Ep 193 - Slow Hiring, Kind Firing: Creating Aligned Teams With Catherine Bell

"There are times when the nice thing would be to keep somebody on, the kind thing would be to let them go."

Unlock the secrets to self-aware leadership and effective delegation with our extraordinary guest, Catherine, founder and CEO of The Awaken Company. Learn from her journey of growing an agency from one person to a thriving 70+ member team, and discover the importance of hiring people with complementary skills and involving your team in shaping a compelling organizational vision.

Catherine emphasizes the importance of creating a healthy company culture through slow hiring, kind firing, and aligning with core values. She shares a pivotal moment when her team couldn’t articulate the company’s vision, highlighting the need to involve team members in vision creation for true buy-in and cohesion. She also shares practical strategies for business owners, self-awareness in leadership, and enhancing leadership with Enneagram.

Key Takeaways

1. Slow Hiring and Kind Firing: Take your time to hire the right people and let go of those who don’t align with your values kindly.
2. Cultivate Self-Awareness: Understand your strengths and weaknesses to become a more effective leader.
3. Use the Enneagram: Leverage personality types to improve leadership and team collaboration.
4. Embrace Setbacks: View challenges as learning opportunities for growth and improvement.

End your week with a boost of inspiration and actionable advice to embrace setbacks as learning opportunities and become a more self-aware leader. Don’t forget to share the episode with fellow entrepreneurs and leave a review!

Learn more about Catherine Bell here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bellcatherine/
https://www.instagram.com/theawakenedcompany/
https://legendarypodcasts.com/catherine-bell/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Often, leaders are walking around with mirrors around them. What do I mean by that? People are just reaffirming their importance. The self-aware leader in an interview would know what are my strengths, what are my work odds, and then work with people. For example, I tend to hire people who don't have the same gifts as me. So the self-awareness of like OK, I'm good at strategy, I'm good at creativity, I'm not as good at operations and administration, so I like to hire people who can complement my skills.

Speaker 2: 0:47

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to Master Delegator Podcast, the podcast that unveils the secrets of effective delegation and productivity for business growth. My name is Christy Yoder, ceo of Smart VAs and Meet 5 Star VAs, and your podcast host. Can I tell you a secret? I am obsessed with teamwork and delegation. I consider myself a lazy entrepreneur, not because I don't like working, but because I always find ways to do things in the most effective and easiest way. I was born and raised in Manila, philippines, moved to the States. I was born and raised in Manila, philippines, moved to the States and grew my agency from one person to more than 70 plus team members. As of this recording, I was able to grow my business 10 times more after I hired my first virtual assistant within three months. Together with my team, we have helped more than 300 stressed and overwhelmed business owners scale their businesses by delegating to virtual assistants, and that's why my goal in this podcast show is to help you grow your business by giving you fresh perspectives on delegation, outsourcing, hiring virtual assistants and up-to-date proven business strategies, and teaching you how to scale your business while living a freedom-filled lifestyle. Whether you're a business leader, entrepreneur or someone striving for peak efficiency, this podcast is your go-to resource. We bring you insights from industry experts, successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders who have mastered the skill of delegation. If you are ready to elevate your productivity and achieve more by doing less, you're in the right place. Subscribe to Master Delegator on your favorite podcast platform and join our community of proactive delegators. Now let's get started on the path to becoming a true master of delegation. Path to becoming a true master of delegation.

Speaker 2: 2:54

Hello everyone, today we have a truly special episode lined up for you. Joining us is an extraordinary guest the founder and CEO of the Awaken Company, a dynamic organization with a mission to foster awakening cultures within businesses and communities. Our guest, a thought leader and author, will be sharing her unique journey and the pivotal moments that shaped her approach to leadership, organizational health and personal development. In this episode, you will discover the crucial importance of team buy-in and involvement in creating a compelling organizational vision. Our guest emphasizes the profound impact of maintaining a learning attitude, cultivating self-awareness and investing in leadership development to create and sustain a healthy company culture. We'll also delve into practical strategies, such as the meticulous process of hiring slowly, firing kindly and ensuring everyone within the organization is aligned with its core vision and values. She will also share the inspiration and perseverance behind her acclaimed book, the awakened company, and invite all of us to participate in a vibrant community dedicated to building healthier human beings, relationships and teams. Furthermore, we'll explore the fascinating world of the Enneagram personality types.

