Welcome to HeartWired: Emotionally Intelligent Leadership for an AI World! In this episode, I dive deep into the intersection of intuition, leadership, and artificial intelligence with the dynamic Deborah Deras. With three decades of corporate experience, a focus on AI education, and an inspiring outlook on emotionally intelligent leadership, Deborah brings a fresh perspective to today’s rapidly changing landscape.

We explore how leaders can cultivate and trust their intuition amid the noise of fear and fast-paced technological change, especially as AI is integrated into more aspects of our organizations and lives. Deborah’s stories, including her surprising path to becoming an AI educator at Santa Barbara City College, offer actionable wisdom for anyone navigating transformation.

Deborah Deras is an accomplished international speaker, organizational leadership doctoral student, corporate trainer, and the author of “Your Ego Is Not Your Amigo.” She specializes in helping leaders access their intuition, move beyond imposter syndrome, and embrace emotionally intelligent practices that keep humanity at the center of technology.

Key Takeaways and Topics

1. Understanding Ego vs. Intuition: Deborah explains how ego shows up as a “barking puppy” and why trying to suppress fear can actually amplify it. Instead, she shares tools for training your inner voice and working with, rather than against, your fear.
2. Women and Leadership: We discuss why women often hold themselves back from advancement and how to lean into possibility over perfectionism.
3. The Role of Intuition in AI Adoption: As organizations rush to integrate AI, leaders must use intuition and emotional intelligence to guide responsible innovation. Deborah raises powerful questions for leaders to ask: Does AI align with our core values? Are we losing sight of the human touch in pursuit of efficiency?
4. Vision & Discernment: AI can synthesize data, but it lacks lived experience, vision, and discernment—traits only humans can contribute. Deborah emphasizes that emotional intelligence and intuition are superpowers in the AI era.
5. Practical Mindfulness: Learning to “come home” to yourself requires moments of stillness and reflection. We talk about practical ways leaders can slow down and check in with their intuition amidst constant technological acceleration.
6. Personal Stories: Deborah shares her own path to AI education, guided by intuition versus logical career planning—and the business implications for integrating or misusing AI tools.

If this episode resonated with you or if you know someone struggling to find balance between technology and their own wisdom, please share HeartWired with them! Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode.

Connect with Deborah Deras at DeborahDeras.com to access her free meditation or check out her latest book, “Your Ego Is Not Your Amigo.”

Want more conversations about emotional intelligence and leadership in the AI era? Make sure to stay in touch for future episodes—and don’t forget to slow down, listen to your intuition, and lead with heart.

Thank you for listening!

— Dr. MJ

Timestamps:

00:00 "Fear, Excitement, and Intuition"

05:51 "Embracing Change Beyond Fear"

08:24 "Balancing AI Innovation and Safety"

11:46 Right Place, Right Time

13:29 "AI Use Must Align Values"

20:27 "Finding Stillness Amid AI Progress"

21:19 "Stillness Amidst Technology"

25:12 "Intuition, Emotional Intelligence, AI"

Mentioned in this episode:

HeartWired is part of the eWomenPodcastNetwork

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Welcome to Heartwired: Emotionally Intelligent Leadership for an AI World, the podcast where technology meets humanity. I'm Dr. MJ, your host. Today I'm speaking with Deborah Deras, an international speaker, a leadership consultant, and author of two books. We will explore how to trust your intuition while you're navigating AI, and especially if there's an AI integration within your organization. Deborah, welcome.

Thank you. I'm excited to be here.

I'm excited that you're here too. So I want to start a little bit with your journey. You've worked with major corporations over the last 3 decades, and you're pursuing your doctorate in organizational leadership, and you're developing AI educational programs, and you have published a couple of books. So that's amazing. You are really amazing.

Oh, thank you.

So your new book, Your Ego Is Not Your Amigo, opens with a very personal story talking about how you were ignoring your intuition and that there was a cost to that. So when you're thinking about your experience, how does somebody learn how to kind of, you know, stop those fear-based messages that we all have? And really tune into our intuition and our wisdom?

