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The Marketing and Business Podcast For Online Entrepreneurs! Learn the best approaches from experts as well as the psychology of what it means to be a human in business!
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Mastering Heart-Centered Leadership: Wisdom of a Tech CEO Lindsay Williams Stanton
Have you ever considered the sheer force of heart-led leadership? Today's episode features a riveting conversation with Lindsay, a trailblazing tech entrepreneur in the HR space, who brings her own narrative of loss, empathy, and the transformative power of emotional intelligence in business. Together, we unpack how authenticity and compassion in leadership not only foster stronger relationships but also fortify the very core of an organization.
The journey of a leader is perennially evolving, and here we uncover the impact of vulnerability and the dismantling of fear in the echelons of command. Reflecting on the profound teachings of Brené Brown and my own leadership path, we explore the paradoxical strength found in admitting our limitations. Gender expectations in leadership and the art of empathizing without overstepping boundaries also come to the fore, offering a nuanced perspective on maintaining personal and professional spaces.
As we wrap up, I share some of my most personal and effective strategies for managing emotions and preventing burnout. From meditation to mindfulness, and even a little peek into how I navigate stress, this episode is packed with valuable tips for any leader looking to sustain their presence and effectiveness. Lindsay's insights leave us with a heartening reminder of the vitality of empathy and understanding in shaping not just successful leaders, but inspiring human beings.
When we're working through challenges like, and how we come to the table with them. It is really an exercise of how we handle ourselves from the day to day, and one thing I would mention is every little thing adds up because you are reframing your response and deescalating your response when the little things happen. Exactly, I feel like most leaders feel like they have to know everything. They feel like they have to present themselves that they know everything to their team, otherwise they're going to create a lack of confidence.
Speaker 2:I'm so happy to have you on the show today, lindsay, and let's see where we're going to go. I know that you are a hard-lead entrepreneur and I really want you to talk about that a little bit with the audience, with the listeners. If you can just share a little bit about your journey as a hard-lead business owner, that would be lovely to start with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that could be an episode in and of itself. My journey has definitely been a wild ride. So, as you know, I lead a tech company and the HR space, so we're helping digitize the way that people find and recruit talent and it's interesting because I think the HR space does have a lot of female leaders in it. But I would say there always can be more. I've seen it grow over the time that I've been in it. To me, obviously, a man can also lead in a heart-centered way. I do feel like it's that feminine energy that will take us there and be the driving force. I feel like it's much more of a conversation now in general than it used to be, and I think a lot of that has been the huge pendulum shift in power, if you will, and employees demanding especially post-COVID, if you, post-covid, if you will that there needs to be met in a bigger, deeper way, and so I think that to some extent it's been forced. For me, it's been a natural flow.
Speaker 1:I think leading in a heart-centered way was very resonant for me and came very natural for me after Roger, our CEO, and the love of my life, my spouse, all the things passed away, because one thing that grief does for you is it reframes everything and what actually means something and what actually should be important, and you look at things through a different lens, and so for me, that was a big catalyst behind a shift.
Speaker 1:I've definitely always been an empath, and other people's feelings have always been very important to me, and I do feel that all business is relationship-driven, whether it's your internal, the way you lead an organization or the way you are facing with your customers.
Speaker 1:At the end of the day, it's all relationship, and we all can get a product or a service from anywhere, right, so you want to go where you feel the most seen and comfortable, and so I think that starting from the inside out just makes sense, and I think more and more organizations are starting to see that, and I'm seeing a huge rise, at least in our space, and I think it's across the board and more females in the city suites and more of a focus around the people and not just counting people as a number or a social security number, but truly diving into the people, and that's so critical, especially when you think about the history, the knowledge behind the products of your organization. I think that foundational element of long-term employees is so important. I love that. So that was a very long answer to your question.
Speaker 1:No I love that.
Speaker 2:I was noting as you were speaking and I guess you kind of answered that question already. But how do you personally define a heartlet like a heartlet, like a heartlet business or the leadership that leads from the heart?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it really comes down to.
