Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Elizabeth Lindsey: Elders' Wisdoms

Episode Date: December 9, 2015

Dr. Elizabeth Lindsey is the first female and first Polynesian to become an explorer for the National Geographic Society. She has made it her mission to find, preserve and share the knowledge and traditions of indigenous populations before they disappear. Show Notes: 8:43: Where she found her passion for understanding ancient traditions and ancient wisdoms "True masters have nothing to prove to anyone" 10:27 19:20: Determining whether your psychological model or the environment is off "The most powerful thing we can do, each of us, is to find stillness" 23:40 27:20: People who have influenced her and who she was able to learn from 37:47: The best place to bring yourself to when you're unraveling 43:42: How she was able to travel the world for six months without speaking and the tales of her journey 57:17: How to create depth within yourself "Whatever story we choose to tell, if we choose wisely, the story becomes the medicine for others" 1:01:46 1:04:00: How to define an explorer 1:08:20: Habits that are absolutely necessary aside from basic ones in life 1:12:43: Her single most difficult moment in life 1:22:37: Can true elite performance take place if people don't get along on one stage? 1:35:10:Insights on how to become an expert risk taker_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. This conversation is with Dr. Elizabeth Lindsay. Now this gets deep right off the bat. You know, it just gets deep. The conversation doesn't take too many twists and turns like some of the other conversations I've had. It's centered right around her journey to explore and understand the wisdoms of vanishing tribes and what the

elders that she's been fortunate enough to work with, what they've been able to pass on to her. So Elizabeth is, as just a quick intro to her, she's a fellow of the National Geographic Society, and she's actually the first female and the first Polynesian to be an explorer for the National Geographic Society. She has made it flat out her mission to find and understand and share the knowledge and traditions of indigenous populations, hopefully with the idea before they disappear. And she's got this incredible phrase that she uses. And she says, when an elder dies, it's as if a library is burned.

And I think that we can all relate to that with the elders in our own family and the insights that they have. And I think that there's a calling once a person passes away or once a person dies that we care about or that we've been fortunate enough to know that we wish we had a little bit more time to spend with them to understand so that we can absorb it and maybe pay that forward by enhancing our lives in a different way and maybe figure out ways to share those insights with others. And oftentimes that happens when people lose a loved one. She's set out to do this journey before that loss. And the way it starts for her is that she was raised by elders young. And I think this conversation is relevant for all of us who want to explore more within ourselves. And we know that we have more to give the world and to give to others,

whether that be in business or sport or in our home life. This conversation is full of information, both practices, very applied practices, as well as concepts that are worth paying attention to. Now, there's a reason she was named Hawaii's Woman of the Year in 2004. Her path is unique to her. And again, it's not the path that we're looking to understand, but that just sets the context for trying to understand what she's come to understand, which is the universality of the insights that she's learned from elders from vanishing tribes. And so, again, she grew up learning from elders. And she's now spent her entire adult life traveling the world to continue that learning.

And she's pushing into far remote regions of the world to be with people who, if they were to pass away, that the world would never know that they existed. And that speaks right to this podcast and this conversation is, yes, we're going to talk to people that are, again, the Leonardo da Vinci's of modern day time. We are going to talk to those folks, world record holders and people that change the way the world works from entrepreneurship as well as from sport frames. And that's exactly what she's done is she's gone to the other parts of the conversation that we're also interested in is talk to people that we wouldn't know existed and we wouldn't

know the insights from their tribe and their experiences. And so I hope that this is part one of two conversations. So this one is, it's riddled with deep and rich information. And you've heard us talk about this idea that through relationships we become. And for Elizabeth, those relationships begin with nature and with herself so that she can be present enough to be able to access the wisdoms from a variety of tribal elders. And the concept underneath of this is when we sit with somebody who has insight and has depth, if we're rattling and we're scared or we're nervous or we're not able to go deep, we will miss. We'll miss so much. And this

is her preparation is to prepare herself to be present enough and to go deep enough to be able to absorb and understand the insights and wisdoms from tribal leaders. So we get into technology and the advances there and how that the importance of being able to calibrate with technology in modern times. And she's also a wayfinder and a wayfinder. And this is this right, this little nugget here is so relevant for business leaders and executives and managers that wayfinders are people who can sail for thousands of miles without the use of maps and instruments. And that really is what modern business is about right now. There is no path, there's no runway that says, you know, this is

what business success is going to look like in the next three to five to ten years. And what wayfinders do, how they sail thousands of miles without instruments, is they do so by synthesizing seemingly unrelated pieces of information. Now, that is the path moving forward for business, to be able to pull disparate, to be able to pull divergent pieces of information, and to be able to solve relevant and meaningful problems in a creative way, and to possibly get there before other people do, or to use the available information that we're gathering from the unrelated pieces of information to solve, you know, maybe some of the world's great problems or some of the problems that our legacy and family have struggled with for years. So the way to do that is to do that through training, deep training, to understand the nuances of a craft

and by being present enough to access the information that's at hand. Because when we're busy internally and we're running ragged from the world around us, and I relate to both of those, we miss and we miss dearly. And so this is a reminder for the importance of being connected, to be creating space within ourselves and to create awareness so that we can deeply pay attention. So there's bells in the background. This is a conversation that we did across Skype. She was in Hawaii during the conversation. And so there's bells and whistles in the background and hopefully you don't get too distracted by it. It's pretty funny at the beginning, but okay. So let's, let's get right into this.

At the end, she, she shares her Twitter account, but I wanted to make sure that I hit it at the top here so that you can, as you're going through this, maybe, you know, send her some, some questions or love or, you know, 140 characters of whatever insights you might have. And it's twitter.com slash global mastery. Isn't that fitting? And so if you listen to this and our conversation around food, she just might change the way you eat. And so buyer beware of that. All right, let's jump right into it. I'm excited for this.

And maybe we think of this as part one. It buttons up nicely at the end, but there's some really wonderful insights here. Okay, have fun with it. Can't wait to hear from you on the other side. Elizabeth, thank you so much for coming on and having this conversation. I've been really interested for a long time since we first met on what you've come to understand and how you've come to understand what mastery means. And you've not only studied it, but you've lived it. You've learned it from some of the best in the world. And I can't wait to just jump right into this thing. So maybe we can just get started and first ask the first question, which is, where did you first enter this passion of wanting to understand deeply ancient traditions and ancient wisdoms?

Well, as a child, I was raised on the north shore of Hawaii, of Oahu. And my parents were professors at the university and quite extraordinary leaders in our community, in the Native Hawaiian community, and left my sisters and me in the care of three old women. And at first glance, the world would see them and possibly ignore them because they looked like very poor rural women. And yet, just beneath the surface, these three women taught us to track and live in the most intimate way with the natural world. They could chant the winds and the rains, and they knew all of them by name. I mean, in

Hawaiian thinking, similarly to other indigenous cultures throughout the world, there are many, many subtle indicators and ways of understanding our relationship with the most subtle indicators in nature. And so, these women, I remember as a seven-year-old going to the ocean under very specific lunar cycles and watching them read the signs on the ocean and chant fish toward them. And it sounds so unusual, and this I know of mastery. The greatest masters that I have ever met throughout the world are the most humble. They don't need any acknowledgement. They don't need to prove themselves. They have no need. They walk a quiet, humble path because they know their power. It's people that don't know who they

are that need to prove themselves to the world. But true masters have nothing to prove to anyone. So that to me is, you know, I learned early on, I watched these women and I lived with them through most of my childhood into my teens during the day. And that began my commitment and my passion to wanting to learn as much as I could about a world that most of us will never know. I've always been fascinated by this degree of mastery, the kind of mastery. And then afterwards, I went on to earn a PhD in non-instrument navigation or celestial navigation. And I lived and studied with a man for 10 years, lived with, he would come to Hawaii. He was considered the greatest celestial navigator in the world and lived on a small island in Micronesia called Sadawal.

