Greg Voisen
Welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen the host of Inside Personal Growth. And joining us from San Diego is Eric Kaufmann. And Eric has a new book out called Leadership Breakdown. And the subtitle is How Conscious Leaders Generate Breakthroughs that Enrich Business and the World. Good day Eric, how are you doing?

Eric Kaufmann
I am great. Greg, wonderful to be here with you and to see you again.

Greg Voisen
Well, it's a pleasure seeing you he and I got to meet just prior to actually doing this podcast. And we had a nice talk about the book and a bunch of other things. And it was a lot of fun. And one of my listeners know, we'll put a link Eric has several books. But the book that we did an interview for it was podcast 484 leadership as a hero's journey. And I was telling Eric, that was back in 2014. I can't believe that it's been nine years since we've actually done a podcast together. But that is been nine years ago. That's a very interesting podcast because I was listening to pieces of it. I'm gonna let our audience know a little bit about you, Eric, before we get dive into this juicy book that every conscious leader should read, understand and gain the wisdom from his work as a coach, author and speaker is shaped by a journey which includes two decades of leadership coaching and consulting management roles at Fortune 100 firms, degrees in business in psychology, 30 years of Zen practice living in Israel and South Africa, teaching as master scuba diver diving instructor working as a certified hypnotherapist and meditating in a year long retreat in an isolated Caveny built in the mountains of New Mexico. If you want to know more about Eric and his team and his company that does coaching, you can go to Sagatica s-a-g-a-t-i-c-a.com. That's got a .com. There you can learn about their services and the books that he's written in his newsletter. I encourage everybody to do that. Well, Eric, again, we're back to talking to you. Oops, stropped it, about this book. And the journey through this book, as I was reviewing it was really, really interesting. And we talked when we met in Del Mar, about David Bronner, the CEO of Bronner's all one magic soap company. Most of our listeners out there probably know about it, you've seen it at Costco, it's around. He writes that your work has helped him to understand early on that a cosmic leader he called himself. I thought that's interesting that his ideas push the envelope of what people believe is possible. How have you helped David become more of a conscious leader? And can you define what a conscious leader is? For our listeners?

Eric Kaufmann
The first thing that I'm going to say is, you know, David is a remarkable leader right then in both business and way beyond the business and so the larger community so when you ask, how did I work with him and how do I define conscious leadership? There were three features. I think there are three things that I can think of that make him remarkable. One is his to your point that he calls himself the CEO, the chief? No, the cosmic engagement cosmic officer, right? You know, the first thing about him is he's genuinely committed to this idea of all one, the oneness of all things. And the second thing that's remarkable about him is he's deeply curious. And the third is that he's really fond of paradox, and where things don't quite make sense of how to make sense of them. And those are actually three really salient features of a conscious leader, right? Understanding the interconnectedness of all of life, how everything depends on everything else, and everything is affected by everything else. And there's cause and effect all around us, and being really deeply curious about, you know, yourself, other people the world around you, and not shying away from paradox and the and the sort of, you know, hard to fathom, but embracing it, you know, that's kind of, you know, paradox is, is an opening to mystery, you know, because we are at the edge of our logic and reason, and we're faced with paradox, how could this and this happened at the same time. And when we face into that, we are actually growing in consciousness. And so in our time together, he came to realize one of the things that I think I've really worked with David and with other leaders is that there is no organizational transformation without personal fascination, if you're the CEO, you're the leader, the company doesn't change without you making some changes, right. And so I think I've been really helpful for David in the ongoing coaching and application of this sort of professional and personal development, that, by his own account, has supported his vision of being more influential with his executive team while still cultivating collaboration and trust. So I think the net result has been more distributed power, more distributed responsibility, and then his team more accountability and more empowerment. So

Greg Voisen
well, it's a, as you know, for most people like David, and there are other leaders out there like them, lots of them. It's really more about we than me, it's really more about connection, verse and cooperation, versus competition. They know all of those elements, and they leave them all the way down to who they are, as people. And I've met leaders like that, that are really that committed. And it is interesting to find them and you state that business leaders of today are the de factores de facto shapers of society, you then go on to mention that our capitalistic system has trained them to beat the competition, to ensure the winners take all speak with us about the stewardship responsibility and the share and shareholder capitalism. Because if these two elements are embedded inside of an organization, you do see so much more cooperation than competition. And this is the way that the world needs to evolve. Because if we're going to solve any of our problems, as the Dalai Lama says, we all need to be more compassionate with one

Eric Kaufmann
another. We all need to be more compassionate with one another. That's one aspect that, you know, you asked me before the definition of a conscious leader, and we're getting into it, right? What is this stewardship component that's part of that, I would define in the simplest way that the conscious leader is a leader who leads with wisdom, love and power. Right, and we'll get more into it. I know we'll go forward. But, you know, this said, you know, the shareholder capitalism that we're familiar with is an invention that basically came along somewhere around 250 or so years ago, right around the time of the Industrial Revolution, right? So we've had 250 years of this kind of capitalist model that is based on competition, eliminating the competition. I mean, I remember when I came out of college, and I went into my first sales job, my sales manager, my colleagues, everyone around us was like, win at all costs. Right? Destroy the competition.

Greg Voisen
Weren't you selling copiers selling copiers? Yeah. Wasn’t it Xerox?

Eric Kaufmann
It was it was 3am actually then it was a near so we were selling the copiers and it was yeah, it was a grind of a job man. You know, this was we had to carry back hauling around and try and close these scorch marks in the you know, the travel agent didn't even want to see a sales guy coming in hauling Your copier. And so, you know, it was it was competitive, which was intense was,

Greg Voisen
You were your best friend was a rolling cart. It was,

Eric Kaufmann
It was a gurney that had a frickin car.

Greg Voisen
That's wonderful man, those are great stories.

Eric Kaufmann
So, you know, it was, and that's how we were trained. And that's how, you know, our bosses were trained. And you know, that's the sort of the implicit nature of this kind of highly competitive space. And that's fine. By the way, this is one of the beautiful, the beautiful, sort of notions of a paradox is you can have competition. And you can have collaboration. Yes. So there's there isn't, there isn't a discussion here, Greg. And conscious leadership as in don't want to be competitive, because who the hell is gonna listen to that, and that makes no sense. When we want to compete against our own Malays. We want to compete on our own against our own, you know, my daughters when they were swimming, competing in swimming, and water polo, it was all about, you know, what was called PRs, right? The personal records, you want to beat your personal records up, or you want to beat the competition and this collaboration, it's not just collaboration, right? It's the fact that to your point about leaders have become the de facto shapers of society. That's the real issue here, right? Tick tock, Facebook, Fox News, MSNBC, Apple, Google, these juggernauts of business, they are defining what beauty means, what comfort means, what information we uptake, what we believe in what we believe to be true, right? how we feel about the environment, how do we feel about our neighbors. That's why it's so critical that these de facto shapers of society began to realize that they are not just, you know, gaining from the commercial value, they are shaping. And so now the corporations, by the way, corporations are run by humans, right? Executives, they have this responsibility to be stewards, because they have so much power, because they have so much authority, because they have so much influence they have now landed in the place with they are the stewards, you either take care of this sort of total ecosystem of humanity, or you screw it up. And we're seeing evidence of both right now.

Greg Voisen
While they're playing such an important role in the psyche of individuals. I mean, it's one thing to speak about our environment. But when you really look at the minds of individuals being shaped by what they consume, exactly, I will say that, that the reality that is what defines our future. Because you know, as they believe so they create, so if you're going to create this world, and I, you know, you and I were talking about the Aztecs and Yukon, before we got on because we both live here in San Diego, and we would have liked to have seen them to win, but it's not about a win. It's about the journey toward that that the team played, and how far they actually made it and the congratulations that should be given to everybody there for even making it that far. Because they learned so much, you know, you learned so much whether you win or you lose, you learn. It's what you take away from the situation. And you had an epiphany, on your journey to conscious leadership. And I think if you could tell the listeners a bit about your seclusion, I mentioned it in the introduction, by living alone in the cabin in the mountains and giving away all your material possessions. And that's certainly a Zen thing. There's going to be some people that are listening that will certainly relate to that. And it's not that all people who join Zen Buddhism do that. But there is something about releasing all of our worldly possessions to really get closer and make a connection to realize the oneness with the universe. And what did you realize about yourself and the world that you were living in?

Eric Kaufmann
Greg, that is a huge question. I should clarify. Because a lot of people asked me this. I was not married at the time.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, no, you clarified that point. You wouldn't have gotten away with it. If you were married.

Eric Kaufmann
Everyone as well. How did your wife put up you began for a year? I'm like, no, I didn't have a wife at the time. That's how I could be gone for a year. But I mean, what did I realize, you know, one of the I'll cut to the chase, interestingly, one of the most profound realizations I had and there were there were many, but actually, I was going to your point. I had been really intensely involved in my spiritual and meditation and Zen practices, and I was working in corporate and I came to a point When I felt like I was at a crossroads, right, turn right and go down the familiar path of my corporate journey and get promoted, become an authority, more authority, more responsibility, become GM CEO, or turn left, follow my heart, follow my spirit, explore this kind of oneness of all life and the spiritual life and the meaning of life and live in sort, sort of solitary way to really go deep. And be connected with spirit. And I decided to go right, and to know which one I say, left, and leaves a familiar, go way beyond my comfort zone. And drop off the grid and you know, give my stuff away, shave my head, build a cabin, and so forth. There's so much I can talk about. But you know, one of the most profound realizations I had in the midst of sort of minding my own business, they're getting really quiet. You know, and it was interesting, because I had, you know, getting quiet wasn't a given, you know, I had to really work at it. I mean, I've been, I was meditating eight, 910 hours a day, I met my shadow, and I almost lost my mind, I had to come face to face with my inner critic, and learn to befriend it, and to even love it, and ultimately have a fall silent. And when I got to the quietest, most sort of unified, transcended state of, of my being, I had this revelation. The revelation was, you're going the wrong way. The revelation was the deeper spiritual evolution for you, which is with wife and children and service to community. That blew my socks off, you know, because I was that was done, I was very, I was gone from the world, right. And suddenly, in this quiet moment, to recognize that relationship service, you know, being generative, making a contribution is a spiritual path. That is profoundly instructive. And evolutionary, was a great learning. And I found that you know, what, what brought me through this intense experience of that seclusion was these three elements of wisdom, love and power. And that's really became sort of like, okay, so bring that into the world, right? How do you bring that as a husband, as a father, as a community man, as a leader, as a coach, as a friend? And that's been the last 20 plus years of play for me?

Greg Voisen
Well, it's, it's great that you let our listeners know about that and know what the realization was. And I think many of us and I'm going to make a comment even to myself, think about, hey, no, I want to go off to India and go to an ashram or live in a, you know, in a cave for a while and meditate for however many months or more a year. And I know, I study under people who've done silent meditations, haven't spoken for like a full year, in a silent meditation. In other words, a husband and wife, they couldn't sleep together. They literally were apart. These are the people that had been teaching me meditation for years, I'll put a shout out to Dr. And Joel, Michelle Levy, that the interesting thing is, is that the realization is that we all feel better internally, like you said, when we're making a contribution, some kind of contribution, the contribution, contribution to our family a contribution to the world, but making a contribution. And that appears in so many different ways. And in your way, it's actually working with people, getting them to understand that that's what they need to do. And I won't just say make a contribution or be say, hey, what can I do to change the world for the better? You know, that's a big statement. You know, Dr. Bronner's soap, environmentally friendly, sustainable, you know, a company that does those kinds of things. And there's many of them, you know, and you write in the book that the number one barrier to executive effectiveness is ego myopia. Why is that so? And what are the three functions that you write about in the book of the ego? Egos talked about a lot, but

Eric Kaufmann
yeah, you guys talked about a lot, you know, I was on my own spiritual journey, and my own personal journey, and certainly, I talked, you know, we talked just a moment ago about living in the cabin there for a year and that was a silent year for me as well. Right. So living in that way I really came face to face with His ego construct, right this this notion of the ego. And, you know, if we're going to grow and be more conscious, we fundamentally have to take into account how do we become less self-centered, you talk about contribution, my contribution is about tending to, and giving to, and caring for and attending to others, whether that's one other many others the entire world, but it is extending beyond our ego, some of that motivation is still isn't, you know, ego based, I want to feel good, I want to look good, I want to be recognized. Fine, that's part of it. And part of it is really, about, it's more than just me. And the term ego myopia is the term that I came up with, as I looked around and said, What is the sort of what is getting in the way of leaders being effective of relationships being, you know, satisfying of life being meaningful, and it comes to this ego myopia the inability to see and manage our ego, this sort of narrow view of self but small, contained and separate? Now, for the record, before we go any further, there is no way to sort of be rid of the ego, that's not my objective, my recommendation, my invitation, the ego has, you know, it's a thing with the thing we need, it's it, it has a function and a purpose. But being caught in it being myopic, being narrow, is the sort of the I don't know, it's the ground of being it's the baseline of where we get all these problems. And a conscious leader, by definition, is somebody who is going to extend their consciousness beyond this ego myopic state. So

Greg Voisen
I think that's a great definition. And it, you know, I think one of the things that some traditions use is, you know, they may call it the Maya, and people get caught into the Maya. It's the ego that assists you in getting caught into the Maya. Now that is, that is where some people land, but as long as they have awareness, I think the most important thing is awareness. And I want to write I want to talk about when you clear away ego myopia, you say, it also clears away the drivers of leadership breakdowns. And you if you would talk with us about how the ego creates leadership breakdowns? Because it does. And you've actually identified key words about what those breakdowns are. And I think those three words that you used in the book are really key elements of that. And I actually talking about prejudice, anger, anger and denial. Oh,

Eric Kaufmann
there's a lot of keywords in the book. So

Greg Voisen
but that's, but that's the three blocks to wisdom, I think, to get to a place where you understand that the ego is driving you, you have to release the prejudices and the anger and the denial.

Eric Kaufmann
Yeah. So I love that you pull that out, you know that the ego myopia gets in the way and creates these breakdowns of sort of, you can think of it in three levels, right? And then I'll get into the how to how to correct the ego myopia. But at the organizational level, right, we have ego, we have breakdowns, if you think about you know, way back in the day, Polaroid was like, Polaroid was like, the word was the brand for photography, right? And then Polaroid ignored the changing landscape around them to digital photography, and so forth. And that what was that that was known as a myopic view, that was a bunch of executives sitting around being unwise, right, not really looking below the surface and beyond the obvious, they were too caught in their own arrogance. And they thought we were unbeatable, and there came iPhone and sort of changed their world dramatically. Right? Then you have breakdowns that are interpersonal you know, Frank and an ER, you know, the CEO and the CFO are arguing because they disagree about how to implement a certain KPI. Right and, and now their teams are arguing and now there's discontent between the teams and now you have wasted time you have work arounds, people are frustrated and morale is down. Then you have the personal breakdowns, right? If you've ever felt like I'm an imposter. I just don't belong here. If you've ever felt like I shouldn't speak up at a meeting. Those are internal, sort of ego myopic elements that lead to breakdown break down because you're not going to be as efficient or you're going to be micromanaging whatever the case might be. So, you know, the ego is wrapped around these three needs the need to be right. Right, I want to be right, I want to be competent, I want to be known for how smart I am and what contributions we have the need to be liked. I want to be included connected in community seen known, and I want to have might want to have power control authority, autonomy, some ability to influence my environment. And those three needs the need to be liked and need to be right. They need to have might, that's where we start getting really unskillful and either too passive when we pull away or to active when we are aggressive. And that's where all these breakdowns really begin. It's not about strategy. It's not about ops, it's about people. And it's about these ego needs that are unmet.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, it's so true what you say and mean, it's, you know, they, I think there's one thing that we could say, and that's before you make a comment you talked about to people deciding about their KPI and having an argument or whatever. The key would be to take a deep breath, and really think about what you're going to say, there's one thing that I could tell people has saved me so many times, and I'm sure you probably as well, is this whole aspect of coming back to ourselves through breathing? And just taking a deep breath taking it in? And realizing, you know, what am I saying and understanding or finding a different way to say it? And you write about the triad for conscious leadership, and you just talked about wisdom, love power? Can you speak with us about this triad? Why it's so important when leading an organization into the future? And why this allows leaders to pursue profits while tending to people's needs. Also, if you would define wisdom, love and power from the perspective of a conscious leader.

Eric Kaufmann
Cool. So I might need to take a couple of minutes to run through these. So

Greg Voisen
it's okay. wisdom, love and power are, by the way, folks, I can tell you what page they're defined in the book.

Eric Kaufmann
Right, so I don't have the book in front of me, but I'll roll with it. And okay, getting to the heart of it. Right. So hi,

Greg Voisen
Do you want me to look it up for you?

Eric Kaufmann
I've been thinking about this for a long time.

Greg Voisen
I'm sure you have I'm just kidding.

Eric Kaufmann
Wisdom, essentially, is the capacity to perceive sort of a two levels. One is things that are really nuanced. Therefore, you have insight, right? And on the other hand, is seeing things in a big picture. And that's perspective. And so I defined wisdom as seeing below the surface. That's the insight. And beyond the obvious. That's perspective. No, leadership has just become much more challenging over the years, he talked about going into the future, right? But if we just looked at the presence, it was once kind of a simple set of problems, like how do we get more sales? How do we compensate people for the problems and go from simple problems to complicated problems? How do we collaborate with competitors? How do we structure meaningful HR rules, right, as the business grew in the business environment changed? Now we're in a world of complexity. How do we navigate multiple territories with multiple tax laws in different countries, right, I don't know, how do we manage a supply chain that's global? How do we deal with multicultural workforces? So it's not enough to be smart to manage complexity requires wisdom, which as I mentioned, at the beginning of our conversation, is the ticket for navigating paradox. So wisdom is a requisite element of leading into the future as it's becoming increasingly more complex to lead not less complex. So then, wisdom, let's talk about love, right? Again, in this case, it's twofold. One, it's demonstrating care for people. And it's also listening to your own heart, for your callings, your passion, right. That's what that's what the heart does, right? It both tends to people. And it also has the big dreams for our own life. So from a conscious leadership perspective, I refer to love as giving without expectations. And that really highlights the part of caring for people. You can care for people in an active way, by giving them attention by being compassionate by encouraging their passions and visions. Or you can even sort of hold the space for love in a passive way. Right? By just helping a safe space that people aren't demeaned or isn't, aren't feeling threatened, right. And you probably know this, Greg, but you know, the number one predictor for maintaining good talent, what we call engagement, right? Is a positive relationship with your boss. It has nothing to do with pay, ergonomics free lunches, it has to do with having a leader who cares, who helps their people grow and learn, and doesn't make him feel bad. So that's love. And by the way, going into the future where the talent market is becoming ever more competitive theme, feeling cared for and wanting to be engaged, is a competitive advantage. And then the third one, you asked about his power. And I got, I really hope I'm going along with what I wrote the book, but I seem to be recalling this. Power is, in this compensation, doesn't have anything to do with overpowering or controlling or manipulating other people. Unfortunately, most of us, I wouldn't say all of us, but I don't know that it's true. But almost every person I've ever met, has got some wound about power, because we've been abused or misused by power in our family of origin, at school and our professional journey. So the power that I'm referencing is our ability to really show up to express our skills, our talents, to confidently speak up and share what we have what we have to say, from a conscious leadership perspective. Power is the ability to affect change. And I want to add this, and it might be a little bit controversial, but I'm going to say this that power isn't granted, power is claimed. Now, before we go too far, right, you have to show some power, you have to show some ability to affect change, be confident, express yourself before other people will give you more power. Right, just think about the last person you promoted to an important role. Somebody that you gave more power to right, because you gave them a scope of control, that's greater, you did it because you saw that they already had some power, so you gave them more power. And that's that it's a little controversial, because we talked about being empowered and empowering environments. But you know, power isn't granted, power is clean, you clean power, and then more power comes to you. Now, there are environments that are systematically disempowering, folks, and I'm not defending that in any way, shape, or form. But I want people to consider if you want more power, you know, draw on your innate power to begin to have some and more will come to you.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, and I always remember David Hawking, you know, it's power versus force. Now, that came to me, and it's not, it is power, you do claim power, by your service to others, by your ability to how do you want to say connect the dots, helping people understand and making their work more efficient, more effective. And so that's how you really claim power. You know, obviously use it, these companies are for profit companies, the ones we've been talking about, and the company has to make a profit. So what they need to do to claim the power, if they're a middle line manager, or an upper manager, or whatever it is, is to claim the power by providing tools which are helping everyone else make their job, I don't want to call it always easier, I want to call it more efficient. And that is an important element of power.

Eric Kaufmann
It's a huge element of power. And I know you have real experience of this. And the way to empower others is to claim your own power. Because once you claim your power, you are less likely to feel small or misused, right? And then what happens with people who are empowered is that they empower other people around them. The challenge is that folks who are not empowered can't empower others. And so we have this kind of vicious cycle we're stuck on. So

Greg Voisen
what's the difference between an eight power as a primary source of empowerment versus what you're talking about, which is power can you speak with the people about an eight what an eight power is and what it isn't?

Eric Kaufmann
Great, okay. Yeah, I love that question. So in a power by definition is inherent right? It is, it is our natural energy, our inherent sense of value and from a conscious leadership perspective. It's, it's critical, right? It's not a superpower. It's not a power based on title. It's not a power based in, you know, expertise. It's within you innate power isn't within you, because you're human, I am firmly convinced that we are born with access to our innate inherent natural power. Unfortunately, we are systematically separated from it, right? As a baby, I gotta do what mom wants, and Dad wants, right? I don't really get to do what I want. I, you know, grew up and go to school, and I have to abide by rules and regulations to fit in. In fact, I don't know if they still do, and I think they still do it right. Schools will give citizenship grades, what is the citizenship grade? It says, how effectively are you complying? How effective are you, you know, going along with a system around you? And so what we have is our innate power is our uniqueness. It's our voice. It's our skills, it's our gifts, our energy. And from that comes our confidence and our sense of value. And so I'm not proposing that we kind of throw off the mantle and disrupt everything, I'm proposing that we step forward and be unabashedly unashamed, and persistent in putting on display this beauty this uniqueness is talent of who we are. And if

Greg Voisen
you claim a claim your power, clean your power

Eric Kaufmann
by showing up.

Yeah, what we've

Eric Kaufmann
what we've been trained to do is we've been trained to exchange power for comfort, comfort and fitting in, but when you get comfortable, your power dims, right, and if you want to claim some of your power, you're going to have to play with being uncomfortable, because that's the physical sense of breaking from the status quo.

Greg Voisen
We’ll be the bright light that you were meant to come into this world and become, see what's you know, it's like, hey, if we're talking about power, it's, it takes recharge, to get a Tesla going. And the reality is, it's like a recharge. Everybody can use recharge this book, by the way, I would call it for many leaders, leadership break down, is a recharge, it's a way for you to plug back in, look at things differently. Change your perspective, not be so myopic, as he was saying, Eric, and this is the way to do it. Now. I love this. You speak about that. Presents, plugs, presents meaning right here, and now plugs the power leak of anxiousness. Okay, I get it. Because if I'm present, I'm not going to be anxious. And that inner integrity plugs, the power lead of blaming. Got it? If I have high integrity, I'm not going to be blaming other people. You stated in your training for conscious leadership, you focus on being blameless, and not being deceptive, especially self-professed, deceptive. Can you speak about the power leaks, and any prescriptions that you would have to help our listeners stay in a state of presence and inner integrity?

Eric Kaufmann
Politics, you know, I'm coming from the premise that we are innately powerful, right? The power is innate to us. And so we don't have to necessarily accumulate it. But what happens is we leak it, we leak the power and to your point and you pulled it out and it's in the book anxiousness the leaks I see most commonly for leaders or anxiousness. Were you focusing on the future and you're literally blowing out your energy, people pleasing, right? Where you are so focused on doing things for other people that you're giving your power to them, and blame it, which literally says, I don't have control here, right. Something else is in charge, something else has the power. And so, as you mentioned, presence, authenticity and integrity are to me the way you plug these leaks and presence to your point and you talked about your meditation teachers, I can't speak enough about the value of learning to meditate. I've been doing this for 37 years now. And I'm still a student, right? I'm still learning to do it. But the capacity to actually be here now. And there's a million apps, teachers schools, online forums, I mean, you can learn to meditate anywhere, but it's not a religious thing. It's really a capacity to plug the leak so that your power rebuilds recharges to your point I advise everybody to learn to meditate I put on to them meditation retreats a year. And, you know, I, I can't speak enough about how empowering literally empowering it is.

Greg Voisen
It is. And I want to add Eric, you know, I just signed up, like, literally five days ago for meditation retreat six days in the orcas islands. And I will be three days in silence. And it's interesting when you come away from it and how you feel, you know, you're like, you go back into the world, meaning our world, but I don't even call that the real world, when I've been in meditation retreat feels like I'm coming back to someplace they don't even recognize, right. And I encourage everyone listening, if you haven't been to a meditation retreat, Eric, somebody else's, there's plenty of them out there. It's time for you. Maybe I'm using the wrong term, but it is kind of a way for you to unplug from what you believe, and plugged back into something that gives you a closer connection to who you really are. You know, and you know, it's one thing you don't have to believe everything you think, but I think we go around frequently, thinking and believing that's what it is. And then our biases and everything else that we've talked about come into play. But you hit the nail on the head. Did you want to add more to that?

