Heal to Lead with Kelly Campbell

[00:00:00] Carolyn: Hi, welcome to evolve a new era of leadership. I’m your host, Carolyn Suara. And today I am so excited to be talking to Kelly Campbell. Now, late last year, I met Kelly through a reference, uh, through a referral, and I was so excited to meet her because she was writing this book. called heal to lead revolutionizing leadership through trauma healing.

Now, if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you know that trauma informed leadership is a topic that I feel quite passionate about. So I had the honor of Reading one of the advanced copies of Kelly’s book. And it blew my mind. It’s so beautifully written. Kelly is a fabulous writer. And in all honesty, I refer her book.

I refer people to her book more than my own now. Um, so I’m really excited to have this conversation with Kelly. Uh, Kelly writes for, um, the entrepreneur they’ve written for Forbes. And they also have a sub stack community. We’re going to learn more about that as well. It’s called the new TLC. Kelly was a founder and CEO of a cause marketing agency and sold it in 2006.

Going to hear a little bit more about that experience as well. And just really, really excited to. Have this conversation with somebody who feels just as passionate as I do about the topic. You’re not going to want to miss this one. Hope you enjoy it.

Well, here we are in our next episode. And as I just shared with you, I am so excited for this conversation with Kelly. Kelly Campbell, welcome to the show.

[00:01:50] Kelly: Thank you so much, Carolyn. I am more excited about this show. It’s not a competition, but I, I have been really looking forward to this discussion

[00:01:58] Carolyn: Yeah. Now I just, uh, I just shared with the audience before we started recording that you and I met late last year and I immediately fangirled with you because the topics of our book were so aligned. Um, And I absolutely fell in love with what you wrote, how you wrote it, your approach. And I would love if we could talk about everything and every, like anything and everything about your book, Heel to Lead.

I know it comes out in April. Um, I think it is a must read for any leader out there who really cares about themselves and their people. So,

[00:02:37] Kelly: That’s a great way to put it. Um, cause it has to start with the self. How can you lead other people? If you are having difficulty leading yourself, right? I think that’s the great question to ask and to start with.

[00:02:49] Carolyn: it is. And so, Oh, there’s so many things that, um, where we can go with this. I’m going to use myself as an example. Kelly, um, is for many years, I think I’m like the, I think it was like the average person. I was going to work doing a good enough job leading, but there was this piece in me that was being held back, but I just kind of thought it was me.

Like there’s something wrong with me. I need to get better. So. Let’s kind of, if we kind of look at that persona, I think there’s a lot of people, right, living in that space. They don’t really know, like, why do I need to heal? This book isn’t for me. But why do people need to read this book? Think of that, like, those like me.

How is your book going to help them? Right.

[00:03:40] Kelly: an established leader, right? Where you’ve really pushed through your emotions. You’ve pushed through a lot of your own walls internally and externally in order to kind of arrive at some level of success, whatever that, you know, metric was for you. My question for those who say this book isn’t for me, what is healing have to do with leadership is how is that that approach working for you?

Right. How is the push through? How is the grind? How is the hustle culture, the suppression of emotions, the three glasses of wine after work? How is that working for you? Right? Is that a strategy that is giving you the ability to live the life that you want to live? So yes, it’s about work and leadership, but it’s, we can’t separate these things as here.

We show up as this particular type of person or part of a person at work and the other part at home with our spouses, partners, children, et cetera. We’re all the same. We’re all the same person, right? So instead of siloing that out and saying, well, healing work is for You know, my personhood leadership is for work.

It’s like, these things are inextricably intertwined. And the sooner that we arrive at accepting that, the sooner we’ll get to the point where we realize that integrating our trauma or not doing the work to integrate our trauma is directly impacting how we lead other people.

[00:05:19] Carolyn: Yeah. Well, and I mean, I started my big corporate job, uh, in 1999, so 20, oh my gosh, 25 years ago. Um, and that was not the mentality, right? And so we have to invite ourselves also onto this journey. And I’m curious before we get into other aspects of the book, what have you found that’s in your experience with your coaching and your just experience with other people, what invites them?

What makes this notion of healing more inviting or more necessary?

[00:05:56] Kelly: They have to be in pain. They have to be in enough pain where the mentality is, I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep going the way that I’ve been going. Something has to give, right? I say that in the cover of the inside jacket of the book. Something has to give. We can keep trying to do these things in isolation and pretend that.

Trauma and pain and all these things running the script in the back of our minds, we can pretend that they’re not there, but they will catch up with us, right? And so wouldn’t you rather take responsibility and ownership and do it at your own pace and in your own way, versus being confronted with an illness, right, or being taken out by something else that is really out of your control. Right? So it’s really about developing that self awareness, which I know you talk about a lot, developing that self awareness to say, Hey, wait a minute, I might be contributing to some of the issues here as a leader. Where is my ownership and responsibility online? Can I put my ego aside for a moment and really ask myself this question?

Right. I have so many, um, Coaching clients that I’ve worked with over the last several years who are very quick to blame employees and really, you know, um, just, yeah, complain about all of the ways in which they’re showing up in ways that were different than how they showed up when they were. You know, younger, right? my question is always, with all due respect, how are you contributing to the situation? And once in a while, because I work with a lot of self aware people, once in a while, it does take them off guard, right? What do you mean? No, it’s this person. This person is doing that. So I think we have to pause.

And really think about things differently that that sort of antiquated thinking and mindset of it’s out. It’s external. The issues are external and I am not responsible for them, nor am I contributing to them. That’s an antiquated. you know, mode of thinking. And that’s why, you know, this book and the subtext, revolutionizing leadership through trauma healing, it literally is about taking ownership and responsibility for yourself so that you can lead your organization more effectively.

[00:08:28] Carolyn: Right. You’re not responsible for what happens to you, but you’re responsible for how you react to it and respond to it.

[00:08:35] Kelly: The, the way that I say that is trauma, you know, it’s not something that we consent to. Right? It was nothing that has ever happened to me or you or anyone else was ever our fault.

[00:08:48] Carolyn: Yep.

