The Alimond Show
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The Alimond Show
From Corporate Finance to Holistic Healing: Cordelia Gaffar's Joy Bonding Methodology
Cordelia Gaffar, founder of Workout Around my Day Incorporated, takes us on a transformative journey exploring how intimacy intelligence revolutionizes leadership. Having evolved from corporate finance to holistic healing, Cordelia brings a unique perspective on creating workplace environments where authentic connection drives innovation and results.
At the heart of her approach lies "joy bonding" – a powerful middle path between workplace extremes that creates psychological safety and genuine belonging. "When leaders are intimately connected with their core right, knowing their values, standards and their requirements, then they are showing up for the joy of their expertise and help to bond their team together," Cordelia explains. This contrasts sharply with insecure leadership that causes chaos and disconnection.
Cordelia challenges conventional thinking by proposing joy as a measurable metric in workplace culture. "Joy is the frequency in which we're created. You can't run an organization that is run by humans without acknowledging joy." Through simple yet profound practices like starting meetings with personal check-ins and incorporating somatic awareness, she helps high-achieving professionals move beyond intellectual understanding to embodied leadership. Her work with executive women through retreats in Bali demonstrates how reconnecting with physical sensation through breathwork and movement creates immediate shifts in presence and effectiveness.
Whether you're leading a team or seeking greater authenticity in your work, Cordelia's insights offer practical wisdom for creating workplaces where people truly thrive. As she beautifully summarizes: "Joy is life and life is joy. It's so simple, but it's not easy." Ready to transform your leadership through joy? Explore Cordelia's Ultimate Joy Goddess Community sessions beginning August 14th or consider her Bali retreat coming in October.
Thank you for having me. My name is Cordelia Gaffar, the name of my business is Workout Around, my Day Incorporated, and I serve women who have experienced emotional abuse at home or at work.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Now take me back. What drew you to start Workout Around my Day Incorporated? Give me a quick overview of your journey from the start.
Speaker 1:In the beginning, I was just a mom trying to survive, right? So I wanted to share my message of how you can work in time, for you to work out throughout your day. It doesn't have to be hard, and that's the key to creating a sustainable practice of self-nurturing Absolutely.
Speaker 2:You bring intimacy, intelligence into leadership. What does that look like in practice for a team or organization?
Speaker 1:Yeah, when leaders are intimately connected with their core right, knowing their values, their standards and their requirements, then they are showing up for the joy of their expertise and so they help to bond their team together. Better right as opposed to a leader who's insecure right and has no connection, no self-awareness. They seem to bifurcate and cause chaos.
Speaker 2:You see, yeah it makes a lot of sense. How can leaders create a culture of authentic connection while still driving innovation and results?
Speaker 1:You know just to put some meat on the bones of what I just said, people they really will follow a leader who shows up, who actually cares right and shows empathy for humanity and they want to serve that leader. They want to show up more fully in their experience. You know who they are and why they were hired and it makes it easier for employees to resonate with the values and missions of mission of the organization.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I mean most people spend the majority of their day, their lives, you know, their week, at work. So to be aligned with you know a leader is really important. You want to feel safe in that space and you want to feel like you can express your ideas and you want to feel inspired.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I call that the essence of joy bonding Beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll ask you more about that too. But what's one small shift a company can make today to immediately improve team trust and collaboration?
Speaker 1:You know, I feel the way team meetings are conducted could change, just beginning with a simple centering, right Speaking, allowing each person to speak themselves into the room. What's present for you today? It may sound like a little, is that too spiritual? But at least you have someone's focus right and buy in from the beginning, as opposed to I'm here for another meeting. You know, instead of like, actually taking notes, you're doodling, right. But you know, okay, we're going to begin this meeting by everybody. Speak yourself into the room. What's present for you today, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like we should implement that into our team meetings. We do a fun first question where we ask what's something you're grateful for, and that's always a good way to start it out, but I like how you dive a little bit deeper. That's really. That's beautiful. Why do you believe joy should be a measurable metric in workplace culture?
Speaker 1:Joy is the frequency in which we're created. You can't run an organization that is run by humans without acknowledging joy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's very true. What do you think about AI? Do you think it's joyful?
Speaker 1:I mean I talk to my AI. Yeah, me too. I try to be nice.
Speaker 2:I'm always like can you please do this or? Thank you, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:You know I do. I am polite, but I try not to be over-performative with my AI right Because it learns from your way of being. So I have a decent relationship with AI, I would say.
Speaker 2:That's good. We should all have decent relationships with our. Ai with our chat GPT. How does joy bonding transform the way teams solve problems and create together?
Speaker 1:Because you know, when people feel safe, that's really the problem. People don't feel safe to speak up. They don't feel like, well, you know, I have all this education, but if I act like I know more than everybody else, then maybe I'll be shunned. Or you know something like this. Or, on the other end, right, there are people that are super competitive and they're just like I'm going to show everybody I'm you know so much more than everybody else. And then, of course, people don't like those people either. But joy bonding is right in the middle. It's like you belong here, you're welcome here. We need your thoughts and ideas to make this organization great.
Speaker 2:Wow, I really love that you have moved from corporate finance to holistic healing. What values have remained constant through that journey?
Speaker 1:Consistency, because you know as boring as accounting is right. You learn consistency. You learn how to create routine, and now I've exchanged that for ritual right, so I have rituals throughout my day, and rituals that I encourage and invite. You know my clients to create as well, so I don't tell you what your ritual is. I let you see what's within you so you can create them.
Speaker 2:I really like that, the exchange of routine for ritual, because routine to me is very black and white, almost like empty. It encapsulates a lot, because there are these things you're implementing into your day but it's like you could go through them as a zombie. But a ritual you're not going to go through that mindlessly. It means more, so I really, really love that. You've said that. What does embodying joy mean to you beyond just feeling happy?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not feeling happy. Like I said before, it's the frequency on which we're based right, absolutely. So it's an acknowledgement of your existence, I would say, first and foremost and secondly, in that acknowledgement, I am worthy to be nurtured right. So then you get excited about living right Instead of like the humdrum of every day, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:I love that and I think a lot of people need to be reminded of that. Like, I think if I could ask a random you know person on the street like, what do you think joy is, they would just be like oh, I guess like to be happy, do cartwheels? Yeah, Like, oh be really happy, but there's so much like meat to that word, so that's great. How do you help people reconnect with pleasure and purpose when life feels overwhelming?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so in the beginning I was mostly focused on nutrition, right, and like physical wellness, but now I take them a little bit deeper, into pleasure wellness. So when I say reconnecting with your body, I invite you to literally touch your body. You know, we're not talking about masturbation. Self-pleasure is, I mean, as simple as just touching the back of your hand with your other hand and acknowledging sensation and that you have feeling right and it connects you deeper to your heart. And when you're connected to your body, then it's easier to connect to other bodies, right, yeah, it's very like grounding.
Speaker 2:It reminds me of like different techniques that I learned when I was a teenager, like in therapy and different things like that. And then I took an Alexander technique class in college, which is kind of like. It's a technique that helps with performance, but it's really tapping into your body and like being in your body and being present while you're singing or acting or anything like that. I'm a singer, so I did it for that, but it really reminds me of that and it's just yeah, you have to self-nurture and you have to tap into that pleasure of just being in your body and being human in order to present as your best self.
Speaker 2:Yeah definitely that's super cool. I really love that. What role does self-nurturing play in being an effective leader or team?
Speaker 1:member that's present for me. There's a possibility that these are nuances that people are going through throughout their day. Right, so you automatically can resonate again, like with other humans, because you're like man, you know when I have my dip during the day. These are the things that I require, and it's not always the same thing. Right, because we are not linear, we are rainbows, I would say yeah, and it sounds like it really helps people.
Speaker 2:I think it's one thing to say, oh, like, let's be more empathetic, but self-nurturing and connecting with people because you're nurturing yourself really goes that extra, that extra depth to connection. So yeah very cool In your work how to healing and productivity complement each other rather than compete.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you're healed, you're more productive. You just think clearer. You know you and again I'm going to reiterate you have standards and boundaries. You know your requirements so you can operate at full capacity always. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Kind of diving in a little bit more to like your personal brand and human connection. As a mother who homeschooled for over 20 years, how has that shaped your approach to leadership and human development?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can probably hear it when I talk about self-nurturing. It's like I can't really see my boss and they're nurturing themselves, but the mom is the boss of the house, right? So I have six children. I'm still homeschooling. My youngest is 11.
Speaker 1:So it's very present for me, like every single day, in order to show up for my children. I know that I have to show up for myself, I have to be a certain way. And you look my children. They tell me they're like mom. Are you saying that? Like you can't say that about yourself. You're our mom and we love ourselves, so you have to. Yeah, so sometimes it comes out of my mouth, but they tell me you know they pull me back in, so it keeps. And I think this is the same kind of authenticity that leaders can have with their team, right, because sometimes you fall off your own values and even if you're the leader, it should be okay, if you're a strong leader, for one of your team members to be, like you know, actually Cordelia in our value system. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you've put those values into them. Yeah, yeah, that's so cool to think about. I really like that too, because I feel like I've been hearing a lot about kind of workplaces shift towards what you're talking about, and I don't know if everyone's doing it in the way that you're doing it, but I think that the way you're doing it is really exciting. It makes me excited as someone you know, as someone who has come out of undergrad a few years ago and is now like moving into the workforce. Just your ideas really make me excited and inspired for the future. So that's really amazing. Let me see what's one story of transformation from your retreats or coaching that stays with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was about to say there's more. So what I love about my work the most. I know I've been talking about a lot of talking, but we do somatic movement, right, somatic movement, right. So in December, when I was in Bali with the last group of women, there was this one woman. She was just like I just can't connect to my soul and I took her, you know, aside and I just helped her to get into her hips.
