137 - Creating space for connection with Jonathan Hefter

In this episode of the Workshops Work podcast, host Myriam Hadnes interviews facilitator Jonathan Hefter about the art and craft of circle‑based conversations. Hefter traces his journey from an early small‑group apprenticeship in 1998 to formalizing his practice around 2007, and reflects on the fluid terminology of moderator, guide, consultant, and facilitator. He argues that the core purpose of facilitation is defined by the desired outcome of the gathering, and that the most essential skills are "energy, timing, and flow" – the ability to set the tone, manage the pace, and sustain the organic rhythm of conversation. Building on these basics, he describes advanced practices of modeling desired norms, sensing and responding to group dynamics, and consistently ending sessions on time. Hefter emphasizes psychological safety paired with accountability, drawing on Amy Edmondson’s research, and contends that true learning emerges from discomfort, conflict, and moments of failure rather than smooth consensus. He contrasts storytelling with advice, urging facilitators to create space for participants to share without the facilitator imposing solutions, and highlights the importance of curiosity‑driven listening that seeks the meaning beneath the words. Ritual and ceremony are presented as the deeper layer of facilitation – rites of passage, wedding ceremonies, and other intentional gatherings that mark transitional moments. Hefter also discusses his certification program, the Never Done Before Facilitation Festival, and the necessity of continual self‑work to manage ego, stay curious, and model vulnerability. Throughout, he shares concrete anecdotes from corporate CEOs, wilderness fasts, and personal loss, illustrating how facilitation can foster trust, empathy, and transformative learning.
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What does it take to make workshops work? And how can we facilitate collaboration that sticks and leads to results? My name is Miriam Hadnes. With the Workshops Work podcast, I'm on the mission to find the magic ingredients that make workshops work. Today with me on the show is Jonathan Hefter. And we speak about the inner and the outer work to make meaningful conversations happen. So stay tuned. And by the way, if you don't have pen and paper at hand to take your own notes, scroll down to the show notes to download my free one-page summary. And now enjoy. Hello, Jonathan. Welcome to the show.
Hi, Myriam. Thank you for having me. Nice to be with you.
Yes, I am super excited to talk about circle facilitation online on Circles.
As am I. Yes, thank you for giving me the opportunity to share a little bit about what we're up to and what I've noticed and learned. And I'm so inspired by what you're doing. It's a blessing to be here. Thank you.
Thank you. And before we are going down that rabbit hole, I always start with the same question. When did you start calling yourself a facilitator?
I think maybe when you sent me the form to fill out for this interview. I love it. That's a great question. In 1998, I attended my first small group gathering and watched a man who's now— who's been a mentor to me for years do his thing. And that was like the first day of me apprenticing. And there's so many terms for it— moderator, guide, facilitator— but something about that moment set me on this this path. And only when I hung out my shingles like a professional did I start using the F word. So I think that was probably around 2007 that I got more formal with the work and went out on my own in a consulting capacity.
So what makes the difference for you between a moderator, a facilitator, a consultant, a guide?
The job to be done to me is always the fork in the road. What am I being hired to do? What is the outcome? What is the objective of coming together? And that tends to beg then what word we're going to use for the person doing it. So to me, a moderator is somebody who is skilled at catalyzing and injecting into conversation towards a desired or an emergent end. A facilitator And by the way, this is one opinion, there's lots of others, but to me, something about facilitation is not passive, but a little more leading from the side.
Mm-hmm.
And I often talk about, you know, like facilitators make things facile, they make things easier, that a lot of times what I am paid to do and certify others to do is to make a hard thing a little bit easier.
Mm-hmm.
And so that's, that's where I use things like facilitator. And then there's guide and there's a lot of other terms, but I like to focus more on the commonality among all these terms rather than what distinguishes them and try to rally the people that all have their niches in the marketplace into this common thing that we're all doing. It's like, can we simmer it down to this, this probably 2, 3, 4 things that bind us together as people that are paid to do this work rather than like being married to these very specific terms. So I haven't thought too much about what the difference is, more about I've observed what's common across these traditions. That makes sense.
Interesting. Thank you for sharing that. I always find it interesting, the different perspectives on what facilitation means, because it's not a protected term. So basically everyone can call themselves a facilitator. And then still, it means something different to all of us. And then some would avoid using the F-word, as you said, at all costs because they don't identify as it, and others wear it as a kind of something they're proud of and that they've earned. So I always enjoy the answers to this apparently difficult question.
The same used to be true of the word coach. I remember even in the, like, late '80s, early '90s, I'm in my late 70s now. No, that everybody was calling themselves a coach at one point. And then there's the International Coach Federation who— they didn't create the term, but they created an accreditation system. And there's many other organizations as well. So it became more formal and became— there became some rigor around use of that term or not. And of course, there's other people that are doing their thing, which is beautiful. And there's something happening around facilitation as well. I have a certification program. I know many others that That also do. And I am curious about each person's take on the term before it becomes so much of an industry. There's something also about facilitation that's how it's like distinct from coaching is it's not true that the— that coaches or executive coaches make for great facilitators. It's not true. They can, but it's different. It's distinct. It's not about, I'm a subject matter expert. Facilitation is something that I feel like is more accessible by more people. Not anyone can do it, but anyone can potentially do it because it taps into innate human instincts to want to serve and hold space for others. That's different than, I'm a coach and I've gotten great at advising you on a hiring plan or on operations. So I see the terms going in a parallel way, as far as it used to be the Wild West and the open market, but there's something about facilitation that's still very homegrown. And I like that. I like that aspect of facilitation.
And since you mentioned that you're having an accreditation certification program as well, what are the key skills for you that would make a good facilitator?
One of the things that I have been encouraged to do by our founder at Circles, our CEO, who has decades of experience participating in his own forum, his own small group of executives, is to get clear on what is basic. And then there's a whole set of advanced facilitation skills. But he'll say, Jonathan, if people did nothing else, if they only did these 2, 3, 4 things, would that lead to kind of a baseline Great session. And what we've come to learn, and this is— I'm challenged always not to be pedantic or prescriptive of these things. I've enjoyed getting to a place, Miriam, where I've observed what has tended to be true in the tradition of small group gatherings. Long before circles, long before the internet, people have come together in small groups for whatever purpose. And what tends to be true about the people that hold space of those small groups are 3 things. In our experience, in our judgment. And I certify for energy, timing, and flow. I keep using this refrain: energy, timing, and flow. It's not about wowing them, blowing their minds with like fantastic features or that witty thing you said. I encourage my guides, my facilitators, to notice that instinct to want to be advanced or a black belt right away and to let it go and simply focus on energy, Timing and flow, which I then define what those 3 things mean. And we've built a digital feature set that helps support getting those things done.
Where would you distinguish energy and flow?
Yeah, well, there's definitely overlap. There's definitely gray area. They're not mutually exclusive. If you're not noticing and fueling a flow, if you're not emergent and following the thread of an organic conversation, You're going to impose your energy on the existing energy. So they're— they definitely overlap. If you're not paying attention to timing, you're going to be disrupting the natural energy of the group. So they're not mutually exclusive. When I talk about energy though, to be clearer, I talk about judicious use of things like our group chat, saying hello to people, starting with handpicked music, kind of walk-on music we call it.
Mm-hmm.
Knowing when to modulate your voice to like respond to the tone of the moment, and flow is like have you noticed when silence may be appropriate? I actually like uncomfortable silence. I like when sessions I'm facilitating get a little uncomfortable because it means somebody's up against a wall there somewhere. Or could you catalyze it? Could you inject yourself? Could you put a little fuel into the fire a little bit because you've noticed that it needs a boost? So they're definitely not mutually. exclusive. There's overlap, but it's really resonated when I've rolled this out as energy, timing, and flow. And then of course, you know, our, our technology that helps make it happen at scale easily. But whether it's online or not, when I write and talk about these 3 basic skills and letting everything else go, people tend to nod their heads. I don't know, what do you think? Does that resonate with you?
