Calm the Chaos: Laura London on Leadership, Focus, and Sustained High Performance

In this episode of Activating Greatness, Alec McChesney sits down with Laura London, Founder of Calocedrus and former McKinsey leader, to explore the critical shift from high achievement to sustained high performance. Laura breaks down why so many driven leaders operate from urgency and fear, how that impacts decision-making, culture, and burnout, and what it takes to lead with awareness, intentional pacing, and clarity. The conversation dives into nervous system regulation, protecting attention in an AI-driven world, and creating environments where both people and performance can thrive. If you are focused on building culture, strengthening trust, and leading with greater consistency and impact, this episode offers a powerful and practical leadership framework for today’s environment.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Hello, hello. It's Alec here, and I just wanted to pop in to say that I think you're gonna love this episode of Activating Greatness. I sit down with Lara London, the founder of Calasedris, and we really talk about what it takes to sustain high performance and why so many high achievers are actually underperforming, and how leaders can create environments where both people and performance thrive. I had a blast recording it, one of the most eye-opening and important episodes that we've recorded on the Activating Greatness show thus far, and I think you're gonna really, really love it.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Enjoy.

SPEAKER_03 0:43

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Activating Greatness, the show where we dig into what it really takes to lead with purpose, inspire performance, and create lasting impact. As always, I'm your host, Alec McChesney. And every episode, we sit down with the leaders, thinkers, and change makers who are unlocking potential in themselves, their teams, and their organizations. Here we talk about the real stuff: leadership that drives culture, strategy that creates momentum, and the mindset that turns good intentions into game-changing results. Because greatness isn't a title, it's a choice. It's something that you have to activate every single day. So thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for showing up and for being part of a community of leaders who refuse to settle for good enough. Now let's dive in and meet today's incredible guest. Today's guest, I am so excited to introduce Laura London, founder of Calisedris, where she coaches and advises high impact leaders and teams on how to move beyond productivity into sustained high performance. Lara brings more than 20 years of experience in leadership roles and consulting, including time at McKinsey and Company, where she worked with organizations navigating complex transformation through people. Today she is focused on a different approach to leadership, one that integrates nervous system awareness, nature-based experiences, and intentional pacing to help leaders perform at a high level without burnout. I even misread that part because the word burnout just popped up and it scared me a little bit. And through Lara's work, she challenges traditional definitions of performance and introduces a new model built around three key shifts from achievement to awareness, from pushing to pacing, and from striving to thriving. So, Lara, thank you so much for joining us today. I know we're going to get into this. I have been looking forward to this episode since we were first introduced to each other from Brooke Page Thompson. Uh, I want to get off and running, but before we do that, take the micro microphone away from me, introduce yourself, uh, and and maybe tell us a little bit more about your background for those who aren't familiar with Lara.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Yes, thank you. Um, and as luck would have it, my my printer, just as you were passing the baton to me, my printer decided to just wake up. Uh so I just I love it. Okay. So uh so yeah, so let me just say first, thank you for having me. You know, this is such an honor, such a privilege. And even just the the name of this podcast, Activating Greatness, is so incredible to me. You know, how often do we actually take the time to think about greatness, right? And what it means as humans to be great and how to activate it. And I am I'm just thrilled to be here and talking with you today. And this is the kind of stuff I geek out about, right? So, uh, what can I tell you about me aside from the wonderful introduction that you just laid out? So thank you for that. So, something I guess I would say about me is I've always been fascinated by people and the world of work, right? Like I know it sounds crazy, but I started working very young, and I was just like looking around, thinking, why do these adults spend so much time at work and why are they all so miserable? Like this was really one of the first thoughts I think that shaped me as a working person. And that's really what I've realized is kind of the purpose. My purpose for me is helping people to really be their best at work. Because I do believe if we're our best at work, that carries into our lives. So my career has taken a lot of twists and turns, and in the end, it's always been about that working with people to be at their best at work. I feel very fortunate that I was able to take all that experience and open my own leadership consulting and coaching firm. We also have a nature retreat, and so we get to, you know, do the work virtually, but also come together in nature where the real magic happens. And it's a mix of executive coaching, you know, group experiences, group coaching, team coaching, and also just advising, you know, just kind of bringing nature, nervous system, and regener regenerative leadership, which is really a topic that I wish more people knew about. And so we'll talk a lot about that today. So thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

