The Secret to Solving Business Chaos

Have you ever looked at a business challenge and thought, this shouldn't be this hard, right before spiraling into a full-blown caffeine-fueled late-night existential crisis? Whether it's clashing departments, broken workflows, stalled decisions, or just an overwhelming sense of where the heck do we start? Complexity is the silent killer of progress. And the more you try to fix it, the more tangled it gets. Like untangling last year's Christmas tree lights blindfolded in a wind tunnel. And that's what we're talking about today on Marc Haine Live. Welcome to this episode of Marc Haine Live. This of course is where small business owners and entrepreneurs pick up core skill sets to create the show-stopping, jaw-dropping experiences that their customers and their employees deserve. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. And today, my guest is Reuben Shalef, the Untangling Complex Challenges Expert. And today, we are going to be diving into the chaos that keeps leaders stuck, Overwhelmed and unsure where to turn to next. We're going to uncover how to untangle it all so that you can finally move forward with clarity, confidence, and a plan that doesn't involve, well, duct tape and a prayer. My one request is to please, please, please make sure that you subscribe to this podcast. And please make sure that you share this episode with your circle of friends. I'm sure you could think of somebody who could use this information. I'd love to see the business community really rallying around the work that I've been doing the last 5 years. And it's completely free. So, go ahead and share it. Let's be honest. Running a business or leading a team isn't for the faint of heart. One minute, you're solving a staffing issue. The next, your software system goes haywire. Then suddenly, 2 departments that should be collaborating are acting like They're rival street gangs on some movie that might sound familiar as a musical. Can you guess which one? Does that sound familiar? The problem isn't that you're not smart enough or experienced enough. It's the problems that you're dealing with. Well, they're just complicated like a Rubik's Cube wrapped in red tape sprinkled with, well, personal agendas complicated. That kind of complicated. And most of us were never ever trained or taught how to deal with challenges that don't come with a clear beginning, middle, and end. And that brings me to our Question of the Day. So, are you spending your time solving the wrong problems and really starting to burn out in the process? I'd love to know your thoughts. Go ahead and share this episode on your favorite social media platform. Hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership. Put your comments down and be part of this conversation. As I mentioned, and our guest today is rather special. While you're typing out your tale of tangled troubles, let's bring him on because he is someone who doesn't just solve problems. He untangles them. Reuben Shalef is the founder and CEO of Out of the Box Consulting. And he's known as the untangling complex complex challenges expert. Rented lips. He's got over 30 years of experience in engineering, technology, business transformation, and human dynamics. And yes, all of that. He's helped everyone from Fortune 500 executives to overwhelmed entrepreneurs cut through the noise to find their clarity. And Ruben has blends of systems thinking with emotional intelligence. And his 7-step untangling framework has helped leaders around the world turn chaos into action. make plans that they can actually follow. Reuben, welcome to the show! It's so great to have you.

Hey Marc! I'm really happy to be here.

I can't wait till we dig into it. So, before we get into it though, maybe you can start a little bit by talking about what you do for your clients and who your clients are. Are they entrepreneurs? Are they big corps? How do you serve them?

Sure. The short answer is both. I've been working with people who are in high position in Fortune 500 companies, down to engineers that are dreaming of starting their own business and anywhere in between. The majority of my clients are people in leaders in organizations where they are facing challenges that they tried to fix before, or to handle, or to deal with before and remain stuck. And it's not only stuck. It's typically with a lot of frustration and overwhelm, kind of like, I don't know what to do about this anymore.

Right. I've tried everything.

Yeah, I tried everything and it didn't work. So, that's a typical entry point where I'm called in to help. And what I do is, and this is a distinction many people confuse, untangling with solving. I have subject matter expertise in various domains, but I'm not here to solve any problem that anyone might have. What I'm here to do is to untangle the complex challenges so they become simpler, clearer, and then the people involved and subject matter experts for each of the actual root causes can go ahead and solve what needs to be solved. Most of the challenges or problems that are defined or pain points that are defined when I'm brought in are pretty far from the actual real problems that we end up fixing.

They're the symptoms, right? They become the symptoms. Everybody's complaining about the symptoms of problems. We're not really delving too deep. So, for the audience, can we define what a complex challenge is and maybe even talk about why this is so common in business?

So, it's more common than people realize. So, people tend to think that the problem is simple. That's where they waste a lot of time and energy on the symptoms, on the superficial aspects, and they don't actually get things resolved. But To answer your question, what's the definition of a complex challenge? And of course, this is very malleable and depending on the specific situation. But simply said, complex challenges when you're experiencing stuckness. Like I said, you try different things and it didn't move the needle or it didn't move enough. Another simple way to identify a complex challenge is when there is no straightforward solution. So, for example, if you— I'll take a challenge that I have handled many things many times on my own, losing weight. The challenge, I might got stuck many times, but the challenge is clear. I mean, the solution is pretty clear. It's straightforward, right? Eat less, exercise more. So, Many times, challenges have a straightforward solution, and that's not a complex challenge from my perspective. It becomes a complex challenge when there is more involved. Now, being an engineer, I took a little bit more scientific approach, and I defined 2 groups just in general. I would say the first group is external aspects like time, space, resources, other people, etc. And another group is internal aspects. My intellectual self, my emotional self, my physical being, and even my spiritual being. So then, a complex challenge typically involves at least 2 aspects of each group. So there is a lot going on. It's hard to distinguish what actually is driving the show. Think of different forces that are pushing you and pulling you in different directions. And there are lots of things involved. That's what I call a complex challenge. I get excited just articulating it.

It's interesting because we hinted at that typically, we're blaming the symptoms of a problem. So, how do we know like when somebody's looking at the problems that they have, how can they tell if this is just a symptom or if this is just the problem? For instance, an entrepreneur complains that people these days, the new generations, they're too lazy. Nobody wants to work because they come in for a couple of months and then they quit. The solution looks quite reasonable in that just hire better people. But how do we drill down? How do we get somebody to drill down to maybe that the issue isn't the people or even the people that you're hiring? Maybe the process or the issue is your corporate culture. It could be your leadership team. It could be any number of things.

Absolutely, yeah. So, the first thing that ought to be done is to ask questions, kind of be curious.

Mm-hmm.

And ask if people don't want to do the work, why don't they want to do the work? What are the reasons? And the reasons that are initially communicated could be actually true and sometimes not. So, you have to build relationships to figure out what's actually going on. And a big tool in doing so is to separate facts from interpretations. So—

How do we make that distinction though? Because I mean, we're in an environment now where we have alternative facts as part of our lexicon. And that we could justify good things to the hilt. We can also justify bad things to the hilt. And nobody's now calling us out for being hypocritical, or being two-faced, or being disrespectful, right? We're seeing it all the time. I mean, political system is a perfect example of that. Yeah.

So, Without going into politics, I'll say politics from my personal perspective and professional perspective is the worst example to draw from.

Right.

So, in a way, I am fighting exactly those phenomena that are normalized in politics. Generally speaking, And also, when it comes to organizational politics. So, when a leader tells me, oh, this is our corporate culture and there is nothing to do about it, that's a red flag for me.

Sure.

There is some resignation already in place. And that hinders so much progress. So—

To that point, When I deal with entrepreneurs, I'm never shocked anymore that I'll be talking with an entrepreneur and they'll tell me how unique their industry is, how unique their particular business is. You don't understand. We're a plumbing shop but we're different from all the others because this is what I'm seeing in my business and nobody else has to deal with it. Right? And so, we end up kind of Justifying our complex challenges through a new set of lenses that may maybe help us justify why it's so bad for us. What is that?

It could be. Well, that's a great example for story interpretations becoming stories and meaning that are— the more that people delve into that, those interpretations or stories, you become further and further from what's actually going on. So one of the specific techniques and tools that I use is to course correct every time and kind of challenge people. Is that a fact or is that an interpretation?

Hmm.

And sometimes it starts, oh yeah, it's a fact and I have evidence, etc. And then we look A little bit deeper. And that's where people start seeing things very differently. To the extent, by the way, again, I said I won't talk about politics, but to the extent that even hardcore, single-minded people that think a certain way about this top or this or other top politician, in the process of untangling complex challenges, just looking at what's actually happening versus interpretations, people start changing their mind after years of being fixated. And that goes also to personal relationship or to relationships at work like, oh, that engineer, I cannot work with him because ABC. And we challenge that in a very respectful and authentic way. And authentic means we don't only call BS. We encourage people to look at why do they have those thoughts? What is driving the show? Kind of like the root cause of the symptoms of how they are behaving with each other.

Right.

And that on its own brings a whole world of seeing things differently and opening for new possibilities in these relationships, in these departments, in these processes, in the systems It really does fall because we are human beings.

It does really fall into belief systems and even prejudice in some degree. I mean, just if I was to turn around and you're my co-worker and it's like, I think you're inconsiderate, right? Then, whenever there's anything, I go to the Keurig machine and you didn't take your pod out. See, see, see, I told you he was inconsiderate. Then, it seems like we're just feeding kind of our belief system with With feelers or with symptoms that constantly reinvigorate our belief system. How do we get to the point now where we have to be— I'm thinking awareness is the first one. What are some early warning signs that our team or our leaders might be tangled in looking at these symptoms without looking at root causes?

Yeah. What you described in some disciplines is called already always listening. And it's kind of like a filter in which no matter what happens, we translate to ourselves. And it happens automatically. We have no control over it. Automatically translates to what we already think and know about that person. So, one way, and you said awareness. Once we're aware, That first of all, we have those lenses. That's a huge breakthrough. Like acknowledging that my perception of anything that's happening out of me is just my perception. And it's not automatically true. That's a great place to start.

Yeah.

So, if you think of a conflict, between people about something and everyone says their opinion, they say it as the truth typically.

Sure.

Okay. So, we do the first round and everyone says what they said. And we log that. And then, we go one by one and evaluate. Of course, this is done with consent of the team that they're open, willing to look at this deeper than what's said. This on its own is a breakthrough for some teams. Not only teams. Sometimes, an individual wouldn't be willing to do the work. So, you need to have the awareness. You need to have the willing. And then, you need to be what we call coachable, kind of like participate in the inquiry. So, we go around the table and each one, whatever they said, sometimes people will say, oh, I said that? That's a great place to start. Kind of like people don't even own sometimes what they say. Okay, so we align it. I didn't own what I said. Exactly. Okay, so great.

You're taking me out of context, Ruben.

Excellent! So now, you have an opportunity to say, what did you mean? And we update. We cross out what they disowned. And that's perfect. You know what? I too, especially with my kids, Especially when they were younger. But still, I would say things and then I would hear what I just said and I would take it back. I apologize. I didn't mean to say that. I'm not committed to what I just said. Please forgive me. Here's what I want to say. So, that's totally fine.

Yeah.

Then, we ask them to evaluate What they said, is that a fact? Or is that a story or meaning or interpretation?

Right.

And then, we do the— and little by little, slowly, slowly, we actually— and sometimes, it's quick if people are already trained in this methodology. Then, it happens quickly. Now, we have to start almost— unless you're practicing this for years, almost every conversation we start from the beginning. We get better and better and it happens faster and faster. But the beginning is excruciating because Because every time you're faced with reality checks, oh, you know, if you're really— sometimes, I get really courageous and I said, that was just a lie that I don't know where it came from. It's incorrect. This is what I'm thinking maybe is happening, etc.

Yes, it's interesting because when we talk about kind of all the stories we tell ourselves, all the kind of framing, our biases, our value systems, everything that taints kind of who we are within environments surrounded by this idea that business is a very complex machine. We have businesses are driving revenues. They have to monitor expenses. We have people involved. I used to tease that because my background's in hospitality. I used to tease that if it wasn't for all the people in hospitality, hospitality would be such a cinch. It would be so much easier without having all the people. But of course, then we wouldn't have the business, right? So, when we think about this level of not addressing complexity in a very real strategic way, how does that show up in the effects of the teams, the effects of leadership, the business effects overall?

Wasted time. Wasted money obviously.

So, can you give me an example of that? Can you just so that we can really— the audience can really get— I want the audience at this junction to be able to look at it and go, oh, okay, that's happening to me.

Yes, I'll give a real example from the past, which is very representative. So, this is a team of— this is a startup company, not public yet, with about 100 people. And the CEO, when I was called in, the situation was after a lot of frustration and trying to productize a new product and failing to do so, missing deadlines, missing clients. And prospects waiting for that product, and the executive team was pointing fingers at each other at that point. So it was really a nasty environment. The CEO of the company was at the whiteboard in the conference room with the with his executive team, and I was invited to join just to get the lay of. I requested. To just sit there like a fly on the wall and understand what's going on. And what was going on was that the CEO was trying to manage a project. It was a complex project, but we can call it a program, a cross-functional program in order to productize a new product, change, basically changing the type of offering And on the whiteboard, he was trying to run roles and responsibilities. And on the Excel spreadsheet that he projected, he was trying to fill in dates. And his team of executives were just basically fighting with each other. It was kind of embarrassing. So, that was the starting point. And you can imagine this was the situation that caused them to seek for help, for professional help. And that's where I came in. We can go in if you want to what was actually going on. But that's to answer your question of the situation.

So essentially, it causes it. I mean, these complex problems when they're not properly addressed will increase the amount of stress that the team will feel. It'll hurt productivity. It might even hurt things like labor attraction and retention if people don't feel that they're being heard. Is this all kind of what this company was seeing?

Yeah, completely. It was a mix of challenges that The teams, each team was facing, each individual was facing. People were— some people were called to operate, to do things that are not in their abilities even. So, there were many root causes that we ended up identifying.

Yeah.

But the first grasp that enabled me to It was kind of like crisis management in a way, just to get this team into a mode of workability, initial workability instead of the chaos that they were in for a long time, was to collect from each one similar to what we described before with the roundtable. Collect the data. Collect what each one is experiencing. Collecting from the CEO. These are several separate meetings, of course. Collect from the CEO his vision, what they're trying to accomplish, what are the challenges that he faced, what is his take on what's going on. And then, what's the take of each one of the people involved. And then, starting to identify where are there common denominators, where people agree, where people disagree. And one of the things that I learned way back then, over 30 years ago in the beginning of my engineering career, is that the biggest issues in companies are not within the functions. They are between the functions. It's kind of a no-man's land. Within each function, there is a senior manager who is typically capable and skillful to deal with matters within their function. But when there are cross-functional issues, very few people in the organization are liable, are held accountable for that. It's the CEO, COO, Chief Operating Officer if exists, CFO whose focus is money, and IT department who's focused on IT. So, there is no one really in a typical, especially startups, there is no one in the company that has the bandwidth and the skill to deal with things that fall between the functions. I identified this very early in my career and that has been my focus even when I did several years of engineering and then product management, marketing, all kinds of departments. My attention was in how things fail, where do they fail, how we can do things better. And most of it was in the area between functions. So, in this case here with this company, That was no different. And most of the work after identifying what's actually going on, separating all the stories and drama, then we could deal with the actual issues that exist. And I want to say recruit, but it's more enroll the people involved. typically on both sides of that gap between functions to work together to solve the issues. And sometimes, it was easy because they were besties, best friends, and they wanted to work together. Sometimes, it was very hard because 2 people that decided already that they don't talk to each other. Okay, so there was some babysitting to do and kind of kindergarten management. And some things had to escalate to the CEO. And And some people were offered to be replaced if they're not willing to participate, et cetera. So, you know, the regular things that ought to happen in an organization if people are unwilling to perform or to step up. And it took some time and a lot of work, but we managed to—

Right.

get them over the finish line and actually productize what they needed to. And by the way, the CEO was out of the loop except being a CEO. So, whatever needed escalation to the level of CEO, which were several things, that's what he had to deal with, isolated from all the mess, all the drama.

It's so interesting. So, what I'd like to do is I'd like to get into some steps now so that the audience can apply some of this learning. I know that you have a 7-step framework that I'd like to get into and we'll get to it right after this. When the spotlight shines on your business, are customers applauding or yawning? In other words, how is your business performing? Make your business a star with a new book, Lights!

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today at your favorite online retailer or directly at marchaine.com. Welcome back! I'm speaking with the fabulous Ruben Shelef. Have I put the emphasis on the right syllable? Is it Shelef?

It's Shelef. But you were close enough.

Well then, thank you for that. Hey, we've talked a lot about problems and the consequences of not addressing the challenges effectively. But you have a framework. What's the very first thing if people are kind of tuning in and resonating with kind of the conflicts that we've been talking about? What's the very first thing someone needs to do when they realize that they're really tangled in something that has become big?

Yeah, the first thing to do is to take it out of our head. So, you know, you can imagine when you're really bothered with something, even before you defined it as a complex challenge, you can feel the overwhelm within your— literally within the head, within the brain.

Right.

And that's a time to simply do what some people call a brain dump. Just take a piece of paper and a pen, or in these days, maybe electronic means, and simply articulate out there what's going on in your head. Sometimes, it starts from just a long, one long paragraph. Some people will do bullet points. It doesn't matter as long as we get all the thoughts that we have. And I don't remember what science currently says, but it's thousands of thoughts every hour or— but I don't remember the numbers. It's crazy. So, as long as all of that is in our head, it's very hard to deal with any of it no matter how smart and capable we are. So, get it out of your head onto something external to you.

Would it be fair to say that when you go through that exercise that you actually essentially, as you proceed through it, you end up actually removing the emotion from the problem?

It works both ways. Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, it causes more emotion.

Okay.

So, I could, especially when I've been dealing with something, I'm talking first person just so people can relate. Yeah. And I experienced all of this myself. This is how I came up with the methodology. It was based on my life, my experiences personally and professionally. Right? I could be very what we call in my mind, in my head. So, logical, left-side brain and not be emotional at all. And I'm just writing down things. And then, something strikes a chord, something deeper, something that I'm sorry about, something that I realized that I mistreated someone.

Yeah.

Or I did something wrong. And that can bring up emotion. So then, the next stuff that I'm writing could be very emotional. So, we're not necessarily separating the emotions from data points. We're inviting everything, whatever comes through our mind. Now, as human beings, even when we're feeling something, so we could sense something in our body, We could feel something emotionally, and that's crossover between body and mind. And we could have a strict intellectual thought. We could also have messages from Spirit, but that's— we'll get to it later. We are welcoming all of that. The language that we human beings have puts everything in words for us. Even when something is hurting us, we automatically tell ourselves, The little voice in our head will say, I have a pain in my leg. So everything comes in language at a certain point, and that's the language that we're uttering. As we get accustomed to this and we do more of this work, we are able to identify other aspects that don't have language. That's another level of the work, but— and we get to it As we progress through the entangling process, when we have the— when we release all that entanglement from our mind, we are able to start listening to our body and to other aspects. Until then, we can't really hear what's going on. We can't hear messages. We can't be clear and conscious even because we have so many things running in our mind. So, that's the first thing that we do.

And so then, take us through the rest of the framework. What's the next step after we do that?

Right. So then, when everything is out there, we start organizing, sorting what we wrote down to to do a couple things, mainly group them in groups that make sense and also clarify things that are not clear. So, for example, different topics. It could be, you know, my professional life, my personal life. Within my personal life, I have my wife and kids and maybe each of the kids and what's going on there. And I have my finances and my hobbies, whatever that would be. In my professional life, I have this business, that business, that project. And it could go— it could have hierarchy. It could be just building blocks. There could be different people involved, entities, organizations that I'm involved with. So, It depends on how much was written. It could be pretty complex. The next step of sorting and clarifying could take some time. It could also be pretty simple, just a few things on a page. The important thing is to create context and grouping so our mind starts thinking in boxes, in compartments, and not having a a whole ordeal. That's one of the reasons that this work is so powerful is because it enables us to— in math, we call it variable isolation. We are able to separate the different variables, work on each one as if the others don't exist. We are, of course, conscious that they do exist and we'll get to them and they impact, etc. But It gives us an ability to say, okay, we're dealing only with this and not with that. And then, we switch the frame and do all that. So, another point here is we seek maximum granularity. And that's in the clarify aspect that I mentioned. Many times, people will say something that is very potent. It has a lot behind it.

Right.

And we need to break it down into the details to actually know what we're talking about. That could actually be something that is very emotionally charged. And if we don't dig in early on, we might treat it superficially. And we can go a long way and we'll miss the mark because we actually didn't know what's in that box. So, that's one of the things that I'm Okay, I'm sorry. I'm not very modest. But one of the things that I'm gifted with is to seek granularity and not let go until every stone is turned in the field, so to speak.

It's almost like you have to ask the why questions, right? Each time, with every statement, you have to ask, well, why is this happening? And then, you come up with a solution. Then, you ask why again, right? Somebody said there was— I can't remember what book it was. But they were saying, you have to ask why 5 times in order to get to the root cause. Right? I don't know if that's true or not. But I can absolutely understand that once you have it written down, you start grouping them into kind of whatever you think— belief systems, or intent, or whatever. And then, you start going through and start asking yourself, well, why is this?

Yeah.

And then, I think at some point, you're going to find a lot of overlap. Once you get closer to the root cause, you're going to find an awful lot of overlap that says, well, wait a second. This looks clearly— this looks like this might actually be You're actually touching—

that's a great segue to the next step. I just want to fill in the— good student, good student, Marc. The 5 Whys, and some say 7 Whys, and some just say going off after the why. It's one of the techniques and one of the very good questions to use. Sometimes, It's a different question and it's tailored to the situation. It's kind of like, why did you say that? Or did you say that? Or did someone else say that and you adopted it? So digging deep and seeking granularity could be standard structured, well-known techniques. And sometimes it's very pinpointed to the to the issue itself.

Yeah.

So when we start grouping the different areas, everything that's going on, when we start grouping them and putting them in compartments, we can create a map. I call it a map. And it looks like, you know, if you're in IT or some kind of engineering, you'll see that it's kind of like a Block diagram or flowchart.

Yeah.

And for people who are very left-brained, then all these business techniques are not new for them. What's new for them is the emotional aspect, the spiritual aspect, the body aspect, those parts of self that they rarely practice. And with people who are very spiritual— and when I say spiritual, by the way, this has nothing to do with religion.

Right.

No problem with any religion. But spiritual, from my perspective, is just connection to some higher power, whatever that means for your listeners. And for the more spiritual people, sometimes it's the first time that they use a block diagram. It's the first time that they're exposed to a flowchart. It's the first time that they ever heard the term vector. So, there is— I match how we get to accomplishing the 7 steps differently with the different people according to where they're coming from, what's their language, so to speak. Okay?

Yeah.

So, we create that map. And then, just like you alluded to being an excellent student, we identify common denominators, dependencies, correlations, tangents. And we actually use different ways to draw them. So, it could be a solid line, a dotted line. We use different colors. It starts looking like an art project. It makes it also fun. Because this is tough stuff. Tough, tough stuff. So, I try to make it consumable so we're actually enjoying. And people do see the value even by simple things like using different colors. They get attached to a certain color. They say, oh, I love the yellow stuff. I want more of the yellow. Just because we drew what they enjoy, for example. or what fulfills them in the color yellow, where the things that they dread are in a different color. So, people start to gain insights and be connected to what's going on in their life, what's important to them, where before it was just convoluted mess in their mind. Suddenly, they get a 10,000 feet view, they're outside of it. They can think clearly, almost as if it's not theirs. And then, they become much more able. We're all gifted in helping others, especially where we have it, right? So, it enables them to do that. And that's where also the Sometimes, at that point, people get really clear, start to get really clear about what's actually going on. Where before they were off, they thought that they have to leave their job. But actually, they have to talk to their spouse, kind of like that. It's a common example, by the way, and vice versa. People who think they need to leave their spouse and apparently, they're just pissed off at something at work. And it's pretty amazing to see what it takes to get there. But once they start seeing things, they can act already differently before we even go. We're only at step 3, 4.

Yeah, it's amazing because giving yourself that view from that high, all of a sudden, some of the solutions just become self-granting, self- exposing. Like all of a sudden, sometimes the solution just becomes so clear on what needs to happen next. So, as we go into it, we're middle of the process. What needs to happen to move this sucker forward as we come to the close of the show today? Yeah.

So, we probably don't have time to go through all the remaining steps in detail. But I'll just note a few things.

Sure.

Once someone is at this point in the process where they start seeing value and they start implementing it, their life changes for the better. There is a level of control that a person gains When they own this and they're able, at this point, they're able to own it. And they already have calls to action that they didn't have before. So, there is already positive momentum. Sometimes, you need to go further. It depends on the starting point, how evolved one is with awareness, tools, experiences. Sometimes, I ask people, please go do that course and let's continue after you do that course. And I'll support you through that because I can identify sometimes some basic concepts that we need in order to move things forward. So, that's also something where I kind of serve as a guide. in a way to— you need to take that road for these milestones in order for us to make progress. We need to change the vehicle in a way. We have to buy it. We have to add something to our car in order to cross this river, right? Some floating devices or something like that. Sometimes, clients of mine will ask— I'm working with them one-on-one. And they'll ask, could you please talk to my wife? Or, could you please— let's do a session together with my spouse. And that's a wonderful— first of all, I take that as a personal compliment.

Right.

This is someone who trusts me. And all this work requires high level of trust. So, I'm really excited. I'm moved by that. And I work on being as gentle and respectful that I can because it's very delicate territory. But that's where when people are willing to actually deal with their relationships, whether it's at home or at work, that opens up all the possibilities that we need. The rest is technical. From my perspective, technical work. As an engineer, I think of it as just a roadmap, a project that we have to go through. Of course, there are many human elements here. But the willingness, the openness, the kind of opening the kimono, so to speak, is what we really need in order to move forward.

