Emotions

Episode 28: Sarita Chawla On The Near Death Experience Of The Ego [The Amiel Show]

by amiel · Oct 13, 2015

Sarita Chawla is a wise woman. Wise enough to realize that when it comes to developing people, deeper isn’t always better.

It’s important to meet people where they are.

In this episode, we discuss vertical development–how it differs from most approaches to leadership development and why it matters for mastery. Sarita walks us through two stages of development where most people experience challenges. New Ventures West calls them Immediate Concerns and Balance. One describes an inner life of constant firefighting with little capacity for self-reflection. The other deals with life as a proud juggler of “necessary” responsibilities.

Think these sound like you? Think they don’t? Either way, Sarita has a message worth hearing.

Highlights

3:00 What is vertical development?
14:30 The challenge of letting go
16:00 A near death experience of the ego
22:00 After the “aha” moment is…disorientation
30:00 Immediate Concerns–a life of constant firefighting–and beyond
37:30 Balance–a self-important juggler of many things–and beyond
40:00 Reinterpreting the networking lunch
48:30 What Sarita is personally practicing in her life

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A Comedian Interviews Me About My Work

by amiel · Aug 31, 2015

This one is really fun.

Stand-up comic Rosie Tran interviewed me for her Out of The Box Podcast. She did a magnificent job asking questions, and is one of the most positive (i.e. not depressed or narcissistic) comedians you’ll run across.

That may be why I felt very relaxed during a conversation that covered important topics like managing emotional triggers and building healthy relationships with others.

In fact, I swore more than a few times–kind of like I typically do in life.

Take a listen. I think you’ll enjoy it.

Here is the interview.

Episode 26: Help Me Understand, A Jedi Leadership Trick [The Amiel Show]

by amiel · Aug 12, 2015

Ready for a very short, very practical episode of The Amiel Show?

Last week, before my interview with Pamela Weiss, I introduced a new feature to the podcast: The Jedi Leadership Trick. It’s ten minutes or less of practical wisdom you can put into action immediately. We looked at one called Two Feet, Five Breaths.

This week, let’s try something different. The Jedi Leadership Trick is the episode.

I call this one Help Me Understand. Have a listen!

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READ: Episode 29: The 5-Point Relationship Health Scale, A Jedi Leadership Trick [The Amiel Show]

Episode 25: Pamela Weiss On Leading With Clarity, Courage, And Curiosity [The Amiel Show]

by amiel · Aug 3, 2015

Pamela Weiss is an amazing coach and teacher. She has one foot in the corporate world and another in the world of Buddhism. In fact, she spans so many domains that sometimes I think she must have three or four feet. That’s why I invited her to join me for this historic (play drum roll) episode 25 of the podcast.

In this interview, we talk about three important qualities of leadership: clarity, courage, and curiosity. These are qualities of bodhisattva leaders, “wise feeling beings” who are “dedicated to supporting the welfare of others.” Pamela challenges us to deepen our understanding of what it means to lead in the world.

Before the interview, I introduce a new feature to the podcast: the Jedi Leadership Trick. This week we explore one called Two Feet, Five Breaths. It’s pretty nifty.

Highlights

0:30 Jedi Leadership Trick: Two Feet, Five Breaths
5:20 Introduction of Pamela Weiss
10:40 Leadership: role or way of being?
13:40 Bringing bodhisattva leadership into the vernacular
20:15 Clarity, courage, and curiosity
33:00 This isn’t easy…and it’s not meant to be
35:30 The Personal Excellence Program (PEP)
38:30 Selecting a quality to focus on in your leadership
44:30 Refining your capacity to observe
49:30 Why lack of self-care is often a symptom of something else
52:00 Building authentic connection and the power of group coaching
58:00 What Pamela is deliberately practicing in her life

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Tweet a Quote

I’d like the term bodhisattva to be as commonplace in our language as cappuccino.

–Pamela Weiss Tweet this quote

Our world is a mess. There’s so much we could help with. What’s most important to me?

–Pamela Weiss Tweet this quote

Read The Transcript

You can view (and then download) a complete, word-for-word transcript of this episode here .

Explore Additional Resources

Appropriate Response

Personal Excellence Program (PEP)

Video about PEP’s work at Genentech

Pam’s talk at the Do Lectures

Pam’s panel discussion with Tony Schwartz at Wisdom 2.0

Shunryu Suzuki Roshi

New to Podcasts?

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Episode 24: Amy Jen Su On Owning The Room [The Amiel Show]

by amiel · Jul 21, 2015

Leadership presence. In some organizations, you hear the phrase all the time. Sounds impressive, but does anyone know what it actually means?

Do you?

Now, you’re a smart person, so let’s assume you have a definition ready at hand. Leadership presence is about how other people perceive you. And power.

Through this lens, the greater your presence, the more powerfully you show up in others’ assessments. Most of us want to be perceived as powerful. So leadership presence is a good thing, right?

Yes, but only if it means showing up powerfully as ourselves. Not imitating someone else, but expressing the highest and most authentic version of who we are.

When you do this, you’re not renting someone else’s space or personality.

You own the room.
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Episode 23: David Rome On The Wisdom Of A Leader’s Body [The Amiel Show]

by amiel · Jul 15, 2015

In the past decade, an increasing number of leaders have had an astonishing insight: they have bodies.

This sounds silly to point out. Of course we all have bodies. We are human beings. Why is this a big deal?

Here is why: For decades, we’ve left the body out of the equation. Look at any book on leadership or management published between 1950 and 2005. You’ll be hard pressed to find anything about leaders’ bodies. Consider my own experience. When I started developing leaders in the mid 1990s, we talked about leadership competencies, how people change, and a dozen models of excellence. Cool stuff, but it was purely cognitive. One hundred percent was about how to shift minds. The body was nowhere to be found.

Fortunately, this has begun to shift.

Neuroscience teaches us that changing ourselves involves rewiring the brain’s neural pathways. The study of emotional intelligence suggests that reading our emotions and others’ is a distinctly physical act. And studies of high performance reveal that sleep, nutrition, regular breaks, and sustained periods of “flow” are must-haves for leadership excellence.

The secret is out: The body isn’t a peripheral concern. It is central to leadership.

So if you’re facing a big decision, navigating an interpersonal conflict, or building a team, keep this in mind: your body knows the answer.

Your Body Knows The Answer. That’s not just a clever phrase. It’s also the title of a new book by David Rome. David is a mindfulness teacher and seasoned executive. He began practicing Buddhism in 1971 and served for many years as the private secretary to the great Tibetan Buddhist master, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

This week on the podcast, David and I talk about how to use mindful focusing and the body’s “felt sense” to rise to many challenges of leadership.

Highlights

9:00 What are “felt senses” and why do they rarely break into your consciousness?
16:00 Negotiating a complex deal between two organizations–and how the felt sense saved the day
24:30 How the felt sense can help you in a crisis
31:00 Using mindful focusing when you have to fire someone or make another tough decision
40:00 A simple focusing practice you can do right now
51:00 When and how to practice mindful focusing
53:00 What it was like being private secretary to the great Tibetan Buddhist master, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
57:00 What David is deliberately practicing to grow as a person

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Episode 21: Ba Luvmour On Parenting 8-12 Year-Olds [The Amiel Show]

by amiel · Jun 16, 2015

When you’re with 8-12 year-olds, ask yourself, ‘Am I building trust in this moment?’

–Ba Luvmour, headmaster of Summa Academy in Portland, OR Tweet this quote

[Update: in July 2017, Ba’s school, Summa Academy, suddenly closed. It was a shock to our family and others. The way Ba and the other administrators handled the ending fell short of what we wanted and expected given the closeness of our relationship the prior four years. It hurt. Still—and this is the main point I want to make—our family continues using the parenting practices we learned at Summa and continue to see positive results from them. There’s good stuff in here!]

Leadership is about your life as a human being. It encompasses all of you. That’s why I’ve chosen this week to focus the podcast on parenting.

In particular, parenting 8-12 year-olds.

This is a crucial stage in children’s lives, yet almost nobody talks about it with wisdom and rigor.

That’s why I reached out to Ba Luvmour. A pioneering educator and author, Ba is a man of big ideas and enormous practical experience. He talks a big game–and delivers. I know this because our older son is a student at Summa Academy, an independent school in Portland, Oregon for kids ages 4-14 where Ba serves as headmaster.

One big reason we chose Summa Academy is that it knows children’s interpersonal lives inside and out. To give a simple example, what do you do when your child refuses to do something you ask? According to Ba, it’s not helpful to answer that question in a vacuum. First, you ask: what stage of development is this child in the midst of–and what are the nourishments and toxins of this stage?In two years, our older son will turn 8.

So I asked Ba to give me a sneak preview of what to expect at this stage, which Ba calls FeelingBeing. What’s specific challenges do kids this age face socially and emotionally? What kind of relationship do they need with you to thrive? What mistakes do many parents make–and how can you avoid them?

Ba bring enormous enthusiasm, wisdom, and love to this interview. He offers specific tips for handling common situations–what I call conversational practices.

I promise that you will learn something new from this conversation. And I hope you’ll share it with friends.

Highlights

4:15 What a camping trip can do for an 8-12 year old’s social bonds and feelings of adventure
14:00 How to help an 8-12 year old identify what they think is unfair and understand why
20:00 What to say–and not say–about divorce to children at this age
23:00 Why losing friendships at this age can produce grief and loneliness–and how to work with this
27:00 Why it’s not helpful to tell a child, “Hey, it’s OK. You’ll make new friends.”
33:00 The long term cost of using rewards and punishments
42:00 Stop talking about winning and losing. Start asking kids to describe their experiences in detail
46:45 How watching Star Wars can subvert a 5-year-old’s imagination