Yeah, I was trying to find a place to distinguish the energy and flow part. And listening to you, I wonder whether energy is more something intangible. So it's something that binds the group together. Is the energy up? Is it creative, positive? Or is it rather contemplative, down? Or is there conflict in the room? Whereas flow is more maybe tangible and related to the process. So when are moments to halt and to be silent? When are there moments to— for small group conversations or to share or to take notes individually?
I think that's, in my judgment, mostly right on. And there's also an element of energy that is intentional. It's something you designed for, at least at the start of a session. It's something you plan for, you set the table for, you set the space. I tell my guides that it's like producing a, a well-run TV show. Have you got in the room early, fixed your hair, made sure, you know, made sure you're the first one there? Are they looking at page 1 of your planned agenda? Have you pushed the button to start the music? Flow is something to sense and respond to. So the companion skills to energy timing flow, I say, also are Being able to sense and respond, which is like the yoga of facilitation. I say you're never going to perfect that. The skill of being able to notice what needs to happen in the room, this sensing and responding element, we're starting to get into more like advanced skills in my judgment. And then modeling is— these are the 2 companion pieces to energy, timing, and flow. Are you modeling the quality of conversation that you intend for your participants? Are you adhering to the norms knowing that you will lose your integrity with your your group if you're not practicing what you preach. And so I always tell my guides, one very practical, tangible measurement of your modeling is, did you end on time? Mm-hmm. I say, no matter what, you have to end on time. You're asking them to arrive on time, respect their time, plan for after the session, and you gotta end on time because they will tune out in the next session when you review the norms if you haven't kept your promise to them in the last session. So, I like to give my guides a foothold to take that philosophy and the methodology into a very, very practical skill, which is end on time. That's something they can kind of latch onto and be measured by, frankly. And we talk about it, how to enforce norms. You know, we're starting into it like advanced skills now. What happens when a session goes off the rails? So these core skills— energy, timing, and flow, modeling, sensing, and responding— you're never done perfecting them, but they're gateways to then these For some of my lifers, some of these like bigger advanced skills conversations.
I like that. And I like that you highlight the fact of almost consistency. We ask them to be on time, so it's our job to end on time and to—
Yeah.
Our end of the contract, basically.
When I sit with my CEO, with my partner in crime, Dan Hoffman, we use analogies from the American movie, The Karate Kid. We just say, it's just wax on, wax off, just paint the fence. And it's, if you don't know the movie, it's if you go through the muscle memory of continuing to move in one direction. And then when something comes at you, you may not even realize you have developed the skill set to respond. And I tell my guides all the time, when push comes to shove, don't overthink it. Just wax on, wax off. Just continue to employ the basics. In the yoga analogy, it's just, you know, you could be doing yoga for 30 years, still wake up in the morning and do your down dog and push you to a yet greater edge this, this day. So I love letting myself and others off the hook of feeling I need to be an expert, and I'm continuing to learn. And I hope I'm at a place with my ego and mentally where I can gladly spend the next 30 years learning the basics even, even deeper. So, you know, it's also like We live in a world, Myriam, where everybody wants to position themselves as an expert. Everybody has their niche of who they work with and what their skill set is, and that's great. I have enjoyed letting all that go and being a student of fewer things, knowing I'm going to get it wrong. And I get it wrong every day. And I work with a company, for a company that allows us all to let us fail and learn. And the sky isn't falling if— I led a session yesterday with 7 CEOs, and I said something that I thought was so brilliant, and one of the participants said, I totally disagree with what you said. And he was teaching me. He said, Jonathan, it's okay if we disagree here. I had this moment of, we all have to be loving each other and agreeing every moment. I allowed there to be healthy conflict, and It was a lovely moment, and I— it was actually a moment of validation that that space was safe enough for us to have healthy conflict. So I'm just— I'm noticing what I continue to be attached to and how I facilitate and in my ego, and I continually ask myself to let it go.
