Heart-Centered Leadership Through Gratitude

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform. [00:00:09] Speaker B: Good day, everyone, and welcome to another edition of let's Be Diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who have supported me through this journey. Those who have left us will always be in our hearts and will never be forgotten. Today our topic is heart centered leadership through gratitude. Our guest today is someone that I've known for a very short time, but she is someone that I've come to admire very quickly. Her name is Haley Foy. Haley, welcome to the show. I'm so honored, thrilled, excited to have you on here today. [00:00:42] Speaker C: Thank you so much for having me on the show. I am so excited to be here. I've really been admiring your work as well, and I'm just grateful to be here. [00:00:50] Speaker B: Well, greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much for the kind words. How are things with you, Haley? What's going on? Give me the tea, give me the deets. What's going on? [00:00:59] Speaker C: Yeah, things have been really good for me. I am in a phase of my life where I am just really expanding in my own growth, you know, in business and personal, as a mom, as a leader. Just everything has been expanding so quickly. And I just feel like it's coming at such a beautiful pace, though. It's very. It's coming with ease and it's just really great. [00:01:21] Speaker B: That is amazing. I think we have to always continue to grow. So I think if we for stagnant, if we're staying the way that we are, then I think people notice that. So I think we just have to continuously grow. And I think throughout the years and throughout time and even from month to month, I think we grow as well. [00:01:36] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm definitely someone that values growth above everything. And so my own growth has been something that has led me for a journey for about 10 years now and. And just really lately I'm seeing so much compounding in my life in just such a beautiful way. [00:01:52] Speaker B: Well, that. That's awesome and I commend you for that and I know that you'll continue to do that. So that's awesome and glad to hear that things are going well. Before we begin, I always have a fun, thought provoking question that I ask all my guests to get things going. Are you ready for your question today, Haley? [00:02:10] Speaker C: I am. Let's speak of these power thought questions. Here we go. [00:02:17] Speaker B: So your question today is, if you had to eat one color of food for the rest of your life, what color Would it be? And why? [00:02:25] Speaker C: Yes. I love that. So I am someone that values nourishing my body a lot. Anyone that knows me knows this. And so for me, it's a no brainer. It would be green. I feel like my body just feels so good after eating greens, like all the broccoli, asparagus, lettuce. It just, I feel so much better after those types of foods. So I would stick with that. [00:02:46] Speaker B: Wow, that's a great answer. And I love the green and I love the part about nourishing the body. And I feel when we're nourishing the body, then I think we can be our best selves as well too. So I love that. I love that answer. [00:02:58] Speaker C: So good. Yeah, you're definitely right. Right. It's. It's to be our best self. It's in all areas. Right. It's our mind, it's our body, it's our soul. And then when we really ground all three of those areas, then we can show up as our best version. [00:03:11] Speaker B: We certainly can. So. So I love that, the fact that you gave a great answer. Thanks so much for having fun with us today. Why don't we start off, Haley, with you telling us a little bit about yourself and I would love to hear about your why as well. [00:03:24] Speaker C: Yeah, of course. So I'm Haley Foy. I am the founder of Building Better Mindsets. And everything that we teach at Building Better Mindsets is just really about leading ourselves first and becoming the best version of ourselves and really maximizing our own potential. And so everything that we teach is based off my own journey. Moving out of survival mode. You know, that place where we are just constantly forcing, performing. We're just really living on the edge of our nervous system. And so moving out of that space into a place where we can actually create a life that we really feel happy to live and feel fulfilled by. So basically it's just that basic transformation, knowing that when we leave that space, enter the new space, we can become the best version of ourselves. And for me, my why 100% is just doing this for my son and becoming the leader that my son needs. And so obviously I'm very passionate about leadership. But my favorite leadership role that I have is the one with my son. And so that is my why and my driving force behind everything that I do. [00:04:31] Speaker B: And I love that. And you had a smile on your face when you said that. So I know that that's a passion of yours and it's something that you, you really enjoy. And I ad fired at about you that you just have that passion. And what hit me when you said was you getting out of survival mode. And I think we're all there and I think a lot of us there and a lot of us have been there at some point of our lives. So getting out of that or I commend you for, for realizing that that was where you were at and what could we do? We talked before we started taping today as far as growth goes. And I think that's all part of growth. And you realizing that you were there and that it's something that you wanted to change about yourself and figure out why or how to get out of that is. Is very commendable. So congratulations on that. [00:05:15] Speaker C: Thank you. Yeah, it's been quite the journey. But I will tell you, you know, I have been in survival mode and I've been in creation and just being in a space of creation and doing that work to get here, it hasn't always been easy, it hasn't always been linear, but it's a thousand percent been worth it. [00:05:31] Speaker B: It sure. It sure is. Well, thank