The Kind Way #author Sophie Bretag

What if the future of work depends on kindness?

A culture where conscious leadership creates environments for people to thrive without burnout and achieve without the expense of their wellbeing.

The Kind Way is a call to action and a practical framework for those exhausted by and longing to be liberated from the oppressive grip of perpetual overdrive culture.

Sophie Bretag presents a tangible leadership framework in four essential pillars that can be developed, measured and embedded at both individual and organisational levels. Blending neuroscience, psychology and real-world case studies with practical tools, the KINDHUMAN Quotient™ redefines and reimagines leadership as we know it.

The Kind Way is an invitation to lead differently, toward a future where success and humanity coexist, and where leadership leaves a sustainable, meaningful legacy.

Sophie Bretag is an author, award-winning keynote speaker and executive human resources consultant, recognised for her thought leadership in kindness-led, human-centred leadership. She is the founder of Metta Leaders, with nearly two decades of experience supporting leaders and organisations across Australia and internationally.

To connect with Sophie ....
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebretag/
https://www.mettaleaders.com/
https://www.instagram.com/sophiebretag/
https://www.amazon.com.au/Kind-Way-Life-Changing-Leadership-Success/dp/1764207491

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Good morning, Sophie Britag. Welcome to Yellow Shelf. Sophie, we're wearing green.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Joe, it's so lovely to eat meet you. But I love that we've kind of reflected the energy across the screens at each other. It's beautiful, isn't it? When that aligns.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Yeah. So thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

It's lovely to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

So good. And then you know what else to this to this uh layer here is you've got real books behind you, you've got real plans. I've got like the the background that's uh made up on Canvas. So Sophie is perfect to have you here. Congratulations, your book. It's available now. Tell us all about it. It's called Kindway.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Yes, I've actually got it here because I know it's not actually in store at the moment. So it's very bright and cheerful. Um, but my book is actually in store Tuesday, the 30th of June. So people can pre-order it now. Pre-order, yes. It's available. Yeah, so it's available on Tuesday. So I'm very excited. It's very uh the imminent arrival of uh walking into a store and seeing my book. It's very exciting.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Exciting times. Tell us about it. What do we need to know about the book?

SPEAKER_00 1:13

So the book is around uh the core idea of kindness in leadership, but in particular self-kindness and how the way that we treat ourselves then um reflects out to how we can support and treat other people in the world. So my background, as we were discussing just briefly before, is in HR. So we're literally the same human when we're discussing the uh you know the human nesting workplaces. So I I have been in HR for nearly two decades and absolutely love it. But some of the challenges that I have seen not only in the people that I work with and the teams and the leaders, the people I've supported, but also my own journey as an HR human, which as you know can be quite an isolating role at times because you are often supporting people in their role, you're trying to hold people to compliance and legislation, but also keep the warm and fuzzies and support them through what might be challenging, you know, emotional or personal challenges or even interpersonal relationships in the workplace. And so what I've seen through my whole career is good people giving and giving and giving, and then in the process losing parts of themselves, taking care of their own well-being and their own, I guess their own heart. Because when you are in a leadership position, usually you want to step up and support people and do the right thing and have a team around you that um respects you and that you respect them and that you care and love them. And I think we often don't use the word love enough in workplaces. And the reason that I mentioned that word, because I was discussing it with someone the other day, was you it doesn't have to be a romantic love. It can be a I love you human to human because we're all connected, and I'm gonna try and do my best for you, but in that process, I might lose myself because I'm not taking care of myself. So there's a real synergy between people who are high achievers leading other people, but not taking care of themselves. And that's where my book kind of fills that gap on how to do that and measure it with a metric.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

So and Sophie, you know, I'm gonna indulge just slightly because I'm I feel like this is gonna help relate. Like, you know, I've had that career in corporate, you know, I still filter a little bit in corporate as well as doing this role. But yeah, do you know for me on the back end of COVID, being a HR consultant, I was that person. I was like, wow, I've just given so much. Plus, I've got a family, plus I've got, you know, we're getting through this crazy world we're in. So for me, that was the timeline. And that was the timeline that I dived into Yellow Shelf. So I actually really love this book and I really get it personally. Um, it's about building kind of relationships and not that one-off act of kindness. It's almost like making it just your daily, you know, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

It's about yeah, it's a it's about having the the framework in place that is not, you know, as you said, we're all busy, we all have multiple priorities and things that we're trying to, you know, pri reprioritize or multitask with. And there's just so much, our world is so fast-paced. And uh, I was having a chat with my best friend the other day, and I said we're so hyper connected online and not very connected interpersonally, face to face. And I think we've lost some of that, and in that, we've lost some of the capacity to be able to really truly see people, look at them, acknowledge them, hold space for them, and really understand what they need and who they are. So my book gives a framework which is able to be implemented very easily and measured. And so it's really, I didn't want to create another, you know, mental load on people saying, Oh, you know, you know, got this framework and you need to implement it. It's around what are the the core things that we can do to take care of ourselves, show up, show up as our best versions of ourselves within the workplace, but also at home. And then how do we lead people from that space as well and support them to do the same?

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Yeah. And Sophie, can I ask, is this your first written or published book?

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Yes, and I am so excited.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

So good. Well, congratulations on that, because I know the audience know how much of a big deal that is. Um, do you want to tell us a bit about you know the inspiration to writing and then even the writing process as someone who juggles a job and uh and then delivering a uh a book?

SPEAKER_00 5:56

A book, baby. Uh yes, the the the creation part of writing a book I found really interesting, and it was not like anything I thought the journey would be like. And I think everybody, every author's journey I think is probably quite different. Uh mine was a combination of so it's interesting because it sort of started around COVID as well, because that's when I started my business, because I'd been in aged care, in HR, completely burnt out at the end of COVID, of just over seven years in in aged care. And I was like, there's not enough kindness. And so that's when my business started. So from that point, that's when I started to bring in practices and things that could assist in my day-to-day. But the book writing journey really didn't start until probably 2022. And so a year after I started my book, uh a year after I started my business, sorry, and uh I did it in short bursts. So in between all the busy things of being a mum with young children. At that time, they were I had two under 10. Um yeah, and it was written in the spaces in between. My family were amazing. I had to set very strong boundaries around my time, what I was choosing to spend my time on, and who I was choosing to spend that time with, what activities that I would and wouldn't say yes to. And I think the hardest part for me was actually, because I'm a handwriter, I'm a bit old school. So I hand wrote a lot of my book in journals. And then I, yeah, and then I put very old school, then I pulled that all together to put it into my my draft, my draft manuscript. And I think that was the hardest part for me, to be quite honest. Actually, pulling it together, because I had so many words, so so many words, even when I'd written my manuscript and I sent it to the publisher and it was ready to be edited and everything, we still cut it down by another 30,000 words, like it was long. And so for me, it was around how do I get my ideas into a way in which people can understand what I'm trying to get across without tuning out halfway through the book. And yeah, so but it's been a beautiful journey. I've I've joined a beautiful author community, the expert author community, and they really helped me to navigate some of the questions and the way in which you can get started and have a support along the way. I think that's been a really important part of the journey, is having people that I could ask questions of, people who've either written books or were on their first journey and you could sort of workshop problems, and that's been a massive, massive help for me getting this done.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

So thank you for sharing that journey story because I think that's really interesting when you know you you meet a new author and you understand the journey. Like you said, the journey is different for everyone. Sophie, tell us a bit about you as the founder of Meta Leaders.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

I, as I said before, I'm an HR consultant. So my work spans, I'm a bit multi-passionate, so it spans lots of different things. So my core work is HR, so I consult to organisations to assist them with any of the HR work. So I I am the same as you, HR generalist, but I really do enjoy weirdly industrial relations, but also learning and development. So there's a bit of a weird juxtaposition there. Um whether I like keeping people on the straight and narrow, but then also helping them develop. I think that's the way I look at it. Um but I can do all sorts of HR. So that's sort of core work. And then I also have a real passion for employee and particular leadership well-being. So that's where my book baby was was developed and born. And so I run uh well-being days, I help um staff members with mental health. I'm a uh mental health and national mental health ambassador for the Australian-New Zealand Mental Health Association, real passion for uh, I guess, speaking openly about mental health challenges and how we can more normalize being human in the workplace and in the world. And then I also really enjoy uh speaking. So I do a lot of speaking work as well on stages and at conferences and sharing the message of kindness around the world.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

So yeah, that's me. So good. It's so wonderful to be able to actually meet you online because yeah, very familiar with a lot of your work, Sophie. Um, tell us a bit about your website. I'm linked to you on LinkedIn. Um if you're if anyone's watching and they're curious, they want to know about you, the book, your work, I'm gonna put that in the show notes. But you point us in the direction of where you want people to go to check you out.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

We're LinkedIn. LinkedIn, I am obsessed with. I just can't even speak more highly of LinkedIn. Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? But uh, I have the most amazing community of people that have support, like the the joy and the excitement for this book coming out has been growing since March when pre-orders commenced. Wow. I have had people going, I can't wait, I've just ordered your book. It was a bestseller within the first 24 hours in two leadership categories. You know, LinkedIn has just been uh unbelievable. So if people want to hunt you down on there, and also please don't just follow me, connect with me, like send a connection request. Yeah, like actually be a human at the end of it. I don't mind people just following, but I think it's nicer on that. So LinkedIn, I've got my own website, meta leaders.com, but I will be updating that uh in the next couple of months. So some of that looks a little bit older, but more than happy for you to to hop on and see what I'm about on there. And then Instagram, I'm on there as well, but not as busy because I find it tiring.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and everyone knows I'm a fan of LinkedIn. Um, Yellow Shelf was built on the back of LinkedIn. Thank you for sharing that with us. I'll put those links in the show notes to make it easy for anyone across the world to connect with you. Um, and look, I love the work. We do need to just build kind of relationships. So well done, Sophie.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Thank you so much. I think it's, you know, the main message I really wanted to get out with this book was you you don't have to uh lose yourself in the process of success. There is a way to lead yourself uh from a base of self-kindness to build your capacity to help support yourself when things get a little bit challenging. And it's really about, I you know, it's really funny. I said to my um myself the other day, what would I like my book to look like in someone's life? And it's probably a really strange question to ask yourself, but it's almost me. What does my book, baby, what's the life does it have beyond me? And it was, I want people to highlight it, I want people to doggy the pages, I want them to ride in the margins, I want the cover to be bent because it's just always in their bag and always with them. I want it to be a little bit of me and my heart in a bag or a pocket or a life of the reader that they can pull out and say, Oh goodness, what's this bit? I'm having a challenge. What can I implement in my life that will help me to actually show up a little bit um happier? So that's my vision. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

That that legacy that it sticks around for a long time that you know you can refer back to it and it's it's like a trusted, a trusted old friend.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Yes, that's exactly right. I really just think I want it to be just someone going, oh, this sounds like so. Great. I can just pick it up and it's like talking to me and supporting me and holding space, and I feel really seen because that's important to me.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

So Sophie, enjoy what will be a really exciting time with book launch and all the events. Um, thank you so much for joining us on Yellow Shelf.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

It's been absolutely wonderful, Joe. Thank you so much for having me. And I just love that we've yeah, we've we've vibed with the green energy and the plants and the books. Absolutely. Sophie, cheers.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Thanks. Thank you.