Beautiful point.
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And thank you for bringing that up, because I also came to believe that most of the facilitation work is actually based on self-work.
Totally.
Is, can we make sure to listen with curiosity? How can we actually, when we're expecting the group to have an open and curious mind and not to judge, we have to lead by example and not judge the group for not being creative enough, for not being following enough, for not understanding enough, all these kinds of judgments that we sometimes hold in our mind. And how can we work on ourselves not to be triggered?
We do a lot of work. I design a lot of experiences that are fueled from the work of Dr. Amy Edmondson, who writes and speaks about psychological safety with Google and Harvard and so many others. And she talks about teams gelling when there is a healthy mix of both psychological safety and accountability. And when you have both, that's when groups grow and learn. If I have done my job and created a space as a facilitator where people feel like it's safe to let their guard down and also to fail, and they're also being held accountable. So in other words, it's not this big comfort zone, it's a learning zone. They're being held accountable whether they arrive late and their tech is working and are they interrupting and all those things. Are they violating the norms? If I've created a space where people feel like it's safe to fail, but I haven't given myself that gift, myself that freedom to fail as a facilitator, Then I have indexed more for my ego than for learning. I do believe that facilitators have a higher call, a charge to make it about the participants and to model. But over time, I very intentionally let my own guard down, and I like publicly failing and then asking, what'd we learn there? Or how'd that go? And when genuine human connections are made between myself and participants, Myriam, participants are eager to support me and tell me it's okay. Like, we still love you. And, you know, I think there's an anxiety that comes with, gotta— it's gotta be perfect, or I'm getting paid to do this. And to me, the best facilitation comes in the awkward failing moments, the learning moments, the we've let down moments. We've, you know, I failed you. Or when people break the norm. I led an early session years ago for Circles where Somebody had to come clean that I had repeated— somebody had repeated, you know, a story to their wife. And it was this kind of make-or-break moment. Is this gonna break the trust that we built in session 1? Because this was very early. Or is it gonna be mortar between the bricks? Is it gonna build even more trust? And it did the latter. It actually fueled more safety and bonding. And that's because I held the space for people to be Candid. It wasn't about me, it was about the space that I held. And so I love those opportunities. I'm more interested in when things get uncomfortable than in things going picture perfect.
I just—
a whole other conversation.
Yeah, I totally, um, I totally agree, because it's through failure, it's through discomfort and conflict that we actually learn about the situation, about ourselves, about what we're actually speaking about. And I tend to believe that if a session just ran too smoothly and everyone agreed and we had this happy, funky, glowy, whatever workshop, what have we missed? What opportunity? What didn't we talk about? What has not remained revealed? And it asks for courage to get there.
One of my favorite questions I'll offer in a circle session is, what are you not saying?
Hmm.
What is the thing you're not saying? Or are we blindly agreeing and offering plus ones virtually to what the last speaker said? Are we more interested in comfort and alignment over learning and healthy conflict? And I'll find moments to ask that question. What is that thing you're not saying? And it will almost every time make it possible for someone to share something they wouldn't have otherwise.
Yeah. And I wonder whether it's not only what are we not saying, but also what are we not asking?
Right.
Because it's— I read this fantastic book about the brain. And oh yeah, the book was called You Are Not Listening, and Why Does It Matter? And it was a lot about how the brain works. And one of the arguments why we are not listening was by asking questions and listening, we, we face the danger of being confronted with something that will threaten our inner beliefs and identity. So if I ask a question that would help me to really understand, I might actually unveil something that I disagree with. And in order to avoid that, I tend to agree because I make out of your words something that conforms with my reality and my understanding. I say, yes, I totally agree. And then we are all good. If I had asked the question to really understand what you meant, I would have found out that actually we don't agree at all.
A cousin to that is storytelling over giving advice. To me, it's even more elemental. I totally agree with what you shared. And there's something even more elemental under that, Myriam, which is Can I take the risk and have it not be about me for a minute? Asking a question, being genuinely curious about another human requires me to put my own agenda and my ego on hold and have the focus be on another and another's experience and another's questions and another's insecurities. In other words, what might your life look like if you were one of many and it wasn't about you? I feel like there's a very healthy, natural human instinct I feel this in myself to want my own pain and suffering and story to be the news of the moment. I need it to be looked at. I need to be validated, acknowledged. And that's beautiful. And in a group, when I'm— it's 6 to 8, 9 people, I also am one of many. It can be very fiercely about me for 4 minutes, and then guess what? Then it's about the next person. Something about questions gets us in the healthy habit, the muscle memory. of a leadership skill, being genuinely curious about another person. The relationship between storytelling and advice is similar. When I tell advice— I'm inspired by what you were saying— when I give you advice, I need you to make the same choice I made so that my own life choices are validated. I've made it about me. You feel that one?
Mm-hmm.
I can't— I just— this came to me like in an early session years ago, and I was like, oh, I think that's Correct. I think that's, at least from my own experience, when I tell a story, I put the person whose challenge is being explored in a witness place. I let them off the hook for a few minutes. I let their mind rest. We all love a good colorful story. They can hear several first-person experiences shared from the circle, from which they can choose a course of action or not, as they wish. If I take action as a result of you giving me advice, Myriam, then I somehow have less agency in what comes of the choice. And if it blows up in my face, I'll come back to you the next session saying, thanks a lot, Myriam. I did what you told me to do and it all went to hell. Thanks very much. In other words, I've made it your fault.
Yep.
If I hear your story about how a similar challenge had gone for you and what you did, And I choose to take action, well, now that's on me. I've been empowered by hearing your story. I take responsibility for the choices I make in response to hearing the stories of my peers. It's subtle, but so powerful. And I like that you've reminded me of this distinction between what are you not saying and what are you not asking. It's similar. So thank you for that.
And maybe to add just one more thought to what you just said, and then hopefully we'll find kind of the way around to talk about circles. Circle conversations. What I also realized is that when we're giving advice, the best thing we can do is to write it down for ourselves. Because as you said, if I'm giving advice, it's— I'm using my own experience to kind of put it onto the plate of someone else, expecting them to not only have had the same experience or the same story in the past that would lead to the current challenge, to which I give them advice, but also that this same way of dealing with it would help them solve it, which doesn't make sense at all because usually the challenges are so different. Why would my way of dealing help someone in the same way?
Hmm.
That's totally egocentric. But if I, I think that giving advice to others Helps us a lot to actually reflect on our own experiences because there's something going on when we listen to someone else's challenge. We want to bond, identify, so we listen, but we process this information based on our own experience. And then whatever comes out of our mouth is actually the stuff that we need to deal with much more than the other. That's right.
I also find that the— yeah, I guess I'm just paraphrasing what you said, that the majority of advice that I do hear coming at others in a circle experience is stuff that the person giving it, it's probably something they've not mastered. They're wishing it for themselves. There's a little bit of projection going on.
Yeah.
I tell my guides all the time when addressing norms being violated or somebody giving advice rather than telling a story, is acknowledge the intention but address the behavior. I should have bumper stickers made.
Yes.
And what I mean by that is you're not making the person wrong. And it's so important to acknowledge the place from which that advice came from. It came from a good place. Maybe unconsciously it came from an ego-driven place, but in the end, people that we genuinely care about, we wish good things for. And so I like to appreciate, you know, Jane, I really heard the empathy and the compassion underneath the advice that you gave to, you know, to Charles.
Is—
could you phrase that more as how that worked out for you having made that choice as opposed to a prescription for him? I just— it's subtle, but rewording it gets them in a mindset of serving rather than making it about them. The words are not semantics. They're important to me, you know, using I statements, even giving advice. I'll put guardrails on that. I'll say, could you start your share with, if If I were you, I would... Now, those are I statements. That's different than you should.
