3 Foundational Skills To Becoming a Conscious Leader

If you want to empower yourself and your people to thrive both professionally and personally, these are the skills you must learn to lead well.

Conscious leadership is a step away from being simply a manager of people, you have an incredible opportunity to positively shape the lives of those you lead.

In this talk we discuss the three foundational skills you need to nail to become an even better, more conscious leader:
Self-Awareness
Personal Responsibility
Compassion
We end with a short meditation to anchor your learnings.

{Intro and Outro music is an excerpt of "Crepuscular Rays" by Cosmos Connection Music, available in full on Insight Timer}

Transcript

You're in the right place if you are here as a conscious leader and you want to learn about the three foundational skills that you need to nail so that you can become an even better leader who has even more influence and creates more impact with the work that you do.

You've joined me,

Nick Chung.

I am a Conscious Leadership Coach and Mentor for Leaders and Changemakers who want to create more positive change in their workplace and in their business.

So at the start,

We'll do a lot of cerebral things.

We'll talk about the topic.

I'll dive into the three things that you really need to nail as a conscious leader so that you become better at what it is that you do and how it is that you lead.

And then right at the end,

We'll anchor that with a meditation and or energy integration depending on what we need as a collective.

So please make sure you can stick around for that last 10 or 15 minutes.

So if you haven't joined me before,

I love to kind of have the conversation two ways.

How that works is that I usually pop to you 3 to 10 questions per talk.

And ideally,

You've got a notepad or you've got a journal of some sort that you can write these questions down.

Okay,

And therefore your self-reflection.

All right,

Let's dive into today's topic.

The first one,

You really need to continue to evolve in this area.

This skill is the skill of self-awareness.

Now,

I might be preaching to the converted already.

But hear me out.

What does self-awareness in terms of conscious leadership mean?

It means awareness of your strengths and your weaknesses.

It means awareness of your habits and your biases.

It means awareness of your emotions.

It means awareness of your actions.

It means awareness of how it is that you be in the moment right now.

So we're talking really about mindfulness.

Some would say mindfulness and I'm putting that in parentheses,

Right?

Some would say that this is mindfulness.

Others call it self-awareness.

They're similar.

But what we really are talking about is your ability to self-reflect.

Your ability to be aware of how you be in the world.

Now,

I've listed a bunch of things there.

I'm going to go through them again,

One by one,

And talk briefly about those things that you really need to become more self-aware of if you want to become an even better leader.

Yeah,

The first one I talked about was your habits.

What are the habitual things that you do that are stopping you from becoming an even better leader?

Because we're talking about becoming a better leader.

We're not going to look at the habitual things that make you amazing.

I mean,

That's also good.

If your ego needs a boost,

Do that too.

But what you're really interested in is the areas of improvement that you have.

So what are the habitual things that you do,

You think,

You believe,

You say,

That are perhaps stopping you from becoming a better leader?

Now,

What do I mean by better leader?

Maybe that is being better at communication.

Maybe that is being better at role modeling.

Yeah,

Leading the way,

Showing by example,

Leading by example.

Maybe that is being better in terms of the relationships that you're cultivating.

So this question is incredibly broad.

And how you use this to self-reflect to make yourself,

To allow yourself to become more self-aware is to maybe categorize it down into areas like relationships or communication or workplace culture or things like that,

Right?

So create a list of things that you believe are your weak points or what you believe would be areas of growth for you to become a better leader.

And then ask yourself,

What are the habits?

And we'll put bad habits,

Right?

And I'm saying bad with like parentheses again,

Yeah?

What are the bad habits that I have in the way that I think,

The way that I believe,

The way that I speak,

The way that I act,

That are perhaps stopping me from growing into the influential,

Positive change maker that I desire to be in my business and in my workplace?

Is that making sense for you?

Is that landing for you?

So what habits do I have?

What are the default things that I do that are perhaps stopping me from really cultivating great relationships with people?

What is stopping me from creating really good communication lines that are clear and compassionate?

What is stopping me from creating really excellent culture that feels really safe for my people?

What other habits do I have that are not so great for me to be the role model of what it means to be a conscious leader in the world?

Maybe you tend to get like a bit lazy at the end of a project.

I'm putting my hand up for that,

Right?

I have been known to be the person who runs 100 miles an hour up until the 80% is done.

And then the last 20%,

I'm like,

I'm bored,

I want to move on.

So I have had to really work on that bad habit in order to finish things and to be the leader or to show my people that we can finish things well,

Right?

So what are some of the not so ideal habits that you know that you have around your actions,

Your thoughts or your beliefs that are perhaps not allowing you to step into being the kind of role model that you wish to be in terms of a conscious leader?

Start to list those.

This is part of becoming aware.

So list them down,

Get your journals out or write it on your phone.

What are some of the unhelpful habits that you have?

So we're dissecting this really big one called self-awareness and we've just talked about habits.

So let's move on from habits and let's look at biases.

So one of the other things I talked about in terms of self-awareness that you need to be aware of are your biases.

So start to write down what are some of the things that I am biased about,

Yeah?

Who am I biased for or against?

What do I like and what do I not like,

Right?

So biases are a little bit about your likes and dislikes.

What do you tend to go towards and what do you tend to go away from?

Now what you're going to be interested in when you start to write this list of what are the biases that I hold in the business sense,

In the business world,

In your leadership role and you can look at this in terms of the people that you're biased with and against.

You can look at the strategies that you're with or against.

You can look at the structures that you're with and against.

You can look at the team structure.

You can look at your business model.

You can look at this in multiple angles,

Right?

So take a really holistic view.

What are your biases?

And when you've written this list,

I really want you to go do this,

Okay?

So please don't just listen and then go,

Oh that was a nice talk.

Go and write the list.

When you've written this list,

You're going to become really aware of some of the biases that maybe are not serving you.

Because remember that every time we go towards something or we go away from something,

We shut off a whole other door.

So perhaps in your biases,

And most of our biases are unconscious,

Which is why I desire for you to write this down.

So the unconscious becomes conscious.

When the unconscious becomes conscious,

That is when we can change those things,

Right?

So most of our biases are unconscious.

We are making them conscious now.

And now you're going to look at them and you're going to start seeing where perhaps you are shutting doors down,

Where you are narrowing your options,

Where you are perhaps favouring something that doesn't need to be favoured.

So you're going to start seeing when you uncover your biases,

You're going to be like,

Oh,

I really tend to do this and I tend to not do that.

I really tend to like that person.

I really tend to not like them.

In my tendency to like that person or not like that person,

I tend to listen to the one that I like,

Right?

You're going to start laughing at some of the way that you are unconsciously acting in your workplace or business.

This is great,

Right?

Don't take this too seriously.

Take it seriously as in write the list and be honest with yourself,

But don't take it too seriously when you review it.

Start to take a laugh at yourself of how much you have been unconsciously doing things,

Taking actions.

And now,

Now that it's in the light,

Yeah,

Now that it's in the light,

It's risen up and you've made it conscious,

You have a chance to change the things that are glaringly obvious that are stopping you from stepping into the kind of leader that you wish to be.

Yeah.

So do the list.

What are your biases?

Do a review.

Which ones are closing doors?

And then choose some that you would like to change.

So remember when we want to make a change,

We have to make this conscious.

So decide and you have to decide.

So highlight maybe one every,

I don't know,

Every month.

If it's a big one,

One every month.

If it's a small one,

One every week.

Choose one bias,

One habit,

Since we've talked about habits as well,

One habit and one bias that you are going to be conscious of coming in and that you're going to choose a different pathway.

So we're really consciously changing the way that we're acting or thinking or believing.

All right.

So self-awareness,

Habits,

Biases.

The next one is emotional intelligence.

Now I'm actually going to do a whole nother talk about emotional intelligence itself,

Because each and every single one of these things under self-awareness could be its whole talk,

Right?

Let's just quickly go over that.

Self-awareness in terms of emotional intelligence is really your ability to be aware of your own emotions.

And not only that,

But be aware of the emotions of others.

When you are able to really have handle of that,

Then you're going to start to listen to the unsaid cues of the people around you.

How does that help you become a better leader?

Well,

You're going to start to almost anticipate what people are thinking.

You're going to be able to intuitively see what needs to be said.

Now,

This is like when people say,

Oh,

Wow,

You read my mind.

And part of that is about getting really clued up on emotional intelligence.

So your own ability to understand your emotions and to be able to stay resilient and to stay adaptable and agile.

Your own ability to manage your emotions,

But equally your own ability to be able to read the emotions of the room,

To be able to read the emotions of the people that you're relating with in your business and your workplace.

This is a really important leadership skill that comes under the category of self-awareness.

And as I said before,

I will be talking about this in another time because it deserves its own whole chat.

Yeah.

So just know for now that you need to,

If you're not already tapped into your emotions,

Start to cultivate a practice that does that.

Or start to learn from someone who can really teach you about emotional intelligence.

This is something that I work with with my clients is really about emotional intelligence,

Which is covering not only your self-awareness,

But your resilience,

Your adaptability,

Your agility,

And your ability to read the room.

Yeah.

I would also recommend,

If this is something that you know that you need to work on,

There is a really great book called Emotional Intelligence.

I think it's called Emotional Intelligence.

I probably should have prepared this before.

But it's by Daniel Goleman.

Go and check that out.

Read up about it.

Start to do the work that you know you require.

Yeah.

So check out that book if emotional intelligence is something that you know that you need to get better at.

Or catch my next talk,

Which is coming up in a few weeks' time.

So we're talking today about three foundational skills that you need to nail to become a better leader.

We are diving into the big category of self-awareness.

And we're kind of breaking that down,

Right?

That's one of your foundational skills is self-awareness.

But underneath that is a bunch of other things.

One is habits.

One is biases.

One is emotional intelligence.

The next is your strengths and weaknesses.

Have you recently gone and done an audit on what you're good at and what you're bad at?

If you haven't,

Go and do that.

What are you really good at and what are you really bad at?

If you struggle with this,

Get your peers,

Get your clients,

Get your people who work around you to do this for you.

What is she good at?

What is she bad at?

Yeah.

This is not meant to be brutal.

This is not meant to hurt your ego.

And if it does,

Just know that your ego is just like scared of getting that feedback,

But it's all good.

This is for your growth.

Really be honest with yourself when you do this.

What are you great at?

What is your strengths and what is your weakness?

This is part of your self-awareness.

You need to know what you're really good at and what you can lean on as a leader.

Each and every one of us have a different flavor of how we will lead.

And part of that,

Knowing what kind of flavor that you bring to the table in terms of being a leader is knowing what your strengths are and leaning on your strengths.

Part of the self-awareness equation is also about knowing what you're not so good at.

And sometimes when we really are honest with what we're not good at,

That enables us to become a better leader because we're going to not use our time trying to get good at that thing.

Or we're going to really.

.

.

So I'm thinking in terms of business here.

What I know I'm not good at is something that I will try to outsource.

So there might be processes and systems that I could learn,

But they don't come really intuitive to me.

I'm just going to outsource that.

So I have trouble letting go of control.

So it took me a long time to have a team because I thought,

Well,

I can do it.

Right?

The thing is,

When you're looking at your weaknesses,

You're not looking at,

Can I do it?

I know that a load of you,

This is why your leaders are super capable and can probably do anything you put your mind to.

What you want to ask yourself on your weaknesses is,

Do I enjoy it?

And is it my zone of genius?

Yeah.

So if it's not your zone of genius,

If it's not the thing that lights you up,

If it's not the thing that really sets you apart as a leader,

You shouldn't be doing it in terms of strategy,

In terms of programs,

In terms of technical things.

How does that make me a better leader?

Well,

It means that the things that I'm really good at,

Which are things like this,

Turning up and talking about big ideas,

I can give myself more time to do the things that I'm excellent at,

Rather than wasting my time doing the things that I'm not good at.

So what are you good at?

Lean on those.

What are you not so good at?

From what you're not so good at,

What can you outsource?

So if it's a really practical thing,

Stop wasting your time doing it,

Get someone else to do it.

If it is a weakness in terms of maybe like an emotional reaction,

Okay,

And I'm thinking like myself in the past,

And sometimes still,

I'm going to be honest,

Sometimes still I get quite snappy.

Like if I'm annoyed,

I'm like,

Ugh,

And it just comes out,

Right?

So that is a little weakness of mine.

Part of my weakness is like being a bit harsh.

