Business as a Force for Good and Impact Leadership with Catherine Bell

Hi. This is Paul Belizer. Welcome to the AwarePreneurs podcast. On this show, we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help you increase your positive impact, your profitability, and your quality of life. Before we get into today's topic, I have one request. If you could hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app, it helps more people learn how to have positive impact through values based business. Thank you so much.

Today, I'm thrilled to welcome back to the show, Catherine Bell, and our topic today is Business as a Force for Good and Impact Leadership. Catherine loves to help people, teams, and organizations thrive. She is the CEO, author, and founder of the Awakened company. Catherine helps organizations create healthy corporate cultures through executive coaching, team strategy sessions, speaking, and online webinars. She holds an MBA from Queen's University and is an award winning Profit 500 founder. I had the opportunity to interview Katherine back in July of 2020, episode 141. I'll put a link in the show notes. And full disclosure, Catherine is a friend and I'm honored to partner with her and some things we'll tell you about in this episode.

Catherine, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me, Paul. And I wanna give a big shout out to you because you were the person who helped me to birth the Awakened company. So Paul was, for those who don't know and are listening, Paul was my coach, and you helped me birth the book and you helped me through a whole series of transitions during that time. So big shout out and thank you to you, Paul.

Thanks, Catherine. That was a pretty exciting time from that profit 500 company to a new startup called The Awakened Company, which has now won awards and is doing all these amazing things, which we're gonna tell people about. But you move at such a fast pace that 4 years is too long. So let's let's get into it, Catherine. So we have episode 141. That's the deep dive of your background and a little bit about your original company, Blueair, which has been acquired. But just if somebody didn't know Catherine, didn't know a little bit about your background, just give us, like, what's the 1 to 2 paragraph backstory of you, and why you launched The Awakened company?

Backstory is number 1, I'm a human. And the invitation for everybody to remember our humanity, especially during this time of radical shifts in what I believe in consciousness and the way we are, in the way we work together, in the way we play together. So in terms of of me, I'm a human first and foremost, a human that absolutely sees organizations as a force for good, organizations as the way we're gonna solve the greatest challenges of our time, and I believe it's only by organizing differently that we will do so. I am founder of Awakened Company. I'm also founder of Awakened Project. Awakened Company helps companies with culture and leadership development and creativity. Awakened projects helps people get out of poverty by starting their own business. Now I'm also an adviser to Impact Society to the Science Center, and I'm on the board of Tara Mandala.

So I'm a mom too, Paula, and I'm also, like, love windsurfing, and I love playing tennis. So back to the humanity, like, I think we need, in organizations, we kind of just focus on the leadership, but behind every leader, there's like there's a story. There's a backstory. There's a real story. There's a story of how we greet our family. Family when we return from work, how we play in our gardens. And I think what is being so sought after right now is that real story, that real story of who are we really and to investigate that. And I love people, and I love the planet.

And, you know, I define awakening companies as those organizations that solve either planetary or human or being challenged and in so doing, do so with us minimal negative impact to to humanity beings in the planet. And that is really what I'm all about, everything I do. And I don't see, you know, spirituality as separate. And I think so often, there's these these radical divides in our world. And I'm I don't know about you, Paul, but I'm done the divides. I'm seeking integration and seeking to be with people who want to play in a more integrated field, in a more whole in wholeness with who and what we are and what the planet is and what what each other are.

Katharine, is it fair to say, like, you and I have known each other a long time? The Awaken company launched in 2015. I can't believe that, the book, and I remember in that transition time. And for those who don't know, profit 500, you're in Canada and profit 500 might be pretty, you know, similar or equal to a fortune 500 company in the US. Right? It's a list of the top revenue generating companies, and you sold one of those, or it got acquired. And, you know, that's a certain moment in one's lifetime. That doesn't happen in everybody's lifetime. Right? And there was that, and, you could put your feet up in the coffee table, and play tennis and go skiing and the other things you like to do. But there's something about I think one of the ways you and I are similar in how we're wired, which is, like, the world is on fire.

