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Heart First Leadership
Welcome to Heart First Leadership, the podcast that explores a revolutionary approach to leadership. In a world that often prioritizes success above all else, it's easy to find ourselves leading from a space of fear, doubt, and unworthiness. There is a new way!
Join me, your host Ryan Sawyer, and my co-host and wife, Heidi Sawyer, on a transformative journey as we seek to inspire and guide leaders, parents, and athletes to unlock the secrets to a truly fulfilling life—one that resonates from the heart. In Heart First, we challenge the conventional norms and embark on a voyage together, where heart-driven leadership becomes the compass for a life well lived.
Are you ready to redefine where you lead from? Let's dive into meaningful conversations, insights, and practical tips that will empower you to embrace a new paradigm of leadership.
Heart First Leadership
Navigating a Purpose-Driven Life: The Power of Leading with Your Heart
Have you ever felt the magnetic pull to something greater than yourself, to lead a life rich with purpose and devoid of the hunger for external accolades? That's what we're unpacking today, as we journey through the philosophy of leading with your heart first.
An open-hearted invitation to alter the course of your life. We discuss how ditching life's clutter in favor of authentic relationships, impactful actions, and leadership rooted in compassion can lead to a sense of fulfillment that can't be measured.
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Hey, welcome back to the show today. I am going to just have a quick conversation here about what does it mean to lead with your heart first. Some people have been asking me if this is a religious thing. And it is not based in any sort of religion, but it is the idea that we're going to live our lives from the inside out. And what does that mean? Living my life from the inside out means that I do not need approval, acknowledgement or achievement from the external world to feel the way that I want to feel about myself and about what I'm doing with my life. I think that we get really, really conditioned to be so externally focused in our world today and so driven by materialistic achievements that this is about a pursuit, a pursuit of meaning over materialistic achievement. That's what it means to lead with your heart first is that I'm in a pursuit and this actually helps to create more resilient human beings is when you're in pursuit, or committed to. The pursuit of meaning or purpose in your life is more important than the acquisition of a role, a title, a certain achievement, accomplishment. And so, to go back to where I started this conversation is, people have been asking me if this has some sort of religious context to it. It does not, but it does have a very clear connection to God. This is how I help to keep myself in a place where I'm leading with my heart. First is to spend time and to cultivate that relationship with my higher power.
Speaker 1:To lead with your heart is something that can feel uncommon or unfamiliar and unknown. It can feel almost like a threat because you're not necessarily leading in the same way that is being modeled by the rest of the world. It is a commitment to taking your eyes off of yourself and place them on others in a way that is not just about service to feel good, but taking your life circumstances, your life struggle, what you've overcome, what you've seen, what you've done, and taking all that and getting really, really clear about what is that you can bring to the world that is completely unique to you, that nobody else has the ability to bring to the world. Because that's the truth is, we all have something. We all have something that makes us absolutely irreplaceable and unique, and the only thing that leads to that purpose is the pursuit of meaning. The pursuit of meaning is the pursuit of the meaning of are your individual life based upon everything you've ever experienced, seen, heard, been conditioned to your social biases. All these things give you a very specific experience that you're going to be able to bring something to the world that is uniquely yours.
Speaker 1:What ends up happening is when we pursue meaning, pursue a meaningful life, by determining what we're going to make things mean as they unfold in front of us. That commitment and the pursuit of meaning is what leads to a life that we call purpose. Well, now, it's very clear to me, because I am in complete commitment and alignment with the meaning of my individual life, that it leads me to some sort of specific purpose in life. It doesn't matter what age you are. It doesn't matter if you're 10 years old or 80 years old. This is the point. This is why we're here is to pursue meaning. So it's about keeping that first, and it's just so easy, and I recognize it for myself.
Speaker 1:This is why I wanted to do this with the podcast was because the new year comes and we set big goals, and some of those goals are financial goals, let's say, and some of them are business goals and some of them are relationship goals and fitness goals. When we put all these goals on the board, what we quickly recognize is they're all somehow externally focused, they're all somehow having to do with things that my ego is really really proud of or that make me feel better about myself or my life. Because, hey, look at my watch board apps like who cares? Look at the success I've had in business who cares? Look at what I want or what I achieved who cares? Those things are a part of our human experience, but in themselves they are meaningless. So leading our heart first is that we are going to first put that in the forefront. Pursuing meaning taking everything that's unfolded in front of us and deciding what we're going to make. That mean to build ourselves to be stronger and more resilient, which then will naturally and spontaneously lead us to a life that's filled with purpose, connection, autonomy, a sense of self. What will end up happening is that your physical well-being will be also taken care of.
Speaker 1:These are the basic human needs and, rather than trying to do it the way, everybody else in the world is doing it, meaning that we're leading with first making sure that I have everything that I need to be okay, making the amount of money that makes me okay. I have the connection, the relationships that make me okay. I have the sense of self and the identity and the role that makes me okay. That's one way to do it, but I'm saying that we're doing it backwards and this is a new realization for me, to a new level. And this is me speaking it to you to hold myself accountable. So you'll see me wearing my heart first shirt. You're seeing me interviewing people who I come across that are clearly leading with their heart first. So I have to stay accountable to that and I have to leave with my heart first, because when we pursue meaning all the other people, pieces of our lives that we have as needs, as human needs, the gym may just fall right into place. It's almost like we're given our sense of self. It's almost like we're given connection and it's almost like we're given and we all we have to do is receive the physical well being.
Speaker 1:I don't have a specific agenda, but I am saying this is a faith conversation. It's your ability to take your eyes off yourself and place them on something much greater. It's much larger than just you. So one of the ways that we talked about Heidi and I chatted about with worthy challenges in a couple episodes ago maybe it was the last episode, I can't remember doesn't matter. How do we pursue meaning? We have to first start off by knowing that there's room for growth, that we're going to challenge ourselves and we're going to pursue the growth of our consciousness, the growth of our soul from the inside out. Not the growth of our ego, not the acquiring of more mere materialistic things, not the acquiring of a specific role or title or job or amount of money or a vehicle or another home, not the things that are going to make our ego OK, but the pursuit of challenges that stretches us across these realms of physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, that allow for us to let go, allow for us to surrender and dissolve this part of our ego that gets us in the way of being able to live with our heart. There's something so much greater for all of us in store, potentially even already planned, if we live with our heart and letting things unfold.
Speaker 1:I will give you a bit of a disclaimer that if you're going to truly live with the heart, you're going to have to be in the unknown and it's going to test your faith. If it's a function of you saying that you have faith, then practice it. Don't tell me. Show me. That's where I'm at in life. I want to practice my faith, not just say I believe. I want to step into my faith. I want to live my faith and I want to be on this relentless pursuit of meaning in life. Then it becomes incredibly easy and clear what is the external, relative thing that I'm supposed to be doing, that we call purpose?
Speaker 1:But, first and foremost, to live with our hearts is to pursue meaning. This is an invitation, an invitation for you to see is there a way in your life where you can make an incremental shift towards leading with your heart? Is it in relationship or business? How can you take your eyes off of yourself, off of your preferences, off of the things that you cling or attach to, off of the things that you are driven by by fear? To recognize how you are operating from the outside in needing certain things out there to be a certain way for you to be okay, and how we tend to do this as humans, if we don't every single day orient ourselves from the inside out to live with our heart First, we naturally are going to be drawn to the external world. Whether now we have to make a certain amount of money to be okay, we have to have a certain role to be okay, and I'm just inviting you to explore that. There is one way, some way that you can begin the process of operating more from the inside out and leading with your heart first. What would that look like? How would that feel? How would you treat people, how would you carry yourself, how would you walk, how would you talk? And begin to rehearse and practice that and just try it on and see how it feels, and then begin to observe your life and make it like an experiment.
Speaker 1:If you know anything about me, you know that I like to make my life an experiment. You know, for the last decade of my life this is what I've done Is that I've been on this incredible journey of exploring consciousness at very deep levels to uncover, to unhide who I truly am, and I'm committed to that path. So everything becomes an experiment when I set one type of goal versus another. What happens in there? What makes me afraid or scared? What can I let go of or surrender? What can I embrace and pursue? That's going to lead to a new experience of life, a different experience of life, a more fulfilling, joyful experience of life, a more meaningful experience of life, a more pursuit to suck the juice out of the experience of life and becoming more and more impatient with anything or anyone that steals that that we need to pursue meaning, because the current state of our society, from a mental and emotional well-being perspective, is not a function of grit and discipline. We don't need more discipline and grit. Let me show you. Are those things beneficial? Yeah, they can lead us somewhere, but what I'm here to promise you is, when you pursue meaning, the discipline follows. The grit is the outcome. When you know exactly why you're doing what you're doing and you're in pursuit of the meaning of your individual life and you're able to decide what you're going to make the circumstances unfolding in front of you mean and that continues to build and construct a concept that is built upon principle that is much greater than your egoic self, you become gritty, you become consistent, you become steadfast in that pursuit.
Speaker 1:Our society needs more meaning in our lives. We need to declutter our lives so we can pursue meaning, so we can explore more. So to be heart-first is a conversation that I'm going to continue to explore, that I'm going to continue to attempt to live that. I have not perfected it, not even close. Little short, just this week where I can clearly identify hmm, got caught up, got caught up and out there, I got caught up in the things that don't matter and that's just it.
Speaker 1:We recognize when we're caught up in the crap that does not matter and to begin to prune, to declutter, to eliminate everything that does not absolutely matter, and you know what's left.
Speaker 1:The only thing that's left is leading with your heart, the people that you love, and impacting others, taking your eyes off yourself, place them on God, place them on your loved ones, place them on your community and lead.
Speaker 1:We need this in parents, we need this in coaches and sports and competition.
Speaker 1:We need this in business and leadership to truly be in a conversation that explores heart-first.
Speaker 1:So this is an invitation for you to again one more time I'm going to say it one more time explore what is one way that you can clearly see that you're out there in the world, that your sense of okayness, worthiness, is wrapped up in a identity, a role, an outcome, and to check yourself, look yourself in the mirror and make a commitment to yourself to begin to shift towards a pursuit of meaning and leading with your heart first. So I'm excited to continue this journey with you and reach out to me if you want to have conversations about art first, or if you're somebody who's had an experience in your life, a circumstance in your life that has caused you to wake up and drastically shift from being out there achieving approval, acknowledgement from the world, and brought yourself back to orient from the inside out and lead from your heart, and you're now continuously leading from your heart. I want to interview you, I want to get to know you. So thank you for your time and we'll see you soon.
