Greg Voisen
Welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen and host of Inside Personal Growth. And joining me on the opposite end of the United States, you are in what city, Joni?

Joni Carley
I am in media Pennsylvania just outside of Philadelphia, media Pennsylvania.

Greg Voisen
Actually my wife was just in PA. Here is The Alchemy of Power by Dr. Joni Carley, let me try and get it straight next to my face. I met Joni through a gentleman or through a series of gentleman actually. And she was a co-author of a book called Holomovement. And I was so excited about the work that they were doing that I invited her to be on the show again, to speak about her book. All of you know Phil Clothier because he has been on for on not only the Holomovement, but also his other built, growing business of sustainability and maybe got a little bit wrong. But you guys can look for that podcast. We'll put a link. Joanie, I appreciate you being on. It's a pleasure having you and especially with your background, and we're gonna have a really exciting podcast today, but I'm gonna let our listeners know. Dr. Joni Carly is the author of The Alchemy of Power: Mastering the Visible Factors of Leadership. She works on consciousness and culture through advisory consulting services, including as a you knighted nations E C. O S, OC consultant, and convener of the United Nations NGO major groups. Unit CIF cluster, she's also advises leaders speaks and provides media guest experience and writes articles about creating principles based values driven, United World boy, do we need that Joanie, I hope that you and all the people that United Nations can get that done quickly. She had, she draws from a unique depth and breadth of experience ranging from the jungle to the boardroom and to the C suite, to the podium, the African bush to the Asian temples and from universities to the United Nations, including the Doctor of Ministry, in the reinvention of work, one spirit, interfaith seminary orientation, 30 years of CO creating inner spiritual events and indigenous religious and spiritual leaders and spiritual artists, including the UN World interfaith harmony, un Forum on Indigenous ceremony and global unity dot Earth celebrations. Well, quite a bio, you're certainly the person to talk about the power of alchemy with our listeners, if you would, now that the listeners have a bit of a background, what's the back what led you to actually wanting to write this book, The Power of the alchemy of power in leadership in particular, because I know you've done work with Barrett. So that's the link with Phil. So tell us a little bit about how you got here with this book?

Joni Carley
Well, I had a path of many paths. And one of those was consulting, working with leaders and realizing that I did a marketing survey one time and I realized that all my clientele was so disparate, it was so different from each other. I couldn't figure out what's the unifying thread here of Who are these people that are coming to me. And so I did a marketing survey and found out they were all really smart. They're all really successful, or between successes. People will call people like me as the between times and they all have a lot of heart. You know, and that combination is showing up and a lot. It's a larger profile than that, but there's a demographic that fits that. That's huge and growing. The other part of that that led me to it was I was also really had strong spiritual callings. And you said one spirit orientation. It was one spirit ordination I ordained as an interfaith minister. Think of that as inter spiritual because I'm not religious, but spiritual and have trapped the world including in the jungle with shamans and temples and churches and monasteries and, you know, many indigenous teachers. I'm all over the world for most of my lifetime. And for most of my career, I kept separate websites I kept, I kept up firewall between these two things. Because there was really that if you get any bit of that sort of fluffy stuff in into the mix, then you're discounted. Right? If it's spiritual, it can't be about success.

Greg Voisen
Yeah. Well, spirituality and business was certainly something that, you know, I told you previously, it goes way back. And we used to go to conferences in San Francisco. And, you know, it wasn't hidden, but it certainly wasn't at the forefront. It was something that we had to little, we kind of had to tiptoe around a little bit more than we would you mentioned in the preface of the book, that the books about expanding leadership consciousness, because good leaders of all, but great leaders consciously evolve. How is it that great leaders transform their personal consciousness in your estimation? In other words, that's a big question. Because consciousness is like this big amorphous word that we talked about. Yet, it's kind of hard to drill down and say, so what does that mean? What makes me more conscious than you? Not really, I think as a group, we allude, or I shouldn't say allude, we basically have a greater level of consciousness. And as you know, some companies, Patagonia would probably be one I would mention, you know, they have a culture of evolving conscious leaders, in many companies do but not all companies. So what would you say for somebody who's out there working in a company that wants to actually kind of elevate not only their personal consciousness, but also of all the people around them?

Joni Carley
Yeah, you know, Greg, you just unpacked, we could talk for 45 minutes, just on that question. I mean, really, that is? So that's the,

Greg Voisen
that's the alignment question. Alignment question.

Joni Carley
So first of all, you know, me more conscious than you, that's not the conversation because you know, you're already out of the territory if you're in that me versus you in the realm of consciousness. But consciousness is causal. So before anything else happens, it's a matter of consciousness, right? Consciousness is something that happens in the domain of consciousness before it ever happens in the domain of physicality. And so but we tend to ignore it in my book, I call it the fluffy theory that anything that we can't touch is inconsequential, fluffy stuff. And it's like an iceberg. If you think of it like an iceberg, that only 5% of it shows the bottom 5% is invisible to the eye, but it's going to be the most no pun intended, impactful on your boat if you get close to it, right. And so if you think of the human experience, as in the same format, as an iceberg, as an analogy, the strategies, the behaviors, all of those things are that 5% at the top, the underlying and visibility's are the where consciousness lies. And they're really the most consequential in terms of the iceberg is not going to stay where it is, without that bottom 95% rooted to the ground, you know, and these areas are these invisible areas that most MBA programs are going to tell people to ignore, because you can't put it on a spreadsheet. And so but at your own peril. And as the world is shifting toward wanting a better world, what we talked about in the beginning, leaders who are functioning in this old leadership paradigm, are going to find themselves irrelevant, because the world's calling the world is desperate for a new leadership. And Patagonia is a great example. As the ascertain companies are minding their cultures, which culture is a reflection of consciousness. So every social breakdown is first and foremost, a breakdown of consciousness. Right? And so, you know, if you go back to the level of consciousness and say, for yourself, what is that it's really not comparing to anything or wanting to be anything. It's saying, you know, let me settle in, take a moment and just reflect, take a moment and tap into that that little bitty kind of angst in my gut that I have been ignoring and pushing aside. Let me breathe into that for five minutes and see what happens. You know, I mean, it's a big unknown, like the bottom of the ocean, the deep unknown, you know, but it's the willingness to tap into that deeper like the bottom the iceberg. Tap into that deeper source full place that matters so much. And culture is really a reflection of that and it also supports so if you're in a culture that's really toxic, then you're conscious This is gonna get rocked in that culture, it's gonna be hard to maintain a steady consciousness there. And you're probably not going to perform that well. But if your culture is such that you're respected, you're included, you're there's, there's what I call Mojo, the energy is popping, and there's strength and there's, you know, really good things happening, then people, they perform their best when they're stopping for coffee, they're not gossiping, or, you know, cutting off conversations. They're, the ideas are popping there. Oh, I had this idea when she talked about your project, I've forgotten your you aren't, you know, and that really is alchemy. Right? Those are the things you can't put them on a spreadsheet, you can't and but that person goes back to their desk. And they're all the more empowered, they work a little harder. They've got a new idea of their own now added to the one that just got over coffee, and all of a sudden magics happening and nobody even realized it happened, you know, whether somebody's putting their cream and

Greg Voisen
yeah, it's, you know, when you think about, you know, your Yvon Chouinard and him basically doing an ESOP. And you know, when is enough, right, he had, I think it was a billion dollars, right, something like that. And he made an employee owned company. And, you know, for a long time, he wasn't in that space. If anybody knows anything about him, it was all about grab, get more, have more, do more whatever. And he came to this realization as an entrepreneur, who had started Patagonia that wasn't going to work for him anymore. And I think that's a great example. And in the book, you discuss mastering the invisible factors of leadership. And I think this is a that's an important tipping point, what I just said to, for someone to actually say, okay, I have enough, I'm okay, I can give this to my employees, and we can move forward. Could you explain these invisible factors, and how they can affect an impact leader, like your launch Menard, like many other people who have done this, but, you know, we're on that example. So we might as well use it. But, you know, you're talking about all these invisible factors that are underneath the iceberg, right? And when they become visible, and we become aware, we actually shift our behaviors associated with what it is that we do every day.

Joni Carley
That's right. Again, it comes down to the consciousness is causal of behaviors, right? So you know, one way that we Access Consciousness is to look at values. And those are invisible, right, I value connection, as do most people. That's one thing across the world where people value across all demographics, almost more than anything else is connection. And so, you know, where is that in our economic values? It's valuations. It's nowhere. And so you get a CEO who's looking at standard value evaluations, and they don't see that their employee connectivity really matters. But when you measure the values and the culture of a company, and you do the math with how much they're making, you know, Patagonia is a great example. He got it. He got it going to be more successful. And now the data's in when I got into this field, it was crapshoot, honestly, it was a crapshoot, because there was no data to back this up. And now the whole back of my book is references to studies, that that really anchors this data, that it's clear now profits go up, share prices go up, social indicators go up pretty much every indicator you look at goes up, when people attend to these intangibles like values, you know, is are the values such that everybody's playing through a full out? Are they respecting their family? Is there some humor or their ethics or their share sharing? Or is it silo? Is there gossip? Are there negative values playing out, I'm sure you went into a lot of that with Phil. But that's really a good key. And that's why I'm so passionate about the Barrett work. Because when we do these measurements in a company, you get database reports that spit out all kinds of graphs and charts and clarity on these things. And then you can be accountable. And that's a big part of the problem is nobody's accounting for culture. Even though mainstream all the way across the board. It is undeniable now that culture is the biggest factor of success, bar none. It matters. No, no other factor is nearly as influential as your company's culture. That's established. That's no longer a fringy idea. That's well established. Yeah. And still, how many CEOs do you know who are actually accounting for their culture or even thinking about it? And so is very, very, a big part of it is just taking the time to say Okay, maybe I need to go slow to go fast for a minute here. Maybe I need to step back and look at how does it feel in here? I use the word Mojo. And I describe Mojo is that kind of spark of life, that kind of that, that jazz, that that zip that, you know, it's what makes life live, right? We can put all the elements of a human being in a lab dish, we can't make a human being because we don't have the that metaphysical understanding. And that's what I'm talking about here is tapping into the metaphysics. And we tend to think that's a bugaboo area, it's not it's the science and the philosophy of causality of what causes what, and many, you know, generations ago, what was metaphysical was considered, you know, crazy and metaphysical is now standard physics and science. Standard physics, standard science comes out of the metaphysical before we can concretize it at but yet, we tend to throw away that whole 95% and metaphysical that that bottom, we call it, in my book, I call it the fluffy myth. You know that this is inconsequential, fluffy?

Greg Voisen
Well, like you said, many of the universities and the educational institutions that people come out of with their master’s in business, and that they're not really teaching that they're teaching the fundamentals. Now, these should be the fundamentals. And you and I both agree with that. And you're just what?

Joni Carley
It's about them, because it's a yin and a yang. Yeah, okay. Well, no,

Greg Voisen
So, so let's talk about Mojo flow. You know, you just mentioned that I had a question about it. And you refer to it in the book, and it seems to be a pretty major point for you. You've said it several times now. But how can we channel the individual Mojo flow, and then the collective Mojo flow to transform an organization? So in other words, if you've got this spark happening, this like, boom, inside of a company, and you see that things are clicking? How do you harness that power? You know, because there's huge power in that, and the alchemy, you know, you're talking about the alchemy of power, that's really it. stuff starts to happen stuff shards, as they say, shit happens, right? A lot of good things start happening. Can you? Yeah, can you? Can you clarify that for our audience? A little bit more? Yeah. Or is that as clear as it's gonna get?

Joni Carley
Set it really well. I think the important part is to value it. Right? We know that this is what makes life go, whether it's in the office or outside, I mean, this is what makes life go. So I think one really big question is to ask yourself, how's my mojo? You know, just check in on it. Everybody knows when, when the Mojo is flowing, oh, man, people can't wait to do the next thing. They can't help themselves. You know, they forget lunch just happened and they missed it. You know, I mean, that's what happens when things are flowing. And it just it creates it starts creating its own momentum. And then the issue is focus for sure. There are certain issues of you know, channeling that, but for a leader to walk into a room and say, to first of all, to be accountable for their own Mojo, maybe my Mojo has disappeared, maybe it's really down today, maybe I had a fight with somebody, or maybe I'm not feeling so good. So I'm not in the greatest Mojo. So be aware that this might not be the day to drive a big project, this might be a day to study something a little harder to just own it. And then to look in the room and say, How's everybody else's Mojo? Right? Step back and really ask that question and full authenticity, and in the spirit of listening and receptive receptivity, and really do an assessment, how's everybody else's Mojo going? And if you take that minute to take that assessment, and honestly take it in, and it might take you three days to fully assess it and manage it, but honor it as valuable data, that that we can quantify and with a beret working, quantify that, so it is quantifiable data. But in that moment, it's not it's in that domain of metaphysics that right for amorphous, it's in

Greg Voisen
the fluffy, it's in the fluffy area for certain. And it but the most important thing is if you're aware, you feel it. And I think the sense is, if you're conscious, your feelings of these things, your intuition is greater than it's ever been. And I wanted you because you started to talk about the Yin and the Yang and I think this is an important principle. You know, this Taoist philosophy is around dualism, right? There's a lot of books out there about dualism which is denoted by the concepts of Ying and Yang but you state Ying yang described the inherent dualism of life but are not fixed opposites. Okay? No, I think many people would probably say, well, I thought they were fixed opposites. If you could explain this concept to the listeners, because I think it's a really important one that you bring up in the book.

Joni Carley
Thank you for bringing it up. Greg, I think it's really critical. I think if we could use this lens more often, it could really shape reshape a lot of conversations that are critical. So let me just unpack yin and yang, our Taoist philosophy of expansion and contraction, dark light, you know, it is sort of oppositional in that sense. But when you see the symbol with the thing, and there's always the young.in, the yin and the Yin dot and the Yang, it's, it's never absolute, and it's relativistic. Right? I may be more young than the next person, but the next person may be more young than me. And so it's relative. And that gets us out of these absolutes, this, us versus them this dualistic kind of thinking that that we're so caught up in, and especially now in America, we're so polarized, and that kind of polarization doesn't serve, it just doesn't serve. At the end of the day, we are one world, we are one people in one place. And so we have to come to terms with that. And I think Yin and Yang are helpful. So my theory is that we've had young itis So Young is the data, the numbers, the typical measurements of success, the concrete, you know, and it's all good. It's not Yin or Yang. But most of our valuations in agriculture nations, for millennia, have been very young, dominant, we've had male leaders of religions and institutions, we've been militarization has been our answer to problems are a big part of our lives. The dollar has superseded caring, and compassion. And so all of that are what I'm lumping into what I'm calling young itis. And that's just a swing a little too far young. And so there is a call right now that's swinging inward. And that's what people call airy fairy, you know, new agey, like, there's a lot of degrading terms to that. And that degradation has to do with these cultural norms that are highly young, dominant. And so anything that looks and looks threatening, and looks like inconsequential, fluffy stuff, nothing is further from the truth. The bottom, the iceberg is no more fluffy than the top, I mean, it's really all the more substance, but you just can't see it. And so that's what we have to get to is these Yin factors. And, you know, it's no accident that women have been suffering so badly under this because they represent the more yen, right, also as a helpful lens on gender issues, especially these days, as genders become more fluid, got male, female, you can't people who can't, you know, you get all these arguments. If you say, this person has a lot more yen in them, there's assigned male at birth, but they tend to be more, they're leaning more inward, more human, more, more human. It's a way of conceptualizing the breaks through this polarity. And, you know, if you're, if you're born, you have a front and a back, you have a top and a bottom. It's just part of the physical physicality of being on Earth that we are dualistic. That's just our reality. We have a dark and a light, it's just here, we can't see the you can't see the white printing on the Zoom screen. If you don't, if it didn't have a black background, you know, it's all it's got to be there. And so fighting against duality is not an answer. But the answer is embracing it and being conscious with it. And that's what I'm, that's really what I'm saying is Yin and Yang are a way of accessing this domain. That's not only that's tough to access, and best of times, but when we're also acculturated to not only devalue this domain, but to actually denigrate it to throw it away.

Greg Voisen
And I think it's really, you know, just a personal notation here. It's more about balance, right? And I think, you know, we all have male, we all have female, we all exhibit these behaviors, but it's really to understand that can you hold that energy of that balance? Some people have said to me, you know, oh, you seem more female than male? And I said, Well, no, I'm very male. But I have learned how to deal with the female side of me, right? And it's a very important part, the part around compassion, the part around love, but the part around carrying the car round understanding. And that brings me to this mention in the chapter that you have, we keep talking about this invisible and so I want to get to it the mechanics that everything we currently know and see, constitutes 5% of the universe. 95% of our reality is a mystery. Right? And I was watching a documentary the other day about zero point energy. Okay. So for all of you who are not aware, there is free energy out there and many of it's already been there. But because of our, the way our world is designed, we have big what I want, okay, corporations that are kind of controlling all of this, but the reality is there but all 100% is always in the dynamic state of cosmic emergence that begins with when you say the bang, how can we use alchemy to tap into the other 95%?

Joni Carley
Well, another big woman could do three shows on us think so large, Greg, I love it. I do want to touch on the word before I go into that in the word balance first, because I like the word equanimity. So in terms of yin and yang, if you breathe in, you're more young you breathe out, you're more yen. Right? If you if you hit absolute homeostasis with that you don't have to die right then and there to hold it. Like the euro. And so I think really the mastery here is there are times to be more young, there are times to be more yen, and by you expanding to open up to more Yin influence more human aspects of yourself, it gives you a greater range of possibility and your responses to things. And the equanimity is the ability to, to discern and make a conscious decision of I'm going to come down hard right now. Or I'm going to come down soft right now. And that's, that's a discernment in the moment. And the more spiritual and personal homework you've done, the more capacity you're going to have for that discernment in that moment. So it's not an absolute and that's, that's part of the problem of our polarity thinking, you know, we come to this sense of, there's an absolute place to be No, this is all emergent from what my dear friend Jude caravan calls the big breath. I wrote my book, The Big Bang, because I hadn't heard from her. But she's, uh, yeah, but she's done the cosmology that proves that the universe probably breathed out, which again, is a more Yin perspective, right? Our history is so young and banged into existence. And so we're, of course, we're young, but if it breathed into existence, do you see like the subtle distinctions, and that's the same way as accessing this, this alchemy? So you can give one liter all a two leaders, you can give them both the exact same people, this resources, financial materials, deadlines, you know, all the same. One turns out innovation quality, the other one turns out stuff that's falling apart, the team's already flustered, you know, what's the difference there? The difference is in the leadership, and that's what I'm calling alchemy, and that leadership alchemy, we used to think of it as the ability to turn lead into gold. Right? That's a very limited understanding. It's the ability to create more than the sum of parts. Right? What created that excellence of one the sum of parts, you know, was what it was, it could have been in the middle between these two people, but one did really well one did really poorly, rather than both did in the middle. What explains that difference? What explains the differences, these intangibles that leaders like Patagonia? Like? There's a lot of companies that are more expansive and bringing in these ideas. Now, this is an idea whose time has come and the numbers are in? So it's no longer a question. It's really old, old, old paradigm, you know, inculturation at this point, and it's going to take some time for this to come in. But the paying attention, just attending to and finding a way to value checking yourself when you realize it's like when you're speaking a new language, and you use the wrong word. And you figure that out five hours later, you know, and then you get to a point where you figure it out right after the conversation, and then you figure it out in the conversation. It's the same thing as stepping back and looking at this domain of mojo or consciousness or values and these intangibles and start to look to step back. And so what's playing out here just take a moment, again, is that that adage of go slow to go fast for a moment because you will rocket ship if you can get this kind of alchemical fuel under this is fuel Mojo is fuel it is the ultimate fuel of the human behavior. And so if you can look at what's going to stoke your mojo, what's going to stoke somebody else's Mojo in this moment, and it may be just being quiet, you know, it doesn't mean get being loud and pushy. It means you know what, what will nurture that spark of spirit in the moment?

Greg Voisen
Well, you, you brought up something you talked about breathing in and breathing out, just taking a moment. And I happened to be leaving in a week for a meditation retreat on the Orcas Island, with Dr. Joel, Michelle Levy, and many of the listeners out there know the tunnel in the healing power of Tang land. So we are bringing in the negative and breathing out the positive. That's the easiest way for me to kind of explain it. But I think what's really important is that we're putting into the ethers of the universe, these kind of things by saying, hey, look, if we all practiced this Tanglin kind of meditation, we would see a change in ourselves first, and a huge change and everybody around us, right? Because of what we're doing, we're putting this energy into the ether. So that brings me to some practical strategies at the every one of these chapters, you've got questions at the back. And I think when somebody gets a book, in particular, this is intriguing. Is this one that I wanted to ask you about? For someone who is an aspiring leader? How do they implement it? And how do they take some of these practical strategies or exercises, I don't really refer to them as exercises, but maybe they were to implement them into becoming, or I should say, in mastering these invisible factors that you've been talking about, because you outline all the invisible factors in the book, right? Maybe not all? Well, you, were you. You got a lot of them in there, that's for certain. Yes. So my question for you is this is, hey, if I'm going to read a chapter, and then go to your exercise, and then I'm going to use these exercises to make me more aware of the invisible factors, and then practice understanding how these invisible factors are affecting my consciousness. Yeah, I call them

Joni Carley
leadership reflections. And what was important to me, and really going back to your very first question of what made me write the book, I had done all this tracking, found out all the power in this in this other realm of spirituality, seeing the leadership realm and thinking so much could come to bear and make such a good difference in the world. How can I bring these together? And I was fortunate enough to have an editor who said, who gave me carte blanche to do exactly that. And so what was important to me was, and the question I was asking was, how can a leader apply what all this this wealth of more than information of inspiration and information that I was gathering? How can they apply it to what's going on in their desks right now? Because that's what I did as a consultant, you know, trying to bridge that. And so I put real leadership reflections at the end of every chapter to really integrate the work, and it's not so much. Here's this chapter. Now, here's what you have to do. It's not linear like that. It's here's what how do you take this in? And personally integrate it not every leader is going to do look at every chapter at the end of every book, but sorry, I got to the point every, it was going to answer every question at the end of the leadership reflections, but some of them are going to really stand out for you. So you're gonna have to say, you know, just to take a look at them just to take time in this domain, right? Oh, critical. And again, you know, it may not make sense to you right? Now, if you've been acculturated an old paradigm way with almost all of us have, I have a doctorate in this. And I wrote a book on it. I'm still very acculturated no paradigm, because that's what that's what I that's the water I swim in.

Greg Voisen
Well, you have one right here that came out of one of the chapters. And I think it says, take some time to dialogue with and seek wise counsel from people who stand out to you because they embody noble warrior and or heroic consciousness in that they are curious, intuitive, compassionate, content wise, and they have a deep, spirited life. Now, just that in itself would be something that if you took the time to dialogue with somebody like that, what you could actually learn and your book is filled with I mean, every chapter at the end leadership reflections are in there. And if you only bought this book Ken, all you did was go to the leadership reflections, and follow some of the advice, it would be worth the price of the book.

Joni Carley
I think the last three to, you know, if you just got the book and did the leadership reflections and read the glossary. I love Mike the glossary, because I unpack so many concepts like Yin and Yang and metaphysics and all of those things that that really start to situate, you know, it's a big word ontology. But that's the good ground of being. And many people understand and agree that we're at a paradigm change right now. And paradigm necessarily means changing the very ground of being changing the very basis of where we're coming from. And that's kind of what the glossary does, it sets out a group of definitions that start to define some of this new territory. And many people are doing this defining new territory, and I'm sure most of them have already been on your show. Well, I

Greg Voisen
think that you're so interesting, because your work at the UN, and I wouldn't, it would be remiss of me not to include this in there, you know, when you look at people, planets, profits, partnership, and purpose and peace, peace, right. And I know I went through these with Phil, but obviously, you being so directly connected, there's an organization that exemplifies hopefully, because you're working inside that organization, the alchemy of power, the higher consciousness of people that are trying to at their best to change the way in which the world operates and treats one another, and individuals and organizations and so on, if you would tell us a little bit about the work that you do there or have done there. And why do you believe that so important as it relates to this alchemy of power?

Joni Carley
Well, the work that I do there, I started out again, very separate space, I started out leading visionary dialogue with the high level leaders at the UN and visionary leaders series of dialogues. And they were self-selected, it was really interesting. I mean, we had high level leaders in tears, because they came to the UN with the Charter, the values, the principles that the UN represented. And then they were caught in the hierarchy and the protocol and the, the some of the dysfunctions at the UN and, and these dialogues, were bringing that to the surface. So, you know, we really recognize pain point, one person said, you know, if I was on an elevator, and I spoke about some of this, and the wrong person was also on that elevator, I could lose my career track. You know, and back then that was the way and you know, again, why I had the firewall between my websites and things like that, over time, that's really changed in the last few years. That's just not so anymore. There are places around there is just a high level political forum, they're calling for transformation on all kinds of levels. And using that word, there's offices of transformation. I mean, it's really true, totally infiltrated there, because people are recognizing we can't get there from here, this paradigm does not contain the way to what where we need to be if we're going to have a peaceful and happy world. If everybody's kids are going to go to bed safe bed and warm, then we need to do things differently. The UN is recognizing that they have they're doing work on their own internal shifting of internal structures. And that's happening over time, there's the SDG Summit coming up with someone to the future. And that's really internally looking. Since the UN turned 75. What I'm doing there, I began something called the unit of cluster, which is now an official UN mechanism. And maybe probably for the first time that an application to form a mechanism within the UN had the words love and consciousness and it got accepted. So I think that was already pretty good for you. Since then, we've gathered quite a few NGOs who are on the ground at the UN who are those who are realizing that we have to go to this by a different means. And so what I'm saying it a lot of meetings now is we can't keep fixing the same old system. Yes, you have to put food in hungry kids mouths, you have to fix infrastructure. But at the same time, if you keep fixing something, all you really do is proliferate a problematic system. Not working on what is the new system? What's the new ontology? What's the paradigmatic shift? What's the ontological basis of a new way of being? And that's the, you know, that's a question that will change for millennia going forward. If we answer that question, well, starting in this, and so I'm raising at UN Conversations, I'm saying if we don't deal with this from the domain of consciousness, if we don't look at the deeper levels of what's Driving people's decision making. If we don't look at what's the kind of Zeitgeist or, you know, what's the Gestalt, underneath all of this thinking, then we're only just going to keep going to try to fix that. Or if we get to this SDG, sustainable development goal if we do this sustainable development goal, and what they realize the world is realizing is that we're not going to realize any of the Sustainable Development Goals, if we don't attend to all of the Sustainable Development Goals. They are one thing and so you usually see I'm going to grab it real fast is a graphic that's used for the sustained Is there a 17 items to do list the entire world agreed on, and it's like no poverty, peace and justice, you know, those kinds of things. And it's 17 of them the environment. So what I say is, my work is in the white spaces in between these

Greg Voisen
getting everybody to come together. And

Joni Carley
it's not just everybody coming together. It's also opening this dilating the space, dilating the idea, where is the work? Is it in creating another well, in a village? Yes. But is it about making sure there's equity across populations? So there's no question that a village drinks water, that if we get the culture right, the SDGs will be a natural outcome. But if we keep pounding away at this SDG and pound away at that SDG that's a very young approach. Right? We keep pounding at this, we tried it out, and we push this, as you know, and a part of Yong Ising thing is looking at the details. We need that it's not Yin or Yang. It's both. It's the discernment of when we need the other. We have just been so young dominant, that we've got a stretch and maybe go a little too far in recess. Yes, yes. When in doubt, you know, when in doubt, you know, you know, try that other just let go take it. I think

Greg Voisen
well meaning, meaning the UN, and I think that, but in an imperfect world, which we certainly live in, people attempt to come together and do the best that they can. And what you're recognizing is it can be better if we were to bring in these invisible factors. And that leads me to kind of question to kind of sum up our interview. What advice would you have for a conscious leader to inspire them to become more effective and authentic leaders, particularly in today's what I call a rapidly changing world? I mean, every time you turn the corner, there's something new. And it's got a ripple effect, right? It's whether it's the economy, or it's education, or it's things that are happening at the UN, or it's the war in Ukraine, or it's this or it's that. I mean, there's so many of these problems. And it's not the UN as a world, we haven't had many problems to deal with over the course of history, we have plenty. It seems like they move so fast now, meaning much more quickly. So this whole part about being agile, I mean, you're talking about, Oh, am I an agile leader, you know, that's a big thing today, what would you tell people that are out there today, that want to be conscious, but at the same time, they've got to create measurements, they've got to, they've got to give reports. They have to be compassionate, they have to be understanding, and they're finding it daunting, right? It's like, oh, my gosh, there's all this that I need to do. And then there's no time for me. Yeah,

Joni Carley
You know, it's, we're caught in the crossfire of shifting valuations in the world, and our economic valuation is still heavily wired to thinking that is not a survival plan for an individual or for the world. And so it's partly having the confidence to step out of that paradigm, even for a minute, even for a minute to just take a breath to like I said, when in doubt, you know, out, you know, sometimes I think it's as easy as a trip to the bathroom. Like, you know, if you find yourself just really in the angst of it, step out, take a breath, value, that little inkling, that little kind of jumping in your in your belly value that take a moment and honor it, walk into your office and don't respond. Sometimes quiet is the best way to respond in the moment later, and at 2pm in confusion, to wrestle to go ahead and wrestle with infusion of chi, you know, the, all the all the tried and true laws of business are telling me one thing, the world's kind of going in another direction. I know here that what we're talking about today matters. I don't know how to integrate that. Which is why I wrote the book to integrate these things. You know, and to just honor that space of not knowing how to go there. Honor the question.

Greg Voisen
Well, I think I would reflect on a recent guest, Dr. Thomas Moore, the eloquence of silence. You just talked about silence. But there's something even deeper. And that is emptiness. And I think what happens is when the bucket gets empty, as a species, we immediately get frightened, and we got to fill it up with something, because it isn't enough. So how are we dealing? You sit, you said, hey, go to the bathroom. Okay. Take a walk, do whatever it is. My point is, how are you as a leader with emptiness? How are you as a leader with just letting things be versus always trying to fix them? You know, and there's something to be said for that. Joanie, I, I'm reflecting on this for a really important reason. And the reason is, when I left that interview with Thomas More on the eloquence of silence, and the reflection of the verses of poetry that were used in the book, to get one to reflect on this emptiness, right? It's like, do you immediately want to go fill your bucket?

Joni Carley
Buckets? I There's nothing wrong with buckets. But you're right like that. That it's a fear. And that's part of this whole paradigm. Right? You're motivated paradigm. And you could say, at the very basis, the paradigm shift is a fear based to a love based paradigm. There you go. That's the bottom line. And so if cure, take, you know, again, it's taking that moment to reflect. Am I responding? am I reacting to this out of fear? Or am I responding in a more loving place? It doesn't mean romantic love. It's a you know, a much more expansive idea. That's why I like yin and yang, you know, am I coming from this young place where I got to fill fill, fill, fill, fill? Where am I coming from the place of equanimity, where I've been so full, that the real, the pendulum is always swinging life, I just never steal. That's the you know, Jesus said, Life is a movement and arrest in the Gospel of Thomas. There's that and that's the Dow is teachings, right? It's always moving. And that's the yin and the yang, it's not one thing, it's always moving. It's always said, young attraction, you and attracts young, you know, it's always in the flow there. And so if the buckets very been very full, for a really long time, there probably is an inner calling and saying empty, empty.

Greg Voisen
I've ended, I've ended podcasts on this note, many times, but I always reflect on it. Because, you know, the Dalai Lama said, and I have it on my wall over here, and I can see it every day. In the end, you're going to be remembered by who loved you, how much you loved and how much you let go. And I think if you really were to kind of sum it up, you're talking about the Yin. It's like, how many people are you actually compassionate with showing love and support? And how many people are showing you love and support? That's the only thing that's going to end our world's problems, period sum total? I don't care what anybody else says. And how much are you willing to let go and not have to be right? Because your ego is so strong that it's saying, okay, I'm gonna fight this person till the end, whatever it might be. And I think if you look at those three simple little things, you might say, If I lived my life with that motto, that things might be really pretty good most of the time.

Joni Carley
Yeah, like if a leader walks into a room and an employee made a really stupid mistake. Right? You're, you're at a moment of choice here. Yeah, you can maybe it was a fireable offense. I don't know. But you know, no matter what, you have the choice to go into a very heavy, young, dominant, nasty reactivity, fear based reactivity, all that the role of my business, you know, and putting people down, which is going to screw up your culture and not serve you in the long run. Can you take that moment, or maybe three days in your office and then some self-reflection to get to a point where you have internal equanimity with a situation, right? I say go for that and then go to that person and respond. And when we say love, I mean people. It's almost like saying, God people pack so much into that, that I worry about using that word, especially in office. But that is, you know, kind of the bottom line, can you respond in a kind, compassionate, caring way? It may be firing the person I you know, that's not really the point. The point is who are you? Who are you in the situation? And that's what you're accountable for? Are you a jerk more of a jerk than the mistake was? Or are you a kind and caring person that the Dalai Lama's pointing toward? And when you can be that person? Things happen, the data is in things happen, your company will be more successful was No.

Greg Voisen
Those are the invisible factors in this book and for all of my listeners, the alchemy of power, and if you look back, it says, how conscious are you of the unseen power that drives results? This is a book that every leader should have. Joanie, it's been a pleasure having you on inside personal growth. And you giving us some of your wisdom about these unseen or invisible factors of leadership so that hopefully everybody will pick up a copy of the book and better understand what they are, and really start to practice as much more conscious leaders. Namaste to you. Thank you for being on the show. Thanks for sharing some of your wisdom and insights. And you take care. You're welcome.

Joni Carley
It's been a real pleasure, Greg.