And there are some major challenges, and and we both are blessed in unique ways of having great kids and having, you know, enough to live on and a nice place to live. And yet, you're not wired to just put your feet up on the coffee table. And in many ways, you're doubling down on going more into the explicit practices and and wanting to like get it out of a theoretical conversation of impact and leadership and conscious companies and really provide some tools and some resources at this stage of your careers to help leaders and teams who wanna get more nuanced and not just talk about these things, but actually implement them. Is that anywhere near a fair assessment of this stage of your career?

It's so true and so accurate. You know, the awakened company book was, you know, republished or relaunched in 2023, and that's because namaste felt it was time for a kind of a rebooting. And I am also and we are also launching our 1st ever certification, the AWAKEEN company certification to help leaders during this time. And in many ways, it's almost a decade overdue, Paul. I finally have the confidence to do it, which is really interesting. Like, why is it now? And I think if I were a man, I'll be blunt. If I were a man, I think I would have done it a decade ago. So as a woman, I feel like I it's finally time, and I'm going to do it.

We are going to do it because it is so needed. And I feel also our lives are meant to be of service. Our lives for me to, you know, take up tennis full time or win serve full time, that to me is not of service to our kids and then also future future generations times many centuries. Right now, I feel like I feel the calling and also the longing to be of support to help organizations and to help leaders and organizations lead better. And by sharing really, really practical tools of how do we interact with each other? How are we in relationship? How do we build conscious cultures? You know, I meet with CEOs and they say, Kath, can you take me from 0 to a $1,000,000,000 like you did that other company? And I'm like, I'm sorry. That is the wrong mantra. We need to be focused on what business or human or or being problem that we are going to solve. It's not.

In fact, the worst performing organizations are those that focus solely on the financial. So the culture to me and the culture piece is really where I wanna focus. We are doing mindfulness as you know in Blue Earth 2,008. To me, it's almost like now I'm very interested in how do we create collective fields and emergent organizations and organizations that are more like living and breathing for us than this kind of relentless pursuit. The only thing that grows permanently over time is cancer. We don't wanna be cancers. We need to look at how we organize differently, and that's what the certification is is doing is going to do. I'm really excited and honored to be to be doing it.

I wanna get to that in just a second, but 2 things you said that are really interesting. 1 is what you were just saying about when we're focused on single bottom line, the, that it actually isn't so helpful and moving the bottom line. And that's particularly true when the economy gets a little wobbly. And if anybody has been paying attention, we're in one of those moments where the economy is a little wobbly right now, you know, at least in the US. And I think in much of the world, people are like, this is a little weird, right? Consumer spending is weird. Inflation is really high. People are really nervous. New jobs have gone down after growing really quickly.

So anyway, if you were ever gonna move to a triple bottom line people line and profit, This is as good a time as any time there ever has been because single bottom line doesn't weather turbulence well. And there's a ton of research I can put some links in the show notes. I also wanna go back to what you said, Catherine, about if I was a man. And and I really wanna ask your opinion. Now, Like, on the surface, you have an MBA from Queens, which is a very established, highly regarded, you know, business school in Canada. You're working with McGill, which is like the Harvard of, you know, Canada on awesome leadership stuff. You're sold a profit 500 company. You've got an award winning book, and you said, it took me 10 years to feel ready to do certain things that we're gonna get into.

In just a second, we're gonna unpack. If somebody is a leader and they're a woman or they're a person of color or they're queer or they're somehow not fitting certain norms of who's usually a business leader, a white, you know, more privileged in their education, usually from upper middle class or up. If they don't fit that profile and there there is that hesitancy of, like, there's this thing in my belly that would really make a difference in the world, but I'm scared. What what would you say? Because I know we have listeners like that right now. Any suggestions, tools, or ways to help the innovation of our listeners get through some of those humps that exist even here in 2024.

