Initiation and Ceremony in Business | Ep. 13

Initiation is the process of stepping into a new version of oneself. It often involves stepping into the unknown and leaving behind a version of self that you can’t ever go back to. This can be quite terrifying. However, when these big transitions are sacredly held, we can find deep meaning and purpose as we move through the fear zone. So how do we bring the magic of initiation into business?

Each time we are promoted or enter the cultural fabric of a new company, we are initiated into a new chapter. We become a new version of ourselves, that we are meeting in real-time. But if the culture is one of “go go go” or “jump in and figure it out yourself,” we can miss all sorts of value that is ONLY available to us in those early stages of a new team member joining us. 

Fresh eyes bring fresh perspectives and vantage points that haven’t been accessed yet. New team members can see things that those too close to the problem cannot. If left to operate from old habits and assumptions, a new team member’s early enthusiasm may quickly dwindle or go towards building something that isn’t in alignment with where you want to take your company. Or worse, they may feel the neglect and generate all sorts of narratives about you and your company, eventually poisoning the well and making their way for the door. 

The first 90 days of onboarding are the most important in a new team member’s journey. How can we as leaders do the due diligence during hiring, so that we can feel like a f*ck yes to investing time and energy into the PERSON who has just joined. How can we infuse this process with appreciation and care, while setting high standards for quality and integrity in a role? How can we intelligently and empathically plug a new person into a company’s DNA?

In today’s episode, we’ll be exploring the strategic role that initiation and integration processes can bring to our businesses. That’s right y’all – we are integrating the best wisdom from our spiritual practices WITH world-class business know-how. Let’s get into it. 

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Transcript

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The way we've been doing work and leadership is deeply broken. Whether you're healing from burnout or just looking for a better way to run your company, you're in the right place. What is the future of work even look like? That is a question we get to answer together. After working with 1000s of executives and entrepreneurs around the world. I know that the deepest leadership issues are deeply human. We've got to heal ourselves if we want to heal the world. Welcome to the new self Podcast where each week, I'll help you explore topics that will level up your leadership and your life. I'm your host, Nicole Belisle. I'm a leadership expert and Reiki master, and I believe the secret to more conscious work and leadership is self healing, grab a seat and get cozy because we're about to go on a journey. A conscious leaders welcome back to another episode of new self. I'm coming to you from Ireland on the other side of souren, which is the pagan New Year, this is a deeply transitionary time where we are moving from the light half of the year into the dark, into the shadow. So we have left behind the summer, the vibrancy, the producing and harvesting, and we have officially transitioned into the inner world into the shadow scape that exists within all of us. This is a time of rest, integration, reflection and ideally slowing down. And that slowing down is often it often feels impossible, right in our modern world. And yet, I do believe that we can build rest and integration into our daily lives in many micro moments that reflect this essence and invite us to go deeper. It isn't what we're showing up to, it's how we're showing up, we get to manage our energy and make choices inside of a busy schedule inside of an entire system of responsibility, roles that we hold, whether they're roles in our lives as mothers, sisters, daughters, or roles that we hold in business, as leaders, as business owners, as teachers, facilitators, creators, we still get to have access to ourselves through building in rest and integration, even in micro moments. What I mean by this, and this is one very simple example that I believe anyone can do is to build in a buffer at the beginning and end of your meetings. Again, sometimes this feels impossible, it might not even exist inside of the culture. In a workplace. If you're in a leadership position, you can help make this the norm by adopting this new standard yourself and encouraging others to do the same. And I think the benefit of this not only is it preventative medicine for burnout, but the power of integration and allowing a person to regenerate a bit to take a breath to go meet their physical basic needs to process the emotion that may have come up in a meeting, especially if it was a difficult one. I believe that this is a basic right, that we have lost that we have given away in how we're doing work these days. So reclaiming our own sovereignty and autonomy, within our very ability to integrate, reclaiming integration even inside of a busy business busyness is so critical. Often what comes up in that integration space is the biggest breakthroughs. Because when we relax and stop looking directly at the task at hand for even a moment, we zoom out into the bird's eye view into the balcony view of the experience we just had inside of a meeting in a week in a quarter or a season, whatever the whatever the timeline