The Death of a Business Paradigm | Janet Booth | Ep. 20

What can executives and business owners learn from the world of end-of-life care? We’re about to find out, from today’s guest, Jan Booth, who happens to be a palliative care nurse and seasoned death doula. 

Loss and change are an inevitable part of the human journey. Each time we change jobs or relationships or homes, there is a “death” and a grieving of what once was. We mourn who we used to be, and the loss of opportunities we didn’t take. Death is all around us. 

However, in Western culture we are conditioned to fear death, and Western medicine often views death as a “failure.” We try to prevent death at all costs, sometimes taking away the opportunity for a natural death. Even talking about death can feel uncomfortable and taboo, let alone expressing the emotions (anger, grief, sadness) that come with it.

When we lose a family member, we get 3 days of bereavement if we’re lucky, and then we’re expected to go back to work. The pace of business as usual doesn’t allow the space for emotional processing, so we suppress and numb. This can make us feel isolated and disconnected. 

We find ourselves in an increasingly VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world, and we are watching entire industries and systems come to the end of their life… how might we hospice business as usual with compassion and care? 

In this episode:

• What can executives and business owners learn from end-of-life care?
• How leaders can help others through big change
• Why slowing down to process our emotions is more strategic than pushing through
• How our relationship to death mirrors or relationship to change 
• Death doula skills that any leader can use 

About our guest:

Janet Booth, MA, RN, NC-BC

Jan has worked as a nurse for many years at the intersection of quality of life and end of life, as a hospice/palliative care nurse and as an end-of-life coach and educator. She has served as faculty for the Integrative Nurse Coach Academy, the Conscious Dying Institute, and the Art of Dying Institute’s integrative thanatology certificate program; and presents workshops on the transformative possibilities of end-of-life care. Additionally, Jan is the author of Re-Imagining the End-of-Life: Self-Development & Reflective Practices for Nurse Coaches, and one of the co-authors of Bold Spirit Caring for the Dying.

Transcript

1:04

Jan, I couldn't be more excited to have you on the show today. Welcome. Thank you so much. It's great to be here. I know we're gonna get into some really rich content. But I wanted to share with the listeners first before we get started, how we met, because it's we sort of represent this, this interesting combination of wisdom. And today we're going to be doing a lot of translating across our respective worlds. Jen and I first met when I was the CFO of a company who was training, death, doulas, or end of life caregivers, mostly nurses, but also people who had loved ones that were perhaps nearing end of life and just wanting to know how to approach that with care. And as humans, of course, we all, we all will face death in our own ways, we'll all face ending in our own ways. And as someone who works so frequently with business owners who are scaling and leaving behind previous versions of themselves, or previous strategies that once worked at certain levels of scale, but no longer work, as well as working with executives who find themselves in these huge paradigm shifts, whether it's moving to a remote workforce, or getting really serious about acknowledging things like climate change, the whole business landscape, is, is at a very vast tipping point across all systems. It's ultimately a cultural transition that we're in when it comes to work, and how we even do business and leadership. And whenever there's this level, this scale of change, it comes with it, loss and grief. And so we're joined today by Jen booth, who is an end of life caregiver, and Jan, I'm gonna have you introduce yourself in a moment. But you you bring such wisdom about, what what can we as business owners, what can we as executives, learn from end of life care and rewriting or updating our relationship to death to endings, so that we can be better leaders navigating this huge landscape of change? So I couldn't be more excited to have this conversation with you and bring your wisdom to to our listeners. And I want to start by inviting your story and and especially because end of life might be a little bit unfamiliar to folks, Could you walk us through how did you get into this line of work? And what is end of life care for you? What what is a death doula? Yeah. I love that we're having this conversation. So first of all, just great gratitude that you reached out and wanted to have the conversation because I love how your mind works, and that you could see this deep connection, just in the words you said there, so I so appreciate it. I'm a nurse by training. And when I went to nursing school, I thought I was going to be a midwife, and birth babies. And in my first semester of nursing school, I had this epiphany that it wasn't birth, it was death that I needed to work in, and in a sense, be a part of midwifing people out of the last chapter of their lives into their death. And so I was a hospice nurse at the bedside for many years and learned incredible skills there and learn so much about people, and about humanity. And I also learned that the great majority of families came completely unprepared for what was happening, without experience, with a lot of fear, with a lot of resistance to being in hospice, with a sense of being blindsided. And I saw this so often. And it was a real contrast to my understanding of the human tasks and development of being a human, you know, stages of development, and why we're so many people completely unprepared for what every one of us will do. And after a number of years of working hospice bedside, and then also in an oncology center as a palliative care nurse, I decided to listen to this, this voice that was calling me away from the bedside and more out into the community. And so I took a deeper dive into this whole concept of conscious dying. This was a time in around the mid 90s. I'd been a hospice nurse about 10 years at that point, and this was kind of new to Me, this whole area of conscious dying were people who were seeing the potential for death and dying grief and loss to be approached in a very different way. And they, they was really drawn to that and learned a lot through that that time. went to grad school a little bit unexpectedly, because I was so curious about following this kind of path of conscious dying out of my bedrock of having been a hospice nurse, I started to see that there were new models this is around. At this point, in 2014 2015, I started to see more new models emerging things like death, doulas, and death Cafe is where people went to talk about death and a desire for more people to be buried in a green burial, just the body in the ground and many other models that were emerging to me what I was seeing was emerging in a response to how we we have lost the thread of death within community, and death is a natural part of life. So I studied the cultural transformation that I saw happening in end of life care. And particularly, I wrote a book during that time for nurses to help nurses have more of a voice and opening up the conversation about death and dying. So I just kept following that thread out of grad school to see who were the disruptors what was happening, why was it happening, were moving, you know, death was taboo, so that I see this move towards opening up the conversation about end of life death as a failure, it was another kind of belief out of the medical medical system, right, we're trying to stop people from dying. So death is failure, then to the shift that I saw happening, new models that are saying death is a purposeful, meaningful stage of human development. And particularly, I'm talking slow death, sudden death, it's hard to feel that with, with sudden death. And also saw that another big part of this cultural transformation was that so many of us were experiencing isolation, either in our time of dying, living with serious illness being a caregiver, so much was expected of a few people to manage what really is done best in community. So I've been following those models and finding some really interesting experiences in teaching and training and facilitating in a death doula program, and another program through the New York open center, that is kind of an overview of the more innovative, progressive, cultural transformative teaching that is out there right now. And that's sort of where I've landed at this point, and where you and I intersected, which is, what can we learn from the the wisdom, of being with death in a different way, being with grief in a different way? And how can we apply it to all parts of our life? So I think that's a that's probably enough about how I got to where I am. And of course, along the way, I will just add, that I've gotten older, I've gone through caregiving and and grief and loss of my own and change and come to understand as a person, the power of these practices for death. You know, some people say we have 10,000 losses in a lifetime. And then how do we navigate that? And so learning about that, and practicing that in my own life, learning about grief and the value in the wisdom of the grief process. And so, I'm doing a lot of work in different ways to open up this conversation so that hopefully people see something more than then pain and sorrow. Absolutely, um, see possibilities for what this conversation how this conversation can impact all parts of our life. Yeah, absolutely. I definitely want to circle back to what you said about practicing for death in a moment. But I want to I want to highlight a couple of things that really jumped out in what you shared. You talked about how these some of these things are best done in community and this this aspect of isolation, making it even more difficult in ways and I think in the business world, whether whether we are facing massive layoffs or losing a job or transitioning to a new role, often the the pace of product tivity are the really the the pace of making profit is so fast, there's no time there's no spaciousness to actually process our emotions in in these big, big changes. And unless you have a team who can really catch you and create those, those micro moments to process these big changes together, I think often we're left with having to cope with that on our own in in isolation, and turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms like alcohol, or over eating or numbing out through TV, all of these things. And I think, I think one thing I'm realizing in real time and receiving you is just how much our ability to metabolize grief impacts our health in every areas of life, whether it's our physical health, and also our relationships. Coming back to this community bit that you mentioned, if I'm, if I'm feeling alone, and I'm grieving, the loss of who I once was, as an executive who just got gotten kind of pulled out of an organization or was forced to step down as also happens, sometimes, not only am I losing that, that self identity, if my self worth is wrapped up in who I think I am at work or the success that I've been able to generate in that particular context. Now I'm faced with, with failure, and that was a word you used as well like seeing death as failure in our society. And in business, this this is also very taboo in a sense of, we try so hard not to fail, we push ourselves beyond what's healthy, to grow our companies into perpetuity, to push ourselves to be productive, even when the body is desperately begging us for rest, replenishment regeneration. And we can get into such a depleted state of burnout in that sense. So what I'm hearing in what you're saying is that by by forming a new relationship to change or to death, we can become better change agents effectively and have more space, not only for ourselves, and our own health, our relationships, but also to have the space to run healthy teams. So I'm curious what you've what you've seen, and how you relate to how most people are relating to death? And what can we learn from end of life to evolve our own relationships to change and death so that we ourselves can can be healthier and more connected to one another? Yeah, great, great question. One of the things that helps me is, is to put a question like that, or exploration in context. So it's relatively recent, really, in the last 6080 years that we've had this understanding of death as a failure, and death as taboo conversation. Not that we were all heavily enlightened in the past, but our culture looked different. And we, we lived more in smaller communities. And there was not the option. Most people died of infections and injuries. And most people had multi generations nearby or living together. And so we witnessed dying, and diminishment and illness and grief, in very different ways. And of course, there are just a myriad of ways that people can go through this because there's the whole cultural piece of how we navigate death and grief and loss. But it's relatively recent that death has been such a taboo conversation and and one where it's seen as failure, and we're doing everything we can to stop it. So we're having to relearn some things. Like, how does the body die? What's the intelligence of the dying process? How do we support that and not fight it? What does it mean to allow a body to die naturally in 2023, when we have so many ways to stop it? And, and I would say the same about grief we're having to sort of learn in modern times, how to live with the complexity, the uncertainty of grief, and, and to have some some way of understanding the dark night of the soul. And, and I use soul purposely because I think in many ways even though it's hard to talk about soul maybe in the in the workplace. But I think one of the reasons that that these cultural disruptors are emerging is because we've lost some of the track of this more soulful way of being in the world, which is to me part of our humanity. And so, Soul time is slow time. And, you know, moving at the speed of soul, as some people say, is very slow. And it couldn't be further from what you're talking about in the modern work life, right. And that's only getting those timelines are only getting shorter, you know, when you look at the average lifespan of a business now compared to what it was before. So that the context of of us at this kind of crossroads, which is why it's a time of transformation. Because we have tried this other way of seeing death only on a physical level of seeing death as a failure of numbing ourselves and distracting ourselves from anything related to the emotions, or the spiritual distress around around grief. So we're having to learn these skills in a time, where there really isn't much time to do those things. So in a busy workplace, for example, when half the team has been cut, is there any place for a ritual of slowing down, taking some moments taking some time to acknowledge what's happened to acknowledge the impact that it has on us this loss and change, to name the emotions that are happening, to talk about what our experience of it is to have some kind of ritual of ending of gratitude of grief, before we move on? So even in these smaller moments within the busyness of daily life? Can we create some sense of not ordinary time, which is what ritual is it takes us into, it takes us out of ordinary busy time, into something that says this is worth slowing down for for a moment. And, and I think learning to maybe I'm moving a little bit into this sort of practices, practices, we have four small ways that we can acknowledge that something has changed, that is hard that we're experiencing fear, we're experiencing sadness, can we can we mark that and name it and not try to right away, cover it up. And that's what so many people who I speak with over from all different kinds of backgrounds and different age groups, so many people speak of, not having had a place growing up, or as an adult, were talking about these hard things is allowed. You know, if you get maybe unhealthy enough, and and your life is falling apart, and then maybe at that point, there's some permission, like go get therapy or go get on medication, you know, but the kind of nurturing of the impact of grief and loss the the the navigating and talking about skills that help us to navigate change and loss. And I don't think we do a very good job of that so well, maybe that maybe that's enough. Maybe that's enough there for now, I feel like I could go down a whole whole nother a whole nother road there. But I think it's sort of coming back to what can what do we know about the place of death? What do we know about what grief has for us that could actually be a benefit. You know, I my mind jumps to the art of dying. You know, this is this concept. In the Western world. I think it was probably 15 century the RS Maurienne day was this. This was written a book called The Art of dying. And I'm sure that many cultures have some version of this, but the sense that there's something that transcends and that interrupts the busyness of a workday and the busyness of a life and the productivity focus of a workplace and A vision. And there's something that transcends that, that is the art of dying and the art of living. And how do we bring that into what generally we're more comfortable with, which is the science and the engineering of it, right? You know, the three steps and the, the vision and the map that gets there that often is much more on a kind of physical level. And I think there's a real interesting parallel in what has happened, you know, what is emerging in the culture as a reaction to the biomedical model of dying, that is so prevalent in health care, the body dies, and we don't really talk about grief, and we don't really talk about the bigger picture of what's at play with a human being coming into this last part of life, you know, spiritually, what do they believe happens after they die? And how is the family doing? And is there a community to support this and hold this, we talk much more about keeping the body alive and not dying, and all the ways we can do that. And I think there's a parallel also, in other parts of our life, where we, we aren't sure what to do with this whole idea of the art of living, which is quality of living, right, a quality of living a quality of a work life, a quality of a community within a workplace, and, and how do we how do we talk about that in a different way? Yeah, it's, this is so this is so beautiful, and so helpful, the way you're framing this, I see the parallel between looking at the sort of the one dimensionality of looking at health, through only the lens of the physical metrics. That's just one dimension, it's like, we're missing so much of our humanity when we only measure that. And when we build entire incentive structures and decision making architecture around those one dimensional metrics, and I see this in business all the time, where what we've been trained in business school, is to look at the one dimensional metrics of say, profit. And we now have global, globally scaled incentive structures to operate and make our decisions solely on this and solely to measure success against this. But I think what you've reminded of us were reminded us of as well is that this is fairly new in human history, predatory capitalism, and consumerism, at the scale that we see it is relatively new, there's a much more ancient way of being with death, of being in community of unlocking these more reciprocal relationships, in our exchanges across people, rather than having it purely be transactional. Because when it's transactional, you miss you miss the people, when death is, is only in the physical aspect, you you miss everything else. And I think one thing that I see a lot with my clients and, and as well as with the sustainability executives that I'm working with, through Harvard University, in this annual annual program that we hold, where we have 120 sustainability executives come through from all around the world. And they're, they're always facing this, this balance, right, where some are still operating within the game, within the rules of the game, that are focused on these very specific metrics. And yet, they see, wow, if we're really going to change at the scale that we need, we've got to start looking at these other these other metrics, you've got to start letting go. And, and I love what you said about really finding that, that sacred space and an abnormal sense of time in a way of, of deep, slow time. Because I think often we think that productivity and doing doing doing prioritizing all the things external to us is what gets us there. But actually, when when we slow down and let some of that go, and really drop in to reflect on okay, what do I want to keep what what worked in this last cycle of life? Or this last cycle of business? What do I want to keep? And what do I want to let go of? And I think often it's in that space and in that deeper relationship to big time, or non time, if you will, where some of the biggest insights come where maybe we're dropping into a deeper truth connecting to our why connecting to our purpose, and that then sets us up To make the decisions in the next cycle, and I see this a lot in clients where one of the things that I that I help business owners, one lens that we look through is actually through the lens of cycle thinking for any business owners who who menstruate. And we, we start to bring nature's cycle, which does include a death phase or a menstrual phase, being in deep rest and deep, slow time. And the magic that comes out of that. So I think part of part of what we're coming home to is, is not only what we already know, but we're healing our relationship, our integrated relationship with the masculine and the feminine, we've been in a hyper masculine phase that has taken us away from our bodies, into our heads only operating from logic, not our somatic wisdom, we've we've over prioritize the productivity in the doing without, without having the time or the the resourcing for rest. It's like, if your team is resting and integrating is that really work. And I would argue that it is that it's actually deeply strategic work, because that's where the deepest strategy is going to come out and the insights. So I'm Yeah, I'm just kind of marveling in what you're saying about about deep time. And I want to share this one particular exercise that we do in the executive ed program that I think really illustrates this, we actually have a multi, it's like a 200 year timeline. And we net now that we're 100%, virtual, because of COVID, we do this on a virtual whiteboard. And people place a.on The timeline of where they where they think their life will end. And if they have children, they then place a.on, where do they think their children's life will end. And so this immediately zooms out the perception of time, we sort of are forcing the executives in safe space, we create a very safe space to be able to do this, of course, but they're sort of facing their own mortality. And we're looking at this larger timeline of humanity. And then we start to build this, this narrative, this shared story of humanity, where we're like, okay, based on climate science, here's where here's where biodiversity loss hits this point, here's what that looks like, here's where we predict that, you know, maybe water wars will begin or mass migrations in these areas, because of climate events start to happen, political disrupt here, like we paint the whole picture of how these big ecological shifts impact humanity. And, and you start to see, wow, we I mean, business, as usual, is very, very broken. And when you zoom out on this timeline, and, and drop into this, this relationship to our own mortality, like you start to see, okay, maybe I do need to take a breath, maybe I do need to slow down and start to iterate and prototype different ways of doing business. Because if we, if we keep going at this pace, if we keep not slowing down, the cost of that is larger than the short term profit, we're obsessed with chasing. So yeah, this coming home feels so significant. That's such a great example what you do in the program, that's such a great example of the lessons from death. And it reminds me of, and I'm sure anyone listening can think either in their own life of people they know where either a close brush with death or a diagnosis of a serious illness has really awakened someone to the preciousness of life. Right. To me, this is one of the major reasons why engaging with mortality on a regular basis, our own death and dying, physical end of our life, not just the the 10,000 losses of our life, but the actual meaning of our life is such an important practice. And there are many spiritual traditions that you know where a skull is sitting on the meditation table or sitting on the place where you're writing or somewhere central in the kitchen or you know, as that reminder, because it does change the conversation. There is no business as usual. If we are holding the real malady of our of our own dying. And so how often someone has a diagnosis of something and and changes their life, right? Or something else I've seen be very impactful for people is is the role of regret. And there's something that that periodically goes viral that was written by a hospice nurse many years ago called The Five Regrets of the Dying. And they're the things that we could probably all come up with that list of what are the things that when it comes down to it, I'm in my last days and weeks of my life, really our most important and it's relationships. It really is mostly our relationships with others. But it's also a sense that I lived a life authentic to who I am and what I, you know, who I am, right, that I that I used my voice that I loved, that I took chances that all those things that I think every one of us knows, if we're lucky to have tapped into that kind of depth and honesty that we know is most important for us. So how do we capture that and a bottle, right, because usually, the danger is gone, the diagnosis gets better as time goes on. And I forget, and I'm back to business as usual. So for me, some kind of practice, related to the reality of, you know, the end of my life, is a really potent way to keep me in the processes of the present, let alone the fact that I don't know how long I have. And so if I just sort of plan is if I'm going to die when I'm 80 or 90. But how many of us die younger than that, you know, that practice is what awakens me to now is the time, now is the time to live that as authentically as I can to say, I love you, I forgive you, please forgive me, thank you gratitude, to the people who are most important to me, it's like all those things that when it comes down to it are most important, but are so easy to forget. And so that's yet another reason why these practices and holding out the reality of our death, as a reminder, because it changes how we live, it changes how we prioritize spending time. And it's, it's really hard. I mean, I, I'm not 24/7. But if you'd asked my husband, he'd say, it's almost 24/7 I'm so immersed in this conversation, because it really feeds me and fills me. But also, I'm only half joking when I say this. I think one of the reasons why I'm so involved in it is because I need even more reminders than other people about how precious life is. And even with that, even with this being my life's work, I can fall asleep to it. I could fall asleep to it. So you know, this, this model of productivity and this model in healthcare of only physical health as the goal, then what does that mean for those of us who are aging, and diminishing and losing capacities, and those of us who are slowly dying? What does that mean? If we've set out the goal as being a sort of vital engagement with life and staying alive? And how do we reframe the picture to one that is more of a whole human holistic, that that has room for for vitality and youth and has room for aging? has an understanding of the wisdom of elders? And the place of that that is a whole nother conversation of law. So really, you know, the I think the reason why this is a kind of a fascinating time to me and why I love you know, tracking and a culturally tracking what's emerging is because more and more people are recognizing that these old models aren't working. They're not working, they're not sustainable. They're not adding to our humanity. They, they they seem in many ways that of modern life seems in many ways out of out of sync with, with, with what we've learned the wisdom of humanity up to this point of what we've learned and the as if somehow that has been put off into another category like, you know, my spiritual life or my church life or my faith community or my exploration of what is it all mean is somehow not really a priority or valued. What's valued is what I contribute in terms of productivity. So I think we're seeing also in the younger generation, at least what I see and in the millennial world is just sort of us that generation is so much questioning of these old models. And so much of you know, the death doula programs are full of young people, mostly young women, but also some young men. And and the doula is not a new. It's a new role to us in many ways, but it's really an old role that's been around in in tech societies and cultures for a very long time. Like a birth doula supporting a woman giving birth and a death doula is supporting the family at end of life. It's a non medical role. Anyone can be it. In fact, most doulas are not coming from healthcare background, coming from all different backgrounds, but there's this call that people are hearing used to be that the call in my day, which was not that long ago, but you know, 35 plus years ago, when I started in hospice, that call was for basically clinical people to be called to something like hospice, well, that's very different. Now, the call is being heard by people from all backgrounds, all ages. And it's a it's a call, and you see them in the doula programs and these other programs I teach, and people who say, I never thought I'd be in a program like this, learning about this. But I realized, I really want to understand death and dying and grief, because of things that have happened in my life. Maybe I saw death in a whole different, more positive way through an experience I had, and I'm thinking, why didn't I know about this? And I want to share this. Other people may have had really negative experiences, and they're thinking, why if we're all going to die, why, why is this? Why are so many people dying in isolation, and no one can talk about it. And I don't have any place to share what has been a really hard walk for me. So people are coming for all kinds of different reasons. But I think this is this beautiful part of this emerging new roles, new sensibilities, new curiosities, a commitment to a more human humane, soulful spirit field, and you know, all kinds of different words I could give to it, quality of living, and it can't help but infiltrate everything, it's it's infiltrating churches that don't quite know what to do with it. It's infiltrating education systems and not infiltrating. But it's, you know, it's moving into the business world, you know, you know, typically in the world of business, you experience a death and you have three, if you're lucky, you have three bereavement days, and then it's kind of getting better get back to, you know, and, and this, this experience of, of loss from someone's death, but loss from all the other ways that we can lose things, you know, losing a marriage through divorce, or separation, or kids growing up and moving away or losing a sense of safety. Because of something that happened to you the loss of, of trust in your childhood, because of traumas did you experience I mean, there's so many different ways that we've experienced loss. And I think part of what is also calling people to this work is wanting to have a different relationship with grief and loss. And a lot of young people who are saying, This is crazy that I don't really know what to do and who to talk to. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's fascinating because I feel like this, it shows up as we want to die differently than than the current system is inviting us to to die. So there's, there's that piece and this, this call as you as you named it, permeating everything I really see that it's, it's almost as if there's an increase in consciousness or increase in awareness to this where I think in the business world, people are really feeling the call towards more conscious, regenerative leadership, and maybe this is true in healthcare as well. But I think I think as people continue to, to evoke these new wantings Are these These more conscious versions of everything effectively, that the the resourcing where we choose to work is, is moving. There's a big trend here of people and their talent, wanting to work for people who are more conscious. And companies who are more sustainable and actually saying no, setting a boundary with the previous way of doing things. And I, you know, imagine in healthcare that it could be similar in in how our choices are changing, and our demands on what our standards for these aspects of life are increasing, which is really a beautiful place to be. But I think to one of your earlier points as well, this this spaciousness of grieving, I think, I think one thing people don't realize is that when you when you go into the loss, and you go into the grief, in all of these micro moments along the way, whether it's a failed project, actually losing someone at a marriage failing, as you mentioned, losing a pet, I mean, that loss is everywhere. And I think one thing, at least that I didn't realize until I actually went through the end of life doula program for the company, where we where we met, was that, wow, when I process this, when I am truly with my grief, I create more spaciousness within myself, I create more space for life. And particularly working with sustainability executives. Ecological grief is turning up more and more and more, I mean, yeah, the fires. Yes, yes. The fires in Australia, it's like, how can you expect people to be in the paradigm of business as usual, and show up in productivity when their country's on fire, and the loss of biodiversity that goes hand in hand, with these massive events, it's, you sometimes were forced into the grief, and, and forced to kind of navigate that in real time. And when it's on that scale, when it's at the level of say, the pandemic, right, a lot of us were forced into isolation, really being in the stillness, slowing down to process our, our grief of, of what work even was before the pandemic, what family and the freedom of getting to live in the way the ways that we were used to, we had to, we were forced to sit down and do that. But if you're not practicing, I think the pain can be quite acute, in that way. Because we've formed we formed those attachments, we haven't practiced letting go of attachments to people or projects, or whatever else. It might be. So I'm, yeah, continuing to see so many, so many parallels across my worlds here. That That's right. And that really, that really struck me when you said that about you know, the the accumulated grief that so many of us are caring for coming from all kinds of different directions, and being expected to do business as usual. And, you know, it's, it's as if it is if we need a whole, sorry, my computer's just doing something funny here, there we go. We need a different set of skills. Just like as we came into the computer age, we needed a whole different set of skills than the ones we'd had, right. And whole new roles were created a new ways of learning and all that. It seems like what's being asked is not just new models and disruptors for ways of doing things, but also new models for how to live more consciously with the fullness of our experience of being human. And, and what what, what that even looks like so you think of a leader of an organization. One of the things that a more conscious leader of an organization who is wanting to live more out of this idea of of understanding the many losses of our lifetime and what are some of the skills of moving through that the art of dying, the art of living, you know, a more conscious leader who may want to bring some of that understanding into their, their workplace and into their organization. Good just start with themselves because I think that that's so often in the courses that I teach in, in the groups that I lead, we come here to ourselves first, not trying to go out there and make things better for other people or to fix something, but to come to ourselves and to increase our own self awareness of what has been my experience of death. What were the what's the first significant loss that I remember? Was it death? Was it a different kind of loss, like the divorce of my parents or something like that? And how did people around me talk about it? What was my experience of it? What were my feelings? Did people give me any language for it? And, and sort of looking in a sense, it's like a life review of my losses, you know, and it's actually really interesting, kind of along the lines of what you do with the leaders, you know, when you had that 200 year timeline, is to to, starting from birth to where you are right now in 2023, to just make your own timeline, and to mark on that timeline of your life, where the significant losses and changes were, and the turning points, because often, often, those losses were also major turning points in your life? And what kind of turning point was it? You know, did it take me down? Did it take me up? Did it take me into a spiral? Because that's the piece that it you know, talk about learning at the at the pace of soul? That's the stuff that often we don't make time for it? Which is, what did I learn from this experience? Not just naming the feelings, that's already something just to name the feelings, right? But then we to have some perspective, looking back at your life to say, what did I learn from that? Because it wasn't all awful. Often, those turning points and those losses were recommitment to life, or new opportunities that never occurred to me, you know, we can, we can fill in all kinds of things, I had to draw on a different level of courage, or I had to figure out how to be on my own or whatever it is. So this is this more conscious approach that starts with ourselves, means I look at my own history of grief of loss, I look at how I experienced grief, and what do I believe about it? Like is it just something to get through? Do I just stuff it down. And, and I think, you know, as a leader of an organization, or a person who wants to be a more conscious presence around loss and grief, it could be in their community, it could be in their book club, it doesn't have to be the leader of an organization. But knowing your own experience, and looking at what has informed you and what your beliefs are, then can help you to show up more for other people. Because that's then the next ripple, you know, if it's like a center rippling out, then once you have a little more understanding of your own history, and also an important part of that history is what do I do when I'm in pain? And when I experience suffering? And what is my response to that? And am I someone who numbs and distracts or am I someone who's wanting to learn a different way to be with because that skill of being with my own suffering is one of the most important human skills in being with others. Because often the reason why we can't be with other people who are suffering, grieving, whatever the suffering is, is because it makes me feel bad. I mean, why else? Do we have this kind of toxic positive culture in this country around, just be happy? And come on, let's that that makes us sad. Let's not talk about that, you know, totally. And so I love that term, toxic positivity. I think that's one of my favorite sociological terms that have come out. But understanding my own response to suffering and, and being able to sit a little bit longer, with uncomfortable feelings, and pain and suffering without reaching to numb or distract ourselves, will then allow us to be there present with others. I had a young woman call me not too long ago and she thought that she needed to go to a grief therapist because she was managing some really significant grief in her life. And I was listening to see would it be helpful for her to talk to a grief therapist or is what she's needing is a place just to talk about what's happening? Because it's so hard to find those places to say I'm struggling I'm sad and to have someone who can sit there and not try to make her feel better not try to fix the situation, not feel like they don't want to hear this this story. And, you know, one of the many emerging models coming out now around grief and the collective nature of grief is this idea of companioning each other. So it's Alan wolfelt, has written up. He's a grief expert. And he's written this handbook for companioning, the mourner. And he makes a point that it's a very different model. It's more like the doula model is a very different model than professionalizing or pathologizing grief, where you have to go to someone who is a healthcare provider to talk about your grief. What if, for most of us, who are not going to experience more complicated grief, so I'm not talking about that maybe 10% of people whose grief is is truly complicated enough, that someone who really has some expertise with it will be really helpful. But for the most of us, what what does it mean to develop a different relationship to our own suffering, so that I can show up for you and not need to do anything more than hold space to create this out of ordinary time together, where you feel that I am, they're able to just hear whatever you need to say. And so whoever we are developing those skills during the life review of our own grief and losses to understand what it is we're carrying, what had been our beliefs and experiences around grief, developing our own capacities to be with the discomfort and the uncertainty and sad feelings so that we can then be there more for other people, so that they can have places where they can talk about this, and move, move through it. It's that metabolizing, not just individually, but collectively, we're metabolizing. And what that does is it normalizes it. And that's so much of what's happening now in my work. And many of us who are in this, maybe more progressive, conscious end of life world, or whatever we call it a lot of new models is that we're normalizing this, we're taking it out of taboo land, and where we're saying, it's not easy to be a human being. There's a lot involved in it. There is and where do we learn these things? Where are the where are the schools for these kinds of life skills and this kind of literacy. And the more we can do that for ourselves and for each other, we we are contributing to this transformation of how we live with loss, how we prioritize how they our own art of living, and how we're going to navigate the art of our dying. And leaders of organizations who can model that and be that for others are going to start seeing their own organizations more as a living being if they haven't already, and then able to see within their organization, the beginning the middle, the endings, and feel doesn't mean there may not feel grief at the loss of jobs, or the loss of what I'd hoped would be a 20 year run for this startup and it ends up it's going to be a two year run, you know, but that, that perspective, that bigger perspective, and that ability to hold some of these harder things translates into seeing changes within our organizations differently and seeing, Oh, this is dying off, I don't have to just be afraid of it. Oh, we're sad about this not working out. We don't have to just stuff that sadness and not talk about it. So really, what we're talking about is how does a leader of an organization or a leader within a community and I mean by leader in a community, anybody who is choosing to lead in this more human conscious way? How do we develop these qualities and have vocabulary for things like well being and wisdom and healing? You know, how does how does that become more and more woven into how we live our lives and so I come back and forth all the time between this big picture and what it looks like, you know, in the everyday The process of living, incredible, oh my goodness Jamm look organizations as living beings, that that in and of itself, there's so many profound things in what you just said there. But that is really sitting in a deep place for me as we as we re recalibrate our relationship to to nature systems and look to regenerative business models. It's yeah, organizations are systems of humans and we are living being so anything we create, is, is alive and can have a lifespan. And as you said, you know, maybe a startup dies sooner than we than we thought, can we? Can we be okay with that? And I think with, especially with the context that we find ourselves in now, there's this term in the business space VUCA V, you see a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, and that these are the qualities Yeah, exactly. Life? Yes. Oh, wow. Yeah. And that that is turning up, like not only are the cycles of creation, and the big technological cycles accelerating, but the the normalized context that we're in is far more uncertain and ambiguous. So it is a different skill set to lead through ambiguity and uncertainty, it just is. And I think the veil was ripped off of our eyes in many ways, because in the pandemic, of WoW, things are not as stable as we tell ourselves, they are the this is we don't know, we don't know. And I think having the skill set to be in healthy relationship to that, and knowing that anyone can do that, because you're also highlighting that, by starting with this self practice. This self leadership essentially, is accessible to anyone, we are all leaders of our own lives, in some way, because of the values and principles and the integrity that we show up in and the choices that we make and how we relate to one another. So this this skill set of really knowing ourselves, and coming back to what our bodies already know, it's like I remember from YouTube live program, they you, you all would always say that the body knows how to die, if you just let it do its natural process. And I think when you get humans together, in the face of their pain in the face of their suffering, we know how to be compassionate with one another, when you just need the spaces to do that as your as your highlighting. So yeah, I'm, I'm blown away by by the view ca. It's like, you know, what? What is the? What is the skill set needed for for vault? What is it volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous and ambiguous? Yeah. What is that? What is the skill set? And for me, in the way I look at the world, you're talking is much about a spiritual skill set, in a sense, a conscious Yes, skill set. The because every one of those is, is, is present in the dark night of the soul, you know, those those times? When we really struggle with with what is my life all about? And why is it so hard? And all the kind of big questions of life? And? Yeah, so I'm really intrigued now to it makes me want to understand more about who are some of the people and this is this is a lot of your work. I mean, you're modeling this by the kind of work you're doing. But, you know, who are the leaders that we that, that others can model themselves after that have enough humility, and curiosity to develop their own skill set around those four tricky adjectives that you described? And, you know, and what's interesting is that just as in our whole life, you know, we leave a legacy at the end of our life, whether we want to or not, and we can more consciously craft that legacy or not. Right, and this is some of the work that doulas do. You know, doulas accompany people in all kinds of diff Ways and help them to understand the landscape at end of life, you know, just in parentheses here. Some people listening may not realize that even though most of us will die slowly over months and sometimes years, the average amount of time that someone stays in a hospice program is only a couple of weeks, our denial, our cultural collusion around, we don't we're trying to stop dying. When the body is dying, is so profound that even referrals to hospice are often at the last minute. So one of the reasons the doula role has emerged is because we have weeks and months and sometimes longer, where we're experiencing very significant diminishment and losses after losses of who we were, and what life was, and increases in caregiving needs on the people who are caring for us. And there isn't really a societal support there there is once you get into hospice, but not before. So doulas are one of the many roles that are people coming in to say, in a sense. How can I support you to live the last part of your life however long it is the way that you want to. And one of the things that doulas can have a really important impact on a person in their family is to help leave a kind of legacy, something that if you wait till the last minute, people often don't have the energy for, for the thinking for. So a leader of an organization, or particularly of an organization that is struggling and dying, is also going to leave a legacy with all the people that work there by how that leader manages navigates hold space for the dying, and the transformation and even the opportunities. And that's part of the legacy. You know, we leave a legacy all the time, it doesn't have to just be at the end of our physical life, how we navigate losses, and how wholeheartedly we show up in our lives is part of the legacy we live, but we leave behind. And for some people that's more important than others. But it's something I think it's something really worth spending time with, especially as a leader within an organization. You know, it's like the coaches and professional sports who say, we're not just here to win, I'm here to shape young men and women to help them develop their whole selves, you know, that's a, that's a leader who has a different kind of legacy that they're leaving, besides stuff. So the scoreboard, apps, how many wins and losses? There were? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. If you didn't, if you're leading in that way, you didn't stampede the people to get to the metrics or the Yeah, it's, I, I'm really appreciating how, because I see leaders in this way, too. I see leaders as space holders, and leaders as facilitators of of these things, and, and that people have the innate wisdom to really be in their process to be with themselves. And I think that, especially because talent seems to be going towards the leaders who are operating in this way it not only does it feel safer, psychologically, but you have less toxic work culture, you're not perpetuating harm, or sort of systematizing work trauma in a way, right? Like we get stuck in these harmful cycles when we when we skip the people. So I do really believe in the future of organization as having a leader who is more of a space holder and a facilitator and including the processing of of these kinds of things. So I'm very, very hopeful in this way. And there's there's this other model that I could that flashed to my mind as you're speaking as well, because I think, I think when it comes to big paradigm shifts, and we're in we're in a meta shift right now, there's there's a meta crisis, and you can look at all of the different tipping points that we're in right now. But the the role of hospice, in a paradigm shift at a cultural level is huge. Like you have the trailblazers, and this is this is a model by Margaret, Margaret Wheatley and her collaborators. But it's there's this beautiful chart that shows the early Trailblazers going first and their tests thing, they're rapidly prototyping, they're doing something different. And you can't name it yet, you don't have the language, you don't have the labels yet. But as you prototype, you figure that out, you start to develop the language for naming how you feel naming the processes. And then you start to have those, those early embodied years or models of the new way, as you're saying, and you can kind of point to and be like, Wow, they're really doing it differently. I want to go check that out, I want to go learn by witnessing someone fully embodied in a new way. And there's there's often this missing role of hospice saying, those who are really mourning the loss of the previous paradigm, and they maybe they even know, cognitively. Okay, I know, we need to go there. I know, we need to divest from fossil fuels. It's a finite resource. I mean, even with the most oil and gas companies in our sustainability program that we've ever had, they're turning up at the table, they know that, by 2050, their businesses won't exist. And they need to, they need to look at how are we going to transition to an entirely new model of energy, that we're looking at energy futures in some really powerful ways. But that hospice role even in business, as leaders in this skill set, feel it just, it's sinking in deeper layers for me, as I'm receiving what you're saying that, that that skill set in particular, it's, it's, there's a care for our fellow human in reaching out the hand and saying, I'm here with you, I'm holding space for you, it's okay to feel that pain like that. That's so normal. And, yes, we're moving toward like, through the change and towards this, this thing, but it's okay to feel sad that we're leaving the industry, for example, to stick with oil and gas that you've built an entire career on, that you've been supporting your whole family with, and all of the skills that you've learned up until that point, have been in an industry that that won't exist. I mean, that's, that's terrifying if we don't have a different relationship to change. And, and I think, I think those who are able to do that self investigation, and be friend death, or be friend change, can actually see the opportunities sooner. And we see this even in deep recessions, right, like wealthy people who are scared in the field for opportunity, like they're not focused on the loss necessarily, like maybe they're doing both, but those who can metabolize through this skill set will see the opportunity and get to see the new self, the new business that is about to be born. So yes, there's a death process here. But there's also a rebirth in the new wave of opportunities, and humanity will always be in this right like this. And this cycle doesn't go away. Yeah. Right. It's and we say, you know, it's natural, it's a natural part of life, it's a natural part of a, you know, work life cycles. And that word nature, it's in our nature, to constantly change, right. And it just sometimes appears bigger than others. And when someone has lost through death, someone dear, dear, dear to them who they love, in that initial grief. You're not ready to hear, although there's going to be a rebirth and it's going to be so good, you're going to have opportunities, and you're going to be able to do things differently in a different freedom that you can't see, right, we're not ready for that. There's something that needs to happen that is to spend some time in what it feels like to have to have that floor taken out from under us to feel the absence of that person to feel the fear to feel the all the recognition of oh my god, I'm not going to be able to have another Christmas with that person, or I'm not going to be able to grow old with see my kids any any of that. So they're these, these natural cycles all have little micro phases, right? And that phase that is so often misunderstood and people don't know what to do with it is that initial feeling of a response to loss and change, which is I'm discombobulated, I'm sad, I'm angry, I'm fearful or whatever it is, those are all things that most of us are not real comfortable being with ourselves, let alone other people feeling. But if we can do just like you're saying, which is to make some time take some time to name it, to normalize it to sit with it. Hmm, my experience of organizations going through change when we give voice to that, I know this is hard, let's just talk about whatever the loss is, we move through the change faster. We do, because we've acknowledged, and we people want to be seen, we want to be heard, we want to be able to be real, right. And you can't skip through this part of a loss without some repercussions. So I really appreciate how you're, you're naming that as part of that cycle of transformation that then does if we're fortunate lead into a new opportunity. People do I mean, humans are amazing, amazingly resilient. Yeah. And a loss you can imagine you live through most of us do not all of us survive traumatic loss, or very heavy, deep loss, but most of us do. And we need some time. And it really helps to have people with skillful means being able to be with us in that and see see what is happening. And to hold that picture not to hurry people up to the opportunity part, and to the healing part. But I still hold that picture. Yeah, this is part of what allows me to be able to sit with someone and deep suffering is that I know, I don't know what it looks like. But I have a sense of what happens in the healing process for humans, that there will be a new normal. And so I do hold that whole picture. When I'm sitting with someone. I'm not just holding the pain. Right? But I can't go too far I can't hurry people through or this another wonderful new sociological term called spiritual bypassing, which, you know, is like hurrying people too quickly to the, to the wisdom that yes, yeah. Yeah. And so yeah, so this is just a really interesting skill set that most of us don't don't think about, of how to be with grief and loss and why it matters, and why it could make a difference for a leader of an organization. Why it could make a difference to do that for, for myself. Yeah, and it's, yeah, I, I know, we're, I know, we're coming to a close here. But I, I want to really help hit this point home that you're, that you're alluding to, which is that, I mean, you mentioned that you get there faster, actually, if you slow down. And if you feel it, if you feel the feelings. It's counterintuitive, because we we might have the impulse to suppress it. But it's actually faster to move cyclically through this than it is to plow ahead. And when we're not suppressing, when we're feeling instead feeling our feelings and holding the space for this collaboratively compassionately with one another, then you're also not having those like big bursts of say, repressed anger, showing up and creating a toxic work culture or forcing yourself to march towards a direction that might not actually be in alignment for you. Because you're too afraid to feel the thing. You're avoiding the suffering. And a friend recently shared this metaphor with me that there's a video out there on YouTube called be like the bison. And evidently, bison are one of the only animals that when a snowstorm is coming, they turn towards the storm because they know that the fastest path is through it. That's great. Yeah. Oh, that's great. Yeah, so I've been sitting I've been sitting with that so So Jan, what I really am hearing and what you're saying is that it might be counterintuitive to to build these skill sets, but it is actually strategic but because we get there faster, and we get to a more aligned point than we might have otherwise because we're not living in that distortion or in that avoidance or in that fear or distraction. It's it's a much clearer Yeah, reality that we're actually that's our whole humaneness so I just, and that's what I think, you know, it's like it, it can be when you say you get there faster, which is I think what I said also, it's not chronological time, I don't think either Thinking what we're getting to faster is the clarity you just referred to, is less encumbered with this collected layers of grief that if we are just like soldiering on and not dealing with our feelings, we have this accumulated grief over over a lifetime. And that's what we're dragging with us. So you could get faster in chronological time there, but the you that is getting there is more burdened, is less clear, is less able to show up for yourself and for others. So initially, that may look like, Oh, that's good, you got there faster. But the you that's there is, is, is not a very whole person. Yeah. And we can cover a lot of this for a long time. You know, we can, we're amazing ly resilient. But at some point, this habit and pattern of shoving down hard feelings and not dealing with them is going to kick us in the butt. And most of us have all kinds of if you've lived long enough, you have experiences in your own life where you see see that that that that's true. And it is counterintuitive, particularly in our North American culture that does not value this kind of work. Yeah, that's an important distinction. Yeah. And so in that sense, it is counterintuitive, why would I go into pain. And that's one of the number one reasons in my working with people at end of life or people working, living with grief, feeling grief, the number one reason why people don't want to do this investigation, exploration work, whatever you want to call it, of grief work, is because of this belief that if I go there, I'm never getting out. Hmm. And that is such a strong cultural myth. And I do believe it's a myth. And I do believe it's unique to certain cultures, I think many parts of the world don't have that same response to grief. There's more of an understanding of collective grieving, there's more of an understanding of the place of grief, a cut a different context. But if you've grown up in this hyper positive culture that many of us have here, where we don't talk about those things. Like how does that equip me then when I just necessarily will be going through those hard times of my life? It's just though is this life? How am I equipped to, to, to deal with, to deal with the harder emotions. And so this cultural belief that don't go there, because that's a dangerous place? Right, you won't get out of it. The counterintuitive part is that, you know, it's like in the fairy tale, the dark forest, you know, that in the hero's journey, it's through the dark forest that I get to the other side, now, all kinds of stuff happens in that dark forest. So let's not pretend like it's comfortable, right? It can rock your world. It takes us right up to some of the hardest parts, but but at least to me and my understanding of what it means to be human. That's part of the deal. It's part of the deal. And I want to, even if it's uncomfortable to as much as I can muster, I want to know that World War I want to know the landscape of uncertainty and, and fear. I want to ask myself questions of what do I believe happens when I die? I want to know more about grief and loss and, and what it means to metabolize grief and get the benefit nourishment from it and get rid of the toxic part. I don't need you know, just like we metabolize food. I want to know that because it seems pretty central to peace of mind, peace of heart, understanding of my meaning and purpose here, I don't see a way into all those good things. Mine and peace, a heart and a sense that I'm living in alignment, and I have a purpose. I don't know how to live in that world without having to repeatedly apparently experience so many losses, you know, and the other piece of that that to me is so interesting is that not only do these practices of loss and grief, helped me to stay more and more in that play those places of well being and spiritual rest and alignment, but they're also beautiful practices for the ACT. To end of my life, physical end of my life, which which still, even though I've been around it all these years is can shake me to my core. Sometimes, when I think about it, I may have normalized a conversation and, and have more a deeper understanding of the natural order of things and how the body dies. But when it's my time, I don't want my deathbed to be the place where I first engage with all these deep things. Yeah, so it serves us in the now and it will serve us in the them to, to live these practices and to talk about it with people and to normalize the talking of it. Yeah, beautifully said, wow, Jim, I can I can think of no better place to perhaps, and then to leave folks with that, that the practice of death, it's, it is so serving in in that way. And I just from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for bringing your wisdom, the wisdom of your world and the work that you do intersecting it, processing this together and so that we can sort of CO translate this into this other world of business. I'm so appreciative that the wisdom from your world helps that serve the business world so so much, especially at these times. So thank you for wonderful for being here. Well, thank you for seeing that intersection in your own envisioning and your willingness to, to go there. And I want to say, you know, great gratitude to this conversation and great gratitude for all the people who have been teachers for me and all these years. You know, wisdom teachers, people who through their lives and their legacy of how they lived and died, have taught me, you know, I have great gratitude for, for what that has brought to me, and it's so beautiful to be able to share it with you in this conversation. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay,