EPS06 - Mindful Leadership & the Business of Peace with Mandar Apte
Welcome to the We are Human Leaders Podcast, today we’re exploring the concept of Mindful Leadership and the Business of Peace with Mandar Apte.
This conversation shares a new perspective of the power Leadership can have in creating positively impactful organisations that can act as vehicles for change and peace in our world. As Leaders tune into their purpose and align with a more empathic and mindful leadership style, business can shift focus from being profit centred to true drivers of positive global change - it all begins with us. At Human Leaders this speaks to our pillar of Human Leaders called Leading Others, an opportunity for Leaders to become more aware of their impact on those around them, choose mindful communication over reactivity to drive more connection in their teams.
BONUS: At the end of this conversation we invite you to take a moment and delve into a Mindful Breathing Practice with Mandar and Sally. Breathing Practice begins at [56:46].
This conversation shares a new perspective of the power Leadership can have in creating positively impactful organisations that can act as vehicles for change and peace in our world. As Leaders tune into their purpose and align with a more empathic and mindful leadership style, business can shift focus from being profit centred to true drivers of positive global change - it all begins with us. At Human Leaders this speaks to our pillar of Human Leaders called Leading Others, an opportunity for Leaders to become more aware of their impact on those around them, choose mindful communication over reactivity to drive more connection in their teams.
Mandar Apte is joining us from Mumbai, India for this conversation where he currently manages the Cities4Peace initiative that actively promotes peace and nonviolence in cities worldwide. Prior to this, Mandar was a scholar at George Mason University and also managed Shell’s prestigious GameChanger social innovation program investing in ideas that create shared value – business value and social impact. For nearly two decades, Mandar has taught leadership programs using meditation practices for the International Association for Human Values (IAHV). Mandar won the inaugural League of Intrapreneurs award for his work to facilitate an innovation learning program using meditation practice at Shell to over 2000 colleagues.
Thanks for being a part of this potent conversation with Mandar Apte on the power of Mindful Leadership. As Mandar mentioned in his closing comments of the conversation, as a global leadership community we can support each other to mobilise for change, as we each have an individual responsibility for being the change we wish to see in the world around us. If you resonated with this conversation and want to connect with others sharing your journey of Human Leadership, join us at www.wearehumanleaders.com.
We hope you enjoyed listening to this conversation as much as we did having it!
For accessible access, view the podcast with closed captions below and access the full conversation transcript.
Episode Transcript:
Spk0 Alexis. Spk1 Sally Spk2 Mandar
Spk0 Welcome to the We are Human Leaders podcast. I'm Alexis Zahner and together with my co host Sally Clarke today, we're exploring the concept of mindful leadership with Mandar Apte. This conversation shares a new perspective on the power leadership can have in creating positively impactful organizations that can act as vehicles for change and peace in our world. As leaders tuned into their purpose and align with more empathic and mindful leadership styles. Business can shift focus from being profit centered to true drivers of positive global change. It all begins with us human leaders. This speaks to our pillar of leading others, an opportunity for leaders to become more aware of their impact on those around them, choose mindful communication over reactivity to drive more connection in their teams. Manda Apte is joining us from Mumbai India for this conversation where he currently manages the Cities for Peace initiative that actively promotes peace and non violence in cities worldwide. Prior to this, Mandala was a scholar at George Mason University and also managed shells prestigious game changer social innovation program, investing in ideas that create shared value, business value and social impact. For nearly two decades, Manda has taught leadership programs using meditation practices for the International Association of Human Values. Manda won the inaugural League of entrepreneurs award for his work to facilitate an innovation learning program using meditation practice at Shell to over 2000 colleagues. This conversation was deeply empowering and moving, we hope you enjoy it, let's dive in.
Spk1 Thank you so much for joining us today on. We Are Human Leaders Mandar and we're really excited to share with you the breathing exercise that you're going to guide us through after our conversation today To get started. We'd love to hear a little bit about your journey and the experiences that have brought you to the incredible work that you do today in social innovation.
Spk2 You know, my corporate life began about 22 years ago when I joined a small oil company called Shell in Houston texas. I started a very beautiful initiative in 2003. An employee initiative called the aware initiative and the acronym aware stands for at work as responsible employees to bring self awareness at the workplace, self mastery at the workplace. Again, this was more than 20 years ago, none of this was part of Shell's vocabulary. So we had a lot of friction, friction from our bosses, friction from our own teammates because nobody brings meditation and yoga at work. But I kind of weathered that storm. I remember I had very bad end of year reviews but I still persisted. I said okay, I can change where I work but the challenges will still be the same. So why don't I and go through the challenge of you know, not convincing people but influencing them through the work through the experiences. I used to teach meditation during lunch hour and in the beginning janitors used to come, security guards used to come and that is where the aware network actually became uh you know like the in thing for people that are on the fringe, many companies have these rebels. Right? So we created a network of about six shell operating units London uh Perth rio de janeiro Amsterdam Houston bangalore. And we collected about 400 employees that were doing yoga meditation in their personal life, but they never brought it up at the workplace. So the aware network became a channel for them to express themselves. And so you know through these years at Shell, I was then blessed to meet my then boss now friend, the head of the innovation program called Game Changer. So game changer is the flagship innovation program at Shell and the mandate of the program is to disrupt is to create investments in ideas that are about the future future of energy. And so he said to me that innovation is also about mindset and just giving money to the entrepreneurs that we invest in is not enough. Can you create a program that uses meditation as the chocolate? And the wrapper on the chocolate is innovation and creativity. So I literally jumped out of my chair in that interview and I said, are you kidding me want me to bring my passion at work? So he said, yes, calm down. It's only 10% of your time. Your job folio manager like game Changer program manager, but you can use 10% of your time to create an educational experience. I taught 2000 people at Shell in less than two years and that is because he invited me to express my my passion at work. Right? So I had, I would say sweet spot in my life, I trained people in shell, Australia, shell, brazil, shell UK shell, holland, shell India um and I met some wonderful people that also are technical professionals like me, but they have not thought about the role of the social and mental skills. Innovation is not just a technical process, it's a very social and emotional process and you know, every entrepreneur, every entrepreneur, that social entrepreneur are not, we go through ups and downs because we are pioneering things, you may have a self doubt like you know, nobody is joining, what should I do? So meditation practices will help any entrepreneur rejuvenate their mojo, I would say, Right, so your mojo gets rejuvenated by an internal boost of energy, external mojo because people that we deal with as change makers are always doubting us are always blaming us, are always telling us to stop what we are doing. This could even include our own parents and family members, right? It doesn't have to be in the outside world. So how do you deal with this external pressure? And again, that is where meditation practice has helped me tremendously.
Spk1 Yeah, I have to jump in if that's okay because I have, I mean, I have so many thoughts and questions that come up as you share your journey. It sounds to me like there's a real sense of determination about what you do, a real conviction of the impact that meditation and yoga practices can have on us as individuals, and almost the necessity that there is to integrate that I think you explained and I think I've seen that a lot in my own career to this kind of separation between workers work and maybe in private, we have a yoga and meditation practice, but never the two shall meet and the two have nothing to do with one another another. Whereas, you know, I think what you spoke to, you know, as technical professionals and I think for many professionals, these social and mental skills are essential to our success in our role, but also our fulfillment as human beings. And I'm curious in those moments when you were getting some some pushback perhaps on these programs, can you speak a little bit more to that sense of sort of deeper conviction that you had about the the importance of these practices in that environment.
Spk2 So yoga meditation practices help you to accept what is going on, not just the word accept, but really feel it. And at a at a certain point you realized that, oh my God, had I access to this knowledge of inner peace, I would not have got into trouble in the first place, right? So with the inner peace comes Grace comes skill, communication skill, relationship management skill, and an intuitive feeling comes dawns in you as a, as an experience of what is right, what is wrong, who is good for me to hang out with? Like all these are experiences of a practitioner of yoga meditation. And I also had those experiences and in parallel to that life, I was working in technical projects designing oil and gas platforms and you know, meeting people who seemingly are PhD whatever head of oil and gas drilling programs, like all these senior people, but I felt that they are emotionally very weak, they are not able to empathize, they want to be a leader, but they have not been trained in building one inherent capacity of a leader is to be empathetic and compassionate. If you want to get people to work for you, if you are expressing your negative emotions all the time, like you're frustrated, you're angry, you're sad, you're blaming other people, we have to learn to deal with this internal pressure, external pressure. And I realized that people at shell are not evil, people are not evil, just like the oil industry is you know, looked down upon, I didn't meet a single person on the drilling rig who wants to pollute the world, They were just simple people like me, They had a family, they wanted to take their kids to the movies and so that is where I felt a need to bring this wisdom of yoga meditation or even India if you want to extend it and apply that wisdom to help real people. You know, that is where I started thinking about, hey, can I be a change agent? Can I be a bridge between that ancient tradition which even I don't know much about, but it has helped me in my personal life. Can I be a conduit for being meaningful at work? If you're marketing something or if you're selling something you have to be fully convinced in your product, That's sales 101 like conviction in your product. And so once that conviction comes, there is no stopping you because you knew it. And in my evenings and weekends I was teaching american soldiers who were coming back from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was going to abused women centers in Houston. I was sharing this wisdom with women who have been abused domestically. So I knew that hey, it not only helped me in my own life issues, It's helping everyone that I'm teaching. So why not bring that at work? Because I'm spending 9-10 hours at work. You mentioned that this for you started in 2003, which is quite a long time ago. It's it's it's almost impossible not to break ground and have resistance. Um, it's part of the process.
