TLDR;
Whether you’re battling burnout, striving for breakthrough innovation, or simply sense that something isn’t quite right with your leadership journey, you are far from alone.
And, you’ve arrived at an exciting episode of the Uncommon Leadership Podcast, which just might help you navigate these feelings.
In this episode, I, Michael Hunter, sit down with the incredible Viveka von Rosen—a celebrated LinkedIn expert, bestselling author, and transformational speaker who literally lives by her philosophy of “playing all day.”
Together, we uncover the hidden truths behind genuine success, radical self-trust, and building truly empowered teams.
Viveka shares her own raw, vulnerable journey from corporate burnout—a path that led her to question everything.
She reveals how ignoring the subtle whispers of intuition can escalate into loud, undeniable shouts, forcing us to finally listen. Her story is a powerful reminder: don’t wait for a crisis to make your pivot.
But how do you find the time for these shifts? Will you need to wake up at 4:30 AM or work late nights?
The answer is shockingly simple and extremely practical.
So, take a seat and join in the conversation that goes beyond just finding time. It’s about fundamentally changing how we approach work and lead.
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Here’s what you can expect to learn from this podcast↓
- Learn why approaching work with joy and enthusiasm is a proven path to unprecedented productivity, less procrastination, and real, sustainable success.
- Discover simple, low-stakes ways to practice trusting that inner knowing, saving yourself from future regret.
- Discover the ultimate hack for truly valuing your team members.
- Learn why allowing team members to “outgrow” their roles isn’t a cost, but a powerful opportunity for your business to transform and thrive.
- Learn to build a work culture of open communication and flexibility that empowers everyone to bring their unique brilliance to the table.
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Want to get in touch with the speakers?
About Viveka von Rosen
Viveka von Rosen is a celebrated LinkedIn expert, bestselling author, and transformational speaker. Having successfully pivoted from corporate burnout herself, she now empowers executives and entrepreneurs to align their authentic selves with their business goals, helping them build their legacy and unlock their full potential through her work at Beyond the Dream Board.
Get in touch with her: Viveka@beyondthedreamboard.com
About Michael Hunter:
Michael Hunter is the host of the Uncommon Leadership podcast and founder of Uncommon Teams, guiding leaders to align personal fulfillment with business success and cultivate authentic teams. You can connect with Michael Hunter by clicking on this link: https://uncommonteams.com/work-with-me/
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Watch the Uncommon Leadership Podcast:
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Apple-
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Presented By: Uncommon Change
Transcript:
Michael Hunter
Whether you want more innovation, more easily, you’re feeling burnt out or overwhelmed, or you simply know that something just isn’t quite the way you know it can be. You are not alone. I hear the same from leaders every day. On Uncommon Leadership, we explore aligning personal fulfillment with business success, creating authentic teams, and cultivating the resilience necessary to move beyond simply surviving today’s challenges into thriving.
I’m Michael Hunter, and today we’ll uncover fresh insights into what it means to lead with resilience, adaptability, and ease. Joining me today is Viveka von Rosen. Viveka is a celebrated LinkedIn expert, a bestselling author, a transformational speaker, and she is dedicated to empowering successful executives and entrepreneurs with their brand and business pivots.
With over 19 years of experience in LinkedIn marketing and sales, and having guested on over 300 podcasts, she’s a recognized authority in the business world. As an accomplished author and international speaker, Viveka captivates audiences with her keynote addresses on transition and transformation, catalyzing people to find their voices and create their own transformational ventures.
Viveka’s core message is ‘Women’s Words will Change the World’, and her mission is to empower her clients to bring their legacy dreams to life. And somehow she also has time to love hang gliding, scuba diving, hiking, and will soon be buying a powered paraglider.
Viveka Von Rosen
Yeah.
Michael
Welcome Viveka. Thank you. You always wanna put the like personal stuff at the end there.
For some reason, I had in my head when I was transferring your bio that you sent to me into my notes that it was a solar-powered paraglider. And then I was reading before the show and I saw it was just a powered paraglider. I have no idea where that solar part came from.
Viveka
What a cool idea. No, not solar powered, but that would be cool too. Very, mad Max post-apocalyptic.
Michael
Where you are up in the mountains of Colorado, it might be helpful.
Viveka
Yeah, this is true. This is true. Yeah. It’s funny, we don’t see many regular paragliders flying around ’cause we’re actually in the foothills. But I’ve started in the summer evening, seeing a couple powered paragliders and I’m like, oh, I have to do that.
