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Is it possible to be a spiritual being in a human body? Transcendent, yet grounded? And why is that so many “spiritual leaders” tell us to leave our feelings behind? How is it possible to be truly connected to another person - including on the spiritual level? To get to the heart, body, and soul of these questions, we’re having a return visit from Jeff Brown, author of the recently released book “Grounded Spirituality”. Jeff’s work is focused on connecting you to your precious, unique divinity - in a way that’s practical, connected, and...real. Or as Jeff Brown might say...enrealed. If you’re curious to hear our first episode together, you can also check out Episode 118 of Relationship Alive - Crafting an Uncommon Bond and Soulshaping with Jeff Brown. As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it! Sponsors: Find a quality therapist, online, to support you and work on the places where you’re stuck. For 10% off your first month, visit Betterhelp.com/ALIVE to fill out the quick questionnaire and get paired with a therapist who’s right for you. Resources: Visit Jeff Brown’s website to learn more about his books and his other projects. Pick up a copy of Grounded Spirituality by Jeff Brown on Amazon. FREE Relationship Communication Secrets Guide - perfect help for handling conflict and shifting the codependent patterns in your relationship Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner's Needs) in Your Relationship (ALSO FREE) Visit www.neilsattin.com/grounded to download the transcript, or text “PASSION” to 33444 and follow the instructions to download the transcript to this episode with Jeff Brown. Amazing intro/outro music graciously provided courtesy of: The Railsplitters - Check them Out Transcript: Neil Sattin  Hello and welcome to another episode of Relationship Alive. This is your host Neil Sattin.  Neil Sattin  It's always a thrill to get a return visit from a particularly awesome guest. And today is going to be one of those days. Here to talk about the, his new book "Grounded Spirituality," is Jeff Brown, who is also the author of "Soulshaping," and "An Uncommon Bond," and in fact we had him here on Relationship Alive, I guess it was probably about a year and a half ago, maybe, to talk about those two books. And if you're curious to hear that episode you can visit Neil-Sattin-dot-com-slash-soul-shaping. All one word. And today, we're going to talk about this approach to living a spiritual life that allows us to be fully grounded in who we are as humans in terms of our unique existence on this planet right now. I'm not going to try to describe the whole thing that's what I'm here to talk to Jeff Brown for. However I just want to say that for me personally this book came at a really challenged time when I've been going through a lot in my own life and I found some of the exercises in this book to be really helpful. And some of the viewpoints represented to help dispel some of the myths that I've been carrying around with me about what it means to be a spiritual being in a human body. And and helped me integrate in a in a new way that's been really helpful and transformative in terms of my day to day life right now. So I found the book to be really inspiring and that's why I'm so excited to be sharing it with you along with Jeff Brown it's auth, it's author.  Neil Sattin  So if you want to download a transcript of today's conversation, which promises to be quite far reaching, then I encourage you to do so at Neil-Sattin-dot-com-slash-grounded, as in "Grounded Spirituality," not as in your grounded for being a bad human. And you can always text to the word Passion to the number 3-3-4-4-4 and follow the instructions to also get access to the transcripts and show notes for today's conversation. I think that's it for starters. So Jeff Brown, welcome back to Relationship Alive.  Jeff Brown  Great to be with you Neil. It's good to be here.  Neil Sattin  We're here to talk about "Grounded Spirituality," and I gave my off the cuff definition in the intro but I'm wondering if you might be able to give us a quick synopsis of what you mean by a "grounded spirituality," and maybe contrast that with what people tend to talk about when they're talking about spirituality and why this distinction is so important for you? Jeff Brown  So let me just read from the book the grounded spirituality definition then go into the second part of your question.  Neil Sattin  Sure.  Jeff Brown  "Grounded spirituality is an all encompassing experience of spirituality that is rooted in and thread throughout all aspects of our humanity and earthly experience. We begin and end our spiritual quest within the ground of our being, our embodied humanness, as both interpreter of experience and as our individuated portal to divinity we don't look outside of our human form for spirituality we look deeper with a name and form, cultivating a more refined understanding of the divine reflection that exists right in the heart of our selfhood. We honor its sacred qualities and transformative properties celebrating it as the perfectly constructed laboratory of expansion that it is. With our feet rooted firmly on Mother Earth and in daily life, we become grounded in reality in all its identifiable forms. We expand outward and inward from there. In essence grounded and spirituality are synonyms. They both mean reality. The more deeply grounded you are in your body and selfhood, the more fully you are here. The more fully you are here, the more spiritual your experience. It's from the depths of your being that you have the greatest access to the everything."  Jeff Brown  So for me you know I mean, my journey really began in the psychotherapeutic process. I didn't really have any idea of this thing called spirituality so I really... And, and as I went through that process and moved from more of a talk therapy model to working with Al Lowen and doing other somatic psychotherapy techniques, I found that the more deeply I opened and released the more expanded my vista. I felt like at the end of sessions or at the end of holotropic breathwork, I felt completely and deeply here in a unity consciousness field. And, but it happened through my body and it happened through the psycho emotional release. It didn't happen through anything separate from or distinct from my day to day experience. It was all coming through and threaded through my humanness. So I think I carry that forward and then began to explore this thing called spirituality and it began really with the love experience I wrote about in "An Uncommon Bond," and coming into a unified field or what I called the Unified Field from the love experience again through my heart and through my body through my being and then I began to encounter people like Bhagavan Das, and made Karmageddon and all kinds of other people in social media that were defining spirituality in a way that seemed to be devoid of humanness. I mean, it seemed to really be about something called transcendence. Something about finding selfhood finding spirituality independent of self, body, ego, feelings, stories -- everything about my humanness, everything difficult and uncomfortable was dissed. And spirituality was some awakened consciousness and an absolute consciousness field outside of my localized experience. That wasn't where I found it. I found it inside of my localized experience and so I, you know, as I've continued to work in the area and write in the area and develop ideas in the area, I began to realize that there's this thing called patriarchal spirituality. There is this thing I call the "new cage movement" there's this whole industry, industrial notion of spirituality that people are economically dependent on that tries to set off our humanness from our spirituality and that's just simply has not been my experience, and I feel as though that's one of the reasons why our species is in trouble because this way as in many other ways we continue to dissociated from our humanness in quest of something outside of it without understanding that the true integration happens has to happen right in the heart of it.  Neil Sattin  I love that. And I'm thinking now of like the first place that I want to go with this, is, uh, that notion of transcendence and how helpful it has been for people to explore that to, to explore witness consciousness and, to in some senses let's just use the phrase rise above their, the drama and the chaos of human existence in order to get some perspective some peace. And your book is written as a dialogue between yourself and this character named Michael who is really rooted in this sense of spiritual journey that's all about transcending. Transcending reality or being far enough above it that you're you're not drowning in the chaos of it. And I think that's why it's so alluring to people because it, it's can feel easy to drown in the chaos of, of life and emotions and circumstances. So. Um.And you of course talk about Eckhart Tolle as a great example of someone who is you know the figurehead in some respects of the modern western transcendence movement. And so I'm wondering for you, where's the value in learning this witness consciousness and being able to take perspective vs. living there? Jeff Brown  So the simple way I put it is that detachment is a tool. It's not a life. So for me... And transcendence can be defined you know, definitional stuff is very important and we won't go too far into it here. But you know what one person calls "transcendence," another person call something else. So the whole language of rising above being heightened all of that for me is part of the patriarchal bypass movement. That's not to say that being able to pull up and out and look at your localized self through various meditative and other techniques gain perspective on your habitual range of emotion, on the stories you tell yourself, and the way you move through the world on the various forms of anxiety that operate within you, is a good thing. It helped me enormously to be able to pull out of my very localized experience of Jeff Brown, from that super crazy childhood, and begin to witness myself and recognize and excavate parts of me that I didn't have access to in my habitual way of moving through the world. I have no issue with it. If Tolle  had written, "Power of Now," a book that I call the "power of self-avoidance." If if Tolle had written that book and he had said, "Look, I..." As he said in the beginning I think he said, he was suicidal and very troubled. If he'd said, "Look, I had all kinds of problems. And one morning I woke up and I developed, had developed some kind of a technique or access to a particular consciousness that gave me access to my material." Don't call it a pain body, don't talk about it like you're talking about a car part, acknowledge your tender woundedness, and then he said, "And I spent a lot of time out there getting perspective on where I'd been. Understanding my ancestral context, understanding how this painful material wove its way through my ways of being, and then I developed techniques for coming back down into that material," as though the material is in fact quite true and quite real and no illusion, no bashing of the ego, no bashing of the self, no bashing of the feelings, no bashing of emotions, no bashing of anything human. Acknowledging it, recognizing it, and understand that you needed to bring another consciousness into it in order to find the balance. The weave. The Holy Holy. That you need to move through the world with a connection to a more unified field and a profound and deep and worked through awareness of the localized self. If he had said that, I got no problem with that book. But he didn't.  He called that a, what'd he call it "a guide for enlightenment" or something in this, in the sub header? When you present the detachment or that as something that is the end of the story essentially to me that's just dissociative and that's not going to serve this humanity. We know why people want to do it. They're uncomfortable here. It's painful here. So they use the meditation as a drug or they use witnessing consciousness as a drug, and they convinced themselves they've gone to that superior place because they're numbing and detaching from all that material that's stirring up inside of them. It's still in there. It still shows up in their personal life. None of these teachers tell you about their personal lives, but you find out things about a lot of spiritual teachers' personal lives and you realize that this is an industry and they're telling you a story about their lives that isn't the whole story. Their stuff is still activated, their stuff is still working on them. They have not resolved work through all those pieces. And so for me what we need to do is develop a spirituality that acknowledges the wisdom and brings techniques to bear on people to be able to pull up and out, to pull back and look at themselves, to do the witnessing consciousness trip, to have a taste of something called "unity consciousness," and then to come back down into the body with that wisdom and find the weave between transcendence and imminence. That for me is the truest human experience.  Neil Sattin  So let's contrast that with maybe some of your experience around the more human material. So when we come back in and write about how much is tends to be locked in the body and we've had right, Peter Levine on the show several times so that's that's I think, hopefully a level of discourse that listeners are familiar with, this idea that we're storing trauma in our body and if we're not dealing with it, then we're gonna have to stay in this dissociated state in order to feel like we're somehow coping, and I could, I could see like the freedom the illusion of freedom in that for people because we can't live there, there's that reality of your back in your, within your human form and there's still some shit to work through.  