20 Minutes with Bronwyn

Remember that Bruce Willis film, The Sixth Sense? Spoiler alert: I feel just like his character felt at the film's end, when he realizes he's a ghost. Only in my case, I realize I'm unconsciously living in and benefitting from a racist societal construct. In this episode, I'm sharing the steps I'm taking, and resources I'm utilizing to evolve as a human being, and to become a part of the solution, vs. staying comfortably inside of the problem.

I rarely exclude any audience type from this podcastLINK.

Friends, this pandemic is offering us the opportunity of a lifetime: To re-examine our relationship with our own thoughts … our own minds.

During times of crisis, humans tend to turn to religion and spirituality for comfort. We finally come to the end of our tether, of what we’re able to comfort ourselves with, and we reach for something bigger.

But the year is 2020, and the role organized religion is playing in our lives is profoundly different. With fewer and fewer of us attending religious services even without a pandemic, and more and more of us identifying as “not affiliated” with a religious group (I didn’t make this up, this is from the Pew study from just last year), what happens when we need answers and comfort? What happens when we feel let down or betrayed by our religions of origin, and yet we feel drawn back into them during times like this? What does spiritual leadership look like during a time where we couldn’t even go to a church service if we wanted to?

Friends, I want to invite you into one of the most interesting and satisfying conversations I’ve had about spirituality in a good long while. May I present, the good Reverend Dr. Rob McClellan.

If we ever needed a session with world class business coach Ben Kiker, it is NOW, my friends. In this episode, Ben and I get very real, very vulnerable, but most importantly, we get very practical about how to survive Covid-19 season. You will learn: Ben's number one tip for building emotional resiliency; his go-to mantra for moments of terror, anxiety and all forms of dis-regulation; and so much more.

Life as we know it has changed in a matter of weeks. And what we need right now is guidance and leadership.

I live in Silicon Valley where productivity is a RELIGION. We worship our ability to get things done with style and flash, and we can at times have an aggressive kind of optimism that borders on spiritual greed. And by “we” in this context, I mostly mean “me.”

Ever get the feeling that something isn’t quite right in your life? My guest today is Shelley Paxton, author of Soulbbatical: A Corporate Rebel's Guide to Finding Your Best Life. Shelley was a rockstar living the corporate America version of the feminist dream: she was Chief Marketing Officer of one of the most macho, badass brands in the world— Harley Davidson— leading a big fancy life. She had *arrived*. And yet Shelley had a nagging suspicion it was all making her soul-sick. Not many of us are brave enough to sit with the question, “is this the life I really want to be living?” and even fewer are brave enough to heed the call of the soul. Shelley has done both, and has emerged from the process with a new concept: the Soulbbatical.