Ep 126: Vanessa Broers ~ High Performance Traps, Shamanic Awakening & Workplace Transformation

Transcript

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Truth and Transcendence brought to you by being Space with Katherine Llewellyn.

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Truth and Transcendence, episode 126.

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With special guest Vanessa Broads.

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I hope I pronounced that right Vanessa, great, fantastic.

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So if you don't know Vanessa which is very interesting maybe her early career was in the C suite of a major corporation, leading the internal department of process improvement.

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She loved the work but despite that she was actually called into deeper modes of healing as a coach and healer and onto the shamanic path.

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So that's quite a switch.

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And then Vanessa spent more than a decade coaching top performing entrepreneurs, organizational leaders and professionals to tear down decades of inner blocks to performance, eliminate stress and overwhelm and radically shift the way they lead their teams and businesses to create more impact and results.

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Vanessa's results prove that the more you focus on the human experience, the better performance.

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She works as a culture shaman which is such a great term to put the human back into human performance, and works with top organizations like Reddit, linkedin, university of Pittsburgh, duquesne University and her own top performing fitness studio to create cultures that truly thrive at the human level to support higher performance within the organization.

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So that's very, very interesting combination.

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So why do I invite Vanessa onto the podcast?

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Well, vanessa is quite simply a charming individual generous, spirited, warm, lighthearted and engaging.

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I couldn't say no.

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Add to that her utterly grounded understanding of organizational dynamics and she's an asset for any leader wishing to generate a flourishing culture and kind of.

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Secondly to that, I used to do a lot of organizational culture work back in the day and I used to love it.

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Found it incredibly fulfilling, quite challenging, so I feel like having a conversation with Vanessa is going to be like a chat amongst friends over here.

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So, vanessa, thank you so much for coming onto Truth and Transcendence.

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Thank you.

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Yeah, a chat amongst friends is really how it's felt really since minute one, isn't it?

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Yeah, absolutely.

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So settle in everybody.

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If you're driving, maybe not having a cup of coffee at the same time, well, maybe you are.

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So our theme today is about creating an intentional culture, and I know Vanessa is going to tell us what she means by that.

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That's the sort of phrase that different people might mean different things, and I think, from my point of view, that subject is really relevant.

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At the moment in the world, we're in a situation where a lot of us feel like we are in a culture that we just landed in by mistake, whether that's at work, whether it's at home in the family, whether it's in the community.

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After the last few years of what we've all been through, a lot of cultures have taken a bit of hammering.

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Equally, there are cultures that have evolved and flourished, which are new and fresh and terribly exciting, and there are people pivoting and zigging and zagging and all kinds of things going on.

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So I think creating an intentional culture is a really interesting topic.

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So, really, you know, stay tuned in everybody.

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I think this is going to be really interesting.

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So, vanessa, if I ask you, can you remember when you first realized that culture was something that was important to you?

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At first I was going to say no, but that's actually not true.

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When I sat with it longer, I've never been asked this question and it's so fun to remember.

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I actually think that it was in grad school.

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So I have my master's in health policy and management, which is essentially like an MBA for healthcare organizations Nothing too sexy or exciting.

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But the class that I loved so much was organizational development, and I can't remember the book.

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It was a really cool book that we had to read, but it was all about actual power, where the actual power of an organization came from, and it wasn't in this hierarchical structures and roles and authority labels that were defined.

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But even more than the book, in the class I had a I think he was the teacher's, like the I don't want to say teacher's assistant, and diminished the role he was.

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I don't know what the actual title of the role was.

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His name was Keith and he was just.

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I was fascinated by his fascination and it was kind of one of those like intoxication by proximity type of things, and he was just.

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That was that's what he did was the informal dynamics that actually led to the real creation of the culture, the flow of information and kind of the real glue that held organizations together and, conversely, what people think is what is required, what people think makes it work, and how opposed those often were.

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I found it fascinating and then I didn't do anything with it.

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I went off and had this whole other career but it really never left me.

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And then when I started doing the real deep work with the leaders and entrepreneurs and you know professionals that I worked with, it's like I went back in and we were looking at the culture within the individual.

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So it was a lot of the coaching was how is the culture of the organization shaping how you experience yourself?

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How is that in most cases negative experience getting in the way of you being able to perform the way you want to at work?

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As I worked with people through that more and more and more, of course, because they were leaders, it had to flow outward.

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The challenges demanded it and also the desire to share it happened simultaneously, and so then the work really started to evolve into working with their teams and showing up and then kind of kind of reigniting that passion of oh yeah.

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Of course, the inner complexity is the same thing that's driving what's happening in the culture, either positively or negatively.

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Yeah, beautiful that book, was it?

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Images of organization by Richard.

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Morgan, no, I think it was called power and influence and it's such a.

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It's actually kind of a it can be.

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I can think of that name as kind of like oh, like how to win friends and influence people, kind of energetic, but actually it's really about like real pure essence of power, true power, not being powerful.

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I don't know if that makes sense.

