[00:00:38] Vesna: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Peak Revival Podcast. My name is Vesna, and today I'm gonna talk about working Wiser. Why Soft power is the new leadership edge for women?
Hustle culture told women that we could do it all, but we feel like we are failing at everything. And we're not breaking the
glass ceiling. We're leading into burnout. And today, ambitious women are redefining power. Not to be the [00:01:00] loudest voice in the room, but to be the calmest and the future of leadership is soft power. So it's not weak, but it's working wiser.
Are we seeing an end to hustle culture? So I think, you know, I did an episode back episode 50. I talked about the drivers for women and the drivers of ambitious women, why we wanna succeed. Like it's not just, financial gain and looking after family. There is actually more drivers to that.
And one of the new drivers that we are seeing, or I'm certainly seeing is women redefining success on their terms. So they've gotten to a place where, there's no work life balance. They're not really enjoying their personal life because their work is kind of bleeding into their personal life.
They're burnt out, they're exhausted, the mental load is too big, and they're kind of stepping back and going, do I wanna continue life for another five, 10 years like this? And they are looking at redefining success on their terms.
So I see a lot of my clients, they're brilliant at what they do, but they're burnt out, [00:02:00] right, and it, when they weigh it up, it doesn't seem like it's worthwhile to be relying on caffeine and sugar and late nights in order to get where they wanna get to. They're looking at things through a different lens now.
So I've seen some stats recently that up to 70% of women say they feel burnt out. 42% of leaders are considering stepping back from their role, and women are unable to switch off from work. So when they get home, they're still jumping on their laptops, and if they're working remotely, then there's. Still, were doing those last emails late into the night, and so this just leaves women feeling anxious, like there's so much mental load that they're carrying.
They feel fatigued and overworked and overwhelmed because they're always on.
then I see for my clients is that their nervous system always stays kind of stuck in this on state, right? So kind of functional freeze. And so that just means their nervous system can never relax and so their body can never recover. And so they're operating on this high [00:03:00] level of stress that they become accustomed to, right?
And then what we see in what I see in my work is that there is downstream effects of being always on and always stressed. But again, so when I see this client, they're very. Accustomed to this level of stress, right? And so it's not until something is even more stressful than that, that it kind of registers that, oh, I'm not handling things very well.
I'm not coping with this very well. What is wrong? but actually the nervous system is kind of stuck in this mode for most of the time. So what is soft power? Right? So, you know, I remember back in the day I went into a corporate job and I, and it was really. male driven, like all the men were in leadership roles.
And it was rough and it was rude, and it was such a different environment to, the corporate environment today. And so we've come a long way, but I think we still have further to go. And I think it's tapping into more kind of this soft power, more innate skills that we have rather than relying on this.
the skills that it may be more masculine or [00:04:00] ways of showing up and communicating that maybe we've seen in the past, but really tapping into more kind of these soft skills. So we are looking at emotional intelligence. So Harvard recently said that leaders with high emotional intelligence outperform others by 20%
so that's really interesting. So that's really key, right? 20% is huge jump. So emotional intelligence is recognizing your own emotions, right? So when you are having something, you know you're going about your day, you're feeling anxious, or you're feeling angry, or you're feeling triggered. It is being able to recognize.
Your own emotions and understand why you feel the way that you do, and in that way, helping to regulate your own emotions because. When we get caught up in our own emotions, it's very hard for us to see clearly. Right? And so, you know, we go into a stress response. We get really tunnel vision. We can catastrophize, we can focus in on one thing.
And that's generally what happens when we're stressed. And so. All of our focus and attention goes onto the one thing and we're we are creating bigger emotions, right? [00:05:00] Harder emotions. Stronger emotions, heavy emotions, right? And so it's very hard to be clear, to be productive, you know, have perspective from that place.
Know what the next step is to do, right? Because the emotions have taken so much of our energy and our head space. The other part of emotional intelligence is once you can recognise your own emotions and the source of your emotions, then you can recognise them in others. And this is empathy. So this is being able to step into somebody else's shoes and understand from their perspective.
So if there's a situation at work or in your business or at home, rather than just seeing things from your point of view because your emotions are so strong and you're so irritated, you're frustrated, you feel hard done by whatever it is. But having empathy has being able to step into somebody else's shoes and say, oh, I can see it from your perspective.
Right. I can see what you're saying. And this is really important because then you'll respond appropriately to your emotions and to others, particularly in the workplace. So [00:06:00] emotional intelligence is your ability to notice, understand, and manage your emotions, your own and other people's so you can respond wisely instead of reacting on autopilot.
Okay? Instead of making rash decisions, reacting emotionally, withdrawing, whatever your pattern is, which creates a harder workplace. And creates a lot more stress on you. At the end of the day, it's going to be taxing for your nervous system. If we can't regulate our emotions, if our emotions last one minute, two minutes, something ticks us off and it's gone after an hour.
Right? That's, that's fine. That's normal. But it's when we feel like that for the whole day, it's when we feel like that for a week, you may be coming into your work or into a business or in a relationship, and you may be feeling those emotions all the time. And that's a problem, right? So unable to regulate your emotions is going to be a problem for your energy, for your nervous system, for your, for your mental wellbeing, right?
Your mental health. And it's exhausting at the end [00:07:00] of the day.
The other soft power is intuition, right? This is not something that is often spoken about, but intuition is that inner knowing, okay? And it's really powerful. Women have a really strong intuition and it's often ignored because women choose the logical, the rational, the. The, you know, analytical mind comes up with, you know, the pros and cons and what the solutions should be, and we overthink things, but actually our intuition is much more accurate and it leads to making better decisions and quicker decisions Under pressure.
We can spot red flags that other people miss. We know when to push forward versus when to pause, and we can sense what people need emotionally. So it's a really powerful. Ability, innate ability to understand when something's off, to have a knowing that comes from somewhere that didn't come from your analytical mind.
Because the way that I see it, our analytical mind, we're always kind of regurgitating the [00:08:00] same kind of ideas that we had from a week ago or a month ago, or a year ago, or 10 years ago, right? So our analytical mind will only go to the past what we've done. And project it into the future to see if that's going to work right.
And so we're not getting some fresh, new ideas there, but our intuition, which is very accurate, will give us new ideas and ability to solve our problems and to sense when something's not right. But we need to value that, right? We need to. Value that more than just our analytical mind. And I think for a lot of people, we are so accustomed, again, to relying on the analytical mind, the rational response, the right thing to do.
Okay? And sometimes intuition can be completely out of left field, And so therefore, if we are not used to following that inner knowing, we may not trust it and we may do what we've always done and get the same results.
Intuition also protects you from overthinking. So if you've ever been in a stuck situation, which I certainly have, where you dunno what to do and you overthink the [00:09:00] scenario, Friends will tell me, oh, I do my pros and cons list, you know, and that's great. You know, that gives you a rational mind, a bit of, some perspective.
Okay. But really your inner knowing or your intuition is going to come forward and give you the right answers. And when we're stuck in that overthinking, it's because one, we're not listening to the intuition, or it hasn't come forward yet. Okay? And so the power of intuition is that we don't get stuck in overthinking.
We don't get stuck in analysis paralysis. And it leads to more authentic leadership.
And then we have empathy, which I talked about being able to understand what someone else is experiencing, being able to step into their shoes, which is so important as a leader. And then we have clarity under pressure. So emotional intelligence gives us clarity under pressure, which means instead of being caught up with.
All the noise and all the chaos in our head and our emotions, we are able to step back and feel really clear and we make better decisions from that place, and we have access to our natural resilience. So as you can see, as I'm talking [00:10:00] through all of this, this is really powerful soft skills, right? This is, these are really powerful skills or soft power that we can bring into our roles.
It doesn't need to be the hustle and the grind and the, you Pushing yourself and overthinking things and working until you work it out right We have access to better tools that maybe you may not be aware of or you may not rely on. Okay. So that's something that I see all the time. Women, when I talk about this stuff, they're like, oh yeah, that makes total sense.
Right. That makes so much sense. And until you see it for yourself, it's not something that you are going to rely on. You're still gonna go to strategies that you feel are more helpful to you. But until you see it and the power of it, and when you do, then you will learn to rely on it and you'll learn to trust in that.
And you'll learn to wait for intuition and you know that inner knowingness or to be able to regulate your, like those things will be important to you.
So like I said, I see women now, you know, women who have. Who are still ambitious, but they wanna have success on their terms, which means, she wants to have it all, but not [00:11:00] at the cost of her health, her happiness, her peace, or her relationships. And so there's a difference between a high performer and a high achiever.
So a high performer can push through to have success in all areas at the cost of their own wellbeing and perhaps even their relationships. Whereas a high performer wants all of those things. But also the health and the wellbeing and the good relationships.
so really soft power is the redefine a driver. So the woman who has been through the ambitious burnout and is now like, you know, I do want it all, but I, I want it all of my terms. I want both achievement and I want wellbeing. Right? And so she's driven to build a life that feels good and looks good inside and out.
So what are the ways that we can increase emotional intelligence? Right? And you know, I look at two very basic ways we look at our physical health. So how much we sleep. You know, the power of eight before 10, going to bed by, 10:00 PM getting eight hours of sleep. Our [00:12:00] brain processes our emotions overnight, right?
We're not getting that sleep time. That's not happening. We're gonna wake up and we are gonna already have a lot on our mind. We just need a little bit more in our mind to tip us over the edge, right? So we need that sleep. We need to put good food into our body. You know, sugar and caffeine. All these things would disrupt the blood glucose levels.
We have insulin receptors in the brain. That's all gonna be messed up in there, right? And so we know that. Food influences our mental state, okay? And sugar is one of those foods if we have too much of it. We miss meals. We have processed foods that is gonna mess with the chemistry in our head, and we are not going to feel that sense of balance or resilience.
And we're gonna react, right? We're gonna get highs and lows and highs and lows. And so the food that you put into your body, the habits that you keep, are going to impact your emotional intelligence because if you are. You know, your blood sugar levels are low. You didn't get enough sleep the night before.
You are not going to be able to understand your own emotions, let alone somebody else's. Right? You are not gonna be tapped into [00:13:00] your inner knowing. Your body is just trying to survive, right? Your stress response is on and you're just trying to get through the day. So we don't wanna be in that state. So that's one that's a physical sense.
And then we've gotta look at the mental and emotional place, right? So at the end of the day, the more. We get stuck in our minds. The more noise that we have in our head, the less bandwidth that we have, which means our ability to regulate our emotions, to have empathy, to access to intuition is lowered.
Okay. And a busy mind doesn't equal a busy life. Okay? A busy mind is a busy. Right. And so this is something that I try to help women see because sometimes they think it's, oh, you know, I've gotta do this, I've gotta respond to that email. Then I've got this meeting, and then I've gotta go pick up my kids, and then I've gotta go to the supermarket.
And then that's a busy mind, right? And that's a lot going on. Whereas you will notice days where you can get a lot done without all the noise. And some days the noise is so high and actually you don't get as much done. With a lot more ease, right? [00:14:00] So we've gotta look at our bandwidth, we've gotta look at that mental clarity, which is really important part of having emotional intelligence or having these soft skills.
Because if we don't have space in there, it's gonna be very hard for us to have perspective, to be rational, to be in touch without, you know, knowing and to be able to regulate our emotions, right? To not get caught up in our emotions.
So I hope this was helpful. I'd love to hear your comments below. Have you, are you someone that's kind of done the hustle and the grind and you got to this place and went, you know what? I can have it all, but I'm gonna have it all in my terms. Like, have you made that decision? Because I do think it's a decision and we don't see that beforehand because we don't value our personal wellbeing until we hit burnout or we get sick or something goes wrong in our relationships or our life.
Then. We value it, unfortunately, sometimes it takes that happening. So I'd love to know in the comments is that you, are you redefining success on your terms and what are you doing differently based on that? Leave a comment and let me know. [00:15:00]
