Hey, leader. Welcome to the home of the contemplative leader. I am your host, Denise Simpson. I'm happy that you're here. Welcome. This is where leadership becomes a spiritual revolution. It's quite a personal, intimate journey that we contemplatives have. And it is unlike all of those other leadership styles that you have heard about. Transformational leadership, emotional intelligence, authentic leadership, all these other kinds of servant leadership is another one, which is incredible. There's so many out there. And there's so many tools that we leaders use. And so the contemplative leadership style really puts all that outside noise on hold. Do not disturb because the contemplative is taking time to reflect. The contemplative knows that she or he or they were called to doing something bigger, greater than they can ever imagine. They know they have a purpose. They have a calling on their life. That's first and foremost. If you don't believe that, then keep scrolling. Keep moving. This is not the leadership style for you. Let me be very clear. I'm not here to convince anybody. I'm not here to try to manipulate your thinking. I'm just here to say, you have a calling. Do you agree or not? And if you say, yeah, of course I agree, then come along for the ride. Okay. So contemplatives, we reflect on our calling, right? Because we know we were called to doing something bigger and greater. Like we are being pulled. It's like a string that's like pulling us from the chest. I don't know about you, but I feel it right here in the middle of my chest. It's like a tethering. It's something is pulling me. Well, what is that something? Could that be God? Could that be source? Could that be universal spirit? What could that be for you? Now, listen, contemplative leadership style has nothing to do with religion. I know some of you are like, okay, yeah, we're not that. No. We have a different kind of ministry around here where it's a spiritual ministry. We are mystics. We are looking at the mystery in each and every one of us, but we're not here to tell you what to believe. I mean, that's on you, my friend. I'm not going to be in your mind or in your heart telling you that this religion is wrong and that religion is right. Who am I to do that? I'll never undermine you. Never will I ever do that because no one in their right mind would do that to me. So I would never do that to you. So know that this is a spiritual ministry, so to speak, where we know we're being called by something outside of us. And it is a moment in time during our leadership journey where we realize there's got to be something more to this. Like, I can't keep doing it this way. I need to find a different way to lead. I am losing sleep over this team, over this department, over these initiatives. I have lost my way. I am either apathetic. I'm quiet quit. I am just passing the time. Or I am rageful, angry, bitter, and I am cruel to my staff, right? Or some of you are just faking it until you can actually make it feel right. There's so many variations of what we experience on our journey. And if you have any of those symptoms, there is a deeper problem here. And so those symptoms are on the surface, but we contemplatives, we take surface level talk and we take it all the way down, down, down to the ocean floor because we get deep. We get deep. Our conversations are so meaningful. They're so purposeful. We're not just saying words to say words. We're not just saying things to please others. Oh no. We're like, you know, let's go take this ten layers deep because this surface level talk, It's just not my thing. So contemplative leaders are taking the time to rediscover for themselves their calling. Because along that leadership journey, things have happened. They've lost their way, just like I did. I lost my way. had forgotten why I even entered the pipeline of leadership. Why was I even called to do this? I completely forgot because I was so consumed with the pressures of my role. I was so delusional in the power that I thought I had, the power and control that I thought I had as a leader. I was a monster of a leader and there's a lot of employees out there that are probably going to go, yep, I know I witnessed it. I'm not ashamed to talk about that because I was a different human then. And I had to have gone through all of that contrast, all of that pain and suffering and jagged edged life, right? Like I needed to experience that to be able to sit here right here, talk to you about a leadership style that I have discovered that I am obsessed with everybody on this planet knowing about. I am at this point in my career where I will no longer lead the way I used to lead, right? That old, antiquated, toxic way that we were taught, that we were programmed to do is over for me. I'm not going to lead this team into spaces and realms that they've never seen before with the same mindset, the same heart, the same spiritual body that I had back then. We're not going to get anywhere because I wasn't getting anywhere with that mindset. So now I'm here talking to you about a very unique leadership style called contemplative leadership style. This is born from deep presence, not from control or hierarchy. This isn't about a power struggle. Absolutely not. It is about being deeply rooted in ancient wisdom and mysticism and spirituality. This is a different way of leading. It's also unlike the servant leadership style that, rest his soul, Robert Greenleaf brought to life. Wow, what an inspiration he was to me. So here we talk about the divine. Here we talk about our divine assignment. Here we talk about sacred responsibilities. We're not going to shy away from that talk. We are head on talking about it with each other. And this is why. This is why my sanctuary was created. I created a sanctuary. to make sure that leaders like myself and like you have a group, have a garden, have, you know, have, again, this sanctuary so that we can talk like this. Because I know you can't go into a Fortune five hundred or in your, you know, nonprofits and start, you know, talking some of this stuff, right? Sometimes you don't want to because this is so private and personal. You want to protect it. You want to keep it safe. You want to be able to grow into it and be confident in it and embody this so that your moves speak louder than your words. So you don't have to talk about divine assignment out there. They're going to see your actions, your behaviors, and ultimately the impact that you have because of this leadership style that you are following that no one out there knows that you are practicing. So the sanctuary that I created, it's called the universal leader because we do the universal leader principles in there. And that is our safe haven. It's a refuge because out here in the wild, they're trying to kill us. Yeah. Out here in the wild, they're trying to take us down. And in the sanctuary, that's where we have, oh my goodness, we have a garden of peace and tranquility. This is where we get to explore those areas of our hearts, of our souls, of our minds that we aren't able to do out here in these very rough and tumble organizations. No, we have a sacred space. I named it the sanctuary, but it's called the Universal Leader Program, but it's a sanctuary for us. So the contemplative is someone who is not reactive. Oh my gosh. I mean, if you're contemplating and reflecting and you are finding full awareness around your gaps, your strengths, your weaknesses, your threats and opportunities, okay, SWAT. because we've done the reflective work, we're not reactive. We don't show up in the organization with our hair on fire. We're not out of control, emotionally unbound. Like, no, we've got some ways of being proactive and responding as things come up not reactive in a chaotic crisis cortisol filled way oh some of y'all out here adrenal glands are shot nervous systems are shot because cortisol floods your body and you're addicted to the cortisol in your body i don't think so Contemplatives do not do that. We are not reactive and we're not performative. Oh gosh, we don't perform. Now listen, don't get this twisted. I am very charismatic. You may think it's performance. I'm just so excited to talk about this, but we're not performing in the organization, right? This isn't an act. It's just like we are about progress. We're about the messiness of leadership. We're about the transparency and vulnerability. We're not performing. This isn't a one-act play. I'm not here to perform my way out of this. No. Hey, listen, this is what's real and this is what's happening. And this is how I'm seeing this. And I'm asking you, my teammates, to help me solve this problem together because I run out of ideas. That's what contemplatives do. We're not afraid to say we're messy and our minds are a little messy right now and we're going to need your help. Everyone on deck, all hands on deck because we've got to do this together. That's the opposite of performative. We are not performers. This style of leadership is a style that listens first. We listen first. we contemplate, we reflect, and then we speak only from truth. Truth is simple, my friends. It's not easy. The truth is simple. When you hear something, you go, whoa, whoa, that is true. It is so simple. But when you try to go put it into play and you try to do something about it, it's not Yeah. You know, like that golden rule? So simple, right? You know, treat others the way you want to be treated. Oh, that's true. And it's simple. But how hard is that? Very hard for some of us who are just reactive and we're selfish. We're narcissists. We treat others badly. We put ourselves before anyone else. That's when it becomes really, really, really difficult. But this style of leadership listens first and speaks only from truth. What is true here as a team? The truth is we were all called to these roles. I may have inherited you as a team, but I'm now your leader. And now it's my job to get to know what your assignment is here, the divine one, not the role, the job description role. I want to know more about you because you have purpose. And if you're saying right now to yourself, that's no, Denise, I can't do that. That's a lot of time I don't have to give. Then my friend, what do you expect your employees to do for you in return? You don't have time for them. Trust me, they will not have time to complete their tasks, to perform the way you want them to perform, to bring their whole selves to the organization. They won't have time for any of that. So we contemplative leaders, we lead differently. Trust me, if this is a leadership style that's calling your name right now, like you're being pulled by this, like you're curious about it, but you're uncertain how to implement this, good, you're in the right place because we're learning that inside the sanctuary. We're learning that inside the universal leader program. And so this is where we learn those principles, right? So let's cover some of those principles. Number one, divine assignment. That's the first universal leader principle. We each have a divine assignment. And if that is true, and it is, then that means every person that you lead has their own unique divine assignment too. wow, what a truth that is. Simple, very simple. Is it hard to discover? Absolutely. There's so much noise outside of our minds. And then inside our minds, I mean, that's a whole other whirlwind of chaos in there. It's like a tornado, a daily tornado in our minds, right? A lot of us are so disconnected from our calling. We're so disconnected from our bodies to begin with. And then you know some of some of us can't even think that there is an actual connection to a divine calling because we're so disconnected from our physical bodies well Truth is simple, but it's not easy to implement. So that's principle number one. I'm not here to discourage you, but I am certainly here to be real because I'm not performing this. I want you to know what you're getting yourself into should you step into the sanctuary because that's the first principle we cover, the divine assignment that you have and that each and every person that you lead That includes your family, your extended family members, your friend group, your peer group, your extended friends and other family members, your constituents. They all have a divine assignment. Now, this leads me to principle number two. Well, so we have divine assignments, but now what are my responsibilities here? Well, they're called sacred responsibilities. That's principle number two. So we have these divine assignments and we each have sacred responsibilities to fulfill these assignments, number one, and number two, to transform the lives that we were called to lead. Whoa, that's why they're called sacred responsibilities. Simple, not easy, my friend. but it's simple. So you have a divine assignment, principle number one. And now my sacred responsibility, principle number two, is to now transform the lives of these human beings with each souls that have divine assignments placed on them. Oh my gosh. See how simple the truth is? So now let's talk about the third principle. Now this one is fun because we're going to talk about expansive vision as contemplatives. Principle number three is expansive vision. We're leaders after all. We are visionaries. They pay us because we're visionaries, right? They pay us to solve problems today. So that in the future, we are prepared, beyond prepared. But now expansive vision as a contemplative looks like five D reality. Because we're in three D right now, right? Pick up this pen, three D reality, drink some water, three D reality. It's real time, but five D reality. Oh, that's a whole other realm, my friend, because we're mystics, you see, because this leadership style is rooted in ancient wisdom and spiritual mysticism. So we're seeing beyond what our peers can see. We are seen in the five D realm and we're taking that information from the five D realm. We're quantum leaping my friend in these bodies. You see three D reality, but in my mind, I am have quantum leaped all y'all. Like I am way ahead. I'm looking ahead and I'm gathering those resources so that I can bring them to my team, my organization, my constituents today. This is the training that we do as contemplatives. We look beyond what is, because what is, like Abraham Hicks, Esther says all the time, what is is like a chewed up piece of gum that you've sucked all the flavor out of. Ew. So we're looking beyond what is, and that's having expansive vision. So that's principle number three. Principle number four is the embodied presence of a contemplative. That's where we now connect, right? We make sure there's a principle in the universal leader world because we want to embody, embody this presence so that our energetic body is in that boardroom way before our physical bodies enter. This is the mystic that we all are. This is what I'm talking about, the spiritual mysticism. We're using our embodied presence to make decisions, to change events ahead of time. I know it is quite... It's exciting. Listen, again, this is unlike anything you've ever heard of. This is why the sanctuary exists, because there's going to be people out here going, are you a witch? This sounds a little crazy. Well, we mystics, we're a little crazy. A little bit. Right. You know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So crazy is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. But embodied presence is fully knowing that you have this divine assignment with these sacred responsibilities. And then you have this expansive vision. So you have to embody this presence. Because by the way, you know, communication is ninety three percent nonverbal. That's what I read. Crazy. So your energy is speaking volumes before your mouth even opens, before your physical body is in the room. That's what's exciting about this embodied presence. You change. Circumstances have changed in your body and so have you. And so now you're behaving and acting from this embodied presence of a contemplative leader. And now the last principle, very briefly, is transformational impact, right? We're leaders. We are measured by our impact. We are measured by the success of the impact, right? That's why you have performance evaluations. That's why you give them too, right? We have to be measured by our success. If not, how would we know you're a great leader or not? And so that's one of our principles. That's a fifth principle, transformational impact. So when you know you have a divine assignment and you have these sacred responsibilities and you use this expansive vision and then embody this present, you ultimately, five principles, number five, this fifth one, ultimately, inevitably will have transformational impact on your team, your department, your organization, your constituents, your family, your community. That's the contemplative leadership style. So there's the conceptual idea of contemplative leadership style, but the universal leader principles is how we operationalize this incredible leadership style that I have created for us. It is exciting. It is new. We are looking for populations to sample this in. We are going to build empirical research so that we can stand with the greats out there, those incredible leadership styles that you've been using time and time again. It is time now to lead differently. And this is the leadership style with these principles that are going to take you into this new era of leadership. Because we cannot keep leading the way we've been leading our workforce. They're exhausted. They're burnt out. They're overwhelmed. And so are you, leader. And you have run out of tactics. You have run out of strategies. We have to now turn this over to a contemplative leader. This is now where we need to be deeply rooted in stillness, in contemplation, in prayer, in meditation. And this is how we're going to do it. We're going to change the world because of this leadership style. Listen, if I'm not your flavor, A leader, I get it. This is a whole other language that no other leadership expert is talking about. But I'm usually the outlier, so that's okay. But know that this will be a leadership style that you will be talking about decades from now. maybe hundreds of years from now, because as AI is coming to a peak, I mean, there's going to be many peaks with AI. We've seen a few already, but AI is here to stay and leaders are irreplaceable because you have the heart, you have the soul, you have the divine assignment. So you will never be replaced. And contemplative leadership style is the remedy for these AI bots, automation. I know a lot of organizations have replaced their employees or human capital with AI assets. And that they're only looking at the bottom line. And contemplative leadership style is the remedy for that. So care deeply about your leadership practice. Care deeply about your personal and spiritual evolution right now. We're going to need you. And so we're training you now inside the sanctuary. Listen, the sanctuary is protected. Not just anyone can be in there. And if you are someone who knows you have a divine assignment and you know there's something over your life and over your soul, then you're our leader. You got to come in and join us. So I'm going to invite you to head over to drdeniessimpson.com. We just redid the whole website. It is so great. Listen, it is current. It is up-to-date information. And you're going to want to go and check out the sanctuary that I'm talking to you about. And then read more about the contemplative leadership style and the universal leader principles over there. Leader, what a pleasure it is to serve you today. Take these five principles and find ways to use them now. Find ways to incorporate them in your leadership practice right now. start opening your mind up. Be curious about how this can actually change the way you lead your teams. Remember, this is a personal, intimate evolution. This is your journey. We're not out here in our organizations talking about God, talking about spirituality, talking about universal spirit. We're not doing that. We are are taking the time personally for ourselves in a very sacred space so that we can develop ourselves as contemplative leaders so that our behavior, our energy, our actions out there speak louder than our words because we've done the personal practice of contemplation. So that's where we're at right now. So come into our sanctuary, check it out for yourself, In the meantime, you have questions, DM me on Instagram or LinkedIn at Dr. Denise Simpson and I'm ready for all of your questions. I'm happy to answer any of them for you there. All right, leader. Thank you so much for your time. I'm looking forward to serving you on our next podcast episode. Take very good care. Bye for now.
