EvolutionFM Transcript: The New Paradigm of Fifth Dimensional Leadership (Ginny Clarke)

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Ginny Clarke is a former Google executive and visionary leadership expert, brings a soul-stirring perspective on what it truly means to lead. In this riveting conversation, she opens up about her journey from corporate boardrooms to a deeply conscious approach shaped by spirituality, intuition, and self-awareness.

Ginny challenges the old model of leadership arguing that brilliance alone isn’t enough presence, vulnerability, and emotional clarity are the real differentiators. She introduces her groundbreaking Fifth Dimension Leadership framework.

It is anchored in knowing yourself, speaking your truth, and expanding consciousness. Drawing from her own healing path and decades of recruiting top talent she reveals how love and integrity can transform not only workplaces but the world. With a voice that blends deep insight and radiant humanity.

Ginny reminds us that leadership isn't a title. And just as she brings us to the edge of awakening she unveils the next bold step in her mission to reshape leadership from the inside out.

Transcripts may contain a few typos. With many episodes lasting 1+ hour, it can be difficult to catch minor errors. Enjoy!

Scott Britton (00:00.888)

Jenny, what's up? It's great to see you.

Ginny Clarke (00:03.224)

Great to see you, Scott. Thanks so much for having me.

Scott Britton (00:05.444)

It's a conversation I've been much looking forward to. And just to kick this off, mean, when did this whole conscious leadership idea and theme really come alive for you?

Ginny Clarke (00:18.328)

You know, it was probably in my second or third year with Google. Google was my last corporate gig before building my own business. So this was, I started there in 2016 and left in 2020. And a couple years in after, because I'd been an executive recruiter for many years before going to do executive recruiting for Google.

And so I'd seen thousands of leaders interviewed, assessed them, but now being in-house brought new meaning. And looking around within Google and seeing how many brilliant people were there, but also seeing, and it's not unique to Google, I'm not disparaging them, but just really seeing how a lot of people who were brilliant didn't always make the best leaders.

I think intellectually people would say, yeah, you you take specific leadership skills and all those things. I use the term competencies. That's one thing. And we can talk about that later. But the conscious part became important. And I'm actually checking myself because the conscious part, I started my own spiritual journey in the 90s after my father passed away.

And a few years later, my mother passed away. She left us a month after I had started at Spencer Stewart. And I had also started working with, right after my dad died, a shaman, a healer, who's also a therapist. And I've worked with him since then, so 30-something years. And I needed a place to integrate these ideas of consciousness

spirituality. They're different, but for me there's an intersection into the work that I did and how I look at leaders. And so there was a moment where I was interviewing someone in my early days at Spencer Stewart and I thought, wow, this guy really shines. Some of these other people, even though they had really impressive resumes, didn't impress me. And the one person that stood out, I was like, what did he have? And it was self-awareness.

Ginny Clarke (02:39.862)

And to me, that is one of the foundations of who are you, right? You want to be a leader, then to me, and I welcome your insights on this, you got to know who you are to be a successful leader. That's where it starts. So that became the beginning of my journey and exploration into what conscious leadership was going to mean for me and the work that I did.

Scott Britton (03:09.078)

I love that. I want to dig in a little bit here with some specificity. How does that show up in a conversation with a leader where someone's like, that person has high self-awareness?

Ginny Clarke (03:21.548)

Yeah. For me, was kind of simple and it caught me off guard because there was almost something energetic if you want to get kind of metaphysical about it, right? Yeah. And I don't know that people allow themselves, I'm an empath, you're an empath. We don't think about those things. We don't necessarily, and you don't have to talk about it, but I think it's important to acknowledge.

Scott Britton (03:31.967)

that's very real. I'm down to go there.

Ginny Clarke (03:49.519)

How does someone make you feel when you're in their presence? And this individual was very comfortable with himself. And I think that's, he wasn't trying to prove anything. He was speaking, he was pure of heart. You could tell there was just a vulnerability and openness, a willingness to share what he knew, what he didn't know. There was no bravado. It was,

Scott Britton (03:51.716)

you

Ginny Clarke (04:19.552)

Here's how I've helped other people. This is what leadership means to me. Here's what I value. Here's what I believe in. And that was like that guy, you know? Of course he needed to know the subject matter. He needed to be somewhat of a domain expert, if not, you know, highly competent. But those became the things that I tended to focus on. And I will also say,

that over my own spiritual journey, I've developed a pretty high sense of intuition, pretty cute sense. So I kind of know, I see into people, I'm guessing you have that superpower. I make people uncomfortable sometimes because I can spot a phony.

Scott Britton (05:05.732)

I definitely know what you're referring to. And, you know, it's so funny in the culture of, in this culture of like, show your best, hide the rest that we've been indoctrinated into, that the most magnetic people are the ones who are actually very revealing and are very comfortable with themselves. And I've heard, you know, I heard you talk about in your...

Ginny Clarke (05:26.851)

Yes.

Scott Britton (05:33.218)

this kind of paradigm shift of moving from evaluating people and whether that's in a recruiting context or just who you want to do stuff with, moving from what you've done to who that person is. And I think a lot of us like that idea, but we're still kind of so stuck in what you've done world. And so how do people get comfortable with this

Ginny Clarke (05:58.255)

Right? Yeah.

Scott Britton (06:03.436)

like who this person is in terms of determining like that as a criteria for collaboration.

Ginny Clarke (06:14.232)

Well, I mean, I think it means you can ask different questions, different kinds of questions. And so there are sort of two ways of looking at this that I think are complementary. One is around the competency-based questions, as I mentioned. And to me, competencies, my definition is that they are the deconstructed element of how you do something. So it's not just that you've done it. Because very often, as you're saying, in this world where it's like, tell me what you've done,

Okay, but how did you do it? could have left a, you know, dead bodies in your wake. So the how becomes really important. So asking those competency based questions that are very simple. Give me an example. You know, tell me a time when here's a hypothetical situation. Or, and then just how, how did you do that? So you said that you, when you got to this other

Scott Britton (06:50.169)

Right.

Ginny Clarke (07:12.206)

country to lead that office that you got started and did a bit, how did you establish trust? How did you, you know, gain favor with these people that didn't, they'd never worked with an American before? So it's those things that can be so utterly revealing. You know, I always say that people, you know, I would always ask people in interviews when I was at Spencer Stewart, tell me about yourself. That's how I'd start the interview. And they're like, well, you know, my resume. I'm like, no, I

I read it. Tell me what's not on here. And people would stumble. A lot of people didn't have a strong narrative. And so that's one of the things that I really encourage people to do. It's you need to figure out who you are and know what your story is. And I don't think a lot of people even take the time to have a narrative that they can share. Like today, I want to be able to share with you aspects that I already have.

of who I am, how I got to think the way I think, how I got to be the way I am, how I made choices about my career, holistically, so that you can have a view of how that might translate into what needs you have or your client might have for a particular kind of individual.

Scott Britton (08:28.386)

Yeah, it makes total sense. it's also, you know, that depth is where connection is, right? That's, that's, and that's what I think so many of us want out of our careers is to feel connected, connected to our work, connected to the people we're working with, connected to a mission or purpose. And you're not going to get that if you just look at bullet points on a resume. What

Ginny Clarke (08:50.54)

Check, check, check. Yeah. No. It doesn't work for either party. It's not a good... If the process isn't robust, the outcome isn't likely to be robust.

Scott Britton (09:03.47)

I love that. While we're here, I know that you just had a feature in Brene Brown's book, new book, which is, congratulations on that, exciting. This powerful distinction between management and leadership. Could you talk about that? this is, again, one of those things. It's just kind of like a fuzzy area that I don't really think many people think critically about.

Ginny Clarke (09:11.438)

Thank you.

Ginny Clarke (09:26.274)

Yeah, so I did a, on my YouTube channel, I did a video well over a year ago, probably even two years ago. And I met Brene at a conference where we were both speaking in March of this year. And she introduced me to the audience that she was addressing. It was a small sort of subset. And I was really tickled because we'd never met, right? And then we said, well, we'll stay in touch.

She reached out a few months later and said, I went down to rabbit hole and watching a bunch of your videos and the one on managing versus leading was really meaningful. And would you be willing to talk about it, transcribe the conversation and put that in my book? And I know this was June of this year that she reached out and I had no idea that the book was actually coming out in September. So I was thrilled, but she had a strong point of view.

coming into this conversation. She told me what it was. And she said, I don't think we need managers anymore. I think they're irrelevant and just kind of get in the way. And so I started the conversation and you can get the book and read it for yourself because it's a pure transcription. Basically, said, let's define, I studied linguistics in college, linguistics and French. And so I said, I'm going to give you a definition.

Here's a definition of leadership. I read it from the dictionary. Here's a definition of management. And then I layered in a slide that I often use when I'm talking to, speaking to audiences when I speak. I said, here's an article that breaks down the skills, and they use the term skills. I prefer competencies. It was from, I think, Financial Times or something. And it was saying there's overlapping skills.

And they tend to be around problem solving communication. think those, and there's probably a third one I'm not thinking of right now. Leaders focus is setting the vision, assuming the risk, the leaders do that typically, right? And they influence. Managers are overseeing tasks. So, and the operational elements.

Ginny Clarke (11:46.947)

That's what managers do. Those are distinctly different subsets. And then, as I say, and then there are some shared ones. So I was giving Brene the example of during my time at Google, I had three separate teams as part of the executive recruiting organization. And I said, I managed the six direct reports that reported to me. There were, you know, it wasn't two per team, but it was six of them.

