Rolf Evenson on Helping Leaders Find Clarity in Chaos

Transcribed from the episode audio by AI, so it may contain mistakes.

Ravi0:19Welcome to the Motivated Life podcast. I'm Ravi Raman. On today's episode, I'm joined by Rolf Evenson. I met Rolf shortly after moving to Colorado. We attended a few meetups together, and he struck me as someone who just had a fascinating life story. He's done a number of things from leading outdoor wilderness adventures to building a career as an architect, to doing what he does now, which is functioning as an executive. advisor. And Rolf really excels with helping both CEOs and their teams figure out how to unleash more of what they have from a quiet place within.

And he's the co-founder of Clear Mind Advisors, which is the name of his coaching and advising firm. And on this podcast, we explore a number of things, the potential of the mind, both to promote healing from the inside of what we may have been hurt by, and also the potential of the mind to create in the world, to create as a leader, to create as a team, and just to create and move society forward. And I think if you are a leader of any capacity, if you are trying to find your way in your career, if you feel like there are some things that might be weighing your mind down, you will benefit a lot from this conversation.

Rolf is just a fantastic human being. I can already see how we have many conversations that we could have in future episodes of the podcast. But for now, I hope you enjoy this one. And if you are enjoying it, I encourage you to subscribe to the podcast and also share the episodes that are meaningful to you with your friends. I really appreciate your getting the word out. And with that, I bring you, Rolf Evenson. I'm here with Rolf Evenson. Rolf, thanks for joining me.

Rolf2:27You are so welcome. It's a pleasure to be here. Well,

Ravi2:31I'm here in Minnesota, in a suburb of Minneapolis, and I was going for a walk this morning and reminiscing a bit about Colorado where I recently left and just imagining you must be now sitting in that technicolor green, all the fresh grass coming. I mean, what's it like where you're at? Where are you and what's it like in your your environment right now? So

Rolf2:56my wife and I live in a town called Longmont, Colorado, which is just 10 minutes up the road from Boulder, Colorado. So when we, when I look out of my window, I, I can see the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. You're absolutely right. This is my absolute favorite time of year in Colorado, roughly mid-May to mid-June, because things are green and the flowers are blooming, and there's still some snow on the high peaks behind the foothills. It's just a glorious time to be out riding our bikes, which we do often.

and to go on hikes and things like that. We just love being active. It's a beautiful place for that.

Ravi3:45Are any of the resorts still open? I'd imagine there might be one that's holding on to the last bit of snow.

Rolf3:53Yeah, that's a good question. I'm not sure. There may be, sometimes there are resorts that ski resorts that stay open until maybe July 4th. Yeah. But I haven't been following it. We transitioned from winter sports to summer sports a couple of months ago.

Ravi4:13So summer sports, what does that mean for you?

Rolf4:16Rock climbing, hiking, and cycling. My wife and I are avid cyclists, and I've been a rock climber for 50 years, I guess. So I'm still, I'm an old fart, but I still enjoy it.

Ravi4:32Sounds like a better kind of triathlon, hiking, rock climbing, and bike. liking, you know. Nice, nice three sports to

Rolf4:39weed together. I'm not a great swimmer, so it's a better combination for me. Well, Ralph,

Ravi4:46I was, I was just trying to remember when we, when we first met, it was just a few years ago. And I believe we were, I was enjoying a nice falafel plate at the Mediterranean, a nice restaurant, Boulder. And we were part of a meetup group exploring, something we'll talk about a little bit today. And I just remember you were sitting next to me and And we just struck up a really nice, easy conversation. And in my mind, I thought, well, I want to get to know Rolf better.

And, you know, you've definitely supported me several times over the years, just sharing some of your wisdom and working with leaders as an executive advisor. And so just excited to explore today a bit of, you know, what you've learned and what brought you to the kind of understanding you have that informs just how you work with clients. people in your life. So looking forward to diving in today into some of those things. Me too.

