Claudia Cardozo
I would say that those leaders that can create the most psychological safety in the workplace are those leaders that have a better relationship with themselves.

Jeff Ma
Hello and welcome to Love as a business strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We're here to talk about business, but we want to tackle topics that most business leaders shy away from. We believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. I am your host, Jeff Ma, and as always, I'm here to have conversations and hear stories about real people and real business and real life.

My guest today is Claudia Cardozo. Claudia is the author of Love is the path and founder of Innate 5, a consultancy specializing in corporate coaching and workshop facilitation. As a Gallup certified strengths coach, Chopra meditation instructor, diversity inclusion specialist, and workshop facilitator, Claudia takes a holistic approach to personal growth and teamwork. As a first-generation Colombian immigrant to the US, Claudia draws on her unique background to advocate for compassionate leadership and foster inclusive cultures. She believes that love is a powerful force for creating belonging, helping individuals feel valued, included, and empowered.

She's also a founding member of the A loving Organization consortium and holds a diversity inclusion certificate from Cornell University. And with that, I'd love to welcome Claudia to the show. Claudia, how are you doing?

Claudia Cardozo
I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here with you today. Thank you.

Jeff Ma
Yes, thank you for being here. And um, I start every interview since the beginning of time with the same exact question. It's still important to me. Claudia, what is your passion and how did you find it?

Claudia Cardozo
Interesting. My passion now is to be more alive, to enjoy life a little more. Um and I, um, I after confronting a mid-life crisis, you know, I realized that that I could relate to myself differently.

And as I do my work, um one on one, in team settings, I realized that that we all need uh a little help being more present and connected to one another and to life. So, that's my passion.

Jeff Ma
Awesome. That's beautiful. You I don't want to pry too much, but you mentioned a mid-life crisis. Was that a turning point for you specifically? Did something happen right in that space or was there like a gradual realization and change for you?

Claudia Cardozo
Yeah, it was a series of things that happened. Um, so I had um broke up with my fiancee back in 2000, uh 19 that happened and it was, you know, it took me some time to to recover. My daughter left the house because she, you know, she uh graduated from college and went to pursue her own um her own career. I became disengaged at work for the first time in my life. I never had that feeling. I started working since I was 17 years old and work was a symbol of independence and freedom for me. So that was very foreign.

During the pandemic, I felt a lot of isolation. Um, because the way that I have lived my life, like very focused on career. And and I got sick. I was like, it was like, what's the meaning of life? I had to really ask the tough questions and do a lot of introspection about how I was living my life.

Jeff Ma
And is this where um, I guess all your current focus began? Like, did it begin there or did it develop there? I guess the difference being, have you always been focused in this space and then it blossomed through this experience or did you find something new and different just through all that kind of difficult time?

Claudia Cardozo
Yeah. So I, you know, I started my business in 2017, but I was doing it part time. I had a corporate job. I was doing community development work. And always felt a sense of purpose and belonging, like supporting others. Like I was always helping the community in many of the jobs that I had. I had, you know, I worked in microfinance and community community development through through public service. I worked at a bank as a community development manager. So my work always was I was very privileged. I always like serve others, right?

But I I don't know why I couldn't have a lot of intimacy with my own relationships. You know, like I I serve, let's say from from an empty cup. Um, so so after, you know, my job changed completely because of the pandemic. Um and also because of some FDIC regulations that changed. So my job was not longer grassroots, which was what really brought me a lot of purpose in life.

So I I was just very unhappy. Like I I my my job was my source of my source of purpose. So when that happened, I I had to leave my job. I I quit my corporate job. I I went to do a couple of trips and those trips were transformational for me. Like I, you know, I I traveled to Barcelona and I had this amazing experiences realizing that I lived in a state of survival. I didn't know how to be present.

And I have a lot of stories, maybe maybe one that I can tell you quickly is that um I was with my friend Joan, he he was um like a spiritual guy for me, my journey in that transformational trip that I took. And one day he was going with me, he accompanied me to the hotel and he saw me open the door, opening the door with like one of those digital keys and I would I place the digital key on the door and I struggle opening. And it wasn't the first time I opened one of those doors. Like sometimes they open easily, sometimes they didn't.

And um and I couldn't open it this time. So he took the key, he placed it uh there at the door. He waited for the beep and he opened it effortlessly. And I was like like little things like that. I was just not very aware, like I didn't know how to, you know, be present. So, um, so when I came back from from that trip, many, many beautiful experiences happened there, but when I come back, then I I start realizing that I wanted to um, to be more present and to share my story because I I know there is many people out there that also lived in a state of survival and don't know how to bring theirselves to to more presence, more connection, more love.

So yeah, so that was kind of the beginning of the journey.

