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. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
So let's get started. Becky, what's happening?
I, Okay, I want to say this before I introduce our guests today. It is mental health week. On the podcast. It is the most popular week of the year we are pouring into you we are pouring into your well being today is an exhale. And this is for you today. And we have brought two of the most outstanding heart-wired empathetic humans onto the podcast, Jennifer Mulholland and Jeff shuck, you probably already know them because their love and their conscious leadership is so epic in the industry. They're the Principals of Plenty. And if you don't know Plenty, they have this amazing saying that our vision is our name. Our vision is a world of plenty for everyone, plenty of health, hope, happiness, and fulfillment. And we were introduced to them by our dear friend, Brian Funk. And the first time I sat in on one of their sessions, I felt my whole spirit quiet. I felt calm and ease come in. And the way they're helping us work through this important impact work that surrounding us is absolutely groundbreaking. So this is a gift for you all today, Jennifer and Jeff. The coolest kindness Welcome, guys. We're so excited you're here.
Wow. What an introduction. Thank you so much. It's such an honor to be in your presence, and to be a part of the good that you're doing. So thank you so much for having us today.
Yeah, we've been followers and fans and stalkers. And we're just we're just glad to actually meet you live. So the podcast, we'll just we'll put the episode somewhere else. Let's just talk and get to know each other.
That's it. We've got our coffee, we're just going to dive in with like minded friends. But you know, your bios are so interesting. And they just tell a fraction of your story. But we would like to get to know the you behind the you we want to know about little Jennifer, little Jeff growing up, like what what led your formative years to getting into this work. And Jennifer, I want to start with you.
Oh goodness, well, I would just say I kind of I came into the world with a knowing that I was here to make a positive difference. And in my language, I verbalize it as a massive positive difference in the world at a really young age. My mom always would say, Why does it have to be massive, you make a difference every time you choose to show up. But it just was never enough. It didn't satiate this like yearning to really tap into human potential. And as a result of being an athlete and finding the drive and pushing myself to new places, I really have had a desire to help teams and people access their purpose, their their greatest expression, why they're here, and ensuring that that's in alignment with their everyday lives and their work and their careers. When I talk about kind of being wired to raise the consciousness of people on the planet, I've been really fortunate to be introduced to a lot of different healing modalities and spiritual trainings and energetic tools from a very young age and multiple disciplines. And it took me a really long time to feel comfortable, being transparent with that training and gifts, especially in the corporate world because I had a lot of passion and experience in the business sector and nonprofit sector. But I always felt like it wasn't safe to share that part of me. Fear of being ridiculed the whole woowoo jokes like it belongs over here. It's you don't bring that into a board meeting and sure as hell don't bring it into, you know, a business meeting. So it took a lot of practice to kind of step into that place and know that tapping into those elements, whatever you name, a higher source to be but this this connective fabric, the majesty, the Muse that we're all a part of. If we can tune into that, then our work and our lives benefit greatly. So I've really found enjoyment bringing guided meditations and The the right brain as much as the left brain and intuition as well as the intellect into everything we do. So, there's a lot more to say I have two kids. I have a freshman in college, who just started at San Diego State. He's playing lacrosse and rushing. And I have a 13 year old daughter who is going on 18. And she's three inches taller than me. Both athletes and we live in beautiful Park City, Utah, where our retreat center called Heartspace resides.
Don't you just want to be friends with Jennifer? I feel like everybody wants to be friends with Jennifer after that, Jeff, good luck following
seriously story my career right now? Seriously? Um, no, I've got nothing to say. I'm just glad to know Jen.
We want to know little Jeff.
We do want to.
Little Jeff. Um, you know, it's interesting, I think. I'm 53. And you, I have pieces of me that I remember a little Jeff. And then I now view little Jeff through through 50 years of living in him. So I'm not sure this is all historically accurate. But I can tell you like when Jen talks about her, her career, and her like direct mission to do good. I think little Jeff would have been more confused. You know, little Jeff, listen to fantasy, and music and daydreaming. And, you know, being the Paladin, taking on the evil dragon, and I'm not kidding, like, I'm losing hours of my day and Baldurs Gate three right. Over there, it's amazing what incredible storytelling and I definitely always had that idealistic spark, and that not a good employee kind of idealism. You know, the rabble rouser, the, you know, healthy distrust of authority. I had an orange Mohawk when I was in high school. So that probably tells you all you need to know. And that kind of led me without really knowing why or what I was going to do. I took a job right out of college, doing leadership development for a nonprofit. So that kind of put me in the sector. And right away, I noticed things about the sector, I thought were amazing and thinks about the sector that really bothered me. I think the big arc in my story that's gotten me here was losing my mother to cancer. When I was in my late 20s. And she was young, she was only like 10 years older than I am. And Jen told this story 4000 times, but the doctor that I talked to who was treating my mom in this kind of not great suburb of Ohio, and like this dingy day, in January, I mean, just like total storybook, or the bad part of the story, said to me, there's nothing more we can do. And it was a defining moment in my life. And I remember just like a lightning bolt in my head. How can we say that? How can we say that about any person, not just my mom, but any cause, you know, we live in the richest country in the world. And we're throwing our hands up here. So it really bent my trajectory. And luckily, I had some good mentors who said to me, you know, I think you're, you're focusing too much on self and not enough on service. And through that talked my way into fundraising, to be honest. And that landed me in event production and planning and that led me into event fundraising, which landed me into peer to peer and nonprofit strategy. And and here we are. But I think one of the consistent themes for me has been if better is possible than good isn't enough. And that has manifested in different ways, I think. And now I feel like I identify more with Yoda than Luke Skywalker. And I identify more with the old wizard maybe than the young Paladin, but it's really wonderful to do the work that we do and meet people like you. And that really is the common thread, I would say now is people and working with people who have that same spark to do good to make a difference to make their lives meaningful, and need help doing it and need just little nudges and little encouragement to do it. So I'll stop there. Like Jen said, more to say, but so, so grateful to be here and grateful to both of you,
Jon, I think the name of our company needs to be we are for better. Name change. That's so powerful.
I mean, goodness, y'all. We obsess about story on this podcast and in our lives, because so much context you just gave us that I just feel sitting in this moment and feeling the heaviness honestly of knowing so many of our community members that have shared their stories and their pain that they're going through right now with us too. Yeah, I just think how serendipitous that we're all here in this moment. And you talk about consciousness and you teach consciousness and you talk about really not running from the scary stuff, but diving into it. And I just feel so grateful that through your interesting journeys that we're all together on this week, to provide hope. And so thank you for giving us that context. I'm so excited to like, unpack what you do. Tell us about Plenty because Becky led in with this piece, but I, I just love how you have phrased this and this word, plenty, I think is so intentional, that there is plenty of health, there's plenty of hope. There's plenty of happiness. That's so counter to I think a lot of the narrative that we tell ourselves, and we have to fight for that abundance. So as we tone set, tell us a little bit about what you do. And just give us a jumping off point as we lead into this conversation going in with abundance.