Speaker 2: 4:31

I'm not even sure if I pronounced that correctly, but anyway, our guest will break down the three centers heart, head and gut and explain the importance of balancing and activating all three for effective leadership and personal development. Don't miss her tips on using meditation and grounding practices to boost productivity and presence. So get ready for a session rich in insights and practical tips that will inspire you to embrace setbacks as learning opportunities, set personal intentions and become a more self-aware leader. Tune in, take notes and let's awaken to our highest potential together. Hello Catherine, I'm so excited to get started. Oh my gosh, even before recording this interview, we've already talked about awesome things already, so I would like you to introduce yourself before we dig deeper.

Speaker 1: 5:33

Christy, thank you so much for having me and thank you to everybody who is listening and experiencing this podcast. May it serve you and what you want to create. So I am the founder and CEO, and also author, of the Awakened Company and we help organizations create awakening culture. So we work with corporate culture strategy, with soul consulting, executive coaching. We have play shops on the Enneagram, we have individualized leadership coaching. I also teach at some of the top business schools. I have an app called Awakenly. I have two audio programs coming out, a new book coming out, and I think we're all here to create, and so my focus is how do I help awaken organizations, awaken relationships and awaken individuals so that we can all live into our potential?

Speaker 2: 6:34

I love it. I love it. You're awesome. So you've been in business for more than 10 years and I know you've sold a successful company which is called Blue Era, and I'm pretty sure that when you started becoming an entrepreneur, there were ups and downs. Right, how I wish it was only ups and no downs. But yeah, as you were starting your company, as you were just launching your business, what were the struggles that you've had or the challenges that you were able to overcome?

Speaker 1: 7:09

well, I'd like to tell you a story, christy, and it's a story of like how I made what I consider one of the entrepreneurs fatal flaws. So shahana sadiki, my co-founder at Blue Air, and I had a strategy session and I said to everybody you know, here's our vision. Like we're all in a boardroom. So picture everybody in a boardroom. We're all in a boardroom, here's my vision. I'm like, okay, great, the team's got it and we went on with our agenda. Then, a couple of weeks from there, we had a consultant in from Denmark because there was no one in North America doing what we were doing and we wanted kind of a different vista. And he asked the team what's your vision? And, christy, nobody raised their hands. So that night I cried myself to sleep and we spent our time with that consultant defining our vision, and it made me realize a whole bunch of things.

Speaker 1: 8:10

Number one as a leader, your ultimate goal is to have a cohesive team, and one of Margaret Wheatley's principles is people support what they create. So it is so important to get other people's buy-in in the creation of your organization's vision. And that, to me, was one of my key learnings as a business founder, and often we're told we have to have vision but we're not told, like, how to do it or how to go about it, but really to get the team's involvement in the creation of vision. I was recently working with a team that's decades old and they've never had a vision, and so we did a vision session out in the mountains and they came up with the most profound vision and everybody's energy went up because they created the vision for the organization themselves and now know how to actively walk it every single day.

Speaker 1: 9:05

Wow I love that Christy. One vista I've had and I'd invite everybody to have, and Carol Dweck speaks of this in her growth mindset versus closed mindset is rather it's not like failures and successes, rather it's all about what are we actually learning and then cultivating that learning attitude and development attitude in everything we build and create.

Speaker 2: 9:31

Wow, I love that. So how old was the company when you started creating the vision for it?

Speaker 1: 9:41

It was only a few months old.

Speaker 2: 9:43

A few months old, and what was the company like before having a vision? We were.

Speaker 1: 9:49

Rather everyone knew kind of what we were doing. They just didn't know why we were doing it, nor did they know how they could contribute to what we were creating together. And that's a vital piece of creating a healthy culture is for people to understand their value and their belonging in building the vision together. And so it's like who do we have to be to get to where we want to go? And everybody needs to understand that and everybody also. Another piece of data that everyone should know is the more self-aware a leader is, the higher performing they are. So, in terms of the like the people we coach, there's one I was working recently with a CEO and they received a whole bunch of money for a series B financing and they had no idea how to lead and no idea how to create a corporate culture. So really, this idea of leadership, it can be taught, it absolutely can be taught, and same with culture. Culture can be built over time and it's all the little things that we do in our relationships that actually build culture.

