Manage To Engage | Businesses Grow When People Do

In the last episode, I invited you to make two assumptions about The Great Mystery: One, everyone can experience it and that does not require belief or being special. Two, it is always there. There’s no more of it in a church than in a gutter.   So if it’s always there, what stops you from being with it? That’s the question we’re going to explore today. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

We often talk about wrestling with our own authority issues, namely the issues we have with our parents. This isn’t due to some Freudian hang up – this is because you can’t truly practice self-authority until you do the work to stop unconsciously or consciously submitting to your parents’ will.   And when you make this shift, something incredible happens – you start to relate to life itself, to the Universe, to The Great Mystery. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

Your shadow is running your life.   Maybe not all the time, but your shadow is calling the shots more than you realize, and that’s why it’s so important to recognize those seemingly unimportant moments that we discussed in the last episode: when your shadow feels comfortable coming out into the open and you have the opportunity to make a choice and, with confidence, take charge of your own life.   People think of their shadow as some part of them that drags them down – this cliche of holding yourself back – but today I want to discuss why this is the understatement of the century, and a few small ways you can relieve that burden. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

The moments when change actually happens aren’t the big life moments you might think they will be. They’re these seemingly insignificant moments when your shadow rears its head in broad daylight because it doesn’t feel compelled to hide.   These moments offer an opportunity to practice self-management, to practice being your true and authentic self in the face of an emotionally difficult choice – and if you train that muscle, you’ll be able to use it when it really matters. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

In the last couple episodes, we discussed how our natural inclination is to orient towards happiness – and why this is, ultimately, a problematic cultural agreement that almost all of us are contributing to.   Today, I suggest a new and more beneficial social contract, albeit a more challenging one: a cultural agreement to orient towards realness. This requires a certain level of awareness, which in itself requires a significant level of mutual accountability, but the end reward is a genuine, real happiness that can’t be altered by personal experience. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

When you try to negotiate with reality, when you try to dictate your delusions onto your experience, reality will always win.   Because life doesn’t care about your happiness – but it does care about your perception of reality.   So in this episode, we discuss the role of accountability, for ourselves and others, in shattering our delusions. If you trust the process, trust the outcome, you can trust that life will take care of you. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

The pursuit of happiness is one of the three “unalienable rights” suggested by the the United States Declaration of Independence – but the very act of this pursuit is problematic, and the single most destructive element in your relationship to truth.   Because real happiness isn’t some destination that you can get to by constructing a long enough bridge. This false happiness is built on illusion, and eventually, life will catch up to you and set you straight.   Real fulfillment is already and always there – and through awareness, we can deconstruct our blocks to it and experience it, regardless of the content in our lives.   So today, I suggest that we have to make the pursuit of truth, of realness, more important than everything and anything else, especially happiness, so you can discover how happy it will make you. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

To learn more about Trey’s enterprise, go to Kommercekings.com I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

To wrap up this series, we’re going to discuss the optimal and non-optimal outcomes of accountability – and how navigating the accountability path will allow you to get the optimal results more often. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

If you want to build a strong foundation of accountability, you can’t wait until someone screws up to hold them accountable. You will find the accountability path much easier to navigate if it’s forged through deep reflections of goodness, creating a context where accountability is viewed as more positive than negative.   The best part is that, unlike some of the other aspects of leading with accountability that we’ve discussed in this series, it isn’t difficult to hold up a mirror and show someone a reflection of the goodness of their being!   So today, we’re going to talk about how leaders can hold up the mirror for the people they manage before they take a step on the accountability path. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

Great leaders help the people they manage embrace rigorous accountability – but to do that, the people they manage have to feel seen and safe.   However, most of us don’t choose to be leaders, and we weren’t taught how to be leaders in school, so we reluctantly end up learning on the job; we are thrust into a position where we have to learn how to be vulnerable with ourselves and put others in a situation where they feel safe being vulnerable... or we can fail. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

When we think of courage, we often think of braving some sort of life-threatening situation. But almost every day, even the people who jump out of planes work to avoid holding others accountable or being held accountable because it invites emotional difficulty.   If you really want to be courageous, try intentionally confronting and amplifying your emotional discomfort – now that’s difficult, but it’s also required to start navigating shame with the accountability path. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

To wrap up this series on Leadership as a Spiritual Teaching – in which we’ve discussed the definition of consciousness, how societal conditioning clouds our perception of reality, and how this prevents us from solving problems – we’re going to learn how leaders and managers can start solving problems by learning and teaching a greater sense of consciousness.   The problem is that you can’t just change a person’s conditioning without upsetting them because that’s the lens through which people look at reality. The more it stays the same, the more people feel safe and secure... but we’re lying to ourselves when we insist that life is safe and secure.   The role of a leader or a manger is to take in new information and challenge existing conditionings, to become a kind of spiritual teacher, so that’s what we’re going to do. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

Our society operates using the framework that problems get solved through intelligence – but I argue that problems get solved through consciousness, which has nothing to do with intelligence or skill. It is, fundamentally, the ability to step outside of your conditioning and see reality through a lens other than the one created by your own conditioning.   More often than not, we’re just missing a piece of information we can’t see, or aren’t willing to see, due to our conditioning.   So really, solving your own problems, your organization’s problems, and our society’s problems comes down to teaching people a greater sense of consciousness. Today, we discuss where to start this process. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

In the last episode, we started a metaphysical dialectic on consciousness. We established that consciousness requires an awareness of self because reality and our perception of it are not always the same.   Today, we’ll clarify the metaperception required to identify this gap between your story about reality and reality itself, and how the way you are conditioned clouds your perception. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

To start this four-part series on Leadership as Spiritual Teaching, we’re going to go on an exploration of consciousness.   What is consciousness, how does it affect you as a leader, and how can a lack of awareness hurt the people you manage? We’re going to delve deep into the metaphysical to answer these questions, so let’s take a deep breath and dive in. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

I am going to say something that might be simultaneously freeing and uncomfortable to hear: living in frustration is completely optional.   If you are frustrated, it is likely due to your expectations of and relationship with change, as we discussed in the last episode.   So today, I invite you to practice a frustration-free existence – which won’t be easy, and definitely won’t happen overnight – and it starts with confronting the belief that change is hard. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

People want change, or they say they want change, but really they want to be told how to change – and then they want that process to be easy.   This reflects our skewed and unhealthy relationship with change; we want acute control over when and how change happens to us and in our lives and then, inevitably, we get frustrated because that’s just not how life works.   When we start looking at reality with the assumption that change is predictable and we can exert control over it, what we are really doing is creating the perfect storm of cognitive dissonance and discomfort. Today I want to explore this relationship, how it creates frustration in our loves – and, ultimately, how awareness of this relationship can put an end to that unproductive cycle. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

The culture that you live and work in has a tremendous impact on what you feel. And as a manager, you are responsible for cultivating the culture in your organization – and as a self-manager, you are responsible for cultivating the culture in your everyday life.   Today we’ll look at three things you SHOULD be cultivating in your culture and how doing so can radically improve the lives of the people you manage. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

When someone is emotionally invested in an idea or a group, it’s almost impossible to persuade them to question their beliefs – even if you provide factual information that really should cause them to question their beliefs. Why? It challenges their identity and, as a result, they feel shame.   So, as we discussed in the last episode, people distort reality to protect themselves and their identity, and you can see this playing out every single day, especially online, in the increasingly divided political climate in the U.S.   Today we will examine this phenomenon, how it contributes to shame, and what you can do to prevent it from creeping into your life. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)