SHOW NOTES
About the Guest
Lolita Walker is a leadership strategist, coach, consultant, educator, speaker, and founder of Walker & Walker Enterprises. Through her work with individuals, organizations, entrepreneurs, and intrapreneurs, Lolita helps people reconnect with confidence, integrity, purpose, and the truth of who they are beyond titles. She is also a doctoral student studying entrepreneurship, with a focus on intrapreneurship, cognition, innovation, and how employees think entrepreneurially inside established organizations.
Episode Summary
Leadership strategist and coach Lolita Walker joins Jen Aks for a powerful conversation on embodied leadership, self-awareness, faith, confidence, and trusting who you are beyond your titles. Lolita shares how true leadership begins with knowing yourself — not just the roles you hold, but the characteristics, skills, values, and lived experiences that make you who you are.
From her work teaching organizational behavior to college juniors and seniors, to coaching leaders and consulting with organizations, Lolita explains why presence, self-trust, integrity, and emotional intelligence are essential to effective leadership. She also opens up about the major life transitions that led to her first book, The Intersection of You and Change, including divorce, the death of her father, premature motherhood, leaving a corporate job, and navigating the uncertainty of life without a clear next step.
Together, Jen and Lolita explore how the body, faith, creativity, and the “bubbling up” feeling within can guide us through change. They also discuss why leadership is not only about what you do in a room, but how you enter it, how you hold space for others, and how deeply you are willing to stand in the truth of who you are.
This episode is an inspiring reminder that the strongest leaders are the ones grounded in self-awareness, self-trust, faith, authenticity, and the courage to keep becoming.
What You’ll Learn
• Why leadership starts with knowing who you are beyond your title
• How to begin identifying your characteristics, strengths, and the qualities other people already see in you
• Why self-awareness is the foundation of embodied leadership and emotional intelligence
• How confidence grows when you remember what you have already survived, accomplished, and become
• Why presence is something you practice — not something you magically arrive at
• How Lolita helps students and leaders articulate who they are, where they want to go, and why they belong in the room
• Why testing, assessment, and judgment can impact confidence — and why no score can fully measure a person’s intelligence or worth
• How major life transitions led Lolita to write The Intersection of You and Change
• Why creativity, poetry, journaling, and community can reinvigorate parts of yourself you thought were gone
• What it means to follow the “bubbling up” feeling, the gut feeling, and the heart feeling
• How faith helps Lolita stay grounded when life feels overwhelming
• What intrapreneurship means and why innovation inside organizations matters
• How leaders can create impact by helping people move with confidence, creativity, and purpose
Key Concepts Introduced
• Embodied Leadership — leadership rooted in self-awareness, confidence, presence, integrity, faith, and the truth of who you are
• Who Am I Beyond My Titles? — Lolita’s reminder that titles are not the whole story; the real work is identifying the characteristics and skills that made those titles possible
• The Change Train — Lolita’s language for the people who travel with us through different seasons of change, growth, support, and release
• Your Board of Directors — the trusted people around you who help you remember who you are, tell you the truth, and support your becoming
• Bio Resume — an exercise Lolita uses with students, built from pictures, quotes, and phrases that describe who they are when nobody else is looking
• Presence as Practice — the idea that presence grows through affirmation, preparation, skill, support, faith, and repeated opportunities to stand in your truth
• The Small Wins Board — a grounding tool for remembering your recent accomplishments, especially when fear, stress, or doubt tries to take over
• The Intersection of You and Change — Lolita’s first book, born from a season of major transition, journaling, release, and self-discovery
• The Bubbling Up Feeling — the inner pull, gut feeling, heart feeling, or inspired energy that asks to be followed
• Intrapreneurship — entrepreneurial thinking, innovation, creativity, and opportunity recognition inside an already established organization
• Faith as Grounding — Lolita’s belief that God already has the plan, and that even in worry, stress, and pain, she can return to what is already done
Quotes From This Episode
“You gotta follow that bubbling up, that gut feeling, that heart feeling, and just go with it.”
“This embodiment is really self-discovery. I think it’s self-confidence.”
“Tell me some characteristics about yourself that get you to that title.”
“You’re already those things. And how do you know? Because you’ve already shown up in those ways.”
“When you walk in a room, you bring that presence with you.”
“I can stand in my full confidence of who it is I am, knowing that I’m still becoming who it is that I know is on the other side of this thing.”
“If no one has said thank you for something in the last week, then I challenge you to really get around others or get yourself out to be around others to impact differently.”
“God didn’t put me here to help everybody. It’s not even my job.”
“Sometimes you have to get in the mirror and affirm yourself.”
CHAPTER MARKERS
00:00 Opening: Jen Introduces Lolita Walker
Jen introduces Lolita Walker as a woman of high integrity, leadership presence, and deep impact — someone who trains in leadership, public presence, corporate work, human connection, entrepreneurship, and intrapreneurship.
01:15 Welcome to Wisdom From Within
Jen opens the episode with the podcast mission: where mindset meets bodyset, and where inner wisdom helps us create genuine, authentic, empowered impact.
02:00 The Body as an Asset for Leadership
Jen explains the intention behind the podcast: helping people awaken to the intelligence of the body and rely on it personally and professionally.
03:10 Receiving the Acknowledgment
Lolita receives Jen’s opening reflection, and Jen invites her to speak about embodied wisdom, embodied leadership, and why this work matters in leadership strategy.
03:41 Embodiment as Self-Discovery
Lolita shares that embodiment is not something we simply wake up with. It is built through experience, self-discovery, self-confidence, faith, and the people on our change train.
04:30 Returning to Center When Life Gets Loud
Lolita explains how fear, stress, anxiety, and frustration can still show up — but embodied wisdom helps her return to the truth of who she is.
05:05 Who Are You Beyond Your Titles?
Lolita explains how she helps people begin with who they are. Most people start with titles, but the deeper work is identifying the characteristics and skills behind those titles.
06:00 Ask Five People How They Would Describe You
Lolita shares an exercise: ask five people what characteristics they see in you, then use their answers as a mirror for the truth you may not yet fully own.
06:50 Why Leadership Starts With Knowing Who You Are
Lolita explains that once you understand what you bring to the table, your leadership can blossom. You begin building yourself brick by brick.
07:53 Self-Awareness, Emotional Intelligence & Presence
Jen connects Lolita’s work to emotional intelligence, especially self-awareness, self-regulation, and presence as an essential part of leadership.
08:39 The Bio Resume Exercise
Lolita describes an exercise she uses with college students: a resume made only of pictures, quotes, and phrases that reveal who they are when nobody else is looking.
09:30 Practicing Confidence Before You Need It
Lolita explains how articulating who you are helps students and leaders stand in confidence, see possibility, and recognize that they are still becoming.
10:30 The People Who Help Fill Your Cup
Lolita names the importance of having people around you who truly want to see you win — not yes people, not haters, but people who help refill you when your cup is low.
11:05 How Testing and Judgment Impact Confidence
Jen asks whether tests like the SAT can affect worthiness and self-esteem. Lolita shares that any situation of judgment or assessment can impact confidence.
12:48 Intelligence Is More Than a Test Score
Jen reflects on how standardized testing affected her and how learning about multiple forms of intelligence helped her heal and empower others.
13:41 Lolita’s College Essay About Her SAT Scores
Lolita shares that her own SAT scores did not match her grades, her ability, or the kind of person she knew she would be. Her college essay argued that the scores should not define her potential.
14:42 Don’t Measure Me by One Score
Jen reflects on the power of Lolita advocating for herself and naming that she was much more than a test result.
15:08 Helping Students Become Whole Leaders
Lolita explains how her organizational behavior class helps students develop as whole people through presentations, group work, ethics, communication, integrity, and performance.
16:00 Behavioral Interviews and Finding Your Voice
Lolita shares how she helps students prepare for behavioral-based interviews so they can tell the story of who they are and what they bring.
17:31 Teaching Through Lived Experience
Lolita explains that her approach comes from her own coaching, consulting, leadership, strategy, and political experience — and her ability to listen intently to what people are carrying.
18:30 The Emotional Weight of Holding Space
Lolita and Jen discuss how people who hold space for others often receive a lot emotionally, which makes grounding, clearing, and support essential.
19:09 Who Am I?
Jen brings the conversation back to the central question: you cannot truly help others or lead others until you are willing to answer who you are.
