Seasons Leadership Podcast
Join Debbie Collard and Susan Ireland, co-hosts and co-founders of Seasons Leadership, in making positive leadership the norm rather than the exception. On the Seasons Leadership Podcast, we will bring you practical, actionable advice you can apply now to improve your leadership - and life. Join us on Wednesdays throughout the seasons.
Selected by Feedspot as one of the Top 15 Positive Leadership Podcasts on the web.
Seasons Leadership Podcast
Summer fun! Embrace every season of your leadership
Join us for our high energy discussion of the season of summer and get inspired to make the most of the season. We talk about the cyclical nature of the seasons, define summer and encourage you to ride the ebb and flow. We dive into how summer vibes bring a sense of flourishing and fun. Summer is a great time for discovery and cultivating new ideas and inspiration. Need more inspiration? Listen to our summer playlist and send us your additions - we would love to include your favorite songs of the season. We also preview what is coming next for Seasons Leadership - three new Leadership Elements for our Patreon community (join today!) and our Elemental Leadership course. Listen in or watch and get in on the summer fun. This episode is packed with valuable lessons to help you embrace change and make the most of every season in your leadership journey.
Resources:
Seasons Leadership Summer Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/01sJYDm5FRlTvHTK9av0JH?si=fc09c36155d24e2d
Seasons Leadership Patreon Community: www.patreon.com/seasonsleadership
Summer Rerun | The Almanac | Seasons Leadership Program
Join Debbie Collard and Susan Ireland, certified coaches and co-founders of Seasons Leadership, in making positive leadership the norm rather than the exception on Wednesdays on the Seasons Leadership Podcast. (Selected by Feedspot as one of the Top 15 Positive Leadership Podcasts on the web!)
And now you can join our community of values-based leaders on Seasons Leadership Patreon at Patreon.com/seasonsleadership. At our gold-level, unlock our exclusive Lessons in Leadership Column from our Resident Seasoned Leader David Spong, a lifetime member of the Board of the Malcom Baldrige Foundation and our Leadership Elements Series.
Welcome everybody to the Seasons Leadership Podcast, where we are committed to leaders everywhere, at all levels, who want to make progress on their leadership journey. We will bring you actionable advice to improve your leadership and life today.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining us. At Seasons Leadership, we share a vision to make excellent leadership the worldwide standard. Learn more at seasonsleaderseadershipcom. Welcome everyone, and it's time for summer, yay, yay. At Seasons Leadership, we use the seasons as a metaphor for leadership and life.
Speaker 1:We can learn from the natural world and apply this to what we are experiencing to understand the cyclical nature of all things and also where we are in that cycle, right, right, not just the cyclical nature, which is helpful in and of itself to realize that, yes, everything goes around, comes around, get it but also where are we at a given point in time, what are we experiencing and that it's normal to be experiencing it, right?
Speaker 2:Well, it's change, right, life is change. Nothing remains constant and no matter how hard we try to do that. You know I love summer and I want to hold on to summer, but there is nothing I can do that makes it stay.
Speaker 1:Exactly, but it's somewhat predictable that cycle of change that's going to happen, right, and since we know it's somewhat predictable, why not use it so that we can live the best life we can and get what we want out of that life Right?
Speaker 2:right? It just the way that I like to think about this is these changes come in natural, predictable patterns, right? When you're in the middle of a season, and let's talk about a metaphorical season when you're in the middle of a season, say, in your career, it's nice, or what we like to think is like, especially if things are going well, if we're in summer, that this is going to stay the same way all the time. But then, as things start to change, you start to feel that shift. It feels maybe a bit chaotic and unpredictable, but if you step back you think like okay, this is just the natural way of things. It ebbs and flows and it's better to ride that ebb and flow than to fight it.
Speaker 1:It absolutely is, and that's why you have us. That's why, at the beginning of each season, we take a moment not only to remind ourselves, but to remind all of you, as our listeners, of what each season represents. And in the Northern Hemisphere, where we are located, we are entering summer, and how wonderful is that, at Seasons Leadership, we identify summer with the word cultivate.
Speaker 2:Right, I love that word too. Cultivate and fertilize what's going right? Right, we're discovering our work, our relationships. Uncovering our work, our relationships. You can start performing or continue performing and act on new knowledge and weed out those things that don't work for you anymore or just maybe have become irrelevant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know weeding. If you think of actual gardening and this metaphor we're using, weeding is something that not a lot of people like to do.
Speaker 1:It's like I don't want to go in there and weed things out and where, uh, a lot of people are really not good at it weeding things out. It's just like I'm just going to ignore that. Well, what happens if you ignore weeds in a garden? Yeah, they choke out the regular plants, right, the plants you're trying to cultivate and grow and fertilize and get grow, um, but you've got to, you got to do the weeding. You got to weed out what no longer serves you in this right.
Speaker 2:Well, and using the metaphor, I mean, we were like really pushing on this right, but in summer, so, as things are going well and you're watching your garden bloom and grow, you, you have to constantly weed, don't you? You can't just relax.
Speaker 1:No, you can't do it once and done it doesn't work that way. You gotta be looking at it, even though things are going well. Everything's blooming, you've cultivated, you're fertilizing. You have to get in there and get those weeds out regularly, right?
