18) How Can I Lead a Team with Love? - Meditate Now
VIDEO Version - Guided Meditation
Audio Version - Guided Meditation
Written Transcript of the guided meditation
Let's just take a moment and just be here. Realize that we showed up to this. So let's be here.
You know, what I find fascinating about leadership, is that when it's actually happening, really happening, you don't know that it's happening. There's not a trying to lead. There's this interesting dynamic where when you are plugged in, let's say, connected to yourself, you are super clear about what your purpose is. In that clarity within you is a genuine and authentic passion.
Also, there's a playful quality to the nature of what you're doing — You enjoy it. There's something about that, that attracts other human beings to play with you.
There's no trying to get people to do something. What there is, is a coming together of hearts with a singular focus.
There is an agreement that says, "Yes, let's do this! This sounds like fun. This sounds like it's playfully important and we're capable and honored to do this. So, let's do it!”
Everything’s Okay
The title of this episode of the Meditate Now podcast — is "How Do I Lead a Team with Love?" Now, granted, I'm going to say a few words about this, and then we're going to invite sort of a meditative inquiry, which for those who might not be familiar with meditation, it's really just an opportunity to be still, just to be here, to allow the mind to calm down, to allow you to feel a degree of presence, and to maybe allow all the scattered parts to come back to this moment and recognize that everything's okay.
In that okayness, we're going to open up to some insight and clarity that allows us to do what we do with more love. That sounds really good.
But how do I lead a team in love? You know, depending on where you're coming from, we have all these different silly ideas about love, and we could say, lead a team in love. What do you mean? Not to love them? What's that about?
But for the sake of clarity, we can look at the word ‘love’, which describes a sense of wholeness, a sense of belonging, a sense of connection, a sense of being authentically seen in your human, not judged. This is something that we all crave. We all crave to be seen in a way that honors what we are. We crave connection. This connection is nothing more than the embrace of our authenticity.
It's like you're a human being. I'm a human being, and that's cool. I'm pretending to be this, and I'm pretending to be that because I'm afraid you're going to reject me.
Know that I can authentically be myself, and you can authentically be yourself, and that's okay.
There's a beautiful connection there where you're not wanting somebody to be something that they're not so that you can relax. It's like, I don't need you to be this. I don't need you to be that in order for me to be okay. I'm okay. And because I'm okay, I can be okay with you.
This presents a really fantastic opportunity in the work that we do, whatever it is, the work that you do because it gives us the opportunity to connect with and enjoy human relating, to enjoy and to appreciate the other people that we work with.
It's only when we can do that that the whole project or the whole process becomes worthwhile.
I mean, do you see this? That so often we think the prize is where we think we're going, right? We think the prize is the outcome. So we're all stressed out. We're all worried until we can get to that destination.
The disaster of which is we don't enjoy the journey, we don't enjoy the process, we don't enjoy the challenge, and we miss out on the real prize, which is, as human beings, we get to play together, right? We get to play together.
We get to spend our time creating. We get to spend our time doing things that we excel at, contributing to a team that then contributes to the world in our own little unique way.
In the process, we get compensated for it, which means we can live our lives. That's just a really beautiful opportunity, is it not? To do what you do with purpose, to do what you do with passion, and to do what you do with a playfulness that understands this isn't serious.
This is an opportunity to add value, an opportunity to use our hands and use our minds to contribute. As you recognize this for yourself and get clear about it, you get to share that with your team and find creative ways of communicating that. That's fun.
But anyway, let's dive into this meditation and just see what happens. Again, we're just going to show up in this space, take some deep breaths, relax a little bit, and then I'll share some insight spontaneously that invites us to see the real opportunity in the work that we do. Let's dive in.
Start of Guided Meditation
Notice Your Breath
All right, here we are.
Feel free to leave your eyes open. Feel free to close your eyes. Whatever just feels most natural for you.
We're going to take a bit of a journey and open ourselves up to a more clear purpose, a more felt passion, and a recognized playfulness in the opportunity of doing what we do.
Let's ground into the present moment by just allowing ourselves to breathe in the most natural way.
Just bring your awareness to the breath. Just notice that it's happening.
As a point of humor, let's recognize how we could take even this task to be a serious thing— to notice your breath.
It's not serious, but you can see the humor and maybe take it seriously. So relax. Just notice the breath.
Notice as you put your tension on the breath, that there's a quietness that begins to emerge.
It's like an invitation to move your attention from thoughts and thinking into the present moment.
You can feel each breath enter the body, and you can feel a breath leaving the body.
At this moment, just discern the difference between the reality that is here and now, and the dream that exists in the mind, which is everything we imagine to be happening, but it's not really here.
Thinking about this, that, and the other, but it's not really here.
So we come back to what is here.
You just breathe into that with each breath. Just allow yourself to drop more and more deeply into the present moment.
Recognize What’s More Sincere and Authentic
As we drop into this space, we can recognize that there is a sense of openness that shows itself.
Maybe we release some tension, introduce a relaxation.
And now we are more available to see things clearly, see what things really are, rather than how we imagine them to be.
As an exercise in this meditation on "How To Lead a Team with Love", I would like us to invite a discernment between what we anxiously think is the point of what we do and introduce a deeper sincerity in what we do.
We can easily get caught up in the idea that the point of what I do is to reach an objective, and that's why I'm doing what I'm doing.
We need to get to a particular place in the future.
That's what I'm here for, and it's my job to get everybody else to agree with that and get to that future point.
Do you see there's a degree of seriousness in that? That's fine. But just notice, that perspective essentially says we cannot enjoy this until we reach the destination.
Just notice that that's a particular way of seeing it. Yes, you can see the point as being that you can turn what you do into that.
There's something more sincere, there's something more authentic, and there's something that's going to resonate more with your heart, and it will also resonate more with the heart of those you work with.
The Sincerity of what You Crave
So let's just connect a little bit with the sincerity of what we crave.
What do I mean by that? "The sincerity of what you crave."
This could be acknowledged differently in human beings, but the substance remains the same.
There's this craving towards wellness.
There's this craving towards connection.
There's this craving towards enjoyment.
There's this craving towards play.
Depending on what degree you enjoy what you do, I think we'll recognize something that says, I really want to enjoy this. I want to be excited about this. I want to be in this if I'm going to do it.
Do you notice this? It's so not fun to do something that you're not into when your heart's not into it.
It's so easy to miss the heart of the matter in doing what we do, especially when we might be focused on some imaginary destination in the future where we think that is the real prize.
But there's another opportunity here.
There's an opportunity to connect deeply with yourself and to connect deeply with the other humans that you work with.
You know what, to put it this way, there's the opportunity to really be a team.
I wonder if you feel me when I say that— to be a team; to do this together, and enjoy ourselves in the process.
Yeah. You know what? There might be struggles, there might be difficulties, and there will definitely be challenges.
But you know what's great? We get to do it as a team!
Lead a Team with Love
That's the beauty of relationships— human beings coming together and accomplishing something they couldn't accomplish on their own.
For the one listening who might be in that position of leadership, you get to bring people together.
Isn't that exciting? To bring people together to accomplish something great? Now if that doesn't sound exciting, compassionately, I would suggest that you don't feel so together in yourself.
That's understandable, right? Because if we're feeling separate from our own passion for our own purpose, like we don't understand why we're doing what we're doing, we feel lost and disconnected, then, yeah, we're not very good at bringing people together.
This, of course, is the monumental importance of doing your own work— to see what the real issue is, to invite more love and clarity into your own experience so that you can show up for others.
That brings up a great point.
That point being, if you're going to lead a team with love, there has to be some love inside of you to give.
If there's not, I'm sorry. I know that that hurts, but it doesn't mean it's not there. It just means you don't see it.
Much like, when a team comes together, we look at a potential problem and discover that it's really an opportunity.
That's what allows us to move forward with passion and enthusiasm, is that this isn't a problem. This is an opportunity.
So even if there might seem to be a lack of purpose, passion, and play in your experience, that's not a problem.
It's an opportunity because it shows you to the degree that love would like to expand inside of you because something in you knows there's something there to give.
You wouldn't be in the position you were in if you weren't capable.
We just have to find it, and that can be fun, right?
Just like with working with a team, it's like, "Hey, guys, this isn't a problem. I know it looks like it's a problem, but that's why we get paid to turn problems into opportunities." So let's find the opportunity. Right?
See It As An Opportunity, Not As A Problem
This really speaks to leading with love. It's how you see.
When you encounter another human being and maybe there's something that's not going how you might want it to go, is it a problem or is it an opportunity?
This is such a huge discovery in connecting with other people. How do you see them? Do you see them as a problem, or do you see the opportunity?
People don't want to be seen as problems, that's for sure.
You can pretend all you want that you don't see them that way. But if you see them that way, it'll make itself known.
This points back to sincerity — You can't fake real leadership.
You can't pretend; it's got to be authentic, which means you genuinely have to care, genuinely have to care about the human beings you work with.
I'm not saying that because you care, you have to do this or you have to do that. What you do or don't do will show itself naturally.
But there's a fundamental caring that's there, that sees that other people are not your problem.
If you're stressed, if you're anxious, if you're worried, if you see a problem and not an opportunity that's nobody else's fault.
So when you lead a team with love, the last thing you do is project your own nonsense onto them. Beautifully this is an example that teaches us to do the same.
It's an honor to be in the position to lead, but we got to show up.
To show up means taking care of yourself. You got to see what that means for you. But in some way or another, it's going to be getting deeply honest with yourself.
Sure, it's hard, but as we've discovered anything worth doing isn't always easy.
Yes, it's a challenge, but it's an opportunity.
All right, let's just start there. See what arises, see what shows itself.
Thanks for meditating with me today.
Until next time. Cheers.
