What it takes to lead from clarity instead of control with Jaclyn Orent

Well, she had the dream job, great pay, great team, great city, and then she got fired. And instead of sprinting right back to the next opportunity, she actually stopped and she asked the question most leaders never slowed down long enough to ask. She asked, "Who am I outside of what everyone has told me to be?" Now that question took a decade to answer. Yes, a decade. And what came out on the other side is a leader who operates from a place of clarity, precision, and calm under real pressure. Today we get into how she got there and what the science says about why this works. Welcome to the NeuroLeadership Edge, the podcast where bold leaders share the pressure moments that change everything, and where we translate those stories into science-backed tools that you can use right now. I am Claire Hayek, NeuroLeadership expert, TEDx speaker, and the founder of Mind, Soul, Purpose team building. I spent more than 20 years leading high-stakes projects and teams under real pressure, Now, everything I build is designed so that pressure sharpens leadership instead of breaking it. The 3 things you are walking away with today: what the brain actually does when a leader stops reacting and starts accessing a wider co-leader field of intelligence; why the leaders who integrate both analytical thinking and deeper self-awareness—yes, self-awareness— consistently outperform those who rely on logic alone. And the third thing we're going to learn and we're going to tackle on today: what a decade of pressure, rebuilding, and integration teaches you about showing up with authority when it matters most. My guest today is Jacqueline Orent, co-founder, CEO, and system architect of Cultural Catalysts, connecting powerful leaders across organizations to create the cultural change none of them could create alone. She spent a decade doing the kind of inner work most leaders avoid. She went further than most people are willing to go, integrated what she found, and emerged with a level of clarity and precision that is generally rare. I mean, her story starts with her getting fired from a job she thought she wanted, and it runs through a 36-day water fast. Let's pause there. 36-day water fast. And it spans 10 years of rebuilding, studying, and integrating before she felt ready to bring any of it forward. That's the kind of journey that produces something real as far as I'm concerned. All right, Jacqueline, welcome to the show. How are you doing? Thanks so much for the great introduction. It's really beautiful to be seen in the mastery that's been required to bring forth what it is that I am here to do. Yes, and I love the word mastery because that's what it is. So, uh, let's dive right in. We, we don't have a lot of time, and I hate this, but You know what? We're going to make the most out of it. So you had the dream job, you know, top workplace in Austin. Everything was great. And then you got fired. So take us back. And what happened? I'm more interested to know what was going on inside of you when that really hit the reality of, oh my God. Yeah. Well, it's funny looking back on it that it was actually exactly what I was needing to go through. But at the time, I was actually realizing right before I got fired that what I was doing was not what I was wanting to do. Anymore. And I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I started to look and I literally thought I had a little bit longer. And it turns out it was almost imminent. Days later, after realizing that I didn't want to be doing that anymore, I was let go. And it was really shocking to me because I'd never been fired from a job ever. I've always been a top performer, especially in sales. And it was really dysregulating to me. I remember going home and I worked in the heart of Austin and I had this beautiful ability to take the bus to and home. Like it was a straight shot from where I lived to downtown. And I just remember crying on the bus. And then I got home and then there was a Post-it lady or a postwoman who like gave me a hug and I didn't even ask for the hug. And it really opened up a realm of possibility that I didn't know was there yet. But it was enough to stop and realize that I actually had no idea what I wanted. But I had some health challenges at the time and I had already gone the traditional Western medicine route and it hadn't worked. And so, I decided to not take my parents' advice, which included not telling them, which I've gone through multiple bouts of that. Which really, I know in psychology is individuation. Now, I was individuating from them. And in doing so, I went on a pathway of self-discovery that ultimately led to attend a 36-day water fast. And the reason why that's important, besides the fact that it's jarring and I don't recommend it, is that my life is really dictated by before the fast and after the fast. That's right. So hold on, let's pause there for a second. So 36-day water fast, just, just, I want our listeners to take that in. Okay, 36-day water fast. Tell me what was, what was like that? Like, what was, you know, what was happening? What were you looking for? And how do you, how do you do that? Yeah, totally. Briefly, like, take us there because we're all going, okay, tell me more. Well, I just want to acknowledge it's completely bonkers, like completely crazy. And I want to acknowledge everyone who's like completely in shock hearing that. It's oftentimes that I do need to give someone a second to be like, what? Because there's only a handful of people on the planet who've ever done that. And so it was a calling for me personally. What initially drew me to it was noticing I had a food addiction that was preventing me from healing