Beginner’s Mind: The Path of Mastery (Challenging Old Leadership Beliefs)

Leadership = have all the answers and prove yourself over and over. 

Why is this old thought process still SO pervasive??? It’s not only backwards, it’s outright damaging - to everyone involved. It keeps us stuck and eliminates all possibility. It’s 100% tied to the ego and excludes all the latest, amazing research on what great leaders REALLY do or how to become masterful at anything. Yet it’s still what is taught.

Richard Branson asks questions of those that he leads, he doesn’t answer them. Showing up WITHOUT the answers, in a place of not knowing, that is Beginner’s Mind, that is the place of possibility, that is where mastery lives.

Stephanie recently did something that’s been on her bucket list for 30 years which led to this fascinating conversation with Maren about the power of beginner’s mind, including how to access it, how to cultivate it and the amazing transformative power that it wields.

Be sure to listen to the end as there are a few life changing practices tucked in like hidden gems. This is a short and powerful podcast that is worth listening to a few times.

• 01:18 30 Year To-do’s, Scuba & Metaphors
• 10:30 The crazy is out, options for meeting it
• 14:48 Letting go of the Ego
• 18:05 Getting to the subtle levels
• 22:40 The facilitation of pure magic in your life

TRANSCRIPT

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Transcript

Maren Oslac: 0:04

In a world where achievements and accolades motivate us to do more and be more, we're often left wondering, is this really it?

Stephanie Allen: 0:12

deep inside, you know, there is more to life. You're ready to leave behind the old push your way through and claim the deeper life that's calling you.

Maren Oslac: 0:20

That's where we excel. We're your hosts, Stephanie Allen and Maren Oslac.

Stephanie Allen: 0:26

And this is the soulful leader podcast.

Maren Oslac: 0:29

Sit back and relax as we share the shortcuts we've uncovered to help you make shift happen. Welcome to the soulful leader podcast. This is Maren, I'm here with Stephanie. And we're talking about leadership and beginner's mind today. So I'd love to start with is what is beginner's mind? I think it's a term that we've all heard, and gets bantered around and not not truly understood at a at a level of like, what does that mean, for a leader? for each of us in our lives? What does it look like? Stephanie, do you have some thoughts on that?

Stephanie Allen: 1:18

Yeah, I'm going to start actually with a story on that. Because recently, I don't know if you've ever felt like, you have a bucket list that you want to get something done on and you had an opportunity, maybe in your younger years to do it. But it wasn't the right time, you didn't have enough money or enough space or enough energy, whatever it was, whatever your excuses were, and then you just postponed it, thinking that there would be another day and days and then decades, and then you know, many decades past. And then it shows up again. And now you're thinking, wow, I was 20 when I like that, And now I'm in my mid 50s. I don't know if I've got what it takes. I'm talking about that. Because it's

Maren Oslac: 2:01

a It sounds very specific. And I think most of us can can at least relate.

Stephanie Allen: 2:07

Yeah. And you know, sometimes what you set out to do in your your youth or your younger years, isn't really aligned with who you are decades later, right. And this happened to me, because what it was was something that I wanted to always do, but didn't really make the time or the energy or believe in myself to actually do it. And I didn't want to admit that I was afraid to do this. this very thing. I made excuses

Maren Oslac: 2:35

Oh, that's so key, right?

Stephanie Allen: 2:36

Yeah, you make excuses. I don't have money, I don't have time, I don't have the energy, my boss won't let me have time off. Or, you know, I can't get I can't get away from the kids or my partner can't support me or we make excuses up. And I did that. I did that. And then it came around again. And I have no excuses. Other than is this right for me? Is this, you know, was this right for my, it was right for my 20 year old, but is this right for me now?

Maren Oslac: 3:03

I love that question. Because oftentimes when we're making excuses, if we can just sit down, instead of the excuses and just say, is this right for me? Yes or no? Is this right for me, right now? And then you can let go of the excuses and not worry about it. Just be like, You know what, it's not right for me right now. And that's a very advanced way of thinking that most of us don't have the space or energy to do so. Like you we end up decades later going. Okay, now I have the space and energy to do it.

Stephanie Allen: 3:38

Right. So I ended up saying, Yes, I'm going to do this because I knew this would have been running deep in my unconsciousness, like an incompletion. I had not completed something and I just wanted to put it to bed like I just want it to be, okay, I'm done. I did it. I did it. Now, granted, now I'm 36 years older than what I originally planned up to do it in my 20s. So I went and I did it. And I'm out of shape. I'm out of practice. I had all of these, these the itty bitty, you know, itty bitty shitty committee that comes up, right? I'm too old. I'm too out of shape. I'm too fat. I'm never going to use this. What was I thinking? I was so out of my comfort zone. And I felt like I didn't belong. And I think many of us can feel that way. It's like, I don't belong. But what I started to realize was that the person that was having those thoughts was not really my present self. It was really the very self that 36 years ago or 30 some odd years ago said I don't have time I don't have money. I can't make this happen. It was the whiner in me and and going outside of my comfort zone. literally brought up this wiener out in like megaphone loudspeaker. So when we talk about beginner's mind, I had realized that this part of me was actually afraid to be in beginner's mind. So when you think of in your 20s, you know, we got it all together, you know, we've got the degree, we've got, we may not have the experience, but you know what, we've got the leading edge information, we are hot to go, man, we got it all figured out. We made straight A's, we did whatever. Yeah, or even in our 30s or 40s, we go Yeah, but I've got 20 years experience, I've got this all figured out. And something shifted in me to realize, to say, be a beginner again, what is it like for the first time experiencing something, that you savor it, because you'll never have another first time again, the first kiss, you know, the first, the first time you have your child in your arms, the first time anything, there's never another first time. And, and yet we rush so quickly, we rush through it, instead of savoring it, and soaking it up. And, and I, you know, here, here I was doing, what I was doing was scuba diving. And I realized that most of my life, it was such a metaphor, because most of my life I surfed, I am a surfer. So I serfed and I like to surf. But to dive down into the water, which represents a lot of things, you know, the unknown, the unconscious, emotion, there's a lot of things that water deep water actually symbolizes.

Maren Oslac: 6:41

And we've talked about before is under the surface, there's stillness, and stillness is threatening, especially for somebody who's younger, who's go go go, right? and, and then we get to a place in our lives where we go, You know what? The Go Go Go isn't necessarily the answer. There's, it's dropping in, it's being present.

Stephanie Allen: 7:01

And the deeper you go, the quieter it gets and the calmer it gets. And that is such a metaphor for our own inner life.

Maren Oslac: 7:10

And that's scary stuff. Because no one teaches us to do it.

Stephanie Allen: 7:14

Well, we don't know what's in there, are you kidding? How about you know, and we get addicted to the rough surf on the surface. It's like, whoo, this is fun. You know, whether you're sailing or windsurfing, or kite surfing or, or surfing, surfing or swimming, there is this playfulness that happens on the surface.

Maren Oslac: 7:34

There's also adrenaline that happens because that's where the drama happens. And the drama is actually oftentimes easier for us to deal with than the stillness because we get adrenaline from it. And we know how to do that. And our society. You know, that's one of the things if any, all of our leaders out there anybody that is actually like an entrepreneur that owns your own business, and has ever talked to someone about advertising, the thing that advertisers do is they play on those those dramas, those traumas in our lives, and they bring them up again, so that we get the adrenaline rush so that we're like, Oh, my God, I have to fix it, I have to do something about it. Right? No one says, just take a breath.

Stephanie Allen: 8:19

Slow down, slow, drop, you know, go inward. What does that mean? Right? Like, Well,

Maren Oslac: 8:26

I'm gonna work you up instead. So you want to buy my product. Right?

