The Inner Work of Leadership: Cultivating Self-Awareness for Outer Impact -38

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Marli Williams [: 00:00:00

Hey, everybody. What is happening? Welcome back to the Marli Williams podcast, where today we get to hang out with the amazing Adair Cates, who is a absolutely phenomenal facilitator, leadership trainer, and really helps people struggle less and prosper more. We dive deep into a conversation around self leadership and how to regulate your nervous system so that you can show up as the most purposeful, powerful version of yourself in every area of your life. So I invite you to tune in to this amazing conversation. Grab your journal. Grab your pen. Take some time to really sink your teeth into this podcast episode. There's so many golden nuggets and so many opportunities for you to do the work to support you on your leadership journey.

Marli Williams [: 00:00:59

Alright. Let's go for it. Let's dive in. Hey, everyone. What's happening? I am super stoked to welcome you to the Marli Williams podcast where we will explore authentic leadership, transformational facilitation, and how to create epic experiences for your audiences every single time. I am your host, Marli Williams, bringing you you thought provoking insights, expert interviews, and actionable strategies to unlock your potential as a leader, facilitator, and speaker. Thank you for joining me on this journey of growth, transformation, and impact. Let's lead together.

Marli Williams [: 00:01:40

The Marli Williams podcast begins now. Let's dive in. I'd love to welcome you back to the Marli Williams podcast where this week, I'm hanging out with Adair Cates, who is a phenomenal facilitator of transformation. She is a mentor, a coach, and a guide for women helping I love this her mission statement that she shared with me, which was helping people struggle less and prosper more. I am here for that. Adair, welcome to the podcast. It's so great to have you.

Adair Cates [: 00:02:19

Thanks for having me. It's wonderful to be here. I'm really excited about whatever's gonna emerge right now.

Marli Williams [: 00:02:24

I know. I'm here for it. So I met Adair through an amazing training that I'm in called exchange, where we geek out so hard. People out there listening, they know that I love epic facilitation, and this is, like, where I learn a lot of my tools, my training, my skills. I'm always wanting to elevate my game and elevate my capacity to serve, and I attended a training all about this idea of conscious leadership where Adair was guiding us through a lot of practices around what does it mean to do the inner work of leadership and how we show up. So, Adair, I'd love to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself to this crew and just say a little bit about what you are up to in the world, your work in the world, and what is lighting you up the most right now about that work.

Adair Cates [: 00:03:20

What an awesome question and an invitation. So thank you so much for that. I think the first thing I wanna share is I was in leadership have been in the leadership development space for many years. I started out as an educator, and as soon as I got into the adult learning inside of a college, I was like, oh, this is really fun helping people who are I was in middle school and high school before. So helping people that, like, really wanted to be in my classes, and I was a career adviser, as part of my role. And so that really set the tone for this idea of, like, supporting people and being deliberate about the future they were plotting for themselves, and I loved holding space in those conversations. And around the same time, I got really into personal development and self help, and I read the secret like a lot of people did. That was the gateway for me and just opened me up to a a lot of things from there in my own personal development.

Adair Cates [: 00:04:17

And after reflecting on, like, how can I bring these two worlds of, like, supporting people in their future and this idea of personal development together, I realized, like, oh, there's a whole career leadership development, learning and development inside of organizations? So I pursued that path around 10 years and did all this internal inside of companies as a leadership development consultant in companies from 50 employees to 50,000 employees, so varying types of enterprises. And as I reflect back on that, I realized the journey that I led them on was very cognitive. It was very based on learn this new thing because our culture is all about we gotta stuff our brains and our heads with more knowledge. Knowledge is power, and I don't think that it isn't power. I just think that we've cut ourselves off at the head in a lot of ways. And I realize now looking back, I don't think I realized that it it at the time that it was such a cognitive journey. It didn't actually create true transformation. And I know you're all about experiential learning and Oh, yeah.

Adair Cates [: 00:05:24

Taking people into the woods to learn from nature and all of these things. And I happened to come across Exchange about 5 years ago in 2019 when it was still an in person training, and I did that and it just opened my eyes up to, oh, I don't really need to teach people more stuff. I just need to help them reflect and connect to each other. And that was a huge transformation in my career and has ultimately led me to having a gift of being able to guide and hold space using the exchange approach and leading people to the inner work of what does it mean to lead yourself? Because from I just think that's where everything starts. It starts inside of us, not in our heads. In our whole bodys', In our nervous systems', In our hearts.

Adair Cates [: 00:06:16

and how can we be an embodied leader, not just say the right things or know how to show up and lead a meeting, but, like, how can I actually be? What is my embodied essence as a leader? So this conscious leadership work is really focused on presencing practices. So breath and mindfulness and self inquiry as tools to just lead us to the truest, highest, and most authentic versions of ourself.

Marli Williams [: 00:06:51

I love that so much. You know, one of my little phrases when I'm training other facilitators is information without integration isn't enough. Yeah. If we're not applying these principles and learning, and it's not just about more knowledge and more information. It's about the integration of that. Yeah. And like you said, this idea of what is it feel like to be embodied, meaning to be fully present and to know that your energy impacts everything that people are feeling and doing around you. It's not just what you do.

Marli Williams [: 00:07:27

It's not just what you say. It's how you're showing up, and it's who you're being. And that inner work of that self inquiry and that self awareness of do I understand the impact that my energy has on the people I'm serving, on my clients, on my colleagues, on my friends, on my partner, on my family, on my kiddos. Energy is everything, and it's contagious. And so this idea of the diving into what does it mean to do that inner work of leadership? And that's what I really appreciated about the conscious leadership training is essentially these tools and these techniques in order to not just gather more information, but to notice our essence, our presence, our energy, and how when we are tuned into that. Mhmm. We are so much more powerful and effective and at what we wanna say, at what we wanna accomplish. Mhmm.

Marli Williams [: 00:08:29

And I think it's somewhat I'm an Aries. I'm a 7. I'm a fire you know, fire sign. I'm just like, let's freaking go. Right? Like, let's do something. And this the power of slowing down and grounding that energy makes that energy more palpable and powerful. Instead of just going over the top of people, I can let that land in a deeper way. And I've had to kinda like, it's not hone my energy, but I think ground my energy so that it can have a bigger impact ultimately.

Marli Williams [: 00:09:02

So I would love to hear more from you about this idea for you about your journey of coming to this inner work. Right? So going from this, like, cognitive approach to leadership training and what self leadership looks like, what it sounds like, what it feels like. And one of the things I love about this podcast is ideally people listen to it, and then they can actually, again, take something tangible Yeah. And implement this today, right now in their lives, whether you're leading your family, whether you're leading a team of 5 people or 50 people, or like you said, 50,000 people, that these are all practices and principles that we all have access to.

Adair Cates [: 00:09:48

Mhmm.

Marli Williams [: 00:09:48

And that's the thing about a lot of these things. The breath work, the meditation, the mindfulness, it's free, essentially. And we can do it anytime, anywhere. And so, yeah, I wanna dive in deeper. Let's geek out.

Adair Cates [: 00:10:03

Yeah. Well, I think the beginning of your question was, like, how did I arrive here? Like, what was kind of the bridge between okay. I love learning. I'm a human design. I'm a one, so I'm a deep researcher, deep learner, and teach like, I love all of that. And the turning point for me, I only see it now in retrospect, was life hitting me in the face with a lot of really hard things and realizing that all this information wasn't gonna do anything to help me cope or to help me thrive in some really challenging times. So I mentioned I was in the exchange facilitation training in 2019. Well, then the pandemic happened

Marli Williams [: 00:10:52

Mhmm.

Adair Cates [: 00:10:52

And my whole business was in person, and I shifted it to be an online business, which was stressful in and of itself. At the same time, I have twin daughters who at the time were in kindergarten, so they were doing Zoom kindergarten. And my husband and I were going through a separation, And so I semi moved out. I had my own space, but I we did it. I was with them a lot still. It's just I kinda left during the day mostly so I can have a quiet place to work because 2 kindergarteners on Zoom during that time was a little crazy. It was really hard to walk through that divorce and deliberately make that decision to consciously uncouple, and I felt like we're awake, we're aware, we're doing this. You know, I felt like we were pretty grounded in in the whole experience, and our divorce got finalized at the end of December of 2020, and then I officially found my own place that was bigger to where we could actually start to have the separate the kids, you know, have the kids 50/50.

Adair Cates [: 00:11:51

And started that train down the track, moved into my new place, started the train down the track, and then very tragically and very unexpectedly, my ex husband passed away. Everything got turned upside down. I became a single mom. I was the sole parent, nurturer, and provider of my children from then on, and it just started a whole whirlwind of changes in my life. And it was then when I took all the things off the shelf and said, I have been very committed to morning practice for 15 years, meditating, journaling, gratitude, all of those things. Right around the time Chris passed away, I had just started getting into breath work as a daily practice. So I had to put these things to practice when I was really in survival mode. And I saw how much they transformed me even though I still had a lot of struggle.

Adair Cates [: 00:12:48

I struggled less because of the way that my ex partner passed away. It was important for me not to use any sort of prescription drugs. So I had to rely on the medicine of my body, and that's how I learned the power of my nervous system. Now let me tell you, my mind wanted to say, oh, this breath crap, that's a bunch of bullshit. That doesn't work. That Yeah. Your breath can't change anything. Like

Marli Williams [: 00:13:14

There's no way.

Adair Cates [: 00:13:15

I had all of that come up. Like, I was skeptical. I had an inner critic. I don't want you to think I'm just this zen person. I no. I am, like, in survival mode kind of grasping for things that would just help me feel a little bit better. I was just looking for neutral. I was just trying to get to neutral out of fight or flight.

Adair Cates [: 00:13:36

I now know that you can look at your HRV, heart rate variability, which is your body's marker of stress, is your HRV. I went back and looked at my HRV during that time. It was extremely low. And ever since then, I literally can look on my Apple phone at the health app and watch my HRV has gotten significantly higher as I've really committed more and more to these practices.

Marli Williams [: 00:14:07

Wow.

