Leading With Light: Choosing Conscious Leadership When You're Ready For More - Jeff Shuck and Jennifer Mulholland
10:45PM Feb 1, 2024
Speakers:
Becky Endicott
Jonathan McCoy
Jeff Shuck
Jennifer Mulholland
Keywords:
talking
leaders
love
jeff
living
day
roles
conversation
sector
feeling
podcast
idea
thinking
space
work
becky
leave
world
worry
practice
Hey, I'm Jon.
And I'm Becky.
And this is the We Are For Good podcast.
Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world. We're
here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an Impact Uprising.
So welcome to the good community, where Nonprofit Professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
So let's get started. Just keep thinking like Lucky us that we get to have this time, right? All right,
my heart is so full that these two humans are in here. Like I almost want to cry because my nervous system is settled. And I know that what we're about to receive what this community is about to receive is exactly the exhale and the piece that you need right now. Because these two humans are so amazing buckle up.
Yeah, and they are no strangers to the show. And if you hang around the podcast, you know, we're quoting them and pointing you to their resources. We're talking to our friends, Jennifer Mulholland and Jeff shuck. They're the principals at plenty. And if you do not know plenty, welcome reference. In this house, I love this. They say their vision is our name, our vision is a world of plenty for everyone, plenty of health, hope, happiness and fulfillment. And for us, it just like bomb spending time together with these two, they're not just pour into you as a human, but they allow you to feel seen, allow you to find a path forward and just find like kinship for the journey. And they're not afraid of a little bit of tough love to to come in here and like get us back on track. And so I'm really excited to bring them back on the podcast, you probably remember our mental health week conversation with them was all about conscious leadership. And you know, that's really channeled into a lot of the trends that we're talking about in terms of taking care of ourselves and becoming and showing up as a whole leader in this season of the podcast. But now they're back with their new book. And in this league, with light, like, you know, if there's people that we could will to write a book in the world is Jim and Jeff and they actually did this. It has taken them many years to put it on paper, but it really offers this blueprint to help you become more aware of what works for you, or attune to your soul's deepest calling. And we're confident in the choices you make. Hello, we need all of those things. And I'm just so delighted to dive into this experience. They're going to draw from their decades in leadership and consulting and coaching. But at the core, they are here to just like serve, and you feel that in their words in the way with words. And so it is an honor to share space with you. Anytime we get Welcome back to the podcast, Jeff and Jen, thank
you so much. It's such an honor to be here. I'm always emotionally moved by your introductions. And this does shared sacred space that we have of connection and kinship and friendship. So really appreciate our time today. And thank you, listeners for tuning in.
Thank you so much for having us back.
Yes, every time. And
when we're talking about these topics, I mean, we we want to talk about hold leaders today. And that's that's a topic that I think y'all not only understand, but you model so well. And when we start to think about who do we want to be in conversation with about that we could really amplify that message. It's up to you know, and so you've heard us talk about one of the trends we're lifting as our sector needs whole leaders. But we believe that growth and healing starts from within, and so much of our journeys, I'll start from within, would you take us, you know, take us into your minds right now, what are you thinking when you heard us kind of put a flag around that? What do you think that leaders need? Now more than ever, that you're saying?
