307 - The Power of Presence: How Being Here Now Can Change Your Leadership Game with PowerHouse Leaders' Stephana Johnson

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started. Stefana Johnson, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are— I don't know what to call you. You wear so many hats. Coach, fractional CEO, businesswoman. Helping people, helping high-performing people live better, healthier, more powerful lives. I think that describes what you do. Your website's defanajohnson.com. And tell us a little bit about your backstory.

Definitely an innovator. I think all of us who are visionaries who want to make a profound positive impact and influence positive change have some kind of backstory that would probably include seeing an underdog, being an underdog, and wanting to make that difference. And maybe they didn't know how in the beginning, but they learned, and maybe it was the hard way. That was definitely mine. I went the long, hard way. I think I, I consider myself definitely a late bloomer, and it's one of those things that at first during an— the earlier period of my life, I'm talking '80s, I thought those little things were the meaning that I was broken and that I was unworthy and unvaluable. And so I had to make up a lot in order to be worthy and valuable. And come to find out, we know that's not true. And those beliefs can then lead to certain behaviors and then certain results, and those results are usually not what you really want, or you're getting the results the hard way. When I discovered that, it was only because I was so relentless on helping others, because I couldn't confront my own stuff. And I think that's the way it is sometimes when you have your own internal trauma and internal— as you work with emotions— internal emotions that have not been processed. And it's easier to process. It's easier to deal with someone else's. It's easier to see it from the outside. And so that was definitely the way it was for me. And then I became a very highly skilled and trained therapist and in that world and in a culture of executive culture and then also a creative culture in the music and entertainment business. And you see all of these unprocessed, not just emotions, but thoughts. And behave. And we know now, you're very skilled at what you do, so you understand that the trajectory that occurs when we don't process certain things. And I can talk about it in hindsight, but when I was in my 20s, I was in a corporate world, very high demand, high drive, very low recovery. And that is just definitely something— sooner or later you're going to faceplant, sooner or later you're going to hit those walls. And as you do, you learn and you pick yourself up. So I do focus on a holistic approach, meaning I can't segregate that leader from who they are in life and who— what their history is like. And so holistic is always my forefront. I'm walking that place now. And so leadership and culture and really engagement, I think being engaged physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually as a leader is really crucial. And those are the things that I've had to learn along the way, in the hard way. But as a result, you now have 5 skills that I, that I would not have had otherwise. So could I go back and wish I didn't have trauma? Could we all do that as leaders? What's the point? This is what I say is, what's the point? Now let's— I don't want to say let's learn from it because that's the typical, we're going to learn from it, but it is. That's what it is. We're going to grow. We're either going to grow or die type of thing. Yeah. So it evolves and that's the process. But that brings us full circle to here and listening.

Yeah. I wouldn't— I agree with you. I wouldn't be where I had a miserable first 50 years of life, but I wouldn't be where I am today if I didn't have that experience. Yeah.

So, and that juxtaposition is really important that we see. And so it's for us to be able to say that, especially to someone who is in it, is valuable. It's not something that's just, oh, you'll, you'll get over it. It's too bad. Suck it up or whatever. No, we know. And I think that makes us that much more compassionate for sure, but also competent in supporting, especially in this very volatile, right, this— there's all kinds of acronyms we could use for our current culture and what's happening with regards to the climate and the stressful times. And we all know, for since time immemorial, we know that's where the real change happens. Because we don't grow in success, do we?

No.

That's a hard one to say.

Yeah, I know. It takes— I talk about conflict as being like dirt. A vegetable can't grow without resistance. Plants can't grow without resistance. And so when we look at conflict, we just look at conflict as a form of resistance. Although, how you approach that resistance really defines whether or not you're gonna have a horrible experience or a transformative experience.

Exactly.

But the resistance is still there no matter what.

That's right. And that resistance, like the diamond analogy, or right, any type of the rubber band, it can project you. I also like the analogy of the lotus flower. It has to have the mud to sink in, but when it's all muddy, you can't see. So we have to let that sit. Settle. And if you don't have tools to let that settle, it's constantly in this debris state. So I love what you're teaching with regards to using skills. Skills are so vital. And I think that's important for folks to know that the one thing you can do is learn a skill, right? So that's an important piece of being resilient and being able to step back into that strength and that power to be able to move forward and lead stronger, longer.

Yeah. I'm curious, I'm curious when you're, I'm just wondering if you have the same experience that I have when you're talking to people about the work that you do and they begin to give you a glassy-eyed stare, right?

Yeah.

How do you, people can see that they have problems. Maybe it's past trauma, maybe it's, poor situation growing up. It could be a lot of different things that cause people to be dysfunctional. They know they got problems, but they can't believe there's really a solution out there that really works for them. How do you go about helping people cross that bridge?

Yeah, so, so I wouldn't even say that they're at the first step of the bridge then. If they don't feel that they can get help, they're not even at the first step of a bridge. And You know, I've been doing this long enough, and you as well probably know that there are many bridges, and it's really not so much the bridge. I mean, I'm partial to my bridges, my choices of healing and leading and moving forward, but if a person truly does not feel, believe, think that they can heal or improve or get over that trauma or whatever it is that they can't change, then we have to go back a few steps. And there's no way I would start putting information on top of that because there's already a block, right? So we need to release that block. You have tools. The listening piece, they probably haven't been listened to, they probably haven't been heard. But other tools that I would use because I'm looking at the whole person, their body speaks so loudly. I have been very interested in physical health since very young. I've had my own health issues. And my mother was constantly on some health journey for me growing up. And so it just was a natural process for me to embrace the body and all of the factors that go into it and understand. And there's a lot of false information out there, and there— by the time you get to our age, you've tried so many different things, and if they haven't worked, it can become or feel hopeless. But I think that there is a— there's something within someone, especially if they've shown up listening to your podcast or shown up at my door, they know there's got to be hope. And so there's something there and they're willing to unravel it. And maybe it's a little bit more digging, but I'll tell you really about— I think for me, because I understand what you're saying about that glassy-eyed stare, And oftentimes that is a symptom of not being able to process all the other BS that has gone on. And that is one of the key things. So I'll introduce you to my Pilot Your Way method. So it's an acronym as well as an analogy. When I was learning to be a pilot early on, and I didn't continue on, this was in high school, I took an aviation class and was able to go and learn, take a flight with someone who changed my life. And the first step was you have to be present, get present, because that glassy-eyed, they're not present, right?

Oh yeah, I'm a pilot.

Oh, okay.

Airplane, helicopter.

Yep, that's the first thing, that's the first thing, right? And I remember the flight instructor was— his energy was— he was so there, he was so just there. And I was not. I was one minute I was thinking about something else, one minute I was over in the future, and one minute I was worried about this one. And so he was the one that helped me get here, present. And I think that is the key, right? So P, presence, you have to practice this. And we each have to practice being present. What is present? There's all these fun things and there's been so many books about it, yes. And it's just this moment. And as soon as you're in this moment, there isn't the emotions you have to fight and deal with. Thoughts you have to fight and deal with or whatever. Even in an emergency state, as a pilot, guess what? There are no emergencies because you are prepared for anything, because you're not in the emergency, you are responding with— you're equipped energetically, emotionally, spiritually, physically. You are equipped. And that's what I feel like my My role is— you mentioned roles. I have many roles. Yeah, sure. But my number one role is equipping leaders to many things, whatever that person is. So for example, if they want to make a bigger difference, I'm going to equip them to have the capacity to do that. And that is going to look like more than just showing up pretty with certain things and getting on social media. It's so much more. Deep than that. And we don't have a lot of that, generally speaking, in our culture. We don't go very deep. There's a lot of superficial things out there, right? Yeah, anyway, I'll turn it back to you.

Yeah, no, you're right. We, for all of that, we have a lot of cultural biases, actually cultural myths that have been perpetrated for thousands and thousands of years that turn out to be not true, that have created a lot of problems. One of which is, and this I think goes to the issue of presence. One of the myths that we have been taught is that we're rational beings. And talk to any neuroscientist and they'll tell you there's no such thing as rationality in the human brain. It's— we're all emotional. Every decision we make is an emotional decision. Every thought we have is emotional. There is— rationality is a myth perpetrated before Plato because the ancients couldn't— all they could see was emotions were bad things. When people got emotional, they just reacted in bad ways. And so that carried for thousands and thousands of years. So today it's impossible for people to be present because if they're holding this ideal of rationality and yet they can't attain that ideal because they've got all this intrusive stuff going on that you mentioned, they flail and they become very unhappy. And that's a real problem. And they can go to an ashram, go meditate, do yoga. I'm a tai chi master. They go do tai chi, martial arts, whatever it might be. But it's really learning to be in the moment with everything that's going on and recognizing that emotion, for example, in my work, emotions are transitory and they don't define who you are. But that's hard for people to get.

Yes, I can see that.

It's hard for people to get.

I look a little bit differently at emotions in that I feel like they are incredible key indicators. And leaders like indicators. They like indicators. They like key performance indicators. Okay, let's look at those emotions as key performance indicators, right? I start my— when I go in and talk to folks, I'm saying, you're not your emotions. You have them. You're not your thoughts. You have them.

Right.

And those emotions are Well, for me, I personally, I consider them gifts. And that's one of the things because I am practicing my own first best client, right? And I work to really understand myself in everything now because I was so much on the other side in the chair helping others but not handling myself. So now it is, I want to be really, I want to listen to what you're saying and hear that. I don't necessarily agree that it's been thousands of years and we can't be rational. I think our words, I think our language has definitely created a little bit of a barrier. So it's almost like we need less words, less words of trying to figure things out with all these words. And because now even they're continuing to dwindle down to inverted meanings, whereas if you could just be and just feel There's so much there. There's so much there. And how do you teach—

how do you teach people to get into that space? Because you're right, that's a skill, I think.

Yes, it is. You know what's interesting? Definitely it's a practice, but it's more so that it's removing the interference. To who I believe that they natively are. Now you say they're not natively and they're not rational because of neurology. I'm far more than my brain and these mechanics. My body is this amazing— oh my gosh, our bodies, I won't even get it started, but they're amazing. And the brain and the mind and how all this functions— I'll back it up a little bit. This is Let's go back to that bridge. How do you want to cross the bridge? Maybe you don't need to cross that bridge yet. You just need to be where you are, right? So this is what I'm working with folks to do. So many— and I'll go back to my pilot analogy because this is so important— most are already in flight. We know that they're going, they're on their way somewhere, they're in flight, right? But they don't know exactly where they're going. They have an idea, or maybe that idea is a false idea. But if they got present and they were totally here and they were able to, knowing what they know right in this moment, make the decision, would they be going in that direction? What's interesting is so many of— when I'm in a room, especially with conflict resolution, that I'm— and I'm working with this, and you know this from mediation— most, if they were totally present, would not eat, they would not be moving in the direction they're moving. So we do have to go back to that moment. That requires, on the part of a practitioner or a guide, incredible patience and persistence and compassion, of course, and enough to help those in the room because they need the support. And then also some tools to help them navigate the mess, the kind of turbulence that they're in. So it's a circumstance with each individual, and that's really why I don't do too many cookie cutters or have a group program or a program here, go and do it, because I love the immersion with one because I've traveled the path and it's a gift to be a guide to me. So I'm with them building that skill. But most of it really, I find, is removing the interference because I see their light. I see who they are. And I just keep peeling away and removing the interference. And sometimes it takes that. Sometimes it takes longer. Depends on how much they're holding on to that interference.

Right. Exactly. How did you learn how to listen?

How do you learn how to listen?

How did you learn how to listen, you specifically, Stefana?

Mm, gosh, that's a total evolution in itself. The first time I truly listened, mm, from my heart, which I believe is what listening really is— now, I would listen with my ears because I was trained to as a therapist, right? I had had thousands of hours in the chair. And then by the time I was 35, my best friend, my mentor, my father was killed in a fire. My parents' house burned down and my father was killed in a fire. And that was the first time I truly listened.

Right?

Because there was so much noise that I had to tap into something that was much bigger. And my grandmother would say it, "Listen with your third ear, your heart," right? So that was the first piece. And you learn very quickly when there's something that's significant. I don't recommend that. The second was when my first son was born, and he was born just about 9 months after my father was killed. After 5 years of trying to get pregnant, and we were told we weren't going to be able to have children, and magically, miraculously, my son was born. And the true amount of listening that happened— because I think we are naturally If we can shut up and close this, close all the this and then the head stuff, the true ability to listen is profound. But you have to want to, and I truly wanted to, oh, more than anything, because I was in so much pain. And the tools then to learn to listen more mechanically, to understand and, and, and go a little further than my therapy training or my corporate training of being communicating and critical conversations and all these kinds of analytical training was when I worked and studied under Marshall Rosenberg. Dr. Marshall Rosenberg was profound in NBC Compassionate Communication, and that was really interesting. It was a new take. I'd never actually observed someone practicing the way they were teaching. I— you hear a lot of talking heads that teach a concept, but they don't practice it, they don't live it, they don't embody it. He did, he did. Marshall Rosenberg did. And that was interesting to me, that was really interesting to me, and I learned a lot from that. I discovered enormous capacity from that. Do I think that's the all and all be all? No. I loved John Bradshaw's work because you have to start listening to those emotions that are there because originally they were indicators of something going on, and then they were suppressed, and then they don't get processed, and then they become etc., right? And then they become the additional turbulence or interference that blocks you or that deters you or that drains you from moving to your destination or arriving at the destination you want, or crashing and burning. One or the other is going to happen, right? So I would say that really having my boys, being a mom, was significant to me, and I made a conscious decision to not put my garbage on them. And that required— it really took a lot of wherewithal for me to be so present to these beautiful beings, these beautiful lives that were in my hands. And I was to steward these young men, infants, precious, right? I learned to listen in profound ways. And again, it's not just with our ears. There's so many more things. There's so much more that goes into it, and it doesn't have to be complicated. In fact, it's very subtle and very beautiful and very elegant and graceful and profound. And I think that this is a much better way to lead. I think it's a better way to lead yourself, to lead your family, to lead your community or your company. And that's why I do what I do. And that to me is where you're tapping truly into your power, to your powerhouse. And that's a gift, I think, to the world.

Mm-hmm. There's a lot in the literature, or you're seeing this now in the business media, like Fast Company and Forbes and all these people. Now all of a sudden the big buzzword is empathy, leadership empathy, which cracks me up.

Oh yeah.

What's your take on empathy? How would you define it and how would you teach it?

Let's look at the word. Let's really look at this word. Empathy, empath. I'm coming from a paradigm that we're all one, we're all connected. That's, that is a paradigm that I believe and that I, what I, what is within me is what I'm projecting, right? We don't see the world as it is. We see it as we are. And for me to understand that,— and to come from that place and to be able to observe and to know that most don't believe that, most have a completely different paradigm than that, and to understand— I think it's— there's two folds to this because I am at a place in my life and my career where I know a lot more than the average person, and even high-level leader. And it requires— you said it before— compassion and empathy are parallel, beautiful, harmonious attributes and skills, may I say.

Teachable skills.

They are. They are, yes. You can't just plop that on someone. But at the same time, I cannot be empathic that I assume what they are feeling or believe or assign what they are feeling. Or— and that's where it comes back to for me. I go back to my method. First step, presence. Even in any moment, even though I have a program written for someone I'm always coming back to that present moment to see what is, to be with what is now. And that to me is empathy. That is the practice. That is part of the practice. Empathy. This is a great word. It's a great word. And conceptually it can mean multiple things. But if— I like to look at the etymology of words and really understand. But if I believe one thing about empathy or understand it as one way and another understands it in another way, they could be using that as a construct. And that construct in itself is separating us. And therefore we do not have empathy, even though we're pretending to have empathy. So I think it's just come back to just, whoa, hi.

Be present. Mm-hmm.

Hi.

Yeah. Yeah, if we can all do that, then I would say that if even 1% of us could do that, it would be a, we live in a very different culture than we live in right now.

That's why I go to the leader. That's why I go to the leader. And it used to be that they would bring me in to work with the team because the leader's pointing the finger. They're— my managers are not doing this.

I learned a long time ago that conflict in an organization starts with leadership.

And when you have the leader who is aware, it shifts the entire culture from that place. You cannot change culture from You could from the bottom up if you're pushing hard enough, but that's miserable. That's miserable work. But that is such a gift when the leader, especially if they are, they're here for something profound. And I worked with celebrities, I worked with artists, and you would recognize the names. And I would sit on the kitchen floor with big, they're out there, this is the hood, giving so much. Their influence is incredible. And sitting there in a puddle of terror. And in, in those moments when you learn and you discover for someone— talk about empathy— you realize it's— you just have to let it all go. There's no assumption. We can assume all these things about all these celebrities and all these politicians and all this and project, and mostly it's projecting. But the— those that are here to lead something and to create a a positive impact, to create something beautiful, and to— because I think really that's what we're here to do, is create and to shine and to give our essence, right? And we can't— mostly the stuff that gets given now is so corrupt and so tainted because we've lost touch with that fundamental essence of who we are. So that goes back to our empathy, right? So then from my work and my perspective as a guide, I have to be that much stronger to be that much more compassionate to understand and to know that there is a process. It's not just cut it off, get rid of it. No, there's a process and it's going to take as long as it takes or do whatever it takes. And there's other things, there might be this, there might be this, because I'm not looking at it as just this, it's this problem, we need to cut it out or pop a pill for it. We've got to look at the whole thing. And that's where the listening skill of not just with the ears, right? You're listening with the emotions and you're listening with— and that's empathy. That is being able to feel what they're feeling without becoming that, because you want to understand. And you— to understand, then that allows for more of— and again, I'm saying this from a much more experienced and learned person. I would not be able to have done— I would not even have this concept when I was in my 20s and I was following a specific protocol in the chair as a therapist. You had a very specific protocol. This is what you do. Just like with you with law, legal, right? There's no room for it. It's this and you just move forward. It's, it's an interesting, in fact fascinating time that we live in. I think very exciting because I think there's— there is this feeling that there is a big shift happening, that there is change that can happen and will happen, and that we are open more to— I'm going to call it holistic, some people call it woo-woo, who cares. This has been— if you've been studying any time, how many have been looking for answers because of their own things inside, right? Yeah. It's interesting.

Fascinating. We've been going for a while here. I, uh, this is a short podcast, so I don't wanna go too much longer. Been really interesting. So I have one more question. This is the question I always like to end my podcast with. Stefana, what's one thing about yourself that we would never know about unless you revealed it to us?

What popped in my head as soon as you asked was that I bent a spoon. I was into this thing of bending spoons and when The Matrix came out and is that real and look in the universe. And then I was getting into this and looking, delving into different pieces out there, esoteric. And I bent a spoon and then understood something in a whole new profound way. And that was interesting. I don't usually tell that, but that popped in my head when you asked me.

Interesting. No, I'm not saying that. I move business cards across the table using chi. Okay. So I get it. I get it.

You get it. Exactly.

I'm an energy healer, so I understand.

Awesome. Okay, good. So maybe that's why.

Well, this has been a lot of fun. Thank you so much for your time today. And I wish you the best and hopefully we can connect again soon. Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithDougNoll. Leaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasNoll. Doug Noll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.