Truly Showing Up: Empathy, Reset Tools & Leadership with Marcy Axelrod

Most of us don’t actually choose how we show up — we default. In this powerful conversation, Marcy Axelrod, author of How We Choose to Show Up, joins Jess and Claude to unpack what it really means to bring your whole self to work and life.

From the science of empathy and psychological safety to simple reset tools you can try today, Marcy shares why “just showing up” isn’t enough — and how shifting into “truly showing up” changes everything.

✨ In this episode you’ll learn:

• Why authenticity at work is more than a buzzword
• The science behind empathy and connection
• Reset tools like breathwork and “tracing a 3” to manage stress
• How one café story revealed the shift from judgment to compassion
• Practical ways to repair, set boundaries, and create safety in meetings
• The one daily question that expands how you choose to show up

Whether you’re a leader, teammate, or work bestie, this episode is a guide to moving from default mode into intentional, connected presence.

🔗 Connect with Marcy: choosetoshowup.com

💚 Loved this conversation? Tag your work bestie and share how you’re choosing to show up today.

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Work Besties! Theme Song Written by Ralph Lentini @therallyband

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Showing Up
• 5:35 The Science of Human Connection
• 10:40 The Show-Up Crisis: Loneliness Epidemic
• 16:15 Three Levels of Showing Up
• 21:20 Chuck's Story: From Judgment to Empathy
• 27:43 Impact in the Workplace
• 28:17 The Importance of Choosing

Transcript

Marcy Axelrod: 0:00

Most people don't actually choose. They default to choose.

Claude: 0:03

Hi, I'm Claude and I'm Jess. We are corporate employees by day, entrepreneurs by night and work besties for life.

Jess: 0:11

Join us as we explore how work besties lift each other up, laugh through the chaos and thrive together in every industry. Work besties, so your message is so powerful. You talk about being the show up person. What does that actually mean, Marcy?

Marcy Axelrod: 0:30

What it means is that I succumbed to how the world works today and I labeled myself. That's what it means and it's a we have to live in the, in the duality of being who we want to be, while also recognizing that for today's world, you need to brand yourself. So when I call myself the show up person, what I'm doing is I'm letting people know right here, right now, there's a message about how nature designed humans to show up and that's what I'm offering. So how do you, do you show up? I very much try to live.

Marcy Axelrod: 1:05

What I actually believe about how the world works and what I believe, claude, is that we are all very fundamentally integrated. On my TED Talk I explain we are all leaves on the same tree, right? Peoples across time have known this. There's this great quote from Chief Seattle going back hundreds of years we are not the web of life, we are a string within it. Whatever happens to one individual piece happens to the whole. Indigenous traditions have also known this. It's the kind of root of Buddhism, a lot of Eastern contemplative practices as well.

Marcy Axelrod: 1:45

My book has the science to support this. I'm going to give an example. In our limbic system, our emotional system, dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology and the head of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of Berkeley did a study that showed that if you literally just touch the forearm of a stranger who you can't even see the person's behind a curtain with a one second touch, you know what they're feeling. The likelihood of guessing wrong in this study was below 8%. People got it right I mean right on to the word almost 70% of the time. And I don't mean just happy, sad, mad, glad, right, I mean nostalgic.

Marcy Axelrod: 2:34

Look at the connectedness that's present in our daily lives, right, you're feeling what I'm feeling right now, jess. Literally, the chemistry of your body is shifting because of what I'm saying, how I'm saying it, what the ideas are, chances are your cortisol is down, right, because I'm speaking with a lot of care and a lot of depth. Maybe your dopamine's up, your oxytocin, which is the connectedness or love hormone, that's probably up. So, literally, the chemistry of your body is changing because of me and I am changing because of you. So your question, claude, was how do I show up? I very much try to show up in the truth of how nature designed us, which is that we are interconnected beings and that we are impacting each other at every moment.

Claude: 3:36

I have a question. So you're from that study. You're telling me that if I'm in the subway, if I touch someone on their forearm, I can see how they feel.

Marcy Axelrod: 3:46

You're going to feel how they feel.

Jess: 3:49

I feel I do, I'll try it Now.

Marcy Axelrod: 3:53

let me explain why.

Claude: 3:56

I mean we're all stuck to each other.

Marcy Axelrod: 3:59

Let me explain. When you're not going to get it, when you're not receptive Okay Cool. You're not receptive if you are rushed, if you are stressed, if you are preoccupied.

Claude: 4:14

Are you All right?

Jess: 4:16

So you're mostly preoccupied or stressed.

Marcy Axelrod: 4:18

If you're uncomfortable, oh, maybe you really have to pee. Maybe you didn't have your coffee, maybe you had too much coffee. Are you starting to see a pattern here? Need to be like your head to be clear. Let's talk about the levels when you're in just showing up. Let me talk about what just showing up is, because what it does is it disconnects us. A large portion of us feel disconnected from each other. We have a loneliness epidemic. I call it a show-up crisis. Okay, there's a reason that in the UK, the government created a Department of Loneliness. That's going on in America too. Right?

Marcy Axelrod: 4:55

Vivek Murthy, who was our 19th and 21st Surgeon General, wrote one book. The book is called Together. It's about our loneliness epidemic. This stems from our not recognizing that we all evolved from the earth and we are all not on the earth. We are of the earth, right, just like an apple tree, apples, the earth peep.

Marcy Axelrod: 5:20

We've lost a sense of being one. With the more that's out there, including each other, that creates a massive stressor inside. There's, in essence, a turning up of the dial of our threat system. When we feel even the most minor threat, your faces or the face of a stranger, even if it's smiling, will be perceived by me as a threat. That colleague doesn't like me, or you walk into a meeting and it's like my God. You know Joe over there. He's always thinking that I don't really have anything to add to the party, you know, and we perceive what's not there. We perceive threat because our system is protecting ourselves. Once you feel a lack of connection with each other, with the earth, with the people most important to us, we start to basically malfunction as humans because we're not designed to live the way that we live.

Claude: 6:35

How do you stop this vicious?

Marcy Axelrod: 6:38

circle. You need to reset your body and your nervous system to one of open perceiving. We're actually not perceiving of what's really going on and this is how, unfortunately, our years go by and when we stop and think what's most important to us, we kind of know, but we're not living that. So we live in just showing up when we really want to live in truly showing up.

Jess: 7:07

Marcia, since we're a podcast about work besties, a lot of the questions that our community ask us about is showing up and being your more authentic self at work. Level one is barely there, but level two is just showing up and level three is truly showing up. How do you get to really truly show up?

Marcy Axelrod: 7:23

Start with resetting your body, close your eyes, re-embodying yourself. Breath is a great way and it's slow breaths. I like the four in the four out In for four, hold for four, out for four, hold, hold, hold for four and do it for a series of minutes. Anything that switches you into your sensing system. We're only doing one of three things at any moment. We are focused on something, our mind is wandering or we're sensing, and sensing can be what you're touching. It can be oh my God, that tag's bothering me. It can be I'm hot, but the point is you're in your body and when you're in your body you're in stress. So what I mentioned at the end of my 10 talks that I've gotten really good feedback about is tracing a three on your palm. You can trace anything. You can trace a heart. I mentioned a three for level three truly showing up. You do it slowly, give it a good minute. What starts to happen is you're perceiving of those exquisite receptors in your palm. Start to brighten and they show up for you more and more and you'll feel your palm in a way you never felt. It's like wow, like I never felt that, like certain spot over here, a spot over here. What happens is you're perceiving of your body. So those are two things.

Marcy Axelrod: 8:57

The last chapter of my book has a very highly regarded, clinically proven meditation called the Wheel of Awareness by Dr Dan Siegel. I consider him to be the creator of a whole field of medicine called interpersonal neurobiology. I will mention one of the things in his meditation that differs from others. Once you've gone through a very deep body scan, which is feeling each part of your body as you breathe, what you do is you think about someone. And as you think about that person and it can be someone you want to feel more warmth toward. It can be someone you love. It can be someone you're having an issue with. It can be your boss. Before a meeting, right, picture that person and, with all the warmth and love for yourself that you've just focused on, send it slowly in an arc to them and then feel them receiving it. But it doesn't stop there because once they receive it, you sit with that and then afterwards you feel the generosity of that person, sharing all that love, together with theirs, back into you and you receive it. So to a certain extent this is like the loving kindness meditation that's very much been chosen to literally revolutionize people's lives.

Marcy Axelrod: 10:30

Two months ago I saw an older gentleman with an infant and we chatted for just a few seconds and it was just so loving and I shared with the man how loving it was that I saw how he held this child, who I later learned was his granddaughter. Three or four days later I get a message. She found me and he said Marcy, I can't get out of my mind how you felt my connectedness. He said I've never truly been present with anyone in my entire life. And he said I suffer with this. Can you help me? We meet on a Tuesday around 11 am at a cafe and he said my parents used to fight a lot and the grounding in the house just disappeared and my brothers and I just felt a lack of stability. I was the oldest one, so I would look at them and I started to say let's go play basketball, let me help you with your homework. I became the fixer and the saver. My whole life is now defined by this.

Marcy Axelrod: 11:31

He married someone who is now divorcing, who is dependent on him. He needs to be the one to keep everything moving in a smooth way. He's got a job 500 people report to him. He's the COO, so he's very successful because of this, but he's never fully there, because the moment, even on vacation, the moment that everyone's good and everything's fine, his mind and body say what's next? He can't be there. He has five kids. Why does he have five kids? Because he needs to always be so needed and to be in this life where he's keeping all the balls from dropping, dropping. Yeah, so he's telling me this.

Marcy Axelrod: 12:13

I said, chuck, I got it Stop. And he said even now, marcy, I'm not here. So I said you see the man over there. So there was a man sitting at the table near us. I said look at this man. Looks at the man for three seconds and turns back and says, marcy, how could he be here at 11 am on a Tuesday? What a schlump. He's not doing his job. He's supposed to be doing these things. He's an undependable person. He should be at work. So that's how he learned to show up. So he's judging everybody in this harsh world, and the world is an ugly place where he can't depend on people.

Marcy Axelrod: 12:49

So I said, chuck, keep looking. So he turned back and he looked toward the man and this time with a little more grace, a little more acceptance, a little more inquisitiveness and you could see his breath had shifted and his body settled just a little bit. But he really only gave it another 10 seconds and he turns back toward me and he said the man's not looking at the person he's with. He's staring at his phone Maybe there's something going on. And she's staring at her phone Maybe they're both.

Marcy Axelrod: 13:23

So I said, okay, keep looking. And then you could see his whole body almost fall into his chair with some heaviness. He said in a totally different tone now he says Marcy. He said the man is sad and I'm sad and he said I think there's something wrong. And he said maybe that's his daughter. So now he's thinking about relatedness. Right, my, my eyes are tearing. Now. Maybe the mother's in the hospital and they're trying to help her and visiting hours start at noon. So he's here, but he's only going to be here now for another 20 minutes before he goes and helps his wife and I really hope she's doing okay.

Marcy Axelrod: 14:14

And then he looks at me again and there's tears coming down and you've got to recognize Chuck, big, big guy. You don't expect this man to show emotion. So I said, chuck, what just happened? And it turns out it's exactly what's in the book. He went from a version of barely there into noticing and then tuning in.

Marcy Axelrod: 14:45

So he moved from just being an ego-driven self to being in a situation member role. He was presencing with that person, noticing and tuning in. And then he started to feel with and enact care and he said to me, marcy, do you think it would be okay if I give him a hug? So I said, if you approach him with something like I'm noticing that there's something sad going on and I just want to let you know I'm here and I'm supporting you, and would you like a hug?

Marcy Axelrod: 15:19

So he switched, he went from his head to his heart mode. The heart mode is a label that the head of the Stanford Center of Compassion and Altruism Research uses. His name is Jim Doty, he literally happens to be a neurosurgeon and I believe now he's also the head of the Dalai Lama Foundation. He talks about heart mode. What's going on is you've calmed your body and you're moving from human doing back to human being. You're moving out of get it done, have it, buy it mode or judge it mode into an interconnected being mode. And this is when Claude on the subway, you'll know.

Claude: 16:08

You'll know with the touch what they're feeling, clear. But don't you think that the guy Chuck actually reflected what he felt to this guy projection of his own feeling as well, because maybe the guy that was on his phone was just on his day off but it was a reflection of him, chuck, needing to always help everybody on this guy that he's?

Marcy Axelrod: 16:32

supposed to help. Yes to all of that. That may have been what's going on and it doesn't really matter, because what is that? He went from a low level to just showing up barely there sort of person who never feels he's in the moment, who never feels he's presencing because he's nervous. He went from defaulting to sleepwalking through life plays into a place where he was truly with someone. He might have been totally wrong, but he felt what the other person was feeling Empathy. It's empathy moving into compassion. So the difference there, empathy is I'm feeling you, but you're you and I'm me. That brings your own system online in a much deeper way, such that you enact care. The continuum doesn't stop with feeling, with it's notice. Tune in feel with enact care. That's when people show up to help those in need.

Jess: 17:34

I think that example was really helpful because it did go from somebody trying to solve a problem too right, like, not only did he put himself in this other person's persona, but he didn't go to like walk over there and be like how can I help you, it was just the care and compassion that's. So. Bringing it back to work, besties can try and provide examples for all of our work besties. Who's walking into a meeting and you see that one person that you're like, oh crap, this meeting is going to go sideways, um, and maybe there's a way to reflect what you just provided and to find the compassion for that we need to move from the spotlight thing, where you miss the truth of the world, into the bigger sense of where does this fit in the meeting now, versus what our group needs to do next?

Marcy Axelrod: 18:22

The chucks.

Marcy Axelrod: 18:23

So it's a practice.

Marcy Axelrod: 18:25

You just look at them and you let yourself reset, and if you're in a judging mode and words show up, you just let them go, and what will most likely start to happen is some information is gonna come up that has an emotional charge with it, where the person becomes a human again, not a pain in the ass, and if the person continues to show up, the people around us continue to just show up.

Marcy Axelrod: 18:55

First of all, give it permission. It's the evolutionary stage they're in, or it's the moment they're in, and it's okay because we get to choose how we show up and over time they'll choose how they show up and if they come at us treating us as you know, we're just the analysis person who has to get the spreadsheet done let it happen, because right then something's going to shift, because the way you receive them will be with truly show up energy and they might just bark something at you and say let's sit down and get started, right, but they're going to feel you and something in them is going to shift. And it might be a month of meetings every Tuesday and Thursday at 9 am before they actually interact in a way that shows that. But you've already changed that. This is a huge point of showing up you never leave anyone around you untouched.

Jess: 20:04

It's impossible. Okay, what do you mean by that? How do you, when you say you don't leave them untouched?

Marcy Axelrod: 20:12

With your countenance, your energy, your level of stress or calm. Okay, because you're responding to me and I'm responding to you. So part of the model says that. It explains that we and everything out there are in three roles there's a situation, there's a self role. There's a situation member role, meaning we are co-creating what's going on. You are perceiving me, I am perceiving you. Right, the chemistry of your body, as I mentioned, is shifting. What you're doing, how you're sitting, whether you're smiling, when you're blinking, every so much of what's going on right now for you is because of me. I am your environment and you are mine. And it might be a subconscious thing, because not everyone's able to quiet their mind and reflect. Wow, you know, I felt something a little different with Jess and Claude today. They aren't going to stop necessarily, you know. Let me take out my journal and push the meeting off, like it's not right. That may not happen.

Marcy Axelrod: 21:22

I'm not feeling this meeting that may not happen, not feeling this meeting can we just cancel it?

Jess: 21:30

realization that is unworded, it is beneath words, which is what you want, which actually, marcy, you do bring up a good point, like although we just joked about it there have been meetings where you can tell, you can sense, you feel somebody is um, perhaps not in this state to be collaborative or to be receptive.

Jess: 21:49

And there have been times where I know I've been in some meetings where myself or somebody else has stopped it and said I think we should meet at other times. I think you're right. There are ways when you, when somebody else shows up and yes, they are just showing up, but not in the way that's going to work for how you want to just show up, that it is okay.

Marcy Axelrod: 22:10

So after, after this discussion everyone you see, you're going to notice, wow, that person's truly showing up. They're just showing up, they start to notice it everywhere. It takes the judgment out because you relate to them with an open-hearted permission. So the continuum is a permission system. Everyone gets to show up for who and how they are, and most of us are just the living results of what happened in our childhood homes, right? Or that big seminal experience that happened when we were 18, or, unfortunately, the tragic event that happened recently, right, that's what shows up in our skin through us. So it hopefully opens us up to perceive each other with a little more love, even if you really, really, really dislike what someone's doing.

Jess: 23:11

Marcy, bring up a good example. Let's say you're a leader of a team and you just had a bad day, and your team has felt that you had a bad day. What would be your recommendation for the next step? Do you go back the next day and own up to it and try and show up then?

Marcy Axelrod: 23:29

Yeah. So truly showing up is leadership. So repair must be done. Repair is essential. So if the best you had at some point was not good, right, and you mistreated someone, at the soonest possible time you say like, wow, I really just messed up and I wasn't thoughtful about you and what you're going through and what you need to do. You know what's a better way for us to get this done. So repair is essential because unprocessed things, processed things live in us and they take away from our health, from our joy, from the depth of our relationships. Makes sense. So it's never too late. You're impacting everyone in every moment, and so are they.

Marcy Axelrod: 24:20

So your avarice, your disrespect, whatever it might've been, now it's in them and they're exactly, and then they can reciprocate to someone else it's never too late because once it's done, like, like the it didn't end it, it it never ended, the person didn't move because it impacted them and it's in that so we're seeing from a work perspective.

