Your Joyful Order With Leslie Martinez

#113- Leadership Starts with You: Building Sustainable Leadership from Within with Dr. Michelle Seijas

• Leslie Martinez • Season 5 • Episode 113

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What if the most important leadership skill isn't about managing others, but about managing yourself? Dr. Michelle Seijas, a Latina leader and educator with over 15 years of experience, brings a revolutionary perspective to leadership that starts from within.

Against the backdrop of widespread burnout in education and leadership, Dr. Seijas shares her personal journey of stepping away from a promising career in education to embark on a six-month sabbatical that transformed her understanding of sustainable leadership. "I spent 15 years in K-12 education, and nobody teaches you to lead yourself first," she reveals. "Everything is always external, and I would actually push that we should go internal first."

Perhaps most compelling is Dr. Seija's redefinition of confidence as self-trust. "The reason we don't feel confident speaking up or applying for the thing or engaging with people is because we don't trust that we're going to be able to navigate when things get uncomfortable," she explains. Building this self-trust happens through small, manageable steps that gradually create a foundation of successful experiences.

For leaders feeling overwhelmed, Dr. Seijas offers practical strategies for reconnecting with intuition and making decisions aligned with authentic values rather than external expectations. From nervous system regulation techniques to communal practices derived from ancestral wisdom, she provides a holistic toolkit for sustainable leadership.

Whether you're a formal leader navigating organizational challenges or simply wanting to lead your own life with greater intention, this episode offers transformative insights on becoming "the CEO of your life" and embracing leadership as an inside-out journey.

Share this episode with someone who needs permission to prioritize their own well-being. 


Connect with Dr. Michelle Seijas:
Website: https://www.michelleseijas.com/coaching
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thrivingchingona/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-seijas-ed-d-105322121/




Connect with Leslie:

Follow on IG: @yourjoyfulorderstyle

Website: https://www.yourjoyfulorder.com/

Email: lmartinez@yourjoyfulorder.com
to schedule- Speaking Events, Interviews or Life Coaching Sessions

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https://shopjoyfulorder.com/

Watch this Episode on You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsXoAYIM2mfclNtYiaOzIUw

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https://a.co/d/09Djvaw

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Speaker 1:

Today I have the honor of speaking with Dr Michelle Cejas. She's a Latina leader, an educator and a coach who is passionate about transforming leadership from the inside out. With over 15 years in education and in nonprofit leadership, she has dedicated her career to uplifting and empowering others. Her work centers on confidence, vision and sustainable leadership practices. Plus, she brings a unique blend of research, personal experience and somatic practices to the conversation. I look forward to having you learn, grow and really truly learn how to be your own leader. So let's get into this episode. Hey everyone, I'm Leslie Martinez and you're listening to your Joyful Order podcast. Each week, I will bring you joyful stories that will motivate and inspire you and, at the same time, bring order to your everyday life. Let's just say the show will be a mixture of preaching and teaching, with a kick of motivation from your girl here. Welcome to your Joyful Order podcast. I am so excited to welcome Dr Michelle Cejas to the podcast.

Speaker 2:

Hello, thank you for having me and congrats on making it to over 100 episodes.

Speaker 1:

Ah, thank you. Thank you so much, Michelle. Now again, I'm so excited just to have you here. But before we dive in, our topic today is about leading yourself well, and I'd love for you to just share a little bit about what led you just to really start focusing on leadership and personal well-being.

Speaker 2:

I think it was just a big part of what's in my blood and the people that I come from. My grandmother on my maternal side was very much a leader in community, in church, in just all the spaces that she was in. My mom, in her own way, was a leader in the spaces that she was in, and so I think it's like I just saw these women over and over again as I was growing up who very much had a voice used. It had a lot of things they wanted to advocate for, that they had a lot of thoughts and opinions on and they made themselves heard and kind of in those spaces. So I think it was just kind of this ingrained part of me that when time came, I had a lot of thoughts, a lot of opinions and a lot of ways that I wanted to move things forward, and so leadership became a space where I was able to do that.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I love it. So, like it's in your blood, it's totally in my blood and I think part of that, like I come from a strong Latina women or strong women, I should say bold women, latina women in that I look at my mom and my aunties and my grandmother and stuff like that too, and I'm like man, we are some pretty bold women. You know leadership, you know talking about leadership and knowing that it really truly starts with ourselves. Right, we have to learn to lead ourselves well before we can learn to lead others. So how would you define this topic, dr Michelle, as far as just leading yourself well?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think a big part of it is is that we have to have self-awareness. I spend so much time with leaders who are constantly looking outwardly like what do other people think about what I'm doing? What does everybody else think I should be doing? And, yes, we want to understand the people that we work with. But, most importantly, why do I want to lead in the first place? What are my gifts and how do I want to lead? What are the ways that I can actually move initiatives forward in a way that feels right for me and right for my community?

Speaker 2:

And so I think to be strong leaders, we have to actually start with ourselves, and I think too many of us are actually starting with all the external and then, at some point, hopefully get to a point where we might notice ourselves. But a lot of times I feel like when we start to look at ourselves, it's because something bad has happened or maybe like we're starting to have health issues, or that maybe there's problems in our personal life, and it's like there's this forced having to look at self, when, honestly, I wish that we would start with that first and then go from there. And I will say nobody teaches you that In all the formal schooling, certifications, all the things like. It's very rare that that's even like a conversation. Everything is always external and I would actually push that we should go internal first.

Speaker 1:

I so agree with that. I one of my first like real jobs that I had was as a recreation leader. I was 19 years old, working at the city of Santa Fe Springs as a park and rec leader, and a lot of it was learning how to lead kids. A lot of the you know the park programs, they were all geared towards youth and learning how to lead games, learning how to lead sports, learning how to coach and doing that, and there was very little training on how to lead yourself. Like I was kind of thrown in the fire of leadership of just right away, hey, you're leading a group of 20 kids, you know, you're leading them in arts and crafts and games, and that's really where it kind of started for me too, and I know with your background being a teacher and all of that we really emphasize and kind of wear that crown of leading others.

Speaker 1:

I think teachers we are by nature very I don't even know if there's a word for this but we put ourselves last in a lot of things, right, we don't look at ourselves as having personal goals for ourself and I've shared a lot of this with my audience before, where I was a teacher for so long and setting goals and intentions for my students and mile markers. You know, doing all the stuff for a teacher, for your students, setting all these goals for them. I was really good at setting goals for my students, but I was really bad at setting goals for myself. And that, you know, kind of, I think, comes in with some struggles that we have in like self-doubting ourself, lack of clarity and all of that. So what was like the defining moment for you when you realized the importance of self-leadership in your own journey? Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 2:

So much of what you just described is just like we pride ourselves on being sacrificial. I am better if I am staying until eight o'clock at night. I'm better if I am, you know, making myself available and a parent can text me at 8 pm on a Saturday night or something. And those are the people who are like teacher of the year, right, and like I'm sure there's much more they're doing than just self sacrificing. But there has to come a point where we realize like this is actually not serving me as much as it's serving everybody else. So I would say that, as I, you know, I all I always start off by saying that like people saw in me what I didn't see in myself in the beginning. It took me a long time to be like oh, I actually have this within me and I should be making decisions based on this, this within me, and I should be making decisions based on this. It was a lot of people being like so you have this quality and you should go ahead and apply for this job. And it'd be like, if you think I can do it, okay. And then the next person would come along and be like okay, you did that, great. Now I think you should apply for this job, okay, great. And it was like I was letting these other people guide and decide for me for a very long time, cause I was like, well, I think you're amazing and if you see something in me like I want to see that too. And it took a long time before I finally was like, wait, hold on, like people keep seeing this, what do I want to see for myself?

Speaker 2:

And unfortunately, a lot of times when we're doing a lot of self-sacrificing, there becomes that moment that is really just like I'm not okay. And so, for me, I kind of hit this point in my career where I, you know, was going through a divorce. I was starting to have some health stuff coming up. I was just really struggling to start getting up and showing up in the morning, which is totally different than what it was in the beginning, and little by little, it was just like I kind of feel like this vision for what this all was going to be is deteriorating and there has to be some place for me to actually sit down and figure out for myself what do I want? What does this need to look like, aside from everybody else telling me what it should be.

Speaker 2:

And so I ended up kind of walking away from it all which I'm sure we'll get into and going into a six-month sabbatical where I really had to sit with myself for an extended period of time to really reflect, rest, start to kind of like dream about something else, and it was a pivotal moment where it was just like I want to actually figure out how to take care of me and actually spend time with myself, to get clear before I make any more decisions about what needs to happen. And, believe me, people had a lot of opinions, a lot of thoughts. A lot of folks were still trying to let me know what I should be doing and how I should be doing it, and it just took a lot of self-discipline to say like this is not that season anymore, this is all about me and figuring it out for myself.

Speaker 1:

Wow Now. So when you took that sabbatical because, okay, at this time I want you to go a little bit more in depth on this, because with this were you a principal at the time- yeah, so this was back in 2017.

Speaker 2:

I was a principal with aspirations to be a superintendent someday, and I mean like seriously, I was just having this conversation with some folks that I reconnected with last week and I remember I was like full decked out on a Friday, heading out to the stadium for football Fridays and super hype, and I remember people being like this is going to get old and I'm like it's never going to get old. I love being at a high school and I did for a very long time, and then I started getting more and more exhausted. I started getting overwhelmed. I started doing more and more of the things that I actually didn't love about the work in the beginning or that I did love about the work was getting less time with it. Over time, and through a series of events that happened, I just kind of was like I can't come back and it felt so clear to me that I was going to now be creating a completely different path for myself outside of K-12.

Speaker 2:

Now, mind you, I'd been there for 15 years. I didn't know anything else. I went from college to a teacher credentialing program to teaching. Everybody I worked with were like career K-12 people who had no aspirations to go anywhere else. So when I said you know I'm going to step away and I'm going to figure out another path, so many people were scared on my behalf, Like that's cute.

Speaker 2:

But then August was hitting and folks were like, no, no, no, Like if you don't get a job now, you're done for the school year. And I was like, yeah, no, I'm not going back. And there was just this clarity of like I'm going to figure out some other way, and so that kind of began this journey of just I didn't hate what I did for 15 years. I just really needed to sit with what did I love, what kept me there for that long, so that I could actually start figuring out how do I spend more time doing that? And becoming a superintendent was not going to let me do more of the things that I loved. It was going to likely have me doing much less of the things that I loved. So I just had to find another way.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so okay, michelle, I've been in education for a long time myself. I'm still kind of in the education. I do substitute teaching right now and I have been I don't know how to say this like I know a lot of the administrators. I've had coaching clients as administrators. I had a principal of a school as a coaching client and really questioning their chosen career path. Because once you get into administration, the burnout is real and a lot of people are very disappointed in once they get into that position to realize it's not about leadership. It's more about, like politics, red tape, dealing with unruly children, dealing with unmanageable parents, like so much of the good stuff of the job as a administrator is just stripped away from you and you got out before COVID.

Speaker 1:

I've been there, yes, like during COVID has did not make any of that easier or better. It has did not make any of that easier or better. I still feel that we are trying to recuperate from COVID. The students are and then I mean there's. I don't foresee things getting better in education, sadly. But I want to go back to just talking about this burnout because it's real. I experienced it. Clearly, you experienced it. I know I have a lot of teacher friends, educators that listen to this episode. So I really want to talk about the impact of burnout Now. You studied the impact of it on leadership, on just your mental, emotional and physical well-being. So what are just some key takeaways that you got from the research on this?

Speaker 2:

just some key takeaways that you got from the research on this. So I want to name up front that a lot of what I'm going to share is like resources and things to support. You Don't take away the fact that it is a larger systemic issue that has oppressed a lot of people in the past and continues to now. So I don't want to spiritually bypass or put a pretty little sticker over it and just say like if you do a couple of these things, it's going to be better. It will definitely support reducing burnout, it will definitely support you sustaining longer, but there are still lots of things that need to be done to just change the system in general. So I feel like I have to name that.

Speaker 2:

I'm not trying to pretend any of that doesn't exist, but essentially, when I went down my journey afterwards, a lot of it was really getting clear. So, like I said, I started spending a lot more time in journaling meditation. I started getting into breath work. I'm a huge yin yoga fan and so I started spending, you know, three, four days a week going to yin yoga classes, which is a lot of deep stretching meditation and like really getting into your body, and then I just kept following that, I started reading books. I actually went through a nervous system somatic certification program and just really understanding, like, what's happening in our bodies and essentially what I learned was we spend most of our time up here, in the top 20% of us, which is our brain and our head, and 80% of what we're actually experiencing is from the neck down, so like our vagus nerve. So all of that is actually what is impacting how we show up every day, the ways that we respond to things when we're in survival mode or whether we're in thriving mode, and all of that is 80% of what's happening in our body. But we spend all of our time up here, so we're often leaving out 80% of what could calm us, help us to find clarity and actually help us to find a little bit of calm. And I do the wavy line, because there is no straight line of like everything will be chill, but can we actually ride and navigate it without spikes of like getting super angry and fight mode or maybe kind of shutting down and being in freeze mode? And, honestly, a lot of this has to do with our nervous system and being able to really tap into our thoughts, our feelings and what we're feeling in our body, our sensations, and once you can start to get really good at reading them, engaging them and checking in with them throughout the day, you're not accumulating over time. So a lot of times when folks are just like I'm super exhausted and I'm just going to sleep all weekend, it's because there was a collection of things that happened leading up to that, where that was really the only response. I need to freeze and completely shut down to be able to function again.

