Shelton Davis would rather hear your story than tell his. But in today's episode we're hearing the story of his life in Serenbe and building his company Empathy Lab. Shelton believes in the power of empathy within ourselves, so he's creating a world where it's embraced by leaders at every level in order to accelerate human achievement for the benefit of all. He talks about his transformation as a competitive athlete, what it means to be an empathy coach, and how we can recondition our empathy muscles and empower collective success from the inside out.
Shelton Davis would rather hear your story than tell his. But in today's episode we're hearing the story of his life in Serenbe and building his company Empathy Lab. Shelton believes in the power of empathy within ourselves, so he's creating a world where it's embraced by leaders at every level in order to accelerate human achievement for the benefit of all. He talks about his transformation as a competitive athlete, what it means to be an empathy coach, and how we can recondition our empathy muscles and empower collective success from the inside out.
0 (1s):
Hey guys, it's Monica here. I wanted to tell you about a new podcast that I've started with my very good friend, Jennifer Walsh called biophilic solutions. Our last season of ceremony stories, building a biophilic movement was so popular that we decided to dedicate an entire podcast to it every other week. Jennifer and I will sit down with leaders in the growing field of biophilia. We'll talk about local and global solutions to help nurture the living social and economic systems that we all need to sustain future generations more often than not. Nature has the answers. You can find biophilic solutions on apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, subscribe and follow us today. So you don't miss an episode.
0 (41s):
All right, now let's get back to ceremony stories. Sheldon Davis would rather hear your story and tell his, but in today's episode, we're hearing the story of his life and ceremony and building his company. Empathy lab Shelton believes in the power of empathy within ourselves. So he's creating a world where it's embraced by leaders at every level, in order to accelerate human achievement for the benefit of all, he talks about his transformation as a competitive athlete, what it means to be an empathy coach and how we can recondition our empathy, muscles, and power collective success from the inside out
1 (1m 17s):
Both parts of the first five. And the second five are moments of meditation pausing, because it's important to pause with yourself. And it's important to pause with your team so that everyone can either lower their heart rate or just be prepared for what's coming next.
2 (1m 38s):
I want to welcome everybody back to Serenbe. These stories today, we have resident Shelton Davis with us. Hi Shelton. How are you
1 (1m 46s):
Doing
2 (1m 46s):
Great. And of course we have Steve Nygren like cohost
1 (1m 50s):
Welcome. And I love your t-shirt. Although all of our listeners won't be able to see it. Tell us about the t-shirt you're wearing it is a green super soft t-shirt that just reads empathy on it. And for those that have a teacher that has a secret surprise on it, I'm not going to tell you I have a website that I sell them through. I run a small company called empathy lab, so I try to spread as much empathy as possible. So I wear a green shirt almost every day. People probably think that I don't know anything other than
2 (2m 24s):
Well. And I think that that is how I sort of discovered you, right? So many of our guests I know through the neighborhood or I've stumbled upon, or I have some sort of interaction in person with an, I don't think that we've met in person, which is crazy, but I stumbled across your Instagram and your content was fantastic. And it was talking all about empathy. And somehow you had tagged ceremony and you were talking about how you moved here. So of course I called garni and said, who's this guy, because I think he would be a really interesting interview. I love everything he's doing, right?
1 (2m 57s):
Yeah. I think you probably saw, I take morning walks now. It's kind of difficult to take photos during the morning walk because it's pretty dark. But yeah, I would stumble upon some view in the neighborhood and it would hit me like this is nature. This is beauty. This is what's supposed to be. And like reflecting on whatever I'm going through at the time or what I'm trying to educate other people about empathy. Like I shared a little blip on Instagram.
3 (3m 22s):
You'll have to see, we just opened portal with Robert Roshes photography of nature, scenes ups. Most of them have ceremony. And they're the kind of things you feel that empathy, that protection, it would be something you could almost meditate in front of itself.
1 (3m 39s):
Sure. Yes. Oh, that sounds incredible. There's a lot of things that I believe if it's like close up photography, those things that we miss, you know, we walk by too fast or we're looking at our phone, but being like an empathetic being where we're at it's important.
2 (3m 53s):
So Shelton, one of the first things we usually ask people is how did you find Sarah and, and come to live here with us?
1 (4m 2s):
Good question. I got lost,
2 (4m 5s):
Which many people do,
1 (4m 6s):
You know? It's been marinating in my head for quite some time and long story short. I came out two years ago for a festival. I can't remember what it was. My daughter was super small. So like leading her by the hand, over the outdoor parking lot in a field through to see what was the cell we're in at the time. And we walked around, we checked out the houses. We had a great time and that was one of our pers ventures here. We also had Laura, my wife, we had a dinner here. And I remember if I remember correctly is around Thanksgiving year. I don't remember at the end, at the farm house. And so it's just like, you know, you keep having these little touch points of this is reality. This can be like, this is reality.
1 (4m 47s):
Fast forward to about a year or so ago. We was at this point, have two kids, a great age for camp and my gosh, what, what not a better camp in the Serenbe camp, right? They get to be outside. They get to enjoy my son, grace. And he only wants to do bows and arrows all the time. So the first year he, that we came here, he's like, it's suppose and arrows camp. They came home exhausted. Laura and I were able to work from our little Airbnb rental that we had. And we're like, Hey, kids, enjoy it. Here we enjoy here. We can disconnect. We can go on walks. It meets the values that our family has of being with nature in a community setting where we can be good neighbors with one another.
1 (5m 31s):
And it was weird. It's like before we left, we talked to some people about, Hey, I want to buy. And it was really pretty quick, real, real quick decision. After that, we're like, Hey, why not? We make crazy decisions. Let's do,
2 (5m 45s):
We did that too. We came down for a pony party at the stables when my son was, we have, we have now 14 and 16, but they were two and four. And we just had this magical little pony party at the stables. And I think Steve stopped by and said, hello. And we looked at houses and 24 hours later, that was
1 (6m 3s):
That.
3 (6m 6s):
Okay. That's part of the magic. That's not captured in pictures is this is similar for almost every resident. And I can't think of many communities where everyone that's there has come from their heart rather than a logical place. And you have a community filled with people who are willing to follow sort of their intuition. It creates a very different atmosphere.
1 (6m 31s):
Yeah. I was gonna say, even those that aren't residents here, friends in Atlanta, professors that I took the classes from a tech certainly would come up and talking with people like Jean Kansas up in Atlanta would come up in conversation just randomly. He was like, wait, hold on. It just it's like, I don't know what color car y'all have or what kind of car you have, but you always see your car on the road. Like consistently, like, Hey, it looks like my car Sam. He just kept coming up. Whether it was from Grindr Orville that did the BeltLine, or it was like one that was really like Atlanta centric. Let's make this place amazing. It's inevitable that Sarah becomes up in the same conversation.
1 (7m 13s):
This place has been trouble. Hello.
2 (7m 16s):
It is kind of interesting. Like where did you grow up? Did you grow up here in Georgia somewhere? Or would you wear?
1 (7m 21s):
I grew up in Southern California. Orange county went to school in LA
2 (7m 28s):
Where'd you go to school? So now I'm like dying problem,
1 (7m 32s):
UCLA. I was a UCLA kid. Give you the short story. UCLA kid track and field guy, good grades got into UCLA on a partial scholarship and was about to set foot on the campus. And they pulled the scholarship for no reason, or they had to give it to the football department. So I was like, all right, peace out. Literally, I'm going across the street to USC. I'm going to kick your for as long as I can.
2 (7m 57s):
You ended up being, I became
1 (7m 59s):
A judge and led their captain of the team, did some great stuff over there.
2 (8m 5s):
And this is my mom was a Trojan. So we were sciences. It was even like, we'd go to all these like that. So we grew up going to all the games you're in your app. And I grew up on the other side of town, Pasadena, but my grandparents had moved down to Laguna, like in the seventies. And so we had the pleasure of being able to hang with them at the beach kind of all the time. So I have fond memories of Los Angeles. My family is also out there. So maybe that's it. Maybe that's where, yeah, exactly. How did you end up in Georgia? Was it tech or how did
1 (8m 37s):
You know? I said I make crazy decisions and we lived in Pasadena post-school and either our jobs, Lauren, I hated our jobs. What the hell are we doing here? Not actors or actresses. We're not in music, business, those a traffic. She would call me and cry from like the later. And so we got a U haul and a map and we put like little things on the map that corresponded with what we could deal with Chicago is too cold. Texas just scared us. New York sounded good. Miami sounded good. Atlanta sounded good. And so we just made our way across the U S kind of stopping it cities and be like, this feel good.
1 (9m 17s):
Nah, it doesn't feel good, but it is Georgia tech that I came here because I love trees. I flew in here one time, I was like, what is happening? There are trees in this city.
2 (9m 29s):
It is wild from the air. Oh, it's actually as a Los Angeles kid. It's like, there, it's just lights of street. There's no trees.
1 (9m 36s):
It's a concrete jungle. Right. And so was like, this is life. This is where life is. It was an up and coming city. It was in 2005 and things were happening. So we made a decision to try it out here. We no jobs. We didn't have a place to live. We lived in a motel for about two weeks or two cats as well, which was, yeah. But it all worked out and you know, you kind of have to like Steve, you said, you know, moving with your heart, but you got to move with that thing that's inside of you. And that's what we did.
