The Rhythms of Success

Imagine one of those moments when everything in life was clicking. You hit your stride and all cylinders were firing.

Your business, and life, can be like that regularly. 

And it does take an awareness of not only your personal rhythms, but of the rhythms around you as well. Just like a good drummer, you feel it when you are out of sync with yourself AND with your surroundings, you’ve just learned to ignore it …and push through it.

To understand and master rhythms, you must be comfortable with transitions - something we tend to both resist and fight. Resisting transitions and ignoring rhythms results in fatigue and illness.

“Build the transitions into your rhythm so you don't have to get sick in order to have a justification for taking time off” - Maren

Today, Stephanie and Maren take us all on their own journey of success, weaving through the power of rhythms, transitions and even expanding time itself. 

• 00:31 Rhythms and Transitions
• 03:45 Mastery Slows Time
• 08:20 Changing Our Own Rhythm
• 12:06 Unlearning and Your Why
• 14:45 Illness During Shoulder Seasons
• 16:20 The Power of Reflecting and Evaluating

TRANSCRIPT
Watch on Youtube

LINKS

00:31 Ep 164: Expanding Time

04:42  Josh Waitzkin's video @ 9:48 https://youtu.be/ota0RrHcwP0?si=qrUbJOYgfZUxWIKT&t=588

07:37 Ep 161: Missed Takes or Mistakes?

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Transcript

Stephanie Allen: 0:04

In a world where we have everything and it's still not enough, we're often left wondering, is this really it?

Unknown: 0:10

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

Stephanie Allen: 0:19

That's what we invite you to explore with us. We're your hosts, Stephanie Allen and

Maren Oslac: 0:25

Maren Oslac, and this is The Soulful Leader Podcast.

Stephanie Allen: 0:30

Yay!!

Maren Oslac: 0:31

Welcome back to The Soulful Leader Podcast. I'm Maren, and I'm here with Stephanie, and Stephanie and I did a podcast about a month ago, episode 164 called Expanding Time. It talks a lot about rhythms and being in sync with your own rhythm and with the rhythm of those around you, including nature. And it got both of us thinking about our rhythm as a partnership, the Soulful Leader partnership. And so one of the things that we... we want to talk about transitions today. Oftentimes, when you start looking at your rhythms, you'll realize that you're out of rhythm, or that a different rhythm is calling you, which means that now all of a sudden, you're dealing with transitions. (laughter) And you know, as we're moving from summer into winter, we have this transition that we call Fall, where we're going from the height of Yang energy to the height of Yin energy. So all the outer, the excitement, the stuff that we do outside, to all the inner. And one of the things that Stephanie and I were just chatting about was the fact that we don't honor that as a culture. And we wonder why people tend to get sick in the fall, because we're not paying attention to the rhythms that are... they are our natural rhythms,

Stephanie Allen: 2:08

We try to override them. We want to be in control.

Maren Oslac: 2:13

Yeah.

Stephanie Allen: 2:14

So override.

Maren Oslac: 2:16

We value that outer go, go, go, energy, and we don't value the rest, the downtime, you know ?

Stephanie Allen: 2:25

That's for sure.

Maren Oslac: 2:26

So when we start to move towards the the longer nights and the inner time where it's colder, it's an annoyance to us. Right?

Stephanie Allen: 2:41

Well, I have a funny story, because I just had worked on a client who had this chronic neck pain. So first time working on him, and have some great movement, you know, had some numbness in his hands and things like that. Started to work on it, had some great relief. And then, you know, this was just last week, and I saw him again today, and I said, Hey, how's it been? He goes, well, I have to tell you, I haven't stopped. I've just, I've done this and I've done that, and I've gone here, and I've been, you know, I was building this and I was tearing that down, and just go, go, go, go. And then I'm working on him. He's like, what else can I do? I'm like, well, probably stop doing.

Maren Oslac: 3:23

Meaning, what else can I do to heal this quickly?(laughter)

Stephanie Allen: 3:26

Right. Exactly! And I said, How about give yourself some space and time just to realign, to reconnect with a new rhythm that your body is is being adapted to? And I say this because, you know, there's that old saying, how we do one thing is how we do everything. Well, there's also that saying of how we begin something is how we live it. Also how we end at something is also how we move into the next. So these are the transitions. I think we look at the life in motion as being the most valuable, but it's actually the transition that sets you up, either how you're transitioning out of something or transitioning into something, and yet, so little time is paid, you know, value to that transition. How do I want to be in that transition? What needs to happen?

Maren Oslac: 4:22

Josh Waitzkins. There's a gentleman named Josh Waitzkins, who is a chess master and also a several different martial arts master. He wrote a book called The Art of Learning. And he's a learning master, really. And he talks about... I've seen a couple of videos of his on YouTube, if I can find it, I'll put a link in the show notes. He talks about, if you think of your life as the frames of, say, for example, a movie, right? So a movie is seamless because the frames are being played through and each of the individual cells are the movie frame. And Josh talks about mastery, and true mastery are the people who can expand that space in between the frames so that they can do something that no one else can see, because we're only seeing the actual frames. And he references a match that he had, which was a championship match where his arm was actually broken, and in a moment, he had all of this space, and he could see his opponent's fists coming at him. When you're watching the video, you can't see, they're moving so quickly you can't see it. Time literally slowed down for him because he had worked on the transitions, those in between places. And he was able to win the match with one hand because he was able to expand those transitions.

Stephanie Allen: 6:12

But you know, this is what creates mastery, right? Like to be able to take something that you're working on and to actually slow it down, meaning taking it little bit by little bit and actually developing a very, very deep memory skill with it.

Maren Oslac: 6:30

So I think, let's... I want to show everybody that you all have an experience of this. Some place where you're better at something than most people, and we all have some place that we're better at something than most people. And you watch somebody else do it, and you want to stick your hand in there, because they're going so slowly. You're like, oh my god, really it's taking you that long?(laughter) You want to take it away from them, because you could do it in a third of the time, a quarter of the time, right? And that's what we mean by you have mastered the transitions of things, because it's not that they're doing it slowly, it's that they have to think about each of the actions. And those are the things between the actual actions, the thinking time.

Stephanie Allen: 7:20

And then repetition, how many times you've done something, you know? You do it slowly at first, when you first learn something And then it you gently begin to speed it up until you crash again. And then you're like, okay, stop, reset. We did that whole, on our podcast of mistakes, you know. And I'm starting to rewire it of saying there are no mistakes, only miracles. Because every time there's something that that gets messed up or broken or falls apart or whatever, oh, that wasn't so skillful or that wasn't so elegant, then it gives me a chance to create that space, to reset and realign it. And I think most of us... coming back to that transitions, many of us don't honor those transitions, so we just keep running forward, and there's a huge cost to that, because we don't really, we don't really drop in and learn from our past, and I think it's so important we that we learn skill sets from our past, but we also need to look at where we're going in the future, and we need to hold both and to constantly stay in the transition. And what I mean with that is like, like you're holding two opposite things on either end, you know, the past and the future. And you are in the middle, you're in the present moment, and, yeah, and you're not trying to control one or the other. You're not trying to justify what happened in the past. You're looking at it as an observer, really, of both, and then saying, okay, what needs to transition right now within me, what needs to change, what needs to be different? How do I need...? My attitude? My boundaries, my internal boundaries, the way I'm speaking to myself or thinking about myself or another, all those things are so much that is to do in that transition.

Unknown: 9:10

There's also, and the reason that we're sharing all of this with you all today is because this is where Stephanie and I are, is we're in our own transition. We are going to move from... we've started to pay attention to our rhythm and the past, what we've learned from it. Who've we've who we've become, and the future of where it, where is it, leading us to? Asking us to go? And being present to that, so that we're not just a cork floating on the river going, 'Oh, but we're supposed to keep doing it this way, because that's what we're told,' and the commitment and... right, which has been important, and that has led us to where we are. And we've grown to the point where we now are looking at a different rhythm, which is instead of a weekly rhythm for our podcast, we're going to twice a month rhythm for our podcast. So that's going to start next week, and we, for us, what that will allow us is more time to work with you, our clients. More time for the impact that we want to have on the planet. Which, for both Stephanie and I, we're feeling called to do more talks, and we need time to work on those and actually be able to get out there on stages. And then also possibly even writing some books and taking some of the information from the last three years -we've been doing this over three years...

Maren Oslac: 10:40

And it's a beautiful practice for us. So our practice will continue. It just will look different, and our rhythm is different, so we are being present to the transitions, and that's something that we do regularly, so that we're always reevaluating. And I know most

Stephanie Allen: 10:55

...yeah. businesses do a reevaluation. I hope most businesses do a reevaluation...(laughter) And I think you're saying something really

Maren Oslac: 11:05

There's the 'Both And'. There is the commitment to key, like very key here, because when we think of goals, it's what we said, absolutely, and there's the listening to when like, we're not being guided from, okay, what we want to make happen, the books, the working with clients. Yes, we want that that changes, right? And when I say listening, it's not handing to happen, of course, but it's really our 'why'. Why are we doing what we're doing, and what is calling from our future for us to do, not trying to figure it out, but being present -as a practice- of like... because it's so easy, like you said, you know, we could just stick with something forever and ever, because we said we're going to do it, and then we willfully do it, instead of being willing to what wants to happen and making that space. it over and saying, 'oh, it's what wants to happen. I have no say in the matter.' We're talking about a co-creation. And when you co- create, so say, for example, Stephanie and I are co-creating something. So of course, I want to have regular conversations with Stephanie about what that looks like for her, what it looks like for me, etc, etc. There's another being, which is life, and Stephanie and I intentionally co-create with life and spirit to see what what's that piece. The other thing that is, I guess, a part of our creation process is each of us has a why that we're here, a life mission, a reason we were incarnated on this planet at this time, every every single being,

Stephanie Allen: 12:44

Every single being, every single one of you are listening right now

Maren Oslac: 12:48

Absolutely. And so Stephanie and I have been working with this for over 20 years. And so we're very clear that this being, this part of ourselves, is an actual being and helps to guide us. And so we include that in our co-creation process. So there's all of this, all of these things that we're present to that help guide us forward. And those are, that's where we're talking about, the transitions of we can't just plow forward constantly, even though our society has taught us to do that. So it's been an unlearning process.

Stephanie Allen: 13:29

I was just going to say that we have to unlearn that learning. And I say this to myself and to others too. I'm like, what happens when most of us go on a vacation and we sit on the beach, or we hit golf balls or whatever we do on vacation. I mean, I just came off a time at my cottage, which is lovely, and sitting in that transition is not easy. It's uncomfortable because we're so conditioned to do and do and do that, just to sit there and, I mean, sit there, not sit there and read, not sit there and do practices, not sit there and talk, sit there. There is so much that comes up in that space, icky feelings.

Unknown: 14:13

I remember one of my spiritual teachers, gosh, this was 20 years ago. He said to me, you have to be able to sit and do nothing. And it was both me and my mom who were working with him at the time, and we were like, that's nuts. Sit and do nothing, what? What's the benefit of that? Who can do that? Like it was such a foreign concept, and it stuck with me, obviously, 20 years, and I now know the value of that well.

Stephanie Allen: 14:46

I think coming back to what you said, why people get sick during the transition? You know they're called shoulder seasons. We tend to call them shoulder seasons, and I that's as a body worker, that's when I see a lot of shoulder injuries, is that transition. Like they're shouldering something they shoulda, coulda, woulda ought to or they're carrying something or, you know, it's a shoulder season to actually either pick something up or or let something down, yeah, and to be with that healing through it, yeah, yeah, constantly. So sometimes we get sick, or we have pain, or we have a heartbreak, because it's opening us to actually do no-thing and just be with that transition to see what what's transpiring, what's coming up.

Maren Oslac: 15:34

I also think that, you know, it's like nature herself kind of goes to sleep at this time of year, and, you know, like, slows down. Instead of saying, go to sleep...slows down, she slows down. And we're like, nope, gonna keep going. Push, push, push, push, push. And so she's like, maybe not. And so we get sick so that we have to slow down. And now we have a quote, unquote reason. I'm sick, I have to slow down. Well, good for you. And there's another option. You can build that into your rhythm, build the transitions into your rhythm so that you don't have to get sick in order to have a justification for taking time.

Stephanie Allen: 16:19

And also that time that you are now investing in is a time to actually look at unpacking things and unlearning so that you don't keep repeating the same patterns, which, by the way, won't give you the same results. It actually makes them worse half the time, unless they're patterns you want to incorporate, which actually will make things better, but we still need that time to just evaluate, marinate. I call it marination, you know, compost, whatever you want to like, that's kind of how I look at it as like, okay, and I'm marinating right now. Yeah, I'm giving myself flavor so that I can choose what to let go of and what to pick up, and build a skill with it.

Maren Oslac: 17:08

And that's a lovely, lovely I love the way that you said that, because that's exactly what we're doing. We're choosing what to lay down and what to pick up. We are not laying down The Soulful Leader Podcast. We will be continuing. It's just that we're going every other week so that we can pick up some additional things that we're being called to, like I said, books and talks and working with more clients. So if you are interested in booking us for a talk, or want to work with us, certainly reach out to us, because we actually will have a little bit more space in our schedule exactly for that, because that's what being asked of us. So thank you guys for being a part of us. And just like always, we would love to know what's on your minds. What would you like to have us talk about on the next Soulful Leader Podcast, or maybe, you know, further into the future. You can reach us on social media at The Soulful Leaders you can find us on our soulful leader podcast website, which is the soulfulleaderpodcast.com, or our business website, which is www.tslp.life. We'll see you next week... Oh, I won't be able to say that again, but for this week, we will see you next week on The Soulful Leader Podcast.

Stephanie Allen: 18:38

And that wraps up another episode of The Soulful Leader Podcast with your hosts, Stephanie Allen

Unknown: 18:45

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

Stephanie Allen: 18:55

Until next time...