Sit With The Chaos | Marc Lesser | The Sean Trace Show

Why do so many successful people achieve everything they thought they wanted and still feel dissatisfied? In this episode of The Sean Trace Show, I sit down with Zen teacher, executive coach, author, and mindful leadership expert Marc Lesser to explore the relationship between mindfulness, business leadership, happiness, and the human mind.

Marc shares lessons from spending ten years at the San Francisco Zen Center before earning an MBA, building companies, and bringing mindfulness practices into organizations such as Google. We discuss why human beings are naturally wired to search for danger, why being hard on ourselves does not necessarily make us more productive, and how satisfaction, curiosity, and wonder may actually improve creativity and leadership.

We also explore psychological safety, workplace culture, imposter syndrome, conflict, meditation, and the importance of turning toward difficult emotions instead of avoiding them. This conversation is a reminder that mindfulness is not about escaping work or ambition. It is about becoming more present, compassionate, and fully human while pursuing meaningful goals.

What could change in your life if you started creating from satisfaction instead of fear?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You know, from from an evolutionary perspective, we're wired to be dissatisfied. Right? We are wired we're wired to need, you know, that we need to eat, we need to create, we need sex, we need, you know, that that it it would be it we wouldn't it wouldn't work in terms of uh all evolution cares about is that we stay alive and that we pass on our genes. And so we've um we've become uh quite skilled at uh at scanning for threats, right? So we're all are we're just always looking for, am I safe? What could go wrong? What are, you know, what what are the threats and and uh what's what's next? What do I, you know, uh this constant state of dissatisfaction. And in some way, you know, um what comes under the heading of mindfulness practice or zen practice, but any I think all all spiritual practice is some um strategies for skillfully noticing and not being so pushed around by uh fears and dissatisfaction. And and to right, to to can you know, and it's one thing to say it it's easy to say those things, but it's hard to live. And like, what does it really what does it mean to, you know, again, and one of the things I'm often working with leaders these days is, you know, it's deeply ingrained in in most humans that that we need to be dissatisfied or else we wouldn't get anything done, or that we really need to be hard on ourselves, or we wouldn't get anything done. So it's interesting the to turn that upside down and and experiment with like what about starting from being satisfied?

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Welcome everybody back to the Sean Trace Show. I'm your host, Sean Trace, and I have a really interesting guest with me today. Would you like to tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Uh yes, I'm Mark Lesser. And um let's see, many ways that I can describe what I do. Some sometimes I say that I uh I start and grow companies, and um and in between I do leadership consulting and executive coaching. But the the through line, I'd say, to everything that I do in the work world maybe is under the under the topic of maybe mindful leadership, which or I sometimes think of as uh uh leadership and being more human, more humanity in the workplace and leadership place. And and um yeah, so I I've started a couple companies, I've done uh quite a bit of coaching and consulting, and I'm uh and I'm a Zen teacher. I spent my a decade in my uh my twenties uh living at the San Francisco Zen Center, which has had an enormous influence on my my life.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

