Lead Brighter by Navigating Through the Unfolding Path

0:05 What's working on purpose anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want Working on purpose now. Here is your host, doctor Elise Cortes. Welcome back to the Working on Purpose Program. Thanks for tuning in again this week. I'm your host, Doctor Olga's Cortez. Join you live from Dallas, which is home base for me. If you don't know me yet, I'm a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose, organizational local therapist, inspirational speaker, social scientist, and author. My team that I help companies discover and articulate their purpose to throw it through their culture and operations. We work with forward thinking. We're forward reaching organizations to develop inspirational leaders who create cultures where people actually want to come to work and do their best. And we provide programs like the Grab Your gustter that enable the individual team members to discover and at lease their passionate and purpose at work to catalyze fulfillment, engagement, and productivity.

1:15 You can learn more about us and how we can work together at eliscortes dot com. With us today's doctor Alisha Hare. She's the founder and CEO of Turnasaul, a leadership consulting firm that partners with CEOs, their teams and organizations in times of significant change. She's the author of The Unfolding Path, a Way to Live and Lead in Our Times, which inspires and guys leaders to do the deep inner work required to step up and lead others to a brighter future. We're talking about the tenets of her gorgeous book, The Unfolding Path, and how she outlines it in her book as well as in the work she Doesn't Turn Us. All She's do today from San Francisco, California, Doctor Alisha, Welcome to Working on Purpose. Thank you so much for having me at least I'm thrilled to be here. I am too, As we were saying before we got on air, you are my literally my exact seven year she guessed seven years ago in twenty fifteen. I came on here and I was just shaking, and what do I do? How do I do this? And you are seven years so I should sure for you to say, let's talk seven years and what if you learned and your listens and all those things, we would be on four days whatever. Let me do that another time at least. Yeah, you know what, I have had guests say that to me, doctor Danny gutenk or actually Danny guten Neck I did that. He said, at least I'm gonna interview you on your show.

2:29 So he's done that, so this could happen. Okay, yeah, I'll do it. I'll do definitely reverse interview. It becomes like so much to share. It'd be so fun. I think it would be great. Well, you know what you may not know, doctor Alisha, but listeners and viewers you may know, is that this is really curated content. So seven years. What I try to do is when I prepare for the conversation and I read your gorgeous book. It was gorgeous and written words as well as its images. I'm really what I'm doing is now I'm curating and adding ideas and we haven't yet covered on the show. So there's so much we could talk about. But before we get into that, I think you've got to start a lesha with your beautiful journey story that you share in the very beginning of your book, which I could so relate to, by the way, where you realize that you can move from fear and reliance on achievement to self love. So let's start with that, William. But before I start there, I'm going to tell you you're my first conversation about this book.

3:21 I real do hear that. And here's the reason why is because the book is actually not a book that people can buy. It's not on Amazon or Burnes and Noble. I didn't write it for mass distribution. I wrote it for myself initially, to be honest, because I had the bug of writing. I'd never been to write, or never wanted to write. Thought I was just going to write a quick article. Turned out to be what we're about to talk about. And you know, I ultimately shared it with my daughter because that was my next purpose. And then the people who had been helping me with it said we'll share it with some people and see what they think. And then I ended up only sharing it with some people who had really made a different in my life and now my clients. So I've never talked about this before, so I'm very excited to have the opportunity. So thank you. This is just perfect, right, it's a seven year timing, NASTI I'm talking about it perfect. Yeah, that's what I wanted to see, all of it. Yeah. So to your question, yeah, no, what a crazy We all have our stories, right, so mine.

4:20 I think it really anchors in this idea to leverage the word that is in the show, right purpose that since I was really really little, I had this sense that the reason I was here was to shine and that word has always been in me for some reason, which I don't know why, to be honest, but it's always been a word and it's evolved over time, you know. I think this is the sort of the story you were referring to that when I was really little, I grew up in the South here in the United States. I was in a Catholic home. My living situation was somewhat unpredictable, and kind of my answer to that initially was how could I be a good girl? That was, you know, shining to me had to do with being a good girl. Which I know a lot of women can appreciate, you know, how do I show up as you know, the best, you know, polite and obedient and taking responsibility and caring for others and uh And it was really that for quite a while until I hit sort of middle school and high school. When I hit middle school in high school, you know, like so many teenagers, I began to suffer the things that we all suffer as teenagers, things about my identity and you know what was happening with my family and all these expectations I was feeling and limitations that I was feeling about what I could become. And yet I knew that I had a lot of gifts and talents that I had been given.

5:49 And I decided that that if I could achieve, if I could really leverage those things, that that would be my ticket out of all this struggle that i've if I could just achieve, if I could, if I could really you know, in everything I did, whether it was at the time academics or sports or what have you, that that would be my way out. And to be frank, it was, you know, because it really powered you know, college degree to Masters of PhD. Living in ten cities, tons of really great jobs and promotions and making a lot of money early on in my career. But what ended up happening was, you know, as I talk about in the book, there was a night shortly after my daughter was born where I was sitting in the dark and it was still, and I had this epiphany which occurs, you know, only a few times in your life. Really in the way I'm just that certainly happened to me in that moment where I kind of, for whatever reason that night, reflected on where I was and realized I had everything I'd ever imagined. But yet in the dark, I felt dark. I felt empty. I felt like there was just something fundamentally missing for me as a human. And in that moment, I realized shining wasn't responsibility, it wasn't achievement. It actually was about becoming the fullness of myself, and the ways I had been living life were not allowing going to allow me to become that, and I had to go off and find a new way. And that's really what this book is about. I can really appreciate that that emptiness, that hollowness you're talking about,

7:24 And of course, as a local therapist, we call that the existential vacuum of course, right, Really, I was like, I know that story. I know that story, So it basically feel better because you know, when you're in it, you feel alone, Yeah, the person that's ever happened to you, and you're just totally terrified. But then you get into it and you're like, oh, wait, hold on, this is a human thing, m and in some ways it's extremely predictable. So what's also really great though about your work? I just I think that you're writing is really compelling, really or beautiful writer, Alicia, and just really convey concepts really, you know, in a beautiful, very accessible way, and right out of the gate. One of the things that you talk about is, you know, you say, we resist this journey of unfolding and specifically living our purpose, and you talk about a few reasons why that's so, which I think will be useful for our listeners and viewers are going, yeah, because you know a lot of people are like, I do want to find my purpose. But right, so could you talk to a few of these things why do we resist? Yeah? Well, I do talk to a few, but I think before I get there, I would say that under I mean, because the few maybe I'll start there, you know, the fewer things like it's there, but we don't want to hear it.

8:33 It's there, but we don't want to act on it. It's there, but it feels hard to do. You know. There's just different reasons. But I think the root cause of all of that really is we live, all of us live in a world where people have expectations on us. Whether it's the family we were raised in, whether it's the culture that we were part of, whether it's the business. You know, there's there's a story that we grew up believing out how you live life, how you're successful in life, how you live a good life. And I think it's powerful, and it's powerful because as humans, we want to belong and we want to be part of a tribe, and it's scary to go outside of that.

9:13 And the deal with purpose and the deal with this idea of wanting to fully shine, to use the language my language, and wanting to really be the fullness of who you are is you have to let that go. You have to say, you know what, that may be the story, but that's not right for me. My life and my journey and my path requires me to bushwhack. It requires me to leave all of that and to really have the faith and confidence in myself that I can navigate to become the fullness of who I am. And I think that's really the underlying root cause of all of it. I think that's I completely align with that, And that was a beautifully rendered I mean, I know for me, when I really really really understood what was I literally I left a perfectly good job. I jumped off the cliff. I didn't have a single client who was going to look and pay for my services and said, okay, I'll go. I'll start my own you know, leadership program, create my own books, run a nonprofit. I did all that with nothing. I didn't. There was nothing underneath there for me except you had the fire exactly. I had the fire and the conviction that this is the right path for me, And yes it was, so I talked about being obedient to it, you know, and then it wasn't necessarily convenient, but I couldn't resist it. So I think what you just said is gorgeous. And then if we also take it another step further, only show what's really fascinating that I also terribly aligned with what you said as you say, at its core, struggle is simply a personalized invitation to wake up, grow and expand. Yes, well, it's funny

10:45 because in preparing for this, I had to reread all the books and I'm sorry, no, I was actually a gift because there were so many places because I wrote it for me, there are so many places of it that I was like, oh man, I need to hear that right now. And this was one of them that I read it and I was like, oh, yes, yeah, I wrote that. Dang it, you know, because it's so true. And here's here's why I think it's so true. I think that struggle is actually the thing that allows us to become who we really are. My daughter and I for a while loved a rock tumbler. We used to have a rock tumbler, and you know, you put the unpolished rock in the tumblr, you put the grit in, like all the stuff, that nasty stuff, and you let it tumble around for a while and then it comes out shining that struggle. Struggle is the grit.

11:31 And when you kind of say to yourself, I'm going to turn towards it, I'm going to lean into it. I'm gonna face it, confront it, versus being afraid of it and ignoring it, denying it, numbing from it, dedicating whatever the other choices that we can make. When you really lean into it, I think what you find is that is the thing that helps you, you know, develop confidence to know you can do it. I think about my divorce, you know, as an example of my own personal life. You know, my parents were married for sixty years. You know, my grandparents before them. My brothers are all married. The idea that I was going to divorce was just like out of the ordinary, but it was real. I had to do it for me, and you know, it was an inferno. Everything I knew burned down. But I look back at that experience and I say, holy cow, I am more me because I went through it. I went through all the steps. I had to learn how to do it, I had to do it differently, I had to have faith in myself. I'm more me than I ever would have been without that. And I think that's the power of struggle. We are given the personalized opportunities that are unique to us for us to be all of us. I completely agree with that. In fact, for the longest time, Alicia, I used to say, you know, I'm probably not going to amount to too terribly much in life because I haven't had to struggle.

12:50 And it's true, I really haven't, you know. And but like you, I did get this nice little thing on a silver platter called a divorce that helped me as well read right, thank you, And I wouldn't be living my purpose today if I probably if I were still married. And that's just part of it, right, It's just and so I completely believe. So the opportunity listeners and viewers is to embrace the struggle, right and recognize it for the gift that it really is, and not run from it and not known from it. As she's saying, it's just so so powerful. It is the fuel. It is that, it is the energy, It is the gift. It is the curriculum to help us become all of us. It is so is And I really appreciate how you have created these separate books that then address specifically the building blocks that you say create the unfolding path, which we're going to talk about. We're going to sample from each one of those because they're so so beautiful. So let's talk about the first one here, So that what those building blocks are are fear, choice, purpose, brighter futures, and the path. And so what it's great about the way that you've written this and set it up for us is you say that these building blocks revealed to you a new navigational system for how we could live and lead, which is gorgeous. Right, So the way you serve this up, So let's do this. Let's treat the first one fear before we grab our first bike. So let me read a couple things and let you comment, because I want to be able to render some of your writing.

14:11 It's so beautiful. So I've never heard anybody say this the way that you have, which is great. So you say, humans are hardwired to spread emotions faster than viruses. Fear, considered to be a high arousal emotion, is the most contagious of all. It alerts the most primal parts of ourselves to issues affecting our safety, security, and survival. If we aren't aware, we can catch fear and equally give our fear to others. That is powerful, Alicia, very powerful. Well, I just I mean you can think about it in your own personal life like I was with a mom last week. I went to go pick my daughter up at soccer practice, and you know, omicron's happening right now, and kids have just gone back to school, and she was really, you know, expressing to me her anxiety about some things that had happened that day with her child at a school, you know, and what was going to happen. And I had gone into that conversation completely calm, and I got into my car and I was completely stirred up. And the only thing that had happened is I had that conversation.

15:07 And so why did that happen? While the science behind it is we have mirror neurons, and the mirror neurons are were hardwired is part of our sort of survival system to pick up on other people's emotions and fear because of what the role that fear plays, which is about keeping us safe and secure, and where it sits in our brain, which is obviously in the it's you know, we've all talked about it, fight and flight. You know, it's in the reptilian part in our brain. That particular emotion has the highest arousal capacity in our in our with these mirror mirror neurons, and so what ends up happening is, you know, I catch fear, and then if I'm not aware that I have the fear, I pass it on to someone else. I could have then had another I could have had a conversation right after that that said at least, oh my god, COVID schools, Holy cow, can you get over And then you start feeling it, and then you, if you're unaware, do something similar to others. And you see it in organizations as well. Absolutely, And that was probably one of my personally my biggest AHAs was being in three different organizations in three different industries that all got disrupted by an existential threat and seeing how the leaders of that company were afraid for themselves. You know that they were worried about their own failure, not not in a bad way, but a human way. You know that they're leading this company and what are we going to do? And I don't want to fail, And that sense of fear then translated to their teams, and their teams then translated to the company through variety of ways.

16:41 And collective fear is debilitating for people, you know, it really keeps people from doing their best. M h. Yeah. And that's and you and I both see this because of the work that we do inside organization. So let's hold our thoughts for that for just a month so we can grab our first break. We'll pick up for a little bit more on that when we come back. I'm your host, doctor Leafs Cortes. We've been in a year with doctor Leisha here. She's the founder and CEO of Turnisol and the author of The Unfolding Path, A Way to Live and Lead in Our Times. We've been talking a bit about her own journey and why this work is important to her, starting to talk about the elements or the tenets within her book, first one being fear. After break, we're going to also kick into choice. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose and inspirational speaker and author.

17:29 She helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at Elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or open a conversation with Alise, send an email to a lease Alise at Elisecortes dot com. Now back to working on Purpose. Thanksteresting with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose if you're just during the program today. My guest is doctor Alisha Hare. She's the founder and CEO of Turnasaul, a leadership consultancy firm that partners with CEOs, their teams and organizations in times of significant change. And she's the author of The Unfolding Path, A Way to Live and Lead in our Times. I'm your host, doctor Leaks Cortes. So we were talking about this one of the tenants that you talk about in in your your collection of books, and that being fear.

18:41 I just wanted to finish up one more thing on that which I think is just so important. And we were talking about this notion of like fear is so palpable inside organizations, people are afraid to talk and it spreads like wildfire. And what's interesting about what you say about that, which I think is really interesting, is you say to stop collective fear and engage more productively with our changing world. We must turn inwards and create a greater stability inside ourselves. To develop this inner stability, we can reframe our fear from something that we deny or diminish by to something that we can master and use to facilitate our learning and growth. And this mastery starts with a very important first step. We must wake up true. It's the birthplace of us taking our power back. That is the birthplace, you know. And I think what the book fear and Choice, when you put them together, I think that was for me the first thing. You know, we live in this uncertain world. It's so easy to be knocked out, you know, knocked off, you know, and sort of be overwhelmed by the world we live in.

19:41 And for me, the first step is, you know, how do you master your fear? And the first place you started you actually have to be aware that you're afraid. And when you're aware that you're afraid, then you can start doing something about being afraid. But if you don't let yourself even know you're afraid, then you trap yourself right there. And that speaks to something we'll talk a little bit later. And that's just the problem that we have in today's times is becoming divorced from our feelings, the whole compliment of them, not just fear, but everything out with the bathwater. So let's move into choice next. There's a couple pieces to this that I think are really critical that you talk about as well, and so here again i'll read from your book. You say, each and every choice we may consists of the same three parts. A stimulus, a space in which we make our choice, a response. When fully accessed, the space between stimulus and response is infinite and contains limitless alternatives, possibilities, and opportunities aim in it provides us the chance to slow down and ask ourselves important questions. It is also a place where we can learn, grow and change. I would venture to say that most people do not think about choice as powerfully as that well practice right and again, I think for me, these two books of how do you live in the times that we live in again start from this place of we have to take a power back, And this for me was a bridge with fear because what happens is something happens to us, and that's the

21:11 stimulus, and it could be a good thing, a bad thing, something in between. But before we respond, there's actually a place where we can decide how we're going to respond. And I think the practice is, and certainly a practice I'm still working on every day, is how do we pause long enough to know that we have that choice to make. And so, for me, being somebody who has lived a life of fear, living in a world that is so uncertain, the most helpful thing I can do when something happens is to give myself that space and to say, hang on, I feel fear. I don't actually have to act out of that. I actually have other choices that I can make right now. So let's slow down and think about what I actually want to do, What is my intention?

22:00 And here what do I want to have happen as a result of my action? And again, the practice of allowing yourself to be aware of the stimulus, give yourself that space to choose and then have a response. It is one of the most essential things to take your power back in my experience, Beautifully render beautifully said. And then related to that is another really really important concept that we have to talk about that you also really just zing in your book. Is you say that you say, I believe it is the lack of personal responsibility that is at the core of much of what ails us today, and I do agree with that, So why I care so much about empowerment as well? You say too many of us fall into the categories of believing the world is all about serving our needs or believing the world is completely against us, so we shouldn't even try. Too many of us, too much of the time wait for others to think for us, act for us, solve our problems, and give our lives, meaning we abandon accountability for what is actually ours to do, relying on a false hope that someone else will do it for us. Yeah, I think again, from my journey, there's no choice if you don't take personal responsibility for it. So if you believe that your choices are not your responsibility, you give your choices to someone else, and you allow other people to dictate your life and where you're headed. And so again, given that I believe, for me personally in my journey, it was I got to take my power back. I'm letting other people dictate my life. I'm letting other people dictate how I feel.

23:33 I'm letting other people dictate what I should do. How am I going to fully shine? How am I going to take how am I going to become the fullness of me? If that's what I'm doing This idea that I am responsible for my choices, which which means that I'm not going to let anybody else make them for me. Whatever the whatever I decide is my accountability and the result of that is my accountability. That's what creates power to right nor responsibility. You realize you have choice in every situation, and every single situation you have a choice you can make. That's where the power comes from. And it's when you feel power full, not power less, that you can decide what you what you want to do in the world. That's where you can now start to talk about purpose and where you can start to talk about the impact you want to have is when you know that you've got power.

24:23 Because you have you, you can make choices and you're responsible for that. Mm. I can't resist putting this together for Alicia. So in logo therapy, doctor Vitor Frankle talks a lot about how you know on the East Coast right right, we have to because of your your location and everything right. So he talks about how the Statue of Liberty courses in New York and it's all about freedom. But there's another really important key side to that, and that is responsibility or response ability. So you used to always say that we need another statue, but this one being the you know, responsibility, and let's put it in San Francisco. Put it on the other side, since you're in San Francisco. This is perfect. I love it. I know he's he's for sure. He's been a huge influence on how I think about things. I had a suspicion there's a lot of there's a lot of sync between how you talk and write and how I do as well. So all the more reason why you know, I was thrilled when I was asked, let's get her on here. Okay, well, let's move on to purpose.

25:22 There were so many things in your Book of Purpose that I was just just jamming on and we got to start. And what's great about that, Alicia, there were so many things that you have a you know, you have your own beautiful, shining perspective on the matter. And so I want to open it with the way that you open the forward in that particular book of Purpose. This is a clip from Rabbi Harold Kushner in the book, and we have to read the whole thing to situate this, so you say, this is his writing, his words. Over the course of my thirty years as a congressional rabbi, I have seen many people come to the end of their lives. I've held their hands and prayed with them on the eve of his desperate life chance operation. I have seen them deteriorate from week to week of abilitating illness. I have seen courage, love, and humor in the face of death. The dying have taught me one great lesson that I would never have learned without their help. Most people are not afraid of dying.

26:15 They are afraid of not having lived. It is not the prospect of death that frightens most people. People can accept the inescapable fact of mortality. What frightens them more is the dread of insignificance, the notion that we will be born and live and one day die and none of it will matter. That is so profound and perfect, waited to open on purpose, You know it was again. I wrote it for me, and I found myself in every book saying, I can't believe I'm about to write this. I can't believe I'm about to talk about this, And this example of that that the quote for me was, as I mentioned in the book, also very profound for me. And it was because at the time, I was an executive.

26:56 I was working at a huge job, and I was doing what executive do. I was actually living in Australia at the time, and my grandfather, who had been incredibly influential to me, was living on the complete ob the other side of the world, in the south in Georgia, and he was dying of cancer. And I was kind of seeing myself at the time, you know, very important with you know, PowerPoint decks and lots of meetings, and he and his house about fifteen thousand miles away, was dying and I would go visit him. And one of the things that really struck me about him was he was at peace with dying. And I, you know, he was a he was a man of faith, and so I knew that that was part of it. But when I read the quote, what I really came to understand is that he also was at peace because he knew his life mattered. So what it did for me was it made me ask the question of myself, how will I know that my life mattered?

27:51 And I now come to at least for me sort of see it along two dimensions. It's there's a dimension about what I contribute, you know, and that's different than six contributions about impact and the impact I had. And the other dimension is have I loved? And have I been loved? And for me at least those two axes, if you will kind of frame what it means to live a life that truly matters. I think that's stellar. And I thought that was so powerful. And you do a beautiful job talking about your grandfather in the book too, and his piece that comes from knowing that he actually mattered. So I want to make sure in situations for our listeners and viewers because it's beautiful. Your two axes are contribution, and then the other one is loved and being loved. And I think that's really profound.

28:33 And I will tell you this, Alicia, that when I'm outspeaking to audiences and I talk about the importance of awakening to passionate purpose, first, people don't know what they're passionate about. And then when we get to the purpose part, they say things like, well, you know, my life is okay the way it is, It's okay, it's okay. And so I see what that's you know, it's resignation, right, See, I know what that is, right, because they're afraid of it, afraid of the matter, afraid of how shine, how big there shine might be? Right, and it's so interesting, Alicia's such important work to be doing the world and precious work to be doing in the world. Yeah, well, and it's I think for a lot of people. It's what you're doing. And what I think I'm trying to do is to help people make it more accessible for people, you know, And I think that's particular. The word purpose, I think now can scare people, but it's actually it's actually something that exists in all of us. And the question is not it doesn't have to be a big p purpose. It can be a little P purpose that's a theme over your life. Like for me, shining is a purpose, but it's changed over my life and it applies differently, but it's a theme.

29:41 How do you help people make that accessible for people? And then give them kind of the tools and the kind of the steps, the small steps that they can take that allow them to actually do it mm hmm. And which I'll say something too or a little bit later. One of the other things that you say that I've never got anybody else say before, which is brilliant. You say all such compliments, thank you. Oh it's well, it's great work, Alicia, It's just great work. You're so welcome, so well deserved. And I love to celebrate, you know, when I see a beautiful mind in hardcome on air and we're celebrating, and it's seven years in my dear, let's do it. So one of the things that you say is so great, as you say, living your purpose is the ultimate act of showing up. Oh, amen, sister, That's exactly right.

30:22 And nobody else that I've heard ever say that. Oh, but if you've tried it, it's like gosh, I don't know how else to describe the experience. Now, to live your purpose means you are willing to go against what everyone else is saying is the right thing to do. So you have bought into the story of society, like we were saying a minute ago. You know society and your family and culture, and you are willing to love yourself more than all of that, and you're willing to say, I will live the life that is mine to live, and I will not die without doing what is my unique, you know, fulfilling my unique potential like it is. And to do that means you have to be yourself. Like I have a sticky note literally in front of me right now that says, this is me. You have to be yourself. You have to be yourself.

31:14 You have to be brave enough to be yourself. You have to be brave enough to do things that are unconventional, unconventional and be okay with that. It's definitely not for the fan of heart, but yet it is the most rewarding you know, path I've certainly ever tried to take me too. In fact, that's one of the things that you talk about that in the importance of self love as a very as a distinguishing access point to purpose. I think that's also really brilliant and unusual Alicia, in terms of you know what I want to say, showcasing the importance of self love in order to be able to access your purpose. That's the only reason that you actually do it is because you love yourself enough to say, you know what, what I have to offer matters, and I need to do it for me. I agreed, and that's what happened to me too. So let's grab our last break already, this goes by so fast. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. We're going on near with doctor Alisha Hare. She's the founder and CEO of Turnersoul and the author of The Unfolding Path and we Live and Lead in our times. We've been talking about some of the tenants from her collection of books. We've been just talking about purpose and also choice after the record to get into brighter futures and the path. Stay with us, We'll be right back. Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose and inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite Elise to speak

32:45 to your organization, please visit her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or open a conversation with Alise, send an email to Elise Alise at elisecortes dot com. Now back to working on purpose. Thanks for stating with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose, Alicia. Since you mentioned the idea of access, I do want to share with you and all the listeners and viewers a little bit of news, and that is that August of twenty twenty one, I released an anthology of twenty five stories from women that I found around the world, from all over the place, from Australia to Zambia. And they share their really intimate stories of how they discover their purpose and how they're serving from it.

33:40 And the reason I arranged them the way that they did by Path was to do just what you said, to give people some access to being able to discover their own purpose. And if we look at path, that's a way to see it. So I want to share that with you. It's out on Amazon now. It's called Passion. Look to it for sure. Yeah, I'm so proud of it. I could buych It must have been so fun to do. It was amazing. So it's called Passionately Striving and Why, and that's out now. I'm on the hunt across the globe to find men to be able to share their stories. So Stair's a viewer. If you know, any men who want to be able to share their story of purpose, please send them my way. I'm going to think about some and see if I can send me your way. Please do. I've been having some of the most amazing conversations, so if you're just joining me guests, and who are guests and viewers. My guest today is doctor Lesha Hare.

34:23 She's the founder and CEO of Turnasaul, a leadership consultancy firm that partners with CEOs their teams and organizations and times significant change. We've been talking about her beautiful book. So the next piece that we want to cover. The next book we want to cover is called Brighter Futures. And what's interesting again for me and our parallel work, Lesia, is some of the things that you write about for Brighter Futures I kind of talk about from an inspirational lens. It's very similar. It's just so beautiful and so here again, let's quote what you say. You say Over time, I discovered that the leaders I admired reached both the head and the heart. They made people bold and hopeful, connected to something greater than themselves, confident and empowered to make an impact.

35:04 They brought out the best and others by helping them believe they could do more, be more, and make more good things happen. Completely aligned with that, and that so is such a beautiful way to speak to brighter futures. Yeah, and I think this book was a sort of a pivotal point for me writing it because it really made me have to think about what makes those people able to do it, you know, which if I think about the people that I was kind of inspired by when I wrote that, they'd done the work that we just talked about, you know, they were people who were you know, were awake to their fear, They were courageous, they took responsibility for their choices. They knew what they were doing and why they were doing it with their purpose, and they knew that they could use those things in a way to make people's lives better, and they were inspired to do so. And I think what was powerful about thinking about that was then contrasting it to a different kind of leadership that you see out in the world, which I would argue sort of to the dominant paradigm about be the biggest, to be the best, take the share, win the war.

36:08 And I was trying to figure out how more leaders could actually lead in that way, And this was a little bit of my exploration of that. M h. It's gorgeous and I think it's such a great way to showcase, you know, the possibility of a whole new frontier that you that you put forward for us and to then and you take it another step further with this next passage, you say, the ultimate job of leader is to bring brighter futures, futures that bring out the best of humanity, create greater human value, not just economic, political, or personal value. Bring about new possibilities, opportunities, equality and freedom for more people, burst with hope and feel better than we ever imagined possible. That's your definition of leading brighter, which I think is a beautiful invitation and a great summons. How could you say no to that? Well, I just I think it's time to have a conversation about what is the job of a leader. I mean, you look at a lot of the leadership literature and it's about competencies, and it's about attributes, and it's about you know, tactics and disciplines. But what you don't see is actually what's the job of a leader? You know, you don't actually see anybody define that. And I feel like, you know, we could create a whole new paradigm of leadership, a whole new generation of leaders, just based on the fundamental premise the job, the job you're signing up for is to create a brighter future that makes people's lives better, that creates more joy and connection and discovery and equality and shared prosperity. Like we as leaders should do that, and in doing that we can actually elevate people's

37:42 performance as well. Yeah, and on that note, I have to insure something really quick here, so listeners and viewers, those of you who are leaders are going and heck, this is a really hard job. Yes, it really is a hard job. And you probably can't do it as well by yourself. You probably need some help. And that's the work that both Elisha and are doing. I know today, Alicia, I'm working with leaders who are terrified. I mean, this is a huge job. You know. The Great Resignation is a real deal, and it's creating all kinds of havoc for organizations and the leaders who run them. And you know, now is a really good time to be able to get a little help with the with the with with the unfolding path, if you will, and I really want to make sure that listeners and views you hear us. You know, say to you, we hear you. This is hard work, and you know there's beauty in the journey, and you know love to help you along that journey. It's so beautiful, it's so intimate, and when filled with possibility, you it starts with you. I think the part about it, you know, to your point at least that that I've certainly been experiencing, is helping individual leaders reconnect to what drives them kind of take their own power back. They've been dealing with so many things happening at them and crises and responses, and and you know, the application of what we've been talking about up to now is helping leaders as humans reconnect to what matters to them, their own sense of personal power, their own purpose, the contribution they uniquely can make, and then helping them make that contribution in the face of all of this because it's possible. Agreed, completely agreed. And so then the

39:14 last tenant or the last book that I want to talk about to touch upon here is the Path, and this is again gorgeous. I want to read just a little bit and have you serve back up from it? So you say, the danger as we stumble to find what we know used to be true and being lost, is that ultimately we can lose heart and divorce ourselves from our feelings. I've experienced this in my own life, which is a big reason why today I'm out to awaken passionate purpose in those I serve. So I really understood when you said divorce from feelings. I really understand that I have been lost. I know what that feels like. So would you generate for us more what this path looks like. You do it beautifully in your book. Yeah. And what I would say is that to build on what you said just a second ago, I mean, I think when all of us have been in this time of struggle for vile now you know, and dealing with the crisis and the responses, it is so easy to lose heart. It is so easy to give in and give up, and it's human and there's no judgment there. It's just easy to do it, right.

40:12 I think, I think what this is what I'm sort of my offering through this book is. But there's a different way, And I think, you know, again, if you are able to look at your fear and realize you have choice, and you can connect your purpose and you can imagine a brighter future that you can create. The path is all about the future doesn't exist yet, nobody has ever actually walked the path that's uniquely yours, and so how do you set off on the journey to do that? And it's it's very much about learning that, reminding ourselves that we actually as humans are explorers. We're navigators. You know, we live in this world I think where somehow again through society we've we we value the known and the certain.

40:59 You know, we love our eyes phones, We love you know, being able to find the weather out in ten seconds. We love you know, knowing the journey of becoming the fullness of yourself, the journey of creating a bright future. You know, it's a path of unknowing. And so the path is all about, you know, kind of reconnecting with this idea that we're all navigators. We can all find our way if we start to listen to our internal voices, if we start to sort of kind of take the next right step, if we if we you know, really allow ourselves the trust to be able to do it. I think you probably had just probably terrified a few people that we're listening with that, which is great because some people, right, it's that piece of the certainty piece, right, what do you mean this is uncertain Where I'm going to place my next foot to step? It is right here. I love how you talked about that being explorers that were navigators and that you know, there's this whole beautiful space of possibility. And it's even more so my show a few weeks ago, who I just love He's got the book, the Beautiful Business Book out and I just really believe love that he's out to be able to evangelize the idea that all of us can elevate our businesses to a higher serving level. Right with more consciousness and intentionality, we really can lift more boats with that.

42:17 And you know, it's just it's so there's that possibility space that you talk about. I think is just so important for us never to lose sight of well, and I also think we underestimate ourselves. You know, I think the only reason that we fear uncertainty is because we're out of practice. You know, we've lived in a world of certainty or wanted to create certainty for ourselves. But we're hardwired for exploration. We're hardwired to be navigators. And it's like anything you go to learn Spanish or I'm learning Spanish right now, or you know a new sport. It's like anything you learn, you just have to practice. You have to try it, you have to allow yourself to be uncomfortable with it, but to trust that you can do it, you know, and to take steps that, Okay, I did that one, I can do another one. That one I can do another one.

43:04 I think that's a lot of the work of kind of again becoming the fullness of who you are. Yeah, just taking it just there's there's magic and taking the action right. We both know that. So a couple more things I want to talk about with regard to what you've done with your company. So, so I love that you've named your company Tornisolt, which is French for sunflower. I did know that, And I love that you use a flower image imagery on your website and it's also throughout your book and places. So tell us the story because I know a little something about where this came from, but our listeners and viewers don't tell us the story of how the name was inspired. Why tornis salt Well Again, The books are all about sort of my personal journey and from my purpose and thinking about what I can do. The image of a field of sunflowers is sort of my own brighter future. The brighter future I want to create is a field of sunflower.

44:00 Each flower represents a leader, like seeds that I've been able to plant, where people feel more inspired and equipped to lead and live and lead in the ways we've been talking about. And so for me, the reason the company exists, the reason I exist, is to try to help people to be able to turn towards that different way of living and leading. Gorgeous And then on your website you have this really wonderful, plateful way of introducing your team, which I just think is exquisite and divine and inviting. So kudos for that, thank you, thank you, wonderful work you're doing. So here, you know we did it. It goes by so fast, Alisha, So you know this show is listening to by people across the world, and we're all about creating workplaces where people actually want to come to work and do their best. We have what I call inspirational leaders, or those leading a brighter future who want to actually lead those people to their greatness, and we do business how betters the world. With that in mind, what we should like to leave our listeners with I think I would offer a thought in a question. The thought is, you know my life as being an example.

45:06 You know, in the face of uncertainty and all the stuff we're all struggling with right now, it is possible to fully shine. It is possible to do it, and I think the place you start is deciding that it's something that you want to do. So the question I leave is for if folks are interested, is to imagine your life fully shining. What does it look like for you? What does the outside look like if you're fully shining? And how does it feel different inside if you were fully shining? And I would just maybe give yourself permission to play with that question and see how it feels and see if that's something that inspires you, and if it does, then the next step will show up for you after that. That is a brilliant way to finish the show. In fact Alsha, those are the couple of questions that I have people who write in There's their stories and Landell she's way in on exactly those things fascinating. See I'm telling you our sisters from another mother. I don't know, but yeah, I don't have to figure it out because I love it. That was such a fun conversation. I'm honored to be here and again, congratulations on seven years. That's just amazing.

46:14 Thank you. I really think that you know you. You brought a shine literally to this seven year mark. So I really am so glad I found you. Thank you your publicist for putting us together. I loved reading your book and sharing the concepts with our listeners and viewers and to help them shine more and lead butter futures. So doctor Alisha Hare, thank you for joining me as a guest. Thank you again. Hire Welcome listeners and viewers. You will learn more about doctor Leisha Hare and the work she and her fascinating team are doing at Tournaisaul or the book that she wrote, The Unfolding Path. Go to lead Brighter dot com. Last week. You've missed the show live, you can always catch a be recorded podcast. We were on here with John Coleman, the managing partner of Sovereign's Capital and the author of Crafting Your Purpose, Lead Into Your Strengths, Bring Meeting to work difference.

47:00 Next week will be on air with doctor Nathaniel Zinn talking about his book The Confident Mind. A battle tested guy to unshakable performance. See you there, Remember that works at least our of our life. So let's work on purpose. We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune in too. Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes, each week on the Voice America Empowerment Channel. Together, we'll create a world where business operates conscientiously, leadership inspires impassioned performance, and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work on purpose.

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