’cause once you get up, you can turn the, you can turn the power off and then you can just fly, and it’s just easier than hang gliding.
Michael
Can’t go from your driveway instead of needing a drop off.
Viveka
Exactly.
Michael
That’s great.
When Viveka, did you first recognize that integrating your whole self, bringing that into everything that you do, might be a valuable approach?
Viveka
You know, many times, but most recently it was, kind of mid-2023. I was in my previous company that we had built, and I realized I had left a lot of myself behind. Just slowly, kind of, without even realizing it. You know, I had started my LinkedIn journey back in 2004, and I had slowly, slowly, slowly become more focused in on the marketing and sales industries, and then on the B2B industry, and then, you know, speaking, going from a more entrepreneurial audience to a more techie type audience.
And certainly by the time we started Vengreso, which was a digital sales transformation company, changed PLG software company. A lot, I just left so much of myself behind. I left my sense of balance and integration. There was no balance or integration. It was work, work, work.
And, you know, I really left my intuition behind, and I realized, I just did not enjoy life anymore. I mean, you know, you’d go on vacation, and that was nice. You’d go hang gliding or scuba diving, and that was nice. But the daily was feeling really disconnected. And so, yeah, when I was literally in my hospital bed. From a bad surgery and working on grants for my last company, which I’m not a grant writer, and this is not my area of expertise by a long shot. And I was just kind of going, what the heck am I doing? And that’s when I realized I needed to pick up. I needed to change my life, A, but also I needed to pick up those practices that allowed me to feel more integrated.
Michael
What was it that let you recognize at that point that you had become so disintegrated?
Viveka
Yeah, I think just like literally being in a hospital bed, working on grants, you know, it was like, what are you doing? Like here you are not living life, putting your right life at risk, in fact, and not enjoying life, and I had such a strong sense of purpose when I was younger and I thought I had achieved kind of what I was put on this earth to do, but I realized that the product I had created, the speaking, the books were not in alignment with what I felt my impact could be. And so that discontinuity really affected, well, it affected my health, it affected everything.
Of course, it affects us on a mental and emotional level, and then when we ignore it, it moves right on into our bodies until we can’t ignore it anymore. So yeah, don’t wait that long, people. Do not wait that long.
Michael
So, let me say this back and check if I have this right. Yeah. So you, as you were there in the hospital bed, working on grants
Viveka
Yeah.
Michael
As lots of leaders would be doing.
Viveka
Yeah.
Michael
You realized you had this string of increasingly severe incidents, I’ll say, leading up to that, that had been tapping at your door, saying something may not quite be right here.
And finally, that tapping got loud enough that you could hear it. Is that a good summary?
Viveka
Oh, I think it was pretty loud. I just wasn’t listening. I was like, la, la, la, la, la, la. So, I mean, there, you know, the universe, God, whatever, the higher being, your higher intuition, whatever you wanna call it, speaks to you constantly, right?
You are constantly getting messages all day long. But if you’re not listening for them, if you’re not looking for them, A, you don’t see them, but even then, it’s kind of like the parable of the guy, you know, the, guy who the river’s coming up and God sends him a canoe and a helicopter.
No, I’m waiting for God. And so I probably had a lot of, I know I had a lot of indicators that it was time for me to make a shift, and I was just kind of going la, la, la, la, la and not paying attention to them. So my listening was turned off, even though the messages were definitely there.
I think, and again, don’t wait this long. I just, I literally got to a point where I couldn’t do another day. I just couldn’t do another day. I had hit the wall. You know, I called my business partner and said, I can’t do this anymore. And I won’t get into that story, but it did take me another six months to extricate myself.
But it, you know, it was just, I literally couldn’t do it anymore. And from that point on, at least knowing that this was not gonna be my future. I didn’t put my whole self into it like I had been. And I started allowing, for the space of possibility. I started journaling. I started meditating.
I’d love to say I started doing yoga, but that would be a lie. You know, but I did start allowing for some space to see what might be next and what was in more alignment with what I felt might be my purpose and my calling.
Michael
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. The reason I’m drilling on this a little bit, trying to get into the specifics, is, so many of the leaders I talk with come to me knowing that something isn’t right.
Viveka
Mm-hmm.
Michael
Not knowing how to identify what it is, let alone how to change it. And oftentimes, as we get into it, we discover that they had signals as you had that they hadn’t recognized, that they had ignored, that they hadn’t realized were actually signals.
Viveka
Yep.
Michael
And so when I find people like you who recognize the signals, I want to understand what helped you recognize it so I can help all these other people I work with recognize it too.
Viveka
I love that. Yeah for me it was just, I think the biggest thing for me was I started doing my journaling practice again, which I had just dropped.
You know, I’d pick up my journal like once a month and write a couple pages maybe if I’d listened to a podcast that talked about it or something like that. But I had definitely gotten out of my morning practice of writing two to three pages of just, you know, stream of consciousness, and then meditating.
I had definitely gotten out of that practice as well. So just adding those two practices back in, you know, not only did messages come through like all, yeah, my book ideas, like everything, basically my entire business as it is now came through that. But also what I realized is, you know, for the rest of the day, I would be more aware of what was going on.
And one of the things I think it was Gabby Bernstein talked about was something called Driftwood, which is, oftentimes, when people are doing what we want to be doing ourselves, you know, we see them doing it, we feel envy, or jealousy, or why can’t it be me? But she says, you know, you should reframe that.
That’s just a signal from the universe saying, Hey girl, hey dude, you know, they’re doing it. You can too. Like this is just a signal that there is, this is possible and you should be doing it. And so I started noticing that Driftwood a lot more. And then when I did see something like, oh, why does she have a new book?
Why was she able, you know, I would just go, oh, wait, no, that’s just an indication that my new book’s on the way and that kind of thing. The other thing is I asked for, and again, I think this was a Gabby Bernstein thing, but, I just asked for a signal, like, and for me, I love numbers. Not in a mathematical way at all, but I just, for whatever reason, like magical numbers, like 11:11, 444, you know, things like that, 333 and so I said I want to, you know, let me know I’m on the right path by throwing those numbers at me. And it’s nuts. Like, I’ll look up and it’ll be 11:11. It’ll be 12:12, it’ll be 3:33. I remember driving to a retreat and it was 11:11, I was on mile, like 77, 7, 7, 7 on driving like, and, it was 12 and it was, there was something else. It was like 33 degrees. I don’t know, I’m making this up, but it was like all of these numbers just went into alignment and it was actually, I went to a retreat.
The retreat massively shifted energy for me. And so that was just like, okay, cool. So ask for that. Like, whatever, you want your symbol to be. Maybe it’s butterflies or you know, seeing a cardinal or whatever, you know, just ask for those, little indicators that you’re on the right path.
Michael
One thing I’m hearing a lot of from you is that you bring a really playful approach to all of this. And in my experience, the more we can show up and play, first off, the more fun we’re gonna have. Then also, the easier it is to understand, to hear the signals, to receive the guidance, and to experiment in a ways that are safe rather than making them do or die type situation.
Viveka
Ugh. Yeah. I thank you for saying that. You know, a lot of people feel like these big pivots or evolvements, I like that word better now. That we do have to be painful and, up until that point, well and including that point, ’cause no one enjoys time in the hospital.
At least I don’t think so. Up until that point, like most of the major shifts in my life came with really hard freaking lessons, you know? And so I love what you just said because I am all about it being fun. It might not be easy, but let’s make it as fun and joyful as possible.
Michael
All the times I’ve been most successful, received the most accolades, rewards, promotions, all the things that people always want from work have been times I said, when people ask me what I did, I would say I play all day.
Viveka
I love it. I love that. I’m not quite there yet ’cause you know, I still have to edit blogs and such. But, no, I think, and if you go into your day with that mindset of play and joy and creativity and creation, I mean, first of all, you’ll just be so much more productive than going into the day of like, oh, I gotta do this, ’cause you procrastinate less because it’s fun. So you’re a lot more productive and effective, I think. And yeah, it’s more, it’s what life is meant to be. Not this, crush it, panicked, cortisone rich, cortisol rich, rather, you know, drive that seems to be what everybody thinks success is.
Michael
Yes and play doesn’t necessarily mean easy.
Viveka
No. Yeah,
Michael
Play can be really challenging.
Viveka
Yeah, like learning how to hang glide or scuba dive. I mean,
Michael
Those are great examples!
Viveka
Yeah.
Michael
The more we are in that sense of play, the more easeful it’s likely to be.
Viveka
Yeah. That’s a great way of putting it.
Michael
As you’ve been through all these evolutions, and especially as you’re entering into and inhabiting your current evolution, how do you build cultures where you and the people on your team and the people at the companies that you’re working with, your clients feel safe and empowered to bring your, their unique talents and everything that you do and they do?
