Bodhi Aldridge

 the the story that I don't feel safe is actually the fear that I may be humiliated and if I'm humiliated, I'm going to feel my feelings.

 Jeff Ma

 Hello and welcome to Love as a business strategy, a podcast that brings humanity into 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, as always, Jeff Ma. and I'm here to have conversations and hear stories from real people, real business, real life. My guest today is Bodhi Aldridge. Bodhi's journey as a father, a grandfather, a lawyer, and a coach, and also a facilitator has taken him across the world giving deep uh diving deep into traditional teachings and contemporary leadership development so that he could find his magnificent and bring those teachings to others. Bodhi's commitment to self-development, his lifelong learning and to supporting people in business has allowed him to influence and support multiple organizations and leaders around the globe. He guides people to develop presence, open their hearts and integrate their masculine and feminine energy so they can start paying attention to what matters most. And he's also the best-selling co-author of the book Visionary Male Leaders. And with that I'd like to welcome Bodhi Aldridge to the show. Hey Bodhi, how are you doing?

 

Bodhi Aldridge

 Yeah, thanks Jeff. I'm well and excited about this chat and where it will take us.

Jeff Ma

Yeah, absolutely. And where I I like to start, of course, is with you and your passion body and wondering today, what is your passion and how did you find that passion in your journey?

 Bodhi Aldridge

 Yeah, yeah, my passion, you know, there's many threads to it yet, essentially for me, now more than ever, if we can shift business owners and leaders to really connect with themselves and their teams, um we can make such a big impact in the world at the moment, you know, and a lot of private business owners, you know, something like 55% of the GDP is still medium-sized business as much as we want to influence corporate. So I wake up each day with that in my heart is how can I influence, you know, leaders and business owners to be more human as you say, connect deeper with themselves. and really bring their magnificent to the world, to their team, to their family. I think it's just has such a big impact on the world.  

 Jeff Ma

Yeah. That's beautiful. And doing this show, we're always talking about culture and kind of love in the business, but it it it almost always comes down to to leadership. And as we talk about leadership, we find that everyone kind of looks at the same kind of core topic from a different angle. What's your kind of elevator pitch of what leadership needs to be more of or what needs to change in leadership to become better.  

  Bodhi Aldridge

  Yeah, you know, having traveled the world and been delivering this for, you know, almost 25 years now. So, the simple definition of leadership for me is influence. At the end of the day, everybody in the organization is a leader because they're all influencing the system. And there are formal leaders and informal leaders. And obviously it's not just in business, in families, in cultures, in communities. And the studies are clear, Jeff, the two most important things for effective leadership are connection and direction. Any staff engagement survey, yep, that comes back. It's like if I feel a connection to my line manager, to the CEO, the VP, the organization, and I have clear direction in my role, then I'm a happy camper. And for me, connection starts with the connection with the leader with themselves first. I can't fully connect with another unless I'm fully connected with myself. It's an inside out job. And direction is just that real clarity, yeah, of communication. And interestingly, as you dive deeper into that, and if we have time, we can explore the masculine and feminine energies, which is different to gender. So connection is the deepest driver of the feminine energy. And direction is the driver of the masculine energy. So any leader who can integrate connection and direction, realize how much they influence their system, will be more effective, yeah, in in the normal definition.  

 Jeff Ma

 Wow, that's that's that's already mind opening here. So feminine energy is related to this connection energy and then we have masculine with the direction and it's about is it about balance or is it about merging the two? What does it what does it mean to kind of harness this?  

 Bodhi Aldridge

Yeah, the the the distinction is that and again, these are huge generalizations for the listeners, you know, there's there's evidence to support them. Yet there's there's always the exception to the rule. You know, as we know with gender, gender fluidity, yeah, all of those sorts of things. The the studies show that predominantly most men are more in their masculine energy and most women are more in their feminine energy. And the energy, so traditional cultures, you know, I've worked with Aboriginal culture here in Australia, with Native American culture, yeah, Buddhism, Hindu, what they knew is that this energy ran through the universe and ran through the planet and runs through us. And they could have named it anything, they could have named it ping and pong, Bill and Ben, um it just happened to be yin and yang or masculine and feminine. And so when they track this feminine energy that runs through the universe and runs through us, it's everything that moves and everything that flows. It's like the ocean or the river. And its deepest desire is connection and love, connection and love. The feminine energy is looking for connection and love. The masculine energy, yeah, is that that witnesses the river or the ocean. It's the mountain in the ocean. It's the river and the river banks. The masculine is the river banks. It's the structure, it's the scaffolding. It's the action. And so as a leader, and this is where I think people have got tricked up. Um as a male leader, it's how do I stay in my masculine energy, but then I can access the masculine and female traits, feminine traits. So the masculine traits are things like action, strategy, linear, logic. The female traits are empathy, compassion, connection, capacity. So I can stay in my masculine energy if that's predominantly where I am, and be agile. Yeah, you've got young children, you know, you nurture, you compassionate, you're caring, but you're still in your masculine energy. Yeah. And this has been the challenge. when I work with female leaders, particularly in corporate, a lot of female leaders have felt they have to become more masculine because of the structures and systems and the distorted patriarchy that often exists particularly in corporate culture. But the skill is, how do I stay in my feminine energy if if that's your more predominant energy and access my masculine traits. So a female leader can stay in her feminine and be strategic and be logical. Yeah. And when I work with leaders, particularly female leaders, when they learn how to do that, they're not exhausted, they're not running adrenal fatigue, they realize they can access all of this. So, does that give you a territory?

  Jeff Ma

  No, I mean, it's this is blowing my mind right now. Um, because you know, for years, love as a business strategy has been the the the the brand, the mission, the the message. And now I'm starting to I I I hadn't really connected it this way. And and you know, it seems almost taboo to like genderize, you know, these things, but there if we're being honest, there's this truth and we're not saying men and women, we're saying masculine and feminine, which we all have within ourselves. But I never thought of it this way of this kind of that that the love, that the empathy and the vulnerability and the relationships that we're trying to encourage leaders to take often is just a simple ask of accessing their feminine energy or feminine side because you're right, you know, the business has become this like alpha male cut throat kind of environment, and the best leaders are those who can be the most decisive and cut throat and all these things and that's exactly what I've been fighting against, but I've never labeled it this way. And it, you know, for what it's worth, what, you know, but it it's very mindboggling to me to see how simple simply true this is to me. It rings very true to me. Um and it's profound. So it's it's amazing.

  Bodhi Aldridge

  Yeah. Yeah, thank you. And you know, and what happened particularly your generation is a lot of men, you know, these mixed messages because we know the distorted masculine, the hyper masculine isn't working. But then a lot of men went, well, if I got to be more feminine and lose my masculinity. Yeah. And I think that's kind of, you know, the the beauty with this work is how to how do you, you know, stay in your divine beautiful masculine and have that beautiful access to all of those traits.

 Jeff Ma    

So, so talk a little bit about what that looks like. I guess if you're if you're working with, let's just say a man and someone who's all up in their in their, you know, masculine side. What does the work look like to access this this other piece?

 Bodhi Aldridge

 Yeah, it's fascinating, you know, and again, if if you think about yourself, Jeff, when you're with your beautiful young children, you know, you're you're a strong man, you know, you're very capable, you're in your masculine, yet, do you notice and feel that nurturing side of you, that caring side of you that comes out? Sure. Yeah, exactly. And that's all we're cultivating in the workplace. Yeah. So again, if we if we think of a lot of male leaders who are predominantly in their masculine energy. Yeah. The the the uh I guess the cultural conversation is if I start to access empathy, if I start to access compassion, if I start to integrate love, then is is it a weakness? Is it um basically um how do I do that without becoming more feminine? And so the key and you know, one of the entry points is and my experience having worked with thousands of leaders, um particularly male leaders is um men are willing to be vulnerable, they just need to feel safe. Mm. And so the key for any of the male listeners, male leaders that are listening and and you know, when I run team um group organizations, it's you know, one of my superpowers is to create safety in the room. You know, whether it's one-on-one, whether it's in group because my experience is and because of my commercial background, um I find a lot of leaders feel safe. Yeah, particularly, you know, through the presence practices I teach. And when they feel safe, they they can easily access their heart. They can easily access their compassion. Yeah, they can easily access, you know, empathy, connection, complexity. And in fact, unless we do, we're not going to transform the leadership paradigm. Because this binary approach or this hyper masculine approach, it's not sustainable. We know what's happening in the in the in the business world. It is the integration of these as per your question before men in their masculine being able to access their feminine and masculine traits. And neuroscience is fascinating, Jeff, the studies on the brain show there's a part of our brain that operates in complexity, yeah, in connection. Yeah, it's actually what you would call the feminine traits in our brain. And there's a part of our brain, this is different to the left and right brain. These are deeper studies that have been done. Um the right brain lights up, but it doesn't deal with complexity. It's very linear, it's very um separate. um part of the brain. Um the studies were in um a university in Detroit. So I guess what I'm saying is if if we as leaders can integrate these aspects, but still stay in our life force, which is predominantly masculine or feminine, then we can hold a much bigger space as leaders.

