Joel Monk: [00:00:20] this is the coach's rising podcast and today this is a special edition because this is a recording of our first ever live podcast that we held recently. It was such a joy for me to come together in community to explore the topics we'll explore today with Bob Anderson. So the format's a little different. You're going to hear me interview Bob for a short while, 45 minutes or so, and then we'll take some questions from people who are present. We're going to be exploring today higher purpose, intuition, and unity of leadership, and why these topics are relevant for our times and relevance for coaches. [00:01:02] It's a really rich discussion, And as I said, Bob Anderson is joining us if you haven't heard Bob on the podcast before, he is the creator and author of the Leadership Circle profile. Also he's co-authored the two fantastic books, Mastering Leadership and Scaling Leadership.
Joel Monk: And he's now leading the Unity Academy. So we are in good hands and let's dive right in. Well, well, well, here we are. Welcome, everybody. And I'm thrilled. I was just sharing with Bob and Nora. I'm totally thrilled to be with you all today. And this is the first ever coaches rising live podcast.
Joel Monk: Stay tuned. I'm not want to move quickly on things. [00:02:00] I've had this idea for about two years. Finally we're here. So, yeah, it just feels really, really precious to me to be able to spend this next 90 minutes together in community and talking about the topics we'll talk about today. We're going to be talking about conscious leadership, higher purpose, intuition, transmission, leadership itself. How do we how do we coach from these places? We're going to share personal stories and we speak from what
Joel Monk: So I'll say a few more things and then Bob and I are going to start to have a conversation. If you don't know coaches rising yet, then we care deeply about coaches and transformation practitioners. So we create trainings, learning experiences for transformational coaches to deepen in their work. I feel it's a vocation, it's a lifelong vocation. [00:03:01] I think we're going to talk about this today. And so that's what we do and we, you know, I feel more than ever in our times, the need or coaches and the need for people to support the proliferation of embodied conscious leadership in the world. And I looked back at the manifesto that we wrote. And I want to talk about this more today because this manifesto, I mean, I call it a manifesto,
Joel Monk: You know, it's a little bit much to call it that, but it, but it, when we, when we thought, when we founded coaches rising, one day, you know, we'd spent a lot of time feeling into, what is this thing? And then, and then I wrote down and I just wrote that coaches rising is dedicated to empowering the world's coaches. So they can act as a vehicle that brings about the positive change the world needs and transform the lives and communities they touch. [00:04:01] and we feel that coaching as a transmission, as a way of being holds many keys to unlocking the huge potential of human beings. And what's remarkable to me is, I might word it slightly differently today, but really the essence is just the same thing. And that just came through me. I did not think about that. I just sat down and the words flowed through me onto the keyboard and it was like this,
Joel Monk: And actually stealing bobs, bobs, invitation there. So we care about coaches and, you know, wow, these are remarkable times. I mean, that's just an understatement. These are incredibly challenging times in many ways. And at the same time, for me, if we look at the systems around us, it's very obvious right now that they're perturbed. [00:05:00] And that can create this sense of uncertainty and discomfort. But its when systems are perturbed that the potential for transformation is rate-est. And I think that's important to remember.
Joel Monk: Of course, there's true individually, but it's true collectively. So, having said that, our intention at coach is rising is to keep serving in these times. I don't know how things are going to play out. I feel and reasonably inspired in these times. Something just got a hold of me. And I feel more and more inspired and where we have a commitment to work with you, the coaching community, in service of your work and our intentions to bring us together, more and more in community like this. Because I think there's something very powerful and palpable in community.
Joel Monk: Let's just take a moment and we're going to bring Bobby in in a second, but let's just take a moment if you, if you want, you can close your eyes, if you don't want to that's fine, but just it's not already just allow your attention to drop down into your, into your body, this incredible body that we are. [00:06:25] to sensing the feeling of being alive. You may notice this comfort attention. You may notice joy, especially whatever is here right now. We're just in the tissues just to, if possible, can we embrace what's here?
Joel Monk: [00:07:01] of its sensations, emotion.
Joel Monk: [00:07:16] And just, however, this works for you this invitation, it doesn't even matter if it doesn't. What's the, I asked intention for you being on this call? to tune to that. In particular, just a tune to the frequency of that highest calling or intention. My belief is that the future of coaching is vibration. [00:08:02] That's not something I would have said two or three years ago. Okay, so thank you. We're doing the invite you to open your eyes.
Joel Monk: And just before. I see there's a lot of videos off. If you feel called to, I would appreciate this, just to see more of you on video. Just, I'm just looking through gallery, I'm looking and seeing dab and holly and gray and grayer. Nancy, end of the cut. So if you can, I'd love to see you on video. And we can just tune in to that we are a field calling in from all around the world. [00:09:01] Bob, dear brother, Bob, how are you today?
Bob Anderson: [00:09:08] Wonderful. Absolutely. Can't wait to see what unfolds in this conversation.
Joel Monk: [00:09:16] Yeah, me too.
Bob Anderson: [00:09:17] Yeah. How do we want to be used in this conversation?
Joel Monk: [00:09:22] That's a that's a great question. Um, actually. I wanted to bring in something that you saw written on one of the videos you've created as a starting point. We're going to touch into many different topics today: intuition, higher purpose, conscious leadership. Something you wrote was, what if the most important work of your life doesn't begin with effort, but with listening? And I wondered if you could say why you wrote that on the video, what is the importance of that statement for you?
Bob Anderson: [00:10:06] I wrote that. It sounds like me. I'm realizing more and more that my life has been authored by my listening. Uh, of course, you know, I've come through the stages of development like everybody else. So that was authored by voices I wasn't aware of. I was self-authoring. I'm the one creating this juicier reality. I saw myself as stalking my longing.
Bob Anderson: Like a hunter tracks in the woods. And then it became obvious that it's been stalking me the whole time. And that you said it best, Joel, when you, when the words flow through the moment of intuition or it just poured out on the page and your whole body said, yes, I was like, oh, say yes to this. [00:11:14] And so my life has been a series of yeses. I'm authored by listening, authored by that deep inner current that I'm somehow learned to track and that's insistent that doesn't invest in a compromise. And once I see it or hear it or like you had that experience, there's a whole inner yes, like, ah, even though it scares the crap out of me, even though I don't know how, even though it's like what? [00:12:02] Who me? All of that is also wrapped up in it.
Bob Anderson: And so, The deeper layers of our being know why we're here, and what we're up to at this juncture in human history. And our job is simply to listen and learn to listen more deeply and say yes, come with me. And I've learned to have faith in now, what used to terrify me. It's more like, well, it's never let me down before. It's never let me off a cliff. So here goes. And no.
Bob Anderson: [00:13:02] Yeah, synchronicities abound and it's just been an extraordinary life. And I'm coming more and more to to the posture of kind of, I will be done like, I don't know what's in store. I use me, and the time this body has left, yes me, I'm here, ready, and I, I, I it's been the primary theme of my life like if I were to write a book on really like the top 10 themes that would be number one this listening to the deeper purpose that wants to have its way in my life and after like you said two years of like caution cautionary deliberation [00:14:12] Sometimes we're quickly in others, but sometimes it's been a long way. But if I've done anything well, it's simply listen and say, F. What's the process like?
Joel Monk: [00:14:27] Because I think a lot of people listening may relate to how, what you're sharing, that sometimes maybe we hear a voice and then we resist, or maybe we don't fully trust, You know, is this, is this actually something, is this life calling me into something? Is it just me and I wonder if you could share a little bit of your journey with, you know, the learning to trust that story and how you know it's true for you and what's made it more possible to trust it and access it?
Bob Anderson: [00:15:13] I grew up in a Catholic tradition, and my uncle was a very famous Jesuit, Moral Theologian. I have quite a heritage in terms of the family lineage I was born into. And that tradition taught me from a very early age, what do you call it to be? was a central question and of course in the traditional sense it's like are you supposed to be a priest or you're supposed to get married you know that kind of like what do you call to but in a deeper way it's a discernment process of what's what's back anding me forward what's calling me who am I really what am I here for and so I got onto it as a question early it didn't have answers and [00:16:11] I found myself gravitating, even though I was in business school and studying economics and statistics and all that stuff, gravitating toward opportunities to be involved in human growth and development, and loved it. That tension came to a head when I was working on the family business in a feed manufacturing plant, in the middle of the night inside a railroad car, a voice spoke I'm unreflected, I was exhausted, and a voice came through, loud, I'm not becoming who I am. That's pretty declarative and hard.
Bob Anderson: It's not a silent voice, and I took it seriously, and I started with a question, I won't get into the whole story, but the question that emerged from [00:17:12] What must I write? You know, as a poet, must I write was his question. What must I be about in this life? To live a life I came here to live and that's someone else's life. And that was a questionnaire lived with for a while as I worked in the feed plant. And I started a journal, and I listed out things that had mattered to me that when I was around that I came alive, this is what lit me up, and this is, you know, other times when I was most bored or distracted or agitated, what was going on in these life, how was life speaking to me? And the pattern emerged.
Bob Anderson: It just became very clear, even though it was like really [00:18:08] Hmm, how do I build a life on it? I want to help people grow and develop psychologically, professionally, spiritually. How do I make a dog food, you know? But I said yes, and after quite a bit of hesitation and then the synchronicities arose. Literally the first day I took it seriously, I went to the training department and the company I didn't even know we had one. I heard about it.
Bob Anderson: When you guys do, oh, by the way, there's a guy who just graduated from a master's in organization. He just joined the team. He's right in the office next door. You might want to talk to him. I go into his office. Yeah, sure. Oh, by the way, the program starts next week. [00:19:00] I called the head of the department, he says, yeah, don't even enroll, just come, just join.
Bob Anderson: If you don't like it, no problem. If you like it, we'll get you enrolled. I mean, this was like, so a week later, I'm in a master's program. And my life has had that kind of synchronistic magic ever since. And so I've learned to trust it. And I've actually cultivated it with, learning practices of intuition, which my rational mind dismissed completely. And so I did, when my wife and I travel around the world before we had kids, I made an experiment.
Bob Anderson: I'm going to do intuitive exercise exploration every day write down everything I get. And then I won't evaluate until I get home. And it could be a bunch of garbage, or it could be more interesting than that. [00:20:01] I didn't know well, let me out, halfway through. More or less than halfway through, I was just stunned. By what I was learning, I was writing things down. I didn't understand. And then people would give me a book along the way.
Bob Anderson: And I'd read this book and I said, that's what I just wrote down. And I didn't understand it. And I was in those that trip that I decided to start my own business quite unexpectedly. Well, it wasn't a shred of an idea when I left. And I wrote down what was gonna unfold and Kim, my wife, reminds me, on a regular basis. Oh, you remember when you wrote that down? Well, here it is, just happened. taught my really strong inner critic and left-brain bullshit detector to kind of let go and trust this.
Bob Anderson: [00:21:04] And I'm in it again, a minute now, a few years ago I went on a speaking tour in Africa. And I decided I was 65, and I just finished around of writing a couple of books and it's like what's next. And I decided to use a thought experiment. I assume I only have five good years to live. Let's assume that. What wants to come through me in five years? Now as a business person entrepreneur creating a business, I know it takes a long time to pull something through. So I didn't give myself a year to live, it pack up your belongings and say goodbye.
Bob Anderson: I didn't give myself 10 years because I'm 65 and that would put me at 75 and there's no guarantees. [00:22:01] So five years was like, I think I could pull something meaningful through in five years. So what wants to come through and who do I want to become in service of that over those five years? That was the question. And I found another must that came through with that feeling of yes. I looked back the times I was most alive with some communities of transformation. And so I must convene and leave communities of transformation. which I didn't even have as an idea, that time.
Bob Anderson: Listen and follow.
Joel Monk: [00:22:50] I've got a few questions that bubble up. I want to share a story that, so I'm hearing that there's over time we've learned to trust this voice, and I recognize that too in my own life, [00:23:04] some of these stories are quite funny. I remember when I was in my early 20s and I just come back from India and I just didn't know what to do. So I just got this job like training to work in a credit card call center department. So I did like two weeks of training and then it was the last day and then this same thing happened. This voice just said this is not it in the training room and I said, I asked a girl, I'm not meant to be here.
Joel Monk: Wow. And I thought that the lady who trained us, I thought she was going to say, you wasted our time with two weeks in and now you tell us you don't want to do this. But on the way out, she said, He's like, good for you. I think I'm out. Go for it. [00:24:00] So, but then what blew my mind was I literally got down through the elevator, walked out of the building, and I got a phone call from this lady I knew. And at the time I was working also as an artist.
Joel Monk: You know, I trained as an artist. And she said, I've got this project for you. It's a community art project. Do you want to come in and be part of it? And I was, I was stunned. So this seems like there's something about you have to step off a cliff a little bit, you know, and I say that with humility because I also resist this and sometimes I really want to know things are going to work out before I say yes to it, you know, so that's a story I wanted to share and I wondered if you could. You said some things I think were important like instead of. What do I want to create?
Joel Monk: And hearing you say, what does life want to create through me? And I found that a very powerful question, like a metaphor and a koan that can prime one to receive this information. [00:25:09] And that inspiration is a key part of it. Could you say more about what practices of you use
Bob Anderson: [00:25:27] Well, that's a, uh, many, uh, I mentioned the practices that I, and I'm learned from, I actually learned from innovation associates, which was Peter Senge's organization and led the field in leadership and can turn to thought leadership in the 80s. And they had a, uh, practice called balancing intuition and reason, and they taught intuition techniques. And that's when I, those were the experiments I was running, but then I, I found myself intuitively guided, which is another long, but amazing story, I ended up in the proper, the Barbara Brennan School of Healing for four years, which is. [00:26:10] all about opening up higher sense perception and being able to work very, very specifically and within the human energy field with real precision, different layers and deeper levels of the field. And it was astonishing. My mind was blown every day, I was there over four years. And that opened up more pathways. And
Bob Anderson: some of the energetic practices I learned there, open up much more current can flow through the field. And you learn to conduct more and more energy, which is information, which is the field is an informational vibratory field. And so how do we access higher dimensions of that [00:27:06] kind of as our frequency matches that frequency information can exchange and then you've got insight. And so that's been a practice and then I came back at the end of that school I started to incorporate those practices into my meditation practice so it became a kind of meditation and energetic practice. which I now understand is deep in the ancient traditions. I didn't know that then. Wisdom traditions and some of the traditions contradict traditions, Kashmir Shaivism, for example, that was an energy circulation as a gateway to higher perception and to higher awareness.
Bob Anderson: And so that became a practice, and things really opened up. So there are practices that are not hard to learn actually. [00:28:02] They're very accessible. That if you do them, you learn to conduct more and more energy or light or information, same, same, through the field of your body. Einstein described it just that way, that his, he said, the intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. I, 99 times, I think, I get nothing. I sit in silence and ideas, I, you know, I swim in silence and ideas come to me.
Bob Anderson: So this, hard work of trying to figure things out and then a capacity to sit and stillness and silence and allow the energy to flow and ideas right in. [00:29:03] It's magic and it comes directly in response to what I'm either wrestling with or what's wanted of me. Some of it by surprise.
Joel Monk: [00:29:19] I want to come back to the practices a little bit later because I think there's a lot to say about that. I would like to connect what you're sharing now to leadership and itself and the world we find ourselves in right now. the need or the relevancy for leaders to begin to, you know, to open to this sense of purpose and intuition and be guided by it and, you know, when I look out into the world right now, I feel there's this kind of duality on the one hand, if I look at the mainstream media and, you know, some of this is really true, like there's a lot of devastating things unfolding. [00:30:15] There's also, you know, the media tends to portray things in a certain light, but you know, there's a lot of devastating things happening. This seems to be a lot of also leaders who are reacting in the world as well, and so that's one thing. But on the other hand, I see a massive movement of people who are doing deeper spiritual work, trauma healing, movement and body practice. If I look around my friends, I see a lot of us talking about feeling the sense a deep sense of inspiration which doesn't make sense, you know, if I look at the news.
Joel Monk: And I'm just sharing that as a little bit of context for this question again about. what's going on in the world right now and the relevancy for us to begin to access and I imagine there's many cultures where I don't want to say like we're just discovering some of this, you know, many ancient cultures and indigenous cultures. [00:31:10] I want to honor them, they have already privilege these things we're talking about.
Bob Anderson: [00:31:16] So what's the relevancy for leadership? I actually found myself observing that in meditation this morning. I get science feeds on Facebook and other things, because I'm really interested in physics and science, and then I just keep feeding us stuff. What's emerging is remarkable. I mean, just remarkable, the potentiality that we are developing, a potential for a cancer vaccine, potential for virtually free energy, breakthroughs, and nuclear fusion. [00:32:05] And even free energy, extract and directly from the field, making matter from the field literally just with light, making matter, or quantum computing, where, and just saw using, I think, was a photons, or a qubits, or maybe electronic trans as the quantum unit.
Bob Anderson: They're able to do a calculation that would take in four hours, they did a calculation that would take a supercomputer of, like, four billion years. Artificial intelligence was all of its risks, but all of its capabilities were. we are developing unprecedented capability. And so the possibility of a world that works for everyone, for all life, is there for the taking. [00:33:09] We're coming into tremendous capacity. and level of awareness, development, which is what we're all about, is way behind the curve. And so it could equally be a period of tremendous destruction. And poor the generation that's gonna decide it.
Bob Anderson: I mean, I might not be around for how things play out over the next 25 to 30 years, And we are challenged to literally rewrite our relationship with this planet, with each other, with governance, with energy, with sustainability. [00:34:10] All of this has to be rewritten. But we're in a time where the order we've lived in is imploding. It's coming apart at the seams. And we can't put Humpty Dumpty back together again. And back to normal is a death sentence, really. So we have to reinvent a society altogether.
Bob Anderson: That's the challenge. And it goes way beyond VUCA and BANI for leaders. that's so we're challenged with how do I lead and how my organization thrive because that's our job together, but also do that in a way that believes in the wake of our activity a world that works, how are we part of this emergent solution? [00:35:21] And nobody knows how, so you've got a company like Syngenta that we work with that has traditionally put chemicals on the earth that are toxic, and they're trying to create a reinvent their business in a way that actually renews the planet. They're working with climate scientists, they're working with nature conservancy, they're serious about, we can do agriculture in a way that restores the earth. That's a leadership that's taking the current challenge seriously and saying, how do we use how are we as an organization trying to be used by this emerged in the future and so there are hopeful signs there and that the key is nobody knows how no one knows that collectively we might have enough collective intelligence to move the needle. [00:36:20] But largely what we're learning as leaders are learning what we talked about back in the 80s dialogue with David Bohm, Bill Isaacs's work on dialogue influenced by Chris Argyris, how to sit and listen to the field of intelligence, how to be informed by it precisely where we're stuck, where we need to break through. And this sounds like we will practice, but if you understand the physics of the field, it's not, it's how the field works.
Bob Anderson: And we've grown up in a paradigm, as you mentioned, we've destroyed our indigenous traditions. [00:37:07] We've completely reduced to mythology, our wisdom traditions. And what stands at the forefront at the center of our Current paradigm is a scientific materialist view of reality, which is dead, lifeless, random, disconnected, empty space, empty, there's no connection. And it's fundamentally off, it's not reality. And so the findings of quantum physics haven't made the mainstream yet, and when they do, we can bring back in all these traditions that we've said is worthless. So we're literally at a time right now when we're reconstructing our paradigm, [00:38:04] around the principle of our inherent unity and oneness and wholeness, and that must become the guiding principle in the emerging future.
Bob Anderson: So how do we Update our paradigm, sit in the kind of pregnant unknown and listen to be informed by what wants to emerge in a way that serves the welfare not only in our organization and the ecosystem of our organization but the whole planet. That's the challenge and frankly we don't have any choice about. And it's not going to happen through governments kind of all of a sudden saying, you know what, we got to change the game. It's going to happen when enough morally enlightened leadership says we're going to change the way things operate here and cooperate together to create a new order in the midst of the implosion of the old.
Joel Monk: [00:39:12] Later we'll talk about shadow because I feel like it's a breakthrough, you know, I already knew this, but something that dropped to me even recently was, and it's easy for me to say this because I'm privileged as well. So I want to, but I was struggling with what was happening in the world, but I dropped into a sense of the gift of the invitation into my own in a life and you know, what wasn't resolved inside of me, so in a sense like the intensity of what's unfolding in the world is actually increasing the efficacy and the need to kind of to feel what needs to be felt inside of me, to metabolize what wants to be metabolized. [00:40:05] And so I felt that and there was a great sense of fear, but as I felt it, there was a sense of inspiration and love that was liberated inside of that. And so, I want to ask, I mean, I've kind of teed up shadow amount, but I'm going to, we're going to go into it, but I, and then I'm going to bring someone live in a moment. So if you've got a question, I just want to see if you're ready to bring that live. But whilst people are raising their hands, you know, if there's anything you want to share, bring in anything that touches your question, you can just raise your hand and we'll come to you.
Joel Monk: that there are people, there are leaders out there who are open to this, you know, they're ready for it. They recognize the need, the necessity to, you know, to listen in a different way to work collectively to find new solutions.
Bob Anderson: [00:41:09] I do. And we're finding them in our work and organizations. And we, in the unity academy, we have coaches that are drawn to this journey and they're in contact with leaders who are also drawn to this journey. So part of what's unfolding now for us and this kind of the next stage is how do we find those leaders and bring them together? So, yes, I was on a call yesterday with a colleague of mine, he's going to be hosting a global conference of more leading-edge leaders around the crisis we're in and it's sponsored by the [00:42:09] And he was asking me, who do you know, at very high levels of effectiveness in the world, an impact in the world that could come to a conference like this, and so, You know, Jude Currivan, who you know, is working with a whole group of leaders and practitioners, or this is the question, how do we change the world? How do we create regenerative economics?
Bob Anderson: How do we create a world based on the principle of unity? And so it's it's emerging now and and our role as coaches plays a vital vital part. I see hands going up. I wanted to say something about shadow because we've mentioned it. [00:43:03] I've talked about accessing this field and opening a larger or higher frequencies which are deeper, higher is deeper, more subtle, subtle is more powerful, actually. And so as we open to those currents. Our experience in working with people is even simple energetic practices and people hit shadows. They get nauseous, they go out of the room, they get scared, they, it just emerges.
Bob Anderson: Like, as soon as you open to more light, more shadow emerges, and you hit, as it comes through the body, it hits the blocks, and they start to reverberate. And so you can't, you can't fully open unwinding that, constriction, those contracted parts of ourselves, and what I've learned about that is that it's not darkness, it's actually contracted essence, contracted light, my essence. [00:44:10] But I've taken offline at some point in intergenerationally or earlier in my life, however, that works. This is not okay. This part of you is not okay. and it's wrapped in shame, it's wrapped in terror, it's wrapped in self-loathing, it's wrapped in a lot of intense emotion, but inside it is essence waiting to be unwound, unwound, unwound, same word. And so as we take on more light, there's more of a,
Bob Anderson: a loving, open-hearted presence that can meet this, these possessed parts of ourselves, and welcome them back into the unity of things. And that's shadow work. [00:45:00] It's, uh, and it's essential because otherwise, we restrict the flow and the full creativity that wants to come through can't, but also If our, if we're full of shadows and distortions, Well, we're going to recreate that into the new systems as we architect them. So it's essential that we do this work and be clear vessels for the future that needs to emerge now. So as coaches, it's also imperative in lots of ways because we If we haven't met these parts in ourselves and aren't able to hold them in reverence and love and curiosity and welcome, then when the client brings it to us, we can't meet them that way.
Bob Anderson: [00:46:02] We go into our own reaction, our own contraction. And that isn't to say we can't be helpful, but we lose that resonance you talk about. We contract that resonance, which is the transformative elixir, and alchemical agent of transformation. So it's imperative as coaches that we do that, and it's imperative to the creative process because the full flow of energy through the whole body. head, heart and pelvis, the whole body, all those centers need to be open for the full flow of creativity that we're talking about. constant work of both and our profession gets I think a psychologically over emphasizes that the shadow work you see it in trauma centered therapy and so on it's a lot of shadow work but we don't hear a lot about how do we open the pathway so light and love and current and when you get those two together in one practice it's so very transformative
Joel Monk: [00:47:18] I'd like to take a stand for the coaching community reclaiming that because I think it's been great that we embrace trauma-informed work has been essential and yes, sometimes it feels like we we miss again like the accessing that sense of intuition or the vision that wants the download to crystallize. So I'm really glad you speak to that. Let's bring some people live now and then we'll talk a bit more and I'll just bring people live as they are on my screen as they raise
Audience Member: [00:48:02] Yeah, thank you. Thank you, um, good to see you, Bob. Good to see you, Joel. Yeah, what you just spoke to, um, what I noticed is like, I've recently taken on my own personal mantra of like trust life and tell the truth and like both of those things are doing this together as hard. So I noticed that the hardest part of telling the truth is where I'm not trusting life. It's such a paradox, right? And so these moments when life is clearly spoken to me, and the temptation is, no, I'm not the guy. So, I'm not me, please, dad.
Audience Member: And that backing away is so terrifying, but then the listening, you know, that it sticks out, it's like, okay, what was that? The next time it comes, okay, let me listen a little bit more. And so this moment, as you said, is so provocatively enormous, the temptation to say, not me, at the same time, Now life is whispering something to me. [00:49:01] What is that? Not my certainty, the shadow part of it's not me. I'm not big enough on that, I'm unworthy. But I saw this, oh yeah, this is mine.
Audience Member: Now I need to go forward and sing. Now that's also not quite a tune. It's this quietness in this intense moment that quiet place. And so I'm really curious about the practices that, I mean, certainly, It helps to have a practice in, you know, to be ready for it. But in the moments where this, the life has handed me something that I, my practice doesn't feel like I've produced a pair of me for how to, in humility, merge with that, with that invitation. Does that question make sense?
Bob Anderson: [00:49:46] Absolutely. A couple things come to mind, one is a line in the David Whyte poem. I don't know the whole poem, but just a line. It only takes the half turn of your face, just the half turn of your face, toward truth, to scare yourself to the very core. [00:50:11] The poetic traditions, mythological traditions, don't mince words here. So this is just the relationship between what I want or what's wanted of me and then everything in me that's not prepared for that would be terrified to go for that is in my face. So yes, it's a scary thing. It's not, there is that inner feeling that Joel described of joy of yes, it's like, yes, and then it's like, oh, shit, really, and then that I love this Moana experience, I don't know if you've seen the cartoon, the movie, Moana, which is such a beautiful experience said in
Bob Anderson: [00:51:13] and she's like, oh me, yeah, I'm not buying somebody else, that's, I hear that a lot in my coaching when people are at the edge of something that wants their way that's like, well, I think it's very common, but here's the thing, here's a thing that happened for me when I said yes to the unity academy, and there was a moment where I said yes. Then it hits the fan. I would be walking up in the middle of the night in terror. in deep shame. The shadow work just started coming in. [00:52:00] And it was as if the universe said, okay, let's get in prepared. So in a very real sense, you're not ready.
Bob Anderson: And there's work to be done. And when you say yes, the universe says yes back, And then the downloads come and the shadow has come and there's a whole process which is continuing to this day that's unfolding. And I'm at the effect of it. I'm being worked. I'm not working on myself. I'm being worked and prepared. that's my experience of it.
Bob Anderson: So saying yes, even though there's a voice going, who me, I'm not, that's, that's it.
Audience Member: [00:53:05] It occurs to me that it's, that it's kind of a purpose yoga, right? And saying yes. the bigness is like, okay, breathe into that big as part of yoga is breathing into the moment because I can feel the constriction, right, the immediate tightening. There's like, oh, it's like, okay, breathe into that. That's exactly what it's thought to breathe into.
Bob Anderson: [00:53:24] And there's the work, right? There. Beautiful.
Joel Monk: [00:53:27] Thank you.
Bob Anderson: [00:53:29] Just do it.
Joel Monk: [00:53:30] I feel like that's that's kind of like so beautiful point you bring in David and it's kind of the edge isn't it that it It's not all nice and easy, but it's that it's shocking often. I remember I once was on a a vision quest and I spent the whole day like drumming and I did a death ceremony and I was you know it was like heating up and it was like six hours in and I got to this point I could feel like this is I want you know and been drumming and chanting and [00:54:02] and then a kind of crescendoed to this point where I was crying, and I was looking around, and I looked at this tree, and it was covered in moss, and it was like loom in the screen, it was like shining on me, and it just said, build a school. And to be honest, the first thing that happened was I was like, no, yeah, I was like, no. So I had had other little bits of information come through and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, that kind of fits with how I see myself, but this one piece was I build a school and it's like shocking no and and to this day, you know, I still don't feel like I fully manifested that and that's okay. It's a journey that the truth of that expression is still revealing itself through me as my life goes on. I think as you spoke to this Bob, there's often a thread isn't there.
Joel Monk: to these things that come, that start to make sense when you look back, you can see, oh yeah, there is a gold and thread, a red thread here. [00:55:06] Yeah, maybe come to another question, Tiva, I'm really especially Tiva, it's so good to see you. We've interacted online for a number of years. And you know, I just, I feel a lot of care for you. And for someone I'm only interacting with online. That's really beautiful. So I'm delighted to see you here.
Tiva: [00:55:30] Yeah.
