Leader, you were born for this, but somewhere between the toxic leaders, broken systems, and workplace trauma, you forgot why you said yes to leadership. This show is your invitation to descend, to anchor, to find the stillness beneath the noise so you can ascend back to your team with clarity, conviction, and renewed purpose. I'm Dr. Denise Simpson, and I will guide you through five principles that restore your wholeness and call you back to your original assignment. Join me now so we can go deeper. It's time to find your way back. Hi, welcome back. I am excited for episode number two, right here, season number four of the show. I have committed to doing this live with you today. for the next, I don't know, six episodes, including today. So a total of seven for season four. And I was live last week and I broadcasted all over the place, YouTube, Facebook, on my personal and private account. excuse me, personal and business account. And I also was live on LinkedIn. So wherever you're watching this, hello and welcome. I'm so happy to serve you. I didn't want to make an announcement yesterday. I wanted to just come on here live and see who joins me without that preparation. And also to be honest with you, I have been really crazy busy behind the scenes and And was ultimately going to do this on Friday and said, no, we're doing it now. Now, today's Thursday. Let's go. Let's go. So I'm here to serve you. And I hope that this is a reminder for you to take a moment, to take a pause out of your busy day to join me, to anchor with me so that we can drop into a contemplative leadership practice. that I believe is the cure for burnout. I believe it's the cure for self-sacrifice. I believe it's the cure for the compromising of our integrity and compromising of our morality, decision by decision that happens when we are caught in the reactive crisis mode of leadership. we wake up one day and we realize we don't know who we are anymore. And so today we're talking about anchoring before we lead. Let me make sure I have my right banner. See, this is what happens when you go live and hadn't planned your banners. So if you're watching this, there was a banner that was crossing the top part of the live stream and it was the wrong banner. So why don't I just go ahead and change that out? Why not? Um, because last week was why descending versus is, uh, Oh no, that this is the right one, but why is it not coming out for you? Here we go. Uh, this is the complete, this is the complete banner. Okay. We're going to save that. And why don't we show it? There it is. Anchor Before You Lead, Why Descending First is How You Prevent Burnout. That's the complete and full title. Okay. This is also what happens when you're not wearing your reading glasses. Hey, welcome. Welcome to a totally unexpected live podcast episode for you today. This is me in all of my imperfection and we go with the flow here. And so today we're going to talk about anchoring before you lead and why descending first is how you prevent burnout. On our last conversation, I talked about burnout and I talked about leaders are at a higher risk of burnout because we face chronic high intensity demands. Nobody's disputing that. That is why we got into leadership. Those are the expectations. But what we didn't expect was to have a limited recovery between all of these deadlines and campaigns and projects. And often, often with limited control. and even support. We don't have the right support systems, the coping strategies, the mechanisms in place. Why? Because it's corporate America, or if you're around the world, it's just how this organization or organizational culture is built upon. And we're going to talk about that in just a moment because I've had so many leaders, CEOs, and founders say to me, I'm trying to run a business here and you want to talk about burnout? And how is that my concern? How is that my concern that my employee is burning out? You applied for this job, we hired you to lead this group, and now you want me to get involved in their individual, personal, professional development goals and requirements, hold on, that's on them. They should find a way to cope with burnout. They should find a way. And so during COVID, after COVID is when organizations said, well, hold on, maybe we should... take some responsibility for this. Maybe we should partially take responsibility for this, or let's better understand why we have such high turnover, why we have such high disengaged, uncommitted employees. Maybe we should take a closer look at how our systems are, the models of leadership that we are putting our executives through, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a better way for them to lead. And so you have some organizations that are like, that's none of my business while you have other organizations saying, no, I'm going to take some action here because I'm deeply concerned for the wellbeing of my leaders. Ooh, that's big y'all. That's big. So if you're in an organization right now and you know that that organization is probably doesn't care, or maybe just, you know, the resources aren't there to care about your wellbeing, then come on in, come on in. But also, even if you're in an organization that deeply cares about your wellbeing and is providing you with professional development and is, you know, securing a budget for you to get, you know, mental health, you know, benefits and all these incredible things, you're still welcome here. You belong here. So this is for the leader who is