Well, I've been working at unpacking that, so I'm very, very happy to share. One thing I think we can recognize is we all have about 60,000 thoughts a day, 85% are repeating, 95% are negative. So I invite everybody very practically to write down on Post it notes what are some repeating stories that we tell ourselves. So I've been really looking at how patriarchy has been putting so many post it notes on me, and systematically, I have been taking them off. So for me and because and in many ways, I'm kinda like, well, if I can't do it, who can? So I feel like this kinda need to really step into more of the empowered feminine and empowered masculine in myself and recognizing what are the post it notes that I'm putting all over myself and taking them off so that I can be more of the essential Catherine Bell that has a particular thing to do in this time and space to be of service. And without that recognition, that awareness of those post it notes, Paul, then I would just continue on the same path. So this is a very, very I love your word. You use the word poignant a lot.

This is a very poignant point in time in terms of, I think, our awareness as a species, as humans is going way up. And with that, it requires a lot of undoing. And in great chaos, there's great opportunity. And this is an opportunity for all of us to really, really show up, to really show up.

Love that suggestion. So listeners, go get your post it notes. And if you have some favorites or one you're trying, feel free to send it in because I'm always curious how people are implementing things that our guest suggest. So let's get into some of the granularity. That's one of my other favorite words. If you're gonna tease me about 2 words, you could tease me about poignant and granularity. Right? So, let's get granular, Catherine. So one of the things that you're launching right here, right now, and this was the thing you said, if I wasn't so impacted by the self doubt caused by patriarchy and toxic capitalism, you didn't use that word, but I'll use that word.

You you talked about this certification program. What is it, and why are you launching it?

So this was inspired by CEO, and I'll leave the name of the company out, who received a whole bunch of money. And it was around an environmental initiative. Received a whole bunch of money and did not know how to lead, did not know how to plan culture, and did not know really what to do. And I'm like, well, I've got that toolkit. How could you not know? And then I realized, e, Kath, it is time. So I was coaching this executive to how do we because often leaders are expected to lead with no real leadership training. We're expected to be in good relationship with no training of how and you have a master's in social work, Paul, which is huge. That's like an expert in relationship really and connectivity.

So just a shout out to you. Then how do we build organizational culture? And this is what I taught this executive, and I'm doing it all the time. I'm like, I need to teach more people this and be of service. And when I say teach, I'm not meaning in the traditional sense. This is gonna be a collaborative group. It's not gonna be the talking head bestowing their wisdom, la la la. No. That's done.

This is going to be a community of people who are investigating how do we awaken ourselves, how do we awaken our relationships, how do we awaken our teams using practical know how? Because I'm a serial entrepreneur. I can't help but to build stuff. So using practical know how business research and also wisdom traditions, wisdom traditions about like, okay, how do we come back to our bodies? How do we be aware of our senses? How do we be aware of our inner senses as leaders? And it opens up dimensions of knowing that can really impossibly impact what we're trying to do as an organization. So we're gonna be going through those from very practical stepwise. So I just was meeting with somebody, and they're like, you're so greedy. I'm like, yes. I'm greedy because it's time for everything we know to hit the earth from for this kind of for our knowing to actually be implemented. And that's what the certification is going to do to really serve people.

And there's 2 main groups of people that are are gonna be doing it. And if you feel called, please join please join us. There is an application process because not everybody will be accepted. This isn't for everybody. So there's 2 big groups of people, people who are leading in organizations and also people who want to eventually become coaches and facilitators with with the AWA King company. And we're building up so many things right now. We need support, and there's such a growing energy around what we're doing, Paul, that we want to create a very positive wave around the importance of bringing humanity back into our organizations, and organizations are, of course, for good.