Eric Kaufmann
Well, I just think that, you know, the meditation is such a central key piece. And then, you know, again, in my book, I write a lot more about plugging these power leaks. But I will just say with blaming and integrity. We are we kid ourselves and fool ourselves and deceive ourselves all the time. We're irresponsible with ourselves to ourselves. I mean, I give an example in the book, but you know, I'll say, today, I'm not going to eat any chocolate because I just want to flush out my system and stop the sugar just for days so I can get her breasts. And then I go downstairs because I work at home now like, you know, so many other people. And in the kitchen, there's a KitKat and I'm like, oh, just to bite the kid. Can I pop it in? Because I frickin love KitKat I gotta be honest with you. And so, you know, did I sin? Is God gonna punish me? No, but there's an inner auditor. Right? I said, I'm going to refrain from chocolate for the day so I can clean myself act of service and kindness and self-love. And then I just broke down and ate that piece of chocolate. I deceive myself, right? It's such a small example. But there are dozens if not hundreds of ins,

Greg Voisen
but you're aware of it. See. But I want to make a point here because my wife's a music teacher and about 15 feet from me on the other side of this wall is a baby grand piano and she teaches kids. And she always gives them she has a candy bowl full. Right? But that means that candy bowl is only 15 feet from me. And when you talk about kid gets I was about racial lab, because it's filled with KitKats. And it's filled with it's filled with Easter chocolate eggs and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Right? And I'm thinking to myself, boy, I said that yesterday, and I did the same thing Eric did I ate a KitKat. And I said no, I wasn't gonna go over that bowl and get some. Yeah, it's

Eric Kaufmann
so funny. First of all, your wife obviously has good taste and chocolate. But the KitKat is one thing. But what about I promised that I'm going to sit in a meeting and I'm going to not belittle anyone, I'm going to go and I'm going to sit in the strategy meeting. And I'm going to really speak my mind. And then I don't write all these times when we when we commit to doing something and then we shy away from it or we don't or we break our commitment. We are out of integrity with ourselves. And every time we do that, this ego myopia the sense that I am not trust worthy, because that's what's happening, right? We have an inner critic, and then we have an inner auditor, the critic barista, so the auditor is measuring us. And when we're out of integrity with ourselves, our inner auditor is continuously, you know, grading us as not trustworthy. And so by being not trustworthy with ourselves, we are not given the full power, right? We are, by definition, limiting our own power and become less empowered. Why? Because this auditor, like a parent, is not going to give responsibility to somebody who doesn't deserve responsibility. I'm not going to give my kids the car keys if they demonstrate that they drive poorly. I want to see responsibility in them and then I give them authority and autonomy and power. Right? Equally so within so this idea of integrity, being honest with ourselves, being self-aware to begin with, to your point, being self, you know, consistent is huge. And until and unless we fix that leak of blaming others for the stuff that we have committed and didn't do, we will remain disempowered.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, you know this, the inner critic is there right? The inner critic hit you on the head. It's hit me on the head. It hits all the listeners on the head. When you promised to do something, and you set an intention, and then you break your intention, you don't do it, right? So it's really something when you break it, and then what happens is, it even gets worse. It's worse because the dialogue goes, I wasn't supposed to eat the cat, or I promised I was going to lose 10 pounds, but I didn't lose the 10 pounds because I ate too many KitKats. But we get it. I think everybody gets it. Awareness, meditation, right? Turning off the inner critic, doing what you say you'll do. Okay? And sticking with it. Those are things we're all here to learn. Okay. And I'm not certain for how many other people but I know for me, it's been a challenge. I had a discussion this morning, Eric, my wife was saying, you know, so many people that want to learn piano, but then, you know, they don't commit. And the word commit is really one of the strongest words around if you're going to commit to a Zen practice. Well, you're going to commit to do it if you're going to commit to meditation you're going to commit, but this whole concept around commitment, and then persistence to do it, want to have a dab the drive to do it is there. And that brings me to our last question here about your book, which is in summary, you mentioned that we were all disconnected from our soulfulness that we are also and we also disconnect from our purpose. So when we're disconnected from our soulfulness, I like the word soulfulness. I thought it was just soul but soulfulness purpose. And then we're disconnected from our purposes, well, how our listeners take actions necessary or how would they take actions necessary to make a connection with the soul and find greater meaningful purpose in their life and business because like this book is for leaders, and it applies both places, you're a leader at home, and you're also a leader at business. And you set examples for your kids, by the way in which you act, everything that we've talked about here, applies just as much at home as it does in the boardroom. Because I really don't believe there's any separation between the two, personally.

