The One You Feed - Eric Kaufmann on Conscious Leadership

Episode Date: September 10, 2019

Eric Kaufmann guides leaders to make better decisions and achieve better results. He has consulted for hundreds of leaders including executives and team leaders at Sony, TMobile, Genentec and Alcon Labs just to name a few. He is the founder of Sagatica Inc and he serves on the board of the San Diego Zen Center. In this episode, he and Eric discuss his work of teaching conscious leadership in the workplace.Need help with completing your goals in 2019? The One You Feed Transformation Program can help you accomplish your goals this year.But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!In This Interview, Eric Kaufmann and I Discuss…How he interacts with his shadow sideThe key to not making a situation worseHis practice of refrain and returnConscious leadershipUnrelenting commitment to results with an unwavering regard for spiritWhat someone says they want vs what they needThe courage it takes to say noThe 3 building blocks of our egoic stateThe 3 pillars of being a conscious personWisdom = mistakes + timeWisdom = Seeing below the surface and beyond the obviousThat being wise means being present and awareHow cultivating wisdom is a practice and how humor cultivates wisdom.Courage is walking toward what you want to walk away fromHave the courage to Speak Up, Care, CommitHow sarcasm can be a mask of fearBringing the weirdHow it takes energy to withholdLove is wanting to do well for othersLove is expansive, inclusive, and connectiveThe things that get in the way of loveEric Kaufmann Links:sagatica.comFacebookInstagramYouTubeCalm app – Reduce your anxiety and stress and help you sleep better. Meditations for anxiety, adult bedtime stories, soothing music, calm masterclasses with many One You Feed Guests. Visit www.calm.com/wolf for 25% off a Calm Premium SubscriptionThe Great Courses Plus – learn more about virtually any topic – beyond the basics and even master a subject if you want to. Get 3 months of unlimited access to their entire library for just $30. www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/wolfSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I think that's what wisdom lies, right, is seeing below the surface, which is really insight, understanding, awareness, the depth of it, and beyond the obvious, seeing the bigger picture, the interconnectedness of all things. 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 No 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 reallynoreally.com

and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest this week is Eric Kaufman. or wherever you get your podcasts. 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.

And here's the conversation with Eric Kaufman. Hi, Eric. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Eric. I'm delighted to be with you. I'm happy to have you on again. You are a second time guest. There are, there's a few of them out there, but not a whole lot. So welcome to an elite club. And, and we'll get, we'll start talking here about more of your work in a minute, but let's start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. 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 bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. And 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. Oh man, I love that parable. I was really listening as you were describing it. I think two things come to mind there. One is that the one you feed, there's a critical component relative to what are we intentionally doing, right? So do I, do I feed and I would use the word feed and

nurture, right? So do I nurture the inherent seeds of love and compassion and kindness that are within me? And how do I do that? Right? So that's one set of practices. The other thing that occurs to me is that the very nature that there are there are elements of us in battle is in and of itself a practice because i think that um while it's important to feed the one that you want to cultivate right the good wolf i guess making peace with the shadow of us making peace with and making peace means really learning to habitate with greed and fear and hate, because I don't know that it's something that I've successfully extracted from my life or that other people have. But if I can learn to live with it in a way that it isn't stark raving,

starving, mad, trying to kill me, but I know that it's there. And so that I can tend to it. And when it rises up demanding food, I can figure out what is the least amount of sustenance that needs to not take over. And so I want to feed and nurture the inherent love and kindness, but I don't want to pretend that anger and hate are not part of my shadow side too. And I think much of the challenge of some of the work that's been going on in the last 50 or 60 years has been this effort to eradicate that part of us rather than send love and nurturance to that dark side as well. Not in order to sustain it, not in order to feed it and make it grow, but in order to soothe it. And so what does that look like for you in practice?

Can you give me an example of an instance of this in your life and maybe how you've done that, how you've tended to it? traveling the world. My younger daughter is a junior in high school. And in my mind, I have this expectation that whatever it was, Tuesday night, she and I are going to have dinner together. And then we're going to go for an evening walk with the dog. And I would have some time with her because it's kind of a precious, rare thing to spend time with my high school daughter. And she came home. She was out with friends. She came home later. And I said, okay, great. And she said, I want to eat first. I said, okay, but if you eat, are we going to go for a walk? Blah, blah, blah. Bottom line is she's like, no, I don't want to go for a walk.

And I kind of sat there going, man, I'm so bummed. And so how did I practice with that? I literally, instead of like projecting all over her and saying, you promised, you said, I went off to the other room for a moment. And I'm like, you know, it sounds like a silly example, but it was so aligned for me. I went to the other room. I sat there and I breathed and I dropped into my body and said, what's going on here? What's going on here was one, expectation.

Two, a little bit of greed. I wanted time with her for myself. And so, you know, sitting there and just breathing into it and recognizing the story and labeling it and saying this is what's happening. And allowing myself to literally digest the emotional reaction took about three, four minutes. it and recognizing the story and labeling it and saying, this is what's happening. And allowing myself to literally digest the emotional reaction took about three, four minutes. I could go back and just be with her and hang with her and enjoy the time I had with her. I was actually surprised at the strength of reaction and disappointment that I had. So that's a very simple example, but it's so real.

It was just two nights ago. And it's being present to the experience, getting into my body, labeling it in my mind, and then allowing myself a few minutes to let it literally digest and pass so that I can engage with her in a way that I want to engage with her. Yeah, that's a great example of just not making a situation worse. Like you could have made that situation worse by getting upset or angry with your daughter and driven more of a wedge between you and you found a way to process that in a way that didn't do that. I've said this a lot lately and I sometimes think when we're upset,

sometimes the best thing we can do is we just don't make it worse. Not the most optimistic message ever, but it's a pretty good thing if we don't make things worse. In the Zen tradition that I've been practicing the last many years, there's a practice. It's called refrain and return, right? So don't make it worse as refrain, right? So the first thing is kind of like just pause, refrain from escalating, and then return to sort of your body, your breath, your present state and to the experience of now. But I think don't make it worse is not insignificant and that's huge. Right.

Yep. Well, let's turn our attention to some of the work you've been doing lately. And, you know, a big focus of your work lately has been conscious leadership. So why don't we just start off by you telling us a little bit more about what conscious leadership is. Conscious leadership is combining an unrelenting commitment to results with an unyielding regard for spirit. And what I mean by that is that leadership, and that's true whether you're the CEO of a business or the head of a department or a supervisor in a team or just a mom, a dad, a team member. Leadership is really about influence, right? But at some point, it's about results. It's about getting things done that don't happen on their own and

won't happen without some effort. So there's a leadership in particular as it regards to getting other people involved and getting things done. So an unrelenting commitment to results means that you know in the leadership role we have to be really focused on getting something done and usually these are difficult things that don't happen organically right but you combine that with an unrelenting regard for spirit in other words not just doing it as an automaton or a robot or just for the purposes of achievement, but really with regard for the spirit. And the spirit is, you know, that conscious spiritual element that is both within me, between us, and all around us. And having that as, I love the term source, right, the idea of being connected to source and operating. We don't always operate from source, but with this intent to really listen deeply to what life wants, what spirit wants, and how do we serve that, even as we're driving for the results that we're driving for. And tell me a little bit about how you've seen this work in practice, whether it be within an organization with a particular leader?

How are people able to do both of those things? I have a great example of a company where one of the practices that the CEO had put into place was that they were going to provide loans. It was a manufacturing company and they provided loans and microloans to folks in order to help improve their lives and livelihoods. And there was a woman who came to her manager and said, I need a loan. And this was a loan to help. Her mom was sick.

She had three sisters and all the sisters were contributing except for this woman who really wanted to contribute. So she wanted a loan so she could help contribute to the family. And when the manager and this woman had this conversation, he eventually ended up turning her down for the loan. So you're probably thinking, how is this an example of conscious leadership? The reason he turned her down was that he listened really deeply to her needs, to her family needs, and to where she was coming from.

