Clarity Within Complexity

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Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary for bold
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conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood, your
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guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of inclusion,
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belonging and societal
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transformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a
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world? Remember, everyone not only belongs, but
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thrives. You're not alone. Join me as we uncover the unseen,
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challenge the status quo and share stories that resonate deep
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within. Ready to dive in? Whether you're sipping your morning
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coffee or winding down after a long day, let's connect, reflect
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and inspire action together. Don't forget, you can be part of the
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conversation too. Reach out to
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jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk to share your insights or
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to join me on the show. So adjust your earbuds and settle
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in. It's time to ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion
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Bites. And today
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is episode 225 with the title Clarity
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Within Complexity. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Simon
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Mont. Simon is a lawyer, strategist, facilitator,
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mystic and problem solver who helps mission driven organisations
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align their values, vision and impact whilst creating environments where people
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can thrive and contribute meaningfully. When I asked Simon to describe his superpower, he said
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that it is his ability to hold complexity and clarity at the same
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time. Hello, Simon, welcome to the
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show.
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Hi Joanne, thanks so much for having me.
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Where that's in the world Are you Simon?
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I'm in the mountains above Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the United
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States.
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That's beautiful. Lovely weather at the moment. Is it getting warmer?
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Yes, actually. Incredible weather the past couple days.
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And for those of you listening, you can't see this, but I can see behind Simon is at least two or
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three saxophones hanging on the wall. So you're into jazz or just
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collect?
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No, I grew up playing saxophone. Jazz and funk mostly, and
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blues. So I grew. Yeah, I grew up, grew up playing
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them. Got a degree in it when, when I went to
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college. I don't play as much as I used to, but I've kind of transitioned more to string
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instruments because you can just pick them up off the ground and strum them for a couple
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minutes.
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It was always one of my lifelong ambitions was to play the
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sax. Our son, he had lessons when he was, when he was a child, so we got him an alto sax
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and we've still got it somewhere. And I always wished that I could
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just. I'm talking about going to a party and someone has a sax on their
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wall. You walk up to it, grab it and you just peel
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off. Baker street in the corner and just. And just hang it back up and
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go. That's it. Yeah, just that one song or
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something. Just feel. pour something out of sax.
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Why saxophone for you?
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I think it's. I don't know, it's just that kind of. It's an
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iconic instrument, isn't it? It's got that sort of vibe about it, that sort
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of. I don't know. Trumpet is a bit too shouty, and I think saxophone is
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really subtle and sound that comes out of it. I think that's what it
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is. It just drew me into that kind of. It's a friendlier
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sound.
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I think it's got quite a mythology around it,
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too.
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There's a.
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There's a great book about, like, a biography of the saxophone called the Devil's Horn, which is really
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fun. Well, and yeah, the. The person who created it
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was. He had the factory bombed a couple times because he was such a threat to the
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kind of rigid military band establishment as he was creating a instrument to attempt
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to replace it. And then it kind of carried over this mythos to the United States, where it
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began to represent kind of like an erotic soul that then kind of got
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picked up in jazz also. Often people attribute it to it
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because it's a. The reed instrument really mimics the human voice a lot and then has a lot of, like,
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breadth and flexibility that the brasses
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didn't. So it was seen as like a.
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Yeah. A threat to rigid, structured. Its establishment
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in. In the music world.
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Is it the only brass that has a read, then? Is that. Is that it's. It's
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unique?
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No, there's a bunch of woodwinds. So, like a clarinet is also a
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woodwind.
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Yeah, but the sax is a brass instrument, whereas the clarinet's wooden or
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plastic these days, isn't it? Yeah.
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So it's made of. It's made of brass.
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But the.
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But the difference between brass and woodwind is actually about the
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mouthpiece. So a brass instrument has a full brass mouthpiece and a woodwind has a
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reed.
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Right. Okay. Okay. That's the difference. Wow. You see?
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There we go.
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This podcast is amazing. We're covering. This is.
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This is what people are coming for when they. When they sign up for
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the. For the Inclusion Bites podcast.
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It is. Yeah. And it's. Well, we like to just do a bit of background on
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our. On the guest as well, rather than just launch into the work, if you
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like. Yeah, I like to get to know people. So one thing I loved
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about. I pulled it out. Your superpower. Whole complexity and
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clarity. At the same time. And you nodded when I, when I said that was what's going to read
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out? What does that mean to you then?
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I think complexity is about understanding that there's so many
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different ways to perceive a situation and perceive
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reality. So many paradigms, so many lenses that we can look through
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that each reveal certain things, certain elements of what's real, certain
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choices, they point us to certain ideas of what is right and wrong, desirable, not
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desirable, because there's a lot going on. And then clarity is the ability
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to kind of maintain focus inside of all of that,
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to discern what we truly ought to be doing
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in a given moment. Just like to make it grounded, for example, like in the world of
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organisational development, DEI and HR and all
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that. There's a lot of situations where if you take
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a conflict, for example, and if you look through it from one perspective through a
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race based lens, you'd be like, oh, I can see how anti blackness is playing out
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here. So you look through the anti blackness lens, you see that, but you move and you look through
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the gender lens and you say, oh, there's something else happening. But then you switch and you look
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through. I'm not going to look through an identity based lens. I'm really going to look at the structural power dynamics and the
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roles and responsibilities. I'm gonna see something else and then, okay, I'm not gonna look through any of
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those. I'm gonna look through a, like a psychological lens, like an internal family systems
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lens. I'm gonna see something else. You can keep seeing all these different lenses, which is great,
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but then at the end of the day there's a conflict of what are we gonna, how are we gonna move inside of it, what
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are we gonna talk about and how do we maintain clarity to not get lost in all those
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possibilities. And some of it's about clarity about which lens to prioritise in a
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moment. Right. Sometimes it, it's really important to prioritise a race based
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lens. And sometimes prioritising a race based lens is actually gonna escalate the conflict and
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dehumanise everyone involved.
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So it's a bit like being at the opticians where they swap the lens out and you're having to look at
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the scenario, evaluate each through each of the
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various lens or no lens, and extrapolate that and then swap in the
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most important layers, lenses to, to achieve
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what you're trying to look for. More than one lens.
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Yeah.
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And being able to discern which one. And the question of like, well, which lens do we use at which
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time always comes back to like, well, what are we really trying to achieve
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here? And being able to stay clear about that.
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Do you think that some people come with a preconceived or a pre baked lens
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scenario and the problem maybe is trying to get people to step back from that
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preconceived idea and look it through other, other
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perspectives?
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Yeah, I think we all have. We're all operating with some lenses that
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we're not even aware of. And I think the more aware of whatever lens we're bringing, the
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more we can ask the question of whether it's appropriate for the given
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moment. If I don't even know what lens I'm looking through, then I can't ask if it's
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appropriate. And I think that, like in the realm of HR and DEI
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type practitioners, I think some of us make an assumption the lenses
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we use are good and appropriate in all
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circumstances. And after, you know, 10 years in the game, I've noticed that actually some of the
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lenses that I thought were going to be appropriate in all circumstances actually, actually weren't and
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were harmful in some of them. Some of the things, some of the lenses that I used to wear all
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the time because I thought that by wearing them I would be a good person or a moral person
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or work toward the world that I wanted to see. I realised that actually I
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cared more about what I looked like while I was wearing the lenses than what the lenses
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actually allowed me to see.
