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If you are a leader who embodies activism, you are moved by personal convictions that see beyond yourself and the bottom line. You boldly desire to make intentional change that will impact another person, your family, where you work, our planet.

When activism is seen as a negative word, it supports the status quo. Making activism negative plays upon your fears being misunderstood or being seen as too much, too disruptive.

And it is easy to respond to these fears by quickly defaulting into silence or complacency.

But there is something immensely freeing by owning our values and desires for the world we want. Sure, it can feel a little scary and most definitely vulnerable.

When we do the work to not be weighed down by our burdens, we can move through the fears and increase our capacity for vulnerability so we can own our activism not as something to be ashamed of but as a beacon for our meaningful work and life.

My guest today wrote a whole book reframing activism with a more holistic lens that is inclusive and inspiring. She has given us a road map on redefining and reclaiming activism in an aligned and meaningful way.

Karen Walrond is a lawyer, leadership coach, and activist. Karen’s work has helped thousands of people around the world find purpose and meaning in their work. As a photographer, Karen traveled throughout Africa with the ONE Campaign, an advocacy organization committed to the prevention of extreme poverty and preventable disease. Karen currently serves on the board of directors for the Houston Coalition Against Hate. 

She is the author of The Lightmaker’s Manifesto and The Beauty of Different, and a contributor to Disquiet Time and Expressive Photography. Karen, her husband, and their daughter live in Houston, Texas.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

  • What losing her house in Hurricane Harvey taught Karen about receiving and asking for help
  • How she learned to be a confident misfit
  • Karen’s definition of an activist and two key factors for building the endurance to stay the course
  • The benefits of letting yourself get angry, and how to use it as a tool

Learn more about Karen:

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meet the founder

I’m Rebecca Ching, LMFT.

I help change-making leaders get to the root of recurring struggles and get confidently back on track with your values, your vision, and your bottom line. 

I combine psychotherapeutic principles, future-forward coaching, and healthy business practices to meet the unique needs and challenges of highly-committed leaders in a high-stakes world.

This is unburdened leadership

EP 29: Frank Anderson, MD – Challenging the Fear of Rejection and Leading with Vulnerability – Part 2

Everybody’s carrying a burden that’s weighing them down. If you dare to care, it is inevitable you will end up carrying the burdens from grief, betrayal, and rejection. And these burdens are often unseen. These invisible struggles fuel loneliness, shame, and despair. Eventually, the unaddressed burdens we carry start to impact our ability to live […]

Trauma

EP 27: Frank Anderson, MD – Challenging the Fear of Rejection and Leading with Vulnerability – Part 1

We watch leaders crash & burn all the time. We watch with morbid fascination as leaders fall out of grace because their unaddressed pain led them on an unsustainable path of poor choices–even dangerous and deadly choices–to avoid feeling the vulnerability of rejection. Those times when you experienced the pain of rejection leave their mark […]

Trauma

EP 21: Leading With Body Resilience with Co-Author of More Than A Body, Lindsay Kite, PhD

Caring about those you lead means caring about the harm you may unknowingly be doing. Many of us who fit western standards of beauty and live in conventionally abled bodies don’t understand how our choices can cause pain. We’ve internalized ableism and fat-phobia to the point where we can’t even grasp how our words & […]

Mental Well-being

EP 19: Defining Your Own Version Success with Natalie Borton, Founder of Natalie Borton Designs

The quickest way to crash and burn your business and life is to place your worthiness and safety with the opinions of others. This may sound like a captain-obvious statement but the pull to care what others think is something fierce. And it is sneaky. The competitive drive is no stranger to many of you. […]

Work-life Integration

EP 17: Community Over Competition with Co-Founder of The Rising Tide Society Natalie Franke

Community over competition is indeed a well-worn hashtag. The cynical can dismiss it. Those beat up by year after year of injustice understandably call BS. But in practice, leading with the lens of community over competition is subversive and culture-shifting. Community over competition requires deep life-long work to unburden the load we carry of scarcity […]

Leading Teams

EP 02: How Self-Leadership Saves You From The Relentless Drive To Succeed with Dr. Richard Schwartz

My body was telling me to take a step back and reevaluate. Five years ago I had pneumonia and I couldn’t really do anything other than prop myself up on the couch and breathe… …breathe and think about how I ended up in this mess I’d run myself into the ground. My schedule was full-to-overflowing. […]

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And clearing the way for a more innovative, inclusive future.

Unburdened Leaders are breaking
cycles of workplace burnout…

Are you about this, too? Let’s meet and see if I’m your coach – no expectations. Just connection.