Mindfulness, More than A Productivity Hack

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In this episode, Amy Edelstein unpacks why mindfulness goes beyond technique and how wonder is a key ingredient that develops authentic leadership in young people and adults. Mindfulness as only an add-on falls short of what it can be and how awe, gratitude, and presence foster the qualities of autonomy and leadership that are becoming more and more important. She encourages reflection on the wonder of human capacities, at a time when there is much attention on the capabilities of synthetic intelligence. 

In this session, Amy will

• contrast typical executive coaching models with the Inner Strength model of cultivating inner strength for outer stability 
• reframes mindful awareness as reverence for our capabilities, not only as a productivity tool
• explores gratitude for how evolution has unfolded, leading to the beauty and diversity of life on earth, and see that as a foundation for empathy and courage
• shows how intuitive leadership does not need to be sloppy, it can be  informed, integrated and multi-faceted discernment
• invites educators to point students to wonder and to see mindfulness in terms of what it can reveal rather than as a tool to address only deficits

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Episode Transcript

Amy (00:09):
Welcome to the Conscious Classroom Podcast, where we're
exploring tools and perspectivesthat support educators and
anyone who works with teams tocreate more conscious,
supportive, and enrichinglearning environments.
I'm your host, Amy Edelstein,and I'll be sharing
transformative insights andeasy-to-implement classroom
supports that are all drawn frommindful awareness and systems

(00:32):
thinking.
The themes we'll discuss aredesigned to improve your own joy
and fulfillment in your workand increase your impact on the
world we share.
Let's get on with this nextepisode.
Welcome to the ConsciousClassroom.
I'm your host, Amy Edelstein.

(00:53):
Today I want to talk aboutleadership development.
I've been thinking about this alot as many of my advisors to
the organization operate in thefield of executive coaching and
executive leadership.
And some of the organizationsthat we're partnering with and

(01:16):
working with strategically arealso involved in leadership
development.
And I find that while we'retracking much of the same
territory, autonomy,collaboration, strategic
thinking, and resourcemanagement, relationship

(01:41):
management.
The approach from the executiveleadership point of view, even
those that incorporatemindfulness, is really quite
different at a subtle level thanthe approach of inner strength
and the way that we develop ouryoung people and the adults who

(02:02):
work with them, whether they'reteachers, counselors,
administrators, or simply theadults in the circles of these
young people's lives.
When mindfulness is sprinkledon to leadership development,
when it becomes only a techniquethat you chart and map and

(02:28):
count, it squeezes out themysterious nature of how that
shift in awareness allows us tosee not only ourselves and the

(02:49):
world, but all of lifedifferently.
When we're counting mindfulreps, as one book that somebody
recommended to me recentlyencouraged, we're reducing the

(03:11):
contemplation on the mystery ofhuman sentience, of human
awareness, of humanconsciousness to a muscular
reaction that we can repeatregularly throughout the day.
The mindset then becomes one ofacquisition of moments of

(03:34):
mindfulness, which promotes asense of materialism, of
grasping, of greed, ofcompetitiveness, of measurement.
And the very purpose ofmindfulness is to help us get
out of that habitual way ofseeing the world as divided up

(03:55):
into little slices of reality.
When we divide up reality intolittle slices, we almost always
feel on edge, behind, insecure,wondering when, wondering when

(04:21):
the shoe is going to drop.
We're holding those in ourawareness.

(04:54):
We're simply refusing to seethem.
They're not pieces to be addedtogether, they're not separate
ingredients that make the cakeof human life or life itself.
And I feel that while all ofthese leadership models do

(05:21):
authentically help people workwith other human beings better,
create psychologically safespaces, help deliver messages
and requests directly, helpmanage expectations, help
employees know what's expectedof them, help teachers know how

(05:44):
they're supposed to deal andreport, help understand the
values and the culture.
And they're really useful.
However, the foundational levelof human well-being, that sense
that we are okay with our humanlife, our embodiment, our

(06:11):
presence on earth this timearound, is not really touched by
simply getting a little bitbetter at this or that.
One might stumble into that,but the leadership cultivation
isn't really developing that perse.
The way we work with studentsis to emphasize their human

(06:42):
agency, their human capacitiesand sentience, and the value of
being itself, being present,existence.
And lately, especially with theadulation and extraordinary

(07:05):
praise heaped on AI'scapacities, I like to really
counter that with ten stepsback.
And to see that the fact thatwe're human beings and conscious
and walking on two legs andhave vision, have hearing, have

(07:29):
sight is extraordinary.
It's not just an amalgamationof probabilities.
We see, we sense, we feel withour skin, we hear, we smell, we
touch, we love.
How did that come about on anevolutionary scale?