you so much for sharing that and we'll talk a little about your, your, your company as, as we go on this conversation, I'm sure what I want to ask you is what does heart centered leadership mean to you personally? [00:05:46] Speaker C: Yeah. So, you know, we are all human beings and we all have a heart, we all have a soul, we all have a vision, whether we're connected with it or not. And so when I think about heart centered leadership, I think about everyone having the opportunity to lead from their truest and most, most authentic selves and just really leading with integrity, leading for the greater good. And just knowing that when we put energy into ourselves, we fill up our own cup and fill our own hearts. We have more to give to help other people fill their hearts. [00:06:18] Speaker B: I love that. The opportunity to lead with our true, authentic self. That is something that I wish a lot of leaders out there would realize that it's so important. And I really feel it's part of the training. It's. And I'm sure that's something that you're dealing with as far far as what you do. That is a big part of who a leader should be. And I think that will get the most out of your employees. If, if you have heart, you have soul, you have opportunity to lead with our authentic selves. That is, that is key right there. [00:06:50] Speaker C: Yeah, 100%. When we think from a leadership role, you know, we as leaders, especially in organizations, we want the rest of the people to be A certain way. But if we're not embodying that version ourselves, how can we ask other people to be doing that? And so it's really about leading by example, leading from the front and with our actions, our thoughts and our own mindset. [00:07:11] Speaker B: I think people don't realize people are always watching, people are always observing. And I think more people are observant, more and more than they were years ago. So if they're seeing things happening, well, then they're going to observe that and then they're going to react to it in a certain way and probably not the way that we would like it to be. So I think it's important that we realize that and understand that, yeah, we're being not watched or not screwed, scrutinized, but looked upon to say, hey, this is my leader and this is what my leader does. And we were out of work and people ask how was it at work? Or how's work and how's the leadership there? And we have a friend that's looking for work and they're asking what's the atmosphere like? Well, this is key right there as far as all those questions go, as far as how you are leading as a leader, for sure. [00:08:00] Speaker C: Yeah. And in relation to respect too. I mean, I know myself, I respect someone that is doing what they're saying they're doing. It's the congruency and it's showing up as that version that we're asking of other people. [00:08:12] Speaker B: So that's a great, this is a great segue into what I want to get into. So now that we know what it is, how do you intentionally practice gratitude in your day to day leadership? [00:08:23] Speaker C: Yeah, so my relationship with gratitude has been, it's been a long one and it started off very mechanical. So what I mean by mechanical was it was something that was on my daily to do list that I checked off at the beginning of every day. And so it started with, you know, setting an alarm on my phone multiple times a day. The alarm would go off and that would be a trigger for me to say, okay, it's time to find something I'm grateful for. Or having a gratitude journal where every morning I would write five things I'm grateful for. And I still do that, but now I'm moving more into a habit based gratitude practice where it's just natural. And what I observe in my mind is sometimes I'll just be in the moment and I'll be like, wow, I love that. I'm so grateful about that. And that's how I know it's more anchored as a habit. And the place that I'm at now too is that it's not only about mechanically writing it down, it's about feeling it. So for example, I can look at my house and say, you know, I'm so grateful I have my beautiful home. But to take it a step deeper, it's. I'm so grateful I have my beautiful home. And it makes me feel joy. And I really just sit there in that feeling of joy in the moment. And so it turns from something that is logistical to something that's actually embodied in practice and moved through emotion. [00:09:35] Speaker B: Everything there just I don't want to meet. Like it's just so beautifully said. Habit based gratitude is, is very key and something that again, I think leaders need to understand that it's not all about what you did or trying to make your impression on everybody. I mean, yes, you want to make an impression, but not to swell your head. You want to make an impression that people are going to be, I'm talking about, you added the office. So you're building a brand for yourself by doing so. And they're building your brand by talking about you in the room and you're not there. So I wish that more would understand that. [00:10:10] Speaker C: Yes, you're totally right there. [00:10:12] Speaker B: So have you seen gratitude improve engagement, retention and collaboration? [00:10:18] Speaker C: Yes, 100%. Actually, 1,000%. So the truth is, when you're looking at gratitude, you know, our brain is designed to look for threats. And so our brain is consistently scanning our environment for negativity or for things that could threaten our safety. And so we are trained as humans, like physiologically to look for the negative. So when we shift that completely and train our brain to start looking for the positive things, the good things, you know, everything in our own lives change. And in terms of like organizations and collaboration, when you look at someone and you notice that your mind goes off in the negative and think something negative about something, someone or something, but then you take it in your own hands and shift that and say, no, I'm not. I'm choosing not to think negative. I'm choosing to think, think positive about something that creates a movement