Mindfulness

On the importance of mindfulness for gaining traction — and how you can practice to become more mindful.

Show notes:

• Original Love by Henry Shukman
• The Informed Life ep. 75: Hans Krueger on the Cycle of Emotions
• The Tim Ferriss Show ep. 531: Henry Shukman
• The Way App
• Waking Up
• The Ultimate Coach by Amy Hardison and Alan D. Thompson
• Being in the World

Transcript

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Harry 0:00

If you look at how do you want to get anti-traction? Like, how do you wanna really screw up? Do what I did when I rage quit. How do you want to get traction? You stay resourceful and clear and present and thoughtful and kind and conscious of what you know your options are and what the implications of those options are.

Narrator 0:28

You're listening to Traction Heroes. Digging In to Get Results with Harry Max and Jorge Arango.

Harry 0:39

Jorge, it is most excellent to see you again.

Jorge 0:42

Great to see you, Harry. You're wearing a very colorful sweater. It's lifting my spirits.

Harry 0:47

Thank you. I try not to wear horizontal lines because, I've been told that it makes me look shorter and heavier, which is the last thing I want people to take away. But I love the colors and so I figure at least online, they can see me this way.

Jorge 1:04

I was gonna say, I'm just looking at you in the Zoom rectangle, so I can't see your midsection and your shoulders might be... if it makes your shoulders look wider, that might be a good thing, right? So it works for online.

Harry 1:20

I brought an interesting reading, something I wanted to share with you. I know we've been talking a lot about how to really connect with folks and help them see where the snow chains and the ice create traction, right? Or how to reduce the amount of slippage, if you will, and reduce the amount of abstraction in the conversation. So I wanted to start off with a quick story and then share with you a very short reading. Back in 2005, I was in a executive meeting room in Glendale, California. Once a week, I would get on a plane early in the morning and I would fly down to Burbank and then drive down to Glendale and pass the Disney Studios and drive into the lot at Dreamworks. I had a battlefield promotion a few months earlier. My boss who hired me at Dreamworks decided to leave the company. And so I ended up getting promoted to report to her boss who I will not name, because I left on... oh, one of the few bridges I burned in Silicon Valley was in that meeting room. And the boss was really unhappy with the fact that a number of people, a lot of people, were complaining about management online in the company forums, which I was responsible for. I ran the intranet, right? So communication, collaboration, and publishing. So, the RN system and the wiki system, and like the whole, all the stuff that facilitated getting an animated movie made inside the company, traveled through systems that I touched or managed directly. And my boss was super unhappy with a group of very vocal employees at the Redwood City Studio, which is where I was based, who were complaining about various under management problems. And she said to me, "I want you to shut down that forum." And I said, I'm gonna shorten the story, I said, "I can't do that 'cause I'm not gonna be here on Monday." And she said, "Well, can you do it on Tuesday?" And I said, "No, Monday's my last day." And she said, "You can't quit." And I said, "I just did." So I rage quit. She had asked me to do something that was gross violation of cultural norms, arguably a violation of studio policy, but she was the boss, right? But I wasn't having anything of it. And she basically said, "Look, if you don't do this, I'm gonna have you report to this winged monkey who works for me." And, I thought, "That's just not gonna happen. I don't need a job that much. I'd rather, live under a bridge than work for that person and work for this person. And frankly, I love the job, but I'm done." And so I rage quit. And I was polite about it, but it was certainly something I wouldn't do again. just because it was so graceless. And what's really ironic about the situation is of course, now some of my best work is working with people who call up and tell me they're about to rage quit. And I just finished a year long gig with a very well known company up in San Francisco, to help a chief product officer prepare for retirement, find a new leader, transition the team over. And he had called me, a year ago and said, "Yeah, I'm about to rage quit." And how this all connects is that I realized a number of years ago, and partly through therapy, right? I, see a therapist because that's a coach for me, I need somebody to work with that helps me stay psychologically clean, and so I've been developing a meditation practice for many many many years. And I don't know, how do you know whether you're good or bad at meditation? But I've been reading about it and One of the books I stumbled on, I was about halfway through the second book that this particular author, who's a Zen master, wrote, and I found two paragraphs that I thought really put like the most incredible level of clarity on what the dynamic is that you're trying to solve through meditation, which I think is a secret weapon for leaders. And if you look at how do you want to, get anti-traction? Like, how do you wanna really screw up? Do what I did when I rage quit. How do you want to get traction? You stay resourceful and clear and present and thoughtful and kind and conscious of what you know your options are and what the implications of those options are. So before I read this, did you have anything you wanted to chime in with, or should I just dive into the reading?

Jorge 6:23

No, I'm very excited to hear what you're bringing to the table. Is it the book about Zen?

Harry 6:27

It is. It's one of two books. I'll just tell you. It's a book called Original Love by an American Zen Master named Henry Shukman. And interestingly, I found out about Henry Shukman through this client that I referred that said he was gonna rage quit. And I started reading everything that he was reading to try to get a better sense of how we could connect and work through this very complex transition that he had in front of him. But I knew that meditation was potent because I now respond more effectively to very difficult circumstances. Part of that I'm sure is age. Part of it is meditation. It's being able to separate my need to act from the thoughts that are driving that. So here's the reading. "We have become more adept at grounding ourselves in the here and now. If emotions come up, then we disentangle the threads of inner experience more deftly. Thoughts and feelings can be overwhelming when they come braided together, especially when they proliferate. It's easier to bring attention to body sensation, to contractions in the torso, and to sight, sound, and breath, in order to return to the here and now, rather than being lost in stories and emotions. To do this requires a lowering of defenses: a small but significant opening of the heart."

Jorge 8:15

That is a short reading.

Harry 8:16

It is. But this notion of thoughts and feelings being overwhelming when they come braided together. I've read two books from this fellow, but it was that singular sentence of thoughts and feelings being braided together and being able to disentangle them and separate the thoughts from the feelings, the words that you're saying to yourself from the physical experience that you're having, from the things that you're actually hearing, from the sights that you're actually seeing, allows us to get back to what's actually happening right here and right now, and that puts us in a stronger position to be more resourceful and responsive, better than reactive. And the line to do this requires a lowering of defenses, a small but significant opening of the heart is, to me, magic, because that's where choice lives.

Jorge 9:28

You know, so many of the conversations that we've had in this podcast have centered on seeing clearly. Being able to get a 'good read' on what is happening. That might be like where you are and what circumstances are impinging upon you. What your path forward might be. And getting a clean read requires sensing accurately what conditions are like in your world. And part of what I'm hearing there, and maybe I'm filling in the blanks, which we can get into, but I've also studied these ideas for a long time. But part of what I'm hearing there is that thoughts and emotions can distort your ability to get a good read. They can distort how your mind parses what is happening, where you are, your stance, situations that are influencing what is happening to you at any given moment. Is that fair?

Harry 10:57

It is. I would add that the gravity, if you will, of those thoughts and emotions that are braided together, pull you internally into the stories and the previous experiences that we have, which we then project outward into the world rather than actually attending to the sensory data, the actual words that are being said to us, the actual sounds in the environment, the actual things that we're reading, and that distortion happens in that interface. But the thing that's so potent about this idea is that once you understand that the... You're much more likely to be able to read the outside world more accurately if you're not stuck internally, and you have a greater risk of being stuck internally if those thoughts and feelings and emotions are braided together tightly. What meditation does as a practice is allows you to loosen up that tangled web of braided stuff so that you can more easily shift your attention back to the outside world and what's actually going on.

Jorge 12:23

I'm gonna put in a commercial. I don't usually do this in our show, but I think that here it's highly relevant. So, in my previous podcast, The Informed Life, one of the episodes was an interview with my friend and former business partner, collaborator Hans Krueger on what he called the Cycle of Emotions. And it's a framework coming from Buddhist philosophy, and I won't get into it here, there are four particular emotions that he hones in on. But I'm just putting it here as a commercial, and I'll link to it in the show notes, because that conversation goes in depth into a particular framework of what these emotions might be and how you can not just become more aware of them, but also navigate the turbulence that comes from being... this is not fair, but I'll also use the word like 'dominated' by the emotion. Overcome by the emotion. Which, to your point, if we allow ourselves, if we lack this training, and I wanna emphasize here, the fact that what you are talking about is not an intellectual framework, it's a practice.

Harry 13:44

Yes.

Jorge 13:45

Meditation is a practice. And gaining the ability to perceive, not just see, because we talk about what are you seeing, what are you hearing? But being aware of body's state in general, including things like, what emotions am I feeling? What mood do I have? These are things that are less obvious to us than the things that we're seeing, for example. The ability to clearly perceive those things is not something you can think through. It's something that you have to practice your way into. And I'll advocate here, learning to meditate is one of the most important practices I've learned in my life. It's something that I've been doing. I did on and off since my late teens, but I would say over the last decade or so, I've become a lot more serious. And for many years, I've had a daily meditation practice. And the, and the goal ultimately is something very much like what you're describing. It's the ability to... it's not undo because you, I don't think I can really undo them, but like just observe the tangle that is happening between emotions and thoughts and how these things tug at each other.

Harry 15:16

Yeah. And it is this practice that over time creates a muscle in us that allows us to lower our defenses and create that "small but significant opening of the heart," which is where the light of curiosity shines from. And once we get to that place, we can look at what's going on much less judgmentally, and start asking probing, relevant questions out of a place of kindness, and that, that is very powerful as a leader. I know that Tim Ferris has interviewed Henry Shukman extensively. I think he has two interviews, which I've not listened to, but I've heard are very good. I'm not a giant Tim Ferriss acolyte, right? I think he's done amazing work. I just don't follow him as much as I many of my friends do. And Shukman has an app that I started using called The Way. interestingly, I didn't start with Shukman's work. I actually started with, the Waking Up app, by, oh my gosh, I'm forgetting his name...

Jorge 16:54

Sam Harris.

Harry 16:56

That's right, Sam Harris. I started with the Waking Up app, and I thought it was really good. I've connected just personally a little bit more warmly and a little bit more emotionally with the tone of Shukman's app, The Way. I have subscriptions to both, but I've noticed, when I go back to it, I notice I'm choosing The Way over Waking Up, as much as I like Waking Up, and I do, and I would recommend it to anyone.

Jorge 17:23

Yeah, I, was gonna mention the Waking Up app, 'cause I use that one. I have not used The Way, I will look it up. It is a time when it is easier to get into these things than otherwise just because of the existence of apps like these. There are several apps that can help you start a meditation practice. Whenever I talk about this with people, one reaction I get is interest, curiosity, the willingness to explore further. And another reaction I get is not rejection, but like an aversion to like what might feel like woo ideas. And I was hoping in the few minutes that we have left here, if you could say a bit more about what the phrase "opening of the heart" means for you.

Harry 18:21

Sure. I think the opening of the heart to me is nothing more than a turning the handle on compassion and empathy and creating just a tiny bit of space between a compulsion to react versus a moment to take a breath. And I just know from my personal life, leaving aside my professional work, in my personal life, like my ability to work through a difficult conversation with my brother or my sister or my partner and not have it get inflamed, overly, and being able to work through it and stay present and really attend to what's going on. The dividends that this practice has paid, just as any martial art would pay in a situation where you need to be present and draw on the repertoire of skill required to respond effectively when you're being attacked. Mindfulness is nothing more than a martial art of the mind, and it puts you in a very powerful position to be the one that's the most flexible, most resourceful in the room.

Jorge 19:59

I'll reflect that back to you, because I think it's very important. You used the phrase, "being present." And I do think that is central to this notion of opening of the heart as far as I understand it. And maybe that's like the opening part, in that you're making your consciousness available to the situation without the filters that come from concepts, the filters that come from emotions, that might color your perception of what's going on. But then the hard piece, what that says to me is, this is not an intellectual exercise. This is an exercise of your entire being, which is a lot more than what is going on in the meat computer.

Harry 20:48

Yeah, that's right. And in any moment, this is something I learned from Steve Hardison. There's a book about him called The Ultimate Coach, but Steve says, "Look, at any moment, we are all in a state of being. And we can observe our being and we can shift our being." And it is the power and the flexibility that a mindfulness practice brings, that gives us the ability to sit without judgment and look at what's going on and then choose to shift our being. That is that opening. And when you're doing that, you are much more likely to be contributing in a positive way to what's happening right in front of you.

Jorge 21:41

I love this conversation. I wish that we could keep talking longer. I will put in a plug to a documentary that, if anyone listening to this conversation is thinking, "Oh, this sounds kinda woo, and, they're talking about like the opening of the heart and all this stuff." This movie is... perhaps if someone is more kind of intellectual-minded and approaching this from a more kind of cerebral, perspective. It's called Being In The World. It's a documentary about the philosopher Heidegger. One of the ideas it highlights is that there is a particular kind of being when you are connected with say the tools that you're using. Like if you're doing carpentry, there is a state of mind when you become one with the tools and you understand the affordances of the materials and all that stuff. that is a, it is a very particular way of being. And I think that what you're talking about here is pointing in that direction, in that, for a master carpenter, sometimes work is like a moving meditation, in this sense. And part of the practice that you are advocating for here points to having that kind of stance toward everything, including your interactions with other people. I realize that I'm dropping that at the tail end here, but it might be helpful for someone who's listening to this and going, "I don't know if I wanna meditate."

Harry 23:17

And I'm gonna add one thing, and I can't help myself, right? What I have been told repeatedly over the last n number of years where n is greater than 10, is that one of the reasons that people love working with me is I stay calm under very difficult circumstances. And I've cultivated that calmness through meditation, so it is a very practical skill and capability. So it is not woo woo at all for me: I get paid for it. And it is a leadership skill.

Jorge 23:53

You don't have to sell me on this. I'm obviously totally on board. It's just I know, because I've had these conversations with people and sometimes I get the whole, "Oh, I don't know, this meditation stuff sounds weird." No, to your point, it's a very practical skill. And again, it is not an intellectual exercise. It is not about a mindset. It is not about frameworks. It's a particular way of being and becoming aware of your own consciousness. And that's the instrument. That's the thing that you have to work with.

Harry 24:28

That's right. Yeah. Perfect.

Jorge 24:31

All right, sir. I'm gonna go off and meditate.

Harry 24:35

Not me, man. I'm gonna dive into the maelstrom.

Jorge 24:39

I'm joking. I do my meditation early in the morning. It's a pleasure talking with you always, Harry. Thank you for bringing this to our conversation.

Harry 24:47

Absolutely. Thanks so much, Jorge.

Narrator 24:49

Thank you for listening to Traction Heroes with Harry Max and Jorge Arango. Check out the show notes at tractionheroes.com and if you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating in Apple's podcasts app. Thanks.