5 Steps to Powerhouse Leadership

Would you say you know your true self? What makes you tick? What excites you or drains you? What lifts you up or pulls you down? How about what you really want and desire? Not just what you're settling for or what expectations others have of you, but what you really want. Not on the surface, deep down inside. Have you ever asked those what appear to be simple questions but are so profound, like, what do you really want out of life? I thought I knew myself really well until I realized I didn't at all. I thought my aspirations, my goals were all centered around power, position, and prosperity, and they were for a while, at least on the surface. And then it took me leaving corporate and doing a lot of self-discovery work, inner excellence work. And that is what brought me to really understanding kind of 5 key steps that any individual, let alone a leader, need to walk themself through in order to really discover why they're working their tails off and what it is that they're working so hard to achieve. And that's what I wanna talk with you on this episode. I wanna go through the 5 steps for you to really discover you. And then within that, I wanna give you specific steps, tips, and advice as far as how you can see immediate results by just taking some time for you and your goals and aspirations, your wants and your needs and your desires, as well as those things that you don't want or that are holding you back or draining you. I wanna help you really transform into the powerhouse leader you're meant to be, but more importantly, that you want to be in your career and in your personal life. Let's dive in.

Welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, the podcast that transforms today's managers into tomorrow's powerhouse leaders. Your host, Bernadette Boas, executive coach and author, brings you into a world where the corporate grind meets personal growth and success in each and every episode. With more than 25 years in corporate trenches, Bernadette's own journey from being dismissed as a tyrant boss to becoming a sought-after leadership coach and speaker illustrates the very essence of transformation that she now inspires in others with her tips, strategies, and stories. So if you are ready to shed the bitches of fear and insecurity, ditch the imposter syndrome, and step into the role of the powerhouse leader you were born to be, this podcast is for you. Let's do this.

There was a point in the latter part of my corporate career back in the 2006 to 2008 period where I just got really sick and tired of being sick and tired, really struggling with what it was that I really wanted to contribute, what it was that I was actually contributing, and then how I was going to recognize those things and make the changes and make the shifts. That I needed to in order to really feel fulfilled, really feel valued, really feel as if I am developing and growing. And it was horrific for me to learn that it was anything but. It, my career and my personal life and my style, especially my leadership style, was really doing far more damage. Than I ever really considered. And it was far from really the goals and the aspirations, the wants and the desires that I had for myself. My corporate career was focused on, as I mentioned, power, position, and prosperity. I was extremely self-centered. I was extremely greedy. I was extremely selfish as opposed to selfless and really wanting to develop and grow and support team members. Instead, I saw them very much as taskmasters for me to achieve my goals. And so it took me being fired, leaving corporate, and really digging in to what I now call kind of my shift from bitch to rich, hence the name of the show, Shedding the Corporate Bitch. That's all about the bitches being your fears, insecurities, and negativities as to why you are self-sabotaging yourself, let alone damaging the relationships and the people around you. And I just recall immersing myself into Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich. And really at first, actually through maybe a reading and a half of the entire book, not getting it, but then realizing that there was so much to his commentary about what we think is what we're projecting. What we think is not only what we're feeling and experiencing, but it's what we're putting out and the experiences we're creating for other people. And therefore, what I was realizing is I was thinking and feeling very insecure, very negative, very devil's advocate all the time, very fatalistic, and just really intimidated and questioning my value and my worth despite what other people might say that could, would contribute to someone feeling worthy and feeling important and feeling valued. And so what we do to ourselves in the words that we say to ourselves is so diminishing to our own spirit, let alone to the value and the worth and the contribution that we're making to the people around us and the life that we're living and to the work and the expertise and the talent and the skills that we have. It just is continually eroding it if we are allowing those self-sabotaging thoughts and beliefs in ourselves to wreak havoc. And it certainly did for me, but I had a realization and it was something that Napoleon Hill did say in his book, Think and Grow Rich. And that was, there are many things you cannot control, but you can control the only things that really matter, which are, is your mind and your attitude. And when I really started thinking about that, Like I said, at first it was kind of like, whatever. And then I thought to myself, oh my gosh, my thoughts were definitely being projected in my behavior, in my attitude, in my