Spk0 So we're really glad you persevered. And I just wanted to make a comment about something I heard you mention and then I'll ask a question. The first thing I heard you mentioned was that you worked with a lot of people that had a really high level of technical expertise and that that in Shell at the time sounded like how people deemed leaders to be competent and or um you know worthwhile of being in a leadership position. And this is fascinating because you then went on to say that your belief is that empathy, compassion and those sorts of what we would call soft skills still were calling themselves skills. I'd like to call them core competencies um critical in managing people. And you know, I absolutely I agree with that and I think the challenge is that when we have that high level of technical expertise, often it gets leaned on um as an excuse for not having the other things. And I think we're now seeing a really critical shift in the way we lead to be really making sure that people have a well rounded approach to leadership. And I think certainly we now know that millennials are the largest demographic in the labor force and they're absolutely demanding that leadership shift and lead differently and recognize and the humanness in all of us. So I thought that was a very important point um just to make their but something else I wanted to dive into and it's no we've we've actually sort of set this conversation up so that we had some structure, but I heard you say something and I can't not ask the question and you know, you you you're talking about, you know, fostering innovation at Shell. And I hear this word innovation a lot, I hear a lot of companies and a lot of leaders say, you know, we need to be more innovative, we need to be able to shift the way we do things to be innovative. But I don't always see the working conditions and the space created for that to be the case. And the reason I say that is that creativity is a precursor to innovation. And we know that if our brains are in a stress state, if we are time poor, if we are pressured overwhelmed by work, we simply cannot be in a creative flow state and therefore we cannot be building innovative organizations. And I just wanted to know perhaps Mandar did that introduction to mindfulness and the aware program at Shell. Did you see a change in innovation in the company and or in that game changes program when those younger or you know, establishing entrepreneurs were introduced to some of these concepts?
Spk2 Yes. So let me address it's a it's a loaded question and you are you're spot on, let me first address the leadership side of it. You know, a you don't need to work for anybody at all. You can start your own business, go online, raise your money, get your venture started. So today's workforce doesn't need to work for a boss who is angry upset, sad pressures aims makes you feel guilty. Nobody will work for you. Or even if they work for you, they will not put 100% in it because they have something else is their passion and they're just working for you for their money. So leaders today, especially after the pandemic are looking for new ways of sustaining their business because many businesses have failed and crashed and leaders that are forward thinking are looking for what else they should be doing as an organization to thrive in the world. Post pandemic, leaders cannot say I will attend the program at Harvard that tells me how to deal with the post pandemic. There is no such program. So that leader has to include the people that work for him or her. And when we'll have employees share a radical new idea is when they feel a certain sense of belonging to the leader and the organization. If I don't feel a sense of belonging, why will I share a great idea with you? You don't respect me. That is where leaders need to find that inner calm, inner peace for themselves first, because changing anyone doesn't happen by telling someone, hey, you should change change. Change management needs to be role model, right? You need to role model the change. So leaders today better awaken that they have a huge responsibility. The world is a connected organism, Everything is connected. So the actions of a leader or a change maker in one part of the world will affect so many ripple effect families that people work for you. So that's the leadership angle. Ah And leadership needs to experience compassion, experience empathy. Not just read a book, it's not a left brain logical thing that okay today I will be compassionate. You know I will repeat it 10 times and I will be compassionate. No, you need to learn how to activate the right side of the brain. And all this has been proven by neuroscience that there is a certain side of the brain that has not been developed and you can develop it through music through art. And of course meditation, yoga practice also. But it's a personal responsibility for every leader. The second thing you raised is even more important is innovation. Because you know, innovation I feel is is missing from the leaders training from the leaders of vocabulary. You may be a vice president of innovation at a company but why did you get there? Why did you get promoted to be a senior leader? Most likely you kept your boss happy. You managed your project under budget under time you win, you won the confidence of your boss. You got promoted Which tells me that you did not take any risk. You did not cause you did not fail and that means you don't know the 101 of innovation is failure. So innovation comes with failure. It's a tale associated with that dog, right? You can't separate the two. So how much failure are you encouraging from your own team? From your own people? From you yourself? Right. We want to be perfect all the time. Perfect. Perfect. But in that, you know, search for perfection, we are not keeping that innocent. I tried it, it failed and it's okay space and that's where companies I think need to transform themselves is number one, they are not encouraging failure. And number two, there is no space that they are creating for. Hey come, let's have a failure lab. Right at the end of the year. We are not celebrating our failures and we are not asking in our performance, did you try something new? Show me where you failed, right? We're not encouraging such behavior. So I think that is where we need to look inward and really look at creativity and innovation because that's