The Soulful Leader Podcast
The Soulful Leader Podcast
Stop Guarding the Plan. Grow the Person.
A reality check for overachievers and perfectionists who are tired of trying to “get it right.”
We’re a society of overachievers and perfectionists who keep trying to “get it right.” We've been taught that the solution is ‘fixing outcomes’, yet we’ve tried that -over and over again, and it’s still not working.
The real path to what you want?
It’s expanding your identity and capacity. And that’s great news because you can change you.
Today, Stephanie and Maren unpack this path from the perspective of hidden fears, how we sabotage our goals and resolutions and the beliefs keeping us stuck. Instead of guarding a fragile plan, they walk you through building capacity. Instead of white-knuckling toward outcomes, they share how to build skills that keep momentum alive without burning out.
Today they get real about:
- fear of responsibility blocking goals
- reframing power as response-abilit
- receiving abundance without guilt
- spotting red flags and road signs
- life as a learnable, practical skil
- trust, discernment and guidance
- moving beyond shame and blame
- questions that keep momentum alive
From reframing blame and shame to noticing the cost of avoidance in the body, you’ll find tools to build a clearer, truly joyfilled life.
If you’re ready to trade either-or thinking for powerful choices, this conversation will meet you where you are and expand what you believe is possible.
If this resonates, follow the show, share with a friend who’s stuck between fear and growth, and leave a quick review so more people can find conversations like this.
➡️ Your next step is simple: choose one skill to practice this week and tell us how it goes.
Please share your insights and questions in one of our Soulful Leaders groups:
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
In a world where we have everything and it's still not enough, we're often left wondering, is this really it?
Maren: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:That's what we invite you to explore with us. We're your hosts, Stephanie Allen,
Maren:and Maren Oslac.
Maren and Stephanie:And this is The Soulful Leader Podcast.
Stephanie:Yay!
Maren:Welcome to The Soulful Leader Podcast. I'm here with Stephanie. My name is Maren. And we're into that period of time where people are starting to realize the goals that they've set or the New Year's Resolutions that they've set are falling away and they're losing the... that New Year's momentum. And I think there are quite a few reasons for that. And I think we're going to talk today about maybe one that we haven't really considered before, which is it's definitely something that not a lot of people talk about anyway. Which is that if... there's a saying that says, with great power comes great responsibility. And one of the things we don't think about with our goals is that when as we move towards our goals and as we move towards our resolutions, we become more powerful beings. And I think that there's this intimidation factor around that and a fear of being responsible and what that means in our lives. So it's much easier to let the goal slide, let the whatever, the resolution go, than to step into that empowered self that's calling us.
Stephanie:Yeah, there's a belief system that if you take on more, you're not going to have the energy or the capacity. You're going to be overwhelmed, you're going to be burnt out, and you know, oh, you know, your response. And I'm not saying about being responsible for everybody else. We're talking about the ability to respond to life, to what wants to... and it I think that inner narrative is also a negative one, saying it's burdensome or it's a struggle or it's going to be something bad instead of like, you know, this is really interesting. Because yesterday I was talking to somebody who was having a dream, a realization. And I said, Oh, if I could just, you know, do something that would give me like a million dollars to do this, I would do it all the time. And then she quickly she goes, no, not a million, maybe, maybe even like a thousand dollars. Like she downgraded it. And I said, well, what if somebody could give you a million to do what what you love and what you find beautiful? Well, she goes, I felt like that was just a little bit too much to ask. It was being greedy. I was just kind of reflecting on that. It's like, you know, we have these little thimbles that we say, well, if you can fill that thimble full, I'll be enough. That's good, that's great, I'm happy. When really, what if somebody wanted to give you so much more? And of course, you know, we've just come through the holidays. And so to me, the Christian holiday of Christmas has so much more meaning to it than what we are doing it right now as a consumer sort of holiday. But even if it's a consumer holiday, even if that's where you're at too, that's fine. Think about it as a way of like 'Present-cing' (Presencing), gifting somebody, and also receiving, like even on that very basic level, we tend to push away the presence in our life. We tend to push away things that people are giving to us. I'm like, oh, that's too much. I don't, I don't need that, I don't deserve that, or you've done so much already. But what if, what if, what if actually life wants to give us so much more and we are playing at the size of a thimble? I'm just curious, like, what would life be like if we could change that? What would the world be like if we changed that?
