Eric Kaufmann on Conscious Leadership

We tend toward negativity and self pity, jealousy or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their

good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest this week is Eric Kaufman, and if that name sounds familiar, it's because it is. We've had Eric on before, and we had a wonderful conversation where we talked about his book The Four Virtues of a Leader. Eric guides leaders to make better decisions and achieve better results. He has consulted for hundreds of leaders, including executives and teams at Sony,

t Mobile, Genentech, Alcon Labs, and Tara Data. He is the founder and president of Sagattica, Inc. And serves on the board of the San Diego Zen Center. And here's the conversation with Eric Kaufman. Hi, Eric, welcome to the show. Thanks Eric, and I'm devilighted to be with you. I am happy to have you on again. You are a second time guest. There are there's a few of them out there, but not a whole lot. So welcome to

an elite club. And uh, and we'll get we'll start talking here about more of your work in a minute. But let's start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always a battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed

and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second, and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Oh Man, I love that the parable. I was really listening as you were describing it. Um,

I think two things come to mind. Eric. One one is that you know the one you feed is there's a critical component relative to you know, what are we intentionally doing? Right? So do I do I feed? And I would use the word feed and sure right to do I nurture the inherent seeds of love and compassion and kindness that are within me? And how do I

do that right? So that's one set of practices. The other thing that occurs to me is that the very nature that there are there are elements of us in battle, is in and of itself a practice because I think that, Um, while it's important to feed the one that you want to cultivate, right, the good wolf, I guess making peace with the shadow of us making peace with and making peace means really learning to habitate with greed and fear and hate, because I don't know that it's something that

I've successfully extracted from my life or that other people have. But if I can learn to live with it in a way that it isn't start reading, starving, mad, trying to kill me. But I know that it's there, and so that I can tend to it, and when it rises up demanding food, I can figure out what is the least amount of sustenance it needs to not take over. And so I want to I want to feed and nurture of the inherent love and kindness. But I don't want to pretend that anger and hate are not part

of my shadow side too. And I think much of the challenge of some of the work that's been going on, you know, in the last fifty or six years, has been this effort to eradicate sort of that part of us, rather than send love and nurturance to that dark side as well, not in order to sustain it, and not in order to sort of feed it and make it pro but in order to suit it. And so what

does that look like for you in practice? Can you give me an example of of an instance of this in your life, and maybe how you've done that, how you've tended to it. You I mean, yeah, I have an immediate example to me nice doing that last night the night before I came home. I have two daughters. My older daughters out of the house traveling world, and

my younger daughter is a junior in high school. And in my mind, I have this, you know, expectation that whatever was Tuesday night, she and I gonna have dinner to get there, and then we're gonna go for an evening walk the dog and I would have some time with her, you know, because it's it's kind of a precious, rare thing to spend time with my high school daughter. And uh, and she came home here, she was out with friends. She came home later and I said, okay, great,

and she said I want to eat first. And I said, okay, but if you eat and we're gonna go for a walk. Blah blah blah. Bottom line is She's like, no, I don't want to go for a walk. And I kind of sat there going, man, I am so bombed. And so how did I practice with that? I literally, instead of like projecting over her and saying you promised, you said, I went off to the other room for a moment, and I'm like, you know it sounds like a still an example, but it was so a line for me.

I went to the other room and I sat there, and I breathed, and I dropped into my body and said, what's going on here? What's going on here? Was one expectation to a little bit agreed. I wanted time with her for myself, and so, you know, sitting there and just breathing into it and recognizing the story and labeling it and saying this is, this is what's happening, and allowing myself to literally digest the emotional reaction. And took

about three four minutes. I go back and just be with her and hang with her and enjoy the time I had with her. I was actually surprised at the strength of reaction and disappointment that I had. So I don't know, that's a very simple example, but it's so real.

It's it was just two nights ago, and it's being present to the experience, getting into my body, labeling it in my mind, and then allowing myself a few minutes so literally that chest and pass so that I can engage with her in my way that I want to

engage with her. Yeah, that's a great example of just not making a situation worse, Like you could have made that situation worse by getting upset or angry with your daughter and driven more of a wedge between you and you found a way to sort of process that in a way that didn't do that. And I often think I've said this a lot lately, and I sometimes think, like, when we're upset, sometimes the best thing we can do

is we just don't make it worse. Not the most optimistic message ever, but it's a pretty good thing if we don't make things worse. In the tradition that I've been practicing the last many years as a practice, it's called refrain and return, right, So so don't make it. Don't make your horses refrain right. So the first thing is kind of like just pause, refrain from escalating, and then return to your body, your breath, to present state, and to the the experience of half. But I think,

don't make divorce. It's not insignificant and that's huge. Right. Yeah, Well, let's turn our attention to some of the work you've been doing lately. And you know, a big focus of your work lately has been conscious leadership. So why don't we just start off by you telling us a little bit more about what conscious leadership is. Conscious leadership is it's combining an unrelenting commitment to results with an unyielding regard for spirit. And what I mean by that is

that you know leadership. And that's true whether you're the CEO of a business or the head of a department, or supervisor on the team, or just you know a mom, a dad, a team member. Leadership is really about influence, right, but at some point it's about results. It's about getting things done that happened that don't happen on their own and won't happen without an effort. So there's a leadership in particularly as in regards to getting other people involved

and getting things done. So an unrelenting commitment to results means that you know, in the leadership prole we have to be really focused on getting something done, and usually these are difficult things that don't happen organically, right, But you combine that with an unrelenting regard for spirit, in other words, not just doing it as an automaton or robot or just for the purposes of achievement, but really

with regard for the spirit. And the spirit is you know that conscious spiritual element that is both within me, between us and all around us, and having that as a love. The term source right, that the idea of being connected to source and operating We don't always operate from source, but with this intent to really listen deeply to what life wants, what spirit wants, and how do we serve that even as we're driving for the results

that we're driving for. And how tell me a little bit about how you've seen this work in practice, whether it be within an organization with a particular leader, how are people able to do both of those things? Um, I have a I have a great example of a company where one of the practices that the CEO and put into place was that they were going to provide loans. Was a manufactured company and they provided loans and microhones of folks in order to help improve their lives and lifeliholds.

And there was a woman who came to the you know, came to her manager and said, I needed a loan. And this was a loan to help her mom was six, She had three sisters and all the sisters were contributing except what this woman who really wanted to contribute, sos, you wanted the loans that you could help contribute to the family. And when the manager and this woman had this conversation, he eventually ended up turning her down for the loan. So you're probably thinking, how this is an

example of conscious naship. The reason he turned it down was that he was he listened really deeply to her needs, to her family needs, and to where she was coming from. And where she was coming from was a sense of inadequacy and fear and wanting to look good in front of her sisters. And so rather than give her the loan, he came up with his coaching plan as or and helped her upper education, improve her English skills, and generally

made her more of a competent, effective professional. And while in the short term it was frustrated she didn't get the loan, and the long term, this manager was actually able to through being present to her, present to the bigger picture, applying some level of courage and wisdom still connected the heart, helped her have this result that was

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

but what they might need. Yeah, And I think that's conscious leadership is that you know, he was being aware in real time of reality and connection and implications. And and the reason I say courage was because it actually took him, you know, I talked to him. It took him some real courage to say no to her because it's so difficult. Right, She's in a needy place, her mom is sick, or sisters helping out. To face value, this was something that anyone should have said, yes, do.

But he wasn't just looking at face value, right. He was present, he was conscious, he was aware, he was alert, and in that way he was able to serve her in a much bigger way than the immediacy of her pressure. Right. Right, Let's talk about what the three pillars of conscious leadership are. So I see the three sort of initial hindrances being conscious and there often discussed in Buddhism as the three poisons of the three fires. And they referred to as ignorance, greed,

and hate. And actually, when you describe your terrible of the two wolves, I think you use almost those exact terms. You can talk about greed, anger, and fear right right, and so ignorance, greed, and hate are sort of the three fires or the three the three poisons, and what these are is essentially the building box of our egoic state of being. So from an ego perspective, ignorance is really not understanding how the world works, not understanding of

permanence and into connectedness. Greed is sort of this pervasive desire to have things for myself, and hate or anger is kind of pushing things away and and being dismissive or downright artful to others. And so those to me are the ones that are parading, you know, consistently as the fundamental challenge of what it means to be an awake person, a conscious person. And it's the building blocks

of the ego. And so in my structure, the the three pillars of the three elements of conscious being conscious, whether it's a leader or a conscious husband and conscious mom, a conscious sister, conscious friend, is being able to sort of activate an align wisdom, love, and courage, and those to me are the three the three pillars of being a conscious person, right, Wisdom, love, and courage. Let's walk through, walk through kind of each of those. What they how

you're using them. What do we mean by wisdom? Yeah, so, um, I guess let's start there. Let's start with wisdom. So well, my favorite the definition of wisdom is mistakes plus time. But that's not really the you know that that and that works. That's a lovely definition, but the I think where I'm really going for in wisdom in this case

is seeing below the surface and beyond the obvious. I think that's where sort of the wisdom lives, right, is seeing below the surface, which is really insight, understanding, awareness, the depth of it, and beyond the seeing the bigger picture of the interconnectiveness of all things. And so wisdom is one of the ways that we begin to both

understand ourselves deeply and transcend ourselves. And so there is this capacity for deep insight and deep understanding and seeing the big picture on the perspective, and you can see from a leadership perspective that's really critical. But it's also trying to I mean, at some level the fact that my daughter, you know, said no, and I got upset and I walked away and did a little formative practice, was in itself some wisdom, right, because I could see

below the surface. I don't want to be caught up in my own disappointment and greed, and I was looking beyond the office, right. I don't want to make it worse with my daughter. I want to stay connected to her. So let me practice something, you know, use that wisdom, walk away, do something, and come back thinking I do. Wisdom is such a It's a term that I think we all aspire to, and as we start to talk about you realize how nebulous it can be. How do

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

being distracted unaware. I mean your work. You know, what are you doing. You're spending your whole life essentially helping people become more aware. And I think that's part of waking up to our being wise. And I don't think wise is something you've achieve as an end state. I

think wisdom. That's why I said it's a practice. Right, there's this constant practice of cultivating wisdom, and there are sort of subsets of wisdom, right, Like, mindfulness is a fantastic practice for cultivating wisdom because you get to experience reality in the present moment. Humor is a fantastic element for cultivating wisdom because it gives me perspective and distance. Awareness is a way to cultivate wisdom. It's a way

to pay attention and notice what's really happening. But yeah, I don't think there's an end state to it, right, Right, I couldn't agree more. Let's talk about courage then, yeah, so, um so courage is so my simple definition of courage is that courage is walking towards what you'd rather run away from. Let's use the workplace as an example, right, So, courage is something that a lot of management teams would hope that people have more courage. And the basic mood

of our ego is fear. It's just the basic mood of the ego if you just look at you know, and that's at the ego level. At the neurological level, we're wired towards being vigilant, and fear is sort of the manifestation. We are the descendants people who have survived because they've listened to their fear. The people who were fearless and did really silly things died, went off the gene pool, and we don't have their offspring. And so fear is like both software and you know, both software

and hardware for the human being. And I think that the capacity for courage and is really significant. And I think in the workplace's kind of three types of courage that I'm particularly looking at right the courage to speak up,

the courage to care, and the courage to commit. I think the courage to speak up is is it okay to show up and really put myself on display and not be afraid of humiliation or being belittled, being somehow perceived a stupid And that's not just in the workplace, that's everywhere, right, We often don't speak up, and we don't really get to shine, and it's because we're afraid. The courage to commit is a big deal because many many, many present company included myself, right, and a fear of failure.

I don't want to fail. I don't want things to not go my way. I want to control things. And so we don't commit wholeheartedly because we want to, you know, either stave off the possibility of favor, not engage with favor, or control it more deeply. And so that the courage to commit is kind of a big deal. And the courage to care, there's another one, because the last thing we want is to be rejected or pushed away or abandoned or hurt. And so many of us are trained

to be hard hearted and too. In a professional setting, in particular, we call being a professional. What doesn't mean to be a professional means that you shut your heart and you behave in a way that is disconnected so that you can do things that are often unkind. And so the courage that care is a big deal, you know. So those are the kind of the manifest expressions of courage. It's not just it's not jumping off a roof for

you know, swimming with sharks. I mean, yeah, that's courage too, but that's just that's fun pleasure swimming sharks, probably long and still not open my heart to another being, right, right, Yes, I think courage in those ways is often harder than some of the outward manifestations of courage. Yeah, and and and there are ways that fear manifested, particularly in the workplace,

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

it's kind of the reaction to sarcasm. But I kind of I kind of stopped the meeting and said, well, what that a second, you know what's going on here? Because my my take is at sarcasm. You know, it comes from a Greek word sarkazine. It means to rend the flesh. Sarcasm is designed to do what to cut somebody down. And so while it was a little you know, it took a little courage for me to say in the meeting, but I really wanted to highlight you know,

sarcasm is a mask of some kind of fear. There's other woman who was being sarcastic, was using sarcasm to to cover up her own fear that she was not going to look at you know, that she was looking bad with this because of the other comment. She used sarcasm to cut this woman down out of her own fear of humiliation, of failure. So sarcasm, a little bit of sarcasm is funny. It takes the sting out of the room and kind of light that moved. But it's it's kind of like, it's kind of like I love

Thai food. I don't know if you're in the thaipe food I got the Thai restaurants say how hot do you want? Right? So if you order one or two, it's kind of you know, it's it's tasty. If four or five gives you a little charge, and nine or ten you're freaking burning. And I think sarcasm, you know, one or two is kind of funny, But you start getting into the seven, eight, nine tenths, sarcasm is actually dangerous.

It's threatening. So that's one example. I have other examples, but you know, I think courage is it's a requisite for life. I mean this soccer is said that courage is the first of the human virtues because it's the one that makes all the other ones possible, right right, yep.

I think that's a very very true statement. And I've been thinking about the role of humor in in all of this stuff, and you mentioned a little while ago humor as a real aid to wisdom, and trying to think about, like, well, when is something When is humor okay? When is it not? And made me think back to an episode he had a long, long time ago with a guy named Paul gil Martin who hosts a show called The Mental Illness Happy Hour, and he basically said,

humors find except when it's used to deflect vulnerability. And I thought that's a pretty good definition. Is the humor bringing us closer together or is it driving us further apart? And I think that's a useful way to sort of interpret, you know, whether a joke or even some degree of sarcasm is is okay, what's it doing to the room, what's it doing to the people around I love that. I love that, And your point I think is so spot on because that vulnerability, right, but I call sort

of courage to care. Right, We're terrified of being vulnerable. And the workplace often has kind of a there's a high competition in many workplaces. And the idea that's really popular right now. And if you've seen in Eric is this idea of psychological safety. Have you come across that research? I have? I have. I just interviewed somebody last night who wrote a book about the rules of emotions at work and and talking about psychological safety a little bit. Yeah,

so you told me down there. So psychological safety is basically the idea that you can show up at work without fear of embarrassment or threat, you know. And so why do we need psychological safety because that's how we operated our best in many workplaces are not psychological state because people are just not aware, they're not conscious there. And to your point about humor, I mean, humor is such a beautiful thing. You take a room, crack a

joke and everybody's laughing. As soon as people laugh, they kind of a box together. It's a wonderful thing. But you can also use humor and sarcasm to totally deflect from your sense of vulnerability. And and that's not a courageous act. And I think, I mean, I was in I was in a meeting Monday, I guess it was Monday, and the CEO and actually had some issue with one of the other executives. And for the first time, She's

like said, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna be bold. She so she stated it, right, I'm gonna be bold, and I'm gonna say this. But you know, Susan thought that that so was on, you know, and she went on to say what she went to say, and her voice was quivering, and she wasn't making direct eye contact with the other executive, but she delivered it in a in a kind way. It wasn't wasn't mean. It changed the vibe of the whole team in a positive way because

Diane went out and did something that was courageous. It raised the level of willingness and honesty in that team to to have a deeper, more meaningful conversation. And I think so the number one challenge of all leaders is, you know, the ego gets in the way. The number two challenge of all leaders is that there's not enough meaningful, genuine conversations about topics of matter. And Diane went there courageously,

voice quivering, not making eye contact. She allowed her own ego to be unsafe and therefore kind of raised the vibration of presence in the room and she opened up a meaningful, real conversation. You know, that was a beautiful, active courage and super useful not just to her but to the whole team into the organization. Yeah, that's a

great story. And I do think when when people are able to go a level deeper at work, I have found that over and over that it creates something new for the people that are there, and it it unlocks possibilities, particularly of teams coming closer together or people coming closer together. I've told this story before a little bit about how I used to go to work really with UM I had. I had my vision of what a professional person would do and say at work. I kind of tried to

stay inside that. But what that ended up doing was cutting off, at least in my case, a significant part of my character, because I you know, for whatever reason, a lot of my character would be outside of that little boundary. And as I began to bring more of myself in. You know, again, all this within reason and appropriateness. But as I began to take more chances and sort of show who I actually was and some of the things about myself that might have been quote unquote a

little weirder or odd or out of the normal. Or I took chances emotionally and shared how I was feeling or things that had happened to me. I noticed that I got better at work in all regards because my relationships with people went a level or too deeper, And as they went a level or too deeper, suddenly it changed the dynamic and we were able to work together more closely. And it was just funny that as I

took those chances, I actually became better at work. I thought I was doing it to be more true to myself, which I was, but what it actually ended up doing. I thought I would be making a trade, We'll be a little bit more true to myself, but that might be damaging to me at work, but okay, I'm willing to do that, And it turned out to be I'm going to be a little bit more true to myself,

and I actually got better at work. Oh man, I just love that story, you know, because what you just shared in such a beautiful way, and I think this is what I hope people really listened to and take eat right. Is that in my contract that this is under the courage to speak up, right, um, and we can broaden that as the courage to show up. I love what you said because we do have these sort of concocted notions of how we should show up, you know,

and and we put these great boundaries and restrictions on ourselves. Right, I couldn't show this. I have one guy that I talked to is Ryan. He's a fantastic, awesome leader. And the way he described it is when we talked about it was a very similar thing to what you described because he was withholding himself essentially right, And that's I think what you're described a certain withholding based on the notion of their goal. People would really not accept this

about me. And we came up he came up with the term and then we used it together. He said, um, he called it bringing the weird. Right. He wanted to bring the weird, and he started bringing the weird and his experience was much like it us and actually much like mine, right, which is we're all quirky. If you show up to work dressed like you're in the nineteenth century, that might be a little too weird. But but I don't think it's that that's that it's that dramatic. I

think it's more. What I use is the courage to speak up, with the courage to show up. And the more courage you apply to bring more of yourself to speak what's meaning to you, to engage in what is enlightening to you. The more you are enjoying your work, and the more people enjoy you, and remarkably, the more fun it is. Much of our energy at work is lost because we are restricting and containing ourselves. It takes energy to withhold, It takes energy to maintain my my

my shields. You know, I'm you know, started the enterprise. You know, when they when they turn on the forward shields, it sucks most of the energy away from the other aspects of the ship. And when we go through work with our shields up, that energy is not available to other things like creativity and connection and even efficiency. And so just showing up, even though it takes courage, ultimately has more energy on it. I agree. I think that's

a great way of putting it. The amount of energy it takes to sort of put on a certain face is really tiring, tiring and unsustainable, right right, you know? And then and then what people turned around it was it, oh, they just don't know. I had a great example because I was. I practiced the same center and have for many many years, and for being there for about ten years.

At that point, I gone to the teacher and I went to the Dyson dice on as these interviews with the teacher, and I went in there and I said to him, you know, i've been your ten years. I think I'm done. And he looked at me and said, well, you know, say more. I said, I've practiced here, and I'm sure diligently. I go to all the treats and not all, but I go to in re treats a year. I have a home practice. But my relationship with you

was it's just it's not fulfilling to me. And he looked at me and said, you say more, And he said what do you mean? And I said, you know, I just I just don't think you know me. And he looked at me and he said, well, have you made yourself known? Mhm? And I really kind of paused for a moment. You know, the nice thing about Dyson early like ten fifteen minutes long, and then you go back to the cushion, right. And then I went back to the Christian I reflected, and I realized, no, I

have been to some degree. I had a notion of what a Zen student behave. So I had this like a Zen character when I showed up at the zendo, and when I talked with the Zen teacher, you know, I had this whole kind of concocted story and I his question, have you made yourself known? It was really brilliant because I realized all the ways in which I was withholding and and and so it changed a tinge of nature of my experience. And I'm still there and

we're still obviously working together. And I'll tell you one of the quick story of her mind because in the same thing, go ahead. I was in a week long intensive psychodrama program a year or so ago, and after I don't care I've done. Psychodrama is super tripy, you know, it's people acting out their childhood things. It's really reallyant. It's a week long man, so it's like there's no

escaping the weird. At the beginning of the second day, I got together with the head facilitator and she said, well, how's it going, And I said, well, to be honest, it's a little boring. And she looked me straight in as she goes, well, then you must be a little boring. And I thought, that is a fantastic answer, right, It's it's on me, like, what do I want to have in this experience? And how do I have both the courage and the care to bring myself to it so

that I have the experience. I mean, so anyway, I think these these stories are all stories and to something recourage right there, the courage to show up, the courage to care, the courage to commit um, and the recognition that I am I am a co creator of my reality. If I find that I'm bored, then I must be boring. If I if I if I think he doesn't know me,

that I'm not making myself known. And those are some degree functions of how do I allow my my whole self, my spirit, my weird, my beautiful everything to leak forward and show up in spite of the fear. And so it is walking towards what I would rather run away from Yeah, that is such a great Those are two great, really great examples of what we're talking about. Let's talk about before we run out of time. Here the last of your pillars of conscious leadership. Let's talk about love.

Yeah again, So it's your point right now. It was at the eighties of the nineties where they had all those umper stickures love is dot dot dot, and I don't remember that that they feel in all that love is. It's one of those much like wisdom, right, how do you actually define it? So the operating definition for me around love. You know, what works for me to think of in terms of love is wanting to do for others. I think of love as as an expansion. I think of love as an inclusion and love is um not

just an expansion and inclusion of connecting with others. But you know, we talked about what does my heart want? I mean, you coach people, I coach people. You know, one of the great challenges that people run into is had a conversation with with Oscar and super sharp guy, I mean Harvard gret while the successful consultant and he's feeling rather stuck right, and I said, well, you know, what does your heart want, because there's an element of

love that is as expensive. Right, what does your heart want? What is your heart moaned for? We're working on it. Right. He's very caught up in his head, very educated, very smart, and so it's all about launching for the heart is pressing for something in that same part expands and I

think love is expansive and inclusive and connected. And I think in the workplace, in the home, love is the man infest of wanting to do well for others, as this impulse of tending to and caring to providing for another without having to have some kind of you return or payment as it were, Right, it's wanting to do

well for others. And I find that to be. You know, even somebody who has great wisdom and wonderful courage but doesn't have love, I still don't think they're operating as a fully conscious being, because I think conscious is all those it's both understanding and it's moving, and it's a sense of connection, connection with my what I'm called to, connecting deeply to what life is calling forth in the universe and the grand expanse of spirit, and connecting with others. Yeah,

that's a that's a great thing. And how do you talk about love when you're bringing it inside a corporation? You know, when you're bringing this conscious leadership inside what what are the ways that you talk about? Is that? Is that the kind of terminology used like we just used there. So I I find that there are things that get in the way of love, right, and we can sort of address what gets in the way of love. So for example, um, Mike, the way he's behaving with

his peers is arrogant. He's arrogant, um, he's you know, he walks around being you know, I'm the best, I'm better than you. And I think what happens when, you know, he displays his arrogance, is that this assumption that I'm better than others blocks love, right, is it is the opposite of love. It is an exclusion, it's disconnects, It belittles. And so of course you can be an expert, you can be very good at something, but arrogance becomes kind

of an ego posturing, and it's hardhearted things. And so what's the counterbalance of arrogance, right, So it's humility. So how do we cultivate a sense of proportion and humility not taking away from our expertise, our genius are brilliance, our beauty, but understanding how it is that we fit into the pick a picture. That's one way've talked about. Another one that's really really common in workplaces being judgmental, right, humans in general. You know, I again, having good judgment,

What do we want from from a leader? I want a leader, and as good judgment as a huge big deal. But being judgmental means that I'm sort of critical, right that I'm determined that somebody just isn't measuring up, not good enough. And so converses A is compassion and I can have a good judgment and you know, this is something and that's where wisdom comes in in a big way. But I want to also have compassion. Compassion is seeing where other people are struggling and moving towards helping alleviate

their challenge. So those are a couple of examples in the workplace. That's awesome. Well, we are nearing the end of our time here. Um, it's funny you talk about the three pillars of conscious leadership being courage, wisdom, and love. And whenever I hear the words wisdom and love in the same sentence, I always think of I can never say this guy's name. Niz Nick's niz Ge darda Indian sage who said, wisdom tells me I'm nothing, love tells me I am everything. Between the two of my life flows.

That's beautiful. That Yeah, it's one of my favorite lines. You and I are going to continue this conversation for a little bit in the post show conversation where we're going to talk about purpose. You have some really interesting ideas on life purpose, so you and I will continue that listeners, if you'd like to hear it, you can go to one you feed dot net slash joint and you can become a member and get access to all

the post show conversations and lots of other goodies. Eric, thanks so much for taking the time to come on again. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. Thank you. I appreciate that you're making the effort to put forth this this great material. Thanks for having me my pleasure. Thank you. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One you Feed podcast. Head over to one you feed dot net slash support.

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