How to Become a Calm & Trusted Leader

Calm Leaders Build Stronger Teams.

Why you cannot build a healthy culture from a reactive emotional state, and how leaders trade reaction for regulation.

Every leader knows the moment.

The meeting turns tense. The email lands wrong. The pressure spikes, and before you’ve chosen anything, your body has already chosen for you: flooded, controlling, defensive, or shut down.

Julia LeFevre calls it what it is: you cannot build a healthy culture from a reactive state.

Julia is the founder of Brave Restoration, a relational trust specialist, and a Certified NeuroChange Professional Coach with 25+ years in education and leadership. 

She helps executives regulate their nervous systems so decisions come from the prefrontal cortex rather than self-protection, rebuilding trust, accountability, and real connection.

In this podcast, we explore what regulated leadership actually takes, not as a personality trait, but as a trainable capacity.

What is happening in a leader’s brain under threat?

How do you repair a trust rupture you caused? 

And what has to be full before a leader has anything real to give?

Watch the podcast on YouTube.

About Julia LeFevre:

• Founder of Brave Restoration; relational trust specialist and human-first leadership coach.
• Certified NeuroChange Professional Coach with master’s degrees in Organizational Leadership and Education, and 25+ years in education and leadership.
• Creator of the CORE 4 framework — Connection, Definition, Integration, Collaboration — and the six-week Regulated Leader Cohort for executives facing imposter syndrome, anxiety, and burnout.
• Known for the maxim: “Regulated leadership is not personality. It is capacity.”

TIMELINE:

0:30 — Why leaders become reactive/anxious and lose team trust

2:17 — Real-life test of capacity: the 29-hour travel ordeal

4:53 — History of neuroscience research on brain flexibility (1980s–2000s)

7:30 — Brain stem, limbic system & the "bottom-up" brain model

9:01 — The 5th core human need: relational belonging

10:43 — Defining "capacity": staying regulated under relational threat

11:38 — Case study: the table-pounding, micromanaging boss

17:18 — The "fire pit" metaphor: expressing emotion instead of suppressing it

20:31 — Team exercise: releasing tension in a high-tech product team

23:06 — Reframing "dysregulation" as lack of psychological safety

26:35 — Capacity as a muscle: atrophy vs. growth through discomfort

29:36 — You can't fake regulation: showing up vs. what you say

32:12 — Julia's personal story: anxiety, burnout, and neurochange development work

35:43 — The turning point: "I don't need you to change those things"

37:54 — Separating performance from relational connection at work

40:02 — The Core Four Framework explained: Connection, Integration, Collaboration

43:03 — Building your "fire pit": finding brave people to journey with

CONTACT JULIA LeFevre:

 Link to the nervous system audit: https://lp.braverestoration.org/executivecapacity-audit

Website: www.braverestoration.org

Email: julia@braverestoration.org

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliaklefevre/

CONTACT DR. ARDESHIR MEHRAN

Dr. Mehran Studio

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

You're not depressed, just unfinished. This is the podcast for leaders, high achievers, and entrepreneurs who have built impressive lives on the outside, and yet sense something is dying on the inside. If you ever stared at everything you have accomplished and felt strangely empty, this show is for you. Most successful leaders don't destroy the team's trust because they lack intelligence, planning, and a strategy. Their team trust gets damaged because they become reactive, they become anxious. Why do leaders become reactive? And if they become reactive, how do they revert back to their wisdom, to their thoughtfulness? I have a wonderful expert with us today, Julia Lefebvre. She is an expert in neurochange coaching, and she will tell us what it is. She is also founder of Brave Foundation, Brave Restoration. She has a methodology core for framework, and her key tagline, which I love, is about regulated leadership, is not personality, is capacity. Which means we all can learn it. We are not born with it. All right, Julia, welcome and welcome. First, add to more about what do your listeners need to know about you, and also where are you dialing from?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Oh, my friend, thank you so much for having me. I'm dialing in from Wichita, Kansas, right in the middle of the US. There's no place like home. What wherever home is for you, it's there's no place like home. And for me, that's Kansas. And yeah, I'm just so excited to be here. I don't know what people need to know about me. I feel like you gave me a great introduction. It's funny, the whole the leadership, and it's not a personality that it's capacity. And let me just tell you, my own capacity got challenged this past weekend because we were in New York City, my husband and my son, and what should have been a six-hour commute home turned into 29 hours. And let me tell you, I am glad that I have been working on my leadership capacity to stay regulated. Because man, if that had happened five years ago, I'm not sure we would still be home.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

