Hey, leader. Welcome. Happy you are here. Thank you for taking some time for yourself so that we can have a conversation about leadership. My intent is to provide you with some information so that you can go use this information, apply it right away in real life, in real time to transform your life. That is the intent. And I hope you feel that intention. I hope you feel that energy. And I hope that you are able to take what you need from this episode and go apply it right away. Because again, the hope is that it transforms the way you lead your people. So today we're going to take a fresh perspective. It's a fresh vision, a new lens, a new way of looking at leadership so that we can save our workforce, save our workforce from apathy, save our workforce from burnout, disengagement, uncommitment. A lot of our workforce is suffering right now. And listen, leader, if you're feeling these things, if you're feeling some kind of way right now about your role, your current role, your current employer, and you are on the verge of burnout, or maybe you are in that stage right now, maybe you are feeling apathetic, maybe you have... quiet quit on your employer right now, and you're going through the motions, then this is going to be a very relieving episode for you. But if you are not feeling these things, but you are noticing that your workforce is suffering, that your teams are suffering, that your employees are suffering, and they're all over the board, right? Some may be at a stage of burnout, while others may be apathetic. Some you know have already quite quit on you, and they're probably just going through the motions. You know your staff very well. And so there may be a wide range of things and behaviors, especially, emotions, especially, that you may be noticing that will be very helpful. It'll be very helpful for you to stick around and learn about this new way of leading so that you can help them through those circumstances. So thank you again for being here. Hey, if you're new, I'm Denise Simpson. I am happy to be here again every single week to serve you, to share with you an idea or two, and then apply this right away. So let's start with this fresh vision. I got this idea the other day because about maybe eleven or twelve years ago now, I got into a very bad accident on the one thirty toll road here in Texas. And the one thirty toll road was built to alleviate some of the pain and suffering on I-thirty five. If you're a Texan, you know, I-thirty five runs north south throughout our state. And it is quite aggravating no matter what part of thirty five you're on. anywhere in this state. It is quite aggravating. So they built this incredible toll road and the minimum on one part of that toll road, the minimum mile per hour is eighty. So people are hauling ass on that toll road. And then the other part of the toll road increases to eighty five miles per hour. so it is a very interesting toll road um but what's interesting about this toll road is that it goes through some rural areas and and there's been a lot of development since this was built but at that time when I had my accident uh one thirty was flooded with feral hogs with a lot of wild hogs And they were wreaking havoc and they were causing deaths on that toll road. And I was on my way to my PhD program, which was in San Antonio. So it was a two-hour drive for me from where I live into San Antonio. And I did that for five, six years straight. Every other Saturday, I was committed and needed to be seated and ready by eight a.m. So this June morning, Because we worked all year round. There was no way we were going to have a summer break. That wasn't our program. So that we could get out of that program faster, we did summer programs. So it was a June morning and the fog was so dense and it was so thick. And I had never experienced fog like that before. And I was on that toll road. And I just remember grabbing onto that steering wheel and praying for dear life that I would not get into an accident, that I would get to San Antonio safely. But what was interesting is I was saying these things, but I was not relieving the gas. I was still flooring it. I was still at doing eighty five miles an hour. And so very interesting. Right. So I was on that road when I hit a four hundred pound feral hog. I hit that poor beast and it got lodged under my bumper and it sent me spinning. I don't even know how many times, but I didn't roll over. By the grace of God, I just spinned many times and then wound up on the side of the road. Of course, all the airbags were deployed. My face was buried in an airbag. I had bruising all over my chest and even on my wrist because I think unconsciously I raised up my hands to protect myself. Not sure how my hands got bruised up as well. But it was a very scary moment. And I just remember waking up to the embrace operator. The operator is in my car. And I remember her saying, Miss Simpson, Miss Simpson. You were in an accident. I have reported this to the authorities. Can you hear me? Ms. Simpson, can you hear me? I have called the ambulance. The sheriff is on their way. Can you hear me? And I'm not sure how it felt like an eternity until I could finally come to wake up and speak. But I could hear her very vaguely until I finally gained re-consciousness and was able to answer her. And I said, yes, where am I? What's happening? And she then explained to me what happened. And I heard the ambulance, the sirens coming and the sheriff officer said, you're lucky to be alive. There was a death here just a weekend ago. Same thing, a person hit a feral hog and is now dead. You are alive and you are sitting here telling me that you don't know what happened. I'm telling you, you