conscious leadership Archives

Leadership Equity: A New Paradigm for Power

June 18, 2021 by Chantal Pierrat

The way power is playing out right now is just not working.

Our current power structure is based on an old model that was designed to reflect the needs and the desires of just a small representation of humanity. Our view of power has become distorted and unhealthy, and it’s not inclusive of the voices and perspectives in our world today.

What we want is equitable, equal, just, and compassionate power. Not power over, but power with.

What we need is a new system of power that best reflects our shared humanity.

Leadership Equity is personal, community-driven, and systemic power that is used for the service of others and is representative of our diversity.

What Is Leadership Equity?

Similar to financial equity, Leadership Equity is a balance sheet of assets; yet, instead of financial assets, we’re talking about our influential assets: our clout, influence, and position in our communities and the world.

It is the value we’ve built through our work in current leadership platforms.

Yet the definition of equity doesn’t just speak to what we own — it also refers to how we use what we have in this world. The true definition of equity is: “the quality of being fair and impartial.”

True Leadership Equity isn’t used to benefit ourselves and our own communities. Leadership Equity is best used when helping to level the playing field for others.

The three ways in which we can build leadership equity within ourselves and out in the world are within the realms of:

— I
— We
— The World

Our growth, development, and impact in all three dimensions are what creates our Leadership Equity. How we use this equity within these three realms is how we shape our vision of the world.

Leadership Equity in the Realm of I

Everything starts inside the Realm of I.

All ideas start as whispers from our inner voice. These ideas are influenced and birthed by our values and belief systems. What matters most to me?

My truth. My acceptance. Celebration of my stories.

Our individual wholeness is the root of our personal expression in the world. All of us have personal power. Just by being here and taking up space.

For many, drive comes from overcompensation for our not-enoughness. We’re motivated ‘to become’ to hide our fears and vulnerabilities and to un-become what we don’t want the world to see.

But when we source our drive from deep, deep, radical self-acceptance, we can give up the war we have with ourselves, our not-enoughness, and our falling-shorts.

Leadership in the Realm of I starts with self-compassion. When our drive begins with self-compassion instead of a ‘covering-up’, only then can we risk vulnerability, failure, and hard lessons.

Leadership Equity in the Realm of We

We cannot be fully expressed as human beings in isolation. To what end are we doing this work on ourselves if not to take that representation — those ideas, truths, acceptance, and stories — into the world, into our relationships and communities?

When we emerge from our dark night of the soul, we are inspired to lead with the truth of who we are, and to do so with others. Our natural impulse is to share ourselves with others so that we may feel the power of belonging. Belonging is not about fitting in, it’s about fitting with – lending our unique imprint as we fit together with others to make a whole.

We must ask ourselves, “How can we connect with and support others as we are reaching for the stars ourselves?”

But sometimes people are scared of too much ‘We’ space. We’re afraid the people around us will dull our unique gifts or we will go unnoticed by the world.

This can happen – when there’s not enough diversity in the people around us.

If you find yourself scared of ‘We’ space, if you’re finding your gifts dulled within your communities, ask yourself:

Am I swimming in sameness?

While there may be comfort in surrounding yourself in people like yourself, sameness doesn’t have the same chemistry, spark, innovation, and grit as a diverse group.

The antidote to sameness is reaching for differences.

Reach for differences to build teams and communities with as much diversity in terms of:

— Race
— Gender
— Socioeconomic background
— Identity
— Perspective

Encourage new patterns, new solutions, and new thinking, and you’ll foster true innovation.

When we’re in the ‘We’ space, we need to pay attention to our language, set our intention, and welcome the gifts of curiosity. But above all, we need to place checks and balances on ourselves to ensure we’re creating an inclusive environment when we’re in this space.

Leadership Equity in the Realm of the World

I + We = The World

The Realm of the World represents whole-person leadership, relationships, communication, influence, and impact. The I and

The We create The World we live in.

Our old idea that The World just ‘happens’ and we respond to it is just not correct.

All the roads, the buildings, all the systems that support the functioning of our World are all direct results of efforts put forth by ‘The I’ and ‘The We’. Systems produce the results they were designed to produce. If we’re not getting the results we want, we need to change the system.

This is good news because we have more control than we think to make the world around us reflect what we want.

Leadership in the Realm of the World builds systems that reflect what we want and produce the outputs we desire.

Leadership in the Realm of the World means ensuring our systems are set up for inclusion and equality.

We need to evaluate every system (from our talent evaluation meetings to our hiring processes and our political landscape) to ensure they’re inclusive and that all races, genders, cultures, and bodies have a seat at the table.

We all have some level of clout, influence, and position (even if it’s only within our own families and communities). Our Leadership Equity is the value we’ve built up through our work in current leadership platforms, but also the work we have done on ourselves and in our communities.

What are you doing with the Leadership Equity you’ve built?

Leadership Equity Starts with Connection

Leadership Equity should be used to help level the playing field for others.

Doing so not only benefits others — but it benefits all the realms, from The World to The We to The I.

And Leadership Equity starts with connection.

First with the connection to yourself, to your truth, and knowing who you are. Then with your connection to others. Connection to your teams and to your community and connection to the earth, our world — and all of life. Emerging into being is so much more powerful when we do it with others.

When we structure our lives this way, Leadership Equity stops being the topic of conversation and just becomes the natural order of things.

Leadership Equity is the natural order of things.

On Being Unstoppable

July 20, 2016 by Chantal Pierrat

Last week, I visited the webpage of a coaching school someone I know is considering. On the school’s homepage, a graduate of the program boasted that the school’s methodology had enabled her to teach her clients to be “unstoppable.” And that stopped me, right in my tracks.

The nature of being human is that we are eminently stoppable. Our very biology gives us natural limits to how hard we can push. We need to breathe, to drink, eat, and sleep. We crave touch, the sun, fresh air, and communication. Our bodies are covered in a soft flesh–relatively defenseless with no claws or sharp teeth. We bleed and heal. Our reproductive cycle gives us utterly helpless young, demanding that we stop and take notice and care for these vulnerable creatures. And, of course, we die–the ultimate full stop. Death comes for us all with no regard for how hard we try to push it back. To be human is to be stoppable.

And yet we seek to be unstoppable.

Life should be able to stop us. If not for beauty, then for heartbreak. If not for the joy of seeing a tree’s stark branches waving against a gray winter sky, then for the horror of seeing people starving to death in our own rich cities or drowning to death on the shores of Europe. If not for the pleasure of a beloved piece of music, then for the despair of another mass shooting. If not for the happiness on face of a dear friend or family member, then for the agony present when they suffer or when we let them down. Let life be present to us. Let it stop us.

To be unstoppable is to be blind to what is happening all around us. To be unstoppable is to refuse to notice the effect that progress–at any cost–might have on our relationships, our bodies, and our spiritual life. To be unstoppable is to deny our own biology. To deny our hearts and the beautiful web of relationships that surround us.

Sometimes the world demands a response. And sometimes the only response is to pause. To be stricken. To be soft. To take a moment to laugh, or to cry, or to hold someone’s hand. A moment of noticing how angry we are, or how sad, or how–this is the really hard one–how numb we’ve become. And cultivating the ability to be stopped takes deep work.

It requires relational sensitivity to know when our families, colleagues, and friends need us to downshift and approach them in a new, more attentive way. It requires somatic wisdom to be able to sense our energy status and get a clear reading on what our bodies need. It takes emotional awareness to stay present in strong emotions while also noticing the emotional states of others. And, finally, the ability to stop often takes great bravery as it will likely be questioned by those who would not dare question the cultural value of being unstoppable.

In my coaching practice, I do not seek to teach clients to be unstoppable because I believe it is deeply problematic, even dangerous. What happens when you teach your client to be unstoppable, and their family and friends need them to stop because they have been neglecting their relational responsibilities? What happens when you have an entire culture of unstoppable people, and the culture next door needs them to stop because they are encroaching on ancestral lands? What happens when you have an entire planet of unstoppable people, and the environment is begging them to stop because species are going extinct and the land is being polluted?

Can you see where being unstoppable can lead? Do you see where it has already led?

Instead, I believe that we must learn to listen to the call of the world, our loved ones, and our bodies, to stop. In the coaching relationship, the relationship of mutual trust and mutual respect creates a strong container where clients can examine the habitual responses they have always relied on. Over time, they becomes more able to recognize the habitual turning away that has become so pandemic in modern society. They learn to cultivate a new response. This takes the learning of new skills and competencies; patience, compassion, resilience, discernment, the ability to self-observe (to name a few). I’ve seen clients, over time, become more resilient and able to stand in deep witness to their own emotional experience; to be stopped by the world, to be touched by it. They have the freedom to experience their reaction without being overwhelmed by it. This allows them the opportunity to make choices that they were unable to make before.

