The Intentional Leaders Podcast: Helping ambitious leaders gain clarity, communicate with confidence, and lead with intention.

“I See You”: The Most Powerful Phrase in Leadership

• Cyndi

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Feeling like your leadership playbook was written for a world that no longer exists? We dive into Sawubona leadership, a human-first approach rooted in the Zulu greeting “I see you,” and show how it reframes engagement, accountability, and performance without slipping into clichés or corporate speak. Our guest, Susan Inouye —author of Leadership’s Perfect Storm—traces the model’s origins from a Los Angeles mentoring program to adoption across 30+ countries, revealing why a gift-centered culture is a powerful antidote to disengagement and generational friction.

Across the conversation, we unpack the difference between leading through labels and leading through gifts, and how that shift makes coaching specific and humane. You’ll hear how every strength has an “other side,” why overused gifts become blind spots, and how to restore balance with targeted practices. We explore practical, somatic ways to make change stick—training your nervous system to stay grounded under pressure—through micro-reps like mindful pauses, releasing the urge to fix, and even a bold trapeze lesson that turned fear of letting go into freedom. The result? Leaders who can be the eye of the hurricane when uncertainty hits.

We also connect the dots to today’s workplace realities: AI elevates the value of empathy and relationships; managers who coach outperform those who command; and continuous learning builds cultural agility. You’ll get actionable ideas to strengthen accountability through gift language, design development that fits your context, and normalize uncertainty by making learning a yearly requirement. Ready to help people feel seen, spark better performance, and build a culture that holds together when the waves rise?

If this conversation sparked insight, subscribe, share it with a leader who needs it, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. Your feedback shapes future episodes and keeps this community growing.


Get in Touch with Susan:

 
Website: https://susaninouye.com/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/susaninouye2 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7G6sjAyzq3UDnumH7L8Zcw 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-inouye-083384b/ 

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/susan_inouye/

X: https://x.com/InouyeSusan

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Ambitious leaders know that real leadership goes far beyond titles—it’s about developing the clarity and mindset to guide others with confidence. In this podcast, you’ll explore what today’s leaders truly need, from navigating everyday problem solving to handling tough moments of workplace conflict with steadiness and respect. Episodes dive into setting healthy workplace boundaries, strengthening workplace collaboration, and building the emotional intelligence and emotional agility that make leadership sustainable. Whether you’re managing a growing team or refining your voice as a decision-maker, you’ll find insights that help you cultivate a resilient growth mindset and elevate your impact.

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to the Intentional Leaders Podcast, the show that helps leaders gain clarity, build emotional agility, and create more meaningful impact without sacrificing themselves. I'm your host, Cindy Wetland. Leadership today is being tested like never before. Rapid changes, generational differences, and a growing disconnect between leaders and those they serve. Too often, leadership focuses on managing roles and tasks rather than truly seeing the human beings behind them. Today's guest speaks directly to that challenge. Susan Inowe is the author of Leadership's Perfect Storm, where she illuminates the reality of modern leadership, especially those generational dynamics that are shaping today's workplace. She's also a powerful advocate for Sabona leadership, which is rooted in the Zulu greeting. That means I see you. In today's episode, you'll learn why discovering the unique gifts of people around you is essential to effective leadership and why this practice is essential, especially right now. Practical ideas you can also use immediately to take intentional action as a leader. Let's begin. All right. Well, welcome today, Susan. I am so excited to have this podcast interview, especially based on our first conversation where I got to meet you and understand a little bit about your background. So thank you for taking your time to be here today.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, thank you for inviting me, Cindy. And thank you for being so thoughtful and in really kind of talking to me and researching this out, this subject.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Well, I was very intrigued by it. And so uh for the studio audience, Susan is the author of uh a book that I know you're gonna you're all gonna want to get it because it's called uh Leadership's Perfect Storm. And it is about the connection and illuminates modern leadership. And I know that I work with so many people, and so many of you in the audience are of maybe a different generation than millennials, and you're thinking, how do I lead people differently? How do I think differently? How do I act differently? How do I show up when I wasn't trained or raised in the ways that um that really are expected today and that we need to do purposefully? So thank you for all the research you've done into this for sure. So one of the key things that you talk about is Sabano leadership, and that emerged while you were thinking about a cohesive way to help leaders remember what really matters. And so, what are the core principles of that leadership? And why do you think that creates such a powerful effect in organizations?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I I think it's important to kind of for me to kind of establish the history because it wasn't, it was really the reason I was attracted to it was because it was a leadership style that was grounded in proven results. And Salbona leadership was actually born out of the millennial generation. It was created by a former CEO, Tony Laray, um, who sold a very successful business and decided to follow a passion which was helping inner-city millennial youth. And he started a nonprofit called Youth Mentoring Connection. When I met him, I met him through an executive client of mine. And at the time I was getting calls, Cindy, every day from executives complaining about their young people. And at the time it was millennials. And I mean, things like who would quit their job without another one to go to? Like that's weird. Yeah. So there was so much pain and suffering that I had to help them. And so I was looking for something that was not just based in theory and academics, but really grounded in proven results. So my client knew I was looking, called me one day and said, I found your answer. He took me to the ghettos of South Central Los Angeles, if you can believe it to find my answer, and he introduced me to Tony. Now, what I loved about his story was he went into the community. He asked these young people, what would it take to engage with you? And for the more than a decade when I met him, it was he was a decade into this. He had been listening and he created what he called the gift-centered approach. And the gift-centered approach was at the heart of the way he led, which he called Salbona. And Salbona is Zulu for I see you, as in seeing the whole person. Now, he he also I found out statistic-wise, because they kept statistics on this, that he had transformed and saved the lives of thousands of inner city youth through his mentoring program with unprecedented results. And he invited me to uh a mentoring session. And I said, yes, okay. I went there, I was taken aback. I mean, here was a community of people of different generations, genders, ethnic backgrounds, and the deep connection that they had with one another and the way that they engage each other that brought out the best in who they were. I remember at the end of the evening, I went up to him and said, I need you to mentor me in this because I need to take it into the corporate world. Yeah. And he got really excited because I saw a way of not only helping my ex, but creating cultures of belonging. Sure. Yeah. And so over 13 years ago, I did take it into the corporate world. I started to turn around companies and cultures in a way that became long-term and sustainable. And today it is in over Salbona and the Gift Centered approach is in over 30 countries. And it was the subject of my book, Leadership's Perfect Storm, what millennials are teaching us about possibility, passion, and purpose. And we were just fortunately, the end of 2018, it just hit the number one bestseller in leadership and business management.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, how exciting! Yeah, how fun. Well, and to be able, I think what's really fascinating about your story too is you got to experience that in real time. You got to experience the effect of leadership practices and principles that connect people. But to feel that, I can't imagine how powerful that was. And and that desire to like, how do I bring this to more people? How do I bring it into the corporate world? Right, right, right, right. Because corporate worlds need it so desperately.

SPEAKER_00:

Right? The connection with each other. Well, yeah, they do. And and we can go into a whole conversation about this in regards to AI because I as AI eliminates jobs, it's actually revealing what is required of leadership. And it's not about delivering answers, it's about connecting with people and deeper relationships and all the touchy-filly stuff that was uh mocked as unimportant becomes very important today. Yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Because it's what makes us be able to compete with compete uh with AI. Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, absolutely. Well, and and I think you know, there's a there's a complement of the education or the expertise or the the um consolidation of information that can be helpful. It's never going to replace that human touch, it's never gonna be able to replace the connections that we have with each other and the powerful effect of that for sure. Right, right. So as you think about that divide, then those generational differences, and I experienced that a lot with people that I work with. I just had a call with a client today, and she said, this is tough, you know, people are leading how they were taught to lead and how they led, you know, 20 years ago, 25 years ago. And now they kind of feel like, well, hey, it's my turn. It's my turn to tell people what to do, and it's my turn to kind of boss them around because that's how I was and um and I just kind of chuckled, and I knew, like, hey, I get to talk to Susan this afternoon about this very topic, right? And it was so ironic. But what did you learn that shifted your understanding of those generational divides? What do you see that understand?

SPEAKER_00:

So, first of all, I think that as generations, we were brought up in different eras, and in those eras, there were different events that influence the generational lens through which we see the world.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

We forget, and by the way, we think that our generational lens is the lens that everyone should see the world, and we forget that other generations were born in a different decade and they were influenced by different events, yeah. And so we have to be very careful of getting stuck in our generational lens and in the generalities that are made of generations because it cuts us off from knowing the person. Yeah, and the power of Salbona leadership is we don't look through a generational lens, we look through a human lens because it cuts through all the generalities to look at the human being. Yeah, salbona, which means it's Zulu for I see you as and seeing the whole person. Yeah, we find that every person wants to be seen and accepted for who they are, no matter what generation, gender, ethnic background, because it's not a generational need, it's a human need. And we found that when we see and accept people for who they are, they see and accept us for who we are. And then a different conversation unfolds. One where we're not lecturing to each other, but one where we're listening and learning from each other. Um so there is a book uh by W. Ross Ashby called Um Introduction to Cybernetics. And in it, he talks about the law of requisite variety, that in any ecosystem, the entity with the widest ranges of responses will thrive. And I think, yeah, and I think we know as human beings that we need diversity, that we need diverse opinions and thoughts, but we get stuck in our own egos. Yes, and for generations, it's sometimes hard for a generation to take advice from a younger generation. Yes, of course it is, right? And this is why Salbona is so powerful because it says don't look at the generation, look through the human lens and start by seeing the gift in a person. Because the gift is what we were born to bring naturally into the world, it's what we do without thinking about it, it's just who we are. And if we see people's gifts, there's so many things that follow. We know what motivates them, what drives them, we know how they see the world. And as leaders, it allows us to be able to put them in areas where they excel so their gifts blossom. It allows us to be able to coach them in a different way rather than in our way, right? Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. And so yeah, sorry, didn't mean to interrupt. I'm so fascinated by that because I think that it it makes sense. Like, let's treat each person as a human being and discover what they're good at, what the gifts are. And everybody brings something to the table. I think what's challenging about that, what was going through my head as you were saying it, is our brains naturally judge and they judge very quickly. And we, you know, that's what creates all the stereotypes and biases we have is that unconscious, those unconscious patterns. And now we're saying, okay, you gotta you you gotta really observe those thoughts, those perspectives, and then let some of that go in order to embrace this concept that you're saying uh and that you're talking about, which I totally believe in. So, how do we fight those unconscious or subconscious biases and voices in our head that we have? For example, like, oh, they're younger than me, they don't have as much experience. Of course they don't know what they're talking about, or they've never been in this industry, or they have never been, they they haven't been where I've been, so they don't know. How do we get beyond that?

SPEAKER_00:

So this is where um I guess okay, so there's a there's a black impact here.

SPEAKER_01:

So let me start okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So let me start by saying that um I'll I'll go into the way that I work, which is understanding that um we don't change in our minds, we change in our bodies, that unless we change the way we feel in our bodies, we don't permanently transform.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And so what this means is this it if we want to become patient and we have the insight or awareness that someone told us we need to be more patient, like you stop, you need to stop looking at generations like this, okay? That's an insight. Yeah, but until we do practices on a continuous basis that let us embody what it feels like to be patient, we never form the habits that lead to our competency where we're naturally patient and not acting it. And transformation is not an act, it's a true expression of who you are. Yeah. And so this is why it's important to do what we call the deep somatic work. And this is not working on the body, it's being connected in. Because when we do deep somatic work, it allows us to then form new habits that lead to new competencies.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And so for, yeah, for example, um, can I give you an example of like one of my clients, maybe? Yes, please. Okay. That would be great. I would love it. Yeah. So what I mean by this is that I was called into work with the head of production of an event planning company. Uh, I'll call her Beth. Okay. And Beth was on the verge of burnout.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And one of her core gifts was planning. Okay. She's an event planning company, right? So there wasn't anything that Beth did not plan.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

She everything. And it was also a way for her to control things. Yes, yes. Okay, to plan it. Yes. Now, this didn't suit her people very well, especially her young people, because they didn't feel heard and seen for their ideas. Because even though they told her, she always did what she wanted to do anyway. And she planned so far ahead that no one had the opportunity to really give their thoughts and ideas. Sure. So when we got together, we talked about gifts and what we consider the other side to the gift. So the other side to the gift is dependent on how the gift is defined, but it can be the opposite. And I said, I said to Beth, what do you think is the opposite of planning? And she said, Chaos. I went, oh no, okay. She said, Well, not planning. I said, Well, what? I said, What trips you up? And she thought about and she said, Oh, probably going with the flow. And I said, Yeah, it's letting go, going with the flow, and being comfortable with uncertainty. Yes, yes. And I said, when you overuse your gift of planning, it leads to what you're blind to. And if you can develop this into a strength through various practices, then you'll have the capacity to do both. And it won't be one or the other, it'll be a combination, which means that if things don't go according to plan, I said, Beth, you'll be able to easily head in another direction. Yeah. And that fascinated her. She said, Really? I said, Yeah. Yeah. So it won't be chaos. I had to think about practices that she could do. And I always base them on a person's life and what they're doing. So that it's not practices in life, it's practices within your life. So they actually do it. Yeah, sure. So we did very small and we did larger practices on letting go, because this was a big thing for her was to let go, right? And I'll give you some of the just small practices because the big practices, people may say, Well, I'm not going to do that. Um, but the small practices were meditation. Meditation is about you have a thought, say, thinking, let it go, go back to observing your breathing and listening for sounds in the room. That aspect of letting go starts to train your body what it feels like to be in that state of not knowing. That's one. Another one we worked on was letting go of people's mistakes and not correcting it. Because whenever she found a mistake, it was easy for her to just correct it and faster than her to talk to her people. So she had to catch herself as she was about to correct, let go of correcting the mistake and notice how it felt in her body when she let go. So there were various practices, small practices of letting go, like letting go of telling your people the answer, solving their problems when they come to you, and noticing what that feels like in your body. So it started to open up the door. Now, the bigger picture was that she had told me she wanted to clean out her house because it was a mess. She was somewhat of a pack rat. So I said to her, would you be willing to do this as a practice? And she said, Well, yeah, of course. But she said, Susan, I think the reason I've been avoiding it is because there's so many things that have so much memory for me that it's going to be hard. I said, So let's create a ritual. And we created a ritual where there are certain things she could let go of and other things that had a lot of memory. So her ritual was she'd hold that thing that had memory, she would remember a memory of it, then let it go, notice what that feeled like, and she put it in one of three piles to give to three different nonprofits. Now, and she also took a photograph because she was a photographer and later created a book of photographs of her most memorable things. Yeah. So that started to open the door. But now I'll give you the big breakthrough for her, which was she told me in conversation that as a child she always wanted to learn trapeze. And I said, What? Who thinks that as a child? I saw this guy in a flying trapeze, and I always wanted to learn that. I'm thinking, oh my God. I said, Are you still interested? And she told me, Yes, I am. So I Some research, Cindy, out here in Los Angeles. I found on the Santa Monica Pier, the New York School of Trapeze. I went there and I told the teachers what I was trying to do. They said, Oh my gosh, we have executives doing this kind of thing out all the time. I said so she enrolled in trapeze school one-on-one. And I gotta tell you, this was the biggest breakthrough because she replaced her fear of letting go with a feeling of freedom. Yes. And she started to understand now the freedom of letting go, which allowed her to get her work-life balance back, but also allowed her people to contribute and feel like they were valued and worth something. Yeah. So that's a phenomenal story. Yeah. So that is why working in the body to change the way we feel creates new habits. It's like driving a car. Yeah. In the first time you're thinking about it, but now people can drive a car without thinking about it because it's in your body. Your body drives the car, not your head.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Oh, I think that's so powerful because, you know, I when I went to school in education, it was all about behaviorism. You know, behaviors, change your behaviors, change your thoughts, blah, blah, blah. But it didn't recognize all the biology and the power of biology on those transformations or our subconscious drivers or all the things like else that are going on. And what I find in teaching a lot of emotional intelligence, things like that is people don't know how to feel their body. They don't know how to feel what is going on in their body. And I think that's so powerful, as you said with Beth, like, think about that feeling that's in your body when you want to jump in and take control, when you want to overplan, when what does that feel like? What does it feel like to have more patience or to work through that? I think that's a wonderful practice. Right.