But I led all three teams. met as a group. And I led that team. I set forth the vision. I assumed the risk. But in terms of the management, the day to day, that happened through my direct reports. And I met with them weekly, and probably usually more often than that, to understand what was happening and I staying close to what the needs of our clients were and our deliverables.

And so as we talked about it, Brene all of sudden, initially she pushed back and got really frustrated because she was saying that I was right in at least a textbook definition. And then she got almost as she describes in the book, kind of emotional because in her own experience, she recognized that she had had really strong managers. She had had some people in her life who were distinctly management.

and we're very good at it. And that was my point. It's like, you've got different skill sets. I think the best leaders have strong managerial capabilities, but they know when to delegate and to hand off. And similarly, you've got some great managers who show some leadership competencies and capabilities. So there's room for both. And I even think people are saying, I've seen so many articles, well, with AI you don't need a manager. Again, I'm not so sure.

You know, because who is helping people? We're still going to have people. Right. Unless we just, everything is just robots and I can't imagine at some point then that means humans are extinct. That's a little farther out. But in the meantime, people need guidance. The smartest people need feedback. They need direction. They need development and growth. They want that from an employer, from a leader and from a manager.

Scott Britton (13:51.278)

For sure.

Ginny Clarke (14:12.758)

if they can get it. But I think for managers, they're the ones on the ground in the moment who have the ability to give that feedback that's going to help them get better, whatever it is they do.

Scott Britton (14:23.042)

Yeah, such a powerful frame and I agree with you, we do need both. You need people that are just making sure things get done and then the visionaries and the people out there that are kind of charting the path forward. It is a distinct skill set. And it kind of brings me to my next point that I wanted to get into, which is this 5D leadership concept that you've been pioneering. And I know it's also something you've been writing about.

Let's start here. What is 5D leadership?

Ginny Clarke (14:54.37)

Yeah, well, because of all the spiritual and metaphysical books that I've read, the fifth dimension of our consciousness is love-based. It's soul-based. There's no ego.

And I thought that's where I think I live. That's why I meditate every day and how I try to stay whole for myself. But most of the world is in 3D and that's fine. That's where their frequency is, that's fine. But I thought, what if we could help people raise their frequency and become more aware of this fifth dimension that is love-based?

I mean, it means that we have to have different values, frankly. So anyway, that's how I, and the trademark is pending for fifth dimensional leadership I've been working on for a few years now and it's almost here. But then it meant it sort of triggered this need for, so what are the dimensions then of a conscious leader associated with this fifth dimension? And so the first one for me was,

Scott Britton (15:56.868)

It's a good one.

Ginny Clarke (16:14.456)

harkening back to that experience with that person I was interviewing of having self-awareness. It's know yourself. Right? I avoided the biblical reference of thyself, but know yourself. Speak your truth is number two. Inspire love is number three. Number four is expand consciousness. So be curious. That's a simplistic view.

but seek to always go beyond what your current perspective might be. And then lastly, it's activate mastery. And we tend to think of masters as great golfers or the best athletes or whatever this thing is. Or you might think in terms of spiritual masters who have perfected to reach some level of Nirvana or Buddha or whatever.

Scott Britton (16:47.961)

Mm.

Ginny Clarke (17:10.998)

I'm saying for you to master yourself who you are today, because we're dynamic beings. And so it's a, it's a challenge to push yourself. How can I be better today? And it's not in terms of measured in terms of accomplishment, it's in alignment with what I do, who I'm in service to, how much I'm loving. Those to me are the elements that make me.

on a path to mastery. Because I don't know that you're ever there, but it is aspirational.

Scott Britton (17:48.418)

Right. I love the integration of mastery because in some, know, there's so much unhelpful ideas out there, unhelpful programming. And I think a lot of people that get into spirituality when it comes to business and excellence, they kind of throw the baby out with the bathwater where there's this, you know, I'm no self, I'm a...

You know, I'm not doing anything and that just isn't the reality of actual spiritual masters in my opinion and anybody that's achieved mastery. It's like they actually are incredible and refined and honed in their gifts and what they're creating in the world. And so yeah, like let's embrace that. Like why not have that as well as the expanded awareness?

Ginny Clarke (18:22.517)

group.

Ginny Clarke (18:39.084)

Right, and you help other people find their path to their own because often it's a path. As I say, it sounds like it's a destination, but I think the line keeps moving to the extent there is one. That mastery is fluid. It's not... Yes, yeah.

Scott Britton (18:56.356)

It's an infinite game, one might say. So I think, you know, there's probably a lot of companies and people out here that hear things like, okay, you know, inspire love. That's a nice idea. But how is this actually gonna help us be better? You know, how are we actually going to have results improve by this paradigm? And I'm wondering...

where your answer would be, as well as if you have any cool stories of people that you've worked with or witnessed who've kind of embraced this and the transformation that happened after.

