Ep 102 – Rena DeLevie – Mindful Leadership
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Featuring: Rena DeLevie
In episode 102 of Agency Bites, I’m joined by Rena DeLevie—a leader and teacher who gets real about what it actually takes to show up fully and compassionately in today’s world. Yes, she’s got the corporate leadership chops and has been on a mission to end fear-based management, but what resonated most with me in this conversation was how personal and human her journey is.
Rena shares how, as someone with deep empathy and anxiety in her DNA, she learned to soothe her nervous system so she could show up with clarity and compassion—not just at work, but everywhere. We talk about the practices she leans on every day—meditation, breathwork, walking in the woods, connecting with nature, and even humor—as ways to ground herself and navigate stress, overwhelm, and tough decisions.
She’s lived through corporate toxicity, hard layoffs, and the pressure to “toughen up” as a leader. But instead of staying stuck in survival mode, she learned how to reconnect with herself, how to be present, and how to lead with kindness without losing her edge.
This isn’t just a conversation about business—it’s about how we take care of ourselves so we can take care of others. It’s about slowing down enough to be intentional in how we speak, lead, and live. It’s about taking care of ourselves all ways, always.
If you’ve been feeling stretched thin, reactive, or stuck in fight-or-flight mode, this episode will give you some simple but powerful ways to reset and recenter. Let’s get into it.
Key Bytes
• Compassion can radically transform agency culture and leadership.
• Fear-based management often leads to anxiety and burnout.
• Authenticity in leadership energizes both the leader and the team.
• Compassion and accountability must coexist in effective leadership.
• Daily meditation can help manage anxiety and foster self-awareness.
• Choosing yourself means prioritizing self-compassion and understanding.
• Humor can shift the energy of a toxic work environment.
• Compassionate leadership requires setting boundaries and not being a doormat.
• Navigating toxic environments often requires personal resilience and strategy.
• Modeling compassionate behavior can influence workplace culture positively.Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Compassionate Leadership
01:15 The Shift from Fear-Based to Compassionate Leadership
04:06 The Energizing Power of Authenticity
10:00 Navigating Toxic Work Environments
12:56 Compassion and Accountability in Leadership
19:46 Daily Practices for Compassionate Living
25:52 Choosing Yourself: The Path to Self-Compassion
31:50 The Importance of Humor and Perspective in Leadership
Rena combines over 25 years with Fortune 500 companies and 20 years as a practitioner of mindfulness/meditation to show us the path to eliminating the fear-based culture so prevalent in
corporate America. Her book, Compassionate Management, How Ambitious Creatives Become Kick-Ass Leaders, and her TEDxTalk, Compassionate Management -- using compassion as a business tool has been used in businesses around the globe as a model to radically change leadership culture and how we treat one another.
Rena has given a TEDx Talk, presented at over 30 conferences, led over 60 workshops, and been on
dozens of podcasts. Rena is a high-energy presenter and interactively engages audience members to show compassionate leadership in action. This experiential approach empowers attendees to redefine their own leadership style and evolve their expectations of leadership culture.
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Steve / Agency Outsight (00:01.567)
Welcome to Agency Bites, a podcast dedicated to helping creative entrepreneurs thrive. I'm Steve Guberman from Agency Outsite, where I coach agency owners to build the business of their dreams. Today, I am thrilled to welcome Rena Delevi to the Agency Bites podcast. With over 25 years in Fortune 500 companies and two decades of practice and mindfulness, Rena is on a mission to eliminate fear-based leadership in the workplace. She's the author of Compassionate Management, How Ambitious Creatives
become kick-ass leaders and delivered a powerful TEDx talk on using compassion as a business tool. Rina's work has inspired leaders around the globe to rethink how they treat their teams. And today, she's here to show us how compassion can radically transform agency culture and leadership. Rina, it's great to see you. Thanks for joining me today.
Rena DeLevie (00:49.494)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be here.
Steve / Agency Outsight (00:51.581)
Yeah, I think this is super timely and required reading, if you will, for leadership today. Leadership any day, but we're here today. So talk about like why compassion and why mindfulness has become such a big part of your career and your life over the past 25 years.
Rena DeLevie (01:15.662)
my goodness, where to begin? Compassion, you know, I spent the first, 20 years or so of my career, maybe 15 years of my career, just really, just doing that fear-based management the best that I could because I wanted to rise up the corporate ladder. You know, it's what I was taught and all I saw was fear-based leadership. And so I was pretty much...
Steve / Agency Outsight (01:17.768)
Hehehe
Steve / Agency Outsight (01:32.959)
Yeah
Rena DeLevie (01:43.894)
an asshole. Hope it's okay if I curse. I was really good at being an asshole and it horrified me because I'm an empath. I'm highly sensitive. But I thought, well, this is how I can squeeze myself to fit into society. Please my family, please my boss, please. This is how I could supposedly have it all. And every day was a little bit of a torment, but I had worked so hard my whole life to try to fit in.
Steve / Agency Outsight (02:02.527)
Hmm Hmm
Rena DeLevie (02:13.038)
to what was expected of me, that it just seemed like the norm. And something happened. I don't even know what it was. I just decided I was miserable. I was miserable. And I thought, you know what? I would rather not be promoted ever again and just be me. And so I started to meditate just to see if I could manage my anxiety.
because I had a ton of anxiety and then 9-11 happened and it was horrific, of course. I was living in Manhattan. Manhattan was my home in my heart and my spirit and my being. I spent my whole childhood saying, when can I move to Manhattan and move there as soon as I could? And to experience my city under attack was...
Steve / Agency Outsight (02:49.771)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rena DeLevie (03:11.99)
It was horrifying. And I thought, that's it, I'm done. That's it. I'm going to show up as me from now on. And if I lose friends, I lose family, I lose, you know, job, so be it. And I started showing up as the empath that I am. And people were like, what? You know, was really confusing to people. And I just felt a kind of a peace.
You know, I think something like 58 % of people around the world changed their lives after 9-11, made huge life decisions. And I was already on the path, but that really solidified it for me. And so I'm extremely compassionate. I would say sometimes to a fault, although I've gotten better at boundary setting.
Steve / Agency Outsight (03:48.241)
I believe that. Yeah.
Rena DeLevie (04:05.71)
And so to let that show up in the workplace was both terrifying and energizing beyond anything I could imagine.
Steve / Agency Outsight (04:14.921)
So talk about the energizing, because when I hear you say like you were an angry leader and fear-driven, like that's a lot of work and a lot of energy to put into it, especially if that's not your authentic self. So is that like where a lot of that anxiety was coming from pre-9-11 that you were feeling?
Rena DeLevie (04:25.293)
my God, so much work.
Rena DeLevie (04:31.276)
No, I think I was born with anxiety. I'm a Jew. And, you know, on my dad's side, Holocaust survivors fled, you know, to safety. And my mom's side, Russia, Poland, fled from the pogroms. I mean, I think it's in my DNA. What I've done, though, is try to break the intergenerational cycle of anxiety by meditating and by teaching how to manage anxiety. Because I think, you know,
Steve / Agency Outsight (04:40.264)
Okay.
Steve / Agency Outsight (04:47.708)
Yeah, okay fair enough
Rena DeLevie (05:00.854)
A lot of what happened all these years is the anxiety was just passed down, not only genetically, but in behavior and attitude and language and all of that because there was no training, there was no awareness. So I've worked really hard to learn how to manage my anxiety. Certainly when I was the angry boss, the fear-based boss, it was definitely my anxiety of, I wanna get...
Steve / Agency Outsight (05:04.415)
right.
Rena DeLevie (05:30.062)
and I want to fit in, you know, I want to fit in is really what drove most of my life until I was about 37, 38 years old, which is a long time to twist myself into a pretzel. Yeah.
Steve / Agency Outsight (05:41.543)
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. But it was your response to like the societal, you know, expectations that you were adopting and I, you know, I've got to rise the corporate ladder and this is what I think the best way to get there is maybe it was learned management behavior from other people or whatever.
that night and day shift for you? I mean, was it like a light switch night and day of like fear-based, compassionate-based, Rena showing up at the job?
Rena DeLevie (06:14.19)
no, it wasn't light, light switch. It was, it was fast, but it was slow all at the same time because, I was sort of marinating on this idea for a while and trying out meditation and tiptoeing into it. And, I would say over the, six years I was at this particular job.
Steve / Agency Outsight (06:17.599)
Okay.
Rena DeLevie (06:41.582)
Probably my nickname in the beginning was, you know, that bitch, right? Because I'm female. So that's the go-to if somebody's not nice. And by the end when I left and they threw me a party, my nickname was, may I help you? Which was huge. You know what I mean? One of my favorite nicknames. Yeah. And so, you know, to just...
Steve / Agency Outsight (06:59.369)
Wow.
Steve / Agency Outsight (07:05.417)
Wow.
Rena DeLevie (07:10.278)
say how it energized me when we do show up as who we really are.
So much of that energy, that psychic energy, I mean, my body is just exhausted right now talking about how much I had to remember to be a jerk, you know, whereas I didn't have to work at being kind or compassionate. I had to pause and say, now, how would I phrase this being really me? And instead of saying, is it done? Is it done?
I would say, hey, do think you'll have that done by two o'clock on Tuesday? And if somebody said, no, I don't have what I need, and I'd say, all right, well, listen, what is it that you need? And next time, tell me in advance so I can help you, okay? Instead of, wah, wah, wah, wah. I think of an example of...
An author I heard speak and he's a gay man who was probably 75 at this point. And he lived his whole life before he left corporate hiding. And an example he gave was that it was natural for him to cross his leg over, but he had to stop himself or to move his hand and he had to stop himself. So all of that natural
Steve / Agency Outsight (08:33.567)
you
Rena DeLevie (08:40.258)
body language, you know, for me, I just want to walk up to everybody and hug them, right? So, I mean, not that I would because that's, you know, invasive. Well, it depends. But, you know, that's my natural inclination. But instead I would walk up. And so it is so much energy to hide who you really are. And it is just so energizing to walk up and be like, what's up?
Steve / Agency Outsight (08:48.201)
You can, it's okay.
Rena DeLevie (09:09.74)
What do you need? How can I help you?
Steve / Agency Outsight (09:11.933)
Yeah. Listen, I wear a shirt out in public that says free hugs and I forget that I have it on and somebody will approach me with their arms out. I'm like, what's this? yeah, you want a hug? I'm here for it. So I get that. But how much of that is like, so this example you're using of this guy that didn't want to cross his legs because he was afraid it was a tail and didn't want to, you know, had to like keep his mannerisms to himself. How much of that is just negative culture, toxic culture versus the person saying this is not how I feel comfortable showing up.
Rena DeLevie (09:19.729)
Steve / Agency Outsight (09:41.915)
in this environment or is it like...
Rena DeLevie (09:42.606)
Oh no, he would have been fired. And for me, if I had been my kind self, I mean, don't get me wrong, I have my moods. I'm not all, you know, like, oh, Dalai Lama, you know. Right.
Steve / Agency Outsight (09:45.705)
Okay.
Steve / Agency Outsight (09:54.493)
We all do. Nobody's perfect.
Rena DeLevie (10:00.078)
The the idea I watched people Not be jerks be fired Be passed over. I mean I watched it, you know, it was it was real And it was how much abuse can you take? from leadership meant You're meant for leadership the hours I spent being yelled at
and humiliated and shamed and shut down and I just, you know, took it is what led to me being promoted and promoted and promoted, which is, you know, horrifying.
Steve / Agency Outsight (10:45.577)
Yeah. But how, how can somebody, whether it's in an agency or corporate America or whatever, you know, kind of balance that line of, you know, I, I want to show up in a compassionate way. want to be patient and guiding with, you know, nurturing and, you know, empathetic, but I also don't want to be walked all over. so like, cause yeah, right. How do you, how do you
Rena DeLevie (11:04.706)
Right, right, and that's what I teach, right? Because, yeah, so there has to be a balance of working within the context of the company. So it's coexisting truths, right? So how do I show up as me and still succeed according to this company's definitions? And that is a personal decision that each person has to make.
How much can they do and is it worth it to them? Right for the most part though. I would say that 99 % of my clients I'm just averaging have found a way to stay and make it manageable because very few people have Such privilege to just say I don't like it. I'm gonna leave right I mean most of us have to or have had to stay in jobs that are positively
difficult, let's just say. So what I teach is compassion and accountability in equal measure, and that is towards myself and towards my boss and my colleagues and my peers and my direct reports. It's all around. So, but it starts with me, right? Or it starts with you as my client. How can I hold myself accountable and have compassion for myself to deliver? And so,
You want an actual example? Yes. Okay.
Steve / Agency Outsight (12:33.831)
Yes, let's dig into some examples. But I'm also curious, and maybe this is like next example, the difference between top-down leadership defining this as culture and the one person that's like standing out in the toxic environment as I'm gonna not feed into that toxicity and be my compassionate self, probably like who you were. So yeah, do your example, we'll dig into that afterwards.
Rena DeLevie (12:56.822)
Wait, say that question again? I don't really follow.
Steve / Agency Outsight (12:59.583)
So I'm thinking I was in a super toxic environment in my last job that I had. And I was fortunate enough that I could just walk away. didn't, you it was killing me. and I, it was so toxic for me because that's not who I am. And so whether it's a top down leader saying I need to like infuse empathy and compassion into my culture so that we all work better together and we're all Kumbaya verse.
Rena DeLevie (13:03.374)
Mm-hmm.
Steve / Agency Outsight (13:29.631)
my example, me amongst the toxicity, you know what I mean? Is that better frame it?
Rena DeLevie (13:33.59)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So listen, I've been brought into a lot of companies where Top Town said, okay, listen, we want you to bring in and change our culture. And I'm like, because unless you are the CEO who already is on board with compassion and accountability, it's gonna be hard to change the whole culture. And especially if you're a public company.
because a public company is driven by the stakeholders and money and Wall Street and all of that. And then it becomes really difficult because then you're talking about, we as a company gonna fight the expectations of Wall Street, which is this anonymous entity that just wants money, is not looking at a company culture. In the smaller businesses,
is much more possible to change a company culture. But it really comes down to each of us individually, who do I want to be in this world? And each person deciding, how do I want to show up today? And it is a daily decision, a moment by moment decision. I'll give you a personal example. Many years ago, I gave birth, my kid is now 17.
Steve / Agency Outsight (14:39.721)
Hmm.
Rena DeLevie (14:59.126)
I gave birth and I was wooed into a job and the economy had just crashed and I said, know, okay. And it required me traveling once a week. Someone was gonna, know, what it was, within three weeks of being there, I was told that I needed to lay off 20 % of the staff. And I said, well, I don't know anybody yet. I've only been here three weeks, so I can't really.
Steve / Agency Outsight (15:23.027)
Wow.
Rena DeLevie (15:28.526)
You know, like, come on. And they said, no, but you need to. And I said, well, is it a dollar amount? Like, can I come up with different approaches to meet the dollar amount? And they humored me and said, fine. So I came up with six different paths, job sharing, you know, all different kinds of paths to get to that dollar amount. The most obvious solution though was all of us execs, which I include myself, we were making.
tons of money. And I said, well, I think the fastest way is for all of us, VP and above, to take a 10 % 15 % pay cut, which for us would have been like, know, bubkis to use a Yiddish word, nothing. And they were like, what else you got? And so I kept presenting idea, idea, idea, and they said, nope. And I said,
I presented the 10 to 15 % off so many times that the head of HR said to me, if you present that again, you'll be fired.
Steve / Agency Outsight (16:36.063)
Wow. Yeah, get rid of the plebes. Don't touch our bonuses or salaries. Yeah.
Rena DeLevie (16:38.386)
I was like, that's right, Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars or let's lay off the $40,000 single mother. And obviously I wanted to take a pay cut, right? So I basically, you know, that's a choice, right? I could have said, you, you know, and then not had any money to provide for my baby.
myself or and and they were all going to be laid off anyway right I mean that wasn't going to stop anything or I could say thank you for the clarity and figure out what to do and so I took the time that I needed but not not it's certainly not enough time I meditated I cried I talked with my therapist and I said okay
I got to lay off 20 % of the people because the economy's crashed and I need to provide for my kid and myself. And so I laid off 20 % of the people, but the meetings were with compassion. It didn't cross the border, you know, the boundary of me going, I'm so sorry, you know, I didn't ask them to take care of me. I said, look, this is shit and I'm really sorry. And, and they were like, we get it, we get it. And they were incredible.
I mean, these are people I knew maybe four and a half weeks and like humans.
Steve / Agency Outsight (18:07.167)
but you treated them like humans and not like Europe. Yeah, and that's vital in that situation.
Rena DeLevie (18:12.718)
And two weeks later, two of them called me and said, how are you? And I was like, how am I? And they were like, it's so awful what they made you do. I was like, oh my God, you're incredible. Like, how are you? So that is an example of compassionate leadership where how am I gonna show up as me even when I need to do awful, awful.
Steve / Agency Outsight (18:21.075)
Wow.
Rena DeLevie (18:42.06)
decisions in order to protect my family.
Steve / Agency Outsight (18:47.091)
your family and the greater whole, you know, and as a leader, have to think about the greater whole verse, you know.
Rena DeLevie (18:53.07)
Right, and was I gonna abandon all these other people who were gonna be left to be treated in such a way? No, I was gonna be their buffer, which I was. I will say I lasted not quite a year and a half. There was only so much I could do. I, it was awful, awful, awful, awful, yeah.
Steve / Agency Outsight (19:17.501)
Yeah. So as you, as you transition to show up differently in your life and career, home, friends, family, whatever, what were some of the things that you actively started to integrate into your life to make the shift? And I think it's a, like you said, it's a decision to start doing things differently, but it's a slow transition. You know, and so I'm curious what some of those habits or practices are that you.
Rena DeLevie (19:46.722)
Yeah. Well, I meditate every day. Sometimes, and this started 24 years ago, I don't know, long time ago. As I said, I started to see if I could manage my anxiety and then I found a therapist who was also a Buddhist. So that was amazing. But she was actually a therapist. So it was like a combo platter, which was exactly what I needed. And meditation for me, whether I do it for 20 minutes or
Steve / Agency Outsight (19:46.908)
recommend or believe in.
Steve / Agency Outsight (20:11.049)
Mm-hmm.
Rena DeLevie (20:16.074)
as a walking meditation in the woods or three minutes.
Just sitting, just taking that time to just be is a pretty huge life changer for me because in that process, I learned who I am. It's this funny thing that happens if you sit enough times, and I don't mean if you sit long enough, like if you sit for six hours, I mean like if you sit for three minutes a day for a month,
you start to be able to discern what's all the chatter and who's listening to the chatter. And by that I don't mean that I have multiple personalities or anything. It's more, this is really, we are not our body. We are not even our brain. We are the soul listening to the brain talk. And we are actual
Steve / Agency Outsight (21:00.383)
Yeah.
Rena DeLevie (21:22.19)
soul being get to choose what to believe and what not to believe. Which sounds a little funky, it's, it's, you know, it is, it is. Yeah.
Steve / Agency Outsight (21:33.001)
Yeah. And like, love that you say it's the consistency, not the longevity that matters. Showing up daily for a small amount of time versus once every two months for a long period of time makes no sense. Yeah.
Rena DeLevie (21:47.118)
Right. once went, Sharon Salzberg is this sort of Buddhist guru. And I once went to sit with her in the city when I lived in the city and she was doing something downtown at like interval yoga, I don't know. And there were maybe 40 of us jammed in there, you know, and we were all sitting there and this is very early in my learning about meditation and mindfulness. And she said, so here's the thing.
Steve / Agency Outsight (21:51.966)
Mm-hmm.
Steve / Agency Outsight (22:13.087)
You mean there's work involved? Yeah.
Rena DeLevie (22:16.172)
with meditation, you have to do it. You can't just think about it. And there was this collective,
There's commitment? What? And it's not even work. It's this commitment to just sit and not judge. And that not judging is the hardest freaking part. Because nobody, including the Dalai Lama, including Thich Nhat Hanh, including Pema Chot, like whatever Buddhist guru you want to look up and name, everybody.
has thoughts going all the time. Nobody is without the thoughts going all the time. Did I, need to pick up milk, hold on, what about toilet paper? my God, does he like me? Is he gonna ask me out on another date? Like all of us have all of that going on all the time. So the non-judgment is for me a huge part of meditation is learning how to reframe how I interact with me.
Does that sound just totally, it is what it is. mean, do I?
Steve / Agency Outsight (23:29.677)
To me it doesn't because I've also been practicing for you know an exorbitant amount of time
And I'm thinking about the people that are like, man, the anxiety in my life, the stress at my job, what if there was a solution? this meditation thing sounds interesting. You mean I'm not just like, so I try to approach it from, know, I share about meditation on social media all the time and I get people reaching out. How do I get started? cool. Here's, here's what I did. Maybe it'll work for you. here's what I experienced. Maybe it'll happen for you. Here's how I approach it from like a spirit standpoint. Maybe you could try that. And so.
thinking non-judgment. Like, I had no idea that this was what it was about. so I don't think it's crazy, but I'm sure there are some people that are like, that's not what I thought this was about, you know, 20 minutes into an episode.
Rena DeLevie (24:16.046)
Imagine a life where you really reduce self judgment. I don't know about never, because we are so indoctrinated in this country to judge ourselves harshly. mean, there isn't a commercial that isn't teaching us how to judge ourselves harshly, right? Toothpaste, clothing, hair, like whatever. And certainly if you're a woman.
Steve / Agency Outsight (24:44.563)
Yep. Woman minority, any of the marginalized groups that we have in this world of, know, LGBT, like anything you're, yeah, absolutely. And then social media of like comparing ourselves to somebody else's, you know, small image of the one clean corner of their apartment thinking they've got all their shit together and I, my house is burning down. Yeah.
Rena DeLevie (24:45.429)
you know, so.
Rena DeLevie (24:52.45)
Amen.
Rena DeLevie (25:04.588)
Right. Right. Right. I will tell you, if you like this view over there is the empty box because I just bought a new printer and on the floor is my air conditioner because I just took it out of my window. and yeah, last weekend. Yeah. Yeah.
Steve / Agency Outsight (25:11.688)
You
Steve / Agency Outsight (25:19.858)
in January.
Yeah, good. Real quick thinking about the thoughts, like kind of what I just mentioned, the people that might be listening that are like, this could be something that I could like incorporate into my life and find some relief from, you know, the spinning brain, you know, rattling anxiety, the insanity at work, find some peace, quick, quick start guide to how do I go up for myself? What's that look like?
Rena DeLevie (25:52.824)
How do I show up for myself? God, I love that question.
Choose your side. Choose yourself always. It doesn't mean lie to yourself. It doesn't mean let yourself get away with poor behavior. It means choose yourself by having compassion for yourself always and all ways. Right? If we screw up at the office, hold on, hold on. my God, I'm such a f up.
Steve / Agency Outsight (26:21.698)
Hmm
Rena DeLevie (26:28.576)
I'm such a, I'm such a, what? Stop! Hold up, Oxygen.
into the brain. Okay, what exactly did I do? I submitted the report without answering that important question. Okay, what led to that? Well, I was really rushed on it because A, B, and C. Why were you rushed? One, two, three. Okay, now you understand. Now I understand the context of what led me to that. I have compassion. What could I do better next time?
Steve / Agency Outsight (26:40.095)
.
Rena DeLevie (27:06.39)
All right, next time I'm gonna be more prepared and I'm gonna write out a step by step so that I don't forget that. And how am gonna fix now? I'm gonna own my mistake and I'm gonna stay up until midnight and fix it so it's ready for tomorrow morning. Okay.
Steve / Agency Outsight (27:09.407)
Yeah. Put the bat away. Yeah.
Rena DeLevie (27:24.184)
There's no need for the self-flagellation. That's a distraction from self-accountability. That's a sort of a performance that takes up time and energy. Use your time wisely to become your best advocate, to own your mistakes and fix it.
Steve / Agency Outsight (27:49.867)
Love it. Beautiful. All right, so I'm gonna...
Rena DeLevie (27:52.366)
Parents that way also. If you have children, parent that way also. No blaming. There is no blame allowed in the household. Just what happened. Let's understand it. Let's fix it. Let's move forward.
Steve / Agency Outsight (27:57.47)
Yeah.
Steve / Agency Outsight (28:05.597)
Yeah. Yeah. How do we fix it? And how do we prevent this from happening again next time? Cause all that leads to is shame, whether it's self shame, if I screwed up or shame on the children or whatever. And that's, yeah.
Rena DeLevie (28:10.978)
Right, right.
Rena DeLevie (28:18.998)
And modeling shame in any environment nurtures shame. Model compassionate accountability nurtures compassionate accountability. And even if that means between you and one colleague, even if your boss doesn't get it, your boss's boss doesn't get it, your boss's boss doesn't get it, if you can give each other that space, and I don't mean bitching about the boss and da-da-da-da, because that, again,
Steve / Agency Outsight (28:25.567)
Hmm.
Steve / Agency Outsight (28:39.135)
Yeah, we're either perpetuating.
Rena DeLevie (28:47.668)
is such a waste of energy. It's such a waste of energy and it nurtures discomfort and anger and misery.
And let me tell you, I was the master pitcher. I would complain, you know, it's that bond against, but it's not a real bond and it's a draining bond. It's not a nurturing bond.
Steve / Agency Outsight (29:10.838)
Yeah, yeah, we're either perpetuating positivity or negativity and the choice is ours and and that impacts everybody around us. There's that ripple effect, the butterfly effect, whatever you want to call it. Wrapping up, I'm gonna throw a couple, oh, go ahead, what do you got there?
Rena DeLevie (29:19.799)
Right.
Rena DeLevie (29:23.918)
Oh, so here is a little rice filled bag that says HBOS. I was working in a super toxic environment and I was talking to my cousin and I said, I need a little like hacky sack ball that I can throw back and forth, but I wanna say HBOS on it. to, what it's really called is a hot bag of shit because when it poops, goes downward, right? So if.
If your boss says you need to do this and you consider that a hot bag of poop, what I always wanted to do is transform it into compassionate assignment, right? Rather than feeling, and so my cousin made this for me, which was great. And I had one colleague I could trust and I said, hey, we're gonna toss this back and forth when we need to transform something. And people were like, what does it stand for? And I said, how to blow off steam, which,
Steve / Agency Outsight (30:18.847)
Hmm.
Rena DeLevie (30:20.684)
I didn't even think of until somebody asked me. And so we would throw it back and forth in my office, start to laugh, lo and behold, that poop turned into, all right, we got to do it. And what is important about this was it shifted my attitude, not the assignment, not the content of the work we had to do. And again, that nurtures laughing about it, being real.
No bullshit, getting it done.
Steve / Agency Outsight (30:52.904)
Yeah. It's a perspective changer and you had to get the thing done, but you weren't treating it as shit rolling downhill. Now it's something we have to do. Let's get done. Move through it. Yeah.
Rena DeLevie (30:55.947)
Exactly.
Rena DeLevie (31:04.43)
So this is an energy change. Everything is energy. Negativity is energy. Fear is energy. Laughter is energy. Compassion is energy. So you can switch the energy of fear into an energy of compassion and still have to do that stupid useless project, but with joy.
Steve / Agency Outsight (31:08.895)
Hmm.
Steve / Agency Outsight (31:27.673)
Yeah, with a smile on our face. I love it. I love it. Great stuff. Runa, I want to wrap up with a couple of random questions that may or may not have anything to do with compassion and mindfulness. But the first is, what is something that you are just can't get enough of these days? A hobby, a book, a podcast, a show, an activity?
Rena DeLevie (31:50.03)
For me, it's walking in the woods. I feel everything, which is a gift and a burden. Just being an empath, I'm like an empath times a thousand. So I'm feeling all the sadness and the fear and the ugliness in the world right now, along with the joy. And it's a lot. So I walk in the woods and I'm able to connect with Source, whatever the God of your understanding is, and that helps me.
Steve / Agency Outsight (31:52.445)
Hmm.
Steve / Agency Outsight (31:56.969)
Mm-hmm.
Steve / Agency Outsight (32:17.823)
Love that.
Rena DeLevie (32:19.308)
with friends and hugging. Hugging is hugely helpful for me.
Steve / Agency Outsight (32:26.035)
I'm a fiend for hugs. Luckily I get to live with my fiance and we meet, you we both work from home. So it's like hug time, hug time, thousand times a day. But I, I operate in communities where we were very, very huggy. So yeah, I get fulfilled for that. What is a gadget or a tool or something you recently integrated into your life that you look back and you're like, how the heck did I live without this thing before?
Rena DeLevie (32:27.778)
Oof.
Ha
Wonderful.
Rena DeLevie (32:54.782)
Breathing. Yeah, I mean we all breathe but some of us breathe really, know, really short breaths because we're so tight. I know I used to live like that. So I pretty regularly do a...
Steve / Agency Outsight (32:56.178)
Okay.
Steve / Agency Outsight (33:05.62)
Yeah.
Rena DeLevie (33:14.215)
yeah. So, yeah.
Steve / Agency Outsight (33:16.137)
Cleansing breaths, yeah. Release your shoulders, yeah. Love that. And then finally, what is just a super invaluable piece of business advice that you can share with the listeners?
Rena DeLevie (33:29.71)
Business advice, compassion is a business tool. Use it wisely. Set boundaries. Compassion does not mean you're a doormat and anybody gets away with anything. It's the opposite. Compassion and accountability in equal measure. Amen.
Steve / Agency Outsight (33:33.747)
Hmm.
Steve / Agency Outsight (33:49.117)
I love that. Reena, thank you so, so much. I appreciate you and your guidance and your wisdom and your experience. And thank you for joining us on today's episode.
Rena DeLevie (33:57.41)
Thank you so much. Thank you for doing everything you do, Steve. Bye.
Steve / Agency Outsight (34:00.809)
Thank you.