Awakening Your Inner Leader with Jennifer Mulholland and Jeff Shuck

 

Carolyn: My guests today are Jennifer Mulholland and Jeff Shuck. They are the co owners of Plenty Consulting and co authors of the recently published book, Leading with Light, choosing conscious leadership when you’re ready for more. Both Jennifer and Jeff have a wide array of experience in strategy, in consulting, working within organizations, and Working with organizations from a consulting perspective, they bring such a dynamic perspective to this work.

I really think you are going to enjoy the insight that they bring now before we. Get into that meeting with them. I just want to tell you a little bit more about each of them. Jennifer Mulholland is an author, strategist, alchemist, executive coach and co owner of Plenty Consulting. She has from a very young age been dedicated to raising the consciousness of people on the planet.

And for the last decade, she and her business partner, Jeff, have helped thousands of conscious leaders and businesses grow in revenue impact and fulfillment. Before Plenty, Jennifer was the Chief Innovation Officer at SunGuard, a Fortune 500 technology company. She founded several businesses focused on bridging the gap between information and impact in healthcare technology and holistic well being.

Now let’s hear a little bit about Jeff. Jeff himself is an accomplished leader and entrepreneur with deep experience in leadership development, consulting and social impact. He is the co owner of plenty consulting with his business partner, Jennifer together. They have helped thousands of for profit and nonprofit leaders and organizations create their strategies, grow their fundraising, innovate new programs, and develop conscious cultures.

Before Plenty, Jeff was co founder and CEO of fundraising firm Event360, raising nearly a billion dollars for charity over 12 years. I’m so excited to have this conversation with Jeff and Jennifer. I’ve read their book and I have got lots of questions for them. So, let’s get going.

Hello, evolve community. I am so excited to have two amazing guests on the podcast today. Jeff Shuck and Jennifer Mulholland. Welcome to evolve a new era of leadership.

Jennifer: Thank you. It’s so lovely to be here,

Jeff: Thanks for having Well, you know, we were introduced through some other people. And as I was telling you before we turned press record, I was One page into your book and a big smile and a big, ah, these are amazing people. And so I’m really looking forward to having a conversation with you both about leadership today.

Carolyn: And I know you both bring just an incredible amount of experience and different perspective to this work, which is what I’m trying to do with this podcast. 

And so why don’t we just start off maybe if you could just share Why conscious leadership is so important that you decided to write a book about it.

Yeah,

Jeff: question. Thank you. First of all, for having us and thank you for the work that you’re doing in the world. And when we heard that you were going to host us. We had a short conversation that we could have named our book Evolve instead of leading with light, because we’re all, we’re all kind of playing in the same playground and using the same concepts and trying to find ways that they can fit for people and that people can discover what is real for them.

And that is really at the end of the day, what we mean by the idea of conscious leadership, there’s more pieces to it. Maybe Jennifer can. Parse those out for us. But the, the, the idea is that there’s a way to be awake, that there’s a way to be more present with your life, that we don’t have to be reacting to all the things that are around us and that sometimes the things that we’ve gotten good at overcoming, like stress, like, pushing through the day, like, You know, overcoming our challenges, maybe the stresses and challenges are actually information to us, but there’s a better way and an easier way.

And that’s the path of conscious leadership that we talk about in the book.

Jennifer: Yeah.

Carolyn: do you want to add to that?

Jennifer: Yes. Thank you again. Just echo Jeff’s comments. Thank you so much for having us. Yeah. Conscious leadership. The call for us has been this acknowledgement that we are part of something greater than ourselves and that we’re part of each other. We’re, we’re deeply connected and the, the invitation to be more awake and aware.

Is to notice the majesty, the magic that’s happening all around us all the time. And instead of thinking of that as happenstance or random acts of coincidence, what would our life and leadership look like in work and at home? If we brought more intentionality, if we participated with more willingness to see that we are part of a fabric that is good, that is escorting us on to be the best versions of ourselves and to make this world a better place.

So it’s really this desire that we both shared of there’s gotta be something more. There’s something that maybe I can’t put my finger on it, but my breath is taken away. When I noticed something come across my path, that there is no way I could have planned for or made that happen, right? There was just something beyond my capability in physical form.

And so conscious leadership is this invitation for that something more. To be more aware of how the magic works outside of ourselves and most importantly, how it works inside of ourselves, how our own wisdom and inner compass guides us to participate in the unfolding of our paths, whether it be in work or at home and in life,

Carolyn: Yeah, it’s I love what you say and I can relate to it so much because when I was writing my second book, I felt the same way. Like there has to be something else out there. And, and I always, you know, think I’m. Just a normal person like everybody else. And if I’m feeling it, then others must be feeling it as well.

And I know you’re consulting company plenty. You’ve been around for how many years now? 10 plus, I think. Yeah.

Jennifer: A decade.

Carolyn: So I’m going to guess you’ve seen a real shift, not only in your work, But also in the types of clients that come to you and are looking for support with their business. And I’m curious, 

what do you think is elevating this notion of conscious leadership to be more acceptable?

Dare I use those words in today’s business environment? Yeah.

Jennifer: Well, I definitely think that COVID had a hand because in, It, going through that experience when we were at home and we had to integrate both our business lives and professional lives and personal lives at the same time, the separation for that dissolved. And at Plenty, we like to say you don’t live a personal life and a professional life.

Those days are so long gone. You live one life and you’re that common denominator. So what would it look like if you brought your full self, your whole self to work? What would it look like if you brought your whole full self wherever you showed up? And so it feels like in the, in the evolved terminology that we are, literally participating in a conscious evolution that Barbara Marks Hubbard spoke about years ago that we’re spiraling up in capacity and frequency and awareness and that set false construct of putting ourselves in a box or having to dress a certain way and be a certain way in one scenario and then leave that in the closet and bring another part of ourselves out in another Environment.

It’s exhausting, and it just is not sustainable any longer. Now, not every business culture is inviting that whole self to come and play. But when we can invite that part of ourselves to play and make it safe for our employees and our teams to do so, we then are able to capitalize on the unique value.

passions and cares and talents and skills that are innately part of every employee, human being and team member. And so it feels like 10 years ago, 20 years ago, you know, when I worked in the corporate world, I was spiritually in the closet. It was scary to bring meditation and to, to talk about other personal reflection exercises, mindfulness at work.