3 (10m 6s):
That's great. That's the richness in life I find is that if we stay on too straight a path, we're never going to live up to the expectations. But it's those what I call 90 degree turns that the courage to take them, it's exciting because you don't have prescribed ideas of what it should be.
2 (10m 25s):
Yeah. It is interesting to how long have you been in Atlanta?
1 (10m 29s):
2005. So there's many years. Is that math?
2 (10m 33s):
We moved in 2000 and Steve, you came from Colorado and what are all of your travels and early seventies or
3 (10m 39s):
69. I arrived in Atlanta,
2 (10m 43s):
But it's magical.
3 (10m 44s):
I stepped off the corporate treadmill to stay here because that advice that you mentioned, and it adds and flows, I think we're indefinitely that period again, let's it really got its mojo back. And when you got here, that was post-Olympics and there was a lot of mojo.
2 (11m 2s):
So once you got here and both of you had left your jobs, you didn't like the empathy lab being around all those years, or what's your art into coming into this world. And where did you start and how did you create this incredible project?
1 (11m 16s):
How much time do you have as
2 (11m 19s):
Long as you, whatever you
1 (11m 21s):
Though it's like any endeavor that comes from the heart. It's been with chief for a long time before you could actually give it words. And empathy lab has been with me for probably since childhood, this empathy focused connection with people. So in studying cognitive psychology and undergrad, and I studied industrial design at Georgia tech, it's all about listening to people to be able to create experiences. That's the fuel apply like listen to help co-create and enough years in corporate settings, enough years in startup successes and failures, empathy lab has really taken root and kind of started giving blossomed to this fact that while we are really good at capitalism, we're not necessarily that good at being with one another in a community or a corporate setting.
1 (12m 10s):
And so we tend to burn out. We tend to not follow our gut and have purpose and relationships get weird. And you hear toxic conversations all the time. And empathy lab is like, how do I turn this empathy that I used to use for companies to help innovate, to help build multimillion dollar products onto the people that work inside of it. So I believe in designing for people and if people can't design a good things for everyone else and you know,
2 (12m 38s):
I love that. And I think that's really important designing for people. And I know Steve, you can talk to that a lot. When you think about Sarah and B, you really, people forward. I always think of like the car as the secondary citizen here.
3 (12m 52s):
Totally. We have long forgotten about people and the connection to nature and each other. And when we see think the pandemic has brought a lot of this to focus a lot of your psychologists and therapists, now talk about how important it is to have a connection to nature. And there are certainly medical studies. This is why hospitals are designed differently. Now this is just a medical fact. And now we're seeing the teach others the same thing. Yeah. We've been building places and creating a society that separates us from both for the last several decades. And we wonder why we're depressed and sick. Well, it's simply the way we've been building places for efficiency and to exist rather than to thrive and to connect.
1 (13m 40s):
You said it. Yeah. That's what we want. And that's what people are feeling they're missing that thrive and connection.
2 (13m 46s):
Yeah. And I think this is pre pandemic and sort of everything that's gone on over the past couple of years, but even with all this divisiveness, politically like same thing. So many things are tearing us apart, whether it's the built environment or politics, or just, it seems like we have to take sides instead of choosing to come together. And I don't know if it's always been that way or it's human nature. Tell me what your thoughts are on. Like, how did we get here? And maybe that's a much longer conversation, but tell me in your work, when you talk to people about, we really want to recondition ourselves, right.
2 (14m 26s):
I think you talk about and get that empathy, muscle going like and empower us. How do people react? How do you set someone up in your training? How do you set the table for them?
1 (14m 36s):
Yeah, I'm going to go back to something that Steve just kind of brought up for the many decades. We've been measuring success off of the wrong thing for humans to thrive. And so one of the first things that I do with everyone that I work with, or I get a pleasure to talk with that are interested in exercising, empathy, muscles is what is your measure of success? Not like monetary, what brings you energy? What's holding you down so that you can better align with like, what is it that you want? Cause we only have one life, right? We only have one round of this amazing adventure. If we grinded away on things that don't make us full, why are we grinding away at them?
1 (15m 17s):
And we can collectively, I mean, this doesn't stop capitalism at all. But if we collectively kind of start agreeing with, we're going to go on these adventures together that make us all feel, and most of us feel full and they'll eat. Some of the people can do their own adventures and we can support each other then brilliant. But to your point of this divisiveness, we're exhausted. If it's decades of growth, we have not been taking care of our emotional self. We have not been taking care of our physical selves, more to the spirit of Serengeti. We haven't taken care of our spiritual self. And if we don't, then things get rough. We just are in complete, not even flight, but fight mode with each other.
3 (15m 59s):
Well and everything you discussed. I think that's closer to true capitalism. What you're talking about, isn't in place of it. It takes you back to the pure foundations of it. This isn't about selfish segment. It's everyone improving together.