Yeah, love, love the question and the sincerity. And just as a context, Jeff and I actually met each other now well over 25 years ago, in Salt Lake City at a startup company called ampus Pipeline. And it was a .com technology company that was really designed to help create the first .edu to bring Universities and Colleges Online. We're totally dating ourselves there. But we had this magical connection. When you recognize somebody, there's a knowing there's a trust, and there's a partnership, and we forged a friendship then, as we grew the consulting organization, and then when Jeff went into the nonprofit space, I stayed on through the three mergers and acquisitions over 10 years at that company. And what was so amazing as our paths continued to kind of cross and go separate ways, and when we reacquainted it was like, Okay, we are on a similar mission. Why don't we combine forces, and that really had, you know, brought us together. And we, together then kind of created a the next edition of Plenty, Jeff had started it himself. And it was really focused on nonprofit consulting. And then when I kind of came into the picture, we expanded the vision further to really kind of do what we do now together. And in the, in the spirit of answering your question, as you mentioned, Becky, that our vision is our name, we believe in a world of plenty for everyone. And it's really based on three core ethos and ideas. One is that there's enough to go around that actually, we're not competing with each other. It looks like we are with all the silos in an organization to, you know, the country, the world, war. Yeah,
I feel that
unrest, dis ease, discontent, I mean, everywhere we look, we can see that this idea that we're competing with each other, we actually believe that we're competing with a mindset. And that mindset is called scarcity. And it's a mindset of lack. It's the opposite of that there's enough to go around. And so we really challenge and shift the viewpoint into manifestation of the future, we want to see, what would that world look like, if there was plenty for everyone, if there was more than enough to go around, we wouldn't hold back, we wouldn't construct, we wouldn't compete in the ways that we do right, we would more lovingly share, we would hold each other up, we would offer we would be more in service without being threatened that we were going to be, you know, something else was going to take away our worth. So that's the first principle. The second principle is the idea that actually we have enough right now. And what would happen if we brought more gratitude, and thankfulness to all the blessings and their resources and the good that we actually have in our lives? We're often on this cultural conditioned hamster wheel to be more have more, do more. We are culprits of that too, of high performers. And when we're when we're on that hamster wheel, there's nothing like that can satiate this desire to for for consumerism, or for filling that hole of lack that we might be feeling ourselves, right? But what happens is when we bring gratitude to what we have right now, what's in our offices, wherever you're tuning into, like, look around, bring the attention to the gifts that are already present in the moment. What happens is we actually turn on a switch and we ask are in more things to be grateful for. So it's an interesting kind of jujitsu manifestation rule, right? If we're feeling lack, guess what we're going to attract more reasons to feel lack. If we are feeling abundant and full and gratitude, grateful, we get more things to be grateful for. Well, how interesting is that. And then the last kind of layer, and the most important layer, and it's really the core of our leadership retreats, and our strategy work with conscious companies and culture work, is the idea that we're enough, right now we are enough, you are enough, even if you're having the shittiest day, even if you're feeling like you have no hope right now. And life sucks. Whatever you're feeling, we totally trust and believe that you are enough right now. And we are designed as multi dimensional human beings to experience the light and the dark. And that is the human condition. It's the human nature. So if we can start to fill up and look towards the good in ourselves, and really start feeling enough as we are right now, we model the way for others to do the same. And that's how we can really create a world of being well, not just, you know, mental health, but emotional health and spiritual health and physical health. It all falls down on a foundation of enoughness. Like, do we feel whole? And that's kind of the core of our work that we get to play with, for companies and nonprofits and individuals seeking to grow in that way.
And an, I can I tag on to a couple of things there that I just particularly, for this audience and everyone in the sector, I just want to underline a couple points. You know, if you go to our site, you can see our our logo is is a ripple. Some people think it's a seed, which is awesome, too. But, you know, the idea is, is pretty basic, we start with ourselves, we we create the change we want to see in ourselves, and then we work outwards, or we emanate outwards. And it's both a metaphor and a tactic. Right? It's literally is the tactic. And I think that's the tactic that seems to get so overlooked in the sector, not not because of anybody's intention, usually, but just because of our intent to serve so greatly that we don't serve ourselves. And so to be on the podcast this week is really important to us. But I also want before we get into that, because I know we're gonna go there, I just want to talk about the idea of abundance versus scarcity really quickly. And you know, 10 years ago, when we, when we arrived at this name, it kind of like downloaded this name. We knew we were on to something, I think it was so surprising. And it's still surprising when we meet people in the sector who don't know us how they greet the name. And there's two reactions that are almost diametrically opposed. I would say, 90% of the people hear this spiel and say, Oh, my God, thank you. Right. Oh, wow. Like I needed