Episode 2
· 01:22:11
Welcome to the Smoke Trail hosted by Smoke Wallen. Join Smoke on a unique journey of awakening consciousness, sharing authentic stories and deep discussions with inspiring guests. Explore spirituality, leadership, and transformation, tools to elevate your path.
Smoke:I think it's worth just restating our intentions every time we go into anything we're doing. Right? And just be be really clear and present. Deep conversations, having people who have gone through lots of things in their lives, who have dealt with their shadows, have, come through the hard times, are high performing, awesome individuals helping lots of people. I think sometimes people like you, Sarah, don't have a platform to really kinda tell us a little bit of behind the scenes.
Smoke:You know, you spend a lot of your time, coaching leaders, CEOs around the world, and all kinds of people. Usually, you're there for them, and you're just there to help them. I think that's awesome. And, also, I think that there's something to be learned from how did you get here, how did you become Sarah, how did you become the person you are today. You are able to help so many people, in so many different ways.
Smoke:And and what is it that, you know, gave you gives you that reserve of inner harmony, if you will, that allows you to hold space for people in all kinds of different situations. And I really, grateful for you to be a part of the launch of the smoke trail where where you're one of the early early guests. It's gonna be a lot of fun, and I I'm super super honored to have you with me.
Sarah:Yeah. It's a delight to be with you. And my intention in partnership and collaboration with you is also to bring as much expanded, elevated consciousness and healing as we can through the conversation. I was going to do some grounding right before we started, and I decided maybe we would do it together if you're open to that. I often like to start start my day, even start most of my coaching sessions with this grounding.
Sarah:I'm a total brain nerd. I think you know that. And so I like to leverage what we know about the brain and get us into as creative, open, and innovative of a space. We already have open hearts, but this is also to help get us maybe a little out of our busy mind into our higher selves. Would you want to try it?
Smoke:Absolutely. Love to. Love to.
Sarah:I'm gonna invite your listeners to do it with us. Of course, if you're in the car, don't close your eyes. But if you're out and about or in your house, this is just a moment to get settled. And so I always start with a few deep breaths. So we're gonna, I'll tell you what we're gonna do and then we'll do it together, and hopefully your listeners will do it with us.
Sarah:So we'll breathe in for a few seconds, hold our breath, circulating energy, and then exhale. And when we exhale, you'll exhale with a sigh, actual audible sound. And I do encourage all of your listeners to do this as loudly as they dare at home. What that does is it turns off our stress hormones, the catecholamines and the bad stuff. And if we do that for thirty seconds to two minutes, it starts the production of our feel good hormones.
Sarah:And so I thought if we just did let's do three deep breaths together to get grounded, to really feel our connection and the intent that we've set for the podcast. How's that feel?
Smoke:Sounds awesome.
Sarah:Okay. Cool. So start, I always just like to, close my eyes, and I like to feel the gravity, the mother earth just holding me. So I kinda feel the earth, feel the gravity in my haunches and in my feet, and I'm gonna invite you to take a nice, slow, deep breath in for about four seconds and hold it at the top. And then we're gonna exhale with that sigh.
Sarah:Alright. Let's do two more of those. We're gonna add a gentle smile on the exhale for the next two, breathing in. When you're ready. Nice smile.
Sarah:And third time, big deep breath in. Hold it at the top. And when it's right for you, a gentle exhale and smile.
Smoke:Yeah.
Sarah:Always feel like that just brings that centered calm. And I really I love what you shared at the beginning, Smoke. This is a new experience for me, as a coach and in my first career as an entrepreneur and a mental health therapist, trauma therapist for two and a half decades, now a executive coach for a decade. People don't often ask about you. And I'm I'm from the school of teaching and thought where I might share a personal story if there is if there's a gift in that that I perceive or I intuit for the client.
Sarah:And so I may share personal stories, especially if I think that may resonate with someone. And so you're right. It's really unusual. I loved the questions that you sent me in preparation for this, and there are some stories I really haven't told, except for to my close friends or my group. You know, my team.
Smoke:Well, I I think that's I really appreciate that. When we were doing, a preliminary call to talk about some of these ideas, You had shared that, you know, you if anything, you may maybe well, I don't it's not a judgment here, but you may be using your words. You've overcorrected in terms of not sharing in that you're super conscientious of the other people and what's the reason to share. I I really I really like that. I really appreciate that, you know, because it isn't about being vulnerable or sharing for the sake of sharing.
Smoke:I, as you know, went through a whole process of clearing my own trauma and shadows and and getting coming to terms with it and coming to forgiveness and all, you know, my whole journey. But in that process, I did share little pieces of my story, but only to the degree and only to the amount that I felt necessary to to convey what I was trying to convey that would help others. And Right. It wasn't ever about that story. It was about we all have a story.
Smoke:Mhmm. Here's some of mine. I'm gonna share with you because it's super vulnerable and super private, and I'm gonna share it with you because I want you to know that I trust you, and this was, you know, to my audience.
Sarah:Sure.
Smoke:But only to the degree that I felt it was necessary. So I really appreciate your privacy with regard to to to some of the things that have made Sarah Sarah.
Sarah:I think it's it feels bigger than privacy. It's integrity and sovereignty around my personal spiritual growth journey and holding those containers very sacred. And it's interesting as you share that because I feel that way in the coaching container as well. So I think one of my, secret superpowers is I'll have people tell me things they've never told the soul. And I think it has to do with this way I hold kind of sacred space for myself, my clients, the groups that I work with.
Sarah:And, also, I feel really, for lack of a better word, turned off by people who have performative vulnerability. So in coaching world and even in, you know, a lot of the speaking world, you'll see people sharing stories or using stories about their children or their spouse, but it it actually isn't, in my estimation, this authentic deep sharing. It's a hook. It's a way of, oh, let me get an audience or let me get people signed up for what I'm offering. And so I feel really, there's a real yeah.
Sarah:I have an energetic go to that.
Smoke:You know, the the it's really interesting because I spent decades, you know, running companies and, in leadership doing all kinds of different things. And, along the way, I've had the great fortune of having great coaching and, you know, speech coaches and presentation coaches and some of the world's best. Right? Like, literally. And so what's interesting is being authentic and being genuine and and being willing to share vulnerable stuff and things that are that are very, very close to you and knowing the professional tricks of the trade, if you will, the ways in which you can you can convey a message properly, the the story arc of a of a of a of a talk, and and incorporating that and yet and that yet keeping your your your genuine authenticity of why you're doing.
Smoke:Because, like, it it because there's nothing wrong with, you know, being polished, being, you know, dressing up. And, you know, I I was honestly I was thinking about, you know, what is my look for this this this show, you know, for this for those that are actually watching a video. Right? Like, so I'm sitting here. You could see beautiful Sedona, some of the rocks behind me.
Smoke:How do you engage with people? How do you engage an audience? How do you talk to a coaching client or a team or a pea a group of people? Don't get caught up in that. It's not about that.
Smoke:It's about what is in your heart, what is the genuine message you're sharing, and make sure you don't get, you know, caught up in the in the how do I present myself. And you yeah. You know that stuff because it's what professionals know, but it's about how do I stay true and speak at from my higher self to your higher self Right. At a level that is beyond words and beyond presentation.