Yeah, so I think what we mean by that is being our whole real, truthful, expansive, vulnerable self, wherever we show up. And the idea that we we just don't live a personal life and a professional life, we live one life. And we are the common denominator of that. And so as many of us are looking for belonging, for purpose, for a place to live this unbelievable gift of life that we get to live right now, in this moment. What is our vibe most vital, most activated most expressive, self and soul? Who is that? And wouldn't it be amazing if we could bring that version of ourselves to every place we decide to show up? Whether it's in the boardroom, whether it's in the office, whether it's with our being parents, many of us are parents and spouses and partners and what would that look like if we had no holding? If we had no silos within our selves are compartmentalization of I, it's safe for me to show this aspect of myself, but not safe to show this other aspect of myself. So the idea of like, really being whole leaders is the idea of being our full activated, soulful selves, wherever we choose to be. And that takes a ton of practice. Heck, yeah. Not, not dress like not putting on certain clothes for certain situations. Of course, we all do that, that's called discretion. And there's a good feeling of not doing we don't do that, right. But underneath the masks underneath the clothing underneath the look that we present to ourselves, to the world, our personal and professional brands, like, where their wholeness within ourselves? Where are their holes? Like, where is their herd? Where is their gaps? Where is their space that doesn't feel so good, or that needs the bomb that you've referred to Jon, like the cell that, how can we do that for ourselves, so we're not so dependent on others doing that for us, then that's really our philosophy, when we talk about an inside approach, Inside Out approach to leadership is that we, we have to know thyself, we have to heal thyself, we have to learn to be most intimate with ourselves and soul. So we know what works for us. So we can help others do the same, in real true authentic leadership of modeling the way of empowering others to be all of their full selves, without having a cookie cutter model approach to what leadership management relationship looks like. So maybe that just kind of sets this, the table in the tone, but when we think about whole leaders, it really means being okay. When we don't feel okay. being aligned, not just to our self, our personality, our look and feel our ego, but being aligned to the soul, that gives expression to our assault ourselves, as leaders, mothers, fathers, friends, brothers, like all the roles that we play. So I'll pause there and pass it back to to Jeff of like, of this inside out approach of being a hole leader. What does that mean to you?
Yeah, I mean, where I'd take the other half, let's set the other half of the table or Jim put down the tablecloth, I'll get the utensils is to bring it full circle, we love what you're doing to set the table for January for all of us are January and February. And to take things back to your first of the nine topics you've been discussing that the sector can't behave the way it's always been right, it can't be business as usual. And to go right to the tough love early in the episode, a lot of the growth of the sector has come on the backs of people who've been willing to put themselves in a closet to put their own needs last, to work all kinds of hours for substandard pay for for little prayer for for little praise. And it absolutely is not working anymore. And I think those of your listeners who heard our first episode heard us talk a little bit about all of the work we do, and a lot of it's in the nonprofit sector. But a lot of it's outside of the sector. And we started to notice something very curious and alarming. Seven or eight years ago, as we started to work with larger corporations, we thought it's going to be really, you know, revenue, focus, bottom line focus, a lot of focus on costs, no time for culture, the most engaged, emotional, passionate cultures, we've been to again and again, had been in the for profit sector, there's more permission to be yourself. There's more interest in being emotional. There's more compassion, for figuring out how everybody wins. And it shouldn't be that way. And that's the part of saying, you know, if we're going to make a change in a world, we have to be willing to allow changes in each other, a lot of growth for ourselves. And we can't say that comes last. But I'll stop there. There's a much longer rant here. But I think many people in the sector who, once you're in this sector for five or six years, you start to notice the culture is too disruptive. It shouldn't be this way, and we're having trouble getting at it. So if we want to change the way that we're working, we have to be willing to change the way that we show up and that's a lot of What we're talking about in the book,
y'all, this is some real talk right now. And before I move on, I just want to recognize this emotion that I'm feeling right now, which is just feeling almost mourning, mourning, anyone who's been in the sector. When you're talking, Jeff, and identifying all these things that had been culturally accepted in this work. It gives you a feeling of such sadness, like, my gosh, what could have been? But I also move into the, it doesn't have to be that way. And how do we is as a movement of people who believe in being, to your point, Jennifer, a whole humans, not a whole leader, or a whole professional, we are one individual, how do we start moving into that rhythm, and I think you both have elevated this notion of conscious leadership to me, I thought I knew what that was. But you have this 2.0 approach to it that I think is so brilliant, and it's not about being a conscious leader who does more. It's about being a conscious leader who is about being more. And so I want you to like dive into that. And Jeff, I think I'll kick it to you this time.
