Hey, everybody, welcome to the book leads, impactful books for life and leadership.I'm your series host and leadership performance coach, Jon Jaramillo.
This podcast series is about getting to the books that have impacted the lives, the work, the businesses of people in my network, leaders in my network, people that I've met new, people that I've known for a while.
So these are great leads to get to those books that have impacted them the most, whether they're the author or not, a book that they've read that belongs to somebody else.
I want to find out which book really has made that best impact on their work, their life, their business, whatever it may be, all those worlds intersect.And in this series, we cover three categories of books.
The first category where they're sharing a book I haven't read.The second category where we're discussing a book we've both read, whether specifically for this series or from our previous lives before the series itself.
The third category is when I have the author and or publisher on to discuss the book that they've put out.And they want to give a face.They want to put a tone to what the book is and its messaging and its values.
In this particular episode, my guest is Wendy Walbridge.And Wendy is the founder of Spiral Up and a pioneering advocate for women's advancement in gender equity.
An award-winning author and speaker, Wendy's Spiral Up model empowers women to thrive by embracing their unique values and feminine wisdom.
She has guided leaders at top companies like McAfee, VMware, Apple, HP, and Disney to build high-performing, inclusive cultures where everyone can flourish.
Wendy's work, informed by her own journey overcoming life-threatening lupus, has been featured in Fortune and The New York Times.
Her latest book, Spiraling Upward, The Five Co-Creative Powers for Women on the Rise, offers a transformative roadmap for people seeking success in both their personal and professional lives.
We're here because Wendy had seen what I was doing with the podcast about sharing great books and getting that value out there.She reached out.And as I mentioned before, when I have guests reach out to me, I learn a bit about them.
It goes back and forth.And if I think they can provide just some great insight, some great knowledge, even if people are in similar fields, Wendy and I were just talking about that.
I think the value of this is even if people are in similar fields, everybody has their own voice, their own tone, their own experiences that I think lend themselves and create powerful value for these conversations.
So Wendy, thank you for joining me.
Thank you.I'm so excited to be here.
Wendy, so read the bio, a variety of work and experience, but Hearing it from you, what is the work that you're doing today?What does it look like in the day-to-day, just so we get a sense of who you are and what you're about these days?
Thank you.Well, first, I just want to say what you said just now about the uniqueness of a person's voice.
You know, it's encouraging to people who are thinking of writing books because they think, you know, I know for me on my journey to writing a book, I thought, oh God, you know, so many people have written books.
How come my book is going to be any different, you know?And the truth is we each have a very unique signature And, and that signature will reach certain people that no one else will reach.
So, you know, just encouraging to those, those that are listening that want to put their ideas into form.
It's, it's funny, what you just said reminded me of something that came up the other day, where somebody online asked, if you did it, if you did a TED Talk, what would you do?What would be the title?
And the first thing that came up was, why I don't want to do a TED Talk. And it goes back to okay what is it that I can say that hasn't already been said.
And it was it's kind of like a TED talk to walk through your, your evaluation of okay there's already hundreds of TED talks people have already said it there's people that are.
advanced, more educated, more specialized in their fields, what could I bring to the table?And then kind of taught the talk would be talking yourself into, no, but I have a unique voice.I have a unique spin and experience.
Actually, it's because so many people struggle with that.And I did a TEDx talk and it was very nerve wracking, I will say, because you really have to be tight in your message.
But it does make you, whenever you, you know, it's funny how my book came into being, Spiraling Upward, partly was that I signed up to speak at something.And I didn't even have the whole idea formulated.
But by the time I got to the actual event, I had all that time in between where I said, yes, I will do it. And all this information came to me, like, this is how it should go.This is the model.And I was able to articulate it.
And I think that committing to a big thing that you're scared of, like doing a TEDx talk, or whatever your growing edge is, is the way that you bring forward the creation that you're wanting to create.
It's in there, but until you really commit to showing up somewhere with it, it can just sit in the incubator for a long time.
But in answer to your question, in terms of my, did you want me to tell you about my journey to
First, what the work that you're doing now and then the next question would be about the journey here.
Okay, well the work we're doing now is really exciting.I have about 10 people that work with me and we've been working inside of one very large global tech company for about 10 years.
And in that company, we've had the opportunity to not only do the Spiral Up Women's Leadership Program, where women go through a seven-part program over three months with coaching that really empowers them, gives them voice, has them be able to speak up in meetings that they couldn't before, be able to navigate some of the microaggressions that happen in companies that are kind of not even noticeable until you know what they are.
those kinds of things.And then at the same time, we're working with the men and separately.So the men go through a five-part program called Inclusive Leadership Men as Allies.
And the combination of these two things really creates culture change for an allyship organization where men are thinking about how to make room for women to rise, as well as women being able to make those moves that they need to make.
So it's been really satisfying to do that work.And yeah, it's been the culmination of a lot of years of study and research.
So the services, are there one-on-one options?Is it all group coaching?What does it look like, the suite of services you may offer?
The main thing is called full spectrum leadership, which is these two parts, the inclusive leadership men's program and the women's spiral up program. Also, we do executive coaching one-on-one.
But inside of that program, everybody gets a coach, and they get to go through 5 sessions with some coach on the team.So that's awesome.And yeah, I do still do some very high-level executive coaching.
And then I think we're, and we're offering it once we're have never done this before, but a public spiral up.
It's called Power and Possibility Coaching Circle for women who want to just bring something new into being or that feel stuck and they want to get some traction on something and they want to be in a community of ambitious, heart-centered women to do that.
So we're going to start that at the end of the month.I don't think this will be out probably by the time we release it, but we may do another one.
Absolutely.When you say heart-centered, that stood out.Can you speak a little more about that and where that comes from for you?
Yeah, for sure.There's a lot of books out there and a lot of people that teach the strategies for climbing a ladder or getting somewhere and being successful.
But my approach is, you know, came from my own personal journey and struggles with the hardest things that I went through were the things that taught me, kind of, that built my character and taught me what was important, really.
So I think when I say heart-centered, I'm noticing that, you know, when you think about people right now, young people in particular, there's never been more options and more change.
excuse me, what I mean by that is people can choose, you know, where they work, they can choose, they're going to change jobs more frequently than ever before, they can choose their sexual preference, their identity, they can choose the clothes they wear, they can choose so much in this
in a privileged situation that we are in the United States.But I would just say that given all that options, it's also very confusing.And there's a lot of decisions that people have to make. And also there's so much stimulation from social media.
So we have a lot of inputs coming in all the time of all these opinions and what's cool and not cool.So it's never been more important for somebody to be able to be connected to what is their truth. Why are they here?
What is it that they're here to do?And that was my journey for myself when I was in my 20s and 30s.I was searching madly for my purpose, like what am I here for?
And I woke up one morning and couldn't move and was diagnosed with a life-threatening blood disease called lupus.
And that made it even more important to me to like, well, if I'm going to be here for a long, short time, I really do want to know what I'm here for.And it made me be loyal to finding out my purpose.
And I was lucky because I did at a very young age find out my purpose in terms of, you know, really helping people transform.