Speaker 1:I mean, you can say that you can act like it in the day to day, but I think when it really comes down to it, when stuff hits the fan, you know if there's challenges within the organization, or probably even more than that, if a particular employee that's been with you for a long time is going through something and can't be as present or need some grace and flexibility to be able to recognize that and not only formulate things in a very set way. You know, like not necessarily everything has to be like quote unquote by the book, but like really working with people through their challenges and being able to meet them where they're at. I think that's when, like the rubber really meets the road. You can act like that from a day to day perspective and certainly carry that like into your meetings with your staff and things.
Speaker 1:But I think if, when you know somebody's going through something, or if there's turbulence or challenges I mean every business has spikes, there's ebbs and flows, that's just natural Like when you're going through those things, what does that look like and who are you putting first and how are you carrying yourself when things get tough? I mean it's very similar to how we handle ourselves in our relationships when we bring emotional intelligence to the table. You know and don't aren't reactive, but process, and that could be taken into consideration, like if you know an employee sends an email and all you think is like a little too edgy or like a little too much heat behind it or something like that, like just slowing your role, not responding right away, hitting the pause button, waiting 24 hours and really digesting and think about okay, what is that person going through right now and how can I bring grace to this situation and try to deescalate the flame of the fire versus, you know, adding more fuel onto it? So another long-winded answer.
Speaker 2:No, I love that. Again, a couple of things came to mind as you were speaking and I want to ask you this before we jump into the next question you did mention that when things are, but shit hits the fan, you really kind of very quickly realize what's really important. You know. It's just like even you know, and anything happens to you, like you go back to your core and you see what is important.
Speaker 2:And I do believe that our instances, when I'm thinking I'm going to die, for example, I'm going to play, I'm like super nervous flyer. So I'm like every time I'm boarding in a plane, I'm I got into a point where, okay, if turbulence happens, I'm going to be panicking, but I'm going to go back to my core really quickly and I'm going to get a glimmer again, I'm going to remember again. So now, because I'm, it's almost like all the layers are done and it's just back to your core and what's important, and you go through it like in instances, right, and it's love, by the way, I don't know what it is, I think. I think it's just that the core of everything everything I don't know.
Speaker 2:I think that's. Every emotion is like love, you know, even, even sadness anger, love, Love or fear.
Speaker 1:like everything's either from love or fear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but at the same time, you know those glimmers when we see, like, what's important, and I just want to ask you, like what was that? You realized that, okay, this is important versus okay, I thought that this was, but it's really not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a really, that's obviously a really big question.
Speaker 1:I think the way you asked it and thinking about your experiences, like with the flight, for example, did bring up another thought to that. These things when we're working through challenges like, and how we come to the table with them, it is really an exercise of how we handle ourselves from the day to day. And one thing I would mention is every little thing adds up because you are reframing your response and deescalating your response when the little things happen, like back to the email example that I was mentioning like, instead of flying off the handle, if you like, take a deep breath and respond. What's really interesting and what I've noticed and I will get to your question but is that it doesn't even have to be a big thing. It starts foundationally with the little things, and the more you kind of force yourself, if you will, to come at things with that more intentional response, the more it happens naturally, and therefore, the less panicked you are when something, when shit, really does go down and it's like you've retrained your brain and your nervous system to deal with things differently, and I think that's really important.
Speaker 1:I think for me. I know you know my story because we know each other. But for me, grief was that catalyst, that recalibration, that big bang moment. I don't think you necessarily have to have that, but that reframed a lot of things.
Speaker 1:I mean, you do life and there's things that Roger and I thought were important, like where we live or the house we're in or all these things, or what's going on with this customer or this aspect of the business, and at the end of the day, when you experience the passing of somebody that's especially somebody that's part of your every single day in many cases for me at least, every minute of every day pretty much it reshapes what's important.
Speaker 1:And also you realize the things that you look back on. I was just talking to a friend about this the other day and who also lost her husband and we're saying how, like, some of the times when we were like the most stressed or really like going through something like those are like some of the best memories. You know how we like persevered and we did the thing and we you know, but like, and you look back on it and like how your response was or how your spouse's response was, and it's like those are some of the best memories. So it doesn't all have to be rainbows and unicorns for there to be like joy in it, you know, and being able to kind of hold both.