I can be a bit harsh at times,

Especially when I'm tired,

Especially when I'm frustrated with things,

Especially if things haven't worked out so well,

I can get a bit short.

So knowing that weakness,

That's something I can't outsource,

Right?

It's not something like a skill where I can go,

Hey,

Someone take care of my snappiness and make it go away.

But what I can do is now that I'm aware that that is one of my weaknesses,

I can look at how can I try to prevent that from happening,

Right?

So I just said that usually when I'm getting a bit snappy or short,

I'm tired,

I'm kind of hungry or things haven't worked out,

Yeah?

So that means I need to rest more.

I need to eat some food.

I maybe need to just step away from the computer.

So this is the fun part of actually understanding your strengths and weaknesses,

Especially your weaknesses,

Is you're going to see where you can free up time.

So the skills that are your weaknesses,

You can just outsource.

And then the things that are more,

They're not skills that you can outsource,

But they're more personal,

Internal things.

You can start to see how it is that I can improve the situations around me,

Improve myself so that they are less of a weakness,

I.

E.

They stop me less and less from being the kind of leader that I desire to be.

Does this make sense for you?

Is this landing for you?

Are you going to go and write out your strengths and weaknesses list?

So self-awareness,

Your habits,

Your biases,

Your emotional intelligence,

Your strengths and weaknesses,

And the last thing under that category are your values.

What are your values?

And are you leading with your values?

I used to talk about this a lot when I did brand consulting,

Right?

It was about creating a values-based brand.

So bringing your values to the fore of your business in the way that you branded yourself.

So the words that you used,

The colors that you used,

Were they emoting the values that you have?

The same thing works with leadership,

Right?

Are you leading with your values?

Are you putting your values first?

Now,

A lot of people I work with aren't because they have a warped view of what leadership is.

And that leadership generally looks like overworking.

It looks like doing all the things.

It looks like putting yourself second.

Yeah,

That's not conscious leadership,

Right?

That is not conscious leadership.

Conscious leadership is about being values-driven and values-led.

So what are your top three values that are non-negotiables for you?

And are you living and being the embodiment of those values?

That is a good question.

Write that down.

Journal on it.

Am I being the embodiment of the values that I hold?

What do I mean by embodiment?

Am I speaking,

Thinking,

Acting,

And relating in alignment to the values that I hold?

So what are your values?

And are you leading with them?

So what happens when we show up as leaders who are values-led is that we set a really good example about how others can also live and lead their lives.

Each and every person will have a different set of values.

That's fine.

What we want to do as conscious leaders is to ignite the greatness in everyone.

And I mean that literally everyone from your admin team to the clients that you have.

If you're in a corporate world,

It'll be like your support people,

But also the bosses above you.

Every single relationship.

And if you go out of the workplace,

It is your boyfriend,

Your girlfriend,

Your wife,

Your husband,

Your partner,

Your friends.

As conscious leaders,

Part of our mission is to ignite the greatness in everyone.

And being values-led,

So not led by society,

Not led by outside influences,

But led by your own internal compass of value system,

Is one way that we can affect that change and allow people to step into their greatness.

If you want to read more about this,

There is a really good free values assessment by Dr Demartini.

You can google it.

Dr Demartini values assessment.

And his idea of values is very much aligned with what I believe.

And that is that our values are unconscious needs that we haven't met yet.

But when we start to live a life that is aligned with those values,

We start to unlock our genius.

And so imagine if you were to lead based on your values,

I.

E.

Leading with your genius.

And you were a role model to everyone you met.

And you allowed each and every single one of them to be inspired enough to lead with their genius,

I.

E.

Unlock their genius,

Because they start to lead lives that are based on their values.

How amazing would that be?

What a ripple effect of positive change you would have ignited from them.

So what are your values?

And again,

I will do another plug for Dr Demartini's values assessment.

Go and do that.

It's a free assessment online.

And it will start to show you the values that you hold.

And then you can start to lead with them.

Start to lead with them.

All right.

So this is going to be a long talk today.

Because we've only just gone through the first category.

The first foundational skill.

And that is self-awareness.

Now I could talk,

There's even more things that we could talk about under the self-awareness.

But I try to bring the most important parts down.

So let's just quickly list those off.

One is being aware of your habits.

Being aware of your biases.