  Jeff Ma

  Wow. I I keep I'm stuck on something you said earlier though, which is you know, men, I think you believe I believe you said men are typically willing to be vulnerable if they feel safe. And I'm I'm stuck there because it's like, I I keep continuing to ponder what what And I'm as a man myself, I'm asking, what am I afraid of? Or what is what is unsafe? What what is the risk in being vulnerable in the workplace? Because it is scary. It can be like some of this, you know, this feminine energy stuff at times even though I preach it, I can still feel it kind of creeping up as as fear or weakness or, you know, those things. What does that like what's your take on that?

  Bodhi Aldridge

 Yeah, yeah, and beautiful thread. Um there are many liars. So the deepest fear of the masculine is humiliation. Mm. Yeah. That's our unconscious fear. As little boys, we've been shamed, we've made mistakes, you know, the teacher, we didn't get picked for the team, whatever it might be. And so unconsciously, we've put on these personas and these masks because I don't want to be humiliated. Yeah. I've got to I've got to have my stuff together. And so again, 95% of our days is our subconscious mind. So we've got this subconscious um programming where humiliation is absolutely terrifying for men in their masculine. It's like, I've got to do everything to not feel humiliated in front of my team, in front of my wife, and my my friends, whatever it might be. And so we put on these masks, we put on this persona to protect ourselves inverted commas, yeah. What we're actually protecting ourselves from and we haven't been taught is the deepest fear is the fear of feeling our feelings. Yeah. Because we've been taught that some feelings are good, some feelings are bad. Yeah. And remember emotions, energy in motion is just energy. So it's important to develop and I'm sure you've had many speakers around emotional intelligence to develop the awareness that the the story that I don't feel safe is actually the fear that I may be humiliated and if I'm humiliated, I'm going to feel my feelings. Wow. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. That's that's good stuff. You've experienced that? Got a sense of yourself? Oh sure. For sure, for sure. Yeah.

 Jeff Ma

  I I'm I'm curious. What's the deepest fear of the feminine?

 Bodhi Aldridge

 Yeah, it's actually safety. It's actually to feel safe, the feminine. And this isn't just physical safety, this is emotional safety, you know, all those lives. But if we just look at physical safety for the feminine. And this is, you know, when I work with with leaders, a lot of men don't realize, you know, the the biases, you know, that they have. So, and and any of the female listeners, please correct me if I'm wrong. The example Jeff is if if a if a female, a female wants to go for a jog, let's say it's, you know, I'm going, I'm going for my afternoon jog. Yeah. Um, the the stats are that she a woman in her feminine is clocking her safety that whole trip. Will I run through that car park? Is it safe? That guy on that side of the road, I'm going to cross the road. I'm not sure about turning left here, that doesn't feel safe. Constant, constant, constant. Now, Jeff, if you go for a jog, how high is that on your radar? Not that high. Exactly. Exactly. It's just a simple example of this is hyper vigilance for most women in their faith. And and that's just physical safety. When it comes to emotional safety, yeah, and we can talk about it in in the in the board room or talk about it in the workplace. It's very unsafe energetically for a woman to speak up. In in a lot of cultures. It's very unsafe, you know, the the great story of, you know, there's there's 10 people in the board room meeting and and the one idea that's put forward is by the the woman in the feminine by the time it gets around the table, the CEO's taken the idea and said it's mine and doesn't even acknowledge the feminine. Yeah. Like so putting things up, it's very unsafe. So this deep feeling of not being safe for the feminine, again, creates them developing their mask, developing their protection mechanisms. So you've got this again, you know, the yin and the yang.

 Jeff Ma

 Yeah. And there's and there's an inherent imbalance, I think, when it comes to work especially, when you look at the workplace where, you know, one one energy is forced to be constantly vigilant, constantly watching their back, walking on eggshells, and the other is just, I hope I don't get embarrassed. Exactly. Yeah, and the integration in in traditional cultures, the masculine energy holds the creativity, the feminine energy. It's the role of the masculine energy to create that safety. So the feminine, because the feminine energy is everything that flows, everything that births, it's where intuition lives, creativity lives, innovation lives. Yeah. That's the feminine energy in all of us. But it can't birth itself easily unless it feels safe and held by our masculine. It's the river and the river banks. The masculine energy is like the scaffolding. Yeah, and the feminine energy is the is the birthing.

 Jeff Ma

Yeah. This has been an incredible exploration because we've been able to say feminine and and masculine energy throughout this entire episode, but really, we're still talking about what I always talk about. Like you you called it connection and direction to begin with, which is, you know, relational, you know, empathy, vulnerability, trust, like all the love is a business strategy stuff versus management and kind of like traditional, you know, you know, leadership skills that, you know, in traditional sense. So we're talking about it's just so surreal to me. We're talking about the same thing I always talk about, but in a completely different language that still makes perfect, perfect sense. And so this is amazing to me.

  Bodhi Aldridge

 Love that. And I love, you know, connection and direction for any of the listeners, keep it simple. You know what I mean? Like you don't have to complicate this, you know, in the workplace. You know, when I work with leaders, it's like, what's your what's your ritual each day to connect with yourself? You know, I work with some elite athletes and there's no way an elite athlete would go to a game or even a training session without preparation. You know, they have their preparation, they have their pre-match preparation. They know they're going to be on when they're playing the game. But I work with a lot of business owners and they don't have their preparation. You know, they don't have something each day before they go into the office or switch on the zoom to go, am I centered? Am I grounded? Is my heart open? Have I set an intention? Yeah. And that's the connection with self. And then the direction again is how effective and clear is my communication? How how strong is the feedback loop in my organization?

  

 Jeff Ma

I love that and I think, you know, although we've been talking in a very philosophical sense up to this point. I do I do I do love the takeaways for the listeners. So what I'm I'm hearing is that we we can we can go forth from here and really assess honestly for ourselves where our energies might lie and where we might have some blind spots. And then if we find that we're sitting more in that in that masculine space, we have a chance to work on our connection and and you can do that with that intentionality as a first step. Is that Is that right?

Bodhi Aldridge

Yeah, exactly. exactly. It's just awareness, you know, again, another language the listeners would be familiar with is, you know, it's the being and the doing. Yeah, so you know, the being, the doing and the having, which again, we can unpack in another episode. A lot of people, a lot of leaders it's just focusing on the doing. I've got to do this. We've got to do this task. We've got to do this analysis or whatever, but the question is, who am I being while I'm doing? And the being is the feminine aspect of presence, yeah, and connection, and the doing is the masculine attribute of action. And so again, just language that may land for the listeners, which can simplify this, you know.Jeff Ma

Oh man. I'm gonna have to write another book. We gotta write another book together. This let's put it all together. This is amazing. I love it. Yeah. Bodhi, uh where can the listeners learn more about you or connect with you if they have any questions or learn more about what you do?

  Bodhi Aldridge

 Yeah, the website, um www.badyaldridge.com. I've also got my own podcast um called True Freedom. And what I do there is I just explore these topics. One of my students is a podcast host and we just talk about these. So it's on all the apps um true freedom. And um um there is also in the show notes we'll we'll offer a free mini course, just some meditations and practices for any of the listeners who just want to taste this. You know, this is the emerging edge, you know, I'm off to London next week. I'm off to the US after that. This is the emerging edge of conversation, Jeff, um in leadership, in boardrooms. And um, you know, any of the listeners who want to kind of explore that, you know, reach out to yourself, myself because this is going to be a much bigger conversation in the next, you know, five to 10 years. It's it's emerging in boardrooms around the globe.

 Jeff Ma 

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm I'm there. Bodhi, thank you so much for this amazing enlightenment for today and I really appreciate the energy you brought and just this amazing perspective for for me and listeners. Thank you so much.

 Bodhi Aldridge

  thank you and thank you listeners. I hope there's been some some nuggets there.

Jeff Ma

Oh, for sure. For sure. So, uh, with that, Bodhi, I really appreciate your time. Listeners, appreciate your time. If you haven't checked out already, Love is a business strategy, the book. There's a second edition out. anyone watching on video, I have this up behind me here now. There's a second edition out. We've trimmed it down, we've added some new things. Um, but it's great as ever. Check it out if you can. Um, rate and subscribe the podcast, let us know what you think. And with that, we'll see everybody in two weeks here at Love Business strategy. Signing off.