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Most people, I would say most people, all people generally come from a place
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of good. They come from a place where they genuinely believe they're right
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and that their perspective is the most valid. And
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that's. And then when you're engaging, you come with your own perceived idea
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that you're right and your perspective is valid. And it's really hard to try and
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meet those two perspectives that are maybe diametrically opposed or in conflict
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and better see our way through that.
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Yeah, there's a tool that I use a lot in my work called
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polarities. When there's those diametrically opposed perspectives or
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beliefs, and it's just a really basic
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observation. If we enter the game when we've noticed that polarity
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that feels diametrically opposed, if we enter that conversation with an
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assumption that each of our perspectives carries a gift and a risk,
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there's something beautiful in what you're saying. And there's something that if we over
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fixate and only use yours, a risk we're exposed to, and that's the same with
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mine. And then the game Becomes okay, how can we unearth the gifts and
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risks of both of our perspectives in order to create something new
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that harnesses as much of the gifts and as little of the risks as
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possible? And then the way like that becomes really tricky is that
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as we're doing that we're also liable to judge each other
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for the perspective. It's one thing for me to say I disagree with you and there's a risk in your
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perspective. Then there's a judgement that's like, and you're a bad person because you are holding that
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perspective. And then when we get in those judgments then we like escalate and it's
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nonsense. And then there's also underlying power dynamics that are based on all the
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different things from identities to structures to roles, whatever it
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is. So if we enter and you have significantly more power
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than I do, then and we don't negotiate that well, your
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perspective is going to dominate. We're going to get the gifts and the risks of your
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perspective. We're not going to get very many of the gifts of my perspective and we're not
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actually going to be able to play this human creation game as well as we could
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have.
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One thing I've noticed recently is quite a few people accuse people with other views
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of holding the power. This whole semi global
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anti wokeness that's occurred, it's because people who were seen as woke,
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marginalised suddenly have more power than the majority. And of course those
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who are feeling marginalised and the woke people are looking back and going, hang on a minute, I haven't got
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power, I'm being oppressed, I'm trying to fight for my
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existence. And so there's often mismatch between who has the power and
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who perceives who has the power. And people are feeling threatened because they see it as a zero sum
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game. If you have it, I can't.
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Yeah, power is very odd and complex and most of us have very oversimplified
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understandings of how it operates because we have to understand like how it
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operates. My internal experience of how it operates and how I believe it then
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actually like interpersonally, how we actually are exerting power and then
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organizationally and systemically. But I think that one of the things that has
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a lot of power in a lot of different areas is the ability to cast oneself as a
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victim, cast someone else as a threat or an oppressor and then behave as if your
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actions toward your presumed oppressor are thereby
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justified. It happens everywhere the mo like in most situations, if I can
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convince all the People around me or enough people around me that I'm the one
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that's the victim, then I can kind of do whatever I want and nobody's really
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gonna. Nobody's really gonna check me. And you can see that,
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right? The anti wokeness is a. And American, you know, kind of
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Trumpism. And MAGA is absolutely a victim
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narrative. Their whole idea is we are at
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threat. Those people over there are taking power, those people over there are
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getting something out of us, therefore we ought to attack or do
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something. And actually like, really interesting on an organisational
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level. You know, I work, most of my work is in kind of American leftist social
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justice kind of spaces. We actually do the same thing in our organ in those
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organisations, right. You have somebody who says, I'm being treated
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inequitably, I'm being treated unjustly, that boss has too much power over,
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over me. If they can then get people to buy into that narrative, oftentimes they
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can do a lot of things. Sometimes it's really accurate and sometimes they
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become really disruptive and sometimes aggressive and sometimes
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problematic and violent themselves because they believe that they are the
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victim. So this idea of like the difference between this victim mindset
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wielded for power and like true victimisation is something that it's really
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hard to tease apart.
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Yeah, I see more of it where people who hold the views
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you were talking about, the MAGA and the. Those sort of views really truly believe that
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they are the victims. We see it, the rise of the manosphere, the rise of
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toxic masculinity. Women are oppressing men. We're seeing a lot of that in young
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boys now, probably in the US as well as the uk. And it's this belief that
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people are losing power or losing someone else that holds control over
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them.
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Yeah, yeah, I think the, That's a. You know, my read of all of that is that like,
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if you go into like the polarity idea, right, If I interact with that and say,
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okay, there's something real that they're saying, there's some gift here
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that they're trying to bring and there's some risk,
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okay. At the same time, if I take the pause and say, all right, I'm not gonna
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judge them, I'm not gonna just be like those wackadoodles, those evil
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people, even though I'm aware of the risk. Because if I, if I don't check that
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manosphere belief structure, right, what we're actually advocating for is
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like a really violent form of patriarchy that's terrible to queer and Trans
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people, terrible to women, ends up controlling bodies and actually then
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becomes terrible to the males and the men as well as their identities become
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collapsed into these kind of shells of
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themselves. And then it also gives them an excuse to, to kind of treat earth
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and not earth itself and non human inhabitants as objects for their own
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desires. In the same way. It's. It's kind of gross,
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actually. The gross. You heard me. That's the judgement,
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right? What I was before was, okay, those are the risks of that
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thing. But then I went gross and like, okay, there, that's more of the
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judgement. But there's a gift. They're actually, I think they're actually
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really trying to point us to, which is like first in the United States, the
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sense of, right, the sense of loss that they're experiencing, I think is very
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real, right? There was a. There's a whole generation of people who are
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growing up essentially like rooted, what is the
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word? Rootless, right? They don't have a place to ground their sense of
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self. They don't have their place to ground their sense of
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identity. It's being attacked, it's being undercut from all sides,
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right? So because you have a kind of capitalist patriarchal narrative that
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says you're not worth anything unless you have high status, high money,
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sexually engaged with a high status female,
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right? All of these things, but then makes all of those incredibly scarce and
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incredibly hard to access, especially though like money and status,
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right? So they're like, okay, what is my
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worth? What am I doing? And then they go to the left and you know, to the
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political left. And as a white guy who has spent, you know, more than a decade
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in leftist spaces, especially years ago, it was
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hard. A lot of side eye, right? A lot of scepticism, a lot of having to swallow
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other people's projections. And then the left built this idea of what a good
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man is. And the good man is actually very quiet, always in a support role,
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always listening, always. And then, and then the left like really went far
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into a very kind of like old school original sin narrative, which was like, if
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you're, if you're a white, if you're a guy, if you're straight, you are born
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into your role as a problem because of these
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structures. And because of that, what we expect of you is to kind of
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constantly apologise and make yourself small and believe that you are
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inherently sinning by virtue of your embodied
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existence. It was very. And then, okay, like you go over there as a guy, it's
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not really easy to find belonging it's not really easy
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to. To find it. And. And then in that vacuum,
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right? Then people come and they say, okay, men and boys, you're lost, you're
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hurting, you feel abandoned, you feel at risk, you feel
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scared. All those feelings incredibly real. And now we get a narrative that
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then takes that and moves that into
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something. I think there's a lot of risks with the narrative, but I think if
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you look underneath it, I think what you see is like this big vacuum and pain
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that some of us who are trying to create a world based on more like, you know,
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liberatory, feminist type principles, we left that vacuum there in some
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ways, in the way that we organised ourselves. We didn't strategize toward it
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as much as.
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Yeah, no, I think the other thing is that we are in a world now where
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influencers can monetize their influence and people
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follow them. And so we look at TikTok, YouTube, whatever platform you're using,
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people sell a brand and they sell a
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perspective. And if you're feeling disenfranchised in any way from,
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as you say, maybe these ideals, who are what a man should
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be. And you. Hang on, hang on a minute. That doesn't sound like me, but this person
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does. And you can very easily get sucked into that world, can't
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you?
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Yeah, and it doesn't. And there's this, like, really deep, I think, internal
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attunement and discernment that we have to
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have. I'll just say, like, as a straight white guy, because
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every. Every thought that I've ever heard somebody on the manosphere
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articulate is a thought that I have had in my own mind,
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right? Everyone, Right, the. About what
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it. What it means to be a man and how I ought to be and what I'm entitled to and how people
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should treat me. All of those thoughts are things that have run through my
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head. So I have to be in a practise of discerning what is
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really, really true for me and who do I really want to be
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otherwise? Somebody outside. I think it's a lot of what's happening,
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right? Somebody outside of me who says a thought out loud that
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I have had inside but I have thought is a bad or shameful
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thought. They've now just given me permission to identify with the
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thought. So then what we have is this very interesting thing, right? I'm sitting here having thoughts, and that group of
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people over there on the left is telling me I'm bad for having the
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thoughts. And that group of people over there is telling me I'm normal and I'm good for having the
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thoughts. And unless I have like an incredible level of moral clarity, what am I going to
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do? I'm going to say, forget you guys, I'm going to accept
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myself. They're telling me it's okay. I'm going over there, I'm going to find belonging, I'm going to find
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place, I'm going to find meaning, I'm going to find purpose over
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there. If I go over there, I'm going to find exclusion and side eye and
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scepticism. It's actually like a challenging thing to navigate and I think it's
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cool because there are people who are very aware of this and they're trying to build that space
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that's both kind of morally clear and also centred
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on creating like a belonging for people to navigate this in a better
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way.
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Yeah. That sense of belonging you talked about, it's. It's a bit like osmosis, isn't
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it? You're always going to go to the migrate to the point of less salinity if you like, and try and even it
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out. So you're going to always permeate across to what resonates where you feel most
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comfortable, where you can be yourself, your thoughts
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align. If you're having to fit yourself into the other perspective, you're always going to feel uncomfortable, always
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going to feel threatened, always going to feel you're masking and
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covering. If you're going that way, feeling free this
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way. So, yeah, our affinity group builds amongst that as
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well. Yeah.
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And I think it's also like, what part of the self is that space
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resonating with? Because parts of me are really comfortable in some
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spaces. Like I've never been in a space where I'm like, okay, every
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single part of me feels really comfortable and really welcome
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here. Some spaces I bring out something, some spaces I bring out another
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thing. And I think we all have different parts and different needs that we're
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navigating and those are drawing us around and it's
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really. Yeah, it's really fascinating. And I think that people then go to a place where some
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part of them that feels like has not had a place suddenly feels like it has
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a place. And then they can often fully identify with that and they're like, okay, this is me, this is the
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real me. And then interestingly enough, they'll then start absorbing all of the other norms in
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that where that part of them feels belonging and then get
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confused. That's actually one of the things that happened to me years ago when I really, like, was moving into
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queer community. There's a time where I was wearing a dress, wearing high
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heels. That's how I was being in the world. And part of parts of me when I did that felt
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super reflected and super cared for and super seen in a way that they
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hadn't. And then I was in a very particular community, a very particular geography, and I
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noticed what I was doing was all of a sudden I was scared of being excluded from that
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community. So I would just say all the things that would let me stay and I wouldn't challenge any of the norms
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there. I wouldn't. There were parts of myself I wouldn't bring in the same way in any
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community. And then I kind of
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kept. So that's one of the reasons why I keep moving around through so many different
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places. It's fascinating.
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Yeah, I hear you. I mean, certainly the community, the queer community, the part of it
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I. You could. You could argue I'm aligned
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to. Has its own rule set, has its own mantras, has its own, you know, dare
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say ideology that people talk about. And sometimes you have to sort of step back and go, hang on a minute,
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I'm not drinking that Kool Aid. This is not. That's. That's not. That's not me, that's
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you. And I actually have a different view on this than you do. And you're
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right. If you're not careful, you get ostracised or shunned out of that community into this
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no man's land where you're not. You don't fit anywhere. And so you're desperate to hang onto
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it. So you believe what people believe. I think it takes a brave person to be able to go,
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actually, I'm not buying all of that.
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Yeah.
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And I think some of what we're talking right now is about the relationship between power and
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belonging. Because we all need belonging so deeply,
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right? There's psychological, emotional needs and there's still the very real material and
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physical needs for folks. And it's coming from an embodied history of, like, if you were
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excluded from the tribe and you had to feed yourself, that was it,
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Right? So we need this belonging. And then it means that whoever, whatever
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ideology or structure then brokers that belonging has a
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tremendous amount of power over us. And that's, I think, one of
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the reasons why some of navigating some, like, complex and nuanced DEI
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stuff in organisations can be really, really
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tender. Because if, like, I've seen a number, like in one
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number of groups, I'll think of one in Particular like there was a whole bunch of staff
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who were saying that, you know, there's a toxic power structure and it's a white supremacist power structure and kind of bringing
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that analysis. And then the leader of this, the kind of director of this organisation
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is a woman of colour who had a good analysis, was like, I actually don't think that is
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really the best way to understand this. It creates this moment for that leader
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where it's like, oh, to push back and say, no,
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that's not the way we're gonna understand this in this
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circumstance. Daf, you're actually using that narrative to
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exercise power against me that you're not being accountable
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for. For that person to do that is this
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deep challenge because they're gonna, they're gonna feel
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a belonging threat. They might even get fired over it. If they can convince the board that this
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person is white supremacist, at the very least they're going to feel a severing of
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relationships and a stark question to their soul of like, hang on, am I actually
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doing this bad thing? It's way easier psychologically to just go along
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with. Yeah, you're right, it is white supremacist. It's actually way
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easier. So then you're in this fascinate. This group is in this fascinating moment where there's people who have
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less structural power, role based power because their staff,
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kind of junior staff, the CEO has more structural power, has more
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informational power, has more connections to people. But then the people, the staff
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are saying that the CEO has way more power because they do have some
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forms. But actually what's happening is the staff are exercising the most influential amount of power
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by shaping a narrative and using ideology to create a sphere of belonging and then threaten
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someone with that. And they're not aware that that's actually exactly
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how they're using power because they're so convinced the other person is the person who has power over
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them. Right. So. And that's what I mean by like the complexity and
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clarity. It's like all of it's happening all at the same
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time. And then they're in a room and they're. And we're having a meeting and we're trying to figure out what the
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budget's gonna be and how are we gonna talk to each other. How are we gonna actually then move forward
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given all of that swirl of dynamics?
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It's fascinating. I'm. This is a great perspective on a dynamic I
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probably hadn't appreciated the collective power versus the individual power and the
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collective power is far more influential. Even when you look at
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the. In the politics, the collective power of the communities out
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there shape the political agenda nationally,
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maybe. Certainly we look at some of the influences in the political scene in the US and the UK
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around religion, Christianity, those sort of things. There are collective bodies that
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infl. That will power, structural power, to influence
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how people are going to react by.
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The narratives that come out, the influence that way.
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So powers take so many different. So many different forms and
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expresses it itself in so many different ways.
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Yeah. And then you've got energy, oil, money. Well, there's other dynamics as
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well.
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Yeah. All these different forms of power.
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When I read out your bio, the word mystic was in there. So how does mystic fit
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into your psyche?
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There's like a moral sense and an epistemological
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sense. I think the epistemological sense, like way of
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knowing. I think you're seeing it in the way that I'm expressing myself
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now. Right. I'm. I have this really strong value for seeing many
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dimensions of something while knowing that I'll never be able to get to the
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essential, objective truth of that thing. And then kind of also from, you
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know, my lineage and tradition, that first thing that I did where I said,
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you know, when you. When I meet a perspective, the first question is, where
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is the light inside of this perspective? Where is the gift inside of
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this? And how can I find it and draw it out to learn from it and to reflect it to
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the person? That is like a kind of comes from. Comes from that lineage and
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then out of. More like straight to the guts of it
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there. I think we all are faced with a question of what are we ultimately
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concerned with? This is language from my theologian, Paul
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Tillich. What are we ultimately concerned with when we're making
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decisions? What are we actually driving. Driving toward when
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I. And consciously or unconsciously, you know, when I choose to put on a
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perspective, what am I trying to achieve with the
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perspective? What am I actually about? And I think I'm on a journey of
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asking that question to myself over and over to try to get deeper and deeper
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down into a core essence of what I consider the soul and say, like, well,
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what I'm really concerned with is my soul's relationship to reality and
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all and a sense of sacredness. That's what I'm really concerned
439
00:29:44.791 --> 00:29:49.635
with. So now if I. If I'm going to use a feminist analysis, I'm going to say,
440
00:29:49.635 --> 00:29:54.400
is the feminist analysis in this particular context allowing my soul to
441
00:29:54.400 --> 00:29:58.925
breathe and repair its relationships with all of reality and people
442
00:29:58.925 --> 00:30:03.769
around me, or is it not? And then kind of the mystic senses, the sense that,
443
00:30:03.769 --> 00:30:08.217
that like in an experiential way it is possible for us to reach these
444
00:30:08.217 --> 00:30:12.904
moments of like deep bliss and deep awe. Those moments where like, oh my
445
00:30:12.904 --> 00:30:17.430
gosh, everything makes sense and is imbued with sacredness and with
446
00:30:17.430 --> 00:30:22.195
love. Suddenly all of the pain in my life makes sense because of where I am
447
00:30:22.195 --> 00:30:27.119
now. I understand like these glimpses of, of like true deep sacredness and
448
00:30:27.119 --> 00:30:31.963
holiness, that those are the reference points I have for like what I hope I
449
00:30:31.963 --> 00:30:35.376
can, how I can live and how I hope everyone and you can
450
00:30:35.376 --> 00:30:40.220
live. Like, my hope of the world that we're trying to create is that you can
451
00:30:40.220 --> 00:30:45.144
experience that sense of like deep meaning and belonging to the cosmos and
452
00:30:45.144 --> 00:30:50.068
safety and soul and love and awe. That you can experience that as much as, as
453
00:30:50.068 --> 00:30:53.561
possible and that we remove all barriers to access to
454
00:30:53.561 --> 00:30:55.069
that. That's the game.
455
00:30:56.350 --> 00:31:00.470
Sometimes the search for that can be, can be quite exhausting mentally, can't
456
00:31:00.470 --> 00:31:05.430
it? Because you're, you're constantly looking for meaning in everything, but you're
457
00:31:05.430 --> 00:31:10.290
trying to second guess yourself. Sometimes you're trying to find the ultimate answer to the
458
00:31:10.290 --> 00:31:13.770
ultimate question. And sometimes there is no answer, it just
459
00:31:13.770 --> 00:31:16.170
is. Yeah. Yeah.
460
00:31:16.170 --> 00:31:20.930
I think that the need to know and the need to
461
00:31:21.090 --> 00:31:24.450
constantly have peak experiences
462
00:31:26.530 --> 00:31:31.410
and the like journey of doubt and angst is like,
463
00:31:33.090 --> 00:31:37.250
well known to be part of the, like part of the terrain
464
00:31:37.730 --> 00:31:41.650
of trying to, to, to find
465
00:31:41.650 --> 00:31:46.530
that. You know, if we want to get all the way into the like spirituality and psychology like that
466
00:31:46.530 --> 00:31:50.450
People have different teachings about how to navigate that. But I definitely experience it a
467
00:31:50.450 --> 00:31:55.010
lot. Right. I have a lot of my own personal experience of it is like the oftentimes the closer
468
00:31:55.330 --> 00:32:00.170
I get to what I feel like is a life that's truly aligned with my, my purpose
469
00:32:00.170 --> 00:32:05.020
and my place. The more painful, more pain I feel because I'm,
470
00:32:05.260 --> 00:32:07.900
I'm so close, but I can feel that I'm not there.
471
00:32:08.860 --> 00:32:09.220
Right.
472
00:32:09.220 --> 00:32:14.140
And that, that itself is a sense of like, angst for me, that's definitely part of my, part of
473
00:32:14.140 --> 00:32:16.700
the. Part of the set of knots I'm untangling in my life.
474
00:32:17.340 --> 00:32:21.900
I remember looking back at my life 10, 10 or so years ago, where I felt I
475
00:32:21.900 --> 00:32:26.700
was. I. I call it the vortex of confusion or the Bermuda Triangle where you,
476
00:32:26.700 --> 00:32:31.020
you go into this zone and there's no up, there's no down, there's no left, there's no
477
00:32:31.020 --> 00:32:35.220
right. You're just spinning and tumbling and you've kind of in that
478
00:32:35.220 --> 00:32:40.180
mode. You're mentally all over the place. You've got no clarity and you've
479
00:32:40.180 --> 00:32:43.300
got. You've almost got two X's, because staying there is not an
480
00:32:43.300 --> 00:32:48.180
option. Escape the other side with clarity or bottle it and go back
481
00:32:48.580 --> 00:32:52.900
knowing full well you've got to come back into the vortex to get to the other side another
482
00:32:52.900 --> 00:32:57.880
time. So what do you do? Do you stay? Do you go? And I remember the only way
483
00:32:57.880 --> 00:33:01.000
I could get to the other side and get out was to stop
484
00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:04.800
overthinking. I almost had to say to myself, I am. This
485
00:33:04.800 --> 00:33:09.360
is. I don't have to find an answer. I don't have to explain it to you, me or
486
00:33:09.360 --> 00:33:14.080
anybody. Just have to say I am so I can leave the door and that
487
00:33:14.080 --> 00:33:18.440
becomes my new reality. Which is fine. I'm trying to question how I got
488
00:33:18.440 --> 00:33:23.310
there. It's just put myself back in the vortex. I've learned over the years that sometimes
489
00:33:23.310 --> 00:33:25.510
you don't have to have the answer. Just accept.
490
00:33:25.990 --> 00:33:27.670
Yeah, there's this space.
491
00:33:27.750 --> 00:33:29.430
How does that fit into your model?
492
00:33:29.430 --> 00:33:34.220
I resonate with that On a. On a personal. Like a personal level of like,
493
00:33:34.220 --> 00:33:39.010
not being fixated in the mind and the need to understand or control and
494
00:33:39.010 --> 00:33:43.056
reduce the universe to the size of my own ideas is part of the
495
00:33:43.056 --> 00:33:46.440
path. That's something that feels really true to
496
00:33:46.440 --> 00:33:50.900
me. I also was laughing. I was like smiling as you were, as you were
497
00:33:50.900 --> 00:33:54.782
talking about it. Because the way that you map that out is
498
00:33:54.782 --> 00:33:58.581
so. Is so much one of the particular interpretations of
499
00:33:58.581 --> 00:34:02.956
a. Of the Exodus story in the Hebrew Bible. Even to the right, you
500
00:34:02.956 --> 00:34:07.828
leave. You leave a place of constriction. And we don't go from a place of
501
00:34:07.828 --> 00:34:12.618
constriction into a place of freedom. We actually go into, in Hebrew,
502
00:34:12.618 --> 00:34:15.260
called the midbar, which is a desert or
503
00:34:15.260 --> 00:34:19.057
wilderness. But it's also known as midbar is a desert or
504
00:34:19.057 --> 00:34:22.772
wilderness. Midaber is both speak and from where it is
505
00:34:22.772 --> 00:34:27.726
spoken. So the wilderness from where it is where truth is spoken is where
506
00:34:27.726 --> 00:34:32.433
we go. And then the name, the way that kind of the source of sacredness
507
00:34:32.433 --> 00:34:35.405
appears in that place is I will be what I will
508
00:34:35.405 --> 00:34:40.113
be. I am that I am. So it was so funny that you were like, you gotta leave
509
00:34:40.113 --> 00:34:43.582
from one place into the liminal. And then I am that I
510
00:34:43.582 --> 00:34:46.224
am. And then you kind of move from there
511
00:34:46.224 --> 00:34:50.849
into. Into a more embodied knowing. It feels very like resonant on a
512
00:34:50.849 --> 00:34:54.236
human, on a personal and a like, lineage level for
513
00:34:54.236 --> 00:34:54.480
me.
514
00:34:54.880 --> 00:34:59.804
Well, they say there's no original idea. It's just recycling other people's
515
00:34:59.804 --> 00:35:04.728
ideas. So I came up with that analogy on my own without knowing any of the story
516
00:35:04.728 --> 00:35:09.576
from the Exodus. So, yeah, I guess you look at other examples like the Matrix
517
00:35:09.576 --> 00:35:11.961
films, and you have to go through that
518
00:35:11.961 --> 00:35:16.887
confusion. You have to wake up and go and fly down the chute before you can find
519
00:35:16.887 --> 00:35:21.579
what the reality is and then decide whether that's the reality you want to
520
00:35:21.579 --> 00:35:24.120
stay in. Yeah, it seems dark when you get
521
00:35:24.120 --> 00:35:24.950
there. Yeah.
522
00:35:24.950 --> 00:35:29.258
And I think, like. Yeah, it seems to me that it's. It's just a thing right
523
00:35:29.258 --> 00:35:34.227
beyond. Before it was mythologized or storied in all these different ways, it was
524
00:35:34.227 --> 00:35:38.903
just there. And then it gets storied and mythologized in all these different
525
00:35:38.903 --> 00:35:41.241
ways, each of which reveals something
526
00:35:41.241 --> 00:35:45.843
different. Something that I think is, like, very meaningful to me about the
527
00:35:45.843 --> 00:35:50.302
Exodus, Hebrew Bible version of it is they really emphasise the period of
528
00:35:50.302 --> 00:35:55.195
wandering and so could go on for a long time about this, but just that in the period
529
00:35:55.195 --> 00:36:00.090
of wandering, the story is very much people struggling to try to repattern all of
530
00:36:00.090 --> 00:36:04.913
the things that they learned from the place of narrowness and watching failure
531
00:36:04.913 --> 00:36:09.806
after failure after failure, fear after fear after fear, and then doing the best
532
00:36:09.806 --> 00:36:13.165
they could to get as much of that out of their collective
533
00:36:13.165 --> 00:36:16.451
body. And then they enter into, you know, the promised
534
00:36:16.451 --> 00:36:21.417
land. And we see still that the. The extent to which they couldn't get it out of them
535
00:36:21.417 --> 00:36:25.727
made them replicate some of the things. So even though they were able to
536
00:36:25.727 --> 00:36:30.548
enter. Enter that promised land, in some ways they weren't able to do it as fully
537
00:36:30.548 --> 00:36:34.931
embodied as they wanted to, and they left it to us to continue as the story
538
00:36:34.931 --> 00:36:39.751
goes. But. But the quip about it is it was way easier to get the people out of Egypt
539
00:36:39.751 --> 00:36:44.644
than to get Egypt out of the people. And I think that that is something that a lot of
540
00:36:44.644 --> 00:36:49.614
us on identity journeys and unplugging from the Matrix journeys contemporarily
541
00:36:49.614 --> 00:36:53.339
is, like, really important. Is like, yeah, I can see that it's
542
00:36:53.339 --> 00:36:58.232
a. I can see that that system over there is nonsense and I can try to get out, but if I
543
00:36:58.232 --> 00:37:03.200
go too fast into a new thing without really taking the time to be in the unknown, I'm
544
00:37:03.200 --> 00:37:07.801
going to carry a bunch of that stuff over and that the ability to reside in the
545
00:37:07.801 --> 00:37:12.770
unknown is actually like a really important part of the process, as you just said,
546
00:37:12.770 --> 00:37:14.816
from your own direct experience,
547
00:37:15.030 --> 00:37:19.750
does that play back to what we were saying earlier, where you've got the draw of
548
00:37:19.750 --> 00:37:24.670
this perspective? The draw of that perspective, and if you're not careful, you End up drinking the
549
00:37:24.670 --> 00:37:28.830
Kool Aid over here and then realising that actually it doesn't
550
00:37:28.830 --> 00:37:33.670
resonate. You haven't found yourself. What you've done is you've bought somebody else's ideal, somebody else's promised land,
551
00:37:34.170 --> 00:37:39.050
not your promised land. And actually you want to, you need to go, I've made a mistake, I've gone the wrong direction, I need to
552
00:37:39.050 --> 00:37:41.290
go back. You don't feel satisfied at all then, do you?
553
00:37:41.690 --> 00:37:46.530
Yeah, that's feel. I just from my. One of the ways I've experienced that
554
00:37:46.530 --> 00:37:51.050
in my life is, you know, I kind of unplugged from a really
555
00:37:51.850 --> 00:37:56.170
status based, kind of white
556
00:37:56.250 --> 00:38:00.900
dominant academic value set, we'll call it
557
00:38:00.900 --> 00:38:05.740
that. And I tried to unplug from that and as I did I found my place
558
00:38:05.740 --> 00:38:10.060
in the kind of lefty community organising scene and then
559
00:38:11.500 --> 00:38:15.020
I immediately was like, oh, this is the real stuff, this is where I want it to
560
00:38:15.020 --> 00:38:18.860
be. And then took on all of their thoughts and all of their thoughts about
561
00:38:18.860 --> 00:38:23.500
me. And in some ways it was really uplifting. In some ways it was
562
00:38:23.660 --> 00:38:28.390
super dehumanising and like put me in some really, really dark places for a long
563
00:38:28.390 --> 00:38:33.070
time. And in some ways it allowed me to continue with something I
564
00:38:33.870 --> 00:38:38.790
had from my previous life, which is a sense of superiority. I just went over there and I was like, okay, now I'm
565
00:38:38.790 --> 00:38:43.670
better than all those people and now I'm just going to try to be the intellectually smartest, I'm going to be the
566
00:38:43.670 --> 00:38:48.630
wokest one in the room and that's going to get my status right. So I had that and then you
567
00:38:48.630 --> 00:38:53.510
know, I in some ways built legitimacy and connections in some like the beginnings of my career
568
00:38:53.510 --> 00:38:58.490
out of that. And then I was like watching the ways that work through and the ways it really does
569
00:38:58.490 --> 00:39:03.370
not work when you're actually trying to build organisations and create a liberated world now into
570
00:39:03.930 --> 00:39:08.850
now I'm. And then I entered like a real unknown land of like okay, I'm
571
00:39:08.850 --> 00:39:13.649
still working with organisations and I have developed my own embodied knowledge about
572
00:39:13.649 --> 00:39:18.250
how to do this. And, and that has been like an edge to claim
573
00:39:18.650 --> 00:39:23.010
because I have to be, I have to be in a group of people challenging a power
574
00:39:23.010 --> 00:39:27.710
dynamic, potentially getting fired. If I do it too extremely,
575
00:39:28.110 --> 00:39:33.030
I lose my credibility and I don't have a career. It's, it's a very definitely lived
576
00:39:33.030 --> 00:39:37.630
that thing. And now I'm trying to hang out in that unknown as much as I can
577
00:39:38.910 --> 00:39:40.910
and offer something from it.
578
00:39:40.910 --> 00:39:45.618
Do you find that then that you're constantly having to micro calibrate
579
00:39:45.618 --> 00:39:50.086
Your how you're dealing with people, the emotional intelligence,
580
00:39:50.086 --> 00:39:54.714
feeding back, adjusting yourself slightly, course correcting, but
581
00:39:54.714 --> 00:39:59.342
you're not the finished product. You're on this journey of evolution
582
00:39:59.342 --> 00:40:04.049
constantly. And I think as you say, going through the badlands into the
583
00:40:04.049 --> 00:40:08.834
place of comfort, you still gotta find the next door and the next door and
584
00:40:08.834 --> 00:40:13.702
you still gotta keep evolving yourself, be willing to invest in yourself
585
00:40:13.702 --> 00:40:18.646
and readjust your own and recalibrate your own sense of how you fit into the
586
00:40:18.646 --> 00:40:19.604
world as well.
587
00:40:20.570 --> 00:40:23.930
Yeah, definitely. And the more times,
588
00:40:26.250 --> 00:40:31.170
the more times we realise that we're wearing a mask, the easier it
589
00:40:31.170 --> 00:40:34.770
is to take the mask off and burn it if you
590
00:40:34.770 --> 00:40:39.570
need. And the faster we go through the processes, the less
591
00:40:39.570 --> 00:40:44.260
attached we are. You know, I've spent a, I've spent more than a decade creating the identity
592
00:40:44.900 --> 00:40:49.140
of kind of a social justice organisational development
593
00:40:49.380 --> 00:40:54.220
strategist. And now I'm in a place of questioning and be like, hang on, is this really the mask I
594
00:40:54.220 --> 00:40:59.100
want to wear? And because I've spent 10 years with it, it's hard to shake it loose and it's hard to
595
00:40:59.100 --> 00:41:03.300
think about putting on a different one. But there are other masks that, you know,
596
00:41:04.340 --> 00:41:07.580
if I only wear them for a couple months, then I can put them
597
00:41:07.580 --> 00:41:12.350
off. And that at least because I've let go of enough masks that I've held for
598
00:41:12.430 --> 00:41:17.310
a long time, I know that the process I'm going through right now of this one falling off is
599
00:41:17.550 --> 00:41:21.390
going to be okay and it's going to lead me somewhere deeper and truer and more
600
00:41:21.390 --> 00:41:26.310
honest. And that kind of comes back to the mystic thing which is like
601
00:41:26.310 --> 00:41:31.190
most of us shed masks through our lives and then most of us decide kind of
602
00:41:31.190 --> 00:41:35.030
which mask to put on. Right? We're making a decision about are we going to allow this to
603
00:41:35.030 --> 00:41:39.770
shed. We, what else are we going to do? And we're listening to something deep inside ourselves
604
00:41:39.850 --> 00:41:44.650
to discern right now. I'm trying to listen for, is it the best thing
605
00:41:44.650 --> 00:41:49.050
for me to keep this identity, this justice, justice organiser development,
606
00:41:49.370 --> 00:41:54.290
Is that the best identity for me to continue to really invest in and
607
00:41:54.290 --> 00:41:58.890
embody or is there something else? And I have to listen to
608
00:41:59.850 --> 00:42:02.860
something deeper than all of those identities to make the
609
00:42:02.860 --> 00:42:07.820
decision. And that's the thing that I'm kind of talking about is like the soul and the connection to the source of
610
00:42:07.820 --> 00:42:10.940
sacredness and the source of blessing and the true source of
611
00:42:10.940 --> 00:42:14.980
place. So how, how strong can I
612
00:42:16.580 --> 00:42:21.220
create that connection and how much can I make that my primary
613
00:42:22.260 --> 00:42:24.900
goal and identity? And if I can, I'M like, way more
614
00:42:24.900 --> 00:42:28.700
flexible. And then that allows me to be of service in the way the moment
615
00:42:28.700 --> 00:42:29.130
calls.
616
00:42:29.680 --> 00:42:33.222
I look back at my life and I can see those masks you called
617
00:42:33.222 --> 00:42:37.765
them. I was always describing them as retracing my ideal of who I should
618
00:42:37.765 --> 00:42:42.539
be. I think, is it the song by you too? I still haven't found what I'm looking
619
00:42:42.539 --> 00:42:46.466
for. You keep. I try the next thing I try the next thing I try the
620
00:42:46.466 --> 00:42:50.547
next. Well, that makes finally sense. Well, that finally makes
621
00:42:50.547 --> 00:42:55.475
sense. And then you realise that you're so far from who you are because you've
622
00:42:55.475 --> 00:43:00.095
collected all these masks. Like it's all the things you're wearing that
623
00:43:00.095 --> 00:43:04.253
aren't really you. But they. They create a sense of belonging in a
624
00:43:04.253 --> 00:43:08.873
community. Suddenly you're in the middle of this community, realising
625
00:43:08.873 --> 00:43:12.569
that, actually I feel I'm a stranger in the middle of all my
626
00:43:12.569 --> 00:43:17.420
friends. This is not me. And then you've got that disconnect and then you've
627
00:43:17.420 --> 00:43:21.732
got to. You then got to reverse back and lose your friends, lose your
628
00:43:21.732 --> 00:43:26.660
community and shun yourself and say, actually, finding me is more important
629
00:43:26.660 --> 00:43:30.895
than hanging onto you. That's a real. A real challenge to do, isn't
630
00:43:30.895 --> 00:43:32.420
it? Yeah.
631
00:43:32.580 --> 00:43:37.460
Where for you, when you've made those decisions, what's been the thing that's given you
632
00:43:37.460 --> 00:43:42.420
the clarity and the investment to make that choice, to invest in yourself in that way, where does that come
633
00:43:42.420 --> 00:43:42.660
from?
634
00:43:44.180 --> 00:43:48.500
I think it's literally the pain of staying still
635
00:43:49.470 --> 00:43:54.270
became less than the pain of going forward and being in this vortex, you
636
00:43:54.270 --> 00:43:58.750
know? You know something's got to change and the vortex is so painful, so not good,
637
00:43:59.310 --> 00:44:03.950
that you've got to almost like force yourself in and force yourself out the other side and
638
00:44:03.950 --> 00:44:06.030
recognise that you have to exit
639
00:44:06.590 --> 00:44:09.230
naked. Anything you happen to bring with you is a
640
00:44:09.230 --> 00:44:13.950
bonus. If you go into the vortex expecting to have it all that you
641
00:44:13.950 --> 00:44:17.470
had and take it with you, you can't. You've got to. You gotta exit
642
00:44:17.470 --> 00:44:21.890
everything. And then. Bit like playing poker, you gotta. You gotta go all in with your chips
643
00:44:22.770 --> 00:44:27.690
and sometimes it'll win, sometimes it won't. But, yeah, I had to work out that I was gonna
644
00:44:27.690 --> 00:44:32.650
prepare to sacrifice everything. And I'm not saying I did or didn't, but, yeah, a lot of things fell by
645
00:44:32.650 --> 00:44:37.450
the wayside and they were just. That was just stuff. And I realised afterwards I was
646
00:44:37.450 --> 00:44:42.210
hanging on to things I didn't care about. But I also found that I hadn't
647
00:44:42.210 --> 00:44:44.930
shed everything I needed to shed when I got the other side either.
648
00:44:44.930 --> 00:44:49.010
I. I was still Drinking too much, and I drank too much for most of my
649
00:44:49.010 --> 00:44:52.810
life. And about four years ago, four and a half years ago, I thought, hang on a
650
00:44:52.810 --> 00:44:57.770
minute. This drinking is still something that I've carried through that transition and the
651
00:44:57.770 --> 00:45:01.130
vortex. And that's something I need to let go of because that's
652
00:45:01.130 --> 00:45:04.650
not. I don't like that person anymore. I think that helped as
653
00:45:04.650 --> 00:45:09.570
well. So, yeah, there's still things in there that I think actually this doesn't serve me anymore, but
654
00:45:09.570 --> 00:45:13.400
I'm far more willing to. To let go of things now than I ever
655
00:45:13.400 --> 00:45:16.560
was. Some of that's age, you know, I'm 60 years old. So you do get
656
00:45:16.640 --> 00:45:19.440
maturity. And age does bring a bit more wisdom as well.
657
00:45:20.240 --> 00:45:23.160
Yeah. How about you? Did you. You crossed that journey
658
00:45:23.160 --> 00:45:24.160
yet? Completely.
659
00:45:24.160 --> 00:45:28.320
I think the awareness of pain being the
660
00:45:28.720 --> 00:45:33.520
pointer to enter the wilderness resonates a
661
00:45:33.520 --> 00:45:36.480
lot. The sense of like, I
662
00:45:36.560 --> 00:45:41.400
just. This isn't it. And I've had some
663
00:45:41.400 --> 00:45:46.320
pretty extreme experiences of that, you know, including one like real big
664
00:45:47.280 --> 00:45:51.760
kind of a psychotic breakdown. I had to kind of emergency
665
00:45:51.760 --> 00:45:54.560
evacuate from a area to know. It's really
666
00:45:54.560 --> 00:45:54.880
big.
667
00:45:54.960 --> 00:45:55.280
Yeah.
668
00:45:55.280 --> 00:45:58.699
And then it's, it's, it's. So I've had some of those and I did
669
00:45:58.699 --> 00:46:03.443
them. I had them like that. And then I would do, you know, be with blood medicine and
670
00:46:03.443 --> 00:46:08.258
psychedelics and meditation retreats. And that also is like, can kind of do some of
671
00:46:08.258 --> 00:46:13.075
that process or it's not as actually like, like fully integrated is just doing it in
672
00:46:13.075 --> 00:46:17.819
your whole life. But that experience of watching things shed and figuring out how
673
00:46:17.819 --> 00:46:22.704
you're going to come out of the ceremony or the retreat, that's like the whole idea of
674
00:46:22.704 --> 00:46:26.193
the aesthetic practise in some ways, which I've like, toyed
675
00:46:26.193 --> 00:46:31.009
with. And then it's really interesting now in my life because it's like that rhythm
676
00:46:31.009 --> 00:46:35.055
has such a big important part of my life. And now I'm, for the first time
677
00:46:35.055 --> 00:46:38.474
property-owner, have a house with all the complexity that
678
00:46:38.474 --> 00:46:42.381
entails. And then I'm married with a son, so it's very interesting,
679
00:46:42.381 --> 00:46:47.338
right? This idea of like, knowing that. Knowing that to really align often requires a
680
00:46:47.338 --> 00:46:52.014
shedding of everything. And then also being like, oh, there's actually certain
681
00:46:52.014 --> 00:46:56.760
things I'm unwilling to shed right now. And I'm not willing to shed certain things
682
00:46:56.760 --> 00:47:01.367
because of my own heart and soul. And I'm also not willing to shed certain things
683
00:47:01.367 --> 00:47:04.160
because of my relationships and obligations to
684
00:47:04.160 --> 00:47:07.162
others. So that's very interesting. Like, okay, so
685
00:47:07.162 --> 00:47:07.510
what.
686
00:47:07.510 --> 00:47:08.190
How do I.
687
00:47:08.190 --> 00:47:11.830
How do I go through that, that exodus journey here in this new
688
00:47:11.830 --> 00:47:16.550
context. And that's one of the things that I really appreciate about my own ancestral lineage is
689
00:47:16.550 --> 00:47:20.269
like, it has ascetic practise and it has mystical practise, it has a lot of these
690
00:47:20.269 --> 00:47:25.230
things. But the paradigm of the practitioner is somebody who's also in relationship
691
00:47:25.230 --> 00:47:28.070
with kids, with a job, which I think is like a really interesting
692
00:47:28.230 --> 00:47:28.950
paradigm.
693
00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.840
Yeah, no, I completely relate to that. I mean, I have my red lines and my red lines effectively
694
00:47:34.840 --> 00:47:39.200
were my wife, my children, my parents, my immediate
695
00:47:39.200 --> 00:47:43.520
family. And that was my non negotiable, they're coming with
696
00:47:43.520 --> 00:47:46.640
me. But then you know what you have to work with, don't
697
00:47:46.640 --> 00:47:50.400
you? You have to put effort into those relationships to make sure they do
698
00:47:50.400 --> 00:47:55.240
work. And once you've realised what's important and what isn't, then you can
699
00:47:55.240 --> 00:47:58.580
focus on it. Simon's been absolutely. We could go. We could carry on for
700
00:47:58.580 --> 00:48:03.020
hours. We could really go deep in this. It's been fascinating to learn about Exodus and some of
701
00:48:03.020 --> 00:48:07.340
the. My own belief systems map onto other
702
00:48:08.060 --> 00:48:10.860
thinking styles. How can people get a hold of
703
00:48:10.860 --> 00:48:12.060
you? You've got.
704
00:48:12.940 --> 00:48:16.894
I got a website, programmes, I got a website. Harmonise Work is the
705
00:48:16.894 --> 00:48:19.697
website. And then what we do is organisational
706
00:48:19.697 --> 00:48:24.656
development. So we'll do, you know, whether it's strategy or structure or direct,
707
00:48:24.656 --> 00:48:29.399
like DEI work or power negotiation, all that stuff, basically anything you can
708
00:48:29.399 --> 00:48:32.202
think of. And we've got a cool tool there you can
709
00:48:32.202 --> 00:48:37.161
download. It's called the Collaboration manual, which is just like a big map of all
710
00:48:37.161 --> 00:48:40.612
the different agreements you can make to have successful
711
00:48:40.612 --> 00:48:44.348
organisations. Whether it's like meeting styles or roles and
712
00:48:44.348 --> 00:48:47.366
responsibilities. But I think like, like the real
713
00:48:47.366 --> 00:48:51.892
thing. And the reason why I do that work is because this level that we've been
714
00:48:51.892 --> 00:48:56.852
communicating on, this is what's happening for us and this is what's happening for
715
00:48:56.852 --> 00:49:01.740
people. This is a lot of the internal guts of what then produces our behaviours and
716
00:49:01.740 --> 00:49:04.688
then our organisations and our societies and our
717
00:49:04.688 --> 00:49:09.648
system. Our system. So, like, how are we going to maintain this kind of awareness of
718
00:49:09.648 --> 00:49:14.249
all this when we go in and change the way we facilitate a meeting, knowing that
719
00:49:14.249 --> 00:49:19.135
everybody's on a wild soul journey where they're navigating power and belonging
720
00:49:19.135 --> 00:49:24.022
on their search for justice and like what? And that's what's happening when we are
721
00:49:24.022 --> 00:49:26.897
trying to design a new recruitment pipeline for
722
00:49:26.897 --> 00:49:28.890
diversity. So how do we be with it?
723
00:49:28.890 --> 00:49:31.848
Love it. Absolutely fantastic. So also find you on
724
00:49:31.848 --> 00:49:34.450
LinkedIn. And you're Simon Mont, M O N T. Yep.
725
00:49:34.450 --> 00:49:36.970
S I M O N M O N T. That's a good.
726
00:49:36.970 --> 00:49:39.730
Drop your message on there. Connect, say hello. Yeah,
727
00:49:39.730 --> 00:49:39.970
yeah.
728
00:49:39.970 --> 00:49:44.810
And the website's nice. You can download that thing. There's also just like a button to set up a 30 minute
729
00:49:44.810 --> 00:49:48.770
phone call to talk about whatever and see if we're like a good match to do a project
730
00:49:50.610 --> 00:49:53.090
that was harmonise work. That's it.
731
00:49:53.410 --> 00:49:58.330
Fabulous. I'll put that in the show notes. Simon, it's been absolutely fascinating to talk
732
00:49:58.330 --> 00:49:59.410
to you. Thank you so much.
733
00:49:59.490 --> 00:50:00.530
Yeah, thanks so much.
734
00:50:02.050 --> 00:50:06.976
As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express my deepest
735
00:50:06.976 --> 00:50:11.900
gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your ear and heart to the
736
00:50:11.900 --> 00:50:15.442
cause of inclusion. Today's discussion struck a
737
00:50:15.442 --> 00:50:20.279
chord. Consider subscribing to Inclusion Bites and become part of
738
00:50:20.279 --> 00:50:23.217
our ever growing community driving real
739
00:50:23.217 --> 00:50:27.019
change. Share this journey with friends, family and
740
00:50:27.019 --> 00:50:30.129
colleagues. Let's amplify the voices that
741
00:50:30.129 --> 00:50:33.325
matter. Got thoughts, stories or a vision to
742
00:50:33.325 --> 00:50:35.830
share? I'm all ears. Reach out to Jo
743
00:50:35.830 --> 00:50:40.237
Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk and let's make your voice
744
00:50:40.237 --> 00:50:44.989
heard. Until next time, this is Joanne Lockwood signing off with a
745
00:50:44.989 --> 00:50:49.828
promise to return with more enriching narratives that challenge,
746
00:50:49.828 --> 00:50:54.752
inspire and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world
747
00:50:54.752 --> 00:50:57.776
one episode at a time. Catch you on the next
748
00:50:57.776 --> 00:50:58.200
bite.