Joyce Chen

My next guest on Standing Out, Standing Strong is Joyce Chen! Joyce's coaching is a masterful mix of deep empathy and inclusive challenge. She doesn't just shift perspectives, she dismantles outdated patterns, revealing the unconscious stories that hold leaders back. Her work is about more than leadership – it's about self liberation. She helps clients navigate uncertainty, step into their power, and take radical responsibility for their impact. Beyond coaching, Joyce is a storyteller at heart. In 2017, she co-directed Refugee, an award-winning documentary amplifying the journey of a West African refugee. The film won 8 Best Documentary Short awards, became a two time Academy Award qualifier, and premiered on Amazon Prime, proving that stories, when told with precision and heart, can change the world. Prior to becoming Managing Partner for Conscious Leadership Group, Joyce was Global Head of Production at Meta. Joyce is a rare blend of business acumen, creative depth, and mastery in Conscious Leadership. 

So join me for a cuppa tea with Joyce Chen! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

My next guest on Standing Out, Standing Strong is Joyce Chen. Joyce's coaching is a masterful mix of deep empathy and inclusive challenge. She doesn't just shift perspectives, she dismantles outdated patterns, revealing the unconscious stories that hold leaders back. Her work is about more than leadership, it's about self-liberation. She helps clients navigate uncertainty, step into their power, and take radical responsibility for their impact. Beyond coaching, Joyce is a storyteller at heart. In 2017, she co-directed Refugee, an award-winning documentary amplifying the journey of a West African refugee. The film won eight best documentary short awards, became a two-time Academy Award qualifier, and premiered on Amazon Prime, proving that stories, when told with precision and heart, can change the world. Prior to becoming managing partner of the Conscious Leadership Group, Joyce was global head of production at Meta. Joyce is a rare blend of business acumen, creative depth, and mastery in conscious leadership. So join me for a cup of tea with Joyce Chen. Joyce, thank you so much for joining me on Standing Out Standing Strong. I'm thrilled to see you again after so many years. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. The last time we met, it was actually when you were at Facebook or Meta as it is now. And uh I was actually interviewing for a job there. And uh it was uh it was interesting because at one point you turned around to me and you said, Do you really want this job? And it sort of sat with me for quite a long time. And if I if I'm honest about it, I probably didn't actually want the job. And I ended up not getting the job. And I just looking back on it, I sort of think that you obviously have a have a a very good eye or empathy or or an understanding of perhaps what people want. Um so I just wanted to start off with that little anecdote, and then I also wanted to thank you for introducing me to um the 15 commitments of conscious leadership, which I've I've been reading. It's absolutely fascinating. And I was so grateful. Um and you know, I find just for me personally in business and my relationships and the way I interact and the way I also think about myself and and make my decisions, but also, you know, my personal life, um, it really makes you pause for a moment and think about things. So um, so I'd love to just hear about how you made that decision to move from, you know, business in a very, very um, you know, an amazing job as as global um production director to to being a coach. So if you if we can start there.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Sure. So um I might also just connect some of the pieces of um other things that you've mentioned. So, you know, for 20 years, I was a producer and then eventually head of production in marketing and advertising. And then around the 20-year mark, I decided to make a big career shift into becoming a coach and facilitator with the conscious leadership group. And now I'm a managing partner for the company. Before I became a coach, I was their client. So I think, like so many of my current clients, I was at a point in my career where, you know, I had had a good career. You know, there's one point where I loved being on production, loved being part of the creative process. I was thriving in that industry. I got to travel the world and work with so many creative people, and I really loved it. And then at a certain point, um, and this usually occurs for people in midlife, I think, I just started wondering, you know, I'm working really hard. I'm spending so many hours of my day doing this. And is there more? You know, it's not like there was a big problem with what was going on in my career. I was just asking myself, is there more than this? Um, as I look towards the second half of my life, do I feel as fulfilled as I could be? Do I feel like I'm um really enjoying the work that I'm doing to the degree, like to such a degree that it could feel like play that I would want to do it time and time again, that it could be highly intrinsically motivated for me. So I was asking those kinds of questions, and that's when I stumbled across the book, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, which is written by conscious leadership founders Jim Deathmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaylee Warner Clemp. Um, I sought them out, I started doing trainings with them, and then uh I got coached by them. And as I was doing that, I started to explore a really interesting topic, which reminds me of the story that you just shared when I asked you, do you really want this job?