It's amazing how we may not unknowingly take for granted the time that we have here and that sometimes it takes hardships, life-threatening diseases or whatever it may be to really open up our eyes to say, okay, let's get our shit together and let's really focus on what we can do while we're here.
We're not just going through the motions, but there's a newfound urgency based on whatever circumstances to make a difference and to really show who you are and get things done.
It's so true.People don't really change unless there's something pushing on them to do it.People don't come to a transformative experience because life is really great.They usually have something that happened.And I call those initiations.
I think they're really important, incredible.I mean, people that you know, John, that have gone through something big, do you notice that they're different than other people?
You know, it's just like there's a different they're, they're in touch with their mortality a little bit more, they're in touch with the shortness of life and the importance of living the truth of their lives.
So yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's also kind of true of people in general today, because of the pandemic, because of the hardship that that was, and the unprecedented change that that created.
A lot of people, at least during the time of the pandemic, said to themselves, like, why am I doing what I'm doing?Like, what am I doing?And they reconsidered and it was kind of like a collective reconsideration.
Maybe that's gone away for people now because we're back into the drone of it a little bit.But yeah, it can be a good thing, but it's also a scary thing for people to have a big initiation.
Agreed, agreed.Big scary thing, but sometimes it has that silver lining of just waking you up.Because I think a lot of us may go through life not really woken up, not woke, woken up to our purpose, what we can do, right?
We're just going through the motions, going through the script, going to college, getting the nine to five, or starting a business, just going through the motions.But there's another level of performance.There's another level of fulfillment.
There's another level of satisfaction, of happiness, of love, when you're tapping into that energy that you have to look for within yourself.So sometimes it does take
disease or death around us, whatever it may be, some kind of exterior threat, external threat to wake us up to what we should be tapping into.Because I think we get hypnotized and programmed by society to kind of just
Yeah, just fall into that kind of mold of just get your job, have your family, have a nice house, this and that, and you're hitting all the high marks, but there's still something that each of us has that's that unique.
This is your calling, this is your book, Wendy, but everybody has that unique thing.We're not supposed to be kind of cookie cutter.
You know, in the TEDx talk that I gave, and I hope people will look at that, there's an exact, that conversation is exactly what it's about.It's about what I say is there's a horizontal path where we collect A's.
Acknowledgement, appreciation, accolades, acquisitions, we're all about the A's. But then that horizontal path, it also is often accompanied by a very harsh taskmaster that no matter what you do accomplish, it's never enough.
And it's kind of like this relentless ongoing thing.And by the way, it doesn't create fulfillment, just getting those things.So luckily for us, there's also a vertical path.
So it's not just a horizontal path, but there's also a vertical path, which is those incidents that happen in our lives, which I call either awe, or ow.There's some ows and there's some awes, right?
Because the awes are those moments when we, let's say, fall in love or have our first child or, you know, wake up to a purpose that is bigger than us, or a teacher that inspires us, even a book that wakes us up.
Those moments take us up to, like, this part of ourselves that's our values, our inner strengths, and our purpose. And if you combine those two things, the vertical and the horizontal, in an upward motion, that is what an upward spiral is created.
It's touching those two, it's integrating the vertical experiences into your horizontal path so that it informs your direction rather than just tick-tock, you know, following somebody else's path.You're actually finding your own off-road path.
And that's what the whole spiral is about.
I love that visualization of, okay, yeah, there are certain things that you have to go through in life, getting the job, family, just the regular stuff that we all do.
But within that, there is that horizontal for you that you have to figure out, okay, above these things that I've checked, and you love. their rote or anything like that, that you love, what is that thing for you?
And I love that how it's like that average of the horizontal and the vertical, and it's kind of spiral.I love that.I love that visual.
And also what is, I don't want to, I want to underline the importance, like you said, of that horizontal path, because here's what happens.While we learn those things, we learn masculine strengths.
We learn strategy, we learn getting stuff done, we learn effort, we learn these things, these capacities in ourselves, and a lot of people have a lot of masculine strengths, both men and women, and anybody else who doesn't identify that way, but the vertical path
is where we learn compassion because we have these interruptions in our lives that we are unbidden and we didn't ask for, but suddenly there's something there.It could be a diagnosis.If it's an owl, it could be the loss of a loved one.
It could be not getting that job that you really wanted or getting turned down for something, but somehow it opens you to like, well, what do I really want?
And it develops in you a connection to this thing you and I are talking about, which is this inner guidance.This inner guidance that needs to inform that horizontal path.
Because otherwise we just like, how many millionaires or multi-millionaires have you met that are like, I got all this and now what?You know, they're not that happy.
So Wendy, when it comes to you to understand more about you, before we dive into the book in a little bit, can you tell me about that, that path where you started, whether it was going into education, and that's where that path started, whether it was going into the workforce?
What was it that started you on your path into any kind of work or career?And then what did that path look like to it to now?
Okay, I took a really unusual path.I don't know if people will relate to it, but I will just say that my neuroses was the motivator for me to find my purpose.I had like anxiety and I was in college and I was
thinking, you know, I don't know, I read a book in college on psychology that was like the Freudian primer.And it described what neurosis was.And I thought, I have that.I must be the only one who has this.
So, you know, I didn't really know that everybody had it.But it did spur me on my path to really find out, like, how do you find peace in yourself if you have such negative conversation in your head?Like, how do I find peace?
And so I was really interested in that.And I thought maybe I'd become a Gestalt therapist at one point. But I ended up just finding trainings and transformational work really early on in my career.
And I ended up meeting these two medical doctors who had created a business to turn the transformational tools, the human potential movement into for the healthcare profession. And I worked with them to do coaching before it was really a thing.
This was in the late 70s. I kind of learned bootstrap.I did not get a great education that way.I mean, I got a great education in life, but I didn't get a graduate degree or any of that.
I just worked and created, you know, as I went, this having the blood disease interrupt my life in a big way. made me be all the more intense on finding my purpose.
And I did a lot of what I would call spiritual work, things like learning affirmative prayer, learning how your thoughts create your reality, and how much impact your own feelings and emotions are important to understand and process to clear out your channel so that you're more of an open,
channel for health and, and your purpose.And I honestly, I think I have to attribute all of that work that I did and my commitment to growth, personal growth, to the fact that
my lupus, well, eventually I lost my kidney function and I was on the list for a kidney transplant.And then one night in the middle of the night, I got a call from a nurse in the hospital and she said, how are you feeling, Wendy?
And I said, my lupus is in remission.And she said, well, we just found a six antigen perfect match kidney for you in Kentucky. and we're gonna fly it into your hospital in San Francisco.
Please meet us there in the morning and we're gonna put it in you."And I did.I went there and they put it in me and it was a miracle.And that was 30 years ago.So I had a miraculous kidney transplant and it changed my life.
Lupus went away and it was like a completely new page in my life.
but you didn't forget those lessons that you learned.
No, in fact, it spurred me on because that's when I began.It was like just a few months after I healed from that, I left the doctors I was working with and I went off and created my own business.
And yeah, so it spurred me on and it gave me a lot of strength and power because when you're given a miracle like that, And, you know, this is a dramatic example.
I don't know if people relate to it, but I would say that we all get these special, we get little miracles in our lives all the time.Things that happen that we didn't expect.
You know, how many of you listening right now think back over your life and think, did I ever think I would even be this successful? Like, we forget where we started and then where we've gotten to.
And we're always looking at what's next, where's the gap, what do I have to do next?But when we look back, there's so much that's happened that we're lucky, that we were blessed, that we worked hard, that we created it.
So I love taking stock of those things.
When you said you didn't go for your master's degree, what was your undergraduate degree in?
I dropped out of college.
Okay.A, what did you think you wanted to go to school for and then why did you drop out?
Yeah.I was on the dean's list in my one year of college that I went and I was studying psychology.I was really interested in, always.I mean, even in high school, I used to get Psychology Today magazine.
And so I think it was pretty obvious that I was going to go that way.But my father was so sad when I left college.I was his hope that the first one in our family that would have graduated.
But I wanted to go to California from Vermont, where I was in school.And I wanted to see what was happening out out here.And, you know, I didn't want to waste time.And I ended up just diving into life and, you know, learning that way.
What do you think that interest in psychology came from?I mean, to get Psychology Today magazine in high school.
It's kind of weird, isn't it?
Not weird, I mean, you rarely hear about something like that.So to have that deep of an interest to subscribe to something like that, where do you think that came from?
I mean, you know, John, it could be that I had a really rough mother and that I wanted to understand, I mean, it could be partly that my mother was an alcoholic.And for a good part of my life, she ended up getting really sober the last
20 years I think of my life, but during some of my formative years she was not available and it was a toxic environment.And I'm sure that that was part of what drove my desire to know how to create peace in myself. and calm energy in myself.
But I also think, John, that like you, we come in with these destiny.I feel like it didn't, like you say, if it happened to me so young that I was looking at that magazine at such a young age,
It also could have been just, you know, it's nature and nurture.Like maybe I was born with that desire to help people understand their purpose and path.And it's just, I enjoy it so much that I do it wherever I am.I can't even help myself.
Are you like that, where you find yourself in a conversation with someone and you're helping them figure out what they're doing and why they're doing it?
Yeah, I think, In my group of friends, I've always taken pride in just if somebody has anything they want to talk about.Not to fix them, maybe in the past I'd given advice, but now I think there's such a power in listening, like really listening.
You know, even in coaching clients, before you get to any kind of assessment or anything like that,
As you're getting to know them, you could see the burdens that they felt just leave their body, not all completely, but as they exhale, because it's like, I can finally tell somebody where I stand, what I'm feeling.It's not somebody at work.
I'm not bringing it home, which is somebody that's confident.I'm not a therapist, but you could just tell how much comes from listening to somebody.
stress enough to people how powerful real listening is.
And I just want to put an exclamation point next to that, because first of all, you are a good listener.And they're listening is an art.And people really do need to be listened to it.And it is, I would say the magic of, of
my coaching is that people want to be in the space of someone that's unconditionally loving, and that can really listen to what is behind even what they're saying.
But on top of that, I want to mention that in the book, you know, there's a whole, I would say if there was one thing that we work on with the guys, it's listening.Because
you know, people are in such fast paced environments that they're often thinking about what they're going to say next.Or they're, you know, there's a whole way that we listen for stuff.
Like, if we have a certain mental model or frame in ourselves of how we think, we're listening to whether we agree or disagree.
We're listening to whether we can get our get our point in, you know, there's always this listening for instead of just suspending
And imagine being open to what there is that the person is saying, and then reflecting back to them what you heard them say.There's just, it's, it is an art.It's an art and it's important.
Yeah, I think it kind of parallels what you've talked about, like the horizontal versus the vertical, like, listening plays along those lines as well.When we get together, are we just going to exchange and report back what happened to us in our day?
I'm going to tell you about developments in my family.You'll tell me about developments in your family.Or are we also going to like reach that vertical level where we can tell a little bit more about ourselves?
Not completely, but I think- We call that lowering the waterline from the iceberg that we only see the very tip of.We relate to each other with that tip of the iceberg, especially in social or professional situations.
How much do you really tell anybody about yourself?You want to tell the good things, the pictures that you put on social media, the sparkly stuff, but right under that waterline is really where connection happens.
And if I'm willing to say to you, you know, I didn't do that well, or I'm afraid of this, or something that's more revealing, it allows you to be closer to me.The word intimacy is into me, you see.
And so it only happens when I let you into me, that connection.So if I tell you, Oh, john, you know, I feel a little bad this morning, because my, my son didn't call me back.And, you know, something real.And that's actually true.
My son doesn't call me back at all ever.But um, but yeah, you know, then then you can feel my humanity.
Mm.Yeah, there's so much there.There's just so much there.And there is so much there because everybody's so different.Their needs are so different.It's not cookie cutter across people.Everybody has different needs.
But I would, yeah, just to keep this short at this point, I would just tell people, ask them to consider what their listening is and do they feel listened to?Because I think As we talk about psychology, that was one of my interests as a kid.
And along the same lines as you, my interest in psychology, when I went to college, I was the kid of blue collar immigrants.There was no white collar anybody in my family or network.
So I'm like, OK, I love psychology because I grew up as like a quiet kid, just always paying attention to interactions.And my parents want me as far away from the factory as possible, so business.
And that was my logic to getting a marketing degree, a combination of the two.
So I can relate to what you're saying, that interest in psychology early on, but I would just ask people to really test their listening, really think about their listening, if they're really listening to other people, to whoever's in their network or their circles, and then think about if they feel listened to and to raise that bar of quality to seek out great people and not just settle for people that might not even care to listen.
So again, it's different from person to person, but I think they have to consider, am I listening?Am I being listened to?
And where I was going with that before with the psychology and younger is so many of my guests here who are specialists in their field, much of what they specialize in is a result of things that they wish they had is when they were a kid.
Oh, it's so true.Right. It's like the thing that we most missed getting can also be our gift because we've worked so hard to figure it out or get it.
you know, it could be that thing I said about my mother, you know, the thing that I wasn't getting was the feminine, you know, the idea of the feminine to me was someone who was screaming, who was raging, who was out of control.
So I kind of shut down my feminine energy and I developed a lot of masculine energy and a lot of push in myself. And I felt like that had something to do with how I got sick.
And when I got sick, I had to really look at, well, what other operating system is there other than me making myself do stuff and feeling like I'm only as good as how much I produce that day?
You know, how many of us are so productivity-centric that we ask ourselves, like, are we good?Well, we're good if we got a lot done. But that's not who we are as human beings.
And when I got sick, I had to really look underneath the hood of myself to say, well, what is my feminine energy?What is that?
Because we all, no matter where we identify on the gender spectrum, we all have feminine energy, and it's less celebrated in our culture.It's denigrated, honestly.
And it's associated with weak when actually when you're in touch with the feminine, which is your self-compassion, your connection, your ability to relate with people and connect with people.
And what's really cool is about the thing about listening and about is that Today's leaders are only the best ones are the ones that have a balance of feminine and masculine Who can really get into another person's shoes and relate?
I just read the there was an article in fortune magazine that just said EQ is the new Must have you know skill set for leaders and that's what we work on in our programs and but for me my journey is
I discovered there was this whole other operating system of feminine that was powerful, that was not weak, that was actually like my way of doing it.
So then what if I could put my masculine strengths of strategy, getting stuff done, effort, in service to the feminine being my vision of what I want for my life, my values of what I want for my life.
What if I can put the hard working part of me in service to that?It's kind of switched things around for me in my journey.
What does that result in?What does that look like?
Wholeness. It really results in a balanced life, you know, making sure that you're not just like, like we said before, the horizontal path, getting, getting, getting, accomplishing, accomplished, but having being.
instead of doing all the time, it's also being, being, you know, what is the quality of your life?
So for me, that means making sure that I have some kind of art in my life, like singing or dancing, or right now I'm learning how to write songs, which is nice.That's awesome.
And I'm learning how to play piano, which is crazy, because it's really hard for someone at my age.But I'm learning it, and it's really fun.But I feel like we all have that other side of our brain.And if we develop, we have a right brain.
We have a left brain that can take that little, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor said that, there's a little tiny set of cells in our left brain that tells us like, who we are.But that it shouldn't take over.
It shouldn't be the one that gives us our whole identity.We have, you know, have you ever heard her story?She's the doctor who's had the brain and your some kind of brain event where her left brain was shut down.
And she tells her story in a TED Talk, Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor, about what it was like to just have your right brain going.And it was all about feeling connected to everything.And she would say stuff like,
she put a sign on her hospital door saying, you know, be aware of the energy you bring into this room, because she could only just feel energy.She was not in her rational thinking mind until it came back.
I just grin because I'm much more aware of energy.The last couple years, maybe since the pandemic, you know, we can all say, we don't have time for people's BS.I think I've always been that way.But
Maybe it was the pandemic and the urgency of not knowing what was going to come after if that was it.Let's be honest, you never know.I think I said that in conversations online early on in the pandemic.At the end of this, what are we going to do?
What are we going to learn?What are we going to take away from it?I think I have even less patience for that kind of stuff now, that energy.What does somebody bring even subtle.You know what I mean?
Like we're not talking about an overtly toxic person.
We're just we're talking about somebody that's manipulative or agenda or you can feel it.Yeah.And that's cool that you are so aware of it.That is the first co-creative power in the book is energy.
And I spend a lot of time on it because like you said, it's the first force.It's the raw material for everything.And it's something we definitely do pick up. from other people.
And the thing about what the whole point of this book is, is the spiral is a map, and the co-creative powers are the engines.So energy, when we learn to be intentional with it, and also receptive with it,
We learn a lot more quickly about other people.And we also get conscious about wanting to emit a higher vibration of goodness and positivity.We can be intentional about that.And, you know, that's what people pick up about us.
That's a main driver at this point of this series.
This series started, again, I've mentioned it before, not even as a creative thing.It was like, all right, let me get my face out there.Let me get my voice out there.People know I love books.Checks all the boxes.
Now what drives it is really the humanity of the people that I'm talking to. what it does for me when I stand up because it's all this people trying to change the world.It's not even hyperbole.
They really want to change the world and hearing their stories connects me more to somebody else in their humanity.So here is where I get some of my best energy, aside from my closest friends.
And like you, I have like a bass behind me, a guitar behind me, a drum kit behind me, writing, but I'm very cognizant of, especially as a dad of three, my physical energy is low.So I'm very particular about my creative avenues.
And for me, creativity is the music, is the writing, is the podcasting, is conversation.But at the same time, it's, aside from these conversations, day-to-day conversations.
Like I don't want to commit to conversations that just kind of drain and take, take, take.And it's not being selfish, but at a certain point you kind of have to be fair to yourself and step away either from the conversation or the relationship.
I don't want to sound cold, but- No, you have to.
You have to because it robs you a lot of who you can be if certain people or conversations are just kind of siphoning off of you.
And when you evolve yourself, as you evolve yourself, which it sounds like you leaped during the pandemic again into another level of your spiral kind of, you sometimes have to say goodbye to relationships that no longer fit the energy that you want to be sitting in.
And you have to sometimes be what you might think at some point would be mean, but you're not mean, you're just taking care of yourself.You have to say goodbye to those relationships that are, like you said, draining you.Yeah.
Wendy, when it comes to you, before I jump to the next couple of questions, I'm just curious. Because of your drive towards all things psychology, your curiosity, psychology today, right?
It makes sense because it's kind of an avenue to that openness of the mind.But when you talk about spirituality, you brought that up.Where did that come from?Was it after your diagnosis?
What was it that kind of drew you into more of the spirituality aspect of everything?
Good question.I'm not sure I even know the answer.Let me see what I think about that.It really was before I got sick that I was interested in it because I could see that, you know how,
when you're growing up, there's what people say, and then what you feel about what they say.Like there's a disconnect between what you're hearing and then what's behind it.And I was always really interested in that.I was like, what is that?
And what am I picking up on? and tuning into the higher, more subtle communication things that were going on.So I got really interested in metaphysical things and understanding.Don't tell me.
I don't know where that curiosity came from other than just there's a lot to it.There's a lot to what is behind the scenes.So this whole book is a synthesis of really 10 years of
deep dive in myself of how do you, how do you take, how do you actually have some control over those inner workings like your mind, how you think.To me, that is going to out-picture into your life, how you're allowing yourself to think.
Like you were saying before, what you take in, not just in the friendships that you have, but in what you're reading, what you're watching, all of that input is going to affect your consciousness.And what if you could have more control and be more
like own what it is that you're, you're taking in and putting out.Because what we think about is what we become.And what we put what we focus on is what's on the altar of our lives.
And so I guess I just wanted to have more control, maybe, of the behind the scenes stuff that happens that makes my life.
And it seemed to me that those are these unspoken things, you know, our thoughts, our feelings, our words, and then our actions all play into how our life becomes a better representation of what we really want and who we really are.
Wendy, the next question, we've spoken a lot about this, but I wanted to see if you had any other information you wanted to provide.
My next question is always, does it make sense from your childhood that this is what you're doing, who you were as a kid, your personality, not that you knew it was going to end up here.
But how do you reconcile between who you were as a kid, your experience then, and now?Again, I think we've spoken a lot about it, but is there anything you would want to add to that?
Yeah, there is, actually.This is a little bit of a diversion from that. there is, there's this thing that happens for people, you know, I've been working with people one on one for like 30 years now.
And I've coached a lot of people from every level of, of even a nun, I mean, so people from every walk of life.And what I see is there's a common, there's a common thing that happens, where what I call an emotional pinch.
So if you think of the spiral as an open channel, when we're happiest, we're flowing.The energy is flowing.It's like how you feel after you do something physical and you're open and you're flowing.
But often we get pinched and those pinches are when we're either in an emotional or a mental contraction.
where we're in a loop of some kind of emotional stuckness, or we're in a having a thought that's a negative thought, and we need to break it open.So the process of keeping that that spiral open is super important.And
Gosh, I lost my train of thought all of a sudden.Can you tell me what you just asked me?
I asked you how you can reconcile.