Maren:I think that's such a powerful question and one that I can only answer on an individual level, right? So for myself, I just recently had a conversation, that very conversation, with my coach, the person that I work with who coaches me. And I'm stepping into a whole new level of who I am and what I'm what I'm doing here to serve on this planet. And there was that fear factor of if I step into that, I will be responsible because I'll know more. Right. We say that knowledge is power, and yet with knowledge, when we know more, we're responsible for more. And I wanna, talk for a moment about that word responsible, because it does feel often times in our society, it's a burden. I like that you used that word earlier. .
Stephanie:Yeah.
Maren:It's a burden, you're responsible for that. And I one of the ways that I think about it that helps me, and I know many of you have heard this, and I just want to say it a little bit differently, is responsibility is the ability to respond. So if I go back to that thing that I said at the very beginning, where it's with great power comes great responsibility, that feels overwhelming. And if I said to you, with great power comes the ability to respond greatly. I like that better. Right? That feels really different.
Stephanie:Yeah, it does.
Maren:And that's essentially the conversation. He didn't use those words, but that's essentially the conversation that my coach had with me. That was like, yes, as you become more aware and step into the next thing, there will be more things that you'll have to work with. That you'll, and when I say again, we can look at the word have to, I can say, oh, I have to work with that. Or there are things that I have with which I can work. So there are gifts there for me. We tend to go to the story of burden and overwhelm instead of opening the gift. I love that you said that about you know, like the the holiday time of opening the gift, of there's something of benefit there for me. And where is it? It's hidden in the words somewhere, it's hidden in the road sign somewhere, it's hidden for me. And yet we want to go la la la la, you know, like the what was the monkeys, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, right? Then we just want to cover everything and be like, no, I can't see you, no, I can't hear you, don't make me do it.
Stephanie:I know really like I often will say is like, well, what are we believing when we do that? Like, are we like you said, you know, are we believing that it's gonna make it worse? Like when people will say to me, it's like, oh, you own your own business. Oh my gosh, that must be such a like overwhelming thing. I'm like, oh my God, I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm a horrible employee. I'm terrible because I'm like, well, I see things differently, or I want to do this. And what do you mean I have to follow the rules? And what do you mean I have to stay within the... and I'm not saying... I'm just like looking at there are good and bad in everything that we do if you just stay on that level of good and bad in everything that we do. But if you look at you have one life, how do you want to live this one life? Do you want to live it in a beautiful cage? It's beautiful, it's a beautiful cage, it's beautiful, or do you want to spread your wings and fly?
Maren:And that cage is the fear.
Stephanie:Right. And it's like, oh, but this cage is good enough. It's beautiful, it's pretty.
Maren:It's the thimbles that you were talking about.
Stephanie:I got this little thimble. And I think we go, oh my god, but what happens if the door opens and I set myself free out of this cage? I might die. I might just fall to the ground and die. Yeah, well, that could happen. But here's the thing there might be some things you can learn in order to spread your wings, in order to learn how to flap those wings and and discover. And it's like, I don't think we ask bigger and big enough questions to ourselves, like the 'what ifs'. And I related it, I'm relating this to like, you know, being able to build a practice to be skillful, to become more responsible or the ability to respond greatly. I love that. And that is a practice that takes skill and it's worth it. And I someone was saying to me the other day, they're like, I don't think people want to be responsible. I don't think people want to be awake and aware and conscious and read their future. I think they just want to like, like you said, you know, na na na na stick your fingers in your ear and go, na, na, I don't hear it. And I think about this being in relationships or in life when we've had quote unquote red flags. It's like, oh, you know, the signs were there, wasn't gonna be a good relationship, but I ignored them. And after I don't know how many red flags, then all of a sudden I really got my heart broken. But what if you could catch those red flags earlier? Well, I don't want to, you know, part of us can go, well, I don't want to catch them because I just want to be in the moment. I just want to like experience it. Yeah, but that's like driving down a street and there's a sign that's flashing saying, slow down, detour ahead, men or people at work. You know, if you don't pay attention to those signs, you're either gonna take out one of those people at work or you're gonna fall into the hole, or you're, you know, it's gonna cost a lot to your car, to its damage, to the inconvenience. And that's true in our life, too. If we don't build the skill to look at the red flags, or to look at, you know, the signs and the wonders that are happening, and not judging them as right or wrong or good or bad, because then we get kind of concrete. We think it's like a concrete block. Well, we can't change it. There's a red sign and there's no other way. I have to go take the detour. Well, do you? Or maybe there's another way, or maybe you stop and you walk, or maybe the, you know, maybe there's so many different choices that you I don't think we give ourselves choices. We don't. It's an either-or kind of a choice instead of like you know, well, what if there was lots of different ways of looking at it or experiencing it or walking through it?