within a space. You know, if everyone just did that, there would, the negativity would go down so much, right? So it is a habit, it's a practice. It's something that we have to do and it takes time. It's a muscle, right? You have to build it. But once you build it, it really can change the dynamic of any situation. [00:11:26] Speaker B: 100. I love that you Say that because in my career, I've been in situations where. And I'm sure you have too. We're at the coffee machine or at the water cooler and there's a bunch of people chatting and talking around there. And I have involved in those conversations, or I've gotten myself involved in those conversations. And you talked a lot about changing your mindset. So what I did is I changed my mindset when I. I'm talking with them and. But as soon as it started to create that type of conversation, I've pretty much, like, walked away. Not rudely, but I've just kind of got out of there because I just didn't want to be in that conversation because I didn't mean, not necessarily agree with them, but I just felt like I just didn't want to be in that environment. And I have my mindset changed and I didn't want to listen to that, to change my mindset. [00:12:17] Speaker C: Yeah, that's really beautiful. And what you did there is very empowering because when we give anything energy of, you know, our own energy, we are going to amplify it. So if it's something negative and we give it some of our energy, we're just amplifying negativity. If it's something positive and we give it our energy, we're going to amplify the positivity. So it's really, you know, we have 100 units of energy every day, and we get to choose what do we want to put our energy on. And so by you choosing that, you're actually choosing to save or reserve some of your energy so you can put it towards something better and more resourceful. And I want to commend you on that because that's something that a lot. [00:12:52] Speaker B: Of people aren't doing. Yeah, like, an important lesson that I've learned, I'd say, in the last year, is that everyone has their thoughts or ideas on certain things. And what I've learned is that we are not going to change or I am not going to change anybody else's thoughts or opinions. So that's the way that they feel. I feel differently. The only thing I would say is that I will respect your thoughts and your opinions, and you just respect my thoughts and my opinions, even though that they're different. But I'm not going to try and change your mindset on. On something because it's impossible to. To do that. And throughout my career, I've gotten into conversations or even in meetings where people have, oh, I don't like this idea. We should do this or we should do that. And I'm not going to stand up and change, try to talk for 15, 20 minutes to try to change your mind. I see that that's what you're thinking. So I'm not going to change it. There's no use for me to argue about it. It's just going to stress me out. It's just going to make me think, oh, my God, like, this is ridiculous. So I just decided that's it. I'm not gonna do that. And it's. It's been so much better. [00:14:03] Speaker C: Yeah, that's really good. And you know what I see often in this space, too, is we want people to change, you know, but sometimes what we do is we judge them. And when we judge people, there is no leadership. Like, you cannot lead someone and move someone to a different space if you're judging them. So what we want to do is we want to actually just eliminate all judgment and knowing that if we just respect their models of the world, one, we may learn something new about, you know, the way we think or maybe, you know, challenge our own belief systems and our own perspectives. And then also we just establish that level of rapport because we're really just connecting with them and we're respecting them. And that true leadership. Right, is like. Is just understanding that we all think differently. We all have different backgrounds, we all have different conditioning. And when we can respect where everyone comes from, we may learn something or we're at least going to build more. [00:14:52] Speaker B: You know, I love that assumption. Factors. We shouldn't. We should never assume anything about anyone, whether it's personally or professionally. We should never assume anything because when you assume it, you. You're pretty much a lot of times wrong about what you're assuming or what you thought is not correct. So we shouldn't. We shouldn't assume anything about anyone, that's for sure. [00:15:15] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. [00:15:16] Speaker B: So what does gratitude look like in action when we're talking about diversity, equity, inclusion, not just performance or results? [00:15:25] Speaker C: Yeah. Again, I just want to say that we're all human beings and we're all living this human experience. And so it's really just about knowing that one, we all can create our own level of sense of safety from, you know, inner safety, but also just appreciating that we can help other people find safety, too. And when people feel safe, you know, when our nervous system is regulated, that's when we really can connect with other people. And it's just really about respecting other people's model of the world. Like we talked about and understanding that we all come from different spaces and we all have our own experiences, and there really is no right or wrong. There just is right. [00:16:05] Speaker B: There certainly is. There is never any right or wrong. I love the fact that we can sit back and listen to somebody's thoughts and ideas on something and just listen. And I think that when you can do that, it's respected from the other end, because at least they're like, okay, well, I'm. They listened to what I had to say, or they listened to my thoughts or ideas. And I just love their mindset of being able to do that without throwing all kinds of ideas back at me or solutions when we actually really don't want a solution. In some cases, we just want somebody to just sit back and listen. And I think if we