Speaker 1 · 0:03Welcome everyone. I'm Sean Fargo, and it's my personal and professional pleasure to welcome Michael Taft here today. Michael's one of those individuals that really combines a nice depth and breadth, in my opinion. Like the more you get to know Michael, the more you listen to him, the more you really get a sense of the depth of his practice. So for those of you who don't know, he's the host of the Deconstructing Yourself podcast. He has the popular website, deconstructingyourself.com. He is a senior facilitator for the Chinese Young's unified mindfulness system. He wrote a best-selling book called The Mindful Geek. He teaches all sorts of different professional teams and all of the major like tech companies you've ever heard of. He's a core faculty for Wisdom Labs in San Francisco. Michael, it's a pleasure to welcome you here today. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 2 · 1:45There's some kind of human connection there. And so that spirit of generosity and just putting it out there, that's why I'm saying, hey, just start teaching somebody. Just start working with a group and sharing, because it starts to build that sense of generosity and also it starts to show you that people will just like working with you. And I mean, of course, if yourself has a bunch of rough edges that are not helping your teaching, we want to make sure that we are, let's say, if I'm just being myself, I'm being really rude to people. Okay, that's maybe not helping that much, right? So I don't want to take it too far. But on the other hand, congruence is super important. People can tell if you're being congruent. And we have millions of years of evolution that are like teaching us to notice if people are lying. And so that congruence is everything. That kind of being yourself absolutely crucial. And yet, what I've seen is that then we can kind of get into conformity about what it looks like to be mindful that looks a certain way, but it doesn't. It has its own flavor with different people. So I've noticed that there can be a kind of a way mindfulness people are supposed to be. And that is its own trap, right? So again, it has to be coming from within in a certain way, right? Like an authentic manner. You know, of course, mindfulness comes from a religion. It's coming from initially from Buddhist religion. And there's certainly a way of teaching it that is entirely religious, where we're learning Buddhism and being Buddhists and honoring the Buddha and so on. And that's like kind of the full religious package. And that's a beautiful thing for what it is, right? For those who want to do that, for those who want to engage in that way, that's wonderful. When we're going out into the corporate world or like governmental stuff, oftentimes we're finding people who actually aren't allowed to do something like that. As part of the job, it would be actually illegal or against the rules to bring in something that was explicitly religious. And so sometimes the way to bring in some of these teachings is to completely remove all of that, all the explicitly religious components, and go just with science studies and with, you know, here's the techniques, and here's what this is shown to do, and so on. These are opposite poles, right? There's one where it's kind of a religion and a practice coming out of a religion, and another one where it's very, very, very secular. And so what I used to see like 10 years ago was people who were actually coming from Buddhist religion and then sort of trying to go to the secular place, but really still coming from religion. And so it was very, I don't mean personally coming from religion, because of course they're allowed to do that, but I mean in the presentation, it was still kind of mixed in there in a way that was not working very well, especially in Silicon Valley, where we have a tremendous number of people who are like allergic to that. In the tech industry, it's like a bunch of tech bros who have been raised on 4chan who are just hyper-aggressively atheists, though they are very against it because any mention of anything religious is just they're out the door. And then, of course, you're aware of the you know, sort of religious version of that, the coming almost from the opposite end. And so it's very, very, very crucial to, I mean, this is just obvious, but to ask in advance as much information as you can about the audience and really massage the message to fit their belief structure, you know, where they would learn to do mindfulness unless you used the word Buddha once. If you saw the word Buddha, they were out of the room. So I mean, you couldn't kind of sort of make it kind of spiritual. It either needed to be completely non-spiritual to the nth degree, or you weren't going to teach them to meditate today. So that's for example why I wrote the book, The Mindful Geek. I mean, I think the word Buddhism is in there maybe once, and it's in the intro. Because I was learning how to do that that way, because I realized that as a someone who wants to bring power of meditation, power of mindfulness to people, I realized there's a whole gigantic audience that wouldn't even listen to me the first sentence out of my mouth if I made it Buddhism. I just had to learn to describe it in this extremely secular manner. And so it's not necessarily the case that you are selling out mindfulness if you're making it available to people who wouldn't otherwise listen to you. It's a lot more about your intention. If you're bringing it in in a way that is going to help open people's hearts, that is going to help people relax more, help people relate to others better. You know, that's a beautiful intention that I think anyone who was teaching mindfulness from the religious perspective would honor that you were doing that. And that, at least in my opinion, would be happy that you put that into a container that people could learn it outside of a sort of more spiritual-sounding container. On the other hand, for you personally, it might be the case that you want to you want to have that spiritual element. That's what you're trying to teach. And so then for you, it's important that that's in the description. This isn't just straight up completely secular mindfulness. This has a spiritual component. And because that matters to you personally, that's in your heart, and that's what you want to share, and that's what you want to bring. Then, as long as you're making that clear that that's the container you're bringing, then that will get you to match with employers who want to have that, and who want to bring that for their employees, and people who aren't quite so terrified of that. I mean, it's funny because I've just had to work, like I say, with folks who just know that's a nope the minute that's in there. But you get to make it work for you, and then that might get you fewer jobs, but it will get you the right jobs, right? Where that desire that's in your heart to, you know, to uplift and to inspire and so on is honored. And I think in the mindfulness teaching world, there's an added thing. So let's talk about the added thing. And that is there can be a lot of projection and transference type stuff going on. So, for example, I very strongly had the experience early on of people putting me in a guru role or in a very high spiritual role. And some people, as teachers, get really attracted to that. There's such a reflected glory that's coming at you from people's ideas of what you might be, and that can be really seductive and super motivating for teachers. And what I would say is that even though that can seem nice and maybe really attractive to you, it's horrible for your class. And I would recommend doing anything required to pop that bubble, especially if it's a spiritual group. I will curse and you know be very irreverent and do whatever it takes till they stop projecting on me like that. Pick my nose, whatever. And at first you might not notice when this kind of projection is happening, but if people seem kind of like they're not treating you like a normal person in any way, that you just have to do something to break that spell. And what you'll find is that, oh, they might not kind of worship you as much anymore. But on the other hand, connection has been established because in that previous way of you know looking up, the connection was not happening. And so to me, that's like a special thing that doesn't happen probably very much in other fields. I mean, it does, but not nearly as much. And so I'd really strongly recommend that you're sensitive when people are projecting in that way. But you get really sensitive to it, like make sure you know if it's happening, because often what's going on is it's happening a little bit subtly, and you kind of like it. So one kind of likes it so it can sort of slip under the radar. And you will find that if you're allowing that guru projection to continue, it's actually establishing a power dynamic that you want to actively undermine. Do not sit there in a power position because it's just not helpful. And it's actually causing separation between you and the students. So you get more sensitive to it, so it's on the radar. And it doesn't take much to break the projection, honestly. Just kind of break that wall, and then suddenly you'll find that there's a tremendous opening possible and actually a better heart connection, and people feel more comfortable and so on. So to me, that's the biggest thing. In terms of what I think is important, what I recommend everybody do is find some willing victims that you can, you know, train to meditate, because that's what really counts, is that you've learned how different it is to know a technique versus teaching a technique and all the questions you're going to get and all the various ways people can misunderstand it or whatever. It's very, very, very important that you just kind of put yourself out there and learn to teach while you're getting trained, but doing it for real in the field. There's nothing that compares. So that when you do get your first, let's say, at a local company or whatever, they call you in, you're going to, you know, do a two-hour mindfulness training or something. You already feel comfortable teaching people meditation. At that level, especially like a mindfulness training for a small company or whatever, unless it's quite a long contract, you're never going to get into anything that is that difficult in terms of the level of meditation. It's going to be fairly easy to teach the material. The real thing is connecting with the people. It's that you feel confident and comfortable communicating this information and guiding the meditations and really bringing the group along with you. So it's all those interpersonal group skills that become really the thing. And of course, you can take training in that, but again, it's sort of until you're actually a veteran of doing that live with a group and hopefully doing it a lot, it will always seem kind of hard to do. And then once you get that flavor of working live with a group, you can bring that anywhere. When you teach mindfulness in a corporation, there's two potential issues. One is that you are, I mean, there's many potential issues, but along this one train of thought. One is that you don't have enough time. And so you want to kind of shrink it back to something digestible. But furthermore, you don't have continuous ongoing support for years by you. And so it's slightly unethical to even teach them too strong of a technique because they might really start going through some serious internal change. So you're shrinking back there too. And so there's a logic to the corporate situation which keeps making what you're teaching kind of more limited and more surfacey and smaller, which is of course very unfortunate. On the other hand, of course, it does allow it to be a little broader because the more surfacey it gets, the less people have to object to. So maybe it's a little broader. And I would say basically, you know, even if you're doing it for free, even if you're only doing it every once in a while, doing it at all is great. So if you're going to try to be a corporate teacher or in the business world, of course, all the normal types of signifiers of professional status are going to be identical. So any websites, any books, any materials you've got out there and your CV become very, very crucial. And in the end, it will be for most people trying to do this, it will be doing really small companies just here and there until eventually you kind of come to the notice of a larger company. Something that we're finding is if you're working with big companies, who runs HR? HR is run by the CFO. You have to prove to the CFO that they're going to save money by having you teach people mindfulness. And that is essentially a medical outcome. And there is research on that, but it's hard to get a hold of and to put together in a way that you can stand behind. And it's not just some kind of fantasy. So it's tough. That sort of more ongoing thing, they're only going to support that if you can show that you're affecting the bottom line. Like there's less absenteeism, and they're actually over 30 years of doing this going to get sick less and stuff like that. And of course, studies like that are hard to find. So I think what I've discovered is that even with a lot of buy-in from the management, it's hard to get a class. I can get a class that's like 10 weeks, an hour or something like that. So one hour a week for 10 weeks. Some of them will even go for a year or two years if it's small enough, you know, like one hour a week, you're coming in and teaching mindfulness. And most of those come through personal connection and a real interest from the CEO or whatever. Those are hard situations to get. So, in other words, the logic of the system is until there's a real provable medical benefit, it's hard for them to shell out the money for you to do anything at the level that would actually be tremendously effective. And so what I'm seeing is that doing two or three hours, it's going to end up being very shallow. But you can pack in there stuff that is going to really help them if they remember to do it. However, if they already remembered to do it, your two hours wouldn't make the difference. So what I've come back to, like I now have a YouTube channel with basically hundreds of hours of free guided meditations on there. And I end up getting enough clients just organically from that to make a living. But for me, it's so important to that this material get out there to help people in whatever way it can. I'm willing to just provide the resources. And so if you're going to go in there and teach for two or three hours and that's all they're going to give you, I would say give those people a lot of resources. Here's three guided meditations so that you can do this at home, what I just taught you. Here's a sheet, here's a little booklet. You know, you're really loading them up with materials. And then depending on whether the company will let you do this or not, you also show them how they can contact you for one-on-one work. Again, what's happening is like the company where I was working quite a bit, I'm not doing so much there now, Wisdom Labs. You know, they're trying to put together the medical benefits. Then you can really get a gigantic many-year program going. It's just really hard to be very clear, very ethical, very solid in a way that, you know, so that's getting work done, but it's going to take all of us around the country and all the researchers and all the stuff coming together. And then when you think about it, that's a different thing than mindfulness. It's almost creating a new thing. There's also just enough evidence to get about medical stuff, medical benefits. And in this case, it's going to be reducing absenteeism, reducing the cost of healthcare over 30 years, making sure people aren't getting addicted to stuff. A big company, that's a huge, huge bottom line, like how many employees are getting addicted, how many employees are going crazy, how many employees, you know. And of course, as mindfulness teachers, even if we're coming from a very, very religious background, helping people to not get addicted to stop it, that's certainly a core thing, right? That's a wonderful outcome. I think we're perfectly aligned there. But at least the last I looked when I was working with a company on exactly this issue was about six months ago. It still wasn't like we could go, thunk, here's the 200-page thing that just shows without any doubt that this is going to do the thing you want. It's just not there yet. On the other hand, you know, I think it's a cool idea to bring in the breathing techniques, like slow, deep breathing with long exhale. That's pretty tame. People aren't going to start having psychotic breaks if you're teaching them that, whereas some breathing techniques they are. And it's very, very soothing. In a way, you're teaching shamata, and to me, shamata and vipassana go together. They're wonderful combo. So I don't see it as being outside the bale somehow. So I strongly encourage you to. So you get to create a way of talking about what you're doing and presenting it that works for you. I think there's a mixture of you having a platform, you know, materials out there that show that you're teaching some kind of materials, videos, a website, a book, a PDF, something that they can look at. You know, here's what she's teaching. It will definitely be a here's what you're going to get out of this. And the main things are stress reduction, better focus, and ability to connect with co-workers better, and just those very simple things that the market has learned that people want out of mindfulness. That is what they will respond to as a group in the greatest number. You know, that's what everyone says over and over now because it works. But what you can add is that it's not just a series of guided meditations. You're going to teach them to do this for themselves. You're going to teach them to be able to engage mindfully in all these situations outside of work and so on. But the big three are always something essentially like stress reduction, resiliency, and teamwork or connection or whatever. Emotional. There's a couple more you could throw in there, like emotional regulation and stuff. And you may have to use less science-y sounding words for it, but that's what people respond to. And then it's all a matter of you and your presentation, how you do that, and show them that it's not that hard and it's fun and interesting, and that they're going to learn something. The best thing that I've done is using all the principles of a good presentation. You have a slide deck that's very easy on the eyes. It's not a whole ton of information, it's beautiful pictures, it's single words, and you're bringing in, look, we're going to learn the skill that is proven to help you do a bunch of really important things in your life. It helps your life. It's going to help those around you. Here's a little bit of how it works, and here's a tiny, tiny bit of the science behind it. Here's a two-minute experience of it. Let's go. It's pretty easy to get people interested, but keep it very, very, very simple and very attractive. You know, that's what I mean, like nice pictures, and let them know that you know what you're doing and it's coming from both experience and also has a science backing. I tend to be pretty interactive. I ask questions and see what people are interested in. And then also a little two-minute guided meditation is going to be the most important part. It's the most convincing part. So if you do something really simple, but make sure that they, you know, I'm usually, I'm not just saying, okay, now we're just going to be mindful for two minutes. Here's how you do it. Go. You know, I'm doing it as a guided meditation and really helping them to feel supported at every moment in that two minutes. That's going to be the thing that matters the most. And then a combination of that and just the fact that other companies have hired you to do it. Of course, if you have trainings you can put on there and certifications of various kinds and so on, that definitely helps. Although, of course, in the mindfulness field, most of the people who in the corporate world are going to hire you have no idea what those certifications mean. But having it is good and putting it on there is good.
Speaker 1 · 27:33Michael, thank you so much for being here. It means a lot to me personally to welcome you and to learn from you. I consider you a mentor and someone who I can continue learning a lot from. I just love the breadth and depth of your practice. I love the generosity of your teachings, the heart, the wisdom, the different traditions that you dabble in. Thank you for your practice and thank you for being here teaching us.