Yeah, thank you. And thank you for saying all that I love. We love this point, the idea of, of being more not doing more. And I think this comes like all the things that we talk about, it comes from things, we're practicing internal learning ourselves, right? And everyone that we have a chance to interact with, and everyone you have on the show, you know, we're all learning and growing. And we're all trying things that work. And for a long time, when you're leading a team or just trying to lead yourself, you you read, you seek out mentors, you look for checklists, and wow, are there plenty out there? Right, the 15 things you need to do to be more present the seven practices of highly effective people like we could go on and on and on for the checklist. And then at a certain point, you realize a couple things. One, I can't remember all this shit, like what? Like, I forgot to go to the grocery store, like I left my dry cleaning, like, what are the 18 things I'm supposed to remember like? So one you can't remember at all and to nobody else's advice works exactly for you, right? And you start to realize, like all the checklists, all the guideposts all the things that work for one consultant, or one leader, or one president or one nonprofit CEO, they might not exactly work for you, your mileage may completely vary, right. And so the idea is when you get to that point, you realize, well, maybe all these less and to dues, and mantras, and maybe they're all just control mechanisms. Right? Maybe they're just ways of me trying to architect my environment. What if I started with some simple things like who am I? What do I want right now? What do I see? What am I saying to myself? Just those kinds of ways of being a powerful word you're saying often this year being more present, being more intentional? Reflecting on my own narrative? First of all, what if I ended up having the wisdom for myself, but I never have time to pay attention to it? Because I'm so busy following other people's checklist time to listen to what's going on.
I mean, yeah, feeling exposed, but want to keep going here. Jennifer getting there.
Yeah, I love the question. And, you know, certainly, we lean into the the idea of what is concept leadership in its in the first place and this idea of being not doing and we define it as being more aware, aligned and intentional in how you show up in what you choose to do, where you decide to spend your time where you decide not to. And so one of the things that we've practiced and continue to practice and hope that our readers will really be inspired to practice along with us, is the idea of like, being more aware. So why does being aware matter? Why does taking your head out of the sand? Why is that helpful? Partly because we are multi dimensional human beings. We're not linear we don't come in a box. We are come from all shapes and sizes and backgrounds and color and experiences that we there's not one person like us on the planet. And if you so choose to believe what we believe that we are living in a most auspicious time in history and how lucky are we that we got to incarnate during this time then Let's be used in the most powerful, purposeful way. And the only way to figure that out is to become aware of what works for you. Become aware of your surroundings, become aware of the synchronicities, that take your breath away the magic that is in every different day, that gets to kind of pull you out of the weeds of the details of what's not working. And like, Have you ever had that moment where like, ever all the green lights are green, or you think of somebody and they call, or you see 11:11 and 1:11, or numbers on your phone, and you're just, you're not making it happen? It's your part of it's happening. And so when we become more aware of what works for us, where we feel in balance, out of balance, where we notice flow, then we get to make choices that are in alignment or not. So when we talk about the alignment piece, it's like okay, well with greater awareness, we become to notice signals and signs from the teams that we lead to our partners and our relationships to the feeling. I love that Becky of pointing to the feeling, how is my body speaking to me right now? Do I feel open and expanded? Or do I feel contracted and wanting to move away like those cues, so many people aren't listening to the basic cues that our body and our environment and our intuition are sending us all the time. So if we can heighten our awareness, we can then start to become more aligned to the river, the current flow, the ease, where there is moment momentum, where there's natural flow, natural movement forward, and alignment to our spirit, our soul, whatever you need not to be that there's a feeling of feeling good. Like, what if we follow the feeling of feeling good? What would that alignment be in our day in our choices? And then once we become more attuned to what feels in alignment, to our path, our purpose, what lights us up? What brings us joy, then we get to make intentional choices of what we do about all that information. And it's coming from the inside, no one's telling us what choices to make. And as we get older, I'm 51. Like, you start to learn that, yeah, nobody's gonna tell me what to do. The way it works for me, right? I just know, I know what lands I know what feels good. And what doesn't. And that's so personally prescribed, that's like, no doctor, no teacher, no author can tell you, how to be you and what works for you. Only you get to play with that awareness and that alignment, and then intentionally choosing with conscious choice of like, hey, what do you want to do about that? How do you want to show up in your day? How do you how do we want to leave this podcast feeling and orienting the conversation into that intention, and then letting go that I have any control over that I have control over my part of how I choose to show up. But I really don't have control of all the interoperable pieces of what's going on in the moment, or what's going on in the project or what's going on in the year, right? And so really surrendering all of that. So that it feels more free to be rather than constrained to do.
Yeah, and maybe Can I just make one other underline here, I think. I love Jon, Becky, your point about conscious leadership 2.0. And I appreciate that. And I think one of the things we continually try to point to is, what's the contrast of this, the contrast of this is the kind of reactive management that many of us have to do a lot of times during the day, right reacting to the goals that other people set for us reacting to meetings that pop up on our calendar with no control, reacting to emails that come in, right, this set of things doo doo doo. And we're not saying that. It's not part of our role here to bring things to ground and create things and do things. It's part of how we express ourselves. What we're saying is like, not everything that is meaningful output can be quantified. And all the time and not just we're not just supposed to be efficiency machines. And I can be about we can talk about the sector is not supposed to just be efficient, but we as people aren't just supposed to be taskmasters and, and achievers sometimes doing nothing or being in community or holding space for other people or ourselves is the most constructive way we can spend time, especially when we're faced with all these things like goals and emails and relationships that we can't control. So that's kind of what we're meeting about focusing first on being doesn't mean that like, there's no value in doing it, meaning like, not approaching life, like a billiard ball, and you're just, you're just bouncing off of everything that comes at you, and you're being hurt by everything that pricks you. And you feel like you have to protect yourself. From the big bad world out there. It's allowing yourself to ease into what you really want, and who you really are.
This is such a rich conversation. I mean, there's a lot of hooks, this can be multiple episodes of just like what you talked about there. But I think when we talk about alignment and intention, and really getting to the core of like who we are, and what do we need? What I didn't expect going into this episode, I thought we were talking about developing whole leaders. And Becky began by saying you're kind of grieving the fact of like, man our sector has been creating this or as a byproduct of this. I think the next layer that I'm unpacking in my mind right now is just even those that we serve, it's like, are we expecting people to bend and contort and to like, fit into the box of like, how we make the impact in the world, we want everybody to come alive into their genius and their beauty and their truth, you know? And so how are we even building our structures of impact that allow our beneficiaries to step into that, like, I think that's this huge unlock to me, that's just really beautiful and poignant. And I can't get lost, I want to come back to this idea of reflection, because the universe keeps reminding me of this all year, I keep talking about signs, Jen, is my sign.
Jon is king of signs.
King of signs and feeling that it's like the pause, reflect, be present process, like, really creating actual space, and y'all have this beautiful piece that's really kind of giving you some questions to try to get to the root of what fulfills or what drains us. And that's a resource I want to get into. Okay, my hands and everybody listening today to how can we kind of uncover those pieces of ourself?
To link it back to the being but doing we're often so busy doing the things in our job or our roles we were not, we don't have the time to take an inventory of what we're actually being. And sometimes it's easier to see at home than at work. But we're all parents on this on this podcast. We know the word parent is hilarious shorthand for 4000 things right? Bus driver, cook, dishwasher, IT support, nag, picker up or have dirty, you know, socks on the ground. And part of the of the idea of being is saying, Well, which one of those do I want to take on and which ones do I not? With kids at age 20. I'm gonna leave behind nagging. Now, that doesn't serve me. In the same way we play a bunch of different roles at work, but we don't often see them, I can guarantee that nobody who's listening to the podcast on their job description has the role of acting like a hurt child. But often when we do team coaching, we when we talk to team members, and they get negative feedback from their boss, they're like, they're looking for praise that they didn't get, they're looking for affirmation that they didn't get. And this is not to absolve bosses out there for not being kind and encouraging. But to often see, well, like, leave that one behind. You don't have to be hurt child in the office. You can be competent, you know, ongoing learner, but we can leave this stuff over here. It's not really helping. And so like, again, like Jen is talking about slowing down being awareness to how the bringing awareness to how we are being can really help us decide what we want to do and what we want to leave behind.
