It's no secret that we’re huge fans of the book The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. Not only have we have offered a cursory breakdown of this awesome book in earlier episodes, but the entire leadership team at SnackNation HQ is currently going through it to become better in 2017.

So you’ll understand our excitement when we found out that we landed one of the book’s co-authors, Diana Chapman.

Diana has been a trusted advisor to over 700 organizational leaders and many of their teams. Clients from Genentech to Yahoo! value her clarity, compassion, ferocity and playfulness, and she’s a well-respected facilitator for the Young Presidents Organization.

In this episode, Diana revisits some of the topics from our initial exploration of conscious leadership, but gives a much deeper understanding of both how to do it, and why it’s so important, both to our businesses and our lives. 

Diana also sheds new light on the subject of stress, and explains how many of us are actually addicted to the adrenaline that comes along with it. It's why so many of us consider ourselves "always on," and wear the term "workaholic" like a badge of honor. Ultimately, Diana teaches us that all this stress is damaging our health and limiting our teams' ability to succeed.

Diana was an amazing interview, and it’s such a rare treat to read such a transformative book and then have the opportunity to go even more in-depth with the author herself.

Diana also brought so much magic to the table that we decided to release this one in two parts.

Top takeaways:

• Diana explains the “Why” that drives her passion for helping people live more consciously, and explains why she and her co-authors focus on leadership. 3:56
• The distinction between “content” and “context,” and why every problem in business can usually be solved by examining context. 4:12
• What it means to be “above” or “below the line” - and what it means to be a “conscious leader.” 7:05
• Why we are naturally below the line, and why reaching an above the line state takes work. 9:58
• Why it’s inevitable that we sometimes do go below the line, and what that really means in terms of costs and benefits. 11:11
• Why we’re addicted to stress, and the harmful effect that’s having on our health and physical wellbeing. 12:35
• Why conscious leadership is essential to managing Millennials. 15:00
• The three most important commitments on which leaders should focus. 17:13
• What it really means to “feel all feelings” (the third commitment of conscious leadership), and why leaders should recognize that emotions are a form of information. 19:13
• How stress manifests as physical pain. 20:30
• Why we should listen to and learn from the wisdom in our emotions rather than either ignoring them or using them as justification for impulsive decisions. 23:05
• The importance of vulnerability in this entire process. 25:25
• How the words “I feel” can help us communicate in a more objective, constructive way. 27:52
• Why the stories we make up about the facts are the source of conflict and negative emotions, not the facts themselves. 30:21
• The importance of asking “what if the opposite of my story is true.” 32:28
• The most difficult commitment for leaders. 33:27
• How leaders can rid themselves of the scarcity mindset and think in terms of abundance. 34:29
• The difficulty in making this mindset a habit, and why it requires constant proactive attention. 35:12

Links

• Conscious Leadership Group
• Diana on LinkedIn
• Asana
• Dr. John Sarno

Recommended reading

• The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership

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