The Soulful Leader Podcast

As a Soulful Leader you want your success to mean something. Professionally, you're flourishing. Personally, you're still searching. Deep inside you know there has to be more to life. Acknowledging that your outer world doesn’t align with your inner longings can feel scary and overwhelming. In a world where achievements and accolades motivate us to do more and be more, we’re often left wondering, “Is this really it?” Instead of sticking to the status quo, you’re ready to embrace a new way of being, thinking, feeling, and doing so you can fulfill the deeper life that’s calling you. We’re your hosts, Stephanie Allen and Maren Oslac. We’re both soulful leaders in our own right whose lives have been dedicated to living that 'something more'. We can’t wait to save you time and share the shortcuts we’ve uncovered. By tuning into the Soulful Leader Podcast you’ll discover that you don’t need to sacrifice to find meaning, success or true happiness. Instead, you’ll learn practical solutions infused with a healthy dose of woo for tapping into your Divine DNA. We’ll help you see that going inward is the secret. Each week we break down the barriers that will help you decrease your stress, find that fulfillment, and create the conditions so you can thrive in life.

All Episodes

The Soulful Leader Podcast

Embrace Your "Road Less Taken"

December 30, 2025 • Stephanie Allen & Maren Oslac • Season 2 • Episode 200

What if your most important work has nothing to do with a checklist?

This is Stephanie and Maren’s 200th episode and they’re celebrating two-fold:

by sharing a glimpse into their future
by unveiling a bit of their secret sauce to help you get the MOST out of this year

In 2026 they’re taking the leap into live shows - connecting in real time, fielding your questions, and engaging in direct conversation with you.

That choice reflects the deeper practice they’ve honed for years—staying present, trusting the unknown, and letting inner truth lead their success instead of algorithms and checklists.

In today’s podcast they share knowing the difference between drifting and “devoted uncertainty” in daily life. Drifting is “I don’t know” with no orientation. Devoted uncertainty is clarity about who you’re becoming and what’s yours to do, paired with the courage to release rigid plans.

Do fear, anxiety, and frustration show up when you step beyond your comfort zone? No problem, they share easy manageable solutions.

To help even more, Maren opens up about how the publisher who contacted her to write a book emerged. Hint it was NOT from hustle theater, but from years of quiet repetitions—writing show notes, refining articulation, and honoring the weekly practice no one sees.

👉🏻 If you’ve ever struggled putting in seemingly invisible effort, this is your podcast.

Today explores how outer results come from inner mastery, talks about how to trade grasping for a different way of listening to life, and supports each person’s unique path with ways to keep from drifting.

✅ For those who are on the road less travelled, you might be interested in Maren & Stephanie’s Co-Creation Circle—a year-long, online community of soulful leaders like you.

🙌 If you know someone who is tired of the hustle, push, strive and is seeking their own way, please share today’s episode with them.

✍️ If you’ve found value, subscribe, and leave a review on YouTube, iTunes, or Spotify.

👂 And we’d love to hear from you - what practice will help keep you present this year? Share it in our Facebook or LinkedIn Groups

TRANSCRIPT

YouTube Video

Please share your insights and questions in one of our Soulful Leaders groups:

Facebook Group

LinkedIn Group

Get all the latest episodes, news and updates directly to your inbox. Subscribe here. TheSoulfulLeaderPodcast.com

Watch the podcasts on our YouTube Channel: @Soulful Leaders

Stephanie: 0:03

In a world where we have everything and it's still not enough, we're often left wondering, is this really it?

Maren: 0:10

Deep inside, you know there's more to life. You're ready to leave behind the old push your way through and claim the deeper, more meaningful life that's calling you.

Stephanie: 0:19

That's what we invite you to explore with us. We're your hosts, Stephanie Allen and...

Maren: 0:24

Maren Oslac.

Stephanie and Maren: 0:26

And this is the Soulful Leader Podcast.

Stephanie: 0:30

Yay!

Maren: 0:31

Welcome to the Soulful Leader Podcast. I'm Maren. I'm here with Stephanie, and this is our 200th episode. Our final episode for 2025, and it's 200 episodes. And we just want to take a moment and celebrate...

Stephanie and Maren: 0:45

Yay! Yay!

Maren: 0:50

...with each other and also with you, because so many of you listen to us every week, every other week. And we go along with you. And yeah, obviously, we wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. So thank you for listening and making it possible for us. And as we're going into 2026, one of the things that Stephanie and I are looking at doing is turning this into a "Live" so that we're actually gonna get to interact with you on a live basis. So many of you contact us, and we're wondering what it would be like if we were in conversation with you while we're on our podcast.

Stephanie: 1:40

So live in real time, that means you can actually ask us a question in real time and we'll be able to see it and answer it, hopefully. At least contemplate the question, anyhow. So it would be really great to be able to have us virtually all connected, no matter where you are on this planet.

Maren: 1:59

One of the things that we've done a couple of times is kind of... how we do our podcast. Podcast, meaning that we've talked about our process. And our process is very much of a live process. We don't have scripts, we presence what has been coming up for the week, and we come together, we chat about it, and there's very little editing to what we say. The editing that happens is as our editor told us the other day, it's because our mic volumes are different, and you know, there might be a cat meowing in the background, which obviously when we're live, you guys would hear that. So those are some things, especially the mic volume volume we would need to work out because we'd want our mic volume to be even. We're just really excited about this.

Stephanie: 3:00

Yeah, there's something about being real, there's so much fake out there right now. And what is real? How do we know it's real? I don't know about you, but I mean, it's hard. I get caught off in the social media stuff, and then something is sensational. I'm like, is that really real? Or is that fake? How do I know? And if we are constantly looking outside ourselves for the truth, we'll never find it. Meaning, do we have a process or do we have a way to check inwardly with ourselves if something resonates, if something feels true to us? Why is it so? Why does it feel true? And you know, that this whole thing is like true or not, or right or wrong, or good or bad. Like, I think really there's another question that needs to be asked.

Maren: 3:53

I love coming from that place of questions because when we question, we can start to look at how much of it is conditioning, because I was taught to think that, and what part of me thinks that, and all kinds of like interesting rabbit holes that we could go down. And that's the gift of staying in the question rather than coming from an instant, well, I have an answer for that. I know that, I know that already.

Stephanie: 4:25

Yeah, when we do that, like when I find myself doing that or I hear that with other people, like, oh yeah, I already know that. Like, there's no space, there's no space for conversation, there's no space for possibility or imagination. And I think we are so trained that we have to know that when we don't know, it can feel really frightening. And like, I'd like to talk about that a little bit. Like, how can you step outside of your comfort zone? Which is what we're... we've done for the last five years is kind of push our own comfort zone. And now we're gonna push it to another level of actually being live and real and raw. And we're questioning too, what is a comfort zone? And are you even aware of your own comfort zone? Can you get outside of it? And when you do get outside of it, how do you work with the fear of the unknown? How do you work with the anxiety? How do you work with you know the frustration of not having it all figured out? Where do you go?

Maren: 5:26

Where do you go? I had kind of a magical thing happen to me just recently, and I realized that this whole year for me has been very different in I guess in a magical regard. And the reason I bring it up when you're talking about that is of how do you know for yourself is if I hadn't been in that process, and I use process very intentionally in that sentence, because it's not a I either do it or I don't do it, it's a process of getting to the point where I feel comfortable in the unknown and I'm happy there. I'm happy to flounder around for a little bit. I'm gonna use my example of what just happened to me. And what happened was I had a publisher contact me on LinkedIn, and they were interested in me writing a book proposal. I don't have a book deal, but they were interested in having me write a proposal for a book based on an article that I had written, a blog post. And the thing is that I didn't do all of the stuff, all of the normal outer stuff that we're taught to do. You know, I didn't...

Stephanie: 6:58

such as...