my body. And then I got introduced to water fasting and found out that you could literally have a spiritual experience. And I grew up Jewish and had no perception of what a spiritual experience was at the time, but it was intriguing enough for me to go forward. And something that I learned about myself during the fast, and even after the fast, was that once I set my mind to something, I will go through absolutely anything to get it. And that's actually part of mastery, is having that one-pointed vision and taking every step in front of the other. And so I actually came up with my first purpose statement that I didn't even know what it was at the time, which was, I'm gonna heal my body to heal the world. And that is actually what drove the vision to be able to do that. It was for something greater than myself. And in doing so, that helped me overcome the inevitable challenges and hardships of overcoming, you know, the hungers of being human. I mean, that's actually very interesting because what really, you know, happens scientifically, more like biologically, I guess, in extreme states like that, like sustained fasting, is very significant when you look at it neurologically. You know, the default mode network, the part of the brain that it's constantly narrating your identity, your self-story, your worries, it actually quiets down. And when that quiets down, it just opens up a lot of clarity that, you know, we don't usually experience at that level in ordinary life. We might experience little glimpse of clarity here and there, but when you do that, This is what it does. It's drastic in a good way, right? It becomes like a more, you know, calmer signal. And actually, research on interoception, the brain's ability to read information from the body, confirms this, that leaders who develop access to that signal, which could be stimulated by fasting, right? They make faster and more integrated, more calm and clear decisions under pressure. And you know, you've spent years learning to, you know, learning all of that to bring that state back into daily leadership. And that integration work is amazing. And then I'm sure like you lived it, you're not here just theorizing about this, right? So what you described, you described this as a 10-year journey, just so we're clear, right? And I wanted just to kind of like dive deeper into this. So the world is full of leaders that, you know, we who had a breakthrough and we started teaching it the next week. You know, like, you sat with this for a decade before you built anything from it. So what did that decade actually require of you and what did that serve? Yeah, so I'm actually gonna relate this back to the default mode network and the ability to access the part of the brain that allows for quietness and calmness and really new ways of thinking. 'Cause ultimately what ended up happening during the fast I ended up experiencing profound states of inner peace that were including no thoughts. There were no thoughts, and I'm very chattery in there. So like, it— there was— it was complete stillness, and there weren't any stories or, uh, you know, just the usual chatter of being human. And what I had access to is actually direct knowing, uh, and what makes that experience unique, and one of the ways I can actually filter what is real love and what is not was because I got to access it for weeks on end, actually. So, people oftentimes in medicine ceremonies or in peak experiences, they'll have touches of the divine that show up in imperturbable peace or unconditional love or bliss states, right? These are things that are measured in consciousness science and dictated by certain subjective experiences and measurable. I actually got to experience those things for long periods of time. And actually access direct knowing. And I had never had anything like that before. And it also— one of the things that I got to experience during the fast was complete unconditional love for myself in a way that I had never had access to before. And I love my mother, but that's not something that I've learned from my family. And most notably, most people around us have absolutely no idea what real love is. And what I actually got to find during that experience— again, it wasn't through this like one intense moment of it— it was weeks long— that love is actually flowing through all of us at all times. It's actually our natural state, uh, and, uh, it completely reoriented me to reality. So my values completely changed after this experience. What was important to me changed after this experience. And ultimately, what I dedicated my life is completely different. And to give you an example of who I was before, because I was driven by money, and before— afterwards, I was dedicated to service. So why a decade? Well, what was happening? What's going on? So after the fast, I started going through extremes in behavior. So I started going from extreme unconditional love once I integrated food back into the picture, down into despair and wanting to literally kill myself in hours. So extreme bipolar, like, like symptoms. I didn't have the skill set at the time to integrate it. I actually thankfully got introduced to psilocybin. Just for a brief period of time. And I realized when on psilocybin that my mind was controlling me and I didn't have the skill set at the time for me to be the one who's watching and not be attached. And so I ended up asking for help. And that help has led to literally a decade worth of basically repetition of the same skill set over and over. And when we look at what mastery is, that's ultimately what it is. It's repetition of the same thing over and over. And most people aren't willing or have a purpose high enough to rep something long enough where it goes from intellectual understanding to actually being in your body. And my path required it. My path required me in my situation to learn how to let go of the mind, actually, and to allow for the new reality and the new programs to be implanted. And my main teachers have actually been Dr. David Hawkins primarily. So he was a physician, a psychiatrist, and eventually a consciousness researcher who created the first scale of consciousness that actually taught us what is the difference between power and what is the difference between force. And when I read that book, it was actually what I had to write a paper on to, to graduate the program that I went through to receive the help that I needed to right after the fast. I realized that the way that we lead and the way that we work is literally the difference between whether or not we add to life or take to life. And so I spent the last decade in dissolution of the things within this consciousness that are of force. That are of shame, of guilt, of fear, of despair, of anger, of desire, wanting. And, and those things are all associated with force. And you also have to understand that these things are culturally conditioned. So whether it be in the family structures that we're in, in the societal structures that we're in, even the workplace environments we're in, we are in a position right now where we are literally needing a new operating system, otherwise we are going to lead to our demise as a species at the moment. And so So I've spent the last decade basically going into dissolution constantly. And it took a long, long time for it to stabilize, where I've learned how to actually stabilize things from a place of love. So from a place of wholeness. And it is not what you think. It is the complete opposite and requires complete and utter surrender to something higher and greater than yourself. Okay. Wow. That's amazing. So much. Gold there. And I think that, you know, probably a lot of leaders and listeners, uh, you know, we listen to you talk and, you know, we, we spend all our career, uh, you know, leading from, uh, analytical side of the brain. And, you know, you, you're talking about love, you're talking about openness, you're talking about being at a whole different level of connection, uh, that most of us probably will never get to unless we put our mind to it or take it on as a a mastery of some sort. And, you know, most leaders, you know, we built careers on our analytical mind. So you sharing this is, I think, is very important. Maybe a lot of us might not understand exactly what that is, and it might sound like it's like theoretical. We kind of understand what she's talking about, but not really. I can definitely relate a little bit. I'm not comparing at all here because, I mean, I'm nowhere close to to what you did. But I do, if I can speak a little bit of my experience with fasting, I did a fast for 4 days, no water, no food. And that's, you know, in a whole different environment where you have to really, I had to really look at, I was alone, I couldn't speak, we couldn't like, we didn't have our phones, you know, we're safe, we're in a camp and everything, but you literally have to stop. And, you know, going back to the DMN, you know, that's exactly what happened. You get definitely insight, but I did this 4 years in a row, 4 hours, you know, 4 days every summer, 4 years in a row. And for me, the struggle was the first 2 years is like I was trying to fill the time with sleeping. Like I made the emptiness into a task because I couldn't let go. And it took me 2 years of repeating the process before I was able to open up and listen and be present without having to rush anything. And I remember that 4th year was so transformational. And actually I mentioned this in my upcoming book, Calm Under Fire, but I'll talk about this at the end of the episode if you want to know more. I'll be definitely sharing this. So back to you, Jacqueline. Now, you have been through obviously genuine pressure. Just listening to your story and the ups and downs and everything from the beginning till where you are today, what does pressure reveal in your opinion about a leader that nothing else can? Yeah, well, I mean, for me, when I hear, when you say what pressure reveals in a leader when nothing else can, is their willingness to be able to let go or not. There's the real frailty of being human and the limitations of the mind. And I think it'd actually be really helpful to go into the neurology here because the default mode network is the part of us that allows for open-mindedness. It puts our body into a place of rest and digest. And create something called PEA, which is the Positive Emotional Attractor. It's literally the positive energy that can move through the system all the way from the individual to the organization to the community and all the way up to the country and even global processes level. And so when we look at when a leader is under pressure specifically, and when you look at it within a greater systemic level, they are either letting the energy move through them or they're not. And oftentimes, if they don't know how to let the energy move through them, that's going to be a really strong period of suffering, which can often lead to a place that looks like either burnout or even, um, rock bottom. But one of the things that I want to talk about is rock bottom is actually really valuable in the sense that my teacher, Dr. David Hawkins, the way he describes rock bottom is that It basically is the programs that you are holding, the operating system that you're running within your nervous system got you there, right? And so, when you let yourself fully experience that period of rock bottom, what happens is those programs release because they are no longer needed anymore, which allows for new programs to get installed. And so, we can either go through that process by choice, and that's the skill that I've had to develop over the last decade, which is how to let go. And if you don't know how to do that, it can look like someone is literally losing it, or they get checked into a hospital, or they need help. And I did need help at a point in time. I'm no longer needing help because I have the skill set that I need to what I call be the captain of my consciousness. I can change the way I see reality no matter what my external circumstances are and find inner peace no matter what is going on from without me. And for me, and as a leader, and as someone who is like in some ways the leader of leaders, who's role modeling a new level of leadership, whether your listeners' minds understand it or not, is that we are able to move forward with precision and clarity when we're able to find that peace and calm no matter what is happening within the storm. I mean, I love, I love the way you put it, and, and I love the, the the redirecting in a way. You're redirecting that, that, you know, pressure where you're at and that experience that is completely probably destroying you inside out. You're redirecting it towards growth, towards spiraling up as opposed to spiraling down. And I often talk about this with the Pressure Proof Leadership System, uh, that I always talk about is that's what it is. You're building it, you're building it. You're not— you're always going to be under pressure, you're always going to be challenged, So what do you do with it? It's kind of like redirecting that jab. And it's like just redirecting the energy. And it's amazing how much there's out there. There's so much wisdom and so little is actually communicated to leadership. So I love the fact that we're talking about this. So the leaders in the audience, the listeners right now are navigating something really special nowadays. I mean, there's a lot of complexity right now, economic pressure, the world's gone wild. Team pressure, market uncertainty, disruption. I mean, AI, just, just AI, you know, people are just trying to navigate it. But the thing is, it's not about AI. I don't want to make this about the AI specifically, what's happening in the world right now, because surprise, surprise, is always going to be something, right? Unfortunately, that's life, right? So based on everything you have lived and learned, what do you most want our listeners to understand about leading through all of this? Yes. Yeah. So, I'm going to lean on Tony Robbins on this one because Tony Robbins says the secret to success is actually 80% psychology and 20% execution. But the problem is that our nervous systems are probably having that flipped. So, most of us are in a position where we're trying to figure it out or we're judging circumstances to be a certain way or we like them or we don't like them and we try to change them or fix them. And when our mind is focused on trying to fix or change something, or judging something in some way or some form, what happens is we're not actually accepting what's happening. We're not. We're trying to figure it out, which takes up mental energy. And that actually puts us in the task mode network. Yeah. The task mode network is the part of us that's actually trying to solve problems. And the problem with the task mode network is it's inherently depleting. So that's called NEA in the science of change terms, also known as intentional change theory, that it literally depletes the body and it, it halts change. So what that means is that we need to make sure that whatever it is that we're moving towards or accomplishing is actually something that gives us energy, which is the first step of change science. We have to connect to an ideal vision for ourself or a collective shared vision that gives us energy. And one of the things that I want to be really wary of, because I've seen this working with a founder who was by the surface working on something that was going to change the world, but his reason for doing it was actually not to change the world, it was to to prove something to himself. And so we need to be aware of why we're doing what we're doing and whether or not it's coming from a wound. And I can think of another founder that I talked to specifically. He was wanting to grow his business, and when I got into the why he was doing it, what he was actually doing was trying to make himself feel significant. And I wanted to— that is not enough to create change. What is going to be able to create change, and what got me through the inevitable challenges and the pitfalls and the and the struggle of the last decade was serving something greater than myself. I call it higher purpose. It's what is it you are dedicating to your life that's greater than you. So if we, if we bring this into Cultural Catalysts. Yes. Tell us a little bit about that before we jump into the rapid fire. Tell us a little bit about Cultural Catalysts and what are you trying to achieve with your co-founder, of course, with the other co-founders? Totally. So one of the things that I'm trying to achieve in the Cultural Catalyst Network is actually to apply 60 years of research that also intersects with consciousness science. Okay. So the last year I applied to grad school, what was called the most innovative university in the world, Minerva University, with a very specific thesis based off my private practice in which I saw developing the consciousness. So changing the way that viewers, like a leader, saw something, literally changing those sunglasses that they wore. And changing their behavior created exponential systemic change. And in applying to grad school and getting in, I got to meet two researchers. Number one was Richard E. Boyatzis, who spent the last 60 years studying change. And then the second one was Dr. Benjamin Hardy, the famous organizational psychologist. Both of them read my work, and they both did two different things. One, Boyatzis was like, you are correct. What you are saying is called the emergent field in what's called intentional change theory. And then Ben was like, I'm all about the nonlinear. Don't read anything else besides my my science is going, right? And so what I did was I actually ended up letting go of grad school and decided to apply the research that already exists on how cultural level change actually happens. And one of the things that we need to make sure as we create cultural level change is making sure that we have a collective shared vision that does something called PEA. It creates the positive emotional attract. And for something to create PEA, it has to be greater than oneself. It has to be focused on giving instead of getting. It has to be focused on service instead of taking. And in doing so, it gets us out of our inherent selfishness and purposelessness and helps us live with totality and serve from a place of whole servingness. And so for the people who are Cultural Catalysts and listening to this, first of all, it's designed for you to say, hey, I am that. Thank you for giving me a title. And the second thing is, by identifying as one, each and every one of us has our unique contribution to what we want our culture and our society to look like. So that's called a personal ideal vision for oneself. And then when you bring those people together, what it does, it creates a collective shared vision. And what the research shows us on how change happens is if there is a shared vision that groups people behind it, kind of like I Have a Dream, okay, he paints a picture for a dream that people were like, yeah, I want to part of that that feels good, that arouses me in a way that my, my, uh, default mode network turns on. Yeah, yeah. I'm able to collaborate, I'm able to work with others, and I want to be able to move this thing forward. And so what we're actually doing is bringing together people and leaders, specifically proven leaders who identify as cultural catalysts, who have a vision for the culture that they want to create, bringing them together and basically making it so that their relationships actually serve as the fuel which is the neurobiological fuel to sustain change efforts to actually create a new culture, which is why we call it the non-negotiable infrastructure. I love this. This is so interesting. And I will be sharing a link on, you know, basically Jacqueline's LinkedIn so you can connect with her and learn more about it. I'm sure her LinkedIn says a lot about it as well. So let's jump into the rapid-fire. I'm going to ask you one question. Totally. What do you know now that you wish you had known at the start of your 10-year journey? Short answer. To bring my family closer, not push them away. Wow. Okay. I didn't expect that one, but thank you. That's a very good one. Before we close, a couple of things. If you're leading a team and you want to know exactly what pressure is costing you right now, you can take the Pressure and Performance Scorecard. You're going to see the QR code here. I'll also include it in the description. And if you're an individual reader, founder, solopreneur, And you just need something, some tools to help you reset pressure when it hits. You can download the Pressure Reset scripts. Again, you can scan the QR code on screen. And I will also leave the link in the description, clairehayek.com/reset. Finally, I'm writing a book. I haven't been announcing it that much, but it's called Calm Under Fire. And it's coming out in September. That's crazy. And but yes, it's happening. And I'm building a small group of senior leaders who will read it before it launches and help shape it. If that is you, I would love to have your voice and feedback in it. And Jacqueline, I would love for you to be in that club as well. ClaireHague.com/book. And you can just— it's a quick 2-question, put in your name and click send, and I'll send you the information. Now, Jacqueline, thank you so much. This conversation is exactly what this show exists for. Thank you for bringing it all to us here. Well, just something quick before we wrap up. Any last words? Yeah, I want to mention that this word purpose gets thrown around a lot. And one of the things that I want to disprove about purpose is that it's something that you need to achieve out in the future. That is not what purpose is. Purpose is actually found in the present moment, in your darkness, in the parts of you that you don't want to look at, in the parts of you that you are avoiding, in the things that are uncomfortable that you never want to accept. Your purpose is actually found within the totality of your experience of being alive. I love it. I love this. Jacqueline Oren, co-founder and CEO of The Cultural Catalysts. You can find her on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/JacquelineOren. So simple. And we'll also leave it in the description. And to everyone listening, if this episode moved you in any way, share it with a leader in your world. This is why we have these conversations and Make sure to subscribe to the NeuroLeadership Edge. Every subscriber helps the show grow, reach further, and bring you the caliber of guests just like Jacqueline today. And we bring in the conversation that actually move the needle. So do subscribe. It does make a difference. As always, lead boldly, stay human, and turn every challenge into a gift. And see you all next week. Bye. Bye everyone. Bye Jacqueline. Thank you for having me.