Conversations about the power of mindfulness meditation for stress, anxiety, deepening awareness and living with ease. Listen as international teachers and practitioners share their insights on how meditation helped them find clarity, inspiration, creativity, wisdom, strength. Mindfulness is a powerful tool to manage stress, anxiety and the challenges in life with courage and compassion. Produced, created and hosted by Dena Argyropoulou. In each episode you'll learn practical tips on how to start a meditation practice at home, how to face the most common meditation challenges and the power that comes when you work with your mind through mindfulness meditation. Each episode will help inspire you to create the meditation practice you've always wanted! Create the meditation practice you've always wanted with Dena, your personal meditation teacher. https://www.denaargyropoulou.com/sessions re/st your mind νιούζλετερ - διαλογισμός για να ξεκουράσεις το νου σου, ένα email που δεν θα σε αγχώνει. https://denaargyropoulou.substack.com/ GET DENA'S book "CLARITY OF MIND IS POWER: a 5-week journal to support your meditation practice and train your mind to see clearly." https://www.denaargyropoulou.com/book Produced, created and hosted by Dena Argyropoulou. Sound editing and mixing by Dimitris Misirlis at Matrix Recording Studio, Athens, Greece. Song "In a world" written and performed by Tiger Gang. First and foremost, Cecily is a mom of two boys, who knows the pressures and challenges of modern life. For most of her adult life, she has been working full time as a lawyer and executive with leading start-ups and their founders to bridge analog and digital experiences in the fields of music, publishing, VR, mindfulness/wellbeing, and now crypto. She currently serves as the COO of Blockdaemon, the world’s largest crypto infrastructure company. She has helped grow the team from 25 people to over 300 today. Along with authors Jack Kornfield and Yung Pueblo, Cecily also co-founded Wisdom Ventures, which is devoted to building a future of greater human connection and well-being. Cecily is the child of a deceased alcoholic who had a beautiful exterior and a tormented interior life. Her most heartfelt work, in addition to the privilege of raising her two sons and her Buddhist practice, is serving as an ally and guide for people seeking to move from a life dictated by fear and numbing to one of deeper connection, clarity, and well-being. Whether parenting her children, building the next generation crypto company, or founding innovative new venture capital firms, Cecily uses the lessons she has developed in ClearLife to show women and men that there is a way to meet life that is unencumbered by the past, and that clarity and heartfulness is accessible to us all. Photo credit: Erica Mueller Photography
Conversations about the power of mindfulness meditation for stress, anxiety, deepening awareness and living with ease. Listen as international teachers and practitioners share their insights on how meditation helped them find clarity, inspiration, creativity, wisdom, strength. Mindfulness is a powerful tool to manage stress, anxiety and the challenges in life with courage and compassion. Produced, created and hosted by Dena Argyropoulou.
In each episode you'll learn practical tips on how to start a meditation practice at home, how to face the most common meditation challenges and the power that comes when you work with your mind through mindfulness meditation.
Each episode will help inspire you to create the meditation practice you've always wanted!
