leader if your title is heavy and your soul is tired you're in the right place this show is for the burnt out leader who feels spiritually disconnected and trapped in outdated toxic leadership models let me help you restore your presence your peace and your purpose with grounded strategies and soul rooted wisdom so you can lead your people with confidence compassion and conviction I am your host and guide, Dr. Denise Simpson. Join me now so we can integrate spirit, science, and strategy. Hi, welcome leader. Hope you are fantastic. I hope that I am a reminder for you to contemplate, to take a moment out of your busy day, to reflect, to ponder, to listen to what is in your soul, what is in your spirit. This should be your weekly pause. It's a sacred pause. Treat it as such. Treat it as a sacred time. for you to remove yourself from the noise, from the uncontrollable variables and circumstances. This is why the anchor, we anchor ourselves every single day as leaders, but this is my chance to help you on a weekly basis every single week right here through this podcast show. to anchor yourself into something greater and bigger and more important than your ego. or the biases that we have. Listen, my brain can be my worst enemy, but it's also my greatest ally. But if I let it go on for too long, feeding me all the reasons why I can't do this, or I can't achieve that, or I can't desire this, or I can't want that, if I let that tiny ego that is the loudest Have full control. I'm in big trouble. We're all in big trouble. So this weekly reminder is for us to anchor into something greater and more important. And for me, there are spiritual principles that are important to me. Five that we practice as contemplative leaders. Five spiritual universal principles. So no matter your religion, no matter your faith, This is an opportunity for us to universally connect through timeless, boundless principles that can extend and outlive generations. So those five very important spiritual principles we practice every day inside the sanctuary. By the way, I want to invite you into the sanctuary. We are getting ready for a full year of contemplative work inside this community. I want to invite you into this space. This is a sacred space. This is where we get to go ten layers deep. This is where we take surface level concerns and problems and we take them down, down below so that we can use these five spiritual principles to help us anchor into something more important, far greater than our egos. So welcome to another week here. I'm excited to talk to you about waking up. We're waking up. I think a lot of us are entering twenty twenty six with a new lens, right? We got a new prescription in our glasses. We are now seeing things very differently. I heard an energy worker talk about twenty twenty five being the snooze button for all of us. We you know how when you have an alarm set. It's a crazy hour. Maybe it's three or four in the morning, whatever. Listen, I I'm not a five a.m. person. I'm not a six a.m. person. Maybe six thirty and seven seven a.m. You're pushing it. But I'm awake. However, when I have to catch a flight or I have to have an earlier meeting than normal or I have to travel into Austin at an ungodly time, I put that snooze button. I hit the snooze button many, many times because I know how long it takes me. So what do I do? I set the alarm earlier than normal so that I can snooze a few times. How about you? Are you a snooze button kind of person? And twenty twenty five was like the snooze button. We kept hitting the snooze button like, nope, not ready yet. Snooze. Nope. Not getting out of bed yet. Snooze. Oh, not going to, you know, you know, get out of that job. Snooze. Nope. I'm not going to resign yet. Snooze. No, I'm not going to do that thing that my heart and my spirit have been calling me to do. Snooze. Snooze. We kept pressing snooze on our lives. And this incredible energy person. who I've been following for so long, you know, talks about all the astrological transits, talks about the planetary transits, talks about what's happening in the heavens and how it impacts us here, you know, on our planet. And so it's wonderful to hear different perspectives. I love that. I am someone who has always been very open to all perspectives. I love don't pretend like I know better than anyone. I do not at all take your brilliance for granted. And so if there's a topic or conversation that I want to be a part of, I'm listening in. I'm paying attention. I'm taking notes like I did today. I was taking so many notes as I was listening to this person. And something that came up was the snooze button that the whole planet hit in And this person said that twenty twenty six is like the wake up button, like you have no choice. The alarm is sounding. The alarm is off. It's going off. What will you do now? Because you can no longer stay in bed and hit the snooze button. You can no longer, the world will not let you do that anymore. Your conscience will not let you do that anymore. Your spirit will not allow that to happen anymore. It's time to get up. So I'm talking about us waking up in twenty twenty six. This is the year of the contemplative leader. So we have to be awake. We have to be the first ones in line. We have to be the ones ahead of the collective, moving the collective, telling the collective, keep following me. Don't stop. Don't look down. Don't look to the left or right. Let's go. Let's go. We got to keep moving forward. The contemplative leader has to be awake now, now. Now, if you're watching this or if you're listening to this podcast episode, you are a contemplative leader. You're not just watching to watch me. You're not just listening to listen. You have other things to do. You got a lot of things on your plate. But you tune in every week. Because you know, I'm talking to the spirit. I'm talking to you. I'm talking to the real you. I'm talking to the authentic you. I'm not talking to the surface level you. No, that we're beyond that. Don't you think we're beyond that? No, I'm talking to the deepest parts of your soul and spirit. That's who I'm talking to. And if you're listening or you're watching this, you are a contemplative leader. Something that I have said about this leadership approach, Hope is speaking to a desire in your heart. It's speaking to an insight, an inkling, hope, an ember of hope. So I'm telling you now, moving forward, we have to be awake. Wake up. Wake up, leader. It's time for us to lead the way. It's time for us to show the collective, this is how we're going to lead moving forward. We can no longer withstand the old ways of leadership. No, we know too much now, leader. We can't keep going back. Just like I told a client the other day, I said, you keep wanting to look in the rearview mirror, sir, but I'm looking forward. And I want you to direct your eyes forward through that windshield because that's where we're going. The only time I want you to look in that rearview mirror is to say, thank you. Thank you. But I've got my hands on the wheel. Ten and two, which is not a thing anymore. I think it's eleven and three now. I mean, no, eleven. I don't know. No. Anyway, I've got my hands on the wheel. Do you have your hands on your wheel? Are you looking through that windshield or do you keep looking in the rearview mirror stuck in the past, ruminating about what should have happened? What could have happened? What if? spending time resenting in bitterness, in anger, ruminating about the past that you can no longer change. Leader, I know we've been traumatized in the workforce. I know it. It's time now to heal from that. And it's time now to wake up, get in the driver's seat, turn that ignition on, put your hands on the wheel and wake the fuck up. It's time to wake up and it's time to look forward. It's time to do this differently. We have suffered long enough, don't you think? Don't you think? And this is the year where the energy is ripe. It is now ready. We're ready to move forward. There's motion forward happening. There's this energy of motion forward. We're moving forward. This is what This energy healer also mentioned that twenty twenty five was like a dream walk. We were all daydreaming. We were all walking in our sleep. We were so delusional. There was so much that was happening that we went into la la land. Some of us escaped on purpose. Some of us just got swept into it. But that we're just now realizing that we spent a whole year in this delusional landscape. And because twenty twenty six and all the crazy planetary transits are happening, we're now here going, huh? What's real, actually? What? I've been daydreaming. Like I've been walking in my sleep and you mean now, twenty twenty six, I'm awake and now I'm asking, well, what is real? Why am I doing this? Why is this important now? Maybe there's something else I want to do moving forward. Maybe Denise is right. I don't want to keep looking in the rearview mirror because there's a ginormous windshield in front of me. This is why they make them so big. This is why the rearview mirror is so tiny because we're not meant to spend a lot of time looking at that rearview mirror because we've got this incredible windshield in front of us. And it's time for us to look forward. So maybe you're asking yourself, okay, twenty twenty five who hard, hard, hard for a lot of us hard. And maybe you're saying and maybe it's time to contemplate this. Maybe it's time to ponder what are you going to leave behind? Now, listen, before twenty twenty six, I gave you some incredible exercises. on how to extract the learnings from those memories, from those experiences in twenty twenty five so that we can move forward, so that we drive forward, so that we're looking forward. And we're using those learnings as the momentum to catapult us forward. That's what we get to do. So maybe for you, maybe for you, it's time to say, OK, I'm awake. The alarm has been going off. The snooze button I've hit a thousand times. It's twenty twenty six. Wake up. I'm awake. Is this real? What's real now? What do I want to believe moving forward? What do I want to think and feel moving forward? What do I want to commit my life to doing next? Why am I here? Why am I doing this? It's time to ask ourselves these questions. This is what waking up means to me. I get to ask what's real, what's not. In the age of AI, listen, there are millions of reasons to use AI. Really. I mean, I'm neutral on it. I'm not here nor there on AI. I'm not. And because of this climate we're in with AI, it's hard to know what's real and what's not. They say that fifty percent of the posts or content that we see online is AI. By the way, I'm real. Pinch me. I'm real. I hurt. OK, I have a soul. Oh, I have a soul. I have a soul. Yeah, I have a soul. So do you. You're not AI. You're not a machine. You're not a robot. You're here to lead the masses. You're here to lead your movement. So what the fuck have we been doing? Asleep at the wheel. But we're awake now, my friend. And now it's time for us to consider what will the future look like for me? We're moving into the energy of the individual. Finally, finally, because if you've been following me for a good bit, all of my trainings have always put you front and center. You have always been the core, the nucleus of my teachings. You, unlike other leadership styles, unlike other leadership approaches that puts the emphasis on the output, on the performance. Oh, no, no, no. Contemplative leadership. No, no, no. We're like, yeah, we'll take care of that. Don't you worry. But here's what's more important is that we take care of you. We form you, the leader, from the inside out. So we take care of the inside. Trust me, the output is inevitable success. So here we are now asking ourselves, okay, AI. is pretty important. And yes, there's so many ways we can use AI as leaders. Trust me, I've got strategies on how to use Perplexity, Claude, or ChatGPT, right? There's incredible resources out there that you could use to ship your content, your leadership strategies, all that is important. But you are not to be replaced. And I think because we are now feeling like AI can replace us any day, we've checked out. We've checked out. We no longer care. But I want to put the emphasis back onto you because you cannot be replaced. We need leaders with souls. We need leaders with a beating heart. We need you with a pulse, okay? We need critical thinkers. I know you can ask AI and it'll come up with a thousand different solutions for you. Cool, right. But you have to decipher what is right or what is wrong in your specific context. You cannot be replaced. I'm guaranteeing you that. Now, listen, I don't have a... crystal ball to see what the industry is going to do or your specific industry is going to do or this field of study. But I know one thing is for sure. We're going to keep the human in leadership. We're going to keep humanity in leadership because you are leading people with divine assignments, AKA a soul, a spirit, a purpose. AI cannot lead humans. We use AI. We leverage that as a tool. It's like the balanced scorecard that so many of my executive leaders use. That's a tool. It's neutral. AI is neutral. You, however, are not. You, however, are a human with feelings and thoughts and decision-making skills. You are the human that we cannot replace. So it's time to wake up and start asking ourselves, what's real? What's not? Here's what's real. We need you. We need your humanity. I need you to wake up with me. I need us to wake up Wipe the cobwebs from your eyes. Take a little orange juice. Drink a little something to pep you up, a little caffeine or something to wake you up because it's time to do the work, leader. It's time to ask ourselves, is there a different way to lead? Because this was a shit way to lead. What I've been taught and what I've been trained to do is so harmful and it is perpetuating the cycle of emotional violence and I'm done with that. So what's real to you? What's real for you? Listen, I do this not because of my tiny ego. That's super loud. But I don't do this for individual reasons. movement or selfishness, I suppose. This isn't selfish. I'm thinking of the entire collective. Because I've been in this field of study for over thirty years, I'm seeing the trends, I'm seeing the patterns, I'm seeing the things that we should no longer be doing. And here's an approach that I want you to consider taking moving forward. This is a real approach. This puts you back in the center of your humanity. This puts you back in the center of your leadership practice. This puts you back to the center of your life. Contemplative leadership approach is worth learning about. It's worth having a deeper understanding about. Don't gloss this over. This is unlike anything you'll ever learn. And it's time. The moment is now for us to wake up and ask ourselves, what's real? Because I've been in Delulu. I've been in a delusional world and I felt that through most of twenty five. And now that I'm entering twenty twenty six and I'm like, oh, yeah, there's forward motion. There is movement forward. Something is moving me forward, something that's pulling me. And I want you to tune into your body so that you, too, can feel that pull in your energy and start asking yourself, what is real? What do I want to be real? What do I want to dedicate my life to doing next? What does the next chapter look like for me? What am I going to devote my life to next? Do I want to stay in this industry? Do I want to stay in this role? Do I want to move into a nonprofit space? Do I want to start my own business? Do I want to serve my collective, serve my community, because there's so many people in my community that is suffering right now. So it's time to wake up. It's time for us to step into the role of the contemplative. And I am so excited to walk along with you on this journey. I guarantee you it's the most fulfilling, purposeful, soulful journey that you can take as a leader. And again, it's called Contemplative Leadership Approach. And I talk more about it inside the Sanctuary for Contemplative Leaders. Head over to the show notes wherever you're listening or watching to this and join me right away. I want to serve you in there. Go learn more about the sanctuary. Enroll as soon as you can so I can meet you and support you because I am real. I am a human with all the emotions, all of the bias, all of the craziness that we all experience as humans. And I just want to help you. lead differently and think about your leadership role in a different way because you have a soul. Leader, it is always an honor to serve you. Thank you for spending some time with me today to recalibrate, realign, readjust, and know that there's a sacred space for you where you can go deeper with me and others. Thank you again. Have a wonderful rest of your day and week, and I will see you very soon, hopefully inside the sanctuary. Take good care. Bye for now. Hey, before you go, if today's episode served you, please consider subscribing or even leaving a review. Or you can share this with a leader who is desperate to find peace right now. Now, if you're craving a deeper refuge, somewhere where you can return to the stillness, I created a sacred space. It's called the sanctuary. Here is where you can reconnect to your divine assignment. thanks again for listening today reader until next time take very good care bye for now
