Rich Fernandez, Ph.D. dives deep into his background and explains how he finds mindfulness personally and professionally. Rich explains that a leader is someone with influence. So, leadership can be based on your role and authority. However, just because you have a specific purpose in an organization doesn’t mean you will be an effective leader. Learn about rewiring our brains and how to train our awareness and train our attention, we can grow the grey matter in our minds using contemplative practices. Later, Rich explains how to become a conscious leader – it involves practicing awareness and turning our lens on the impacts we have on others.

Key Takeaways:

• A leader is somebody who has influence. Leadership can be based on role, authority, and influence. 
• Just because you have authority doesn’t mean you will be an effective leader. A leader needs to demonstrate a positive influence to create an ethical outcome. 
• Meditation has powerful effects on our physiology and our brain.
• Contemplative practice is a way to turn the lens inward and turn the lens on our impact on others; awareness is a skill we can grow and cultivate.
• We are just at the beginning of integrating conscious leadership into organizational culture.

Meet Rich Fernandez

Rich is the CEO of SIYLI. He was previously the director of executive education and people development at Google, where he was also one of the first SIY teachers. Rich previously founded Wisdom Labs and has also served in senior roles at eBay, J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America. He received his PhD in Psychology from Columbia University and is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review.
LinkedIn

Resources:
Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute: SIYLI

Tom Eddington's eBook

Show Notes

The Impact Effect Network

Video of Interview

Cory Smith, Co-Founder, and CEO at Wisdom Labs joins the show to talk about meditation, mindfulness, and creating resilience in the workplace. He has spent over 20 years aligning purpose, entrepreneurship, and social good to create companies that have a positive impact on people and the planet. With chronic stress and loneliness rates going up each year, Wisdom Labs focuses on the mental, emotional and social wellbeing at work. In this episode, Cory describes why we need to build resiliency with people in organizations, the growing market for Wise@Work, trends in conscious leadership, and how Cory shows up as a conscious leader at work.

Key Takeaways:

• Organizations need a community where they learn social awareness. 
• Any room can turn into a mindfulness room. 
• Chronic stress and loneliness rates are going up each year. 
• Meditation and mindfulness are essential tools in battling chronic stress. 
• We need to find a way to navigate burnout in leadership.

Meet Cory Smith  
Cory has spent over 20 years aligning purpose, entrepreneurship, and social good to create companies that have a positive impact on people and the planet. Previously, Cory was CEO of Impact Hub Bay Area, CEO of the Social Capital Markets Conference, the first Innovation Fellow for the San Francisco Mayor’s Office, CEO of Webcast Solutions (acquired by StarMedia/France Telecom) and Co-founder of MediaCast, the first on-location webcast company.
LinkedIn

Resources:

Wisdom Labs
Wise@Work the Podcast 

Tom Eddington's Ebook

Full Show Notes
Video Version of Interview
The Impact Effect Website

How has COVID-19 affected the way your organization is run? In this special episode, conscious leaders discuss how their organization has been affected by COVID-19 and the decisions they’ve made as a result. We discuss the need to preserve cash, concerns about organization culture following staff reductions and concerns resulting from COVID-19. CEO's Bob Chapman, Cory Smith, Sarah Mehler, and Karen Short each share the decisions they’ve made, the impact it is having on their organization, and how they as a leader have been challenged.

Key Takeaways:

• If we don’t have a good business model and that business model fails under various economic conditions, we’re going to hurt the very people that we care about. 
• There is no work life balance, there’s just life. 
• It’s a period of resourcing from within and resourcing in ways one didn’t really need to before as a leader. 
• We need to be thought leaders and help shape what the future will be like.
• What can we learn from this and do better next time because this could happen again. 

Resources: 

Show Notes

Video Version of Interview

The Impact Effect Network

This episode features Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswatiji, Ph.D, Secretary-General Of The Global Interfaith WASH Alliance and President Of Divine Shakti Foundation. Sadhvi gives us powerful insights on how she teaches meditation, provides counseling, and oversees multiple charitable and humanitarian projects and activities.

Sadhvi was completing her Ph.D. when she left America in 1996 to live at Parmarth Niketan in Rishikesh, India. She has been living there for 23 years, engaged in spiritual practice and service. Before she had gone to India, she did nothing on any conscious or spiritual level. Once Sadhvi arrived in India, she experienced unexpected awakeness, truth, and divinity. We need to learn how to appreciate and enjoy the experience of our duality. When we feel true serenity, we relieve ourselves of stress and freely live in the present moment. Sadhvi explains why our purpose is to get out of the way of what we think we are, we need to experience who we are and what we know.

Key Takeaways:

• Appreciate the creation – we have five senses to experience the creation.
• Serenity comes when there is nothing you have to do.
• Learn how to become a vehicle for the divine to flow through without the ego.
• A conscious leader needs to know where they are going.
• Our purpose is to get out of the way of what we think we are. We need actually to experience who we are and what we know.

Meet Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswatiji, Ph.D

Sadhvi was raised in an American family in Hollywood, California and graduated from Stanford University. She was completing her Ph.D. when she left America in 1996 to live at Parmarth Niketan in Rishikesh, India. She has been living there for 23 years, engaged in spiritual practice and service. Hear her powerful insights on how she teaches meditation, provides counseling and oversees myriad charitable and humanitarian projects and activities. LinkedIn

Resources:

Sadhviji.org  

From Hollywood to Holy Woods – TEDx University Of San Francisco

Show Notes 

The Impact Effect Network

In response to COVID-19, leaders are being asked to make critical decisions that impact their workforce and basic survival of the business. Faced with a similar situation after the 2008 economic collapse, many leaders had to make challenging decisions. This week's episode features Bob Chapman, Chairman and CEO of Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Inc., a global manufacturing business with 11,000 team members. While leading the business for over 40 years, Bob has applied a unique blend of strategy and culture in the workplace. He realizes companies such as Barry-Wehmiller, can be a powerful positive influence on our society. 

Understanding that leaders have a massive responsibility for their employees, Bob works to improve relationships between employees and leaders. He views leadership as a privilege to create human and economic values and he believes his employees should feel valued. If an employee lacks meaning and purpose, they will not be present in other aspects of their life. This episode discusses measuring success within an organization, the importance of having a robust business model, and why economic value and human value can work together in harmony.

Key Takeaways:

• How we treat our employees will directly affect how they treat their family members. 
• Business could be the most potent force for putting good into the world. 
• We need to create human value within an organization. 
• The most significant cause of stress is work. We need to help companies learn how to care.
• Economic value and human value can work together in harmony.  

Meet Bob Chapman 

Recently named the #3 CEO in the world in an Inc. magazine article, Bob Chapman is very intentional about using his platform as a business leader to build a better world.

Chapman is Chairman and CEO of St. Louis, MO-based Barry-Wehmiller, a $2.5B global manufacturing business with 11,000 team members. The company began as a small pasteurizing and bottle washer business in 1885 and, through acquisition and organic growth, has grown into 12 business units (10 in the US) serving primarily the packaging, paper converting, sheeting and corrugating industries. Chapman became the senior executive of this private company in 1975 at age 30 when the 80-year-old business had $20 million in revenue, outdated technology and a very weak financial position. Despite the obstacles, Chapman applied a unique blend of strategy and culture over the next 40 years in leading Barry-Wehmiller through almost 90 successful acquisitions. LinkedIn

Resources:

The Barry Wehmiller Network

Book: Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring

Everybody Matters on YouTube

Show Notes 

The Impact Effect Network

In this episode, Diana reveals her dedication to the personal and global expansion of consciousness and how that led to the creation of Conscious Leadership Forum, where she and her co-founders are spearheading a movement to propagate new models of leadership based on personal and collective empowerment. Diana teaches us about re-languaging in the corporate setting. Once you change the language, it’s essential to stick with it. The corporate language should be as mainstream as possible so new employees can understand it. Listen to the episode to learn additional ways to become more present, how to receive feedback, and which daily practices cultivate conscious leadership.