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Power with, as opposed to power over, is how some people yes, yes, yeah, beautiful, it's fantastic.

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So it sounds like it's sort of incubated within you.

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So, over over what sort of time period was it from when you first were inspired by Keith?

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Thank you, keith.

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So obviously he's a contributor in the story.

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So, keith, if you're listening randomly, Maybe I'll send it to him, let him know.

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How long was it from that moment, do you think, to the moment when you realized there was a connection with what you were now doing?

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later on, with seven years, a long time, many years.

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Well, seven years interesting, you know.

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They say that in seven years, every seven, our body is replaced.

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But people say it's a spiritual cycle every seven years, don't they?

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So maybe that cycle was the length of cycle that you needed for it to sort of come through, because I don't know if you agree with this, but I think you talk.

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You spoke about the complexity within somebody and the complexity in a culture.

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I think that happens on so many levels that it can take a long time to integrate and metabolize and consider.

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Yeah, I think if I had tried to go into culture work when I was inspired, I didn't know enough about the individual and I would imagine, actually, that this is why culture feels so overwhelming to some people, to leaders, because intentional culture to me, is a combination of the vision of what you want the unit like, the cultural unit, to feel, express and be, and it's also the deep knowing and understanding of how individuals operate, and it's complex.

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And so then, an intentional culture is you can want it to be this, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can force it into being.

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It's more of this organism like, it's more of like an organic unfolding.

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It's like an organism lives in and of itself and it's a balance between holding the vision of intention and meeting the complexity of the individual and in flowing and dancing with it.

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You can't force and shove people into culture, however desperately we may try.

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Yes, yes, I remember once, with a group I was a group of execs I was working with we spent literally three hours arguing about whether or not an organization is like an organism or a machine.

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And it's fascinating because, as you say, obviously it is an organism and yet it does have structures within it that are real and tangible.

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So you've got both, haven't you?

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But you can't ignore the organic side of it.

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By the way, I'm just going to let listeners know that you have very kindly come on today, despite the fact that you're just finishing off the last stages of a bit of a cough.

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So I just want to give you permission right now to cough as much as you need to and stop and drink water as much as you need to.

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The erection is so kind, Thank you.

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Not at all.

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We're human right.

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Interesting even what we're talking about In the culture of this conversation we're having, because it could have been the other way around.

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It could have been me exhausted because I could have overdone it earlier in the day or earlier in the week.

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And I could have said to you before we started I'm exhausted, can you carry the energy for me, which sometimes has to happen?

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So I just thought if that doesn't happen in organizational cultures as well we can't carry all the energy all the time, can we?

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And leaders try and individuals try.

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That's the thing that I'm seeing in my, in our gym.

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I see our.

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You know, you kind of fight so hard and work so hard to get your team to really care and then you're like, whoa, don't care that much, hold on, put that down, you don't need to hold that.

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And we do that.

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You know, we do that from a place of really genuine caring and I think we do it from a place of overcompensating and proving.

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Yeah, and of course, when one is in a gym, there's an awful lot of performance pressure, isn't there that we put on ourselves?

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You know, got to lift that extra weight, an extra 5, 10 reps or whatever, otherwise I'm not doing what I need to do.

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And then the next day, why is it I can't walk today?

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And have I actually put myself back, yes, and then forward by overdoing it in that way?

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Yeah, it's such a great I mean, the gym is just such an awesome metaphor.

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No-transcript.

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So many organizations that I've worked with.

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They can be quite obsessive about performance, high performance.

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I imagine that is probably true for you as well.

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One of the things that I think as to have this intentional culture of high performance.

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High performance is not constant performance.

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It's not performance at the expense of everything else.

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I noticed I'm curious if you've seen this as well part of what is required to create a culture of high performance is to mitigate overperformance.

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That's sort of like you don't need to lift that heavy, you don't need to carry that.

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If you do, you're not going to be able to walk tomorrow.

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It's actually.

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I think we can over cultivate high performance and miss those opportunities of actually kind of slowing people down a little bit.

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Calm down, yeah, we don't need to crush this all out in the next three minutes.

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Yeah, I completely agree with you.

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I've seen so many people come into the room and, before even started to work together, they're already exhausted and I know for sure they've got many emails and texts waiting to be dealt with that they're going to run and deal with in the lunch break and they're supposed to be resting.

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I did a thing once with it with a group, where I noticed that every time we had a break, they just went and they worked through the break.

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And I said to them look, the purpose of the break is to have a break, so how much time do you need to work in the break?

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And they said well, 20 minutes should be enough.

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I mean, then we're running a massive organization responsible for a lot of money in the bank.

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I said okay, see, if you've said 20 minutes, fine, so from now on the breaks are going to be 40 minutes long and I want you to agree that you will only work for 20 minutes of that and have a break for the other 20 minutes.

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And I'm going to go and see what's taking place.

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And they said no problem, no problem.

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Anyway, they came back in after the break.

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They said that nearly killed us.

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We are shocked at how addictive we are.

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We're shocked about it.

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Yeah, and of course, annoyingly, they remembered that more than they remembered all the wonderful stuff.

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Remember that little tiny.

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But you're absolutely right, it's that sort of we've got to keep going at all costs.

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Yeah, and of course there's over-promising, isn't there?

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We've seen this in some tech companies.

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I remember there was a what do you call a company that provides email support?

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like a domain provider.

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Oh yeah.

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You could get your email and your website domain or whatever.

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They were clearly successful.

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They oversubscribed.

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They had loads and loads and loads of customers and I remember looking at it and thinking they will be out of business by the end of the year.

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And they were because they couldn't deliver.

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Yes, they got fed up and they remember no one.

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I can't even remember what they've called now.

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Yeah, yes, this is so.

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It's so key and it's so important.

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You know, I actually have a bracelet.

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I usually actually wear it during podcasts.

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It's just this little gold bracelet and on the inside I have inscribed at all costs.

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And it's a reminder to me that I will rest at all costs, I will slow down at all costs, and it's the opposite, but in our culture.

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So we're talking macro culture, not even necessarily cultures of organizations, but this shows up in cultures of organizations because it also exists in the culture of individuals, this addiction to performance and almost like to what end and for what purpose.

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And you know, we have this sort of have this like inner lie, that we keep telling ourselves that like we just have to reach the school and then we can pause, and then we can stop and we can slow down.

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And it doesn't.

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It never arrives, of course, because that's not how it works, but it's a.

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In Zen teaching they call it the hungry ghost.

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You're feeding the hungry ghost.

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Oh, I haven't heard that.

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Tell me what that means.

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So the hungry ghost, and you can imagine you could feed a ghost endlessly and it would never.

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It can't be nourished, it can't be satiated.

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And so you really aware, like, are you feeding the hungry ghost or are you actually kind of there's a like the other image that comes up is sinking your feet into the soil Like there's a different kind of pacing that happens when you're just creating, for creation, and it can be fast and it can be intense and it can be, you know, exponential, but it's not detrimental.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes perfect sense and I'm fascinated, vanessa, by this whole kind of journey you went on, where you decided to let go of what you were doing and then go and study the shamanic path and all these other other things.

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Could you tell a bit more of a story about that, because I'm sure people are going to be fascinated to hear this?

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It was less.

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It was, I would say, at the beginning of the journey.

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It was more.

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I don't want to diminish it it was more impulsive than intuitive, but those are a fine line for me.

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In my younger years I'm learning to trust both more and discern them also.

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But I was working for an organization.

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I was 25 years old, I was in the C-suite, I mean, I was reporting to the.

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You know, I was in the meetings with the CEO and the COO and the CFO and they were like who I was in the office with?

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And it was I was a backpacker in Australia and they were like what is happening?

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The contrast was so wild.

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And, you know, I really have a brilliant mind, like I'm really smart and I can see patterns, and so I.

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The role itself was really cool and it was really challenging mentally.

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But I was 25 and I wasn't ready for that level of responsibility.

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I, you know, I wanted to play and travel and explore, and I have the maturity at the time to actually lead people.

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Yeah, look back, I can see moments.

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I had a team and I can.

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I can even remember, you know, and they were great friends and we had a.

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We had a ton of fun too, but I can remember the looks they would give me, sometimes just like eye rolling.

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You know it was micromanaging, it wasn't leading, and I didn't know what I was doing which do any of us really and so I had the wisdom to understand that, although I loved the work, it was short.

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It was short lived it.

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Even if I, like I sort of joke sometimes that if I hadn't quit I would have been fired, and I don't know, I don't know how much of a joke that was, I think I would have probably allowed it to unravel a little bit.

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So I left and I traveled for a while and I was restless.

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I was deeply restless.

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I would go to, you know, south America for four months and I go home for a minute, and then I would go to New Zealand for 14 months, and I was in this search, and all the while, though, I was studying health coaching, and so at some point, I came back and I felt, okay, no, I need it's time, I need to put my feet in the ground, I need to devote to this, I need to create this thing, and so, over years, I was a health coach, but I never was focused on nutrition or eating plans or exercise.

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I was always more tuned into what was going on with my clients at a deeper level that had them perform and get results or not.

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I was also really.

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I just I did more like a sort of essential wellness.

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Yeah, yeah.

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But even then I remember being really perplexed why are we talking about your relationship to your husband?

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We're supposed to be talking about leafy greens this week, you know.

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But also really trusted it and so, as I just, I got more curious about that and also, why did some of my clients do really well and why did some of them seem to stall out and stay stuck forever?

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I got really curious about also the relationship between physical weight on the body and those same patterns.

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And also that was one end of the spectrum.

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The other end were these like super athletes that were really obsessive and just kind of observing that there was dysfunction in both, but not really understanding either.

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And so I then found my way into belief, work and neurolinguistic programming and so sort of what we would call in the personal development world rewiring the brain, very useful, mind blowing.

