¶ No More Gold Stars: Change Through Education in Business
Including, we only lost one white manager in Africa who said I can't do this , and he left . Everyone else stayed, because we didn't tell them they had to change , we educated them on assessing how to do their own change . They moved . So the reason we get the question you asked like , well , how do you get people to do this ?
Is because they assume it has to be a doing . You have to move them , you have to change the laws , you have to influence and control , and they don't understand the power of educating people to see their own mind and its effects . And so it's a simple answer .
And the thing is , in South Africa , what we did took six months for something a year or a few others in the mining industry that took only a couple years , but it was all through education , not on what to think , but on how to think and see your own effects . And then you choose .
Yeah , and you were invited in to do that right , and this is true of so many businesses , including big companies around the world over your lifetime , and it's always made me like I've had this bit of a struggle throughout the time .
I've particularly known your work because I think you perhaps represented to me most in the sense that you've had this enormous success like with , with how you've worked with these people and yet a lot of these companies I mean even Google , for example , but not just a single out I guess I've wondered , are the structures that they operated in operating still holding
them tightly so that whatever they've benefited from with you , they still can't really act out ? I mean , they can act out to the extent that you've described it there , for example , but with shareholder structures or infinite growth oriented economies or extractive surveillance mode . Online technologies Are these things ?
you sound like Tyson you're referring , referring to everything that doesn't work . I don't work for it , I work . I find leaders who are willing to make great change and we go work there and it influences hundreds of thousands of people .
And , like in South Africa , when they replaced they little seishos with a GM I was working with , they put in a guy who was basically a Nazi and he pretty much undid , undid the structure we put together but you couldn't take it out of the people . No one who worked in the company reverted .
They kept doing the things the right way and trying to lift up these guys and eventually he has to be moved and to leave his new GM position . So the problem is that you can move by moving probably the minds of a few hundred people in a company with 3,000 , they all change and they worked in the township .
Those people who are in the townships are still bringing about change at the level of everyday work , especially in Soweto and Alexandria , and the people who were in Colgate no longer have the structure to be up in the police , but it's in the mind and heart of the people who are still leading things . Mandela started , so quit looking at what doesn't work .
It's exhausted .
And it was the same thing I was saying to Tyson Don't be so skeptical . It takes very little to move a whole lot . And if people go , find the places people are ready , even if that's 5% of a neighborhood , go with them 5% , because research has shown it probably takes 2% to 3% once those people move . So I don't look at where people are stuck , I look .
I find leaders who are ready to move .
¶ Quantum Social Change and Spiritual Journeys
It reminds me of a recent guest I had late last year , karen O'Brien , and she just released a book called Quantum Social Change for a Thriving World . That was the subtitle . It's one I remember . You met her more than you think was the title . That's right , it's Quantum .
Social Change .
And yet extrapolating what we're learning from quantum physics into the social cultural domain . And it's a terrific hypothesis and it really reminds me of precisely what you're saying that in everything , everywhere , in every moment , embodying a way of being is going to bring about all these reverberations or fractures .
Well , I don't think that's enough . What do you think ? Yeah , I think that I believe in all that theory .
I have a technology to use it , to apply it every day , working with people , because that level that you're talking about I don't know about her it's such a high level of abstraction you can say , yeah , well , of course , but what do I do to help grow people to think ?
Well , I don't have a really book , but I find a lot of people who say to me well , you're talking about something somebody else said , but most of them don't have a technology , a way of every day redesigning works . So it lives up to those principles , and so that's what I have been building .
I have two communities one with change agents who are consultants , teachers , owners of companies , and they meet with me for several years and then suddenly they see what that meant . They entangle one of the quantum and so forth , but they now know how to redesign a company based on it and how to educate people .
And then I have a change agent group or sorry , a company group where you have teams of people who come in and learn how to redesign their business . And so when you're a part of those two communities , we give you a technology .
A technology means how to transfer theory into practice , into design , and so I think there are a lot of people who are well , something enough maybe , that are getting the new theory . My work is based on quantum science , on indigenous teachings and on lineage wisdom .
Teachers like out of various countries , raised like Buddhist traditions and different versions and also a Hindu . All of those have threads in them and have had for decades or centuries that we draw on , and so I take my grandfather and other indigenous and I find their threads in all of those things and then we translate them into a technology .
We don't teach them those things directly . We show them a technology , but what that means , how do you design with it . So I think the theory is good . I think a lot of people are ready , more or less good ideas , but they don't know how to tell you what to go do with this .
So I've got these 3000 who I've managed to amalive them , share our technology with .
Yes , indeed , you mentioned those other wisdom traditions . Have Western wisdom traditions been important on your journey as well ?
Yes , subquatic method is a Western philosophical tradition . It's a big part , and so we have Eastern and Western . I did happen to mention Eastern , but there are quite a few philosophical traditions , western wisdom traditions . Socrates is probably the most intense one we work with , and Pythagoras .
Can you describe , yeah , how you work with that ?
Wow . That's a really probably impossible question because it takes years to get connected . But Socrates had five things he was working on all the time , which we have technology for . One was being non-mechanical . Humans are so sound asleep , and so we have a variety of practices that help you wake yourself and your team up . One is like a disruptive practice .
If you sit in a workshop with me , I may insult you on purpose for something I can see you're insecure about or you're not thinking about or you've seen in the lessons . Like mechanicalers I might say . So is that an idea you've had all of your life and you've never questioned it ? And people don't come defensive .
Oh , so , okay , now you're going to become defensive . Well , is that a mechanical response ? So I do that to members until they're no longer bothered by me doing it and then . So that's a Socratic process , because it's about waking you up . Humility is another one .
Can you be with people , even as a teacher , and not feel a need to be smarter than them or a need to teach them as you as an authority ? And so I'm constantly . When people first join , I say especially students that did teach at a couple of universities I say don't trust me , never , don't assume that I am any kind of authority or expert .
So don't reject well , don't accept anything I tell you , but don't reject it without testing it with your own personal experience .
That's the only time you can say you know the answer to something is we're doing that , so , so I'm going to use and most people who are out there teaching work hard to get to be an expert and look like they know more and can teach you . So we learned from Socrates how to help everyone learn to think for themselves .
And you've created you alluded to before . You've been part of creating peer groups and networks as well throughout your life quite a number and quite a scale too , and they're now sort of moving along on their own steam .
No , I have not quit teaching any of them . They meet with me eight times a year to learn the next evolution , but they all have independence , so no one's dependent on me . I'm not in charge of anything , I just happen to have some ideas it's good to play with . So they've never not moved on their own .
And when I was learning it , the learning has I moved on my own . I don't report anyone , no one's in charge of me , so we're all independent forever .
But I still , and they've asked me to keep teaching as long as I can and that's probably coming to a closer in a couple of months , because I will choose to sit down and die like the sages and be gone , and then everyone has their own new seed , a place to start a new level of work , and I need to tell you I'm getting really tired .
Yeah , and so let's think about Kind of some wrap up questions for all right five minutes .
Yeah good , you've actually given me the perfect segue when you said to sit down and die like the sages , because I was wondering if , if you would contemplate life in this moment for you , if you'd contemplate life as a spiritual journey .
Well , I've always thought of it that way I am . I don't know whether karma exists or not . Better choose to believe in it Because it makes me a better human and I believe there are some kind of Development . I personally believe I chose to die before I was born with the alf . It's a terrible disease , people . You know how people die with alf .
They suffocate your lungs . Quit working doesn't sound horrible , yeah , yeah , it's always Very few people would want to get it . But I think I chose it before I was born because I figure I would get to learn a whole lot , since I'm terrified of suffocating and of being Custrophobic . So I figure all that was in my plan . Now , how do I deal with it now ?
Pretty well , mostly . The good news is I'm not afraid to dying . So I get , I'm leading conscious dying workshops because on this Western Plain of existence we don't teach people how to die . We don't teach them how to be conscious and in the moment with the deteriorating body .
So the people in one of my two communities are Are meeting with me every other month and I report what I'm doing , watching my dying , and Also I've invited them to be present with me as I go through some phases . One is the Sages dying , and for me that is you stop eating and drinking and your body let's go with your spirit , so to speak .
You can end the state and most places do death with dignity , which means you administer a Substance to yourself that kills you . I the feel that feels unnatural and I probably couldn't qualify for it . But you have to be able to see yes to doing the drugs and you have to administer them , and without you can't do anything that you can't move .
I slowly , I can't even go get my microphone Right . How would I go get while anyway ? But the stages throughout history have said my work is , it's completed .
I can do it this time I'm gonna sit and It'll take about three to four weeks if I don't eat or drink , and I've asked people to come be with me doing that and including online , but they have to be in the Community with us working on their own exercises and work I'm offering .
And then the second of the last phase is after of a left of my body to sit in Practices that we are using in a Tibetan Buddhism for helping us all . We need to weigh on to its next body or whatever it shows them and To be with me for that 49 days . So I'm doing the best they can to spiritualize it and to invite people in .
In want to learn about dying and to the fighting from it , so yeah it's a beautiful journey .
Oh yeah , and that is an inspiration . I was just think , I was just listening , with my wife , to friends and colleagues of my wife , one of whom's become a death doula . Yeah yeah , works with people just like this .
I've done that . Hmm , I did when I said I work with hospice , what they called us . We got trained to be death the doulas , or dying doulas , I think we more called it .
Yes , it's a process , not about the moment , the only , of dying , but the process of Choosing how you will die if you can , and how you will be be engaged With other family members and friends .
Yeah , and you did say at one stage a couple of years ago you were going to write a memoir . Is that woven into this current book ?
No , well , it's woven into many of our books , like my grandfather's story , but the one I'm into right now and I doubt that I'll make it . I had two books I'm not going to get written . The memoir was called Amnus , what was it called ?
Oh , yes , I remember this . I am too smart .
I am too smart exactly Because my father told me repeatedly I was stupid and I spent my whole life overcoming that constant daily . I know it's a terrible thing to do to a child . My last book is about how smartness really happened , and so it has some of my story . So I think what I've done is getting all the way to a memoir is woven it in .
I thought you might say that .
¶ What did I promise to do before I was born? A last word from Carol
I think of the impact Thomas Coon and that moment had on you . When I feel like you're having that increasingly still that sort of a moment on other people now and I guess what would you like to say in this particular context as we go out , in terms of passing the baton ?
No , there's no such thing . Each person . They die , who they are and what they came to do dies with them . The thing is , you have to know and ask what did I promise to do before I was born that I've not completed ? And when I'm asking , people are sitting with me during the V-set . It's called voluntary stopping , eating and dying .
I've asked you get to touch a portal by being connected with me leaving and you were to ask yourself what is mine yet to do ? I'm sitting here with you , Carol , leaving your body , and I can feel now my entire life and my work . And now , what is mine left yet to do ?
I'm really taking stock of that , Carol .
¶ Music & silence
Let's go out with a reflection on a piece of music that's been significant .
I've never played music , none .
Really .
I have silence . Silence is what I do . I don't listen to records . And then when I was young , you know in my 20s and 30s , but music's never been my doorway to anything .
But silence has Sorry . No , this is good , this is Silence , yeah .
I love silence .
Your life has been so full . How would you ? Would you have practices that you would consciously then go and be silent somewhere ?
No , I've lived alone a huge amount of my life . My husband died 20 years ago and he always was in the shop when we lived in the woods and he was all day , except for dinner , in the shop . So it was silent all day and he walked in the woods in silence we did together .
I've always lived with a lot of silence around me , except when my kids , of course , were very young .
They were noisy . All right , I can't thank you enough . Thank you so much for being with me .
You're welcome . Thank you for asking and for listening .
Yeah , I will certainly be thinking and feeling of you before you throughout this next period and , yeah , taking a lot of stock of what you've said . Thank you .
You're welcome . Thank you , Anthony . AJ: That was the legendary Carol Sanford .
For more on Carol and her life's ongoing work see the links in the show notes . I'm still sitting deeply with this one and wonder how you might have found it . Thanks very much for joining me for another year of The RegenNarration and , of course , thanks as always , to the generous supporters who've helped make this episode possible .
If you value what you hear , please consider joining this community of supporting listeners so I can keep the podcast going . Just head to the website via the show notes regennarration . com forward slash support . Thanks again . Thanks also to cousins Maz and Kor-B for loaning a studio to me for this one . Reno's to the unit upstairs of us here sent me packing .
A nd , as always , if you think of someone who might enjoy this episode , please do go ahead and share it with them . The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden off the soundtrack to the film Regenerating Australia . My name's Anthony James . Thanks for listening .