Viveka
You know, sometimes you have to start with the baby steps. I’m just thinking of a couple, you know, I’m thinking of a couple of my clients who were not ready to make the transition out of their, a friend of mine said, Muggle jobs the other day. I loved that. They’re not really quite ready to make the transition outta their Muggle jobs, so.
No worries. You know, there’s, you can always explore what’s possible after hours, you know, or in the morning, although one of my clients, she just cracked me up. She’s like, ’cause she used to get up at 6:00 AM ’cause she had an east coast company. And, she’s like, well, I guess I’ll just get up at 4:30 in the morning.
And I’m like, oh my God, you are not getting the point here. And it’s not about getting up earlier. It’s about finding time in your natural day to make space for this creativity. But yeah, you can step into the energy, a little bit at a time, until you’re ready to make the full leap. But what I will say is don’t play it safe for too long either, because this same client, her company ended up going bankrupt, and she had, you know, she had set a by when date, but the company went bankrupt by before then, before she was able to leave.
So she was kind of forced into the deep end really quickly. So, make space for the creativity, make space for the fun, make space for the play, make space for what’s possible in bite-size pieces, but start adding to that meal, you know, and to the point where your dream, we’ll just call it your dream job.
Where that dream job, where that dream career, where that dream focus is now actually more important and stronger and takes more time than the maybe the muggle job does. And that’s when you’ll realize, okay, it’s time to just leave.
Michael
So if we’re not gonna get up earlier or stay up later, and I don’t know that anyone can clone ourselves yet. How do you? We can delegate.
Viveka
We can delegate. Yeah.
Michael
That’s one answer. How do we find time for moving all the things that we do now aside to start doing things that we might wanna do? Delegate.
Viveka
Well, what I’m gonna tell you and tell the audience is you have the time. You just, we’re not making the most use of our time.
So one of the things that I recommend people do is like literally everything you do from the moment you wake up in the morning and it, you know, for a week open up your notes or whatever, and make a note of what you’re doing and how long it takes and be honest with yourself, ’cause if you’re not honest with yourself, I mean, no one is gonna see this except for you, but literally do an audit of your time.
And what you will find are pockets in there where you are just wasting time. And unfortunately, it’s usually pockets of time where you are your most creative. So for me, I’m definitely more creative in the morning. What I found was in the mornings, I was just kind of lollygagging, you know, la la la, brush my teeth, la la la, scroll through the news, la la, la, make my breakfast, la la la. You know, and what I realized, if I could be more intentional about getting up, brushing my teeth, putting the coffee on while I was washing my face, and if I could get more proficient with those activities, I suddenly had an extra 15 to 20 minutes in the morning. So you will find time or you can actually create time in your day, and then nevermind all the, you know, the Netflix just sitting around listening to the news, the time we waste. The other thing is I. You know, I still love listening to fiction books, but when I go on walks now I listen to inspirational books or business books or, you know, something that, that is more, feeds my soul a little bit more than just, you know, listening to a fiction novel.
So same amount of time walking the dog, but now I’m feeding myself rather than just wasting time. And the other thing is, and you know, please stay safe, but if you find yourself driving or on a commute and you have an idea, you could, you know, think about those ideas and then you can like, hands free, of course, speak them into your phone so that you’re capturing those ideas or just put the recorder on or whatever so that you can capture those times in those in-between moments. But you will find if you do an audit of your day, you will find pockets of time that you just weren’t even aware that you were wasting, and you can utilize those and use those at in a more creative way.
Also, you can delegate and make your husband cook more.
Michael
Let the dog do the dishes?
Viveka
Let the, oh, no, but seriously, my dog does clean my dishes and then I put them in the dishwasher.
Michael
That’s exactly where I was heading. Yes.
Viveka
But I saved 10 minutes not having to rinse and scrub.
Michael
Exactly. Don’t need to clean when you have a dog.
Viveka
Someone’s going to call us into the SPCA.
Michael
Know what foods are safe for dogs and don’t let them have it when it’s not.
Viveka
Exactly.
Michael
And it’s not like we need to find. Especially starting out hours or even an hour, five minutes a day is more than a time to get started and especially early on can be way more productive than longer blocks of time, ’cause five minutes absolutely is enough to set an intention, set of question and then let the universe and conscious, all the places that your guidance comes from, go do some searches and come back with the answers.
Viveka
Yes! I love that. Set an intention at night and see what comes up at the first thing in the morning. Right. Send an intention or ask a question at night, and see if you get the solution by the morning time.
That stuff’s cool. I love that.