Maren:I want to go back to what you said about it's a skill. Because I think that people assume that you either know or you don't.
Stephanie:Well, yeah, there's that either or again, right? Right.
Maren:Yeah. And they don't think about it as, you know, our trades people understand skills. Anybody, actually, everybody who does work, we think of work as a skill. And that's, I have to learn this skill to be able to do my work, et cetera, et cetera. We don't think of our life, living life, as a skill.
Stephanie:Yeah, good point.
Maren:And so what might ... here's a great question. What might it look like if you were to live a more skillful life?
Stephanie:Yeah, what a great question. And what would you need in your life to make it be more skillful? Like, you know, are there individuals that you would maybe recruit to help you build some skill? Or where do you need to go? To even understand what that means for you. Right. Like we kind of look at it as a way of like, oh, this is the job I want to have when I grow up. So therefore I have to go to college or university or trade or whatever. We don't tend to look at it as our life of like, well, what is it that you want out of life? Well, I want more peace or I want more joy and happiness or health. Well, there's going to be certain skills you're going to need to develop in order to get there. Where do you need to go? Who can help you? What kind of skills do you need? These are great questions that we don't look at it. I think, and it's not concrete, there's just one way to do it. There's many, many ways to unfold that in your life. There's many possibilities.
Maren:And it has to start with the willingness to unfold it. Because if you are going through life with your hand fingers stuck in your ears, la la la la la, I don't want to hear you right? Kind of like I was, I was approaching, you know, something that I've been wanting for most of my life is starting to change in me. And I'm feeling the change and it got scary. And so there is, I knew that there was a part of me going, oh my God, I don't want to go there because that's scary as all get out. And so I took it to my coach and said, I want to talk about this. I need help. And there's again, skillfulness with life, right? I wanted to be skillful. I didn't want to go back to who I was. And I was scared to go forward to who I'm becoming. And so, what do I do with that? How do I deal with that? I didn't want to go through life with my la la la la la. I can't hear you in my ears, or you know, like I putting my hands in front of my face. And so it started with a willingness to even recognize that, like, yeah, I'm in this no man's land right now where everything that I've said that I want is right there on a platter in front of me. And I am scared to move forward into it. And it did come from, as I said earlier in the conversation, from that fear of, oh my God, I'll be responsible then.
Stephanie:Right.
Maren:And at the same time, I will have the ability to respond then.
Stephanie:So I love that. I love how you're switching it around because I think, you know, to ask ourselves and to ask each other. When you hear the word responsibility, you know, what is your relationship to that? It's a great question. You know, have you had people in your life that were supposed to be responsible and weren't, were neglectful instead? Or, you know, we vote people into power or, you know, support people who are supposed to be responsible and they're not. And so what do we tell ourselves? I think there's a whole lack of trust in that too. And and that equates sometimes, we bring it inward to ourselves and it's like, well, I don't trust myself with that much power. I don't trust myself with that much responsibility. I don't trust myself with that much money. I don't trust myself with that much, you know, love or capacity. So we go back to the thimble and say, I'll just take that, thanks. I can deal with this. So what do you have to say about that, Maren?
Maren:Well, it starts with the willingness to look at it because that's a vulnerable place. To be willing to say, hey, I recognize that I'm the problem. Yikes.
Stephanie:Yeah.
