031 - How Embodied Leaders Create Impact

Embodied Leadership: The Power of Leading with Energy, Presence and Sensuality

What does it really mean to lead from the body? In this bold and unapologetic episode of Business Sexcess, Lorraine explores the difference between head-based leadership and embodied leadership - and why so many successful professionals are unknowingly operating on only half their power.

From CEOs to changemakers, we’re living in a world where productivity, strategy and systems often take precedence over intuition, energy and presence. But what if your greatest leadership tool isn’t your mind… it’s your body?

Lorraine shares why embodied leadership is the future of business, how sexual energy is not about sex, and how reconnecting to your life force can transform how you communicate, decide, lead and live.

Expect truth bombs, practical tips, and a powerful invitation to come home to yourself – because the way you lead others is only as strong as the way you lead yourself.

In this episode:

• What embodied leadership actually is (and what it’s not)
• How sensuality and energy boost resilience, presence and decision-making
• Why burnout often starts with disconnection from your body
• Tips for grounding, tuning into your gut, and leading from wholeness

Whether you're a team leader, a solopreneur, or climbing the corporate ladder, this is a must-listen for anyone ready to ditch the autopilot and lead with soul, not just strategy.

Visit the Orgasmic Life website for more information

Proudly edited by Mike at Making Digital Real

Transcript

Have you ever walked in a room and felt someone's presence before they even spoke? Have you ever had a knowing that runs to your core that you can't ignore? Have you ever had a feeling about a situation you just can't explain? You just know. You know those ones you just know. That's what I'm talking about.

That is embodied leadership. Thank you for tuning in to Business Sexcess, the podcast where we unleash the power of sex, intimacy and pleasure to fuel your personal and professional development. This is an over 18 space and things are about to get hot, juicy and oh so deliciously unfiltered.

So buckle up, or loosen up, because we are diving deep. I'm Lorraine Crookes, your host and personal sexual empowerment liberator, an award-winning speaker, number one best-selling author, columnist, educator, healer and on occasions a stand-up comedian. I'm here to help you ditch the shame, ignite the confidence and lead an orgasmic life because life's too short for mediocre pleasure and half-hearted Sexcess.

So get comfy, get curious and let's dive in. Welcome back to Business Sexcess and in today's episode we're going to be looking at how embodied leaders create real impact in the world of business. The power of the body and not just the mind.

Now many people believe that leadership is very much around mindset and drive and that's true. However, I believe that leadership is a full-bodied experience, a bit like a good red wine. It's about everything that goes into it.

It's about the whole package, everything. I believe that many leaders, leaders of multi-million pound organisations, leaders that run teams of hundreds of people are cut off from the very source of their power that could really change everything for them, their bodies. We live in a world obsessed with productivity, strategy, logic, turnover and for many leaders, I believe, that they lead from the neck up.

They lead with logic, the strategy, the thinking stuff. They're stuck in processes and systems and their head. They drive on polished smiles and busy brains and caffeine-fuelled lifestyles.

They forget that their main source, their main power, their main drive is their body. They forget that working with their energy, their very life force that does so much for them, is something that could give them the edge, something that could, if they tapped into, make a huge difference in not only what they do in their role but how they do it and that work-life balance and everything that goes with that. Many leaders forget that their presence and their ability to present who they are is their leadership gold.

I genuinely believe that many leaders are running in survival and they don't thrive because they are disconnected from the very core of who they are. They're just on this autopilot system process drive that's prescribed to them almost by their industry, their society, their culture, of the business. They're just stuck in something that's been created around disconnection.

I believe there is a leadership crisis and it's a leadership crisis that no one's talking about. One that I have personally witnessed time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time again with professionals at many different levels. In the work I do, I've supported CEOs, executives, leaders, educators, entrepreneurs, change makers who have learned to suppress, who have learned to switch off, who have learned to disconnect from the very energy that could set them free.

So tell us what is this gold dust that you have to share with us? Well, I'm talking about the energy that lives in your hips and in your chest and in your heart. I'm talking about that raw vital pulse of life that fuels us. That pulse of life that fuels creativity, that pulse of life that fuels confidence, that pulse of life that fuels our intuition, our gut instinct, that pulse of life that is our absolute authentic connection.

Well, I call this sexual energy, but don't panic. Sexual energy isn't about sex. Sexual energy is about your core. 

It's about every aspect of who you are as a human being. It is your life force. It's everything you are. 

It's everything you can be, and it's how you show up in the world. But it's not what you do. It's who you are. 

I'm talking about vitality, clarity, radiance, a bit of that feeling when you just walk a little bit taller, you've got a smile on your face, wind blowing in your hair, and the world just seems to be an amazing place. It's about having that every day because you are connected to who you are and not just what you do. Have you ever walked in a room and felt someone's presence before they even spoke? Have you ever had a knowing that runs to your core that you can't ignore? Have you ever had a feeling about a situation you just can't explain? You just know. 

You know those ones? You just know. That's what I'm talking about. That is embodied leadership. 

