346: Finding Clarity While Navigating Change with Marc Lesser

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We in our culture have this really erroneous belief that if we were to feel satisfied, we wouldn't get anything done, we would just be navel gazing. But I think the power is imagine getting stuff done from that place that to me is like boom. Powerful. That we don't have to beat ourselves up, we don't have to feel something's missing. I'm empty. If I don't do this, who would I be? But to embrace and feel that sense of enoughness.

What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast. If change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Welcome back, Pivoters. Jenny Blake here, and I am so excited to welcome today's guest to the pod. He leapt right off of my bookshelves. Mark Lesser is a speaker, facilitator, workshop leader, and executive coach. He's the author of five books, including Zen of Business Administration, that I bought in my first year of working at Google and just about fell out of my chair when his team reached out for his new book, Finding Clarity. Mark also has a podcast called Zen Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times that features interviews, tools, and potent mindfulness practices to develop yourself, influence your organization, and change the world. Mark, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Jenny. It's really a treat to be here with you.

Thanks for leaping off my bookshelves.

I always immediately fall in love with people when I find out I'm on their bookshelf. It's great.

I mean, you spoke right to my heart at that time because I had just come through a period of learning about Buddhism and Daoism and I had read my entry point to all this in my very early twenties was Wayne Dyer's Change youe Thoughts, Change youe Life based on the Dao. But it had his analysis and kind of his own stories woven throughout. And so when I saw zba, like the Zen of business, it just spoke to my heart. So I've been a fan of your work for a very long time.

That's great. Thank you.

I always like to start by embarrassing my guests and listeners. This has been eight plus years now. They know. They know that's my vibe. But I do want to start by asking about what might have been a tough pivot point at the time. You had a previous company called brushdance. And after 15 years, you started to feel maybe it was time for a change. A mentor said to you, maybe there's more out there for you. And then almost to make those inner thoughts reality, the board says to you, hey, why don't you make this transition now? The part I'm curious about first, before we maybe talk about how you reacted when it was made manifest with the board's words to you, is what signals were happening within you where after 15 years, you started to feel maybe the whispers or winds of change.

Brushdance was a greeting card, calendar, journal company that I started literally in my garage and moved up to my living room. But then it grew, and it grew and I ran for 15 years, and I think my identity as a CEO, as a company making cool products, so many things. It was a wonderful, wonderful ride. But after many, many years, I distinctly remember walking into my office one day and there was this whisper in my mind that said, my heart isn't here anymore. And I immediately wanted to suppress that thought because it was like, oh, man, that would mean change and what would I do? And actually, it was a mentor, and she was also a board member and an investor in my company who took me out for breakfast and looked me in the eye one day and said, it's time for you to leave this little publishing company that you started. And of course, I saw it as a kind of criticism. And she said, you have much larger things to do with your life than to lead this company. And I said, like what? And she said, well, that you'll have to figure out. And then the board gave me the kick in the butt that I wasn't expecting, but that I think I needed to get out. And then it was a few years later that I got this call from Google. Hey, how would you like to come help develop a mindfulness and emotional intelligence program here? And that turned out to be what was next for me. So it was painful. It was a painful transition. And also, it's always one of these. Looking back, it was perfect. It was beautiful. It was life changing in many, many ways. To go through all of that.

You mentioned the identity piece, and I would imagine it's so strong after 15 years with the company you started, you're running it. I find that alone, the identity piece alone feels like an under discussed aspect of navigating change, especially as it relates to our careers. Like who am I if not the CEO? And you didn't know exactly what was next. It's not like you left Brushdance to hop on over to Google. And even when you did join Google, it was still relatively early in the company's life.

Yeah. And it's funny, Jenny, that pretty recently, well, maybe three or four years ago now, I was at a party and just meeting someone who I had never met and he hears me say the name Brushdance and he really perks up and he's like, did you just say Brush Dance? I said, yeah. He said, well, I'm an attorney and I just helped sell that company to a large publisher. And I perked up like, oh, my baby's found a new home. And this was. I had been not involved with the company for close to 20 years and still felt that sense of identity because it was like a child that I gave birth to. And I actually think that's an important quality for an entrepreneur. I remember reading on the list of what are the criteria for things that most ensure success, especially for new companies and startups, and I think toward the top of the list was this deep belief that you have to succeed. Right. That failure isn't an option. And I think that was part of the identity process I think that I had around this company.