20:04 The Season That Sparked The Intersection of You and Change
Lolita shares the major changes that shaped her first book: divorce, losing her father, having a premature newborn, leaving a corporate job, and facing life without steady income.
21:00 Journaling as Release
Lolita describes writing and journaling through that season. What began as release eventually became a book that takes readers through 17 stops of self-discovery.
21:45 From Change to Company
Lolita remembers people coming to her after she left her job, asking how she was not falling apart. She began helping others navigate their own transitions, and her company grew from there.
22:00 Clubhouse, Poetry & Creative Reawakening
Lolita reflects on reconnecting with poetry through Clubhouse during the pandemic, eventually writing a book of 44 letters and poems.
22:30 Follow the Bubbling Up Feeling
Lolita names the importance of following the inspiration, the gut feeling, the heart feeling, and the internal nudge when something starts to come alive again.
22:48 Jen Reflects: You Listened to Your Body
Jen reflects that Lolita’s story is an example of listening to body wisdom through a whole chapter of life, allowing inspiration and spirit to move through.
23:37 Walker & Walker Enterprises
Lolita explains that Walker & Walker Enterprises is a personal and professional coaching and consultancy focused on leadership strategy, executive coaching, organizational vision, mission, alignment, and performance.
24:42 Do You Feel Aligned All the Time?
Jen asks whether Lolita always feels aligned. Lolita answers honestly: life throws her off all the time, because she is human too.
24:52 What Helps Lolita Come Back to Herself
Lolita shares her grounding tools: listening back to her own podcasts, walking, writing, water, trees, gospel music, spa radio, affirmations, and remembering recent accomplishments.
26:30 The Small Things That Build Character
Lolita reminds listeners that impact does not have to be huge. Sometimes a thank you, a word of encouragement, or a small moment of kindness adds up to the character and integrity of who you are.
27:40 Lolita’s Faith and Spiritual Practice
Lolita shares her relationship with Jesus Christ, prayer, gratitude for the good and the bad, and her belief that God already has the plan.
28:30 Reason, Season, or Lifetime
Lolita reflects on people entering and leaving our lives, the wins and pain that can come with those relationships, and the importance of knowing when to let go.
29:30 Seeing Potential Without Sacrificing Yourself
Lolita opens up about her tendency to see potential in others and want to help, while also learning that she is not here to fix everybody.
30:30 It’s Already Done
When worry takes over, Lolita reminds herself that it is already done and returns her focus to what she can control.
31:05 Detours in the Right Direction
Jen reflects that painful detours can still be part of the right direction when we choose to ask what lesson is meant to be learned.
32:03 Lolita’s Doctoral Work
Lolita shares that she is working toward her PhD in entrepreneurship, with her dissertation focused on intrapreneurship and cognition inside organizations.
32:30 What Is Intrapreneurship?
Lolita explains intrapreneurship as entrepreneurial thinking inside an established organization, including innovation, opportunity recognition, risk, creativity, and how employees think under constraints.
33:46 Researching Cognition Inside Organizations
Lolita shares that her research explores how employees think differently when bounded by managerial influence, AI, policies, and procedures.
34:26 Where to Find Lolita
Lolita shares her website, consultation options, services, and how people can connect with her work.
35:22 Women’s Weekend Renewal Retreats
Lolita shares that her women’s weekend renewal retreats are currently paused while she completes her doctorate, with a goal to return in 2027.
35:42 Newsletter, Instagram & Future Retreats
Lolita directs listeners to her website and Instagram for updates on her newsletter, services, and future retreat plans.
36:02 Jen Reflects on Lolita’s Leadership
Jen reflects on Lolita’s authority, intention, heart-centered leadership, and the way she welcomes people into community and growth.
36:39 Closing: Human Stories Awaken the Leader Within
Jen closes the episode by thanking listeners and reminding them to share what spoke to them with someone who may need the message.
CONNECT WITH LOLITA WALKER
• Website: lolitawalker.com
• Instagram: @heycoachwalker
• Company: Walker & Walker Enterprises
• Book: The Intersection of You and Change
• Women’s Weekend Renewal Retreats: planned to return in 2027
If this episode moved you, share it with someone who needs to hear that the transformation period is supposed to be hard — and that asking for help is not weakness. It’s the sign.