hit a four, at least a four hundred pound hog. He is about two football fields behind us. I had drug the beast for, like he said, two football fields. And then I wound up another few, you know, half a mile later, I wound up on the side of the road. He said, he's back there. We just saw what you hit and you are so blessed to be here talking to me. And I started to cry profusely. I could not believe that by the grace of God, I was alive. And I had heard about those accidents. I did, but not sure what possessed me to keep my foot on the pedal. Like I was... As if I didn't, as if I was already unconscious. I'm holding onto that steering wheel and I knew how dense this fog was and how dangerous this toll road was. And I still floored it. Listen, I'm still trying to make sense of all that. But I know what it feels like to be literally in the dense fog, not being able to see, but still plowing ahead no matter what. Because part of you is saying, we got to keep going. We got to keep acting. We have to keep performing. All the while not being able to see what's in front of us. So I know that feeling so well, literally well. Because that's what happened to me. I kept flooring that gas pedal and I'm just like, I'm going to keep going. I'm going to keep going because I have to be there by eight AM. And, and, and you know what? Nothing's going to happen to me. I'm invincible. I'm going to keep going. And then I get into this accident. So, so when I talk about a fresh vision, I'm talking about clearing away the fog, the fog that we are under the fog as leaders. that has been put in our vision. It has been put in front of us and it's now time for us to clear the fog. So we're gonna take a moment to pause. It's like me finally getting, you know, putting on the brakes, right? Putting it in park and going, okay, there's fog and it's dense and it's dangerous and I can hurt myself and worse, I can hurt others. Because I did not take the time to sit, park the car, and contemplate my actions, contemplate my belief systems, contemplate my values. Because all of that is contributing to this impact that I am creating in my workforce. It's time that we put the car in park. It's time that we put ourselves in park so that we can look at our leadership approach, so that we can look at our leadership models, so that we can look at those ideologies and principles that are running our leadership practice, so that we can question them, so we can assess them, so that we can do this before we hurt another person, so that we need to do this before we can go back into leadership. Because how we've been trained and taught to lead is causing more harm than good. I mean, just think about who your mentors were. Maybe some of these mentors were really toxic, really interesting mentors who had no business in leadership, but here they were telling you what to do. And we've been taught that leadership is about performance over people. profits and perfectionism over our people. So we're in these high pressure roles because they told us we needed to be in these high pressure roles. And this is how we do it. Think about the culture of leadership. Think about your individual specific journey in that leadership pipeline. And you tell me what's been positive about this journey and what has been negative. What has been so unfulfilling for you? Because if you're showing up unfulfilled, if you're showing up apathetic, if you're showing up disengaged and unsatisfied, trust me, your actions are showing this to your employees. And the results they're creating are a direct reflection of who you are as a leader, point blank, period. Some of this is really hard to hear, but this is why we need a fresh vision. We need to see leadership in a way that is of service to our people. Because the workforce we have today is angry. There's emotional violence happening in our workforce. There's so much pain and suffering happening in our workforce right now. And we as leaders are responsible for this. Listen, if you're saying, well, I don't know what they do after work, that's on them. They're probably really screwed up. And so, you know, when they're here, I tell them what to do and they don't do it. And so that's on. No. That's where your divine assignment comes in. This is part of that fresh vision, a new lens on how we want to look at our roles. First of all, what is your divine assignment? I talk about this every week. I'll keep talking about it until I'm blue in the face. What is your divine assignment? Do you even know you have one? Because when you know you have a divine assignment to lead these people in this time, right now, in this day and age, in this era, in whatever date it is, whatever time it is, You were assigned to lead this very specific group of folks. That's the assignment. It was given to you, not to me, not to him, not to her, you. It was given to you. So you have that divine assignment. Find awareness around that. Embody that. Believe that. And then when you do, then you'll know what your sacred responsibility is. So when you know that you are responsible for transforming the lives of those that you were called to lead, the game changes. You have a new pair of spectacles on, right? Listen, I have a new prescription coming up because, you know, I'm aging now. can't see very well anymore, whether there's fog or not, I'm having problems seeing. And so my prescription is coming up and I know it's, my appointment's coming up with a new prescription. I'm, I'm almost positive because every year for the last five years, I've had to increase my, my prescription lenses. And so I, um, I'm waiting. I'm excited because now I'm going to get to see clearer again. I get to put on a new pair of