2 (16m 16s):
Well, and I think I may pull this off your website, like empowering collective success. It's a really simple idea, but somehow, and whether that's capitalism or just the social construct and we just get competitive and we're pitting each other together against like resources or is it it's a very, I don't know if the right word is tribal, but there probably is something sort of deep inside, you know, when we were running around with a hundred of us. Right. And that was our world. And now it's so much more, you wonder what's happened in, I think the media is greatly to blame as well, how much we love or hate that and utilize it to the best of our needs, but really so much of it can be negative.
2 (16m 60s):
But I do think that rethinking to your point, like, what is success? I remember guarding saying something to me because we're always trying to like, how do you position ceremony? How do you explain it? It's, it's difficult. It really needs to be here. But you know, we have to tell that storytelling. And she would tell me that she would do these tours with, with potential residents or people looking to buy and their questions were where's the grocery store, meaning like Publix or Kroger, which are Southern grocery stores or is target nearby or is there a gas station or anywhere, and then relevant questions, like, is there a gym and what's the school situation. And she says that she tries to reframe the thought process to say, what about is the air fresh?
2 (17m 46s):
Is there a fresh air? What are the pollutants? Or there a trail head for my kids to just walk out the back door? Or I know my neighbor, we don't ask that question. And so I was really struck. It was a very simple statement she was making to me, but I was very struck by that because it, even though, you know, I already chosen to live here that like helped me rewire to be more thoughtful. We don't ask those questions. We're asking the wrong questions.
1 (18m 14s):
Yes. I think you said it in this rewire, we get into such a comfortable flow, whether it's in a suburban setting or a condo setting that we think that this is life, but when you break out of it and then you see that there's something else that it's human nature to want to go back to the comfortable spot, right? Where the targets down the street and Publix is right around the corner. And with that, like, ego-driven like fear of, I'm not going to be able to survive without my target. We're unable to open our senses to the fact that you hear birds and I hear water somewhere near, I should go figure out where that water is coming from.
1 (18m 54s):
Right. There's a stream nearby. So it takes a little bit of discomfort to broaden your view sometimes.
2 (19m 3s):
Yeah. I think it's fascinating. And I know we tend to have this like other with nature sometimes, right? It's like, oh, we go hiking. We go backpacking. We go camping. We don't think of it as this thing that we live in. It's this thing that we go to and it's a special occasion to do those things. And so that's another thing that I, again, we, I didn't grow up. Like we didn't want a big camping family. Like maybe we did, like since skiing or took like a little hike, but that wasn't our thing. But, but I think it is interesting because people are a little scared of it, the bugs and the things and, oh my God. And it's just nature, you know? Yeah. You may go out on the trails and if somebody hasn't been there, there's some serious spiderwebs you're going to walk through, but that's okay.
2 (19m 47s):
Maybe gross, but
3 (19m 50s):
Two. And in addition to that's just the projection, the bugs, the nature is many people are afraid to be with themselves alone in nature. And I think that's really getting more to some of the issues that have you found your way to the be bench down by the little string
1 (20m 6s):
B bench,
3 (20m 7s):
The bench with the quote, the B
1 (20m 14s):
I probably have been there. I don't know if I've read the plaque,
3 (20m 19s):
Something for you to discover them. That's a,
1 (20m 20s):
You know, you just gave me an adventure. Steve thinks I'm going to take the
2 (20m 27s):
Right.
3 (20m 28s):
And I'm the branch. You might see your feet, just a bunch of leaves or sticks. Depends on what the wind and nature did and start moving your feet. And you'll see a quote started emerging from the earth.
1 (20m 41s):
I love this. Are you familiar with Easter eggs? The surprising thing that you find in the environment or in a website, you just gave me an Easter egg to go find. That's great.
2 (20m 53s):
So now that you've created a, how long have you had,
1 (20m 57s):
So I'm sure lab has been up and running since 2016. Yeah. It's weird to say that out loud.
2 (21m 5s):
Yeah. And how has it been received? And who's taking these skills tests is our corporation's brain. There,
1 (21m 14s):
Individuals, corporations, teams. It's interesting to sell someone on it because part of the conversation is this is going to make you a little uncomfortable. And this is going to potentially reveal some of the things that your community, your culture or company aren't doing to be as empathetic as they could be. You're compassionate with each other. And part of like the serious talk track is like, I will do my best to give you some tools and open your mind to the potential of what an empathy practice looks like. If you are unable to do this, and some of the individuals that work with you that go through this realize that you can't do it either.