exhausted who is chronically stressed and exhausted right all the symptoms of burnout you know we can open up uh you know um harvard business review and read about burnout okay cool those symptoms Those are just symptoms. But what I am, wow, boldly trying to introduce to leadership culture is that it's fragmentation. There's a deeper root cause, deeper root cause to burnout. And that's where we need to begin the conversation. Yes, there's the symptoms on the surface. Cool. Ooh, but I want to take us ten layers deeper and actually name the damn thing, which is fragmentation, which means you, dear leader, are in a million pieces, right? And my attempt is to try to get us whole and integrated again so that we can get back to why we were called into these leadership roles, to be effective, to be transformational, to move the collective forward. Leadership is hella hard. And if you're not whole and put together, my friend, and that soul is intact, burnout happens because you are in a million pieces. We talked all about that on the first episode of season four. Go check it out. The Dr. Denise Simpson podcast on Spotify, Apple, and even on my website at drdenicesimpson.com. Go there. Watch episode one. I go into fragmentation. and how all these well-intended folks out here, including corporate people, are trying to solve for these symptoms of burnout. But no, baby, I want to get into the root cause of what is really truly happening. And this is my perspective, and this is how I see leadership. Because after twenty-seven years in this glorious field, not only as a leader in the trenches, molding the clay just like you are, And a researcher, I mean, the perspective I have on burnout goes deeper than what Harvard Business Review and Forbes and Inc. and all of these other incredible think tanks and knowledge tanks are talking about. No, I want to go deeper because as contemplatives, we go deeper into the root cause of burnout. Here's the thing. You have to work. Yeah? I mean... We gotta put food on the table. We gotta feed some children and we gotta pay the bills and pay the mortgage. Like we have to work. And so some of us chose the leadership path, right? Some of us chose the pipeline of leadership. And so here we are. And so we don't wanna leave our jobs And I know so many of us have quiet quit on our leaders, our supervisors, our organizations. A lot of us have quiet quit. And then there's some of us who are actively disengaged. Ooh, those are the ones that I... oh, I worry about those. I worry about those. Why? My research has been deeply embedded in organizational commitment and engagement between the leader and the follower. That has been my specialty. I want to know how engaged your employee is because of you. because of you, because of your mindset, because of your strategies, because of your skills. I want to know, is there a direct correlation? And of course there is, my goodness. And I'm building the research, even postdoctoral work. This is my primary work. And this is how I've got into contemplative and integrative leadership. because I've always put the leader at the core of my research. I've always put you at the core of my programs, at the core of these podcast episodes. You are the nucleus. Ooh, the world revolves around you, leader. Okay. Whether you hold a formal title or not, you know, you're the core, you're the nucleus of your life. You're the nucleus of this community, of your family, of this organization, of this department, right? Here you are the core, the nucleus. You are why I have restless nights. You are why I'm in this training and development industry. You are the reason why I do what I do because it's you. It's you that's leading the masses or one or two people over here in the corner. It's you who's leading the nonprofit or one or two people in your church. It's you who's leading the collective forward and it's you who I want to support. And so while all these incredible think tanks and intellectual platforms who specialize in workforce and workforce development and leader development, they want to talk about the surface of these problems. No, no, no. Come here. Come here. Gather around. Let's take this ten layers deeper so that we can get to the root cause of what's happening behind burnout. Again, episode one of season four. That was just last week. Go check it out after today's call. Okay. Today's call. Like I'm coaching you right now. I say that to my clients. After today's call, we'll touch base on it. No, no. This is an episode. Although I coach everywhere. Uh, I opened my mouth and I'm coaching. Uh, I have a conversation with the cashier and I'm coaching my goodness. Um, anyway, let's talk about anchoring before you lead. Ooh, we, oh my goodness. What an incredible, um, second episode in this season. It's a seven part series, seven part season, or I should say seven episode season. And today we're going to talk about the anchoring. So let's talk about leaders on that boat. Like just picture the ocean. You're on your boat. He's on his over there. She's on hers. They are on theirs way yonder, yeah? But you're on your boat. This is your core. You're the core of this boat, right? Like this is you in the middle of this boat. But here's what's interesting. You're on this boat with your team and a storm is coming through. Ooh, and it's about to try to wipe us all out. Not just your boat, but all these other boats, right? So here comes the storm. And that storm could look like policy transformation or policy change in the