The One You Feed - Eric Kaufmann

Episode Date: October 19, 2016

Please Support The Show by Donation   This week we talk to Eric Kaufmann about leadership Eric Kaufmann guides leaders to make better decisions and achieve better results. He has consulted for hundreds of leaders, including executives and teams at Sony, T-Mobile, Genentech, Alcon Labs, and Teradata. He is the founder and president of Sagatica, Inc. and serves on the board of the San Diego Zen Center. His new book is called the Four Virtues of a Leader and shares practical ideas and tools that deepen a leader’s ability to be efficient, effective and deliberate.    In This Interview, Eric Kaufmann and I Discuss... The One You Feed parable His new book, The Four Virtues of a Leader How leadership is like The Hero's Journey How he used the spiritual bypass His definition of leadership Leadership in day to day life His four questions surrounding leadership The three hurdles we have to overcome to be effective His definition of courage Ways you can build courage The important difference between fear and anxiety The lifelong process of discipline The three gems of Buddhism Procrastination How spiritual surrender plays into leadership Please Support The Show by Donation   It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Courage is walking toward what you'd rather run away from. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life worth living.

This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you?

We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The really know really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Eric Kaufman. Eric guides leaders to make better decisions and achieve better results. He has consulted for hundreds of leaders, including executives and teams at Sony, T-Mobile, Genentech, Alcon Labs, and Teradata. He is the founder and president of Sagatica,

Incorporated, and serves on the board of the San Diego Zen Center. His new book is called The Four Virtues of a Leader and shares practical ideas and tools that help deepen a leader's ability to be efficient, effective, and deliberate. Before we get started, I wanted to let you know virtues of a leader and shares practical ideas and tools that help deepen a leader's ability to be efficient, effective, and deliberate. Before we get started, I wanted to let you know that we are now accepting donations as a way to support the show. If the One You Feed brings value to your life, now is the time to let us know. Head over to our Patreon campaign page at oneyoufeed.net slash support and consider making a monthly donation. You'll get some pretty cool rewards in return. Every listener and every dollar makes a difference. It's what will keep the show going and growing. And again, that's oneufeed.net slash support. From me and Eric,

thanks for your kindness. And here's the interview with Eric Kaufman. Hi, Eric. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Eric. I'm delighted to be on the interview with Eric nice job. It's really well done. And I'm excited to talk more about it. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. So our podcast, as you know, is based on the parable of two wolves, where there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. And he says in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. He looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like

to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. I love that parable. I remember hearing it years ago, and maybe I should start by saying when I was about 22 years old, I went to college, not unlike many people, but perhaps unlike many people, I ended up flunking out after the first year. And it wasn't for lack of intelligence or capacity. It was for being totally distracted. I came here from overseas. I got swept up in all the excitement over 1985, Southern California. The reason I'm sharing this is that I got into meditation as a way to attempt to harness all this energy inside of me. And by age 22, I'd been meditating for three years. And I had this revelation that there are these forces within me that are pulling me in opposite and often conflicting directions.

And I'm sharing this with you because I was 22 years old. It was 1989. I got a tattoo long before it was popular to get tattoos of a Roman mythical animal called Pan. You're probably familiar with Pan, right? It's got from the waist down, it's a goat. And from the waist up, it's a goat and from the waist up, it's a human. And I got that my life is this tension. The reason I wanted it tattooed was for this constant reminder of the tension between the impulsive nature of the goat

and the aspirational nature of the human. And I asked a tattoo artist to put a flute in one hand and a serpent in the other. And the flute captures sort of the creativity, the transcendent aspects. And the snake was really all about this transition and continuous pulse rather than the singular direction. So it's been meaningful to me for a long time, this inner tension. And I think that in my work as a leadership, as an executive coach, as an author, as a teacher, it's one of the most fundamental elements of what it means to be human, is to be negotiating that tension. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think it's always there. And one of the things I like about the parable a lot is that it sort of makes it clear that those things are always going to be there. And that's just part of the human condition.

