Episode 214: How Can Meditation Impact Your Leadership Style?
You know meditation can help us slow down, tune in, and be more present. But have you thought about how it might benefit your leadership style?
In today’s episode, Erin takes you through her own leadership and meditation journeys, how she found meditation to be one of the most influential tools in her leadership toolkit, and how you can make it do the same for you.
If you're looking for a practical application of meditation practice to leadership development—this is the episode for you.
ICYMI – Your Post-Episode Homework: Share this episode with a friend and check out Erin’s I See You Meditation Album below.
Show Links:
Episode 49 of The improve it! Podcast
Get Erin’s free mediation here
Purchase the I See You Meditation Album
Pre-order Erin’s newest book, I See You! A Leader’s Guide to Energizing Your Team through Radical Empathy
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@itserindiehl on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter
Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the improve it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
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Episode 214 Transcription
Erin Diehl (00:00.474)
Improve It peeps! Welcome to today's show. I am so beyond excited to have you here. I'm Erin Dio, and on paper I am the founder and CEO of Improve It. I'm an improv comedy expert, a top 1% podcast host. That's right, the pod you're listening to right now. I am an author and a keynote speaker.
But on soul, I am a mom. I am a recovering perfectionist turned failfluencer and I'm your new director because every single day of your life is an improv scene. So welcome to the Improve It podcast. If you are new here, I am thrilled to have you. And if you are already an Improve It peep, welcome back to today's show. I'm so proud of you.
for investing in yourself by showing up, hitting play, and listening to today's show. So just speaking of shows, if you have not listened to last week's episode with Jason Redman, do me a favor. Go right now in your iTunes or your Spotify, save it and go back. It is filled with the juiciest nuggets of wisdom, all about self-healing.
through the lens of a former Navy SEAL who is using lessons from the battlefield to guide us today. Now, all month long, we're talking about self-love and this episode is as self-lovey as it gets, my friends. So this man, Jason, was shot eight times. He lost friends in combat.
He has overcome injury after injury, and he shares all of those lessons and his own healing journey with us on that episode on how he got back to self-love after all of that. So bring tissues with you as you press play on that show because I left in tears, but all month long, here in the month of November on the Improve It pod, you have heard from myself and from amazing guests who specialize in giving more self-love.
Erin Diehl (02:16.146)
and self-care to ourselves so that we can take care of others. We are adding this self-care to our to-do list, my friends, and we're taking you along for the ride. So let's go on in. Let's dive into today's episode where I am sharing with you how meditation can change your leadership style.
So.
I wanted to start this episode with a personal story. If you have listened to this show forever, or if you're new here.
You know somebody who has suffered through a struggle in their life, and you probably know a woman in your life who has struggled with infertility. One in eight women are affected by infertility, and I am the one in eight. I actually didn't really want to become a mother for a while.
I got married when I was 30 to my husband. I knew right after planning that wedding, I wanted to start Improve It. Now this is the Improve It podcast, but Improve It is the name of the company that I founded. And I knew I wanted that company up and running before I became a mother. So I waited a few years, so about three years. When I was 33, I was like, now's the time, let's go, John. We're having a baby, all right? We put the pressure on.
Erin Diehl (03:52.17)
And for about eight months, we tried successfully with no luck. And at month 12, I said, okay, we're going to get checked out. We're just going to make sure all the parts are working. Let's go check it out. So we went to an amazing doctor in Chicago, and I'm forever grateful to her because we realized after a series of tests that my husband and I share a genetic mutation.
which this genetic mutation, first of all, to share a genetic miscommunication with a partner is extremely rare. So I not only married the man who shared my genetic mutation, but who also shared it with a variable of the same mutation on the other chromosome. So one of my chromosomes has a mutation for JGB2, or GJB2, excuse me, which is the chromosome for hearing loss and deafness.
My husband also shares that mutation and also a variable, which means there's not a lot of research on this mutation on his other chromosome. So the probability of us having a child who was born deaf was 75%. GJB2 is a chromosome for deafness. It's not like you'll have hearing loss over time. It is deafness. And so...
You can imagine not only wanting something and not having it, but also knowing that you have this information, what do you do with it? How do you move forward? How emotionally exhausting it could be. And we realized that the only way that we can ensure that the child that we were going to have
would be born with the ability to hear was to go through IVF or in vitro fertilization. So I recorded an episode about this journey in full detail. I mean, it's extremely detailed. It is back to episode 49 of this show. I actually remember the name of the show wasn't even the
Erin Diehl (06:17.374)
So episode 49 is all about my failures in infertility and why sharing our stories matter. So I want you to go back, if you're really interested in the full story, I'll spare you all the details here, but you can go back and listen to that episode in detail. It'll be in the show notes. If you have a friend or a loved one suffering from infertility, please share episode 49 with them.
It can feel extremely lonely. You can feel ostracized from people with children. So if you have a loved one who is suffering from IVF, I'm sorry, who is suffering from infertility, having to go to the route of IVF or even IUI to have a child, send them episode 49. And you can also send them this episode because I'm gonna help give some tools to you and to that person who needs it today. So.
Getting back into the story, this, as you can imagine, was an extremely trying time. And on top of this, I was also about three or four years into Improve It to running this business. And I was trying everything I could to be everything to everyone. I was extremely burned out. I had absolutely no awareness or self-awareness about my self-care, about.
my mind and body connection. I had little to no morning routine. I had little to no moments of pause. I had go, go. And that was that. That was it. I had no awareness about my own energy and the energy I was bringing to others. And so.
Part of why I'm sharing this story with you here today is because I'm gonna guide you to a solution. But if my story is resonating with you at all, maybe you aren't going through an infertility journey. I hope not. But if you are, you're not alone and know I'm here, but you have your own struggle. So I want you to think about your own struggle in relation to my story. And I wanna share a story with you pulled from the new book that I wrote called,
Erin Diehl (08:33.31)
a leader's guide to energizing your team through radical empathy. And I wanna share with you one of the quote unquote sort of characters from the introduction to the book who is referenced many times throughout the book. And this character's name is Upset U. So let me start. We can feel energy everywhere and everyone.
Can you think of a time when you weren't emitting a positive frequency, when you were upset, rattled, discouraged, and those emotions spilled out to others? Of course you can, you're human. We have emotions and sometimes due to life circumstances, we go to the negative. Perhaps you rolled out of bed after hitting snooze on your alarm five times this morning and then you ran around your house as if you had hot coals under your feet trying to get ready.
You slammed drawers, shot toothpaste all over the counter while trying to get it on your toothbrush, and threw your clothes all over the floor like the Tasmanian devil while searching for that perfect pair of socks that was most definitely in the bottom of your cluttered drawer.
Since you took a bus to get to work, you would hop on the extra crowded 151 Express and stand in the armpit of a stranger for the next 20 minutes as you held on for dear life with one hand and fumbled with your iPhone and the other. It is not best practice to make eye contact with the armpit you're interlocked with. You get to work, you grab a coffee before racing to your desk and pray that your team didn't look at the clock to notice that you were indeed 15 minutes late again.
You sat at your desk and angrily opened your email because now you're sweating due to the coffee and winter coat that resembles a down comforter with a zipper. You angrily told off a vendor for trying to sell you something when you did not ask to be sold to. You had no formal plan for your day, but you picked up one of the seven post-it notes you left out as reminders for yourself the day before and started a task. Can you relate to upset you?
Erin Diehl (10:39.902)
If you nodded your head to any one of these situations, I want you to know you are not alone. All of us have been upset you at some point in our lives because, well, we are human. Upset you is a true story. Mine. This was a previous version of me. I know, you don't like to think of your professor in a negative light, but we keep it real around here. Side note.
author penmanship. You can read that in the book. Coming back to the story. Here we go. So this was an exact portrayal of how I started my day every day when I first became a business owner. I grew up living in this fight or flight mode and allowed it to be my normal existence. As I ventured down the path of leading a team, managing client relationships, and starting a business from scratch, Upset Me was present on every morning commute, every workday, and every major event.
