Danielle McGeough: How to Bridge the Gap Between Intention and Action

Episode recap:

Marcel featured Danielle McGeough, Ph.D, an award-winning professor and transformation strategist, who shared her personal journey and expertise in helping individuals achieve balance through her Rise Ritual method. The discussion explored causes and solutions for workplace burnout, the importance of personal rituals and mindfulness, and strategies for maintaining presence and intentionality in leadership, concluding with recommendations for listeners to create their own personal rituals.

Bio:

Danielle McGeough, Ph.D. is an award-winning professor, transformation strategist, and host of the top 1.5% podcast Plan Goal Plan. She helps high-performing women and teams bridge the gap between intention and action through her RISE Ritual Method. Danielle blends research, identity work, and intentional planning to help ambitious people feel bold at work and present at home. 

Quotes: 

• "I help people and teams operate in alignment. I help them do it in a way that really connects them to their values and to their mission." 
• "If you are someone who feels like you are living on autopilot, more habits aren't going to help you, because habits are designed with the intention to eventually become unconscious." 
• "When individuals can operate from a space of well-being, the impact we can have on the collective is so much stronger—but the collective work has to happen." 

Takeaways: 

• Reflect on whether you’re experiencing burnout, demoralization, or just feeling stuck, and name it clearly to better address it. 
• Start each day by asking yourself which three things would make you feel satisfied by the end of the day. 
• Design a short personal ritual that helps you shift into your desired state, using sensory cues like a cozy blanket or a candle. 
• Before meetings or stressful moments, pause for a deep breath and set an intention for how you want to show up. 

Timestamps: 

[00:00] Welcome and Introduction 

[03:16] Introducing Danielle McGeough 

[06:42] Helping People and Teams Work in Alignment 

[15:26] Why Policy Decisions Shape Workplace Culture 

[17:43] The RISE Ritual Method Explained 

[20:10] Designing Rituals for Desired States 

[22:52] Micro Rituals That Shift Your Daily Presence 

[26:36] Rethinking the Myth of Work Life Balance 

[34:51] Final Invitation to Create Your Own Ritual 

[35:57] Where to Connect with Danielle  

Conclusion: 

Focus isn’t a fixed trait—it’s a skill that can be built with practice, even in a world full of distractions. People who achieve meaningful results often do so by creating clear systems that help them avoid busywork and stay centered on what matters most. Learning to say "no" to lesser tasks makes space for bigger, more important progress. And it doesn’t require massive effort—starting with just a minute each day can lead to lasting improvement. Small, steady actions often make the biggest difference. 

Links/Resources: 

Website: https://www.plangoalplan.com/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61567778897663 

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-mcgeough-phd-b673334 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plangoalplan

Transcript

Marcel Schwantes 00:00 

Hey, it's Marcel. I am geeked up about my new book that just got released worldwide. If you haven't heard it's called Humane Leadership: Lead with Radical Love, Be a Kick-Ass Boss. Now, if you love the podcast, you're gonna love the book. I spent several years researching the best skills and behaviors of people leaders that engage employees and drive results through a humane approach of empowering humanity, developing trust and getting the best out of people. It's out now. Get it wherever books are sold. Humane Leadership: Lead with Radical Love, Be a Kick-Ass Boss. Check the link in the show notes and grab your copy.  

Welcome to the Love in Action podcast. I'm your host, executive coach, speaker and author, Marcel Schwantes. I believe that when we show up with our full humanity to work and lead from a place of love, joy, purpose, care and inclusion. It's going to make a radical difference in your leadership, your business and your bottom line. This is a show about actionable, practical love, the verb as a leadership and business strategy. Let's get rolling. Hey, gang, yeah, welcome back to the show. You know, we talk so much about leadership, right? And sometimes I neglect other topics within the leadership realm, like, for example, I mean, how do we lead with lead ourselves with more balance, more better planning and having more intentionality, especially during the change process, because change is constant, right? So we're going to shift gears a little bit and kind of get away for one episode from the typical leading of teams, leading people format, to talk about leading ourselves to be more productive, more focused, more intentional in how we manage ourselves in our days, right and so. And to do that, I'm bringing in a first time guest, Danielle McGeough. And she is an award-winning professor. She is a Transformation Strategist. She's also the host of the top 1.5% podcast ranked in the 1.5 range, which is even a little higher than the Love in Action podcast, by the way. So I'm thrilled about that. Her podcast is called the plan, goal plan, that guy gives you a little hint about maybe some of the things we're going to be talking about today. Danielle helps high performing women in teams bridge the gap between intention and action through her rise ritual method we're going to get into that don't worry. Danielle blends research, identity, work and intentional planning to help ambitious people like you feel bold at work and present at home and Dr. Danielle McGuire now joins us. Welcome to the show, Danielle. 

Danielle McGeough 03:16 

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. 

Marcel Schwantes 03:20 

Me too. We're gonna have a blast. All right, we start like this. You ready? 

Danielle McGeough 03:24 

Let's do it. What's your story? Ooh, my story? Well, you know what? I'll start out and say that even though I'm Dr McHugh, I was not the Smart kid growing up. I was the weird kid. Almost all my report cards describe me as unique. And so when I was 20, and I told all of my friends and family that I was going to be a professor, they were like, Hmm, okay, all right, here we go. And I don't know that at 20, I fully understood what I was community myself too. But you know, I did the thing. I got my masters, I got my PhD, I did the academic job search, which is a slog, by the way, and I got my dream job and earned tenure. And when I was about 35-ish, all of a sudden, I had earned tenure. I just had my first kiddo. My second kiddo was on the way, and I should have been elated. Like my entire adult life I've been working towards this goal, and a goal that a lot of people I don't think, really thought I'd be able to accomplish, and I did it, and I just felt flat. I felt a little bit lost, and so I had no idea what I wanted to do next. I felt really disconnected from myself, and I was also dealing with postpartum anxiety, which probably didn't help, yeah, and I actually had a student give a presentation on decorative planning as a way to help manage your anxiety around your to do list. And I thought, Hmm, I'm not very good at doodling, but I can handle stickers and pretty markers, so let's do this. And when I would wake up in the middle of the night from anxiety, I would sit down with all my stickers. And I realized as I was doing that that I wasn't just managing my time. I was actually collecting a lot of data on myself, and I was learning about myself, and I was reconnecting with what gave me energy and what lights me up, and what, you know, what I have fun doing as an adult. And it was, it was a process that really made planning personal revelation. And then, you know, from there I started taking that work, to my students, to my colleagues, and from there it just kind of spread. And here I am, 

Marcel Schwantes 05:48 

great, yeah, then a great segue to my next question. And by the way, before I ask, what's your PhD in? 

Danielle McGeough 05:55 

What was your it's in communication and media in a funky little field called performance studies. So it's, it's almost like theater meets anthropology meets communication. And so I was, I was really interested in, how do we use creative, fun, funky ways of communicating to engage in problem solving and personal and social development? 

Marcel Schwantes 06:18 

That is, that sounds fascinating, the way that you just described the blend of all three things, Wow, I've never heard of PhD with that concentration. Okay, so you know how podcast host year one, we read people's bios, but then it's like, okay, I read the bio, but what does Danielle really do? So how would you explain it in 

Danielle McGeough 06:42 

your own words? You know, I think that the best way that I can explain it is that I help people and teams operate in alignment. So a lot of times, you know, for example, in teamwork, right? Working in organizations, we have these strategic plans, we have goals, and sometimes translating that to what that looks like in practice every single day, can get a little bit muddy, and it can feel like, oh, we sit down and we do the strategic plan work, but, you know, it sits on a website somewhere, instead of really being in action or helping us discern and make decisions using it. And I think the same thing happens in our personal life, right? We might sit down and we make some goals, and then, you know, three months later, we're like, oh, what goals did I set? I haven't made any progress. And also, like, I think that we tend to think about goals somewhat narrowly, and so I help people set goals, and I help them translate those goals into plans that they can put into action on a daily basis. But probably even more than that, I help them do it in a way that really connects them to their values and to their mission. 

Marcel Schwantes 07:59 

The first thing that pops into my head when I hear you say that the work that you do is sort of alignment, right? Is the opposite of that is so often, even me as a coach, I find that people are misaligned in the work that they're doing, to the point where, if they're operating in misalignment, not through their value system. There's no congruence. They're going to burn out eventually, eventually. So maybe that, that would be a good talking point for us to, I don't know, to dive into, is, is this whole because I'm looking around and all my clients at the highest level, the sea level, or they're coming to me and they're freaking out because they can't even there. There's so many things going around with outside of their outside of their control. People are having crisis, personal crisis. There's personal tragedies, right? And all this is affecting how people perform in the workplace trauma, and I don't know, you know, death in the family, etc., and so it's all coming down on these high level leaders that don't know how to navigate that change and anxiety and uncertainty, right? And so they're burning out. Things are just misaligned. I don't know what. So walk us through, yeah, I mean, what's really going on these days? And why are we burning out? 

Danielle McGeough 09:33 

Who? So, you know, one of the things that I've really noticed is that a lot of people are describing they're saying, Oh, I'm burnt out. And sometimes I think they legitimately are, but I also think that we need some nuance around our language, of like feeling stuck and I love too, that you mentioned that there's this sense that there's all these things happening that are outside of our control. And. One of the things that I think is really important is, how do we activate agency, you know, how do we even in circumstances that we don't feel like we have control? How do we find the cracks, the fissures, the spaces that are our decisions to make, that are within our control, that are in our sphere of control? And I think that that's really important. And so, you know, to kind of go back to burnout is what. I actually had a student give a presentation in May, and as she was talking, she said, burnout and demoralization aren't the same thing. And I was like, What? What? And I this kind of sent me into a spiral, and I started looking up research. And there is a difference between burnout, demoralization and disengagement. And so burnout really is when we're like in busy culture, and it's, you know, this idea that we're supposed to work 80 hours a week, and, you know, we have decision fatigue, and we're exhausted. And the solution to that sometimes calls for slower paces. It calls for prioritizing rest. But the thing that's hard is demoralization is more like, Hey, I kind of know what I need to do, but the structures and the systems and the policies at place, they are preventing me from doing the work that I know would make me feel fulfilled and that I'm finding that a lot of people are really connecting, and they're going, Oh, I'm burnt out and I'm demoralized, or I was burnt out. But I actually think it's demoralized. It's that I feel flat, it's that I feel empty. It's that the work I'm doing is just like, Oh, I'm like, stuck in the trenches of busy work and not doing anything that actually is making a difference in the world. 

Marcel Schwantes 11:46 

So we're whose responsibility does that fall under? Is it the individual contributor, who may, who might, might, might say, well, the only way out of this whole hum, kind of, you know, routine existence is if I change how I change my mindset around, okay, I'm going to come in with more of a positive attitude, and I'm going to maybe create some new habits to get me more in a state of joy. And then you get other people say, no, no, that's the environment, that's the workplace. That's the manager's responsibility to create that kind of atmosphere for people to flourish at work. So where does the burden of responsibility fall on? 

Danielle McGeough 12:34 

Ooh, that's such a good question. And I think that my response is both. And so I will say this. I believe that the self and the social are intimately and intricately connected. And so I think, given wherever you are to recognize where are those spheres of control, and sometimes that's all located in the self, right? What I can do is I can show up and I can lead where I'm at in my job, from a space of possibility, from a space of agency, from a space of like, you know, curiosity and you know, you and I had a conversation recently, and I think that trust, that you give trust. Yeah, before you expect people to earn it, you show up and you give trust. So I think that there are these things that as individuals, we can absolutely do in there, within our spheres of control, also sometimes with depending on your position, you know, you might be in a sphere of control, where what you can do is impact, policies, processes, procedures, so that they are done in more empowering ways. Yeah, and, and so I think, and I think that sometimes in order for us to do the deep problem solving, the adaptive work for the wicked problems that we face today. I do think that oftentimes we need to be well first, so that we like so that we have the clarity of mind to be able to make the decisions that need to be made. And so I think that when individuals can operate from a space of well being, that the impact that we can have on the collective is so much stronger, but the collective work has to happen. 

Marcel Schwantes 14:25 

Yeah, yeah. I'm tracking with both and myself, because I, you know, I help develop cultures, right? And sometimes cultures are misaligned, where it's not so much that people are overworked, it's not so maybe, maybe it is, but I'm saying that's not the that's not the only reason people are burning out is not because of the overload or workload. Sometimes it's going back to the misalignment, the. What they're doing doesn't fit with what they're good at, perhaps their strengths, right? What they bring to the table and what brings them energy every day, what keeps them engaged? And so leaders then have to figure out how to realign to create the better, a better balance between people and the work that they do, I don't know, what are your thoughts on that 

Danielle McGeough 15:26 

absolutely, you know, my husband is a department head at a university, and at universities, it's really interesting, because some people think of administrative roles as administrative roles. Yeah, other people see it as leadership, and I can tell the difference based on how they lead. You know, if they're leading or are they just administering, right? And, you know, he attended a meeting with a group of people, and he was like, I was the first person that brought up faculty. He's like, so we sat in these meetings and we were talking about efficiencies and bottom dollars and, like all of that stuff, and no one had mentioned the people that I feel like I oversee and serve. And so, I mean, sometimes you know, when you walk into those meetings and you're the one that is able to offer that, that does it's contagious. Then people are like, oh, oh, yeah. Actually, I've been thinking about this, and you change the shift in the culture just by being the person that brings up some of those things. But you know, I do think that there are, there are a lot of different policies, for example, that can, you know, I think about, I've done a lot of research around gender and the workplace, and, you know, having policies that take into consideration that remote work might be needed for parents and caregivers is wildly important. I think that, as we're seeing kind of this, there's a resistance to, you know, going back to the office. And I think people, there's like, claims that, like, oh, you know, people are lazy. I think that a lot of it is because people have found that that's a healthier way for them to function. And so, you know, how do you also have policies, though, that that create the culture that you want. And so individually, I always think, how do I show up today in a way that is going to create the culture that I want to be in? But then I also do think on a larger level, how do we everything that every decision that we should make should be made with the intent to produce the culture that we want. Oh, 

Marcel Schwantes 17:43 

it's beautiful. Okay, I want to go back to just, just kind of get digging into the work that you do to better understand how you help people. So I mentioned the rise ritual method walk us through that. 

Danielle McGeough 17:57 

Okay, so the rise ritual method is, is a is a method for creating a ritual. And before I kind of jump into what that looks like, I'll say that there's so much talk about habits and routines, and I love habits, and I love routines, but if you are someone who feels like you are living on autopilot, more habits isn't going to help you, because habits are designed with the intention to eventually become unconscious, right? So, like, that's what habits are supposed to do, and routines are really just a stack of habits, right?  

Marcel Schwantes 18:32 

In other words, muscle memory kicks in your brain that trains itself, and then it becomes something almost you do it in your sleep, 

Danielle McGeough 18:40 

absolutely. And so people will come to me and they'll be like, oh, I want to be more present at home. Like, what are the habits that I need to instill? And I'm like, you don't want habits. You want you want practices that are and then rituals. So just kind of like a habit is a behavior that's designed to eventually become unconscious, and a routine is a series of those, I think about a practice is something that it's like a habit, where we want it to remain conscious, and then a ritual is something that is not only meant to remain we're supposed to remain conscious as we do that, it's also designed to transition us from one state to another. So if we think about, you know, a lot of our experiences with rituals are, oftentimes, I like to say religion or sports. You know, they do that really well. So we might think about even something like a marriage ceremony as being an important cultural ritual. Well, you walk into that and you are single, and you leave and you're married and you have to file your taxes, different, right? So it actually transforms who you are. And what we can do is we can engage in both personal rituals as well as collective team rituals that help us transition to the state that we want to be in. And so the rise ritual method really helps people do that. It stands. Or reflect intentional planning, sensory activation, which is wildly important and embody the story. 

