Shows
The Heart of SoulSelf-Authority: There and Back Again (HOS128)Today, I’m joined by Eric Grace and our special guest, Frank, to discuss his journey of EBE which began way back in the days of 1.0. Topics include why the collapse of the first version of the paradigm was a good thing, cultic dynamics, how a paradigm can’t evolve if it’s protector mediated, how Sagehood and Personhood work can co-exist, the nature of healthy authority dynamics, and more.And I have a secret. The podcast event of the season, episode 129 of the Heart of Soul with Stace Barron back in the saddle, is already dropped, but on...
2025-05-161h 24The Heart of SoulNarcissism, Altruism, Mutuality, and Clear Thinking (HOS126)Today, I’m joined by Casey Keth and Eric Grace to discuss the paradigms of Trillium and Waking Down, how narcissism and altruism are two sides of the same coin, and another exciting edition of Guess the Guru.Thanks very much to our new podcast members for being early adopters. Our first members-only second Sunday will be May 11, and we’d love to have you if you’re not already a member. If you want to support the podcast, the paradigm, and yourself by hanging out with us in a two way conversation, and can spare 5 bucks a mont...
2025-05-021h 44The Heart of SoulThe Gift of Suffering & How Puppets Can Help (HOS125)The gift of suffering, soul age and consciousness capacity, transcendence, the enneagrammatic roots of Islam and Christianity, among other things.Thanks very much to our new podcast members for being early adopters. Our first members-only second Sunday will be May 11, and we’d love to have you if you’re not already a member. If you want to support the podcast, the paradigm, and yourself by hanging out with us in a two way conversation, and can spare 5 bucks a month please become a member. I’ve got some new infotainment material I’m saving for May 11 to dazzl...
2025-04-251h 58The Heart of SoulEmbracing Existential Not-Knowing (HOS124)To tip us or become a member please visit: clearandopen.com/hosToday, I’m joined by Casey Keth and Eric Grace to discuss the wounded existential not-knowing, the loss of will, yin and yang in service, among other topics.And I have a big announcement to make, we’re going to try something new. Our audience has been growing and we’re getting more and more questions, which we hugely appreciate…and I’m getting busier and the podcast is starting to feel a bit out of balance. Of course, we love doing it, but it doe...
2025-04-182h 03The Heart of SoulEmbracing Existential Not-Knowing (HOS124)To tip the podcast or become a member: clearandopen.com/hosToday, I’m joined by Casey Keth and Eric Grace to discuss the wounded existential not-knowing, the loss of will, yin and yang in service, among other topics.And I have a big announcement to make, we’re going to try something new. Our audience has been growing and we’re getting more and more questions, which we hugely appreciate…and I’m getting busier and the podcast is starting to feel a bit out of balance. Of course, we love doing it, but it does co...
2025-04-182h 03
The RadicalistIlya Shapiro on Illiberalism and the LawDavid Josef Volodzko speaks with Ilya Shapiro about constitutional originalism, Supreme Court reform, political bias on the bench, DEI in our courts, Shapiro’s scandal at Georgetown Law, free speech on campus, the illiberal takeover of legal education — which is the subject of his new book Lawless — and much more.Shapiro is a constitutional scholar and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute whose work focuses on free speech, higher education, and the justice system. He is also formerly the executive director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, vice president of the Cato Institute, and director of its Ce...
2025-03-2952 minThe Heart of SoulLet’s Play Guess The Guru! (HOS108)Hi, it’s Josef and thanks for listening to The Heart of Soul Podcast. Today, deconstructing a passage from an enlightened teacher and making Stace play “guess the name,” (you can play along at home!), the seduction of shakti, and why sexual abuse happens so commonly among neo-Buddhist teachers.And just a quick reminder, coming up soon in Eric Grace’s clubhouse: Soulful unfoldments w/Eric, Josef & Gertrud Wunschmann. We’ll be exploring what it feels like to be here as our soulful selves while fielding & responding to questions from members of the audience on Clubhouse in the Wholly...
2024-11-291h 27The Heart of SoulTime Travel, Simulation Theory, and Roe v. Wade (HOS84)Hi, it’s Josef and thanks for listening to The Heart of Soul Podcast. You have to listen to the very end of this one to see how Stace magically ties together time travel, simulation theory, and the abortion issue. It’s a meta piece de resistance without any meaning in content for why they go together. Rabbit holes include the limits of brain-based consciousness models, the diagnostic delusions in western medicine, and why it might be good for you (and not just me) to be so frustrated with bad customer service that it makes you cry. Thank...
2024-02-021h 33The Heart of SoulHow To Understand Everything (HOS82)Today, the secret to understanding everything. Finally, the answers you’ve been looking for! Of course, understanding alone won’t lead to fulfillment and questions are far more important than answers, but our topic today, the metaphysics of metaphysics will help you quite a lot if you can learn to see reality through this lens.Also, we’re taking a break from recording at least for the rest of December. Stace and I both need some time off, but rest assured there’s plenty more to come. If you’re jonesing for a podcast, I do have another on...
2023-12-091h 31The Heart of SoulAstrology, the Enneagram, Rage vs. Healthy Anger, and More (HOS60)Today is a special episode as it has our first guest, which we hope to make a regular occurrence. Christine joins us with some very thoughtful and heartful questions. We discuss the difference between the birth and conception signs in astrology and how that relates to the primary and and integration enneagram types, the emotive causes of physical disease, the difference between anger and rage, what happened in 2012 at the level of the Divine, and of course, much more.If you’ve got questions and would like to be a guest on the show, just ask. You ca...
2023-06-301h 38The Heart of SoulMoney in an Age of Willful Subjectivism (HOS57)We introduced the topic of money back in episode 28, carefully parsing out Edenity’s definition. We revisit the topic today and address money in the subjectivistic social, political, and economic contexts of today.On June 17, 2023 in the Clubhouse App, our friend Eric Grace will host a gathering of EBE ensoulmentors to talk about Edenity and answer questions for participants. That will be at 10:30am Pacific Time on Clubhouse in The Wholly Human Club. Stace, Brie, Eric, myself and others will be there. When we get together, very interesting things tend to happen so I hope you can ma...