Upset Me's mental and physical health was a constant roller coaster ride. Some days she took care of herself and was on the upward slope. Other days she relied on coffee, and more coffee to get through the day. Other days she would be on the lowest part of the ride with no clue how she could push herself to the top and over the slump. She would push and push until her body collapsed from exhaustion. Her family and team would ride this roller coaster with her wondering if we were going to gently climb the slope or fly through a loop each day.
I didn't love being upset me. However, at that time in my life, it was all I knew. I had just founded my professional development company and prove it was trying to start a family. After several years of infertility and a team that was constantly reacting to my stress levels, I realized that upset me had to go. By being this reactive frazzled shell of a person who ran from task to task throughout the day, I was resisting all the good that I could have been attracting into my life.
I was resisting attracting the right clients and the right people to be a part of our team. I was also resisting the ability to become a mother. Little did I know that I had to learn to mother myself before I could mother anyone else. Upset me needed to let go of the need to control everything, the need to rush through the day to accomplish and achieve without self-awareness of my mental or physical health.
Erin Diehl (13:01.906)
I needed to learn how to put my energy into myself so I could put the right energy out to my team and the people we serve. This shift did not happen overnight and I did not become a mother right away. However, through the eradication of upset me, a new person was born. Well, two, I guess, if you count my son.
And that my friends is from the introduction of my book, I see you that is called Welcome to Energy You.
As you can see, I have thought a lot about this period in my life and I realized that I could not keep going at this pace. I could not continue to have a fight or flight system that did not turn off. Then I could not keep from, or can keep continuing, I should say, collapsing and being sick and being exhausted and being mentally ill, but not realizing it.
I knew that something had to change. And this is what I wanna talk to you about today. Enter the scene, mindfulness and meditation practice. Okay, so this practice changed my life. And I went from upset you to upward you. And I wanna read you this portion of the book now. It is coming again from the introduction.
of My Book I See You, Welcome to Energy U, Meet Upward U. Introducing the enemy of upset you, Upward U. Instead of rolling out of bed and hitting snooze, Upward U gets up with your alarm. Upward U is excited for the morning because you've intentionally planned it the night before. You have your clothes laid out for your morning workout, you get 30 minutes of exercise and give yourself 10 minutes of meditation.
Erin Diehl (14:57.514)
You start your day by creating a to-do list because you know you need your creative time in the morning and your meetings in the afternoon. You set up your calendar with care and create boundaries with your meetings so you're not stuck in Zoom call after Zoom call or meeting after meeting every single day. Upward you can handle problems and conflict with grace because you have calmed your mind first. You go through the day acknowledging and authenticating others' ideas around you.
You ask questions and genuinely care about the answers as well as the personal and professional growth of the individual you're talking to. You close out the day planning for the next, you end with gratitude and give yourself intentional downtime to reset and recharge. Upward U has put energy into yourself first.
You have figured out how to manage yourself, your own energy and your vibrational frequency so you can expel energy into the world that supports and acknowledges others. You filled your own tea kettle first so you can pour into other people's cups. You've given to the most important person in your life, you first. I can officially say that Upset Me morphed into Upward Me after applying intentional effort.
until I how I showed up for myself every single day. These efforts took time to learn and were game changers in how I felt on a regular basis. These tips and tricks allowed me to show up as the best version of myself and are what I'm going to teach you during your time at Energy U. Upset me saw herself as stressed, overworked and busy, whereas upward me is calm, balanced and intentional.
Once I made the shifts to truly see who the highest version of myself could be, my vision and perception changed. I could see the real me, the person I was meant to be. I saw my flawed, imperfect, fun, lively, flossom, that's flawed and awesome self, and I loved her. I wanted to make her happy so she could fulfill her life's purpose, to show others how to truly see themselves too.
Erin Diehl (17:11.938)
I'm gonna stop right there. And I just want you to know, I'm a walking testament to mindfulness and how it can shift your life. I wouldn't be on this microphone today talking to you if I did not make intentional shifts in how I started my day, in the mindset that I keep, in the inner dialogue that goes through my head.
And this is just a side note. I was doing a morning workout this morning. Okay, so again, I'm upward me now. And I was working out with Robin Arzon on Peloton and she always motivates me. And she said, I have a mantra this year and it's I am a winner. And she's like, it's not that I'm winning a race. It's not that I am winning a trophy or I'm winning something physically. It's that I'm winning the inner.
dialogue in my head. I am in control.
Erin Diehl (18:19.714)
Take that in for a moment. She is silencing her inner critic by saying the mantra, I am winning.
Erin Diehl (18:29.566)
And that just stuck with me. And I knew I was gonna chat with you today and I wanna bring that into this discussion because I wanna give you some steps here to take with you. I like to give you tangible. I literally have three steps that you can take to make your mornings more mindful, to make your day more mindful, to create a meditation practice that can change the way that you see not only the world, but the way that you see yourself.
So here's step one. Create a space in your home that you can use for meditation and or mindfulness or stillness, whatever you wanna call it. Maybe it's a closet and you set aside a corner with a blanket and a candle.
or maybe it's a portion of your room that you just put a tiny little space, like some flowers, a candle, a little blanket, and a pillow for when you want to meditate, but you have a space card out for you. I know this does not work for everyone, but in our home, what we moved to in Charleston, the room that is our master bedroom had this, it was supposed to be like a workout exercise closet. It's literally meant for a Peloton bike to go inside, so it's not big.
There was no clothing racks on it. And so I said to John, I'm gonna make this our meditation room. And I made it our meditation space. I put a rug and some pillows. I have quotes and pictures hanging on the wall that remind me of my spiritual practice. I have angel cards. I have my planner. I have pins. I have picture of my angels, AKA my grandparents.
and I have a computer where I keep an album of my favorite meditations. So that's step one, carve out a space that works for you to have a practice. It can literally be in your garage for all I care, but it is a space that when you go to it, you feel a sense of calm and relief. Here's step two. You're gonna start small. You're gonna carve out five minutes of your morning to sit and just be.
Erin Diehl (20:40.666)
Literally take out your watch, put a timer on for five minutes, and just sit. Do not have any alarms on. Do not check your phone. Do not check your Instagram. Do not check your email. Just sit. It does not have to be a guided meditation, but it could also be a guided meditation. Does not have to be. You can sit in the space you created. You could sit outside in the sunshine with a cup of coffee. The goal is to start small.
with five minutes. Here is step three. Once you master five minutes and you do five minutes a day for 30 days, 30 days is going to form a habit. So don't increase it after two days because you're like, I'm nailing this five minutes. No, give yourself the routine of going there five minutes every day for 30 days. And then give yourself more time. Try 10 minutes.
and then master that for 30 days and increase it to 15 minutes. Those are the three steps. Create a space, start small with 5 minutes, and then after 30 days, increase your time by 5 minute increments. That's it. You will notice in just 5 minutes a day, the shift in your energy and your daily energy.
Not just the five minutes post that meditation, this energy is going to be carried with you throughout the day. You will start to really feel it if you don't meditate for a few days or you don't have time for yourself to just be. So I am very structured with my meditation practice and I used to not meditate on the weekends and I realized I started having massive anxiety on the weekends and it's because I forgot one of my tools to calm my anxiety.
which is meditation. So I know the days where I don't start with meditation or have it in some form of my day, why I'm feeling anxious. And it's because I haven't done the thing that calms me down. Now, because of this, because meditation really changed my life, I used mindfulness to help me become this version of myself upward me, which is upward you. I got still. I listened. I received. So here's a big difference for you.
Erin Diehl (22:58.826)
Meditation is the practice of receiving. Prayer is asking, meditation is receiving. We all have an inner guidance system within us. It is up to us to take time to listen to it. We cannot listen to it when we're going from thing to thing to thing. When you are in upset you mode, you are not listening to your inner guidance.
When you are in upward U mode, you are in tune and connected with yourself, your inner guide, your inner being. I have received through meditations some of the most profound creative ideas.
Erin Diehl (23:47.326)
I'm being guided today to give you this talk.
Erin Diehl (23:53.862)
I know that might sound weird to a lot of you and I want to define that.
Erin Diehl (24:00.502)
because I have felt this inner guidance system for so long. It's been about six years since I started this practice.
