The Shift I Couldn’t Ignore Anymore in My Leadership | EP 568

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Get the private reflections I share with leaders navigating scale → Sheila’s Notes

Transcript

When Pressure Drowns Your Inner Voice

Sheila 0:01

Most founders I work with aren't actually lacking strategy. They're lacking space, space to hear themselves, space to slow down enough to notice the truth beneath all the noise. And when you finally stop overriding your inner voice and start listening again, everything in your life and business reorganizes around that truth. So today we're talking about what really happens when you come home to your inner voice and what it takes to lead from that place again. Hi, welcome to the podcast. I'm Sheila Botelho, and I believe true success is built from the inside out. You're here for a conversation that has been slowly forming over the last few weeks and truly even over the last few years on a larger scale, because this is something that every high-achieving human eventually faces. And that's, I'm talking cross-industry. It's the moment when the pace and pressure and the expectations of people in your life and in your business become louder than your own inner voice. And if you've ever been in a season where life has demanded so much of you that your own clarity got pushed to the back of the line, this conversation is going to feel like oxygen for you. You see, we're in a season right now where so many leaders, especially the ones who carry a lot, are feeling a kind of internal stretching. They're moving forward, they're doing all the things they need to do, but there's more and more being added to their plate, more expectations in the industry, in how they market themselves, in the sales process, and in really what they're delivering based on so much change happening in the economic landscape. And it's like this subtle rising tension that is beneath the surface and it's asking for honesty. This is a season where you can't keep operating the way you did even six months ago. And how your old pushing through way of working doesn't actually work anymore. It really is because you've grown beyond it. And I want to talk about this today through a lens I don't always open up publicly, but it's my experiences of ignoring my intuition, what the cost has been of that, and the very human recalibration that follows when you finally listen in to yourself again. So there was a time, and I'm gonna place this about a decade ago, I think. I don't really remember the years, but I was working in a consulting role that I had completely outgrown. I initially was so thrilled to be doing this alongside of my other work. And then there came a time where I just knew in my bones it was time for me to move on. And my inner voice was whispering it long before I admitted it out loud. And I really feel like I had done the work that I had gotten there to do. And the mission was shifting, the leadership energy was also shifting. And I could feel myself shrinking instead of expanding. And, you know, many days just feeling kind of stagnant. And I know not every day is supposed to be growth, growth, growth, growth. But you know, when you feel like you're in that sweet spot, you've got momentum, and then it's it's actually kind of leveled out a bit, but you have that really great feeling behind what your days look like and what you're accomplishing during each day. Well, that was starting to leave and leave my experience. But instead of listening to myself, I stayed. Because it became this internal emotional tug of war. I think that's the best way I can characterize it. One part of me was trying to move forward while another part of me was gripping onto what felt familiar. Like the FOMO kicked in. I will say that's part of it. Like, oh, but if I move on, I won't get to see what happens next from the inside, which is always so cool for me to be on the inside of something greater than something that I've built. Um and so what really ended up happening was I found this emotional cost starting to add up. I was constantly negotiating with myself instead of being anchored in myself. Do you know what I mean? Like I was negotiating with myself almost to not grow into the next body of work that was meant for me. And as a result, though, logistically, my leadership fell flat and I just didn't feel like I was making the impact that I had brought there to make anymore. And that was subtle because it's not like anyone on the outside was saying anything about that. It was something from inside of myself where I just knew that I was no longer supposed to be the person holding that role. And also knowing that someone else could have come in with fresh energy and brought something bigger forward. So truly, I stayed too long. And if you find yourself in a time in your life like this where you think, oh no, but if I move on, then who's gonna pick up the reins? Honestly, if you know that you're meant to be moving on, I believe there's someone waiting in the wings, or a few someones waiting in the wings to take over to do exactly that, bring that fresh energy in. And it wasn't just what was happening in that role. At home, the cost I was experiencing was presence. I wasn't fully with the people I loved. I was in my head, constantly replaying the same