Kelly L. Campbell: A Rebellious Approach to Leadership
I’ve spent nearly three decades in the sports broadcasting game. During that time, I’ve witnessed the evolution of so much: stadiums, team names…even the game of baseball itself. Some changes have been for the better, others not so much. But despite the ebbs and flows of progress, one area that continues to improve is a level of self-awareness in leadership that didn’t previously exist.
As recently as ten years ago, the baseball players I work so closely with every day were assumed to be something they often times were not. Managers and athletes alike adopted gruff, tough personas to keep up with appearances of invincibility. At some point, many of them probably felt that they were. But it was really a way to prevent themselves from seeming vulnerable.
These days, as the next generation of superstars become household names, you can almost see the shift. There’s a willingness to let down their guard a bit, to talk about their feelings and to acknowledge working through certain issues in therapy. That self-awareness on the field is also inspiring a change off the field.
I can see it when I deliver keynote speeches. Soft skills like winning trust, communication and building a positive culture were once overlooked as nice but not necessary. Today, C-level business leaders have begun to realize that these skills have just as much of an impact on their bottom line as sales training.
Improving them requires vulnerability, and it isn’t just being talked about. It’s actively being worked on, leading to transformative changes in self-awareness on an unprecedented level. It was the topic of one recent episode of my podcast Rounding the Bases, when I was joined by a guest many would call rebellious…in the best possible way.
Their name is Kelly L. Campbell, a deeply intentional multi-hyphenate with an anti-bureau approach to change. Through the radical lens of trauma informed healing, she invites the visionaries of today and tomorrow to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. And by granting permission to disrupt with agency to rebuild, empowers every leader to make changes that endure.
SINGLE: The Awakening
Kelly was introduced to me by another past podcast guest, Ben Guttmann. Both live in New York and leveraged successful careers in marketing to write incredible books. (You can check out Kelly’s here and Ben’s here). Each of them imbues though-provoking perspective, though their respective areas of expertise could not be more different. In Kelly’s case, it has revolutionized the world of leadership.
The genesis of their story was growing up in an abusive household. While their father and brother were compassionate, loving figures, their mother was unable to love, accept or nurture. It led to Kelly harboring feelings of worthlessness that manifested in their adult life.
After a brief stint in corporate America, Kelly began their own firm at 22-years-old. It was a cause marketing agency that did work for non-profits, foundations and social impact initiatives. She loved their team and had incredible relationships with their clients. It wasn’t until years later that she realized it had all been an attempt to fill the void left by their own traumatic childhood.
“I created a business to essentially create the conditions in which that [intrinsic feelings of value] was possible by my employees and my clients,” she said. “It was impacting my marriage, it was impacting so many things over the course of those 14 years, I ended up selling the company.”
A non-compete prevented Kelly from onboarding anywhere else, so she began coaching other agency leaders…and that’s when their awakening occurred.
DOUBLE: rebellious self-awareness
Self-awareness begins with taking ownership for all of the experiences we have had in our life. This includes things that happened to us during childhood, something that historically people - leaders in particular - have worked hard to distance themselves from. In their capacity as a coach, Kelly was witnessing a direct impact.
“This correlation between trauma, childhood trauma, unprocessed trauma, and your leadership style … started to kind of congeal,” she recalled. It lead them to question why nobody in the business community was talking about it. And even more importantly, why we weren’t collectively doing anything to actually heal it.
What she noticed was that unhealed experiences from the formative ages of zero to fourteen continued bubbling to the surface in different ways throughout adulthood. It’s a cycle that would continue indefinitely until people accepted responsibility and decided to put in work to heal the wounds.
“It’s pretty rebellious,” Kelly said, acknowledging the mentality as a total departure from everything we have been taught. But ever the trailblazer she is, did it anyway. In the process, she also found purpose.
TRIPLE: strength in vulnerability
Whether you work in business or in baseball, leaders are often times looked to as the ones who hold all the answers. To admit that they don’t, whether that be regularly or on rare occassions, can feel risky. Some may feel it threatens their image or costs them respect when, in reality, a willingness to show vulnerability quite often has the opposite effect.
Kelly likens this kind of fronting to wearing a mask. When it’s on, it can sometimes be difficult to recognize the critical self awareness leaders need to be great. As a former CEO themself, she understands this firsthand. But it’s also something that needs to be done not just to grow, but to heal the wounds that are keeping you from leveling up in any area of your life.
“It’s really hard to break through that,” she said, before continuing, “You start to dial up this internal curiosity to say, I really wonder if there's a better way to do this. Because the way that I'm doing it right now is actually not sustainable….you start to realize, hey, I might be the common denominator here. Maybe it’s time to do some work on this.”
The healing journey is a lifelong endeavor. Leaders who are willing to deal with their trauma, however, will realize a direct ROI from the time invested in doing so. Their organizations run more smoothly because there is greater collaboration, better innovation, improved culture and stronger relationships. And don’t forget, a higher profit margin too.