the only way we can thrive and make a better world, not just make money, but also to make a better world is we have to be innovative. We have to learn how to fail to go into that a little bit more. And you mentioned earlier the idea that leaders who lead with a sense of purpose and you had that experience yourself with your boss at the time, you felt more connected to them and as a result of that, you felt like you could express your whole self at work and I just wanted to dive into this notion of purpose a little bit more because we hear a lot about it in business right now. And certainly as we've spoken to, we're hearing a lot more about this at an individual level. And again we look at millennials and now gen z entering the workforce. People want to be connected to purpose in their work. They don't want to just show up to work every day for a paycheck. That level of extrinsic motivation simply isn't doing it for people anymore. So can you help us with that a little bit more? What role does purpose play in leadership? And how can leaders ensure that they are actively living and leading from their own purpose purpose for me is like when you were asked when you were a kid, oh yeah. Hey, what would you like to be? And you, you may have said I want to be the ice cream vendor. Okay, after a few years, what do you want to be? I want to be the engine driver. I want to be the airplane pilot, right? So your mission in life changed. And so should your purpose purpose is not a destination. It's a journey to be explored. And the question we should ask is what else can be my purpose because that is where the innovation can come in and that is when you cannot box or limit yourself because you have in finite potential. And if you are stuck with doing one thing as an organization or a leader or a person by asking this question, what else can be my purpose every now and then? Maybe not every day, but every few months. Yeah. Hey, what am I doing with my time? What else can I be doing? Because you know, sadly trees and rocks have a longer shelf life on the planet than we do. Purpose needs to be repurposed. It needs to be recalibrated, it needs to be reimagined. So don't get hung up on the word purpose. Also, it's contentment. I think contentment is a better word. What do you feel contented to do now? Do it until you feel okay And I want to do something else okay, do it. So at every point don't feel that this moment is not perfect, this moment is perfect and I'm striving for the next moment of perfection and it's a difficult journey and I'm willing to take that journey and all I need is one person in my life and Alexis in my life that says man dar go for it. That's all you need. You don't need much when you are rediscovering or reimagining reading books. Yes, it can help but it it has to be from an inner space, you know. And finally our highest purpose is I think to promote peace. That is what I feel is peace not just absence of war, but peace as love, as compassion as happiness as contentment, It's beautiful and I think we'll come back to peace specifically in a moment, but I feel like when you're talking about this um this journey of purpose, there's the word that comes to mind for me is awareness and being aware and that constant sort of tuning in to self in order to really connect with what is my purpose and being able to step away from perhaps comparison with others or expectations that others might have of us to really connect with our inner peace and inner in a purpose. And I was wondering if you could speak to how that and particularly for leaders, how practices like meditation and mindfulness might be able to help us connect with that purpose and and with indeed with sort of awareness more generally. Yeah, beautiful question. I think that should be the purpose of every leader is, how can I be more aware, more aware, more more conscious. So that is where mindfulness is a crap actually. It's it's the wrong word. It was invented to avoid using the word meditation. So when you meditate, you want to be mindless, not mindful because meditation is the art of doing nothing. So mindfulness meditation is whatever that figure of speech is. Its polar opposites. When you're mindful what you eat okay mindfully eating mindfully, I'm taking one step, the next step. It's a lot of effort. Mindlessness makes you more innocent makes you more carefree, makes you more light and loving. So that's one thing I always tell my american friends is mindfulness meditation. Uh just call it meditation or just call it. I want to be happy. And second thing what you asked is you know how can the meditation practices help? Actually it's the breath that helps. So the breath is the link between your body and your mind mind. We have not seen, nobody has seen the mind but we know that it facilitates it goes in the past, it goes in the future, it has doubts, it has feelings. So when we use our bread it is like flying a kite. The kite has a string and the string is in your hand. And the longer the thread, the longer the string, the more control you have on the kite. Same is true with the mind, the more, the longer your breath the more calm and peaceful your mind is in the present moment. This science is two way science. Like imagine when you have some emotion, let's say it's anger. The bread immediately has changed to a fast short bread. When you're feeling sad when you're feeling low, the breath already has shrunk and you are sighing right? But when the mind the emotions are positive. Joyful, let's say you're on the beach, you're having an ice cream, you're with friends, you're with your grandkids. You will notice your breath is from your navel. I feel so good. So this is how the breath is linked with the emotions. And it's a two way traffic like as you are talking to me, just take a deep breath from your navel and you will see a smile will come on your face. So this is the science of self awareness is being aware of your breath because the breath is not in the past, not in the future. And it has a lot of secrets. One secret I've just shared with you that using the breath you can manage your emotions. And so all ancient traditions have grandmothers telling you, you know Kiddo, if you get angry, count to 10 Okay before you speak. And so you may wonder like 10, what's the magic number in 10. So actually what happens is when you count to 10, your mind calms down. Your breath harmonizes