Post-Crisis: The Leadership Gap No One Talks About

What happens to a leader's clarity after the crisis passes — when things go quiet and the pressure turns inward? Savio P. Clemente, TEDx speaker, journalist, bestselling author, and two-time cancer survivor, brings that answer from somewhere most guests never travel: 29 days of silence in a hospital quarantine room.

In this episode, Savio and Lauri explore a hidden gap in leadership — not the crisis itself, but what follows it. They unpack metacognition as the edge beyond emotional intelligence, what it actually means to reframe suffering without minimizing it, why healing is never linear, and how the human capacity for presence is the one thing AI will never replicate.

This is a conversation about what gets forged in the dark — and the kind of leader that comes out the other side.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. The post-crisis leadership gap happens when the crisis focus lifts and turns inward. 
2. Metacognition is the frontier beyond emotional intelligence — it's not just noticing your emotions, it's watching who is doing the noticing.
3. Healing is not linear. It moves in spirals. What looks like regression may be a deeper layer of the same lesson returning.
4. Surrender is a leadership skill. 
5. Body autonomy isn't just physical — it includes knowing your own motivations, drives, and what dims your light before anyone else does.
6. Strength isn't imperviousness. Courage is facing the thing, not pretending it isn't there.
7. Our fear in facing mortality often isn't death — it's the fear of having left unlived the thing we came here to contribute.
8. AI can approximate information, but it cannot replicate the resonance, signal, and pattern of human presence. That's where leadership lives.
9. Self-regulation isn't about suppression — it's about creating enough psychological distance from the problem to come back to yourself, then respond from there.

Soul Sucker Quiz

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The Speaker Alter Ego Quiz

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Transcript

Welcome And Meet Savio

Lauri 0:00

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Untamed Leader podcast. My guest today is Sabio P. Clementi. He is a keynote and TEDx speaker, best-selling author, and two-time cancer survivor. And as usual, I'm going to let him save the rest of getting to know him for the podcast today. Welcome, Sabio. Thank you so much, Lori.

Savio 0:21

I really appreciate that. So you mentioned most of what I do. I'm also a journalist and a best-selling author. And my work is really with healthcare leaders to regain clarity after high-stakes decisions, after so much disruption in the world right now, when the pressure has gone quiet, but it's also gone internal. And so that's where performance is either won or lost.

Lauri 0:47

I love that. And I would love to ask you when you hear the words untamed leader, what

What Untamed Leadership Means

Lauri 0:55

happens? What does it spark for you?

Savio 0:57

I see a lion, I see fire, and I also see deep emotion. For me, an untamed leader is someone who is not only taking the responsibility and helming the initiative, but someone that others look to not only for inspiration and motivation, which is important, but look for ways that they themselves live in the world. How they want to embody themselves and the work that they do, how they want to emulate their particular leader and how they go about their everyday business and life. And also how they integrate both personal and professional. I think we've all created these identities. And I think it's time in the world that we live in to have them meld.

Lauri 1:55

So that we are, we give ourselves the permission to be all of us, our true selves in all the places. And you also sparked this memory of my softball coaches when I was a child. There were times where they would say, do as I say, not as I do. And they did it in like a loving, you know, a little bit more of the like, I'm human. So I make errors, go for what I'm saying in terms of how you field the ball. And the leading of do as I say, not as I do, it really doesn't work as well as I'm embodying the change that I wish to see in the world to the best of my ability. So I'm not saying one thing and then doing another with my actions. And you sparked that for me as well.

Savio 2:47

Yeah, it's for me, as soon as you said that, there's a reason, especially in the lane that I'm in, where they say that doctors are great at what they do, but they make horrible patients because they themselves are not reflecting what it is that they are adopting or that they're saying. I think also we live in a world where maybe that could have sort of worked in the past, but not now, because people share, overshare. There's so much access, there's so much content. Then I think it's very important. And of course, as you know, these two words are overused, which is authenticity and presence. But I think those are not some things that we should dismiss. I think there's a reason why they're overused, because I think it's a call to action for all of us.

