As Season 3 comes to a close, we can't help but reflect on the incredible journey we've experienced over the last six months. But you know what they say—before charting a new course, it's essential to evaluate where you've been. So, join us as we share insights on creating a solid foundation for your business, preparing for necessary shifts, and growing both personally and professionally.
We've all faced evolution within our businesses, and this episode is no exception. Transitioning from managing finances and implementation to focusing on strategy, vision, and speaking engagements was a massive leap for us, but the growth has been invaluable! Discover how joining in-person networking groups helped hone leadership skills, and learn the mindset shifts required to emerge as a thought leader in your industry.
Finally, we're thrilled to share some exciting updates about the Institute's ongoing offerings and future plans—including the continuation of the ADAPT course, low-ticket workshops, the launch of a new blog, and even hiring a PR person to help further our reach. Plus, don't miss our exciting conference announcement and a sneak peek into what's in store for Season 4! Thank you for your support, and we can't wait to continue this journey with you.
Want to connect with us?
On the web:
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Loving the show? Send us some love back by supporting us https://www.buzzsprout.com/1522051/support
As Season 3 comes to a close, we can't help but reflect on the incredible journey we've experienced over the last six months. But you know what they say—before charting a new course, it's essential to evaluate where you've been. So, join us as we share insights on creating a solid foundation for your business, preparing for necessary shifts, and growing both personally and professionally.
We've all faced evolution within our businesses, and this episode is no exception. Transitioning from managing finances and implementation to focusing on strategy, vision, and speaking engagements was a massive leap for us, but the growth has been invaluable! Discover how joining in-person networking groups helped hone leadership skills, and learn the mindset shifts required to emerge as a thought leader in your industry.
Finally, we're thrilled to share some exciting updates about the Institute's ongoing offerings and future plans—including the continuation of the ADAPT course, low-ticket workshops, the launch of a new blog, and even hiring a PR person to help further our reach. Plus, don't miss our exciting conference announcement and a sneak peek into what's in store for Season 4! Thank you for your support, and we can't wait to continue this journey with you.
Want to connect with us?
On the web:
On social:
By email:
Loving the show? Send us some love back by supporting us https://www.buzzsprout.com/1522051/support
Hi and welcome to the Becoming Trauma-Informed podcast where we help you understand how your past painful experiences are affecting your current reality and how you can shift those so you can create your desired future. I'm Dr Lee, and both myself and our team at the Institute for Trauma and Psychological Safety are excited to support you on your journey. We talk about all the things on this podcast. No topic gets left uncovered. So extending a content warning to you before we get started if you notice yourself getting activated while listening, invitation to take care of yourself and to pause, skip ahead a bit or just check out another episode, let's dive in. Hi friends. So I am really excited and unexpectedly, i guess just processing that this is going to be the last episode of season three of the podcast. And I say unexpectedly and kind of just talking about this processing piece because this wasn't the plan And before anyone's like, oh my gosh, is there going to be a break? No, it's the beginning of season four and I'll explain why in a minute.
Speaker 1:So I was in a strategic meeting with our team, with Sarah, our operations director, who's been on here plenty of times, and we were just kind of reflecting and looking at strategic planning for the next six months to a year. Where do we want to go? What do we want to do? How do we want this to look? In order to strategically plan, we also need to evaluate right. This is something that I talked to. The humans in Our space is about a lot And, interestingly enough, just came up in one of our collective calls with one of our other team members who's in the collective And we were chatting about what she does and what she really loves And she used this Mount Everest analogy around how she really likes to help clients over the long-term period climb Mount Everest and really reach those goals, but talking about how there's multiple summits where you stop and pause And then also you can turn around and look back and see how far you've come, and I've always loved that analogy. So, in order to be able to look ahead and really think about where you're going, it's really valuable to look behind you and evaluate everything that you've done and all of the things that have shifted over the last six months. So that was something that I kind of did on my own and had looked at okay, what's happened for us since we started season three of the podcast And so much has happened in the last 10 months. So much has happened. So I really just wrote down a lot of the things that shifted and that I wanted to share, and I wanted to talk about what season four is going to look like and why season three is coming to a close today in this unexpected way.
