035 - How Empowered Are You?
This week on On This Walk, we are talking about empowerment and upgrading the human operating system. Accompanying me today is a very special guest who has been working in this field for more than 30 years and has published many books on the subject.
I have spoken before about the challenge of breaking away from engrained recurring patterns that keep us stuck where we are and referenced the work of Steven Karpman, who proposed the Drama Triangle and its 3 chief roles, the victim, the perpetrator, and the rescuer.
In this episode, I sit down with David Emerald Womeldorff to talk about the roles in more detail; especially the rescuer role which actually perpetuates these recurring patterns, and together we try to answer the ultimate question: how do we switch to a new and different paradigm in order to upgrade our human operating system?
In This Episode
(07:01) – Upgrading our operating system for humanity.
(12:46) – The need for new paradigm thinking ideologies.
(14:10) – Dissecting the disempowering dynamic in more detail.
(17:12) – Elaborating on the role of the victim mindset.
(25:59) – The outcome of the empowerment dynamic.
(31:07) – Anything that challenges us is a stimulus.
(41:00) – How do we switch dynamic?
(47:44) – Compassion-based medication and empathy.
(50:22) – Connecting with someone on an empathetic level.
(52:55) – Developing the capacity to see the creator's essence in the other.
(55:43) – Economic growth as the center of our outcome orientation.
(58:44) – The seven generations perspective.
(1:02:22) – On humanity being on the verge of an inflection point.
Notable Quotes
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“The outcome orientation is we put our focus on the outcome or outcomes we wanna create in our lives. And if we care about it, it engages our passion, our sense of purpose, our desire for that outcome, which gives us the energy to engage in what I call baby steps, but in whatever next action is that is gonna help me get closer to or clearer about the outcome they wanna create. So the outcome orientation is the upgrade, the outcome operating system is the upgrade that I think is humanity we're being called to step into. What kind of world do we wanna create? What kind of personal lives do we wanna create? And to be clear about that rather than reacting to what is coming at us.”
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“Empowerment is not that you are giving power to somebody. It is that you are reminding them they already have the power in the first place. And everybody inside of the empowerment dynamic maintains that as kind of this underlying belief is that each person here that is involved in the dynamic or the situation, there is power that is here and there is power that creates choice. We need to respect that choice and respect the sovereignty of what is involved as well. But the coach is there to support that, not to jump in. Not to solve it for somebody, not to do any of those things, but instead to be part of supporting the container that's been created and with that curiosity, with that openness, with those questions, help people start to connect to the answers that already lie within for themselves.”
Our Guest
David Emerald Womeldorff is the co-founder of the Center for The Empowerment Dynamic. As director of the center's Organizational Leadership and Self Leadership Practice Areas, David's passion is in supporting individuals, teams, and organizations in leading and working from an outcome-focused and passion-powered orientation. His principles and frameworks are based on his 30 years of study, observation, and application of his lessons of collaboration with a wide range of individuals and organizations.
He's the author of the bestselling book The Power of TED, and Three Vital Questions.
Resources & Links
On This Walk
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[00:00:00] David: I said, okay, God, I'm ready to surrender my victim's stance in world, but I need to know what's the gift of the victim. And I was graced and blessed with that initial epiphany.
[00:00:12] Luke: Welcome to On This Walk, a show about the winding journey of life in all its realness. I'm Luke Iorio. Please join me in my brilliant heart-centered guests each week as we look to navigate this journey more consciously and authentically uncovering how to tap back into that sense of connection with self, with soul, and with something bigger than ourselves.
[00:00:33] And let's go on this walk. Hello there and welcome back and thank you for going on this walk. Today we get to walk with drama. We also get to walk with empowerment and vital questions that we need to be checking in with ourselves on. And to get to that, I want to give you a little bit of background. In our time today, we're actually reconnecting to a small part of the conversation that began in episode 13 with Corey Blake.
[00:01:00] So among the various topics that we covered, talking about transitions, talking about being in the space in between, Corey and I spoke about a lot of different things, but we also spoke about the challenge of breaking away from ingrained recurring patterns. These are the types of patterns that we don't even know that we've taken on, that we've adopted that are really keeping us stuck where we are.
[00:01:21] Well, as part of this conversation, the work of Steven Karpman. I will tell you the truth, I did not know it was Steven Karpman when this initially came up, but the work of Steven Karpman came up and he was originally the one that proposed and documented something called the Drama Triangle or the dreaded drama triangle.
[00:01:38] And I'd actually been exposed to this work as part of a previous program, but I didn't know the original source of it when I was at the Four Wind Society studying with Dr. Alberto Violo. In that program, which is based on Shama energy medicine and healing, the focus is really on removing patterns from our consciousness, from our fields to liberate or liberate ourselves from these limiting and disempowering cycles.
[00:02:00] Well, the drama triangle came up because it was constantly coming up in the work we were doing with each other, the work we were doing to support others going through the process. And the reason for that is that this is a fairly universal cycle. It's a dynamic that we were seeing emerge in others, because we were constantly ones that we were going through this ourselves so we could relate to it.
[00:02:20] We could see it playing out. And so, this drama triangle has three chief roles or players. First is the victim. The victim is the one that it feels like things are happening to them. There's a feeling of powerlessness or helplessness to change things in some way, and it's when we feel like we have no choice.
[00:02:40] The second player in this triangle is the perpetrator. Most of us don't like to admit that we play this role from time to time, but when we are focused on winning, meaning, we're focused on controlling, on getting our way first. Above all, this is part of the role of the perpetrator. It's when we can be critical and demanding and dominating in this particular role.
[00:03:00] Now the third, and this is what provoked a lot of the conversation between Corey and I and why I wanted to get into this more deeply, was the third role is the rescue. Now the rescuer is the one that steps into save that steps into shield others to help them, to help those who maybe aren't able to help themselves at that moment.
[00:03:19] And this one sparked my interest because when you combine the rescuer with the ego, it can be really, really sneaky. You see the rescuer when you play that role, it feels noble. It feels like the right thing to do. It feels like I'm helping and that it's highly beneficial to the situation that's going on.
[00:03:37] The challenge is that the rescuer actually perpetuates the cycle. It disempowers the others that are involved, and it blocks change from occurring because the rescuer tries to alleviate the problem, but never really gets to the root cause or creates any real change in this dynamic. It sort of just kicks the can down the road with a temporary save and the cycle continues.