can do that a little bit more, Especially in a leadership role, when you have team members that are needing somebody to hear what they have to say is super important. What I think is important may not be important to you, but the fact that you were taking the time to listen to it regardless is super important. [00:17:02] Speaker C: Yeah. And then when we're on this journey of growth, you know, a big part of it is really just observing our thoughts and figuring out what our belief system currently is. Right. And so anytime that someone has a different belief than me, it really. I see it as an opportunity to challenge my beliefs and just see, are my beliefs serving me in the way that they're meant to be? Because as we grow, as we expand, a belief that was good for me six months ago, a year ago, five years ago, may not be the best belief for me right now. And so when someone has a different perspective, what it allows me to do is say, okay, that's interesting. Do I believe that? Yes or no. What do I believe? And is that the best belief for me to hold in my current situation? And if not, what would that belief be? And how can I believe that differently? Because our outside world is a direct reflection of what's going on in the inside. And so if we want things on the outside to change, we really have to go deep within ourselves and figure out what's going on in the inside. [00:18:01] Speaker B: We definitely do. So before we wrap up, Haley, what is one key takeaway that you like our listeners to remember from this episode? [00:18:08] Speaker C: Yeah, so for me, when I first got started practicing gratitude and introducing it into my life about 10 years ago is when I really started including it into my daily habit. How I got into it was I told myself, you know, you cannot be frustrated and grateful at the same time, you can't be angry and grateful at the same time. You can't be sad and grateful at the same time. So anytime that we are feeling a negative emotion that we don't necessarily want to hang on to for too long, I revert back to gratitude. So I see that negative emotion as an. An opportunity and a trigger and an anchor within my life to practice gratitude. And one thing I want to note here is not to suppress your emotions. We want to move through the emotions. So we don't want to hold it in our body, but we do want to allow that emotion to move through, acknowledge it, and know that it's a valid emotion, but know that we don't want to stay here forever. I'm sad, and that's okay. This is why I'm sad. But right now, I'm choosing to go back to gratitude because I know that that is the state that it's going to move me forward and get me closer to where I'm heading. [00:19:14] Speaker B: I love when you just said it is a valid emotion. I want you to kind of elaborate on that, because I really feel like that's something that people struggle with, Hayley. So I just want you to. To elaborate that and give a little bit more in depth on that. [00:19:27] Speaker C: Yeah. So we are all human, and part of being in this human experience is that we have positive emotions and we have negative emotions, and so there is no wrong emotions. And I think the illusion that a lot of people have is that we're not supposed to have them. We're not ever supposed to be sad. We're not ever supposed to be angry. But the truth is, that's part of this experience of life that we have. And so when we start to feel those emotions, oftentimes people suppress them because they think they're not supposed to have them. And when we store those negative emotions in our body, that's when we start having issues. You know, we start to have physical ailments and, you know, dis. Ease. Our body is not at ease. And so really just moving those emotions through our body in a way of letting them go through. Through knowing that it's part of this experience and offering ourselves grace when we are moving through negative emotions. So it's just energy that flows through your body. And then knowing that we do have the choice to not stay there, we can choose to go to something positive and revert back to a more empowering state. [00:20:29] Speaker B: And I love when you said that we're not supposed to have them. I think that just goes back to earlier in our conversation, when we're talking about people not feeling that their emotion is important to, you know, or it's, it's not a big deal. And it shouldn't be a big deal when to them like you say it is, but some people will make it that it's not a big deal or why are you worrying about that? You shouldn't be worrying about that. That's not an important thing. Look at this, look at that. Allowing yourself that the emotion is a valid emotion and that we're supposed to, to go through that is super important. So I love that you had elaborated on that. That is a great message for leaders today to, to realize that and, and to understand that. [00:21:18] Speaker C: Thank you. Great. [00:21:21] Speaker B: You're very welcome. I wanted to take the time to thank you for coming on today, Hayley. I admire your creativity, your energy, and just your ability to lead yourself. I just admire that about you. And I mentioned that you were someone who I connected with on LinkedIn very, very quickly. I saw the great things that you were doing and I became a pretty fan pretty quickly of yourself. You are a true gem of a human and I'm super happy that we are connected. [00:21:50] Speaker C: Yeah, it's totally mutual. Honestly, I feel like we just connected right away and I'm just grateful for this opportunity to speak with you. I love what you're doing, I love what you're building, and I honestly just feel your passion and I'm just grateful to be here. [00:22:03] Speaker B: You're very, very welcome. On behalf of myself and my guest today, Haley, I'd like to thank you all for listening today. And until next time, be safe. And remember, everyone, that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything. [00:22:17] Speaker A: You have been listening to. Let's be Diverse with Andrew Stout to stay up to date with future content. Hit Subscribe.