are always going to be there, and that's just part of the human condition. There's a wonderful Zen teacher, Elizabeth Hamilton, and she wrote a book called Taming Your Parrot, which is a great conversation of itself, right? But she introduced me to this idea of the many me's, the many me's. And I've come to think about the parable of the two wolves as perhaps two wolves is very allegorical. Not enough. There are two wolf packs. Right, right. Yep. is very allegorical. Not enough. There are two wolf packs. I can be concurrently excited and frightened, which seems to be dichotomous. I could be loving and angry. These tensions are coexistent and multiple. Your book talks about the four virtues of a leader, and you start off by framing leadership around the concept popularized mainly by Joseph Campbell, but pretty endemic to lots of things in our culture of the hero's journey. So in what ways being a leader, or in what ways can being a leader, be like going on the hero's journey?

There are three elements I'm real focused on in terms of the hero's journey. And as soon as I describe them, I think you'll hear their relevance to leadership, right? The first one is that the hero is somebody who is going after significant prize, right? So the significant prize can be saving the village. It can be rescuing the damsel. It can be getting the treasure back from the dragon, whatever the mythical are right but there's something significant going after that's the first thing so there's a motivation there's a drive the second is that inevitably the heroic journey is really about strife challenge difficulty struggle sacrifice risk all those things that are inherent in that

and that there are allies and helpers and teachers and mentors and foes you know there's all these characters that show up along this journey of risk and sacrifice. And neither of those is sufficient to make it a heroic journey. The third element, which is so critical, is that the hero then finds the prize, overcomes the challenges, evolves as a human, and then returns back to the village, to the town, to the community and shares the goods, shares the treasure. That's my aspirational view of leadership, right? It's somebody who's willing to go after a prize. I don't care what the prize is. It's not up to me to decide or to judge, but it's something beyond the comfort zone. It's something not ordinary. And in that process, they're going to struggle and strive and there's

going to be difficulty. There are allies and foes. And then there is a prize to be won, which is shared back with the community. That's my aspirational view of leadership. And there's different ways that it falls out, but I see those as very mirror images, one of the other. which is really balancing in a spiritual life that idea between contemplation, going within, and then service outwards. And what I just heard was that the hero's journey really is a metaphor for that, that the interior practice is for a purpose of then taking it back out and using it to serve. I just hadn't thought of applying it in that scenario before. Yeah, I actually like that you're highlighting that because I think it sometimes gets lost in us. So, I lived for many years a very contemplative life. And as a matter of fact, I was very contemplative and I finished college. I went

to work at large Fortune 100 companies, but I was really doing that all in service of the spiritual pursuit. And the spiritual pursuit was about me, my clarity, my compassion, my focus. And it culminated in a year that I spent in a silent retreat in a mountain cabin that I built in New Mexico. And what was so revealing was that as I went into the deepest, most solitary experience of my life, I had this revelation that I really needed to grow through contact and service, which blew me away, right? I was unprepared for that. I thought I was going to be more contemplative. Sort of the intuitive revelation, call it what you will, was communicating, connecting, collaborating, dealing with the vicissitudes and challenges of service and all the difficulties of kindness and relationship.

That's a very powerful aspect of what it means to be a hero and a human and a leader. Yeah, and that's one of the things I've said recently to several people and probably on air, is that if you ask me what the most surprising thing I've learned, you know, we've done 145 of these or 146 of these at this point. I think that the most surprising thing to me was how often it's been pointed out how important the external world is too. I think I read a lot, a lot of Buddhist books. I was reading one earlier today and it was saying that, you know, all happiness comes from within. And while I understand the direction that that's going, and I think that the interior journey is a significant one, and that's missing in most of our culture, I think for those of us that have