Marcel Schwantes 20:06 

So it starts with the reflection. 

Danielle McGeough 20:10 

Yeah, so I want people to reflect what is your current state and what is the state that you want to move to, and then to make sure that you design your ritual with that in mind. So for example, I like where some people might say that they have a morning routine. I have a morning ritual, and it is really designed. I wake up with busy brain. I my brain is it's just ticking, and I actually need to calm down and ground myself before I start my day so that I can be more present. And so for me, designing my morning ritual isn't about, you know, doing Hill sprints and jumping in an ice bath. It's, it's because those things would probably just amp me up. I need to bring myself down. And so it's journaling. It's a cozy blanket. But you know, my husband, he wakes up and he's really groggy, and he needs, he needs to really activate some energy. And so for him, he's going to need to design his ritual and activate his senses in a way that does produce more energy. We're like for me, it's more about calming down, and so we reflect, and we really name that. And then we had do some intentional planning. How long is your ritual going to be? They don't have to be long. I can do mine in 15 minutes. I also have a cozy, hour long version, um, but then I also have a quick like, oh crap, I slept in. Here's my one minute, one minute version. And you know, so when are you going to start your ritual? When are you going to end it? Where are you going to do it? Are you in an environment that elicits that desired state? And then, like I said, as we're doing this, we're also activating our senses, because that sensory activation, really, you know, that helps us remain present, right? If you're, oh, I lit a candle, or I'm under a cozy blanket, that's right, how do we use our entire body make it an embodied experience? And, you know? And then from there, how are we going to embody the story? If my desired state is that I'm calm and I'm grounded. What does that mean moving through the rest of the day? How do I how do I, even when the ritual is over, how do I embody that, that identity that I want to carry the rest of the day? 

Marcel Schwantes 22:31 

It almost sounds to me like this is a perfect roadmap for self care, at least, to begin your day with reflection and slowing down and building self awareness. How much of this is mindfulness rituals? 

Danielle McGeough 22:52 

Ooh, that's a really great question. I think that if we lose the mindfulness it comes, you know, we have the phrase an empty ritual. And I think that that oftentimes means that our ritual has slept like slipped into routine, and we've lost the mindfulness of it, yeah, and, and I really do think that one of the coolest things about ritual is the way that evokes mindfulness. It um, so for example, in the workplace, I have a workday startup and a workday shutdown routine, but I also have all these little micro rituals that I use throughout the day. So before I go into meetings, especially if they're going to be contentious ones, yeah, I might just take a deep breath and go like, how do I want to be? How do I want to show up in this meeting? Before I get on podcast episodes, right? I just do a quick deep breath. And I think, you know, I kind of ask God the universe, you know, whatever your thing is, i i Take a deep breath. And I think, you know, help me inspire and be inspiring. And just those little things, they shift the way that we're able to show up. They pause us, and it helps me, like, for example, if I am in a contentious meeting and I feel myself, you know, really wanting to react and I it gets me more my body. I'm aware of my heart rate increasing. I'm aware of my palms getting sweaty, and it reminds me that take a deep breath. How are we showing up? Danielle, and I think that that's wildly helpful in my own leadership practices. 

