welcome back leader happy you are here let's talk about leadership being a house of mirrors do you remember the house of mirrors when the carnival would come through town I was born and raised along the Texas-Mexican border. And so we didn't have much entertainment besides the river because I lived literally on the banks of the Rio Grande, the river that divides Mexico and Texas. And so we didn't have much entertainment, but water, just the water, right? We would go rowing with my dad or we would go to a nearby lake and go and fish and ride around. But for the most part, we didn't have much entertainment. And so we waited for the carnival to come through. Sometimes there was a circus, but mostly it was a carnival. And so I remembered waiting for the carnival, doing all the rides, loved anything that went upside down. I don't do it now as an adult, but I really enjoyed those moments hanging upside down somewhere. But the House of Mirrors was one of those attractions that freaked me out. Like the jump scare moments. I don't do well with jump scares. That's not my thing. Like in movies, anything supernatural stuff, I'm out of there. Can't do it. And so the House of Mirrors was an attraction that you may be familiar with. And it's where you walk into a maze, like an obstacle course maybe, and you are confronted with all these mirrors and you don't know what's real, what's fake. You are bumping your face into the mirror. I know I did many times to try to get out of the maze. And so sometimes a clown would jump out. Sometimes something else would jump out. And it was a total mess. It was a horror show for me, for real. That was like the ultimate worst. And so as I was putting this episode together, I was thinking of how everything in our lives is like a house of mirrors. Everything, meaning that whatever we project out into the world, we are receiving it through a reflection. We are getting a response from a teammate. Maybe we are in an argument with a lover. Maybe we are collaborating with someone in another department. We are always reflecting. We're always receiving a reflection based on our values, based on our ideologies and principles and even limiting beliefs. And so the way we behave and carry ourselves out in leadership or in the world altogether is unconscious. And so Dr. Bruce Lipton talks about this all the time. Even Joe Dispenza talks about this all the time, that ninety five percent of us are moving through our day at the unconscious level. Ninety five percent of our day is unconscious. So five percent is conscious. It's like you're alert. You are handling a heavy machine. Although sometimes you're handling a car and you go unconscious. Right. And then you wonder how you got to your workplace. You're like, how did I get here? Thank you, God. I'm here. Wow. Not sure how that happened, but it was your unconscious. And so these experts say that ninety five percent of our day is unconscious. And so here we are. reacting, making decisions, behaving, moving through our day with our unconscious. And what sits at the unconscious? Well, these experts also say that that's where your values are. That's where your emotions are, where your memories are, right? There's so much that is unconscious to us. But if we're running at ninety five percent of our day at this level, well, I think it's important that we as leaders take a moment and look within. Because if we are behaving and acting from ninety five percent of our unconscious, then we're not aware of what and how we are impacting our employees. And how I want to tie contemplative leadership into this is that contemplative leadership is a leadership style in which the leader takes the time to do the work ahead of time. This is the leader who wants to take a proactive approach, not a reactive. A lot of us out here know what reactive leadership looks like. It looks like a leader who is frantic, who is unhinged, who is highly emotional. Not that emotions are a bad thing in leadership, but this is where this person is unregulated in their emotional guidance system. And so the contemplative leadership is the opposite. The contemplative leadership says, you know, This is a sacred responsibility I have here as a leader because I also have a divine assignment. And the sacred responsibility is to transform the people that I lead. That's the sacred responsibility. And I take my leadership role very seriously. And so I'm going to do the work ahead of time. I'm going to do the self-awareness work ahead of time so that I don't show up like a reactive leader. I show up like a contemptive leader who is angry. fully aware of their gaps, their blind spots, their strengths even, and their weaknesses. This is a leader who says, okay, I want to be better. And I know I'm not the greatest. And I know I haven't mastered some things here, but I am willing to do the work. And the contemplative leader is very open. attuned to this divine assignment that only they have. See, I say this every episode, my divine assignment is not yours and yours is not his and his is not hers. We don't have the same divine assignment because why would we? We don't have the same fingerprints. We don't have the same face. Why would we have the same assignment? No, the assignment that was given to you is special to you, unique to you because you have very special gifts that I don't. You may not think of them as gifts, but if we take a moment and actually contemplate this and meditate on this, then you will realize, oh yeah, I actually do have gifts, right? Because what I do, Denise cannot do in the way I can do it because I'm I've seen life through this lens. I was raised in this way. I have programming that is unlike Denise's. And I've never been, not even a day in her shoes. And there's no way she knows what it's like to be in my shoes. So the way I do these gifts and the way I demonstrate these gifts are particular to me, unique to me. And so the contemplative leader knows they are unique in this way. And I call it the anointing. They are anointed with very special gifts, right? Listen, there's no time for humility here. I love saying this all the time. There's no time for humility. That's a whole other conversation in the religious aspect. But in spirituality, we don't even have that conversation. Humility has no business in what was granted, given to us, and then what we have honed because we have found awareness around these special desires and passions. And we've gone to go and actually hone these skills to where we are masterful in these skills. And so there's no humility in there. There's no room to discuss that. And so you in this moment should reflect on what it is that you are specifically designed to do. What is your divine assignment? And what were those gifts that are tied to this divine assignment? And so those are your anointings. So I have a nephew who years ago I remember saying, well, I'm anointed. I'm anointed. And he said, oh, excuse me, like high and mighty, righteous woman, you're anointed. But in the biblical sense, I was already anointed. looking at the gifts that I have and that I've taken, that I've accepted and I have thanked God for. And then I went home to some of those skills and have become masterful in these areas and then able to help other people transform their lives because of my very specific skills, my very specific gifts. And so that's what I meant by anointing. And so I tell them today, well, you know, so are you. And I hope you realize that one day that you are too, that's unique to you. And so it's important that we not compare ourselves, but that we take a moment. And again, this is contemplative leadership. We take a moment so that we can look at what was given to us. These are natural, inherent gifts. And the contemplative leader says, thank you. Thank you. I'll take them. And guess what? I'm going to run with them. Like he threw me the ball or spirit threw me the ball or the universe threw me the ball. Now it's up to me to run. Like I'm going to run and I'm going to get out of the way here because people are trying to tackle me down. And so I'm going to go do something about this. And that's what we get to do through this leadership style is take a moment Find awareness and then find the gratitude for what we have that the other person doesn't. But again, it's not about comparison. It's about, wow, I was given these very specific gifts and I never looked at it this way before. But I can design like no other. I can compute and code like no other. I can teach like no other. I can sew like no other. I can cook like no other. Because it's not about them. It's not about my gifts versus your gifts. It's my gifts. And I get to decide. whether I want to feel gratitude around this, and then also make a decision on whether I want to proceed with honing these very specific skills. But the next step is, well, I have gratitude. I'm honing these skills. And now what can these skills do for another? What can my skills do for another? Can I use these skills to transform the collective? Can I use these skills to move my people into another level? Can I use these skills for activism? By the way, leadership is a form of activism. And so we're activating humans, we're activating their spirits, and we're moving them in the direction in which we all move together as a collective to perform in a very specific way so that we can have specific results. Leadership is a form of activism. So are you using your skills to impact others? It's taking a moment, finding awareness, finding the gratitude, then honing those skills, and then moving. What am I going to use these skills for? Who will these skills impact? How can I make a difference in this collective? Because it cannot be about you. Contemplative leaders don't make it about themselves. Yes, we do the central work, right? Some people say, oh, that's a little egocentric. No, it's not egocentric. It's self-centric because I have to take care of the nucleus first, right? I have to take care of this body, physical, spiritual, emotional body first so that I can go take care of the collective, right? So I can go help the collective so I can help transform the collective. right so this isn't egoic this is very much the opposite it's actually bravery it's courage it's saying okay I'm flawed and and I know I've been given gifts and I know I'm anointed and so thank you I'm finding awareness around this and I'm so grateful now how will these skills benefit another besides my family and my children Can these skills support a community? Can these skills support an organization? Maybe just my department, maybe a nonprofit down the way, maybe your clients, maybe your customers, right? It's about looking outward. So we look inward so that we can then look outward so that we can help outward, but we have to do the internal work and that's contemplative leadership. And so how does this all tie into the house of mirrors? Again, it's what we've projected out into the world will reflect back to us like a house of mirrors, right? I used to tell this to my clients all the time, show me your results and I'll show you the quality of your thoughts. Show me the results you've created in your marriage, in your intimate relationship, with your children. with your in-laws even, with your teammates, with your peers, with your network, with your