Speaker 2:

If we could actually figure out what it looks like for each one of us to have little bits at least daily, if not multiple times throughout the day, do these check-ins and then just have. I tell people one to two minutes. I got a lot of high achievers that I spend time with and they're like oh, I'm going to spend an hour. Nope, I don't need you to do an hour, I'm going to spend 30 minutes. I don't even need you to do 30 minutes. We only need 90 seconds for a feeling to run through our body. But because so many of us repress and are fearful of even giving it that 90 seconds, it becomes I need three days to actually let that thing come through me or it might take me even longer. So how do we actually just manage it more that way?

Speaker 2:

So a lot I mean small thing I tell my leaders is let's just start off with I want you to take one to two minutes two times a day is where we'll start, maybe at the start of the day or at the end of the day, and you're going to do a body scan. Is there a thought that's already spinning me out to start the day and can I manage it and engage with it right now so that hopefully it can step aside to let me do what I need to do today or at the end of the day? I'm doing a body scan to check. Oh, what do I notice and am I feeling that's already started to accumulate because I'm carrying what came to me from other people today along with what I'm also experiencing Maybe that phone call with the parent, that interaction with a student, something that happened at the district office. Am I holding that on top of everything else? What can I do somatically, visually, whatever works for you to actually get that off of me? So then I can go into my personal life at the end of the day. So I tell people just to start there and then later, over time hopefully, you just start to tap in enough where you can just in the moment realize there's something happening right now.

Speaker 2:

So an example I tend to go into fight mode.

Speaker 2:

God bless the lineage of women who are leaders, but that also means I'm a pelionera. So I tend to go into fight mode. And so I've noticed, like heat, temperature is a thing for me. When I can feel a temperature change happening in my body, it's like, ooh, michelle, you're about to go into fight mode. You better take a pause, do a breathing exercise, get up and move, do something, because if not, this is going to accumulate and you're going to say something you don't want to say. You're going to send the email you don't want to send. Can read my body when something's not right. I want folks to get to a place where you can start to literally just instinctively know, ooh, there's something happening right now and if I can't engage with it for at least a minute, it's likely going to accumulate and I need to take a pause. And the more you can do that you're less likely to get to that point where you have to completely shut down or you completely go off the handle because it's just had too much time to accumulate.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's so good, michelle. No, there's so much to unpack from there. But one of the things like I think the big takeaway and this is a struggle for a lot of people, because I myself, as a coach, find that a lot of my clients when I tell them like, okay, you have to stop like simple practices, even like journaling. You know you mentioned yoga. You have to stop like simple practices, even like journaling. You know you mentioned yoga, breath work, stuff like that, those are all things that I have shared tools that I tell my clients to do also, and a lot of times they're like well, I don't have time to do that, I don't have time to have a morning routine where I can journal and do breath work or meditate and stuff. And, just like you said, like your morning routine doesn't have to be an hour long, it can literally be like five minutes. You know, just, hey, check in with yourself, do a brain dump, get your priorities, you know, aligned for the day, say a quick prayer, just do a quick like two minute breath work, read a devotion, write your stuff down. You know like, journal your thoughts and stuff out. And a lot of times, especially those like leaders that just have so much responsibility that they're just constantly running, running, running. You know, I have friends again like I said, that are administrators and it's so bad where, like they don't even stop to eat, michelle, like literally they don't, like I don't have time to eat and and then when it comes time to eat, they're like binge eating, because they're catching up from the whole day or emotionally eating, or going and taking their stress out by drinking a bottle of whatever wine, liquor you know, hey, let's go hang out at the local pub and let's, you know, drink our sorrows away that way. And they're not realizing the significant impact of what those type of practices are going to have on their life and their roles in their leadership. But learning to manage your stress in a healthy way, learning to avoid burnout, learning to stop yourself from sending that email right, just this last week God, I don't know if I should say this or not, I'm going to say it I had my parent hat on and I had to type an email to administrators regarding some concerns that I have right and I just I typed it all out the way I would type it out.

Speaker 1:

I don't want to say it was mean or nasty, it was just, and it's nothing like the administrator is amazing. Absolutely love our school administrators, but there's just some concerns with some stuff, you know, whatever and I wanted to address it. So I typed it out. And then what I did, rather than, like you know, dropping it in the email and hitting send, I'm like let me put it in chat GPT and let me make sure that it just comes up as, like, you know, I don't want to be like direct and, you know, be like I have boxing gloves on with my concerns. I want it to, I want them to be heard. I don't want my concerns to be, you know, coming off as I'm degrading anyone, as if I'm being rude, any of that. So I ran it through ChatGPT.

Speaker 1:

Chatgpt kind of reframed it a little bit to be a little softer, and then I'm like, oh okay, here we go, this sounds a little bit better and it can be something as simple as that, like I talk so much about ChatGPBT.

Speaker 1:

But it helped me to reframe my thoughts in a way that took the emotion away from what I was like trying to convey Right, and I know like some people may be like yay or nay on that, but it caused me to stop on that, but it caused me to stop. It caused me to say let me look at this and take any piece of emotion or harshness or anything that would offend anyone out of this and let me reframe it in a way that is just being intentional and getting my concerns across. But it took for me to stop, and not a lot of people do that Now. You shared a lot of great you know tools and stuff like that. Are there any additional like somatic or ancestral practices that you study that you feel would be great additions to like these leaders to help them to stay grounded and avoiding burnout, just making sure that they're taking care of themselves? Lots of that's what you just said.

Speaker 2:

I mean the first part I'll get into is, I think, something I can see now as a coach that at the time I think was just instinctual, that I didn't realize was coaching, is to what you just described. I remember there'd be times where something would come my way and the typical response might be like shut it down, suspend, whatever the thing might be, and my instinctual thing was just kind of like huh, I feel like there's something deeper there. So, like an example, I would give you know, at the high school, unfortunately, you deal with situations regarding alcohol, drugs, things like that, and for some folks it was just like oh, it's teenagers being teenagers, and I'd be like nah, if an 18-year-old is drinking on campus at 8 am, something deeper is happening there and I want to talk to them about it. If a kid came to school at 16 and they're high at 10 am, something happened this morning that led them to want to get high, to forget something, and I can't tell you how many teenage boys I used to have crying in my office, not because they were in trouble or we didn't, but because I would just say talk to me about what happened this morning that led you to decide to do that, whatever the thing was Crying you know, I had this fight with my stepdad or I'm really scared because I'm graduating and I don't have a plan and I'm 18 years old.