It just was not okay to do so. But now I think in the post COVID era, those It feels easier, and I think that’s what we were excited to bring further into the corporate world and organizational world with leading with light is that it’s not a box. It’s not left for the shelf. It’s not left for at home.

Like, how can we bring these practices? Into our work so that we are our fullest potential in whatever way that looks like to us. So I do think there’s an awakening that’s happening where that conversation is becoming much more common and less scary and less woo woo in the, in the business world.

Jeff, go ahead.

Jeff: Yeah, sorry. Sorry to jump in. I was just getting excited. I also think there’s something going on. Just just generally, you know, if there’s one phrase that we hear more than any other phrase. When we work with people, it’s just, I think there’s something more, you know, I’m ready for something more. In fact, that’s like the subtitle of our book, choosing conscious leadership when you’re ready for more.

And no one’s exactly sure what it is necessarily when we talk to them. And I think that is tapping into something. A lot of people feel. In a lot of different systems, whether it’s business or the political system or the economic system, it’s like things aren’t exactly working the way we thought they would work or that we want them to work.

I’m not really sure what’s next, but I just can tell that it’s not working here. And so when we work with teams or companies or large nonprofits. We’re seeing that at, like, the organizational level, the leadership will come to us and say, we keep doing what we’ve been doing, and it’s just not getting the results that we want.

So we’re, we have no idea where to go, but we know we can’t do what we’ve done. I think we hear the same thing when we work with individuals, it’s maybe expressed a little bit differently, but, you know, we often. I would say work with people who on paper are incredibly successful. You know, it’s all of us, right?

We’ve been achievers, we’ve climbed the ladder. We’ve done the things that we wanted to do. We’ve also done the things we were supposed to do. And you get to a certain point and you look around and you’re like. Is this all there is? You know, wait, it’s what, and it’s not that none of it was satisfying. You know, it’s really satisfying to get advanced degrees and raise your kids and, you know, get promotions.

But at a certain point you start to think maybe there’s something more to this existence. Maybe I’m supposed to do more and maybe it’s not to Jen’s point. Maybe it’s not supposed to be separate from how I live my life. 50 or 60 hours a week during the day. Maybe I’m not only supposed to pursue that growth on the weekend or on Sunday morning, or, you know, before I go to work, what if I was pursuing it all the time?

And so I think that is what is changing around us is more and more people seem to be saying, I don’t know. I don’t know if I have a better solution, but like, I can look around and see. The way we’re living in the way we’re choosing our solutions doesn’t seem sustainable anymore. And what we’re trying to point to is not something systemic.

It’s something personal that what if the answers to those questions or, or the new way forward actually starts with a better awareness of ourselves

Carolyn: Yeah. Which,

Jeff: solve all these other systems.

Carolyn: yeah, like, and that’s so powerful that, that I hope, I hope can bring hope to people that we can do our own piece of work, shall I say, amongst a, a globe that seems to have endless pain and suffering within You know, I think you mentioned in your book, I just love the way it was said is conscious leadership is so much more about being rather than doing and imagine the power of leadership when we can really, truly make that shift.

And that’s what I, you know, 1 of the things I loved about your book is. It was easy to read. It was accessible. And Jennifer, I have to giggle because the word woo woo comes up in so many conversations as well. It’s like, it’s, it’s not really woo woo stuff anymore to talk about awakening and intentions and, you know, the different elements alignment, I think is another part of, of your, your model.

So could you talk about how we can become. More fulsome at being, and I think that’s like, that’s sort of the bridge out of the productivity. I have to get stuff done mindset. I’ve got all my roles that I have to live into parent caregiver work. And, and so what are those sort of four lights of conscious leadership that you talk in your book that can help us with that shift to being?

Jennifer: Yeah, a lovely question. Maybe before we tee up the four lights to answer the question of, of conscious leadership and the being versus doing, I think that really was a motivation for us wanting to write a leadership book. And a leadership book that we thought is a little bit different than the space because we have studied leadership.

We’ve practiced leadership or executive coaches ourselves and have really found joy in being natural born leaders ourselves. And it’s taken a lot of learning. And most of those leadership trainings are all about a set of things you have to do to become a better leader. Our experience and part of the motivation is to your point, well, how could I give myself permission to be more of me?

And how, if I did that, can I model the way as a leader of others to give others more permission? To be more of themselves. Now that takes a shit ton of work and it is scary and it is hard and we haven’t arrived at that state. We are constantly practicing what does being more of Jennifer, what does being more of Jeff look like?

And every conversation and every day and every moment with our children and every hard decision we have to make, we’re challenged to revisit being more than doing. It doesn’t mean that we drop the doing part because we are, you know, we have a physical form for a reason to act, to actually bring things into form.

And it requires doing, but conscious leadership comes back to this idea of being more aware with what works for us, aware of the cues outside of us that are ushering this in higher intelligence of flow. What, how our body speaks to us to become more aware of our own inner wisdom, our own intuition, how do we know when we know, and then being aligned to that awareness.

So making sure that we are knowing what’s on or off for us. And then once we have that kind of understanding or awareness, then we’re able to. Act with more intentionality. We’re able to choose how we show up. We get to choose the feeling we want to have at the end of the day. We get to choose the impact we’re having on others, whether it be at home, in our families, or at work with our teams and colleagues.

So that feels like the, the container of being. It’s really the grounding of how do we be more of ourselves. We do that through being more aware, aligned, and intentional with our light, which is how we’re identifying our soul, our essence, our, that truest part of ourselves that’s beyond body and mind, that is guiding the way for how we are here.

Carolyn: so glad. Thank you for Bringing that in before jumping into the four lights of conscious leadership. And, you know, I think it’s a real, it’s a real reflection of how, you know, I won’t say guilty, but like, it’s like, okay, tell me what I need to do and how fast we need, like, okay, here are the four lights.

Like, let’s get them out to people. And Hey, like, you know, I continue, I work in the space and, and it’s just, it’s a great reflection of how the. The, the tension between doing and being is always, is always alive. And I think one thing that really hit me when you were talking, Jennifer, is how in a previous version of myself, probably 10 years ago and before maybe even five years ago and before is how I thought I was aware and I thought it was intentional and it was anything but.

So your comment there about the container of being. I thought it was just a powerful statement. I don’t know if you have, I don’t remember reading that specific statement in the book, but there’s, there’s like, there’s bumper stickers or most pads there somewhere is really finding out what your container of being is. I didn’t have one, but I thought I did.

