The Unburdened Leader

We all carry the burden of feeling not enough.

All of us.

Once we lose connection to our worthiness and sense of enough, the striving for approval and belonging kicks in, and we long to find the reassurance that we are enough as we are, often in all the wrong places.

The experience of feeling different or othered is seared in our memories and held in our bodies and a protective cluster of beliefs and behaviors take root to protect us from experiencing this pain again.

But often the result of these inner protectors–like the inner critic or the imposter–leaves us feeling worse and further entrenched in feeling not enough.

And our bodies are often the default of where this shame is directed.

So often, conversations with others focusing on body critique, the food you eat or comparing to others become the norm, only perpetuating feelings of not enough in a vicious cycle.

While the burdens of shame and feeling not enough are universal, the way it reaches and can impact people is not. And my guest today brings in his experience of being a Black man in a larger body.

Martinus Evans is a proud fat marathon runner, author, certified running coach, and award-winning speaker who helps plus-sized people get active without the pressure of weight loss.

A native of Detroit MI, he’s the host of The 300 Pounds and Running Podcast, co-host of The Long Run with Martinus and Latoya Podcast, and founder of the Slow AF Run Club, an online community connecting slow runners around the globe. Slow AF was built to inspire, motivate, and educate. It celebrates the grit and grind of runners at “the back of the pack.”

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How weight stigma impacts life from healthcare to the clothes you wear
• How a humiliating experience with a doctor became the origin story of 300 Pounds and Running
• How Martinus uses anger as a catalyst for action, and how he lets go of it once he’s used it
• Why vulnerability and transparency have been key to growing and maintaining the community at the Slow AF Run Club
• How Martinus is reframing what success means to him so that his drive serves the life he wants to live

Learn more about Martinus:

• 300 Pounds and Running
• Slow AF Run Club
• 300 Pounds and Running Podcast
• The Long Run Podcast
• Instagram: @300PoundsAndRunning
• Facebook: @300PoundsAndRunning

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• The Last Dance
• Will, Will Smith and Mark Manson

Right now, so many of us are connected through the shared emotional reactions to tragic events we have witnessed and continue to experience.

Like all traumas, vicarious and collective trauma cause a breach in connection or a betrayal of trust in Self and/or others.

And with disconnection comes the risk of a break in a healthy community.

We continue to witness fanatical devotion to a product, a person, or a place that is often fueled by charismatic leaders selling healing and community through absolution by association or by purchasing a product.

Charismatic leaders get the best of us. They speak to our hearts. Our pain. And inspire hope.

We feel lifted up while getting a break from the weight of the burdens we are carrying.

Unchecked, this type of leadership cares more about a self-serving agenda that is not interested in collaboration and shared power.

This is where consumption of products is sold as a form of connection, versus the nuanced and challenging work of being in community with diverse people.

Leading well is not just about results or metrics but heart and values. And checks and balances with accountability. It is about doing the work that creates trust and connection, versus creating division and distrust.

Today’s guest is a historian whose body of work focuses on the intersection of modern evangelicalism, consumerism, and capitalism - all systems that I have been curious about as we navigate polarities in community, collective traumas, and healing.

Dr. Tim Gloege, Ph.D is a Historian and author of Guaranteed Pure: the Moody Bible Institute, Business, and the Making of Modern Evangelicalism and Librarian at the Grand Rapids Public Library. After he earned his Ph.D. in US History at the University of Notre Dame, his family moved to Grand Rapids where Tim spent a decade writing and serving as lead parent for our two amazing kids. Most recently Tim moved to the very different world of public libraries and currently works as a librarian at the Grand Rapids Public Library while continuing to write.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Why purity, certainty, and control are three key pillars of modern evangelicalism
• The shared mindset and tactics behind consumer corporations and corporate evangelicals in post-Civil War America
• How notions of consumer choice have been embedded into evangelicalism
• How consumerism shows up in the modern prosperity gospel and ideas around manifesting
• How celebrity faith leaders shape shallowly-connected communities

Learn more about Tim:

• TimGloege.com
• Twitter: @TimGloege
• Guaranteed Pure: The Moody Bible Institute, Business, and the Making of Modern Evangelicalism

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, David Graeber and David Wengrow
• “Graveyard,” Halsey
• Station Eleven
• Wings of Desire
• Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Collective traumas and the weight of collective grief is real and rampant.

There have been so many moments in just the last two years that we have all watched together that activate vicarious trauma and collective grief.

The horrific milestones of COVID and COVID-related deaths, hate speech, successful attacks on our democracy, relationship ending debates about masks and vaccines, attacks on protestors, and waking up to being complacent and complicit to systemic racism.

And in January, the world watched an armed insurrection in Washington DC and the relentless gaslighting and attempts to retell that day in ways the deflect accountability and culpability followed.

It’s no wonder many of us began to feel helpless.

But unaddressed, helplessness can quickly lead to hopelessness.

Grief comes with working through vicarious and collective traumas. And grief begs to be witnessed or it turns malignant.

And it is important to not rush through what we have experienced in our own lives and collectively as a culture.

There is no timeline with this work but make sure you are taking the time to notice how unaddressed vicarious trauma and grief may be showing up in your life, so it doesn’t drain your courage, confidence and calm.

My guest on today’s show is an incredible example of long-game resilience while riding the ups and downs of staying engaged in the political process while taking care of her well-being.

