Hey, hey everybody. Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Jennifer Dawn, and I'm so thrilled to have you join me today as an entrepreneur for over 25 years and counting the author of two books and having helped over 50 ,000 business owners. My passion is coaching you to transform you and your business from the inside out in this special seven part series. I'm hosting the business bliss challenge. Now, if you're not already signed up, just hop over to applestandbook .com and get signed up.
Our goal is to help you rekindle that love and feeling for your business in just seven days or less. And today is day six of the business bliss challenge. And today we're exploring a leadership superpower that can transform not only your business, but also the world around you. And I'm talking about leading with love, love, love, love. Now, okay, don't, don't tune out. I know for some of you that might sound a little too woo woo, a little too feeling.
A little too. God, we're going to talk about our feelings, but please just stick with me because when you infuse your leadership, your leadership with love, compassion and heart centered intention, incredible things happen, not just for you, but for your team, your clients and well, well beyond that too often. And I know you've seen it. We see examples of leadership that comes from a place of
fear, scarcity, and ego. There's a whole lot of that out there. I know you're seeing it. These leaders who micromanage, they criticize and they frankly prioritize profits over people. And while that approach, it might yield some short -term results. It ultimately leads to disconnection, disengagement, and a lack of true fulfillment. I've experienced the downside of fear -based leadership myself.
Even early in my entrepreneurial journey, I thought that I had to be tough and stoic and always in control to be successful. I thought that by leading, it meant that I was the boss and I had to tell people what to do and I had to establish my power and my authority. But guess what? My people didn't respond to that and it only left me feeling isolated, stressed out and really disconnected from my own team and my own heart. Here's what I've learned.
When you lead instead with love, you create a ripple effect of positivity and impact that goes so far beyond your immediate, your immediate like sphere of influence. You actually start to inspire others to show up as their best selves, to collaborate and create with passion and to pay that love forward in their own lives and work. Now leading with love, it doesn't mean that we're a pushover or that we shy away from hard conversations. In fact, it means the opposite. We are not a pushover and we have those hard conversations, but we do it from a place of love. It means that we now start to lead with empathy and understanding, and we tap into our genuine desire to uplift and empower others. And when we do this, it means that we now start to create a culture of compassion, trust, and that heart centered connection that we really want to have with our team. When I look back from my first software company that I started when I was 23 years young and as we started growing and we started adding people and all the mistakes that I made in the people that I hired. I hired the wrong people. I hired people who were not better at it than me. I led a little more probably like a little bit more of a tyrant because I'm young. I just didn't know any better. And even when I look at the evolution of my current I'm so grateful that I get to work with them every day. We in our Slack channel for our communications, we have a channel called wins and everybody gets to post their wins and we all celebrate each other, we all support each other. If somebody is struggling, we hold each other up. Like it is truly like a family. Not necessarily the family that I grew up with, but like the family that you always wanted to have for those of us that came from a little dysfunction. My work family is truly the family that I always wanted to have. And that comes from leading with love. Okay. Doesn't mean I'm a pushover. It doesn't mean I shy away from hard conversations. It does mean that if somebody screws up, they own it and we make it right together. If we're missing some training, we say, Hey guys, you know what? We need more training on this and we dive in and we overcome these obstacles and challenges. But again, we do it together and we do it from a loving heart centered place. So how can you start to infuse more love into your leadership style? I go into this in my book, the Apple stand, but I'm going to share a few tips with you here today. So first it starts with practicing your own self love and self compassion. As the saying goes, you can't pour from an empty cup. And if we don't know how to take care of ourselves, then how are we going to do a really good job of taking care of other people? We have to make sure that we are taking care of ourselves physically, emotionally, spiritually, so that we absolutely can show up in our best self for others. Then we must prioritize our communication with our team. Slow down, you guys. Slow down.
Take time to really listen to their ideas their concerns their aspirations No, they're not all gonna be you know exactly the right thing and that's fine But at least you have people who care and they're taking ownership and they care about your business So it's important to care about them show them that you see them you hear them you value them as whole people not just employees or contractors or vendors or whatever that do so stuff for you. It's a very, very simple thing. But one of the things I do is that when a client employee or whatever, when they do something for me, I'll just say, thank you so much. You are the best. And it is shocking that when you tell people you're the best, what do you do? You start to bring out the best in them. And then you start to see more and more examples of their best behavior. Instead of always complaining and criticizing your people instead, if you can really start to focus on all the things that they do right and well, you're going to get more of that behavior.
Another key is to make sure that we are leading with vulnerability and authenticity. If you don't know about vulnerability, go watch some Brene Brown, Google it. She's the best there is when we talk about vulnerability, but it's okay to share your own struggles, lessons and growth with your team. Now be careful when you are sharing because there are some boundaries that you do need to set, but it is important to say, Hey, I am struggling with this. Hey, I really need your feedback on this. It's absolutely important.
And the part of that is that when you show up as your genuine self, you show people that, hey, I get that I am not perfect either. Guess what? You create a space for them to do the same. And that's really what starts to foster a culture of trust and safety within the workplace. Finally, last but not least, make sure that your decisions and your actions are grounded in your own core values and your desire, right, to create a positive impact in the world.
