How Pausing, Mindfulness, And Movement Make Better Leaders | Sarah Draper

We reframe leadership as sustainable performance grounded in well-being, presence, and the courage to pause. Sarah Draper shares how resilience, mindfulness, and her future walk practice help leaders reduce drift, regain focus, and lead from the inside out.

• redefining leadership as presence and sustainability
• quiet depletion behind high performance
• drift, residue and the cost of numbing
• mindfulness as a focus and regulation skill
• the power of pausing between stimulus and response
• movement for cognition, creativity and clarity
• future walk practice at daily, strategic and vision levels
• devotion over discipline and kindness as leverage
• leading human in an AI-flooded world
• two repeatable tools for resilient leadership

Explore Sarah's work at Leading Well Strategies and learn more about her Future Walk practice
You don't have to fix everything today. Sometimes the most powerful leadership move is simply to pause and choose the next right thing.

Transcript

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Redefining Leadership As Well-Being

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Delay the Bench Podcast. This is a space for conversations about the pauses that change everything. The moments where we step out of reaction, quiet the noise, and choose how we want to show up. I'm your host, Pam Dwyer, and today's episode is especially meaningful because we're talking about leadership. Not as pressure, performance, or pushing harder, but as presence, well-being, and the courage to office. Today's guest brings a depth of leadership experience that few people ever encounter. And even fewer are able to translate with clarity and heart. Sarah Draper is a leadership coach, speaker, and retired FBI supervisory special agent with more than 30 years in high-consequence environments. From West Point and the U.S. Army to the FBI. She starts where leadership truly begins with well-being. Through her company, Leading Well Strategies and her future walk practice, Sarah helps leaders build resilience, clarity, and sustainable performance by learning how to pause. Imagine that, y'all, how to pause, think forward, and lead from the inside out, creating ripple effects that allow people and cultures to truly thrive. Sarah, I'm so grateful to have you here today.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

I'm Pam, and so happy to be here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

You're so welcome. Well, before we dive in to leadership and well-being, I'd like to start with you. Sure. When you when you look at your life right now, not your resume, okay? What season are you in?

Seasons Of Life And What Matters Now

SPEAKER_00 2:00

And what's feeling most alive or meaningful to you these days?

SPEAKER_01 2:05

I love that question. Have you ever done the um the week or the month of your life or kind of the day of your life calendar? I am so aligned with where I am in my age and my life. I am in about my second or third week of August. So what I mean by that is, you know, that point at the end of summer where you're still going strong and you're excited. You're looking forward to fall and things slowing and cooling down a little bit, but you're still really joining where you are. I'm I'm chronologically as well as like emotionally and spiritually in my second going on my third week, August. So wow. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

I like that. I could really relate to it. Yeah. Um, so what are you most passionate about right now, either in your work or in your life, that feels especially important for people to understand?

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Oh, great. Um, and I just enjoyed our like quick little pre-conversation here because I think we're aligned in the idea of we both have a lot we want to share for other people and their own growth. And I I speaking for myself, but it sounds like you as well. Like we've done the things and we've been through the things and we've learned the things that I know can help others. And I'm just want to be able to help other people find that uh through their own process, right? Supporting people. You have to go through it, right? Like it's through a process of working through, but helping others know that that's needed, first of all, right? We need to work through these things, whatever it is, we're to find growth, but also how to do that on the practical level. What are things that practices, tools, strategies that work? What is that work and what is the what's the meaning of it? Um, maybe a little bit of, you know, what's the point? But really like what what can be what could be a potential outcome of actually doing that work versus just going through life as is.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Right. Being intentional, right? That's my new word lately. Is just just instead of just letting life run me or you know, anyone else, sometimes just just stepping back, taking that pause for a moment to bring everything back online and say, okay, why am I doing this? You know.

From Peak Performance To Hitting A Wall

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Um, but so how did you come to care so deeply about you know well-being uh as the starting point for leadership? Let's go, let's just go there.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Great. Uh, because I didn't have it. And have you figured out? Well, I didn't know I didn't have it. I've always been really performance-oriented. And recently I have had the the joy of clearing out my childhood home. Where my mom has now left, my dad's passed, and my mom has moved. And it's been this discovery process of things I never knew existed and things about myself and my family that this whole thing, anyhow. I found this letter. I've I found this letter, I Christmas letter. My mom wrote, or we all wrote a part in it. Like I was a senior in high school. And my mom wrote a big chunk, everything that's going on. And then she had each of us three kids write our piece. And my sister, my older sister, is really charming and engaging. She was in college at the time and fun. And then my younger brother was still like a freshman in high school, I think. And he was just very matter-of-fact. Me, I was in the middle of the middle kid, and I just complained. I complained about how busy I was. I complained about how I'm running around from thing to thing and all the things I have to do. And you know, the undercurrent wasn't I have to write this stupid paragraph too. And I laughed because my mom left it completely as is, and I read that now as the you know, 52-year-old looking back, and I'm like, oh, I wish I could have like calmed that little girl down a little bit. And I wish she's a little girl, but I spent the next 20 or 30 years like that. I'm gonna be completely honest. I I went to these high-performance worlds. I had to perform, I did all the things, I met all the marks, I pleased all the people. I kept going and going and going and going. And and it wasn't until probably seven, eight, nine years ago that I just I couldn't do anymore. And I I had this, it wasn't like an overnight epiphany, but I had this like slow churn of things just aren't going like I expected them to, hope they would, wanted them to, thought they should, blah, blah, blah. And I wasn't doing great as a leader. I was, you know, just kind of existing as a parent, as a spouse. Um, so I realized I needed to make some changes. And that became my process, that began my personal process of trying to figure out how to do it differently. I'd always had some things that were my go-to's, which are great things. I have really strong spiritual core, I had physical fitness, and I did have a family who supported me. Um, but I'd neglected all these other facets of kind of a whole person. And in a trial and learn process, I started to experience some of these things and it changed. And I can tell you how I figured out it changed if you would like, but I'll just pause there while we're talking.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

So I love it so much because you need to be a regular guest on Delay the Binge podcast because you just summed it up perfectly. We try, we work a lot, we work with everyone, but primarily women, because we we research what's called quiet depletion. And it's for highly successful women that are doing everything perfectly. They're doing everything, they're checking all the boxes, they're doing what they're supposed to do, they're successful, and they're doing everything with the family and just they're doing it all great. But they're not, they're feeling they're numbing out because they don't, they're forgetting about themselves and their own identity, and they and they're getting tired and exhausted. And so what happens then is they're they'll seek comfort

Quiet Depletion And Numbing Success

SPEAKER_00 8:30

in unhealthy ways, like with food or overworking, over pleasing, all those things that we tend to do as women, but they're they're just looking for relief. They're but they're they're climb doing the climbing the mountain, right? But when you get to the top, it's like, oh, is this it?

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Or I have to go down. Literally, my moment, like my culmination was at the top of a physical mountain, and then I realized I had to go down. Like what happens when you get to the top? Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Yeah, so you summed it up perfectly with your life experience because I think many of us, many of us are, you know, uh are very similar with our lives and our journeys. And it brings us all to the same place, yeah, which is lost, not lost, but just seeking more fulfillment, you know, to be content. Right, right. So in leadership, so you're saying you uh I mean, my goodness, I look at all the things that you've done, especially even just being in the FBI. I mean, there's a lot of leadership going on all around you, right? And so when did you realize uh about mindset, well-being, and leadership needing to

Resilience Class And The Drift

SPEAKER_00 9:48

work together?

