Ingeniuousness – She Leads She Thrives Podcast Episode 001

Welcome

She Lead She Thrives, the home of inspired conversations, practical and creative wisdom, expansive leadership and business insights, abundant Bragaudacious moments of celebration and useful info you can actually do something with.

You’ll hear about mindset marketing, money, magnetism, self awareness and the Thrive Factor Framework, it’s Archetypes and more. Amplify your role as a leader, a self led soul. Tap into your effortless success zone. Turn your ingeniousness and wisdom into profitable income streams.

From solo shows to guests you’ll definitely want more from, there’s something for every ambitious ingenious soul.

I’m Shannon Dunn, a true OG of the business coaching space, with an obsession with thriving. You are so welcome here. Let’s dive into today’s episode.

Visit ThriveFactorCo.com/links for all the latest news and offers

Shannon  01:16

Welcome superstar. My name is Shannon Dunn and I am so delighted to have you joining me here for Episode 1 of She Leads She Thrives a brand new podcast, and a new way for me to share so much about thriving. 

Shannon  01:31

For this very first official episode, I had a massive list of potential topics that I could share with you. And I settled on the topic of ingeniousness. The reason for that is it’s something I talk about a lot as much as thriving, if that’s possible. And you’re ingeniousness and you being ingenious is, in my experience, so pivotal to your business success. 

Shannon  01:59

So let’s talk about what ingeniousness is. And the reasons why it’s something worth being mindful of, and doing something with. Now, ingeniousness, if I were to define it, is the intersection of your lived experience, and your learned experience and your intuition.

Now, this is the place where you’ll find your wisdom, to be honest, it’s not the complete definition of ingeniousness. Where you have that intersection of those three parts, it’s also in my experience, your path to profit in business. But we’ll definitely come back to that, as it’s really deserving of its own episode. And it is something that I know that I will talk about a lot because I love to talk about and teach it. But your ingeniousness is actually the expression of that wisdom that you have. 

Shannon  03:03

Now, you may be listening, and something going through your head might be along the lines of I’m not wise, I don’t have wisdom. And I want to call BS on that.

Because every single one of us has wisdom.

And when you have an abundance of lived and learned experience, and then can work collaboratively with your intuition from a place of curiosity and trust, there is so much that you have to share. And if you’re honest with yourself that you want to share, and that’s such a fabulous thing.

In a business world where we create and share content, like never before, there is an audience out there for whatever you have to say. As an ingenious soul know that what matters most to you is important and it’ll resonate with others. When you share it from your heart and with purpose and intention. Someone out there probably many someone’s will connect with what you have to say. It a resonate in ways that lead to impact. The most ingenious souls I know definitely want to make an impact.

I believe leading your business as one of the most effortless ways to create whatever kind of impact you desire to make. It might be impact in your life, in your family, your community, your country. Or the entire world over. The way I see it, why focus locally when we have technology to support us to reach further than any other time in history as a business superstar and as a leader. 

Shannon  04:51

Now seeing as She Leads She Thrives is here to share messages in support of you being a self led individual, I can’t not touch on leadership and ingeniousness. The way I’ve always seen these two linked is relatively simple. A woman who knows, honors, expands and celebrates her innate wisdom and activates her ingeniousness by sharing that wisdom is in my eyes, automatically a leader.

Shannon  05:25

Leadership isn’t just an external event. I think the reality is so many of us grew up with viewing leadership or having an experience of leadership, where it was just an external event. But in fact, leading others isn’t likely to be successful, and honouring and impactful unless you’re also leading yourself.

So let’s kind of dial back a bit what is personal leadership or self leadership, you can use either one of those terms. Now I wrote about this in my first book that I self published in 2013, it feels like a decade ago, or it nearly is a decade ago, it was the first iteration of what became the Thrive Factor Book, which was published in the early part of 2019.

Shannon  06:13

But that first book, something I’m still so proud of, was actually called personal leadership style. And in it, I explored the concept of personal leadership, something I now more frequently referred to as self leadership. But I defined it and let’s just you know, side note here and a true expression of my Mentor Teacher and Liberator Engineer Thrive Factor archetypes. They love to define things, but I just defined it as being the result of the choices you make, and the action you take. 

So when you decide something, and then act on that choice or decision, you assert your personal influence on your life, that might look something like this. Asserting your boundaries, so setting real boundaries and support you. Following your path, instead of getting lost in the sea of possibilities that are appealing, but if you’re honest with yourself, not really for you. 

Shannon  07:13

This personal influence being asserted is you leading from within to choosing you. It’s you showing you believe in you, trust in yourself, that you have an innate strength that is often unwavering when it matters. When you lead from within, you amplify the potential and the reality of expressing your ingeniousness. This takes a level of confidence. 100%.

 Also takes clarity, it takes a determination, okay, sort of a calling, if you like it might be like an inner whisper. Or maybe it’s a loud, frequent and determined instruction telling you that you’ve got to do something. But something where you get to a point that you can no longer deny or ignore it. I’ve had so many moments like that, that have not been fleeting, they’ve been persistent. And there’s been times I’ve tried to ignore them times I’ve tried to deny things, and they’ve come back again and again. 

Shannon  07:13

It might look like resting when you need to or want to, instead of pushing forward, hustling doing more. It might look like going against trends that seem to be feeding others success. I’m sure at some point in time, there’ll be a whole episode about FOMO, about that fear of missing out. And also that comparison, and we can talk more about that. There might also look like sharing controversial views that are not what’s expected or been shared before in your industry. Or it might look like even just starting your business in the first place. 

Shannon  09:06

So as I’ve kind of gotten older with each new birthday, as I’ve aged, and step closer to what I now call my wisdom woman years, I find that my own clients and community have also evolved. Less frequently, are there a dominance of startup kind of mums to young children, juggling jobs and businesses kind of women in my community. I don’t often see individuals who blindly follow or perhaps faithfully follow without questioning what has been taught or coached or shared. Rarely are their souls who ignore their intuition and chase the shiny stuff that really is often a distraction and not the solution to your challenges, your woes, your desires, your dreams, your visions. 

Shannon  09:59

There comes a time when you realise that doing things your way is the way I see this every time I introduce a woman to Thrive Factor Archetypes. And we talk about the innate strengths and the magic of the intersection or the interaction between each of her archetypes. 

There’s so frequently a point in that coaching experience where she recognized something she has tried to deny or ignore. Something she’s felt called to, but was waiting to action for some reason. Something that sings to her soul. But whose song she’s turned down to such a low volume, because she just can’t or won’t, or doesn’t want to, for some reason hear it right now. 

Something that reminds her of what she really wants, activates permission to go there, to do that thing, have that something, lead life and business on her terms, infused with wisdom expressed as ingeniousness. 

Shannon  10:59

And this is a recognition of her capacity in her potential, her power, her magic, her creativity, and even her potentiality. And it’s one of my favorite things, such a joyous thing to behold. Now practically your ingeniousness is always with you. Remember that. Sometimes it might be hiding beneath, or behind something that’s got in the way, or pushed aside by your human uncertainty and comparison and critiques. But it’s there. 

Shannon  11:37

Now often, when I talk about the fact that it’s always available to you, it’s always there. I get asked, well, how do you connect with it. So I do have a simple exercise that I love to do with clients and in you know, group things that I do on retreats. And it’s a bit of a list writing experience or exercise. And I find it is such a simple way to connect with the wisdom and clarifies action, and can give you motivation and momentum to do something to really tune in and tap into your ingeniousness. So let’s talk through that. 

Shannon  12:12

Now I promised you there would be practical information and things that you could actually do something with. So here’s your very first experience of that. 

So if you need to pause right now grab yourself a double sided blank piece of paper, or grab your notebook or your journal, because you’re going to make some lists. 

So, on the first side of this piece of paper, or this first page that you’ve chosen, I’d like you to divide that into two columns. And in the very first column, write down as many things as you can think of that you’d refer to as your lived experience. So things that you’ve done in your life, actual things that you have lived through. 

Once you’ve done that, and filled as much of that column as you can, in the second column, do the same, but for your learned experience. So the things that you have learnt. So this could be formal learning. It could be qualifications, it could be workshops, you’ve done books, you’ve read podcasts you’ve listened to, but you’ll learned experience. It’s not uncommon for your lived and learned experience to intertwine together but see if you can separate them for the sake of this exercise. 

Now, if you have one, get yourself a different colored pen. And I want you to circle from those two lists, the things that you love. The things that also energize you, the things you’d happily and effortlessly share via your business all the time, I want you to circle those. And be honest with yourself circle from your heart circle from your intuition, not from your intellect, or from strategy. 

Let’s just think about this for a moment. Just because you can make money from something doesn’t mean it’s for you. Strategy is important it has its place and I know that I’ll be talking about it and its role in business and effortless success. 

But for this moment, I want you to actually circle from your heart and your intuition. Like you’ve got permission to choose what you really want to do. 

So once you’ve got those circles, I want you to reflect on actually what you’ve highlighted. If you’ve circled across those two lists more than 10 things, narrow it down to a top 10. And then on the other side of that piece of paper, or on another page, I’d write like you to write down the top 10.

 Once you’ve done that, pause and reflect again, and see if you can now down to half so you’ve got just five. Okay, so now you’ve got five things, five, light me up, energizing things, pieces of your wisdom, ready for you to share from a space of ingeniousness. 

It really can be that effortless to glean clarity and I find over and over again, that when you have clarity, it’s frequently accompanied by motivation and momentum. So cool. 

So thank you for joining me for this first episode of She Leads, She Thrives. As I’ve said already, I’m so excited to have this new way to share my thoughts, my musings and wisdom with you. And I look forward to sharing regular episodes. Some will be me, others I’ll have guests join me. And a benefit of joy and joy I should say of having a worldwide community of incredible women in business to chat with is that I get to share them with you. So hope you’re ready.

Thank you

Thanks for tuning into today’s episode. You are so valued and appreciated.

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