Rolf5:42I remember that that evening and feeling really fortunate that I ended up next to you. You know, when you meet somebody that you connect with and that you just have a good feeling about, it's amazing how that stays with you. I mean, it stayed with me all these years. And I know I left that evening looking forward to figuring. out some excuses for getting to know you better. And we found some ways.

Ravi6:12Right, exactly. Well, why don't we start with maybe if you can describe a bit of what you do now and then we can talk about sort of what led you to what you're doing now. Sure. Yeah, how do you describe yourself and what you do?

Rolf6:29Well, I'm a three-principle-based executive coach. I don't know. Is your audience, familiar with what the three principles are about? Well,

Ravi6:40yeah. We'd love you to share some of that. Most are not. Most people listening right now are working in a company. They're a leader in a company or they're just trying to find their way in their career and they're curious around how to be better, do better, how to get ahead in their work and their businesses. And have probably read a bunch of personal like me, a bunch of personal growth and self-help and maybe gone to some workshops, but may not be aware of three principles and what they are.

Rolf7:16Well, as you know, I was an architect for kind of a middle third of my career. And one of the things that really intrigued me was as the design leader of engineering and design teams, creating multi-million-dollar projects. In my case, it was mostly in the medical field, surgery centers and that sort of thing. And one of the things that just absolutely fascinated me was how some teams seemed to have an ease about them that allowed them to flourish and to work together in a way that was not only effective and highly creative, but enjoyable for the people on the teams.

And other teams, which had people on them that were every bit as talented and well-educated and highly motivated and hardworking and committed to doing great work as the earlier team that I mentioned would struggle and sometimes struggle mightily. And it would be some combination of the human factor, I guess you could say, to oversimplify it. With some teams and with some individuals, it seemed like there's a human factor is just not working. And I just got really curious about that. Earlier in my wilderness guiding days and in my adventure guide days, which I spent probably 10, 15 years doing rock climbing and all of that, leading dog sled expeditions and all of that.

I noticed in myself that in rock climbing, let's say, we'd go to Yosemite Valley in California to climb for six, seven weeks at a time.

Ravi9:17And that's, in Yosemite is like the mecca for climbing. It

Rolf9:21Is one of the mechas in the world for climbing right And I just noticed that some days I was on and some days I was on and some days I wasn't. My skill level wouldn't change day to day, but my capability and capacity to climb well, to enjoy it, be effective, climbing a wall, a face would change radically and I just got curious well, what? What is that about human beings? What? What's that? Performance principle, you know, what's that human variable that seems to turn on and off like a switch for individuals and for teams.

That has a huge impact on performance ability, team synergy and enjoyment in life. And so this is a long way of answering your question, which is what I'm up to now. What I'm up to now is working with mostly high-level leaders in companies large and small to explore that variable. How is it? What is that magic something that is the difference between performing at a high level, engaging creatively in life and enjoying life? It seems to be integrated into all of life, ability to perform and to enjoy and to creatively engage with all of life.

So I'm working with senior executives, and I'm also working with a couple of mastermind projects. We did a mastermind project a year ago with leaders, senior level leaders from Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. And we were forced by COVID to do it virtually. And so by accident, we discovered this way of, this very efficient way of working with leaders around the world, putting them together in a mastermind of 12 and basically exploring the human capacity to create and the human capacity to engage with life at a high level, perform at a high level.

And now that was just, they loved it, we loved it. And so now we're launching a couple more groups like that, one in July and one in September. Great.

Ravi12:12I'd love to maybe go back to the most. moments where you started to realize this. It sounds like you had a few phases to your life journey. You had a phase where you were out in nature, climbing and guiding and leading dog sled adventures, curious hearing about that, maybe offline. We can chat about that. And then you have this career in business, and now you have a career advising leaders and coaching leaders, if you will. But I'm curious about, you know, what someone, when it was that you started to realize that performance principle, that human factor, you noticed it at when you were climbing, you said, where you had the same skill, but some days you were on, some days you were off, but maybe can you walk me through?

When did it go from just you started to notice something to the light bulb went on? aha, there's something driving this human factor. Can you maybe share when those moments were, when you started to realize this more deeply for yourself?

