It's about really allowing yourself to lean into what feels heavy and dark in you. Fear is a great place to start. What are you most fearful of? What are the fearful thoughts that arise in your mind every day that whip by in the speed of light? I'm afraid of getting COVID. I'm afraid of my financials. Whatever you're afraid of look at that. Lean into fear. All of those pieces to me, that's where the juice lies because that's the shadowy part of ourselves that for the most part we ignore.
Hello, everybody, whether you've been listening for a while or whether this is your first time here, we are happy to have you. Before we jump into the episode, it would be awesome. If you could write a review for this show, especially on apple podcasts. So it takes less than a minute or two. It's pretty straightforward. So you click on the show, you scroll all the way down to the bottom. And there's a little button that says, write a review.
And as always, if there's an episode, you really like send it over to your friends They'll probably like it too. Thank you so much. And let's get back to the show. So welcome back to Success Engineering. I'm your host, Michael Bauman. And I have Leon Vanderpol on, he's an internationally recognized leader. He's a master teacher and author in the field of transformational coaching and transformative living. And we'll talk about what that is.
He's the founder of the Center for Transformational Coaching and the author of A Shift in Being the Art and Practices of Deep Transformational Coaching. Really at the core of Leon's teaching lies healing of the human consciousness. And what happens when we begin to experience ourself beyond the ego based state of consciousness and look at what's underneath that, what's the essential soul what's essential life. And how do we unpack that? So I'm really excited for this conversation.
Welcome to the show here, Leon.
I'm very good to be here. Thank you.
It's great to have you. This'll be a very fun conversation. And so I know a lot of what you talk about in your work and this mirrors what you did in your own life, we have the Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. but I'm curious for you, what did that hero's journey look like you to give some background for the audience of where you're coming from?
Yeah. I love looking at life through the lens of that model and not everybody's familiar with that model. Like what those kind of unique stages to it are.
So I always say, just think about one of your favorite movies, like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, or some movie that you have where there was a hero who went on an adventure and kind of the stages of that from that early stage of hearing the call to adventure, which is usually somebody showing up on their doorstep, knocking on the door saying, Hey something awaits you come with us, you'll reach something great within yourself if you do.
And then there's the stage where the hero hesitates, right. Always has to think about it. Do I really want to do this? Life is good here then. And invariably, the hero says yes, otherwise they wouldn't be the hero. So they say yes to it. And then there's usually this mentor piece along the way, like there's the wizened one who's walked the world with them that shows up and helps them say yes and move into that new world with a little bit of confidence. And then there's all these trials.
That they face usually culminating in the one where they're facing death, usually their own death kind of annihilation that they have to go into that fire and really face the fears and come through it. That process invariably changes them for life. They never are the same again. And they, even though they go back to world that they inhabited before. So just looking at those kinds of that process of our hero's journey.
And I put myself on that very early on, like, I was not one of these people, fortunately, who had that horrid life, where they had stuck themselves into some job that they absolutely hated for a really long time. Did it for 20 years. Just misery all the way through with their work-life getting through it because it paid the bills. And then finally, after all that, they realized they were not satisfied. And then they did something about it. That was not me. And I cannot say why that was not me.
I seem to be the guy that from a very early age, wanted to go on a journey. I wanted to go on an adventure. I remember looking at my father's national geographic magazines this is about way back before the internet and all of those images that we can now access in a heartbeat. National geographic was this window to the world. You mentioned you lived in Papua New Guinea. I'm like, yeah look at the things that are going on there.
These guys build these ladders to the sky and then jump off them with some ropes and primitive, bungee jumping, like, Yeah. That's, I want to go see that. So there was a big part of me that was called to a kind global exploration adventure early on. And so even though, while I went through university and I eventually got a corporate gig for a few years in Cincinnati, working as a consultant in this major, corporation underneath all of that, I knew that this was still part of my journey.
Like this was part of it. And I was always called into even an earlier desire to explore spirituality or to explore my own inner being an inner awareness. Even at the age of 25 I recall, I was living in Bangkok, no 27. I was living in Bangkok. By this time I had left my corporate gig, moved to Asia, on a wing and a prayer. Just let's see what's going on in Bangkok kind of thing went over there and I bought this book called Finding your Life Purpose.
And I remember, diligently doing all the exercises in that kind of coming out with what my life purpose was. And I do remember along the way. That it felt so far away at the time.
And that was really hard because one of the things I've noticed that people who got to go on this hero's journey is that they have a call into something very purposeful and meaningful in their life, but what they are experiencing in the moment, the way they've configured their life, for whatever reason or just where they're at in their own development, they're not feeling like it's close. It's something far away. That's where the frustration, some of the angst.
And for me, some of the highlights of that angst period was depression. Lying on the couch, shaking my fist at the heavens saying why isn't this thing that I want to do with my life, which I don't even know what it really is. Why isn't that happening a lot sooner than it should be. And I would be trying all these things and that was moving around the world and different jobs in different places. And on the surface level, lots of great activity would not change any of it.
