What is Your Calling?

Kris Plachy: I'm curious what you think about when I ask you, "Yes, but what are you called to do?" Let's talk about it.

Well, happy New Year. I'm so glad that you're here and spending a little time with me. My name is Kris Plachy and this is The Leadership Is Feminine Podcast. For those of you who have been around and you know me, I am a collector of all sorts of perspectives, all feeding into a general belief system and value system that really honors that we're humans and we have to figure out how to be better human behaviors and actions and connections if we want to be better leaders. We can't just make more money and focus on processes.

I mean, but the truth is there are a lot of people who just make a lot of money and they're really, really bad at interacting with and leading people and listen, that's okay. People who wanna work for someone like that, they should. If that makes you happy, get it. But in my experience and my belief, a very core belief of mine that honestly feels like ancient wisdom in a lot of ways, is that if you are called to people and a mission and a vision or a purpose, you have a responsibility that comes with it. And maybe that sounds very intense and heavy, but I think it's true. And so that informs so much of what I do.

I think y'all know I love a good Goddess card. I love the Oracle cards. I love Collette Baron Reid. If you don't know who she is, I have been what I would call a "practical woo" believer, follower, practitioner, intuitive for as long as I can remember. My mom and I used to go to psychics and read tarot cards and I got crystals. I do it all. I do all the things because I cannot accept the fact that there's not so much else going on.

I love my coach. She's by trade a numerologist, and she infuses what we talk about through the wisdom of the numbers. I love CHANI. I have my CHANI app. Which, I love her. She and I met a little while ago and I devour everything that she produces. I believe that there are a lot of influences on who we are, and I am quite empathic, so I pick up on a lot of sensory details. I think that not everybody does, and in many ways that's valuable for me as a coach, it's incredibly valuable because when I coach people, especially when I'm really like in Hawaii or I'm alone with you, or we're, you know, we're just, we're sort of in it.

I am a portal. I feel like I'm a portal for insight that I normally wouldn't even be able to tap and that they wouldn't be able to tap and then collectively we find this information that we both think, "Wow, that's really great." so I love that about who I am.

I also know it's quite noisy to be me, meaning I have a sensory input. I feel people's feelings. I hear people's thoughts. My nervous system requires a lot of maintenance, and that's why I'm very thoughtful about who I spend my time with and where I spend my time, and the kind of house that I live in and all the things, they all matter to me as I'm sure they do to many of you. And that's why you're here because you relate to what I'm saying.

So I was listening to a new book on New Year's Day. I was on a walk, it's called, "You Are a Goddess", by, Sophie. I will find her last name and share it with you. But her first name is Sophie. I bet you could find it. She's divine. And the book like, seriously, within the first paragraph, I was just like yelling, "Yes!" I was so excited. Sophie Bashford.

So it's a really good book if you are a firm believer, as am I, that feminine wisdom, feminine energy, feminine power is the soul of the earth Mother. And that we are living on a cusp of where, for centuries, the wisdom of women has been sequestered, suppressed, literally beaten out of people, castigated, shamed, all of it.

And that's not what this podcast is about, but I think it's important that you understand that I believe that. And I also want you to understand that I don't run around screaming "Smash the patriarchy," either, because I don't think that argument is as effective. Let's just look at what's the truth of what's happened to women.

We can't just point at anybody and say this is their fault. It's just that there are so many reasons why women have been minimized, and so it's not surprising that even now that there are women, I think I've said this on previous podcast. When I did my Leadership Is Feminine event a couple months ago, the only people that insulted the ad for the event were women.

They got mad that I was making the men feel bad. I'm like, I'm not making the men feel bad. I love the men. This isn't an either or. I love men who love women. Strong women. I'm not so crazy about the men who like their women, weak and domestic and passive. That's different.

So it got me thinking about how we talk about vision a lot and I realize there's a lot of what I teach you that is taught through the lens of masculine leader and energy, and that's not bad and it's not wrong. It just makes me realize the more I grow, the more I connect with what I do, the more I work with more and more women and I really see the long tail of the results of the work that I do with women - and it's, I don't take responsibility for it.

They get all the ownership, they get all the win. It's just that we found each other and we created this cocktail. And I'm so incredibly grateful for the women I get to continue to work with because what makes the relationship so synergistic is this equal balance of inspiration. You know, it's this little secret I have is that my clients inspire me. They tell me, I inspire them. I'm like, "Listen, sister . I think you're amazing." So that is so, gosh, it's so, so good.

So as I've evolved, I realized just even the core thing that I teach of vision, purpose, mission, these are words that were born out of leadership training programs and books and philosophies that all came out of men. And so as I was on my walk listening to "You Are Goddess" by Sophie Bashford.

I don't think women necessarily have the same language all the time, and it made me think about, all of a sudden I wrote down the word calling because so many of the women that I work with, they didn't decide they wanted to be rich, so what kind of business should they create, which I see a lot of men do. I think some women do that too. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

I just, the majority of the women that I work with have a calling and that to me has a divine element to it. Now, whether that divine is God, it's the universe, it's the goddess, it's Mohammed, it's okay. You get to believe whatever you want, love. And so do I. But I do believe that so many women are kissed with this divine calling, something that you are propelled. No matter what you do. You have to keep going. It won't stop nagging at you until you keep going.

So, whether it's - I remember I had a client who created superhero capes for kids who were in the hospital - come on, there's that kind of calling. And then there's the calling to make sure people have beautiful manicures, gorgeous skin. In my case, it's making sure that women who want to thrive in the world as leaders and have their own business feel amazing doing it. They thrive instead of just white knuckle survive.

When you think about what you do as a calling, then I have to ask you the next extension of that question is a calling is serving a soul. And is it fair that, if we think about women and the fact that women birth - every human on this planet came out of a woman - at least so far that we know of.

So women are already the nurturing birthers of a planet, and as you build and nurture and birth a business out of a calling, does that have a soul? And I don't mean in the way that, I think it was Mit Romney years ago said, you know, "Companies are people too" or something, and they got so much flack for it. I mean more like, cuz I think that's true for me. I think that when I think about the business I run, it is of me, but it doesn't belong to me. I birthed it and I nurture it and I tend to it and I support it, but it doesn't belong to me.

Because I can see that in the experience that my clients are having because their results do not belong to me. Their results are a combination, this cocktail that we all built together. And I question myself now around what is it that I really want you to see in your business? And I want you, I wanna invite you to see your calling. What is this calling that gets you up every day? Why this work? And if it were that you have birthed a business, and this business now has its own soul.

And a soul has a journey. It has lessons to learn. It has values, it has wisdom. What does it know? What does it need? What is it asking of you? You birthed it, but it doesn't belong to you. Maybe I'm sitting on the, because I'm on the precipice of my 18 year olds going off into the world, graduating from high school here and watching them make those decisions. My older son has moved in with his girlfriend and I'm just, I'm watching how I birthed these children. They are of me, but they don't belong to me.

So what remains? Love. Connection. Support. That's what's left. And I think this same thing is true when you think about you as the CEO. You had a calling, you birthed this business.

It is of you, but it doesn't belong to you. So what's left? Love, connection, support. I was talking to a friend who, her business has done really well. She was contemplating what the next steps would be, and we had this really profound conversation about the potential for growth in any company is always there, but you get to a point in your business where you have to start to ask yourself, "Do I want to achieve whatever that goal is this way, or do I, am I willing to let go of the goal to keep serving my calling in the way that I know how?"

It was a really powerful conversation because we can sometimes get so head down on a artificial goal that we forget to come back and say, "Wait a minute, am I serving out on the purpose and the calling of this business? Am I allowing it to grow without me? Am I holding on too tight?" If we look my kids, I could force them to stay home. I could keep them small, I could keep them tethered, but that doesn't foster anyone's growth, right? I have to let them go, and then I always have to say, "But what remains?"

So letting go of your business does not mean you're abandoning it. It means you're changing your relationship with it. But in order to do that we have to understand why we put it here on the planet in the first place and who we are now in relationship to it.

So, the winding road, hopefully you followed me. I always love your feedback if you have any. What is your calling and how is this business the most beautiful expression of that? And if it isn't yet, what needs to change? Because the clearer you get on what that calling is, it's so easy to find people to help you. It's so much easier to align with other co-creators who want to help that calling be birthed into the world. It doesn't belong to you, it belongs to whomever it was for in the first place.

Thank you for tuning in and I'll talk to you again next time.

Hey, hey, are you ready to go? All in on you as the gorgeous, powerful woman and c e o that you are, whether you're running a company that's at $400,000 a year or 4 million a year or more. I know that there are practices that you probably need to advance in order to get the results that you need in your business, and those practices that we tend to ignore the most are the practices that have to deal with the people.

So if you're ready to step up and really claim the voice that you have as a woman who. Us and really, really lead that team as a feminine c e o. I would love to work with you in our program. Go to chris plaquey.com/ceo and learn all about what's going on with us right now and get started with us this year.

This is the year, love. Let's do it.