Greg Voisen
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of Inside Personal Growth, and joining me from not that far away here in San Diego, actually, down in a city called Pacific Beach. Is Sara Schairer, did I say it right?

Sara Schairer
Schairer.

Greg Voisen
Schairer. See, I got it wrong.

Sara Schairer
That's okay.

Greg Voisen
Nothing worse than it, nothing worse than pronouncing somebody's name incorrectly. Shire. It's called a case for compassion. What happens when we prioritize people and the planet? And I was just sharing with Sara that my nonprofit is going to do a 90 minute documentary, and it's on very much of what Sara talks about. So Sara is the founder and executive director of compassionate you can just type in compassionate.com.

Sara Schairer
compassion, it, two words, compassionit.com

Greg Voisen
Yeah, and I'll put that in the link to nonprofit and global social movement whose mission is to inspire daily compassion, actions and attitudes. She's the senior facilitator of compassion cultivation training CCT developed at Stanford University. Sara spent 10 years leading trainings globally for audiences of all walks of life and big tech leaders and in people that incarcerated individuals as well. Sara teaches the course the practices and sciences of mindfulness and compassion at San Diego State University, and she's an adjunct faculty member. She also facilitates compassion courses at UCSD, that's right, Karen San Diego center for mindfulness, and has shared her compassionate message on TEDx. We'll put a link to the TEDx talk as well as we said. She's the author of this book, that's why she's here today. She gives talks, she leads experiential workshops, consults on compassionate systems and self compassion. And boy, do we need it more than ever in this world of burnout. And I don't have the bracelet where I can touch it, but it's right over here someplace. She's got these really cool compassion Do you have one on? Of course, I have the two of them on. That's right, self compassion and compassionate. So well, it's an honor having you on the show and always the litters, the readers, the listeners, they always want to know. So you know why you why now? Why this book? What are their specific moments or experiences they kind of triggered this for you to want to do this. Now, I know the book isn't brand new, but it has been a lifelong mission of yours.

Sara Schairer
Well, not quite. It's been a mission that has been brewing since 2008 and that's a long story about how I got into the field of compassion, but it came from seeing an Ellen episode where she was interviewing Wayne Dyer, and he said compassion is the most important lesson to teach our children, that if we could teach our children compassion, we would solve the social problems of the world. And I couldn't stop thinking about it. And that evening, the word compassionate appeared in my mind as two words compassion. It making compassion a verb like Google it or just do it. And I thought, Hey, that's pretty clever. That maybe that should be a bumper sticker. And I kind of sat on the idea for a few years and began compassioning it in my own life, and I realized that that little phrase was very powerful and was changing my life. And so I thought I need to get this out there. So it started making stickers and T shirts, and that turned into these wristbands that you flip from one side to the other. And these wristbands turned compassionate into a global social movement. So when you compassion it, you flip your wristband. It's like a little reward, little tangible reminder and positive feedback that helps you keep compassioning it. And then we have a self compassion version too. Anyhow. So the wristbands turned it into a global movement. And because of my obsession with compassion, I found out that Stanford University has a center for compassion and altruism, research and education, and that's that's Dr Doughty program, and he it's part of the med school there at Stanford. And they had developed an eight week course to help people cultivate compassion, and they were looking for two. Sure. So I was in the very first cohort to be trained to teach that course through Stanford. So I've been teaching compassion now for over 11 years. And

Greg Voisen
how is the Dalai Lama involved in that? I know he is. Yes, he obviously, it's a great place to go get your education on. He's a pretty compassionate

Sara Schairer
guy. Yeah, he gave the largest grant he'd ever given a non Tibetan organization to Stanford to start this center. So he and Dodi had forged a friendship, and the center was born out of the Dalai Lama's generosity and his principal English trans English translator, theft in Jinpa is the main author of the eight week course compassion cultivation training.

Greg Voisen
He just passed away, right? No, no. Interpreter. That just passed away. I

Sara Schairer
don't know it wasn't Jinpa, unless I'm out of the loop, I think I would have heard that, but I did hear. I

Greg Voisen
did hear through the great mind that his main interpreter had passed away. But that's here, nor there. The point is, is that you guys have this connection, that the comp, the Center for compassion and altruism, there was a donation by the Dalai Lama, Dr Doty, for those who haven't, he was just on the show for his last book, which is phenomenal. Uh, a really, very interesting, deep man. So I'm going to encourage you to go to that. So in the book, you explore the concept of compassion deeply.

Sara Schairer
How I'm going to pause you for a second, Greg, just to share with you why I wrote the book, because that was okay question, because I've been teaching compassion for 10 years to individuals of all walks of life. And when I zoomed out and looked at the progress that our world was making, I realized the compassion needle doesn't seem to be moving. And I thought, well, what do we need to do here in order to really make this stick? And I realized, what we need are compassionate systems. We can't put the onus on every single individual to be compassionate. We need our governments, our schools, our correctional institutions, our healthcare institutions, our workplaces, these larger systems need to be compassionate and allow for compassion to happen within them. So, I began focusing on systems, and that's what the book is about. Is, how do we take our systems from the state they are to compassionate systems, and what will be the outcomes?

Greg Voisen
Well, it'd be nice to flip on a switch or have a magic wand and let people know that the best way they could heal themselves and others would be through more compassion. Unfortunately, that ability to shift consciousness globally takes a movement like yours, even if it's a wristband, to remember that that's what we're supposed to do. I always tell people, if there was a video watching you all day long and you played it back, would you like what you saw? And I think that if you liked what you saw and you were more compassionate, both with your fellow worker, with your wife, with your children, with whomever, you would feel more a deeper sense of compassion for yourself, so you kind of get back what you give, right? So, in the book, you explored this concept of compassion deeply. But how would you meaning, Sara, define compassion, and how does it differ from empathy and sympathy?

Sara Schairer
Compassion is recognizing suffering, feeling this need to help, so being compelled to help, and then having the willingness to take action. Okay, so with empathy, you have that feeling that you're connecting to the suffering of another. You can also connect to someone's joy. That's also empathy, so the you're resonating with their experience. But there's this additional piece of being moved to help, having the willingness to take action that's not part of empathy. Empathy is just feeling with someone, and then sympathy is really feeling for someone. So maybe you're not experiencing the feelings that they have, that you understand that someone is going through a hard time, and you feel for them

Greg Voisen
very good. That's a very good delineation between the three of those things. So, you know, in the book, you speak about this in in a sense of the work environment, you know our personal lives. So can you elaborate and what it what makes a leader like. Dr Doty or Dalai Lama, compassionate, and how this style of leadership can impact the organization. Because it's one thing to say that you go, Oh, well, that's just a cool, really kind of nice guy. But it's, it's a lot more are a nice woman, right? So, I know when people in in ages before we would say, well, Mahatma Gandhi, or a Mother Teresa or somebody put up a picture of all these leaders that were compassionate. So, tell us about these leaders and how it impacts the organization.

Sara Schairer
Well, okay, so I will back up and say the leader, the kind of leaders I'm speaking about are managers at work or a CEO, or, you know, a police chief, someone who's is is running a team or an organization, or maybe an emerging leader. I think each of us can be considered leaders. Actually, it's it would be really hard for someone to think that they could be like the Dalai Lama or Gandhi or Mother Teresa. I don't want to put that on anyone to think that they have to have that level of compassion. But if we have leaders who care about their teams that matters if we have leaders who can model vulnerability so they can show others, Hey, it's okay on our team to make mistakes. I'm human, just like you. So, let's create, you know, I have this is a safe atmosphere where we can we can try things, we can make mistakes. We can own them, and nobody's punished for it. Leaders create connections for teammates so that people feel like they belong and that they're cared for by their fellow teammates. And leaders also look at compassionate leaders also look at their systems and say, Look, how am I running meetings? How do we get things done here? What are HR practices like at this organization? So that people do feel cared for and compassionate leaders listen. That's something that we don't do very well in our society, is actually listen in order to understand, not to respond or to have the answer, but just to hear someone so if you have a leader that can possess all of those skills, you will have employees who are engaged at work, and they are going to want to leave. I know that when I had bosses, if I had a boss who cared for me and went to bat for me and listened to me. I didn't want to leave that organization, because when you don't have a boss that cares boy, life can be pretty miserable. So, it really matters.