to hear that. We hear that so often, from nonprofit professionals, I needed to hear that I'm not scrambling to keep up, I needed to hear that there is enough. Forget about that, even believing that I am enough. But that there is enough, I would say and I don't think we understood like how profound the idea of abundance would be in the fundraising world. And that's a little bit of a mind bender, and a little concerning. But I would say the other reaction we get maybe from five or 10% of the people we work with is absolute resistance, like hard core resistance. And I'm telling you, we've met with CDOs of very well known organizations who have flat out said, this is BS, we are competing for every dollar and if we don't get it, they do. And it's very, very interesting to observe. It's a little scary. It's scary and, and then too with compassion, and sad. And we can see like the work to be done, which is personal work. But so a couple of things to maybe if if you're sitting there listening to this going, I'm about to like turn this off and go to the next episode. Because this is all BS. I just want to point out a couple of things. When we say there is enough, we're not saying there's equity and access. We're not saying there's equitable distribution. But we're saying when literally when we look at the problems of the world, there's enough money, there's enough willpower, well, maybe not enough willpower. There's enough resources to solve them. And a lot of the issues that look like they're problems and scarcity or problems in distribution and are problems in compassion or, you know, problems in getting out of our own way to innovate. But it's very hard for us to see there's actually problems that relate to abundance. The scarcity is on thinking, right? The scarcity is not what's out there. But it's an interesting thing to unpack as we talk not just about the sector and self care, but self care of the sector, and the people in the sector. You know, if we think that when we are raising money for our mission, or raising awareness for our mission, that someone else has to fail, like someone else has to lose, if we look at the whole game as a zero sum game, we're not seeing much about what we think is possible for the world and for ourselves. And so I think that is often one of the elephants in the room that we end up talking about and, and managing to and dealing with and help people facilitating people through that process. When we work in nonprofits. Interestingly, you would think the for profits are way competitive. And we don't have almost any of that energy. When we work with for profit teams, they seem to be much more able to align on common goals, much more able to see how they fit, but another group that does what they do can fit to, but there's something about the sector that feels a bit off. And I don't exactly know what it is. But I know that we want to help with that. So I just want to add that that piece for this audience. And I hope it's I hope there's something there that can become empowering in this conversation. Because I'm not trying to be judgmental. But it's very interesting thing that we observe on almost every case, we work with a nonprofit team,
I don't want you to apologize for what is literally been right in front of us for decades, you know, talking about the hard stuff running through it addressing issues of scarcity is the only way we're ever going to find our way through the muck into that light. And I know we have so much to talk about, but I need to reflect back to you both on what you just said there. One, this is for the audience. If you have been waiting for a moment, if you have been waiting for a sign, if you have been waiting for something to nudge you to tell you that hope is here. And that you can be an active part of powering it. This is your moment. Everything that Jen and Jeff just said, we're just waiting for you to take that one step forward and say I'm going to be a part of abundance. And so I want to talk about this conscious leadership that you all are so well known for. And I want you to define it for us. And I want you to tell our listeners, what they can learn about conscious leadership and how it creates that ripple. I think that plenty of ripple that impacts not just the self, but everything around you. So Jeff, I'll start with you on that one.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for all of that. Let me let me do the quick scan and let Jen color in here in the lines. At the top level, we say a conscious leader is aware aligned and intentional, right? Consciousness is about being aware of what's around me, without judgment without naming it aware of what's in me like What emotions do I feel without needing to push them away? medicate them? Talk yourself through them? Just literally being aware? What am I feeling? What am I seeing? When do I try to edit things? When do I try to run from things? When do I try to medicate things? And we stay at Lantern, which is our leadership retreat. 90% of the game is awareness. It's just being here, right? Allowing ourselves to see allowing the editor to put down the red pen. And just to see it. Once we see what's around us. Then there's alignment, which is does this work for me or not? Right? Is this something that is filling me up? Does it make me feel more abundant? Does this make me feel more plentiful? There's this depleting to me? Right? So and then once we're clear on that intention is how am I going to walk forward into my life? Right? So we say aware, aligned intentional, you know, I see I choose I act and the juxtaposition there is allowing or I guess, the juxtaposition to something else. But what's other than conscious leadership? It's kind of unconscious management, right? Going through the day, reacting to things like a pinball letting ourselves be pushed around, always feeling like we're getting poked and prodded feeling like we're overly sensitive, prone to anger prone to reaction not feeling like we're in control. And it's a it's a guide book does A what I need starts with myself more to say and for that I'm going to pause there and allow my lovely partner to contribute here.
Yeah, lovely. I think that the the come from the idea of conscious leadership is that we are literally born to be the leader as we seek to be. We model the way, we have an opportunity to create the world and the existence through ourselves. And one of the ways we do that is we need to wake up and attune and become more aware, aligned and intentional. We use different language for that, as Jeff kind of pointed out, but there's a nuance, as we kind of take our heads out of the sand and we choose consciously intentionally to get off of family systems that had been passed down, and cultural conditioning and automatic behavior, we don't even realize we're running a habit. awareness helps us to see what's working and what's not. It helps us to see the synchronicities in the universe that are working on our behalf, and noticing the signs and signals and the people that cross our path, not chalking them up to a coincidence or an accident. But using it as an input to the puzzle, like a piece of the puzzle that helps to inform what next step to take. It also helps us tap into the absolute most incredible gift we've all been given today. And that is our body and our breath. And those are wisdom tools. But we have, I will speak for myself and other people that we lead. It's so easy to fall into the trap of disconnecting from that tool that's always with us, right? When we can bring awareness to the body signals, meaning when do I feel open? When do I lean in? When do I start to use my hands and get excited? When do my eyes light up? When do I talk fast? When do I get
Jon's thinking, Becky all the time who is doing all of these.
Jon, we're gonna talk after this.
When do I get red in the face? Like when does passion stir? These are all cues about what I care about what I give a shit about. And it's also cues about what I don't. So where do I contract? Where do I procrastinate? Where do I close my arms? Where do I walk into a room and like get me the eff out of here. I don't know what does not feel good. Those, it's too easy to override those and not really listen. So awareness helps us bring more attention and attunement to what's happening in our body, the cues inside and the cues outside. Being aware of our light, you we talk about at Lantern that a leader is a light, and most importantly you are light, you're made of soul in essence and spirit, name it whatever you want. But there is something beyond our body and mind that is in existence. So what does it need? How does it speak to us? How does this show us? Show us the way once we get kind of a taste and a flavor of becoming more aware of the quality of that when we feel alive, and vital and connected? And when we feel low and depressed? And and not motivated all of those emotions in between? We can then start to see when are we in alignment and out of alignment? So when are we aligned with our work aligned with our purpose aligned with our leadership? How do we know when we're not aligned? What cues are we given what body signals? All of that is a personal journey, right? It's unique to each one of us. But awareness, births alignment and this idea of how do I know when I'm truly aligned to my light? And when am I not aligned? And oftentimes some of the our attendees have that light turned on for them and they have to leave their job because it's completely out of alignment right. But other times it's amplifies what they really care about what brings them joy, where do they light up? And once we know that, as Jeff was saying, then we can intentionally choose where we decide to show up and how we show up. So intention is our come from, you know, you're probably more familiar with goals because who hasn't done goal setting at any organization, right? We're told about goals but goals are concrete goals are a form they are in steady state. There's a outcome to reach and then once you reach it, guess what happens? You get another goal, right? Oftentimes you are not in control of the goal. How many people listening on the call have fundraise and have that fundraising dollar been told by the board, or their CEO or manager of your goal this year is $10 million to fundraise, right? What is within your, you know, you control the contribute to that. So intention, you're absolutely in 100% control of you can control how you choose to show up. And what you're come from is an intention is expansive, it's open. It allows for collaboration, it allows for co creation to take place in community. So if my intention is to show up and to leave today, feeling more, like I cultivated hope, and I'm feeling more hopeful for myself, how do I do that? If I were to verbalize that to the group, then I invite other people to play with that outcome. But I'm able to show up in a more hopeful way. Right, I can share I might share on the call. My favorite acronym of hope, is by Neale Donald Walsch, that is defined as helping other people evolve, it is my most favorite explanation of hope, that we get to kind of step into something that's infinitely possible. That's greater than ourselves, I get to contribute. But there's more on offer that's available when we show up in community in collaboration and co creation. So as an example, that could be my intention, and I'm totally responsible for that. And it is a game changer. It helps to elevate the conversation, the business meeting the day, your family, your relationships. So being aware, aligned, and intentional, helps us be the leader we're seeking to be and be the leader we're looking for out there in the world. And it helps us to do that in a more intentional, intentional way.
This is what we need to do as people today too. So thank you just for bringing this conversation to bear and I gotta like connect something that's connecting my head. And I literally grabbed for the nearest pen at this giant orange marker, which is great. I'm gonna have this on my book today.
That's that's typical, because Jon never has, I buy him pens every Christmas, a huge pack, very on brand.
But I think, you know, if you're coming from a place of scarcity, you feel like you've got to go external to like, find these things. And what you're painting this picture of this idea of plenty, these tools are available to all of us the power of our breath, the power of like understanding how our body's responding to things. We all have that. So I think it's building on this proof that you started the conversation with that there is plenty, we all have those things. If you're listening here, you have these tools available to you to get started in this work. And so it just feels so abundant the way that you're coming at this. So I want to just kind of transition because y'all say something that's a little disruptive. And we love disruptive things around here. You say self care isn't a shortcut. So I want to talk about that. I want you to double click on this because we're not looking for Band Aid fixes here, you know, how can people truly ourselves included replenish themselves? Because the work we do is hard. And the struggles we have in our personal lives are hard on top of that.
Yeah, I love that you went there. And I love the big orange marker. Let me get there by threading together what Jen and I shared about what conscious leadership is with a quick metaphor that we use, we talk about the river, right river is life river is your career river is your existence as you know it. And the river stretches way before you right before way beyond what you can see on your left side and it stresses way out in front of you on the right side. You don't know how much on the river you're going to be on the river goes where the river flows, you can't decide or dictate where their current goes. Awareness is seeing where the current is just watching. Where's the current? Where's the momentum? Where do I feel excited? Where do I feel contracted? Alignment is paddling with the current. You can paddle against the current if you want, it takes a lot of effort. You're not going to outmuscle the river. It's easier to paddle put your panel and go where the current is taking you. And intention is deciding how you want to feel in the river. It's water. So it might be cold, it might be wet. Are you going to be happy about that and grateful about that? Are you going to be resentful? Are you going to curse the day every day? Okay. So what's consistent about that metaphor, is how it starts with self. And when we talk about about self care isn't a shortcut, we're really talking about that first word. Look, there's no problems with self care. So I want to not sound like a critic and any dialogue around care is lovely. But where I think people get stuck, when they talk about self care, is they go right to care, and then jump over self. Right? So we go right to tools. Oh, how can this help me? Oh, how can this drug help me? How can this retreat help me? How can this? How can this hot bath helped me all great things, by the way, all those things may help you. But self care starts with self. Right? And the grand invitation, and also, the invitation that requires vulnerability, and patience, and courage sometimes, is to see we have what we want. That what we desire on the outside starts with ourselves, and that our emotions aren't things that are obstacles to that our emotions are facilitators to that. So what if when we felt sad, stressed, depressed, instead of those being things we need to carry away? If we started with self we and awareness, what are the things telling me? My stress, literally, my stress is telling me something is not working with my work situation, as an example, right? My overwhelm is telling me, I'm trying to do something that feels like it can't be done. Well, when we go right to care, the challenges that can result is we never have the inquiry inside about what is that thing that's not working for me? How did I get in a situation that I feel like this fight or flight, we go right to sometimes papering it over or explaining in a way, or telling ourselves to toughen up, instead of seeing what is actually right there about where the current is going? Well, maybe this relationship with my boss is, is not constructive. Maybe I set appointments for myself that I can't make, which was a narrative Jen and I had this morning about me, maybe I'm ignoring what I really like to do. So when we say it's not a shortcut, we're not saying that, like, there aren't a lot of tools and methods and ways that can help us. We're just saying, you know, if you want to really explore self care, it starts with exploration of self first. And then that leads us into understanding the care, we need an agenda. How would you? How would you answer that? I love that question.