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It was a whole discovery that, oh my gosh, there's a world in there and you have some agency over it.

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Wow, if you just put the red wire with the blue wire, the bomb doesn't go off, kind of like looking at it from a more mechanical and strategic perspective and so.

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But I was always being, I was it's like I was always being beck and forth.

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I was always being called deeper.

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I could tell that what I was learning was correct, but it wasn't it.

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You know, there was just this yeah, but this is close, but it's not quite it.

00:21:58.740 --> 00:22:01.885
And then my personal journey with that was I kept using it.

00:22:01.885 --> 00:22:06.121
Then it's a.

00:22:06.121 --> 00:22:07.304
There's the metaphor that I'm.

00:22:07.304 --> 00:22:15.832
It's like I poisoned the water, the knowing of this power that you had over your mind.

00:22:15.832 --> 00:22:20.125
Even notice how I said that, the power you have over your mind.

00:22:20.426 --> 00:22:27.626
Yes, it kind of poisoned the water of the innocent possibility that I started as a coach, which was just so childlike.

00:22:27.626 --> 00:22:33.027
It was like Alice in Wonderland Whoa, where did this come from?

00:22:33.027 --> 00:22:34.883
And this is so cool, it can help people.

00:22:34.883 --> 00:22:46.244
And I got a little drunk with my own power and I became obsessed with making money and the high performance, personal development, entrepreneurial world and I got lost, lost.

00:22:46.244 --> 00:22:46.787
Lost.

00:22:46.787 --> 00:22:48.763
And I was good at it.

00:22:48.763 --> 00:22:49.722
That was the problem.

00:22:49.722 --> 00:23:07.634
Even though I had deep dissatisfaction I mean, that was growing more profound by the day I just kept good at getting better at making money and my brilliant mind started kind of working against me and writing copy and coaching entrepreneurs.

00:23:07.634 --> 00:23:10.373
And you know, like I just kept, it was like the hungry ghost.

00:23:10.373 --> 00:23:15.569
The hungry ghost got a hold of the deep power and skill set.

00:23:17.500 --> 00:23:32.839
And what happened for me was that, despite growing my income year after year, reducing the hours I work year after year and actually getting really, really good at what I did, wasn't?

00:23:32.839 --> 00:23:44.536
I was so, so bored and so dissatisfied that I couldn't force it to work.

00:23:44.536 --> 00:23:59.069
If I had tried and I tried, because I had always been able to force everything to work and I met my teacher at the time, who just find yourself a teacher and who just doesn't believe a word you say and can see right through it.

00:23:59.069 --> 00:23:59.643
And she did.

00:23:59.643 --> 00:24:19.431
And so, despite my best efforts to keep propping up this machine I had built, I really I started to go deeper than I ever had before and you know she does a lot with inner child work and I rolled my eyes at it.

00:24:19.431 --> 00:24:23.624
I'm like I've done that before, you know, and it was just what I call it went.

00:24:23.763 --> 00:24:28.753
It went from like the mindset strategy to deep, deep soul orientation.

00:24:28.753 --> 00:24:33.500
Yeah, and that, if you know I'm, I know you've been on that journey.

00:24:33.500 --> 00:24:38.079
It's a, it's a treacherous one, and that isn't soul survives.

00:24:38.079 --> 00:25:00.286
And so it was this reunion with understanding that there is something much deeper in us that's driving it and it can be so muddied by all of these other things and then, simultaneously, probably the biggest, the biggest growth it seems like a weird word to call it is the recognition that I am Not the one in power.

00:25:00.286 --> 00:25:02.299
Yeah, it's not me.

00:25:02.299 --> 00:25:07.087
Yeah, I can use these mind tools and I can align myself with higher purpose and higher power.

00:25:07.087 --> 00:25:09.991
But it's called higher purpose and higher power for a reason.

00:25:09.991 --> 00:25:11.454
Yes, yes.

00:25:13.383 --> 00:25:23.099
And so for me, I'm taking micro baby steps on the shamanic path, because it feels like every time I put a toe down, I get obliterated or annihilated on some level.

00:25:23.099 --> 00:25:24.500
So I've become quite timid.

00:25:24.500 --> 00:25:25.880
I don't run on the path anymore.

00:25:27.683 --> 00:25:29.407
That shows you're actually on the path, I think.

00:25:29.468 --> 00:25:31.272
Yeah, exactly Exactly.

00:25:31.272 --> 00:25:37.279
You're, like you know, cautiously crawling and inchworming, instead of trying to try this.

00:25:37.279 --> 00:25:38.624
I don't want to sprint dead.

00:25:38.624 --> 00:25:39.987
I know what's up there.

00:25:40.288 --> 00:25:40.950
Yeah, yeah.

00:25:42.122 --> 00:25:47.400
But when it sounds like you had some, it sounds like you, had some quite important ego breakthrough experiences.

00:25:48.961 --> 00:25:55.771
I mean ego breakthroughs would be a kind way to call what I would say utter annihilation.

