What if stepping into leadership wasn’t about climbing higher, but about breaking free?

In this episode of Deeply Rested, I sit down with Sophia Apostol to explore the evolution of leadership in a world that desperately needs systemic change. Together, we unpack the personal, social, and spiritual growth required to lead with authenticity, empathy, and integrity.

Sophia shares the pivotal moments that shifted her leadership style from performative to deeply relational, offering insights into how leaders can break free from oppressive systems and create meaningful change. Through candid storytelling and reflection, Sophia redefines leadership as an act of self-discovery—one that allows us to lead with courage, compassion, and liberation.

Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:

How early leadership experiences shaped Sophia’s shift toward authenticity (01:16)

Why true leadership is about personal growth, not just influence (08:35)

How to decolonize leadership and break free from oppressive systems (13:52)

Practical steps to lead with integrity while staying true to your values (19:38)

The role of radical empathy in transforming how we lead (41:04)

The emotional challenges of leadership—and how to navigate them (54:27)

The power of community in supporting leaders through change (59:24)

Also be sure to check out the references mentioned in the episode:

Social Change Ecosystem Map 

Personality Assessments: https://www.truity.com/ 

Sonya Renee Taylor's “body hierarchy ladder” from The Body is Not an Apology

Tricia Hersey’s Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto

Sophia’s website: https://sophiaapostol.com/ 

Sophia’s podcast: Fat Joy with Sophia

You can learn more about Sophia and the work she does at: https://sophiaapostol.com/ 

Tune in for a powerful conversation about leading with intention, challenging harmful systems, and embracing leadership as a lifelong journey of self-exploration and connection.

Mentioned in this episode:

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[00:00:37] Well, today's guest was the absolute perfect person to join us to walk us through this process of becoming liberated leaders in our lives and our businesses and our communities. I'm very excited to introduce you to Sophia Aposol. From the moment Sophia experienced her first leadership coaching session as a sales director, she knew she wanted to become a coach herself.

[00:01:30] I would love for you to reach out afterwards and tell me what were your takeaways, your aha moments, or where would you challenge the things that Sofia and I had to say in this conversation? We are entering an age where we get to share power. We get to share leadership with each other, and we want you to be a part of this conversation right along with us.

[00:02:54] Maegan: Sophia, welcome to the Deeply Rested podcast.

[00:03:00] Maegan: I am so thrilled and so honored to have you here today to talk about leadership. For context, for everyone listening, Sophia and I are recording this conversation the week after the U. S. presidential election, and I'm just trusting the divine timing of this, Sophia, that there's a reason we slated today to record our conversation about leadership.

[00:03:33] Maegan: I hope so. I hope so. Okay, well, let's just drop right in and get this conversation going. I'd love for us to start with two deep breaths together if you're open to that. Great. Let's do that. - - -

[00:04:03] Maegan: Great. I love it. Sophia, I would love for you to tell me about one of the first moments, one of the earliest moments in your life when you realized that you were a leader.

[00:04:41] So I was completely unaware of my own privilege, completely unaware of the systemic oppression construct of racism, ableism, healthism, anti-fatness, all of this. I had no clue. None. I was just following the capitalistic patriarchal conditioning that I had been given. And then when I was 30... And this is when... I've had a couple of different lives.

[00:05:29] People who would become deans of libraries, library CEO, stuff like that. And they wanted to get us and start exposing us to this concept of leadership in a focused way, get to know different people.and it was in a beautiful, mountainous cabin in the woods. It was just

[00:06:08] And in this program... It's a small group of us. It was like, I think, 25 of us and we were all assigned mentors who were there and who were kind of preeminent in the, you know, Canadian library world, and beyond. North American library world. I remember about halfway through, my mentor pulled me aside.

[00:06:50] And second of all, I had never examined in any real critical way my impact on a space, and my impact on others. And this person who I really respected saying that to me was just this moment of, I mean, my immediate reaction was fuck you.

[00:07:19] Sophia: Totally. Yep. Yep. And it has stuck with me ever since. I think it was probably another five years before I really understood what he was getting at. And that came with some additional, like a year long leadership development program. But it was one of those moments where I was like, Oh, okay. Interesting.

