When the CEO role finds you instead of the other way around, everything about leadership gets tested.

Bijal Shah shares what it was really like to step into the interim CEO role at Guild while on parental leave after a sudden crisis. The conversation sits at the intersection of entrepreneurship, business, and wellbeing, and asks hard questions about leadership under pressure. What happens when there is no runway to prepare? How do you lead clearly when personal life and professional responsibility collide?

The episode explores business continuity, succession planning, and conscious leadership through lived experience rather than theory. Shah reflects on how quiet board preparation, steady culture, and honest feedback kept the company grounded. She also shares how conscious leadership became a practical tool at Guild, and why leaders need real mirrors who will push back. If you stepped away tomorrow, would your business hold steady, and would your leadership still work without you?

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Business Continuity Gets Real When A Founder Can’t Lead

03:36 Stepping In As Interim CEO While On Parental Leave

10:02 Succession Planning That Actually Works

13:49 Founder Reality Check For Business Continuity And Succession Planning

16:29 Conscious Leadership That Holds Up Under Pressure

20:56 Embedded Executive Coaching As A Real Business Advantage

31:49 A CEO Feedback Moment That Changed How She Leads

36:02 Three Practical Rules For Conscious Leadership

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Telling yourself the truth might be the most radical leadership skill you’ll ever develop.

In part three of the Emotional Self-Regulation for Leaders series, Sarah Lockwood is joined by Beck Sydow and Marina Suholutsky for a conversation about the power of radical self-honesty in leadership. They explore how self-awareness for leaders isn’t just about introspection but a foundational strategy for building resilient businesses, leading aligned teams, and navigating high-stakes decisions with integrity.

Beck and Marina reveal how easy it is for entrepreneurs to hide from their own truths, especially when fear, ego, or pressure to perform take over. They unpack how avoidance and overcompensation often mask deeper insecurities and explain why facing those hidden parts with compassion is key to true emotional self-regulation. When leaders name what’s really going on without judgment, they create space for better decisions, stronger relationships, and more authentic leadership.

This episode offers a powerful reframe: self-honesty isn’t weakness, but actually one of the most courageous and transformative skills you can build.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Why Radical Self-Honesty Is a Leadership Skill

02:56 How Your Relationship with Yourself Shapes Your Leadership

04:49 Embracing All Parts of Yourself to Build Self-Awareness

06:03 Coping Mechanisms That Lead to Dishonest Leadership

10:03 The Hidden Relief in Facing Hard Truths

14:07 Practicing Compassionate Accountability

17:59 Sovereignty, Self-Honesty, and Emotional Self-Regulation

21:32 Practical Tools to Strengthen Self-Honesty

25:02 Emotional Mastery for Leaders

Links

Connect with Beck Sydow:

Connect with Beck on LinkedIn

Humankind Business Leaders

Connect with Marina Suholutsky:

Connect with Marina on LinkedIn

PurposeBuilt

Connect with Sarah Lockwood:

Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn

Visit HiveCast

Connect with The Conscious Entrepreneur:

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Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Curiosity is the leadership skill that helps you regulate your nervous system, interrupt fear loops, and make conscious choices in real time.

This episode is part 2 of the Emotional Self-Regulation for Leaders series, where Sarah Lockwood is joined again by Marina Suholutsky, the founder of PurposeBuilt, and Beck Sydow, the founder of HumanKind Business Leaders, to discuss how curiosity plays an important role in nervous system regulation and managing emotions. They break down how fear contracts our experience and narrows our view, while curiosity invites expansion and presence. When leaders learn to pause and ask questions like “What else is true?” or “What story am I telling myself right now?”, they create access to agency, opening up space to shift out of reactivity and into conscious, grounded response.

Marina and Beck offer tools that don’t require time away from work or structured rituals. These moments of emotional awareness can happen mid-meeting, mid-sentence, or mid-meltdown. Whether it’s noticing your peripheral vision, softening your tone, or naming what’s happening in the room, curiosity becomes a live practice that leaders can use to stay connected to themselves and others. The discussion also explores how modeling this curiosity builds team trust and strengthens leadership presence. For founders who want to lead with more ease and intention, this episode is an invitation and a toolkit.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Curiosity as a Tool for Emotional Mastery

01:24 Using Curiosity to Shift from Fear to Possibility

02:55 How Curiosity Regulates the Nervous System

04:32 Interrupting Autopilot Responses with Better Questions

06:12 Building Agency Through Conscious Choice

09:59 Real-Time Techniques for Managing Emotions

12:34 Somatic Practices for Curiosity and Expansion

15:23 Leading with Curiosity in High-Stakes Moments

16:48 Asking Open-Ended Questions That Invite Collaboration

19:31 Why Curiosity Reflects True Leadership Confidence

Links

Connect with Beck Sydow:

Connect with Beck on LinkedIn

Humankind Business Leaders

Connect with Marina Suholutsky:

Connect with Marina on LinkedIn

PurposeBuilt

Connect with Sarah Lockwood:

Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn

Visit HiveCast

Connect with The Conscious Entrepreneur:

Visit The Conscious Entrepreneur website

Follow The Conscious Entrepreneur on LinkedIn

Follow The Conscious Entrepreneur on Instagram

Subscribe to The Conscious Entrepreneur on YouTube

HiveCast.fm is a proud sponsor of The Conscious Entrepreneur Podcast.

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm