162. The Conscious Leader's Voice
"Until you make the unconscious conscious it will direct your life and you will call it fate." This quote by Carl Jung sets the scene for this episode.
Join me for an incredibly interesting conversation with Conscious Leader coach Camilia Berrada.
You'll learn:
The definition of a "conscious leader."
How a conscious leader uses their voice.
The importance of your physiological state and how to change it.
How your business moves in proportion to the healing work you do on yourself.
Transcript
Hello. Welcome back to That Voice Podcast. We are up to number 162, can you believe? And today's episode is a real thought-provoking one. I'm chatting with Camilia Berrada. Her Instagram handle is such a vibe. It's the butterfly emoji. The butterfly is my spirit animal, so love that. And then it goes on to say, fire-walking, seven to eight figure CEOs into full body rebirth, inner freedom, and 10 x ROI. Oh, yes, please. And what struck me in my conversation with Camilia we initially met over Instagram was her thoughts around conscious leadership. So in this episode, we dive into what is a conscious leader and how do we become more conscious speakers? Our conversation dives into consciousness, healing work, and of course, our voice. Before I bring in Camilia, just a reminder, as a listener of That Voice Podcast, I'd like to offer you to join my Fear to Fierce program for just $99.
It's normally $333. In my chat with Camilia, we speak a lot about the importance of being able to connect with your body and change your state. And this is exactly what Fear to Fierce takes you through. The link is exclusively in the show notes of this episode. If you want to up-level your mind, body, and voice, this course is an absolute no-brainer. The exercises I take you through are exactly the ones I practice on a regular basis, and they work. So if you are a longtime listener of the show, there's a time for listening and a time for doing. So take this as your nudge off the cliff to take action because listening to a whole bunch of free content can feel like you're doing the work on yourself. But if there's something I know to be true, and actually Camilia touches on this as well, people who really make gains in their lives and their business invest money in themselves. And as mentioned for you as a listener, Fear to Fierce is just $99, which is less than 150 Aussie, including the tax. And if you do the exercises, you are guaranteed to move out of that state of fear and into that state of fierce and confidence when it comes to your speaking. So pause here, go and grab the course and come back for this episode about the Conscious Leader's Voice.
Sally:
Camilia Berrada, welcome to that voice podcast. So great to chat to you again.
Camilia:
Thank you, Sally. It's good to be here.
Sally:
Whereabouts are you at the moment?
Camilia:
I'm currently in London, which is home as, as much as I can call it home. I've been here 12 years, but there's been a lot of travels in the last six months, I would say.
Sally:
Yeah, it's so interesting. So give us a little bit of a flavor of your journey. How have you come to be a conscious leader coach?
Camilia:
So I would say I've been predominantly coaching C-suite CEOs and executives for the last seven years. Mainly using Deloitte, which is a multinational consultancy as my vehicle. I needed to work for a large organization from a personal perspective cuz I'm originally from Morocco and I needed sponsorship. So the startup route didn't become available to me until a few years in. And I ended up working with leaders because I was quite frustrated at the time with the status quo and the lack of consciousness and the lack of conscious impact that people were having. So I was seeing like consulting as lots of people doing things without necessarily connecting to that why and having a very clear reason for how their contribution is coming out into the world. And I was always been obsessed with depth and quite driven by impact. So that wasn't an option for me. And I realized very quickly that the only place I could maximize and optimize for impact was at the top of those corporate structures. Because if you shift the way an influential leader thinks, feels, acts, and makes decisions, there is a ripple through effect to the rest of the organization. And I'm now doing that full-time under Loft, which is my private company umbrella.
Sally:
Yeah, love that. Obsessed with depth, what a great phrase. And yes, influencing organizations really is that top down, isn't it? So let's go into consciousness. What is a conscious leader?
Camilia:
A leader is just a human being that has lots of influence on people that they interact with, right? And in my case, I spend a lot of time working with corporate leaders. So CEOs have sometimes even more than 10,000 people who directly work for them. More recently I've also started working with entrepreneurs. So those people will perhaps have smaller companies, but they, they're still a leader in that if they're standing for a vision and they're trying to achieve something that's greater than themselves, then they'll be influencing a whole host of communities that might come as partners or consumers or followers any different shapes and sizes. So in a way, we all have that capacity for leadership and the capacity for building that platform. The conscious part is where it gets interesting because 99% of everything that we do is unconscious, right? So by definition it's not conscious.
