Shameless Leadership

Kat Vellos is a trusted expert on the power of cultivating healthy teams and meaningful friendships in adulthood. Formerly a UX designer at Slack, Pandora, and multiple startups, her work today focuses on helping people design belonging into their lives and workplaces. She is the author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, TED Talks, Forbes, Real Simple, Communication Arts, SF Design Week, Lesbians Who Tech, and many more.

The hard truth is that it’s hard to make new friends as an adult. Sometimes it’s even hard keeping the friends we have. Friendship is just not as easy as it was when we had time to play with each other at recess everyday in our school days. But hope is not lost. Friendships are essential for our health and well being and there are some simple things you can do to establish and grow incredible friendships right now!

Listen in to hear Kat share:

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I had a 4am realization last week. 4am realizations are the best… 

My realization had to do with “the space between”. I realized that so much of my discomfort of the last few years has come from having to live in “the space between”.  

The space where one thing has ended, but the next thing hasn’t started yet. 

The space between realizing something has changed permanently and you cannot go back to what was and what lies ahead is scary.  

The space between who you used to be and who you are becoming. 

The space between what you once thought to be true and uncomfortable new truths.

The space between playing small and playing big. 

The space between standing in your truth and waiting to see who will stand beside you. 

The space between holding your breath and finally speaking up. 

Perhaps some of these spaces between are familiar to you too?

In this episode, I share the agitation and impatience that tends to show up for me when I’m in the space between. Then, I walk you through 5 ways to navigate the space between.  

The space between is uncomfortable, for sure. But it’s a necessary piece (errr, gift?) of growth. If you’re in the space between right now in one (or multiple) areas of your life, you are not alone. I’m in it with you, friend.

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Shonda Moralis, MSW, LCSW is on a mission to help ambitious moms play big without burning out. Author of the award-winning book, Breathe, Mama, Breathe and Don’t Forget to Breathe, she is a Psychotherapist, Life Balance Coach, Therapreneur, and Podcast Host. Shonda serves on the board of Shanthi Project, an education nonprofit providing evidence-based mindfulness services to children and adults. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two kids, loves to play outside, endeavors to practice what she preaches, and is perennially fascinated by what makes people tick.

The timing of this interview was so serendipitous. The day before I interviewed Shonda, my therapist told me I would really benefit from mindfulness meditation. I was skeptical, if not downright doubtful. So, I loved picking Shonda’s brain as we dug into all the ways mindfulness as a practice can shift our brains to help us achieve balance (although not in the sense you might assume), greater productivity, creativity, and overall energy. 

Listen in to hear Shonda share:

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When I’m working with private business & leadership coaching clients, one of the things we are always talking about is building traction. When you’re eager to grow and evolve in your leadership (in a business, the workplace, or your community), it’s easy to overlook the significance and impact of small (tiny!) actions over time.  

Tiny action adds up. But you have to be paying attention. Notice how you are showing up to do the little things each and every day that further your growth toward your goals. Be methodical and strategic in taking tiny actions and tracking your traction. This can be done by tracking tiny wins as you tick little things off your To Do List, or writing down small accomplishments and achievements at the end of each day.

When I am in seasons of struggle and I feel like my growth is stunted or things are just not going the way I want, I commit to taking small, simple steps each day to keep going, while also noting the small (sometimes minuscule) wins each day that prove to me that simple action creates momentum (ie: traction!) and that always feels good. 

In this episode, I talk through 5 ways to build traction by taking tiny action. Let’s keep going and growing together! 

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Denisha Seals was raised by her mother, a single parent, who had not had a childhood. She was a teenage mom in an abusive relationship. Unfortunately, the unresolved trauma from her mother’s past was projected onto Denisha from the time she was very young, leaving Denisha with low self-esteem and vulnerability to people who exploited her innocence. 

A high school teacher helped Denisha realize she had a choice: to continue to hurt and to follow in her mother’s footsteps, or to start her own healing journey. She began counseling and realized that her traumatic childhood was not her fault.  

Denisha is now engaged in converting the pain of the past into lessons that can be shared with people in a myriad of creative ways for the greater good. She is a writer and a speaker, impacting the world through her storytelling and powerful messages of hope.

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Over the last few weeks, I have had the opportunity to speak to multiple groups on mindset. In researching and prepping for these conversations, I dug into some hard truths around our current culture. Namely, the fact that we are all enduring Collective Trauma - and no one is talking about it.  

An article in Psychology Today (linked in this episode’s show notes) teaches that “Collective trauma is a response that can follow a variety of traumatic experiences. Situations that may elicit a collective trauma response may include but are not limited to: wars, natural disasters, mass shootings, terrorism, pandemics, systematic and historical oppression, recessions, and famine or severe poverty.”

It goes on to say collective trauma “can change the entire fabric of a community… In fact, collective trauma can impact relationships, alter policies and governmental processes, alter the way the society functions, and even change its social norms.” 

Once we acknowledge that we are experiencing this, we can see how our mindsets have shifted to match this arduous cultural moment in history. In fact, it stands to reason that we have quite possibly (and very understandably) shifted our default mindset to a fixed mindset framework, instead of a growth mindset framework. As a refresh, fixed mindset vs growth mindset is the work of the great Carol Dweck. Author of the book Mindset - which every human should read! 

In this episode, I explore why you might be defaulting to fixed mindset, how it’s limiting you, and how to shift out of it in order to see more opportunities, potential & possibility in your life - instead of defaulting to seeing obstacles & roadblocks. This isn’t to say the obstacles aren’t real. Things are hard. But let’s uncover how to hold space for two truths:

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Amy Lang, MA has been a sexual health educator for over 25 years. With her lively, engaging and down-to-earth style she helps parents become comfortable and confident talking to their kids. Amy’s books, online solutions center and podcast, show parents they really can become their kids' go-to birds and bees source. Amy is still married to her first husband and they are getting the hang of parenting their recently launched man-child. She lives in Seattle WA. 

Amy was on the show to talk about how to talk to younger kids about bodies a few years ago. This time she is back to talk about how to talk to your tweens about sex. Given that Vinnie turned 10 just a few days ago, I was in desperate need of this convo. Amy is an incredible educator who makes talking about sex one million times easier and more fun than anyone else I know. 

 Listen in to hear Amy share:

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This one is for all my friends who have spent their lives collecting A+’s and doing all the extra credit.  

I know perfectionism kept me in my own way for a lot of my first 20 years of life. If I couldn't do something to an A+ level, I didn't want to do it at all. In the last 15 or so years, I've learned that the fun, power, and momentum that allow me to have the most impact in the world comes when I am intentionally imperfect. Doing things well, but "good enough" instead of sitting on them until they are absolutely 100% A++ perfect. 

In my mid-twenties, I started giving myself permission to try things I hadn’t done before. This was a huge departure from never trying anything new out of fear of failure and even more fear of looking foolish.  

By my mid-thirties, as I was growing businesses, I learned that trying new things, giving myself the space to be a newbie, and sitting in the discomfort of learning were actually really rewarding.  

Now, in my mid-forties, I am able to have so much FUN doing things I’m not great at. This is how I was able to learn to ski at age 42, get back into triathlons at age 46, try new things in my business, allow myself to be more creative, and laugh at my imperfections #everydamnday, while riding out the massive momentum that comes with staying in imperfect action and never taking myself too seriously.  

In this episode, I talk you through what I’ve learned from getting great at doing things I’m not great at, why we stop ourselves from doing things we’re not great at, and what we gain when we get great at doing things we’re not great at.  

This one is for my fellow perfectionists and recovering perfectionists. I GOT YOU. 

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Peter Mutabazi is an entrepreneur, an international advocate for children, and the founder of Now I Am Known, a corporation that supplies resources that encourage and affirm children. A single father of one white son and foster dad to many, Peter is a former street kid who has worked for World Vision and the International Committee of the Red Cross and has appeared on media outlets such as the BBC and the TODAY show. A passionate and popular speaker, he currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.

I am so delighted to welcome Peter back to the show. He recently released his first book, Now I Am Known. When I heard he wrote a book about his experience of not being known and literally not having a name as a child living on the streets of Uganda through his present-day reality of having fostered 27 children, I knew I wanted him to come back for another conversation. 

Listen in to hear Peter share:

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We are really good at finding reasons to wait. And sometimes waiting is warranted. But often, we wait because we have made up a story that we are not yet ready, worthy, capable, or qualified. Often that story is a bold-faced lie.  

When we wait to go after what we want, take action, or accomplish something that makes us proud, we waste our precious mental and emotional resources, our energy, and our TIME.  

While we are waiting, we often compromise our values, stall our growth, and stay STUCK in a headspace that lends itself to self-doubt and negative self-talk. 

I’m not a leap person. I don’t make big bold moves. But I am an action taker. I take small action steps to test the waters and collect data. Those small steps and pieces of data determine my next steps and move me toward what I want so I’m not stuck in the emotional and mental purgatory of waiting to accomplish something. 

In this episode, I’m going to dig into what is wasted while you’re waiting. You’re costing yourself more than you know. You are ready. You are capable. You are qualified. Now. 

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