Sarah:Yeah. I I also think your intent behind this podcast is so much more than that. So I love that you're aware. I mean, this is one of the things that I absolutely adore about you is how mindful, self aware, conscientious you are that you're able to think through all of that, land on this is what feels good for me, and move forward. I think about, you know, in YPO or some of the mastermind groups, how we talk about that % from the worst to the very bottom one five percent things to the very best top, you know, 95 to a % spectrum of what you experience in life.
Sarah:I think the idea of certainly, when you sent the questions and the idea of what you want to bring is really exploring those extreme edges. A lot of us have shared the middle stuff and the authentic sharing of what's really happening. And some of my growth story, some of my journey, some of some of my consciousness expansion is intimate and incredibly powerful. I mean, it's been the most amazing aspect of my life, of of my soul in this lifetime. It it's just been incredible.
Sarah:And, also, you you know this because most of my clients are incredibly successful, really wealthy owners and founders of businesses. Sometimes when I get into woo woo adjacent material, not sure what to think about it, it's what led to my rebranding last year in 2024 because I really wanted to call in conscious leaders, open hearted leaders who are interested in conscious capitalism, who care about their people, who care about their planet, who care about being conscious in the world and elevating to their highest self. Always that aspect, that mystic side of me has been a secret undercover agent. And so I'm working with a Fortune twenty c suite leader, and they don't know anything about that. And after the rebrand, what's amazing is people are reaching out to me for that.
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah. That makes so much sense. I think, this is my twenty first year in YPO, so, you know, I'm very much, you know, drink the Kool Aid in, in that in that world. And and and that that is one of the best things about YPO.
Smoke:It's it is about the sharing deeply. You know, we have four meetings, you know, with a small group of other leaders who, you know, we meet regularly. And and those forums are really, really, really, really personal, really, really, tight knit groups. And one of the reasons is that people are have a degree of trust with each other that they're gonna they can share openly and feel like it's not gonna leave the room. It's, you know, completely confidential.
Smoke:And so we talk about that 5% or two two and a half percent, you know, at the edges of the of the best of the best and the and the worst of the worst. And and, you know, when we do our updates, and I and I I like to, I like to to treat this show as a top 5% or bottom 5%, at the extreme. It isn't about a book report. It's not about what I can read on your website. It's not about what I can see that the average typical, discussion or interview or business talk is gonna be.
Smoke:It's about what can we do at along the edges that might feel a little bit uncomfortable for us or for our audience, but also that might give some information to convey something at a deeper level that perhaps, in the day to day, we don't see. And we don't we we let our guard down very infrequently in public. And being comfortable that we can have this conversation, that we can go a little bit deeper, that's why the questions go go deep. You know? And and, you know, one of the the first questions is, you know, was there was there some big event or something that changed your life in terms of how how, you know, some something you experienced that made you who the who you are today, and and how did you deal with that?
Smoke:And I don't know if you wanna talk touch on that or not. I know we've got the interview questions that we'll share. But if you if you feel if you feel like it, let's talk a little bit about it, and you know, how did that impact you, and how does it make Sarah Sarah?
Sarah:It's a great question, and so many people who are listening will resonate with this because I have my own story. Actually, my own spiritual journey and my own journey of trauma and healing from trauma. And I'm a real believer that we are, for the most part wounded well. We have trauma with capital t or trauma with a little t is what I like to think of it, but everybody has their traumas. So I can think about the trajectory of my life, and a few of the really major things that have impacted me have been traumatic.
Sarah:Sexual abuse as a young started when I was in my preschool years until fifth grade by a non immediate family member. I said, well, I don't know how much you want me to share, on this
Smoke:Wait. Wait. Whatever you feel good, whatever you feel like sharing that you feel in your heart is helpful. You know, you know that I have, experience, along the same lines, and I've shared it in a public arena as well. So it's a very uncomfortable topic for a lot of people, but, you know, it's something that something like one in ten children in America will have experienced some kind of sexual abuse as a child.
Smoke:I joined the board of a of a group called Sacred Child, which is a group that is founded by a friend of mine who whose granddaughter was abused by her father. And when they figured out what was happening, you know, he went to jail. And, my friend's daughter and her two young children went from a, you know, a hundred and $50,000 salary guy to, a single mom earner household. Their lifestyle changed. They there was, you know, a lot of challenges with bills and everything else.
Smoke:And so my friend was able to step in and help his daughter, but, you know, it it opened his eyes up to he and his wife's eyes to well, what about all the other kids that are abused and what their families aren't as fortunate as ours. And so Right. And so so Sacred was created to give short term immediate financial support to the family of a victim in the transition from, like, you know, the the dad went to jail or whoever. Yeah. They're trying to find house housing or whatever.
Smoke:And it's like it's little things. It's like it's like $3,000, 5 thou yes. That is, like, the world for some of these families. Right. But I think it's it's brave and important that we, who have direct experience, whether it's ourselves or people in our family or, you know, people that we know, that we're okay to talk about it.
Smoke:And, you know, the you know, I know I know you have, I think the capital t is, is your you've gone through your trauma and you've healed. Is that right? Okay. So you're Yeah. You're you're in the capital t category, as I am, I believe.
Smoke:Yeah. And and so at some level, it's not being vulnerable for me to talk about it. It's it's just me being me. I I can talk about anything. There there is no trauma that anyone has.
Smoke:And, I mean, there's no trauma that anyone has that I can't sit for and hold space for because of my own experiences. And I I think you we, you know, you share some of that understanding of what that reservoir of ability to hold space means and what it means to someone who perhaps doesn't have someone they can talk to.
Sarah:Well, I think that energetic, emotional capacity to do that for people is a huge gift. The the rest of the story of that is, I was the one in my family who said no and who told. And you and I were both I mean, I'm 54, and so this was you know, there's there's no information about this. There's no information for parents. I had watched an after school special.
Sarah:I don't know if you remember these Wednesdays after school. There'd be, like, the little show, and it was called the girl next door. I've never fact checked this, but this is what I recall. And the girl next door was being abused. And the the message said, tell someone, and if they don't believe you, tell another person.
Sarah:Now they have all kinds of I mean, they've got curriculum in school for children now on how to do this. But when I first said something, what was amazing about it was my parents stood by me, supported me, got me help. I was able to confront the abuser, and he had I truly believe that he was a sociopath and
Smoke:a
Sarah:pedophile. And so later in my life, my thirties, he was dying actually, and I confronted him again and said, hey. This has impacted me, and I really wanted to have closure with him before he died. It's informed me so much in my humanity, at first as a therapist and and now as an executive coach, to have lived through that trauma, to have healed it. And I think the second most impactful traumatic thing that happened to me and my husband is our second we had secondary infertility, and our second son, after a really high risk awful pregnancy, died at birth.
Sarah:So we I I had him, and we had him for I call it, Charlie's day of life. I held him. We had him baptized. All of the circumstances around that did not allow him to be with us in this lifetime. And when I think about those ways, those two things, major things in life, I I think one of the things that my mentor told me, Smoke, I I can't remember if I've told you this, but I had a wonderful mentor, Jim Marks, after Charlie died, and I I was, you know, raging at at the cosmos at God and say why.
Sarah:At the time, I was a therapist. I was a trauma specialist. I was working with women who'd been raped. I had a intellectually disabled woman who had been raped, and she was pregnant. And she couldn't understand why I was gonna have her work with a different therapist, and I was raging.
Sarah:Like, why is this? And Jim said to me I think I even remember it from verbatim. It really, really landed with me, and I think your readers, if they've had trauma, will feel this. He said, Sarah, it's moments like these that help us discover the shores of our soul, the depth and breadth of life. It always felt like the the gift on the other side of that was this ability to hold.
Sarah:Yeah. This is what you're speaking about. The worst the the most awful things of humanity, of being human, of of being traumatized at the same time as we can develop capacity and the ability to see the most beautiful, joyful, glorious things in life and experience them.
Smoke:I think it's been referred to I I love the way you say it, and it it's all I've also heard it called the pearl of great price.
Sarah:Yeah.
Smoke:Now this pearl of wisdom that is only you only receive this pearl by having paid the price of trauma of having gone through it and having put your conscious awareness on it. The light of that brings forth this this beautiful pearl that is this this wisdom and this ability to hold space for others. And I think it's something that you you know it if you've gone through it. And, you know, whatever it is, you know, everyone has everyone has some version of trauma that's you don't get through this this version of life, without it. And then and it's about how do we how do we learn from that?
Smoke:How do we incorporate that into our our our being, and how do we hold space for others to help them on that on the way? And, you know, and so the the oftentimes, the people who have been harmed, been traumatized the worst, the the the in fathomable ways, if they can come through that, they oftentimes are are are people who can can really elevate all of humanity because of their their ability to hold space, which is another word of saying high vibration. I mean, it you know, it's about almost the depths of your suffering. It's almost equal to or it's a springboard to the the level of love and compassion you can bring to others. Yeah.
Smoke:How I how I feel it.
Sarah:Yeah. I think that's beautifully said. And I think one of the things I had no idea about, and I mean this with true humility and humbleness, I did not realize I mean, I went into therapy. You know this. A lot of therapists go into therapy because they've been helped by it.
Sarah:Although many therapists don't really have their own stuff figured out, which is an issue, and ultimately why I left the field of mental health and moved into executive coaching. I didn't realize how well though that would serve me, this this sitting with people, one family, one couple, one person at a time for two and a half decades, holding trauma, helping them heal. There is nothing people can share that will shock me. I also think that capacity, that ability, I have a real belief. Have and we've heard this in the coaching world.
Sarah:A lot of times people say, oh, your ideal client is you, which I think is total bullshit. Have have you heard this?
Smoke:No. Not not that exactly.
Sarah:So in the in the coaching world and in training, people will be like, oh, the person in front of you, like, you're gonna coach the people who have your issues. I actually think that's really, I don't know, egotistical and shortsighted. I want to be not one year ahead, but ten years ahead where my clients are spiritually and with my emotional capacity and the ability to hold space for them. That upward spiral of consciousness expansion and being able to be there is part of what helps people have that quantum growth and lift.
Smoke:And and, Sarah, you and I I I totally get what you're saying. But, also, isn't it true that no matter how far ahead, quote, you are in terms of, like, your own processing, your own integration, your own ability to keep the dark analyte in one place and and be who you are gives you that ability to help them. But, also, doesn't it does aren't you changed by each client? Aren't you aren't you affected directly? So so while while, yes, you're holding space maybe here for them and and helping them see something that they couldn't see over the the the edge of.
Smoke:Right? Over the like, helping them peer over the fence. But at the same time, you know, aren't you also every time learning some other aspect and and Yes. You know, it's it's interesting, isn't it?
Sarah:Well, think about that population curve, just that bell shaped curve. I am way on the outlier for growth and development. Like, I just that's where I love to be in the learning zone. So as I work with clients, I am always growing and learning and expanding. I'm I'm doing research right now on polyvagal theory because I have a client that I want to bring.
Sarah:That's expanding my knowledge, but it's really in service of him so that he can work on getting out of, freeze into more of an action healthy state.
Smoke:So kinda coming back to a little bit about integration. Transcending our traumas to me is about integration. It's about understanding them, putting conscious light of awareness on them, understanding them. You know, different people have different processes to to to get through that. For me, it was forgiveness.
Smoke:For me, it was it was forgiveness for to anyone and everyone and myself. And, you know, I think forgiving yourself is is actually the most important thing you can do. But and and the forgiveness isn't about them. It's about you. You you the the forgiver is the beneficiary of the forgiveness.
Smoke:And so once you've done that and you've kind of unlocked the trauma, the pain, and you've gotten to a point where, like, it doesn't hurt me to look at anything that's difficult because I'm okay with it, and I'm okay with it. So so you've done that. Now now it's, like, integrating it. And I think a lot of the judgment because a little bit of it is, I'll admit, but it but it but I don't mean it I don't mean it judgmentally. I just mean it as, like, like, I'll put it out as, like, a hypothesis.
Smoke:Right? So as someone who's a professional had been a therapist for many years, and the therapy world, is extraordinarily valuable and can help people become conscious of their own shadows and their own issues. And it's stuck in this, like, hamster wheel of, naval gazing, continually mint mentations of repeating the same stories over and over again. And and just, like, there's a there's a level of mind, the ego mind, which is self contained and will never get beyond itself. Like, it it it's it's you can completely be stuck on a hamster wheel, and I think some people use therapy.
Smoke:Some therapists aren't conscious enough to know to understand this, that it isn't about the trauma. It's about transcending it and the integration. So how do you first of all, does that ring true to you? And then and then how do you how do you bring that to your to to your your world of leadership?
Sarah:Yeah. So a couple of thoughts. Yes. In fact, that's why I left the field of mental health. I always loved connecting with people.
Sarah:I loved making a difference. I felt a real sacred calling for that. And, I'll I'll I think of it not as a hamster wheel, but the drama triangle. So the the persecutor, rescuer, victim triangle, the drama triangle, often a therapist will sit with someone in their victim space, support them, give compassion, give love. The kind of therapist that I was was cognitive behavioral.
Sarah:You know, I had a lot of tools in my toolkit, EMDR, some different things like that. The point was to change how you show up, how you sync, and how you behave, which is the type of therapy that makes the most difference. And even still, back in 2015 when the DSM five came out, I had a friend who sat on our state mental health board, and he said, hey, Sarah. Okay. Here's the deal.
Sarah:You're gonna need to start giving clients four diagnoses, and then you can drop them systematically so that you continue to get paid by the insurance company. This is what managed mental health is gonna do to us, which I fundamentally disagree with. I don't believe in pathologizing people. I actually hit in my own professional life what I call the excellence plateau, where you're stuck with really being a little bored and burnt out. And I knew that I was on my zone of excellence, and there was something bigger calling to me.
Sarah:So I mindfully went on this journey to figure out, okay, how can I take my skills and what I love and bring that to the world in a different way? I have a little different way of thinking about transcendence, and it might just be semantics, smoke. I actually think of it in terms of alchemy and transmutation. So transmutation is that biological process happens in the while I look out at a forest right behind the house here, when the leaves fall and then they decompose, they become energy. They become nutrients for the tree to grow.