Adair Cates [: 00:14:08

So I know that those practices help me get through, and so my commitment is to help people get through the hard times because they're not going anywhere. I mean, in a lot of ways, the world is more complicated, more confusing, and more chaotic than it ever has been, and most people are walking around with dysregulated nervous systems. And so when we are dysregulated, anything in life is gonna be hard for us to manage. Just getting through the day can be hard to manage. But one life crisis, one hard thing, and, like, it breaks people.

Marli Williams [: 00:14:50

Yeah. But we don't have the capacity to meet the moment and to handle those things. And you said so many great things that I think are important to emphasize, which is you have had this morning practice

Adair Cates [: 00:15:05

Mhmm.

Marli Williams [: 00:15:05

For 15 years even before this happened. And so I think sometimes kind of we wait until

Adair Cates [: 00:15:12

Exactly.

Marli Williams [: 00:15:13

Life life's us Yeah. Where shit hits the fan. And then we're like, now I'm gonna go to a sound bath. Or, like, now I'm gonna go to this breath work thing when your nervous system is totally out of whack. And so the importance of doing these practices, not when those things happen. Yes. But incorporating those into your life on the regular, knowing that life will life us and unexpected things will happen, challenges. You know? And I think that you're right.

Marli Williams [: 00:15:45

The world is more confusing and complicated than it ever has before has been. And so how do we meet the moment of our life and the meet the moment of the world and doing that inner work, it might not be like reading more and more books and getting more information. It's how do I learn to regulate my nervous system so that I can respond to my life rather than be in reaction mode, which I think is like 95% of people, 95% of the time, we're all just regulated nervous systems running around. You know, we're little kids in grown up bodies, and we're all freaking out on the inside, but we're all pretending to be okay on the outside. Yeah. And really nobody is feeling many people are not okay. And I love this mission statement around, like, this desire to help people struggle less and prosper more and not to you said not to avoid the hard things, but how do I be in the hard, and how do I show up when life happens, essentially? Because life is always happening, whether it's a tough conversation, a tough meeting, health, death, family issues, relationship challenges, work I mean, it's like on a daily basis, people have stresses thrown their way constantly. And I think that that's the work of that self leadership of how am I showing up for me so that I can show up for my kids, my friends, my family, my work, my mission in the world, and what does it actually look like on a daily basis and finding the tools that work for you.

Marli Williams [: 00:17:27

And I think that that could be overwhelming again with information. There's hundreds of different apps, and there's there's there's meditation, and there's breath work, and there's heart math, and, like so it's almost like that can be overwhelming.

Adair Cates [: 00:17:42

Yeah. So you want me to tell you where I recommend starting?

Marli Williams [: 00:17:45

Yes. Help the people. Where do we start?

Adair Cates [: 00:17:49

I'm gonna say this really simply, and then I wanna kinda riff a little bit on different types of practices. Where you start is in the morning, you get up 10 minutes earlier, and you can just sit without your phone, without anything. Just sit. That's it. You don't have to do anything else. Most people wake up. They go straight to their phone. They go into the routine, and so the mind body connection of this is my life and this is how this goes starts just going.

Adair Cates [: 00:18:25

And for a lot of people, they're dissatisfied, but they're unwilling to also sit for 10 minutes without their phone alone, without a distraction. I mean, just do 5 minutes. Just any space. I'm inviting space and pause. You don't have to get the breath work app to breathe. Just sit for 5 minutes and notice what you notice. I call it doing the me search. Don't take my word for on any of this.

Adair Cates [: 00:18:55

If this is of interest to you, go try it on and then do the me search. Oh, I like this. This works sitting for 5 minutes. Oh, that felt really nice, actually. I might do that again tomorrow. Okay. Well, now maybe you journal your gratitude. Oh, that was really good.

Adair Cates [: 00:19:13

I'm starting to notice there is no quick fix here. We are on a journey, and what I'm talking about right now is what I would consider a proactive practice. So we are proactively like you said, I did this morning practice for 10 years, and it prepared me for the depth of grief and pain and suffering that I was gonna be in for a couple years. If I had not gifted myself the space and the time to build that inner well, then I I don't know how I would have gotten I don't know how I've gotten through it, you know? So that proactive practice, what are you doing right now no matter what your life looks like to just sit with yourself? I love the mornings. I'm a big miracle morning fan, and the morning to me sets the tone for the day and can just be a wonderful way to start that intentional pausing. And then there's a reactive practice. So proactive is everything we do to try to kind of build the well. Right? Right now, I'm just saying sit, but if you like to journal, if you already meditate, if you like to do breath work, guided visualization, whatever works for you.

Adair Cates [: 00:20:24

And then there's a reactive practice, which is right now, my kid is throwing a tantrum in the middle of target, and I want to respond instead of react. And in that moment, learning how to pause is what we talk about in unconscious leadership training is the pause and the notice. Oh, I can usually feel it somewhere in my body. The temperature's rising. I want to just yell to make it stop. That's what I wanna do, is I wanna make it stop or I'm gonna run away or I'm gonna you know, whatever I can do to make it something other than it is. And instead, if I pause and offer a little space and take a breath, oxygenate my my body, my brain, then I can choose a response instead of being unconscious. And a lot of times, just the pause will change how you respond.

Marli Williams [: 00:21:25

Yeah. Slowing down.