Working on your emotional intelligence.

So being aware of your emotions.

Being aware of your strengths and weaknesses.

And being aware of your values.

And we take it one step further.

We're not just going to be aware.

We're going to do something about it.

So we then go and take actions that will help us to realign ourselves to become a better leader.

Right.

So don't leave self-awareness just like,

Oh I'm aware now and that's all.

The change comes when you take the action in the world with that.

So go and do that.

Now the next foundational skill that you need to nail to become a better leader is this.

Personal responsibility.

Personal responsibility.

It's a big one.

And I remember the first time that I got introduced to this concept.

How long ago was it now?

It's probably a good 10 or 15 years ago now.

And someone told me that I created everything in my life.

That really pissed me off.

That really annoyed me.

Why?

Because there were a lot of things in my life that I didn't enjoy.

There were a lot of things that didn't feel fair to me.

There are a lot of things that I felt were unjustly done to me.

Right.

So my worldview back then was a lot different to my worldview now.

So what is personal responsibility exactly?

I'm going to give you a very quick overview.

Personal responsibility is firstly not you taking responsibility for absolutely everything.

I'll say that again.

What personal responsibility is not is taking responsibility for absolutely everything.

Okay.

So this is why I got annoyed at the idea at the start.

Because what I misunderstood about personal responsibility was that I was then going to have to take responsibility for absolutely everything in every single situation that I'd ever been in which was not to my liking.

All right.

But what personal responsibility is,

Is you taking responsibility for your particular role in every situation.

See the difference?

You are going to take personal responsibility for your particular role in every situation.

Yeah.

And your particular input to every situation.

So you're not taking responsibility of the whole situation.

You're taking responsibility of your part in it.

So when I think about offering you a introspective question to explore this,

It would be something like,

Where do I readily take personal responsibility?

And where do I tend to not take personal responsibility?

What are the situations that I can easily take personal responsibility?

And what are the situations that I just can't seem to,

Or it comes really hard for me?

Who are the people that I feel safe to take personal responsibility of or around?

Yeah.

And who kind of stopped me from being that person?

And what I mean by that is usually when we can't take personal responsibility when we're in a situation with a person is we tend to blame them.

Okay.

So we could even change that one to being,

Who do I tend to blame?

Yeah.

Who are the people that kind of trigger me and I just want to blame them.

So instead of taking responsibility of the role that I played in a situation,

I just want to blame them.

So take those questions and journal on them.

Where is it easy for you to take personal responsibility?

And where is it more difficult for you?

In what situations?

With what people?

When you have written that and you've reviewed it,

Reflected on it,

You're going to start to see areas where you could improve on.

Because ideally you're taking personal responsibility in every situation.

And remember that what I mean by that,

It's not the whole situation that you're taking responsibility for.

It is your part in it.

Okay.

Your part in it.

So why is this important in terms of becoming a better leader?

Why did I include this as one of the three foundational skills that you need to nail?

Because if you cannot take personal responsibility as a leader,

What is the role modeling that you are giving to everyone else?

What are you modeling to them?

You are modeling to them that they don't have to do that.

That they aren't in control of their situations.

That they're at the whim of the world.

That there's always someone else to blame or there's always something else to blame.

That we get to point fingers at people.

Can you see the vibration of just that when I speak about that?

To me that feels not very compassionate,

Not very conscious,

Not very loving.

Funnily enough,

The third skill that we're going to talk about that you need to nail is compassion.

Especially if you want to be a conscious leader.

So your role of taking personal responsibility role models to others to do this.

But not only does it do this.

It also sets up an environment where other people can do that too.

And they feel safe to do that.

Because if you as the leader are doing that,

You're willing to put your hand up and go,

You know,

I made that mistake.

That part was on me.

That part was on me.

I take it.

That is on me.

Then others are going to be more willing to put up their hand and go,

That was on me.

Knowing that you're not going to judge them harshly.

Knowing that there's no huge retribution like,

Oh my gosh,

You're going to lose your job,

Or we're going to judge you forever,

Or you've now been black flagged.

There's none of that,

Right?

So in doing this,

Not only are you allowing them to take personal responsibility,

You're setting up a culture that feels really supportive for owning up to mistakes.

This also is a culture that is trusting.