Jeff Ma
That's awesome. And is your work in, I guess, this kind of being present and that that path, is that connected to your your belonging and your kind of teachings and feelings and growth around belonging? Are those interconnected for you?

Claudia Cardozo
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I um, I love Brene Brown uh work and she said, you know, um, belonging comes with accepting who you are, right? So being brave enough to to show who you are. And sometimes we have, we learn so many stories, right? We we grow up with so many stories about who we are, our limitations and uh stories of not good enough which was in my case, right?

And when you or when I have that story of the not good enough, then I wasn't, I didn't have the courage to fully present myself. I always was aiming to present a much better version of myself because being just myself was not good enough. So when you're not when you're not able to be who you are in the context of a team, in the context of an organization, you don't have true belonging because you deep inside of you, you, right? Um something is missing. So belonging starts with with us, right? If I belong to myself, if I'm present, if I'm if I have that that um, understanding of wholeness within myself, then I can connect with others in an easier way.

Jeff Ma
And is that how you define belonging today? Is there more, do you have like a holistic definition that you you carry of belonging for yourself?

Claudia Cardozo
Well, that that's exactly what I think. I think that when we belong to ourselves, we're able to belong to more places. We're able to um to be more honest in the way that we assert our boundaries, to be more compassionate to others because we're compassionate towards our own imperfection. So I think it's um it's a relationship that we have with ourselves that allow us to belong to more places.

Jeff Ma
And that's interesting because I think when we talk about belonging in the workplace, which is, you know, commonly where my conversations will take us. Um, you know, it becomes a conversation about the environment, about the culture, about how others treat you. And you're talking about belonging within yourself, or at least starting with yourself. Can you help connect the dots a little bit? I think this concept, I think in general, when I speak to people, they have very different interpretations and expectations of what belonging should look like and how it should feel. And while we all share a very broad definition, I think when it gets down to the how and the specifics of belonging, it can vary a little bit more. So I'm wondering, what does belonging look like in the workplace with what you started describing there?

Claudia Cardozo
Yeah, I I would say that those leaders that can create the most psychological safety in the workplace are those leaders that have a better relationship with themselves. You know, are leaders that um that feel okay with their imperfection. You know, that they don't have to, Imean if if there are uh situations where things went wrong, they're okay with taking responsibility about it for the team. And when there are things that are going well, you know, they're okay with highlighting those individuals, not taking the credit, but highlighting the individuals behind the idea. So it's like, it's like they're not the relationship with themselves is so much healthier, is coming from a place of belonging to oneself or having self-love, having self-respect, but not taking themselves themselves so seriously that they create a psychological safety for everybody else.

They set the example. So I I believe that all of us co-create uh the culture in an organization. I mean, you you you and your co-author talk a lot about the behaviors, right? The role of individual behaviors and self-awareness. So all of us contribute to it, contribute to it, to a healthy culture. And the leader, you know, team leaders set the example and just create this energy feel for psychological safety.

Jeff Ma
And I love that because what what I'm hearing you say is when it comes to this large objective of building a more inclusive or a place of belonging where people actually can kind of be themselves and are feel safe, when it comes to that larger work, you're saying it can start with leaders actually just working within themselves. And I don't know if that's this place that most people start. I think when we, when leaders are like, 'Oh, we need to be more inclusive,' they're like, 'Well, here are the policies we need to change and here are the ways that we need to make sure we're policing how we show up and how we kind of like fabricate this environment for people to feel belonging.' And you lose kind of the authenticity and the genuine kind of impact that would have happened if leaders strictly focused on their own wholeness. And that's what I'm hearing. I like that's the part that I I'm hearing that really really compels me.

Claudia Cardozo
Yeah, I I love that you say that because it's like, 'Okay, I'll give you this much, uh this this amount of material and resources and strategies for you to create inclusive teams, or you just increase your capacity to love.' You know. And spontaneously all of the right things will follow. So it's like love is the the strategy for belonging, is the easiest path and the most difficult one.

Jeff Ma
Yeah. And I've I'm curious if you'd be willing to share, I know I know your your book is really centered around your journey as an immigrant. And really focusing on belonging and even presence, can you connect a little bit of that of your experience and what makes your your perspective so unique or so powerful for others to learn from?

Claudia Cardozo
Yeah, I think, you know, since I've been doing this work since I um, published the book early last year, and I have the opportunity to talk to so many like leaders, um and and just individuals that have read my book or heard me speak about it. And they they confess to me about their inner critic and they talk to me about their inner struggles and they talk about one of these things that they relate to. So I feel like like my book creates this um, like some sort of safety to talk about these things, to talk about, okay, how can we better relate to that to that um, you know, unhealthy inner dialogue that many of us have.

And and also create more empathy for individuals that don't have to um struggle as much with that because that comes from how we grew up. You know, some of us grew up in a more um dysfunctional, you know, families, work, you know, homes and and that becomes actually our our inner dialogue until we start doing the inner work and we change that, right? Because thank God we have neuroplasticity. We can change those stories. We can relate to the past differently.

So I think through my book, I kind of normalize a little bit the fact that some of us have that the toxic inner dialogue or struggle with that and and that when someone is in survival, we don't have the capacity to extend love and kindness to others. We can only extend love and kindness to others um truly when we're are able to give ourselves love and kindness. Or or we do it like I I did a lot of community work and and, you know, um I have a legacy in in the Latino community here in Rhode Island for all the years that I worked connecting business owners through resources and opportunities and helping people become bankable. And and I put a lot of love in there, but I got to my house and I I don't know why. I didn't have the patience to deal with the people closest to me sometimes because if you're operating from self-neglect, it's not sustainable.

Jeff Ma
Wow. That is very powerful. I think that's one of the more relatable things I've heard in a very long time. This idea of all the work we're capable of of putting in for others, and then there's a whole segment of our life when it comes to ourselves and even the ones close to us that get a very different treatment, a very different perspective. That is really relevant to me for sure. So, um how do you, I guess this is this is asking for a friend. How do you bring that together? How do you pause to, well I mean, after recognizing it, what can you do about it?

Claudia Cardozo
Well, it's been it's a work in progress. I think I'm I'm very proud of my ability to build intimate relationships with the people I love now, like like with my daughter. Like gosh, I I'm truly able to hold the space for her uh in so many ways that I was not able to do before. And I think the things that have been helpful for me is meditation. Meditation has been this practice of like really not fully identifying with my thoughts, like just just knowing that my thoughts are like condition programming. But that I am the observer, you know, I can reflect on my thinking and I can change it. You know, I can create, you know, if my thinking is making me sick, you know, I can create better stories for myself. So I think that, you know, like getting caught up in these moments of frustration and like pausing and breathing into it and I'm like, oh yeah, there it is. Okay, but I can choose differently. You know, I can relate to it differently. So that has been the practice for me, um, even, you know, the stories when I feel like I'm, I'm, I'm falling behind or something or I'm not the not good enough comes up again and I'm like, 'Oh, that's not true. I'm where I need to be.' You know, so it's just like having a better relationship with the way I talk to myself. Does that answer your question?

Jeff Ma
Yeah, I mean, easier said than done, but absolutely. I'm curious how I I'd love a, I guess a little glimpse into the work you do in facilitation and coaching because I think when I imagine a group of people who struggle with this coming together or especially in the corporate world of trying to have these business outcomes behind it. What is the type of work that you do with them? Is it like this? Is it meditative and personal or is there other pieces to it that you could share?

Claudia Cardozo
I I I would love to to tell you a little bit about a workshop that I did a couple of weeks ago. But before I I I just want to kind of address what you said, easy said than done about, you know, relating to our thinking. So I just wanted to emphasize meditation because in meditation, I don't know what type of meditation you practice, there are many, many different types of meditation. The meditation that I learned with Chopra is called primordial sound meditation, and it's um meditation with a mantra. Right, so it's like mantra is like a training the mind, that's what it means. So a tool for the mind is what it means. So, so when you are meditating for 25 minutes, 40 minutes with a particular mantra with a a sound and you get distracted by thought and you come back to the mantra and you get distracted and it's like a practice. When you train your mind in that way, through meditation, you, I mean there are so many benefits for to calm our nervous system, but it also make it easier for when we're out there in the world and we see those thoughts coming, we're like, 'Oh, you know, we can redirect it.' Redirect those thoughts easy. So I think that, um, with with meditation practices is is easier to not identify as much with with the chatter of the mind.

So, so I a couple of weeks ago, I I delivered a workshop for one of my clients. Um so it was a group of like 24 individuals. I met with the leader a couple of times to understand the needs, you know, what what they they they needed, um in the team, the team was a little bit fragmented and they needed a little more communication to communicate with each other better. There was some sort of friction, um because it was like different so departments within the team that were not communicating as well and it was changing leadership. So, so you know, I took note of the needs of of um the goals and objectives that the the team leader have for for this session. So we created a um a workshop to to address those things, right? So we um created some dynamics, some activities, um some fun games. You you relate to this a lot with the work that you do. And and I brought the tool. I brought the the Clifton Strengths tool which is the main tool that I use for team building. So everybody had taken the assessment and um so what I do is I create a journey. So the first portion of the um of the workshop is about understanding the tool. I don't know if you're familiar with the Clifton strengths, but is is um do you know about Clifton strengths? Yes, a little bit. Okay, excellent. All right. So yeah, so it was just, you know, the the helping people understand why strength based development, the science behind it.