2023-06-091h 28The Heart of SoulWhy God Won’t Fit Inside Your Mind (HOS56)What would happen if everyone on the planet were to experience God directly? What would have to happen for that to be possible? Why have philosophers spent thousands of years trying to prove the existence of God yet failed? Today we discuss these and other existential questions, including the limits of reductionism, the real definition of a false god, the difference between religion and spirituality, how zen creates attachment to unattachment, and much more.On June 17, 2023 in the Clubhouse App, our friend Eric Grace will host a gathering of EBE ensoulmentors to talk about Edenity and answer...
2023-06-021h 28The Heart of SoulThe pandemic of fear, unconsciousness, a non-vaccine, and a bad flu (HOS55)All episodes are now available on YouTube! You didn’t ask for it, but we have to do it: Edenity’s take on the COVID 19 pandemic. Of course, it’s over (I saw it on television) and you’re tired of hearing about it, but I promise you’ll hear a fresh perspective. In addition to this, we’ll assign the six things that make us crazy to the six chakras, as well as the thirteen qualities of an Edenist. Stace only brought eight of these to the episode, and we brainstormed a couple more on the spot, and fil...
2023-05-261h 12The Heart of SoulWhat Plants Don’t Know About Being Human (HOS53)Hi, it’s Josef and thanks for listening to The Heart of Soul Podcast. We’re back from our break and dive spontaneously into the increasingly popular subject of shamanism, a topic with which I have a lot of firsthand experience. We cover both the allure and power of shamanism as well as the risks and limits from Edenity’s perspective. This discussion includes the critical pre-trans fallacy brought to us by philosopher Ken Wilber, how plants understand universal but not personal love, revisiting the difference between energy and emotion, the dangers of etheric parasites, and much more.On J...
2023-05-121h 20The Heart of SoulWhere Your Soul Came From (HOS42)In today’s episode, a three part series on soul species begins. Surely one of the most fun aspects of Edenity, Stace and Josef give you descriptions of each soul species along with celebrity examples so you can begin to identify them yourself.Please listen to this podcast from the beginning and in order. Thanks for listening.
2023-01-131h 43
Manage to EngageMatt Niblock: Hiring & Recruiting - Part 3 - Creating a Good Candidate ExperienceTo close out our first guest series, Matt Niblock shares how to identify the best candidates for the long haul in a high-pressure job and how hiring managers can create a good candidate experience — which doesn’t always mean making the candidate comfortable, although any good job interview should still be a safe space for truth. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on Apple Podcasts.
2020-09-0717 minManage to EngageMatt Niblock: Hiring & Recruiting - Part 2 - Fight, Flight, Freeze, or AppeaseMatt Niblock returns with more hiring and recruiting insight. We’ll walk through the early stages of the hiring process, touching on some common mistakes that people make along the way, when the hiring manager should push back against applicants, and how the idea of “gut meets data” that we discussed last week can be applied in practice. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on Apple Podcasts.
2020-08-3120 minManage to EngageMatt Niblock: Hiring & Recruiting - Part 1 - Where Gut Meets DataEvery organization has to deal with hiring and recruiting. So it’s funny that so many of the people who are responsible for hiring have little to no idea what they’re doing — even though there are experts out there who are happy to tell you exactly what works. Experts like Matt Niblock, VP of Employee Experience at Phase2, who has been working as a recruiter since you had to mail or fax in your résumé. And in the first part of this three-part interview, Matt will introduce us to some recruiting best practices and how hiring m...
2020-08-2431 minManage to EngageThe 5 Stages of Engagement & Accountability - Part 3 - Productive Failure & Finding FlowIn the final episode of this series looking at the five stages of engagement through the lens of accountability, you’ll learn what keeps most people from achieving flow for more than a few fleeting moments of their life and how you can get closer to achieving flow — if you’re willing to put in the work (or, paradoxically, stop working so damn hard to get there). Take the course: The Accountability Path 2.0 Learn more about the Five Stages of Engagement model: Ep 90: The Five Stages of Engagement – Part One – Cris...
2020-08-1726 minManage to EngageThe 5 Stages of Engagement & Accountability - Part 2 - Mediocrity Vs. ExcellenceIn the last episode, we reviewed the first three stages of engagement: crisis, survival, and security. Most people get stuck in those first two stages, engaging with a chronic stress response that makes upward momentum seem insurmountable for most of their lives. And if they eventually reach the stage of security, it can feel so comfortable that they settle in. But for those of us that don’t want to settle, or for those of us that don’t feel comfortable with security, there are two more stages: Thrival and Flow. In this episode, I’ll talk...
2020-08-1023 minManage to EngageThe 5 Stages of Engagement & Accountability - Part 1 - Stress & SecurityIn this series, we will be revisiting the five stages of engagement — but this time, we’re going to examine the model through the lens of accountability. If this is a new concept for you, you won’t be lost starting with this episode, but you can find a more foundational introduction to the model back in episodes 90 to 95. Links below. Take the course: The Accountability Path 2.0 Learn more about the Five Stages of Engagement model: Ep 90: The Five Stages of Engagement – Part One – Crisis Ep 91: The Five Stages of Engagemen...
2020-08-0315 minManage to EngageCOVID-19, Your Ego, & You - Part 4 - As Simple As “I Don’t Know”A fair warning before going into this episode: it starts on a pretty emotional beat, and it might be a little triggering for anyone who is currently being overwhelmed by feelings of grief or loss. However, if you can listen through that, I think hearing the participant on this coaching call walk through her feelings can also be a healing experience that helps you process those emotions, as we discussed in the last episode. This experience of working through grief also serves as a microcosm of the spiritual journey that I first discussed in part...
2020-07-2716 minManage to EngageCOVID-19, Your Ego, & You - Part 3 - Processing EmotionsOver the last two episodes, we’ve clarified the content of our reaction to COVID-19 and the context of that reaction — the content being our egoic emotional reaction and the context being the perpetual state of not knowing. But getting to the point where you can hold both of those simultaneously is difficult. It doesn’t feel natural because it’s not common in our society, but our minds are actually well equipped to process these emotions and move beyond them. We just have to learn how to let it happen. So, in this episode, you’ll l...
2020-07-2016 minManage to EngageCOVID-19, Your Ego, & You - Part 2 - The Context for COVIDIn the last episode, I asked a question: What happens if you experience your experience from something other than ego? If you think about all of the things we don’t know about what the future holds, about how things will (or, unfortunately, won’t) change as parts of the world re-open amid still-growing COVID-19 cases, and you experience that through our egoic reaction, then you will probably experience some degree of fear and anxiety. For some, that anxiety and fear of the unknown can be crippling. But if you find the center of that “I don’...
2020-07-1323 minManage to EngageCOVID-19, Your Ego, & You - Part 1 - The Content of COVIDWe’re doing something a little bit different for this series of episodes. While the format won’t change, we’ll be directly addressing some recent events: the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent worldwide economic shutdowns. The effects of the pandemic are ubiquitous and — as you’ve likely read many, many times already — unprecedented. Economically and emotionally, relatively few people will come out entirely unscathed. But, at the same time, there’s a spiritual opportunity. So, over the next four weeks, I will illustrate why this sudden disruption represents an invitation to wake up to reality...
2020-07-0616 minManage to EngageAccountability: A Teacher - Part 4 - Abiding with TruthWhen you strip everything else away, accountability boils down to abiding with truth. The truth, however, can be a bitter pill to swallow... at least at first. When you start to experience the benefits, though, you grow accustomed to the flavor. You even come to like it, to seek it out, as you develop a true sense of self-mastery. So, to finish this series on accountability as a teacher, I’m going to share some more examples of what it looks like when the truth presents itself, looking at the results people get when they abi...
2020-06-2924 minManage to EngageAccountability: A Teacher - Part 3 - The Accountability PathOver the last two episodes, we’ve established that the cause of all human suffering is resisting change. Life is kind enough to tell us when something needs to change, often gently at first, but it is persistent. If you ignore the letter, it’ll leave you a call. If you ignore the voicemail, it’ll come to your door. Accountability will make itself known. And any act of resistance is just childish. That’s the content of this lesson. In this episode and the next episode, I’ll be providing some context around how you can ap...
2020-06-2216 minManage to EngageAccountability: A Teacher - Part 2 - You Are Not Your ThoughtsWhen you experience pain, when you repeatedly endure the same suffering, that’s reality asking you to participate. That’s the highest form of accountability. Some of us will just wait for the acute pain to pass and move on without doing anything. Some will actively seek out a distraction, which is abundantly easy in this world of ours. Others will change superficially, change what they’re doing in an effort to get a different result. But when life is pushing you to change, you can’t just change your actions — you have to change your self. A cr...
2020-06-1524 minManage to EngageAccountability: A Teacher - Part 1 - The Cause of All SufferingBefore you get into this episode, I encourage you to pause for a moment and consider the answer to this question: What do you want and how is life telling you to change to get it? Really, take a couple of minutes and think about your answer. Interrogate yourself. This will help you actively engage in the discussion and get the most out of not just this episode but this entire series on accountability as a teacher. If you aren’t willing to do that, this series may not be for you. This isn’t a qu...
2020-06-0827 minManage to EngageReal Curiosity - Part 4 - Surrendering to Radical CuriosityOver the last few weeks, we’ve established the value of engaging with life through a curious lens and how people show up differently as managers when they express curiosity. We also established that the main obstacle between you and a more curious life is fear. In this episode, I offer you some tools you can use to start overcoming the obstacle of fear and deconstructing the egoic conditioning that covers up your innate curiosity. And as a final reminder, this series was taken from the epilogue to the CLEAR Thinking course. If you want to...
2020-06-0120 minManage to EngageReal Curiosity - Part 3 - Curiosity Kills the Cat?How many times have you heard someone say, “curiosity kills the cat?” That is the way our society depicts curiosity — it’s a risk. So, even though we’re born innately curious, society quickly teaches us to stop. As a result, we tend to overcorrect and we transition from curious beings to fearful beings. That’s how most adults operate — chances are that’s how you, reading this right now, operate. But the simple fact that you’re listening to this show means that your conditioning hasn’t completely covered up your curiosity, so that’s a great first step t...
2020-05-2519 minManage to EngageReal Curiosity - Part 2 - The Opposite of FearLast week, we started a conversation about curiosity, real listening, and asking questions, and we established that good managers don’t just look at the content of the questions they’re asked — good managers also consider the context in which a question is asked. This is an expression of real curiosity. And in this episode, we are going to look at how people express both fear and curiosity in their lives — and, critically, how that expression relates to the ways in which they engage with life... or don’t, as the case may be. This episode is...
2020-05-1815 minManage to EngageReal Curiosity - Part 1 - Listening Really WellThis is the first episode in a four-part series exploring the critical importance of curiosity, how you can start approaching life with real curiosity, and how you can help the people you manage do the same. This conversation is an excerpt from the final session of the CLEAR Thinking course. If you want to take this extra time at home as an opportunity to start living more intentionally, you can find the full 11-week coaching seminar at clearandopen.com.
2020-05-1118 minManage to EngageConsciousness and Conditioning - Part 3 - Deconstructing Your ConsciousnessIn the last two episodes, we discussed how your identity consists of your conditioning — and why the conditioning that most of us received was inadequate. So, why do we cling so tightly to this conditioning, even institutionalizing it? Because, deep down, we’re afraid of losing who we are. This is a reasonable response from your lizard brain, but it’s holding you back from evolving your consciousness, which is really my goal with Clear and Open. The pursuit of consciousness is the lifelong pursuit of deconstructing who you are and what you believe so that y...
2020-05-0414 minManage to EngageConsciousness and Conditioning - Part 2 - The Root of the World’s ProblemsWe’re all trained that, if we can learn to hold and process information better, we can become a more intelligent human being and, as a result, become successful. This conditioning puts us in the situation where we perpetually feel that, if we can just get one more piece of information, we can solve our problems. But this has no reference in reality — and this shared delusion is causing way more problems than it’s solving. Today, we’re going to look at an alternative: how consciousness, as opposed to intelligence, can be used to solve just about an...
2020-04-2728 minManage to EngageConsciousness and Conditioning - Part 1 - The Nature of ConditioningWe’re going to start this three-part series with something that’s probably become pretty familiar to long-time listeners: a quick rebuke of the Western educational system. We’re going to look at how one of the beliefs and assumptions at the core of our education system not only doesn’t help us but actually sets us all up for lives full of overwhelm. Pretty much every single one of us experienced this same conditioning as a child, but it’s not doing us any favors now that we’re adults who don’t have to regurgitate information to...
2020-04-2026 minManage to EngageEngaging in Disengagement - Part 4 - Surrendering to LifeIn the last episode, I introduced the concept of engaging with disengagement (to both you and myself, at the time). And that’s not just a step towards getting what you want — that process of inquiry, that working on why you’re not working on something, is what you really need. The journey is the destination. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to see that when you’re still early in the journey, but my goal with releasing this coaching call is to guide you towards that perspective. Although I can lead you to the water, you still have...
2020-03-3013 minManage to EngageEngaging in Disengagement - Part 3 - Working On (Not) Working On ItOver the last two episodes, we’ve been talking about the internal conflict we feel between growth and comfort, between “I don’t wanna” and “I wanna” — and we’ve established that these conflicts are man-made, not some inherent aspect of being. The easiest way to see the conflict for what it is, two sides of the same coin, is to develop a healthy obsession with whatever you’re conflicted over… but developing that obsession is not, in and of itself, an easy thing to do. However, there is a path of inquiry you can follow to get there...
2020-03-2313 minManage to EngageEngaging in Disengagement - Part 2 - Struggling Self-Discipline Vs. Healthy ObsessionIn the last episode, I asked you to consider those moments when we feel like there’s an internal conflict between growth and comfort — between the ‘I wanna’ and the ‘I don’t wanna’ — a misleading conflict brought about through social conditioning. We’re told to muscle through these conflicts with self-discipline. That’s a big part of the hustle mentality that’s taken over a lot of the conversation in the entrepreneur space over the past few years, and that’s probably something you were told by parents and teachers growing up. You just won’t want to do some things so...
2020-03-1623 minManage to EngageEngaging in Disengagement - Part 1 - A Misleading ConflictEvery single day, you are likely presented with an internal conflict — do I do the thing that’s hard but rewarding or do I do what’s easy? Over and over again, we weigh the relative advantages and disadvantages of growth versus comfort. It can feel like two different parts of ourselves are competing for our attention, and we’ve been trained that it takes self-discipline to overcome the part that just doesn’t wanna do it. But what if that social conditioning, that version of self-discipline, is a narrow and limiting way to perceive this intern...
2020-03-0919 minManage to EngageHow Everything Is True - Part 4 - How to Use CLEAR Thinking in Your LifeTo close out this series on How Everything is True, we’re going to make CLEAR Thinking more practical. And to start, I want to break down the term “CLEAR Thinking” a little further. CLEAR Thinking is thinking that is critical, logical, evidence-based, analytical, and reality-based. This is serious, productive thinking that actually changes you. This is a valuable skill because literally every single thing you do begins is a thought; thinking is the software that dictates how your biological hardware operates. So, as you practice CLEAR Thinking, you are better able to control the very th...
2020-03-0215 minManage to EngageHow Everything Is True - Part 3 - Questions for Self-InquiryOver the last two episodes, we’ve established the value of being willing to advocate for any belief, even if that means putting yourself in the shoes of someone who subscribes to a truth that deviates from your own. Today, we start to examine the questions that you can ask yourself to practice this particular brand of self-inquiry. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on Apple Podcasts.
2020-02-2413 minManage to EngageHow Everything Is True - Part 2 - Equal Opportunity AdvocateWe start today’s episode with another student advocating for an idea that they consider to be untrue — and this one’s a doozie. So, why are we doing this? Why are you about to hear someone make an argument in favor of a flat Earth? It’s because I want you to understand that what we were taught about the value of strong convictions is misleading — being convicted in your beliefs and being willing to advocate for them passionately isn’t a sign of good character or a considered perspective. And if you’re rigid...
2020-02-1715 minManage to EngageHow Everything Is True - Part 1 - The Root of Unclear ThinkingThis series on How Everything is True builds on a lot of what we discussed in the previous four episodes on How You’ve Been Conditioned to Think Unclearly. So if you haven’t listened through that or need to refresh yourself on what Transjectrivism is, you might want to go back and listen through those because we will be looking at truth through a transjectivist lens throughout this series. These series are both parts of the CLEAR Thinking course, which is now available online at clear and open.com. CLEAR Thinking, by the way, is reflective and i...
2020-02-1026 minManage to EngageHow You've Been Conditioned to Think Unclearly - Part 4 - TransjectivismThe rapid rise of extreme subjectivism — which we’re still experiencing, and it’s really impossible to tell when we’ll reach an inflection point — has led to the rapid death of critical thought. We can see it everywhere, especially on social media. So, today, I offer you an alternative to either objectivism or subjectivism, a philosophy I call Transjectivism. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on Apple Podcasts.
2020-02-0324 minManage to EngageHow You've Been Conditioned to Think Unclearly - Part 3 - The Erosion of Critical ThinkingIn the last episode, we traced the historical development of how Western society shifted from extreme objectivism to extreme subjectivism. It’s easy to adopt a subjectivist or objectivist perspective on the world, and both perspectives will provide you with the comforting illusion of understanding reality as it is, at least for a while — but both perspectives are inherently flawed and life doesn’t support false beliefs for too long. So, in this episode, we’re going to look at how this conflict is still developing today so that, next week, you have all of the cont...
2020-01-2712 minManage to EngageHow You've Been Conditioned to Think Unclearly - Part 2 - What You Weren’t Taught in History ClassWe spend a lot of time memorizing people and events and dates in school, even some big ideas, but we rarely learn about what those things actually mean to us — and that context, that perspective, can be quite meaningful and useful. So we start today’s episode with a look at the history of objectivism in Western society and how the ideological homogeneity seen in many societies ends up creating these illusions of absolute truth, illusions ultimately used to secure power and control people, that still permeate through the collective unconscious to this day. Then we’l...
2020-01-2020 minManage to EngageHow You've Been Conditioned to Think Unclearly - Part 1 - Subjectivity Vs. ObjectivityThis series on how you’ve been conditioned to think unclearly comes from a course that I started last year called CLEAR Thinking. My goal with both the course and this series is to show you how to wake up to reality and begin to understand how your mind works...and how it doesn’t work so well. This series begins by examining the tension between objectivity and subjectivity that occurs as a result of both the nature of the human brain and cultural conditioning. Your mind is constantly filtering its experience (an inherently subjective activity) to vali...
2020-01-1319 minManage to EngageNavigating Resistance - Part 3 - You Don’t Choose Life’s LessonsLife is your teacher, and life doesn’t care about how happy you are. Life doesn’t care about how comfortable you are. Life is fundamentally about your resistance to change, and it is conspiring with the universe to push you towards embracing, looking at, and healing your resistance to change. So, if you are experiencing significant suffering or pain, pay attention — that’s life providing feedback and trying to teach you. And as I have mentioned throughout this series, you are not qualified to turn your nose up at the solution a teacher offers if you don’t tr...
2020-01-0620 minManage to EngageNavigating Resistance - Part 2 - Your Relationship to ChangeYour job, then, as a person who wants to grow and evolve, is to learn how to track your resistance and make yourself optimally helpable. That means tracking your excuses, tracking your BS, tracking your laziness, and most importantly, tracking your fear. This is true if you are a student, an employee, or anyone engaging in the practice of self-management. So, today, I invite you to start earnestly examining the iceberg between where you are today and where you want to go. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for th...
2019-12-3028 minManage to EngageNavigating Resistance - Part 1 - The Unconscious ObstacleImagine there is an iceberg between where you are now and where you want to go in life. Typically, we’re taught that the obstacle between you and your goals is a lack of knowledge or skill — but that’s just the bit of the iceberg you can see above the water. The real obstacle is underwater, unseen and generally not talked about. But the act of overcoming this obstacle is also the key indicator of an individual’s success and fulfillment, both in business and in life as a whole. In this three-part series, I will b...
2019-12-2330 minManage to EngageDeep Practice - Part 4 - Using Deep Practice to ImproveTo close our this series, I am going to take the concept of deep practice — a relatively easy concept to understand when put in the context of learning something like a new instrument — and help you connect it to the inquiry and meta inquiry required to grow as managers and people, which is a slightly more esoteric but incredibly valuable and fulfilling skill. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on Apple Podcasts.
2019-12-1618 minManage to EngageDeep Practice - Part 3 - The Talent MythThere’s probably no better argument against the very idea that talent exists than a talent show. Similar to the idea of an “overnight success,” we are really only seeing the byproduct of hours and hours of effort, failure, and persistence. Yet, our practical mind, audacious as it is, manages to convince us that the practice required to become “talented” or “an overnight success” isn’t rewarding. Finding what you’re talented at and pursuing that sounds so ideal, and the reality that these people are just well-practiced forces us to confront the difficult path to attaining what we want, what...
2019-12-0923 minManage to EngageDeep Practice - Part 2 - Defining Deep PracticeOver the next four episodes, I’m going to introduce you to a concept called Deep Practice. And to start, I’m going to address how we were conditioned by our parents and schools to attain knowledge… and that’s about it. This works when we’re being evaluated through papers and tests, but it’s a shallow form of learning that fails us in the real world. Because, while knowing about something is a necessary first step, most of life requires skill and awareness — and your knowledge about something just isn’t going to help you.
2019-12-0213 minManage to EngageDeep Practice - Part 1 - Conditioned to Understand, Not BeOver the next four episodes, I’m going to introduce you to a concept called Deep Practice. And to start, I’m going to address how we were conditioned by our parents and schools to attain knowledge… and that’s about it. This works when we’re being evaluated through papers and tests, but it’s a shallow form of learning that fails us in the real world. Because, while knowing about something is a necessary first step, most of life requires skill and awareness — and your knowledge about something just isn’t going to help you.
2019-11-2519 minManage to EngageMaturing Beyond Your Ego - Part 3 - Doing The WorkIn this episode, you’ll hear how one member of the call applies the self-reflective tools we discussed last week in their own life and relationship, which you can then use to model your own self-reflection. Then you’ll learn how to apply these same ideas and tools as a manager so that you mentor others towards maturing beyond ego. As you listen to this episode, remember the questions that we discussed last week from Byron Katie’s The Work: What’s the thought that you’re holding onto...
2019-11-1818 minManage to EngageMaturing Beyond Your Ego - Part 2 - A Healthy DistrustAt some point in your life, you have almost certainly experienced pain or suffering as a result of trying to get what you want. And as you learn from this pain, over and over again, you start to practice self-reflection; you start to realize that some part of yourself is steering you in the wrong direction. This healthy distrust of yourself is a key moment in the maturation out of ego — it’s when you start to understand and experience the separation between yourself and your ego. Today, you’re going to learn...
2019-11-1113 minManage to EngageMaturing Beyond Your Ego - Part 1 - The Final Stage of MaturationThe ego gets a bad rap, but it’s essential to both our personal and societal development. We should express gratitude for and acknowledge the good that our egos bring. Our egos got us where we are today. But we also need to understand that they will not get us where we want to go tomorrow, both as individuals and as a species There’s a final stage of maturation that many people never see, maturing beyond the ego, but it isn’t talked about in any mainstream way. So, even if this i...
2019-11-0419 minManage to EngageManaging with Inquiry 101 - Part 4 - Not Knowing as a PracticeThis our last episode in this series about self-inquiry and not knowing, and today, I’m going to show you how to start creating a practice around not knowing. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on Apple Podcasts.
2019-10-2811 minManage to EngageManaging with Inquiry 101 - Part 3 - Knowledge, Skill, & AwarenessIn the last episode, I shared a conversation about how our education system is built on the knowledge deficit model. It’s the idea that whatever problem only exists because you’re missing some knowledge. So, later in our lives, when we bump into a problem — whether it’s a problem with the world around us or ourselves — we first try to solve it by finding that little piece of knowledge that we’re missing. We look for blogs, podcasts, and books, accumulating knowledge just like we were trained to do in school. But, eve...
2019-10-2118 minManage to EngageManaging with Inquiry 101 - Part 2 - The Meta-Good PlaceIn the last episode, I discussed how our schools and society condition us to put a premium on knowing. Our identity forms around what we think we know about the world and ourselves, and we are afraid to reveal when we don’t know; it feels antithetical to our very being. As a result, it becomes uncomfortable to sit and face the truth of not knowing — and most of us are never trained how or why to not know, so we just continue avoiding it. In this episode...
2019-10-1420 minManage to EngageManaging with Inquiry 101 - Part 1 - The Discomfort of Not KnowingYou go to school. You’re presented with a whole host of topics that you know little to nothing about. Then, over the course of about twelve years, teachers repeatedly shove information down your throat, evaluating you based on your ability to regurgitate that information. Twelve years later, you know things. At least, you think you know the things that you were told. You’re taught that you can overcome just about any problem through this process of knowing. And you were lied to. In this four-part series...
2019-10-0721 minManage to EngageExcuses, Excuses, Excuses - Part 4 - Embracing Real ChangeSometimes, there really are systems put in place that make our jobs more difficult; there really is an external force causing some of our problems. However, even in these situations, the solution is the same or similar to what we’ve been discussing over the past three episodes: you have to muster up the confidence or courage necessary to make yourself uncomfortable and talk to people about why those systems aren’t effective and how they should be changed. It’s time to embrace real change at every level of your life and...
2019-09-3021 minManage to EngageExcuses, Excuses, Excuses - Part 3 - Managing ExcellenceWe’ve spent the last two episodes exploring why the questions we ask when we are experiencing a problem are really just excuses – and how we can, instead, turn the mirror on ourselves to find real solutions through radical honesty. It’s not easy. In fact, it’s downright uncomfortable most of the time. But it’s necessary... if you want to evolve as a person, at least. Today, we’re going to learn how you can apply this as a manager of others and yourself, including a brief discussion on the origin of...
2019-09-2319 minManage to EngageExcuses, Excuses, Excuses - Part 2 - Replacing Excuses with IncusesLast week, we talked about how most of us tend to use excuses to not just avoid real change, but subconsciously self-sabotage our lives. Today, we’re going to dig even deeper into the language of excuse and why we should endeavor to replace our excuses with “incuses.” I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.
2019-09-1619 minManage to EngageExcuses, Excuses, Excuses - Part 1 - Inviting Radical ChangeWe spend our lives looking out into the world for solutions to almost every problem. Need to lose weight? I’ll try that new diet that worked for my friend. Feeling overwhelmed at work? I bet there’s a good productivity app I’m not using. Didn’t like a new movie? They ruined my childhood. We’re always looking outside of ourselves, making excuses instead of searching for solutions – when, really, we should be looking internally if we actually want something to change. So, today, we’re going to expl...
2019-09-0913 minManage to EngageBusiness without Busyness - Part 3 - Mediocrity Vs. Just Good EnoughIn the last episode, I asked you to consider where you are cluttering up your life in the name of busyness. Now, what is the minimum that you could do to have the same impact? What is the minimum effective dose of your time and energy? Your busy mind may try to convince you that this is an exercise in laziness, but that’s precisely the mindset and conditioning that we’re trying to get beyond – this is the kind of work you need to do to get beyond thrival and achieve...
2019-09-0214 minManage to EngageBusiness without Busyness - Part 2 - The Minimum Effective DoseIn the last episode, I made what may seem like a bold claim: busyness very well may be what destroys us as a species. But I’m not exaggerating. Busyness makes you stupid; It clutters your mind, and when your mind is cluttered, you don’t think as effectively, you’re not as conscious, you’re not as aware, and you don’t take as good care of yourself. We’re all just doing doing doing. It’s not healthy and it’s easy to see. There’s some acknowledgement of this in society today...
2019-08-2619 minManage to EngageBusiness without Busyness - Part 1 - Busyness Makes You StupidOver the next three episodes, we’re going to get back to the basics of busyness and recuperation. We’re going to analyze why we, as individuals and as a society, put such a high value on being busy, both consciously and subconsciously. Because when we tell ourselves we’re busy, I think we’re all just lying in an effort to make ourselves feel better about whatever it is we’re doing – the busy mind is creating an illusion of productivity when, in reality, most of us are practicing inefficiency in almost ever...
2019-08-1919 minManage to EngageManagement Vs. Supervision - Part 3 - The Bridge from Supervision to ManagementIn the last episode, I asked you what management might look like when a parent wants their child to put away their laundry – a tale as old as time, or at least woven fabric. Because, if your parents regularly remind you to do things, over and over, you will probably become a manager who nags their employees. The nagging from your parent made you resent them at the time, then later, you nagging your employees causes them to resent you Worse than that, when you supervise someone, you are assuming the wors...
2019-08-1226 minManage to EngageManagement Vs. Supervision - Part 2 - The Context of the RelationshipIn the last episode, we established that supervision is when people don’t take things as far as they can without a manager following up or offering assistance; it is the act of making sure that someone does what they already know how to do. Management, on the other hand, is when someone takes something as far as they can, then a manager supports them in growing and learning. But that’s just the content of the manager-employee relationship, as well as the parent-child relationship, which is when most of us first encounter supervision.
2019-08-0522 minManage to EngageManagement Vs. Supervision - Part 1 - The Art of Self-ManagementOver the next three episodes, we’re going to explore one of the most critical dynamics in management: the differences between management and supervision and how the tension between these two causes most of us to experience some combination of lost productivity and existential angst. We’ll start things off today with some definitions and, by the end of this series, connect these concepts to the art of self-management through an exercise that can help you identify and reduce the amount of supervision in your life. I’d love your feedback. Click here to...
2019-07-2920 minManage to EngageFinding Your Passion Path - Part 4 - Gritty & Immediate EngagementIn the last episode, we explored the correlation between finding your passion path, finding your soulmate, and surrendering, and how our natural inclination to be in control can cause us to stray from the passion path. Honing our awareness of this, as well as our awareness of our core values, is all a necessary part of the process. Today, we will dissect a pivotal question that can both cause friction and propel you further into a life of fulfillment – a question that we live every day, especially at work.
2019-07-1817 minManage to EngageFinding Your Passion Path - Part 3 - The Surrender CorrelationLast week, we established that finding your Passion Path is a journey, not a mission. There is no singular end goal that you’re ultimately working towards. And like any good journey, we can’t control everything that happens. Of course, that doesn’t stop us from trying. We’ve discussed this common delusion before – the shared delusion that people know how reality tends to operate and, as such, can manipulate the outcomes – but time and time again, reality proves us wrong and punishes us. So, today, we’re going to talk about meetin...
