Silence, Presence, and Inner Leadership, with María José Sánchez

Written By Andrew Cohn

What if the most powerful tool a leader has isn’t a strategy, a speech, or even a brilliant plan, but is instead silence? In this episode of the Spirituality in Leadership podcast, Andrew Cohn sits down with María José Sánchez, a leadership consultant, executive coach, and author based in Madrid, Spain.

During the conversation, María shares her fascinating journey from telecommunications engineer to leadership mentor, showing how she combines her analytical, scientific side with the deeper wisdom of silence and spirituality. She talks about how silence reshaped her leadership style, helping her move from being pushy and results-driven to leading with calm, presence, and authenticity. For her, true leadership impact begins from within, by taking time to pause, reconnect with yourself, and then return to the outside world with clarity, energy, and insight.

She also introduces her idea of “spiritual snacks,” short pauses throughout the day to recharge and realign, and her “five-finger rule,” a practical tool for managing thoughts that reminds leaders to take ownership of their inner state, let go of unhelpful thinking, and focus on positivity, resilience, and trust.

María highlights her books and her digital leadership platform, Lidero, which offers simple, accessible lessons from her decades of experience. This episode is an inspiring reminder that real leadership always starts from within.

Key Takeaways

  • Leadership impact comes from the inside; silence fosters wisdom, clarity, and presence.

  • Experience precedes understanding; leaders must invite others into experiences, not just explanations.

  • Daily practices of silence, meditation, and “spiritual snacks” keep leaders grounded and energized.

  • Self-discipline is essential for freedom and sustained transformation, much like physical training.

  • Preparation is less about perfect words and more about the state of being a leader brings into the room.

  • True leadership is a virtuous cycle: inner stillness fuels outer effectiveness, which in turn deepens inner growth.

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Transcript

María José Sánchez Yago: For me, the key thing is not to identify with the role. Use the role to play the part you have in whatever and enjoy it, but at the same time, become detached from the role. Be very aware of who you are really, and in order to do that, you need to keep the silence inside and to your moments and then go outside and it's a joy.

Andrew Cohn: The impact of leadership is the inside. And so in your experience, does leadership impact come from the silence?

María José Sánchez Yago: Yes, because from the silence, you can really connect with what is really going on.

Andrew Cohn: Welcome to the Spirituality in Leadership podcast. I'm Andrew Cohn. Spirituality and Leadership is a platform for conversations with leaders at all levels about bringing our spiritual dimensions to our leadership, our teams, our workplaces, and all areas of our lives in order to achieve greater success and fulfillment and build and sustain healthier organizations.

If you'd like to connect with me to talk further about these topics and or about individual or team coaching leadership workshops or team alignment, please go to my website www.lighthouseteams.com.  Enjoy the podcast.

Andrew Cohn: In this episode of the podcast, I'm very happy to welcome María Jose Sánchez Yago from Madrid, Spain. María José is a telecommunications engineer turned leadership consultant and executive coach and author. She has four books, the links to which should be provided in the notes to this podcast. And what I love about the conversation with María Jose is that she's very practical. She approaches things as she says with her rational mind and her drive to understand, but she also focuses on the inner experience and the power of the inner platform, if you will, the impact of silence about the opportunity for leaders to experience something different about experience preceding understanding and how it's much more impactful for people to have an experience of alignment and clarity and inner calm rather than an explanation. I think that's a wonderful distinction. An important distinction in terms of what she does. She's just one of these people who brings calm. And clarity and invitation to experience something different, and that's a big part of her work as she discusses it. So enjoy the conversation.

Welcome back to the podcast. I'm so happy to have with me today my friend and colleague, María Jose Sánchez Yago from the Madrid area in Spain. And if I'm not getting the area just right, you can correct me. I've known Maria Jose a bit, probably a decade or so through some work with Oxford Leadership and Companions for leadership in Europe and we've had the opportunity  to connect at a few meetings there. And I don't need to review your background. I've talked about that in the introduction already, but first lemme say please, Maria Jose Bienvenidos, welcome to the podcast.

María José Sánchez Yago: Oh, I love Bienvenidos. It's my pleasure. Thank you for the invitation.

Andrew Cohn: Of course. And you have been in the leadership space, executive coaching space, personal development space, maybe more broadly. And then when we talked about the podcast a little while ago, you seem to go, oh, I have some things to say about that connection between spirituality, especially broadly defined spirituality and leadership. So maybe we could start with first I should start a little bit with, tell me a little bit about your journey please and how you became interested in this work and maybe highlighting some stops along the way.

María José Sánchez Yago: Okay. The journey, what a question. You know, because you see it from here, it seems like a movie. My journey is, my background, my first degree is in telecommunication engineer. So in a way, I have developed my rational part because I love studying. I love going deeper and deeper into questions, trying to understand why and the root causes of everything, you know, from a scientific perspective. And then the inner motivations drove me to psychology, and I also study psychology, but only for the sake of a study. I didn't think at that time that was gonna have a part in my professional life. And then I began to work as an engineer and later as a leader, leading engineers. And I had a great time but that time I realized that there was kind of joy and different things when trying to explore the leadership field. And later on I did postgraduate a master degree in a business school, and then I discovered the word leadership, you know, and wow, that sounds something. And then to be really honest, I began to have an idea and experiment with my people in my company and so forth, and at a point I decided to quit and to begin with a professor from this business school and then to begin a student again, and I had the opportunity to go with him, to accompanying him with really top teams and top leaders and to be able to participate in relevant conversations. I was quite young. And then in my observation, I think something inside myself began to move, realizing that everything external or or even rational was important, but here we go to a spirituality in a wider way.

What really makes the difference was not the visible part, but the intangible. That later on was very tangible and I began to observe leaders who were really impactful and the impact they had, it was not in their words. It was not a mental space. It was something different. And I observed that. And also I observed that in myself because coming from being an engineer and develop my leadership journey with companies like high top banks and so forth, my style was like, I don't know, not aggressive, but very pushy. And I began to realize that maybe even myself, I was more impactful when I began to deal with silence and from that space to create something that from where something amazing emerges. And that was like I would say 15 years ago or so. And then I began myself  to experience with  silence and to go deeper and till now and that’s the journey.

Andrew Cohn: We could have a podcast that's entirely silent. I'm not sure how engaging it would be for the listener, but we could do that just as a demonstration.

María José Sánchez Yago: That would be great.

Andrew Cohn: Yes. I know that would be interesting. It's, yeah, it reminds me of something way back with an American composer named Philip Glass and it was a whole thing. He did this performance of a, he wrote a piece of music and it was all silent and it was very controversial. And for him it was very impactful and deep. But some other people said, this is crazy and it's not really a thing anyway. Wow. So thank you for that. And so you recognize not just what was impactful in terms of leaders you were observing, but also with yourself.

María José Sánchez Yago: Absolutely. It's a, again, a very obvious thing, but whatever you want to  share with others, the first step is with you. So that took me, the journey is still alive, of course, it was a turning point when I realized that I had a lot to discover through silence, my own inner connection with myself, with a truthful, and I could say really deep connection and kind of exploring who am I in very deep and simple terms.

María José Sánchez Yago: And from there is to share with others in the context of, I could say noisy, wonderful, western life.

Andrew Cohn: Yeah, and what I'm hearing from you is a bit of a quiet inner part of the journey and then a less quiet outer part of the journey. So kind of  withdrawing to within, engaging with others, withdrawing to within. Is it something like that, a bit of a rhythm that way?

María José Sánchez Yago: Absolutely. It's a very good description because that's the way I experienced that. I have a very busy professional life. I'm the mother of four now young adults. I'm a wife. A lot of things, you know, absolutely, the outside the world  is very demanding, and that's wonderful in a way because the roles we play allow us to experience different things. But for me, the key thing is not to identify with the role, use the role to play the part you have in whatever and enjoy it, but at the same time become detached from the role. Be very aware of who you are really. And in order to do that, you need to keep the silence inside and to your moments and then go outside and it's a joy. It's wonderful when you get this balance because then you get, from my perspective, the best part of both sides. And in a way, when you are outside, you are much more effective, decisive, and you enjoy the journey. And when you are inside, also wonderful moments in which you fulfill yourself with energy and you empower yourself. And in a, I could say very differential way.

Andrew Cohn: I just wanna check something with you, because something you said earlier is that the impact of leadership is not physical. And which suggests to me that what you're saying, and I wanna hear more, the impact of leadership is the inside. And so in your experience, does leadership impact come from the silence?

María José Sánchez Yago: Yes, because from the silence you can really connect with what is really going on. And with this connection you make, because when I'm saying, I'm saying, it becomes from silence. It's not silence for the sake of silence. It's three steps. You disconnect from the outside wall. You connect, I could say with yourself, and maybe whoever believes with something that is beyond you. And then you go again to the outside world with full of powers. Because of the silence, because then it's not you. It's like you know the strengths you receive, and then there you connect with your inner wisdom and then you understand much better what is going on. And then you can make the right question, the right decision is much more decisive, in your interaction and even with the people you care with. With your teams, with whatever you know in terms of relationships, because I would say you don't use relationships even in a subtle way to fulfill yourself. You are in the relationships to give because you are so full that you don't need something from the outside. When you give really, in an honest way, whatever your wisdom, your decision, your action for this project, your whatever your opinion, your not so easy conversation, but relevant in a very, you know,  key moment. Then as the important thing is not you, is that you are trying to contribute to whatever you feel and is needed and it's felt because you sense it. It is kind of deeply, a lot of things in a rational way. But at the end it's the intuition because it's the deepest voice that you have inside. Then when you do it from this space, you realize that you are much more effective, and then it's like life comes to you because you are not using the external wall to have a sense of identity. You are having a relationship with the outside wall, even your roles, your family, your team, your companies, the society, whatever, to really understand the world, love the way it is, and try to contribute with love in the way you can.

Andrew Cohn: So you've just said a lot. Sorry. Thank you. No, no, it is beautiful. It was a lot. But I wanna ask a couple of questions. One is when you talk about leadership from this way, so the words that I might use are really inside out. Inside first, right? Silence first. Silence leads to inner wisdom, which leads to understanding, which leads to better decisions. If I start with that foundation inside, then ultimately I'll be more effective outside. Yeah, fair.

María José Sánchez Yago: Fair and only one thing because it's kind of a cycle. It's a circle. You're more effective outside and then when from silence, you observe what is going on, the impact of what you have done or whatever, or say or whatever, then this helps you to go deeper inside and then going deeper you go again outside. It's what you described. It's not a relationship. It is a circular one.

Andrew Cohn: Yes. A virtuous circle. Yes. Beautiful. So one of the things I love to talk about in this podcast is how do you communicate that, translate that, teach that. When you talk with leaders about this type of an approach to leadership, how do they typically respond, especially in your world of engineers? How do they respond to this? Do they think I don't know where this woman is coming from, how do they respond? And then how do you bring them along? And we're not here to twist anybody's arm and force anybody to do anything. But how do you invite them into maybe a different way of thinking into the way you're describing?

María José Sánchez Yago: You're so wonderful, Andrew, because you said it is not about talking, it's about making them experience something different. As an engineer or as a rational woman, I can understand and talk their language. It's easy for me to talk about strategy, to understand the business, to talk from one part, but when they are with you once you have made the connection, maybe with a conversation of this type, they experience something different. And people, I also, and that's very, as I would say, as humanity we have curiosity inside. And you have the movement of improvement because you recognize, for me, leadership is about remembrance who you really are. So when you are experiencing something that is attractive for you because you recognize even in an unconscious way, then you are interested in that. And for me it's very important. The word you use is invitation. It's because this is, you cannot force anything. And it's not about explaining, it's not mental, it's about experiencing. And when you have a great experience with a conversation, creating this space with your team, then you want more because you realize it's a turning point and you realize the time you spend is being much more productive, that maybe months of work, and then you want to go deeper. So it's like an invitation to experience without saying that it is an invitation to experience.

Something that from time to time happens to me is that when a leader, we have a connection maybe even in teams, and they see me and they say, wow, now I'm relaxed and I haven't said a word, and it's not because of me. It's because when they see my image, they connect with that part of themselves. My job is to help them to do that on a daily basis. Forget that and the power that they have within, because they are so much connected to the outside world. So to develop the training, to have that on a daily basis.

Andrew Cohn: Beautiful. I love what you're talking about in terms of really the invitation and the experience is not a, okay, here are the five steps and here's the rational process and here's the whatever. It's more like to invite into the experience and then recognize what's happened, what it feels like, what the value of it is, and then to move from there. I wanna ask you if you agree with this, experience precedes understanding.

María José Sánchez Yago: Yes, absolutely. What is really important is to create that space of experiencing you need to prepare yourself. It's very important to keep this work with myself. Even when I'm going to meet a leader, it is to make sure that the previous space that I had, I'm taking care of myself in that regard. So when I arrive there, there is something that, again, without saying anything, it's already happening.

Andrew Cohn: So for you let me ask you about that. So what does preparing yourself involve? What do you do? And then also that may be another question. How do you encourage your, the leaders, your clients, the companies you work with, how do you encourage them to prepare for their conversations?

María José Sánchez Yago: Silence of course and you move through different levels. Know from a physical state it could be, try to keep your hours of good sleep and to eat healthy. And this is very simple. If you eat a lot, you don't think with clarity or if you are drunk, no you are not effective. So this is a very simple physical level. Then you go to the, I would say, and this is again, hygienic, have clarity about the rational part, the knowledge that you need or whatever. The clarity of the topics is hygienic, it's already there. And then again, what makes the difference is that. What I do, for example, is when I wake up in the morning, I have silence for myself. When I have silence, apparently I do nothing, but it's not doing nothing. It's first is again, disconnecting with whatever is going on, and then keep the silence in me trying to sense myself. And it's not to sense my physical body, it's to sense what is, I could say moving this body. It's my inner being really and trying at this moment a lot of thoughts and things and planning for the day usually comes and then it is inside myself, say. It's okay, but not now. Not now, because I wanna be more with myself. In order to create this space, you need to make a combination maybe people. I believe in God. But if you don't believe in God, maybe you can just strain some, breathing from your nose and this helps a lot. And then when you create this space, what It helps me, I would say for me, silence is not the emptiness. Silence is a creative space. It's like the host. But you need to create this emptiness to create something new and what do I create is like to emerge my inner qualities, my love for the people, my love for the work I do, my joy, my ideas. So it's like an invitation for the things that are already there to emerge, but not from a rationalist. When you concentrate a lot on something, there is a moment in which concentration is not there anymore and you begin to have an inner experience. So maybe you can choose a word, whatever. It can be love, it can be calm, it can be serenity. Maybe one leader needs serenity to face any situation, serenity you don't say, but you have this inner experience and. Usually there is a combination with this and inside yourself there is an openness and sense of you feeling grateful with life. Instead of hiding from life, I want to go outside. And then you finish that and maybe it can be three minutes, four minutes. You don't, I stay longer, but you don't need to. It's like you spend time eating food, which is great. This is a spiritual breakfast that you need in the morning. And then what is the key? The key thing is to keep this as you have lunch and you have a snack and you have dinner, is to keep these spiritual snacks during the day. Indeed, can you hear that? Can you hear anything or not?

Andrew Cohn: No. Something on your side. I'm sorry. No, what? What?

María José Sánchez Yago: That's why I love that. I have, in my house, a machine, a small one, but you can do it with the phone and from time to time during the day you have three minutes of music. And when I hear this music, I stop doing whatever and then I stop whatever I am doing. And I become in inner silence. And when we were talking, the music starts, so we were talking about these snacks.

Andrew Cohn: The spiritual snacks during the day. I remember hearing that when I went to the Global Retreat Center in Oxford and did a retreat there. And they had that. Have you been there? And that was amazing. Every hour at the top of the hour everything stops for a minute.

María José Sánchez Yago: That's absolutely great, and even more impactful because this helps you to reconnect with yourself. Then you face a conversation and then maybe you use a technique that is useful for you, for example. But the first part is to take care of your inner state when you are going to have this conversation, because a conversation can be technically perfect but will not work, will not have the impact you want because you haven't taken care of the inner state, but you take care of the inner state. Maybe it's not the perfect words, but people can feel it, can sense it, so it's you who take care of that and then you begin with the intention why I want to talk about that because I think it's relevant for the company, for the team, for you, for me. And the facts are whatever, and put them, but with love, it's not when you have created this state, there is a lot of purity. And I could say focus on the impact of the conversation. For example, yesterday it was so funny, I was very connected and I had a day with a team. And the CEO was coming and I was having an interview with her in front of the team and at that point, I was very connected and I know her a lot, but she's very, I would say very intelligent and very business driven and very visionary and very smart, but sensitive at the same time. And I asked her, looking into her eyes, what do you expect from the team? And at this moment, ,Andrew,  it was so magical because I don't know why she didn't understand the question. And instead of talking about the expectations from the team, she began to talk about her expectations of each member of the team.

María José Sánchez Yago: And in a frank and honest way, but with love, but very driven. I was shocked at the beginning, but the team as well. But it was so impactful because what is so truthful, I would say. And it was with a lot of love, but with a lot of clarity and drive. So the setup, the set, the tone, no, for the day was fantastic. And from there everything was so easy because, and the key thing is that she was prepared with the state, she was prepared and it's not, sometimes people think that preparation is about having clarity about what am I going to say? No. That's planning, which is important, but the key thing is not, is to be prepared for whatever emerges and you can be in contact with that when you are very connected.

Andrew Cohn: Yeah. So I'm hearing the impact of preparation as an interaction, not just a strategy and an agenda and which is also important, but how am I showing up, not just with what tools am I showing up? Absolutely beautiful.

María José Sánchez Yago: It's basic.

Andrew Cohn: Yeah. And I also hear you talking about things. This is a spirituality in leadership and I hear you talking about things that could touch upon spirituality perhaps like when we're tuning in, what do we do to check in with the silence? I'm hearing about meaning and purpose, although I haven't heard those words, but I hear you speaking about that, about intention, about alignment. To me, those are all things that some people might label spiritual, those deeper dimensions. That, and I think that's what you're talking about, is how do we bring those deeper dimensions, not just for our own fulfillment, but because the impact is better.

María José Sánchez Yago: Yes, no, absolutely. And it's true. It's not the words, it's how you internalize them. How do you make them real on a daily basis in a simple way? You know in the way you look at the eyes, in the way you have breakfast, in the way you show up in the office, and so when you keep that in mind, things go to another place.

Andrew Cohn: What I'm hearing is really about the energy and the presence and the, yeah, energy. I had a guest recently who was talking about how the energy frequencies can be measured and the lower frequencies are the survival, fear-based, et cetera, and the higher energies are about harmony and about service and about connection and you're talking about demonstrating that. That's what I hear.

María José Sánchez Yago: Yes. But if I may, it's like maybe for me to protect myself, maybe I'm saying that it is like I don't try to demonstrate anything just to show this is very connected, connected with the invitation. It's just experiencing the benefits. But there is, for me, when experiencing to see the benefit and the impact, you need to be self-disciplined. It's and that's funny as well, because I expect to go to the gym and in two days have really muscles or be able to run a marathon or whatever. We don't have this expectation, but in a way, we expect to have two days of meditation, silence, or literacy. Worship and everything will change. And that's not true because the key thing is to bring that to daily life. And in order to do that. It's important to be self-disciplined, and for me, self-discipline is the key for freedom. When it's like a musician, when you have a lot of self discipline, you don't need to read the music because you feel it, and then you go to a higher level. And these things are the same. Self discipline is to be constant in practice every day. Allows you to go to a higher level. But this doesn't happen in today's, even though in today's can be a lot of benefit, but you need to be, and that's something that we lie to ourselves when you go to a spirituality or to the intangible and we think we can fix and we, when we don't do that, then we said, see, it doesn't work the, it's not that. One thing is to know which is the way, and another thing is to go through the way to walk through it.

Andrew Cohn: Yeah. Beautiful. And when I hear you use that example about going to the gym, I know even for me in getting to the gym, which by the way, for me, it's always harder to get to the gym than actually to work out. The hard part is getting to the gym. Do you find that to be true too? I know for me, but the idea that I know for me, and let's see if this metaphor extends. I feel better when I go to the gym. Even if it's, you're not talking about translating to muscles or long-term impact, but the day that I go to the gym, after going to the gym, I feel better even if my goal is to build something, I may not have built it that day, but incrementally it feels right. It feels like I know I'm doing something well for good, for myself and for my health and for my life. And maybe it's the same with what you're talking about. If I'm tuning in, if I'm practicing self-discipline, even though I'm not a fully evolved human, it feels better.

