(6.05) Leading with an Open Heart

Most leadership conversations happen above the neck. Steve Ray, a groupwork facilitator and open-heart practitioner, thinks that's only half the picture, and arguably the less interesting half. This is an episode about the inner critic, the community of selves, and what happens when a podcast host attempts a live meditation mid-episode and immediately starts contending with his own inner critic.

Join KG and Paul as they chat to Steve, a groupwork facilitator at Group Work Centre and practitioner at The Natural Way of Living, about heart consciousness, the community of selves, and whether the parts of yourself you've been suppressing might actually be trying to help.

Thanks as always to our friends at Annandale Cellars for supplying this episode's wine. This time we're drinking the 2021 Yal Yal Estate Yal Yal Road Pinot Noir from the Mornington Peninsula - a light, clear red that opens with raspberry and a hint of strawberry on the nose, picks up a little tartness as it breathes, and finishes with very soft tannins. Good body, nothing overworked, and as Paul put it - it warms the heart. The cockles, even. 

Get at least half a dozen of these (or half a dozen of any of Annandale Cellars' amazing wines) and get a 20% discount by using our code at checkout: DECANTED

Sláinte friends! 

If you are interested in a written reflection of this discussion and its themes, you can find our brief article here. 

Useful resources from this episode:

1. Steve Ray on LinkedIn
2. Group Work Centre — Steve's facilitation practice
3. The Natural Way of Living — the open-heart practice organisation Steve references throughout this episode
4. Episode 6.03 — Leading through Consciousness: Seeing Things 'As They Are' with Marti Spiegelman — a companion listen for anyone who wants to follow this thread further

Please feel free to send us your thoughts, comments and suggestions any time by leaving us a text/voice message via the link at the top of these show notes!

Or talk to us through either of the options below.

Email: askus@leadershipdecanted.com 

Website episode comments: www.leadershipdecanted.com

Disagree or agree with anything we've said? How wrong are we?!? Are there any leadership topics you'd like us to discuss, or people you'd like us to talk to? Maybe you'd like to recommend a favourite wine!

Whatever tickles your fancy, we'd love to hear from you!!

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Gently pummeling me. Your heart is connecting. There's a lot for me to work through here.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

That's alright.

SPEAKER_03 0:15

Welcome to Leadership Decandid, where we engage with the latest thinking on all things leadership, and we keep the conversation going over a nice bottle of wine.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

KG. Oh, what is happening, man? Well, here we are.

unknown 0:40

Again.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Yes. AKA Melbourne. Ooh, yes. So is this second of the Melbourne Tour? First of the Melbourne tour?

SPEAKER_03 0:50

Well, it doesn't really matter. We are yeah, we've taken this show on the road. Yes. Not the first time, but certainly it's uh always always a bit of fun.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Yeah. Yeah, we we love being on the road and uh we love visiting new people and great cities, and this is one of them, so it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

So it's fun. And look, we have as often we do, and as we're expected now, you know, the bar is set very high. Yes, yes. Uh great wine, great guests. Uh the conversation's gonna be awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Yeah, cannot wait. Yeah. What should we start with? Let's let's see.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

Well, I hate to break conventions, so let's uh let's start with the wine. Let's start with the wine. Okay. So once again, we have a wine of which I know nothing about.

SPEAKER_04 1:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:32

It's new to me, but because we have great faith in our friends at Annandale Tellers. Anandale Cellars. I think we could safely uh bet. If we were a betting duo, yeah, yeah. Would you put your money? I'd put some money on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Yeah, I'd I'd and I'd be really comfortable with that. But I'm gonna make my money back at least. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:50

Okay, yeah, but it is our money. So you gotta look after our money. Our money, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Okay, I still think it's a safe bet.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

They are really, really, really reliable. So I I don't think we've got a problem. So if they do get it wrong once, then I may that will be really interesting, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:09

If one day they just give us a bomb.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

What will we do? I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

We might have to just pretend. No, you didn't hear that from us. Yeah, no, no. There's no pretending here.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

No, let's know it. We would never do that.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

And so look, what we've got today is a Yal Yal estate. Yal Yal Road Pinot Noir.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Okay, you're gonna have to say that again. Yal Yal.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

Yal Yal. Yal Yell. It's Y-A-L Y A L. Yal Yal Estate. Okay. And it's a Pinot Noir from Mornington Peninsula. Okay. And it's the Yal Yal Road Pinot Noir 2021. So it's five years old. Ooh, this is gonna be nice, then 12. You know, Mornington Peninsula, south of Melbourne, towards the peninsula end of the city. It's not making sense. It's right. A cool climate or cool-ish. Not maybe not as cool as other ones that we've had before, like Beechworth or but good for Pinot. Just like the Yarrow Valley, good for Pinot.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

So expecting good things out of this one.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

I think so. I think so. I I don't know what to expect. I would think not super complex, which isn't a bad thing.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

It might just be very fruit-driven, easy to drink. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

Probably not savory. Because some peanut can be kind of a savory, earthy, mushroom-y, maybe more berry.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Berry than savory, okay.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

Once again, it's all speculation.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

It is, but they're good, I mean educated guesses, right?

SPEAKER_03 3:43

So I think you honor my guesses.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Whereas me, uh, it would be just it looks red and it's red. Uh definitely.

SPEAKER_03 3:55

Yeah, it's gonna taste very red. Shall we open? Oh, please. Okay, so it's in a still one. So once again, it reduces any potential performance anxiety of trying to open a cork.

SPEAKER_04 4:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

Very nice. Okay, nice, nice sound. All right, I'm going to pour now. Okay. Okay. So look at that.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

That is clear see-through light. Very different from the last red we had.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

Yeah. Yeah, I think I'm onto something a bit fruit-driven, a bit more sweet, I think. What do you get on the nose, lovely guest?

SPEAKER_02 4:26

It's definitely alcohol.