Rolf13:26Yeah, what just pops into my mind is you ask that question. I struggled with some PTSD issues for 28 years from age six to age 34. And what happened was that, My family was on vacation when I was six years old in northern Minnesota. We were staying at a cabin on a lake. And my father took my brother and I. I was the oldest of four kids, so I was six. So we were six, four, two, and newly born. And he took my brother and I to the store to get some groceries.

And on the way back to the cabin, our car was hit by a freight train. and I had the misfortune of experiencing that accident and watching my father die on the side of the road that afternoon. So it was obviously a horrific experience. And it's not surprising that I had nightmares for years after that. I remember my mother singing to me and rocking me to sleep when she would hear me crying. And then when I was 16 and started to drive, I started experiencing some, anxiety attacks, I guess you could call them, when I was first in line at a railroad crossing, which is understandable.

I mean, I would actually, I actually had the, you know, I hallucinated watching the train jump the tracks and hit my car. And so it would get triggered by the sound of a train whistle or seeing the crossing gate come down or just being in close proximity to a train crossing. And I went for help several times through my teens and 20s. The first professional I went to was, looking back on it, I didn't know this at the time, but I'm guessing they were behavioral psychologist of some kind.

And what they coached me to do was change my behavior. And what we came up with was a strategy where if it looked like I might be first in line, figure out a way to drive around the blocks, so I'd be further back in line, which felt safer. And that actually worked to some extent, and it did, it did reduce the symptoms. Sometimes you couldn't do that. Sometimes you didn't control being able to do that, and then it wouldn't work. Later on, I talked to a council.

It was a. I was in a therapy group and I remember pounding the floor with these padded clubs, screaming at God for presenting me with this horrible situation at such a young age. So the idea there was emotional catharsis. And then the third therapist I went to must have been some version of neocognitive therapy. They were on to the fact that it's not just behavior and it's not just how we feel that affects our results, But thought has something to do with it. And so she asked me to think about some experience related to trains.

That was a positive experience and I remembered a time that my mother, after my father died, my mother took all of us on a train trip to chicago from where we lived in minnesota, and that was a really pleasant experience and I remember the click clacking of the train at night and sleeping and just enjoying that whole experience tremendously. So the idea was if I started having PTSD stress-related symptoms to focus on the wonderful train trip instead of the trauma of the accident, all of these approaches had some positive effect, but none of them solved the problem at the route.

In each case, the person that was helping me took the trauma that I'd been through seriously and admitted that in their opinion, the best we could do was ease the symptoms somewhat. And that's what the goal was. It wasn't until Joe Bailey described to me how the mind works and how all human experience is created. including negative and stress-related experiences or flow-state experiences and how we all are actually feeling our thinking in the moment versus feeling the circumstances. He's the first person to tell me that the experience of anxiety that I was having wasn't coming from something that happened 28 years ago when I was six years old.

he was the first person to tell me that I wasn't damaged goods. It wasn't that I experienced this horrific trauma, and now I'm less than I was before the trauma. He was the first person to tell me that my human psychology was working perfectly despite evidence to the contrary. So I had an amazing conversation with him about all of this, And he asked me an interesting question. He said, have you ever been in that circumstance and had a different experience? And I found that to be a really intriguing question, and I thought about it a bit.

And then I remembered a time not long prior to that when I was in that exact situation, feeling wonderful and no stress whatsoever. And so I shared that with him. said, well, what was going on? And I said, I had just met this beautiful woman. I was single at the time And I was very taken with her. And what was happening was we were having this amazing conversation And I was just reveling in the presence of this wonderful person I had just met, And then I saw the whole thing.

I realized. Well, he asked first of all, he asked me what was going on outside the car, and I said there was a freight train roaring by 30 feet away. We were first car in line, the gate was coming down, the bell was clanging, the train whistle was blasting, and then I saw it. I realized, oh, all that was happening in all of my experiences was I was feeling, my thinking in the moment. What would happen is I would be going through my day enjoying whatever feeling I had.

Then I would hear a train whistle. It would remind me of painful memories. I was in the habit of then focusing on those memories and then instead of feeling the thoughts I'd just been having, now I was feeling the thoughts of the traumatic experience. I looked at him and I said, are you freaking kidding me? I've been doing this to myself all these years. And he just smiled and said, yeah, that's true. And the good news is, because you've been doing it to yourself, you know, have the opportunity to make different choices.

And I realized that my human psychology was working perfectly the whole time. I was feeling my thinking in the moment. All that was happening was related to train situations. My thinking was shifting. and then I would feel that thinking instead of whatever I was thinking earlier.

Ravi21:47You know, just on that and then I, you know, because, well, thank you just for sharing. I mean, that experience and I can see, you know, if someone were to tell me it's not the train creating the experience. Having experienced something in my past, let me just say as horrific, you know, as just stark is what you experience. I mean, I would say, I mean, I don't know if my reaction would be what yours was. What was it that allowed what Joe said to sink in?

Do you know? Because I can imagine alternate realities where you hear that, but all the evidence is, no, the train is creating a full psychosomatic response in you, you know, no way. It can't be me. I mean, what facilitated that insight, do you know? That's

Rolf22:41a great point. And had someone asked me that question before I realized what was actually happening, I had 28 years of experience and proof to prove my case. I knew it was the train that was causing it. And here's the proof. I have this 28 years of story to prove that that's true. So how do you break through in life when you have a pattern that's, deeply, deeply held and believed in. I mean, you're really asking a profound question and the question is, how is it that human beings change?

Right? And the answer is the only way that I know of is by having an insight that breaks through the noise of your thinking, the noise of your belief system, the noise of your thought's structure. It breaks through and touches you in some deep way with the truth of the insight, such that you know it's true. It's a deep knowing. It cannot be denied. You can just see the truth of it, And when that happens, it changes how we we see the world. And when how we see the world changes, our world actually starts changing.

And I'll give you proof of that. A week later, I was driving in my car and I heard a train whistle was the first one I heard since my conversation with Joe Bailey and I laughed. Now that was the first time I'd laughed at a train whistle in 28 years. But what I was laughing at was realizing oh my god, that's the trigger that used to trigger this chain of events. But I saw what was at work here. I saw that all that's happening. I saw the mechanics behind how that whole thing happened.

The mechanics. Were simply that I would hear the train whistle. It would trigger a memory. I would think about the memory and feel those feelings, feelings or feeling, or feel those thoughts. And now my feeling was just overwhelming relief. Thank god I don't have to do that again. Thank god I don't have to go down that road anymore. It was just relief. Now it's interesting it didn't take work right, it didn't take effort, it didn't take energy. Insight is a free gift. I think of it as a spiritual gift, but it's.

It's a gift, the capacity for which is built in to human beings.

Ravi25:55It does, it does rub against the ethos of there are no free lunches. Or if it's meant to be, it's up to me,

Rolf26:05or I don't know.

Ravi26:07I'm sure we can read any number of books and pull out some proverbs there. I am, and I am curious because you mentioned that the different, modalities and healers and people you saw did provide some relief. You know, it was supporting to you. But then you, through these mechanics you're talking about and we'll talk more about that, you know, you just got an insight and it didn't effort. Why is it that people seem to hold on to the slog uphill grind effort to try to get the relief if there's insight.

I mean, why do you think people are, you know, maybe efforting their way to address an issue when what I'm hearing you say is, you know, you just, you just saw something fresh, you saw thought, you saw where it was coming from.

Rolf27:14That's such a great question, Ravi. I guess you could say I've been searching for the answer to that question my whole life and I'm still searching. But I think that there's, I think I'm starting to see, I'm starting to get glimpses as to why that is. And I think it has to do with this. There's a, there's a quote, and I forget who said this, but it's something to the effect that to love is to walk among mysteries. But to step into mystery and trust the unknown, is scary for most of us.

I remember standing at the base of the nose route on L-CAPA-10 in 1979 at 5 o'clock in the morning with my climbing partner about to start this 3300-foot route that we were planning to climb, and just having this, this humorous moment where we look at each other and say, do we really want to do this? You know, do we really want to start? We could go back to camp and then go out for breakfast. That would be a lot easier than what we're about to do spend three days on this wall, climbing this wall.

So it's a conscious choice to to step into the mystery of love or the mystery of um, of life itself, the, uh, the greeks talked about um, a condition of um, a condition of, called ex-stasis, which is a version of the word ecstasy. And the Navy SEALs talk about this magical state that they want their teams to get into, so that they're living from insight. They don't use that word, but that's what they're doing. They know that things are happening when they're in a really difficult mission and they have to make instantaneous decisions about who to shoot and who not to shoot, and what to do or what not to do.

They've found that, if they can, if they can get the entire team to fall into this state of flow, we're more, we're more aware of that term or or in the zone. Then what happens is that the conscious mind recedes and we're living from a state of receptiveness, more of an unconscious state, in the flow of things, and then performance improves, creativity improves, the ability for human beings to connect powerfully, either in love relationships or in working collaborations increases immensely. I think that state is what we're looking for to have more of in our life because that's where the juiciness is.

That's where the breakthrough ideas reside. That's where the amazing collaborations reside. Every sports team on the planet is looking for that state. Every business that I know of is looking for that state. But it does require that we trust something bigger than ourselves, something bigger than our ability to control the environment, something bigger than our personal thinking and our capacity to think our way out of problems. It really involves less thinking and more feeling and certainly more insight. I think most of the world tends to live more from fear than from love.

And when we're living in fear, we want to hang on and control things. But ironically, that very effort to control or to overthink things prevents us from achieving the state of flow that we want, that we desire, that we long for. What,

Ravi32:23I mean, I can imagine lots of implications of what you're talking about for the world of business. And of course, as a coach myself, I've experienced it myself. But what inspired you to take this insight and bring it to the world? I mean, it seems like there are probably some chapters there worth talking about where you had this. seemingly profound understanding of the nature of life and where it comes from and the role of thought and this power of insight. And how did you go from there to, okay, I'm going to help executives and teams and leaders, you know, find performance from a different place.

I mean, help me fill in the gaps there of how you went from a climber with some insight to, I'm going to bring this to the world.

Rolf33:23Well, as I said earlier, I was always fascinated by adventure. And I've always been fascinated by the creative process. And I saw architecture as a potential profession for me being a blend of those two things. I loved the very idea that a small group of people could sit around a table and start sharing ideas about a building that they would want to create. You know, let's say it's a surgery center. So you have the architect and maybe an engineer or two and you have the head physician and the nurse and so on, whoever's going to be involved in this project and you're sitting around and what are you sharing?

You're sharing ideas, which are nothing but thoughts expressed. What are thoughts? Thoughts are, I think of thoughts as coalesced energy that take a form, a form of a thought. And then I share the thought with you and that triggers your own thinking and we start having a conversation. And ultimately, that conversation can become doodles on a piece of paper, and those doodles can evolve through a creative thinking process into architectural drawings. And then you can hand those architectural drawings to a construction crew who can then start literally turning paper into concrete and glass and wood.

And eventually, it results in being able to walk in the front door of a beautiful. building that has hopefully the feeling and the practical implications that you were designing in the first place, a usefulness that you were designing in from the first place. That blows me away, that human beings have that capacity to create something magnificent from nothing but energy. So I loved participating in that creative process. And I guess the transition from there into focusing full-time on working with executives and teams came from an insight that I had.

I used to think of adventure as being rock climbing or dog sledding or canoeing across Lake Superior. But I realized through my work with my architectural clients that the true and the true and And the greatest adventure is life itself, that everyone on that team was operating in a world of their own thinking. And the quality of that thinking in any given moment had a huge impact on the quality of our work together. So sometimes the quality of that thinking was not good and it led to conflict, it led to stress, it led to people feeling pressured and not enjoying the creative process.

at all. And other times it was a highly enjoyable process, I fell in love with and and fell into curiosity about the magic of that, if you will. And so I left my job with no idea of what I was going to do. I mean, I knew it was going to involve exploring this area with business leaders and teams, but I had to literally create that from scratch. And so that happened the same way the architectural creative process worked. I started with nothing and having very little idea of what it would look like and how it would work in practical terms and who my clients would be and how much money I would make and all of that.