(07:54):
What would have happened if13.8 billion years ago when the
gases were congealing, it wasjust a few degrees warmer or
cooler.
We never would have emerged onthis planet.
Life wouldn't have emerged fromthat primordial soup.

(08:19):
It's extraordinary that lifehas emerged and that human
beings are conscious and that wehave the delicate sensory
nature that we do.
Being alive and being consciousis an extraordinary thing.

(08:40):
So when we invite our youngpeople to explore their
awareness, they're exploring itnot to be able to get somewhere
else or do something elsebetter.
They're exploring it as thisfoundational, awe-inspiring

(09:02):
capacity that no one reallyknows how or why it came to be.
But it did come to be, and thatis amazing.
When we connect with thatprofound level of wonder and
allow ourselves authentically todrop back from everything we

(09:26):
know and all of our to-do listsand get in touch with the
miracle of life on earth.
We drop into a part ofourselves that is flooded with
gratitude simply for being.
And when we're flooded withgratitude simply for our

(09:51):
presence on earth, weimmediately feel a sense of
empathy, of gentleness anddelicacy, a recognition that
it's all so precarious andwonderful, and our actions

(10:13):
really matter.
And that it seems that life iscontinuing to evolve, and things
are changing and growing andemerging in new ways, and we can
connect.
And when we do that, ourqualities of leadership come to

(10:42):
the fore.
Of course, there are plenty ofskills to learn, whether it's in
strategic planning or resourceallocation or human resource and
managing different people orgroups or classrooms or school
communities.
They're great skills to learn.

(11:03):
When we learn those skills withthis openness at the core of
our being in our hearts andminds, then we allow an
intuitive leadership to emerge.
Intuitive does not meanuninformed, sloppy, random,

(11:26):
arbitrary.
Intuitive means that we'rehoning all of our capacities to
know.
Through our mindful awareness,we're taking in all of these
different sensory inputs andinformation.
We're allowing ourselves torecognize that we know in

(11:55):
different ways.
We feel, it's almost like wefeel with our skin.
We withdraw when we feel athreat on a subtle level.
We lean forward when we feelsomeone in need of care.
We rejoice when we see somebodyelse's happiness.

(12:22):
Mirror neurons will rejoice.
Now we may follow those mirrorneurons with envy or
self-discouragement orcompetitiveness, but our mirror
neurons will register thathappiness.
And if we allow ourselves toexperience that sympathetic joy,

(12:44):
we awaken in a conscious way tothe fact that this is a zero,
this is a non-zero sum game, asRobert Wright described.
That when someone rises up forpositive and authentic reasons,

(13:07):
and we rejoice in that, weexperience the upliftment.
Those are the qualities of anauthentic leader.
So the inner strength youthleadership program is really not
different than our regularmindful awareness program.

(13:31):
However, we invite the studentsto express and demonstrate that
in different ways.
We invite them to use not onlytheir voice, but their
empathetic awareness to supportthe whole class, to support the

(13:54):
group that they're involvedwith, to lead a mindfulness
practice.
What they find is that the moretrue they are to their own
awareness and sensitivity andperception, the better leaders

(14:19):
they are.
And as they grow into theirroles in adulthood, those
leadership qualities willcontinue to mature, and they'll
be fortified by skills that arelearned, how to project into the
future, how to map resourcesand finances, how to know when a

(14:46):
business is overstaffed orunderstaffed, how to manage
burnout.
They'll be able to make toughcalls because caring hearts and
open minds recognize thatsometimes things are difficult

(15:07):
to say, but they need to besaid.
And that's ultimately kinder inthe long run because
authenticity creates stability,it creates trust.
So many people these days aretalking about a crisis of trust.
We experience mistrust in aclassroom.

(15:28):
Kids from differentneighborhoods, different zip
codes, different culturalbackgrounds, different mother
tongues, different socioeconomicbrackets may start experiencing
or responding with a lack oftrust simply because they've

(15:49):
been acculturated to do that.
When we let them strengthen intheir foundation of mindful
awareness, they cultivate theirskills of perception,
discernment, critical thinking.

(16:10):
And then they're able moreeffectively to make their own
decisions about what'strustworthy and what's not.
Who is trustworthy in thismoment and who is not, and then
to respond and actappropriately.
And that as our culture isdemonstrating less and less

(16:55):
human authenticity, relying onsimulated podcasts, relying on
literature that was written byprobability and large language
models, relying on summaries ofa life's work done in a few

(17:20):
seconds by a probability scan.
Therapy that comes in the formof a chatbot.
While these are all usefulshortcuts, and we certainly will
see them in our day and age.
I hope, and it's my strongrecommendation to all educators,

(17:48):
to combine that usage and theshortcuts and the help that our
large language models andsynthetic intelligence can give
us with the increased wonder,respect, awe, and reverence for

(18:12):
our human capacities, and thento demand more of our human
activity in the world.
So, human beings, we want us towalk this earth as noble
beings, and we teach our youngpeople to value their humanity

(18:33):
and to pay attention to the markthat they're making in the
world.
What trace are they leavingbehind them?
Who would want to walk in theirfootsteps and why?
The young people that I meetwant to be examples.

(18:56):
They respect the role models intheir lives, they love the role
models in their lives, and whenthey start speaking about them,
you can hear their voice softenand their sense of natural
care, appreciation, andprotectiveness, even.

(19:21):
As they say, my mom's my rolemodel, my grandma's my role
model, my aunt or uncle is myrole model, my basketball coach
is my role model because theycare, they care for me.
And when a student starts toexpress that, you feel all of

(19:44):
those human qualities ofnobility, of innate care, of
moral action, of kindness.
So as educators, let's look tothat humanity as the pinnacle of

(20:11):
human attainment, not theacquisition of wealth, power,
instruments of violence, orsynthetic intelligence.
Let's take syntheticintelligence on its own terms,
in its own right, withoutdenigrating the extraordinary

(20:34):
human experiment that producedsentience and consciousness.
The practices of mindfulawareness really open us up to
wonder if we allow ourselves towork with them as more than a

(20:55):
tool that's going to make usmore efficient, more than a tool
that's going to make us listenbetter in a meeting where we
have to listen better, more thana tool that's going to make us
more empathetic when we've beentold that we are not listening
enough, caring enough, presentenough.

(21:15):
Looking at mindful awareness,not as a fix-it tool.
It's not like we take our carwhen it's broken down to the
mechanic and have them tinkeraround so it runs perfectly.

(21:38):
We want to approach our mindfulawareness as an act of
reverence in and of itself, asan act of wonder, because it
opens a portal to our highercapacities of love and
compassion and discrimination.
It opens us to our highercapacities of wisdom.

(22:00):
And it connects us with othersacross cultures, across
generations who have stood forthe nobility of humanity.
Whether we're talking about theelders in a Peruvian tribe, or

(22:29):
the medicine women in an Inuitvillage, or the executive in
Palo Alto, who cares more abouthis quality of presence than he
does about his stock value.

(22:51):
Mindful awareness reminds usthat the basics are our
foundation for life.
And when the basics are inorder, we can experience and
explore everything.
And it will lead to greatfulfillment and innovation and

(23:15):
creativity.
It will alleviate this plagueof loneliness.
It will fill that seeminglybottomless hole in the heart
with that which is miraculousand connected and always

(23:36):
present.
So for all you educators whoare working with mindful
awareness, I invite you to payattention to the language that
you use to educate with thelanguage of possibility and

(24:01):
integrity and nobility ofpurpose rather than alleviating,
correcting, healing, or fixingthe presence or experience of
lack.
As educators of young people,we want to be trauma-informed,

(24:26):
trauma sensitive while we teach.
We don't always have to leadwith that.
And that goes back to thebeginning when I was speaking

(24:48):
about business coaching andbusiness leadership and the
difference with inner strengthsapproach of inner strength for
outer stability.
Accessing that aspect of ourbeing that is always whole, our

(25:13):
awareness, consciousness, whichreally doesn't expand or
contract.
It's present.
And why it's present and why weknow and why we're aware, we
don't really know.
And if we explore it closely,we feel its vast and miraculous

(25:39):
nature.
So let's allow that to be thecontext and container of all of
the work we do in the classroom.
Rather than mindfulness beingthe spice that we add to the

(26:06):
soup of the main dish.
I don't know if that metaphorworked, but you know what I
mean.
Let the infinite be infiniteand contain everything else so
that there's always room to lookafresh from a different angle,

(26:27):
to learn and discern and to caremore.
And in that, things will fallinto place, and our leadership
skills will develop.
But when we try to squeeze theinfinite into the finite, at a

(26:52):
subtle level, we'll always feelourselves with an impossible
task.
And that will erode ourinherent leadership capacity.
To invite you, as you do yourpractice today or tomorrow or

(27:13):
the next day, as you sit inawareness, either alone with
your peer group or with yourstudents, allow yourself between
you and you to reflect oninfinity and see where it takes

(27:34):
you.
And as you see where it takesyou, notice whether you're
rising up taller, holdingyourself with more presence and
weight, and embodying thosequalities of leadership that are

(27:54):
a natural part of our humanpresence on earth.
Thank you so much.
Till next time.
Thank you for listening to theConscious Classroom.
I'm your host, Amy Edelstein.
Please check out the show noteson InnerStrengthFoundation.net

(28:17):
for links and more information.
And if you enjoyed thispodcast, please share it with a
friend and pass the love on.
See you next time.