The phrase ‘woo-woo’ is often used to describe concepts such as spirituality, intuition, and energy work, and is considered taboo in many corporate cultures. However, incorporating woo in the corporate space might be the perfect union that creates a positive work environment.
In this episode of Influence by Design, our guest Dr. Robyn McKay shares how consultants can take woo into the corporate workplace. She is an award-winning psychologist and the leading expert in Spiritual Intelligence.
Despite being a smart, science girl existing within the walls of corporate, this didn’t stop Robyn to research more about her spiritual self, which ultimately led to an awakening and passion to share her knowledge with a corporate audience.
Many consultants don’t introduce spiritual concepts into the corporate world because of fear and judgement that people might not take them seriously. But there are opportunities to introduce them to workplaces who are open to new concepts.
Learn more about the impact of bringing woo in the workplace, and begin to understand the strategy of combining spiritual and scientific tools to transform leadership and corporate experiences.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER:
- The realisations in Dr. Robyn’s spiritual awakening (02:43)
- Navigating the spiritual being and sharing knowledge with a greater audience (06:07)
- Being unapologetic about who you are (09:35)
- Bringing ‘woo’ to the corporate space (14:25)
- The three economic waves and how they created an existential conundrum (18:25)
- How to introduce spiritual concepts to corporate workplaces (22:01)
- The value of intuition in conversations (27:23)
- Balancing the spiritual concepts with leadership experiences (32:45)
- Why it’s important to start where you are (36:53)
QUOTES:
- “When you take ownership of your gifts, that’s when the world starts to transform.” -Dr. Robyn McKay
- “When you can understand yourself at a deeper level and what your actual gifts are, it becomes more palatable for you and you celebrate them more.” -Dr. Robyn McKay
- “When you show up unapologetically, the right people will be attracted to you.” -Samantha Riley
- “The ability to simplify things shows that you have a deep understanding of a particular topic and that will set you apart.” -Samantha Riley
RESOURCES
WHERE TO FIND DR. ROBYN MCKAY
- Website: https://www.drrobynmckay.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robynmckay1/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robynmckayphd
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.robynmckay/
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ABOUT DR. ROBYN MCKAY
Robyn McKay is an award-winning psychologist, multi-6-figure entrepreneur, and an executive coach to top leaders in Fortune 500 companies and entertainment.
Dr. McKay is also a leading expert in the new field of Spiritual Intelligence. She builds bridges between reason and intuition, science and spirit, and her clients’ heads and hearts.
In her life outside the office, Robyn loves hiking on the desert trails near her home in Scottsdale, AZ and climbing the red rocks of Sedona.
TRANSCRIPTION (AI Generated)
Dr. Robyn McKay (00:00):
I think that that’s an important crossroads that I came to. Because really then I was able to from deciding I wasn’t gonna apologize anymore for being too woo for some people. But it also gave me an opportunity to start having conversations about people about how important it is now more than ever before for us, those of us who are emotionally intelligent, spiritually intelligent, to come out of the closet, and to be unapologetic about our gifts, talents, and abilities.
Samantha Riley (00:28):
My name is Samantha Riley, and this is the podcast for experts who want to be the unapologetic leader in their industry. We’re going to share the latest business growth, marketing, and leadership strategies, as well as discussing how you can use your human design to create success in business and life. Inside and out. It’s time to take your influence, income, and impact to the level you know you’re capable of. Are you ready to make a bigger difference and scale up? This is the Influence By Design podcast.
Welcome to today’s episode of Influence By Design, I’m Samantha Riley.
And today we’re going to be talking about really how to bring the woo into the corporate space and how to blend these two worlds together. It’s a conversation that I’ve been wanting to have for a long time and actually couldn’t find anyone to have it with. So I’m very excited to introduce you today to Dr. Robyn McKay. And we’re going to talk about all things Woo, and corporate and how we can bring those together. So welcome to the show, Robyn.
Dr. Robyn McKay (01:33):
I’m so lit up to be here, and I can’t wait to get into it.