Jeff Brown  Absolutely. It's, I mean trauma. It's encoded in the body. Its stored in the body. It's in the body. So I knew this in a very palpable way, when I shifted from being a talk therapy client to being a body centered psychotherapy client, and I would sit with Alexander Lowen for who was the co-founder of Bio and I would sit and talk for 15 minutes with him and he'd just be looking at my body and he'd be engaging my mind because he knew I needed that to feel safe, and I knew what he was doing but I needed to do it. And then he would say, "All right, you ready to work? You ready to get to work?" And so to get undressed, so I get into my underwear, my shorts whatever I would do and he would start working me, in the body, grounding me in the body, going over the stool, tantruming, kicking, and all of a sudden I would have access to a completely different experience of reality than my waking consciousness. It was painful. It was horrifying. There were memories that I had no conscious connection to in my day to day life, and understandably, I had to survive and get through my life. I couldn't be in touch with all that trauma but my experience of deep inside of my body was radically and remarkably different than who I thought I was. And I had tried going up and out I had been around the bypass movement I had attempted to be a bypasser. I would love to be a bypasser. But I just can't be a bypasser, it's just not, it, it's not in the way that I'm organized internally. But you know at the same time I was living kind of in between. I wasn't a bypasser but I wasn't going deep into the caverns of my own body consciousness. So Lowen, by going to Lowen, manifesting Lowen, what, however we characterize it, I was forced to go back down into that material. I chose to go back to into that material and and then I began to understand this deep and profound connection between this thing we could call imminence, the localized the day to day, the mundane whatever we call it and this thing called transcendence or unity consciousness field or the non-dual world, and then I would encounter it the spiritual world, they were talking about non duality and they all seem flatlined. They talk like automatons, they were they were addicted to meditation, you know, TM-ers, I knew so many TM-ers, who were like yogic flying and their personal lives were utterly insane, you know, there was no bridge. So I began to understand that my body was the bridge. My body is the bridge and it's the way that I try to make sense of how I can hold all of these threads of consciousness at the same time. And so. And Peter Levine is one of the great brilliant pioneers, and I noted him in the book. So his John Perocco, so is Wilhelm Reich. So is, you know, David Berceli is doing great work. Lowen, of course, did utterly brilliant work these people to me are the true spiritual teachers, because I define spirituality as reality, Neil. So the one who guides us or supports us in a movement towards being in touch with all threads of reality which must begin within the self it has to begin within the self, itself. To me those are the true spiritual teachers, not the ones who master a singular thread of consciousness master witnesses master meditators masters at the art of our premature forgiveness. There's a million of them out there calling themselves spiritual teachers to me there's nothing spiritual about them because all they've done is perfected one thread and they're not able to function within all of the threads of the human experience.  Neil Sattin  That's one thing that's so appealing to me about your, your writing in "Grounded Spirituality," is this way that you continue speaking to "integrating." Integrating the spiritual awareness, integrating what's happening within your body, integrating your emotional awareness, integrating your intuition so that it it all becomes part of you as an alive, dynamic being. And what I've seen, what I've witnessed, it feels kind of funny to use that word, with lots of my clients who have been going through this sort of thing is that when people are totally focused on the meditative path, it actually creates a lot of challenges in relationship, because there's all that unconscious material that's still running them in the ways that they interact with each other or conversely they're they're kind of not really interacting with each other. They're, they're like two dissociated beings, or more likely one dissociated being, and another, who's like trying to call them back and then both of them of course have their work to do in order to to arrive at this place of being more integrated and unfolding in that way because I think it's it's not a static place, right? It's this dynamic place where you continually arrive again and again.  Neil Sattin  Absolutely. I mean this is why the mindfulness revolution is dangerous. This is why the, you know, the society wide industry now really related to meditation is dangerous. I mean I get that meditation can be a wonderful technique for connecting to the self for pulling away from the localized material for periods of time, to getting a break from what it means to be a human being, you know, or at least to get a break from some aspect of that. But the problem is again, if it's not also coupled with some kind of re entry process and reintegration process, it's like we're moving towards inclusivity with respect to gender, with respect to sexuality, certainly with respect to race, you know, ethnicity, all kinds of ways. But I believe because the spiritual community is the one area in society where nobody's allowed to critically review it. It's amazing how well, how effective patriarchal spirituality in its origins has been at preventing us from deconstructing. You just got to go on my Facebook wall, when I put up a post where I'm critically reviewing a teaching, and how many conscious people even, really people who've really done work on themselves say, "Oh my God. How can you do that. You have no right to critique that person's teaching. You have no right to critique that experience." They're OK if we critique politics. They're OK if we deconstruct legal decisions. They're OK with us critically reviewing religion, but not spirituality. And this is the biggest part of the problem. You know if we're going to move in the direction of an inclusive world we have to allow for the critical review of everything that is not inclusive and that really includes spirituality because spirituality is growing in popularity, religion is becoming less popular worldwide. And if we keep moving in the direction of this protectorate this nonsense about certain spirituality as being a sacred cow we're leading humanity away from inclusively while at the same time pretending that we're moving them in the direction of something more advanced it's not more advanced if it's not inclusive.  It can't be.  Neil Sattin  I suppose the one thing that really speaks to me in your writing is that sense of the imminence that you talk about being here, in the here and now, partly because I feel like that is really the place where relationship actually springs from at least springs from in its most, most healthy manifestation. You know, it's two people who are actually being fully here and alive to what's happening within themselves.  Jeff Brown  Right.  Neil Sattin  And, and. That's the thing that I think scares me a little bit about the spirituality movement is the way that it's discouraging people from actually feeling their full experience here with another human. Because that of course is what propels the growth that happens in relationship with another person.    Right. Well you know this is the trick of patriarchal spirituality to talk about the now, while leading you away from the now. That's the whole game. "The Power of Now," that's a very powerful sounding book title. "Be Here Now." Wow, what a powerful concept. But what are we really talking about we're talking about a notion of now-ness that is bereft of individuation. That is not connected to what I call the power of then, that is the true material that you're holding within your beingness unresolved, traumatic material, unresolved memories, unresolved events and experiences that completely inform your experience of the moment. Can you be fully in the moment if threads of your consciousness and threads that are somatically embedded in structure to defend and in armored ways of functioning, actually prevent you from being here in this moment? How could I be?  Neil Sattin  Right.  Jeff Brown  If I'm holding onto all kinds of stuff. And as a result of that early stuff I shallowed my breath. I pulled my head up and away from my body I tighten my hips, I rigidified my system, can I say that I'm actually in the now, in a full and complete sense? Of course not. So most of the people who are teaching now-ness are actually tricking you, they uh, or they're tricking themselves or both. They are the farthest thing from being in the moment because their version of the now is this patriarchal, cave dwelling, meditative absolute consciousness field, where you diss the self, you diss the story, you diss the ego you diss your body sometimes, you diss your feelings. All of that is an illusion, all of that is misidentified. But what's real is some version of the nowness where you're floating in the clouds scapes like we're birds or something? And you're having some experience of this absolute field of enlightenment, as though there is such a thing, as though we're not in process, as though it's not a relative experience? To me it's a big lie. So then people are going, "Wow, I get to be in the now." It gets... And the trick is we do get a little bit of relief when we get access to these techniques because they do pull us up but out of that worry-mind. Alright, I get that. But you have to look a little closer because then they go farther, they're actually taking you farther and farther away from your humanness and it's particularly dangerous for trauma survivors who really need to have a sense of intactness and integration and we're being led in the direction of dissolution of the ego, denial of the story, um, dishonoring of their feelings, all of it is unreal and untrue. And you know what,  what really got me going in this in 2013, someone I new on Facebook hung themselves after they'd bought into all these new cage and patriarchal notions of spirituality, fired their therapist and when their stuff kept haunting them in the middle of the night, they had nobody to turn to because now they had dissed all of that, and then they ended up hanging themselves and they announced it in advance, it was very clear what was coming. And I called the cops and tried to get them to go and they went and they couldn't do anything and then they hung themselves and that's when I really began to understand, and I'm understanding in my "Grounded Spirituality" discu-discussion group on Facebook. You hear these stories about how these bullshit versions of spirituality have damaged and destroyed lives, you know, and then you, you feel, I have felt compelled to find a voice that I'm not comfortable sharing in an effort to try to encourage us in the direction of a new spirituality not one that was fostered by men who couldn't admit their fucked up ness and had to go into meditation caves and convinced a village that they were the enlightened masters, that we're bringing great wisdom for twenty years sitting in a meditation cave being served by the villagers. That nonsense is ridiculous, that doesn't bring us into integration with ourselves or with humanity and now I think we need to move in the direction, as sacred activists, to bring ourselves into integration spiritually just like we're trying to bring everything else into integration.  Neil Sattin  Can you draw a distinction for me, between what, how what we're talking about is spiritual, and sacred, since you just used that word vs. just, I'm going to a body centered therapist healing my old traumas.  Jeff Brown  Mmmm, reframe the question?  Neil Sattin  So in other words. How is what you're talking about different than, like if I were able to go to see, I know Alexander Lowen is no longer with us, but if I were able to go with him, is that in and of itself a spiritual experience? Or is there something more that's part of the spirituality that you're talking about? The grounded spirituality.  Jeff Brown  So, so, I'll give you my Alexander Lowen moment because I was beginning to now to question the very beginning of, what is spirituality? So I brought it to him. I think it was in our last session I said, "So, Al, what is this thing they're talking about? About spirituality. What does this even mean?" You know, and he went: "UFFF." Like he was annoyed by the question and he said, he said, he said, "Going into your body, enlivening your body, getting your body grounded, and spirited. That's spirituality." So I think for me anything that we do that brings us into a more complete experience of reality, I would call a spiritual experience. I mean everything is spirituality. Spirituality is reality for me.  My opposition is simply to anything that's calling itself spirituality because of the way that I define it as reality. Those things that are only limiting our experience to certain elements of the human equation while dissing and disconnecting and boundarying themselves against the other part of it, to me are not actually part of the spiritual experience. So, the real spiritual teacher, if anyone is a spiritual teacher and really I say later in the book really nobody is. But you know for me somatic psychotherapists came closer to that because I felt that because they were taking me into my body and into the body of my experience and through that portal I had more access to a broader and inclusive experience of reality that felt more like a spiritual teaching than going to a non dual meeting and sitting in a Satsang, and accessing one very particular, elitist notion of what it means to be a human being while disconnecting from and dissing all the rest.  Neil Sattin  Got it. I'm wondering if you could offer one of the exercises from your book, so that our listeners can get a flavor for the kinds of experiences that we're being invited into.  Jeff Brown  Yeah, I have one called the excavation meditation. In "The truth is the gateway to the moment," chapter so I'll read that.  Neil Sattin  Okay great.  Jeff Brown  Great. Maybe you can do it, Neil. "Sit on a chair on the floor or on a cushion in whatever position feels most comfortable. While sitting do not close your eyes or focus your gaze directly ahead or above you. Instead keep your eyes opened and focus downward looking directly and with great curiosity at your body temple. Gaze at your body as you would a loved one. Begin to make contact with your breath, inviting it into awareness, feeling it move through you. First, start with gentle breathing as if you are gradually warming up. Then, invite your breath to move strongly and pointedly throughout your body infusing your body with life force, pushing into and beyond tightly held regions if you feel resistance do not hesitate or recoil. Breathe even stronger. If you feel emotions do not merely watch them as they float past. Instead immerse yourself in them deepen into feeling, inviting all held emotions and memories to be fully felt. Use the breath as an excavation tool. With your breath purposefully dig deep. Your aim is to bring repressed material to the surface, where it can be released and reintegrated. Allow this meditation to become a kind of visceral physical landscape of feeling and sensation. If there are tears, feel into and move them, to the extent that you can. If there's anger feel into and move it, to the extent that you can. If there are words or sounds express them fully. If you find yourself turning toward your habitual meditation style that includes a focus on the sensations of the body, return to the breath and intensify it. If you find yourself getting distracted by thoughts return to the breath and intensify it. If you find yourself wanting this exercise to end, return to the breath and intensify it, whatever arises return to the breath and intensify it. Your breath is your excavation tool and your guide. Now you are not just watching the body as it contracts and expands, you are fully experiencing and inhabiting the body, feelings, emotions, sounds, sensations, textures, roars, all and everything. Stay with this process until you have fully abandoned the watcher and have become a full bodied total experiencer feeling, moving, expressing and releasing as fully as you can."  