And I had some fear about that. But I just decided to trust the muse, if you will. I had a vision and inkling that this was something powerful and wonderful that I needed to try. And I found in life that when I trust that feeling, things tend to work out pretty well.

Ravi38:17I can imagine walking into a boardroom. Well, you tell me, What's your experience if you sit down with the CEO or you're meeting with a team, any team, at any level? If you, when you point to call it the muse, call it insight, call it what comes from a peaceful state of mind, or any of the language that you've used and I've used, what's their reaction? I would imagine my experience is I get some blank stares and usually a few demands initially for give me the proof what's your process, give me the recipe that we can use.

What's the strategy you're going to teach me? Right. To help us get results. Help me understand what's the reaction. Well, one, how do you have a conversation with a leader who's trying to grow their business and navigate challenges in the world that's looking for a solution. How do you communicate what it is you offer and what's maybe some of the resistance you might get from a leader just based on the paradigm they're in versus what you're trying to point to?

Rolf39:34Great question. What comes to mind is that I was working with a. I was doing what we call a three-day leadership immersion. So it's me and an executive leader, one-on-one for three days, And we were in session number one day one last week with the CEO of a global company, And we'd had a number of conversations prior to this, but we were coming together for the first time. He had gone to a beach house that his family owns to get away from everything And we were talking about what's going to happen for the next three days, because he's really operating with a high level of trust.

He really doesn't understand the process, which is what you were pointing to, so I did my best to explain that it was going to be unlike anything that he'd probably ever experienced before. We were going to slow way down, and his comment was I never slow down, I'm always going fast and I said, yeah, that's what I figured. And I said and we're going to. They're going to be long breaks in between our sessions and, um, after I talked for a bit, there was a. Pause and he said I never slow down.

I'm always going 100 miles an hour. My own kids and my wife asked me why I can't just take two, three minutes to just relax. And then I said well, in that case I'm pretty sure that the next three days are going to be pure hell for you. And we had a good laugh about that. He got, he got the humor of it. He had no idea how this was going to go, but in that moment of sharing the laugh he decided well, I'm here, I might as well trust this, see where it goes.

So we finished our conversation and I talked about how you know the noise to signal ratio that most of us live with, the noise being the thought and all the busy-mindedness and all the incredible activity that's going on in a typical business executives' life. The phone calls, the emails, the thinking, the problem solving, the worrying about the deadline on Thursday, the fretting over the conversation you had with your boss that really made you angry. All that stuff, I'm calling noise. and the signal, which is the breakthrough ideas, the insights, the life-changing change in perspective that we all desperately need, that gets drowned out by the noise.

So we break after a couple of hours, and we come back two hours later for our second session. And I asked him how his break was, and did he read, do the reading that we had, talked about. And he said, no, I took a long nap. And he said, that was the first nap I've ever taken in the morning in my life. First nap I've ever taken during work time. First nap I've ever taken during the work week. A couple days later, he reported walking on the beach and hearing the crunch sound that seashells make when you step on them and the sea shells crumble.

He'd been staying on this beach house off and on for eight years. He had never heard the sound of the crunching seashells. And he described how he's walking down the beach thinking, listen to the crunch. The seashells are crunching and loving it. So what he's experienced was as his mind settled, his awareness of what was going on around him went through the roof and his enjoyment of the moment went through the roof. And he started to have all kinds of amazing ideas and insights about how to work with his team and shifts that he wanted to make.

That's when that's when the leader that you're talking about starts to believe they feel it, they experience it themselves and they see the power of it. Now they know what you're talking about.

Ravi44:34Right. In the same way that you realized something. Exactly. Regarding the train. Your clients realize something themselves. Exactly. Even if it's counterintuitive because what I'm hearing you say is you're slowing someone way down. So, that they can be better because they're coming to you, I'm imagining, because they want to be better or have their team better.

Rolf45:00Do I have that? Yeah, it's almost like slowing down in order to speed up. Right. Okay. You can be more efficient, you know, break through and cut through all kinds of distraction that are slowing you down if you have the needed insight, but you have to slow down in order to have the insight. And that should become part and parcel of your normal way of doing life. Another story comes into mind, which might be more applicable to your question. And that was I was doing a presentation to a leadership team and a company.

And they didn't know me from Adam. So whatever language I was using, it needs to be language they can relate to. So I might think of these as being spiritual qualities, but I can't go into a new team that's never met me and start talking about spiritual qualities, because that will distract many of them. They'll get caught up in their own thinking about, well, what does that mean? Is this real? Is this foo-foo? What is this? So I was presenting in a way that I thought they could relate to, I'd had some conversations with them previously, and I knew some of the language they were already using.

And so I was using that language as much as I could comfortably and authentically use and trying to just speak in terms of common sense. And it was going extremely well, and there were a lot of nodding heads. And I felt like, wow, this looks like it's a good fit. And then a gentleman from the far side of the far corner of the conference table raised his hand and I called on him and he proceeded to rip this whole idea in shreds. He thought it was a terrible idea and he proceeded to say why.

He was someone that everybody in the team I found out later was kind of afraid of. He was brilliant. He tended to be very critical. And people were always a little nervous around him. And it completely knocked me for a loop because it came out of nowhere. I thought the presentation was going beautifully. I thought we were on the same page. And now suddenly, he's saying things that might make me look like a fraud in front of the room. And so for a moment, I got thrown for a loop.

I kind of freaked out inside. I was scrambling. I lost my bearings. It's happened to all of us. But because I know how the mind works, and I know that a settled mind is a powerful mind, it's funny. I thought, you know, sometimes my go-to in that situation is, well, let's take a break so I can collect myself. Well, we had just taken a break, so we couldn't do that. So what occurred to me in that split second was to take a deep breath. I just took a deep breath and looked at him.

And in the space of that breath I had an insight, And the insight was basically reminding me of the truth that, as much as I disliked what he was saying in the context of this meeting, I knew that every human being does and says what makes sense to us, given what we're thinking in the moment. So, even though it made no sense to me, I know it made perfect sense to him. So it occurred to me to say this. I looked at him and said that's interesting, Joe, can you tell me more?

Now? I was just buying time, but I was also opening up the possibility of getting into a dialogue with him. And he proceeded to tell me more. And then as he talked, I got curious, genuinely curious about some of the things that he was sharing. He was a really smart guy. And he had thought about it. He had some good reasons. And so I kept asking clarifying questions. Eventually, he shared the essence of what his concern was. And I got that that was the real thing that he was concerned about.

And I said, okay, if we could design this program such a way that it would specifically address and solve that problem permanently, would that be interesting to you? And then he said, if you could do that, I'm all in. And we went on from there and built the project, and he became the project's champion. So that's just one example of how we need to find ways to connect with people in language that we can all agree to and understand as best as possible. And then the more we understand about how our own psychology works and how our minds work, the more likely we are when we get thrown off balance, when we lose our bearings, to recognize the first job is to regain.

our bearings and then operate from there. Right.

Ravi50:55So where just, you know, there are so many different areas we can go deeper into, but I'm also, you know, aware we just have, you know, maybe 10 minutes left. And, and, you know, there are deep implications, even what you mentioned, that something in you notice that what this team member was sharing and how he was acting made sense to him. based on what he saw. And your reaction was to be curious, which strikes me as interesting because how do most people react when they're faced with a different point of view?

I wouldn't say it's necessarily curiosity. And so I think your point, you know, I mean, we just look in our society and see how people react to different points of views. And so, you know, I can imagine there are quite deep implications of some of the things that you're talking about here that no doubt you go into and your coaching and your work with leaders. But I'm just curious for you, you know, if you can share in your own journey, your own learning curves around what you're talking about, are there any resources or books or things that you feel have been helpful to you personally as you've deepened your own wisdom and insight around how you do what you do?