Speaker 1:The way I've been thinking about this is that for the last few months, we have been getting ready to turn a page in our business, and when I say we've been getting ready to turn the page in the business, i want to talk about what's required to prep for that. I think a lot of times people think oh, you know, you're just going to make a pivot and you're going to implement the steps and you're going to pivot and you're going to move. And yes, at the simplistic level, that's what happens. And the more your business grows, the more you grow as a human, the bigger your organization gets, the more followers you have, the more clients you have, the more people you have on your team. Your business becomes a bigger ship, it becomes a bigger entity And it takes more effort and more energy to shift the direction that that ship is moving. This is also why I talk about how important it is to like really make sure that the foundation of your business is safe and supportive and mutually beneficial for all of the people involved. Because if you have that foundation from the start, it's a heck of a lot easier to turn the ship when you need to, because you're going to be making tiny tweaks instead of like big, massive changes, or you're not going to realize like, oh my gosh, i've been going in the wrong direction the whole time. Right, you're not going to have to completely turn the boat around, which that's a lot harder to do, especially when you've built like a big ocean liner versus like you're in a kayak or a dinghy, right?
Speaker 1:So I had been really like personally doing a lot of work, a lot of trauma work, a lot of processing work and a lot of looking at my own needs and my own desires and my own growth, asking myself what do I need in order to prepare for this shift, where do I wanna go personally? And then, as I'm doing that, how are we gonna bring that into the business? So I wanted to talk about the internal metrics and the internal goals that I have been using, the process that I've been using internally and personally to shift and grow and then also talk about the external process that we've been putting in place to show you the growth and also help you understand where that growth has come from and why this shift into season four is gonna happen For me personally, right? So, looking at, okay, what is it that I want for myself? What is it that I want for my family? What is it that I want for me personally, like outside of the business? what do I wanna be doing? What do I wanna be prioritizing? How do I want to move forward in my zone of genius?
Speaker 1:What I realized is there were a lot of places that I was still showing up within the business, that were once a necessity and were once helpful, and that now we're actually starting to hinder both myself and the business in general. So one of those places was managing finances. One of those places was being the one to do a lot of the implementation in the business. Still, one of those was I still had nine or 10 one-on-one clients and I was serving people that personal level really intensely on a weekly basis And that was really taking up a lot of my capacity. I was not able to write and able to think and able to do as many of the consulting pieces that I wanted to do, and I really was feeling this pull towards speaking and putting on conferences and consulting more and being the person who brings people into the Institute and does serve people within their.
Speaker 1:Still, however, i'm the one who's bringing people in and we have this phenomenal team of people who can then serve and support right. We've got these teacher trainers that are nearly done. We have a team of nine humans who are phenomenal, and so part of this was like okay, i want to actually step out of a lot of the things that I'm doing, a lot of the implementation and the management, and I really want to stay in the strategy and the vision space. Sarah actually teaches about this. She talks about how implementation is like that core level, and then we have organization management above that, and then we have strategy and then we have vision, and I really want was like you know what We talk all the time in our organization. We teach this in our business collective of like you really don't want to be straddling more than two of those, and I was straddling all four, and so I was like this is why I'm tired, this is why there's a lot going on And I'm not able to prioritize my family the way I want to. My schedule is really full. It's packed. I'm working way more than I wanted to be. Like this all gets to shift.
Speaker 1:So I started doing the really like intense mindset work around. What does it look like to release 10, 101 clients? What does it look like to really shift where the income is coming from? What does it really look like to allow other people to take over some of these things that I have, like taken responsibility for for a really long time Not that I still don't have responsibility over them. I am the CEO, i am the leader of the business, of the organization, and like what does it look like for me to not be the one doing those things so that I can be doing other things? So there was a lot of mindset work around this, and what I didn't realize was that for the last nine months, i have been putting myself through my own leadership program.
Speaker 1:You know, i've been reading books and taking notes and listening to podcasts and practicing, and one of the things I started doing is I actually joined several in-person networking groups. I started getting in rooms with people who before I would have felt like I was the little kid like pulling up a high chair to the dinner table with all these adults. And now I'm like, no, i get to sit at this table and I get to have a conversations with these people because I am running a big business. I am running a successful multi-six, student-to-be-seven figure revenue business Like that's a big deal And I'm allowed to own that. And I have been a business owner for over five years now And I'm not the baby in the room anymore And I get to treat myself as such and respect myself and see myself as somebody who really does get to contribute to these conversations and to collaborate with these other humans. So as I was joining these in-person networking groups and as I'm learning and having coffee chats and connections and really a lot of good conversations, i was like, wow, you know what? There is a gap. There's a gap in the marketplace right now. There's a gap And I don't even want to call it the marketplace. There's a gap in society right now around.