questions, trying to figure out what I already knew, but wasn't ready to admit. Have you ever been there? Energetically, I was drained. No amount of sleep helped. No workout energized me. Like, I mean, hey, I don't think I've ever had a bad workout. It's kind of like pizza, right? You know, you can't really have a bad pizza. But it wasn't energizing me the way it normally would. And my sacral, which usually lights up so instantly when I'm aligned, it felt muted. Like I could not hear what I normally would hear about my next steps. And that experience became one of my greatest teachers because once I finally left, the clarity flowed in like sunlight. My intuition had been right the entire time. It was nudging me, nudging me, but I was like pushing it back and saying, no, no, no, not now. So again, maybe you're in a moment like that where something in your body knows long before your mind is ready to catch up. Reconnecting with your intuition may sound mystical to you, but in my life, it's incredibly practical. One of the biggest shifts that I made this past year was having no inputs before late morning. No email and no social media, no reacting to other people's agendas before tuning into my own. And now I understand this is not doable for everyone. It really depends on your work. It depends on how your business runs. But for me, I'm able to do that, at least I am now. It's definitely seasonal, things shift over time. But it was really important for me to do this because I found that my spirit-led rituals, they really matter more now than they ever did. My walks, right now they're on a treadmill because it's it's snowy and slippery outside where I live. My nature time, my prayer time. And honestly, the conversations with my soul sisters who reflect back to myself, all of these things are medicine. And these are the things that high-achieving can tend to resist the most. And they may say that they want peace and they want to tune into these things. Like they all make sense in their mind. But what they find is these practices ask them to slow down long enough to actually feel what's true. And that's hard when you're in momentum, when you've got a lot of people that you are accountable to, and you know, whether it's your team, your clients, et cetera, you may feel like slowing down is not the best move. But I have found, especially as if you follow human design, as I'm a non-emotional, sacral manifesting generator, my entire work rests on how I feel inside my body. Like I've never known this to be more true. Now that I have been following human design for, oh my goodness, seven years, something like that. I know that if I'm not lit up, things start to collapse. And so this year, intuition became a habit for me, like really paying attention to it. It wasn't something that was just a luxurious thing on my calendar, like, oh, wouldn't it be nice to spend that time to really tune in? It was a daily practice. And the more I listened, the more I could see exactly where I had overridden that voice in the past and how the cost always showed up later. When my clients tune back into their inner voice, the very first shift is always their energy. It's palpable. I can see it when I am in front of them, whether I'm virtually in front of them or in real life. I see their shoulders drop, their breathing slows down, they stop using language like the should I, shouldn't I kind of stuff. Like all that stuff dissolves. And they begin to access that seed of clarity that really doesn't need to explain itself yet. It's that seed that just knows. The whole plan isn't developed in front of them, but they have that seed that will then take root and grow into something. And from there, the next piece is their boundaries become beautifully fierce. What I'm talking about here is clear. They have very clear boundaries that they stand by strongly and kindly. They stop taking in everyone else's opinions constantly because their own voice finally has enough room to speak. And when I say that, I don't mean they don't listen to the things around them and they don't take into account various opinions in their decision-making processes because hello, it's just part of the process. But they tune into themselves first so that they can run everyone else's opinions through the filter of what their intuition is saying. And the moment that that happens, their next step often becomes obvious. Again, their next step, not the whole plan. And that is really all any of us ever need. Because I was just speaking with someone recently who had been very focused in one area of her business, and it was taking up a lot of her time. And then she started to feel this sense that there was something else that she needed to be doing. It was a new body of work that she was wanting to create. And it wasn't fully clear. But she actually gave herself time and space to think about it, to actually step away from the day-to-day business that she was so very busy in. And she's in momentum mode with that part of her business. Like we're talking massive growth, but meanwhile, this other seed of an idea came through. And she could have just bypassed it and said, okay, I won't think about that now. Write it down and deal with it later, which is always an option, but it kept nudging her. Like, you need to look at this. You need to look at this. And so she stepped away. And she actually, in her case, she was able to do an overnight away on her own, a nice little solo overnight. She checked herself into a hotel and she had a really nice solo meal in the hotel restaurant where she was staying. And she didn't have an agenda. She didn't have a pen and paper there at the dinner. She just listened to the nice jazz music that was softly playing. She enjoyed the meal, the really delicious, healthy but delicious meal that she that she ordered, took her time eating it, just allowed her mind to slow down. She looked around her at the other people that were dining, had a few brief conversations while she was out for that evening. And then once she got back to her hotel room, she had a nice bubble bath. Like literally, she just really gave herself space to clear her mind. And by clear her mind, I don't mean empty her mind because it's kind of like when people talk about meditation. I can't meditate because I can't clear my mind. It's not about clearing your mind. Like I think that's impossible to actually not think about anything ever. So she was, though, allowing herself to just let everything flow through her mind, kind of like just pass through her mind like clouds, you know? Without judging it, without strategizing, without trying to fix situations. She just allowed, and again, she had music on. I it's she's very much like myself in that regard. I always have music on, unless I'm recording this podcast, obviously. It's quiet, but I love having music on and it just moves me. And so she had that time. It was like really lovely. And she kind of was able to come into her own energy again. And still, after that point where she was all cozied up in her beautiful plush hotel robe, she still wasn't pulling out a journal and saying, okay, let's get down to it. She then rented a movie or streamed a movie. I guess that's what we do these days. She streamed a movie on one of the streaming services. And she just got all snuggled up amongst all the plush pillows and totally got into this great movie that she was wanting to watch and had been wanting to watch for a while. And then she drifted off to sleep. And the next day, after she had done a little bit of a workout, I think she went for a walk by the beach because she didn't even want to do anything that structured of like a gym workout. So she walked by the beach and she again allowed things to land. Now, at this point, of course, she was on her own. She's got her phone with her just in case, right? She voice noted a few things as they came up, but she had no pressure in her mind in terms of what she needed to actually get done on this walk. She just wanted to enjoy nature and just be with herself. And that is really where the creative fire started to be stoked. And she got a few ideas and she went back and got a nice breakfast. And then from then on, she was taking some notes. She was allowing things to just arise within her. And from there, she realized what the next step would be. And as she started to work on what that next step was, other steps followed once she got back to her regular life and her regular office and all of that kind of stuff. So that truly is the way it can be for us if we allow ourselves to have space. Now, for her, she checked herself into a hotel. For some people, it's literally about just taking an afternoon away, hopping in a car, going for a drive, whatever the case, going for a walk, getting out of your usual surroundings, going and hanging out at a really cool coffee shop that you've wanted to check out and sitting in a cozy corner and just kind of people watching and not having an agenda. Even if you just do that a few weekends in a row for a few hours, you're gonna find some clarity come as long as you're not sitting there scrolling your phone. Like literally, the only thing you need to make sure of is that you are not tuning into the grid, if you will. And you'll see what happens. By the way, if you're not subscribed to Sheila's Notes, that is where on a weekly basis, I share these deeper reflections with leaders navigating scale. And you'll find the link in the show notes because this is where I often will share stories from some of my experiences with the people that I work with. And this is one that I was sharing recently in an email. I want now to speak directly to something that has been real for me these past few weeks. Now, I've been carrying a lot behind the scenes, family things, emotional things, the kind of things that don't neatly tuck into a schedule. And I mean, I love a schedule, but I also love a schedule because I can then break the schedule. That's just kind of how I am. And as we know, when our partners or loved ones are navigating something big, we often become the emotional grounding rod. And that alone requires more spaciousness and it requires us to have more rest and especially more grace on ourselves and others. So MySacral has felt the impact of this. And it's in a way that demands a recalibration of how I work. I've needed to rejig things. Now, when I'm with clients, the energy comes online instantly. But the sustained long haul energy isn't fully there right now, just being honest with you. But instead of pushing through it, you know what I'm doing? I'm doubling down on the time I spend in my practices, which are my nature walks, my workouts, my rest, listening to music, et cetera. And so what I'm doing, instead of pushing through, I am listening. I'm listening to where my energy is taking me. And so for me, what recalibration looks like is having a pause time, even when you're in momentum, as I am right now. Now it's counterintuitive, but what I've always found is it protects long-term capacity. It also looks like I allow shorter bursts of creativity instead of long marathons. And actually, this is much more natural for me as a manifesting generator as well, those short bursts of creativity. To someone else, it may seem like I'm all over the place with the way I create, because I'll start something, I'll move on to something else, and then something else, and then I'll go back to where I began. And it's always been very, very effective for me. I'm talking about even way back in grade school, like that's how I would work on projects. And my husband's totally different. He would be like, you start something and then you methodically go point A, point B, point C, and you finish, right? So we're all different and you got to do what works for you. But it's been very natural for me to do this because the marathons would just tax my energy. And I am mindful of this because sometimes, even though I like those short bursts, sometimes I get so focused. I will get my head in my work and like two hours will go by. I'm like, whoa, I haven't even looked up. I need to move my body. I feel very stiff right now. So I'm more mindful of it. I also let naps be part of the strategy. And it's part of the strategy that I haven't actually done yet. I just know that if I need to, I can take a short 15-minute nap. Because sometimes rest is the next right action. Something that mentally has been helping me through the emotional side is letting cycles be cycles. Think about this. Every ending is followed by a beginning. And when we feel like we may be in collapse mode because there's emotional things going on in our life, it's not a weakness, obviously. It's something that reminds us to soften because we're human. Another thing that I pay attention to is choosing truth over performative productivity. Now, what do I mean by this? Especially right now in the world that is telling founders they should always be on, be seen, get in the room, go, go, go. Like, we don't need to be performative with ourselves to prove our worth. We have certain things, certain goals we need to achieve, certain things we need to do or delegate if we're not able to fully focus on them right now. But we need to actually ask, like, what is true for me right now and what is absolutely essential that I do right now? What can I delegate? What is going to have to wait? Instead of just, oh no, how does this look? Because when we just look at the optics, we totally bypass ourselves. And that is one of the key ingredients that starts you on the road to burnout. And I'm telling you, if Been there several times. So this recalibration has made one thing incredibly clear for me. Your inner voice never disappears. It just waits for you to slow down enough to hear it again. Now I'm going to say something that might just ruffle some feathers. And it's this the founders who thrive in this next era, I believe, aren't the ones necessarily who hustle hardest. Now, it may appear that they are thriving as they're hustling, but I'm talking, let's look down the road a little bit. Because I believe the founders who truly thrive long term are going to be the ones who listen the most deeply to themselves and to the people who have meaning in their lives. AI level the playing field. Access with social media leveled the playing field. All of these incredible tools at our fingertips leveled the playing field. But what doesn't get leveled is your discernment, your inner knowing, your integrity, your ability to make decisions that come from alignment instead of urgency. I truly believe that your intuition is your competitive advantage. And it always has been. Only now, what I'm seeing is more people are becoming aware of this truth. If this conversation has you nodding because you've been feeling this internal shift, this pull toward a different way of leading and listening to yourself, expansion season is where we do this work in real time. It's not theoretical, although there are some theoretical things that I share. Truly, it's not just, you know, information and just more and more courses and all these kinds of things. It is from embodiment. This is not something that you have to just get through. It is actually a lived experience and a way of recalibrating how you move as a founder so your next level doesn't cost you your well-being, your presence, or your power. I will say it from the mountaintops. You don't have to carry the full weight of your evolution alone. You get to do it alongside others who lead big, who love big, who are holding a lot, who are human and who want to do it in a way that doesn't drain them. If this conversation is landing and if something in you is saying, This is my season, you're going to find a link in the show notes. And I would love to walk you into what's next. Thank you so much for being here. I hope you have a beautiful rest of your week, and I will see you on the next episode.