Leaders who embody the qualities of availability, presence, and wisdom can create a culture of trust and empowerment within their organisations. When we prioritise personal responsibility and community, we foster a sense of safety and contentment among our team, ultimately leading to greater happiness.

Martin Aylward helps create a culture of trust and empowerment within organisations. He’s a meditation teacher and guide who has been practicing and teaching meditation for over 30 years. He’s leads and runs retreats at his centre in the south of France.

Ben and Martin explore the significance of personal responsibility and community awareness in fostering safety and contentment among teams, as well as the importance of trust, slowing down, and creating space for clarity and effective decision-making in leadership roles.

Links

• Martin’s website
• Follow @martinaylward on Instagram
• Who doesn’t want a little peace and calm? – Episode 8, with Martin Aylward

Welcome to Peripheral Thinking.

The series of conversations with academics advisors, entrepreneurs and

activists, people all championing those ideas on the margins, the periphery.

Why is this important?

Well, as the systems on which we've depended for the last 50, 60 stroke

thousand years, crumble and creek people increasingly looking for new stories, new

ideas, new myths, if you like, that might guide and inform how they live and work.

So in these conversations, we take time to speak to those people who are championing

the ideas on the margins, championing the ideas on the periphery, those ideas which

are gonna shape the mainstream tomorrow.

Uh, and our hope is that you are a little bit inspired, a little bit

curious enough to take some of these ideas and bring them back to the

day-to-day of your work and your life.

Well, Martin, thank you for joining me on Peripheral Thinking.

Yeah, Nice to be here again.

Ben.

Yeah, so we actually, uh, we did, we spoke, which is a, a conversation

people should, uh, should, should get into, uh, earlier, probably

quite a long time ago now.

I think we were sort of talking more generally about, you know, the, the kind

of spirit, the, the kind of role and importance of Buddhism today in a kind of

time of kind of mindfulness everywhere.

I think we got into some of the, uh, specifics of it before.

So I encourage people to, to check that out.

Um, but yeah, so kind of appreciative of your time to, to join us again and

there wa sa sort of specific, kind of focus to this conversation today, and

I'll sort of share the sort of contextual backstory just as a, as a way in.

I was fortunate enough to, um, to come and sit on, uh, sit on a retreat,

uh, at the retreat center, which you, uh, one of the, one of the things

you do kind of lead and lead and run, which is in the south of France, and

that was in, uh, June of this year.

And, uh, you were teaching a week and there was, uh, another

teacher, uh, for the second week, uh, who's a, a monk called Ajahn

Chah, who I think is, is based at the, uh, monastery here in Sussex.

Is that right?

Yep.

Yeah, Ajahn Chah.

Right.

Yeah.

And, uh, uh, as a sort of, as a sort of consequence of that and the sort

of teaching, I, uh, spent some time exploring some of the other things that

Ajahn Chah had, uh, sort of spoken about.

And there was a, a story he'd recounted, which, uh, sort of peaked

my curiosity, which was he, he's part of a, um, the, the monastery that he,

I think so he, he used to lead that monastery here in the uk, is that right?

But he is now not leading it?

Yeah, he sort of retired from being the Abbott and therefore is freed from

some of his administrative duties.

That's the fruits of, you know, being 47 years a monk.

And now he gets to be kind of wise elder without having

to, uh, manage the logistics.

Right.

Yeah.

And, uh, you very much get that, that kind of the, the

spirit of that feeling with him.

And he was, he was talking about the, the network that that monastery is part of,

which, I think if I kind of understand it correctly, so it spans something

like four continents, 10 countries.

There's like 300 individual monasteries which now feed into that network.

So by the kind of measure of many organizations that are

sort of complex, multinational

a multinational, yeah.

And even though it doesn't feel like you are in any way corporate, uh, when you are

in one of the monasteries, but the degree of reach and complexity and scale of the

organization is broadly comparable, yeah.

and, uh, so, Ajahn was talking about, um, having recently spent some time.

With the Abbott who leads the whole organization, um, who I think is,

I believe is based in, in Thailand.

And he was talking about, you know, the, the kinda wonder of spending

this sort of day with him where, you know, clearly like anybody who's

leading a large multinational complex organization, there's a constant

stream of demands on his time.

There's, you know, constant sort of complexity or by many

measures, constant complexity.

You know, if you just take the real estate alone, I mean, clearly you're sitting over

top 300 different sites, which are all in various states of crumbling disrepair.

And so he was talking about the, the spirit with which, uh, Ajahn Liam,

I think he's called the, of the, the whole network, how he can sort of, just

sort of sit with this ease and he can lead this organization without, you

know, seemingly a, a kind of support team of many, many people without the,

the constant sort of stresses and sort of strains that you might associate

leading a large organization with.

Particularly if you kind of flip the reach of that or not flip the reach,

flip the nature of that organization to what we might call a corporate culture.

You know, somebody who's leading an organization of thousands of people

over 10 countries, over four continents.

You know, the, the association with that is, you know, constant stress,

armies of support, people, constantly pinging iPhone, you know, thousands

and thousands of emails stretching off into the kind of email sphere.

And how the, the, the, the kind of contrast between these,

these kind of two images really.

And I was really curious about what was going on.

And one of the, um, one of the, the or two of the principles, which I think

have been handed down to, you know, through that monetary network from it.

First founding 50 years ago was that the spirit with which the leaders, the spirit

with which people kind of practice and exist within the, within the network.

So the spirit with which it's is led essentially comes down to,

or, or could broadly be described by these two, two principles.

And the two principles are personal responsibility and community awareness.

Well, let's let, we can use those two, uh, points as our way in, right?

Personal responsibility and community awareness.

But it's easy to have nice principles, you know, but it's a

whole other thing to actually have them be an expression of one's life.

So I would say the single great massive, advantage that Ajahn has, or that

that whole structure has over most corporate structures is that their

business is the business of inner transformation, So that those two

things, personal responsibility and community awareness are not principles.

They're trying to apply actually, they're the, they're fruits of what

their organization is all about.

So, there's, there's a few ways we could talk about this, but if you imagine the

leader of an organization in various ways.

And, you know, I, I occupy that role in, like you say, the seven organizations

that I've founded and, and are still involved in directing in some way

across three different countries.

And so, you know, a little less complex and, uh, the, than the

Forest Sangha network from Ajahn but nevertheless has some complexity.

The, if people are going to see, in this case, the Abbott of a monastery,

which is our shorthand for the CEO, if you like, there's three things that are

going on there that are really important.

And the first one, and they have two sides.

They have the size of what, what the teacher, Abbott CEO is doing.

And then the other side is what the person is getting.

So the first one is one of availability.

And it's not so much about the, the quantity of being available, the Abbott

CEO may not be available very much of the time because of course, various duties,

activities, responsibilities, et cetera.

But the quality of availability, if you go to see the Abbott, if you

actually get, you gotta see somebody who's leading an organization that's

practiced in this way, you get a really good quality of attention from them.

And that's a powerful thing if you, you go to see the boss, the CEO.

Yeah.

And you feel like, okay, I'm right here, I'm really listening.

The eye contact is here, the body language is suggesting I'm here, I'm

available, I'm interested, I'm attentive.

And that's, I think, often lacking in a lot of organizations where you,

one, the quantity of availability may be very difficult to get a

meeting with the person in charge.

And you might have something important to say, to ask for, to report, et cetera.

And then if you do get their attention, how actually

available do they feel to you?

How good is the quality of their attention?

So again, you, that's not a decision you can make.

I'll just decide to be fully attentive.

It's a, it's an inner training, right?

It's a work of a lifetime in many ways.

But that's a, that's a very, very powerful thing, not to underestimate

what it's like to go and see your manager, boss, et cetera, and to feel

like they're really listening to you.

I mean, that's true in all of life.

I, I lead courses here where we sometimes do dialogue work.

And one of the reports, regardless of the content of these dialogue exercises

that we do, what's often so powerful for people is the fact that they've

gotten somebody's whole complete non-judgmental, undivided attention.

Somebody's looking at them, listening to them, acknowledging them.

And sometimes people will say, wow, I feel like that's the first time in my life

that I've been really, really listened to.

So that's, that's the first, that's the first quality.

And like I said, it's not just a principle, it's a practice, right?

But to be when one is giving one's attention, to be really available to

the person in front of you, and for the person in front of you, then to

really feel that they're getting your attention and they're being listened to.

And then the second principle, it's similar in some way, but

it's the quality of presence.

So that you feel like the, you're going see in this case the Abbott, Ajahn,

or you go and see the, the leader of the organization, that they're

not fidgety, thinking about other things that they're, they're, ah,

there's a sort of settled presence.

That's one of the beautiful things.

Sitting with somebody where you feel like this person's somehow deeply

trustworthy in just, in as much as that they're comfortable in their skin.

They're able to just sit where they are.

And there's something the, and then the other side, what you get when you

spend time with somebody like that is, ah, you sort of feel drawn into that.

It's, it's kind of reassuring, relaxing, confidence, inspiring.

Ah, you know, you go into the office of somebody who feels like they have

a kind of integrity with themselves, an inner kind of quietude and

confidence that they don't need to run away from themselves, distract

themselves, et cetera, they're here.

And so that quality of hereness has a, has a sort of, actually, in, in

a Buddhist tradition, we would call that a blessing quality, right?

You feel like you get the blessing of being around that person.

And then the third quality is that of wisdom.

Not just knowledge.

You go and see the leader of the organization, you know, that this

person in this case has, you know, has done their meditation practices.

Sat long retreats has been through the fire of the inner work that

the monastery is all about.

The equivalent in a, in a business organization would be that somebody's

been through the different levels and processes and roles of an organization,

and they actually know, they actually know what it's like to be in the other

side of the equation, and they know what it's like to be in the situation

of the person that's come to see them.

And so if you're coming to see someone and you feel like they're genuinely not

just knowledgeable, but they're genuinely wise, they know what it's like, then you

listen to them in a different kind of way and you feel like, oh, they're, they're

what they have to say about something is really worth listening to, really worth

considering, really worth taking on.

And so there's, in a way, all the three principles we're talking about

are about the quality of relationship that's there between, you know,

a, a, a leader, let's say, and somebody that they're meeting with.

Quality of the relationship, uh, that that can run through the, the

hierarchies of an organization.

Because often otherwise, organizations are just relying on hierarchy.

It's like, well, this person's in charge, so we do what they tell them.

This person's in charge, so their word counts.

This person's in charge, so you should be grateful to be able to

see them when they're available.

But actually the qualities that the, that person brings are hugely significant.

And often if you look closely at an organization, there's a way in which

the, the very primary relationships of the founders or man or leaders, if there

are multiple, or the quality of the rela of the relationship between the person

at the top and whoever they're most in contact with, the qualities for good

or not of those primary relationships often kind of filter out into the

whole culture of the organization.

And therefore, even if the person at the top is smart and successful, et

cetera, if they're also, you know, kind of relationally challenged or

emotionally unresolved, or energetically kind of, you know, overly busy,

anxious, distracted, those qualities leak out in some way and become part

of the whole organizational culture.

Yeah, because I guess the where, where they, where the people would see that

is there's kind of fear stitched in, or if you think about some of the things

that people would say in an organization that become problematic, like, um,

people, you know, that people, time management, how do I manage my time?

And what they kind of mean by that there's constant sort of demands on their time.

Oh, you know, too, too many demands on their time.

And a lot of that then is about, you know.

Whether they are comfortable and confident enough to feel like they

can just get on with things themselves as opposed to constantly reporting,

uh, and constantly sort of showing, demonstrating to other people that

they're useful, demonstrating to other people that they're, they're valuable.

Um, I guess, you know, those things too are just, are spawning, uh, for

want of a, want of a better phrase from some of those kind of underlying, from

those underlying causes is actually, you know, how, how safe do I feel?

How content do I feel?

You know, I guess safety is, is a lot of what this is about.

Yeah.

And, and that sort of agitation that begins as an inequality.

I'm just agitated in my inner life, ends up being projected outwardly,

and then agitation ends up running.

All of that stuff, running the reporting, uh, uh, that has to be done running

the sense of how empowered or not people feel, et cetera, et cetera.

And so safety or another word really for that trust.

You know the degree to which you learn.

You learn, actually trust your own inner life.

Trust yourself to be with yourself.

And then that feeds into how much people feel trusted when they

listen to you, how trustworthy the person in charge seems to be.

The more the quiet internally the person is, the more trustworthy they feel.

The, the more easy it is for people to feel trusted.

And trust is incredibly empowering.

If you, if somebody feels trusted, they sort of rise to that.

Whereas if they feel.

The opposite.

If they feel that they're being sort of spied upon, checked up upon untrusted,

and that they're constantly need to prove themselves, uh, uh, and report

what they're doing, demonstrate their competency, uh, you know, there's,

there's an undermining of trust and that stuff uses up a lot of energy, you

know, and then therefore a lot of time, and therefore feeling, oh, a sense of

scarcity, of time, of energy, of capacity.

And so it's, it's interesting because if you feel trustworthy, everything

sort of slows down all those qualities that I was speaking about, actually.

Qualities that slow everything down, availability and attention.

Ah, yes.

Okay, let me really listen to you.

That slows thing down.

People being really present instead of distracted, that slows things down and

we're terrified of slowing things down.

I mean, we think we know I haven't got enough time as it is.

I need to go quicker.

But there's a, there's a strange thing there that the quicker we go,

the more we exaggerate and incre the sense that there isn't enough,

there isn't enough time, there isn't enough time because rushing creates

a sense of there's not enough time.

And it's, it's quite counterintuitive.

The last thing you think you wanna do when you haven't got enough time

is slow down, but it is radical.

But when you slow down, you literally create a, a, a, a more sense of space.

And so, I don't mean, of course if you are going for the bus and the bus is leaving,

there's no point in saying, oh, that guy on the podcast said slow down, right?

You're gonna miss the bus mate.

Your bus is coming, run.

But it's not, it's not so much even about the speed you are moving at.

It's, it's more the, the internal racing.

It's like our nervous systems are operating usually faster than is

necessary and faster than is helpful.

And oh, slowing down breeds a kind of clarity.

It breeds an economy of energy, an economy of movement, an economy of,

of uh, seeing what needs to be done.

And that's very helpful.

That's why there's that famous adage, right, that uh, sometimes used when

people come and teach meditation or mindfulness in a business context.

They say, you know, it's good to meditate for 20 minutes every day unless you're

somebody who's really busy, in which case better to meditate for 40 minutes.

You know, it's like the busier you are, the more important a

sense of slowing down actually is.

And that's very counterintuitive and almost sub.

It was subversive really in, in corporate culture in many ways.

I like that and I like the subversion bit.

Uh, but I also like the, the kind of the, the point around business.

'Cause if you think about the principles that you spoke about, you know, how

attentive my quality of my presence and the wisdom that I might, might

bring, clearly I can't do those.

Or, or one of the questions that had been kind of rumbling in my mind

somewhat is, you know, what are the, what are the obstacles to those things?

And uh, of course a lot of the obstacles to those things, they exist in.

Me too.

I can't be attentive.

I don't have a quality of presence.

I may not even give space for some of my wisdom or experience to come

through if I am sort of distracted.

If I am kind of, you know, worried about what's coming next.

If I am, you know, concerned by something that may be happening over there in the

past or, or in, or, or in the future.

Uh, and so I'm kind of curious to sort of explore some of those, um, things that

might get in the way of that practice.

And maybe, oh, sorry, uh, might get in the way of those principles, my ability to.

Perform those principles and then some of the things that people can do to,

uh, to kind of, to, I guess to start to understand how they too might be

compromising some of those, their, their ability to live and act in that way.

Yeah.

Well I imagine that even the way we're speaking about them now, right?

When you speak about agitation or going fast, et cetera, imagine people

don't have to look too far to recognize those qualities in themselves, right?

To, to, I mean, just sense your experience for a moment right now.

Anybody that's listening, just sense like what, it's like

the feel of sitting here now.

Just sense your face, for example.

Is there any unnecessary tension, you know, just in

your jaw or around your eyes?

Any way that you're just kind of, eh, that you're just slightly tense

or slightly pushing in a way that's maybe so habitual you don't even

notice it, but oh, is actually not neither necessary nor helpful.

Your shoulders.

You know, we tend to hold tension in different places.

So if you just check in, in one or other zones, you might well find right

some way in which your kind of 10 er than is necessary, or that which

you, you are operating internally at a way that's faster than necessary.

And so a lot of what meditative practices are, are firstly really

recognizing what we're doing habitually, that's unnecessarily and

unhelpful, and then learning, uh, how we can, how we can soften that.

And then we learning to value these kind of inner.

Sort of invisible and yet really potent qualities.

Like what would it be?

What would managerial structure in companies look like if, when we were

looking for leaders, if we were valuing deep attention, presence, and wisdom?

Because those things, they, they can seem sort of peripheral to

the hard-nosed stuff of business, but those inequalities absolutely

determine how you see outer events.

So, for example, you know, somebody was just asking me recently how things are

going here at the Mulan, the, the center where you came on retreat this summer.

And so this is a place where every week there's about 70 or

80 people here, um, between staff and people are here for a course.

And then every Sunday the course finishes and they'll leave.

And then every Monday a new lot come in and you know, there's various complexity

and intensity for the dozen or so people on the on staff here who are managing.

And because it's residential, it's feeding that many people every day.

And it's the, you know, the food orders and the staff rotors and the sleeping

arrangements and all the bathrooms and the toilets that inevitably leak and

break and, you know, just all that stuff.

And so somebody when they were asking me, oh, how, you know,

how's it going at the Mulan?

This year, we've got a long program, 31 weeks of consecutive.

Courses like that and I said, oh, it's all flowing along quite well.

You know, the usual thing every day of just dealing with a

series of minor catastrophes.

And I say that sort of lightheartedly, but it's interesting.

That's the stuff of running anything, right?

Running a family, running an organization, running a business, anything.

It's like if the more complexity something has, the more

minor catastrophes there are.

So what makes the difference as to whether you see them as minor or whether

you see them as catastrophes, right?

It's really about the inequalities and therefore the perspective you take.

You zoom out a little bit and everything is minor.

The more quiet and spacious one is internally, the more one's able to

see everything, everything is minor.

We are just here living and dying.

You know, really.

I mean, big, big on the monastery I stayed at in Thailand when I was first

practicing, there was a sign on the tree that I used to walk past every day.

And it said, relax in 100 years, all new people, right?

So in from that perspective, it's all minor.

It's all minor.

All too soon will be dust.

And the organizations we, we lead will also, you know, few decades, few

centuries from now, there'll be dust.

So it doesn't mean they don't need care and attention.

No.

They really need care and attention, but it's easier to give something care

and attention when you have that sense that it's also, it's like whatever

it is, it needs care and attention, but it's not worth stressing about.

Whatever it is.

That's always true.

Whatever it is, it's not worth stressing about.

Then the other side, how easily we get caught up in the drama and we

treat everything like a catastrophe.

Oh my God, so-and-so's leaving.

Oh my God, that report didn't get filed.

Oh my God.

You know, and we kind of addicted to the, oh my God mentality, the more busy

and stressed we are, it's, we sort of complain, oh, I'm so busy and stressed.

But we sort of say it almost like a boast.

It's like, can you tell how important I am?

'cause I'm so busy and I'm so stressed.

I'm very busy and important.

And Oh, that's, that's exhausting.

It's internally and it's also rather kind of, it's really unpleasant to be

around, you know, somebody who's flooding us with their own stress, agitation, and

sense that everything's a catastrophe.

so that's the real exploration of how do I meet the stuff of life?

How do I meet the inevitable inconveniences and discomforts and

what we call things going wrong.

Oh my goodness, everything's going wrong.

Things aren't really going wrong.

They're just going, you know, you're going along.

A part of the nature of things going is the nature of entropy.

Things break.

Things fail.

People get confused or disappointed or upset with each other.

There are misunderstandings and conflicts and differences of view.

You know, those aren't things going wrong.

They're just, they're the way things go.

And if one's sort of expecting that, if one's expecting today to be a

series of minor catastrophes, then one won't be disappointed probably.

And there's that sense of an inner space with which to kind of flow more graciously

and spaciously with the inevitable, um, you know, stuff that comes up.

The stuff we call the problems of life.

That, and that, that's, that's really, really beautiful.

'cause yeah, you can, you can sort of see those scenarios kind of

bubbling up for all everybody in their different kind of context.

One of the things I'm then curious about is, um, obviously someone like yourself

or, um, the various people we're talking about running those organizations with,

you know, 30, 40, 50 plus years practice.

Clearly this ability to flow, this ability to adapt to the changing

conditions, the changing stuff.

And, and for me, this sort of.

It's about embodying this idea of a kind of creativity.

And by, by creativity I don't just mean, I don't mean writing a song or

painting a picture, but how I can sort of continually, positively adapt and

respond to the changing conditions.

Whether those changing conditions are things that I like or

those things that I don't like.

And so if I'm a top end organization, whether the organization is me or 10

people, or 10,000 people or whatever it may be, my ability to flow, as you were

talking about my ability to respond, my ability to take each, you know, to e

each new unfolding event as an invitation to respond in a, in a positive, um.

In a positive, creative way.

You obviously have decades and decades and decades of practice.

The people we're talking about running those organizations, I mean, know, like

you said, it is their, it is their work.

I'm kind of curious, what do we think is a way that somebody can

start to get a sense for this?

Because I guess that's part of what needs happening.

If somebody is listening to this and they don't have a history of practice,

but they can, there's something in the spirit of what we're talking about,

just even the ability to respond to the stuff of life through flow, you

know, how, how to invite somebody into that exploration, do you think?

Well, there's, there's, there's sort of small way.

It depends how, um, how, uh, motivated the person is, right?

I mean, there's, there's small ways, medium sized ways, and then massive life.

Changing ways,

Goldilocks.

The Goldilocks suite.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, it might be, it might be as simple as, you know, the having it written

on the fridge or on the desk, you know, expect multiple things to go wrong today.

You know, you get used to that idea and it's sort of weird because that

can sound like a, oh, that's a pretty pessimistic way to approach life.

But hey, what it means is when multiple things go wrong today, I'm prepared.

I wasn't expecting any different.

And then if by some happy coincidence, multiple things don't go wrong today,

oh, well that's a very good day.

So, you know, I, I know that sounds like a small thing, but

it's actually, it's a, it's a real reorientation of one's mindset, right?

To, I'm unafraid of problems and I'm expecting, um, things to go wrong.

And therefore I'm kind of.

You know, I'm sort of orientated to that as a possibility and not a, a

terrifying possibility, not a possibility to get overly kind of exercised about.

So something like that is, is a very kind of small, low level

way in to that orientation.

And then there's a fact of, oh, I've actually recognized the truth of some

of the things we've been speaking about.

If I recognize, oh, I am, I do move internally in a way that's faster

than, than necessary in a way that's actually kind of exhausting

for me as well as probably to some extent for those around me.

And I recognize that actually I really, I'm not able to give a,

a, a, a fullness of attention to things and that I am present.

I don't really know what that would really be like to be fully in my body,

to actually be able to feel like just the gentleness of my arms at rest in my lap,

my breath moving gently in my chest and my attention available to somebody else.

And I'm more likely to be sitting there kinda fiddling away with my fingers,

tapping my feet, you know, et cetera.

Then okay, when maybe one recognizes, oh, it might be worth actually

learning some of these skills.

Of course, you know, people I can work with, whether that's in a, uh, in the

sort of context I work with of people actually showing up for meditation classes

or courses or retreats, et cetera, or whether it's working with a coach who

act, who might work with a small group or individually to actually engage in

the business of some internal training, some attentional training, some emotional

training, you know, and the ways in which those are gonna, that's what we've been

exploring, the ways that the way internal training and transformation has, it's not

just the inner landscape that changes the most significant, that's subjectively,

oh, it feels so much better to be able to access presence and ease and openness

and groundedness, but objectively or outwardly, it, it, it's transformational

in the way that we've been describing.

So it really depends the degree to which somebody feels the recognition of

what we're talking about and therefore feels the kind of, uh, momentum or

motivation to, uh, do something about it.

Cause even the, the recognition of what you're talking about, this, again,

it comes down to kind of to language.

'cause I don't think there's anybody who doesn't kind of recognize to varying

degrees, or, sorry, the Of course, many, many, many people recognize to some

degree that the stuff of their work, given that's the arena we're talking

about, comes with a feeling of stress, comes with a feeling of anxiety, comes

with a feeling of discomfort, comes with a feeling of struggle oftentimes.

Uh, and I think, I guess a lot of what we're talking about at kind

of Root at course is our ability to kind of respond to that stuff.

Um, there was something you, you were talking about there, you know, that

just the idea of that kind of, one of those things being the quote, you know,

stuff I don't like will happen today.

And you used interesting, and I was kind of curious about, is.

Um, because you, you were talking about people being afraid of problems,

and, and I, I'm kind of curious about it because I think people are, why

is it that, and maybe, you know what, why is it, do we think, do you think

that people are afraid of problems?

Why do we avoid, what is it that concerns us about problems or

the fear, the idea of problem?

It's, it's a good question.

I think, I mean, to some extent it's like it engages our

fight flight mechanism, right?

The sort of parasympathetic, uh, nervous system goes into action.

And that's probably been helpful.

That has been helpful evolutionarily, right?

In our past, we are kind of still running on a pretty ancient operating system where

we were constantly having to be on the lookout for genuinely life-threatening

problems like, uh, whether that's, uh, you know, being pounced on by a tiger or, or

whatever, you know, the, the various very real immediate existential threats that

were lurking for us, mostly in the form of probably wild predatory animals, you know?

And that's, that might seem, well, what's that gotta do with my life?

But actually in our evolutionary history, that's really not very.

Long ago, right?

That's only a few, a few thousand generations.

And evolution works slowly.

So we're still, we've still got a limbic system that's, that's hardwired to see

a problem, um, uh, something unpleasant or negative as an existential threat

and to sort of freak out about it.

And so that's a, that's a question of training, right?

It doesn't, that's our genetic inheritance or our, our, uh, the,

our, uh, the inheritance of our brain functioning, if you like.

But it doesn't have to be our present or our future.

That's, you can train.

And there's really interesting studies now that are done on meditational training

looking at the parasympathetic nervous system, the vagus nerve, or these sort of

regulatory mechanisms that see how we can actually, we can, we can transform the way

we respond to perceived threat or problem.

And that, that we're still just as available to it if there is, whatever

the equivalent of a wild tiger is, you know, if you're crossing the road

and a speeding car is hurtling towards you, it's not like, oh dear, you've

turned off your parasympathetic nervous system and you're not gonna notice.

No, you'll, every bit is capable of, of having a sudden flood of fear and,

and adrenaline when it's appropriate.

But you're actually able to dis determine and to discern when something

is actually a real threat or when it's what we were calling earlier.

Oh, minor a catastrophe, you know.

And where it does, where it needs care, it needs attention, it needs a response.

It might need a decision to be made, but it doesn't need

panic, drama, uh, and stress.

Because What you're sort of talking about there is, is, uh, how instinctive

the response is or not, and a lot, I guess, of what sort of talking about

this idea of how, how much attention, the quality of my attention, the quality

of the presence, the wisdom I bring is, I guess is a little bit about how

caught up I am in my own reactivity.

If I'm seeing everything as a threat, everything as a fear, everything

as, you know, a kind of metaphorical tiger about to eat me, clearly I'm not

listening to what the person is saying or I'm not able to kind of di you

know, to dip into my own kind of innate pools of wisdom and creativity because

I'm stuck in a fear response place.

Uh, and if that is the, the kind of that, that's the underlying kind of

operating system that many people are, are coming with, I guess part of what

we're talking about are the kind of tools and, you know, whether it's the quote on

your fridge or some more dedicated kind of practice, something which buys you

time to be less reactive in the moment feels like a way maybe of bringing back

to, um, you know, how people may aim to turn up a little bit differently.

Yeah, it reminds me of that.

There's a famous quote by Viktor Frankl who talks about that space

between stimulus and response.

And that's what these, these inner practices are doing.

They're, they're helping us recognize and open up that space between stimulus

and response so that we actually get to choose our response rather than just

having our response be chosen for us by our habitual reactivity and by our, you

know, the, all those other things we've, the agitation and the unease and sort

of obliviousness to our functioning with which we're operating most of the time.

So yeah, open up that space that follows stimulus and you can actually

use that space to, to choose a wise response, a skillful response, an

appropriate response, rather than just a conditioned and then often

drama fueled or panic led response.

And it's we, we speak about that out of a Buddhist context, 'cause there's

a famous zen story from, you know, centuries ago where some student

asks the teacher, you know, how would you, how do what, what is, you know,

real awakening, what's enlightenment?

The response to the teacher is it's an appropriate response.

It's such a simple answer, but this real, it's beautiful thing.

And a, a friend of mine in California actually started a company, um,

bringing this kind of work to, uh, executives of tech companies.

And she, she called the company Appropriate Response.

Because all about that, like, that's what that inner training does.

It allows us to make an appropriate response.

Simple, really transformative.

Yeah.

And so some of the, like we've spoken about some of the ways that

people may get into that is either working with somebody or, you know,

the, the kind of lightest form.

Something that helps people kind of reframe it a little bit, whether it's

the quotes on the fridge, whether it's the quote on the desk, whether it's a

more dedicated kind of intentional work with other people, just to help people

start to see where my response is just reactive as opposed to appropriate.

And maybe that would, you know, it would be nice to think of that as a, kind

of, as a position on the board, right?

Well, like, well, that phrase, you had a Buddha on the board.

What about if you had a, you know, chief, chief Wisdom officer

Yeah.

Right, exactly.

in the company, chief presence officer, you know, chief space between stimulus

and response officer, you know, and that, that's the contribution to the board.

Okay, what about if we slow down here?

What about if we just see what's going on in the room right before jumping?

What's going on?

You know, how radical that might be.

Yeah.

And so I guess that kinda just leads to just a second part of what I was kinda

curious to talk about, uh, which is start, I guess, you know, a continuation really

with just some of these ideas in practice.

When we were, uh, having a, a conversation about this conversation the other week,

and you were talking about the, the spirit of, um, with the, the person

who runs your, your retreat center and this, this, this idea, this intention

that the person who is leading the organization is, uh, is, you know,

I guess is not constantly caught up in the, in the, in the day-to-day.

Not constantly caught up in the stuff of stuff so that they

have the space to be available.

They have the space to kind of be present.

And I'm really curious about how, the kind of practice of these things.

Because if I also think about some other conversations that I've had with

people, and they will sort of talk about, oh, you know, the thing around,

you know, being a leader is helping people make decisions or, um, you

know, knowing when to step in, when to shape things, you know, recognizing

when somebody is not up to a task.

And so they need to sort of step in to support them.

And so this spirit of, you know, what you were talking about when we spoke

before, this idea that the leader should be in a way kind of free of the tasks

of the day so that they can be present.

You know, going back to everything we were talking about before, they can be present,

they can be aware, they can be attentive.

But of course we tend not to do that.

Oftentimes we're just kind of, we get sort of very close.

So just kind of curious about.

Some of these, some of these kind of principles and how it sort of

translates in practice, you know.

Just like that one example, how do I know when to step in versus not step in?

When is it right to be leaving somebody else to continue or when

is it my duty to, to do the reverse?

That, and I'm kind of curious, even just taking like a

micro example like that, what

Yeah.

And there isn't a formula for that, right?

It that, but uh, again, I would say that.

To follow the same thread we've been looking at.

That comes back right to inner discernment.

So that you can see what is your, your perceived need to

step in or your wish to step in.

What's driving it?

Is it clarity of recognizing something needs attention or is it your own

kind of inner restlessness that you just can't leave things alone?

You know, it's, it's like the idea of micromanaging.

We all know that it's not helpful to micromanage, but you can

tell someone don't micromanage.

But stopping micromanaging isn't a strategic decision, right?

It de it really only happens when someone can recognize,

well, why am I micromanaging?

Is it 'cause I don't trust the person that I've empowered in the role?

Is it because I've got this ongoing belief that I have to do everything.

And if nobody will do it, nobody will quite take responsibility in the way I do.

And if you do have that belief, is that true or is that just a kind of

historically constructed view, et cetera?

So, so it comes back to the same inner, you know, the inner work,

which determines the outer outcome.

And in terms of trying to have someone in a leadership role who's free of

that, you know, it never works, right?

It is not like you're gonna have somebody who's completely free

all day and got nothing to do.

But as an aim, so trying people in leadership role, the main leadership

role here at the Mulan for example, I'm always trying to have her have as much

free time as possible because that free time very often won't end up being free.

You know, because of the, the, the endless stream of minor catastrophes, right?

But the more that she's free, the more that that, that availability to then

actually be nimble and flexible, to be able to step in and help the person

who needs help, um, take care of the unexpected thing that could never have

been on the agenda but suddenly needs most of the attention today, et cetera.

And then if today's a day when there's not many minor catastrophes and

that person's genuinely free, great.

Let them match, ah, to have some space to walk around.

That's a lot of what I do here at the Mulan, I walk around a lot.

Now, I know that doesn't sound very impressive, but I would say

that's a real key part to knowing what's happening, interacting with

people where there's not any drama.

I'm not checking, have they done this?

Are they doing that?

I'm just like, oh, I'm walking around seeing, oh, that, that needs doing.

And then go and find the person.

How are you doing?

How you doing?

So availability to, to have a sense of what's going on, and then availability

to keep coming back to oneself.

So that, again, availability, so that those inequalities of availability and

presence get nourished so that then they actually can show up to people.

So that's the other thing, you know, we talk about, we talked

about that quality of availability.

I, I, I wonder how much leaders and organizations walk around, you know,

and that's something to come back to Ajahn talked about, you get the sense

the Abbott is not some absent distant professor that, uh, the Abbott isn't,

uh, in their glamorous corner office.

And the ab absent the, the, the Abbott isn't off playing golf, you know?

So as a leader, if you're around, you don't, and maybe leaders often feel

they have to be, if they're around, they have to be somehow justifying

their senior position, justifying their salary, and either looking busy or if

they're not busy taking off somewhere.

But I would say, what about if you were just walking around, checking

in with people just because of there in the environment and you're there

in, in a sort of just a pres, a, a, a solidarity with the people you're

working with that is expressed with the fact that you're just there?

You don't need to be busy, but you're there and there you're for,

you're available in a, in a kind of different kind of way for people

when they need you, but also you're available just to your own perceptions.

You get to know an organization by actually really being

plugged into how it works.

And that's different from kind of, you know, giving out orders from

on high or checking in with people or putting out the fires of the

various, uh, minor catastrophes.

'Cause all that stuff has to be done.

But all the while you're doing that, you know, and you're very task focused.

It's different than just that kind of, uh, what I'm, what

I'm calling, walking around.

Which, you know, just, it has a lot more dimensionality to it in my experience.

You know, it's really the more I can walk around, uh, you know, see

what people are doing, be, you know, also just your, my visible presence.

It's like, oh, I mean, I'm here.

I, you know,

I like that.

The, the kind of the the presence.

The presence of presence.

So kind of being around, being aware.

'Cause one of the other things which was coming up a little bit, the, just

the thing around, uh, micromanaging, you know, of course if we are, might, you

know, you were asking, asking the, the kind of rhetorical question, you know,

why is it that I'm sort of stepping in?

And one of the other things which was coming up for me as you were talking

about that was of course, you know, if I'm micromanaging somebody else, it's probably

'cause I'm micromanaging myself at some kind of other level that I'm not seeing.

And all I'm kind of vomiting onto the world is a lot of what

I'm doing to myself, but it has remained kind of blind to me.

Uh, and so often those things can be good kind of pointers

or reminders, oh, hold on.

You know, because why am I doing this?

Why do I keep feeling the need to sort of step in and manage that for that

person is like, what, you know, what am I, in what way am I doing that to myself?

Uh, and that being a kind of an invitation to, to kind of open that up somewhat.

And I think two other things I would like to, uh, just, uh, sort of talk

about, which are again, this idea of the, these things in practice wet.

We spoke there about knowing when to, when to step and when's the right,

when's the right time to get off the walk and kind of get into a kind of

dialogue or whatever it might be.

And there two, there's two other things which come up so often in the kind

of the language of, uh, leadership, the language of kind of work.

And one is decision making and the other is planning and control, right?

So, you know, often, and you know, clearly most of the people that listen

to this are not, uh, in kind of leading kind of mega organizations and a lot

of, uh, so this, but this idea of kind of planning and control, this, I'll

have a plan, having plans, putting plans together, being in charge, being,

you know, sort of controlling things.

Yeah.

Well, I think probably both with planning and control and with decision

making, anything I say might sound a little bit, uh, controversial or, or

possibly just plain like out to lunch.

But let's see, let's see.

So given that the mind will tend towards control and everybody can recognize that,

you know, we suddenly, we say to some people, oh, you are a control freak.

But it, it always struck me as a strange kind of thing to throw at someone.

'cause we'll look at, look back, we're all control freaks,

you know, it's like, it's not.

Given that the mind will tend to control anyway, that's actually, I would say

evidence that one's that intentionally you can let go and let go and let

go and let go, because basically we are not in control of very much.

Like I said earlier, here we are living and dying, you know, and most of what

happens to us is out of control, you know.

Most, and, and that, that can seem difficult to acknowledge sometimes.

We can find lots of objections to that.

What do you mean?

I, no, I make this happen and I make that happen and I bring home

the, I bring home my salary and I hire and fire people, and I, okay.

Okay.

But it's possible, and it's profoundly relieving and liberating as well as

being possible to internally really have the feeling of not being in control,

not trying to be in control, not being interested in control, letting

it all happen, letting it all happen.

With that sounds terrifying to us, and it even sounds irresponsible.

It sounds like if I let go of controlling and managing, then

everything would fall apart.

If I let go of controlling and managing my own time and energy, I would fall apart,

and I'd find myself just on the sofa eating crisps and watching TV all day.

You know?

No, but really that's the belief a lot of us have that I, I have to

constantly keep whipping myself into shape and making myself be functional

and responsible because I'm afraid of that part of me that actually would just

become some kind of slob or some kind of maniac, or if I wasn't keeping myself

on the straight and narrow, et cetera.

And, um, it's true that we have those kind of, you know, impulses within us, the

impulse to just slob out or the impulse to just satisfy all our appetites, et cetera.

But that's not all that's going on.

You actually, you can pass through that to a sense of, oh, nothing to control.

And coming to know qualities of genuine ease and, and relaxation

and yet not fall apart.

You know, actually keep one's capacity to be responsive and responsible is

actually enhanced by dropping the control.

'Cause control is agitating internally and it's, and it's rigid externally.

So, oh, what, what we talk about as the dropping of control might more accurately

see as the, as the softening of inner, um, agitation and outer rigidity.

Now that starts to look very different.

One's capacity to actually discern what's happening, discern a response, and it

comes back to that, that gap between stimulus and response so that you can

respond as things happen rather than trying to control what's happening.

Your capacity to control what's happening is very, very minor.

You know, I mean, 'cause deaths just happen.

Fires just happen, you know?

Or illness happens.

I mean, a pandemic just happened, you know?

Uh, just stuff happens that's way outside of our control.

So it's like, well, given the absolute undeniable truth of that, what are you

more interested in trying to control what happens or being flexible and in how

you respond to what happens, including all the inevitably unforeseeable things

And I may be now, uh, sort of extending teachers of the Buddha a bit too far,

but I was kind of curious about the kind of paradoxes in a lot of the teaching.

So it's part of what you're, part of what you're saying essentially

is both do plan and not to plan.

So essentially have a feeling for a direction that you might go in and, and

then deal and, and then respond to this stuff of life, or is, you know, I guess

you, and I guess this also comes back to discernment in the same way we're talking

about before, but you know, because if, if I was to, to sit it down to question,

so does that mean I plan or I don't plan?

Right.

Well, there's two.

We could see two different kinds of planning, right?

One is.

Idealistic.

And you see, I mean the classic example is the five year business

plan or that you're supposed to, which absolutely, it's preposterous.

It's absolutely preposterous.

It would be interesting to see a study of companies, look at their five year plan

that they made five years ago, and then look at what's happened in five years.

How closely does what happens mirror the five year plan.

The five year plan is just preposterous You, just you, because you're making up

some sense of what you want to happen.

But whether it will happen or will happen to a lesser ex extent, a

greater extent, or a totally different extent, is utterly unknowable.

Utterly unknowable.

So that's the, that's the plan that we're used to the plan that says,

okay, well in year one this is, and then in year two we're gonna do this.

And it sort of pointed to this outwards to this vision, which is.

Know, utterly unknowable and then the, the, the kind of the bullshit

that we tell each other or that we tell the bank or whoever it is

about how we're gonna get there.

So I have zero interest or faith in that kind of plan, even

though you might need to make one sometimes for the bank, you know?

And then there's the other kind of plan, which to use.

The same word you do is more about the direction.

It's like, oh, this is what our values are, this is what our vision is.

And so this is how we're, this is the, the, the way in which we're

gonna point ourselves forward.

This is what our vision is, right?

What we think we can offer, what we want to happen.

This is what our values are, right?

The, the things we wanna make sure we keep in place along the way.

There, there's a plan to that, but it's a plan that isn't based on some imagined

future that we're trying to get to.

It's a, it's, that's one that's grounded in the, what we're doing

now and the way we're doing it.

And that kind of, that's, that's a plan, if you like, but it's

not a pie in the sky plan.

It's not a castles in the air plan.

It's a, here we are and it's one that it, we are just constantly

checking in with ourselves.

What's our vision, and what are, what are our, our values?

And in that sense, that maps on very, very nicely to the inner

practice of meditation, where you can get fixated on or some getting

to some peaceful state, right?

That's your five-year plan in meditation or to get to a

enlightenment or a peaceful state.

And, and it's hopeless.

You torture yourself, trying to make your mind be other than it is, right?

Or you come back to, oh no, my plan is to not cultivate and nourish these

qualities, to cultivate and nourish presence and openness and depth of feeling

and capacity to, to sense what's happening and respond more skillfully, et cetera.

So I would say that that's the crucial difference, right?

It's not to plan or not to plan.

It's whether you're planning in an idealistic and ultimately deluded

way, or whether you're planning in a present centered, uh, uh, way.

so values, let values and vision be at the heart of your plan and

where you think you're gonna get to, that ain't in your hands really.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I like that.

Um, so that, that takes to the, the last thing we'll sort of talk about,

which I guess is a sort of continuation that, which is something which came

up at the end of our sort of, uh, sort of prep conversation we had last week

was this thing around decision making.

And the reason that that was in my mind is, you know, uh, how decisions are

made of course is a big thing in, uh, again, in a kind of company culture.

But also there's a, another good friend of mine and he, um, is sort of in a big

sort of career transition, his whole kind of old life role, not kind of resonating.

He's taken time out and he said that he was been trying to kind of

make this, there's like a range of different things he could do now.

Uh, and he, they're all quite different.

And, uh, he was sort of articulating just to me in a, in a email exchange

we're having about how to make the decision about what is right.

You know, like one of them, the kind of shorthand version, you know, one of them's

like a sort of obvious continuation of sort of person leading big organization.

Another one is, um, something completely different.

One of them is, you know, and there's all these different routes that say

three different routes essentially of what he may do that are quite different.

And he was talking about how to make the decision between what those things were

and uh, that kind of, together with this idea that people lead organizations feel

that part of their responsibility is to help people make good decisions or help

the organization make the decisions.

And we touched on this just at the end, and I, I've been sort of reflecting

on what I thought was happening with that, but then I, I really liked

where our conversation was going, so I thought it, we couldn't have

this conversation without at least touching on this point of decision

making and what is going on for people.

Yeah.

How to make good decisions.

that's the other weird out to lunch perspective that I might have, which

I would say I don't really believe in decision, like there, there is

such a thing as decision making.

I would say the, the, the, I see no evidence that I've ever made a decision

and therefore I have no interest in ever trying to make a decision.

So let me back up and say what I mean by that.

Um, we, what you mean?

No evidence?

I'm sure listening to this, anybody could look back and find lots of evidence for

all the decisions I'd made and not only the fact that I have made decisions, but

there where thank goodness I made the right decision and there, oh, that time

I made the wrong decision and if only I had, I decided something else, et cetera.

If only I'd kept that stock, you know.

So the first thing is the, if only thing is utterly useless because there

is no, if only it's, if only I had done something different means the, the entire

universe would be different, right?

You're, you're, it's, it's so, it, it looks as if I could have made a different

decision, but you couldn't have, you couldn't have you, you just couldn't have.

You made the decision that you made to, let's just use the language

of decision making for a moment.

You did what you did because in that moment, with all the conditions, the

way they were, the thing you did seemed to you either the best thing to do or

the only thing to do, or the inevitable thing to do, or the thing you were forced

to do, whatever it was, the conditions were such that that was what you did.

If you could rewind the universe to that moment, you'd do exactly the same again.

Right?

Because you would do it, you know.

So that's the important thing.

We always are responding to a variety of inner and outer influences, right?

That's what, how our life is.

We're going along and then I see a fork in the road, oh, shall I go left or right?

And.

Left looks attractive to me for maybe on, right looks attractive

for some different reasons.

And then I have my own inner history of the times I've chosen

to go left or right and you know.

And so all of that's acting on me, my own habits of what I feel attracted to,

or what I feel safe or comfortable with, or what I'm afraid of, et cetera, plus

whatever those things look like to me.

And sometimes it's just that.

It's like, oh, they're here are different influences.

And for whatever reason, mixture of inner and outer influences, I feel

like I'm drawn more to the left and so I find myself going down that left

path and then I look back and say, well, in the end I decided to go left.

And by putting it in that language, you make it sound as if I, I actually

stood back and made a decision.

Whereas it's much more that we're responding to influences.

And by saying, I made a decision.

It makes it sound as if I could have made a different decision.

So all that's giving ourselves an illusion or a veneer of control or

agency that we don't really have when we really step inside and sense into that.

And then the other thing that's happening, sometimes it's, it's not that at taught.

It's like, I dunno.

I don't dunno.

Okay, I could go left, I could go right.

I know.

And generally we find, I don't know, to be a very uncomfortable place.

And so when we are in I don't know what to do or I don't know where to go, or I

don't know which one to take, et cetera, we, because we're uncomfortable, we

have the feeling I should know, I should know, knowing we equate with security

and certainty and not knowing, we equate with, uh, insecurity and discomfort.

And so same thing, those inner and outer factors are, are at play.

And often, we'll, we'll tend to kind of lurch towards one or the other.

And if, if we'd really look carefully, we see that what I called a decision was

actually an inner reaction because I.

It was uncomfortable with not knowing.

And again, we say, oh, then I decided to, as if it was some kind of pure, clear,

objective process rather than essentially just an inner movement that we didn't

really have a great deal of agency over.

We didn't even realize that we were just uncomfortable with the, with not knowing.

We didn't realize the process of insecurity that that's set up in us.

And when we didn't really realize the way in which we were kind of

unconsciously weighing up those thing and, and looking for the thing that I

would hope would be least uncomfortable, and then lurching off towards that.

So I really encourage people about, around the process of what we call

decision making to kind of, you know, just pay attention, basically.

Pay close attention to the inner and outer factors, and especially the inner factors.

'cause we tend to notice the outer influences more easily.

Oh, well this option says that it's gonna do this for me, and that

option says it's gonna do that.

Sometimes it's more, more clear, sometimes it's less clear.

Sometimes there are more variables, et cetera.

But the inner influences we often don't notice.

So I encourage people, pay attention to the inner influences and

especially there's a, the way we train ourselves to get familiar with

and comfortable with not knowing.

Because if you're really okay, I don't know.

Right now, I don't know.

That's not a wrong thing.

It's not a bad thing.

It's just the truth sometimes.

Sometimes it is easy to know and then off you go.

And sometimes, I don't know, oh, you just get comfortable with not knowing.

It sort of opens up this space of the, kind of the miracle of what

we call choice points, right?

The fact that, oh, here's this fork in the road.

I have no idea really of knowing what will happen whether I go left or right.

I think I know.

I said, well, if I go left, it'll be like this, but we don't know how it'll

be if I go right, it'll be like this.

If I keep the stock, if I sell the stock, et cetera.

We don't know, we don't know.

And so getting comfortable with the not knowing actually creates

the space in which we just clarity, clarity about the influence in

internal factors and how they're interacting with the external factors.

And then the clarity to be able to just like allow ourselves to move

left or move right, freed from the sense of heavy responsibility that

I've got to make the right decision.

You know, 'cause actually I've got to make the right decision is the opposite.

It it, it gives us a sense of intensity, pressure, et cetera, which

shuts down that clarity, I would say.

And then we find we're able to, there's this lovely line from a kind of mystic.

Baseball player, Yogi Barra, who has a whole bunch of great aphorisms,

and one of them he has is when you come to a fork in the road, take it.

I love that line.

It is a, it is a brilliant line.

Because I think that's it.

And I think that's probably a, a really good place to, to kind of end.

'cause I think, I guess a lot of where.

This sort of comes up people is where they are, where, where they are approaching

the fork in the road because, and you can sort of see what, so the kind of feeling

like they need to make a decision is because something is weighing on them.

And I think about my own experience that I, the, the language of lurch,

I can really feel that is kind.

I kind of holding on, holding on, holding on probably a bit scared

I'm gonna make the wrong decision or bit scared about the idea of

consequence or whatever it might be.

And you hold, hold, hold, hold.

And then I lurch one way.

Uh, just because it's, you know.

And I've kind of, and even if I was sort of engaging with the idea of,

um, trying to learn how to sit with discomfort and practice with discomfort,

there'll definitely part of my mind.

Which the narrative while I was sitting with discomfort is, okay, you're holding

on, you're holding on, you're sitting with discomfort, you are waiting for some

sort of insight about which way to go.

But equally then I'm just sort of stuck in a completely different sort of stream

of noise before I lurch on another route.

So that kind of invitation to learn how to sit with discomfort.

Again, a simple sounding thing, but a kind of in, in infinitely deep.

Very good.

Well, thank you very much Martin.

Uh, where would people find more of your management wisdom?

Um, uh, management Wisdom isn't quite my brand, they can find something about

me on my website, martinaylward.com.

Uh, they can find me on Instagram at Martin Aylward, but, uh, mostly

what they'll find is stuff about, uh, meditation and the Buddhist

world in which I kind of help people to train their minds and free their

hearts and transforms their lives.

And, um, a a changed relationship to management would be a

happy side effect of that.

Very good.

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