pursued a spiritual path, sometimes that's where we focus too much, and we don't focus enough on the importance of the world around us, and how much the world around us can be part of our spiritual journey and lead us further down it. Yeah, it's fascinating you bring this up, Eric, in so much as there's a term that some of my teachers use called spiritual bypass. And I can tell you that I did not realize that for 10, 11, 12 years, I was using this intensive spiritual, reflective, meditative process to avoid the real stuff. But I was avoiding it in the most noble way, right? I could sit there and meditate and i could have these somatic experiences and and and transcendent cosmic bliss consciousness but i

couldn't really maintain a decent relationship yeah and and it was easier for me to relate to the cosmos than it was to relate to a girlfriend or friends or co-workers and that became sort of a catalyzing element for me spiritually. I felt like I was spiritually attuned, but an emotional moron. And so I stopped avoiding and found profound learning and constant challenge. I've been married for 17 years. Our daughters are 16 and 14. I've been running my business for 18 years. Everything I've done over the past 17, 18 years has been very external while I still maintain my practice. But it's both and. It's the two wolves, in fact, working together.

That's right. Not really fighting one another. Yeah. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who the way to the floor. We got the answer.

Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you. And the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us

today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, Really No Really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So this is the part of the show that we sometimes have a sponsor announcement as a way to raise money for the show. And one of the things that we wanted to try was to see if we could support the show via donation. We'd love to get to a point where we don't have to convince you to buy other people's things. We'd rather just ask

you to support something that we really believe in, which is this show. One of the questions you might naturally have about a donation campaign is why? And I think one of the things that we don't really talk about much is that the show does take a considerable amount of time and money to run. And so we've been doing it as a passion project for almost three years now. I think we've got about 150, close to 150 episodes now that we put out a brand new one every single week. I don't think that either Chris or I are especially comfortable asking people for money. I'm fine with asking you for money.

That's a good point. As far as asking other people for money, it's not something we're entirely comfortable with. But in order to keep the show going, to continue to grow it, to continue to add new things, we need to start bringing in a more regular income. So in order to do that, we've started what's known as a Patreon campaign. It's a way for people to make a monthly donation. And on that site, you'll see a couple things. You will see that there are various reward levels. So depending on how much you pledge, you get different rewards. The other thing is there are goals that are set. And so we've set up several different goals all

the way from simply being able to cover the costs of the show up to us being able to produce a second episode per week. So if the show is important to you, if it's added value to your life, if it's taken days that were crappy and made them better, if it's added value to your life, if it's taken days that were crappy and made them better, if it's done any of that, we could really use your help. That's right. So go to one you feed.net slash support, and you can check everything out the donation levels. And if you give a thousand dollars a week, I will personally fly out and give you a hug. I probably don't have time to do that, but that would be great. No, he'll do it. He'll do it. All right. So here's the rest of the interview with Eric Hoffman.

Let's talk for a second about leadership. So it's obvious what leadership is if you're the executive of a Fortune 500 company. There's some very obvious elements of leadership, but where does leadership play into life for people who maybe aren't directing a large group of people in a professional setting? What are other examples of leadership that we could be striving for in our day-to-day life? So I coach CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies. I was on the phone today with the president of a Fortune 1000 company. I assure you, leadership is not that obvious at any level. But I hear what you're saying. It seems obvious to us looking at them saying, oh, there's a person in the leadership

position. My definition of leadership is organizing and influencing people to achieve meaningful outcomes. So the meaningful outcomes are whatever is meaningful. My wife was a remarkable leader of the PTA, the Parent Teacher Association, my daughter's school for years. And she made some real difference in the school's experience in the community for the students, for the teachers. Rabbis and clerics and ministers are leaders in their spiritual community. Parents are leaders in the home. I think anyone who's organizing and influencing in order to make something happen is stepping their feet on a leadership path. And so it's a very limiting notion to the discussion of leadership.