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Um, they introduced me to this concept of um the socialized self versus the wild self. Um, we all have both. A socialized self that as soon as we're old enough to sit at a table and you know look around at who we're eating with, we decide who we have to be, how we have to act to get love and approval and feel safe and secure. And that part of us is really important. You know, it helps us understand relationships and be in a family and be in a community and eventually be in a workplace where we can be around other people. Um, but there's also a wild self. Now, a wild self is um a part of us that is um authentic, it is um free, it is um not governed by any shoulds, but uh has impulse and follows impulse and follows energy. And if you want to look at what wild self looks like, just look at any two-year-old. You know, you show them something they like, they love it. You know, if they don't like something, they spit it out. It's so clear what our impulses are in the wild self. And I think as we get older and older, and especially in corporate environments and um, I don't know, it depends on your family of origin and your conditioning. We lose touch with the wild self. We almost forget about it, we override it constantly, and we become like servants to our socialized self. We start to live a life of shoulds and responsibility and obligation and well, what's everybody else doing? So I'm gonna do that.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

My journey with conscious leadership as a client was beginning to let go of some of the maybe like the chains that I had put around myself with my socialized self and coming back into contact with my wild self. Getting in touch with, well, what is it that I want? What gives me energy? Uh, what brings me joy? What does authentic fulfillment look like for me? And these are these were really big questions I was asking. And as I as I was exploring it in coaching, I got to bring all of these tools and ideas to my team. I grew inside of Meta as I was practicing this work, and then I watched how my team grew as a result of it. They had tools to really look at themselves and take responsibility for themselves. They understood through these tools like emotional literacy and emotional intelligence. Um, they were practicing candor. Um, and it was really good for the health of the organization and the engagement that I was seeing. Um, we were asking people questions about like, well, why do you want to work on that project? And if I could really know what you want to learn or what you're good at, how could we assign you to things that best match you?

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

And taking some of these considerations to like increase people's happiness and fulfillment in the workplace. So mine rose, my team's rose, and then from there, um, you know, lots of people were asking me if I could coach them or bring these tools to their companies. I was teaching a class on it at Mira. And then, you know, eventually the scales just tipped, and all signs pointed to what if I could just do the work that I love to do the most, that gives me energy, that makes me feel alive, and I could just do that all the time and not compromise by just doing it with a percentage of the time that I had.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

That's incredible. And um talking about the two-year-old, there was something that struck me in the in in part of the the book, and that was you know, talking about how two-year-olds are very vocal and animals are very vocal. And you know, it when you feel something, it when you feel the anger or the you know, the sadness, or when you feel the feelings, when as an animal or as a child, you know, you would breathe, you would move, and then you would maybe cry or scream or yell, or and and um that I found really, really interesting because we don't as adults, do we? We really sort of suppress our feelings, and especially I guess in a sort of a work situation. Um can you just talk a little bit about the sort of the basics of conscious leadership? Um I mean, obviously there's just so much, and when you go into the sort of the 15 um, you know points of of um of it that you know we obviously are not going to be able to get through all of that today. Yeah. But but you know, can you just sort of start a little bit about, you know, the the to me and the by me and the uh you know, because and and the below the line and above the line and just some of those basics that I found incredibly interesting.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Yeah. I would say the practice of conscious leadership. Some people ask me, um, what's the goal? If I come into conscious leadership coaching or if I bring it into my team, uh, what does success look like? And my answer to that is aliveness. How alive you feel on any given day, how energetically whole you feel compared to many working adults who are, you know, feeling kind of dead inside or really tamped down or suppressed, um, or they don't know what purpose or fulfillment looks like at all. And so I would say aliveness is the goal here, also an experience of freedom. And our core frameworks really look at the cause of um what creates suffering and what um makes us feel as if we're not free, and giving tools, self-awareness tools to support people in having more awareness, more choice, and more freedom. So the core framework inside of conscious leadership is something that we call above the line and below the line. So we say this is like the most powerful and most profoundly simple tool you will ever learn in leadership, which is just a simple line. We say at any moment, you're either in relationship with your life and work from above that line or below that line. When we're in relationship to the stuff of life, you know, we call it the who, what, where, when of life, the content of life. Your boss, your business, your finances, your family, that's all content. When you're in relationship with that from below the line, you're in a state of threat, reactivity, fear, resistance, you're closed off. You tend to want to be right in that place. And physiologically, there's a contraction that's occurring when you're below the line. So your body is in a state of fight, flight, freeze, which makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Because as humans, we're built for survival. And so if we perceive any kind of threat to our approval, control, or security, we contract, we go into a fight, flight, freeze, which has degrees, you know, it could be two inches of it or 20 miles of it, um, going below the line. Um, and we contract and we go below the line. Makes sense. Everybody's doing that all the time. Right, right, right. Especially, especially leaders, because leaders are being asked to solve hard problems all day.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Yes. When we're in there's blame as well, isn't there? Isn't blame a lot to do with it? And uh but but people aren't below the line or above the line. There is drifting and shifting, isn't there, that happens.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Yeah. Yeah. So when we're in relationship with our content from above the line, this is a very different thing. We're present, we're curious, we see everything just as a game of learning. There's no right or wrong, winning or losing. And we generally feel more open and more light and more playful. We say from above the line, we see possibilities, and from below the line, we tend to just see problems. Now we can oscillate above and below the line all day long. You know, I could be above the line one minute when I'm talking to my sister, and then below the line after she makes a comment. And it could be up and down, even in one conversation. You know, I think leaders are probably experiencing that many times inside of a single meeting. Yeah. And so it's not a problem to go below the line. It just means there could, there's contraction, you're sensing a threat. Um, so in our practice, we say it's not worse to be below the line than it is to be above the line. It's not bad to be below the line. It's natural, it's normal, it's the way we're built. Um, but in this practice, we look at, okay, with the awareness that I'm below the line, do I want to stay here? Because I could choose that if I want to. Or I could choose something else, which could feel totally different. Now, the reason that's important is because when we're below the line, our ability to access higher cognitive functions actually decreases. Uh, problem solving, reasoning, being rational, uh, collaboration, creativity, all that stuff starts to go out the window depending on this how contracted we are below the line. When we're above the line, there's more possibility that's available. We're not just focused on the problem, we're also able to see that there's different solutions available. And uh there's a much higher probability that we'll drive better outcomes, circumstances, relationships, because we have more access to that higher cognitive function. So usually when we're below the line, say you're a leader in a meeting and somebody tells you you have to lay off half your team, or we're gonna remove 50% of your budget because that's just the nature of the industry. As a leader, you would go below the line. Of course you would, because there's a problem and a threat. In this practice, we say, okay, do you know where you are? If you know you're below the line, you can stay there as long as you want to, or you can choose to shift if and when you're available to shift. And from above the line, you might be able to access new possibilities, uh, a new way to handle the situation, um, with less suffering and less stress. And generally you'll be able to drive better outcomes.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

Because you're opening yourself. Yes, it does, it does, because you're really opening yourself up to collaboration and communication and and what was interesting is that with some of these feelings, these feelings, I think there's five uh main feelings, aren't there, that we that we feel. Um they only laugh they only sit with you for 90 seconds and then they move. So if you accept that feeling and really feel the feeling and not uh, you know, because I I think I've always had a tendency to oh it'll it'll be fine and not really feel the feeling. And I I think that what you're saying is is you have to feel that feeling, whether it's joy or sadness or or whatever it may be, in order to be able to shift it, to move it, and to go into another experience.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Yeah. Um so what you're what you're pointing to is commitment three in the 15 commitments of conscious leadership, which is the commitment, the commitment to feel our feelings all the way through to completion.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Um, they move, we breathe, we vocalize them, and um, we're congruent with our emotions, trusting that they are intelligent.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