Sarah:And I feel like our most my in my experience, let me use it in my terms. My experience of alchemizing trauma has been to use it not to separate from it or let lift up out of it, but actually to alchemize it, to use it, to reclaim my energy from that time and harness it and use it for better things.
Smoke:It it is semantics because it is how I look at it as well. It it you said it really really nicely. And I as we alchemize the trauma, as we get conscious awareness on it, understand it, forgive, do whatever we have to do in our process to alchemize. Right? It's all it's all these different, you know, methods and tools and things.
Sarah:Yeah.
Smoke:And as that happens, what happens is you open up a portal to source, to God, to Yeah. Whatever whatever you wanna say, love, the the field, universal consciousness. It is the higher power that is in and among all of us, and we get access to that through this alchemizing process. So that energy that you're talking about that you release, what what is actually I think is happening is we all have that energy. It's all there.
Smoke:But we're hit it's it's veiled from us. It's it's hidden from us, and it's hidden from us by our own shell, our our shell around our heart, our shell around our trauma. And as we crack that shell and as we break through it and as we put conscious light on it, the energy is released. And it's released and it flows through you again the way it's supposed to. And that's what is accessible to everyone.
Smoke:Every human on the planet has that at their fingertips if they can get crack this code.
Sarah:Love it and agree. I do totally agree. There's a I know that I've shared with you that I am studying, shamanic lineage. Tayo Alfiro is my teacher from the college of expanded consciousness. So I've been studying with him for quite some time, and this shamanic lineage would say, you don't release the energy.
Sarah:You have a reclamation of the energy. So there's a process of returning what's not yours to your abuser or to the situation or to whatever is happening in that scenario and a reclaiming of that energy for your own use. And that's part of what I think, personally, creating that reservoir of energy as I've systematically gone through and done this reclamation process through my life has allowed me to expand even more my consciousness, connect with other realms, lifetimes, and dimensions. And I love how you're open to, what do we name God? And and for me, that divine essence probably is cosmic heart.
Sarah:It's that quantum field. There's a feeling. And those of you who are listening, who've experienced that, there's there's nothing like it when you are actually open and connected in that way. It's one of the most beautiful
Smoke:And and I I tend to use God because I didn't grow up in a religious a very religious situation. So I don't have a lot of the dogma attached in my head that came with a lot of formal religion and stuff, which which I think some people have. My wife, Venetra, is a grew up Catholic in Catholic schools, and Right. She called she called herself a a recovering Catholic.
Sarah:Yes.
Smoke:And and yet, we we when we're in New York, we go to, you know, Saint, Peter's, you know, cathedral. And, when we were in Milan, we went to, you know, the Domo, Milano, which is just one of the great great gifts to the world. And and, we actually we actually had a we closed it down one night for our group, and we had a a soprano, opera singer, and a and a organist play on the on the grand organ and and play us this unbelievably beautiful operatic, you know, tribute, as the sun went down in the evening in the in the domo in Milan. It was just I I I'll share a, a a couple of little clips of it that I took videos of in the show notes, but it was extraordinary. But, like, though that those moments, one whatever you wanna call it, but the connecting with divinity, connecting with with source, cosmic heart, I love.
Smoke:You know, you feel it. And what what I try to do each and every day is I try to be there. I try to I don't need to be at the Domo Milan in that moment. I am here. I am standing here.
Smoke:I'm gonna hike on that on that that's Bell Rock. I'm gonna hike on one of the one of the hikes, a little later today, and I am in that feeling most of the time. And
Sarah:Yeah.
Smoke:I and and I that's why I'm doing the show. I wanna share that with people. How can they do it? How reading a lot about the mystics of the Christian mystics lately, and one of the ones that have really struck home is Meister Eckhart. And this book, The Way of Paradox, is a book about about his teachings.
Smoke:And if you don't know about him, I'm gonna do a whole show on him, just to talk about it. But, you know, he was born in December, you know, Benedictine monk in, you know, in in Germany, you know, became head of the University of Paris, which is the most prestigious university at the time, theology department, but was a a leader in the church and also attacked by the church. So he was criticized greatly for they thought blasphemy for his teachings, but he was teaching that if the story of Christ is a is a wonderful story, but if you don't find it inside in you, if you don't find God in you, what's the point? Yeah. And so as as is the tradition of these mystics over the years, down the cross, Teresa of Avila Yes.
Smoke:You know, all these different amazing, stories, which I I just it's a whole new world for me. It felt like, you know, this it's just been extraordinary to kinda see this and read this wisdom coming from someone in the, you know, the the the thirteenth century, and and that truth just rings out today. And and it's it's extraordinary. And I think that's really what we're talking about. I think it's you know, you but you can't get there without facing your shadows, without facing your trauma, without going through like, there's no shortcut.
Smoke:Right? There's no like, so when you're when you're sitting there when you're sitting there with a with a high powered, fortune twenty CEO, and he's in confidence saying, Sarah, you know, I'm I'm you know, he's obviously been really successful. He's got this power. He's got this huge thing, and he's probably also, like, you know, I my kids are messed up, and my, my my marriage is not working right, and I don't have much. And and and he's got all these, like, stuff going on his head like every human does.
Smoke:And, you know, and he's and you're sitting there trying to coach this leader of a giant organization. The way you get to him is not say, well, Bob, you should, you know, start working out and stop drinking and stop womanizing and do the you know, like, that's not how you get to him. It's Right. Bob, let's let's turn your awareness to what is it that's causing these things? What would drive you to do these things, and what is it that's lacking inside that makes you seek something?
Sarah:Yeah. And even deeper than that. So as you're telling this story, I was thinking about a session that I had two months ago with someone, an in person session. So I I coach people all over the world. But this person I happen to be, I got to meet with in person.
Sarah:And this is, incredibly successful CEO of really successful, well known business. I'll keep everything confidential to protect his privacy. And he had a near death experience. So he had pushed himself so hard. This is gonna sound a lot of your people listening are gonna resonate with this.
Sarah:He had exhausted himself. His only way of functioning to find the success was to force it. And he literally ran a marathon, passed out, ended up in a coma for three days and had a near death experience. So this is what brought him to me. He's running this huge organization.
Sarah:He's got great goals here and a secret parallel challenge, something that he is that's torturing him. He, in this in this time, met his ancestor, an ancestor, and was offered, you can come with me or you can stay and live. And he's a father. He's got children. Most of my clients are men, by the way, smoke probably 80%.
Sarah:I love working with women, but somehow, I think the way I hold space, that divine feminine energy is really appreciated by my male clients. So the work that we did actually was meditative and visualization and some shamanic practice to bring him into a higher state of being. We invited his ancestors into the room because after this happened, he was tortured with why did I choose to come back, and how can I be a better spouse, father, lover? How can I show up for my family and do this differently? I can't.
Sarah:All the things that made me work before, now I know are killing me. Like, I have to make this huge change. And he'd had this bifurcation of life before and life after. And the work that we did was to integrate that alchemizing, that transmutation of deciding and really getting clear on I'm here, how new I want to show up, and how can I do that elevating into my zone of genius with effortless success and being present? And so we've worked on the being of who he is.
Sarah:You know? I was thinking coaching I have this theory. Surface level coaching is, you know, how you think. A little bit deeper. So it might be tools, strategies.
Sarah:A little bit deeper is gonna be mindset. We're going a little bit deeper. But where I really wanna meet people is at the level of being. The the being of who you are. How are you showing up, and why are you showing up this way?
Sarah:So that was a real energetic shift for him, and we worked together. You know? It wasn't just this one session, but it led to this session, which was very transformative where he felt that lineage, the support for him backwards and forwards for his children and their children. It was incredibly healing. And, you know, he said it blew his mind, and I I felt such an honor to support him in that integration.
Sarah:So it's not
Smoke:I love that.
Sarah:Master.
Smoke:And it's it rings so true to me. And and I think what a lot of us face, you know, in this process is it's the it's the doubt. It's the self doubt. And, you know, you you hear it a lot in in leadership circles, imposter syndrome thing. It's a real thing, you know, and and, you know, for those of you that are, like, up and coming aspiring leaders who aren't there yet and you're but you but you have your sights set on running running a big business organization or whatever, you're gonna have this moment at some point when you're there of imposter syndrome where you're like, the dog just caught the car.
Smoke:What do I do? And it's literally like you know, it's like they all look at me, and I'm supposed to have the answers, and I'm just me. I'm just the I'm just that person. I'm still the kid that I was, and I now I learned a few things along the way, and I've got this exterior persona that it has been built around me that I have built around myself that is, you know, what the world sees of me. But inside, I have this the I'm this kid who's oh, wow.
Smoke:Okay. What do I do now? And that is the most natural thing in the world. And I think once someone like your client who, you know, has an experience like that, where, it's not it takes a near death experience or it takes an illness like a, you know, a severe illness like cancer or something, or some a a a dramatic loss, like some kind of traumatic thing that shakes things up. Alcohol, you know, the the 12 steps groups, you don't get there until you you get hit rock bottom.
Smoke:And the power of healing happens once you've hit that. So all these different ways to kinda get to that moment of, like, wake up and and and be introspective and and start looking internally. But that that self doubt is something that's real, and I think what happens is your conscious awareness, if you spend enough time in contemplation, in peaceful inner introspection, that it just melts away. And what happens is it's not that like, I I know that I don't know so many things, and I literally have no idea why, God created these mountains other than so that I could go Mhmm. Get closer to get closer to source and hike on them.
Sarah:Yeah.
Smoke:I don't have any idea why all this is happening. I don't have any idea if I run into a a challenge later today why it's happening. So, and I don't control it. I'm very, I'm I'm more aware of what I don't know today than any time in my life, and I'm also have no self doubt. So, like, it's it's a really interesting tension.
Smoke:Right? The self doubt is much higher when you portray this giant confidence Yes. Persona to the world. And when you can be comfortable in your own skin and really connected to your true self, whatever you define that, but I I know what that is, and you're living in that true being, beingness Yeah. Then then, you don't know the answers to most things, but you have no no self doubt.
Smoke:Right? isn't that like a a
Sarah:Yes. And you're also, really illustrating what a beautiful mystic you actually are. I'm very much aligned with this. What's interesting is when I have people reach out to me, either they are they've seen some of the successful clients that I've worked with. So I'll have the rising star who wants to figure things out, wants that confidential sounding board and support, Or I have someone at the top who's really unfulfilled or unwell or unhappy, and they've had an awakening of sorts.
Sarah:It can be trauma that brings the awakening. Also, people can have amazing experiences where they feel a connection to source or God.
Smoke:I I not spiritual or religious or anything. I just I just something came over me, and I and I prayed in the temple in Buddha's at Buddha's birthplace. And I just I just had this clear message to source, to higher power, a wish for peace and heart you know, peace and love. And it wasn't that I didn't have love in my marriage or love in my family or, like, I did. I have lots of friends.
Smoke:I was successful and everything else. So it wasn't for me, it wasn't like an accident or an illness or a near death experience. It was like, I I asked for help. And I think that's one of the things I wanna say. You have to ask for help.
Smoke:If you ask for help, it will come in one way or another, and it will come to you in unexpected ways. The right coach will show up, the right teacher, the right person, the right counterparty, whatever, it will come. But you have to genuinely ask for help. So ask the universe, ask you know, universal consciousness, ask the cosmic heart, ask God.
Sarah:Yeah.
Smoke:Ask Buddha, ask Jesus, ask Krishna, ask Zoroaster. I've I've been going to Zoroaster a lot because, like, you know, a lot of people don't remember who he was, but he was also calibrates at the highest level of consciousness and, you you know, have an old old school religion, you know, kind of the old Persia. But, you know so you ask any of these beings that are human manifestations of god. Right? They got they got as close to you the being divine essence in living form is how I is how I look at all of these avatars who who major religions were created around.
Smoke:And don't don't worry too much about all or or or if you want to, worry about it. It doesn't matter. The religious stuff is less important than the teachings of the avatars. And if you go to each of them and you go to any of these mystics, Meister Eckhart, John of the Cross, you know, Gandhi for that matter, you go to what they espoused and the teachings and the experiences, the Upanishads. Read the Upanishads.
Smoke:It's the they're they are describing the same thing.
Sarah:You have such a deep desire to know. It's one of the things I really appreciate about you. You're such you you have such a researching mind. You know? You know?
Sarah:So once you kind of got into this, you really can involved in and you love to have all the context and the details and the research. You're really a wealth of knowledge.
Smoke:Well, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Anita would might say that I've gone, to the extreme, like, too far on that on that front. We all have an ego, so I I I don't wanna say I don't have an ego situation.
Smoke:Like, everyone does. You can't survive without it. But mine is like, I look at it like David Hawkins did. You know? It it's it's like this character Perky over here that pops up every once in a while, and I as as long as I'm aware of Perky and like, oh, that oh, that that was so we we'd laugh about it.
Smoke:Like, oh, that was Perky, you know, inserting himself into it. So I really yeah. I really just, like, don't don't pay much attention to it. But the but what I found in this spiritual journey on the I'm calling it the smoke trail here, but it's, you know, my path my path of, like, understanding is I I I guess I came to this this path late, later in life than some people, and some people, you know, start out much earlier. And I spent a lot of decades, you know, building businesses, you know, building companies, bill raising a family, doing all these other things, living my life.
Smoke:I don't regret any of that. But as I turn my gaze to this and turn my gaze internally and, you know, introspectively, and I found myself like, woah. I have gaps. Like, I don't know I don't know much of anything. Like, I there's all this all this information that's out there that I just you know, what is the Bhagavad Gita?
Smoke:What are the Upanishads? What is this? What is that? You know? Right.
Smoke:The Dhammapada. And I approached this path for me. It's not right for tons of people. It it for me, I looked at it kinda like if I was gonna create another company, if I was gonna do another start up, I would I would think through everything. I would learn everything about the industry.
Smoke:I would put a plan together. I'd assemble the right team. I would, inspire people to follow and base capital. I'd get all the resources I needed, and then I would go and execute. And I would focus, focus, focus on it.
Smoke:Well, I've just done that with the spiritual path. So I, you know, I I read a hundred to a 50 books a year absorbing this stuff at a very fast pace. So what's happened is very quickly, I've gotten comfortable with the terminology. I've seen the commonality across a lot of things. And, and and that has, given me an ability to kinda just, you know, I I think have a perspective on it that is unique. I was I was talking to someone who's quite advanced, I think, in consciousness and been on this path for a long time, like, you know, decades. And and he was just shaking his head. He's like, you know, we talked six months ago, and then we talked again. And he's like, what's I just he I'm blown away with, like, what's going on with you? And I'm like, well, like, I'm just I'm just applying my entrepreneurial self to this this path, and that's all.
Smoke:I was like, it's just me. It's just how I do it.
Sarah:Yeah. And you have incredible energy and passion and so and you're a cannonball in guy. Like, you're all in once you are onto something, which is cool. It's in that third place where clients reach out, which is when they are ready, they're thinking about legacy. They're thinking about what now, kind of after all of the business success.
Sarah:What's interesting is that I wanna rewind and go back to imposter syndrome for a minute because I'm thinking your listeners, some of them may have this. The the more the higher you are, the more successful the company, the more you feel my experience has been with clients, the more they feel like they're in that fishbowl, the more lonely it is, and the more fearful people are to actually share the bottom 20% and sometimes even the top 20%. And and heavens, they don't wanna share their worst, darkest fears, not only with their leadership team, but also at home with their spouse because I don't wanna freak anybody out. And sometimes they don't feel comfortable sharing the very top, the best things because they're afraid their team is gonna want more from them or their spouse or their kids. And so it it ends up almost collapsing people's ability to be.
Sarah:And that imposter syndrome, when you when you don't get comfortable with that, can all of that can turn into really discomfort in your life. I always suggest because the way I've learned to deal with my own imposter syndrome is when I feel uncomfortable, when I'm in a room where I'm not the smartest person in the room or I'm meeting with the five most amazing people, and it feels a little uncomfortable, that I've really learned to calibrate that imposter syndrome into, oh, okay. Excitement. I'm leaning into my growth edge. This is really fun.
Sarah:And when you when you think about it, you know, what we know about brain science is the person in line for a, loop de loop roller coaster ride. The person who's terrified and the person who's saying, yeah. Bring it on and having the time of their life, what's happening in their brain is not that different. They both are having adrenaline. They're having stress hormones.
Sarah:You know, they're having this biochemical dump of internal hormones that get you ready for activation. So all we have to do is channel it a little differently.
Smoke:To that point, Jim Finley is a is a guy I've become really a fan of, and he's written a book on Meister Eckhart and Thomas Merton, and he he studied under Thomas Merton back in the sixties. And, anyway, he he tells a story of this study. They did a study of these, paratroopers, and, they connected them through up to all these, measuring things, and and and they would they wanted to see the difference between the experienced paratrooper and the novice. So these guys would, like, go up on the plane and be ready. You know, the door would open, spike of anxiety, you know, getting ready, you know, getting ready to jump when they jump.
Smoke:Anxiety goes to the roof, the heart rate, all the measurements, parachute goes, diety, all the way down. So they they every step of the way, they were, like, freaked out. Yeah. The the experienced ones, the ones that had been doing lots of jumps and had done it for a career, door opens, no no real change, lineup, no real change, jump, no real change, Parachute opens, no real change. It was right before they hit the ground where it would spike because it's the the ground that actually is where you can hurt.
Smoke:Right? But, but the the the point of it was, like, okay. We all are going through this life. We're all paratroopers. We're all, like, running into resistance, and we're running into challenges and losses and various things.
Smoke:It's how we approach it. It's how we approach it. It's the perspective that matters. So these guys, you know, had enough experience where they're like, okay. Well, I can do this.
Smoke:I can do this. That's what a higher level of consciousness give you. It's just being aware. Like, I still have the same problems that everybody else has. I I, you know, I have to go I go, you know, into town, and Sedona is beautiful, but, you know, there's a lot of guests, a lot of, visitors.
Smoke:And there's so there's, like, traffic circles, which luckily in Carmel, Indiana, we had the most we had the most, traffic circles in the in, anywhere in the planet, I think. So I we know how to drive them, but a lot of people don't. So, like, people are, like, frustrating, and they're tourists, and they don't know where they're going, and they're blocking it. And it's like, it takes a half hour to go where it should take ten minutes. So a version of me would have been frustrated with that and been like, you know, what are you doing?
Smoke:What are you doing? And, like, the the the current version of smoke is like, it doesn't matter to me at all. Like, I could care less. I'm like, oh, those poor dear people is don't know how to drive in that thing. And, you know, I'm just like, they well, what if they're gonna figure out how to get off the traffic circle or not?
Smoke:You know? And just, you know? But it is and there's the same circumstance, and it's just how we perceive things. And, you know, so I think that's really that's, you know, the the experienced paratrooper to the novice, the person who has lived some of their life, have spent time facing their shadows, have gone through the the transmutation, the alchemical process. You know, what the difference is not that they're not going to have the the normal ripples of light, the normal resistance, the normal things.
Smoke:The difference is how they respond to it. And, you know, you can get to a place where it doesn't really matter what happens. It's just about, okay. What am I supposed to learn? How am I supposed to do that?
Smoke:And it and it is a it is a level of nonattachment, which is different than different than detachment. It's not that you don't care. It's that you're not attached to any one outcome, any one thing. You just are okay. Like, I may have desires.
Smoke:Like, oh, I'd rather have a do this. I'd rather make a million dollars on this deal. I'd rather, you know, have everyone be healthy. But I'm also I understand that, like, I don't I am I am not in control of that. I am in control of how I respond to things. what I do is I just I just, you know, I'm just calm about it at at all times whenever I can be, and that's that's what I strive to do.
Sarah:Yeah. It's that ability to, slow down so you can be proactive instead of reactive. What I think a lot about trauma, and this goes right along with what we're discussing, is when you have trauma, especially when you're a leader, it's almost more noticeable. When we hit those things, it's kind of like a record. Hopefully, people have had a record before that has a scratch and it skips.
Sarah:And every time skips in the same place. And until you actually address that and do some healing work and some transmutation, that thing that triggers you and trips your trigger is always gonna cause a skip in the
Smoke:Yeah. Some I I love that. And it's really the energy. You know, we you talked about EMDR and some of the other techniques. I I'm I'm a huge fan.
Smoke:I've been I've been learning about all these different modalities of ways to but what it is is so sometimes it isn't about, oh, I need to look at this specific trauma that I experienced, and I need to process it, understand it. Like, sometimes it is about that. Like, for me, it was in in certain situations. But sometimes it's just well, recognizing there's this energy that's caught that's stuck inside you
Sarah:Yeah.
Smoke:That that you never cleared, and there's ways to clear it without even addressing necessarily what it was. There's a doctor Saul who's, one of the top EMDR guys, and he's combining it within his practice. And he's having tremendous success. Like, literally, people are, quote, being cured from whatever their thing was, you know, in one or two sessions.
Sarah:Yeah.
Smoke:And and it and it and it is about clearing the energy. And what he his research shows that fifty percent of the population has some kind of infant trauma. Infant trauma being between the time you're zero and two years old. So most in most cases, we don't remember that. But, like and it could be as simple as you got left in your crib because your parents read doctor Spock, and and they thought it was you're supposed they were supposed to let you cry.
Smoke:It it could be as simple as that or it could be much worse. But either way, you felt this, like, horrible trauma, and you didn't process it. So what sometimes what he does is, like, you literally get into it. I I you know, as part of my research, I'm like, I'm doing these things. I'm like, alright.
Smoke:I was I was interviewing him, and he's like, well, do you wanna do it? I'm like, okay. I guess so. And then I I did a whole session. So you get into something like
Sarah:that growth outlier.
Smoke:Yeah. So I get into some some something of a trance state and relaxation state and then and takes me back to, you know, I'm one years old. I'm, you know, I'm I'm a toddler. I I can stand if I hold something. I have a diaper, and I'm like, I'm there, and I'm and then he just says, like and just be in that space, and then he and then he turns the machine on.
Smoke:It's vibrating alternatively, you know, the chair, and it's, like, shaking this thing up. And it's essentially releasing the energy from that moment. You know? And so I wasn't even conscious of, like, what it was the trauma that I was trying to release at that time. I don't know what it was.
Smoke:But there was something that came up. I was like, I felt it. I was like, okay. And then it just processed through, and I was like, oh, I feel much better. But Yeah.
Smoke:It's it's releasing this energy. Right? It's like it's just it's just energy. And it's like, instead of saying we get in our heads and we think something, you get that rec record skips, and you think of that thought that makes you go back in that loop. And that generate generates a chemical reaction, which is energy.
Smoke:And it and it basically says, oh, I have anxiety. Because you had that thought about what went wrong that one time, and you now you're projecting and you're like, oh, I have anxiety. If you analyze what is it you're actually feeling, it's actually just energy. So it's an energy that comes up. You might call it anxiety, you might call it fear, you might call it anger, you might call it whatever, but it's just energy. let it come up and you can go, okay. Recognize what it is and let it process through, and it will it will dissipate. It will go away. It will go away fast, but if you bottle it up, it's you go back to that record skip.
Sarah:It keeps coming back. Something I wonder about if your leader your listeners and the leaders of companies would know what you mean about that. I think when when you're talking about energy, you're really talking about the body. And noticing and feeling what's happening in your body and then breathing often is a great way of moving that energy. And so I I think so often when I'm working with clients, men in particular, get really huge support to be intellectual in their head, and often they're disconnected from what's happening in their body.
Sarah:And, really, as a society western society sucks at this. Right? We have a headache. We take a pill. We're we're having a society.
Sarah:We take a pill. If we can slow down and be really mindful and present, feel that feeling, and then breathe into it. Sometimes I'll even ask or work with my clients to say, what's the message with this? What's here for me to learn, and how can I move this energy? Sometimes that's breath.
Sarah:Sometimes it is physical movement. Actually, the process you described with your EMDR practitioner in the wild. So where we came from Cro Magnon man, Neanderthal man, or animals, they shake. If they've had a trauma, they shake it off. Literally, that's transmuting that energy.
Smoke:And, Sarah, like, doing I I love that way you put it in, and, I'm also conscious of our time, so I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna bring us home here. But but one of the things that that I think about that really what we're we're discussing and the alchemical process that, that allows us to hold space for things allows you to have space from, an an adverse event or a resistance that's happening and not take it personally, not not internalize it, is the knowledge and the ability to just hold and manage this energy flow that's happening. And it's the difference between see, we're all we all have this primitive, animal brain that's inside that is, you know, it's part of what humans are it's part of our DNA, it's part of who we are. And the difference is, can you get to be above that? Can you awaken your brain?
Smoke:Can you be above your primate brain where you're not reacting to everything just automatically? You know, one of my questions, we won't get into today, but it's, you know, it's about free will. And, you know, I love to hear people's thoughts on on Yeah. Bigger bigger questions like that because what I have found is that we have no free will. We think we have free will, but we actually don't have free will if we're not in control of ourselves over how we react and how we process our reaction. Yeah. I can't control what's gonna happen around me, but I can control I can I can manage how I process my immediate body reaction to that? So if that is fear or whatever the emotion is that like, what I call it fear, if it's some kind of energy that comes in and it and I would know I would have called it fear in the past. I'm like, oh, that's some energy. Okay.
Smoke:Go to my heart. Let it process through. And then I'm like, okay. Now what should I do here? What's the best course of action for the bet the highest good?
Smoke:And I can keep this poised position no matter what's happening. I can be someone could be yelling at me. Someone could be trying to screw me over in some deal. Someone could be Right. You know, try trying to cause me harm in some way.
Smoke:And I'm like, okay. What's causing this? What's hurting them? Why are they doing this? What's what's underlying this?
Smoke:Because it's not really their true self that's doing that. It's their animal animal reaction fear self. So a lot of this alchemical process, a lot of the process that we are all going through as we gain consciousness is about the awareness. What is the actual animal reaction? What is the primate reaction?
Smoke:What are those? And then the the ability of humans to elevate themselves above that animal reaction is the differentiating factor of what is the difference between us and and and just other animals. Like, they have no they have no choice. Our choice is, what what work do we do to put us in position to be able to have that position, have that have that, like, control of your own reaction. And
Sarah:So think about I totally agree. It's thinking about the difference between the novice parachute jumper versus the experienced one. In coaching, I'm always working with clients to develop emotional grit, depths, capacity, and resiliency. So how deep can you go is your own personal work. That grit is that ability to keep moving forward, to keep learning.
Sarah:And then capacity, the way I think of it is no matter what gets thrown at you, you have the ability to stay grounded and calm and centered. And and using your best problem solving part of your brain, your prefrontal cortex, which is the part of your brain that manages and regulates your emotions. And so as you're sharing that, I agree a % around this is something desperate. Leadership is desperately calling for conscious, aware, and awake leaders who are able to self regulate and who are able to have the emotional intelligence to lead and inspire their teams instead of micromanage and control their teams. So we're we're in this age where, you know, our number one complaint by employees is emotional bullying.
Sarah:And the number one thing people want I'll finish this and then Yeah.
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah. Here.
Sarah:The number one thing people want is to feel valued and appreciated. They will stay at a position that pays them less or has not as good of benefits if they feel valued and appreciated. They're fulfilled rather than leave for a job where they don't get that, but they make more money. And so the opportunity, what you've gone through and you're a beautiful living example of this is this ability to elevate yourself, your consciousness, to learn self mastery, or I think of it as sovereignty, the ability to have sovereignty over myself emotionally, physically, mentally, energetically, spiritually. This is what the world is just craving from our leaders right now.
Sarah:And when leaders step into that and elevate their consciousness, they actually make more money, and they have better profit. There's all kinds of research that, probably you know and can quote better than me, that when we do that, our the people around us are happier as well.
Smoke:Yeah. That that's beautiful. And and and, you know, it's being able to come to every situation without judgment. Yeah. So so when if I if there's a person who's a clerk is processing, you know, registrations for a brand and they're that's what they do, and they don't make a lot of money, you know, but they're willing to do it day and night, day and night, day and night.
