Raj Sisodia: "Business Leaders, You Have a Sacred Obligation"

0:00 The Sounds True Podcast Network. Is it okay that we are hurting people in order to make money? Is it okay that heart attacks are twenty percent higher when they want? Is it okay that a hundred and twenty thousand Americans die from strengths coming to work? Is it okay that six hundred thousand Chinese die from Too much work. Do we have to hurt people?

0:26 And kill people to make money. If your answer is yes, then I have nothing in common with you. I don't believe that. Welcome friends. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, my guest is Raj Sisodia. Raj is a prolific writer and a highly accomplished thought leader. at a very interesting intersection.

0:50 The intersection of spiritual awakening. Healing. And Bizus Performance Мордвії, а за професор в мартин.

1:01 seeking a deeper sense of meaning in his life. He researched and wrote the ground breaking book. Firms of endearment. About how mission driven businesses outperform traditional companies.

1:15 A book that gave birth to the conscious capitalism movement, and we're gonna learn more about that. Raj has authored or co-authored 16 books. It's amazing. Including in the past few years a book called Awaken. The path to purpose, inner peace, and he'ing a book on healing organizations, and a new book on healing leaders. Raj is also part of the guest faculty for Sounds True's inner MBA program.

1:46 It's created in collaboration with the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. It's a six-month immersion learning program. That begins on October 23rd, and you can learn more at innermba.soundstrue.com. Friends, stay with us. It was about a decade ago when I first heard this teaching from the famous management philosopher. Peter Drucker.

2:22 The most important thing for an executive to learn is not how to manage other people. It's to learn how to manage Yourself I heard this quote from Jeremy Hunter, who's been voted Professor of the Year eight times by his graduating class at the Drucker School of Management. Now he's teaching self-management as part of Sounds True's inner MBA program. leading modules on regulating your nervous system at work.

2:52 dealing with triggers, recovering from burnout, and more. Created in collaboration with the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. The Inner MBA is a six-month program beginning at the end of October that teaches you what Jeremy Hunter calls not the hard skills. but the hardest skills. how to relate to ourselves and to others.

3:16 With presence On purpose. You can receive a special discount to the Inner MBA as a listener to Insights at the Edge. Just go to innermba.soundstrue.com and register. Using code I am BA

3:34 twenty twenty six. That's I and B A. twenty twenty six. Raj. Welcome.

3:46 Very good to be with you, Tammy. Great to see you again. As I was reading Healing Leaders, and I mentioned this to you right before we began. I started feeling so close to you. to your journey and the path you've been on, especially as you shared That when you were writing at age

4:07 sixty. healing organizations, four different women in your life. That you trusted said to you, Well what about your own healing, Raj? And then you really committed to it. And you went really deep.

4:19 And I wonder here at the beginning if you can talk about that moment in your own life and the journey you've taken a bit over the past eight or so years. Yeah, so that was a uh significant turning point in my life. I think reaching sixty is a major milestone. Well certainly that way to me, it's the end of the second act, the beginning of the final act. And uh you land a lot. And we still have time, hopefully, um to uh apply what you have learned and also share with others.

4:50 So I I was I was aware of that, I was conscious of that, and yet at the same time I was in my usual mode. one's project uh to the next. But I really was deep into research for the healing organization. A book based on the premise of the way we normally do business. creates a lot of suffering in the world, lot of burnout, a lot of stress, heart attacks grow up on Mondays. hundreds of thousands of people died from stress connected to work, six hundred thousand Chinese die.

5:16 Every year from too much work. So I I was exploring the opposite pieces of that. And of course we did interview you and your featured as one of the chapters. Sounds true is one of the chapters. As an example of a healing organization was a force for healing for the people who work, which were there, for people who serve, for the community, for the planet. It could be any or all of those. So I was deep into that and I had set aside the whole summer for a series of writing retreats, which is my normal writing process.

5:42 And then as you mentioned, four women asked me the same question. One was Nivapart, my co author on Shuck TV Vishnu. Who also eventually became a co author on this new book. One was Lynn Twist. I'm sure you know Lynn. Uh one of the amazing humans on this planet.

5:58 And uh and my coach I had worked with a coach for the first time and one other person And basically they stopped me in my tracks and they said, How can you write a book about healing if you don't work on your own healing? And I said, Well, I don't have time for that. I have a work deadlined October. Fifth and just look at you. I said, No, you better make time for that.

6:16 So I did, and I had the good sense to listen to them and delay that book by five months and I As you said, went deep. I said yes to every opportunity that had been presented to me. One was going to the Himalayans, the high Himalayas on the border between India and Tibet. Where there's a lot of deep Buddhist wisdom. comes from that part of the world.

6:37 And so that's where I had my sixty year birthday literally in Badak. the high Himalayas and visiting all these monasteries. With a group. call the Shakti spiritual journeys which organizes around the world to take groups of people into different locations like Marchit and Chu or Um

6:53 various places in India or Croatia, etc. Um And then I also said yes to a silent retreat. In upstate New York, a place called Peace Village. with uh people like Peter Senge and David Cooper, I didn't know there's about thirty five of us for four days in complete silence. And that was profound because I received so much wisdom.

7:13 From the source. I think all of us need to make time for that silence because otherwise we're so distracted with all of the inputs that come into our lives. And essentially I had forty five pages of notes for at the end of those four days and These seven steps that are central to this new book. really came to me in those days of science.

7:32 As I said, I worked with a coach and I also went to the Amazon Rainforest. With Lynn Twist on the Pachamama Alliance, which she started with her husband. And with John Perkins thirty years ago now, they just celebrate the twenty years. And Lynn told me you're gonna learn more in ten days. About healing.

7:50 Being in the rainforest with the shamans. Then you will um five years of research. So you must come on this chip. And I did and it was very profound for me. Could that included an ayahuasca experience that really was uh as I said.

8:04 Deeply meaningful and gave me lots of insights about so So that was a turning point and that was kind of the beginning. I call it my year of conscious awakening. Until then. I know I I discovered purpose, as you mentioned in the intro, in the process of writing terms of endearment. That was kind of my Awakening of my purpose. So business can be done with love and with purpose.

8:25 And uh those businesses actually thrive much better and they create well being on around them. So I found my purpose. I said I want to dedicate the rest of my life to this story of business. But I had not really found any peace and I I certainly had a lot of wounds inside me, traumas that needed to be healed. And so this was the beginning of that phase of the of the journey for me. There's a lot to

8:48 to talk about here, Raj, but I wanna start addressing The skeptical voice in the room who says, Yeah, I've heard about firms of endearment, but Come on. We see so many businesses that are successful that are being run by

9:05 Unconscious leaders by people who haven't done their healing work, they're achieving great levels. Овнанчел сук. How can you make this statement that businesses thrive more? When we see all these examples all around us of Unconscious financial

9:22 success. Well, so it depends on how you define success. If you define it narrowly As purely financial success. What I say is a lot of those companies are actually generating false profits. That they're showing up on the income statement with a profit, but if you look at the impact that they're having on their people.

9:41 If you look at the impact on their employees and the level of burnout and stress and hard attacks. The impact on their customers very often. Yeah, no making them unhealthy. Seventy percent of our calories almost in the US now come from outshop. Pass this food. So Uh we're we're impacting communities, we're certainly devastating the environment. So that profit is not real profit. How do you define success?

10:03 This the real important question here because remember years ago there was a book called Good to Great. And he defined greatness purely in financial terms. Jim Collins' earlier book, uh, Built to Last was Much more holistic, but Bill uh good to great was only about Which companies outperform the market by at least three to one over at least fourteen years. And what made them so called great.

10:24 And he found level five leadership and big Harry Audacious goals and principle and whatever. Uh, those points were all fine, but the that lands Allowed in companies like Philip Morris. Which at the time was the world's largest tobacco company. I think now it's second to China tobacco. Now this company was called great because it had delivered above average returns for a very long time.

10:47 But my question is how do you define greatness? Is it good for the world? Is it good for people? Six million people were dying every year of tobacco relating and this is one billion people were expected to die in this century. of tobacco and and the public health systems were spending six hundred and fifty billion dollars a year. Dealing with the health consequences of tobacco? So how do we define greatness?

11:08 No, you I believe you to in order to be great you must be good. I think we put too much emphasis on so called greatness. We should emphasize much more the goodness. And so Success I think has to be defined much more broadly. Are we good for the world? Are we good for everybody. Including the financial uh investors.

11:26 And what firms of endearment found was that the companies that practice these pillars of conscious capitalism, we have twenty eight in the book. eighteen were public, but they outperformed the market by nine to one. Over ten years. Financially. But that actually, if anything, understates their performance because their employees are healthier and hackier Their customers are thriving, their communities are thriving, their environment may have a positive impact.

11:49 And even they were paying taxes at a higher limit, right? So the net value created is even greater than that. So I think we have to really broaden the lens. Business is not just about making money. Business is about the impact we have on people's lives. I mean we spend most of our waking hours at work. For the people who work at companies like yours, I mean that is a very meaningful experience.

12:11 For most people on this planet work is a drudgery to be survived. Right, and it it makes them physically, mentally, emotionally, socially and spiritually unhealthy. And then they have to unwind on the weekends and they have thank God it's Friday and what do we do? We get drunk and You know, we try to escape our our woes and we come back and Monday morning and then hard tax and go up twenty percent. So that's the reality that we've created with this story of business, this narrow, instrumental, selfish

12:38 A view of business is only about making money. That's a very damaging story. And measuring success by that, I think is is just completely wrong. In Writing Firms of Endearment, you say you discovered your purpose and it gave birth to this Architecture of

12:57 Conscious capitalism. For people who are new to this, what are the pillars, Raj? Just in brief, so everybody's with us here. Yes, and and I have to uh recall the moment when that realization came upon me, the purpose for me. You know, Tami, I was literally moved to tears. I was I was sitting in the Falconos in Pennsylvania. And we were writing the stories of some of these companies, which we had featured in the book. And I was so moved that I was in tears.

13:24 And I said to my co author, David, I've never experienced tears of joy connected to my work. No, I've often experienced disappointment, frustration, some of the negative emotions. But having tears of joy is a rare and precious thing and it's really your heart telling you that this really matters. It matters and Probably matters to a lot of other people.

13:46 And I think that is one of the big Gaps in businesses. I had six years of business education, uh MBA and PhD. It was all about the head and the wallet. Everything is numbers, theories, frameworks, and everything must go to the bottom line. What I realize it completely bypasses the human being in between the heart and the spirit.

14:05 I was never inspired a single day in my business education. I was never emotionally moved. to think that wow business can be beautiful, business can be noble, business can be heroic. And now I have that experience all the time. I teach an MBA course on conscious capitalism. Yeah. And when I was a Babson in one of those semesters, I was teaching a case on a Dutch bank named Rodos.

14:27 Which is called conscious money in action. I noted looked around and two of my students literally had tears. Dreaming down their streets. I said, What happened, guys? Mr. We did not realise that banking could be this beautiful. We have worked in banking for many years. We never thought that it was possible. I said everything can be beautiful, every business. Can be beautiful if it is run on purpose and on love.

14:49 And so what we discovered were these cellars which embody those ideas. The first thing was And the subtitle of terms of endearment is how world class companies profit from passion on purpose. Well the first bill and purpose. There must be a purpose to everything we do in this life. Something that is meaningful.

15:07 Uh beyond money, businesses need to be profitable. We know that in order to survive as a business. But that should not be the purpose. The purpose should be what are we gonna do with this entity, all these people coming together. What impact are we going to have on the world? How are we going to have a positive impact? One way that people describe it, the purpose of business is not to make a profit, the purpose of business is to find profitable solutions to the problems of people and the planet.

15:33 And most businesses actually are making a profit while they're damaging people and look. So find a higher purpose, something that inspires, something that aligns everybody together. Employees care about it, customers care about it, investors care about it, and say oh I can start and change the world. It's rooted in love. What is love? The unconditional desire for the well being of the other human beings. That is the highest expression of our humanity is being our mouth.

15:58 into the world and we can do that at scale when we create an organization. So higher purposes the first pillow. Uh the second is a stakeholder explicitly adopt a stakeholder mindset. You know, we've created this uh this kind of illusion that business is only about shareholders. That everything was done at the board level and the fiduciary duties to maximize the transfer shareholders. No.

16:19 The fiduciary duty of a board is to enable the flourishing of that company that includes all of its stakeholders, its employees. who invest far more in that company than Sice Ten shares of that company. uh the customers, the suppliers, et cetera. So all stakeholders matter.

16:36 And we should create value consciously. Or deeper level for inch for employees, for example. We should give them a good job. But dignified wage and good benefits and a good career so they can evolve and and uh

16:49 And uh grow in the organization and also it should be a calling for them. It should be work that is inherently meaningful. We hire people for whom this work is meaningful. With your whole foods you hire people who are foodies who care about hell. If you're Patagonia or REI, you hire people who are passionate about our planet, about the outdoors. The world becomes an extension of who you are.

17:11 And the ultimate test of that is if you win the lockdown on Friday afternoon. We'll still show up to work on Monday morning. Because the work has meaning beyond the picture. So Creating value for all of our stakeholders at a deep level. And then recognizing that they're connected.

17:27 You cannot have happy customers if you don't have happy employees, ultimately. So the well being and we can't have good products if you can't have suppliers, et cetera. So beyond Connect to rubble. The third is punctious leadership, that you have to have leaders who define leadership as not just Power and uh money.

17:46 Uh it's merely about service. They are servant leaders. The acronym I have acronym for each of these. Pillars. The acronym there is selfless. You have to be Somebody who has transcended the Naval S.

17:58 As Victor Frankel talked about. I Maslow said self actualization was the P But right concern there's a level beyond that to just have transcendents. So self actualization is about finding yourself. Self actual uh self transcendence is losing yourself in some in service of something greater than yourself. So these are leaders who have gone to that level also.

18:19 of uh of uh selflessness. Right and they're they are merely about serving the collective self, and then it stands for the qualities of conscious meeting. So that's Strong and then loving. It's very important to combine those two things. Strength without love is journey.

18:35 And love without strength isn't affecting. Leaders who I've changed the world for the better. Lincoln, Bambi, Mandana King they're very strong. Individuals but also in love.

18:47 The leaders that we've had who are only strong leaders. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Musselini, Alexander the Grey, or Tina Dahanw, and now Trump likes to put himself in that mist, by the way, of top ten leaders in the world history. They're all Just strong, so called. And they almost destroy human civilization and certainly kill hundreds of millions of people.

19:07 So we need strength and love to go together. It's really the masculine and feminine also the integration of that. And emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence. Systems intelligence. And then the fourth pillar is the punching. That we want a culture that people actually love going to work. They're all safe time gone is Friday, you know, gone it's Monday.

19:26 And there's high levels of trust and caring. Yeah, along with accountability and authenticity at work. And so these four pillars, each of them are powerful in its own in their own right. If you just adopt purpose, you will make a difference. If you just create a stakeholder orientation, you'll make a difference. But if you do all of them together, there's a there's kind of a synergistic multiplicative impact.

19:47 Which elevates the big business really turbochizes it to the next level, which is why we see these Yeah, levels of performance, you know, that are that are quite extreme. Now I mentioned Raj that I feel extraordinarily resonant sympathique with your perspective, both about the deeper dimensions of healing and awakening, which we're going to talk about soon, as well as this approach to business and business being

20:14 This force of healing, love, goodness. contribution in the world. Often when I talk to other people They look at me like I've got five green heads, or something, that I'm extraordinarily idealistic. And that, you know, you're some kind of weird creature out there, Tammy. It seemed to work for you.

20:35 You have enough money, you're happy with enough, you don't need more, more, more all the time. But guess what? I'm looking at my professional life as a way primarily to make money. That's where I'm coming from. I'm hearing this from people close to me in my own life, young people. Who are saying, I have a lot of concerns. I'm not the risk taker you are. I don't know if it's gonna work for me. I want a safe path. I don't know how to respond to them. How do you respond?

21:03 To the doubters who say you're talking about a very small special niche. Raj, this is not what's happening. uh at large in our society and it's too risky. Yeah. No, I think people are prisoners of uh certain mental models and certain ways of

21:20 Looking at the world. No, some Uh somebody said I think Sam Harris. Bad. Ideas are more important or more impactful than bad people. So we we're under the sway of some very bad ideas.

21:33 And one of them is what is a human being? If you've ever taken an economics class. The caricature is that of Homo economicists, that human beings are only motivated by individual materialistic shock team self interest. Maximizing their own utility at all times. And all the models of economics are founded on that.

21:53 We are built on that foundation. And therefore businesses are seen as profit maximizing as an extension of Homo economicas. That is not an accurate description of what is a human being. No, we are Homo sapiens. We're not homoeconomics. Yes, we are self interested, but that is not that is not the same thing as selfishness.

22:11 We are self aware, we are conscious, we are altruistic, we are cooperative, we are loving and we are purpose driven. And They said Thing is that Social science theories can become self fulfilling.

22:23 So when you take an impressionable young undergraduate and you teach them economics and you have them read And And they start believing that a human being are supposed to be as selfish as possible, and that's a virtue. And the little research actually shows that people become more selfish and more short term and more materialistic. when they take those kinds of courses. So that that can become self fulfilling. And then we've built a whole business school curriculum based on that idea.

22:48 And that's the only purpose of life and therefore the only purpose of business. I think you really have to go to the end of people's lives and see how they look back on those lives and how satisfied and how fulfilled they feel. You know, my partner Neha is a physician and she's sat she sat at the bedside of thousands of people at the In the last moments of their lives. Nobody ever was

23:08 Talking about how much money we made or they wish they could have made more money, et cetera. It was all about love and and impact and and magic. And um and so I think people are enthralled With this. My opinion you've listed.

23:22 Our popular culture kind of pro promotes that. Um Some of the role models that are like now we're seeing in the world of business in the last several years. Are all about that. I think I believe you know what we're what we're in the middle of right now is kind of a uh reactionary phase.

23:40 I think we had a lot of progress. Starting in nineteen ninety is when we market the awakening of consciousness. Starting to really happen in a big way. You know, if you look at nineteen eighty nine, it was a turning point in human history, but Berlin Wall coming down, the invention of the world wide web.

23:56 Women outnumbering men humanity and as college graduates, the uh Exxon uh these Uh orange spill. Uh And and many other things that happen and you started to see A shift, we call it the beginning of the age of transcendence.

24:15 And you had lots of the uh consciousness awakening, you had rights for gay people, gay marriage. Uh, you had environmental consciousness, you started to see awakening. Um in business as well. Well the advent of idea of purpose.

24:30 Et cetera. And I think that that movement continued for quite a while. We saw that in the lives of women. Um and now what we are in is some of this This phase I liken it to Star Wars, you know, it's the Empire Strikes Back. And the old order is reasserting itself. So there's we're trying to take it back to the old way, which which serves you know, that way of being in business serves some people very well. People who only care about money and power.

24:55 And are able to rise to the to the uh higher levels of those hierarchies. I've done very well. There's no question about it. The way they define success. They have succeeded. But if you look at the fact that fifty percent of Americans

25:08 Oh are working doing paycheck to paycheck. If you look at forty percent of Americans have less than four hundred dollars in the bank. Like two thirds of Americans work out on jobs. You know, it is it's not a pretty picture. And so that that system That is creating all those outcomes and of course climate change and environmental degradation and species extinction and crossing seven out of nine planetary boundaries. Business as usual is not an option and the people who are

25:35 Advocating for that? They are really whistling past the graveyard. I mean, we are in the decade of determination. We have to change. And uh and that includes many things, including changing the way we think about business. So So I think that's a very narrow view. These people haven't looked at the bigger picture, they haven't understood what really Life is about. They should read Man Search for Meaning by Victor Franco.

25:57 Uh now they have to educate themselves about what life is really about. I wanna go into your new book and you said that the architecture of the book, the seven steps came to you as a as a download. Okay, that's really interesting. What happened? W were were you meditating? What what was going on? Were you walking? Yeah, I was walking. So this was in that silent retreat at Peace Village. In J in July of two thousand eighteen.

26:25 And We were in silence and just but we were able to keep a notebook walk around in nature. Uh most of the time. And I just started getting all these these downloads. Not not only about these seven steps, but so many other things about life.

26:41 On my lines as well. And so um So that became pretty profound. And then I just kinda s I I put that aside for a few years, you know. I I thought about them over time and then ultimately And you know, when something comes through you Not from you.

26:57 I believe it has more power. There's something there that that you're you're sort of a conduit. A channel for some wisdom that's seeking to emerge into the world. So I really view it in that way and not claim private authorship of these seven steps and And again, individually those steps are not radical. Everybody is not about lawyers.

27:16 lot of people talk about love yourself, be yourself, et cetera. But it's it's It's creating the full set of steps and then the sequence I can also. So makes makes sense. It's logical, like you but you would proceed in that way. Um

27:29 And so Yeah, that's that's essentially how it happened. And then a couple of years ago, three years ago now, I was with Milima at a at a program we were teaching on uh leadership for women in Mexico, and we looked at this and said, Yeah, this looks pretty interesting. So we then taught a three day program on the seven steps. Um

27:48 It worked beautiful and very it was very powerful. But then we decided to write the book on it. One of our producers said, you know, I wear these quince shorts almost every day. And then another producer on our team said, I have two pairs from Quince that I rotate all week long.

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29:15 slash insights for free shipping at 365 day returns. We're not gonna be able to go into all of them, but I do wanna pull a couple of the steps out and ask you some questions. Questions that Have come up repeatedly. Uh for me, especially in Sounds Tru's Inner MBA program. Where people are like, Okay, Tammy, this sounds really good, but what about this?

29:42 And I think, you know, I should ask Raj. About that. So here we go. On стеp три bi yoсеf. One of the questions that comes up a lot from leaders. Is

29:53 Should I really share? All my fears. I'm being myself. I'm giving a presentation. I actually have no idea how this thing's gonna turn out. And in fact. I had a lot of dark thoughts about what the possibilities are, but I'm supposed to be myself or am I supposed to be The confident leader of this organization. I mien I I'm

30:16 Uh grounded and we have a way through, even though part of me inside is going, I have no idea if we have a way through. Yeah. I think we want to be the most evolved and healed version of ourselves. Right. So in the beginning when you are just starting this journey, there's a lot of things that we need to do. First of all, it's very hard to be yourself if you don't know yourself. And if you don't love yourself.

30:38 Right. So those are prerequisites. You really have to know who you are and then you really For me for a long time, as you may see from the book, is I got to know myself and we often get to know ourselves through the eyes of others and the words of others. As we start becoming self aware, especially when we're younger. And very often that could be negative uh

30:58 No, in fact in my case, my father, essentially. gave me the message that everything that came naturally to me was a weakness. And I saw myself as defective. I'm backing and I mean I tried to be the opposite of who I was. Which does

31:13 Never works. Trying to be the opposite of who you are is basically us acting. That that never works. So it took me a long time to get to that place of loving myself, except First accepting myself, forgiving myself and Loving myself ultimately and then being grateful to say, Yeah, these are these qualities are gifts that I received.

31:32 And my father said you're too trusting and too idealistic and too peace loving and all of that, and you should be the opposite of all this things. So getting to that place of self Acceptance and and appreciation and ultimately the self love. And then you can be yourself. As as in being appendic.

31:49 Not acting, right? Taking off the mask. Not pretending to be Ten different people. Well for many of us we're one way with our Spouse one way with our children, one way with our parents, one way with our colleagues, one way with the people we report to, one way with our friends.

32:04 You know, it's just all these different personas. It's I think it's much healthier and And just frankly, uh Changes. Well not to do that. So I think for leaders being vulnerable and and being showing that they are human, I think is okay.

32:20 They don't have to say that I have all the answers. They say I'm here to facilitate us. Collectively figuring out. The answers and and enabling all of us to contribute to that, you know? And as a leader for many years, I'm sure that you can relate to that. We interviewed one of the women we interviewed for the work is Marisa Lasso. Who uh is the CEO of a company in uh Guadalajara in Mexico.

32:42 And she's also a judge on Shop Tang. And Mexico. Now Marisa is a very emotional person. Well, tears come very ruddy to her. And when she became CEO, this company started growing and had thousands of employees.

32:56 You know, all the men advisors around us that oh you you can't show emotion like that. It's not okay. But you have to be professional. She kinda put on this whole persona, you know, this this uh Uh topsy. No, and she just said I'm just gonna it just felt unnatural to me. And she felt very disconnected from her people.

33:14 So she just went back to her own being. She's when I'm emotional, I cry, I express my emotion, I show it. And the culture of that company is extraordinary and people feel very, very close to her and they trust her and more than she's authentic and woman with them. He went on shark tanks and said, You know, I'm I'm not a shark, I'm a dolphin. And there might be times that I call it okay. I think the main thing is it's okay to be yourself and to be human. I think what we do is we

33:39 Create this facade of professionalism. And what does professionalism mean basically is Also need means don't show human qualities. And I think that is wrong. Um We should be human in everything that we do. Uh one of my co authors was Bob Chapman, who sadly just passed away.

33:56 About three months ago, when I hope the book Everybody Matters with him. And Bob Chapman, every time he gave a speech He would be in tune. And um You know the leadership programs are Barry Wamiller when they created after he had his own epistemies and awakenings about leadership.

34:14 That included things like everybody's somebody's special child they deserve to compete and love and respect and dignity. Uh that leadership is about inspiration, not just about getting well, issuing orders and so forth. In that culture there is such a level of openness and vulnerability. The first time I went there And I was with a group of uh fifteen or so middle aged blue collar men in their fifties and sixties, less than high school educations.

34:40 And I asked them, Tell me what your life was like before your company got acquired by Barry Himila and H And I look around and silence and and then I see again Tears streaming down the faces of you of them. members start talking.

34:54 How they like it completely. Completely transformed. And I said, Wow, there's such A unique atmosphere in this coming way. When you can get middle age blue parliament to cry in front of each other. There's something special going on. That's a unique special culture.

35:09 So I I'm a big advocate for bringing the heart and the soul into everything that you do, especially as a leader. Well I'd show that. That's not weakness, that is strength. Being able as we say vulnerability is not It's not a liability, it's an ability, it's right in the word. We are well known.

35:26 Must not pretend to be not one. Okay. And yet also show project that love and strength and confidence as well. You have to have as I've said, leaders have to be strong and loving. So we have to cultivate that personal power. Inside us. As well.

35:43 Another question I get asked a lot is being loving. when you have to do really difficult things like Downsize a large portion of your organization, and I'm wondering what examples you've seen of that. Where the heeling mission of an organization is kept intact even through navigating uh uh uh large downsizing or something like that that's inherently is like a a a wound. Yeah.

36:14 To the business itself and to the people. Yeah. Again, most companies do this in a very heartless Kevin bear away. You know, suddenly your ID card doesn't work and you get a message the same day and then you're out and you're escorting. You know, that kind of thing. It's very dehumanizing and it's devastating. Getting late off in that fashion.

36:34 Uh other companies like Bob Chapman's It is they they don't say we will never ever have a layoff, but it is the absolute last resort. So when there was a situation uh with uh with very women The two thousand eight financial crisis? Which affected their industry more because they are capital goods. They make machines that make toilet paper, that make hardwood boxes.

36:54 And those kinds of industries tend to go down further in recessions. because those purchases are can be delayed. Companies don't have to replace the equipment. No, at the at the pace they're planning to. So their their new orders went down almost to zero. And they had an auto book backlog. which thought they would sus that they thought that would sustain them, but actually companies started canceling like Roptain Gamble cancelled.

37:20 A twenty million dollar order and paid the fine. So then they were really worrying so how we're gonna get sweetness. Yeah, the entire board was saying to Bob we must lay off forty, thirty, forty percent, all the competitors are doing that. And he said, You know, we say we have this mantra in our company, we measure success by the way we touch the lives of people. And if we do this, what's going to happen to these people in these small industrial towns in the Midwest?

37:44 There are no other jobs. This company is the main employer in each of those towns. And these people will lose their homes, they will lose some of them will lose their marriages, their kids will have to drop out of college. So we as a company can survive this better than they. Can as individuals so Instead of laying off anybody, they basically had a furlough for them.

38:05 Where they asked everybody to take Two months off without day. For the next year. Um I think it was last year, four weeks, one month.

38:16 And they said that will save us enough money and give us at least a year, a year and a half, one way. And it was a tremendous relief in the company. So uh So what you want to do is to resort Two layoffs as the last

38:30 strategy as a matter of survival. And the very often things you can do. In the interim, including asking your own people, guys, how do we get through this? We need to tighten our bells. Where can we cut costs and if need be we all share in the sacrifice. Starting with the executives. The executives took a much bigger pay cut. Then they ask their people to take

38:48 Now, when it does become possi uh impossible to avoid that, then the guideline to me is how do you do it with glass? If that was your own son or daughter, how would you handle that? You would want to make sure they're okay. You would want to make sure that you try to identify opportunities for them elsewhere in other companies, you know, what what do they need to do in for that transition. Uh so there are companies that we know, for example, one of the CEOs in our conscious business leadership academy.

39:13 They had to do that, but they actually did a bunch of things where they vested the stock of those companies. This was a startup. The people who were leaving were actually given that start. On an accelerated schedule. So that if the company was able to bounce back and succeed, that they they were actually sharing that.

39:29 And they did a number of other things as well, including outplacement on helping them. uh find land on their feet. And then eventually many of them came back when the company did start to grow. Uh and others of uh who left. They didn't leave on bitter terms. They almost felt like the alumni of this company. I said, Yeah, we still believe in this company.

39:49 And uh and and want to see do well. And some of them brought sales to the company and they became clients of the company, et cetera. So I think it can be done. To me, the guideline, Tammy, is this, and I learned this in the ayahuasca experience. Where I got a message, uh here's what the world needs in order to heal. And it came as an acronym. The acronym was Nist. L I S T.

40:11 And then each letter became a word and L was for love. He said every single thing that we do in this life should come from love. That's at work and in our personal lives. Not from fear, not from greed or anger or jealousy or guilt or shame. You know, too many business decisions are rooted in fear and greed. Fear of competition, fear of going out of business.

40:32 And greed for more, more, more. Can we make those same decisions from love? Even if you have to let somebody walk into do it with love. 'Cause there are many ways we can hurt each other, there's only one way to heal and that is through love. The eye was for innocence. Mather we all come into this world, this life, innocent, as pristine beings. Then we get corrupted by the ways of society, by the ways of the world, even by our own families.

40:55 my own family in India and in this warrior caste that I was born in. a shooter kind of a country was very corrupt in many ways. And it becomes an influence on an impressionable young child. So you kinda become corrupted and you learn to climb over each other and Lie and cheat to get what you want, and all of that is seen as okay. But

41:15 You don't have a choice as a child. You you're born innocent, you get corrupt. As an adult, you do have a choice and therefore you must choose. Do you want to live in that coupled state or do you want to return to innocence? What does that mean, not knowingly being the cause of unnecessary harm or suffering in this world? Towards another nice. I am right.

41:34 And as the Ai Ching says at the very center of us dwells an innocent spirit, if we can be guided by that, that is your true self. That is how you came here. As for simplicity, we make life too complicated. The essential things in life are simple, we should go back and remember the the simplicity on the other side of complexity was Oliver and Holmes talked about. And the T is for truth.

41:55 What is our commitment to the truth? Truth is fundamental. Now, Gandhi's autobiography was my experiments with chings. And he said truth is more fundamental than peace because without truth there can be no peace. If you do not acknowledge the truth. of what happened so in South Africa when they have the truth and reconciliation. process when Desman Tutu and Nelson Mandela created. That allowed them to move forward from this ugly dark history of apartheid.

42:21 To move forward as a unified nation. when people actually acknowledge the truth of what had happened. And asked for forgiveness and were given the grace. Well and So I think those are those are important messages that we have to keep in mind, starting with love.

42:36 Everything comes from that. The universe speaks to you w in an acronym. That's so funny, Raj. That's how you know everybody gets their Guidance different ways. Okay. And the seven step model that you present in Healing Leaders. We're making an upward spiral journey of growth and love. And uh

42:57 I took special not in step four. Choose yourself. Where what you talked about Was Choose your past.

43:08 You're present. And your future. That's what it means to choose yourself, to choose your past, present, and future. And I thought, well, okay. Choose the present, I'm good with that. Choose my future, I'm really excited about that. Choose my past. I don't know. I don't want to. I didn't choose that. I was given that. That was Those were that was the cards I was dealt.

43:28 And I've been spending the rest of my life working through it. I don't know if I can get to this p but I you know I I kept reading because it was powerful for me. And you right you're no longer a character. In someone else's script, you're the protagonist. You're the hero, you're the author. And I thought that's really a powerful step. So I wanted to hear more about it and how that

43:49 has played out for you because I know in choosing your paths there's a lot there for you. Yeah, so that actually came to me specifically at mealtime at that silent retreat. Uh, so because we're in complete silence, you can't have an even point and say I want that but not bad, right? So there's a bunch of stuff they've made, you put your train. And they put food in your tray. And it occurred to me that that's a metaphor for life. That there's no menu. And it's not a buffet that you pick and choose.

44:15 That I want this kind of mother and this kind of father, and I want to be born in this country and this time in history and this socio economic class and so forth. You're given a Tray full of stuff, a bunch of stuff. This is your curriculum for this life. Some of it tastes better. Well, some of it looks unappetizing. And yet you need all of it.

44:32 Because this is meant to sh these experiences, these people They're all meant to shape you and I'll and enable you to grow and evolve to become the person that you're meant to be in order to do the work that you came here to do. So that's that's the story that But we're telling ourselves.

44:49 As as uh as uh Um Ramda said, Neither friend nor foe alike, everybody you meet is your teacher. So when I look back on my childhood, so I grew up as I said in this very feudal culture within India. My grandfather was a overlord of the village.

45:05 on this warrior cars it was uh very very Iranical, very abusive. the the women especially all the workers were especially the women even the women in the hounds were really suppressed and they had to keep their heads covered and You know, my grandfather would yell at them looting at my mother or something. So as a child I observed all of that and I grew up in that environment.

45:26 And the realization came to me that had I not grown up in that environment, I would not have written a book about the feminine. Fifty years later. Because if I didn't have that experience as a male, I mean I was really in a privileged role in that society in that subculture. But I have that realization.

45:43 Having lived through that. So I think everything that happens in our lives. There's a parable called Good Thing, Bad Thing, Who knows, right? Everything that happens, we're quick to label it and say, That's a good thing, that's a bad thing. You don't know. That so called bad thing, getting fired, for example. could be the best thing that happens in your life because it it enables you to then find your true part. You are locked into something that didn't match.

46:04 And so In a way it starts to make sense of your life connecting the dots. And even those more very challenging things I would not wish them upon my in the worst enemy. But I still say yes, I had a very difficult relationship with my father, but I choose still choose to have him as a fat. What if that does you cannot change your past. But by mentally choosing it, it takes you out of victimhood.

46:25 You don't say, Oh, what was me why why did I have a father who never picked me up and never hugged me and never say nothing? Um Yeah, that should not happen, but As a result of that, there are things that I've learned. Lessons that I've learned. Right. All the things are challenging things that have happened in my life. So I think it's a

46:40 It's a more empowering framing of your journey. To say maybe I don't understand yet. Why I went through that, but there's an assembling there. There's something that I'm being asked to learn. And grow as a result of that.

46:54 So that's really the framing of choosing your past. And I wanna now share something a little personal for a moment, but I think this is the right moment, Raj, which is When I went to my first Conscious Capitalism Summit. It was about two decades ago. It was towards the beginning. It was one of the first few that

47:14 was offered when you were just in the formation phases. And I had a a two part reaction. Both of these are about me. This is about me. So on the one side I actually did sit in my chair and weep. Because I felt I've been on this path by myself.

47:32 You know, kind of clearing away with my Machete, if you will, through the jungle, trying to find a way. To operate on multiple bottom lines in business, and I've just been creating it. Now I have A whole group of

47:47 Strong people. Who are out there You know. paving a way actually that I can be part of. And it really felt incredible. And here's the other thing. Also, this is about me.

47:59 I was like, you know, it's feels very masculine oriented. I didn't feel a lot of feminine and th these are just general categories masculine and feminine. I didn't feel at the time that there was a lot of room in that group two decades ago. for sort of more my I guess you would call it a very feeling oriented

48:19 person and and operating from that sort of more emotional place as a As a person, I was a little bit like I feel like an outlier here. Ань, вот а в сіні. happen over the last couple decades.

48:33 the growth of the movement and you as one of the movement's leaders as well has been this very Welcome integration Of I don't know how else to call it, but feminine leadership qualities. along with these other more kind of strategy driven analytical

48:54 thinking and I wonder if you can speak directly to that and within the conscious capitalist movement as well. Yes, I think that is a very important aspect of the conscious capitalism movement. The consciousness Part of it. Um

49:10 There are some people who want to emphasize the capitalism part of it only, and I say, No, these are both together. You know, we have to do Everything with higher consciousness. And that consciousness includes recognition of our wholeness as human beings.

49:25 That we all come from a mother and a father. We all have masculine energy and feminine energy within us. And regardless of gender, I mean we all had that. But we have lived for thousands of years in societal structures that have systematically suppressed the feminine. As we know, women couldn't vote in this country until nineteen twenty.

49:44 Couldn't own properties for a long time, could not even get a credit card until the seventies in their own name. There were parts of Switzerland where women could not vote until the seventeenths. So this was a very recently evolving phenomenon. Lin twist refers to this as the um And

50:00 What's the word that she uses? Um Sophia, the Sophia Sanchury. This is the century when finally women will rise to called status and society as you know. So that integration, that wholeness is very, very important. The feminine is what has been missing and therefore that is what we have to Focus on right now to elevate that and not replace the masculine.

50:21 It's very important that we go and don't swing from one pole to the other. We don't go from patriarchy to a matriarchy. But we go to wholeness. All human beings. And as you will see in Healing Leaders, we talk about not only masculine, feminine, but also the elder and the child energy. The elder energy.

50:38 The the meaning, the purpose, the uh respect. I mean the the transcendents, the legacy. And then the child energy, which is play and joy and laughter and creativity and all of that. That comes from having empty child energy and we need all four of these integrated. So the phrase that we use is Each of us should strive to become the wise fool of tough love.

50:58 We have the wisdom of the elder, we have the toughness, uh foolishness of a child, the playfulness. The joy and the toughness of the masculine and the love of the feminine all together. Each one of us has a unique manifestation of that. I think that is very much a part of Conscious capitalism, what differentiates us from all of the other movements.

51:18 But all of the others are primarily Roted in, as you said, strategy or shared value capitalism, et cetera. Night and um Uh it's a better way to do business, which it is, but ultimately I think it's the consciousness with which we do everything. That makes a difference. And that including the heart and the spirit.