your higher power. Show me the results you've created in these areas of your life, in your finances, in your health and wellness, in your professional life, in your intimate life, in your recreational life. Show me the results you have created and I will show you the quality of your values, of your belief systems, of your ideologies, of your principles. Those results are a reflection of what you have projected out into these areas. So leadership is a house of mirrors. So you show up in the organization and a contemplative leader does the work first and says, okay, here's my divine assignment. I am grateful for these very specific gifts. And now I get to share this with my team. Now I get to share this with my clients and my customers. Now I get to share this with my stakeholders. Wow. I get to use what was given assigned to me. Because I'm the one anointed with these very special gifts. And you may not think they're special, but all that matters is that I do. But more importantly, what I'm going to do with these gifts will change a world, will change a community, will change a city. That's the idea of the house of mirrors in leadership. The contemplative leader is so brave because it takes courage. person to say who I'm flawed nothing about me is perfect nothing about me is perfect there are some really great parts of Who I am and there's some really dark shadows that I have not wanted to bring out into the light but the contemplative leader says but I'm brave This may scare me for a moment, but I'd rather it scare me, the jump scare in this moment, than this haunting me for the rest of my life. I'd rather do the work now and be scared now instead of living with a haunting of these regrets, of resentment, of bitterness. That's the contemplative leader. And that's what I'm wanting to bring out into this leadership space that no one has ever seen before because no one's talking about leadership in this way. And so I'm excited about contemplative leaders because we're the ones doing the work. We're the ones that are saying, thank you, grateful for these incredible gifts and anointing. And now I want to put this to good use. Now I want to share this with my community, with my team, with my department. So dear leader, you are being reflected. Everything is reflecting back on you every day. Just look for the results. Look for reactions. Look for responses. And then you're going to ask yourself, well, how did I create that? What did I have to do with it? Did I have anything to do with that? If I am leading this team and this is how they responded and this is the result they gave me, Us and this department, hmm, what about those results could I have done differently? What did I do to contribute to that specific result? That's the start of a contemplative leader. They go, okay. How did I contribute to that? Let me take a moment and reflect on that. And you'll be surprised when you don't make it about them, when you don't blame them, when you don't point the finger at them, when you don't say it's all their fault. No, it's I'm the leader. I'm going to take responsibility. And by the way, it's a sacred responsibility because I was given a divine assignment. So if that's your mindset, because you're a contemplative leader, then you're not going to point the finger at anyone ever again. You're not going to do that ever again. You're going to take a moment and say, huh, how was I responsible for that? Let me take a moment to just mull that over. It doesn't have to be a whole day. It could be five minutes. Put the timer on. Hmm. Let me contemplate on this for a moment. And then take some responsibility here because I'm the one ultimately responsible for this team's success and failures. So let me do the work. So leader, the house of mirrors, that's your whole life. Start looking at all the areas of your life because it is reflecting right back to you. You are seeing this like you are staring at yourself in the mirror. But the contemplative leader is takes a moment, knows they have to do this work. So be brave, be curious, more importantly, be curious, and then tell your brain it's okay. It's okay. If we need to be brave here, we certainly will because it's worth doing the work because I don't want to lead like that anymore because I don't want to keep sacrificing my fulfillment, my purpose, my happiness because I don't know how to lead in a different way. I'm telling you, this is how we lead differently. This is how we have transformational impact in our organizations, in our communities, and even in our families. A lot to unpack. I know. And I would love to hear what you have to say. If you are listening to this through a podcast, then DM me over on IG or LinkedIn. I'm on those two platforms, LinkedIn and IG. And I am at Dr. Denise Simpson. Or if you are watching the live stream, comment below and let me know what your thoughts are, what your questions are, what your insights are. Because it's not enough to learn things anymore. We need to take the information, apply it so that it can transform our lives. That's just what it's going to take nowadays. You have plenty of information. But if you want to transform your leadership practice and you want to become a contemplative leader or use this very specific leadership style so that you can transform your followers' lives, then you need to take this information, work through it, apply it in your real life, in real time, then watch it transform your leadership. All right, leader, I cannot wait to hear from you. I'm looking forward to sharing some more time with you here on our next podcast episode. Take good care. Have a wonderful rest of your day. Bye for now.
