“Thinking you’re too enlightened to define yourself or want something from life is a trap.  If you’re not playing your role in life truthfully, then you’re doing a disservice to the world.”
-Mike Ortiz

Tea as a consciousness-raising path...and a consciousness-raising livelihood: sure you can get deep wisdom and self-understanding from sitting with it...but also from selling it.
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Would having all the money in the world compromise your mission?  Is hunger and basic human need what drives truly great work, i.e. work as a self-cultivation practice?
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Whether it really makes sense to think that certain roles don't define your identity.  How else can really truly play them, then?  Mike illuminates how using advanced acting principles (from the school of "Practical Aesthetics") unexpectedly allows you to more authentically show up to these major roles that life demands.
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When going out with people, when is the food and drink experience a buffer to really connecting and when is it a facilitator?
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How sitting together in silence allows a deeper and more authentic connection of one another.
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The power of breathing with intention/attention in frustrating situations.  Oh...and remaining humble as f*ck.

All Roads That Lead To Michael:
JoJo Tea (Website)
JoJo Tea (Instagram)
Tea Time!  With Mike & Mike Podcast (i-Tunes)
Michael Ortiz (Instagram)

In my inspiring conversation with Dan Cumberland of the Meaning Movement (and like half a dozen other projects), we discuss...

::How finding “meaningful work” does not always look like you think it will. 

::How the “4 P’s” of meaningful work can be applied to restaurant service.  Improve your relationship to the little aspects of the job and going to work totally gets transformed. 

::How crisis is good…especially if you have a mentor like Dan.  Pay attention to what has to change in your life now to prevent even greater personal and professional challenges down the road.

::How being driven by necessity can help us know who we are and what is meaningful to us. 

::Does doing “work that matters” have to require breaking out of a 9-5 job? 

::Finding a balance between generating a livelihood and living our mission.

All Roads That Lead To Dan: 

Meaning Movement
The "Calling Course"
Meaning Movement (Facebook)
Dan Cumberland (Twitter)

In this episode...
:: I try to not be a hypocrite while I try to teach you about the power of listening by speaking uninterrupted for over an hour.
:: I discuss a Zen-based mindful communication practice taught by Greg Clowminzer that completely shifts what we think communication is.
:: I tell you all about how I, like everyone else, is one of two types of bad listeners...and then provide practices for overcoming each particular profile of challenges.
:: How "being social and talkative" does not make you a good communicator.  
:: How to listen beyond just words.  Truly overcoming your listening blocks means observing the context along with the content.
:: What listening has to do with our own identity and how much we are grounded in our true selves determines how well we listen.

The conclusion of our wonderful discussion about life, the self-mastery journey and all the silliness and hardship we need to embrace along the way.

This part discusses:

:: Enlightenment is not what you think (hint: it's mainly just drinking tea) and true self-knowledge means knowing your favorite shape.

:: Being a Zen teacher - when to wake up a student and when to let them wake themselves up. 

:: Why death is a taboo in our culture (hint: because we aren’t truly living life). 

:: Why you should seek and celebrate negative experiences. 

:: Why you should never say “bless you” to Cory when he sneezes.

All Roads That Lead To Cory: 

Mindfulness of Doom Podcast

corydharma.com

CoryDharma (Instagram)

Mindfulness of Doom (Instagram)

CoryDharma (Facebook)

Amazing stories and insights that include (but are definitely not limited to): 

:: How Disney World, an accidental arrival at a death meditation and the former Nuclear advisor to the Reagan Administration led Cory to a path of mindfulness and spirituality.   

:: How his Mindfulness of Doom podcast reveals that the only authentic way to live a spiritual life involves pain, suffering and dread. 

:: How being “yourself" while being simultaneously in harmony with your environment is a lot like playing the bass. 

:: How “mindfulness” itself is only 1/8th of a complete practice. 

:: The merits of spending most of your time avoiding the teacher role - especially if you know a lot of useful things and love the act of teaching. 

:: When being a performer gets in the way of connecting with people...and when it’s exactly what they need (and exactly what you need). 

All Roads That Lead To Cory: 

Mindfulness of Doom Podcast

corydharma.com

CoryDharma (Instagram)

Mindfulness of Doom (Instagram)

CoryDharma (Facebook)

In this episode I talk about: 

:: The Zen approach to work: how to find joy and fulfillment doing anything…and how easy it is to disrupt this with our dependence of “growth” (and other such delusions). 

:: How you’re always growing and evolving…even (sometimes especially) when you're “going backwards” 

:: How taking a step backwards in your career is really just a step downwards…as in deeper into your self-understanding and your self-mastery.  

:: Your professional growth: when it’s necessary to “backslide”, maintain your position, leap forward into a challenging new role, or make a dramatic change of location, employer or job.

:: My recent promotion at work and whether or not accepting it renders me a hypocrite.

:: Promotions and upward mobility: opportunities it might provide you…but what it can also cost you. 

In this episode:

:: "It's that easy and it's that hard": Finding joy in life is as simple as slowing down and doing things that are satisfying in and of themselves.
:: The "doing mind": you can call it out for taking you away from being present and content...or you could find presence and contentment by having gratitude for what the doing mind is trying to give you.
:: The finer art of reflection: fast, effective ways of journaling that turn out to be more authentic than the long form musing we imagine it to be.
:: Tea and incense appreciation as a practice of mindfulness and contemplation.
:: "...and all of them must be real": The importance of having hobbies...actual ones, with actual persistence.

All Roads That Lead To Phillip:

Websites:
Totem Tea
Slow Empire

Instagram:
Totem Tea
Slow Empire
Phillip Sauerbeck

An amazingly rich and wide-reaching talk with Henry Yampolsky of the Living Peace Institute.  He is a conscious mediator, teacher, trainer and author firmly grounded in legal expertise and Yogic principles.  We discuss:
:: Henry's story of awakening from being a lawyer to mediator to meditation & Yoga teacher to conscious mediator.
:: How principles of mindfulness, meditation and Yoga can be incorporated into conflict scenarios to transform them into an arena of self-understanding and compassion equal to any spiritual practice.
:: How to separate impulse from intuition.
:: How to create space and time to meet challenging situations in a more mindful, self-aware and ultimate effective way - even in the craze of life.
:: How difficult conversations transform when we tap into the deep needs that drive our feelings.
:: How to know if a spiritual teacher really cares about you (hint: they profoundly upset you).
:: How serving tables in a restaurant can potentially change the world.

All roads that lead to Henry Yampolsky:
Living Peace Institute Homepage
Instagram
Instagram (Living Peace Institute)
Facebook
Facebook (Living Peace Institute)

Feeling discouraged because the challenges of life keep pulling you away from the better person you're trying to be?  You're practicing meditation and promoting "higher values", but often feel you're living in total contradiction of them.  Self-development coach David Tian and I meet in Orlando to discuss how getting discouraged by feelings of "hypocrisy" comes from a misunderstanding of the growth process.  In fact, this place of contradiction and frustration is the most powerful place to be in to deepen our understanding of ourselves and this world we live in, and the true tragedy is in our dismissal of ourselves as "failures" with these condemning labels.

We also tend to discredit others when they don't seem to be "practicing what they preach".  Or find fault in people simply when they trigger us, rather than taking accountability for how we feel and empowering ourselves to grow beyond these conditioned responses and, once again, learn something about ourselves.  

This talk was inspired by a project we are currently working on to provide mindfulness tools, knowledge and practices to thrive in this place of inner tension and disappointment with ourselves (and others too).  

An amazing discussion with Greg Clowminzer about true self-knowledge and its key ingredient: understanding the nature of thought.  He provided so much insight on principles of mindful communication, service, and leadership as a spiritual path.

Greg has been a transformational business and life coach for over 25 years, combining his expertise in business strategy with his deep and multi-faceted background in Eastern spirituality, helping people cultivate principles (business and otherwise) that lead to true self-knowledge - the ultimate ingredient of success.

For Greg, the challenges of business life carve a spiritual path, providing a means of breaking through the faulty thinking that clouds our understanding of who we really are and the fullest potential of experience we can have in our lives.  His generous and insightful spirit was inspiring to be around.  Conversation with him does not, for a moment, lack meaning, purpose and power.  I am excited for you to hear some of it.

All Roads That Lead To Greg Clowminzer:

Website
Twitter
Instagram