[00:08:49] Kelly: However, it is our responsibility to heal and integrate it into our way of being.

[00:08:54] Carolyn: Yep. So beautifully said. So beautifully said. Um, I just want to rewind a little bit. You mentioned there about putting our ego down and what’s been an interesting learning for me is that my ego. wasn’t this sort of persona that was mean to people or talked over them or was really loud and obnoxious. My ego showed up in a very different way in the form of helping people too much. and not putting my needs or not even knowing that I had needs. And so that’s been a really interesting journey for me personally. And also when I work with my clients is what do you mean? That’s what ego actually looks like. There’s so many sort of insidious ways this ego can show up. Hmm,

[00:09:45] Kelly: pleasing leader. And so people pleasing has the really, when you say insidious, it has this particular flavor that could show up as conscious leadership.

[00:09:59] Carolyn: exactly.

[00:10:00] Kelly: And so we’re really nice. We’re polite. We make sure that everyone feels seen, heard, understood. Um, you would think that people pleasing leaders were better than people controlling leaders, more effective.

[00:10:14] Carolyn: Nope.

[00:10:15] Kelly: I argue that it’s actually the opposite, because at least with the people controlling leader, there’s predictability there.

[00:10:22] Carolyn: Yep.

[00:10:23] Kelly: Right? You it’s a whizzy wig. What you see is what you get. Right? I’m going to have an authoritarian style. I’m going to take credit for your work. I’m going to, you know, maybe berate you.

A people controlling leader. And it doesn’t always have to look exactly like that. I’m just using a few examples, but at least I know what I’m getting now with a people controlling, sorry, people pleasing leader. And you and I will share this in common. When I had my agency, I was very much a people pleasing leader.

I wanted my team. I wanted my clients. I wanted everyone to like me. And so the way to get people to like you and feel a sense of belonging. Is to do exactly that and make sure everyone is tended to and cared for and all of that. But what inherently happens is there’s a sense of, or a bit of emotional manipulation that comes with that type of people pleasing.

Right, I can somehow get you to do things because I’m caring for you over here. But really, there’s an agenda underneath it. The other way that it shows up, which is, you know, really undermines efficacy in organizations is because I’m pleasing. I don’t want to burden someone else and ask them to do something for me.

So I have a problem.

[00:11:43] Carolyn: all on.

[00:11:43] Kelly: Yeah, I have a problem asking for what I need, what I want to, to get the resources that I need to lead effectively. So I’ll take it all on. I’ll say, yes, I won’t delegate and therefore I get burned out overwhelmed. And at the same time, I’m disempowering my employees or other team members because now they think that I don’t think that they can do the job right.

There are so many ways. That are kind of insidious where people pleasing leadership shows up and and that is a trauma response, right? Because we are taught inadvertently when we’re younger that in order to quote unquote succeed or survive, especially in younger years. These are the mechanisms and the strategies that we need to employ.

[00:12:34] Carolyn: I mean, that, that was just a huge, huge eye opener for me. Um, you, you taught at the other thing, one of the things I loved about your book too, is you just talked, those are very simple styles for people to relate with the controlling versus the pleasing. And in fact, they’re both kind of controlling.

They’re just controlling in a different way. Um, I’m curious, this question just came to me. What’s your opinion on personality assessments or, um, psychometric tools that perhaps tell us what style we are, where can they be helpful, and where can we use them to deepen our healing?

[00:13:13] Kelly: That’s a great question. I’m glad that it just popped into your head. I think that there’s merit to those types of tools, but I don’t think that there’s enough nuance, right? Um, it’s sort of like. I don’t know. I could say the same thing, uh, about astrology, right? Just as another example of tools that people use, most people think of astrology as just sun signs, maybe a rising sign, but when you do a natal chart, it’s in a, it’s a much more complicated and nuanced way of thinking about a particular person and the particular moment that they were born in the same way that you’re talking about personality and these other, um, tools.

It will give you a picture, it will give you a snapshot, a more than a generality. And so there’s a place for that, for sure. It might tell you how you might categorize team members or, um, pair team members, you know, in a particular group for a particular project. It might be helpful in a situation like that.

But I don’t know that it gives you the nuance because it’s not talking about the life experience of that person. It’s not a Taking into account the traumatic experiences that that person has endured, um, nor is it taking into account the healing work that that person has done. Right. So, yes, there’s a place for them.

It’s not nuanced enough for me,

[00:14:44] Carolyn: Right. Right. And how would you, um, Well, then where do we direct? Let’s just, you know, there’s, there could be coaches listening to this as well. Where do we direct folks after they start learning about themselves and they see some of these patterns? Where do you take your clients after that? Or are clients already seeking you out because you know, because they know you go a little bit deeper,

[00:15:12] Kelly: know, I don’t know the answer to that. It whether clients seek me out. I know that there are clients who are in enough pain. I always say, um, where they want to make a change. They know it’s not a business coach and they’re probably already seeing a therapist. I’m sort of a hybrid of the two without being a psychologist,

[00:15:32] Carolyn: Yep.

[00:15:33] Kelly: Um, so it’s like, I know that my past and emotional wounds are At play here, I know that they’re holding me back from the leader that I know that I could be for my optimal function as a leader and I want to have a successful organization, whether, you know, it’s a founder and entrepreneur or inside of a larger organization, corporate government, nonprofit, et cetera.

So there’s a level of self awareness there. But where do they go? After there is that self awareness. Yep. They might come to a trauma informed leadership coach like me. They might also dive into different types of healing modalities. In the book, I talk about, um, this supplement, this online supplement, myhealingmenu.

com. It’s definitely not an exhaustive list and there will be lots and lots of modalities added to it, but it gives you a good sense of the types of resources Tools, practices, rituals, um, plant medicines, even all somatic experiencing all of these different things that are available that have never been brought together in a centralized platform before.

Um, and it’s really just a menu. That’s it. There’s no, there’s nothing to buy. There’s no, it’s not, that’s not what it’s for. It’s really just a menu of, if you don’t know, where to go next. Here’s a place where at least there’s a menu for you to peruse.

[00:17:03] Carolyn: And is that your site, Kelly? Did you create that site?

[00:17:06] Kelly: Yeah. So that’s the supplement to the book.

[00:17:08] Carolyn: Oh, Oh, we’re going to make sure that we get that into the, into the show notes. Um, I mean that in and of itself is an element of being trauma informed. You’re not saying this is what you have to do. It’s the invitation and your body you’re into, like your body will tell you here.

This seems, this seems interesting. Whatever you’re drawn to is probably. a good indicator or a signal that that might be the most appropriate next step for you.

[00:17:34] Kelly: And so what you’re talking about, when you say the body, you’re talking about your intuition, trusting your intuition, listening to it, listening to the senses and the experiences that are coming from you, from inside of you, that becomes amplified as you do more and more healing work. Right. You can’t turn it off at some point.

There’s no going back. You know, your body will tell you, um, sometimes with a client, I might ask a question and they may say, well, I don’t really know. And I’ll say, okay, if you feel comfortable, close your eyes. Now, think about that question. Is there a place in your body where it feels, um, light? Or is there a place where it feels more dense?

Um, is there a color that comes up? Is that color more positive or negative for you? Like, what are the connotations? Because all different people experience these things intuitively differently, right? Some people it’s color, some people it’s sensation, it’s emotion, it’s visualization. We, all of us are so similar, As humans, but we are so, so much an ombre of how we actually show up and feel and think and, and all of this.

So you know, that trusting of your intuition. A lot of people, I think, have thought about, maybe they haven’t thought about it, but maybe there, there historically have distrusted themselves. Right. Sneaked X externally or sought externally for answers. And the reality is you have so many answers literally sitting inside of your body.

We just have to pull the layers of silt away so that you can gain access to that, that, you know, intelligence and that wisdom.

[00:19:24] Carolyn: Yeah, absolutely. I just, I just finished writing a short little newsletter about, um, Spidey Sense. I mean, that’s, that’s essentially Spidey Sense. We all have it and it gets knocked out of us. I know for me, I just thought there’s no time for that. Like whatever, go away. Stop talking to me, body. Like you’re, you’re in the way.

Um, and I think that that is where there’s so much opportunity in its simplicity to just invite the sensations in. I think if, if people started doing that, we would have some progression forward that would allow for sort of the next level of healing, right? We can’t fix everything. We’re not looking to fix people either.

I think that’s another thing I’ve learned with this work. It’s not about fixing as much as it is about inviting people to find out who they really truly are. Would you agree with that?

[00:20:18] Kelly: Yeah. So for me, you know, I think about my clients as whole and complete as they are. Right. Like they are the subject matter experts of their own lives. it. There’s nothing broken. There’s nothing to fix

[00:20:31] Carolyn: Yeah.

[00:20:32] Kelly: from, and that’s really the, the, the difference with, or the difference between trauma informed coaching, trauma informed leadership coaching and therapy,

[00:20:43] Carolyn: Mm,

[00:20:44] Kelly: Therapy absolutely has its place. I am actively. Seeking and going back into therapy after 11 years of not doing that, um, it absolutely has its place, but that’s more of an assessment model. It’s more of a diagnostic model. It’s more of a clinical approach to cognitive behavioral, right? is not that. posits something very different. Right. Which is why many of my clients find it very helpful to be working with a therapist and also to be working with a trauma informed leadership coach. They’re very different modalities.

[00:21:21] Carolyn: Very, very much so. I had a client say to me a few years ago, just how much it complimented. It’s like, Oh, this is really helping make sense of what I talked about here. And, and, and likewise. Um, yeah, thank you for, for, uh, distinguishing that. Cause I was thinking that’d be a good follow up question. In your book, Kelly, you talked about four fundamentals of high conscious leadership.

So low conscious leadership is sort of like the way I described myself several years ago, low conscious, and that my ego was getting in the way I was trying to please. What do these four fundamentals of high conscious leadership look like? Hmm.

[00:22:02] Kelly: important one is fundamental number one, which is integrating trauma. It’s what I’ve dedicated half of the book to. So the other three fundamentals got the last half of the book. Um, integrating trauma is sort of the, the. That inflection point between what do we mean between a conscious leader and a high conscious leader or not the inflection point rather, but, but the difference between them, right?

Like, what is the, what is the thing that’s going to say? Okay, now I’m leading from a place of consciousness and here, you know, then there’s this, this sort of additional level, or I don’t know what you want to call it, but the difference really is in are you doing your work? Okay. Are you doing your healing work, your inner work?

Are you doing the work on yourself to become a better leader, a better human, a better person, or are you not right? Because I think that there can be conscious leaders who have some level of self awareness. They do want to support their teams, their, their employees. They do take the environment into consideration, and they understand that profitability is a lagging indicator and that all 3 of these things should live on equal plane.

Right. Thumbs up. High conscious leaders take this a step further and they really double down on the trauma integration because they understand that that unlocks a level of consciousness that isn’t possible without doing that work. So that’s so integrating trauma is fundamental. Number 1. Fundamental number 2 is embodying vulnerability.

So the reason why I talk about it as a form of embodiment is because it’s one thing to be vulnerable, right? We can have a conversation and say something that’s really honest, something that’s very personable, something that makes us a little bit more approachable. Again, there could be some emotional manipulation there.

[00:24:09] Carolyn: Yep.

[00:24:10] Kelly: I’ll leave that there. Um, but the embodiment of vulnerability is different. Okay. And it’s only through the trauma integration. Can you understand what I even mean by embodiment? Yeah.

[00:24:23] Carolyn: when I saw embody and vulnerability, you know, um, I remember when I was trained as a dare to lead facilitator and Bernie said, one of the greatest casualties of trauma is the inability to be vulnerable. And I wrote it down. I circled it, highlighted it, and I forgot that I had written it down until I went back and I was researching for my book.