Jess: 24:45

There are so many meetings that we're in where you can tell the people that are truly showing up and there, but then there's other let's call them barely there. What would you and then maybe even themselves are sitting in the meetings, because I've actually been in meetings with, sometimes where I'm not the one showing up, I'm just barely there and I even think to myself was I, was I really in this, Like what? What was the point? What's your best advice to someone? And when you catch yourself in that moment, what would you do differently?

Marcy Axelrod: 25:13

And you feel the other humans in the room, you re-humanize everybody. It isn't the business partner guy, the supply chain guy. You feel the people as fellow human beings. They are impacting you. Honor that Right and you are impacting them Right. So honor that truth about how humans are designed to exist. We are intertwined.

Marcy Axelrod: 25:38

So my advice is to recognize if you don't choose how you show up. Unfortunately, our default is to a level two, which is a just showing up, and once again what I mentioned, your focus is going a level two, which is a just showing up, and once again what I mentioned, your focus is going to be a narrow thing and it's going to go. You aren't really there, you don't get deep on anything. No new ideas are going to show up, no real contributions to the agenda of the meeting are going to show up, and then you're going to look back and feel disappointed. So you've got to reset yourself. What you can do is choose one person at the table and just your body will soften.

Marcy Axelrod: 26:19

The most recent research I did was with about a thousand global executives at a company that you've well heard of in the hospitality space, and what the survey said about 80% of the women said I cannot be true to myself at work. I'm always in performance mode. I'm afraid to share my ideas, I'm afraid I'm speaking out too much, I'm afraid I don't speak out enough, I'm afraid I'm being judged. So fear shows up, and what that means is that there's a lack of emotional safety in the workplace. What do you do?

Marcy Axelrod: 26:59

And there's two answers, because there's a bottom up. What can each person do, which is you truly show up and use more words around? You know, I feel that Ask more questions. That is huge. What do you think would happen if so, instead of sharing your thoughts, it's you know what would happen if this, or has anyone explored that and share more of how you feel Like I'm starting to feel that the path of our decisions so far may not really achieve what we're looking for. What other people think? Are you sensing it too? So bring more emotionally rich words in no-transcript.

Jess: 28:16

That makes sense. So, marcy, you've shared a lot with us today. If the listeners could take just one idea from today's episodes, which one do you feel they should take, and you hope it really takes impact?

Marcy Axelrod: 28:29

Yeah, choose. Most people don't actually choose, they default choose, they just kind of keep going. I have to get this done, I have to get this done, I'm doing this, I'm doing this. They don't pause and ask themselves how am I really choosing to show up right now and ask themselves how am I really choosing to show up right now and then think about? How are they perceiving of others around them? How are they relating to the work they need to do? Because that just get it done mode also relates to the work.

Marcy Axelrod: 29:05

So choose and by choose what I mean, it's use both systems of attention, not just the narrow one, but what's the big picture, what's the meaning in what I'm doing? Why am I doing this? It's oh, because it's a small part of helping this group or provide right. It brings the meaning back. So when I say choose right, it brings the meaning back. So when I say choose, I'm really talking about expanding your, your, your perceiving of what you're doing and how you're doing it, marcy, how can our listeners find and follow you so choosetoshowupcom is the website and the book Amazon how we Choose to Show Up.

Marcy Axelrod: 29:50

Is the website and the book Amazon how we Choose to Show Up. It recently won two Indie Book.

Claude: 29:53

Awards. It also won the Hayakawa Book.

Marcy Axelrod: 29:54

Prize and it's a pretty cool.

Jess: 29:58

That's so awesome. So this conversation has been amazing. It's been definitely a masterclass in what it means to live with intention and just truly how to show up, and, as we talked about that, it's not necessarily something that anyone can't do on their own, but also to just constantly be challenging yourself on that, and it's okay to take steps back and just reflect on it. But before we let you go, we'd love to ask one more question that our listeners were curious about. What's that one thing you wish every work bestie knew about? How to help each other truly show up, especially on those really hard days.

Marcy Axelrod: 30:37

Yeah, so when you truly show up to your work, bestie, you're going to be totally in receiving mode and you're going to feel them and you're just going to help them feel felt. That's massive.

Jess: 30:57

Thank you, marcy, we so enjoyed having you and work besties.

Claude: 31:01

I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as we did. We learned a lot. Thank you so much, marcy, and do not forget to follow us, subscribe and like the episode. Thank you all. See you next week.

Jess: 31:15

Remember whether you're swapping snacks in the break room, rescuing each other from endless meetings or just sending that perfectly timed meme. Having a work bestie is like having your own personal hype squad.

Claude: 31:28

So keep lifting each other, laughing through the chaos and, of course, thriving. Until next time, stay positive, stay productive and don't forget to keep supporting each other. Work besties.