00:25:55.771 --> 00:26:03.050
And what that looked like really practical for me was thinking about it this morning.

00:26:03.050 --> 00:26:11.507
It was last spring and I did this virtual live event and it was after I had done a lot of this really, really deep work.

00:26:11.507 --> 00:26:15.931
So I felt like, okay, I'm finally doing the truth of what I'm here for and I'm being myself.

00:26:15.931 --> 00:26:17.946
And it was flowing with ease.

00:26:17.946 --> 00:26:23.845
I had tons of people signing up and to this day, I cannot explain why.

00:26:24.026 --> 00:26:28.031
It was an absolutely devastating disaster, the event.

00:26:28.031 --> 00:26:33.289
Nobody who was there can put their finger on it and yet we all agree it was painful.

00:26:33.289 --> 00:26:35.923
It was painful to be there, it was painful to watch.

00:26:35.923 --> 00:26:41.031
I didn't get out of bed for a week and nothing in my life has kept me down.

00:26:41.031 --> 00:26:50.335
It was humiliation, annihilation, devastation at the deepest level.

00:26:50.335 --> 00:26:57.442
And when I finally did get out of bed, I knew there was no going back to the business that I had created.

00:26:57.442 --> 00:26:59.945
I just stopped.

00:26:59.945 --> 00:27:05.423
I stopped working, I stopped creating, I stopped sharing, I stopped posting.

00:27:05.423 --> 00:27:09.548
I just laid on my paddleboard for six weeks and I let.

00:27:09.548 --> 00:27:14.428
My credit came crashing down, my income came crashing down, I couldn't pay rent.

00:27:14.428 --> 00:27:32.259
I mean, it wasn't like I let it fall down and I had to, because then, when the rubble finally settled, the only thing that could get back up was me, the true me, and it was so humbling.

00:27:32.259 --> 00:27:39.367
I mean, it was so humbling and yeah, and coming back out.

00:27:39.900 --> 00:27:55.010
Well done for doing that, that's bold, you know, because I think oftentimes we will do anything but allow ourselves to get to that place where what's not real gets stripped away.

00:27:56.401 --> 00:27:58.644
Yes, absolutely.

00:27:58.644 --> 00:28:08.914
And it's you know, coming back to work on the other side of that and working with culture and people.

00:28:08.914 --> 00:28:22.413
Now, of course, now I would have done it 10 times over, 10 times more intensely, because I see, on the other side, the lead from that place of humility is completely different.

00:28:24.564 --> 00:28:25.888
So how did you come back?

00:28:25.888 --> 00:28:29.568
How did you climb back out and come back?

00:28:30.720 --> 00:28:34.170
I love that you asked that question, because we tend to tell the stories like and then it was different.

00:28:35.662 --> 00:28:38.988
And then Morgan Frederick did, and the world was safe.

00:28:39.008 --> 00:28:39.409
Yeah, the.

00:28:39.809 --> 00:28:41.112
A's flew away.

00:28:41.112 --> 00:28:43.285
Yeah, I love you for asking that question.

00:28:43.285 --> 00:28:51.131
So in that period where stopping was the only option, I really it was.

00:28:51.131 --> 00:28:53.074
It was total torture.

00:28:53.074 --> 00:28:59.785
But it was also that I it was that the only time I feel like I'm moving in the right direction is when I'm completely stopped.

00:28:59.785 --> 00:29:13.140
That's just how it felt, and it was an extreme amount of fatigue as well, like I, actually my body was really tired and my mind only wanted silence.

00:29:13.140 --> 00:29:15.391
It was the only thing that felt satisfying.

00:29:15.391 --> 00:29:19.086
Just all those other things, the patterns that I used to be in, they just didn't work.

00:29:19.086 --> 00:29:28.980
And so for weeks and weeks it was like that, and then something shifted and it was that that was no longer satisfying.

00:29:28.980 --> 00:29:34.288
Like, just stopping was no longer satisfying, but there was absolutely in my mind.

00:29:34.288 --> 00:29:37.883
There was no clear step to take, no direction, to take no work.

00:29:37.883 --> 00:29:38.707
That seemed right.

00:29:39.140 --> 00:29:45.307
And so it was this really frustrating couple of weeks where it was well, okay, if I'm not supposed to be doing nothing, what am I supposed to be doing?

00:29:45.307 --> 00:29:46.722
So I started walking.

00:29:46.722 --> 00:29:49.089
Okay, my body wants to move.

00:29:49.089 --> 00:29:52.242
I don't know where, where I'm going, but at least it was.

00:29:52.242 --> 00:29:54.691
It was just movement.

00:29:54.691 --> 00:30:07.073
It's almost literally like the power source was coming back on physically, and at this point I was only sort of involved in the gym that I co-owned.

00:30:07.073 --> 00:30:14.226
I was more like a occasional support system, but, quite honestly, I had nothing better to do.

00:30:14.226 --> 00:30:22.839
So and I and then I've really started to feel like, okay, now I need to move my body and it's a high intensity interval training workout.