Ginny Clarke (19:33.263)

can't think of any stories that are sort of concrete enough that would convince someone per se, but I can speak on my own behalf and say that I would tell my teams, I love you guys. I would say that. And nobody flinched. And they knew that I meant it. Now, did I like everybody? I like some more than others.

But I walk around with a basic love of humanity. And I don't know why more of us can't do that. I don't have to like you. I learned that distinction. My parents helped me learn that. They're like, we love you unconditionally. We'll always love you. We're always going to like some of the stuff you do or say. OK? But we'll love you always.

Scott Britton (20:24.19)

This is the powerful distinction because I think a lot of people think about like, well, you like someone and then if you really, really, really like them, then you love them, right? And you're kind of saying the inverse.

Ginny Clarke (20:35.842)

Yeah, love is to me, that's part of what makes us human is our ability to love. I'm like tingles in my legs because when I say that, I'm looking at what's going on in the world. And frankly, it's kind of hard to feel love that's being, it's certainly not being radiated.

It's easier than we think. And I think we have...

redefined it to meet our needs. I'm not even talking about the romantic love, but as I say, as a human being, that's, and I think if we, and this sounds very almost naive of me to say, but I'm going to say it anyway. If we could get to a place and Christianity, other religions have this as one of their basic tenants, love thy neighbor, you know, these kinds of things. What if we actually did think of how

many fewer killings and assaults and all these other crimes against humanity, against one another.

But I'm gonna go back to my first one, which is know yourself. Because if people have never experienced love, people have grown up in some horrible situations. I think it's, and again, I might sound naive, but I think it's possible. My father was a superintendent at a correctional facility. Okay, so and I grew up around these correctional facilities. So I know from whence certain people come, right? Where there might not have,

Ginny Clarke (22:23.136)

seen love or felt love. But you know what? My dad was an example of someone. He was a big man, tough man, and he had the biggest heart. He came from a place of love, and he would show respect to these people that were castoffs in aspects of our society. And so love is contagious. It's one of the most powerful forces in the universe. And if we can remind ourselves of that and let that be

our guiding principle in dealing with anyone, the bum on the street, send them love. You don't have to say a word. You don't have to give a dime. I do that all the time. I live in Chicago. I walk down the street. see homeless people. And I'll always just send them some energy. I'll look their way and I'll just say quietly to myself, bless you. Just love, just send them love. If we could do that and get that back to the workplace.

Scott Britton (23:07.78)

Mm.

Ginny Clarke (23:18.784)

If you have love for the people that you're dealing with, you're not going to sabotage them. You're not going to, you know, there's so many things that will not happen if you are coming from this honest place. Love is truth. And if we had truth going on, there wouldn't be corruption. There wouldn't be just this mad dash for profits. It would be like, well, you know, right now, based on what I'm seeing, there's a serious mental health crisis going on in the world.

Scott Britton (23:35.811)

Right.

Ginny Clarke (23:46.979)

that is seeped into and largely driven by what's going on in the workplace. So I think love would be a great remedy for that. Because if people began to feel like they are enough, like they are supported versus I'm never enough, imposter syndrome, just can't, no, you're enough. I have love for you because you are enough in and of who you are. It's okay.

So I rant on that point.

Scott Britton (24:19.748)

I'm here for the rant, I love it. Yeah, you know, what comes up for me is that love comes through understanding, which comes back to the awareness piece.

Ginny Clarke (24:30.316)

and a curiosity you want to understand, fair enough to understand.

Scott Britton (24:33.368)

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, I can't help but think of Jesus and, you know, the ultimate example of, of, you know, being tortured and all these things and saying, forgive them for they do not know what they do. It's it's kind of exactly like that where, you know, there's from a higher level of awareness and understanding, you can have the love and compassion.

You can have the forgiveness and you can also still have preferences of I like that, this and I don't like that. But it comes from a base of love.

Ginny Clarke (25:06.766)

Absolutely.

Scott Britton (25:11.556)

What do you think of these five principles that you mentioned? Is there one in particular that people have the most difficulty embracing?

Scott Britton (25:27.404)

Or maybe the one in particular has the most questions around it when you talk about

Ginny Clarke (25:35.215)

I think the most questions it tends to be, because I offered a course on this a couple of years ago, and I'm going to revive it next year, it's probably around the consciousness piece, is expanding consciousness. And again, I think these build on one another. I don't know that you can get from one to, you can't necessarily get to two without one, or three without two.