Joel Monk: [00:55:30] Oh, are you?
Tiva: [00:55:31] Good. Thank you, Joel. And I've been stalking you for a long time, right from the gratitude and appreciation. And I actually see the physiologic shift in changing your facial structure. I just want to appreciate how long you've been doing this work and how you continue to model and sort of grow and expand and, you know, Bob, I really appreciate kind of the humility and your own journey. So I work in an organization where LCP is embedded. [00:56:00] I'm an LCP practitioner and then I'm taking Joel's Power of Embodied Transformation work and I've studied with some of those teachers. You know, so I work in a biotech company.
Tiva: LCP is embedded as the reference point for our leaders. But it's still primarily cognitive, right? So we have the creative and the reactive at a cognitive level, not at a neurobiological identity, whole person, whole system level. And given that you're the founder, the originator of the LCP and you're in your own journey, how do we hold it? while we have five minutes, 45 minutes, right? To me, that's the paradox that I'm very dedicated to this work in everyday sort of working it and the work is working me. And in corporate space, the window, the attention, the possibility is like millimeter. [00:57:05] And we need eternity to work that millimeter,
Tiva: any sort of offerings to work that eternity in a millimeter in a five second window.
Bob Anderson: [00:57:24] Slow down. Now we were just last week I was, We were videoing an 83-year-old Aikido Master. It's been three days trying to document on video his life work of applying Aikido principles and practice and movement and embody energetic practice to leadership. And he's worked with senior leaders his whole life. [00:58:04] uh... and you know his voice was failing so you know it was like we're glad we're doing this now because he may not be around much longer and what i noticed in the Aikido was that when i'm pretty really present in in the flow in the field i have all the time i need like there's a time dilation effect when you move into this presence and you don't need like there's a turning of the inner instant. So where's the secret opening here?
Bob Anderson: How do I get present enough and listen enough to see it, to feel it, to speak into it and then a lot can [00:59:01] And that's the power of deep, deep presence. And so, I think the question is, how do I hold that in the midst of this frenetic reality? And then the other thing I would say is that I actually created the leadership circle. to get a kinesthetic access to get into the body, not in the head, and so in the top half it's all built around longing, it's all built around what matters most, that's our tagline, which is a nice intellectual concept, but we've been talking about that this whole time. What's the felt sense of this deeper pull and longing that I must be about? [01:00:00] Not as a should, but as a kind of a soul's unwillingness to invest in a compromise. Some of that, this speaks to our profession is if I can't drop into that frequency and hold it with them, they can't access it.
Bob Anderson: So we walk now with Bill and I, my partner, Bill, we walk into Honda, high potential leaders that are in a week-long program. And we've been doing this work of stepping into deeper presence. And we're now doing it together. We walk in and they just drop right in with us. Like right from the get-go, because we start there. And we're covering the same ground. The same framework, but from a deeper resonance, and they just go, so that's the challenge. [01:01:07] And everything we've been speaking to, it speaks to that.
Bob Anderson: Thank you. The other thing I would say is the bottom half underneath as a belief in assumption. Any one of those dimensions, I have to be loved and liked all the time or I'm worthless. So I'm giving up power, for example. Well, how do we use that little sliver as a way that's kinesthetic, where I actually feel it and I can see through it to its illusion and see through it how it's running me in ways I didn't realize in every meeting. And it's not the case. [01:02:00] It made sense as a young person, it may be saved by life.
Bob Anderson: And that frees up so that the work has to go deeper and they won't go there on their own. They'll only go there if we can hold enough presence to meet them and call them into it. And in some ways it's a Trojan horse, I'll say, we'll talk about, you know, like a dimension like that and say, well, can you give me an example of that? Are you willing to explore that? And if they say, yes, that's my invitation. Okay, let's really drop underneath that. And then it becomes a bodily experience rather than a, than an intellectual one, which is a little use, frankly. [01:03:01] I don't know if that's on KTV.
Tiva: [01:03:03] It was completely full because it slowed me down.
Bob Anderson: [01:03:08] Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. There's a line in a poem. It's an old Dao's poem called Cutting Up and Ox. And he's talking about. The tough joints, you know, I said, I slow down my whole being apprehends and then in that awareness that thin space is all the space I need. I'm paraphrasing it's more beautifully written than that.
Bob Anderson: This thinness, the thinness of his blade can find that space and there's all the space I need.
Joel Monk: [01:03:52] I'm going to bring in one more question. And then I have a question for your Bob as well. At the topic, I'd love to tee up for a few minutes. [01:04:00] And then we'll open up to more questions. We've turned the recording off even as well. But Rosela, would you come live and share what you'd love to share?
Rosalina: [01:04:13] Yeah, thank you. It's Rosela. Thank you. Yeah. So I have a curiosity around, you know, at the beginning, you were talking about this sense of when you're most alive versus when you're bored or agitated as leaning into recognizing this calling. And I can see in a retrospect very clearly, having had that moment, like both of you, I can tell that story. and I can see that there were times previous to that clarity that I would have said I feel most alive in this other place or doing this other thing. And so I'm having a curiosity around what comes up for me is maybe there were some unmet needs or maybe there were some shadow happening there and the curiosity is around maybe practices for discernment
Rosalina: [01:05:08] around what is that true calling essence of aliveness versus something else that's maybe just excitement or and I'm also recognizing in myself perhaps that's all part of the process and I'm just trying to jump ahead. But I'd love to get both of your feedback or thoughts on that.
Bob Anderson: [01:05:33] I want you to want to start.
Joel Monk: [01:05:35] Yeah, I do. I thought about this. It's a great question, actually. Rosalina, Rosla, Rosalina, yeah, you'll need to again. But I'll go ahead and write my apologies again.
Rosalina: [01:05:48] Yeah, I know what it is.
Joel Monk: [01:05:49] Rosalina, yeah. Firstly, I think that I wrestled with what I call a tyranny of purpose. where at one point I was like, well, what is it, you know, like I need to know what this higher purpose is and it started to kind of berate me, you know, and it felt it actually that that questioning was coming from a place of lack, you know, an essence of needing certainty and so it was actually very helpful to relax around it and [01:06:25] not take it too seriously and at the same time which you know allows those parts to relax and maybe do shadow work with the parts etc but and at the same time of course also take it seriously um so what I found is it in a way my response is it's both it's both It's both that in those moments, there is an undeniable voice that comes through. And just, you know, I remember one night I woke up, and this is vulnerable to share this phrase, bringing the light of God down into other's hearts. [01:07:00] It's just like bringing in my mind, and I was like, Normally, I'd try and write it down, but I knew I didn't need to.
Joel Monk: So I went back to sleep, and the same braise woke me up about five or six times throughout the night. And in the morning, it was still there. And that braise is still working me. You know, I don't know, even though it means a lot to me, and I feel it. I feel the frequency of it. I still feel like I don't fully know and embody what that means. And that's okay. and to keep it playful, also the things that inspires and we're passionate about are also great indicators of what life is calling as into.
Joel Monk: And we can access that very easily. You know, so it doesn't need to be just in the domain of work, you know, I think if we see that this higher calling this this sense of being moved in life can shop in every aspect of our lives and question that I've loved is, you know, when I'm when I'm deeply inspired, what am I serving? [01:08:10] in life. What am I serving the emergence of in life for? Just keep it, you know, what are my most passionate about and you will, you will start to feel the frequency of that thing resonating within you. It's more of a place to live from than a place to reach, you know, sometimes it can feel like tension. Like I've got to get to that place where it's all clear and I know it and I won't be okay until I get to that place. But I think it's actually more of a place to live from and to meet ourselves in the shadow that gets activated.
Joel Monk: So that's what I would share about you, Bob.
Bob Anderson: [01:08:51] Your question is the process. It's a discerning question. [01:09:00] It was, what was the have a liveness? And even if it may have been a shadow expression or a mirror excitement, what was embedded in it, that I need to pay attention to. And so you're in the sifting process. When I spoke out loud, I'm not becoming going, I went, I knew in the moment. And when I read the must thing from Rilke, which was a couple weeks later, I went, that's the question, and I have the answer. I know that if I sift the database of my life experience, that life has been speaking to me, and so those two questions emerged, most alive, least alive, and I quickly wrote down about 14 things that I think were most.
Bob Anderson: And I, I then wrote about each one, very carefully, very slowly like feel into it. [01:10:04] What is this? How do I know this is real? How do I, where did I learn this? Why is this important to me? And just feeling listening, writing intuitively, and there were moments in that where I went, God, if I write this down, I'll cross a bridge. I can't go back on. that was the earlier question about the scary truth.
Bob Anderson: I knew and then I would write it. So there is a dropping in and a listening and taking your time with it and the truth will out. And it's remarkable. I wrote down things like I want to help people grow and develop and I want to be technically challenged. And I was like, I don't know how to put those two things together. It felt like if I, if I had an direction of helping people grow and develop, I leave my love of the technical, I grew up, my dad was an engineer, I loved building things, I loved working with engineers, I loved all that. [01:11:12] I didn't know how I was going to get that. And look at what I'm folded.
Bob Anderson: I've got, you know, creating the Leadership Circle Profile was statistical, and we were the first to put it on the, I put a assessment like that online was a technical challenge. And it's been one ever since. So I'm deep in technology. And so it's very interesting how, uh, those
Joel Monk: [01:11:51] and anything that comes to you. I'd love to share with us before we move on.
Rosalina: [01:11:57] Yeah, I love the reminder and this has felt true for me as well of the question or the noticing is the journey and I guess that's where the challenges is for both myself and in support with clients is helping the noticing to slow down and really pay attention and noticing not just like thinking on my own journey there was a liveness there was excitement but I can see there were places that felt [01:12:21] not in alignment or not healthy for me in retrospect. I can see how it was encouraging me to go to places that weren't good for me. So noticing that, too, and the other thing that I've noticed is where I'm willing to risk. And where I'm willing to stay committed has been really informative. Like the areas of what I'm doing and what I'm willing to take bigger risks for or to be more committed to put in more efforts. Those have been some really helpful clues as well. But I feel like it just always comes back down to slowing down.
Rosalina: [01:13:00] Where we started slow down, listen. So thank you both.
Bob Anderson: [01:13:07] paradoxical because we can learn to slow down quickly. We can develop a practice of really just dropping in and dropping open with practice and so slowing down becomes the time dilation in the way that Einstein talked about it where time actually slows and then the things happen. Awareness, Terri O'Fallon is very clear about what happens in her third tier of awareness of awareness is very fast. It's way faster than the human mind. So the subtle tier in her framework is about the development of the human mind and then all of a sudden you become into a whole new tier. [01:14:02] And people can't finish their sentences because awareness is way ahead of them. And it takes some time to adapt to the speed of it.
Bob Anderson: So this slowing down and dropping in is actually accessing a subtler range in the field and the subtler is faster. it's a higher frequency. It's like the like we think of as our cell phone. It's a higher processing speed. That's what happens. And so it's slowing down, but it's not, uh, it's time efficient.
Joel Monk: [01:14:50] Thank you for your great question. I'm gonna, gonna shelve the question I had, and I think I just want to take a couple more questions and see where we end up. [01:15:01] So Yasmin, what's been your life? Welcome.
Yasmin: [01:15:12] Thank you. Hello. I'm gonna take the opportunity to thank you for the Leadership Circle Profile Bob. I've recently certified and felt like it brings everything together and that I've, and more, it truly is universal. It's a universal and so helpful in my work. So thank you for that. I have a question which is when you said, you know, when you say yes, the shadow and It feels like whether you want it or not, the times that we're living in are bringing up stuff for everyone and people are going, I don't know what to do with this.
Yasmin: And so they're seeking help because all of our stuff is coming to the surface, that's what it feels like to me. [01:16:06] And all of the things that worked before, all of the reactive isn't working anymore. So my question is really how, because I work with senior leaders in organizations where they're very thinking based and they come, you know, needing help, wanting help, but it might not appreciate the language of unity. And so I still feel they're developing their going through the stages, but my question is, do we need to be aware of the journey or can we go on the journey without knowing the steps of the journey? My sense is yes, but I'd love you, perspective on this.
Bob Anderson: [01:17:02] I've never known the steps of the journey.
Yasmin: [01:17:05] I mean, the adult development, you know, the home.
Bob Anderson: [01:17:08] Yeah, I absolutely think so. I think that it's a very useful framework for practitioners to understand what's going on and to maybe dial in the work a little more precisely or to notice when people Um, can't really embrace what you're talking about because it's later stage. So I don't go ahead and talk about unity. I don't talk about much of this. I presence it and then I do the work that's there to do with the listening that's there to work with. And, um, that's that's mastery. That's why
Bob Anderson: in the earlier language Susan Cook-Greuter's model and Bill Torbert's model, you had in these later states magician and alchemist, because there's a magician in the kind of capacity to enter into the spaces, [01:18:14] where the person most needs to work with real presence and then magic would happen. That's the kind of magician quality that can develop in these later stages. So the models are useful, in fact, in another huge integration project looking across all the great wisdom traditions. literally, like, well, and I'm done with 30 of them and then realize this within those traditions and what I'm seeing is that there's a meta pattern of phenomenology, like how experience unfolds across the millennia of time and all these traditions, truly a universal [01:19:10] with lots of nuance around it in these different traditions and differences, but there's an underlying metapattern, and that points to an ontology, that points to the structure of reality itself, and therefore the structure of the human, body and energy and psyche and how all that is structured. So there is a path.
Bob Anderson: There is a way in which development tends to proceed because of that structure. And I think the great traditions were mapping on top of it. mapping reality. And as we fuse with it, as we merge with it more deeply, these capacities unfold, these experiences unfold naturally. [01:20:00] So you don't need to know the map, but it's really helpful in these great traditions, like the Sufi tradition, for example. You would get to hooked up with a master who could actually guide you through the stations, they called of realization, of reality, deeper layers of reality. So it's a helpful thing for practitioners to have the map, but you don't need to have the map in order to proceed.
Bob Anderson: If I'm a leader, here's the work in front of me now. How can I meet that as a coach and be helpful? They don't need the map. And they're actually not interested in the map until later stages. Yeah, okay, all the stages there is to talk about that, but there'd be a Susan Cook-Greuter or Terri O'Fallon and you can call it whatever, it doesn't matter. At certain earlier, you're not yet able to see the map and you don't care, it's only later that you go, oh wow, I've gone through this whole process and you get interested in the map.
Yasmin: [01:21:10] Yeah, so it's all just in service of being more effective at what I'm doing right now. That's the, you know, yeah, and that's fine. Yeah, that's all.
Bob Anderson: [01:21:19] Yeah, that's all. That's all. That's all. It's good for really.
Yasmin: [01:21:21] Yeah. Great. Thank you.
Joel Monk: [01:21:24] I could add something here. I found it. Just to build on what you're sharing is that In my own experience, what's been very powerful as well as to work with the states that correlate with stages because states are something I can really work within the present moment and not to try to make clients go to certain states, but there's a way that I can be an embodiment [01:22:02] start to crystallize and become more of the structure, the identity of the client. So having a generative ontology, you know, something like a universal ontology that supports the remote, as Bob said earlier in the core, what is it that supports the emergence of life itself in the coaching conversation as being very powerful, me, because, yeah, so if not, I can get caught in kind of trying to map stages to my client in the coaching conversation itself, which can be useful, but it can also create a distance between, you know, the presence, the intimacy of being with another being as you're in this co-emergent dialogue together. And yeah, I think this is a really important topic and we could explore this in a future podcast as well.
Joel Monk: [01:23:02] Yeah, Yasmin. Thank you.
Joel Monk: [01:23:05] Thank you.
Joel Monk: [01:23:06] Thank you. Yeah. There's a couple of things like, one I'd like to actually invite you to share in the chat. Everybody who's with us, how could we serve you more deeply? How could coaches rising serve you more deeply on your coaching journey? And then whilst you're doing that, Bob, you know, I've looked to come back to you and first of all, thank you for taking part in this. I think this has been a really, really exquisite.
Joel Monk: I'm trying to find the word exquisite conversation and there's anything you want to share with people here and with people on the podcast listening in closing.
Bob Anderson: [01:23:49] Oh, I think we've said a lot. I'm I'm I'm drawn to the words that awakened you in the night.
Joel Monk: [01:24:01] What were those words? bringing the light of God down into other thoughts? Yeah.
Bob Anderson: [01:24:16] Yeah, I just want to honor those words. It aligns with how I've when I'm coming to know about life. See, the deepest, the deepest layer of our being, however you define ultimate reality. God, and Brahmin emptiness doesn't matter. That's our, that's our, of ground of being. We are that. And it's luminous. It's empty luminosity.
Bob Anderson: And when you're in contact with it, it's just utterly blissful, joyful, still, and I think what I'm most wanting to impart is the ability to have joy coursing through your body all the time. [01:25:22] and enjoy bliss, love, equanimity, stillness, all in one movement, or that's possible. And in that, I do my best work, so I don't care how we define this profundity. But it's accessible, it's real, and you can become more and more unified with it. [01:26:01] And as you do, life gets even in difficult times, there's a center of joy that becomes more and more visceral or more embodied. And I would have that for everyone. And if I think if that became a more prevalent reality, we would have a very different form.
Joel Monk: [01:26:28] Well, man, but that, yeah. Thank you, Bob. Thank you, sincerely. And everybody has been on the call and no effort hosting us. Here we are. We're at the end of the podcast. Just a heads up again. If you're not on our mailing list and you want to stay in the loop about other things we create, then head to coaches rising.com.
Joel Monk: Put your name in the sign-up box there. You'll also find some of our other offerings, our online trainings for coaches there. And just want to end by wishing you well and I'll see you again next time.