00:30:22.839 --> 00:30:30.769
So I just started going to the gym to work out and that was also and you see, these micro steps, you know your mind will fight this the whole time.

00:30:30.769 --> 00:30:31.609
This is pointless.

00:30:31.609 --> 00:30:35.184
You've got to get things going, you've got to pay your bills, you've got to pick up the pieces.

00:30:35.184 --> 00:30:46.088
But really at that time I just started to feel how good it felt to be in my body and to feel the power of my body again, which I hadn't for a long time because I was so drained.

00:30:46.088 --> 00:31:04.547
Yeah, and I felt so strong and I, because I am really strong, I was always the one kind of taking the workout to the next level, which was catching the attention of the people in the gym, and I started to talk to them again and it felt so good.

00:31:05.268 --> 00:31:12.564
After eight years of being a solo at home virtual entrepreneur and even though I did deep and meaningful work.

00:31:12.564 --> 00:31:26.884
I was really isolated and it just felt so good and so nourishing to be around people again and I just loved I was drinking it in and it just it just felt so good that I found myself there more and more.

00:31:26.884 --> 00:31:44.644
Because I was there more and more, I started to see, oh man, people are suffering, they are treating themselves terribly and they are completely off course with if they think that what they're doing is going to get them anywhere.

00:31:44.644 --> 00:31:48.606
But taking them around in circles, it was like all I could see was hungry ghosts everywhere.

00:31:49.068 --> 00:32:10.787
Yeah, because I had spent almost well a decade just completely immersed in the world of personal development and the only other people that I talked to and interacted with were other people immersed in personal development, I had completely lost perspective of A how far I had come on the journey and, b the reality of what most people are actually living in day to day.

00:32:10.787 --> 00:32:34.103
And so, as I just and my team as well and I noticed that my team was so uplifted and nourished and excited and inspired just by me being there that I started to really get my hands in and start to bring more attention to the workplace as well, and so that's sort of like.

00:32:34.103 --> 00:32:37.951
You can see how it, just little by little, it had to be.

00:32:37.951 --> 00:32:46.086
It had to be micro piece by micro, piece by micro piece, so that I could see the nuance of what was important at every level.

00:32:46.509 --> 00:32:59.429
Yeah, it sounds like you're a massive kind of cleansing and that you then arrived in a place where you could not but be truthful with yourself.

00:32:59.429 --> 00:33:12.648
That's what it sounds like, 100%, because I think a lot of us in life are not being truthful with ourselves by a lot of the time but it sounds like you reached a point where that was no longer tolerable for you.

00:33:12.648 --> 00:33:15.405
You wouldn't tolerate it any longer.

00:33:15.405 --> 00:33:17.867
Well, the universe wouldn't tolerate you doing it, or something.

00:33:18.421 --> 00:33:19.665
But we can't relate to the both.

00:33:20.280 --> 00:33:29.289
It was kind of like you needed any longer yeah it was you know your presence was really inspiring when you came back.

00:33:30.160 --> 00:33:53.380
And that thing of finding one's way back in through movement and through connection with the body, I think is incredibly powerful, because we forget that our brain is actually physically part of our body and is therefore nourished by the body, is nourished by the blood and everything else the sugar or the proteins, everything else nourishes the brain.

00:33:53.380 --> 00:34:02.125
So if the body is not moving and is not healthy, no wonder the brain can get a bit stagnant and we can feel a bit proud.

00:34:02.125 --> 00:34:11.139
Frankly, yes, even if it's only boredom this is that term, isn't there living a life of quiet desperation?

00:34:11.139 --> 00:34:12.222
Do you know that?

00:34:12.242 --> 00:34:14.429
term, Quiet, desperation.

00:34:14.429 --> 00:34:28.606
I think that so many people live that, and when I think about this was sort of like a really roundabout way to finally answer the question of how did I come to culture Shaman?

00:34:28.606 --> 00:34:39.751
For me, I'm a deeply spiritual person, so I don't it's like I don't experience anything in the world as not deeply spiritual.

00:34:39.751 --> 00:34:59.648
Everything is that, and so when I especially came back into my organization and I saw the quiet desperation that everybody was living in clients, employees, the whole thing, the secret truth about the work I do has nothing to do with the performance of the organization.

00:34:59.648 --> 00:35:02.266
That's just the way it is.

00:35:02.266 --> 00:35:03.400
It's actually.

00:35:03.581 --> 00:35:16.291
For me, it's about looking at the way that the culture of the organization is either feeding the quiet desperation of their team or liberating them from it.

00:35:16.291 --> 00:35:27.748
So for me, an intentional culture is one that prioritizes, as I would say and not everybody would say it this way but the liberation of its people.

00:35:27.748 --> 00:35:42.235
And if what you're doing to fuel the performance of the organization has to I'll use the word abandon your people.

00:35:42.235 --> 00:35:44.900
Even if you succeed, you fail.

