Tap Into Your Inner ATM: Self-Leadership and Personal Branding with Pallavi Jain

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Description

So many leaders are burned out—checking all the boxes, meeting expectations, and still feeling stuck. Pallavi Jain wants to change that. As a seasoned HR executive and the creator of the Lead From Within program, she helps people step out of survival mode and reconnect with who they truly are—and how they want to lead and be known.

In this episode of Branding Room Only, Paula Edgar sits down with Pallavi to explore why personal branding starts with self-leadership. They trace Pallavi’s path from engineer to HR leader and unpack how her lived experiences—and inner transformation—shaped both her leadership philosophy and personal brand.

Pallavi shares her signature ATM Framework—a practical, powerful approach to building presence, taking responsibility, and making intentional choices. They also explore how identity, memory, and even generational trauma can shape—or distort—how we show up in the world.

This isn’t a conversation about polished personas or performative leadership. It’s about doing the real, internal work to build an authentic, resilient brand—rooted in clarity, alignment, and joy.

Chapters

1:12 – Pallavi’s personal branding definition, self-description, favorite childhood quote, and energizing songs

5:37 – The influence of Pallavi’s upbringing on her brand and her career path from engineering to HR leadership

8:30 – What led to the creation of Pallavi’s Lead From Within program and ATM framework

10:17 – Pallavi’s tips for building your personal branding with authenticity and the impact of lived experiences on your brand 

17:33 – The premise of Pallavi’s program and framework, and how they help strengthen personal growth and empowerment

21:03 – The three steps of the ATM framework and the benefit of consistently implementing it 

29:20 – Common mistakes from not leading from within that lead to burnout and ineffectiveness

36:18 – How traumatic memories can impact your perception and those of generations to follow

40:20 – Why organizations should incorporate the ATM framework

45:18 - A breakthrough Pallavi achieved from using her framework and how to start tapping into the power within you

49:15 – What Pallavi will never do to compromise her personal brand and the magic she brings to a standing-room-only

Connect With Pallavi Jain

Pallavi Jain is a CEO, TEDx speaker, and experienced HR leader with 20 years of expertise. As both HR leader and employee, she’s seen the daily struggles that individuals and organizations face in striving to make the right decisions and feeling burnt out and lost in the hustle of life. Her experience spans various sectors such as Harvard, multinational corporations, non-profits, energy, and manufacturing. 

Now, as a certified social and emotional intelligence coach, Pallavi has partnered with numerous individuals and executives at all levels on their journey to self-mastery with her Lead From Within Program and ATM framework. From students and faculty to line workers, IT professionals, and global teams and leaders, she’s worked to help them all achieve with a common desire: to feel empowered and find joy, success, and fulfillment.

Pallavi Jain | LinkedIn

Mentioned In Lead From Within to Stop Surviving and Start Leading with Pallavi Jain

The A.T.M. Framework For Personal Growth | Pallavi Jain | TEDxWilmingtonSalon

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Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC.

PGE Consulting Group LLC empowers individuals and organizations to lead with purpose, presence, and impact. Specializing in leadership development and personal branding, we offer keynotes, custom programming, consulting, and strategic advising—all designed to elevate influence and performance at every level.

Founded and led by Paula Edgar, our work centers on practical strategies that enhance professional development, strengthen workplace culture, and drive meaningful, measurable change.

To learn more about Paula and her services, go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn.

