S1E041 When Your Body Speaks: From Illness to Alignment with Trina Dawn

Welcome back to the Love Inspired Leadership Podcast. I am so excited to bring you my guest today, and I feel honored because this woman not only speaks her message, her living legacy, she lives it, and she embodies it. So, I'm honored to bring you my guest, and the theme for this podcast is the power shift from performance to embodied leadership, which is my song. So, honestly, Sarah, we're going to dance and we're going to sing together today with this incredible intention to bring some, some insights, some knowledge, and some wisdom to our audience. So, let me introduce you to Sarah. So, Sarah Doyle is an executive leadership coach. She's also an incredible speaker and founder of Coach for Success. She brings over 20 years of experience in corporate communications and love-inspired leadership. A former executive and an internationally accredited coach, Sarah helps high-performing women step into senior leadership with grounded presence, strategic influence, and being deeply human, that deep humanity for the world. Oh my goodness, I love it. And it's through her signature leadership presence method, to which she has trademarked. She equips leaders to inspire trust, shape culture, and lead from embodied inner authority. I mean, I think we're waltzing already. I, you haven't even spoken a word, but hold on to the audience here. Okay, so I want to let you know, anybody who's listening here, if you're a woman leader seeking advancement or even promotion, and you're ready to shift from proving yourself through performance to leading with a calm confidence and embodied power and influence. This episode is designed exactly for you, and it just may give you the keys to that infinite abundance and possibility for you in your leadership as a love inspired leader, so let's dive in. Okay, Sarah, thank you for saying yes to be on my podcast. I am so honored.

Well, the feeling is mutual, Carolyn, and I'm so honored to be here. Thank you for inviting me, and, and for this time with your listeners, it's going to be really incredible.

I know it, I know it. So, let's, let's, let's just dive into the center, shall we? So, what is, what is it that inspired you? My business is called the Inspired Connection, so it's all about inspiration for me, so the first question I have for you is, what inspired your transition from corporate communications and executive roles into this executive leadership coaching,

So like any buddy who's gone through a major career transition, there's there's always a story behind it, and you know mine starts with climbing that corporate ladder for more than 20 years, and yet you've been there too, and you know I was one of those young women who came out of university very keen to grow, to learn, to develop, I absorbed everything around me, and I was, I was just driven, I was high performing, high achieving, and I took every opportunity that came my way, and you know that operating system took me pretty far, took me pretty far through my career for 20 years, and then I became, when I stepped into more senior leadership, that very operating system started to become a problem because I kept overachieving, I kept over functioning, and it was hard for me to juggle my new role as a people leader that nobody had truly shown me how to do. With my role of, you know, meeting the expectations and achieving results, and, and delivering the output, which I was already exceptional at.

Yes,

And I found it very challenging to go through this period of growth alone, without mentorship, without guidance, without support, I had no playbook, and you know, to say that it was rocky would be an understatement, because I just did what I'd always done best. I worked harder, I doubled down on how hard I worked, I worked longer hours, I just hustled and grind it right, and I mean we've all been there, because that's that's all we knew, that's all we knew how to do, and so when I finally, you know, there was literally a physical, mental, emotional, spiritual collapse, right, there's often a crisis point that you have to come to before there's a change, and so for me, despite all of the signs and signals that something needed to shift and change, I was really exceptionally good at putting them off and saying nope, I'll just push harder, I'll just work harder, I'll just work longer, and the crisis came, and it forced a stop. Yeah, it physically forced a stop, and that was the moment when my life shifted, because you know, I'm very fortunate that I'm sitting here now, and that I was able to, through that, really come back to who I am, or right, oh, but if it hadn't been for that collapse, if it hadn't been for falling down and the crisis, I wouldn't be sitting here in front of you today as an executive leadership coach.

No, and you wouldn't be living your calling, living your dream, and living your living legacy, you'd be still forcing, pushing, trying to keep it all together, exhausted.

Yes, and getting further and further away from who I was as a human being, and as you know, I think there's something funny that happens, and I don't know the moment it happens, but I'm sure you feel this too. Is that work becomes an identity?

Well it was

It becomes

It was entire identity,

Identity

It was everything. I thought it was pretty hot stuff. I thought that you know, I did keynotes, I did so many things, traveled, speaking, training, consulting, corporate everything, and I didn't even realize how exhausted I was until my breaking point, because there is one, you know, it's either physical. Mine, mine was simply a very devastational situation in my life that I knew I had to shut everything down within two weeks and let it all go. It was the hardest decision I've ever made in my life, still to this day, though, at the one time, and it was a family member that I had to make a decision, and, honestly, Sarah, I understand intimately with precise intrinsic compassion for that moment for you, because it's when you face that what I call moment in time that you have to take that hard right, you know, things you cannot, you cannot do things the way you have before, but it's so scary because you don't know any other way, it's it's this position of complete surrender. So I want to let the audience know that if you are a high capacity, high performing woman, and any of Sarah's story that spoke to you, I want you to realize that that kind of functioning is not sustainable, and that either your body will break down or something in the universe, God, whatever, will create a situation that will invite you to make that decision, because that's not why how we're meant to live, that's not who we are. What Sarah's talking about is now she's in this place that she gets to be who she authentically is, she gets to just simply be who she is, not the forcing, not the pushing, not the exhaustion, not hitting those targets, not making things work. She's allowing them to flow and trust and have faith in herself and her mission, her purpose. Passion, because I know that's what you're living. Am I right?

Absolutely. And you know the breaking point. It's interesting when you talk about that, because we often think about the physical breaking point, that's the health crisis. We think about the mental breaking point, that's, you know, the depression or any other mental health illness that you might encounter, we think about the emotional breakdown, you know, like all of the negative emotions and how they take over, but we never talk about the spiritual breakdown, and when I talk about spiritual, what I'm talking about is your human spirit? It is who you are. It is your essence. It is

It's the humanness, it's, it's the love, it's that's why I'm so passionate about this podcast, because to be a love-inspired leader, first we, we need to find our way back home to love ourselves, and you lost that connection with that in who you are, so you navigate it back, and the love in your life did too. I guarantee you, with your kids, with your husband, with your extended family, with the communities that you serve, and it's a very spiritual, sacred honoring of oneself, and it's something that is so beautiful. So, those of you struggling right now, I just want you to know that you can listen to that internal voice of wisdom, because it's there waiting for you. It's calling you, and that's what Sarah's talking about here, and it's. it. it can't be heard if you're so busy, if you're so busy doing and forcing and pushing, which I mean, I used to feel like I was a machine. I don't know about you, sir. I mean, what I used to accomplish was probably three people, and then still sell spreadsheets for my kids' activities, and still everything work, I mean, so I'm just inviting the audience to realize, and really just take a breath right now. Sarah and I will with you, and an exhale, because there is another way. So, tell us about your signature leadership presence method, because I'm going to love this.

So, first, I just like to invite you to open your mind to a different way of leading. It's a model that hasn't been promoted to us, it hasn't been taught to us. I believe that there is absolutely a space for it in the corporate world. I believe there is a need, and I, I believe that leadership in 2026 must meet two fundamental human needs: safety and belonging, and this all comes from a place of love, you know. If we look at at life as there's, there's really two primary emotions, there's love and there's fear. Well, how much of what we're doing today is based on fear? There's a lot, like when I look back at my corporate journey, 95% of what I was doing was based on fear, fear of job loss, fear of loss of reputation, fear of disappointment, fear of not getting promoted, fear of being perceived as not being strategic enough, or whatever it was. Right, well, that's completely shifted, because now I'm operating from a place of love. I'm operating totally differently. My frequency has completely shifted, and so has my leadership. Now, my leadership is different. I don't have a global team anymore. Well, not in. Same context, I have contractors globally, but not like a global team that that reports to me with inside an organization, but the the leadership that is required of us today, it requires us to step into our humanness, and it requires us to embody our authenticity, and authenticity isn't just this term that we throw out there, and I see a lot of time, and I get upset when, when I see it on LinkedIn, and people are, you know, poo-pooing this idea of authenticity. Authenticity isn't just showing up and doing whatever you think and feel, authenticity is literally doing the inner work to peel back all the layers of the onion to who the heck you are at the core, and that's authenticity.

Yes, it is.

It's doing the inner work first, and I think I believe that as leaders, it is our duty to do that work, because we've got a lot of leaders out there, Carolyn, who are leading from a place of fear and control to ego, and it's a problem.

Well, it's a massive problem, and you and I have the same vision, the same mission, the same purpose, the same passion, because I'm here to change all that, and so are you. And the truth is, it's completely possible. And this world, how it's going to change is having women make that decision to come back home to who they are, and that is a love-inspired leader, because things happen lighter, easier, simpler, decisions are in alignment with what matters most, not only to you, but your team, your family, the level of joy that you have the honor to experience, you get to stay in that lane of joy and contribution and service, and the impact you will have. There's no greater impact than love in this world, none, zero. And people feel it. You become this radiant light of love in the world, and that is what's needed right now, corporate, and it's needed everywhere in my books with founders, leaders of all forms. So I see we're dancing, it's more than a waltz. I think it's a jig now. I think that we're over jigging, but here's the truth: the audience needs to know is this is completely possible, and the journey there is not as scary as you think it will be, because you can navigate your way through it with spiritual, sacred honoring of oneself, and so Sarah, can you give me a few pieces of your, your framework, because I want to give them something that they can take away here, one little gem that they can can weave in their own life that'll make a difference.

Well, I'm going to weave what you just said into my framework, because you said something really powerful about when we come into alignment, and I want to invite the listeners to think about how they're doing things right now, and it's coming likely from a very masculine energy of pushing and forcing. Okay, and I want to invite them to come home to themselves, like you said, and really understand it is okay. It is more than okay to lean into your feminine energy, and I had to break free of the performance of being, because I worked in male-dominated industries, I had to really perform that male energy, and when I came home to being female, I found flow, I found connection, I found alignment, I found beauty, I found joy, I found all of.. I found softness again, and I want people to see that you can have the juxtaposition of being soft and powerful at the same time. Okay, so in my framework, it's all about finding your power, it's all about your signature leadership presence and power. We redefine that power is not about control, power is not about dominance.

Nope.

Okay, we find our power, we find it with inside of us, and we're no longer outsourcing and looking for it externally. That inner authority, it's deep inside, and this inner authority is what makes all the difference in who you are as a leader. So, that's the, you know, the identity shift is one, and that's deep. The second part is how you communicate externally, right? So, I'm not talking about surface level communication, I mean, like inter. Personal communication, like we go deep into emotional intelligence and emotional regulation. And then the third part is about your presence as a leader. What is your grounded presence? What, how are you being present in life? Because if all you're doing is rushing from one meeting to the next, and you're bringing

No, let alone yourself, let alone yourself. And so, I love it. I have the aim high method. The first phase is truth, the second one's alignment, and third one's radiance. Like you and I are dialed in, Sarah. I absolutely love it. And so I just want to invite the audience to, you know, listen to this again if you need to, because there's so many gems here for you to receive. And also reach out to Sarah. Now, Sarah, you have a gift for my audience, right?

I do, and I would really love it if they would utilize this gift. It is intended to support them in their development and in their evolution as leaders. It's a two minute leadership audit. It is online, it is available right now, and you will get immediate results that are customized to your response, and then the the option to get a deeper debrief with me if you so choose.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. And so, where do they go for that? Just for the audio listeners, here,

The audio listeners, it is going to be at site dot coach for success.ca backslash leadership dash audit dash page,

Perfect. It'll be in the show notes too, just for the audience listening right now and watching on YouTube. So, Sarah, I want to thank you for your wisdom. I understand you, I know you. I'm looking in the mirror, and I'm so proud of you. You are an extraordinary human being, and you are making such a massive difference in the world. And I just, I respect you, and I have just so much inspiration from what you've said. So, thank you, and your tools, your signature leadership presence method. Please, audience, reach out to Sarah. And once again, I want to let the audience know that my gift to you is my 21 day sacred insight journey of living above the line, your pathway to purpose, presence, peace, and your incredible, infinite abundance within your potential as an authentic identity that's calling you forward as a love-inspired leader. So, thank you, Sarah, for being on my podcast. You're coming back, I'm warning you right now. We're going to have another conversation, so thank you so much. And thank you to our audience who has joined us here today? And I look forward to seeing you, and seeing you next time on the Love Inspired Leadership Podcast. Take good care.