Embracing Ancient Wisdom in Modern Leadership
From IMPACTFUL Teamwork by Julia Felton
March 30, 2026 · 30 min · Episode 104
About this episode
Julia Felton discusses modern leadership with Sheila Belanger, focusing on integrating ancient wisdom and emotional intelligence into business practices.
Host Julia welcomes transformational coach Sheila Belanger to discuss how leaders can resource themselves as business paradigms shift and old models become unfit. Sheila emphasises reconnecting with nature and activating “other ways of knowing” beneath the strategic mind: body/gut instinct, heart wisdom and emotional intelligence, and imagination. She offers practical steps such as breathing before meetings, feeling feet on the ground, and briefly touching the heart to regulate and sense the room. Sheila also introduces “inner team” stewardship—tracking who has “the keys to the car” (e.g., wounded or reactive parts) and returning leadership to the wiser self. She shares an elemental-season framework (earth/summer grounding, water/autumn emotional release and sovereignty, air/winter navigating change, fire/spring renewal, ether throughout) and defines “edge work” as moving through the unknown without reverting to old roles. 00:00 Why Leadership Must Change 01:39 Meet Sheila Belanger 03:12 Beyond Strategic Thinking 05:09 Practical Body Heart Tools 09:12 Animal Instinct and Horses 11:42 Steward Your Inner Team 14:40 Elemental Spiral Seasons 18:49 Edge Work in Uncertainty 22:36 Self…
People in this episode
Host: Julia Felton
Guest: Sheila Belanger
Topics covered
- leadership
- ancient wisdom
- emotional intelligence
- nature
- self-care
- transformation
Keywords
- leadership
- transformation
- emotional intelligence
- nature
- self-care
- inner team
- edge work
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