Transcript

Paula Edgar: Welcome to The Branding Room Only Podcast where we share career stories, strategies, and lessons learned on how industry leaders and influencers have built their personal brands. Now, let's get started with the show. Hi everybody, it's Paula Edgar, your host of Branding Room Only, and I'm excited to be talking to my guest today about personal branding. Who is she, you ask? She's Pallavi Jain, and she is an experienced HR leader with 20 years' expertise across various sectors, including a decade at Harvard University, multinational corporations, manufacturing, and the non-profit world. She is the founder of the Lead From Within program and creator of the ATM framework for your personal growth and true empowerment and a TEDx speaker on the same topic. Her work helps individuals and leaders to self-lead when they leap within to find joy, genuine joy, success, and fulfillment from within. We all need that, especially these days. Pallavi, welcome to the Branding Room. Pallavi Jain: Thank you so much, Paula. I am so excited and thrilled to be here and looking forward to our conversation. Paula Edgar: Same. Tell me, what does personal brand mean to you? How would you define it? Pallavi Jain: Yeah, I was thinking about that a little bit. I feel brand is how others perceive us. It includes, I think, how we show up for others in various ways. It is your status in other people's eyes. You're creating your brand consciously or unconsciously with everyone who is around you, whether it's personal relationships or professionally. Paula Edgar: I love that. I love the call-out to conscious and unconscious. Because when I talk about branding all the time, I always say it's helpful to have a strategy versus to just let it happen. My mother used to always say, "You can be the wind or you can be the leaf." I love thinking of all of us as we have the ability to be the wind. Tell me about yourself. How would you describe yourself in three words or short phrases? Pallavi Jain: Oh geez, okay. I'm going to try to not say what I want others to see me, but I would say honestly what I think I am. I think one, definitely anybody who knows me can say this, that I'm a true optimist. I truly believe that everything happens for a reason and for our good. That's definitely one. The second is I think love. I was thinking maybe I should say empathetic and all of that, but that's for other people to determine. But I think for me, I do feel love for people around me, for everything around me. Most days—we are human—but deep down, I do feel generally love for life, you know? And I think for that reason, I also see the good in others because I feel that. And I think resilience is probably the other word because I do feel I'm very adaptable and flexible. I'm going to add one more word which is expressive because I think I'm very expressive and animated as you know. So I think that's how I would define me in those words. Paula Edgar: I love those, and I especially love the sandwiching of optimist and resilient because—especially now—we need all of those things to navigate the world. Do you have a favorite quote or a motto that helps you to navigate life? Pallavi Jain: Yes, I think my motto keeps changing based on what phase of life I am in, but there has been this one quote that my arts teacher told me when I was in third or fourth grade. She probably doesn't even know how much that moment had an impact on me, but the quote is: "Life is an untrodden mass of snow, step on it as you like but every mark will show." This resonates with me in two ways. One, that you are responsible for what happens in your life and the choices you make. Second, that we all leave a mark in this world in our own ways. That’s what I feel is beautiful about this quote, and it keeps me grounded in a way that the choices of my life are mine, and I cannot hold anyone else responsible for that. Paula Edgar: I love that for multiple reasons, including the fact that it rhymes. But it's so true that we can determine our impact on the things that we have control over, which we should be thinking about. That actually leads really well into our conversation a little bit later on. Do you have a hype song? Something that, when we're going to get full Pallavi coming on the stage or in the room, what's playing in your head? Pallavi Jain: Yes, yes. I think there are a couple of them that I don't know if you would them, but I felt pepped up when I'm hearing. One is Roar by Katy Perry. One is Baby, I’m a Star— Paula Edgar: Huh? Prince? Pallavi Jain: You like that too? Paula Edgar: That's my song. Pallavi Jain: Oh really? Awesome. Paula Edgar: I love it. Pallavi Jain: Doesn't surprise me—that's why we're here talking. And I think there is one Bollywood song also that I just love. It’s Love You Zindagi, and "Zindagi" means "life." I absolutely love this song. When I'm feeling down or driving in the car and want to feel the energy and the vibe, I just put that song on, and I'm in my happy zone. These are some of the songs I could think of right away. Paula Edgar: I love those, and I can't wait to add them to the playlist because I love it. All right, so tell me, how did you grow up, and how do you think that shaped your brand? Pallavi Jain: Good question. I grew up in India and came to the U.S. about 20 years ago. I think it shaped my brand by making me, like I said, more resilient, as I had to constantly adapt and be flexible with changing needs around me, with how I wanted people to perceive me or how I wanted to always fit in in the beginning. We'll talk a little bit more about that—how it actually creates, from you actually, away from your personal brand and away from who you really are. But I think for me, more than the geographical location, it is really the people around me who shaped me today, who I am, which, if you think from now a scientific point of view, it makes sense because everything literally that we are taking in through our five senses is always getting recorded in our memory, whether we're conscious of it or not. I was reading this another research, and this was a very fascinating research they did. So there was a guy to whom Chinese translations were played while he was in deep sleep. Then they took him into a hypnosis session after he—of course, he woke up—and then questions were asked of him, and he could recite the same translations even though he didn't even understand the language. Paula Edgar: Really? Pallavi Jain: Yes. I’m like, “Geez.” So it matters who we surround ourselves with. It also comes down to what content we consume, as it greatly shapes us and our perception of, now, the current reality that we are facing in the present moment. Paula Edgar: That is wild—and also scary—especially when you think about social media and the news that we consume. Yeah, yes, yes, yes. Oh, wow. Talking