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Yeah, it was kind of a season, a different season, and it started on the top of a mountain, or it started during a mountain climb, a literal one, when I was in grad school in an organizational leadership program. And it was the call the class was about resilience. And so we were learning Victor Frankel and then studying age corporations and just all these things about resilience, resilience is a human resilience and leadership, resilience and systems and all of that. And it just this it was like that perfect phase of my life for all these things to come together and make me have to check in, realize like I was off. Um, I call it drift. I think of it as drift, like drifting. You just yeah, I just kind of go. And a lot of my work now is to like identify that and figure out maybe you need to have changed your direction, your azimuth, but maybe not like have you drifted. And so I think mine was just drift, a little survival mode, just keep keep on going, whatever was working, whatever was measured, whatever was counted. I kept focusing in on those things. When I started my personal, it was all personal. There was no intent, I actually stepped out of a leadership role because I wasn't leading well because of all this. Like I made a conscious decision to leave a role I had spent years working towards and had loved because I'm like, I'm not serving the people I'm leading well. So I went into do something different and focus in on what do I need. Probably the practice that helped me the most was learning mindfulness meditation that had been completely outside of my wheelhouse or interest area ever. But I think that started to rewire my brain. I know it started to rewire my brain a little bit. But then when I got six plus months into this journey, I got some really rough news. And people noted an absence of a reaction in me. And and they started asking me about how what was different about me. And it was only looking back I realized I changed for the better. And instead of like freaking out and falling down and all these other things, I was, I had, I was much more intentional, as you said, about my response and much um, I guess, more optimistic about outcomes and options than I might have been previously. And then, then, so this is a big thing is people start asking me for help. And and that was huge because it was other leaders coming to me saying, I could use some of that. Not really in that language, but like, can you help me? Because oh my gosh, this was so eye-opening for me that I was not the only leader going through this. I thought I was so alone because when you're in a high-performing world, you are just trying to make it work and you look around and everyone else, like you look at resume stuff and outcomes, you're like, oh my gosh, all these people have it so together. And you're like silently struggling. And you see, you don't voice your struggle, you just keep struggling, but then you keep putting on the facade, you get it together too. And it's just this like amplification of this within a community. So when other leaders started asking me for help and like confidentially sharing, like, I could use some too. I was I began to realize I think it's more the norm than it is the exception that leaders struggle with these things. So I made it uh my point to then seek like and obtain like real more formal training and education and the things I've been experiencing. And I was able to finish up my FBI career teaching at an at an academic level to law enforcement partner leaders from other agencies

Mindfulness Rewires How Leaders Respond

SPEAKER_01 13:40

that come to a residential program we run for them on these very specific things uh of wellness and well-being for leaders.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

It's almost like um I know for myself, you know, I when I realize my tendencies or my habits that aren't really serving me well, it's not that I have to learn something, I have to unlearn it, right? I have to unlearn what I've been doing or thinking all this time because I know that it hasn't served me well. But then and the brain, you know, I love neuroscience so much, but the brain likes the old patterns. And so then I struggle because I'm trying to do this new thing, new approach, new pattern, but I keep going. Well, I mean, my brain wants to go back to the old ways.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Right, right. It's like grooves, right? Or uh like a stream bed or a path in the woods, you know, like you've gone down that path, or something's gone down that path a thousand of times. That path is gonna stay until like enough time passes and a new path is created to bypass it. And things it it's it's the same with us individually, but it's also the same in organizations and cultures, right? We continue to do things the way we've always done them because they are so ingrained in us or in the organization's culture too.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

So yes, I love that ingrained. And it is, and after eight, gosh, I guess eight plus years of of therapy for me, every single one of my therapists always said, we cannot make this go away for you know, we're not gonna make this broken thing go away. But we can teach you how to cope, we can give you coping skills. And so that's what I find I don't unlearn, I just am trying to constantly create new ways to cope with what is happening. Yeah, I love that. As a result, well, so leadership development fails when when there's no well-being in uh uh with it, combined with it. So why do you think well-being has been treated as optional? You know, and what actually changes when leaders start with state mindset and relationships instead? I mean, like how how is it general?