Stephanie Allen: 8:29

Right. And I realized, you know, so much of our, our goal setting lives is about checking the box and getting things completed and having having like the actual grade of yep, you past, or yeah, you did good. Or here, or manifesting something, you know, you have a dream or an ideal, and you want to have it in your life. But we don't realize that it actually happens from the inside out. I've said that so many times, and like people say, Oh, I wish I could win the lotto. And like, most people don't want to win the lotto. Or if they do, they lose the lotto, but like, you know, afterwards, they win it, and then they lose their winnings, because they haven't gone deep enough internally to create a structure to support it. And this is what happens in relationships. It happens in your health system, it happens in every area of your life. And I realized 30 years ago, I made up a story about 30 years ago that Oh, I was ashamed. I didn't keep my word to myself. And, you know, I lied to myself, because if I really, really wanted it, I would have made time I would have found the money I would have made the you know, I would have made it happen. And so I was coming to terms with myself of like going, you know, I really need to like look at this integral part of myself. And so then when I started to go and do the scuba diving, I realized that my younger self, there was no way, my younger self would have had a beginner's mind, to even be willing to learn, to be willing to slow down and relax and surrender, because that was going to be my 30 year plan practice to be able to do so. For the last 30 plus years, I've had to practice breathing, slowing down, looking inside. And, you know, I think a lot of people judge it, I did, too. I did the same thing, too. I said, I don't look inside, oh God like, no, don't open Pandora's box. I don't want to let all that craziness out. But what we forget is the craziness is actually already out. The crazy is out, it's out. It's alive. It's there. And guess what everybody can see it. So stop being in denial. Like it's okay. And to dive deeper actually brings that clarity, that stillness, that. But it's going to require surrender, and it's going to require slowing down and breathing in. It does take practice, because our culture does not allow for us to do that. It's going so fast.

Maren Oslac: 11:14

So as you know, as I'm listening to you, I have been thinking about practical application of this and in like, I'm a leader, I have a team or I have a business that I'm starting or whatever it is that that I have. And when you say the crazy is out. You know it's like, I don't want to hear that. As a leader. I want to think that I have it all, Pandora's box is all tucked away, and neat and tidy inside of me. And that is not seen. And I love that you that you brought that up because we think it's neat, tidy, and it's not.

Stephanie Allen: 11:53

And that's not beginner's mind, is it? Because we're also told we're not supposed to have beginner's mind. No, we're supposed to you're a leader. You're supposed to be accountable, you're supposed to be responsible, you're better than this, you can handle it. Bla bla bla bla bla. And no wonder we feel like imposters, because we're in places we've never been before. Whether it's with a team, or a relationship, a one on one with someone with that works with us or is in our lives. Or it's our health or its finances. I mean, we're in a place we've never been before.

Maren Oslac: 12:27

So the thing about beginner's mind is, if I'm going to show up to either something that I already know, or something that I don't know, and do so in a way that is literally beginner's mind, I have to put my ego on a shelf. So what I mean by that is, if I show up with my ego, I'm going to need to prove myself, I'm going to need to be good enough, I'm going to need to be like all of the things that you know, I mean, we're taught as leaders that we have to be these things,

Stephanie Allen: 12:59

that you have to earn the right to be that leader and continue to earn a right to be a parent to be a lover to be a leader to be a teacher, whatever it is. Yeah, it's crazy. It is. There's the crazy right there.

Maren Oslac: 13:14

That's out all over everything. So then as as an individual, I can recognize that, that's crazy. And what do I do about it? And it literally is saying, Okay, if I put my ego like for you, you had to put your ego on a shelf. And one of the things that you and I talked about is that you had an instructor that was telling you just breathe, just breathe, like and you're thinking that's what I've done for 30 years, I know how to breathe. That's my that's what that's what I do for a living. I teach other people how to breathe. And so it would have been really easy for you to snap at him to defend yourself to get into your ego of like, I know that and instead, you didn't

Stephanie Allen: 13:59

No, I brought I brought humor into it too, because I think that's a real key about the beginner's mind, is to have a little bit of lightheartedness. It's like to remind myself that this is a 30 year plus goal, or ideal. And I'm actually here, I'm actually going for it. And I'm not the fit 20 year old, you know, buff, you know, aerobics instructor that I used to be like, I'm just not, I'm not that person. And in a lot of ways, I'm glad I'm not that person anymore. Because there wasn't any depth to that 20 year old, it was all surface. And I have so much more depth now, even though my surface looks a little different. But that's what happens, right? And so I was able to laugh at that, you know, and to me, that was a real key to not take it personally because that would be my ego. If I took it personally, that is my ego. That's my identity. If I'm identifying as whatever fill in the blank Anything that's going to challenge that identity is going to make me feel less than it's going to make me be reactive. It's going to make me strive and push and force harder than I need to, instead of literally going, you know, he might be right. I probably do need to breathe. Like, that's where I went inside. I'm like, yeah, he's absolutely right. I'm I half laughing because I'm like, That's what I do for a living. So I guess I know how to do this. And he's absolutely right, I do need to relax and breathe. But I was also recognizing that there was a younger part of me. And so when I say that, I believe that there are many parts of us that show up to leadership or to relationships or to whatever. And what I mean by that, that there's a wise self in me, there's a teenager, there's a, there's a playful child in me. There's a lover, there's a leader, there's all kinds of roles that are within me. And there's also the presence, my presence, that I'm present to all of those. And that's where I like to go and hang out with is that part that kind of looks at the whole scene. If you imagine like a stage, where there's many actors playing on a roll, I kind of look at myself that way, that I am actually someone in the audience, watching all these actors play out a role. And I am just observing. And I can sit there and I can laugh. I'm like, look at that character. Look at look at her go man, she's like, she's having a rough day. God love her. And it creates some space for me inside myself, for love and compassion, and also to be able to navigate it differently. Because there was some pretty interesting things that happened. Like, I was kind of the teaching model, the whole two weekends, because if anything that went bad, it was probably because I did it. And I didn't, when I say the I, it would have been that part of myself in there that was just like a hot mess all the time. And I'm like, Okay, here we become another teaching moment. Had it been my 20 year old that had taken it, I wouldn't have been had the beginner's mind, I would have been arrogant, I would have been shamed. I would have been irritated. I would have been hard on myself, instead of like, wow, okay. I'm glad I glad. I'm glad I'm providing these teaching moments for people. I was kinder to myself, because there was a witnessing self that was happening that was more kind and loving. And it was helping me be more beginner going, Oh, interesting, I wonder where I wonder what this is meaning, or I wonder what I'm learning here that is going to help me in other areas of my life. Because, you know, we've said this before, perhaps. But I do have a saying that how we do one thing is how we do everything. It's one of our teachers says to us a lot. And it's so true, like, who you are, when no one's looking. It's probably more your conditioned self than anything. That's what you do, fall back on to lose your conditioned self. And so if you hold the question, Who am I when no one's looking? And how I do one thing is how I do everything. And I don't mean out there in the world, how I do everything. It's how I am with myself. So if I'm harsh and mean, and pushing and striving, and I'm not creating space for beginner's mind to learn. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be like that in other areas of my life. And I'm also going to be that way with someone else who's trying to learn something, I'm not going to have a lot of patience, I'm not going to have a lot of care and attention to them to take them through and repeat it. Because that's how I if that's how I'm acting with myself. I think that's a really beautiful place to remember is to be a beginner with the curiosity. I wonder what this is, I wonder what I'm learning here. I wonder how this might be a gift.

Maren Oslac: 18:59

I think that that's key is what am I learning here? Because when we go into beginner's mind, we start to learn things that we didn't know. And I mean, in order to do that, we do need to put our ego on the side and I love the example of, you know, breathing for you. This is what I do. This is what I teach. I know this stuff, and yet, because you went into it with beginner's mind, you had layers and layers of things that you learned about yourself about, you know, allowing yourself to be a teaching person, right, where you weren't being the teacher, you were the example. And as leaders, what we can learn about the people that are on our teams are about ourselves or about our business or about our goals. There are subtle levels that when we push through and we're when we're in our ego and we have to prove our ourselves, we never get to learn those subtle levels. And if you think of it like going deeply when we go down into, say, for example, the ocean, each layer has its own subtleties, and own, all the different fish that are at each level, and you don't get to know those until you go down to the next level until you go down to the next level. And each of them, that's true for us, too. I know one of our teachers talks about a gentleman named Pablo Casals, who is a phenomenal music musician. And in his 90s, he was still doing basic scales three hours a day of basic skills. When I think about that, that's beginner's mind, he didn't approach those of 'I know this, move on to something more complicated'. He went back to the basics. It's funny, because in dance, we always had this thing of beginners want to learn begin, intermediate material, intermediates want to learn advanced material, and advanced dancers go back to the basics, and go deeper, and go deeper, because that's where the subtleties are. That's where the advanced really separate themselves, because it's not about the more advanced materials, it is about going back and learning the subtleties of seeing all the things that I missed in that level, and the next level in the next level. And continuing to do that every day, every moment, every opportunity that we have that we can catch ourselves, you know, in that I have to prove myself and go, Oh, maybe I don't maybe I will. Maybe there's something here for me to learn.