Yeah. Beautiful. As you were talking, Catherine, I'm I'm also a very greedy entrepreneur. And I was thinking of one of the CEOs I'm working with right now who has no formal business education. And, more than anything else, this person is just a very compassionate, emotionally intelligent focused leader. And 2 things are happening simultaneously, and it was remarkable how well this person and their very emergent, like, literally, they have, like, 1 or 2 leadership meetings ever in the history of the company. And the company has been going for a while, but that's one of the things we're working on. They're being pulled in 2 different directions.

Very exciting, and there been some employee challenges and life challenges that is meant several key people have had to be let go at the same time. Right? Mhmm. So they're building a leadership team, but this person just had to let go of several key people because of very things that are just not okay ethics and values wise, and also leave the company open to a lot of legal risk. And, like, this leader was able is able to hold both of these things. Right? Incredible challenges. No leader likes to fire people, or if you do, you're probably not on this podcast. It's so painful. I see you making faces.

You can't see listeners because it's audio only, but Katherine's making me, like, ouch face. Right? That's not fun. And really dedicated to a growth team and not just talking innovation and entrepreneurship, but really incentivizing and building a culture in a way that I haven't seen so much dedication both happening simultaneously sitting in the lap of the same person. And I said to this leader, how are you doing this? Because this is not common that there's such a pull in both directions at the same time, and he's calmly telling me about it. And I'm like, you are remarkably calm for somebody who's being pulled in these two massively different directions at the same time. He looked at me and he smiled, and he said, pop, I have some tools to, like, take care of my own nervous system. Right? And he knows I've been meditating for 30 plus years. He's like, you have some idea what my tools are.

End of send, what's the next thing we're building. And I was just struck by how his having those inner resources that you talk about in the awakened company. How much it was making a real world difference compassionate and humane, which is incredibly compassionate and humane, which is not always the case if you look at the research. And and also how much of his energy was in the building a leadership team and really helping his leaders get what they need to thrive and create a company that is truly extraordinary. When I was talking to him, I was thinking of this interview and thinking of you, and I was like, oh, Catherine was in the room. You, a, be really smiling and, b, you would have some vocabulary for what he was doing. But I'm telling that story because it feels to me, like, so many leaders right now are are in that, like, push and pull of, like, wanting and working on building incredible leadership teams and working for positive outcomes and whatever impact areas and values that you're really excited about, but also having to deal with really, really, really hard things simultaneously. Are you seeing that kind of a dynamic for a lot of leaders right now?

Very, very much so, Paul. And one of the most important things when it comes to leadership is to be anchored, to be grounded. And what you just described just sounds like a beautiful human being who's actually anchored in the moment. And that's the invitation is to be anchored in the moment, and yet the moment contains everything. And to relax into the moment is a real invitation for leaders so that we're responding rather than reacting. So that we take a breath instead of putting more poison into the atmosphere around us. Because as leaders and I believe everybody's a leader, which is also a philosophical difference compared to most kind of most the way most people think. However, if we can remain or when we when we are grounded in the moment, then we set positive ripples out into the world.

And we know the highest performing leaders are those that are self aware. And in the certification, we're gonna be teaching people about self awareness. What does it mean to have a personal aim? What does it mean? Most people don't have one. I walked into a room of CEOs a couple weeks ago. No. Maybe it was last week. Last week, and I asked that question, who here has a personal vision? And there was one person out of that group who raised their hands. And then when I asked them to describe it, well, it was a little bit of 1, but not really 1.

It was kind of a meandering river of thoughts. So even, you know, in this moment, listeners, think about what is your personal you then how can we ask anyone else to do so? And who that question of who do we wanna be and how do we wanna show up is of utmost importance. I would actually say it goes beyond the why. Why is important. Who do we have to be to get to where we want to go? And that who is so powerful. So, you know, there are more diamonds in the universe than there are trees. And how do we light up the trees, the the points of the tree in our own being so that we can be more full and be the best leader and have the highest degree of impact that we can have.