Yeah, it's personal. You know, all of our work, and even the theme of self care or conscious leadership, or it's all individual, and it's personal and personalized to what each one of us needs. So what self care looks like for you, Becky, or Jon, maybe we may have some overlap, but it may not work for me or Jeff or, and really trying to create more space to experience true self care without it feeling selfish. What I notice, in myself and in the sector, and in business, is self care has kind of been commoditized with more to do. Yeah, it's just another like
and to remember,
to remember and
and feed into your schedule, yes,
game, and gamify
and add on your calendar. And it's just another list and it puts a lot of pressure on. So what were two themes one is the idea that self care is not selfish, and actually, the way to heal ourselves, to heal others to thrive in an organization to, you know, help our teams and companies be the best they can be is to take care of ourselves first. Because we cannot give what we don't have. And there seems to be a massive, massive epidemic of dis-ease and disharmony. And like the people wanting like they know they need to take care of themselves but having no clue how to do it. And we will chat like that's not true you do. But what's what gets in the way is being over scheduled. Having too much on your plate, not enough you time, not enough space. When we are too full and we are having so many distractions and multitasking and trying to do too many things at once. We don't bring our full attention to anything. We kind of skim the surface, right and over time physically, that increases our cortisol levels, which is a result of increased stress, right? Blood pressure goes high. And we, our adrenals are on a fight or flight response. So it doesn't matter if we're kind of adding self care to that state. It's kind of like a bandaid in water, it doesn't stick. So how do we drop into create more space for ourselves? And really know thyself have an experiment with like, what fills you up? What calms you? What, Where do you feel more joy? And do that first, if you can, before you start to put on all the other roles that you're doing? It's so much easier said than done. But the more we can create space, the more we notice where the current is. And then we get to choose are we pressing the easy button, like, who said life had to be so freakin hard? It is a choice, it is an absolute choice of whether we are feeding ease, or we're feeding hard. And the more we bring our attention to either one, whatever we place our attention on, we feed. And whatever we feed we form set another way we grow, we amplify. And so that state, if we're complaining about the resistance, and we're having to push through the wall and go around our boss, and strategize and all that energy, just literally emanates a frequency that's going to attract, that's more of the same frequency. So it just is like the self fulfilling prophecy of, the more resistance we put out, the more frustration we're putting out, the more the harder we're paddling, what life meets us with more obstacles to paddle that weighted with, if that makes sense. But if we literally choose to allow and see our part in the river, we see the current and we just make a tiny tweak of like, Hmm, I'm going to choose easy today, I'm going to choose to, you know, follow the flow, where is flow, and I'm going to notice where there's force. And I'm going to notice where there's flow, and I'm going to choose flow, see what happens. Because then life will meet us with more things to flow with. And that feels like a self care, kind of responsibility and experiment. Like we don't have this right, there's some days we totally nail it. And some days, we wake up in a low mood and are not feeling it. And that's, that's human, but I think for for what Jeff is sharing. And what I'm trying to point to or get at is. It's not just a shortcut, it's not selfish, it's vital to, to care for ourselves, so that we can care for organizations and loved ones and relationships in the way we hope to be.
And it starts with awareness, I think is what we meant by that. Self care isn't a shortcut, it starts with allowing yourself to see what is and knowing that your thoughts and emotions aren't going to hurt you. They're there to help you. And knowing that all the tools in the world all the Fitbits and yoga classes, which are fantastic. That's not where that the actual healing comes from. You're the healer, you're the tool, all these other things, magnify that. But starting with awareness is always where we go.
And if you can make this conscious decision, this is a gift for yourself. And by the way, I'm gonna say this out loud for myself, do it without shame. And without guilt. I think we get so hardwired into our work that we think we can't take these breaks. And I'm going to take a little page from Jeff's book and I'm gonna be a little bit vulnerable. And anyone who's listened to my nervous breakdown story that I shared on the podcast at first First day, first week of mental health week that we ever had, because we thought it was really important to start with our story. I want to I want to give some visual to what I think you guys are talking about because at the start of my journey, I explained to my doctor that I felt when I lay down at night that I had 50 espressos running through my body. And I was extremely tired. But there was all of this energy and motion in me all the time. And it was a combination of just so much going on at the office in my life raging against powers and controls that I could not, you know, muster any sort of strength, or I didn't have any autonomy to change. And I remember speaking with Lindsey Fuller who has been a guest on this podcast, and she said to me, you are In like straight, she would call it what you're talking about to fight flight, fawn or freezing, you know, are you fawning? Are you flattering? Your donors and a need to get whatever it is that you need to get. And it wasn't until I went inside and had to do really deep work within myself and start to release and start to ease and start to set my boundaries and start to say what's important, I can tell you We Are For Good is an output of going through that exercise. And Jon giving me the belief that this could be done. And so I think listen to those nudges, and know that you're worthy of rest and, and respite in every sense of the word. I thank you both for the way that you say it. Even your voices are so calm. And so healing. Are you feeling that Jon? And I just think sometimes, we need someone to tell us that we can do this, because you're right, Jen, we cannot pour from an empty cup at any capacity. And what you can give and what you know, you listener to this world is so important, and so precious, we need you, we need you well. We end all of our conversations with one good thing. And I'm so eager to hear how you're going to distill this into one good thing. Jeff, I think I'll start with you.