Lauri 3:36

Yeah, those are two of my favorite words. And for a long time I was using raw authenticity instead of authenticity, because authenticity got so overused, and I thought about well, what stops me from being authentic? How can I come up with a new word that kind of brings it back to life for me? And a lot of times in my case, it was when things didn't feel completed, or, you know, there was a part of me who used to be more tamed and would show up looking like, you know, I had it all pulled together. And I now know it's not at all what is interesting about me as a leader. I'm really good in chaos. And sometimes what that means is that I might be completely sobbing one minute right in front of the room that I'm doing something with, and then pick my head up after the tears and the snot and say, and it's all going to be okay. In fact, it's actually going to be even better. We're just in the painful part right now.

Savio 4:50

Yeah, absolutely. And it also I think it's not only a call to action, like I mentioned earlier, but I think it's also a clarion call, so to speak, to really who you are underneath this flesh and bone. Whatever your belief system is, I don't care what it is. But and do we have the shame shared values? Because I think in a world of disruption, socially, politically, technologically with AI, I think it's important for us to really take stock in the human aspect of ourselves.

Lauri 5:25

Yeah, I love that. It's it's a calling forth, and it's also a call to be who we were born to be, to untame, you know, we came in and then we got tamed or shoulded or tried to fit in, and then untamed leading and authenticity and presence are really about being who we were born to be.

Savio 5:54

Absolutely. Yeah.

Lauri 5:56

What's your first leadership memory?

Savio 6:01

My

Savio's first leadership memory: the designated driver + the inner stranger

Savio 6:02

first leadership memory is being the designated driver um for um my friends and I. Um I was still in high school and I just was someone who didn't really like alcohol. I didn't really like the taste of it. And I wanted to make sure that everyone was taken care of. So I took on the responsibility. No one assigned it to me. Um, and everyone knew that I would be completely responsible. Um, it didn't happen often, but when it did, I made sure that I valued human life, even though to a large degree, and this is getting into the nitty-gritty of my own operating system, so to speak. I always really growing up never really felt completely rooted. It's really what I speak in my TEDx talk about this idea of the, of the, you know, the inner stranger. And to me, it was that individual who felt like a nomad, just felt like he just wasn't really. Yes, I had friends, yes, I knew people, yes, people knew me, yes, I cared about the world, yes, I cared about people, but I never really felt that I belonged, like fully, fully belonged in a human sense. And that was my first leadership because it allowed me to look beyond my own priorities. And I think a great leader is someone who looks not only at the mission and what needs to be accomplished, but who's bringing them to that accomplishment? Because it's humans, it's humans bringing them to that accomplishment. It's not just data, it's not just numbers, it's not just monetary value. It's actually people's time, energy, love, patience, sacrifice, blood, sweat, and tears that went into that.

Lauri 7:54

Yeah. I love getting into the nitty-gritty. And I, you know, it's like as a teenager driving other people home, your mission was everyone gets home safe.

Savio 8:08

Absolutely.

Lauri 8:09

And the thing that was the best choice to have that happen was you drive people home because you don't like the taste of alcohol.

Savio 8:18

Absolutely. And not only that, but I also didn't trust other people to do that. You know, I didn't I didn't know how far they went that night, and I wasn't monitoring their intake of anything. Um and I also felt to a large degree that even at such an early age, I knew about my own body autonomy. I knew that I would be no good to anyone if I myself was not able to understand my motivations, my drives, my compulsions, what lights me up, what dims my light. So I went on a search. I was always searching, really at a young age. Um, I don't think I articulated it as that, um, but I was on a massive understanding, a path, so to speak, of trying to really figure out what's what's it all about.

Lauri 9:10

Yeah.

Cancer round one (2014): the visceral wake-up call and the middle way

Lauri 9:11

How did that align with the feeling rooted and feeling like you belonged? That search.

Savio 9:20

Yeah. Believe it or not, it really was my cancer journeys. So I was diagnosed in 2014 with stage three non-Hotchkins lymphoma. And um, I wasn't, I was in my late 30s. And for me, it really was a visceral attack on myself because yes, you can dismiss certain things, how I feel, uh, my wanting, my needing, my displacement. That could all maybe be pushed under the rug, but I can't ignore a physical disease like cancer that's ravaging my body, and therefore I need medical intervention. I need hospitalization. I need harsh drugs, I need other integrative modalities that I did use. I needed those things. And it was a wake-up call, actually, Lori, for me, to really get physically rooted in it. I don't think, honestly, that I learned it fully until, unfortunately, my second bout, which happened a decade later.

Lauri 10:23

Mm-hmm. Was it kind of that spiral of learning where you learn part of it, and then when you go through it again, you realize, oh, I'm relearning, and it is going deeper the second time?

Savio 10:38

That question is fantastic because it's what I was actually thinking to articulate before you asked it. I truly believe now, having been a two-time cancer survivor, thankfully, even after the relapse through science, medical science, stem cell transplant, and also, once again, a whole bunch of integrated modalities beyond just medicine. I'm talking about internal family systems work and ecstatic dance and all that. I've come to the understanding that healing is not linear. It never was. Healing is highs and lows, ins and outs. It's it's just not one way, one size fits all. And not only that, but I actually don't look at time as linear as well. I look at it as a spiral, as you said. So whatever the juxtaposition is, whatever the reflection of it is, whatever the mirroring of it is, it's for me to understand and maybe not understand fully, because I don't know if all of us, we don't get graded on this as we go along. We just do the best we can, best we can in our work, best we can as parents, if you're a parent, best we can in relationships. And so for me, I look at it as an opportunity, a harsh, a real guttural one. I'm I don't want to minimize what I've been through because since my relapse in June

29 days in quarantine: silence, stillness, and what Savio found beneath the flesh

Savio 12:00

of 2024, a decade later, I've actually lost eight people to cancer. And for some of them, it was their first go-around. So I'm not trying to minimize that. It is painful, it is harsh. I had side effects. I had to do various amounts of recovery, up to 16 months of recovery. But I will say that it afforded me an ability to not only go deeper, which is what really I think all human experiences calls us to, but it gave me the ability to actually take time in silence and stillness. Because in my stem cell transplant, it was 29 days in the hospital in a quarantine room. Yes, they would come for vitals. Yes, the doctors would make their rounds, but that's all I had, Lori. I had silence and stillness. And I was able to dig so deep into that that actually I realized that there's the difference between Savio, the physical person who's suffering, who's attached to all these machines, and something much greater than my than even myself, that even that I could even fathom to articulate in this life.

Lauri 13:07

You ended with couldn't even fathom to articulate. And the question that was brewing in my mind was for people that hadn't have not had any experience with there's something deeper than my body, there's something other than my body, there's something other than my job, there's something, you know, you are not your car. There's that song, you are not your car, you are. How would you begin to describe to someone who's never thought about that? What you found when you sank into yourself and into the silence and the stillness?

Savio 13:46

Well,

Metacognition: the thinking beyond the thinking — how to stay present in crisis

Savio 13:47

you know, we all heard back in the day that intellect was like the number one trait to have. And then we were like, no, no, no. Emotional IQ is the number one trait to have. And of course, that is true. But the research points to metacognition. And I didn't know, I knew the word, I knew what it was. Metacognition is the thinking beyond the thinking. It's who is that identification savio versus the things that are happening to him. How is he thinking about the thinking itself? And so for me, if I was to actually speak to someone, and like I said, mine is a medical malady. It doesn't have to be so serious. It could be a heartbreak, a job loss, losing your home, being homeless, whatever is that life is presenting to you that is to some degree feels very unfair. I think the number one key is to really identify for yourself what is happening in this moment. What is truly, truly, how can you be so present to the moment that's happening? I'm not talking about the fear, I'm not talking about the pain, I'm not talking about the angst, I'm not talking about the anger, and I'm I and I'm definitely not talking about the sadness. I'm talking about what is reality showing you at the moment and you having to figure out for yourself, how do I go forward? Not a leap forward, but an inch, a tiny toe forward. That's the key, I think, that life is trying to show all of us, including myself.

Lauri 15:14

Yeah. And we were trained. Something that you said a while ago made me think, you know, we were trained that there was one way to go, and it was a linear path. And almost, I don't really know anyone where it's been a purely linear path. It can look like it from a distance. If somebody's growing and transforming, it can look like they're going perfectly up and to the right. And in reality, what's happening is much more of a curvy path that looks like they knew what they were doing the whole time. And it's the intellect being prized over everything else that created the impression or the advice that you just do this, followed by this, followed by this, and you move forward and it's all steady and predictable. And it really is not that for anyone. And metacognition, I have heard that phrase recently, and my yoga perspective on it would be that it's there is a part of us that is noticing the thinking of the thoughts, and that's beginning to tap into the highest levels of consciousness. There is a part of us that notices the sensations going on in the body or notices the emotions that we're having, that that emotional IQ, you know, those are great things. And the part of us that notices all of those other things is about to be studied, being studied more and more.

Self-regulation in a maelstrom: what we can and cannot control

Savio 17:09

Absolutely. And most of this is really about not only presence, as we mentioned earlier, and this idea of self-regulation. Like, Lori, seriously, can I really control my platelets, my red blood cells, my white cells? I can't do that. So, what could I control that those 29 days in the hospital? I can control my attitude, I can control how I related to the healthcare workers. I could actually meet when they did rounds, I could muster the energy and the courage to meet them in full presence, explain what's going on, and actually verbalize because we're a team. We're working together towards my recovery. It's not just them doling out their advice. I used to always say before my relapse that doctors would be seen as like the wizard of Oz, the Oz. Like, okay, whatever you say, I allay all my power to you, but that's not the dynamics of healing. I'm telling you, I'm telling you this from a two-time cancer survivor. The dynamics of healing is the ability to submit, the ability to surrender, the ability to allow. And if you allow that, so for example, I reframed my chemo. I didn't think of it as poison and all that. Now, granted, this is my second go-around with it. Even back then, I didn't. I actually said to myself, this is an elixir. This is like mana from the universe. This is something that's given to me. It's engineered biologically, scientifically engineered to do its job. Yes, it does its job pretty, pretty voraciously. I mean, it does its job and it ravages. Um, that's not, that's just the truth. And it does have massive side effects that are very painful. And for most women, especially the ones that I've interviewed, I've interviewed at this point before my relapse, 200 cancer survivors, different walks of life. And most of the women were like, my hair, my hair, my hair, because the hair was a part of not only their identity, but a part of what made them feel special. And when you rip that away, the way cancer does rip that away, um, it's very hard to swallow. So I'm not trying to minimize that because it is very, very painful. But the fact of the matter is, to some degree, you have to allow the process to unfold. Because if you don't and you resist, you don't allow the full unfolding. We don't, we all don't know what the end result of our lives will be. But what we do know is that in the moment that there's pressure, there's anxiety, there's overwhelm, I think it behooves us to take a beat, to take a moment, try to integrate and try to figure out for ourselves how can I regulate in this maelstrom of crisis.

Surrender as strategy: reframing the elixir, releasing the illusion of control

Lauri 19:56

Yeah, the things that you are illustrating for us through your cancer journey, I see like that is a that is part of living as a human on the planet, particularly if you're a human who is living, who does believe that part of what we're here to do is be a spiritual being, having an experience in a human body where growing and learning or unlearning to come back home to ourselves is part of the journey. I have not had cancer, knock on wood. I have had moments, like you said, where I got knocked down and I could try to keep gripping onto life with the illusion of I can control something here, to realizing and accepting I don't have control over what the situation is. I do have control over how I choose to face the situation. And you're talking about it so eloquently now. I'm wondering, was it challenging for you? Particularly the first time.

Round two (2024): what the relapse deepened — and what courage actually looks like

Savio 21:14

So the first time, I didn't really think about. I knew death could have happened because the medical the medical director actually came to me. I was in the hospital that first time for 15 days. Two days before I left, she said you have to start your first round of something called R-Chop chemotherapy. At that point in my life, not that I was anti-medicine, I just didn't need it. I didn't even take aspirin, to be honest. I only saw a naturopath yearly who analyzed my blood, gave me um uh information about vitamins to take and you know, various bl um diet structures. And she said, if you don't start this, I don't know where you're gonna end up. I'm like, Really, Doc? And she's like, Yeah. And so a flash came before me from the movie, and you might have seen it, um, called A Little Buddha, starring Kiana Reeves. And he played Siddhartha, he played the little Buddha, and he basically gave up all his worldly possessions. And he lived with, I think, two aesthetics at the time. They were meditating. And he heard two individuals on a fishing boat. And one of them says, if you hold the string too tight, it'll snap. And if you hold it too loose, it will, it won't play. The path is the middle way. And it was like a light bulb moment. I'm like, oh, so I can do this quote unquote chemo treatment, but I can do other things when I get out of the hospital. And so I chose to do that because that was my body autonomy. But I wasn't really afraid of dying. I think, Lori, honestly, I was more afraid that I didn't live up to my potential, that I didn't do what I came here to do. I don't, none of us get the full report card of what we need to accomplish or our classes, so to speak. But I felt like I was disappointing myself or disappointing others because I didn't get to do those things. And it I don't mean from a professional monetary perspective. I meant from a what is life energy? What did I come here to contribute to the world? What did I come here to understand of the world? And so that was really my main angst. I grew up with the Catholic faith. Um, I was even an altar boy in Catholic elementary school, but in college, I knew I had to search out other things. So I studied everything from Buddhism, um, uh Jewish mysticism all the way to Vedic philosophy. And so for me, even back then, I just knew that life was showing me something, and I had to make the most of what it was showing me, even though the path towards that might be really grim and dark. I knew I had to actually face it. And so just fast forward into my relapse in June of 2024, there was a moment I was having this might be a little TMI, but I was having massive diarrhea issues. And I just remember literally, I think it was my like seventh time during the day having to go to the restroom, and just thinking to myself, is this how it's gonna be? So of course I was scared. And this is a misnomer that most people think they think spiritual beings are what we know of them. And I think I can disclose this to you just from my own understanding and research, that even someone as grand and as uh lauded as someone like Jesus of Christ, even he trembled, even he asked for the cup to be passed from him. And so I think people forget and they think only the strong people are able to. No, that's not what strength is. Strength is actually facing it and going through it. And so as I was going through it, it was hard. It wasn't easy.

How strength gets grown: Lauri's match-on-fire story and the parking lot namaste

Lauri 24:50

Yeah, you get strong from going through it and choosing courage or choosing whatever you want to call it to get back up one more time. I had this impression of my mother when she was around. She really appeared to the outside to be one of the strongest, most grounded, nothing can faze her people on the planet. And shortly after she passed, I started speaking to my brother Moore, who is 10 years older than me, and we had not had that strong of a relationship. To say that we had a family with some black sheep in it is in many ways an understatement. And when I was talking about her and how strong she was and how grounded she was and all of that kind of stuff, he said, How do you think she got that way? She had to deal with me. That's what trained her. And I went, Oh, and it sort of reframed that it's not like someone was born stronger or different. They got grown into that and have also had some people in my life now look at me, and they're seeing me doing something in a circumstance when I'm leading, and they think I look like them, they're going, God, I want to strangle this person. And they think that I'm the picture of peace and groundedness. And a short while ago, I turned to one of them and I said, Let me tell you what it actually feels like on the inside, because I know the first time I heard this about someone that I thought was just serene Buddha born that way. I said, I feel like a match that's been lit on fire sometimes on the inside. I'm breathing, I'm staying present. I'm generally not choosing to speak from that fire. There's always a what's the vision? Where are we attempting to head? Is there anything that I can say in this moment that will improve on the situation or like turn us back toward that place that we're attempting to head? But it doesn't feel on the inside like it's looking like on the outside to you. You're seeing the actions. Sometimes I feel like a human match where, and that is what is growing me. Then the match gets less and less intense because I'm not like amplifying that feeling in myself with the choices that I'm making. I'm choosing to go toward the vision rather than go into the drama or as much as possible respond from my highest self. As I'm saying this to you, I will also say there was a moment once when I was heading to a yoga class on a Sunday. I was so excited to be going to this yoga class. And I drove, and there was a place to park where it said Monday through Saturday, only loading and unloading. But Sundays you could park there. I'm so proud of myself. I noticed the sign. I parked there, and this gentleman who owned like a body shop that was there came out and started screaming at me and telling me to move my car. And at first, I was like, but if you'll look at the sign, it actually says on it's Sunday, it's the Sunday yoga class. I can, and I stayed centered, stayed centered, stayed centered. But even though I was staying pretty centered, it was like there was a part of me that was looking for him to give me his blessing to park there, to agree with me. And I was not gonna get that. And eventually I just lost it and like and yelled something back like, if you have a problem with it, then take it up with the city. I'm late for yoga. So now I'm running into yoga and I'm like, I'm late, I don't have the spot that I want in yoga. And it took, I don't know, five minutes into the class of them be present in your body and start the yoga class to actually start balling. And it was maybe I would have been tearing up a little because of the energy that he shot at me, but telling it to you right now, I believe it was more that I ended up adding to it by instead of just going, Hey, there's a part of you that's trying to get him to give you permission to park in a place that the sign has already given you permission. You are not going to change his perspective on this situation. So just namaste and leave. If I could go back in time, I probably would have little literally just said namaste and not even tried to say the thing about the city and take it up with that, you know.

Savio 30:08

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Because I to me, what jumps out is this idea of self-regulation, right? We we alluded to it before. And people are like, Well, you you're so regulating. And I'm like, I'm like, yeah, it's part of my job, but really it's a work in progress. I I'm just like you, just different, you know, and different level or different area of life. Um, and people are like, Well, how do how do you do it? I'm like, do it whatever comfortable for you prayer, meditation, breathing, journaling, taking a brisk walk in silence, whatever allows you to create that psychological distance from the problem that's that you're having, not disconnection, not disassociation, but that buffer really allows you to come to your own. And then something else that you said as well. My dad, thankfully, he's still with us. He's he's uh 86 years old, and he was complaining a few months ago about I just think the age thing. And I'm like, why are you focusing on the age thing? I said, Thankfully, you you have a little bit of medical issues, nothing debilitating. You should be grateful for that. But beyond the gratefulness of that, I said, because my dad, you know, grew up Catholic, and uh, so I made a reference to Moses and like, did you know Moses started his mission at 80? And he's like, What? I'm like, yeah, he started his mission at 80, and according to the Bible, he lived to 120. He said he could have just said, I'm I'm not interested in taking on this mission at 80. I'm too tired. Um, my my bones are brittle or whatever. But he chose, he made a choice, and I think that's what life in general is trying to get us to do is to make choices and hopefully positive choices.

Lauri 31:41

And

Between round one and two: the mission, the pivot, the post-crisis leadership gap

Lauri 31:42

you reminded me that you, the first cancer go-around, part of what happened for you is that you had the feeling that you had a mission that you had not fulfilled. Tell us a bit more about what happened in your mission between round one and round two, and then also, you know, how did round two deepen or call you into a different mission or the same mission in a different way?

Savio 32:12

So 2014, I was actually I've I'm someone who's okay with making pivots in life when life shows you the way to go. Like when you intrinsically know, it's just like it's no one can tell you, it's just something you feel. And so at that moment in life, I was actually working with three other individuals. We had a production company, and let's just say I gave my blood, sweat, and tears, and also my financial resources to it, and it just wasn't working. It just wasn't working. There was things happening within the or within the organization that I had no control over. And so we ended up disbanding. And uh it was around the time that my cancer happened. So even though I was doing everything right, health-wise, like I was eating organic food and organ, you know, and I was working out six days a week and I was meditating, and um, there was also professional pressures happening. And I'm not saying that was the cause of the cancer, I'm just saying that's was the reality of the situation. And so that actually forced me to make a huge pivot to take my cancer and the situation that happened to me and make something from it. Uh, and but however, I was I was nervous. I wanted to wait five years because they kept saying after five years, it's extremely less likely to come back. And so I waited five years while still germinating this idea. And so that was that was something that really allowed me to get my board certification. Um, at the time I was always a writer, so I just um leveled up on that. Um, I had a podcast that I launched um in in around that same time. And I just garnered the courage because I think it takes courage to make huge pivots like that. And then since then, I was in remission for a decade, and then unfortunately it came back. Um I leaned in more into speaking, my leadership role um in working with leadership um leaders, I mean leaders in general, but this idea of what is actually leadership, especially in the healthcare industry. And so that allowed me to um tell not only their stories, but to look to see what are the gaps, the missing gaps, what I call the post-crisis leadership gap. Like people often assume that the crisis is what we need to handle, but no, it's really what happens after the crisis when our the performance stops and we need to reorientate ourselves and figure out the next way forward. And so those are the things that happen.

What's essential to leadership: shared humanity, shared values, the Oscar red carpet

Lauri 34:38

What are what is essential to leadership for you?

Savio 34:44

So I'll give you a great example. So as a journalist, um, I get some pretty great assignments, but my beat is really leadership, healthcare, wellness. But my editor asked me before my relapse, this was um um early 2024. And he's like, I have an assignment for you. I'm like, okay. He's like, do you want to go to cover the Oscars red carpet? Like, what? And he's like, Yeah, I'm like, okay. So I did it. And one thing I realized is when I was there, surrounded by all the other publications, and they would come. I realized they were still acting, Laurie. I realized they were acting for me because they wanted to put a good face. They had an armor on. They were acting for their handlers, their managers, they're acting for the photographers. And I'm like, oh, I'm like the coach in me, the speaker in me, the journalist in me sees through this. And no offense, I get it. But I tell you that story because leadership to me is not only authenticity and presence, which is very important, but I think it's this ability to have shared values with one another. And I think in a world where AI is challenging the status quo, so to speak, I think it's important for us humans to rise up and to realize not only our connection with one another, but our actual physical humanity with one another, our shared disappointments, our shared joys. Because AI can never replicate that experience. And it'll, if you ask it, it'll tell you. I'm not human. Um I don't know what that feels like or that would be like, but I can tell you XYZ.

Lauri 36:32

I

AI as tool, not replacement: why kinetic human presence can't be emulated

Lauri 36:33

love that. I love that. And I do theater. I have a background. I grew up in beautiful downtown Burbank, California, actually, and wanted to, you know, I used to practice my Oscar speech as a child. And then in college started doing live theater and somewhere in my 30s, started to actually get good at it. And I'm part of a theater company now that is, you know, we do all our theater in a teeny tiny little basement, and we love it. And we just rewrote our mission statement to align with where we are now, and the kinetic connection live in the same space between the performers, intimate, kinetic, like you can reach out and touch an actor from almost any front row or side seat at different times. You made me appreciate that even more because AI, like at this point, sadly for the actors in LA, there are AI performers possibly coming for your roles. I don't think they can hold a candle even on film to an actual person who is present in their body and letting the camera in in an intimate way. And AI is really far from being able to do that in our teeny tiny little basement theater. There's nothing that can make up for that kinetic interplay between the performer and the audience and the shared imagination that happens in that space. And that is our little theater company, and it's also all of humanity.

Savio 38:22

Yeah. Well, there's a resonance that it can't articulate. I mean, it there's a signal and a pattern that it can't emulate. Um, and don't get me wrong, I am a proponent of it because I look at it as just a tool. Just a tool. I don't look at it as replacement or displacement. I look at it as the consciousness behind it, just like money, just like fire, use it for good or bad, however you want to use it. And those individuals who are what I call purist journalists, some of them have actually expressed to me, I'm I'm part of a group, and they're like, I actually feel guilty using it. And I'm like, no, no, no. Anytime you use the word guilt, no matter what it is, it's not a good thing. You need to, you need to search. You need to, as Yoda would say, search your feelings. You need to search and figure out for yourself why you're using that word, because that's not a good word to use in any context. But it's a process, it's a journey for everyone. Um, I just know for myself, I know what I will use it for and I will not use it for. And I know that it's allowed me to become a better communicator and a better individual who can understand context and content. I think those things are a little different to different people because you can mean something and intend something, but it doesn't always carry across. And AI is very good at trying to give you one linear view of what the answer should be. But that's not the way us humans work. We work on body language, we work on energy, resonance, signal, pattern. So that's that's the thing that's complicated.

Lauri 40:07

Yeah.