When we're below the line around our feelings, we tend to repress, with uh repress, suppress, apologize for our feelings, and we don't actually get all the intelligence of those feelings. Um, so we like to be in the practice of noticing, you know, the socialized self says that's not appropriate. Don't get angry, don't show sadness, that's a waste of time, that's not productive. You know, the socialized self has all kinds of opinions about why feelings shouldn't be felt or expressed. When we turn on the wild self a little, you know, accessing that two-year-old that lives inside of all of us, we actually trust that feelings are they're nothing but energy in motion. You know, emotions are energy and motions in motion, patterns of sensation running in and on the body that carry data. So if your stomach growls, it's just information that you're hungry. If anger arises, there's information here that something needs to stop or change. If fear arises, there's some information about getting present and noticing that there's something to learn. So in the practice of conscious leadership, we understand that all feelings are intelligent. And if you're a sentient being walking around in a human body, it is incredibly important to notice that, to be able to breathe when a pattern of emotion arises, because you can feel it in your body. And then if if and you know, you don't have to do this in the boardroom, but if and when it feels appropriate, you could actually get congruent and make a sound or vocalize that feeling. Yeah. You could go like, oh, I don't like that. Or I remember I used to have a lot of suppressed joy when I worked in advertising. I think I was just always focused on problems and I wasn't like fully feeling my happiness or my joy. And so I remember when I would sit across from agencies as they were presenting to us their plans, because I used to oversee a bunch of agencies for Meta. Um, if I like the work, I would get congruent. I would notice, oh, there's a swelling of joy occurring in my body. Could I notice that and breathe? And could I actually match that? And I would say, like, that's really good work, or I would clap if I liked something, I would smile. Um, and that was a great experience for me to just release that feeling because you know, to your point, feelings don't last, you know, they come in waves, but they don't tend to last longer than 90 seconds, two minutes.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Yes, yes. And that's that's infectious, isn't it? Your joy is probably infectious to the other people because isn't isn't it true that the commitment is not just for yourself, but the commitment is to for other people.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Um well, I the feeling our feelings is mostly an act of freedom for ourselves. It's like a wild frontier of liberation that we are feeling um beings, we're made of energy, and feelings are energy in motion. So to be able to allow that, you know, human beings are built to flow. We cry, we go to the bathroom, we're built to flow. And when we block the flow, we actually tamp down our life force and our energy and we start to get more dead inside. So if we're what we're up to is the game of aliveness in leadership in particular, we let the body flow this energy. We trust that it's intelligent, we know how to use it from above the line, we know how it can um be impactful or create certain um results or uh consequences when we use the feelings from below the line. Um and we're in a dance with it. Yes. You know, we're we're allowing ourselves to be human and to flow and trusting that um it, you know, these feelings better equip us to navigate the unknown, which is one of my favorite definitions of leadership, those who are willing to navigate the unknown.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

Yes, yes. I did actually the other day, I was so angry. I literally went out, and this is when I was living in the mountains, I literally went outside and screamed. Yeah, like yelled, and it it made me feel so good afterwards, and then you sort of almost chuckle to yourself because you sort of realize how silly it is. But um, but yeah, so so as part of your practice is how do you feel? Is that is that a very important question that you you would always ask somebody?

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Yeah, it's a really important question, and most people when you ask them how do you feel, they answer with things like I'm feeling like I want to solve this problem. Yeah. Or I'm feeling really um, you know, overwhelmed because I have too too many meetings today. Yeah. Now those aren't actually feelings, those are thoughts.

unknown 20:12

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

So in this practice, we teach people emotional literacy. What are the five core feelings, which are joy, anger, sadness, fear, and creative sexual energy? So those are the five core feelings.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

And then we teach people what those look like. First, what are the sensations of it, knowing how they appear in and on the body? You know, certain feelings tend to show up in certain areas. If you look at the research of the Hendricks Institute, they talk about anger living in the head and in the jaw and in the shoulders, fear living in the stomach primarily, um, sadness feeling pressure in the face, the throat, the upper chest. Joy tends to be a swelling, a rising. And then creative sexual energy, which is probably the one people are least familiar with, especially in the business world, is tends to be in the hips and the sacrum.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