Julie Tagen is the Chief of Staff to Congressman Jamie Raskin, (MD-08). She is a veteran leader in DC politics and campaigns, committed to leaving a legacy to the next generation of leaders who will continue the work she has cared so much about for over two decades.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Julie’s first-hand account of what she experienced on January 6 and what she learned about herself that day and in the aftermath
• How Julie has kept cynicism at bay and how she defines success after 25+ years in politics
• Why Julie believes it is critical for politicians to address the cultural issues in their communities to win voters
• How Julie’s experience as a gay, Jewish woman in politics have evolved since her first job and coming out in the 90s
• Why we should be paying closer attention the Congressional investigation into the events of January 6

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• Vicarious Traumatization: An Empirical Study of the Effects of Trauma Work on Trauma Therapists, Laurie Anne Pearlman and Paula S. Mac Ian
• Transforming the Pain, Laurie Anne Pearlman and Karen W Saakvitne
• Four Hours At The Capitol, HBO Original Documentary

Rushing into the future can mean missing important data.

Data, in this case, doesn’t mean points on a graph but really looking in the face of your experiences of the year. The good, the bad, the really hard, and the really exciting ones.

This process helps us see patterns over the course of the year so we can see our growth and evaluate what we want to leave behind and what we want to bring with us into the new year.

Rushing through the end of the year, avoiding reflection at all costs, making big promises to yourself and others to rush by the hurts and frustrations of the past year, robs us of the chance to find the best next steps for ourselves, our families, and our work.

Taking the time to truly reflect on the past year is an act of Self-leadership that can support much-needed unburdening.

This liminal space in the in-between of the years can be overrun with expectations and comparisons and feeling inundated with promises of what we need to do or buy that will make this year, the ‘best year ever!’.

But there is power in protecting this time, in protecting your brain and your heart, so you can honor your dreams and desires for the upcoming year.

Be gentle and tender with yourself, but take this time to prepare a path that is intentional and Self-led instead of reactionary.

Take the time to collect the data that will help you translate what is in your head and your heart into experiences that will help you in the next year.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Structuring your reflection for your wins, your challenges, and all the things you’re grateful for, from good TV to loved ones

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Rebecca’s 2021 Favorites:

• Hacks
• Mare of Easttown
• Ted Lasso
• tick, tick…BOOM!
• Violet
• Billions
• Nine Perfect Strangers
• Grey’s Anatomy
• Law and Order: SVU
• New Amsterdam
• The Morning Show
• A Boy Called Christmas
• Only Murders in the Building
• This Is Us
• Cruel Summer
• You
• Cobra Kai
• Colin in Black & White
• For All Mankind
• All American
• Fatherhood
• Goliath
• Bosch

Resources:

• Feeling Blah During the Pandemic? It's Called Languishing - The New York Times
• The Unburdened Leader Ep 22: Clear and Decisive Leadership with Founder of Frank and Eileen, Audrey McLoghlin
• The Unburdened Leader Ep 39: Leading with Generosity and Love with Terces Engelhart
• The Unburdened Leader Ep 41: Leading Yourself First with Moorea Seal
• *Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone*, Brené Brown
• The Unburdened Leader Ep 36: Leading with Dignity: Hard on Ideas, Easy on People with Rosalind Wiseman
• The Unburdened Leader Ep 40: Leading Authentically After Hard Falls with Dr. Ref Rodriguez
• The Unburdened Leader Ep 31: Building Resiliency and a Culture of Togetherness with Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza
• The Unburdened Leader Ep 28: Leading By Speaking Up When the Stakes Are High with Author Tiffany Bluhm

If you are a leader who embodies activism, you are moved by personal convictions that see beyond yourself and the bottom line. You boldly desire to make intentional change that will impact another person, your family, where you work, our planet.

When activism is seen as a negative word, it supports the status quo. Making activism negative plays upon your fears being misunderstood or being seen as too much, too disruptive.

And it is easy to respond to these fears by quickly defaulting into silence or complacency.

But there is something immensely freeing by owning our values and desires for the world we want. Sure, it can feel a little scary and most definitely vulnerable.

When we do the work to not be weighed down by our burdens, we can move through the fears and increase our capacity for vulnerability so we can own our activism not as something to be ashamed of but as a beacon for our meaningful work and life.

My guest today wrote a whole book reframing activism with a more holistic lens that is inclusive and inspiring. She has given us a road map on redefining and reclaiming activism in an aligned and meaningful way.

Karen Walrond is a lawyer, leadership coach, and activist. Karen's work has helped thousands of people around the world find purpose and meaning in their work. As a photographer, Karen traveled throughout Africa with the ONE Campaign, an advocacy organization committed to the prevention of extreme poverty and preventable disease. Karen currently serves on the board of directors for the Houston Coalition Against Hate.

She is the author of The Lightmaker's Manifesto and The Beauty of Different, and a contributor to Disquiet Time and Expressive Photography. Karen, her husband, and their daughter live in Houston, Texas.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• What losing her house in Hurricane Harvey taught Karen about receiving and asking for help
• How she learned to be a confident misfit
• Karen’s definition of an activist and two key factors for building the endurance to stay the course
• The benefits of letting yourself get angry, and how to use it as a tool

Learn more about Karen:

• Chookooloonks
• Instagram: @heychookooloonks
• Facebook: @chookooloonks
• The Lightmaker's Manifesto: How to Work for Change without Losing Your Joy
• The Beauty of Different: Observations of a Confident Misfit

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:



• Asha Dornfest
• *Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches*, Audre Lorde
• Valerie Kaur

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