Ep. 30. Embracing your Soft Power: The new emerging leadership way!

Are you ready to revolutionize your leadership style and reclaim your power from societal norms?

I personally believe that "The Soft Power Way" is the most radiant, transformative and powerful leadership way paving the way for the new business paradigm that speaks louder then the thousands words.

In this episode I challenge a lot and maybe everything you've been taught about authority and confidence. I invite you to explore with me the concept of what I call "Soft Power," a leadership way that prioritizes self-connection, integrity, and body-led entrepreneurship. I dive deep into how embracing sensitivity, self-awareness, and compassion can help you lead with authenticity and ease, creating a business culture that's rich in trust and respect.

I share why I believe the soft power is the future of the most impactful leadership and dive into foundational importance of "heart softening" versus "heart hardening" concept in our business eco-system and its effects on our nervous systems.

I talk about the new gentle leadership movement and how it emphasizes BEING over MORE DOING, a value increasingly cherished by the younger & awakening generations.

Learn how to maintain grace and softness in the face of life's inevitable challenges, and connect with your own soft power to anchor this transformative energy within your body.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone eager to lead a more authentic, compassionate, conscious, aligned and impactful life and business.

If you want to go deeper, check Soft Power recorded 2 days online retreat.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:42

Ah, today I want to talk to such a deep in my heart topic, and the topic is soft power way.

Speaker 1: 0:54

I feel there's a new leadership movement emerging on this earth on our new business paradigm landscape, and it's all about soft and gentle and why I feel like soft power is way more powerful than what I call myself controlling business paradigm. And I'm bringing this concept and this definition because I believe we are literally invited to revisit the way we show up via our identities, our definitions of how we lead ourselves, our vision, our movement, our businesses, our people, our careers, our communities, our beliefs about the world or how we want to see the world. Our beliefs about the world or how we want to see the world and raise the question what if leadership is not about louder, bigger, stronger, more? What if we don't have to wear those power suits to be truly impactful change makers and influencers and leaders of this world?

Speaker 1: 2:04

So I want to ask you what comes to your mind when I say the words power and when I say the word leadership, what are the first words that come to describe it? Don't overthink it, just let your body to respond, let your gut to respond intuitively whatever comes up, like brainstorming kind of way. So when I ask you to be perceived as powerful, you have to be fill the blank. And what I observed in my own story and experience and in my line of work that often we have this collective concept association about being powerful. You have to be confident, you have to be strong, you have to be tough, you have to work hard, have to be tough, you have to work hard, have to be resilient, you have to be authoritative, or maybe even have titles and money representing your influential success..

Speaker 1: 3:17

Right, and don't get me wrong, I think there are so many versions, flavours and expressions of power and leadership and they all are good and they all are different and they all have a right to be in the world and we all have our different preferences of that. But what I'm talking today is a little bit deeper. It goes way beyond your style of leadership or your preferred style of leadership, and it goes way beyond your style of personality. You may be naturally way more softer and more feminine approach of leadership, more empathic approach, more gentle and maybe more introverted style, or you can be damn ambitious and like a fire and you want to show up in big and bold and ambitious ways on big stages and big impacts, and maybe you combination or mix of both of those versions. And maybe you combination or mix of both of those versions.

Speaker 1: 4:31

I feel like soft power goes beyond all of that. I believe we all have access and we all have ability of soft power, because soft power for me is more your way of being with yourself. Soft power comes from very deep connection and very deep awareness and self-leadership, because we all in our hearts are sensitive and soft. Softness and embracing that softness within comes from ability to look in all parts of yourself. We are so multifaceted beings we are not single version of ourselves. It's our ability to look in all those parts we like about ourselves, claim our bigness, claim our beauty, but also look and hold those parts that we ashamed of, are disconnected, we avoiding, we are not really comfortable with. It's about compassion and ability to love the most unlovable parts of ourselves and of our experiences.