In that case, you really did raise. You raised it to 15 years old. Let's call it like a Doogie Howser prodigy. You know, it then left the house early and then to have it sell even. So it stayed afloat even all those years after. I mean, that's such a testament to what you created into your leadership as well, that it was able to carry on without you and then later even be acquired.

Yeah, I'm proud of this child that will now live on in the world, at least for some time more as a calendar company.

Isn't it also interesting what that mentor and friend and board member said to you? It's time for you to do bigger things. And don't you wonder how? I mean, maybe she's very intuitive in her own right, but how people see this in us before we can even see it in ourselves.

Her name is Shaina. I've lost touch with her now, but she was kind of a shaman and very, very intuitive. And there was the way that she said it was that she wanted the best for me. I could feel that she wanted the best for me and that I was undervaluing myself and I was holding on to something. And that part of that transition of getting that I had done what I could do in that particular part of my life, and it was time to recognize that and to let it go and to allow what was going to come next to come.

So then a couple years later, you end up starting the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute within Google. And I'm pretty sure. Did you do that with Meng, or was it someone else? Okay. Because Meng was such a beloved person when I was there. I'm curious, what did this look like? Because it's a unique structure to almost start a company within a bigger company.

It was an amazing time. The first call from Meng was, hey, how would you like to come explore developing this? Oh, and by the way, there's no budget. I was like, yeah, whatever. Google, there's something strange about all this. But it was exciting and interesting. We were going to change the world through scaling meditation worldwide. That was Ming's vision. And it was a vision that I thought was a beautiful one. And it was like, let's test this out within Google. Let's start with the hardest audience in the world, Google engineers. Let's see if we can get Google engineers to align and buy in around mindfulness, emotional intelligence and leadership. And it worked. It was an overnight success that took about four or five years to actually launch and develop within Google, but then it just exploded within Google, and then it started to explode beyond Google into other companies. I mean, it didn't hurt at all. The timing of somehow mindfulness seemed to be seeping into our culture in a whole different way and combined with the credibility of Google. And I think, too, there was a kind of a real sense of authenticity that I was bringing, and I think the team that I put together was bringing that we were really wanting to make real change was our core motivation.

And what were the main years of this project of when you were getting it going? You were the most active.

This would have been like 2006 to 2011. And then we started. Meng and I and a Stanford neuroscientist created the organization called the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute. That was 2012, and Google owned all of the trademarks and the intellectual property, but they very generously said, they're yours, they're yours, use them. Well, that was super exciting. Interesting times.

That's great that they were supportive of you as leveraging that IP as well. So was there a transition point where it became a natural exit for you to not be as hands on internally and then kind of go your own related way in business.

Oh man, you're going right to the.

Tough questions, Jenny, because I'm living them right now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I was the CEO and Meng was the board chair and I ran that company and grew it for five years and it was super, super exciting. And Brushdance as a company certainly had its times of growth, but there was a lot of struggle with that business model of a inventory company, retail company in the midst of big changes happening. Search inside yourself. It took some time to assemble a really good team and to develop the plan. And then it was really exciting time and Mank and I had a different vision, the business model. And at some point I decided it was best for the health of everyone for me to walk away, which I did after five years. And man, that hurt. That hurt. Maybe very similar hurting because I had thrown my heart into that organization and that program and the people that I hired. And again, those darn identity issues, those were the hard ones that I had become identified. And again, that was now six years ago. And one of the things that I'll share with you that my therapist asks me pretty regularly is, so looking back, how do you feel? Was it a good move to leave that company? And it was like without a doubt. For me personally, it was a good move. I've had so many learnings, challenges, successes, opportunities in the last six years since leaving that particular role.

I can relate so much and that's a big one. And it's a hard one to leave because there was probably a lot going really well and it's one of the biggest global companies. It's the epicenter of a lot of innovation and conversation and great people. It's not easy to leave and it's not easy to make that choice and walk away. And I know for myself personally when I first left the full time role I had there 12 years ago, it was a lot of who am I? Without Google, I won't be nearly as interesting because I'm sure you can relate to this. Whenever people want to introduce you or they make sure that Google's in your bio, it's the thing they want to ask about at cocktail parties. I'm asking you about it now on the podcast. But it's this big shiny thing, piece of the identity. And so it's really scary. Leaving those identity pieces that are so positively reinforcing, I find is hard to leave that behind. There is a grieving process. I agree with you, even though I know that was the right decision for me. It's tough.

Yeah. Some of my mentors thought it was not a good move. There are advantages to having an organization in an organization like Google being part of one's support system. But it's interesting in some way I still feel that in that they're part of my history, they're something that I did help create a groundbreaking program and a team and a company. And I don't feel like I lean on it inappropriately. But I also don't dismiss it just like, you know, the fact that you were a Google employee for so many years is like, oh yeah, that's not a meaningless thing. That's an important part of your own identity and growth and learning that you can now share in whatever you're doing.

And we have a lot in common because I built a global drop in coaching program. I wanted coaching to be accessible to everybody, the same way you and Meng were working on mindfulness and meditation. And so that's the project that I'm still one of the most proudest of in my career because of the reach and impact and durability. I'm not a good maintainer anyway. I was never going to be the one who's going to maintain a project that I've co created and launched and set loose into the company. I knew that that wasn't a good role for me. One thing I wanted to ask you about environments like Google and we can expand to broader, let's say tech or even finance. But there are cultures that have such an intense, fast pace. And I am curious to hear your thoughts, especially now, kind of from the outside, with perspective, working with many different clients and companies. Sometimes I think we put the pressure on each individual. Be more mindful, have boundaries, manage your burnout. But actually it's just so challenging. Like you're part of a system that may or may not be what's best for your personal wellness and thriving. And there's only so much that these practices can do. I mean, I don't want to denigrate them, they are so important. But I guess what I'm trying to speak to is sometimes I feel like these types of companies, they really mean well and they want to offer team members as many programs and solutions and tools as possible. But still the pace is crushing. And it's like how to reconcile those two things and then how an individual, let's say someone listening to this podcast, might know when to search inside themselves and say, actually it's the container that I'm in is not a fit for my nervous system.

Yeah. You know, I know when we started developing and spreading this program inside of Google, one of our selling points, or hoped for selling points, was that it would help make it more sustainable for people to stay there. But we actually found that there was a higher percentage of people who left Google after taking the program just because of what you're saying. But it was interesting. I'd say, Jenny, it's a both end. There were people who were able to cultivate these tools that we were teaching around mindfulness and emotional intelligence and it really helped them and it helped them stay. But there were others who light bulbs went off and said this is just not the right environment for me and I've been suppressing the truth and I need to leave. So what I think is one of the important things about this whole broad umbrella of a mindfulness practice is it helps open your heart and helps get you closer to your own truth and that truth, to the tension that you're pointing out asking the question is this the right environment for me? I mean I think it's a great question of anyone in any workplace is what can I do? Are there things I can do to make to help me love my work more and feel that this is the right place? Are there things that I could be doing differently and be open to? There just might not be. I've now done everything I possibly can to bring my own sense of power and love and openness and man, this is still not working. So I think there's that greater options through this kind of practices.

We'll be right back just after this.

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I smiled when you said, well, it's both and because in a way, won't that be the answer? That could be the answer to anything and everything. And you talk about this in finding clarity. I have a whole sidebar in almost every chapter of Pivot called Pivot Paradox. Because the more I write, the more I laugh. Like whatever any of us wants to kind of claim as a truth or a best practice, the paradox is that you could so often just argue for the other side as well. And then. So I know you talk about embracing duality and paradox across all of your work, but that's just it. It's like, well, these practices can help, but what you said is there is no answer. But if you can connect more to yourself, you can at least hear what authentic intuitive answers emerge.

I actually wrote a book about paradox, and I don't know where this quote comes from, but the quote is, if it's not paradoxical, it's not true. And I remember in writing about paradox, having a moment of kind of raging against it. I don't like paradox. I don't want things to be so unclear. And then I was surprised to find myself writing, perhaps what's paradoxical is more clear than clear. That usually what we think of as clear is often a bit one sided. And that through allowing and embracing the paradoxical nature of things, it's a broader and maybe clearer perspective than how we generally think of things.

