Leadership Evolution: Why Humility and Empathy Matter More Than Ever.

Are you striving to become a more effective leader but feeling overwhelmed by traditional leadership models? What if embracing humility, empathy, and mindfulness could transform your leadership style and lead to greater success? If you're ready to explore new dimensions of leadership maturity, this episode is for you.

In this episode, I interview seasoned coach Stephen Josephs, diving into the essential elements of leadership maturity. We discuss the profound impact of meditation, the importance of humility and empathy, and the concept of post-heroic leadership. Stephen shares his insights on the fusion of mind-body disciplines and effective communication strategies, emphasizing the need to relinquish ego and harness collective intelligence. This conversation is packed with transformative ideas that make leadership both intriguing and attainable.

Imagine leading with a deeper sense of empathy and humility, fostering a more collaborative and innovative team environment.

By listening to this episode, you can:

1. Achieve Leadership Maturity: Transition from traditional leadership models to a more empathetic and collaborative approach, enhancing team dynamics and collective success.

2. Enhance Self-Awareness: Discover the power of mindfulness and meditation in increasing self-awareness, leading to more authentic and effective leadership.

3. Improve Communication: Learn strategies for empathetic understanding and effective communication, crucial for successful negotiations and fostering a positive team culture.

Three Benefits You'll Gain:

1. Mature Leadership Approach: Develop a leadership style that values humility, empathy, and collaboration, leading to a more cohesive and innovative team.
2. Increased Self-Awareness: Use mindfulness and meditation to enhance your self-awareness, authenticity, and overall leadership effectiveness.
3. Enhanced Communication Skills: Master empathetic communication techniques that improve negotiations and create a positive, supportive team environment

Discover how to lead with humility, enhance self-awareness, and create collaborative outcomes that benefit everyone involved. Start your journey towards transformative leadership today!

Bio:
Stephen Josephs helps leaders shape their cultures and bring out people’s best work. His 40-year executive coaching practice has grown through decades of training and research. In the 1970s he began “modeling” exemplary leaders, identifying the thought processes that allowed them to outperform others by significant margins. He is co-author of Leadership Agility which illustrates how stages of psychological maturity affect a leader’s capacity to lead.

In exploring mind-body disciplines from many traditions, his two ongoing questions have been: What are the central principles of transformation common to all these methods? Secondly: How can they be applied to catalyze maturity in leaders? These twin inquiries have guided his work in helping leaders respond to their challenges with increased vitality, focus and heart.

Contact:
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenjosephs/
Website:  https://www.stephenjosephs.com/

Chapters

• 0:08 Introduction to It's an Inside Job podcast
• 0:46 Introducing a New Solo Pilot Series
• 2:04 Play #11: External Validation, The True North
• 2:35 Fulvia's Struggle with Seeking External Validation
• 3:34 Embracing Inner Approval and Making Aligned Choices
• 4:26 Evolving Interactions and Genuine Connections
• 5:26 Celebrating Accomplishments Through Internal Approval
• 6:06 Fulvia's Journey: Shifting to Inner Validation
• 7:01 Self-Discovery and Introspection: Unleashing Fulvia's True Foundation
• 8:06 The Contrarian Perspective: Filtering External Input through Values
• 9:51 Lessons from Fulvia's Journey: Seeking Internal Validation
• 11:00 Shift in Perspective: Authenticity and Inner Approval
• 12:09 Decoupling Self-Assurance from External Validation
• 16:30 Traps of Validation Seeking and Dependence on Others
• 17:51 Shift in Perspective: Embracing Imperfections and Prioritizing Inner Growth
• 18:55 Introduction to the Contrarian Playbook
• 20:07 The Non-Sequential Presentation of the Playbook

Transcript

[0:00] Music.

[0:08] Back to It's an Inside Job podcast. I'm your host, Jason Leim. Now, this podcast is dedicated to helping you to help yourself and others to become more mentally and emotionally resilient so you can be better at bouncing back from life's inevitable setbacks. Now, on It's an Inside Job, we decode the science and stories of resilience into practical advice, skills, and strategies that you can use to impact your life and those around you. Now, with that said, let's slip into the stream.

[0:36] Music.

[0:44] Hey folks, welcome back to the show. It's an inside job. I'm your host, Jason Lim.

[0:50] In today's episode, I am thrilled to introduce our guest for this week, Stephen Joseph, who has spent the last 40 years helping leaders shape their cultures and bring out the best in their teams with a rich background in executive coaching and over 60 years of meditation experience.

[1:06] Well, Stephen's insights are deeply rooted in decades of training and research. Now, Stephen's journey began in the 1970s when he started modeling exemplary leaders to understand their thought process that set them apart. He co-authored the book Leadership Agility that explores how stages of psychological maturity impact the leader's effectiveness. So in this episode, we will delve into a number of topics today. We're going to learn how to understand psychological maturity and how it can enhance your leadership capacity. Also, we will discover how meditation goes beyond stress reduction to drive personal transformation. On top of that, to understand the importance of humility and empathy in leadership. We will also explore the difference between heroic leadership and something called post-heroic leadership, where one is driven by ego and the other one is where the ego dissolves. Now, Stephen's work is guided by two central questions. What are the core principles of transformation common to various methods?

[2:09] And how can these principles be applied to catalyze maturity in leaders? By exploring these questions, Stephen helps leaders respond to challenges with increased vitality, focus, and heart.

[2:21] So tune in today's episode, learn how transforming our consciousness, our awareness can help us shape our organizational cultures and bring out the best in our people. This path not only leads to organizational success, but also personal fulfillment and growth. Well, without further ado, let's slip into the stream and meet Steve.

[2:39] Music.