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Yes, I I it's so so true. I I look at kind of um Jen Fisher, uh formerly of W, now she's um on her own. I think she talks about it as human sustainability. And so I think of it as sustainable performance. Like, how do we continue to sustain? How do you sustain for the long haul through things? It's it's the anti-burnout individually, but like you said, is at organizational level, it's it's um it's difficult because I think one of the big reasons is we don't have good language for it. And that's I I wish we had a term other than wellness or well-being, because those have been kind of um

Unlearning Old Patterns At Work

SPEAKER_01 17:00

captured in a in a sense of either products, right? There's you search wellness or well-being online, you're gonna get a bazillion different products you can buy that fall under that broad category, or um things that feel or look indulgent or self-serving. And so by all means, like for someone, if if their way to unplug is a spa weekend, great, but that is not the only way to do it. You know, a walk in the woods, a a specific intentional conversation with someone. I mean, there's just so many different things, but I I I do wish we had a better word. So I think of it as like whole performance or three-dimensional performance. You mentioned your your state, your body, your mind, which is your mindset, your relationships, that spiritual and external connection. I think of it in terms of those those three dimensions. Um, I think of it in terms of sustainable performance, but we just I just don't think we have the right words for it. And uh, and we don't necessarily have the right um measures for it because there's nothing that's one size fits all. But I think it's a yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

I agree. And if I don't name something, I can't improve. Right, right, right. So finding the right n word or the right, you know, like I I before delay the binge, it would my podcast was called the plus one theory. And the plus one theory has been in my life since eighth grade, you know, and what it is is it's doing your best, plus one more, especially with kindness. You know, yes, kindness is like a superpower, man. It's good for you to give and it's good for you to receive. It it just heals. And I called it the plus one, and I raised both my kids with the plus one theory. I mean, they wrote their college essays on it. It's like really been drilled and hammered into their heads to, I mean, mediocrity is a problem. And I think that if you give them the mindset of just applying a little bit more in small, small steps, then you know, you can succeed over time. So then the plus it sounds like you're describing like like for discipline, I've replaced it with devotion. Oh to describe it because discipline's harsh, man. As you probably know from your background, discipline

Vulnerability In High-Stakes Professions

SPEAKER_00 19:30

is everything, right? And I don't know if it would have as much effect if someone says, let's be devotional to ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Right. Right, right, right, right. When you're in an environment or context in which the stakes are high and everyone is so reliant and dependent upon others performing at their best at all times, it's right, that discipline expectation is very, very high. I like devotion. That's great. That's yeah. One another. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

It kind of messes with the brain a little bit because it puts it in a different light.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

But leaders misunderstand, don't they? Leaders, don't think I misunderstand uh the differences between well-being and performance. I mean, they separate it, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Yes. Unfortunately, and I think some organizations are doing this and others are are struggling with it. But yeah, in in so many regards, like the wellness or well-being still falls under the benefits side, which is um good to have those type of health benefits and things like that. But what I work on is is different. And I do think it it fits quite well under the human performance or leadership side of an organization. It's the people work, it's not the the again, the benefits type of work.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

It seems to me like you work with a lot of uh mindsets that are tough. I always want that's how I see, you know, militant or FBI. I always just view the them as, you know, hard and tough because they have to be. So do you find it difficult to to teach them how to tap into being vulnerable and to con in order to connect and mindset? I mean, is it I think it's it's it's hard for me to get a lot of people to understand the importance of it. You know, have you found it difficult or did you find that people are just ready to have that?

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Oh no, it's very difficult because you put on a shell, right? And in in and I think people are drawn into the professions I was in who are already away, at largely, right? And and so they're probably there's an incredibly high level of ruggedness and resilience in the professions I came from, of grit. Like these are great things. And so I think the people who are drawn to those probably as a whole have a little bit higher level of that. Um, but the the kind of shell that ends up going on top of that, some of the researchers I've heard I love the term residue, right? You build up this residue on you over time. Others talk about it as like rocks in your rucksack that eventually weighs you down and you don't know when it's gonna be solid. You don't know when that pack's gonna get too heavy to carry

Naming Well-Being And Measuring What Matters

SPEAKER_01 22:30

you or when you to carry or when you might trip on the littlest thing because you've been carrying all this around or stumbling around. But everyone has that. And and and many people don't have the self-awareness to understand that has happened until they've hit a point where something has gone really awry. And so in those circumstances, yeah, it's really tough to, it's really tough to convince someone they need something that they don't realize they need. But once people know they need it and they they come for help, like in a coaching context, they're like all on, all in, right? They're they are ready to learn, ready to try, ready to um engage in these different things. But like, how do you get from someone not recognizing they need it forward until they've you don't want anyone to hit a breaking point. Some people though, that's that's when they that's the first time they realize they need it.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