Stephanie Allen: 21:44

And that requires presence. You know, being a beginner means you're paying attention. Yeah. It's you haven't got it all figured out. And that's good, because that's because you're a beginner. Yeah. And I think that's unfortunate. What our society is taught is that we have to have it all figured out. And if we don't, we're a failure. Instead of what if, what if, what if tomorrow morning, when you woke up, you were a beginner's mind in a beginner's body. And you, you explored yourself, your life, who you're with what you're doing, where you're going, as if it was the first time because in the essence, really, it is the first time because you're, we're never the same. We're always evolving, cells are dying cells are being reborn all the time. We are always beginners. Yeah. And it is a practice to let go of that ego.

Maren Oslac: 22:40

Like, there's the saying, you can never step into the same river twice. And that's because the river is continuing to flow. And that's true for ourselves, we don't actually wake up to the same life. Every morning, we wake up and we remember, meaning we put together our lives again, from what we know about it. And maybe there's something that you want to shift or change about that. And guess what you can do that by going into beginner's mind. It's a it's a powerful practice. I remember, I had done this for about a year ago, I would wake up and just be present before I quote unquote, remembered who I was, why I was here, what I was supposed to do that day. So like, we wake up with our to do list already in our heads of like, oh, I have to do this. And that means you wake up into the person that you were yesterday, because you've put that body suit on and been like, okay, that's who I am. This is what I need to do. And, and I did a practice for a full year of waking up of I don't know who I am. Total beginner's mind, it was really powerful.

Stephanie Allen: 23:52

So letting go of that identity of that solidity of 'this is me', and you know, you know, I'm a female, I'm this, you know, I'm this age, I do this kind of work or

Maren Oslac: 24:01

whatever it let it all go. Here's what I know. And here's what I need to prove. Here's who I need to show today and let it all go. Let it all go. Even if it's for like a minute or two minutes, you start to make space for all kinds of changes.

Stephanie Allen: 24:17

Now, it allows us to come closer because I'm thinking about relationships in that way. It's like if you look at someone you love, whether it's a parent, a child, a lover, and you look at it like you know and you're of beginner's mind, your presence so connects and you let go of all your preconceived, hurts and wishes and dreams and shoulda, coulda, woulda, ought tos, you let all that go and then you go, Wow, I'm really curious, Who are you? Yeah, who are we? what, I wonder what amazing things we're going to unfold today together and not trying to figure it out. I think it would actually unite us more as a humanity If we started to be a beginner's mind, and we started asking questions from a place of absolute pure love, of wanting to connect, and understand,

Maren Oslac: 25:10

and I think everyone can like, because most of our listeners are leaders, like what if you showed up to your team, and instead of thinking about them, of this person can do this, this person is terrible at that, that person can't do that, oh, I can't trust this person to do that. And all these preconceived notions like, what if you woke up or showed up to your team and thought I, who are they? And what if I gave them the benefit of the doubt and didn't know? Because people live up to our expectations, and we forget that. So if I go in with a preconceived expectation, which is not beginner's mind, they'll live up to that. And if I can go in and truly have beginner's mind, if I don't know what to expect, they'll live up to it like you know, like that. They, it gives them the freedom to explore something, maybe they hadn't explored or do something differently then, then you would expect them to, because now they have the space to do that. It's, it's really cool.

Stephanie Allen: 26:16

Very cool.

Maren Oslac: 26:19

Excellent. Well, you guys have some fun things to play with this week. We would love to hear your thoughts on this. And if you had any questions that came up while we were talking, because it can be some esoteric kind of out there, like what did they mean by this, we would love to hear from you. Please feel free to contact on our Facebook page, or our LinkedIn page soulful leaders. And if you want to see our little talking heads chatting with each other, you can watch us on our YouTube channel, which is also at the soulful leaders. We'll see you all next week on the soulful leader podcast.

Stephanie Allen: 27:04

And that wraps up another episode of the soulful leader podcast with your hosts, Stephanie Allen

Maren Oslac: 27:10

and Maren Oslac. Thank you for listening. If you'd like to dive deeper, head over to our website at the soulful leader podcast.com.

Stephanie Allen: 27:21

Until next time,