Maren: 7:00

...like write your to-do list, make sure you know what you're doing, write all the, you know, write every single week, do, you know, send proposals to places, do like all of the the busy stuff. And you know, I mean, one of the things in business that we all hear is the 80-20 rule, right? 20% of what you do results in 80% of what actually happens. And there's a correlation to that of there's literally 3% of what you do in the outer world is what's the result is happening in the outer world. So that means 97% of what you do inside has a result in the outer world. So what I did in order to create this opportunity for myself is I stayed in the unknown. I got really, really clear about what is mine to do. And I did not think that it was writing a book. What is mine to do is to help people to live what's theirs to do. And I'm really, really clear about that. So I got really clear on that. And then I sat in the unknown of what does that look like? And these are the conversations that Stephanie and I have. What does that look like? And that's how we do our podcast. We don't come in with a prescripted, everything's already done, do it the way that society, you know, it's like it's very different. And it is part of my practice of getting comfortable in the unknown.

Stephanie: 8:47

So I want to share something with that too, because you know, for the past few years, we've been trying to find somebody who could do show notes and who could kind of, you know, transcribe everything, you know, and of course we use AI in that way of like transcribing it so it can make it a little bit more concise. However, what it always landed on was on Maren, because I am so not doing it. And I've just been very clear about that. I'm not doing it. And so Maren's like, okay, fine, I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it. And what's so interesting is that in in Maren's practice of actually doing it, by the time this person offered for a proposal for the book, she had already had five years of skill practice, like practicing that skill. And so why I'm saying this is like sometimes you just don't know. Most of the time, most of the times we just don't know that the things that we are doing, whether it's a boring job at work or you're in a relationship or you meet somebody and you don't know why you're meeting them, and you're like, why did this person keep showing up in my life, or why is this pattern keep showing up in my life over and over and over again? There is a higher, there is a higher story to all of that. And it and it's higher because we can't see it. We haven't been there before, we're on a different level. But then one day, this is where wisdom and hindsight comes from is that all of a sudden something lands and you have an aha moment. I had a recent aha moment of that too. I went back to my university homecoming and had a conversation with one of my old roommates. And we basically started having this conversation that revealed 40 years of a question that both of us were living. And, you know, he had asked me the question, and I was absolutely dumbfounded by the question. And my old me, my old self, my younger self, my past self, would have just brushed it off and carried on. But because I've been working with being the truth, you know, really listening to the truth in myself, like we were saying about that in the outer world, there's so much like caca-poo-poo-ness going on out there. It's like, but the real thing we need to pay attention to is our inner truth. So when I when I listened to that inner truth, I gave myself the uncomfortability of stepping out of my comfort zone and saying something to him that I've never said before. And I cannot tell you the weight that was lifted off of me by having that conversation and watching him literally well up. I'm sure there was a weight that was lifted off of him as well. And then we just couldn't stop. Then we just wanted to kind of keep divulging all these truths. And in an hour, I just felt so much lighter. So, so my point is that you know, here's Maren for five years complaining about this job or this thing that she has to do with our podcast. And yet it was the very thing that created a skillfulness for something that was actually coming from the future so that she could say yes and be ready for. And I don't think you could have practiced it. Like, I mean, sure, we could have linear logically put something out there to do that, but I think....

Maren: 11:53

that's what most people do, right? And that's what I've done of you know, you do best practices and you make your lists of all the things, you know. When I open my studio, here's what I needed to do, here's the people I needed to contact. I make my lists, I make sure that I've done everything, I check every box, and I just am going constantly. And I this the past five years of working with you has been an exercise in doing that really differently. One that I've... it's a journey that I've been on for my whole life of how to do it differently. And it's been in working together, it feels like it's it's sped up, it's been exponential in experiencing it inside of myself and now also seeing it. So the impression is that magic happened and I didn't do anything. I did a lot, as you pointed out. Thank you. Right. And yeah, I kept trying to offload this writing piece, writing our show notes, writing the blog post. I kept trying to offload it to somebody else. And Spirit kept saying, or life kept saying, Nope, your job. You get to do this. And now I know why. Because if I had offloaded that, I wouldn't have built the skill, which means that I wouldn't have gotten noticed, which means that I wouldn't have gotten, you know, I mean, like all of the things, like you said, in hindsight, you can see it. Whereas being in the unknown is presencing that before it's hindsight. Right? So that's what, I didn't just say, I did keep trying to offload it, and there was definitely some complaining. At the same time, I was really clear that I was building a skill. I didn't know what I was building it for. It, for me, it was an articulation skill. I didn't realize that it was also a writing articulation skill. One of my goals is to be a public speaker, which means I need to be able to be really articulate. And writing helps. For me, writing helps with that. And everybody's gonna be different and what that path to where you want to go looks completely different. And if you can't sit in the unknown and you're busy trying to follow somebody else's path and do all of the things, you're gonna miss your path. I would have missed this completely.