And the penny dropped for me and I thought, Oh my gosh, if I am going into these workplaces and I’m, I’m inviting people, teaching them about vulnerability, it is going to like knock on the door of, Of these inner experiences that people have had. And so that’s, that was a big reason why I pursued the depth around being trauma informed and really taking that responsibility, um, to a whole other level.

Cause if I’m going to tap on the door, which, which I am the work, the work that I do, and if we’re going to really invite invulnerability in a safer way into our organizations, We have to know that trauma symptoms are going to show up and I don’t want to run from it and I run a therapist. We’re not going to go on a couch and try and figure this out, but here’s what I’ve learned about embodying vulnerability is I learned how to hold space and not get activated myself and have any of my old wounds show up as a defense mechanism.

[00:25:51] Kelly: So that’s part of the embodiment is the space holding

[00:25:55] Carolyn: Yeah, it’s, and that’s not a word that we’re used to hearing in the corporate spaces.

[00:26:03] Kelly: No. So embodiment and that space holding is a big part of it because if you are not resourced enough, you don’t do the trauma healing work enough. You can’t be resourced enough to hold that space for someone else as they’re being vulnerable. Also, what you just mentioned is as they’re being vulnerable, there’s sort of this boomerang effect, right?

They’re being vulnerable, something that someone says in a share could be activating to you. How do you hold space within yourself for that?

[00:26:35] Carolyn: Yeah.

[00:26:35] Kelly: That’s what I mean by the embodiment, right? So it’s holding space for and holding space within making sure that we feel rooted and grounded, no matter whether we’re the space holder or we’re the embodiment.

In the space and a receiver of information that could be activating for us.

[00:26:51] Carolyn: Yeah. And Kelly, when you work with your clients, how do you help them through that process? What are some things that you do with them to help them do this in a way that their body can work with it?

[00:27:06] Kelly: Well, I think everything has to be at their own pace. I can never have an agenda. Right. I think this is just part of being trauma informed and going through trauma and from coach training is really understanding that everybody has their own pace. Everyone has their own comfort level with what they’re going to share what they’re willing to share what they have capacity to share because I also don’t know how much work they have done prior to showing up.

In that session today,

[00:27:34] Carolyn: Yeah.

[00:27:34] Kelly: um, so how, how I hold them is actually, um, the best thing that I can do for them in that moment is to hold myself, right? Because the more rooted that I am, and the more centered and stable I am, I can hold them, whichever way they wobble, right? And then what I’m actually doing is empowering them to hold themselves.

That’s where the real work is.

[00:28:00] Carolyn: Now you and I both know this word holding space. It doesn’t feel, uh, uncomfortable for me to say that anymore. What, um, Do you use any other words or how would you describe holding space for people who are maybe tipping their, dipping their toe into this work?

[00:28:19] Kelly: Well, I think an example is probably best, you know, to sort of describe this. If someone comes to you and says, I just, you know, received some really terrible news. Maybe a loved one passed away. Maybe they received a, you know, a cancer diagnosis. Some kind of news that is very heavy. There’s a lot of emotional weight to it. Holding space does not look like trying to fix or save that person in that moment or trying to use some kind of toxic positive like, oh, it’s going to get better. You know, this, this too shall pass a lot of these, you know, colloquialisms. It does not look like that. What it looks like is you not getting activated in that moment, you listening more than you’re speaking, you holding the emotions of that person.

Wherever they go,

[00:29:20] Carolyn: Right.

[00:29:21] Kelly: that person is just starting to show some emotion and then dials it back really quickly because they realize that they’re not ready to be vulnerable or whether they are literally sobbing into their hands, whichever way they go. You’re holding space the same way you’re holding yourself the same way, and you’re holding them the same way.

It doesn’t mean that you can’t console them and maybe put, you know, your hand on their shoulder or back, but it’s not about trying to change their emotional experience. That’s what I mean by holding space.

[00:29:53] Carolyn: Yeah. It’s, it’s like, um, witnessing it or seeing it and knowing that you see them.

[00:30:00] Kelly: That’s it.

[00:30:01] Carolyn: Um, you know, I think back this, this memory, gosh, and it would have been 20, it’ll be 21 years ago. I remember telling one of my good friends about the cancer diagnosis that my then husband had. And I remember sitting in her office and I, I sort of, I didn’t find out at work, but there was a call that made me very suspicious based on what the radiologist had said.

So I went over into her office. No, that we must’ve had the original diagnosis by then. Anyway, I went into her office and I told her, really good friend of mine, and she started to tear up just a small tear. And she’s not a crier. And I looked at her and I said, there will be no tears. There will be no tears.

Everything is going to be fine. And I think back. And so she followed, she went with it for me, with me. Um, what does holding space look like in that situation?

[00:30:56] Kelly: Yeah, that’s a beautiful example, and thank you for sharing that. So in that moment, that friend was not able to hold space for you. And the reason why I know that is because she was not rooted enough to, of course we can have emotions. We’re human, but holding space means that I’m rooted enough to not make you have to care for me in that moment.

When you’re telling me this difficult news, if I’m your friend and I’m crying now, all of a sudden you have to shift what your experience is. And now you have to tend to me because I’m crying.

[00:31:35] Carolyn: And what if that’s a really toxic but not toxic pattern that I had because I wouldn’t let anybody cry around me. I

[00:31:43] Kelly: Because you were not comfortable with that. You yourself were not comfortable with that level of emotion. Maybe, maybe in the workplace, maybe outside of it. I don’t know. But, you know, I don’t know that I would call that toxic. I would call that maybe, um,

[00:31:59] Carolyn: unproductive. It’s true. I wouldn’t call it toxic. I guess where I’m trying to get at, and frankly, I know this is kind of crossing outside of leadership and more into like, how can we do this for each other? Um, but like when I look back to that, that whole experience, so many people didn’t realize how much, how much in pain, like how in pain I really truly was.

I didn’t even really realize it, but it was because I wouldn’t let any of that in. I didn’t know how, I didn’t know how to accept any of that.

[00:32:34] Kelly: yeah. Does it make sense to you now all these years later? Why?

[00:32:40] Carolyn: Oh, totally. And I, and I just think like, what could anybody have done? I don’t think they could have done anything.

[00:32:51] Kelly: Yeah. I mean, if you’re not ready for it, the best thing that they can do is listen and ask you really great questions.

[00:32:57] Carolyn: Right. And I think if we circle back to holding space, you know, in that moment, I wasn’t letting anybody in. I didn’t know it at the time. I thought I was being strong. Um, but as leaders, we’re not there to fix or ask all the right, perfect questions. Like this is where I come back to like intuition or that body sense again, be with them.

And if they don’t want to talk about it, then it can be, thank you for sharing. This must be really difficult. I’m here. If you need more, like, let’s talk about how this might impact your work so we can support you through this difficult time. Like that’s, I just want, I want people listening. If this feels like awkward and crunchy.

It, it doesn’t, it doesn’t have to go into the depths, perhaps that we started to wander into

[00:33:41] Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. No. And, and I think that’s okay to wander into the depths. I think we, we are so adverse to it. I think it’s okay to do that. You know, I think the more that we actually normalize that and do that, the better we’re going to be, because what we’re talking about are very human issues. We’re talking about emotion.

We’re talking about things that have happened to loved ones. We can’t. Pretend that we don’t bring our humanity into the workplace. Now, as a leader, do I need to play the role of therapist with every single one of my employees? Absolutely not. Do I need to know every single thing there is to know about trauma and the nervous system and ACEs and big and small T trauma?

Like, no, I don’t, that I don’t need to be trained to that level. I am not there to go. Process past trauma with my employees. That is not my role as the leader, but it is my role to support them. And if that means thanking them for sharing and being, you know, in a vulnerable moment in the workplace and letting them know that I am there.

Leading from a place of compassion, which is fundamental number three. Um, then that’s, that’s what I’m doing. And that employee or those employees will remember how you made them feel in that moment.

[00:35:04] Carolyn: Yep.

[00:35:05] Kelly: Right.

[00:35:06] Carolyn: Absolutely.

[00:35:07] Kelly: It’s not business as usual. If I’m sharing something hard, it’s not. Oh, that has no place here. It’s time to go back to work.

Do you want the number one reason why I’m going to walk out the door and I’m probably your best employee if you treated me like that. Right? So that’s what we mean by holding space. And I think that there is a myth around this idea that having trauma informed leaders means that we need to know everything there is about trauma and act as therapists.

It’s literally the opposite of that.

[00:35:37] Carolyn: Yep. Mythbusters. That’s a Mythbusters right there. Um, I’m going to add another question there. Is leading with compassion, how do we prepare our bodies, our physiology to be able to do these things?

[00:35:55] Kelly: That’s an interesting question. So I want to just. The bifurcation between, you hear a lot about empathy and there was a very specific reason why I did not use empathy.

[00:36:06] Carolyn: Yep.

[00:36:07] Kelly: So I just want to talk about that for a minute, because I think that that helps to then go into the preparedness. Um, so empathy, we’ll do this real quick and simple.

Empathy is feeling with compassion is feeling with, and then taking action. So that’s just the bifurcation there. So leading with compassion is I’m going to lead from a place of seeing and feeling with my employees experience if they bring something difficult to me, or if there’s something happening within the organization, what have you.

And then I’m going to take some kind of action because I’m a leader, right? So how could we not lead with compassion? Part of leadership is to take action. How we prepare ourselves for that compassionate leadership is we use our intellect. don’t necessarily always use our bodies. We use our intuition and we use our intellect.

[00:37:04] Carolyn: Mm hmm.

[00:37:05] Kelly: And part of that is asking a series of questions. What does this employee need at this time? What is the business need? And what do I need? Right, so when we run these things through these series of questions, we come out with an answer as to like, what is that action that I’m going to take? What is appropriate here?

Right? One of the examples that I use in the book is if you have an employee who’s struggling with drug addiction, that employee comes to you. And says, Hey, this is what, you know, I’m struggling with, you’re not going to dip into your kid’s college fund and put that person into an inpatient program. That would be out of alignment with, I mean, lots of HIPAA issues and things like that, but, but that would be out of alignment with the action that you would take, right?

That wouldn’t be good for you. That wouldn’t be good for the organization. There’d be a whole liability thing. So we have to be strategic. And we have to show support in intelligent ways, right? One of the, one of the chapters is actually compassionate intelligence, because there are so many leaders, especially people pleasing leaders that would lean in to a disproportionate degree.

And I wanted to make sure that it was very clear, you know, what I was proposing here.

[00:38:21] Carolyn: Well, and I like that blend of compassionate intelligence, um, because I hear a head, yes, definitely head, but I also hear head and heart in that, like, what are those questions I need to ask? And maybe the body isn’t the right indicator here, but I’m going to come back to physiologically physiologically.

Physiologically, it’s hard to tolerate vulnerability. if we haven’t done our own healing. And I think that was, that was, um, a really, I think that’s an important piece of the conversation as these leaders get further into embracing these principles. There is a physiological, um, impact on this, and this is where resourcing comes in and learning how to, um, regulate, like we can throw all these terms, but at the end of the day, how are we filling up our tank? Yeah.

[00:39:12] Kelly: Yeah, I think it’s, it is good to go back to the physiology, right? Because I think you’re right. When there is compassion that needs to come online, a leader who is not well resourced Is going to feel really blown out by receiving that news and receiving that information. They’re going to do a lot of emotional labor to try to figure out how do I solve this?

Or like, do I even need to get involved with this? What is the line here? And so you can hear just even in my voice as I’m. Uh, sort of mimicking or demonstrating what that leader might be going through. I don’t seem grounded, right? I seem very shakable.

[00:39:54] Carolyn: Mm hmm.

[00:39:54] Kelly: And so the more that I do minor work, the more that I can understand myself, what my role is.

In these situations, um, the better I’m going to be able to show up in a, in a way that other people, particularly my, particularly my employees are going to feel like I’m reliable. Right and so that’s really what it is people. I think that here’s another myth buster leaders, some leaders, many leaders have this idea that they need to have all of the answers.

They need to solve everything. What if it’s not about that? What if it’s not about you having the answers? What if it’s about you asking good questions? What if it’s not about you solving anything, right? What if it’s about you empowering people to solve their own issues, support when needed, but you know, empowering them to solve their own issues.

So I think. In general, everything that we have been taught about leadership over the last 200 plus years is just wrong. Mm-Hmm?

[00:40:59] Carolyn: Yep. It’s evolved. It’s evolved. That’s why I called my book Evolve is it has evolved. And so are we going to evolve with it or are we going to stay here stuck in these same swirls? Um, I believe this is where There’s, we’re seeing so much burnout, I think with 2020 and how that that year just broke open so many issues into the light of day.

Um, I think this is where we burn out when we don’t know the difference between compassion and empathy and we get stuck in the emotion or people can get stuck in the emotion and don’t know how to unhook or don’t know how to hold space without diving in and being in the depths with them.

[00:41:48] Kelly: Mm-Hmm. . That’s part of it. I think it’s also about delegation. A big part of this also, Carolyn, is uh, boundaries.

[00:41:56] Carolyn: Mm.

[00:41:56] Kelly: Right? A huge part of this is boundaries. Burnout is really rooted in poor boundary setting.

[00:42:05] Carolyn: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, say more, cause I, I was sort of inferring that, but what piece did I miss that

[00:42:11] Kelly: No, not that you missed it. It’s just that, you know, I think a lot of people who burn out and who feel that, that real sense of overwhelm have such an issue with asking for help saying what their capacity and capabilities are, you know, what they have the breath to actually take on.

[00:42:34] Carolyn: Yep.

[00:42:35] Kelly: And. I think we’ve just, we’ve live in and have lived in a culture for a really long time where anything counter to that is seen as weakness.

[00:42:47] Carolyn: Yep.

[00:42:48] Kelly: Right? And so that’s part of the issue here. Um, hustle and grind culture creates burnout. Poor boundaries create burnout. Right? Um. Yeah, it’s that’s where we’re at. And like you said, where are we going to go from here? Because we can’t keep going the way that we’re going, right? We can’t go backwards and we can’t go.

You know, the same way that we’ve been going status quo. So if the only option is to change it, how are you going to change

[00:43:15] Carolyn: Exactly.

[00:43:16] Kelly: Yeah.

[00:43:17] Carolyn: Um, what’s the fourth, the fourth principle? Lighting the way.

[00:43:20] Kelly: Fourth fundamental is lighting the way. So lighting the way, this is where we get into, it’s not just about your work and vulnerability and compassion. It’s about how are you lighting the way for change, for the, um, the betterment of your employees and their lives and the community, and really what is our, what is our, um, Responsibility for restoration of the land.

[00:43:55] Carolyn: Mm.

[00:43:56] Kelly: So, it’s lighting the way for all stakeholders. We often think about human. First leadership, human centric leadership that leaves out a whole lot of beings.

[00:44:09] Carolyn: It does.

[00:44:10] Kelly: And so there’s, you know, an indigenous wind wisdom that is brought into this that I don’t often see in any type of leadership conversations. But again, if we go back to that question, if we know that we need to change, how are we going to change and to what degree are we going to change?

And what is actually the vision and the trajectory of where we’re going to go? Cause we need a North star,

[00:44:36] Carolyn: Mm hmm.

[00:44:37] Kelly: right? And so this idea of reciprocity and restoration with the land, it’s not just consider the environment as we do in conscious leadership and the 1 percent back. And it’s all great. And it’s not enough anymore.

[00:44:53] Carolyn: These, these four fundamentals really, and I’m sure you built it this way, is like in inside first and then a little step outwards, a little step outward more. And then that last one lighting the way is really like this whole, we’re part, we’re like little specks of a big, huge collective piece. And so much of our North American culture has taught us that it’s better fight for your own individualistic.

Uh, and I just love the return the way that you have. woven that whole collective perspective so beautifully into those four principles or those four fundamentals.

[00:45:29] Kelly: this comes back to the ego, right? The more that the ego is online. And by the way, I don’t want to give the, the sort of, um, false idea here that we want to get rid of the ego. The ego is very important. Right. The ego keeps us safe.

[00:45:44] Carolyn: Yep.

[00:45:45] Kelly: Um, but there is a point where the ego is sort of in overdrive and is over functioning.

And that’s where we think about self actualization being the top of the food chain, right? That’s not actually the way that it was really designed. It’s more about Communal perpetuity, cultural perpetuity, and this is, again, all indigenous wisdom. This is not coming from me. This has been going on for centuries.

And it’s just that we, at some point, I mean, we know when at some point. Um, went in a very different direction and thought that that was not wisdom. We thought that that was simplicity and that we could do so much better. And it was wrong. It was wrong. And so it’s a return to, this is why, you know, the great remembering is part, the last part of the book, because this isn’t a new way of thinking.

This is remembering an old way of thinking, which is now become new again. So that’s what I mean by lighting the way.

[00:46:55] Carolyn: Do you think that that notion of self actualization, do you think you need to be in a place of self actualization to remember and come back to that collective wisdom? Like, is there another piece on top of that peak?

[00:47:10] Kelly: Well, in, you know, in nozzle’s hierarchy, you’ve got self actualization and, um, what is it? Transcendence is actually the top of that peak. Right. Um,

[00:47:21] Carolyn: Well, the updated version, right? The updated version has. Yeah.

[00:47:24] Kelly: yeah, yeah. Do, do you need that? I don’t know. I mean, in indigenous cultures, um, you know, 85 to 90 percent of the people kind of arrive self actualized because of the, their way of being.

So I don’t know that you need, okay. Maybe you need that, but I don’t know that we need to focus on it the way that we have been. You know, in North America.

[00:47:51] Carolyn: I think what I was getting curious about is, is there’s this whole other side that we just haven’t seen after self actualization or transcendence that is much more collective in nature. Um,

[00:48:02] Kelly: Yeah. But that was by design.

[00:48:04] Carolyn: right. Right.

[00:48:05] Kelly: That was by design. So, you know, we’ve been following, um, you know, these. Researchers and these psychologists, and we’ve been following, especially that particular hierarchy. Since it came out and really using it as gospel.

[00:48:22] Carolyn: Yeah.

[00:48:23] Kelly: And, you know, it, I think it, it has sure there were, there’s some merit to it for sure.

Um, but I think it’s led us in a direction where we find ourselves today. Right.

[00:48:37] Carolyn: Yeah. Oh Kelly, I could talk to you for hours. Um, where can people find this incredible book that you have put together?

[00:48:48] Kelly: So the official publication date for the book is April 30th and it’ll be available at first. I mean, it is available Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

[00:48:59] Carolyn: Okay.

[00:49:00] Kelly: And then going forward after that, I’m hoping that it will be more, um, independent bookstores and queer owned and black owned bookstores. So I’m going to really push for that.

But for right now, um, Amazon and Barnes and Noble,

[00:49:14] Carolyn: That’s wonderful. And who, who, who should pick this book up or not? I should, I don’t like to say that word. Who could really benefit from this book or who do you think would be most interested for this book?

[00:49:27] Kelly: I think emerging leaders would be the easiest, um, you know, or, or most curious about it. Because emerging leaders really, they want to do a good job. There probably has been in therapy already. Um, and this is their language.

[00:49:49] Carolyn: Hmm.

[00:49:50] Kelly: So emerging leaders, it’s, it’s easy, right? New managers, new directors, anyone, you know, and I say emerging, not necessarily from a age perspective, but anyone who is finding themselves in a place where they’re managing people that used to be their peers.

[00:50:06] Carolyn: Right.

[00:50:07] Kelly: I think, um, the established leaders are also going to be interested in this because they’re the ones who are completely burnt out. They’re the ones who realize that they cannot keep going the way that they’re going. The path that they’re on is unsustainable and They must feel a paradigm shift here.

[00:50:28] Carolyn: Mm hmm.

[00:50:28] Kelly: And so, you know, I do want to say that there are some people who say, I don’t understand why isn’t this a self help book?

I was so clear that this was a business leadership book. And I waited until I got a publisher who understood that. And I, you know, in, in Wiley, I really got a publisher who understood that and advocated for that. This is a business leadership book. This is ultimately about how will this make an organization more effective?

How will the organization make money from a sustainable standpoint? So, you know, it really is for those established leaders who are like, I don’t know, is this something that, um, I should be reading because it’s really going to help the bottom line, right? If I’m a for profit organization, the answer is yes.

Yes, by working on yourself, that lagging indicator of profitability is absolutely impacted.

[00:51:26] Carolyn: Absolutely.

[00:51:27] Kelly: you see that in organizations that you work with. I see that with leaders that I work with. And so that’s why it was so important for this to be a business leadership book.

[00:51:36] Carolyn: Now, I know you also have this other community, the TLC community or your TLC work. Can you just share a little bit about that?

[00:51:44] Kelly: Yeah, so I write on Substack. Um, it’s the new TLC, which is trauma, leadership and consciousness. And so that’s just sort of a community on Substack that I write for. There are notes, you know, periodically that I’ll, I’ll, you know, add into the community. It’s a really beautiful community of people who understand that Leadership is a healing journey and they want to understand more about that.

And so in that community, I also share exclusive content that never made it into the book, which is kind of fascinating. Um, there was a whole forward that was written by Gina Hayden, who, you know, was, uh, uh, one of my favorite authors and a good friend of mine. Um, And so the forward will be shared or the forward that never made it to the book will be shared there.

And some of the other stories that were cut out of the book, because I actually overwrote it by about 12, 000 words and had to cut all of that out. But, yeah, so that community is obviously free, you know, if people want to upgrade to a paid subscription, that’s fine. If they want to comment and engage inside of the community, but yeah, I love Substack.

I’m a fan.

[00:52:57] Carolyn: Yeah. Well, your, your writing is beautiful, brilliant. You just bring in all of this insight, uh, or, or evidence and references. It’s just, it’s such a credible, beautifully written piece of work. I really hope our listeners go out and buy it.

[00:53:15] Kelly: Thank you so much. I really appreciate those words.

[00:53:18] Carolyn: Uh, well, Kelly, before we hang up here, um, may I ask you the three evolved questions I ask all the

[00:53:25] Kelly: Yes, absolutely.

[00:53:27] Carolyn: All right. Well, the first question is, is really just an invitation for you to share something or a time, an anecdote of where your self awareness really went to a new level.

[00:53:43] Kelly: I think, um, recently I’ve been dealing with some personal, um, some personal issues and inner strength that I have found, I think has only been Available to me because of the, all of the healing work that I’ve done over the last, I don’t know, seven, eight, 10 years. And so to the point where, and I guess I’m answering this from like, I didn’t know I was this strong and I don’t mean strong in terms of resilient.

Cause I actually don’t use the word resilient. I mean, strong in terms of post traumatic growth, that kind of inner strength. Um, I feel very well resourced. To show up the way that I’m showing up and I could not have done that without, you know, engaging in really deep healing work, uh, and continue to do and will continue to do for the rest of my life.

Yeah.

[00:54:42] Carolyn: Thank you. Um, second question, you’ve got a whole website around this question, um, but it’s really what are some practices, uh, or rituals that you use to help, help you find calm or help regulate you, help you find some presence?

[00:55:00] Kelly: I mean, I say in the book that, um, there are hundreds of things, hundreds of modalities and resources on my healing menu. com. And, uh, there were probably when I had originally included that in the book, there were probably about 30 different ones from that original list that I engage with, um, on a, on a pretty regular basis, and sometimes only on a one time basis, but everything from.

Plant medicine, I did an ayahuasca journey in October of 2022, but, you know, that was sort of an outlier, right? Because I had never worked with psychedelics before on a more frequent basis. I think for me. Meditation breathwork as simplistic as those things may seem. This is the returning right? Like, getting back to these things that our society tends to devalue because they are simplistic breathwork and meditation have been.

Really a lifeblood for me. They are how I center before a coaching call. I do a group meditation with a small group of people every Monday and every Wednesday, sorry, every Wednesday and every Friday, um, in person at like seven 30 in the morning and we call it group meds

[00:56:18] Carolyn: Mm.

[00:56:19] Kelly: and it’s just a beautiful practice, you know, there’s a little Dharma talk, um, We read from Thich Nhat Hanh passages, we have a silent meditation, and I can bring that back in.

I don’t need to go somewhere for 30 minutes. Um,

[00:56:38] Carolyn: Exactly. Yeah.

[00:56:40] Kelly: bring that in to, you know, a three minute practice right before I hop on a call or in a moment where something is activating me. I can bring that in and, and pull that in and really rely on it. And I think that that’s accessible and available to all of us.

People will say, Oh, I’m not good at meditation. There’s no good. There’s no good. There just is.

[00:57:11] Carolyn: group that gets together virtual. This amazing, uh, woman in Nova Scotia. And she’s 70 plus years old and it’s free every day. Eight o’clock. I usually get on there four out of eight days or four out of seven days. Um, and when I don’t, I notice a difference. I really notice a difference and it doesn’t, it’s not like that, um, but it’s just, it’s just a continual resource.

Um, one of several,

[00:57:39] Kelly: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:57:40] Carolyn: Thank you for sharing

[00:57:41] Kelly: Yeah. I think it’s important to have something that is ritualistic, that is daily, like some kind of practice where you can really ground into, but then also not being afraid to explore other things. You know, my partner loves, um, Like cold plunges. And I was like, no, I don’t want to do cold plunges.

I like to be warm and cozy. Um, but no, really doing cold plunges has been amazing. again, I don’t do it all the time, but when we can, and when we’re in places that offer that, um, you know, it’s great for nervous system regulation, being inside of that cold water. And. You know, obviously there are varying degrees.

Sometimes people get, you know, they’re very, very cold or there’s like 60 something degrees. Um, and just being inside of that cool water or cold water and repeating a mantra, you know, I’m safe in my body. I’m safe in my body. I’m safe in my body. It really starts to come. sort of carve new neural pathways so that you don’t feel as activated when, you know, life is very lifey, right?

There are ups and downs, especially right now, the world that we’re living in. And, and so as these things kind of arise, They don’t have to knock you so off course. And I think that’s really what this is about. And that’s not that we want to just exist as like calm beings all the time. I know we’re humans.

But what it does is it gives you access to the full spectrum of emotion. And it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Lock you into staying in an emotion that you don’t actually want to stay in. Right. So, you know, there’s lots and lots of things that I engage in, um, that are in, in all of these realms.

[00:59:34] Carolyn: Yeah.

[00:59:35] Kelly: yeah, that’s a great question.

Thank you.

[00:59:36] Carolyn: All right. Last question is really this, um, using music to feel connected to something bigger than ourselves. So my question for you is what is a favorite song or genre of music that helps you feel connected to something bigger than yourself?

[00:59:52] Kelly: Hmm. I actually have two answers to this. Um, so I am a. Reiki practitioner, level three practitioner. And so I listened to a lot of Reiki music.

[01:00:05] Carolyn: Yeah.

[01:00:05] Kelly: And so whether that’s in the morning, I just have it on. It also keeps the dog really calm. Um, I like that genre of music when, you know, and it’s a lot of piano and maybe a little bit of guitar, some bells, little things like that.

No vocals. Sometimes just listening to the sounds. will ground me and maybe even uplift me in a way, depending upon what the song is. So I listen to that when I’m in the car. I’ll listen to that obviously during sessions, Reiki sessions. I enjoy that music. It just feels good to me. Um, a song in particular, I don’t know what it is about this, this particular artist, but I love Patti Griffin.

[01:00:52] Carolyn: Okay.

[01:00:52] Kelly: Love Patty Griffin. And there’s a song that Patty Griffin has, I don’t know which album it’s on, but it’s a song called river. And the whole idea is that, you know, isn’t she a river and she’s sort of using this metaphor of the river to describe all of the different parts and aspects of this person. And I really resonate with.

The lyrics very, very deeply. So that would be

[01:01:19] Carolyn: to pull that

[01:01:21] Kelly: you, you should listen to it.

[01:01:23] Carolyn: Yeah, I have a feeling that’s going to make it onto the playlist. Uh, well, Kelly, thank you again. I know it took us a few tries to get this and I’m glad it happened when it did. It just feels like this was the right time for us to do this. And I’m just so grateful to have met you and to, to know your work.

[01:01:40] Kelly: Yeah. And thank you for the book that you wrote, because I enjoyed that very much. Um, right after we met, I bought that, I read it on vacation and it was really just such a beautiful book. And thank you so much for writing that and putting that out into the world.

[01:01:56] Carolyn: Thank you. Well, here we go together, right? Here we go together into this world. And there’s so many other folks that are joining along in this movement. So it’s great to be in, in partnership and in community with you. Thanks, Kelly.

[01:02:08] Kelly: you, Carolyn.

[01:02:10] Carolyn: Oh, I’m just filled up with so many things after that conversation with Kelly. I hope that, uh, you were inspired to buy her book to sign up for her TLC work, Trauma Leadership and Consciousness. I was just asking Kelly actually about her writing and she shared just how much she loves to write. And I think that’s the best way I can describe her, her written work.

You can really, really. I found I could really connect to it quite well. That love, her ability to articulate herself in the written word is just, it’s just very, very proud, powerful. So again, as a reminder, the four fundamentals of high conscious leadership that you can read about in this book, one, integrating trauma, two, embodying vulnerability, three, leading with compassion and four, lighting the way.

These are four amazing fundamentals that I know will transform how you lead and how you live. I hope you can pick up her work. And Hey, if you’re buying one book, maybe buy two, you can buy mine in there with it. Actually. I wonder if maybe Amazon would say, if you like this, maybe you’ll like this in any case, really appreciate you being here.

Thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you next week.