No, thank you. I am I'm so excited and I want to abandon the outline already because you you said something there about your passion for work and your curiosity around work and how human nature has positioned work forever, right? Uh, you know, in in terms of the modern era of work, has always had a case of the Mondays and Sunday scaries and burnout and turnover and needing to get to the weekend, all of these things that we have made 100% the norm. And it's been a recurring theme on this podcast, and actually, since I joined uh Velocity, that I've heard a couple of these quotes of like, hey, work doesn't have to suck, right? Like, why are we actively accepting this? Why are we admitting that we're gonna spend 75% of our time at a location, remote hybrid, whatever it is, for our lifetime, and we're just okay with it being difficult. And uh, I think we're gonna go into a lot of that, but I just wanted to like let's just set the tone for the episode. And I'm gonna say it doesn't have to be that way. Um, you can love work and it doesn't have to be something that you hate on Sunday night. Uh, you can have a job, you can have a career, you can have anywhere in between, but it doesn't have to be this thing that you dread. Uh, anything that you want to add, Laura, that was just like off the cuff. I got excited. But any thought I love it.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

I love it. And building off of that, you know, if you had if you asked me, you know, why does it have to be like that? What is the one thing kind of underneath it that I see in myself and my work with clients? It's fear. It's like that because so many of us so often are driven by fear. And especially when it comes to something like work, which, you know, has is so tied to our notion of identity and power and being able to provide for ourselves and our family, right? It really kind of pulls at all of those strings that get at what make us human and what make us fearful to show up every day in our true greatness, using the words, you know, uh activating. Why is it so hard to activate that greatness? Because there's a lot of fear. And especially today in this world, like all of a sudden now, you know, there was already a lot of fear, and now we've dropped this little AI bomb on top of it. And the fear has gotten intensified now to a level where we as humans, we are not built for this, you know, that is the reality, and that's why I like to bring nervous system into leadership because we are not robots, we have a nervous system, and so the more I believe in the age of AI that we can honor our humanity and and actually instead of just kind of overriding our nervous system, embrace it, the more we can show up in our true greatness.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

Yeah. And I I love that you went to the fear element because I've been in that position before, and I know unbelievably talented and smart individuals who have been or maybe still are in that position where they're so darn good at their job. But because they're entering into the job through the fear funnel, let's call it, even though they love what they're doing on the Monday or the Wednesday, one message or one uh one thing going wrong instantaneously pulls them back up that, you know, you talk about the ladder of inference, all this different stuff. But it feels like fear is the easy backdrop to go back to. And you mentioned AI, but then you also talk about the the economic state of the world and forest fires and the war in Iran. And all of a sudden, we're not even talking about individual personal drama, uh, you know, that that individuals have as a whole human being, and it becomes really complicated to have this separation of self uh or understanding of what that self is. So yeah, oh man, ooh.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

I what I would go ahead, go ahead. We're we're so excited. Yeah, given all of that, I think we are at a time where the most important thing that we can do as leaders, because leaders have a responsibility and an opportunity, and I'm amazed how often we don't we don't talk about that. It is an opportunity and a responsibility to be a leader, hands down, and and once we start to look at that, we realize it becomes our duty to hold the complexity, right? We we we can't get rid of it, we can't control it, we can hold that complexity and really focus on showing up intentionally in a way that calms the chaos in the system that we are working with, right? More now, more than ever, we need to calm the system so that we can have better decisions, that we can have better results. It's not one or the other, right? The the whole, you know, I I spent a lot of time in Silicon Valley, moonshot thinking, you know, I was part of that, you know, move fast, break things culture, and it was fun and it was exciting, and it was also really dangerous. And I think that we're at a point now where we have to be a little bit more thoughtful in the approach. It's not okay to just run fast and break things anymore, right? You need to do it with a little bit more intention. We've moved beyond that point in time because the robots are coming, and there are a lot of questions, and so if we want to be a society that works truly with in partnership with robots, then we need to activate the greatness of humans, and that happens right by calm, intentional, good decisions, right? Collaboration, bringing out the best in humans, which when you just run fast and break things, and that's the only pace you have, that doesn't lead to sustained high performance, which is really what we need right now.

SPEAKER_03 12:48

Yeah, I love, you know, you hear the control what we can control, and if we can't control it, we've got to let it go. And, you know, all this, all these different sayings, but I love the the calm, the chaos internally in the bubble that we're within. So I want to I want to jump into that last uh last part of your answer there about performance versus uh a high achiever. And I love this topic from you where you talk about most high achievers are not yet high performers. And I think that that would catch people off guard. So, what's the difference in in in between a high performer versus a high achiever? And why do so many leaders get stuck in that achievement, achievement, achievement phase instead of evolving into true performance?

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Yeah, and I and I want to start by just saying that while a lot of um what I my my approach to leadership and a lot of what we've been talking about in some ways is, you know, um non-traditional, but it is heavily grounded in research, in addition to my lived experience. And so I'm gonna do my best as we're talking to bring in some of that because you know, this is not Laura London's thinking about the world, yeah, you know, while she sings kumbaya at her nature retreat. No. Right? This is this is really looking at the amazing thought leadership that we have to say, what is this moment calling for today? Right. And and I I want to also back up and say that this idea of the difference between high achievers and high performers really comes from my time at McKinsey. McKinse is a a very well-oiled machine. It's a it's a wonderful company in so many ways. And we lovingly referred to ourselves as the employees as the insecure overachievers. It was the term that we used because the type of people that that landed there, so many of us were just wired for achievement. And so when I think about the difference between a high achiever and a high performer, this was really based in the experience with thousands and thousands of both employees and leaders who I worked with, and myself. And so what's interesting is high achievers and high performers look very similar. We're smart, we're driven, we're capable, we're motivated, we're responsive, and we get results. The difference is the impact that we have on ourselves and the systems around us, right? And and the people around us. So high achievers, while they're getting results, they tend to also be burning themselves and the systems and people around them out. So you hear a lot about constant burnout, constant fatigue, chronic stress. These are all signs of someone who's a super high achiever. Right? That's the the negative that comes from this desire to achieve at all costs. On the flip side, we have the high performer. The high performer has all of that, but they kind of move beyond that. And the impact they have is that they operate with vitality, so their nervous system isn't chronically in a state of fight or flight and stress and constant activation, right? Their nervous system actually is able to revitalize and they show up in a state that is safe and social. And we can feel when we're around a high performer, they have the ability to make the team feel more grounded, feel more clear, right? It's that magic. All of a sudden, anything becomes possible. They're calmer, but they energize. And they have you know, they might speed shift, right? I'm not saying that they're just like passive, but they also, like we said, they have that ability to calm the chaos and get people to focus and collaborate so that they show up at their best. And I will, and for me, what really made this so clear, I love to use this example. Um, there's a leader, his name is Jim Scott, and he's now the CTO of Vainguard. And this was one of my earliest days working at McKinsey. And we had this huge team and this human project and this huge mandate. And he was only, he was a team leader, he wasn't even a partner yet, but he had the ability at that low level of power to come in and calm the chaos and help us as a team focus on what mattered so that we acted intentionally and we made awesome decisions and we laughed and we we worked hard, we worked all night, and it we felt energized. And it it I think still to this day, people from that team talk about him as a leader on that team because we felt it in our nervous systems. We didn't talk about it, but we felt it. We could feel the difference in the the greatness of him as a leader in this really complex, really hard environment. And he just had that ability. And I think you know, the funny part is after he left, the person who came in to take his role tried to grind us, and we revolted, like as a team, we all were like, and it was only because we had this great example of leadership that we were using to speak up against it, and we ended up getting him replaced because we were like, you know, once you feel that, once you feel a leader who can actually energize you and make you feel more vitality, you can't, you don't want to go back. And so I think you know, why it's so hard is because we don't have enough of these leaders, and and I think it's not that we don't have them, we don't recognize and reward them. And so they don't, people who might be naturally wired to act like that almost feel like they need to put a mask on. And so the more we can have more role models of that, the more we recognize it and reward it, the more we'll start to see people move into that type of a leadership mindset.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

So much, so much good there. And I love the breakdown between the two, but I I wanna I wanna shed a light on the aspect of this about the high achiever, because I'm holding a mirror up to myself right now as I as you described this and have made a couple of pit stops over the last decade and had a couple of moments of of burnout over the last decade. And each time, it typically came right after my best month or my best quarter. And it was like you're building, you're building, you're building, and then all of a sudden you get the the, you know, my example, the the sales quota, we hit goal or we win the big client or the project goes well, whatever it might be. And then all of a sudden, it's like, oh yeah, I'm gonna crash. And, you know, for me, that's you know, I'll get kidney stones, I'll threaten to move to Hawaii, I'll do any of the above, right? Like I'll quit my job on a Tuesday, I get a tattoo on a Tuesday. I'm working through a lot of those things, and I'm in a much better place now, Activating Greatness Podcast. But I, you know, I like to be vulnerable when this topic comes up. Brooke and I talk about it a lot on our Getting Unstuck series. But I think you said something high achievers look like high performers, and you feel it, and then you start to blame yourself or the system, right? That's where is it my fault or is this? Company doing something wrong? What's happening? How does this keep happening? I was in such a good place. I love it. And you end up in that shame spiral. And it's really hard to know how do you get out of it? Um and historically, what I've seen is you can't pull yourself out of that on your own. And it's also really hard to ask a company, hey, pull me out, right? And so I'm curious, you know, I'm gonna put you on the spot. Really bad podcast question here, but how do we pull ourselves out? Like, how do we recognize I am a high, I am a high achiever, but I want to get off the damn roller coaster. I want to be consistent. I wanna, I wanna have sustained performance, as you said.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Yeah, yeah. Thank you for that question. I think it's so honest and so um so real for so many people. Yeah. The the first step as humans, as adults, to any type of change is always awareness. And and that's why, you know, it's so funny. I have one client and she's amazing. I've been working with her for about a year now. She's the head of um talent for an energy company, she's got a big job, and she's a heart-led leader, she's a wonderful leader, and she is just stepping into this piece of moving from achievement to awareness. And she actually said to me the other day, she said, you know, I kind of feel like I'm an AA, but for people who are who are high achievers, and I think it's so such that captured so much of kind of how much, you know, how this just this achievement wiring for so many of us, it's like it's addictive and it feels good, and we feel powerful, and we're doing these things, and then we feel terrible and out of control, right? It leads to a feeling where we recognize, whoa, I feel out of control. For me personally, I felt like I felt the word I use when I look back to my McKinsey days uh was fragile. I didn't, I didn't really uh for a long time I didn't really trust myself, you know. I was moving too fast. I didn't have the, I wasn't creating space for the awareness so that I could trust myself. And the the person I want to bring in here is Otto Sharmer. And he is uh he's loved in the leadership community for so many reasons, but I also love how he ties to the regenerative leadership community because he talks about something called theory you and and really what he's saying is that the quality of our results as leaders come from our inner state, and so meaning right, if if we don't have awareness, and that's the beauty of what you're saying, Alec, that you felt that awareness, even if it was after the fact, you still felt that awareness, that woe, that came at a cost, right? That all of that productivity actually came at a cost, but that awareness that's when you start going down the U. Okay. What was the cost? So then you're creating space. What was the cost to me of that pace and that intensity? What was the cost to my team? What was the cost to the system within I'm working? Right. And then you start to say, what could be a better way? How could I show up a little more intentionally? Right. So you go down the U and then you come back up to say, thank you, body, thank you, mind, thank you for this awareness that I'm getting, even if it didn't happen in the moment, right? Thank you for this awareness so that I can choose to show up more intentionally and with more awareness next time. So we don't lose the achievement orientation. We go beyond it to say I'm not just a high achiever, I'm also a high performer. I'm someone who can act with awareness. I don't want to deplete myself and I don't want to deplete the system I work in.

SPEAKER_03 26:30

I need to let that, I need to let it sit for a minute because it, yes, it is like a full-on, it's a full-on mic drop, and I know we still have you know 15 minutes of other conversation that I want to get to. I don't know how it's already 1.37 Central time. Um, as we're gonna have to just we're gonna have to bring you back, Laura. We're gonna have to bring you back, we're gonna have to do this again. Um, because I know I think you said it, you you said it in terms of these are the conversations that leaders have a responsibility to be having right now, right? Like that this going back to your point about it being the a responsibility of leaders to lead as well. And I do want to I want to push us forward because I I'm tempted to pull us back into that commentary, and it will take us, we'll end up going the rest of the episode. And um there's been commentary on my LinkedIn a lot lately about this concept of attention. And attention as an advantage, uh, attention as a leadership advantage. We talk about shiny objects, and if everything's a priority, nothing's a priority. You've talked about on your LinkedIn how attention is not neutral. Uh, that we that what we focus on shapes how we think, how we lead, how we perform. And I'm curious, in your opinion, how should leaders be thinking about protecting their attention? And why do you view that as such a critical skill for leaders to be able to develop?

SPEAKER_00 28:10

When we start paying attention to our own nervous system, and that's what you just talked about, Alec, right? Like you did it, you did it, you did it. And then all of a sudden you were like, ah, your nervous system was said to you, nah-uh, no more, right? You need to stop, right? You are constant that your body, your inner wisdom was talking to you because that's what happens when we hit that burnout, right? And so once we start listening, we start to get amazing messages. And so attention is one of those things that if we focus on how things make us feel, we start to get really valuable cues about things that are good for our nervous system and things that dysregulate us. Right. So, even something like um, you know, I talked about LinkedIn personally for me. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I never uh a lot of people talk about social media and how it's so dysregulating for them for so many reasons. I think a lot of people don't realize um part of it is also that our nervous system when we when we start really focusing on um, you know, whether it be LinkedIn or whatever it is, it's always scanning. It's a we we enter a state of hyper-vigilance, right? And constantly scanning for what's next. Is there a comment? Is there a like? And that leads to very subtle, but uh very important to notice that we're getting constantly dysregulated. And so if we just start paying attention to the different things that grab our attention, right, grab us and distract us, maybe they speed us up a little bit, right? Once we start paying attention to that, we realize how easy it is for us to get pulled out of our zone of greatness. And so, you know, I that's why I love the name of this podcast, Activating Greatness. So if our if if if there is something that we do that takes us away from our greatness, we should be really thoughtful about it. Yeah, now LinkedIn, for me, there's I thought about it, there's a lot that actually contributes to what I believe is my greatness. And if left unchecked, it can actually really deplete me. So I had to take it off my phone. Having it as an app on my phone, not good for me or the system.

SPEAKER_03 30:44

Yeah. I uh I love LinkedIn. Everybody jokes that I have uh a LinkedIn problem and I make that joke most of all, and I do, but I when I joined Velocity in September, I deleted LinkedIn from my phone. And I use it on, I use it, I was gonna say 24-7, but I use it, you know, eight to five, seven to five, whatever the hour is. And I feel more confident in the platform. I know like what I am doing on it, and I'm not just like scrolling it at random times looking for something to, you know, uh uh put me in a different mood. And I I love this idea of, I mean, one self-awareness is, in my opinion, end all be all. Like the if you can't be self-aware about all of these things, it's gonna be really hard to have these conversations and to understand it. But even since you and I have talked the first time, and Brooke Paige Thompson and I, you know, we're always talking about how do you continue to evolve, and I am starting to like write down, okay, I was so clearly working on a project on this screen, and I got a damn Teams message on this screen, and all I had to do was look away. Like I have my do not disturb on for a reason. Yeah, but I saw the little thing pop up, and now I now I'm doing three things at once. And and then next thing you know, because I checked that one, I can check the email, and then it's 27 minutes later, and I didn't finish that task. And so sometimes I'll take a step back and say, okay, holy cow, that one Teams message that wasn't even that relevant, just derailed an hour and a half of when I thought I was in a peak mode to be successful.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

Paying attention to our attention is so important, and that's the awareness, right? It's like we don't get it wrong. It's the important thing is as we realize, wow, that just snowballed me into a totally unproductive state, right? It's it's the it's the paying attention and the the desire to constantly show up with more awareness, right? And that's and I think that's why so we hear about so many people moving to flip phones now, because it's just so easy to get distracted, you know, and the robots don't get distracted, you know. So we have to we have to also you know acknowledge there are these things that activate our greatness as humans and things that deactivate it, right? And so paying more attention to our attention, right, and what we're doing with our time and how we're showing up and the impact we have on the system and the people around us. This is the this is the work right now.

SPEAKER_03 33:30

Yeah, I I'm gonna give a promotion shout out to whatever app I bought. It's called Blank. Uh, this is not a paid ad, everybody. Uh, but I bought an app called Blank. It's $23 for life. It was like $17 for the year or $23 for life, and they absolutely hooked me. And for those who aren't watching the video, um it just blocks my phone. And it I only have the six apps that I'm allowed to utilize. And it's, you know, my messages, Outlook, Teams, and Safari in case I need it, and then I have photos so that way I can look at Maxine photos during the day. But if you try to go and you try to open Instagram, it instantly says, You need to go to this other app and you need to do a minute-long breathing exercise. You do the breathing exercise, and then it says, Do you still want to use the app? And I cannot tell you how many times I go through it and I'm like, No, I don't. I don't need to use it. You just you just debunked me right then, and I'm back. And at first I was super against it, and then I did it a couple times and I still went through and used the app. And I was like, that is like I am looking for any type of a dopamine hit. And as we talk about sustained performance, and you know, my word of the year in 2016 is just trying to be consistent or 2026 is just trying to be consistent, right? And I was just like, you know what, I'm gonna commit to this entirely. And my Instagram usage between the hour of eight o'clock and five o'clock is now zero. And and same with Reddit, same with you know, all the other social media channels, it's like, wow, I am able to think a lot better during the day. And if I do have a break, I listen to a podcast or I take a walk with nothing, and it's not scrolling and being, you know, uh embedded with negativity in one way or the the other.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

And what I what I love about that and what I hope from that is that helps you to build your muscle memory about what it feels like to spend more of your day regulated and in more of a flow state. And so the beauty of that is at some point you probably don't need the app at all because you start to say, wow, that felt like a great day. That felt good. And then when you when you go back, you say, that didn't feel so good, right? And so these are great, these different technology, you know, tools are really great to help us build new habits, but at the core, really our goal is to build trust in ourselves, yeah. Right? How do you start trusting yourself? And that comes from listening to your own internal wisdom, not overriding it, right? We for too long we've overridden our wisdom as humans, you know, just uh I don't feel good. And that meeting felt a little bit maybe uh abrasive, but wow, I'm just gonna keep going because I got five more meetings, and you know, I'm gonna roll and I'm gonna drink some more coffee because I gotta get through this. We got stuff to do. Just override, override, override, you know. And so the more that we stop doing that, the less we're gonna be even need these little hacks just to get back, to listen to wisdom.