SPEAKER_00:

The idea is when you notice what it feels like, the idea is to be able to stop it because you're breaking a pattern. And if you do it over and over again, you break a pattern and you insert something new, which is okay. I'm not so your body then gets used to it and it forms a new habit that leads to a new competency.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, for sure. So as you think about this, and you're not really traditionally training people, you're helping them to embody and practice the biology part of the changes. And so, what does that look like in real leadership behavior, especially when you think about navigating uncertainty or change? So much of that is happening across industries and with leaders. How does how could that help them with those elements of chaos? Uncertainty, change, just the chaotic environment.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, you know, uncertainty is something that we as um human beings, as leaders and even employees need to be able to be comfortable with. And so part of that is, I'll tell you the best way for an organization, I don't think they even know this, to be able to get their people used to uncertainty, to get them used to change, is to have a budget for growth and development of your people and require them every year to learn something new. Because when you're learning something new, you're in that moment of uncertainty of not knowing because it's new to you. And can you imagine requiring your people to learn something new every year? Come back and teach the department what you learned, or write a report on it or something. Then when a big project like AI or automation comes along and you have to head in another direction, you more easily have developed that muscle of change within yourself. And you can head in another direction. I think the challenge today, too, is that we're going through some interesting times. There have been a lot of layoffs. There have been a lot of people, even executives leaving companies because they're just too stressed out. And so the first budgets that are cut, Cindy, are the budgets for growth and development. And it's got to be the last because when you have fewer people, they need the capacity to be able to be the best versions of themselves.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

And there was okay, there was a Gallup study done. This is really interesting. A Gallup study done. Uh, they do the state of the global workforce every year. Yes. And this past year, 20 uh 2025, they discovered that 79% of employees worldwide are disengaged. 79%. That's huge. Okay. And it's cost it's costing the global economy. I think they said four 438 billion US dollars in lost productivity. 438 billion with a B. What they found, yeah, they found that it pointed to the depths underneath this, that 73% of managers were disengaged. And where the managers go, the people follow. Yes. However, they also discovered that the companies that did not have a decrease in engagement, in fact, in disengagement, in fact, these are the people that were engaged, these are the companies that did well, or the people, the companies that actually developed their managers. They continue to grow and develop their managers. And so we're seeing that if we continue to do this, people don't get disengaged. Companies don't um like have to survive, they start to thrive. And so it's so, so important. And it gets your people used to change, it gets them used to being in times of uncertainty. Yes. And it builds that core inner strength that it's so needed in companies today with not only leaders but employees as well.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you bet. You bet. And I think getting comfortable with the awkwardness of learning something new and that that's part of the journey. You know, I think sometimes going to people go into a learning experience and they're uncomfortable, they're awkward, and they're like, ooh, I don't like this, I'll just go back to whatever I was doing before, right? Um, as opposed to I'm gonna work through the awkwardness and uncertainty. That's part of the process and part of the practice is doing that. And when you come outside of it, recognizing, like, oh, I learned this, oh, I changed, it's so reinforcing and it's so empowering too. I think being able to work with uncertainty, it strengthens that resilience muscle, which is so important. Yeah. What I think is really cool about the work that you've done is you have worked in multiple cultures and across 30 countries. So when you talk about those uh global statistics, you've seen that you know across the universe, which I think is amazing. So when you think about that connection between gifts, so I'm gonna help people work on their gifts. It doesn't matter where they're located, 30 countries across the world. Um, how does that change then accountability and performance? Because when push comes to shove, that's what managers want to know about, right? Am I gonna help perform? Am I gonna perform better? Is my team gonna perform better? Are we gonna all be more accountable? Um, so how do you see the connection between those two things?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So what's interesting is gifts is part of what we consider our authentic self.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And we are born into our authentic self. And then life comes along. And even as babies, we are taught what to do to please our parents, to please our teachers, to please society.