51:36 I think ours is the movement that yeah integrates those elements. More so than Some of the others, which are again very much. In the head. Oh no on it.

51:50 You mentioned healing organizations, a book that you wrote in that you did a study and you profiled various organizations, and it's I think fair to say that these are organizations That are at least aspirational bringing together Integrating a a a deep caring relational component. And I wonder if you could address the person who says, really is it a business's job?

52:16 To be It you know, focusing on healing. Is that what we're supposed to be doing at work? Healing? So I define wheeling as reduce suffering in the world and bring more joy into the world. And Well regardless of what industry you're in, what be you could be a restaurant, you could be a travel company, you could be anything.

52:34 Can you use that as a way to bring more joy and reduce suffering? Right, find profitable solutions to the problems that that exists in the world. And if you don't consciously choose that path Then you will actually create suffering.

52:50 Without even home and people will be burnt out and stressed out and so forth. So you could be Two companies doing the exact same business in terms of what products they or services they in. But one of them views the business as a way to serve themselves, to make money for themselves. And use other, including employees and customers, to make money for themselves.

53:10 Yeah. The other one said this is a way for me to express myself and serve others. Same business, same product, you will find suffering in one country and you will find a lot of joy and healing in the other. Same same business. In that sense, but why you do it and how you do it makes a difference. So when I say healing is

53:29 Is it okay that we are hurting people in order to make money? Is it okay that heart attacks are twenty percent higher Monday morning? Is it okay that a hundred and twenty thousand Americans die from stress connected to work? Is it okay that six hundred thousand Chinese die from Too much work. Do we have to hurt people?

53:46 And kill people to make money. If your answer is yes, then I have nothing in common with you. I don't believe that. And I will not be part of an institution that in fact stands. We have to hurt people to make money. And I set out in that book to show that the opposite

54:01 Can be true. That people not only can the heart attacks not go up on Monday, it can actually be physically healthier. Physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually at the end of the day than when you came in. And yet working at that organization actually makes you healthier in all those dimensions. That is very much possible.

54:20 So again, when something exists, we know it's possible. I want to tell people to break past that barrier to say oh business It's not at all. Well because Stuff and these are the consequences of work and yeah, people will stress out and burn out. I don't believe that. I I don't want to accept that premise. The business has to be. Can you give me an example of a healing organization that this really blew your mind when you were doing the research?

54:43 Yes, there were many, as I said in the uh in the heat organization, we have about twenty five of them. Uh let me focus on one. So one is called FIFCO, which is a company in Costa Rica. In a company that Was producing soft drinks and beer. And they had some uh as well.

55:00 And they were operating with a lot of negative consequences on people's health. on the environment. Solid waste, carbon, water, all of those things significant negative impacts. Getting people worked on sugary drinks. Lots of impact on obesity in Central America, South America, we have a lot of those problems.

55:19 Um A lot of alcoholism as well. And then they had a leader uh Ramon Mendiola. Who started to think about the business in a deeper way.

55:29 And and and read some of these books and uh started to uh started to transform. It started to Most likely in the high purpose of the company. uh started to think about listening to all of their stakeholders. Especially to the government Chang and the uh

55:46 Um Public help. Uh the Minister of Health called him and said, Ramon, you're making kids unhealthy. With what you're doing. No.

55:54 So then you started a voluntary process of internally Challenging is people to reformulate all of their drinks. To reduce the sugar. And they did that by fifty percent to reduce the sugar and they removed all of the sugary drinks. From schools and other places. They started a uh a way to uh educate people about drinking and

56:13 And excessive drinking. Yeah, and and and I'm trying to moderate the drinking patterns. They set targets for not only getting to neutrality when it came to carbon and to water and solid waste, but actually having a positive report. So they actually have the world's first water positive beer, for example, now.

56:32 That has a net positive impact on water resources. And they set very public targets and they advertise them and they put them in the newspaper. By twenty sixteen we're gonna be carbon neutral, by twenty eighteen we're gonna be No water neutral, etcetera. And then they challenge their people internally to achieve those goals and every single time they've achieved them. Uh so this is a company that has come a tremendous distance. They've also grown by about uh one thousand percent in that time.

56:58 Um With an incredible occurred during the pandemic and what they did for people, how they protected people's jobs, even in the hotel business. Oh they made a public commitment not to know anybody else. Um

57:11 They had a situation Some years ago where And they've been recognized as the best company in Costa Rica year after year, and as the best leader year after year, far a month. And in one of their public meetings an employee stood up and said, Ramon, I mean to be proud of this company and everything that we've done. But do you realise that some of our Colleagues here are living in poverty.

57:31 Some of the employees. And he said, I didn't know that. I know that we pay very good wages and may way above The norm in Costa Rica and at least a dignified wage for everybody. So give me some time, I'm gonna look into the issue and I'll come back to you and then up to They found there were about three hundred and fifty families that had fallen into poverty.

57:50 Because For various reasons, financially they've overextended themselves or bought things on credit. you know, paying fifty percent interest on those installment laws, et cetera. And they'll just fell into those traps. So they may assign mentors to each of those families. Help them get through the short term.

58:06 struggles that they were in get them bad on equal footing and give them financial uh advice and pair them with Um It would be so mentors to help them and guide them over time.

58:17 Getting the men also to become more responsible and and you know, to uh to drink lice and all all kinds of things. And at the end of eighteen months he was able to say there's not a single family of any company uh of any person in this company that is Below that line now, below that sure. So it's an example of a of a committed leader and a a uh deeply caring lunch. That has made a tremendous impact across the business.

58:42 And and now Ramon is having just stepped down as CEO is working with about a hundred and fifty other companies in uh in Costa Rica. To help them adopt These these ways of being. Amazing story. Thank you. Amazing story.

58:57 As I mentioned, there are seven steps. in this spiral of growth and love, and we're not able to go into all of them, but I do wanna ask you about The final step, which is heal. yourself and in that section of healing leaders

59:15 You go very deep into a leader's Tackling of their own trauma in their life. Buried trauma, ancestral.

59:26 Trauma. And I thought to myself, I wonder, you know, how many how many people, how many effective leaders have really done that level of depth work? Probably not much. I mean, here you are, you're you're in your late sixties, I'm in my mid sixties, and It's only as I am no longer even the CEO of Sounds True that I've had the the space and the ability and

59:53 Really, the nervous system Expansion without the go go go go go of running the company. that I've been able to do some of this deep healing work. So the question emerged for me is like Maybe

1:00:07 You can be a good conscious leader and still be carrying a certain amount of trauma that's running your system, of course. The more you heal the better, but Yeah, that's a that's a tall ask, and I'm curious what you think about that. Yeah, so it's everybody has trauma, as I talked about. You know, the thirteen million Americans have PTSD, but all of us have PTSI post traumatic stress injury. The depth of it varies, obviously. Some people have severe things that are impacting them on a day to day basis.

1:00:36 Uh and therefore impacting the people they need. Others that may be less significant. maybe they had a pretty happy childhood and they were b well loved by both their parents and they didn't So they're able to be okay and the the smaller things they can work on. But I think first of all examining and recognizing do I indeed have anything significant that I need to work on. That is causing

1:00:58 get hijacked, you know, have these amygdala hijacked, they have these uh Triggers that cause me to behave in certain ways. So it's about self awareness. No, it's part of knowing yourself as well. Do I have things that I need to work on? As I said, everybody has something.

1:01:15 And some people have A lot, so We I think we have a duty to ourselves and and the people we love and need. To come from as keen the place as possible. And there's no end point to that journey because you know there's no end to me. Will always be some other layer that that gets uncovered. But certainly being on that journey.

1:01:33 Starting relatively early I think it's important. I mean, we're trying to introduce this now to our undergraduate students in Mexico. at the university I teach at, you know, I think we can start thinking about these things only on Then you don't have to be suddenly wake up at fifty and say, My Lord. No, yeah. I'm I'm not even in charge of my own emotions. So I don't know how do I why do I react in this way?

1:01:53 So I think having that awareness Uh and then commitment to work on yourself. Make time for that, I think it's important. You know, leaders that I've seen like John Mackie at Whole Foods has always made time for introspection and uh working on his own. Well, I'm going on

1:02:10 uh the application troll uh hiking for six weeks at a time sometimes Uh doing all kinds of other holotropic network and other kinds of human modernities. I think I think it's really a duty. That we have as leaders to car walk time for that. No, delegate what you have to and also if you work on yourself as a leader.

1:02:30 It is not a selfish thing to do, it is the most generous thing that you can do as a leader. To be able to step out of that clean zone to actually refresh and and and work on these things. We are living in a golden age, I mean, of trauma. Therapy. Even you've had a lot of guests on on the podcast that you know about guests me more than I do. Um Gabar Mati and many others.

1:02:51 Uh, I think the there's no reason why we should be Maving this way. Does he say that you know your trauma is not your bulbs. But healing it is your responsibility. You cannot just vote to life and say, Well, woe is me, this happened to me, therefore I'm like this. No.

1:03:07 Once you recognize that that happened to you, you have a duty to actually work on it. Try to heal someone because it affects not only your happiness and well being. But it affects your chairman and your family and it affects everybody that you need. What do you think it's a second? obligation that we have that comes with leadership is to say how can I keep working on myself.

1:03:29 Well, we say you need to become a self cleaning oven. Okay, constantly working on On healing and uh and um Can you have those things. Yeah. As we conclude, Raj, what do you see on the horizon?

1:03:46 For Conscious business. I mean, you mentioned we're in The Empire Strikes Back mode and Many people would say it's just a dark time collectively of chaos and lack of clarity about the new coming into being and

1:04:05 how that's gonna happen. How do you see it specifically in terms of conscious business? Yes, I think we are in that backlash moment and we are being tested. On the depth of our commitment and understanding to these principles. These deeply human principles. Is being tested and a lot of people are being revealed. that they really actually never believed in this stuff because one

1:04:27 Times get tough when people reverse course. No, I mean it's it's a kind of moral recession in a way. Very few people have stood up. And uh and um and stood behind those principles and not given in. You know, you can talk about Costco, you can talk about Patagonia, you can talk about few companies that have been out there, but but many others have simply been, you know, to uh to this uh

1:04:48 Tyranical won't um my extreme low consciousness in the face that way. I I do think that You know, this I believe is a temporary phase. I I believe in that statement of Martin Luther King that the moral arc of the universe bends towards Justice and towards Consciousness and evolution. I mean evolution has a purpose and it's taking us higher and higher. Now it doesn't go in a straight line. I've often back shop and then

1:05:13 You know, because there's always a backlash that happens when you have a lot of change happening in a period of time when there are people who Well resist, but ultimately we resume that trajectory, that upward trajectory. So I think We have to stay committed, even double down on our commitment and our uh And we have to have the courage. This is a time for courage.

1:05:33 It takes courage. The state buying principle. There are a lot of people in this world who only have positional power. You take away their title, there's nobody there. Colombian power, so called power came from that. that position that they were occupied.

1:05:48 And Personal power comes from inside. Nobody can take it away. You cultivate it. So your own discipline to your own uh focus on your values and integrity and principles. And and uh like Gandhi, and Gandhi was the ultimate example of personal power. Gandhi was never appointed to anything, never elected to anything, never had

1:06:09 People reporting to him and yet he had one changing personal power. was five feet two and he was ninety pounds. No before you went on a hunger strike. And yet he could change the course of history in the world, and that's personal power. That's what we need to cultivate. Every one of us has access to that. We can cultivate our personal power.

1:06:31 Well nobody can take it away from us. And so I think that is what we are called to do at I say episode three is the turn of the Jedi. Well, they never went away. They were just in training and coming back. Yeah. And uh and you establishing our forward

1:06:45 Progress. I don't think you have a choice. This is not a luxury anymore. We have It's an imperative. We have to change. There's no future on this planet for our children. Why is it that our children don't want to have children of their own?

1:07:01 No, what is that? It's because they don't want to bring people into the kind of world that they're seeing. that has been created by the version of industrialized capitalism that we have practiced. It has given us a lot, material abundance and incredible technologies. But it has also come at a steep price and we cannot afford that price anymore.

1:07:19 And we don't need to. That's the irony. We don't need to. We can create even more material abundance. And we can do it in a way that actually simultaneously heals. And uh innovates all aspects of our life. including the matching room.

1:07:35 Raj Susodia, a beacon. Of possibility. Thank you so much, author of Healing Leaders, the Healing Organization. Raj is also part of our guest faculty at the Inner MBA. It's a six month

1:07:52 The Emerge and Learning program, it begins on October 23rd in collaboration with the Greater Good Science Center. at UC Berkeley. You can learn more at Inter MBA. Dot sounds true dot com Rush, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you very much, Sammy, and thank you for the incredible work that uh that you're doing. And have done all these years. Thank you.

1:08:17 Thank you for listening. I'd also like to invite you to join us on Sounds True One, where you can enjoy early, ad-free access. To episodes of Insights at the Edge. Sounds True One is our premium membership platform. It's built around live classes and online events, award-winning specials. Intimate learning experiences

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