So let's do this in a moment. I wanna come back and hear more about the certification, some of the specific practices. You're also working on a couple of new books, all full of gritty and granular things. Before we get to all that, I just wanna take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor. Are you facing 1 or more important decisions in your Impact business? And you'd like an experienced thought partner to develop a plan about how to proceed in the complex times we're living. But you don't feel the need for an extended coaching or consulting contract that's gonna cost you many 1,000 of dollars. You're looking for an affordable, targeted, and time efficient type of support. Through paulzellizer.com, I offer a strategy session package.

These packages are ideal for entrepreneurs who are facing 1 to 3 immediate decisions, like how to increase your positive impact, fine tune your marketing strategies to get more results for less effort, launch a new product or service successfully, or refine your pricing structure so it's both inclusive and provides you with a great quality of life. You can find out more by clicking below, and thank you so much for listening to this podcast. So welcome back, everybody. I am here with Catherine Bell, and we are talking about business as a force for good and impact leadership. And you gave us a good sense of sort of a top level of what you've been working on since we last spoke back in episode 141, July of 2020, almost 4 years ago, and something like 200 episodes. I guess so. Heather, tell us a little bit more. You were getting into a little bit of the practice that you do with people, but give us give us a sense of some of the practices when you're helping leaders really lean into impact leadership, not just leadership to chase the money or meet the quarterly goals or to keep your investors happy or maybe, you know, you're not seeing quite as many people leave in this weird, you know, marketplace of jobs and people feeling not very connected to the companies they work for.

So there's a lot of churn. Right? You you have some great practices, but even more than those, if somebody's saying, I wanna be more impactful as a leader. I want my leadership to work for business as a force for good. But I need something tangible that makes sense to my brain, but I need some practices. What are some of the practices that you teach to your clients and the teams you work with?

So a lot of people, as I mentioned, are put into leadership positions. What does it mean to be a leader? And I've been trained by one of the top 5 leadership researchers

in the

world, doctor Julian Barling, on transformational leadership. So first is to under and I have a video on our YouTube on on transformational leadership. I'll go through it with you now, though, Paul. It's so important that people actually understand because we haven't been given tremendously good examples of leadership. So there's the Laissez faire leaders, and

those

are the leaders that are like, whatever happens, happens. It's all good. Then there's the contingent reward leaders, and those are the leaders who dangle a carrot in front of you, say, Paul, if you do this, I'll give you this. This is kind of typical performance management. When you do this, you're gonna get a bonus. Right. So that's like contingent reward.

How much meant by performance review. Right?

Right. Which is very interesting because and that's a whole other topic. Whole other topic.

That's the next podcast that you and I do together now.

Well, we could yes. That's an important topic because and it will get another time. So transformational leaders, though, they focus on 4 i's, and leadership can be taught. People often think so is the carrot charisma, blah blah blah. Not true. Not true. Leadership can be taught everybody's leader. In fact, there was a research study that was done, Paul, and they put a group of people and they labeled them followers.

They put another group, and they labeled them leaders. They mocked an emergency, so faked an emergency. Those who are labeled followers did not perform very well in the emergency. They were basically control group, basically very similar groups of people. Those who are labeled leaders performed very well. So we need to even change our idiom around we're colleagues. You know, everybody's a leader because in thinking somebody's a leader, they actually behave more like a leader. So isn't that interesting? That small tiny little change.

And, ultimately, it's all about what are the small things we can do every day to uplift another. So here are the 4 i's. The 4 i's. So everybody write these down. You need to know them. Inspirational motivation. So great leaders inspire people. Think of that great apple ad that was done in 1984.

Like, leaders think differently. People, they inspire people. Then there's those inspirational so inspirational motivation, idealized influence. People need you need to live your values. So that means every day, you cross the values border. You stay in your lane in terms of how you actually behave. The next one, intellectual motivation. Do not tell people what to do.

The best leaders ask people questions and get them to think for themselves, and they trust people. Yeah. You may not know what to do, but I'm not gonna tell you what to do. I'm gonna ask you some questions to intellectually stimulate yourself. Then the 4th one is individualized consideration. That is, we're not treating people in our organizations like a bunch of cattle. And I respect cattle. They're sentient beings, and we're human beings.

