What motivates your dreams is just as important as the dream itself.

Maybe even more important.

These dreams for your future inform your daily decisions and where you focus your time, energy, and resources, and they impact how you lead yourself and others.

They fuel the drive that motivates you to get up each day as you do the important–and sometimes tedious–practices that build the future you want for yourself and the world.

They support moving from a vision or idea to action, creating the reality you have always longed for.

The tricky thing about your desires for the future is they require understanding your past and any pain it holds.

No matter how smart the parts of you are that strategize and plan - if you are not clear on the echoes of your pains, losses, and unmet needs then they can become interwoven with your vision for your future.

And if you are not aware of these influences, they can drive you in ways you may not be aware of, setting you up for burnout and dissatisfaction when your dreams are actually achieved.

My guest today realized she achieved the dreams she had been striving for and did not feel how she had hoped. This led her on a powerful journey of self-discovery and deconstruction on how she viewed herself, her work, and her relationships.

Moorea Seal is a Seattle-based author, speaker and multidisciplinary artist, as well as an avid list maker with over one million books, journals and stationery products in print. Her passion lies in helping people of all ages to list out their needs, desires, dreams and goals and rewrite personal narratives while providing resources for happiness, resilience and self-expression. Her latest journal, "My 52 Lists Project," guided self-exploratory list-making for kids is in retailers worldwide now.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How Moorea’s childhood lack of stability influenced what she thought of as success, and why achieving her dream didn’t feel successful or stable
• Why the performative aspect of having a namesake store and brand-led to overcommitment and burnout
• How big achievements brought home the difference between love and acceptance and being validated and valued for what she can do
• Why Moorea chooses to speak openly about mental health challenges, and why she says it’s vital to offer a resolution and resources when telling your story
• How getting a formal autism diagnosis has impacted Moorea’s relationship to being an “accidental” influencer and what she recognizes as her superpowers

Learn more about Moorea:

• MooreaSeal.com
• Instagram: @MooreaSeal
• Pinterest: @MooreaSeal

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

What drives you can make you or break you.

We often look to our values, commitments, and operations as a map to how we do life and work.

But there are things that get in the way of honoring our commitments to ourselves and those we serve - no matter what we have professed as our values and mission.

The messages that tell us we are not enough. We have to do more or get more. We have to over-deliver and never disappoint.

These shame-based messages get in the way of our ability to make our aspired values consistently lived in action.

Shame is insidious, sneaky and can become a powerful driving force in our lives if we do not get clear on what is driving us and why we are making the choices we do day in and day out.

Until you look at your own unique experience of shame and what drives it, shame will continue to chip away at your capacity for courage and convince you to compromise your integrity.

Getting granular about what drives you - and why - can reveal some hard truths and important data that can help you lead yourself and others without dodging the messages of shame.

And that is exactly what my guest today chose to do. After a very public fall - he was forced to look at how he ended up where he did and what needed tending.

Ref Rodriguez, EdD is a social entrepreneur who has spent his career starting organizations and programs whose mission is to change the life trajectories of those most affected by educational, economic, and social injustice.

He has served as a classroom teacher, school principal, administrator, university professor, and elected school board member. At 27 he founded a charter middle school in his home community of northeast Los Angeles. He went on to co-found a network of high-performing charter schools serving low-income first-generation college-going students in Los Angeles. He is currently working on a program to significantly improve the educational and life outcomes of Black and Latino males attending California’s community colleges.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How running for office brought up Ref’s long-held feelings of loneliness, shame, and of not being enough
• How self-doubt and shame led Ref back to old patterns of guarding his authentic self and the impacts that had on his physical and mental health
• Why a major victory created conflicting feelings of joy and self-doubt
• How a mistake influenced by feelings of not being enough turned into a very public and agonizing fall, and the healing that has come after it

Learn more about Rebecca:



• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

Leading with questions instead of leading with answers is a powerful practice.

Sure, in times of crisis, steady, knowing leadership is calming and often necessary.

But the pressure to have all the answers all the time limits creativity and possibility.

Having the capacity to ask questions instead of offering all the answers is what brings out the best in you and those around you.

When you move from a position of knowing to one of curiosity you build trust, both within yourself and in those around you.

Not knowing all the answers has the ability to deepen team cohesion and cultivate creativity and innovation that would never have come from you trying to figure it all out on your own.

Yet so many leaders feel a responsibility to have everything figured out and they push themselves to exhaustion for fear of anyone finding out that they don’t have all the answers.

But courage reminds us that there is a different way to lead and it supports our ability to be vulnerable and say, “I don’t know.”

Today’s guest spent a year doing just that as a way to deepen her recovery and capacity to lead herself and others well.

Terces Engelhart is the founder of Cafe Gratitude and Gracias Madre plant-based restaurants. Her heart is in serving others and her life’s lessons are the springboard of the stories she shares where her challenges have become opportunities. In 2014 she participated in TEDx at Occidental College. She recently launched her podcast called Unreasonably Grateful. Her calling is to help people trust their inner guidance. She is an author, speaker, wife, mother and grandmother of thirteen. She lives and works on their organic farm, Be Love Farm, with her husband, Matthew, in Vacaville, Ca.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How Terces processed a betrayal in her team by committing to let go, but keep caring
• Four directives that have guided her recovery and the way she lives today
• How her love of learning helps Terces keep going, and start over when she fails
• How answering questions with “I don’t know” helped her heal a need for control
• Why Terces sees generosity and gratitude as states of flow

Content note: This episode discusses eating disorders, sexual abuse and addiction.

Learn more about Terces Engelhart:

• TercesEngelhart.com
• Be Love Farm
• Instagram: @terces @BeLoveFarm
• Unreasonably Grateful Podcast

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the Weekly Rumble Email

Resources:

• Kiss the Ground

If you want to lead yourself well, you have to know yourself well.

The tricky thing is, it can be surprisingly hard to really know yourself.

We live in a world where we are told by others–on repeat–who we should be and who we are.

We have gotten so good at being who we think we are supposed to be that we end up believing there is something intrinsically wrong with who we uniquely are.

Especially when it comes to behaviors, personality traits and abilities associated with how your nervous

system operates.

We tag the word disorder onto neurological differences like autism and attention deficit and hyperactivity which pathologize aspects of being human.

This dangerously narrow view of health and functioning decreases everyone’s ability to better understand the incredible resources we have in ourselves and in those around us.

We all are trying to figure out what makes us tick and how we can improve our work and life.

And that is what today’s Unburdened Leader Roundtable guests did recently–and in the process, they were each formally diagnosed with ADHD–which helped them connect the dots on so many aspects of their life and start to lead themselves and their businesses with more confidence and clarity.

Lindsay Padilla, PhD is a former community college professor who accidentally started a business while on the tenure track. Hello Audio takes your course content and creates private audio feeds to make learning on the go much easier for your clients, blending her background in education and course creation.

Tara Newman supports service providers in creating premium offers and scalable sales systems so they can significantly increase their profitability through her podcast, The Bold Money Revolution as well as her program, The Bold Profit Academy.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• The challenges of getting an ADHD diagnosis as an adult, from overlapping diagnoses to even finding a clinician who works with adults
• Unpacking the stigma around taking medication for ADHD and how Tara and Lindsay have shifted their mindset around it
• How their different experiences in school have impacted and inspired their work as adults
• How getting a diagnosis has helped Tara and Lindsay shift from frustration to accepting and embracing the way their brains work at work and in their relationships
• Why the personal development and course creation spaces need to get more inclusive and accessible

Learn more about Tara Newman:

• The Bold Leadership Revolution
• The Bold Money Revolution Podcast
• The Bold Profit Academy
• Instagram: @TheTaraNewman
• FREE Revenue Goal Calculator

Learn more about Lindsay Padilla, PhD:

• Hello Audio
• Instagram: @drlindsaypadilla
• Hello Audio Facebook Group
• Academics Mean Business Podcast

Learn more about Rebecca:



• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the Weekly Rumble Email

When you are not honest with yourself, you end up living a disconnected life.

You may feel connected to your life when you get the dopamine hits of likes and follows or public affirmations from colleagues. Though, let’s be honest, these external validations are never satisfying for long.

If you live a life where your worthiness and safety are woven into the opinions of others, it makes sense why so many cling to a life that is unsustainable and out of alignment.

And it often takes a big crisis to push us out of the grind of the life we are living to reflect and re-evaluate.

Whatever the catalyst is, getting honest with yourself and your circumstances is the only way through figuring out what next steps to take.

In a world of highlight reels and social media filters, being honest can feel counter-cultural. And stepping into radical honesty can stir up a lot of emotion.

Choosing to be honest with yourself and others definitely has risks. But you will also experience the rewards of deeper connection and meaningful work.

Today’s guest rebuilt her life from the inside out after a painful bankruptcy. It was not until she got radically honest with herself that she regained her footing and did the work that has allowed her to build a business and a life that is aligned and healthy.

Through her podcast, The Bold Money Revolution as well as her program, The Bold Profit Academy, Tara Newman supports service providers in creating premium offers and scalable sales systems so they can significantly increase their profitability.

Tara teaches leaders to run businesses without sacrificing their health, relationships, or integrity by

establishing behaviors, habits, and rituals aligned with their vision of success.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• The toll that keeping up appearances took on Tara and her family, and what happened when she started getting honest with the people in her life
• How Tara’s experience with bankruptcy influences how she works with small business owners
• The mental and physical journey she had to go on to leave the security of her corporate job to start her own business
• How knowing her numbers helped Tara shift her mindset around money
• What led Tara to seeking a formal ADHD diagnosis and why she says it feels liberating

Learn more about Tara Newman:

• The Bold Leadership Revolution
• The Bold Money Revolution Podcast
• The Bold Profit Academy
• Instagram: @TheTaraNewman
• FREE Revenue Goal Calculator

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the Weekly Rumble Email

Resources:



• Hype: How Scammers, Grifters, and Con Artists Are Taking Over the Internet--And Why We're Following, Gabrielle Bluestone
• Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, Amanda Montell
• Profit First

We are seeing conflict move so quickly to chaos these days.

Anger, entitlement and self-preservation can kick into overdrive when you feel devalued. We forget about relationships and fight to be right, no matter the cost.

Civility is pushed aside more and more as we navigate our differences.

The wounds of relational trauma, betrayal, neglect, poverty, racism are playing out in so many spaces of public gatherings and personal relationships.

But now is not the time to throw our hands up and walk away from this messy state of affairs.

Yes, there is a lot happening that takes us out of our space of leading from confidence, clarity and calm. It is inevitable that our emotions will overwhelm us at some point.

But it is essential that we cultivate spaces together that encourage conflict that moves us towards solutions, not sensational soundbites.

We have to look at how we communicate and the language we use. We have to intentionally set expectations and guidelines for what is okay and what is not okay.

We have to lead with dignity, which means doing the deep inner work so we can show up and lead by facing our biases and recognizing the inherent worth of every person.

Today’s guest fosters civil dialogue and inspires communities to build strength, courage and purpose.

Rosalind Wiseman is the founder of Cultures of Dignity; an organization that shifts the way communities think about our physical and emotional wellbeing by working in close partnership with the experts of those communities–young people, educators, policymakers, and business and political leaders.

She is also an internationally recognized author of multiple books, including Queen Bees and Wannabes, the

groundbreaking best-seller and basis for the movie Mean Girls and its subsequent Broadway adaptation.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How to define and foster a culture of dignity through deep listening and engaging with ideas
• The real value of debating in good faith and what our culture gets wrong about “winning”
• How the dynamics of authority and expertise we enforce with kids can defeat our purposes, and ways to turn them around
• How to use principles of a culture of dignity to set expectations and norms for handling conflict and dysregulation
• Why young people need more than just to know their rights, they need skills to implement them and a responsibility to advocate for other

Learn more about Rosalind Wiseman:

• Cultures of Dignity
• Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and the New Realities of Girl World

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the Weekly Rumble Email

Resources:



• Rosalind Wiseman on Art of Power Podcast

We all grew up being told who was the creative one, who was the smart one, and who was the sporty one. There was no space for anyone to hold a multiplicity of skills and interests.

Of course, none of us hold just one identity, skill or interest.

So an identity crisis–or multiple identity crises–are inevitable.

But an identity crisis can be a powerful turning point in your life and work.

On one hand, you can keep doing what you’ve been doing—what you’re supposed to do. Or you can take a big risk and do something different.