They truly are sequential. But I think the hardest one for people to understand is expanding that consciousness. And I think for me, it's simply, simply it can mean having that curiosity to see where else, what else is possible in your awareness beyond what's in the physical.

get to it through meditation, through chanting, through whatever means allows you to perceive another perspective. Because to me, that's part of the love. I heard a definition recently, the distinction between perception and perspective. We all perceive through the lens of our experiences, our beliefs, all of that, right?

but how well are you and you probably are, know I am, I'm pretty good at...

as I call it, walking around an issue. So here's my perspective, but let me observe all the other things that might be, or a number, there are probably infinite things that might be influencing this, to give me a different perspective. And still it's going to be mine through my lens. It's informed by my own biases, experiences, everything else. But at least it's broader than what I might initially want to based on, which is coming from my own thinking.

Scott Britton (27:08.046)

Mm.

Scott Britton (27:37.08)

I love that idea and exercise of kind of taking a mental walk around all sides of an issue. There's a tremendous power in even just the awareness that you can do that.

Ginny Clarke (27:48.419)

Yes. And I think that's what we don't explore enough. We're so reactive that we're not necessarily harnessing some of our own power. One of my favorite books, was mentioning this, I do a lot of coaching and I was mentioning it just when I was coaching, Power of Awareness, Novel Goddard. And I just think it's so brilliant and so simple and yet we don't take advantage of the power of our own awareness and how we can shift

Scott Britton (28:05.54)

Mm.

Ginny Clarke (28:17.966)

how we think, how we perceive aspects in the world, right? Just by the focus of our attention and having a layer of understanding of our own awareness.

Scott Britton (28:26.606)

Yeah.

Scott Britton (28:33.284)

Yeah.

Ginny Clarke (28:33.784)

We don't. We don't take the time. It's not necessarily in our culture.

Scott Britton (28:37.966)

Well, it's so interesting you say this. recently went to, I've been dealing with some medical things and I did actually something called holographic medicine where you give them a bunch of information about you and then they kind of use this tech that's supposed to read your energetic field.

and it tells you about your health, but it also tells you something about your soul. And one of the things that came out of it was like, you're not fully leveraging your spiritual gifts. Like you have...

a lot of gifts and I do a lot of weird stuff. So I'm like, okay, there's more, but I really was thinking about it and I was like, I have some practice time in the morning where I do my meditation, I do different things, but then there's a lot more balance time of like, I'm in front of my computer, I'm cranking on things, I'm doing things. And just...

Coming back to the Neville Goddard stuff, who I explored in terms of the power of imagination, was one of his big concepts, was like, wow, I need to shift the balance even more into working directly with the consciousness.

Ginny Clarke (29:45.166)

Yes.

Scott Britton (29:53.666)

and awareness versus like the gross material efforting. And even just treat it like an experiment, right? Like what happens when you go from like one or two hours to like maybe you spend three hours a day doing that kind of exploration and then you still have time to actually answer your emails or get on calls or whatever you need to do.

Ginny Clarke (30:14.678)

And then what if you can integrate some of that? It's in your mind. It's not necessarily a cognitive activity, right? But can you integrate that in some of what you do in completing your tasks? It's a question, because I don't know that I consciously do it, but I do sometimes.

Scott Britton (30:34.531)

Yes.

Ginny Clarke (30:43.278)

check myself before I pick up that next thing or write down that next to do. Is this really my priority right now? Is this what's calling me? Is there a reason for it?

Scott Britton (30:57.57)

I think you can, you know, I think you can. Like I think, you know, just a few examples that come to mind is like, you know, yesterday in the middle of my email, like someone canceled something on me, charging money. I noticed this like reflex, like, you're ripping me off, right? And it's like, like, I'm going to like take a second and look at that.

where like another example is, is when I drive places, I like to close my eyes before I leave and visualize the perfect parking spot.

and see it as if it already is there for me. And guess what? A lot of times it is. And so these are kind of like small interspersed acts in the midst of activities where we're using the consciousness that you can just have fun with, you you can just experiment with and see what happens.

Ginny Clarke (31:28.418)

Yes.

Ginny Clarke (31:52.046)

I mean, I think the point is that we have so much more.

influence, I started to say control, but that sounds almost manipulative, right? It's we have more power, let's say it that way, over ourselves and the outcomes in our life than we realize. We're creating this life versus I think too many people feel as though they're victims of circumstance. I'm not. I'm a deliberate creator. Does it always work out? No, but I make very deliberate choices because I'm

Scott Britton (32:03.876)

That's right.

Ginny Clarke (32:26.166)

I feel as though I'm in control. also have guidance from other, from the non-physical. I'm not in this alone.

Scott Britton (32:31.618)

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's hard to sometimes like take extreme ownership over bad, like difficult things that happen. But more often than not, as I've explored the depths of my subconscious, I see how those circumstances are being reflected back to an aspect of myself. You know, and that's, and that's, and that is the position of power.

Right? Because you're like, shit, I actually did do this. And I wanted to go through this through my own, for my own growth and evolution and you know, okay. All right, now I don't want to do that again, but like that.

Ginny Clarke (33:01.902)

It is.

Ginny Clarke (33:12.558)

Well, there's the humility, which I think is one of the balancing elements of power. We're in service to not just ourselves, but to others. And so things don't always go your way because there's a lesson to be learned.

Scott Britton (33:26.019)

Yeah.

Scott Britton (33:33.7)

And there's a bigger timeline that we're often not aware of, a bigger arc and a bigger dance that's happening collectively as well. A question that I had for you, so I'm very passionate about the integration of spirituality at work and I have this kind of vision of workplaces becoming dojos for our consciousness and our awareness and our

Ginny Clarke (33:39.384)

Yeah.

Scott Britton (34:03.766)

our inner development and I see it, right? But it seems so far fetched from where we are today. And I'm curious what you think about that idea and whether you think that's where we're moving towards.

Ginny Clarke (34:21.164)

Not right now. If I look around, it wouldn't seem so. I think that's where we're going to have to be to save ourselves. I'm not trying to sound nihilistic, but...

I don't, we're not on a good trajectory when I think about the workplace and the workplace is nothing but a microcosm what's going on in the world. I think it's a great place to focus because most people work in some form. I don't care if it's in a field or in a corporate office work. There's a construct within which there are expectations for your behavior and demonstration of certain skills, right? So I think

work needs, we have left people to their own devices. We haven't had strong structures to hold leaders, especially first and foremost, accountable, leaders and managers accountable for their behavior, for their choices, for the way that they treat people. And so unless and until we're willing to do that and have consistent application of those standards and upholding them.

We're allowing the systems to fail us. And that's why we have toxic work environments. And I think that's why we have so many people who have to take a leave because of poor mental health. And because, you know, we've got leaders who are out here saying we just have to hit our numbers and get that to that next trillion dollar valuation or whatever it is. And it's done at the expense of people's well-being.

Scott Britton (36:09.38)

Mm.

Ginny Clarke (36:09.526)

And I don't think it needs to be. You can still achieve those numbers if they're all important. If they are, that's the big if. But imagine a place where the workers actually felt supported and invested. I saw something, I don't remember where it was. It was a small company where the owner decided to, like he tripled people's salaries and he took a huge cut.

and people were telling him that he was crazy. Well, actually it worked out really, really well. The business grew, the retention improved, all these things happened. People were able to improve their entire lifestyle. to buy, it's, Henry Ford did it however many years ago, when they were starting with conveyor belts and machine production, right? Mass production.

And they didn't have any things in place for the workers. I just did a series on the history of work. And so people were working 16 hours. They were getting ground up, right? There was no legislation surrounding this. There was no OSHA. And so he said, I know what I'll do. I will double whatever the factor was of what they were paying these people on this and will limit the number of hours so that they can one,

buy one of the cars that we're making and they become advertisers for those cars, right? So there are reasons why it's advantageous to treat people like human beings and pay them their worth. We've gotten way out of alignment on that.

Scott Britton (37:54.628)

Yeah, I think a few things have come up for me. One, I don't think the correlation is very clearly spelled out in terms of why you should do this. think there's the very basic low-level argument of, okay, if people are happier, they're gonna be less burned out and more productive. That's a very surface-level why, in my opinion. And I think...

what comes up for me, and this is more in the spiritual domain, is that as you start to see things like karma, like the law of cause and effect, as you start to see reality as a non-local,

Like the happenings and unfolding is not just based on like taking smart decisions and actions. It's like there's a higher order organizing principle that is driving things, that is trying to move us towards love and unity and all of these virtues that you described in 5D leadership. Like when you have that perspective, like aligning in this direction is the obvious choice.

Ginny Clarke (39:05.474)

It is.

Scott Britton (39:06.252)

It's the obvious choice, but it's really hard because it's hard to convince people of these things because they don't have the direct experience that makes them believe in something like that. And so we're kind of in this weird, like weird haircut phase, you know, where it's like your hair isn't quite long, it's not short, you're like, this thing looks like crap.

And we're in that in between phase right now is what it feels like for me.

Ginny Clarke (39:36.866)

we are and I think we.

How would I describe it? I think we're in denial. There's some of that. We haven't really chosen. There's a lot of programming that needs to be undone, some reprogramming of what it means to be successful. And I always go back to David Gellis, who's a New York Times journalist, did this book called The Man Who Broke Capitalism. It was all about Jack Welch. His second book, Dirtbag,

billionaire just came out and that's about the founder of Patagonia. But in The Man Who Broke Capitalism, I remember I started recruiting. I came out of graduate school during the Jack Welch era. And when I got to Spencer Stewart in the late, late 90s, it was in full bloom, meaning, you know, the smartest people were at GE. And at one point, I think there were 16 leaders out of

GE, who were running Fortune 500 companies as CEOs. So there was a prototype that was being cast through Jack Welch. And arguably, there were parts of it that were quite good, right? But there were parts that were not so good, both in terms of what the expectations were for the leader, but also some of his orientation about shareholder value at all cost.

at expense of the well-being of the individual. He didn't say that, but that's what showed up. But that die was cast in the United States and modeled in other parts of the world for decades. And I think we're seeing the remnants of it now. And I don't know that we have established anything to counteract that other than maybe in my own mind, it's it's big dimensional leadership. But, you know, sometimes we look for heroes. We look for a company that we want to

Scott Britton (41:37.881)

Right.

Ginny Clarke (41:38.681)

champion this movement. Yeah, so when I think back to how did we get here, I think those are some of the events that led us to this place in the workplace at very high levels. And there's a trickle down effect because it ceased to value and prioritize families and communities. It was all about, you know, remember was it,

I'm not going to remember the name of the guy, had a... Slash and Burn was kind of the whole mindset. They buy the company, break it up for parts, throw away everything. No concern for the implications on the people. And I think we're paying the price of that mindset.

Scott Britton (42:27.084)

Yeah, I think you're right. I think there's a lot of people that think that AI is going to maybe be what kind of gets us out of that habit where there's like a bot, there's so much more abundance, right? But what I don't see is like, if the consciousness doesn't shift, the AI is just gonna be another tool for the same paradigm.

You know, they're going, it's just going to be like, okay, well, if I can, you know, treat people poorly and have AI do everything and have AI be way more profitable, then I'm gonna go do that. And there just hasn't been a good argument to me around, like with a lot of these leaders of like,

you know, here we are today and then AI, crazy abundance. And it's like, okay, well what happens in between? And there just hasn't been a ton of great explanations for that.

Ginny Clarke (43:27.702)

No, no, and I think it's serious gap that requires a lot more thinking. Because again, we're human beings. We're still the ones, allegedly, what do they say about humans? Are we the smartest ones? I sometimes wonder about that. At least on the planet. Yeah, but my thinking is not limited to this planet.

Scott Britton (43:49.752)

We're the best parasites on the planet.

Ginny Clarke (43:57.519)

plenty of other more intelligent life forms on other planets. I actually do. That's my belief. Yeah. I think they're probably looking down at us or around or whatever or here among us and going, my God, how primitive these people are.

Scott Britton (44:12.708)

I think you're probably right. You know, I did hear on the nature notion of the contrast between AI and human intelligence. I did hear something really cool recently where the amount of, I guess like power it would take to execute the processes of the human body is something like 500 nuclear power plants for one person.

Ginny Clarke (44:40.844)

never heard.

Scott Britton (44:42.324)

And so like, you know, we're all really, really hot on AI and how great and fancy it is, but like, we're this like, massive, massive, massive intelligence that we just do not have the same level of respect for. And that's right. And that's the reason is because we're so unaware of how, just how intelligent we truly are.

Ginny Clarke (44:59.886)

We're not even aware.

Ginny Clarke (45:08.334)

Yeah, I agree. And I think you might've just unlocked the reason why we are where we are, because we have to learn this lesson before we can move ourselves to the next level. can't, looking, I think we've spent way too much time looking outside of ourselves. And now I think it's, if I do one thing, it would be as a leader,

to make sure and have regular conversations about the humanity of us in this workplace. So that we're not, because we're enamored right now. Wow, I can do, I use it, I do, absolutely I do. But I always felt that my consciousness is more powerful than that. When it comes down to whatever it is in the moment, making a decision.

I have arms and legs. There are things that I can do that it can't. I mean, arguably a robot, but feelings that I can express, hearts that I believe I want to heal, a touch that I can offer someone that can make all the difference in the world.

Scott Britton (46:13.592)

Mm-hmm.

Scott Britton (46:22.476)

Yeah, I 100 % agree. And, you know, for me, what comes up is just like the inner guidance and intuition where, like, as you purify yourself, that becomes more available. And I had a cool experience this morning with that, where we're doing a search at my company Conscious Talent right now, and it's a pretty complex one. you know, just as I was sitting down, like, random people coming into my awareness,

who actually are perfectly suited to at least know the right person just started emerging. I don't, know, what comes into your awareness is not an accident. Like that's how I live. It's like always, always perfect. And I think, you know, as you start to kind of like have a reverence for that, you start to follow those nudges and amazing things happen. And that type of like seeing around corners,

Ginny Clarke (47:03.852)

No, never.

Scott Britton (47:21.297)

You kidding, an LLM can't do that? It can't.

Ginny Clarke (47:25.026)

I'm pumped for it. Because it's tapping into, it transcends thought. know, I'm clear audience, so in my meditation I sometimes get messages. But in day to day, sometimes I just get a feeling, it's just literally in my heart chakra where I'll sense something. It's not always an alarm, it's not always bad. But it might mean I'm going to pick up the phone and call my best girlfriend.

Scott Britton (47:27.085)

Yeah.

Ginny Clarke (47:54.808)

You know, and that's, there's richness in that.

Scott Britton (47:54.99)

Yeah.

Scott Britton (47:59.274)

One thing I'm actually, I am excited about, and this might be kind of related to the longer arc, is that if everyone has the most expansive intellect in their pocket, it becomes a commodity. Like knowledge in the traditional form of fact memorization and all that kind of stuff becomes a commodity. so what that means is that this kind of right hemisphere,

creative, intuitive, expansive intelligence becomes more of a novelty and becomes something that's more, yeah, just more valued by our society. And so I think in a weird way, I see a path where AI is actually going to help us lean more deeply into our consciousness and our evolution and the things that make us uniquely human. But it might take a little bit while. It might take a little bit.

Ginny Clarke (48:40.258)

I like that. Yes.

Ginny Clarke (48:58.178)

And it might not, you know? I mean, right now, there's all the buzz, because it's not fully out there. But it might only be a few years. I feel like time is speeding up. The whole construct has shifted. So I want to believe it could be sooner that we realize, and that it awakens. I hadn't even allowed myself to think about this. I wasn't.

thinking I wasn't catastrophizing anything necessarily, but the stuff that you read every day is just, look at how AI can do this and that and that and this. And it's like, so many young people, think especially, are feeling irrelevant. And in fact, I know someone who was told that if they don't double down on their work, work harder, they will become irrelevant. And I'm thinking, gee, way to go. That's how you motivate somebody. But moreover, I thought,

Scott Britton (49:37.657)

Mm.

Scott Britton (49:49.785)

Yeah.

Ginny Clarke (49:53.805)

You're dampening the spirit of that person. You're telling them they're worthless, when in fact, we have so many gifts that we can bring into this world that because no one has told us that they're valuable, we don't think that they are.

Scott Britton (50:13.252)

Yeah, well, I hope the narrative changes as well. I would agree that there does seem to be an acceleration of more and more people getting in touch with these gifts. So maybe we finish up with this last question. I know you got a lot of cool things you're working on. I want to give you an opportunity to just share more about what those things are.

because I'm personally curious and I think the listeners might also be excited about learning.

Ginny Clarke (50:39.544)

you're Yeah.

Ginny Clarke (50:45.166)

No, thank you. Well, so I spend most of my time, I do a lot of speaking. I work through a speaker's bureau. So I love talking about that and conscious leadership being at the top of the list for most of the speeches. I'm working on my second book. The first one was called Career Mapping. It came out in 2011. I'm working on the second one. I can't reveal the title yet. It's not yet sold to a publisher, but we're almost there. But it really is around the five dimensions of

conscious leadership. I'm very excited about that. I'm working maybe on another podcast. I have one that is still available called Fifth Dimensional Leadership. It hasn't been in production for a few years, but it's still up. And some of the episodes are, I think, still quite relevant. I do executive coaching. I'm about to launch a new community, online community.

What else? Is there more? There's probably a couple of things I'm not thinking about, but those are sort of, I got a lot going on. Yeah. But it's all from this place of, it's purposeful. This is the most purposeful work I've ever done. 35 years in corporate. And I finally said, let me integrate everything I've learned, everything I've come to know about myself, what I believe in, and hopefully help other people make sense of what's going on in the world now.

Scott Britton (51:44.548)

You're a busy person over there. You got a lot cooking.

Ginny Clarke (52:10.88)

and set a course for themselves to help us build a better world. Call me Pollyanna, but that is my greatest hope.

Scott Britton (52:19.959)

I'm Rome.

equally filled professionally, know, advocating for this stuff and supporting others. Well, J-

Ginny Clarke (52:30.146)

Yeah, this is great. And kudos to you, by the way, for doing the work that you do. I love that we were connected. So we need conscious leadership in the world. So keep bringing it.

Scott Britton (52:42.744)

Thank you, thank you. Yeah, we're gonna make it happen. you know, Ginny Clark, your website, is that the best place? Awesome. And highly recommend the Instagram follow. You have some great content on there as well, and YouTube. So, yeah, you're all over the place for people on the internet. So, I'll link all those out.

Ginny Clarke (52:48.918)

It is, ginnyclarke.com. Yes.

Ginny Clarke (52:55.352)

Thank you? Yeah.

Ginny Clarke (53:00.492)

Yeah, that's guess that's the only thing I do is I create content. Yes. So that's no small thing. Yeah.

Scott Britton (53:06.116)

Well, thank you so much, Jenny. We're looking forward to learning more about your book when that's ready to go. And we'll continue following along in the meantime.

Ginny Clarke (53:15.759)

Scott, thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.