Jeff: Well, that I love where you’re pointing us. I mean, because the, the juxtaposition here, right. And we don’t want to say conscious leadership is to oppose to another way, but the juxtaposition is, is to the kind of reactive management that we all have to get great at practicing as parents, as citizens, as you know, corporate executives.

As entrepreneurs and that, that starts with checklists and models and frameworks and look, we’d love checklists, models, and frameworks. We’re, we’re, we’re like known for that. And yet there’s, there’s only. There’s only so far those checklists models and frameworks can get you. And most people we end up working with have a moment and we certainly did ourselves.

I think you did Carolyn, when you talk about your latest book and moving into trauma, incorporating trauma, learning from trauma. We have a moment in our lives. Most of us were like, all the checklists in the world can’t save us. All the frameworks in the world don’t save us. There’s, there’s no easy way out.

And so we have to, we have to negotiate something different. I think the trap for a lot of very successful people is they’ve gotten great at problem solving. And look, that’s a very needed skill in the world that we live in. It’s highly valued for a reason. But when you’re great at problem solving, everything in your life looks like a problem, right?

Everything looks like it’s something that can be overcome in some ways. Well, that’s great until you lose your dad in a car accident, which is a story that I told, or all of a sudden your spouse of 30 years up and, you know, tells you that he’s been cheating on you for the last 10, right? Or the company that you thought you were going to retire into is, is sold to a foreign buyer and everyone’s let go.

Like there, there’s this point where the checklist and the frameworks stop. And we’re challenged to decide who we want to be. And I think that’s the territory Jen’s talking about. That’s the container of being where you’re confronted with this, this realization that I, I can’t, I can’t trust my surroundings anymore.

And the paradox that we talk about a lot in not just our book, but your work as well, and the work of being conscious, conscious citizens, conscious people, human beings. The paradox here is. We learn that we can’t control really anything around us. What we can do is decide how we want to be in relationship to it.

Right. And that really is the juxtaposition of conscious leadership. As opposed to other leadership. That’s about here’s what you need to do for your team. And here’s the four skills you need to practice. And here’s the 10 takeaways. It’s like nobody had COVID on their strategic plan. Nobody had economic meltdown right on their, on their vision board.

So how do we relate when the things that. We never even think of come and upend the entire apple cart. That’s where life either gets really difficult for people, it’s where you’re given this opportunity to find out who you truly are. And so I think this is all the lead up to the four things that we’re going to, that we’re going to talk about.

But I just wanted to talk more about that, that beautiful container of being that. That Jen is, is speaking life to and, and the idea that as much as we, the older we get, the better we are at scripting things and responding to the script, but at a certain point you realize, Oh my goodness, it’s all unscripted.

Jennifer: And it’s all limiting.

Carolyn: it is. Yeah. Oh, are those so are those what you were, were referring to in your book as Mack truck moments.

Jennifer: Yes. Yeah. When something comes out of left field that you didn’t plan or predict, that changes everything.

Carolyn: In your, in your experience, do some people need to get hit by the Mack truck a few times before they realize that they can’t be stronger than the Mack truck? Maybe I’m talking for asking for a friend.

Jennifer: Yes. Yeah.

Carolyn: And I wonder, I’m just going to invite listeners to think about that because sometimes the truck might hit, but we’ve been so good at being resilient or managing through it or thinking that we’re managing through it that we don’t always recognize the opportunity. To see what those moments could bring other than just trying to fix it and move forward and be okay with it.

Jennifer: Yeah, well, and the premise is from our own experience is, you know, with the exception of truly when, you know, Jeff’s father was killed in a car accident, those signs, what were the signs leading up to that? That’s really hard to, you know, understand and our minds are wired to want to make sense of things, right?

And, and there are kind of things that come out of the blue that do change everything. And it’s hard. We don’t have the answers to why things happen. And there are other Mack truck moments or experiences that we actually did get clues on leading up to that we just overrode. We ignored, we didn’t see, we didn’t want to see, right?

And so part of the invitation of becoming more aware and awake and more aligned to our light and aligned to our essence and the more intentional is that we start to intentionally see and notice those little whispers that bubble up when we’re in a meeting and all of a sudden our intuition says no.

Okay. This is not right. Or, you know, we’re driving down the street and we notice a beautiful hawk that flies in front of our windshield that calls us out of our thinking, our churning of habit, what we, whatever we were noodling on, all of a sudden it takes us into a grander perspective. And all of a sudden an insight comes and we have the solution for the problem we were noodling on, right?

So that’s where it gets juicy and it gets playful of how aware can I be with a lightness of hand, with an open hand and an open heart to not then attach to thinking that I know what everything means because that’s not, that’s limiting too, right? But Yeah, so that that’s where the practice comes in to notice the signals and signs so that though we don’t have to get hit by the Mac truck, right, that we can participate in the unfolding in a more conscious way that’s joyful and fun and freer than it would look like through crisis or trauma.

Carolyn: Do you? Oh, sorry, Jeff. Go ahead. I was I just was getting excited.

Jeff: And just, and just choosing, I think, being intentional about your interpretations to, you know, it’s, I don’t know if everyone needs to have a Mack truck moment. I know both Jen and I did, and it sounds like you did and, and probably had way more of them than I realized. I think it just, at a certain point there was one that was so big that I couldn’t, I Couldn’t function anymore, literally couldn’t function.

And so that, that takes us all the way back to the idea of awareness, by the way, which is just, just being present to your thinking and understanding that you are not, you’re thinking, understanding that we have this constant narrative that’s going, most of us, a commentary about what is happening. And. Creating Jen likes to say, creating a little bit of space between your yourself and your thinking, creating a little bit of space between the narrative is, is 90 percent of the work that we do. 90 percent of the work at our retreat that’s called lantern is just helping people see, I can unplug from this constant stream of thoughts, the constant monkey mind that’s going like a typewriter at all hours of the day. think that’s what’s val can be valuable about the Mack Truck moment is it just, it just stops the narrative, right? You get caught in grief or joy or ecstasy or pain and you realize there’s something more than this constant thinking about what’s coming next and how you should react and what you hope happens and what you’re worried about and end and end and end.

So that, I think, You know, is there a tool beyond crisis? I, I, I hope there is, you know, I hope there is for people. And I do think that’s something that we see more in young people that we work with, is they’re growing up with, with a presence of mind that maybe we didn’t have. And that gives me a lot of hope too.

Carolyn: Yeah, yeah, you know, it is a question that that I ask a lot in this work is, do we have to have these, you know, Mac truck moments or a moment of crisis? And I wonder what the global crisis and the global suffering that we all see now and and have the ability to see if perhaps that is is what is driving some of the younger generation.

I still don’t know what that answer is, too, because there has to be some sort of motivator or something that again to the awakening piece. And so I hope that work like yours and others that will come after us will continue to provide language and accessibility to do this work. So, I’m going to come back to the word that we said earlier, Jennifer, so that it doesn’t seem woo woo that it seems a.

A logical step in the path of leadership, if you are going to take that responsibility of leading an organization or a group of people, the best way you can serve them is by knowing about yourself, your reactivity, your own patterns, so that you can make those intentional choices. That’s my hope. And I think, I think we’re probably on the same page as that.

Jennifer: Yeah, I think, you know, I’m not speaking for everybody as a leader, but I think a lot of us as leaders Seek to be the best we can be and seek to awaken that in the people we lead that they high performing teams, whether you’ve been an athlete or, you know, studied high performance and business. It’s a, it’s a.

There’s a, there’s a commonality of wanting to unleash full potential. And I think our view from walking and living and, and what we’re still practicing is, how do I know when I am. Being my best, like what is that feeling? And that takes us back to this container of being that is infinitely potent. It’s infinite potential and it doesn’t grow to the size of my body.

It doesn’t shape shift by the clothes I wear. It doesn’t depend upon my color of my skin eyes. background, where I came from, the language I speak. It is so far beyond what we have been told. Is our form in personality and how we have to show up in the world. And so much of that is unconscious from the cultural conditioning, family systems and past downs heritage that we’ve adopted unknowingly.

But part of the invitation of leading with light is to re identify instead of with our ego and our mind and our personality and our body. The identification of light that we are light, and that’s really the first principle of practicing conscious leadership. The first light is the acknowledgement that you are light.

A leader is a light for others in the basic definition. We lead the way. We light the torch in darkness. We point to where we could all go. We model what it could look like for it to be possible in, in different ways. And re identifying whether you call that light, your soul, your essence, spirit, your energetic field It doesn’t die when our bodies pass on and it, it, it lives and breathes beyond our physical form and the world needs each one of our unique lights to shine, to make this all work.

So at the basis premise, like, the first idea is that we re identify, we re hope that we are the light in the world that we seek because we are that. In it, in its finest, most formless form. Jeff,

Jeff: I want to definitely point out how Jen finally got us to the four lights question.

Carolyn: She’s pretty good.

Jennifer: weave.

Jeff: was I want to point out how she definitely did it. Not definitely pointed out, but that was, that was amazing. And one thing I want to point before I go to light too, that I hope people are hearing when we talk about this definition of conscious leadership, there’s nothing in what Jen just said that says leadership is about title or role or salary.

Right. Or, or education. If, if leadership starts with being a light, it means we’re all leaders at times. And that point of sometimes the leadership is most needed in times that are dark. That, that is why we sometimes attract problems. It’s because when everything’s going well, you know, you don’t need leadership. You can light a candle when it’s bright outside. It’s easier to see you when it’s dark out, right? So that gets us to the second light. The second idea that we talk about in the book. If if one a leader is a light two your light is always on. And what we mean by that is at your times of it’s it’s easy to identify with being a leader. Or being your best when you feel at the top of your game, when you wake up and everything goes well, when you just win a big client, when you’re just promoted, when you take a new job, you know, maybe when your kids go off to college, whenever you feel accomplished, it’s easy to see that, Oh yeah, I’m a light.

It’s harder to see when you get fired, when your relationship breaks up, when something tragic happens to a child, when you go through times of pain or uncertainty. But our second point is that even in those moments, you have everything you need. You’re still exactly the same person. The circumstances around you have changed and they might be a lot more difficult to navigate, but everything that you had in that moment of achievement, that moment of strength, you have in that moment of weakness.

And the what if that we talk about in the people we work with is what if a feeling of insecurity or a feeling of anxiety, a feeling of stress that we all experience because we’re human. What if those are actually designed to remind us of how powerful we are? What if you can see, Oh, every time I’m anxious, it’s not, doesn’t mean that there’s something that’s real there that I need to fear it’s remind it’s a way.

It’s designed to help me remember, okay, I’ve got this. I’m still the same strong and capable person. I was yesterday. I just don’t like this day or these circumstances as much, which is natural. And like, look, if we could all work on the beach in Hawaii every day, we would right. Why not? But we can’t always do that figuratively or literally.

So that’s the 2nd light. This idea that your light is always on sometimes it’s harder to see sometimes it’s harder to tap into but it’s always there. It’s always accessible to you.

Carolyn: I, I, I just, I’m, I’m really taken with that description of you can’t see the light as much in the day, but it is always on. I think we forget that often. And, you know, again, I’m just kind of going back to those days of leadership in a big building, a big corporate building. Is we were trained and we were rewarded for finding the problems for seeking them out and fixing them

Jennifer: Right.

Carolyn: and you just lose track of the fact that the lights always on. You don’t need to go find these deep dark corners. They will find you. Wow. Yeah, that’s pretty. That’s pretty amazing.

Jennifer: Well, you know, the sun’s still shining, even if it’s crappy weather

Carolyn: Yeah,

Jennifer: you know, we just can’t see it, but we know it’s there. And Michael Neal, one of our favorite authors and teachers of The Three Principles, he talks a lot about that, using that analogy, and I think it’s a, it’s a wonderful reminder, you know, to the point without going down a deeper, darker or deeper rabbit hole.

But what you just said, Carolyn, in terms of leadership being rewarded to solve problems and find out the challenges, whatever we’re focusing on, we are forming, we are feeding, wherever we are bringing our attention, we are growing. So if we are in a reward Cycle of needing to find problems. We’re going to find more problems to solve as Jeff shared.

And so it’s conscious leadership is really tell asking ourselves, like, do we really want to continue the narrative of whatever we’re saying to ourselves? Is that a place we want to feed? Because wherever we are. Placing our attention. We are literally watering. We are putting the sunlight on it so it can grow fertile ground.

And is that the reality we want to be invested in? So to go back just real briefly, I just want to make one point that Jeff was sharing about light too. The human journey is just not linear. You know, like I can’t tell you how many times I go to sleep feeling great. And I wake up in the morning and I’m like, what the hell just happened?

Like, did I have a nightmare? Did I not get enough sleep? And like, I’m trying to figure out why I just woke up in a low mood. Well, that’s just because I’m wired. We are wired as human beings to have a full range of emotional experiences. And our path in our days and our careers is not linear. It’s an up and down constant journey.

And so part of What we’re learning is to loosen the grip, loosen the grip of needing to know what just happened, needing to figure it out and allowing myself to reorient my focus behind that feeling of feeling low to the light that I am, I am. And it goes beyond the feeling of how I’m feeling in the moment.

And that for some reason, that becomes a touchstone of re identifying with the infinite possibility of what that, it isn’t just light bubbles and feeling good. It is the dark and light. It is the contrast. It is the ups and downs that help us grow into the best that People we can be and that kind of leads into the third light, which really for us took the pressure off because I think we all can relate to being seekers, high performers, wanting to be the best.

Want, wanting and needing to figure out the plan, being the one that says, okay, I know where we’re going three years from now. Well, I don’t. And the, the invitation of the third light, which is you only need to see what’s right in front of you, essentially. This idea that you. We use the metaphor of a lantern.

You’re walking through the the woods and it’s becoming darker and darker as you walk and you, let’s say you have a backpack as you’re walking through the woods. You pull out a camping lantern and you can’t see any longer because the sun has gone down. You turn on the light and you bring it above your head.

Now that light, yeah. It only illuminates about 10 feet around you. That’s all you can see that’s lit up. Everything else is in the dark. So it’s kind of arrogant to think that we can actually see beyond the light field, right? But for somehow in leadership and in business, we’ve kind of been tapped and taken on the responsibility that we need to know where we’re going two, three years out.

And it’s total bullshit. We can’t see that far. So if we really attune to where that light is shining on us and we pay attention to the cues that are being illuminated through conversations with people, I think of somebody, they call me the next day. Oh my gosh, how does that happen? Or I notice a word on a license plate.

That is the exact word I was searching for, for a conversation in my next meeting. with my team. Or all of a sudden I walk through a doorway and I get an insight that gives me the answer to something I was doing on with my husband. Like these are cues that show up right in our field and they are a personal, they are personalized, they are completely timely, and they inform what next step to take.

That’s all we have to figure out is if the light is illuminating what’s right around, then what is showing up in my field that’s informing me what next step to take. And if I don’t know what next step to take, don’t take it. If you don’t have to, you wait until the light illuminates. What that could be, because we can promise you that when it’s meant to come, it will come, but it really helps to take the pressure off that.

We have to think about the 2, 3 year strategic plan. Now, we have to do that in business, but the, I yeah, go ahead.

Carolyn: Well, I, I, I love the image and you even held like the lantern up high, which illuminates behind you as well. It’s a full circle.

Jennifer: it is. Yes, exactly.

Carolyn: yeah. I love that image. Jeff, were you going to add something or were you going to definitely take us into light number

Jeff: I’m gonna do I’m gonna do both. I’m gonna I’m gonna add and then I’m gonna transition But what I want to add is is where I think Jen just left off with we often, when we get to this point in our work, particularly with teams, someone will raise their hand and say, wait, are you saying that we don’t need to do a budget?

And we don’t need to do a strategic plan. And so I want to just address that point because there’s huge value in budgeting. There’s huge value in strategic plans. The value is in discussion and alignment and talking through how we would react in certain situations where budgets and plans kind of, I think become tyrants is when we put them in Excel and think that now we’re predicting the future and that’s the way things are going to work.

Right. And, you know, we’ll often talk with teams about this and say, did you do a budget for 2024? Yeah. How long was it valid? Oh, until the second week of January. And then something happened that we didn’t expect. Right. I mean, we all have been there. It’s a, it’s hysterical. So we’re not saying that, you know, this, this idea of the third light means that we don’t envision, we don’t dream about possibility.

We don’t try to mitigate risks. We’re just saying that. Be aware of none of that means you’re going to control what happens next. And I would tell you back to COVID, this is a really hard conversation to have until March 2020. And then a whole bunch of executives started to be like, Oh, my gosh, you’re exactly right.

And we burn a whole quarter deploying the whole company in this useless PowerPoint exercise of strategic planning. And meanwhile, no one is nimble. No one has thought about what we, how we plan. Care for ourselves. No one has talked about what we each need. If something goes wrong. And by the way, no one has talked about what’s going to happen.

If we actually do twice as better at our goals than we think we’re incredibly bad in business at doing the what ifs that are positive. Everyone’s pretty good about thinking about all the negative scenarios. So I just want to talk about this. This doesn’t mean don’t have goals. Don’t dream big. It means.

Realize your place in the world, which I’m definitely going to take us to the fourth light,

Carolyn: All right.

Jeff: is the fourth light is that there’s a larger light guiding us that we live in a universal context. And we mean this in our definition. This is a spiritual. This is a spiritual sense, but we also mean just in a physical sense, there is, there’s a larger world around us and you can call it God, or you might just say it’s science, but you exist in a world that’s not just about you and that we can choose that to be belittling or or overwhelming, or we can choose it to mean that we’re meant to be here.

That we’re each unique and that we each belong and that we have a role to play in this world. And this, this to me was the one I think when we were coming up with this. The set of tenants that didn’t come up, like everything we talk about, this didn’t happen in like one day with us sitting down, you know, in the old board.

This was, this was years of talking through and deciding and pushing and pulling and seeing what felt real to us. I think this felt so woo woo to me. At first, until I settled into just watching how I parent and wanting my kids to have a view of the world that wasn’t just their iPhone and wanting them to see their place in the world that wasn’t through a screen and finding language for them about, you know, the sun comes up in the morning, not because Apple says that it will in your phone.

Like, The sun comes up because we’re part of this huge, this huge mechanism that’s actually miraculous. And as much as we know, there’s more that we don’t. And this, I think as leaders is a wonderful invitation to slow down and settle when things go off, which they will, maybe it’s not off. Maybe it’s actually designed in a way that if you can just be patient.

Something else is coming along that’s better and it can sound so cliche and it can sound so trite, just like every rom com trope, you know, you don’t fall in love with the person that you want, but then the person that you actually, you know, needed was, was there behind it. But we all have so many experiences every day of seeing that the, like getting delayed and you miss your flight and then something happens to that flight or, you know, not wanting to go to a party and then you You bump into someone who becomes your best friend.

There’s a design, there’s an architecture to this existence that maybe we can take the pressure off a little bit. Maybe we don’t have to know it all. Maybe we can trust that, that this journey, this windy path is twisty and turny as it is, and as frustrating as it can be, maybe it’s ultimately designed to be benevolent and good, and it’s working on our behalf and what would that belief do for you?

What would, how would that belief change you if you could feel that way?

Carolyn: Yeah. Oof. Well, I can tell you what I’m thinking when it would make me feel a heck of a lot lighter. And I’m using that word on purpose. What’s your hope? What’s your hope for this book? For your beautiful, wonderful book?

Jennifer: Yeah, we hope it gets in the hands of millions of people across the globe who are seeking that something more, that they, they feel like they’re called to be more of themselves. And we hope that people really find value and that, In our as we, we share what’s there that people see themselves in our stories and in their own stories, we woven a lot of our kind of business experiences and then personal stories that hopefully demonstrates this interconnection weave that we’re all part of the same source.

We are all come from the same place and we have different experiences, but I think our hope is that. This creates peace. It creates affirmation that we’re okay, and we’re, we’re guided and supported by a benevolent force that is infinitely good and has infinite potential in it. And I think our hope is also that businesses, Use this with their employees and HR organizations see value in, you know, helping their employees and people be seen as whole and giving them their culture as permission to really extract the wisdom, the talent, the passion and personal care that is uniquely designed in each one of their team members that it’s not left for.

You know, summer camp, it’s not left for, you know, a one day team retreat that this is part of a woven conversation of what it could mean all year round.

Carolyn: Yeah. Jeff, anything to add?

Jeff: Well it’s a lovely question. Thank you. I, I have a quick story I wanted to add. Jen and I were talking about this, you know, when you write a book, and especially if you co-write a book, you talk about this as you go, because it’s a long process as you know Carolyn, and you’ve done it twice, which is amazing.

And I think this was six or seven months ago I was saying, yeah. Wow. I hope. I hope hundreds of thousands. No, I hope millions of people buy the book. And this is what’s just one of the many things that’s wonderful about working with Jen. She stopped me and she said, I hope millions of people read it.

And, and I think that’s what we hope that, that every copy is dog eared and underlined and has been passed to three people. And that, you know, it’s, it’s kind of been people’s field book for, for just trying to, trying to live. a calmer, more fulfilling life. I think that would feel really, really gratifying.

You know, I imagine, I don’t want to project onto you, but we have a kind of work that is very difficult to describe to people. And and the people who go through it get it and they love it, but then they can’t describe it to the people who need it. And it’s just this, this massive conundrum. And we’ve been really touched at how just everybody knows what a book is.

Right. You might not know what a, what a conscious consultant is or what, what it means to like grow as a conscious business, but everybody’s read something and everybody has written something. And so I think that is another hope is that this, this idea of living more in a, living in a more conscious way becomes a, a, a little bit more demystified by us. grounding it just, and just like you’re doing, just like there’s thousands of practitioners doing this, that, that this in our part, we help this conversation become the human conversation, because that’s what it is. It’s not a, it’s not a strange conversation. It’s, it’s the conversation we are all having as, as people incarnated on this planet right now.

Carolyn: Yeah, well, I can tell you, I’ve got lots of digital marks on my book my digital version and I, I, yeah, I highly recommend anybody listening to this. Please go buy this book leading with light, choosing conscious leadership when you’re ready for more. The best places to get it. I’m going to guess across the usual platforms.

Will it be in bookstores as well?

Jennifer: Yes,

Carolyn: find you virtually as well? I’m sure there’ll be lots of opportunities to learn more about your work there.

Jennifer: thank you. Yes, it’s all available on wherever you buy your book. It’s on Amazon. You can find it directly at leadingwithlightthebook. com and our consulting coaching company called Plenty Consulting. You can find us at plentyconsulting. com. If you’d like to learn more about our services and our retreats.

In beautiful Park City, we have a. wonderful retreat center we call Heart Space, where we have conscious leadership retreats throughout the year. We’re running our ninth year, going into our ninth year this year, and it’s really special if you’re interested in Practicing and immersing yourself in the, the experience of conscious leadership with strangers from around the world who are called to do the same thing using nature as a tool and as a backdrop here at the base of beautiful Park City Mountain Resorts.

Carolyn: Jeff, anything you want to add?

Jeff: I, well, one thing I want to say just to give some other outlets, a plug, I know many people use Amazon every day in their lives. And many people aren’t part of that ecosystem and don’t want to be. So you can find the book at Barnes and Noble. You can find the book at bookshop, which is a really great site.

If you have a local independent bookstore that you like to support, you can actually designate them on bookshop. And. The the purchase will get credited to them. So there’s, there’s a way to get the book in whatever way is the way that you want to participate in, in the economy. And I think we’re really proud of that.

So I just want to thank you for having us and thank you for the work that you’re doing in leading yourself consciously leading your sons consciously and leading people by bringing this message to them. So thank you,

Carolyn: you. Well, yeah, thank you very much for that. It’s it has been amazing doing this podcast and all the wonderful people I get connected to and kind of like, you know, the lantern, I didn’t quite know where I was going with it, but it really felt like, a path that I wanted to take, and I just love just how things have shown up for me, including both of you and your wonderful work.

So we’ll make sure that all of those links go into our show notes. And before we wrap up this conversation, I would like to see if you both would be interested in answering the 3 questions that I ask of. All of our guests, so that’s putting a little bit of pressure on. You don’t have to 

Jennifer: I’m happy to, we, we are up for playing.

Carolyn: All right. So, these 3 questions are part of my, my evolve model, which has to do with self awareness, self regulation and co regulation. So you can see similar themes to what you wrote about as well. And so I’m going to start off with the first the first questions about self awareness and if you both want to answer it, that that’s great, really and we’ve kind of maybe talked a little bit about it in the form of Mac truck moments, but maybe it doesn’t have to be a Mac truck moment, but just something that you remember that you want to share with, with the audience.

That was just a moment of enlightenment, a moment of, Oh. I thought this, but actually this was happening.