This is so interesting to me because when decisions matter so deeply and the pressure is just constant, I imagine, you know, I've not worked in that line of work, but I I I see that the pressure is just always there. I think that my tendency would be just to numb out so I wouldn't feel anything so I could get done what has to be done. Yep. But if we continue that numbing out, you know, where do you draw the line? Where do and you start losing who you are. Yes, and then that does affect your work.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Yes, yes. There's either a compartmentalization to the work, which I've talked to some folks, some like professionals who say that can be very, very healthy, like you have your part that does that, however, that that can also prevent you from seeing something as it is. And the other pieces, again, that drift, right? So maybe you're so far off from where you once thought you would be, or who you think you are, or who you thought you would be at whatever stage in your life, or how you thought your life would be, because you just kind of your azimuth has has shifted a little bit over time and and never had a reason to kind of realize that and come figure out how to what the right course is and then correct that. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

So what the experiences for that line of work, they they have to learn reaction, right, versus uh regulation, correct? So I mean, I don't know. I would struggle with it, but that's probably why I don't do that for a living. Like you said,

Devotion Over Discipline And Kindness

SPEAKER_00 25:20

you have to be of a certain type of person grit to be able to do that. I mean, I even as a young child, my there's seven siblings in my family, and the the eldest, my sister, she said, Pam, we never had to spank you. All we had to do is raise our voice and you would cry.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Right, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

So I'm very sensitive and I just I know that I could not do that. I'm I admire everyone that does so much.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

There are extraordinary people. I mean, just absolutely extraordinary people in that line of work, and many who have embraced, you know, who do a lot of that self-work. And and in law enforcement, it's becoming more and more common for for organizations uh to have that part as a part of what they are bringing for their people because the recognition of it and people who are outwardly embracing it. Um, the stigma is going down about race, especially on the mental health side, right? This isn't all mental health, but the on the mental health side, that stigma is going, is decreasing uh in in different communities, and more and more people are seeking that help. Um, and whether it's on their own or or or externally, and so more resources are available to people. But there's also I mean just some of the most extraordinary people I've ever met or in the professions I've been in. Um so yeah, there's humanism. There's yeah, there's a high level of of of uh independence and self um kind of self-efficacy of agency, of ruggedness, of of people being able to make things happen. But again, sometimes it works for people great. Others like me, I was looked like I was doing fine, but I really wasn't. So I had to have my realization and and find my way to a better me.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

So I would love to continue to research with you on everything because you know a lot of the book that I'm writing is all about quiet depletion. And it's when we're performing and we're fine on the outside, but on the inside, we're really just lost in in pain, some sort of pain. But I hear or I see, I notice all through your work, you stress the importance of the pause, pausing. And that's what drew me to you as well. I couldn't wait to hear your theories and your philosophies on the importance of it, you know, not to slow down the progress, but to lead more effectively by pausing, you know. Yeah. So tell me how how did you figure that out?

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Well, that is that was that same class. And honestly, reading Man's Search for Meeting by Victor Frankel, dissecting it. What really resonated with me in that is between stimulus and response, there was a space, and that space regards your growth and your freedom. And and recognizing there is always space. In fact, so much as like my personal and leadership mantra is embrace this space. There is it has become that. There is always time. There's always time for, like if you've seen my TEDx talk, I talk about the power of breath as an in the moment technique, but there's bigger, longer techniques. But I think like on a longer scale, that's been just as valuable for me is to embrace the space