Greg Voisen
How do leaders juggle between I'm sorry, but I'm listening to you. How are you juggling between the demands from upstairs. Let's just call it that if they're a middle level manager, because that's what you said you were addressing. Doesn't matter where they are, the demands for a company to because you talk about people, planet profits, right? I know that concept really well, and I think you're a B Corp too.

Sara Schairer
Is that right?

Greg Voisen
Nonprofit, nonprofit. So my question then is, how do I as a leader, juggle between what's been given to me and if the culture of the organization is not how do you want to call it embracing us, to be compassionate? How do I get that message across to say, hey, this is going to make more profits for the company. We're going to have better customers. Customers are going to be happier. The employees are going to be happy. Over Turner, turnover is going to go down. All of the things that people want to hear, but yet sometimes they don't believe it when you tell them, oh, well, it's just compassion that's going to do that.

Sara Schairer
Well, I think like anything, what you do is you model it right. And if you're showing that, boy, I'm compassionate for myself, I'm compassionate for my team, and look at our outcomes. So, I think if you have leaders who are, you know, higher ups who are resistant to compassion. It doesn't mean that you can't practice it within your own team, as long as you understand that just because you're compassionate doesn't mean that you're not meeting goals and you're not accomplishing what you know. You can have compassion and still have high standards. You can be kind and still have high expectations, and, you know, requests from your team, things that need to get done. So I think oftentimes people think compassion means you're a soft you're a soft pushover who doesn't demand high, I don't know, high achieve. Admit or doesn't have high expectations, and those can go hand in hand.

Greg Voisen
Okay? I concur. I concur with you. I hope the listeners out there Concur as well. Now look, my wife was a school teacher for 24 years. Educational Institutions have continued to want to go down this path with integrating compassion into their systems, at least, I see it trying to happen. How do they foster more nurturing and supportive environment where really the students and the educators alike? So, you know, obviously there's certain institutions you could call to that say, well, they're probably doing better at being compassionate. I know we sent our kids early on to Montessori School. Well, did you send them to Montessori school because the education was great or because of the people that were running Montessori? And I'm not saying it still is or isn't. It is a great place to educate kids, and they were compassionate, they understood, they listened. So in education, the question is around educational systems, how can we help, or you help through your nonprofit to get greater awareness for educational institutions to make that change or shift?

Sara Schairer
Yeah, um, when I was doing research for the book, I found out that the University of Virginia developed this program called the compassionate Schools Project, and they were doing, they've been doing a huge study for years to see the outcomes. And what they're finding is that when you are teach, when you teach compassion, these skills of mindfulness, compassion, nutrition, I can't remember what else I think maybe mindful movement as well. And to young people, it helps. Obviously, the students feel better. And it also trickles up to the teachers, the teachers have a better handle on the classroom. But one thing that I when I spoke to the researchers of this project, they told me about a study they had done that found that if you don't have state like multiple levels of people that buy into this so you need parents to care. You need your teachers, your administrators and your students to all be behind an initiative that says, hey, we want this to be a school that focuses on compassion or mindfulness. If you don't have it at every level, it's really not going to be embedded into the culture, and it's not it's not going to go very far, the outcomes aren't going to be as good. So that was a tricky one when I was when I was doing research for the book. I wanted to show like, Hey, here's an example of an educational system that prioritizes compassion. Their teachers are taking care well taken care of administrators, model compassion and self compassion. Students are given the benefit of the doubt if they're acting up, you know, they're treated like humans. I could not find globally. I could not find an example of a school system that really focused on compassion. So that was disheartening, because I also think if we are taught this when we're young, that's just a skill then we'll have throughout our lives. So I do think, though, that the work being done out of the University of Virginia is promising, and that's that is a program that's free for schools to access.