I want to share that I am thinking in my head right now they are talking about me, Becky Endicott and I wonder how many people listening right now are thinking they are talking about me? Because I bet it's a lot. And I want to share just personally and for anyone who hasn't heard my mental health story. I feel like I talk about it all the time. I was that person at collapse. And my body had been sending me signals for years, probably decades that I had been ignoring. But my mind was so pre programmed to get in that hustle culture get those KPIs, how many visits can I get? How many proposals can I get out there? What are the kids need? Oh, it's picture day and Oh, this guy cut in front of me. And it's like, all these things start to compound and your body starts buzzing. And so I so appreciate you going into that level of detail because I think that's what conscious leadership can elevate. And I would even add to say, are you creating time to even check in. Because I was not. And I mean, I'm talking about putting 10 minutes on your calendar every day, or one day a week or one day a month, if you want to start it and say, how is my body feeling right now? How is my head, how's my heart what is sitting in weighing on me heavily? And I'll tell you, it took me years of therapy to figure out like, how to go in and identify those feelings and pull them out. But I say that was so much love for you community, because if you are someone out there that is feeling that that is a signal, that is a signal that it is time for you to care for you. And I just think this book, I know you guys are gonna think I'm just being emotionally over the top, which of course I am all the time. But I mean, it truly feels like such a cradle to me, because you just feel so held in safe when you're reading it. And all of these principles that we're talking about every single one of these bullets is in this book. You referenced the river, Jennifer, which I am so visual, so and and that's a huge part of the book. And I want that rhythm to be adjusted in everyone's life, I want us to go with the river. And as someone who is the classic probably, I don't know, sixth generation worrier, and my family, I want you to talk to us about why worrying doesn't work like at all, what we should be focusing on, instead, because I think a lot of us are just primed to, oh my gosh, I'm at capacity as a human being. I'm not sure how we're going to reach this fundraising goal this year, I don't know how we're going to figure out time to get educated on tech, and we're feeling the nervous energy in the community. And I want you to kind of just settle us and talk about where our focus should be instead.
Before we go there, I just would love to make a comment on the mental health piece that you just mentioned, and vulnerably shared about your own perspective. And the only way we can share this is because we've lived it too and we are living it. So the identification of she and he are talking about me it's because we're talking about ourselves too. One of the things that I've noticed about myself that has, I would say come into a more intentional practice is not realizing that I was disembodied, meaning. Mental health is a mental we're living in our brain, we're living in the air aspect of the mental quality of intellect. So let's just take that for a moment as a component of our humaneness. Business, leadership, culture, has rewarded has supported, has accentuated the need to be intellectual. And it's a really helpful skill. But it's not all of us. It's not who we are, we are not our mind. We are so much more than our mind. But we live in our mental capacity of thinking. And it's limiting, we buy our thinking all the time, and it's bullshit, like, there are so many more times we should not trust our thinking, right? And learning to go from our mental living space, our mental home, to dropping in, you could say to our heart home, but I'm going to say it as literally being embodied like in our body. Because when we're in our mental space and mental health, we've dis oftentimes we disconnect from our physicality, like our physical beingness. And that's where sickness comes in. Because we forget we don't hear the signals. Because we're so living in our mental capacity to judge, to decide, to do. That's where we get disconnected as leaders as human beings as parents is because we're living our living space has occupied its knowingness, its pattern, its habit, as coming from the thinking intellectual mind. So one practice point that is so helpful to integrate headspace to heart space, physical to body to be connected to more of our wholeness. Because again, that's only one part of ourselves is the moment your feet hit the ground when you get out of bed when you sit up from your bed, to say I am fully embodied and bring your awareness of the thinking mind into the body so that you're not so disconnected from your incredible insight and intuition and and information that's coming from the, the whole body rather than a part. So I'll kick it to Jeff about the worrying because that just feels so important that in order to feel more connected in the sector, connected to the work that we're doing connected to our purpose, we have to more fully functionally be embodied wholly from headspace to heart space, physical space, and really tune in to those signals that I think from a cultural conditioning standpoint, a business cultural reinforcement, we are living, an occupying the headspace rather than the, like, really activating all of who we are meant to be.
I agree, I call it living in the malfunctioning brain. Like we have to go beyond that. So Jeff, I would love to hear your thoughts on this too.
I'll do it really quick and want to acknowledge the incredible task you have of keeping us to a 45 minute podcast, Jon, Becky, just amazing. Julie and the whole team, and we could keep talking, I'll be really quick. And I would love to say that when this this came up, it was kind of in that spiritual vein that Jen was talking about. I think for me, it was more mundane of just trying to figure out my own mental machinery. I love that expression, Becky, and we tell the story in the book about really facetiously seven or eight years ago on New Year's I said to Jen and to my family, I'm going to I resolve to give up worry, right? Everyone's like, I'm gonna give up chocolate. I'm gonna give up alcohol. I'm gonna give up worry. And I was just kind of joking. And being a smartass. But it was enough of a little space to help me observe like, oh, well, how often do I use it? And I started to look at it like a tool I used or a pen I wrote with, or a vise I wanted to break, you know, chewing gum, like a bad habit. And I was shocked at how often I picked up that tool. Like, just something I played with, like, I'll just worry now, you know, or being on the drive home from work replaying a conversation like doing it over and over, right? I used to be the king at that I used to be great at that. Doing doing the argument again, and again, thinking about what might happen if and just by giving myself enough, again, like almost a joke, saying worry doesn't work. And I put it on my Facebook page. And I just saw, this is just a crutch. And no matter how much I think about it, nothing changes, actually. But I feel better if I replace it with gratitude, and thankfulness. And if I if I say I'm so glad I had that discussion. I'm so glad I'm safe and well, I'm so glad I can laugh at myself. I'm so glad. And all of a sudden they realized, well, you know, maybe I'm just fooling the mental machinery, right, but garbage in, garbage out. And when I put in worry, I would get worry out. And when I put in gratitude, I got peace. I got thankfulness. I got care for others. And I will tell you just a quick addendum. Yesterday, I got to see my daughter's senior speech that she gave to the high school class. And for years, my kids have been hearing me say kids worry doesn't work. And it's like one of those things they roll their eyes about. Her speech was about worry doesn't work, and how she's learned to not spend time worrying. So proud and proud dad moment. And like everything else Becky and Jon and Jen and everyone listening, you know, your mileage may vary. But what if you replace the habit of worry which we've all gotten really good at using with the habit of something else that makes it feel a little bit better? And how would that change your day and in your week? And how would it change the people around you? So that's the small question that I think was so great for it doesn't work for me. And I'm and I'm pretty much rid of it not completely. But it's been a good practice for me.
Just to add one one other content and if I can, I think underneath or the broader kind of reason worry doesn't work is the idea that whatever you are focusing on forms, whatever you are doing and choosing to focus on you are feeding and if you are feeding it you are growing it. So the more unconscious worry you are feeding, the more things you're attracting to worry about it. That's how the universe works. So if you make a conscious choice to pivot your thinking, and to focus on gratitude, like Jeff just shared intentionally replacing worry with gratitude. You're feeding gratitude, and it becomes more of a neuro pathway. You change that in our path. pathways of your brain. That's how you as you do that, the more you focus on gratitude, the more you are feeding, gratitude, and the more that is going to form in your life, literally, you will bring in more things to be grateful for. So whatever you get to choose, it's up to you to choose. But this is the idea of bringing the unconscious to conscious ness, right? Bringing that idea that space Jeff is talking about was absolute, pure awareness, that worry wasn't working for him anymore. What a magical gift you have given to just see simply that moment, and then he got to choose what to do with it. And so at any given moment, we are so empowered to change, change our minds, change our brains, change our environment, and it sounds easier than it. It's hard, it is not easy. But we are empowered and have that capability to choose what we are focusing on and therefore choosing what we're feeding. So we can be more intentional about what we're forming for our lives.
We love you guys. And this conversation is just why did we start at the way that we did I knew it would go into these places, because y'all model this, you you radiate the whole leader, and it's it's so magnetic, you know, and I think it is, what our sector needs is what each of us need. And so this conversation is filled my heart beyond what I can share. I mean, we got to link up to your book, we've got to ask you one good thing, we're running out of time, but I want to be like, let's, let's ask, you know, how would you summate, we asked for a one good thing, it's our feared question, but I feel like yours, sage wisdom here in this space. Jen, what's a piece of advice you'd leave us with? As we kind of wrap up this conversation today?