Speaker 1:How do you lead in this post-hype pandemic world? How do we lead as trauma-sensitive individuals? How do we create more psychologically safe spaces for people? How do we prioritize mutually beneficial relationships in business and in our daily lives, with the organizations that we are doing business with, that we are collaborating with, and also the ones that we're leading. What does it look like to lead in today's world? And I'm on TikTok a lot. I put out a lot of TikToks. I actually I'm not on TikTok that often, but when I want to just chill and intentionally dissociate a little bit, that's typically where I go And I'm seeing a lot of leadership conversations and videos come up and I'm watching these And I'm like man, this worked 10 years ago. This does not work today. There's what we were teaching and preaching about how we lead ourselves and others and how we create trust and how we inspire humans to not just not leave spaces, how we don't just retain people but how we create environments in which people thrive.
Speaker 1:As I'm watching people to have these conversations, first of all, these conversations are not being had in some ways And secondly, i'm listening to these people and I'm like, wow, this is not what people want to hear right now. This is not what people need right now. So I started asking myself what do people need right now? And I was like people need to understand that we are bringing in a new way of leading, and this new way of leading is actually requiring things from us that the old ways of leading actively discouraged us to do. And so I really dove into this And I was like, why are people drawn to the Institute right now? Why are people drawn to our content? Why are people drawn to how we are leading this conversation? And through that I was like, oh, this is the conference that we're supposed to put on in November. This is the conference we're supposed to put on, and I'm going to tell you a lot more about that next week. It's easy right now We're announcing it July 1st, so you will hear about it on July 4th, i think. So you know, we're having these conversations internally.
Speaker 1:We're having these conversations with the people who are coming to our institute and going like, yeah, you know, the way that people are teaching, coaching and mentorship, or showing up and coaching or mentorship and leading those spaces doesn't feel good. The way that organizations are trying to keep people from leaving and like improve retention is not working. There's a lot of stuff that's not working. And what we've found at the institute over the last year is and these last 10 months that, like I've really been diving into this is there are some really simple things that we can do as humans, as people who are leading And like. Let's just define leadership for a second.
Speaker 1:Leadership is that you are working. You are intentionally moving toward a goal. You are intentionally journeying in a specific way toward a goal with the people and the resources that you have, and you are doing it with integrity, and you are doing it in a way that really fosters the integrity of, not like, just your own integrity, but also the integrity of your organization and the integrity of who you are working for and who you are working with. Leadership is influencing people in a way that feels mutually beneficial for all involved on the journey to where we want to go. It's not just about the goal, it's about the journey as well. How does the journey feel for everybody involved? When we think about leadership in this way, when we think about what does it look like to lead in this way? you know there's a lot of really cool conversations and cool ideas that get to come out of that.
Speaker 1:Looking back at the last 10 months of kind of like what we've accomplished, what we've had happen at the institute is, you know, gain over 70,000 followers. Gain over 70,000 followers across our platforms. We have launched our business collective and just had such an overwhelming response from the people in there of like, wow, this feels so good And we have. We launched our ADAPT course and had a phenomenal response with that. The big thing that's been happening is we've had more and more people coming to us, without us prompting them, saying you are an organization that we recommend when people want to learn more about trauma and psychological safety. You are an organization that we recommend when people want to understand their nervous systems. You are an organization that is leading in this space, that you are taking us on a journey, in a way that feels good, to where we want to go, which is a safer, more supportive, mutually beneficial world. And, at an organizational level, you're helping us create spaces, that where people want to stay, where people feel like they can thrive and be themselves, and that is the direction in which I want to take the podcast. You know we have at this point I'd have to add it up, but I think we're close to 90 episodes. Close to 90 episodes where we have talked about what it looks like to understand and start to gain knowledge around what trauma is and how we can be kinder and more compassionate to ourselves, how we can lead ourselves, how we can become more regulated, how we can shift our nervous system, how we can improve our relationships, how we can do all these things, and it's been done from a space of that personal level.
Speaker 1:What I want to shift into now is and season four, this is going to be the focus, and I'll talk a lot more about it next week is what does it look like to lead in a way that creates these spaces? So not just how do I create this space for myself, also, how do I create this space for other people? How do I create a ripple effect Right? How do I show up in this way and how do I help other people show up in this way? Leadership requires both. It's not just about the people that you are serving and supporting, it's also about yourself, and so those are the kinds of conversations we're going to start having on the podcast. We are I'm calling it the leadership season. So we're really going to look at elevating this to like another level And we're going to focus on this until our conference in November. We're going to focus on this until the leadership conference, and I recognize that for some people that may feel like, oh, that's kind of a shift that I'm not sure that I'm excited about, and like witnessing and validating anyone who feels that way.