Speaker 2:

So a lot of times I think it can be hard because you're navigating so much as an administrator, as a teacher, that it can be hard for us sometimes to be able to pause and ask that. But a lot of times I feel like even just the pause in our interactions with folks is there's usually something deeper, like without even knowing the situation, I'm going to guess something was tapped in the mama bear in you that was just kind of like we got to talk about this. Right, how can we slow down to also just be able to acknowledge like we are human beings having a human experience and chances are there's something deeper than what either one of us is bringing to this current interaction that we need to sit with, and sometimes the burnout and the overwhelm is because we just have trauma banging up against trauma. You're angry and upset about something. I don't want to feel attacked and we just kind of start going at each other as opposed to, can we actually even just slow down this interaction to truly understand what's at the core of why you're coming to me and, at the core, what can I actually help with? Or can I just hold space for? The humanity of whatever it is that you're experiencing Doesn't miraculously mean that now that student is going to get along better with his stepdad, but maybe I can actually hold space for them and help them to think clearly in a way that they can't because nobody's done that with them, which I think as leaders and you know, a lot of times it's really how are we again like self-leading, so that then we can model for other folks what that looks like.

Speaker 2:

So another thing I share with folks is if you don't have time for it, then don't do it by yourself, do it with your people, especially as leaders. Like how many times do we run a meeting, create an agenda, do whatever? Like it's not just about me regulating my own nervous system, like how can I actually co-regulate with my people? And if that's the only minute I get, well, better that we all did it together than me having to do it alone anyway, because we all need it. It's not like I'm the only one who needs this. So I tell people, especially right now, that folks are so stressed out and overwhelmed.

Speaker 2:

Can we take a minute collectively before we even start the meeting, to do? I mean, it could be as simple, as I still have this song that I play. Sometimes it's literally just humming. Can we just like chill for a minute and let the humming and the vibration? If you want to hum along, hum along or just feel it Right, because if we look at animals in nature, a lot of them actually vibrate and hum to draw each other in and to have connection with each other.

Speaker 2:

Maybe it's something as simple as that and all you get to do is just sit there and participate with it as well. Maybe at the end of a meeting you have some sort of collective exercise where people can do something visually to kind of like, maybe literally get something off of them that came through the meeting. Or maybe you're going to do something breathwork-wise together to kind of seal the experience. If you can't find that one to two minutes on your own, then do it with your people, do it with your students, and in that way you're modeling for them, but you're also all getting what you need to be clearer in whatever the conversation is that you're walking into, or to just kind of feel a little freer before you're stepping out to move on to the next thing and you kind of can make that shift without forcing yourself to have to hold on to something that really you don't need. Beyond that meeting, that experience that you just had, yeah, oh, that's so good, michelle, I definitely.

Speaker 1:

I love how you just said incorporate others with it. If you do feel like you don't have time, get to your workspace. Whatever it is that you're doing, and you all do that exercise together. You know, if it's even like writing your intentions for the day, hey, we're in this meeting. Before we start this meeting, let's all just write down three things that we're grateful for today. Let's just do a brain dump right now. Y'all. Let's spend the first five minutes doing a brain dump and organizing our thoughts and our actions of what needs to be done. That's so good, and it's a good way for a leader to not just show these practices for, like your team to do right, or your students, whatever.

Speaker 1:

There may be people that are listening to this and they're like well, I'm not a leader, or they think they're not a leader, right, I'm not a teacher, I'm not a boss. Maybe it's a stay at home mom or something like that. You're a leader in your home, you're a leader of yourself, and that's what we're talking about right here. So if you're not leading a team, then apply it to self is what we want to get get at, and a lot of this needs to start with self. I think one thing, um, and going back to that is like people, well, I'm, I'm not a leader, I've never been a leader. I maybe even someone says I don't even want, like want to be a leader. I know there's, you know I, um, it's so funny, michelle.

Speaker 1:

My husband and and I we've led for so long in so many different areas and this last year even in our church. We've been very active in the churches that we have been in for the last like 20, going on 25 years now and we have always held some type of leadership role. And in the last year, my husband and I were like kind of got burnt out by leadership in the church and we just said we don't want to lead in the church anymore. And we've been in that season where we're just like I don't want to do that. We're leading in other ways, right, like I mean, this podcast is a form of leadership, of bringing message to someone, right? So we just kind of felt like it's a season for us to just shift our directions on how we're leading. But and it is more internal, of where I need to focus on leading myself more in this next season than leading others and you know, I know leading other people it's drama, it's draining, it's there's so much right, having done that for so long, it's like okay, and we feel content with the direction where God is calling us and it's kind of like, hey, you've done it for so long, I'm going to put you in a different direction now. Now you work with so many different leaders all right, you've helped you, help them grow Like you help them gain confidence, you help them to strengthen their skills, and that is something that I see a lot is lack of confidence, a lot of self-doubt in leaders. Even like I think it's a generational thing, michelle Like I'm seeing even in students you know, I still sub and I'm seeing these students there is a very, very sadly like just this lack of confidence.

Speaker 1:

And it's not your normal lack of confidence of like your awkward teen phase. This phone have totally isolated these kids in a different way. So a lot of common struggles are like they don't have that confidence to talk to people. They hide here. They literally like I had I had students in classes that they were sitting in my class and they were sending me, typing me in our Google Classroom questions that they had on the assignment and like I see a little pop-up come and I see the student and I'm like I'm right here, like come up and talk to me, you know. And they're like super awkward, like I probably devastated that child and I had to apologize after because I'm like hon, why can't you just come up? And she's like I don't know. There's just this lack of self-doubt and self-confidence. So what are some common struggles that you see in leaders when it comes to self-doubt and lack of confidence?

Speaker 2:

I mean, I think to the first part about not everybody sees himself as a leader. You are the CEO of your life, like you are the person who gets to decide who your board of directors are Like. Who are the people I'm going to have as my first top five people who get to help me make decisions and move things forward? You get to decide the finances. You get to decide the strategic plan, moving forward, like all of that should be led by you. But I think again, so many of us are so used to other people telling us who we should be. But I think, again, so many of us are so used to other people telling us who we should be, how we should show up, what our life should look like. You might move into a specific job and then it's just like, ok, well, you're going to start here, entry level, and then you'll do this and you'll do this and you'll do this, and it's very step and ladder Right. And so I think, because we're so used to being told all the time, we lose the openness and the creativity to be like, well, I can make this, whatever I want it to be right.

