Whale Wisdom & Dolphin Energy: A New Way to Lead from the Heart with Anne Gordon | 019

Today's guest is Anne Gordon, whale wisdom expert, Dolphin Ambassador retreat host and facilitator, best selling author, speaker and dolphin energy healer. Anne's work invites people to remember who they truly are through deep connection with natural world, especially through intelligence, presence and frequency of whales and dolphins, she creates transformative retreats, experiences in the pristine Pearl islands of Panama, where life coaches, authors, speakers and healers and transformational leaders bring their communities to reconnect with their purpose, open their hearts and access a profound sense of clarity, joy and peace, more than a retreat destination, Anne offers an initiation, a space where leaders slow down, listen deeply and allow nature's wisdom to align both with their inner world and the work they are bringing to their outer world. I'm honored to welcome Anne Gordon to leading with purpose. Hello, Anne.

Thanks, Mark, hi. It's great to be here. And I haven't heard that by in a long time. It's all accurate. And I've not only Panama and Bimini in the Bahamas, humpback wells and Marina in Mexico, all over the world now

That is amazing. And I've known you for so many years, and, yes, there's so many things that have evolved in that time, and I love the idea again, about bringing leaders to host retreats with you.

Yes, yeah, it's magical, because it's like people, lots of there's lots of coaches and healers who want to lead a retreat, but they don't know how to do all the logistics, and so I can help them by doing all the logistics, and they just have to bring

their trot. And again, you bring a very, very unique part with the whales and dolphins. Your work is really rooted in the wisdom and the energy of whales and dolphins. I'm curious what first called you into this path, and how did it transform your own sense of purpose and leadership?

Yeah, that's the million dollar story for sure. And it started very, very young for me, because I grew up in Olympia, Washington. We were right on the water. My dad had a boat so many weekends and every summer vacation was out on the water, sometimes in the San Juan Islands, with the orca whales watching the orcas. So I've been blessed to be immersed in orca energy long before I even knew what that term meant, right? But when I was a kid, looking back on it, the presence of the orcas kind of felt like a loving, protective older brother. Presence so very comforting, very safe feeling for me, and like many people who love dolphins and whales, I dream. I dreamt with them for years and years and years, and, you know, been swimming with them in my dreams for a very, very long time. So I studied biology and animal behavior in university. I kind of went a little bit different route from university. I ended up being a zookeeper. I was actually the first woman keeper in the carnivore department in Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo. Oh, wow. Mainly because they didn't think women were strong enough to open the big, heavy bear doors. Husband and they are heavy. They're really heavy. They're things big, heavy guillotine doors. And they need to be strong and heavy, right? They don't want the bears heading out. Yes, right? So what I managed to use my body at the counterbalance and just in ganged open when needed. And so I from the zoo, I started my own company where I raised and trained wild animals and took them out to schools to do educational outreach, to teach an appreciation and respect for wildlife and nature. And I did that for about five years. And then I realized in the Pacific Northwest, there was nobody providing animals for the film industry, so I became a big fish in a small pond, and the go to person, the only person doing providing animals for movies and TV. And that was fun. I got to work on all kinds of fun projects, Northern

Exposure, Legends of the Fall, homework bound, you know, all kinds of fun stuff. And so I did that for over 20 years, but then at one point I started feeling, the only way I could put it is, I start feeling the call of the dolphins. And that what that looked like was I kept thinking about them and like, how do I get out to swim with them? How do I get out to be with them? Them, and I was so busy that I didn't get to spend as much time with my dad on the boat anymore, and so I booked a orca whale watching trip for my birthday that year, and I just told friends and family, hey, I'm doing this. You're welcome to come or not. And we went out and in the in the Pacific Northwest, in that the Puget Sound, there are three resident orca pods, J, K and L pods. And every once while, something really magical happens, where all three pods come together, and it's this major celebration. And they call it a super pot. Well, on my birthday, that's what happens, wow. And we were a super pot. On my birthday, we were with these orcas for over two hours, all around the boat, exhibiting every behavior you could ever wish for reaching and sloping their tails and swimming right into the boat looking up at us.

And I have a question for you about the orcas, because you mentioned a little while ago about orca energy, and you felt it before you knew what that meant, right? And a lot of people are confused about orcas because they're called killer whales, correct?

You're not whales. Actually, they are. Technically, all dolphins are whales, but not all whales are dolphins.

So I didn't know they're dolphins were whales either. Okay, right?