Today, let a small part of yourself be broken by this heartbreaking and fragile world. What might it mean to open yourself up enough for that to occur? What meaning might leak into your life if you dared? Stop, and and you might find out.

Jessica Minah is the Director of Enrollment and a Graduate of New Ventures West. Jessica’s presence, curiosity and wisdom—not to mention her previous experience as an award-winning radio producer and sales account manager—make her a natural fit for the role of guiding would-be coaches into the fold. She was certified as an Integral Coach® in 2014 and works with clients around the US. She lives in Baltimore with her husband Greg and brightens our San Francisco headquarters with her regular visits.

8 Ways to Feed Your Soul with Spiritual Adventure

July 9, 2015 by Chantal Pierrat

Do you love a good spiritual adventure as much as I do?

A few years ago I read a book that rocked my world. In Serpent of Light, Beyond 2012, Drunvalo Melchizedek describes a planetary shift in consciousness and power back into the loving arms of the feminine.

Serpent of Light follows the shift of the Earth’s own kundalini energy to the Peruvian Andes, which Drunvalo claims is the new spiritual epicenter of the planet in this emerging feminine age.

Whether Drunvalo’s story is true or not, for the past few years we have all felt the momentum of this shift, as women learn to claim their power and emerge to lead in so many beautiful and unique ways. I am inspired by the truly extraordinary women I experience here at Emerging Women and in my own circles. We are rising!

However, as feminine leaders in a still highly masculine world, we are pioneering this new age and it can feel like a lot to untangle and re-weave. The question is:

How do we continue to bring our feminine nature more fully into our professional lives and all that we do?

The answer, I think, is to create more space and time to feed our souls on a regular basis—to create conscious opportunities to pass the microphone from the left brain to the right brain and give the feminine our undivided attention.

Spiritual adventure is one of the best ways that I know to do that.

This type of adventure is more than a vacation. It is an opportunity to shed multidimensional layers of responsibility and enter a realm of mystical possibility.

When you step out of your normal routine and into a safe and sacred container to experience the unknown, the field of all potentialities opens to you. That’s why I co-founded Hanuman Adventures – to bring some of these practices and experiences to emerging women everywhere.

Here are 8 Benefits of Going on a Spiritual Adventure:

1. Remove the distractions.

We do our best to feed our souls and resource ourselves in the feminine… but let’s face it; our lives are full of distractions.

Work, kids, technology, social engagements, and all that we juggle makes it challenging to drop in deep enough to listen to the whispers of the soul.

Sometimes we need an entire week away from it all.

2. Create space for balance.

Make sure you have delicious and healthy food, plenty of time for rest, and an abundance of adventuring activity. Empower yourself to tune in to what serves your balance and to take good care of yourself throughout the week so that you return home rejuvenated and refreshed.

3. Healing and transformation.

Whenever you step out of your normal routine, or your “comfort zone,” you create the opportunity for break through. What parts of you are ready to be seen, felt, and heard? What are you ready to transform? A well-planned spiritual adventure can provide a safe container to hold you in as you release the old and step into the new.

4. Yoga as soul medicine.

On Hanuman Adventures, we practice yoga daily in nature to move energy and experience the health and vitality of a strong body-heart-mind-earth-spirit connection.

5. Grow in conscious community.

We need each other. It’s that simple.

6. Giving back.

Each spiritual adventure includes an opportunity to work with the locals to practice seva (selfless service). When we give in this way, we often realize that we receive exponentially more than we give.

7. Your men are invited.

All of this work of feminine empowerment is really to restore the balance between the masculine and the feminine. We love our men. Let’s bring them along!

8. Inspiration and celebration.

Joy is one of the most healing forces on the planet. Laugh, dance, sing, play and shed a few happy tears.

We are here to celebrate life!

Going on a spiritual adventure can be a game-changer. Just in making the commitment to the adventure you start to experience the transformational magic.

What you are seeking is seeking you… Are you in?

Dayna Seraye is devoted to cultivating the path of the heart through the sacred body temple. She leads transformational yoga classes, workshops, retreats and trainings nationally and internationally to support individuals and communities to connect and awaken.