Marcel Schwantes 24:34 

I am so 100% aligned with this because I also do the breathing is so important. People are not breathing enough, right? Breathing through your belly and holding it, you know, sort of the whole meditation process that take, can take one to two minutes, and how much that will kind of reset your nervous system. And so that's one is. To breathe before I go into a meeting or even a podcast episode. And then the second thing you said, hey, it doesn't matter which God or universe you serve, I always surrender to my personal higher power as an and basically say, All right, you know, whoever your higher power is, take over and help me to be inspiring to others, and I release this to you and and here we are so and the outcome is usually a good one when I do that, rather than just like going through a sort of a high anxiety state of, okay, I'm going to pull this off. And what questions do I need to ask that are going to be perfect questions, right? No, it's like that that just sets off my cortisol spike way up high, which I don't need. So I just relax, I brave and I surrender, and then the questions start coming one after another, and I 

Danielle McGeough 26:03 

would, I would describe those as micro rituals, micro practices that you have throughout your day to really help you be in that desired state. And what I love about that too, is I recently heard someone say that, like, if you're trying to control you, it's really hard to love and because I know so much of your work is around love, and what you just described this like act of surrendering. It's you know, when you, when you are acting from a positionality of love, right? You're not trying to control others, 

Marcel Schwantes 26:36 

right, right? Well, okay, I want to transition to this, this whole thing called the work life balance, which I think is so outdated, I don't like the Well, I mean, you can still call it that. I just think that there's more of a work life integration, which for some people, that is giving them the right balance. So Tell, tell us, what is the big myth about work life balance, and maybe, like, what's your own definition of it? 

Danielle McGeough 27:08 

Ooh, yeah. So immediately, whenever, when you asked me that, it took me back to this moment where I was in a yoga class and we are in tree pose and in tree pose, for those of you that aren't familiar, you stand on one foot and then the other foot, you know, is at your ankle, your knee, or, you know, kind of clear up as high as you can get it. And when you're in that moment of balance, like your goal is to balance. But I became so aware of all these little micro adjustments I was making in order from the outside, it probably looked like I was just floating, right? I was just still, but my whole body, there's places I was tensing, there's places I was releasing, and there's all these little micro adjustments. And I think that one of the biggest myths about work life balance is that, like, if you can just nail it, it's like floating. It's like, you're just gonna, you, hey, you know you're just gonna ride it out, right? And everything's just gonna be in equilibrium, right? And I think that the myth is, is that in order for that equilibrium to happen, there's actually all these micro adjustments, there's tensions, there's releasing and it's, it's a continual process. And then the other thing is, is I think that oftentimes we have some pretty skewed time horizons when it comes to work life balance. You know, people will be like, well, today wasn't equally balanced. I didn't spend exactly as much time on my work as I did with my family, and so I failed at work life balance and, and I like to sort of expand our time horizon and think about it as we have these seasons where we might be, we might be in a season that is really heavy on work, and then we might be in another season that's really heavy on our family, or heavy on our own personal development and that there's this ebb and flow to things, um, almost like our seasons with weather, right? That that each season matters, and it's, it's doing, it's doing the important work of its own season, and that, rather than to get, like, to go, Okay, well, did I have work life balance this week? You know, I like to expand my time horizon and think of over the course of a year, or maybe even the course of two years. You know, has there been balance? And I think that that, for me, is a much healthier way, because it takes the pressure off of like, feeling like there's some sort of, also like equality the way that we're spending our time. Yeah, yeah. 

Marcel Schwantes 29:47 

Well, as we wind down here, if a listener wants to navigate change, because so many people are going through change, really, we've gone through conflict. Constant change, really, since covid hit, and if we want to, we want to do that in a way that that still draws us to purpose and gives us clarity and more understanding. How do we be more intentional about the change process. I mean, is there a starting point? 

Danielle McGeough 30:25 

So one of the things that I think is really important is to have practices in place that help us connect with ourselves, and I use planning as a way to do that. So, like my plan, goal, plan method, actually starts with planning this personal development. Let's set a foundation where every day you're just checking in. If there were three things at the end of today that I could do at the end of the day and feel like satisfied, feel like jazzed about how today went, what would those three things be? And you know, sometimes those are to do goals, and sometimes those are to be goals. So sometimes that is showing up at a meeting and the way that I want to, and other times that is like, maybe, you know, getting that workout in, or making sure that I sit down and play with my kids for a while. And so, you know, I think that having some practices in place where, on a daily basis, you're checking in with yourself and to look at that is also data that you're collecting on yourself. What are the patterns that I'm seeing here? Get really curious about it. You know, why was I so frustrated with how today went? Like, if I could look back at that, like, what's going on here? Ooh, that's the same thing that happened two weeks ago. I see a pattern here, what's going on and how could I intervene in that I think it's really a wildly empowering practice to have that self connection, especially in a world that I think is so busy it dissociates us from ourselves, 

Marcel Schwantes 31:53 

yeah, and going right back to alignment again, right? And being intentional about first recognizing what are the things that no longer serve us? Oh, yeah, and then breaking the cycle, and that's the intentionality piece right there. Because sometimes we, I mean, you know, we, we kind of give into whatever, whatever our whatever the stumbling blocks are, whether it's busyness or no, my kids, you know, so wait, wait, wait. What about making you first a priority for a change? To create change, start with you first, right? Because sometimes we do tend to, and this is right out of certain leadership, put others ahead of you, but sometimes not at the expense of you becoming a martyr and self sacrificing all of your own needs. So yes, to be balanced, to me, is first, you know, you got to put the oxygen mask in the airplane on you first before you put it on next on your neighbor or your child, etc. So yeah, how are you going to take care of you first, so that you are being a good steward of other people, of resources, of life, etc., start with you first, take care of you. And I think good things will happen Absolutely. Yeah. All right, we bring it home with two questions, as we do with every guest. The first one is the love question, right? So I'm a leader. How do I lead with more practical love and care, day in and day out? 

Danielle McGeough 33:35 

So one, I want to invite people to I'll draw from Justin Bieber here, but love yourself, yeah, um, you know to think about, if your leadership is about love, what does it mean to engage in self leadership that's also situated, centered In Love? And you know, for me, the self and society are so connected that when, when you learn to love yourself, it will, it will automatically sort of seep into the way that you connect with treat others. And so for me, you know, I think it's also just taking a posture of love to everything that I do. One of my favorite questions is, you know, is this expanding my capacity to love? So before I take on an opinion, before I take on a stance, I think to myself, is this position going to be one that expands my capacity to love? If it isn't, is this really what I want to take a stand on?  

Marcel Schwantes 34:46 

Yeah, okay, bring us home. What's, uh, what's that one final key takeaway that you want us to walk away with? 

Danielle McGeough 34:51 

Well, I would invite you to create your own ritual, and if you're trying to figure out what that ritual could be. I do have a stuck assessment for self leadership that will help you name your stuck. So what kind of stuck Are you experiencing? Are you burnout? Are you demoralized? Let's like, let's put a name to it. And then here is a specific micro ritual that is designed for the type of stuck that you're experiencing. And so it can be a really quick one. And so if you're looking for a ritual, I invite you to take that stuck assessment. You can find it at plangoalplan.com/stuck. And I would, I personally, oops, I personally go over the results. So you know, I would love to see your assessment come through. 

Marcel Schwantes 35:43 

That's awesome, and thank you for that. We're going to slap that on the show notes, and I was going to ask you on how else can people connect with you? You gave us one, one way to do it, but tell us where we can find you and how can people connect with you. 

Danielle McGeough 35:57 

Awesome. Go to the PlanGoalPlan podcast, I would love for you to listen and have me in your ear every week. You can also find me at plangoalplan.com. 

Marcel Schwantes 36:08 

So thank you for your time today and your knowledge and your wisdom. We're much better for it. 

Danielle McGeough 36:14 

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Marcel, I feel like we are in alignment in terms of what we value and how we want to walk through our leadership 

Marcel Schwantes 36:21 

Hear, hear. All right, gang, you can keep the conversation going on social media with #loveinactionpodcast, and like I mentioned earlier, look for my show notes on my website, marcelschwantes.com. All of Danielle's info will be there as well as a YouTube link to this episode. If you prefer to watch us banter, go to marcelschwantes.com everything is there. Until next time, thank you for listening to the Love in Action podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it, subscribe and leave us a review until next time. Don't forget. The future of leadership is love in action. Believe it, practice it and watch your leadership and business flourish.