Greg Voisen
I don't advocate that people disengage or somehow disconnect money with being compassionate, because we have a system that relies on monetary forward process, moving programs. It's nice when there's endowments like the Dalai Lama giving it to stand here for university to do the studies and the research and so on. But that's not most people's case, and it's really not the case in law enforcement and incarceration. And I'm going to make this a kind of a compound question, because one, you've done work in and people incarcerated, but also it's the people that are actually running those prisons, and then the people that are putting them into the prisons. Okay, so we're talking about a very complicated system here, between lawyers, judges, law enforcement, law enforcement, and then the prison, uh, parole boards everywhere. I mean, it's like this one huge, gigantic institution. And if people were to look at the amount of money we spend on it, the question now goes back to and I. Again, it's a compound question, what would you do to help that whole system shift? That's a big question. I get it. But more importantly, what would you do to help young kids growing up in society today so they don't end up in those institutions because of the lack of compassion in the household, or the lack of compassion where they worked, because frequently, when they get off track, that's where they end up. Yeah, tough question. I get it, but, yeah, I'm trying. I'm trying to give you something to think about. Sara,

Sara Schairer
oh boy. Okay, well, let's, let's start with law enforcement. I did write a chapter about law enforcement in the book, and you might think that the chapter is focused on asking law enforcement to be compassionate toward offenders. And even though that is a that is a piece of it, what I write a lot about is that our law enforcement aren't healthy, oftentimes mentally and physically, and it's the jobs that they have are demanding. They aren't given the resources or taught the skills to handle the kind of stress that they're under, and I don't think that we're setting them up to be compassionate with the people that they're working with. So I think we need to do a better job making sure that our police officers get enough sleep, that they're eating well, that when they have a call that's really traumatic, which you know, think about, who do you call on your very worst day when something terrible and tragic happens, they come. They're there, and they do that all day, every day. So what do we do for them when they have a tough call like that, or, you know, something that would be earth shattering for most of us? Do we just send them on to the next call, or is there time for them to process it? Are there protocols to help them heal? You know, I don't think we're not again. I don't think we're setting them up to be compassionate. So I would like to take better care of our police officers. For one, would you, would

Greg Voisen
you compliment this in the healthcare arena. I mean looking at emergency care workers, emergency doctors, emergency room nurses, you know, absolutely being responsive. I actually see this is just my humble opinion. I see some of the most unhealthy people actually around hospitals. I've actually gone to hospitals and seen the nurses out front smoking, or the nurses taking a break that way, or they're not looking at what they're eating, and they're becoming overweight as a result of just having so much stress that they deal with all the time. Right? So I would think for healthcare workers, this is as important as law enforcement as well.

Sara Schairer
Yeah, and educators. I mean everybody again. I mean, I think everyone should be, should be supported in a way that they can be physically and mentally healthy. So we can't, especially these folks who are caring for others. We have to allow them the time and the space and the community so that they are also they can take care of themselves, or they have people around them who can help take care of them. So, yes, absolutely. I mean our healthcare system, that's, you know, another question. But we don't, we don't set physicians and healthcare providers up with we don't set them up for success, right? They are given very little time with each patient. They have to sit behind a computer and type the whole time. So are they really engaging and listening and able to be present with you? They have to see you know, so many patients a day, and it's really hard to be compassionate. Well, that those are your parameters.

Greg Voisen
And most of these occupations, they they're understaffed, right? Yeah, so yeah, thing where they're doing the jobs of two, sometimes three people, which becomes extremely important because they don't have the time to be as compassionate or to do what they need to do. So the system overhaul is one thing. I don't think what we're talking about here, honestly, is a utopia, but it is. It is a shift in consciousness at a very high level, in a culture that exists that runs through each city's health care system, each City's law enforcement, educational cities, and it needs to be addressed. But because it's been so bureaucratic and this is just commentary, I think we now need to look to the political leaders that run these cities and municipalities to really help bring this aboard. And I actually. Think you going to those meetings with your compassionate bracelets. What actually is like the start? So look where now we've talked about what the problem and you've encountered many leaders and organizations that you believe exemplify compassion and leadership. What lessons have you learned, and what are some of them that you've actually seen where we could say, Yahoo, these people are doing.