So you were not one of those passengers on Instagram that get agitated and start to scream at everybody. You're not one of them.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

I didn't, but you know what? Everything in my body was telling me to do that. And same with my husband and my son. There would be those moments of panic because nothing seemed to be going right. And at one point, my husband looked at me and said, I'm getting ready to blow. And here's the thing: it's not because he's not a patient person, it's not because he's not a good person, it's because his capacity had reached its limit. And that's what happens to so many leaders. When things continue to go bad, we reach our capacity to stay regulated, and that's when we blow.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

So let me ask you this that Julia, that behind me, the I'm not sure the listeners they can see this. There are many books about leadership, they're all about the skills, teamwork, the strategy, communication, delegation, so on and so on. What you're talking about is a different dimension of leadership, about capacity of regulation. What does that mean? And why? Second question, why there are so few resources about that? About learn a skill so you can do the work, but there's skill about you being the way of your being. Why there's so little about it?

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Yeah, it's such a good question. And the reason there's so little about it is because what we're learning about capacity from a neurological standpoint is coming from new research. As recent as 2015, they're just starting to realize more and more about what our brains need and how our brains work. And so much about the research world, the people doing the research are pretty removed from those who are trying to do the applied work. And just a little history of where we've been and where we're going. Back in the late 1980s, that's when neuroscientists were first not first discovering, but there was a real surge of information about the flexibility of our brains, the neuroplasticity, where we could literally create new neural pathways. We could change our brain. This is also during the time where communication was speeding up. And so the cognitive behavioral movement really took off. 1987-ish is when people started learning, oh, we can practice new things and create new habits. Yes. Now that's true. And so it took off. And we see it in education, we see it in therapy, we see it in business. That and what happened is that we adopted this idea that if we just get more information and then we create some structures or systems with accountability so that we can practice over and over, we can change behavior. And here's the thing: the good news is that it worked sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

But the problem is that it only works when things are unemotional.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

That's right. Regimen or systemic predictable. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

So can you build a new habit? Yes. So it was measurable, it was a formula, and so people held on to that. The problem is that at the same early 2000s, not very much later into more recent history, they started learning about, and I'm gonna pull up my brain model. So they started learning that okay, our brain works from the bottom up, not the top down. So the cognitive behavioral system relied on our prefrontal cortex. This is where our learning happens. It's where information starts to create new neural pathways. The problem is this is the last part of your brain to get to play. So it worked as long as so, real quick anatomy lesson: your brainstem is the first part of your brain to play, and it's asking a single question how do I keep you alive physically? So it's going to make sure that we have everything we need. We have we're breathing, we're hungry, we have food, we have water, it keeps our organs going. So for most of us, most of the time, that's happy. And so it sends the information on up to our limbic system. This is where the amygdala is, the hippocampus, and this is the emotional processing system.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

This part of our brain is asking, how can I keep you physically alive? This part of your brain now is concerned with can I how are you doing is this life or death relationally?

SPEAKER_03 8:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

So we're now we're moving into that realm of human relationships. Relationally. Absolutely. And here's the thing: when we say what are the core human needs, we need food, water, shelter, safety, right? There's actually a fifth, and that is our relational need to belong somewhere to matter. They know that this is it. Let me back up. What happens when something is when a core need is not being met physically, your body shifts into fight or flight. It's going to give you energy to meet that need.

SPEAKER_03 9:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

The same thing happens when there's a relational threat. Your body triggers into a fight or flight response in order to fix that because it is just as important to your brain that you matter, that you're connected, as it is that you have food and water.

SPEAKER_03 10:03

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

So and then, yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Go ahead. I love this source of I'm a science geek. I'm just thinking, didn't talk for I hope listeners actually go on YouTube and see this. So it's so all of this happened at millisecond, correct? Very fast.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Yes. All of this in the yellow and green is happening without us even knowing, without us thinking, without any decisions being made. So even today, I was reading through some LinkedIn posts, and people were talking about making a decision to stay regulated. So now here's back to your original question: what is capacity? What does that mean? Having capacity means that this part of your brain knows that it will be okay to, even if there's a relational threat, but it has so many other confirmed relationships that one threat is not going to flip it into the fight or flight response. Because staying regulated even in the face of a relational threat.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

So let's so this is key because early in my career I worked for a wonderful leader whom I learned a lot, but he was basically those leaders who pound the table. He would group of us, he goes like a dozen of us that he would to the meeting, the slightest thing he would get agitated, pound the table, name calling, really a lot of pressure. So it was a culture of fear, culture of distrust. Even going on LinkedIn, people talk about bad bosses. So he was a wonderful boss, but he was constantly too dysregulated. So what was happening with him?

SPEAKER_00 12:12

So what was happening is that this wasn't an issue of physical needs not being met. There was something that was happening in a situation where his success as a boss was tied to his internal feeling of I'm going to be wanted here. If I fail as a boss, so if an initiative fails, yes, that they're not going to want me. So now we're not talking about the issue about the business. We're talking about his need to be wanted.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

So work issues, in other words, work challenges, which everywhere exist, it became an issue, as you mentioned. That am I a good boss? Do they want me? Do I matter?

SPEAKER_00 13:06

And then exactly.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

And the way he would bring agitation, agitation, more or less, he was going to micromanaging, guiding us that lack of trust. He just said as long as we did it his way, it was the good way.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Because he was able to then control the outcome more and make sure it got done so that people would want him. See, look, this is how I am wanted.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

So what happened in our team, we all noticed that when he himself got feedback from his own manager, that the team produced less. We just went to the deliver the work that he wanted versus going above and beyond. We were hesitant to go above and beyond because we thought he would not like it. So it became a very get the work done type of a team because we didn't want to be yelled at and criticized, but at the same time, there were so much more we could have done. He could have been a stellar leader and he couldn't do that. So the second question what could we have done? Because I think of him now. We are years later, we are friends, we are buddies. Every now and then we we go and have a drink. What could we have done either to support him or he himself to stay regulated?

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Yeah, one thing I want to point out is that you guys didn't want to speak up or push against it because then that would mean that he doesn't want you. And so now his dysregulation or lack of capacity is now exposing the team's lack of capacity because we don't want him to not want us. So we're just going to please him however it takes. And to your question of what could you have done? And really, this is anyone. Most of the work I do, I the ideal is working with that leader and helping them recognize and build their capacity, which we'll talk about that later. But in the moment, what you could have done really relates to what he needed.

SPEAKER_03 15:29

What he needed, yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

What he needed. So this part of our brain needs food, water, shelter, safety, right? That's just what it needs. Yes, this wasn't an issue of that. What he needed was to be wanted. He needed a safe relationship to be freaked out. And so what could have helped him was to be able to just help him to listen. I if I were in that room and he gets freaked out, I'd say, man, boss, this is frustrating, isn't it? And I imagine you feel like you're gonna get the can because we we didn't do XYZ. So now all of a sudden, I'm bringing to light, I'm speaking out what's really happening.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

And then what would really help is to connect to how he is feeling. Man, I bet you this is just freaking you out.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

And just say it.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

Now, this is key. What you're saying to bring an atmosphere of regulation in the team doesn't mean we all smile jolly, happy, high five, kumbaya. We can have deeper connection, respect, have conversation, and talk about tough, hard stuff, talk about conflict that we don't need to deny the conflict, tension, and anxiety in the room, in the project. If we honor the the need of the person, what does he need? What does she need? And talk about hard stuff at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Yes. Oh my goodness. Yes. Because here's the thing biologically, when this part of your brain feels a threat, it creates a chemical reaction that produces energy. It's like lighting a match. Now, so there's actual energy that needs to be spent. You can't hold energy. Go into a middle school classroom of kids who have been sitting at their desk all day. It comes out one way or another. So when there's a threat, when somebody feels threatened, their brain is preparing them to fight or flight. They have this lit match, so to speak. You have to deny it. You have to just be happy and peaceful. And so I'm so glad you brought up capacity and staying regulated does not mean that. Because what happens if you hold a match too long?