Speaker 2:right, well, and the thing about summer, which I think summer might be my favorite season, although every time we hit a season I think, oh, this is my favorite one too you just like change right.
Speaker 2:I I don't mind change, but it's kind of that summer has that summer kind of mindset where things are going well, the idea of it's sunny or getting energy, it's fun and relaxing and creative. It's there's that sense of flourishing. Yeah, that whatever you're working on within the summer metaphor season, it's flourishing, it's working well and I believe, like when you're in that, it's like really feel it and really experience it. Really get all you can out of it, because it gets, it brings, it gives energy and it helps you with your action. So it's like really really reap everything out of it because, as we all know, it doesn't last.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And before we get to that downer part of it, it doesn't last. When you're going through it, it's also what it brings up for me is fun and happiness and sunshine, and even if it's pouring down rain and I'm having another thunderstorm, it just I can still feel summer. I can still feel all this energy and what's going on. And even if I'm working and I've got a lot of work going on, I'm in flow. I don't I don't feel like it's bogging me down or it's a lot of work going on. I'm in flow. I don't feel like it's bogging me down or it's a lot of work until that change happens. But, as we've talked about, it is cyclical and it is going to end at some point, but we're just at the start of it. So let's talk about what's coming up for summer in Seasons Leadership.
Speaker 2:Right? Well, if you're a member of our patreon community and you're everybody's welcome, you'll get three elements during this summer season that will tap into this summer vibe, and all of these are taken from our elemental leadership course, so you get some bang for your buck there. In june, we're going to be talking about accountability. In July, control limits.
Speaker 1:And that's a fun one. It's not what you're expecting.
Speaker 2:No, it's one of my favorite ones, and in August oh, this is everybody's favorite and I think we'll maybe put a twist on it Is performance measurement and management.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and if you're not already a Patreon member one of our patrons on there you can go and sign up at wwwpatreoncom. Slash seasons leadership yeah yeah, and you'll also have the added benefit. All of our listeners will have access to the new seasons leadership elemental leadership course. It will be getting launched this summer, so stay tuned for that yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2:the key themes across summer are using metaphors around summer, summer's energy and natural symbolism to inspire and cultivate new knowledge, nurturing our personal growth and letting go what no longer serves us and embracing opportunities for reinvention and fresh discoveries, new stuff coming up.
Speaker 1:But also it's important to note that just because we're physically in the Northern Hemisphere again I know we have listeners all over the world and we're trying to be sensitive to that In the Northern Hemisphere, since we're moving into the summer season physically that doesn't mean that we will be feeling the summer vibes or the summer benefits in every part of our life. We can be in different seasons for different things in our lives.
Speaker 2:Right. This is really important because people are complex and we can have conflicting and confusing feelings about all different parts of our lives. For example, you may be in summer. For your career it's going strong. You know what you do best and you're leveraging that. You're contributing, you're weeding out the things that no longer serve you or that you just have moved or grown beyond serve you, or that you just have moved or grown beyond. Your significant relationship, however, may be in a different season. So your career is going strong, but your relationship might be in fall or even winter. It's waning and you feel that there's a change coming or you want to change and maybe it's a big change. Um, and that may be not the summer vibe feeling at all. You may be feeling a bit down about this. Um, that's okay. You know that's part of honoring whatever season you're in. Um, it just means recognizing where you are and making the choices and decisions that are right for you for that part of your life.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's how life goes right. We're in different places, in different parts of our life and thank goodness in a way. Thank goodness, because if we were in the same cycle, in everything all at the same time, that would bring its own kind of chaos, and we don't want that either. So thank goodness. We're complex.
Speaker 2:Right, right, but there's still a way that you can really tap into the summer season. So you might not be overall in the metaphorical summer season in your major life elements, but there is something that is so think about the different parts of your life. It could be your creative life or your spiritual life, or your relationship with a child or a pet or a pet. Think about that and really bring in that summer energy of fun and creativity and exploration. And while we're enjoying the physical summer season, like pull that into that portion of your life and really bring in that energy and that that really good feeling.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and and slow down. One thing about summer is you can slow down and ride the wave, as Susan has said. Often, savor those simple pleasures, engage in your creativity, your sense of play, in your leisure activities, whatever that means for you. And it's a great time for discovery, as we said, cultivating what you want to get out of life and out of your career and out of any aspect of your life and, you know, beginning to get ready to harvest those ideas as we phase into the next season.
Speaker 2:Right. So if you have a moment, listeners, listen to our summertime Spotify playlist. Get into the mood, have some fun, and if you have a favorite summer song, let us know and we'll add it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. We want this to be a cumulative playlist of everybody, and we haven't had any inputs in a while in that regard. We'd love to hear from you about what's a favorite summertime song that you'd like us to add to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So in the meantime, go out, enjoy the summer, cultivate what's important to you, have some fun, have some fun and we will see you back here regularly on the Seasons Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:Thank you, listeners, for joining us today. We hope that you were inspired by this conversation.
Speaker 2:And we invite you to join our community on Patreon See the link below. There you will find more resources to help you on your leadership journey.
Speaker 1:Make sure to join us next time for more conversation about leadership excellence.