Speaker 2:I love that. I think, when you were just saying that it does seem like you have to have a great mindset to look at the lessons in the bad things you know, because in a good thing it's easy Like you like, okay. But in the bad things it takes some serious thinking. You know, like okay. What's the next?
Speaker 1:one Well and. I think you know, the more you reframe the quote, unquote bad things to your challenges like, the more it just it starts to happen naturally for you. You know where you're, like you're, I've noticed that my immediate response or reaction to something isn't like oh, why did this happen? It's like okay, there's a reason. I know there's a bigger plan behind this. I just don't know the why yet.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God, that's so wise to do that. That's like, okay, there's a bigger lesson here. I mean, you know, it's amazing, by the way, to be able to do that. And there is the empowerment dynamic. There's a drama triangle and the empowerment dynamic and it's basically I don't know if you know, the drama triangle has a victim, a rescuer and a persecutor.
Speaker 2:And basically the theory is that we go through if we are in the drama triangle, either we're victim like, oh, poor me, life happens to me. We are persecuting when we are blaming, like it's your fault, like this happened to me, right. And then rescuing is like I'm going to fix it for you, but it's not because of you, because I want to feel better about myself. And so the drama, the empowerment triangle, is basically the victim becomes the challenger, and then that is like, okay, what did I learn from this and what are the lessons from me and what options do I have? Right.
Speaker 2:And then each role, for example the rescuer, becomes like, okay, I believe in my power and I believe in other people's power, so that if I can do it, they can do it, so I don't have to save them. So, again, I think, even if you don't know, I think you're doing the empowerment triangle yourself and you're living the coin, like, basically that's what you are doing, practicing by recognizing the lesson you know, because I think there has to be a time when I'm like, okay, I'm a victim, poor me. I feel sorry for myself, like I can't believe this is happening to me. That is a process of like coming to okay, what was the lesson here? And then that takes time and, like you said, it trains your nervous system to be getting there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, again, it helps you regulate more on your own and I think it just shortens the time around each of the cycles that you might emotionally go through to you know when something happens and when you can do that for yourself. You bring that to your relationships and you know part of that is obviously leadership and if you've got you know people that are important to you and you're bringing that you know type of ability with those relationships, it just helps everybody else regulate better to like they. I, you know firm believer that we, you know everything relates to energetics and at the end of the day, that's what we are is the energy that we bring to the table. And I think when you lead yourself that way and you lead your teams that way, then you set the standard for what's acceptable in the organization and how people should treat each other and it, you know, impacts the, the teams and you know the breakdown of the teams within your organization too.
Speaker 2:I love that you shared that, because oftentimes I'm having client meetings and sometimes I go to their team to just be there as the marketing person and like listen to the whole conversation and a lot of the times I'm still seeing the traditional leadership. You know the the. I'm going to put you in your spot so you learn the lesson. You know it's not. It's not the. It's like the people fearing the person, like they don't even want to unmute themselves to say anything because they are just like though they don't want to be put in the spot, they don't want to be yelled at, they don't want to be like just feeling this discomfort and fear. Like when did they lose their job?
Speaker 2:And I love that you said that there can be a leadership where it's not based on fear, you know, and it's not how we can get respect. I don't even know what is it that when they're needing? But what is your take on those traditional leadership? You know scenarios.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a really good question and I think I'm going to add to that too that I think that fear can be involved when you're not necessarily even trying for it to be. So I know, like in the past for me, like I'm a very high drive type A person and I've shifted that a lot as well over the last few years where I'm like more a balance now of like go flow, go flow, you know like kind of back and forth, like do the work, let it happen, you know, and being able to release the outcomes. But you know, with like kind of that natural, like drive that I do have and that I've always had, I think I've heard over the years that like people were afraid of me and that always shocked me because I always try, like I've always tried to be like kind above all else You're so cute, I'll talk about that.
Speaker 2:I don't even know what it is.
Speaker 1:Thank you, but I've heard it before. So I think like sometimes when you and it was more than once so I think sometimes when you come to the table and like you're very high drive, you can unknowingly, certainly unintentionally, create fear because, like you might, like people maybe, have a perfectionist like type of a feel like they need to hit certain things with you because they see how you're, you know how you expect for yourself. That's what I theorize about it. But so I think you can, I think you can bring fear to the table, even unintentionally. As my point with this and to me, you know, I think about you, know people like Renee Brown, and like the impact of vulnerability and having those honest conversations with people is the easiest way to really kind of try to take fear out of it. Because if you're vulnerable, raw and transparent with your people and I'm not telling, I'm not saying you have to tell every aspect of your personal life or anything like that as a leader but if you come to it with authenticity and vulnerability, like if there's a situation you're like I don't know, I'm going to have to think about this, I'm going to have to really process this, like I'm not sure what we're going to do next and I welcome your opinions.
Speaker 1:You know, for example, if you come at it with that, I think that it's funny because I feel like most leaders feel like they have to know everything.
Speaker 1:They feel like they have to present themselves that they know everything to their team, otherwise they're going to create a lack of confidence when it actually can be the exact opposite and oftentimes is like the more you open yourself up to say like I'm not exactly sure how we're going to navigate this situation or, you know, deal with what's going on, like right now in the market or whatever it might be, but I'm here, I'm going to do everything in my control to help us be successful and I welcome your thoughts and opinions on it. With that type of a more open conversation, a vulnerable conversation, I think you always decrease fear and it's funny because like people want to know that like you're real, you know, and I feel like when you come to the table with authenticity and transparency, even when you're not confident or don't have all the answers, that actually translates so much better to people than like trying to force something down their throat that they know isn't like real and that they don't feel confident that you know what you're doing, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:I love that and I think again, as you were speaking, it made so much sense, this vulnerability aspect. You know that often there's a fear that unless I know it all, I cannot be a leader. You know, I have to know it all, like I cannot show that I don't know. There's a book called the Hard Thing about the hard things, and it's just about this and it's about how to be honest as a leader. And it was a tech company that was like getting bankrupt and then the owner didn't want to tell anyone the team that things are not going well. You know, because he thought that as a leader, he should know better and should not share. These things, you know, shelter people from the reality of the business and, yeah, I think that's such an important thing to have those conversations. What would you be saying to leaders that are not leading organizations but leading, for example, masterminds programs? You know, then they are paid to be there. It's an opposite game. Can they show that they don't know? All the answers Like what do you think about those scenarios?
Speaker 1:100%, I think, like for me, I wouldn't hire somebody as a coach or mastermind or to learn from if I didn't also think they were constantly learning themselves. And we all bring a different lens of experiences to every interaction. You know, regardless of age, demographic, like, every one of us brings different elements. Your lived experiences are completely different than my lived experiences. So to think that just because you're, you know, leading a mastermind or coaching somebody, that they can't also help you, I think, is naive and limits your ability to learn. And at the end of the day, I don't know about you, but I'm here, like I'm 100% here to learn, and that's why we're in these earth suits is to learn and, you know, achieve the purposes that we were, you know, created to achieve. And I think that we hinder that process when we limit who we can learn from, and we can all, like, learn from each other in different containers, even if we are the quote unquote leader of those containers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. Did you ever feel pressure to be having it all together as a leader?
Speaker 1:Um, probably before going through loss. Yeah, probably before going through loss. And I think, like, just as a gender we identify as female tend to be worse at that, like feeling like we have to have everything 100% all together, which obviously no one ever is going to have 100% all together, nor are we going to feel like we do. So it's an unattainable bar that we set and I think once you let go of that and recognize that nobody does have it all together and that the world needs more female representation from a leadership perspective and more of that feminine coming into it, I think it's. It's freeing in a lot of ways, because you know nobody. Nobody knows the answers and we're all here just navigating and doing the best we can to navigate. So once you set that expectation, you allow yourself room for making mistakes and growing from that.
Speaker 2:I love that. I want to kind of circle back to what you said before about. You said that in a hard lot business, if an employee is going through something, there is a communication and a compassion about. You know that they can share what's happening maybe affects your performance at work.