Camilia:
Our unconscious mind directs our lives, directs our decisions. There's very little we can do to change that. What we can do though is become more aware of what's under the surface. And even though that ratio stay the same, we can elevate our baseline. So we all have, you know, a cliche Judy, that Aristotle would've called no thyself in, in that sense, awareness is one of the most important gifts we can give ourselves. And there's a quote I've shared with you already by, by Carl Jung, which I really love and hammers the point home. And it goes like, Unless you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. And it's this really nuanced place. It's quite tricky because we don't know what we don't know, right? But unless typically in my experience, leaders who are conscious are for whatever set of reasons, and usually it's some kind of trigger that's happened.
Camilia:
It can be a positive trigger, it's typically a negative trigger, some kind of crisis, maybe a serious loss loss of health, loss of person, loss of job, loss of identity in some form that happens. And that essentially shakes up all of the beliefs that that individual would previously hold that they were living by. And it's quite a violent shakeup. So it acts as a trigger that almost awakes them to the possibility that perhaps they and their lives isn't exactly how they previously imagined or thought. And so there's this curiosity that emerges that almost becomes unstoppable because they were so convinced of certain truths which have now been proven false by whatever event happened. And they start to consciously explore themselves and reflect and introspect because they recognize experientially that there's been quite a large gap between what they thought reality was and what their experience of reality ended up being. So, so that's what I would say a conscious leader is. A conscious leader is one who's deliberate with their lives. It's one who knows they're on the path, knows there's key elements about themselves that they're not aware of, and that they're interested and consistent with the uncovering of what that means and how that practically impacts their lives, impacts their businesses, impacts their levels of wellbeing and health, and is committed to that journey.
Sally:
Mm. So good. And how does a conscious leader communicate? What are some of the qualities of the way they're communicating? So from what you've said, it sounds like it's very intentional, there's reason behind it. Is there anything else that you've seen in your time working with clients that those conscious leaders have in terms of their communication and their voice?
Camilia:
Yeah, so I've coached a really wide range of leaders. And when you asked me that question, what came to mind is some of the best on stage, some of the best speakers. I spent the last 18 months coaching 50% of the UK's policing chief constables, which is the most senior rank of executives, the CEO equivalent. I worked with Kumi Naidoo when he was Secretary General of Amnesty International globally. And he was one of the most archetypal leaders I've worked with. And to give you guys a sense, for those who don't know him, he contributed to getting Nelson Mandela out of jail. And he's South African, originally he was part of apartheid and he's what I would describe very much as a servant leader. So some qualities that typify him are humility and very much empowering the frontline. So not top down like you were saying, quite bottom up, which is a really interesting model, which I'm a big advocate of, right?
Camilia:
To lead in a decentralized way, particularly in the large organization. And so this context is to say that there isn't trait that I would necessarily recommend. So like you don't have to be loud or soft-spoken or, you know, speak at a certain pace. You have to be you. To be you, it takes knowing you, it takes meeting you. And in terms of advice for how you might be able to speak most powerfully, there's two things. The first thing I would say, and it's the most important thing, and I think it applies to wider than just the voice, is your state. So what condition are you in, in the present moment? And some of that is just the basics, right? Like physiologically, are you working out consistently? How are you feeding yourself? Did you get enough sleep that night? Is there a huge amount of stress in your life, conflict in your life?
Camilia:
And you're not necessarily accustomed or familiar in handling that. Now, provided all the basics are there? They're still predominantly the majority of our population and the majority of the leaders I work with that I end up meeting at the beginning of our journey at least, they tend to be cut-off neck down. So they live in their heads and they're in their minds most of the time. We place such a huge value in society on the cognitive mind and our analytical capacity. And a lot of it goes through thought and words and our state goes beyond that. So the first thing someone can do to optimize the way they speak is to really connect and to focus on becoming present. And the easiest way to do that and to connect to the unconscious, right back to our theme of consciousness, the body is the first unconscious mind.