facial expressions or my body posture, in the words that I used, in the way that I was going about my life, even when I was sitting at home alone on my couch. So that brought me to discovering these 5 steps that I walked myself through and I continue to walk my clients through, even though it may not seem so prescribed as what I'm gonna describe to you today, because it's become so natural for me that it's just an everyday part of my self-evolution, my self-learning, my self-development. And in, in turn, it's the same for the clients and for the people around me that I work to support. So how did I come about discovering this? Well, it was a lot of hard digging or excavating of my soul, as I call it, really asking myself some really hard questions. And even those simple questions that seem as if I was well aware of them. And, and yet at the same time, I began to realize that yes, I was well aware of the questions and the answers, but the answers weren't the true me, weren't what I really wanted. Now, why wouldn't you answer the questions genuinely and authentically to what it is you want or don't want? Well, for many of us, it's because we're scared of the answer. We're scared to acknowledge. That we want this big career, we want that corner office, we want that relationship, we want that income, we want that freedom, we want the ability, you know, to travel. Because if we admit it and we don't achieve it, then we're beating ourselves up and we're feeling less than, and/or we're feeling as if we're failing. And we're doing anything but. We're doing anything but. Well, first of all, as you probably have heard time and time again, failing is learning. Failing is growing. Failing is the lessons from life internally and externally that allow us to consider, shift, and grow. And so I just started. You know, making a laundry list of questions that anyone should be able to ask and answer for themselves. And at first, if it is kind of forced, as I call it, meaning that, okay, you're answering it because maybe it's the way, you know, your boss might wanna hear it, or your partner might wanna hear it, or your children might wanna hear it, but yet it's missing that, that piece of you, that genuine, authentic, soul-level piece of you that really is craving for something more. And so you, you know, you go through iterations and that's what I did. I went through iterations of asking myself over and over, over again, a series of questions and then working through isolating, okay, what's real, what's not, what's forced, what's authentic, what is it that I want to kind of keep and what is it that I wanna throw away? And then started working toward making the changes in my life, in my person, in my being, in order to then move on. And when I got to what I'll call the initial other side, meaning I was starting to feel and experienced some major shifts within myself and therefore my view of the world, my view of my friends, my view of my family, my view of my work, my view of my community were, were all shifting. And that was creating in itself a lot of change. Then I realized that there were these 5 steps that I was walking myself through to really discover the type of leader, the type of woman, the type of friend, the type of sister, the type of pup mom, the type of community leader that I wanted to be. And then once I started really getting down to that genuine level, I started just unbelievably transforming. And those 5 steps is what I want to talk with you about. So I call it my Shift to Riches Formula, and this is going to appear to many as like very woo woo, but trust me when I say, if you are questioning where you are today versus where you want to be, if you have dreams and aspirations, both personally and professionally, that you're just struggling to realize, if you do know that there's more within you than what you're sharing with the world, then I'll just challenge you to follow these 5 steps. Start small. Small steps lead to big results and work your way through. And again, iteration after iteration after iteration. Okay? Because as you start working through discovering you, as I'll call it, then you just want to learn more. You just want to learn more. And as long as we are all on this earth breathing, we should be learning. We are not the smartest people in the room. We should not want to be the smartest person in the room. We want to have that gap that always keeps us curious, creative, innovative, very student-like. So we're learning and learning and learning not only about ourselves, but the people around us, the environment, the community, so forth and so on. All right. So let's look at what these 5 steps are. And again, I call it my Shift to Riches Formula. Let me summarize first. All right. The summary of the 5 steps is you discover yourself, you confront what it is that you're learning, you shed what it is you don't want in your life, and then you start creating the new and you accelerating your growth, your learning, and your achievement. So discover, confront, shed in order to create and accelerate. All right, let's break down each one of them. So first, discover. What I was discovering actually initially came full force on me when I was out on a run with my dog. And Charlie and I are out there and we're, you know, putting along. It's hot. I'm sweating. And I am running through my mind what had just happened a few weeks earlier, actually maybe a couple months, when it was that I was fired. So here I am, I'm replaying things throughout my career. And, and especially in those last couple of years, in my head, I'm just replaying, replaying, replaying, trying to calibrate how my behavior, how my performance— I was a high achieving, high producing individual. So my report card looked great from a business generation metrics perspective. On the other side of that report card, when it comes to leadership style, is where all the Ds and the Fs came into play. And so I'm re, you know, running this film clip in my head of my life, and all of a sudden it just smacked me square in the face to the point where I physically, literally fell to the ground and started bawling my eyes out. And fortunately I was sweating, so part of the sweat looked, uh, part of the tears looked like sweat. But at the same time, I was like gasping for air on the ground. Charlie's like, look, you know. Leaning over me trying to figure out what in the world is happening. People are passing me, but what it was that hit me square in the eyes was the fact that I realized right then and there that I was the nastiest individual bitch of a leader, of a friend, of a family member, of a woman. My whole being was just extremely negative, pessimistic, demanding, curt. Abrasive, and I just sat there in just such shame and pain and not even embarrassment, but I just thought to myself, oh my God, I deserve to be fired. I deserve not to be in a role that was so significant leading, you know, a, a, a whole team of individuals because I, I wasn't that leader that I looked up to. That I wanted to emulate and, and learn from. And so it was right there. That was my discovery. That was my initial discovery was, okay, first line in my journal, how did I become this bitch? How did I become so negative? How did I become so distrusting? How did I become so intimidated, insecure, pessimistic? So forth and so on. So in the discovery phase, you're really asking yourself just a laundry list of questions to learn about you. Sure, you can initially start with the initial questions of, okay, so who am I? Where did I grow up? What type of childhood did I have? What are, were, were the beliefs or the, the values that I had, you know, as a child growing up? What were those experience, events, situations that might have kind of altered who I was, so forth and so on. And again, iteration. So I started off very general, very broad, and then I just started weeding my way in, especially when I had this discovery. I then really had to get into the muckety muck and the detail of it. It hurt. It was not easy. It was painful, but yet it was the most liberating and freeing experience. And again, you can look at it from a personal perspective and a business perspective and really kind of try to detail out how you feel you're showing up, how you feel that other people are experiencing you, how you feel you're leading, how you feel you're really taking, you know, control of your career and ensuring that you're leveling yourself up. But the discovery phase. Is critical because that's the foundation of then you being able to look at it as hard as it is, but look at it in black and white because I do suggest you get it out of your head and write it down and really kind of reconciling it. Okay. And I went as far as also asking my 5 sisters and my mother over cocktails to give me one-word descriptions of myself. Be as forthright and honest and candid as possible. Good, bad, and the ugly. You know, where my strengths were, where my weaknesses were, where my blind spots were, so forth and so on. It's the only way that you're gonna truly understand the impact you're having on the people in your life at work or at home. Okay? So that's discovery. Now you have all this information, and like I said, it could be painful. It could be scary. At the same time, it could be freeing and liberating. And then you have to kind of confront it all. So the next phase being confront means you look at it and you start acknowledging it, accounting for it, taking responsibility for it, being happy about it and, or being disappointed, you know, about it. Whatever it is that you have to confront, you wanna confront it. Now, it can also mean that you wanna start confronting situations, confronting experiences or, or events that maybe you've held onto and you haven't let go. It could be that you have to confront individuals in your life that maybe have contributed to who you are and what it is that you're learning and discovering about yourself. So confronting can go, oh, you know, go in a myriad, uh, ways. But it does involve forgiveness. It involves self-care. It involves grace. Grace. It involves seeking support and, and ensuring that you're getting support very— whether that's personally or professionally. It is about acknowledging your fears, your insecurities, your negativities, your doubts, so forth and so on about yourself. It, it, it involves looking at all of it and then you get the opportunity to move to shedding, which is you look at all of it and you say, okay, what do I wanna start throwing out? I wanna hold onto a bunch of stuff, but what do, what is it that I wanna start throwing out or shedding? And therefore, what is it that you need to start doing differently, new, bigger, better? In order to be able to shift to riches, but shift those things that are holding you back, that are draining you, that are beating you down, that are sabotaging you. You want to be able to shed those away so you can then open up a lot of space within yourself and within your life in order to, to welcome new things in. So shedding is one of the most freeing experiences you could put yourself through. Now, again, discovering things about yourself that you don't like, discovering things about other people that you don't like, discovering things about experiences and events in your life that you don't like, are