Samantha Riley (01:38):
This is a really interesting conversation, you and I were chatting before about how we bring the world in. And I actually had a very similar, I guess, story really, with how I bought my way even into my business, because you were saying that you’ve got lots of tarot cards and oracle cards and crystals. Well, I’ve got all of that sitting beside me and right next to me, my office is finished. Wait, I’m sure that’s not the right way to say it. But you know, I have my cards next to me, I’ve got my crystals behind me. I read an energy forecast every day. And that’s how I’ve always been in business and how it’s how I’ve been successful in business. But when I transitioned from traditional business into business coaching, I didn’t talk about that, because I didn’t think people would take me seriously. And it’s only just recently that I’ve realized, hang on a minute. This is how are these are all the practices that have made me successful, I really do need to talk about them. Is this a similar situation for yourself?
Dr. Robyn McKay (02:41):
Absolutely. You know, I’m a STEM girl from way back, I got my first microscope when I was 10. And I thought I would go to medical school. And when I didn’t get into medical school after I finished undergrad, I found my way to biotech. And I worked as a medical writer, a clinical scientist for the early part of my career. And everything was going pretty well. I had always been connected. I always said my prayers, I always felt like I was connected with my angels. But I never really talked about it. And I didn’t really have language around that. And then right around the time I turned 28, which I think it’s Saturn’s return is about time. I didn’t know that at the time. But when I turned 28, I had this quarter life crisis. And I really looked at my life. And I said, What is going on here? Is this all there is? And the main reason I asked that is because I wasn’t doing any of the things I had envisioned in my mind’s eye when I was 16 and fearless and had this vision of doing things quite like I’m doing with you today, actually. So at that time, it really was a quarter life crisis. And I went into a spiritual awakening at that point. That’s when I really started to understand what intuition was. And it was right around 2000 when this was happening, so the internet was out there. But I remember sitting on my lunch breaks. I don’t think that we had Google yet. But we had whatever search engine we had, and I was googling what is an empath and what is intuition? And I was trying to figure this out. Amazon had just started. And can you imagine I know you can getting books delivered directly to your door rather than having to go to the store. I mean, I became a self help junkie a little bit because I really found that research was my research. I really wanted to find out as much as I possibly could about myself even in what I would now call the confines of the corporate space, even within biotech, so I’m a science girl, but I’m also a spiritually intelligent person that was coming into understanding who I was at that level as well. So that was kind of where the two worlds collided, if you will, and I was grateful to have my job in corporate I paid really well so I was able to do all of this other training and go on retreat. Send. Do you know meet with the medicine people in the shamans do all of this esoteric study while I was working, you know, so by day I’m stem Girl by night I’m, you know, I don’t know what to call myself will have to come up with a new superhero name for me
Samantha Riley (05:15):
totally. And what I love about what you said then was me search. And I know that just everyone that listens to this show will totally understand that because that’s the people that hang out in my world. But I think that there’s one thing to have it in our world, and a whole nother thing to be able to say to other people, this is what I believe this is what I do, and have that fear of judgment, or that fear of oh my goodness, you’re a little bit crazy or a little bit weird. Or maybe you’re not. For me, what came up was maybe you’re not as smart as what I thought you were, that’s the story that I turned it into was that people wouldn’t take me seriously that I couldn’t read, maybe they would think I couldn’t read a p&l statement or there, I didn’t understand marketing. You know, I really struggled to bring those worlds together. So I’d love your journey on moving from that me search that you mentioned, to talking about it and sharing it in a wider way.
Dr. Robyn McKay (06:17):
So here’s what ended up happening is that as I went through the spiritual awakening, and started gathering all my tarot cards, and my rune stones, and I had my dad is actually my first spiritual mentor. And he supported me throughout this early time as I was trying to make sense of all of the things I was uncovering about myself. And so the advantage I think I had was that I felt really comfortable talking about myself. And I had a good core group of colleagues who understood me and I was quite, I was younger than they were, they were all in the boomer generation and kind of looked at me as this kind of, you know, kid on the block who they were teaching and mentoring, and she’s going through something and so we’re going to maybe they were patting me on the head a little bit, but they were quite understanding about it. And for scientists, you know, I think that a good scientist is always going to adopt an attitude of curiosity and open mindedness. And if there was a projection coming at me, I usually was able to recognize that it probably was from their own experience, rather than something that I was doing right or wrong. The people who I had the hardest time with, quite frankly, were my family members, apart from my dad, my sisters were both in medical school at the time, and they were hardcore science, like you stay totally 3d at the time and where I found my Ridge was in psychology. And I became a social scientist, I became I studied counseling psychology, I studied spiritual intelligence, creativity, intuition, but I did so within the frame of a, I’ll call it a socially sanction world, a socially sanctioned program, that was one of the top programs in in the US, and did so and I kind of got the rubber stamp of approval was she’s got a PhD in psychology so.dot.so, there was a little bit of a feeding into that story that I had to get all of my credentials in order so that I could teach the things that I knew to be true even before I started in psychology, that’s something that I wrestled with, to be honest, for a while. It continues to pop up every once in a while for me, but for the most part, I think that the transformation has been just me feeling very comfortable in my own skin to be able to have conversations with high level executives in tech, pharma healthcare, they still come to me and they come to me for intuitive readings that come from me for energy work, healings transformations, they’re definitely engaged in this, they might not be out about it in their world of work. But they’re definitely behind the scenes coming in. And they’re saying they come to me for leadership coaching or something like that. So that’s been the big transformation, if you will, in terms of how I’ve been able to navigate the in between spaces of being a spiritual being and also being a grown up smart girl as well, like you worried about, you know, are they going to take me seriously? Are they going to think that I’m crazy or to woo or to whatever? Totally. I have a story to tell you. I hope that it’s okay to share this now. Because I ended up our listeners ring it. It just occurs to me. So this was a couple of years ago, it was during the pandemic. And I had a couple of organizations, big, well known organizations in the world who came to me and said, Doc, what do we do? What are we doing here? And I consulted with them over that period of time. I had one organization that was a sales based organization and the women leaders in that organization wanted to bring me in to do some some coaching and consulting and mentoring around burnout, recovery, a leadership and that kind of thing. So I had to meet with the SVP, the senior vice president of this organization, the big decision maker. And he very succinctly, as you can imagine, he might do said that I was just too woo for him. And I found myself agreeing with him. I’m a little bit embarrassed to say this, but there’s a lesson in this, I found myself at first agreeing with him and sort of trying to contort myself into making me be okay for him to say yes, to bring me in, he wasn’t even going to have to listen to me, the women wanted me to come in for the other women in the organization. Well, we ended up not moving forward with that project. And what I learned from that experience was a couple of things. One is that I was no longer willing to justify or prove myself after 20 years of experience, my credentials, my emotional intelligence, being developed as it is, I was no longer willing to apologize for who I was in order to make somebody else feel comfortable, especially a decision maker in an organization. And I think that that’s an important crossroads that I came to, because really, then I was able to from there from that decision of deciding I wasn’t going to apologize anymore for being too Woo. For some people, that just tells me more about where they are with their own emotional intelligence, with their own connection with source or God, and less about mine, obviously. But it also gave me an opportunity to start having conversations about people about how important it is now more than ever before for us, those of us who are emotionally intelligent, spiritually intelligent, to come out of the closet, and to be unapologetic about our gifts, talents and abilities.
Samantha Riley (12:03):
And understand that the unique beings that we are for a reason, I’m a big believer in that. It’s funny that we’re using the word Woo, I remember, it was only about a year ago, I was saying to a friend, I’ve used the word, you know, we say woo, woo. And at the time, my brother had said to me, Oh, my God, I hate that word. And I was talking to him a lot about human design at the time. And he’s like, if you hadn’t used that woowoo word, I would have leaned into human design way, way earlier. It’s just that you use this strange word. And a friend of mine said, Well, anyway, you’re not woowoo you’re only like one part. Woo, because you’ve got all of this other, you know, how do I say it that? I guess the the credentials, the education, all of that? That other part? I don’t know how to wrap that up in a little box. But she’s but she said, Yeah, you’re just one part. Woo. And I think that most of the people in our world are just one part. Whoo.
Dr. Robyn McKay (12:59):
I think so too. I think that’s a really good point that, because we are spiritual beings, we do have connection with energy, how much you want to acknowledge or recognize that is, I think, a personal choice. But I like to think about it like reclaiming that word.
Samantha Riley (13:17):
Yeah, love it. Now, what we’ve been talking about is really setting the context for like the actual topic for today, which is how we can bring this spiritual part of our work and what we do into the corporate space. Honestly, I would say up until I read your website, to be brutally honest, I thought that there was this big line down the center of the on one side, there’s entrepreneurs who understand spirituality and understand all of this practices, and we bring them in and integrate them into what we’re doing on a daily basis. And then then the other side of the line, we’ve got corporate, which is purely, you know, leadership and reading spreadsheets and very logical. And, like the same story that I had, that I didn’t think that my business world wanted to know about my spiritual practices. Up until I saw your website. I had also had the belief that the corporate world doesn’t want to bring that in. Where was this time that you had the realization that there was both sides could be within the corporate space?
Dr. Robyn McKay (14:31):
When I was there, all those years ago, when I I was working with PhD level neuroscientists very, very brilliant MDS in research capacities. I was doing research on type one diabetes and type two diabetes and medications that could support that. And I was still going through my spiritual awakening and transformation and I ended I was getting my PhD, by the way as I was I was. So I was working in corporate and getting my PhD. And I think I built a house during that time I did all the things like I was in my 30s. When you do all the things, yeah. And what ended up happening when I was getting ready to leave my corporate job to focus solely on finishing my dissertation, I had a, I had a year long pre doc internship that I had to complete and so on, I just didn’t have the bandwidth to do both anymore. My boss invited me to come in for my farewell to do a team build with the team that I had led in the drug development space. So I was able to start that conversation very early around understanding personality, understanding, intuition, understanding leadership for the very people who had been leading from a different perspective, of course, but that really set the tone for my career, I think some people would say that that was serendipitous or just lucky that I was in the right place at the right time. But I really believe that when you’re pursuing your calling that there are going to be those moments that come forward, that just allow you to just be fully who you are. And I worked at an organization that even back then this was in will say 2005, or so was very open to other ideas. And as I said, the scientists among us, for the most part, are very open minded humans. And they are curious, and they do wonder, and then there’s a subset of them who are emotionally intelligent, who are intuitive, and who have had to keep that behind the scenes. Maybe you can relate to this, you know what you know, but then you have to kind of craft a reason for why you know what, you know, to bring other people along, rather than just saying, Well, that’s what my spidey sense says, then I have to create this whole story about why and what I know. And that’s it, listen, it gets tedious to do that. But there are so many, especially emotionally intelligent, intuitive women leaders who continue to do that. And when I started speaking their language, they knew that I spoke their language, they knew that I had been in the spaces where they were sending out emails at 3am in the morning, or whatever it was that I was doing, that was crazy making, to feel safe enough to explore and understand their own intuition. And, you know, some of the people that I work with are female engineers, and physicians, and they are all intuitive. And now they are becoming more, if they’re not out about it, they’re using it more openly. They’re using energy work more openly, to mitigate conflict, to problem solve, before the meetings to set intentions about how they want their meetings to go, it’s really quite remarkable what they’re doing with the tools that they’re being given that they’ve always had access to, or then able to conduct on their own, but just getting the training in it and developing competence around it allows them to bring in a whole nother skill set into their work.
Samantha Riley (18:06):
And from what I’m hearing is not just the confidence, but also the understanding that it is not just okay, but it will make them show up in a better way or get better results. And that is just, this is just another tool that they can put in their tool belt to have them being successful at work. Now, obviously, there are some big things going on in the world, we you know, we don’t want to talk about them. But there’s some, you know, health issues that the world’s had that had some pretty crazy things going on. There’s some economic turbulent times. I’m thinking that right now that there’s a lot of opportunity in corporate where they’re looking for answers. What are you seeing in the corporate space?
Dr. Robyn McKay (18:53):
So early on, and we’ll say 2020, there was movement of people who were just they call it the, I think they call it the great resignation, because there was a great resignation, where people were just looking around, we’re now confined to our offices in our homes with our dogs and our cats and our kids and our spouses and all the people and all, you know, in this little tiny space, and we’re looking at this organization and saying, Does this even match my values? Do they care about what I care about? And if they don’t, I’m going to resign. And I’m going to pursue either something that has been my heart’s desire for a long time as an entrepreneur, start my own business, I’m going to find an organization that does line up with my values. So that was a great resignation. Then we had this thing called Quiet quitting, where people just kind of shut down their laptops at five o’clock, and then maybe open them back up at eight o’clock, but there was a shift in expectations about how people were showing up to work so that they could create more life for themselves so they weren’t always chained to their computers. This last wave that we’ve had is the tsunami of layoffs. The first two were driven largely by the individual, there were individual humans, having existential crises, doing values, checks, looking at what they really, really wanted, and making the decision to go forward and do the thing. This last wave has been pretty tough to get through, especially because there are so many people who really do love their jobs, and sometimes they’re being laid off. So it’s they’re being kind of thrown into this space of what do I do next? Yeah. So all this to say, so those were kind of the three waves that I observed, as we have gone through this, this journey of the last three or four years. What remains, though, is that, whether you made the choice actively to leave the organization, or you made the choice to stay and do your work a different way. Or you were one of the people who said, You received the news that sorry, you don’t have a job anymore. Regardless, you still have a responsibility to kind of look at, like, what is the thing that I’m meant to be doing right here right now? And it can kind of throw you into if not an existential crisis, at least an existential conundrum. And in terms of who’s buying right now, that’s who’s buying the people who are asking questions around values around mission vision, what’s my purpose? I mean, I can’t think of anybody who hasn’t been an existential crisis at least once in the last four years, probably more than once. So I was gonna say, I’d
Samantha Riley (21:30):
be more surprised to find people that had only only one existentially. Exactly, it’s been a
Dr. Robyn McKay (21:37):
lot. It has been a lot, and the ones who haven’t had it at all, they’re not my people. So I don’t I don’t know what to think about
Samantha Riley (21:43):
that. I don’t even know that they existed. But to be honest, I didn’t even realize that that could be a thing. You know, when you say are in the last, you know, three years ish. Even I just went my God, it’s only been three years. It’s been so much.
Dr. Robyn McKay (21:59):
It’s been so much. Yeah.
Samantha Riley (22:01):
Let’s talk about the people right now that are saying, well, this all really sounds great. But I don’t even know how to bring my skill set. And what I know and what I teach into the corporate space, I’ve got a fear around how to take that first step. What can you talk to you to that? Well, it’s
Dr. Robyn McKay (22:22):
one of the things that I love to teach, I have a program that’s called the corporate client attraction method. And the tagline you’ll love this is think you’re too woo for corporate, let me change your mind. And the whole idea is that, listen, you have to be bilingual, we’ll say you have to be able to speak spirit. And you also have to be able to speak corporate, you have to meet people where they are. So a lot of times I think the fear, in my experience, as I’ve talked to people and walk people through this program, is that we become so comfortable speaking about meditation, and spirit guides and oracle decks and pendulums and energy work, that then you go into the corporate space. And people are like, what, like, maybe my point of entry has been around positive psychology. Positive Psychology is a beautiful bridge, actually, to spirituality, because it gets at, there’s science, and there’s data, and there’s research to support the practices that you and I are very familiar with, and probably use every single day and so to our listeners, and then provides insights into why those practices are important. Why is gratitude important? Why is meditation important? Well, when we look at psychological well being when we look at how am I going to recover from burnout, the recipes for those solutions are, in part housed in positive psychology and in other spaces as well. So positive psychology, if you didn’t learn that language that’s going to really support the conversations that you’ll have with corporate, you don’t have to keep speaking the language but you have to speak it long enough for them to know that you get them. Yeah, when I have worked with the women engineers and the physicians, one of the things that they have said, apart from the fact that working with me is like getting a PhD in themselves is that they like that I’ve been there done that they liked my corporate experience. They like knowing that I’ve had these experiences in you know, problem solving, in conflict resolution and all the things not just from a human resources perspective, because I was a hard scientist at the time, but just in you know, working at the bench and being in the lab and and working with the data and communicating with the programmers, in the statisticians, all of those things make a difference for my people. And for you in marketing, to be able to speak the language of marketing and speak the language of spirit and energy, my goodness, like those two go together like peanut and chocolate tone of butter and chocolate if you want them to. Yeah, totally. So for us, it’s about being becoming even more comfortable with our own gifts. And also understanding, the more we can simplify things for people not dumbing it down. But just speak to them in their language that brings them along very quickly.
Samantha Riley (25:11):
Hmm. I love that you just said that simplifying isn’t dumbing it down, because a lot of people get those two confused. That is, I believe the ability to simplify things shows that you have a deep understanding in that topic.
Dr. Robyn McKay (25:27):
Yeah. Yeah, I know, like on the nose.
Samantha Riley (25:31):
Yeah. And being able to do that is definitely one of the things that will set you apart.
Dr. Robyn McKay (25:37):
We’re sure. And so when we look at what are the barriers for coaches and consultants to step in the corporate space, that is one of them, what do I even have to offer them. But as I said, Now, more than ever before, actually, there’s never been a better time for us to come in with things like meditation. With things like massage therapy with essential oils, I have a group of engineers who use essential oils every day, they take brain or they call them brain breaks, they take their brain breaks every single day, and they do their installations of their essential oils, they meditate a little bit, it just brings them back online so that they can do the work that they’re there to do it clears things for them so that they can see things from a different perspective. So if I can do that, in tech, and healthcare, there’s no limit. There’s no limit to what you can do in other spaces as well. It just is there are some nuances and how we’re going to talk about some things just to the point to invite them and get them comfortable so that then they can open up to their own intuition to their own ways of knowing that are quite different from what gets emphasized in the corporate space.
Samantha Riley (26:53):
Intuition I find very interesting topic to be able to open up. The people that I see at CEO level. That’s what has them playing at that level is that they really understand how to use that intuition. How do you have that conversation bringing it in? Because we’re not always speak, you know, in a bigger like organization, we’re not actually speaking with the CEO. We’re speaking with people that are at a different level, how do you bring in this conversation around intuition, and normalize it so that people understand that this is how we play at a bigger level.
Dr. Robyn McKay (27:35):
So I have a psychological assessment that I can go because of my credentials, it’s called the do five factor personality assessment. It has the big five factors of personality, including one that’s called openness. And as it turns out, in my observation, people who score very high on this on this openness factor, are highly imaginative. They are emotionally intelligent. They are action takers, and they love they have the Wanderlust factor, like they love to go new places, try new things have new adventures, they challenge the status quo, and they are lifelong learners. So that’s the first conversation that I have with people individually, who raised their hand and say, for me, I’m an engineer. I’m burned out. And I pretty sure I’m emotionally intelligent. Those are kind of the three big three factors that I speak to in the corporate space. So when I do their Neo, and I see that they Oh, they score in a room of 100 people. They’re one of the most imaginative people in the room. In a room of 100 people, oh, gosh, they’re also one of the most emotionally intelligent people in the room, chances are quite good, that they’re going to be intuitive. And so then I probe a little bit to identify that and I name it for them. Mm hmm. So there was an engineer who I worked with who was really at the top of her game she had hired me to she wanted to get a C level position. And that’s the work that we did. But she was burned out. And when I gave her her nao assessment, and we saw this big spike of openness, and I asked her about it, she said, Well, when I was a little girl, my mom and I used to play guessing games, and I would think about what we’re going to have for dinner, and then I would get home, see if I was right. So that’s an example of telepathy. Nobody told her that she was Catholic as well. I’m Catholic. And so we had a lot of conversations about she had this relationship with mother Mary, that she never told anybody about. But she would always go to Mother Marian and pray and ask for advice and so on. So there was a spiritual connection that was there but had never been acknowledged. Well, once she started acknowledging these things about her guess what happened? Pretty quickly. She started embodying all of her accomplishments. And then pretty quickly after that, she found the job that really is the job of her dreams.
Samantha Riley (29:59):
Because once You don’t shove that skill set, I guess, or knowing under the rug, where it’s not named, once you bring it out, then that that makes it acceptable, I guess not just to other people, but more importantly to yourself that this is the way
Dr. Robyn McKay (30:19):
that’s exactly. I gave the assessment to one woman. She’s very, very emotionally intelligent. In a room of, we’ll say, 1000 people, she’s probably one of the most emotionally intelligent, she said, she told me recently, she said, she tells her husband, I am one of the most emotionally intelligent people on the planet. And she really is. But it was something that she never acknowledged. So the first step is really acknowledging it for themselves. When you take ownership of your gifts, that’s when the world starts to transform. It’s not trying to get somebody else it just is, remember I said, research is research. So that you can understand yourself at a deeper level, and understand what your actual gifts are and put names to them, then it becomes more palatable for you, you can celebrate them more. And then I find this too. Maybe you do, too, that when I accepted my gifts, and I really started just saying who I am and what I do, I’ve been a clear channel since I was a little kid. People are kind of like, okay, like, even my family that’s formed around that. They’re just like, that’s Robyn doing her thing. Mm. Toad, rather than trying to make me wrong, or make me seem like I’m crazy or anything like that. They know, I’m not crazy, you don’t get results, like I get if you’re crazy.
Samantha Riley (31:35):
Totally, totally. When I met my husband back in 2015, he was from a corporate background, he’d worked at one of the largest corporates in Australia for 30 years when I met him. And he’d never knew that there was such a thing. As a coach, he didn’t know that it was even at a career, he certainly had never seen the cards that I pull the energy readings, or any, you know, anything that I was talking about. And the first couple of times, he looked at me, like really strange. And then it got to the point where he would text me and go, can you just let me know what the energy is today? Because there’s this really strange stuff happening at work. And it really did not take long for him to understand or it say, I’m struggling with this, can you just pull a card for me like, you know, what’s going on. And now he just completely embraces her. And he’s very, very logical, his, you know, operations are his thing. But now he’s learnt how to integrate this in and understands how much it actually helps him in his, you know, in those operations or those more logical places.
Dr. Robyn McKay (32:39):
Isn’t that a beautiful thing? That’s such a beautiful gap?
Samantha Riley (32:42):
Totally, totally. For, I guess the question that I can feel that would be coming through for people that are listening to this is, how much are you keeping these spiritual conversations behind the scene prior to actually working with these organizations? Like what we’re actually, you know, what I’m hearing is we’re leading with the leadership, we’re leading with these things. But how much do we need to talk about the spiritual concepts? So that A, we make sure that we’re bringing them in and not really duping people, but also not scaring them away? either? Right?
Dr. Robyn McKay (33:25):
So this is a funny story. It depends on where you are, first of all, now, you’ve been to my website. So you know, like, I’ve got my becoming the channel podcast, is there anything more than that, like, knowing that I’ve been doing this work for 24 years. So it would make it would stand to reason that I would evolve and talk about things in a different way than I would have, say, five years ago, 10 years ago, whatever. So we have to keep that in mind first. So I always say about, first of all about credentials, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. So if you happen to be a marketing exec, who also happens to go on yoga retreats? Certainly, that would be something that would be interesting. The story that I will tell you is this is how much do you talk about it? I was invited into Intel Corp. There’s a big campus here in the Phoenix area where I live in in Arizona, to talk to the women engineers around leadership and burnout. And in the middle of there probably will say 75 people in the room in the middle of the meditation I was doing suddenly I just said out loud and breathe in love and grace. And I kind of went excuse my language, but I was kind of like taken aback that I said that out loud. But it was so natural for me to do that. Well guess what? Afterwards, a woman came up to me and she said, she said, Do you know who Sylvia Browne is? Well, Sylvia Browne. She’s now passed on but she was a great psychic, great intuitive early on somebody that we all probably if you were studying this stuff back in the early 2000s, late 90s She would have known Sylvia Browne. I’m like she said, I used to work with her. She said, I have to work with you now. And she went on to hire me, too. It was a five figure sale that I made that day. Just because she said, I knew that because she said, breathe in love and grace. So we find our people, even if you know, my work is around in corporate still, it’s around burnout, prevention and recovery, it’s around, breaking the busyness cycle. These are very simple concepts. But the practices that I bring in are unique. And they’re going to be something different than what they’ve experienced previously. In You know, it’s not cognitive behavioral therapy, I can tell you that much. And nobody needs to be given another checklist or told what to do. Because that’s not the point of it. It’s the experience of yes, it’s an experiential process that we take people through. And if we can focus more on the experience of it, and less on the I’m using air quotes here technique, I think that this is a very valuable leap that we can make into supporting people. It’s how they feel when they’re finished. Does that make sense?
Samantha Riley (36:09):
It makes perfect sense. And I love the story you shared to just prove that when you are who you are meant to be unapologetically that the right people will be attracted to you. It is just the way that it is. Where do you find? Or where can people that are listening that may want to start making that transition into corporate or explore whether it’s something they might want to do? How do you generally get introduced to those networks to be able to get those first couple of, I’m gonna say gigs under your belt, I can’t think of another way to say off the top of my head.