Well, and sorry, Ruben. But what I'm seeing in the process is even when trust is low at the beginning, When you take these steps, especially the first 3 or 4 steps here, all of a sudden, you're breaking down those barriers because now the realization forces you to become more trustworthy.

Yes, yes. And for all people involved.

Yeah.

It's kind of like when people are willing to take off the masks, give up the BS, and just be themselves and be vulnerable. Oh my God! What's possible is extraordinary. And it's so much fun. It's so much fun. You know, some people would critique me if I become emotional in a business setting. It took me time and evolution. But today, more often than not, I will be emotional. I don't mind crying no matter where I am. I don't mind dancing if that's appropriate for me. I found dance was— dance and specifically 5 Rhythms moving meditation became part of who I am. And sometimes, the situation could be so intimidating that the only way that I can deal with it is be in my body and meditate. Now, I still have to listen to what's going on. And I have to be there. It's not that I'm going outside the room and going into a Zen meditation.

You're not using it as a retreat away from it.

Right. I am in the situation at the helm and I'm just moving my body and grounding myself, calming my brain, and able to stay in the situation. When the first time, when I did it one of the first times, people thought something's wrong. Like, do you have to go to the bathroom or something like that? And I said, no, no, I'm just meditating here as you speak. I'm listening. I'm really— this helps me listen. Okay? And sometimes, when I asked a client to just, let's close up, because everything was so overwhelming and energy that didn't serve anyone.

Right.

I said, let's just take a few deep breaths. Close our eyes and take a few deep breaths.

Yeah.

And she didn't agree. We were sitting actually right here in my conference room across from each other. And she said, no, I'm not into this woo stuff. I said, just let's— it's kind of basic human. I need to close our eyes and take a few deep breaths. And she refused and we parted ways. And that's fine. I told her, whenever you're ready, I'm always here for you.

It's been like I've loved this discussion, Ruben, because it really takes us down to the essence of us being human beings in the scheme of things. Like we started off the show talking about complex problems. And what we've really done is come to the core of what it means to be human. For the people who are tuning in, how can people get in touch with you if they need to use your services?

Yeah, you can go to meetruven.com and schedule a 30-minute complimentary call with me. I would love to hear what are the challenges that you're facing, or if there's any way— anything that I said today that struck a chord with you, that resonated with you, that you want to explore on. I would love to hear from you. So booking such a call meetreuven.com can work. And my general website where you can learn about my work is reuvenshalef.com.

Lovely, lovely. And as we wrap up, do you have any last words about what we've been talking about today?

Hmm. You know, Last words. I love these kinds of conversations where I feel you really get me, who I am, what I'm here to contribute. And for me, I draw fulfillment from having authentic conversations about what's actually happening to help to help people accomplish their fulfillment. So, my invitation to anyone that is listening is to ask, how fulfilled am I in my life on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis, on an annual basis? And if the answer is, well, how do you define fulfillment? Or I don't know. Or is fulfillment the same as happiness? Or, oh no, I'm miserable. Or in some places, yes. But some places, I have no idea how to be fulfilled. Then, I invite you to take a look. That's my invitation.

Thank you very much, Reuven. This has been a brilliant conversation. I really want to thank you for sharing your passion, your authenticity, your knowledge, and your expertise with us today. It's been brilliant.

Well, thank you very much for having me, Marc. And I appreciate your work so much. Thank you.

It's been brilliant. Thank you very much. Hey, if you have any questions about today's episode or maybe you're thinking, hey, we could really use a complimentary 30-minute brainstorming session with Marc. Well, the good news is you can snag a spot on my online calendar. You can just hit the link below in the show notes. That's the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine.com and you're all set. It would be my absolute honor to be of service to you. And if you haven't done so yet, please, why don't you make sure you subscribe to this episode? Follow me on social media. That way, you'll keep on top of all the brilliant experts I bring on board just like Reuven today. It's been brilliant. I want to thank you for being here. I want to recognize and acknowledge the fact that you took time out of your busy day to consume this content. And I hope it was of value to you. Please feel free to share a link to this episode. Put your comments down. I'd love to know, was this of value to you? Did you get anything out of it? And if so, what was it? So, thank you for joining me today. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope, I hope you dare to be the exception.