SPEAKER_03 37:08

Uh okay, I love this. I got one more question before we get to the rapid fire. I I wanna I wanna comment on that uh really quickly. I told you before we went live uh that my daughter Maxine betrayed me this past weekend and gave me the flu. Uh, there's some rumors that maybe I got her sick and then she got me more sick. We'll we'll leave it up to uh the the judge to decide. But I had four podcasts on Monday that were scheduled. And I, I shit you not, Laura, I would have never canceled those. I would have like this is probably the first, maybe at the end of my last tenure, but the previous seven, eight years before that, no chance was I canceling those episodes with those types of guests that were lined up. Um and I was, I put my, I think I've put myself in a position to be able to do that. So I don't know, maybe I'm just patting myself on the back, but I'm also giving everybody else that's listening to this the permission to be able to do the same thing. Uh, you know, you have to listen, love the listen to yourself, listen to the wisdom that we have as individuals as well.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

Yeah, and you know, that that what comes to me as hearing you say that also is this notion of pacing and why pacing is so important, right? And so sometimes when I talk about um pacing, right, and pacing is another one of those concepts that are so clear from regenerative regenerative leadership, and when we tune into nature, right? Because nature has many speeds. The one constant maximum speed is just not how this world works. Yeah, and so when you think about what you just said, you know, maybe some people might hear that and say, wow, that sounds like you would have really burnt yourself out by the end of the day. But I I would say that pacing is a really individual thing, and if you feel that you could do four podcasts well in one day, giving enough of yourself and your energy, you know, if you feel that, then you should do that. Yeah, if you have any bit of hesitation, then maybe you space it out a little bit more. There are every leader knows what the pace is for them and their team. If you start building your awareness, right? So pacing does not mean going slower, right? Pacing means you you always try to operate with what's gonna be best for results and the system and the people within it. Always looking not to deplete, but to add. And so if that if those four felt good, then that's a day for sprinting. But how interesting that you have no choice but to accept. I have to accept where I am, and I can't even do one, let alone four. Is is is proving to be really helpful for a lot of these high impact leaders that I work with, where they can say, This is a sprint day, this is a hackathon, this is an ideation day, this is an all hands on deck, let's get it done day. And then at the end of that, I am gonna take it a little slower because I need to think about what we did. I need to integrate what I've learned, and I need to recharge so I can show up at my best.

SPEAKER_03 40:58

I just want to keep going. Um, you know, I want this conversation to continue on. I said I had one more question before we get to the rapid fire. Let's try to keep this one relatively short so I can still get you out of here uh at a reasonable hour, Laura. Leaders are listening to this. Some leaders are bought in, some leaders know that they need change, some leaders are still turned in the other direction fully. And you mentioned that you, this isn't just you playing kumbaya in the forest. However, a lot of the conversation that we have, it's gonna sound like Alec and Lara and Brooke are doing yoga in Costa Rica and having this conversation. From a practical standpoint, there are gonna be 30, 40% of leaders who say, yeah, I'm willing to take a step in the right direction, right? I'm willing to take a step for my team to help create an environment where people are allowed to thrive, performance is allowed to thrive, and it doesn't have to be at the expense of one or the other. Let's let's really break it down in the simplest terms. What is something? What is one, two, three small action items that a leader could take who's listening to this and try to implement it without it feeling like they're pulling teeth from themselves, they're managing up or managing down.

SPEAKER_00 42:25

Yeah. I think there's so much we can learn from regenerative leadership and systems thinking. And so I have like two things are really coming to mind. So, number one, if we stop asking the just simply the question, how do I drive performance? and then expand it a little bit to be what are the conditions that are gonna allow both performance and people to thrive and sustain? Right. So it's going beyond just performance to saying, how do I, as a leader, it's my responsibility, how do I create the conditions for both people and performance to thrive? And then I also really love the work of Danella Meadows. Um, she talks about these high impact moments for intervention. And what she says is it starts at the top with mindset and goals. Right. So, sure, um, you know, you know, poly having better policies, like you know, rethinking your feedback systems, rethinking what you reward, what you recognize. These are all great ways to make the system work in favor of regeneration instead of depletion.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:43

And it really starts with the mindset and the goals. So really thinking about when you look at your leadership team, how what is the mindset? Is the mindset just burn and churn? Or is the mindset help profits and people flourish. And then from that mindset, let's all get on the same page with the mindset and the purpose of this company and why we're here. And then let's think about how that aligns to the goals. So just really starting at top. And if you know, be if you can't do it within the leadership team of the company, just do it for yourself on your own side. Start by experimenting with yourself. What would it mean if you rethought your role as a leader, your mindset and the goals?

SPEAKER_03 44:39

And look at any top performer that has left the organization and maybe think it through. Think it through. If as you're listening to this, I think that as you ask some of those questions about mindset, and then you look at that chief information officer or the CTO or the CFO that left earlier than you would have thought, you could probably start to connect some dots. Um, and and there there could be a pathway there for this. Laura, this is this has been brilliant. I still have to, I have to go rapid fire. Four questions. You get 30 seconds for each answer. Number one, what is one leadership habit that you rely on every day, no matter what?

SPEAKER_00 45:25

Oh, that's easy. Uh, for me, it's forest therapy and mindfulness. So every day I focus on connecting to the natural world using all five senses. This is a practice that um very quickly starts to ground you and regulate your nervous system and build resilience. It I like to joke that it is the gateway drug, especially for high achievers, to meditation. Very, very hard for high achievers wired for speed and impact. But just dropping into the natural world can help us to slow, to slow it down, gain some awareness, and start to move towards that next step.

SPEAKER_03 46:11

Whew, I love it. All right, and also the first person uh 25 episodes in to have that answer. So I I that's that's I knew I knew that would happen, and I'm so excited about it. Question number two What's the most underrated skill that a leader needs in order to be successful today?

SPEAKER_00 46:30

Yeah, I would I'm gonna go with systems thinking, which is probably not surprising, but uh really the the notion of interdependence and thinking beyond ourselves, beyond our team, beyond our company, beyond our community, to really thinking how is this in service of the betterment of our planet? I think it's so important that we think bigger than and with a mindset that really um connects us rather than dividing us.

SPEAKER_03 47:01

Yes, yes. Uh we all need more of that. On the flip side, for question number three what is one thing that you believe great leaders should stop doing?

SPEAKER_00 47:14

Um overriding their nervous system. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:21

Tell me more. Tell me, just tell me a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 47:23

Going back to what we said, you know, earlier, you know, stop just pushing and forcing, listen to that inner wisdom, you know, really start tuning in and going back to Otto Sharmer, right? The theory you, you know, the more that you can listen and understand what's going on inside of you, the better your results will be.

SPEAKER_03 47:45

Yeah. And I mentioned this before we went live today and started recording, but I told you that I have just said, you know what, I'm gonna be 100% honest about everything that I'm experiencing. If I have to like adjust a meeting because of Max, or if I am taking a meeting from the car walking, like I am just saying, hey guys, this is literally what's happening. This is where I'm at. Do you want to adjust? Do you not? And the response has been unbelievable. Everybody has been so kind, offering grace, asking for grace in return, and vice versa. And I think that goes to uh exactly that answer there for what we should stop doing. So I love that.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

Like, and Alec, I love that you shared it because it's such a great example of a really simple experiment that we can set for ourselves and just try it out. How does it feel? And what you're saying is it actually feels pretty good, you know. Wow, people as I do it, people are kind of opening up and and and showing their humanity, right? And so these little things, like our body gives us really great ideas, and it doesn't mean we have to just like dive in, right? The way that we learn and grow is like, okay, that's interesting. Let me make a small tweak. Let me try to show up a little bit differently and try it out and see how it feels, because then our nervous system can kind of fuse that together and create a new way of showing up.

SPEAKER_03 49:14

Yeah. Only went long on that one because of me. So no, no uh red card there. Question number four, last one. What's the best leadership advice that you've ever received?

SPEAKER_00 49:26

Yeah, it's like an oldie but a goody. I love, I always loved Simon Senex's start with why. You know, I think it's such a good one. I think it really just hits at the importance of purpose and getting really clear about why do we even show up at work? And also remembering, though, that it's it's not just why do we show what is why do we show up as work, but you know, why do we show up the way we do in life, right? Because this is gonna sound a little woo-woo, but I love it because it's just so true. We're we're human beings, we're not human doings, you know, we're not just here to do. And so when we think about the why, it also kind of reminds us about our humanity, right? What why what am I here to be? I think that's really one of those big questions.

SPEAKER_03 50:17

25 episodes in, you are the first person to go through all four questions without repeating an answer there on the rapid fire leadership round questions, which I I don't have a prize for that, but I will I will find one uh and I will I will ship it to you.

SPEAKER_00 50:38

Um I will say I do I do because integrity is a big value of mine.

SPEAKER_03 50:42

I do feel like I dipped a little into previous answers, but I will take a win if they're getting the way that you the way you answered it maybe had a had an angle towards what someone else was, but it was in your own way. Um and I loved it. Uh the last question is who do we interview next, Laura? We we love you know hearing from our guests and what make this show so great is the network that we are building. So who is somebody that is doing great work that the activating greatness audience can learn from?

SPEAKER_00 51:18

Michael Laurie, who is now the chief catalyst at Bayer, is doing some of the most incredible work uh out there. Um, he's actually gonna come and speak to my HR executive accelerator, and we're so excited to talk to him about this because um he, so I met him at McKinsey, and he was the agile leadership guy. And he has spun this into what Bayer is calling DSO dynamic shared ownership. And they are uh business unit by business unit, transforming the way that Bayer operates by really um helping people to be their best at work, helping people and teams thrive, giving they're they're reducing the hierarchy. Um, they are supporting people, right? They're giving them the coaching and the collaboration that they need to support, and they're using tools like AI and all this great stuff in a in a way that feels safe. And the profits of the company as a result of this work are really the the proof is in the pudding, right? Yeah, and and it's uh it's remarkable work.

SPEAKER_03 52:36

Yeah. I I love it. I am super intrigued. And I uh I always clip this video and end up sending it to the the next guest. So I will I will absolutely do that. Uh, and we'll try to get Michael on the show. Laura, any anything you want to end with? I'm gonna give you the microphone for the whoop watch doesn't have time on it, but I'm gonna say 47 seconds. Uh 47 seconds, anything that you want to sign off with before we get you out of here?

SPEAKER_00 53:03

Yeah, I I think the only thing that's that I feel that I haven't really spoken about is is really the importance of nature to help with that nervous system regulation, especially when the more we live in this artificial world, how do we get into the natural world? I just can't overestimate, right? And that could look different for everybody, but it could be as simple as when next time you go for a walk, take your podcast off for five minutes. Just spend five minutes just looking around, using your senses. What do I see? What do I hear? What do I smell? And just know you're not wasting time. You are building resilience, you are you are building your capacity to show up in service of others and the world. This is not wasted time. And so I like to think that, you know, time in nature is the best form of habit stacking, right? Just you're already doing what you're doing. Stack a little bit of nature's wisdom into it because that is again how we activate our greatness as humans. And if you want to come do it with me in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, come to our nature retreat where we do these things, we do mountain washings, it's lots of fun. And I really appreciate you having me. And I hope that if nothing else, people will at least get out there and have some content-free time in nature.

SPEAKER_03 54:30

After listening to this episode, of course, we want you to have listen. Yeah, now you turn it off and go get your 10 minutes, go get your hour. Um, Laura, it was it was just five minutes and then see how you feel.

SPEAKER_00 54:45

Just five minutes.

SPEAKER_03 54:47

I do love that you said it's not wasting time because there are times where I uh I beat myself up for not having like the podcast or the audiobook, or like even sometimes if I like play music, I'm like, really? Like you need you need music and not uh audiobook to continue learning. So I love I love that you said that. And I think so much of this comes back to the very first answer, which is fear and the pressure that we put on ourselves. And I hope that everybody listening to this maybe can take a little bit of ownership of maybe we're putting the pressure on ourselves, and we can also be the one to start to relieve that pressure and find ways to calm the chaos and you know be able to reset the nervous system, reset our ourselves as as human beings. So I just want to say thank you one more time. Uh, I'm absolutely gonna take you up on a 2027 episode, uh, you know, maybe end of year, because I think you and I could talk about this for hours on end. If you did listen to this episode, by the way, I know you thought it was awesome. Go connect with Laura on LinkedIn. Uh, she's fantastic, always posting great content. I'm sure she would love to hear that you came from the Activating Greatness podcast. And then make sure you leave it uh a five-star review. I am the the host and I uh make all the rules, but I still have to prove that this works. Um, and so your listening, your downloads, your commentary is what has made this network go from 20 episodes was the goal in 2026, and now our goal is closer to 100 in 2026. We release every Monday, every Thursday, wherever you get your podcast. And the only reason we're able to do that is the wonderful guests like Laura and the unbelievable network of leaders who want to continue to activate greatness and who refuse to settle for good enough. So, thank you, Bara, one last time, and thank you, everybody, for listening to another episode of the show. And we'll see you next week.