Speaker 2:

Entrepreneurship, ceo-ship, is very much creativity and self-trust. So to me, confidence is self-trust. So when I started coaching leaders, confidence was not on my list of things I was going to be coaching I mean 80% of. So I have folks do like a kind of like a form when they just what are you thinking? What are you hoping for? Like 80 percent of what I get is growing my confidence. And these are folks who are already sitting in like an associate, super role, a CEO role, a principalship, whatever that might be, and they're still saying I don't quite have the confidence. And so I think there's a mix of things there's and especially if I think about, like you know, like most of the folks I coach are Latinas, some of it's cultural stuff. So maybe they grew up in more of like a machista or more like patriarchal home life culture, and so it's very much like talk. When spoken to Whoa now I'm in the space where I'm supposed to lead the conversation, like that just feels very uncomfortable to me, which gets into that nervous system stuff. So then I'm helping people figure out how do we actually find comfort in the discomfort, because it's going to be uncomfortable, but to lead you have to be able to ride the discomfort. So it could be something cultural like that it could also be some folks because you know, if they're a woman or a person of color, they're one of not a whole lot of other folks who are probably sitting in those leadership seats. Then a lot of times it's like I'm just grateful to be here and I don't want to screw it up. So I have some folks who are like.

Speaker 2:

I actually started speaking less when I moved into leadership because I was too worried it was this fragile thing that I was going to somehow ruin or I was going to lose. So there's all these different things that start to come up where things that have maybe been able to be kind of hidden underneath who we are in, like other positions, as we start to have more people listening to us, more places where we're leading. It's like whoa, it's exposing, which is why coaching is so important, because you start to expose these parts of yourself that have been really been able to be covered up by being a hard worker, other things that you were able to do before, and now you have to grapple with that because if not, it's going to be really hard to keep leading. So, in thinking about self-trust and even thinking about the examples you just gave with students. Part of that is do I trust myself to be able to navigate what's going to happen next? If for a lot of this younger generation they are used to and especially with COVID schooling is Zoom, it's a chat box.

Speaker 2:

It's me talking to people on what is it Circle and all these other ones that I'm hearing that, like a lot of people are spending their time on, then I actually have not interacted and had difficult conversations or just conversations with a lot of people in person. I don't know how to navigate that. That's scary. I don't want to navigate that. If I have never held a higher level position at work, then I don't know if I can trust myself to figure it out if I don't know 100% of what's on the job description.

Speaker 2:

So a lot of this is, if you really get down to it, the reason we don't feel confident speaking up or applying for the thing or engaging with people, is because we don't trust that we're going to be able to navigate when things get uncomfortable or they get hard. So I usually say what are the things that we can tap into? Or they get hard? So I usually say, like, what are the things that we can tap into? What's actually scary about that. What are the feelings that are coming up, what are the parts of your body that are starting to cringe when they think about potentially having to do that thing? And that is where you start to get your clues of what you need to feel safe to take a step. And I say a step because people also, I think, feel like they have to, like jump into the deep ends to be able to be confident. No, I just need you to take a step.

Speaker 2:

There's tons of research and I used to hear this stuff all the time with students, and it applies to adults, where a lot of times when we hear that students are unmotivated or they don't care, it's often that they just feel like it's too far of a leap, and so we have to help students and, as adults, we have to help ourselves to have really small steps of success, because then our body starts to be like oh, I did that, I can handle that. And then we try one more step. Oh, look at that, I did it again and I can trust myself. And you're starting to build these little successes that, over time, are retraining your brain and your body to be like when I do that uncomfortable thing. There's this reward on the other end of it. Something feels good about that. I get to have this new experience I haven't had before, but so many of us are not pushing ourselves to have the new experience and it could be as small as the new experiences.

Speaker 2:

I went up and talked to somebody that I don't know. I mean, I even coach people through networking because people are like I don't want to go to the conference, I don't know what I'm going to talk to people about. Adults are struggling with it just as much as kids, just in different ways, and it's okay. We're literally going to strategize you going to the conference, how you're going to prep yourself to walk in the room, what you're going to do when it's uncomfortable in the room and how you're going to actually navigate. Having that conversation with that one person, two people, three whatever you said, is your small step, but start with small steps. Figure out where you're trying to go and you're just needing to learn to trust yourself more.

Speaker 1:

Yes, ah, so good. That whole concept of taking little steps as a fellow coach and educator too, that's our job is. You start your students on step one, right. Then you gradually progress and you know, I think back to like the little ones, when I would work with preschoolers. I used to teach computers to them. So they would come into my computer lab and the first thing was just introducing them to the keyboard, learning where letters are, identifying certain keys on the letter, like okay, this is what we returned as and they would come in. A lot of them had no clue, never looked or touched a keyboard before.

Speaker 1:

Now. I think it's a little more common, although kids are way better at like iPads and iPhones than an actual keyboard. But they would come in in the beginning never having looked at a keyboard before, and then by the end of the class they knew where the letters were. And this is pre-K, this is like four-year-olds, you know. I would have them type their name. They would know where all the letters are for their name, how to hit return, what the space bar is. But it took just little steps. They came in and looked at it and it's like oh, wow, or kids that are reading, you know, kindergarten they come in not knowing even some of them how to write their names, learning to find letters, learning to identify numbers, learning to put them together. You know, in kindergarten they had, they had to learn all their sight words. We call them, they had ring masters. We would put all their sight words on like a little ring, and every different ring had different colors and once they mastered all of them, they were like the sight word ring master. I think we called it. And it's just little goals like that. That. These are kids that came in not knowing anything and as teachers, we're able to take them step by step by step, and that's where we have to be self-leaders and remind ourselves to do that. Like, yeah, as adults we might not be learning how to necessarily read or write or identify the key.

Speaker 1:

You know the keyboard, but how do I go from? You know, I don't know learning a new trait, you know, maybe maybe you want to learn a new language, maybe you're trying to start a business, and it's like, where do I start? I've had people come up in there to me and ask about Leslie, I'm thinking about starting a podcast. I don't even know where to start, how do I begin and they get so overwhelmed by the not knowing that they just freeze or procrastinate. I know I procrastinated on my podcast for over a year and it wasn't more so because I felt that I couldn't figure it out, it was more that.

Speaker 1:

God, I don't think you're putting a mic in the right person, like in the right person's hand. I'm like I might piss some people off. I'm going to ruffle some feathers. I put my foot in my mouth a lot, so I kind of question if that was really like a calling for me. And here I am over a hundred episodes and you know, still going. But it just takes that one step and a lot of times people get stuck right. So how, when you coach people and this is just going, having been an administrator and leading people for so long how can you kind of walk someone through when they feel stuck? How can you help them to gain clarity on their vision, on leadership, on life? Like you said, you did it for yourself. How can you walk someone through this? What would be the first thing that you would do?

Speaker 2:

Well, I want to name as a coach and I'm sure you feel the same way. I don't have people's answers Like it's not my job to sit with somebody and be like so this is what you want to do. And I feel like I have to preface that a lot of times when I start working with folks, because I feel like a lot of times they're thinking of a consultant and I'm like yeah, there's probably a lot of technical parts of your job that I can walk you through, but I'm not here to be your consultant, I'm here to be your coach, which means I'm here to hold the space to help you to learn to listen to yourself. Again, I'm here to remind you of who you are in those moments when you're getting distracted by the thousand other voices that are telling you what you should be doing and who you should be. So all of this is like how do we get you back to your intuition? So folks know exactly what they need to do, they know what the next steps are, but there's just so much clouding what they can see and so much blocking what they can hear that a lot of times it's really how do I hold space and keep reminding you of who you are and bring you back to self. So when we're talking through and they're like well, I just feel completely stuck and okay, okay, well, tell me what that feels like. And I also pay attention because sometimes, actually, I was having a conversation one time a woman leader and I kept noticing that when we got to that part of the conversation, she kept clearing her throat over and over and over again, and so finally I said I'm noticing that you were talking with no problem whatsoever.

Speaker 2:

Clearly, the minute we started talking about this specific thing that you keep talking about, that you're stuck on, you can't even get the words out. Like your throat keeps like trying to force itself to, like you have to clear it. What's going on in your throat, and she just starts bawling and she starts she was just like because it's stuck here, because it's never been able to get out, and it was this message that she felt she needed to share, but she didn't feel comfortable sharing it. And then, of course, we went down a whole journey of like what that was about. But a lot of times our bodies are already telling us exactly where the message is or what it is that we need. A lot of times it already lives there. But maybe we hear the voice and then we push it aside. We're like that's never going to happen, that's not realistic, and so we suppress it and we are just like that can't possibly be the answer. It has to be something else. I'm going to move in another direction. So I think a big piece of this is how do you tap back into your intuition?

Speaker 2:

You know that sabbatical journey for me was me spending a lot of time by myself. I wasn't around 2000 people anymore. Every day I wasn't going to an admin meeting with over 100 people giving their opinions and thoughts on how things needed to look. God bless my parents because they did not push back on me and give me a lot of pressure to like figure something out and go get a job or whatnot. You know I'd already gone through my divorce. At that point I didn't even have a partner who had a voice in what was happening. So it was very much a season of Michelle spending a lot of time with Michelle and listening to every thought that came to the surface, and I used to tell myself if the thought comes, it means something and I would just write it down. Sometimes it made no sense to me. I was like I don't know why that thought came to me, but if it came to me it means something. Write it down. And I still have the journal from that sabbatical and sometimes I go back and read it and I'm just like blown away. But I didn't suppress it and I allowed it to come forth and I didn't have to make sense of it and I didn't have to suddenly do something with it either, because that was 2017. There was stuff that was written down and put in that journal that didn't come to fruition until years later.

Speaker 2:

So how can folks start to slow down? And again, that may not need to be a full hour of being with yourself, but how can you slow down and actually notice what your body is telling you? Let the thoughts flow and not question them or say that they're wrong, and just write them down. Or I also do voice memos. Sometimes, if I'm driving and thoughts are coming, I'll literally just pull up my phone and start recording myself talking to myself.

Speaker 2:

If we let ourselves flow more and actually like just spent time with ourselves, I think we'd have way more answers than we realized, and then, once you have them, it might freak you out. And then that's where then the next step would be. Okay, I don't have to do it all right now. I just put I just let it flow for me.

Speaker 2:

I'll make sense of it later when I feel like I'm in a good place to do that, or maybe I'm going to need to take a walk before I can look at it again because I got to get out some of these j thing. That's the next step, but I think it just starts getting back to us, and that can be hard, especially in this world. Like you said, we're tapped to our phone, we're staring, we're wanting to see what everybody's doing on social media, but what they're doing on social media is not what you're supposed to be doing. And so how do you actually listen to yourself to figure that out and then figure out what your support network is, to start navigating the fear, the uncertainty or the stuff that comes along with now, truly listening to yourself?

Speaker 1:

Yes, so much there. Yes, I've been taking like all these notes, michelle, because I'm like, yes, but tapping into your intuition, that's something like I wrote down here, because one of the things as you're talking right now, I have like all these thoughts that are coming up and I'm just like, yes, yes, I think one of the bigger challenges and I don't know what your take is on this is that I really feel you sat with yourself for six months. You dug deep right, you wrote journals and you were really figuring out what you want, what your life needs to look like for you to be happy, for you to be fulfilled, and I think a lot of people are not brave enough to do that. Michelle, like I've done that, I don't want to say I'm still in it. I'm still. You've very much inspired me and encouraged me to sit down and write down what exactly I'm looking for. I've written it down, like you had shared in a post on your Instagram about how you sat down and wrote down what you wanted your career to look like, without putting any title on it, and I'm like I think I'm in that place where I need to do that, be very specific with exactly what it is. I need to do Not put a title because it probably doesn't exist out there, but just figure it out.

Speaker 1:

But a lot of people are not brave enough to sit with themselves, and that goes because they might find out that they don't enjoy that person. They know that if they sit with themselves they're going to have to hear and maybe unpack some things that are internal, that they're not ready to sit with. They know that there is maybe even something that God has been calling them to that they don't want to do. They don't want to be obedient and say like I think this is what I'm supposed to do because they're comfortable, we get in our comfort zone and we want to sit here because it's comfortable, it's what we know, it's what we're familiar with, it's what we're good at, it's where we feel confident. But as a leader, we have to get uncomfortable. Or there's that whole phrase of you have to be comfortable. Being uncomfortable, right, as leaders we have to constantly be evolving. As leaders, we have to constantly be growing and figuring out how to to lead ourselves.

Speaker 1:

But that goes with unpacking the, the anger, the lack of confidence, the feeling of unworthiness, the shame. It's all stuff that nobody wants to deal with. So we just suppress it and we keep ourselves busy. Right, we want the burnout, because it keeps all of that suppressed, it keeps it all like under the carpet and we don't have to deal with it. So, no, let me just stay busy and then I don't have to deal with what truly is going on underneath.

Speaker 1:

And that's where, like you or I, we get these coaching clients that come and they're just at the brink of burnout at this point.