Maren:And the power in that is that if I'm the problem, I'm also the solution. And there's a... I guess I'm full of quotes today. There's a quote by Marianne Williamson that says something around like, we're not truly... our true fear is not our inadequacies. It's our power, it's our light. It's recognizing how powerful and filled with light we are. And I think that's true. And we hide behind our inadequacies and we say, oh, I'm so scared of that. I'm so scared of that. And what would it look like to switch that around and say, what if I'm really scared of my true power and what I could bring to this world and to myself and to my family, to those that I work with?
Stephanie:Yeah. What if you were not afraid? What then?
Maren:And I think that it does come from a place of not trusting, and we've been trained to not trust. And I think that there's a difference between discerning and so... I was about to say a difference between discerning and not trusting, right? So it's important for us to be discerning and not just blindly go through life. And it takes us full back circle back to what you were talking about earlier of people being unwilling to look at the signs. And they're gonna either plow through the sign that says, detour, you know, men at work, people at work, you know, and hit those people or cause damage to themselves or cause damage to the car, or they think the only option is to take the detour. So it's this or that. There's no, okay, well, what does that detour mean for me in this moment? And taking my own power, my own autonomy, and saying, what can I do with that? What does that mean for me? You know, that's where we build trust for ourselves is by asking those questions and by stopping in each of those moments and saying, hmm, okay, that might be for me, that might not be for me. How will I know? We start, we have to start the conversation.
Stephanie:I think also trusting not just ourselves, because that can be kind of looking, navel gazing at times. That's a part of it. But I'm even thinking like trusting something greater. Some something that I always say, like in my yoga class when, you know, who put that air in your lungs? Who's making your heartbeat? That's kind of Rumi quote, too, you know? Who sees with your eyes, who hears with your ears, who speaks words with your mouth? Like, who is that anyway? Like, there is something, there is an awareness that is present. I mean, there's all kinds of different names that many different faiths or religions or belief systems believe in it. And you can find your own, but it's like when there is something that we believe in, something greater than just ourselves that is going on that has us incredible guidance and hands behind it. There's something that helps me rest and surrender. Like you talk about being vulnerable. I need that in order for myself to be vulnerable. That there is something going on that I can't see or know. And and I think going back to that, you know, why do we not want to know? Why do we not, why do we want to stay ignorant? We think ignorance is bliss when it's not. It's like we miss those road signs, we miss those red flags in our relationships, in our life. Our work. And then next thing you know, I mean, how many times have we heard this before? Is when people say, Oh my God, I didn't see it coming. It just, you know, it just hit me. It totally sideswiped me. Well, I don't want to be sideswiped. I don't want to be. I want to see it coming. I want to be able to go, oh, it's coming. Okay, step out of the way.
Maren:Right. You know. Because the only way you can be in choice is if you see it coming.
Stephanie:Right. And it's not about trying to figure everything out, but it's it's being able to pay attention. And to me, that's where I go to somewhere relying on something higher than myself, going, there is an awareness, there is a conscious that that deeply loves me and cares for me and leaves me little breadcrumbs and signs and wonders. It's up to me, though, to build the skill of life to pay attention. But not to be, not to be skeptic, not to be, you know, some sort of, you know, hard ass kind of, I don't trust anybody kind of thing. It's it's just like, oh, being curious, going, huh, that's interesting. I wonder what that means. And staying in the not knowing, but being able to also hold the question and be present to the answer that might be coming. And that's not a skill that is taught. And I, you know, I was in a meeting last night and somebody was asking all kinds of really great questions. And I was just in awe and wonder of like, wow, I want to be able to ask really good questions. Like, I don't even know the question to ask sometimes. Like, that's so cool. Those questions, right?
Maren:That's a great skill.
Stephanie:And that's what I think of. It's like, that's a skill I would like to have more. And that's been something that's been on my skillful list for a long, long time is to ask better questions, which allows me to stay in the uncomfortability and to let go of the old stories that I'm telling myself that might be causing me, like I said, about what I believe about responsibility. If there are old stories in there, there's no space or room for possibility to come in. There is no choice. Without awareness, you will not have freedom and choice. And everybody, it's as it seems, we say we want freedom and choice, but maybe we really don't. Maybe you won't want someone dictating to us, you know, what time we go home. Like, think about back to COVID. You know, you can't do this, you have to have six feet apart, you have to wear a mask. Yeah, like at first, everybody complied, and then after a while, people not so much, you know.