People can bring up their own art. We don't we we treat people as individuals, not as the same as Paul. You're not the same as Brian. Brian's not the same as Susan. Susan's not the same as Natalie. You know, like, there's just this we treat people as individuals. And, interestingly, those all begin with the letter I, yet leadership has nothing to do with I. Leadership has everything to do with the elevation of the other.

It is not elevating ourselves and our egos. It is rather what do we do to help the other human being. That is what transformational leadership is. And every day, you know, this can appear like a really big thing. It is a really big thing. However, our days are made of moments. So back to what we're talking about before, the mindfulness, Paul. How do we, in each and every moment, come from that place? Okay.

You know? What can I do? This person wants a response. The best thing is actually to ask them a question, to get them to think about it for themselves versus me telling them what to do and to empower others. Now we need all of the psychological safety around that. We need the trust around that, and we get that by doing and behaving this way. Another thing in terms of leadership, we all have, like, emotional bank accounts, Paul. We need 5 positives from one negative. Higher performing teams say way more positive things to each other than than than lower performing teams. So how do we catch each other in the act of awesome? And that shows up time and time again.

And it also when we do that, it reaffirms the other person, and they wanna keep doing the good things. And we're so bombarded back to the 60,000 thoughts a day, 85% are repeating, 95% are negative. So when we get positives, we, like, we all need to be being very mindful of our thoughts. We tell ourselves back to myself. I told myself thoughts that were not true. And so unpeeling and unsticking those and supplanting them with positive messages rather than messages of rejection. It's super, super important. It's all these little, little, tiny things that we do every day.

And then the tiny things, then we can build healthy organizations and healthy cultures.

Absolutely, Catherine. I was blessed to I mean, you know I love New Mexico. I know you love New Mexico because we just had breakfast here recently. We talked about it. But one of the gems of a human being here in New Mexico is a leader in a consulting approach called appreciative inquiry, Diana Whitney. And I was blessed to study with Diana Whitney many years ago, decades ago. And there's a ton of research in the Appreciative Inquiry. Not only, but certainly that's one school of consulting and organizational change where there's a, like, so much research.

And one of the things I learned from Diana Whitney is the 2 basic questions of appreciative inquiry. Number 1 is what's going well? And number 2, what's what do we wanna do more of? Right? And they've done stuff with the US Army and the Girl Scouts in North America, like, huge organizations have been led through massive processes of change with those two simple questions. Now, obviously, they're more in their tool their toolkit than those 2 simple questions, but everything starts there. And when you look at the research of appreciative inquiry, it is jaw dropping and how effective it is when done in a skillful way. Not in everything's rainbows and unicorn and we can't talk about hard things. That's not what they're talking about. Sometimes the things that are going well is we're talking about really hard things that we never did that before or whatever. Right? So it can't be everything is just put on a coat of bubblegum pink paint and it all goes well.

That actually tends to create chaos and distrust, not psychological safety at lowers. But genuinely looking for what's going well and building on it is so much more effective than people critiquing each other and blaming each other. So I just wanted to point out that research. And we're gonna have a really long link section for this. Right? So I'm gonna put the link to doctor Julian's transformational leadership on the Awakened Company YouTube. I'm gonna put a link for appreciative inquiry and some of the great research there. We're gonna have a whole bunch of resources for your listeners. Just check the show notes.

So also check the show notes for the training, the certification program. Great program, highly recommended for anybody who's either a leader or you're somebody who wants to get into doing this work, but you wanna be in a cohort that's learning how to do this. I think super highly you, Catherine have no qualms about saying, go check it out. This might be for some of our listeners. In addition to the certification program, Catherine, you're working on a couple more bucks, right? The awakened company got rebooted in 2023. It's won awards like a Nautilus award. People really like it if you go read reviews. And you're like, I'm not done.

I got more to say. You got actually 2 books that you're actively working on. Tell us a little bit about those. Mhmm.

So Russ Hudson and I are working on a book on creativity. And I really see this book as a portal, an invitation to help everybody create. And I believe everybody has a creative stream within them. It could be building a door. It could be creating a play. It could be making music. So this book is to really help remove any blockades and and also pour water on where you're strong to kinda help you flourish, help you grow in your creativity. So that's very, very exciting, and we are working in Taos on it and Albuquerque.

So it has the imprints of New Mexico on it and the imprints imprints of New Mexico creativity in it for sure. And I also have I'm personally working on a book called awake at work, which is more of the how to. The awakened company is like the why, and the next book is the how to. So this certification and the group of coaches that I work with, of which you are one of them, Paul Zeller.

I want to be one of them. Yeah.

And so thrilled to have you, is really growing this growing this initiative around awakening in organizations. And I see everything as an opportunity for awakening. Everything is an opportunity to learn from. So that's the second. And then my really kind of my play one, I do have a poetry book. Just however.

The c books isn't enough. You have to write 3. Right?

3 is a good number, Paul.

Yeah. It's a good number. Yeah. Yeah.

So yeah. So that's, those are all in the works. And the creativity book, I think, will be published in 2025. Very, very excited.

And what about the Awaken workbook? Any sense of the timing on that one?

Well, likely shortly thereafter, I have a draft ready to go. So it's very you know, it's definitely it's asking to be birthed. That's for sure. Like, our my agents, like, this is ask asking to be birthed, Kath. It's time. It's time. So, you know, in the meantime, we'll be growing all the organizations and leaders that we work with to help positive impact, to help them walk the earth in a way that is aligned with their being. And that's really important to me that's aligned with their being because I don't think everybody has the same function on the planet.

I think everybody has certain gifts to bring. So how do we light up those gifts, Paul, which is, you know, our job to do is to help people feel empowered. And I know when you were helping me with the the AWKIN company, like, you helped me through some pretty rocky times. And that's that's the invitation with the work we do. We don't expect it all to be positive. We wanna be of service, and being of service requires us to step into challenge, to step into uncomfortable conversations, however, with raw fierce compassion.

As you're speaking about that that that stepping into hard situations, I was thinking about in addition to the certification program, which is, like, helping people who feel ready or are being nudged to get more ready because you're a leader and you're like, I'm dealing with things that I feel a little out of my depth. Right? So so if that's you, go check out the certification program, you know, let's help upscale people. Right? I know that about you. But in addition to that, you and there's a team. And as Katherine said, I'm really honored. Katherine asked me if I would join that team. I said, yes. I'm pretty busy these days, so I don't I'm not looking for work, but I could not say yes.

And part of it is that you've just really built a strong team, and your intention with the certification program is to help more people be able to step into some of the really hard, hard, hard things that are happening in workplaces right now. It's like a lot of the people talk about the 3rd space. Those places we go that aren't home. That's not, like, you know, the safe spot of, like, this is my house and I get to decide who enters and maybe have some influence. Like, work is one of those places where we leave our home either literally and go to an office or figuratively if we work remotely. But we're we're operating in the space that unless we're the founder, we didn't create and even if we did, we're likely bringing in people that, you know, have different ideas and different backgrounds and different experiences. And many workplaces are experiencing a lot of turbulence right now. And you created this cohort and you're intentionally growing this cohort of people who can step in and be helpful.

You know, it it I would say it's like going to the gym. These are muscles that have to get built, and it's great for us to, like, even if we haven't built them yet, no matter how old you are, I think we can get in better shape, and that's gonna have great impacts on many areas of our life. Not just our physical body, but our mental capacities and our spiritual well-being. Right? But it takes time. And if somebody's dealing with turbulence right now, and they don't yet have the muscles for some of the dynamics, they just feel like, right, you've built this team. Tell us a little bit about how this team works, why you created it, and who or which organizations might be a fit to raise their hand and said, we could use some help.