Speaker 1:

And I've had clients where they've come to me and I'm like you're not ready to be coached. I think you need to go sit in therapy for a little bit, you know, because you're sitting with some very heavy things that have to be unpacked and processed in order for you to move forward, in order for you to be the leader that you've been called to do, in order for you to be the leader that you've been called to do but that also goes with leading yourself well is that you have to learn to unpack that, and a lot of people aren't willing to do that. So what advice would you give for those people that are maybe in that place right now, michelle, where they're like I'm not ready to deal with any of this right now. You kind of got to that place before your sabbatical, I can imagine. So how did you get there and realize I need to unpack this to move forward in what my bigger calling is?

Speaker 2:

I think it's a whole collection of things, to your point. There's been therapy, there's been coaching, there's been books, there's been mentors. There's been people who have just been kind of like the sounding board. This was work that I deeply did by myself, but with a collection of resources when things got really uncomfortable, right. So therapy is there for maybe deeper stuff, childhood stuff that's still following me now into adulthood. The coaching is the expanding my mind to what's possible and moving forward. The mentors are people who have some semblance of what I see for the future, like I've seen you do this thing that I'm really interested in. I want to learn more about it. The sounding board were all these people who I trusted with what I was going to share about what I was learning, but essentially all those people together were people that were helping me to navigate, being really uncomfortable. So I think it's figuring out for yourself like what are the parts that make this really hard to move forward?

Speaker 2:

I've worked with folks who the whole time we were coaching together, we were coaching on the same thing because they just couldn't bring themselves to take the leap, and then sometimes I've had to learn, also as a coach, to release the timeline. Is not the coaching package right, because then I've had some people multiple people who circle back afterwards and say I finally did it. And, oh my gosh, it all happened. I got the job, I got the promotion, I got the partner, I got the whatever the thing was that they were struggling with finding, and it was because they finally figured out. Maybe it took that whole journey with me for them to even know what they needed and then to actually identify the step, and maybe they weren't ready to make it in that moment. But then, like a month later, two months later, something happened where they're like I'm going to go ahead and do it. So I think it's also trusting your own timeline. Get clear on what you want. Once you're clear on what you want, what's the scariest parts of that that are holding you back? And then, once you figure that out that's where I do nervous system mapping with folks, where I will actually like we'll map out what are the ways that you tend to notice that you respond to these different things that happen in your life. So I tend to go into fight mode when you know these three things happen. Cool, well, let's plan ahead for that, let's not wait for that to actually happen. And then you're kind of stuck in the moment or feeling shame afterwards and you actually could have had some resources available to you. Here are the things that I know tend to put me into FON people pleasing perfectionism. Ok, these are the three things that tend to happen. Well, why don't we go ahead and just actually think about now the ways that we can have some practices in place or some things that you do up front or during to help you to move through it, that you do up front or during to help you to move through it, and so helping people to not have to wait until the discomfort happens, or not having to wait until the stuck moment happens if you already know what keeps happening, can we start to like, pre-plan for that and maybe do some stuff to maybe have it happen less?

Speaker 2:

I tell people all the time I rarely use the word healed, I always use the word healing because I feel, for this is going to be a lifelong journey, and so how do I at least reduce the amount of times that that thing happens? How do I reduce the duration of it? Maybe it's not three days that it happens, maybe it's 30 minutes. I work with it, I have this practice and then I can move on and then from there, if you just keep doing it and again it's those baby steps the discomfort happens. I have this collection of things that I do whenever I start to feel uncomfortable and little by little the discomfort's not so overwhelming. I can start to take a step, two steps, three steps and again. Once you start to feel the successes, once you do the thing and it feels good, you're like I want to feel more of that, and so then it's like you want to just keep moving in that direction.

Speaker 2:

But one thing I want to point out to what you just said is a lot of this is also not our own discomfort as much as the discomfort of the collective around us. Because part of what I shared right was that when I left K-12, it made a lot of people in K-12 uncomfortable and they were like no, you need to get a job. And I was like why is everybody so concerned with me going and getting a job? Because me leaving sparks in other people what I want to leave too. And if she leaves and I don't, what does that say about me? If she leaves and I don't, am I the person? That's part of the problem in the system that I'm in, and so I had no intention of trying to force other people to change their lives.

Speaker 2:

But when we also like change our lives and take the steps since are more confident, the people around us who are not doing the same thing for themselves can start to put their anxious energy on us, can start to put their insecurities on us, and they want you to just get in line and keep doing the thing you've been doing, because then it makes me feel better about the fact that I'm not doing all the things that I want to do.

Speaker 2:

And so I think part of this is also you're going to have to realize that it's navigating your own discomfort, but a lot of times it's also having to navigate all the discomfort of everybody else, seeing you start to change things and being like, oh my goodness, that actually means something for me too, whether you want it to mean that for other people or not. So the stronger you can get in that like self-leadership, that self-awareness, taking care of yourself in that discomfort and in that fear, is going to make it easier when then, other people start putting that theirs on you too, because you're going to be navigating theirs as well as yours.

Speaker 1:

Yes, oh, so good, michelle, so good. Being a trailblazer is what I would say is like you have to be a trailblazer for yourself in leading yourself well, and you said something it made me think. I was a children's director at a church for a long time and I left because the role basically became where it was taking one. The joy of the role was completely stripped away because it was more administrative stuff than actually like teaching Bible story to kids which as a children's director as a church, you think it's like you know the fun of creating curriculum and all of that and it became more administrative working like 50, 60 hours a week, six days a week. I had young kids at the time and the joy of the role was completely stripped away and I left that role with nothing planned. It was just a God thing and God's like you need to leave now. I left and my reason for leaving was that I wanted to spend more time with my family. I had a five-year-old and eight-year-old son at the time. They were getting older. I wanted to put them in activities and my job wasn't going to allow me to like go and be the team mom or watch them sideline or anything like that and when I left I'll never forget about.

Speaker 1:

Two months after I left I ran into someone that I had worked with and she was in a much higher position in the church than I was. Someone that I had worked with and she was in a much higher position in the church than I was. She was like secondhand person, I would say, as far as like levels of the church. And I ran into her and she gave me a hug and she's like you know, I just she had left. I learned that she had left and she said Leslie, I just want to say thank you for being the first to step out and leave and for leaving for your family, because I was like too scared to do it and I waited too long to do it and she had left and she was on the other side of it now.

Speaker 1:

And then there was all kinds of things that happened after where the church just like spiraled out, and we look back and we're like God saved us from just like a big crap storm that took place of the church, just like I mean literally like tons of people fled and all this stuff. But I never thought that me leaving like that I was a trailblazer for other people to leave, like I was just being obedient what God told me at the time and I was in the thick of kind of going through a lot of the self-doubt thing where I was leading all these people, I was suppressing a lot of things that I didn't want to deal with at the time and this was that was the like, the, the big step that I had to take to start that process of going through learning about myself, learning how to lead myself rather than learning to lead others, and sometimes it takes. No, I'm sure me and Michelle were not telling you like go quit your job today and be the trailblazer.