Yes, and along those lines, we have so many aphorisms, popular sayings, that there's an aphorism for both sides, all sides. Like in Pivot, I say sometimes the grass really is greener. Or my dad and I always used to joke about the early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. So which one is it? Should you be early or should you be late? You know.

You'Re reminding me that I grew up with a mother who used to say, the poor can only afford to buy the best.

That's true. And then also it's like the amortized value. If you do buy the best and it lasts the longest, it's true. That's really interesting that she used to say that. I can't wait. I'll have to read your book on paradoxes. I've been missing out.

It's called Know Yourself, Forget Yourself.

See, there it is. There you go. I also loved how you said in the latest one, finding clarity. I had to live this book in order to write it. And that made me smile too, because I feel that that's true of any author working on any book, is that the book will ask, nudge, nudge, demand that you live it in order to write it. So I bet. What would you say the message you were asked to live when you were writing the Paradox book, know yourself, forget yourself.

Well, it just brought together so many different parts of my life that again, this lifelong practice of self awareness, of becoming more and more familiar and accepting of my strengths and weaknesses and proclivities. But really, in a way, the whole point of what we think of as self awareness is to be able to let go. It's not about constantly being there, checking on ourselves. In fact, it's about finding, knowing ourselves so well that we can just let it all go and just be confident and humble and accepting and working for the changes that we want out there in the world. So it's essentially a way of finding more freedom. But we have to go through again and again this ongoing process of feeling the pains and the possibilities of our lives, as you say, the various. Making all those pivots, but learning from them, forgetting isn't that Language, I think, can be a little tricky. But to know yourself and then to be able to let go, be able to go beyond yourself, I think is a really important leadership and life skill.

There's another literary device that I really appreciated in Finding Clarity. You draw upon the wisdom of Homer Simpson, the Buddha, and Alice in Wonderland. And I thought, never have these three characters walked into a room or a bar until now. How did you get the idea to draw upon these characters in our popular consciousness and use them for the storytelling of some of these principles? And maybe you could give us a quick summary of why you picked each one.

Jenny, this is what I so love about the process of writing. I definitely have a love hate relationship with writing, as I suspect most writers do. It really came as a surprise to me. It was not planned. And then I was really surprised that it stayed. When I first sent it to my editor, I thought, this is not staying in this book. But then he said, no, let's develop. Let's keep it as a theme throughout the book, really. Okay. It emerged as partly. I've always been a big Homer Simpson fan, especially the part of Homer that says, why does everything have to be so hard? And there's something about that voice that I appreciate in myself and others. This voice that things are hard and that it's okay that they're hard and I can be frustrated and I can complain, and it's okay that I was getting in touch with my inner Homer. And as I asked myself that question, well, why does everything have to be so hard? I thought, oh, that's what the historical Buddha kept coming back to. Well, things are hard because we are human beings. And as human beings, we have to contend with impermanence. We have to contend with that we don't always get what we want, and we often get what we don't want, and that we know that life is short and that we will lose everything and everyone. There's many, many reasons why life is hard. And then I thought, well, what's the core practice? What's really the core practice here that could be useful? And I thought, it's really about living more with a sense of wonder and curiosity. And Alice in Wonderland popped into my imagination and I thought, yeah, it was all throughout Alice in Wonderland. You know, she starts with things like curiouser and curiouser, but also this radical sense of living with a sense of wonder and not knowing. And those three characters ended up playing an ongoing role throughout finding clarity.

Yeah, I just love it because it really brings them to life and makes me want to rewatch Alice in Wonderland as an adult because I don't even think I have. And there's so much wisdom in it. And I like how you pull out Homer Simpson too, because I would have never thought to really give his dialogue a second thought, you know, especially not as it relates to mindfulness. But you're right, he is an important expression of an aspect of.

Of us in some way. Ted Lasso, who many people have fallen in love with, is a bit of an extension of Homer because Homer really does have a good heart, all in all, even though he's so often the victim. And I love the Ted Lasso character. I'm thrilled that that show has become so popular because it's about a good hearted person with a beginner's mind, which is a really kind of unusual kind of character to be so thought well of in our culture.

Right. And then put him also in a context as competitive and intense as athletics. Another thing I found interesting, you mentioned poet David White. I love this phrase, and I'm so curious what jumped out to you about it. The antidote to exhaustion isn't rest. The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness. What left out to you about that?

So often we don't recognize how much effort our own inner and Outer resistance is right. And that if we could kind of find a way to transform those various kinds of resistances into more wholeheartedness, that there's so much more possibility and energy when we are aligned, when we're aligned inwardly, that what's important to us, our values and what we're doing are aligned and that we're working in a much more clearly aligned way with others. We know what success looks like. We're able to talk about it. We're able to talk about when we're not align. I see wholeheartedness really essential practice, especially for leaders and people in the work world, to be able to keep coming back to what do I need to do to bring more wholeheartedness to my work and my life a more aligned, integrated way. So much of this book is around accountability, and I had to laugh and recognize that often people don't like that word or that sense. It sounds a bit cold and harsh, but people do like. And I think alignment is something that we can relate to. And alignment and wholeheartedness, I think are very close cousins to each other.

I also appreciated your definition of wholeheartedness included the messy bits like you can be grumpy and wholehearted. You can be annoyed, frustrated, uncertain, and wholehearted. And I think in my mind I had always put wholehearted in the blissful dancing in fields, mindfulness bucket, and even so far as spiritual bypassing, which a term that I really love from John Wellwood. But you're saying you can have the messy stuff and still be wholehearted. You're still open in a certain way and available to that aliveness, no matter the tone of the feeling or emotion.

Yes. I think this is one of the great misunderstandings of spiritual practice in general. But people often, I hear they use the word Zen as bliss and calm. I'm like, whatever. To me, it's being able to mix it up and to feel what is as you're saying, whether that's grumpiness or pain or anger. But it's not fighting those emotions, especially those difficult, messy emotions. And it's being able to work with them and to transform them into kind of more sense of alignment, wholeheartedness, and getting back to doing what you can, to making the world a more beautiful place.

Yes. And finding equilibrium, which you point out is challenging on some level because humans have evolved primarily for two things. You say two distinct purposes of evolution, to stay alive and to pass on our genes, which tends to make us anxious and dissatisfied. And I loved you put a little side bubble of this thought exercise. What does it feel like in my body to be satisfied, to not need or want anything and there's just something so powerful, not just telling someone intellectually be grateful, make a gratitude list, but actually saying, what does it feel like in my body to be satisfied? That's kind of blown my mind today and it will for a long time. It's a really powerful inquiry and I.

Would build on that, Jenny, because I think often we in our culture have this really erroneous belief that if we were to feel satisfied, we wouldn't get anything done, we would just be navel gazing. But I think the power is, imagine getting stuff done from that place that to me is like boom, powerful, that we don't have to beat ourselves up, we don't have to feel something's missing. I'm empty. If I don't do this, who would I be? But to embrace and feel that sense of enoughness and to build our work lives, our family lives, our relationships from there? Because so often I think people tend to approach things from lack, from need and with great enthusiasm to fill those needs. And this is turning that on its head and I'm glad that it resonates so much with you.

If you could leave listeners with a little experiment, so it could be an inquiry or an experiment that they could take into the next two weeks, it could be from finding clarity or anything broader, even anything showing up for you right now in your life, what would it be? A little homework would you want to give?

I think I'm going to build on where you just planted us. The experiment would be to play with these three questions. 1. What would it feel like in my body to not be scanning for threats, to let go of that inner critic, to let go of whatever the fears are? What would it feel like to be safe? Right. What does it feel like to be safe in my body? What does it feel like to not have anything missing, to not be missing or lacking anything in this body? And the third is what would it feel like to be fully connected to life, to myself, my relationships, others, letting go of any sense of distance or lack of connection. So safe, satisfied and connected. What would it feel like in this body to feel those three qualities?

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode at Pivotal.

Podcast and connect with me on Twitter @jennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always?

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