Yeah. And I think you're absolutely right to point it out, to pretend that it's only the purview of some chosen few. Yeah. I think it has more to do with an attitude and a willingness to both be challenged and make a contribution. Yep. And in the, you know, a lot of the consulting work I've done in the corporate world, you can find people who are not the managers or the

directors, but you can tell they clearly are the leaders of a team. You know, there, there is definitely ways that people have influence and, and organized to create meaningful results, even if they don't officially have the title. Yeah. the title is convenient, because then what you have is authority. Right. But authority doesn't always translate into influence. It can translate into, you know, persuasive powers or punitive powers. But to organize an influence, to have people elect, choose, commit themselves, that's leadership. Yep. So you ask four questions around leadership.

And let's see if we can get through each of these. Again, as I said, I could talk for way longer. But let's start with the very first question, which is, what am I creating? And you say something in there that I really like, because I believe this is true. And it's one of those things that has felt sometimes to me at odds with the spiritual idea of not wanting anything. And you say our minds are designed to move towards something. We are wired to create, form, and accomplish. It's an inevitable human experience that we are channels of concepts and ideas of spiritual visions, of love, of passion.

We are the conduits. And that love, that creativity, that energy, that passion, by whatever name it means. And I don't mean that it has to be ecstatic or sweep you away or be overwhelming. But each and every human is in touch with this basic experience of energy that moves through us and wants to express itself. Right. And that unstoppable, inevitable force that we can taste and feel is channeled in the unique expression that is who we are at this moment. And so we're always creating. We are always affecting the world around us.

I don't mean that we are the shapers of the universe, but I mean through our speech, through our action, through our choices, through our relationships, we are shaping the environment. And so, what am I creating is the first question. And it's not meant to be contradictory to no mind or big mind or presence or surrender. It's simply an aspect of what it means to be human is to create. And to create intentionally, I think, is where mindfulness and skillful living become so powerful. Yeah. And I think that it is an interpretation of the Four Noble Truths that people often take about Buddhism, which is that you just shouldn't want anything or you shouldn't have any desire. And I think that's a not great interpretation. I've always wrestled with it because I agree, too.

I think that we are designed to move towards something, that we are wired. Like, that seems as fundamental to me as part of human nature as anything else. It's as fundamental as the sexual urge to reproduce, right? There's this unstoppable force that wants to replicate and express physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. This is my 30th year in a Zen practice. I don't take it as Buddha saying, don't want. They're saying that the instruction was not to get attached. The force, the wanting is simply is, it's a force. The attachment is unskillful living. And there are two different things. Yeah. And so the characteristic that goes with what I'm creating or asking the question of what am I creating is around focus.

And one of the things that you talk about is, I'll go ahead and read it here. You say, unintentional actions are driven by impulse, habit, and history, not by choice. Leaders on the hero's journey strive to act from choice, not from scripted habit. It's a call for awareness. I'm not promoting or proposing or inviting people to just be hard-headed, stubborn, insisters on my way or the highway. I'm proposing that we are on the spiritual path and the human path called to wake up. And part of awakening is awareness. And part of awareness is recognizing the distinction between the impulsive, unexamined, habitual sort of mother, father, church and state conditioning and the deliberate practice.

Mindfulness, meditation, spiritual practices of every tradition are an invitation to live deliberately, to live compassionately, to live an aware life. And that's the same invitation with focus. You describe focus, you say it's a fragile flower. And you say it's fragile because we have to overcome three hurdles in order to remain focused. Biology, psychology, and geography. Can you walk us through those real quick yeah i mean here we're back to the wolves right that are that are howling these are so i know you have two wolves in the parable but the biology psychology and geography are just more wolves in the pack the biology distraction as it were is is our body i'm hungry i'm thirsty i'm horny i'm itchy i'm sleepy i'm i'm i'm i'm

right we identify with this physiology and it's difficult to stay focused when you're hungry, thirsty, and tired. That's just sort of biological. The psychology is everything that has to do with the learned schema, the belief system that we hold to be true. And the capacity for believing how focused we can be, how much control we have, how much capacity we have, how much, you know, the term locus of control, this idea of whether I'm internally oriented or externally oriented. That's part of psychology. And then geography matters, too, because the space, we are spatial. We are people in spatial relation to our environment. So by geography, I mean the environment, right?

If my room is a terrible mess and I have a hard time concentrating in the mess, that's going to affect me. If there's noise around me, that's going to affect me. If the air conditioning is blowing and it's too cold, that's going to affect me. So there are these constant, constant features of internally, sort of at the thought level, at the physical level, and then externally what's around us. And so learning to navigate through that gracefully as part of what it takes to really be in a focused state. Excellent. So let's move on to the next question, which is courage. Well, the trait is courage. The question is, what am I avoiding? And one of the things I thought was

really interesting was you make a distinction between fear and anxiety. It's interchangeable. I think in our culture, we talk about fear and anxiety. But the distinction for me is, and it's not an insignificant one, I think it's important for many reasons. But the distinction in particular is one I consider biological and the other one is psychological. So, fear is a physiological response to perception of threat. And of course, perception is a large modifier there, but it's physical. So, when I stand in front of a raving, barking dog, that fear is just a biological survival impulse, right? It's scary. Anxiety is psychological. Anxiety comes from our remarkable capacity to time travel in our minds, right? I can only be

anxious in anticipation of something. And largely, it's the imaginary components that I add onto it. So, if I'm going to go speak in front of an audience, right, a common one that a lot of people can refer to, I do a lot of keynote speaking. I mean, that's a significant part of my business is stepping in front of audiences and speaking. And every time I'm about to go out there, I have this, I'm not sure how that comes off an audio, but my chest kind of tightens and my belly flutters around. And that's anxiety. That's psychological. That's me thinking, are they going to like me? Do they think I'm stupid? Am I well-prepared? Am I going to be funny? You gonna like me didn't think I'm stupid am I well prepared am I gonna be funny You see that's all stories. I'm making up in my mind projecting into the future and so they can be dealt with

Similarly, but they're distinct from one another what does courage mean to you? What is your definition of courage in the book you say that you know the goal of becoming fearless is This isn't your words exactly but mostly foolhardy because it's just you know, the goal of becoming fearless is, this isn't your words exactly, but mostly foolhardy because it's just, you know, as humans, we're going to have fear and that courage is a different thing. Yeah, no, I think foolhardy is probably cleaning up what I say about fearlessness. You know, I think, because I pursued being fearless for years, right? I mean, I was a young spiritual warrior and I was, you know, bought into this notion that I've got to be fearless as a way to live a full life And it's such a bunch of baloney as far as I'm concerned. I think that courage is

walking toward What you'd rather run away from so I'm not proposing eliminating the fear eliminating the anxiety. You don't have to get rid of it it's really about recasting the relationship with that anxious state and a willingness to gently, consistently, or intensely and in large leaps, however. But it's moving towards what you'd rather run away from. And one of the great barriers to it is not just how we think but how we feel. I mean, the feeling of anxiety in the body, the physical, manifest, somatic experience is mostly gross. And so we want to avoid that. And so the sweaty palms, the dry mouth, the palpitating heart, the breathing, the blah, blah, blah, that's what we're avoiding as much as anything. So the courage is simply moving towards it rather than away from it.

You say that courage is an aptitude for doing something that frightens you. How do you build that aptitude? Because lots of people don't have it, including myself or all of us in certain circumstances. So what's a way you can build courage? There are a number of ways to build courage. The first one doesn't require any action, but requires awareness. And so I propose again that you've already begun to be courageous when you're willing to embrace or be present to the very physical experience of fear. So what do I mean by that? I have to give a

presentation. I want to ask for a raise at work. I'm going to ask somebody out on a date. I want to ask my wife to do something that historically we haven't done about how we've managed finances in the house. Whatever it is, right? When I think about doing that, I start getting anxious, right? And then I go into this mode of, well, maybe I should just avoid it in whatever way I avoid something. Simply sitting there for two or three or four minutes and breathing into those sensations and facing, actually embodying that anxiousness. At some level, it sounds so inconsequential, but if you think about it, it's already an

act of courage because you're facing it. You're not running from it. I'm not just saying, oh, forget it. I'll go shopping. I'll go to the gym. I'll just work harder. I'm actually going to be present to it. So that's one.

The other is I invite people to really just look at courage as an incremental process. I don't have to conquer public speaking, but what would a 10% movement in that direction look like? What would 20% look like? What would 30% look like? Because courage is much like a muscle, much like any skill, right? I mean, I learned to juggle. When I learned to juggle was mostly just, you know, the juggling balls on the ground. And then over time, they took more time in the air. And so I think courage is, you know, first of all, feel it, be willing to be present to the sensations of it. Then listen to the thoughts of it. What am I saying to myself? Then incrementally move it towards the thing that you're avoiding. I mean, there's so much more, but I, more, but these are practical pieces anyone can apply now. And this idea of feeling, going

into the body and being willing to feel those unpleasant sensations is the first step. You say, simply put, we cannot think our way to courage. No, because the primary issue with anxiety, right, which is most of, look, we're not dealing with fear, mostly we're dealing with anxiety. We call it fear. But I mean, how often are we really facing, you know, rabid dogs or dangerous car chases, right? For the most part, it's in the office, it's at home,

it's with family, with friends. Those are anxieties. Those are stories that we make up in our head. We take them to be true, and then we get anxious or fearful about what possibly could happen and so it's the very mind that is engendering that's creating these these phantasmagorical scary situations so we can't entirely trust the mind to reverse it we need to use it skillfully but let's start with the body breathe get real present to it um certainly and if you're familiar with the Vipassana tradition, some of the more

embodied Buddhist meditations are being present to your body. What are you feeling? What's going on? And then being present to your mind. What am I thinking? I'm thinking I'm not good enough. I'm thinking I can't do this. I'm thinking we can first be in the body, then in the mind, then in the world of action. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer.

Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's gonna drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today.

How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. God bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, no really.

Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Action sort of leads us into the next question. The question is, what am I sustaining? And the characteristic that you tie to that is, is grit. And I love something you wrote here. I'm going to, I'm going to read it because I really think it sums something up very well. You say, discipline isn't a transactional experience. It isn't a one-time

application that fulfills its purpose and then is tossed aside. Rather, it's an attitude, an approach, a trait common to leaders who are on a hero's journey. As such, it remains a lifelong process. First of all, Eric, I really appreciate you pulling out these quotes because when I hear them, I'm thinking, I really like this. So, it's great. Yeah, it's good. It's good stuff. Yeah, when I'm writing the book, I'm sort of in the process of writing and then editing, but then to hear it back on pieces like that, I'm energized to still like what I wrote. So, thank you for doing that. Yeah, so, discipline, you know, comes from the word disciple, right?

Disciples are followers and learners. They're people who are there to study and understand. And so, you know, discipline is a lifelong process of the choice by choice, the moment by moment choices that I'm making. If you think about this person who's got such good discipline about their exercise, well, yes and no, they've been doing it for 10 years, but for 10 years, every day they've asked asked themselves do i want to you know i have an option do i go to the gym or do i stay in the bed longer do i go for a run or do i go to the movies you know whatever it is and it's the two wolves right discipline is really discipline is really learning to negotiate the two wolves which one both are howling actually that's not entirely true because oftentimes the impulsive wolf

howls louder than the aspirational wolf. And discipline is about learning to listen and be seduced by the aspirational wolf. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, the thing I've heard the saying before, I probably won't get exactly right, but, you know, discipline is trading what you want now for what you want most. Oh, I like that. Yeah. It's important because what you just said, I think, is really indicative of one of the things that's real for people who have grit, right? This virtue I call grit. It's towards something. There's some purpose. There's something that is appealing, attracting, important, valuable. I love what you said. It's what you want now versus what you want most, because it's not even what you want now versus what you want later of what you want most.

And I think that's why, to me, this hero's journey, this leadership construct begins with committing to some prize. What's the prize? The prize could be a more open heart. The prize can be a more loving relationship. The prize can be whatever it is that you don't currently have in your comfort zone. And that becomes the purpose magnetic pull that allows you to make a choice in the moment. Do I go for comfort or do I go for purpose? Because I think that's what discipline ultimately comes down to. It's comfort versus purpose. Because I think that's what discipline ultimately comes lost in that is connecting back to your original motivation, connecting back to your focus, to your vision. I do think that that is an important piece to work into any behavior change program,

is periodically remembering, why am I doing this? You mentioned Buddhism a couple times, so the dedication in my book is to my triple gem, right? My wife and two daughters. But there's an original triple gem that I'm ripping off here, right? And that's the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, right? The three components of what the Buddha said with the three foundations or gems of Buddhist practice. The reason I'm bringing it up is, to your point, the way I translate it is the Buddha is the vision of what's possible, right? That's the sort of the ultimate aspirational state. The Dharma is the practices and disciplines and exercises that you do along the way in order to attain that.

And the Sangha is the community of collaborators, teachers, and allies that help you when you clearly have run out of juice or motivation. you clearly have run out of juice or motivation. And so I think the notion that we just have a great community and great practices without vision flies in the face of some very ancient wisdom. I think vision, practice, and community are what holds it together. Yes. Let's talk about procrastination. I love the way you said this because I think it describes one aspect of procrastination in a way that I've been looking for the words for. And you say procrastination means to put something off. That that I've been looking for the words for. And you say procrastination means to put something off. That's fairly obvious. It's the next part. It's a choice often made at the edge of conscious thinking. And that rings so true for me in

procrastinating and people that I work with about how it's almost not even a thought. It's like it just lingers out there. What you're supposed to do sort of gets pushed to the periphery. I can't even say that word. You know what I'm trying to say. Yeah, the edge. Yes, that's better. You know, I have a long history with procrastination,

so I've had a wonderful laboratory of examination. I remember early on, I lived in a spiritual community for many years, and we'd get up every morning at five to meditate. And we were self-directed, so the alarm clock would go off at five. I'd quickly hit the snooze button, and then I don't know if you know that they had seven-minute snooze buttons. So I'd hit the snooze button, and seven minutes would go by, and I'd leap out of bed going, oh, what an idiot. I can't believe I blew it, right? And it occurred to me these two wolves, right?

The wolf of comfort and the wolf of guilt sort of barking. But I think procrastination unconsciously, in other words, I can put something off intentionally, but that's not procrastination. That's just skillful use of time. Procrastination is a form of avoidance, right? And it's a subtle one, and we rationalize it. of avoidance right it's and and it's a subtle one and we rationalize it um but there's there's some there's some poor choices and there's some anxiety playing out there and it's it's at the edge at the periphery of consciousness and so what's it take to bring it into the forefront can i look at it can i understand it can i feel it and then make some choices about it yeah i agree i think that

it's we talked about it very early on, it's that awareness, to be aware of that we're even making a choice. And earlier we talked about habitual patterns. I think that's a classic example of the habitual pattern is to sort of avoid something without really even being fully conscious that you're doing it.

I think there's a nagging feeling of like, something doesn't feel good, but that's about as conscious as it gets a lot of times. This is to me where meditation, you know, practices are so critical. Those nagging feelings, those sinking feelings, those, I mean, everything you were describing is physiological, right? The nagging feeling is an actual tension in the chest for me. The sinking feeling is kind of a ball of lava of some kind in my gut. Those are messages. There's something going on there. Those are wolf speak, you know, but it's not the wolf speak of the impulsive wolf.