SPEAKER_03 4:28

Okay. Yeah, I'm getting raspberry, but not overripe, it's underripe. Okay. So a bit more tartness, maybe? Let's have a look. Let's let's have a let's have a taste. That's a lovely light Pinot.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

That is beautiful. Yes. It is clean. It is light and it's just got a little bit of fruit to it. It's not overpowering, it's not sweet, uh, which is nice because you know how I am with sweet. It's I don't want that.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

You'll really get a sweet Pinot, I think. I am. But uh But yeah, yeah, I I hear what you're saying though, in terms of how much fruit you pack into something.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yeah, yeah. But this is this is great.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

Oh, getting a bit of strawberry now. I think it's opening up. It's a lovely light red, but it's got some good body, feels good in the mouth. It's got a bit of kind of tartness, so maybe it's a bit of tannin, but very very soft, very soft tannins. Really nice.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

It warms the heart.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

It warms the heart, the cockles, even. So thank you, Anandale Cellars, for this lovely wine, the Yal Yell Road by Yal Yal Estate. Yal Yellow. 2021 Warren's in Palencia La Pinot. Now, folks, as you know, for those of us who've been with us for a while, Anandale Cellars are our most generous friends. They provide us the wines for each episode. So we want to give them a shout out, as we often do. And encourage you to check them out online.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Because there's a benefit. I mean it's a good one. There is a benefit. There is a benefit to all.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

There is a win-win equation.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Win-win for everyone. You get lovely, lovely wine and a 20% discount if you use the discount code decanted.

SPEAKER_03 6:13

Decanted. We won't spill it for you. It's in the name. If you use decanted at checkout, all you need to do is buy just a minimum of six bottles. Yeah. And you will get the 20% discount at ace l ar s.com.au. Yes. In the show notes as always. Check them out. It's worth it. You know, you know, if you're looking for something that's not too heavy, but it still carries some weight, then this is it. This is the one. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

It's a beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 6:47

Slaunch R. Let's continue, KG. Let's continue.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Yes. Looking forward to our wonderful guests.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 7:00

I want to introduce you very briefly to Steve Ray.

unknown 7:04

Steve. Steve.

SPEAKER_03 7:06

Steve. Welcome. Steve. Welcome. Welcome, Steve. Thank you so much for your time. Great to see you. Great to be here. Now we've only met once, but uh it was certainly a meeting that I loved and enjoyed and resonated for some time. And I think what got me hooked on what you were saying runs deep. But I'm not going to talk about that because I want this conversation maybe to take us there if possible. Okay. So before we kick off, Steve, what is what is the Steve Ray story? Where would you like to start? Start wherever you like.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

Okay, I was born in the east of Melbourne. No. In uh Blackburn when it was dirt roads and there was lots of forest almost. And I lived on the uh Gardeners Creek and there was a big stormwater drain down the bottom that was so it was part creek, part stormwater drain. And uh as kids we would walk up the drain with candles and like inside the drain. That's cool. At midnight. We had to do it at midnight. Really? Oh yeah. Oh, it was it was there's a movie there somewhere. I know, I can I can see it. Well, apparently there's people doing that all over Melbourne, like there's a whole you know clandestine sort of set of they're out there doing but um yeah, it was back in the days when they used you know you used to be able to buy crackers at the dishup around you know that time of the year, and we used to take crackers down there and you know, make very loud noises and and then come back and we would be freezing and you know, we'd watch television for the rest of the night. This is when we're in our you know mid teens and you did crazy things like that. So I grew up in Blackburn and uh always had a passion for nature. You know, my both my parents were teachers. We'd go off during the school holidays to all over the place national parks, and I was always out in the bush turning over rocks, trying to find animals. And yeah, I just loved it. So that was yeah, that was my early life, lots of camping. And then I grew up out in Blackburn, went to high school out there, then went to uni at the Monash University. So I was very much you know rooted in that place for the first 20 years of my life. Then I moved into the inner city because that was where it was all happening, that was where it was exciting. And the first night I was in Falconet Street, right on the corner of the Edinburgh Gardens, and I was lying there in bed, and I thought, is that screaming? Is that what they do in the inner city? This is wow, this is crazy this face. And um apparently that's kind of what inner city life was like, and um I didn't hear screaming again, fortunately, but it was like, okay, this is very different from the quiet out of suburbs, but there was lots of you know action, and I was part of uh an environmental advocacy group because at Monash I joined a group called the Native Forests Action Council, and the big thing was there was wood chipping in our native forests, and you know, so I was a campaigner. During the early days, eventually went to the Franklin River and did all that. And uh yeah, really, I mean, I guess that was my love for nature, so that was converting into the protection for nature. Yeah, then became uh working for the conservation movement for nothing. You know, we we would just be on the dole and I would console myself for the fact that the government was paying my wage as it was for protecting the products that they were cutting down. That worked for a while, but you know, you're going along to you know the CES as it was back then, after a while wears you down and you feel like um I need something that uh reassures me that I'm you know, I'm valuable as a human being. So I then worked in the department of conservation for a while. Then moved into environmental education. I set up a group with a friend um called Box Bandicoot, which was the voice of the bandicoot, and we went out to schools and we took lies, animals like reptiles, animals that weren't going to be freaked out by the kids, and we did a theater show. And the guy I worked with Frank, Frank Ryan, worked at the zoo at the time, and he did a whole lot of education there at the zoo. So we came together and we basically took environmental education into schools because for us it was all about education in the environment. So they would the kids would come into their multi-purpose room and go into this amazing kind of um it was basically just a parachute, but we'd hang branches down and we'd have on cassette playing um background bush noises. So they they came in, they could smell it. And then they would see some lizards and tortoises and a snake, and they were going, wow. And some kids were totally freaked out, some kids yeah. But it was an experience. Yeah. So they had the experience of the bush, it was a good experience. They got to know these animals, and then they would do some, you know, theatre, interactive theater in the afternoon. And so those three pillars, education in the environment, uh, for the environment, which was like this advocacy piece and about the environment. So learning about the environment was a really critical part about it. And for us that was really key. Like it had to be connected to nature before you would ever want to, you know, take action for it. Because at some deep level you realize how important it was and how much we were we are part of nature. And then, you know, when the whole wave came through and the environment was a big thing during the 80s, it all changed and it all became about recycling. And so that there was a disconnect between having rich experiences in nature and this idea of recycling. And that recycling, that's where the money was, right? So, in a way, that took people away from nature and into this idea that we can recycle and everything, which is fine. Meanwhile, biodiversity is being lost at just in ever increasing rates. So, this is kind of my my trajectory out into the world. I was working in council as a conservation officer, and then I um eventually ended up becoming a facilitator years later and working with people because I love working with people, and I discovered that facilitation was actually a thing. It wasn't just something that people said, couldn't you facilitate this meeting? Yeah. And you go off and go, okay, whatever that is. So learning that craft was an amazing thing, which I've been doing for the last seven, ten years. But along the way, I uh I got married, had two kids. I've got a daughter who's 27, one is 25, one is a singer-songwriter, the other one is doing speech pathology. My wife is uh an amazing educator. Like she travels the world, she teaches teachers how to teach, is her elevated pitch, pretty short. But you know, it goes out and teaches about inquiry-based learning, which is again all about how kids learn through their own curiosity, and the teachers work with that, and that really helps the kids to learn at a very multidisciplinary level. Alongside that kind of vocational thing, this other world opened up to me when I was uh, well, this is 20 odd years ago, and that was the open heart work world that was kind of a like at the spiritual dimension opened up in me, and it was very interesting because I wasn't searching for anything. I just had a friend who said, Oh, that's this workshop coming on the weekend called Reiki Tumo. And I said, Oh, I don't like Reiki. Um, and he said, Oh, come along and see what you think. I mean, yeah, okay. Um, and the reason I didn't like Reiki was just because my head was saying, Oh, that's that's channeling, so that's weird, and it's just weird, right? Uh so I wasn't kind of some hippie person who was into all the energy stuff, but I tell you, it was very interesting because I was a scientist. And so when I went in to this information night and I saw these pictures on the wall, these um images of people, well, they were diagrams showing energy flowing in a body and in particular flowing to the heart center. And I thought this can't be made up. There's way too much effort put into this to make it made up, right? But it's obviously not something part of our Western world. We've we're so brain dominated, we're so physically connected that the energetic world is something we're we're quite disconnected from. And so this was the interesting crossover because when facilitation came into my world, I thought there is energy flowing in this room right now between people. And if you can be with that energy and you know that that's a thing, then you can really work with the dynamics of a group of people, and uh it becomes really exciting then. So, yeah, I spent 20 odd years just continuing to follow my heart and doing this practice. It came out of an organization called the Natural Way of Living. And the teacher within that organization um basically was meditating from a very early age, and he um, like at a very early age, said, This can't be right. This there must be more, right, that's going on, a deeper purpose. And when I started doing the Reiki, even though my mind was saying, Oh no, that's not happening, you know, I I could feel this flow of energy. But my mind has such a strong concept of how I defined the world that it was literally telling me that it wasn't happening even as it was happening.

SPEAKER_04 16:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

And then I realized, wow, our mind maps are conceptual maps of very strong things that will either take us into places and explore them or hold us back. And from that point, I started basically inviting it all in, like saying, well, that might be possible. Like when somebody would suggest something, I was very up to that point, I was very judgmental. You know, I was like, nah, yes, no, like it if it fitted my It's black and white for you, this is the way it is. I just kept reinforcing them the mental models that I had. And so when that changed, it was a really liberating thing because I wasn't constrained anymore. And I didn't have to say, no, that doesn't exist. I could say, well, that might be possible. And the way that converted into the group work is when somebody came up with something like a very different idea. I could really validate that person's experience as being, yeah, well, that's your experience. That's not mine. But it's obviously real for you. I can see that it's real for you, and tell us a bit more about it and and do that authentically, not as a technique, but actually, well, tell us about that experience. Yeah. That sounds really important to you. And, you know, when people have their story validated by another person, whatever it is, they immediately feel seen in a way that we all need to be seen. You know, we we're here on this world and we need to know that we matter, right? That's that's a fundamental need that we have. And uh, we just don't get enough validation.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

I'm curious as to that journey of yours. You mentioned that something changed. Was there a moment or set of moments? How did you crack that open? How did how are you able to let that light in?

SPEAKER_02 18:28

Yeah, that's a really good question. I've asked myself that and to be honest, I don't know. Because, like I said, I wasn't actually looking for something, but there must have been something that was kind of ripening within me that was on a lookout because I was really receptive to it. And even though I had this other story going on, after I did the one workshop, I was just doing the practices because I could really feel something happening in me. And because it wasn't here, I wasn't receiving with my mind, my brain consciousness, I was experiencing it through this feeling center, which our heart consciousness, it's another part of our consciousness. And we already know and we accept, you know, in the Western world that we have gut instinct. So we know that we have and isn't our work done on this, that there are parts of us that actually have memory within our um gut and like brain tissue, a brain tissue around our heart, for example. So that is happening at the physical level, but the heart that I'm talking about, like the feeling center, is a non-physical part of our being. And of course, you know, you do an autopsy on somebody, you're not gonna find it. So in the Western world, where everything has to be tangible and measurable and kind of you know there in front of you for it to exist. Something that's non-physical is much more difficult for people to get their mind around.

SPEAKER_03 19:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Because their mind basically says, no, that's not real difficult.

SPEAKER_03 19:56

Which is ironic because mind we could argue that mind doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

Exactly. Right. Exactly. Yes, the brain. So if people just do that, oh, you mean the brain? So they can make that adjustment quite quickly.

SPEAKER_04 20:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

But yeah, the heart is different because it's got like no uh equivalent. Yes. It's just like this thing floating out there. But more and more that has changed in the time that I've been doing this, like the capacity to be able to say to somebody, oh, you know, the heart. You know, when you're touched by something, you see a beautiful artwork, or you those moments you see a sunrise or something and you see the tear rolls down, you say, Yeah, that's that's our heart. Like that's something that we don't understand at the brain level, but our heart knows that there's something incredibly beautiful about that. And we generally don't have, we don't have practices that reinforce our heart. We just hope that that maybe that's gonna happen. We go out into nature, we do beautiful things in the world, maybe, but we don't, we're not deliberate about it. We don't say, oh, my heart's feeling a bit flat, or I'm feeling a bit empty, or I'm feeling a bit hard-hearted. I need to soften my heart and do some work and some hard Pilates, right? So strengthen your core. Yes, it's yeah, yeah, your emotional mental core.

SPEAKER_03 21:14

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm really keen on the to outline maybe what you might see as the contrast. The first assumption I'm making, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think you're saying one or the other. I think you're saying both, except that we have one that's over-exercised and one that's un and one that's under exercised. Yeah. But how would you contrast walking through life with only mind? And how does it change your experience of being in the world if you can bring that heart with you?