Right, right.Okay, got it.So what I heard in this interview that I'd mentioned to you earlier with Esther Perel and Andrew Huberman was that there is a part of the brain that
is activated, I'm gonna say it in my layman's terms, but here's what I got out of it, is that it's activated around your very first caretaker relationship, whoever your parents were or whoever brought you up, that is repurposed when you're in relationship with your loved one or romantic partner.
It's the only part of the brain, I guess, that actually repurposes itself.Here's what I got out of that. The common wound that everybody experiences is what I would call feeling out, not in.So it's some kind of feeling like I'm not included.
I didn't get the call back.I was left out.I was somehow you feel that you are outside of the circle, let's say that is the most common.
And I call it the core wound, because my feeling, this is where the spirituality comes in, is that that's not just a mistake or a bad thing that somehow is built into our design.There's a reason for it.And the reason is that it's a
initiation for us to want to learn how we are really actually whole.Here's what I mean.Like when you feel like you're left out and you're not in or you didn't get the call back or you didn't get the job or you got rejected by a lover.
That pain can make you want to get something from the outside to fix it or fill it, but really what it's asking you for is for you to come to the realization that you are whole.
That you are complete, that you are perfect with your flaws, that you are perfectly made with your flaws.That journey requires a spiritual endeavor to get there.You have to go inside yourself and find that wholeness.
And I would just say, it sounds a little maybe woo-woo, but that That is why we have that wound.And people mistake it for something that you just need to get more lovers, or you need to get more credentials, or you need to get more money.
But really, what it is, is finding your own wholeness and perfection in just the way you are.Not in an ego way, but in a way that just has you be okay.And to me, that's a spiritual journey.
I know I went off kind of like sideways on that, but- Yeah, and somehow completely followed you.
I'm right next to you.I don't know how, but it makes complete sense.It kind of plays into the next question that I've begun asking like the last couple of episodes.What do you consider your superpower?
And again, this is one of those things of kind of like what you said, what's my wholeness?What's my thing has nothing to do with ego, but what is my thing?So what is your superpower?What do you consider your superpower?
I can really see behind, uh, what someone is saying to what the, what the issue is and what the truth is for them.And I can hold it in a really loving, compassionate way that allows it to unfold.
So it's just, it's been a joy for me when I work with people because it doesn't take a lot of effort for me.It's just, it is, again, back to your thing about listening, it is partly in the quality of my listening.
But also I just have like a brain that knows how to go in and sleuth it out pretty easily.
Sleuth.And then one question before we jump into the book, Wendy, what does leadership mean to you?What does great leadership look like for you?
You know, I think a lot of people, you know, there's so many great people on leadership.But I think this book, what it does is it tells you how to lead your own life.
Because until we have some kind of competency around our inner life, you know, not just inner, but
what our energy is, what our thoughts are, how to manage our feelings, how to speak in ways that we're in control of being able to make requests, make declines, articulate our value, have a voice, bring an unpopular idea into a meeting.
These things are super important.Those are how you lead your life.And until you can lead your own life, you're kind of copying other people.
And following what the latest trends are, or what somebody looks like as a great leader, real true leadership is authenticity, is finding your own power in your unique voice.
Absolutely.I agree with that.I agree. Because I've had people, prospective clients or people that I'm working with maybe one or two sessions in and they're just like, okay, enough of this stuff about me or asking questions.Just tell me what to do.
Tell me what to say so that they do verbatim.This is what they said.Tell me what to say so that they follow me.I'm like, this isn't going to work out.We stopped working together.
Do they want someone to follow them at work?You mean like become influential that they can become influential?
I don't even think it's influential I just think it's you know, power and command.Because influential can be, OK, yeah, power and command.Or it can be, by my example, I'm influencing you.
Which tends to be the way I think about leadership, where it's kind of like, you know yourself, your authenticity, what you're about, your example.Even if you don't look at somebody and talk to them, right?I'm not saying ignore anybody.
How many times might this be the case for you, where you saw somebody who was a great leader, and you had no interaction with them? It was the way they carried themselves.It was the way they spoke to others.
Their vibe.You knew they were a good leader.Shit, you wanted to be good for them.And you didn't have really any direct contact with them.But you saw their example, that energy, that vibe.
So that for me is what leadership is, is how you carry yourself.So true.And the example that people see in that Now, if you are working with somebody, obviously, yes, you have to communicate with them.
But first and foremost, it's your example, because you can say all the wrong, the right things to somebody.
But if you're not carrying that essence, that vibe, that energy of great leadership, of knowing yourself, of humility, meaning knowing yourself so well, you don't get knocked off your perch, like you know who you are, so you're not threatened, you're not,
acting out of ego or anything like that, that to me carries more weight because even though there may be a disconnection where those two people don't speak directly, you just seeing this other person in the way they carry themselves again,
It's just, to me, it's the most powerful thing.So for me, leadership is a form of just communicating that essence, that vibe.
So true.And you're speaking as an evolved person, and you're speaking about the direction that leadership is going.Because I'm studying it all the time, and I'm in the midst of it in the work that I do in the global company I'm in.
way, people are too tuned in now to each other.And because of the pandemic, partly, nobody knew that they had to be distress stewards and people that were paying attention to how people were doing.That whole thing changed the way work is forever.
It's not going to go back.Now leaders are expected to be emotionally intelligent. to be caring about one another, to be, like you said, in their humanity.
So this top-down approach of autocracy, which we have seen some signs of that in our politics, really, it doesn't work. It doesn't work because people will do what you say, but they won't go the extra mile.They won't give discretionary energy.
They'll just, you know, and also they won't really respect you.
You know, the respect comes from, like you were saying, just how somebody carries themselves and the mutuality that there is in a relationship like that, where people feel like they are actually cared for.
That is part of what it is to be a good leader these days.You cannot just be telling people what to do and expecting anything unusually good to happen in that company.It will just be quid pro quo.
Yeah, I just think being around people that have that essence, that vibe, that confidence in who they are, because I think maybe people lack confidence where they think they have to look a certain way.
Yes, and it's kind of this evolution from ego to this other thing which I think is more connected to soul or spirit.And what I mean by that is there's like
certain behaviors that you'll see in somebody who's more of an ego, like they tell people what to do rather than listen.They are, they're just more like in a rush rather than taking time to connect.
And there's a whole, in my book there's actually a chart that says here's ego and here's not ego and here are the behaviors that are connected to each.And you know, those people that have evolved themselves some,
And usually, you know, it's like back to what we were saying at the beginning of this call, initiations or things that happened that didn't go the way we planned are what evolve people.
Those men and women that are leading, that have are the most human and the most, you know, like you said, send off the vibe that makes people want to connect, have probably gone through some stuff that was hard.
And those things that we consider failures are the things that build us.It's our ability to come back from those things.It's the resilience.Nobody learns anything from success.It's not a learning experience.
It's the failures that give us everything that we need in terms of as long as we can bounce back. So having that bounce is the most important thing.Being able to, you know, it's not getting thrown down, it's coming back.
Yeah, not wasting, it can be, it sounds weird to say, but failures, not wasting that opportunity, that learning opportunity.
And, you know, being around the right kind of people helps, you know, where no one's mocking you for something that didn't work out, you know.