Speaker 2:You know what do you think is and I want to say this because my partner specifically, he has his own employees and I feel like I know everything about them and their drama and everything you know there's a lot of compassion from his and empathy and I love that he has all of that empathy for the employees. But at the same time I feel like there are it's. It's getting out of control in a way that it's just it's like going into their personal life too much. They share like weird details like oh, her daughter is having an abortion, so they need some money, I don't know, like things like that like they come to personal. So what do you think is the line between the employees being vulnerable and really sending and being compassionate versus like going overboard and like really caring too much and giving them too much of our compassion?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that's that's a complicated question for sure.
Speaker 1:I think that for everybody what that line is going to feel like is different, because you know your own boundaries are probably different.
Speaker 1:For me, I like I know enough about what's going on with our employees, but not like an overabundance of knowledge where it's like, ok, I didn't need to know that. So I would say like it's a little bit arm's length, but just knowing enough to like you know, like if somebody you like, if one of your leaders like just had a baby, or they that you know that they have a parent that's ill, like or terminally ill, for example, like just, I think that is enough. Like most employees in the course of conversations, you know you learn those types of core to their daily activities things and I think that is enough to to bring you know that level of grace to the table and be able to give consideration. You know, like I've got one employee who's phenomenal and just always worried about like letting me know if she's going to be like out doing something with one of her kids for a couple hours or whatever the case might be, but you know she's getting her work done, so, like you don't need to check in with me to that extent.
Speaker 1:you know like and I think that's like the balance to write is are they showing up and delivering? If they're showing up and delivering, my thought process always is like we're good you know like I'm not going to worry about. I'm not going to micromanage. You either can do your job and are, you know, capable of performing, or you're not. Like me, micromanaging you isn't going to help your performance. So, yeah, so I think that's part of the balance to.
Speaker 2:I love that you mentioned that as well, because you, as a leader, you don't need to be updated on every single thing, right? Because and that goes back to the empowerment triangle like I trust in your power, you know, I trust that you got it. So you got it, you know.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:I love that you mastered that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which can be super freeing for you as a leader too, because you know you're freeing up your time, and also they. If your employees see that that that's how you handle yourself, then everybody that reports into them. They're going to give them that same ability to manage their calendars and you know their task. So it definitely does, you know, go for full circle within the organization.
Speaker 2:Did it take you time to start trusting the people that you hired?
Speaker 1:Yes, I think you know most of our team are have been with us for over five years. A lot of them are close to the 10 year mark, so you know like there's 100% trust. But yeah, I mean you know, and for me, like being, you know, a recovering type A like it's, you know, the testing things at the beginning, it's the testing things with small doses. I would say I'm much better at that now than I used to be. Like I just don't sweat a lot of those like detail things unless somebody gives me a reason to you know.
Speaker 2:So you came, you came far. Basically yes, yes, this used to be a real struggle. Yeah, but you also have different things that you want to focus on, so that really frees up your time right to be letting people do their things, you know and trusting that they are doing it. If they're not doing it, you'll figure it out anyway.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:I love that and what I wanted to go from here is you mentioned being an empath, and that's interesting to me because and again, I don't know if you tend to experience that, but you tend to open up people easily. So that's why I was asking like so what is the fine line for you? Because you know people can share things, sometimes that it's way too much information you know, you don't even, you don't even need to know because of your nature of being an empath.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think a lot of that is guiding the conversation, like you know, if it starts to go, you know a little too detailed, a little more information than you want, maybe just like gently circle it back to like a work question or tasks they have on their plate, Like there's ways that you can do it without making the person feel bad or uncomfortable that they just shared with you. You know, I think there's ways to do it that are much more subtle and just make everybody more comfortable, but then that they're like that starts to set up some boundaries for them to.
Speaker 2:And what about that? I want to ask you this what was your biggest fuck up as a leader?
Speaker 1:Oh God, tbd, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I would say I probably the thing that comes to mind first would be like just in the past, just being like super hypervigilant about everything and feeling like I just needed to know, and that really stemmed from like control, you know, and just I think releasing that has been huge. But you know, I look how uptight like I was when I was living and leading that way and it's so much better health wise to like not lead like that.
Speaker 2:So I guess I think I would say that I love that, like you I mean right now, as we're having this conversation, I can tell you're very chill about that. You have, you release, a lot of control and I think maybe that's also part of your journey. And I know that you are doing, you're practicing your Reiki healer or you're doing that actively still. Can you talk a little bit about that as well? Yeah?
Speaker 1:yeah. So my side gig as, besides running the tech company, I am a grief coach and I'm trained in somatic healing and in Reiki that's the training program I went through is a Reiki master. That is very intuitive based, so pulls in a lot of mediumistic abilities, and it's interesting because it actually does 100% layer into leading the tech company to because you know, like what I feel in my body, like I can do these things to myself, right, and I could be like, okay, if I'm starting to get upset about something, like, okay, do these things to regulate, but yeah, it's, it's amazing how much energy we store and hold in the different parts of our body, both like just in our physical body as well as like our chakra points that can lead to things with our physical body, and being able to release that has an enormous impact. And I love being able to see the freeing aspect actually of that healing with the people that I work with. That's pretty awesome.
Speaker 2:I love that and I wanted to ask you a couple of emotions that I think most entrepreneurs, like leadership, feel, and maybe I want to ask you take on that in identifying those emotions and maybe if you can give some tips on processing them for your listeners. So the first one is overwhelm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. I know it's completely counterintuitive. Overwhelm is so common and I would say like if you've been through any type of trauma or grief, going into overwhelm happens like snap of the fingers, I mean just so much faster. But a couple of things, a couple of tools that I use when I'm like feel myself in a state of overwhelm, number one step away. So it's, I know it's counterintuitive, because it's like no, I have to do all the things, but you don't have to do any of the things, just like take a minute, take a beat.
Speaker 1:I do like the box breathing, the four by four.
Speaker 1:For those who don't know box breathing it's inhale for a four count, hold for a four count, exhale for a four count and hold for a four count. Doing that for, just like you know, four or five cycles is definitely a game changer. Going for a super short walk another great way to self regulate and get yourself back to a better spot and then just creating a little bit of time and space between whatever is, you know, making you feel overwhelmed, is huge. I always find that my response to something 24 hours later is completely different and always 110% better than if I had fired something off or made the call in the heat of the moment when I was feeling overwhelmed. So, as hard as it is, I think when you're in that state of overwhelm to try to create some time and space, it is so, so important and the result is going to be better for it. So, even though you might feel like you have to like cram and get all the things done, just do yourself that favor, because the outcomes are going to be so much better.
Speaker 2:I love it Ad exhaustion.
Speaker 1:Sleep is a priority to me and I do not think in general as a culture we prioritize sleep. I, you know, I've listened to a lot of like self help type, like podcast audibles, all the things, and you know you're useless without a good night's sleep and a lot of the things that I listened to talk about how we glorify, you know, getting four hour sleep or whatever you know, which is just crazy to me, to me like, and especially you know, with grief and trauma, like you have to prioritize sleep because nothing, actually nothing like, puts you into that overwhelm state faster than lack of sleep. So the two definitely go hand in hand. But so for me it's carving out like my phone is on silent at 9 o'clock at night, like it will not be. I will not hear your text, I will not hear your ding like whatever it is, like I will not hear it after 9 o'clock at night because that's my time and you know I'm a big meditator. You don't have to meditate long, but 5 to 10 minutes helps you.
Speaker 1:Your body trans, you know like go into that state of like pre-sleep and you know kind of downshift a little bit before you actually go to bed. But yeah, I mean I treat sleep like a religion, like I treat my workouts like it's completely productive and it's going to happen. I do require eight hours, so that's just a non-negotiable for me, and I think that a lot of people could use to implement something like that. Maybe it's not eight hours for you, some people need 10, some people only need seven, but feeling into your body and what that looks like for you and then make it a non-negotiable Fear, that's the biggest one, right? I?
Speaker 1:think you know we talked about that a lot, I think, throughout the conversation today and a lot of it is. It does start with the little things and reframing your mind not to freak out. The little things will make it more of an automatic process when the big stuff goes down. So practicing that day to day you know whether it's like running late and you feel yourself going into that state of panic, like just you know, like creating some self-regulation and doing some breath work and just reframing that it's really not that big a deal. Taking the time in those moments when it's the little things will 100% help you overcome fear when, like, it feels like something big later.
Speaker 2:I love that and I think, yeah, like you said, it's throughout this conversation. We did mention a lot, you know, on processing those emotions. I'm gonna say the last one to be burnout, but I'm not sure if that's emotion wise. Like, if that ever happens to a leader, what do you think is the best way for them to what to do about it?
Speaker 1:basically, yeah, I think, if you get to that point and you haven't created boundaries to prevent it up until that point, like it happens, and it's too late, just learning from it and setting up boundaries. You know, success doesn't look like working 24-7 and I know when, like you're starting or leading a company. You know you work a lot of hours and that's just natural, but you have to have time for you because if you're not healthy, it doesn't matter. You know none of it matters if you're not healthy and you can't be there to run your organization if you are not healthy and mentally sound. And so, in order to do that, you have to protect your health, your body. You know doing things like moving, and you know whether that's exercise or just like being out in nature, those types of things and then obviously, your sleep, like we talked about. Like those key things are so important to preventing burnout.
Speaker 2:I love that. So basically, just take care of ourselves, prioritizing our health so that we can show up for our businesses. Yeah, what advice that you would give to your younger self.
Speaker 1:Probably just to suck up and be in every moment that it's so easy to get distracted. You know like there's, it's always like squirrel, right, but I think just being present.
Speaker 2:Do you actively practice being present or do you feel yourself like, oh, I need to be present here, or your mind tends to shift?
Speaker 1:no, that's one of those things again, like the more you practice, the more it happens. Naturally I don't have to really force it anymore, but if, like, especially early on, if I felt myself like kind of getting distracted or doing you know, multiple, I like my the staff has always teased me over the years that like I am like the queen of like, multi-tasking, like and like legitimately I'll totally multi-tasking and like doing the things. But I think the more that you stop yourself from doing that and the more that you're like really truly in the moment, you get to see things for more of what they actually are and you miss a lot less. And to my point earlier, like, some of the things that at the end of the day, are most important to you and that are you look back on on the like with the fondest way, can be things that you would never have thought that when you were in the moment. So, but you have to be in the moment to be able to remember them.
Speaker 2:So so yeah, I know, and and I just want to add to that that sometimes being present is not a fun thing, and I'm like again on the plane ride it's turbulent and I don't want to be present here. You know, and, like you said, after the lessons come obviously the downloads. You know everything, you know, you see what's important and what's not. But man, it's so hard to be present. Sometimes. Present is not cool, it's not a fun place. Where do you see yourself in the next five years? Like, what are your plans?
Speaker 1:as far as you know, I'm sure you're gonna be keep baiting your business, but I'm just curious to know about your future goals yeah, I'm not a big fan of like five ten year projections, just because I um we just talked about being present, great yeah exactly one of the things that I've learned is like just to be in the moment, um, and I think that's definitely something that, uh, if you are dealing with grief, looking too far down the road, can definitely trigger, you know, feelings of overwhelm and sadness. But, um, I think for me, um, you know, I definitely see that I'm going to be kind of drawn more into helping people, especially like with the grief, coaching and continuing to balance that with leading an organization.
Speaker 2:I think more and more opportunities on that front to be of service and, you know, to really help people is going to be something that's take some more active role in my life for sure yeah, and I love that, um, just to finish our episode, but I think, because we talked about so many things, but I think, if I had to really summarize it, it's really to be present and that's our message for today. Thank you so much for for coming, lindsay, and for your time and for all the Winston. I'm sure that all the leaders can learn from you, not just like how to be leaders, but how to be leaders with a heart, um, with empathy, with compassion. So I'm just so grateful for this one and um, thanks so much for coming thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me. I always enjoy listening to your episodes, so it was so nice to have the conversation yeah absolutely.