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Great question. And I think we can all relate to it maybe uh only through particular experiences, like uh, oh, I remember that time. Because it's not like integrated. So if it's integrated, it should be all the time. Right. There should be a balance between the brain, mind, and the ceiling heart. And instead, because of the dominance of the mind, you know, the dominance of the mind, we prioritize the mind over everything. Like if you know a lot, you are immediately listed. Your status is higher. If you're in the academic world, your status is lifted. If you you need to know things. And what's really interesting is that we're coming to a time when actually you don't need to know anything because it's all Google Googlable, right? So that changes things. And what is knowing? Like knowing facts is one thing. But so there's the kind of the uh analysis of things, but then there's the synthesis of stuff, like joining dots, making meaning of things. That's from the heart. And what the heart does, like the heart realizes things. You know, those moments you go, oh, I just realized this. So that's coming into the mind and being expressed because we are physical, but it's actually been realized within our heart. So that you you know yourself, you don't think a realization, it just happens, and it's more likely to happen when you're quite relaxed. Like people often say, Oh, yeah, my best time is when I'm in the shower. I have these amazing ideas. Well, you relax, you're not actually thinking. And so in that time, things can kind of bubble to the surface. So to answer your question, I think you know, people who are really mind-dominant, they're more likely to be in a place of stress, even if they don't describe themselves as being in a place of stress because their mind is super active and they're often cut off from their heart. They're kind of doing everything above the neck, right? And they will often discount the heart because the mind is so strong and it's kind of taken control. And so this can be this place of vulnerability, which is, you know, what the heart opens up in us, is this uh chance to feel. You know, it's very interesting. Like I look into groups where it's a lot about, you know, how do you feel today? And you say that to a lot of people and they go, what do you mean? Like they they immediately guard themselves because that word feeling actually takes them into places that they're not used to. So they're they're uncomfortable. Not, I mean, obviously in different places they'd probably be fine, but in a general sense, like when I'm working with groups, we do a check-in. And for some people, a check-in where you say, Oh, how are you today? How are you feeling? You know, what's going on for you? Is there anything that you know you need to leave behind before we get into the work? And people go, Oh, I'm I'm fine. And, you know, they move to the next person because they don't give themselves time, they haven't practiced the whole idea of just reflecting and wondering what is going on for me. Like that's that kind of self-awareness that you hope everybody is is trying to develop in themselves so that they can ask questions about how they interacted with something and what was my part in anything that went wrong, for example. Now, if you're not reflective, the chances are that you're more likely to push it back out into the experience out there. You project it back out and say these things happen to cause this, as opposed to what was, oh, I I didn't get much sleep. So obviously I wasn't showing up very well there. And you know, so you don't do any of that self-moderation when you're really dominant in that place. And that's also the place that drives a lot of negative emotions because that's where the stories are. Oh, you shouldn't have done that, or they're an idiot, or like that's the noise of the mind can really overtake the heart. Whereas if you spend time with your heart, that automatically brings down the busyness of the mind and particularly the negative thoughts that can dominate. And that's where the balance that you're talking about starts to happen. We should be using our mind, but we shouldn't be using it in a way where the mind is thinking our thoughts. You know, we should be uh saying to the mind, hmm, why don't we think about that?

SPEAKER_03 26:08

Right. So you're interrogating your thoughts almost like you need to interrogate AI when it's hallucinating. Right? You think, is this a real thought or is this a productive thought or is this a useful thought? So you're kind of asking for that verification or the validation just to make sure. Would that be an accurate analogy? Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_02 26:30

I mean, give us a specific example.

SPEAKER_03 26:32

Well, I'm thinking, for example, somebody's asking me, How are you doing? And so immediately, if I'm living in my mind, as as you describe it, if I'm living mostly in my mind, and by the way, it feels like you've been reading my journal. If I'm living in my mind, uh and I say if just in case. Asking for a friend. Yeah, yeah. And someone says, How are you? And I go, Oh, I'm fine. I'm fine. What I think is missing there is that interrogation of oh actually, why was I so quick to that answer? Or am I really fine? Or when I say I'm really fine, what do I mean? That's what I mean about interrogating that thought.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

Absolutely. And so it's it's interesting too because it's um it's quite complex as well. So there'll be other people who, and this is again what the mind is uh doing. You ask that question, oh, and they'll go straight into a story of woe. So it's almost like an identity within them, like you could call it, you know, the victim self is just there and say, Oh, this happened and that happened, and it's terrible, and everything's going wrong. So that's become a dominant character trait within them. And if other people are kind of supporting, oh wow, that sounds terrible. Yeah, it is, and then this happened, oh wow. Yeah. So that can just drive a particular direction. And if people aren't conscious about, oh gee, I'm really talking a lot about how negative things are, I really need to think differently. If they don't have that self-awareness, then they can just show up like that and they can just keep spiraling.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Yeah. Yeah. But they get that validation, so they go. I'll I'll I'll do that again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

Well, that's right. And and that's that's where as friends we need to say, like, help a person who's constantly in a pattern that we can see. But that's a really hard thing to do because you know, you do that and you you risk them going, what are you doing? Yeah. This is really bad. So I've I've heard you talk about that quite a few times, you know. What are you doing to try to change that? What do you mean? It's not me, it's you know, like that's the tricky conversation.

SPEAKER_03 28:41

And it's interesting to me too that often those narratives where people are are explaining what's happened to them and and what what's gone wrong or how we've been victim of something, often triggered by the question, how are you feeling?

SPEAKER_04 28:54

Mm-mm.

SPEAKER_03 28:55

So then the question isn't even addressed. No, that's right. It's like, no, no, I didn't ask what happened to you. I was asking how are you feeling? Yeah. And it seems to be a simple little nuanced little difference, but it makes the world of difference in terms of how you connect with somebody. Now, but I am really interested too though, Steve, you've mentioned a couple of times about this notion of self-awareness, but you've also talked about practices. So I'm trying to kind of connect those to say, look, are you are you suggesting A that self-awareness is something that is a I don't know whether it's a skill or a way of being that you can learn and grow into? And are those practices connected to to that?

SPEAKER_02 29:39

Yeah. How do I answer that? I think once you have self-awareness and you are willing to ask questions about yourself and the fact that you're not perfect and that maybe it was you who caused something to happen. Once you start going in that direction, then it's like there'll be just an ongoing exercise regime that you are now turning up for every day, every moment. But until you have that moment where you do break through and you realize that that's okay. It can be a very humbling thing, first up, to stop projecting things out into the world. So in that group work, and we do a lot uh around self-awareness, and we have a self-awareness model which is very light, almost whimsical, that says to people, oh, we've got many selves, many, we've got a community of selves. So, you know, there are some cells that might, you know, be judging other people. There might be some that are judging ourselves, there might be some that are really doubling down in negativity, and they all have a little story. Most important thing to realize is that there are no good selves or bad selves. That's that's you you're talking about there. So any part of you has got good traits and there's a a flip side to it. So even those things that we might call good within us has got a flip side. So I often used you know confidence because that's one that's pushed so much that you know, we really need to be confident. I said, Yeah, we do. What happens if you were confident all of the time? What would that look like? How would you show up? And people think for a moment then they think, well, you you probably wouldn't need other people's help. You know, we're we might be having a workshop about collaborations. Yeah. So yeah, if you if you're constantly in that confidence, you can become almost arrogant, right? So that's where they go and they realize, oh, that's interesting. So anything where we spend a whole lot of time with will end up being there'll be a disservice to us. But there are other ones that we're quite able to say that we would call negative selves, like the inner critic, which tells us we're hopeless, that tells us you can't do something, right? And that that's often one that I will start with when we're just trying to explain the model to people, because everyone's got an inner critic, and if they don't have an inner critic, that's a worry. I have struck somebody say, I don't have that voice I'm gonna absolutely has a place. But the thing is, okay, it's neither good nor bad. What's the gift? So finding the gift of these cells is where the revelation happens for people because what we do is if we don't believe there's a gift, we've never even considered there's a gift, then what we do automatically is we push that down because family, society tells us that's not okay. If you've got an angry self, you go that's anger's really not good, not okay. Oh, so you push that down. That uh critic, that's you're a you're a good person. Yeah, I am a good person. So every time that inner critic comes up, you feel like a bad person, right? So you start judging yourself and you don't listen. So the inner critic, okay, what's the inner critic trying to tell me right now? It's telling me I'm doing a hopeless job. Turns out I am doing a hopeless job, right? I if you actually were brave enough to say, could there be some truth in that? Then you go, oh, of course. Well, I didn't prepare for this. So that means I should do more work. Like people, once they they get that moment of breakthrough and say, wow, it's actually helping me. Once they realize that every self is actually helping you, but you have to translate it because it comes with strong emotion. Like that inner critic wants to exterminate you sometimes, you know, like you are a loser. But it's basically trying to stop you from continuing to fail. It has got high standards, it wants you to do well, but it's going to tell you you're a loser as a way of stopping you. But all you is you feel terrible about yourself. So once you just have that as one little skill, it can really change.

SPEAKER_03 33:41

So is the breakthrough what you're referring to when you're talking about self-awareness? That breakthrough of being able to interrogate those words. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

Well, I mean, that's been my experience. I and I don't know generally how it plays out in the world and whether or not. I mean, I have had people say, oh, I didn't know anybody else had those kind of thoughts. Right? So they've been holding on to these things and thinking, I'm mad, or you know, suppressing these things. And then they discover there's a room full of people and they're all doing reflections on all their community of cells. And it is the most validating thing to realize that, oh, that's just me as it's playing out. And you then ask yourself, well, why do I have all of these different things going on? And if you go back into your life, this life, and even through your past, like the DNA carries a lot of this stuff. So you're you're born, you you know, we all we're all born with a package. We're not empty vessels when we arrive. We have a history, a genetic history, right? So we bring that in. But once you realize, oh, okay, so that's just part of who I am, then you can say, Oh, there was this moment that I remember that self kind of really waking up in me because it was trying to protect me. And if you actually go to those moments, you actually realize that's why that self is born. So it was trying to protect you from something. And then you really have compassion for those parts of yourself. You know, you go, oh, okay, right. It was trying to stop me from whatever it was trying to stop me from. Like anger is a classic one. Anger is often a thing that's saying something bad is happening. You need to do something. And so what happens, instead of us just listening to that strong energy and go, whoa, that's really strong. What will I do? I need to do it from my heart. See, this is where the heart hasn't been there to help us because we should do everything from the heart. That doesn't mean we do it softly, it just means we do it wisely. Like the heart is, it's got infinite connection, right? It is unlimited where the heart can go. So, in that moment where we feel that anger happening, we go, oh, hang on a minute. Oh, that is wrong. So, how could I speak from my heart in this moment? And sometimes you have to speak strongly, but you don't speak with strong emotion. You just have to be really clear and say, hey, listen, what you just said then was not okay. And I don't want you to speak like that to me again because that is just so invalidating of who I am. Like that's an example where that person is really hearing it, because there's no emotion that gets in the way. This strong emotion makes people go into their own reactive five flight. So they can't actually hear what you're saying. But if you're saying it from the heart that you actually want to get that message across, you want that person to hear because you value the connection. You actually value the person, right? That's that's a really like the crux of good communication is that you want to hold that person in, even as you have the biggest disagreement. But we don't have that skill because our the emotions just get us. They're too fast, they're unconscious, and they whip past our rational, logical mind to be able to think, oh, I might do this from my heart. Meanwhile, this thing's I'm gonna kill that guy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:07

So how so how do we acquire this skill if we realise that it's a necessary way of being in the world in a more integrated way? How do we acquire this skill? Because it feels it's a little bit out of it's like I don't know what I don't know situation.

SPEAKER_02 37:21

Totally, yeah, totally. And so much is normalized by the the world that we live in that you wouldn't know that there's anything better. You could do that better. So this is interesting because again, this is where the the um the crossover between the facilitation and the open heart work happened because the the facilitation work and all that model that I was telling about was just incredibly helpful. And it's the group work center model. Like the the founder of that, Glenn Oaker, she really focused a lot on self-awareness because she could see that that was the thing that was needed more than anything. If you're going to be a good facilitator, you had to know what part you were playing as a facilitator so you could really be of service to a group. So it's not every model that does that. You know, a lot rely on processes. When things get tricky, they go, Oh, I'll use this process and I'll get out of this mess that's potentially arriving. So they go, wow, there's mess. What's going on? We need to, you know, dig into this and find out uh the underlying cause. So there's that that's the facilitation part. For me, the biggest by far, the biggest impact was connecting to my heart. Because when I started connecting to my heart, I realized that that simple act of just allowing the body to relax and to really let go of everything we're doing that we don't realize we're doing 24-7, which is holding our body, holding stress in our body and the thoughts that are there, keeping that whole package together, keeping us separate, right? Once I realize actually, what would happen if you let that go? And as you let that go, then that equilibrium starts to return. There is a natural kind of quietening of the mind. The mind, as it turns out, is desperate for the heart to help it, but it doesn't know. And there are plenty of stories where like stories being told by the mind that says, Oh no, that heart's you know crazy. But it's not really the mind doing that. It's you know the negative emotions that are driving that. And when the mind is in that peaceful, we know ourselves, like you go on holiday, and after two weeks, your mind is just go, this is crazy, right? And you have those great moments where you go, Wow, why didn't I see that when I was back in the city? Yeah. And it's because we we didn't let it go. And when you really relax, you let go of the holding of a whole lot of concepts, emotion, things I don't even think we can put words to. But basically, what we're doing is we are allowing ourselves to return to the balance that is quite natural. It's it's the natural state. It's like every moment we're driving around with our foot on the brake, constantly driving around with our foot on the brake. And we're kind of looking for, you know, the next thing that might go wrong because that has been our history over tens of thousands of years. It's a very big habit to break, and it's an unconscious habit. So to your point, you don't know that it's going on. But when I started doing this heartwork, it was like spotlight was being shone on all of these things that you know I was doing that was holding my heart and blocking the connection between people. Because the paradox of opening your heart, and this is one of the things the mind says, Oh, I know, you don't want to open your heart. Don't open your heart because then you'll be exposed to danger. So you protect your heart. So that's just code for close your heart. But the thing is, when you open your heart, you are supported. Now, you know, this language is always tricky because then you start to stray into to areas that people go, what are you talking about? They're like, I'm already there.