SPEAKER_02 18:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

You get burned.

SPEAKER_03 18:38

You get burned.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

So then what happens? What happens? People just fling it then. And that would be the equivalent of your boss pounding the desk, yelling, going into micromanage mode. So now this flame starts a forest fire. That's not good. So then we say, oh, see, emotion's bad. I've got to just try and hold it again.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

And what I teach people is that the emotion isn't bad. The fire isn't the problem. It's what we do with the fire. And so it's where I advocate creating a fire pit experience. Because now, if you have a contained space where you can put the fire, now you can actually build up the fire. And so now the energy has a place to go. And so when I said you entering into the fire pit experience with your boss and saying, hey boss, man, this is hard. And almost saying inviting him to be emotional in an appropriate way, instead of him feeling like he's fighting against his team. Now he's fighting with his team.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

This is powerful about them. A year ago, I went to a team in a high-tech environment, about 14 people in the room. It was a product development team. The head of the team asked me that there's a lot of tension in the team, that we, if there's an issue, people discuss it forever and ever versus analyze it, plan for it, execute, and we just you're stuck, and it's so much tension. So the day that I arrived, I entered the room. You know that expression, you can feel the room already hot. Literally, I felt there was energy like that. The many lights, the many candles, the match they were lit. I just felt it, and people felt warmed up, energized, and they were tense already. I was so I was thinking, this team does not need more project plan, more analytical work. They need to express themselves. So they were fortunate. They need so the first thing I did it was a large room in front, windows, white space. I said that how about everybody stand up, come with me to this other corner, get the body moving. So whenever there's energy, the last thing you want is sitting and do left brain doodling. Just get up and move the body, energy is in the body. So to come up here, pair up with somebody you don't typically talk about. Basically, two questions. How are you feeling right now? And you can use any words, just two of you, no notes taking. And what is one thing you want wrong is exercise. It was an hour and a half exercise. They did this, it was only five minutes. After that, I said, So, what are some of the words came out? People said, I'm frustrated, I'm angry, I'm fearful, I don't care. We've done this before. What people said they wanted was calming down. I want more hope. I want more listening. I want more less respect. I want to be heard. That's all we needed. And it became just people expressed themselves, and I could literally fell feel the room calm down. People had eye contact, their bodies were calm, they were breathing. And I was thinking that this wasn't rocket science. This was a team that was already dysregulated and they were feeding off of each other.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

They needed to express themselves so they can go do their left brain analytical work. This is what you talk about, correct?

SPEAKER_00 22:41

This was it. This is it. You were helping them to receive what they needed. It's not rocket science, it's neuroscience.

SPEAKER_02 22:52

That's right, that's right. Let me ask you a question. The term dysregulate this, so the fact is, I use it all the time. I'm gonna be honest with you, I hate it because it just looks it looks so so nebulous. Business people have used it and they roll their eyes. What does that mean? Because it doesn't fit in the jargon of business world. Yeah, are there other ways we can label regulation dysregulation?

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Yeah, that's a good question. I think one of the things that helps me, and when I work with executives who are really resistant, they're like, that's not my problem. They need to figure that out. That's their own emotional stuff. I don't deal with emotions. And I would just say it means the more positive spin of it is they are not experiencing psychological safety.

SPEAKER_03 23:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

And it's the absence of relational safety, they don't feel safe. And a lot of my job is educating. So my education background comes in handy, but educating leaders that you can not care or not want to deal with emotions. But let me tell you, this part of your business is costing you millions of dollars. And so if you want to get this is the smart part of people's brains that you're paying your team, you're paying them to access this. But if you don't provide the felt safety, then this will become the barrier. I tell people this is like the gas tank, is like the rocket fuel for your smart brain. And if this isn't filled up, if the needs are not met, you're costing your company millions of dollars. And we've seen this play out over and over.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

The last week I wrote a blog which is available on my website, and I will put it as part of our podcast. The title is that emotional regulation is your ultimate leadership edge. It is because we all get trained in the left brain functioning, delegation, communication, conflict resolution strategy, etc. Emotional regulation is what builds capacity more, you feel more, you perceive more, your intuition will be actually higher. And it's untapped, to your point, capability. Many leaders don't know how they have it, you already have it. You need to use it, you need to apply it for yourself, for your team, for your family, for your kids.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yeah, I'm so glad you brought this up. We have the capacity in some ways, but it's okay. So a year and a half ago, I had surgery on my ankle. I had to be non-weight bearing for 12 weeks. Wow. Guess what happened to the muscles in my leg that I had? Yeah, they atrophied, they were not, they shrunk to almost half this size. It was incredible how quickly, because I wasn't using it. Here's what's funny: this part of your brain, if it feels a relational threat, it's going to tell you, just like my doctor told me, you can't use it. Don't go there again. If that didn't feel good, if you did speak up to your boss and he yelled at you, that didn't feel good. Don't ever do that again. You learn that. And so what ends up happening is that our brain thinks it's protecting us, yeah, which it does for the short term. But what ends up happening is that capacity, muscle, so to speak, atrophies because what builds capacity is doing the thing that feels scary. And that's why so many of us lack the capacity to do hard things because we've just avoided them.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

And so it's one of those things that the good news is we can build capacity. I've seen it happen in my own life and in lots of leaders that I've worked with. And it's not easy, it's not a walk in the park because it's leaning in to do the things that feel scary, and that your brain is saying, run away or fight.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

You mentioned a key point here. Actually, you mentioned many good key points here, and this is what my client asked me. So, Arti, that's great regulation. So I go tomorrow in my meetings, and I will ask me, so what do I say so that I can create an environment of listening, calmness, regulation? And gently I tell them it's less about what you say, it's about how you show up the context by how fast you speak, quality of your eye contact, quality of your listening, quality of when you ask a question. Are you really asking the question, or are you just going through the motion and you want people, come on, give it to me quickly? Or what do you do when somebody says something and doesn't match with your perspective, or simply you dislike it? What do you say? So, because people pick that up. I say those, and the other thing I say, and I love to hear your perspective. If you go to the room and you're anxious, you're and anxious shallow breathing, your body's tense, your shoulders are tight. That people see that body rebody faster than people follow the language. So Julia, from your experience, how can a leader and it can be a spouse, can be a teacher, how do they show up in their entire being and create a sense of invitation? I'm calm, I'm cool, and we can have that sense. What do you see working?

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Yeah, that's such a good question, and really it comes back to first of all, you cannot fake capacity, yes, you cannot fake regulation. I love that. It's not a script, you can't, and so I love that you tell people it's not so much what you say, it's how you show up. Yeah, and so I'm gonna bring us back to the brain. The way you can choose, choosing happens up here is to make sure all of your needs are met first. So, really practically, if you're not sleeping, if you're not eating, if you're not drinking, if you don't have safe spaces this last weekend when we had no sleep for 30 hours, 29 hours to run in your apps, it's challenging to stay regulated because even our body was screaming at us. So, first of all, you've got to take care of yourself. Second of all, now we take care of our physical selves, you've got to take care of your relational self. Yeah, this means that you have to fill your tank before you can come and provide an emotional anchor for your team. You have to make sure that this part of your brain is convinced you matter. That happens through authentic, intentional, relational interactions with people over a period of time, relationship interactions with people over time. Because it's the experience. One of the things that the neuroscience is opening a door on that's different from the 1980s is that this part of your brain, let me back up. This part changes with information. Information does help, but this part of your brain changes with experience. It's an experience that taught you when to be on guard, when to get triggered. It's a new experience that confirms or tells your brain it's gonna be okay. Yeah, so for me, my part of my story back in 2020, I was working in an organization that had some major issues and I had issues. I was contributing to some of those issues, and so what ended up happening is I developed debilitating anxiety. I couldn't think straight because my brain was stuck in fight or flight. I had adrenaline cursing through per through my body constantly. I my all of my brain energy was directed to keeping me safe relationally, which meant I was trying to write my doctoral thesis and I couldn't. I still haven't gone back to it. Someday I might, but I couldn't think. And so I what ended up changing, I tried everything. I tried three therapists, I hired a spiritual director, started doing yoga, meditation, changed my diet, and started meds. And guess what? Nothing helped. But I thought, I can't live life like this. Yeah, it was only when I came, I reconnected with one of my professors from my program that had introduced neurochange. I worked with him for a year every week. So I met with him at over 50 times, and in that year, we were re he was providing new experiences that were rewiring what those experiences, what were this some of those experiences? I'll never forget one of the most powerful ones. He it was about three months in, and I was asking him, okay, his name was Scott. Okay, Scott, tell me what are the things about me that you don't like? Because part of the premise is that I needed, I was a people pleaser, and I needed to know that there were things that people didn't like about me, and it'd be okay, and that they weren't rejecting me because of those. So he tells me a couple of things. I say too many words, I want it to be my way or the highway. I can kind of come across as a know-it-all. I'm a firstborn daughter, type A. Like, and I'm like, okay. I took a deep breath and he looked at me and he said, Wait a minute, you're gonna work on changing those things, aren't you? I'm like, Yeah, and then he said something that I will never forget, and I still feel it in my body, and he said, Julia, I don't need you to change those things. I love spending time with you even when you come across as a know-it-all. Yeah, and I my body, I still feel it right now, Artishair. I'm it's my whole life, I had lived with the assumption, the core belief that I had to be perfect, I had to make people happy, yeah, for them to want me. Yeah, and in that moment, now if if somebody that I didn't know had told me that, I'd be like, oh, that was nice. But I knew he knew me, and it was a genuine, yeah, intentional interaction, and I just wept. And it gave my brain a new experience that was in direct contradiction to my past experiences. Yeah, started changing my life.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

I felt that experience, your emotion, and that moment of deep understanding and connection with Scott. I felt it. What happened? I want to slow this down for our listeners. So much in our lives, and I grew up like that, that I had to be this way to be loved. What Scott said, you're already loved. I want to be with you, you're already good, you're already at the table. But if you there are a few things that you can work on that will be better helpful, but that doesn't take away from your greatness, for your magnificence, for from the love and attention you already have, and I have it for you. It's basically you're good. You can work on those versus all the things you need to do, then you may get the attention and the love, and you may not. That is the significant reframing that applies to parenting, that applies to teens, relationships, that is profound.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

The relational connection is not dependent on my performance.

SPEAKER_03 37:32

That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

The connection and acceptance of me as a person, yeah, is non-negotiable.

SPEAKER_03 37:40

That's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

So yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 37:44

You finish your talk.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

I was just going to say some people in the workplace are like, yeah, but how do I set boundaries if people aren't performing?

SPEAKER_02 37:54

I do that. Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

So this is where we have combined performance and relational connection where it needs to stay separate. I can have a hard conversation or I can even fire someone, I can terminate someone and still have a relational connection. I can still value them as a person. In fact, I can value them even more by being honest with them and saying, Hey, I think you have more in you, or hey, I this is not a good place for you.

SPEAKER_03 38:37

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

And you matter to me. And so I want to help you in your journey to find the place where it's a better fit.

SPEAKER_03 38:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

And I will be here. I'm not going to pull away from you relationally.

SPEAKER_03 38:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

Our workplace is our relationship, doesn't have anything to do with your production.

SPEAKER_03 39:03

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Our working relationship does because at the end of the day, if you're getting paid to do a job, you have to do it.

SPEAKER_03 39:11

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

But we can have this more of an integrated approach to people that we can value them as a person. I can speak kindly to them. I can care for them. I can even say, I know this is really hard for you. And I hate that.

unknown 39:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

So see, I'm connecting with the emotion, I'm giving them what they need, I'm seeing the pain that they're in.

SPEAKER_02 39:39

And you see the greatness in their great in a lot of different dimensions, but it's not what this job needs.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 39:48

Yeah, but this is wonderful. Julia, you mentioned in your work um core for framework. That sounds very smart and very jazzy. What is it that's part of your work?

SPEAKER_00 40:05

When I was in school, there they were using a lot of the psychology terms like attachment, separation, authority. And I was like, the business world is not gonna understand that. And so basically, I just developed this core four framework that essentially there are four areas of our or four types of experiences that fill up this gas tank of our brain. Yeah, and I call those the core four. The first one is your capacity for connection. That should make sense after listening. If people have listened this whole time, but the end of the day, I'm as a coach, I'm looking at what is your capacity to connect to people in an intentional, authentic, genuine way. Because that's what people need. As a leader, if your capacity to connect is low, then everything else you are going to struggle mightily to create a safe space for your team.

SPEAKER_02 41:19

It's a foundational capacity to create. That's right. So let me ask you a question that first of all, I'm so immersed in our conversation. I'm thinking, I want to have it back here again and again. So people are listening to our conversation, they show up as they are in different states of regulation. And regulation for our listeners is not uh binary, you have it, you don't have it, is a continuum. Absolutely from very low to very high. So we are all somewhere on that continuum. So people are listening, and they want to say, Oh, I'm intrigued. I want to learn more, I want to be more. What do they do to be to move further about regulation? What is helpful to them right now?

SPEAKER_00 43:16

Yeah, so right now they I tell people the starting point is to build your fire pit. Invite safe people into this journey with you. This is not something you can do by yourself.

SPEAKER_02 43:35

Yeah, in fact, I always safe people versus the people who are criticize you, people naysayers, and like you need the right people to be around you.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

And in some ways, I've even started shifting away from the idea of safe, because at the end of the day, we're all in process, and there are gonna be times where even I'm not safe. For somebody because I'm dealing with my stuff. And so I've even started shifting to more brave language. Find brave people who are willing to journey with you because there will be times where you get hurt. But let me tell you, it's those opportunities that present even a greater opportunity to grow. It's when you go to the gym and you hit your max and you can't keep lifting that gives you the knowledge, the understanding of okay, what's weak and what do I need to keep growing? And let's keep doing this. It's how resilience is created.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

Julia, I love the term find brave people. In fact, when I will post our both audio and video, which will be on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, uh, on YouTube, and different platforms, I will name it Find Brave People. This is cool because that's what we need. That's what we need our people. So where do people find you?

SPEAKER_00 45:19

You can find me on LinkedIn, Julia LeFebre. But you can find me at my website, www.braestoration.org. I have a if you go there, you can sign up for a free weekly newsletter where I send out insights like this every week to your inbox. And you can even sign up for DM me, and I'd love to have a personal conversation with you and see. I think I or not, I think I do have a free audit where we only got to one of the core four, the foundation of connection, the capacity for connection. But I have an audit that you can take and it can help you identify which of the four you're really struggling in, which really is an invitation to or it's a it's a signpost to start here in your growth journey. So in fact, I would love if I could even give you the link for that, and your listeners could sign up and get that free audit, and we can go from there.

SPEAKER_02 46:32

I would include that. Core four, can you name the other three? Just name them.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

Yes, core capacity of connection, it definition, knowing who you are and who you are not, uh, the core capacity of integration, being able to stay grounded in both the good and the hard, not letting one cancel out the other. No cancel culture here. And then finally, the core capacity for collaboration. It do you have a posture of mutuality so that regardless of your role, whether you're the top leader or the person at the bottom of the hierarchy, can you walk into a room with a sense of mutuality with all the others? Because that's where collaboration truly happens.

SPEAKER_02 47:24

Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. And for the listeners, all the information that Julia mentioned, including the link to her self-audit, will be at the as part of this information. You will see the links over there. What Julia mentioned, and I want to look at my note to make sure I get this right, that being calm was never the absence of pressure, is the capacity that turns pressure into trust and performance and being alive. Thank you for listening to us. Hope this was helpful to you. Julia is here, I'm here. If this was helpful, please pass it on. Our work is to bring more energy, more courage, and enjoyment into our world. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 48:11

It's been a joy.