Adair Cates [: 00:21:27

Slowing down. The really funny thing is I believe we're all born into a body that is a soul, and we all have a soul journey that we're on or that was written in a lot of ways before we ever got here. Well, in my soul journey, this lesson of slowing down was a prevalent. It's just been prevalent my whole life. My mom as a when I was a kid, I think the thing she said to me the most as a kid was slow down. And given how I like to learn through experience,

Adair Cates [: 00:21:57

I had to do a lot of running around like a chicken with my head cut off and just all over the place to come to my own conclusion that, oh, things actually work better when I pause, slow down, and I'm able to, in the moment, choose a different response instead of staying unconscious.

Marli Williams [: 00:22:17

Yeah. Yeah. Those are both such beautiful practices that are so simple, this idea of just sit. You don't even have to use the word meditate, right? Just sit without your phone for 5 minutes when you wake up. And this idea of setting your tone for the day as this proactive practice, I'm curious because you work with a lot of successful driven women who are like I'm sure they're go getters. They're like achievers. Like, again, I'm like, I wanna do all the things. What do you think is the biggest thing that gets in people's way when it comes to doing either of those two things that you hear, that you notice, that you see because you could be listening to this podcast.

Marli Williams [: 00:22:58

You're like, that sounds great. How many of you are actually going to do it? Mhmm. And what would stop you from doing it? But I'm curious what you have heard or seen or noticed. Even as simple as these things are, why don't we do them?

Adair Cates [: 00:23:11

Yeah. It's a belief structure. We've been conditioned to believe that we achieve and we're enough when we do stuff, When we get the a's, when we sit in our class and we finish our worksheet, we got conditioned this way. It's not our fault, but it is our responsibility to wake up and realize we are in a place right now that is so inundated with information, opportunities, notifications, things that can pull our attention. And we think because we've been conditioned that we have to, like, do stuff about all of it, which is really hard this day and age because we have more coming at us just from our phones than we ever have in our whole life experience as human beings. And so learning how to stop and discern and direct our attention instead of, oh, I gotta be busy. I gotta get all these things done. I gotta accomplish to be something.

Adair Cates [: 00:24:14

I've gotta make it happen. That is in our belief system. So we have to either, a, be in enough pain, like I was to realize something's gotta give. I've gotta pull the practices off the shelf and I have to amplify my ability to practice right now. So pain is a wonderful thing because it moves people. I don't want anybody that's listening to this to have to experience pain. Like, I don't want that for anybody except for what the outcome of it can be. The outcome can be it can be a massive life transformer.

Adair Cates [: 00:24:52

Think of someone who gets a diagnosis and that opportunity that you're being given to really transform your health when that happens. So pain is one way to get our attention. Hearing something like this podcast is the subtle whisper before the yell that comes to get your attention. And then if you can sit quietly with yourself and just be and notice what's present, you have a deep wisdom inside of you that's yearning for your attention, and it will help you and guide you and tell you pretty much if you want it to and if you're willing to listen everything that you need to know. That's why I always say, don't listen to me. I'm here to give you some life experience and some tools that are science backed tools. Like, everything I'm talking about is based on neuroscience and the nervous system and how all of those things work. I'm not claiming to know all the specifics, but even just knowing the basics of things like breath and how slowing down our breath and oxygenating our our body helps us to think more clearly.

Adair Cates [: 00:25:59

When we can start to see 1, when we have a challenge, no matter how big or small, I now have a reframe for every challenge or hard thing. This is a call to practice. This is my call to practice. Oh, this thing's happening. This is my call to practice. It's time to pause. Time to pause.

Marli Williams [: 00:26:18

I appreciate you sharing that. What drives people to take a new and different action if we're so used to the reactivity of our life and the phones and this default mode that we're all in. The default mode with the distractions. And it's so noisy.

Adair Cates [: 00:26:36

So noisy.

Marli Williams [: 00:26:37

One thing that I think about is how I think people are scared to slow down because of what they're gonna see or feel. They are. Like, because they're gonna like, they're sometimes that I think going that fast, taking action, or just reacting helps us to almost, like, kind of override or avoid

Adair Cates [: 00:26:58

the coping strategy, how we feel.

Marli Williams [: 00:27:01

We become numb to our life, and it's like, well, what if I slow down and I realize I'm in the wrong relationship? Or what if I slow down and I realize I wanna change careers? Like, it's like I'm on this train that's going so fast, and I'm so terrified about slowing it down because of what I'm going to see or feel or hear. And I want it for anyone out there who's has had that thought, like, I don't wanna know what's there. Like, to know that you're knowing your intuition, it's always gonna be there. And, again, it's gonna speak to us in a whisper, or it's gonna speak to us in a roar.

Adair Cates [: 00:27:38

Yeah. How do you wanna hear it?

Marli Williams [: 00:27:40

And can we give ourself that gift of doing something different? And James Clear wrote a great book called Atomic Habits. And what I love about what you're saying is, like, we have to shift our belief system about these practices and about this inner work, whether you're doing it for yourself or, again, for your family, for your friends, like, for everybody around you. But he says, we can't do who we aren't, and this idea of our identity and how we see ourselves, like, I am someone who he's like, if you wanna be a runner, call yours like, I am a runner, and a runner is someone who runs. I am someone who wakes up and doesn't look at my phone for the first 10 minutes of the day, or I am someone who starts my day on purpose instead of going into reaction mode. It's like, what do I have to start to believe about who I am to help take a new and different action. And, you know, he also has this whole philosophy of the book is this idea of habit stacking, of what do you already do right when you wake up. Is it brushing your teeth? Okay. Right after I brush my teeth, I'm gonna sit for this and start with 2 minutes.

Marli Williams [: 00:28:53

I don't care. You know?

Adair Cates [: 00:28:54

Yeah. Any pause is good.

Marli Williams [: 00:28:56

You know? And he talks about these, like, mini, mini habits, and can we build this muscle of success? And so often, I think sometimes, like, people are like, I don't have 90 minutes to do the morning miracle practice or whatever, But we all have 2 minutes. We all have 5 minutes. And there's a quote that says if we don't have if you don't have 20 minutes to meditate every day, you should meditate for 2 hours or something like that. It's kinda like

Adair Cates [: 00:29:21

Yeah. Totally.

Marli Williams [: 00:29:22

Don't have time, it means you need it. And rewiring this belief system again, I was taught this. The more productive I am, the more that I accomplish in a day, the more valuable I am. So it's also feeling worthy and valuable just being and knowing that that is the greatest gift that you could give yourself and the people around you. Is when you choose you, others get the best of you.

Adair Cates [: 00:29:49

Yeah. It's so true. It's so profound. I was having a conversation with a really good friend of mine this morning, and someone of significance to her and also to my partner, John, passed away very suddenly. It really took me back to a lot of the experiences I had after losing Chris, my ex husband. And the friend said, you know, I haven't been around him in many years, but what I can really remember about him is his essence. And I reflected on that. I'm like, oh, yeah.

Adair Cates [: 00:30:18

Like, remembering the comments that people said about Chris after he passed away, my ex husband. I mean, I still have, like, some comment threads and stuff because I wanted to keep them for our girls of, like, how people remember him. And it is people remember our essence. They don't remember all the shit we get done. They don't remember the to do list. They remember our giving heart or, you know, so many people said about Chris, like, he was such a good listener. You remember essence. You remember being, which that tells me that that is who we are.

Adair Cates [: 00:30:53

That is our soul. We have a body. We live in this 3 d world. We have to do things. We do. We have to because that's part of the contract that we have in being on planet Earth. We're in a body, so we have to do. And if we can remember, our being comes first and nurturing that being and that essence is truly what actually gives us the energy to then do the things that we either have to do because life calls us to do certain things or that we choose to do because we, you know, have a calling towards service or showing up for our family or whatever it is.

Adair Cates [: 00:31:35

But starting with essence and you can't have essence if we're pulled in a 1000000 directions and we're using our notifications on our phone as our compass for what we need to do. Your compass is your heart. Your compass is inside of you. It's not on your calendar as easy as that seems like it would be. And I hear you. People are scared to look inside. I understand that. And I will also say it doesn't matter because hardship is still gonna happen to you because it's life.

Adair Cates [: 00:32:08

We all have a different soul curriculum, soul journey we're on, and everybody's life is gonna look different, but we all are gonna have hard things. And so if I choose to pause and hold myself and don't do it alone. Have a loving community. Have a a friend that you can really be with and go deep with and talk about all these things. Like, don't do we're not meant to do this alone. We're meant to do this in community.

Marli Williams [: 00:32:34

Yeah. I think what you're saying is so important around it's like, how do you wanna be remembered? Isn't about all the your accolades or accomplishments or that you checked all the things off the to do list. It's how you showed up. It's how you showed up for your friends and your family and your colleagues and the people that you serve in your community. It's like, who you are. It's like, I always say, who you what do you want people to say about you behind your back?

Adair Cates [: 00:32:57

Mhmm.

Marli Williams [: 00:32:58

And I've done a guided visualization for people that is, like, kind of where they get to witness their own funeral. Essentially, the end of their life and looking back and, like, what are all of the things that people have said about you and your your journey, your time here on earth, and, like, how do you wanna be remembered? And so, you know, some remembering that. Like, remembering, like, I wanna show up on purpose with intention, with a level of thoughtfulness. I want my actions to come from my heart. And, like, again, letting that your heart be the compass, not the notifications, and not the to do list, and all these things that are constantly coming at us. And so, you know, I think that this is a call to your essence call to yourself. Like, I love this, like, a call to practice and see it as a practice. Like, these aren't just things that we do once.

Marli Williams [: 00:33:51

You know, we go to, like, one sound bath or one breath work workshop or one meditation class, or we can't just do it once. We can't work out once, and then all of a sudden, we're like, we can go to a, you know, like, CrossFit competition or something like that. And so I think it's just this inquiry of how am I showing up for me and starting small. And I love these really simple things that everybody can do from a proactive standpoint. Again, when we're not resourced, when things are hitting the fan, to pause, to notice, to slow down, and to respond versus to react to our life in our life.