about where you grew up coming here, tell me about your career journey. Pallavi Jain: Yes. For me, I was a typical Indian kid with Indian parents who wanted their kid to be either a doctor or an engineer. So I became an engineer. I joined the workforce as an engineer but I was not the one to be sitting behind the computer and doing coding, so I truly found the HR person in me. I started collaborating with them. Then I did my MBA in human resources. There I was—my HR journey started. Then I came to the U.S., and that's really where I really created roots in HR leadership. I was there with Harvard for 10 years as the head of HR for a research center that they have. That gave me a lot of exposure. It was a very diverse environment. I could really learn a lot of different types of perspectives and people and how they showed up. That was a really amazing experience. Then I worked in manufacturing, nonprofit, and now recently in the energy sector. But as all of this was happening, there was also this—like I told before—I felt because I wanted to show up the way how I wanted others for me to show up, I felt I lost myself. Eight years ago, that personal transformation journey started where I was like, "No, this is not who I am." With that, I just started reading some books. Then I am an engineer so I have that research, analytical bent of mind. I was really fascinated with neuroscience. Then I truly learned, Paula, that there is so much that we don't know about ourselves. That made me sad and also intrigued. Why do we not know this? Why is this not taught in schools? And why am I like now, all these years later, needing to unlearn and relearn to really take charge of myself and be happy and be fulfilled? That's how this journey started, which led to then the founding of Lead From Within and then creating the ATM Framework using some of the tools, some of the things that I had learned, I have applied. Then it was really well received with people who I gave this program to. That's how this—like I said, life always has a plan for you, and you just never know. If you look back now, every single thing that happened in your life has prepared you for this moment today. Paula Edgar: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. If you're not prepared, it's not this moment for you. Pallavi Jain: Exactly. Paula Edgar: Yes. No, and I can't wait to jump into talking more. I want folks to hear, because this is what intrigued me and made me want to have you on the podcast. But I want to ask you about what you were saying, essentially, as you were coming up and figuring out what people wanted to see for you in order to navigate spaces, you were less authentic than you. Then you found your way back to authenticity. For personal branding, authenticity is the core of personal branding. When you think about who you were then and the experience and journey you had, does anything come to mind in terms of advice for folks who are trying to navigate that definition of their brand and authenticity? Pallavi Jain: Absolutely. I would just go back to what you mentioned—authenticity is so important to the brand. Then I'll share maybe a couple of tips. I also believe that for creating an effective brand—and we are not just talking about a business context, we are talking about how people see you, they feel you, they receive you—we need to have clarity about how we want to be perceived and how we show up for others because that's how you're building the status. Which, by the way, should be totally aligned and in full honesty to who we really are. It feels simple to do that, but it can be hard sometimes because most of us don't invest enough time with the most important person in our life—ourselves. We are busy and lost in this—like you earlier said—overstimulated, hustling, buzzing life, situations, people, things around us, that we lose touch with who we are. If you pause and think about it, that is pretty sad. The problem is, if I don't know myself, if I don't have clarity about what really matters to me, then what you put out there is not clear. Your authentic self that people could resonate with, actually, is puzzled and convoluted. Again, coming back to consciousness, if we are not conscious by rooting ourselves within in how we show up for others and create that personal brand consciously, guess what? It is unconsciously still getting created. But now—without our permission or without alignment with who we really are. Paula Edgar: So true. I mean, so, so true. The clarity and the consciousness—and in all what you're saying about the buzz around things—I think about that. I think about how that impacts everyone, especially now, but really, really impacts women who are often adapting to fit into external expectations rather than who they are. I mean, to your point, you started this process a while after you showed up in a place and said, "This is what I got to do to connect," but that might not have been who you truly were. Again, back to—you must have all the answers—tell us, how do folks break the cycle? How do they show up authentically? I have thoughts around this, but I want to hear from you because I think people learn from stories. How, tell me. Pallavi Jain: Yes. So, I think, first of all, you asked me previously for some tips from my journey. I think first, going to that, two other quick lessons from my life about how we show up for others and build that status. Sometimes, when we show up for others by doing something for them—it could be listening to them, doing something, giving advice, or in my business, showcasing what I have to offer in the business context—don’t focus on what you think they need in that situation, but focus on what they truly need from you. We often try to help someone because we think they need that. So don’t assume. If you don’t know, just simply ask, because I think it is very important in creating your personal brand and how you truly, genuinely show up for others. That’s how you build that status. That’s how you build that brand. And don’t assume—simply asking is powerful so you can show up for them in a meaningful way. The second thing is, for creating your own brand, your personal brand, sometimes we try to mimic others or to be everything to everyone. That is simply not possible. You and I know that. You cannot please or resonate with everyone. Be yourself. You can learn tools from others or frameworks from others to leverage your personal brand—that is what you take from them. But in that process, don’t get lost in becoming someone else. There can only be one Mel Robbins or Paula Edgar. You can learn some skills and frameworks from them, but I'm not you. Paula Edgar: Yeah. Yeah. Pallavi Jain: Be yourself and trust that your people and audience will find you. Paula Edgar: I often say, "Take inspiration, not imitation." That’s important because I think there are too many people trying to be who they're not, thinking that's how to connect—and it’s not. The folks that you mentioned, like Mel Robbins and other folks, they are themselves. They bring them to the table. I love that. Pallavi Jain: Honestly, that is your only leverage to stand out—by being yourself. But now, imagine if that is distorted. If I don't know who I am or I'm scared to be myself, then what are you offering them? So I think self-doubt—coming back to women—has almost no space in creating your brand. But the reality is, our lived experiences and our community create this self-doubt in us, which starts this negative self-talk unconsciously. I actually go into the inner science of all of this in my workshops because I know why this happens and how we can take charge now. My work with Lead From Within is to understand this inner technology. You can't use a technology if you don't know how it works. So, it is really running in the background without my permission. How do I take charge of it and empower myself to do what I truly want to do? And especially for women—coming back—we're often trying to fit in and do things that don’t really define us but are based on what others expect from us. We don’t even investigate sometimes—what do we truly want to do? We want to be accepted. We want to be respected. We keep adding and doing the things that we think are expected from us. Our brand, our identity, truly shines when we are not afraid to be ourselves and when we align with what we truly want to do. Paula Edgar: Oh, I love that. Pallavi Jain: Because I think that’s why is so important. Paula Edgar: So, so, so important. And your point about what society does, what our cultures do in terms of how they make us internalize that self-doubt—to the point that we're always having data written on our hardware—that is so true. That is so true. Tell me about Lead From Within and the ATM framework for personal growth and empowerment. What is it, and how do you think that can lead to the strengthening of personal life? I have some thoughts. I have some thoughts after having watched your TED Talk, I have some thoughts on this. Let me hear you talk about it. Pallavi Jain: Absolutely. Definitely your own confidence and conviction, first of all, is everything—how you show up for others and how they perceive you. That is your personal brand. I believe now the only way to get ahead of this constant inner dialogue—to not get lost in this overstimulated world with the dings and the buzz that demand our attention all the time, and to reduce stress and burnout—because that is another reason why we can’t think clearly, that creates this clouding of our current reality. We are not really seeing the reality as it is—we are seeing it through the lens of our lived experiences, our memories, and all of that. You can only get out of that by leaning within and understanding and connecting with your inner intelligence. There is this inner treasure of empowerment and intelligence waiting to be discovered. When we are leading in this world feeling whole, fulfilled, and connected inside, there is no place for fear, judgment, validation, blame, feeling stuck, or loneliness—which, by the way, is another epidemic that's happening—because you have everything that you need within you. That’s the whole premise of Lead From Within. When you really lead from within, you understand that all those answers, all those fears and anxieties, or all the good and the bad, are coming from within you. The ATM framework helps you because I think for me—yes, I'm an HR professional and I do all this inner work and everything—but again, I'm also an engineer—for me, the practicality of all of this is very important because way too often, Paula, you and I and so many other women and people out there, we all know what the right thing to do is but we still don’t do it. Knowing is there—a lot of things that we talk about, other than, of course, diving into the science—we know all these things. But how do I make it happen? How do I practically implement it? And that was the struggle. I still struggle with a lot of these things. I still have self-doubt many times. Then I have to remind myself of my own training and the things that I teach others because they are so hardwired in us. Paula Edgar: Yeah. Pallavi Jain: The ATM framework, which I created and introduced in my TED Talk, gives you these three micro steps that you can take in any moment to be in charge and intentionally choose what you really want to do—which is so important. I think ultimate fulfillment only comes from—when are we happy? When what's happening around us is what we want. Paula Edgar: What we want, mm-hmm. Pallavi Jain: Then we're happy. That’s when we’re in a happy state. When we're stressed or when we're upset, it's because we think something is not going the way we want it to go. Paula Edgar: Yes, exactly. Pallavi Jain: Right. So that fulfillment is coming from within you. You can only be fulfilled when you're truly doing what you really want to do—when you find that purpose, not even purpose—because that is a much broader word—but you find that joy, that strength, that something that is your passion, that ignites you, that ignites that fire in you. Let’s go into the framework quickly. Basically, ATM—I'm saying, like you go to an ATM machine and you cash out, you have an internal ATM. To tap into this inner resource, this inner intelligence that you do. Now, this ATM are three steps. A, for example, starting from our first step is arrive in the present moment. Because real action can only happen in this moment. Everything else is hallucination. It's simply mental projections of thought and emotion. It's not real-time. I have a podcast coming with Paula. If I start thinking about what happens if my mic doesn't work, if my video doesn't work, and I am stressing about an imaginative experience that has not even happened— Paula Edgar: Yeah. That sounds like my therapist, by the way. Pallavi Jain: But so there are, and then there are various tools we teach in our workshops and in my sessions to help you now, I understand I need to arrive in the present moment, but how do I do it? Paula Edgar: Right, right. Pallavi Jain: Then we teach them some practical tools and tips and micro steps that they could do to start this journey of transformation. Because action can only be taken in the present moment. But the first step is, and like I talk in my TED Talk, if you just simply ask, “Am I present?” you're present. Paula Edgar: Yeah. So, everybody, so in the TED Talk, this is a part that I laughed at because Pallavi asked, “Close your eyes, are you present?” And you can hear the audience being like, “Whoa, I'm not present.” I'm sure that is the case for so many people because we're always thinking about all this, everything else. I love that. I love it. Pallavi Jain: Yes, no, absolutely. The moment you say I'm not present, you're actually present. Paula Edgar: Right, right. Pallavi Jain: So that's the first step, ATM. Arrive in the present moment. You are in here. You're in the present time, in the real time. Second is T, which is take responsibility and know what truly matters to you. We stay stuck and cannot get out of it as we are busy blaming someone else or the situation, and this takes away the control from you. Somebody else is driving the narrative at that time. Not you. I tell my kids, It's like a remote control and somebody is changing the channels of joy and misery and they have your remote control. Paula Edgar: Oh, I love that. I love that. Take back your remote control. Pallavi Jain: Yes. The external world is not always going to happen according to you. Come on. We all know it. Paula Edgar: Yeah. Pallavi Jain: It's just not possible. At least what's happening within you should be in your control. Paula Edgar: Facts. I love that. Pallavi Jain: Right? So, I think that's the first thing in the second step—taking that responsibility. What can I do about it? If I cannot do anything about it, then your response is to let it go. Paula Edgar: That's the scary part. Pallavi Jain: Sometimes response can be no action. Whatever that is. But you're intentionally, you're in the present moment. You're not driven by the memory or the imagination. You're already right in the present moment. In that moment, you're taking responsibility and deciding in that moment. For example, you're in a conflict. Decide if being right is more important or if that relationship is more important. Paula Edgar: Oh, marriage advice, hello. Pallavi Jain: I wasn't talking about my husband, by the way. Paula Edgar: I was talking about mine. I'm just kidding. Go ahead. Pallavi Jain: But seriously. Because we often do that. At work, we do that. We are with a team member, and we want to show that we have it all together. It's coming from our own self-doubt. That's the root. It's coming from wanting to feel validated so we want to be right. Paula Edgar: Yeah, yes, yes. Pallavi Jain: It's deep-rooted. And again, it's all being created within you. It's not coming from anybody else. It's not coming from that person. That person is bringing that trigger in you because you have some emotion in there that's bringing that's triggering you. Again, knowing what truly matters to me. So that's the second step—it focuses your attention to your intention, kind of. Arrive in the present moment. Take responsibility and know what really matters to you. Then comes the last step, which is M—now make a conscious choice. In creating brands, whatever you're doing, do it for the right reason. The right why is so critical. Don't just do it because everyone else is doing it. Introspect, and if it aligns with your passion, with your strengths, then do it. The why is supercritical that you took care of in the second step. Now you know this is what matters to me. I have arrived, I am taking responsibility. Now, all that is left is in that micro-moment—taking or making a conscious choice. Because I truly believe that your future and your life are created in being fully aware in these day-to-day moments of life and making these micro-decisions and choices consciously. Paula Edgar: I 100 % agree. When I was watching this TED Talk and thinking about how this framework connects to branding, I thought of it in a similar way—the ATM and the withdrawal piece. You walk into the ATM, that vestibule, that's step number one. Then you're looking to see what's in your account. What is important to me? What am I going to buy? How much do I have to take out and figure it out? And then do it. Then you're going to actually do the withdrawal. For the branding piece of it, it is saying, like I started off with, don't just let it happen to you. Choose what's going to happen to the extent that you can decide what's going to and why that, I think, is so powerful is that anytime we slow down, we do better. Pallavi Jain: Absolutely. Paula Edgar: I know for sure, not enough of us really take time to self-assess what's going on—and what's going on with us, too. When I thought about that branding piece—because I always say the first part of good branding is to understand where you are. Who you are right now. Pallavi Jain: Absolutely, in anything you do. Because otherwise, we're just running by accident, doing things by accident. We've spent enough years of our life doing that, so it is time to take charge, to be intentional about what we truly want to do. The biggest thing about this framework, which I now hate—I didn't actually cover it in the talk, I should have, but I'll cover it here. The beauty of this framework is, the more you use it to make this internal withdrawal from your ATM, the more it replenishes your internal ATM. Because nature is built on the basic principle of demand and supply. I'll give you a basic example. When a mother breastfeeds a baby, the more the baby drinks, the more milk is produced. Same way, the more you use your internal ATM for self-empowerment and taking charge of your life to self-lead, the more control and power you will feel, and you can then keep using it for bigger and bigger things in your life. Paula Edgar: That’s so powerful. When you and first connected, we talked about this where this framework can work for anybody who has a title as a leader but also who is leading from all the different ranks of leadership because I believe you can lead from anywhere. That is great, and I can imagine the powerful transformations it brings for organizations when everyone within an organization is thinking, "I have ownership, I have agency, and I'm a leader, and I can find my leadership space from this." It's really why I was like, "Whoa." That self-leadership piece is really what shapes your personal brand. It's saying, "I am going to choose, and I'm going to show up differently or better or—whatever the thing is that you come from it—because you have access to that information." So, so powerful. So powerful. So powerful. What is not powerful is what I want to get to. You had over 20 years of experience working in HR and all these different places, when you think about leaders who have maybe shown up where their brand was not great, when they have not led from within, where are some of the challenges that you see? What are some of the mistakes that you see leaders making often? Pallavi Jain: One you mentioned is that because we always feel we don't have enough time, we're always rushing things. I have been in those rooms where I have seen executive leaders sitting there, they're doing strategy, now everybody's overwhelmed. They didn't really get the time to really give it an intentional thought of what they wanted to do. They have a board meeting in two days, and they're literally trying to scramble and put something together as strategy, which now they have to sell to their employees and communicate about, which they're truly aligned with because it's all rushed in. I think a lot of us are wasting our time on unimportant stuff. We really are. I do still—I still do that, by the way—guilty charge. I mean, you open Instagram to check one thing, and then one hour later, you're still scrolling. That's one hour of your precious time that you just lost in mindless wandering on this. It's never-ending. Then, also consuming all the things that we talked about—you are putting in information that may not help you just in the long run. I think leaders have to be even more intentional about this because whether they like it or not, their actions impact not just them, but many others that are looking up to them. I was not that great a leader all the time as well. I made mistakes too because, again, I have an image of how I've seen my leaders do, and I started replicating the same thing. I think it's important, again, and when you lead from within, when you understand really the science, I think it also makes you more empathetic because you don't now blame someone else for the way they're showing up. For me now, if somebody is really angry, my immediate reaction—maybe because I'm wired that way—is I get upset, but very quickly, I find my center that actually, this person is being so angry, that means there must be so much pain and turmoil inside this person, which gives me a chance to actually pause, not react. I'm still going to do the right thing. I'm not going to—you have also, as a leader, a responsibility to do certain things, which I will—but it would be more intentional. But I think intention comes with it, more grounding comes with it. You are able to create response flexibility, which I call when you're doing mindfulness, when you're training your mind, when you're doing those neural connections, that space between the stimulus and the reaction increases. By the way, I still lose it with my kids sometimes. I told my daughter the other day, "You have to call out when I'm not doing that." She's like, "Mommy, do you want to take a minute?" I'm like, "Yes, thank you for that reminder." So I think it's also knowing that nobody is perfect. That was one mistake I did. I always wanted to show up as a leader who had it all together, who could not make a mistake. I don't know if it was the women. I don't know what it was, but I always wanted to be validated, always wanted to be seen as competent, and I just wanted somebody else to show up. But it's not fair. One, because you can never live up to that expectation that you've created for yourself. Two, you're teaching the wrong things now to the younger generation who are seeing you, and they would try to imitate the same thing. I think that's why authenticity in that way is so important for a leader. Saying, "You know what, I teach this concept—flip the lid—we didn’t cover it here, but I got upset, and I'm sorry I did that. But I had this thing from home that I was still thinking about." Do you know how much power there is to that? Because that would give them the permission ticket or slip for admitting their mistake, for being vulnerable, for being there and saying, "I messed up. I'm sorry." Paula Edgar: It's so, so true, and I connect with this both as a leader and a parent. I said to my daughter the other day—because I snapped at her, I just had a lot going on, I snapped at her—and I said to her, I called her and said, "I'm sorry that I snapped at you." I was like, "You should thank my therapist, because I can't even think about my parents even trying to form their mouths to apologize to me." But it's also that continued self-worth to say that—to your point—I believe in striving for excellence at all times, and that you can't hit perfection. But you can always strive for excellence. Part of excellence is saying, "I didn’t do well there. I'm going to do better as I go forward." We're human. We're human. Pallavi Jain: Right, and I think there's also—I was listening to someone else the other day, I don't remember who it was, but they also mentioned—also being open in your relationships with your partners, with your parents sometimes, it could be any of those relationships, who you interact with in day-to-day life. It's being honest and telling them, "Hey, you know what? I'm not at a hundred today. I'm feeling this way, and I'm sorry. Just give me some grace." Once you do that, the other person does that too. I think that's very healthy. Paula Edgar: I agree with that. It does activate that empathy trigger, which we all want. I think empathy leads directly into "I'm being seen," which is a part of our, I think, human nature. I studied anthropology as an undergrad, and part of how you build trust is, when you're looking at someone, sometimes when you see their teeth, there's a bunch of things that are writing data for somebody about you without you even having to say anything. But then when you add that additional piece of, "I see you, I get it. Can you see me? Can you get it too?" then it changes, and it brings you a little bit closer. The work that I have done with organizations around inclusion, it’s how are you leading to see? Because no matter what, regardless of what's happening in the world, a good leader has to be equal to an inclusive leader. It's no longer an option. You think about inclusion not because, "Oh, I have this group in my place with that group." It's because everyone wants to be fully heard and fairly treated. They want to be seen. That is including the person who is leading. Pallavi Jain: You mentioned inclusion, and we mentioned women too. I'll share another quick thing. Our memory, like I said, impacts our current perception. That's a problem because that's the first step of how you would interact and engage with someone—how you perceive the situation, how you perceive the other person. That's mostly clouded because of our memory and lived experiences. Now, it can be actually generational memory also has an impact on you. Yes. So there was an experiment that was conducted—Deepak Chopra did it in his lab—and they basically, what they did is, they took a bunch of mice. Then they gave them wintergreen to smell. Right after that, they gave them an electric shock. Some of the mice died. Then they saw the effect in the next generation. For example, their next generation—they gave them wintergreen, and they would start running with fear. Paula Edgar: When they smelled it. Pallavi Jain: Expecting that wintergreen—they associated wintergreen with danger. That went to seven generations. Paula Edgar: Wow. Pallavi Jain: So when we talk about women’s pain, women feeling not empowered, feeling self-doubt—a lot of that is also coming from generational memory. Because yes, we are actually very lucky to be in this era where we are finding our power back. We can even express ourselves how we want to be. But our mothers, their mothers, the generations that we see, there was a lot of pain, resentment, or not feeling happy and fulfilled. So that's how intricate this technology is. Then you're trying to figure things out and snap, and trying to be, and then overstimulating ourselves with all the other stuff that's happening around us. It's prime time that we connect with ourselves and truly understand and detach ourselves from these memories. Because I think the beauty of awareness is, when you see it, then it melts away. When you create this space between, "This is happening," and, "I'm just watching it," it melts away, and it doesn’t have that much impact on you. Paula Edgar: Right, getting present, getting present in that and understanding. I do think it's a powerful framework that you have developed. As you were talking, I was thinking about a lot of things because I was not present. I was doing everything. I was like, "I want to ask all these other questions." One of the things that came up for me when you were talking about that generational trauma that passes down is—I saw a documentary. It was Diane von Furstenberg's documentary, and for all of you who haven't watched it, it's awesome. Pallavi Jain: Yeah, I’m writing it down right now. Paula Edgar: Yeah, it is great. She talks about how her mother was in—I can't remember the country—but she was in one of the concentration camps when she was pregnant with her. The trauma that she experienced—she talks about having known her mom’s trauma, her mother felt the trauma, and then how she consciously tried to not give that same trauma. But in some ways, because she's human, she did without even knowing. In other ways, she was able to own it. I just kept thinking about that. But the piece that connected to me was that awareness. That getting clear. So many folks are either scared to or not able to self-assess and say, both framework one and two, "Here I am, but also, what's going on?" Every January, I do a free session for anybody on the internet who wants to do it. It's my Annual Intention and Goal-setting Session, and part of it is to be able to say, "Stop. Whatever you're doing, reflect, and then think—how am I here, and where do I want to be a year from now?" I love this framework in terms of thinking about—it’s very much aligned. When I think about that self-awareness piece and connect it to the leaders and what they maybe have not done well, I wonder what your pitch is—how you pitch to companies around why this is key, why they need to make sure folks are incorporating this, and how it can be transformative to organizations in terms of getting this. Pallavi Jain: Yes, and I think you're absolutely right. A lot of leaders actually don't see the connection because they're looking for, again, the buzz things—do the project management training, do the leadership framework. Well, these are all external frameworks that the user is using. Now, if the user doesn't know what they want, the framework is not going to do that for them. That’s where we are struggling because we have all this human potential inside our organizations. Everybody wants one thing, and you said it—we all want to feel valued, we all want to feel empowered. The question is, if we can give them that, just imagine how joyful and giving these people would be and how they would show up for one another. I'm an idealist, I'm an optimist. I see that great world where everybody—we are cooperating, we're not in competition. There is enough for everyone. Everybody has their own unique style and thing that they're going to bring. When you create that culture, which is made up of people, you see how we interact and show up for each other. When we are sorted and fulfilled within, cooperation and empathy come naturally. Now, the other issue is, if our leaders and managers are stressed and burnt out all the time, how are they making effective decisions? Paula Edgar: Are they making effective decisions? Pallavi Jain: That’s the impact for the bottom line, not just today, five years from now. Paula Edgar: Yes, yeah. Pallavi Jain: Because they are not even—I have seen them. I have seen and I've been in various organizations. I was one of them. I know how sometimes you make decisions, and they are not optimal because we're not really taking into account what is the real value here. What are we really even trying to get? We get into these fancy things of creating the vision statement, mission statement—yes, great. But do we understand what we're doing and why we're doing it? Paula Edgar: Right. Pallavi Jain: So I think it really helps you to get rid of this mental chatter that's always there and to communicate and make decisions effectively. It reduces stress and burnout in organizations. I mean, how is this sustainable? Seventy-seven percent of employees in the workplace feel stressed today. Paula Edgar: Wow. Pallavi Jain: I mean, I know this stuff, I apply it, and I still get stressed sometimes. I'm not saying it's a magic solution, but it is definitely better than how I was eight years ago. It is a journey, and the other thing I do want to say is that, yes, organizations can provide you with this, but you have to take action. People say, "I have an executive coach for eight years," and it's a fancy thing now to also say, "I have an executive coach, by the way." But nothing is going to change unless you start applying what you're learning. I think that translation, that motivation, inspiration—creating that common vibe among us—we are spending so much time in our organizations together, and if we can't motivate and inspire each other to be more joyful, to be more fulfilled, why are we doing any of this? Paula Edgar: I mean, it's such a selling point, especially these days where everybody's talking about burnout, everybody's talking about wellness, and the world is like that meme where you're sitting at the table and everything’s on fire around you. I'll say it again for all of you—you know that I often have people come to me who want to be on my podcast, but it's very rare for me to be like, "I want you to be on my podcast." I was like, "Oh, I need my folks to hear about this," because I think as we navigate the world—our workplaces, yes, but also the world, whether it's the microcosm of our families or all the different pieces—this is going to be key for our grit and resilience. All of you, I rarely do this, but I'm going to say to you—we have a lot of lawyers who are listening—we have a huge wellness deficiency in our profession. We have huge high rates of suicide, high rates of depression, high rates of all of the things that we're talking about. To find some ways to navigate and do this