[00:03:59] So my question was, how do we not only stop the cycle, but perhaps even more importantly, how do we switch to an entirely new paradigm? And so, this is where things got interesting because after I jumped off the call with Corey, we had happened to follow back up. And I find out that Corey is friends with one of the pioneers in this work who is pioneering something called the empowerment dynamic, which is in fact that other paradigm that we're trying to switch into we're to talk a bit about that today.
[00:04:31] Because the more that we begin to step into this different lens, this different level of consciousness, all of a sudden, the pathways that are in front of us to begin to appear, they illuminate. Like they're, they're coming out of nowhere, but they've always been there. We just didn't have the awareness or the consciousness to connect to it.
[00:04:48] And today we're going to help break that drama triangle and talk about how do we switch into this new paradigm. And so that pioneer, my guest, my walking partner for today is David. Emerald Womeldorff. And so let me give you some background on David. He is the co-founder of the Center for the Empowerment Dynamic.
[00:05:08] As Director of the Center's organizational Leadership and Self-Leadership Practice Areas, David's passion is in supporting individuals, teams, and organizations in leading and working from an outcome focused and passion powered orientation. His principles and frameworks are based on his 30 years of study observation and application of his lessons of collaboration with a wide range of individuals and organizations.
[00:05:31] He's the author of the bestselling book, the Power of Ted, or T e D, which is the Empowerment Dynamic, and most recently three vital questions. Some of those questions that we will be posing today and talking a bit about, and it's a lot of why we're here. For those of you that might be new that have just recently arrived on this walk, do me a favor, please remember to hit that subscribe button and join us for a couple of walks.
[00:05:53] And now let's get onto this walk with David, and we're going to be talking about upgrading our human and personal operating systems. David, thank you so much for joining me here on this.
[00:06:04] David: Oh, Luke, thank you for, uh, inviting me to go on this walk with you. I'm really looking forward to it.
[00:06:09] Luke: Thank you. The reason why I, I kind of frame this in terms of upgrading our operating system is because, well, that was a question that I'd asked you about, you know, for everybody.
[00:06:18] One of the things that, that I do when we're preparing for the show, I love asking those that are coming on to this walk, coming onto these conversations of what is that big conversation, the biggest conversation that you want to have right now. And David, you shared with me how right now it's really about upgrading our operating system for humanity, our human and our personal operating system.
[00:06:40] And I was wondering if we could actually just start there to. Kind of take the real big view of why are we having these other conversations? Why are we diving into the drama triangle and all this stuff? I wanted to just kind of give you the floor to talk about, you know, what you mean when you say upgrading the, the, the operating system, and really why now?
[00:06:57] Like why is this a really, really, really critical thing for us to be focused on?
[00:07:01] David: Well, I don't think it's any secret to anybody listening that humanity, I think is at an inflection point, a crossroads, and I think that. As a species on this wonderful planet of ours that we have gone about as far as we can with our default operating system.
[00:07:19] And I'll say what I mean about that in just a moment. So, I'm actually going to speak to what is the first of the three vital questions. And not that we go down the road of all three questions, right? But the first of the three vital questions are where are you putting your focus? And there is an organizing model, if you will, that is very consistent with cognitive behavioral therapy.
[00:07:40] And I call it Fisbe and not Frisbee, but Fisbe, and Frisbee stands for focus. Because what we focus on, engages an interstate, which is the, is, which then drives behavior, which is the be. So, and to me that that is the basis of our human operating system. That what we focus on engages an interstate that drives behavior.
[00:08:04] And the default for humanity, which has helped us survive if we go back, you know, many, many, many generations, is that our default is that we focus on problems, and that when a problem occurs, it engages some form of fear-based anxiety. Now, that could be as mild as this is a hassle in which go away to out and out fear and terror, and then that drives reactive behavior.
[00:08:30] And you know, the three cloud forms of reactive behavior, and I've added the fourth, is fight, flight, or freeze. We either address against what we perceive as the problem. We either freeze and hope it goes away, or we try get away from it. We, and then the fourth I've added is I think it's a strategy of appealing.
[00:08:49] So it's fight, flight, freeze, or peace to go along to get along. And in this operating system, because again, as human beings, we are cognitive, we have focus, we're emotional, we have the interstate, and obviously we take action. We're behavioral. What is really critical to understand about this operating system, the default operating system, and I could use computers as an example, that, you know, there are defaults in our, in our computer systems.
[00:09:18] But one of the things that is really tricky about this operating system is that there is what I call a false assumption that is embedded in this. And the false assumption is we tell ourselves we're reacting to the problem. When in reality what we're reacting to is the anxiety that we feel. Hmm. And so, if we take action toward the problem and our action seems to help in the current situation.
[00:09:45] It diminishes our anxiety, and so we lose energy for reacting. We lose energy for reacting, and so I refer to this simply as a problem orientation. The upgrade is to what I call outcome orientation and this basic framework, although fisbe is an acronym, I love acronyms that I came up with a while ago. This is actually based on some of the work of Bob Anderson in the Leadership Circle, and so the upgrade is to an outcome orientation.
[00:10:14] And the outcome orientation is we put our focus on the outcome or outcomes we want to create in our lives. And if we care about it, that the outcome and engages our passion, our sense of purpose, our passion, our desire for that outcome, which gives us energy to engage what I call baby steps, but in whatever next action is that is going to help me get closer to or clearer about the outcome they want to create.
[00:10:42] So the outcome orientation is the upgrade, the outcome operating system is the upgrade that I think is humanity. We're being called to step into, yeah, what kind of world do we want to create? What kind of personal lives do we want to create? And to be clear about that rather than. Reacting to what is coming at us.
[00:11:02] Luke: That outcome orientation, which in my mind I also equated an almost like a vision orientation as well, right? Clarity of what we want to bring about and when we have that, it is easier, theoretically, for us to relate to whatever is unfolding as data points so that we can then readdress it of how do we kind of correct path, correct course to get to where we want to go.
[00:11:29] The question I have though is that when it comes to upgrading our operating system, some of that outcome orientation that we're struggling with right now is that a lot of the outcomes. Arguing over as humanity are based on ideologies, right? And so, we have very, very different outcomes that we're trying to create.
[00:11:52] Those outcomes to me, that we're fighting over in some ways are still chosen out of the drama triangle and out of the disempowering dynamics, meaning that those ideologies are still born out of victim, perpetrator, rescuer, and not out of new paradigm thinking, which, when we're in that different paradigm, which we'll get to the empowerment dynamic, literally like everything you're talking about clicks, because we're approaching it from that whole new paradigm.