Hmm.
It's subtle. We all take in so much information all day, Myriam, that we have to have filters. We can't possibly deeply take in everything coming at us. When one is given advice, when I'm giving advice, I'm naturally a little bit on the defensive. Well, I've now put a blocker between me and community engagement, belonging, togetherness, trust, safety. I have to put up blockers because I go through my whole life with everyone telling me what I should do. We all do, in my judgment. And so can we overcome the instinct to defend ourselves by reframing our wish for another from advice to storytelling?
I love that. Thank you so much for pointing that out. And yes, please print bumper stickers.
T-shirts. I'll have it crocheted on a pillow. I mean, thank you. I didn't expect to get into that. That's interesting. And as you can see, I'm a talker. I like listening. So I, I wrote a blog post for Circles recently. I'm turning 50 this December, and I feel a little bit of an urgency around this work. And so I do notice when I get flushed in my cheeks and I feel myself going on and on, because being facilitated, being in a small group— I did my first wilderness experience in 2000, which is crazy to say, is 21 years ago, and I have never to this day been listened to. As intently and as lovingly as I was by the guides that held us for 10 days. It was a 10-day wilderness program, and the centerpiece was a 4-day, 4-night fast. And then we came off the mountain and we sat in council together, and each of us had a chance— each of the fasters had a chance to tell our story. And to this day, I've never felt like my story was as welcomed, as wanted, was as worthy, and that I had it reflected to me in such a gorgeous way. It's kind of hard to put into words, but I have apprenticed in that work as well, rites of passage work, which I feel all facilitation is really at its core rites of passage work. There's our threshold moments, these are milestone moments, these are moments where someone who wants the best for you turns to you and says, now what are you going to do with this? And then make the space for you to not know, or to be in tears, or to say that thing that you've long held but never said. And that's what facilitation does. It makes it possible at its most core level, something that might not otherwise be possible.
And what changed this experience for you as a listener yourself?
I am intermediate at listening. I'm not an expert in very many things. But I got a little bit better on how to listen with a focus on the speaker instead of myself. I didn't listen for what I could say in response. I listened with— I mean, it's so trite even to say, like, to listen with curiosity or curious questions, but it's true. I listened trusting that I had instincts to hear something underneath the share. Ah, I'm picking up on something. And it's not that I was trying to analyze anybody, but I listen now with I'm trying to get in touch with— how shall I say— there's a version of a share that people wish to offer, and then there's the version that they're hoping you hear. Does that make sense?
Mm-hmm.
There's the words that they say because they know it's palatable, but I sometimes feel somebody like dying for me to hear this thing underneath their share. That's what I've gotten in the study of. I've gotten in the habit of listening for the thing under the thing. Without it being analytical or therapeutic. I've tried to connect at a very human level of, I have a hunch that I'm really hearing you say this, like, you know, or it seems to me that, or can you tell me more about, you know. I'm learning a little bit, Mary, about putting myself on hold to really serve someone else, making the space for someone's maybe unattractive share. To find fertile ground. I mean, that's what a marriage is about, and I'm not an expert at that. That's what being a parent is about, and I have a lot to learn. That's what friendship's about. I'm learning and failing.
Yeah, and then being safe enough that this is okay and that your partner will tell you. What I'm training based on, or reflecting on what you said, is to halt and reflect, why is this person telling me that? And very often we, we don't. We judge or we answer or we put on our own story. But to just pause for a moment and think, why did this person now spend 10 minutes telling me about their day that I find utterly boring, maybe. And I might feel annoyed because this person is wasting my time telling me about every single detail of their day. Why are they telling me that? And then something beautiful may emerge just because it creates this moment of empathy, of real empathy. Maybe this person hasn't talked to anyone for the whole day. Maybe they would just want to share this with me. Maybe they want to show off a little bit because they appreciate me. So there's suddenly all these Layers that we can pull off that help us to go beyond the judgment of, what do you want from me now?
Yeah, so well said. There's also something about an instinct I've noticed a lot of facilitators have at the start, that there are right shares and wrong shares, that there's a proper way to show up, and there's a— they have judgments or they qualify a participant's share. And believe me, I have my moments where I'll suggest to somebody, Well, could you share that in a first person, or could you say more about the emotion you felt at that moment? I'll double-click on things, but I won't make their share wrong. There's a great poem called The Invitation, which you may know. It's written by a poet called Araya Mountain Dreamer that is read very often at the start of a twice-a-year men's gathering in the Berkshires Mountains of Massachusetts that I've been going to since I don't know, 1997, I think. And one of the lines in this poem says, it doesn't even matter to me if what you're saying is true. And there's something I've always remembered that of like, have I given you the gift of creating space for you? When I create a circle session, I have an icon that I have 3 norms I talk about: commit, contribute, and keep it confidential. And for the longest time, I had an icon that represented each of them, and the one that represented Contribute was a gift. It was a wrapped present. And I would tell people, when you share deeply, it's a gift you give to yourself and others in the circle. But the same is true of the guides I certify. I say, as a facilitator, the space that you create for someone to share, whether you agree with them or not, whether you think they're, you know, full of it or not, is a gift. You've given them the gift. I had a— I'm taking hard turns here, but I had a A friend that I worked with 25 years ago committed suicide on Sunday, and I can't help but think, what if more spaces were created for him? Who knows? But those that have made the spaces for me have saved me. Not that I got to that point, but I think I'm a version of myself today that would not have been possible if those That the elders in my life didn't take time to endure me, to endure my arrogance and ego and all the things that are true about me and all of us, and allow me to find my own way in spaces that were intentionally created for me. So I'm just— I'm thinking of my friend Chad today.
Thank you for sharing that. And I think it's then also a way as a facilitator in creating these spaces to give back and to help others not to get to that point. And even if it's just a small contribution.
When I came off that vision fast experience in 2000, I thought, how can I bring this from the mountain back to Manhattan where I was living at the time? And it was about ceremony, and it was about this ritual space which you've created for me, with— for us today. You're doing it right now, and you do it very gently and purposefully and thoughtfully, and I'm learning from you today. And I thought, one of the only accepted ways that there is ceremony in modernity is weddings, celebrations. So I Started doing non-denominational wedding ceremonies. And it was ritual. Ritual spoke to me. Ritual facilitation is ritual time. It's ceremony time. It's in-between time. You've just come off a tactical meeting. You have another one at the end of this hour. But for this moment, we're going to show up in a different way. There are norms that guide this time. This is going to be an extraordinary experience that asks you to show up in an extraordinary way. It's the same is true when I lead a wedding or I do a rite of passage ceremony or baby blessing or whatever it may be, which I love that work. I haven't had time to do it, a lot of it, in recent years, but it's, can we pause, let our minds rest, and to step into something that wants to happen? When I walk into a room, physical or virtual, my mindset is, what needs to happen here? I used to go with a friend of mine that lives on Cape Cod to homes where people were living with ALS, you know, Lou Gehrig's disease. His whole world, his job, his foundation for years would be going into these homes and supporting families living with ALS. The first time I got to the first door of the first house, I was about to go in and he grabbed my shoulder and he said, take a second, let your agenda go, and be in the mindset of what needs to happen in this room. I've never forgotten that, what my friend Ron has told me. Facilitation of a business meeting, a workshop, You know, a deeper forum session. It's the same thing. It's the same skill set that I hope I'm taking into parenting, into the organizations I volunteer with, into my marriage. And I'm on the path of learning, but wax on, wax off, right?
Yeah. Thank you for staying tuned and listening to the show. I appreciate your attention as I know how busy you are. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe and engage by sharing your comments and thoughts, and visit workshops.work to download the one-page summary. I'm looking forward to seeing you back at the next episode, and I wish you a fruitful day.
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