We all have PhDs on what we are supposed to do. We have breathed in the messages on what it means to be a success and responsible. Staying on the current path is oddly comfortable—even when it sucks.

When you decide to honor the desire to grow and make a pivot with your work or take a risk with a significant relationship in your life, you are entering into a stage of growth that can be lonely and a bit disorienting.

But leaders like us know there’s more to life than the status quo.

My guest went through her own shifts in her career and identity and is growing a business and a life that looks very different from her original life plan.

Lindsay Padilla, PhD is an ex-community college professor who accidentally started a business while on the tenure track. Now, as the CEO and co-founder of Hello Audio, Lindsay challenges online industry norms of unfinished courses and unconsumed content with her product.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• The surprising side hustle that sparked Lindsay’s move out of academia
• The role networking played in her developing a business that capitalizes on her teaching knowledge and experience
• How shifting careers changed not only her work identity, but Lindsay’s identity within her marriage
• Why identity shifts can be a source of grief, even when the shift is good or necessary
• Why your metrics of success may have to change with your identity
• How a series of major personal and professional losses made Lindsay recommit to her taking care of her body and to keeping her values at the forefront of her business

Learn more about Lindsay Padilla, PhD:

• Hello Audio
• Instagram: @drlindsaypadilla
• Hello Audio Facebook Group
• Academics Mean Business Podcast

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the Weekly Rumble Email

Leadership and discomfort are inextricably connected.

So much personal and professional development teaches us to figure out the problem and quickly move on.

But true resilience and growth require more than just the decision to “let it go.”

Leading well requires tolerating the discomfort of being seen, not just at your filtered best, but really being seen in your strengths and also when you make a bad decision and navigate the fall-out, respond defensively to criticism, and struggle with your confidence.

Bypassing or shutting down discomfort leads to numbing and disconnecting instead of feeling through the hard things.

It is essential  that we get to know the burdens we carry and learn how to heal them so we can lead ourselves and others with more presence and generosity.

On today’s show, it is an honor to give you a window into the friendship I have developed with two colleagues of mine, Natalie Gutierrez and Kim Paulus. These friendships have become so valuable to me because safe, trusted relationships that can hold up a mirror to my growth edges are so rich and valuable.

Natalie and Kim help me kick off a new series for the podcast: The Unburdened Leader Roundtable Discussions, where I have conversations with colleagues, friends, and other leaders on topics we care deeply about.

Natalie Gutierrez is Puerto-Rican LMFT whose work is dedicated to providing trauma-informed psychotherapy to Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color/Mixed race. She supports her clients in healing legacy burdens, ancestral trauma and the impact of colonial trauma.

Kim Paulus is a biracial, queer psychotherapist and IFS clinical consultant in private practice in Oakland, California. With a background in social justice activism, she serves primarily the LGBTQIIA+ and BIPOC communities, including multiracial people and adult children of immigrant parents.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How our legacy burdens impact our ability to make friends, especially later in life
• Why a mindset of scarcity makes deep connection difficult in our relationships and in our movements
• How burdens of fear, self-doubt and mistrust keep us from being seen and what makes us feel safe to let our guards down
• Why decoupling the cultural legacy burdens of power, privilege and historical trauma from shame and blame can help us take responsibility for doing the work to release them
• How moving with urgency can bypass the slower work of making foundational changes

Learn more about Kim Paulus, LMFT:

• Kim Paulus MFT
• Instagram: @kimpauluslmft

Learn more about Natalie Gutierrez, LMFT:

• Mindful Journeys MFT
• Instagram: @nataliegutierrezlmft

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the Weekly Rumble Email

Resources:

• Fatimah Finney
• Heirlooms Summit Talk - Dick Schwartz, 2021.pdf
• adrienne maree brown
• Sonya Renee Taylor
• My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, Resmaa Menakem

Note for Clarity:

A brief explanation of some language and acronyms you will be hearing from Kim, Natalie, and myself in this segment of our roundtable conversation. At the time of this recording, the three of us are in a couple of Internal Family Systems trainings, which we often refer to as IFS. One of these IFS trainings we refer to a lot is a pilot IFS Advanced Training Program (ATP) where we were invited to participate in a year-long training program to become Assistant Trainers (ATs). The three of us are also serving on a leadership team in an IFS Level One training.