Speaker 1: 5:59

Soft power your own soft power comes from collecting your power. You gave away from all those places that it shouldn't be there. If you deeply embrace yourself, if you know who you are, your values, who you're not, what you stand for, what you don't, what is true to you and what is not, how you want to see the world and what is not alignment for you, claim that you don't need to prove anything to anyone, though very often talking about that leaking power and giving power away to others to decide your worthiness, to decide who you are, what you allowed, how you have to be in this world, is where your heart starts to tighten. For example, I encountered often the predicament that I look too young. I have a really young face and despite my age, I was told I can speak up or I can change the world the way I want only if I sit at the top tables with the top management, if I have big titles, if I'm this and that. And I will share my personal journey towards soft power and embracing that in a different episode.

Speaker 1: 7:36

But what I mean here when you allow other people to tell who you are or who you're supposed to be, you give power away to them instead of connecting that with yourself. And if you deeply know yourself, if someone would tell you you are blue monster, you wouldn't even have any reaction because you know you're not. You don't have to prove, to respond, to negotiate or to defend anything here, anything because you know you're not. You just see neutrally. It is what it is, it's what they think, it's how they see it. I know who I am and where I stand and who I'm not and I can still stay in my softness. Looking in all those leakages where you give your power away brings the deep congruency with yourself, with whole version of yourself, and if there is a dissonance it takes immense amount of energy for your nervous system to maintain the defenses, to defame your coping strategies, to stay alert.

Speaker 1: 8:56

Unconsciously and fundamentally soft power comes from healing your nervous system, from deep embodiment of yourself, instead of running from trauma response and relating with the world and others and the business and your team and your people from the triggered controlling trauma response. What I observed? A lot of old business paradigm. What I call old business paradigm is built from a lot of nervous system dysregulation, a lot of trauma response, a lot of unhealed wounds and coping strategies. And I feel this is where that concept of you have to toughen up. You have to not show your emotions, you can't be vulnerable, you have to be strong comes from originally from deep protection fight, flight, freeze or foreign response and more deepening this work and the movement I'm pioneering here more I start to see layers and layers and layers, how all business infrastructure, like business world, is built from that unhealthy, traumatized way of being and doing and building.

Speaker 1: 10:27

Soft power is totally different way of being with yourself and being with the world and being with others. Soft power comes from the place of safety, from the place of nothing to prove energy. It comes with ease, with deep presence and connection and awareness with yourself and the others and the world. Because when you deeply know yourself, when you trust that you can hold yourself no matter the weather externally, then you don't have to hold your armors around you. It comes from the open heart and it comes from the expanded way of being in your body instead of contracted version of yourself, contracted body. What I found to be true, observing my clients and my own life story and others.

Speaker 1: 11:37

We tend to protect and guard and defend the most vulnerable, the most soft, pure and innocent and sensitive parts of ourselves the most, because usually this is where our magic lies. Also, so, if if that is taking away, it's like your soul is crashed. So we tend to guard up our softness. The most Soft power is about nurturing and trusting your own resourcefulness. We often give too much power externally. If one comment, if one rejection, if one person's opinion about you can shut you down, you give too much power away. And when we embrace the softness within, our nervous system exhales, our nervous system exhales. We are able to stay with open heart through the most turbulent times instead of guarding ourselves up. Ironically, soft power has immensely strong strong resilience because you can stay connected to big picture, to possibilities, you can hold the turbulence and because you're not so easily kicked out of your center, your softness becomes a lighthouse for others because if you stay soft, empathic, regulated and open heart with yourself in these times, that gives invitation to others to do the same around you.

Speaker 1: 13:29

We are hugely underestimating how constantly and how much we resonate with each other's nervous system, how sensitive and how we feel when the person is dysregulated and when the person is in the regulated nervous system state. We all feel that all the time, because when you embrace your softness, your nervous system feels safe to hold your bigness, your impact, your depth, your immense potential and your fullness. When you embrace your softness, you have the capacity to hold more, to receive more, to process more, to manage more and even access what's possible for you more, Because then you're way more present with whatever is, instead of being busy to control and resist the situation. When you're courageously able to look in all multifaceted versions of yourself and life and hold yourself through that with a softness, you unlock your immense power, soft power which is something different, and it unlocks something in your core essence, in your being and in your way of relating very differently, because you are relating not from the place of defend, prove, control, but you relate from the place of curiosity, place of nothing to prove, place of intimacy. And the way you share yourself with the world also speaks louder than a thousand words and it comes from such a aligned, congruent leadership of yourself that it ripples with most powerful impact.

Speaker 1: 15:30

In my experience and observation, we very little, if ever ask the question and put the focus is your heart hardening, is your nervous system contracting or is your heart softening and your nervous system is expanding? And I would even invite you to look in your business ecosystem. Look into your body of work, your product, services. What are you here to bring? Look in your clients, look in the money, look into your different offers, look in your business model. Look in your clients, look in the money, look into your different offers, look in your business model, look in your business structures, look in your team, look in your support and so on and so on. And I'm inviting you to look from the perspective of is your heart softening? Do you feel connected with that soft power within? Or you feel your heart is hardening, your defenses are going up and your body's contracting and you go into alert, fight, flight or you go into shut down and freeze. Look where you have tendency and when you have tendency to control more, to be harder, to be more strict, because that can be invitation to listen, to surrender, to change, to embrace and to love that part or that situation or something there deeper and differently.

Speaker 1: 17:10

I notice when it comes to that bigger, louder, more and more controlling way approach of power in the world. Again, it's nothing per se wrong with that, but what I observed often it shows up in the shadow side of it, and the shadow side of it is because we tend to lose the softness within. We tend already to disconnect from that softness, which means also some parts of ourselves when we try to control more externally. When we try to control more externally, it means and it points that we somehow lost the control somewhere internally already. If we tend to portray certain kind of personality or certain kind of authority, to be something or someone that maybe naturally we are not, but we try to become, to be perceived as the leader, to be perceived as a change maker, influencer or authority, it means somewhere we are already disconnected from our authenticity and our truth and deep in a trust that who you are and how you are in the moment. It's enough.

Speaker 1: 18:42

I've seen multiple, tons of examples. People with big titles, c-level positions and the team just don't trust with their care, who decided to be driven. What they believe in and include deeply themselves and others, had more impact and were more respected because they were more embodied role models of leadership, of self-leadership, role models of leadership of self-leadership than that C-level manager and I had conversation with managers coming in my room complaining how team is not respecting them, how team is not listening their rules or guidance they set up and what should I do, what's wrong, why they're not listening and what happens. They tend to control even more. But I feel with the new business paradigm people are getting more and more sensitive, people are awakening, people are getting more conscious and for me the answer is the inner work. That's why in my eight capacities framework I don't call leadership capacity, I call it self-leadership capacity, because if we all tap into that internal leadership, internal power, deep awareness of ourselves, knowing ourselves, if we all lead ourselves powerfully, with open heart and soft power, what is there to lead, then the team structures and business structures become very, very different framework which is also very, very evident in the world how it's deeply changing Because people can lead themselves. If you stop repressing, if you stop taking their power away, people know what to do, people know what to say, people know how to stand up, people know how to care, people can lead themselves.

Speaker 1: 21:12

I feel this new gentle and soft power movement comes from deep connection and embodiment of yourself, deep capacity to be able to look in all aspects of yourself and being able to hold the deepest contractions and deepest expansions without losing and dropping your power and your softness.

Speaker 1: 21:44

I really believe the new business paradigm is so much more about your way of being with yourself and with the world and with others than doing.

Speaker 1: 21:57

If you look in the new generation, they don't care about titles, they don't care about your achievements, and I don't say it doesn't matter, but I am saying fundamentally, people look up into people because of their way of being, because of their way of embodiment, and at the core of it, all I literally feel is that soft power within to be able to hold all the cycles, experiences, death and rebirth of your identities, of your careers, of your job, of reinvention of your different directions, and also ability to hold rejection, shame, humiliation, failure, with grace, with softness, ability to feel all the feels, roller coaster of your emotions and the most intense and extreme and contrasting experiences of your life, and without shutting down your heart.

Speaker 1: 23:09

And that, for me, is most atomic, most impactful, most contagious and inspiring power there is. So what is your connection with a soft power? Do you know the feeling of it? Can you access that? Can you access, can you allow and connect with that softness within in your body. Right now. Can you notice where it is? And now give yourself a moment and feel your body. Close your eyes and let this information, this episode, go through your body, anchor in your body. Let it feel how it touches you and what sensations it brings up.