SPEAKER_02:

For sure.

SPEAKER_00:

And we lose sight of our North Star and we go into what we call our social self. And that is why I've had many executives say to me, Susan, I've done all the things that are expected to me, of me. I've risen to the top, I'm successful, I have money, I have a family, I have a beautiful house. Why am I not happy? Yeah. And part of my journey as a coach, and I I, you know, I don't tell people this in the beginning because they come to me to change, is that I I actually don't change people, I bring them back to who they are, and I bring them from their social self to their authentic self where their gifts lie. Now, holding people accountable to their gifts is much different because the gifts are part of our authentic self. And so it's so much easier to own and to accept. Yeah. And so I'll get I'll give you an example. And when you use gift-centered language or you enter through Salbona, it allows you to coach. And today there was another Gallup study that was done that says our bosses need to be coaches. We need to move from our boss being a boss to a boss being a right. Yes. So yeah. So it's so important that um, okay, so this I'll I'll give you the story. I'm trying to think of what to call him. Okay, so I'll call him Bill. So Bill is a CEO. He gave to one of his people, I'll just call him Jason. Jason a project that came down the pipe and it needed to be done by that evening. Now he knew Jason. Now, this is a company that I worked with. So they had a very gift-centered culture, and people knew about gifts, they used the language of it. So he gave it to Jason because he knew Jason had the gift of follow-through on commitment. Okay. And when Jason got something, he always followed through his commitment. He made deadlines. So Bill was very, you know, trusting that this would happen. He left that evening, he comes back the next morning, he gets a call from the client. And the client is kind of upset and frustrated and said, You won't believe it. But Jason did not get me that document on time. It was two hours late. And I needed that time to be able to prep for a board meeting this morning, which didn't give me a lot of time. Yeah. And Bill said, Wow, I'm surprised. So he went to Jason and he said, Jason, hey, I got a call from the client. And the client said that you didn't get the project on time. You did get it to him. But you have this, one of your core gifts is follow through on your commitment. What happened? Yeah. And Jason looked at him and went, Oh. He said, I don't call her Judy. Judy came to me uh yesterday late afternoon, and she was really upset and frustrated. And I really felt for her. And I wanted to help her because I knew what to do. And I got caught up. And all of a sudden I noticed that I didn't have enough time to finish the project by the deadline. And Bill said, ah, he's and so basically what happened, he said to Jason, Jason, I think this points to your gift of compassion for others. Jason goes, What do you mean? He said, Well, you have such compassion for people that you let it override your gift of follow-through on your commitment. Yeah. And he and Jason went, Wow, that's true. And I he said, and you overuse that gift until it led to your blind spot. So what do you think is the other side to the gift? We've talked about this before. And Jason went, Oh wow, probably compassion for me. He goes, Yes. It means setting boundaries. It's being able to say no in a supportive way. And Jason went, Whoa. He said, So why don't we get together and let's talk about some practices you can do because we can't have this happening again. And you have to be able to learn how to feel to push back and not and be okay with it and not let you get yourself all riled up. And yeah, and he said to Jason, what other things could you have done?