It's a wolf speak of the aspirational. And so learning to listen to those nagging, heavy, sinking, whatever feelings in the body, this is where meditation is so powerful, not just to calm the mind, but to really bring your attention to the physiology and listen to that somatic wisdom and be informed by it, because that's the quieter wolf. That's the wolf that needs to be fed. So the last question in the book is an unusual question for a leadership book. The question is, what am I yielding? And the trait that you put with it is surrender. So how does that play into leadership? It seems counterintuitive. It's not the surrender of the military style that says that I'm weak and unable to prevail. It's the spiritual surrender that says that I'm willing to let go, to yield.

I mean, yield, not as in like dollar yields on an investment, but yield as in let go, right? What am I willing to let go? Because I love the expression, I don't know if I coined it or someone else did, but I like it. Sometimes leadership moves forwards in planned steps, and sometimes it moves forwards in leaps of faith. And I think that that leap of faith is so central to our ability to evolve, to our ability to lead, to our ability to influence. Because there comes a point where the logic path is not clear.

The step is not obvious. The competency isn't there. The learning hasn't yet happened. And there's got to be a willingness to let go, to surrender. And a lot of what we have to surrender is safety on the one hand, and this very strong, almost impossible attachment to our identity and ideas. And leaders who are truly great leaders, see, I think what we've done in our political system is we've made flip-floppers seem like they're idiots, and sometimes flip-flopping is bad, but think about somebody who's...

Sometimes it's a really good idea. Sometimes it's a sign of mature evolution, right? That's right. Think about it. If you're 50 years old and you have the exact same opinions and ideas that you did when you were 18 because you're not flip-flopping, I think you've missed the boat, man. I think that same thing myself, like it somehow has become a sign of weakness, whereas, you know,

I think if we looked at people who aren't politicians, we would say that's a sign of strength and a flexible mind. Yeah, and I think that the leader, the human, the mother, the father, the professional who's willing to surrender and say, you know what, what I've done up until now has worked, it no longer works. I had a conversation today with another executive in a corporation. He said, I've done this for 22 years and I'm done. It's no longer fitting me. It's time to move on.

That's a powerful statement. That's a scary statement. That's a scary statement. But there is a surrender. There's an acceptance that you just have to let it go. And I think from a leadership perspective, it's profound because what it allows is it allows for adaptability and innovation and space for other people to insert their contributions. insert their contributions. Yep. And I think in a similar vein is the idea of focusing on what you can control and letting go of what you can't control.

Because one way to drain your courage, your grit, and everything else is to get so sucked into what you can't control. There's the old Stephen Covey idea of circle of influence versus circle of concern. Yeah, and the serenity prayer, right? Grant me the courage to accept the things. I forget how it goes. Serenity to accept, courage to change, yep. And the wisdom to know the difference. And I think the wisdom to me, much of this, I mean, my company name is Sagatica. I derived it from the Latin word sagacitas, which is where sage and sagacious comes from, wisdom. And really, my passion is about developing executive wisdom.

And wisdom is exactly that. It's the ability to skillfully apply these various virtues and to live a life that's both meaningful to me and a contribution to others. Excellent. Well, I think that's a great place to wrap up. As I said, I've got pages and pages of highlighted things and questions, but I think this is a good place to stop. So thank you so much, Eric, for coming on. Thank you for writing the book. I'd encourage listeners, as always, to check it out. If you do want to buy it, I realized recently that lots of people are buying books that we recommend, but you can go to our website, and if you do that, we get a couple pennies for each one that you buy. So it's a good way to support the show that I think most of you didn't know about. So find the show notes for this, and there's a link to Eric's

book out there. Thank you, Eric. I really appreciate the time and the space for this conversation. Okay. Bye. Bye-bye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head over to oneyoufeed.net slash support. You can learn more about Eric Kaufman and this podcast at oneufeed.net slash Eric.