my mom,

Who's a painter,

She has so much like her ability to see something,

The details of something beautiful is so like so skilled,

Because she's basically been practicing mindfulness of seeing shapes and seeing colors for so many years,

That we can train our or we can train our attention through yoga,

The practice of paying attention to from the inside out,

Not looking in the mirror,

But looking inside your body,

What feels aligned.

That's what I that's how I like to train my attention is like,

Okay,

What feels aligned to my body,

Which parts of my body are calling to me right now,

That need me to focus more attention on and maybe loosen up around.

But doesn't matter.

I mean,

I sometimes we often because I go to as mindfulness meditation or meditation,

But I just want to encourage the listeners that you can train your attention through riding horses,

You can train your attention through photography,

You can train your attention through archery.

But no matter what you do,

When you're training your attention in that way,

It will actually translate to how you can attend in the workplace.

And that is something that we all are a little bit deficient in or getting worse at with all the distractions that we're facing.

Yeah,

Yeah.

There's external awareness,

But then there's internal awareness.

I'm not a fan of mindfulness myself.

I mean,

One of the reasons is that,

You know,

I had anxiety.

I was in New York during 9-11.

And after that,

I had massive amounts of anxiety at 830 every morning.

And,

You know,

Sitting down doing mindfulness when you're anxious,

This is a mess because you just become more aware of it.

And it wasn't working for me.

Besides,

I'm an academic,

And I feel like academics are so in their head.

And the mindfulness keeps you in your head,

Which is why I think academics love it.

I'm like,

It just keeps you in the same headspace.

And I've been working with veterans with trauma and so forth.

The veterans don't want to do mindfulness.

They don't want to be stuck in their head.

They're in their body.

And they also,

In some cases,

Like me,

Don't want to become super aware of their anxiety.

And so what actually worked for me after 9-11,

Which is why as a psychologist,

I then researched phenomenon was a breathing practice.

I walked into a breathing practice in New York City and learned it.

It's called Sky Breath Meditation.

It was through a nonprofit started in India called Art of Living.

And I'm walking to this class like,

I don't know what this is.

But I learned this breathing protocol.

And it's a 20-minute breathing protocol that you do every day.

And I noticed that,

Wow,

It was the first thing that finally gave me inner sovereignty over that feeling of anxiety.

I was able to move on after 9-11.

And 10 years later,

I was working with veterans with trauma.

And again,

The VA next door was trying mindfulness.

And everybody's dropping out of there.

And I was like,

Yeah,

I understand why they're dropping out.

But we were thinking,

Well,

What could we do?

Because a lot of the therapies and pharmaceuticals for post-traumatic stress,

Veterans either didn't want to do them or did not like the side effects.

And so we're self-medicating with alcohol and drugs.

And as you know,

The suicide rate to this day is horrendous.

And so I thought,

Well,

Let's do this.

So we raised some funds to try and run a study on this.

And what we found was that after a week of them practicing the Sky Breath Meditation,

Their anxiety had normalized compared to the control group that did not.

And physiologically,

They were responding with much less of a startle response.

The more their anxiety normalized,

The more physiologically we saw this wasn't just them telling us,

They were no longer displaying those anxiety symptoms physiologically.

And then we recently ran a similar study through the Palo Alto VA with a larger group,

Men and women,

And found that the Sky Breath Meditation protocol is at least as effective as cognitive processing therapy,

The gold standard therapy for post-traumatic stress.

And it has even physiologically,

At the level of the brain,

It actually strengthens the systems for emotion regulation more so than CPT,

Than the cognitive processing therapy.

So again,

I could not agree more with your point that you have to find the shoe that fits you.

And there are many ways of meditating.

And I really agree.

And it's,

Well,

You're also tapping into a physio.

.

.

So you're doing breath work and attentional response there,

Which is like,

That's pretty awesome,

Right?

If you can change your physiology using your breath work,

But then also have your mind building its attentional capacity by paying attention to a mantra or paying attention to breathing exercises,

That can be incredibly helpful.

And I actually think the definition of mindfulness has been misappropriated in the United States,

Because mindfulness was always traditionally.

.

.

Mindfulness of what?

Mindfulness can be mindfulness of a mantra,

Or mindfulness of a flower,

Or mindfulness of a.

.

.

When you're in the train and there's a really beautiful moment with a child and a mother,

And you're feeling stressed,

You can shift your mind to pay attention to that sweet moment between the child and mother.

And it brings you relief because you're not thinking about your own child or your own mother or whatever it is that's stressing you out.

That is mindfulness.

It's a shifting of attention.

And I really think that there's a misunderstanding or expectation that people have that they're supposed to,

When they're anxious,

Go inside,

Take a deep breath,

And sit in their inner turmoil.

And that's not always the case,

Especially if you're experiencing PTSD or trauma or severe anxiety.

And you're really tapping into more of a holistic model than just these single ingredients.

And I think if we can pull out the,

I don't know,

The vitamin that's in kale and just take a ton of that,

And then we miss out on all the other stuff.

Like,

What about the fiber and the taste of the salad?

I cannot tell you how many directors of scientific centers have said to me,

Or other scientists,

If we could just find out the one thing that's good on this program,

And the one thing that's good in this,

And then we'll put it together and create our own program.

I'm just like,

Oh,

My God,

Guys,

Stop.

Like,

Everybody wants to create their own thing and pull out their own things.

And it's like,

Some of these practices are ancient,

Have worked for millennia,

And are part of a holistic thing.

It's not just,

You know,

You could make a terrorist super mindful,

And they would just become super mindful of what their destruction they want to do,

Right?

It's just like,

No,

These things come as a package,

And they come as part of a tradition,

And they involve human values.

They involve holistic,

And they involve,

You know,

Treating your body right,

With the yoga,

Or the good food,

Or whatever it is,

You know?

And I think you're so right that in our society,

We just pull one thing out,

And just,

Let's just,

Yeah,

Make a dose on this,

And then wonder,

Why is it not working?

Or why am I going more crazy?

Like,

I have some people who I know who are mindfulness teachers,

And I remember once going to a restaurant with one of them,

And I said,

Oh,

I don't really like this restaurant,

Or I said something,

And she said,

No judgment.

And I'm like,

Oh,

Gosh.

Like,

You know,

Maybe you go around thinking no judgment all the time in your own mind,

Driving yourself kind of neurotically crazy,

But if I don't have judgment,

I wouldn't know which restaurant to go to,

And I want to know which one to go to,

You know?

It's just,

It can make you,

And not to make fun,

You know?

I really,

Truly believe that mindfulness can help some people,

And there's amazing teachers out there,

But if you're already in your head,

Get it practiced.

It's not in your head,

You know?

Exactly.

My recommendation.

Yeah,

That's why I go to yoga.

Like,

I spend too much time in this,

In this head space.

So that is super helpful.

The Sky Method Institute.

So it's art of,

Yeah,

It's art of living that offers the,

It's a non-profit.

You can learn it on Zoom over a weekend,

But there's a non-profit called Project Welcome Home Troops that teaches it at no cost for veterans,

Military,

Military families,

Military providers.

I love that.

Non-profit,

We work with them all the time,

Yeah.

They work with us for our studies.

Project Welcome Home Troops.

So one more very important aspect of a sovereign leader is actually something that people wouldn't think of,

Which is intuition.

Can you talk a little bit about intuition and leadership?

85% of CEOs claim that they use their intuition,

You know?

And,

And if you think about it in our,

In our schooling and so forth,

We get taught to just sort of think rationally and logically,

And intuition is magical thinking.

But intuition is actually a cognitive function that's very rapid and designed to save your life.

Like my friend Kushal,

Who walked into one of the Twin Towers on 9-11 to go to work,

And the guards told him,

Told everybody there,

Stay inside.

But his gut instinct told him to run,

And he ran,

And he saved his life by a hair.

Think about,

Think about all those people who had the same instinct,

But followed orders,

Right?

I mean,

It's,

We're taught to do one thing,

But our feeling can sometimes tell us another.

Albert Einstein,

He said,

Intuition is sort of this divine gift,

And logic and reason are the faithful servant.

And he said,

We're a society that honors the servant and has thrown away the gift.

And he himself knew how to tap into the alpha wave mode of the brain,

Which is when our brain is neither highly focused nor so relaxed,

About to go to sleep.

That in-between space,

The alpha wave moments,

And that is when we get our insights,

Our aha moments.

That's what neuroscience shows.

And,

You know,

We've come to be a society where we could be all day on a screen,

Never once allowing our mind to go into that space,

Into that sovereign space where we can access intuitions,

Innovations,

Creative insights,

Genius ideas,

Aha moments.

Yeah,

I think if we reworded intuition to just inner wisdom or insight,

People might feel more like,

Okay,

Yeah,

Sure.

We all need some wisdom.

Like we all have inner wisdom and that it comes from our life experiences.

It comes from our learning history.

It also comes from a spiritual connection and nature,

Our body,

The wisdom of our body.

Absolutely.

Okay,

Well,

For those that want to learn more about intuition,

You have a whole chapter in Sovereign on intuition.

This is a beautiful book.

Reclaim Your Freedom,

Energy and Power in a Time of Distraction,

Uncertainty and Chaos.

And I highly recommend it.

Emma,

This has been so phenomenal to talk to you about leadership.

I feel like we're on a similar page in Wavelength,

So we could just go there really quickly.

And I feel your energy,

Your good energy being with you.

And thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Wise Effort Podcast.

Wise Effort is about you taking your energy and putting it in the places that matter most to you.

And when you do so,

You'll get to savor the good of your life along the way.