And I had the privilege of studying with him through 10 years of my doctoral program. And to be with who they call themselves Palu, which are navigator priests. And because I was studying science, and at the same time, also studying indigenous science, I was able to find a language that connected what they called magic, which was simply their own cultural intelligence, to what a Western mind would say were miracles. And to these people, and to every master I have ever met around the world, they know that these are, miracles are just a shift in our thinking and our understanding. And to them, it's so commonplace and we are all capable of the same thing if we but remember and start to attend to increasing our awareness and heightening our

awareness. So, from the time that I was seven, and now I'm almost 60, and I continue to go into the world, into some of the remote, most remote regions, in order to be with these people that I know are passing away, and who most of the world will never know exist. Okay, so let's start. Let's start. You've got two successful parents. They are professors at the university. And in all intensive purposes, they found some caretakers for you.

Now, did they know that these caretakers were deeply attuned to nature and that they had wisdom and insight? Oh, it's the reason they left us in the care of these women. Okay. They were very specific about that. What did your parents study? My father was a genealogist. So he studied ancestry. Wow.

Okay. Okay. And he also, I mean, he a renaissance man so to distinguish him simply as a genealogist would be unfair he wrote three books on atomic energy he invented a submarine detector during world war ii and he brought the first cable to hawaii i mean he was brilliant beyond measure and developed it and invented a teleprompter before the newsrooms were using them and he always said it's it's And he always said it's not about rational thinking for him. It was about going into such a place of quietude and stillness and listening to what was available. And he was just simply making himself and attuning himself, which is something that I find is a common thread among every master I have ever met. He was probably my first and most significant teacher, and he still remains so,

even though he's passed on, because he walked a very, very humble path. He never needed to call attention to himself, nor did he even aspire to that it was not something that was important to him what he knew that was important was to be the best that one was to be his best self and so what he did and this was a lesson that he taught us throughout throughout his life is that our systems are so if we're willing to can be so finely tuned that we must choose the highest and best quality of everything we take in from food to um to literature to the company that we keep everything everything, because our systems are dynamic. So they're constantly adapting to whatever information is coming into us, if you can

understand it. He'd always speak about it in scientific terms. And so here I was, a very young girl, but his eldest. And so he would always talk about how we're like radio devices, where if we attune ourselves to a higher resonance, the information that we receive matches that. And I love a quote by James Allen where he says, we do not attract that which we want. We do not attract that which we want. We attract that which we are. So that was really sort of the foundation of my childhood. I mean, and it seemed so normal and natural. For example, when these elders prepared our food or when my sisters and I ate anywhere,

if the person who was preparing our meals for us had to carry an emotion of peace and tranquility as they were preparing our food, or they could not touch our food. And in our family, when there was any discussion, if it got awkward, they removed the food from the table. And so here we are, we live in the West, where we have these power lunches and power meetings, and people are negotiating over food. And in an indigenous mind, it doesn't support one system, nor does it support us to be sitting at our computers eating. I mean, really to take the time to know what our systems are going through in order to process and digest what we need. I mean, we can talk about nutrition, we can talk about supplementation, all of which are very important. But we never really necessarily couple the emotions that we're carrying or where we are emotionally as we're eating. And that, to many of the people that I study with, is really pronounced.

So it's just one example of how aware they become and how deliberate they become in the way that they lead their lives. Yeah, the mindful eating as a practice has been something that if you just pay attention will change your life. paying attention deeply to what you consume, whatever you put in or allow in, whether it's information or food, sounds like it's one of the hallmarks of just a deep regard for how intricate we are and the potential that we have. And I'm reminded it's a completely different framework, which is an action sport athlete. I'll leave the sport out. And so there's an edge to this community. And he's one of the folks that's on the path of mastery. He's one of the best in the world, hands down, on a regular basis. And he says, Mike, I only put in my body that which feeds me. He says, so I can't watch TV. And if I turn on TV, I'm looking for documentaries on, one of his favorite folks is Bruce Lee. And he says, so I'm relentless,

like I'll watch as much Bruce Lee as I can possibly get my arms around. And so, like in the same, it's got like a same message, but a different tone of what you just described but it's exactly it's exactly right and and it's what everyone does because we are taking we are taking so much information in consciously and subconsciously that the more refined we become for example this is an easy one when we when we are in the company of people that when we leave them, we feel exhausted and drained, strong indicator. The wayfinders would always say your best and finest compass is your internal compass. And so, you know, track. Track when you feel strong and inspired, when you feel drained, and then really start to pay attention to who those people are and then become very discriminating

about your life because this is your life. Okay. So, I love it. And let me ask you this question. So, I feel like there's some backstory we got to get to, but let me ask the question and then don't answer it right away. Let me give some backstory. The question that I want to ask is, how do you know when you are off because of your model, your psychological model, and how do you know that the environment might be off? Okay, so don't answer it yet, but let me just give a little bit of background about why I think your voice in this is important, is that you have studied from age seven, it sounds like,

from the elders that were raising you, you've become attuned to the natural rhythms of the world, and you've become attuned to ancient traditions, you've become attuned to the wisdoms that those elders that understand, with the period behind it, how the world works. And in doing so, you also have a deep understanding of how the world works. And in doing so, you've also have a deep understanding of how the ocean works. And this is where I think you and I get to nod our heads, like our love for the ocean is rich. And your understanding of it's really important because not only do you travel well, you know, as a sailor, but you also understand the ways and rhythms of wayfinders.

And to be a wayfinder, can you share with people what a wayfinder is and why you and I are both so equally excited about that concept and the voice that it allows you to have? Sure, I'm happy to. I mean, this is part of my great passion wayfinders are are people that sail on the ocean and and are capable of sailing for thousands of miles on open ocean without the use of maps or instruments what they do is synthesize seemingly unrelated bits of data so they will track the sequence and directional points of waves the rising and setting of stars, even things as subtle as the colors of the underbelly of a cloud, synthesize all of an understanding of what to look for, but two, you have to be deeply embedded in the present moment to be able to filter out the noise, but also get, pure signal. And so when you can get connected to nature and the pure signal, you understand, quote unquote, true north, you know, as a conceptual idea. Okay, so this is why your response to this question I'm really interested in. And I'm thinking about people that they say, they come out of a relationship or a cocktail party or a conversation and they say, God, I'm exhausted, to your point earlier.

Or, you know, I just get a sense, like, that's just not, I don't like that. I don't feel great around them. Okay, and my question is, how do you know if it's you or how do you know that it's the environment that is quote unquote off? Because when people are really open, like I think less throws them off. But, and your suggestion is that, no, like listen, you should listen. You should deeply listen. I'll tell you what I do. And this comes as a function of having learned and practiced it, learned from masters, and then applied it myself. And the Wayfinders certainly have taught me so much.

And then a few years ago, I was on the Andaman Sea just south of Myanmar and lived and sailed with the Moken. The Moken are considered sea nomads. They don't live on land. They were the tribe that when the tsunami struck in late 2004, they were the only clan of people that didn't sustain any injury because they were paying attention to the indicators in nature. The birds had stopped singing. The dolphins sailed. I mean, the dolphins swam way out to sea, so they followed them. The ones that were on land went straight, went as high as they could. Now, these were indicators. And so to your question, what I have learned is that the most powerful thing that we can do, each of us, is to find stillness on a regular

basis. Make it a discipline and exercise that muscle as we would anything else. We live in a society that really dismisses or at the very least marginalizes the value of going into quietude. And yet, as a wayfinder, one of the best ways of gaining our bearings is to find that center point or that still point where the latitude of the mind meets the longitude of the heart. There is an intersection right there where when we are in the West, we give so much credence to the mind and the rational mind, and we dismiss the heart.

And yet, science is proving that all information is going through the heart and then very rapidly going into, I mean, then going to the mind. Or we're then able to process it in our thinking. But it comes in through the heart, and heart math has some beautiful research around that so to your question what i do is every day i one of my most important commitments is to find even moments of quietude because what that does is bring me back to center and when we are able to come, it's like lining up or recalibrating our instrument. When we're able to come back to that place and hold it, and the more we practice and the better we become at doing this, when we are in an environment that feels off, we can recognize it more easily because by contrast, it becomes

so much starker. Okay. And we can also, it also helps us recalibrate to be centered so that then we can determine, you know, is it the environment, is it us? And that is probably the most significant thing in my estimation that we can do, that I have learned in all of my teachings. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentous. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and

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to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code finding mastery 20 at felixgray.com for 20 off and and you're talking about uh finding moments or having an anchor or reference point of stillness yes and it's and it's imperative there's not one one teacher one master and and trust me, I have been with some of the most under-the-radar elite masters in the world, and all of them, all of them are, this is their portal. This is the way in. Yeah, I don't know if, I don't think our circles have crossed often in the people that we know,

but I'm nodding my head to the same thing, that the concept of stillness is one thing, and there's a zeitgeist around it, and there's a, you know, there's an appreciation for the language, but the ability to actually do it and to come from the mountaintop, if you will, and actually apply it in the city is really rare. And to be able to have that reference point and then the presence to apply it in a day-to-day activity, whether it's the craft that you've invested deep understanding and or the conversations or the expressions of heart and thought with people that you care about, maybe that's even more meaningful than the thing that you do. So, I'm going to nod my head, but who are some of the folks that you have learned from that you're referencing right now?

And I want to ask you about what you mean by center, like how you understand that term. But who are some of the folks that you're referencing that you've been able to learn from? Oh, happy to acknowledge them. My teacher that I studied with for 10 years, his name was P.S. Maupiai Luke, and he was considered the grand master navigator of the Pacific. And, you know, I would watch them in ceremony. And it's really interesting for me as an anthropologist, because what I do is study and bear witness to these people, and then find a way to give language to it and make it relevant in the 21st century. So, I see and I learn and I apply and then I bring it home. So Mao who was so gifted, I would watch them. They could go to the ocean and they would, for example, we were

on the canoe and there were scientists from one of the universities. And they saw Mao on a double-hulled canoe. The hulls are considered the womb of the vessel. And they watched Mao, who by then was in his early 70s, go and lay down in the hull, which is a very small and can, you know, really restricted area, go and lay his body down. What they perceived was an old man going to rest. What I knew was that he, because it's the most sensitive part of the vessel, he was laying his body down, using his body as an instrument, and gathering empirical data because he could feel the sequence and direction of the waves. So, he was basically gathering information.

So, you see, our perceptions can be so limiting. So, Mao was probably one of my greatest teachers, certainly my father throughout my lifetime, in a very different way, you know, he taught me about philosophies. He taught me about humility and to be out in nature and to listen deeply and to attend to that and to calibrate myself to the natural world. And so it was a natural step then to study with Mao. And then I've been in India and studied with teachers and mystics there and in South Asia and Asia where, you know, to be with the Mokan, to be in Cambodia, and to be in South India in Kolmator with quite a renowned teacher there. All of these people, you know, when I start to come back here to the West and listen to their voices and having recorded, you know, thousands of hours of interviews with them or listen deeply, I mean, one of the things that happens in these cases,

at least for me, because I'm indigenous, is that I never go into a region of the world with questions ready to ask. I will sit with them sometimes for weeks because they're reading me. They are constantly reading me. Native Indians, South American tribes And Kedos elders That will, they know in advance That I'm coming It's almost, this might sound unusual And yet to someone like you Mike, not at all They are so highly attuned

And it's such a small network That they would then direct me to another elder In another part of the world, down to New Zealand to be with the Maori, to South America to be with the Keros, you know, to India, to North America. Yeah, isn't it a small community, whatever community? It is. Yeah, it really is. It is. It is. It's a very intimate community. Okay, so are they frustrated by, or maybe this is a question for you, are you frustrated by the, okay, let me be more thoughtful of this question, that there is an advancement in technology that is phenomenal. From my point of view, it's wonderful. But at the same time,

it's a cost to deep focus. And with many of the technologies, the cost is multitasking, making jobs easier so that we can accelerate performance in different domains. But the multitasking pulls us away from deep focus. Attunement, as the word that you're using, is deep focus. And it's a complete, like the elder who was in the womb of the boat, that it's a complete connectivity using all of our data sensory processors to be able to get in rhythm or in touch with whatever is. And multitasking pulls us away from that. So my question is, are you frustrated or are they frustrated by not having either an understanding maybe of technology or that the world has become consumed with technology? Is there tension there at all for them? Or is it kind of like this little nod like, oh, the poor people that are so busy? No, no, not at all.

Not at all. Because what they see is their own technology. And what I see as what they use is another form of technology. And, in fact, GPS was developed, wayfinding was the impetus for GPS because of their practice of dead reckoning. So what they see is that what they have- You know what? Can you explain for folks dead reckoning, which is the way I've always understood it is the triangulation of information, the different points to be able to get to, yeah,

the triangulation of landmines and, yeah, sorry. That's exactly right. Hawaiians have this really beautiful quote, ikavama muakavines. Yeah, sorry. That's exactly right. Hawaiians have this really beautiful quote, Ikevamamua kavamahope, you cannot know where you are going unless you know where you have come from. And that sort of, for me, summarizes very simply a form of dead reckoning.

We navigate the canoe by looking at the path, the wake of where we have come from. And we course correct. We're constantly course correcting. And in terms of technology, although they wouldn't call it that, what I see as a scientist is this is a native technology that has been proven for millennia. And the technology that we are now enjoying in many ways, I mean, I think technology like currency is neutral. It's how we use it that really determines whether it's detrimental to us or beneficial. Yeah, that's a great insight. Yep.

And so I have no judgment about technology. I need it and I use it. And what many of them say is take the best of what's available and apply it and adapt it because we are dynamic beings and we live in a dynamic world. Nothing can remain static. And so I don't see technology necessarily being disadvantageous. What I do see is that when we rely solely on that and fail to use these other offerings, i.e. stillness, meditation, whatever we call it, whatever will return us and our systems back to neutral, back to a state of recalibration, reorientation, whatever language we feel comfortable with. For me, meditation is like breathing. It's imperative for me. And I could share a couple of,

one particular story with you that I really don't share publicly at all. But it's- It's just the two of us. And you're always- I went to India and I went on a solo journey around the world for four months. This was a few years back. I really wanted to have this unscheduled opportunity to go and bear witness to wherever I felt called to go, inspired, intuitive, you know, to go.

And I went to India and suddenly decided that what I really deeply longed for was silence and I went into silence for six months in India left through Mumbai ended up flew to Bangkok and when I landed early in the morning I thought you know where I really feel like I want and need to be is Siem Reap in Cambodia and I went to Angkor Wat and the temple complex is five and a half miles across. And it's only from an aerial perspective that we see that the way it's constructed mirrors Orion's Belt, the constellation Orion's Belt, which is really quite brilliant that these people were able to do this. And what I knew is that everything was so deliberately organized and designed and constructed. What I wanted to do was sit in silence in each of the temples. And that's exactly what I

did. Went into the inner sanctums of each of these complexes and the guards were kind enough to let me go into a roped off area, each of the temples, and I sat for five to six hours meditating in each temple until I had gone through the entire complex, and I left Cambodia. Wow, very cool. Unbelievable. And clarity, the clarity that comes to us, people don't have to sit for that long. We don't even have to sit for more than a few hours. But this I know, that when people start to drink from that spring, there is an ever-increasing yearning to go there because

everything else falls into place. When the world seems, you know, when things seem a bit fragile and unraveling, the best place that we can bring ourselves just for our, you know, just for renewal and restoration is to this quietude, even for a few minutes. And the more we do, the more we can see clearly where not to put our energy and life force, where we can harness. This is a beautiful lesson that I learned from the Wayfinders. When they are sailing to an island, what they're doing is harnessing their internal power, their internal fire. They will say, we are not sailing to the island. It looks like that from an untrained eye.