And where she was coming from was a sense of inadequacy and fear and wanting to look good in front of her sisters. And so rather than give her the loan, he came up with his coaching plan, as it were, and helped her up her education, improve her English skills, and generally made her more of a competent, effective professional. And while in the short term, it was frustrating, she didn't get the loan. In the long term, this manager was actually able to, through being present to her, present to the bigger picture, applying some level of courage and wisdom, still connected

the heart, helped her have this result that was much bigger than her initial request. And I think that's kind of a simple application, but it's so powerful because it was really him dropping into a place of deep listening, care, courage, and her going to a place of growth and unfolding and being served in the process. That's a great story. I think I read that in one of your articles and is a really good example of listening more deeply, not just what somebody says they want, but what they might need. Yeah. And I think where that's conscious leadership is that he was being aware in real time

of reality and connection and implications. And the reason I say courage was because it actually took him, I talked to him, it took him some real courage to say no to her because it's so difficult, right? She's in a needy place. Her mom is sick. Her sisters are helping. At the face value, this was something that anyone should have said yes to, but he wasn't just looking at face value, right? He was present. He was conscious. He was aware. He was alert. And in that way, he was able to serve her in a much bigger way than the immediacy of her pressure right right I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

And together on the Really Know 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 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. Let's talk about what the three pillars of conscious leadership are. So I see the three sort of initial hindrances to being conscious. And they're often discussed in Buddhism as the three poisons or the three fires, and they're referred to as

ignorance, greed, and hate. And actually, when you describe your parable of the two wolves, I think you use almost those exact terms when you talk about greed, anger, and fear, right? Right. And so ignorance, greed, and hate are sort of the three fires or the three the three poisons and what these are is essentially the building blocks of our egoic state of being so from an ego perspective ignorance is really not understanding how the world works not understanding of permanence and interconnectedness greed is sort of this pervasive desire to have things for myself and hate or anger is kind of pushing things away and being dismissive or downright hurtful to others. And so those to me are the ones that are parading consistently as the fundamental challenge

of what it means to be an awake person, a conscious person, and it's the building blocks of the ego. And so in my structure, the three pillars of the three elements of conscious, being conscious, whether it's a leader or a conscious husband, a conscious mom, a conscious sister, a conscious friend, is being able to sort of activate and align wisdom, love, and courage. And those to me are the three pillars of being a conscious person, right? Wisdom, love, and courage. Let's walk through kind of each of those, how you're using them. What do we mean by wisdom?

Sure, yeah. I guess let's start there. Let's start with wisdom. So, well, my favorite definition of wisdom is mistakes plus time. That's not really the, you know, and that works. That's a lovely definition. But I think where I'm really going for in wisdom in this case is seeing below the surface and beyond the obvious. I think that's where sort of the wisdom lies right is seeing below the surface which is really insight understanding awareness the depth of it and beyond the obvious seeing the bigger picture the interconnectedness of all things and so wisdom is one of the ways that we begin to both understand ourselves deeply and transcend ourselves.

And so there is this capacity for deep insight and deep understanding and seeing the big picture and the perspective. And you can see from a leadership perspective, that's really critical, but it's also critical. I mean, at some level, the fact that my daughter said no, and I got upset and I walked away and did a little four-minute practice was in itself some wisdom, right? Because I could see below the surface. I don't want to be caught up in my own disappointment and greed. And I was looking beyond the obvious, right? I don't want to make it worse with my daughter. I want to stay connected to her. So let me practice something, use that wisdom, walk away, do something and come back staying connected. Wisdom is such a term that I think we all aspire to.

And as we start to talk about it, you realize how nebulous it can be. How do you know what's wise in a certain situation? Well, that's why the first definition of sort of mistakes plus time, right, can really work, right? But I think how do you know what's wise is, I mean, a big part of what it means to be wise means to be present, to be paying attention, to be aware. I think awareness falls well within the scope of wisdom. And I think that much of our social and relational and sort of almost biological orientation is towards being distracted, unaware.

I mean, your work, you know, what are you doing? You're spending your whole life essentially helping people become more aware. And I think that's part of waking up to being wise. And I don't think wise is something you achieve as an end state. I think wisdom, that's why I said it's a practice, right? There's this constant practice of cultivating wisdom. And there are sort of subsets of wisdom, right? Like mindfulness is a fantastic practice of cultivating wisdom, and there are sort of subsets of wisdom, right? Like mindfulness is a fantastic practice for cultivating wisdom because you get to experience reality in the present moment.

Humor is a fantastic element for cultivating wisdom because it gives me perspective and distance. Awareness is a way to cultivate wisdom. It's a way to pay attention and notice what's really happening. But yeah, I don't think there's an end state to it. Right, right. I couldn't agree more. Let's talk about courage then. Yeah. So my simple definition of courage is that courage is walking toward what you'd rather run away from. Let's use a workplace as an example, right? So courage is something that a lot of management teams would hope that people have more courage. And the basic mood of our ego is

fear. It's just the basic mood of the ego. If you just look at, you know, and that's at the ego level. At the neurological level, we're wired towards being vigilant. And fear is some manifestation. We are descendants of people who have survived because they've listened to their fear people who were fearless and did really silly things died went off the gene pool and we don't have their offspring and so fear is like both software and you know both software and hardware for the human being and i think that the capacity for courage and is really significant and i think in the workplace there's kind of three types of courage that i'm particularly looking at right

the courage to speak up the courage to care and the courage to commit i think the courage to speak up is is it okay to show up and really put myself on display and not be afraid of humiliation or being belittled or being somehow perceived as stupid. And that's not just in the workplace. That's everywhere, right? We often don't speak up and we don't really get to shine. And it's because we're afraid. The courage to commit is a big deal because many, many, many prison company included myself, right? Have a fear of failure. I don't want to fail i don't want things to not go my way i want to control things and so we don't commit wholeheartedly

because we want to you know either stave off the possibility of favor not engage the favor or control it more deeply and so the courage to commit is kind of a big deal and the courage to care is another one because the last thing we want is to be rejected or pushed away or abandoned or hurt. And so many of us are trained to be hard-hearted and to, in a professional setting in particular, we call being a professional. What does it mean to be a professional? It means that you shut your heart and you behave in a way that is disconnected so that you can do things that are often unkind.

And so the courage to care is a big deal. So those are the kind of the manifest expressions of courage. It's not jumping off a roof or swimming with sharks. I mean, yeah, that's courage too, but come on. That's fun pleasure. I can swim with sharks all day long and still not open my heart to another being. Right, right. Yes, I think courage in those ways is often harder than some of the outward manifestations of courage. Yeah, and there are ways that fear manifests,

particularly in the workplace, it doesn't look like fear. So, for example, I was in a meeting not that long ago, and one of the folks in the meeting turned to the other person in the meeting, and she had made some comments. This woman made a comment back to her that was super sarcastic. I'm sure you've seen that, right? You've heard that. Like super sarcastic. And everybody laughed because what do you do, do right it's kind of the reaction to

sarcasm but i kind of i kind of stopped the meeting i said well hold on a second you know what's going on here because my my take is that sarcasm you know it comes from a greek word sarcazine it means to rend the flesh sarcasm is designed to do what to cut somebody down and so while it was a little you know it took a little courage for me to say in the meeting but i really wanted to highlight you know sarcasm is a mask of some kind of fear this other woman who was being sarcastic was using sarcasm to to cover up her own fear that she was not going to look at you know she was looking bad with this because of the other comment she used sarcasm to cut this woman down out of her own fear of humiliation of failure right so sarcasm a little bit of sarcasm is funny

it takes the sting out of the room it kind of light mood but it's kind of like it's kind of like i love thai food i don't know if you're into thai food i go to thai restaurants say how hot do you want it right so if you order one or two it's kind of, you know, it's tasty. A four or five gives you a little charge. A nine or ten, you're freaking burning. And I think sarcasm, you know, a one or two is kind of funny, but you start getting into the seven, eight, nine, tens, sarcasm is actually dangerous. It's threatening.

So that's one example. I have other examples, but, you know, I think but I think courage is requisite for life. I mean, Socrates said that courage is the first of the human virtues because it's the one that makes all the other ones possible. Right, right. Yep. I think that's a very, very true statement. And I've been thinking about the role of humor in all of this stuff. And you mentioned a little while ago, humor is a real aid to wisdom and trying to think about like, well, when is something, when is humor okay? When is it not? And made me think back to an episode we had a long, long time ago with a guy named Paul Gilmartin,

who hosts a show called the mental illness happy hour. And he basically said, humor is fine, except when it's used to deflect vulnerability. And I thought that's a pretty good definition. Is the humor bringing us closer together or is it driving us further apart? And I think that's a useful way to sort of interpret, you know, whether a joke or even some degree of sarcasm is okay. What's it doing to the room? What's it doing to the people around? I love that. I love that. And your point, I think, is so spot on because that vulnerability, right, what I call sort of courage to care, right? We're terrified of being vulnerable. And the workplace often has kind of a, there's a high competition in many workplaces. And the idea that's really popular right now, I don't know if you've seen it, Eric, is this idea of psychological safety. Have you come across that research? idea of psychological safety. Have you come across that research? I have. I have. I just interviewed somebody last night who wrote a book about the rules of emotions at work and talking about psychological safety a little bit. Oh, perfect. Yeah. So you're totally dialed in. So

psychological safety is basically the idea that you can show up at work without fear of embarrassment or threat, you know? And so why do we need psychological safety? Because that's how we operate at our best. And many workplaces are not psychologically safe because people are just not aware. They're not conscious. And to your point about humor, I mean, humor is such a beautiful thing.

You take a room, crack a joke, and everybody's laughing. As soon as people laugh, they kind of relax together. It's a wonderful thing. But you can also use humor and sarcasm to totally deflect from your sense of vulnerability. And that's not a wonderful thing. But you can also use humor and sarcasm to totally deflect from your sense of vulnerability.

And that's not a courageous act. And I think, I mean, I was in a meeting Monday, I guess. It was Monday. And COO actually had some issue with one of the other executives. And for the first time, she said, okay, I'm going to be bold. She stated it, right?

I'm going to be bold and I'm going to say this. But Susan dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot she said, okay, I'm going to be bold. She stated it, right? I'm going to be bold and I'm going to say this. But Susan dot, dot, dot, so on, so on. And she went on to say what she went to say. And her voice was quivering and she wasn't making direct eye contact with the other executive. But she delivered it in a kind way. It wasn't mean. But it changed the vibe of the whole team in a positive way because Diane went out and did something that was courageous. It raised the level of willingness and honesty in that team to have a deeper, more meaningful conversation.

And I think sort of the number one challenge of all leaders is, you know, the ego gets in the way. The number two challenge of all leaders is that there's not enough meaningful, genuine conversations about topics of matter. And when Diane went there courageously, voice quivering, not making eye contact, she allowed her own ego to be unsafe and therefore kind of raise the vibration of presence in the room. And she opened up a meaningful, real conversation. That was a beautiful act of courage and super useful, not just to her, but to the whole team and to the organization. Yeah, that's a great story. And I do think when people are able to go a level deeper at work, I have found that over and over that it creates something new for the people that are there. And it unlocks possibilities, particularly of teams coming closer together or people coming closer together.

I've told this story before a little bit about how I used to go to work really with I had I had my vision of what a professional person would do and say at work. I kind of tried to stay inside that. But what that ended up doing was cutting off, at least in my case, a significant part of my character because I, you know, for whatever reason, a lot of my character would be outside of that little boundary. And as I began to bring more of myself in, you know, again, all this within reason and appropriateness, but as I began to take more chances and sort of show who I actually was and some of the things about myself that might've been quote unquote, a little weirder or odd or out of the normal or I took chances emotionally and shared how I was feeling or things that had happened to me I noticed that I got better at work in all regards because my relationships with

people went a level or two deeper and as they went a level or two deeper suddenly it changed the dynamic and we were able to work together more closely. And it was just funny that as I took those chances, I actually became better at work. I thought I was doing it to be more true to myself, which I was, but what it actually ended up doing, I thought I would be making a trade. Well, I'll be a little bit more true to myself, but that might be damaging to me at work, but okay, I'm willing to do that. And it turned out to be, I'm going to be a little bit more true to myself. And I actually got better at work. Oh man, I just love that story, you know, because what you just shared in such a beautiful way. And I think this is what I