So these patterns of energy tend to show up in certain places in the body. So could you know I have a feeling, I know where to locate it as a sensation? And then I if I can feel it and allow myself to physically feel that sensation and breathe through it, then I then I might want to match it with a movement or a sound so that I can flow that feeling through my body. And all that's left after the impulse moves through is intelligence.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

Right. And can you explain a little bit about creative sexual energy? Because yes, that was I was thinking, how does that sit with these other feelings? And how how does that apply to the workplace? Especially in the you know, nowadays, because there's so much training, isn't there, about about the way men and women behave with each other and and it can't f be in any way sexual and even touching or or or showing too much sexual emotion with somebody is is looked down upon. So how how do you discuss that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Yeah. Okay. Well, I think I'll define creative sexual energy, then I'll talk about how feelings can live below the line and above the line. So creative sexual energy is the energy of a life of life force. It's the energy of getting turned on by life. So this is a way in which we can be in relationship with anything a project, the tree outside my window, my team. And I'm actually running creative energy through my body, which is the energy of ideas, creativity, and innovation. And that I'm turning myself on. It's that same sensation in the body because I'm so lit up about whatever it is I'm being in relationship with. Now, from above the line, this is the language of innovation and creativity. You know, for so many of us, I think all people are creative beings, that this is our like life force energy. It's the air that we breathe. It's like oxygen. It's so important. I'm sure there are people listening to this, and even for you, you've been in companies where there's very low creative energy and companies where there's really high creative energy. And in one, you feel sort of like deadened, yeah. Or, you know, not very alive. And in one, you feel very alive and kinetic, connected, and it's kinetic, and ideas are flowing, and new things are being born all the time. So from above the line, that's how creative energy gets expressed and what it what it's meant for. It's the intelligence of that. I think from below the line, the feeling of it can be interpreted for attraction or lust. Now, we've both worked in advertising for a long time. So you remember places that had like really high creative energy and everybody's hooking up with each other. Right. As a producer, this can even happen on a set if you're on set long enough, like little set romances, you know, where the feeling of high creative energy can be mistaken for attraction because it's such a uh life force-giving feeling that people then mistake it for the active sex or the active lust or attraction. Um, when that most of the time that's not what it is. You know, every once in a while, you know, that's funny. I'm married to somebody who works in advertising. So there are some successful parents.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Yes, me too.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

But um, you know, I like to watch like old videos of the Beatles. You see the women like taking off their bras and throwing them on stage. Now, I don't know if each of those women wanted to have like a sexual relationship with the Beatles, or maybe it just felt that way because the music and the creativity that was flowing from that band into the audience was so enlivening. Yes, that's what it felt like. It was the closest thing they could that they could reach for, you know, as an expression of it.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

Yes, yes. And we all work towards that, don't we? That sort of tingling feeling when you feel like you produce something really special, like really, really good. Um, and and it is a physical experience, you know, as well as an emotional experience.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

And I think it's so important to cultivate, you know, like knowing what gives you creative energy and doing things that cultivate it first in yourself. So, like for me, traveling is really important for my creative energy and surrounding myself with people that I have good creative chemistry with. Um, I'm always looking for those things and I cultivate it with intention. So then I'm flowing more ideas, and then that supports anybody that works with and around me to flow ideas. You know, um when I worked in an agency where at one point where people didn't share their ideas with each other, they're very protective and they would wait until like until it was time to present to share. And it was just not as alive as agencies I've worked in where anybody can contribute ideas and there's round tables, and it doesn't matter what role you're sitting in, if you have an idea, it's welcome. Those ran really high creative energy and they won more business and had more um, they're winning more awards, so there were some outcomes of high creative energy places. When I worked at Meta, there was a creative director, uh, I'll name her Sue Anderson, who I had very a lot of creative energy with. And if Sue came to my desk in the morning, I remember once she came to my desk and said, like, Joyce, I haven't I had a dream about a spot for International Women's Day. And it's a woman who's drumming and she's just drumming for 60 seconds, and then her sticks go up in the air. And we say International Women's Day on Facebook. And I'm like, I love that. And we just sat down and just started powwowing immediately about who could shoot it. And I think it was on air within a month after that. Um, but it was such an example of like, yeah, that's the stuff we live for. Um, we should be cultivating that.

SPEAKER_02 26:30

Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely. Um, one of the other um commitments that that interested me in particular was was candor or candor, cando. Um, you know, the to commit to saying what is true. I've experienced a lot working in different agencies and brands and what have you, that that a lot of the time leadership aren't really honest with you. Um and and you know, they don't give you the big picture, it's sort of filtered information. And um and I was just interested, you know, uh how you approach that conversation because because I think that if everybody was a little bit more honest, um and we all communicated and collaborated, uh, knowing the full picture, it would sort of make the experience and work a lot better.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Yeah. Um, I gener I generally agree with that sentiment that if we were all um fully revealed with each other, that each of us would probably feel more free and alive, and then collaboration and creativity would increase. The reality of working inside of a highly matrixed organization, though, is a little bit different. And so what I would say is the way we practice candor from above the line is we reveal what is true for us. I think a lot of people mistake candor as telling people the truth about whatever is occurring. Let me tell you the truth about this situation. We're fucked, you know, or I don't know if I want to put that on here. That's that's actually just somebody's opinion being like put on others as the truth. That's not what we mean by candor in the practice of conscious leadership. We say it's um being willing to name sensations in the body, the feelings that you're having, thoughts, and saying, that's what's true for me, you know, on Planet Joyce, and doing it with openness and curiosity, not righteousness or blame. Because in this practice, we say we see the world as we are, not as it is. And so there's a willingness to say, over here on Planet Joyce, I just want to reveal that when you told me that um we're killing this campaign that I'm working on, I felt uh swirling in my stomach. I got really hot. I felt like frustrated and scared. And then I told myself a story. Um, that was a huge waste of the team's time and we could have avoided it. Now, I don't know if I'm right about that, but I'm just sharing what occurs for me over here, just to be known by you and to have a discuss like a more open discussion, you know? That's what the practice of candor looks like. And there it's a very different energetic than being righteous about my opinion and telling people that's the truth. Can you feel that difference?

SPEAKER_02 29:17

Right. Yes, no, I do. I do.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Yeah. And then in big organizations, um, there are agreements that people make around what can and can't be shared. Now that makes sense because when you're when you're running an organization with a lot of people, some information is confidential, some of it is time-bound, some of it, you know, there's lots of um things that help an organization run smoothly and agreements around that, around which not everybody has the decision rights. So if you're at a level in which you don't have the executive decision rights around what can be said or what can't, and part of working um at will is being in agreement with the way the company um coordinates social coordination to get things done. Um there's a way in which you can honor those agreements and still um show up authentically, speak what's true for you while not breaking those agreements. So that what that might look like is say I know um we're talking about promotions or something. And obviously you wouldn't just reveal that information everywhere. There's an agreement in the company that there's a protocol for that. So if I'm choosing to agree to that, then what I might say to my team is we had a meeting about promotions, it will come out on this day, and if you could really know me in that meeting, I felt, you know, whatever sensations. I have a story, like not everybody's gonna be happy with this outcome. I have a story that I might disappoint people, and when I believe that story, I feel I feel sad. You know, that's just a way you could honor the agreements of the organization while still authentically sharing.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

Yes, yes. No, I mean that's great because then you feel like perhaps other people are being affected by maybe you know financial decisions about promotions as opposed to just feeling like you're being picked on as an individual. So having that honesty is is obviously something that that uh should be encouraged, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Yeah. Yeah. I think that um I I just think work is better and we are more collaborative and we generally create better things when people are willing to be with their experience and they're willing to reveal that experience with anybody they choose to have a meaningful relationship in the workplace or in life.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

Yeah, yeah. Responsibility is one of the key commitments, isn't it? Um and can you talk about that um as well? Because um the sort of the blame and the shame and the guilt that come with being below the line um seem very uh relevant to a lot of people. Um and it's it would be interesting to get your thoughts on how you can shift that to be above the line.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

I think what I would say is when people get scared, which happens lots of times throughout the day, we tend to blame or look for who caused the problem. That's just what every human being does, you know. Um we blame others, we blame ourselves, we blame the organization, we blame the system, so we blame the weather, you know. Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm late to work, it's raining, there's traffic, I blame the weather, I blame these cars, I blame the city. That's just how we react to a fear or threat response. In conscious leadership, we notice blame and that it's not a super productive energy. You know, blame usually leads to drama, and it's more of a destructive energy than it is a generative energy. And so we look at if I wasn't blaming, how might I take responsibility for what's mine inside of this situation? Any way I may have co-created what I'm experiencing. Um, and it's not blaming ourselves for what happened, but just acknowledging that we might have some part in the experience that we're having.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

So if I was late to a meeting and I was stuck in traffic and I wanted to blame everything, I might just pause and say, okay, instead of blaming, which is sending me into a spiral, taking 100% responsibility here might be like, well, did I check the weather before I got in my car knowing there's an important meeting? And did I allow for enough time to drive when I knew there was going to be rain? And then there are some things that are out of our control, like a car accident. Instead of blaming the car accident, I could just say, Well, I'm not interested in in the energy of blame. Um instead, I'd focus on what I can learn from this.

SPEAKER_02 34:01

Right. Um so it's all about what you can learn from a situation and and trying to sort of move through it as opposed to getting stuck in the in the blame game. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Which typically just creates drama.

SPEAKER_02 34:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:19

I think just the idea of um how you can shift out of something and how you can learn, you know, from your experiences is so valuable. Um and the fact that that the energy is always moving and you know that we are, you know, if if we take a little bit of control of our lives in terms of sort of breathing and movement and vocalizing how we ac and and accept our feelings, that so much can change. I think that's for me absolutely fascinating because you know, we're all so busy and and you know, I I know you talk a little bit, or at least in the book, they talk a little bit about, you know, workaholism is an addiction. And it's an addiction that we so many of us in our business um are addicts to work and working 24-7 or however long we have to, we have to work, always checking emails, always checking our phone, prioritizing sometimes work instead of being at home with the kids and the family. So that's why, you know, for me, this is from a personal standpoint, I think so enlightening. Is there anything else that you think would be helpful? Um, you know, given this conversation and what we've already talked about?

SPEAKER_00 35:34

Um, I noticed there are two things I wanted to bring up. Um one is like a lot of a lot of executives that I coach um describe like being on a treadmill of busyness and workaholism that they can't get off of.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

And I say that if you keep focusing on content, which is like the who, what, where of life, you're the you're just the issues are going to recycle in different shapes and forms. The premise of conscious leader, the premise of conscious leadership and what really differentiates this company and our approach from other coaching modalities is our focus on context. How are you being with your content? What is your consciousness around your content? Are you operating from threat and reactivity or from presence and trust and curiosity? When we can learn to shift the context, that's actually what creates sustainable solutions to end the problems or the, you know, sometimes I experience people's drama or issues as like a TV show that just keeps getting renewed. Different characters come in, maybe different scenarios, but it's like the same drama season after season. Shifting your context from below the line to above the line is a thing that I can actually like radically rewrite this TV show if you want to. And, you know, what I would say about workaholism as like, by the way, somebody who is quite a workaholic and something that I still struggle with, even as a coach who teaches this material and coaches other people in this material. Oftentimes, workaholism is a below-the-line behavior that's meant to help us feel some sense of getting approval, control, or safety and security in this world. We do it because we believe that we lack those things and we have to go out there and drive ourselves into the ground to get that as much as possible so that we can feel whole. When we do context coaching and this type of work, it's inner work where we're really unpacking what's at threat, what are you scared of? What do you believe you don't have? And returning home to this idea that we are good enough, we are perfect and whole as we are, which most of us forgot a long time ago. That everything worth controlling is already within our control, that um we are safe and our survival is guaranteed, luckily, in this time and age, um, for most people, you know?

unknown 37:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

That if we can ground in that and do practices to remind ourselves of that, and we're strong in that wholeness, um, that from that place we can show up and do very good work and work very hard without the same amount of suffering that most people are driving themselves into. And that's been like such a big part of my exploration, um, both as a coach with my clients and then personally for myself.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

Yeah, yeah. Well, I really hope that the work that you do in leadership in advertising will mean that less people are feeling the need to kill themselves to succeed. Because it is, you know, everybody says, you know, you're in advertising, you know, it thrives, doesn't it, on the drama and a lot of those things that we've been talking about.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

So sometimes that drama can be mistaken. It's like it can feel like a hit of aliveness.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

But it's not really aliveness, it's just drama-induced aliveness, a little shot of adrenaline, you know?

SPEAKER_01 38:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

And so, you know, there's a uh roller coaster you can get on, and it's quite a ride of outsourcing your worth and value to what this person thinks, or you know, how this campaign does, or if you get a promotion, or if you get hired for this roller, or what your title is, like that's a roller coaster most of us get on, and it's a wild ride of up and down.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Yeah, yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:22

If we can ground in our inner authority and know who we are from a place of wholeness, and then from there, if we're willing to end the drama in our lives, because it's gonna come, reactivity is gonna come. How do we want to be with that as a practice to reduce it? And then our tolerance for it actually goes down and down. And then with all the energy that we get back, what do we want to do with that? We're gonna play, we're gonna rest, we're gonna um appreciate everything and everyone, um, or see life through the lens of appreciation. I'm not talking about toxic positivity. It's more like I can genuinely appreciate how even conflict and adversity is here for me. Live a life of appreciation, and then I could ground in my life's purpose and give my gifts, be in flow, um, contribute to what wants to happen through me in this lifetime, um, and be so aligned to walking a life on purpose. That's what we're up to.

SPEAKER_02 40:14

Yeah, that sounds great. One of my questions that I always ask, and I don't know how this sits with you and what you do, but I I often ask, you know, is there a particular challenge that you face that you feel has made you a stronger person?

SPEAKER_00 40:28

I mean, all the time.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

All the time, yeah. And not one in one between the same.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

Yeah, I don't even know which one to choose. If I were to pick one, you know, I this might resonate with the people listening to this podcast, but I think one that I struggled with a long time was like, who am I if I'm not somebody who is successful? You know, I'm somebody, I think this looks different for everybody that might ask that question, but I was born into I'm an immigrant. I have Chinese, Taiwanese parents who really put pressure on me to be successful. Um, I think that I had questions around my own self-worth and my own value. And so I thought, okay, well, if I just climb that corporate ladder or I get that title or I make more money, then I'll feel like I'm enough. This is something I grappled with for a long time, unconsciously and then at the conscious level, uh, where I was very aware I was doing it, but I didn't know how to change it. And uh navigating that challenge was one of the biggest gifts in my life because it forced me to do the inner work, to understand more about what drives me and what fulfillment looks like and what purpose really is. Like I had to ask all those questions and uh face my own not enoughness by not running from it anymore, which is challenging work to do, you know.

SPEAKER_02 41:52

Very challenging, very challenging. And I but I'm so happy that you found you found your happiness and your joy. And I hope that for everybody, I hope that for our listeners. And I think that this is going to be such a a valuable listen for so many people. So thank you so, so much. And uh thank you. Yeah, enjoy your travels. I know you've been super busy. So so again, thank you for for taking the time.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

You're so welcome. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 42:20

Thank you so much, Joyce. And I'm incredibly grateful you took the time to come onto the podcast. One of the things I'm most interested in, both in life and through this podcast, is how we actually show up when things feel hard. Not when everything's going well, but in those moments where we feel challenged, defensive, or unsure. And I'm keen to continue exploring the 15 commitments of conscious leadership. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share with a friend or leave a review, as it really helps us grow. Until next time, bye for now.