Key Takeaways:

• Conscious leadership is to be here in a nonreactive state. 
• To cultivate conscious leadership – when you find yourself being adverse, stop, and look at what the threat is under the aversion. 
• Start your day with gratitude and appreciation. 
• Notice your patterns and play with them to see what’s underneath it. 
• Ask for feedback from others regularly. 

Meet Diana Chapman 

Diana is a cofounder of the Conscious Leadership Group and has been a trusted advisor to more than 700 top-tier organizational leaders and many of their executive teams, guiding them into and through pivotal transitions in life, business, and consciousness. 

LinkedIn, Diana’s Website

Resources:

The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success 

Show Notes 

The Impact Effect Network

In this episode, Gary shares with Tom how he is seeking and implementing solutions of sustainability for local people through education and innovative collaborative projects, which is the key to saving Indonesia’s great red ape and other species. Gary reveals his background and how he interacts with the natural world. He explains how humans fit in with the primate species, dating back forty-million years ago. Humans like to think they are the only ones who use language. Gary set out to prove that orangutans can use signs to communicate. Eventually, Gary became a father to an orangutan – he even began to act like the orangutans. He has dedicated his entire life to saving the species. Working closely with orangutans, Gary learned about human communication. Later, Gary speaks about the competencies of leadership, putting aside our egos, and tips on working with volunteers.

Key Takeaways:

• Keep a journal so you can remember the little things that happen throughout the day. 
• Everybody starts out as a leader of their own body. As children, we learn how to become a leader through social influence. 
• Training and personal development will be essential to become a leader. 
• We can create the happiness we have – we do not need to wait for permission from anyone else. 
• Don’t give so much that you sacrifice the relationships in your life. 

Meet Gary Shapiro 

Gary began his involvement with orangutans 44 years ago in the field of primate cognition and learning. He was the first person (1973-1975) to teach a symbolic communication system to an orangutan and the first person to have taught sign language to orangutans in the species’ natural environment.

LinkedIn

Resources:

Orang Utan Republik Foundation (OURF) 

Orangutan Project

Show Notes 

The Impact Effect Network

What is grounding, and can it improve your health? This week Tom sits down with Runa Bouius, Founder of TRUE Power Institute. Whether you are familiar with conscious leadership or not, you will value all of the advice that Runa has to offer! An Interview with Runa Bouius, Founder, TRUE Power Institute, is available on The Impact Effect Podcast, where we give you engaging and powerful insights on Conscious Leadership. 

In this episode, Runa inspires, engages, and discusses how to empower leaders as they open people’s hearts and minds, one person at a time. She explains how we can get back to wholeness; if we are not whole in the workplace, then we are not contributing optimally to the organization. As the founder of the TRUE Power Institute, Runa describes the inspiration behind the Institute and how we can reach our full power. True power is something that allows us to be present and let go. Listen to the episode to learn more about presence & energy, the choice we have over our thoughts, and the importance of grounding.

Key Takeaways:

• Conscious leadership means being awake to our thoughts
and feelings.
• Wholeness means power. When we are in full wholeness,
then we are in full power.
• True power is a presence and energy that is coming through
us from a more significant source.
• Stay open to what tomorrow will bring you – it may bring
something much more expansive than something you can
imagine.
• We can choose to let go of our thoughts and replace them
with something more uplifting and positive.

Meet Runa Bouius

Rúna Bouius is a leadership influencer — a visionary business
leader and wisdom guide who bridges traditional business with
the emerging business paradigm and techniques to uncover a
renewed vision of a regenerative and balanced world for all.
Over the course of her career, Rúna has mentored and coached
hundreds of leaders and uplifted and inspired thousands of
people around the world through her speaking, facilitation, and
writing, and through the social-impact platforms in Los Angeles
she has co-founded, including the Conscious Capitalism LA
Chapter and the TOGETHER! Network for purpose-driven female
entrepreneurs. Rúna sits on a number of advisory boards and has spoken at conferences such as The International Conference on Business and Consciousness, Women’s International Networking (WIN), and the Conscious Capitalism Institute Conference. She has a reputation as a Conscious Leadership influencer, a tireless ambassador for raising social consciousness, and a Change Agent on a mission to evolve humanity’s relationship to power.
LinkedIn

Resources:
True Power Institute
Click Here For Show Notes
The Impact Effect Network

Eric Kaufmann has been coaching and training leaders and executives since 2000. His earliest leadership lessons were in the water, not in the office – when he was a Scuba Diving Instructor he learned to organize and influence people to learn new skills, work together, venture into the unknown, and have fun in a process that is inherently dangerous. Tom and Eric have a lively discussion on Eric being a Thought Leader at Harvard’s Institute of Coaching, the author of Four Virtues of a Leader, and a life-long Zen practitioner.

Key Takeaways:

• Conscious leadership is moving from the ego to a life-focused service position with awareness.
• The first virtue of a leader is focus. The world is our reflection.
• Wisdom, love, and courage are essential features of leadership.
• Courage is the most absent characteristic of a leader. It is easier to walk away; we use it as a defense mechanism.
• With age, there becomes more to lose than there is to gain.
• Business leaders are now shaping our society.

Meet Eric Kaufmann

Eric has been coaching and training leaders and executives since 2000. His earliest leadership lessons were in the water, not in the office – when he was a Scuba Diving Instructor he learned to organize and influence people to learn new skills, work together, venture into the unknown, and have fun in a process that is inherently dangerous. Tom and Eric have a lively discussion on Eric being a Thought Leader at Harvard’s Institute of Coaching, the author of Four Virtues of a Leader, and a life-long Zen practitioner.
LinkedIn

Resources:
Sagatica.com 
Sagatica Wisdom YouTube  
The Four Virtues of a Leader: Navigating the Hero’s Journey Through Risk to Results Book  

The Impact Effect Network

Rose Fernandez, joined Algenist as Senior Vice President, Global Sales, and now serves as its Chief Executive Officer since 2018. Rose describes some qualities of conscious leadership. Being open and willing to share is essential to becoming a conscious leader. Rose loves to provide context to her team; she tries to be as consistent as possible with her transparency. Overcommunicating is also essential. Rose makes sure to tell things to multiple people multiple times. Rose trusts her employees; she allows them to choose their own hours. If someone doesn’t want to be there, then they will work themselves out. Later, Rose speaks about becoming the CEO, being confident, and her time with Women’s Wear Daily. Learn how Tom has had an impact in Rose’s career and hear her tips for staying true to herself while she builds and grows a strong team at Algenist. 

Key Takeaways

• Be consistent with your transparency as a leader.
• There is so much uncertainty in the world. Create context for your team and let them know what you know.
• Use a town hall to bring in your corporate team and make people understand your decisions.
• Trust your employees. Allow them to choose their own hours.
• As a woman CEO, you need to be confident in your decisions.

Meet Rose Fernandez:   

Rose Fernandez started her career in the beauty and skin care industry as a Regional Sales Director with Murad, the first known clinical skincare line developed by Dr. Howard Murad, where she eventually became the Senior National Sales Director, US and Canada.  She was the Vice President of Sales at Kate Somerville Skin Care; VP and General Manager, North America at Jurlique, and in 2016 she joined Algenist as Senior Vice President, Global Sales, and now serves as its Chief Executive Officer since 2018. 

Resources:  

Algenist
LinkedIn
WWD Beauty Summit 

The Impact Effect Network