Speaker 2: 11:01

Wow, I love that. And in your years of experience building your own company's culture and building other companies' culture, was there a time, or were there a few different times, when an employee did not believe the vision and the employee caused negativity within the organization?

Speaker 1: 11:29

Absolutely, and those are times where some people should be on the bus and some people should not be on the bus. However, as a leader, it's our responsibility to have dialogue, healthy dialogue, to have dialogue, healthy dialogue, to treat everybody as humans, and I think that's often forgotten. You know, there's role and then there's our relatedness. Everybody needs to have a clear role and we also need to remember our relatedness. Now, what do I mean by that? I think everybody needs to have a job description that's in alignment with the vision missions of the organization.

Speaker 2: 12:06

That's in alignment with the vision missions of the organization and we always need to keep our humanity.

Speaker 1: 12:08

So, for example, there are times where the nice thing would be to keep somebody on, the kind thing would be to let them go. I love that and it's so it's to have those difficult conversations. It's also kind to that individual. It's also kind to that individual and it's also kind to the other people in the organization, because anytime you know somebody is dragging down on vision mission not aligned, they like way down the entire organization. Exactly so it's. It's. To have real compassionate and kind conversations is incredibly important.

Speaker 2: 12:48

Right and, at the end of the day, what doesn't fit doesn't fit right.

Speaker 1: 12:53

What doesn't fit doesn't fit, and it's important to give people a chance, obviously. So we need to give people a chance, but if there's not a fit, there's not a fit. If people don't believe in the vision or the the why behind it there's, they should not stay do you believe in the statement hire fast, fire faster?

Speaker 1: 13:12

So hire fast, fire faster. Okay, so now you're speaking to a former executive recruiter, so let's talk about this. This is a very, very good question. I think we should actually hire incredibly slowly, and here's why Because GH Smart did some research on this and the cost of a job that's $100,000, if they're not the right fit, the cost of the organization is 1.8 million dollars. I personally think we need to hire really, really, really slowly and deliberately and fire kindly, fire kindly. However, so in executive search, I had an over 90 percent stick rate, uh, and the reason is because the process got so many data points on the candidate and it also gave the candidate so many data points on the organization that they were coming into that it'd be very hard for it to be misaligned.

Speaker 2: 14:11

Yeah, that makes sense. I love that. Hire slow, fire kindly. That's the new version of hire fast, fire faster. Yes, tell me about the Awaken company. Why is it called Awaken? Why did you choose that word? What's the story behind that?

Speaker 1: 14:31

Oh, this is such a good question and I wouldn't say I chose the name of the company, I'd say the name of the company chose me.

Speaker 1: 14:41

Wow, okay, and so what is that? What's the story behind that? I was sitting in a dimly lit cafe in New York City with my colleague Carolyn, and we were going to a course together and at the time, I was finding Blue Era. I found a Blue Era by the way, the best company names are those that are made up, just so people know. It's like Apple, blue Era, like things that are made up, and Blue Era really stood for. When you look down at the earth, it's mainly blue, and we believed that the next era is going to be about working better together for the sake of our planet. That's why it was called Blue Era, but it was a made-up name.

Speaker 1: 15:18

Um, so, awakening company, dimly lit cafe, sitting with carolyn having a coffee. I love coffee. Who doesn't love coffee? Both right and all of a sudden, christy, a lightning bolt shot through my head and I was like what? And? And the lightning bolt was like you were to write a book called the Awakened Company, like what? And so I looked at my colleague Carol and I said Carolyn, I just had this. Like you know how, when you have jolts of gnosis, jolts of just, it was a jolt of just knowing. And I looked, looked at Carolyn. I said, carolyn, I'm going to write this book and she said, yes, you are. And so that's where it began.

Speaker 1: 16:03

And originally the book began as a recruiting book and then I gave it to my partners in the recruiting company. They're like Kat, this is not very good. And I wanted Eckhart Tolle's publisher to publish the book. So I kept on, like working at it. It took me over seven years to write the book, like it took, and Blu-ray in many ways was like a Petri dish for it.

Speaker 1: 16:25

And then the book kept on iterating and iterating. I got so many no's on the book but I kept on going, like I just kept on going and trying and putting myself out there and asking, even when I didn't know somebody. So I wanted a community around it. So I asked the CEO of Patagonia if she would contribute. Well, she didn't know and she said yes. Wow, tony Robbins gave a reference for it. Like it's just, it just kept on. Things just kept on happening. Now, not everybody said yes. In fact Constance, who I absolutely love, the publisher of Awaking Company. It took her so many times of me knocking at the door saying will you publish this? Will you publish this, will you publish this? And she finally said yes. So I think that's something about in the DNA of entrepreneurs. It's like when we feel like something should happen, we kind of our energy gets so aligned that things start to happen, because we put our energy out to try new things anyway.

Speaker 2: 17:21

So that's the birth of the awakened company wow and kudos to those people, especially your partner, when you asked him about the book and he said no, katherine, this is not good. I mean, that's. I'm pretty sure that's not the kind of response that you were expecting. And he's not the only person who told you that, right, like other people also said hey, this needs improvement, blah, blah. And this was your first book, right? Yes, that you published. How did you feel when you received those feedback or criticism at first?

Speaker 1: 17:55

when you receive those feedback or criticism at first, Well, you know, our vista on feedback is very important, so I wanted real feedback positive good indifferent and because that's the only way we're going to learn and grow Right. The kind of like the highest performing leaders are those that are self-aware, so to be vulnerable enough because you know, when you write something it feels for well. For me it always feels so personal, so anytime I write something, someone critiques it, I'm like, um, like it goes right into the core of my heart.

Speaker 1: 18:32

I know right, I feel the same way, yeah, and it goes right into the core. And yet I knew that their interest was just to have and create a book that was, you know, had positive impact for the world. So I'm like, okay, and then I would rework it and rework it, and rework it. Writing is really the act of rewriting and rewriting, rewriting and rewriting. However, I think it's important for every leader to know that when we're given feedback, that its intention is to help us evolve as a human being, and so when we can take that attitude, it kind of takes the sting out of feedback. Like it takes the sting out so it doesn't hurt as much because as entrepreneurs, we put everything and as writers, we put everything into that, and then to get feedback, it's like, oh and, and it's super important to grow and develop, um, as a result of feedback I love that, and it's also normal to feel hurt, right as long as you don't dwell it.

Speaker 2: 19:35

You have to process your emotions and know that. You know the feedback that you receive or criticism that you receive from the people you know are something that's for you and it's not even for them. You know it's for your improvement. Hey, are you sick and tired of being overwhelmed because you are doing everything alone in your business and can't scale because you don't have a team supporting you? Well, you don't have to worry anymore, because smart VAs can provide you with a team of experienced virtual assistants that can do different tasks to support your growth. That can do different tasks to support your growth From admin to bookkeeping to social media, video and podcast editing to website graphics, seo and customer service. Smart VA's team can help you grow your business without any worries or stress from all the tasks weighing down on you. If you are a busy entrepreneur who needs help with your day-to-day tasks so you can focus on growing your business, then you have to visit smartvirtualassistancecom. You mentioned three times already the word self-aware. What are the characteristics of a self-aware leader?

Speaker 1: 21:05

often. What a great question. Often leaders are walking around with mirrors around them. What do I mean by that? Like people are just reaffirming their importance. The self-aware leader in an interview would know what are my strengths, what are my work odds, and then work with people Like, for example, I tend to hire people who don't have the same gifts as me. So the self-awareness of like, okay, I'm good at strategy, I'm good at creativity, I'm not as good at operations and administration, so I like to hire people who can complement my skills. But often people won't know what their gifts or work-ons really are. So we don't know what our gifts or work-ons really are. So, when we don't know what our gifts and work-ons are, that's the kind of definition of self-awareness is knowing our gifts and work-ons and also being willing to admit it. And in admitting it, then we can actually do something about it.