It takes a certain kind of person to say, okay, hey, this didn't work out, but let's go back to the drawing board.Let's experiment some more.So.
Yeah.You can say, if you learned something from it, it was not a failure.If you didn't learn something from it, I don't know.
I'm, I'm a, I'm the hokey type where I don't even see what failure is, I think maybe it's the stage in my life there's so many different things on the line that for me as long as my family's provided for everything else is experimentation where I can, you know, dive into that creativity but
I don't know I think we're just and I've said it here before we're just so programmed into what failure is from a young age, you got an F, or you got to stay back you know and everybody moves forward so we're programmed in, in that I can't do or provide less than somebody else, or it's a failure.
I hear you.We're hard on ourselves.
We just lose ourselves so much.And, and, you know, for me, life or death, okay.One thing, but everything else.
You're pretty unusual, John.I have to say you're pretty unusual.You know, one of the things you just said is like, it's really important that I provide for my family.
When I go around the room in the men's course that we teach and I ask people what they think their value is, almost all the guys say, you know, bringing home the bacon, making sure that my family is taken care of, that I make the money.
But a lot of those guys have had to leave their creative at the doorstep. You know, I once heard David White tell the story, David White the poet, the Welsh poet.
He goes, there's a musician and he has a violin and every day when he gets to the corporation, he leaves it at the front door and he goes in and he does his job.And every night he comes out and he takes his instrument and he goes home.
And every single day leaves it at the door and he goes in, comes back out and takes it.And then one day he comes out of the corporation and he looks at the violin and he said, that's not mine.
And I think that often happens for men in our culture, that it's kind of unfair that they do not have permission to follow their bliss.
You know, they're not like you in that they have also music and creativity and all the podcasts and all the things that you have that are balancing out your masculine, you know, responsibility to get the, to take care of your family.
Yeah.That's played out in terms, it's mentioned, been mentioned in the, in the series, what you just spoke about, but not in those words, not in that structure, but it is interesting how, And obviously my wife provides.
So it's, it's not like, you know, back in the day, my father would earn most of the money.It's not like that at all.It's different, right?It's different from family to family.
But it's interesting how we're at a point she and I where we have more than what our parents had. They were blue-collar, blue-collar workers.So we're more secure.We don't have to worry about as much as they did.
And for me, one of the biggest points of anxiety for me since the pandemic, that opened up this whole can of worms.But as it relates to this is, all those things are taken care of.We moved into a great house and a great town.My kids are healthy.
All those check boxes. Again, it's that structure you've talked about, the horizontal versus the vertical.All the horizontal checkboxes are checked.And if I stuck too closely to just that, I would go batty.
I would go batty because it's very prescriptive.Do a good job at your job.It provides for your family.You can move into a good neighborhood, good house, yada, yada, yada.It's prescriptive.
But I'm the type, because of that love for psychology, because of that previous love for music, where I got to keep that creative side going, because it balances me out.It's not just a slave to the script, because that would drive me crazy.
And I think for some men, maybe, I'm just generalizing.You never know what's under the surface.That may be enough for them, just providing.They don't have that creative, but again, I'm generalizing and you guys are just different.
Let me throw another idea out there that's so much about what you just said.You know Maslow's triangle? Maslow's triangle, right?
I brought that up as well.Yeah.
So each of those levels are about the basics.You know, I'm gonna have room and I'm gonna have care for my body.I'm gonna have, you know, security, security, money, all that.
But then did you know that at the very end of his life, Maslow added a top, the very top of that triangle, a thing called transcendence.And what that is, is, um, aspiration to make the world a better place to rise to become bigger than my ego.
And and so that's, you're just responding to those, you've got those human needs met you, you surprisingly probably passed surpassed your parents.And now you have you still have drive.These are drives that we each have in ourselves.
And if we're lucky enough to take care of the physical needs, and then you know, emotional needs of just having friends.
Then we're wanting that next thing, which is, is how do I make a difference in the world?
Yeah, I've spoken on here about Maslow's hierarchy, tying it into this exact conversation, kind of conversation.And then I've, I think I spoke once on maybe specifically about Maslow's hierarchy, I forget, but That's what it is.
It's achieving those, I think it's the first two layers, security and safety. where that's like the discipline that allows you to play into the higher tiers and yeah, transcendence.But yeah, I mean, yeah, thank you for reminding me of that parallel.
That's exactly what it is.
You're a product of that because you have been able to accomplish some of those basic things.And like you said, though, some people, it's never enough.
The first two levels, they stay on that because they just think they're not in touch with those drives. But you know, when you look at the happiness formula, I don't know if you're familiar with that.
The happiness formula is, I think it was the American Psychological Association, Seligman, who originally came up with this, but basically they saw that
Forty percent of our happiness is up to us in terms of what we do on a regular basis practices only seven to ten percent of our happiness is Hedonistic which is the things that we mostly organize around getting like our house and our clothing and our car and all those things only seven to ten percent of our happiness is really affected by the things that we acquire and
Whereas it's the way that we practice every day, that if we do meditation, if we do things that bring out our spirit, that raise our vibration, like if you love music and you listen to music, that's a practice.
There also is about a 10% or 20%, which is our emotional set point, biological set point, where there's a range of ways that we are based on how we were born, you know, that can be changed over time, but mostly are kind of set.
Yeah, I like having that kind of awareness of where that comes from, just because I can, I mean, as much as they'll listen now at nine years old, five years old, two and a half years old.
But it's it's good that I have that awareness now because my dad came from another country.My parents came from another country.More was on the line.So it was just work, work, work.It was less time for all that other stuff.
They were just trying to get to the top of the second tier.They didn't have that flexibility to play in the upper tiers.So but before time gets away from us,
Wendy, why don't you introduce your book and when it hit you, how did this book come together?
Great.Thank you.Well, I'm really proud of this book.It was at least 10 years in the making because I'm a really good synthesizer.And I would say that's what I've done to create this book.It is everything I learned about
how to be both feminine and masculine and to take the tools of transformation and make them simple for people so that they can become more of the author of their lives.
And the whole the big the first edition of this book was just about how to for women how to really reinvent themselves.
And this the new edition contains a special thing for spiral up for dudes, I call it, which is all the about the tools for men, you know, we're talking you and I before we got on here about how so often men feel like, well, there was me too.And
Then men started to feel like they might be in the crosshairs, like, maybe I already did something wrong that someone's going to blame me for.
And, you know, or I don't really, you know, in a lot of ways, women are as powerful as men or they're earning as much and they're definitely making their way into economic equality eventually.So men are kind of feeling a little displaced.
Like, well, what is my role now?What do I do?How do I find my own power?And this book now has in it like the cliff notes from the men's course that we did.And it teaches men some of the basics about how to succeed today as a modern leader?
How do you have emotional intelligence?How do you also partner with women?There's not really a war between the sexes like people advertise.It's just that women and men are socialized differently and biologically different.
So there's certain ways that we clash.And this book is really about how to have it, how to be interdependent together.
Yeah, I mean, it's like I got to pick and choose how I, what questions I ask just because this is a conversation that, as you know, because the work that you do, it can, it has to take sessions, it has to take hours, because there's so much nuance.
And that was a part that stood out as very interesting when we first met.I was like, OK, the allyship to women.And also, she's including something for men.
That's amazing.Absolutely.Absolutely.
Because I think too many people get the impression that because certain men were in power doing things for so long, and a portion of the population may mimic those behaviors, those attitudes, the oppression, whatever it is,
I think a lot of guys do get clustered into that shirt and I think they may feel guilty if they are like, okay. you know, women are coming up, that's fine.But as I want to develop my life, as I want to grow, I want resources, too.
I want community, or I want this or that.There is that fear that because you may want more for yourself to get better, that you're taking away from the other side, too.
It's not a zero-sum game.That's really, that is the myth, is that if men have to share power, that they're going to give something up. but what we find in our research and consistently.
Or that they're taking, I mean, they get the, it's misinterpreted that because they want for themselves, just for themselves.
That they're taking away something from, and it's really not true.First of all, I'm totally a big supporter of men's groups.Men should get together with each other and talk about what is real for them in a solely men's environment.
I think that they gain a lot from that. And the other thing is that what is a male ally, though?
A male ally is someone who's willing to look at themselves and kind of understand their privilege and leverage their privilege for others that don't have as much or that are unmarginalized, let's say, once they find out what others need.
Because men, white men in particular, have privilege.And even though a lot of them might say, well, I came up by my bootstraps, what privilege do I have?If you have an education, you have privilege.If you have white skin, you have privilege.
If you don't have to worry about getting insurance, you have privilege.There's so many things that we just don't notice about ourselves.
And if we do have privilege, then what would be great is to help someone else who doesn't have that privilege to make it a little bit more fair.
But the thing about the men and the women and how it clashes, I would just say about that, is that it's nobody's fault.Like, it's not that men are bad.God, no.
It's that this patriarchal system that we're in has created this, it makes it just as tough for men.Men are not allowed to have the full spectrum of their humanity.
You know, you're unusual in that you're pretty well balanced and you're feminine masculine, but a lot of guys are told that if they cry or if they have feelings that they're not a man.
One of the things that we love to do in our courses is watch this TED Talk by this fellow who used to be a, I guess, an NFL football player, and now he's a coach, and he talks about the myth of masculinity.
and how it's associated with, you know, power over dominating, being the tough guy watching, you know, video games being, I don't know, having, you know, all the classic masculine associations.
And he said, it's not that really it is, it's your ability to be related with people to have relate happy relationships.And to really protect, but also care for
you know the people that we love and be able to communicate with the people that we love so you know being able to help guys. have that humanity.
So back to this clash is if you think about a lot of guys have been in sports and they're taught to steal the ball and run down the field, that is part of competitive sports.
If you do that in a meeting, you steal an idea and you take it to the finish line.A woman who's been taught to take turns, be polite, include everyone,
with a guy who's been taught to steal the ball, run down the field, do whatever you want and throw it to the other guy, that's going to create some clash.It's nobody's fault.It's a sociological conundrum.
So helping men to see their behaviors and to be aware of it is the first step.How can they be a little bit more aware of when people are being excluded or talked over?How do you bring the quieter voices alive and amplify them?
Yeah, I'm trying to think of my upbringing, how I grew up, where my tendencies come from, But it's just interesting how... I'm more sensitive to that stuff.I've never liked going along with the script.It drives me insane.
It drives me batty to just kind of be too predictable.I just, I don't want to go down that path.So when you see, when you seen so many of those masculine behaviors on display, it's like, I don't, I don't want to do that.I'm not driven to it.
It just, it's just too predictable.
What do you think made you that way?I'm curious.
When I was younger, my mother was deported.
She was deported maybe when I was four or five, and she and my sister were gone for two and a half years.
So I think those formative years, my dad had to work a lot, and I was with babysitters, family relatives, and it was a lot of- Moving around. not moving around, but just a lot of mothers taking care of me.So I was just around family relatives.
I don't know.I think when you don't have that, and my dad was working all the time.So it's almost like didn't have my mom in the house for those years.So you feel kind of lost.
And then on top of that, my dad wasn't the overly macho guy, like he's just like, I got to get to work and I got to take care of my boys.So I don't think I had the typical upbringing.
And that plays into the whole stepping back and looking around and watching the world.It's almost like the world was on pause for those two and a half years.So that's where that comes from.I didn't see it in my household.
There was no yelling at the TV because of sports.I see that mimicked a lot in my kids.
uh, sports fields, you know, little kids acting like they're NFLers and they're four or five years old and they're yelling at each other and they're throwing the ball, you know, um, no fault of their own, no fault of their parents.
It's not intentional, but I can really see the difference between going down one path and how the path, the other path starts to begin.So that's where that comes from for me.I mean, that's the first time I brought that up.
But yeah, I guess when you grow up that way, you don't really see what the benefit is.I just never understood it.It just doesn't make sense to me.
It seems like maybe you also had to develop something in yourself to take care of yourself during that time.It was like you had to develop some way of feeling nurtured.
Oh yeah, absolutely. And yeah, and these discussions, my questions on childhood, all these conversations have brought up stuff from the past, you know, even now it feels fresh.Wow.But it's one of those things, Wendy, where
What we're doing today, what we're trying to specialize in now is based on what we didn't have in the past.It's another example.So where it may have started off in my life a certain way, listening to people because I wanted to feel included.
I think everybody still has that today. I've evolved past that or with it.But now I because of so many years seeing how it helps others.I have the same behavior, but it's not people pleasing.It's for a different value provision to others.
But but it's, that's a good description.What you just said.It's it is an evolution from feeling like Yeah, coming from survival versus thriving.
You really have brought yourself to that fullness now.
Work in progress, work in progress.
As we all are, but I feel like there is a point where you start fountaining over instead of needing to be filled all the time because you're coming from the wound.
If you worked through that, it's like a, every single thing that hurts us can also, like you say, become this thing that we learn how to give to other people.And you're a perfect example.
Yeah, I've seen a lot of examples here.Now I'm telling my example, but I've seen a lot of examples, felt a lot of examples, lived a lot of that where because of what you needed then, you have a sensitivity to that.
So I've had people on here that were bullied.I've had people here that were near death, whether a car accident, a disease, whatever it may be, those hardships build up those sensitivities.So when you're sensitive to that,
depending on who the person is, when you're sensitive to that, and you can understand that in somebody else, it's like certain people just can't stand by and let it happen.So we listen or we do our work.
Yeah.And I hope there are, I'm sure there are a lot of people listening that
have had, have had are tuned in more to other people, and do care about other people, that it's, it's kind of like, don't you think that we're in a cultural, kind of like a flashpoint, I feel like we're, we've, you know, as a society, while while still, there are people that are in draconian, you know, backwards things.
In general, I feel like there is a movement towards this evolutionary impulses pushing us to evolve as a whole society so that we are more humane.If you think about it, we have evolved.
I mean, if you think about just how long ago was it that there was slavery?How long ago was it that gay people were completely ostracized? there's, there's definitely we're moving towards inclusion, we're moving in that direction.
It's sometimes back steps to get forward steps.