[2:49] Stephen, welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. And we've made a connection between Norway all the way to Cali, California. Yes. That's the great thing about Zoom and these podcasts. Anyways, to kick off the show, maybe you could briefly introduce who you are and what you do. Well, I've had a long career that has encompassed both executive coaching. I've spent 40 years doing that, and I've also spent 60 years exploring mind-body disciplines. And in the beginning, those two strains of things didn't really come together. The mind-body discipline stuff was more private. But I started integrating it into my executive coaching with, I think, really wonderful results in terms of not just behavior change, but the amount of fulfillment somebody could get in one of those important leadership roles.

[3:50] Well, maybe we could just, you have six decades of mind-body discipline. Perhaps we could first, or you could first, maybe operationally define what you mean by mind-body discipline. And I'm also curious, what led you down that trail?

[4:06] Yeah. So when I say mind-body disciplines, just the term is really an acknowledgement that we are more than just brains on a stick walking around, you know, that our whole body is really engaged in things. And it also stores memories and, you know, activates us unconsciously sometimes to behave in certain ways and to understand that system and to be able to really sort of, We had a course at Salesforce at one point called Mindfulness 2.0 for Engineers, Hacking the Human System. So the idea of being able, the human system includes your body as well. So it's not just a mental technique. unique um so uh so the mind-body disciplines that i engage in are are even the kind of things that martial artists do so it's not a kind of quietism martial artists need to uh they need to drop hesitation and to be able to act in an instant and that's also what leaders need to do and uh with a certain amount of clarity. So that's why that gets included.

[5:36] So the mind-body connection where the psychology cannot be separated from the physiology, it's all one thing. And I find that also from the discipline of my background within clinical and cognitive sciences, where sometimes we get trapped up in our head and we just see the body as the vehicle, right? We see it almost as something we just use. Everything resides in the brain. But as you said, there is embodied cognition in the sense of they show up as emotions and such. So what you're saying really resonates with me in that sense.

[6:10] What kind of drew you down that lane? I know to some extent you've spoken to that, but what initially kicked off that curiosity? Because you're 60 years down this trail.

[6:23] Yeah. Initially, it was just my own desperation. I had some early trauma in my background. And so I got off to a rough start in the first three months of my life. And because of that, I really felt alienated in certain ways from other people. And it took me a long time to dismantle that cage that I felt I was living in. And so that's what got me to practice as much as I did, because it seemed to relieve some of that desperation that I was feeling. And it calmed me down. And so when you talk about resilience, that can be a huge component of it, just to be able to relax and let your nervous system regroup. So I was just working on myself initially.

[7:19] So a lot of this mind, body, discipline and such over this time, I guess when you're feeling sort of derailed or discombobulated, it's something that you naturally fall back into. It's a habit of nature, a habit of thinking, a habit of behavior for yourself.

[7:38] Yeah, well, the way it operates, you know, you're talking about the mental aspect and then there's an emotional aspect. But there's also a physiological aspect.

[7:50] If you imagine an acupuncture doll with all these meridians traced all the way through the body and you have an acupuncture treatment, you feel incredibly balanced and fantastic. You can do that for yourself with meditation. So you can get those channels to sort of release any glitches that they have in them. And that's very, very supportive of equanimity and clarity of thinking.

[8:23] And so from this discipline, you know, and then you kind of moved towards executive coaching or coaching or being a sparring partner to literally probably thousands at this point. But what is the reason, what led you down that trail and what was the, is there a connection between the two? Yeah. Well, I grew up in a business family. My father was a small businessman. He used to talk to me about his problems all the time. And it was fascinating to me. And I was also into performance. I was studying to be a concert classical guitarist. So the idea of being able to perform at your best was interesting to me. And then applied to business, I...

[9:09] At one point, I had studied various ways of understanding, you might call them modeling someone else's behavior, finding out exactly what they do and how they think and what micro decisions they make that are out of consciousness that allow them to excel. So I used to go into people's businesses and I would say to the top guy, do you have anybody around here who outperforms everybody else? And uh and you don't know why and they can't tell you why so if you hire me i'll find out not only why but i'll do it in such a way that it will have applications to training if you want to train other people and also to selection and and that's how i i learned about business really learned about business so i was at a juncture uh where i could have gone and gotten an mba and learned from academics about this, but it was much more juicy for me to find these great performers. And often it was in sales. And it was just amazing to learn from these people.

[10:19] And then, so I call that business optimal performance. And that's how I really got into it. And then, you know, I started thinking about, well, who has the most leverage when they perform well? And it's obviously the leaders, or it could be leaders of teams, but it's also the leaders of an organization that can, through their own performance, shape their cultures to bring out people's best work and to make it a great place to live and a magnet for talent. And, you know, I saw some great leaders who did that and I wanted to help anyone who wanted to get those kinds of gains in their organization. That was just fascinating to me to work that way.

[11:16] So I'm my curiosity is peaked right now. So you go into you went into organizations. You would ask who's the top performer? nobody everybody could point to him or her what is yeah but they didn't they couldn't articulate the reasons why he or she was a top performer and you kind of let's say that found the dna of top performers so my my initial question to you is there some uh common denominators amongst these top performers that you discovered that you found that was sort of ubiquitous amongst all of them.

[11:52] Well, it was often role-specific. So top-performing salespeople were different than top-performing managers. But I think one thing, when you talk about resilience, they had – so one of the capabilities that all these people had was the ability to understand the outcome they wanted. And to have the sensory acuity to understand whether it was being fulfilled in the moment and the flexibility to do something else if it wasn't working. And it was just operating continuously. And then you get into the skills that they had to pull that off.

[12:34] And that was interesting to me, too. But one thing that was amazing to me was to find out that people matured. We understand pretty well, have understood since Piaget, the cognitive and behavioral and emotional stages of development. So a two-year-old is different than a five-year-old, and she's different than an 18-year-old, and et cetera. And we used to think that, okay, when you get to be in your early 20s and your brain has finished adding neurons or completing itself, then that's the end of the story. But it isn't. And so if you think of all the leaders that you know.

[13:21] And you think of the ones that are really seasoned, you know, maybe they're in their 50s and they just have a way about them that's totally different and more mature and better able to understand and use the collective intelligence of their organization better than somebody who stays at the stage where they're just trying to achieve. And they're just trying to demonstrate to other people that they're the smartest person in the room. And, you know, those leaders can progress very well. They can make a lot of money.

[14:03] So it isn't that you have to be this great person to make a lot of money. Um but if you operate differently the whole level of stress in your organization uh just drops and back to the idea of using the collective intelligence uh you as a leader you have the capacity to really uh appreciate and support other people's work whereas if you're really in your ego it's only your ideas that win the day and uh that can work but uh but it's a lot of work to make it work that that leadership maturity or that psychological maturity moving from one stage to the next as as you've articulated that that would suggest to me that these these particular leaders that are much more mature that think above and beyond themselves and sort of the team around them the greater organization would suggest to me a sense of certain values such as humility conscientiousness vulnerability a sense of empathy.

[15:14] And may not always be emotional empathy maybe it's cognitive empathy because maybe they don't want to get lost in the emotional storm and they want to try to stay objective is this without, getting into the weeds as you said but would you say this is part of the common denominators of some of these sort of top performers, irregardless of discipline, if it's marketing, sales, or strategy, or what have you. Yeah. Yes, yes. I think you're right.

[15:41] The book that Bill Joyner and I wrote together called Leadership Agility talks about stages of maturity.

[15:50] And the first two stages in that book, the expert stage and the achiever stage, those are people, those are useful stages. So it's good to understand the value that they bring.

[16:05] So if you wanted to, if you were going to have heart surgery, if I was going to have heart surgery, I would want my surgeon to have gone through that expert and achiever stage like crazy, that she developed her skills and her knowledge because she wanted to be known as the greatest heart surgeon in the world. Great. Good. I'm glad, you know. So that's what that stage does, but it has its limitations. It's sort of like stages of a rocket. You know, you want that first stage to engage and to give you, you know, liftoff and thrust and everything, but But to make the full journey that you can go on, it has to drop away and something else takes over that you were alluding to. You know, there's just a shift.

[16:59] So in the book, we called it the difference between being heroic.

[17:04] Meaning that you're the star of your own narrative, and post-heroic, whereas that's not so important anymore. more. And as I was saying before, other people's ideas are celebrated and you don't have a not-invented-by-me response to them. And that's where your organization can really start to evolve to a place where people contribute like crazy.

[17:38] And that would suggest to me, if we looked at those two, heroic and post-hero, that evolution to post-heroic, that would speak a lot to creating a much more robust and resilient team, individuals, teams, and organization, especially with market forces or technology or disruptions of what sort where you have that. I was wondering, maybe could we spend a little time just sort of maybe opening up and exploring what you mean by post-heroic and maybe operationally defining it a little to maybe speak to capabilities or abilities or certain mindsets that need to be adopted in order to mature to this stage? Yeah, that's a great question. You know, when Bill and I were writing the book, we were looking to find these what we called high stage post heroic leaders to interview. So we had three questions that we used.

[18:36] So we, you know, we'd ask people, who do you know that we could talk to whose leadership has made a difference and that you like them personally? And they've been in the game long enough to get over themselves that i i often i would watch their face kind of fall on the last criterion they're saying oh i had someone tell you mentioned the get over yourself part okay and and getting over yourself uh is really the the key to it and so um How does that really manifest when you're talking about operationally defining it?

[19:18] It's a total different orientation.

[19:23] Um, so, you know, going into the spiritual realm for a moment, uh, the people who talk about enlightenment, uh, especially in, in sort of the Hindu traditions, talk about dropping the self, you know, just, uh, uh, even if you're meditating for those out there who are meditators, you could be in a very nice sort of equanimous state. And then you can ask yourself, is there a witness to everything I'm experiencing?

[20:02] And then the answer is usually yes. And then you say, well, where is that? Is it someplace in your field, in your head? And then you can ask it, ask that place, would you be open to, would you welcome the invitation to dissolve, melt, and relax into and as kind of this field of awareness that's all around and throughout? And that way of phrasing it comes from Connie Rae Andreas's work called Wholeness. I love that work. I use it a lot because it's very, very practical. But if you think of the idea of this sense of self sort of dissolving and you're just present and responsive to the world, there's a whole friction drops out. You know, it's like if you imagine that meditation is sort of like this, that we're standing outside a room that is totally dark and we love to go in and explore everything that's in there, but we don't.

[21:20] Have a source of illumination, or we wish we had a clear light for illumination. We could shine it everywhere and explore everything and really delight in what was there. But we don't have that. What we usually have is a slide projector. And the slide projector has little scenes from our life, our hopes, our dreams, our presuppositions, our fears, little stories about ourself, what we believe about ourself. And that's what we're shining everywhere. Wouldn't it be great if we could just dissolve the slides and really have a good look? What would it mean to our spouses, partners, children?

[22:10] And of course, what would it mean when we're looking at business problems, too. Because what we're talking about is like signal to noise ratio. And we're dropping out the noise. And we're just being able to, as people in Zen say, see the world as it is, not as it's not. Things are as they are. They're not as they're not. My mind is there's a number of elements that are kind of floating around and you've really triggered my intrigue with this.

[22:49] So let me just rewind, make sure I'm on the same playing field as you here. So when you were talking about sort of dropping the self, that means kind of letting go of the ego. And so in a sense, that is part of the DNA of someone of a leader's leadership maturity that we can define as post heroic. Where they it's not all about them and what they have to score and using the people and the team under them to get that but it's more of um a collective intelligence a collective a team achieving something and so like walking on ice it's better to spread your weight instead of having one central point going through the ice but is this what i kind of understand and maybe Maybe it's a wrong metaphor. No, no, no. I love that. I stink.

