Unlock Your Authentic Self with Annie Leib

Annie, a massive welcome to the Lead on Purpose podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be with you today.

It's a pleasure to connect. I know how busy you are, I know how powerful your work is. So I know that you're very in demand. So I appreciate getting this bit of time with you.

I mean, you're the one that gets all the demand of wanting to be on your show. So I am honored to have been chosen. Thank you very much.

It's a win, win. I love it. So I'd love to start by asking you what's your definition and what do you believe about leadership?

I think leadership is influence, inspiration and helping others, helping guide others to be the best version of themselves. That would be my off the cuff definition.

I love it. And when you look around you or you look back on your life, who have you known to be that person?

You know, I have to say, the best leader in my life, I think is my father. He is somebody that I get all of my drive and passion from, all of my ambition, all of my, my Philadelphia grit I get from my dad. He has a well oiled machine. He's in wealth management and he is a well oiled machine. This is for his, at his company and they respect him. They, he just leads with his, you know, with his heart and he's very successful. So to me, that was the, that's the guy that, that was my go to.

That's incredible. I love that. It's amazing to have someone so close to home that you can actually model on and be like, that's my definition of leadership. That's really special. Now what got you into the place you're at now with your career? Where did that actually start? Because at the minute you are incredibly influential in helping leaders to really embrace the presence, to embrace gratitude and to use your incredible framework which we're going to go deep on in a moment. But where did that all start?

Okay, so there's a bit of a story. So I was in pharmaceutical sales and business development for years. That was my career. I stopped for a while to have kids. I then ended up getting divorced, which we can talk about later also. But I decided to go back to school in 2018 to get my executive MBA at St. Joe's in Philadelphia. And I just sort of thought, I don't want to be doing this anymore. This isn't driving me, this isn't lighting me up. And more power to you if that lights you up. But it wasn't doing it for me. I knew there was more out there, and I knew I had this passion and this mission. I just wasn't sure what it was. So when I went back to school and I met my cohort that I stayed in school with for 20, 20 months, they were like, how are you not coaching? Like, this is your. This is your gift. So it sort of led me down the path of getting my coaching certificate and starting my own business. In the midst of that, I have a very important word to me that's breath. Because I think, you know, in a very downtime in my life, I thought to myself, you can take everything from me, but you can't take my breath. That's mine. And I have a tattoo of breath written in my writing on my body. And so it was very important to me. So Fast forward to 2020 as I'm starting my new company and Covid has hit and things are in disarray in the world. And I think I have so much to teach people. My life's passion is to guide leaders. I want to help the same people that I was, that I was that person that needed guidance, resilience, to make impact. I didn't know how to do that, and now I can teach people how to do it, and I'm going to come up with a way to teach them. And that's when I went back to breath and I created the BREATH framework and it's an acronym, and we can get into that later. But that's sort of the origin of how my company started and how I started in this executive coaching business.

That's amazing. I love that. I'd like to, like, just go back to the pharmaceuticals time when you were there. So when you went in on a Monday, what was that feeling like you're a year or so into that industry or a couple of years in. How did you feel on a Monday? What was that? Was it joy? No.

I felt uninspired and I felt mismanaged and misunderstood. I felt like I was just a number, you know, like I was just a number as an employee. I wasn't any. I wasn't able to bring my specialness and my uniqueness. I didn't feel I could make the impact that I knew I could make. I didn't understand resilience and adaptability. All the things that I teach today were the ways that I wasn't feeling then. That's why I think I have such a strong feel for who needs my help or guidance, because I was that person.

Yeah, I really think you are best served like that. Are fitted to serve the people that you used to be. So like the person you were five years, 10 years, 15 years ago, you are best fitted to serve that person, right?

Absolutely. And you know what, James, you're also constantly learning like in this job, as I'm help healing, as I help heal people and guide them, they're healing and guiding me as well. It's an ever evolving process. So I see mirror like I see myself in them and I try to hold up a mirror so they can see themselves sometimes. Because a lot of times you're not looking at yourself, you're looking outward for validation. So I try to do that and I just think it's an ever growing process. That's why in my breath framework, which I'll explain to you, the H stands for heal and healing. It's not healed because it's, it's ever present in. It's not a past healing, it's right now. We are healing right now.

Well, I can't wait to jump into it for a second though. I just want to chat still about that feeling of being uninspired, being at the job. Because there's somebody listening right now and that person knows who they are. They're listening right now and going, oh yeah, I'm doing the thing and I'm showing up to the job and I don't love it. A lot of people stay there and they stay there and stay there and stay there until they're 65 or they're 55 and they don't know what to do next. So what was different about you? What helped you make the leap to go, nah, this is not for me.

It's a great question. I just knew that there was. When I went back to school and started getting. I went back to school after 20 years of not being in school. I mean, I was like, how do I even add two plus two, let alone get my mba? You know, I needed a calculator just to do additional. So it was really, it was a real new beginning and fresh start for me. And I just knew I don't want to be truthfully, I don't want to be bossed around by anybody else anymore. I want to be my own boss. I want to inspire myself. I want to be self inspired. I want to be self reliant. Stop with the outside validation that was always in my life. I don't need to get these accolades from outside people. I can make something special on my own. And that's when it all started for me. So what I call the person that you're describing is just somebody that's on the treadmill. They're just on a treadmill running in place. And I come. I come in contact with so many of people that become my clients that are like that. They're just running the treadmill of life. The monotony of life, the un. The lack of inspiration, the lack of understanding their core values, understanding who they are, their purpose, their mission. And these are all the things that I try to help them discover and that we are successful in discovering with most of my clients.

It's interesting. So we pick up these things throughout life. Like, a house is important, and then an investment property is really important. Then the beach house. I know. Yeah. The car. Like, we got to keep upgrading the car. Oh, yeah. And we've got to have five degrees and a master's, and we've got to keep up with the Joneses and have all the new things. So how do we. That's a treadmill. I see that as a treadmill. And climbing the corporate ladder can be a treadmill, depending on how we perceive it. So how do we build all that baggage? What is it about the way we operate as humans that we get to the point where, wow, I didn't even realize I'm here, but I'm here. I'm collecting all this baggage that doesn't really mean much to me, but I'm doing it.

It's by. I believe, James, it's by not doing the work sooner. So the sooner that if you're listening and you are even thinking this is remotely, you even 5%.

Think about starting to do this work with me or whomever you choose to be an executive coach for you and guide you toward being a better leader and a better version of you, a more authentic version of you. And we can talk about the word authenticity, too, because I think it's really overused. But I want to say that I have a specific definition of authenticity that I try to use with my clients. And what I'll say is that we just keep going through life through these steps and these. This monotony and this. And we think we have to do this like you said, and get that and get this degree and marry this person. I was very humbled when I split from my husband, and I sort of was at the lowest point in my life in 2014 and 15. And I've clawed my way back since then. Now it's 2022, almost 2023, and it has been eight and a half years of brick by brick building myself back up and What I did was I started to do the work I just saw, you know, there's more to life than what I thought everything was. What are my priorities? What are, like I said, my values. And that's what not enough people are thinking about because they don't know their purpose, they don't know who they are. I talk to so many people, James, that just don't know who they are. I asked them about core values and they have no idea. And I understand, I relate to that because I didn't know either and now I'm so invested in and they're so ingrained in me every day and everything I do to bring my core values with me so that I can instill my mission and purpose in life. And it's just an amazing thing. Once you start to do this work.

A hundred percent relate. I guess that's something that you and I do. We have in common and we share that. We've both separated from our marital partners and by the sounds of it we chatted but before we hit record. But we both got great positive co parenting relationships and friendships with those people.

Which is awesome, super, super important to anyone out there who has and you use the words consciously uncoupled which I would say is basically what we ended up doing. I married a great guy, we were just better as friends and we always put the kids first. That's one of the priorities that when I was clawing my way back and sort of building my life back I think was the most important to always put the kids first. As a kid of divorce I wasn't always put first and they did their best but they didn't know what we know now. My parents didn't understand so nothing I'm not pointing fingers but what I will say is like if you are getting divorced or split, just don't make it about you because I will tell you that one of the best relations, strongest, most resilient relationships I have is with my ex husband, with my kids dad. So it's really.

It is and it takes work, it takes work on yourself and it takes work on the, and the way that you affect people and your affect. It's, it's, it's an important piece.

So important. And it's funny, you know, if I think of. I'd love you to share yours as well but. So Lisa is my former wife and she's done a lot of work since then on herself and internally and spiritually. I've done a lot of work and seen therapists and work through it and got Coaches, that's been really valuable in helping us have this strong friendship. And that friendship is just. It's unbreakable. And Finn comes first. Right. For both you and your former partner, did you both do the work in different ways, but did you both participate in some form of self growth?

I think that we definitely both did the work. I am more. A little bit more spiritual and I've gone into executive coaching. This is my world. That's not really his world, but we've definitely matured and we always. Again, I can't instill this enough in people. We just made sure to put Sammy and Evie first over our needs and desires and wants and jealousies. Whatever it was that we were feeling, those kids come first. And it shows because your relationship grows. And like you said, you're either way, whether you like it or not, you have a bond with this person. So you might as well make it good 100% with this person. So you're either going to go through life miserable because you're going to be talking to them. I mean, I talk to him multiple times a day, every day over text. I often think to myself, what if we hated each other? Like, how awful would that be? And so that we have this good relationship and we really strong. Here's another thing, James. We have real. And you'll probably relate to this. We have very strong boundaries. So his time with the kids is his time with the kids. My time is my time. And we're very respectful of that time. It doesn't mean we don't talk to them during it, but he makes his choices and does the things that he does. And I don't get involved with that. And I do the same thing. And we're very. We have very strong boundaries between us and we understand how to respect one another's parenting because it's not exactly the same as I'm sure you can relate. So we're not the same person. We're two different people. We have two different houses. You know, he's got step kids now. He just got married, so he's got a house full of kids. Here's just me and the dog and his sister. So not his sister. My, my. To my two kids. So, you know, it's, it's, it's a, it's a trial and error, but it's also like being really sure of yourself, learning, like you said, growth and evolving and learning about who you are and just going on this journey together because you're stuck together. You're not stuck married, obviously, but you.

Got you're always a family. Like, you're making decisions as a family.

Yeah. I think the term that comes to mind when you share your story is we're told this Disney thing that's like, we live happily ever after, but the way I think of it, we live happily even after, you know, so even after we split, like, we can still live happily.

I like that. You know, it's funny that you bring that up. I have this theory about happiness, and I'm kind of changing, switching gears, but I want to tell you, because it just came to me, I don't believe that happiness is a state of mind. So to your point, happy even after it makes sense to what I'm going to explain. So I believe that happiness comes in moments. Just a moment here, a moment there that you can grab and put in your pocket for later and savor that moment. Right. But when you are chasing this happy state of mind, you're going to be constantly disappointed because it's not a real thing to be happy all the time. That's not how we work as humans. So, yeah, I'm not always going to be happy with his decisions or my children's decisions, but there's a place in time where I have to go, okay, this is a happy moment. This is a happy moment. And the rest will follow.

I love it. I really do. And for the listener that's listening right now, before we get into the breath framework, I just feel like hearing your journey and hearing your realness, your rawness, that genuine human approach to life, it really draws me in. So I'm sure the listeners being really drawn in right now as well.

Oh, thank you so much for saying that.

Yeah. No, really, truly. And I guess when we talk about separation, because let's face it, 50 to 60% of us are going to go through a major separation with our intimate partner. So in the moment of separating and the year or so that follows, that we can choose to blame and not grow, or we can choose to go within, learn, heal, and take the lessons. So if you look back on that, what was one of those lessons you learned about you in terms of when you guys parted? What was one of the greatest takeaways you learned about who you are and how you show up?

That's a great question. You ask amazing questions.

Well, I just. The first thing I thought of when you said that was like, isn't that part of every relationship? Like, conflict comes and you either have you get to blame or you get the gift of choosing to evolve and learn from it. Right. But I learned. This is the sad part, and I'm not going to cry, but I could. The sad part about the split was I really learned what partnership was when we split. I didn't. I was immature. I didn't understand what a partnership really was when I was married. So the split and the following evolving of myself and learning and growth of me and finding of me was me learning how to be a real partner. And today I can be an evolved, healthy, healthy boundary type of person that understands because I again, I did the work, but I didn't do the work before. And that's where it landed me in a place where I didn't understand what real, true partnership was. You know, there's. There is an us against the world mentality when you're married. I think you should have. That is, you know, something that really helps people to grow together instead of grow apart. So that's my lesson. I learned partnership. So sadly, it didn't work with him, but I learned how to have a.

Future partnership with someone that's so gold. I love that. And, you know, because you're in the industry of coaching, I see that as one of the ultimate partnerships. When you get to coach someone, it's not. You're not teaching them, you're not training them. You're in a partnership. It's like, hand in hand, let's do this. So it's really cool that you've taken that lesson and now you apply it every single day to the people that you work with.

And you make a great point about my core values, which are also my company's core values. But I ingrain them in every part of my life every day. Like I said, they're woven in. So they're love, freedom, perseverance, trust, and truth. And what you just made me think of was, isn't that really, like, aren't my core values sort of my definition of what a partnership really is? I mean, in a coaching partnership, love, freedom, perseverance, trust, and truth are probably the most important values that I can instill and be involved with. So that, for me, is a true relationship and a true partnership. When you can instill your core values there like I do.

So good. So, so good. Well, let's take a little look, Annie, at the framework. Let's chat about the breadth framework. And when you think about the person that might really benefit, there's probably multiple people. What would those types of people look like? Or how would they be feeling right now? You know, who are they?

So I focus a lot on executives and executive Leaders that are feeling stuck, they're feeling like they're not communicating clearly, Their teams aren't respecting them, they are not leading the way they want to lead, and they don't understand why, oh, I've worked this hard for so long. Why am I on this treadmill? Why am I a hamster on a wheel? Why am I not making the impact I want to make? Why am I not more resilient? Why am I getting affected by this or that or the other? Why is my communication so unclear? Why aren't people doing what I'm asking them to do? You know, why aren't I more adaptable? All of these questions that you're asking yourself, why do you just feel like in your job, you know, and you've worked really hard to get. Walk the company ladder and get high up at this, in this position, and you're, like, so unsatisfied. It's that unsatisfied, sort of lost, stuck feeling that I try to go for that. I find a lot of people and. And like, lack of mission and purpose. So not really knowing after this many years in. In a business or this many years in your life who you are. I find that helping people and guiding them toward understanding who they are helps them to be a better leader and make more impact.

That's amazing. That's so amazing. And I can feel myself. I probably rewind five, six, seven years. I was probably that exact person feeling.

Really, aren't we all? I mean, it's so common. I mean, that's, you know, why you and I do what we do. Part of what we do is we help the people that, like you said earlier, I don't know if it was on camera or not, but you said, you know, we help the people that we were. I mean, isn't that the best way to guide people and say, look, like, I felt this, I went through this. I get you. And people in these roles, these. These executives that I coach, they just want to be seen and heard, and they're not being seen or heard. And I see and hear them, and that is like a new sunrise to them. It's a new light shed on life. That's how what I feel like I sort of open up for them.

So. Good. And before we look at Breath Framework, I keep. You keep telling me these things. I want to know more. So when you talk about values, so. So for the person that's listening right now and they're going, oh, my goodness, how does she know her values? Like, I don't know, like, I Know what's good and what's not good and what's right and wrong. But how would you say someone should go about uncovering? Because the values are actually already there. It's not something that we just decide cognitively. They're, like, in there. How does someone uncover them? How did you uncover yours?

Well, I can't give away all my tricks, but I will tell you that I'm going to tell you a quick story to help you understand how I uncovered mine. So I understood that there were these values, but I didn't know what they were. I'm like, what does that even mean? What's a core value? And I started by looking at my strengths, because that's really what I think one should lean into their strengths. But I remember looking at this list online. This was years ago, and it was core values, like a list of 150 of them. And I saw the word freedom, and, James, I laughed. I said, who would ever choose that as a core value? Why would you? What do you mean? Not in jail. Like, what's freedom? Right? And the more I dug into it, what I call excavating your core values, so that's really like a deep dig and a deep dive into who you are. I realized that not only is freedom a core value of mine, but it's my overarching core value that's woven into all of the other values that I live for and that I am. So not only did I laugh at it and not understand it, but I had to do the work to try to figure out that freedom to be me, to be authentically me and show up as Annie and be me, truly me, is the most important thing to me. Without that, I am jailed, like I laughed about. I am ball and chain on my leg. I am weighed down by the weights of life. And once I discovered that through my work that I do and that I did, you know, I sort of just base my life on that. Like, I understand what freedom means. So that's one of the ways that I. That I figured it out, is I just went through the words and I dug deep into, like, what is it I'm really looking for? It's that people put me in a box my whole life. It's that people said, this is how you have to be. And that's what I did. I was very accommodating. Now I'm free to be me, and I can show up as me. And if some people don't like it, that's okay. Everybody doesn't have to like me. But I didn't understand that before.

What I love, I really love what you're sharing there is. They look at the APA studies, all the psychological studies around human needs and drivers and what our biggest desires are. You have done something that most humans don't do, and that is spend time on your values and uncover freedom as one core value. And the reason that to me is so important and why I wanted to bring it up is when the APA did the study on what is the biggest desire for a human, like the number one desire, the one thing that every human is subconsciously seeking is personal freedom. That's it. Like, we're all wanted. We don't want to be told what to do, held back, suppressed, judged. We want to be free. And so go ahead to your point.

People don't know that. The same as when I looked at the list and I saw freedom, I laughed. It didn't make sense to me. But yet everybody, like you said in the studies, when it comes down to it, is searching for that, looking for that, wanting that, needing that, craving that to live their life as their best selves. And so few of us have it. So that's kind of what I try to help people to find.

What I love about the work that you're doing as well is that within a team, whether it's a sports team or it's a business organization, we all want to feel free but still operate within a team setting. And that is so challenging. And so I feel like when we jump into the breadth framework, I think there'll be things in there that help people actually be individuals and have freedom but still work really well within an organization. Organization.

Well, you, and you bring up, you're like plugging this for me. Like, what I do best is I work with executive leaders that are on the same team and I work with them one to one, but when I'm coaching them one to one, they can sort of mimic each other and start to coach each other using my framework and the things that they're learning in the tools and they can apply them by us all working together. So it's very beneficial for a company to come to me and say, Look, I have five, I have 10 people that I need you to coach and I can do one to one coaching with them, but I'm working with the whole team so I understand the inner dynamics of everything and how they're interpersonal and all related. And it just makes everything at work for them more cohesive and more. They become more resilient and adaptable and all those things that they weren't before. So you kind of, you know, dropped me right into where I would say, like, this is what I do. But you are. You said it like that. That is the best group for me. That's the best. Like, if you could give me a gift, you'd say, this company really needs you, Annie. Go here and coach their team.

And I want the listener right now to take a long, deep breath in and get ready. Because now we're going to jump into it with Annie and learn about the breath framework. So please go ahead. Just in your own time. I'd love to learn about it.

So as I told you in 2014, I was signing my. Well, I didn't tell this part, but I was signing my divorce papers at the end of 2015, and I looked over on the wall and I saw a Ralph Waldo Emerson poem that said something about breath. And I thought to myself, which I told you already, you can take everything from me. You can strip me of everything, but you can't take my breath. And with that, I turned on my heel and went to a tattoo shop in Philadelphia and got the word tattooed on my body. Fast forward five years, Covid hits, and I'm like, how can I teach people the ways that I've learned in the past several years of being this stuck and hamster on a wheel and unfulfilled and closed minded? How do I, how do I do? How do I show people what I've done? And that's when breath popped in my head. The word. And I decided to make the breath framework, and it's an acronym. So B is for begin where you are. R is reclaim your power, E is excavate your core values. A is allow, not control. T is through, not around, and H is heal or healing. So I actually take people on a curriculum and a program with me from their begin all the way to their heel, and it gets them to find their most authentic, truest, best version self of them so they can say, look, I am fulfilled, I am whole. I understand what was missing before. I know who I am, I know my purpose. And that is what the breath framework is.

Incredible. So in terms of step number one, because I think step number one is the hardest to take the first step because you are always thinking about the fifth, the sixth, the seventh. How do we take that first step and start the journey with breath framework, how to be.

So what I will tell you is that people doing this on their own often come to me. And it's not like this, James. It's not like, today we're going to work on B. Today we're going to work on R. It's very conversational and all integrated and woven into each other. So I'll just explain that. But what I'll tell you is a lot of people think they're beginning in a different place than they're really beginning. And that's what I'm for. That's what I can point out and uncover to them. Like, I'll say after three sessions, now I know where your begin is. Do you see how this is your begin, but you thought you were here? Or they think their self awareness is much higher than they originally thought.

Than it actually is. Or they just aren't sure really where they are. So they come to me and we do some initial sort of assessments and talking and just all I need is one or two stories in their life and I can sort of intuitively guide. All right, this is where we're really beginning for you. But yes, beginners are very hard. How do they. How do they. What should they actually do to begin? If you're not going to reach out to me or a really good executive coach, start journaling and just free write. And this is what I say, James, to people. I don't care if you write about your dinner or if you write about your trauma when you were five. It doesn't matter to me. Just write. Just grab the pen, don't type it. Grab the pen and paper and just start writing. You will be amazed at what comes out. It's true. Even if you're not a writer, even if you're that. And I don't want to say man, but it's mostly men that do this. But man or woman, that's like, I don't write. I'm not doing that. That's a waste of time. I am here to tell you, come back to me and tell me it did nothing for you. I would love to have that discussion.

I will back you up 100% on that and say that 95% of the male executives that I work with, when I talk about, hey, let's talk about your journaling program. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, I don't.

No, no, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that.

It's amazing. Like, for me personally, my biggest challenges, internal challenges, and that feeling of being stuck journaling has helped me out of so many things. It's just been so.

I have. Yeah, it's so helpful. And it's not like some Shakespearean you know, you have to be this like floaty. It's not like that. And I even give prompts sometimes just to sort of get them started and it's am out of it truly with like I would have to say 99% of my clients, like maybe there's 1 out of 100 that's like, I'm absolutely not doing this and we have to take another route. But anyway, point is that's a great place to start.

And talking about prompts, is there one power prompt that you would like to share right now for the listener to go? You know what? If you want to just go within and be more aware, here's one question or one prompt that can help you.

I just give a word. So I'm going to give the word purpose and see what comes out of that. Now there's a million avenues that we can go, but the word purpose is going to get your gears. What does that mean? What is my purpose? Who am I?

Let me think about this. This was my purpose, but it's not fulfilling me. These are the things that go on in your head and you just start to write and then you want somebody to discuss it with and I'm here to discuss it with. And that's really how coaching begins with, that's so cool.

And it's interesting you bring the purpose up. Obviously it's the lead on purpose podcast and I think a lot about purpose and chat.

I didn't even put that together, I swear.

So good. Well, high five. We're in flow. It's so good. So I think about it a lot and I feel that there's passion and purpose and so passion for me are the things that I do for me and that light me up. And you know, that's from my life. And then I feel like purpose is, well, that's what I do for others. And so passion is for me, purpose is for others. And so I think it's easy to get caught up trying to find a purpose. And we often look for this 50, 60, 70 year long purpose, but I think it can come in like six month waves. It could be like for the next six months I'm just going all in here or for the next three years or hey, just this week, this is my purpose. So how do you go about connecting with your purpose?

You know, you're so right when you say passion for me, purpose for others. My purpose is service to others. My overarching overall purpose, it's service. So once I found that broad purpose, then there's branches of that Purpose. Right. So what I do every day is part of my purpose and mission in life. To be in service of others and to guide them and help them from places that I already was. To share my life experience and my vulnerabilities so that they can see they're not alone, to show them that I, too, was not the best version of me. And I know what that feels like. And I know how downtrodden you can be when you're just not the best you and you really want to be because you're a good person. So there are different ways that I do this. I mean, my purpose is also very much my children and being in service to them. I love them. I don't have to tell you, you know, how I'm sure you feel the same way about Finn, but it's just being in service to them. When I say that, I don't mean doing things for them. I mean being there for them. So consistency and unconditional love are the two things that I think are my purpose when it comes to my children. That's what I'm here to provide for them, obviously, shelter and food. But, you know, really, when it comes down to emotions, consistency is so super important. That's what they need. And unconditional love, no matter what they know, I love. And so that's part of my purpose. But again, that's in service to others. So if you can see how that's sort of woven throughout my life, that's how I. How I sort of put purpose to my life every day.

It's incredible. Yeah, purpose is just a massive core value. You can hear. It's like it literally is part of your DNA.

Yes, it is. It is definitely, people. The other day, I was doing a podcast interview, and I said, you know, I'm very passionate. She goes, I couldn't tell.

I really am. But, yeah, I mean, I'm just a very. I'm from Philadelphia. I talk with my hands. I'm not Italian, but I talk with my hands. And I'm very passionate. I have a lot of grit. And I know. I'm telling you, James, like, I did so much searching, so much soul searching to find who I really am, that, yeah, I sharpened and honed in on what my purpose is. And it's absolutely. My mission and purpose is to serve others. So that's, you know, sort of how I came to be and how I made the breadth framework and how I, you know, instill it in people's lives every day.

And you talk about reclaiming your power. When I Heard that, I was like, oh, I want a piece of that. Like, that sounds great. Like, how do we reclaim our power? So how did you reclaim yours?

Well, I told you about the downtime in my life, and.

That wasn't the only downtime in my life, but that was the worst. That 2014, 2015 time in my life. And reclaiming my power meant being stripped of everything but my breath. To go back to my story about breath being really stripped of everything. And a lot of it I did to myself. A lot of it was self sabotage and just not feeling good enough or knowing my worth. So starting with the work, Brene Brown, doing the reading, doing the journaling, reading the blogs, being well versed in every part of self care and self love and self worth and everything that I learned, I just became a sponge. I'm like, this is no way to live life. I am now here bare alone. I don't have a husband. My kids are with him. Like, what do I do? Like, what do I have? And that's when I started to reclaim. Like I was a sponge. I picked up everything I could from everybody around me that was teaching me those good ways to be, to be better, to be a better leader, to be a better friend, to be a better daughter, to be a better partner. That's what I was learning every single day. And as I built myself back, brick by brick, that was reclaiming my power. And I also stopped trying to control everything. That was a big part of reclaiming my power. So when I stopped holding everything so tightly, this has to be this way. This has to be this way. And sort of relinquished control a little bit, which is very hard, especially for executives. But I sort of just said life is going to be what it's going to be. I have these strengths, I have these weaknesses, and I'm going to start to accept myself for who I am. And did I started that excavation process of core values and figuring out who I was. That's what got my power back.

And to me, that's so tangible, the way you share that it's not this like otherworldly thing that people can't do. It's like actually there's a process and the power is in the process. Like follow the process and you will also be able to fully step in and reclaim your power.

Yes. And it's, it's also to your point. Yes, there's a process that they have a program and it's doable for anybody, but it's customized, you know, like it's not going to be the Same for James as it is for Eddie and Susan and Joy. I need to have that intuition that I have to get in there and really understand their personal life and their professional life and their obstacles and the things that they're trying to overcome and some of their trauma. And these are things. And I know that word is scary for some, especially executives that are like, what do you mean? Talk about my trauma. But trauma doesn't have to be some horrific thing. Trauma can be something that somebody said one day that stuck in your mind and sort of affected your, your development through your life. I mean, trauma can be so much. So don't be scared of that word. Be open to it. And what I'll, what I ask is that these people that I coach or anyone listening, what I'll ask of you is just to have an open mind. Now, if you're listening to this podcast, I bet because of all the interviews that James has done and it's such a highly rated podcast and such an important mission, that you are obviously a little bit open minded at least because you're not going to be listening to this if you're not. But if you could bring open mindedness and willingness to look at yourself and look in the mirror when I hold it up, that's going to bring you fulfillment, happiness, wholeness, freedom, and the ability to see your authentic self.

Trauma is an interesting one you bring up like that just sat with me for a second. I think of the big T and the small T and the big trauma could be the abuse. The big T could be a marital separation, could be the loss of a loved one, a major accident, financial crisis. But then you've got the small T's. And I guess that's what you're saying. Like for some executives that are going be quiet, like, I'm not here to talk about trauma. I just want to get.

Yeah, yeah, I just want to lead. I want to lead better. What does that have to do with my trauma?

Yeah, totally. So they might have not many or any of the big T's yet, but they may have hundreds if not thousands of the tiny T's. The, you know, the little micro argument they've had with their partner, the feeling like, hey, I don't show up for my kids because I'm so busy at work. That's a tiny trauma. You know, how do we, how do we work through the tiny traumas? How do we actually first of all address, hey, we've got them like, hey, I've actually got all these tiny micro traumas and they are Chipping away at my psyche and my spirit. Yeah.

How do you start that? Well, first of all, I hate to tell you this, but everybody has them. So there's no, like, you're special and you don't have it. Like everybody has them. This is part of life. Here's what you have to recognize about trauma. It makes you you, it makes you unique, it makes you special. It makes the very incredible person that you are. So this isn't always a bad thing. There's a lot of trauma in my life and my clients lives that have formed who they are and motivated them to be the best version of themselves. So this is not necessarily, you know, some, like I said, some big horrific thing. The small T's are every day there's something that your mother said to you one day when you were getting dressed and it never left your mind and it's been bothering you ever since. You get in a fight with your spouse and they call you a narcissist and you really start to think to yourself, am I a narcissist? And you can't get it out of your mind. These are the little things that like you said, perfectly chip away at your soul and your spirit. And these are the things we can discuss so that we can really take a look at them, dig deeper and get over them.

Yeah. And I think the ability to recognize that we do have these tiny traumas everywhere in our life and they do compound, you know, it's not a linear thing. Like these things are compounding and getting bigger. And that's where we have a breaking point, where we scream at someone or we yell or we are short tempered or we drink too much or we smoke or there's promiscuity. Like all these things, how we express.

The tiny built up T's, the escapisms is another thing I talk about in my program. What we all do, all of us, unless you're Buddha, okay, all of us use escapisms. It can be drugs, drinking, sex, porn, it doesn't matter. I mean, we all have escapisms. Are we workaholics? You know, are we throwing ourselves so much into something because we're ignoring everything else in our lives? Those are escapisms. We all use them. And it's just a matter of can we hone in and say, that's what I'm doing? Okay, I see how I'm putting all my time and energy into this and this is really missing out. This is really lacking. No wonder my spouse thinks that I'm never around. No wonder she Thinks I'm a narcissist. And we start to put the pieces together. It's like a puzzle. So my job is to put the pieces together with you and guide you to be your whole puzzle, which is your authentic self.

Stunning. And the healing part of it. Because I think that we all have this desire to heal, right? And if we could fast track to that, that's great. Everyone wants to fast track the healing, but it's not possible. Like the work's got to get done to get to the healing point. So how do we start the healing journey? In fact, how did you start your healing journey?

I was at my lowest. I was at my lowest and I just said this is rock bottom and I can't feel worse or be doing any work. My life is, I'm a mess. I'm stuck. I am making impact at work. Forget it. Being unique and special, Forget it. Being able to lead people and be responsible and reliable and adaptable and resilient. All those things. Forget it. My determination and my diligence was down. I just wasn't me. I wasn't me. So that's when it began. When I started to become that sponge and just pick up on everything around me of these leaders around me. And I just, I made a decision. Jane, this is a choice. You want to go on a healing journey with me or whomever you choose to? That is a choice. When you decide it, we will do it together. But you have to decide it. If you're one toe in one foot. And I've said to clients before, you're not ready, you're not ready yet, let's do this and then come back to me in six months and we'll see if you're there. But I can tell you some people are just not ready. They're not open, they're not willing, they're not, they're not ready to jump in with two feet and that's okay. You might not be ready, but when you are, I'm here.

What's the cost of people jumping into early when somebody goes, yeah, no, no, no, no, I'm ready. And you just know they're not. And they go anyway. What's the potential outcome?

It's just not seeing the progress probably that they want to see as quickly as they want to and it not making as much of an impact because they're not, their mind is not in the right place. They're, they're not open, they're not willing. They, they are closed minded. They are, they're still closed. I, I'M I, I think of people as like, they have a zippered shirt on and I like, go like this with their sweatshirt, you know, and I just to expose them. And that's what I do, is I expose, you know, who I am and my vulnerabilities. But because I'm ready and willing and able, I couldn't have done this in 2012. I wasn't there. I wasn't ready. That's why I, why I got to rock bottom, because I wasn't ready to do the work and get the help. So I too have been there and I have compassion for you and empathy if you're not ready. But I will be honest and open and tell you from jump street, you're awesome. Really like, you, great conversation, but you're not ready. And then the people that come to me that are like, I'm this, I'm that, and, you know, I don't know what to do. Okay, you're ready to jump in. You're at your, you're at your bottom where you've had it. You're at your burnout place. You're at your empty place. Let's try to fill up your cup.

That's so great for the client, but it's also so great for the industry. And like, let's go to therapists and we'll talk about therapists. So I have had so many people I've met in life who went, yeah, I went for therapy, but they were, they were crap. Like, that therapist was crap. But I'm not going back to therapy. Therapy sucks. I was like, wait, hold on a second. You went to one therapist for one session, you didn't enjoy it, and they sucks?

Yes, across the board, totally sucks.

So I was like, okay, was that therapist crap or were you not ready? You know, could you go back next year and the year after and maybe you'll find that that therapist is great because now you're ready. And I see you're bringing that to the table in the coaching industry as well. Going, if you're not ready to be coached through a powerful transformation using breath framework, then you're just not ready yet.

Well, it's like if you're selling a product to a business, right, and you, you want to launch this product for them, but you look at their business, you look at their numbers, you look where they are, and they're just not ready. I'm not going to take their money if I'm, I don't want to do that. It's not going to be as successful as if when you come to me, when you say, I am ready, it's time, it's the same thing. My product is me and my service, right? And I can clearly see I'm not going to just cook. That's not who I am. I told you my core values, right? So I'm not going to sit here and say I'm going to collect their money because I need it and they're not ready. But that's okay. It'll just take longer. I'm not in the business to coach people forever. I want to coach them, give them the tools and let them fly. So that's my sort of mantra or my motto.

One thing that keeps coming up in my mind when we're chatting is you've embraced change. Like, there's been a lot of changes in your life in the last 10 years. It's like, whoa, that's like extreme amounts of change, right? It's incredible. Now some people will really step into that and thrive, and others will just crumble. How did you embrace, and how do you continue to embrace change in your life, personally and professionally?

Number one, it's the letting go of the control. So you have to understand that change is coming whether you like it or not. This is life, right? Unless you're going to lay in your bed and not do anything ever. I mean, there's always going to be change. You're out and about, you're working, you're in relationships. In every aspect of your life, there's going to be change. You can, like I said earlier, either choose to battle against it, where you're going to crumble, or you can accept it and say, this is what life is. Life is going to bring me change. I have to learn adaptability. I have to learn resilience. Those are two huge parts of my program with executive leaders. Adaptability and resilience are huge. And those are the two things that I used and use every day to make sure that I'm the best version of me and to make sure I'm making impact in everything I do.

And what do you believe about resilience when you think of resilience? What does it mean?

Resilience is an ability to come back from an obstacle or to understand how to deal with conflict. Understand how to deal with something in your way or someone in your way in a professional.

Vulnerable, compassionate, empathic way. When you can combine all of those, you really understand resilience.

And see, when I think of that, I just love what you said. And you've got this horizontal flat line and let's say a major life ambush comes up in the form of whatever finance a pandemic divorce, and you drop, you fall to rock bottom. So you're falling right below that midline point. And the idea of resilience is, okay, I'm here, I'm at rock bottom. Okay, let's get back. Let's use the tools, the people. Let's get back to here. Now, I always think if we can get back to here, that's a win. But if we could get to just slightly above by going, oh, all this stuff at rock bottom and the gap there that I came back up through, I learned so much on that journey that actually I've got a new midway point. My new flatline is now a step up. So what do you approach in terms of building resilience and developing that grit and that strength on the journey back up to the midway?

So that's what I call getting ahead of it. When you can get above that line, you can get ahead of things you can understand. Self awareness is so big, James, and I have to tell you, everyone thinks they have it and rarely do people really. Well, that's part of what I teach and show I didn't have it before. So I give them examples. I show them, I give them examples of my own life, my vulnerabilities, and I show them what self awareness really means. And I point out things to them that they're not seeing. Because oftentimes your lens is like this, right? But you need to open it up and be able to see through your blind spots.

So what I'll tell you is I try to get them to understand the tools that I give them, but then to apply them. When you can apply the tools to your everyday life, you can get ahead of it. So I had a client to say to me today. You know, she, she, she re upped with me. She was six months with me. We got to a really good place, and then she went a few months and sort of had a little bit of a spiral and came back to me and she said, you know, I always have Annie in my mind when this happens. And I think to myself, no, don't think like this, think like that. And I'm like, do you see how you're applying the tools to your life? You're not spiraling the way that you came to me thinking you are. You're actually ahead of the game because you're applying the tools. So if that answers your question, that's, that's what I try to do, is help them get Ahead of it.

It's brilliant. I think thought replacement and activity replacement in a really powerful way.

I have a.

A little thing that I deal with executives sometimes where I have them put a rubber band on their wrist for the week and every time, the week until they see me again. And every time they have a negative thought about themselves or a self worth doubt or that voice, that track that runs in our head, a lot of the time they have to flick themselves with the rubber band and they have to, they have to erase the negative thought and put in a positive one. And I have yet to have somebody come back to me and say that was stupid, it didn't work. They're like wow, that retrained my brain. I mean this is something that anybody out there listening can do just to retrain your brain and your pathways into. This is what's so amazing about humans and our brains. We can actually rewire our brains and that's an incredible tool to use to start to see yourself better and heighten your, and increase your self awareness.

That's so, so important what you said around. Look, you've got the negative thoughts. We've got like I think 50 to 70,000 thoughts a day. And two thirds of those for the vast majority of all humans are negative thoughts. And so we've programmed this thousands of thousands of millions of times across our lifetime. And so when we have a negative thought and we go, oh, just don't think the negative thought, that actually doesn't help. But replacing it and then building up that muscle. So letting the negative muscle atrophy and really building that positive power word or whatever you want to call it, the thought really building that is important. How long do you think it takes if someone.

Someone'S above the line? So they're not, you know, they're not experiencing major anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, so they're above the line. How long do you think it takes for the, that person to change some of those negative narratives? Is it a week? Is it maybe a month, six months?

I would say between one and three months. I really try to, I, I really think and I've had feedback that I make an impact, a true impact with them after about three weeks. But I want it to, in order for it to stick this really like rewiring and reframing of things. I say about three months.

And that's not gold about that. So the University College of London did a study around habit installation and they said look, it takes anywhere between seven days to, I think it was 200 days for a habit to form, but the average was 66 days, which is two to three months.

Exactly.

So it's spot on. That's amazing. You're seeing this play out in your day to day process.

Like practice. Yes, exactly.

That's really special. I love it. So for the person that wants to know more, connect with you, how do they best do that?

So my number one favorite, my baby, my platform is LinkedIn. That's where you will find me. I post every day. I post really vulnerable content about my life, my kids, the love in my life, lack thereof. Whatever it is that I'm going through, I post because I want to be authentic and real and I do a lot of stuff about professional life and work, but I do a lot of personal things as well. So follow me on LinkedIn and you can message me anytime. I mean I'm, I'm on there all the time. The other place to find me is my website. So annieleb.com now everyone misspells my last name. So I'm going to spell my name A, N, N I E. Like the orphan Lieb. L E I B as in boy dot com. Everybody misspells it. So Annie lieb dot com is a great place to find out more information on me. Reach out to me or LinkedIn.

Brilliant. I'll make sure and put that all in the show notes. And I'm looking forward to following your journey and you've done some amazing work with some organizations. I've seen Nestle on there, other big players. It's really cool to see what you're doing. So I have no doubt you're going to continue to grow and continue to serve because it's in your DNA.

Thank you so much. This was amazing. I mean talking to you. I can't believe it's an hour. It flew by. I was thinking to myself, wow, that's like kind of a long time to be. But I could talk to you for hours. We are so aligned. It's awesome.

100%. And if I can, can I ask you one last question?

Yes.

So we're going to fast forward many, many, many years. It's your last day on earth, it's your last five minutes of life. And someone very young, maybe it's a grandchild, comes up to you and says, granny or Annie, can you please tell me how I can lead my life with purpose? What advice would you give them?

Great question. I would absolutely, 100% and I have it on my wrist to prove it. I would say lead with love when you lead with your heart and you lead and lean into love every day of your life, both professionally and personally, you will be able to lead with purpose.

So stunning. I'm going to take that on board. And I know the listener that's listening right now will just take that on for the rest of their day. So, Annie, thank you so much for the work that you do. Thank you for creating this space today and being so vulnerable and sharing all about your life and your passions and your incredible breath framework. So I want to wish you nothing but the best.

Thank you, James. You too. I can't wait to collaborate one day or do more together. This was awesome.

Going to happen.

Okay.

So good to see you.

You too.

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