But underneath that constant feeling like I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. I haven't reached that place yet. And it was hard. So surface level, everything is looking good. There is nothing that's off. Good work. New places to go. To new people, lots of learning happening, lots of connections going on, but underneath that kind of place of I'm not there, I'm not there. And what I didn't realize at the time, and this is the piece that maybe we can explore is that.
And I like to say I hadn't become the person for whom my high dreams were possible. And I didn't realize that until in hindsight. I thought that well, if I can begin to visualize my high dreams, if I can see the business that I want to create, if I can make a vision board of my ideal business as an example, well, it should happen if I just do these things. But what I didn't realize was that when you're living into that real true life purpose piece, that it's not a linear process to get there.
It's not just a matter of saying, well, I can identify it. I can visualize it. Therefore, if I take these steps, I will arrive there. That's a much more conventional way of building a business or building something that you desire, right? Like go for it, make a work plan. Here's your timeline? Do these things get there in this world of the hero. Nothing's linear. Nothing seems to be what it is. And so I have to learn how to navigate this non linear world.
And I hadn't yet become the person for whom my high dream was possible. There was becoming process that "being" level piece, who do I need to be at a core essential level for my high dream to become a reality. And I saw that in hindsight, when I was willing to do the deep inner work to be the person for whom that high dream was possible, that high dream happened almost over night. It's almost instantaneous.
Now. I'm not saying it was instantaneous at scale, but I knew I was there doing the work in this world that I wanted to do, but there was that journey, 10, 15 year, 20 year journey of becoming this, that I thought like many people on the journey that kind of awakened a little bit and ah, there's something to my life and it should happen now. Like now, cause I had the idea because I feel it. And then there's this journey of years. That is the hero's journey.
That is the trials and the tribulations that force you to go to your core and really face all of that, which is really false and distorted in you. And when you've done that work, my God then, and only then these high dreams become possible and it's a "being" related type of thing. So I'll stop there because I, it was a lot.
Yeah, no, it's really interesting that you mentioned that I had another guest on he's actually the, contender for world boxing champion. And he said the exact same thing, basically his grandfather died and his grandfather said like, give it everything that you got. And he looked in the mirror and he said, I am the world champion. then he followed it up with I haven't become the person to realize that dream, but in that. I am the world champion. This is what I am, need to actually go through.
And he said it in the very same, almost exact same way, the trials, the training and everything to actually become what I know that I am. And so I think that's interesting. Can you talk about, for you just in general, what some of those trials look like as you start to unpack that even talk about the self concept as well. Like we construct this idea of ourselves then we have these trials, we have these things that start to unpack that.
Can you talk about what that was for you and that, that idea.
Yeah, well, this relates to what I call the self concept. Like our ego-based self-concept that kind of idea of who we are that we learn from childhood it's conditioned set of values and images that we then hold to be true about who we are. And we all have a self-concept. But because we are so vulnerable in the world from a young age, that's often it's imprinted upon us and we take it upon ourselves and we hold it to be true. We say, well, these are the things I should value.
And these are the things that are important. And these are the things that matter. In a way we think that they are ours, but they've most likely been taught to us through our family, through our society, through our culture, through our media, telling us that if you have this, do this, be this, want this, look like this, then you are something we buy into all of this because we have not at a young age, at least been taught that is anything different. So for me, absolutely.
I had to come up against some of those barriers, and one of the ones that, again, this is in hindsight and recognizing what was really going on was that I had to drop pretense. I had to drop inauthenticity. I had to drop the masks. We wear the personas. One of the things that I had learned when I was in that corporate. Was that you need to wear a mask. You need to wear a persona in order to succeed in this world, it will eat you alive. Otherwise you are not safe here. If you are truly yourself.
So put on your, a type personality, put on your go getter personality mask, put on your succeeded, any means mask and go out there and do it. Now of course, no one had ever taught me about this, that I was doing. This just happens unconsciously in these environments where everyone around you is got their masks on and they're living this way. So this was three, four years of me putting on a certain mask that said, if you want to succeed in the working world, this is how you do it. There I am.
I've got my armor. So now I leave that working world and they come into other parts of the world, but I'm still carrying that. It doesn't just fall away because, I changed environments. I've now learned that this is how you survive in the world. This is what you need. So there was me carrying this all around. Inauthenticity masks.
And yet here I wanted to do work that was about helping people become deeply authentic, knowing themselves, the soul and what it wants to show you in life and how these higher levels of self-awareness spiritual knowing can actually lead you to some remarkable experiences in places. And I was talking about that, but I wasn't that. But I was blind. I didn't even see it. I didn't see it.
That I was showing up to give a talk appearing as this guy who knows talking about dropping masks and wearing one when I'm doing it. And I was why isn't my work taking off? Why isn't this? Why are more people coming? Why isn't when I give a talk, it doesn't lead to for more Why? perplexed? I had no idea. No idea. I didn't recognize the degree of that I had actually put up this protective barrier, this inauthentic selfness, just to show up as whatever.
So the hard work came in, dissolving that beginning to see it, and then to take steps to live what felt like so vulnerably, like just when you start to, when I started to tell the world, what mattered most to me, it was frightening. It was so frightening because I'd been living behind this wall. So this is just one of the many shadows that I had to confront and work through so that I could become authentic. Like I could be me.
And then when I began to speak to people about being themselves from a place of me being me, guess what? Everything just began to work. Right. But years of me doing the opposite have led to a lot of frustration, a lot of dark times, not understanding what was going on.
Yeah. let's start unpacking what that deep work looks like, like where do people start with that and are like the, stages or how do they work through that?
Yeah, there are so many ways to begin the work. That's the reality. I think it begins though with just this recognition that if you feel that you are on something like a transformational journey, like something inside you is maybe shaking a loose, a little, some old ways of viewing the world are not feeling as stable as they were. If there's a sense of there's more to my life than this.
There's something in me that wants to be expressed that I'm somehow not expressing or am afraid to express like any of those signals is for me, the place that we begin, because they signal the beginning. If you will, of this journey of transformation. I think they're wonderful signals, but for a lot of folks, they feel really dysfunctional. And sometimes people even think they're going a little bit batty.
I had one lady that wrote to me that she was, she said, I feel like I want to talk about love with people. I want to talk about feeling love and being loving in the world. But I'm sure if I told my friends that I wanted to do. They would all think I'm nuts. And what you really meant was maybe I think I'm going a bit nuts because nobody else that I know is talking about these things. But I think they're the wonderful signals. They're dysfunctional feeling, but the signal a shift internally.
And if people are just, if they allow themselves to go into that dysfunction, rather than numb it run away from it, stream a little more Netflix, do something that distracts you, that you love. Instead of doing that, what does it look like to lean into and say, okay, what really is going on in me? What are these feelings of dysfunction? What are these feelings of potential? do they mean for me?
And then allow that to reveal to you some aspects of your inner operating system that kind of self-concept because normally then these things bubble up quite naturally, they begin to reveal themselves. And that's why I say there's no one kind of step-by-step process. It's about really allowing yourself to lean into what feels heavy and dark and shadowy in you. Fear is a great place to start. What are you most fearful of? What are the fearful thoughts that arise in your mind every day?
that whip by, in the speed of light, but there's. I'm afraid of getting COVID. I'm afraid of my financials. I'm afraid of I'm afraid of whatever you're afraid of is let that okay. Look at that. Lean into fear. All of those pieces. To me, that's where the juice lies because that's the shadowy part of ourselves. That for the most part, we ignore. Negativity, negative thoughts, all of that. What's that saying? that showing you about you, about the way you see the world.
Why do you see the world that way? Why is the world a fearful place? Why is the world not a place of potentiality and joy and connection and why not? It can be that for some, why is it not for you? So those kinds of questions for me, that kind of examination is a wonderful place to be.
Yeah, I'm glad that you mentioned fear. Cause I mean, fear, undergirds, pretty much everything. A lot of what we do is just to try to be safe, like, and fear is like, Nope, you're not safe. And so talk about that because it is a really disorienting process where you have this structure and you thought the structure was working really well. Right? You're like, this is what the structure, or at least this is what society tells me or, how I grew up or whatever. he thought I was working really well.
And then it starts to shake a little bit, or fall down a little bit. But there's this tremendous amount of terms of, if all this falls down, what am I left with? Also fear of if I actually lean into these feelings the shadowy side or the dark side, the feeling that I'll be overwhelmed or I'll just be completely drowned in it. But also that scared of what's on the other side of this. Can you talk about that a little bit?
You said it really well. That is everything that's in that right there. It's like the beginning of this dark tunnel, but I don't see the light on the other end, but I'm called to go in that tunnel. And what happens if I do? In the hero's journey, they call that the movement from the known world to the unknown world. And this is why the hero hesitates, because the hero knows the world that we might call born of fear.
But in a sense, it's like, I know that if I operate this way in this world, I can make myself safe. I know that if I accumulate this much financial wealth, I know I'll be safe financially, or at least that's what the the mind likes to whisper in the ear. Right. And if I do these things that I've been taught, if I do the right steps in terms of my life path, if I make the right investments, if I married the right person, will be safe and secure. It's known.
Okay. So then the heroes called to that unknown, and as you said. What then? What happens to me? If I say yes, what will other people think of me? Big fear. Well, they think I'm crazy. leaving that job to do. That job has medical benefits. That job pays. You're going to do what? In where? Are you nuts? There's the thought and what will people think of me? Will I be safe? Not just physically safe, but the big piece is financially safe.
If I pursue my true deepest calling, am I even going to make any money doing it? So there's this idea that actually this world of advanced consciousness is what it's called my, the awakened mind world, which is a world in which yes, we become in a sense, more aware of our spirituality for so many people feel so woo that there's no economy there. Like somehow our economy seizes to exist in a more spiritual world.
Right.