María José Sánchez Yago: Absolutely. It makes sense every day you do and knowing there is a moment in which you realize that you are accumulating and which this makes you a, I could say an incremental, job, but every day makes sense itself because you feel better is what you said, even though there is a part of you that for me, it’s funny as well because we have, like I could say positive reward in the way we've been behaving. And it has allowed us to reach the point in which we are in life. And when you begin to experience these things, it's like there is a moment of transition in which you need to be detached from your old way of evolving. I could say. And you still don't know the potential of the new way. So there is a kind of uncertainty when you need, I would say that's the reason, because I was allowing freedom to give yourself the chance and it's what you mentioned. Even though you don't see the greatness, it's explore, be very honest with yourself. Then today I feel a bit better. Then it's okay enough and tomorrow a little bit better enough, and then you will see.

Andrew Cohn: Beautiful. And what I hear you doing is identifying that stage, that sort of liminal stage of change. Okay? If I'm letting go of this and moving into this new space, it's not as familiar, right? It may not be as clear. And for those of us that clarity, like the engineers like you and the lawyers like me, we like clarity. And one of the things that comes up for me is that when we need support, coaching, support, good friends, colleagues, our spouses, partners to just really stay to us in some certain way because it's very unsteady when we're leaving behind old ways. Even if we're clear, we want to leave them behind. They're still what we have relied upon up until now.

María José Sánchez Yago: Yes, for me, there are many things to take into account, but one key thing is. And it can be a paradox to stop thinking. When you have made a decision to explore new things, that decision is already made. So don't think too much about that because otherwise your thinking will be your enemy, because mentally you will want to not let it go. Go back to the old times. So it's once I've made the decision, the choice, whatever my choices I keep. This can be a product. Don't think again about the choice, maybe until three months in, and in three months time, you'll make an overview and you'll open your own space to rethink. But don't allow yourself to think again during these three months, because otherwise you will be challenging yourself to go to the old times, for me to have clarity and an order when yes and when no. To rethink. And then when your inner thoughts will come back to that. Say, not now. Not now. Yes, but not now. Not now. Not now. I will do it in three months. So it is again, you are the master of your mind instead of the other way around.

Andrew Cohn: Beautiful. And what I hear you talking about is the importance of focus. It's if I've committed to this new direction, even if I'm uncertain, if I'm committed to this new direction. I could only be driving in one direction at once, and if I have an, if I can't drive, part of me can't be driving another way or if it becomes something like a competing commitment or something like that, I have to stay in this direction, give it a chance to work. And then after, like you said, after three months, I can reevaluate. I could look at the feedback, I could consider what's happened, et cetera. But the importance of that. And you're highlighting something that I know is the focus of at least one of your books. About our thinking and the impact of our thinking that way. So I'm trying to think what's the best way to introduce some of your models or something. You talked about the five finger rule in this book, and maybe there's more, but could you say a little bit more about that? Recognizing questioning, being a little more disciplined about our thoughts, especially as we move into something new.

María José Sánchez Yago: Yes, in a very simple way, I would say it again, maybe here is the lawyer, the engineer. The first is, and I think it's important, a little bit of knowledge, about the way we work itself. So when you know you can manage for the benefit of yourself, so is to know how your mind works and one key thing to learn is that any thoughts we have, have an impact on ourselves. Thoughts are like seeds, so it's very important to understand that whatever you’re thinking is not neutral for you, for your life or your leadership for whatever. It's always having an impact, and we have the ability, each of us to choose. But we have forgotten about that because we have experienced so many things in our lives that whatever is recorded in our body, in our life is pushing our mind to think in other ways. At that point you need to do, I would say then the five thin finger rule is not new, but it's, I would say ancestral wisdom is first, you are the protagonist of your life.

María José Sánchez Yago: You and only you are the owner of your thoughts and your feelings. This is the first finger. The second finger is not gonna be easy because the luggage is so heavy for many years. So you will need to make an effort. This is the gym. Okay? The third is to know, to have a little bit of knowledge of the thoughts that help you the way you want in the way that you'll lead, and the ones that will not help you. And here it's very important. These are subtle, but thoughts or words that will put you in connection with actions? Not gonna the past, not gonna the future, not gonna compare, not dealing, not being detached from the script that I had for a situation. And when you get rid of this, I could say thoughts, and you focus on the thoughts that will be constructive with the situation and with yourself. And these thoughts are very connected with your inner state. Again, who you are. Then you can develop, because the third finger is this knowledge is the fourth that will be to observe the gym of observation, what am I thinking now and later, and then to substitute the ones that will have from the other ones. And the key thing, and if I may, is when you go deeper to identify the thoughts that will help you, not related with the situation, but with who you are. This is the third book, because it's not in English, but this was basically leadership. So for me, the title is, go back to the basic things that you identify with yourself. When you are happy, you are more productive. When you love what you do, projects are easier. When you use love with your colleague at work, then collaboration is natural. When you are peaceful, you make better decisions. So again, it connects with my deeper inner state to have thoughts that will help me to evolve in the direction I want.

Andrew Cohn: Love it again. It's a great example of that inside out, starting with the inside. Yeah. Beautiful. So the five finger rule you're talking about is from this book called Better Life, which is it or Full title. Once upon a Time there was a person who wanted a better life

María José Sánchez Yago: And maybe this person is you or anyone that is listening.

Andrew Cohn: Yeah. Beautiful. And this book is in English, by the way. Is this available on Amazon and online that way? And then your other books, I think are how many others? There's three others?

María José Sánchez Yago: Three others, but these are only in Spanish. The second one is about habits. It's the evolution of the first one, but I could suggest beginning with the first one, which is great. And the third is the one you saw, and the fourth is a chapter in a book that is for movements to go through a crisis. Again, all are very connected.

Andrew Cohn: Yeah. Could you, for people who are listening who do speak Spanish, could you talk about, could you say the titles of all the books?

María José Sánchez Yago: The one in Spanish, the first one that you have is...(inaudible spanish)

Andrew Cohn: Okay, that's the first one.

María José Sánchez Yago: The second one is…(inaudible spanish)

Andrew Cohn: For those of you who may be listening on Apple or Spotify, Maria Jose has walked over to her bookshelf and she is demonstrating the books. She's showing us the books.

María José Sánchez Yago: Thank you. The third one, which is the baby, this year, is basic leadership. It's in math as well. And the fourth one, the chapter in which is here is the chapter that I mentioned. So these are the books and the title in English you said already? The first one. These are beautiful. Again, and one thing that is important for me, the books are not my books. We talked about you and me before. It's like I'm a translator of things that belong to humanity in a, trying to put them in a very simple way so that we, this will allow people to take them to their lives. That's the purpose of all the books.

Andrew Cohn: Beautiful. I know the impact of your work. I've seen it and I've experienced it in our conversations. If people want to learn more about you, where do they go if they go to a website? Do they go to, where do they go if they wanna learn more?

María José Sánchez Yago: I have LinkedIn at  María José Sánchez Yago I'm really happy to connect with whoever. I also have a web page. I have two Indeed. One, three, I have. One is sandiego.com, that's my personal one in which I have, and then I have two companies. One is leadership consultancy, which is another one, which I love. A new baby as well is a leadership platform, which is... we'll publish that because what I try to do in this platform is to condensate all the things that I have learned during this more than 20 to 25 years of leadership experiences with companies. And I put them in a very simple way to make them accessible to many people. So what I did there is to make a journey of leadership programs with very small videos from two minutes to 10 minutes, the maximum. And then you can have your own roadmap. And I'm really happy with that. This is new from the last two years and now I have really big company experiences with them. And the platform is called ero. ERO means elite in the Spanish, and Instagram as well and these things, and I have.

Andrew Cohn: And we can actually put links to these websites when we publish the podcast so we can have that available for people. So if you're listening, you can go back to the platform and you'll see the links there as well. Whether it's Spanish or English, we'll find it. Thank you so much and thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. There's, I always feel as though we could talk for another few hours.

María José Sánchez Yago: Yes. You make it so easy. And for me, easiness is a quality. So Andrew, you, when someone is with you, it is like being at home. It is great.

Andrew Cohn: Thank you so much and thank you for your invitation into that space. I look forward to continuing the conversation, and thank you so much for being a part of this conversation.

María José Sánchez Yago: As I said at the beginning, I'm honored, so perfect. Brilliant.

Outro: Thank you for listening to Spirituality in Leadership. If you want to access this wealth of knowledge and insight on a regular basis, please subscribe to the show. Join the network of leaders who want to do and be better. You can go to the site, spiritualityinleadership.com or your preferred podcast platform to catch all the episodes and learn more.Until next time, take good care of yourself.


Andrew Cohn
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Beyond Command and Control: The Rise of Transcendent Leadership, with Greg Stebbins