#67 – Leading With Heart: Learn Compassionate Leadership Techniques That Deliver Real Results | Empowerment & Career Advice

[00:00:00] Loree Philip: Hi, and welcome to Daring to Leap. I'm your host, Loree Philip. Do you ever feel like the traditional style of leadership is falling short in today's fast paced world? Are you ready to lead with heart and drive team success? Today, we're joined by leadership expert, Carmen Paredes, who will share how compassion and soft skills can transform the way we lead.

[00:00:27] Loree Philip: What if the key to a truly engaged and productive team lies in the very skills we often overlook? Let's dive in.

[00:00:37] Loree Philip: Carmen is the visionary behind exceptional leadership solutions. Carmen's mission is to elevate lives and aid organizations and maximizing return on investment. Her intuitive and intentional leadership techniques are designed to transcend the existing inefficient dynamics in interactions [00:01:00] between leaders and employees.

[00:01:03] Loree Philip: Welcome to the show, Carmen.

[00:01:06] Carmen Paredes: Thank you, Lori. It's a pleasure to be here with you.

[00:01:09] Loree Philip: It's so great to see you. It's so great to have you here. I, we, we've known each other now for like a year, I believe. And so it's been so amazing to watch your journey and everything that you're doing in the leadership space.

[00:01:24] Loree Philip: And so before we jump into our focus topic today around compassion and bringing in more compassion in leadership, I'd love to hear. A bit about your story to share it with the audience. Talk to us the reason why you ended up leaving corporate to begin with and pursue an entrepreneurial path.

[00:01:45] Carmen Paredes: Yeah, thank you for that. I, like many people grew up with rules and expectations that maybe weren't necessarily mine. Right. I had a path that was forced for me [00:02:00] and like a good daughter. I follow that. And so I went to college, I went to grad school, I got a good job. And I always love to excel at everything I did.

[00:02:11] Carmen Paredes: So I'm here in this life, so I'm going to be the best at what I did. And I worked very hard to try to get to that C level rank. And I was really, really close making it. But. Unfortunately, and this is where I love talking about compassion in leadership. Unfortunately, I burned out. And one of the reasons was because the leaders that I had at the very end of my career, didn't know how to be compassionate.

[00:02:41] Carmen Paredes: And it's not like that was the reason for it, but that definitely contributes. To my me burning out and I had to choose between my career or my life basically. And well, guess what I want my life and my family. So that's what I had to leave, but now I'm very [00:03:00] excited and I'm motivated and inspired to share the story, but also the tools I've learned with.

[00:03:07] Carmen Paredes: Everybody, because everyone is a leader. You're a leader, your job and your business at home and how you can show compassion and help others elevate lives.

[00:03:17] Loree Philip: Yeah, it's, it's so interesting and we don't have to dive too deep into your story about burnout and the moment that made you decide to shift and all these kinds of things because we did explore that in a prior episode.

[00:03:32] Loree Philip: And so, and I'll put that link in the show notes if anybody wants to dive deeper in Carmen's story is quite powerful. On, on that, one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about Carmen, when we talk about compassion and you look back and you're like, okay, there was an environment there that was not a good fit for me.

[00:03:53] Loree Philip: That didn't help me feel great as a leader empowered in my position. And you [00:04:00] you can go back and say, well, The leaders weren't compassionate or the, the way it was set up, wasn't set up well for a working mom or whatever it is that you want to contribute to what happened. But I think there's something here around how an employee and their manager interact and how important that is.

[00:04:22] Loree Philip: They say the statistics and when people leave a job, they don't leave The company, typically they leave their manager, right? So that, that, that role is so, so important in that interaction between leader and employee or manager employee is so, so important. So tell me a bit about. Why compassion?

[00:04:45] Loree Philip: we don't talk about this term enough in leadership. And so that's why I'm curious about it.

[00:04:51] Carmen Paredes: Yes. So let's define compassion in leadership first. So I define compassion as the ability To understand, [00:05:00] empathize, and act with kindness towards the needs and struggles of others.

[00:05:05] Carmen Paredes: So that's my definition when it comes to leadership. So now let's normalize that you spend a third of your day at work. And you spend more time with your co workers and your leaders than you do with your family. And so we, our human beings, have been conditioned through our entire life to survive. We, we are constantly in survival mode, whether you are aware or not, whether you like it or not.

[00:05:33] Carmen Paredes: And so as we're going through life because your kids got a bad grade or you argue with your husband or maybe you didn't have enough money to pay or buy something you wanted or someone in your family passed away, whatever it is that you're going through, we're humans and this is happening. The leader who is with you for eight hours a day needs to be able to hold the space for you to not, ignore that what's happening, but go through [00:06:00] that life situation that's happening parallel to your job and, and be able to go through it and come out the other side in one piece.

[00:06:09] Carmen Paredes: But when we are like bombarded at work with these KPIs and metrics are more important than whatever is happening with your personal life, how, how can your body And your soul and your mind put up with that for 20 years. I mean, you can probably do it one time, two times, but when it's the constant, nobody cares about me.

[00:06:33] Carmen Paredes: It's impossible to be able to, to go through that. And the sad part talking about statistics is that 63 percent of employees feel that employers don't care about their wellbeing. And that's so sad. And that's how I used to feel too. Nobody cares. Like I'm here giving my best every day and nobody cares whether my son who is autistic is having a bad day or I've gone through a divorce.

[00:06:59] Carmen Paredes: How are you coping with [00:07:00] that? And it's not that you need to go chit chat with your employees, but can you hold this space because we're humans. So that's what I think compassion is so important.

[00:07:09] Loree Philip: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I, I agree with you a hundred percent. And I think where we might get caught up is one, you already mentioned it.

[00:07:17] Loree Philip: We can get so, so busy into the, to the day to day stress of the things that we have to get done in our role, on our teams, the metrics, the results oriented oriented focus of some of our jobs that. We kind of miss a bit of that connection that the people that we have working with us, working for us, and we work for our human beings that have other

[00:07:44] Carmen Paredes: lives.

[00:07:45] Carmen Paredes: And I think that's really a misconception, because as a leader, and I, I was a leader for 20 years, and I really pride myself to, To have been a great leader. And the way I know that is because the people that I used to [00:08:00] work for me still want to hang out with me. And, and in fact I just got together with a pair of them that are in town for, for a meeting with the new leader now, and they reached out to me and when we were planning on where to go, cause they are not from Alaska, I said something like, so you don't eat seafood.

[00:08:18] Carmen Paredes: So let's go to this and this and this place. And he was like, you remember, I'm like, of course I remember, I care. Right. And so we think that we need to be so focused on the numbers and the bottom line that we don't have time to care for our people, but it doesn't take. Extra time to care. It's, it's a, you need to embody that, right?

[00:08:41] Carmen Paredes: And, and I remember I always start my one on ones conversations with, Hey, what did you do last weekend? Just care. Like you would with a friend or you would with a, someone you're mentoring, right? It's, it's, It doesn't take time, I guess, is what I want to say.

[00:08:56] Loree Philip: And I, I think that [00:09:00] women, and a lot of the people listening to this podcast are women, that we naturally take this step as part of just our nature to care, to be nurturing, to, want to know.

[00:09:16] Loree Philip: And have maybe a little chit chat before we dive in to whatever we're trying to do and so I, I think it's a couple of things. That's 1. it's like, how do we as leaders navigate and in an environment that maybe the leaders above us aren't showing that kind of. Strong leadership and then continue to model it as.

[00:09:38] Loree Philip: As we continue to grow as leaders ourselves what are your thoughts on that,

[00:09:42] Carmen Paredes: Carmen? You nail it right there because maybe we have a harder time showing above what needs to be done. But the reason, and again, this is where compassion comes to, right? Understanding where they're coming from. This is nothing to do with you or [00:10:00] me, right?

[00:10:00] Carmen Paredes: Like they were model the behavior. And so. That's a battle, but then we have the responsibility to model the behavior for the next generation, for the next wave of leaders that are coming. And when I say leaders are everywhere, right? Like if you're an entrepreneur and you are dealing with a contractor who is doing your, Design your arts or your social media, whatever, right?

[00:10:25] Carmen Paredes: How are you showing compassion to that interaction with your kids? How are you showing compassion? How you're teaching your kids to be compassionate towards others. Right. And if you are in corporate, then you have a little more pool of people in a daily basis to show compassion. But it's like, yeah, you can see how these words like applies to everything, right?

[00:10:44] Carmen Paredes: Like not reacting to how you're being treated because. Oh, they didn't know how to do it. They weren't treated with compassion. They don't have a model to follow. They are in survival. So there's a whole different set of skills to change that dynamic, [00:11:00] but you have the responsibility to show it and model it for those that work for you, that work with you, that you have control over.

[00:11:08] Loree Philip: Yeah. And I, so there's another misconception that I was thinking about on this topic. So I think one, we can innately see As being a good person that we should care and take interest in the people that we work with the people that work for us, all this all of that. But then I believe there might be a misconception around.

[00:11:33] Loree Philip: The, the, really the value, the business results around taking that extra step and taking the time to really to get to know what is going on with others in the workplace. Do you have some examples or information around? Where that exact, that tie to results and, and return on investment.

[00:11:58] Carmen Paredes: I do. And I had [00:12:00] to do a lot of research because I'm speaking about this topic on, on my TEDx, as and there is a research from Gallup and LeadX on employee experience. And it shows that your manager cares as an initiative is a top five driver for employee engagement. And we all know that highly engaged. Teams are 21 percent more productive and experience 28 percent less turnover than those with low engagement.

[00:12:30] Carmen Paredes: And if you take, I mean, turnover is the highest operating cost to any company in this day and age. So if you can reduce The turnover of your teams and your leaders, you are making money as a business right away. And that applies to any company everywhere in the world.

[00:12:48] Loree Philip: The engagement is so important.

[00:12:50] Loree Philip: And I think, employee turnover, I haven't seen the statistics on it, but, It seems like it's, it's, it's going higher and [00:13:00] higher. It is more likely now that people are jumping around to different roles than they used to in the past, where you worked for the same firm for 30 years. And so this cost of training someone new over and over and people switching roles over and over and over is so high and can cause.

[00:13:20] Loree Philip: A ripple effect in quality in all kinds of things on, on a team for sure.

[00:13:27] Carmen Paredes: So the, and I know these with my corporate consulting clients, I help them reduce turnover. So I am very, very, so the facts of this, it costs anywhere from a whole year of salary to two or three X, depending on where you are in.

[00:13:43] Carmen Paredes: The scale if you're an entry level employee, mid management or senior leader, imagine someone from a call center. Right. You think like, Oh they just make little money and it's easy to train them. No, it's not. It's not easy to train them. They need to know how all [00:14:00] your products work and.

[00:14:01] Carmen Paredes: In that process of disengagement, where they are looking for a job, because remember the turnover is not just them leaving is that period where they're I'm like, I'm check out quiet quitting. And so I'm looking for a job. So I really don't care. And then I leave, right? So it's actually longer than the actual moment where they leave.

[00:14:21] Carmen Paredes: They're treating your customers very poorly because they don't care. Right? Then in the case of leadership, it's not only all the projects they are leading, all the things that I know, all the things that are not documented. I mean, that happened in my case. It's not like I was trying to take things with me.

[00:14:38] Carmen Paredes: I just didn't have time to document all the things I had in my head, but then some team members left because I did. Because as you said, people leave their leaders, not their jobs. And some people stay in a job because of the leaders, not because of the company. So when I left, there are actually three people left, right?

[00:14:57] Carmen Paredes: Wow.

[00:14:58] Loree Philip: Wow. I [00:15:00] didn't realize when you put the data behind some of the costs, how big it is. I, I think when you look at where we're going in the future of work and what employees are starting to value more and more around. Connection with the company around values around their purpose and their mission and actually wanting to be part of a culture that cares about them.

[00:15:27] Loree Philip: I think we're going to go from a place of, we hardly talk about compassion and leadership to a future where. This is something you need to do, or you're, you're not going to be in that next tier of leader that you need to be, talk to me a bit about, I know you have a leadership framework and compassion is just one piece.

[00:15:51] Loree Philip: Let's, we're not saying here that, okay, to be a good leader, all you need to do is care about your employees. We're not saying that that's just a really important [00:16:00] foundational piece that I believe is often missing when we think about leadership. What are some of the other things that, that you believe are important for

[00:16:10] Carmen Paredes: leaders?

[00:16:11] Carmen Paredes: Yes. And I just want to preface that I am assuming that you are very good at your job, right? Like this framework and I, what I help companies do is not necessarily to refine the technical skills. That for me is a given. You Promoted to leadership, someone who really knows their stuff, right? But how can you get people to very really be committed to your mission and your vision as an organization if you don't take care of the soft skills?

[00:16:41] Carmen Paredes: And that's what we're talking about here. So my framework is the CARES leadership framework and compassion is the first thing because I believe that's the foundation of everything like that, that human connection and caring. Then you have authenticity. But people can read you when you're [00:17:00] pretending to care, you, you actually have to care.

[00:17:03] Carmen Paredes: You actually have to be compassionate. People can read that, especially the new generations that are very versed with new age things that are out there, right? So authenticity is a second one. And that's really how you create that open policy communication that it it has to be felt like, I really can comment out to you.

[00:17:24] Carmen Paredes: Then we have researchfulness. And for this one, I like to say that you need to tap not only on all the tools and technical stuff that are outside, but in your, with your internal guidance. I cannot tell you how many times I made leadership decisions with my gut feeling. I hire people without reading the resume.

[00:17:45] Carmen Paredes: And people used to say like, how you always hire the best employees? It just felt like it, it just felt like it was a good match. I can read their energy. So that's actually something that I teach too. It's, it's not out there mainstream but it's something that we all have, [00:18:00] right? Then how you empower them, how do you help them become the fullest version of themselves?

[00:18:08] Carmen Paredes: How do you create that environment where they feel like I am good at this thing. And even though it's not in my job description, I'm going to bring it forward because. If the company needs it and then, and then when you are fulfilling your passion, why do you want to go somewhere else? Right? And then last one is support.

[00:18:28] Carmen Paredes: So support is how you have that framework. So they, people can feel safe to, to say, Hey, Lori I have a problem. I have a personal problem and this doesn't mean I'm not going to do my job, but I just want you to know if I feel a little off, That's, that's why, right? And, and so that's what the whole thing creates that engagement and commitment.

[00:18:52] Carmen Paredes: And that's what helps you be able to ask someone to do jump a little bit and they [00:19:00] jump a mile for you because they know that you care about them.

[00:19:03] Loree Philip: Yeah, yeah, I, I love the whole framework, Carmen. I really love how the, the acronym and how it's all pulled together. And these are the things that I believe that we need to continue talking about over and over and over again.

[00:19:19] Loree Philip: And I have a feeling that people that are listening are like, yes, yes, yes, yes. But then We get to work and our to do list is 20 miles long and we're bombarded with meetings and we're just going from one thing to the next, trying to keep ourselves afloat, how do we as leaders carve out the appropriate time to focus on all of these things with our teams?

[00:19:47] Loree Philip: I would say

[00:19:49] Carmen Paredes: the first thing is self awareness, right? As I mentioned, we are all conditioned to be in survival mode. Your brain is designed to keep you alive. That's it, right? We [00:20:00] just need to live till tomorrow, right? So when we get triggered and this rush, rush, rush, or let's just focus on deadlines and, and KPIs, it's a way to survive because we want to be liked by our leaders.

[00:20:15] Carmen Paredes: We want to deliver. That might be the conditioning that you have, that this is the only way you, you have some self worth. There's a lot of things that come with childhood experiences that just mask everything that's happening, right? So the self awareness that these exist is the first step, believe it or not.

[00:20:36] Carmen Paredes: And I remember when I conceptualized this and even though I didn't have a name for it, but I was living it in a daily at work. I would take like five seconds before a meeting to ground, to center myself, to let go of whatever happened in the meeting before and make sure I wasn't projecting that forward to anybody.[00:21:00]

[00:21:00] Carmen Paredes: Right. Cause it's very easy to go from a bad meeting and make the next one worse just because we keep sharing the thing. And so Self awareness and just connection with like, I don't want to be in this survival mode, you know I don't need to pass this over. That will be the first step that anyone can do right now.

[00:21:20] Loree Philip: Yeah, yeah. And I think, I think there's probably an assumption there that's not true that this will take a lot, a lot of time. When what you just said, like, take just a few seconds before a meeting to center yourself or take a few breaths or, before you get started, instead of jumping right in, check in with a few people or so maybe it's just adding in an extra layer to your process right up front to, to take the time.

[00:21:51] Loree Philip: And I was. This week and last week, I was looking at a lot of like streamlining efforts in my work [00:22:00] how do I make this a little bit more smoother and and really be more efficient in the future? And what happens is, is that it takes more time up front. But then it's worth it on the back end.

[00:22:13] Loree Philip: And so I think this is one of those things where, although it's sometimes people see it as fluffy or maybe the first thing to drop when you have a lot of things on your plate, the, the truth of the matter is, is that it's so important that it's worth taking that time upfront and you're going to see the results down the road, especially around what you were talking about.

[00:22:37] Loree Philip: Carmen, if you want to have somebody on your team, go the extra mile for you. This is how you do it, right? And we can all reflect and relate to having managers or leaders in the past that we were willing to go the extra mile for. And what was it about them? And I, I believe it fits right into [00:23:00] your framework.

[00:23:00] Loree Philip: Then they did. Those types of things. And that's why we were willing to do that.

[00:23:06] Carmen Paredes: Yeah. And, and even the, the way the name of the framework came about I was talking to an old employee and he was just telling me all these beautiful things about me, it was really, it was really touching, but I actually asked him is because I was trying to understand.

[00:23:25] Carmen Paredes: From their perspective, my leadership style and how is that I really had impacted them. And what I keep hearing over and over from them is that I cared, that I cared. And I'm like, okay, carry. And so I did a little magic with words and the word cares became the acronym with the actual things that, that I did too.

[00:23:48] Carmen Paredes: But it's, yeah, it's that, is that we're humans. We, we want to be valued and appreciated and recognized and

[00:23:58] Loree Philip: be cared for. [00:24:00] Yeah. What's interesting to me, Carmen, is that this feels so basic in the terms of like, yeah, of course I should care about my employees. I should care how they're doing. It should matter to me what's going on in their life.

[00:24:17] Loree Philip: I should take the extra time to get to know them, cut them some slack when they're having a bad day. These types of things seem to me like, of course. Yet, yet, we all know that that is not the reality of how a lot of leaders and managers treat and interact with their employees. And I think if we come back to a place of that, you mentioned earlier, compassion for them around, they didn't get modeled how to do this in the work environment.

[00:24:51] Loree Philip: And they've probably had leaders in the past that that. Only showed them how to get results without [00:25:00] carrying and, and doing some of these extra things that in the past we've seen as quote extra, not, you know what I mean? Like, I read a post on LinkedIn at some point where we need to come up with a better word.

[00:25:14] Loree Philip: For soft skills because they are so foundational and

[00:25:19] Carmen Paredes: important. I know because the, just the notion of soft skills make this sound like they are not important, but they are, they are everything. Again, we are assuming that if you got this job as a leader, you already know your stuff, you already know your craft.

[00:25:36] Carmen Paredes: So another 10 people, right? And, and what I find is that a lot of companies and haven't been in leadership I was a vice president. I know how these things work, right? Like you get to a point where you don't have any other way to promote this person and give them a little bit of recognition or extra money.

[00:25:55] Carmen Paredes: And so what do you do? You make them a leader. Well, that you're assuming [00:26:00] that everyone knows how to be a leader. And I think there's a lot of people who are smart, capable, and they should continue to be individual contributors because leadership is like dancing or is like painting, right? Like, don't give me a canvas unless you want like a black blob.

[00:26:17] Carmen Paredes: Like I am not a painter. Right. And so why would you assume that just because you're smart, you can be a good leader, right? It's things that you can learn and it requires a lot of practice, but not everybody has it as a natural talent. So at the very least, have some skills, some training skills that you can teach people.

[00:26:39] Carmen Paredes: And I was actually, I wrote a post in LinkedIn about this because I keep seeing a lot of chief technology officer training at Worthen or chief product officer training at Kellogg very Ivy league universities. And, and I was like, when there's going to be a leadership, Literature [00:27:00] skills training for these level of people, I'm not talking that the 20 training that you can buy in Udemy and there's nothing against that.

[00:27:07] Carmen Paredes: That's better than nothing. But it's like, no, the immersive training that you actually invest, like you invest in these technical skills because yeah, as you said, they're soft. So why would we do that, right?

[00:27:20] Loree Philip: Yeah, I think we're going to get there, but it's, it's shifting very slowly and I think what's going to really push it forward and where we can all support this people that are listening is that as, as the, the wave of female Leaders rise and they lean into their natural skills around this and model what a compassionate and caring leader could look like and make it okay to present yourself like that.

[00:27:51] Loree Philip: We can, we're going to see a shift in the importance of this. People are going to start to notice the results. And unfortunately, good, [00:28:00] bad, or indifferent, that's how it works in, in culture, right? Like, it before becomes a big mainstream type of initiative, a lot of companies are waiting to really see the results.

[00:28:13] Loree Philip: They want studies, they want, consulting work around. We implemented this set of training around these. Quote unquote self skills, but really important skill sets that our leaders need to do that aren't technical. Right? Like, how do I deal like, not, I don't want to say deal, but how do I treat my people in a way that will help them do all those things you're talking about?

[00:28:37] Loree Philip: Empower them, feel like they can't matter. All these types of things.

[00:28:41] Carmen Paredes: You said something very critical there, Lori, which is as leaders, as women start getting promoted into leadership. And we use our, program in our DNA skills of nurturing. So the fundamental thing there is that once you get to that [00:29:00] position, and this was very hard for me.

[00:29:02] Carmen Paredes: I'm a mechanical engineer. I was around men all the time. Then I went into leadership and I was most often the only woman in the room making decisions. Right. And so unless you're clear that these works and And confident that you don't have to be in the masculine energy. You can get things done when you're in your feminine energy, which is that caring, nurturing one.

[00:29:28] Carmen Paredes: And by the, by the way, every person, males and females, you have both and you want to be in your elevated version of both. Topic for another episode, but you want to be able to embrace that feminine energy, which is the caring, right? Regardless of what other people are doing. And so that, that's the key, right?

[00:29:48] Carmen Paredes: Like not copy because they haven't been modeled. So they haven't modeled to you. And then we, that's how we keep repeating the cycle of insanity.

[00:29:59] Loree Philip: Thank you for adding [00:30:00] that it is so important because we do get a lot of pressure and especially if you're stepping into a new position on a new team. You don't have the experience that, that you will have in the future, right?

[00:30:12] Loree Philip: We all have to start somewhere. And, it takes a bit of courage and a bit of confidence to, to lean into some of these things that aren't being, that aren't part of the existing culture. And start to show, Hey, I can be this way with my team and look, my results speak for themselves. Right. And my team's loyalty speaks for themselves and I think a lot of it also comes down to authenticity as, as part of your framework is that lean into your natural gifts and talents and you will, that's how you can shine, but it is also very hard because it's vulnerable and it's, it's not something that.

[00:30:54] Loree Philip: The team is already champion, champion as a way to, to move forward likely because it's unique to you [00:31:00] and your own natural skillset.

[00:31:02] Carmen Paredes: But Laurie, I, I was thrown in the middle of fire so many times I was known for if he's broken, let's give it to Carmen. She will fix it. Right. And I remember the last three years of my career, I was thrown into this project, it was a disaster.

[00:31:16] Carmen Paredes: I didn't know anything about it. And I got a new team and a new project. And this is where authenticity comes. And they actually have given me this feedback. I literally said, I don't know anything about this. I cannot do it without you guys. What do we need to look right? Instead of what most people would do is pretend I'm the leader.

[00:31:35] Carmen Paredes: I know it all. Like like this is how we're going to do it. I'm like, I know nothing about this thing, right? Like teach me. Right? My job, especially when you get to the higher levels, my job is not to do, my job is to lead. I can't be a guide, right? Tell me all the info and then I'll guide you through the right thing, right?

[00:31:52] Carmen Paredes: You don't need to be Pretending, right? And so this is what authenticity also comes to. It's like that, [00:32:00] like fortress, like vulnerability, as you were saying, right? Like, don't be afraid to show vulnerability because it just makes you relatable to them.

[00:32:09] Loree Philip: It really does. It does. I mean, you're going to have some people that are just like you don't know.

[00:32:15] Loree Philip: There's always going to be that person that's been there for 30 years that knows everything. And so it isn't happy when somebody comes in to lead them that hasn't been there for 30 years. Those people exist, right? But generally speaking, coming in and owning where you're at and where we, where the team needs to go from a vulnerable place is always going to result in a better outcome.

[00:32:39] Loree Philip: There's one more thing I want to bring up before we close out on this topic of compassion and leadership, because we talked a lot about caring for employees, caring for our teams, caring for our colleagues. And I don't want to forget compassion for ourselves. Talk to me that Carmen, because when I think back [00:33:00] about your story and burning out and your team loved you, but you were drowning in in work and hours and not taking care of yourself.

[00:33:12] Loree Philip: So let's talk a bit about why that's also important and a piece we don't want to miss.

[00:33:18] Carmen Paredes: I am so glad. Thank you for bringing that up because that's where everything starts, right? Everything starts with self compassion. And, someone asked, asked me once, like, how do you do self compassion? And I had to come up with a very quick way to do it because it was kind of an alive interview too.

[00:33:38] Carmen Paredes: And I thought it was a very good, and actually this is what I do to myself. If you just think about your day and you, as if you were talking to a friend, most likely, because this is what we do, we point out all of the bad things that happen. 90 percent of our thoughts are repetitive and 75 percent of those are negative.

[00:33:58] Carmen Paredes: That's just statistics, [00:34:00] right? And so you will probably be beating yourself up for all the things that went wrong, all the things you didn't do, all the deadlines that you missed, all the conversations that went wrong. So, right. But self compassion feels like these friends that loves you. That has a beautiful energy like glory and that it's going to say, Carmen, but what about this?

[00:34:21] Carmen Paredes: You did great here. And what about there? You handled that very well, or why does it matter that you didn't get it done? You can do it tomorrow and see how my, even my voice changed, right? Like, cause you have to have that nurturing, loving caring thing that you do with your best friend, or you do with your children, or you do with your spouse.

[00:34:42] Carmen Paredes: That's what self compassion comes to and it's something that you have to do in the daily because you cannot practice it with your employees if you're not doing it for yourself. So I'm so thank you for bringing that up because yes, we need to start there.

[00:34:55] Loree Philip: Yes. Yes. Yes. And we're going to start to close this out.

[00:34:58] Loree Philip: Carmen, [00:35:00] what last kind of closing thoughts or words or anything we haven't brought up yet that you want our really amazing group of female leaders that are listening to this show to know to help them on their journey?

[00:35:14] Carmen Paredes: I, one of my missions is to make sure everyone understands the ripple effect that we have in We don't think often about what our interaction with one person is going to do to 10 people six degrees of separation.

[00:35:30] Carmen Paredes: Right. So when you think about the impact that you have in the world, you all of a sudden start really realizing like, Oh my God, I really need to be responsible and accountable for the way I show up every day. Right. And so I will invite everybody to think about that and, and, Start taking accountability and responsibility for your presence, for your interactions with anybody at the grocery store with a [00:36:00] vendor that's calling you to ask for a paycheck or your kids, the t shirts.

[00:36:06] Carmen Paredes: Because that impacts is like, it's like pebbles in, in a pond. There's this ripple effect and it's kind of my mission. It's just elevating lives through compassion.

[00:36:19] Loree Philip: Well, I appreciate you so much, Carmen. It's been such a beautiful conversation and one that we need to continue having in the future. If you could share with our audience on where they can connect with you and learn more about you and your work.

[00:36:33] Carmen Paredes: So I'm in social media, LinkedIn and Instagram, Facebook at I am Carmen Paredes. And my website is exceptionalleadershipsolutions. com.

[00:36:45] Loree Philip: Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

[00:36:48] Carmen Paredes: Thank you.

[00:36:49] Loree Philip: Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you've enjoyed it, I would love for you to subscribe. If you're already a subscriber, don't forget to share the [00:37:00] podcast with a friend.

[00:37:01] Loree Philip: Make sure to tune in next week. We will be speaking with Anne Welsh about how she found the courage to pivot from a prestigious career at Harvard to doing what she loves.

[00:37:14] Loree Philip: I hope you have an amazing week. It's your time to shine. Bye.