Eric Kaufmann
So the first thing I'm going to say is that my premise for writing this book is to cultivate conscious leadership. To your point, yes, you can be a conscious leader, because you're a conscious human. And so let's transcend the leadership. Right? This is a conscious being and, and my proposal is that in this correcting of the ego, myopia, I mean, the ultimate trick of the ego is the sense of separation. I, me mine, right, you know, I'm smart. I'm funny. This is my strengths. This is my musical talent, right? That this is, or the sort of one of the great ones, because I'm the reason for all my success, which proves to be utter and complete bullshit, right? Were successfully as a result of a network and an eat an ecosystem of activities, not the least of which is luck, right? But I, so this kind of IMEI me, the sense of separate, you know, self is the sort of fundamental ego myopic state and cultivating wisdom and love and power, and then aligning them and integrating them is how that ego softens. And I have, we talked about this, it's not about not having an ego, but it's having that the ego be a little more porous, right, so that it's not so fixed, and more specious and more can come in, in terms of concepts and ideas and relationships. And then when you get a little more porous and specious in the ego, you actually have this sense of connectedness and interconnectedness. And the result is this greater sense of soulfulness. Right, this greatest sense of connection. And the invitation here is, you know, don't take my word for it, do this work and do it in a committed way. But I'm going to your point about committed. Sometimes commitment is very difficult. It's hard, it's disciplined. It's driving it's and then we add more self criticism and more punishing ourselves because we didn't meet the commitment that we fell short. I had a huge revelation years ago, that was a real game changer for me because I spent decades in this very intense committed disciplined life. And I struggled, continued even though I lived in a community with the teacher and did all this work. Yeah. It dawned on me one day and this is part of the soulful thing right that rather than come coming from a place of commitment to my whatever meditation wife, job clients, that I'm coming from a place of specifically in the work for myself, a place of respect, self-respect, this is where love becomes such a big deal. Because when I respect something I treated in a particular way, when I really learned self-love and self-respect, which was already soulfulness coming online, but it brings more soulfulness to bear right when I started approaching my meditation practice, less as a discipline or commitment, and more as a way to demonstrate self-love and self-respect. That became a whole lot easier because the things that I love and respect they treat in a way that demonstrates the love and respect. So, you know, being more connected doesn't have to be more of an effort. It can also be an act of love, and wisdom and power, right but certainly love is inherited in there. So my invitation is how to be more soulful is to learn understand, apply and cultivate wisdom, love and power soften that you myopia, and the soulfulness that connection is inevitable. It's inevitable because we are already in a state of interconnection we are one with the universe, and life and people. And the reason we don't experience it is because we think we're alone and separate. And so when we soften that separation, that soulfulness is inherently the soup within which we're floating.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, and I think that when you respect yourself and you respect others, self-respect, self-love, you're also doing things meaning taking actions, with the focus on the fact that whatever you're doing to improve yourself, is going to improve others as well. In other words, you're, you're out there doing what's necessary. That's the doing versus the being conundrum that people drive into. And I think that like you came to your epiphany with you're going to the mountains and living in seclusion for a year, it was about getting married and having a family and contributing. And, you know, that and I and I want to say one thing about I know that as our bodies because we're body mind soul. Frequently the body wants to get to this pace of homeostasis, right? Like, okay, I'm gonna constantly go back and try and find this place. You use the word effort, I use the word commitment. I think those words are powerful, but I think whatever word you're going to substitute for those two words. There's actually nothing wrong with that, because you came to that kind of realization. It's gonna take me some commitment to go out and get married, find a wife, get committed, commit to somebody that's right, and stay married. That's right. So up for all of my listeners, look, leadership. I gotta get this right. Gonna move it break down is the book. Eric Kaufman is the wisdom behind this book. He has many other books, we'll put a link to the last podcast. But this is how conscious leaders generate breakthroughs that enrich business and the world. excellent book, Eric, excellent teachings that I think everybody needs to learn. Go out and get a copy of this. We'll put a link to Amazon. We'll put a link to the website to like I said, sagatica.com. And no mistake to err thank you for your presence this morning, for hanging in there with me, and for providing our listeners with a great podcast to listen to. Please listen to this podcast with Eric Kaufman on leadership breakdown. Thanks, Eric.

Eric Kaufmann
Thank you, Greg. It's been a real pleasure.