Create the meditation practice you've always wanted with Dena, your personal meditation teacher. https://www.denaargyropoulou.com/sessions
re/st your mind νιούζλετερ - διαλογισμός για να ξεκουράσεις το νου σου, ένα email που δεν θα σε αγχώνει. https://denaargyropoulou.substack.com/
GET DENA'S book "CLARITY OF MIND IS POWER: a 5-week journal to support your meditation practice and train your mind to see clearly." https://www.denaargyropoulou.com/book
Produced, created and hosted by Dena Argyropoulou. Sound editing and mixing by Dimitris Misirlis at Matrix Recording Studio, Athens, Greece. Song "In a world" written and performed by Tiger Gang.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Meditation is not what you think. You don't have to stop your mind from thinking, sit in any weird postures or make any bizarre sounds. All you need is a little guidance. And after that, the practice will show you the way. I'm Dena Argyropoulou a meditation instructor and creator of The One Fierce Heart Podcast. And in each episode, I talk with experienced teachers and practitioners to demystify meditation, giving you practical tips on how to start ways to face the challenges, while also acknowledging the transformative power and clarity that come with meditation. So please join us as we dive deeper into this mysterious, yet ridiculously simple practice that's been around for over two and a half thousand years. So take a deep breath, let it go. And let's begin.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Today's guest is Cecily Mak, who's really, really fun to hang out with. I met her in person this year. And first and foremost, Cecily is a mom of two boys. And for most of her adult life, she has been working as a lawyer and executive with leading startups to combine analog and digital experiences in various fields. She currently is the COO of Blockdaemon, which is the world's largest crypto infrastructure company. And together with Jack Field and Hug Pueblo, she has co-founded Wisdom Ventures, which is a fund devoted to building a future of greater human connection and wellbeing. Cecily is the child of a deceased alcoholic who had a beautiful exterior and a tormented interior life. She uses the lessons she has developed in clear life, and you'll hear her talk about this in the episode today. And she wants to show men and women that there is a way to live with clarity and heartfulness, and that is accessible to all of us. So here, Cecily. Cecily, I am so excited to have you here at the One Fierce Heart Podcast. Thank you so much for being my guest today.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Oh, it's my, my delight. Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
And I'm gonna jump right into this question I have for you, which is, knowing your background, technology, startups, all those wonderful things, how did meditation and mindfulness come into play for you, where you wanted to combine the two, and how did that evolve?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Hmm, so that's a good question. My journey is a bit of an unconventional one in that I discovered the power of mindfulness and, and presence and meditation and a practice and a range of different flavors. Pretty young. I was reading Be Here Now in high school, and I found my way to India when I was 19, the first of three trips I had over, over the following years. And that all predated going to law school and then starting a fairly conventional legal and business career in 2001. And so I always felt like my, my personal private practice orientation and life was very separate from my business work and identity for many years. I worked to keep these two orientations quite separate, My business identity, my business life, and then my personal and my practice life. And at a certain point along the way, I realized that all of business and all of software, all of tech, all these orientations we have, are actually developed by and being operated by and created and expressed by the people behind them.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
And so while the outward expression is a tech or a, an app or a website or service, there are actually people, human beings behind that veil who are developing the human experience on the other end. And being within the startups where we were doing everything from writing the code to crafting the marketing, to developing our own editorial content, I could see that people were just human beings trying to find new channels and new modalities with which to connect with other human beings. And as I started recognizing that, I realized that we have an incredible opportunity as developers within the tech space, whichever part of an organization you're in, to integrate a lot of these practices into the way we work, whether that's explicit and known to our peers or not. So about 15 years ago, I was in the music industry in a, in a music tech company, and I started just bringing some of my learnings and awarenesses from my practice into my day to day work.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
And then I did that later in a publishing startup. And later now I'm in crypto. And for a long time I was still relatively quiet about it, but I was very aware that the energy that I brought to off the office every day impacted the way that other communications happened, and ultimately how product is developed, how we described what we were developing, how we related to our customers. So it became very fluid and very integrated. And in my last role as the CIO of a company that I've helped to build from 11 to 270 in two years, I'm much more explicit about it. I am much less secretive about it. Everybody with whom I work knows that I have a, a practice and a and an area of focus in my own personal life around mindfulness and wellbeing. And I bring it forth to the company is part of our company values. We are transparent, we are human, we are vulnerable, we are open. And so my regular work in those areas helps me actually be a better COO for a crypto software company in an unexpected and now very open and public way, which is a ton of fun. And I'm discovering as part of that, that people love it and they wanna learn more, and it's making them feel more comfortable about connecting those two spheres of their identity as well.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
That's amazing. And congratulations first off, and how lucky those people are to have you and, and have you bring that energy there with them. Oh, thank you. That's that's, that's amazing. And it, it makes me think of like how all these years, you know, that have gone by how, what you said, it was very secretive. Things were completely separate. Like, I'm just gonna meditate, or I'm just going to do this own personal thing. And then this work thing is, is separate. But then like you said, like things that we create are created through us so they can't be separate because they're not, because, you know, which I think there's, that's where that whole disconnect comes from, right? Mm-Hmm. , if we're disconnected from ourselves and then whatever we create, we'll feel disconnected. Maybe, I don't know, maybe not, but
Speaker 2 (07:17):
No,
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Absolutely consider that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
And it's exhausting to try to track two identities, frankly. I think people are finding a fair amount of relief in their, in their freedom to bring their full self to work. And interestingly, I think the global pandemic and experience of Covid, particularly for people who work in tech, who had to adapt to working remote, but frankly across countless industries, has really helped this because we don't put on this identity or outfit and commute and show up in an office, and then we're all in the singular environment where we can play a game of monotony throughout the day. We are actually, as we are now, zooming in or connecting across the planet from our living rooms or our kitchens, and there are kids and dogs in the background and internet crashes, and that's my alarm clock. I forgot to turn off. Or we kind of are developing this intimacy with one another because we are able to bring our more complete and full selves to work.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I for a long time had a little Buddha statue on the window behind me where I do my Zoom calls for my COO role. And it was a few weeks in when I realized that was visible to the people with whom I was collaborating every day. And I had a moment of, do I remove that? Is that weird? And then I thought, you know, it's just kind of part of who I am. I sit at my kitchen table and I have this beautiful gift of a budha that sits behind me because it's in our kitchen and you know, we're still doing a great job building this company. It's not hurting anybody. And I later found that it actually helped people develop some intimacy and some vulnerability. And then they come to me and they share some of their personal experience. And I've really loved that part of this work.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And this makes me think of how meditation practice is really a practice of bringing pieces of myself together. And they slowly are coming back together and they're exposed, like you said, you know, do I expose this little Buddha statue? Do I expose whatever I have in the background? And that's how meditation feels like sometimes or has, has been my experience where like all these pieces of myself come together and I allow the space for them to exist. Whereas before I didn't have that right? For me before was like, I hate my body. I don't want this, you know, let me push this away. Let me do this and, and not touch that. But now I have that space and capacity to allow the pieces to come together and show them with the world too. That's So what has been your experience with meditation?
Speaker 2 (10:03):
That's so beautiful. Gosh, you know, I think we all have our own versions and at different times in life too. So I'm in my late forties now and my experience with meditation in my younger years was probably most profound in granting me access to something I think you were just touching on, which is what I refer to as my intuition. Or we think about as our gut or our inner voice is used by some authors these days. I think we are all born with our own inner compass or knowing of what's right or wrong or resonant for us. And we're so remarkably conditioned from a very young age with the word should, You should do this, you shouldn't do that. How we should dress, what we shouldn't show, what we should say, not say, arrive, whatever it is. And I found in my earlier years of meditation, having come from a family very rich in some very clearly culturally defined conditioning, that I was able to really tune into my own intuitive voice.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
And it felt like a superpower. Felt like I could make really important decisions throughout my twenties and into my early thirties based on this guidance that I felt special to have access to. And I really was able to attribute that to practice, whether it was extended periods of time, of daily practice or immersive retreats. And there have been times, you know, that was earlier, I think in my thirties and perhaps into my early forties, I was a bit more disconnected from that. I was in the just chaos of, of very intense career chapter and having small children in the house and a lot of pressures of commute and family and finances and everything else. And I, I kind of lost touch with it for a little while. And now I find one of the greatest gifts that my practice offers me today is really kind of coming down to what feels like a home within myself.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
A little bit of what you were just describing. There's a, there's a spaciousness for all of the rooms of our being and we can venture into different parts of ourselves with relative ease and stay calm throughout our day regardless what arises. And I find that it enables me to really be very present with whatever it is I'm doing, all of which feels really important right now. Cause I've taken the time to curate my life in a way so that I really drive my attention towards things that are most important to me. And so it might be from seven to 8:00 AM really being with my sons as we're preparing their meal for the day and making sure we have the right paperwork signed for school, and then getting them off and out the door. And within three minutes leading an executive meeting with my team around the planet via Zoom, and there's an easefulness with which I can do that now, that I think is really fueled by, even if it's just a few minutes in the morning, just to kind of be and recognize all the rooms of the, of the inner being house and how easy it is to access them.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So that's really one. And I think also being less fearful of being vulnerable with people as well. I, I found a, a new found ability to be really open and transparent with people about my own struggles, which then gives them the freedom to do the same with me. And that's just been an extraordinary gift across personal life, professional life, parenting, family, all of it.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Wow. It's, so, first off, I love the room, house room analogy or metaphor. I don't know which one is the right word, but it's like almost where I'm not afraid to open that door anymore in the whatever rooms come up, you know, in my spaciousness of being, like you said, there's like, it's, I'm less afraid to open that door and see what's behind it. And then, like you said, walk with these. That's so beautiful. You said it, you said it beautifully. How amazing. And that courage too to kind of like be vulnerable and, and exist and coexist with other people. And one thing that has come up for me lately is the difficulty emotions. Cuz I know a lot of us, all of us humans struggle with difficult emotions. Mm-Hmm. and anger is a big is like so so, so difficult, which has come up for me lately. And it's something that I'm trying to manage and, you know, handle with ease and it's such a, it's, yeah. I don't know if you have like any insights or stories or whatever you wanna share about anger, which is so freaking hard.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Sure. I mean, anger is such a, it's such a, it's such a interesting one cuz it's such a base deep core. I mean, we feel it in our body, we feel it in our heart and our gut. It can cloud our head, it can make our jaw clench, our eyes pop, you know, it's a, it's a physical as well as an internal experience. And for a long time I think I perceived anger as something I needed to control. Like you need to be able to, you know, sense yourself and not feel anger. That was the trium feel. Let's overcome anger. Yep. And I don't think that's it anymore. I, I actually think anger plays a really important role in, in our lives as human beings. It is an alarm bell. It is a call to us to pay attention to this, whatever this is something is challenging, threatening, encroaching, violating.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
And I think too much in our culture when we feel that we, we try to dismiss it, unfortunately, we also can do things like, do whatever we need to dim our emotion as a result. Like have the drink, smoke a joint, take a run, you know, spend money. Like we, we do these things to escape the experience of the emotion as opposed to just open the door, invite anger into the house, offer it tea. Let's hear, I would like to hear you. What are you trying to tell me? What am I, what have I not followed the subtle cues on up into this moment or now we are in a state of, you know, four alarm, five alarm moment. And often, I mean, you have to be calm to have that reflection within yourself, but you also, I think may wanna not dismiss it or, or ban it from the premises.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
And I don't know, I see this, I can't say I'm terribly successful in this myself. I try to be, that's what I aspire to. And at times I'm wonderful at times I really fail. But I, I saw this recently with a friend who was really experiencing something very challenging in her personal relationship. And she was really trying to dismiss and ignore the anger she was feeling cuz it was disruptive, it was causing problems. And, you know, and she took some time away and really reflected for a while. She realized that actually this was being provoked by something that she needed to pay attention to. Her intuitive voice was telling her that something was not right and the anger was a way to get her to snap out of a habit or a pattern or a behavior and stop accepting something that actually wasn't okay with her.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
And so she ended up, after a lengthy cycle of a lot, lot of reflection, kind of being grateful for her anger. Like I needed that alarm be, I needed that physical reaction that stopped me in my tracks. I think for women also, one thing that's interesting is sometimes we experience anger not only as a physical, you know, temperature rises or the heart races, whatever it is, but sometimes we end up with physical, like health expressions of it. Like, we'll have a skin problem or we'll experience hair loss or teeth grinding or it, it, it, we're so good at kind of being compliant and accommodating just as a gender in a way. We've been trained and conditioned this way socially, that sometimes it's just one little layer beneath the surface too. And it's important to pay attention to those signals as well before something really more difficult happens. So, but I get it. It's a, it's a tough one in all areas in life,
Speaker 1 (18:42):
So hard. But I so appreciate you saying that. And yes, I completely agree because it is hard. It's been hard for women too, and that has been my experience. You know, I just shoved it in there and now like it exploded and mm-hmm. , I'm grateful though that I feel strong enough and have the internal spaciousness and capacity to see. And like you said, it's like a mass form of wisdom, right? Like the Buddhist say, it's like one of those things where it's just an instant mass force form, you know, form of wisdom, which is, is difficult and awesome at the same time. But beautiful, beautiful. And I know you are writing a book, speaking of being vulnerable tell us all about that.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Oh, well I didn't plan to write a book. I've written other kind of business things in the past. This is a personal personal journey story. And it's one of those things where I had such a profound life experience that I was compelled to write. And as I continued writing, I realized that some of my writing was already just through my social channels connecting with some people. And so I kept writing and then I realized I'd written so much that it was, it was well on its way to becoming a book. And here I am four years later and it's a 320 page manuscript. I'll be shopping around here soon. But the, the story is that it's very much on theme with what we've been talking about actually. So in 2011, I spent the last 30 days of the year or so helping my mother transition from a late stage esophageal cancer diagnosis to a very tragic death.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
She was quite young, she's in her sixties, and I had been her person, her enabler for decades of self medication, depression, agoraphobia, and frankly some, some tragically untreated mental health issues that were more easy to recognize once she was gone. And what followed was five years of my kind of starting to tread into her footsteps. I was also allowing a daily celebratory, have a drink after work habit, turn into a, let's just turn the volume down on the chaos of the day habit. And I was in this hamster wheel of activity. I had this executive role in a Silicon Valley startup. I had two young grade school children. My then husband was a DJ and we were partying on the weekends and spending more than we were making. And we were just in this crazy experience of looking magnificent. And beneath the circus being really quite unhappy, unhealthy and tortured and everything came to head in 2016, 17 when I really had to make the final decision to end our marriage and really take a step out of that life and lifestyle and assess how I wanted things to go from there.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I was 42 at the time. My children were five and nine. And as I was starting these transitions, which was actually remarkably five years ago this weekend, I I was encouraged by a friend to take a 30 day break from any type of I into, or, you know, any drink, any smoking, anything. And I didn't even question. It was an absolute yes, okay, if I'm gonna be making all these moves and changes that are going to impact my children and my finances and my relationships and my career, everything. I don't wanna have a regrettable kiss, text phone called signature. I wanna be crystal clear. And so I just started drinking a lot of herbal tea and I was able to better connect with my practice and walks outside. And I, I just did my best to be very intentional through that initial window of change.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
And then that 30 days became 60 days and then it became 90 days. And before I knew it, I was looking at around at what was a very surprisingly unhealthy looking life I had built around myself. And I think for me, I was using what was a habitual drinking tendency, which was never drunk, never got a dui, never had any rock bottom or crisis moment with alcohol. But that was my way to turn the volume of my own intuition down for years. And as I removed that from my life and some of the other things that followed, I started taking better care of my body. I started being less fearful about real connection with people close and emerging is close cuz I was less self protective. Everything in my life transformed. And so the book covers the period that started. The first chapter is really when my mother died.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
In the first third is about that five year period of just being in this very chaotic, busy optics, prioritizing way of life. The middle section of, of, of three parts is really about the transformation that happened. Once I was able to remove my own dimmers, my own dollars from my existence, and how I really crafted a new relationship with my kids. Most importantly how I learned that really everybody's doing their best and it doesn't really do much for us to carry, you know, feelings of, of frustration or anger around with us. I really kind of opened my heart to the struggles that my own family had been through, that led to some of their habits and tendencies. So I was able to really build a, an empathy muscle within my own being. And ultimately by the third part, started to listen to my heart again.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Instead of being so brain and mind driven in kind of crafting this successful looking existence, I've actually been able to tune into and let my heart navigate a bit more. And and perhaps more profoundly than anything else, forgive my mom. I mean, what I would give today to just have one meal with my mother and tell her I love her so much, I'm sorry that I didn't love her, maybe the way she needed to be loved when she was here. And thank her for how much I benefit from what she did teach me when she was healthy and well. And also I was able to forgive my ex-husband who's the father of my sons, and the woman that who, he's the woman who he's with, who he frankly was with before we separated. We invited them to Thanksgiving dinner this year and they joined us.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
And I had been able to just find this freedom in myself to not be weighted down in a way that was really causing a lot of harm and hurt in our immediate family, but also in our broader circle. And frankly, you know, I think generations before me, I think a lot of us are raised in a way to just look and appear and seem just so successful and wonderful. And it's a, it's a real heavy burden to carry. And I'm certainly from a family that, that communicated a lot in snark and jokes and we're really tough and really successful. But nobody said, I love you and now we all say I love you to each other. When we get off the phone and we kinda just have shifted. I, I feel the ripple effect of making a change within myself. And so that's really what the book is about.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
And I call it clear life cuz that's what it's felt like to me. And every once in a while I have these moments of pause or fearfulness around sharing so much of my own intimate family story and conversations with my kids that I have in there and just the details of my own journey. And then I'll get these, these, these messages from people I've never met who will reach out to me and say, I just want you to know I've following your story. And three months ago I stopped doing this thing. It might have been their sex addiction or their daily pot smoking, or their daily chardonnay habit. And these are all the things that have changed. And thank you so much for showing me that I didn't need to be labeled as having a problem or as an addict or go to AA or rehab. I had the power in myself to make a choice about how I wanna spend my time in my life and thank you. And they just, I get these message every single time they make me cry cuz I had a couple people like that in my path who I saw living differently, making certain changes. And it helped me on my own, on my own journey. So that's what the book is about.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for sharing that . I can't wait to read it. Thank you for, for being so vulnerable and sharing that. And I'm sure that it's it's gonna connect with a lot of people and, and it sounds like it was written with an open heart and you know, there's nothing more real and genuine than that I don't think right now. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Thank you. Thank you. No, it's been a lot of fun. It's been, it's been it's interesting to go through something really powerful transition and change wise in your life and then also be writing about it. I was, you know, the, the beginning of this transformation for me started five years ago and I started writing the book four years ago. So even the voice with which I write the first part when I go back and I edit now, it's, it's shocking to me how much my perspective has changed. So I talk about the events of that first year being separated and having to find my own little place and put the pieces of my life back together. And I still had a fair amount of resentment and anger and discussed in me and I've had to leave that there, even though I wanna edit it with my sentiment today and kinda share a little bit more of a tolerant view that is in my person now than I had a while ago.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
But the voice is very true cuz that was exactly how I felt in that time. And you know, the journey never ends. I mean that's also really interesting thing about writing a personal story. There's no the end and then everything was great after that. It's ongoing. I mean, I'm like, I, I'm having such a hard time just kind of closing it and finishing it off. Cuz every couple weeks something really wild will happen and I realize, you know, gosh, this is all still part of the story. I had my dad just two weeks ago say to me, you know, it's been, it's been, what has it been three years now, Cecil? What do you mean? So three years since you started this not drinking thing, you know, as he's having a cocktail and I'm saying, yeah, actually it's been about five. He's like, Hmm, interesting. I said, Yeah, it's been quite a journey, dad. And he says, Well, it's been kind of hard for the rest of us. Hmm. So interesting.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah. Why
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Is my choice to have apple juice in my glass? Well, you have vodka in yours. Hard for you. Like it's a whole nother book, right? , it's not, I have to stop at some point. ,
Speaker 1 (30:30):
You can write a collection, it could be like a series, a series of, of books, a whole collection for sure. It never stops, like you said, it just never stops. And it's this awareness, right? Like this clarity and the word catharsis came to mind when you said that as you were writing it, you felt this like, you know, cleansing, cathartic type of experience is what it sounded like to me that you had. And what a powerful experience that that is when that happens.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Thank you. I hope this is the hardest one to write. Wait, I, this is clear life. My next one I'm, I'm kind of writing in parallel, which is clear work, which is about how we've integrated a lot of these principles into running a company. And it's another area where I think we are changing as a culture around the world and how we work together. And part of it has to do with the fact that we work remotely and we just need to show up in a little bit more of a collaborative human first way. So there's a whole, whole universe of, of opportunity for new awareness and how humans actually work together, whether it's building software, supporting the environment, or helping women's issues or justice issues. It's just the world is changing and we're really empowered to have a positive impact depending on how we orient. It's fun, fun.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
I, I agree. And it's like, okay, you know, the generations before us, they tried, they tried that way, they tried their way and it clearly kind of failed or, or I don't wanna say failed, but you know, at least it didn't, you know, now it's like a different way. Let's try this way. Like, you tried your way, so now let's try this new thing and see, and see what happens. That's hopefully better. It feels like it's better, you know, it feels like it's not as destructive, but yeah. For human. So yeah, who knows for sure knows what's gonna happen. Anything can happen. That's my new like thing lately, like anything can happen, ,
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Anything can happen. And yeah, there's so much, there's so much there, good or bad. It's kind of in our, in our hands how we, we wanna orient to that. For sure.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
For sure. Absolutely. so what does the kind of future of, of what you talked about, like how we we work together and how we collaborate together, What does that kind of look like for you? Or, you know, how, how are you kind of integrating mindfulness and meditation and all that? Mm. I know it's like you said that, you know, you're bringing your whole self to work. But is there anything I don't know, exciting or, or Yeah, you, that comes to mind
Speaker 2 (33:08):
For sure. I mean, I think one, one thing I I'm seeing at least in, in my own company and in peer companies that I support or smaller startups I've invested in is I, I'm finding that people are a little bit less, at least internally competitive, which is really wonderful. There's kind of a apolitical orientation. I send a a weekly email to the entire company called T G I F, thank goodness it's Friday. And sometimes it's interviews. If people I wanna bring to the forefront of our collective awareness and the team, often it's my reflection on something important for the organization. This past Friday, I was writing about how important it is that we stay in a, we orientation as we continue to develop. So in our organization, we rarely see people present work product using the word I. Most of the time people are talking about the, we, most of the time we're celebrating each other's successes instead of highlighting our own.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
And this notion of, you know, high tides raise all boats or float all boats, whatever that great saying is, there's a wonderful Chinese version of it as well. But a, a strong foundation rises all. I think that's something that's really being compelled by our decentralized form of working. And it's reflected in technology, frankly, just the way that Web three works and that we are part of a collective. We are not in a singular individual orientation anymore. There's an interdependence that we all benefit from if we can architect things the right way. And of course, having good human beings who are coming from the right place in that co-creation is a really important ingredient of that. And I see it a lot in, it's actually it, it, we have so much attention these days on artificial intelligence, AI and, and virtual reality.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
And we tend to think about these technologies as separate from us this kind of other frontier on the other side of the screen, when in fact they're being created by people. So if we have a self optimizing political individualist and you know, god forbid racist or sexist person creating these digital experiences, the digital experiences are gonna be expressions of that orientation. And so it's actually on us together to be really aligned values wise with the broader interest of everybody who's going to use and touch that product in the long run. And, you know, just kind of taking it back to the human global level, I think that the, the pandemic in Covid in general was also one of these alarm bells. You can't just solve a problem in one corner of the planet and expect to be okay. This is actually a collective human effort.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
And how we align and orient around facing the challenges that we do as a species is going to directly impact how successful we are in overcoming our hurdles. This is extremely true for the environment. We're seeing this right now, real time. Yeah. We might have one country with wonderful policies and practices and good on them for keeping their admissions down and all the wonderful work that they're doing, but if they have a neighbor that doesn't abide by the same principles, the whole planet is going to suffer. Yeah. And you know, I think this translates across the board, whether it's our little work at home, at our laptop, at our kitchen table, or crafting global environmental policies, how we show up in the, the orientation, the place from where we arrive has a really big impact. And I think, you know, to come back to your question, that's, that's where having a personal practice and being a, a mindful present human being can go far beyond just the edges of our body or the four walls of our home.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
How we show up at work, whether it's with an era of inclusiveness and optimism or open-mindedness and calmness in the face of challenge. It, it has a big effect on things and people well beyond our visibility. And so everybody doing their part can have a significant global impact. And it sounds vast and grand, but it's absolutely true. And I hope that as we continue to raise awareness about the role we can each play in crafting a better experience and world for not only our generation, but future ones the better off we're all gonna be. And you know, your work is part of that. You're raising awareness and it's really important area, which is beautiful, and we're seeing it across the board. Their entire cities. New York City is launching, you know, an initiative to get every New Yorker meditating. Like, wow, really? I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Yes. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I'll follow up and give you some information about that. Yeah. but this is it's, it's every time we kind of step forward and, and reconnect our personal lives and our own work with what is visible, the more we allow space for others to do the same. And that, you know, peer or colleague who's working out of their basement in Dublin might find themselves perky up saying, I have a meditation practice too, and they find community with somebody on the other side of the planet and we can together have an impact. And sometimes very subtle, but long, long term impacting ways.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
I love it. That's so important. And you know, it may sound like these grand phrases and words and ideas and concepts, but I have seen it happen in real life, like in a, on a micro level. Like if I can influence my mother
Speaker 2 (39:16):
,
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Who's like in my grandmother, like even a tiny bit, like these generational wounds, if I can even like hold that space for them to start healing and being exposed, then it can happen on every level, you know?
Speaker 2 (39:35):
So true. And everyone she reaches or touches in a day will feel different because she feels different.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Exactly. So this ripple effect, and I'm, I'm excited to see where it's going. I get discouraged sometimes, to be honest with you. I get disappointed in people, but I have to like remember that we're human, but it's really fucking hard to do
Speaker 2 (39:56):
. Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah. And we're all learning. I mean, none of us is perfect. And in fact, sometimes just being a mess sometimes also is really helpful for other people to see like
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Ourselves too. Like I'm a hot mess today and
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Totally. And it's fine. I mean, I had so many years where I was so immaculately presented for work. I mean the high heels and the perfect clothes and the perfect hair, oh my gosh, makeup and handbag and the whole nine yards . And I love it that I can kind of show up with my hair not washed and glasses and a hoodie for my APAC team every other week at 6:00 AM my time. It's like, sorry guys. Like the sun hasn't risen here yet, so you're lucky I got a cup of coffee in you without waking the kids up so we could have this conversation. And they love it. It's like, okay, phew. We can all just gotta come back down to earth and spend less energy on this surface layer crap and just be real with each other. This is, yeah, not, this is where the magic happens. How
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Pressure is that pressure? There's like pressure from everywhere. I'm so excited. I'm so glad you're doing this work. And thank you. As we are approaching the end of our talk, is there anything you'd like to share with the listeners? I don't know. Anything that comes to mind.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Oh, you're so sweet. I think, I think you know, for me, I always love encouraging people to take time to listen to themselves. You know, we talked about inviting anger when it shows up in for a cup of tea and kind of listen. It's not always, sometimes it's not anger. Sometimes it's one of the other big feelings or experiences we have. And I think we spend so much time in a do orientation in life. We don't spend enough time in a just be orientation and even just finding 5, 15, 30 minutes a day, you know, meditation might be hard for you. You don't need to sit in the perfect posture and empty your mind of thoughts. I mean, these are, these are big, lofty goals. Just take a five minute, 10 minute walk outside and allow yourself to hear your own voice and b in that space.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
And those are just the baby steps to transforming life. And whether it's sometimes a little whisper in us, you know, start that thing before it's too late, or maybe something about this relationship is really challenging, or maybe you should, you know, take a little space from something that feels too difficult for you to process. Those have been the most profoundly important seeds of shift for me. We talked a little bit about my mom at one point. I actually, I had, had, had a severe back injury and I couldn't figure out why, did all the physical cure stuff and then a very wise person advise me, you know, there might be something inside you that's affecting your body in this way. And I finally figured out I had been carrying the weight of her. And when I decided to put her down for a little while, like, stop carrying the weight, then I started experiencing this wonderful physical healing.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
And that meant I referred to it as I broke up with my mom for a while. Like, I love her to death, but I, I had to call her and say, to take care of my own little family and my own little health in life right now. I need no contact with you for a bit. It's just too much for me to carry. And if I hadn't listened to that, I don't know that I would've had that opportunity. And so, I don't know, just a parting thought. Make sure in all of you're doing for everybody else and everything else in life, take a little time to tune into yourself and whatever looks that looks like for you and sometimes that's the most important thing.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
This podcast is created for people like you who want to finally find out what this meditation hype is all about. The one Fierce Heart podcast is produced and hosted by me, the sound editing and mixing by Matrix recording Studio in Athens, Greece.