[00:12:19] And so I just kind, I want to kind of take this on this conversation here for a bit, because I think that's right. That's this major paradigm shift that we're trying to go through is some people will hear outcome or, well, I know the outcome I want, but it's not the one that you believe in. But I don't care I'm right.
[00:12:32] And so, I'm just kind of curious when I frame it back to you that way, I'm kind of curious where. Where your mind goes as to, how do we wrestle with that so that we can make the, the kind of, the more complete paradigm shifts that we're going to be chatting about.
[00:12:46] David: That's great. Uh, it's a great frame, Luke, and I've not thought of it this way, but what occurs to me is the ideologies that you're speaking of, we are holding as rescuers that if we just implement a, whatever that ideology is that I hold, then it will make everything okay. But you're absolutely right. It's still in the drama triangle. It doesn't give it off the, the drama triangle. And, and if you, I have different ideologies. The other thing is that your ideology, now I use the term persecutor.
[00:13:20] We can do perpetrator or persecutor, but your ideology is a persecutor to me because it's in conflict with my ideology. And so, it just, you're absolutely right. It perpetuates the drama triangle and it's not the higher outcome that we can come together around when its ideology based like that.
[00:13:45] Luke: Right. I gave everybody like a little tiny glimpse of the drama triangle in my introduction and setup, and I'm just wondering if there's anything there on victim, persecutor, and rescuer that you could further elaborate on so that people understand and can recognize the way that this dynamic, this disempowering dynamic may be playing out for them.
[00:14:06] Because a lot of people don't even realize that they're caught in this dynamic. I didn't.
[00:14:09] David: Absolutely. And when I first learned that, thank you, Dr. Karpman, I wasn't aware, I mean, it was what I called lining class of the obvious. There are a couple things that I would add. One is you did do a really good high level, overview of the roles, but I want to add just a little bit more.
[00:14:28] One as it relates to, to victim, is that there's an important distinct. Between victimization and victimhood needs to be made. and victimization is, part of the human experience, and I think about it on the proverbial deal of one to 10, with one being I'm stuck in traffic again and I'm trying to get to my kids per game, and 10 being natural disasters, wars, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:14:54] That is think from victimhood, which to me is a way of being in an identity that some people take on or it gets foisted upon them. So, I think first of all, it's that important distinction. So, the challenges as a challenger to victimhood while acknowledging the realities of victimization. So, I think that's, first and really important.
[00:15:18] The other thing I would add is that all three of the roles are fear-based and they're reactive in nature. So, as you well said, the victim fears, they can't have what they want. They feel that they're, powerlessness, et cetera. The persecutor, oddly enough, I think, fears their own victim. So they adopt a strategy that it's better to dominate than to be dominated.
[00:15:43] And then the rescuer, and I'm going to preface this by saying I consider myself a recovering rescuer, is that rescuers fear not being needed. And rescuers, if one's identity is bound in being that hero or fewer, they need victims to fix, take care of our protect, et cetera. And so, they're all fear-based, they're all reactive in nature, and they're reacting to one another.
[00:16:12] What Dr. Carmen did was absolutely brilliant. And the reality is that when we are in drama, we play all three roles. What we, most of us have a go, have a go-to role traditionally being rescued, but we can ping pong around those roles just so quickly. And so, one of the things that, and actually this came from a, a client made this observation in a said one day.
[00:16:37] He said, you know, the value of a good model, like the drama triangle is that it's a static depiction of a dynamic reality. And so, the value of being able to clarify and look at the three roles is that in the moment in time, we could freeze frame. And say who or what is in, in those roles, but knowing that as soon as we hit the pause in the freeze frame is going to be quite dynamic.
[00:17:12] Luke: I wanted to just add a little bit more on one of the roles that we just discussed. Specifically, the role of the victim or victim mindset or victim energy perhaps is, uh, the best way of saying it. Most of us, and myself included, do not like thinking of ourselves as being a victim in any way. And matter of fact, I'm going to discuss myself in regards to that when we rejoin David in just a few moments.
[00:17:38] But what shifted for me in understanding victim energy is simply that this is the thought or belief that we are at the effect of life. Meaning, whenever we believe that life, our circumstances, another person, or group or even systems have power over us, we place ourselves in the energy of being a victim, being a victim to that thing or that person.
[00:18:02] This applies to all of us, regardless of the intensity of whatever situation, trauma or otherwise we have or are going through, because at some point we all feel as if we are victims of our circumstances. The challenge is when we become a victim of our own thinking. You see, the challenge is that we tend to internalize this, or we put a narrative to it, and we start taking on the energy and even the partial identity of being a victim.
[00:18:30] You'll know this when you feel a sense of helplessness, hopelessness, or powerlessness in any given moment or experience, our emotions here are a big clue as to what's going on. You see, I have felt these ways when I have believed that I have no options. I have no choice. I'm stuck or trapped wherever it is that I'm at and in whatever it is that I'm dealing with.
[00:18:51] This could be as simple at times ass, just being overwhelmed by all the things I may have going on. It's also appeared at different times in my life, in a much bigger way when I have felt that I couldn't make maybe bigger changes in my life because I felt trapped by my responsibilities, my obligations, even old commitments and loyalties that maybe hadn't been updated or renewed or weren't even relevant anymore, but I felt like I was being trapped by them.
[00:19:17] I have also felt this when I have done a very poor job of setting boundaries where I've created my own prison, in a sense, with commitments that I took on while maybe trying to please others or out of a sense of obligation or owing someone something. It's not a very good cycle to find yourself in and not an easy one to break out of unless you deepen your awareness of a few things.
[00:19:40] The biggest awareness that needs to shift is just this. You have a choice. I have a choice. In fact, I'm making a choice right now by either choosing to buy into and perpetuate this victim energy story or my very inaction is a choice too. Well, if those are choices, what are my other choices? What are all the options?
[00:20:03] No matter how hair-brained some of them may seem that are actually in front of me right now. In fact, consistently coming back to at least what are five other ways I can see this situation or five other options that I might have. Coming back to those types of questions helps to open things back up again.
[00:20:22] It starts to shift the energy. You can ask yourself questions even like, well, if I didn't have this obligation or if I didn't have this overwhelm or this situation, what would I be doing? What could I do? And then so what are a few of the possible small steps that I could take that help move me in that direction?
[00:20:43] You could consider, what do I need to let go of? What belief, what grief, what part of my identity or anger or resentment or regret? What obligation, what old commitment? What is it that I need to let go of for me to feel freer to find a new way forward? You can also reflect on one of my favorite questions.
[00:21:05] In fact, write this down and then go for a walk with this as a folded up note in your pocket. Here's the question, what is it that I am not willing to see to admit her to face in order for me to have the problem I think I have? Lastly, what is it that I need to face within myself so that I can restore my own sense of authority, of agency, of power, and if I were restored in this way, what would I do about this?
[00:21:36] How might I see this situation, this issue differently? These are just a few of the questions that begin to move you back into the role of choosing, of creating within your life. We'll be talking about these aspects in related roles in just a bit as we get into the empowerment dynamic and an important note on empowerment.
[00:21:55] We're going to reiterate this. Empowerment is not giving someone power. It's helping them remember they already have it in the first place. And self-empowerment is your own remembering of this. Now let's jump back in.
[00:22:19] I want to offer a couple of other, you know, kind of illustrations that pop out of my mind. And so, as you described, we do absolutely ping pong around these different roles. We do have elements of this dynamic that, that are our go-to strategies. The comment that you made of very often the persecutors playing that role because they fear their own victimization and victimhood.
[00:22:41] And so what I want to offer is, I know that for me, I would do anything to prevent myself from being in the victim position. And so, I would do whatever I could to either be the rescuer or without knowing it, step into that role of persecutor. So, for me to give very common language to weigh on everybody's mind right now as to, oh no, this might be me at times.
[00:23:05] You could also call this the controller. Because when you drop into control mode right? You are now saying that I know what's best or I know the outcome that is best and I'm going to pull everybody over to my agenda. And usually at some level of disregard for their agenda or for what they're going to go through.
[00:23:23] Right? And so, for me, I knew those tendencies. It was something, you know, easier to talk about now and to recognize now that it, the controller, the one who would overdo, the one who would take everything on, the one would, who would jump in and say, no, no, no, no, we're going to do this. Sometimes I would take that out of the role of controller because it was my way of controlling the situation to be more like I what I wanted it to be.
[00:23:46] And other times, you know, when I matured, it was now the rescuer role and I was, I was doing basically the same thing, but for, from a very, very different vantage point in different perspective. Mm-hmm. and different rationale as to why. And so, it plays out, and I mean, this can be even as simple as when you're a parent, The rescuer role is how often do you step in to make things easier or better or smoother for your children?
[00:24:12] I don't want to see my kids in pain. I don't. Sure. But if they don't struggle, they will never know their own resiliency. They will never know their own strength. They won't learn anywhere near as much as they could learn. And for us of the, you know, of older generations, we knew what it was like to scrape knees and just keep going.
[00:24:28] And so it's these roles, they come alive when we slow down long enough to think about when do I feel like I'm at the effect of; you're in victim mode. When you are trying to force your way, your view, your perspective, when you need to be right or other people need to be wrong, you're likely in that persecutor role.
[00:24:48] And when you are doing everything that you can to alleviate to help and you know that part of it is out of this angst that you need things to return to peace. Like there's like, oh, everything's got to get better again. Right. And I've got to help this person. They're never going to be able to figure this.
[00:25:03] Like as soon as you feel that kind of need to help coming from that place, you're in Rescue remote. So, I want to build awareness around this because this is a dynamic that's playing out all over society in personal and collective ways. Absolutely. So, with that, before we talk about how do we shift it, how do we switch, let's talk about what we're switching to.
[00:25:25] So let's go to that kind of, the outcome of the empowerment dynamic, meaning to be on a very, very different frame. And so, I was hoping you could talk us through that a bit, because it does, it's a, it's a very, very different lens and people hopefully will begin to recognize that you can view the same situation.
[00:25:44] You may even do some pretty similar things, but when you're doing it from this different role, this different consciousness, the impact is very, very different. And will, you'll feel the difference between empowerment and disempowerment as we go through this. Absolutely. So, David, if I toss it to you for the, the empowerment dynamic
[00:25:59] David: Sure.
[00:26:00] We'll give a little bit of context before I go there. And which is actually going to take us, actually, we are already into the second vital, again, that first vital question is where are you putting your focus? Which by the way, those or what I call orientations to those Fisbes, are a framed for consciousness.
[00:26:17] And so in the, the problem focused, anxiety-based, reactive problem orientation, that creates the context and the conditions that produces and perpetuates the DDT, the drama as we operate to the best of our ability, the outcome, focused passion, we could even say love-based way of creating outcomes that we envision and that we'll see in our lives that creates the conditions in which we can have a much different set of relationship roles and dynamics.
[00:26:49] And that is what I lovingly call the empowerment dynamic. And so, really stands as the antidote to what I call the DDT because of, if you know about the chemical DDT, it's a very toxic chemical. And so, the antidote, the primary shift is from victim to creator. So, just as a victim role is kind of central of the drama.
[00:27:18] Embracing our capacity as a creator is central role of the empowerment dynamic. And the primary characteristics of really embracing our creator essence is a way that we can envision and go after what we want to create. So, we're creators. And just a side note on that is that I've come to believe that you cannot <inaudible>.
[00:27:41] The question is, what are you creating? The second component of being a creator is that I choose my response to whatever is occurring in my life experience. And I love using the example of Victor Frankl and his experience in the Nazi compensation camps, so I'm sure you're quite aware of. And his coming to the realization that even.
[00:28:02] You know, on a scale of one that 10 knows probably a 13, that he's still with choice as to how he could meet his experience. And the third characteristic is that as creator at that, I nurture one; nurtures empowering relationships. So, lead to the role of victim is the, the role of creator.
[00:28:20] Luke: Let me just make a distinction there as well, because when we are in our kind of victim mindset, very often we withdraw and become more isolated in the way that we operate.
[00:28:33] And so when you talk about that third characteristic there of creator being that there is a relational component, it's already one that is recognizing how do we lean into the interconnection of what's actually present as opposed to feeling like there's no connection. And I've withdrawn.
[00:28:51]
[00:28:52] David: Right. And in fact, we are co-creators. I mean, we're co-creating this conversation as we work together always. So, the answer to the role of persecutor is what I call challenger. And there are a couple dimensions to the challenger role. One is that as a creator, when stuff happens, my life that is unwanted, unwelcome, I can't, rather than reacting to it as persecutor.
[00:29:19] And by the way, the persecutor could be a person, it also could be a health condition. It could be a, you know, a natural disaster or circumstance. But as a creator, I can't choose to respond to that in the step back and say, what is here for me to learn challengers call forth learning and growth. That's the basic notion of the challenger.
[00:29:40] And so there can be the intrapersonal view of the challenger. And what I mean by that is that again, have a, a life experience. What it's here for me to learn. The other piece is more interpersonal, that we can be challengers to one another, calling forth learning and growth and challenging assumptions, but doing so from the standpoint of seeing the person that we are challenging as a creator in their own right. And that again, it's calling forth earning and growth.
[00:30:12] Luke: So, to your last point, and I'll come back to one other thing is that inherent to that challenger is the recognition of, as you said, the creator ability, but it's the, the recognition of the strength, the talent, the inherent value of the individual that you are working with.
[00:30:30] And so when you recognize that in someone, you don't view what you're doing to them as negative or as holding them back or as stepping over them or otherwise, you're engaging with them to challenge them into their greatness as one. One could say it that way, right? Whereas if we are in that, that persecutor victim dynamic, it is one seemingly has power over the other, and there is not that level of appreciation for the other person's sovereignty and for the power, the talent, the strength, the energy that they are bringing into whatever this dynamic is.
[00:31:04] David: So well said, Luke. Just spot on.
[00:31:07] Luke: The one other thing I just, again, just offering language from kind of my own background and stuff that I, I've done in the past is that one of the other ways I've viewed Challenger and it, it clicked when you mentioned Victor Frankl to bring this up, was that anything that challenges us, we can recognize simply as a stimulus anything that stimulates us, right?
[00:31:26] And so as Victor Frankl said, there is stimulus, there is response, and there is a gap in between. It's what lies in the gap that determines our reality. And so that's a lot of what coaching and dynamic, all this type of stuff that we do professionally is about helping people recognize what's actually occurring in the gap.
[00:31:43] Because in the gap is your consciousness. That's actually where everything gets decided. You know, consciously or unconsciously. And so that challenger is also to recognize that you, or the situation or the person that, that you are interacting with is simply providing a stimulus. It means they're not right.
[00:31:59] They're not wrong, they're not good, they're not bad. It's none of those things. It is simply a stimulus.
[00:32:05] David: It's a stimulus for learning and growth. Absolutely. And stimulus for choice. And you know, I think another aspect of the challenger before I go to the third goal, is that being, what I call conscious constructive challenger brings with the importance of compassion. If I'm challenging you to learn, grow. So, I'll try to build concrete here. I'm your manager and I come you and I say, Luke, uh, I have an assignment for you. I know it's something that's going to stretch you. I know that I have absolute confidence that you're going to grow into it.
[00:32:40] Is that I need to also have compassion for the learning and growth that you're going to go through because, you know, learning and growth is not always fun. It's not always easy. So having compassion for the creative behavior and the growth that the person that's being challenged is going through is absolutely critical.
[00:33:01] And to remember that the person that's being challenged is at choice in terms of what they do, what they don't do. They're also held accountable, responsible, et cetera. Is the antidote to the role of procedure, the helping role, the empowerment dynamic. And there is a helping role that is the antidote to the role of rescuer is the role coach.
[00:33:26] And I want to be really clear. That is a role, it's not a per se. And that one not at all need to be a trained coach. The only training one needs to really embody the, the control is to be curious and ask questions and to remember that the power of choice, the power of passion, lies with the person that's being supported as a creator.
[00:33:52] So it's asking questions like, you know, what's the outcome they want to create? Or what are the current conditions and what's going on between that stimulus and response? What choices do you have in this situation? What baby steps are you committed to take? So, the coach role is the antidote to the rescuer role.
[00:34:12] Luke: What you're also getting at when you are coming back to the fact that the coach is, is helping people tap back into this power of choice that they sit with and they hold is, you know, when I think of empowerment, always used to explain it this way, I asked some of the classes I used to teach was empowerment is not that you are giving power to somebody.
[00:34:30] It is that you are reminding them they already have the power in the first place, right? Yeah. And so that coach and actually everybody and frankly everybody inside of the empowerment dynamic you're describing, maintains that as kind of this underlying belief is that each person here that is involved in the dynamic or, or the situation, there is power that is here and there is power that creates choice.
[00:34:52] We need to respect that choice and respect the sovereignty of what is involved as well. But the coach is there to support that, not to jump. Not to solve it for somebody, not to do any of those things, but instead to be part of supporting the container that's been created and with that curiosity, with that openness, with those questions, help people start to connect to the answers that already lie within for themselves.
[00:35:18] David: Absolutely. They're already creative, resourceful on whole. Absolutely. And one of the things that that comes to my mind as, as you're saying that, is that to hop back to the drama, the DDT for just moment is that rescuers well intended most of the time and unwittingly rob the victim of their own power.
[00:35:39] Absolutely. And, and the form of power that is resident within the DDT is the having power over having power over situation or as a prosecutor, having power over the victim, et cetera. And the empowerment dynamic, the force of power is power to create. Empower with that. All three of the roles are co-creator roles and that we just as we in a sense, ping pong around the DDT role, we move around and develop the capabilities of all three of the TED roles of creator, challenger, coach.
[00:36:20] That's the dance of co creativity.
[00:36:27] Luke: I love this notion of the co-creative dance cause that's really what I believe life is. We're constantly co-creating with the moment the experience, the others in those moments and experiences with us. And the more that we recognize this co-creative dance, the more fun that it can become. For me, I initially gravitated towards the role of a coach in this dynamic we're speaking about because I came to understand for me, When I am not in a place of balance when I am operating out of my shadow self, the role of rescuer would show up a lot, but that would, as we've discussed, never support the other person or persons in truly knowing just how strong and resourceful they truly were.
[00:37:10] At best, it was a band aid, but when I'm operating from my light, from my higher self, I can hold space. I can coach and offer questions and reflections that open up possibility for others in such a way as they remember just how much wisdom they already have within themselves. This was my gateway or my access point to this empowerment dynamic.
[00:37:34] But then I needed to learn and lean into what it could mean for me to also take on the roles of creator and challenger, because these were not as natural for. The challenger, meaning that willingness to hold firm and even agitate others, either intentionally or simply because I was standing with conviction and strength within myself.
[00:37:54] Well, that role flies in the face of someone who's been a people pleaser. Something that has been has been true for me. You've heard me talk about that on this show. That was a big stretch for me. And yet, I believe that I need to stand for the truth within me and have conviction in what matters most to me.
[00:38:12] Meaning that I cannot keep bending myself or my will to that of others. And at the same time, I also believe that you, that everyone has a deeper strength, genius power within themselves. That their experience is their own as their path and their choices also are. And I want to honor that even at times when it's a struggle for them.