00:35:44.900 --> 00:35:48.476
Yeah, it's a big ask.

00:35:48.918 --> 00:36:01.699
Yes, and you get to the point where you achieve the goal, but then you always have another goal, always Look around at your resources and suddenly some of them are no longer there.

00:36:01.699 --> 00:36:21.943
I remember once I was called in to work with some people who were making a significant change in their organization and they said, catherine, we want you to come in because we've got all the tangible stuff sorted you know process, it, sites, hr, everything.

00:36:21.943 --> 00:36:31.418
But we know that if we do it the way we are going to do it now, we're going to lose some of our best people and the people who remain.

00:36:31.418 --> 00:36:34.204
We can lose the best of those people.

00:36:34.204 --> 00:36:36.958
They'll still be here, but the good will be damaged.

00:36:36.958 --> 00:36:40.277
Those people will be drained and exhausted.

00:36:40.277 --> 00:36:44.005
We want to get to the end of it and keep our good people and I've.

00:36:44.005 --> 00:36:49.635
All our people come out of it in a good state at the end and we have no idea how to do that.

00:36:51.750 --> 00:36:53.014
That's why we want you to come in.

00:36:53.193 --> 00:36:54.157
Cool, no problem.

00:36:54.157 --> 00:36:57.717
Exactly what you're saying.

00:36:57.717 --> 00:37:13.737
The complexity of the within a person then gives rise to the culture, but the culture also gives rise to how that person feels when they're within it, and it's in a programic and mutually supportive and mutually feeding.

00:37:15.090 --> 00:37:18.920
And deeply inconvenient, by the way, to the organization.

00:37:18.920 --> 00:37:23.179
You can't just keep grinding.

00:37:23.179 --> 00:37:28.291
That's the part where it can't be a machine if it's fueled by people, because people aren't machines.

00:37:28.291 --> 00:37:36.322
There can be mechanisms and structures and processes, but it quite often is.

00:37:36.322 --> 00:37:38.072
You said this right at the very beginning.

00:37:38.072 --> 00:37:47.559
It's a much bigger challenge, I think, than most people anticipate when they embark on the creation of culture.

00:37:49.750 --> 00:37:53.043
So I imagine some of the listeners might be curious about what?

00:37:53.043 --> 00:38:12.235
Does shamanic work have to do with working with clients in large corporates, so is it possible to give an example of an aspect of the shamanic approach and how that show up in the work that you're doing?

00:38:13.159 --> 00:38:15.695
Yeah, yes, yes, yes.

00:38:15.695 --> 00:38:23.313
So what I usually share, at least this is the way that I define shamanic work, so that it feels easy.

00:38:23.313 --> 00:38:27.715
Shaman work with basically what's beyond the physical.

00:38:27.715 --> 00:38:35.360
That's what they work with, they trust in it, they know it to be as real and true as everything else that we see and touch.

00:38:35.360 --> 00:38:45.360
And so I say that shamanic work with the most fundamental energies that are at play at any given time and there are people who even that feels strange to.

00:38:45.884 --> 00:38:53.257
I always give the example of when you walk into a room and you see someone you know and before you even look at them, you can feel how they feel.

00:38:53.257 --> 00:39:08.103
And that energy is always at play, always Shaman just tend to be, it's like, almost to an antagonizing level, aware of those energies at play.

00:39:08.103 --> 00:39:13.137
I can't not see them when I walk into a room, I can't not feel them when I walk into a room.

00:39:13.137 --> 00:39:18.400
And so inside of a culture, the role of the culture shaman is.

00:39:18.400 --> 00:39:20.893
Everybody is looking at other people.

00:39:20.893 --> 00:39:25.675
Leaders are looking at the situation, others are looking at the process.

00:39:25.675 --> 00:39:30.521
Others still might be even tuned into the emotional experiences that they're having.

00:39:30.521 --> 00:39:33.858
Some people might be paying attention to the relationships.

00:39:33.858 --> 00:39:44.639
I'm paying attention to the interplay of all, of how all of those energies are affecting both the people and the direction.

00:39:45.329 --> 00:40:09.797
So, when a girl is, I'm working with a friend in her organization and we are I'm supporting her to create this really big event that hasn't been done before and through a series of really I mean brief interactions with everyone on her team, I mean a five minute call here, an email exchange there, a longer conversation with the woman who runs the organization and myself.

00:40:09.797 --> 00:40:27.099
I sent her a message and I said can you feel the subtle energetic of everyone taking on the responsibility of success themselves and therefore everybody fearing that if it doesn't succeed, it's on them?

00:40:27.099 --> 00:40:32.735
And she was like I said it's almost imperceptible, you almost can't see it.

00:40:32.735 --> 00:40:37.173
And she said, oh my gosh, I knew there was something going on with the team, but I couldn't figure out what it was.

00:40:37.173 --> 00:40:42.164
And so I said to her the team is asking without words.

00:40:42.164 --> 00:40:47.898
The energy of the team is asking for us to shift from getting it right to going all in.

