Brenda Winkle of Your Yes Filled Life On Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Uncertain & Turbulent Times
Honor your needs. Rest when you need rest. Hydrate your body. Eat nourishing food. Move your body. The people you are leading are watching you and this leading by example will benefit you and your organization. You’ll also find yourself significantly more effective when your body is taken care of.
As part of our series about the “Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Brenda Winkle.
Brenda Winkle is an energy healer for high performers helping them to elevate and expand their missions through self-actualization, so they live from their full embodied YES. Through breathwork, somatic coaching, and energy healing for aligned leadership, they are able to create their YES-Filled Lives and move through their days with more freedom, ease, and joy. Try breathwork free: brendawinkle.com/breathe
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
Absolutely! I’d been an educator for many years when I discovered energy healing in 2015. I was instantly hooked and got training and then opened my business later that year. I worked in my business part time while I was teaching for about 7 years.
In August 2022 I pivoted and went full time in my company as an energy healer for high performers. I got certified as an advanced trauma-informed breathwork facilitator in 2023 and just graduated with a certification in trauma-informed somatic coaching. My background and master’s degree in educational leadership makes me passionate about the concepts of leadership and when I combine knowledge and experience with energy work it’s a powerful combination.
I support high performers (executives, educators, therapists, physicians, corporate trailblazers, coaches, artists, writers and entrepreneurs) to self-actualize using energy healing, somatic coaching and energy healing. I help high performers discern between their intuition and their intellect so they can stop overthinking. I help them expand and amplify their energy so that they can create bigger impact in the world.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I don’t know that this will make you laugh but it’s something you might relate to. When I started my business I was willing to turn myself into a pretzel to work with clients whether that meant holding sessions at times that were good for them but not good for me, convincing people to work with me, and even not being clear about payments which sometimes meant I was (or wasn’t) collecting money from people.
Even though I understood energy work, I didn’t understand that energy has no walls and that if I was doing things that weren’t good for me it was affecting the quality of my work. That was until I agreed to hold a particular session at 6 am.
Bleary eyed I woke up at 5 am to get ready for the 6 am session. By the time I finished that session, I had to get ready to go to work — this was when I was working my business part time while teaching full time. I worked the full day and I was utterly exhausted by the end of the day. It wasn’t until the next day that I realized the number of mistakes I’d made throughout the day before, including that I’d not been paid for the session.
That was when it hit me that if it’s not good for me, it’s not good for business.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
I was a single mom for the bulk of my daughter’s childhood. When she was a young teenager she told me that it was important that I find a life outside of her so she didn’t have to worry about me when she grew up.
At that point in my journey as a mom I was consciously putting aside a lot of my own dreams in order to be there to support her dreams. She could feel that while I genuinely wanted to be there with her, I also needed something of my own. I’m so glad she did because having your kids leave home is one of the biggest transitions I’ve experienced. If I hadn’t had momentum building to my current business I wouldn’t be here now. My daughter is now 23 and we still are very close, live in the same metro area and talk every day.
If she wouldn’t have encouraged me to pursue things that made me happy, I think I would have talked myself out of doing a lot of what I’ve done to stay home — waiting for her. She has always been wise beyond her years. I’m so grateful for her
Extensive research suggests that “purpose-driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your organization started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?
This has evolved over time. At the beginning my business purpose was to offer healing and hope and the vision included working in the business full time. As we evolve, so do our businesses.
The purpose of my business is to provide tools and support for people to self-actualize through 4 pillars: healing (mind, body, spirit), creating sovereignty and safety in connection through healthy boundaries, teaching presence and grounding, and embodiment so that my clients can move through their lives with more ease and joy.
The vision of my company is to reach millions of people through speaking, podcasts and my courses. Here’s why this matters. When someone is self-actualized, they are able to make decisions for the highest good of all. I think you’ll agree, we need more people working toward the highest good of our world.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion. Can you share with our readers a story from your own experience about how you lead your team during uncertain or difficult times?
I have a “no lumpy rugs” policy personally and professionally. This means that when something comes up that needs to be cleared, we have a conversation about it. Energetically, this keeps communication clean.
When there is something happening that isn’t being talked about, it erodes trust. Even if the conversation is difficult, trust is maintained by courageously discussing what’s coming up.
You can feel when something is happening between you and another person and it’s important to name that. Sweep out the lumps. Sometimes you’ll find that a team member isn’t suited for the team in this process and other times you’ll strengthen the bond between a team member and yourself.
I’ve found it’s essential to have the conversations as soon as I realize something is happening with the team and that waiting is always a mistake. When I say conversation, I’m referring to a kind, respect-filled discussion where curiosity leads.
Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the motivation to continue through your challenges? What sustains your drive?
I’ve felt frustrated. I’ve wondered if I needed to change something or pivot, but I’ve never considered giving up. I feel so connected with my mission and vision that it propels me through challenges. I know I’m here on this planet to create an impact and I believe in my mission with ever cell in my body.
If I hadn’t spent time to create my mission and vision, it would be a much different story. Having a big enough mission is essential to my long term sustainability.
I’m an author and I believe that books have the power to change lives. Do you have a book in your life that impacted you and inspired you to be an effective leader? Can you share a story?
I’m also an author and I love to read. I read a lot, several books per month. There were two books I read recently that have really impacted the way I think about being a leader: The One Thing by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan and 10X is Easier than 2x by Dan Sullivan with Benjamin Hardy.
Both talk about streamlining by removing things that aren’t moving you toward you goal. As I’ve implemented some from each book, I’m noticing that I have more energy, more bandwidth and that my clients’ results are skyrocketing.
Leadership is not about doing more. It’s about doing less while having more impact. This requires making decisions around what is worth spending your time on, where you need support and what should be eliminated from the proverbial to-do lists.
What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during challenging times?
One of the most impactful things I’ve done that’s grown my own leadership and what I’ve witnessed in other strong leaders is to tend to my nervous system. Incorporating breathwork and somatic coaching as parts of my day each day has had tremendous positive impact in my leadership. We can’t lead people where we aren’t willing to go.
When we want clear-headed decisions to be made by our teams or organizations, we can’t ignore the nervous system for them or for ourselves. We can only make decisions as well as our least healed part, if we have parts of ourselves we’ve ignored we can accidentally have our 8 year child parts making decisions for us. This is one of the reasons people experience stop-starts in their leadership and is a major cause of any self-sabotage.
Simply, do the inner work so that you can lead with clarity and integrity.
When the future seems so uncertain, what is the best way to boost morale? What can a leader do to inspire, motivate and engage their team?
Telling the truth and being transparent creates a feeling of safety. When there is a lack of safety, morale suffers while there starts to be side-bar conversations.
People need purpose, to know that their work matters and is making a difference, and choices. The more we do to communicate our appreciation for our team’s work and to provide meaningful work for them, the higher morale becomes.
When the future seems uncertain it’s easy to go into control-mode and to try to micromanage things. This is the fastest way to destroy morale. Hire well, train your team well, build them up with appreciation and give them meaningful work. The engagement will happen naturally with meaningful work.
It’s also important to say that when it becomes clear someone isn’t a match for the team that they be quickly released.
What is the best way to communicate difficult news to one’s team and customers?
We can’t predict how someone will receive difficult news. Coming into your own energy can help. Bring your energy into your spinal column, I call that the central channel. From there, ground yourself by feeling your feet on the floor. When you stay in your own body you’ll notice that you don’t take on emotions from other people. You can still sense their emotions, but you won’t experience them in your own body. This is step one.
For step two, I probably sound like a broken record but it comes back to telling the truth and being transparent. Sharing difficult news will always go better when you are transparent about what is happening. The minute you try to hide something, people feel it and you lose trust. Without trust, things can snowball in a hurry.
Consider the last time someone told you difficult news and was very transparent. Even if you didn’t like the news, you could feel the energy of truth and you took the news better, right? You’ll support your team and customers through this as well. Again, we can’t predict how someone will respond but you’ll know you’ve done everything possible to create a positive outcome even with difficult news.
How can a leader make plans when the future is so unpredictable?
Use structure and flow. The structure is the plans, the strategy, the actions you plan. The flow is responding to real time information and being adaptable and flexible. Both are important.
Without structure, the flow can keep make people feel ungrounded and it might be that things aren’t being completed. Without flow, structure can be rigid.
Make plans but be willing to adapt as information reveals itself.
Is there a “number one principle” that can help guide a company through the ups and downs of turbulent times?
Using your mission to guide decision making will create much more stability for your company in turbulent times. Are you spending your time and resources in a way that aligns with your mission? If not, how can you adjust?
If you are making decisions that align with your mission and still feel on the roller coaster of ups and downs, it’s worth considering if you’ve outgrown the mission. Could it be that your mission has evolved?
Times are changing quickly and as an energy healer for high performers I can tell you that the adaptability required now is unlike anything I’ve seen. This is a time to read the energy, come back to your own intuition and lead from there. If your heart and intuition aren’t connecting to the mission of your company, there’s great opportunity to shift that.
Can you share 3 or 4 of the most common mistakes you have seen other businesses make during difficult times? What should one keep in mind to avoid that?
- If it’s not good for you, it’s not good for your business. When things feel turbulent most of us become reactive. We can start making decisions that are out of alignment for our business in an effort to create some stability. For example, you might agree to hold appointments at times that you would prefer to be home with your family in an effort to get more appointments on your books. This will backfire because people can feel it when you’d rather be somewhere else.
- If your intuition is telling you something is off, trust that. We don’t want to micromanage but when you can feel something is off, don’t be afraid to start asking questions. Be direct. Be wiling to look at every area and level of your business and keep looking until you find the thing. If you think something is off, something is off. An example I was working with a CEO of a multiple seven figure company who kept having the feeling something was off. She didn’t want to micromanage so she kept asking questions that didn’t produce results. She kept feeling like something was off so she decided to go into each system and in five minutes discovered that a funnel had an error and was rejecting 80% of the company’s new leads. She trusted her intuition and caught an error that could have cost the company millions of dollars.
- Pay yourself. If you aren’t making an income from your business, you’ll quickly lose motivation to continue. Even if you are altruistic you deserve to be paid for your work.
Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should do to lead effectively during uncertain and turbulent times?
- Nurture a practice that supports you amplifying your energy. Breathwork, mindfulness, meditation, or yoga are all examples. If you want to try breathwork, go grab the free mini-course from my website with the link at the top of this article.
- Energy is everything. People can feel things under the conversation so using a high level of transparency and truth is essential.
- Get grounded before making decisions or having conversations. Be in your body. Have you ever driven somewhere and when you got there had no memory of the drive? That’s an example of how you can leave your body. Get in your body through somatic practices like breathwork before making decisions. Move your body and feel the sensations throughout your body to make sure you are embodied and make decisions from there.
- Be present. Stop the multi-tasking. There’s a lot of research to prove that multi-tasking is a myth, it’s really task switching. When you multi-task as a leader you are diluting your energy and impact and could even be damaging relationships. Do one thing at a time and watch your relationships and business flourish.
- Honor your needs. Rest when you need rest. Hydrate your body. Eat nourishing food. Move your body. The people you are leading are watching you and this leading by example will benefit you and your organization. You’ll also find yourself significantly more effective when your body is taken care of.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I’m a student of Abraham Hicks. “Everything is always working out for me” is my favorite life quote. When you believe everything that is happening for you is working out it changes how you view life. Everything becomes content for your evolution and you’ll find yourself happiner, healthier and enjoying everything you do so much more.
How can our readers further follow your work?
My website is the hub of everything. That’s brendawinkle.com. I’m on instgram and LinkedIn as Brendawinkle and those are my favorite social places to hang out. Come see me there!
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
Brenda Winkle of Your Yes Filled Life On Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.