The New Alchemy of Leadership: Redefining Success with Angelica Umali

Former corporate executive Angelica Umali believes the most important leadership work starts within. She shares why burnout is a systemic warning sign, and how energy, health and self-mastery shape the leaders worth following.

By Mark Sephton.

The current business landscape has become increasingly challenging over the decades, bringing about relentless hustle, rapid technological shifts, and intense competition.  This has taken a toll on some executives, who feel a growing disconnect between corporate success and personal fulfilment.  A growing number are experiencing burnout, sleep issues and anxiety, leading to high employee turnover. Angelica Umali, an executive life mentor and an ex-corporate senior executive, has seen these symptoms become more prevalent over the years, showing a seemingly systemic issue in some cases: that of prioritising the bottom line, at times at the expense of long-term, strategic business pillars, contributing to unhealthy working conditions.

Angelica, recently featured on The Female CEO® podcast, is on a mission to redefine how we lead and eventually use business as an agent for social good, both internally and externally in any organisation.  Her approach focuses on knowing one’s inner self as an equally important equation in leading people.  Articulating one’s weaknesses and breaking these patterns, as well as diversifying into more strengths, are keys to refining one’s character, and ultimately, one’s leadership impact.  These bring about more wisdom in leadership and conscience in entrepreneurship, a mission she shares with the Wisdom Institute for Leadership & Global Advancement (WILGA). 

Root Causes of a Zero-Sum Mentality

Our personality has a ‘lower ego’ aspect that needs to be refined if we are to make the ‘right’ choices and lead in the ‘right’ way.  The lower ego is the one attached to money, fame, pleasure, and attention to the self. It is also where lower emotions, thoughts and ideas are housed. These weaknesses often cause blunders in decisions, creating non-inclusive outcomes, and sometimes impacting humanity in the organisation and the group it serves.

The Quest to Refine One’s Character

To create inclusive outcomes, as well as creating leadership that elevates people, ideas, and impact, one needs to start with the self.  Indeed, the quote that says “change starts from within” has a lot more wisdom and truth than we can ever imagine.  A curriculum that takes you there in the shortest possible time is priceless, because achieving an impact that is for the higher good of society is a great contribution and a legacy to leave behind. And that curriculum exists.

Understanding Yourself Through One’s Energy Anatomy

Everything is energy, and it vibrates at different frequencies.  One can learn about their own energy anatomy that surrounds the physical body, together with the energy centres that control the different organs. It is vital to understanding one’s health, as well as one’s character strengths and weaknesses.  If one works with the energy centres, transformation is more permanent and sustainable. If a person’s energy remains the same after they were last mentored, they would still be the same person, no matter how much you have lectured them or given them an understanding of their situation. Genuine transformation involves evolving one’s energy to a higher frequency and activating the energy centres that are lagging behind in order to truly address one’s deficiencies.

Angelica brings with her this newfound curriculum called the Balanced Life Strategy Program that empowers leaders who are determined to move their leadership dial into a deeper self-awareness, to evolve and transform, be more authentic, and lead in a more inspiring way.  This curriculum also empowers the leader to have a more fulfilling life by addressing the blind spots in the five different areas of life, five levels of health, five levels of ascending intelligences, evaluating their leadership type through the eight types of leaders, and learning about other facets of themselves and turning that into new strengths. 

This unique curriculum brings together the wisdom of the East, with its energy medicine techniques, as well as the practicality of the West, with universal philosophies and principles in the form of workshops and mentoring.  Both combined give you a new framework within which to run your life and benchmark your success according to these new guidelines, resulting in a more fulfilled and purposeful life.

A Barometer for Success & Fulfilment: The Five Levels of Health    

“Self-care is an essential foundation for self-mastery”, says Angelica.  Furthermore, “good health is a key virtue that leaders must have in order to carry on their mission and also feel fulfilled”.  She found out the hard way that without health, work is not possible. She herself had her own health challenges some 15 years ago, and this started her quest to find real solutions.

She uncovered that there are 5 levels of health (physical, vitality, emotional, mental and spiritual health) and that understanding all these and addressing each one was the key to total health and wellbeing, and more importantly, longevity. Longevity is defined as improving the quality of life, not just the length of life.

The energy medicine she has been practising and specialises in tackles all these 5 levels of health at the same time, leading to a sustainable health transformation. These techniques tackle a host of chronic conditions at their root causes, from depression and anxiety, to kidney issues, sleep and burnout, addiction, and even side effects of cancer.  One can also “heal the healthy” by improving their energy proactively. In her fascination with this science and gaining wisdom in this field, continuing to study deeper and handling various case studies, she has now become a Senior Energy Medicine Specialist, delivering consistent, successful outcomes, together with the team she works with.  

Beyond Just Logic: The Five Levels of Ascending Intelligences

Most of us think that intelligence only comes from the mind.  One fascinating detail that Angelica reveals is that there are actually 5 levels of ascending intelligences and that you need to activate all 5 if you are to become a powerhouse of intelligence: the gut intelligence, heart intelligence, concrete intelligence, abstract intelligence, and spiritual intelligence. “Relying on your logical mind is, in fact, only 1/5 of your total intelligence”, discloses Angelica.  Harnessing all 5 intelligences is a real game-changer, definitely adding wisdom to your leadership.  And yes, it is possible to activate all 5 levels of ascending intelligences. 

Enlightened Leadership: The Trinity of Power, Love and Light

Most leaders have this unspoken question of how to balance asserting their willpower vs love (compassion) in the workplace. This paradigm of the trinity that Angelica uses has the right benchmark and measurement to understand how to balance and develop the other aspects that are not instinctive in you.  When one knows how to show the power, balanced by the love, and capped with brilliant ideas, then you start to lead from a higher place that will inspire many to a good mission and attract collaborators.  This alchemy of ‘sweet will’ attracts rather than repulses.  Some leaders think it is all about the finish line, but attracting the right people, resources and solutions will give you the winning results. 

Leading Thyself: The Path to Self-Mastery

Taking one’s leadership role seriously requires a deep look at oneself, continuously working on one’s weaknesses and improvement points, and proactively addressing them.  To Angelica, a legendary leader is one who relentlessly pursues their own awareness and rectifies blind spots and weaknesses ahead of time, for a leader who does this ensures that their own personal issues are not mixing with professional issues that affect the team, and that their own weaknesses do not become the blockage of the group as well.  Angelica takes leadership seriously and this is why she embarked on this journey to master herself, stumbling upon a whole curriculum to bring her there.  Developing the facets of a leader mentioned above, and more, is now her passion in helping to transform the leader from within.  

From Success to Soul Purpose

A profound idea that Angelica shares is that one’s life purpose is actually different from one’s work purpose, a paradigm that surprised her own self as she sought higher truths about life. Your life’s purpose, she says, is growing your soul, your Higher Self, so that it guides your personality to an even better version of you, every day.  Ask the question “Who am I becoming?” and make it an essential part of your leadership goal.  Cultivate a deeper understanding of universal philosophies and expand yourself using universal frameworks that act as a guide for a more fruitful and enlightened life. 

Her own journey into this work was born of a necessity. Despite a high-achieving corporate career, Angelica faced near-death experiences and unexplained health issues that brought her to a dead end. She eventually met her mentor who explained that it was the "dark night of the soul", a condition where external successes feel empty and the body begins to fail because the soul is unfulfilled.

From a seeker of truth on how to become the best leader one can be, to stepping into becoming a mentor of the curriculum which she found, Angelica has turned full circle indeed, having found her fulfilment and determined to actualise her life’s purpose daily.

"You cannot solve the world's problems with the same consciousness that created it," she concludes our interview, echoing Albert Einstein.  This was the quote that began her journey, making her determined to see herself evolve beyond what she had achieved, challenging herself throughout this journey, and breaking through her old paradigms.  She has proven to herself that by evolving one's energy to vibrate only strong, positive ripples, a leader can finally be the change they wish to see.

First Steps for the Conscious CEO

For those wanting to begin their journey to higher consciousness, Angelica suggests a few starting points:

1.  Make the Choice:  Decide that you want to move towards Wisdom Leadership and leave a legacy that goes beyond just the bottom line.
2. Assess your Health: Evaluate yourself on the 5 levels of health (physical, vitality, emotional, mental and spiritual) and see where you need to start your development journey.
3. Work with a Mentor: Seek guidance from those who can help shortcut the process of realisation to immediate execution.  This will save you valuable time and money doing trial and error, but, more so, a priceless impact achieving a more fulfilling life, while creating positive value and impact in the world.
4. Practice Internal Reflection: Understand that change starts from within.  Evolving your own energy will naturally affect the people and systems around you.

Indeed, self-actualisation is a rare achievement to aim for, but achievable given the right curriculum and mentor.  For the modern CEO, this may be one of the most important deals you can ever close.

This article accompanies The Trinity of Conscious Leadership, from The Female CEO® Podcast.

To learn more about Angelica Umali and the Balanced Life Program, you can connect with her on LinkedIn. 

Mark Sephton has helped numerous high-level thought leaders and creatives unveil their story, voice, and visibility so they, too, can make their mark on the world. He creates a safe space for aspiring thought leaders to feel heard, find confidence, and ignite their impact. He does this by increasing their visibility and rapport through storytelling, interviews, content creation, and media presence. In fact, he has conducted over 5,000 life-changing interviews with thought leaders and creatives, and is often referred to as the ‘King of Conversation’.

Mark has shared his life experiences as an author of three books on the subject of personal development: Inside Job, Plot Twist & Mark of a Man. He’s recognised for his contribution as an inspiring storyteller who provides positive exposure and opportunities for others who have a great purpose and passion to make their mark in their own distinctive way.

Find out more about Mark and his work at marksephton.com