scary, are intimidating, are not serving you well at all. That could be, there could be a lot of pain. There could be a lot of resistance. There could be a lot of opportunities for you to go, okay, that enough is enough. I can't take this anymore. But if you can push yourself into the confronting and get those things confronted, you know, because you also want to focus on really making sure as much as you're confronting the bitches, as I call them, your fears, insecurities, negativities, and self-doubts, you're also honoring your riches. You're also taking that side of the sheet of all the great things in your life, confronting all the things that you're, you know, that give you strength, that give you power, that give you excitement, that give you love and support and, you know, opportunities for growth. That those things are gonna give you the energy to squash out those negatives. Okay. So the confronting can even be extremely freeing and liberating because of the fact that you are just taking a deep breath as I just did and recognizing that there are things in your life internally and externally that are not working for you. And therefore, what do I need to do? Now, some hard decisions might need to be made when it comes to then taking those things you wanna confront and shedding personally and professionally. Am I working for the right company, for the right boss? With the right team, with the right industry, with the right type of business, you know, with the right type of goals and whatnot, as well as personally, am I hanging out with the right people, right places? I have to tell you, as I was going through this, so I was let go from corporate in late 2007, early 2008. I started working on myself over the 2009, 2010, and today. And by the end of 2010, I went from having this large group of friends and acquaintances where I'd have social parties and whatnot down to a handful. And most of them were my siblings. And I found myself sitting on the couch for many, many nights with my dog, and that was it. And I was the happiest person in the world and More importantly, I had started my business. At the time it was the Boas Group, and by 2010 it would be turned into Ball of Fire. And I was the happiest when it came to the work I was doing and the leader that I was, because I was beginning to transform and evolve into the type of leader that I knew that any team member, any client, any vendor, any partner would want. And again, it's what I do and what I just live for when it comes to working with my clients. So when it comes to the shedding, again, hard, painful, lonely, because you're letting go of those things that are not working for you. You're letting go of the people, places, events, experiences, so forth and so on that you're not, that, that are not serving you. But again, you get to take a deep breath. It's freeing. It is so freeing, but more so it's creating confidence and clarity in yourself. It's creating energy and excitement and newness in your, in yourself. And that brings you to the create phase. All of a sudden, the goals that you had, the objectives, the aspirations, the dreams, the wants, the desires that you had before are all now different. They're all newer, bigger, better. They all have substance. They all carry a lot of value to you. So my power position of prosperity goals that I went after for 20, 25 years now had shifted to being, uh, joy, happiness, fulfillment, client experiences, aha moments, transformation. Discovery, and that was just something, it's hard, it's hard to put into words. It was just awe-inspiring. So the, all the, so that forced new goals, new dreams, new wants, new desires. And I started pursuing those, everything from here. I was this corporate executive for all these years. I'm starting my own business. I'm then writing a book. I'm then writing, turning that book into a screenplay. I'm starting a podcast back in 2010. This one, by the way, I am taking on new clients. I am building my, building my business. I have new relationships, new friends, so forth and so on. And so you're creating and, oh my gosh, you know, you don't need caffeine. You know, you don't need anything to juice you up because you will be juiced as you start realizing and experiencing the changes within yourself as a leader and as a person at home and at work. It's just tremendous. And then the Accelerate phase. Now you can only imagine as you are shedding and creating new goals, new aspirations, new wants and desires. You wanna speed them up. You wanna just, you know, put your foot on the accelerator and go. And that's the accelerator phase. Those goals that you had even a month ago, you want 'em bigger, better, different, and newer. And you, you have such confidence in yourself, a large degree of self-worth and value. You believe in yourself to where you then wanna just move it forward and move it faster. Now, at times, again, I had mentioned iterations, right? So there's going to be times when you're going through this and you fall backwards. You know, there's going to be times you're going through discovery into confront, maybe even into shedding. Then you're, you're learning something new about yourself. So you have to confront it again and shed. And then you, you feel like, okay, I'm finally creating, but you know, my God, I'm falling back because now I'm scared of that new creation. Because we do still, it's not as if we're wiping out all the, you know, negative emotions that you're going to experience through life. We still are going to have fears and insecurities and doubts. You're just going to handle them differently because now you have, you know, a process that you can walk yourself through. What is scaring me? What's making me feel insecure? What is causing me to feel intimidated? Why am I feeling these ways? Because I have so much proof. Otherwise. And so, you know, in that Create and Accelerate, you're also learning how to deal with your own bitches, your own insecurities, your own fears, your own negativities and self-doubt. And you're feeling confident, at least in the space of getting through those things. It's not as if you're eliminating them. You're just learning how to do it so much better. Now, the tools that I've used to support my walking through these 5 steps and what I would suggest for you to start really discovering who you are as a person, as a leader, as a team member. One of them would be a journal. Now I've been journaling since I was about 9 or 10. My dad taught me, he was a daily journaler as well. So I carry a journal with me everywhere I go. And you might find me at a park, in a restaurant, if I'm waiting on you, you know, for a movie, I'm sitting there with my, with my journal and I'm scribbling. So journaling, especially taking a lot of the questions that I've mentioned at the same time, you can search for questions online, or you can reach out to me at BernadetteBoas@BallOfFireInc.com and ask me for a list of questions that would help you walk through these 5 steps. All right, but journal, get it out of your head and onto a piece of paper. The next one would be meditation. I'm not a good meditator, but I do love to pray. And so prayer is part of my meditation, so to speak. I'll also, along with praying, is I do read in what's known as Jesus Calling from Sarah Young. And I've had this for about 5 years now, and it is it's kind of falling apart at the seams from all the work or all the reading and all the, the, uh, shedding that I've been doing. But this is a, a beautiful way to also ground yourself in something to meditate on or just simply to, you know, sit and pray. And then there's reading books, books that are referred to you from a friend, recommendations online around self-discovery, around inner work. And so speaking of, I picked up Inner Excellence from Jim Murphy. If you watch football at all, especially the Philadelphia Eagles, you may have heard about this. It's a story in itself how this got kind of viral as a result of one of the pro football players reading it during a game. And it helps him get grounded in kind of his excellence, his value, his worth. So his, his mindset is where it needs to be in order to compete in whatever game he is playing. Uh, the other ones would be Dare to Lead by Brené Brown. I mentioned Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and, and a number, a slew of other books, but reading, prayer, meditation, and journaling are great ways to just, like I said, excavate your soul, really dig in. And learn about you. I mean, at whatever age you are, 20, 80, there's things you want to discover in life. And that one thing, the most important thing is you. Why spend so much time focused on learning and contributing and developing externally? Why not spend that time and that resource internally. All right. So we dug deep today into exploring what it truly means to be you and how you being you will elevate your leadership, will elevate your value, will elevate the contribution that you're making to your team and to the business, to your family and friends and community, but also to you. We all have this one life to live and it goes really, really fast. So we might as well do what we can to discover what it is we really want, confront what it is we really don't want, or what's really holding us back from achieving our dreams and shedding those things— people, places, events, experiences— so you can really create and accelerate the aspirations and the dreams. I want you to take these insights. And, and one of those tools that we discussed, a journal, meditation, prayer, just reading, and really start discovering you, what you really want, what you don't want, what your true aspirations, desires, wants, and needs are, and come up with a plan. Just come up with 3 action items. That you can start pursuing, start experiencing the freedom and the liberation that you'll have and shifting into those riches of life that you absolutely deserve. Your whole world will change in front of you for the better, for the bigger, the newer, and the different.. And if this episode got you really excited to do that and/or you might be, you know, struggling or questioning yourself as to how to go about exactly doing what it is that we discussed, then don't hesitate. Reach out and you can go to coachmebernadette.com/discoverycall and we'll have a 30-minute complimentary call that I can lay out some next steps for you. That are small leading to big results. I am so grateful that you are here with us, and I look forward to having you for another episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch. Bye.

Thank you for tuning into today's episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch. Every journey taken together is another step towards unleashing the powerhouse leader within you. Don't miss any of our weekly episodes. Subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen. And for those who thrive on visual content, catch us on our Shedding the Bitch YouTube channel. Wanna dive deeper with Bernadette on becoming a powerhouse leader? Visit balloffirecoaching.com to learn more about how she helps professionals, HR executives, and team leaders elevate overall team performance. You've been listening to Shedding the Corporate Bitch with Bernadette Boas. Until next time, keep shedding, keep growing, and keep leading.