Sense of Soul - Courage to Achieve Soul Excellence

Episode Date: December 28, 2020

Today on Sense of Soul Podcast Kayleigh Marie O’Keefe joined us! She is an international best-selling author, podcast host, and founder and CEO of Soul Excellence Ventures, a leadership publishing, consulting, and education company. She amplifies the voices of courageous leaders by publishing best-selling multi author books with business executives and entrepreneurs; her upcoming books include Leading Through the Pandemic (January 2021) and Significant Women: Leaders Reveal What Matters Most (April 2021). She also leads a Soul Excellence Leadership Mastermind twice a year to support and inspire trailblazing female leaders who love to grow, adapt, achieve, and show the way forward.  Her passion is to help soul-centered leaders to gain absolute clarity, confidence, and courage to get on the path toward their highest Soul Excellence Achievement. Check out The Kayleigh O’Keefe Show Podcast! Kayleigh is on a quest for the truth. The truth about what makes each of us tick and how we can show up to lead lives of excellence, inspiration, and expression. She explores ideas for living – and leading – in the 21st century in The Kayleigh O’Keefe Show. No topic is off limits! Visit Kayleigh’s amazing website www.kayleighokeefe.com Check out our website www.mysenseofsoul.com, our many workshops, meditations, tarot readings, online metaphysical store and more! 

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart and soul. It's time to awaken. So today on Sense of Soul, we are so excited. We have Kaylee O'Keefe. She is a leadership mentor and the founder of Soul Excellence. She helps soul-centered leaders gain the clarity, confidence and courage to take inspired action towards their highest achievement. She is also an international best-selling author and a podcast host. She has a new book called Leading Through the Pandemic that's coming out in January, a book that has tons of amazing interviews with leaders and how they've managed

through the challenge of 2020. She also has another book coming out in April called Significant Women, Leaders Reveal What Matters Most. They both sound absolutely amazing. She spent over a decade as a consultant for Fortune 500 companies and a team builder at early stage technology startups. She received her bachelor's from Duke University and her MBA on a full scholarship from the University of San Francisco. Today, she is joining us from sunny Florida, and we are so excited. Welcome to The Sense of Soul.

Thank you so much for having me. How would you, Kaylee, describe your soul? That's a great question. For me, my soul is my source of creative expression. It's really this infinite and limitless channel that I would say only over the last five years have I really accessed and allowed myself to appreciate. And in fact, I think when you mentioned like the resume and the background, there's clearly a pattern for people who are very educated, who do really value the mind and intelligence to struggle with connecting to the soul. So for me, it's my source of creative expression. It's my source of being. It's almost like this new friend that I've met recently or old friend that I've met. And I'm like, oh, you're kind of cool. I like you.

And not because of all of these things, just because you're fun and you're kind and you're expressive. So that's what I would describe my soul, which yeah, just took me a while to get to after I had to let the mind calm for a little bit, which I know you both understand. Yeah. I love that. And the reason I started asking our guests that is because sometimes we get caught up in labels. Like I'm Mandy and I'm a mom and I'm a wife. I'm a communications major and I'm in recovery and we attach these things and they're awesome and they're great accomplishments, but we haven't really been taught to get to know our soul. So it's important to, you know, just find time to ask yourself, what, who is my soul? And

so thank you for sharing. I love that you, you talk a lot about that word expression. What does that word expression mean to you? So the, even just the term soul excellence, it hit me like a year ago, you know, I was, I was in a mentorship session, we were doing a meditation and for whatever reason, soul excellence just came into my vision. And I like smiled right away because I felt like that actually was a perfect expression of who I am and also who I desire to grow into over time, this balance of soul and looking inward and trusting myself and trusting in God. And then with excellence as someone who, you know, I didn't, I didn't really want to let go of the, the desire to achieve, but really to have a big

impact in the world. And so it was just this perfect combination. And as I, as I thought about like, Oh, what does this mean? Just after that initial insight, like I didn't quite know where it would go, but I knew that I wanted to build a company around this concept. And Soul Excellence Ventures was born out of that meditation just over a year ago. And so at the beginning of 2020, I left a really good job in tech in San Francisco. I moved to Florida, I think to actually reconnect with my roots here. And I actually spent the first quarter of the year entirely focused on expression. And for me, that looked like writing, you know, like I was just writing every single day. I was like, that has been one of my main tools was like, write, write, write, write, write. I, you know, started a podcast after listening and participating and made to do this with Kathy Heller, just as like a way to start like having fun and being like,

what is my voice? Because I know for me, and now a lot of the leaders that I work with that are in their thirties, they're in their forties, they're in their fifties. They've been super, super successful. Um, but their voice has been muted and distorted and kind of filtered through so many different lenses. What will my family think? What will my friends think? What does corporate want me to do? And so I really needed to start going through this process of expression to release, to find my voice. And it was actually through that process, which is what enabled me to say like, oh, as far as a business goes, I want to help other leaders to integrate their soul and their desire for excellence. And writing is one of the ways that I really offer leaders to be able to do that. So a long answer to your question, but I think some little history and it's actually fairly recent history for where we are today.