Stephanie: 14:28

Yeah, I mean, it's just so profound that we are so trained to do things a certain way or by the book. And I, you know, there's like I said, there's nothing wrong. I think it's great. You it's like practicing scales on, you know, if you're a musician or you know, your routines, if you're a dancer, or you know, the the different exercises, the strength, if you're an athlete, I get it. And then you have to let all that go. You get to a point where we have to hold it lightly as well. That when I think of if someone said to me like, I just don't know Steph, I just don't, I don't know where we're going, I don't know what we're doing. I mean, that drives me nuts. That absolutely makes me crazy. And I'm kind of laughing at myself with that too, because at the same time I'm saying, but being in the unknown is actually a really healthy place. And so I think there's a difference. I definitely, that's what I want to like discern with that. It's like when I used to talk to people about when they would fall in love and they'd meet the person of their dreams, I said, well, how did you know? And they go, I just knew. I knew from the moment they walked in that room, I just knew I was gonna end up with them, or that was my partner for the rest of my life. And I'm like, that's so cool. Like, I want to know that, I want to have that clarity. And at the same time, I can kind of look in my life, and I've lived a lot of unknowns which were exactly where I needed to be, so that I would be open to receive what I was meant to receive.

Maren: 16:01

That. Can you say that again because that is the crux.

Stephanie: 16:05

That's it. But that yeah, it's kind of like, yeah, I don't think if I can say that again.

Maren: 16:11

So just what you weren't talking about, right, is living the unknown that is specific to you so that you can show you can be there for the gift when it shows up. And completely not what we're trained to do, not at all what we're trained to do. We're trained to make lists, check the list, do all the stuff, and keep go, go, go, go, go.

Stephanie: 16:36

Yeah, like the magic in my life where, when it's happened is when I've completely let go.

Maren: 16:42

Having done the specific work that is your do.

Stephanie: 16:46

Absolutely. I've done a lot of practices, done a lot of figuring out, done a lot of journaling, like you name it, did a lot. And then finally you just go, oh, that's it. I mean, I see this all the time when I'm working with clients who are trying to get pregnant and they've tried and tried and tried and tried it. They've they've spent thousands of dollars and time and energy and tears. And and finally I say, you know, why don't you just do all the things that you'll never be able to do when you have children? Just go and do them, have fun, go play. And they come back and they're almost always pregnant. They're like, how did that happen? It's like, because we almost need to do, well, not almost, we do. We need to do that internal preparation so that we can let go of the outer of how it's going to show up or how it's gonna turn up. But with there is an internal process. And what I mean by that is like a way of thinking, a way of presencing, a way of breathing, a way of embodying. Like there's a certain level of that internal that nobody sees. It's like the one-hit wonders we think. Oh my gosh, this person had a one-hit wonder. And it's like, no, you realize that probably took them 10 years or more of actually having that hit song or whatever, right? It's like it does take a lot of internal work. Change the way you are with yourself, yeah.

Maren: 17:57

And another way of saying that is becoming the person who can hold that resonance.

Stephanie: 18:04

Yeah.

Maren: 18:05

And we assume that we know all the things to do to make that happen. And we have no clue. And our figuring out brain will not be able to figure that out. Because if you had told me five years ago, hey, Maren, in five years, you're going to be asked to do a book proposal for a potential, you know, book. I would have tried to figure out all the ways to prepare myself. I would have had no clue.

Stephanie: 18:34

Right.

Maren: 18:34

And instead, life did that for me and put me in all the right places because I was listening, because I was listening to, okay, who do you want me to become? With a very specific intention in mind of like, this is who I, you know, that's the other thing. Earlier, when you were talking about it drives you crazy when say, when people say, well, I don't know where I'm going. There's a difference. And what I see as a difference is that's from a drift place. They're drifting. I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know where I'm going. I don't know, you know, it's like the conditioning of our society to push us in a particular direction. Either rebellion of, I don't know where I'm going because I don't want that, whatever that is that society is pushing the person to, or resignation of like, oh, I just don't want to do this, right?

Stephanie: 19:27

I have a little prayer that I say to myself, I said, okay, I believe in God. So I always say, okay, God, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know if I'm right or wrong, good or bad, a success or failure. So either take whatever this issue is, this problem, take it from me, or help me through it. Or show me what you're wanting from me. And my job now is to pay attention in the moment, just to be still and practice my presence.

Maren: 19:56

I love that.

Stephanie: 19:58

And sometimes I'll even add like a little side note and say and come in a way that I that surprises and delights me. And I know this is kind of a Joe Dispensa thing too. Like he talks a lot about this too, but it's like that surprises and delights me. And I know it's from a loving God.

Maren: 20:13

Yeah.

Stephanie: 20:13

Period amen. In other words, don't like, don't break my arm.

Maren: 20:17

Right.

Stephanie: 20:18

Don't want to do that again. Okay, I got the gifts, you know. Is there a nicer, kinder, more gentler way that is really obvious that I will... my job is to practice being present to that, to not ignore, but to pay attention, to keep my eyes open, my ears open, my heart open.

Maren: 20:34

Yeah. I love that as a practice. And as we go into this new year, my I guess my quest, my question for all of us, including me and Stephanie, is what is your practice for being present to what wants to happen for you? Lots of things in that sentence, right?

Stephanie: 21:00

I'm gonna add another thing in... who have you got with you that's gonna help you stay accountable?

Maren: 21:05

Yeah.

Stephanie: 21:06

Because it's the old saying of like, who are you when no one's looking? It's so easy to just drop it. But if you tell somebody, hey, I want to be really physically fit this year, I want to take better care of my health, but you don't tell anybody, then nobody's gonna keep you accountable. And then you will easily talk... I'm talking about myself here. I can easily talk myself out of it. Like, you know, I can exercise tomorrow. I can eat better tomorrow. But if I have somebody who knows that that's my longing, then either they'll join me with it or they'll keep me lovingly accountable.

Maren: 21:44

And you can set those boundaries of here's how, here's what it looks like. So if you are somebody that has some internal, I'd like to grow internally and really step into kind of the things that Stephanie and I are doing, then contact us because we do have our Co-creation Circle. We have other group programs where we're building a community of doing it differently, of soulful leadership. And when we say leadership, that's internal and external leadership.

Stephanie: 22:17

Yeah, and our Co-Creative circle is actually just starting. It will be starting like next week. Yeah. So if this is resonating with you, so like jump on. It's a year-long online, and we offer practices and fun things to do in a community that we can really bounce ideas off of each other and build our build our presence with who we are and why we're here. It's so important.

Maren: 22:41

So we will see you in two weeks for episode 201. And we would love this. You know what? Share it with a friend. And if you have time, leave us a review on either YouTube or iTunes or Spotify. So, and you can find us online at www.thesoulfulleaderpodcast.com. and https://tslp.life/ on Facebook, and on LinkedIn. We'll see you soon.

Stephanie: 23:20

And that wraps up another episode of the Soulful Leader Podcast with your hosts, Stephanie Allen and Maren Oslac.

Maren: 23:28

Thank you for listening. If you'd like to dive deeper, head over to our website at www.thesoulfulleaderpodcast.com.

Stephanie: 23:36

Until next time!