and then your anger has subsided. So this system is a universal wisdom and it doesn't matter whether you are a man, woman, indian chinese, whatever left a left handed, right handed, we can all use this science preserved currently in India but universal. And it doesn't include yoga mat. It doesn't include upward dog, downward dog. So you know, you don't have to go in the positions of a pretzel or none of this. So in America every corner has a yoga studio in most cities. But in India there is no yoga studio, I'm in Mumbai. I have not seen a yoga studio now for three years because here yoga is a mental game. It's not a physical game. It's not a game that you do for you know, reducing your weight. Or whatever the pretzel or showing off your friends. It's more a mental game. How do you deal with situations and events and emotions? And we all have to learn this science and we have to bring this science in our own communities and organizations. Because if we don't then violence unfolds. Violence could be as well as shouting at someone right? Or hurting someone through their words. Or even emails that we write in the corporate world. If I copied 20 people on that email it creates turbulence in the person who's reading the email. Like why did Alexis need to copy 20 people on that email? She wants to hurt me. All these tendencies are violent tendencies and they can and must be quenched by giving people access to learning how to transform their negative emotions. That's it. We don't need to teach people how to be peaceful loving that is our nature. We just need to teach from childhood. How do you manage your negative emotion because when the negative emotion comes it's like a storm. And then we say, oh my God, why did I shout at my mother? I'm so sorry I made a mistake. My intention was not to hurt you. So we should all assume that love is our nature, peace is our nature. And just learn how to manage our negative emotions. Mm So so potent there Amanda And you know an interesting perspective on mindfulness because I I have worked with some Corporates in mindfulness and I like to think about it in a slightly different way. Not necessarily mindlessness but rather that it's a process of being with what is so rather than as you said, trying to think about one thing in particular, just trying to be with who and how and where you are in the moment, without expectation and without judgment of the inevitable thoughts that come up. Um and something else that I loved, loved hearing you speak about and I'd love to dive into this a little more right now. And that's this idea that our true nature is love and peace. And I think this seems like a lofty concept for a lot of people. But in fact I absolutely resonate with this. And I think it's the constructs that we operate in our societies, our families, our businesses that take us away from our true nature of just being and just loving and just being in peace. I I believe that to my very soul and for a very long time, I think that on a personal level, I was someone who was very cutthroat in my career and um didn't communicate effectively and didn't emotionally regulate effectively and as a result was very prone to reacting to the world around me rather than having an empowered responsiveness to the world around me. And I just wanted to highlight that because I think what you've said there is so powerful and I think as you said, the practice of meditation and yoga and simply emotional regulation is really an opportunity for us to separate ourselves from our thought and from the perception that the world is making us do things and create that space to take that moment to come back and take our power back and step back into our authentic self which is love and peace and I just so potent what you said and I want to dive into this further because I know that for you Amanda You really believe that business can be a powerful driver for world peace and I absolutely think that this is in no way a lofty goal, I am here with you 100% here and I think that corporations can play a role in achieving peace and I just wanted to know from you, you know, how do you think this might look, does this is this more about leaders finding their own peace and bringing that into how we operate businesses. How how can businesses truly be a part of driving peace in the world firstly, you spoke like a meditation teacher, so if you are not already, you should become one, get trained because your beliefs and your words are very powerful and you are speaking very wise words. Um While I was at Shell 10 years ago now, exactly 10 years ago I recalibrated my own purpose. So I had finished teaching 2000 people how to meditate. And I had one an external award. That award got me a meeting with the ceo of Royal Dutch shell This month 10 years ago and I went prepared for my next job. So I went there prepared with position paper that I then influenced him and he created this job for me is we need to expand the mandate of the game changer innovation program to look at solving the problems of the world and making money from it also. So not corporate philanthropy but can we solve the social problems, emotional environmental problems and make money revenue, return on investment. And 10 years ago I created a new job for myself which I managed this multimillion dollar fund investment fund for the next four years. And while doing this role I looked at all kinds of problems with plastics in the ocean health care, lack of access to education and even violence. And I started designing business models. I started designing business models of course through lateral thinking and lateral networks like you because when you solve a social problem, the value doesn't remain only for in this case Shell. It's a shared value. So everyone should get involved. I'll give you one example. So 2002 I was a petroleum engineer. I was in Nigeria on oil and gas field and I was attacked by a mob. I barely survived. I remember that vividly. So 2012, when I got my new role mandate to solve social problems, I went back to my friends in Nigeria and we looked at the business of violence. So there is a lot of violence in these communities and we found out that when there is violence, the bad actors will siphon the oil from the pipelines and there is a huge black market for that oil. So that is where the idea of business for peace started taking birth. That okay, let's promote peace and social