Dia Bondi 00:19
Hi, everyone, this is Dia Bondi and this is Lead With Who You Are, a podcast where we use to explore and discover what it means to do just that with people who are good at leading with who they are. And it's not to say that this isn't that show anymore, it's to say that it's going to be a little more of a pure version of it. Today, we're gonna go a little different direction. I don't have a guest today, I am my own guest. I'm not scripted. I usually when I have a solo episode with you, I script it out like a boss and read it into this mic. Like I have a room full of people. And today, I'm not going to do that I want to talk to you a little bit about what it means for me to lead with who you are in hopes that this will be a place where you get to also consider what it means for you to lead with who you are. Let's go.
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Oh, hey, everybody. So, Ask Like An Auctioneer, my forthcoming book designed to help you Ask For More and Get It is available for pre-order now. And when you order the book, you get some pretty sweet little bonuses, you get a little video series with me sharing my favorite three of the nine ideas I learned from the world of auctioneering. To help you ask for one get it, you get a nice little downloadable set of quote cards pulled from the manuscript. And all of these are ones our prereaders loved the most. And you'll be auto enrolled in the ZOFO challenge, a one week challenge to design and make a powerful ask go to AskLikeAnAuctioneer.com and order your copy now.
So usually, when we do a solo episode, I script it out completely like I write it all out. And I actually read it to folks, I read it to you in an ad lib in there a little bit, but I really like I really write it out. And when I'm not scripted is when I'm in conversation with somebody and not doing really a solo episode. Today I'm doing solo episode not in conversation with anybody live on the pod, although my producer Baby A Can you say hi, baby A?
Arthur 03:03
Hey, hey, everybody, it's baby A.
Dia Bondi 03:05
So for folks who started listening when we were The Dia Bondi Show, early iterations of this, it was focused just on helping women with goals really advanced themselves through frameworks and other ways in which we can use asking as a success strategy and how we kind of resource ourselves to move ourselves forward. And then later, we expanded into lead with who you are as a bigger container to have, you know, lots of conversations about what it means to lead with your baby at that time was on, you can go back and listen to those episodes. But he was, uh, you know, he was on the mic once in a while where you're not?
Arthur 03:41
Yes, I was, we would talk a little bit back and forth at the beginning of each episode. And then we would kind of break down things that we learned from the interview at the end. And every once in a while someone would have say something to me during the interview, and I would chime in.
Dia Bondi 03:56
And that was so much fun. And anyway, I only I only just share that, because if you're new here, you know, for context, maybe for around how things have changed over time. And now it's just a solo show, baby A's on the call while we have it and we've been having guests that are all about or trying to be about what it means to lead with who you are. And since we sort of shifted to that, in combination with putting together goals and my business as a leadership communications coach developing programs around that and continuing to and writing the book as like an auctioneer, we put some some business goals around the business. And once the book was done, meaning the last writing retreat that I went on, and I finished the last sentence and close my laptop I had like a big shift You know, it was kind of quiet maybe and felt subtle in the moment. But as I look at it now, it was actually fairly profound that I felt really sad about having the an open writing project in front of me, you know, a project that like, I would exercise, I got actually good at sitting down and working through the process of writing a book, I think there are some nonfiction authors, maybe some of you who are listening now who have to do writing in your job, or, you know, getting to a finish line on something, you know, having a product is more satisfying than the process. But for some of us, the process is really satisfying. And I being in that process of knowing I had like a half written book bag, you know, just waiting for the next Friday, where I got to sit down with it again, trusting the process of like, setting up my Kanban board every time I went on a writing retreat weekend, or had a big day and said, Okay, what are the five things I want to tackle today and not having to know exactly how it's going to tackle it just to sit down and trust that, like, if I really listened to my audience, and I listened to my own voice that I could actually, I could get into and produce a book. And I did, it was wild to me what was done. It made me sad, I felt like I was saying goodbye to my audience. And even though all of you are still here, I have yet to actually launch and sell the book. I mean, I sold it once to a publisher, but now I have to go out and do it. The process of that creative act that exploration it was such a private and wonderfully intimate experience and full of like, delight and curiosity. I would be like, it wasn't like, oh, no, I have to write something today. It was like, I wonder what I'll write, I wonder what will come out when I address this next chapter. I was like, I don't know. It's so otherworldly in a lot of ways. And when that was done, and then we kind of got back to the business of things. I just felt that I really missed that. And record one day a couple of weeks ago was walking from my car to my office and my keys in my hand and just recognizing this unsettled, itchy, scratchy feeling I have that I've been walking around with for a while now. And wondering what is this and, and what I recognize that there's a lot of stuff that I'm paying attention to or wanting to be motivators for me, or trying to look forward to, that are just actually making me miserable. You know that some of the business goals in my business, the financial goals in my business, while they're very important, I really want to see those as outcomes, and I had put them kind of center stage. Instead trying to talk myself into them being, you know, those goals being really motivating to me, and they just frigging are not. And so like, for me, what I'm recognizing is that right now, in this stage in my career, and the stage of my work, and the stage of my life, is that leading with who I am, means doing everything I'm going to do from a creative lens and a writer, a writing lens, than from a business lens. It doesn't actually change anything materially and what I'm going to be delivering into the world, you know, the way in which I do my private coaching the cohorts for the intensive that we'll be putting forward, you know, my talks aren't, there's nothing like materially going to change about my promise to the world and the work I want to do. But it's like how I approach it needs to be from the perspective of living and working as a maker and a writer, not as a person in business. It's, um, I don't know how to articulate that doesn't feel very fancy to say it that way person in business, but it's like, it's a shift in the stance that I'm taking in the world and where I'm placing my attention. And so what that's going to mean for me is that I have it's very coincidental that after, it's been about seven years since I went to auctioneering School, which was a wild adventure, I had no I was just on a hunch, like, let me figure out what this is. Let me see what this what this is like for me because I knew I was in a sabbatical time. And I knew that there are sort of two things that are very motivating to me, which is deeply connected experiences, and adventure and that one check. The adventure box was unrelated to everything I was doing. It was just a fun, weird exploration. And it turned out to be something that I put together in a way that turned into my first book, like, Who would have thunk and I can feel I've done that multiple times in my life where like about every seven years, I kind of dead on so I like it go on an adventure. And I think right now, I am going to go on the great adventure of writing. And I was I've, here's how I'm act because I have such a strong bias toward action. I'm putting a stake in the ground by enrolling in a five day writing retreat with a memoirist and author, I'm gonna go to Montana for five days and dig into and explore what the craft of writing is when this facilitator is writing. I don't know if she's writing code, but she's an author. And the woman that runs this program asked me in the application process of very small cohort where I am in my writing journey, I was like, Well, I just wrote a book. And I feel like I'm at the beginning, because I've never explored what it what it means to be more sophisticated in the craft of writing. Because I do have ideas and perspectives that I want to do a better job of, of articulating, I want to explore the deeply connected experience of putting words in a certain order such that it has an impact, and have that infuse everything else I do from my coaching, and very importantly, to this podcast. So for we are at the end of the summer of 23. Right now for the rest of this year, we may have a few guests here and there. But I'm going to talk more and more solo episodes talking about this sort of journey that feels like a no big deal. Whatever deal you're just got, you just wrote a book if so, while you're going to explore writing, but feels like a profound shift for me, I want to talk about what that means. Because there is part of this that is a little scary, letting go of sort of an aspirational identity as being a being a business woman, or a woman who runs a small business to, to shifting that to what feels might do some feel aspirational, to say, you know, to live to live or identify as a writer, but for me, it feels so like, obvious, then there's a relief in it. But there's a little bit of scariness of like letting go of one way I think about myself. And taking on another way. Which in like, at its heart means me doing the thing that is leading with who I actually am. So on this podcast going forward, I want to do a better job of talking to you about what it means for me to lead with who I am. Such that we can together reflect on maybe what it means for you to leave with who you are and the choices that you make the ways in which you action that the stances that you take, as you go to approach any project, one that is inherently creative, or one that is very tactical. And deep in a market maybe it also means that over the next couple of months, I will not be writing another book, but I'm going to focus on the practice of essay writing in and around my work around leadership communication and, and to helping folks ask for more stand up for their dreams for themselves. So it may be that I'll be reading some of that to you and to this mic. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna recognize that when my goals are making me miserable, that I don't, it's not the right choice for me to figure out how to tolerate that discomfort. But instead, shift my goals so that they they are more in line with who I actually am and tolerate that discomfort because it's not comfortable. It's just a different breed of discomfort to kind of bet on your hunches about yourself and lead and live in a way that is alignment with who I actually am. Because when I say it out loud, I have to actually do it. And it might not work, I might suck. But I kind of feel like it's worth taking a little bit more honest approach to showing up in everything I do from a stance that is one that is more alive for me. And my hope is that everything that the people that I come across on this are the people that this podcast comes across all of my private clients. All of the workshops that I deliver all of the keynotes that I give all of the essays that I write help folks that touch those things, lead with who they are. That's it for today. And I'll see you next time.
Lead With Who You Are is a production of Dia Bondi Communications and is scored, mixed and produced by Arthur Leon Adams the third. Have a question or an inquiry? Reach out to us at hello@diabondi.com you can like, share, rate and subscribe at Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your favorite shows. Go to diabondi.com for the show notes to find our tools, frameworks, content and programs to help you and your team speak powerfully and lead with who you are.