[00:08:00] That really was such a key moment for me and shifted. I mean, it's funny, this one comment, I think really shifted my entire trajectory because it made me want to be the kind of leader who people wanted to follow, weren't trying to distance themselves from, wasn't taking up all the space in the room, was building others, you know?

[00:08:20] Sophia: It was a pretty powerful moment for me.

[00:08:50] So here was this moment where you were just existing in the world. I mean, this was a real like leveling up on your adulthood journey moment to realize, wait a minute, I need to zoom out and examine how people are experiencing me, what my impact is and the spaces that I am a part of. And as, as you were expanding that lens, it almost sounds like your understanding of what it meant to be a leader was changing and evolving right along with you changing and evolving as a person.

[00:09:33] Maegan: Oh

[00:09:39] Is it an intentional or unintentional impact? What's happening in the energy field of the room? What's happening in this space? Like, I just, I didn't know there were more layers. So that was huge.

[00:10:00] Sophia: Beautiful. Yeah, exactly.

[00:10:14] Leadership that's more about the performance than it is about the relationships, the environments that we're creating.

[00:10:34] And I feel the truth of that in my bones. I feel it. But it also makes me wonder, if everyone is a leader, then how do we define what it means to be a leader? How do we categorize what leadership is?

[00:11:13] The second piece of what you said is I don't have any huge answers for which is, so then what is leadership? I feel like I talk about this with my clients all day, every day for five solid years now as like a dedicated full time leadership coach. And I think I can provide a one-pager that has a breakdown of what is leadership, and it has words like executive presence and influence and persuasion and, you know, self regulation and self management and relationship.

[00:12:16] My assumption until I saw this map was that in order for me to advocate for a cause, let's just say anti racism, I had to get to the streets in March. Like that was the only kind of version of activism I'd ever seen. What Deepa Iyer's work does is actually break it down to, I think, 12 different possibilities, like caregiving is an act of social justice and social activism, and a contributor to the ecosystem, right? Storytelling, writing. Yes. Marching in the streets for sure. But like, there's all these different ways. And the way I interact with that idea is what is best for me, like, how can I serve with the privilege that I have, the capacities that I have, the capabilities that I have?

[00:13:25] Most of them, some of them, there was something wrong with, but others less so. But it's like, but I am not them. So there are things that I might admire, but like,

[00:13:51] So people come to me, they're like, okay, I've been told I need to develop my executive presence and my influence. I'm like, amazing. Great. What does that mean to you? And they're like, I don't know. I thought you could give me, like, a five point checklist. I'm like, no,I don't know, I'm paying you to help me understand what that means.

[00:14:06] Sophia: Um, and I have checklists and I'd look at them, but it'll say things like “develops relationships.” That's a key component of executive development or executive presence. But like how I develop relationships as a highly extroverted, deeply... I'm an Enneagram three. So I'm all about connecting with people from like a cheerleading kind of perspective, is very different than someone who might be a more introverted,

[00:14:54] What could you do? I could write a newsletter. Great. Let's do that. So this is the thing. So that's why I don't have a clear answer of “what is leadership?" It really depends.

[00:15:04] Sophia: Yeah.

[00:15:24] We're taking leadership out of the paradigm of the patriarchy, because when we're looking at these sort of, quote, conventional models of leadership that many of us grow up seeing in corporate or the business world or wherever it might be. It looks a very certain way, right? It requires everybody climbing the same ladder, all working towards the same titles to kind of claim these positions of power over lots of people who exist underneath you. And what I hear you describing, and of course it's hard to find the words to describe it, because this doesn't exist in the norm of our society, but what I hear you describing is a much more feminine frame for what it means to be a leader. And what I'm hearing from you, tell me if I'm getting this right, is that leadership is really about understanding yourself, understanding who you are, what your gifts are, what your calling is, what your mission is, and then being of service in a way that really is aligned with your gifts.