harmony in those villages and tribes and you know, help people deal with conflict, conflict resolution, etcetera, etcetera, not just because it's a good thing to do for social impact, but the consequence of that will be loss of revenue will be stopped. So I brought together a congregation of Chevron and Exxon and the Nigerian oil company and created a business case of investing in peace. And that is where I started thinking, oh my God, I have just created a bigger purpose for myself. I left Shell, I left Shell with of course the blessings of my boss that you know, can peace be profitable. And that is what I've been doing last six years is helping individuals, leaders and organizations to reimagine their purpose and what can be their highest purpose. So usually Sustainable Development Goals goal number 16 is peace and security. And it's never addressed by business. So, business will now, after many years have started investing in climate change, planting trees, you know, whatever those Maybe. But peace. Business doesn't go near as d. G. 16. So that is where, you know, if we have to do this, we have to reimagine piece peace is not just the absence of war. And if we then use the wisdom that you have just shared is hey, peace is my nature and everything that you see around you, the wars, the refugee crisis, the domestic abuse, the bullying, the mass shooting in schools. This is because of people who are not contented, people who are not happy. People who are not mentally stable. If business can play a role in producing that violence, they are also countering and promoting peace. Okay, there is so much that business can do because politicians worldwide have lost their trust. People don't trust politicians and media has also lost the trust. I don't know what media story is true, I don't know CNN is telling me one story, but the other side of the story also exists. So what is true? I think that is where civil society has to wake up and that is where business is perhaps our only hope. Because if civil society starts, you know, saying not buying a certain product because this company does some bad the businesses out of business. So that is pioneering spaces for people who are listening on this podcast. If you are wanting to do something radically different, let's explore how can your business reimagine its purpose and promote peace. It's so natural. I'll give you one more example to get your listeners and you to think we know the in thing today is electric cars, right? People want, okay, what's the ingredient of the electric cars? That makes it different from anybody? Any other car is the battery? What's the battery consisting of? It consists of lithium Mayans, consists of precious metals. Right? Where do they come from? They come from very challenging spaces like Congo, right? All these places that are full of war and tribes. And so if we don't take care of the peace in those countries as a business, we may have a disruption in our supply chain. If this thinking is just incorporated by even 5% of the businesses on the planet to look at their own supply chain and invest in those communities to build peace and harmony, the world will be a much better place. I agree. And I also would just, you know, there's part of me that understands the business benefit to this, but there's also a big part of me, I mean, I've grown up in Australia where we have a lot of mining sites, mining companies on indigenous land and part of me as someone who resonates with this idea of peace, just wishes that also companies would take responsibility for doing the right thing for human beings because it's the right thing to do and I know that's a lot to ask you know I think speaking to it in a way that says you know this is good for our supply chain and good for these um countries is so powerful but I also just think as a human being connecting to other human beings, I inherently just want the best for my brothers and sisters around the world as well. That will only come when people are more self aware, when people start questioning what am I doing, what is my organization. But from a business point of view if you are in the mining and extractive industry, most projects get delayed because of what is called non technical risk. It's not a technical risk, it's a non technical risk and that is why people invest in corporate social responsibility. There is most of the times lip service and it goes to the places and the leaders that actually don't help the case, they are actually delaying even more because of all the social levels like corruption and blah blah blah. So we we have to reimagine how we do our work and if we really are a business and if civil society is taking an action against us we will be forced to do what is the right thing to do, You will be out of business. And I think manda that's also where the component of self awareness is so important as well Because I think for leaders to have the courage to be able to make a decision to really invest in social innovation and to really invest in reducing for example, violence in particular areas and helping people in that way they have to take a slightly longer view that I think they might be used to in a corporate setting. There's this very short term mentality. But when we have that self awareness and I think that that just even incrementally increases level of compassion and courage. We can see yes, this is maybe a six month or maybe a longer term investment. But it's both going to have a positive impact on, you know, positive return on investment for our company and for the community. And they might even only mention the company when they're reporting that to their boss because that's what matters in that context. But it has those that that that that peace driven um implication for the community as well. And it also potentially has a longer impact. Because when you help reduce the violence for one person and I'm thinking of the beautiful documentary that you made about, you know, bringing people who have experienced a lot of violence in their lives. Taking them to to India giving them this really profound sort of insight into, into the practices you teach it. It doesn't just impact one generation. It impacts the next two. Mm hmm. Yeah, it's a flow on when when one person and that's you know what's so beautiful about what you said. So it comes back to Amanda's earlier point that it's not about talking about empathy and compassion or peace. It's about experiencing it. And when you experience that in your heart and for yourself, it is impossible. Impossible to not show up in that way. You mean you're bringing very good points. Self awareness is the missing link in all kinds of work and professions. Like nursing. My mother was in I. C. U. She's okay now. But when she was in ICU a few months ago I wanted the best nurse for her and I started wondering like who is taking care of the nurse, right? So now we need to look at systems like the hospital system, it has been over the last two years. The law enforcement system overwhelmed. We take it for granted that people who do this are doing it. You know, they are stress free, they are happy, they may not be. I think that is where as civil society has changed makers, we have to really look at where can we promote inner peace where it's needed the most right? And if each one of us makes a commitment that okay in my life at least five people, I will give this gift of inner peace, right? I think the world will be a much better place because it's the inaction of people who are peaceful that is creating havoc if peaceful people just say you know, I'll be more dynamic in my work, I'll bring peace in my workplace, I'll bring peace in my community. And second observation from your comment about the extractive world is often times, you know, like I said I never met evil people action, I did not well maybe a few ah yeah, they were detached from their true nature Amanda, that's all they were, they needed guiding home communities and extractive industry also has a lot of fiction and what I would like to encourage people who are listening is bringing people together who are seemingly opposites and creating a space for them to heal and talk is also peace building because unless there is peace within their hearts, unless their emotions are managed, unless their trauma is healed, just bringing them together is not enough because then the past trauma will say, hey you hurt me because I hurt you and then you hurt my uncle. So that is where again I'm interested these days, I bring people together from seemingly opposite sides or through this program that I have created the Cities for Peace program, it will be lovely to do this in partnership with a business extractive for example, because only through healing the trauma and empathizing and being compassionate the business will also understand what the community is saying and you know when you invoke that compassion, it just is is lifelong, like you know you can't go back who you are. Yeah, really experiencing that that space, that safe space I think to sort of, you know, both sides often can come whether it's corporate or community, you know, whatever it is, they'll come with some triggers and with their own trauma on whatever level that might be and being able to have that space too, not react simply to the triggers that we give each other but to take deep breaths and allow that space between the situation and our response. You know, really leaning into that space to to come from that love and peace. That is our that is our nature. Um I'm curious Mandiri, I know you've been involved in so many beautiful uh social innovation projects around the world and I'm curious which experience and it might be with a group or even with an individual which experience was really resonated most for you. I think my experience of teaching meditation practices to um survivors of violence last year, I reached out online, that's the beauty. The one good thing of the pandemic is you could reach out to anybody online. I reached out to a lady in Charlottesville Virginia where her daughter had been murdered in a very tragic incident during a rally that happened. Um Susan, her name is Susan and I shared with her on zoom some of this wisdom and breath exercises. She was open minded enough to watch my module come and speak with me learn and she wrote to me five days later that I've been doing your program, the practices you have taught. And it has helped me a lot. And that was very comforting for me because as a parent losing a child. Um, yeah, it's horrible, it's a horrible experience. Um, so, But that one thing comes and second thing is what I shared before we started talking is last year, I also taught somebody who has been 44 years in prison and very, very heavy life. But when you, when when I spoke with him for almost three hours without a break, we shared our life story and our life story of what is happening now in our life both lives is the same. And so what he shared with me is, you know, the first violent act that he did was with child abuser. And he couldn't stand what was what he was seeing. And out of that anger and rage, he just, I felt like look at look at how justice is served or not served. Like the intention behind his violent act was a good intention. I would like him to live on my street to take care of my daughter and mother and people that and so that is where we have to be compassionate and reimagine our criminal justice systems because there is a lot of and people are not all criminals, all seemingly incarcerated people are not horrible human beings, in fact are my experiences, they are amazing human beings. They just did not know how to manage their negative emotion and they were not, they did not get a loving hand of support or guidance because I mean we are all, we all make mistakes, we just don't get caught. So imagine somebody who has got caught, they are brave. We are not brave because we fear making a mistake, why? Because we feel if I'm caught, I'll go to jail. They have no fear, They have overcome their courageous. All we need to do is now to reimagine their purpose. They say, okay, use that courage because people like me are not courageous. We are not making mistakes because of fear. You have the courage. You take a bigger mission in life. I think that guidance needs to be given in a very like loving space, I hope that answers your question. I got very emotional, so my voice was low, it's beautiful. Yeah, I agree with salamander, it makes so much sense. And you know, I think we could have another entire conversation there on another day around how we can support one another. And you know, I know we spoke a little bit before we started recording our conversation today around some of the incredible work you've done in prison systems and around gun violence and things