Speaker 2: 22:17

Right, right. And when you were starting your business, like, how did you become self-aware? Like, how did you know your strengths and weaknesses? Did somebody help you or did you just figure it out yourself?

Speaker 1: 22:31

Christy, we use something called the Enneagram to help leaders become more self-aware. Enneagram to help leaders become more self-aware, and it's a profound roadmap of how do we become more present as leaders, and it shows us the vehicles of our gifts and the pathways to what we need to work on and what we need to cultivate and develop. It shows us how we're all wearing certain lenses and we also have the opportunity to wear all lenses once we understand what the different lenses are.

Speaker 2: 23:04

I love that so if I may ask, what is your? I don't even know how to pronounce it correctly. Enneagram result.

Speaker 1: 23:12

Yes. So the way I look at, the Enneagram is really a process map and we do have one core dominant type and my Enneagram is really a process map and we do have one core dominant type and my Enneagram core type is an eight. It's a challenger. So I like to challenge the status quo. I like leadership, I like broad thinking, I love strategy, I love impact. However, the details and the process maybe not my gift, so I actively work with to develop that within myself and also hire other people who are good at that. So one of my business colleagues that I'm working on the book with, russ Hudson. He's like my, the counterpoint to my point, so he's very detail-oriented, more list making than I am and I'm more broad brushstroke. So that's an example like of where we can you know, you know our gifts, our work on, so that we can work on together better.

Speaker 1: 24:09

There's also something called in the enneagram. There's the emotional realness types, which are the four, six and eight. The positive types, which are the four, six and eight. The positive types, which are the two, seven and nine, and the competency types, which are the three, five and one in terms of Enneagram types. So there's nine core types and knowing when you're in partnership. So I'm emotional. Realness, russ is competency, and knowing that, then we know that we need to bring in positivity to our relationship. So there's so many different ways to work with the Enneagram to help improve our self-awareness and our relationship skills.

Speaker 2: 24:50

I love that I have not taken that assessment. I have done this profile assessment and also I know my leadership style, but that would be interesting for me to know. I may be a challenger too, but we don't know for sure until I take the assessment right that's right and in terms of the assessment, I can do.

Speaker 1: 25:12

You want me to briefly walk through the different? Yeah, okay, and one thing I'd suggest, christy, is it's a lot of self-reflection, so you don't have to know your Enneagram type right away. Like, take the time to kind of explore each type. So I'll walk through all nine types with you. So eight is the challenger, which I've described as leader, bold, confident, can be sometimes commanding, sometimes can be dictatorial. High energy, high voltage. We walk into a room and people know we are there, quite, kinesthetic. So there's three gut types and that's the eight, nine and one. So eight, the challenger is a gut type, so it has to do with anger. The next type is nine the peacemaker, and these are the people who see all perspectives, who want to keep the peace. They can agree with you, but they may not actually agree to doing anything, but they're agreeing with you as a person because they just want to keep it peaceful. They tend to see eight see things quite like this is what we need to do. Nine see like the whole vortex of these are all the different options, so it can take them a while to figure out what needs to be done. Nines you need to give them a lot of. My colleague, bliss, is a nine and you need to give them time and space, like I asked him okay, bliss, help me with this book, how are you creative? And his response was ah, kath, give me some time. And that's the nine. Like time and space, okay.

Speaker 1: 26:48

So next is one the reformer, and I call the reformers like the red pen nerds of the world, like they'll look at a document, the red pen nerds of the world, like they'll look at a document and they'll be like, oh, my goodness, um, like this red penner, like this needs to be, like this is not right, this is not okay. Um, we need to get this right there. They need to live in integrity. Integrity is so, so, so important for them. So for um, a ceo, um, when I was was working with their working in an industry this is back to the vision statement that you said working in an industry that they did not believe in and they had to leave it because it wasn't in alignment with their integrity. So that's the integrity piece is the one, the performer. So those are the gut types, the eight, nine and one.

Speaker 1: 27:43

Next is the heart. The heart types are the two, three, four, and it's a different feeling. They're more concerned about image Eight, nine, one anger, two, three, four. Image Two is okay, christy, I see you at your office. Can I get you some water? Can I get you some coffee? What do you need? How can I help you? Like that's their focus is I want to be of service to you and it's all about giving love. But what they don't often see is how they give love to get. Hmm, yeah, so to pay attention to that. It's like are we giving together? Are we giving cleanly? So that's the two, then the three.

Speaker 1: 28:24

The three is the reason why we have award ceremonies. The three is like the. It's called the achiever and it's for the people. It's the people who always want to get the gold medal, who are not happy unless they get the gold medal, and what their focus is on? Success, but it's often external success, not internal success. So it's like where do I get the gold? Where can I be accomplished? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So the focus needs to be internally what is the gold of my own heart versus getting the trophy? They always looked the part. One of my former business partners was a three and he was the only one in the office with a mirror, and the only one. When you looked at his closet, you opened the door and there were pictures of what outfits look good together. Highly efficient, highly productive. I love working with threes because they can often operationalize what my vision is Okay.

Speaker 1: 29:23

So then there's the four, and the four are like the Alanis Morissette, johnny Depp's of the world. Woe is me. It's also why we love music. It's like the depths of the heart. If the two would be the front of the heart, the three would be the middle of the heart, the four would be the depths of the heart. If the two would be the front of the heart, the three would be the middle of the heart, the four would be the back of the heart, and I was like woe is me. Let me just tell you all these stories, all these sad stories of me and Don Riso, who I learned the Enneagram from. I often think of him when I'm doing sessions, and doing Enneagram sessions with teams. He'd be like Catherine, you need to have flowers in the room. It creates the right ambiance. So it's like the look and feel and one of the. I was working with one of the top PAX experts in Canada and he was a four and he was exceptional because he saw the world differently. He saw the world differently than everybody else.

Speaker 1: 30:18

So that's the two, three, four and then head center, which people are often like forget your head. No, don't forget your head. If you forget your head, you forget how to drive and stick in between the lines. We need our head center. So the five, six and seven. And the five is the investigator and they're the people who like study things, like Albert Einstein, stephen Hawking, like their particular flavors to investigate, to go into things so that they can have gnosis, so that they can have a new revelation Then.

Speaker 1: 30:48

So the five is the people who like the details, who like the process of the details. Then the six is the community person, the loyalist, and they're the people who see all the negative scenario plans that can happen. They're the people who aren't happy unless there's a worry list, wow. And they're the people who you know are incredibly good at following through and supporting people and we need to listen to them because often we don't people. And we need to listen to them because often we don't and I think a lot of like 2008 financial meltdown. If we listen to more of that six energy, it wouldn't have happened.

Speaker 1: 31:25

Then there's the seven, which is called the enthusiast and christy. They're the people who are like, let's brainstorm, and they love to come up with ideas and strategies and they love talking and everything is positive. However, while they're very good at brainstorming, they need to keep grounded to complete the projects that they want to do. So we've got the 8-9-1 gut, 2-3-4 heart, 5-6-7 head. And what's amazing is we all, when we know this is we can activate all of those centers within ourselves so that we can behave from a more full place as a leader. So often if I'm getting like too action oriented, I'm like pause, activate your head center. What other things could happen here? So it really is an invitation to tap into our three centers our belly, which is action, anger. Our heart, which is image, feeling, emotion. Our head, which is thinking, gnosis, also anxiety, and tapping into all centers so that we can be more fully awake as a leader.

Speaker 2: 32:32

I love that. So you said you are an eight. Do you have other two numbers?

Speaker 1: 32:41

that. So you said you are an eight. Do you have other two numbers? Uh, so there's somebody who does tri-type and her name's Catherine Favre. Yes, I'm an eight in the belly, a two in the heart and a seven in the head center. Oh, I love that. What do you think you are, christy, from what I described?

