Welcome back to Bubbling Out, I'm Emily Rose Dallara.

And if you haven't been here before, this is a podcast for business owners, founders, entrepreneurs, whatever you want to call yourself today, who really just want to grow a business that makes money, moves fast and actually feels good. Because as you know by now, if you've been following me, businesses don't just run on strategy, on processes, on tactics, although that works, they really run on your nervous system. And today I'm going to talk to you about something nobody really tells you, which is the way you show up as a leader.

the way you are as a leader, that's actually a stress response in action and there's things that we can do to make it better. Now before we dive in I just want to just tell you that you can stop pause. Before we dive in

If you want to know how to understand your nervous system, how to know what state you're in and how to down regulate. So for example, if you're feeling anxious in the morning and you're just like, I've got so much to do and I don't know how to get out of bed. If you want to know how to understand what's going on and how to get out of it and feel good again, then I'm going to drop into my community, bubbling out BTS community, a document that'll just help you to decode the state you're in and give you a tool to get out of it. Really simple, nice little tools.

And if you recently saw, I have a book that's just come out visible. I'll drop the link below. I go into all of the nervous system physiology, all of the information about the nervous system. So if you are interested, go read my chapter in there. And there's also loads of tools attached to that as well. But the decode is a really great place to start. So head over to emilyrose-delara.com forward slash community to get it. Now.

I mentioned the word leadership style. Actually, I didn't pause. Now I used to think that my leadership style, although I don't really like that word, was just who I am, right? This is just who I am. I show up, I am hands off. I am letting people just get on with it and I'm constantly making sure that they're okay.

Right. So I'm letting them get on with it, but I'm just making sure are you happy? Are you okay? Have you got everything you need? And also I used to feel that I was a bit even though was hands off, I felt like I was doing it because I was disorganized and like actually I didn't trust myself to organize them anyway. That was when I first started being a leader. Now I would say that I am just hiring people who are better at doing stuff than me. When my business is a mess and I feel like it's getting really messy, I'm like, uh-uh, I need to hire someone to help me come and clear this out and figure out how I got it.

this messy in the first place. Now all of this, as you probably know by now, comes back down to our nervous system. Everything I like I've realized over the last few years is to do with these stuck cycles that we have in our nervous system. And if you know, I've spoken about this quite a few times, I use polyvagal theory as my guide. And in polyvagal theory, they explain that we've got all these different nervous system states and

when we've experienced something traumatic or we've had some kind of emotional reaction to something and we haven't been able to digest it then it keeps running in a cycle like this constant cycle and we just need something to break the circuit so we can process it and digest it and stop it running in the background like you'll probably know what I mean by this it's like

A bit like having the air conditioning on in the background. If you're used to waking up feeling anxious, that's just normal. Then slowly you don't understand that that's you waking up anxious. That just is how you are. And then you start to believe it and then that's your identity of an anxious person. But really, what if you just dealt with the survival pattern that's running in the background, this physiology response, physiological response, and then you were not...

anxious person anymore. Wouldn't that be marvelous, right? You can do that. That's literally what I did. I've literally, what's the word, deconstructed myself and rebuilt myself again in many different ways and lots of different modalities. But the one thing that helped me do it the most was deep diving into these survival patterns that I had running in the background and really tapping into my belief systems. Now, once I realized that the way I was running

my teams and really my business was actually a bit chaotic. I started to dip into why and it turns out that yeah, it wasn't my personality. was I was stuck in this constant fawn and flight. Now I'm not going to deep dive into the different

nervous system states. I've talked about them in previous episodes and you can get them if you go and get my book visible. Shameless plug there, but I've also put some stuff into the bubbling out BTS community. So if you're in there, go grab it. But I want you to start to think about all the little things you do as a leader in your business. Do you jump in to redo work? Right? Is that like your normal?

Do you always, I need to go, I just need to check it, right? Or do you secretly check Slack when you are meant to be setting your alarm at nighttime? Maybe I'm trying to think of another example that I used to do. Maybe you wake up with this anxiety that you can't sleep. You're kind of like wired. You're like, I know I need to sleep. I'm tired, but I can't sleep. So I may as well get up now. And then you just go on with your day feeling like that, right?

And how does that roll out into your day? you turn up to meetings feeling good? Do you turn up to meetings feeling like drained? Like really have a think about how your day looks like what you do repeatedly every day. Just start thinking about that as I'm talking. Now, the way you show up every day is not based on textbooks. So I had a discussion on LinkedIn. I'm sorry.

what I mean by this is I had a discussion on LinkedIn recently and I was talking about it doesn't matter what your leadership style is because either way it's all just a nervous system response happening in real life. Okay. Playing out again and again and I've studied leadership. I have certificates. I have all these accolades and none of them have ever helped me be a better leader because my nervous system

didn't change, it just stayed the same. So if I tried to fit into any of these boxes, like what is it, transformational leader, coach leader, I can't even remember the other ones, I put up an infographic the other day about it. If you have this in the back of the mind and you're really intentional about your leadership, no matter what you try, you're always gonna be overrided by your nervous system state. So for example, if you're in a fight,

nervous system state, if you've got like undigested anger somewhere, right? You're probably controlling everything. If you are in a flight pattern, you're probably overworking and avoiding conflict. Okay? Probably just trying to get things done and try not to get in the weeds or too complicated or you're trying not to like I was always in flight up that this was always my current state.

You're probably trying to do things really quickly to avoid pain. Maybe you are in constant analysis, paralysis or procrastination, which hints that maybe you're in a free state. Maybe you're phoning, maybe you're people pleasing, which means you're probably over explaining everything. You're trying to keep people happy. Right? So what you might think is a leadership style.

is actually a survival response. So really, as I say these things, start asking yourself, hmm, do I do any of these things? Is this normal for me? For example, I have a leader that I work with and they like to keep people happy. And they know that it's a phone response and they're actively working to change it. And the way we do that,

is really start to understand where did it come from? What's the origin? Now, this is not talking therapy. So the kind of work that I do in body processing, somatic practitioner, practitioner-ing, being a somatic practitioner, doing those kind of processes is we get to the origin and then we stop. We don't talk you through trauma. We don't talk you through anything that might re-traumatize you.

we just help you to understand where it started and then we can work through it. However, before we go into that kind of thing, we have to first understand the state that you're in. So what I want you to do today is in this container is start to understand when I wake up, how do I feel?

Like, what's your default, right? So when I wake up, I've trained myself to do this, by the way. When I wake up, I'm grateful that I'm here with my boys and my husband. But it wasn't always like that. I used to wake up like, what's the point of today? That's how I used to wake up. And it was really difficult because how are you meant to get motivated for the day?

Like I remember I had when I was doing my group coaching sessions and they were just not aligned really like they were lovely and I loved it and we got great results but it didn't feel aligned with what I'm meant to be doing. It felt safe and I used to wake up every day and I'm like fuck now I've got so much to do for this group program. I don't even want to do it and I used to say to my husband why am I not excited about my business? Like why have I got this anxiety around it? And it wasn't until I started doing the work that I realized that

One, when you're doing something out of alignment, your body will literally tell you that you're doing it. And two, I was just stuck in this people-pleasing mode where I was doing the things that were keeping me small because it was keeping other people happy. So I was fawning a lot and that was showing up. The symptoms of that were anxiety and dread. So, and that was from the morning. Imagine, just gets worse through the day.

And I have a whoop, these whoop bands, similar to the aura ring. Biofeedback's great, by the way. But imagine the kind of stats that I had then. My stress was so through the roof and my sleep was terrible. My HIV was really low. So we can actually tell what state our nervous system is in using biofeedback, by the way. So one...

One in the morning, notice what is your default state. How am I this morning? Simple question. Before you even open your eyes, just tune in to the body. You could do a simple body scan going from the top of the head down to the toes. Not trying to change anything, just noticing. And then notice if there's any sensations in the body. Any tingles, any tightness, any gripping, any contraction. Just notice.

and take note, like take note and notice them think, but take note of the sensations and then notice if there's any that are like more intense than others, just notice them. And then also notice if there's any emotions or thoughts that come with that as well. So this is just self somatic inquiry. So for example, like I told you before, I would get this anxiety and dread, like I didn't even want to get up. And my thought was,

I just want to sleep. I'm so tired. And then I would that that that would be the thought and then the emotion that would come in was just sadness. Like I'm not meant to feel like this. I'm building a business. So start to notice this and also use your HIV as a tracker like HIV. thing is, is it measures lots of different things. So it's sometimes not the most accurate. That's why you need to tune yourself to listen to your body like

If you can take anything away from today, that is it. Learn to do somatic self-inquiry. That's something that I teach my, all of my students, I don't call them students, all of my clients, all the teams I work with, somatic inquiry is a thing. Now, the next point I want to touch on, and if I'm looking down, by the way, I'm just looking at my notes. The next point I want to touch on is how you show up. You might not know this by the way. How you show up impacts your team directly.

And whenever I do any coaching on the nervous system, and even when I did the leadership and teamwork, I talk about something called the leadership bubble. And the leadership bubble is, imagine you've got this bubble around you as a leader or a business owner, founder, and that's you. This is your world. This is you and your nervous system, your mindset, your beliefs, your identity. Everything that goes on here has the ability to move outside as well.

and you're the one in control of all of this stuff inside. Now, the next question when you wake up is, how do I want to show up today? Because if you're feeling anxious, if you've got a nervous system state running in the background that's giving you all these negative symptoms, if that's happening, then I can guarantee you, your team are going to feel it and they're going to react to that. Now, most of the time,

your team learns not from your words but from your actions and from your body and from your energy and I've spoken about this before hang on

having a drink. I've spoken about that before. Energy moves, right? Not to go too woo, but energy moves, it just does. Look into the quantum physics of it. But if you feel terrible and you're in a fight mode or you're in a flight mode or you're totally shut off, the person sitting opposite you on Zoom can feel that subconsciously and then their nervous system subconsciously reacts to meet that. So

Imagine if you're in fight mode, they will sense your fight mode, however that's coming across. Like it might be like a control, a intense nurse. might be like a defensiveness that's coming across. Might not be able to put it into words. It's a feeling. They'll their nervous system will feel that and then they'll recoil and their nervous system will go into defense. So it'll go into.

flight, fawn, whatever. And then you'll start to notice how they react. So for example, if you're in a fight and you're like, this needs to be done now and why wasn't this done the first time I asked and all these things, and you might not even be saying these things. It's just like the feeling you're giving off. You'll start to notice that your team will fawn and they will be like, yes, sir, no, sir. I'll jump this high, sir. And that's fawning. And they will get things to you.

but not in the right energy. They're doing it from a place of fear at the end of the day. So that's what would happen if you were in this kind of fight mode. I'm sorry. The monitor just froze again. I don't know what's going on, why this is happening when I'm filming.

Now, if you're frozen, the opposite could happen. They're constantly hesitating and waiting for you and they're actually really confused. like, why is this person giving off like vibes? Like they're not really bothered. Like, should I not be bothered? And it leads to a team that are not making decisions, a bit confused, a bit all over the place, not executing. Right? So.

Really have a think about this. Like I can just present you what I know and how I see this happen. But the best way to understand this is to see how it happens for you. So next time you walk into a Zoom meeting, I want you to just notice the nervous system state you're in. And again, go and jump into my Telegram group and grab the nervous system decoder that I've put in there. I'll pin it and make sure you can get it and just read through it and just notice, okay.

I mean, my goodness.

Hang on.

Ahem.

So just notice I'm in this state. Okay, cool. Now I've got the decoder or maybe now I've gone and got Emily's tools from her visible book. I now know what to do to try and see that. Okay, you can try lots of different things. Great. I'm going to do that now before this meeting and see how the person in front of me reacts. Or maybe after a meeting you've noticed, how it's really tense in that meeting. What's going on?

And then you can see, how did the meeting actually go? So I want you to start to see how this works in real time. And something that you can do just to notice, like if you don't have the decoder, is to start to notice the physical cues in your body. Okay. So if you're in fight flight, usually you'll have this contraction in the chest or the stomach area, because don't forget when you're in fight and flight, like you're sympathetic, all other

systems in the body shut down to survive. Like you don't need to eat when you're running from the tiger, right? So everything shuts down and that means your digestion shuts down, your reproduction systems shuts down, your endocrine system shuts down. Momentarily it comes back online again. But if you've ever felt really bloated when you've been stressed, that's why. Like your body like clamps the stomach. And I've been doing deep, deep emotional processing.

and had my stomach literally balloon as I was talking about things. And as I was like seeing things in my subconscious and it's fascinating to see it all work. It's so powerful. Anyway, so you might have these physical cues that come up. So you might find yourself on your phone, like refreshing emails, refreshing Slack, like these kinds of things that is a sign that something's going on. You might end up in a thought loop. So for example, you're meant to be doing something.

But actually you've got something going around your head constantly. And if you notice and you notice these thoughts are happening, you'll probably also notice that your body is reacting too. sometimes, or you might not, right? Everyone's different, but sometimes I'll be on a dog walk. I'm very mindful. I call it being body full. Being able to notice my body and walking at the same time. So how are my feet feeling inside the body? How are my feet feeling outside the body? But sometimes I'll notice that I'm thinking a lot.

And if you can catch yourself, notice what you're thinking. You'll also notice really quickly how your body's reacting to that thought. Really interesting ways of inquiry. So, so many things you can do. But how you catch yourself in real time is you need to just notice how your body reacts to different situations. So, there's ways that you can elicit different nervous system states and I'll put that into the decoder as well. You can understand, okay, right now I am in a fight flight state.

When I'm in fight flight, I tense my shoulders like this, my stomach bloats up, I have this cramping in my chest, I don't breathe very well. Okay, cool. Now I know what state I'm in. Well, what do I do in this state? Well, I interrupt the pattern. So this is what I personally do. Pause.

just breathe a resource. So resource is basically when you can regulate the nervous system with one specific resource. I'll go into that another day, but I'll resource, I'll ground into the body. I'll do a bit of breath work. And then I'll able to inquire about what's working, but you can't do that until you've regulated. So imagine like you're in this stress state, you're in this fight flight state, and then you go straight into a meeting. Like that meeting's not going to go very well.

Even if you don't say anything, even if you don't bring anything up, the energy is clear, like, that's really going to impact the team and how they execute. They're going to just feel all over the place as well. Remember the bubble. What happens inside happens outside too. So that's how you start to catch your stress in real time. Pausing.

So the way you lead and the way you show up has really got nothing to do with what a textbook says. You really can't determine how you lead until you determine what your nervous system is doing. And if you can start to bring awareness to what state you're in in any one moment, then you can decide to change it. And then you can decide to be a different person if you want to be a different person, right? And what you'll see is, and the reason I'm talking about this today really is

When I work with clients, they come to me and they're like, Emily, we need to get another project management tool or we need to hire new people. People are not making decisions without me and things are slow. they always mention things like leadership style. You know, I've been hands off and I'm not micromanaging and I'm not doing this and I'm not doing that. And I'm like, this has got nothing to do with the way you're leading them. Nothing. They could like, you could be literally like...

an AI telling them what to do wouldn't make any difference. But the problem is your nervous system response is causing you to take these actions. And then these actions and the way you're emitting this energy is then rippling out into your team. And that's why things are not working. So we deal with your nervous system. We deal with the processes, we deal with the systems, and then we deal with the capacity of the team to handle all of those things.

Not one size fits all, but it all really starts with forgetting about leadership style, forgetting about what you're doing and just going inwards. I think that's the message for today. I've really gone off on one of this, this, this meeting, this meeting, this podcast episode today. So I've got like a mosquito flying around. You know, the tiny ones are like going to eat me alive. But yeah, really what I'm trying to say today is

You can read all you want from a book about leadership. You can try your absolute best and that's going to get you so far. Right? Good job. But until you start going inside and you start working on your survival patterns, your nervous system state, understanding how to create capacity, right? What I mean by capacity is your ability to handle more, right? More of everything, more stress, more people, more opportunities, more emotions.

More relationships. Increasing the container that you live in. Because at the moment, if you're in a fight flight state, your container is like this big, tiny, tiny, tiny. No wonder it's feeling difficult right now. Right? If we just work on reducing the nervous system state and moving you down into a relaxed, peaceful state, right? Ventral vehicle is what we call it. More often,

then we can slowly build up capacity. And I have lots of ways to do this. There's so many ways people tackle it in different ways. I have my own process that I use with my clients. And slowly, slowly, as you increase that capacity, you actually, your true self comes out. You're able to lead in a way that's way more authentic, more, way more expansive and way more impactful. And you'll find that you're actually doing the work that you are there to do. Like you're

big thinking work, your zone of genius work, and it's much easier for you to train a team to do the work they need to do. It just comes much easier. And what you'll find then is execution speeds up, decision making speeds up, they're able to handle a lot more pressure and stress because you're less stressed. you know, everything is much better. I can tell you that. And you just can't learn this in a book. You have to do it as a practice.

And yes, so that's what I wanted to talk to you today because so many people are just stuck in this, know, I thought I could do leadership and this is the way I did it and my leadership styles, listen, I'm trying to coach them and it's like, yeah, but you're not focusing on you and how you're showing up every single day. And yes, you do need mindset work too. That's also part of it. It's a multi-tiered approach. But start off with your nervous system and you'll be pretty good. Okay, so that's it for today.

I am looking outside and it's really beautiful. So I'm going to go and take Nikon for a dog walk now. It's really it's like we're on March the 4th when I'm filming this and it's cold, freezing cold in the morning, but warm on the afternoon. And it's just amazing. And living in the countryside has literally changed my life. It's helped me to regulate my nervous system. And did you know, by the way, I don't know if I said this on my last podcast, but when there's so many birds, right? So this is the

wait my brain works. There's so many birds and I've never heard birds like this before, like so many different kinds of birds everywhere, apart from when I'm in like a jungle area and you hear all these birds talking to each other all day and I kept feeling so relaxed and like, this is like the best part of the day hearing these birds in the morning. And then I found out that that's because they help to regulate your nervous system. The sound of birds tells us that we're safe because if there was no sound of birds, then we're not safe.

if we were cavemen. So that's the tip for today. So yeah, to summarize, we've learned today, and if you want a quick takeaway here, we've learned today that to lead a team, you need to work on regulating your nervous system. And there are multiple ways to do it. But the first way to do that is to learn the nervous system state that you are in and understand how to get out of it. So if you do want my nervous system decoder, go grab that in my Telegram group, I've pinned it.

you'll be able to get it in there when this episode goes live. And yeah, let me know how you get on with it and come and join in the conversation. Let me know what else you want me to talk about. I've got lots of things coming up in the next few weeks, all about expanding yourself as a leader and expanding your nervous system abilities and just feeling better about running your business. So that's all I've got for today. I will love you and leave you and see you next time.