And one of the things I always say is, That's an impossibility economy takes on a different paradigm. So our economy operates very differently in an awakened mind than it does in a fear based ego controlled mind. And if you can understand how that happens, you will never be concerned about economy again or finances again. So anyway, the point is the world paradigm changes so dramatically, but from where they're standing, they can't grasp the new paradigm.
And therefore, and there are very few teachers of the new paradigm. There are some, but most of the world teaches us how to exist in the current paradigm and succeed in this part. I'll get more stocks, get some more crypto, there'll be, you'll be good. You'll be golden. Oh, sorry, crashed. Maybe you're not so golden, and that's the world we live in and then get a career advance up the ladder, and then there's this new paradigm, the awakened mind paradigm, the heroes, real journey destination.
It's so unknown. So that's why you say all this fear is coming up because it's around. I don't grasp the new paradigm. I don't know what it means. Should I say yes to it?
Yeah. I'd love to ask about the economy and how you would frame how the economy works differently on the other side of that, because that's the you're right. It's a huge thing. And it's a huge fear. What are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, well, one of the beautiful pieces about the new economy let's call it. The new economy that I have experienced is that because people go on the journey of really facing their fears and they eventually transcend those fears dissolve as a grip. So just imagine living in an, in yourself, in a space in which there is no fear about finances. It doesn't exist. A fearless space. Okay. Most people are trying to grasp it because for the most part, we all have niggly fears about finances.
So imagine eliminated. Now, when that happens very often, people then lose completely the idea that more is. The world that we live in now that the heroes normal world is a world of more, is better than less Bigger can be better than smaller, faster is better than slower. Those kinds of things winning is better than losing black and whites in that world. We start to drop this idea that more is better when we start to say, okay, so what are my actual financial.
Needs to live the life that I am drawn to live. So there's a simplicity that comes into it. That's the first piece we dropped the fear. And then out of that comes a more non-linear here's that word again, way of economy. So rather than work for pay, I do this and I get that transactional and everything is then counted. We start to move into a space where we recognize what I need will be provided. It will always be provided.
I can let go of any need for it to look a certain way because numbers don't matter as much anymore. All I need is provided. And this is where things get extraordinary because that well, many people, they hear that. Oh, yeah, that sounds good. That sounds really nice. But Leon, like really can I believe that? Can I trust that? Do I know that's what I mean?
There's the paradigm disconnect because unless you're in that paradigm, it seems like a bit of a fantasy, but when you're in the paradigm you're living it, non-linear trusting that life provides. Suddenly things appear. As you need them be it a house or car money opportunities for work partnerships, connections, things start to appear. And one of the biggest shifts that I've in all of this work is that moved away from making life meet my will.
So in the known world, again, the hero says, I want my life to look like this, I'm going to create it. It's my will. I want to have this money, this car, this house, I visualize it. I'm going to make it happen. So it's a very much my will determines. When you shift paradigms, it's like you're starting to partner with life to become a creative partner with this thing we call life. The energetic life force that's in us, around us that sustains and supports guides, leads, uplifts, and powers.
We begin to partner with it. It becomes a unity of mind. Let's put it that way. And when unity of mind begins to happen, that's when the economy of that mind also shows up because economy is exchange of in the sense energy for what one might need. We have, a dollar in the hand or a new opportunity for work and life. And you become a co-creative entity, my will to have the life that my dream that looks like this, and this begins to dissolve.
And what actually happens is I started to say, what does life want of me? What is life asking me to do? Where does life want me to go? Where does my energy want to go with. So I start to respond to this life force energy that keeps showing me opportunities, ways to move people to speak with an economy creates itself.
Hm.
It's I don't know how to explain it better than that. It's extraordinary to witness, but it's a fearless space of co-creation of life. If I can put it that way.
Yeah. And this is, I mean, like you said, it's really difficult to put into words. And so I'm gonna, gonna go a little bit from the respect of potentially some of the people in the audience or just some of the questions and stuff they might have. So we have these frameworks and so it might be different religious backgrounds. It could be, different frameworks, like we talked about in terms of, backgrounds for childhood and stuff. And so that sounds great, right? It sounds.
From that perspective and you're like, oh, that sounds great. But at the same time, I one, how do I get there? But then also, how does that fit in with, some of the frameworks that I potentially have, or what does that even, what does that even look like? From that perspective?
Yeah, well, fitting in with the frameworks you already have is often where the bump is. Isn't it? Right? Like here, I see one thing you're like, but yeah, but Leon, I was taught or I understand that it needs to be like this. So there's going to be for people, this challenge, that's the hero's journey. It's the challenge that life throws at you that says maybe everything you've been taught at some fundamental level is a little bit flawed. Are you willing to look at that?
And sometimes people say, no, I'm not. This thing that I have been taught about life. As you said, let's say, take religion. For example, this thing that I've been taught about God is an unassailable truth. The Bible taught me that I believe it, and I'm not letting go of it. Even if other people can come to you and say, I have other images of God and how that is. You're like, no, that's not touching that one, but life is going to do that for all those areas.
Things that you have held to be true are perhaps not exactly true at a different level of living a different paradigm of living. Those are the great paradoxes of life that we have to confront when something's true on one level and false on another level at the same time. So we bought into one thing that true at this level, but not at that level. So we're going to get pushed to look at those things and ask ourselves, do I really want to hang on to it? Right.
So we're going to go through this process of being challenged by, you asked me earlier, so what's the process of how do I get there? Like how do I get to that paradigm again? It's leaning into all these pieces. There's nothing off the table in you. There's no part really that you can say, no, we're not touching that. That's just, that's we're not looking at that because if I let go of that, then I'm let go of something so valuable that I don't know who I am.
If I let go of it and life will say, that's okay, you don't have to change anything. You don't have to go on this journey. You don't have to change the way that you perceive yourself for the world. We're just, life is just saying, okay. But if you choose to, if you choose to and you want to go on this journey, we're going to show you a way of living in the world that is altogether different. And it's going to challenge you immensely.
But if you want to hang onto some of this stuff, you're welcome. So go ahead. So that's it. We're just going to be in this place of making choice around what's meaningful for us and holding on to that. And then what's maybe not working. What's no longer meaningful. What's no longer true. And then finding how do I really let go of that? And embody ways of being, and living that reflect where I think this can really go.
So the other part of it is that there is a learning curve, a huge learning curve about in the sense that new paradigm mentioned to me earlier, that you're doing a lot of research and reading. So I find that people in that stage of really coming to grasp it going to do a lot of inner work, a lot of books to be read a lot of workshops to be attended.
Podcasts to listen to all of it, which is showing the way, because there's going to be a period of really absorbing other ways of perceiving so that we can make those shifts in ourselves. And that's one of the best way is just allow yourself to flow wherever your energy wants to take you. Where does my energy want to go today? What does it want to learn? What does it want to explore? What does it want to face? Making so much time for that inner work for that reflective time for that alone time.
For that time in silence, all that is so valuable because it moves away the distractions and allows you to focus on your inner space as paramount. And when that happens slowly, you will come into contact with the material, the people, the lessons that you need to learn that are going to slowly, gently, sometimes not gently force your feet into the fire. And then the transformation really happens. Right. So I know that's quite, vague for some, but helped me.
If you need a question answered, just fire away.
No, absolutely. It is difficult to put it into words, but a good question to ask in general, I heard somebody about this once and it really stuck with me. They're like find somebody that will find the most intelligent person disagrees with you and learn from them. And that idea of just going, like you have a different way of seeing the world. What can I learn from you and, or asking the question how would I know if I was wrong?
Like, how would I know if what I am believing is not the entirety of what it is, and just putting that question in there, what would that look like? How would I go about the process of figuring that out? Like, is this just something that know, because I was taught it or I grew up with this, how would I know if there are different ways? How would I explore that? And like you talked about there's people, there's resources, books, there's things like that, but it's also looking at.
Like where you define, and this is based neuroscientists have to, like, how do we define our self? We typically define it one way is like individually, we have personality and hair color and things like that. And then we'll define ourself in relationship to our close group of people. Like I'm a father, a family member, like I'm in this certain group. And then it raises all the way up to like the national identities that we have.
But at the same time, every level of those is looking at some distinction between me. And somebody else. And unfortunately, a lot of history, a lot of the injustices and stuff has been caused because I all of a sudden view the person or whatever in front of me. Different than me, so I can treat you a different way. And so that aspect that you're talking about of going, what if I actually looked at, like, where are these places that were similar? Where are the things that are connecting people?
Like where's the common humanity and the shared humanity and, apart from all national borders just exploring that and going, like, what would this look like? I think is a really important thing to, as a part of that process to start to unpack.
Yeah. It's vital. it? It's so vital. Yeah, no, you said it so well, right. That's just it. What is our common humanity? What's there. What's that?
can you talk about the, I mean, you have simply called the four levels of engagement and you got it from some something else, but this gives good kind of framework for the different ways to approach how we see a situation.
Yeah. Yeah. That's a good, it's a good little model. And it's got to do with recognizing the state of inner being called the, our way of being in the world. This is a new term for some people, but it's just that energetic presence that you bring wherever you go. It's your way of being some people might experience you as tight tense, angry, aggressive, or laid back, open, compassionate, we call that the way of being.
And, the four levels is simply whenever we encounter a situation, we can engage with it differently. And the first level is the drama level and let's be honest. We love drama. Drama is everywhere in our lives. Drama on TV. Drama in our relationships. I mean, who wants to go to a movie or read a book that has zero drama in it? I mean, drama is where we get so much of our juice and entertainment.
And yet when it comes to engaging in life through drama, well, it doesn't necessarily produce the most meaningful or fruitful outcomes for everyone. He said this, she said that they did this. I can't believe you did that. And then they said this, like all of that kind of script lies in drama and there can be a lot of emotionality and negative emotionality. So yes, drama is the first level. It's a way of engaging with life.
And it may not be the most effective, but a lot of people spend a lot of time in drama. It's all they know. It's all they know. If you can take a step back from the situation, become a little more objective. We enter into the next level of called situation. It just means that we're able to look more objectively, less, emotionally, less reactively to the situation that's in front of us. We may start to ask questions like, okay, what's my role in this situation? What's other people's.
What is the outcome that I want from this? Why am I not getting that outcome? What are things I can do to fix this? Or maybe make this more acceptable for people or get a better outcome. These kinds of questions can arise when we are able to detach and just operate from situation. So think of being at work in a professional environment, most people are operating.
From that level, if they're quote unquote being professional, that's when they drop into drama and the office politics come up and we say, that's not very professional. So that environment is a good example of where the situation kind of level of operating and engaging really does show up. Then the next level is really a bit of a quantum leap. So we're moving from. Looking at the situation and asking questions about my responsibility in it the third level choice level.
So here we're actually going inside ourselves and we're asking, who am I being in this situation? Am I being desire to be? So this requires a recognition of akin to your values. For example, if I asked you Michael, what's one of your core values when it comes to engaging in the world, what would you say one of your core values is
Joy.
joy. Okay. at any moment in any situation, matter what's going on, you could take a step back and ask yourself, am I being joy in this moment? I value. And my being joy and you'd be like, no, I'm being really pissed off right now. That's not joy. That's the furthest thing from it. There's no judgment around that though. We tend to judge ourselves negatively when we see that we may not be that, which we desire to be, but there's no judgment.
We need to be able to, again, just objectively say, ah, look, there's Michael. Not being judged. And yet he values joy. He's not the embodiment of joy. So at the choice level, we'd be in to make that choice. Who am I being here in this situation? Or who am I being in life in general, But that's not the end of the line. There's another level called opportunity, but before opportunity becomes revealed and I use that word very specifically because.
It's not something you search for in the fourth level, it's a emergent process. So to get to that level, there has to be a shift in being so Michael has to be able to say, okay, I might be really right now quite angry in this situation, but I want to be joy, but Michael's going to go do the work to return his inner being to joy. Now that might take you a minute.
Depending on your resiliency and it might take you three days or a month, but in some way, you're going to do the inner work to return, to place of Michael being in joy. And then Michael can look back at that very same situation. Nothing has to change in that situation at all, all the players, all the drama. It's all exactly the same, but Michael's state of inner being is now joy and he's casting an eye on that same situation from.
And then the question is, so, so now Michael, what's the opportunity that you see now that you're in that state of being that you desire. And Michael will say things that he would never have said from his other states of being, because they can only be perceived from the state of being of joy or happiness or something akin to that. So he's now perceiving emergent possibility. But if I, if you're just back in the situation level, the second level, and you hadn't gone through that shift.
And I was just to ask you the question. Well, Michael, I know you're a bit tense and angry right now, but what's the opportunity here in this situation, your answer would be dramatically different than if you had taken the time to return to that centered state of joyful being, and then looked at opportunity, which is the fourth. So this has got to do with that shift in being now.
I mentioned the shift being something that Michael just goes off and does, but that's the work, that's the whole transformational journey piece right in there. So that shift from anger to joy takes 10 seconds versus three weeks.
Yeah.
And joy becomes more your embodied way of being all the time. Not just something Michael experiences for a few minutes a day, but the rest of the time he's just anxious or something like.
And I think that's that like gives a perfect example, cause so some of these things are difficult to put into words, but that gives us a very example where people can understand yeah. sense. And an interesting thing to do and it's pretty simple. You can just sit down and you can think about yourself as a kid or even if you have like a little photo of yourself as a super cute, three-year-old or five-year-old and just go.
What was that person like before all of the stuff happened and we tried to, protect ourself and whatever, looking at who was that right. When they didn't have to do anything, they didn't have to change the world. That didn't have to be enough. They didn't, they were just there, What are those characteristics that I actually have. And it's really interesting to just sit and sit with that.
And a lot of times it doesn't take a long period of time and you go, oh, like playfulness and joy and peace, and just the love connection, those things that you have that have just been covered over. That's one example of how you can start to understand what are these values that I have underneath this. And then, like you said, the work is to learn how to access those values when life is life. Right.
Yes exactly. When the fear creeps back in, when the anger, when the contraction comes back in, how do you access that? And that is, like I said, that's a microcosm of the hero's journey. That singular question, because it's not necessarily easy to do until you have cleared away all the things in Michael that stand in the way of being you've done that you are joy. You just are joy. Is very enlightened state. I realized I recognize, but you know, and that's it, you are joy.
Yeah, what, and this is the huge question, but what are some of the things that people can do to start to, to access that? So one, just to figure it out in general, but to actually start to do the work, to be able to operate from those values.
Well, that's what I love about this model that I just shared because it's actually a really good model for anybody who's able to, just for a moment detach from the drama. Okay. If you're in the drama. Oh, you've gotta be able to I'm in drama here. Wait, my hearts, my heart's pounding. My adrenaline's rushing I'm my voice is and oh, that's me and drama. So we've got to recognize that. Okay. Maybe I can take a breath to step back a little bit.
Okay. Now, instead of saying, what can I do to fix the situation? What can I do to make it better? Maybe I just ask myself, "Am I being that which I desire to be In this moment?" And whatever that value is And if the answer is clearly, Nope, no, I am not being that, which I desire to be. Okay. So what would it take for me to shift into that? And in that moment, maybe joy or calm or peace or whatever the value is, empowerment feels a long way away. I am so angry right now.
don't want to be angry, but I so pissed off right now. That thing is out the window and around the corner, speeding away on the high speed rail kind of thing. That's going to happen, but that's the opportunity to, in a sense, okay. is stopping me from feeling that right now? That's the whole inner work piece. What is stopping me? Why am I so angry? And what's going to happen is you're going to see the perceptions you hold of other people.
You're going to see the expectations arise because they should be doing that. And they're not. And I told them, and they're not, it should be. And so there's the should word, right? Should. Okay. I have an expectation. I have a requirement or violated my value. I have a value for timeliness and we're late again, and now I'm pissed. The value. I value timeliness and they invalidated my value.
Begin to recognize the values we carry, how other people invalidate them, how we judge them for it, how we judge ourselves This starts to come up. When you ask the simple question, why am I not being joy in this moment? they pissed me off. Oh, you're blaming them. Right.
This is parenting, right. Bear to get my five-year-old I'm like, why are you thing? Right.
Right. But I love that image. You gave them going back to the innocence too, because then we begin to see, there was a time when we were innocent in ourselves, the beautiful radiant innocence and for all kinds of ways, that gets covered up trauma, childhood trauma.
So many we're reading about these days in the paper, everyone seems to be having recognition that there was something in their life traumatic an early age, been a parental experience and abuse experience, bullying experience, there's all of this and everything that we do there just layers up that innocence cover that light. So I love that image you shared, like, can we reconnect with that? And what's the value inherent in that, that you want to bring back into your life?
And noticing where the fear comes up. When you do, you know what happens if I drop this value of timeliness, what happens if I drop that people start taking advantage of me. They'll be late all the time. Well, they can't take advantage of me. I will not allow that. So no I'm going to, okay. You've made your choice. You stay with the value, but recognize that your expectation of the world in that way keeps you from joy. Peace, calm,
Hm.
But you say you want to be that Leon, Michael. Okay. But you've got this value. So that's the work you've got to recognize all of that structural stuff and attend to it, which is a healing process. Really? It's healing.
What are some like daily things that people can do to help to start noticing? Because all of that stuff, I mean, like we talked about, it happens so fast, right? You're like, good. And then you're like, I'm not good, right?. And then maybe you don't even know that you're not good. You're just losing it. Right. So what are some things that people can do do like on a daily basis to start to give themselves that space and that calm to even step back a little bit from what's going on.
Yeah there's two sides to that coin. And a lot of times people spend more time on the one side than the other. So I'll spend first time the first side, and we've talked about this a lot is you've got to attend to those ego structures of self, the fears, the worries, the anxieties, start to see your expectations. So making time for that work. Now, some people talk about I do meditation every morning. Okay, great. Do meditation, other people can't stand meditation. What do you mean?
I have to quiet my mind and stare at the wall kind of thing. And I always say actually, there's a lot of other meditational types, but the point of it is that you're making a concerted effort each day. Even if it's 15, 20 minutes to sit quietly with yourself in reflection. And inner conversation and dialogue, maybe journaling some of these things that we're asking about today, what do you fear? What are your expectations of the world? What gets in the way of your joy?
And just begin to note this stuff. And what I have found in my own journey was that when I actually then began to reveal it, I would then have this kind of inner request to, I would like to heal it. And then somehow again, in that magical nonlinear way, Somebody in some way would show up with something that would support me to do that work. Oh, somebody showed up who knows EFT, emotional freedom technique. Maybe you've heard of this. Oh, somebody teach me that.
So I can do some of that for a while. Oh, someone does this other cranial sacral therapy. Oh, I'm going to try that for a while. That seems to really open up some of my energy systems. People would just begin to show up that would support me to do the work that I was identifying for myself, but I had to, in a sense, put it to the universe. I'm ready to really look at this. I'm ready to do this. So I always say start with that time each day, morning or night where you, everything is off.
Get your phone out of there. Maybe find something inspirational to read, might be a book, a passage or something you receive in your email. Read that, sit with it, ask yourself the questions. Journal again, lean into it. So that's one side of the coin attending to let's just call it the shadow stuff. And the other side of the coin is making sure that you are expanding your ability to feel good. And to feel what you want to feel.
And I say that because we habituate to heavier states of being, you mentioned earlier, right? How fast it can come in these. Oh, I feel good, but bang. No, I'm angry. Actually. I realized anger is pretty normal for me. Like I'm pretty much walking around a lot, feeling angry or I'm walking around feeling nervous. So we've habituated to feeling not good.
And what happens is that when we start to feel too good, And this has been shown by some work to a Gay Hendricks, being one of the authors that really a psychologist who looked at this phenomenon is that if we're habituated to a kind of state of being, and we start to feel too good, we will do something to sabotage ourselves so that we start feeling the way we normally feel. So we can't feel too good for too long. How about you've told me you want to be joy. You want to be happiness.
You want to be peace. That's feeling. And is feeling good for long stretches of time. Well, how do I sustain that? So we have, the other side of that coin is start to learn how to feel good, longer, and notice how we self-sabotage when we start to feel good for too long. We're out having dinner. It's a beautiful evening with our spouse or partner. It's been a wonderful night. We're feeling so good. And the next thing, for some reason you can't even put your finger on it.
There's an argument and Bang! Both of you are back into the normal way you are with each other, just with each other. What happened to that break feeling? All it took was a negative thought and bang. That's the kind of thing. So we have to become them to get there's the shadow stuff, at the shadowy stuff that gets in the way so we can start to sustain feeling good.
So I always find those morning meditation times or reflection times is about me, not just sitting down with my thoughts, but sitting and feeling as good as I can for as long as I want to feel good.
Yeah.
whatever that is.
I think that's really fascinating. Like we talked so much about the concept of and you have the idea of leaning into discomfort and in anything in life, like that is such a fundamental skill, right? If you want to get better at anything. You need to be able to lean into discomfort a little bit more stay with it a little bit more, but I love what you're talking about. Actually training, with feeling good. And it's not the like dopamine response. Typical. Like we go to this spot to feel good.
It's that undercurrent of like actually staying in these values that are really hold dear and training myself to do it a little bit longer. really love that. I love how you talked about that other side of the.
right. Going a place that we love, let's say there's a natural spot or a park or something that, that helps us to feel. Good. Great. Go there. If that kickstarts the feeling good process. Do that thing for yourself. But then the trick is to carry it back into those environments, which tend to trigger you out of it. Now I could go back into my workplace and this place always makes me feel, not good. Carry that goodness. In, see how long you can carry it in.
Hm.
So there's a lot to that work and, but it's the act of feeling good. Do you want to feel good? Good. Then work on sustaining, feeling good.
And like you talked about like all the neuroscience and stuff supports that, like we have a negativity bias because were trying to stay alive. Right. So if I see the bushes rustle, could assume that's a tiger, and if I assume it's a tiger and it keeps me alive longer than the person's like, yeah, it's fine. And the tiger eats them. Right. So we have this negativity bias geared towards that.
And you actually have to like you talk about, you can rewire neural pathways to actually operate from a different spot and ideas of empathy, the ideas of joy and peace and stuff are different parts of your brain. And you can actually stay in that space and train that space to operate from this different level. So, fantastic. Fantastic conversation. If people want to, get in touch with you, get ahold of your book, talk to us about that where can they go to do that?
Find the book. Yeah. Actually A Shift in Being is available amazon worldwide. Thank you Amazon for that. But other online book retailers as well. And of course, if they want to check out my work, it's the Center for Transformational Coaching. We do the deep coaching work at the center, which is a lot of what we've spoken about today. Kind of recognizing the interplay.
And then of course, working with people who want to not only understand that for themselves, but want to work with others through these dynamics and patterns. What I've talked about today is a lot of dynamic and pattern of the hero's journey. So to really understand that we teach this work for self, as a coaching modality as well at the center for transformational coaching.
Yeah, absolutely. And a question that I want to end with, I like ending with this question is essentially just asking, like, how would you define success?
Wow. That's such a big question. I think we just opened up a whole other channel of conversation here. Yeah. Mic drop on that one because my whole identity of around success has much more to do with just what we've talked about today, just resting in a place where I feel so connected to life and other people and that connection doesn't dissipate, where there is an incredible feeling of just love. And if I am in that light, loving, connected place in myself, Nothing else really seems to matter.
And it doesn't mean that things don't matter. We care for the things we need to care for our business or kids or relationships or finances. We care for these things still, but it's about being connected to the essence of this whole magical, mysterious thing. We're calling life on earth. And for me that success if I can just stay in that space. And if I, was to die in that space, I would die that I have touched the essence of life and there is nothing further I need to do or be in this world.
It is complete.
I absolutely loved that. It's one of my probably favorite definitions of what I would say, success is from Thich Nhat Hahn. And he says like the miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to dwell on this green earth, dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling fully alive. And that's exactly like what you talked about. Okay. Love that. I really appreciate that. Yeah. So if anybody obviously is Leon stuff is excellent in the center for transformational coaching.
If you're looking at going a little bit deeper and unpacking some of this stuff and going, what would it look like to actually live fully and really meaningfully from exploring who you are at a very deep level. I highly recommend getting in touch with him and, consuming some of the resources that he has, the coaching and stuff that he does as well. So thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Before you go, I would love it. If you actually just shared this episode with a friend, I'm sure. While you were listening, you know, someone just popped into your head and you're like, oh, they would probably like this as well. So it's really easy. You just click the share button on either the website or whatever podcast platform you're on and send it over to them. And chances are, they'll probably like it, too until next time, keep engineering your success.