like that. And it's obviously a very topical, topical and a very sensitive topic, but you know, you alluded to the fact that we're often just one decision different from people who end up in prison versus not. And that one decision is how we choose to either react or regulate our emotions. And you know, there have been moments, I'm sure in all of our lives where we felt such a heightened state of fear of anxiety, of stress, of grief, where you think, you know, if that were my family, I would do, I don't know how I would act. So you know, we're human beings in the end and I think that I just want to acknowledge how powerful what you've just said is and I think there's in the world right now, so much otherness, so much them and us um political party, this political party that and I think that when we can see other human beings for what they are human beings, we can come from a place of empowered nous to help them and to connect with them and truly be a vehicle for peace. So thank you so much for sharing that mandy and you know, I just wanna you know, perhaps wrap our conversation up here today and I would just love to give you an opportunity Amanda, you've given us so many nuggets of wisdom and peace and love and potent gold. But do you have a key message that you would like to leave with our listeners today, You know what's your key message that you'd want to share with a leader right now that they could, they could impart or bring into the way that they operate. I feel like everyone is a leader. So just the name and title doesn't make you a leader and every leader needs to be a change maker. So you know when you sit for meditation practice it's just spending time with yourself. That is what meditation is. If we are human beings in meditation, we are just being, we are not doing anything. Just sitting with your eyes closed and being in nature can also be a meditative experience. So every leader needs to become a change maker. When their eyes are open. When your eyes are closed, you sit for meditation, you say everything is perfect. This is how the world should be. Only then you can have a deep meditative experience. And when your eyes are open you should say, hey this is not okay, this is not okay, I need to fix it. Usually we do the other way around right? When our eyes are open, you say okay, I'm who's gonna care like it's okay. And when our eyes are closed, we keep worrying about problems like okay, she did cities to me and nap me and say I have so many thoughts so we just need to flip it around and you know find that inner stillness and let it lead to outer dynamism so calibrate your own purpose by saying, hey today did I make one person peaceful did I make myself peaceful and you know, just take it one day at a time. We all have thunderstorms in our lives. So you can't change the whole world, but you can change your world, you can change the people you can influence. I hope that helps and you guys are doing a fantastic job. So keep, keep making Thank you. Amanda. Thank you so much Amanda. I think that's what you spoke to as well. That sense of community is certainly something that we love about human leaders as being a safe place for people to share these ideas and to grow together and share this journey. Thank you so much for your time. It's been a delight and let's talk again soon as a special gift for us at the we are human leaders podcast, Manda has agreed to share one of his profound breath exercises with us. So if you're in a car or operating heavy machinery, please pull over and stop wherever you are, make yourself comfortable and let's delve into this beautiful practice and let's close our eyes spine straight hands on the laps, palms facing upward. Let's take a normal breath in and breathe out once again normal deep breath in and slowly breathe out. Now let us put our right palm on our chest and the left palm on our navel, keeping the eyes closed. Let's take a breath in without forcing it at the same time making it full, not shallow, fill up your belly stomach navel. Let the breath fill up, then your chest your lungs and breathe out and notice the lungs collapse. The diaphragm collapses and you can keep breathing out until your navel you can squeeze in and then breathe in bloat your stomach. Keep breathing in, expand your chest and breathe out. Relax your chest, relax your neighbor. Just like you fill a balloon at your own pace, continue breathing, notice the movement of the belly outward, then notice the chest. Experiment and breathe out, relax your chest my students and squeeze your navel Damon continue on your own. five more rounds breathing with a smile. Welcome the bread just like you welcome a guest in your home. It's a big smile and as you breathe out with gratitude. This may be your last breath. Honor your own bread rita, continue on your own. Don't forget to smile, breathing and breathe out three more rounds. Once again. Don't force the breath at the same time. Take full brands all the way to the chest, breathe out two more rounds. Breathe in with the small it didn't go final round breathing and read out, keeping your eyes closed. Let's relax the hands on the laps and notice the sensations in the body. Notice any warmth, any tingling, notice your breath and notice the state of your mind. Our breath is the source of our life no bread, no life with a smile breathing, let go become aware of your surroundings. Become aware of your body and rolling your neck a few times clockwise and a few times anti clock ones slowly and gradually moving your shoulders, moving your fingers and toes, stretching your body, twisting your spine whenever you feel complete we may open eyes. That was lovely. Even I went in a trance. Oh that's so beautiful, that was. I really wish I could do this with you live every day. Thanks for being part of this potent conversation with Manda apt on the power of mindful leadership. As Manda mentioned in his closing comments of the conversation as a global leadership community, we can support each other to mobilize for change as we each have the individual responsibility for being the change that we wish to see in the world. If you resonated with this conversation and want to connect with others, sharing your journey of human leadership. We invite you to join us at www dot We are human leaders dot com. We hope you enjoyed listening to this conversation as much as we did, having it. See you again very soon