What we are doing is harnessing our internal power and calling the island to us. Okay, that makes no kind of sense to me. It doesn't to most people because it's so counterintuitive. But what they're saying is this, for example, so let's apply this to our lives in 2015, 16. We are constantly striving outward, generally in our society. You know, we're looking, you know, we go to friends and therapists and, you know, astrologers and yada, yada, yada, looking for answers outside ourselves, when in fact, if we come home to ourselves and practice going into stillness, the answers are

all there waiting for us. Likewise, you know, we're constantly pushing out with our work our jobs our relationships does he love me does she love me am i not whatever that is pushing out when when we start to draw that in just draw our power back in and cease to squander it something really phenomenal happens. We start attracting to ourselves like and to who we are. It goes back to that James Allen quote, we attract that which we are, not that which we want. So I definitely understand, use your word, the phenomenal potency of being connected and to not get drunk on the external rewards or recognition

or approval of others. And what a trap that is for those that are, you know, are fed by it. And I think we all, I don't know, I'll speak for myself. I know that trap. And from a young, from a young mind, I know that trap. And it's not something that is dealt with easily because it's so slippery and so invisible. But at the same time, I still, and I don't want to get hung up on it, but I get the concept, but the phrase that I'm drawing a fixed land structure to me, it seems like a wisdom that I don't understand. Okay, let me offer another example, because I understand what you're saying. And we live, you know, we live in a celebrity-driven society. And so, you know, this kind of attention is

entirely seductive. And yet, when you really have intimate conversations with people that are receiving a lot of it, and you really, you know, when they're really available to speak, you know, truthfully to what goes on inside, it's not enough. It will never be enough. Oh, it's not. That kind of adulation. Yeah, it's not even close. Completely ungratifying. So, in answer to your question, what the Wayfinder is talking about, whether it's an island or a desire that we have or a goal that we've set for ourselves, the stronger we hold that

internally in our mind's eye with such fierce, unwavering focus. And we really, we keep, Hawaiians have this phrase called mana. It's your power. It's your deep power. It's your personal sovereignty. When we begin to own that, when we really come to know how strong we are inside and cease spending so much of our life force trying to reach out, but we start bringing those visions and those dreams into ourselves. And then what happens between holding a fierce vision for yourself, call it the island, call it a goal, doesn't really matter. Holding that clear, unwavering picture in your mind and then applying your mana to that

and doing everything you can to meet those goals in concert with going into quietude so that your teacher becomes your teacher becomes your inherent wisdom okay and and then we and then what happens is it just it it fuels it so what they're saying you know call the island to you um instead of constantly pushing pushing, and depleting our resources of our life force. See it, bring your fire, burn your fire, bring it bright, just really kindle that flame. And then you see between the quietude and your own wisdom that naturally occurs, then you start to see the steps that you need to take in order to get there.

But you're not constantly pushing out and fragmenting yourself all over the place. You're harnessing your power and bringing it home and thereby calling the island to yourself. I love it. And so, for a moment, I was stuck in the concreteness of the statement rather than, you know, embracing the other parts of it. So, okay. Incredible insight. And then the natural question, I think there's two here. One is, and I still want to come back to your concept of center, but the two are, how did you afford to be able to travel? Really, was it six months of not talking? And then like mechanically, how did you do that? And then the other is like, how did you create enough space, you know, financially, I guess, and economically, maybe, and maybe you're afforded an incredible trust fund, I don't know. But that you say,

okay, I, or you say, no, no, no, I scraped by, I saved, practically, I made a commitment, I sold things, like, I'm really curious how you set to be able to travel. That's a beautiful question nobody's ever asked me that interestingly enough considering you know all the travel that I do my traveling is is is I choose my travel well meaning that I choose the teachers and the places in which they live and I go and spend time there generally, it doesn't include five-star hotels or first-class tickets. I know that where I'm going, I'm sleeping under stars. I'm living very, very simply.

The part of my journey where I was in silence, I was in silence for six weeks in India. Oh, six weeks. I thought it was six months. No, six weeks, and then I traveled for four months. And then during that time, much of the time, because I was traveling solo, except for the times when I needed to ask for things or needed to order food or do those kinds of things, I was mostly by myself. And then even living with the Mokin, we couldn't communicate. And I lived with them and we made food. And there was a team of researchers from a university in Bangkok that I lived with them and we made food and I there was a team of researchers

from a university in Bangkok that I traveled with but for the most part I what I was really really witnessing and documenting and recording so and I love I love having those spaces in my life and so what I do financially is I lived very simply back home in California so that I could afford to make these journeys. And because I'm an explorer and I'm able to, I mean, this is what I do. This is what my life is dedicated to, is to going out into the world. And it could be sometimes for short periods of time, three weeks, sometimes four months. And then I'll come home and then write and document and speak. I do a lot of speaking around the world because all of this applies, especially wayfinding, applies directly to business. And the application of it is so

beautifully precise. And then I go back out and then live under the stars. So my overhead when I travel is not as expensive as it sounds like it might be. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft,

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first order. That's caldera lab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B dot com slash finding mastery. Yeah. And then I guess the other practical part of it is that you've got bills at home and so many are, you know, hand, uh, check hand, and so they can pay their bills. And then you go away for an extended period of time. So it sounds like you've just been really thoughtful about your finances to be able to do the thing that matters most. And it's also, it's probably your calling. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you are a National Geographic Explorer, which is actually a very, as I've understood it, maybe it's not, but a very rare title to hold. It really is.

I mean, when I joined the Geographic, there were very few female explorers. And I didn't realize it at the time, but I became the first Polynesian explorer in the Geographic's history history and then the first female fellow in the geographic history. And that never crossed my mind. I mean, it didn't really matter to me whether I was an explorer or not because this was the work that I was doing anyway. And back just for a moment to the women who raised me when I was a child. When I was seven, they brought me into their circle. And, you know, as many cultures do, they follow their dreams, and they study them well, and they trust them, and they trust their intuition. And they told me, there will come a time that the world will be in trouble. There will be wars, and there will be natural disasters, and we will not be alive to

see the day. But you will, and you will go and travel. They said the world will be natural disasters and we will not be alive to see the day but you will and you will go and travel they said the world will be out of balance and you will go to the far reaches of the world and keep the voices of the ancestors alive because this will help return their wisdom will help return the world to balance and and you know as a seven-year-old as a child you know you're listening to these people and even children filters, we know when we hear a truth and we know what feels right to us. So even as a young girl, I knew that was the truth for me. But this is the part of their prophecy that I love the most. They said, it will sometimes be a lonely road, but you will look into the eyes of seeming strangers and you will recognize your family.

And it will take all of you to return the world to balance. Wow. Yeah, my hair stands up. This concept of loneliness in the journey and the concept of being able to recognize the thread of all people through the eyes of others is beautiful. And I wonder if you can just talk a little bit about the loneliness. And so there's this concept that I work from that to pursue your potential, to be connected to the gifts and the environments and the necessary work to refine the skills, that's the path of potential. Call it mastery, if you will, right? But to go that path is a lonely journey.

And I say that and people look at me like I'm off my rocker. Like, no, no, no. This is not depressed. What do you mean it has to be depression? I'm not saying that it's a depressed path, but I'm saying that most people are not going to go the path. And it's that journey when you are straining and letting go both parts of the light and dark experience here that it is for everybody, but most people are not taking those steps necessary. So can you talk about the loneliness in that just a little bit from, not conceptually, but your experience in it? Oh, I'm so happy to. And there again, nobody's ever asked me this question. And what I feel, because much of the time, in my own personal journey, there are places where I have

gone for days and not even seen another person. And it's like a pilgrimage. And I know that that's part of my process because it brings me into a place that I can hear and pay attention and it heightens my awareness. So it absolutely is imperative in the work that I do as a wayfinder, as an explorer, to be able to become attuned to whatever environment I am entering. So what that costs, when we just look at costs, that oftentimes means that I am traveling alone or solo. Sometimes I'll be with a film crew that's documenting,

but I'll still require this time then so that I will be in a place that I can sit with a master. And we will sit sometimes for days when they don't speak to me at all, but they're constantly reading me. And I know it's exactly what's required in order for them to share with me what's most valuable to them, which in many instances have never shared. And I know that they're giving me great gifts. So in order to prepare myself well for that, I need to go through a process.