So taxonomically, now we, you know, arrange things biologically. Is that whales is the overlying group, and then there's different subsets. So in one of those subsets is the dolphins, and in the group of subset of dolphins, orcas are the largest member of the dolphin family.

Porpoises that we call dolphins,

Porpoises are another offshoot of that dolphin group. And then in the bigger, larger whales, you'd get the baleen whales, which are the filter plates, feed on really small things. And then the toothed whales, like the sperm whales, pilot whales, and so on and so so yes, and I want to address your killer whale question, because, yeah, the name is kind of a misnomer, because in other languages, like, for example, Spanish, it was baenas, assasinas, which means killers of whales. So they're whale killers, not killer whales, but because Spanish and English flip the terms, the descriptive words that we translated it to killer whales, and that's what it they're called. So there are killer whales because they do sometimes some different groups of orcas do predate on different things, like that. Southern residents eat primarily fish, preferring salmon. There are some that prefer mammals, meaning dolphins, seal, sea lions. And then there are some that prefer larger whales. There are some that prefer sharks, including great white sharks. There's some that prefer stingrays around the world. So yeah, they're they're fascinating animals and being the apex predator in the ocean. But here's the thing about them, and this is what my brain does, is I take the biology and the messages I received from them, and we give these amazing lessons. Because an Orca, well, if you just look at its body from the top, it's black with a bit of white, but if you look at it from the bottom belly, it's white with a little bit of black. So they're really balanced white and black. So they represent living in balance and in harmony with the environment, and they're also in balance with the dark and the light within them, just like all of us, we all have our dark thoughts. We all have our negativity that comes up within us, but we tend to humans tend to avoid it, ignore it. Portugal decide until it erupts. But the workers know how to stay in balance with that.

Such a beautiful lesson, and it's funny, because that's what I was kind of moving into next, because I know that many of our listeners are our transformational leaders. Those are the people that you serve, and they're very good at holding space for others, but they don't always get to pause for themselves the same way. And I'm curious what whales and dolphins teach us. About presence, alignment, which is one of my things, and leadership, what is true leadership in those pods that you're talking about?

I love that. So two things, one, dolphins in their pods, orcas as well in their pods. It's, I like to use the term unity community, and what that means is that every member of the pod is an honored and respected member. There is not like a caste system. Yes, there's a matriarch, especially in orcas, but she's the wise elder. She's not like, you know, handing out punishment. She's just teaching them and leading them. And, okay, here's, here's how you hunt this prey, right? And here's, here's what we're going to do. We're going to hunt in this area today. But there is no such thing as, you know, somebody who's weak, or somebody who's bullied, or any of that, because individuality is honored and respected, which is something that we humans are not very good at, right? We feel that when we are in a true unity community, that we are going to have to give up something of ourselves. But in the world of the dolphins, you never have to give up that what makes you unique is honored. And so for leadership, it's leading with more by example and again, not by punishment, not by hard sell rules, but what's good for the individual is good for everybody, and vice versa.

I love that. It's funny because I'm thinking about how sometimes we lose our autonomy and we feel like we're just like everyone else, and especially out in this industry, like we can get lost in a sea of noise. But if I look at a dolphin or a whale, now I'm not you. So to me, every org looks the same and like how does one how do you say they honor each other's differences? Then to us, they don't have differences.

They do is you get to know them really well, right? They have individual markings and like that. The orcas, their dorsal fins, every single one is unique. Humpback whales, the underside of their tail, everything, every single one is like a fingerprint, completely unique. In fact, there's a whole a website set up to catalog all those tail ies there is they also have some their markings, like right behind their dorsal Finney orcas that's unique in every single one. So when you have an eye for it, you can tell them apart and however to them, just like to them, we probably all look the same, right? Oh, those your wins right around in the ocean, right? It's just, oh yeah. Just another one of those, those four legged, you know, two legged stand up things, right? But they have something that is one of my favorite living skills of adult and that is their echolocation, which means they live in a world of complete transparency,

Oh, because everybody can hear what they're saying, because

Everybody can hear what they're saying, and they literally have X ray vision. So they can see inside the bodies of each other. They can see weakness. They can see pregnancy upon conception. They can and they can see it not only in each other, but see it in their prey. So if they're hunting a salmon, and they're following a school salmon, and this one salmon has a tumor, and it's swimming a little slower. It's like, oh, that's the one, right? And they also can see inside us. Now here's we'll take it a step further, which is really amazing. Not only can they see the physical state of our bodies? They can see the emotional state. Now, if you think about it, it actually makes sense, because when we're angry or when we're sad, we hold our body differently than when we're happy and relaxed, and they can see those subtle differences. And it's really funny when I've got people like, we're swimming with dolphins, and you get somebody who's like, I really want to swim with the dolphins that want, that desire pushes the dolphins away

Just like it does with people like nobody wants needy people. Likes.