Dr. Robyn McKay (36:51):
Yeah. Well, I always say, start where you are. So if you’re in the corporate space, you have colleagues, you have friends, you have work husbands, like they’re all of the people around you. And you can start right there with them, you can do, for example, if you meditate regularly, and you’ve taken a meditation certification program, we’ll just do something easy like that, you could often start doing a noontime meditation once a week for your team or for your division, and just see who shows up. Because there’s that saying Your vibe attracts your tribe, but really, there are going to be other people who are going to be interested that in that, but listen, it’s not just a matter of announcing and you know, putting something on Slack or something, letting all the people know, it’s sending out individual invitations, I’m inviting you to do this, I’m inviting you to be a part of something, one of the things that I know for sure whether you’re working in the corporate space, you’re a consultant, you’re a coach, you’re a CEO of your own company. We are craving, connection, and community. And if you can come with the attitude and the energy of I’m going to be of high service here, this is something that has helped me, I want to share it with you, you’re invited, if you can bring the invitation, this is going to gather the people who you’re meant to work with. Now, you might if you’re at the beginning, you might do some coaching for free, or in exchange for a recommendation or in exchange for a story of transformation. If you are somebody who’s more advanced or has been around for a while longer I work with some of the people who come in and work with me are in corporate, but they’re leaving either due to retirement or they’re making the leap into consulting. And then once they’re out, we have them turn around and say okay, who do I know on my network, who really is ready to work with me either to work with me or to refer people to me. And so it really this is very relationship based. I know you can get a sense of that. So this is not like marketing funnel 101 that I teach at all. It’s more like relationship based. I always in my corporate client attraction method, I teach either to do some kind of Lunch and Learn or one hour program where at the end, people can raise their hand and say, Yeah, I want to learn more, or Yeah, I would love to do a private session with you or like the engineer who came up to me at the end of the session at Intel. I have to work with you because I know, you know who Sylvia Browne is. Yeah. So do you see does that I know that I could talk forever about that. But that’s the starting point. The energy of this. You have a network. They’re the people around you. One of my greatest referral angels is my sister. She’s a physician who happens to work at a major tech organization. Now she always sends me people. She’s like, you have to work with my big sister and suddenly I have clients who are raising their hand and saying I want to work with you
Samantha Riley (39:50):
love that. Love that. Now I know that you have a leadership quiz to help people really you’ve spoken about it a little bit already. I’d love you to share a bit more about what it is and where people can go to find out more.
Dr. Robyn McKay (40:04):
So the leadership quiz, I believe is one of the best ways to start in understanding more about yourself, what kind of leader you are, and what’s your soul’s purpose as it relates to leadership. So you might be a high spirited encourager, somebody who’s a collaborator who loves to kind of be in the mix and encourage people along the way, on a long project. If that’s the case, your sole purpose would be different from someone who’s a Wayshower. Like, I am a visionary leader whose job is to hold the vision to set the tone, right to end to carry the vision as we go through the process. So we start there, because that’s I think the, when we talk about the researchers research piece, I think that that’s a good way to understand yourself more. It’s a unique quiz, because I’ve actually pulled remember I mentioned the Neo, that big personality assessment that I give, I’ve actually pulled key concepts from the Neo into this quiz. So you’re just getting a little snapshot of what the bigger picture of the Neo would tell you. And you can find that at my website, www.drrobynmckay.com/leadershipquiz. And I think we’ll have that in the show notes as well.
Samantha Riley (41:13):
Absolutely, it will definitely be in the show notes. So wherever you’re listening, just scroll below, or head to influence by design podcast.com. So that you can do that because I think that exactly like you said, Robyn, you need to understand your own leadership style before you can go and help others it’s like fitting your own oxygen mask before you can fit the oxygen mask of others. Absolutely. It’s been an absolute pleasure to chat with you. I’ve really enjoyed this topic. I think it’s fabulous. And you know, if you are listening and you want to know more about getting into corporate then also definitely look up Dr. Robbins corporate client attraction method, because being able to bring our spiritual gifts into the corporate space is what is going to help to make this beautiful transition into the new paradigm. You know, we need people to understand this. So thank you for coming to chat to us about this today.
Dr. Robyn McKay (42:09):
You’re welcome. So happy to be here.
Samantha Riley (42:11)
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Influence By Design podcast. If you want more head over to influencebydesignpodcast.com for the show notes and links to today’s gifts and sponsors. And if you’re looking to connect with other experts who are growing and scaling their business to join us in the coaches, thought leaders, and changemakers community on Facebook, the links are waiting for you over at influencebydesignpodcast.com
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