Michael
As we’re learning how to build these cultures for ourselves and how can we take this into doing this with our teams so that we help our people show up in their whole self and bring all of that genius to bear on all the gnarly problems we have?
Viveka
Yeah, it’s really about value, you know, we say we value our teams, but generally we value the skill sets they have that we need for our businesses.
We don’t value the whole person, so it’s a really good idea to get to know your team members better, because you might find out they work better in the morning than at night. And so maybe, you know, have them do the activities that you need earlier and leave the evenings or, you know, whatever it is.
One of my team members, while she does a lot of things for me, you know, she loves doing video editing and so, and the creativity of that piece and so I try and create more opportunity for her to do that. And maybe, you know, it ends up being that I use her to do video editing, not only for myself, but for my clients.
And I find somebody else to do the work that she doesn’t love doing. And maybe a different team member just loves the strategy of it all. Great. Like find out really what your team thrives at and give them the space. And I’m all about a flex schedule. I know there’s controversy. I know some people love it, some people hate it.
But, you know, there’s nothing that has to be done tomorrow. And if there is, I’ll do it. But I love allowing my team to work in the time that serves them best, and I find it gets better results. And then also let your team grow. There’s a scarcity mindset about, you know, if my team member grows out of their position, like that’s gonna cost me money.
But there’s just so much abundance and there’s just so many opportunities and there’s just so much great talent out there that let your team members grow, help them to grow your business. You know, they can help you grow your own business if you allow them to grow, you can find somebody else to replace the old job position that doesn’t serve them, and doesn’t serve, you know, them in your business anymore. So it’s really a matter of allowing your team to grow, period.
Michael
There’s always anything that you don’t wanna do. If there’s more than, if there’s almost certainly someone on your team who would love to do that for you.
Viveka
Yes. Yeah.
Michael
And even if there are rules from someone that says this is who has to do what, they aren’t on your team, they’re probably not, I really hope spying on you, tracking your movement.
So how the team works internally can be completely different from how the team seems to be working from externally.
Viveka
Yeah.
Michael
Maybe manager has to be the one that sends the status report that people want. Manager doesn’t have to write it; they just have to send anyone on that team, or a bunch of people on team could write that status report and then send it to the manager, who will then send it right to whoever.
Viveka
And you have to, you know, this just seems so obvious, but it’s also not very practice. You have to create a safe environment for people to tell you what they like to do and what they don’t like to do. And it’s not that, you know, sure you’re only gonna do what you love. Like, don’t get me wrong, there are tasks I still do that I don’t love, but you know, but definitely allow an environment where people can communicate honestly about what’s serving them and what’s not serving them, because quite frankly, if it’s not serving them, they’re not gonna stick. They’re just not gonna stick. So, find out sooner rather than later and see if you can grow them within the company. And if you can’t, then it’s a good time to cut bait.
You know, but before either one of you gets hurt anymore. But that open communication, that honest communication. The other thing, and I’m kind of guilty, I don’t do this myself, so this is definitely a do as you say, and not as you do. But my team now is not big enough. My team before was, but, things like, you know, human design, ENFP, like personality tests, Myers-Briggs, whatever tool you want to use, those really can help you decipher who on your team is best to do what, and then you can play to their strengths rather than their weaknesses.
Michael
I really love all the personality assessments. Not necessarily as a this is who you are, right. But much more as a this is a way to start a conversation. So this particular slice through someone’s understanding of how people work suggests that you’re gonna work in this way. How does that resonate for you?
Yeah, it’s spot on. Great. Let’s talk more about that. This part of it doesn’t make sense. Great. How?
Viveka
Let’s talk more about that.
Michael
How does work for you? It’s not about that this test says; this is who I am, as though that’s who I am. It’s this test gives me some places to start, and then we can have a conversation about how do you work best.
Viveka
Absolutely. I love that. I was at a retreat this summer and you know, one of the things that we had to do before we attended the retreat was we had to go through that, can’t remember if, I think it was Myers-Briggs. I don’t even remember what kind it was. I was a seven, so whatever.
Enneagram, we had to do the Enneagram. That was it. And I think I was a seven. I might be making that up, too. Anyway, the point being, it was a launch for conversation, but because the people who held the retreat knew the Enneagram numbers of all of the attendees and what that actually meant, they could design a day that, or a whole retreat actually that served all of our different personality types.
And so there were, you know, there were breakouts that would serve that community and that community, but we did different things because of how we learned and how we processed. So it was, I thought that is a very powerful way of using these personality tests. But of course you would definitely wanna do that with people coming into your company, so you can just see, am I hiring the right person, and are they gonna be a good fit, and are they gonna play well with others? This would give you some good indication. And then when things get sticky, there’s the opportunity to have conversation around that.
Michael
And it can even work in really, much more basic or simple situations. Like you said earlier how some people don’t want flex time. Well, flex time doesn’t mean you get to work. Flex time means you work whenever you want. It doesn’t have to mean you can’t work in structure. Right. Flex time really means people who want to be totally spontaneous can work that way.
People who want to work by a very rigid and controlled schedule, they get to do that too, and everyone that’s been trained gets to do what’s right for them.
Viveka
Yeah. Just, you know, set up expectations. It’s like, if it’s easier with the rigid schedule, like I’m gonna be working nine to five, and I’m gonna have off noon to one.
Okay, cool. I’ll know not to, you know, expect something to be done between noon and one. And then for my folks who are, two of my employees are in the Philippines. You know, they will work US hours, but I’m like, there’s really no need for you to. I don’t, you know, anything that needs to be done can be done within 24 hours.
It doesn’t have to be done within two hours. Like, please stop staying up till three o’clock in the morning thinking that you have to like, be awake while I am working. You do not need to do that. So it took for a while for them to believe me, but eventually they did.
Michael
I’m glad.
Viveka
You know, we have one meeting a week where we’re in a US time zone, but which is actually super early for me, but, you know, that’s, it’s fine.
Michael
That’s pretty much always the case on just about everything that we run into, that there will be some cases where we might need to flex outside of our preferences a little bit. Yeah. Much fewer cases where we need to flex way out of our preferences. And simply knowing what our preferences are, let us prepare and then recoup after from those times we’re really extremely flexing up.
Viveka
Yes, absolutely.
Michael
I know if I’m going to any sort of event with more than three people, I am going to take days to myself beforehand and afterwards. The more people are gonna be there, the longer, the more of those days before and after are gonna be.
Viveka
No one believes me that I’m an introvert, but I, you know, I do, I feel by myself. And so, and you know, I set expectations like it is so great to see you all, and I would love to go out with you tonight after spending, you know, what feels like 48 hours with you today. But I, you know, I really, I just, I need some time to myself, and most people will understand that, but if you don’t tell them that, then they’re like, well, she’s a snooty bit, person. You know.
Michael
If you don’t tell them that and go along then,
Viveka
Or Yeah. Or go along and the next you’re, like, yeah, exactly.
Michael
Yeah. No one’s having as much fun then.
Viveka
No. Although I will say sometimes I have to force myself to do things and when I do, like the other day I was, there was a networking event and I had agreed to go and so I was really not wanting to, but I made myself go and I really enjoyed it and I met some really cool people and I was really glad I went, but it was, it was hard. I don’t like walking into a room where I don’t know anyone. One person I know makes all the difference in the world. Nobody, and I’m just like, Ugh.
Michael
And we all have cases like that. That’s a great example of how understanding where our preferences are lets us choose to flex out of them. In hopes of or knowing that we will gain something from that.
Viveka
Yeah. I love that. Absolutely.
Michael
The more we understand about who we are and how we work, the more intentional we can be about living our life.
Viveka
For sure.
Michael
And the more fun we’re gonna have.
Fun, intentionality for us is great. What’s, and it may help me work with my coworkers have more fun with them. That’s great. What’s the business value of doing all this work, creating these cultures?
Viveka
Productivity. I mean, it seems counterintuitive, but I feel like companies that play together, that speak together, that are in an honest conversation with each other are just more functional. I think we can all, I don’t even have to share an example.
I think we can all think of a time, a place, a company that was very striated, that was very pyramidical for want of a better word. That was very isolated, siloed, that was very, you know, function and productivity based, but without allowing for true growth and creativity. And you know, I’m sure some of those companies are still in business, but a lot of them are not.
And a lot, you know, it takes a leader who can trust their, not blindly, but can trust their team, that will allow their team to function to sometimes make mistakes, to grow from those mistakes. What I see too often is leadership that is micromanaging, which doesn’t work for many reasons.
But one of them is maybe that leader’s way isn’t the best way, and if you’re micromanaging your entire company to do what you do or to think like you think or to function like you function, you may be severely limiting the possibilities. I know I can’t think of everything. Be everything, do everything. One of the reasons I started my last company was because I was moving into it with six other leaders and I admired them and I wanted to learn and grow from them, you know?
And so you if you come into leadership with a, you know, with a big, as I say, a beginner mind with a mind that continuously wants to be educated and to learn and to grow, it’s going to make, it’s gonna make your company, I think, more functional in the long run. It might be a little uncomfortable and a little dysfunctional at first, but once you get things rolling along, you know, you can see great gains.
Michael
How do you help your clients take those first steps to being more open to, maybe I don’t have to be fully in charge, know all the answers, and how do you help them help their teams understand that they’re making the shift?
Viveka
It’s audits, audits, audits, audits. And I don’t mean like financial audits, although that’s good to know. Kind of know where, you’re at and where you’ve got some leeway and some openings. But, you’re, you know, do audits on your own strengths and do research on what else is out there. And do those personality tests for your customers, and for your clients too, for that matter. And be in that space of learning so that it’s always exploration, it’s always discovery, what’s possible. And I, what’s interesting, so I usually work with the leaders, not with the whole company. So when I work with the leadership, I mean, it’s easy for me to see where their strengths are and where their weaknesses are.
So a lot of times I will ask them questions that will showcase where they are strong and where they are weak. And then we will talk about delegation and who can take over that. I had a call the other day, it was with a client, and she just didn’t have any time and had all these things she needed to do, and her husband’s retired, and I’m like, okay, so, can he do this? Can he do that? Can he do this other thing? Like, why do you have to do all of the things in your business and in the house? And you know, she just, it didn’t even to occur to her to ask him, and he probably would love to do it. And so it, you know, we just were so blinded by our own expectations. We sometimes need somebody else to reflect back to us who we are, what we do, what we need, what we want, how we can function best.
Michael
This is another reason I love the personality assessments because it gives us a external view on what people might enjoy doing and what maybe they don’t so much enjoy doing.
Viveka
Yeah. Yeah.
Michael
It can trigger thoughts that we never would’ve had otherwise.
Viveka
Right. Yeah. And it’s an, it’s a, not that I, you know, I’m never gonna give all my power away to an outside authority anymore, but having an outside authority to reflect back to us, you know, who we are and where our strengths are, that can be very, very powerful.
And then you make your own decision as if, as to if it’s true or not.
Michael
Absolutely. If I know Viveka is an, if I believe Viveka is an extrovert and then we do this Myers-Briggs or one of the other assessments that uses that spectrum, and I found out actually she’s kinda like more on the introvert side, then that could totally change my whole perspective of how you show up and it lets me bring that into conversations. And so, maybe I start asking if you’d like to come to the after-dinner and the after-work functions instead of just assuming that, of course, you’re gonna come, ’cause you love being around people.
Viveka
Right? Right. Yeah, no, that’s, and it’s assumptions. We just, we assume things day in, day out about ourselves and about other people.
And yeah, so if we can clarify some of those assumptions, then maybe we can have more effective relationships. Like, I assume my husband should just read my mind about everything. Like maybe, you know, maybe I should actually ask him if he’s willing to make dinner. And I did. I did. I just assumed that he would see me working all of these hours and know that I would be exhausted and, you know, realize I would, there he is, realize I wouldn’t be into, you know, cooking dinner after working all day when he wasn’t working as hard, maybe. But that was an assumption. That was an assumption. And I would get mad ’cause I would work all day, be exhausted, go upstairs, and have to make dinner too.
Like, I’d be so mad and, you know, then finally I’m like, okay. Take yourself as a client. Hey honey, would you be willing to, you know, make some of these Green Chef dinners three nights a week? Sure. I’d be happy to. Oh, oh, oops.
Michael
I love this. This is such a great example of how simple things can get super complex in our head. How conversations we worry will be really hard may actually be super simple, and simply asking a question can completely change the dynamics of a situation.
Viveka
Yeah. Oh my gosh. I know. It’s never as hard as you think it’s gonna be. It is never as hard as you think it’s gonna be. I think to every conversation I’ve put off, I haven’t wanted to do from breaking up with my fiancés in the past to, you know, leaving my last JOB to, okay, that was kind of hard conversation to, you know, to asking my husband to make dinner. Like it the, it’s never as hard as you think it’s gonna be, so just do it.
Michael
This is a great segue into my next question. How do you help yourself and your people, all the people that you’re working with, find your their way through all the change, uncertainty, and overwhelm that seems to be what life is these days?
Viveka
And I have to constantly remind myself that my inner voice, my inner knowing, knows everything, you know, and I just, or knows everything that’s important.
That’s really important. And so it’s just, it’s a constant practice to go back and trust our inner voices and our inner knowing and you can’t do it from scratch. I mean, you can’t just go, okay, I’m gonna start trusting my inner knowing, when I haven’t gone inside, whatever that looks like. I mean, for me, as I said, it’s journaling.
For other people, it’s playing music. For other people, it’s painting. For other people, it’s meditation. For other people, it’s yoga. For other people, it’s hiking. For other people, it’s rock climbing. For other people, it’s hang gliding, right? Which is very hard to do every day, but whatever that going within is that puts you into that meditative open space where you stop thinking and start absorbing, you have to make that a daily practice. But once you’ve done that and once you’re kind of tapped in, then it becomes much easier to go back to that inner knowing in that inner voice. And then, oh yeah, by the way, you have to trust it because I will tell you every time my inner voice says to do this and I do this instead, I always freaking regret it.
And here is the other thing. It’s like there’s no degrees when it comes to intuition. Like, you know, not, if I get an intuition not to drive to the store and I drive anyway and I get into a massive accident and you know, my car gets crushed and I lose my leg, like that intuition feels the same as you know, don’t walk on the ice, and I slip and I sprain my ankle. Like it just, there’s the intuitive voice is the same. It’s not like big intuition or small intuition. Maybe this is just me, so I just never know. So I’m just gonna trust it. Like if I get an intuitive hit to do something or not to do it, I’m just gonna trust it because if I don’t, it could be a massive car crash or it could be a sprained ankle, but since I don’t know what it’s gonna be, I’m gonna trust the intuition. And that’s a learning in and of itself, too, because I think for all of you out there who are listening, if you’ve had an intuition and you’ve gone against it, you know, sometimes the consequences are minor and it’s like whatever, and sometimes they’re massive. So, you know, just trust it. Just trust it.
Michael
And for listeners who may be wondering how to start playing with this in a less potentially traumatic way, ask your intuition on to make decisions that don’t matter. If you’re going for a walk at an intersection, which way should go?
Viveka
Oh my gosh. I love that.
Michael
When you’re getting dressed in the morning, which outfit should I wear? Or even just which pair of socks or just underwear, which no one probably is going to see, and so it doesn’t matter.
Viveka
Oh my God, I love that. Yes, Absolutely. You know, which way drive to work a different way. I can only go, I can only drive to work by going up and down my stairs. So, but there are other ways to get to my office. So actually, you know, I love that. Like, yeah. When it comes to a decision, and we make thousands of them every day, like, okay, what should I have for dinner?
What, you know? Yeah. I love that. I love that.
Michael
For everyone who is enjoying our conversation and would like to get in touch with you to learn more about how you work, all the joy that you bring to the work you do, and the people you help, what is the best way for them to connect with you?
Viveka
Yeah, probably the website beyondthedreamboard.com.
I’ve got a, you know, a connect page there, or LinkedIn. Although my name is much harder to spell. It used to be easy. I used to be like a Google, LinkedIn expert; you’ll find me. But now it’s Viveka von Rosen, so that’s harder. But I am the only one out there, I think right now. So, you know, just Google me, find me on LinkedIn, go to my website beyondthedreamboard. Yeah, but definitely reach out, say you listen to this podcast, and yeah, let’s have a conversation.
Michael
And I’ll have all these links on the show notes, as well as to the 35 strategies you have up for us.
Viveka
Oh, the 35 strategic. Yeah. Yeah. So, that, yes, I have, I forgot about that. Thank you for the reminder. I do, if you are wondering, you know, is it time to make a pivot or, you know, what can I do to be, or evolvement, what can I do to do that in a more, thoughtful way? Yeah. I do a free 35-minute session, and it’s not a sales pitch.
It’s just like, let’s, it’s a discovery. Let’s see what’s possible for you. And I’m more than, yeah, we got the link in the show notes, and I’m more than happy to, jump on a call with you.
Michael
Sounds great. What would you like to leave our audience with today, Viveka?
Viveka
I think going back to what we have been talking about, you know, really from the beginning is just trust yourself.
And it might take practice to where you can trust yourself, but, you know, learn how to tap into that deeper knowing. I’d love what Michael just said about, you know, practice it with inconsequential decisions every day because it will help you become more aligned with your deeper knowing and that will make all the difference.
Michael
Thank you, Viveka, for a fabulous conversation today.
Viveka
Thank you so much. It was so much fun.
Michael
This has been great, and thank you audience, for joining us today on this ride. Viveka and I would love to know, where do you a hundred percent trust yourself today? Where are you learning to trust? Please let us know and let us know if we can help.
Thanks and have a great day. Thanks.