Camilia:
So how can you really get into the body? How can you connect to all of you, not just the brain part of you, and really slow down, you can use the breath and you can really almost develop this presence and this witness, I would say this observer quality where you're almost watching yourself while still connected to yourself at the same time. And that'll really, really help you use your voice as an instrument first top way. So state and using your voice as an instrument. And the second I started to talk about anyway, it's the running theme. Authenticity is the word that keeps coming through. And in order to have an authentic voice, and I know you do so much amazing work here, there's really something around knowing, knowing yourself, what is your message? What kind of impact are you trying to make? Who actually are you, what is the archetype of what you're embodying in the world? If you're conscious of that, it's going to flow a lot more easily. You're going to be able to express yourself in in a way that touches at a much deeper level.
Sally:
Oh, Camilia, speaking my language. Absolutely. I see this with the voice as well where we're cut-off at the neck. It's that overthinking and over worrying. And that's why the voices, the quality can sound very light and even high pitched. And it's using the breath to get back into the body, changing the state. That is what my Fear to Fierce program is all about. So if you're listening and you're wanting to learn how to get into your body for your voice and change your state, the link is in the show notes for Fear to Fierce. That's why I focus on that because it's so important. Once you can get connected to your body, as you say, it's not about being loud or being soft or being fast or being slow, it's about being truly connected with yourself and your message and the type of communicator you are.
Camilia:
Totally. And there's, there's something around that connection to self peace. I mean, you started saying it, it's so easy to be stuck in the thinking mind. And our brains are designed to think, by the way, to anyone who meditates, who's listening or it's been thinking that meditation's not for them. We're not designed to stop our mind from thoughts. It's really about developing that second of awareness where there's that space and you're able to watch the thoughts happen without identifying to them. And so it's almost like you're in a very subtle way shifting the center and the locus of awareness and where that's coming from. And to me, that that's what matters when you're, when you're talking about that connection piece and we can feel it, right? Like we can feel it when a speaker's speaking from their brain or they're not necessarily feeling the words as they're speaking them, versus it's coming from that more deeper intuitive place.
Sally:
Yeah, yeah. It's taking away that focus from, you know, what do I want to say to how do I want the audience to feel? Or what is the emotion that I'm conveying? Absolutely.
Camilia:
I've had a couple of sessions just this week with prominent business leaders. They're actually entrepreneurs who have recently scaled their companies quite quickly and they never gave conscious thought to the leadership or cultural or people element of things because they're tech companies. And, and typically I support them on transformational sort of topics. I've been helping them on scaling. Most of our work to date has focused on the business side of things because that's been more prevalent. But as we get into work, it becomes very, very clear that the individual consciousness of the person is really, really important and can often act as a ceiling, particularly if you're the leader, the CEO, the business owner, whatever term you want to use. And so unless you're doing the work on yourself too, at an individual level there's, there's a constraint, there's a bottleneck in your business because of that lack of awareness.
Camilia:
And this week, I don't, it must be the deep week, I dunno, but it's happened in all of my sessions. And we ended up going so very deep. And for example, one, one of my clients we, we did a really large somatic session and started off with a breath work piece and then did some movement. So really got into the state stuff that we were talking about. It matters for the voice and the presence element. And then from there we did coaching and there was so much emotional release. So quite a lot of emotion that was, felt, lots of tears. And when we were integrating after we came out of the practice, I realized that actually in that moment it was the six-month old, not the 45-year old that was crying and that was grieving his dad's death at the time. So it's quite an intense loss, an intense grief.
Camilia:
And this was sadness that he knew was there but he'd never connected to below the neck. He'd never actually felt. And if we build up the courage in a safe way, safety is always a portal to touch those more sensitive parts, go and meet those wounds who've, you know, curled up over the years due to whatever experience we've had. And grief can manifest in lots of ways, not necessarily just death change, any kind of change. We end up able to, instead of focusing on the event itself, relax the relationship and how the event actually formed. And in there you're able to, as a 45-year old be there and as a six-month old be there and as all the different versions of you and parts of you and much more than just your age hold yourself. And in that holding is where a lot of the healing is able to happen. So I know that's still a little conceptual without taking people experientially through that.
Sally:
Absolutely. And it's similar to the work that I do as well, you know, when it comes to what's holding the voice back, it's an emotion and it's an emotion that's usually not being connected to from somewhere in the childhood. So exactly what you described with your client is something similar to I had with my client yesterday. And the emotion was shame to do with the way that she was yelling at her mom as a child and she connected to that. It's so powerful.
Camilia:
Totally. And shame is such massive emotion. It's, it's such a big one that is often beneath the veneer of conscious awareness because we're not even realizing the way we're talking to ourselves. And it can be really obvious in the case of, you know, that I mentioned when you've lost a parent when you were a child, you know, big external events that people associate trauma to, but we're all traumatizing. You've just brought up an example, which I've met a lot of clients who feel it's not big enough to be traumatizing. So just that yelling with a significant other, you know, we think of addiction like people who are alcoholics and it's like, I'm gonna go and get the beer out of the fridge. Like that's a binary event. And in that moment, how I talk to myself matters. But it can be so much more subtle than that.
Camilia:
It can be the three seconds of disgust that I feel and it's non-verbal that's actually putting a pressure and it's preventing me from actually changing in my life. And when it's a thought pattern or it's something that we've been through in our past and we're not even necessarily aware because we're so cognitively capable and thinking has actually become one of our defense mechanism rather than drinking, it's a lot harder to identify and normalize because we think we're going crazy and no one really knows that we're having those thoughts except for ourselves. And even we only see a portion. Right?
Sally:
Yeah. Oh, so good. So my next question was going to be around, if you're listening to this and the people who are listening to this and they want to start being more conscious, what should they do? The answer seems to be do the work, work with the coach, get to the bottom of these feelings.
Camilia:
Of course, do the warrior work. And the warrior work doesn't need to be big, ugly, painful work. It can just be sending that really uncomfortable text and setting that boundary that for you is revolutionary because of that part that was touched and curled back all those years back. There's so many ways. Of course investing in ourselves is such an important part of our development. And I always recommend, you know, whether it's a therapist or a coach or a mentor or being part of a mastermind, being part of a supportive environment of like-minded people who are also aware of their blind spots and committed to their growth is a huge, has been a huge part of my journey, a huge part of anybody. I've supported this journey. But it's not the only thing you can do. The top thing I would absolutely recommend is to have some kind of mindfulness practice.
Camilia:
So whether it's meditation, whether it's trance, whether it's a mindful walk in nature everyday, but a moment to yourself every single day, no matter how short it is, it can be a short, it's 10 minutes if you're just starting where you are practicing being this witness, you're practicing observing yourself meeting yourself, knowing what it's like to be in your body, feeling temperature and tension and just getting used to reconnecting. Because everything we see is honed at helping us consume more and so many distraction. And we're seeing, you know, the whole AI revolution and technology advancing at a faster rate than we are able to invest in words. So having that daily practice and then having an embodiment practice as well. So something that helps you connect to your body. It doesn't have to be yoga, but yoga's a really great one. Yeah, I would say those are, those are almost non-negotiables. I don't know any successful leader who don't have some, some kind of mindfulness practice in their lives.
Sally:
Mm. Mindfulness practice, embodiment practice, absolutely love that. After this I mentioned I was going to Pilates, it's actually Yin Yoga, so it's a Yin practice, which is slightly less painful in some ways. So I'm quite looking forward to it. Camilia, thank you so much. Was there anything else you wanted to add?
Camilia:
I know there's so much out there going on and there's so much purpose talk. So I do a lot of purpose work and a lot of people are saying Find your purpose as an entrepreneur. It's important. And especially as you're starting out on your journey, it can feel quite overwhelming because at the end of the day, we have some short term needs and we need to meet some of those. And balancing that can be difficult. So if anybody wants a little bit of support in ac in an actionable way practical way, finding out how you might be able to reconcile that and how you even get started with all these things. I've got some free resources, so just send me a message either on Instagram or LinkedIn saying info and I'll be happy to share those resources with you.
Sally:
Mm-Hmm. And what is your Instagram handle? How can people find you?
Camilia:
It's just my full name. So @CamiliaBerrada on Instagram and same on LinkedIn.
Sally:
Amazing. And I'll link to that in the show notes as well. Camilia Berrada, thank you so much for coming on That Voice Podcast.
Camilia:
Thank you so much, Sally. It's been really lovely to share this moment with you.