SPEAKER_04 41:09

Steve, I'm already there.

SPEAKER_03 41:10

I think I've been there for a few minutes now. But I'm yeah, I'm binding my time. Jump it, jump ahead. Were you in the middle of a thought though? I don't want to interrupt you.

SPEAKER_02 41:20

If your heart is connecting, it's connecting to something beyond ourselves.

SPEAKER_04 41:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:25

I'll just use that language because other language will just get in the way. But I could feel if that was happening. I was having that experience when I did those early workshops. I said, I don't know. I can put all kinds of concepts. My mind wants to understand what's going on. So I could put concepts around it. But in the end, I just thought, I don't know. I'm just gonna go with the experience. So I could feel that connection, I could feel that flow of energy and realized that when my heart was opening, it was opening, you could say, vertically. It was opening to, you know, something greater that also connected all of us together. So you could say it was source energy. And so at the beginning, it was just source energy. I just called it that, you know. But over time, it became like I realized this was a relationship that was actually happening. So I could lean into this because the feelings that were happening in my heart were feelings of peace and calm and beauty, and like the more that was just being let go, the more that the feelings were um those beautiful moments of connection. So we had connections with people, and we go, wow, I'm really connected to that person. So I'm having this connection with this nothing, right? There's nothing visible. But I thought, no, that's a connection with some something beyond the physical that is also a part of who we are. So you would, I would call it part of our true self, our spirit self, something that that exists beyond this physical body. And so, yes, our body dissolves at the end of its time, but you are alive, you could say, beyond it, as non-physical form, spiritual form, soul, whatever you want to call that. And so I thought this is actually a very important thing to discover while I am in a human body. Because I don't know what would happen if I died and I didn't have that connection, because I don't think it would just magically appear. Like people say, oh, I'll worry about that spiritual stuff when I'm dead. Um I think, oh, that's a bit of a gamble. Right. Because how do you know anything will change after you're dead? Like you might just be at the stage of awareness that you have at that soul spirit level when you were alive. So you haven't so the gains to be made are when you are in the physical body and you have all of these different parts of you. You have all of these different interactions, you have limits around you that when you come up against limits, whether it's your own physical health or whether it's you know, I don't know, whatever it is we want for so much, but when we come up against the limits of that, we have to let go. There's a choice to be made in that moment. Are we going to keep pushing or are we going to say, no, I need to let that go? Now that is a very important skill to develop, to let go of.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

And you're you're mentioning a couple of things that I just want to kind of unpack just a bit. You're mentioning your heart as a almost it feels like there's something you can do to improve that use of your heart. Is that true? Can you practice it? Can you can you do some steps to increase your heart's ability to work with your mind? Explain that. How does that work?

SPEAKER_02 44:45

Definitely. In fact, we could spend a few minutes actually doing it in this room. Because then, you know, everyone who's tuning in could try to, because it will happen.

SPEAKER_05 44:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 44:57

And the first thing to say is we actually can't do anything. It's actually our doing that is blocking our heart. It's it is the complete opposite of everything we know to be human, which is agency, like actually, okay, I can I can open my heart. And I remember picking up a book that was written by this amazing uh psychologist in America who had done this open heart practice. And the first line on the book was we can't open our hearts. And it was called the open heart was something we can't open our hearts and something's wrong with that. Yes mind blowing. And his point was the only thing that can open our hearts is what we are connecting to, that greater spirit, that source of love and light, right? So we have to actually let go of all the things that we do. We have to let go of our control. We have to let go of that good want to open our heart. Right. So it seems crazy that you have to turn up and then you have to let go. So it seems crazy at that level, but it will happen if we just allow for some very simple things to happen. So do you want just three minutes?

SPEAKER_03 46:00

Well no let's give it a shot I don't think we've ever done that before. No no some experiential work in our podcast.

SPEAKER_02 46:07

Okay. Key thing is like to have a glass of wine. Yeah yes very good tick or wine um a sip or two of wine like that relaxes you right. So it's one of the reasons why alcohol is one of the things we do because we're so stressed in our lives we go to alcohol because it yeah it it helps us relax and it also helps this to let go of that busy gripping. And so of course we go there but ultimately wine if we have too much of it will actually make us go unconscious and not open our consciousness the windows I think we've just I think we've had just the right amount of wine that you think AG okay ready for the work. Let's give it a shot let's do it okay okay so knowing that energy will flow naturally if we're just sitting in our chair and both your feet are flat on the floor so you you know your body is upright not kind of twisted in some way. And that way we've got the best chance of uh just allowing ourselves to relax. And interestingly you know keeping our eyes open is actually quite helpful because when we close our eyes we start looking in and what we want is for our heart to open. And when our heart opens that energy that flows into it will flow out because the whole idea is that this is a connecting thing and this this heart is meant to be connected. So because of who we are it's my heart right this is our starting off point the self the separate self what can I get from this thing turns out the heart is wanting to share right so we allow our heart to be you know uh activated by this uh energy so just allowing our bodies just to start this is the foundation like just allow your body just sort of relax on the chair so whatever you're leaning against just allow your body to relax and let gravity work on your body why we never even think about gravity right but gravity part of nature is helping us right now to let go of the body in a way that's like if I said relax there's a doing that we would do there right so okay I'm relaxed right I've done that tick so that's doing right away but if we so we want to get rid of all of that that we do so it's just let go of the body weight so let your body just drop now now we're relaxing right but we're not doing it it's happening so we want this all this to happen on us and our feet are connected to the earth there's energy flowing you know to the earth whether we realize it or not we are energetic beings and there's also energy that flows from the earth uh into us as well you know but if we just let go of our body weight continue to let go of our body weight and take a few deeper breaths already we're just shifting out of the physical mind into the uh the body and that's our first step as we let go of the body weight and just if if you're looking just you know it's okay to look around not to fix on something but just uh be kind of relaxed in that looking around and just continue to let the body just drop let go realize we are in a process now it's happening we are letting go more and more and making that choice to let go until we can start to feel some relief in our breathing right that moment of relief is a sign that there's tension leaving the body it's actually going can you feel that like it's going and that's all in two minutes just two minutes and already we're letting go of tension that we didn't even realize we had and the next thing which is an instruction for our heart now our brain will hear it and normally our brain hears instructions and tries to do something it will do that. But this is for our heart and our heart hears is and it responds because it knows things too. So our heart which is you know beyond our this just this life here um you know call it part of our eternal self is let your heart remember the happiest moment right now it's okay for our mind thinks of the happy moment too because what we're wanting to do is to go to that moment and start feeling so our heart is starting to feel something right and that might just show up as a gentleness calm a bit or peaceful bit of opening or whatever but these are the happy feelings that are just natural within our heart covered up by this right so just feeling happy letting go of everything not doing anything yeah just let go and we see waking our heart up feeling happy letting go everything not doing anything more reminder feeling happy let go everything not doing anything and just let the whole body heart just express those happy feelings so that they're radiating from our body and think how just let that happen front back left right and those happy feelings are being expressed through our whole body being into the cells of our body we just keep letting go allowing that process to happen more and more until as that's happening the breaks coming off right and the aliveness starts to fill the cells of our body so we just feel some of that aliveness that's flowing into our heart and through our heart into our whole body whole being and if you're just feeling those feelings of happiness peacefulness calm whatever gentle feelings that are there and if we express those feelings right now expressing those feelings you know when we had a happy moment we're probably smiling right and when that smile is actually allowed to you know come out spontaneously then that's the wholeheartedness that's using the whole body thing to really allow our heart to open fully and so that was like three or four minutes how do you feel after it's sleepy sleeping sleeping if you convert that into feeling how would you describe a feeling serene there yeah um how about you feeling is just it's just relaxed if that makes sense just I I think the gravity thing worked for me because I just felt like I just wanted to like I said just kind of nap over here I'd be I'd be good with that for a but it's clear I'm I'm not very good at this. This is really interesting right so one of the first things if you haven't done this before one of the first things we often feel he is sleepy because we've been spending all this time holding it together. The moment that you actually truly start to relax then that's like you you drop into a deeper space of relaxation that can take you into a kind of a sleepy space. But see interesting when I ask you how you felt you go kind of just relax. Like see how we discount relaxed we the mind discounts feeling and so we have to start to tune into feeling and once we start to do that we go oh I feel relaxed or wow it's I really feel I I really feel that calmness like we start to get what it means. So there's meaning within these feelings or these feelings all come from the heart and emotions I call emotions the things that tend to close our heart just to keep them separate because sometimes they're just all put into the same bucket the emotions you know anger disappointment sadness and things they're the ones that tend to close our heart and they're generated by our thoughts and you know that physiological response the fear right so the love is opening our heart and we're feeling the peace calm the longing the love right these are the feelings that we're trying to sharpen.

SPEAKER_03 55:27

Yeah that's the heart Pilates yeah I mean I'll tell you what my experience just in those few minutes it did feel like a bit of a battle royale between mind and heart. Yeah resistance the whole thing there is resistance to there is maybe a little bit of mocking there's condescension yeah yeah what the hell are you doing? This is just woo-woo stuff uh all that stuff was in there right and interestingly uh not so long ago we had a lovely conversation with Marty Spiegelman. Oh right Marty I got it to the airport there you go great conversation so you know her work and and I struggled in that conversation. So clearly my struggle is in that integration space of mind and heart you call heart Marty might call consciousness I mean they're not the same thing but they it's in that space. So one piece of self-awareness I have is that if this integration that you speak of is real and beneficial or of value or is just what it means to be really human or truly human or fully human, then I've got ways to go. But you might you might not have as far as you think. Maybe but it just feels it just the push and pull feels so intense that it feels like oh my God I'm nowhere near this thing. But maybe the push and pull is the thing.

SPEAKER_02 56:59

It is the thing that's exactly it. So when people say oh I've tried meditation I can't do it yeah so tell me what your experience is and I'll say some version of this I'll talk about resistance and I said great it's working. Said how can you have resistance? How can you have push and pull unless something is happening? Yeah it's it's a movement is exactly so your heart is feeling that energy it's reacting to it and there's a well corresponding reaction to that which is the holding on to what you had so you know we're we're terrified of change. And if that internal system is being changed then all the parts of us that have invested in that will come out and cry out and say do not do it and that's so it's terrifying that you're doing that.

SPEAKER_03 57:46

Yeah that's interesting because it it feels like physics you know every action has an equal and opposite reaction yeah and it kind of felt like that it felt like there was not it's not that something was overwhelming or overpowering it just felt like at a tug of war.

SPEAKER_02 58:00

Yeah back and forth back and forth yeah and that was just five minutes you go into an open heart workshop for a day I think it'd fall apart Steve I think I'd fall apart. But it's it's like that right so you start off resisting you know but then you go and you just miraculously you'll drop into a different space go, oh my not nothing that you did allow that the moment that you stop that struggle the love gets in and changes things right so you can drop down so that's why I say you're not as far as you think but there you think oh it's impossible right but then it just needs that crack you were talking about just that crack and the that light love whatever you want to call it will just drop in and change that resistance within you because it what's happening the way we are is not natural. Like being separated from each other and like particularly in the world you see now how tribalized, how polarized we've become that's not normal. I mean you can see what it's doing the the the incredible well obviously the geopolitical unrest that we're seeing the wars and so on. But just look what we've done to the planet. Like that that that capacity to be so brutal to a planet only comes when you are separated from your heart. Like I take it right back at the beginning of this conversation when I was in nature there's no way I could do anything negative to nature because I was so connected to it. But disconnect yourself disconnect yourself from nature. What does that actually mean? It means that your heart has hardened to nature you see it separate from yourself now. You can do things to it you can turn it into money or you know whatever. So that's what happens we've lost the understanding of of how important our heart is over a long time.

SPEAKER_03 59:46

You've worked with groups for a long long time and I'm assuming you've worked with all types of groups whether they're teams or just groups of people what have you seen what have you noticed when people actually arrive at a point of better integration or self-awareness or or understanding the the the place that the heart has in life what have you noticed about the way that groups interact or how they work or how they function? Have you noticed much difference?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:17

Yeah I mean like we run a year-long course in group work and that year-long course is this group of people like 20-odd people they come together they learn the art of facilitation so they're learning all these things they're practicing all these things and they're in a group so they're experiencing the real very real dynamics of the group so they start off and the things happen and there's this but you know it's a learning moment so we go oh let's pause what just happened there so the content's coming in but at the same time they're having the real experience of you cut me off then what happened you know we've got these agreements up there and you go oh okay let's slow down what's going on what how are you feeling what's happening in your community of cells right so you take people back to that and they go oh I'm really having a strong reaction here and they start to realize that okay I need to do X, Y, and Z. So people start to manage themselves in a good way, not control, but actually manage themselves and realize oh yeah I should have yeah I did cut that burst off actually or I did say that thing. And so it is at times like for everyone it's a very humbling process as you see the blind spots you never saw. And in the group it comes out and people will at times have moments where they just feel so ashamed of what they've done because they've never seen it but they've come out in the group but then it really you know because they're there they're signed up to do it they go away and then they start to do that work more. And they come back and the connection between people is amazing. And particularly the interesting thing that happens is people discover what compassion is not as a skill but as what happens in you naturally what comes out in you naturally when that internal infrastructure changes. When you start to integrate as Jung used to talk about the integration of the shadow right so he said that unless that shadow is integrated within you will stay separated you will stay in conflict but once you start to integrate that shadow which basically just means bring it in for a hard kill and bring it in that part that I don't like yeah you know where's the gift and once you find that gift and you can actually work with that suddenly you can work with that in another person because that thing used to really kind of pitch you off about a person you go ah that makes sense. So even though they're pissed off at you say you go yeah right no I get that yeah right it's amazing it's just like I because you know that in yourself and the thing is you've reconciled that in yourself. Like people talk about reconciliation all the time but it's always an outside thing. Until you've done the internal reconciliation work you can never reconcile with everything out there. And I think that's one of our biggest struggles like you see the peace plan for blah blah blah but it's being done by a whole lot of people who have not reconciled what's going on inside themselves. So it's a political exercise and sometimes it holds for a little bit but ultimately the only way is when we start with that foundation stone that's ourself. Can't happen.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:24

And and do you think that type of work is possible in a corporate setting say I don't know a team of executives or a a senior leadership team I mean I don't know if you've had any opportunity to to try that but is it possible is it a doable thing or would we be asking too much of the structures to be able to do that work?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:48

Such a good question. And you know what whenever people ask those questions I would say anything is possible. Sure. But I look at that and I think that looks completely impossible. Right. And it looks so impossible because not only are you dealing with the fact that people have got all their you know community cells at play but they've got an external culture or environment that reinforces it moment by moment. So they're they're lost in that environment they don't have any positive feedback that would support them to change. So people will often come along they'll do this a group work course and they go back into the culture and all the cues are are telling them no you have to wait like this. Yeah. So they they often come oh no it's terrible if I did do this I need I want to do it but I can't do it because they won't let me do it. Yeah so I sometimes feel like we've got to be careful that we don't set people up for failure but they go back into these workplaces where they don't have uh like a community. And so we we we now do a lot more work with organizations where we go in and say let's you know you you like this work you you think it's important why don't we do it with a group of executives and as well middle management or leaders or whatever. And when they travel along that road together yes there's amazing things that can happen. There was a one organization that had five executive members they started off they're all over the shop at the end of that time they had a connection and they said it was like they'd been together for years and years but they were you know quite new to begin with. But even over like I think it was like two or three months we met, they there were big changes that happened because you set up an external environment that reinforces that better part allows that better part to come out. We live in this world that is constantly bringing out the worst part of ourselves and validating that part. And it makes it very difficult for the better part of us to come out. So that's what we should be doing all the time is trying to say how can we help the better part of a person come out because everyone has the capacity to do Terrible things in the world. And everybody has a capacity to do the most loving things in the world. I really believe that. But it depends on your upbringing and what's sitting within you and so on, in terms of yeah, that that's a struggle.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:13

Thanks, Steve. That's uh very insightful. There's a lot for me to work through here. Uh at the at an individual level. That's all right. It feels like the universe has been. It feels like the universe has been, uh and this is going to be a contradiction in terms, but gently pummeling me to uh focus on something that's not just in my head, my brain, or in my mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:35

It's really interesting you say that because when we met, I remember you said, I don't even know I'm here. I thought, oh, something's going on inside him because his brain doesn't know it, right? So that is a sure sign your heart is actually saying, you need to do this thing. Okay. And how often does that happen where you that some people don't listen to that internal thing and they won't say, I don't even know why I'm here. You know, but you already got that openness, you've got that willingness to listen. And I say to people, if you've got that going, you're fine. You are tracking in the right direction. I'm tracking the right direction.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:08

You gotta help me keep me, keep me uh question. Cool. Well, think and Steve, I know that um there is are some changes to your kind of professional work in the next few weeks, but if people want to find you or or ask you some questions or just check in to see how they might take this journey, where can they find you? Well, I'll still be on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:30

I won't unhook completely from the matrix, but probably even through group work I'll be kind of contacted and I'll still have contacts. But yeah, ultimately, I'm not sure. Okay, we'll LinkedIn, we'll put we'll put all that on the show notes. Can you actually hide?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:45

Can you hide? I think you can find it. I think you can. I think you can. It's gonna put a bit of effort into it. Yeah, um, but yes, it takes a bit of uh of of effort. Thank you again. It's been great. Well, I'd say it's been great. It's really been unsettling to tell you the truth.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:01

Yeah, but uh but I'm glad you've forwarded a drink. Yeah, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:11

It was really what can I say? Interesting. Yeah, but interesting feels a bit a bit wee, a bit twee. Oh, okay. Yeah, so it was unsettling. I'm gonna stay with unsettling. Confronting. Interesting's there.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:22

Unsettling's there. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:25

Upheaval. You got into the you got into here, so that is good.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:29

Thanks so much once again. And look, we've made you talk a lot, and so you haven't drunk as much as KG and I. KG's up to his third.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:36

Oh, I tell you, that is beautiful. Yeah, it is very nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:40

But look, thanks again. And to you, KG. Thanks to the wines. That's it for our show today. If you liked what you heard, if you liked our conversation, if you want to hear more, please rate us, review us, subscribe. Tell your friends, your family, your enemies, everyone you know. As always, we'd like to hear your feedback about any particular leadership topic you'd like to hear about or want us to explore. Please let us know by reaching out to us at askus at leadershipdocanted.com. That's askus at leadershipdecanted.com. You can also leave your comments and suggestions at our website at leadershipdocante.com. We really appreciate your time and comments. Thanks for listening and come back next time.