Jennifer: Yeah, I actually do write about this a bit briefly in our book. It’s amazing the editing process though,

because I really wanted to have it be like, it could have been its own chapter with the details of actually what did happen. And then after like 12 million edits, the story just gets down to like one point I was trying to make of 10.

So I will cut to the chase. But in 1990. Let’s see. Why was it around 1995? I had an experience where I left my physical body and in that moment, I had a vision where I was on an operating table and I was surrounded by nurses and doctors and I could see inside their heart space glowing with a golden light. And some of them were aware of their own light, and some of them were not. And I, in that moment of seeing other people’s light, I had this realization that I must be light too. That my body was on the operating table, but my conscious awareness was not. was seeing everything with the most utmost clarity and still identifying to self and soul in some capacity beyond my body.

And it was in that moment that I had this visceral experience bathed in the most unbelievable, unconditional love. I could, I can’t even describe the heat, the comfort, the joy, the connection I felt in this experience, overwhelmed with unconditional love, that I have a body, but I am not my body. I have a mind, but I am not my mind.

I have thoughts, but I’m not those thoughts. I was something greater and that experience of my own light and seeing that light in existence of others was, changed everything for me. It changed really how I identified with myself. I’d been an athlete my whole life. And so my physical being was how I performed and accomplished.

And it really was this experience of my something more that I was, I was light. And so are you.

Carolyn: Wow. It’s beautiful. That’s beautiful.

Jeff: That’s lovely. And I think we did, I think you did that story justice in the book. I just want to tell you, but it deserves its own book at some point, which hopefully will be coming. The one that I would say is, is also, there’s a quick version of this in the book and I’ll try to be brief. It was either at the end of 2015 or the end of 2016.

I can’t quite remember, partly, I think buoyed by the work Jen and I had been doing with Lantern, but also doing together, you know, trying to co lead a company. You end up working on each other and with each other a lot. I, on New Year’s Eve said to my kids, I’m going to give up worry. 

Carolyn: Oh, 

Jeff: giving up worry and I love alliteration.

We talk about hope needs help a plenty, a lot. I love little phrases. And the phrase that I came up with was worry doesn’t work. And I had just done it as a bit of a joke. Cause we’re all, I was sitting around with my kids and who’s going to give up what? And I’m going to give up chocolate. I’m going to give up soda.

I said, I’m going to give up worry. And I think I’d done it for my kid. I kind of raised some worry warts, but I raised worry warts because I’m a worry wart and the process of doing it helped me get so clear on how I was using worry as a drug, as a habit that I would, I would downshift to it. When.

My mind was anxious or, or bored or distracted. And I would replay conversations over and over and over. And then I would think about what ifs over and over and, and actually again, creating a little bit of space, creating some awareness by, by making it funny. I really started to see how often I would worry and how little I valued it, how little I value it and other people and how much I I disliked it in myself and it just was a huge opening for me.

One, in being more forgiving with myself about times that I get caught up in thinking like that, but also a huge opening for me to say, well, what if I replace that worry with something else? What if I was grateful or what if I imagined something prosperous for myself? Or what if I put even a 10th of the time that I put in worry into imagining the best outcome possible, what could I harness?

So it’s I guess that’s my story. I’ll

Carolyn: Wow. I was waiting for an alliteration with W. Replacing worry with wonder, maybe.

Jeff: Worry with wonder. I like it.

Carolyn: There you go. There you go.

Jennifer: juicy.

Carolyn: Yeah, those were both juicy. I love that word too. Second question is, it’s really kind of, it’s back to into our body. And so curious if you could share with us a practice that you use to bring you back into the present moment.

Sometimes we’ll call that regulation or self regulation. Presencing, but something that gets us connected with our body. It’s a practice you

Jennifer: I have actually a whole bunch here, but for decades I’ve been every morning pulling something from an Oracle card deck. So these used to, it started out as tarot. I never was a huge tarot, you know, but as soon as the more new age, Oracle decks are called kind of came to the scene. Now there are so many, but like they’re, they’re just a bunch of different cards and every card has, and every deck has a different meaning.

So there’s some decks are based on poetry. Some are based on nature. Some are beautiful colors or meaning of crystals or shamanism. Whatever. Anyway, so every morning, I really enjoy getting quiet. And sometimes that takes a form of meditating where I am listening to a guided meditation.

Sometimes I listen to my own meditations I’ve created for others. And sometimes I’m just sitting in silence and Setting an intention or asking the universe to show me what I need to hear today. And then I’ll pick a card. And I mean, I have done this, I think since I, you know, my mom introduced me to this method when I was 10 and I’m 51.

So it’s been many decades of practice. I still am in awe. My breath still gets taken away. Of the majesty of the signs in the universe that bring me just that glimmer of hope or embodiment to be grounded in the present moment for what I need to hear and see that day. And it’s really fun to share that with others, but that for me grounds me and takes me into the present moment in a more connected way.

Carolyn: mm That’s lovely. And it’s reminding me that I’ve got my Oracle cards over there and I haven’t looked at them lately.

Jennifer: There you go.

Jeff: great one.

Carolyn: Jeff.

Jeff: mine is that, and today was day 4, 100. I have journaled 4, 100 days in a row. I wake up, make my coffee and sit down with myself. And it’s actually was something I started as an outgrowth of my dad being killed, which we talked about earlier, and just getting, coming to terms with My own thinking, but it has become the one thing every day.

I’ll never miss even, you know, if I miss a workout or I don’t eat well, or don’t sleep well every single day, I’ll journal. And I, It’s been an amazing practice. I don’t know really what else to say about it. People ask me about it and say, what do you write? And you know, it’s drivel. I mean, it’s, it’s a lot of it’s just hysterical when you read it.

It’s cringeworthy. You can’t go back and look at it. what happens is you become, you become one. You notice your habits. I notice what I’m going to stress about and that helps it become less real. And you also notice how you talk to yourself and when you notice it, you decide you’re going to treat yourself better.

And it’s really been a way for me to become a great friend to myself. And I don’t mean that in like an ego. I hope people can hear how I mean it, but to treat myself with kindness and treat myself with respect and, and have an honest conversation. I would say it’s the one place that there’s no Posturing, misleading, you know, a temptation to exaggerate.