Great question. It's organizations who are learning, who are open to learning, who believe that business is forced for good, who believe in organizations as emergent, as healthy force, and who are willing to be fiercely compassionate in those very difficult conversations. Often, leaders can lose ground in in challenging times, and this certification is going to be bringing back to how do we remain grounded, wholehearted in our bodies, and also thoughtful in the way we behave with each other, and also highly creative. I don't think intuition has been honored enough in our society, and we're gonna be doing some intuitive practices to kind of expand the way we think about things, and maybe come at things from different perspectives. So, you know, if you're looking to kind of blossom a a tree with different ideas and with different real practices, this is the thing this is the place to do it with this certification. And it will be real. It will be positive, and it will also be very we'll have very specific things that we cover to help you, to help the people who are in the certification create healthy organizations, awakening organizations.

So, again, I'll put a link to the the certification, to the executive coaching and other offerings, team facilitation, through the Awaken company. All that will be in the show notes. Catherine, I could hang out with you all day, but you're busy. I'm busy. Our listeners are busy. There's this wonderful thing called the Internet, so there'll be lots of links lots of links in this particular episode. As we're starting to wind down, when you look ahead to where the awakened company is going. Again, you could put your feet up.

You could be done. You could take a couple clients here and there. Go play. Go ski. But you're not. When you when you look ahead 3 to 5 years. Right? A workbook, a creativity book, a certification program. Like, what what do you think the awakening company looks like 3 years from now?

The awakening company is moving toward a community. That's what I really feel is needed is it's a community of leaders who are thought leading in terms of how do we create more conscious emergent organizations and organizations that may flourish for a bunch of time and then not needed, and then something else starts, and then that for us grows. I really see it as group of not a group, rather a community of people who are helping to serve humanity and the planet at this time. That's where I see the Awakened company going is really more towards an awakening community. You know, we have yourself, Bliss, Joey, Russ, Sherry, And then we'll have all these Awakened company certified people, and we'll all just in all in our own ways, in our own flavors, be awakening and touching down kinda like lights on the ground, the candle the candle in the space saying this is possible. This is possible, and it's so needed now even though I know in many ways we're being and and in families, we see this too, they're we're being torn apart, but what we can all do is hold the candle for what is possible. And in doing that, that will attract the right the right support to allow this flourishing for future generations.

That's our last question for you. If there was something you were hoping we were gonna get to today and we haven't touched on it, or there's something you wanna leave our listeners with as we say goodbye? What would that be?

That's a great question. I would love for people to remember themselves and to remember who they truly are. And in so doing, men behave from that place in this very, very precious moment. And in that, the tiniest little things that we do send ripples out to the universe. And, you know, Paul, you and I are sort of here to support people through this time, and I just would want people to know that there's support.

That's right. Thank you so much for being on the show today.

Honor and a privilege. Thank you for having me, Paul.

Listeners, you can't see Over My Shoulder this is a video an audio only podcast, but over my shoulder I have a lot of books in my house, but I only have about 30 in my office and one of them is The Awakened Company. I've known Katherine for a long time. She walks her talk and the book is great. Go check out the Awaken Company book. Go check out the certification program if you think it might be a fit. Even if you're just curious, go check it out. And if you need some help, again, I am not looking for more work, but I said yes to being on the team because it's a great team. So if you could use somebody who's been at it for a while and your team or your leadership muscles are feeling a little stretched, Be kind to yourself.

This is a really hard time. And there's folks like the Awaken Company facilitation team that can help. Go check that out. A reminder, we love listener suggested topics and guests. So if you have an idea for a show, go to the AwarePreneurs website. And on our contact page, we have 3 simple guidelines. We try to be really transparent about what we're looking for. If you take a look and say it feels like a fit, we would love to hear your idea.

For now, I wanna say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense times, and thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our

world.