“You can’t control anything externally,” Kelly said. “But where you can start is the place you’ve been avoiding your entire life.”
HOME RUN: committed to change
After so many years of progress destigmatizing communities, normalizing mental health, fighting for equality (…the list goes on…), it still feels like society is so far away from where it should be.
Some days it even feels like we’re moving in reverse, and at a rapidly-accelerating pace. As Kelly and I continued talking, I was curious whether she ever felt the same way.
“In the past, we didn’t address it. It wasn’t a thing in the Zeitgeist and now it is very, very much so,” she opined. “It feels like it’s getting worse. But maybe we’re just talking about it more … all of this stuff is really getting kicked up in order to eventually heal it.”
The change we need isn’t going to happen in my lifetime or theirs. But by doing the work today, then tomorrow, then the next day…I do believe that one day we will get there.
“The people who are committed to it are the people who are going to change the world,” Kelly said. And in that one simple truth, summed up all the facts.
Listen to the full interview here or tune in to Rounding the Bases every Tuesday, available wherever you get your podcasts.
LEARN MORE ABOUT Self-awareness in leadership FROM JOEL
Book Joel Goldberg for your next corporate event. He draws on over 25 years of experience as a sports broadcaster. In addition, he brings unique perspectives and lessons learned from some of the world’s most successful organizations. Whatever your profession, Joel is the keynote speaker who can help your team achieve a championship state of mind.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Joel Goldberg 0:18
Hey, everybody, welcome back to Rounding the Bases presented by Community America Credit Union: Investing in You. I'm Joel Goldberg, super excited for today's episode of Rounding the Bases. A couple quick things. I've been mentioning this recently. If you listen, thank you. If you're listening on Apple or Spotify and you haven't followed yet following is great and helps us tremendously. So thank you for that. Share with the friends of course, we love all of these episodes and the people that we get a chance to meet and, and talk with. Also I always forget to do this. But if I'm going to put that the Joel Goldberg theme song in everybody's head. A quick shout out it's been a while I think to A.Y. Young, Kansas City artist traveling the world who was kind enough to put that song together years ago. If it's stuck in your head and that's annoying to you, I apologize. But it's fun. It's a it's a fun, little unique thing. And last of all, as always shout out to my friends at Chief of Staff Kansas City. You don't have to be in Kansas City. But if you're looking for a job, looking for a resource, check them out. Cool office, great people. chiefofstaffkc.com Making Connections That Matter. I'm really excited about today's connection and guest. Transformation starts today on Rounding the Bases as I'm joined by a guest with a rebellious approach to leadership. Their name is Kelly L. Campbell, a deeply intentional multi-hyphenate with an anti-bureau approach to change that endures. Through the radical lens of trauma-informed healing, they invite the visionaries of today and tomorrow to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, granting permission to disrupt and agency to rebuild so that all are empowered to feel safe, loved and seen. I just met Kelly before we got going and I immediately want to move to New York and check out this cottage with the calm serenity of the the stream or whatever it is behind. I mean 30 minutes from Manhattan and yet this peace and tranquility. What more Kelly could you want?
Kelly L. Campbell 2:23
Not too much. How you doing Joel?
Joel Goldberg 2:25
It's good to it's good to see you, hear you on the podcast. And great to be able to to meet you. There's so much we could talk about I told you we'd go wherever we we go. But I want to go back just to my to my introduction, which my amazing Executive Producer and assistant Ashleigh is an incredible writer but rebellious approach to leadership. Tell me about your approach. There's so many different directions I want to go here with you to leadership. We'll get into the book and get into everything that you're doing. But, but tell me about your approach to life and leadership.
Kelly L. Campbell 3:03
So, you know, one of these things that historically we have really kept at a distance when we're talking about leadership is the idea of taking responsibility for the things that we have gone through in our past, right. And so there's this idea that you know, what happened to us when we were younger, in our, during our formative years, call it zero to 14, that that has no impact on how we are as adults, and especially how we show up as leaders. And nothing could be further from the truth, right? So we take ourselves with us wherever we go. That means that if there were things that were unprocessed or unhealed or unintegrated, from the previous life before our leadership role, we're just going to keep replaying those same patterns, we're going to keep projecting that pain is one way to say it onto other people. And so if we are in leadership positions, it's pretty rebellious to take that that radical responsibility for the things that you've gone through and do the work to heal them.
Joel Goldberg 4:08
I mean, we all in the simplest terms, and I haven't studied this like you have, but we all have baggage, right. I mean, who's gone through life without baggage? So I guess the simplest piece of that is, we all carry it to some extent, whether whether we want to let people know that or not, right? I mean, that's, I'm simplifying.
Kelly L. Campbell 4:29
Well, I would posit that we do let people know that whether we want to or not, right. Because whether we're actively saying it and stepping into that from a vulnerability space, or we're just showing it through our maladaptive actions, right. Our reactions that really don't jive with, you know, some of the feedback that we might be getting, or things like that we're showing people who we are all the time. So whether we say Oh, this is right, why I'm doing this or not. We're we're showing it. And the other thing is, those of us who share these things, vulnerably, are because we are self aware enough and probably have been doing the work on them. The people who don't share and who are really living in that reactionary state, probably are not aware, many times this is very unconscious or subconscious, you know, behavior.
Joel Goldberg 5:18
This is so interesting to me, because I think I can make a connection here with, say, your CEOs or your leader of a business, and in my world, whether that be the manager of a baseball team, or the athlete, or the 26 guys on a baseball team, by the way, all different personalities, all different backgrounds, but there's certainly an assumption that they're going to be that gruff, tough athlete, and they're invincible. And probably at a certain point, they felt like they were too, although I will tell you that the younger age athlete right now is more open to therapy. They're more open to vulnerability, whether they talk about it publicly or not. They are looking for resources and help because they know they exist, and it's okay more so than the past to do that. But I think about the CEO, oftentimes being like the athlete. They've got to put out a certain appearance. And I'm sure that you're living in that world all the time. And I was thinking, I mean, trauma-informed leadership coach, most very successful, visible, big name, whatever it is, people are important jobs, like you said, whether they, whether they're showing it or intend to show on or not intend to show it, they usually have a tough exterior, not everybody. How do you address that?
Kelly L. Campbell 6:41
Well, we know, I know, it's a mask, right? So you know how we address it is, first, they have to be willing to, have to be of the mindset to say, you know, what, what got me here isn't going to get me to the next level, something's got to change, there has to be a better way to live, lead in the world. I don't know what that is. And I'm looking for some help. Right? So first, they have to have the self awareness to say I'm willing to engage with some idea that I may not know the answer, which is a big deal for a CEO especially, right, because historically, we've been taught, I was a former CEO. So historically, we have been taught that we have to have all the answers, we have to have the solutions to the problems. You know, and in order to earn respect, we've got to really keep keep this mask of being armored up and not showing emotion and all of that, right. And gender has no impact on this, right? Because there can be women, non-binary people, men, we're all kind of taught the same thing. And so it's really hard to break through that. But again, if you start to question you start to dial up this internal curiosity to say, I really wonder if there's a better way to do this, because the way that I'm doing it right now is actually not sustainable. Maybe this is impacting my marriage, maybe this is impacting my relationships with my kids. Maybe I see a high turnover. If I'm a CEO of a corporation, I see a high turnover of employees. Maybe there's some you know, if I'm a manager of a baseball team, maybe there's some stuff going on internally. So whatever the thing is that you're leading, whether it's a team, a corporation, a nonprofit, a family, or community space, whatever it is, the question that comes up in your mind, because you're starting to realize like, hey, wait a minute, I might be the common denominator here. Maybe it's time to to do some work on this.
Joel Goldberg 8:33
There's so many layers to this. I mean, first off, you're right. No one, no one's immune, right? No matter your background, no matter your orientation, no matter your skin color, gender, whatever it is. Yet, there are certain populations of any community that are marginalized, that then have a steeper hill to climb that may just be, at least in their minds, easier to not say anything, because what comes with it when you say something. Aleader of a company, a woman that's a leader of a company, may be fighting more of an uphill climb than the man that's in that same role. And it may just not be worth bringing it up. But I know you're gonna say that, you're gonna say that it is worth bringing it up there. But I'm curious how you sort of balance all of that because the playing field is not equal for everybody. If it is, we'd have more equality.
Kelly L. Campbell 9:29
Yeah, definitely the playing field is not equal. And so what you just said, you know, the woman may have a steeper climb. No, the woman absolutely has the steeper climb. Anyone in the marginalized community, women included, has a steeper climb. But I think just having that conversation and accepting not accepting it as like, okay, let's it's fine. Let's just keep going like that. But accepting that that is the case. Right? So let's start there as the level set and then have those conversations to say, you know, something like imposter syndrome as an example, right? Imposter syndrome isn't about an individual, you know, character flaw. It's actually a systemic issue. It's a systemic issue, if you're talking about leadership or pay gap or things like that, right? It's the issue, the inequality is at the corporate level, or at the governmental level, or whatever the, wherever the paychecks are coming from, right. So it's not about the individual. It was Reshma from Girls Who Code just gave a commencement speech at Smith, and had this whole really great, you know, if you haven't checked that out, that's a great a great speech to look at. But yeah, all about this inequality and all about imposter syndrome. And, yes, there is a steeper hill to climb for sure. But we have to say something about it. And it's really the onus is on every single level. It's the leadership, it's the employees, it's the on and on and on. Because when we all start talking about it, then there's collective change that can occur.
Joel Goldberg 11:01
There's more normalcy to it. And I'm, I'm amazed. I have an 18 and a 21 year old and they're just, and when I say they I mean, their friends, their, their, you know, the people that they're around, they're their classmates. They're just more. I'm not saying they're all going out there and volunteering, everything that's going on. But they talk about things that we would have never, ever, ever dreamed of talking about that might not have even crossed the mind, which might be a whole different thing of burying some things. But you know, that the things that they talk about, and again, the resources that that they are willing, not across the board, but willing to consider weren't options for us before because you wouldn't consider opening yourself up to that. Is that fair?
