Vision-Led Leadership - Reconnecting To Your Why {Live Talk}

Disconnection from your why results in boredom, apathy and a loss of motivation. When you're connected to your deeper ‘why’, leadership feels purposeful, energising, and clear. In this live session, we explore how to reconnect with the why that drives you on three levels. You'll be guided through reflective prompts and practical tools to realign with what matters most, so you can lead with more intention, impact and meaning. Perfect for conscious leaders, creatives, and founders who want to stay anchored in purpose while making a difference.

Transcript

Welcome to Vision Lead Leadership Reconnecting to Your Why.

You're with me,

Nick Chung.

I'm a Conscious Leadership Coach and Mentor for those of you who want to lead in a way that changes lives.

So perhaps you want to create a more empowering workplace.

Perhaps you want to see your kind of work have a beautiful positive ripple effect in the world.

Whatever that may be for you,

If you're that type of person,

You're in the right place.

So today we're talking about Vision Lead Leadership and Reconnecting to Your Why.

We're not going to talk so much about what Vision Lead Leadership is.

There are a number of talks that I've done previously,

Which you can check out on my Insight Timer page.

So if you're not already,

Go and follow me.

Today,

We're really looking at Reconnecting to Your Why.

Why is it that you do the thing that you do?

Why is it that you have this vision of creating more empowering spaces for your people?

And how we're going to roll with today is we're going to have about five minutes doing a little practice.

And we always do this.

We have a practice right at the start to drop in.

Then we'll talk a little bit more about the three levels of your why.

And then at the end,

I am going to offer you a few journaling questions or questions for your contemplation to take away later.

So if you don't already,

Perhaps grab a pen and paper or have your phone on note so that you're ready to take down those questions for yourself.

All right,

Let's start off with a little reconnection.

So if it's safe for you to do so,

Close down your eyes and tune into your breath.

Take a moment to feel your feet on the ground.

Take a moment to relax your hands.

Take a moment to reconnect to the body.

And in doing so,

Reconnect to now.

Tuning into the breath.

And the breath is such an easy way for us to come back to the present moment.

And through the body,

We can also come back to the present moment and also regulate any tension or stress that we may be holding.

So as you take this moment to reconnect to the breath and the body,

Consciously relaxing the breath,

Consciously relaxing the body.

And perhaps you'd like to make your breath slightly longer,

Slightly deeper.

Slightly fuller.

And maybe you want to use the breath in to create more space in your body and your mind and your spirit.

And your breath out to let go of anything that is causing tension.

So now that we are rested in the now,

And we are here and we have arrived,

Take a moment to think about what it is that you want to create in the workplace and in the world.

What kind of world do you want to live in?

What kind of workplace do you want to turn up to?

This is an invitation for you to see in full color the vision that you have for the spaces that you occupy.

And rest in that vision for a second.

Breathe it in.

Feel it through all of your five senses,

As if your vision is here already on Earth.

Have you got all the good feelings?

So now that you can see your vision clearly,

Having been created,

It's right here right now,

Take a step back from this vision and track your why.

Why was this created?

What was your motivation?

For what reason did this come about?

And perhaps you want to recite these questions in your mind silently.

Why do I do what I do?

Why do I want to create a positive change with my leadership?

What is the impact I want to make?

Why is this important to me?

Why is this important to the world?

And perhaps those questions have ignited your why,

Uncovered it.

So feel it in your body,

Feel it percolating in your body,

Your why.

And let it expand until it uncovers your entire self.

Feel the weight or the lightness of purpose through your entire body,

Through your energetic field.

And see this why expand itself further than you,

Reaching out and integrating with the world around you.

And as you open your eyes,

Let it lead you into the rest of your day.

So welcome everyone who has joined us now.

Kia ora,

I'm Nick Chung.

And you're with me on this Insight Timer Live today,

Talking about vision-led leadership and particularly about reconnecting to your why.

So the short practice that we did at the start is a really easy way for you to just step back into that.

So why connect to your why?

Did you manage to do that in the meditation?

Drop a yes or drop a heart.

And if you feel like sharing,

What is your why?

Why are you doing what you're doing?

And I'll give you a moment to do that.

I'll give you a moment to drop it in and share it with us.

I always think that when we share our why with the right people,

I'll put that caveat,

When you share your why with the right people,

It sets into motion all sorts of miracles.

And perhaps it's us voicing it to the universe and the universe supporting that.

And I say with the right people,

Because there are people who will really fully back your why and will be the biggest supporters.

And then there's those who perhaps don't have those strong dreams like you do and will try to cut you down to bring you down to their size.

Don't share your why with those people.

Share them in places like this where we really support big dreams and we support big visions and we support visions that are going to help empower the world.

So if it feels good for you,

Come and drop in.

Let us know in the comments what your why is.

Why do you want to create a more empowering space?

Why do you want to become more of a conscious leader?

What impact would you like to have and why is it so important to you?

So let's just frame what we're talking about a little bit more today.

Why reconnecting to your why is crucial in conscious leadership.

So often in a leadership role,

What happens is we kind of get caught up with managing people.

And I call that management,

Not leadership,

Right?

But we're caught up with like managing our people,

Making sure that everyone else is on task and we can drift from our original purpose.

Now a lot of you here,

You're conscious leaders.

So what this means is that you are here to create something beautiful in the world through your leadership position.

This doesn't mean that the work that you do is necessarily humanitarian.

It just means that you understand that the role or the privilege that you have with your leadership,

You are able to use in ways that can create really positive cultures in your workplace.

And then when we think about that,

We get to have all sorts of ripple effects happen from you being the embodiment of this beautiful human being on earth,

Role modeling that to all of the people that you are so privileged to lead.

And then of course,

When they take that on,

They bring that back to their families and it goes out to the rest of the world,

Yeah.

So when we're leaders,

Sometimes we have this idea of like we want to create a really beautiful space,

But we get caught up in the things that we have to do in terms of business.

And so we drift from that purpose.

We drift from that why.

And we lose touch with it.

And when we lose touch,

We can become reactive.

We get burnt out.

We lose purpose.

We have those feelings of like zero motivation.

I don't want to turn up to work today.

Maybe it's even the I'm hating work at the moment.

Or maybe it's ambivalence or disillusionment or boredom or doing the bare minimum.

Hands up if anyone has felt like that in their leadership role.

You're not alone.

And this is not because you're a bad person.

This is just because you have lost that connection to your why.

Why are you here?

Why are you doing what you're doing?

So the reason we started today with that short little connection piece is because I'm just trying to show you how easy it is to reconnect to that.

That literally took us four or five minutes.

Okay,

So if you were to say connect to your why every single day at the start of your workday,

I would guarantee that over time that would become stronger and stronger.

And you're going to start to feel what it is to be back in realignment with that why.

So you'll start to feel that motivation coming in,

More of that excitement about turning up,

About making change in your world.

And you can think of realignment to your why like that inner nourishment,

That inner motivational coach to keep you going to make change.

So some of you are like yes,

I have been that person who feels a little disconnected from my why.

So we just need to have practices in place.

And what I'm tending to get to now,

And this has changed over the years,

I absolutely believe in,

I'll say,

More intense ways of connecting.

But in terms of our lifestyle at the moment,

In terms of our society and how fast it moves right now,

What I'm tending to go towards for people who are like you,

Who are leaders,

Who are really busy,

Is trying to make these practices that we do accessible and easy.

And showing you that you can do this within less than five minutes.

We all have,

We can all probably find that little gap of time in our day where we can do practices like this.

So connecting to our higher self or connecting to our why gets to be a really easy thing that we do.

We don't need to put away an hour of our time every single day to do that.

Ideally you would,

Right?

The more you do,

The better it is.

That makes sense,

Right?

But if you're struggling to do that,

Make it easy for yourself.

And so now this is why we start with these lives with these five minute practices.

Because I want to show you that you can change a lot with just five minutes of your time.

And perhaps those five minutes stretch out to five minutes three times a day.

And then perhaps you find more time at some point to do something of a longer immersion into,

For example,

Reconnecting to your why.

But for now,

If you could take five minutes every single day to reconnect to your why,

To reconnect to your higher self,

As some people call it,

Then you're going to find that inner nourishment,

That inner motivation coming back.

That inner energy,

Yeah?

That renewal of energy.

And this reconnection with that why means that you're better equipped on the inside to make positive change on the outside.

Because remember,

We can't pour from an empty cup.

And so losing your why is like disconnecting.

It's like having no cup at all,

Right?

I like to think of your why as like the container.

It's the meaning for why you do all the things within that cup.

So reconnecting to it is a really important part of you being a conscious leader who wants to create positive change.

I also like to think of your why as your compass.

So it shows you how to lead or what decisions to make and how to relate to others.

So in it we find the way that we should be leading in the way that's authentic to us.

So for example,

Say your why was I want to create more positive relationships.