When you walk into a room and you are so in tune with what's going on that before anyone speaks, you have a knowing about them, about what's going on. You have a knowing because you are in tune with you and your energy picks up on them. You're not switched off. 

You're switched on. That knowing that runs in your core that you can't ignore but often do. It's about tapping into that. 

It's about trusting that gut instinct. I'm sure you can think of situations where you had that feeling in your gut and you went against it and you wished you hadn't. When you had that intuition, that guidance within you and you ignored it because your head got in the way. 

And then obviously you wished you'd tapped into that gut instinct and you didn't and then you somehow try and justify in your head the reasons you didn't do that. The fact is you just ignored it. It was there shouting out from within. 

It's an innate energy. It's a part of us that exists for a reason and many of us are disconnected. And we've all had those situations that we just can't explain. 

We just know. How many of those do we ignore? How many of those do we just justify we can't tap into? We just dismiss them as silly feelings and instead we rely on our systematic practical thoughts. Are you sometimes a leader who doubts your decisions? Are you sometimes a leader who needs that external validation? Do you get stuck on autopilot running from one task to the next? Numb with life and just living from the shoulder up? There are many many many many many many leaders who are and they are missing out on so much. 

They are missing out on that deepest, most amazing, expanding, sexy power that they have within them. Now in the work I've done with leaders through coaching, through Tantra, through workshops, even through my talks, one of the things that resonates most with many leaders I talk to, many entrepreneurs, many business people, is this aspect of really connecting to returning home, returning to the body. Now when we really understand the body and our energy, when we really tap into that as a resource, everything changes. 

Now I call this coming home to self because many of us rely on so many external things in our life. We are so disconnected from ourselves. We rely on external validation, external stimulation, external just everything comes from outside of us instead of inside of us. 

And it's that reconnection to self, the connection to life force, the embodiment of your sexual energy, which is what up levels life. I was going to say leadership but it's not, it's life. It up levels everything. 

When you have your communication skills sharper, your confidence deepens, your creativity awakens, you stop seeking worthiness and start leading with wholeness when you use the resource that you have within you. Now we are sexual human beings. That's how I like to share that energy because I think it's not something that's shared and we are. 

Sexual energy is our life force. We are sexual human beings and we should be really embracing words like embodiment, energy, sensuality. They make professionals feel so uncomfortable but any good leader leads from a place of energy, embodiment and taps into sensuality, being aware of all of the senses, being aware of everything that's around them.

That's a true, true sexy leader. That's a leader that is really, really expansive. And many people say, oh this is all that woo woo stuff Lorraine, this is all that fluffy spiritual stuff. 

It's not, it's not. It is grounded, it's information that's grounded in biology and backed by science. When you reconnect to your body you regulate your nervous system, you can access clearer decision making, you build stronger emotional resilience. 

That's leadership. When you awaken your energy you create organisations that are more engaged and collaborative and human. This isn't soft, it's not fluffy stuff. 

This is strategy. I've worked with leaders who have, feel quite emotional, who have sat with me and talked about how they feel about their role and nothing in that conversation referred to energy, referred to feelings, referred to how they show up in an energetic way. They struggled because everything was about thinking, everything was about a process, everything was about a system and not necessarily the right type of systems.

They struggled to trust their instinct, they struggled with clarity, they were able, unable to problem solve. When I really supported them to come home to their body, to reconnect to who they were as a sexual human being, as an energetic human being, things changed. They started to really trust their instincts. 

They were making decisions with clarity and conviction. They were able to connect with other people in a way that not only showed they understood, but showed that they connected to them. These leaders, these business people were able to remain, what's the best? Grounded. 

They were able to remain grounded and responsive, even under intense pressure. They just carried this different energy. It was really beautiful to watch them create safe spaces where they and their teams could truly connect and lead with courage, with compassion, with confidence and without burnout.

Without burnout. This is a whole, it's just this whole different energy around leadership. This is about really owning who you are as a human being, being confident in yourself, radiating something different. 

Most of us have been taught who we are, even our body is messy, unpredictable, even shameful. When it comes to being a sexual human being, when it comes to sexuality, emotion and desire, that's so part of our society that our sexuality, our emotion, our desire is also something that's messy, unpredictable and shameful. I want to shout from the rooftops loud and clear, this is far, far, far from the truth.

Because the truth is, if you're disconnected from your body, you are disconnected from your energy and only operating on half your potential. Let me say that again. If you're disconnected from your body and your energy, you are only operating on half of your full potential. 

A real embodied leader creates better relationships, stronger boundaries, more meaningful lives for themselves and for those that they're with. Hey you, yes you, are you ready to take your pleasure, confidence and Sexcess to the next level? Well whether it's a workshop, keynote talk, online course or private coaching, I've got the magic to empower you to unlock your full orgasmic potential. Let's make waves, break taboos, create some real transformation for your life because you deserve more happiness, more confidence and a whole lot more of yes. 

Find out more at orgasmiclife.me or check out the show notes. So whatever type of leader you are, your body holds the key to your next layer, to your next evolution. Come home, trust it, lead from it, lead from your heart, from your gut and become an embodied leader that really creates change. 

I think this is such an exciting topic because it is something that kind of makes sense to most of us but is something that many, many, many don't do. So let me share with you some ideas, some tips to put this into real context for how you can embed this in your leadership skills, how you can pump up the power, how you can step into your energy, how you can really be that energetic being that brings embodied leadership to the forefront. So it is very much beginning with the body. 

So things like starting each day with grounding yourself, giving yourself time to use breathwork and movement or even stillness before you even start your day, before you even log on, before you start your emails, before you do anything, begin with your body. So that could be something very simple like just sitting in your office, on your chair, chuck your shoes off, get your feet on the ground and just do five minutes of breathing and it doesn't have to be any complicated breath but just breathe, just be with you. Now this sounds the most ridiculously simple kind of simplistic thing that can be done and you think how can that make that much difference? My answer to that is try it because it does, like literally allow yourself, sit in your chair, shut the door, turn off that phone, get rid of those distractions and just breathe, ground into the floor and breathe. 

Do it now, just wherever you are, just be with what is, just breathe and don't just do this at the start of your day. Take more power pauses during your day, pause for 60 seconds now and again, feel into your body, rest into you, be present, just listen to whatever's going on around you, come back to who you are, just stop. 60 seconds can make such a huge, huge difference and not only grounding yourself and sitting in stillness and having these power pauses but also moving your energy, fuel your body and your power, activate your hips, your belly, your heart, dance, breathe, do mindful movement. 

So get up and move, if you're someone that sits in the office all day, get up and move, go for a walk, even if it's just around the office, you can get outside, even better but if it's just moving, find a space where you can just wiggle your hips, wiggle your belly, even better get the whole office doing it. Move your body, activate your energy, we are an energetic, vibrating force, we are a living energetic thing, we radiate through energy so moving your body and fueling yourself can help you connect more to your body and activate you. Something else that is really, really important is feel, feel your decisions. 

Now I often listen to leaders language and many leaders will say, I think we should do this and I thought that and I think and I thought and blah blah blah and it's all about thinking. Listen for the leaders and listen to yourself when you say, I feel, I feel this would be a good move, I feel this would be a good decision. What is it you feel? Don't just think, let your body guide you, feel in to your decisions, play with your intuition, trust you, trust your alignment, trust your gut, trust your feelings. 

And also one of the things I talked about was sensuality and we get a bit scared of this word, it's like oh that's a bedroom word, it's not, it's life, life is sensuality. Engage your senses, connect to presence, presence is magnetic. When you are really present with everything around you, when you can, you can, when you can really connect to the sounds and the vibrations and what you can see and what you can hear and what you can feel and you're really in tune with that, leadership changes. 

I know this is a skill I've really spent a lot of time working on and I do a lot of mindfulness with sensuality and one of the things as a leader I learned in practicing more sensuality was that not only did I communicate better and resonate better with individuals but I had my ability to be present in a bigger space so I could be talking to one person one-to-one but be so much more aware of what was going on beyond that. You know, if I was in a really busy room and there was lots of people, like a staff meeting, everyone was chatting, I could be having a very, very productive conversation with one person but very aware of what else was going on in the room, that's leadership. But always being aware and having your senses so expanded you're not just dealing with a micro task where at the moment I'm just reading this or I'm just, you know, I'm looking at something or I'm listening to something or I'm doing something but you had this ability to connect all of those things at the same time and expanding that practice just heightens this real empathic, expansive, connected leader that is just has such a greater awareness of everything around them and in doing so becomes a lot more resilient, you know, the nervous system copes with things in a different way, there's just a whole ripple effect of managing that by really working with your sensuality, the gifts, the gifts we were given. 

So to summarize, I guess, embodied leadership is about being with the body, being with your energy, not leading from the head up but leading with heart, leading with connection, leading with you, leading with you, trusting in your own belief and really taking some time at the moment, like use this time now, think of all the times where you didn't go with your gut instinct and how that worked out, like think about how this resonates with you on a leadership level of how being so much more embodied and coming home to you as an energetic, sexual, coming home to you as an energetic human being that is full to the brim of sexual energy and how alive that energy can make you feel and how more in flow you can be when you're tapping into all these different layers of who you are. Leadership is very stressful, leadership is very full-on, leadership is very high responsibility. Leadership for many can be something that's very stressful, very head-driven and I say to you today, it doesn't have to be like that. 

Come home to the body, bring that level of connection to who you are as an individual, breathe into who you are, trust in who you are, trust in the decisions, the feelings, trust that you are worthy, trust in the embodiment and the energy and the sensuality and be a leader of the leaders. Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of Business Sexcess and remember, if you want to work with me or if you're a business owner looking for a speaker or someone looking to develop your staff well-being, then please, please get in touch via my website, www.orgasmiclife.me