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And Jason said, Well, I could have sent Judy to somebody else. I could have given her the area to get the information. He said, Yeah, all those things. He said, But you were kind of caught up in her own world when so what happens with the gift-centered approach, it opens up for conversation, it opens up for learning, it opens up for a person owning what they have because you're recognizing within them.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a beautiful story because it does highlight that um that we have multiple gifts. And those multiple gifts can be in conflict. And so, how do we prioritize one over the other? How do we focus on the gift that is expected of us and that we are going to be held accountable to from a performance standpoint? And then recognizing when those conflicts happen. How because of course they are, right? Those are, and that's a great example of compassion and and the ability to execute and get something done and how that can shift.

SPEAKER_00:

So I think too, too, Cindy, real quick, is this that yeah? I love it. When we develop the other side to the gift into a strength, remember there becomes balance. And so we don't overuse the gift until it becomes yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02:

Just like any good thing, right? Yeah. Nacho chips, all the things. Um, so Susan, how do you typically work with organizations? So let's say, you know, someone goes out and gets your book, they like, oh, this sounds amazing. I'm having challenges with this. How do you usually get work in and show up either as a coach or from a business perspective? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So I have found that in my work, that one size does not fit all. Yes, I have I have frameworks, but the first month, whether it be a one-on-one coaching or it be with an organization, is for me to be able to do an assessment because a lot of times people tell me what they think they need, and what they need is not what they need. Because I'm looking not at to address the symptom, I'm looking for what is causing the symptom so that the symptom disappears for good. So, in being able to assess them, and I do many different things to do that. Uh for clients I have pre-coaching assignments, I have them pick five people that they that love and adore them and who will be honest with them and tell them the truth, uh, to tell them what their gifts and blind spots are. Because when you get it from somebody that you trust, you're more likely to accept it rather than a 360. Um, when it comes to an organization, I do a process called appreciative inquiry, which we look at we look at the best of what that organization is about. And we build on the best. But the whole idea is that the first month is very important because I feel like I'm a doctor, and if you give me the symptoms and I give you the wrong prescription, we're gonna not head in the right direction, right? Yes, yes. So once that's done, I do have frameworks, but I build a program around you or the organization that we kind of work on together. Yeah, and that thing becomes something that then I take the organization through if it's a leadership path or if it's one-on-one coaching. And it really depends on budget because I do work with companies on their budgets. Um a lot of companies, depending on the size, small or large, uh, some can afford my prices and some can't. So I do work with people's budgets. Yes, yes, of course. And it becomes a really partnership. Yeah, I find that that works the best. Me telling you what to do and me partnering with you along the way and getting you to become aware of different things and then giving you different things to be able to do. I literally will create a program where you will love it because it it's partly created by you too.

SPEAKER_02:

It's not to like. It's all about me, right? I think that's well, and it's it's a very to me, a very uh, there's a lot of transformation in the work that you do. There's cultural transformation, there's human transformation or transformation. Um, and it it's you're you're shifting the lens in which people see each other, which is very profound, and I'm confident takes a lot of you know, expertise and knowledge from your perspective, and a lot of um, a lot of different practices to help people overcome some of those challenges. Yeah. It's it's a wild practice that you have. I do, I'm just fascinated by the whole thing and and fascinated by this, you know, the concept that you have and the the I see you. Um, and I think people are starting to understand that in a way that they haven't before. What does it really mean to see someone and to see them with the authenticity and allow that authenticity to come through? And that we all are allowed to do that, we're accepted for that, we're celebrated for that. And I think those are the things that highlight from my perspective what your practice is doing, which is a wonderful thing.

SPEAKER_00:

And and I gotta say that the young people, if you talk to them, and I get many of them coming up to me when I keynote at conferences and stuff, they'll say, Susan, you could put my face on the wall. That was me you were talking about, because I I want to be seen for who I am. Yes, I want to be seen as a unique individual, not part of a mass herd. Yes. And yeah, it's huge for them. But I gotta tell you something, Cindy. When I ask people, because the three needs of millennials are to fill her, to use her gifts and have meaning and purpose in their lives. When I'm addressing an audience of all generations, and I ask them, how many of you want that too? Every hand goes up. Because that need is not a generational need, it's a human need. Yeah, yeah, and they all desire it. We were born in different generations, and generations prior to millennials didn't feel that they have a had a choice and they sucked it up and they did exactly what they were told. But guess what? They weren't happy about it. And when they when they had kids, they told their kids, you're not gonna suck it up. Yes, don't do that. You're gonna go for your dream, you're gonna do what it is that you want to do, and we're behind you. Yeah, and this is what made millennials so entitled, by the way. Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

I agree. The perception is there. But I think, as you said, the the generation uh before us has a huge impact on shaping us and how we're showing up and the things that we care about, and the things that we'll tolerate or not, right? And those things shift over time, and I think it's important to recognize that. Um, I have just loved hearing your story. I love hearing more about what you're bringing, your gifts to the world, and how you're shaping and transforming both companies but also individuals in a very impactful way. So as you think about just one thing from your work that you think people could remember or start to implement, um, again, I'm going to encourage people to go get your book to read uh The Perfect Storm, Leadership's Perfect Storm. But what would be one thing that you would want people to take away that you think would be helpful or practical for them right now? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I think I would say that to build the body of a leader means that you, it's about doing the little practices of yourself every single day that build the foundation for you to be able to be the calm in the midst of chaos, to be the eye of the hurricane. So you don't get caught up in the hurricane and then, you know, and then go a different direction. And when I talk, it's this a lot of times my clients will say, Oh my gosh, I had this really challenging situation, or I was in this state of uncertainty. I said, You can't wait until you're there. You have to you have to prepare for it. It's like I said to them, you can't when you're thrown into the ocean is not the time to learn to swim. Yes. You learn to swim so that when you're thrown into the ocean of uncertainty and of chaos, you can navigate the waves, the currents, the water. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's doing the little practices like meditation to still and quiet your mind so you're still present and patient for your people. It's like doing, and by the way, these practices are in the back of the book. It's like doing a walk around the neighborhood, walk in beauty, where you connect with the beauty of nature, where you receive its beauty so that you can see the beauty in your people and receive their gifts. It's about learning to observe. It's so much easier for us to observe nature without judgment because nature is pure. So if we observe nature, we transfer it to them. This is how we observe our people, and we catch us at our judgments because in observing their actions, their actions point to their gifts, it points to what drives them, what motivates them. It points to where can I put them so their gifts can blossom. It's about doing the little practices like praising the gift when you see it coming out so they feel valued and seen and accepted. And when you do all those things and you work on yourself every day, it's the pebble in the pond effect that your goodness, if you're the pebble, I drop into the pond, it ripples out to touch every single person in your organization and beyond. And this is yeah, and what happens is, and I found that when you accept and value your people and you care about them and believe in them, they in return will care and believe about you. And when there is something that comes along, like a COVID, they'll have your back, they'll get behind you. Yeah, so it's not, yeah, you have to build these relationships because it's I had a one client that came to me and said, Susan, my people just don't want to change, and hadn't built the kind of culture where people would have his back. Yeah, and that's so important.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, a hundred percent. Oh, I love that. So if we go forward into this new year, I love a fresh shiny new year because I feel like it's a reset on so much. But you said such powerful things. You said if we learn how to accept and value and care and believe in one another, what a profound effect that will have on each other, on all of us, right? And how we impact the world and that ripple effect. I love that vision for 2026. It's a beautiful thing. Wow. Well, thank you again for your time, for sharing your gifts with us, for the experiences that you've had and for really putting that expertise and your knowledge and insights into the universe. It makes a difference. And I've been inspired by the work you've done and the stories you've shared with me. So you're having a ripple effect on me. And I appreciate that, Susan. Salvona, Cindy. Oh, thank you so much, and to you as well. As you listen to this episode, I invite you to continue to reflect on this question. Who in your life or leadership role needs to be more fully seen? And choose one insight from this episode and take intentional action this week, whether that's a conversation, a moment of recognition, or a shift in terms of how you show up as a leader. And if this episode resonated with you, please share it with a leader who could benefit from hearing it. And be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future conversations focused on leading with purpose and with impact.