Maybe, but when you're relaxed and you're just shifting into a place of gratitude, which is something I tell my people every time first day on the retreat, let's just come to from a place of that of gratitude, and then they're right in there. But let's go back to the transparency, because if they can see your emotional state. What that means is, in the world of dolphins, there is no such thing as a secret or lie that's powerful. Yeah. So imagine, in our world, what that would be like to live in a world with no secrets or lies. It's super, super powerful and a little scary for us humans, because we all think that there is, you know, we we have to hide things from others because they may not like us if they truly knew this, but really with transparency. So with full transparency, it gives this amazing sense of freedom. And so again, going back to your comment about leadership, once like as a leader, we want to be as transparent as possible. We want to show the freedom and that it's okay to be transparent. We don't have to be perfect. We don't have to have all the answers. We are humans. We make mistakes. We have emotions, right? And so by showing your vulnerability can be hugely healing, and I have a great story for that, and that is when I led my very first retreat in Bimini, where we swim with the dolphins back in 2018 I was living in Panama at the time I have I was married to an indigenous man from the jungles down there, and his mother, my mother in law was this amazing, wonderful, lovely human I always say I had the best mother in Law the entire world, and we were very good friends. Well, when I was getting ready to lead this retreat, I came up to the US about a week early, and I was actually sponsoring at Jay posset's three day event and about masterminds and retreats and Masterminds go hand in hand. So I was talking about retreats there, and the event started on a Friday, and I got a text from my husband that said, my mother left

us now. She'd been sick before I left, but we didn't have a diagnosis. We didn't seem serious. And so they texted back, well, where'd she? I didn't even get it, because I wasn't even thinking that. And he and he texted back, she died. I was, you know, floored and in shock and grief. And so I called them, and it's like I all I want to do is jump on a plane and go back and be with him and support him and grieve with him and the family and but I had 20 people on Sunday, two days later, waiting for me to start this retreat, and they signed up because of me, right? Such a tough decision, but my husband was like, No, you have I'll be fine. You have to go. You have to do your job. So I did, and on Sunday, I showed up and but I didn't tell any of my people, because I didn't want to burden them with what I was dealing with, right? So we started the retreat. Everything's going fine, and on Tuesday morning was the funeral, and so I called my husband Tuesday morning, we're talking before the funeral, and I just couldn't hold it in any longer. And we got on the boat and with all the people ready to go out for another amazing day with the dolphins, and I couldn't stop the tears, so I decided to use it as a lesson and talk about transparency. And the dolphins also have taught me that when emotions come up that we honor them and we dive deep into them and let them, let experience them, so they can process and release. And so I, I told everybody what was going on with me, and then I talked about the transparency and the dialing into emotions and what was amazing. Amazing by sharing that with everybody is that there was two women in the group who turns out they both had lost people, one of father and one boyfriend in the last year that they had not completely allowed themselves to grieve. And so been sharing my grief. I gave them permission to grieve, and it was really powerful. They both came up and gave me Big hugs and shared that with me. And of course, that

was the most amazing day of the retreat, the dolphins. We had 40 dolphins that came up and spent hours with us, and when I got in the water, I was last in the water, letting all my people go first, and they were all having amazing encounters with the dolphins. Kind of hung back, still feeling sad, yeah, I was happy for all of my people to get what they came for. But one dolphin was like, Oh no, and she came over to me, and she made eye contact. She was probably about a foot away, and then she started swimming around me. Well, the only way to maintain eye contact with her was just so I'm spinning around in the water with her like five times she circled me until I just burst out laughing in my snorkel, which is not easy to do, by the way, Jill had and when I started laughing, see, stopped again, deep eye contact, and then it was like, I get this. You're like, My job here is done, and off she went. And it that's when I I hadn't learned this before, but that's when I truly knew it that joy can be really deep, and grief and all anger and all that stuff can be very fleeting, and you can experience joy and grief at the same time it was powerful. That is huge.