government, right? Like a client of mine who had a big federal policy wipe out her entire organization, right? who's in office and who's making those changes. And there's the tidal wave, there's a tsunami. And that's how these boats you leader in your boat gets impacted. So think about you and your boat and all these other leaders in their boats. And here comes the storm. Call it whatever you want to call it. Call it the economy. Call it policy. Call it an industry change. Call it a shortage in manufacturing. Call it a supply chain issue. Call it COVID. Call it whatever. That crisis, it can be as global as that, or it could be as individual and selective to your world. But you're in a boat and you're about to hit a storm. Oh, here comes the storm. You're watching. You know the weather systems. You know the patterns. Here it comes. And you, dear leader, are unprepared because maybe this storm is unlike anything you've seen before. It's like, wait, where did this one come from? Like, are you kidding? I just stayed alive after this last weather system that came through, and now you want me to navigate through this next one? Like, I'm not even mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually prepared for this one. Wait, what? So wherever you are right now in leadership, what is your storm? Put that in the comments. Tell me, what is your storm? Is it a new leader in place? Is it somebody new you're answering to? Is it a new federal policy? Is it a new state change? Is it... You know, what else could it be? Again, supply chain, or it could be something completely different, right? It could be so individual to your case. What is that for you? Name it if you dare in the comments. So here you are on that deck and your crew members are Your teammates, yeah, call them peers. You can call them colleagues. You can call them subordinates. You can call them followers. But the people on that boat that you are responsible in leading, this is your responsibility, leader. No denying that. No denying that. They're scared. They're distracted or they're disconnected or they're disengaged. What is it that you're seeing in your team right now? Check on those behaviors. Check on how they are experiencing this threat, this crisis, this storm that you are all in. So they're looking at you. They're turning their heads and they're going, what is this dude doing? Nothing? What's this woman doing? Nothing? Like, aren't you the captain of this ship? We're all going to die here. And you're the one that's going to lead us into death over here. So your team is watching your every move. Oh, and they are watching closely. I always tell my leaders, oh, you're the model of excellence or you're the model of what not to do. And they are watching and they're keeping score because I kept score. Oh, my gosh. When I was a follower and I was looking at my idiot leader, I'm like, are you kidding me? You're going to lead us into this battle unprepared? Like, you're not even equipped. Like, okay, hey, put me in instead. I'll take the lead here. I'll take the risk. And oh, by the way, because I'm from this follower group and this collective, oh, I've got some ideas on how to lead us forward. Put me in instead. This is how I got into leadership. Probably many of you out here too. It's how you got into leadership. So your team, your followers are watching your every move and they're talking about you. We know that because we do the same thing, right? We do that to our leaders. And so here you are unprepared for this next storm. So you're on that deck. You're on the deck of the boat. And you're getting tossed around. And that storm wants to take you out, my friend. And you don't have the mindset, you don't have the skills, and you don't have the strategy to navigate through that storm. So that's what I mean by before burnout hits we have to anchor so you're on this boat and i want for you and i know this is very counter-intuitive to so many of you because i've heard from so many of you telling me this is ridiculous you want me to anchor you want me to descend while i'm on this boat in crisis with my team are you actually telling me to run away from the crisis from this storm And so I'm not asking you to run away, baby. That's not what we do as leaders. No, I'm asking you to descend, to descend, to anchor down below. Because on this deck, you are unable because you don't have the mindset and you don't have the skills and you certainly don't have strategy to implement. So I'm asking you to take a step back because what this is costing you is reactive leadership. You're making decisions on the fly. And I know some of us leaders are like, well, that's the industry I'm in. I'd have to make quick decisions. I have to move quickly here. So I'm just going to have to be reactive. But so many of you are losing your souls and destroying yourselves along this process because how you're behaving, how you're showing up, how you're performing in the organization is is far more negative. You're yielding negative results because you don't have the right mindset. You don't have the right skills. You don't have the right strategies to make effective transformational decisions. So when I ask a leader, take a beat, baby, take a beat, take a pause, take a moment with me. Let's descend down together. That just means saying, okay, I'm going to surrender for just a moment because this storm wants to take me out and I don't know how to navigate through this storm. This may be a very different storm than the last one. Or there may be some similar parts to this storm as it was to the last one. However, I don't know how to navigate through this predicament. And so I'm here to say there's a different way to lead. I'm here to say you don't have to be reactive. You don't have to destroy your soul along the process. You don't have to self-sacrifice for this role. This is why you're burnt out. This is why you're fragmented. This is why you hate your job. You hate your employees. You hate your organization. This is why you're miserable. So I'm introducing a different way to lead. And so as contemplatives, we take a pause, we take a moment, and we ascend. excuse me, we descend so that we can ascend back into our boats. So it's not like we're running away. Like some of you have DM'd me about, you're like, you want me to run away and anchor and contemplate? Is this kumbaya leadership? Like, what are you telling me, Denise? Like, this is so unusual. This is going against everything I've been taught about leadership. First of all, we don't run away from anything. As a matter of fact, we're very confrontational. We challenge status quo. We're contemplatives. We're not cynics. We're skeptics. And so we challenge the status quo. We challenge what a superior is telling us. We challenge what our employees are thinking and their biases and all of the conditions. We challenge that. Because we're skeptics. Listen, contemplatives are no pushovers. That's not who we are. We're not in the corner doing yoga, meditating all day, kumbayaing through leadership. No, no, it's a different way to lead my friends. And so the action is to descend. And that could look like a five minute pause. Hell, it could look like a twenty four hour pause. you know, standard. I tell my staff all the time, give me twenty four hours. Let me contemplate on this one. Right. Sometimes they're quick decisions and I'm ready. Let's go. Actually, my intuition and my memories and my experience level, we're all working on this in the same way. We're all here together. Here's my decision on this. And that took me two minutes to decide. There are things in leadership, decisions and leadership that you have to take a day or two to contemplate. Because you know yourself so well. Listen, you're the expert of you. I'm not an expert of you. You are masterful. You're an expert. You know who you are. You're onto yourself. You know your patterns. You know how you produce results in your life. There are some limiting beliefs. There's some programming. There's some biases. There's conditioning that's keeping you maybe from reaching your full potential. But you know yourself better than I know you. I'm just offering a different way of looking at leadership. And so you're onto yourself. So when you're in those situations, those circumstances that are, it's high intensity, there's a lot of pressure. What do you do? Do you run head first into the wall and then crack your skull open and then wait to see what happens? Or are you someone who says, give me a moment, give me a moment to think for myself because I know what your opinions are and I know what your ideas are. And I'm ultimately the one that's responsible for moving us forward. And so instead of sinking the ship, I'm going to take a moment, a pause to descend so that I can think for myself, right? Because I need to remember where your beliefs end, mine begin. Oh, that's leadership, my friends. That's leadership. Not groupthink. We're not all in this blob and blurry mess. No, we have to take responsibility. It's sacred responsibility. I'm not even going to call it extreme accountability or whatever these words and phrases are. No, no, no, no. This is sacred responsibility that we contemplative leaders have. And it is my responsibility to take a moment to think this through. And sometimes you do have to disconnect from that immediate environment. Sometimes you do have to turn the do not disturb sign. Sometimes you have to take a moment with me once a week right here on this podcast to take a beat, take a moment, take a breather. Maybe that's all it takes. So no, I'm not asking you to go kumbaya on the corner and then come out whenever you're ready. No, we move quickly here, yes. And we also take time because we respect our roles and we have sacred responsibilities to lead these souls that are on this ship, that are also experiencing this storm. And these raging seas on this surface, huh? That's my responsibility is to understand what my patterns are, find awareness around what I do in crisis. I mean, do I run and hide? Do I run head first into the wall? Or do I take a moment and go, well, you know, I'm actually going to need a day or two to make a decision on this. And your staff will respect that. They're going to look at you and go, well, wow, there you go, Denise. Wow. Taking a moment. I respect that. And I see that. And you're a model of excellence. You're a model of what to do. You're not a model of what not to do because I've seen plenty of leaders sacrifice their souls for these roles. Wow. What does that look like? Extreme burnout, hate, anger, resentment, bitterness. Like you're dragging yourself to work and you're like, I hate my life and I hate what I've become. It's because we didn't have the right coping strategies, the right perspective on leadership. No one told us there's a different way to lead. So this is new to you. Cool. There's a different way to lead. And what we do here, what we do here, what I'm so good at is helping a leader take a moment, take a pause. And then I ask that leader to descend down below. Now, what do we do when we descend down below? So just think about the crisis on that raging sea. Ooh, emotional violence, psychological violence. My goodness, there's all physical violence out in the world. Y'all watching the news? Of course, of course. So here are those raging seas. And I know about rage so well. I know about rage so well, which is why I'm in this business, which is why I do what I do right now with leaders, because I was living on that surface and I was getting knocked around and I was just going wherever the wind was taking me. wherever the group was telling me to do, whatever my board of directors were forcing me to do. I had no say. I had no voice. I'm like, yep, I'm just getting knocked around up here, full of rage, full of anger. Sure, I'll stay here because I didn't know better. I didn't know there was a different way to lead. So think about this for you. So you're on that surface. So is your team. so are the souls that you are here to steward, okay? Those souls are in that boat with you and they're getting knocked around just like you are, but they're looking to you for guidance. They're looking to you for direction and you don't know what the hell to do because you're burnt out. You're burnt to a crisp. Ooh. So just picture that for yourself, whether you're in a nonprofit, whether you're in public service, whether you are in the private industry, wherever you're finding yourself, what is that storm for you? What is that raging sea for you? And look at your team, look at the people around you waiting for you. to lead them through that storm alive. Ooh, they want to come out of this alive. And you want to do good by them. This is part of that sacred responsibility that you've taken on when you accepted this role of leadership. Let me be the reminder. of why you answered this call to lead. Because so many of us out here are so swept up in all of that stress and all of that pressure and all of that anger and rage and bitterness and all the things that happen in our daily leadership roles. Because we've got lives to lead outside of leadership. And those lives too, oh my God, those areas of your life may be in jeopardy too. but you answered the call. You answered the call. So what's that good friend of mine, John Maxwell, Maxwell. Yes. Uh, he's not a really, I don't know him. Uh, I call him a good friend. Like I call everybody a good friend. Um, the leadership author, old school guy, my gosh, he has like a thousand books on leadership. He's so great. Maxwell, I believe. I think. He just did a podcast episode with Ed Milet, who I love and met. Love and I met him. Don't know him, but I didn't meet him. And he's talking about the headline on the thumbnail on YouTube is, you're born to lead. oh, isn't that a good thumbnail? Isn't that a good title? You were born to lead. And that's my perspective. When a leader was called into leadership, when you raised your hand, something was pulling you. Something was pulling you. For me, I was young. I was being pulled, but there were some delusional aspects of that. But ultimately, I look back and I know I was being pulled into leadership. because I was born to do this work, just like you. You were born to do this work. And so I want to be that reminder for you why you were called into leadership and why it is your sacred responsibility to do this work. It's recognizing that leadership can be different for you. It's also recognizing I could do this better. It's also being honest in what it is you're experiencing right now in this fragmenting of your soul, this fragmenting of yourself. It's like the splitting off of yourself. You're not divided in your two equal parts that were once whole. No, you're in all these pieces. You're in multiple pieces all over the floor. And my work here every week is to help us put those pieces back together again, like Humpty Dumpty. We're here to put ourselves back together again. Because when you lead fully integrated and whole, the transformation happens. That is available to you. Yes, you first and foremost, but to your followers and to your family members and to your community members. It's so great. It is so rewarding. This is where you find the fulfillment in your career. This is where you find purpose every day in your role. This is the work that we do. And we use contemplation. We use contemplative rituals and practices to do that. And that's what we do every week here. You join me every week for the intent to descend and to anchor ourselves. It's about us anchoring before we reemerge and have to lead our people. That's called ascending. So we descend, we anchor, we're here together, we're mulling this over, we're reflecting with each other, and then we ascend back into our roles, brighter, greater, regenerated, replenished, refocused, and re-energized. so that you can get back on that boat. And I'll end our session, our session, our episode. There I am thinking we're in a coaching session. I want to end this episode with that image of you re-emerging. It's you ascending back into that boat, fully refreshed, fully aligned, ooh, realigned. It's like, oh, now I remember why I was here, why I'm doing this. And here I can think clearly. Here's how I can make this decision for the greater good of this community, for all of us together. Now I can think clearly. Yes, there's a neuroscience behind that. And we go through that in my programs. Of course, you want the data. I've got plenty of it for you. But for the sake of our episodes every week, I don't want to bombard you with more data because I'm very particular with the statistics that I want to share with you. Because not all of them are useful for you individually. But there are some think tanks out here that want to shove these statistics on our throats and then make it... a blanket statistic for all of us to follow. And it's like, well, okay, cool. No, unuseful. And I want to make sure that when I do present something to you, it's through my leadership coaching practice. It's with the research that I have vetted or that I have actually experimented and actually provided you with. So that's my intent when I provide you with any of that information. But just know that Just know when you ascend back into that boat, you are fully prepared to lead this team through any crisis. And the more you experience this, this intentional descent and this intentional anchoring, every time you reemerge and you ascend back, You're getting better and better and sharper. You're adding more to your skills. You're developing your mindset. You're developing your spiritual intelligence. You're developing your emotional intelligence. You're becoming a greater leader with the skills that's necessary to carry out these strategies and to perform at your highest level. That's what ascension looks like. But we have to realize there are storms are a coming. Okay. You may be in the middle of one right now. And this process of descending to anchor and then ascending back into the boat is a simple framework and it's a simple process, but it's not easy. It's not easy when your nervous system is designed or better said programmed to experience all of this chaos in your body, chaos in your mind, chaos in your nervous system. right? Like it's, it's, it's something that we are programmed into. That's what I believe. And what we get to do here is we get to heal and we get to stop the generational trauma that's happening in our organizations right now. That's what we are ultimately doing. So we anchor before we lead. And why descending first is how you prevent the burnout. We descend first so that we remember why we were called. Again, going back into the anchoring that we do so that we do not burn out. So if you want to learn more about fragmenting the root cause of burnout, that's episode one of season four. Go watch that. This is episode two of season four. So we just covered that and you're going to want to check that out. I didn't want to repeat myself today on all the things we talked about burnout on our last episode, but this was just a perfect segue into this anchor framework that I've created for us. So I'm inviting you right now. Let's see here. Do I have something here for you? I have a free workshop. Here we go. Let me take this banner off. Okay. So if you are watching, you'll see a banner across my screen. It's a free workshop. I do this every month, by the way. It's an opportunity for you and I to be in the same room together. Right now, this is being broadcast. I don't get to experience you. You don't get to experience me. But in this workshop that I do every month, we get to do the experiential work. This is where we, this isn't corporate training. There's no slide decks. I don't have a pitch deck for you. No, it is you and I with others. So it's a group atmosphere on Zoom in a private meeting room where we get to do this contemplative work. So expect to go deeper with me there. And you're going to want to join me on our next workshop. I do these once a month. I just did one earlier this week. What's today? Thursday. I did Tuesday night. So the next one's coming up soon. You're going to want to go to drdeniessimpson.com forward slash anchored workshop so that you can get your name on the list and I can see you there very soon. leaders thank you so much for your time today and for this um unexpected live with me um again I jumped on, didn't have much planning time prepared for this. I was going to do this tomorrow, but I thought, nope, we're doing it now. We got to do this now. I've got all this on my mind and on my heart, and I want to support somebody out there right now today. So I pray that this served you well today and that you'll join me here next week. Maybe I'll give you advance notice. Maybe not. Maybe I'll just show up live like this. and see who joins me. So if you're watching the replay, make sure you comment that. And if you're on Spotify or on audio somewhere, you're going to want to come and watch this. All of my recordings are also on my website at drdeniessimpson.com. So if you don't want to go to YouTube, you don't want to go to LinkedIn, you don't want to go to Facebook, just go to drdeniessimpson.com so that you can watch me there. All right. Thank you so very much for your time. See you all very soon. Take care. You came here for a reason and that reason is bigger than you know. If today's episode stirred something in you, that stirring is your assignment calling you back. Don't ignore it. Here's what you can do next. Subscribe, leave a review, or share this with a leader who forgot why they said yes. And when you're ready to go deeper, my friend, join me in my program. It's called Anchored. This is where we descend into the five principles that restore your wholeness and return you to your original assignment. The world needs the leader that you were born to be. So head over to my website at drdeniessimpson.com to learn how you can join me inside my program called Anchored. Until next time, take very good care.