Everyone gets angry.

And most people have learned to hide their anger–often at great costs.

There is a LOT of baggage we carry around the emotion of anger.

These burdens come from our faith traditions, culture, family of origin, work, school and inform your relationship with anger today.

We are constantly navigating the many rules of what is ok and what is not ok when it comes to expressing, let alone feeling, anger.

In the process, anger can slowly start to consume us. Anger overwhelms  and it feels like it owns us—even as we’re doing our best not to show it.

But contrary to what many of us have been taught, anger is an important and valuable emotion.

You can own your anger instead of your anger owning you.

To own your anger, you’ve got to trust yourself. You’ve got to be able to hang out with the anger you feel so you can identify where it’s coming from and what it’s trying to tell you.

My guest today is no stranger to rumbling with her anger and leaning on IFS to help her better lead her emotions and her responses to them. Sacha Mardou is a cartoonist, author of the graphic novel series, Sky in Stereo, and many webcomics about therapy.

Bringing readers with her on her therapy journey has changed everything for both Sacha and those of us who get to experience the profound impact of her work–making the world feel a little less lonely as we navigate the vulnerability of being human.

Content Alert: There is mention in this conversation of sexual assault. We do not go into detail but it is mentioned in reference to a family member of Sacha’s around the 27 minute mark. Take care and don’t push through if it is too much.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How sharing her personal comics and sketches has helped Sacha feel less alone and process her own experiences as readers have shared their lives with her
• How Sacha has built in space and boundaries around sharing her comics and processing the feelings and events she depicts
• The process of noticing and working through anger and frustration with herself and her mother
• How allowing herself to feel anger was key to working through a familial legacy burden and how sharing those experiences reduces shame and helps put an end to intergenerational traumas

Learn more about Sacha Mardou:

• Therapy Comics
• Instagram: @mardou_draws
• Facebook: @sachamardou
• Sky in Stereo Vol. 1, Sky in Stereo Vol. 2

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the Weekly Rumble Email

Resources:

• Virginia Satir
• Pema Chodron
• My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, Resmaa Menakem

We love to be right. So much so, that we often trade being right for being in relationship.

Without relationships, we cannot experience meaningful change because the change we desire is rooted in relationships, not the certainty of being right.

But dang, the expediency and certainty of being right sure are seductive.

Pursuing being right cultivates the tunnel vision of perfectionism which runs rampant over our curiosity and creativity–the very ingredients needed for us to have a sustained impact.

When we focus more on creating change instead of criticizing ourselves or others, we are freed up to get creative about our sustainability practices and modeling this for others too.

But too often, perfectionism has a party. We want to get it right from the start and fear making mistakes.

Or we worry about sustaining the work we are already doing, so we don't bother starting, counting ourselves out, believing our small actions do not make a difference.

But they do.

Climate solutions require collective action.

Most solutions that are sustainable require collective action and leaders focused on being right end up cultivating conflict and criticism instead.

Leaders who are committed to relationships end up cultivating creativity, community and the collective action we need to create sustainable solutions. We can all start or continue our sustainability journey with this in mind.

My guest today leads many on the imperfect journey of sustainability.

Ashlee Piper is a political strategist turned vegan and eco-lifestyle expert and author of the bestselling–and very funny–book, Give a Sh*t: Do Good. Live Better. Save the Planet. Her work has been featured in/on Washington Post, Real Simple, BuzzFeed, GLAMOUR, NBC, CBS, and ABC, to name a few. 

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How Ashlee remains committed to her values while evolving her approach past rigidity and toward connection

• Why we need openness, curiosity and tolerance along with accountability in our movements

• How her background in politics and policy work informs Ashlee’s approach to sustainability

• How Ashlee moved through a major setback to accepting the failure, revising her approach and trying again

• How perfectionism creates inaction and why it’s okay to embrace imperfection, flexibility, and accessibility in our sustainability strategies

Learn more about Ashlee Piper:

• AshleePiper.com
  
  
• Instagram: @AshleePiper

• Give a Sh*t: Do Good. Live Better. Save the Planet
  
  

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com

• Work With Rebecca

• Sign up for the Weekly Rumble Email

Resources:

• Lauren Singer’s Trash Jar