But- But if you think about the amount of time that's transpired since those things happened, since those things happened, it's a drop in the bucket compared to how long we've been around.
So if you look at the whole timeline of Man of Civilization, you know, emancipation, gay rights, equality for women, all of that happened in a blip on the timeline.So for us living through it, it seems slow.But I mean, it's it's a twist.
It's a quick twist in society, if you consider how long we've been around.
True.And it's, we're going somewhere.That's the point is like, if you realize that you're, when you were talking about all the people on this, that you talked to, I call this our transformation, the planet's transformational team.
We really, even though we're not connected technically, you know, there's a collective of people who are working hard to bring more humanity to life, you know, to bring more inclusion, to bring people together, unity, all of that.That's happening.
And I feel like we can give people hope. if they feel like they're part of that transformational team.We each have our little ministry, I call it.Each of us have a little ministry.
They don't seem connected, but if we were to pull them all together, it would be a massive, massive movement.
Yeah, that's incredible to think about it that way, but that's true.All right, before we end, can you, Wendy, give me an overview of the book?So what's the path that you take the reader on?
Just so people get an understanding of what's available in your book.
Absolutely, let me tell you some of the key messages of the book.
Intention, setting clear intentions and goals for what you wanna achieve, helping focus your energy towards those things.Attention, like I said before, what you put on the altar of your life, what you're focusing on is gonna become your life.
So really being scrupulously intentional about your attention, where you're putting your attention. Non-attachment, letting go.I mean, you know, Michelangelo's Statue of David was really about what he cut away to reveal the beauty of that statue.
And that is also what these how creative powers do is they help you get rid of and let go of limiting beliefs, fears and attachments that are holding you back.
Because releasing and learning how to let go of things that are keeping you small is a very big part of the transformational journey.
Self-authority having inner authority being empowered to take ownership of your choices and your actions And being in touch with your intuition and wisdom, you know, you asked me about spirituality before Synchronicity is a really is part of what I think about when I think of spirituality.
It's like when you feel like you're Doing what you are meant to do You find yourself in the right time, in the right place, with the right people.
It's something that happens where you click, where something happens where you meet the right person, or you find the right book.That synchronicity is a magic that happens when you're in alignment with your truth, what you came here to do.
So that, you know, that this hummingbird just keeps coming by my window.It's so cool.That's a synchronistic thing.
So I just feel like the value of these co-creative powers is this ability to take control of your lives, to navigate tough stuff, challenges that
that could stop you normally, but that you can come back from and really just cultivating a sense of agency and creativity and alignment, finding a way to be your best self in the world.
Synchronicity, that stands out just because what I was talking to you about before we started this conversation, recording it, just how I feel after I stand up from these conversations.
Just that connection, there's a certain humanity that people are out there to do great work.And it's refreshing to know that there are people really hearing their story, understanding their drive.
So it's not like LinkedIn, where we're all kind of saying the same thing.But when you have this conversation with somebody, you understand where that comes from.
And I'm appreciative of the fact that this has evolved to more showcase where someone comes from and then dive into the book.
So that synchronicity when you, it's like a, yeah, it's like a flow, like a state of flow, just being in the right place, right time, talking about the right kind of topic. Wendy, was there anything else you wanted to share?
Any other areas of your book?
Sorry, I cut you off.No, you didn't cut me off, John.I feel like this thing that you do here is a very high aspirational thing because you are here just for that good
the good purpose of highlighting more of the planet's transformational team's messages so that more and more people can step into their power in a way that is humane and authentic.And so I just acknowledge you for that.And no, I mean, for my book,
I hope people will get a copy.It's on Amazon.It's in all good places and bookstores near you.
Or they could join my Spiral Up coaching circle, which is a way to work directly with me in a small group to bring about the vision of something that someone has in their heart or that's been on the back burner.
You know, so much of what we really want to do is drowned out by what we have to do.And it's important to have a partner like you or me to help a person give voice to and attention and intention to the things that are calling to them as a whisper.
and that are really that are in the background, but that need to come into the foreground of their lives.
Wendy, how did this how did writing this book getting this book out there?How did this help you evolve?How did this change in you?Was there anything that Did you have any aha moments?
Not even a particular moment, but just in general, what changed in you because of putting this book out?
I'll tell you the biggest thing that, first of all, it was really hard to do.I didn't know it was going to be a book.I'd never written a book.Like I said, I didn't go to college.I'd never taken a writing class.
I just kept having this idea that I kept wanting to codify all this knowledge that I was learning.And I was going to study it no matter what because I'm passionate about transformation.
But I but I kept thinking okay, I'm going to do what I'm going to do it and then things just led me to getting it published and I got a publisher which was an amazing I was a a producer of Ted acts in San percent Hill Road women for a while and I was
you know, hosting these big events where people were coming together in Silicon Valley, and it all came about.But I would say the biggest and hardest thing of all was when I was
my sister died and she had a son who needed a mother and he was my nephew and I decided right when my book was coming out that I would become his mother and he was about 10 at the time so I became an instant mother at like age 59
and raised him during the time that the book was coming out and all of that.So I would say that was such a big learning.I mean, you have three kids, so you have this experience of these very vulnerable human beings that you're responsible for.
And I had never been responsible for anyone more than myself.And all of a sudden I had this human being that I was responsible for and who had some big needs, who at 10 years old had lost his mom and didn't have a father, really.So I don't know.
I mean, I felt like I could do it.I had been given the gift of that kidney and I had a new life and I could do it.So I did it.And he's 23 now and not calling you back. And well, not calling me back now.
Geez.But, um, yeah.In some ways, it's wonderful that he has his own life and he's off on his own now.So I'm, I'm super happy, but it would not be nice if he would call me once in a while.
I know it.I've heard it from my own mother.Yeah, we need to get better at that. Wendy, in wrapping up, you've mentioned the program that's coming up.Anything that you share on that, I'll share on my social media.
But is there anything else that I should have asked?Anything else you want to share?Anything at all?The floor is yours.
I don't think so.I feel like you gave such an incredible interview, and I hope it met the people's needs that wanted to hear about it.Yeah, I'm sure there was something in there for everybody.We covered a lot of ground.
Uh, yeah, it's, um, not that I ever think, oh, this is just another conversation and nothing's going to blow me away, but it is incredible.
The nuggets of wisdom, the conversations that we shared here, what you shared from your experience, the way that you view things, the visualizations that you provided.It's just incredible, you know?
So a hundred and something, some odd conversations in episodes in still blown away by what you were able to share here.So thank you so much for coming on.
You're so welcome.Thank you so much for having me.It's been a pleasure.
And again, we covered Wendy's own book, Spiraling Upward, the five co-creative powers for women on the rise.
And if there's anything that I might have missed in this conversation, you think that I should have asked based on what you heard, we're limited on time.I kept Wendy here for an hour and a half now.
If that is the case, if you think there is something I could have dug into or asked her or whatever it may be, please reach out to me.
I'll reach out to her, see what kind of insight, guidance, knowledge I can get back from Wendy, what else she can share.In the meantime, thank you for watching.Thank you for listening.And I'll talk to you soon.Take care.Bye.
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