Speaker 1:

Like no that was just our story in each of our own. Like you know, michelle, like it had lots of educators and stuff looking at her like what's next? And the same with me. People were like what, what's next for Leslie? And it? It just figures itself out once we make ourselves the priority. So, michelle, I can go on and talk to you forever and ever. We just have so much in common too, girl. I'm like, oh, me and Michelle, we can sit for hours, but I do just want to start kind of closing up there. You gave some great insight to close this out with really just looking at different ways and how you can lead yourself, but I just want to end with a couple of fun questions for you. So I want to know what is something that brings Dr Michelle Joy in this season of your life, right now?

Speaker 2:

First of all, we didn't even get into things like Beyonce, the fun stuff. I have my tickets. I have my tickets. I'll be at Cowboy Carter, maybe I'll see you at SoFi. Yes, yes, I have my tickets. I have my tickets. I'll be at Cowboy Carter, maybe I'll see you at SoFi. But, yeah, no, I joy right now.

Speaker 2:

So I, along with coaching, I do speaking and you know there's seasons where, like you're getting a ton of calls and then there's seasons where, like you know, there's not a lot of stuff going on that requires speakers, and I'm in a season where vibration I feel in my body, especially when it's an in-person I get to be on stage and the mic and the whole thing.

Speaker 2:

Like I tell people it's like such a high that like it's actually a good thing.

Speaker 2:

I'm in LA and it takes me a while to drive back home because I'm so hyped up afterwards from the energy of the people there, getting to meet people afterwards and and to everything you just said. Like we don't know who's watching, like I'll have people who will come up with them. Like I've been following you on social media or I'm on your email list and they can quote things from my emails like back to me and it's just like there's this community that exists that I don't always get to see. You know, here in this office and on Zoom we just need to honor how much like people are watching and experiencing what we're putting out in the world, and these speaking engagements are kind of like these moments where I actually get to experience more of that and like truly feel that. So there's just this joy, this hype, this passion, this vibration that just like happens and then, like you know, lasts for days. So having more speaking in my life right now and getting to interact and engage with people is just joyful and exciting.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I love it. I love it. Okay, now next, what is a book that you would recommend to our listeners, and if you have one on leadership, if it's your favorite book. But what's a good book that you would recommend?

Speaker 2:

I've got tons of books, but I will name this one because I think I quote it the most when I'm doing actually speaking stuff and specifically right now that I'm doing a lot of stuff around nervous system and in somatics my Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Menakem.

Speaker 2:

I referenced that book a lot into your earlier question around like practices and ancestral stuff. The book gets into it specifically around navigating racial trauma, but a lot of it is rooted in what are things that we can learn from our ancestors about how we ended up here and also what we need to process what's happening to us in our bodies. Because if we look at a lot of ancestral practices, it's a lot of things that were done communally, together. The dancing, the drumming, the humming, the singing all of that stuff was actually somatic practices to move energy, rituals that folks did together around grief, around joy, around birth. Like all of that are ways that they were doing nervous system work, somatics that like we don't even call that anymore, but like that's really what they were doing. And so the book has parts where you can do visualizations and exercises for yourself, and then there's also parts of the book that get into communal so, I pull a lot from there when I'm either supporting folks and figuring out, like what are some practices you want to do on your own?

Speaker 2:

or, to the part around, like this being a collective, what are some things that you can actually do with other people and thankfully there's a lot more folks having this conversation. I actually have a speaking engagement next week where it's a school network and they're like we're doing strategic planning and we know that this is a really uncomfortable process, and so they're actually starting the day with nervous system and somatics with me and then going into strategic planning afterwards, and so I'm going to be doing some stuff for them to learn how to navigate the discomfort of doing new things and leading a lot of people. And then also, how do you do some communal stuff together as a group of leaders and also together as you're like back at your school sites, and the exercises I'll be using with them come from my grandmother's hands.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I love it. I will definitely have to add that to my audio. I'm a big audio book listener.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've learned I do audio for nonfiction and then I want to read like fiction when I'm laying by the pool.

Speaker 1:

So oh, yes, yeah, I kind of do a little of both too. If it's a book, though, actually, as you're saying, you've like highlighted a lot of stuff If there's books like that, I tend to buy those and I love to listen to, like personal development books. And then I myself love biographies. I'm not a big fiction reader, but I love a good biography and so, yeah, but this will definitely be one I got to add because I do want to learn more. I shared with you I want to learn more about the somatic practices and stuff, and this sounds like a great one. So, michelle, this has been just such a pleasure. I just want to thank you for your yes, but I want you to share. Where can our listeners connect with you if you have any engagements that are coming up? You said you're going to be speaking. I don't know if some of these engagements are still open to the public.

Speaker 2:

But if you can share where our listeners can connect with you, well, you can go to my website, michellesayhascom, and there you can sign up for my email list. You can just learn about more about all the different services that I offer, from one-on-one coaching, group coaching, speaking engagements, and then I have like some speaking stuff that's linked there and then on Instagram you mentioned Thriving Chingona on Instagram and I am constantly sharing if there's anything coming up. I'm actually doing a speaking engagement today, so by the time this comes out it'll be done, which is public and folks can come. So if I do get hired for speaking stuff that's virtual and available to anyone or even sometimes in person. I'm regularly sharing on there like how folks can register and sign up through the links.

Speaker 2:

And then on LinkedIn is where you can find me and a little more of my professional space, and it's also Michelle Stehas EDD on there and I'm welcome to emails and DMs and all the things, and I just love engaging with folks and kind of hearing where folks are on their journey and what they're hearing. That kind of encourages them to try something new. So I always want to hear from folks. So in any one of those channels. Reach out, let's chat and see how things are going for you.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Thank you so much and all of her links y'all will be in the show notes so you guys can connect with her there. Just again, Michelle, thank you so much and as we wrap up, I just want to remind listeners self-leadership is truly the foundation for every great leader. You got to start with yourself and I hope this conversation that Dr Michelle inspired you really to step out into your own power and be confident and just have some clarity on yourself as a leader. If you enjoyed today's episode, do me a favor and just go share it with somebody that you love. Connect with Michelle her IG. I love following her on IG. Her and I have like, connected and exchanged. We love sharing about Beyonce, so I think Michelle's IG is amazing. Make sure you guys go follow her there. Michelle's IG is amazing. Make sure you guys go follow her there, but until next time, no-transcript.