Can Love Make Your Business More Successful? with Dennis Pitocco

WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.211 --> 00:00:04.273
What if the boldest business strategy isn't hustle, it's love?

2
00:00:05.053 --> 00:00:09.274
Today's guest built an entire empire on that bet.

3
00:00:10.415 --> 00:00:17.838
Join me for a juicy conversation with Dennis Pitoko, self-proclaimed chief re-imaginator of 360 Nation.

4
00:00:20.189 --> 00:00:22.731
Your nervous system sets the tone.

5
00:00:23.072 --> 00:00:25.314
Your energy speaks before you do.

6
00:00:25.534 --> 00:00:27.876
How you show up is the culture.

7
00:00:28.136 --> 00:00:32.941
I'm Dr. Tamsin Aster, and this is Hot Habits, conscious leadership in action.

8
00:00:36.254 --> 00:00:40.217
Hello, hello, and welcome to Hot Habits with Dr. Tamsin.

9
00:00:40.257 --> 00:00:54.328
My guest today is Dennis Pitoko, the founder and chief re-imaginator of 360 Nation, a global media platform built on one radical idea, that business can be a force for uplifting humanity.

10
00:00:55.008 --> 00:01:00.829
Dennis spent three decades in the high stakes world of global finance before walking away to choose something bigger.

11
00:01:01.630 --> 00:01:03.690
Dennis runs this through four ventures.

12
00:01:03.990 --> 00:01:09.591
Biz Catalyst 360, an award winning platform featuring top tier writers like moi.

13
00:01:09.651 --> 00:01:14.032
360 Nation Studios producing compassionate streaming content.

14
00:01:14.092 --> 00:01:18.453
360 Nation Events hosting humanity driven experiences both live and virtual.

15
00:01:18.974 --> 00:01:24.695
And GoodWorks 360 offering pro bono consulting to nonprofits doing good work around the globe.

16
00:01:25.135 --> 00:01:26.636
Dennis is also an author.

17
00:01:26.917 --> 00:01:35.204
He's written Humanity Rising, The Power of Love and co-authored Rites of Passage Across the Landscape of Our Souls alongside the Amazon bestseller, Unsheltered.

18
00:01:35.684 --> 00:01:38.026
None of us are home until all of us are home.

19
00:01:38.807 --> 00:01:44.872
Dennis reached out to me a few years ago on LinkedIn, suggesting that we meet because he thought I might enjoy being in his community.

20
00:01:45.452 --> 00:01:54.419
We've spent many hours together online, having thought-provoking debates in his communities, in person, coffee in New York, lunch in Florida with his delightful wife, Ellie.

21
00:01:54.839 --> 00:01:59.223
I've written for his platform and I've spoken both in person and online across his communities.

22
00:01:59.783 --> 00:02:07.289
And what I want you all to know is having spent real time with this man, Dennis moves through the world with love and compassion.

23
00:02:07.629 --> 00:02:10.151
It's not his brand, it's who he is.

24
00:02:11.772 --> 00:02:13.674
Please welcome Dennis Patoko.

25
00:02:14.379 --> 00:02:15.460
Wow.

26
00:02:15.840 --> 00:02:16.981
I couldn't have said that better.

27
00:02:18.842 --> 00:02:19.843
But thank you, my friend.

28
00:02:19.903 --> 00:02:34.835
You did a nice recap of at least our relationship, which is great, and I'll touch upon this later, but what separates you, Tamsin, from so many other relationships that I've been more sensitive to is your authenticity.

29
00:02:34.935 --> 00:02:37.457
You are what you're like, Popeye, I am what I am.

30
00:02:39.300 --> 00:02:41.162
And I really appreciate that.

31
00:02:41.222 --> 00:02:44.866
Trust me, and you may know that it's hard to find that level of authenticity.

32
00:02:44.886 --> 00:02:52.334
So when you see it, like I saw you a couple of years ago, you naturally want to pull it forward and grab it and take more of it.

33
00:02:52.414 --> 00:02:55.618
So thank you for being part of my life and our platform.

34
00:02:56.198 --> 00:02:56.799
Thank you.

35
00:02:57.139 --> 00:02:57.999
Thank you so much.

36
00:02:58.039 --> 00:02:58.860
I appreciate that.

37
00:03:02.442 --> 00:03:03.863
Let me just sit with that for a moment.

38
00:03:06.064 --> 00:03:14.910
At the start of every Hot Habits conversation, I ask my guests to bring an object with them, something that represents a real hot habit in their life.

39
00:03:14.970 --> 00:03:20.693
It's a way of bringing leadership out of the theory and into everyday practice and reality.

40
00:03:20.793 --> 00:03:24.155
So tell me, Dennis, what object did you bring with you today?

41
00:03:24.275 --> 00:03:25.436
And why did you choose it?

42
00:03:26.365 --> 00:03:27.305
What a great question.

43
00:03:27.486 --> 00:03:32.468
And you know, you actually touched upon it when you were doing the introduction and you mentioned the word love.

44
00:03:32.608 --> 00:03:47.216
I'll give you the object in just a minute, but it was clear to me, couple years back as we were climbing this mountain of rediscovering humanity, which as you mentioned, is our quest, it's been that way for 15 years.

45
00:03:47.276 --> 00:03:53.799
There was something missing from both personal and professional lives.

46
00:03:54.359 --> 00:03:55.060
And that was love.

47
00:03:56.065 --> 00:03:59.667
Now you mentioned in your kind introduction that I had written a book.

48
00:03:59.707 --> 00:04:01.288
This is not a book promotion.

49
00:04:01.508 --> 00:04:02.428
I did write a book.

50
00:04:02.568 --> 00:04:04.950
It's called Humanity Rising, The Power of Love.

51
00:04:04.970 --> 00:04:06.370
And it wasn't like everything we do.

52
00:04:06.410 --> 00:04:07.991
We didn't write a book to make money.

53
00:04:08.051 --> 00:04:09.992
We wrote a book to get a message out there.

54
00:04:10.472 --> 00:04:13.194
And the best way I could get it was to tell some stories

55
00:04:13.934 --> 00:04:17.716
And frankly, and I've got the book here, not again, it's not a sales pitch.

56
00:04:18.057 --> 00:04:26.021
The important message in this book is the fact that I was enlightened personally about two years ago, speaking to a good friend of mine.

57
00:04:26.041 --> 00:04:31.224
Uh, his name is Victor and we got onto the subject of love.

58
00:04:32.005 --> 00:04:35.467
And I always thought, Samson, that I was a nice guy and pretty even

59
00:04:35.910 --> 00:04:38.392
tempered and all that and did all the right things.

60
00:04:38.993 --> 00:04:45.518
And the deeper we went in that conversation, and that conversation became a series of conversations.

61
00:04:46.059 --> 00:04:51.263
And then I wrote a series of articles because what happened was it was a pivot in my life.

62
00:04:52.024 --> 00:04:54.306
I wanted to get to the point that Victor was.

63
00:04:54.506 --> 00:05:01.532
And what Victor was comfortable with is for me to say to you, Tamsin, and better yet, some of my male friends, I love you.

64
00:05:01.813 --> 00:05:02.113
Mm-hmm.

65
00:05:02.393 --> 00:05:06.375
and say that comfortably and you know and I know exactly what that means.

66
00:05:07.055 --> 00:05:09.316
Now that, two years ago I wouldn't have done that.

67
00:05:09.516 --> 00:05:12.198
I would feel like, oh that's not professional or that's kind of icky.

68
00:05:12.798 --> 00:05:17.840
But I was so taken back by that, it just kept intersecting with my life.

69
00:05:17.880 --> 00:05:28.105
So I started testing it, talking to people that I know, friends, family, and closing with, instead of best regards, how about with love, with fellowship.

70
00:05:28.705 --> 00:05:31.908
And Taps and that has been life changing to me to the point.

71
00:05:31.968 --> 00:05:34.150
And again, we did this earlier this year.

72
00:05:34.171 --> 00:05:40.517
I know you were, but we gathered people here in Tampa back in March, put together a gathering.

73
00:05:40.857 --> 00:05:45.381
People came in from around the world and the entire theme was the power of love.

74
00:05:46.714 --> 00:05:50.195
And I'll tell you what, those 50 people that showed up were changed.

75
00:05:50.295 --> 00:05:59.518
And they told me they were changed when they walked out because they had captured the comfort with the word love and started to interpret the way I did.

76
00:05:59.558 --> 00:06:00.958
It's not about romantic love.

77
00:06:01.058 --> 00:06:01.918
Yeah, that's part of it.

78
00:06:02.298 --> 00:06:07.560
But my, the book I wrote was to define it like 20 ways beyond the romantic love.

79
00:06:07.580 --> 00:06:11.501
So this book becomes kind of a guide for me.

80
00:06:11.561 --> 00:06:12.781
I go back to it and read it.

81
00:06:12.841 --> 00:06:15.802
I know I wrote it, but I go back to read it because you've got to keep,

82
00:06:16.442 --> 00:06:19.983
There's a tendency to shift back into the old mindset if you're not careful.

83
00:06:20.723 --> 00:06:28.826
But the more I test it, the more I close my discussions with I love you, the more interesting the reaction become and it starts to spread.

84
00:06:30.086 --> 00:06:31.426
I can tell you story after story.

85
00:06:31.466 --> 00:06:32.587
It's funny.

86
00:06:32.607 --> 00:06:36.728
Some of the stories I've heard, but that is my object, my friend.

87
00:06:37.416 --> 00:06:38.837
So I find that really interesting.

88
00:06:38.857 --> 00:06:49.405
Well, firstly, just I knowing this about you, I wore a heart necklace that I was given by one of the people that I love in the world, Harriet, who we've been friends over 30 years and my glasses.

89
00:06:49.445 --> 00:06:56.150
So, you know, it was important to me to, you know, have the alignment because of the world we live in.

90
00:06:57.090 --> 00:07:08.405
So I think one of the things that you're alluding to, which I find really interesting, is the habit of sort of relational connection, right?

91
00:07:08.865 --> 00:07:09.826
And how we...

92
00:07:10.893 --> 00:07:19.319
either through how we're raised or the culture we're in, we can get into a habit and we know that words have power.

93
00:07:20.020 --> 00:07:21.841
And I found that really interesting.

94
00:07:21.861 --> 00:07:27.505
When I moved to the US, I was not entirely comfortable saying love to people outside of my family.

95
00:07:27.545 --> 00:07:33.970
For me, it was very much associated with being in a partnership or my children or my family.

96
00:07:34.831 --> 00:07:44.798
And as I've developed friendships that have chosen family because I don't live in the same country, I've evolved in my thinking towards that.

97
00:07:45.418 --> 00:07:50.121
But I think one of the things that's really important to me is this sort of reimagination, right?

98
00:07:50.161 --> 00:07:58.808
This kind of way that you have taken this concept and threaded it through your entire kind of business platform, right?

99
00:07:58.828 --> 00:07:59.328
Mm-hmm.

100
00:07:59.468 --> 00:08:07.835
So when you think about building an entire platform around love and compassion, which I don't know if you're familiar with Dr. Danny Friedland's work.

101
00:08:07.895 --> 00:08:13.680
He was a doctor who was noticing all of this and he became a, you know, a leadership consultant.

102
00:08:13.860 --> 00:08:18.144
And his whole thing was leading from that view, too.

103
00:08:18.244 --> 00:08:24.769
And I feel like culturally we're at a little bit of a turning point here that we're starting to see that a lot of these old models aren't working.

104
00:08:25.250 --> 00:08:26.911
So how do you...

105
00:08:28.092 --> 00:08:37.242
connect with your past and the current reality of the world, like an entire business platform built around compassion and love with legitimate business principles.

106
00:08:37.282 --> 00:08:39.885
Like, where do you find resistance?

107
00:08:39.945 --> 00:08:41.326
How do you hold your ground?

108
00:08:41.366 --> 00:08:42.768
Like, what is that piece about?

109
00:08:42.788 --> 00:08:45.691
Because I think that's a really interesting place to dig into.

110
00:08:45.711 --> 00:08:45.811
Yeah.

111
00:08:46.351 --> 00:08:47.032
Yeah.

112
00:08:48.116 --> 00:08:49.517
It's been an uphill climb.

113
00:08:49.917 --> 00:08:53.779
I got to tell you, it's, I used the word icky earlier.

114
00:08:54.059 --> 00:08:57.601
I've spoken and I'll tell you some more backstory on this later.

115
00:08:58.961 --> 00:09:05.424
Cause it's related to our sabbatical, but I've spoken to so many corporate objectives from my old world.

116
00:09:05.464 --> 00:09:09.686
I spent 30 some years in the corporate finance area, traveling the world, et cetera.

117
00:09:10.387 --> 00:09:14.669
And I went back to some of those guys and talked about the,

118
00:09:15.369 --> 00:09:17.510
what's missing from their workplace.

119
00:09:17.650 --> 00:09:23.051
And you said something that was right spot on, as you would say in the UK, and that is we're kind of at a turning point here.

120
00:09:23.692 --> 00:09:34.595
There are so many organizations that are trying to figure out how do we do something truly different?

121
00:09:35.355 --> 00:09:39.016
I'm talking about the old ways aren't working.

122
00:09:39.376 --> 00:09:42.877
You know, we do the business plan and the strategy every year, but what they're realizing,

123
00:09:45.907 --> 00:09:51.789
gen z-ers about this a couple weeks ago but there's a one guy i know that lives in new york and

124
00:09:52.947 --> 00:09:55.949
I've been mentoring him for lack of a better term for five years.

125
00:09:56.009 --> 00:09:57.911
Now he's running his own business now.

126
00:09:57.931 --> 00:10:05.457
And he's one of those rare people that when you're actually in a mentor relationship, he listens, he learns, he goes back, he follows, he comes back.

127
00:10:05.977 --> 00:10:13.583
And I'm so impressed by him just showing up because today in this prison world, that's a key issue showing up on time and ready.

128
00:10:13.603 --> 00:10:15.565
But one of the discussions, his name is Michael.

129
00:10:15.645 --> 00:10:17.206
One of the discussions I had with him was,

130
00:10:20.889 --> 00:10:24.792
he had a friend of his that got into the corporate space.

131
00:10:25.693 --> 00:10:27.235
It was about a year ago.

132
00:10:27.255 --> 00:10:32.259
And he said it was remarkable what his friend experienced.

133
00:10:32.299 --> 00:10:33.600
I said, talk to me about that.

134
00:10:33.640 --> 00:10:34.221
What does that mean?

135
00:10:34.241 --> 00:10:35.662
He said, he went into this company.

136
00:10:36.463 --> 00:10:38.785
And, you know, he interviewed, went through the salary and all that.

137
00:10:38.805 --> 00:10:39.846
And it was okay.

138
00:10:39.866 --> 00:10:43.830
It wasn't going to put him in a retirement mode anytime soon, but he needed a job.

139
00:10:44.230 --> 00:10:52.237
And I forget what industry it was, but he said he was there about two or three months and he had a follow up call with Michael and he said, I absolutely love it here.

140
00:10:52.838 --> 00:10:54.359
And Michael said, well, what do you mean by that?

141
00:10:54.419 --> 00:10:55.200
He said, you know what?

142
00:10:56.281 --> 00:11:02.046
I'm not making the big bucks here, but when my alarm clock goes off, I'm ready to go to work.

143
00:11:02.466 --> 00:11:02.786
Why?

144
00:11:03.367 --> 00:11:06.409
Because I'm still the new kid and I don't know it all.

145
00:11:06.489 --> 00:11:09.632
I've got a nice education, but I'm still proving my worth.

146
00:11:10.193 --> 00:11:11.234
He said, but guess what?

147
00:11:11.834 --> 00:11:12.794
They listen to me.

148
00:11:13.154 --> 00:11:14.695
I have a seat at the table.

149
00:11:15.435 --> 00:11:16.956
I feel compassion.

150
00:11:17.236 --> 00:11:18.096
I feel warm.

151
00:11:18.236 --> 00:11:24.938
I feel like, and not patronizing way, but they actually care about me and my generation.

152
00:11:25.218 --> 00:11:26.278
And here's what's happening.

153
00:11:26.298 --> 00:11:35.161
This is, this is remarkable because I know a lot of the corporate guys I've talked to, they're dealing with employee retention all the time, particularly in this place where, well, can they work at home?

154
00:11:35.221 --> 00:11:36.221
Can they work in the office?

155
00:11:36.241 --> 00:11:36.722
What do I do?

156
00:11:37.582 --> 00:11:41.343
He said, not only is the company doing well because they've,

157
00:11:42.999 --> 00:11:47.163
begun to master, I'll call it love in the workplace or humanity.

158
00:11:48.123 --> 00:11:48.864
But guess what?

159
00:11:48.964 --> 00:11:50.706
Guys are hanging around now.

160
00:11:50.726 --> 00:11:51.166
And guess what?

161
00:11:51.266 --> 00:11:53.748
I'm telling my friends and they're coming to work.

162
00:11:53.788 --> 00:11:57.391
So what's happening to the bottom line guys in the corporate office?

163
00:11:57.411 --> 00:11:58.472
They're saying, well, wait a minute.

164
00:11:58.873 --> 00:12:01.795
How do we make money off love and humanity?

165
00:12:01.835 --> 00:12:02.736
Well, here's the issue.

166
00:12:04.059 --> 00:12:10.444
your hiring stream is going up and you're not paying for recruiters because word of mouth from these Gen Zers is working.

167
00:12:10.464 --> 00:12:12.065
And number two, they're not leaving.

168
00:12:12.325 --> 00:12:13.326
They're hanging around.

169
00:12:13.907 --> 00:12:18.050
So if you want to do pure finance, it's actually flowing to the bottom line.

170
00:12:18.330 --> 00:12:31.020
He did say the challenge is educating that top tier management, that there is true economic and other value in the notion of bringing more of that humanity into the workplace.

171
00:12:31.940 --> 00:12:33.581
I'll close on that with this thought.

172
00:12:33.681 --> 00:12:37.784
The challenge the corporate guys are having that I spoke to because I've shared this story with them.

173
00:12:38.764 --> 00:12:39.485
And they were honest.

174
00:12:39.665 --> 00:12:47.310
Many of them said, you know, I went to business school and I went to leadership school and I read all the books, but I was never really taught

175
00:12:48.793 --> 00:13:00.817
those soft skills like how do I get out of my corporate office and go talk to Tamsin and I've got to now be empathetic, I've got to be interested, I've got to be present, I've got to be compassionate and she's going to know that I'm faking it.

176
00:13:02.358 --> 00:13:03.918
So I never took a course in that.

177
00:13:03.958 --> 00:13:08.060
So they're struggling because I don't know how much of that Tamsin you can teach.

178
00:13:09.062 --> 00:13:11.584
But that's the dichotomy right now.

179
00:13:11.604 --> 00:13:16.269
You've got the corporate guys, they see it, they know it's working, in this case, in Michael's story.

180
00:13:17.670 --> 00:13:22.574
But is it a learned behavior like, you know, economics 101 or HR 101?

181
00:13:22.834 --> 00:13:23.755
So it's a turning point.

182
00:13:28.193 --> 00:13:33.157
And I think there's an opening there for those companies that get it and really understand it.

183
00:13:33.777 --> 00:13:38.561
And they can compete in ways that other people, because I think that flows through to the customers too.

184
00:13:38.641 --> 00:13:40.523
They hear it in employees' voices.

185
00:13:40.903 --> 00:13:46.928
I've talked to so many people over the years where I said to my wife, Allie, I said, you know, they really like their job.

186
00:13:46.968 --> 00:13:49.631
You can tell that it comes through in the conversation.

187
00:13:49.871 --> 00:13:50.011
Mm-hmm.

188
00:13:50.071 --> 00:13:50.992
Mm hmm.

189
00:13:51.132 --> 00:13:53.755
Anyhow, so it goes much deeper than that.

190
00:13:53.876 --> 00:13:57.199
But that is a pivotal point right now in the business world.

191
00:13:57.219 --> 00:14:01.625
They're looking and I think part of it was the pandemic when people started working from home and.

192
00:14:01.745 --> 00:14:02.105
Yes.

193
00:14:02.205 --> 00:14:02.986
Start coming back.

194
00:14:03.106 --> 00:14:10.555
And the shift happened between expectations and, you know, the younger generation that says it's not about this money anymore.

195
00:14:11.173 --> 00:14:12.494
Mm, no, absolutely.

196
00:14:12.554 --> 00:14:14.295
I want to go someplace.

197
00:14:14.355 --> 00:14:28.981
Yeah, and I think the prioritizing or making the hierarchy of the hard skills over the soft skills, I think the world is starting to recognize that's a huge problem and a place of shift.

198
00:14:29.861 --> 00:14:42.789
And, you know, artificial intelligence is playing a huge role in being able to take on a lot of the, you know, the hard skills, which I think is really creating a space to elevate what has traditionally been called the soft skills.

199
00:14:42.849 --> 00:14:54.456
And, you know, that's a lot of the work I do around conscious leadership is bringing these things forward, working with companies, with teams, with people on building that connection, listening to yourself.

200
00:14:54.516 --> 00:14:54.737
Right.

201
00:14:54.757 --> 00:14:54.997
Because.

202
00:14:55.017 --> 00:14:55.517
Right.

203
00:14:55.677 --> 00:15:12.544
The energy that we put out in the world, the way we communicate, the way we connect, the way we, you know, interface with others for want of a better description, is really the place that you could almost argue as an ethical stance, right?

204
00:15:12.724 --> 00:15:16.165
Doing that inner work and thinking about how you relate to others.

205
00:15:16.665 --> 00:15:20.826
is really, really important because people feel your energy.

206
00:15:20.866 --> 00:15:22.927
It impacts how they show up, right?

207
00:15:22.967 --> 00:15:24.107
They can read it.

208
00:15:24.147 --> 00:15:33.450
You know, your brain is in a sense state of constant kind of going, ooh, ooh, and building based on the feeling of anger or resentment or whatever the energy is that you're putting out into the world.

209
00:15:34.130 --> 00:15:34.390
And...

210
00:15:35.410 --> 00:16:00.008
yeah i think i think this is where you people like you come in tampton because you know these these executives i talked to you know i never learned how to be compassionate i never learned how to be it's there it's inside of them what they haven't learned is how to take it out of their personal lives and bring it into the corporate life without feeling icky it's like me saying to a corporate guy i love you i had to get past the oh my goodness that's

211
00:16:00.208 --> 00:16:00.969
It doesn't feel right.

212
00:16:01.489 --> 00:16:08.234
Because most people, barring some really weird childhoods, have those soft skills inside them.

213
00:16:08.274 --> 00:16:13.238
They've just learned never to bring them up, never show vulnerability in a workplace, never show.

214
00:16:14.039 --> 00:16:19.423
So you can transition them by pulling it out of them versus they said, I've never been taught that.

215
00:16:19.463 --> 00:16:20.604
Well, I'm not sure you teach it.

216
00:16:20.624 --> 00:16:21.865
You just have to extract it.

217
00:16:22.668 --> 00:16:23.488
Yeah, you have to check it.

218
00:16:23.568 --> 00:16:27.751
And but also the way I view it is you want to create choreographies.

219
00:16:27.791 --> 00:16:31.672
You want to create rituals which bring that forward.

220
00:16:31.732 --> 00:16:43.258
And I think that's also part of the way we need to rethink the structure is that, you know, we create rituals around KPIs and, you know, quarterly reports and, you know, sales and all of those things.

221
00:16:43.298 --> 00:16:47.420
But I think creating rituals and systems around tracking, how do I show up?

222
00:16:47.440 --> 00:16:50.982
What does it look like if we open every meeting with,

223
00:16:51.622 --> 00:16:53.384
some kind of co-regulation.

224
00:16:53.445 --> 00:16:54.926
Let's breathe together.

225
00:16:54.966 --> 00:16:57.129
Let's reflect on what is working.

226
00:16:57.489 --> 00:16:58.671
What are some brags?

227
00:16:58.691 --> 00:17:00.012
What are some successes?

228
00:17:00.032 --> 00:17:05.679
That's something that I've done for years as an executive coach is open my calls with breathwork.

229
00:17:05.759 --> 00:17:10.345
Let's integrate our mind into our body, into the space because we're all running a million different things, right?

230
00:17:10.765 --> 00:17:11.486
And then doing a

231
00:17:14.048 --> 00:17:16.469
Like what, what, what have I been doing right?

232
00:17:16.529 --> 00:17:17.669
What has been working well?

233
00:17:17.689 --> 00:17:38.115
And when we start to, you know, reframe our energetics and we start to reframe how we show up and create those, those sorts of structures, I think it can create a huge ripple into how we lead, how we change and really create, you know, the, it's easier than to create a platform and a sustaining platform that is phenomenal.

234
00:17:38.295 --> 00:17:44.622
financial, money-making, legitimate, et cetera, whatever words are important to you, right?

235
00:17:44.983 --> 00:17:47.726
And build it with the core of love and compassion.

236
00:17:49.047 --> 00:17:49.948
I'm curious,

237
00:17:51.347 --> 00:18:07.725
Dennis, when I think about what you and Ali have done together in terms of how that fits into this bigger model of compassion and love and business and how we can build that nexus and make it a successful place, you two have both done a number of...

238
00:18:10.850 --> 00:18:22.233
sabbaticals, times off, you know, when you've, you know, walked the Camino and done things which require a some, obviously some privilege to take the time off from work, right?

239
00:18:22.833 --> 00:18:30.856
Be some real work around letting go of the busyness and what it means to be productive in this world.

240
00:18:30.956 --> 00:18:32.976
And, you know, what it means to show up.

241
00:18:33.116 --> 00:18:38.158
And I'm curious about this, the most recent radical sabbatical that you two have been on.

242
00:18:38.398 --> 00:18:38.558
And,

243
00:18:39.358 --> 00:18:44.659
how that changed you, the process of leading into it, the process of going through it?

244
00:18:45.299 --> 00:18:54.401
Well, your timing is perfect for this discussion because literally we just returned from our radical sabbatical on Tuesday this week, 1st of September.

245
00:18:55.421 --> 00:18:57.141
And that was after six months.

246
00:18:57.221 --> 00:19:01.262
But let me give you just a little bit of backstory to put it in context.

247
00:19:01.322 --> 00:19:06.263
We've been doing this thing called 360 Nation for over 15 years now.

248
00:19:06.983 --> 00:19:07.983
And we discovered that

249
00:19:08.722 --> 00:19:31.088
know rediscovering humanity we discovered that our own humanity was starting to be threatened a bit and maybe it's because we've been on the hamster wheel so long and we had to face what i'll call an uncomfortable truth the passion that built our community was obscuring our original vision let me define that a little bit i noticed

250
00:19:33.655 --> 00:19:35.856
a little bit of cynicism was creeping in.

251
00:19:35.916 --> 00:19:36.236
Why?

252
00:19:36.336 --> 00:19:38.677
Because we started encountering a world.

253
00:19:39.337 --> 00:19:42.698
I mentioned the word authentic earlier, and I'm going to circle back to that now.

254
00:19:42.758 --> 00:19:47.920
The world we've encountered was increasingly superficial, transaction, extractive.

255
00:19:48.460 --> 00:19:51.961
It was starting to wear away our spirits and our spark.

256
00:19:52.141 --> 00:19:58.563
And I said to Allie, I don't want to become that person that cynic said there's no good people out there, no authenticity.

257
00:19:59.243 --> 00:20:09.411
So having that, and it was so inconsistent with our values, I felt like our devotion to rediscovering humanity had been a struggle to preserve our own humanity.

258
00:20:09.851 --> 00:20:12.393
So it was time to get off the hamster wheel after 15 years.

259
00:20:12.833 --> 00:20:22.161
And that was a scary thing because how do you say to a world, you know, we publish, we have 1200 writers around the world, including you, we publish, we do events, we do a lot of stuff.

260
00:20:22.201 --> 00:20:23.361
How do you just stop?

261
00:20:24.983 --> 00:20:25.203
Um,

262
00:20:26.301 --> 00:20:32.163
And we decided after quite some time, the best way to stop is to be honest with everybody as to why.

263
00:20:32.683 --> 00:20:36.705
So I did write an article over six months ago and saying, here's what we're doing.

264
00:20:36.765 --> 00:20:37.725
Here's why we're doing it.

265
00:20:38.125 --> 00:20:44.727
And let me tell you, Timson, the scariest part about that article was not just saying, look, starting March 1st, we're going to disappear for a while.

266
00:20:45.688 --> 00:20:47.628
It was doing something I've never done.

267
00:20:47.669 --> 00:20:51.870
And that is not saying at the end, and we'll be back on this date.

268
00:20:53.050 --> 00:20:55.932
because I didn't know, frankly, if we were coming back.

269
00:20:56.093 --> 00:20:57.574
I didn't know what we were going to look like.

270
00:20:58.074 --> 00:21:04.980
And I knew if I put a date there, I'd start working towards that date, not towards the space.

271
00:21:05.561 --> 00:21:12.246
So I framed that article with a quote I had heard from a guy named Pico Ayer.

272
00:21:12.266 --> 00:21:17.050
And he said, sometimes the most productive thing you can do is let your soul catch up to your body.

273
00:21:17.751 --> 00:21:19.112
That's what we had to do.

274
00:21:19.192 --> 00:21:20.313
We weren't defeated.

275
00:21:20.353 --> 00:21:21.314
We didn't step away.

276
00:21:21.933 --> 00:21:24.795
because we were defeated, we stepped away because we were awake.

277
00:21:25.535 --> 00:21:28.957
And to us, surrendering to it wasn't letting go.

278
00:21:29.457 --> 00:21:33.500
It was just admitting and being vulnerable and saying, we need some help here.

279
00:21:33.540 --> 00:21:35.261
We need to step off this wheel.

280
00:21:36.001 --> 00:21:41.184
And we need to trust that we'll figure it out along the way, what the future looks like.

281
00:21:41.204 --> 00:21:42.285
Because we love what we do.

282
00:21:42.345 --> 00:21:43.786
We're blessed to be able to do it.

283
00:21:44.879 --> 00:21:52.668
Um, but we were burning out and I think the best way to walk our talk, and I know you know I'm manic about walking our talk, is to walk it.

284
00:21:52.768 --> 00:21:53.990
So I wrote an article.

285
00:21:54.490 --> 00:21:55.672
I said, here's what we're doing.

286
00:21:56.012 --> 00:22:05.322
No guarantees, but we're going to think about it for a while and just consider it an act of love, not just for what we do, but for the people that have trusted us over the years.

287
00:22:06.063 --> 00:22:09.926
And they need to know that we're imperfect humans like a lot of people.

288
00:22:10.006 --> 00:22:12.869
We can't always be on autopilot.

289
00:22:13.569 --> 00:22:16.332
So we began with that back on March 1st.

290
00:22:16.392 --> 00:22:18.654
And let me tell you, that first month was scary.

291
00:22:18.934 --> 00:22:24.058
I got to talk about it because, you know, we're all trapped in this busyness world.

292
00:22:24.138 --> 00:22:24.859
Yeah, yeah.

293
00:22:24.999 --> 00:22:28.662
I call it like worshipping at the altar of stress or busyness.

294
00:22:28.902 --> 00:22:29.243
Okay, great.

295
00:22:30.273 --> 00:22:31.634
Wait a minute, I'm interrupting.

296
00:22:31.734 --> 00:22:32.374
I'm so sorry.

297
00:22:32.414 --> 00:22:34.515
I know it's really annoying when people do that, but here we go.

298
00:22:35.116 --> 00:22:43.700
Before you chase a bigger title in a six pack, I want to share a quick word about why ambition might just be cortisol with a calendar.

299
00:22:44.300 --> 00:22:46.902
Success is a state, not a symbol.

300
00:22:47.719 --> 00:22:55.628
Grab the free video and the worksheet that's in the show notes to build habits around the state of success, not just the symbols.

301
00:22:55.948 --> 00:22:59.952
Real success isn't just a title, an income or the abs.

302
00:23:00.413 --> 00:23:05.979
It's the capacity to be present for the life that those things are supposed to buy you.

303
00:23:06.099 --> 00:23:07.981
Okay, now back to the episode.

304
00:23:08.241 --> 00:23:10.082
Somebody will say, like, how are you doing?

305
00:23:10.102 --> 00:23:11.623
You know, I'm sorry I haven't been in touch.

306
00:23:12.564 --> 00:23:20.149
And like, you know, I often feel like the most culturally accepted response in many communities is, oh, well, let me tell you about how busy I've been.

307
00:23:20.269 --> 00:23:21.870
Like, it's like it's like a competition.

308
00:23:22.770 --> 00:23:25.212
Well, it took it took at least a month.

309
00:23:25.732 --> 00:23:31.876
No exaggeration here to put the brakes on and realize that it's OK not to be busy.

310
00:23:31.896 --> 00:23:34.398
And I read somewhere along the way and I thought it was kind of funny.

311
00:23:34.458 --> 00:23:37.300
It said there's nothing harder than doing nothing.

312
00:23:38.126 --> 00:23:45.252
And when I say nothing, I mean, I was trying to, we were trying to ratchet it down to truly nothing, no alarm clock.

313
00:23:45.552 --> 00:23:47.613
You wake up and say, okay, what am I gonna do today?

314
00:23:47.653 --> 00:23:49.435
But that was the beginning.

315
00:23:50.115 --> 00:23:54.519
And then as we started moving forward, there's this level of clarity that sets in.

316
00:23:54.559 --> 00:23:56.680
You kind of see everything with a new set of eyes.

317
00:23:57.281 --> 00:23:59.622
Because suddenly you got this time to, well, guess what?

318
00:23:59.702 --> 00:24:00.403
Be present.

319
00:24:01.804 --> 00:24:04.586
If I'm talking to Tamsin, I'm not rushed.

320
00:24:05.086 --> 00:24:06.588
I can go deeper with her.

321
00:24:08.049 --> 00:24:12.092
We also started thinking about, you know, someday we are going to come back.

322
00:24:12.392 --> 00:24:22.441
Along the way, how can we start shifting the way we operate, whether it be through Sixteen Nation or personally, to not lose what we're learning here?

323
00:24:23.882 --> 00:24:31.068
And along the way, we decided we're going to start scaling back the transactional relationships.

324
00:24:31.527 --> 00:24:31.929
Yes.

325
00:24:31.949 --> 00:24:36.905
The kind of people that, Tampton, I've had them over the years, people that call you and say, Dennis,

326
00:24:37.841 --> 00:24:38.421
I need something.

327
00:24:38.461 --> 00:24:39.101
It's not Dennis.

328
00:24:39.141 --> 00:24:39.922
How are you?

329
00:24:41.502 --> 00:24:42.722
They haven't set the stage.

330
00:24:42.802 --> 00:24:43.882
It's been five years.

331
00:24:44.183 --> 00:24:44.443
Yeah.

332
00:24:44.463 --> 00:24:49.104
So we had, and that goes for friends, family, and professional.

333
00:24:49.224 --> 00:24:52.424
So we started doing that in a very respectful way.

334
00:24:53.085 --> 00:24:54.085
Here's what happened though.

335
00:24:54.105 --> 00:24:54.665
It's amazing.

336
00:24:54.685 --> 00:24:56.405
These things because I couldn't have predicted it.

337
00:24:56.985 --> 00:25:07.108
Suddenly we had a smaller circle of true authentic people, but more time to invest in them because we weren't distracted by all this other stuff.

338
00:25:08.008 --> 00:25:14.631
And so our work-life harmony started to come into focus because we had more time.

339
00:25:14.671 --> 00:25:16.331
Now, we were still on the sabbatical.

340
00:25:16.411 --> 00:25:19.833
We were still, I'll call it, rediscovering our sense of wonder.

341
00:25:19.873 --> 00:25:21.053
We were listening deeper.

342
00:25:21.113 --> 00:25:22.774
We were asking deeper questions.

343
00:25:24.035 --> 00:25:26.075
Allie said to me, boy, you're just so relaxed.

344
00:25:26.275 --> 00:25:29.417
You're even more outgoing because she calls me the quiet guy.

345
00:25:29.717 --> 00:25:32.638
I said, I became more curious.

346
00:25:32.678 --> 00:25:34.539
It was like a room in my mind.

347
00:25:36.301 --> 00:25:42.908
And so one way I've described it is letting time move through me versus just moving through time.

348
00:25:44.369 --> 00:25:49.174
And so the more I stopped, the more I listened, the more I learned, the more I realized how much I didn't know.

349
00:25:49.194 --> 00:25:52.278
I mean, it was like a clarion call.

350
00:25:52.358 --> 00:25:54.039
It's like, OK, this is great.

351
00:25:54.840 --> 00:25:55.320
Now what?

352
00:25:55.480 --> 00:25:58.041
How do you want to spend the rest of your life?

353
00:25:58.141 --> 00:26:00.022
Do you want to get back on the hamster wheel?

354
00:26:00.042 --> 00:26:03.224
That's something we talked about a lot saying, do we want to go back?

355
00:26:03.944 --> 00:26:05.985
And after a while, we said, of course we do.

356
00:26:06.830 --> 00:26:09.611
But we're going to reimagine what that means.

357
00:26:09.631 --> 00:26:10.571
With limitations.

358
00:26:10.711 --> 00:26:22.435
Everything from the way we conduct ourselves to the number of events we do, we're going to be a little more selfish and kind of run it through that lens of what we've learned.

359
00:26:23.015 --> 00:26:26.836
And so, I mean, we started moving in that direction.

360
00:26:26.856 --> 00:26:28.337
You know, we came back this week.

361
00:26:29.177 --> 00:26:30.118
Um, we're back.

362
00:26:30.198 --> 00:26:38.503
I mean, the, uh, inbox is filling up, the publishing is starting, but we are so relaxed about it because something shifted.

363
00:26:38.543 --> 00:26:39.483
I don't know what it was like.

364
00:26:39.583 --> 00:26:42.805
It's like the sediment in a glass of water.

365
00:26:43.886 --> 00:26:44.667
It was settling in.

366
00:26:44.687 --> 00:26:46.107
It was left undisturbed.

367
00:26:47.188 --> 00:26:49.570
And we're trying to preserve that.

368
00:26:49.710 --> 00:26:49.930
Okay.

369
00:26:49.970 --> 00:26:52.932
So I have a question sort of relating to this,

370
00:26:59.777 --> 00:27:04.720
the sense of the soul and the body needing to catch up and realign, the soul needs to catch up.

371
00:27:04.800 --> 00:27:08.863
So for me, I hear that as alignment, right?

372
00:27:09.063 --> 00:27:13.386
In my Ayurvedic and yogic training, we've described the koshas.

373
00:27:13.466 --> 00:27:26.514
Like you have the physical body, the manamaya kosha, you have the mental body, the manamaya kosha, the physical body, the anamaya kosha, the energy body, the pranamaya kosha, which if you've ever taken yoga, you've heard of prana, pranayama, breath practices.

374
00:27:27.194 --> 00:27:31.695
And that when we are in alignment, it's almost like the sort of Russian stacking dolls, right?

375
00:27:31.775 --> 00:27:37.457
Everything's lined up, our intuition, our mental body, our physical body, our energy body, right?

376
00:27:37.477 --> 00:27:40.458
There's a sense of integration and alignment.

377
00:27:42.518 --> 00:27:49.220
When you went into this, you were very clear about not having an endpoint because that put the sort of pressure on it.

378
00:27:49.980 --> 00:27:55.802
And I hear that also, and I've worked with people working around habits that we don't

379
00:27:57.877 --> 00:28:00.739
often think about like, I'm going to run the marathon, I'm going to do the thing.

380
00:28:01.119 --> 00:28:04.061
We want to cultivate the habits of a person who runs.

381
00:28:04.221 --> 00:28:07.843
We want to cultivate the habits of a person who is integrated, right?

382
00:28:08.304 --> 00:28:16.649
Did you have a moment in this period where you started to feel that alignment and integration?

383
00:28:18.590 --> 00:28:19.111
We did.

384
00:28:19.391 --> 00:28:21.852
And I think that was like a light bulb going off.

385
00:28:21.972 --> 00:28:22.693
We were traveling.

386
00:28:22.713 --> 00:28:22.853
Yeah.

387
00:28:24.003 --> 00:28:26.946
And we were probably four or five months into this thing.

388
00:28:27.006 --> 00:28:30.209
And we started to really think about what the future should look like.

389
00:28:30.269 --> 00:28:34.854
And again, we had the time to discuss it because we weren't rushing to do anything.

390
00:28:35.054 --> 00:28:41.700
So our discussions, just like you live with somebody, we've been married 20 years this year and we're always talking because we work together.

391
00:28:42.181 --> 00:28:46.845
But we felt like we moved some from soundbites to really deep discussion.

392
00:28:47.806 --> 00:28:51.769
And what we decided, again, that's probably a month and a half ago, it's time.

393
00:28:52.069 --> 00:29:03.055
We just felt like it was time to come back because that alignment you're talking about, I think it's always going to be a work in progress, but we think that the unplugging worked.

394
00:29:04.296 --> 00:29:06.858
And I'd like to tell you all of this was predicted.

395
00:29:06.918 --> 00:29:07.338
It wasn't.

396
00:29:07.558 --> 00:29:10.000
We honestly didn't know what was going to happen here.

397
00:29:11.621 --> 00:29:12.581
But that was it.

398
00:29:13.122 --> 00:29:16.504
And we had developed what I'll call the courage to be empty.

399
00:29:18.498 --> 00:29:23.121
Um, and, uh, there's more work to be done and we're working on it every day.

400
00:29:23.141 --> 00:29:24.702
Cause we just got back from this.

401
00:29:25.243 --> 00:29:29.765
I feel like we've left the planet and come back onto the planet.

402
00:29:29.805 --> 00:29:36.149
The way you're describing that, it sounds like when you take a long period to sit in meditation, I mean, that's what it sounds like.

403
00:29:36.169 --> 00:29:41.653
The people I know who have spent, you know, days, weeks, months in silent Vipassana meditation.

404
00:29:42.193 --> 00:29:50.120
I myself have done a long weekend and I finally got myself a 10-day silent meditation retreat booked in December.

405
00:29:50.761 --> 00:30:00.049
There is something fascinating about not filling your head and not filling your calendar that creates space for that alignment, that connection, that relationship.

406
00:30:00.810 --> 00:30:04.551
that sort of revisioning, what do I really care about?

407
00:30:04.591 --> 00:30:06.072
What's my big juicy why?

408
00:30:06.912 --> 00:30:07.892
Who am I in the world?

409
00:30:07.972 --> 00:30:10.613
How do I want to show up for those around me?

410
00:30:10.673 --> 00:30:14.694
What does it mean to be pulled towards my purpose, my vision?

411
00:30:14.974 --> 00:30:17.255
What does it feel like to be lived from my values?

412
00:30:18.195 --> 00:30:29.057
We see a lot of disconnection, isolation, which started a lot in COVID, particularly in certain sections of communities, right?

413
00:30:29.097 --> 00:30:32.838
That people started to feel really isolated and alone and disconnected.

414
00:30:33.538 --> 00:30:41.060
With all the people you've had conversations with in your community and on your sabbaticals,

415
00:30:42.160 --> 00:30:45.562
Have you found a thread that has been helpful?

416
00:30:45.602 --> 00:31:01.430
So for example, if someone is feeling disconnected from their work, their people, from themselves, what's a small backdoor, you know, back into their, into your, their, the world's shared humanity that you found helps people move forward?

417
00:31:03.243 --> 00:31:15.482
Well, my first bit of advice, which I think I can give the advice now with a little more sense of credibility or authority in that, don't wait 15 years like I did or we did.

418
00:31:16.180 --> 00:31:20.523
You know, not everybody is blessed or privileged enough to take the time off that we did.

419
00:31:21.084 --> 00:31:22.665
But it could be just two weeks.

420
00:31:23.226 --> 00:31:24.527
Send it to be six months.

421
00:31:24.647 --> 00:31:25.688
It just reset.

422
00:31:26.268 --> 00:31:37.237
And frankly, that is a real thing people struggle with because now you're back to, you know, feel a fear of missing out and stopping with the phone.

423
00:31:37.637 --> 00:31:39.558
And I've had some deep discussions about it.

424
00:31:39.659 --> 00:31:41.400
So I've said, just try it this weekend.

425
00:31:41.620 --> 00:31:44.924
And I focused on the digital side because that's what everybody talks about.

426
00:31:44.964 --> 00:31:45.365
Yeah.

427
00:31:45.565 --> 00:31:51.873
You could say a lot of other things, but just turn off the phone for a weekend.

428
00:31:51.993 --> 00:31:55.417
That's a good start at kind of deprogramming all this.

429
00:31:55.797 --> 00:31:57.499
And some people have done it.

430
00:31:57.900 --> 00:31:59.962
Frankly, I think they just needed to get permission.

431
00:32:01.379 --> 00:32:25.377
me to say it's okay i went through it for the last six months and not that our phones were off but we weren't reactive that way so it was i gave them permission to try it and i invited them to come back and then maybe it's not just the phones maybe it's something else where you're truly embracing this notion that everything works better when you unplug it for a while and i certainly get off the

432
00:32:26.898 --> 00:32:28.100
It's tough for some people.

433
00:32:28.280 --> 00:32:30.542
It's almost like talking about faith.

434
00:32:30.702 --> 00:32:32.244
Some people just feel it icky.

435
00:32:32.524 --> 00:32:34.206
You don't want to talk about religion or faith.

436
00:32:34.226 --> 00:32:36.529
Well, I don't want to talk about doing that because that's hard.

437
00:32:36.569 --> 00:32:37.510
Well, of course it's hard.

438
00:32:38.531 --> 00:32:39.952
It wasn't easy for us.

439
00:32:39.992 --> 00:32:43.236
We were privileged to do it, but fear of the unknown.

440
00:32:43.256 --> 00:32:43.336
Hmm.

441
00:32:45.607 --> 00:32:50.949
Yeah, no, that's a really big issue, you know, and it's a habit, right?

442
00:32:51.069 --> 00:32:51.449
I think.

443
00:32:51.509 --> 00:32:56.550
I mean, the way I view it is that we have to create a habit around shutting off our phones.

444
00:32:56.830 --> 00:33:02.772
We have to create a habit around deciding that this is time for me to work on myself, work on my relationships.

445
00:33:03.152 --> 00:33:05.433
One of the sort of profound shifts I had was...

446
00:33:06.293 --> 00:33:11.457
recognizing that taking care of myself and my relationships was part of my work day.

447
00:33:11.757 --> 00:33:24.587
Because as a facilitator, a coach, a speaker, somebody who holds space for others, if I'm coming into that feeling, you know, tired and exhausted and resentful and, you know, lonely, fill in the blank, right?

448
00:33:24.747 --> 00:33:31.712
I'm not going to be able to do what I'm called in this world to do, which is to support people in creating freedom, right?

449
00:33:32.773 --> 00:33:38.496
through really thinking about creating the invisible structure of habits.

450
00:33:38.536 --> 00:33:40.797
Because habits become culture in my view.

451
00:33:40.937 --> 00:33:47.341
We have to put our attention onto thinking about what are the habits that are important to us and how they connect to our big juicy why.

452
00:33:47.862 --> 00:33:52.765
But there is something fascinating about creating the time and space to do it,

453
00:33:53.565 --> 00:34:03.229
there is something fascinating about the choice and the effort required to do it.

454
00:34:03.249 --> 00:34:20.615
When I think about the way that you and Ali show up in the world and the way you also do the work in the nonprofit and pro bono place, is there a particular thing that really stands out to you in terms of

455
00:34:22.442 --> 00:34:28.444
a sense of what does it feel like to be integrated?

456
00:34:28.664 --> 00:34:33.946
So, you know, if you think about it in the nonprofit space, is that like maybe like the B Corp model, right?

457
00:34:34.006 --> 00:34:39.328
Where you are immediately serving back into the community in some measurable way, right?

458
00:34:40.669 --> 00:34:46.471
Is there something that you've really noticed in your work doing the pro bono consulting?

459
00:34:46.491 --> 00:34:46.771
Because

460
00:34:47.741 --> 00:34:48.041
Yes.

461
00:34:48.662 --> 00:34:48.902
Yes.

462
00:34:49.002 --> 00:34:51.025
And this is really having to do with the pandemic.

463
00:34:51.105 --> 00:34:53.488
It has really stuck out.

464
00:34:53.588 --> 00:34:56.852
Let me tell you, prior to the pandemic, we've been doing the Good Works 360.

465
00:34:58.207 --> 00:35:00.248
my goodness, probably eight, nine years now.

466
00:35:00.648 --> 00:35:02.509
And we've done a number of engagements.

467
00:35:02.529 --> 00:35:04.931
And as we've said, they're all free of charge.

468
00:35:05.311 --> 00:35:08.513
And we're there to help nonprofits anywhere in the world.

469
00:35:08.633 --> 00:35:09.293
It's virtual.

470
00:35:09.853 --> 00:35:24.702
We've had one or two local engagements, but we've assembled a group of people, four dozen that are ready to pick up the phone, pick up the email, do the text, do the Zoom to help somebody in Zimbabwe if they need help.

471
00:35:25.710 --> 00:35:29.987
Here's what I've noticed that we did all these engagements and it was busy and then came the pandemic.

472
00:35:31.372 --> 00:35:36.115
And up until then, the engagements were, Dennis, we need help in our operations area.

473
00:35:36.155 --> 00:35:40.859
We need help in our social media development because people don't notice us as a nonprofit.

474
00:35:40.919 --> 00:35:44.861
We need help in payroll, all these operational things.

475
00:35:44.881 --> 00:35:47.743
Because if you think about it, a nonprofit is just a small business.

476
00:35:47.823 --> 00:35:49.505
It's just, they're registered differently.

477
00:35:50.145 --> 00:35:51.106
Here's what happened though.

478
00:35:51.126 --> 00:35:57.610
The pandemic came and a lot of businesses, as we both know, struggled with, oh my God, look at this avalanche coming.

479
00:35:57.830 --> 00:35:58.651
What are we gonna do?

480
00:35:59.131 --> 00:36:00.292
How do we deal with the fact that,

481
00:36:00.611 --> 00:36:04.434
people have got to work at home and whether we like it or not, and whether that's our model.

482
00:36:05.055 --> 00:36:07.276
Well, put yourself in a nonprofit's role.

483
00:36:07.377 --> 00:36:16.544
With rare exception, most of the people that we've encountered in nonprofits running the show or in top tier management, they came up in a nonprofit world.

484
00:36:16.584 --> 00:36:17.945
They weren't business managers.

485
00:36:18.005 --> 00:36:20.847
So they got hit with the same avalanche and they were scared.

486
00:36:20.887 --> 00:36:22.188
So what's interesting is,

487
00:36:22.909 --> 00:36:27.740
The requests coming in to Good Works weren't about operational issues anymore.

488
00:36:27.780 --> 00:36:31.629
They were requests to spend time on the phone or on Zoom with me.

489
00:36:32.672 --> 00:36:32.832
And...

490
00:36:33.442 --> 00:36:38.507
What I realized is some of these executive directors, they had a great passion for the mission.

491
00:36:38.547 --> 00:36:41.609
They were on top of things, but they were scared.

492
00:36:42.310 --> 00:36:43.131
They were vulnerable.

493
00:36:43.251 --> 00:36:52.539
And they wanted somebody like me who had not only been a nonprofit, but had run businesses to somehow say to them in many words, Tampson, it's going to be okay.

494
00:36:52.959 --> 00:36:55.021
And if I were in your shoes, I would do so.

495
00:36:55.041 --> 00:36:58.064
It was kind of a top tier consulting business.

496
00:36:58.204 --> 00:36:59.505
But it was a different level.

497
00:36:59.525 --> 00:37:03.187
It wasn't to fix something in the operation that was broke under needed help.

498
00:37:03.267 --> 00:37:10.852
It was to give that executive director the confidence and the reassurance that things were going to be okay.

499
00:37:11.012 --> 00:37:12.452
And some advice in between.

500
00:37:12.472 --> 00:37:12.973
Yeah.

501
00:37:13.013 --> 00:37:14.794
Because they just weren't equipped.

502
00:37:15.657 --> 00:37:15.857
Right.

503
00:37:15.897 --> 00:37:27.929
And so again, sort of circling back to the beginning of our conversation, you know, it was about the integration of the human and the quote unquote soft skills that the piece, I don't like soft skills.

504
00:37:27.969 --> 00:37:28.790
I don't like woo.

505
00:37:28.870 --> 00:37:34.476
I don't like, you know, I feel like you were talking about it as like, you know, our internal operating system, right?

506
00:37:34.496 --> 00:37:36.438
Something like that makes much more sense.

507
00:37:36.498 --> 00:37:36.738
Right.

508
00:37:37.379 --> 00:37:37.619
So.

509
00:37:38.760 --> 00:37:57.829
The thread I'm hearing through our conversation and what really sticks with me, Dennis, is this idea of, you know, integration between the human, the love, the passion, that part of who we all are as humans with having impact in the world and going out and doing important work.

510
00:37:58.509 --> 00:38:03.292
And what has helped you along this process, as many of my guests, is...

511
00:38:04.362 --> 00:38:13.766
have alluded to or explicitly stated that sometimes the way to really create that integration is we have to take time off.

512
00:38:13.906 --> 00:38:14.946
We have to step back.

513
00:38:14.986 --> 00:38:15.926
We have to retreat.

514
00:38:15.986 --> 00:38:16.927
We have to make a break.

515
00:38:16.947 --> 00:38:18.747
We have to disconnect.

516
00:38:18.927 --> 00:38:28.871
Whether it's getting up an hour earlier and walking in the forest alone, whether it's taking a weekend off a day, whether it's going and staying in a hotel away from, in fact, whatever it is, right?

517
00:38:28.911 --> 00:38:30.792
That creating that space

518
00:38:31.532 --> 00:38:37.058
allows for the deeper awareness, the deeper recognition so that you can integrate.

519
00:38:37.639 --> 00:38:51.854
So this thread that I'm hearing in your work as a re-imaginator, which is my favorite term, seems to me really about re-imagining and then also creating this

520
00:38:52.995 --> 00:39:02.085
This theme of living, this theme of running your business, this theme of moving through the world, operating from love, but bringing together things that might not necessarily...

521
00:39:03.673 --> 00:39:06.056
initially appear as aligned.

522
00:39:06.356 --> 00:39:13.584
Well, perfect segue, because this is something else that happened during our sabbatical that I wasn't predicting.

523
00:39:14.085 --> 00:39:22.714
What I learned, when you suddenly have what they call the silence between the notes, like when an orchestra is playing and they stop, and suddenly there's this quiet.

524
00:39:23.695 --> 00:39:24.917
Well, there was this quiet.

525
00:39:25.907 --> 00:39:34.052
And along the way, ideas that I've had for years that I wanted to do something with that I never got around to came up.

526
00:39:34.393 --> 00:39:40.036
And I was saying to people for the last three or four years that wanted to talk about 360 Nation, well, they said, what haven't you done yet?

527
00:39:40.157 --> 00:39:47.421
Well, I said, what I want to do, and this goes back before the pandemic, saying I want to take the ethos that we have.

528
00:39:47.441 --> 00:39:48.202
Mm hmm.

529
00:39:48.642 --> 00:39:49.904
into the corporate workplace.

530
00:39:49.984 --> 00:39:58.313
I want to get into the bowels of corporate America, first of all, and I want to be the guy that comes up on stage and they're expecting leadership 101 again.

531
00:39:58.353 --> 00:39:59.354
Here we are all together.

532
00:39:59.394 --> 00:40:00.436
Isn't it going to be wonderful?

533
00:40:00.456 --> 00:40:02.398
And then on Monday morning, they forget everything you said.

534
00:40:02.758 --> 00:40:05.281
I'm going to be the guy that really shocks them.

535
00:40:06.222 --> 00:40:06.982
with the message.

536
00:40:07.022 --> 00:40:21.349
And I think between my business experience and being part of what I call the corporate cult back then when I was in business and between my experience having left the cult, I think I can bring some credibility to saying, look, guys, I've been down your road.

537
00:40:21.449 --> 00:40:22.529
I see what's happening.

538
00:40:22.569 --> 00:40:23.630
Yeah, here's the result.

539
00:40:24.110 --> 00:40:27.031
Again, none of what I'm talking about is ever meant to be promotional.

540
00:40:27.051 --> 00:40:31.233
But what surfaced was I started, I was, Ally and I were on a cruise to England.

541
00:40:31.293 --> 00:40:32.514
She's from England, as you know.

542
00:40:32.994 --> 00:40:35.374
And I said, I'm going to start scribbling some notes down.

543
00:40:35.594 --> 00:40:40.375
Those notes now turned into a 260-page book that I wrote.

544
00:40:40.455 --> 00:40:41.155
It's not even out yet.

545
00:40:41.175 --> 00:40:45.256
It won't be out until next year because I'm taking my time and letting it germinate a little bit.

546
00:40:46.096 --> 00:40:50.157
But it's called Humanity Rising, Killing the Corporate Cult.

547
00:40:50.377 --> 00:40:54.138
And I've had people say to me, that's pretty dramatic, killing.

548
00:40:54.398 --> 00:40:56.878
I said, that's exactly what I want to get people's attention.

549
00:40:56.898 --> 00:40:58.578
This is not going to be a pablum book.

550
00:40:58.899 --> 00:41:01.499
This is going to be the kind of book that if Tamsin picks it up,

551
00:41:02.457 --> 00:41:12.639
she's either going to put it down because it's going to scare the hell out of her because there's too much stuff going on in there, or she's going to say at long last, because it's not Dennis's view of the world.

552
00:41:12.719 --> 00:41:13.560
Go think about it.

553
00:41:13.580 --> 00:41:16.020
It's Dennis's view of the world in your face.

554
00:41:16.760 --> 00:41:19.441
And here's what you can do about it starting right now.

555
00:41:19.581 --> 00:41:23.122
Every single chapter says, here's what you do starting right now to kill the cult.

556
00:41:23.462 --> 00:41:25.282
I've had such a ball putting it together.

557
00:41:25.322 --> 00:41:26.683
I've talked to so many people.

558
00:41:27.363 --> 00:41:32.304
And I just want to, I think it's time to shock some of these organizations into it.

559
00:41:32.844 --> 00:41:34.025
And everything is interesting.

560
00:41:34.265 --> 00:41:36.226
You know, people called resources.

561
00:41:36.286 --> 00:41:37.487
They called them family.

562
00:41:37.507 --> 00:41:39.768
You know, everybody says you matter.

563
00:41:39.848 --> 00:41:42.849
I'm talking about for real here.

564
00:41:42.870 --> 00:41:46.752
So putting that action and that connection into reality.

565
00:41:46.892 --> 00:41:52.975
It came out of the sabbatical quietness because I never would have been writing a book about it.

566
00:41:52.995 --> 00:41:56.557
But then I realized, well, that's interesting because, as you know,

567
00:41:57.277 --> 00:42:01.678
the book can be the ticket into that leadership audience I'm talking about.

568
00:42:01.698 --> 00:42:04.439
Because they want to say, well, we'll bring you in and you can talk to us.

569
00:42:04.519 --> 00:42:06.059
I said, well, here, read this first.

570
00:42:06.119 --> 00:42:08.160
And if you're still brave enough, I'm coming in.

571
00:42:08.540 --> 00:42:12.421
If you're not, then you're not ready for that kind of change.

572
00:42:13.301 --> 00:42:13.862
Amazing.

573
00:42:13.982 --> 00:42:18.143
Well, Dennis, thank you so much for ending on such a powerful note.

574
00:42:18.303 --> 00:42:18.963
I think that...

575
00:42:20.331 --> 00:42:37.095
My listeners of Hot Habits with Dr. Tampson are going to be in for a treat as they reflect on the gentle but insightful, dark, hard, you know, energetically like, I'm going to make this happen.

576
00:42:38.035 --> 00:42:45.297
Undertones to everything that you're doing and you're actually deciding now to bring that much more forward is an interesting and wonderful.

577
00:42:47.382 --> 00:42:48.643
juicy place to land.

578
00:42:50.365 --> 00:42:54.728
Thank you so much for joining me today on Hot Habits with Dr. Tamsin.

579
00:42:55.569 --> 00:42:57.291
It's been an absolute pleasure, my friend.

580
00:42:57.331 --> 00:42:57.691
Thank you.

581
00:42:58.392 --> 00:42:59.593
Thanks for being here.

582
00:43:00.013 --> 00:43:02.315
And thank you for taking the time to listen.

583
00:43:02.575 --> 00:43:08.901
Until next time, remember that the way you lead your inner world shapes how you lead on the outside.

584
00:43:09.221 --> 00:43:10.702
I'm Dr. Tamsin Aster.

585
00:43:10.882 --> 00:43:12.524
Thanks for listening to Hot Habits.