I don't know what your secret to success is. But I do know that you know it, that everyone listening knows somewhere in there. What you need, that it doesn't come from somewhere else. It doesn't come from any Oracle, it doesn't come from someone like me. And it doesn't even come from this podcast, as lovely as it is that you know what you need. And I encourage you to listen, to allow yourself the gift of awareness to listen to yourself. And to just hear it without needing to name it. And I bet you'll find your one good thing.
I think self criticism, the monkey mind, the inner critic is covered. And we've gotten that muscle really well trained. And I think the one good thing is kind of got two aspects of it is the invitation and the call to look for the good in yourself. To really practice seeing your light, choosing to hear that voice, getting to know it in the nooks and the crannies. And if it's quiet, give it space to be heard. In all the beautiful ways that you've been designed that you've been gifted for this unique life, to lead and love and serve that only you know how to do that you're wired for. And allow yourself to see it for yourself to cultivate that goodness to, to look for the good in yourself to look for the light in yourself. And when you practice that to make a choice to do the same for others, to look for the good on your team, in your boss, in your direct reports, in your donors, in your environment, to look for the light in whoever you cross paths with today, that actually it is a choice point that instead of looking at all the reasons to judge all the things that trigger us and piss us off or all the experiences or environmental reasons why we're not feeling the way we want to feel to just make one choice to look for to orient our focus, remembering that what we focus on we feed and why not feed the light, why not feed the good? It'll create a better world. So that's mine.
Okay friends, y'all have brought the XL in spades in this conversation. And I just love the way that y'all rounded out this conversation and this is going to be a tool for us to come back to as a podcast family, as a community around this podcast but I want to connect everybody listening today to the resources that y'all pour into the incredible retreats you put on your podcast. Tell us about all the things how people can find you connect with you and then you tee up the little bonus episode that's dropping also Jen
Sure, you can find us at plentyconsulting.com We have podcasts called Plenty for Everyone that you can tune in to listen on any of your channels. We are just wrapped up our 49th episode and really grateful for that. On our website under resources you can find our blogs that we write ate a lot about conscious leadership and conscious culture and conscious business and strategy, and spirituality, how do we bring these tools into business and into the nonprofit sector, along with guided meditations, and that's where we're gonna go next is there another episode that I will be guiding a guided meditation as a way to help us go within, to bring more awareness to our light, to our goodness, and to the life essence that is here and wanting to come forth?
And can I just mention one more thing that we're so excited about. And in January 2024, whenever you're listening to this, if this content was appealing, and you're curious, you can find it in our book. It's called Leading with Light.
Oh, that's exciting
Coming out in January. And we're excited to explore awareness, alignment, and intention, the idea of the river and how you can be your own gift. So more to come. And thank you for letting us showcase that. And honestly, thank you, Jon, and Becky, for what you have done to build such an incredible community of people who are supporting each other and collaborating. And it's thriving and resilient. And it's lovely to see and lovely to be a part of. So thank you so much.
So kind of you guys. And I just think is reclosing. All I've been thinking about Jon is our first core value of our company, which is everyone matters. Everyone matters. And so please, my one good thing is Hang on. Because Jennifer is going to give you a guided meditation, it's 15 minutes. But if you want an action point to start into do something today for yourself. This is it. So come join us. Jon and I are going in and we're going to be a part of it. Feed yourself, feed your soul. And look for the good Jennifer Jeff, there are placed settings at our Thanksgiving table we want to have you over that is how much we adore you. Thank you so much for what you've given us today. It was a blessing really.
Thanks so much for being here, friends, and you probably hear it in our voices. But we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before.
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