Dayna is the co-founder of Hanuman Adventures, offering extraordinary yoga retreats with a unique focus on seva and sacred sites. She takes people like you to extraordinary sacred sites to melt the pressures of daily reality and experience the magic of immersion into nature, the heart, and community.

October 24–31, 2015, Hanuman Adventures is going to Peru for a spiritual adventure in the heart of the Sacred Valley. March 20–27, 2016 they journey to Bali, the land of devotion.

Why I Had to Elope, and Would Do It Again

June 3, 2015 by Chantal Pierrat

On Instagram, #weddingplanning boasts nearly 500,000 posts. Pinterest has thousands of boards dedicated to “wedding inspiration.” You’ve seen them, right?

Have you seen how a quick Google search reveals countless articles on the average cost of a wedding last year and how the more expensive a wedding is the higher chance of divorce?

My husband, Aaron, and I skipped the bridal magazines and eloped a few weeks ago, in a tiny ceremony officiated by a close friend with just a handful of witnesses. There was little planning, no hashtagging (we decided to unplug for the weekend), and no disappointments, as we had set no expectations. There was laughter and authentic connection amongst the few friends invited, and it was easy and very inexpensive.

As the bride, and as a young woman who is emerging, my desire to elope stems from a strong disagreement with the gendered notions of what a bride should be, and the patriarchal, consumerist framework of which weddings are built upon.

I wanted to direct the time, energy, and money that goes into a wedding to things that actually matter to me in life. At this point in time, that means starting my own business with my husband and best friend from college, working for a few start-ups and supporting the expansion of a Bolivian NGO. My husband’s reply is: “Ain’t nobody got time to get married when they’re busy changing the world!” I couldn’t agree more.

“Ain’t nobody got time to get married when they’re busy changing the world!”

When I said “yes,” the course we set as a couple was intentional. As conscious millennials, we both knew we wanted something simple and fun. We didn’t want anything with a fiscal note that would hinder our entrepreneurial dreams (which had yet to come to fruition at the time of our engagement, but ideas were swirling around in our heads).

Blissfully engaged, we carried on with our lives. In efforts to solidify our entrepreneurial desires, and quench our wanderlust (we both are avid travelers), we quit our jobs and took off for South America for some much needed soul-searching and change of scenery. As we traveled, we casually shrugged off questions about marriage from friends and family, stating, “We’re too busy traveling to plan anything.” Which was true. We were busy learning Spanish, making friends, exploring, volunteering and dreaming up business ideas.

Spending time together abroad was critical for us as a couple. Our consciousness and understanding of the world were challenged, tested, and transformed.

When we returned to the US, we were even more inspired to start our own business, so we channeled all energy into replenishing our bank accounts. We also became consumed by helping expand a Bolivian NGO we had worked with, and began to plant the seeds for a small social enterprise endeavor. We explored new areas of interest. We confronted fears about finances and business plans, and comforted each other in times of post-travel anxiety (like when I had a full-on consumerist meltdown in a big box store in Chicago).

When we decided to actually elope, we kept it secret to avoid getting distracted from our work. In planning it, we used the same values as when we took the plunge into starting our own business – we focused on community, human connection and supporting the local.

We leveraged our favorite resources that have continually enriched our lives here in the US and abroad. We rented a venue from Airbnb that would host us and 6 of our best friends for a long relaxing weekend. We found a young, aspiring, local photographer on Craigslist who wanted to build his portfolio to capture our event, and Siri helped us find a local bakery to get a cake the day of. We wrote the ceremony and our respective vows on a shared Google doc a few weeks out (in between meetings), and found the perfect spot for our ceremony on the edge of a cliff by simply asking the Airbnb hosts for a suggestion upon our arrival.

I never once stepped foot into a bridal shop. Time was never wasted picking out placemats, organizing a seating arrangement or trolling the endless pages of theknot.com (which I had never heard of before writing this). I simply didn’t want an entire year of my life to be consumed by one day. We exchanged vows with ease and smiles, our hearts happy and full.

At the end of the day, any day, I want to be part of something bigger and more important than wearing an expensive dress and doing the electric slide.

Hannah Faust is the social media manager for Emerging Women, a digital marketer, emerging entrepreneur, and helps run Cochabamba Pedal Project with her husband. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado.