Interview with Marc Lesser Part II: Author of Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader: Lessons from Google and a Zen Monastery Kitchen

Sydney Mitchell:

Hi. My name is Sydney Mitchell.

Matthew Brickman:

Hi, I’m Matthew Brickman, Florida Supreme court mediator. Welcome to the Mediate This! Podcast where we discuss everything mediation and conflict resolution.

Matthew Brickman (00:02):
…and say, okay, we’re, we’re, we’re going to not deal with, you know, not let anybody get hurt. Protect everybody. This is a safe place. And it’s crazy. It’s crazy that it’s worked. Yeah. Like you said, it’s that commonality.

Marc Lesser (00:27):
Yeah. Well, much close, much closer to home. I see the similar kinds of issues with sales teams, marketing teams, and customer service.

Matthew Brickman (00:37):
Okay.

Marc Lesser (00:38):
They each, they each have their own, right. Like the, the salespeople. If, if things are, if we’re not meeting our revenue numbers, it must be the marketing

Matthew Brickman (00:47):
People. It’s gotta be, they didn’t market it

Marc Lesser (00:50):
And Oh, it’s gotta be No. And they, no, it’s gotta be the customer service people. Yeah. Or maybe the, you know, maybe the shipping people, they’re not keeping up with the orders. Right. So it’s interesting to, to even there to, uh, very similar to what you were just saying, to come back to actually, we’re all on, we all want the same thing. Yeah. Let’s, you know, we, we, and, and to create structures. So, you know, I think often I see organizations create structures that divide people. Yes. Right. If you give, you know, if you give bonuses based on certain things as opposed to bonuses based on what are we all doing as a team? Yeah. Are the right, the right mix and blend of those. And Yeah.

Matthew Brickman (01:29):
I experienced that. So when I first started doing mediation, I subcontracted through, uh, our local courthouse. And so we had a, uh, what, what we call an A D R or alternative dispute resolution department. And it was very interesting, um, because it ju just like you’re saying, like in business, the way the courthouse was structured was a very us versus them mentality. I mean, you know, we are trying to negotiate, but the, but then the judges are doing one thing, and then the clerks are doing another, and the judicial assistances are blaming this one and, and everything. And so for their newsletter, I actually wrote an article going, look, we need to stop blaming one another. If anything, we are one unit, and if there’s an us versus them, it’s the judicial system. And then there is the people, the people would come in seeking help, and it’s just all this, well, the judicial assistant’s not doing this, and the clerk didn’t file this. And so the mediator can’t do this. And so I wrote this article and, uh, the director of mediation said, Matthew, we can’t publish this. And I’m like, why not? She goes, you want a target on your back? I’m like, it’s the truth. Like, we need to come together, mark. They wouldn’t publish it.

Marc Lesser (02:53):
Interesting. And

Matthew Brickman (02:53):
I’m like, I’m like, but we’re all on the same side here. She goes, yeah, but you cannot, you can’t call out a judge. I’m like, well, there’s ego, right? You can’t call out the clerk. Well, that’s ego. And I’m like, but I’m just pointing out all the, all the flaws to say, look, let’s put our swords down, come together and we can do something powerful together. They wouldn’t publish it. And it’s exactly what you’re saying, like, you know, with the marketing and the shipping and, and if this was the judicial system, and it’s like, okay,

Marc Lesser (03:28):
Reminds me, son, there’s a, an exercise that I, uh, I like to do with groups is, um, describe these, uh, four particular types of people. There’s people who are visionaries.

Matthew Brickman (03:40):
Yes.

Marc Lesser (03:40):
There’s people who are systems people, there are people who like to get stuff done. And there’s people who are primarily about people, people. These are kind of, and I say, choose one and wa and, and go in that corner. And, and it’s usually relatively, relatively equally divided. And then I say, have a conversation with your group. What is so special about you? Your particular quality, your particular strength, and how are you misunderstood by the other groups? Right. The visionaries, the systems people, the getting stuff done, and the people, people, and it’s fascinating to act, you know, it’s kind of playful and lighthearted, but they see, you know, you know, people who are systems, people usually feel like they’re not understood, you know, how important it is. You know, the beam counters, the, the accountants, the people who, who organize stuff and, and what it, but you end up seeing a picture that organizations need those four qualities.

Marc Lesser (04:48):
And even within us as individuals, we all need those, those qualities. But as an organization to see that, you know, without the visionaries, how would we know where we’re going without the people? People we wouldn’t be communicating very well. Yeah. You know, and we need to get stuff done. There’s some people, so it’s interesting, I, and I sometimes will put a picture of a beach ball with four different colors. Right? Right. So it’s one thing, it’s one thing with four different pieces that, but the emphasis is on one, like you were saying with, you know, the judges, the clerks, they, they, they see themselves through the lens of ego. Yeah. As opposed to seeing themselves through the lens of we’re part of a system. Yeah. We’re all, we’re part of this. And, and the system needs to work. It needs all these pieces.

Matthew Brickman (05:36):
Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and I think, I think, uh, ego gets in the way of actually, you know, saying we opposed to I, um, and seeing that collective unit going, okay, well, I bring this, but you know what, just like you were saying, we can do so much more together than I can do individually. Um, totally. You know, it. And then I, I, I, I’m, I’m thinking of the analogy or the, the story or whatnot. I don’t remember exactly the thing, but they were, you know, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve heard like, you know, one elephant can pull X amount of weight, but two can pull, and it’s like double or triple, you know, where with unity, you can really get so much more done. Um, but if we’re looking at, well, you know, who am I? What do I bring to the table? Um, and that’s all you look at from a limited perspective.

Matthew Brickman (06:33):
Um, I recently had, um, uh, there was a judge here that, um, was wanting to go back to in-person mediations. And, you know, we’ve been doing virtual since I’ve been doing virtual since 2009. Uh, but the judiciary’s been doing it since Covid, so 2020. And she said, well, you know, people aren’t settling because they’re able to sit at home in their pajamas, and so everybody needs to go back in person. Um, which has a valid point, two-way point. So I reached out to her, sent her an email with actual statistics going, okay, let me give you, I said, you know, and you know, I, I mean, I love this judge, love. Very, very good judge. Um, I said, let me just off, like, do whatever you’re gonna do. You’re the judge. Thank you for your work. Not easy, but let me give you a different perspective from somebody who is on the ground.

Matthew Brickman (07:33):
You know, this is boots on the ground every day in the trenches dealing with the people trying to create, you know, empowerment for the people to take control so that you don’t have to. And so, you know, you know, gave statistics going, look, you know, um, here’s the settlement. You know, this is how many mediations I did three years prior to Covid V. Here’s what it was for three years post covid. Here’s the number of mediations, here’s the settlement. And there’s actual, and so whether it feels like it or not, the numbers are showing that the settlement is up, and here’s why. And a lot of it is like what we’re talking about of, you know, the emotions are down, you know, the cost is down. They’re not sitting in the same room, but they’re able to collaborate. Um, and so, you know, just, and, and said, look, you know, we’re on the same team.

Matthew Brickman (08:27):
It’s just another perspective. That’s all. It’s just a perspec. There’s not a right or wrong. It’s just different. And different is okay. And I think that that’s where a lot of people, you know, going back to something that you had said, you know, about, you know, being still looking inward and how we label people, you know, as difficult people. I think there’s a lot to be said when, you know, when we say, okay, you are different. Therefore it’s like, you are different. Like you’re from a different planet, therefore you’re bad. Where it’s like, like, well, different is okay. Like, you know, we can have different perspectives, but how do we actually coexist because we’ve gotta coexist. Yeah.

Marc Lesser (09:07):
Yeah.

Matthew Brickman (09:08):
Like, there’s no way around coexist and like, we’re on the same planet.

Marc Lesser (09:14):
There. There’s, um, there’s a super interesting study. I mean, many studies about this, but one comes to mind about in groups and outgroups.

Matthew Brickman (09:23):
Okay.

Marc Lesser (09:23):
And if you’ve seen where they, they, if you show someone a, uh, a, uh, an image or a video of someone like, um, getting a needle put into their, into their hand, and you put people in a brain scanner while they’re watching this person experience pain, if you la then label it. If, if it is someone who’s part of your in-group, right? So if you’re a Democrat and it’s a Democrat, um, you are the pain in your brain, the pain, it registers much higher than if it’s a Republican or if it’s a, you know, a, a Jew or an Arab or a Sure. Whatever, whatever the differences are, um, that it is, you know, this is a, it’s a, it’s a physical thing you can actually measure in the brain. So it takes part of, part of the work that, I mean, this is one of the things I like about this work, and the, the, um, emotional intelligence isn’t fixed and our brains are not fixed. That we can actually change our views. We can actually little by little, and I think the studies are starting to show that, that people who are, you know, long, long-term meditators, for instance, have less of a reaction to this in-group outgroup distinction, that they’re kind of able to tr we’re able to train ourselves to not be quite so triggered and caught by our stories of, sure, this person is different than

Matthew Brickman (10:52):
Me. Yeah. One of the things that, um, as a mediator, you know, I was that, you know, I was, they, they had trained us on, you know, number one, leave your own biases at the door. Like, you’re not bringing your biases into this. This has nothing to do with you leave your biases. That’s hard. <laugh> like to be a neutral when you’ve got opinions, but they’re not coming in is difficult. Um, but then, you know, like you’re saying, like, you know, turning off, you know, that side of the brain, you know, um, and whatnot is, is very difficult. And it’s difficult. You know, I, I, um, there was one, one of the trainings that I had when I, uh, did, uh, um, negotiation training at Harvard. One of the, one of the professors told us, said one of the best ways to be able to deal with the emotional side is to put a pencil or a pen into the hands and have them write out, because when they start writing, the brain turns emotions off.

Matthew Brickman (12:01):
Logic reason come in. And so a lot of times in mediation, you know, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve created this, this chart that says, you know, you know, what do I gain from fighting? Well, what do I gain from settling? And I like, just put one or two things down, and all of a sudden you see this entire shift of the room because all of a sudden all that emotion, you can just feel it in the room subsides because they’re having to actually then think and write out. And so then I’m, and then I said, okay, give me your papers. And I’m like, okay, I’m gonna exchange ’em. I let the other person, I’m like, the other person’s gonna read it out loud what they said. And, and a lot of times they’re on the same page. Mm-hmm.

Marc Lesser (12:43):
<affirmative>. Yeah. That’s great.

Matthew Brickman (12:44):
It’s the emotion that again, gets clouded and Yeah. You know, logic and reason. Like, okay, let’s find the commonality. Like, what are you gonna gain? What are you gonna lose? And usually their fears are the same. Yeah. And sometimes even their goals are the same. They’re just arguing how to achieve those goals.

Marc Lesser (13:07):
Yeah. Well, it’s interesting the way emotion gets so tied to our story and our story about the other person and ourselves. I, there was, um, a, a time in my, you know, my marriage where we, we were working with a counselor and, um, she kept coming back her, her, she kept repeating, I think probably to both of us. But I know to me, to me, when I met with her individually, drop the story, drop whatever story you’re telling about your wife, it’s not gonna go, it’s not gonna end well. Yeah. It’s not gonna go where you want it to go. What happens if you can just drop the story and just what, whatever you are wanting from this other person, you go first. Yeah. You’re not feeling appreciated. You have to express appreciation. Yeah. You’re not feeling listened

Matthew Brickman (13:58):
To your, that the tone,

Marc Lesser (13:59):
You go first. So those two, those again, I think are great. Uh, you know, pithy drop the story and you go first.

Matthew Brickman (14:08):
All right. So I’ve got a question for you now about, uh, that you talk about in your new book, uh, which is Finding clarity. It comes outta, uh, April, correct? Yes. Yeah. Finding clarity, how compassionate accountability builds vibrant relationships, thriving workplaces and meaningful lives. And we’ve been, you know, really focusing on, you know, the thriving workplace and the meaningful lives. So you talk about compassionate accountability. I like those two words together, but I’m not sure what that actually means. So, you know, you talk about the key to dealing with difficult people. So whether that’s in relationship or even, you know, like we’re talking about like maybe two different department heads, um, or whatnot, is compassionate accountability. What does that mean? And then how do we apply like this compassionate accountability when dealing with difficult people?

Marc Lesser (14:58):
Yeah. I think we’ve been talking about that throughout this conversation without using those two words.

Matthew Brickman (15:04):
Okay. Okay.

Marc Lesser (15:05):
Right. But, you know, accountability means to be, um, to, to strive for a kind of alignment and clarity about what, what is it I’m expecting? What a, you know, um, am am I being clear and transparent and honest with myself? Am I, am I holding myself accountable in the work situation? It’s like, you know, what is the vision of success in terms of what we’re trying to achieve, as well as how are we trying to achieve it? Yeah. Are you, how are you doing? Yeah. Initiating, how are you doing with playing well with others? How are you doing in your listening skills? And being able to have those conversations about accountability, but not, not in a mean way and, and even not in a, an emotional way with compassion. Yeah. So, so bring, it’s, bring, it’s bringing those two things, but it together, right. The importance of alignment, of accountability, as well as the importance of the, you know, the, the wisdom of the emotions, the wisdom of the, of the human connection.

Marc Lesser (16:13):
And that we have to have both that, and, and that, and there’s, in a way, there’s perceived and sometimes real tension between, between those. Like, it can be, you know, how do we give someone difficult feedback, negative feedback, and do it, you know, it’s, it’s a little bit like there’s an expression in the mediation world, right. Be be hard on the problems, but be soft on the people. Yeah. Yeah. So be hold people accountable, but with, with a kind of care, with, you know, that you’re to, to use these difficult conversations and when you’re out of alignment, that even those can be ways of building connection and trust.

Matthew Brickman (16:54):
Yeah. When I did, um, and I did it for a very limited time because it was at the courthouse, and then I created my own company, went out on my own, but as a dependency mediator, um, it was more facilitation than negotiation because we’re just sitting there with a whole, a whole table full of people. We had Department of Children, family services, their attorney. Then we had the mom and dad, then we had probably mom and dad’s attorney. We had a case worker. We had the mediator. And with so many different representatives there, um, what, what what they taught us, which is similar to what you’re saying, is, um, is we would ask, and us usually somebody, I mean, I, I’m thinking, I don’t think anybody never did, but we usually said, does anybody have a picture of the child? And either the mom, the dad, or even the, even the department children, family services in the folder would have a picture of the child.

Matthew Brickman (17:55):
And we would, and they would give me the picture of the child, and I’d put it in the center of the table. And I said, all conversations revolve around this. It’s a person, and it, and it’s not about well did or did not mom or dad do this, that, or whatever, that created a situation or landed ’em in the situation, or are they following a case plan? How do we do what’s in the best interest of the child? And it’s really focusing on the person and the relationship and what we’re all there ultimately for rather than, because it’s very simple. With all those different minds and perspectives, it’s very easy to get into the blame game.

Marc Lesser (18:35):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. No, I, I, I love that example. How, you know, bringing in the picture of the child, it sharpens the mind towards, it’s like, what really matters here? Yeah. What really matters here. Yeah. Whether that’s in a marriage or, you know, with your children, right? It’s, you know, it’s easy. It’s easy to get upset with things that our children do, for example. But if you, but it’s, you know, and, and how do we skillfully deal with that, hold our children accountable? But the compassion piece is seeing, is being aware of my job here as a parent is to help my child grow and develop it. What’s, what’s the, what’s the learning here? How do, how can I build, how can I build connection here in the workplace? It can be a little different because they’re, you know, there’s sometimes we, you know, um, sometimes people don’t fit. Sometimes we actually do need to part ways with, with people. And that’s, I even see that as an opportunity, you know, to, to do it with care. I still care about you as a person. Sure. This just isn’t the right fit right now.

Matthew Brickman (19:40):
Yeah. Well, and sometimes in the workplace and workplace negotiations, um, you know, you, you were talking like, okay, you know, relationship matters, you know, but sometimes you may have a negotiation with one person and never see ’em again. You know? But still, it’s still showing the respect that you’re expecting to be shown. It’s still, you know, you know, dealing with that. And look, the negotiation may not happen, and they may bring in somebody that is a better fit with that particular person for the next negotiation. You know, it happens. Um, it happens a lot. One of the things, you know, you, you had touched on, you know, with, with, you know, how we are with children and our goals as parents and whatnot, sometimes, and I’ve had to do this occasionally, but when it gets very, very emotional in a mediation, where it gets into again, that, you know, is my planet, you are wrong.

Matthew Brickman (20:43):
You did this. No, you did it. And like the, like so ingrained that we are not going anywhere. And a lot of times with a parenting plan, I tell the people, I said, you know, you have been in the three levels of relationship, which is acquaintance intimacy and loss of intimacy. We’re now gonna transition you into a business like relationship where you’re gonna be two CEOs of the company. The company is your child, and you both are CEOs. You’re gonna have board meetings, um, all of your communication’s gonna be in writing. Those are like your minutes. And then we’ve got time sharing. And that simply is, we’re just going to look at 365 days out of the year and figure out which parent has the CEO’s gonna go in and run the office. And your parenting plan is the corporate docs, the structure, the company. And they let you know, what is a ceo, what are you allowed to do and not allowed to do, you know? And by putting it into a business term, it really helps them not see the other person as failed wife, failed husband, failed father failed mother, but partner,

Marc Lesser (21:44):
Right. Team,

Matthew Brickman (21:46):
Partner

Marc Lesser (21:46):
Around the right around

Matthew Brickman (21:47):
The same. And I said, the idea is to build the biggest, brightest, most successful company out there. You can’t go rogue. You, you cannot go higher in fire, in hr. And the, and your CEO’s gonna come in on Friday going, where’s my HR director? And so I, I use that analogy a lot with parents to really get them to think of it. We are now moving from the emotion. We’re no longer in this thing as emotional. He did, she did. This is, we’re business partners and we have a common goal, and that’s our child.

Marc Lesser (22:17):
Yeah. Yeah. The, the one, the, the one reframe I might make there, Matthew, is that I, I, I don’t think the message is that we want to get rid of our emotions. I think the message is we want to not be caught by reacting to our emotions. Yes. Because, um, I think everything, actually, all our decision making is running, is being balanced by our emotions. Yes. When, when our emotions are not running wild. But, but when we are, when, again, going back to the very first thing you said about settling, that if we settle our, our emo we can then actually leverage the wisdom of our emotional life. That our emotions have tremendous wisdom. We can’t, we can’t, you know, put them aside or Sure. Pretend that they don’t, don’t exist. But we can train ourselves to not, to not be triggered, to not trigger by them, be re reacting, to not be caught by blaming all those things that are the, you know, our emotions have a lot of traps for sure. But they’re also have tremendous amount of, uh, to and inform us and, and wisdom in those solutions.

Matthew Brickman (23:32):
Yeah. Well, and, and I’ve dealt with that. Um, and, and hold wholeheartedly agree. One of the, one of the other analogies that that, that I’ve used as well, um, is, you know, sometimes people need a safe space to just have the difficult conversation. Basically. I, I could call it a controlled burn. We’re just gonna, you know, we’re just gonna let it out in a controlled arena. And sometimes the attorneys are like, look, I don’t want, I don’t, we don’t need to hear about, well, who did what? I’m like, because they’re just wanting to move right into the legal part. And I’m like, no, we need to do this. And so we do this. And, and so, you know, going along with what you’re saying, um, you know, I say, you know, it’s, it’s sort of like we, you know, as human beings, we’re a stove.

Matthew Brickman (24:18):
We’ve got four burners, and we need to be fr, you know, in this negotiation, we can’t take the emotion out of it, and like, we just need to put it on the back burner. We’re just not gonna drive with emotion. But you can’t, you know, and sometimes the attorneys are like, stop. And, and they’ll actually say, stop being so emotional. And like, you get, like, you can’t, like, okay, I’m a robot. We’re just gonna turn off the, like, you can’t, but we just can’t be driven. So we’re, it’s like we’re a stove. We’re gonna take our emotions. We can’t take ’em off the stove. We’re just gonna move ’em to the back burner, and we’re gonna let logic in reason, and we’re gonna listen, and we’re gonna make decisions that yes, we understand we’re emotional, but we’re not gonna make them solely based on emotion. It’s still part of the equation. And so sometimes I’ve gotta do that as well. Like Yeah. You know, ju that

Marc Lesser (25:10):
Yeah. I was kind of hoping that you were gonna disagree with me and that we would need some mediation.

Matthew Brickman (25:15):
Oh, no, not at all. So something, something else. So, so in your book, you, you, you mentioned Homer Simpson, Alison Wonderland, and Buddha about compassion and accountability and draw conclusions there. I’m interested on hearing a little bit about that, especially. Yeah. I,

Marc Lesser (25:33):
I, I, I love, um, you know, to me Homer Simpson is a great teacher in that he, anything you want to know about accountability, he will teach you by doing the opposite.

Matthew Brickman (25:44):
So look at him do completely opposite. You’ll be okay.

Marc Lesser (25:47):
Especially, you know, again, I, I’m often, I’m often, and I think it’s one of my favorite homs, is why does everything have to be so hard? Right? I mean, as I was trying to log in and use the technology, and like, it’s like, for a moment it wasn’t quite working, and I noticed like, like just some, like, oh, why does this have to be harder really, whatever it is that, that like, uh, or, or all the other things that he does to, um, to get out of holding himself or others accountable and his bad advice. And, you know, so to me then, uh, the historical Buddha answers the question, well, why do things have to be so hard? Well, that’s kind of the way it is in human, you know, human life is not easy. Yeah. There’s challenges, there’s difficulty. Um, you know, it, it, sometimes Buddhism gets translated, translated as life is suffering.

Marc Lesser (26:42):
That’s not quite it. It’s more like, there’s no avoiding difficulty, there’s no avoiding challenge. Don’t, you know, no notice how we respond to challenge. And then I bring in, uh, Allison Wonderland as the practice, you know? Okay. Who says cur curious sir, and curious sir. You know, she’s, she’s just kind of as she finds herself in, in Wonderland, right? So I think there’s something about having a state of wonder, a state of awe, a state of curiosity is a great practice in response to the, the challenges and difficult, the challenges and difficulties of being, um, a human being in Yeah. You know, this time

Matthew Brickman (27:22):
Well, and, and, and, and having that, that curiosity. Um, I heard a quote, it reminds me of a quote I heard recently where it said, um, if one enters into a conversation with anybody, assuming that they have something to teach them or to offer, well, then the conversation’s automatically gonna go differently than if you enter it, assuming that they bring nothing to the table. And that’s that curiosity. So, you know, like if you and I are gonna have a conversation, it’s like, well, you know, what in the world could Mark possibly teach me? Well, then we’re gonna have a completely different conversation than, okay, what’s going on? What do you know that I don’t know? Like, you know, and I think that that curiosity is where, again, where I think we can possibly find the differences that if we’re not defensive, and if we’re open to learning, we can find the unity, and then we can sort of coexist, even though we think we might be from different planets.

Marc Lesser (28:28):
Yeah. And I think this is our, our ongoing lifetime work, you know, a again, whether it’s as, uh, partners or parents or teachers or workers, this cultivating a, a mindset of being a, an ongoing curious learner, curious learner. And, and it’s, and that, and, you know, and noticing when we’re not noticing, when we, when our egos are showing up, when we are either overreacting or under underreacting, which we will do, and not beating ourselves up for even being, being curious even about our own overreacting or under, or underreacting.

Matthew Brickman (29:04):
Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think, so I, I st I got on a journey many years ago, um, with, with just, I, I started it with my ex-wife in therapy, and then she stopped going. And I was curious, you know, I was like, Alice, I’m like, okay, wait a second. The, the therapist noticed something in me, and I started this journey going, okay. And what else can you tell me? And what else can I figure out? Um, I think a lot of people, um, are starting to like, you know, through the years, um, I think that therapy has lost its stigma of, oh, you’re in therapy, sort of like depression, um, or anxiety, um, where it’s not just, oh, you people, like, no, that’s all of us on this planet. Um, but I really think that therapy, you know, whether individual couples, um, is, is, is very helpful in discovering the, the, you know, who you are, who make, you know, what makes you tech to where then you can start to relate to others better, maybe on a, on a different level. Um, how does, I mean, I guess therapy, I don’t know. I mean, in, in your experience working with big companies and stuff in corporations, it’s not like couples therapy, but do, are there exercises or what do you do with, with, with that?

Marc Lesser (30:33):
I mean, I do a lot of, you know, my, my primary day job these days is executive coaching. Okay. And it’s not therapy

Matthew Brickman (30:40):
One-on-one, is it? Is it one-on-one or group, or mostly

Marc Lesser (30:44):
One. Mostly one-on-one. Okay. And it, it definitely has a therapeutic element to it. Okay. Although, although I’m not, I’m not trying to dredge up the past as much as a therapist would. Sure. Sure. But I’m more, but I am looking for, you know, psychological challenges and issues and triggers and stories and, and trying to help the person be the best that they can. Yeah. In, in the most EF effective. And also there’s often a wellbeing and productivity part of, of coaching. Um, and I think, uh, I often will, you know, proclaim that I think everyone should have a therapist. Yes. And, and a coach and a body worker, and, you know, and I’m also a Zen teacher, you know, which, you know, um, you know, and the, the Zen teacher part of me is, is in a way a blend of all of these things. Sure. You know, to me, Zen is just a code word for how to be a full, thriving human being. Yeah.

Marc Lesser (31:48):
Um, yeah. And we need help, you know, we, I think, um, it’s a cha it’s challenging it, you know, there’s, um, one of my favorite book titles is a, is a book, um, uh, by, uh, John Cait Zin, who really brought, you know, mindfulness to, to the, to the Modern World. And the book is called Full Catastrophe Living. Yeah. And, and it’s like we we’re, you know, do you, and it comes from Zorba a conversation from Zorba the Greek where he’s asked, you know, um, you know, are you married? Do you have kids? Do you have a job? Yes. I’ve got the full catastrophe. And most of us have the full catastrophe of the, the modern life.

Matthew Brickman (32:27):
Yeah. So, um, so in your work, like if, if a listener wanted to, you know, know, hire you for any of those capacities, whether it be a business coach, whether it be Zen Master, um, how would they get ahold of you? How would they find

Marc Lesser (32:50):
My, um, uh, my website is my name, mark leer.net. M a r c l e s s e r.net. Okay. Um, yeah, lots of, lots of information. I also have a podcast that I’m doing called Zen Bones.

Matthew Brickman (33:05):
Zen Bones, b o n s,

Marc Lesser (33:07):
Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times.

Matthew Brickman (33:08):
Awesome.

Marc Lesser (33:10):
Also can be found on my, on my website. And I’m excited with my new book, as you mentioned, coming out, uh, April 11th, finding Clarity.

Matthew Brickman (33:18):
Now, is that your first book or do you have other books?

Marc Lesser (33:22):
That’s my fifth. My fifth book.

Matthew Brickman (33:23):
Fifth book. All right. So what are, where would they go, um, to find Amazon?

Marc Lesser (33:29):
Of course, Amazon or your local bookstore or any place you buy books, but yeah, Amazon of course.

Matthew Brickman (33:34):
Okay. Question for you. Are they in audio format or

Marc Lesser (33:39):
They’re, um, all in, um, audio format, uh, Kindle, um, yeah, hard copy.

Matthew Brickman (33:47):
Okay. Alright. Question for you. Do you read the audio format?

Marc Lesser (33:51):
You know, I, um, I didn’t in my last book, I’m hoping to in this one.

Matthew Brickman (33:57):
Okay. Uh, I’m an audio learner, so if I’m reading, it’s actually audio books. I love audible.com. Um, I love Audible. I get, I get all my books from there. Um, and what I really, really love is, I love when the author themselves read the book, because then you really get their emotion, what they’re really wanting to like, get you to subscribe and, and get with. I love when the author reads their actual books.

Marc Lesser (34:26):
Totally. I’m making, I I, I, you know, I, I’m making a strong case for why I I should do this book. And I, I just had to send my publisher a sample of me, of my, my reading. They’re kind of making sure that, that I’ll do it well enough, but I, I, I want to do it. It’s

Matthew Brickman (34:43):
Your book, <laugh>. Nobody’s gonna do it as good as the author. I mean, again, just to get,

Marc Lesser (34:49):
To

Matthew Brickman (34:49):
Get your,

Marc Lesser (34:51):
Yeah. My last book was called Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader. Okay. And then, and someone else did the, uh, did the audio book. I was like, man, he, it was good. You did a really good job.

Matthew Brickman (35:00):
Yeah. I mean, they’re not bad. Yeah. I mean, I’ve, I’ve never had an audio book that the author didn’t read that it was like, oh, well that was really bad. But then when I’ve actually come across ones where they have read it, I’m like, wow. It’s, I don’t, there there’s just a depth to it. Totally.

Marc Lesser (35:16):
Totally.

Matthew Brickman (35:16):
There’s just a depth to it. So, well, mark, it’s been great chatting with you. I greatly appreciate you coming on the show and, uh, I wish you the best. It’s just, and, and congratulations on the New Grand Baby.

Matthew Brickman:
Occasionally Sydney and I will be releasing Q & A bonus episodes where we will answer questions and give you a personal shout out.

Sydney Mitchell:
If you have a comment or question regarding anything that we discuss, email us at info@ichatmediation.com that’s info@ichatmediation.com and stay tuned to hear your shout out and have your question answered here on the show.

Matthew Brickman:

For more information about my services or to schedule your mediation with me, either in person or using my iChatMediation Virtual Platform built by Cisco Communications. Visit me online at www.iMediateInc.com. Call me at 561-262-9121, Toll-Free at 877-822-1479 or email me at MBrickman@iChatMediation.com.