Speaker 1:And also, when we get to a summit on our climb, we are allowed to turn around and go, wow, where we have been and where we have come from and what we have done along the way. That is gorgeous and amazing. And we're not forgetting that those 90 episodes of the podcast are staying up. We still have our adapt course and we're still going to be doing some low ticket workshops that are $29, around specific topics every other week or twice a month at the Institute. So we still have all of these opportunities.
Speaker 1:For people who are like this is brand new to me and I want to learn more. We are not leaving that behind. What we are doing is we are slightly tweaking our direction and we are scaling and moving and climbing in a different way. For those people who have climbed with us, who now are thinking, yeah, i'm ready for more too, i want to start learning how to do this, not just for myself and for other people. So a big piece of this is going to be the podcast. There's going to be a blog that's going to start coming out on a more consistent basis, probably every other week, because I'm going to have more space to write. We've hired a PR person, so we're going to start really sharing about this in other places and really focusing in on that leadership piece. We're going to have the conference. Our team has shifted their roles a lot and, in response to, yeah, we've grown and we get to all make sure that we are in our zone of genius moving forward.
Speaker 1:And there was one more decision that got made that feels really, really good And again it's one of those that it's like it was a decision. The word decide means to cut off, and this was something we leaned into. We decided that we are hiring for the Institute from the people who have gone through our programming. So our event planner for the conference has gone through our trips program. Our photographer has gone through our trips program. The humans that are going to be supporting us and who are going to work with us and grow with us moving forward are going to come from the humans who have decided to learn with us. We've been getting a lot of humans coming to us and saying, oh my gosh, i would love to work at the Institute And it felt kind of scary to be like great, like you got to study with us first And that, while also gets to be evaluated on a case by case basis, that did feel really good to make sure, like, okay, you know what we're doing.
Speaker 1:So when we put host an event, you're going to show up in a trauma informed, psychologically safe way. When you're taking photographs at our retreats or events, you're going to do that in a trauma sensitive way. That is super important to us. So that is the shift that we've made as well. This is really exciting to have the conference be the one thing that we're really focusing in on And, like I said, we have our Adapt Self Study course that you can go by today and start today.
Speaker 1:We're going to have workshops that are going to get recorded. They're going to go up in our self study. You're going to be able to use those. We already have several self study courses. Our business collective and trips are actually going to start opening for continual enrollment Now.
Speaker 1:we're going to have start dates that are in September and December for the collective and January for trips and you're able to join them now and start prepping for them now and we actually have a really cool way to help you stay engaged and to help you start benefiting from deciding to join these programs early now. So that's also something that is a shift for us. Before you had to wait to sign up for those things, and now we're like no, you can sign up whenever, and the next time they start you're in. And in the meantime, in that time between when you sign up and when you start, you're gonna be supported. We're here for you. We've got you. So, yeah, we're just shifting a lot.
Speaker 1:So, for those of you who have followed with us for several seasons, i really hope that you stay. I hope that you decide to look at oh wow, i actually wanna look at my own leadership journey, how I'm leading myself and hear how other people are showing up in the leadership space and be a part of these conversations. And if that's not where you're at yet, that's cool. Come join us in the Facebook group, hang out in our twice a month workshops, go back and listen to some other podcasts, read the blog. There's gonna be so many places and spaces for you to be able to connect with us, and so we're not leaving anybody behind. That's not what we're doing. We're just shifting. We're slightly tweaking our direction with the boat And in a way that feels really good for our team, really good for ourselves, really good for who we are gonna serve and support in general moving forward. So I hope you come along the ride.
Speaker 1:For us, this is a page turn in our story. You notice the title of the episode. This is a page turn in the story. This is not the end of a book. This is just okay. We're turning the page. We are creating from this new space And everything that's been written before that is still here and it's still things that we get to go back to and look at and remember. So, like I said, i hope you come along with us for this next section in our story And if this resonates with you, i would absolutely love to hear about it.
Speaker 1:If you are like oh my gosh, tell me about the conference right now. I need to hear about it right now, so it doesn't email. Well, when the page to sign up drops, we will make sure that we send it to you. If you're like, i absolutely need to be there. It's gonna be in person in Columbus in November. So if you're interested, let us know. I love you all. Thank you for riding with me these last oh goodness, two and a half years. It's greatly appreciated and it's only gonna get better, so I will see you for season four next week. Bye, y'all. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Invitations to head to our show notes to check out the offers and connections we mentioned, or you can just head straight over to InstituteforTraumacom and hop in our email list so that you never miss any of the cool things that we're doing over at the Institute. Invitations to be well and to take care of yourself this week and we'll see you next time.