That's the reason why I'm trying to create like a positive place in this workplace because I realized that we don't really work together as well as a team.

I'm just making this up,

Yeah?

So the why is kind of I want to create more positive relationships and more positive community in my workplace.

Can you hear in that how that tells you,

It directs you how to lead?

So if you want to create more positive relationships,

What do you need to do?

I need to have maybe better communication skills.

I need to be more open to other people's opinions.

I need to be more friendly,

Right?

And just in the way that we act,

We can hear through that way we can hear the way that we should be acting in the world,

How we should be behaving in the world.

So another thing for you to know is yes reconnect to your why but also understand that a strong why is a clear why.

Because with clarity we find out how to live our lives in integrity and in integrity means based on your own values.

So you can see reconnection with your why or realignment with your why is important for your inner motivation,

Your energy and your direction as a leader.

So I encourage you to do these short little practices like we did right at the start to reconnect to it every single day if not several times a day,

Okay?

Find five minutes in your day to reconnect to that and become the leader that you wish to be.

So that's why we want to connect to our why.

Let's talk a little bit more about the three layers of why that you could have.

One is personal,

One is collective and one is the higher why or I call it your big why,

Right?

So the personal why is really talking about what matters to you.

Why does your vision matter to you personally?

What does it create for you?

What is the payoff for you?

It's not selfish.

Everything that we do,

Even our own personal development has,

Even if we have the purpose of it helping others,

Is inherently selfish,

Right?

So we always start,

This is why we always start with ourselves and then it bleeds out to others,

Right?

So what is,

Why does this matter to you?

Why does the creation of your vision matter to you?

And maybe it's because you want to see more harmony in your own life.

You want to have more peace in your own life.

You want to have more connection in your own life.

You want to have more freedom in your own life,

Right?

So that level is all about you.

The next level is collective why.

What impact do you want to have?

What changes do you want to see for everyone?

Why is this vision that you have about creating empowering spaces important beyond yourself?

So now you see that we're starting to take into account other people.

And maybe that looks like you want to empower others.

You want to lead positive change.

You want to see more inclusion in your work.

I don't know quite what that is for you in terms of your vision but those are some examples of like a collective why.

And then we get to the next level which is your higher or I call your big why.

Yeah,

And this one is like what's the deeper meaning or larger ripple effect that the fulfillment of my vision would have?

Why is what I am doing important in the bigger picture of things?

And I'm talking like world,

Societal.

And maybe it's because you want to encourage things like spiritual growth.

You want to see spiritual growth be the norm,

Like where people aren't like poo-pooing it but they're going,

Yeah,

That's something important.

I want to make that a priority.

Maybe it's because you want to see that in the world.

Or maybe you want to heal generational patterns.

Or maybe you want to allow everyone to fulfill their potential.

Or maybe you want to see more peace and harmony in the world.

I don't know what your big why is but this is really the level where you start to think about societal and world change.

And personally,

This is the level of why that motivates me the most.

So now I ask you,

Which level do you feel most connected to right now?

Do you connect to the personal one more?

Do you connect to the collective why?

Or do you connect to the bigger why?

Like what is the one that really motivates you to get up and do what you do?

And there's no right or wrong answer here,

Okay?

So feel free to pop it into the comments.

I'm really interested to hear what you've got to say.

They all feel interconnected to me.

They absolutely are.

And that's why I'm saying there are no right or wrong answers with the why that you feel connected to.

Because they are all interconnected.

So say for example,

You are connected to the personal.

That's still going to have ripple effects in the rest of the world and is going to change the big whys,

Yeah?

So I don't mind where you sit.

There's no like,

Oh that's a lower level.

Like we don't talk about that,

Right?

It's more about what motivates you personally.

What can help you to feel like you have drive and push behind what it is that you want to create in the world.

So for those of you thinking about this,

Which layer do you feel most connected to right now?

And as I said,

There is no right or wrong answer with this.

Everything always feeds into the bigger thing anyway.

So it doesn't matter at which level you choose your why at all,

Yeah?

For most of us as conscious leaders who are thinking about creating changes,

Our focus will likely be at the collective or the big why level.

Because you're not just here for elevation for yourself,

But you're here for others too.

So some people think we have to discover our why.

I love this quote from Viktor Frankl.

The meaning of life is to give life meaning.

So it's less about discovering your why and it's more about deciding on your why.

Decide what your purpose is.

Decide what lights you up and motivates you.

Choose something that makes you wake up every day,

Motivated,

Excited,

Ready to withstand any barriers or challenges,

Willing to do any hows to get there.

You choose.

You choose your purpose and your why.

Okay,

So as we wrap up today,

Let me give you a few reflection points.

So you may want to write this down in a journal or perhaps just pop it in the notes of your cell phone and take some time today to think about these questions.

So the first question about your why is,

When do I feel most lit up or alive in my work?

And this is specifically for those of you who are going,

Not quite sure what my why is.

So this is about deciding for that,

Yeah?

When do I feel most lit up or alive in my work?

The second question is,

Who or what am I ultimately doing this for?

Who or what am I ultimately doing this for?

And each of these questions are going to give you a little bit more of that clarity.

Remember a great why is a clear why.

Why?

Because within it,

It tells you how you are going to lead in integrity.

So if you feel like your why,

These questions are going to be particularly important for those of you who feel like you need more clarity in your why or your why is a little bit fluffy and it doesn't quite give you enough direction.

These are going to help.

So the last question is,

And this one is all about practice.

If I fully trusted my why,

How would I lead differently this week?

If I fully trusted my why,

How would I lead differently this week?

And I'd really love you to think about that one,

Because as we end this live today,

I would love for you to think about how can my why lead me through the rest of my day,

Let alone the rest of my week?

How can I use my why in a really good way to motivate me,

To energize me and my people?

How can I use my why as a reflection point about how I'm not quite living up to it?

Yeah,

This is like,

How would I lead differently?

Yeah,

So in the past,

Maybe I haven't quite been leading in integrity to my why.

I've been kind of leading in a different way.

Great.

I'm so glad you are aware of that.

Now,

How can I lead in a way that is fully in alignment of my why?

Oh,

Wow,

Such good questions.

Brilliant questions to drag oneself back out of the firefighting.

Yes,

Exactly.

And this was what we talked about earlier,

Wasn't it?

I said,

You know,

Often when we are leaders and we're really busy,

We've got a lot of people to manage,

Or maybe there's just a lot going on.

We get caught in the day-to-day doing of everything.

And as a conscious leader who wants to create change,

You need to kind of remove yourself from that,

Or if not remove yourself,

Remind yourself of why you're doing what you're doing,

And then lead in a way that's going to help create what it is that you're here to create.

I'm really loving hearing your message,

Nick.

As an educator,

I'm really interested in the conscious leadership model and positioning everyone as a leader,

Not just hierarchical as it enables shared power.

Absolutely,

Because everyone can be a leader.

You just need to decide,

I.

E.

Kids see themselves as leaders,

Not just the teacher.

Yes.

How can they lead to impact their friends?

Exactly.

Love,

Love your thinking,

Nick.

It is really value adding to my thinking about leadership.

Can't wait to hear you again,

Nick.

Thank you for your inspiration.

You are so welcome.

This is,

Wow,

What a great comment.

I'm not in a leadership circle,

But I have influence across several teams.

Yes,

Exactly.

This is it.

You do not need to be in a leadership position.

You do not have to have a leader in your role,

Yeah?

You just get to be,

I choose to take on leadership.

I choose to have an influence on my,

On the people that I am in contact with.

So this is wonderful.

You don't have to have been a leadership position.

You have influence across several teams.

Use that influence,

Decide now.

And I think that you already have because you're here on this live.

So thank you so much for your contribution.

If this was something that you really loved,

Then please,

If you're not already,

Come over and follow me.

You can catch a load of meditations there that can help you become the leader that you wish to be.

I've got so many free resources for you to access.

And you'll see on my events that I do these weekly lives.

Go and check out that event.

See if it lines up with your workday.

Hopefully it does.

I do record these.

So if you do miss them,

You can always catch the recording.

Although it's really lovely to have you live.

It also means that you have the chance to ask me questions,

Which I adore.

And I can answer them straight away.

So if you can,

Pop that into your diary.

Come and join me.

And if you can't join me,

Then I do hope that I get to see you again and hang out with you again.

I really do appreciate the time,

The effort that you put in for being here.

And if you feel like this was really valuable,

You can chuck me a donation.

And I love to put that towards my business just to help to get more of what I do out there in the world.

So I really appreciate that as well.

In the meantime,

Thank you for turning up and being the leader that you are.

Thank you for having this vision of creating more empowering spaces.

We need more people like you out in the world.

And I hope that today I have given you a little bit of something,

A little bit of extra,

A little bit of juj to help you do what you do in an even better way.

Let's hang out again.

Bye for now.