Podcast Episode 27/03
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[00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of the Style and Strategy podcast. I'm your host, Sonya, and today I am gonna take a slightly different,~ uh,~ tact. So I wanna share a little bit of an experience that I thought many of you may,~ um,~ find useful,~ uh,~ when you are thinking through decision making. So. Have you ever said 'YES' to something when deep down you knew that something inside was telling you, 'no, don't do this.'
But, ~you know, ~it seemed to make sense on paper. ~Um, ~maybe the opportunity felt. A little bit exciting and maybe the individual who's presenting it to you thought, yeah, okay, I can really align,~ uh,~ to this. But ~there was something, ~there was something about your body wasn't really on board ~and, ~and perhaps it was just a split second moment that [00:01:00] something felt off.
Maybe I'd describe it as misaligned. Like your system was really quietly bracing for something. ~Well, ~I've been there too, and today I really wanted to share with you one of the most powerful lessons I've learned in leadership. Visibility and decision making and how it brought me right back to human design.
Around about 18 months ago, I'd had a few conversations with someone who had been,~ um, you know, sort of~ really in my world,~ uh,~ for a little while. And,~ uh,~ we had engaged and we'd had a bit of a chat around things and really a few in-depth conversations. And I really remember it vividly. It was even in that first call, something felt off, but ~I, ~I just ~kind of ~parked it to one side.
~Uh, ~we were both, ~you know, ~aligned with our [00:02:00] audiences ~and, ~and so forth, and you could tell that, that we were both curious. But there was something inside that was showing me,~ uh,~ hesitation. ~ ~And I knew at that moment. That perhaps that opportunity wasn't the right one to go forward I still felt that we could ~kind of ~collaborate,~ uh,~ together. And so I parked my emotions and we found a different way to be able to collaborate, ~ ~but every time we'd had an interaction, it was like my body was saying, there's something off here. And looking back now, you know, 18 months later. That moment really became a turning point because not so much of what happened afterwards, but because it taught me a really valuable lesson, what it really means to override your own [00:03:00] authority.
So bear with me. I know a lot of you may be thinking human design, it's a bit woo,~ but. , ~But where human design has started to play a massive role in the way that I do things and the way that I lead it's actually coming much more from a business standpoint.
So if you are familiar with human design, I'm a what's known as a generator, and there's a decision making authority that comes with that. And my decision-making authority is sacral. So what does that mean? It means my truth isn't found in spreadsheets or second guessing. It actually lives in how I respond to things.
And for me. It's immediate. It's, ~I ~I guess, for want of a better word, it's visceral. So something in the moment is either gonna be a full bodied yes or it's gonna be a [00:04:00] hell no. in that moment, I remember my body saying, no, this isn't the right collab for you. But my empathy side kicked in
~my, my logic,~ my brain, my logic kicked in and my desire to, to help and support others kicked in as well. And here's what I've learn since. When we say yes from the logic our head, and don't pay attention or recognize the 'no' from your body, we fracture our presence. We dilute our clarity. We open doors that potentially weren't meant for us, and eventually we feel it.
As a lesson learned. Not just in the outcome, but in the energy it takes to hold what was truly never ours to really carry. ~ ~And that's why I bring human design into [00:05:00] the work I do with my clients because leadership isn't just about how you look in a room, it's how you feel in your decisions. If you're constantly second guessing yourself, it's rarely about.
Confidence. It can sometimes be about alignment. ~ ~ You can't feel confident if your body didn't agree with your decision in the first place. This is true when it comes to visibility. It's true in brand and it's absolutely true when it comes to leadership.
If you've been saying yes to things that quietly drain you or you've been saying yes to things that really weren't aligned with you, then this is my call to you to say, let this be your permission. To come back home to you, to your gut, to your truth, and to your own authority. , because as I get older, ~ ~and the more that I [00:06:00] honor mine, the more things become clearer.
Presence absolutely begins in the body, and leadership begins in the yes to that ~ Now. . And~ so as many of ~you know, ~there's effectively five key types when it comes to human design. Many say four, and then generators have an ~extra, uh,~ extra type as well.
So not everyone's decision making authority is going to be through the body like mine is. ~Uh, ~and it really depends on a few details around that. But for those of you, given many of the population are, for those of you who potentially feel like that,~ um,~ this message is really for you to give you a chance to digest, consider.
Before you take on anything that potentially hasn't sat with you in that right way and honor that. And [00:07:00] if you are potentially not feeling anything at all when you're making those logic decisions, then maybe it's time to start to tune in on the body side as well.~ Um, ~a bit of a story is I remember,~ um,~ one of my early days in leadership and the book, thinking Fast and Thinking Slow.
Landed on my desk as a must have read, and I remember at the time. Thinking. Okay, so I make a lot of fast decisions because I operate on my gut. This is well before I had known anything about human design, ~and so I read, uh, that particular book and, and I learned then really not to make necessarily the decisions in the moment.~
~I think now that I have overlaid with the human design component.~
And so after reading that book and really understand it, I started to take, you know, that leadership lesson that we all do, that you don't necessarily have to communicate that decision in the moment. [00:08:00] You may have made a decision, but ~you, ~you sleep on it. ~You, you, ~you take the time in those really important decisions to consider.
So I'm not saying. At all that you ignore ~sort of ~that theory around the , thinking fast, thinking slow, but knowing your human design and your decision making authority can actually help to provide more context. ~ ~Around how you're making those decisions and what to listen out to. And then overlay that concept of then maybe communicating that decision, , after you've gone through the pros, cons and everything else that your logical brain ~may, ~may still want to go through.
So if any of this has resonated with you and you wanna understand your unique human design,~ uh,~ decision making style,~ uh,~ send me a DM with the word authority and , we can have a chat around that. And finally, if [00:09:00] you are done with outsourcing your power when it comes to leading and you are ready to take control.
Of your brand and your style through a program that's very much self led with support by me. That is absolutely the work that we do in Activate, ~ ~and it's not just about what you wear, it's about how you walk in, how you lead without needing to say a word.