is. Integration is still powerful at the end of any cycle, in life and in business. So taking that taking that sacred pause going to that balcony view, we often are able to see things at the pattern level. This saves so much time and resources When we can get right to the root cause we can get right to the, the cause of the core friction, the broken process, the reason that something isn't working within our operations within our team management, maybe even within how we are showing up as a leader or as a team member. Getting to that, that patterns level is so strategic, as a leader, so strategic, if we are not integrating and taking that sacred pause, and flying by the seat of our pants, rushing from meeting to meeting, never taking a breath, not only does this has have a physiological and psychological effect on us, because we are, we're going beyond our energetic capacity, we're communicating to our bodies that your needs don't matter, we have to do this, we have this obligation or this responsibility. So you come last, just think about feeling to in your own body right now, how that message feels. We are constantly sending messages to our own bodies, through the actions that we take and how we live our lives. Through the lifestyles that we allow ourselves to have. We're in a huge moment of coming back to our autonomy. As workers as leaders, there are so many stories that we have taken on in the last decades, stories of obligation, responsibility, hard work, it's not that any of those things are bad, we don't want to get rid of responsibility, certainly not. We want to expand and deepen self responsibility within humans, alongside self awareness, of course, of course. And to come back into our sovereignty as human beings to reclaim our autonomy is so empowering. And guess what empowered people create empowered, unfolding unfoldings in lives and business. This is why I say it's strategic to build these things in broken people, build and perpetuate broken systems. So how do we as leaders unlock the potential of people and invite them back into their own empowerment, so that they can really shine a light they can really be in their gifts. If people are not in their gifts, that light within over time begins to dim. Not only do we get less quality results out of people, and that is a very machine sort of mechanistic view of people, right? Like we're getting value out of people by how we lead. That is very antiquated, in my opinion, to look at business and leadership only in that way to manage from that viewpoint only, very extractive very harmful. It can even feel nonconsensual if leaders are continually pressuring and forcing, through culture through regulation, forcing people to self abandon over and over and over. This is so damaging, to live only in the mechanistic extractive view that we've had. Our mental health crisis, I believe, is so rooted in how we've been living in that extractive pattern for so long. A human can only take so much a human can only be devalued and dehumanized so much. And we have been in this, this directionality of separation of separating ourselves from nature, of separating ourselves from our emotions, putting a huge wall between who we are at work and who we are at home. But we are now in a moment, where we're being invited to to integrate these polarities, to show up as our full selves even in work. And guess what it's going to take practice and it is going to take a lot of Mastery which requires mistakes which requires learning. We're moving towards the mastery of integrating humaneness and business. nature and technology, feminine and masculine however it whatever labels you want to give this huge moment of integration And I believe that we can't fully do that integrative work without the sacred pause, reflection and stillness. That comes when we take a step back. And again, get that balcony view. As a leader, myself, and as someone who's held executive positions, I think that in moments when I have done this integrative work, and done the reflection on my day, on the health of my team on the health of the organization that I'm running, when I step back to really look at that, I am in the highest value state that I could ever be in as a leader, because I'm scanning for those patterns. Those patterns then flow into strategy, and make our businesses better with with greater results. And with a quality of regeneration, that business in the past has just hasn't had, we've certainly, we've certainly hacked our way into highly productive systems and environments. And we've really gotten to the edges of that in the world of biohacking, for example. And there's value in some of that, of course, there's value really, in any experiment that we're running in our own humanity at any given time. You can mine the gold, you can you can find the golden nuggets in almost anything. But there, there is a healthier way to do this that helps us heal that separation wound that helps us embed or embody regenerative qualities that are more nature based that are more rooted in the indigenous knowledge that we have, that we've severed ourselves from. We've moved away from ceremony and ritual and rest and cycles in favor of this, this linearity, this, this constant growth. But I mean, even as you imagine, like, imagine what comes to mind when you think about constant growth. For me, I see gluttony, I see hoarding, of material possessions of power of resources, I see othering as well, us versus them, me verse, you may see a lot of separation in that as well when I think of constant growth. Because in order to constantly grow, if that is the goal, at certain turns, we have to find the margin, we have to mine for the profit margin, we have to separate and create hierarchy between me and you, between your access to resources and my access to resources. But this is only necessary if the goal is constant perpetual growth. What if scaling, in the future was scaling deep? Rather than wide? What if we could put our roots so deeply into a community and be okay with 1000, even 10 raving followers, who are deeply deeply benefiting and sitting in community with us, being human with us? What if we served at a level of depth that we've never seen before, rather than serving only surface based needs that often are only putting a bandaid on someone's problem or challenge. And sometimes we're even creating the problem or the challenge in their mind so that they'll spend money for the solution for the solve. And because we're obsessed with convenience, and instant gratification, we want that quick fix. We want that that quick adrenaline, dopamine hit, to have the problem fixed, cross it off the to do list, give it a checkmark. The context, the cultural context of those norms, doesn't allow for the rest of integration. That is so strategic. So let's get practical for a second. How can we build this in? How can we build in integration time and reflection time into our daily lives? I can share a few practices that I personally have used in how I've run companies the buffer time before and after meetings. So so helpful on all levels of a person, physical, emotional, spiritual, mental, so helpful. That alone can be an incredible first step for moving towards a more regenerative culture retros at the end of a week, month, or season, what is a retro, retro short for retro active? So this is a time when either you individually or you with your team come together to reflect on what worked like what did you like or love about the week, month season that just happened? What do you wish that was different? So you're looking for you're looking for subtle improvements here. What do you wonder? So what are you curious about? Just listing out those questions? What do you wonder curiosity? Opens Doors and questions are a portal into answers that have yet to be discovered. So getting ourselves into that state of curiosity as we reflect back also helps to let that inner critic or analyzer, relax a bit. Because sometimes when we reflect on what worked and what didn't we can get hypercritical, we can come up with a huge list of hundreds of things that didn't work, or that we would change without pausing to celebrate the things that did work. Without feeling that gratitude, and even a you know, that sense of pride. What are you proud of that happened in the last month, it's okay to give yourself that self validation that self appreciation and self love. It feels wonderful when we get that from another person, of course, which is why I'm a big fan of celebrating these these wins these learnings in teams as well. So that people get that recognition on a human to human relational level. So nourishing for the team. Like that becomes part of the lifeblood that becomes part of the nutrient dense soil that your team now grows in. So absolutely, including that. So what do you what did you like or love? What do you wish was different? What do you wonder or get curious about? And then as you look at those lists, what do you want to pull into a category of action, or implementation, because sometimes in these retros, this is when the best ideas come, you're in that open reflective state, you're in that balcony view, you're asking yourself powerful questions. And sometimes the writing is on the wall, like the answers right there on the page, or on the post it note, or on the digital whiteboard. If you're a digital virtual team, it's right there. To then move into action to make it a project to make it a priority, because you see it at the patterns level. So retros, allow a quick sidebar, any practice like this that has stacked function. And what I mean by that is that there are layers of purpose and benefit within a single activity, you magnify and amplify the return on your time, and the return on your energy that you're putting into that practice. So the retro not only gives people the the physical, emotional, mental, spiritual benefits of taking that sacred pause, but you're doing it together, you're doing it in community. So you get that that social wellness met. And you're also while you're while you're supporting the individual and the team health, you're also unlocking information flow. Because when we don't pause to reflect on these things, I mean, we can be living in assumptions for years, for years. And we can take for granted Oh, even this person must know that they must have this information because they're at a leadership level. Or this seems you know, this is probably insignificant. I'm not gonna say anything. There's, there's no time there's no space to bring this to anyone. I'm just going to keep going and flowing in this process. It's a little bit janky a little bit broken and I get paid and hope for the best like. That's without the context of, of having spaces. If leaders aren't creating spaces for these conversations in this information flow to happen, then it doesn't happen. And this information, these signals that we get from the insights and reflections of our team help us to tap into the collective intelligence of a team. Each person on that team has an incredibly diverse vantage point or perspective that they're looking at your systems through a problem, looking at the delivery of your services, or value that you're providing to your customer, that each one holds such a different vantage point. So what is the point of having a team, if you're not bringing it together to be in this space of collective wisdom, and harnessing the power of that, as leaders, I think often we haven't, we haven't been trained how to harness the power of collective intelligence. And I want to switch gears ever so slightly here and talk about into not integration. That's what we've been talking about initiation. Because there's only so far that our traditional or conventional business education will will take us often there is not, we're not being taught about the deeply human elements, the the social technology that we have access to as leaders, in fact, the social technology that we're responsible for building within a team within a company, that technology is as important as the actual tech infrastructure that a company sits upon. And so many leaders don't know how to actually tap into that, to facilitate change, to build momentum through cycles and rhythms, to support the human element of a team to unlock those unique gifts to unlock information flow. So there's, there's a lack of, there's a lack of training and a lack of experience that that is often found at the leadership level when when we as leaders or managers are thrust into these positions. And it's, it's considered a reward, right? You've done great work, you're such a hard worker, you know, the ins and outs of this system. We're gonna give you a team now, like now, do everything you've been doing, but also manage people, which are incredible, like, people are incredibly vulnerable, at times chaotic, beautifully messy. The degree at which they can communicate effectively fluctuates depending on what's going on in their lives. There's such a complexity in managing people. And when we get to that management level, when we get to that leadership level, similar to how we're going through life, and business at hyperspeed, and not taking a sacred pause, we're also not taking the sacred pause for initiation into a new chapter into a new sacred role that we hold in an organization. We might not even have clarity about what that role is, because we're moving so fast. And no one knows that one huge illusion that that I certainly had as a kid was that adults have it figured out, they're clear, they're, they're clear about what they want. They're clear about how to get it. If you're if you're a leader, you know what you're doing. Those are all huge illusions. I don't think we ever fully figure it out. I don't think we the goal isn't comfort. I really believe that now. There's so much value in the unknown in moving through the discomfort into our own growth edges, moving through the fear zone, where we get to discover so much about ourselves, and our own humanity to do all that deep self healing work as we move into these new roles, because it kicks so much up to be moved into a space of uncertainty with added responsibility. So much gets triggered. Our inner critic shows up and is like, whoa, party time. Probably has 100 things to say. Panic or like a physiological stress response. That's might happen as well, that impacts the clarity of our thinking, that impacts how we're showing up. So if we don't have those, those self regulating practices that that deep relationship with our own nervous system and managing our own energy, it can feel so chaotic to get thrown into these these roles. So if you're ever in a position of, of promoting someone, of inviting someone into a new role, there's a There's a book out there, I think it's called the first 90 days. And that book helped me see how critical those first 90 days actually are. I've felt it intuitively in roles that I've held and in the onboarding of different team members into new roles, but those first 90 days, set the foundation for who someone is going to become, within the context of your company. And as a leader, I believe it's our job to set those people up for success. If they fail, there's a part of that that we are responsible for, if we neglected to fully slow down to fully initiate them and onboard them. And there's some aspects of onboarding that, that suck like that aren't that glamorous, there's the paperwork, there's the taxes, there's, there's the creating an employee handbook, which can be a sacred and rewarding process, and you're still doing a lot of writing you still you're taking time out of your day to, to sit down and do this work that is often just piled on top of the rest of the work. It's you have to find time and space beyond what you're already doing, to to onboard, at least in the current paradigm, at least in the current way that we're doing business. But I think if we have a scarcity of time, to do this deeply important work that sets our future business and our future team up for success. We have a resource issue. Think about time as money for a second. If you didn't have enough money to hire someone, would you in in some cases, maybe in some cases, maybe you borrow money. Ideally, you're building a role that is revenue generating, so that person and and what they do for your business pays for itself and then some. So the money doesn't always have to be sitting in the bank. But if you weren't running a business and generating revenue, or at least like Sure enough, that the creation of this role was going to generate revenue, would you how would you create that position? No, no. So in that same regard, if you if you don't have time, to fully onboard someone and initiate them into the culture of your company, to, to sort of blend the the DNA of the team, its flows, its rhythms, its processes, if you don't have time to fully welcome someone into all that, and be open and receptive to the value of their brand new vantage point, their brand new perspective and the questions that they'll ask with these fresh eyes. Like there's a there's a childlike wonder and mentality that's available in a new team member that that is only there for so long. And if we're not, if we're not tapping into that, if we're not utilizing that we're missing a huge chunk of value, that really could impact what our team and our company becomes. So if you don't have time to do that, it's I mean, it's I think it's time to ask the tough question, do you have any business creating that position? Inviting that person? Is that fair to that person? The to have a go getter who is self motivated, self autonomous, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. A self motivated person will ask the right questions, and have the initiative to go get information and figure it out. But that only gets them so far. You have to meet them in the in between space of their self motivation, and their their own aligned values kicking in as they as they continue to show up to this culture to this to these systems within your company. But then as a leader, you get to meet them with all The other building blocks that set that person up for success in the first 90 days. That time is so sacred, it's so sacred. And I believe that we can, we can build in different, quote unquote ceremonies or rituals or practices that, that make that initiation more meaningful, and full of full of gratitude full of taking the time to uncover that person's true gifts, so that they can really plug in so that they can be of highest service and highest value to the team and its members. To the customers. There's, there's a two way discovery, there's a two way learning and listening, that gets to happen. It's not just a one directional flow of information, because that person is not a machine. It's not simply, here are the processes, here, the systems, here's your finite role, and like how you're going to do things. It's not just that roles these days are increasingly more dynamic and fluid, they evolve. I think it's wonderful if someone quickly outgrows their role. Scope Creep is, of course a thing, and we get to manage for that. But you can't possibly know someone's true gifts, and how they are going to contribute to your company and your culture. without, without trying, like without getting in there and having the shared experience of beginning together, of initiating together of continually communicating and sharing each side of the experience of all that as well. Right? It's, I think, when we have these, these 3060 and 90 day check ins, that's also a two way conversation, that's a two way listening, that is happening. Because that person, if you've done the due diligence to really understand what your company needs. And you've asked the right questions and created an interviewing or a hiring process that minimizes risk and ensures at least at the highest degree that that person is a fit, if you've done that due diligence, that human sitting in front of you is an investment that you have made. And the only thing that's going to grow that investment is you showing up as a leader and meeting them halfway. It's a it's a beautiful thing, you know, as as problematic and evil as money can seem, sometimes when we when we use these financial terms, the logic brain can understand ah, this is a this is an investment. Ah, this is a, you know, a return on time a return on energy. I think the way we've been using that language has been has been limited, it's been dehumanizing, but how do we re humanize business? How do we re humanize and decolonize leadership? These are huge questions that we are in right now. And if we are existing in companies and as leaders not doing that work, of being in the unknown, of making mistakes, of getting it wrong, so that we can figure it out, so that we can learn into or iterate towards a healthier, more regenerative version of business and leadership. Who else will? Who else will, it's it's, it's time that like, some of us need to make those those risks, take those risks and make those mistakes, so that we can learn into a new way of of being, because the old way, not only is it not working, but it's it's actually dead, it's already died. And many of us have already grieved it. And if you haven't, I invite you to, to fully be in that process of grieving how things were of grieving, the fact that what used to work in business and in leadership and how we show up in our jobs, that there was a time there was a context when that worked, and that time is dead. So that version of you that used to show up that way has also died. And not everyone has fully realized that. But I think I think more are realizing it every day and beginning to feel into what what is the new self? What is the new version of myself that I get to show up in and can I be brave and bold enough to make the mistakes to discover? What what a more regenerative way of doing business Leadership actually is. I'm here holding these conversations and sharing these ideas and asking these questions as invitations for us to co create this new world. But I certainly don't have all the answers, I have all of my practices, I have all of my years of trying out more conscious leadership practices of building more regenerative operational design, I have, I have those iterations. And I have the the self healing and the self alignment practices within myself, so that I can really listen to what feels in alignment with my values. And what doesn't, that is my North Star, that is my guiding system. It's my GPS that's taking me towards this new way of doing business. And I'm committed to being fully like fully fucking dialed in to that. Because when you're moving through a dark season, or a huge, massive ego death in our collective consciousness, you can't see where you're going, you don't know exactly what's going to be reborn on the other side, all you have is that inner compass. So we better be clear on what our values are, and the calibrating criteria that that inner compass or GPS is built on. Because that's what's going to guide us home to ourselves. That's what's going to make us an open channel. And help us show up in integrity in transparency, and in value aligned ways that deeply rehumanize how we're doing business. It is within that very spirit. That I am so excited to share with you an announcement. Ah, a very Yeah, very excited for this. Myself and a group of incredible, incredible conscious leaders, teachers, facilitators, content creators, like business medicine people is almost how I see them who are just absolutely changing the game. I've recently been so deeply called to convene a group, and to create a nonprofit called the Living Leaders Institute, to pull together this group of faculty, and educators to to begin to build a collective knowledge system of tools, courses, practices, templates, even like I want to, I want to give you all my templates that I've used in my time as a CEO, as a managing director, like if you don't have a conscious budget, for how your lifestyle and your business connect, or if you don't have a people first financial model that ensures the livelihood of every member of your team, I want to give you those templates. So there's like there's a lot that I'm wanting to give away in the spirit of accessibility, and accelerating this healing path or this transition that we're in. And so that is that accessibility is deeply rooted in how information will be shared in the institute. But coming in early 2023, will be beginning to offer some of those first programmatic experiences to invite you into, there's going to be a beautiful resource library that you'll have access to with all sorts of downloadable templates and tools and guided practices. So little mini videos, things you can do at home things you can immediately implement and test in your own business. In your own role. No matter what role you have. These issues are so deeply human, we are living leaders, we are living into a new type of leadership that is more regenerative and more people first. So that's really the spirit of the nonprofit and I look forward to sharing more about that mission and the incredible humans that will be joining me in CO creating this. So excited so deeply excited, and it feels like like getting to step into my sacred role even further in helping to usher in this this nonprofit in helping to birth it. I absolutely love birthing companies, but this one feels like a home. It feels like creating a home where this content in this way of being gets to live for a really long time. So I'm so excited to invite you into that. And as part of that, this podcast is the the format is about to shift to meet this, this new birthing that's happening of living leaders, I'm going to be inviting in other conscious leaders and practitioners who are already playing in this space and already seeing this shift unfold. They have already done some of the piloting the iterating, as well in their own ways. And I'm going to be bringing them onto the podcast to have those conversations, and help get you those tools and those practices even faster. So I've got some fascinating guests coming up, we are going to be taking a two week break from the podcast to transition into season two, where you'll get to meet some of these guests. And I cannot even wait to have these conversations to to host these brilliant, brilliant souls, and to ask questions that get to be portals so that we can all discover the answers together. So I will see you in in two weeks with our very first guest, and you won't want to miss it. It's going to be really juicy. So thank you for being as always fully present and showing up with me here on this podcast. Welcome to this new year this winter cycle where we're going in as as we mentioned in the podcast today, I want to invite you into those those micro moments of buffer time and retro going to full to build in the integration reflection and rest time into how you run your company and how you how you flow through your day. And I invite you to also find other ways like what are the what are the rest reflection and integration practices that work best for you that you get to discover and try on and design into your day so that you can also reap the benefit of this integration work that is so so strategic and part of our collective alchemy. Thanks for doing the deep work y'all and I'll see you in season two. Enter work is often the hardest work, but it is the work required for lasting change and healthier future for us all. If you found the show valuable please leave me a review and subscribe. You can also take a deeper dive with me at Nicole bellisle.com Thanks again for being here and showing up for your new self. Your future self is certainly thank you