And when there's trust in a culture,

When there's trust in a relationship,

It works better for both of you.

Can work through problems quicker.

You can work through to getting solutions quicker.

It's a lot more friendly.

Personal responsibility.

It's a biggie.

And again,

I could speak about that in its own whole talk.

I will do that in the future.

It is a massive one that I work with with my clients is the ability to take personal responsibility,

Full personal responsibility.

And remember when I say full personal responsibility,

It's not about taking responsibility of the whole situation.

It's about taking responsibility for every single role or part that you had in every situation.

And when they can do that,

When my clients can do that,

The world changes for them.

It becomes like a place where they actually are in control of a lot of what is being created.

You are the creators of your life.

Yes,

You are.

But the way that you can really harness that idea that you're the creator of your life,

You're the creator of your businesses,

You're a creator,

A huge influential leader.

You're creating that.

The only way that you can harness that is taking full personal responsibility.

I'll say that again.

That was very unclean.

Let's say it again.

The way that you step into knowing that you are a conscious creator is by taking personal responsibility.

We often are really good at being conscious creators or taking personal responsibility when it's something that we've created that is really good,

Right?

It's like,

Oh,

Of course,

That was all me.

I did that.

I'm such a great creator.

I manifest really easily.

We're less likely to put up our hands of being a conscious creator or taking personal responsibility when it is a situation we don't desire or we don't like.

But the way that you really get to wield your power in terms of conscious creation is by taking full personal responsibility.

Again,

This is something that I work with my clients a lot,

And it deserves its whole own chat.

So we will do that in the future.

Let me take a pause before we go for our last skill that you need to nail.

We've talked about self-awareness,

Under which were a lot of categories,

Talked about personal responsibility just then,

And we're heading into the last one,

Which is compassion,

The big C.

Now,

Where does compassion start?

With yourself.

So when I work with my clients,

We always look at this aspect of self-love,

Right?

And from self-love comes self-compassion.

Now,

It's only when you can truly have deep compassion for yourself can you give deep compassion to others.

So the first question that you may wish to explore is,

Am I compassionate to myself?

Am I loving of myself?

Do I love,

Respect,

And forgive myself?

If I was to rate myself from 1 to 10 about how compassionate I am with myself,

Where would I rate myself?

I love this one.

This is probably my favorite thing to work on with people,

Is compassion.

Probably because for me,

This was a huge area of growth,

Of personal growth for me when I learned how to become more compassionate to myself.

It really broke down barriers for me.

Why do you want to do this for yourself first?

When you are able to be more compassionate to yourself,

I guarantee that your heart will open more.

What happens when your heart opens more?

You are more open to loving relationships with everyone.

You're able to see the light and the heart of everyone else.

How is this helpful for you as a leader?

You start to see the heart of your people,

Of everyone around you.

This view shift that you have made from them being just a person,

Who you have judgments over,

Who you have ideas and stories about,

To shifting to them as a heart,

As a soul.

Can you feel the shift of energy that that creates?

Often when we're working with people,

As leaders we work with a lot of people,

But when we work with people over and over again,

We start to create stories about who they are.

Maybe some of those stories are not good for some of the people that you're working with.

Maybe they're a client,

Or maybe they're potential clients,

Maybe they're part of your team,

Maybe they're your boss,

Maybe they're part of your staff.

When we create stories like that,

That are unhelpful,

We start to see the person as the story that we've created.

And then we have all these expectations of how they're going to act.

But when we take a step back and we step into our hearts,

And we start to view,

So from us seeing our own hearts and being compassionate to each other,

Opening up that part,

We start to see them as also a heart.

A person that deserves our compassion.

A person that probably has all of their own shit like we do.

Because part of the compassionate route,

Bringing compassion to yourself,

Is you're going to start to see all of the shit,

All of the things,

All of the things that you have brought to the table,

For yourself,

Inside of yourself,

That are perhaps not so good.

You're going to start to see where you haven't been compassionate and self-loving.

It might hurt a little bit,

Just a little warning.

Allow it to.

It's all good.

It passes.

So in that process of us individually,

On an individual basis,

Doing this on a personal basis,

In the process of you learning to love yourself and to be compassionate to yourself,

You're going to uncover those areas of which you haven't been.

And it is in that process that you then realize,

Oh my gosh,

Everyone else in the world goes through this too.

Because you're not the only one.

Every single person in the world has their problems.

Every single person has their struggles.

And they bring these struggles hidden underneath their persona as they turn up to work,

Or turn up as your client.

They hide these things,

Especially if they're not used to being in the presence of a conscious leader.

They'll hide these things.

But they're inevitably going to come out in some way,

Right?

Maybe it's that grumpy receptionist that you always have to go past.

She's grumpy for a reason.

We don't know why.

So through the process of you learning how to love yourself and how to be compassionate to yourself,

The shit's going to rise.

And in that process,

You're going to realize everyone has their stuff.

And so when we learn to go,

I accept and love myself anyway.

I forgive myself.

We start to see,

We start to be able to do that with others.

I love and accept them anyway.

I forgive them anyway.

No matter what.

This is deep self-compassion or self-love.

So first and foremost,

We need to do this for ourselves as conscious leaders,

Because then after that,

It opens up the gateway for us to be able to do that with others.

Through our own exploration of how it is that we haven't loved ourself,

And then taking us into self-love,

We start to see that others have exactly the same things.

Yeah.

There's probably just areas of which people haven't loved themselves coming to the surface when you have that difficult conversation with someone.

If there's someone in particular that you just cannot seem to get on the right foot,

Or you always seem to have an argument or conflict with,

There's something else going on there.

This conversation that I'm having with that person isn't the whole picture.

There is a whole lifetime of things that this person has behind them,

Just as you have.

So it's really in the process of your own self-exploration of compassion and self-love that you then get to have compassion and love for others.

Because in the process,

You gain that understanding of the depth of who you are,

And therefore of what everyone else is having to experience as a human being too.

It's that landing for you.

So let me wrap up what we have chatted about today.

The three foundational skills you need to become a better conscious leader.

One is self-awareness,

Under which we had habits,

Biases,

Emotional intelligence,

Strengths and weaknesses,

And your values.

The second thing was taking personal responsibility for your part in every single situation.

This enables you to create a trusting and loving environment with your people.

And thirdly,

Compassion.

And that starts with self-compassion.

And through compassion with self,

You're able to then have compassion for others who have their own hidden struggles.

And it's through that work as a leader that you then create this environment where everyone feels really incredibly safe around you.

Safe to turn up as they are.

Safe to not be judged.

Because you've done the work for yourself.

So it always starts with your own inner work.

You've joined me,

Nick Chung.

I am a Conscious Leadership Coach and Mentor for leaders and change makers who want to create more positive change in their workplace and in their business.

So we'll dive into the last part of today,

And we're going to do a meditational integration to anchor what it is that we have talked about today.

I'm just going to take a moment to tune into the collective.

So give me a second as I do that.

What do we all need to anchor today?

What needs to be said?

What needs to be embodied around these foundational steps to being a conscious leader?

Okay,

For the next 10 or 15 minutes,

We're diving into a meditation.

And what feels like it needs to be anchored is your courage,

Your bravery to be able to go and do the self-exploration of these skills.

So during today's talk,

I offered so many questions that can help you to start to become more aware of where the work is for you.

However,

I also realized that some of what I offered today in terms of the skills,

Especially maybe the second one of personal responsibility and the last one of compassion,

Can be really confronting.

And so we're going to work on bolstering your courage,

Allowing you to be brave to ignite that part of you so that you can go and really dive into the self-exploration.

So if that sounds fun for you,

Stick around.

If it's not your cup of tea,

You're welcome to leave.

All right,

If you're ready,

Just close your eyes,

Allow yourself to sit comfortably or lie comfortably.

And as you have closed your eyes,

Just taking nice deep breaths and tuning into your breath,

Taking all of your attention inwards,

Noticing the breath in and out.

And some of you may want to deliberately slow the breath and through the act of slowing your breath down,

The mind tends to slow down too.

Slowing everything down,

Bringing yourself right here to this moment.

And in this next breath,

We're going to imagine that we're drawing in beautiful energy.

This energy is positive.

This energy has the quality of ignition.

And I want you to just start breathing deeply in through your mouth or nose and feeling this energy penetrating all of your body.

This positive energy of ignition.

Let it fill from your toes all the way up through all of your legs.

Let it fill through your torso all the way up through your heart.

All the way up through your heart.

Let it fill through each of your arms.

Let it fill your neck,

Your head,

The back of your body,

The front of your body,

The bottom of your feet,

The top of your head.

Let it fill every single cell,

Every single space in your body.

This beautiful positive energy.

Breathing it in.

Some of you may want to see this as a light.

It's a nice white light that you breathe in.

And it illuminates anything dark.

Some of you may sense this as a lightning,

A lightening sensation.

Whereas you breathe it in,

Everything seems to lighten.

Heaviness drops with the breath out.

And as you breathe in more spaciousness,

More lightness into every part of your body.

Some of you may sense this as a beautiful perfume that is intoxicating.

And as you breathe it in,

It ignites joy in every single space in your body.

Some may hear it as a melody,

A certain tone or frequency.

And as you breathe it in,

Or maybe you hear this one,

That melody travels through every single cell of your body,

Every space and fills your body with the most beautiful music.

However it is that you wish to envision this positive energy.

Do that now and we'll take three nice big breaths in silence with this.

And we move our attention now to the heart space and the solar plexus.

So around the heart and just below,

Between the ribcage,

Concentrating in that area and breathing with intention and attention to that space.

And we're going to do some clearing of any fear that you may have around exploring a little deeper.

For those of you who wish to have some support doing that,

Just say yes in your third eye.

And for those who wish to do this by themselves,

Just say no.

And I am offering some energetic support to help to clear some of that fear around the heart and around the solar plexus.

So let us breathe.

And as you breathe in,

You're bringing in that beautiful energy.

And as you breathe out,

You're clearing any fear or any other resistances that are stopping you from diving into this deep exploration.

Breathing in,

Creating space.

Breathing out anything else that doesn't serve you.

Deep intentional breaths.

Inviting in that light and breathing out anything that is misaligned to your deep exploration.

And we're wrapping your heart up with lots of love,

Lots of kindness,

Lots of safety.

It is safe to dive into these questions.

It is safe to know more about myself,

Even the bad stuff.

It's safe to bring that to the light.

And we anchor into the solar plexus your mission.

Your mission.

Why are you here?

Why do you want to become a more conscious leader?

And feel that mission anchoring in.

And this mission is like the driver.

And feel it gearing up as you breathe into the space of the solar plexus and the heart.

And this mix of the clearing of the fear around your heart,

The safety and this drive from underneath,

Makes this magical elixir of courage.

Courage to deeply explore.

Courage to uncover the heart.

Courage to lay it all bare.

Courage to become an even better conscious leader.

And breathe in deeply from the ground all the way up,

Especially through those two parts.

Big nice deep breaths.

And I'm continuing doing clearing of fear,

Clearing of blocks of this discovery,

This self-exploration.

Any fear of being seen,

Any fear of being extremely vulnerable,

You are safe.

Any fear of staying in the pit with the things that you uncover,

This will not happen.

Because your will is strong.

Your drive is strong.

That is your tether.

So hold in your mind's eye the reason why.

Become a better conscious leader.

To influence more people.

To make a positive impact on the world.

That is why I'm here.

And we invite in even more of this courage,

Even more of this bravery to step through the last residuals of fear that may exist.

So that you may go and deeply explore.

So you can uncover the areas which need more attention for you to improve.

And we do this lovingly,

This self-reflection.

And it is offered to you as a gift,

Not as a punishment.

And taking three last breaths here.

Taking this gift with you as you slowly come back here.

Wiggle your toes.

Yawn.

Stretch.

Open your eyes.

Please take this gift of self-exploration that has been offered for you today.

And go and journal.

Go and reflect on these questions.

And if you ever need to return to this place of bravery and courage,

It is embedded in your cells now.

Your body knows this.

So you can simply recall the sensations and this moment to bring you back into that space where it is clear for you to be honest and real with yourself.

And in what you reveal for yourself through these questions,

It's going to be incredibly helpful for your journey and your desire to become an even better conscious leader who is making waves in the world through your work and through your business.

What a name.

What a goal.

Go for it.

I love and appreciate every single one of you.

Thank you for spending time with me today.

Have an amazing rest of your day.

Bye for now.