hope people really listen to and take heed, right? Is that in my construct that this is under the courage to speak up, right? And we can broaden that as the courage to show up. I love what you said, because we do have these sort of concocted notions of how we should show up, you know, and we put these great boundaries and restrictions on ourselves, right? I couldn't show this. I have one guy that I talked to is Ryan. He's a fantastic, awesome leader. And the way he described it is, when we talked about it, it was a very similar thing to what you just described because he was withholding himself, essentially, right? And that's, I think, what you described is a certain withholding

based on the notion that, oh, people would really not accept this about me. And he came up with a term, and then we used it together. He called it bringing the weird, right? He wanted to bring the weird. and he started bringing the weird and his experience was much like yours and actually much like mine right which is we're all quirky if you show up to work dressed like you're in the 19th century that might be a little too weird but but i don't think it's that it's that it's that dramatic i think it's more what i use as the courage to speak up or the courage to show up. And the more courage you apply to bring more of yourself, to speak what's meaningful to you, to engage in what is enlivening to you, the more you are enjoying your work and the more people enjoy you.

And remarkably, the more fun are enjoying your work and the more people enjoy you and remarkably the more fun it is 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 going to drop by mr brian cranson is with us how are you 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 no really go 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. Much of our energy at work is lost because we are restricting and containing ourselves. It takes energy to withhold. It takes energy to maintain my shields. You know, Star Trek, the Enterprise. You know, when they turn on the forward shields, it sucks most of the energy away from the other aspects of the ship.

from the other aspects of the ship. And when we go through work with our shields up, that energy is not available to other things like creativity and connection and even efficiency. So just showing up, even though it takes courage, ultimately has more energy on it. I agree. I think that's a great way of putting it. The amount of energy it takes to sort of put on a certain face

is really tiring. T tiring and unsustainable right right you know and then and then what people turn around is it oh they just don't know me i had a great example of this i was i practiced at the zen center and have for many many years and to being there for about 10 years at that point i'd gone to the teacher and I went to the Dyson. Dyson has these interviews with the teacher. And I went in there and I said to him, you know, I've been here 10 years. I think I'm done. And he looked at me and he said, well, you know, say more. I said, I practice here. I show up diligently. I go to all the retreats. I'm not all, but I go to retreats a year. I have a home practice, but my relationship with you is just, it's not fulfilling to me. And he looked at me and said, say more. And he said, what do you mean? And I

said, you know, I just, I just don't think you know me. And he looked at me and he said, well, have you made yourself known? And I really kind of paused for a moment. And, you know, the nice thing about Dyson, they're only like 10, 15 minutes long, and then you go back to the cushion, right? And then I went back to the cushion, and I reflected on that, and I realized, no, I have been, to some degree, I had a notion of what a Zen student behaved like. So I had this like Zen character when I showed up at the Zendo and when I talked with the Zen teacher you know I had this whole kind of concocted story and I his question have you made yourself known was really brilliant because I realized all the ways in which I was withholding and I'll and so it changed it changed the nature of my experience and I'm still there and we're still obviously working together and I'll tell you one other quick story here in mind,

because in the same vein, I was in a week long intensive psychodrama program a year or so ago. And after that, I don't know if you've ever done psychodrama, it's super trippy. You know, it's people acting out their childhood things. It's really intense.

It's really intense. And it's a week long, man. So it's like, there intense and it's a week long man so it's like there's no escaping the weird the beginning of the second day i got together with the head facilitator and she said well how's it going and i said well to be honest it's a little boring and she looked me straight in the eye she goes well then you must be a little boring and i thought that is a fantastic answer right it's it's on me like what do i want to have

in this experience and how do i have both the courage and the care to bring myself to it so that i have the experience i need so anyway i think these stories are all stories of to some degree courage right the courage to show up the courage to care the courage to commit um and the recognition that i am i am a co-creator of my reality. If I find that I'm bored, then I must be boring. If I think he doesn't know me, then I'm not making myself known. And those are, to some degree, functions of how do I allow my whole self, my spirit, my weird, my beautiful, everything to leak forward and show up in spite of the fear.