The Power Of The Pause

SPEAKER_01 29:00

between where I am and where things might be a year or two from now. So the space isn't always like in this moment, got to make this decision, got to do this thing, decision made done. I'm on that way. Like, how do I find peace and unknowing? How do I find comfort and or at least create some comfort and uncertainty for whatever's to come? I mean, retiring from the government was one of those times, but I think in my personal life it's been more meaningful with like helping to navigate unknown worlds with an aging mother, moving the family country multiple times where you can't control the variables. There are absolutely things out of your control that you maybe you can influence some of them, but most of the time you are just gonna have to deal with it. How do you how do you embrace that space? You don't know what's gonna happen a year from now. How do you embrace this space? How do you embrace the space as an entrepreneur entrepreneur, right? Trying to find, I don't know how things are gonna work. How do you do that? And so some of it is just trust, you know, looking back, looking at your story as you've done, finding your story, writing your story, making sense of your story so you can find those moments of strength and growth in your darkest times. So later, when you're faced with those challenges again, you know what you've got, you know how strong you are, you know those strengths, you know what you're capable of, you know you've been through bad, tough, challenging things, and you've come out on the other side of it. So you have that confidence and awareness. You will get through whatever's in front of you now. So some of it is just pausing, like looking forward in peace, but also some of it is being reflective on the past and learning, learning about yourself through that.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

And using it. But I do definitely find peace with pausing, you know, and and purpose. And, you know, just reflecting on the past really helps. But also I've learned to give myself some grace because I understand why I think the way I do, or maybe why I don't do what I should do. I know I've, man, I've done all the research and educated myself on every reason why I should move my body. Let's use exercise, you know, why it's important, why it matters. And I've seen people that didn't do it and what happened to them. But I still struggle in making myself do that three mile or five mile walk. Every day I say, okay, I've got it, I know it's cold and rainy outside, but I still need to walk, but I don't. I know what I need to do, but I still don't do it. And I think a lot of people do that.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Yeah, yeah. Can I ask you a question? Yeah, on the back end of it. There's this strategy. When you finish that three to five mile walk that you didn't want to do, how do you feel? Most days.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

My gosh. Motivated because everybody waits. If I wait to be motivated to walk, I'm not gonna do it. But what I've learned is if I not discipline, if I'm devoted to myself, I'll do it anyway. I'm gonna walk anyway. But after the walk, I'm I feel amazing and so happy and I want to walk tomorrow more.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Yeah. Have you ever taken um there's a there's a practice called savoring? So when you savor the outcome of something like that, something you didn't want to do, but you did, and how you feel at the back end of it, when you savor that, whether by writing it down, by just spending time to like let it literally like immerse yourself in it, like you would savor a meal, but to just like immerse yourself in all the sensations of it. Um, just making a couple, even verbally saying a few of those things you just said, that helps

Movement, Savoring, And Focus

SPEAKER_01 33:00

you the next time, right? So like cementing that in will help you have that to pull on the next, you know, next week when it's cold and dark and raining. You're like, I really don't want to do my walk today, but I remember how it feels on the back end.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

Yeah, the winter time is really tough on me because I I am pretty, pretty devoted to my to my exercise and moving my body because I even even in doing podcast interviews, I like to walk right before because I'm I'm more aware and more, I'm quicker with my words. I don't know. It just really helps me to to move before I have to speak.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Oh my gosh, movement's so important. It it increases our creative, your creative centers, your your cognitive capacity grows. Um, it it it creates helps create space and relationships for conversations. I well, my latest tool I'm doing right now, I'm calling is called the future walk. And I love it. It's just this, it's like there's kind of three different time scales you can do it in. There's the the short daily walk is like a 10 to 15 minute walk about like what you want to get out of the rest of the day. It's just 10 to 15 minutes, just thinking about that on a daily basis. And then a longer strategic one is maybe walking with a partner, like a business partner or a spouse type partner, someone you trust and talking about the next month or quarter in a strategic way. It says 20 or 30 minutes about your biggest priority or two or three. And then the one that I started it for me was my husband and me. This is the long-term, like a visioning walk. It's uh, you know, longer, 30 minutes, 50 minutes, maybe even longer, maybe multiple walks, where you're talking about years from now, what you want your life to be like years from now, and all these different aspects. And that was really amazing when you have someone to talk with, even if it's not a partner, but you've got like a coach or mentor someone to talk with on that walk. Just like because the value of movement, because the value of forward movement, how um how it just opens up all these centers in your brain and and helps you learn and see things in different ways. I mean, that's what I do.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

I either listen to a podcast that I adore, yes, where I'm learning something, or it's a time for me to catch up with, say, my brother, who I hardly ever see, or my sister, you know, or my adult children. They're so busy with their own lives now, but yes, they'll they'll talk to me while I walk. I love it. And the walks over like that.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

I know. I set walk and talk. That's great. Love it.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

So I love that. That was my next question was about your future walk practice. So we've we just covered that. And it so it helps leaders to pause, right? Think forward and and make decisions in the moment. So I guess that's because their their brain is is is fired up.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

Yeah, absolutely. And and it again, at 10 minutes, even five minutes, even if you just have five minutes between meetings before a decision, before a tough conversation, just take five minutes and walk and think about that conversation. Get outside if possible, because in nature's impact on your creative and cognitive centers, but just walk and move and think about that. You're absolutely gonna have a better conversation, decision, creative process than if you just try to continue to stay where you are if you're sitting at a desk or

Future Walk: Daily, Strategic, Vision

SPEAKER_01 36:40

staying in your workspace and not um not taking a couple minutes to move while you think forward.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

So living in this world of um I'll call it disruptive, constant disruption professionally, personally. So, what do you think the future ready liter leadership looks like when when people are already stretched so thin?

SPEAKER_01 37:05

Yeah, I know. I I really do think about that a lot. And I am an eternal optimist. I feel like maybe it's wishful thinking, but I feel like we're gonna have some sense of a course correction, right? Like we just can't sustain the level of fragmentation that we individually have without some supports coming in. So either we come back into ourselves, we come back into our work teams, we come back into our family teams and have these like tighter units, or we there's something that kind of starts to fill some of the gaps. I mean, I'm not like this isn't a conversation about AI or anything like that. I know it's such a part of the world we're in that I I think it has to at least be acknowledged as an influence, especially in the space I'm in as a you know, an entrepreneur who puts stuff on social media. Like, I just I feel flooded right now. I can't even get onto a social media feed without being like, oh my goodness, it's so overwhelming. Like, where's the value added? I'm seeking some things that I'm just not finding out there most of the time. There's some good content out there, but so much. So I feel like we need to have a cross correction, but I don't know what's gonna cause that.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

Um the qualities that uh leaders uh need now because of AI and all the other things that are moving so fast. Yeah. You know, that wasn't emphasized before, but now more than ever, I think our leaders need to be to keep the humanness, I guess is the only way I can say it, the humanness in the world because it's no longer people are loving to hate. They get they love that, it seems. And so that my message on kindness as a superpower is more critical than ever. So as a leader, that message needs to be shared, and then they need to share it. So I don't know as a leader, how do we keep the humanness in all of it?

SPEAKER_01 39:17

I love the way you're putting that. No, that's really great. It's like leaders need to hold space for others, leaders to be kind, to allow that space. We're talking about space, that space for learning and growth, that space for creative ideas, whether whether they come from the human or AI or the influence or whatever, whatever it comes from. Leaders need to be able to hold that space. But to do that, they gotta be good themselves. Right? They can't be frazzled and fragmented, and that gets back to kind of the wholeness stretched thin, like you said. Yeah, yeah. Like they gotta be good themselves to be able to hold that space. Um knowing how to pause, having

Leading Human In An AI-Flooded World

SPEAKER_01 40:00

A pause technique is incredibly power for that powerful for that, knowing how to stay focused on the task at hand, whether that's a conversation with one person or whether that's um some work output or whatever it is, but having the like a skill, it's absolutely skill and ability to create focus into a singular thing, I think is is n absolutely necessary because you need that to hold space for another person too.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

So that was my next question, and I think you just nailed it for me. But the for leaders that are listening right now who want to build resilience and clarity without burning out, what are one or two practical tools you return to again and again? I mean, what's worth repeating?

SPEAKER_01 40:50

I would do these two things. One take a future walk, go out there, take like if you only have 10 minutes, that's gonna help you today. Do do it for today. But take some time, plan it, and take some time for a walk again with yourself or with another trusted person and go for a longer walk and really start to get clear on how you want your future to be. Think some years out. You can do three to five years, you can do a milestone, you can do it retirement, but get clear and come back and write that in vivid detail in all aspects of your life. You could do it in a perfect day, ideal day scenario, write out your ideal day five years from now. All aspects, your health, your relationships, your where you're living, your finances, your work, all of it. Write it all out, your ideal day. And that is a thing you can do. Um, or it can be more broad, like my whatever and I are living in this place, you know, more general, but still look at all the different aspects. Get clear on that, and that will become like your North Star. If that's the the the the the drift, like that's the antidote to drift is like, what am I doing all this for? Like, what am I working towards? Okay, so so set that. Um, and the future walk is the way to start to get clear on those things and being able to have a conversation with another person that you trust or or who is a part of that feature with you while you do it is key. The other thing is mindfulness meditation has been life-changing for me because it has taught me how to bring my attention back to one thing. I've always been very scattered. I've been uh prided myself on being a multitasker. I've since learned like uh unfocused attention really doesn't do anything a favor. And so through years of a mindfulness meditation practice, I've learned how to keep my focus on one thing, especially people. Like that is my thing. I'm not the best when it comes time to sit down at my computer and write or create because my brain still goes, but when I'm with a person, I try to keep my attention there. And mindfulness meditation has helped me so much in that.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

Oh my gosh. I had a friend a couple of years ago that forced me to go to this uh class with her on transcendental meditation. Oh yeah, sure. And man, that has changed my life. Just that focused, quiet time. I mean, it's it's amazing. And when I get stressed or anxious, that's what I do. I practice that. And it was only a one-time class. I would love to study it more in more depth, you know.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's I think like with with different, there are so many different types of meditation, TM, and I practice the mindfulness type, and there's just such a variety, but that's why this is like trial and learn. You got to see what

Two Tools: Future Walk And Mindfulness

SPEAKER_01 44:00

works for you. For me, I needed to find a and I didn't even realize I was lacking in focus. I I didn't really, I guess I knew I was multitasking all the time. I didn't realize how distracted I was and and how detrimental that was so to the people around me. So I once I started doing mindfulness meditation, that's been one of my biggest personal outcomes of it.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

I love it so much. People need to give it a chance, they need to look into it. It's like um one time everybody kept telling me that I needed to work on my time management skills, and so I didn't think I had an issue with it. I bought a book on time management skills, but I never have time to read it. Doesn't exactly so you've said that uh I've heard you reference positive leadership isn't a personality trait, it's a practice behavior. If you could leave our listeners with one reminder about leading from the inside out, what would you want them to remember today?

SPEAKER_01 45:07

Yes. Um how how you view yourself and your internal energy is is read and and felt by others. So start with yourself and get yourself right um so that you can then share that with others. It it might be a long journey and it might be a long process for you. Um, but in the meantime, just be aware of that. And there's a little bit of fake it till you make it, you will change over time. Your brain is complex, it takes a while to, like you said, learn a new process. Um, but in the meantime, just be aware of that. We are all connected and we feel each other's energy. And if you're whatever energy you're bringing to something, that is the energy others are going to absorb. And if they are people who report to you or even peers, they're gonna end up reflecting some of that outward. And so what can you do to kind of step it up while you're working on the long-term change to create maybe a positive ripple effect out into your world, whether that's a daily walk, a yoga practice, time with your dog, whatever it is to get yourself into a place of more positive energy. Um, and this isn't like naivete or anything like that. This is just recognizing like people will know, people, people absorb and they reflect how how you they're treated. And so you gotta start with you.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

That is so powerful. I love it. Thank you. Thank you for this conversation and and for your leadership, the way you lead. You know, what you shared today reminds people that leadership isn't about pushing harder, being the

Inside-Out Energy And Positive Ripples

SPEAKER_00 47:00

best, carrying more. It's it's all about well-being, awareness, and the courage to pause and be vulnerable. So, for those listening, if today's conversation resonated, I encourage you to explore Sarah's work at leading well strategies and learn more about her future walk practice. And we'll link everything in the show notes. And as always, remember, you don't have to fix everything today. Sometimes the most powerful leadership move is simply to pause and choose the night next right thing. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you for your time today. Perfect.