[00:38:35] Even at times where I've wanted to jump in and help, I still need to honor their path and their choices. So even though it at times has been a struggle to maintain that position, that is the challenger. I've stuck with it because when I looked underneath and connected with what I truly believe and I'm truly committed to, for myself and for others, well, that's how I wish for us to be, to be able to honor that space for each other.
[00:39:00] When I connected to those truths, when I connected to those beliefs, I was able to allow that role of challenger to emerge more easily, to be able to stand in those convictions despite any agitation or challenge it may present to others, and that actually connected me than more deeply to the role of creator.
[00:39:19] That recognition that every moment, every single moment is a moment of co-creation, that how we show up in this moment influences and creates the next. It was an important thing for me to be able to understand and relate to. It takes presence to connect to this dance. I've had the chance to develop practices and rituals that help me maintain more of that awareness and presence in my moment to moment lived experience.
[00:39:46] It's not easy, but that's also why I take time and space regularly, at least weekly for a couple of hours when I'm really truly on it, so that I can walk with those thoughts, those questions of what am I creating in my life right now? What's my role in creating these situations and circumstances, and what is it that I wish to create?
[00:40:09] This helps me check in as well as make those adjustments as I go, as I live, and I hope that this gives you a few ways to start considering which of these roles you initially gravitate towards, why that might be, and how you can start to consciously bring the other roles into your awareness and how you engage as well.
[00:40:29] In other words, co-creation is asking you to dance. Will you accept. Actually, let me say that different because in truth, you are already in this dance. You're already co-creating whether you intend to or not. And so, are you willing to step into this dance of co-creation consciously? That's what you're now being invited to.
[00:41:01] So now let me ask this question of how do we switch dynamics? So part of this is that we know, and I, it's why, part of why I want to have this conversation is I know that just simply by bringing this into people's awareness, that starts the planting of the seeds and it starts helping people recognize that this certain, these dynamics can play out differently.
[00:41:25] But awareness alone doesn't typically get us there. So, I'm curious about, you know, for you maybe what this has looked like for you and how you've then developed your work from, from everything you've done, your personal experience in. How did you make that shift in, it used to look this way on the drama triangle, and now all of a sudden, this empowerment dynamic is something that's living and breathing within you.
[00:41:49] So that's the way you actually orient yourself to the world.
[00:41:52] David: Well, what that brings up for me, Luke, is that if it's time to share with you the story behind story, and the reason why I frame it that way is the power of Ted Book is a story that I won't go deeply into right now other than to say, well, actually I do need to go into it a little bit in that, in the book, there is the central character as a character named David.
[00:42:16] And I was thinking about this morning, knowing we're going to talk about this, it's almost 40 years, which just blows me away. But about 40 years ago, I was in one of those, kind of a crash point or you know, things.
[00:42:29] Luke: Yes. Crisis point. This crisis. Crisis point.
[00:42:31] David: Yeah, and collided in life.
[00:42:33] Well, in about an 18-month period, about 40 years ago, three things happened in my life. One is that my dad passed away at a two young age, and I had a very healthy, blessed to say healthy, a positive relationship with them. My wife at the time, and I were trying to start a family, I got declared as medically infertile.
[00:42:53] And as a result of that, she, she was quite introverted and I've long forgiven her, but she just totally withdrew. And so, I was working the psychotherapist and that's where I learned about the drama triangle. It was that blinding flash of the obvious. And I'd been working with a therapist for, I don’t know, three, four months.
[00:43:11] And one morning I was doing what I still do, what I call my morning quiet time, which is some form of meditation, prayer, journaling. And I was in a very contemplative space in kind of a peripheral space, had my eyes closed. And I just remember kind of saying in my spiritual voice, in my spiritual mind, I said, okay, God, I'm ready to surrender my victim's stance world, but I need to know what's the death of the victim.
[00:43:42] Immediately. The word creator came into my awareness in, into some consciousness. And I won't say that I heard a voice, but I can understand how someone might interpret the experience by saying, I heard a voice, my eyes flew open. It was like, well, I don’t know what I expected, but I didn't expect that. And that started the journey that just, that just needed for probably, oh, at least a dozen years where I'd think about it and then I would forget about it for a while.
[00:44:09] I wish I could say like Paul in the road to Damascus. My life was forever changed. That was not the case, was more of a contemplative thing. Part of my background is doing work with the Leadership Circle. I was in a deep 360-degree feedback and I was in a debrief session with a guy who at one point lamented. He said, people come in my office and they're just such victims.
[00:44:33] And it just so happened that a few months before that I'd come across the journal war later on with alternatives to the drama triangle roles. And what I ended up sharing with him, and at that time what came the challenger, I just called the teacher. And what became coach at the time had a servant, kind of serve the unfolding, serving the power of the person being supported.
[00:45:00] But I had a couple of kind of friendly almost focus groups. And some people said, some of the teachers I had were not a really good teachers. And the idea of servant being a little bit more, you know, servant. So, I wanted to set that up to say that for me, and the reason why the go ahead and share that story is that what is critical to be able to make the shift from victim to creator, to make a shift from problem orientation and outcome orientation in some form of pause practice.
[00:45:34] Whether it's fueling feet on the ground and taking breath. That we cannot shift to that and we cannot upgrade our operating system without making it conscious. And so, you're right. When we are in the pro-orientation, we are often very unconscious. We are just reacting. And so whether it's meditation, prayer, whatever the form is for the whatever path people are on, developing some sort of pause practice, conscious pause, practice is critical making the shift.
[00:46:10] Luke: I'm hoping that for those that are listening, that comes as no surprise because we talk about the importance of this and it is that, you know, you describe it as that quiet time. And so whether it's that quiet time, that pause practice, it can be meditation.
[00:46:27] I know that does not, Work for everyone in terms of what may be the best style for you. Prayer, journaling, just a little reflective time within a quiet space that taps you into that stillness, that taps you into that silence, any number of those practices. And so, it gives you that contemplative space, that introspective and reflective space.
[00:46:49] And I also wanted to comment on the fact that it came, you know, maybe in an interaction with a client, you described it as a debrief, but I don't want to gloss over this. That when we are starting to set our sights on this new awareness of what we are trying to gravitate towards, the more that we have that time to debrief our experiences so that we are walking away and being able to say, well, what worked, what could have been better?
[00:47:15] What would I do next time? If this came up again, would I approach it this way or would I approach it that way? And the more we have that debrief time, I mean it from. Leadership organizations to the military. Everybody says debriefing is one of the reasons why our industries have progressed the way that they are, right?
[00:47:32] And so for us to be able to incorporate that type of a debrief practice within our lives, which you can call contemplative and reflective and everything else as well, is a really, really important piece of this. And I think the one other one that I would like to add from my own experience, because I am very much in alignment with what you mentioned.
[00:47:50] I think I want to add something because you referenced this before that I think is really important. I want to talk about it in a different way, was you mentioned compassion. Well, for me, one of those other dynamics was when I used meditation to specifically get into not just compassion-based meditation, but specific empathy work and really beginning to exercise that power of empathy.
[00:48:11] Well, when I did. Number one started to open up whole different waves and realms of self-forgiveness. Well, when you're in a realm of self-forgiveness and self-compassion, the victim mentality begins to melt away. When you are in a more empathic place, an empathetic place, very difficult to play the role of the persecutor because now you are truly, genuinely feeling and experiencing and relating to people in a different way.
[00:48:34] And same thing in a rescuer position. That's, this is a tricky one though with those of us that are more empathetic, is that the shadow side of empathy is, Because we're going to jump in, we're going to try and solve. So, we need to be aware of that as kind of a shadow and unconscious side of us. But when we are more empowered ourselves or coming at things, we recognize what we want most for somebody is, as you said, they're learning their growth.
[00:48:59] For them to recognize the, the power, the greatness, the choice that already lies within them and helping them to step into that space because we can't step into that space for them. So, for me, when I started to really work with a lot of those empathy type practices, it literally like over, for me, that was probably one of the more rapid shifts that I experienced and in this type of change of dynamic we're describing.
[00:49:23] Because inside of about 90 days of doing loving kindness, meditations equal empathy meditations just over and over and over again for 90 days. And then I continued for many, many, many, many months after that. But after those 90 days, it was almost like I couldn't get my. mind wrapped around not connecting to people in that way anymore.
[00:49:44] And so, it made this old paradigm would've been, it was, difficult. And when I did step into it, I'm not saying I never fell back, of course I reverted at some point. But when I did, I almost had a visceral reaction to it because I could, I mean, I could feel like, nope, nope, nope, nope.
[00:50:00] Done this. Not the way I want to be interacting. Because it doesn't create the outcome. It doesn't create the world that I wish to be a part of.
[00:50:07] David: Well, I have a quote for you, which is, yeah. As you went through that transition and you were developing that practice, how would you express empathy? How would you actually connect at an empathetic level with someone rather than rescuing?
[00:50:22] Luke: First is that if I go to the equal empathy meditation, that was, call it my training, right? For this, in that it's kind of an extension of love and kindness work. The first person we relate to is the loved one, and you relate to the loved one in terms of seeing what their pains, their hurts, where is it that they are avoiding averting, trying to move away from, that's causing them stress and pain and unhappiness in their life, as well as wishing them well for the happiness that they truly desire.
[00:50:51] But after you've done that for the loved one, you work with the challenging person. Quite appropriately to this conversation and the person who, you know, has really just kind of gotten under your skin and maybe agitates or irritates or certainly stimulates you in some way and seeing the same qualities that you see in your loved one.
[00:51:09] Meaning what are their pains? What are their hurts? What are they may be trying to heal from? What do they want for themselves? What are their wishes? What are their happiness pursuits? And then you do that with somebody who's a complete stranger, somebody you don't know well. The person who's been serving you coffee at the local Dunking Donuts or Starbucks, you've never said more than maybe 10, 12 words to.
[00:51:32] And so it's, it's building that type of muscle to see people this way. So that was sort of like my training in eliciting empathy and getting in connection to empathy again in my life. And I think at that point, that's probably where just my general curiosity for people started to take over because I started to recognize that whoever I was interacting with in my life, they have a story. They have a background that I don't know.
[00:51:59] They've been through experiences that I will never understand because I'm not them, and the only way that I can hope to close that gap is by slowing down asking questions and listening. And so, I think the number one practice, well, I guess it's combined practice, is asking questions and listening.
[00:52:17] and just deeply like with your full presence, not just listening for the answer you need. So, you can say the next thing we're talking deep, intuitive, radical listening to be with a person. Mm-hmm. . And to hear what they're saying, hear what they're not saying, feel what they're feeling because it, our words are dripping with energy and emotion at all times.
[00:52:39] You can feel that, if you slow down long enough. I think that's where it started to manifest more tangibly for me, which also, at the time I was, I was already in the coaching profession and trained and teaching and everything else. So, the asking questions started to come pretty naturally, but it took over a whole different depth at that point and everything.
[00:52:58] David: I just heard you sharing what you were developing was the capacity to see the creator essence in the other. Yes. And that's really, that's what the passion's about what empathy is about, is being able to see that creator essence, even when it's good. I mean, one of the things that will invariably come up, you know, like in workshops is someone will say, well, you know, what do you do if someone just will not stop being a victim? And one of the things that I will say is that I have surefire way of you showing up to another as a persecutor and it's just to tell them that they're being a victim. And so, one of things about this whole body of work is that it's not about weaponizing the drama roles and using them as a way to label or demean. Here's what I've come to learn is that if someone is complaining and they're in the victim role, if someone's complaining again, the last thing I can do that's going to be helpful is to say, well, actually you sound like a victim here. This is a little techy.
[00:54:05] But it works many more times, than it doesn't. But it requires a kind of listening you were talking about as well as the empathy and compassion. So, it might be something like, I really hear the frustration that you're experiencing. I really get that and given the situation, what's one baby step that you can make to move toward what it is that you really want?
[00:54:28] What I just did in that little technique was to shift focus from what you don't want, which has you complaining what you might want and what you do want and that's one of the ways that we can draw on that empathy, being that compassion.
[00:54:43] Luke: What you do in the first part of that statement is offer a level of acknowledgement and validation so that person feels seen for the experience, feels witnessed for the experience that they are having.
[00:54:56] It does not dismiss it in any way. It holds that space while offering that gentle redirect that you just described of now moving towards, let's look this way. What you described with outcome orientation, its that when we were out of more of the older mindset drama triangle, there is a problem-based focus to the way that we are handling things.
[00:55:19] And that problem-based focus from a human development standpoint is from a certain level of survival instinct. right? We want to survive whether that's physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. There's a survival side of what it is that we are.
[00:55:31] David: That's the reason why at the very top of our conversation, I said that the problem orientation has service as a species because it is a survival. It is an exactly suitable operating system.
[00:55:41] Luke: Exactly. And to what you said about the false assumption is that once we arrived, majority of the, the species arrived at a place that survival was no longer the traditional physical, we're not being chased by the sabretooth tigers anymore. That part of our mind needed to survive something, and it now calls that fear anxiety.
[00:56:05] And that was right is our anxiety around what's going on. That usually is actually what we're wrestling with as opposed to the problem itself. So, the reason why I bring this up is the outcome orientation. You even started to describe that it begins to focus on more of maybe a love-based perspective. I was first introduced; I actually don't even know if this was Joanna Macy that originally posed this.
[00:56:28] I think she was quoting from somebody, but I'm not a hundred percent correct. But what she was saying was that for now in current society at the center of our dart board, meaning our outcome orientation, which is out of the older paradigm, has been economic growth because that's economic survival. It's still a survival mindset.
[00:56:48] But if we were to place life sustaining; those things that are life sustaining at the center of our dart board, everything now begins to reorient. And so, I guess I'm kind of curious for you may be personally and then through this work, what's at the center of that dart board in terms of the outcome orientation that allows us to start to use this new operating system in a way that we're all creating towards something that serves the whole as opposed to something that feels like a zero-sum game?
[00:57:21] David: What brings to mind for me personally is that I hope this comes across as sincerely as intended. I don't do this work to make a lot of money. I do this work because it's a sense of process, a sense of calling, and I was graced and blessed with that initial epiphany. The opposite of victim as creator, and yet, I am bringing this work into the world in order to help facilitate the upgrade in humanities operating system. As big as that sounds.
[00:57:54] And for whatever reason, that's what I've been called into this life to do. And so, my current commitment, this is part of my quiet time. It's actually written, as an outcome statement that is free in my mind. And the outcome statement is that the Center for the Empowerment Dynamic has the infrastructure, the people, and the financial resources to serve the next seven generations.
[00:58:22] So, that's what I come into each day, taking whatever baby steps I can toward helping facilitate that outcome. And it's not economic growth. It is humanity growth that is, personal growth, which leads to humanity growth.
[00:58:44] Luke: The seven Generations' perspective is such a beautiful one that gets us thinking so far beyond our current here and now and the challenge that may be directly in front of us at any given moment.
[00:58:57] And I think it's, it's interesting because for me, what I see in your work and the drama triangle represents the fact that we have this wound of separation That we walk around with believing that we are separate from each other. We are separate from the world; we're separate from the way things work.
[00:59:13] We're separate from everything. And that there is this sense of powerlessness that is contained in that regardless of the role that we're playing on the drama triangle, there's a sense of powerlessness or loss of power that's constantly going on there. And so, there is this wound of separation, and I believe it begins first in us personally, of what is our personal journey back towards wholeness.
[00:59:36] To recognize we're not broken, we are not fragmented, we are that creator. We do have access to that wholeness. We can bring that forth into this world and do so in the unique, you know, soul print that we are, For you, it’s the center for the empowerment dynamic and the catalyst that that becomes.
[00:59:56] And as we begin to do that personally, that actually begins to help us collectively. It's nothing more than a fractal. What's going on within us is exactly what's being represented inside a society. What's society feels fragmented right now. It feels completely separate. It feels like everybody's in it for them themselves, or every country's in it for themselves or what have you.
[01:00:14] But when we begin to move towards this perspective of wholeness, and we make it about how do we sustain that? How do we bring that together, now all of a sudden, we can, you know, we are tapping into the fact that everybody's a creator. We're tapping into the inherent strength that every single human has on this planet, and we begin moving and operating in a very, very different way, a very different world.
[01:00:36] I bring this part of the conversation up because of the way you describe that outcome orientation is that, listen, we don't all have to agree on the exact same destination, but there are, you know, certain elements of orientation that can help guide us. Love, joy. Balance, peace, those types of things, which by and large, most people will tell you they want.
[01:00:59] The more we can build that into our al outcome orientation and then follow things like the empowerment dynamic as to how do we create that for ourselves, our relationships, our communities and our larger community. Now we're creating something that it can build some pretty extraordinary momentum hopefully seven generations out.
[01:01:22] David: Well, and as I was listening to you, Luke, I mentioned again very early in our conversation that I fully believe that humanity is at inflection point, and that inflection point is the choice of continuing down the road of disconnect. Or making the choice to embrace our co-creative capacity.
[01:01:46] And it's not oneness in the sense of sameness. In fact, I'm a big believer in the, the power of diversity and the unity that we share. So, I think that's the inflection point that we are embracing. And then one of the things may sound like an odd thing in at the end of our time, sound like an odd thing to bring up right now.
[01:02:08] But I think it's also important for us to realize that in that outcome orientation, which was a creator orientation, and in our interactions as co-creators, challengers, and coaches, we still have to solve problems. But in that mindset, in that orientation, in that operating system, we can choose which problems we're going to get to root cause and really work to overcome rather than just reacting to the problem <inaudible>
[01:02:37] Which is what happens in the DDT and the problem or condition.
[01:02:41] Luke: Yeah. It is an important thing to bring up now because when we are in that problem mode, in the reactive mode, there really is no progress towards the outcomes that we want because we're just handling whatever the issue of the day is. And we got a lot of issues.
[01:02:55] We got a lot of things going on right now, personally, and collectively, and so we're just playing whack-a-mole with whatever's coming up right? And yet, if we know at least some orientation of where we are trying to go, and let's just start personally for ourselves before we get to the collective mm-hmm.
[01:03:13] If we can start with that personal side of things, now all of a sudden, we realize, yeah, that's a problem, but it has nothing to do with where I'm going. Or it doesn't need that type of attention, it doesn't need that type of energy. Let me just get that a little bit squared away and that way I can keep my eye over here which is where I'm, I'm building towards, that's a very important point.
David, I want to thank you for coming on this walk. I so deeply appreciate you sharing your time, your wisdom, the work that you are doing in the world, because I think it's incredibly valuable to those that are tuning in to listening.
[01:03:43] Because I think it sparked a whole lot of awareness. I know it even sparked awareness in me and, and I've been around a lot of this for a while and it still continues. Every time I visit stuff like this, it adds more to what I see and know and can see consciously in this world. And so, David, I just want to thank you so much for being here on this walk.
[01:03:57] David: And I want to thank you, Luke, for the invitation to walk. We are at a point where we need all hands on deck. And what you are doing in the world, the people that you're walking with, the people that we are walking with are the hands that are going to shape the future.
[01:04:14] Luke: David, I thank you. Thank you for joining me for this episode of On This Walk.
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[01:04:45] It's free to join until we go on this walk again on Luke Iorio. Be well.