better is such a helpful thing. So your homework post this is to tell everybody about this so that folks can have Pallavi come into their organizations and help. I do think that this is going to be such a key piece. But before we close—and I knew this was going to go quickly—I want to ask you a couple of things that are important that I have to ask everybody. Number one, I know that you just talked about how you transform organizations and the things that you've done, but what do you do for fun? Pallavi Jain: Oh, I do different things for fun at different times. I actually found this adventurous person in me. This is—again, I don't want to take too much time, but I have to tell this to everybody. I was always fearful of everything—of heights, of water, of anything you can imagine. I was the one going with my family, and they're all on these rides, and I'm the one taking pictures because I'm just afraid of them even asking me to go on the ride. But I will tell you—this Lead From Within stuff and the ATM framework and everything that I have learned in my life—you won't believe this, last year, I went to Disney World with my two kids. I went for them. I said, "Okay, you know what? I'm going to apply my framework, and I'm going to just go with it." I did every single ride in the four Disney parks. Paula Edgar: I'm traumatized just thinking about that. Wow. Pallavi Jain: I know my husband is going to say, "Those are not real rollercoasters." Well, they were for me. I have never ridden any ride in my life. I did all of them—hands down, all four Disney parks. You had no idea. The first time I did it, I still remember that feeling. I was walking out—it was the Guardians of the Galaxy ride. I was walking out, and my kids, everybody, was saying something. I was not listening to anything. I was so happy. I felt like I had achieved something because this was always something I could never do. Paula Edgar: A breakthrough. Pallavi Jain: When I did it, it felt amazing. That's another testament for all of you who are listening—there is power in truly giving into the present moment, in just welcoming life. And I'm not saying go and take rides. That was just my fear. I was able to snap out of it because it was all self-made. It was all within me. Paula Edgar: I had a similar experience when I turned 40, which was I became a zipline lover. I always knew that I wasn’t going to do a bungee jump. I was like, "I'm never going to throw myself off anything. That's not what's happening." Pallavi Jain: Yeah, some things are off the table for me too. Paula Edgar: Right. I'm too much of a lawyer for that. I'm that person who's like, "Yeah, I'll fill out this thing, but I'm crossing this out. I'm crossing that." But when I turned 40, I went on a trip with one of my girlfriends to Mexico, and they had a zipline. They were like, "Do you want to do the zipline?" And I don’t know, this crazy, magical feeling came over me, and I was like, "Yes." When I was done—and for those of you who are like, “Can I see a picture?” if you go and look at my annual, I do a photo every year with my board of the year. But that year, it's me on the zipline, because I was like, "Somebody has to get a picture of the fact that this is happening!" It's so powerful when you do things that you're scared of and realize that you were in the way, as opposed to it being a thing that you couldn't do. Pallavi Jain: The power is within you. It's just—you need to tap into it. Paula Edgar: Yeah. Pallavi Jain: It may mean different things for different people. It may mean for some people, "Oh, I can never ask for what I want." Start small. Start asking for some things that don’t matter. Go to the airport, ask for something from people you're never going to see again—whatever. Do it where you're not afraid of getting a rejection. Whatever that means for you, but know that everything is within you, you just need to tap into it, knowing what truly matters to you. And it's there. Paula Edgar: Well, speaking of what truly matters to you, one of the questions that I ask everyone is, what is the aspect of your personal brand that you will never compromise on? Pallavi Jain: I think I can never do a check-the-box exercise. I just can't. If I feel or believe that what I'm doing, what I'm offering, is not having a positive impact on me and those around me, I will not do it. Paula Edgar: I love it. Pallavi Jain: I just can't do it. Paula Edgar: I mean, again, we’re talking about all the things that have been imbued in us as folks. Setting boundaries is not necessarily one of them, particularly for women and particularly for women of color, that has never been the case. I love this new momentum of people being like, "Actually, no." Branding Room Only is a play on the term standing room only—because everybody knows I'm clever. I ask everyone this: what is something where people would be in a room with only standing room to experience that magic about you? What’s that magic? Pallavi Jain: I would love to ask that question to the people who are around me. But I think I am pretty genuine in a way that I cannot make up stuff. If I don’t like you, you will know. If I like you, you will know. I cannot pretend. I just can't. Sometimes that comes to bite me, and I’ve gotten better with that professional look, but generally, you will get my vibe. I think that’s what I want to create anyway. I want to create true partnerships with people who see me for how I am and what I bring. I will do anything for anybody for love. I always tell, all my loved ones know that. That’s all I need. If I feel your love, if I feel that you're here to support me or that you need me, I’ll be there for you. Yeah, I think just being genuine and just being there in that moment and making the other people feel seen and valued, I think that’s important for me. Paula Edgar: I love that. I love the vibe comments. Speaking of, how can people know more about you and your vibe? How can folks find out more about you and your work? Pallavi Jain: Absolutely. They can find me on my website, which is pallavi-jain.com. They can also find me on LinkedIn, where I’m pretty active now. I didn’t use to be, but I’m getting better. You can even get my email there, and they can reach me on any of these platforms. I would love to hear more from people—their stories—and how I can, in any way, support them and make their life a little bit more magical than what it may already be. Paula Edgar: I love that. Everybody, make sure you tell a friend, an enemy, a colleague—whoever—about this podcast so they can start exploring how they can start to lead from within. Thank you for being on the podcast. I really appreciated the conversation. Everyone, like I said, download, like, share, tell a friend about this wonderful conversation, and I will see you all next time. Bye. Pallavi Jain: Thank you so much.