Speaker 2: 32:59

I might be closer to what you have. I don't know for sure, but I, I can be a challenger. I can be bold and confident as well. So I feel like I'm an eighth. Based on what you mentioned, I feel like I may be number two as well. I love I. I am very goal-oriented, I'm competitive, but at the same time, I'm also a visionary. I have a lot of ideas in my head and I'm not detail-oriented, and when I walk in the room, they know I'm there, because I tend to be the life of the party too, because I love joking around. I'm very positive all the time. I'm maybe 8 to 7 too. I mean, I'm excited to take the assessment. So if there is somebody who would like to take the assessment, where would they need to go?

Speaker 1: 33:55

So I'd suggest to go to our app, awakenlyapp, and it's on the Apple store. I would also suggest my business partner and where I was trained, their test, the ReadyTest, and it's R-H-E-T-I test and that's a very fulsome report of your Enneagram types and it's worth it to do it because, as a leader, you're being given an x-ray to understand what are your gifts, what are your work on and when, understanding that you can be a better leader and a better human being as well I love it.

Speaker 2: 34:27

Um, I know my this profile results are d and I, so I'm on the dominant side and I'm also I forget what the I stands for, but I know it's like the sanguine part of it. Yeah, so I'm a dni, I'm an extrovert, um, yeah, um. Thank you so much for walking us through those different types of you know personalities, and I highly recommend people who are listening to this episode to take the test, and I would take the test for myself as well. I'm not sure why I didn't, but I should, you know, and I love learning more about myself because I believe that in different seasons of our life, we change.

Speaker 2: 35:14

You know, when I was single, I'm very highly dependent I mean independent and now that I'm married, I tend to be more and more dependent because I know that I have somebody that I can rely on. And then, when I didn't have my business, I used to be so blunt, I'm direct and straightforward, and now that I have a business, I tend to be more kind and considerate and I am more compassionate, you know. So it you know our experiences in life, our seasons in life. It changes us and I'm really I mean, I'm really glad that you walk us through these different types of? Is it an enneagram? I don't know how to pronounce it Enneagram.

Speaker 1: 36:04

All right, nine and gram means picture, so it's picture of nine, picture of nine, okay.

Speaker 2: 36:10

Yeah, cool, hey. Are you looking for a community to learn how you can be effective in delegation, so you can focus on the things that matter the most in your business and grow to 6-7 figures? If this is you, then today is your lucky day. Join our Facebook group today to get your questions answered on delegation, outsourcing, business growth, hiring, members, members and many more. We offer so much value in the group, so join our growing community by going to facebookcom. Slash groups, slash master delegator. See you there. All right, so what's one productivity hack that has transformed your workday?

Speaker 1: 37:00

One productivity hack that's transformed my workday is meditation, and it may sound counterintuitive, and I think we're often on the wheel of automaticity, the wheel of doing, whereas if we can meditate and ground and come back to our inner being, we can then operate more deliberately as we think about what are the three things we need to achieve today.

Speaker 2: 37:27

I love it. And how does it look like to you? How does meditation look like to you?

Speaker 1: 37:34

I have a daily meditation practice and I do it first thing in the morning and I also meditate at different times during the day. Because I was just meeting with a leader, actually a CTO, and he said you know, often my meetings are just back to back and I've got to get to the 10th floor and there's not even minutes for me to plan. I'm like, okay, we can just build in little gaps where we can ground. And now, actually, in a number of board meetings, we begin in meditation and everyone starts from a different place. They're far more.

Speaker 1: 38:06

I loved, by the way, how you brought in how your business has made your kinder and compassionate. I think business is a force for good and the only way we're going to solve the problems that we face is through organizing differently and through creating, as you've talked about, you know, from this kind of more compassionate place anyway. So building in times of pause so that we can truly be present to our days and present to the moments that we have, so that we can operate from our higher place versus from automaticity we can operate from our higher place versus from automaticity.

Speaker 2: 38:42

I love that. I love that. So I know for each individual, they do meditation differently. You know, it depends on what they practice. You know, some people they do yoga, they do proper breathing and stuff, or some people they listen to music, or some people they pray. How about for you?

Speaker 1: 39:00

one of the things that I I do every day is people are typically breathing from the top part of their lungs and I belly breathe. So one thing is belly breathing and then relax my shoulders, because our shoulders are open like this. Relax shoulders, belly breathe, sense my heart, space, sense the lights, the heart, the colors of the heart. Bring the energy up to the head center, third eye. What is my positive intention? And then that's it. It's not a lot, but it completely realigns.

Speaker 2: 39:44

Yeah, I mean, you just walked me through for like just a minute and I felt relaxed already, you know, just by breathing in and out. You know I love that. And okay, I have another question for you how do you handle setbacks and keep moving forward?

Speaker 1: 40:19

is the moment. It will keep on coming up because we're denying it. So I think for setbacks for me, I go into them. Into them. What does it? What does it mean? What is it teaching me? How do I need to readjust?

Speaker 1: 40:28

And this is something that's very important, because I see strategic planning as emergent planning. It's like we're a collective, we're an organization that's an organism, and organisms don't stay static. So setbacks are just part of status quo. What are we learning from them? How do we need to adjust, going forward and so really to kind of take the charge because earlier spoke about like feelings being hurt, like anything around my business. I'm very sensitive. It's like my third child, you know. Anytime I start a business it's like another baby to me, so it's very personal. So how do we kind of bring it out from the personal to make it more of a just a learning, a universal for learning, and then build from there? But the challenge is most organizations don't even have a plan. So to set back? Set back from what? Because they haven't really planned or set a collective intention and collective action plans to achieve their intention.

Speaker 2: 41:32

Right, I love that, and it's just. You know, it's really all about embracing setbacks. You know, instead of avoiding it, address it head on.

Speaker 1: 41:45

Go in and what happens? So often I'll be working with boards of directors and there's like something contentious that they swept under the rug. That they swept under the rug and what's interesting is it pops up kind of in little ways and then, like, I'll recognize it as a facilitator leader and I'm like, okay, we need to go into this. And once we go into it, then it can be cleared and healed. But until we until with our setbacks, until we clear them, heal them, we can't really go forward.

Speaker 2: 42:11

Right, I love that. What is that animal that go through the storm? Is it a buffalo?

Speaker 1: 42:17

That I don't know.

Speaker 2: 42:18

I think it's a buffalo. If not, then listeners feel free to Google it, but I know it's a buffalo and instead of running away from the storm, they go through it, yes, and after that they build resiliency and perseverance as well. So, yeah, I wasn't sure if it's a buffalo, but I think it is a buffalo. So, as we wrap up, what do you want to say to entrepreneurs or business owners, business leaders, ceos however they want to call themselves, ceos, however they want to call themselves? If they are currently experiencing burnout and they don't have flexibility in terms of managing their time, energy and resources, what would you tell them?

Speaker 1: 43:07

Our intention matters. So I think every day. First of all, a lot of people don't have a personal intention and I think having a personal intention is our anchor to how we want to show up in the world. So first is to have an intention and repeat that intention every time you walk through a door, every time you go to a new meeting, because it reminds us of how we want to really show up and in reminder then it sets a different field instead of the field of overwhelm. And also to tap into our body senses as it relates to our intention, our breath and what are we actually sensing in the moment to keep us grounded in this very precious moment.

Speaker 2: 43:55

I love that. I love everything you said. I love all the insights you shared. Thank you so much for being here on the show. Where can people find you online?

Speaker 1: 44:08

Awakendcompanycom. Please find me on LinkedIn and you can find us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook under AwakeningCompanycom. And please join our newsletter because we have so many things. Recently, we just did a free giveaway for everybody who responded got a free webinar, so please join our community as we build awakening and healthier human beings, relationships and teams.

Speaker 2: 44:39

I love that. I will include all those links you mentioned to the show notes so people can find them. But thank you so much for your time today, kath. I really really appreciate it and I enjoyed our conversation today.

Speaker 1: 44:53

Me too. Thank you so much, christy, and I want to hear about your Enneagram type, so maybe you can do a write up about that.

Speaker 2: 44:59

Yes, yes, definitely, I will let you know, thank you. Thank you, christy. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. If you like this episode, please share this with your entrepreneur or business owner friends on social media so they can have freedom and flexibility while running a successful business as well. Please also subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Your feedback will inspire me to continue creating content like this and help improve this podcast show for you. Thank you so much again for listening and I'll see you again on the next episode.