Jeff Brown  So I think for me you know this notion of monkey mind was very interesting, you know, it was like, OK I've got a monkey mind and I, so, when I wrote "Soulshaping,"  I was kind of a little bit more in that version of spirituality and talked about the monkey mind, and then I began to realize that really it was a monkey heart. You know, that focusing on the mind, getting inside of the mind, witnessing the mind, having various meditative, meditative techniques within the mind itself didn't seem to get me anywhere. I was just sort of going into one part of the mind to try to calm down another part of the mind. It felt like a very safe and irrational way to go about it, because when I went down into the body when I opened the material in this this armored temple of mine, I excavated feeling. I excavated sound. I excavated the need to rage or cry or whatever came through me. At the end of those discharges, I felt as though my mind completely calmed down. So it seemed very clear to me that this notion, this patriarchal notion, that everything is happening up high, and the mind is to blame for everything, which seems to be at the root of almost all of those spiritualities, if you read them, they're always blaming the mind, seemed to me to be a very safe and convenient thing, it was like talking to Michael, it was like Michael was at a safe place, was like how women have been perpetually frustrated by men who haven't accessed their feelings -- it was all the same thing.  Jeff Brown  It was like a little boy who, who, who had pain and and didn't want anyone to know he was in pain so he, he picked up the Captain America shield and said, "I am Captain America," became a master. To me all of this mastering the mind nonsense didn't seem to get me anywhere. The only way that I ever changed anything inside of my mind really fundamentally was to change something inside of my heart and I think at the heart of patriarchal -- grounded spirituality is the belief not only that we live inside of the body, and through the body is a portal to all of it, but also that we understand the importance of clearing this emotional debris that obstructs our, our lense, that obstructs our presence. That makes it impossible-possible for us to actually be in the now. We could be in the now in a cerebral sense. We could be in the now in a tangible literal sense, but in a felt sense if we're not in the now we're not in the now at all.  Neil Sattin  So I'm sitting with all of your words and also just with my experience from being guided through that process earlier and. And it rings true for me on the show I've recently had a triumvirate of AEDP therapists. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that modality but it's, I wouldn't, it's not body centered, per say, but the whole focus in that modality is on healing early attachment wounds relationally, through, with your therapist and they, they bring this whole skill set of co-regulation that I've found really helps me access these deep places, these deep wounded places, and heal in relationship with another person.  Jeff Brown  Great.  Neil Sattin  And at the same time what that process is with those, with that therapy has helped me see is just how much I am carrying around at any given moment. And you know I'm 45 years old. I've got probably, at least 45 years of things coming at me crosswise and it's not that everything has come at me crosswise, there, I've had a lot of blessed experiences in my life as well.  Jeff Brown  Right.  Neil Sattin  But those crosswise experiences I wouldn't say that I had the proper support as a kid to really handle those big feelings and I don't think many people do.  Jeff Brown  Right.  Neil Sattin  And so the technique that you just offered with connecting with the breath and, and you know, I loved how it started and even though I read it in your book I still like, when you said, when you invited me into the exercise, first thing I did was close my eyes you know and then the next thing you said was, open your eyes, and it was just like pretty amusing for me. And, and then I felt like by going through it, it really did help me access something that's here within me now. And you know for me it was this sense of, "Oh there are some tears there." Like I said I've been going through some challenges right now, some personal discovery that that's been like really eye opening for me as I look back over the landscape of my life. And so here in this moment I was super present to some, some grief and, and it was mixed with love that invitation to be looking at my body temple, as you name it. I think how also helped me connect with not only the sadness I was feeling in that moment but also the love that I had for this vehicle, this vessel for my, for my earthly experience. So I'm, I'm really just appreciating I, I felt within me like, OK if I weren't sitting here talking to you for the purposes of having a podcast like there, there are real deep aspects of that experience that I could have gone into and that moment right.  Jeff Brown  Right. Right. And end of an end for all kinds of various reasons we, we don't you know or we can't. Even though I could probably easily hold the space for that. And as you could for me, I think. You know we our adaptations and you know survivalist tendencies and practical response, all that stuff. You know, one thing I understand, it's very simple in a way when I think about this thing called spirituality, is that everybody I've ever known as part of this human collective at this stage of human development is carrying an enormity of unresolved individual, very personal and ancestral material collected material and you know we approach this question of, What is Enlightenment? What is awakening? All these kinds of things. And it seems kind of preposterous to me, and I actually mean that with some compassion, that we try to answer these questions when we're not actually fully inhabiting our bodies. When we're walking around in these deeply armored and obstructed temples and then trying to ask the question, what has meaning? You know, what has, what is awakening. What does it mean to be an enlightened or enlightening consciousness? What is enrealment? All these things if we don't begin within clearing the emotional debris that obstructs us and affects our beliefs and our behaviors and our energies and our, and our relationships. I mean we see this all over the relationship field where at this stage of human development it's all most people can do to figure out who they are individually, let alone try to work it out with another person in the room for 30 years. I mean if you think about it it's a great miracle when two people can survive 30 years or even 30 days together given the amount of material we're carrying. And so for me and it's kind of simple. Before we go farther into the question of what is the most expanded consciousness, we need to clear the debris.  You know it's like trying to see what a room looks like when the room is completely filled with garbage, you can't. You can see the dimensions, maybe the size of it, but you can't really get a sense of that room. And I think that that's where we are. And I think that the more techniques we develop, not to pull us up and out, sure, for survival purposes. Sure, when we need to disassociate because sometimes we do, and I honor that and I've employed those techniques. I still do, I'm employing them right now in the last couple of weeks but at the same time until we start to develop takes to techniques, like Peter Levine's work, like Logan's work, that really bring us down into the truth of what we're holding not calling it a pain body like it's a car part, but acknowledging our tender woundedness and the tender woundedness of the collective. Finding ways to get into that material, to hold it safely, individually, collectively, therapeutically. Move it through so that it's resolved transformed whatever can be healed, can be healed, whatever can't be healed is managed. All of that, I don't think we even know what we're talking about when we talk about awakening. I think we're just full of shit to be honest.  And I think that's because we're literally are full of shit and we need to move that debris but before we can begin to access the truer and deeper questions of our lives.  Neil Sattin  How would you suggest someone know whether or not, because this, this experience of accessing, the, you know, let's say you rise above, you see the, the garage full of boxes and boxes of old stuff and then you're like, Okay, I'm not going to stay in this risen above state I'm gonna go back and I'm going to start cleaning things out, I'm gonna clean house. When do you think someone needs help and support in that realm? Because I think that's you know the illusion that we have about big feelings and this is, I think, part of the cycle is when we're young those big feelings, especially when we're not given a safe container for them. They do feel like they're there too big they overwhelm the system and our nervous systems aren't, they aren't essentially capable of handling them. So, so then we have this irrational fear as an adult that we can't move through them when in fact like going into a feeling like that it does... It comes on strong and then it does subside and leaves you in a better off place, at least that's been my experience. And yet at the same time, I also have this feeling that for some people they may need a container or someone who's there to kind of help hold the space for them to have those kinds of experiences and so how in your opinion how would I know where I was landing on that spectrum?  Jeff Brown  I mean, I don't know that you would. I mean a great many -- most people walk around you know living far distance from their body. Was that a line from I think it was, Walter Mitty or something: "He lived a fair distance from his body." Um. You know, I feel like what has to happen is this conversation has to be normalized and, within society. And I think it's beginning to happen and I think that it needs to begin to happen in the school system, where, there's some forum created for emotional attunement because we're talking about not being attuned at an early age for a healthy emotional release for supported release within the school, within the classroom, with teachers, with practitioners that are part of that. I think it has to happen in corporate environments where we learn how to attuned to and move material that's preventing us from being most effective. I think we need to have some kind of release chambers on street corners, where people can go inside and smash a cube with a baseball bat and normalize it, normalize healthy anger release, because it's, anger has been so deeply stigmatized that now all of it's restrained, repressed, and gets acted out in all kinds of weird passive aggressive, inappropriate ways. I think we just have to make this part of our every part of society so that attunement and release are normal and are considered to be healthy steps towards a healthy society. And, and then people will be able to gauge themselves. So right now you have people walking into a b- a body centered psychotherapist room who've never really enlivened their body. Who've been adapting, amoring in a million different ways. All they know is that consciousness. That's how they've organized themselves to survive in the crazy world and and then they have the super extreme experience of grounding, opening it. "Oh my God, what is this?" And many of them leave. Many people will go to somatic psychotherapy sessions and never do more than one, because it's, it's not normalized within society. It's startling. It's stigmatized and it's a radical experience of opening in a system that's been closed. So I think it's on all of us to create some kind of a reality where the conversation about how angry I am or I'm at level four in my anger quotient, or I've got grief at Level 2 or however you want to language it, begins part of our day to day conversation. So when people cry in a coffee shop people don't look at them and make faces. They come over and they sit around them and they hold the space for them. Those kinds of things need to happen. I believe they might happen and they are beginning to happen in some ways but not happening quickly enough.  Neil Sattin  Yeah. Yeah. I agree.  Jeff Brown  So you and I, so you and I are good examples. So you know it happens between people you know. I mean we're damaged in relationship and we heal in relationships, so here are you and I. I read the meditation not even thinking you might be having an experience of it. You have an experience of it. So then the question is how can I hold the space for that experience for you, so that you actually make some progress internally, resolutionally in a 10 or 15 minute period and model that to humanity and then as we model that to humanity, especially as men, which is so important to model this to men, in particular. And not only but in particular, then we begin to make progress.  Neil Sattin  Yeah. Yeah, I think that's really true. That's really true. And it feels true also in terms of my experience. You know when I take something like a moment like this and then go out into the world then I start feeling those innately, I'm putting, I'm making the little quote marks with my fingers, those spiritual unity consciousness type experiences and I think they emerge from being really deeply in touch with...  Jeff Brown  Your feelings.  Neil Sattin  Yeah. My feelings these real parts of me.  