The speaking industry ladder vs. the landscape — Savio's TEDx to "and beyond"

Lauri 40:08

I have one final question for you, and then um the question, and this is gonna seem a little bit out of left field. Um, you did a TED talk, and then you mentioned that the place places that you're wanting to speak to take your voice these days are different. And I feel like one of the places where the world tells you there's only one way and it's a hierarchy is in the speaking industry, air quotes. Um, that the way the traditional world does it is there's a ladder, there's one ladder. At the top of the ladder is the TED talk, shortly underneath that is keynotes, and everything else is just what you do on the way to try to get up that ladder. And everybody in the speaking industry is fighting for space on the one ladder that exists in humanity. And in reality, I see leadership speaking as much more of a landscape where there isn't only one way. What's called you to open it up from TED Talk to TED Talk and beyond?

Savio 41:23

I think it's what I actually said in my TEDx talk, which is called Seven Minutes to Wellness, How to Love Your Inner Stranger. People like Inner Stranger. I think it's the ability and the first thing that I say as soon as I open up the talk, which is, have you ever looked into a mirror and not recognized the person reflected back at you? It was such a question that I asked, and I know it uh caused some consternation and some cognitive load in people, but I did that consciously and purposely. And I do agree with you that there are these sort of ladders, so to speak, in speaking. Um, and I think leadership really encompasses not just the corporate side of what people assume leadership to be, but the actual nuts and bolts of what leadership is. What is leadership? Leadership is, once again, allowing people to see you and how you go about your day-to-day, your business life or your professional or personal life, and allow people to then mirror that into their own so that they can fashion it and shape it the way it needs to be. And so I know I tell people all the time that there's a mini framework that I use in the TEDx talk called the aloha reboot, which basically means a acknowledge where you are, listen, L O, open yourself up, H, harness and a act upon those things. And it's just aloha in Hawaiian means hello. So it's just hello to your inner self. I think the more that we get good on not ignoring what our bodies and our minds are actually speaking and saying to us, and less focused on what the external world is telling us that we need to do or who we need to be or who we need to emulate, I think the better we'll be able to choose paths for us that are far more enriching. I mean, no one's telling you that you can't have fun. Just have fun with some boundaries.

Lauri 43:19

I love that. If our listeners are leaning in and really wanting to go deeper with you, where can they find you?

Savio 43:27

Yeah, they can find me on my website. So Savio P. Clemente, S-A-V-I-O-P, C-L-E-M-E-N-T-E. On there, there's my keynote work, there's my TEDx talk. And also every Wednesday I post a Substack newsletter called the Human Resolve, where I talk about the head, heart, and gut intelligence, um, also my interviews that I've done with leaders and celebrities as well. And then, if they want to find me on social media, I'm at every platform at the human resolve. Because Lori, resolve is the only thing we have.

Lauri 44:01

Love

Pivot Pivot: lightning round

Lauri 44:02

it. All right. Now it is time to slide into our Pivot pivot. What is your favorite word? Love. What is your least favorite word?

Savio 44:18

Distance.

Lauri 44:21

What turns you on creatively, spiritually, or emotionally? All three.

Savio 44:27

I would say it's the ability to transform.

Lauri 44:32

What turns you off?

Savio 44:34

Judgment.

Lauri 44:37

What's your favorite cuss word?

Savio 44:39

F-U-C-K.

Lauri 44:43

What sound or noise do you love?

Savio 44:50

God, this is so bad. A crying baby? Incessantly, a crying baby crying incessantly. So I should uh I should, I should, I should clarify. Uh clarify. A crying baby crying incessantly for no reason, but just to cry, it drives me crazy.

Lauri 45:14

That drives you crazy. Um, what profession other than yours would be fun to try? A chef. And what profession would you not like to do?

Savio 45:31

Oh, I I I definitely could not be a surgeon. No way. I I watch the pit on HBO and I'm like, oh, I don't know how people do it. God bless you. My nervous system is a wreck. I I would not be able to function. I'd be truthfully honest with you. Not be able to function.

Lauri 45:46

And Savio, what do you hope people say about you on your 100th birthday? That he mattered in my life. Thank you. Well, you mattered in my life. I know you matter in a lot of people's lives and the lives of the people who will eventually hear this podcast. Thank you so much for joining and sharing so openly today.

Savio 46:11

Thank you, Lori. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Lauri 46:15

And if you are listening and this touched you in some way, please like it, rate it, share it, tell a friend, follow it, subscribe, all those things so that we can pass the pulse of conversations like this to even more people. And I will see you back here next time.