Speaker 1:I would say that's the portal between worlds, right. So there, in those few moments where we connected and I showed her how to, you know, just lean in and love a little bit more on her the side that she was affected, right, and then move it to the other side and feel that kundalini energy just rising and that immediate shift, right. And I didn't realize the impact of it until I saw some pictures afterwards. Someone actually captured that moment. Wow, yeah and yeah. So the women that come to these retreats are usually high-level executive women and she was having a bit of a lull between positions and when she went back now she's back in full force. Amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I took like a few yoga classes a few years ago and I remember them kind of talking about how so much like especially for women so much like tension and just like different things can build up and like within our souls and within us but like translate to tightness and the hips specifically. So that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's great that you were able to like have that, captured that before and after. Yeah, I'm sure there was such like a lightness about her.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's beautiful to witness how do you help clients move from intellectual understanding of self care to actually living it lot of the women I attract are very, I mean, like they're usually PhDs or doctors or lawyers or stuff like that, and so I'm just like you're here to be present in your body. So let's begin with the breath, right? So I do somatic breath work as well as movement, and they're often surprised how easy it is to just shift and lift, like their lives troubles off of their shoulders in half an hour.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, let's see if you could leave every person you work with with one lasting message about joy and connection, what would it be with one?
Speaker 1:lasting message about joy and connection. What would it be? Joy is life and life is joy. Joy, I mean, it's so simple, but it's not easy.
Speaker 2:I like that. It's not easy. I like that Simple but not easy. I heard that a few years ago, I think, in regards to like fitness or something like that. In regards to everything. There are so many things. Yeah, I heard that and then I was like, ever since I heard that, I would, you know, find little instances in life or different concepts. I'd be like, wow, that's really simple, but not at all easy, and I couldn't believe that I went through so many years of my life not realizing the distinction between those words.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Kind of like calculus and algebra, right? Yep, Like I think calculus is very simple but it's not easy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. Well, I wanted to. I wanted to also ask you about the events that you have kind of coming up. I know you have one spot left for your Bali retreat in October and then upcoming super soon, august 14th, the Ultimate Joy Goddess Community has a session. Can you tell us a little more about?
Speaker 1:those? Yes. So, like I mentioned before, I take a group of women to Bali every year in collaboration with the Love Camp. So she is a love and relationship coach and I'm the somatic healing coach or the embodiment coach in this instance and for a week we go to Bali and help women to reconnect with their joy so that they can have their long lasting love or create their long lasting love. And in July of this year I launched the Ultimate Joy Goddess Community, and so twice a month we have sessions on whatever the theme of the month is. So for this month we're beginning on August 14th and it is sacred rage and renewal.
Speaker 1:So as much as I talk about joy. You cannot well what? I just wrote an article on my sub stack this week and it says you cannot.
Speaker 2:Well, I just wrote an article on my sub stack this week and it says why rage is required for your ultimate joy. It is, it is. I have to go and read that. That's exciting. It sounds like a good read for me. Yeah, it is Awesome. Well, is there anything else?
Speaker 1:that I didn't touch on, that you'd like to share with us today. Oh well, like you, I've had a podcast for 10 years actually, but this last year I, you know, I've been renaming it. It was, in the beginning, the replenish me show, then the free to be show, and then I stopped it and I have another one called what people miss Right right. So it's distinctly different from my previous podcast, because what I'm noticing, as I'm moving more into intimacy, coaching, that there's a lot of things that people miss, that are just that subtle layer, the distinction between simple and easy, you know.
Speaker 2:so yeah, that's amazing. I really like that title too. What people miss yeah it's an intriguing title too. I feel like a lot of people click on it because of that, and is that on all platforms it is?
Speaker 1:and even on my youtube channel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll have to have to get into it, I'm excited, sounds like something I would like. Um well, thank you, cordelia, so much for coming in and making the time to talk to us about Workout Around my Day, incorporated, and your journey and all your offerings the Bali retreat, everything like that that you have. That's so exciting coming up. I know our audience is going to love this episode and, yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me, of course.