And you can always check in with yourself and just ask big deep breath and ask, okay, is this coming from a place of love and service or my own fear and my own ego? Right? That's a really important question to check in with yourself and then let your heart be your compass. Today. I'm going to challenge you to take one action step to infuse more love into your leadership. Even if all you do is just tell your people they're great practice some gratitude, text somebody and say, Hey, I really, really appreciate you. If you have a wins channel in your Slack, just pop a win in there that my win is working with this amazing team. Right. And, it's really, really easy thing to do to breathe, to bring and infuse more love into your leadership today. All right. For your brain, right. Set your intention to approach your leadership from a place of love and compassion today. Just set your intention. It's so very important.
Important in the best planner ever. If you use that, then you'll see that there's a part part of the top that says my affirmation today. That's about setting your intention for who you want to be and how you want to feel today. And I put it at the very, very top of the daily planning page because it's my reminder every day to just set my intention of who I want to be today and the emotional state that I want to operate from today. And then just notice, just pay attention when your fear or your ego starts to creep in and then consciously choose a more loving response. Your heart, as I mentioned before, reach out to a team member, a colleague, express your genuine appreciation for them. Let them know that their unique contribution really does make a difference in your company. And last for your body, just do one small act of self care today as a foundation for showing up with more love for others. It could be taking a little mindful break, doing a little transitional meditation, maybe moving your body a little bit or nourishing yourself. We've talked about so many healing foods, nourishing yourself with a healing food. Remember as a leader, you have the power to create a ripple of love, positivity, and impact that extends so much further than just your business. When you choose to lead with your heart, compassion, and a commitment, a real commitment to uplifting others, you become an unstoppable force for good in the world.
But it's got to be real. It's got to be authentic. It absolutely cannot be, you know, BS promises and BS marketing that you don't really mean it. Okay. So it's really important you guys that you really need to mean it. So keep practicing your self love, prioritizing connection, embracing vulnerability and align your actions with your values. The world is a little bit of a scary place. It can be today and it needs more heart centered leaders like you and it all starts with the choices that we make today. Small business owners, you guys, we have so much power. In fact, there are so many more small business owners collectively than all of the big corporations, the big boys combined. If you think that we don't make a difference, we absolutely do. We make a difference. Okay. And, you know what, this just popped into my head. So one other food that I want to make sure that I share with you guys today is the mango. Last year, we took on one of our business retreats. We went to Costa Rica and one of my clients Al I love Al so much He's an IT guy if you need IT or cybersecurity or any of those kinds of services Shoot me an email and I'll do an introduction to Al for you. But one of the funniest things is that Al is from It's either Trinidad or Tobago. He's gonna kill me. I should know this but he's from one of those beautiful islands Okay, and he grew up with mango trees and so when we went to Costa Rica because now he lives in New York we went to Costa Rica, they had mangoes, fresh mangoes. And it just stuck with me so much because Al would like walk around carrying a mango. He just loved it so much. He was just so in his, in his flow state, right? You guys. And he was so happy to be in Costa Rica with all of these beautiful, amazing fruits and vegetables. I'm not kidding. When I say eat some healthy living foods, just add them to your diet. Because when you're struggling with stress and overwhelm and hating your business,
And then what happens is that when we're super stressed the body creates a lot of adrenaline and in order to sop up all that adrenaline because it becomes toxic to your organs We will crave fat. So that's why we'll crave You know the pizza and the ice cream because our body wants fat to stress to sop up all that adrenaline from all of the stress so instead of Falling into some of those cravings just eat something Really healthy and living that will actually help your body do the cleansing and the
and the healing work instead of creating a bigger, a bigger problem. And you guys know what I'm talking about. So mango, mango is one of those foods that actually heals the heart. Okay. Yes. It contains amazing phytochemicals and amino acids, which restore all your super tired brain neurotransmitters. So all of those guys out there who have trouble sleeping, eat some mangoes before you go to sleep. Yes. It can help your tired brain actually relax.
But mangoes are also really great for reducing stress and protecting us against viruses. They're great for skin conditions and mangoes even soothe our digestive tract.
Mangoes, if you think about it, they handle heat like no other fruit, like no other fruit. So even with the sun beating down on them at really extreme temperatures, mangoes know how to shield themselves. And when we incorporate them into our lives, we kind of internalize their inner coolness. We learn how to keep calm and collected even when we're faced with stress. And that can be so important, especially when we're working with our team and they might be frustrating us, right? The mangoes, they also help us to open up ourselves.
To experience more of that joy and that love and that happiness. So eat a mango today. There you go. Seek out and eat a mango today and just feel the difference that it makes in your body. All right, you guys, if there's a business owner who could benefit from this message, please, please, please absolutely share it with them. We want to help all of our business owner friends. And thank you so much for being here today. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow for our final day, day seven of the challenge, or we're going to bring it all together and set some intentions.
For sustainable long -term bliss. You don't want to miss it. Until then, keep shining, keep loving, keep embracing your power to create that positive change. And I know you can do it, you guys. I know you can do it. You can lead with love, you can lead with compassion, and when you do, it is absolutely a game changer, not just in your life, but in your business. All right, that's it for today, you guys. Get out there and have a happy, productive day. Bye!