Jeff Brown  Yeah. This is... I'm not opposed to unity consciousness but I'm not interested in a unity consciousness experience that is limited to a transcendent field. I want my connection to the everything to come from the heart of the body itself and the emotional body. And then it feels like a more sustainable experience. And it actually feels like a more expansive experience for me. And I also feel safer because I haven't had to bifurcate my consciousness to have that experience. So now I'm afraid to come back down to earth and I'm going to crash at some point because you know I'm not bridging the two. If I start from within the body... So, so you know in interacting with Michael in the book was a kind of one of my struggles. It was like, what he's calling awakening or transcendence is something that's very different, may be very different from what I experienced as awakening or transcendence. Because I did it from within my body, my feet grounded on the earth plane. So are we even talking about the same experience? His feels flight, you're more kind of motivated by or intended in the direction of getting away from something, whereas mine felt like it was about really trying to be here for all of it. You know the real "Be Here Now" the one that actually starts within my body, not renaming myself, as Ram Dass did, but as Jeff Brown. Jeff Brown with Jeff Brown story. With my bubbie Frannie Perlove . With my grandfather Zeyta Deela Perlove.  Neil Sattin  I'm just laughing...  Jeff Brown  With my very difficult mother Barbara Brown. All of that is real. That is not not spiritual. That is so spiritual that's my lineage. That's my ancestry. That's my flesh and bones baby. And if I'm not in my flesh and bones there's no possible way I can access an awakening consciousness.  Neil Sattin  I'm just laughing because I'm thinking of the place in the book where you talk about Eckhart totally changing his name and then...  Jeff Brown  Yeah his name is Ulrich. Neil Sattin  Right. And then like if names aren't important, then why are people changing their names?  Jeff Brown  Yeah yeah. He's got this quote about like you know "formlessness over form," it's like, well you know, and "ego is the enemy of the sacred," whatever all these people are talking about. And then they change their names. Well clearly it's important enough for them to take on another name in order to disconnect from their birth -- their name of origin. And you know, I understand the purpose that serves it gives a lot of people a break from what it meant to be, their, their origins. But because their origins are them and their origins are encoded in their bones and in their cells. Changing the name can be a temporary reprieve. But ultimately you still got to come back down to do the work inside of "Ulrich Tolle" and, Ram Dass has to still do the work that is Richard Alpert and Ram Dass  wouldn't disagree with that, I think. You know and that's everywhere in the community. Bhagavan Das's real name was Kermit Michael Riggs. He's walking around carrying everything that's Kermit Michael Riggs. He can call himself whatever he wants, he's still carrying Kermit Michael Riggs and he is Kermit Michael Riggs. So I think you know, if we're going to go down into the body, into the feelings. And I realized because we don't have templates we only have a few models, a few techniques developed, it's very difficult to invite people in this direction because then how do we get them there to stay there because there aren't that many integrated models, most of what we've been calling spirituality is bifurcated and if you really look closely, even yoga was... If you look at its origins it's called "Yoke"  It means unity. But really what they're talking about is a version of unity that gets you away from and perfects the toxic body beast again. It's still dissociative. It's still the bypass. And what we need now and what I try to ignite and support in the call to action is: people, all the people, young people out there who were interested in somatic psych, a lot of them going into inclusivity, begin to co-create models that unite these various techniques that pull us up and out or in a way to look at ourselves through a more expansive lens, whatever we call it, with the desire to be deeply living within our body and healing the trauma that obstructs our consciousness. And finding a way to weave transcendence and imminence into the holy holy what I call a "We-stern" consciousness. The quest for unity consciousness and essence fundamental to Eastern traditions and the quest for a healthy self concept, and a work through, an embodied experience of the moment, that's more fundamental to Western consciousness. And when we find that weave, then we're really going to be here for our awakening.  Neil Sattin  So I'd like to spend. Our last few minutes together today bringing this into the realm of relationship. And what I'm thinking of is how, in your book, The Evolution of this starts with being in the body and and there are a few other exercises that you offer that are all about accessing what's happened, the material that's happening within you now. And then that leads to this place of that being able to fuel a sense of who we actually are, beyond who we think we are and and mining ourselves for that, the uh, I forget the term that you use for it. But for those aspects of us that are about who we are uniquely able to be in this lifetime in this body. And I think for a lot of people there's this question of their journey found them, let's say to this place of relationship with this person, and then they start wondering well how do I know if this is a true connection, where we can grow each other, versus one where we're just going to be trapped in our woundedness together? So I'm curious to know how you would connect this body centered awareness with that question of: Is this the right person? Is this the right choice? Is this like, is this the work worth doing? Because we have all our own material that's right there for us, and then we're in, we can be in choice about the material we want to work on with another human.  Jeff Brown  Yeah I mean, I mean so the distinction let's say between "woundmates" and "soulmates," or something. Yeah, I mean, I think that you know, I think one of the dangers of the therapeutic revolution with respect to the shadow work that I am encouraging people to do, is that we make the mistake of thinking that every trigger filled connection is worth our while. I don't believe that. That has certainly not been my experience. There, you know, there are certain criterion that would determine whether or not it's worth our while and whether it isn't. And one of the most obvious ones is whether both people are willing to do the shadow work, is the most basic level question, you know. Because if, if they're not if one of them isn't, then you have a problem. You either adapt your consciousness kind of lowest common denominator to the vibration of the person who doesn't want to do the work or you walk away. But even in an experience I've been in experiences where there was a willingness for two people, myself and the other to do the deeper shadow work. But the relationship was like a nexus for so many triggers, both very obviously, individually rooted in individual experience, and all kinds of inexplicable... You know it's so difficult to language collective, ancestral, familial material, that it didn't matter how much work we did therapeutically, there was no way it was ever going to become anything other than painful. And I do not believe that we need to perpetually live in suffering in order to become conscious. I mean, we have to do work within the pain material for sure. So, I think that you know as you move into this kind of consciousness, authentic relating more deeply attuned to your material and the others, you have to ask the question, is this the kind of experience where for whatever reason without having to judge it, perpetually, we're not going to be able to move our way through this to transformation in a way that feels healthy positive and forward moving? Or is this the kind of connection that has the hope of becoming what I call a "wholemate," you know a connection that really has that more subtle, essential, soulful quality to it. And the same time is grounded in the real world in the day to day life experience and also in the working through the shadow material in a way that's forward moving. And you have to always ask that question, because not every connection, even with the best of intentions is a connection that's going to allow you to grow and evolve.  Neil Sattin  In your book you offer "the beloved meditation exercise" and I don't think we necessarily have the time and space to go through that whole thing right now. But I think it's it's actually a great, it's a great way I think to explore that question from a centered place.  Jeff Brown  Yeah. And from an embodied place. Not as a concept. You know, I had a cousin who kept asking me if a relationship, every relationship he'd say he'd asked me if it was a fit. Like I knew I would say, well you know I'd say I don't know, how do you feel? He go, "Well I think..." And I'd go: You're not answering it from I think you keep trying it's not working you need to go into your body. He didn't want to go into his body. He was very, very detached from his body and only when he finally did have a forced, kind of a forced embodiment experience, as the trauma built and built and built into kind of like a breakdown. Did he actually come to access the answers that he actually had and always knew and always carried as to whether a particular connection he was in was a fit for him. It has to happen all of it inside the body so with the beloved meditation, my effort in a way was to try to invite people inside of that temple in order to ask that primary question whether or not that connections really a fit going forward.  Neil Sattin  Right. And it's questions like, now I have it in front of me: Is this person still part of my future? Are there still lessons we need to learn from each other? Or are we complete together? Are there lessons I now need to learn on my own outside of this present relational form? Are we meant to walk together in the coming moments? Or is it time to take leave of each other? I mean these are great questions and they have to be answered from a place where you're fully...  Jeff Brown  Feeling.  Neil Sattin  Exactly. Like if they're, if those answers are coming from a place of fear then we already know what the answers are gonna be.  Jeff Brown  You can, you can answer a question about whether someone's a fit for you from your mind if you want to do a practical pros and cons list or something. But if you're asking the question of how you feel you can't answer that question conceptually, you have to enter into that very scary terrain for most of us which is the emotional and physical body. And to me, they're kind of synonymous, and drop down into that and let your body tell you what your answers are. And that's why a lot of people remain stuck, you know, and then they go and they go to a workshop experience, that has in it a body component at the end of it they know whether or not to end their relationship or not, or to go deeper because they finally access their body which is very hard to do in our cultural, overstimulated, survive, by your wits, culture. We have to have an experience of the body in order to figure out what direction to walk in our lives.  Neil Sattin  Yeah and I'm... It's interesting for me. We, Chloe and I, actually have this whole practice of using muscle testing and kinesiology to to tap into the body wisdom. And at the same time, I'm, I'm curious to see how these deeper and deeper emotional excavations will inform the body's wisdom, when we're asking those questions.  Jeff Brown  Yeah. Yeah. There's such important questions and they're not just about relationships. They're about, you know, I use the term, "truthaches," in the book, in "Soulshaping," because there are many indicators we're off-path and the way we again determine that, is we do something embodied, whatever that happens to be. Osho's dynamic meditation, holotropic breathwork, some Somatic Experiencing work. You know, bioenergetics your core energetic sessions, core energetics is amazing also and something you know that allows you to really enliven the body and let the body speak its truth. It wants to. And that's what it's built for.  Neil Sattin  Right you've got to help your body speak, and then tune yourself so that you're actually listening to what your body's saying.  Jeff Brown  Right on.  Neil Sattin  Well, Jeff I really appreciate you're here being here to join us again on Relationship Alive to talk about your work the book, "Grounded Spirituality," is a fascinating journey of a book and I appreciate that you gave me the time because we were actually in dialogue about when to do this conversation, that you gave me the time to really explore it, and try things out and it was helpful for me in my personal life and in being able to have this conversation with you. Of course because it's a really long book we could talk a lot longer, but I think I always have that feeling with you honestly that there's, there's always more to say which leaves me excited for the next conversation.  Jeff Brown  Great.  Neil Sattin  So thank you so much for joining us here today. And if people want to find out a little bit more obviously, they can pick up the book "Grounded Spirituality," and how else can they find out about you and your work?  Jeff Brown  They can check out soul-shaping-dot-com, my older site. There's some course downloads and things there are lots of stuff to read. Soul-Shaping-Institute-dot-com. I've got a couple of writing courses coming up writing your way home courses and my new Jeff-Brown-dot-co, web site will be up soon. I'm very excited about that and start doing a lot more video, start a podcast and all that and just join me on Facebook and Instagram and there all the time and interactive. And thank you Neil. I appreciate your support.  Neil Sattin  My pleasure. And just a quick additional plug for your writing course. Those are all about using writing as a vehicle for healing and finding your authentic expressed, grounded voice, right? Jeff Brown  Absolutely. I hold a very tight and safe container for people to excavate their material and write through it, and bring it in the direction of healing without any emphasis on perfect writing or perfect grammar any of that stuff. It's... There are some people who do the course and don't join the Facebook private group and go off and write and write books and a number of my students have been published but the Facebook group component, which is about 60 percent of the student body for each course, is really focused on helping to support one another to just say and to express the things they've never ever felt permission to express before so it's a really beautiful experience.  Neil Sattin  Such important work. And again if you are interested in finding out more, you can get all the links to Jeff's websites etc. through the show notes page which you can get at, Neil-Sattin- dot-com-slash-grounded, as in "Grounded Spirituality, where you can text the word "Passion" to the number 3-3-4-4-4 and follow the instructions. And thanks again Jeff for being with us today.  Jeff Brown  Thank you Neil. Appreciate it.   

Neuroscience experts, practitioners, research and methods for making brain-friendly organizations and healthy individuals. Subscribe to Mind Your Noodles!   This is the sixth episode of the Mind Your Noodles podcast. In this episode our guest is author and neuroscience practitioner Christine Comaford. We discuss her SBM (Safety, Belonging and Mattering) Model, the difficulty of revenue inflection points and two tools to help employees aspire and own their own insights.   Show Notes [00:00:06] Mind Your Noodles Episode 6 [00:01:33] Christine's Story [00:09:21] SBM and the Brain [00:15:55] How the Brain Reacts [00:20:17] Looking for Role Models [00:22:16] Why Organizations Pull for Smart Tribes [00:23:54] Revenue Inflection Points [00:27:34] Two Tools [00:34:00] smartribes.com/ERA [00:35:07] Storytelling and Reframing [00:39:51] Emotional Change Takes Time [00:40:47] Start with the Willing [00:42:42] How to Approach the Organization - Smart Tribes Style   Transcript Tripp: [00:00:06] Take care of the brains that take care of you with the Mind Your Noodles podcast or we keep you up to date on the latest neuroscience research and practices to keep your brain healthy. And strategies to help your organization be brain friendly. Hi I'm Tripp Babbitt host of mine your noodles. My guest today is Christine Comaford. Welcome Christine.   Christine: [00:00:38] Thank you. TRIPP It's awesome to be here.   Tripp: [00:00:40] Well I got to tell you Christine. I've spent the last week like inside your head somehow I've been watching videos of your book The Power your tribe book which is your latest book. I've been to YouTube I read your Web site I got your mission vision values sitting in front of me. And so just kind of introducing yourself to guests and I also know that you're into story so people of of have listened to an episode by park how talks about the importance of story. And by the way it seems to be the only thing people in the neuroscience world seem to agree on is storytelling.   Tripp: [00:01:17] So I thought that maybe you could give us your story and tell us a little bit about you and how how you wound up doing things in the neuroscience world. And I'll I'll just shut up at this point.   Christine: [00:01:33] Got it. Thank you. So you know what we do first. First let me just make sure he understands what we do. So at Smart Tribes Institute what we do is could be considered Applied Neuroscience if you will. We take the latest neuroscience research and the stuff that's useful to leadership and we then map that down to very specific very practical tools and we'll be talking about and sharing some of those tools today. So we are in executive coaching firm organizational development. We do workshops consulting coaching. So we are always looking at what in neuroscience has been discovered recently what have we learned recently that is actually relevant to optimal teams to leading on a new level to applying tools to sales and marketing. So let's just kind of a quick look at context if you will. So. So when I was 13 I started studying different religions because I wanted to understand what's the meaning of all this. And by the time I got to 15 I had studied a bunch of the different religions and I said you know what I think that it's important to start to understand human potential and then it was called human potential. So I went to a program called est Earhart seminars training and they said Come back when you're 18 and I thought you know there's gotta be a way around this. So I got my parents to take EST which is you know a very and which was a very intense personal development multiple weekend deep dive where basically you're totally ripped down so you can then build yourself up internally in a new way. And my parents when they were good sports and then they wrote a letter so I could go.   Christine: [00:03:15] And I learned that life is meaningless. You have to create meaning in your life and you can. And we have full 100 percent responsibility for whatever happens in our life. And I was absolutely fascinated by that and I thought that is so great why don't I just you know take control of my life and run away and start my you know start my career. So it's a totally delusional. So then I was 16 I had a fake I.D. I ran away in New York City.   Christine: [00:03:43] Nobody questioned Tripp. The easiest way to make my fake I.D. was to go from 1962 to 1952 right.   Christine: [00:03:52] Nobody questioned that there was a 16 year old who said she was 26. I mean like there's a huge difference in appearance but nobody bothered. So I got to I got to work in a neuroscience lab then it was called a human potential lab. And so I was totally geeking out on wow what makes people do what they do. How do they form beliefs. Where do behaviors come from you know identity come from all the stuff was super interesting to me. So I started at 16 and I was totally like burnt out with the world and I like being an adult. And at 17 I took my vows as a Buddhist monk. So then I thought you know I'm going to check out the god angle because maybe that's. It's like it's not the religion angle it's actually doing it. You know celibacy vegetarianism you know vouchers.   Christine: [00:04:43] So I did that for seven years but while I was doing that I was teaching myself how to program computers. So I thought wow well this is actually kind of programming the brain which is the coolest computer out there. But let's also learn like how to program computers because sooner or later this month thing might not work out and I'm going to need a job.   Christine: [00:05:00] So because I was like going you know I think we need to go down and they were like No let's go up and out I'm like. I think Buddhism is going the wrong direction you know and they're like Oh   Christine: [00:05:12] So I was you know you know I want to go in and down and in the in the the branch of Tibetan Buddhism I was and they wanted to transcend transcend. I'm like Oh I think we could deal with our stuff first you know. So anyway ultimately I broke my vows and went to a different type of monastery which was Microsoft. And I fit right in. You know. You know socially inept and all that stuff. And so what we what I did was I kind of brought all the the the spirituality stuff and the brain stuff and there how people form their beliefs stuff. And I kept working on it. And you know ultimately I built a bunch of companies sold them or took a public and the whole time I'd been just going Wow. Human beings. There's a there's a vast universe inside of each of us like let's understand it you know cause like that's like the great frontier the Star Trek was talking about. So. So that's how it all how it all started. OK.   Tripp: [00:06:09] So Christina I've written down a couple of things here. One is under achiever and low energy.   Christine: [00:06:18] Slacker.   Tripp: [00:06:18] Oh my God you're killing me. All right. Well this is great. No. That's a great story. I do like that story. So here we go. Go ahead.   Christine: [00:06:29] So I mean that's that so. So now what we do is what's kind of cool is I retired at 40 because I was like OK I've done it I've done business I've done money you know I've done all these other things that I'm done. You know now I'm just going to like chill out and you know hang out with nature and and then my dad got pancreatic cancer and I've been by then I had been a hospice volunteer. I've been volunteering with hospice for 20 years now. Now it's 20 years I've helped 43 people die. That's why volunteer work that I do. And and I really thought you know what all these stories start to come up. So I want to understand my life like my dad is dying. You know I want to understand my life. So I started running stories and ultimately became a book and then it became a New York Times bestseller and then suddenly everyone's calling me and I'm Unruh tired. So I became unretired at it at like 41. So I kind of failed retirement. And I'm like 56 now. And just that's what we do now we help companies help their people perform at new levels with much greater engagement fulfillment satisfaction lower burnout lower stress. And people just get to see how awesome they are and the companies get to thrive and do really well. Everybody's happy the tools work great. And it takes a lot less energy you know. So that's even better. Like why get it done in 60 hours when you could do it in 40 you know.   Tripp: [00:07:58] Yeah. Boy Lot to unpack there. I feel like I haven't lived up to my potential after listen to you tell those stories although I know people like you.   Christine: [00:08:13] Well that was my path. Let me just say that you think it might not fun and glamorous now but it was freaking hard. I'm thinking about your parents at the moment. Yeah. Yeah they were good sports. My mom just passed away in October of 2018.   Christine: [00:08:28] And yeah we use these tools. You know I use these tools with Mom and Dad as they were going through their death process. So some of the tools that we're going to learn today because it just helps us shift into you know a different mindset where there isn't suffering you know. OK.   Tripp: [00:08:43] Well in the beginning of Power Your Tribe you start to get into the brain and this whole thing on SBT and I've read enough books now you know people some people are comparing the importance of social as much as even sustenance and Maslow's hierarchy saying that those are actually equal.   Tripp: [00:09:08] You know they're going so far as to say some things like that. And and you've got to start us out a little bit with the basics of the brain and the whole concept of this SBT and what that acronym is.   Christine: [00:09:21] Yeah. And actually the acronym is SBM safety belonging mattering. Okay. No problem. So. So this is just gonna be a super high level view of the brain in the context of leadership. OK so three key parts of the brain reptilian brain a million brain and neocortex that's where the prefrontal cortex is reptilian brain. This is our brain stem. This is where we have this is basically our stimulus response machine coded for safety. This is where we have life support systems breathing temperature regulation balance the reptilian brain doesn't understand quality of life. So if you touch something hot you'll jump away just automatically right your reptilian brain because it's keeping you not dead. It doesn't think of living or dead it thinks of dead and not dead. So pretty simple really pretty simple pretty darn primal. OK. So concerned primarily with physical life you know physical not deadness. OK next mammalian brain which is more our emotional. Our emotions are our emotional brain concerned with whether somebody is a friend or foe. A little bit more evolved than dead or not definitely but still a stimulus response machine coded for emotional safety.   Christine: [00:10:42] Now the limbic system the debris always talks about the fight flight freeze response is a series of areas of the brain and in my experience the try and brain theory it kind of overlaps the reptilian mammalian so it's not quite so clean as to say it lives there. But here's what's interesting and here's what leaders need to really know. The hippocampus the hippocampus in the mammalian brain which is responsible for learning and memory. It's in the emotional brain. OK so what does this mean. Companies will have like Oh I'll walk into a company. Oh what are your values. Oh just a sec and they'll start digging through their file cabinet I'll be like Wait you don't like. No your values by heart. No. I mean you know they change and they're kind of boring and you know so they're not emotional. So if we want somebody to learn something we want somebody to retain something. We have to attach emotion to it. Why. Because humans are emotional beings emotions to a human are like wings to a bird.   Christine: [00:11:40] They are how we navigate our experience in the world. And if we look at the research from Carnegie Mellon M.I.T. Stanford Harvard NYU UCLA we will see that 90 percent 90 percent Tripp of our decisions of our behaviors are driven are dominated by our emotional brain. This stuff is important we use our intellect and we think our intellect is awesome and it is but it's 10 percent of our decision making is 10 percent of why we respond the way we do. So anyway we got them a million brain and it's saying Friend or foe. All right next we've got the neocortex. Prefrontal cortex is part think of it like a like a bike helmet. Maybe it goes it goes kind of across the top of your head a little bit goes a little bit towards the back and the prefrontal cortex is right behind your head. The prefrontal cortex is where we have decision making vision language skills tool making discrimination that doesn't quite work for me judgment. We have the ability to say I'm here but I want to be there how do I get there.   Christine: [00:12:46] So if the prefrontal cortex could speak it would say What can I create so much more interesting than friend or foe or dead or not. Right. But but what we want then as leaders is all three parts of the brain working well together. So we get innovation creativity we have the level of safety that we need and when we have all three parts working together we call this the smart state. Now what happens though when we have lots of stress changing directives random acts of violence out there in the world crazy political climate you know all sorts of challenges out there in the world we often will go into what we call critter state like a little animal like a little critter stay for not dead or not fight flight freeze. Right. That's when we are in kind of reptilian mammalian brain lockdown. And when anybody listening has been under major stress you might notice that you don't have great ability to envision things. You don't have great ability to make decisions you don't have great ability with language skills et cetera because that part of your brain is shut down. So as leaders we want to get people in and keep them in the Smart State and we'll talk about some tools to do that today. Now to answer your question about SBM if we look at why we do what we do humans don't really buy products or services. You know what we're looking for out there in the world are one of three key emotional experiences safety freedom from fear certainty knowing people have our back belonging knowing that we fit in we have equal value we are loved we are cared for and mattering knowing that we are making a difference uniquely we are not a cog in a wheel we are a unique expression of our unique accomplishments are unique gifts are being recognized and seen.   Christine: [00:14:37] Achievement is here as well. So if you look at a company culture if you look at a country right. If you look at why elections swing to this side or that it's always due to safety belonging and mattering you can look at all the different models the SCAERF model the self-determination model it doesn't matter. It all boils down to three things. Why have seven when you can have three right. It's easier to remember. Okay. All right. Yeah.   Tripp: [00:15:06] So. So I thought that kind of comes into my mind and I guess maybe I start to look at myself. You know I spent my entire career learning things around statistics and a kind of engineering types of things Lean Six Sigma and all those types of things.   Tripp: [00:15:27] And one of the things that I've found over the years is that they can be totally ineffective unless somehow you're connecting. But I didn't have a method. You know what I mean. I didn't have a I didn't have a system to go through to be able to understand that the people I'm talking to needed safety belonging and all those things. Before I could even start talk to them about data and all of that is would you say that that's true. Pretty much across the board.   Christine: [00:15:55] Yep. If somebody is craving safety and they're not feeling safe. Think about when you've had that experience. Right. You're not super open to anything else. You're just trying to be safe. Right. Belonging if you feel like you don't fit in. You've had that we've all had that weird experience of Oh man I don't feel like I fit in I don't feel like I'm part of this group. Right. That's super distracting and unsettling and then mattering if we feel invisible. Gosh that's painful. You know how we're going to perform at work if we're not seen and we're not appreciated right ow ow ow. So as leaders it's really important to notice what somebody is asking for because when they're in critter state remember their prefrontal cortex is off line. So when they're in critter state they're gonna have certain behaviors that will clue you in that they are actually asking you for safety. So when somebody's in Critter state and they want safety because they're not experiencing it they're going to spread gossip and rumors spread fear. Talk about getting the heck out of here talking about exit plans. Right. Because their tribe is back to that adage you know misery loves company company they're trying to they're trying to reconcile how they feel inside and what the world looks like outside. So if everybody else is scared right then OK I'm not nuts. If somebody wants belonging and they're feeling like they don't fit in they will isolate drop communication withhold information. Right. Because they're not feeling that they belong with the other people. So they start to kind of affect belonging in those around them. So important in leadership mattering if somebody is in Critter state makes sense.   Tripp: [00:17:40] Yeah. Oh yes. It just takes me back to when I first time I was a manager I didn't know what I was doing.   Tripp: [00:17:45] You know you know and and you know 42 years ago I mean it was just kind of I don't know Game of Thrones yet to live.   Christine: [00:17:58] Yeah.   Tripp: [00:17:59] Where were you forty two years ago. Don't answer it. You know.   Tripp: [00:18:06] So let's let's finish up with mattering so with mattering if somebody has the behavior of condescension arrogance at the extreme extreme extreme mattering absence of mattering we can see bullying. So I want us to start to have some compassion when we see these challenging behaviors and instead of judging the challenging behaviors say oh wait a sec wait a sec. This person just wants safety. Let me sit down with them. Ask them how they're doing and see how we can give them some experience of safety. This person just wants belonging they're not being a jerk and withholding information they're not feeling connected to us. Let's go bring them back into the tribe mattering this person who is saying I'm doing everything nobody appreciates me this place would fall apart without me they're just looking for some mattering let's say hey wow I really appreciate your unique accomplishments you know you're unique gifts I really see as a thought leader Hey can I run some stuff by you because I really value your opinion. See we don't have to judge each other anymore. We can as leaders as leaders if we if we signed up to be leaders we didn't sign up to be taken care of but we signed up to take care of others and to help others rise up. We signed up to cultivate and elevate others. And if you don't want to do that you know leadership isn't your gig. You know I find so many people get surprised what is the take care by people what cause you signed up to be a leader.   Tripp: [00:19:34] You know that's interesting. It's. And I've been I guess I go back. You. We didn't have back in the day when I was a young manager knowledge of these types this type of thinking. I mean even the neuroscience community really a lot of the research has been done over the last decade. I mean some of that data certainly got more people you know running with those types of things. I wonder if it's how much do you think Christine that it is that maybe people don't want to be leaders because they see the leaders that they have and they said that I want to be like that ever. You know because they don't have a method they don't have this system to be able to break things down.   Christine: [00:20:17] Ok. I think that's a really good point. Yeah. I don't it's not a role model right. Hey well I don't want to be that if that's what leadership is. Give me the heck out. Here right now. Yes. And I think the more I hate to see enlightened look let's say aware conscious the more aware the more conscious we become we can start to look because we do have some good examples of leaders in the world. We have a lot of video kind of counterexamples Well I do want to be that but we have some good examples. You know we have Warren Buffett. You know we have you know we have a handful of people that can just say oh gosh that doesn't work for me. Use discernment instead of judgment. I'm going to go ahead and do this. You know we have a handful of people that are really making a difference. So everyone needs to kind of find who is their role model. And even if your role model is a character in a movie that is fine. No seriously Abraham Lincoln JF JFK I mean you know I think Meg Whitman is a great example of leadership. And you know we've got a lot of examples and I think you know Bill Gates has definitely mellowed over his years. You know back in the 80s he was not a great example of leadership. You know now he definitely is. You know Steve Jobs had his days for sure. You know we're we're hoping that Mark Zuckerberg is going to really turn the corner and you know become a stronger example of leadership. You know the line best is a little bit of a counterexample right now. But when he went along Musk manages his emotional state and gets out a critter state where he seems to spend a lot of time you know he'll be a great example of leadership. OK.   Tripp: [00:21:54] So one of the things I wanted to talk about here. Great conversation though I think this is great foundational stuff to be able to have the rest of these this conversation. But why do organizations. You know maybe just a couple of reasons why people come to Christine or you know Smart Tribes for help. Why do they pull for you.   Christine: [00:22:16] Yes yes. People come to us and one of two scenarios they want to grow and they don't quite know how to get to that next level. I mean they could keep doing it slowly creeping along but they either don't quite know to get all the way that they want to get. And you know if you need a jungle guide if you want to navigate a jungle you've not been through before because we've built companies up to seven billion dollars. And so that's a lot. Knows all that. That covers a big enough landscape for us and we've worked with guys at 1 million. But so how to actually get your people mobilize your people so that they can navigate growth and change. That's kind of the primary reason. And then secondary is when it's a turnaround situation you know or it's a integration situation. Wow. We're changing the direction of the company entirely and people are kind of freaked out or one of our clients. I mean gosh they've been they've been acquiring anywhere between seven and 14 15 companies per year. That integration alone of bringing all those people together. So it's navigating growth and change. You know it's called the executive summary. Now anybody who's doing that needs to help their people get to the next level.   Tripp: [00:23:34] You mentioned one of the things that I caught on it and you called them I think there are inflection points for.   Christine: [00:23:40] Oh yes. Type of thing yes.   Tripp: [00:23:42] Is is this a good place to talk about. Sure. I wasn't sure I didn't get enough. I may be out of the reading of the videos or I got confused so I thought maybe you could share with us what that means.   Christine: [00:23:54] Yeah and we totally geek out on revenue inflection points in our second book which is Smart Tribes. So yeah with power your tribe you're not going to see that much of it. Yeah. Power your tribe is more about human behavior whereas Smart Tribes is more about how to create a company and the structure of it so that people get in and stay in their smart state more. So we found over the past 30 years there are certain points when a company hits this revenue number it's a whole new company. And there are three things we've got to really look at the people and how we're caring for the people and helping them grow and align in a role and engage them the money how we're working through sales and how we're financing the company and how we're structuring operations et cetera. And then model business model you know if the dessert topping is a failure maybe we can make it into a floor wax. You know like how are we actually tweaking and adapting and shifting our business model to match the industry people money and model.   Christine: [00:24:54] So we've found we map it all out in Smart Tribes that revenue inflection points occur really profound ones at 10 million 25 million 50 million one hundred million 250 million five hundred million and then it goes generally with each billion or so. Once you get up to about five billion you know a couple more billion doesn't really change thing that things that much. But I want to I want to notice that anybody listening. What happens is if we don't take care of the people. Money and model components and we have this chart that shows you what you need to do in each of those areas. If you don't take care of those you won't navigate to and through that next revenue inflection point. I cannot tell you Tripp how many companies come to us and they are stuck around 25 30 40 million. They can't get to 50 million and they swirl around below that 50 million revenue inflection point or worst case they start to slide backwards. So you have to have the tools to get to the next level or you're gonna swirl or slide backwards because again how are you going to get somewhere that you've never been before you know if you don't know that the path if you will. So we have sort of four components. There's leadership there's influence there is navigating change and growth and then there's optimal teaming. And for each of those segments if you will and there are a one day workshop in the Smart Tribes methodology there are about seven tools one has six one is nine but there's an average of seven tools per per component. And some companies you know they've got there they're navigating change okay maybe but they aren't they'd navigate a lot better if they had stronger influence with their people or if their leaders were engaging in enrolling people better or their teaming isn't totally working and people aren't coming together and connecting. So there's usually an obvious kind of sign there.   Tripp: [00:26:59] Okay. So on those. So that's why they're swirling around this 25 to 40 million because they're deficient in one of these areas one or more of these areas is is that kind of what you find.   Christine: [00:27:09] Yeah. And it reflects in the people money or model.   Tripp: [00:27:13] Okay yeah. More specifically than that or more generally the people money model piece. Okay. Yep yep yep. Okay. Is there something else you want to say about growth because you're also involved in kind of helping companies with kind of their salespeople and so forth is there.   Christine: [00:27:34] Yeah. There are two things I want to focus on and I want you guys to learn two tools. So for starters what we really need to do in the workplace is we need to help people aspire. So we're cold and hungry now but we're go to the Ritz Carlton 24/7 room service Egyptian cotton sheets. So it's it's hard now but I see how great it's gonna be okay. Aspiration second is we need to help people have their own insights not leaderships insights that are handed down their own insights. So let's talk about a couple of tools then we'll talk about a sales and marketing tool. The first tool that is fantastic to help people have their own insights is called the outcome frame the outcome frame is a series of questions and the outcome frame starts with what would you like. So maybe we're looking at the problem let's start to look at the outcome that we would like. Okay. Oh and we can we can send you these images you can put them on the website so people can have a companion visual to go with this podcast. So question number one what would you like something you can create and maintain. I you know I'd like more strategic time. Okay good. Question number two what will having that do for you. What are the benefits how will you feel. Well I'll feel more engaged more energized like I'm really making a difference to the company I feel peaceful and powerful and proud and it'll be awesome. Question number three How will you know when you have it this is going to be the proof the criteria. Well I have more strategic time when I spend two hours or more each week on strategy and planning when I cut the number of meetings I attend by 25 percent when my direct reports are at leadership level five or greater.   Christine: [00:29:11] Okay great. Number four my favorite question what a value what that you value might you risk or lose what side effects may occur. Well to get more strategic time I might initially feel less important because I'll be less involved in the minutia I'll have to let go of some control maybe resist the temptation to rescue people. I'll have to oh shoot I'll have to invest time and cultivating leadership My people won't magically rise up I'll have to actually cultivate them. So question number 4 is there is the reason you don't have the outcome that you wanted. So because this Leader isn't willing to do these things they don't have more strategic time. Makes sense. Yeah well two more questions. Okay. Question number five where when with whom would you like it what I wanted it work. I want it with my direct reports I want it in 45 days. Okay great. What are your next steps. We've got to get specific here set up recurring meetings on my calendar for one on ones to cultivate leaders leadership and offload work. Determine what you need to skip implement Smart Tribes effective meetings and delegation processes. So we've got to actually spend about 15 minutes on this outcome frame to make sure that we are brain is. Firing the visual auditory kinesthetic possibly olfactory is many of the five senses as are possible. So we are stepping into that glorious future and test driving it. We're not fantasizing about it. We're saying wow what's it like in that cool future where I have this. Oh yeah I want this it's worth it. QUESTION.   Tripp: [00:30:48] Yeah. SO. SO WHAT I SEE built you building here is exactly what you talked about early in our conversation which is you're building this emotional foundation to be able to grow. Is that.   Christine: [00:31:01] Yes. Okay. Yes yes yes. And what's happening in your brain okay neural coupling. OK we're starting to step into this future dopamine Y. Right we're releasing dopamine we're saying oh this feels really good. Yeah. That that's going to start to motivate the reward oriented behaviors. If we're listening to somebody telling us a story you know the person who is hearing the outcome frame they're actually there they're going to start to mirror the behavior of who they're hearing and then cortical activity. You know we're processing facts were we're connecting parts of our brain that are called Broca's and Wernicke's areas we don't need to get on that boat but we're we're actually experiencing those sensory cues of of actually having that outcome so powerful so often I find people just look at the problem and they complain about the problem. Our job as leaders is to help them shift and focus on the outcome so please use the Outcome Frame for that. And we have to also look at how much resistance there is out there so there are seven steps to really BOOT build emotional resilience. First is releasing resistance because that way it makes room for more choice. So start to notice what the heck are we resisting. Resisting takes a tremendous amount of energy and now start to look at use the Outcome Frame. Oh but what what I like. OK. Number two we've got to start increasing rapport with ourselves.   Christine: [00:32:35] I call it antisocial media because it's not really helping people get more connected. What helps people get more connected and we know this from Alexandria Arabians research many many years ago is when we're with people physically we're seeing them we're hearing them we can touch them you know we're connected to them more deeply so increasing report yourself increasing report the others actually getting face time. Number three making new meaning start to notice when you get stressed and when you're on critter state start to notice what stories you're telling yourself oh he's so hard to work with Oh I don't like this and then do an Outcome Frame Well what would I like. We are meaning making machines and the stories we tell ourselves create are reality reality is what you say it is Shakespeare told us this ages ago there's nothing good or bad only thinking makes it so what are you thinking about something and if it's not working shift your reality and look at what you would like and start to create that name before anchoring the outcome that's more complex you're gonna need to empower your tribe to learn how to do that five enrolling and engaging others bring your safety blanket mattering they're six build tribal agility expand and keep that good change going seven. Expanding tribal power so safety belonging mattering we can use a lot four five six and seven.   Christine: [00:34:00] So if we start to notice how often do I feel good versus how often do I feel bad that will help us understand our level of emotional resilience. Everybody write this down go to Smart Tribes Institute dot com SmartTribesInstitute.com/ERA That's an emotional resilience assessment it's going to take you gosh five minutes and here's what's so cool about it as you answer these questions and then you're gonna get your answers displayed on the screen as well as emailed to you right away you're then gonna know what tools to use from power your tribe to give you a better experience.   Christine: [00:34:46] Yeah super cool super effective.   Tripp: [00:34:48] By the way I will put those in the show notes too so that people have a link to it.   Christine: [00:34:52] Okay great. And I will give you the outcome frame image and then the emotional resilience image. OK cool.   Tripp: [00:34:59] All right so we're in growth and we're talking about the outcome frame and you've given us several things to think about there and the resistance.   Christine: [00:35:07] So those are the two things that you need for growth then well releasing resistance helps you then focus on the outcomes that you want. Okay. Okay. It's not it's not quite that simple but that's a starter. Okay. You know Navigating Growth and change You gotta look out for the emotional state right to safety belonging mattering. We want to make sure that we teach everybody to tell to tell news stories that we're telling a story that doesn't feel good. A lot of companies think about this in your experience. Tripp we've all done this. I have definitely done this myself. Think about when you have belonged with somebody around pain when you have belonged with somebody around maybe complaining about something right. That's what you have in common. So you get together and you complain about stuff. So you belong with each other. I want people to start looking at how we create belonging around things that are not actually empowering. So start to look at how do I connect with others around what topics are they expansive and positive and growth oriented or are they contracting and negative and do I feel sort of drained and discouraged afterwards because I want us to start to notice that we can shift that once again. What's the story. Basic reframing. What's the story we're telling ourselves. How does it make us feel. How would we like to feel. What's the story that we would need to change there. So in reframing I want us to start to notice daily as leaders one of our clients will give me an example.   Christine: [00:36:44] One of our clients they they had a really bad quarter who really and they're a public company. So they got smacked by the stock market really bad quarter. Everyone's all freaked out and the CEO gathers every together and says Hey everybody. What an educational quarter we just had. So it's not like gloom and doom. Layoffs are coming blah blah blah. No. Wow what an educational quarter we just had. We learned three key things. We learned that we had lost touch with our customers. They want upgrades to our product more often. We have learned that we have competition that we didn't take very seriously. They're nipping at our heels. We need to innovate faster. We need to increase our expand our product lines. And we learned actually that we have a handful of advocates that we've been ignoring. So in this next quarter we're going to tackle those three areas. We're going to get back on top. How great that we learned these lessons. And yeah it was painful but we got him we got him. Now let's take this next quarter and Rocket. Susie Q is going to own this initiative. Bob's going to own that initiative. Juan is going to own that initiative. Boom everybody knows what team they're on. Let's rocket instead of Oh my God it's a scary bad quarter. We're gonna do layoffs we suck and get.   Tripp: [00:38:08] This is actually a good segue way into kind of my next question which is kind of the purpose of this podcast is I come from a background of systems thinking which I know you're familiar with because I read where you talked about Peter Senge he and why you probably your mission vision and values just together.   Tripp: [00:38:28] And so so one of the things that that is part of actually my method which I call the 95 method is mostly about having method which can be so so in other words if I've got so far as I'm I to you talk you go for these things for growth for innovation there is this mindset that needs that you need to have but when you have that mindset you still need a method correct. I mean in order to.   Christine: [00:39:00] Oh yeah.   Tripp: [00:39:01] So. So from a method standpoint I do a podcast with a gentleman by the name of Doug Hawes worked with Disney and Procter and Gamble and Nike and and companies similar to you actually.   Tripp: [00:39:15] But he just focuses on innovation. He's the he's the big idea guy and an end-to-end system for. For doing it. And you know as I hear you talk. Lot of things I think I'm trying to get to is because I'm so method oriented and you play a method for kind of the brain is how how do we design in some of the stuff to build a brain friendly organization. How how how do y. Yeah you did so so that it's in need into the way that you've got your company designed.   Christine: [00:39:51] Ok well I have to tell you it doesn't happen overnight. And what we do when we do our leadership acceleration program is it's for one day workshops eight webinars. Thirty micro learnings which are a little short baby videos that people share with their teams and it takes about a year and a half. Mm hmm. And then the culture is absolutely transformed and I have to go forward before you know the outliers. Yeah we have had a few enormous companies where it took two and half to three years because it was enormous and we were transforming thousands and thousands of people.   Tripp: [00:40:25] But you still have the mindset began that that I heard and one of your videos I believe. Yeah. You talk about you know sometimes we just go in an organization will start with a team just a game. Yeah. So you see you're kind of breaking you're breaking down the elephant and if I get to you the whole elephant I go to it one by the time. So you're still taking the approach of let's start with an area or something like.   Christine: [00:40:47] Yeah because you've gotta it is sometimes it's too big to eat the elephant right. And so a client will come to us and they'll say OK help us with this you know group leaders and we'll start to see positive change and then everybody else would go Hey what's going on over there. How come you guys are knocking it out of the park and nobody else is you know let's figure this out let's do this. So what matters is that we we take this wherever people are receptive and we start to build a groundswell. So bottom up can often work better than top down you know because if it's top down at a huge organization. So when Procter and Gamble brought us then they had us work on their Latin American sales division. Great. I can get my arms around that. No problem you know. And we taught them a bunch of tools for connecting more deeply with our clients. We talked about safety belonging mattering for the client but we also taught them about Meta programs you know how do we step into the shoes of our client and actually feel and and understand the experience our client has having so we can message to them more effectively so we can connect with them more effectively so we can build trust much more quickly so we can actually have a profound meaningful connection instead of just you know we don't want a one off sale who wants that. You know we want a profound meaningful connection with our clients.   Tripp: [00:42:11] Ok so from your standpoint it's it's a it's kind of these classes that you have in order to to kind of build the brain friendly organization because you are in essence taking them right from where they are today. Yeah I'm trying to say OK. Because that what applies over here to Procter and Gamble isn't going to necessarily apply to Nike because they have different systems if you will. So you have to take them kind of. From that spot.   Christine: [00:42:42] Well we'd just Sec. They have but they have humans. Yeah. So we always look at what the business challenges and you know like the top three business challenges. That's where we know where to start. Okay. We're gonna start with optimal team stuff that optimal teams tools. Oh we're gonna start with the influence tools over here. So we look at what the what the greatest opportunities or challenges are at the company. And that's the tools that with that we start with you know and sometimes they just want transformation in that one area so they'll only get the tools in that area and that will be enough you know or they'll come back to us a year later hey you know we're ready for for some more tools. The way that these really get ingrained and this is why we have the workshops then the webinars in between the workshops and then the micro learnings so everybody in the company can watch a five to 10 minute video for each of the tools and learn that you know there are 30 to micro learnings you know the average bear in the company if they want to learn these tools they can't you know it's a scalable way to do it. And you know it can also be a great tribal thing where people come together in the lunch room and they watch one of the videos and they practice with the tools and then we give our clients all of the graphics and you'll walk through the halls of some of our clients and you'll see or at least in the meeting rooms you'll see our key infographics describing the Outcome Frame or myelin Asian or maneuvers of consciousness or reframing or cultural game plan or safety blocking mattering. You know you'll see our different diagrams. The emotion will you'll see better programs you'll see these these graphics so that people remember to use the tools because it's really helpful to have them in our environment.   Tripp: [00:44:22] All right very good. Let's now get a kind of interim phase here and we call it kind of the hot potato phase which is fitting. So so I am deeply embedded in the philosophy of W. Edwards Deming which we kind of emailed back and forth a little bit about and sectors I wrote some things down and it just there. There are things I'd be curious what your perspective is on. And the first one of that I want to talk about with regards to Deming philosophy is this concept of drive out fear. So one of his 14 points was drive out fear and you write about this in Power Your Tribes which is you know there's a lack of trust in in order to drive out that fear. Can you come in a little bit about how you drive fear out of organizations.   Christine: [00:45:13] Yes and fear. I find that many leaders you know are scaring their people into mediocrity. And we're scaring them and sending them into critter state. Not intentionally but we're scaring them with incomplete information with not making it safe to experiment or fail. Right. Public beheadings. We're creating fear by not having open clear communication having conflict avoidance is a great way to create fear. Having unrealistic perpetually unrealistic deadlines where people just can't do that much work in that short of time. Changing directives. Oh no we're not doing that anymore. We're doing this well nobody told me and I'd been doing that for two months. So we create fear and a lot of ways. But it primarily boils down to communication which is why that's our first corporate value. You know our company if we have if if human beings have clear explicit communication. In my experience you can get through anything. Okay.   Tripp: [00:46:26] All right. Yeah. I like that and obviously there's a ton of stuff in here about how to mitigate that fear in your book. The second one or another one because I got many but it would just get through a few of these. But there is the mindset of that we're all taught in the Deming philosophy ninety four a five percent of performance comes down to the system that you work in and one of the things I had trouble with early on is this kind of. There seems to be there's a component of neuroscience it's very individual the focus is on the individual. They're the problem they're the they're the focus of it as opposed to the system.   Tripp: [00:47:08] Now the system includes the individual. You kind of see where I'm going with this question. So. So I'm trying to reconcile. Yeah. He's from a Deming philosophy standpoint as Deming wrong because I'm open to that you know from a perspective of could have we learned enough to say it really is the individual and not the system and there are there. There's a lot more to that obviously to unpack but I'm not gonna do I just kind of want to hear what your initial reaction is to that.   Christine: [00:47:37] Yeah well but the individual is existing within a system.   Tripp: [00:47:41] True. yes.   Christine: [00:47:43] And that system is affecting the individuals. So so if we look at I mean for us we use six logical levels of change and that's sort of the environment the system that's happening in an organization. And if we look at the symptoms that are occurring we can understand where to change the system got it. So you know the environment physical emotional you know mental space I walked into a company a while ago it was an open floor plan and you just you walked in there and I was I was uncomfortable even breathing. It's like people were so uptight about being absolutely silent. And I was like This is ridiculous. Human beings aren't absolutely silent. You know and people were emailing each other and of just reaching over and talking to each other. It was e-mailing people like right next door to them. So you know there was just kind of this tense weird environment and you can have an open floor plan and do it really well. And so environment behavior what we do a person's or a company's values really define our behavior. That's why it's important up good values that people understand because it's the code of conduct or company values capability. Those are skills our tools are abilities you know how are our capabilities growing by being part of this system. Beliefs decisions you know meaning that we make about things outside of us. They are. It is you know the world is that the market is our customers our identity the decisions that we make about ourself right the meaning that we make about ourself. I am powerful I am valued I am capable I am safe I belong I matter. And then core you know the most sacred thing to the company and you know it's not profits. The most sacred thing to the company is like how that company is making a difference on this planet. Like why should we bother working there.   Tripp: [00:49:38] That's good. No I think that as I've helped organizations you know write Mission Vision Values nowadays. There are three components that I believe that it has to have. And one of them I just added in the last probably eight years which is the first one is customer some concept of customer some concept of innovation because of the rapid pace of change that we're facing in disruption that we face today. And then the third one is the one that you just talked about which is the greater good. How do we get you know how do how do how do we tap into that now. What do you think as you were talking through that kind of made a note and maybe you can help me with a a name for this. You know there's a say in in your your talk about the system I'm thinking in terms of maybe it's more because I have an engineering type of mindset brain which is the mechanical methods the Six Sigma the statistics you know those types of things versus the emotional system. And I you know that kind of you kind of added that by virtue of what I read while I was listening to you and there's probably a better name than mechanical but I'm just trying to come up with some type of label but that you're talking about that if we're going to affect 95 percent of the performance of a system we have to also account for the emotional system.   Christine: [00:51:01] Yeah. And here's the thing. I'm all for measurement yay measurement. But if we don't enroll and engage people they aren't going to use the measurement type systems.   Tripp: [00:51:14] Agreed. Yeah.   Christine: [00:51:15] They'll mock them. They'll skip them et cetera. And they will be all for naught.   Tripp: [00:51:21] So here here's another one that I wrote down that is just you know it's upsetting but is layoffs.   Tripp: [00:51:33] And you talked about in one of your videos you talked about exile and and people being exiled from there you know from organizations or from their countries. Right. That was the worst thing that could happen to you. And now I have this series of layoffs and we're creating did we have this culture now we're going to lay off this this person one of the things that Dr. Deming talked a lot about is you know there are reasons for. Companies have to lay off if you're in the financial dire straits and it's either sink or swim. I get it.   Christine: [00:52:04] You got to do it I guess.   Tripp: [00:52:05] I think where people have difficulty today is they see the dividend go up and oh I was laid off because they were able to build a new building or to raise their dividend or you know do something that a point. And Dr. Deming was a big advocate of before you do layoffs. What's first of all talk about did the leadership take a 10 percent cut in their pay.   Tripp: [00:52:28] You know sometimes where you're having an actual leadership you know what I'm saying that hey oh well we just had to do it and we just. And there seems to be this unemotional or this you know method and having been an executive and had to lay off people I can tell you it's it's very emotional. Oh yes. Not only to you. For you know why you're doing it but. And you're basically giving the marching orders right to took that you're going at the last people but the only reason to be is because you know find out that the CEO wants a new helicopter or once a week or something like that.   Tripp: [00:53:00] I think that's where we're you know as a culture or as a society we're starting to to push back on those types of things. What are your thoughts how do how do you write are you put into situations like that or do you then you get to the point where you're so in the growth and navigating growth and all those types of modes that you don't really come up against this.   Christine: [00:53:24] Oh no we come. We come up against layoffs we come up against terminations you know for non-performance you know or God forbid you know for epic cause you know I mean these are humans right. With humans you get the full spectrum of experience. If there are layoffs we have to have. We have to have. We have to have an explanation that is fair and makes sense. And you know sometimes a division is closed you know a product line is discontinued you know et cetera. But here's the thing when we lay people off we have to have a clear communication about it that actually makes sense. But then we also have to honor their contributions to the firm. You know so you know we're discounting continuing such and such product line. We haven't been able to find an internal job for Joe. So you know Joe Joe and his team you know will we'll be let go and we want to thank them for all the contributions that they made. And we're going to celebrate those contributions are going to do all that we can to outplace them to help them find their next adventure and we're gonna help them with their resumé or whatever you know. But yeah I mean just this is business. So I want to make sure that.   Christine: [00:54:37] We're balancing it's business and we have to run a a profitable healthy business that makes a difference in the world. And that does sometimes mean that people have to be let go for a variety of reasons. You're not going to have a culture with high employee retention and high employee engagement. If you're doing random layoffs that don't have stories that make sense.   Tripp: [00:55:05] Good answer. I'm going to ask one more question then I'll get to my last question. Great which is around who does and rewards one of the things that Dr. Deming railed against was the concept of quotas versus rewards. And as we've seen like with Wells Fargo and a number of other companies over the years Sears I think with their automotive repair business too. But you don't have to look far too tough to find bad behavior with regards to how those drive certain behaviors within organizations. How do you we know rewards people want rewards. Right yeah. I I've I've read in your book where you've talked about the emotional is greater than than the reward that you get. And and people are more involved with winning career path and public recognition that then rewards. But just that this this concept that you know especially in the US to be win because of Deming came back to the U.S. from Japan it's basically boy rewards are killing us here. You know there people are doing dysfunctional things to hit their quarterly goals so that their price will go up. Those types of things how do you how do you what are your thoughts on that.   Christine: [00:56:20] So I do believe in rewards and consequences and consequences just you know if you drop the ball there will be a consequence there won't be a punishment there won't be a shaming you know but there will be a hey you know Are you OK you know and walking through we have four questions that we walk people through. If somebody you know has an accountability challenge and they drop the ball. But but I find you know one of the greatest problems with quotas is that people don't provide what these sales people for example truly need in order to meet their quota or worst case scenario they actually cap it. You can only make so much commission which is insane because if you have a salesperson that wants to sell like crazy let them you know why would you ever want to mess that up. So I think we like to use needle movers that the minimum acceptable performance because you have to tell people what you expect them to perform you know where how you expect them to perform the minimum acceptable. Rawlence The target is what you want them to hit. The mind blower is wow you know if if we can hit this number that's really amazing at NYU. Emily Balcetis actually did some research at NYU where she also used three levels of goals if you will.   Christine: [00:57:34] She called it something like easy moderate and impossible. I don't like the word impossible because I don't think that it's actually Tripp. But what she found was the systolic blood pressure which is our our readiness to act was so so on. Easy OK high on moderate on the middle one that we would call target and then a little bit lower on the one that she called impossible. So what does this mean. This means that our focus and our readiness to act works is stronger when we actually have three goals three levels of a given goal barely acceptable. What we really want and will if we knock it out of the park. Because when you have this you're going to get the what we really want. One of the middle but goals are often set in a binary way achieve this you know or you're in trouble. And the brain doesn't like that the brain can actually we perceive goals as spatial as psychological as physical. The way the brain deals with goals. So when we have these three levels we can actually move. If you look at what's happening with people who use these three levels we actually move the perception of that goal closer it feels easier and we can imagine achieving it more effectively.   Tripp: [00:58:51] Okay. And just that just to come in I know Dr. Deming comment with regards to quotas what is our targets even is, "By what method?" So you know and I think that's you we're getting there. There's probably a longer conversation associated with that but that because that's guess that's a good start. So my last question to you Christine is this Is there anything that you during the course of our conversation that you'd like to make some clarification of. Or is there anything that I didn't ask that you wish I would have more.   Christine: [00:59:22] Good for now. Ok. But the executive summary is leadership is a privilege it is our great good fortune as leaders to have amazing people to work with so please invest in your people look at their emotional experience help them. The better emotional experience so they can give you the performance that you want. Everybody wins.   Tripp: [00:59:43] Fascinating stuff. Please get Christine Comaford's latest book Power Your Tribe. We appreciate you being a guest on Mind Your Noodles.   Christine: [00:59:53] Thank you. And if you guys want to get our regular tools that we send out monthly go to work with s t i. Dot com and you'll get little goodies from us every month. Work with SETI dot com.   Tripp: [01:00:08] Very good and we'll put that in the show notes also. Thank you again Christine.   Christine: [01:00:11] Thank you.   Tripp: [01:00:12] Bye bye.  

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="432" caption="Holankia Talkshow is BACK!"][/caption]OK I've been away for about a month for podcasting. And hopefully I'll be doing more of this in the near future. Hehehe. But never the less, life is good and fortunately for me I had the privilege of having both Larry and Luke on tonight show.Host : HolankiaGuest : Larry & Luke NyantiQuote for the day : "So they don't actually play a guessing game, by stab here and stab there" - Luke NyantiDownload Here