Adair Cates [: 00:34:29

I feel like there's something I wanna say right there, and it is give yourself grace. You're gonna mess up. Look. I sit here on this podcast and I say all of these things, and I still get really uncomfortable when there's a bunch of notifications on my phone or I get really uncomfortable when I know, oh my gosh, I gotta order the softball uniform. I gotta go pick up the soccer uniforms. I get really tasky. We're not expecting perfection here. It's just increasing our awareness.

Adair Cates [: 00:34:59

When we talk about conscious leadership, we are talking about conscious as being more aware, being more aware that, oh, I've really leaned into being really tasky today, and my kids have asked me to play with them. And I've said no because I need to do the dishes, and I need to get this thing finished up for work or whatever. I'm speaking this all of this from a place of I'm on the journey too. We're not meant to have this figured out. There is no arrival. There's no arrival. It's perpetual journey. And as we elevate our consciousness more and more, which just means we resource our nervous system so that we can be more aware, then new levels of life open up to us.

Adair Cates [: 00:35:44

It's like a video game. New levels open up. New levels do not open up from us checking a bunch of tasks off. We'll make steady progress. Don't get me wrong, but there won't be any quantum leaps. There won't be any big transformations until we have a real shift in consciousness. And when our consciousness elevates, new things open up.

Marli Williams [: 00:36:08

I love that. This idea of to be a conscious leader means to be aware. And I love how you all described leadership too, which was influence. Mhmm. So it's like, am I aware of my influence on the impact that, again, my energy and my presence and my essence has on the people around me? And I think to emphasize what you just said, again, is not about perfection. Yeah. But even when we mess up, or we fumble, we can become aware and, like, it's only a mistake if we don't learn from it. That's my belief.

Marli Williams [: 00:36:41

It's like Agreed. If I am hungry, I am not a great partner. I get angry. If my blood sugar is low, you know, I'm not resource. I'm not going to be the best version of myself, but I can pause and notice and say, wow, I I need a snack right now, or I didn't mean what I just said, and I can slow down and I can also Yeah. I'm not the perfect partner. I'm not the perfect leader. I'm perfect person, but I do have a desire to be aware of the impact that my aware of the impact that my energy and my essence, my presence has on the people around me.

Marli Williams [: 00:37:19

And when I think about leadership, to me, it's about, am I willing to take 100% responsibility for my energy and for what I'm bringing to whatever space I'm walking into, knowing that I'm not always gonna be a 10, but I'm like, oh, I'm a 6. What do I need? And how can I resource myself in this moment? And we can do it with one breath, or we can turn on our favorite song, or we can you know, do I need to kinda, like, elevate my energy? Do I need to crown my energy? Do I need to what do I need? And even just putting your hand on your heart and just saying, what do I need right now to show up or to meet this moment or to have this conversation or to whether it's speaking in front of 5,000 people or you had a hard day at work, and, like, what do I need before I walk in the door to be present with my family or my partner or my kids and not bring that energy into the space. We you know, when we walk into a meeting, are there papers flying everywhere? I can't believe that so and so sent me this email. Can you believe that can we realize the impact that that has on everybody around us, and who am I being, and how am I showing up. And I would love to for you to share some of the conscious leadership tools that you showed me or just those prompts for people to like how we approach our day from this more conscious place. Because so often we start with the to do list, Right? The action items or our calendar. And I love how you the prompt that you have in the conscious leadership journal that starts with, who do I choose to be today?

Adair Cates [: 00:39:00

Yeah. What I recommend is for you to look at your day, to look at your week, to look at the container that you're living in in the moment, and take into consideration what is present right now, and then choose from that place how you wanna show up. Some weeks or days, you have the luxury to go slower than usual and to have that pace of being slow. And other days, there's a lot going on, yet you can still have a background energy that's slow when the foreground is fast, and that takes practice. If we're not practicing, we're gonna get sucked into, I think you said earlier, like a default mode that we can get into. So who I choose to be, you know, is it present? Is it slow? Is it awake? Is it alive? Is it energized? Whatever the adjective is. And then the next question I invite people to answer is, what does that look, sound, and feel like? So let's actually bring it to our 5 senses. Let's take it out of the sky and bring it into the body in the streets.

Adair Cates [: 00:40:06

Right? Like, how are we taking this into the world? So if I choose, I'm gonna be fully present as my essence for the day, then maybe what that look, sounds, or feels like is me looking my daughters in the eyes when they're talking to me, not having my phone around. So really learning how to take these things that can feel out there like a concept or a nice idea and making them actual possibilities. And that our intention sets so many things in motion. It's really powerful when we set the container, the space, the pause, to be deliberate, to be intentional. Everything can change around us, and I'm not exaggerating. That sounds so out there. I'm not saying this happens overnight or this is like a magic pill. However, if you start to notice the pause, the notice, the chews, and you're really tapped into that on a more consistent basis, you'll notice that things are different.

Marli Williams [: 00:41:06

Yeah. Again, that intentionally, like, the that slowing down and asking that question. I love those 2 questions side by side. Right? This, who do I choose to be, but what does that look like? What does that sound like? What does that feel like? Because we can say, I choose to be present and then just kind of not really take the time to think about what does that look like. Right? Not having my phone at the meeting, at the dinner table, looking my partner in the eyes. Like, really being fully engaged, asking interesting questions. When I'm listening, I'm really listening to what this person is saying. Right? Fully engaged.

Marli Williams [: 00:41:41

So who do I choose to be? What does that look sound like and feel like? And then what is next on that journey?

Adair Cates [: 00:41:49

Yeah. So from there, then start to look at kinda zoomed out. What are the priorities? What matters most? And it's not always the stuff I need to do for my work. You know? It could be, you know, for us, in a couple weeks, school starts. So I know, for me, I have no meetings on the 1st day of school because I tend to have this, like I think it's like hangover energy from when I was a teacher, right, to, like, it's just a little frantic for me. So I know that for me, leaving that day with no meetings is is the best space for me. It doesn't mean that I won't work. It just means that I don't have a lot of tasks or to dos or meetings on that day because I know that that's a day that I'm potentially gonna be a little under resourced.

Adair Cates [: 00:42:33

Schedule changes can be a bit of a trigger for me. I know that about myself. So I give myself space around that. I don't just hold my breath and push through it. I've learned, and I'm fortunate to have the ability to do that. I recognize that that is a privilege that is not accessible for everyone. And there are other ways. You know, that's my way.

Adair Cates [: 00:42:56

There are other ways, and you have to find the way that's suitable for you and for your current life circumstances. We all can learn how to be more deliberate and pause and slow down and choose our essence first, and then look at what matters, then look at the priorities. What are the top three priorities for this week? What matters most? So for me, week, it's like, okay. School's starting. That's top priority for me is to make sure that the kids are ready. I'm ready. And then after that, it may be something else, like whatever it might be, coaching or facilitating a group or whatever it might be, but really tuning into what the priorities are. And then the week that I have the 3 day training, my top priority that week is that 3 day training.

Adair Cates [: 00:43:42

And so I have to do things in my home life. I have to put extra support pillars in my home life, and I talk to my kids about it. This is a busy week at work. I have a 3 day training. It's taking a lot of my energy. You're obviously the most important thing. So if you need anything, let me know. And this is my focus and my priority unless something shifts and you guys need me.

Adair Cates [: 00:44:07

Of course, I'm there. But I think just learning how to modulate where our energy goes versus having okay. From 6 to 8 AM, that's family time. From 8 to 5 PM, that's work time. From 5 to 10 PM, that's family time. It's like, no. It's all integrated. And learning how to allow that to flow.

Marli Williams [: 00:44:28

Importance of communicating what matters and communicating your priorities to whether it's your kids or your partner, your the people that you work with, your coworker. You know, it's just like, hey, these are the priorities for the week, or these are the things that I'm focusing on. And maybe you have a personal priorities, and then you have career or business priorities. Right? It's like, maybe you're really wanting to prioritize your health. And so you know? And then once you have those priorities, then

Adair Cates [: 00:44:56

then you build your to dos.

Marli Williams [: 00:44:58

You build your to do list.

Adair Cates [: 00:44:59

Then you come up with your tasks.

Marli Williams [: 00:45:01

So after you figure out you ask the question, who do I choose to be? What does that look like? What are my priorities? And then based on those things, what are the tasks that are gonna be the most powerful, the most effective, the most productive? Because we're kind of, like, flipping it on instead instead of starting from this, like, reactive, what are all the things I need to get done? Yep. Because it's not just what we do. Again, it's like, how do I choose to be while I'm doing those things? Like, one of my was like, who do I choose to be? And I was like, oh, what if the word was, like, playful? Yeah. Right? Like, what if I've been taking myself too seriously? Like Yeah. How playful can I be when I have all these emails that I need to send out for, like, lead generation for speaking gigs or something like that? Right? And that is a task that I do not like and avoid often. But it's like, okay. Well, if what would make that playful? Maybe I send videos. What's a creative way that I could reach out to people or something like that? Or maybe, well, what's the purpose of that? It's about connection.

Marli Williams [: 00:46:12

It's about building community or building relationships with these people. So what else could I do? You know, so I think asking this, like, who do I choose to be can help us be innovative and creative when it comes to our tasks or our to dos. I'd be like, how else could I do this and not get kinda stuck in, like, this is how it should be done or is supposed to get done, but, like, well, this is a new way that I could

Adair Cates [: 00:46:38

It's so powerful. We we had this experience whenever we were planning for the 3 day training of all the, like, emails that have to go out, all the communications, and they're all, like, on this giant Google Doc with, like, this table of contents. And it's just overwhelming and daunting, and it always comes down to, like, how do you wanna change these? What do we wanna say? And I'm like, oh my gosh. And and one of, the members of our team said, you know what? We're gonna do this differently. How can we make this fun and easy? And it changed everything. And so what I started doing instead was I started making videos and then using the transcript to then help me write things. But for me, doing the video was, like, easy and it flowed, whereas if I just sat with all those emails, I wanna pull my hair out?

Marli Williams [: 00:47:26

Yeah. That's such a great question. How can I make this easy and fun? It's like, life is gonna be hard anyway. Yeah. So for certain things, it's like, what if it wasn't? Or, like, where can we bring maybe more joy, more playfulness, more creativity, more I choose to be loving. You know, I love what Danielle Laporte said. It's like, how can I love people better through my work, through my service? And that, like, to lead with love, to lead with generosity, to lead with, that is the energy and the essence that people can feel. The to do list is write the email.

Marli Williams [: 00:48:03

But when we look at this and, again, when we're aware and conscious of who we wanna be and how we wanna show up, I agree with you. I think it can shift everything. It can shift our team and that energy. It can shift how that email lands for someone, how they receive it, how they respond to that, the opportunities that might be present because of that energy. You know, are we sending an email to a potential client with this, like, really heavy, graspy energy? Are we sending it from this, like, place of possibility and love and playfulness? Like, how that gets received could be different, and the results could be very different because of who we're being, not just checking something off a to do list. So I love that. Was there anything was that the last step on the journey, or was there another one?

Adair Cates [: 00:48:55

There's one more.

Marli Williams [: 00:48:55

There's one more step. Okay.

Adair Cates [: 00:48:57

That brings in, like, magic in a different way.

Marli Williams [: 00:49:00

I like that.

Adair Cates [: 00:49:00

It's called the universe's to do list. And the universe's to do list is an invitation to put anything that feels really big, like a big possibility that you wanna create or something that feels like every once in a while, we have things to do where they're just everything's wound up. We don't even know where to start. It's like, I gotta do this thing, but I actually don't even I can't tease it out. I don't know how to, like, tease it into steps or whatever, and I feel like I need universal help for that. And so that is a place where you can land your big dreams, the possibilities, or things that just feel, like, really, really hard. So for example, one of the dreams on my list for a while was I wanted to add on to our house because my daughters share a room. They're twins.

Adair Cates [: 00:49:48

They're getting older, and they really need their own space, and we didn't have space for that. So that was on my list for a long time, and it's happening right now. It is happening currently. So it's like just putting those dreams out there makes them happen. The other thing I put on there was it's been grueling to just manage the estate of my ex husband and manage the it's so complex when you don't have a will. He didn't have a will. So this is my call to everyone who's listening to make sure you have a plan for your family because this can get really complex. But I had multiple tasks from that whole estate planning world that was very, very complex, very convoluted that I would put on that list and just say, I trust that the creator is gonna help with this.

Adair Cates [: 00:50:36

And there were lots of miracles that happened along the way to help me get through some really tough tasks related to that. So that's the last one is the universe's to do list.

Marli Williams [: 00:50:47

I love that so much, and this idea of we we aren't doing it alone, and just feeling like the universe can support us if we tell it what we want support with, and we give it some direction.

Adair Cates [: 00:51:01

It's a channel for energy. If everything's energy, it's just another channel for energy.

Marli Williams [: 00:51:07

Right. And when we write it down, it's like where our attention goes, energy flows. So we're looking for those moments or opportunities or things that are gonna help us with that big dream or that goal or that thing that can feel like, I don't know how this is gonna work out, but I trust that I will be guided and I will be supported in that. So I love that, and what a beautiful way to kind of wrap things up as we close our conversation. I would love to ask you 2 final things.

Adair Cates [: 00:51:37

Sure.

Marli Williams [: 00:51:38

Any final thoughts to leave folks with today? And where can people find you, learn more about you, your work in the world?

Adair Cates [: 00:51:48

You know, final thoughts, I think, really, it just goes back to the pause. Find some space today even if it's right now while you're listening to this or at some point where you can just pause. It doesn't have to be a long pause, but pause, maybe take a few breaths and really deep breaths to notice notice what you notice when you take a deep breath. That would be my my one thing to just emphasize. And then where you all can find me at my website, adercates.com. And on there, I have a free mini course called The Art of Living Well. And it's a series of 7 videos and some other resources to help guide you to living well. And it's a lot of the stuff we talked about today.

Adair Cates [: 00:52:32

So just a a tag on to many of our conversations today, Marli.

Marli Williams [: 00:52:37

Yeah. That's a great action step that you can take. Both of those things to just pause to notice to take the mini course. Definitely check that out if you're looking for more tools, more resources on your journey. I am so so grateful for you for this conversation. I think that there's all so many golden nuggets. For those out there listening, I always like to hear what your golden nuggets are. So email me back, write me, message me on Instagram, however you communicate with me.

Marli Williams [: 00:53:06

Let me know what you got out of this and more importantly, what you did about it. Because as we said at the beginning, information without integration is not enough. So take one of these tools, one of these things, and use it and see it as a practice. And this is just an invitation from us to you to show up more fully for yourself so that you can show up more fully for your work in the world, for your people, and for the things that matter most. So thank you again, Adair, for joining us today. So so grateful. Thank you for listening everybody, and I can't wait to see you next time. Until then, take care.

Marli Williams [: 00:53:48

Thank you for joining us on another inspiring episode of the Marli Williams podcast. We hope you're leaving here with renewed energy and valuable insights to fuel your leadership, coaching, and speaking endeavors. I'd love to invite you to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast to help us reach more aspiring leaders and speakers like you. We have more exciting episodes and remarkable guests lined up, so make sure to tune in next time. Until then, keep leading with purpose, coaching with heart, and speaking with conviction. This is Marli Williams signing off. See you next week.