[00:16:51] Sophia: Yeah,

[00:16:53] Sophia: Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is why we're talking one week post election, because what we're seeing with Trump and all these people who are deeply unqualified that he's appointing to the various positions, they are all deeply rooted in extractive capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy. Like they are people who put their own power and desire for money first.

[00:17:24] Sophia: And that has been historically... you know, when I say historically, it's actually a short history. It's not since the world formed... this is really only, I don't know, someone can correct me, a historian, but it was only in like the late

[00:18:08] So it's been about 300 years. And we've just fucking accepted it.And it's a beautifully built system. It is working the way it should because look, Trump is elected. So yeah, I 100% vehemently, with every fiber of my body, if it's not clear enough, disagree that this is the way we should go because most people are harmed by this.

[00:18:41] Maegan: I just, I really want to dial in to the timeline of this, because there's like an avenue of hope here when we look at this through the lens of like, this is a young system. It's only been 300 years, or fill in the blank, however many hundred, hundred years it's been.

[00:19:29] Sophia: Yeah. That's exactly right. Yeah. And that gives me hope. Definitely gives me hope. I wish it was faster.

[00:19:51] And, so let's come back to leadership again. Cause here we are. It's like we have to really dismantle this outdated story that only a few get to hold the power. Only a few people get to be leaders. And we have to just dismantle that whole paradigm and instead ask every single person we encounter, hey, what's your unique style of leadership?

[00:20:45] So let's talk about some things small business owners can start to ask themselves to develop their own leadership identity.

[00:21:15] Maegan: What, wait, what kind of witch are you? I need to know.

[00:21:22] Oh, I think I was like a raven, almost like a low key, mischief-y kind of witch, which delighted me. I feel like I'm like, that's the side of me that is turning up a little more as I get older and don't give a shit about most things anymore.

[00:21:56] I believe you can also do the Myers Briggs. And I feel like there's another one. I'm not a huge fan of the Myers Briggs... Nothing wrong with it, but it's actually not really based on real science. There's like a whole episode of the Maintenance Phase podcast where they kind of tracked the origin of it.

[00:22:36] What do you know about yourself? Do you even know if you're more introverted or extroverted, or are you ambiverted? Do you even know what your conflict style is? Do you know what your core motivator is? Do you know what other people can do to motivate you? I think a lot of times when I talk to people, I think a lot of people know some of this, but they've just never stopped to put it all together before. So if I say to someone, Hey, in your business, do you get energized by doing the networking part, reaching out to people, or does that drain you? And if they're like, Oh, no, I love, like, I'm in the Starbucks line and I talk to someone and I pass out my card. That's totally my jam. It's like, okay, you're probably quite extroverted then.

[00:23:36] And honestly, he'll hate it if I say this, but he'll forgive me. Like at least once a month, he's like, Oh, I really should get to a networking event, or I really should just make more of an effort on social. But he is a deeply profound introvert. So those activities are like walking through mud for him. So why? He'll never do it. And it causes some angst.

[00:24:18] It kind of details out your strengths, but like, Having some kind of, of outside source, like some of these assessments, or even you literally could just like ask 10 of your people to say, could you give me five adjectives or five words that you think describe me? And a lot of times you'll recognize a lot of them, and you'll still be surprised by some of what people come back with. And that's good. That just gives you something to work with. So I do think it's important to start there.

[00:24:51] Sophia: Please. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:59] Sophia: Mm. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:25:09] Well, we can dial it in by finding a system of knowledge that really resonates with my experience of the world, with my experience of myself, that just helps you begin to deepen into what is true about you. I know the Enneagram is so helpful for many people. I have found the most inspiration and clarity through human design and the Gene Keys.

[00:25:33] Maegan: I will say that, like, my husband really resonates with the Myers Briggs because he studies archetypal Jungian psychology, which I think is where people really get the most juice out of the Myers Briggs assessment. But then my friends and colleagues who aren't Woo at all, they're going to, they're going to default to the StrengthsFinder, they're going to default to the Colby assessment, right?