I now know how to tune in without having to be still. I have to be still as well, but I know how to ask for my inner guidance system to come through and to channel what you need to hear. So if you press play on this episode today, know that this was meant for you. When I stand in front of audiences, when I speak in front of rooms, I ask whoever...
needs to hear this message to let it be heard. And I also ask for my inner guidance to shine through and shine brightly. And that energy is what the participants feel. That's what creates the workshops and the speech, the keynote speeches that I give. It's not me. I'm a vessel for my inner guidance here today.
because I know that meditation has the power to change lives. It got me through some of the darkest periods of my life. I used it through this infertility journey, all the way to creating this miracle baby boy, through the pandemic, through the loss and the grieving of a business that I had that completely changed, through the loss and the grieving of a mom who had a stroke and almost died.
through the loss of moving from one city to the next and the excitement that I had to have in this new place, but also the sorrow and the loss that I felt for what I left behind.
Erin Diehl (25:40.478)
It changed my life. I wouldn't be here today. I wouldn't know my own self-worth without it. And that's why I felt very called to create a meditation album. I felt very called to help you by giving you guided meditation to get you in a more mentally clear place, to help you become upward you.
These meditations are about five, sometimes seven minutes long. They're not long. So they're perfect if this is something new to you to start. I know it's probably shocking to a lot of you because this voice does not sound like it belongs on a meditation album, but somehow it works. Okay, we had a great sound engineer. So we're gonna put the link to that in the show notes. You can download it. It's digital directly to your phone or to your computer. So it is at your fingertips.
when you feel upset you starting to come up, when you feel anxious, when you feel like you're running the rat race, all you have to do is press play. And the best news is this is the most affordable thing we offer at Improve It. It's $11. It's 1111 Angel Numbers, which is just a small investment in your own well-being and your own empathy journey. Literally, I would give this away for free. But here's the deal.
I know that money is energy. So by you paying 11.11, you're putting energy into yourself. If I just gave it to you, it's probably gonna be one of those emails that sits in your inbox and you never open. But because there's 11.11 behind it, you're gonna think about it and open it. And that's what I want you to do. I want you to open the email. And if...
You don't want to spend $11 on this meditation. We're gonna have a free guided meditation, one of them in the show notes for you. You can start there. I just want you to practice this practice. Be still. Now here's the deal. Meditation and mindfulness can change not only the way that you show up for your friends and family, but here's the most important part because I know there are so many leaders.
Erin Diehl (28:02.11)
listening to this show. And it doesn't mean that you lead a team of people at work. You lead people in your communities. You lead people on teams that you have in terms of sports. You lead people in book club. You lead your family, okay? If you're a full-time stay at home mom, you are a leader. So these things can change your leadership style. They can make you more present. It can make you more mindful. It can make you more curious. It can make you more stable.
And it can make you less aloof. It can make you less reactive. It can make you less disinterested and less uncommitted. It changed my life. And I know it has the power to change yours.
Erin Diehl (28:47.03)
Here's my ask for today. If this episode moved you, if you know somebody who it could benefit, please pass this to them, please. All I want is for people to find this practice and incorporate it into their life, to be the highest version of themselves. Can you imagine the world that we would live in if people took time to really listen to their inner guidance and their inner voice?
how many less poor decisions would be made, how much more love would be given, how much more love would be felt, how much less hate there would be.
Erin Diehl (29:31.542)
That's my hope. That is my hope. Press play on the free God-Aid Meditation, get the whole album for 11.11 and share it.
Erin Diehl (29:44.554)
this book that is coming out February 20th, 2024.
Erin Diehl (29:54.154)
is a testament to my own journey, but within that journey, how it can impact you, how you can find nuggets of wisdom that can change your life for the better. I'm giving you everything I've got in that book and in this album. I mean, I'm sure there's more in there, okay? Like, look, could I dive deeper? Of course, but I dove so deep, I went to the bottom of the pool.
So I want you to know, you press play today, you're already doing the work. I'm so proud of you. Keep on failing, keep on improving, because the world needs that special it that only you can bring. I love you. If no one told you that today, know that I love you and know that I see you. Go get them.