glasses and I get to see with a new pair of eyes it feels like. I get to see the things that I couldn't see before. I get to see it clearly, vividly in three D and sometimes in five D because I am out of this world. I get to envision what no one else can see. But this is the fresh vision that I'm asking or inviting you to see for yourself. It's a new lens. This is a new way of looking at how you lead and how you can possibly save your workforce from apathy, from anger, from disillusionment, from disengagement, from quiet quitting. Because so many of them are calling it in. They are phoning it in, right? And you know this. You know your team better than I do. And so your responsibility is to put these new pair of glasses on so that you can see leadership differently for you, for your sake, for their sake. So we've been made to believe that performance, profit, pressure, and perfectionism supersedes our people. And that's a bold-faced lie. And through contemplative leadership, which is what we're doing right now, we're putting the car in park. We're putting it in park right now so that we can contemplate, so that we can investigate, so we can get curious on if those belief systems are actually true. Those are belief systems. Those are ideologies and principles that were embedded in me, conditioned and programmed in me as a leader. And now I want to question them. That's what contemplative leadership allows us to do. This is the new lens. This is the new pair of glasses. This is the fresh vision. Contemplative leadership is the fresh vision that you and our workforce have been longing for. So we're putting the car in park and we're taking a moment because the fog is dense. So the cost of outdated leadership, which is what a lot of us are demonstrating behaving because of what we were taught, it's costing us our souls. It's costing us to self-abandon. It's costing us to people please. It's costing us so much. And if you're asking yourself right now, Is there a better way to do this? Because it's been damn hard. This journey, this leadership role has been exhausting. I'm burnt out. I am ready to quiet quit. I am ready to move on. And I'm putting the car on park because Denise said the fog is dense. It's dangerous to keep going. Let me put the car on park and let me contemplate. Let me take a different approach to leadership. Let me take a moment right now and ask myself, what is this costing me? The way I'm showing up as a leader, what is it costing me first and foremost? And then what is it costing them? What is it costing my staff? Because I'm showing up in this way. I'm showing up in this way that is unfair to them and to me especially, but I'm doing more harm to them than good. What's the cost here? The stakes are high, my friend, when you don't put the car in park, when you don't take the time to contemplate. Again, contemplative leadership is a leadership style that puts you, you are on blast. Like the spotlight is on you. We're shining a light in your brain because we pulled off to the side of the road. We put the car in park because it's dense and there's feral hogs out here and I'm doing eighty five miles an hour and I'm going to need to like put this aside because it's dangerous out there. So contemplative leadership. This is a leadership style, unlike anything you've ever seen before, because it now puts the leader under the spotlight. It forces us to put the car in park so that we can take a closer look at our neurology, so that we can take a closer look at our programming, our conditioning, our values. My goodness, all the things that we were taught to do as leaders. And I know it looks different for you than it does for me. It's different for me than it does for him. I get that. But there are so many variables that we must consider. And contemplative leadership style is the style of leadership that gives us that moment to pause and go, wait a minute, something is off. And there has to be a better way to do this. There has to be a better way to do this. Because the second half of my career, That's right. I'm talking to those of you who are very experienced, who've been around the block. I'm not talking about the newbies. I'm not talking to the newbies, although I love you and I've got trainings for you. No, I'm talking about the leader who's been around the block, who has seen a lot of things, who's been through a lot. And you're asking yourself, is there a better way? Could there be a better way to do this? Because that first half of my career was exhausting. Not sure how many accidents I got because I was doing a hundred miles an hour never put the car on Park I'm burnt out disengaged exhausted so now Denise is saying put the car in Park girl it's okay let's let's go off the side of the road let's park on the side of the road take a moment for ourselves and she says contemplative leadership allows me to do that wow I'm putting myself first putting my brain under the spotlight under the microscope wow no one's ever given me permission to do that because I wasn't taught to do that so this is the permission that you may have been asking for to take a pause put the car in park and ask yourself what has this cost me did it cost me a marriage did it cost me my children did it cost me my dignity, my soul, my spiritual and emotional and energetic well-being? What has this cost me? See, the stakes are high if you don't put the car in park. So I'm going to be real with you. I had my moment in the fog as a leader. I really did. It was a tough time early in my entrepreneurial journey. I had a mentor who told me that spirituality had no business in leadership, had no business in my business, and I was not going to be able to feed my family. I'd be homeless, unhoused, and broke, living under a bridge if I kept doing what I was doing. And so I learned some very interesting things from this mentor, some very, very good and some not so good. And so I had that moment in the fog in my leadership practice. And I had to take a closer look at how I was showing up in my business, how I was showing up with my team. My goodness, my early team, the team I had early in my business, they suffered a lot with me. And I put them through a lot. And some were loyal and some said, no, you won't keep beating up on me like this. I deserve better. So I had to do a lot of unlearning, deconditioning, and relearning how to treat others in leadership. And this is coming from someone who has had so much experience in leadership. I was still evolving and needing to evolve because my team was suffering because of me. Because I was going eighty-five miles an hour. And that fog was dense. And I was not letting go of the gas pedal. I was just holding on to that steering wheel for dear life and just praying, dear God, get me to where I need to get to, all the while not letting go of that gas. And so I've had my moment in the fog. I had to really take a moment and reassess, reevaluate, and re-envision. what I wanted to do in my business and my leadership practice. Because if I was teaching you one thing, I sure the heck better be the model of excellence for it, right? Because I'm not going to come here and tell you to do something and I'm not doing it. Ooh, that could have been really dangerous for me and my clients at that time. No, things had to change. so I practice what I preach today and this is what I get to do I take a moment when something doesn't feel aligned when I don't feel like I'm in my purpose when I am so caught up in performance and profit and paying those damn taxes because trust me there's a list of things that will kick you out of that alignment And then you wind up asking yourself, what am I doing here? I can't keep doing it this way. This is so painful and it's now turning into suffering. Something has to change, Denise. I've got to do something. And that then tells me, that's the red flag. And that's where I have to pull the car over and go, okay. I'm a contemplative leader. This is the leadership style I practice every day. And this is what I tell my team to do. This is what I tell my direct reports. Take a moment before you act on anything. Take a moment. Something doesn't feel right. Ask yourself what it is. What's it costing you? What's it going to cost others? And then find a solution for it. Contemplative leadership is just taking a pause before you go. take massive action, uncontrolled, unorganized, chaotic action, which so many of us leaders do today, which is in turn impacting our workforce. And this is why we have a disengaged workforce, a burnt out workforce. This is why your retention is suffering. This is why you can't hire and keep people under your employment. The workforce is asking for you to change. The workforce is demanding for us to change. And so contemplative leadership is the solution for that change that our people are desperate to see. So that's the new possibility. The new possibility, the new way of looking at leadership is through this lens of contemplative leadership. Putting the car in park. not taking another step forward until you take a moment and contemplate what is really important to you, to your workforce. So leader, I invite you into a new space. It's this new space called the universal leader. It's where we talk more in depth about contemplative leadership and the principles of the universal leader. It's a new leadership style that no one has ever seen before. It's something that I am so excited and proud to share with my community of leaders. It's what I hope that we embody and demonstrate moving forward. There's a shift coming. You feel it. I know you do. There is an undercurrent. And right now we are seeing the symptoms of that undercurrent. We're seeing the symptoms. And so before this becomes a disease, I want to invite you to take this time to join me inside the Universal Leader so that we can find a new way of leading through contemplative leadership so that we can support our workforce, so that we can do leadership differently. So head over to my website at drdeniessimpson.com and you're going to find the tab that says the universal leader. Check it out. I invite you to go read what we offer, what it's about, how much you can learn, how much you can gain from this new style of leadership. And it's a sanctuary for us. It's a sanctuary because this kind of work is sacred work. And this is where you get to be seen and heard and served. Unlike these programs out here, unlike your corporate leadership trainers out there, this is a whole other level of depth and purpose and And divine assignment and sacred responsibility and expansive vision, embodied presence and transformational impact. Those are the five principles. Some of those principles that I just mentioned are what we learn in the universal leader. So I invite you. And then join us. If not, stick around for some more podcast episodes like this. So much that we can learn together and that I believe we can change the way leadership has been done before. Don't you want to be a part of that revolution? Yeah, it's exciting. All right. Leader, thank you so much for your time. I am always so privileged and honored to serve you every week. Share with me your comments and insights. Follow me on Instagram or LinkedIn. Those are my two platforms, primary platforms. And I am at Dr. Denise Simpson. All right, everybody. Thank you. Have a wonderful rest of your day and I'll see you very soon. Take care.