00:40:47.898 --> 00:40:50.432
And so then it was.

00:40:50.653 --> 00:40:52.400
So then I was working with her to shift.

00:40:52.400 --> 00:40:53.012
What does that mean?

00:40:53.012 --> 00:41:00.994
Getting it right to going all in, and it's, you know, it's again these like really kind of esoteric themes that don't fit the practical world.

00:41:00.994 --> 00:41:06.481
So seven steps to shift from getting it right to going all in to then help everyone on the team.

00:41:06.481 --> 00:41:08.190
What does that look like for this person?

00:41:08.190 --> 00:41:09.405
What does that look like for this person?

00:41:09.405 --> 00:41:11.255
What does that look like for us as the leaders?

00:41:12.050 --> 00:41:43.076
So that one beautiful, practical, beautiful example and I think you know anyone listening to that has had experiences of noticing subtle shifts occurring, maybe not being able to name them, maybe not understanding how they happened, even, and I think we've all had experiences of wishing a certain shift might occur and and maybe not knowing what to do about it.

00:41:43.076 --> 00:41:53.092
And I think we've also had experiences of feeling called to something by somebody or some people or by the situation.

00:41:53.092 --> 00:42:05.550
Whether we've actually noticed it or responded to it is another matter and, of course, we've all had many times when we've not noticed any of it because we've been oblivious and self-interested.

00:42:05.550 --> 00:42:06.514
Whatever it is.

00:42:12.737 --> 00:42:31.355
I love that you shared that, because then the second kind of layer to that you know, the true, you know the most sort of literal expression of the shaman would be that I would work with one person and we would clear all of the energetic blocks that are in the way of that person being able to show up.

00:42:31.355 --> 00:42:49.438
So the second thing that I, that I help this team, is the reason that this person, like I, can just feel and sense that, the reason that this person is taking it on for herself and fearing the failure, is because of this, this dynamic that she has with proving herself, and the reason that she's doing it is because of this.

00:42:49.438 --> 00:42:52.197
And the reason that you're doing it is the leader is because of this.

00:42:52.197 --> 00:42:54.976
And then that's where we get into that complexity.

00:42:54.976 --> 00:43:03.557
And so what I think can often happen in an organization is first, like you said, sometimes we can sense that there's an energy, but we can't name it.

00:43:03.557 --> 00:43:10.891
So, as, as the culture shaman, let's name what's happening so that we can see what we're looking at.

00:43:10.891 --> 00:43:11.994
That nobody could.

00:43:11.994 --> 00:43:13.559
We could feel but couldn't see it.

00:43:13.559 --> 00:43:14.996
Now we can see it because we named it.

00:43:15.369 --> 00:43:26.693
Yeah, this is the second thing, that the second thing that often happens is people either worry about it or they blame themselves for it, particularly oh, I let the team down, how did I miss this?

00:43:26.693 --> 00:43:27.617
How did we get here?

00:43:27.617 --> 00:43:29.737
And oh no, now that we're here, what are we going to do?

00:43:29.737 --> 00:43:34.038
So it's the kind of two responses, but the shaman doesn't worry about anything.

00:43:34.038 --> 00:43:36.322
Energy is energy, it is what it is.

00:43:36.322 --> 00:43:38.034
So this is what we've got.

00:43:38.929 --> 00:43:49.621
And so then the third piece is taking that thing that we just named that we're now no longer blaming ourselves for or worrying about, and kind of turning it into an invitation.

00:43:49.621 --> 00:43:55.900
What is what's the, if this is the thing that's happening, what's the thing we're being called into?

00:43:55.900 --> 00:44:07.266
Yeah, and, and then that is sort of a process, then what will be required of this person who you know isn't doing it because of her own insecurities, in this way, and why?

00:44:07.266 --> 00:44:08.835
Why aren't you doing it as the leader?

00:44:08.835 --> 00:44:11.635
What is the edge that you're being called into as the leader?

00:44:11.635 --> 00:44:14.322
That's actually make that shift.

00:44:14.322 --> 00:44:27.916
And so we actually started kind of tease it apart piece by piece, so that this overwhelming unseeable but totally sensible, feelable, energetic becomes something you can actually work with, practically Beautiful.

00:44:29.010 --> 00:44:36.557
So it sounds like as a result well, you were probably a bit like this beforehand, but it sounds like as a result of all the work you've done.

00:44:36.557 --> 00:44:52.777
But your perceptive capacities are greatly expanded and also it seems like that's combined with you've got a very strong energy yourself and an imagination as well, it seems.

00:44:52.777 --> 00:44:58.552
So that you're so you can use that perception that you know, you know picking up on these subtle things.

00:44:58.552 --> 00:45:06.701
You can use it in a way that's creative, yes, and help these people creatively, rather than what we used to do back in the 80s.

00:45:06.701 --> 00:45:15.059

Ep 126: Vanessa Broers ~ High Performance Traps, Shamanic Awakening & Workplace Transformation

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