[23:37] Yeah, that's great. Spread it out. So, you know, just to bring it down to something really practical. So, for instance, when I think of executive coaching, all this talk of meditation doesn't really apply, at least right away. Way, I think of executive coaching kind of like you're walking up to somebody who's in a war and bullets are whizzing past their head. And you sort of sidle up beside them and say, how's it going? And that's the start of a conversation. You have to start with what challenges

[24:18] they're facing and how they're responding to it. Um but i think to give you an example of something really practical please um so oftentimes there's a a situation where they have to perform well and uh a common one has to do with communication it might be a negotiation so an important negotiation for them and the way I would work with them is like this. I would say, so if it's you, Jason, and you're meeting with someone named Bob, I would say, okay, so Jason, what are you going to say to Bob?

[25:02] And then you would tell me what it was, how you're going to frame it, what the points you had to make, what What negotiation points were things that you couldn't give up and et cetera, and therefore how you're going to speak to him. I would dutifully write all this stuff down. Then I would say, okay, Jason, the way to prepare for this is to get to know Bob because we want to know how this stuff lands.

[25:33] As much as you can, be Bob. You can sit the way he sits, you can gesture the way he gestures, you can use his vocal cadence, anything that gets you into really being him, because the whole idea is to know him. So, and not to do a caricature, but really to connect as well as you can. There will be things that you don't know, but that's all right. So then once you're in that role, I would start asking you questions like, I understand day and you're going to meet with Jason. What's important to you about that? How do you think that's going to go? And those things that were important to you, why are they important to you? And really, just stepping back, how did you build your business up in the first place? And how did you get to this point? And even you can ask, who's at home for you? Do you have a partner? Do you have children? Goldfish?

[26:43] Reptiles? Mammals? Who's at home? What's going on in your life? And so the idea would be to get you into, as much as you can, what it's like to be him. And when we've accomplished that and you feel like you're settled into it i would say well i happen to know what uh jason is going to say to you next tuesday at two o'clock, do you want to hear it and of course you do and if you don't there are other things you can do sure sure get into that so then then i read the stuff that jason was going to say.

[27:27] And invariably, the response is, well, some of that would work, but there are other things that wouldn't work at all, and I shouldn't say those. And then we spend some time reworking what you're going to say. And then if it's the kind of negotiation that has the potential to be collaborative, and not everyone is, I would say that, you know, figure out a way to begin it. And one way you can begin it is to say, Bob, you know, in preparation for this conversation, I've been thinking about what it might be like to be you. too. And as I thought of that, I would think that these things are concerns of yours. And you can correct me if I'm wrong, and then you say what they are, and then say, and I'm happy to tell you my concerns. And I think the best way to approach this is to.

[28:29] Have a conversation where as much as we can, those concerns get addressed well on both sides, and we both walk away feeling like this has been fruitful and collaboration.

[28:46] Not every negotiation can do that, but there is the possibility. So some version of that preamble is often good. And then you can say, okay, Jason, is there anything about Bob that is off-putting to you? And then, you know, if you said something like, yeah, he's a self-important jerk, and then you say, okay, so how does he behave to, you know, get you to call him that? And you describe the behavior then you say okay so just imagine that you were behaving that way and i know you don't and wouldn't but but imagine that if you did what emotions would have to be present in you that would be driving that behavior.

[29:45] And usually it's some often it's anger uh but sometimes it's but it usually gets down to fear and some kind of self-protective something and then uh and then you can use a meditation technique which i'll tell you right now uh to just dissolve that and we'll go into why that's important but let's say that that you felt that he was afraid or angry and and you felt it in your solar plexus and then uh i would.

[30:25] Lead you through a process where you just uh softened your breath and relaxed your body to a point where you could investigate and tolerate that emotion and then you could use we could use some of Connie Rae Andreas's technique where you just say well where is the one who who feels like that and then in that method often you say well yeah you know I feel something in my shoulder right here and and then you can get some more detailed description of it and then you could say well.

[31:03] You can say you're aware of this. Where is the one that's aware of it? And that goes back to the idea of dropping the self. There's a self that's observing all this stuff. And you get to dissolve that self that's observing and dissolve the feeling that's driving this behavior. And all of a sudden, it's easy to feel a kind of compassion for Bob. Or even if you don't get to that place, you could understand how he could feel that way. And your reactivity, the purpose of it is to lessen the reactivity you have to the other person. So now that you've gone through this exercise, it's easier to do that. And because of that, it's easier to listen in the conversation without dismissing him. And Lao Tzu, who's my favorite Taoist philosopher, enlightened poet, 2,500 years ago said, a good man before he can help a bad man finds in himself the matter with the bad man.

[32:24] And uh that's quite beautiful to me this brings up my philosophy of executive coaching is not so much i mean i've got a lot of examples of how people have handled things for you know over 40 years of working with people but it's not my expertise that i'm really offering i because i I don't want to give people advice about how to handle things as much as I want to put them in a consciousness that's new for them, that they can look at it with fresh eyes and think for themselves, well, if I look at it this way, what's the best outcome?

[33:12] That's really how I coach. I find it fascinating because if we keep to the framework of moving from heroic to post-heroic, heroic being it's all about me, I'm the leader, I can achieve, I'm a go-getter, what have you. But post-heroic is someone who's not so focused or so using that as their vehicle.

[33:39] They're looking to spread to success to spread the achievement to spread the motivation or engagement into.

[33:46] The post-heroic and what i really like what you're saying is.

[33:49] Like you know working with the client in a sense you're through the questions that you ask steven you get them to i guess get into character and what i also hear is something called theory of theory of mind meaning that you try to get them to relate to uh jane or bob's emotions what's driving them you know what are their drivers what are their motivations why are they acting in a good way or a bad way or whatever and to really to really try to empathize to use that theory of mind to try to relate and for me that is a very very strong uh reframing technique because all of a sudden you're you're using empathy you're trying to relate to the person you may not agree with those motivators but you can understand what those motivators or drivers may be for particular way they engage with their attitude or perceptions or opinions now i really like that because you get really kind of nuts and bolts you know what how would bob sit what would be his inflections his mannerisms or what have you and in a sense we forget about the ego we truly try to walk in the the other man's or the other person's lady's shoes per se and uh for me in a sense that that is the heart of self-awareness it is understanding my reactions and understanding maybe i have certain implicit or cognitive biases towards this person maybe they push my buttons but.

[35:17] What I hear is theory of mind. I hear empathy. I hear reframing in everything you're saying. And I really like that because also you're sort of future pacing and you're being more strategic. What do you think Bob would say in this case? What would you say in this case? And what that also creates is a sense of certainty because negotiations, a lot of people get stressed with it, right? Because there's so many variables in play. But by discussing with you and playing through this, you do create a cognitive map of possibilities, right? Not every permutation, of course, but maybe some of the general mechanics of how it may play out. So I just wanted to sort of give my spin on what you've said. Does that kind of make sense? Have I kind of got what you said? It does. I think that captures it really well. And what I was thinking of is something that comes from NLP, which is eventually the client, the executive, understands that the meaning of their communication is not what they say.

[36:27] Music.

[36:29] The meaning of the communication is the response that they elicit.

[36:44] In part one, we explored mind-body disciplines, practices that integrate mental and physical exercises to enhance well-being, awareness, and performance. These disciplines can include meditation, yoga, martial arts, and mindfulness that emphasizes the connection between the mind and body, fostering a holistic approach to personal development. These benefits are manifold. They clear mental clutter, improve concentration, and enhance decision-making skills. Emotionally, well, they teach us stress management techniques, reduce anxiety, and maintain balance, which is crucial for effective leadership. Physically, these practices improve overall health, increase energy levels, and enhance resilience. Moreover, mind-body disciplines foster self-awareness, promoting self-reflection, and personal growth. Now, Steven explained that dropping hesitation and acting instantly, much like in martial arts, well it helped him to dismantle his personal barriers and feel connected to others. He emphasized the mental, emotional, and physiological components of these practices. We also delved into leadership, where Steven described how mature leaders harness collective intelligence, unlike early stage leaders who often focus on proving their superiority.

[38:02] Now, drawing from his book, Leadership Agility, Stephen highlighted two leadership stages, heroic and post-heroic. Heroic leaders view themselves as the stars of their own narrative, while post-heroic leaders, well, they celebrate others' ideas, give credit and glory to others, and foster an environment where everyone can contribute creatively. Post-heroic leadership is about dropping the ego, emphasizing empathy, understanding, and reflecting on others' motivations and drivers. Over his career working with leaders, well, Stephen has discovered that humility, empathy, and conscientiousness are common denominators of successful leadership. By integrating mind-body disciplines into their lives, well, leaders can develop the mental clarity, emotional intelligence,

[38:47] and physical resilience needed to navigate the complexities of modern leadership. So now let's slip back into the stream with part two of my conversation with Stephen Josephs.

[38:56] Music.

[39:07] So um i i want to tell you this other story which uh i i ended up uh coaching for a while leonard bernstein and um i you know this is a kind of a long story but i i was with him for quite a while on a trip. This was in Key West, Florida, and I took him to a place in Grassy Key where he could swim with the dolphins.

[39:34] So it was a two-hour drive. And by the way, he had a great time swimming with dolphins. He was like a 10-year-old kid. He was so happy. And so I got to drive him two hours there and two hours back, just me and Lenny, as he was called back then, there. And I asked him, you know, when you are a guest conductor, and you've conducted a symphony many times, and now you're going to conduct it again, how do you prepare for conducting a symphony? And he said, well, here's what I do. I get in a room where no one can hear me. It's got a piano. I put the score on the piano and I open it to the beginning of the symphony and I play every part and I move with it. I howl, I dance, everything. I express it in any way I can until I have embodied, really deeply embodied the composer's intent.

[40:44] And once I have the intent, everything else falls into place after that. I don't have to worry about it. And I thought that was so beautiful. And when I'm preparing even myself to give a presentation, or I'm helping my clients give a presentation, I want them to have their opening.

[41:10] You know they can it's a little trick but you can memorize your opening so that you don't have to get up there and and sort of flounder around for it so you have like the first minute or two yeah you know and and in that opening you're really stating your intent and the idea of using some of those meditative techniques that we talked about to drop anything that competes with the authentic, full-bodied expression of your intent. You just dissolve it. Any fears that it's not going to be received well, any fears about your own performance, and sometimes maybe the wording has to be adjusted so it better reflects your intent. But once you're one with your intent and you've got that beginning in your body, then you get up in front of a crowd and now Now it's just about meeting them. And, you know, with your eyes, with your gaze, with the articulation of what you have to say, you're connecting with each and every person in there, you know, little clumps and groups. Groups and um that makes giving a presentation uh it puts in a whole new realm of possible.

[42:36] Success and and creativity and also to think that that presentation is just the beginning of a conversation you know there are a lot of really intelligent people in that room who could respond to what you have to say. You're kicking it off. And but it doesn't end there. You can maybe talk to some of them for years after that.

[43:00] It's a marvelous story what you were talking about, you know, Leonard Bernstein, how he, you know, locked himself in a room and he went through the motions.

[43:10] Whatever those motions are, as you've articulated them to try to discover the composer's intent to understand the intent. And, you know, from when I do sort of executive coaching, for me, a lot of the times is that when we are in conflict with someone, we always, not always, but in most cases, we may give a sort of a negative connotation to things where we're thinking they, the other person had some sort of nefarious or negative intent. Intent but a lot of most people are driven by positive intent and both through the sort of the negotiation example you gave with us or swimming with the dolphins lenny swimming with the dolphins example in both cases it's about dissolving the self or dissolving the ego to try to use theory of mind to try to empathize to try to understand and reflect upon the other person's drivers or motivators to discover their intent and maybe it's to have that curiosity to understand that okay the person more than likely has positive intent but the way they're going about it is pushing my buttons but let me try to relate is is this kind of the connective tissue i'm making between these various points of our conversation so far yeah and i think uh the whole idea of positive intent can also be applied to yourself so some people have um uh you know the uh i don't know.

[44:36] It's still in vogue people still do these 360 degree feedback things, And you can get behavior sort of called out in that.

[44:50] I had one client who said that he was, it said that he was sarcastic and he made people feel small. And so we started, you know, we had a conversation and I said, so there's a part of you that engages in sarcasm like that. And sometimes that part has a history. You know, I was growing up in a big family, and everybody was sort of competing for resources and at each other's throats, and I learned how to give as well as I got, you know, that kind of thing. So you can work with that.

[45:31] But often just the sarcasm has a, you know, the part that's sarcastic, what do you want? And in this case he wanted to uh to there was something he said where he really wanted to set the record straight and prove that he was more powerful and you know you keep asking okay so if you got that what what's important to you about that so let's say that that you achieve that dominance over the other person and and you have that uh what's more important to the part than just dominating somebody else. And then you get to, uh, a sort of a higher motivation of, well, I'd like things to work out well, uh, you know, in the team. And you say, okay, just imagine that, that you got that. What's, uh.

[46:24] What's more important than that? And it may be that eventually they get to a place, you know, I just, I want people to succeed. I want, and then sometimes it goes even higher than that, you know, to, I want to just be able to relax into some kind of enjoyment. And, you know, these are all the positive intents that are underneath this seemingly negative behavior. So if they have that experience with themselves, it's a little easier to realize that someone else's negative behavior is just protecting something in them. And if they just relaxed around it, things would be a lot better. So you don't fight them. And so what i hear is that you ask a series of questions to trigger self-awareness to understand what is the narrative which drives the the feelings which drives the behavior and as as you said that maybe the sarcasm is just a tool they use they've become so acclimatized to it because for example fighting survival and for resources in a big family that allowed him or her to get what they needed. But the world has moved on.

[47:38] They've moved on. But some of these old ingrained behaviors haven't. And in a sense, it limits them in the perceptions of others. So they may have noble intent, but the way they are being perceived by others around them is counterproductive to actually what they want. And so what I hear you're saying, Stephen, is that by asking them, well, what actually is driving? What is the reason you are sarcastic? Like, what are you trying to achieve? Some sort of greater good. Yes, yes, yes. Why don't we just go straight there, right? Which is more? And so this would be an evolution from the heroic mindset, in a sense, to a post-heroic mindset. They start thinking more about the collective or the greater good.

[48:23] Yes. Well, it's really interesting to think that most of the skills that people have that other people don't like are actually coping mechanisms. And when you get to the point in your evolution where you don't have to cope so much anymore, those skills that were used in that coping behavior, they're still there.

[48:54] In other words, you don't have amnesia for how to notice things about people, you know, that's a base of sarcasm and stuff like that. But uh but you you apply them in a much more enlightened way and so there are a lot of people who got you know what makes you want to be a leader uh it's the whole heroic thing is uh really strong but when you finally get there uh can you relax and start operating at a different level that makes life a lot more fulfilling to you and all those skills that you got to claw your way to your present position or whatever drove you to your present position uh those skills are still there but you know you can lighten up a little bit there's sort of there's a sort of a red thread i've found there's sort of three major points that i've kind of picked out from our conversation so far steven one is the sort of performance what drives top performance the other one is the executive coaching you've talked about. And the third one is sort of this meditation or this mindfulness. And these three create a confluence in the way you do your practice, the way you run and develop your clients and such.

[50:12] And, you know, sometimes where I work, they can be very sometimes transactional, some of these organizations, very technical, very strategic. And so you know sometimes we have to talk talk very sort of nuts and bolts type of terms and, mindfulness for some organizations is like okay this is sort of hippie thinking this is way out there it's on the fringe but we know it isn't because if we look at mindfulness from from a scientific point of view it is one of the tools that can create equanimity and resilience but But I was wondering, how do you, because obviously you've worked with a number of different organizations, and some of them are going to be much more open to it and some much more closed or restrictive the way they see things. And those closed and restrictive type of organizations.

[51:05] How do you use mindfulness or how do you encourage meditation and such to dissolve, to be able to evolve from the heroic mindset to a post-heroic mindset? I know that's a very open and general question, but please take it to where you'd like it. You know, maybe we were talking about this. Maybe it's time to do a little example of meditation to just show how the kind of meditation that I lead people through really has a result of not only opening you up and dissolving stress, but at the same time can get you into a mind space that is more post-heroic. And and uh you know an experience of dropping the self and and what it's like how much more pleasant it is without the ego driving you and how much more fulfilling uh and i think also more effective you can be so uh i think that would be that that'd be a perfect segue into maybe Maybe an example of it. So it's sort of a living, breathing example people can sort of relate to. Yeah. So just by way of introduction.

[52:33] Regular old mindfulness, which is fantastic, is often a hard sell for someone who is really trying to, you know, just get stuff done. And um so the idea for a person like that who's sort of keyed up and running on adrenaline and you want to uh suggest that they sit for 10 20 minutes and watch their breath and pay attention to their experience their experience of that often is their mind is being sent on a low -yield errand. And, you know, so they often sit there and say, okay, I'm supposed to be watching my breath. All right, I'm watching my breath. Am I supposed to be not thinking? I guess so. I don't know. I'm thinking. I'm thinking about not thinking. I don't know. I hate this. So... Kind of the soldier in the foxhole like you were talking about before?

[53:39] Yeah yeah a little bit uh because there's so much going on and they're they're not used to um you know in the martial arts that i've studied they're called internal martial arts where you uh you achieve power not through strength and not through you know just the biomechanics of shoving your hips into it and connecting your scapula and fist uh it's by relaxing that you get actually more speed and more power and uh so the kind of meditation that i'm talking about is the kind of that that really generates eventually that internal power and then the last component that we'll throw in has to do with just uh giving people an experience of of uh.

[54:38] Not thinking so much with not at least with not so much ferocity and um there is something uh another uh thing that's been really helpful another person's work that i've i've liked and used is uh there's a man named les femi uh who's done a lot of he has a book called the open focus brain and uh we'll use some of his methods in this but what he's talking about is how to get the the brain into a synchronized alpha rhythm where it's it's really alpha rhythm is when you're not thinking of anything in particular you're alert and awake uh as opposed to what he would call a focus brain, more like beta waves, where you're really trying to focus very narrowly on something and kind of nail it down. This is much more global and open and relaxed.

[55:46] So, you know, and as you know from your work, that's a very restorative state to be able to call on when you need it. Indeed. I think this will take about maybe 10 minutes or so. And if anyone is listening to this while you're driving a car, don't.

[56:09] So as you sit, you can first adjust your posture so that your head is erect. You can bring your awareness to the base of your skull. And as you inhale, you can just let it float up a little bit, so that your head, the weight of your head is oriented on your neck, and then it's oriented in a way where the weight of it, the balanced weight is going through your neck into your chest, and your chest, rather than being puffed out, falls. And you're breathing a little bit into your back.

[56:59] And then you're breathing into your solar plexus and your belly. Okay.

[57:11] And as you bring your awareness and your breath into your belly, and it's not that your breath travels all the way down there, it can't anatomically, but it's this sensation of feeling that you're really breathing into your belly, that as you inhale, your belly extends forward and relaxes. And as you exhale, it draws back. And now as you inhale, you can also feel your lower back opposite your belly filled with the breath. And just very slightly, it moves backwards a little bit too. So that the breath is like this force that enters a cylinder, and it expands in all directions, front, back, and even the sides. And in order to make that happen, as you exhale, you let everything just relax and drop. And as you inhale.

[58:33] Then let anything that's in the way of the breath occupying your belly, your back, your sides any constriction you can invite it to just relax and melt, so as you exhale you drop everything as you inhale you just yield to the breath.

[59:04] And then bring your awareness up a little bit to include your solar plexus and your diaphragm. And now as you inhale, you're inhaling not only into your belly and your back, at the belly level, but also higher up in the solar plexus. And again, as you inhale, everything releases so that there's more room for your breath in your torso. So now a breath that starts in your belly and back starts to include your solar plexus in the corresponding area in your back.

[1:00:00] And now as you inhale go further up your torso so that you're at the level of your heart as As you exhale, everything drops back into your belly. And as you inhale, it goes all the way up the center of you and expands into your shoulder blades in your back and your spine. If you want, you can imagine a luminous pearl that's right in the central channel, the very middle of your torso. And as you inhale, this luminous pearl goes up all the way to the level of your heart. And then as you exhale, it falls back down into your belly. And then...

[1:01:11] Now go all the way up from your belly to your solar plexus, to your heart, to your collarbone. And then as you exhale back down to the belly, the breath gets slow and soft and smooth. So every inhale, things relax to make more room for the breath. And on the exhale, you just balance in stillness. Now let the inhale go all the way up this central channel of you, all the way to your jaw, base of your skull.

[1:02:18] And now all the way up to the center of your head.

[1:02:42] And then finally to the very top of your head. Or if you'd like, even to the area just above your head.

[1:03:00] Let your body totally relax. And bring your awareness to your eyes. So if you talk to a physicist everything about your eyes the tissue the fluids the different parts at the molecular level or the atomic level all of that is actually mostly space, and so we use that as a as a metaphor for how to think about clearing that space, So can you rest with your breath and your awareness in the space that your eyes occupy? Can you rest in the space that your eyes occupy in your head?

[1:04:13] And with your awareness on your ears and all the space between them, can you rest with your breath and your awareness in the space that your ears occupy and all the space between them? Can you rest in the space that your tongue occupies in your mouth? And can you expand your awareness to include the tongue, the roof of your mouth, the floor of your mouth, your teeth, your lips, your jaw, and the base of your skull. Everything at that level. Can, with a soft breath, can you rest in all of that?

[1:05:38] Can you rest in the space that your brain occupies under the dome of your skull, all of your brain, and you rest there. Now, can you rest in the space that your whole head occupies? And also your torso. Can you rest in the space that your torso, your head, your arms, legs, out to your feet and toes. And you simply rest in and as the space that's inside your body, including the apparent barrier of your skin. Now can you feel into the space that's outside your body in front of you?

[1:06:42] That's behind you, to the sides, above you, even below you?

[1:06:55] Can you rest in the space that's outside your body? And can you rest in the space that's inside your body? Now can you rest in the space that is both outside your body and inside your body as continuous space, let your breathing be soft slow or even disappear, and if there is a sense that there is some place in you that's witnessing all that. Simply see if it welcomes the invitation to just dissolve, so that you can just be the space.

[1:07:54] Okay, so when you want to end a meditation like this, simply start in your belly and just breathe up to the top of your head and out to your fingers and toes on the inhale. And then exhale all the way back down to your belly. And then inhale all the way out to the periphery and exhale all the way back to your belly and.

[1:08:28] Inhale out to the periphery and just let your eyes open if they're closed. And what I like to do is just stay in that awareness, just feel that space inside and out, and then we can continue to talk and sort of finish off our conversation. But I actually like to get the feeling of what it's like to be active in the world and still have echoes of that awareness there. So how are you doing, Jason? Completely mellowed.

[1:09:14] My brain's kind of empty of questions. yeah so let me let me say that you know if you go to an orchestra and uh you know it's before it's all begun and they're all tuning up and you hear this kind of cacophony of sound and you know it's this really wonderful uh moment where there's kind of gearing up and then the conductor goes to the podium and taps it with his or her baton and all of a sudden there's this hush that comes over the place but if you sit there at that moment there's a room sound you know there's uh this and it has also this uh sense of uh potential you know it's just this very exciting moment And underneath that is silence and stillness. And it's just a way to, understanding that is a way to take it all in without having to go inside and retract so that nothing bothers you. It's more like everything is out, you know, expanded out in the open and you can feel it all.

[1:10:43] There's a certain setting, you have a certain way about you where, you know, people will openly welcome these type of things. The executive coaching, the performance and the meditation in the sense of awareness at a much deeper level. I'm curious, how do you get the hard-nosed people to do this? You know, the soldier in the foxhole, the executive who he or she is so busy.

[1:11:13] This is something they will... How do you get them to encourage them? You know, sometimes these C-suites individuals who are so focused on maybe the quantitative and they miss out on this sort of qualitative experience that you've just taken us through.

[1:11:32] Well, you know, the funny thing is I don't try to get them to do that. I offer it as an experience and ask for permission if they want to explore that. And some of them don't and never do. And that's fine with me. But there's also something about the tenor and tone of our communication that communicates something that meditation also does. Because I'm usually sort of in that awareness as I talk to people, and that is contagious in a certain way as well. And if they really don't like it, they'll fire me. I mean, they don't fire me. The way that I work with people is I ask them to have, if they want to talk to me for half an hour, I'll talk to anybody for half an hour. I just want to get to know them. And I want to figure out if I can help them in a good way. And then the next step for them is to actually have a working session together for an hour. And, um...

[1:12:53] And it depends who's paying for it and the rest of it. But often it goes like this. If they like that session, then they can sign up for a whole, you know, six months or 15 sessions or whatever they want to sign up for. And included in that package is also the hour that they've just had.

[1:13:22] So it's it's not free but it's risk-free and if if we really created some value together then great let's honor it and and pay for it you know it's part of the deal but if they don't like it that's also fine with me too i'm i'm very interested in picking out people who uh could benefit from what what I bring to the table. And there are plenty of fantastic executive coaches in the world that work differently. And there aren't that many that work sort of in the dimension that I do. But I want to make sure that I'm the best coach for them. And I'm willing to invest the time to really try it out on them. So at this stage in my career, I am really diligent about working with only people that I'm appropriate for.

[1:14:24] You know, I find that there's more a majority of people who want to adopt mindfulness as maybe not as a philosophy, but as a skill to find that equanimity and that resilience. And I think it's more of the minority who don't really, you know, it doesn't really connect with them. I think more and more as we talk about it, as you take away sort of the spiritual focus sometimes, as important as that is not to detract from that. But in a sort of a business setting, I think more and more people are adopting and seeing the scientific benefits of what mindfulness does bring when it comes to reducing stress, when it comes to self-compassion and efficacy,

[1:15:09] when it comes to self-awareness and self-care and the sense of well-being. I mean there for me there are only benefits to it and i i see it as something that you know i do on an occasion uh for myself and i i i implement that as a tool as i need it it's not something i do on a daily practice unfortunately i don't have the discipline to do that but, to give credit where credit's due i do it uh when i need it when i need to find a sense of You know, when I'm derailed and I need to kind of find sort of my centeredness again.

[1:15:47] So that's how I use it. So I think what we've talked about today will appeal to the majority. And there's always going to be the minority that it doesn't appeal to. But this confluence of performance and the way you run executive coaching in the sense of mindfulness meditation, for me, it's a triad that has impact. Impact, again, from my perception, from my point of view.

[1:16:13] Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm, I'm thinking of, uh, uh, well, I'm glad to hear that you do all that. That's, uh, I love that. I mean, we, we've all, we've had really good conversations and I, I know it comes from some deep place in you. So I'm happy to hear about all that. Um, I, I thought as you were talking, I, this poem came to mind, which I think may be a good way to end. Should we do it that way? Sure. That sounds like a perfect way to segue to an outro. Yeah. So this is, you know, back to Lao Tzu, who is, you know, so this is the human condition. 2,500 years ago. It hasn't changed much. So his poem goes like this. Everyone says that my way of life is the way of a simpleton. Being largely the way of a simpleton is what makes it worthwhile.

[1:17:20] Being the way of a simpleton, if it weren't the way of a simpleton, it would long ago have been worthless. These possessions of a simpleton being the three that I choose and cherish. To care, to be fair, to be humble. When a man cares, he's unafraid. When he's fair, he leaves enough for others. When he's humble, he can grow. Whereas, if like men of today, he be bold without caring, self-indulgent without sharing, self-important without shame, he is dead the invincible shield of caring is a weapon from the sky against being dead the invincible shield of caring is a weapon from the sky against being dead.

[1:18:37] It's uh it's a very moving poem it's it in a very eloquent way it characterizes the shift of mindset from heroic to post-heroic yeah yeah, well steven thank you very much for sharing your knowledge your time your experience and taking us through a meditative practice that completely mellowed me. I'll clip in and create its own mp3. Not when I'm driving or running heavy machinery, but when I find that quiet place in my home.

[1:19:14] Music.

[1:19:29] Folks, that was the brilliant Stephen Josephs. I learned a lot in that episode to understand how mindfulness, how meditation, how dissolving the ego can up our game. And how we can be better at leading ourselves, leading others, and leading through difficult and challenging situations.

[1:19:48] I mean, Stephen shared with us so many tidbits of information and wisdom that there's a lot to unpack. pack. But one of the things that he said, amongst many of things, but one of the things that he said that stood out to me, he said, quote, the cacophony of the sound before an orchestra begins, but there is a hush that comes when the conductor waves his baton. He said, there is this sense of potential underneath his silence and stillness where we can take it all in. Well, folks, I think this is one of those kind of episodes that you rewind and replay and if it was a book you would dog-ear it and you would underline different passages but anyways folks it is there for you to rewind or replay to your heart's content and I would just like to send you a personal thank you Stephen for spending some time with me today and sharing your wisdom and your knowledge and your decades of experience leading yourself and leading others and I very much appreciate the time we had together today. Well, folks, that brings us to the tail end of yet another episode. If you are interested in reaching out Steven, I will leave all his contact information in the show notes, as well as the link to his book, Leadership Agility. And until the next time we continue this conversation folks.

[1:21:10] Music.