Leading With Authenticity

Happy Monday, everybody. My name is Jean Nichols. Hopping in a little early to get our Monday party started. Excited to be here with all of you. And if you are listening to this on replay. I would love if you could type replay in the chat. And tell us where you're from. And maybe what resonated with you. It's a rainy day in Minneapolis, but I don't mind rainy days. It gives us a chance to reset a little bit. Although I'm outside for a little second here, intentionally. And the one time I'm standing outside, there just happens to be a lot of traffic.

So I hope it's not too loud for everybody. But I will hop in my car shortly. But we get a plane and cars. Good morning, Luke. Happy Monday. Where are you coming in from today? I am in Minneapolis today on this perfectly rainy day. After a nice hot weekend in Minneapolis. We went to some friends, and I went to the Stone Arch Bridge art festival. It's one of the things that I love in Minneapolis is we have so many art festivals. And we took our dog, and he got hot and tired. So we had to take him back early.

So on this beautiful Monday, talking about authentic leadership. I am intentionally standing in front of this place in Minneapolis. It's called the salt caves. And I'm here this morning. I usually am here on Thursday nights. And sometimes on Saturdays and Sundays. And I do sound baths, and I do. It was. It was really fun. I got to see some artists that I bought some work from. So I do sound bass at the salt caves here. I do them a lot. As one of the many hats that I wear. And I'm not going to be able to show you inside.

Because it's all locked up now. I was hoping that the person that was helping me today. Could keep it open a little bit longer. But I specifically wanted to stand in front of the salt caves today. As part of my leading with authenticity. Now I'm going to go in my car because there's too many buses and cars. But the reason why I wanted to be here is because this morning I took a break from my consulting work. To come to the salt caves today. To do a private sound bath for a group of educators in the school system.

So they work in one of the school districts. And they're a group of social workers. That work inside one of the schools. And why I wanted to bring that in today into our conversation today. Is because it took one leader who afterwards, after the sound bath, shared with me that she suffers from a lot of migraines. And she was so excited when she walked into the doors. She got her team even more excited about being here and had never been to the salt caves in Minneapolis before. But her excitement for trying something new and taking a moment for this team to come together outside of their regular day jobs, where they are helping students with all kinds of questions, problems, challenges, etcetera.

Good morning, Jules. Great to see you. I'll give you a sneak peek of where I'm at at the very end again, but I had to come in the car. But what's important about this group, and what's important about this one leader is that she recognized how taxed her team is. It's the end of the school year. They're transitioning into summer. The work that they do with their students as educators is slightly different. And she wanted to do something nice for the team. After the Sambath, she shared with me that she was the most relaxed and calm that she's been in months.

And she said this out loud in front of her whole team. So we did, like, a team conversation afterwards to see how everybody felt and what their reactions were, what their thoughts were. And she shared in front of the whole group, she said, I get migraines all the time. She goes, it's the first time in months that I felt calm, and I felt like my head was able to finally relax and restore. And so we had a conversation about how migraines present themselves to her and how maybe sound bass could help her or not.

But it was really brave and courageous for her to say this in front of our team. And so when I think about how we might be authentic leaders, she happens to be the one that manages the team, but she recognized that her whole team needed something. They needed a break. They needed a reset. They needed to experience something together that wasn't high strung, that wasn't, you know, a happy hour. Something that might have more meaning because her, as a leader, was looking for something to connect to that had more meaning for her.

And it was really inspiring to be there with the team as one. They kind of all came in. None of them had done a sound bath. None of them had been to a salt cave before. They were kind of hesitant and reserved. And then in walks the girl that made the reservation, and she is bursting with excitement, literally, like, I've never been to a cell cave before. This is the coolest place on the planet. And her excitement, her enthusiasm for this 45 minutes period of time in their day, on a Monday that they all had off, and they came together to do this thing together.

And she oozed joy. She oozed curiosity. And so when we think about showing up into our work, whether or not we manage people, and I've said this before, we can lead without ever having an employee ever report to us. It doesn't matter. We can lead in our lives. We can lead in our workplaces with our teams, simply by bringing our passion, our energy, our purpose to life in those spaces. So I'm a consultant by my day job. I have many other jobs, and I end up in a position where I'm leading people, but I don't ever have any of these people.

I don't manage any of them. But they've come to rely on me because I can help coach them into the experience. I can offer them a new perspective, a new way of thinking about some of the work that they're doing or some of the people that they need to work with, I can inspire them to try to find something else that they're passionate about in what they do so that we can give them more of that type of work. Because when you are really passionate about what you do, when you find something that brings you joy in your workplace, people want.

They want to be around that. People want to understand why you're so excited about whatever it is. There might even be somebody that is so opposite of you that is completely drained and de energized by whatever the activity is. Maybe it's entering invoices or calling patients. Maybe they're totally drained by it. But if they see that you're super excited about it, there might be a unique opportunity to connect in a different way and maybe share some of those tasks or responsibility. So what can energize one person can really drain another person.

So when we're coming to work and we're having the courage to share out loud where we might feel challenged, where we might be struggling, where we might find excitement, energy, joy. It is information that the people around us can use to work with us better or differently and collaborate more. So we are in control of our perspective. We're in control of how we choose to lean into our work. We are in control of the enthusiasm or the lack of enthusiasm that we decide to share or bring. There are so many things that are in our control that when we decide to choose to lead from our whole self and bring that into the workplace, we have a unique opportunity to invite others not just to follow, but walk with us.

So on this Monday, I would love to hear if there are any challenges that you've discovered or a leader that you've experienced recently that maybe isn't a manager or boss, but you saw them show up in a way that you were like, I want some of that. Or maybe that was you. So if you have any of those experiences, pipe them in the chat, pop them in the chat, and share them with us. It's really neat when we can hear experiences that you've had as well so that we can continue to build on that. But what it also does is it brings those experiences, those leaders, into the forefront of our mind, and it reminds us that we can lead to, and that simply requires us to use our voice to maybe take an inventory of what we love and what we don't love.

And if we don't love something, why, maybe we just don't have enough information, or maybe we don't have the space to really do it the way that we would want to do it ourselves. But whatever space that we're in, we always have that opportunity to lead, and we always have that opportunity to show up our own unique way. Now, the challenge that I hear a lot is, well, my manager doesn't want me to be like that, and that is a possibility. Or the challenge that I hear often is that whenever I raise my hand or volunteer something or I talk about something I'm passionate about, I get a lot of resistance from my manager that maybe I shouldn't share that, or maybe they're put off, or maybe they talk over me.

And, you know, that's a very real situation. So a couple of ways that you can approach that. One could be having a side conversation with that person to say, hey, I've noticed this, and this is how it makes me feel. What can I say or do differently so that I feel supported by you. And maybe you learn a little bit more about them. Maybe they have never had anyone lead in a way that was inspiring to them. And so maybe they're learning more. Maybe there's something else happening completely altogether in their life that they don't feel at freedom to share.

There could be a whole bunch of different reasons. But I did offer this to someone that I've been working with recently. It's actually, my personal trainer was asking me a question about how to handle a situation at a fitness studio they work at, and I just offered the recommendation or an opportunity to ask this person that they work with. That's their lead, to sit down and ask them, how can I communicate with you better? Because I really want to collaborate with you. But every time I try to collaborate in a way that's natural to me.

It feels very resistant when I work with you. And so that's their homework assignment for this week, and I'm excited to hear what happened. Jules typed in here. Challenging to maintain positivity throughout the day. Now, knowing what you do, you work with a lot of trauma. You work with a lot of people who are going through something extreme in your day. So maintaining that positivity can be really, really hard. And also, thank you for the amazing work that you do in the medical field, because it's so, so important.

You know, I think about positivity in a couple of different ways. There can be the Pollyanna, right, where we're over the top, everything is rosy. And when you look at somebody in that space, that might be true for them and for others, it might be really annoying that they show up that way. And so when I think about maybe substituting the word from positivity to maybe it's finding something I'm grateful for today, or maybe it's finding an opportunity to listen to a story differently and offering some insider perspective.

Or maybe it's simply finding positivity in a flower that's blooming and using the energy of what it takes to grow a flower. Because if you think about the beauty that we see at the top of the surface, we don't know the struggle that the flower went through beneath to even be able to come up to shine. And so when we're looking for those aspirations or those inspirations, sometimes they're not always there. But what I do know, on the days that I feel the most challenged in my work, and on the days that I feel like the rainy day can take over my mood, my emotions.

And quite honestly, if I'm being really frank, Jules, I love doing sound baths, but coming to do one this morning was really, really hard. Cause I had put so much energy out this weekend teaching spin classes, doing breath work sessions that I really didn't have it today. But when I walked into this space, I knew that what I needed to do today was show up for everybody walking through that door. And the positivity that I received was seeing this one leader literally walk in oozing with joy. And I was like, that's it.

That's the why. So the positivity that we might be seeking may not be there in the same ways that we're used to seeing it, but my offering or suggestion might be, where might we draw upon something beautiful from something that maybe we didn't expect and allow that to be the inspiration that we need, even just in that moment, because some days are just going to be really hard. And I totally am grateful for the work that you do, Jules, and I am appreciative for the challenge that you posted in this in the channel today.

So if you want to chat more, let's pop that into the comments. Maybe we can get other people's perspectives as well. I'll take the ownership of adding that one in, Jules, if you take the courage to pipe in the chat with me in the comments with me me so on this Monday where we're talking about leading with authenticity, it doesn't always have to be a big, bold move. Sometimes it's just finding something that we need for ourselves. Exactly. Seeing the silver lining. Sometimes it's finding something that we need for our own mental health and sharing it with someone else so that we can also help people along the way.

Just like the leader who works in education that brought their team in today to do a sound bathroom on a random Monday that's raining outside. She brought that courage, that enthusiasm, that voice to her team to give the whole team a gift and get vulnerable with them about why today was so important for her. And that's what helps us create connections. That's what helps us continue to be true to ourselves, at least in this one girl's opinion. On a Monday. I hope you all have a great rest of your day.

There's some really amazing sessions popping in later today, so look ahead at the schedule, see which topic or see which presenter is meeting some curiosity for you. And if you sign up for two more just today, that's 4% of your day that you're taking for yourself. So I look forward to seeing you on a chat on Saturday or Sunday next Monday, and I look forward to seeing you on some of the other sessions this week. Have an amazing day and I will talk to you all soon.