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Interdependence: We Are Not Alone

A variation on a practice from the buddhist tradition called loving kindness meta my tree in the language that used to describe it beginning to tap into that knowledge about interdependence and interconnectedness with the other beings other people it's uh could be a great corporate practice, you know? And certainly if we have just a small group we're working with, I think we're dealing with a lot of the idea of this particular segment of the workshop is even if we're sort of think of ourselves as in an individual loner entrepreneur to start to recognize that interconnectedness with everybody our business will thrive if we recognize that no doubt about it, the more we're aware of that interconnectedness and interdependence into independence, the more possibilities we have for communication, sales, marketing, developing our offering, refining our offering we're not doing this in a vacuum, so that is a very powerful practice if you want to sort of give your meditation space sometimes to t...

ake it there. Um if you're not sure how to do it on my website there's instructions called loving kindness practice if you like that khun go go for that um I think we might have it in a couple of languages even people who translated it, so maybe we have a little discussion with our audience maybe that was a new experience for some of the people out there to try to tap into that kind of energy but we could start again in you know, with our living human breathing non virtual slightly pooped after lunch still digesting human audience kelly the first seminar you did hear creative life and that was my first introduction into this uh, meditation meditation but this in particular I find I tap into it more and use it when I'm either being tough on myself or irritated by someone else. So I remember to practice this sort when I feel I need more compassion towards others or myself. Yeah, so you've been able to do this practice I have and I find this one to be very helpful. Yeah, I think a lot of people can relate to this practice sometimes there's sort of straight up hard core mindfulness meditation is too bleak for some people there's not enough content in it it's very intuitive because you're really just working with the quality of naked awareness. And you know, if you if you have a feeling for that, you know, just, you know, clicking in but it could be very hard work to just go from a heavy, discursive mind to kind of sense of president awareness and just naked quality that so this is kind of an intermediate kind of practice is called a contemplative practice. When would you use the thinking mind you know a sort of fodder for how to cultivate a particular quality that you want to cultivate there's no doubt that if cultivate loving kindness in this way it just softens you up and when you go to work and you think there's a jerk again you know I love you man it's just if you do this practice enough you just find yourself without even thinking about it you realize that some of the jerkiness is in you or you're sort of hardness or toughness uh and if that softens other people's other people's you know faults are not seen us as the same way so that's thank you I'm glad that so you've been able to do that practice great in the online there's there's been sort of an ongoing um uh ellis is sharing a really rough situation that they're going through from what they call a ridiculous company that they're leaving on monday they've been uh if you want me to read the struggle and then the experience of the meditation could do that sure just read it word for word l s p I have come from one of the most ridiculous cos I'm leaving monday but on the whole but the whole time the director has had no idea how to drive the company no one had any motivation one person left the other one stormed out after being disrespected I was the only one that was left the director didn't hire anyone else and I was forced to be marketing sales and web management. They went through a series of struggles and they said with all of they attempted, their boss still said that they change their mind and they never say hello and this ellis can't wait to leave now I said, how is your experience with the meditation then knowing they were probably focusing on on l s p says that was a beautiful meditation and that they feel much more centered and calm after this tough day and much more aware of how I feel and what I need to do to succeed, you know, this is, in a way a very subtle, seemingly kind of gooey but sneaky kind of practice. I just have to say it says, by the way we skipped on ly one person in our in our version of this practice, you can do this practice and numbered in ways, but you could also include yourself. May I be happy and, ironically, for some people that's the hardest step ironically so if you do it again, if you if you download the instructions from the uh david nick, turn dot com, you see the instructions there it includes oneself and loving kindness towards oneself is a part of part of inclusive part of the process. Anybody else sort of running in this I did hear back from multi about the rebellion okay multi is rebellion on they went on tv explain that it's a big challenge I am beginning now to understand a recurring pattern of rebellion in my life but still find it difficult to recognize when I'm rebelling against myself and sabotaging my dreams yeah, well, you know, one of the dimensions of the meditation practice you know, we've been moving around this point move kind of fluidly between these media and what I'm trying to get us all to work with this see how much these different aspects of, uh, of interacting with the world of sales and marketing developing our content are all part of a fabric you know, we've the totality of who we are and I like the way we're starting just slip into meditation honestly the less of a big deal the meditation practices the better and even if you tired after lunch he just does not out a little bit but it's just organic so one of things about the meditations we're trying to make it as organic as possible you know same way as you would just go outside, take a walk just drop into a feeling being present um meditate for two to three minutes at your desk in the office, you know, so um you know in terms of what she's what she's talking about they're one of the fruits of the meditation practices insight between china stay awake and trying to kind of whether the forest of the thicket of thoughts and the monkey mind the james joyce mind um there's inside that arises we say the rises from the spaciousness that you're allocating because you're not so busy, you know all of a sudden there's a kind of spaciousness and inside bubbles up like a kind of like underground spring from that uh so often the inside is about what we're like what she's proposing there's about what we ourselves have experience and what we are contributing to the to the drama you know and this actually takes us to um you know, a another couple of points that I want to get into about how our drama gets created and how often we allocate to others the responsibility for the drama that we're experiencing in the negative sense so there's two uh upcoming ones that have a lot to do with its owner just move along there is your family dynamic invading your workspace leave your family at home in the morning and returned to them happily at night if you were working with family members, try to keep the business aspect of your relationship is clear as you possibly can so there's two parts to that some people it is a family business there's you know there's no kidding around but let's start with the first one how much is your family dynamic in other words when you say I have a relation to authority I don't like the person said I don't like authority and I don't like dealing with thirty myself how much that is a residue from your family karma and how much can you recognise that and leave it at home and not confuse your boss with your dad so this is a tremendous uh people spend more time at work than they do at home right? You know? So it is your family in a way but you know, assuming that we have some other people that were working with how much have you noticed that your we produce your the neurotic dimension of your family dynamic and that that sort of, uh coloring your workspace in a particular way so I'd like to just sort of throw that open to to, uh to group kind of process and anybody who has anything that they want to mention about that is welcome is your family dynamic invading your workspace? Ah, you know, we're dealing with a bunch of loners out here but I mean the whole point of this particular segment is that we're not really functioning alone are we? So anybody want a volunteer d c t designed saying my cousin is my boss say would say yes on how's that working out for you don't hear about that d cities yeah like you know that I mean that's where I I sort of took it to the next step of like a lot of times your cousin could be your boss and that's a double where me and I want to broaden my sister into a company I was working I wasn't a bar it was a big mistake oh why was that a mistake it brings a completely different dynamic to the workplace in everything and people began to treat us differently on the fact that she and I weren't particularly close didn't help either on what about what about idea projecting that dynamic on to people you work with who are not your family but it sort of feels like like a brother sister kind of sibling rivalry kind of in a hospital my way for thirty forty and what does that feel like he's desperate for divorce but you're not actually married no memory no no I know you are but you know so how would you know I mean there have been several times several times okay story okay all right twice to the same food uh twice to the same woman beautiful thank you. Anybody in the audience here thomas getting my career that my relationships to my bosses where exactly how my mother's relationships work to help buses no she was very mother was a rebel heart you know and she sometimes it seemed as if she was a rebel just for the sake of being a rebel right? I'm not even for particular cause and I found the same happening with me and it actually I think that inside meditation really helped with that you know, I really believe that meditation including metal meditation gives me a sense of my shortcomings in the context of other people's shortcomings and then actually some leeway and some generosity yeah yeah, you know I personally as we're doing this of course I'm thinking about my own life too and I've had this recognition before but I think I mentioned the other day that my mom was a broadway producer and in fact was my first employer in a serious way when I graduate from college you went right into the er the band for a musical that she produced it was called jimmy shine and dustin hoffman was the star and uh that was my first kind of hardcore professional gig as a guitar player john sebastian wrote the music and my mom was my boss my uncle was the musical director, you know? And apart from that just that little I think I really set my mom in a way set the stage for uh the type of personality that I was going to be ableto work successfully with actually for big parts of my life, which is a diva I'm really good with divas I was raised by a diva, so I've worked with producing and arranging for a lot of great artists and I know what that kind of vibration is like and I'm comfortable around it and I fit right into it but it's a familial energy uh that that transpose into the workplace so what we're talking about here is just becoming aware of those really everything we're talking about is in the realm of inside an awareness you know, whether it sets you free or not you can come right back and say but we're putting ourselves up against a number of different frameworks to see what kind of insights we can get about our relationship to our work environment. Um so um another thing I thought of mentioning here is that if you're using work as a way of getting away from your family that's another dynamic to check out in terms of your relationship to others they workaholic you know who works till eleven o'clock at night and um doesn't get home in time to tuck the kids into bed you know or read them a story you know or have time to spend with family and friends you know, like, do you have a social life you know, or his work your whole life? So since we're talking about the larger tapestry of balance and sort of happiness that's another sort of you know, consideration to look at are we ignoring our family and social life through work that's sort of the opposite side of the coin to let you know how it does work he says we have got it straightened out after boundaries were crossed earlier but they when they have their yearly review they worked it out so inside the office they are not relatives there's no family discussion but then outside all bets are off they created the boundary if you are working with family members try to keep the business aspect of your relationship as clear as you possibly can so that's what he's basically saying jester is echoing that exactly gestures say my business is a family business and clarity of responsibility is paramount to the success of the business on dh family family dynamic for his wife himself and there's actually a question that's coming from flicker her husband works from home so this is a challenge as well what what if they tried to set up clear boundaries but don't know how do you put a sign on the door of your work thing how does that work in an earth I think talking about it would be a good start and including both people off campus you know when you go hey we've got this extra situation I know a lot of couples that work together you know it could be in a very small entrepreneurial business and it's it's uh two people working on it and they do live together whatever and um so talking about it off site out of the work environment and sometimes even if there's sort of attention in the work environment, taking it out of the office could be a good thing you know? So just you go out and have a cocktail or lunch or something like that and have the occasion to really like in that case reverse the tendency towards alienation and actually bond a little bit at a human level. So the point is that we're human beings we interact with people our work is not this sort of abstract thing of justus vision that we have in our head and then it just sort of manifest in the world we're not alone in that way that's not an accurate portrait some artists you know are the closest you get to that kind of isolation in the way so it's something to be aware of but mostly art forms that we've been talking about a collaborative in some way so um next slide next you can see that he's opened up you could really get into some of these much more deeply if you wanted to um and just to mention the e book that comes with the with the program if you purchase the program, you don't get this if you just sort of have to purchase it is much deeper I don't know how it happened, but over the last six weeks I just kind of like let it rip and there's seventy five of these bullet points and longer explanations and some of them are I just chose to sort of highlights to base the course around but I kind of made it it's as if I had written the book and that's why they hired me to do the workshop andi I'm taking it out of the workshop but instead they hired me into the workshop and I wrote the book on I got that idea from george lucas when I went to lucasfilm and I saw their studio and then this beautiful studio but it looked like it had history to it but they had just built it and so they wrote the backstory after they built the studio not funny that's so there was this couple and had it in the back in the thirties it didn't even exist but they had that they had created a back story so I did the same thing I wrote this book once I had the workshop but it does have a lot more depth to it and I almost would envision this you know as a way of like you could take each one of these and put it on the card if you get the book and leave it up and contemplated for a day or two if it doesn't resonate it's not relevant to you it's okay but some of these I can see different people lighting up at different times here it's kind of been interesting view uh next point don't blame don't make excuses take responsibility wow I'm the workplace can become a kind of blamed factory if we find are constantly pointing out the shortcomings of others let's turn the mirror around sort of facing ourselves good leaders take responsibility uh can't emphasize that enough it's not hard easy to say hard to do everybody's in a leadership position even if you were working uh you know, in the kitchen here you know there's going to be somebody comes in and empties the garbage you know you're always in a both a responsible position in the leadership position so um if we find that we our life has become a litany of complaint and uh uh that somehow other people are to blame for we've turned the mirror around and take a good look at ourselves that's that's not to say that you men it may not have accuracy the perception that other people are doing certain things that are kind of negative and injurious of course that's going to be the case but but we first looked at ourselves so there's a buddhist slogan that goes drive all blames into oneself just look at look at oneself first and see if that might be the origin of the problem that you're having. So, um final point in this in this sort of notion of interdependence that's what? Really talking about this? This whole segment should be called interdependence um customer service how nice awake are you leaving when you bring your product service or intellectual property to somebody do they have a good feeling about you well they want to get the get it in the next time if you're if you're selling the painting and they're looking for your help in terms of like how to set it up but their facilities say you bought it you put it up you know they're going they're going to come back to you the next time and say we have another we have a new facility won't you do that so follow through and care will guarantee that your customers return that is endlessly good companies have tremendous emphasis on customer service it's not misplaced at all um who doesn't do good customer service you mentioned the phone company but even then right j k ll you said when you called the phone company even they the customers once you got to customer service they said oh we want this customer to be happy so here's the thing is shifting hats here this is almost a sixth uh dimension of your business shifting shifting hats their sales person is also well advised to do customer service but they're really read their motivations to get onto the next kill next sale so servicing the customers keeping your relationship strong uh you know kind of networking with people looking at the social dimension of following through with people is invaluable dimension of business. So that's, the extent of the formal presentation that we had for the seventh segment.