I'm always curious how people are learning and growing. So from your perspective, what has supported your learning curve so far? And also, as you look forward, where are you on your own learning curve right now? Where do you feel you're trying to see things more deeply for yourself?

Rolf52:40Well, it's impossible to ignore the works of Sydney Banks. He was the first person that I'm aware of that saw how the mind works through the lens of psychology. human psychology and he and he was able to to find us a simple and accessible way to talk about it in terms of he uses the terms thought mind and consciousness thought is the human capacity to create feelings uh or consciousness is our capacity to feel what we think and mind is the power source behind it all.

I asked this, my client last week, for example, when you think about the power behind life, first I asked him, do you agree that there's something behind life that's bigger than you and me? And he said, absolutely. And he told me earlier that he didn't consider himself to be a religious person or a spiritual person. And so then I said, well, what do you call that something bigger? And he thought a moment and he said, I think of it as the life force. And I said, okay, great, life force.

We'll use that because we both know what that means. So Sidney Banks, and the book I love of his the best is The Enlightened Gardner. And then to talk about that understanding, that Sydney Banks is talking about the kind of the deeper truth of how the mind works as applied to business the book I love the most is invisible power I always share that with my clients and as of this morning I

Ravi54:43started invisible power by Ken Manning and Robin Sharbet and Sandy Crock great book I also send that to most of my clients if not all

Rolf54:52and then this morning I don't know if you can see this but I started reading stealing fire, Stephen Kotler, yeah. Yeah, and I'm absolutely loving that because he's really talking in more scientific terms about the flow state. And as it's applied by companies like Google, the Navy SEALs and the ancient Greeks, it kind of gives a context for the scientific understanding of what are flow states and why are they so powerful? powerful. So I'm really enjoying that. Just started it this morning. Great. And

Ravi55:32what's on the horizon for you as you look forward in your own life, both personally and professional, what's on the horizon?

Rolf55:45Well, I love what I'm doing. My wife is retired and I haven't yet retired. And the reason is simply because there's nothing I'd rather do. I love stepping into the mystery of life with people, with my clients, either groups of them in masterminds or business teams or individuals, they're all equally interesting to me and exploring what is the nature of life and how can we unlock the door into infinite creativity? What is the nature of life? What is the nature of of how human beings create something from nothing.

Let's, and I love, I think we desperately need in the world today, we need leaders who can weather the storm. We're all living in a storm of noise, online noise, demonization of people that disagree with us, racial injustice, economic challenges, global warming. I mean, the challenges just go on and on and on. What we need, in my opinion, is grounded human beings who know how to create and know how to collaborate in a way that is highly creative, highly productive, and highly enjoyable. That's what I want to do in some shape or form.

That's the work I want to do. And I want to keep climbing and I want to keep biking and exploring in the world. But the greatest adventure, in my opinion, nothing gives me more pleasure, whether it's listening to an exquisite piece of music, or seeing the spark of insight in the eye of my client or hearing the laughter of my three-year-old granddaughter. What I love more than anything else is feeling connected to other human beings and feeling fully alive. That's where and how I want to live.

Ravi58:33Well, that sounds like a wonderful feeling to live in. And Rolf, if people would like to connect with you to learn more. Maybe they're listening and they're a leader that's moving fast and is looking for achieving things, but can't go any faster. Yeah. Where can

Rolf58:54they connect with you? They can go to my website, which is clearmindadvisors.com. Great.

Ravi59:05Well, I appreciate your time, your wisdom, sharing your own personal experience. of this paradigm, how it's made a difference for you, and how you see it potentially making a difference for other human beings, whether they're leaders or elsewhere. So thanks again. And I hope you have a fun day and lots of time outside to go for hikes, bikes, bikes, and climb some mountains. There

Rolf59:36you go. It's been a genuine pleasure, Ravi. I'm so glad we decided to do this. Thanks for the opportunity.