The key is actually not to stop the fear-based messages because it's a part of us, right? Our ego is almost, I like to think of it like an untrained puppy. In my book, I talk about Trust Your Vibes, a book I read by Sonia Troquette, who's published by Hay House, an amazing intuitive. Expert. And she was like, your ego is like this little puppy that doesn't know it's not supposed to pee in the house. It doesn't know when it's food time or that mommy's on a podcast and can't walk right now. Right? But if you try to push something down, like if you say, don't think of the pink elephant in the room, that's what you're going to think of. So if you're like, oh, I just can't be fearful, it's actually going to be louder. And that's what happens with the ego.

It is the loud voice in the ear of the leader that says, you know, don't do this, or don't do that, or what could happen, and what if this, and goes to the worst-case scenario. But if you train it well, what if we, you know, are in an innovative mode and we are trying something new? Because fear, the opposite of fear or the flip side of it is excitement. When you think of when you're on a roller coaster ride, as, you know, when you get on it, you're terrified and you're like, oh my God, what's going to happen? But it's the same energy of excitement, like the same physiological responses that you have in your body, that excitement energy. So what we want to do is not override the fear, but know that there is a still small voice that's underneath that fear. And it may not even be a voice. Because when you think about intuition, all of us have had a gut feeling. Oh, let me not make this move. And I can interview like 100 leaders and ask them, tell me a time you didn't listen to your intuition.

My mentor, Oprah Winfrey, said the only time that she lost money was when she didn't trust her intuition. So It's our superpower. And I don't want us as leaders to lose that in the age of AI.

Yeah, that's so important. Yeah, and it's so easy to do because you're getting answers like that immediately. And you're going, OK, well, there's the answer right there. So you're not trusting that I have to take a really good look at this. I have to understand. Does this feel right? And that's all that kind of self-awareness that goes on that we have to really recognize what's happening inside of us. And we're sometimes just so on autopilot that we're not looking at that.

Exactly.

Great. And I know this is all about once you find it, is that what do you do with it? You know, what do you, you know, when you find these emotions, what do you do with it? How do you kind of shift when you start hearing that voice in your head? And how do you shift over to listening to the intuition?

Yeah. So one of the things that I talk about in the book is all the distractions of the ego, you know, the procrastination because we don't think it's good enough, which is the twin sister of perfectionism that, you know, I can't release this until it's just right. But think about it. Do you have an Apple Phone 1 in your hand or do you have an Apple Phone 15 or 16? Right? We iterate, we improve, right? So when the ego distractions are telling you that it's not the right time or you're not the right person to go for this leadership position, One of my cohort members just got promoted to CEO of her organization. She was saying, my ego was saying, are you ready? Is this the right time? You're in school. Do you have a lot on your plate? And what we have to do, like we're training that puppy, is be aware of it. Oh, the ego is scared because this is the unknown. But we're in a time of transformation and innovation.

That is revolutionary. I mean, even Sergey, who was one of the co-founders of Google, came out of retirement because he wanted to be a part of the AI revolution. It's very exciting and scary at the same time. But we have to realize that if we allow the fear-based emotions to be in the driver's seat, we're going to be stagnant and maybe become extinct as an organization because we can't evolve and stay the same. So there has to be a certain level of, okay, I hear you, ego, that's saying that it's not the right time or to be fear, but I have to ask myself, but what is the truth? Because I always, when I'm coaching people individually, I say, if you are given an opportunity, it's because you have the talent, skills, and abilities to be able to perform. And in the book Lean In, Dr. Sheryl Sandberg, she was talking about how men traditionally will lean in and go for promotions and go for positions, even if they don't feel qualified, knowing that they will learn. But women tend to hold back because of that, what I talk about in my book, the imposter syndrome, the feeling, oh, well, I don't have every little bullet point.

So it's about, OK, Yes, your ego is going to second guess. What I tell my ego lovingly, because like I said before, we can't ignore that ego fear voice, that barking puppy. We have to redirect it, right? So I'll say, you know what? I'm not on that program. I'm not on that playing small program. I'm not on that lack fear limitation program. I'm on the possibility program. And this is what we're gonna do. And it's gonna feel scary, But guess what? We're going to take that step and work through it.

Absolutely. And you're so right. It's women, just we hold ourselves back. So I think we have to start really facing our fears and moving forward. Yeah, I love it. So now you talked a little bit about leadership. And I know that that's an area that you're really focused on, especially with your doctorate. Studies.

So what patterns do you see when leaders are really operating from their ego and not listening to their intuition, especially during a technological change and working with AI?

Well, and this, in teaching AI at Santa Barbara City College, I got to really research a lot of the founders of the different AI programs and like learn about, you know, the founding of OpenAI with Sam Altman and Dario Amodei and the, you know, the disagreements that they had with how fast AI could progress, right? Because there is a balance between innovation and safety and protecting people, right? Because when it comes to AI innovation, it's great and it's wonderful, but if you go too fast without security, it can run amok, right? So it's really important that we understand that when it comes to AI adoption, we have to be careful that we don't go too fast with our foot on the gas without putting up the parking brake a little bit, because if we do, it can get out of hand. And leaders that are ego-based, and I'm not naming names, but will be like, we want to win. We want to be the leader. We want to beat out China at all costs. And then a young person is committing suicide because the AI chatbot was giving them instructions and saying, don't tell your parents. We've all heard the nightmare stories, and I know they're not all of the stories, but we need to be cautious that AI is a tool and not the truth. And younger minds, and this is why I love being a professor at Santa Barbara City College, because to be able to impact the younger minds so that they don't get overdependent and overreliant. I saw the Saturday Night Live episode where they literally had young people and they were using the AI to talk to each other across the room.

Oh, what do I say at the dance? And then they were replying and I was like, I don't want our next generation of leaders to over-rely on AI and under-rely on their superpower, which is right here, their intuition. Just like we have a GPS in the car that gets us to the right place, the right time, with the right people, we have our intuitive guidance system that's saying, you know what, I feel like going for this job. Can I tell like a short story of how I even got to Santa Barbara City College? Sure.

Yeah, absolutely.

So my intuition told me that I should be in Santa Barbara. I was actually doing a vision board, and I decided to put Carpinteria and Summerlin. I'm like, why am I putting all these, like, Central Coast on my vision board? I just did that. I was getting this intuition that I needed to be at a community college. I'm like, but that doesn't make sense, MJ. I'm a corporate trainer. That's what I do. I work at Google.

I, you know, I have clients like Google and Netflix. I'm not a professor. I did that a long time ago. Why would I go back to that? But my intuition was saying that there was a need. And I ended up doing a presentation that was hosted, you could say coincidentally, or you can say synchronistically. It's all, if you study quantum field, it's all, you know, it's all in.

Yeah, we are.

Yeah, very quantum, right? Reading about Ralph Dacey about quantum theory. Anyway, so I was in the right place at the right time doing this presentation, and they offered me to create their AI certificate. And I would not have got the job. I had applied for so many community colleges years ago, decades ago, and wasn't even interviewed, probably because of AI algorithms. But because I was in the right place at the right time following my intuition, showed up even though I had fear. I'm like, am I even qualified to talk about AI? Because that's when AI was new. This was 2 years ago. And I had just started dibbling and dabbling in it.

And I was not a scientist or an expert or a doctor or a researcher at that time like the other people on the panel. But I was asked. And so my intuition said, say yes. Right. Yay!

I know, that's amazing. And that you put yourself out there even though you had concerns and you kind of jumped in. So you leaned into that. And like you said, you weren't like looking for it, but it appeared because your intuition, and that's amazing. So, you know, you're doing a lot. I know you're doing a lot with, your dissertation and you're really looking at the AI and the leadership and working on developing some practices. So can you share a little bit, and I know that it's still under wraps, so if you could share just a little bit about what you're doing and where it's leading you.

Yes, so I think it's super important that leaders in this day and age utilize AI as a tool and as an aggregate of data and a synthesizer and help with efficiency. But we also, as mindful leaders, I like to say strategic leaders that use AI, that we clarify, does this tool align with our values. Let me give you an example. So this company that I use, that you might use as well, I'm not going to name names, they decided to get rid of their customer service and totally delegate it to AI. But if their core value is great service and creating a community, and it is impossible like there's absolutely no people. If you press zero, they just say, no, there's a chatbot or this and nothing else. They're going to lose business, right? So the leaders need to clarify, you know, does this AI tool align with our core value? Does this AI tool align with who we are and our brand, right? Not just to say, oh, because everyone's jumping on the AI bandwagon and we're going to just save money and just, you know, get really, really lean at the expense of the vision and the mission of the organization. In my research, I found a lot of companies that laid off people to use AI tools are hiring them back.

Wow.

Well, yeah, because they're seeing the big gap that they have now in their organization.

Yeah. And the other thing is when it comes to AI, I use AI for school. There's a great AI tool by Google called NotebookLM. And it aggregates. So like I'll get my sources of all my readings for the week and it'll create into a podcast. And because I'm an auditory processor, I'm able to listen to the information before I read it and it enhances my learning, right? So that's a great way of using AI. But what's missing from AI that I think leaders need to realize is context, right? So you as a leader have a context of the lived experiences of your team, right? You know what has worked in the past, and you, because you are a human with vision, this is emotional intelligence, right? What you teach, right? That no AI can replace. That's why I'm so aligned with you on emotional intelligence, and one day we'll get to do some training together on that because I'm going to bring you in.

Yes. Is understanding that the vision. So humans have the potential to see the future, to be visionary, right? But the AI is just taking data that it was trained on from the internet and and summarizing and synthesizing and sometimes making stuff up. It hallucinates. The other day I was having AI help me with my one sheet for my speaking, and it said I spoke at a company I never spoke at. I'm like, that would be nice, right? So you got to really check AI, but you need to understand that when you get information from AI, it's missing the vision. That leaders have, the visionary quality that makes leaders a good leader. So we want to pay attention with that.

The other thing, which is an emotional intelligence piece that's missing from AI, is discernment. My name, Deborah, and part of my superpower when I looked up what the name means, it's she has the power of discernment. You're able to make decisions not only based on the past, but what you perceive or project to be the future. And AI does not have that. And that's why I tell young people when I speak at Santa Barbara City College and they're like, where are my jobs? I'm like, you will be irreplaceable if you increase your emotional intelligence and your superpower, your intuition. This is why they need us.

Actually, I'm right there with you because I keep saying, hey, that's our superpower. We need to really boost up our superpowers that we have as humans that AI will never have. And that's where we bring in that value. It's so critical to have that piece to understand that this is the future. And especially this generation, the next generation coming into the workplace, They're screen-based. They talk to each other on like they could be sitting at the same table and texting to each other. So, what they have to really get into is that what's the difference? What makes me different than anybody else that's out there looking for a job? And it's, again, it's that intuition. It's that emotional intelligence.

It's that human quality that we need.

You are more valuable than ever before in your teachings. It's like there's going to need to be a class in high school called emotional intelligence, how to be a human.

I love that. How to be a human.

You can sell it to districts. You can create your program and sell it to the schools.

Okay. All right, Deborah.

Now you've got nothing. I like that idea. Just talk about that later.

That's what I love about you. You're always looking at those avenues. Now, I, well, I want to also bring you back to your book because I have it. I have it right here somewhere.

And thank you for buying it.

Oh yeah, definitely. Oh, here, here it is. Here it is.

I should have gave it to you for Christmas.

Oh no, no, no. So you have to sign it for me. Here's the book. And, uh, it's really, you did a really nice job. I love the COVID It's gorgeous. So, but when you said something beautiful in there and you said it's not about finding yourself, but it's coming home to yourself. So many people are saying, I'm looking to find myself, but it's coming home because we've always been ourselves. And your intuition already knows that way.

So as we head deeper into the AI era, what's your vision for how leaders can come home to themselves? While still leading this amazing transformation?

Oh, I love that you said, you know, I, my heart like expands when I hear that and when I wrote that, cuz it's just so true. You know, in the age of AI and technology and efficiency, everything's going faster. So AI's going like this, a million miles a minute. And in order to hear your intuition, It's actually not— it's not slowing down, but it's actually being still. Even— and stillness doesn't mean sitting and meditating on a mountain. You could be stillness or mindful and present on a walk. I walk my dog every day on the beach, and that's our walking meditation time. And during the pandemic, when all the gyms closed, I used to paddleboard yoga, and we would do shavasana on the board, and I would just the stillness.

One of the wonderful books I love by Eckhart Tolle is Stillness Speaks, right? So in the world of fast-paced technology and innovation, every day a new AI tool being created, what we need to do now more than ever is take even what I take is 11 minutes. You could take 1 minute just to be still, just to breathe, In fact, in the book, I have a free meditation that you can get just to, and I lead you through a mindfulness just to breathe and tap in. And before you make a decision, ask yourself, does this feel expanded and open, or does it feel contracted and heavy? And I'm not saying, do you feel scared or do you not feel scared? Because anytime you do something new, there's going to be that fear that could actually be excitement in disguise. So it's not about that. It's about, does this feel like an opportunity? And I'm not saying only use feelings and don't use any logic. I'm saying there is a synergistic balance, like a beautiful cha-cha. You do quick, quick with AI, but then you do slow with intuition. Oh, I just made that up.

I love it. Quick with AI, but then you slow down and you interpret the data. And you say, does this feel right for our organization? Is this going to align with our team's culture? Is this congruent with the core values of our organization? Or like I mentioned with the example of getting rid of customer service, or is this gonna backfire on us? So if leaders do the dance properly, it's not going to be quick, quick, quick. Because when you go quick, quick, quick, what happens? You burn out, you get injured, and you have to clean up the pieces. But if you do quick, quick, slow, and you pause and you tune into your intuition, and you may come up with a simple question, is it expanded or is it contracted? Is it a yes or is it a no? Right? Everyone will have their own ways. And in the book, I have exercises so you can make it your own. And you don't even have to read the whole book. I did it day— 21 days.

So you could do one day and just that's it. You just practice that tool and you own that tool and that's it. But it's so important for us to slow in this fast-paced world, to just tune in before. Like yesterday, I had an opportunity to meet Oprah because I was on a waiting list for an event she was doing in Summerland. And I was like, I had to tune in. I said, should I go to the event even though I don't have a ticket and take hours and hours out of my study and my work, or do I stay home? And when I tuned in, it said stay home, right? You're going to meet her in another way, and that's not going to be the way. So making decisions, not from a place of let me just do it, because that's what I did in my old book. Confessions of an Adrenaline Addict.

I would just think that activity and busyness was productivity. But now all these divine downloads of teachings, I realize, okay, it's not about more. It's not about faster. It's not about acting, acting, doing. Sometimes it's about presencing. It's about being. It's about aligning. Is this true for my organization?

Wonderful. So for people who are listening, who want to connect with you, how would they find you?

My name is DeborahDeras.com. D-E-B-O-R-A-H-D-E-R-A-S.com. I'm sure it'll be in the show notes. Yeah. And you can get the free meditation, get the book, anything I can be of service to you.

Okay. Well, thank you so much. What I really love about you, Deborah, is how you're reframing intuition as the highest expression of our emotional intelligence and how it's all working together with AI. And we're getting that self-awareness and self-managing, just not reacting like that, slow down to really kind of capture where we need to be, who we want to show up as in the world. And thank you so much for being part of my podcast. I really appreciate this, and I look forward to working with you again in the future. And those of you who are listening, um, and if you think about somebody you know that might want to hear this, please forward this podcast to them and stay in touch and subscribe. So that I can keep giving you more and more fabulous conversations about this topic.

Thanks for listening.