And so it is walking towards what I'd rather run away from. Yeah, that is such a great, those are two great, really great examples of what we're talking about. up in spite of the fear. And so it is walking towards what I'd rather run away from. Yeah, that is such a great, those are two great, really great examples of what we're talking about. Let's talk about, before we run out of time here, the last of your pillars of conscious leadership. Let's talk about love. Yeah. Again, to your point, right? Was it the 80s or the 90s where they had all those bumper stickers, love is, dot, dot, dot, and I don't remember that, but they fill in all the love is. It's one of those, much like wisdom, right? How do you actually define it? So the operating definition for me around love, what works for me to think of in terms

of love is wanting to do well for others. I think of love as an expansion. I think of love as an expansion. I think of love as an inclusion. And love is not just an expansion and inclusion of connecting with others, but we talk about what does my heart want? I mean, you coach people, I coach people. One of the great challenges that people run into is I had a conversation with Oscar and super sharp guy, I mean, Harvard grad, wildly successful consultant. And he's feeling rather stuck, right? And I said, well, you know, what does your heart want?

Because there's an element of love that is this expansive, right? What does your heart want? What does your heart long for? We're working on it, right? He's very caught up in his head, very educated, very smart. So it's all about logic. The heart is pressing for something and that same heart expands. And I think love is expansive and inclusive and connected. And I think in the workplace, in the home, love is the manifest of wanting to do well for others. It's this impulse of tending to and caring to,

providing for another without having to have some kind of return or payment, as it were. It's wanting to do well for others. And I find that to be, you know, even somebody who has great wisdom and wonderful courage but doesn't have love, I still don't think they're operating as a fully conscious being because I think conscious is all those. It's both understanding and it's

moving and it's a sense of connection, connecting with what I'm called to, connecting deeply to what life is calling for in the universe and the grand expanse of spirit and connecting with others. Yeah, that's a great thing. And how do you talk about love when you're bringing it inside a corporation? When you're bringing this conscious leadership inside, what are the ways that you talk about it? Is that the kind of terminology you use like we just used there? So I find that there are things that get in the way of love, find that there are things that get in the way of love, right? And we can sort of address what gets in the way of love. So for example, Mike, the way he's behaving with his peers is arrogant. He's arrogant. He walks around being, I'm the best. I'm better than you. And I think what

happens when he displays his arrogance is that this assumption that I'm better than others blocks love. It is the opposite of love. It is an exclusion. It disconnects. It belittles. And so, of course, you can be an expert. You can be very good at something. But arrogance becomes kind of an ego posturing and it's hard-hearted things. And so what's the counterbalance of arrogance, right? So it's humility. So how do we cultivate a sense of proportion and humility? Not taking away from our expertise, our genius, our brilliance, our beauty, but understanding how it is that we fit into the bigger picture. That's one way to talk about it. Another one that's really, really common in the workplace is being judgmental, right? Humans in general, you know, you know i mean again having good judgment what

do we want from from a leader i want a leader who has good judgment that's a huge big deal but being judgmental means that i'm sort of critical right that i'm determining that somebody just isn't measuring up not good enough and so converse of that is compassion and i can have good judgment on you know this is something and that's where wisdom comes in in a big way but i want to also have compassion right compassion is seeing where other people are struggling and moving towards helping alleviate their challenge so those are a couple of examples in the workplace that's awesome, we are nearing the end of our time here. Um, it's funny, you talk about the three pillars of conscious leadership being, uh, courage, wisdom, and love. And whenever I hear the words wisdom and love in the same sentence, I always think of, I can never

say this guy's name. Nis, Nis, Nis Gadarda, uh, Indian sage who said, wisdom tells me I'm nothing. Love tells me I am everything between the two. My life flows. That's beautiful. I love that. Yeah. It's one of my favorite lines. You and I are going to continue this conversation for a little bit in the post-show conversation where we're going to talk about purpose. You have some really interesting ideas on life purpose. So you and I will continue that. Listeners, if you'd like to hear it, you can go to oneufeed.net slash join, and you can become a member and get access to all the post-show conversations and lots of other goodies. Eric, thanks so much for taking the time to come on again. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. Thank you, Eric. I appreciate that you're

making the effort to put forth this great material. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. Thank you. 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. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

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