I would say Your presence is your gift. That being here in the world matters. You matter. And the more attuned and aware you can be come to your unique presence, the feeling you leave behind the feeling you want to experience, the feeling behind your form. That is your unique blueprint. And you're meant to be here. And you're meant to be used in service of a higher, greater good. And I really believe that our presence is our superpower. So to harness that by slowing down, by bringing your attention to your presence to be curious about, actually, what what is it? How does it feel? Where do you bring it, it is the gift it is the presence you give others. And most importantly, it's the gift you give yourself is when we are activating in our full presence and dropping, dropping, that I should be any different than I am right now that anything has to change. For me to be healthy, happy and whole. What is that presence that you can bring and give to yourself so you can really see it. That would be my one good thing.
Becky, my one good thing I want to tee off of something you said a few minutes ago, which was creating time to check in. And I passed a huge milestone in my life about 60 days ago. And I've been trying to decide if I want to share it with everyone. And I'm going to share it here, which is I hit 4,000 days in a row of journaling. And I use an app called day one. I'm I'm not getting compensated for this, but I love the app. But about 11 years ago, I decided I needed to find ways to create a little bit of a time for myself to check in. And a lot of the entries are drivel and a lot of the entries are cringe worthy. But consistently for 11 years I've journaled every morning, most days, I have three or four entries. And it's been a massive game changer for me in terms of so many things, seeing my patterns, becoming aware of where I'm shortchanging myself where I cut myself off at the knees, where I'm using tools like worry, seeing patterns I want to get rid of. And just being in an honest dialogue with the one person that I'm going to spend my whole life with. And it's allowed me to develop such a gentleness about who I am and who I want to be. It's made me a better husband, a better father and hopefully a better partner and a better ambassador for the sector. And I would just strongly encourage everybody, whether it's on a notepad or written journal or an app like day one or just in your own mind to spend a couple minutes having a conversation with yourself, not telling yourself what to do, not making a list of all the things you haven't achieved yet, just talking about your day. It's been a total change for my life. And it's my it's continues to be my one good thing every day and every week.
I want to ask you a question, Jeff, if you're comfortable sharing, what is your daughter's name?
Ellie.
What I just heard there, at least what I just saw happen. And what you just said, is that you set your intention, and you started living it out loud, and you started working through it out loud. And your daughter picked up on that. And she integrated it into her soul and into her mind and body. And then she got on stage. And then she shared it. And it rippled with a whole bunch of other people. And so my point is, perhaps this is my one good thing. When we share these things, when we pour into ourselves, it is absolutely the opposite of selfish, it is generative. And the good that we can do to the world, because we are whole humans, is the gift to us back to us. And so I just think that you too, are just some of the most extraordinary people that we have ever met since we've started this podcast. I want everyone to get this book in their hands. And I want to repeat the name of it. Again, if you are somebody who is going to Google this, it's Leading with Light, choosing conscious leadership when you're ready for more. And if this conversation has touched you as deeply as it has touched me, and I can tell Jon is very moved. And I'm getting texts from Julie who's crying, which is great. So we're all we're all in that, you know, sensitive open space that you talked about, Jennifer, tell us where they can get this book and add any more context about this book that you want to have. Because I just think it's it's game changing for not just this sector, I think it's game changing for this world.
Thank you so much. You can find it at leadingwithlightthebook.com you can also find it at plentyconsulting.com, which is our company website. You can also find it on Amazon and all the books, stores, it will be live March 21. So pre orders are happening before them so on social as well. So we are so grateful to be able to offer some of our experience and exercises are in their clients stories, personal stories, hopefully that you really feel our own humaneness that you can relate to, as we're all on this path to wake up and to be more aware, aligned and intentional in everything we do. So, Jeff, would you like to add anything else to that?
That was lovely. And I would just say thank you so much for the work that you're doing to help us lead with light and help people around you lead with light. The best is yet to come as we like to say plenty. So can't wait to see how you grow and to grow with you.
Thank you. I mean just reflecting it back to you what a conversation what a gift you are. Thanks for being here today, friends.
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