1 (21m 56s):
You're going to start losing people. And that's the reality. If you can't, maybe that's an okay thing. Maybe they need to be identified with another tribe of individuals that can take their version of an empathy practice. Right. But it's something that like, if you can all get together and be like, all right, this is the way that we envisioned empathetic leadership. This is the way that we're going to show up and listen to each other. This is how we're going to respect each other's energy and baggage that they bring into it because everyone does. It makes it interesting compensation. So like fortune 50 companies, you know, giant places that are trying to innovate all the way down to two person startups, it's been a wild adventure, but teaching needs to be. And Steve, you pointed out something earlier.
1 (22m 37s):
I don't mean to, you need to stop too long, but the medical industry and the healthcare industry has all this research, all of this data that supports the importance of empathetic settings, not just between a physician and their patient, but just all over the medical industry, which has changed immensely yet, that doesn't exist for the most part in technology where I do a lot of my work. And that's the introduction piece. It's like, there's all this data that goes back to the fifties, back to the sixties and let's use it because it tells us you want to thrive and be happy. Well, we should probably start doing these things well. And it's amazing, even with the medical industry, with all the research that you don't always see that happening, that you're spot on.
1 (23m 19s):
Yeah. It's devastating to know that they're not doing the bedside manner, the empathetic coursework with physicians that shows better patient outcome that shows lower rates of medical malpractice that shows lower rates of medical practitioner burnout. Is there so much it's like, do you want to burn out? Yes. Then don't do the empathy thing. Cool. Who wants to do that? No one wants to burn.
2 (23m 46s):
Now, what does an empathetic workplace look like from just your experience of where you're trying to move people?
1 (23m 55s):
I think it looks like a place where they can manage the uncomfortable hurdles that always come up and they can do it without stabbing each other in the back. They can do it without a big ego driven reaction or that they can be in check and be supportive of each other. There's no perfection, but there's always improvement. And I think that giving a practice allows them to see like, you know, if we attack that problem two years ago, or two months ago, we would have been at each other's throats. Now we're taking a breath, we're pausing, we're gathering our data and be like, I am triggered because of this thing. Or I can't share this because I have this judgemental mindset right now.
1 (24m 37s):
But let me get rid of that so that I can come back to the table and have a deep conversation about the actual thing that we're trying to get over, getting into the public realm. I don't know, innovate. Hmm.
2 (24m 50s):
And I would assume that you are able to follow some of these companies and executives and see the better outcomes. Because again, people have a hard time if they can't quantify it or put an ROI on it. Right. We've got to just go back to a little bit of the capitalism. We don't pay attention to it.
1 (25m 9s):
We don't, I think the mere fact that I don't do one-off talks. I mean, well, I do just kind of introduce people to it and so that I can help this or summit with like trim tab. I can position them a little bit to make them think in the future about investing in themselves, like therapy or empathy training. What have you. But everything that I believe in it's practice, it's, long-term, it's longitudinal. It's not just one day seminar. And then by no, that doesn't yeah. Hey, can you get a sticker, right? No. It's about checking in and being like, how are you feeling? How's it going? Do you feel like you're able to deal with the things that you have in your life?
1 (25m 50s):
Know what's going on? It's weird. I feel like sometimes more of a therapist than I do an empathy coach, but I'll take it on as long as I can help people find a better self. Okay.
2 (26m 1s):
I like that. Do you call yourself fat, like an empathy person? Because I think that's such a wonderful
1 (26m 7s):
Title.
2 (26m 8s):
Yeah.
1 (26m 10s):
I approached this, like it's a sport and it's like part art, part, physical being some uncle was coach.
2 (26m 17s):
Well, I love it. Do you find that like meditation is really helpful or is there a empathy meditation? Like, is it because maybe that sense, like, my husband's pretty good at meditate. Like he's pretty consistent, but I try it and when I do it, I love it, but I just have not, you know, I can't say I'm too busy cause I can't stand that, but I am not making it a priority in my life. But when I do it, you know, I've gone through a bunch of different apps. It's amazing. And it really does reset my mind my day, my energy level. And it seems like how could that possibly just sitting still for 10 minutes and trying to be inward, that that's going to give me energy or give me a reboot on whatever I was working on.
2 (26m 58s):
But do you integrate stuff like that into empathy lab? Or do you have recommendations
1 (27m 3s):
Very much so, so one thing I struggled with for many years with empty web is a curriculum. Like how has it, I pulled all of this good research together, but I need to give it to individuals in a way that they can comprehend. So a long time ago when I was at USC, I told you earlier, I was, I ran track. I was to calculate. And so 10 events, totally different events. And real quick, first five events are pretty simple mechanically. The second five events of the decathlon decathlon are complex movements. And so you have to do hours and hours and hours of practice and you get a lot of bumps and bruises and it's late nights.
1 (27m 43s):
It's rough, but it's a love if you stick around and continue to do that athletic event, you're both crazy. And you're in love. So with empathy, I've created an empathy to Calphalon that I have, we'll go through and it's 10 skills, micro skills, first five or MI skills. And the second five are we skills. So the complex skills at the end and part of both parts of the first five and the second five are moments of meditation pausing, because it's important to pause with yourself. And it's important to pause with your team so that everyone can either lower their heart rate or just be prepared for what's coming next.
1 (28m 25s):
So yes, definitely this funny, you can't say meditation in some corporate settings because they're like, oh, that's whoa, no, I can't. I can't meditate. So
2 (28m 35s):
Is huge sports teams that the coaches and so many of these athletes now like swear by it. You think it would be hitting a little bit of a,
1 (28m 43s):
It's getting better, but you have to like, I've had to be wearing call it. You know, we do self-awareness practice. Well, that is an education, right? It's your five senses. We take one minute each and we just check off, like, what do you hear? What do you see? What do you taste? What do you smell? And what do you feel? And there, everyone comes out like, while that felt amazing, get meditated.
2 (29m 6s):
Don't tell
1 (29m 7s):
Anybody will tell anyone, but I just made your entire team meditate. Every meeting, everything that I do with clients or individuals, there is a piece of, we're going to check in with ourselves. We're going to pause. Pausing is huge. Yeah.
3 (29m 25s):
Yeah. I was going to say, and it comes back again to the big thing is we are afraid to be alone with ourselves and those quiet moments. It just, it's one of the big things we have to face. I think society.
2 (29m 38s):
Yeah. I mean, I'm holding up my phone right now. This thing has given us no time to be bored, no time to be creative. We don't have to be with ourselves because there's always something to scroll through or Netflix or YouTube or Instagram. And so we think kids and adults like having this addiction to this thing and it's taken us away from other more important, more tangible experiences and probably life skills too.
1 (30m 11s):
Yeah. What was that? Steve and relationships. It takes us away meaningful relationships. I wrote a real short posts or blog the other day about the Pavlovian response and our phones. And for those who don't remember Pavlov, he had dogs rang a bell whenever gave him some food and then they started to salivate. Anytime he rang the bell, even though there was no food around now, we all have bells in these phones of ours that continue to go off or vibrate. And it's interesting that we're reacting to like a classical conditioning operant conditioning response to, Ooh, there's something there. What am I missing out on candy crush doing something cool.
1 (30m 54s):
What kind of Instagram post is that thing that just happened? Yeah. And to your point, Steve, it's like the relationships suffer because we can't be present if we're always as kind of 80% there and 20% on, is someone going to call it something a it's something that, all that stuff, then we can't be true to the relationships that we have around us. Right?
2 (31m 16s):
Yeah. Pre COVID. And like, Steve did his own version of this for years when, but pre ceremony, we had somebody on our team who got certified to do force bathing and I don't know, you know? Yeah. And so I may love Daniel and we just started it in my arm, you know, you know, everything just stopped and probably that would have been one of the safer things to continue, but we didn't know, you know, at the time that we could do that, but it was really interesting having gone through it, you know, like obviously we live there, smiles trails and we get outside a lot, but it was an interesting experience because it was very long and quiet and all the senses picking up leaves and contemplating leaves.
2 (31m 57s):
And sometimes they have tea ceremonies in them and it can be tough to have that focus for that long. Like I thought, oh haha. Or stay there. And it's like, that's just a walk in the woods. And some people do come do that, but it's really interesting that people don't pick up or you know, are even like, I walk like in Grange, I live in Grange and like there's tons of like Rosemary bushes. And like you walk the dog and the dog hits the Rosemary Bush. It's off the fragrance of the walking that, or the tea olives are out right now. Right. Steve, this teal and trees are those native or those are amazing. They're everywhere. They're like my favorite thing ever. I mean, you know, it's fall, but you just don't get that in most day to indefinitely the phone.
2 (32m 40s):
Doesn't give you that. I mean, I'm sure they'll figure it out if it's sent in there at some point, but Steve, you had your seven years in the wilderness before you build therapy. Tell us about your forest. See or pre forest bathing, forest bathing.
3 (32m 52s):
Everything you've been talking about shelter is when I experienced my decision to leave Ansley park, to sell my company and to bring our kids out, to raise the in nature. And while I couldn't articulate a lot of what I was emotionally feeling, the books and studies now validate what I was talking about. I mean, when Richard Lew published his book last child in the woods some 12 years ago, and that was a decade or two after we moved, I sent him a note and I said, thanks rich for giving voice to what I intuitively know. Now I can just hand your book to people who are questioning why. And so it was just that intuitive feeling.
3 (33m 34s):
And I'm a generational farm kid from Colorado who could hardly wait to get away from the country and the farm and all those things. And then I was happily on that treadmill of urban ism and corporate life. And that weekend, that intuitive purchase of the farm will be up because I was seeing it through the eyes of my children and everything you talk about is what I just, I woke up. It's the only way I can think it was. It's all there. And I wasn't seeing it. I wasn't realizing what I was missing until I touched it. And I think that's what happens. It's there, people get here and they're not sure what it is, but it's part of all of us, whether we grew up in Southern California and the cities of the urbans in our ancestry, there is that connection with nature.
3 (34m 23s):
That's just basic.
2 (34m 27s):
Yeah. And with that, how do we have empathy and again, and not to belabor the phone. But I think I was watching like a TV show and that woman was a journalist and there was a troll right in the comments. And she like figured out where he lived and she had went to confront him and they'd gotten this full thing in one of the things she said to him is like, you're too scared to say things to my safe. He would never say these things to my face, but you're comfortable saying it in the comments and the guy replied back, well, I'm just scared and you're triggering me. And that's why, and this is a way to do it. And she's like, but you would never do this to my face. And then the whole thing devolved into a really bad scene. But point being, I thought that was like, that's it right? Like it's somehow we hide behind.
2 (35m 8s):
You can hide behind those screens. And when you're in person, right. And you're walking down the street or you live next to somebody, there is an opportunity to actually have a conversation, but it's hard. Nobody wants to have those uncomfortable conversations. Even if it's something as simple as like, Hey, your kid was whatever, throwing rocks at my cat, you know, what did, I'm making something up, but you know, something simple, but instead you're like, I'm going to post on Facebook and it's like, how do we? And I think what you're doing is that way to do it. But is there something like, do you have any books that you recommend besides taking your course, but like, is there an everyday, maybe you need to write a book or do you have a podcast or something?
1 (35m 51s):
That would be good. Okay, great.
2 (35m 55s):
Tell us about that. Because I think how do you reach more people, right? Like,
1 (35m 58s):
Yeah, you've got to meet people where they're at because everyone has a different level of fear or energy or whatever they're dealing with. And so I hesitate giving blanket like, Hey, we should all do this thing. Let's I want to go back to the phone analogy. The one thing that I challenged people to do on the challenge, both to you to do it too. When you have a minute, this is homework and I'll give you a gold star. She'd do it. All right. I'll come find you all count the number of apps in your phone. Just be aware of it. Right. Just be aware of it because it's probably more significant than you think. And then do yourself a favor and delete 10. Right? And when I said earlier, we measure the wrong things.
1 (36m 40s):
Sometimes some things we were afraid to measure and measuring the thing that takes our attention away will help us gain that back and make us realize how distracted we are as we walked through ceremony, picking blueberries and snow in the Rosemary. Right. And so by removing those tan on average, what percent of your apps should that be? I haven't, I don't have enough data yet to give you that I'm working on it. Right? Exactly. It's funny because I've told people to do the 10, but I deleted 57. I'm like, wait, how many do you have? And so it's
2 (37m 20s):
How many scrolls across the screen. Right?
1 (37m 22s):
So my phone, last time I checked, it was frightening. And I have an Android phone, which allows me to have a personal like apps and then business apps, things that I used to use for like bookkeeping. I had 246,
2 (37m 38s):
But I don't know what I have. I could have more than that. It just,
1 (37m 42s):
But it's not the measure of like, it's not against, we're not against each other. It's you just need to know. And then you get to delete the 10 that you don't have any use for it. Because we think of our brains as like pretty ancient computers. You can't keep that much in here. That's when you write things down, that's what we've created. Language. That's what we created storytelling and the ability to write. So we can keep history. We got to get things out of our brain because we want to concentrate on our friends and our families and our neighbors and the things that we as a community enjoy and love. We don't want to concentrate on the dings from whatever game I'm playing, right.
1 (38m 22s):
Apps be the app store. I should maybe be the first one is the other, just the first one.
2 (38m 31s):
We'll let you take that off.
1 (38m 33s):
You know, I don't think it will get for me. I realized that I was becoming, this is something I did a little bit ago becoming anxious and all of the negative feelings and some positive feelings that were just like, I could feel my heartbeat go when I saw on LinkedIn or Instagram or anything from Facebook. So those aren't on my phone anymore, which makes my phone interesting. It's email and a book. That's pretty good.
2 (38m 59s):
What about news apps? Cause I took off my Facebook too. Like I can't get into it. I do have Instagram though, but I took off my Facebook.
1 (39m 7s):
I took off anything that was social and I told my close friends like, look, I've done this. I'd love to keep in touch with your amazing vacation photos. If you think of me, send me a couple of my friends have texted me and I'd rather have, if I can't be next to them because they're in a different city, I'd want to have some more intimate connection with them. And I've seen what has occurred. Some of them, yes. Some of them they're still in that universe and that's just fine.
2 (39m 36s):
Yeah. No, that's really great. So we can't create an empathy app, But I feel like I need to go through my skills train.
1 (39m 48s):
The app is empty. Apps could be like a piece of paper or something holding up a post-it note. Maybe it's a notebook. I don't know
2 (39m 55s):
Lo-fi yep. Which neighborhood you guys live in? Okay. So one of the things that we always want to know is, and Steve already gave the listeners a fabulous tip, like go find the bench to be bench, but what's your sort of like friends come down. Or if you were going to tell our listeners what's that thing about ceremony that people don't know or that you love or that they must do.
1 (40m 21s):
Yeah. Jeez. It's a combination of both nature and built environment. And place-making, I think that there's been incredible nature is by far the best designer. Right? So you've got the waterfall over here. You've got the trails that lead around it. I love seeing where the horses have walked, you know, where their host prints are and where are they coming or going based on the shape and the direction. So the built environment out in this area is fantastic. So I, you know, waterfalls where I take all the friends that come this direction, but there's several other built environment, things that are very special. The motto that I think Steve kudos to you for seeing this, like the points of view and like through the courtyard, to the blue TV tent thing, right.
1 (41m 3s):
It's being able to like stand there and be like line of sight, just perfect. And you kind of feel like you're in a painting, which is that's great. And the one thing that I encouraged people that spend the night, Mike go out and go, just go for a, walk the neighborhood and tell me if you see this, the alcoves with the lights in them. Because those by far I can lay down underneath them and probably fall asleep. It's just, it's just amazing because the tension reality behind not just the light and the fixture and the architecture, everything that came together to give that sense of like celestial wonder and my kids and I walked there and be like, oh, we're in space. So it reminds me of like being in India.
1 (41m 44s):
It reminds me of so many different things of how light is used in temples and stuff like that. So,
3 (41m 51s):
So many times we've lost our way as far as connecting to nature, but also connecting to all. And we certainly, haven't been building places that create all and especially the connect us to nature with it. So, so that's what that's all about. And thanks for noticing and appreciating that. Oh
1 (42m 8s):
Totally. I love the details. I love the intentional look here only at this time or during this hour,
2 (42m 17s):
Because Shannon's talking about these lights from Sarah and B. And so the cutouts, the light comes through them and project, those leaves on the walls and the floor or the, I should say the street, the sidewalk and the ceiling's blue and the building's white. And it's just sort of magical. You see if you want to give them a tease of like what you have next on the stair steps, going up in a Moto hillside.
3 (42m 40s):
Well, I think I'll give the different T have you walked Sam B lane this weekend to tab way? Yes. So if you pause and look down, have you seen all the activity?
1 (42m 53s):
Oh, yes. I know where you're going with this. All
3 (42m 56s):
Right. So if you stand, I think right now there's one of those barrels, those ugly orange barrels. But if you find it, stand there and look across the pond and imagine what a portal into nature might look like, And then I'll meet you there in a couple of months and we'll talk about it
1 (43m 20s):
Sounds fantastic.
2 (43m 22s):
And we did talk about it with Rachel Garceau on another episode,
1 (43m 27s):
This is going to be amazing.
3 (43m 29s):
We're giving you all kinds of things to, you know, to things undiscovered and to be discovered in the future.
2 (43m 37s):
And then in November, we'll tell you about the, the hillside.
1 (43m 40s):
Okay. Yeah. That sounds wonderful. I'm sure it's gonna be amazing.
2 (43m 44s):
Anything else you want to share with us Shelton? We'll link to all of your staff in the show notes or anything you want to share or we didn't cover
1 (43m 51s):
Gosh
2 (43m 53s):
Things. Now we need to like go for a walk in the woods and chat. Yeah.
1 (43m 56s):
Right, exactly. I think the intentionality behind, I think Steve, you were talking about this. There was so much empathy in nature and empathy in us that we need to like slow down and pause and take in whether it is from the orange road cone barrel thing that you have created, or is it just like standing in the middle of a trail and just like stopping and letting leaves fall. There's so much like we can be empathetic to and compassionate with. So I think this is the place that allows that to happen. And as long as you show up,
3 (44m 28s):
Michelle, I'm so impressed that you've been able to, and not everyone's able to articulate what they're ceiling and feeling. And I think you're a great interpreter of what we're actually doing here. So thank you very much. You're very welcome.
2 (44m 45s):
Well, thank you Sheldon so much. I appreciate the time and being with us and I look forward to seeing you on the streets.
0 (44m 52s):
Thank you for listening to Jeremy stories. New episodes are available on Mondays. You can subscribe anywhere. You listen to podcasts for more details. Visit our website, Serenbe stories.com.