Kelly L. Campbell 11:52
Well, you're talking about destigmatization, right? So you said burying, right? Generations...ours, before us, before us. We didn't talk about these things, because it wasn't appropriate to.
Joel Goldberg 12:07
Yeah.
Kelly L. Campbell 12:07
There weren't those resources. So, you know, that lack of self awareness was really a lack of curiosity, because societally, it just wasn't appropriate. And those resources were not available. Right. So yeah, I think that's absolutely the case. And I do, I am very encouraged by, you know, the current youth. The 18, the 21 year olds, and older and younger, because they are more curious, they are willing to have these uncomfortable conversations, and look at how that's changing things. Now, you may look around and say, Wow, the world is in a tremendous upheaval right now, and has been for quite some time. And that is, there's a lot to that, right. But if we are going to try to extract what is the what is the sort of silver lining here, it's that there's a lot coming to the surface, which maybe was repressed in the past. And now these things are coming up to be healed is sort of what I'm positing. Tou know, you can't heal things that are kind of stuck in the shadow. You've got to bring them into the light. And so I think collectively, that's sort of what we're seeing. And we do have to thank many of the people in the current generation and generations to come who will make this even easier and easier.
Joel Goldberg 13:22
You know, I was gonna ask you at some point along the way, or was probably going to ask you about, you know, where are we at right now? Because it feels like things are worse. And I, what I, my take on it always is that when it feels a little bit hopeless, I'm talking about progress, decency, equality. That nothing ever, I've said this on the podcast before, nothing ever comes in a straight line. Not never, but rarely do we get from point A to point B without going backwards or sideways? Or whatever it is. And I don't know if I'm being naive. I don't even know if you have the answer for this. But I don't know if I'm being naive or not when I still have hope. On days where it feels really hopeless, like how far back are we going? And how, how many decades back where we go in on on certain issues? And then I wonder if it's just part of the fight? I'm curious, your take on that?
Kelly L. Campbell 14:17
Yeah, I mean, I again, it's personal opinion, because I don't think any one of us can have a true answer. But what you're actually describing is sort of what I talked about in the book as like the spiral of healing. It's not a linear path, right? It is gonna feel like taking a couple steps forward and 10 backwards and then feeling fine for a couple years. And then the thing that you thought you solved internally comes back and slaps you in the face. You know, that's kind of how it works. And I think that's kind of what we're seeing. And to your point about, it feels worse. Listen, trauma has been here forever. Forever. It's just that as you said before, we didn't talk about it back then. We didn't talk about it. We didn't address it. We it wasn't a thing in The Zeitgeist and now it is very, very much so. And so it feels like it's getting worse. But maybe we're just talking about it more in combination with the fact that all of this stuff is really getting kicked up in order to eventually heal it. I don't know that that's going to happen in my lifetime or yours. But being part of and contributing to a better world, dare I say, a more harmonious world, a more balanced world, a more equitable world, that feels like purpose to me.
Joel Goldberg 15:27
I love that. And I think that I agree with you, when you say that it's not going to happen in your lifetime, I'll say our lifetime. But maybe it is happening while we're alive. Right? I mean, we're just, we're watching the grass grow. We're watching the, you know, the growth chart, day by day of the kid and we're not seeing it go from here to here, right? Difference is it sometimes goes down and then comes up. You know, I think, to bring something up. You and I were talking before we went on about social media and distractions and notifications and all that. Oftentimes progress opens up Pandora's boxes to me. And so not everything, to me needs to be a baseball reference. But I'll do this just it popped into my head as you were talking about this that, you know, we take baseball games. We see more mistakes, we see more mistakes from, say umpires, well, are they worse than ever? Or is the technology so much better that we see more? And so I think as we evolve, we're exposed to more. Like, are we really worse off than we were? When we were growing up? Were we really worse off today than we were 20 years ago? Are we better? And we're just seeing more? And I think that's kind of what you're getting?
Kelly L. Campbell 16:43
I think it's a great analogy, right? Because technology and that level of technology that we have now when we're watching a baseball game, night and day from five years ago. Forget about 10 years ago, right? So yeah, we're seeing more, we're exposed to more, we have access to talking about phones, we have access to everything in our pockets at all times. And so if that level of access is heightened, it's not that this is all brand new, right? There have been wars for centuries. There have been so many of the things that we've covered and talked about today, for a very long time. But now we have access to it, we're seeing more of it. And we're seeing more of not just the the sort of sugar coated version, or what the media wants us to see. But because every single person has a phone on them, we're able to see in real time, right? Think about the murder of George Floyd. Right? Like there's so many things that have been rising up, or because we have access to this technology and just insight into what is actually happening. And what I see happening is a lot of wounded people who have not done a lot of healing work. Right. And so that's where a lot of this is coming up. It's it's so much repressed trauma, suppressed trauma, unintegrated trauma. I mean, that's because that's the nature of my work. I'm going to kind of focus on that and look at that. But different people in different lines of work will see it differently. I think it's all it's all purposeful though. And I do think ultimately, even though it's hard to have hope some days. I do think ultimately, it is pretty purposeful.
Joel Goldberg 18:25
Yeah, I I agree with that. I mean, in my heart, I agree with that. And that's what I, that's what I come back to. Before I get to the book, I just want to go back to your background alot. You you have a fascinating bio. I mean, you know, you talked about being a CEO. Looking at your website, kellylcampbell.com, longtime conservationist, living in the outdoor world for a while, you've been a Reiki practitioner, you talked about being a CEO, consultant to to Facebook and NASA. So how did you end up here and you've got this new book, that I'm condensing your whole life into one question and one answer. It's not fair. But I think it's fascinating because it's not just I went from here to here, there's a lot in there.
Kelly L. Campbell 19:15
Yeah. So nonlinear, right? When I spent maybe a year and a half to two years in corporate America and realized very quickly, that was not for me. I was literally driving my motorcycle to work everyday listening to Anita Franco. They had no idea what to do with me. And it was just like a really ill fit, right. So because I was watching so much inefficiency in leadership, I was like rebellious, you know, 22 year old. I'm like I could probably do this. How hard could this be, to like, own a company? And part of that, you know, naivete really I'm grateful for part of it was being naive. Part of it was being just having a lot of conviction and I don't know confidence, maybe, instilled by my dad. But I started a company at 22. I ended up selling it at 36. It was a cause marketing agency. So we did digital marketing, essentially, for nonprofits, foundations and social impact initiatives. And I really loved that work. I loved my team, I loved the clients, and it was a very successful business. But internally, what I had realized, after the fact, of selling it was that I had created that business in order to fill an unmet need in childhood. I did not have a mother that was able to love and accept and nurture. So I was constantly seeking that. And so I felt very, very, very much not worthy, or, like I didn't have value intrinsically. And so I created a business so that I could essentially create the conditions in which that was possible by my employees and my clients who really mattered very much to them that I was there, and I existed, and, and all of that. So I think, trying to fill that void, I felt so much, I call it unhappiness, but it was so much deeper than that. And so I, I it was impacting my marriage, it was impacting so many things over the course of those 14 years, I ended up selling the company. And then that's where sort of this, I don't know, awakening of sorts happened, where I started getting into spirituality, and all of these other healing modalities and things like that. I didn't know what I was going to do after I sold that company, because you know, you're kind of handcuffed with a non-compete. You can't talk to your existing clients, you know, you know, the job. So, really, I was like, Okay, what do people do? I guess they do consulting, right? And so I had, you know, the great network, because I was so invested in relationships, and deep meaningful relationships and connection that I had some great opportunities to do some consulting with some really incredible organizations. And that very quickly, the money was great. But man, Joel, it was not feeding my soul whatsoever. And so I started coaching other agency owners. And that's really this correlation between trauma, childhood trauma, unprocessed trauma, and your leadership style, and efficacy, that started to kind of congeal as to like, wow, this is a conversation that no one is having. This actually is the ethos of the work that I'm doing. And then that's what manifested in Heal to Lead.
Joel Goldberg 22:42
Alright, so let's, let's talk about the book and the process for you. And we all have different processes. And the way we write. Mine was my first book, I'm working on my second, I'm more telling people's stories. I'm a storyteller, and we all are, certainly, but was this. Was this easy for you? Was it hard? What was the process like and tell me more about the book?
Kelly L. Campbell 23:06
Yeah, it was not easy. I will start there. As a really, a classically trained designer, right? Like my degree, my first degree was in graphic design. I knew creative process, I thought, Oh, no big deal. I'm a great writer, I love to write, I have passion for it. This was not easy. Partly that was because of the content. And partly that was because of the fact that I was writing my third book before I was writing my first book, and I didn't know it. And so I got some great advice from someone who said, You really need to have your voice coming through. You can't be telling other people's stories as your first book, we need to get to know you, your point of view, etc. So she asked me a question. She said, and this was on the phone, we weren't on Zoom. And she said, close your eyes. I want to ask you a question. She said, When was the first moment you recall stepping into a leadership role. And it was in that moment where without thinking or judging myself, I got dropped into this little vignette. Being nine years old, sitting in the back of our family car. My brother sitting next to me, my mother was taking us to go see a movie one night, and she parked the car kind of turned back toward us and ended up telling us that my father was leaving, he was not going to be living with us anymore. And in that moment, I had so many emotions, stirring inside of me, I was angry. I was scared. I was like, oh, man, what is my life going to look like? Because I'm already in a pretty abusive environment. If he's gone, and he was my protector, like, where does that leave me? Right? And so in that moment, even with all of that stirring, I turned to my brother and kind of consoled him. And that was the moment that that stirred or was brought up and I had not thought of that particular memory. Since the night in that car. And so the woman who asked me the question said, Congratulations, kid, you just wrote your introduction to the book. And I was like, What are you talking about? That's what you want in this book. She's like, Yeah, that's what I want in this book. That's your first book. And so that's really, that's how it pivoted into. Okay, now I'm understanding, there's a lot of this correlation between trauma and things that we have not integrated. Because traumas stored in the body, we know that now. Not integrating those things, and having them continue to play out over and over again, in lots of areas of your life. We got to start talking about that. And so when I went to to get a publishing deal, it was like so many publishers said, We love the proposal, we really we want to read it when it comes out. But we're gonna pass on it because we can't see how this wouldn't sit in selfhelp. Why would this be a business leadership book? And it's like, because there's tons of books like this in self help. Right? Similar, not exactly the same. But but of this ilk that talked about trauma healing, none of it is in the business leadership space, or organizational leadership, I should say. And so I just dug my heels in and I was like, I'll wait. I'll wait for the publisher who sees it.
Joel Goldberg 26:18
So interesting how the book is Heal to Lead: Revolutionizing Leadership Through Trauma Healing. It is a business book, as well as a self help. It's it's everything. Right? But I mean, I think the point is, is that we, we are programmed, the publishers, consumers are public. You walk into a, I don't know if people still do this, a Barnes and Noble. Whatever, you go on Amazon. And you, you search in the Self Help section. And I think if I'm hearing this correctly from you that that was, that was a challenge for you to convince them or to convince, you know, any leader, that this isn't just about self help. This is about being better at business, right? I mean, it's this is this sort of, you can't help others, you can't run a business or you can't do the old dumb, you know, put your put your oxygen mask on first and take care of yourself.
Kelly L. Campbell 27:15
Yeah. Yeah, and so everyone, you know, really comes back, especially in organizational leadership, they're gonna say, well, what's the ROI on healing my trauma, right? Which is a really funny thing. Because if I have to convince you that you're going to have better relationships in your life, and your organization is going to flow more smoothly, you know, you'll have more collaboration, more innovation inside of the organization, the culture will be improved upon. You know, and as a lagging indicator, if it is a business, you'll have a higher profit margin. Like, if I have to convince you that doing work on yourself that you need to have all of those other things well, then, okay, that's fine. But really, you know, this is about coming back to is the way that you are living and leading and loving right now, is that working for you? And if the answer at all, in your heart of hearts is no, well then do something about it. And you know, this is it, you can, you can't control anything externally, we know that. But where you can start is the place where you've been avoiding your entire life. That's what it's about.
Joel Goldberg 28:25
Easier said than done. But that's why you do what you do. And, you know, hopefully, day by day, we get we get better at all this all of us. When we go to my baseball theme questions for you. And now we've talked about not all of it, but we've talked about a lot of what you've done in your life and career. What's the biggest home run that you've hit?
Kelly L. Campbell 28:45
The biggest home run, I would say was selling the agency at 36. But not for the reasons that you might think. I think the home run for me was that that awakening? It was the awakening that was catalyzed by the sale of the agency, because that changed my entire life.
Joel Goldberg 29:03
But, I mean, that totally resonates too, right? So when someone says hey, congratulations on selling your business, it's not that. It's congratulations on the awakening.
Kelly L. Campbell 29:11
Yeah.
Joel Goldberg 29:13
Totally get it. How about a swinging a miss? And what did you learn from it?
Kelly L. Campbell 29:17
So 2006 to 2008, I had started a second business called The Holistic Option. It was sort of like think about Web MD, but for instead of conventional medicine for alternative, holistic integrative medicine was a little too ahead of its curve. What did I learn from it? Well, you know, I was only a few years into starting my first business when I started the second one right and so don't do that. Focus was the was the lesson there. Delegating. Not trying to do everything myself. I was a classic solopreneur. And then accepting, I think, and this came a little bit later, but it's something that failure, quote unquote, failure can really many times be a gift. And it doesn't mean that you are a failure as a human, right? Because that's shame. It means that the business failed from a financial standpoint, right? Like on paper that failed. But what it gave me it was really in dividends, so many beautiful things. Relationships, there are still relationships that I have to this day that were from that, 2006, 2007. Oh, and also, the lesson for me was if you are hearing talk of a pending recession, maybe don't start a brand new business and take investment money.
Joel Goldberg 30:41
There's that, yes.
Kelly L. Campbell 30:43
But that's a little bit more practical.
Joel Goldberg 30:45
Yeah. Understood. Last one, with the baseball theme questions. Small ball is what I wrote a book on. The little things that you do every single day that make you successful. They don't show up necessarily on the sales sheet or the or the scorecard, so to speak, what is small ball for you?
Kelly L. Campbell 31:02
Well, that's this comes back to everything I do. It's the lifelong commitment to trauma integration, every single day, there's some small little thing that you can do, to start really bolstering your self awareness, you know, to increase your ability to lead with compassion, to light the way for other people to lean into vulnerability. All of the four, you know, fundamentals that I talked about in the book, but there are little things that can be done on a daily basis. And, you know, healing is a lifelong journey. We know that. And it's like, if you're, and it's okay, if you skip a day, right? But it is, it's a commitment. And the people who are committed to it are the people who are going to change the world.
Joel Goldberg 31:45
I think right there, that's, that's, that's the quote, that's the sentence that I think we all can just, that's the one that you put on the wall and you think about every single day, right? Because you're not going back to the world in the greater discussion that we had here. It's not going to go forward every single day. But you got an opportunity tomorrow, then the next day, the next day, and it takes work. It takes a lot of work. So four final questions, as we Round the Bases. Sometimes these are serious, sometimes these are fun. They just kind of come to me as we're going or some of it is the research that we have done. I love this one, that you are a self-proclaimed plant daddy. Here's our research: created a jungle inside their home, is growing their own veggies in the yard, loves mosses, ferns, pollinator gardens, animals and being surrounded by water. Now, I don't know what your place looks like.
Speaker 1 32:38
You'll get a little bit of if you're watching this on YouTube, you get a little bit of the jungle vibes. But yeah, I did my first Ayahuasca ceremony in Peru in 2022. And just being immersed in that jungle, and also, you know, having this home where I have the ability to, to grow food, obviously, in New York, so seasonally, but just being surrounded by nature, and all of these beautiful pollinator gardens, I really lean into that connection with nature. And part of that is healing, right? It's restoration. It's tending to the earth. That goes back to sort of my conservationists, you know, just ethos as a person. I really believe in tending to our mother. Right. And so, you know, for me, it feels healing because my relationship with my biological mother was really tumultuous. So giving back and tending to this, this, you know, maternal energy from an earth standpoint, it feels really important to me.
Joel Goldberg 33:39
Has it brought you back, full circle isn't the right way to put it. Has that been a way of addressing trauma?
Kelly L. Campbell 33:49
It is one of about 50. But yes.
Joel Goldberg 33:53
I am not naive enough to sit there and say this is the one thing and that's it.
Kelly L. Campbell 33:58
There isn't one thing. Even the people who do psychedelics and plant medicines will tell you, that is not a lot of people. There's a myth that that is sort of like a magic bullet. I'm here to tell you, and it is not a magic bullet. It's one of 50 to 100 things. And in the book, I have this supplement that I talk about called myhealingmenu.com, which is a place where there's just a ton of resources of all the different tools and practices and modalities that one can engage with if they're interested.
Joel Goldberg 34:27
And I would argue that we all could use some form, if not all of it, some of it. We're all different, but we all need. I believe we all need the help. Okay. Second question. As we round the bases, we were talking before we went on and you know, by no means do I think that I'm a podcast originator. I think that I've been in it longer than all the other people that are starting them every single day right now, which by the way, I think is great. The more the merrier, and people will listen to what they want to listen to. And I think it's pretty cool that we all have the chance to the broadcaster's are doing what we do. But 2017, that's nothing. You you just started way back when. What was the allure of podcasting?
Kelly L. Campbell 35:06
Oh, well, it was like this brand new fad at the time, I think it was 2006 or seven that I started. So about a decade before you. And I was saying to you earlier, it was back in that old school day. And because I had a digital agency, this felt very normal to me or easy to me. But we had to like, take the little mp4 files and upload them to the server, it took forever because internet wasn't what it was. But I had such an amazing opportunity. And that was related to that that company that I was talking about, before that I started. The second company. It was really a way to engage with people who I would never have gotten access to before. So I had Mayim Bialik on the show because she was part of the Holistic Moms Network. I had Deepak Chopra's daughter on, you know, the people who I would not have had access to and because podcasts were sort of like really, really brand new and probably ended up being sort of a temporary fad back then because you saw the the drop off after like 2008. And then it kind of came back up, you know, maybe I don't know, 2014 or something. But there was a period of time where it was like nobody was doing podcasts. But that first little like glimmer. Yeah, that was super fun. And so I think at that point, it was still wasn't Apple Podcasts at the time. What was it called? And I remember what it was called, oh, either, not iTunes. iTunes? Maybe it is something like that. But we were like the number one health show for a number one show in the health category for a solid year, which I was like, that's pretty cool.
Joel Goldberg 36:45
I think the other cool thing too, at least for me, when I started mine, it was really meant to to sort of support the speaking business that I was beginning. And this was advice that I got. It's a content creator. It's a networking tool. It's a branding tool, all of those things have happened for me. I didn't know where it was going. But hundreds and hundreds of episodes later, it's still going strong. And you're looking through some of your episodes. And I look in you had Ben Guttman on, I believe he connected us.
Kelly L. Campbell 37:16
Yeah. He was my only two time. Two time guest.
Joel Goldberg 37:20
Yeah. And he you know, he was great. And I, I have to look back at the family tree the lineage of who introduced who, to when. Like, I don't remember who introduced me to Ben. But then Ben gave me, and everybody Ben has given me has been an amazing guest, yourself included. And then some of that might be just like a nerdy thing for me. But I love the connections that it makes. And I hope that you know, certainly everybody listening benefits from those conversations. Selfishly, I like the fact that I get to meet a lot of interesting people that I would have never met before.
Kelly L. Campbell 37:47
Yeah, I loved that. Also, I had a show, I just ended it last December. But I had that show for four years. And I use that as what you're saying also, like a tool for connection and business development. And I also for three of the four years had annual sponsors. So it became a revenue generator as well.
Joel Goldberg 38:06
Yeah, I mean, all of it, which it's great. It's just and who knows what the next things are and where this will go. And you know, one day we'll look back and be like, remember when everybody had a podcast? You know, how does, how does that whole thing work? Okay. Third question as we round the bases, and the last one, I'll wrap it up with with the book, but just, just curious with everything that you've done. You talked on the the climate piece, what what that did for you. Trained by Al Gore in 2017. Where we're at right now, in the world. I do think the younger generation is much more aware of of climate. We still have a massive problem. I don't know what the rest of the world but certainly here in the United States of, of I think people that say that's not me, doesn't matter. And then still people that seem to think that global warming doesn't exist, because it's really cold on a given day, like just just the crazy stuff. And on the simplest level. Where are we at? Are we getting better there?
Kelly L. Campbell 39:11
No. The quick answer is no, we're not getting better. No, I mean, listen, I'm a realist. So I went through the Climate Reality Project with Al Gore in 2017. That program has been in existence for a long time. And it's great. It's training a lot of Climate Reality leaders to go out and do presentations and talk about what's happening with the climate. But, you know, I do touch on this obviously, in the book, because we're talking about restoration with the land, but it's going to take a lot. Let's call it it's going to take different thinking where we can't keep going the same way that we're going. This hyper-consumerism, this idea that some people don't think it's real. I mean, I know it's a very small amount, but still any kind of action there. It's out there. Yeah, for sure. And if businesses is and this is where the high conscious leadership piece comes in if businesses continue to operate with the sole intention to make money, no matter the cost, that's actually where our biggest problem is. Right? So it really is, the majority of it is with the corporations. And you know, the big industry is Big Oil, etc. So, there are small things that we can do on an individual basis, but it is going to take the entire village and by which I mean the world in order to change this and to to get it back into a reversal standpoint.
Joel Goldberg 40:38
So important, every bit of it. We talked about, you know, watching the grass grow this is like, on a whole nother level in terms of you know, we're going to blank and we're going to be gone and where's the world that so? Okay, the walk off question I talked about the book. I'll tie it in with with your speaking I want to be able to promote that too as a fellow speaker myself, it's important and I love the talks you hvae are so unique on the website, popular talks, the new TLC: Trauma, Leadership and Consciousness, the foundation of but. I should pause. It sounds like it was one run on. That was the first one. Second, The Foundations of High Conscious Leadership. Third, The Power of Self-Awareness and Leadership. Four What Plant Medicine Can Teach Us About Our Own Capacity. Those are the popular ones. I didn't read them in any particular order. But whether it be talking about the book, or I'm interested in TLC: Trauma, Leadership, and Consciousness, which I know is completely related to your new book, what is TLC?
Kelly L. Campbell 41:38
Yeah, so TLC became the sort of moniker. It's how I think about, you know, we've known, you know, TLC, is tender, loving, care. But really, we need more than that. And we need a deepening and, you know, this idea of trauma, leadership and consciousness as like an intersection. I think that's where conversations need to go. And it's not about keeping it at the, you know, the surface level anymore, or being polite and making everything about, you know, empathy. It's really about going deeper and having these uncomfortable conversations so that we can understand where what's happened to leaders, what is actual real leadership look like? What does that look like for today? What does that look like for tomorrow? And then higher states of consciousness. So this whole idea of high conscious leadership, which is a separate talk, but all related to the book, is conscious leadership is wonderful. It puts people planet and profit on equal plane. We've known about that for about a decade. But what I'm positing is how can you develop self awareness as a leader as a conscious leader, if you're not doing your your own inner healing work. And so that's where the high conscious leader part comes from. And the new TLC is also the name of the substack that I write. So it's just kind of been a thread, a little bit of a moniker and a little bit of a thread for the work that I do, what I write about and what I speak on.
Joel Goldberg 43:09
So you're already on the sub stacks, you're well beyond podcast at this point, right? That's the new thing. Next, yeah, this is all such great stuff. It's all important. By the way, it applies to all of us, no matter who you are, what you do, where you are. Whatever, it applies to every one of us on different levels, we're all we're all unique. In that way. I want to encourage everybody again, whether it is the Heal to Lead book, whether it's the speaking, the writing, any bit of the podcasts, you can you can find it all at kellylcampbell.com. I now have don't go chasing waterfalls in my head. TLC, which is fine. I can think of more things I guess to do. But I love the new meaning of it and the purpose that I know that it's given you and everybody else whose lives that you are affecting. I'm very grateful to Ben for making the connection. And thanks so much Kelly for spending time running the bases.
Kelly L. Campbell 44:04
Thank you so much Joel. The pleasures been mine.