And that’s allowed me to practice that in the rest of my relationships too. So, I w I recommend I, and I often, thanks to Jen will. Do it together. So she encouraged me to start with Oracle cards and it’s been a really great thing that I’ve added into my day. And we’ll often pick one and write about what it, what I see there.

So, but that, that practice of just having quiet time to talk to yourself and observe has been real game changer for me.

Carolyn: That’s, I hear it. I hear it. Wow. Thank you. Well, our last question is really connected to wonder and awe, if I may say those words. And I find that music is a great way to feel connected to something bigger than yourself. I know I’m not the only one who finds that. And that’s my question is, what is a song?

If you’d like to share a particular song or a genre of music that really helps you feel connected to something bigger than yourself.

Jeff: Well, this is a tough one for both of us. I’m really interested in what Jen’s going to pick. We, we love music. I just have to like, we, I could go a thousand different ways with this question.

Jennifer: Jeff’s a musician, so I will make that plug. Jeff has his own music he’s created.

Jeff: I’m going to, now I’m going to just, now this, this might be egotistical, but I’m going to say this one years ago, I think it was again, 2015 or 2016, Jen, who has limitless, wonderful ideas said to me on like December 1st or 2nd or 3rd or something like that. We should do a creation for winter solstice. And I was like, sure.

Thinking like we’re going to do a blog post or something. She started to talk about it. It was, it became, we should do a poem with original music that has a full video attached to it. And, and like, this is why Jen’s a great business. We like, you don’t say no to this. You just say, okay. And we, we hung on for dear life and took two weeks and somehow in two weeks, Created this magical this magical creation that people can find on YouTube or on our website, and it’s a winter solstice poem.

Jen wrote these incredible words and speaks the poem and I wrote the music or I channeled the music, I think is how we’d say it because anyone who’s written anything or created anything, you realize you’re, you’re communing with. The divine, you really are. You have no idea later. I can listen to it now and be like, wow, how did, where did that come from?

And so it’s fun. It’s been a fun, it’s been lovely, but not just fun, but every year there’s a winter solstice. And so we republish it and put it out there and new people hear it and listen to it. And I’m the further we get from the year we created it. I’m one of those new people. So I listened to it every year.

And I just think like, it really reminds me of how. We’re made of the divine, how this, this thing is so much greater than the sum of its parts, like, and I can’t remember. I can’t intellectualize how we created it. I’ve got a lot of love for it. But now I just appreciate it from afar. I really appreciate those two people who years ago did that work and it speaks to me and inspires me that like Jen has said a few times, we have this limitless creative potential that if we can get out of our own way, it’s just there for us, it’s wanting to create with us if we’ll let it.

So. That’s terrible that I’m picking our own song, Jen, but I’m

Carolyn: I don’t think

Jeff: ours.

Carolyn: at all. I think it’s amazing.

Jeff: That’s what, so that’s mine. What is yours? I’m so interested in what you’re going to pick

Jennifer: Well, I love my playlist and I’m happy to make it public. It’s called J love and I kind of started it after doing my own heart healing journey a couple of years or a year ago and I’ve just been adding on to it and it’s really a blend of it. There’s no words on the soundtrack. It’s all spiritual new age.

Native American Celtic fairy it’s just mystical. It’s a mystical playlist. And I find that I really step into that infinite possibility space with music. So I, I write, I listen, I sleep, I do listen in the car to create that peaceful, grounded space. Grounded experience through that playlist and would say that Native American flute music.

I have a search Native American sleep. Native American flute sleep music is where I tend to really go to this peaceful, relaxed, open, receiving. Jennifer that I, I really love to be. So, I would say that’s my genre and that’s what lights me up.

Carolyn: amazing. You know, I listen to music when I sleep diurnal beats or different sort of, of frequencies. And I’m going to put that one on tonight, Jennifer, that you were saying the Native American flute sleep. Cause yeah, there’s definitely something with, with connecting to different. Levels of our consciousness that are outside of our awareness that I think that that will help with.

Wow. Well, I’m sad to bring our conversation at least this conversation to an end. Thank you both so much, not only for coming on the show, but for all of the tremendous. Work that you’re doing to bring this notion of consciousness and bring spirituality into the business room. I know, you know, plenty is a very, very successful consulting business.

And I just love the path that you’re showing people and leaders that we can have all of this integration of ourselves and who we are, and we can be successful in our. Pursuits in the business world as well. So thank you so much to both of you for everything.

Jennifer: you so much. We’re deeply honored and thank you to all of your listeners and all of your creations. We are just feel so blessed to be able to be woven together to meet in this forum and hope it’s one of many conversations to come. And please know we’re here to support your work. Beautiful work, too.

And to see the sisterhood and brotherhood and in that, in that becoming that is so needed through your books and your voice. And thank you for spending the time with us today.

Carolyn: Oh, thank you, Jennifer.

Jeff: Thank you.

Carolyn: And all of you listeners out there really, really highly recommend to purchase their book. Please, please, please do yourself. I wouldn’t say to yourself a favor. That’s not really my style to say that, but you will not be disappointed. All right. Thanks again, Jeff and Jennifer, and thank you evolve listeners.

We will see you with another episode next week. Bye for now.

When I prepare for these interviews, I always make sure I have a list of at least 15 questions. And I don’t know why every time when this is like what I’m on number episode 60 here, you think I would learn by now that I do not need that many questions at most, maybe five. But I did have a list of about 15 questions for Jennifer and Jeff.

And had we had more time, what I would have asked them to share with you is the number of times and the, the examples of leaders. Who thought they wanted a traditional approach and then came back to them at plenty consulting and said, you know, what we need something different and what their clients get from that something different.

Is what you just heard us talk about this notion of leading with more intention, awakening and consciousness. If you’re listening to some of these words and thinking, it’s a little woo, woo, Carolyn, that’s okay. This is an invitation for you to take it if you’d like, and you can read their book and learn about how they are taking organizations across various sectors.

Through this leadership journey that really does bring them different results. And Hey, if you like their book, you can also pick up mine too. Or if you’ve read mine, I bet you’re going to love theirs. Thanks so much for tuning in really appreciate this journey that you’re on with us here at evolve. And if you like what you’re listening to, I’d really appreciate it if you could subscribe and just.

Even maybe leave a review if you’d like, but at the very least, if you could just leave a rating, I would so appreciate it. Thanks again for tuning in and we will see you next week. Bye for now.