2019-07-1520 minManage to EngageFinding Your Passion Path - Part 2 - It’s an Adventure, Not a MissionIf you didn’t have to work and you weren’t being paid, what would you do that creates value in the world? That’s the question I asked at the end of the last episode, and it is the question that will help you find your Passion Path, or the day-to-day expression of your values, whereby you serve yourself as you serve others with your greatest gift. And this Passion Path is half of the equation that adds up to human fulfillment. So in this episode, we’ll relate the passion pat...
2019-07-1116 minManage to EngageFinding Your Passion Path - Part 1 - The Root of All DisengagementWe start today’s episode with some reflections on the previous series about Desirable Difficulty. So, if you haven’t already listened to episodes 218 to 221, I recommend going back and listening to them first. It’ll be relevant later in this series as well. We then segue into our topic for the next four episodes: your Passion Path. We will view the nature of work from a historical point of view, revealing how things like slavery and unregulated factory work left scars on our language and cultural perspective, so that we can start...
2019-07-0820 minManage to EngageDesirable Difficulty - Part 4 - That Which Does Not Kill YouLife isn’t about comfort. It’s easy to be tricked into thinking that, with all the ways humans have designed a world catering to comfort, but life doesn’t seem to agree. Because life, again and again, comes back to bite us in the butt when we attempt to pursue lives that embody happiness and comfort. On the other side of the coin, life always rewards us for choosing difficulty. It may not be what we want, but it always ends up being what we need. I’d love you...
2019-07-0415 minManage to EngageDesirable Difficulty - Part 3 - The Fear of Being PowerfulOn the surface, a lot of us fear that we’re inadequate, not good enough, or powerless – but that’s just on a superficial level. Underneath that, in the core of our beings, we are afraid of being powerful; we are making excuses to avoid the responsibility and expectations that come with our true potential. Because where you are now is safe. It’s comfortable. And most of the human race is standing right beside you, choosing comfort. But where could you be if you started diligently practicing...
2019-07-0118 minManage to EngageDesirable Difficulty - Part 2 - The Art of Self-ManagementIn the last episode, I introduced you to the concept of Desirable Difficulty, or the idea that personal growth and evolution only happen as a result of butting up against and working your way through a difficult problem or situation. Is it fun? No. Is it necessary? Again, no. But is it necessary if you want to achieve greatness? Absolutely. So, today, we’ll be learning how this concept relates to The Art of Self-Management and how you can make a practice of choosing courage over comfort.
2019-06-2718 minManage to EngageDesirable Difficulty - Part 1 - Make it StickHow engaged were you in school? When you were taught a new principle in class and then given a homework assignment to do before the next class, were you engaged? What if, instead, you were assigned the homework first? What if you were asked to do something really difficult, something that challenges your ability to think critically and solve problems? You would probably fail and you probably wouldn’t enjoy it – and you would probably be a lot more engaged in the learning process. It might not be as e...
2019-06-2419 minManage to EngageGood Vs. Less Bad - Part 4 - Becoming an Engaged ManagerThroughout this series, I’ve come back to the question, “Who do you want to become and how are you using your job to become it?” If you don’t have the answer to this question, then you are, by definition, not engaged at work – and if you don’t have an answer to this question, I’d venture a guess that the people who you manage probably don’t have an answer, either. Because engaged managers produce engagement. And if, after this episode, you don’t choose to take action and figure out the a...
2019-06-2022 minManage to EngageGood Vs. Less Bad - Part 3 - Closing the Embodiment GapIf you normally listen to these episodes as a fly on the wall, I’d like you to approach today’s episode a little differently. I want you to put yourself in the seat of a person on this coaching call and imagine that I am asking you the questions that I ask in this episode. These questions are meant to help you identify where the embodiment gap is in your life, or where your actions don’t express your deepest values – and then, possibly, close it, if you choose to take action. I’d...
2019-06-1711 minManage to EngageGood Vs. Less Bad - Part 2 - The Less Bad MindsetIn the last episode, I introduced you to the Good Vs. Less Bad paradigm. We often have the option to make a system in our life good or less bad, and more often than not, we choose to make it less bad because making it good comes with costs that we don’t want to pay: emotional discomfort, facing the unknown, and actual change. Today, we apply a critical lens to some real-life problems, reveal the underlying systems that contribute to those problems, and consider the long-term impact of living with a “less bad mindset.”
2019-06-1319 minManage to EngageGood Vs. Less Bad - Part 1 - The Price of GoodIf you’re consistently getting results that you don’t want, a system in your life is either broken or not working the way you think it is – and you will continue to get undesirable results until you know how the system works AND change something. Otherwise, anything you do is just going to, at best, make things less bad. And we are all faced with this decision, over and over again, throughout our lives: do we want to make a situation less bad or do we want to make it good? Today...
2019-06-1018 minManage to EngageOn Hunger - Part 4 - Managing EvolutionI’d like to start the episode by going back to the question that started this series on hunger: Can we teach someone to be hungry? Can managers teach someone to want to be awake, to pursue excellence, to evolve, to learn, to grow? Not exactly. You can’t make a horse drink water. However, you can make it as easy as possible for a horse to find water. You can help people navigate The Competence Paradox and realize that they are doing the best they can do, at least today – and, tomorrow, they can do a li...
2019-06-0617 minManage to EngageOn Hunger - Part 3 - The Journey is the DestinationIn the last episode, we touched on the value of intrinsic value hunger... although, if you have experienced drive or motivation in your life, it probably didn’t take a lot to convince you that it’s a powerful and important element to not just achieving success but undergoing self-development. And that, really, is the crux of this series on hunger – it’s a tool for self-development, not a means to an end, and as such, it’s an important tool in the manager’s toolbox. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a...
2019-06-0310 minManage to EngageOn Hunger - Part 2 - Excusing Away Our DestinyIn the last episode, I introduced you to The Competence Paradox. This is the idea that, on one level, people are always doing the best that they can with what they have; the incentives, resources, and awareness that they are equipped with, in that moment. However, in the next moment, that can all change – and that means “your best” is conditional. But our best also has an arch-nemesis, and it’s a pervasive enemy that we foster and cultivate throughout our lives – excuses! So, today, we’re going to conside...
2019-05-3009 minManage to EngageOn Hunger - Part 1 - The Competence ParadoxWhat’s the most that you are capable of? How do you know? The truth of the matter is that, whether you think you’re capable of quite a lot or nothing at all, you’re probably wrong. People are terrible at self-assessment, especially when it comes to assessing their own skill and ability, and this one of the reasons people need management at various points in their life. So, today, I am going to introduce you to The Competence Paradox – something that every manager needs to be aware of if they want t...
2019-05-2721 minManage to EngageEmbracing Being Tested - Part 4 - Surrendering to LifeLeaders generally become leaders because they are predisposed to choosing challenges – and if you are choosing to listen to this podcast to better yourself as a leader and a manager, then you are probably predisposed to this way of framing life as well. That means, as a manager, you have a valuable perspective to offer the people who follow you, and you should give it to them. So, to conclude this series on embracing being tested, we’re going to learn how managers can help others dig deep into discomfort and surrender to life.
2019-05-2312 minManage to EngageEmbracing Being Tested - Part 3 - Dig Deep into DiscomfortOver the last two episodes, we’ve established that there’s no mystery shrouding the path to greatness – either you choose to test yourself, or you don’t. It’s a rigorous choice to choose one practice and make it more important than anything else, and when you do, you’ll find that what you learn about yourself is far more valuable than what you accomplish. Today, we will examine how this dynamic of embracing or not embracing challenges shows up in the workplace, and we’ll consider the role that managers and leaders have to take on to c...
2019-05-2014 minManage to EngageEmbracing Being Tested - Part 2 - The Difference Between Ordinary & ExtraordinaryIn the last episode, I extended an invitation to all of you: When you want to accomplish something great, when you look at a challenge in front of you, don’t just look at the content of it; don’t just look at the skills, learning, and actions that doing the thing requires. Instead, ask yourself, “How is this challenge testing me? How is life inviting me to be a bigger version of myself here?” Because, if you don’t consider the context of the challenge and choose to test...
2019-05-1612 minManage to EngageEmbracing Being Tested - Part 1 - Framing Your LifeAre you great at anything, or do you want to be great at anything? We’re all good at some things, but only a select few of us are willing to do what it takes to experience greatness – and if you ever have experienced greatness, in anything, you know that it only comes as a result of being tested. So, in this four-part series, we’ll be looking at life through the frame of being tested, and we’ll start today by analyzing the content of a test versus the context of a test...
2019-05-1316 minManage to EngageSurrendering the Illusion of Control - Part 3 - Trusting the SurrenderIn the last episode, I shared a story about a delightful day I had at the beach – and why getting to that point of contentedness required accepting that I had no control over the arising phenomenon that I experienced, like rain or even my initial frustration. Today, I want to help you take that practice of acceptance and apply it to the situations that arise in your life and in your business, so that you can then focus on managing the things that you actually do have control over. I’d love your...
2019-05-0916 minManage to EngageSurrendering the Illusion of Control - Part 2 - The Price You Pay for SerenityIn the last episode, I presented the idea that the pursuit of happiness, the conditioning that happiness is something we will achieve after we accomplish XY and Z, lies at the root of our illusion of control. It’s a seductive illusion that gives us the comfort because, in one sense, we feel like we have control over our experience. But in another sense, it means we’re also responsible for failing to accomplish XY and Z to achieve happiness, and that can lead to an endless cycle of suffering. Today, I present to yo...
2019-05-0616 minManage to EngageSurrendering the Illusion of Control - Part 1 - Resisting RealityYou have no control over your life. Also, you have total control over your life. Both of these statements can be considered true, and that paradox lies at the heart of this three-part series on Surrendering the Illusion of Control. This isn’t an entirely new concept for the podcast. We’ve discussed, in the past, our collective, innate desire to control reality; this shared delusion that we know how reality works and how it will continue to work, usually resulting in suffering and shame. You can learn more about this in the...
2019-05-0216 minManage to EngageMission Vs. Adventure - Part 4 - Engaging in AdventureLast week, we discussed how both the mission and adventure mindsets are equally valuable and dangerous. They come from a place of either trying to take total control over your life or accepting that you have no control whatsoever, but both of those perspectives are incomplete. The apparent truth is that you are not always in control and you are not always helplessly experience what life throws at you; you and reality are co-authoring your experience of life. One needs to have intentions, goals, and desired outcomes – and one needs to be a...
2019-04-2920 minManage to EngageMission Vs. Adventure - Part 3 - Co-Authoring Your LifeIn the last episode, I invoked a modern proverb – Life is a journey, not a destination – but you’ve likely heard this at some point earlier in your life, too. Although this is often interpreted as a suggestion to slow down and smell the roses, this helpful saying can also be viewed as a rebuke to the mission mentality that dominates our society, especially in business. We are too focused on the objective as our goal, in part because we’re conditioned to relate to things at the level of knowledge. So, we fail to see that t...
2019-04-2516 minManage to EngageMission Vs. Adventure - Part 2 - Life is an AdventureIn the last episode, we defined the difference between a mission and an adventure. A mission is like in a heist film: there’s an objective, a plan, and coordinated execution of the plan – and if the plan is not executed appropriately, the objective can not be completed. On an adventure, on the other hand, you have a sense of your objective, but you do not need to execute on a meticulously crafted plan to accomplish that goal; you either purposely don’t make a plan or you surrender to the adventur...
2019-04-2210 minManage to EngageManaging Disappointment - Part 3 - What Would Josef Do?In the last episode, I shared a story to illustrate how we fall into the trap of disappointment, and how we can ultimately start managing disappointment. So, to recap, there are four steps to managing disappointment: Notice the disappointment. Notice the resistance to disappointment that is inevitably within us. Accept the disappointment as being part of life. Then operate inside of the parameters that you have. Today, I will delve deeper into this process, as well as the internal needs and fantasies that can inhibit our ability to go...
2019-04-0121 min
Organizing ChaosEP 55 - Achieving Business Zen: An Interview w/ Former E-Myth Coach Josef ShapiroWhat is "overwhelm addiction"? Who would we be if we weren't defined by how busy we are or what we do at work? How do you change as a person so that you can change your organization? How do we recognize our work colleagues in a meaningful and impactful way? In this interview with former E-Myth coach Josef Shapiro, we discuss answers to these questions about how we can change the way we lead and influence others.
2019-03-1432 min