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Episode 201: Confronting Meta-Change with Courage and Compassion with guest, DJ Mitsch

Garry Schleifer

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0:00 | 38:12

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Chaos can feel like whitewater: loud, fast, destabilizing, and impossible to control. That’s why I invited award-winning change agent and master coach DJ Mitsch back to Beyond the Page to talk about what it really takes to find peace amid chaos and lead through meta change with courage and compassion. We explore a practical metaphor that sticks: change as a river, where rapids test us, quiet pools integrate us, and the goal is not perfect control, but conscious navigation. 

We also go straight at the modern stressors leaders and coaches face every day: emotional contagion, the way negativity multiplies online, and the growing problem of AI-generated content shaping what people believe. DJ shares why what we “hold” in thought and feeling becomes part of our experience, and why leaders can’t ask teams to be calm if they’re bringing frantic energy into the room. From grounding practices like breathing, visualization, Tai Chi, and barefoot grounding, to heart-led courage and intuitive sensing, we outline how coaching presence becomes a leadership advantage. 

From an ontological and meta-relational leadership lens, we look at the wider field: resources, systems, and uncertainty that no single person can “fix.” The work is to create steadiness, invite contribution, and listen for the second conversation in every room: the underlying energy. If you care about executive coaching, change management, team coaching, and building leader-as-coach cultures, you’ll walk away with language, questions, and next steps you can use immediately. Subscribe, share this with a fellow coach or leader, and leave a review with the one idea you’re taking into your next conversation.

Watch the full interview by clicking here

Read the full article here.

Learn more about DJ here

**Please note this correction on the book mentioned in the interview.**
This book by Gloria D. Karpinski has been a go-to for me over the years.  It is a study of the seven levels of consciousness and offers rituals and exercises throughout …the Guided Imagery mentioned in this interview can be found on pages 274-278, but read the entire work before guiding someone through this visualization, so you understand the context and power! Copyright 1990 Ballantine Books, NYC. https://a.co/d/0ciEE1u6

A Gift for our listeners: The meta-relational handout : https://drive.google.com/file/d/100n2LLAvd16RPdMs9nDmvtiAjGuBb3vZ/view?usp=drive_link 

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