That's amazing. I am before we got going, you asked me a little bit about where I'm at. And I'm actually based in Vietnam, which is a wild thing that I'm halfway across the world right now talking to you in uh in the Bay Area. But one of the things that was interesting for me about when I um I was in university, I studied history. And history with an emphasis in Eastern philosophy. I had a great professor who taught me all about the Zen classics, and we learned about the Koans, and we learned about all of this fun stuff. And I was in jujitsu, and uh I black belt in Japanese-style jujitsu, which is very similar to judo. And I uh there was a certain point where I just wanted to learn more about the philosophies of Asia and all the things that um Taoism, Buddhism, um you name it, I was I was devouring it. And one of the things that happened is that I had the opportunity to go to Japan, I had the opportunity to go to China, and I had the opportunity to go to Vietnam. I was like, well, I'm not wealthy. The easiest way for me to go overseas is to teach. And it was after university, and I um I am a dual national. My dad's British and my mom's American. And I was because of that, someone said, Hey, do you want to teach at a higher-end British school in Vietnam? I was like, what if it what it what even is in that? And they're like, it's pretty cool that you're British, so they like it, but because you have an American accent that's starting to become popular around the world, this is a long time ago. And um, I I I one thing led to another and I moved to Vietnam. And when I came here, life just kind of changed around me. I went back to the States and came back. In the midst of that, I studied Chinese medicine, I got into content creation, and I found myself here and now. But I love the insult behind you. I have a tattoo of the insole on my back, and it's one of my favorite concepts. And I try to talk about it all the time to people because it's this beautiful dichotomy. And I love it because what is more perfect than a circle? Yet our inability to draw perfection is, you know, every circle we draw is imperfect. But that doesn't stop people from trying to continue to try to draw a more perfect circle, you know. But then there's the awareness that every circle that you draw is perfect, you know, it's the best analogy for like I life I have. So now I work as a teacher in content. I have my own media production company, but I still consider myself a teacher. My platform now is simply a podcast. And I teach people through YouTube. And uh yet at my heart, I'm still an educator. Uh, I just make fun videos. Uh that's who I am. And I'm so excited to talk to you today because you have these different things that I also love that are a part of your journey. How did you get into business, but also get into Zen? Because both of these things are hugely interesting to me.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Yeah, I mean, I I maybe some similar notes. I I was um uh I was in college in uh New Brunswick, New Jersey at Rutgers. And I think of myself as having been uh pretty, pretty asleep. You know, I think my it was my my interests were mostly sports and and perhaps women, but women had no interest in me at that, so uh sports, but sports worked well and high school wrestling, and I was always playing, you know, baseball and golf and bowling. And um, but then somehow at Rutgers, um, I think, you know, I think it was just that the diversity of the people around me. And then um I I one of the most influential classes I took was French, German, and Italian literature in translation. Wow where for for each section we had a a native speaker and passionate and where I got introduced to you know, Sartre and Camus and Kafka and and and um and somehow discovered existentialism and started reading Abraham Maslow, and that led me to Alan Watts and the way of Zen, and like it just kind of turned my life upside down. And uh at some point I said, I don't want to read about this stuff, I want to do it. And I I decided to take a one-year leave of absence and um headed to the land where this stuff seemed to be happening, which was San Francisco. And um I walked into the San Francisco Zen Center and and there was a voice that said, I think this place will be worth 10 years of your life. And um, and um somehow I ended up staying 10 years uh and uh went back and uh you know it was as I was exiting out, I had this um this vision of bringing what I was learning and practicing into the world of work and the corporate world and the leadership world. And I decided to get an MBA degree. Um, and then a few years after that, I started my first company, which was a publishing company called Brush Dance. Um, and actually, this fellow was one of our artists. Uh this was uh Kaz Tanahashi calligrapher, but we we were licensing uh like the words of Tiknad Han, Vietnamese Zen teacher, and the Dalai Lama and poetry of Rumi and many, many others, and making calendars and cards and journals and things. And it was a uh it was a a business that I ran for 15 years.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

One of the my favorite books is um Hermann Has a Siddhartha, and uh this journey of you know the different polar extremes has been something that I also have seen, and what you're describing, I absolutely love, you know, these different aspects of experiencing life, of experiencing the world, and yet the consciousness that always sits in the river, that middle point between these two worlds. And one of the things that I um have found, the places that I have been most educated in life are in my business, um, as a father, um as the training that I did in judo and jujitsu, in my meditation practice that I had with my meditation teacher. It's like all of these different parts come together. And, you know, it's it's interesting because I think a lot of people don't understand what Zen is. And I'd like to ask you that. You spent 10 years living in a Zen monastery. And I to segue back because like I remember when I started studying Zen and they're like, what is the, what is the, you know, what is the nature of the Buddha, you know, or what is the nature of enlightenment? And it's like, look at the three-legged donkey running down the hill. And I was just like, what does that even mean? You know, at that point in time. But, you know, what did you learn that most people uh spend their entire lives missing while you were at the Zen monastery?

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Yeah, you know, a few things. Um, in the work world, the work and leadership world, I got to experience a kind of love and joy of work and work, work as practice, work as knowing myself and going beyond myself through through the activity of getting stuff done and working with other people. Yeah. I mean, I could also answer that by talking about the simple but profound, you know, mindset of uh not avoiding what's difficult, not avoiding, you know, pain, suffering, difficulty, and the richness of turning toward what we don't want to turn toward, and the practice of deeply skillfully working with stress, anxiety, pain, difficulty, and turning it into satisfaction or even into, you know, joy or wonder. I've been using the word wonder more and more, you know, as like, well, what's, you know, zen, you know, zen. I I I sometimes use say that zen is just a code word for being more human.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Right. And, you know, and of course there's a whole there's a whole tradition and there's a lot of practices, and but but but really it's all it's all a particular discipline and practices for providing boundaries to work within to help us discover more wonder in our lives.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

I am one of the things I just said a somewhat horrible, but you know, simplified, oversimplified version of a koan before. Uh that question of like, what is the, you know, look at the three-legged donkey running down the hill. And I think that one is even more relevant in this day and age, where um, you know, what does that mean? What does it mean to look at a three-legged donkey running down the hill? And it's like, I would ask this, like, or tell people this. I remember Titney and Han had this one thing where he was talking about the man and he offered him a peach or a plum. And the person was like talking to him about this or that. And Titney On Han just looked at the guy and said, just eat the peach. Just enjoy the peach, you know? And I think one of the hardest things for us to do is to sit and enjoy the peach. And I mean, I think that that if for people who are listening, like, Sean, what do you mean about three-legged donkey running down the hill? It's about this, that present moment experience. Yesterday, I had work and I had business and I had all this stuff, and then work finished at 5 p.m. And then I'm just sitting there and I was like trying to get some extra things in. And my daughter had her piano lesson in my office. You can see her pianos right back here. And um, I love my wife's like, should we move the piano downstairs? And I said, No, I love it in my office. And it's a great bell to remind me to stop working. And I was sitting there in my office, and I'm trying to get one more thing done, one more email sent, and then I hear the sound of Bach playing behind me. And I'm just sitting there, and I've stuck with my daughter, and I, you know, I pushed her to study piano for and I pushed her to stick with it because I love my mom. But my mom did not was not one of those moms that said, you need to stick with it. And I stopped. And my daughter now, it's been five years, and those first four years, you know, first three and a half, four years were painful. It's like, you know, Mary had a and I'm just like, oh no. And I just would look up at the side sometimes and go, Am I doing the right thing right now? Is should we keep this going? But then there was one day where suddenly her mom came downstairs and she's like, try to try this. And my wife started playing this simple melody, and my daughter's like, I like that. And she asked her teacher to show her the full song, and her teacher, and it was a you know, it was a box song. And I just was like, Oh my goodness. And it's that that wake up that you know, I might be having one more email. My daughter, who has spent five years now crafting her ability to have her fingers dance on these keys on an instrument that was created. This this piano's 50 years old. And think about all of the houses this piano has inhabited. This piano's from Japan. You know, maybe this piano has already been at four or five different houses. How many children have learned on this piano? And then think about the history of the piano itself and the fact that it came to us and all of these factors that came together to allow Bach to be played at that moment. And I'm thinking about an email, like at that moment. You know?

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's yeah, you know, the there's many um, you know, I think z Zen practice and Zen koans is about just getting us to right, appreciate what's right in front of us. You know, the you know, the there's a a somewhat often used, you know, what what's what what is the purpose of our life or what is the meaning of Zen? And the teacher says the oak tree in the garden, which seems like, oh that what that doesn't make no, but actually it's like just go go see the just go look at a tree. Yeah. I mean, every every tree is kind of a miracle when you actually it's alive and how how did how you know and it's growing and it uh yeah, it's communicating with other trees.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Right. I um you think about that. My daughter and I were having this conversation, and on I said, you know, I was I had all these things happening, and the simple fact that any of us even exist, like what factors, you know, went into play. My wife is a recording artist, she's a famous singer, and there was one day that I was um sitting at home, and I just had this urge to walk out the door. It was like a string was pulling me in the place to the place that I was supposed to be. But what if I had not have stepped out that door that day at that moment, then my daughter would not exist. And I think about that. Back to the future. For you young people who've never watched it, thinking back about all the factors that cause Marty McPly to exist. And if you don't know what that is, I am so sorry for you. But you know, life is a beautiful dance, and I think if we're not paying attention, it's challenging. And I want to ask you this though. This question leads into that. Why do so many people have everything they thought they wanted and still feel unhappy?

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Yeah, well, I'm I'm often teaching, you know, that we um, you know, from an evolutionary perspective, we're wired to be dissatisfied. Right. We are wired, we're wired to need, you know, that we need to eat, we need to create, we need sex, we need, you know, that that it it would be it we wouldn't it wouldn't work in terms of uh all evolution cares about is that we stay alive and that we pass on our genes. And so we've um we've become uh quite skilled at uh at scanning for threats, right? So we're all are we're just always looking for, am I safe? What could go wrong? What are, you know, what what are the threats and and uh what's what's next? What do I, you know, uh this constant state of dissatisfaction. And in some way, you know, um what comes under the heading of mindfulness practice or zen practice, but any I think all all spiritual practice is some um strategies for skillfully noticing and not being so pushed around by uh uh fears and dissatisfaction. And and to right, to to can you know, and it's one thing to say it it's easy to say those things, but it's hard to live. And like, what does it really what does it mean to, you know, again, and one of the things I'm often working with leaders these days is, you know, it's deeply ingrained in in most humans that that we need to be dissatisfied or else we wouldn't get anything done, or that we really need to be hard on ourselves, or we wouldn't get anything done. So it's interesting the to turn that upside down and and experiment with like what about starting from being satisfied and notice, like, does that dampen dampen your ability to create? In fact, it it's support we're much we're more creative when we're feeling a sense of satisfaction and and from a sense of satisfaction, wonder, curiosity, fearlessness. Uh, it doesn't it doesn't dampen our uh our ability to uh you know to be cre to be creative and productive and effective in the world and more more so.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

I love that. And one of some of the things that I think about is that and what you would say one of the books that woke me up to that the most was a great book called The Buddha's Brain, the practical neuroscience of mindfulness, and like reading about how our brain is like you think about that. I have a cute little mouse that we have, a rat. We have a Dumbo rat, my daughter's pet Dumbo rat. And her name is Ratatouille, which ironically is not the name of the rat in the movie. And uh yet she ended up with the name Ratatouille, and I read online that it's actually one of the most common names for pet rats. I was like, well, there you go. She's scared of everything. She is so terrified of everything. Because if you think about it, um, if you get eaten, you cannot reproduce, you cannot procreate, you cannot share your genes, you cannot go on living. So we are wired for that stress response. We are wired that that boss that's yelling at you, he's gonna kill you. That, you know, person that's you know late on your order, you are going to die because your food has not arrived yet. You know, it's like our brains are literally catastrophizing for everything. And Yeah. Most of the time, I my body right now is in a state of massive freakout. And I will tell you why. It is my own doing. I uh I have a very, very, very, very, very, very, very severe allergy to poison oak and poison ivy, poison sumac, all of those fun little plants. The chemical Ursul, I think is what it is, in my body, they do not get along. Now, I live in Vietnam. No, there's no poison oak, poison ivy here. And I live in the city. I haven't had any of those around me for a while. However, I love cashews. And Vietnam farms cashews. Now, 99% of the time, the cashews that I eat are these lovely peeled cashews that have been boiled and the skins have come off. I'd never experienced cashews with the skin on. I didn't even know that was a thing. And the other day I went to the store and I was like, oh, cashews, cool. I love them. And I ate this giant box of cashews with the skins on, not knowing that those skins are full of that wonderful toxin commercial that is so engineered by these plants for millions of years to protect the plant from being eaten by having this toxin in it. And I ate a whole box of them. Now, it wasn't like, you know, right away. It was just that I ate it. And as I started sweating, that toxin started working its way out of my skin. So about 50% of my body right now is covered in this wonderful poison ivy rash. And I don't know if you see it, but I'm I'm I'm moving a little bit like this in this episode.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

I wouldn't wouldn't know it, but right?

SPEAKER_01 23:45

I'm in there. I'm in there. But my body thinks that it's at high risk. It's like, it's catastrophizing. I am going to die in the next 10 minutes. But the reality is, it's okay. Everything's okay. And I am, I've got a cup of tea here. I'm leaning in on my breathing. I have some peaceful, relaxing music that you can't hear that I have playing in the background to just help me focus on my breath. And those are the things that are helping me right now. But I want to ask you a question. Um, if you were to have a 10-year-old or just anyone asked you, what does mindfulness actually mean? How would you explain it?

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Well, you know, again, I would I I I I think I've touched on it by saying, you know, I again, like Zen, I think mindfulness is is a um uh a code word for being more fully human, living more fully with wonder. But I might um, you know, I might touch on uh what are sometimes called the um the four marks or the four seals of of Buddhism or mindfulness or or zen. Uh Tik Nan Han talks a lot about these, and these are you know that that you know pain and suffering and and shifting one's relationship with pain and suffering. The um the concept of uh self and selflessness and seeing that you know that that what we call self is is convenient, but it's a convenient fiction or placeholder. Um the the reality of uh change or impermanence, you know, that that um we we we are very uh adept at thinking that that one thing is connected to another. The store, the story of our lives, the story of self, you know, but if you look in the mirror, it's kind of like, hmm, like there's something different about who's showing up here than who is showing up last year or ten year, you know, but but actually it's it's like who I am now is not who I am now. You know, that there's not there's not that this is the the the radical reality of uh impermanence. And the fourth uh uh the fourth seal or mark is that it's possible to find real freedom. It's possible to maybe to live uh more in a from a sense of wonder, uh even when things, you know, even when things are hard and not going your way, or or when times are as um I mean, it I I I find it a very uh challenging time to be living in the United States right now with our the current the United States and the world, you know, the um the the combination of you know our the wars, the violence, the politics, climate change, uh which is you know, I uh we're we're seeing we're we're seeing the uh ramifications of it. And um and I worry a lot about um nuclear proliferation, which it's funny how that's become down toward the bottom of things to worry about until until there's an event. And um, yeah, I think uh I I I think these um these practices in a way are you know how to live more fully with more satisfaction and joy in the midst of the challenges uh and uncertainty in our personal lives, you know, and you know, how do you how do you manage the reality that life is short, right? That that we know we know we will all die, we know that we will lose everything. And um how do you not uh ignore, suppress, or avoid that and find a sense of satisfaction and wonder?

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

That's my that's my yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

I love it because it's like and it's powerful. And I think that one of the things that I have found that people try to separate, you know, oh, I have my spirituality here, whether that be whatever practice they have, and then I have my work life over here. But like one of the things that's fascinating about you is that you've integrated this, you are a business person, and you helped bring mindfulness into Google. Like, what surprised you the most about highly successful people once you got to know them and and bringing these practices to those places?

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yeah, that um in some way they were they were so highly successful and driven, you know, that they didn't even realize the price they were paying for their drivenness and success. And that it was there was tremendous interest and eagerness to um to open, you know, to open their minds and hearts, uh, to connect more deeply with what to even to even to ask the questions, you know, what's what's really important to me? Uh what's the quality of my listening to myself, the quality of my listening to others? Uh yeah, and um and I think that's true, you know, uh everywhere. It doesn't matter whether you know you're in the business world or or you know, I these days I I find myself working with doctors and surgeons, and I've I've worked with lawyers and CEOs of big big companies. You know, we're we human beings, again, there's tremendous, and partly I think once you start asking these deeper questions, you find out uh amazing similarities that we all we're all struggling. You know, we're all very we're all quite vulnerable, and we all, you know, we all aspire to find um meaning and purpose and safety and connection and to love and be loved, you know. Yeah, everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

I had um an interview that I did just a week or so ago with a guest who is a big business coach, and he was talking to me about how he had this event that he was coaching um a major tech company. And he was like, he thought it was interesting that everyone, you know, would see this person and go, This guy is the stalwart, the CEO is, you know, he knows what he's doing. He is, you know, everyone sees him on TV and they're like, Yeah, that guy's huge, man. That guy's and this guy said he was in the meeting and the CEO said, All right, I need everyone out of the room. And the coach was like getting ready to leave too. He's like, No, I need you to stay. And um when the uh everyone walked out of the room, he's like, What's going on? He's like, I'm a fraud. And like, well, you're you're like, fraud, fraud? Like, you know, you're going to jail. He's like, No, no, no. I I'm a fraud. I don't know what I'm doing. I am in out of my, I am out of my element. I am in over my head. I am terrified. I am like dealing with massive anxiety. I'm so scared that someone's gonna find out that I don't know how to run this huge company, you know, and in it like this imposter syndrome. And he was like, you have to simply sit and figure out how to be there, you know? And I wanted to ask you like, for whether the someone's a huge successful business owner or even a little kid, why is it so hard for human beings to simply sit still and be alone with their thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 32:04

Well, we I think we humans are are you know quite um complicated beings. You know, as you were talking about um yeah, this the the story that that you were telling about your daughter and causes and conditions, you know, there's there's um I've been studying lately um uh epigenetics, which is which is that our you know study study done uh that if you uh if you traumatize a a rat to the smell of peppermint, um that rat's offspring will be traumatized to the smell of peppermint without ever having been traumatized by peppermint, and that rat's seven generations will be traumatized. So, you know, so I think uh maybe uh there there's maybe two main reasons that we uh need these practices or that we struggle, as you say, with just being with our you know, just why can't we just be happy? Because um most of us were raised by highly imperfect parents in highly imperfect situations, and we we all have in us, you know, the uh World War II, the Vietnam War, the Holocaust, you know, those are those were pretty, those are the those, I think, uh incredibly violent, difficult um events are all in us. But the good news is also in us is tremendous love and compassion. And so we are, we are from what we've learned and what we've inherited. We're this amazing mix of um of strains and you know, of effort and effortlessness, of compassion and fear. Uh and we're built, we're just we're I think we're just built that way. And um and yeah, so and you know, and many of us come into the world with tremendous depression or anxiety, or um, yeah, that we we we have there's a lot that we just need to work, you know, to work with, to find, to find it takes work, I think. And that was, I think, the big one of the big aha's 2500 years ago of the historical Buddha was um we we need to work at shedding, shedding our you know, mistaken beliefs and our and our fears and uh and that you know his answer was you know through meditation practice, through through, you know, again and again and again letting letting whatever's there arise and letting it letting it go. And uh, and that um there didn't seem to be shortcuts. I mean, some people think psychic, you know, psychedelics are a shortcut, but I think um what uh what the research is showing that it's not particularly uh sustainable or easily integrated, whereas um, you know, the slow and more uh uh the route of ongoing practice and and also I think living in community, learning from each other is um it's not, you know, I I'm often teaching that um meditation practice was never meant to be an individual sport. Uh it's a group, it's a group activity, and we we learn so much by uh working, working with others and practicing with others. I love that. That was also one of my big aha's, you know, living, living in the Zen monastery, you were always sitting with other people and you were working with other people, and there was so much growth and learning in that. That's what I love about leadership. I've learned so much, and I continue to learn so much about you know, you know, having working with people toward a shared vision, and like there's no, there's many, many lessons in leadership and working together.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

How do you think people can work to better? How can we work together better? What are some of the principles that are most powerful to do and to have to be a great leader and to have a great team?

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Yeah. Well, I think all of these, you know, you know, in some way, these um these four marks that I talked about, or all of these kind of ideas and practices can be brought into how we how we work together so that we can, you know, one of the really important um skills and competencies is is learning how to work with conflict and lack of alignment. How do you how do you actually not avoid and suppress because we our experience the way we experience the world in each other is unique and different. We're going to have conflict. Uh so being able to skillfully uh address and find alignment where there is lack of alignment is a crucial one of the many kind of crucial skills in working together.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

I love the idea of finding alignment and to how we can create that alignment and create the space where um I have a team of the most diverse um personalities you could imagine. And I think that one of the biggest challenges I've had is trying to figure out how to bring them all together to achieve a common goal. Some of and I tell them like you don't have to like each other, we don't have to be perfect, but we do have to find ways to create together and make it fun, make it beautiful in the interim. And I think that we've had, I've had some success with using humor and comedy and fun to do that. And, you know, what is the tool that you use? You know, I I think that for each person it's different. And I know that what's worked for me, but that doesn't mean that it's going to work for everyone, you know?

SPEAKER_00 38:58

Yeah. Well, I think um, you know, lightheartedness and humor is a very powerful tool. Um, you know, expressing a compelling vision, like this is this is the why we're doing, this is the impact that we're wanting to have, and making it as clear as possible how each per you know what each person's role is in helping to support that impact that you're wanting to have in in the world. So it's a yeah. So I think all, you know, I think I think, you know, it's it's not one thing. I think it's a a whole, the more you have a really uh deep and wide toolkit of tools and practices for uh building building a great team. You know, one of the things, um, you know, Google did a really interesting study uh called uh Google Aristotle, in which they wanted to know what was it that made great teams? And and they uh they went into it with a real you know uh unbiased, really not knowing, but they noticed, they noticed that some teams were really much more effective than other teams. And um, and what they discovered, the the number one factor that they uh came to the top of their study was psychological safety, right? That people felt safe on a team to express their opinion or to have to have doubts, you know, or to to be vulner to be vulnerable, that you know, that that the team wasn't uh overly um uh uh biased toward one person lead leading it, and everyone had a voice. I mean, they also discovered that um clear, clear roles was important, and also meaning and purpose were were these were their their findings uh in the different um factors that led to really effective teams. And again, it's easy to say, you know, it's easy to say psychological safety is like, man, it takes work. You know, there's um what what I've noticed in the work world, there's a lot of cynicism. Any any place where you have money and power and titles and roles, uh, it's e it's very easy to be cynical. It takes real skill and awareness and work to have an environment that feels healthy, healthy and vibrant and safe, even as you're you know, as you're describing, you know, like even with your small team, you know. Uh but imagine, you know, once you once you put you know 20 people in the room, 2,000 people in the room, 20,000 people. Right. And I I'm I'm I a lot, I I keep hearing the word when I when I when people open up to me, they're like, the this is a really toxic culture in which I'm working within, that I don't people don't feel safe, people don't feel seen. It's um that's hard.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

I it's fascinating too, because um I think people feel powerless, you know, to change, whether it be the comp the the head of the company. Because I know when I started my company and it was just two people, me and my wife, it was way easier to control the culture. And I had some different editors, it was just us. But then we added people. And now when we crossed, we have like 20 some odd employees now. I mean, when we crossed 12, there was this thing that happened where it kind of took a life in its own. And there were some points where I was just like, whoa, culture went from here to here. And we had to kind of realign and we found a way to do it. And I again, I was just making sure that we were all on the same page and making it fun and having great team building. But there were times and days where I also had to just respect that I couldn't control everything. That there was this, let's find out how to dance with where things are at. And, you know, and I think it was this beautiful ability to always be learning that has helped me, you know, and I don't know. It's a it's a journey, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, I think being a, you know, being a learner or, you know, there's a um a book that came out of Stanford many years ago called Mindset, you know, and it talks about a the importance of having a flexible mindset and not falling into the the trap of having a fixed mindset, right? So especially when you're working with other people or trying to build a team, it's a it's um a constant learning situation. You know, my um the first company that I I mentioned, um publishing company, we uh we published greeting cards with quotes, and one of my favorite cards said, um, my life is one learning experience after another. By the end of the week, I should be a genius. So I think that that mindset of uh constant learning.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

I love that. If you could for someone today who's listening, who just feels overwhelmed with life, who doesn't know where to start to make a change, to make a shift, to find more joy, to find more hope, what would you tell them to focus on today?

SPEAKER_00 44:51

Uh I might say go read Siddhartha. Right. Uh read Siddhartha and read um Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Yeah. Uh and um Yeah. Uh uh and and maybe spend more time outside. You know, spend more time in nature. Uh schedule uh a daily a daily walk in the in the woods if you can. And just some, you know, maybe I think of it maybe as the the practice of living more here on earth. Uh um it's a one of my favorite um Tik Nathan, right? The Vietnamese Zen master, one of his quotes is um, uh the real miracle isn't to walk on water, uh, the real miracle is to walk right here on earth. Uh so even just to spend, you know, yeah, go walk on earth. Feel feel the feel the earth beneath your feet. Try it out.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

Right. Where can people find out more about you and what you do?

SPEAKER_00 46:05

Um well it's funny. I've recently uh I have a a few new people have come to me. Apparently, AI has been very good to me. That uh uh Claude and ChatGPT have been, if you look for a coach or a consultant who uh brings both the business and the uh mindfulness, I'm I'm being I'm being re- I'm getting some really interesting referrals. But I have a website uh which is my name, Marklesser.net, M-A-R-C, L E S S-E-R.net, and it talks about my my coaching trainings and speaking. And yeah, and there's a lot there, different um uh yeah. And I've and and I've written five books now. And the book I would recommend is um uh Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader, uh Lessons from Google and a Zen Monastery Kitchen is the subtitle.