In this solo episode of The Discomfort Practice, Betsy shares the origin story of Embodied Leadership Lab, why the launch didn't go to plan and what it is.

It was supposed to happen on April 7th. Instead, Betsy was in surgery. And she's here to tell you: that was the launch.

Because here's the thing at the centre of everything she's building: Leadership is not what you say in the room. It's the state you are in when you enter the room. When you're in the room.

What happens when the body overrides the timeline you 'should' follow? When life says "not that way" - and you actually listen? When the plan falls apart and you're left with a choice: hustle through it, or live what you teach?

Betsy chose to live it. To embody leadership 'in the wild.'

Drawing on the ancient Sumerian myth of Inanna/Ishtar, queen of heaven and earth who descends into the underworld, stripped of everything at every gate, Betsy maps what it means to go down into the hard thing, rather than push past it.

And why that descent is exactly where leadership capacity gets built. Not on the way up. On the way down.

This episode is both origin story of Embodied Leadership Lab and embodiment in real time. It's what her work is actually about: the leadership development that most spaces skip entirely; the moment when the nervous system is telling you something strategy can't see or embody.

In this episode, Betsy explores:

• Why leadership is not a cognitive skill; it's the state you bring into the room
• What a hard health diagnosis strips away, and what it leaves behind
• The myth of Inanna, and why descent is not failure; it's initiation
• A three-day post-surgery ritual for honouring the threshold between who she was and who she's becoming
• Why you don't build leadership capacity on the way up; you build it on the way down
• What it actually means to embody your work, in the most inconvenient and unscripted way possible

The Discomfort Practice explores the uncomfortable edges where personal growth, leadership, culture, and systems change intersect. If this episode landed for you, follow Betsy for more reflections on integrity, embodiment, and the quiet courage it takes to lead from somewhere real:

• Follow Betsy on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thebetsyreed
• Subscribe to The Discomfort Practice wherever you listen to podcasts - and leave a five-star review (it truly helps)
• Join her on Substack at The Betsy Reed for (Voice) Notes from the Edge - some public, some subscriber-only: substack.com/thebetsyreed
• Work with Betsy - coaching, consulting, speaking, embodied leadership sessions, and the newly launched Embodied Leadership Lab: www.betsy-reed.com