And I do the same thing in my stillness. So for me to be able to hear well, I need to go into quietude. And there are times that it can feel lonely. At times, people have said to me, you know, know Elizabeth how are you ever going to be in relationship and what happened was a decade ago my husband passed away which all of a sudden on the one hand was so heartbreaking but on the other hand gave me this beautiful opportunity to then step into what I believe I've really come to do and I couldn't do it married, or I wouldn't have done it while I was married

because that was my priority. And once he was gone, I was able and free to go and pursue this dream and this passion. So yeah, there are those moments, and I know that that's just part and parcel for the work that I am studying in mastery, and it's also my way of refining these skills. It doesn't mean that I'm in a lonely place all the time, because in many instances, even when I'm alone, I feel a huge richness, and I don't feel lonely. There are times that I absolutely feel lonely, mostly when I'm in the process of traveling and I'm in a hotel room and I'm transitioning into a remote area.

Or worse yet, when I leave them and reenter into Western society, that's the hardest part for me. Yeah. Yeah. There's both parts, right? There's the actual loneliness, but then there's the being able to experience something that's really rich and then come back to the natural rhythm of where daily life happens with your friends and family and to assimilate or share or bring back

those insights. And there's the look like, hey, you're different. I don't, what are you talking about? And this is like- It's really true. Yeah, it is. Because we're never the same. And I'd like to share this really quick and poignant experience that I had, because I think it's valuable to those that are listening to your podcast. the navigator priest lived. I was with a film crew, and they were on one side of the island, and I was pushing this wheelbarrow, because it's the only form of transportation that we had,

with a lot of camera gear and sound gear in it, and going as fast as I could. And we'd just gotten to the island a few days earlier, so I was still in that kind of rapid rhythm. And there was one of the high chiefs, one of the chiefs from the island was walking toward me. And he said, Dr. Lindsay, why you go so fast? And so I explained to him, the crew was waiting for me. I don't like people that have to wait for me. And he stood there like

this noble statesman, and he shook his head. And he said to me, you all have watches, but you have no time. Jeez, isn't that the case? And so reentry for me is I come from a place because I know that I am always changed by the experience. I'm never the same woman. When I come back and people are racing around, I actually need to start to reenter. But it takes me a while. What did you do in that moment? What was your response to his statement?

I couldn't respond. I was speechless. I stood there because I realized that what I had just learned in that moment would stay with me. I prayed it would stay with me for a long time, and it has. Did you have the awkward smile? Did you have the shallow nod? Or did you do something different? Beautiful question. For me, I wouldn't say I was wise enough, because I certainly wasn't thinking about that. I mean, what I did was it was as if something broke open in me and I remember standing there on this narrow dirt path looking into his eyes and

knowing that what he had just said to me was so important that if I, if there was even a false response in any way or even a false beat, that I would somehow lose the profundity of that teaching. Yeah. And again, the calibration of being still so that you can actually experience, not just listen, but experience a comment or a lack of comment or emotion or gesture. And that's where people that have demonstrated, in my mind at least, mastery of something, meaning life, not just, it doesn't, the craft is way less interesting to me than the process of becoming. And if we are busy internally

or we're distracted externally, that it's obvious that we're going to miss the deeper learning. And I'd love if you could bounce this off of, or if I could bounce this off of you, is that when people have gone the distance to explore, internally and externally, and I want to ask you what a true explorer, is it really an internal or an

external discovery? But just for a moment, when people have gone that distance and they have an incredible body of knowledge and they really do understand deeply, that requires an equal depth to be able to appreciate and to sit aside across from them or aside to them. And okay, so I'm imagining that you would nod your head to that comment, but then I'm imagining that your response would be, I use stillness and I use my internal space to be able to calibrate a depth so that I can attune or listen or be connected to whatever the sharing is. And I'd just love if you just bounce off of any parts of this, which is how do you create, or do you value the ability to have a depth of within yourself so that you can

listen more deeply to people that you're learning from? Or am I off mark by this thought? You know, you're not at all. And this has actually been a real important time in my life, because I think that life teaches us so much, and it's not necessarily in the fair weather that we learn best from. And recently, I went through something quite devastating. What I have learned is that when we feel shattered and we can look at a crisis and we can tell a story about it however we choose to. And in this case, I knew that the story that I was composing was entirely up to me. Whatever I chose to make of it what I also learned is that in the process of feeling completely broken open something really true was being born where I could not from moment to moment make a false beat or listen without listening deeply to what was not being said to what, you know, because

in the past, even though I've been with, you know, these great teachers, coming back into a Western society, you know, oftentimes just social grace alone, people will say, how are you? And we naturally say, fine. Or we never really address the elephant in the room. And because of this recent experience, all of a sudden I thought, no, I want to know truth. I really want to know what people are going through and I want to be able to get beneath their words. I want to be able to trust my instincts so much that in listening to their words and also feeling what I'm feeling, not to dismiss that as being any less important. Yeah, so that's how, through, pain will change us, right? And it will create a story that we

can choose to use your words to entertain. And if we can sit with pain, it's an incredible gift. And I think that we're saying the same thing, that from that pain is one of the ways that you have been able to allow yourself deeper experiences in life so that you can sit across and be present with the depth of another person who's traveled deeply, both

internally and externally. Absolutely. And I realize that it is, each time I feel like I've gone through something so utterly devastating, I know that a part of me grows in my compassion, in my wisdom, in my grace, in my courage to be present and look into it deeply and not run from it. So, it becomes, for me, it has been one of my greatest teachers. Pete Yeah, pain. Pete Pain.

Pete It's the reason we change, unfortunately. So, I've just become more and more connected to that thought that that's why we change. But the story that we tell ourselves will decrease pain and maybe not allow us to actually feel enough of it to get to some depth. And you know what's really great about this? And there's a lightness to this as well, which is that once you go to this, let me put a pause in this. Some of my favorite people are those that have gone through a recovery process because they've chipped in, they've gone all in, they've laid some bets, they've tried to avoid pain through drinking and drugging and whatever it might be. And then they go, okay, that didn't work, damn it. And then they do the work and the depth that they have,

if they're not just white knuckling their addiction, but they've actually done this really deep work, it's wonderful to be around. And it's because they've touched pain and they understand it and they can talk about it and they're not running from it, from all those external, all the external noise. Well, and what's really beautiful is that if we are willing to, I think it was good to have, who said, what was once a cup of sorrow at last becomes immortal wine? You know, if we are willing to make that journey, you know, it's what I said in the very beginning, is that whatever story we choose to tell, if we choose wisely, the story becomes the medicine for others. So, we can tell, you know, any story about pain. We can make ourselves victims and martyrs and, you know, go through

whatever it is. But if we're willing to say, what is the gift here? What will I become if I am willing to dare this one? Dare this one. Yeah, that's so good. And it's the story. It's the fabric of the story and the language that we choose that captures the depth of it. And or not. And I don't know. Maybe this is too trite, but not all the time am I trying to understand, you know, the source of all. Like sometimes I need a break. For sure.

And we all do. But that too is part of the journey. What we pick and choose like we do everything else. You know, is this something I want to dive into the deep end of the pool with? Is this something that just for right now, let me park it here. You know, it's too much for me right now. And it's all all right that we give ourselves that break. One of the, I don't know if you're familiar with this insight, but there's an artist by the name of Oriah Mountain Dreamer.

And there's a poem that's written. It says, how's it go? It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for. And if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It's like, oh, yeah, isn't that good? She's so great. Yeah.

Are you familiar with her work? I am. Yeah. And then there's another phrase in there that maybe you can remember. It's, it was a part about, I want to know if you can stand with your pain or mine. Right? And it's like, yes, that's exactly what it's about. Can you stand in this pain and be true?

And yeah, it's good stuff. Okay. um yeah that's good stuff okay so this is shifting gears because this is this is really um i think it's heavy and it's rich and i i have this question i want to ask you is like what is an explorer is it the path of understand is it an inward exploration and outer or is because the natural kind of thing that comes up is that you travel to the depths of the ocean, you know, or travel to the furthest moon away. And, you know, but is the, how do you capture what an exploration is? As being one of National Geographic's explorers. It's all of it.

I mean, for me, this is, being an explorer, you know, is secondary to my being an anthropologist. And someone said, Elizabeth, what does that mean to you? And this is my simple definition for myself. It's suspending my own judgments as much as I am able to and bearing witness to the world. And in answer to your question about internal or external exploration, it's all of it for me. I travel to the far reaches and I know that probably the greatest landscape that I will ever traverse is my internal landscape. So, I can fly around the world and at times I go multiple times around the world in a year. But boy, some of the richest terrain I discover is my internal. And, you know, there's those that go on the external exploration. I feel

like the way that I understand them and being around action sports for a long time, there's certainly these folks that just, they're collectors of moments. And then those that take the external exploration and marry that with the internal, it's, they end up stitching moments together. And it's that stitching that you know there's the potential at least for insight there's the potential to be able to have some wisdom that you can gather from the sights and sounds and smells and the ways that we test ourselves both internal and externally and so i yeah i'd. Well, you know, consider this. You know, whenever I land in a foreign country or a new land, I always ask permission to be there.

I never step foot on the ground without asking permission to be there. It's like entering someone's home. And I think that, you know, we travel. I mean, you know, most of us do, you know, a fair amount of traveling, more than at any other time in history. And people have stopped being reverent in that way, really stopped paying attention to something like that. It's like we get there and, you know, we enjoy ourselves, we leave, we don't think about it again, we don't think about the implications of, you know, our, you know, what we've done to that matter of people. You said stopped. I've never done that. So, I think I understand what you know, what we've done. I don't, you said stopped. I've never done that. So I think I understand what you mean

is that you'll have a moment of quiet before you exit the plane. And you'll like, almost like a silent prayer or a mindfulness moment where you're just saying, okay, I'm entering into ancient soils. At one point they were ancient and there was rich traditions here. And I'm going to like, not really ask somebody, but you're literally going to just get connected.

Yeah, it's a quiet point for me. It's a quiet point of entry, which is just pure respect. You know, in Hawaii, when I was growing up, when people came to your home, they took their shoes off. They never came into the house with their shoes on. And certainly nobody would ever walk into your house without asking permission or at least letting you know that they were coming in. And in many ways, I mean, this is what I learned from the elders. When we would go as a child, we would go to pick medicines, you know, plants and flowers and things to make medicines or lays out of. If you were behind me and you entered a forest,

you know, a few minutes behind me, but you couldn't see me, and you were going in to pick medicine, you'd never know that I'd been there because I will never strip a branch of a tree or its flowers. I will take a few and I will move on. And I will always ask permission before I go in and start to pick and start to gather. And, you know, we, that kind of awareness that wherever we go, you know, into another land, you know, just to say, I am coming here and may I be mindful about what has been here, what is here now. May I be sensitive to that. On that note, what are some of your daily activities or practices that like, that you go through? Maybe

it's not, maybe that's too narrow of a question. Like, how do you structure your day first? What do you do in the morning, afternoons, evenings? Is it always different? And then are there any particular habits that you say, other than stillness and quietness, that you say are absolute necessaries? And I'd say, obviously, your teeth. But what are some of the structures? For me, clarity is really important to me. So I love looking at my day, you know, the night before. I love planning my week at the very beginning before I start, because I really love knowing what my purpose is behind what I'm doing so that they're not just actions but there's a real purpose to what I'm doing and why I'm doing

it that's greater than you know the to-do list it really important to me besides the quietude and stillness I train every day physically I'm in a gym I'm I'm I'm hiking I'm hiking, I'm moving. That movement, flexibility, just to keep my mind and my spirit and body in sync is really vital to me because it keeps me in an optimum state that then I can go and do the work that I do. And then throughout the day, I mean, I will block off time so that I can write. I will make sure that I'm down at the ocean a portion of that time. What feeds me and fuels me, I really eat very, very well. And, you know, these are all personal commitments to myself. And I, you know, going back to what we were discussing early on in our conversation, I really, as much as I am able to do, even when I'm traveling, choose the highest and best quality of food and material that I'm taking into my system, data, information. If I watch a film, if I'm reading, if I'm listening to music, I will choose what I know nourishes me and nurtures me. What was the last time you had like, I don't know, a donut or the like, like a candy bar

or something that you and I both, everybody would know that that's not good, right? Like, do you know, I can't remember because I get so much pleasure out of the food that I eat. I mean, some people look at it. You know, members of my family, my extended family would look at it and they'd think that that was really, that was not that interesting or pleasurable. But I get so much joy out of the food that I eat

that a donut to me is not even on my radar and doesn't even feel like denial because it's something that my body wouldn't feel good the next day on. Yeah, no, okay. So if it's not a donut body wouldn't feel good the next day on. Yeah. No, okay. So if it's not a donut, what is the thing? Like if I need comfort food, like if I really need it. Okay, so when I'm having like a major stress, it'll be a protein bar.

That's like my comfort food. That'll be like people will know I'm under great duress. Yeah, that's sort of it. But, you know, I just, I mean'm under great duress. I'm happy. Yeah, that's sort of it. But, you know, I just, I mean, I really love food. I'm Hawaiian. I really love food. And I love the best possible food. I mean, I savor, I savor my meals.

I will go to farmer's markets. I will find the best of what's in season. You know, it's no different from, you know, walking on the ocean at dusk. It's just, you know, I thrive on stuff like this. Okay, so I believe you. Okay, so go back to the structure of your day. So you'll do some planning for the week, you'll do some planning for the next day coming up. You write, you get connected to nature by getting to the water or somewhere. You've got fitness strategies. Are there other things that you're doing as preparing for activities?

You know, when I'm in the US, you know, much of my, you know, a block of my day is intentionally set for creating content, whether it's writing, going toward a book, or writing toward speaking engagements I have, or writing toward social media. And when I'm traveling, I am free. I mean, when I'm on the road with these elders, my technology is nowhere near me, except I'll keep journals and recordation, or I'll use devices to record on. And then I come back and then download everything. So I go out, it's almost like inhaling and exhaling. I go out, I gather, I bring it in, I curate it. Okay, got it. What has been the single most difficult moment in your life? Wow, what a beautiful, geez, you're asking like, the most amazing questions. Two things come to mind.

The moment my husband passed away was probably one of the most difficult moments in my life and one of the most transcendent moments in my life. I've been with my elders, the women who raised me as they passed away, and I was with my father. Hawaiians have this beautiful process called ha ha and they believe that at your moment of passing, you breathe your final breath of life into the person that you choose to attend

you. So, I was with my father when he passed and with my elders when they passed and I inhaled their exhale. And there are many, many, you know, this is another conversation but what they're they believe is that you carry on this ancestral knowledge in in that final breath um and so that was that was a really that was a devastating moment what i what i went through recently in a breakup in a relationship was pretty was was equally devastating and um and those were probably the the two the loss the seeming loss of great loves of my life and at the same time what i'm discovering is a deep a deep love of a beloved and accessing a beloved within me that i almost couldn't access without breaking my heart open.

Yeah, loss is, we get glimpses of it each time we say goodbye to somebody, and we mean it, because we don't know if we're going to see someone again. And then it's like a preparation for when we're actually going to not ever see them again. And do you have any strategies that you've learned about loss? I do. And I really love what you just said. It's so beautiful. And we have this, we don't say goodbye in Hawaiian thinking. What we say is a hui hou, and this

is really a beautiful teaching, because what it means is when we meet again, we will come to each other completely clean and clear. Whatever we have spoken is complete in this moment, that when we come back again, there's no baggage, there's no communication that hasn't been completed. So, when we say a hui hou, we really mean it. I come back to you and I come back to you new and you come back to me new. And along those lines, from what I have learned as a child, is that this lifetime is but the blink of an eye on an eternal continuum. So, I really understand that on some level, even though we feel loss and we say goodbye to people or we leave, that on another level, we're continuing on. It's just in a different form, in a different way, in a different expression of the spirit. And so, when somebody's in pain and they're experiencing, like when you were in recent pain, and coming through it, are there ways that you found to be valuable to accelerate that process? Is it to go deeper into the pain, but it's my response and my reaction to the situation that was most important.

So immediately I called for support for people that had the skill sets and the coaching to really keep me clear. And I surrounded myself with support and love. And then I wanted to look deeply because I thought this, you know, this experience will be lost on me if I run from it, if I deny it, if I minimize it. And I don't want to do that. I really want to go through the tunnel because I know that on the other side, I will have come out richer for having chosen, made this choice. And so, in terms of my own personal strategy is, okay, what can I do to surround myself with support? And throughout, I ate well, I made sure I was well hydrated, I rested as much as I was able to do, you know, in the intense, during the most intense parts of my sadness. And I made sure that I was keeping myself

surrounded by people who would hold me, really hold me compassionately and walk with me through this. And that was such a wise thing for me to do. I mean, before in breakups, you know, we've all had them. You know, I'd like sit in front of a sad sad movie, eat some ice cream. I feel worse afterwards. You know, a few weeks later, I feel worse about it. This time I thought, no, I'm not going to do that. I love myself and my partner enough to really want to learn from this experience. What can I learn from this? How can I

grow from this? How can I become richer because of this? Yeah, there you go. And when we lose a loved one, whether they leave or they die, that the idea is, at least for me, is like, okay, so what am I going to do differently now? How am I going to honor what I've learned and move forward? And you can't really move forward until you sit with the pain long enough. And then that arc is different for everybody. Sometimes it takes a long time to sit with pain. And other times it's like, okay, I got it. Because, I don't know, I'm just more connected to what I need to learn from this. Yeah.

So, all right. The other strategy, too, I mean, because it's really important, I started to very methodically look at what mattered to me and started to rebuild my dreams. And for both of us, because I continue to love him and I recognize that he's on his path. But I thought to myself, okay, now, how do I reconstruct and start to dream new dreams for myself? And that has been a really important part of the process because what that does is that shifts my focus. I mean, you cannot hold two focuses at the same time. So, you know, I could not just continue to spiral down when I was looking at what can I do to really start to rebuild here. And that was valuable.

So, what do you have your heart focused on next? I'm looking at 2016 and the things that I have been looking forward to and have been building upon. And now instead of being in a partnership or a pair doing that, I'm seeing how I can continue on with these things. And then also building new dreams for myself in terms of, you know, the things that I really love. One of them is speaking and being with people and really sharing, you know, all of this information and then going back out into the

world and gathering more and coming back. So, I'm, you know, starting to schedule commitments and engagements for myself and then also planning trips. I'm going to celebrate my 60th birthday in South Africa with elders and live under a vast sky with them and understand how they deal with pain and loss and how they deal with joy. Life in its many forms. All a learning process. Very cool.

I will always be a student. And then the wayfinders that you've learned from, did they do anything in particular before they would set sail or set course? Meaning, did they have any sort of rituals or routines that you could share with us to help them become more attuned? Yes. yes. And this is really important. I mean, you work with a team and you would understand this better than most. Before we set sail, before we even get onto the ocean, we need to be assured. I mean, you are only as safe on the ocean as the weakest link of the crew. So before we ever even get onto the vessel, we sit in circle and we make sure that everything is clear among us, that there are no misunderstandings, that there are no misgivings, that there are no grudges that are being held because that will just be intensified

when we're under some of the most trying conditions on the ocean. So we clear all of that before we step foot on the canoe. And what we call it is hoʻoponopono. It means to make everything right, to bring things to its ultimate right action. And we make a commitment then that when we get onto the vessel, that we will set sail with this degree of clarity. And if there's anything that goes on while we're sailing, that we will address it immediately and directly. And so it's not like a process where people in a ceremony are going to work out their issue.

It sounds like it's an agreement that when we are about to embark, that we're going to work together. Yes. And you have to because your life, I mean, on the ocean, your safety depends on it. And we sit. I mean, you know, there are ceremonies. We have an Ava ceremony that we go through. You know, the canoe is blessed.

Our safety is blessed. All of that. But we need to be in ourselves, be fully accountable for where we are and being willing to enter the circle, to speak a truth, to hear another speak to us about whatever needs to be cleared up. And then once all of that is done, then we leave it on shore and we enter the vessel. Okay, so I get the life and death piece that when you go out and you need to rely on other people, that we're going to be able to, we have to rely on each other. And if I can't trust you on land, it's going to show up somewhere on sea.

And then just conceptually, can true elite performance take place, sustainability at the elite stage, if people don't get along, don't trust? I've got some thoughts about this, but I'd love to hear your take on it. Knowing that you don't spend time in elite sport, but, you know. Boy, I am so interested in knowing what you have to say about this. Because, you know, being a wayfinder in many ways, you know, I don't know that much about elite athletes. All I know is that we have to keep ourselves at a peak condition in order to make the sale because the sale is grueling. And that's a very good question.

And I don't know how to answer that except from my own personal experience because I cannot get onto a vessel in any other way. And I cannot do the work that I do in the world any other way. And I cannot do the work that I do in the world any other way. And I, I, that's my personal commitment and discipline to myself. Yeah, that's, not everybody has that though. And so, you know, in team settings and even in, people like to say individual and team sports, there's no such thing as an individual sport. For sure. That, you know, there's every individual athlete that I've been part of has had somebody, at least one other person that has been a supporter, a challenger, a guide, a mentor.

You know, there's somebody. But it doesn't mean that they don't, some people don't do the thing by themselves or are solely responsible for the outcome. And on the team side of things, when there's dysfunction, sometimes it can facilitate a different level of performance. But for sustainability through dysfunction, it becomes just a problem. It becomes a real problem. And it's too easy to not trust and to not rely on other people

and to be frustrated and intolerant when there's a seed below the surface that is of hurt or fear. And until those things get worked out at a rich level, the sustainability, it just, it's a myth. You know, it's this magical thing and not until, magical, not in a good way, meaning that it's a fool's game that we're not able to, or it's a fool's game that we can have this sustainability on the world stage when we don't even like each other. So I don't know another way either. And I've seen it both sides. I've seen teams struggle through it. I've seen teams that have addressed it and those that address it and work through it and have the courage to do so end up getting to the other side. But there's a risk. There's a risk that if you address the

true stuff and the storming that comes with it, you might not ever get out of it. So the cost is that if you address it and you get into some real stuff and you can't find your way out of it, you could be maybe not performing at potential, but you could have pretty good success. And oftentimes people will take success over potential because success will pay some bills and it feels pretty good success. And oftentimes, people will take success over potential, because success will pay some bills, and it feels pretty good. It doesn't mean that, you know, it's fulfilling. It just means that, you know, you're paid in some other way.

You know, Mike, I really appreciate you speaking into this. And what you said is so on point, so vastly on point. I mean mean you and i have both worked with corporations and so we see this i mean what you're speaking to is not just about elite athletes or team sports or or elite you know or performance in in the sports world but in every facet of life you've just spoken something so significant. Well, thank you. Okay, good. Thank you. Okay, back to you. And listen, what time? Oh, my goodness. 1.20. We've been an hour and 20 minutes. So, let me hit you with a couple quick ones. And maybe we can agree to do more of this at a later time. I'm happy to. Maybe we can agree to do more of this at a later time. Okay, perfect.

Is there one phrase or one word that cuts to the center of what you understand most? Yes. And it's not an English word. It is ea, E-A, what it means is one's, it's sovereignty at the deepest level. It's Nelson Mandela in a cell being a free man. Ea is transcendence. Ea means to be able to see with such a degree of clarity rising above. It's rising above and looking at it from a very different perspective, the willingness

to transcend a crisis, a problem, an issue, a challenge, and to see it from different perspectives and to see just a greater field of possibility here. Where'd you learn the word? Well, it's Hawaiian, so I grew up with it. And, you know, I was taught it by the elders. And so what they would say is Ea Mai. It's like somebody is calling you to rise higher, to be your very best, to be all that you can be.

That's what it means, to be everything that you've come to be, to realize your greatest destiny and potential. And you say it, Ea? Ea. Ea Mai. And then… Ea Mai is just like someone's calling you to dare to be all of that. Oh, really cool.

And so, is that a phrase that has reverence to it, or is this like a colloquial saying? No, it's, you know, interestingly, it's not something that's commonplace at all. Ea has always been one of my favorite words in the entire world. And Ea Mai is just like someone is calling you to, you know, and so I sometimes just sign off on my emails that way or sign off on my correspondence that way. It's become like a personal, it's become my own personal commitment, you know, and calling everybody to be their best selves. Wow. I love it. What are you most hungry for? Like, on that note, the calling for others to be at their best and you to be at your best, like, what is it that you're most hungry for? Like, on that note, the calling for others to be at their best and you to be at your best,

like, what is it that you're most hungry for? What I love, what I really, really savor are these kinds of conversations. I love sitting with people and going into talking about what's real as opposed to what's superficial. I just, I have, you know, less interest in that. Cocktail party rhetoric, you know, and all of that and just talking on the surface doesn't really appeal to me. But I love, you know, looking at life and just chewing and just, you know, you know, just like, you know, just really sucking the marrow out of it and really just like digging into it. So if we take that, pull on that just a little bit further, like how, what is it that you're

most afraid of, if we can go there? And then how do you deal with your inner critic, that part of you that tells you that you're, you don't have what it takes, you're not good enough, you that you're you don't have what it takes you're not good enough you shouldn't you don't deserve to be here like the what are the i know there's two questions there but for me that they're really they are related yeah um what is it that you're most afraid of and maybe the subtext to that is when did you first realize it was there a moment yeah oh man it it continues. I mean, it echoes in different ways. What I'm most afraid of is not being true to myself. And what I have learned in this, you know, in almost 60 years

is that I have spent much of that time wanting to be loved and oftentimes saying yes when I really mean no, dismissing my, you know, dismissing what I know to be true for myself just to be accepted and loved. And I've come to a place where, especially, you know, with what I'm experiencing now and learning about is that what I really want to do is be true and look into the eyes of another and tell the truth from moment to moment, which gives people permission to do the same. And lots of people will be afraid. Other people will be starving for that. And that to me is also separating the wheat from the chaff. It's like, okay, Elizabeth, this is the tribe, you know, where we can sit under a blanket of stars and say, wow, look at the life we have lived because we weren't afraid. We weren't afraid to look down this tunnel and go and take one step after another and not turn back.

We went into caves and slayed dragons and we were willing to do that. You know, what would disappoint me so is if I lived this life out, just sort of just going along because it was the comfortable, easy thing to do. And I just sort of went along with the crowd because I wanted to be part of it. And right now, I just don't. I'm sort of like walking to my own drummer and saying, you know, this feels really good. And there are other people that are doing the same. And you look into their eyes and it's like recognizing your tribe, thinking, wow, these are the moments I live for. I extend that fear because for me, which is that I have a similar fear but it's not not being true to myself but um it's living a life that that is not true and i think that maybe we're saying the

same thing but then i have this extension which is that um what am i going to do the same to people i love and like somehow get in the way of them being true. What do you mean? Because of my insecurities and fears and shortcomings and all the things that I struggle with, will I impose my maladaptive behaviors and thoughts onto other people. And thereby they are, you know, having to deal with where my shortcomings are imposed on them. And because of that, they are not able to be true to themselves.

So what do you do with the inner critic? What do you do when that voice pops up? I'll tell you, meditation for me is really valuable in that way because it allows me to step back as if I'm an observer watching myself. And then I step back as second generation, watching the observer watching me. And then I can see so clearly. And then I can be really, really forgiving and compassionate with me where I ordinarily wouldn't have that ability. And is this a one minute, a 20 minute, a two hour training?

It really depends on the situation. Sometimes it's a matter of, you know, it's a minute. Sometimes, man, it's longer than that. So I've done a pretty deep dive into a minimally effective dose of mindfulness training and optimal, just from a science dive. And I have one of my teachers in the back of my mind saying, Mike, you still haven't gotten it. There's no, like, time clock for insight and wisdom. Are you kidding me? I mean, Mike, what you have said in this call, in our conversation, and the questions you have asked are so reflective of the man that you are.

Oh, well, thank you. And I'm not done. Don't wait. Yeah, too funny. Okay. So let's do this. Let's put, um, let's put a pin in this now because I want to honor your time and we're at an hour and a half, but can we do this again? And I would love that. And maybe, okay. Maybe you could take us off with this insight. Um, what do you, have you come to have any insights on the process of becoming an excellent risk taker? And the reason I'm asking that is because of your wayfinders and the National Geographic being an explorer. Do you have any insights on how to become an expert or just an absolutely proficient risk taker.

Based on the lessons that I learned from the wayfinders, this I will share, is that when a navigator, for a navigator to become a master, they must sail into the storm. That is their initiation, integrate storms. And, you know know at another time we can talk about the magnitude of what my teacher for example when people thought he was lost at sea and what he said was this do not pray for fair weather fair weather will not make you a master

so the willingness to take risk because that's where mastery is born is part of the process. We can't do it without it. Yeah, it's this funny thing, like this curious thing that we need challenge. We need difficulties to know if what we've been training is real or not and what we need to train better at. But at some stage, we die from taking risk or we become so burned that it becomes difficult to be ourselves.

Well, I think what you're asking, though, is really intelligent calculated risks. Because there again is where do we spend our life force? How do we expend it? How do we choose to expend it? So, not, you know, not being cavalier about every risk, but knowing that when we are headed into, for example, when you're on the ocean and there's no safe harbor, you really need to brace yourself for the storm that's approaching. And this is where they knew was their point of initiation. Yeah, I love that phrase, the point of initiation, because that's when you, for me,

it's when you are tested. And we're tested every day. And the test really is, my experience in this has been, it's first mental, then emotional, and then express through craft. And so the mental is like, do I hesitate or shudder about what could go wrong later? And then emotionally is the real test. Like, can I stand with conviction in the stormy sea of life, whatever that might be for us, literally sometimes at sea for wayfinders. And then for us, like in a conversation where we have the chance to be ourselves or be small. So it's the mental first, then emotional, and then through that conversation can we, not just conversation, but through that experience,

can we be ourselves and express the thing within us, whether that's a craft or an idea. And so, like, that's what... I mean, just strategically, though, with some of the risk, I will actually put things to paper because it gets it out of my head and I really weigh and measure things. Oh, there you go. Very methodically. And so I'm not just thinking about the risk.

I'm looking at the measurements and the cost involved. And I mean, for me, it's very pragmatic. And then I determine whether it's worth my investment. Okay, so that's the first part. That's the planning. But what about the part where mental and emotionally there's the test to stand your ground with conviction in the storm? And that storm could be an intimate conversation or it could be someone wanting to attack you or it could be somebody rolling their eyes in a board meeting or it could be you know uh 20 miles out and you know you're you're unstaffed and unmanned for the storm that's about to come

like are there any ways or strategies that you teach people or have been taught to manage that stress or that risk better this is where This is where the quietude really serves. Because when we can hold that center, when we really hold that center, what anybody is saying or whatever is coming to us in that moment, everything for me slows way, way down. There's nothing personal about it. It's as if even while I'm going through it, I am observing and I am bearing witness. And I know that what, for example, let's use a concrete example. If someone is coming just with a storm of criticism and what I am hearing goes beneath the words.

And so I'm processing it very, very differently and the only way I know how to do it well is based on the muscle I develop from my quietude. That's cool. That's a great insight. So putting in the work, the lonely work of being quiet, it sounds like it serves you in most of it. In every way. There's not one facet of my life where it doesn't serve me. That's very cool. All right. Well, you know, I'm going to save this for next time because I wanted

to know what center meant to you, but thank you so much for setting up the time and sharing your insights and wisdoms and both the painful stuff as well as the aspirational tones. And I can't wait to get some feedback on this. And so where can people find you? At ElizabethLindsay.com. And that's with an E. So it's ElizabethLindsay.com. Yeah.

And then do you have any social media handles where people could find you? You know, we're constructing it right now. May I send you that information? Yeah.

Yeah. 100%. Because I have an assistant who's really good at it and I'm not particularly. Perfect. Well, thank you,

thank you, thank you. And I'm looking forward to the next time that we can share more. And so, yeah, thanks so much, Elizabeth. You worked so well. Yeah. Have a great day.

You too. Thank you. Okay, bye. Bye. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify.

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