Maren:So it does often times feel easier to just like we're gonna go back to that word responsibility of like I'm not responsible. I was told I need to do this and I'm gonna do it, and then now I can put the quote unquote blame on somebody else. Well, the other thing that happens is when I put the blame on somebody else, then I also have no choice for myself. That means that I'm always under that, if you will, and I'm not developing my skill in being able to discern, being able to choose, being in charge of my own life.
Stephanie:You essentially just gave your power away to someone you just blamed. Exactly. And that's I think that's a real key. If you catch yourself blaming someone, you just you're literally giving them your power. And then of course the blame returns back into shame. And that's where we literally, yeah, that's where we literally weigh ourselves down. And again, we we erode our powerless, you know, we make ourselves powerless.
Maren:And to make it practical, even more practical than that, is that when it returns to us, it returns to us in we start to feel it in our bodies when you said it weighs us down. So it could be showing up in your body as literal weight, it could be showing up in your body as dis-ease, which we call illness. It could be showing up in your body as migraines, it could be showing up in, you know, in a a string of bad relationships, you know, like it doesn't just magically go away. Just because we're ignoring it, does not mean it goes away.
Stephanie:I'll tell you, I think this is all coming up because we've just finished the 12 days of Christmas just a few weeks ago. And it's something that we as a Soulful Leaders we have as a yearly practice every year. So, you know, if you missed it, no worries. It's gonna come about again. Look for us this December, every December, actually. And it is a practice that I've done and Maren's done for a long, long time too, but I've done for like decades. And I still don't feel adequate. And I think that's the other part of it in our society. We think we have to reach a certain level and a certain level of excellence or proficiency or... and I want to empower you all that are listening to let that go. Like, what if the skill of life was never ending and it was good, it was enjoyable? Like it doesn't have to be a burden. And so rewiring our inner thought processes that it's okay to make mistakes, it's okay to ask questions, it's okay to be vulnerable, it's okay to have someone to help you and support you, it's okay to receive and to give. Like, what if everything was actually really great and it was helping you build skill, no matter what?
Maren:No matter what I want to say, it's actually better than okay for all of those things. All of those things are what we actually are striving for. They are what make an exceptional life. And if there's any part of you that gets excited about an exceptional life, then you don't want to be shuffled along with everybody else along the same stream and down the same detours.
Stephanie:But I'm wondering even if we even know what an exceptional life is.
Maren:We don't. We're exploring that. It will be different for every single one of us.
Stephanie:So, and for all, yeah, I mean, what does that even mean? What would you like it to mean in your life? I think, you know, I'm, you know, we're posing lots of different questions. And I love the questions, you know, to allow those questions to just percolate within you and let them be conversation starters with other people. Like have those conversations. Not to... not to get to the answer or to figure it out, but to open up possibilities for you.
Maren:And to go back to the very beginning of the conversation where it's mid-January and we're starting to go 'Pffft' about our goals. When we stay in the quest, in the question, in that place of possibility, that opens the door for the excitement of the goals that we're setting to continue. So we get less bogged down and we actually achieve more because we're in that quest. It may seem ass backwards, and it's actually not. What we've been doing as a society is the stuff that's backwards. So yeah. And if you're interested, as you know, we do our podcast every other week, or maybe you're new and you don't know. So we offer a podcast every other week. In those in-between weeks, you can find a blog post from us and we send it via email. So head on over to our website, tslp.life, and sign up for our email list. We never spam, and/ or watch us on YouTube. So you can find us, you can see our little talking heads on our YouTube channel channel, which is the Soulful Leader. You can also find us on Facebook and LinkedIn under The Soulful Leader. And we look forward to hearing from you, getting your feedback. What would you hear love for hear us talk about? Do you have a subject in mind? Let us know. See you in two weeks.
Stephanie:And that wraps up another episode of the Soulful Leader Podcast with your hosts, Stephanie Allen and Maren Oslac.
Maren:Thank you for listening. If you'd like to dive deeper, head over to our website at www.thesoulfulleaderpodcast.com.
Stephanie:Until next time...