Sara Schairer
I don't know if I personally have seen very many of them, but I will see some. I'm gathering, I'm gathering information and trying to highlight them more, somebody that comes to mind is the CEO of Airbnb, Brian Chesky. I heard him on Adam Grant's podcast somewhat recently, and he was talking about how he handled the massive layoffs that he had to conduct during covid. And it is, I mean, my heart just burst open when I heard him talk about the way he handled it. He wrote this very long, heartfelt email that he sent out to everyone and made sure that employees had resources to help them find another job, and gave them plenty of severance, and he really thought about the humanity of each individual, and that was key, right? He he didn't want them to suffer. So what? What did the company have? Didn't

Greg Voisen
do it like the office. You know that movie the office where the guy walks in across from the table says, you know, almost like Donald Trump, you're fired, right? Yeah, exactly you're you're fired. No, not just fired. I'm going to help you find something new. I'm going to provide you with resources. And I think that sense of compassion and a budget. So look, if people are sitting here today saying, hey, look, there can be shifts, shifting sands, maybe we should have a budget in our HR department that is really set up to help people make these transition and I think more and more organizations are doing that, but it really comes down to, how do I finance it? Right? It's like, okay, he did great, but Airbnb had lots of money and he had the ability. So you've got to find organizations that actually plan ahead, yeah? Or the possible, or possibility of something like that happening, yeah?

Sara Schairer
Well, that leads me to this next question, which is, how do, how would they fund that potentially? And so, something else that I found in in my research was that the, and if you think about it like the average or the maybe the lowest full time employee salary, if you compare that to a CEO salary of a fortune 500 company or S and p5 100 company, the ratio is one to 299 so the CEO, on average, makes 299 times more than the lowest paid full time employee. Now Dr bronners, if you've heard of that company, it's a San Diego based company, and they sell really good different things.

Greg Voisen
Eric Kaufman is their coach, and Bronner's now makes chocolate for all of you who don't know, yeah, yeah, they went from soap to chocolate.

Sara Schairer
They're still selling. So I saw on their Instagram feed that they have in place a rule that they have they can't have this. The CEO cannot make more than five times, right, right? Their lowest paid full time employee, so that still can be a pretty good salary, right? If your lowest paid employee makes $50,000 you're still making, I don't know, 252 50, that's but I would say, Hey, that's pretty great, right? So what I'm asking for is for the greed level. I hate to be so blunt about it, but when I look at these big companies, it feels like we have greedy people at the top who are making more money than they need to. Like, really? How much money do you need? Let's distribute that wealth so that everybody who works for you can have a good life, vacation. They can your HR, can have this fund for people who get laid off. I mean, the distribution of wealth within these companies, I think, is unconscionable, and that is something that I don't know how it can be fixed. I'm sure it's at a level. I mean, it probably should be regulated by the government, frankly, but we don't need CEOs making that much money.

Greg Voisen
Well, the Senate just grilled the president of Boeing, and Boeing, as you know, has had their own problems. And the guy said to him, you know, with all of this, you're supposed to be being transparent about the doors falling off and the planes crashing and all this. And he said, yet, but last year, you took $34 million so what? Why is your salary so much? And why aren't you transparent? And I thought they were good questions to ask. On the other hand, though, in the public arena to be so attacking of someone is not being very compassionate. It would have been better off having that conversation behind closed doors and for somebody to have made a decision, versus somebody getting angry and just frustrated by it, right? So I kind of look at that compassion and say, Well, that wasn't so compassionate either. To make an example of that guy. And I get people like they try to do that. So look you the global initiatives that you and I could talk about are many. There's got to be a lot between the planet and our educational systems and our law systems and our prisons, and you know, we could go on and on and on. And so you're saying, if we can, and I'm not saying we can't, or I should say, when we have people become more compassionate, we can make a significant stride in shifting, not only the consciousness of the individual, but the consciousness that they have, the love and compassion they have for themselves. You have two bracelets, one for me, one for everything else, right? And what have you found statistically through maybe the NIH where studies have been done, or places where you could cite, where you say, hey, it's been proven that if you practice self compassion and you practice compassion for others, I do know of one doctor who constantly comes to the Show, who's been that's all his focus is. His nonprofit is compassion. What do you have anything that statistically could tell me, Hey, if I start doing this, things are going to get better in my company.

Sara Schairer
Well, I wish that I had something off the top of my head that said, Hey, if you're a compassionate company, this is going to be your outcome. I don't have that kind of data. I think it makes sense to know like, hey, when employees are taken care of, employee engagement goes up, and retention rates are much better. So I think, although we don't have. I mean, I don't have, I'm sorry that I don't have those numbers, but I do know that when employees feel taken care of and they are engaged, they're going to stay at an organization. So I don't, I just don't have anything to cite, which is my bad, but that's

Greg Voisen
okay. I do, you know, it's an off the wall question, but the the point is, is that there are people like in the in your case, you got your education and training from the Center for compassion and altruism. I guarantee people, if you want to do enough research on this, you're going to find just go out and search the web, plenty of places that will provide statistics, if that's what you want to if you're in a corporation, you're saying, Look, I gotta measure things, and I'm going great. So go ahead and measure it, and I guarantee you that you will find positive results from all of this work, not negative results. So what in your mind, is a takeaway message you want the listeners to get from your book, in this case, a case for compassion. And how would individuals start incorporating not only more compassion for themselves, but more compassion for others? And how does this now relate to and I'll add that the place where I work, where I go in every day, you know, I remember the in the days when I was going to spirituality and business conferences, we would say, well, you when you come to work, You can't bring your spirituality? Well, the reality is that is who I am. So I have to bring my spiritual being to work. Whether I'm Muslim, Jew, Catholic, Protestant, Christian, it doesn't matter. And I have to be able to let people know that that's who I am and what I am. So how do I now bring because in every one of those faith based religions, those religions, those uh, philosophies, it's all about compassion,

Sara Schairer
right? They all have that in common. They do. It's true, yep, every human. Can agree on compassion, I believe it's, it is a unifying trait, yeah, or principle, um, that's a lot of questions, and I'm going to try to be succinct. I would say,

Greg Voisen
yeah. One question is, how do I leaving this show by Sara actually be more compassionate to myself and the people around me.

Sara Schairer
Well, you already mentioned it, but start with you and tend to your own suffering first. So start tuning into yourself. Be aware of what is your body telling you does? Is it telling you You need rest? Is it telling you to go move outside or to have a snack. Really tune in to your body and your emotions and your thoughts and be aware of what you need, because when you are taking care of yourself, you can take care of others. So take care of yourself and recognize that you are a human being who makes mistakes, and that's okay, because again, when you recognize your own humanity, you're able to then see the humanity of others, and your compassion will unfold naturally. So I would say, begin with yourself, and then just open your eyes to those around you and notice that everyone is just like you. Everybody has something they're worried about. Everybody has hopes and dreams. Everybody wants to be loved and accepted. And when you see that in every human being, again, your compassion will unfold so in today's political climate. And you know, with all of the hard things we're going through right now, it's very easy to not see others as like me, but when I allow my heart to stay open and to realize even this person who is on the other side of the political aisle who maybe sees issues very differently than I do, I can see that they're a human being worthy of compassion, and when I relate to others and myself with compassion, I can tell you from experience, my life has improved vastly, and I feel more connected and happier and more at peace. So that is

Greg Voisen
what you can do. One of the big things is forgiveness. Sara, so, you know, look, one of the things I've seen that have really transformed people's lives is the ability, if an act of some kind of something has been portrayed on someone, for them to forgive the person who committed the act. I don't care if it was some kind of crime or if it was rape or whatever it might have been, or even smaller things than that. But you know, when you hear people who say, you know, I've forgiven the other person for that and that, that takes a lot, okay, because we're kind of programmed as human beings to want to have some kind of restitution or crap like that, right? And I've seen people get angry and then carry that anger the rest of their lives, and it doesn't do any good for them or anyone around them. So compassion would be it, and importantly, self compassion and forgiveness and self forgiveness, I agree. Yeah, I agree. So your book for all of my listeners, the case for compassion. What happens when we prioritize people and the planet? Go out and get a copy. I'll put a link to her website as well. It's been a pleasure having you on the show and speaking about some really important issues, but I think the biggest issue is how we can shift our own consciousness to be more aware of what we're doing, and if this podcast made you at least a little bit aware of how it is you treat yourself and others. We've done our job. So yeah, Namaste to you. Thank you for being on Inside Personal Growth.

Sara Schairer
Thanks, Greg. It's my pleasure. I really appreciate it.

Greg Voisen
Thank you.