[00:26:10] They're all made up by somebody. So, just try them all on, right? I have done every single one of these things. Myers Briggs, it just didn't really resonate. Enneagram resonated a little bit. StrengthsFinder, I was like, thumbs down, so bored. And then I got to Human Design, and I was like, oh, okay, here's what's resonating. Here's what's speaking to me.

[00:26:41] Maegan: Yes.

[00:27:01] Maegan: About human design specifically or any of them?

[00:27:05] Maegan: Well, I think human design definitely spoke the most to me and we have an episode on this podcast with my human design reader who really opened this door for me. Jess Rose is her name. She's phenomenal. What human design really helped me understand about myself, it helped me to see more clearly the ways in which I was operating because I was taught that's how I was supposed to operate.

[00:28:28] Sophia: Can you say more about that?

[00:29:13] Sophia: So in my case, my default, I'm an Enneagram 3, classic Enneagram 3, which means huge people pleaser. And I am deeply motivated by the praise, recognition, total adoration. AKA my worthiness depends on what other people think of me. That was programmed into me as a child. If I look back, it's so clear. I wish I'd seen it when I was five, but I was right in it. Oldest child…

[00:29:45] Sophia: Right? I mean,

[00:29:48] Sophia: I mean, right? Who knows what I could have been doing at this point…

[00:29:54] Sophia: Oldest child, child also of, immigrant parents who were deeply poor growing up and believed that education… [And I don't believe, I don't disbelieve any of this. I'm just saying, this is how I was programmed.] education is the only way to escape poverty. So therefore it was like straight A's or consequences, you know? I can layer all the stuff on there. And so what that means is that as I grew up, as I stepped into being a leader in terms of leading other people, in terms of just kind of, being a decision maker, it was so easy for me to make decisions based on what's going to make everyone else happy.

[00:30:55] So there's that added gender layer, too, of like girls are. inserts, you know, nice, kind, quiet, acquiescing... You know, like that's kind of also it was a little bit of, less about how I was raised, but more what was kind of present in our culture when I was becoming a girl in the 80s and 90s, you know?

[00:31:17] Sophia: All of that comes together and impacts how I did in the past. respond to situations in any given moment. And what the work that I do with people is like, okay, let's notice those patterns. Like I'll ask things like, where in your life, in other parts of your life, in your past, where has this shown up before?

[00:32:00] So you could still choose to act the same way. I could still choose to people-please, but the fact that I'm doing it with consciousness and being at choice with it is totally different than just doing it by default. Or I can choose a myriad of different options.

[00:32:19] Sophia: Yeah. Ha.

[00:32:42] And when you're traveling that path of leadership, so much of what it means to be a good leader is to be a healed person, right? And to be someone who's like, you're doing your own work, you're looking at these patterns, you're looking at these conditioned behaviors, you're healing those wounds, and you're making more conscious choices about how you actually want to show up in the world.

[00:33:34] Can you say more about that?

[00:34:11] There's multiple levels here. So I'm her coach working with her. If I go into that conversation, unaware of the unique challenges that Black women face by merit of being Black and by merit of being female, then she might say something to me, like, you know, they keep telling me I'm aggressive and they call me a bitch behind my back.

[00:34:53] I work with a lot of people of color as clients. And this is something, whenever I name it, they're always like, Oh, thank you for naming it. No one believes me when I say what's going on. So we don't make it about the individual. We also recognize that there are organizational and systemic structures in place that impact all of those men around the table with my client, and most of those men are probably unconscious to their own white privilege in the moment, and are having reactions to my Black female client that they're unaware of how they're actually being microaggressive towards her What would the verb be? Microaggressive-y towards her.

[00:35:39] Maegan: I love it. That's great. Let's use it.

[00:35:44] No matter if this is like a solopreneur sending out a newsletter to, you know, you running, let's say, a group of 10 people. I think it's so important that we understand the privilege that we have, that we own it, know that, and this is something contentious that people don't like when I say it, but I'm going to say it because I do believe it's true.

[00:36:22] Maegan: huh.

[00:37:12] Now, where am I still unconscious in my interactions with others, and I'm not going to make myself wrong for it. This all happened to me non consensually, you know? I can now choose to open my eyes. I can choose to understand more and do differently.

[00:38:01] Sophia: Yeah. Why that is, is because if you haven't done that work, you take everything as a personal attack. Right. So that's what changes. You realize, oh, okay. I actually don't need to take that so personally; that's not about me. That's probably about someone else. Because I give myself my own sense of worthiness.

[00:38:32] Maegan: Okay, zooming out for a second, this is so important, and if we look at horrible leaders like Trump, as an example, like, leaders who have no sense of self, right? Leaders who haven't done this personal, personal work. community work. I say personal in that like, I'm exploring myself, I'm healing myself; community in that I am looking at the world around me and I am understanding my place in the fabric of this society.

[00:39:17] And your own personal development process that you can't do this work without really strengthening your sense of self, understanding who you are so that you have the ability to receive this information in a less reactive way. Doesn't mean it's not challenging, but because, like you said, because you're not personalizing it, you can actually be a part of the solution and not just feel like victimized by critical feedback.

[00:39:57] Maegan: Say more about radical empathy.

[00:40:15] And I was just talking to my husband about this morning. We were lamenting about like, how can so many people have voted for Trump? And I was like, you know, it just really hit me in a big way that I. Again, from a deep place of privilege, was able to work with therapists, was able to get coach training, which deepened my own sense of awareness of self.

[00:41:08] It teaches us that we must run screaming from discomfort and privilege comfort. Because this work is uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable to reckon with the fact that there are things that I remembered when I started doing deeper anti oppression work. That's it. Where I was like, Oh shit, that's why that person reacted that way.

[00:41:46] And so there's this whole thing around like when we are fully resourced and we do our own work, we develop more tolerance for discomfort because it's the only way that we can actually develop ourselves further is by being present to this discomfort. And radical empathy then can show up because my ability to tolerate discomfort has grown exponentially.

[00:42:28] Maegan: Mm

[00:42:37] Maegan: yeah.

[00:43:01] Sophia: Oh yeah, absolutely.

[00:43:19] It was like, wow, how did people do this? And there was like, rage, rage, rage. And then you moved that through and you took a breath and it's like, okay, hold on a second. Let me come back to radical empathy, like let me come back to this more expansive way of understanding people and relationships and the myriad of oppressive systems that we are all trying to navigate our way through.

[00:43:49] this examination around intersectionality and marginalization, it goes both ways, right? You're talking a lot about how important it is. That we as leaders are examining our own privilege, that we're examining how we're showing up, how we're engaging in the world.

[00:44:31] For me at least, it's easy for me to fall into a place where I'm like, well, I'm the problem, so, like, I've just got to, you know, You know, I've got to do all of this work to be a better person in the world, and I can ignore a little bit the ways in which, like, whoa, there are places where I, too, am marginalized, and if I don't give that some love and attention, then I get out of balance as a person.

[00:44:57] Sophia: Oh, such a good point.

[00:45:06] I think many of us have some form of marginalization. If you're women, that's a marginalization. If you are, basically, if you were anything other than a white, cis, hetero, wealthy dude, there is some level of marginalization and Sonya Renee Taylor, who is a brilliant, writer and poet and fat activist, someone who was one of, I call her one of my fat elders, she really helped me on my fat liberation journey.

[00:46:20] That's going to bite them in the ass later, but we'll just leave that comment there. And so I think like understanding, thinking about things that way, it's like, okay, so where am I on the ladder? Can I just step off the ladder? What happens if I just step off?

[00:46:45] Maegan: Can you paint a picture for me? What happens when you step off?

[00:47:12] Actually learning about bodies and body size, and punching holes in diet culture, cause it's all made up and it's all false. Body diversity has always been present. So that was big. Also letting go of the female programming I had received around being nice. I'm so nice.

[00:47:58] I'm not going to try to shrink my body anymore to try to get higher up the ladder. So what's beautiful about that work, and I would call this, what I call this is like the liberation journey. This is how you liberate yourselves from that ladder. Man, it is so good. You feel, I felt I still feel like my brain power

[00:48:42] I would never go back. And it's hard, too. It's hard because it also meant. There are people in my life, family members, friends who I got no contact with because it was hard for them to, you know, stop harming me. And so it's not a perfect system. It can't be. No system is perfect, but I know that I would never trade.

[00:49:18] like what else can I divest from? Can I divest from this? Can I divest from things like perfectionism?

[00:49:38] Maegan: I am so in love with you right now. Just like deep love and gratitude for what you're saying and the way that you're sharing it. It's… I could listen to you talk about this all day. There is something so intense and violent and visceral about this image of bodies crawling over each other, trampling one another to climb the ladder, and everything in me relaxes, and wants to cry, and wants to dance with joy when you say, I am not going to hide this part of my identity so that I can get one rung up this ladder.

[00:50:50] It's good for my community. It's good for the earth, that there is a way of being a leader. And there is a way of moving through this life that does a lot less harm

[00:50:59] Maegan: than the way we've been taught that we need to move through life and it's why I'm so passionate about doing this work. I mean, we're thinking specifically in our work about how we step off the ladder of capitalism, right? How do we become deeply rested as business owners? How do we opt out of harmful beliefs like you gotta hustle, grind, be productive, focus on making money, etc.

[00:51:35] How can I step off the ladder and make a different choice? And that's what it means to be a leader, is to be someone who is asking yourself these big questions. How can I make a different choice? A choice that harms me less, harms my community less, harms the environment less. You can't go wrong when you ask yourself those questions. And there will be consequences.

[00:52:22] I want to hear your thoughts on, like from both sides of it, how and why this can be a lonely journey, but then also like what we can do to create more connection and community so that we don't feel so alone when we're making choices to step off the ladder.

[00:53:04] So this means me saying to a good friend, Hey, that comment that you said was really harmful to me. It felt like you were making judgments about my body, about my choices, and that did not feel good. And that person is not able to hold that comment. It's like saying to my mom, Hey, You don't get to ask me about what I eat or how I move my body anymore.

[00:53:40] And years of hang ups, you know? So there's a grief. There's like a, but I thought you loved me or I thought you cared about me. And that's with the people who are up close to you. it's also really hard when the systems give you those messages, right?

[00:54:27] A black woman speaking out in a meeting and then, and everyone saying, Oh, you know, you're so aggressive. You're speaking so loudly, like lower your voice. There's so many examples. Someone who has an invisible disability and gets questioned about why they're sitting instead of standing, you know, like tons and tons of stuff like this.

[00:55:10] Maegan: I want to just layer one thing onto that. I really appreciate those examples, right? Okay. What does it mean to be a leader, right? I am, I'm doing my work. I'm stepping into my sovereignty, to my authority. I'm asking hard questions. I'm making different choices, right?

[00:55:46] For me, I've had a lot of wounds the past couple of years... And losing relationships with really close friends, especially friends I made in the business space as I've started making different choices and to, you know, to devalue capitalist ideals in my business, it's hard for some people to stay friends with me because what I stand for now is in direct conflict with the way

[00:56:33] Sophia: For many people, the answer is community. When those cracks occur, when people fall away, it's creating a new group of people. This is where I love... I remember hearing like, I don't know, 20 years ago, the term, chosen family or creating a family of choice. And I'd never even known that was like an option, or it was the concept of, it was like, I can do that. That's allowed. I don't have to just ride or die with my birth family and that's it. And my birth family is great, but we're very different. We are very different now. We have walked separate paths over the last 10 years and it has been everything to build a family of choice.

[00:57:44] I mean, every time I think about the word rest, which of course is in your podcast title, so I've been thinking about a lot, I immediately think of Tricia Hersey. She doesn't know who I am, but I love her.

[00:58:09] So I think there can be, I think it's, yeah, families of choice and communities of choice is a really important one.

[00:58:35] Sophia: yeah. Mm-Hmm?

[00:59:13] And I totally agree that the medicine for me, the thing that kind of mends the wounds and keeps me going, are people with whom I can show all parts of myself. All parts, right? I can share all values and be challenged, which I want to be around people. I'm an Enneagram challenger, by the way,

[00:59:34] Maegan: I'm an eight, like I want to be challenged, but I want to be challenged with love and compassion and curiosity and acceptance, and I'm building that.

[00:59:54] Sophia: Well, I was just going to reflect back to you that thank you for doing this work for business owners because I was in sales and marketing for a lot of my career. So I was a librarian. I was in sales. I was marketing. Now I'm a coach. I've done all the things. I was also a professor for a while. Anyway, I've done a lot of stuff.

[01:00:37] It was astonishing to me how I never knew about it before. And the fact that there are these communities really growing everywhere is so exciting, Megan. The fact that you're able to talk to business owners about rest and how important it is to not fall prey to toxic positive or toxic productivity, and positivity, too, but productivity like, yeah, right, is, that is how I think we do change this world is just the groundswell of people choosing differently, and I'm so excited.

[01:01:30] Maegan: Thank you for saying that.

[01:01:32] Maegan: Yeah, they've taken up enough shelf space, enough, like, my psychic shelf space for white men is all used.

[01:01:38] Maegan: I'm sure that there are really great dudes out there saying really great things, but I'm like, I need to diversify what lives inside of this.

[01:02:05] So thank you for those words, and thank you for being here. And I have one more question for you, just to end on an empowering note, because like you said, you're the cheerleader.

[01:02:13] Maegan: You like to cheerlead. So circling back to where we are in this moment in time, like the models that we're seeing of the leadership that the people are choosing are thumbs down, two thumbs down, do not recommend, personally.

[01:02:20] Maegan: If you've listened this far in this episode, I would be shocked if you didn't feel that as well, okay, but we know what we don't want, right? We know what we don't want, and after this conversation we're getting a little bit clearer about what we do want. So I would love to hear from you.

[01:02:54] Sophia: Yeah, I'm a really big fan of doing tiny things. I always joke with people. I'm like, I want you to feel like slightly nauseous, but not like full vomit. So pick something to do. Like a little nauseous shows a bit discomfort. It's a bit of an edge. Great. We want to do a bit of an edge thing. So what I love to suggest for people is pick something that feels like it aligns with your strengths.

[01:03:20] Sophia: You know, maybe that's reaching out to someone for a connection. Maybe that's sending a newsletter. Maybe that's offering something that feels good to you, whatever it is with your business and whatever that goal is, I want you to cut it in half, and then cut it in half again, to the point where it feels ludicrous, ludicrous.

[01:03:56] Maegan: That's, oh, I think like right.

[01:04:03] Sophia: The goal can make you queasy, but the first step, maybe I'm going to change it. The goal can make you queasy, but…

[01:04:09] Sophia: The task should be easy. That's it. There we go. We've just co-created a brand new tagline. Yeah. I am so thrilled! This is amazing!

[01:04:21] Sophia: Yeah. Because you'll never do it.

[01:04:25] Sophia: . And it rhymes. I love a rhyme.

[01:04:43] It's too much for one person and one body to do alone. So I'm going to cut it in half, and then I'm going to keep cutting it in half until the task in front of me is so easy I could do it while also listening to an audiobook.

[01:04:58] Maegan: That’s what I'm aiming for.

[01:05:14] Maegan: Oh my God.

[01:05:21] Sophia: Yeah, so my leadership website is SophiaApostol. com. I imagine you'll probably link to it, Maegan. I'm on Instagram under that name. The work that I do around anti-fatness is called Fat Joy. So I have a podcast called Fat Joy with Sophia Apostle where I interview really cool people like Aubrey Gordon and I even got to talk to Adrienne Marie Brown, which was like, Oh, yeah.

[01:06:01] Maegan: And just in case you don't feel like looking at the show notes, that's Sophia, S O P H I A, A P O S T O L dot com.

[01:06:12] [01:06:15] Maegan: Sophia, I'm grateful to you for who you are, and how you show up in the world, and the conversations that you are willing to have, and for being here. Thank you so much, and I can't wait to see when our paths cross.

[01:06:32] Maegan: Thank you.