Your prior book is called, is it called Awaken? Awakening. Yeah. Awakening. So was there like something that led up to an awakening? You know, cause we all have them in different ways. Mandy had hers kind of through her NDE. I had mine, you know, really through, you know, a lot of grief and not

having any self-love. I'm glad you mentioned the book Awakening, Meet the Women Birthing a New Earth. I've actually been connecting with all of the co-authors in that book this week. We've been presenting on a summit and sharing our stories. And for me, there was no single dramatic moment. There's certainly been a series of moments over the last 15 years of this awakening. But the most recent one that I really like paid attention to was an experience two years ago where I was working at a really successful early stage startup tech company and I was having a lot of fun, you know, the first year and then the second year we were growing so fast. And we, like, I closed this massive contract. It was a $4 million deal that

for a company where like, that was pretty much as much revenue we had as a company. So it was a huge shift and I had worked so hard on it. And I, like, I laugh thinking back, like when the deal was finally closed, you know, my, my team was playing Lil Wayne's like a milli on the speakers, you know, like there was a big celebration going on. And like, I went home that night and like, I kind of felt proud, but I just felt, I felt drained. I felt exhausted. And I felt like I couldn't imagine really implementing, you know, and kind of going through with the work that we had just done. And for whatever reason, I don't know, but I just Googled like women's retreat, Hawaii. I hadn't taken any vacations that year because I was so focused on this deal. Sure enough, in two weeks, there was a retreat there called Feminine

Mastery. And that summer, I just knew that I wanted to tap more into intuition. I knew that I was acting much more like this, you know, this like hard edged boss. And like, I was being someone that I didn't want to be that whole year while working on this deal. And so I went on this retreat in Maui and found myself two weeks later, having the first real experience where I was asked to stand in front of the room and look everyone in the eyes as part of an exercise that we were doing. It's about 15 women. And I looked at everyone in the eyes and they jotted down how they felt. And then I left the room. And for five minutes, I sat with the leader of the retreat and she took me through a meditation and an exercise. And I came back out and I stood there and I looked everyone like in the eyes

again. Then they shared their reflection back to me. And I mean, I had already, I felt the difference and the transformation that they saw in those five minutes from like before of like, oh yeah, you look like someone who's, you know, strong and I would trust you and like seem kind of intimidating to like, whoa, you are a queen. You are royalty. You are deep. You are soulful. It's like they saw something totally different. And I felt that connection. They're like, we saw you now we felt you. And so that was like my, the latest in a series of awakenings from having gone through recovery as well to, to be like, okay, I am blocking something within me from being seen and being felt by other people.

And what is that? And so it definitely was a journey from that moment to taking the leap to leave the job, to start the business, to start connecting with incredible people around the world. But it was just a moment of like, okay, I don't have to live the way that I've been living anymore, just because I think I should. And it would keep people happy. And I think it would make me happy. Like there is a whole nother person within me that like was begging to be seen. And so yeah, that, that really started the last two years of getting much more in touch with a feminine, with ancestral healing, with, you know, really starting to look in a lot of different places of how do I heal the past, but be very excited about who I can become in the future. And I don't need to

keep on this linear path that I had been on. Yep. Love that. That exercise sounds powerful too. It was, you know, I had heard the term embodiment. I thought I had been in body, you know, all these things. And then I actually experienced it and felt it. I was like, Oh, it's a feeling, you know, like, oh, feelings, emotions, all these things, like, no, don't, you know, like, that certainly has been part of the journey of being allowed, giving myself permission to feel. So same thing with embodied is like permission to, to be and to presence something versus to simply think and say something, which was the world that I was really good at before. The ability to receive has been certainly part of this awakening versus to force, to compel,

to pressure and just realize that never felt right. It never worked that well. And being willing to ask for help, but also to receive help, to receive abundance, to not question it and to just be happy about it and appreciative of it. You know, we're learning all the things now that I'm like, oh, this would have been so nice to know at age six, you know? I'm someone who's really liked to go things alone. You know, even as a young child, I'm the oldest of four. And like my my dad would get so mad at me when we were packing up for a family vacation. And like I would pack all my stuff in the car and then I would go like sit in the backseat in my spot, like put my Walkman headphones on like I'm ready. And like, no one else is ready and everyone's disorganized. And I kind of had the attitude of like, why should I help my sibling? Like they know what they need to do.

You know, like, let me just set the tone and like, go alone. And like, here I am. So that's been part of my personality. And I think it, it actually allows for like a ton of thinking, a ton of introspection, a ton of, you know, really focusing on self and the, the gift of the last two years, especially, and this year being in the book awakening with these incredible women around the world is creating that network of women who do have these different skillsets who I tap into to help me stay connected to body to spirit. You know, a group of us did a detox last week for seven days that

really helped to connect to body. And like, what am I feeling? Why am I reaching for that? What is the need? And it like little things like that. I'm realizing that I don't have to go it alone and I can build an incredible community that helps me to stay aligned in all of those ways. Oh, and I have something to offer them too in return. Like that's just been the like, oh, this is really fun. And it's so different from, from being back in the business world where like, yes, you have relationships, but they're always ultimately toward a transaction. And that's kind of what they're about is about like the company goals and not about the person, not about the soul, not about the spirit. So my ability now to connect

with breath, connect with body, connect with spirit is very much supported by now this global network of people that kind of help remind me like, no, no, no, don't just isolate yourself if things are bad over here, like tap in connect because connection and intimacy, they're the things I crave most. And if I look back the periods of my life, when I was getting blackout drunk or eating trader Joe's cookie butter for dinner for like a whole summer, I'm like, that was all about connection, you know? And I was isolating and not connecting. And there's been so many extra gifts of, of having the courage to go on this journey and especially like leave all the perceived money and status behind. So where did it branch off from there? Because I know that you, you did come

up with some archetypes. Was there something in between? Great question. I like, I love like looking back to on the last year, because I know we've all felt that it's been like five years in 2020. And, but for me, it's felt like five years in a good way in terms of evolution and like things that have happened with the business. But yeah, so soul excellence, you know, just came to me the first quarter of the year was like writing. And as I wrote the archetypes came to me, which are the leadership archetypes, inspirer, integrator, innovator, and initiator. And where those came from was really just, I actually had worked with the designer on a logo and I didn't even give him much guidance.

I was like, here's what soul excellence means to me. And he came back with this logo. It looks like a shell. And it was so stunning because it was a shell, but it looked exactly like the shell that you see on the way of St. James pilgrimage through Spain. And I've walked on that Camino de Santiago twice, not the whole thing, but through Spain and through Portugal, one for a year of gratitude after a first year of sobriety, and then another just for fun and like, you know, vacation. And I was, I'm so in love with that symbol. And it spoke of this journey of this pilgrimage of this getting to know self, but connecting with people on the way. And so it was actually through this, I want to say somewhat random design, Like this person that I worked with had no idea that I went on the Camino, that I liked this shell. I gave no guidance. And when I saw it, I was like, wow,

this is so cool and serendipitous. And when I saw that logo, I thought about just what does each of the parts of the shell mean to me? And that's where Inspire, Initiator, like the four archetypes came as how do we express ourselves as leaders? Because I do believe that everyone is a leader, but we only actually get to be leaders in the world if we first lead ourselves. And so these concepts of needing to innovate and to inspire ourselves and to initiate action and to integrate all parts of ourselves just flowed really naturally. And then through all that expression, I had the opportunity to be in this multi-author book,

Awakening, and write my chapter alongside all these women. And I just love the model that I knew I wanted to bring that model to corporate leaders and entrepreneurs. These are people who they have to wear so many hats, they have to put on so many faces, and they often don't get to say, let me take a breath and really reflect on how I've grown, appreciate how I've grown and what I've learned. So the business has really grown to focus on bringing these leaders together for multi-author books, and then going into 2021, doing small group masterminds with soul-oriented leaders who, like me, they're, they're going to achieve, you know, like they're, they're achievers by nature, but they've started to awaken that there's something

more and they want to connect to other people like that. So a lot of it's been just inspired or it's come to me. And then a lot too has been strategic in the sense of connecting with the right people, learning, you know, what do people feel? What do they need? And seeing what skills do I bring to help solve some of these problems? And at the end of the day,

it's setting a vision and bringing really cool people together. I'm like, that's actually what I'm really good at, which I didn't realize in corporate, you know, I thought it was like inspiring my team and then like writing lots of emails. I'm like, oh, wait, no, there's much more than that. I took your quiz. I've always been a quiz person. Do you remember like in the back of like magazines back in the day, there was always like the

quizzes in the back. I used to love that. I used to go straight to the back to the quiz and live by them, of course. Yeah. Take them as divine inspiration, you know? Right. Yeah. The horoscope, the quiz, you know, it's helped everything in my life right there. So I was the integrator. Yes, I see that. That was mine. So you take this quiz, you're trying to figure out your, your soul excellence or your dominant of the soul of the four. And then you get your results, which is awesome. But then you even have a mini report, which I so appreciated.

And yeah, that was great. I love that. So I definitely suggest to our listeners, they got to go on her website to do that. So I'm the integrator. What do you say about the integrator? Let's talk about each of the archetypes. So the integrator's superpower really is, is connection. And so if you think of these archetypes in the framework of especially corporate leadership, these are the individuals that can bring people together, can bring harmony to a group. And if you take it to yourself, someone who is interested in, in harmony and in alignment and like needs to feel centered. So the integrators are super powerful and I'm the inspirer.

The integrator is the one that I, I feel like I have the most room to be inspired by and grow into, but the integrator, the challenge in corporate world, particularly for like rising female leaders is, is still knowing when, when they can step up outside of the peer level and view themselves as the leader and to not think that it's a bad thing or like, oh, they're imposing hierarchy, but no, for certain moments, there does need to be someone who's willing to, to take the risk, to be trusted and to not get, for example, I think also for people like not get drawn into any of the, um, you know, some of the drama and gossip, which can happen if you're the person that everyone wants to come

talk to, like as the integrator, you make people feel heard and seen. So they want to tell you everything. That's amazing. On the flip side, it can drain you. Is that where it impacted being an integrator? For the most part, you know, like you could see some variation, but I would imagine, yes, being very sensitive to emotions of the room and what's going on. How are people feeling? Which is really different than the innovator, for example, who is all about change, new ideas. This is a better way of doing things. I have the vision. This is where we're going. And they can struggle a lot with the patience and bringing people on board and not just going it alone on an idea, those can be a good team. Someone who's got like, okay, let's transform. This is the new idea

with the integrator who can say, great, and we're going to need this type of person or team in order to help that vision get into the world. And then I'll just say the inspire that that person's all about expression and creative expression. Again, these are all within us. So it's kind of knowing within the situation of what do I want to tap into? And then of course, the initiator, they're the action tankers among us. And the big challenge for them is, I mean, I have so many friends who are just like, they're the doers, the go getters, like nonstop. The challenge for initiators who are just like, they're the doers, the go-getters, like nonstop. The challenge for initiators who are amazing because they show us the way is just, am I focusing my attention on the right things for me for this moment in time? Like they're, you know, like they'll have their

routines. They'll keep their schedules without really questioning like, okay, is this still serving me or do I need a change? I need to go take that test. How did I miss that? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I love archetypes. I really do. Like for ready, it's called the seven chakra personalities. No, I can't. It's super cool though. But I think that they help you recognize that there are your different element of people, you know, like a person who likes creativity is who likes art is not good at math. I mean, it just happens to be that way. Sometimes the right brain, left brain, I think it's really fun to look at these types of personality traits and say, Oh my gosh, there's someone else like me or yeah, I'm like that. Or you could also recognize what you might

need to add to your life a little more of. Yeah. I love archetype work for that. Archetypes do have a resonance, you know, like if they're right, you're like, oh yeah, I see that in myself. I appreciate that in myself. They also bring awareness to other people in your lives and how they operate. The book True Self by one of my mentors, Cindy Silbert was kind of part of my initial awakening and her archetypes are very elemental. There's butterfly, there's chameleon. So that's really beautiful too. And that helped me to see like hummingbird, which is all about love. So that awakened me awakened me to, to just the feminine side of things that I really had been missing for a long time. So often that you think you're one thing,

but then when you really get into it, you're like, Oh, I'm not, I'm actually more of this than that. Yeah. I mean, this happened to me a ton of times. Most, I think most importantly, like back in the corporate world with Myers Briggs and, you know, in doing that, there was one type that I wanted to be and felt like I was. And like it totally influenced my answers. You know, I'm like I'm INTJ and INTJ is known as like the scientists. They're super analytical. They're very smart. And then like three years ago, I met a fellow INTJ, or so I thought. And then I realized, like, wait, no, you're an INTJ. Like, you don't care about people at all. You're all tasks.

You're all numbers. You're, like, could sit here for hours by yourself. And I was kind of like, oh, this isn't me. And then I came to discover that a lot of women, especially, like, kind of, they assume they're this, but really they're INFJ, which made so much more sense. INFJs care all about meaning, by the way, their own sense of meaning. So they really struggle in corporate when they're having to do things that don't align to their personal values and sense of meaning. So anyway, I'm going down that rabbit

hole and I'm like, oh, this explains so much why I'm a little dissatisfied, why I just want to do things my way, you know, so it can be helpful. And it also can be really bad when we attach way too much value to these things, right? And make them suddenly define us to our earlier point of like, we don't want to define ourselves by all these, by these assessments, by all these externals, like we get to do that. Like horoscopes, your zodiac sign, which you said something that really, really just hit me though. You said a lot of women do that. It's because we have such issues with self-worth, self-identity, self-regulation, self-love, self-confidence. So what does self-love mean to you? How important is that to you? Yeah, it is the foundation for everything. And for me, it means honoring my needs and desires.

Over the last 20 years, I really silenced my needs and desires. I made it seem like I had no needs. I didn't need anything from anyone and like, no, I'm just fine over here. And so for me, self-love today is honoring those needs and desires. There's also this element of self-trust, of really combining self-love and self-trust and saying, you are where you're meant to be. There's really like a letting go of the mind and back into the heart. So the more that I honor what I need, what I desire, it's amazing. Like when you do have self-love, what you're able to give to others is also kind of limitless. When you're so focused on receiving love from others, what you have to give, I found is very limited or transactional or kind of quid pro quo, like you did this for me, no, I do this for you. And when you have self love, you get to break out

of that and say, like, I'm here, I love myself, I'm available to give to others. Yeah, I loved how you talked about on your website, you said one of the best things that I can do is to remind people of their inherent worth so that they can create the lives they've dreamed of and inspire others to do the same. Because if you don't know your worth, you're not ever going to find that soul excellence. So it truly is the foundation. Can I also just comment on that? Inherit worth. Let me tell you what I inherited from my ancestors about worth, absolutely zero. So how much of worth did you inherit? I mean, that's a huge part of my ancestry journey. You mentioned that, but that I have generations of women specifically who had zero self-love for themselves. So, I mean, I think the best way for me to answer that question

is to share probably about five years ago, I was up in Massachusetts and I was visiting my grandma, my mom's mom, her and my grandfather had divorced before I was born. And my mom and her don't have a very close relationship. She's been living in assisted living for like 20 years after a stroke. We see her very rarely, but I was up there for work and I took her out to lunch and we're having a conversation. And I asked her why she married my grandfather. And she like scoffed for a second. And she just said like, because I was pregnant with your mom, the way that she said it. And like, what struck me in that moment is almost like it explained everything, her relationship with my mom, the way that she said it. And like, what struck me in that moment is almost like it explained everything, her relationship with my mom, my mom's relationship with her, my relationship

with my mom and how it was like born, not to mention her whole story of, of, of being adopted in world war two times. But like, it was an, a wake up call to me of like, Oh, she never wanted this. Ah, it was a big eye opener. And I've, I've done quite a bit of work over the last two years on ancestral healing and this recognition of, I wouldn't say it was the worth question so much as the, the worth. Yes. But like being wanted and being seen for who we are. And that's really what I took from that moment of like, oh, you know, this unwantedness, right. For my grandma being adopted and, you know, given up by her parents to her, not necessarily, you know, being surprised and not wanting to have my mom, you know, like, it just was like, wow, okay, there's so much there. And it's so deep. And I am

on a personal mission to end so much of this with my generation, I feel so grateful for the moments that have awakened me to this moment where I'm like, Oh, what I desire the relationship that I desire how I want my children to feel, which I don't have yet, but I imagine them all, you know, and it's like, this is part of the mission, you know, of soul excellence is to really welcome the next generation free of those curses. Yeah. I just don't think we realize how much we're affected by those things. And it's not something you can learn in school. This is the soul work. This is the soul that goes with the excellence because you can't get that in school. You know, this is deep work, those connections, you're dealing with something

that is not linear. Yeah. Right. It's amazing. You know, when you shared your story, I thought about a lot of people that I've met through my husband, you know, he works, he worked in Silicon Valley. He's done the startup companies. He works in robotics. I've found this kind of common trait that sometimes they don't feel like they can speak their truth because they also have a reputation that they have to stick to. It's almost like that kind of programs and they are taught that they kind of have to keep that voice quiet. You probably had to unlearn a lot of things from being in that corporate America for so long. You know, it's one of the things that I'm experiencing right now with the 25 leaders that I've brought together for the book leading through the pandemic. We just had a group call on Monday night. They're all like writing their drafts of their chapters and they're each writing their story of personal

growth in 2020 and their lessons learned from having to lead their teams, lead themselves and lead their families. But what was really beautiful about this call that we have was each person was sharing where they're at, how they're feeling. And leader after leader really brought up like, I'm feeling vulnerable. I'm feeling scared. I'm feeling nervous about how much I want to really reveal or not in this chapter. and then as people were sharing that, everyone else was also sharing. And you know what? Because we're here together having this conversation and I know that I'm publishing this book with all of you who are leaders at Microsoft, who are leaders at Unisys, who are leaders at AppGate,

like who are leaders in these big companies that have large teams, because I'm doing this with you and you're saying that you're willing to be a bit more vulnerable than you ever have been before in this book, like, okay, I feel more comfortable that I can do the same. And so there's just something really cool even this week to see it's not going to happen overnight, but even participating in something like this, where it's not just you, but with another group of respected people and being like, and we're going to show

what this looks like to the world. You could just see the faces change in the call, right? From like worried, kind of nervous to like, no, we got this and we got this as a group. And so it's my hope that this book can really serve as that for a lot of the leaders that are in their corporate roles, that have the titles, that have the salary, that are afraid to make one misstep this year has been the year of humanizing everyone you know with zoom and seeing family and dogs and chaos and dealing with you know real challenges at home like this has been a humanizing year and so the portal is wide open for for other leaders to express that and start to give that permission for people to kind of go on this soul journey in a way that they may have wanted to,

but felt like it wasn't productive. Right. And, you know, I think that I've seen a shift anyways, where instead of everyone getting together and partying and drinking wine and celebrating, they might be doing, I mean, for my work, we were going downtown to bars for like our meetings and stuff to, we did like a whole succulent plant night, you know, and so it's freaking awesome.

So instead of strip clubs, maybe they're going to be start, you know, meditating. I don't know, but maybe they're figuring out that those are things adding to their stress, you know, when they're looking for release and community together. There's a lot of men out there that would say the strip clubs helped their product, you know, them be productive. I know, that's what I'm saying though. Maybe they're seeing that that is not healthy. So they're looking for other ways that are accepted. And maybe it's like you said, it just takes kind of one person to say, hey, I like that too. Oh, you do? Okay, well, let's do that.

And making that shift. There's so many practices that you can do besides drinking and strip clubbing. I want to know what's a beautiful example of that is we had a master sergeant on our podcast. He found a place of vulnerability and now he shares his pain and he goes around and he speaks. He was programmed to think that if he was vulnerable pain and he goes around and he speaks. He was programmed to think that if he was vulnerable, he was not going to be productive and that he also might be

let go and kicked out of the army. Yeah. He took the chance because he had to get it out because he was in so much pain. And when he started sharing it, he got promoted. We're so afraid. We're so afraid that when we're in these roles and at the top of corporate America, that if we do show our authentic self and our vulnerability, that like you said, you might be judged as not being strong or maybe weak. You're right. 2020 has humanized people. I love that. I thought of it that way. Yeah. You know what? You just reminded me of, you know, feeling the last few years of corporate, like I just didn't recognize what a gift my intuition was, an ability to sense, you know,

what was going on at the company. And when I would raise issues that others didn't see, I was so quick to back down, you know, and be like, oh yeah, I guess this isn't really an issue. And looking back, like just seeing like where I was right and the issues that came up, but more like I didn't trust myself. And I also didn't feel comfortable, um, really putting myself out there to address some of those issues. But, and so there is this like intuition and self-trust, I think, especially for women in corporate, a meeting to cultivate and then know your moments when you have to be strong and stand up for, you know, whatever the project is, whatever the issue is. And you said one thing where it's like, yeah, if we make this shift to, okay. I mean, I saw this

happening in San Francisco right before I left of like, you know, our company, for example, do like less drinking events, more like let's go to a Barry's bootcamp class, you know, let's like do those things. But I do have one concern because Silicon Valley does have a great habit of turning, you know, spiritual things into big monetization efforts, you know, as we see with the health apps and everything. So I'm like, Ooh, okay. This will be interesting. Like it's good, but is there a moment where it's like, now we've just become obsessed with like tracking these little achievements, you know? We had a guest on yesterday who blew the roof off of a church talking about consumer spirituality. He talks about that and how there's this marriage between the two and Kat, she owned it, but she

went viral. So people are listening. Yeah. well, I would definitely love to see that. Like, it's just been on my mind the last couple of weeks, this, you know, conscious capitalism and, you know, and like being so aligned with brands, which is not an entirely new thing. You know, like it was cool to wear Nike. It was cool to wear Adidas, but like we're now into the next level

where it's everything. So yeah. I mean, Shanna's daughter works at Sephora and every single time me and Shanna were looking into like astrology it was like all of a sudden this makeup line would come out called mercury retrograde and then these crystals are everywhere and then these spiritual like meditational books but people don't actually even know what the heck it really means it looks like maybe that happened to us but actually my journey with stones came from my dad's little kid rock collection. That's how I started with stones and my journey with Reiki and everything just stemmed off of being a body worker. So, you know,

it wasn't just trending for me, which when it started trending, it seemed, I was like, oh, wow. But all I could think of was good because this is soul work. You know, we're not just trending more materialism. But you know, you're right, though, you know, people can just become obsessed with things and make it turn into something, you know, that looks like a cult. Yeah, totally. I wanted to point something out to you years ago, when I was on the beginning of my journey, didn't really know exactly what was happening at the time, but I was writing. I was writing and writing so much that I couldn't stop. Still do it. I would meditate and then I would just write.

And sometimes you'd be like, I don't even know who's that for, but it was good shit. Yeah. Well, I wasn't very comfortable in my voice whatsoever at the time. Years later, I did a past life regression I had connected with the spiritual guide but I wasn't so super sure uh what all that meant it was like I said I was coming into all this so I have this past life regression at the end of my regression the spirit guide that I had recently connected with he was a monk that didn't speak and you know I'm like what kind of fucking shit that? I get a spirit guide and can't speak. The regression was like two hours

long. And so I've never actually listened to the whole thing again, because it's so long. But the other day for another podcast that I was on, I re listened to it. And I wanted to hear what he said again, girl, do you know he told her that he speaks to me all the time through my writing? I totally forgot he said that. And I was like, oh my God, all along he had been speaking to that. So I wonder, I mean, do you feel like the writing that you are doing, is it conscious writing or is it coming from your soul? Wow. That's, that's such an amazing story and experience that you've had. For, for me, I feel like up until recently, it's been much more mind, you know, like I'm someone who kept journals throughout their whole childhood and love to write and wrote a thesis in college.

Like I just like writing and I'm not the best at it, but I love doing it. The last three months, starting this practice of daily morning pages and writing for 30 minutes, handwritten instead of typing, that's opened this whole new channel. And in fact, the idea for the next book,

Significant Women, Leaders Reveal What Matters Most, that came through on one of those morning writing sessions. So what's really cool about this shift is like, it does feel like the first page that I write is kind of mental, you know, like I'm waking up, I'm just writing like what I dreamt about or like what the weather is, like it's total crap, you know? And then by the time you hit page two and three, like I'm writing these things and I'm looking, I'll finish it up and I'll look and I'm like, Oh, that was a good idea. Where did that come from? Oh, that's a perfect book title. You know? So I felt that shift start to happen where before my writing in my twenties, for example,

was all just like, uh, it felt like all repressed emotions. Like it was very mental and a lot of just like anger and like stuff, you know, just kind of oozing out. And it's been different recently. And then the last three months has been like, oh, I don't have to come up with every idea. Yeah. I can just write. Yeah. And see what comes out. And so that's, that's been another surprise on the journey of getting closer to soul. It's like, oh, there's I be more of service right now? And instantly in my mind, these words were put into my brain and they weren't for me because I didn't think there was no thought problem. Yeah. And I, it was answered right then and there in three words. And I love when that happens, but, but with, if you don't have self-love and if you don't have self-trust you of all of our guests that we've ever had on, you have mentioned the word self-trust the most. And that self-trust for me is huge because for

many, many, many, many years, I didn't have any self-trust at all. And I, and looking back into my childhood, it came from when I had asthma and doctors told me, no, she was just doing it for attention. So I didn't trust my body. I didn't trust my thoughts and it carried over into relationships with men, you know, gaslighting me. And then I didn't trust myself even more and it's carried on my whole life. What does self-trust mean to you? I'm really glad you brought this up because, you know, I think up until age 18, I felt like I had a lot of self-trust and the way I would have defined it back then was self-assured, confident, knew that anything I wanted to achieve, I would like I was on I was really on top of disappeared overnight. And it absolutely coincided with drinking and realizing like, no, I couldn't just have one drink, you know, like I had never drank before. And now I was, you know, getting blackout on a regular basis. And like, once that happens, like your self-trust, when you wake up in places that you don't recognize, when you don't know what happened

the night before, like it was a total cancer to my soul. And I didn't trust myself in the decisions I was making, who I was hanging out with. Like I just, and then I felt so much shame, right. And this total like loss of innocence, loss of grace of like, wait a second. Like I was on this ascendance, you know, I felt I actually, before college was deeply connected to soul and spirit and it had much more of a religious connotation at the time and certainly came up through you know my real deep belief then especially in my Catholic faith and in God and so having that like experience of just like losing that self-trust and like it was just decaying every day all the way through my mid twenties. And when I realized I couldn't trust myself because of the way that I was behaving and

then how I would feel in this cycle, that's, that's really when I was like, what? I just felt lost. Like, where, where did I go? What have I been doing for the last six years? And the achievements were still there, you know, things kind of looked good on the outside. And so the journey for really the last 12 years of reclaiming self-trust for me, I mean, it has been connecting with soul, but it has also been forgiving of myself. And so like forgiveness and self-trust, I think go hand in hand where I'm like, I trust my feelings now and that there's a reason that they're there, you know, before I just thought I was overreacting or whatever.

So trusting my feelings and then forgiving myself for my mistakes to then allow myself to trust again, to be out in the world again. To me, it's like a reclaiming journey of self-trust, which just, I had it, you know, and then just like it all, like I felt so small. Surrendering control to what, you know, the world or what you think, you know. Yeah. That, that shift striving to surrendering. And I mean, I used to hate that concept of surrendering, you know, like, no, I don't surrender. Like I'll play to the final whistle, you know, like I will stay late at practice. Like I do not surrender. How we perceive words is so amazing. I actually wrote about that. So if you look up beginning, sir, as you are, and then render,

that word does not mean what we've all been taught it means. And we've been taught like you said in my writing I say it's like you know holding up that flag and yeah who wants to do that yeah sign of weakness no it's not it's the opposite it's a sign of being brave and it doesn't mean giving up it just means you know going with the flow and giving in and giving in and saying all right the word courage as Core is actually, it roots from like speaking from your heart. This, I mean, that's what the word really means. Courage actually means speaking from your heart, sharing your story from your heart. Yeah. Courage, courage is the word that I have certainly been most attracted to this year and called to embody and to speak up and to share and to say unpopular things and to, to be more me. And so like courage is the theme. Okay. So I'm really excited about this book.

