In this episode of The Leader's Table Podcast, host Diana Murphy discusses how to navigate intense emotional moments—anger, anxiety, sadness—during leadership situations like team meetings, difficult conversations, or receiving bad news. Rather than judging or suppressing emotions, she frames them as a portal to wisdom, values, integrity, and truth, helping leaders stay grounded instead of reacting as a "hothead." She introduces the SLOW tool to honor and engage emotions differently:

Stop and notice your breath

Linger to recover and let the emotion move

Stay Open and curious without judgment about what triggered you

Widen your perspective to reduce tunnel vision and access what you really want to do or say.

She emphasizes that nothing has gone wrong when emotions arise and promises that practicing SLOW leads to more aligned responses and deeper insight.

00:00 Welcome and Purpose

00:13 When Emotions Hit

01:22 Emotions as Wisdom

03:47 Honor the Moment

05:41 Engage Differently

07:07 SLOW Acronym

08:39 Widen Perspective

10:18 Repeat the Steps

11:55 Mammal Not Mind

14:07 Promises and Wrap Up

In this episode of The Leader's Table Podcast, host Diana Murphy lays out the "dirty secret" of transformational growth for business owners and leaders: real change is often confusing, disorienting, and guaranteed to bring strong emotions, not just excitement.

She argues emotions aren't good or bad, and that resisting grief, anxiety, fear, anger, or disappointment can block not only growth but also access to joy and wisdom. Drawing from her experience navigating divorce and coaching clients, she explains that learning to engage emotions as a portal—not an obstacle—builds self-awareness, agency, groundedness, and clearer decision-making.

Diana contrasts this with her past patterns of worry, procrastination, and toxic positivity, and offers reflective questions and practices like slowing down, noticing the body and breath, getting curious without judgment, and letting emotional energy move.

00:00 The Dirty Secret of Growth

01:07 Transformation Feels Messy

02:42 Emotions as a Portal

05:49 Old Patterns and Burnout

08:04 Coaching Shift to Allowing

09:19 Emotions Are Energy in Motion

10:27 Questions to Get Curious

12:25 Let It Move Find Wisdom

14:27 Closing and Share the Episode

Diana supports leaders like you who are wholeheartedly invested in their leadership and personal growth. She helps you move from overwhelmed and fire-fighting to grounded, intentional, and strategic leadership.

Find out more at dianamurphycoaching.com

A leader with a strong presence is often overlooked for support, because people assume they're fine. This is especially true for high-capacity individuals whose lives appear successful on the outside and who may need extra privacy while navigating major business transitions.

In this episode, Diana Murphy shares excerpts of her conversation with Caryn Gillen. They discuss resourcing as a baseline—coaching, bodywork, emotional wellbeing, and lifestyle supports that create a "nest" so leaders can make big decisions with integrity. Caryn prompts a key takeaway about "amnesia" during pivots: people forget their full breadth of life and work experience and start acting like they're beginning from scratch, which fuels imposter syndrome.

Diana urges listeners to be honest about their emotional experience, ask for practical support, lean into trusted relationships, use coaching or reflection to spot patterns, and remember everything they bring to the table during change.

The clips come from Caryn Gillen's podcast, Coach Business, and the conversation with Diana is Episode 201.