Smoke:It's can we see that person for the human being they are and without any judgment and listen to them? You know? A lot of times and I used to I still do it sometimes, but I I think I'm much more aware of it now. Like, when someone is talking to me, I'm no longer formulating my response. You know, like, I I would I would be I would be thinking about, okay, what's my next thing?
Smoke:What's the next thing? And what I what I've been conscious of of, like, our conversation is, I'm listening to you, and I'm I'm riffing off ideas that come from it, but I'm also just, like, holding space, holding space, and saying, alright. What is the the the meaning of what Sarah's sharing with me, and how do I how do I, how do I absorb that, and then how do I, you know what can we what can we share what can we share together that we we could be useful for people? So I am thinking about multiple things at once, but I'm Yeah. But I'm but I'm mostly in a stance of
Sarah:Presence. Listening
Smoke:and trying to trying to be present to it. And and that that is that is a that is a it it you can only do it by doing it. You know? It's like it's easier easier said than done.
Sarah:There's a I've got a great, mini hack. When you're learning to be present, a really great simple thing that your listeners can do is get quiet and then listen to the room. So just in silence listening, what do they hear that's close within the room and expand to the building they're in and then expand to the neighborhood and then the farthest sound? I'll know we try we live in Nebraska. It's cold right now.
Sarah:I'm very wishing very much wishing I was in Sedona and hiking with you this afternoon. It's bitterly cold here today. Most of the time, we go for a walk middle of the day. My husband and I both most the time are working from home. We have lunch together.
Sarah:We go for a walk. And sometimes, especially if I'm walking alone, it might take me a a whole way along the forest to the lake that we walk around before I actually stop the constant thought process in my head where I go, oh, listen to the birds or listen to the wind. And so your leaders who are listening to this might not have much experience with calming their thoughts. So that simple mini hack is, just listen. Listen to the room, get quiet, and see what you hear.
Smoke:Yeah. It's it's really being present, open, and awake. And so, like, I go back to that little that little, saying present, open, and awake. And what I what I notice is, okay, I I'm like anyone else. Like, I, I have I have a thought, and I go down a rabbit hole.
Smoke:I'm, like, thinking about that thought. And but the difference is, it's a lot faster for me to notice that I just did that. And so and so I'm coming back to present, open, and awake. I'm, like, oh, that was nice. And if you don't energize if you don't energize that thought, it doesn't it it kinda dissipates.
Smoke:So what happens is you just kind of as these thoughts happen, whatever they are, if they aren't you, don't overestimate your brain that's sending you these thoughts. If they're coming from the field, whatever energy level you're at, you're getting this stuff from like, they're kinda universal thoughts. If you're in depression, you're getting the same thoughts that everybody else in depression is. If you're angry, you're getting the same thoughts that everyone else is. If you're happy, you're getting a lot of same thoughts.
Smoke:Like, these are not universal, like, they're universal. They're not they're not your own thoughts for the most part. So once you recognize that, like, okay. That's nice. I could I could, go down that rabbit hole and think about that time and da da da da.
Smoke:Or I could just say, okay. Not important to me. I live that already. It's already embodied in me. Yes.
Smoke:I wanna be present, open, and awake. And that
Sarah:That's sad. Powerful. Michael Neal has a great, story in his book. It's it's a great book if you haven't I listened to it. I'm not sure you can buy it.
Sarah:I think it's audible. It's Michael Neal's effortless success.
Smoke:We'll put it in the, in the notes as well.
Sarah:So he, he talks about your thoughts as if it's the stick floating down the river. And if the stick gets caught in the re the reeds along the riverbank, I love how he says, you don't really need to pick the stick up and do ten years of therapy. You really just need to get that thought unstuck, edge it back into
Smoke:this I love it.
Sarah:And let it pass.
Smoke:I love that.
Sarah:Oh, me too, especially because my background you know, the therapy perspective is past problem focused. As an appreciative inquiry coach, positive psychology, all of the things that I bring, I am future solution focused. And so I know that that obsession, whether it's worrying about things, all the things that leaders do that that we do as humans, frankly. You're talking about the universal experience. It doesn't serve us to pick that stick up and obsess about it again.
Smoke:No.
Sarah:It's okay to just nudge it on. The the two most powerful words can be move on.
Smoke:Absolutely. And and, you know, it's the carrot and the stick thing. The more you obsess about something, the further away it gets in some ways. So Yeah. Picking up picking up that stick is kind of it might be going backwards in time, and so you're you're putting yourself there.
Smoke:If you're present, open, and awake, and you have that stance on a continuous basis, you're you be you in a place of gratitude, you just manifest whatever you want. I mean, whatever whatever is is what needs to happen is gonna happen your way. And it's you don't have to try. It's just being being present. Yes.
Smoke:And things will just come your way that you wanna have happen. And there's lots of techniques around that, but I think it's it's really about this stance of of living. And and it's like, you know, if we're gonna jump out of the be a paratrooper and jump out of the plane, you know, we might die at any stage along the way, including when we get on the ground and then someone shoots us. But let's just live. Let's live until we we aren't.
Smoke:Alright. Well, look, Sarah, this has been awesome. I think that we I could do a a whole series with you talking about stuff. So so you you I I hope you'll be open to to joining me again. And and, if people wanna find you, could you tell us, you know, what what is your what's your digit?
Smoke:If they wanna know about you or how you think about things or, you know, what what what's the best way to Yes. Find you?
Sarah:First of all, I have a gift for your audience. So I was thinking really mindfully, Smoke, about who's gonna be listening to this and what could I offer. And I have a unique process called the anti gravity call where I help people I really take them through a process to help them have a quantum growth in their thinking so that what felt impossible becomes probable and of and we get it to, oh, wait. That's likely. So there's this shift. I wanted to offer the gift of time to your listeners. So if there's somebody who's listening who would like to meet with me for an anti gravity call to either experience that process or to discuss or share something they personally are struggling with, an awakening or a trauma, and they would like a confidential sounding board to lean on. I would like to offer that as a gift to your audience. You know, the best way to do that, they can find me on my website, which is, 4leancoaching.com. We'll spell it for you in the show notes because it's not it's not easy.
Sarah:And, of course, I'm on LinkedIn and all the socials. I also do a lot of keynote speaking. I've got four keynotes that I bring to the world. One is on consciousness expansion and conscious leadership, and so that really relates to what we're talking about. And the other thing that relates some to what we talked about today is on emotional intelligence and reconnected leadership, so connecting to yourself and to others in a really highly emotionally intelligent way. I often bring that to large mastermind groups, and sometimes to entire companies. So that can be external for a lot of CEOs or owners, or it can be internal for your company. So, I would invite people to check me out.
Smoke:Well, Sarah, thank you so much. And and and that's a such a generous offer. Again, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Smoke:I so appreciate you sharing and being open, and and, you know, this has been awesome. So I appreciate it.
Sarah:It's always it's always a joy and a delight to meet with you, Smoke. I feel the same. I feel like we could talk every time we meet. I think that we could talk for many more hours.
Smoke:Thank you. Thank you.
Sarah:Alright. Yay.
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