And then the second part of the workshop, it was about introspection. So we give a space for everyone to think about, you know, um how they can communicate better their talents defined as a recurring pattern of thought, feeling, and behavior that we have, right? But within those talents that we have, talent can be productively applied, but sometimes it's not productively applied because we tend to overuse that thing that comes completely natural to us, right? So we call it, um you know, refined, you know, raw refined talent or balcony and basement. And so they they look at those things, you know, they look at, okay, is my talent refined or is it raw? And they take note of that and they share in teams and we open to have a conversation with the whole team. And then towards the end of the session, once everybody has claimed a little more about who they are, right, feel more proud about, 'Oh, you know, this thing that I thought was problematic is not, you know, my activator. No, I'm a catalyst. You know, this energy that I have, this impatience, you know, is is wonderful in these instances, maybe not as wonderful as these other.' So, so everybody has a space to claim what they're really good at.

And then towards the end, um we talk about who are we as a team. And and in that conversation and the exercises that, you know, that I facilitate for them, they truly understand that they need everyone. That is not about one person being well-rounded, but is how can the team be well-rounded? How can the team be more interdependent with all of the different talents? Because if I'm highly positive, if I'm a person that is always focusing on possibility and I have this energy and I'm almost like the glue for for everyone around, right like the glue of the team, right?

Um, I may perceive someone with high deliberative with an ability to see risk as negative. Right? Yeah. And that person with the high ability to foresee risk can perceive me as naive. Yep. But if if we both understand that we need each other, right, that we need that energy and that vision of possibility, but we also need, you know, to foresee risk, to create contingency plans and to you know, to plan better for the future, then we welcome all of these perspectives. And even if we, you know, even we still, you know, we still have this little um urge within ourselves to reject something, but cognitively now we know, 'Oh no, I need, I need to make space for this perspective because we're seeking to be a well-rounded team.' So towards the end, you know, the team reflected on their brand as, you know, as a team and how they wanted to be perceived with the rest of the organization and how they were going to um, become better communicators with each other and create these partnerships that before they couldn't see and now they could clearly, um, see how, you know, that that thing that brought some friction for them in the past could actually be something that could take them further in their work.

Jeff Ma
I love that and I love some of that work about different strengths and different team members, still tying together this necessity of belonging and self-belonging within it. And I think that's sometimes the missing piece, I guess, because there's a lot of different personality tests and a lot of different labels we can give ourselves through different assessments. But I think if it's not coupled with this presence and acceptance of ourselves and our and I guess embracing that within ourselves and we just go straight to the work with others, I think we miss a really important connector is what I'm is what I'm taking away from this.

Claudia Cardozo
Yeah, absolutely. It is, it's so interesting that we we get frustrated with others because they're not like us. They're not as analytical as we are or they're not as organized as we are or they're not as futuristic as we like to be, right? So we get, you know, we unconsciously, we expect them to be like us. And then we get upset with ourselves because we're not like other people. We're not as and you you fill in the blank, right? Right, I'm not as intelligent or I'm not as I'm not as whatever it is, you know, that this other person is. And if we just switch it around, right? If we just be grateful of who we are, and curious and and open to see the gifts of others, uh, you know, we create more harmonious teams. So this these workshops create that experience of like, 'Oh, you know, these things that, you know, that try me crazy or try, you know, about me or others is actually something that I can celebrate, right? That I can be more mindful of.' Um.

Jeff Ma
That's beautiful. I love it. Claudia, thank you so much for everything you shared today. Uh talking about the presence, talking about the belonging and the self-belonging and um all that work and and sharing about your workshop. It's been a great perspective for myself and the listeners. So I really appreciate the time that you spent today with us.

Claudia Cardozo
Thank you.

Jeff Ma
Is there

Claudia Cardozo
You know, I yeah.

Jeff Ma
Sorry, I was just checking for the listener if there's a way for them to reach out to you, connect with you, or learn more, where should they go?

Claudia Cardozo
Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to say one more thing, you know, like when you create these spaces and people feel heard, right? When I feel heard and I feel that what I bring matters, that I can be myself and I have actually powerful strengths to contribute to the team, that's that's does belonging right there. So I just wanted to connect that.

Um so so my website is um innate5.com or also um loveisthepath.org. And um you can find me on social media also with loveisthepath.org or Claudia Cardozo. Thank you.

Jeff Ma
Awesome. And with that, uh we'll thank our guest Claudia, but thank you also listeners for sticking with us every two weeks. We're trying to bring you new perspectives and new stories. So stick with us, check out the book Love is a Business Strategy if you still haven't. Um, look forward to an upcoming Love is a Change Strategy book coming later this year. Um and if you haven't already, subscribe, rate, pre-order, whatever it is you want, uh we look forward to interacting with more of you. Check out Claudia at innate5.com, loveisthepath.org and with that, we're going to be signing off and seeing you soon. Have a great day.