Let's talk about it. So leading through the pandemic, unconventional wisdom from heartfelt leaders are the stories from 25 corporate leaders and entrepreneurs, men and women from the United States and Australia who have had their own awakening this year. So they are people in positions of power and influence, but who realized that the way that they were showing up, the way that they were being and how they, you know, had kind of grown to their positions wouldn't really work this year. And so each person is sharing the moment that they had. I don't want to say their breakdown for some, it actually was a breakdown for others. It was this moment of awareness at the beginning of the pandemic where I was like, whew, okay, I'm being called to shift

how I show up and how I want to be. And to also really embrace this opportunity. So this is a book that, you know, people are definitely going to be vulnerable, but they want to share the new leadership lessons for the 21st century. And so you're going to hear stories of empathy, of compassion, of soul work, of a lot of body work of like, wait, oh my God, what I was doing to my body when I was traveling every single day of the week and eating shit at the airport and how that impacted me as a father, as a mother, and as a leader. Like it's those types of stories to really reawaken leaders of how they can be moving forward.

And it's going to be, you know, I love people who are able to embrace the pain and grow from it. And these are all leaders that at the end of the day have a very inspirational message to share. And it's why I'm really, really excited and, and really honored that these individuals have put their faith in me as the publisher to bring them together and publish this incredible book. Awesome. And then you have another one coming out in April. I mean, how did you do two back to back grow? You've been busy.

So, so leading through the pandemic, like that one's coming out significant women. I'm still in the process of recruiting for, and so this, this was one of those that came to me in a morning pages session, like, and I just, I've run with it. And so what I love about this book is that it's for significant women, meaning women of importance in their fields. They lead teams, they're in corporate, maybe they run their own businesses, but they've also been on a journey to discovering what is significant to them. What matters most? What are they called here to do? And so I really want to capture those stories to help inspire other women who've been on a journey and maybe it's been hidden.

You know, they still kind of have the corporate leader face on, but they've been doing a lot of the work that we've all been talking about here today. So that book is going to be incredible. And there's, there's definitely still room for, for women who are interested to consider applying. That's how I run these books is through an application process to find out who really has those meaningful stories to share. And that's all on the website at kayleeokeith.com. Gosh, maybe this is just me, but I never felt like there was a space for corporate American and spirituality and soul work in one. It was, it was impossible for me to think the two could combine. And because a lot of people don't think it would be productive, like you said. So I could not be more excited that it's coming out right now for a reason. You also do workshops, a pretty big one twice a year. Are

you still doing that? Yeah. So, well, the big thing that I'm doing for next year is I'm actually calling it the significant women mastermind. And this will be a program for just 10 significant women again in their fields who have an even bigger goal in 2021. And what I will be offering for them is actually access to a lot of the network and individuals that I've met this year that have helped to accelerate my journey to being an entrepreneur and to the work that I'm doing by tapping into mind, body, and soul. So it's a really different opportunity. That's going to be a lot more in-depth connecting with experts in my network. And for me, it's like helping these women grow into that next version of themselves. Who's able and excited to receive

the big dream that they have in 2021. And that'll also include a retreat most likely in Maine, which I'm really excited about. How fun. So now you're going to create the awesomeness that you experienced. I love that. Everything that we've discussed, I really talk about at KayleeO'Keefe.com. And I'm sure in the show notes, you'll spell Kaylee O'Keefe. But yeah, everything's there. And then also connect with me on LinkedIn, which is where I, you know, announce a lot of the leaders that are in the book. So you can add them to your network. So KayleeO'Keefe.com or on LinkedIn. Awesome. I love your website. I love your blog. I read the one the other day that was like

election day, best day ever. And I was like, what does that? Yeah, definitely read that one. Like it truly was. And I was just really surprised. Yeah. I had, I had the greatest day, but it's because I saw so many different people and I'm realizing I may not be the introvert that I thought I was. And like, and now it's time for break that shit down. So my message for your audience today is, is this theme of courage and to really tap into what is on your heart and to trust that if it's there, it's there for a reason.

It's meant for you. It's meant for you to share and to express that to yourself first and out into the world. So trust yourself and be courageous. Thank you so much for coming on. It was a pleasure meeting you. Thank you. Thank you for being courageous and stepping out of that comfort zone and being a

light, very courageous shift. Thank you. No, I really appreciate the work that both of you do. You know, I really enjoyed listening to your early episodes, getting to know your stories. And I was really excited, but also nervous to come on because, you know, most of the things that I've talked about lately have really just been about the business, you know, and I thought we might go a little bit deeper into topics today, which we did. And it was actually felt really, really good. And so I think you've inspired me of like, there's there's that next layer of sharing that's ready to come out right now. And so I want to thank you so much for for bringing that out. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you you so much for bringing that out. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you both so much. Thanks for being with us today. We hope you will come back next week.

If you like what you hear, don't forget to rate, like and subscribe. Thank you. We rise to lift you up. Thanks for listening.