Yeah, so huge. I know that your your retreats are described as a deeply life changing experience, and obviously this is kind of examples are why. And I'm curious, what shifts Do you consistently see in people that are stepping out of their daily roles, especially as leaders, and now immersing themselves in this environment.

It's really powerful. You mentioned earlier presence, and I'm gonna bring that back in here. Because when you are in the presence of a dolphin or a whale, like when the dolphins are riding in front of the boat, or there's a whale breaching in front, it's impossible to think about anything else, right? You are right there in that moment. And I love that presence and gift. It same meaning in our language, right? Because it really is a gift, because we humans are really bad about living in tomorrow and yesterday. Freedom. It feels to be fully present is powerful, and when people are in that presence, it's so fun to watch with the dolphins, people get silly. It's like their inner child bubbles up and isn't allowed to express and I've seen them burst into goofy singing, like Goofy 60s TV jingles, and, you know, just expressing their pure joy in in that. And it's so powerful. And then when you are able to do that, you know all the stress from their daily life is gone. What comes up is a remembrance of creativity, ideas they've had and and how important it is to actually follow with that. And I've seen people that have come on my retreats and then write novels or create businesses or, you know, they they certainly feel much more confident and positive about themselves, all of which is a huge transformation from working every day and being stressed out and meeting the deadlines and oh my god, I made this mistake, and all of that is simply gone.

And especially like it's beautiful that we have this technology where we get to have this conversation together. We get to share with everybody on the different platforms, everything. Else, but we were so dependent on not only technology, but artificial intelligence, that when you get to get into nature, and you get to have that that kind of intelligence and that kind of connection to really the deeper version of who we are,

It is on my gray whale retreat in Mexico, we stay at a completely off the grid app, ecocam. So there's cell phone, there's internet, there's pi there's none of that barn. I love it, of course, at first service like, oh my god, what will you do that internet? You're gonna be fine in the UK. And it's the best thing ever. And at first they're like, Oh my God. And it's like, Don't worry, there's an emergency phone if anything's necessary. Give your family this number if there's anything going on, that and it and it's amazing, relax into that.

And I know obviously when you're doing these experiences, they're the retreats. And so it's not just the watching itself, but the you facilitate lots of different things. You have meditations and other tools. I'm going to be sharing a tool a link down in the links below. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that, what it is?

And yeah. So if you love the dolphins like I do, or even if you're curious about it, I have a guided meditation. It is a free gift to all of you, and it is called Meet your dolphin spirit guide, and it's a meditation that I lead, and it's about 20 minutes, and all you should do is just listen and just trust whatever comes up to me. And if you want a dolphin spirit guide, you get one. You get to meet them and have a moment of connection with them. And the beauty is, once you've connected, then you can invite that spirit guide into your dreams, into your own meditations, and maintain that connection forever, if you want.

I love that, and that really leads into the bigger work that you do. So the retreats are fine, and this has been, you know, so part of your life for a long time, but it's really about the healing energy of these whales and dolphins, and they actually have a certification for coaches as well. That's a little bit more about how is, how do people access that? How do coaches access Whale and Dolphin energy?

Well, it's really fun. And here's the thing, when I learned it back in 2004 I still I am not somebody who can feel energy, and I know a lot of you out there watching this probably can, but that's not my gift. But what is my gift is that when I just tap in and I ask the dolphins and the whales to come through me, and I have to trust that something's happening, because I feel absolutely nothing, but I feel like I'm doing nothing, but what I do get is a pretty steady stream of visions and messages that they send me for my clients, and on my retreats, I do group sessions as well, and they're pretty amazing. And sometimes they make no sense to me, and I share them with my client and like, Oh yeah, that makes perfect sense, right? But it can be. And so what in my class, in my certification course, I teach you to become this conduit, this channel, if you will, for their energy. And everybody has their own way of sensing energy, and some people make it visions and messages, like I do. Some may do it in complete silence. It's all perfect, and that's it's not like, Okay, you have to follow this step and then you got to do that step. And it's not that, it's just trusting. And when I, when I was learning this, I didn't trust it at all until I started working with partners, and when I was learning and the feedback I got was what helped me start to believe that something was actually happening. And so in my certification course, every single call, we go into breakout rooms, and everybody they practice with each other. So it's a safe place. There's no expectations. I just just, if you don't feel like you're doing anything, just pretend you're doing something. But when they get the feedback from their partners, hello.

Oh, that's fun. And yeah, it fits you. We both said fun at the same time, because that is dolphin. Dolphins have that fun, playful energy. And I love the again, the idea that they can see through because the echolocation, I didn't realize that it could help them see through bodies, through their own bodies, and recognize pregnancies, all those other things. So it does all fit together, both as being able to witness the. Animals and learn the lessons from them, but then to become certified and using that energy to coach clients, it just feels so beautiful.

Yeah, it's really a cool modality, and it can be combined with others, with Reiki or whatever else you've got in your wheelhouse. It's it's all good. And obviously in the class, we focus only on dolphin rail energy, but once you're certified, you can personalize it, make it your own, however you want.

And I'm really excited because we're gonna, I'm gonna be get to see you in February the soulful leadership retreat, and I want to be able to start creating events with you. This is something that you can do with other leaders as well, right to be able to bring their community and help guide them through a retreat?

Yeah, it's powerful. And what's amazing is a lot of times people like, well, how does dolphin whale you know it's going on a dolphin trip? How does that align with my message? And when I teach people how to do retreats, it's like everything needs to be aligned, right? Right, from the location to the topic, to the excursions, all the activities, right? However, your people, your participants, don't need to understand it yet, as long as you do so, for example, if you are, say, You're a wealth mindset coach, right, teaching people to open to abundance. You may think, what does whales and dolphins have to do with that? Well, I'll tell you that whales represent abundance, being the largest creatures to have ever lived on Earth, eating the smallest, and you never see it skin whale. And science has actually proven that when there are more whales in the ocean eating fish and krill, that there's actually more fish and krill because of the whales presence than less. So they actually create their own abundance. And that's just the tip of the iceberg on the teaching on that. I have a whole five module course on it. So that's something where the mindset code out the money mindset coach can go, have that in their back pocket and say, we're gonna go to whale watching expedition, and they're gonna go, Well, that sounds like fun. Oh, relates. But I don't care. I'm just gonna go and then on the boat, the coach and I can share this whale abundance wisdom to bring it all together. And that's just one of many subjects that they can work with, your your clients with.

And of course, that could work with relationship coaches. Obviously, I've been talking about leadership this whole time. Of course, we're on the leading with purpose podcast, and that's what I would love to see our retreat, be around around leadership, and bring other leaders out there. Hopefully they'll want to do their own as well. But I'm curious again, because we are the leading with purpose podcast, I ask each guest this one question, what does leading with purpose mean to you?

To me, it's leading with your heart. It's following your heart. Sometimes that means, at first, you might think, well, that's following my own passions, and it may feel a little selfish, and I'll be perfectly transparent with you to stick with that theme. I started my whale watching and retreats for the selfish reason, because I wanted to spend as much time on the water and not have to pay for it, and now I get paid for it, however, by following my heart and my passion, they created an opportunity for me to literally live the messages and the wisdom that the dolphins and whales have taught me over the years. And by doing that, then I'm setting this example and giving people permission and inspiring them to follow their heart and their passion and purpose.

That is so beautiful, really is, I'd love to hear the definition of that. It almost answered the next question, but I'll throw it out there anyway, because I know we'll be having more conversations. We'll probably have one about an upcoming retreat together, but I'd like to at least are there any last words that you want to share with our audience as we wrap up today?

Yeah, I think following up on what we just talked about, and that is, don't listen to the naysayers. I was told no multiple times every step of my entire career, from college what I wanted to study, everything, even my biology advisor in college said there's no jobs for biology majors. It, but I never listened, and I said yes to my heart, yes to my passion and purpose. So trust in yourself. I think that's the most important thing you can do. Believe in yourself, even if nobody else, your friends, your family, colleagues. Nobody believes in you. If it's that important to you, there's a reason for it, and it can be done.

I love that. Yeah, I believe the same thing, that the most important thing that we can do is to trust our inner guidance, and in the most the best proof that we trust it is by taking action, yes, in the direction of our inner guidance, beautiful, and I'm so excited. I can't wait to give you a big hug. Thank you for being here on this show, and thank you so much for following your heart and not listening to the naysayers and being a trailblazer. We really appreciate that.

That's my pleasure and an honor. And thank you, Mark, and I look forward to seeing you very soon.

Thank you so much, and thank you for listening, for watching. Here, we will answer any questions or comments, put those down below, and I'll post some links with that free gift that Anne shared before it's the meet your dolphin spirit guide meditation below, thank you again for watching and being here and being delight. We'll see you soon.