Michael Hunter
Hello! Welcome to Uncommon Leadership. I’m Michael Hunter with Uncommon Teams.
Today I’m talking with Dr. Ron Stotts. Ron is a three-time best-selling author with a PhD in psychology, a doctor of chiropractic, and has been teaching meditation for over 45 years. He’s explored the depths of ancient wisdom and the latest in psychological and neurological studies and leadership as he guides entrepreneurs and executives into the highest levels of conscious leadership.
Welcome, Ron.
Ron Stotts
There I am. Everything you need to know about me.
Michael
In your journey to seeing people as people and learning to leverage their unique gifts to best accomplish your goals, what has had the biggest impact on your progress so far?
Ron
Seeing the importance, seeing the transformation that people can go through, from fear to insecurity to whatever it might be, to feeling hopeful, to recognizing their potential. It keeps me going. It really does. And it never gets old. Watching people fall in love with themselves and learn to accept and fall in love with themselves, getting to know themselves and be comfortable and excited about who they are, what they can do with their life, just never gets old. It’s an ongoing refresher.
Michael
How did you discover this is so important to your passion?
Ron
I had some real serious challenges after the Marine Corps. I had to go through a lot of getting to know myself. I’d been programmed by my parents, society. When I was 19, I thought I understood it all, and by 22, I realized I didn’t understand anything, and that all of the beliefs that I had been trained to move with would have had me killing people or being killed.
And I said, I need to figure out what’s important to me and what do I want to do with my life.
That began the journey.
I could have been a real estate broker for Coldwell Bank or God knows what.
Getting on that inner journey, I began to really understand how much there was to learn about ourselves and how much potential people have.
And, rather than being at the effect of their fear, train them to be at the effect of their open heart and open mind and excited about whatever their highest intention or potential is.
Michael
What helps you see what their highest intention is?
Ron
Asking questions. Getting them curious. Teaching them to, rather than hold their breath and be up in their head, to breathe and really begin to explore more deeply within themselves.
They always know.
They always know what they’re at the effect of.
They always know what they really want.
It’s a matter of how do we go on that inner journey and get comfortable looking at those things. And how do we set aside those fears and limitations that keep us from seeing them? That inner journey.
I’m basically a guide on that inner journey. It’s guiding them into that place where they can see who and what they are, what their true potential is, cleaning up all that stuff that holds them back and limits them.
Does that answer your question?
Michael
In part. I’ll ask more questions.
Ron
Okay, good.
Michael
How do you help them along the journey, especially when there’s parts of that are scary or that they don’t want to face for some reason?
Ron
I think that’s always the case. People just are really good at hiding up in their heads and looking outside of themselves for answers.
My job is basically to help them look within.
The first step is always, and I don’t necessarily introduce it this way, but it’s always getting them to breathe. Because what they do is, when they go up in their head, they’re holding their breath. They’re breathing very shallowly. When they don’t want to look at something, they stop breathing and go up in their head. When they don’t want to feel something, they stop breathing and go anywhere else but into that feeling space.
I try and make it, initially, pretty rational and logical. asking them questions, and then I get them rather, they’ll give me their left brain logical answers, and then I’ll begin to go, “Okay, now let’s use your breath. Breathe and answer that, finish this sentence: if I see this, I’m afraid. If I say that, I’m afraid. If I accept and love myself, I’m afraid.” Whatever it might be. I’ve got thousands of those sentences that I use.
They begin to breathe, and they begin to look deeper. The more spontaneous they can be with it, saying that sentence or finishing that sentence during and with the breath, the more honest it is, the more healing it becomes, because they’ve gained more insight as to where they’re really coming from, what their limitations are.
A classic question is, “If I love and accept myself, I’m afraid others might…”
Initially they’re “ I don’t know,” and then they start looking like, “They might not like me, or they might reject me, or they might….” As I take them deeper into those feelings, I also add in, “Okay, so what would the little girl or the little boy inside of you have been feeling? If they were going to be left all alone, if they were going to, nobody loves them, what might they be afraid of?”
It always comes down to, “I’m afraid I’ll die.”
So we begin to go, “Wow, you mean I have a belief in my head that says if I love myself unconditionally, I’ll die?”
They get curious at that point. They get very curious about what else is running my life? My definition of control. That turns out to be a definition of being out of control.
They begin to understand that, a lot of what’s running my life, running my mind, keeping me moving forward in life, or limiting me from moving forward, are really things that don’t make any sense to me.
And so they begin to be more open to healing those things, rearranging those things, coming up with new truths that they want to live with and from. As they do that, they become more self-aware. They get in touch with their feelings. They begin to acknowledge and express their feelings. They begin to understand, these feelings are really just indicators telling me where to pay attention, where I need to heal, what I need to do next and pay attention to and move forward into.
As they do that, then they recognize, this is like being on a journey, breath by breath, I’m being guided all the time by what I’m feeling, by what I’m seeing. A challenge that comes into my life is really nothing but an indicator of where I need to pay attention, or what direction I need to go in, or anything like that.
So, all of a sudden, their life is really more based on, “Where do I want to get to? And who do I need to be to, if I get to that place?” They begin preparing themselves to be that person.
I shift it to words like, “What’s your greatest aspiration? In other words, what will you have to breathe into? It’s not going to be easy. It’s not going to be a piece of cake. This is a path of personal growth, whether it’s your business, your relationship, or whatever it is. What do you need to breathe into to become the person who can handle that in the most optimum way for yourself and others?”
Michael
What’s a common, I won’t say “most common,” because it can be hard to decide. What’s a common challenge that the leaders you work with face as they are coming to love themselves?
Ron
The biggest challenge is they’re addicted to looking outside of themselves for answers that can only be found within. The biggest problem is that they’re really smart, they’re very successful, and basically that IQ is what they’ve relied on to get them to the level of success that they’re experiencing.
But all of a sudden, there’s something not working, and they can’t figure it out, and they can’t get around it.
Maybe it’s issues at home, maybe it’s issues at work, there might be communication issues, or getting people to do what you want, or whatever it might be.
Every time, as we really question that and begin to look inside, they recognize, “It’s really a deep issue within me that’s causing that, not this outside circumstance or situation, it’s not these other people.” And they begin to see, “If I resolve this inner issue, this inner level of disconnection within myself, this inner inability to really acknowledge and express myself honestly, this inner limitation of opening up my part and being who I truly am, then those outer challenges, those outer symptoms of that inner limitation are resolved.”
When they see that, and the success that comes with that in their life, in their relationship, financially, however it plays out, then that supports them in trusting, “If I go in, if I breathe and become present, if I breathe and become curious and present, then I’m going to access the best of who I am. And so I’ll be able to see what my best next option is. I’ll be able to take that step into that.”
And that becomes a way of life.
That’s called living mindfully.
Michael
How do you help people do that in the moment when all the crazy things are going on and doing their darndest to keep us out of the moment?
Ron
What keeps us out of the moment is our addiction to hiding all of the stuff.
We’ve got access to about five, maybe ten percent of our thoughts. That’s all we’re aware of. The other ninety percent plus, we have no awareness of.
And unfortunately, we can do whatever we want. We can make any decision or goal or set any attitude we want in terms of what we want to do and with that five or ten percent of our thoughts that we have control over. But that other 90%, which is completely accessible to all of our emotional backlog from earliest childhood on, has full access to our unconscious or subconscious thoughts, which can just override those conscious desires.
So people, they’re going “I’m going to do this, I’m going to be that, I’m going to do this meditation every day, I’m going to do this practice, I’m going to become this person,” or whatever, with the best of intentions. They find themselves all of a sudden at some point sabotaging that.
There’s a program. It’s a little odd that it comes up as an idea, but I’ll share it. It’s called Alone, and they take 10 people and put them out in the wilderness all by themselves, who can last the longest in this survival technique.
In watching that program, it’s interesting. You can always catch, they’ll start talking about something, and, because they’ve got their own little cameras and stuff, they’ll start talking about, “Oh, gee, I really miss my family,” or “I’m not going to eat anything except for,” all these hints start coming up. And very early on, you go, “That’s what’s going to take them out.” And some of them only make it for a day, three days, four days, before that excuse that they’ve given themselves sabotages their whole intention of staying out there longest and making $500,000 for their family and doing this big win that’s going to change their life. So that within days sabotages that ability, their desire to do that.
The one person who just stays out there and does it for their love of their family or for their intention of really having that experience or whatever, those are the people that last.
The people who have all these built-in sabotage excuses fail, and that’s the way it is in life.
When I ask people,” What do you want?” that’s a very difficult question for most people, because what they look at is what they’re afraid of, what won’t work, what might not work. Rather than, how can I create that? And if I do create that, who do I need to be able to fulfill that?
Michael
The people who last the longest, do they not sabotage themselves, or do they notice that they’re sabotaging and they work around that?
Ron
I would say both. I’d say that’s a good call on your part. They might recognize, “Oh, this is a limitation, I need to let go of that.”
Pretty seldom, to be honest with you, but that certainly does happen.
It’s always fun to watch because that means they’re present enough to pay attention and continue to grow. And yeah, it serves and supports them.
Michael
So when I, as a leader, notice that I sabotaging myself, how can I move past that?
Ron
See it as an opportunity.
Quite literally, it is an opportunity.
If you’re sabotaging yourself, that’s nothing but an indicator that there’s a part of you that’s ready to heal and evolve so that you can move into that and not sabotage what it is you’re doing or wanting, moving towards.
You have to heal your emotional backlog sufficiently so that you’re comfortable with your feelings and with your awareness of self.
But once you do that inner work to clean it up enough so that you have a foundation to work from, then it’s pretty easy.
Because you’re quite literally, whatever you’re struggling with or challenged by or, feeling like you’re going to sabotage something, you’re going to see that as an opportunity. So you’re going to breathe, you’re going to look deeper, you’re going to use sentence completion, you’re going to use whatever it is to take you into a deeper understanding of what is really going on. “Okay, this is what I’m feeling. What’s under that feeling? Oh, okay, that, is that something from outside myself or inside myself?” And you just keep looking deeper and deeper, and once you reach a certain depth, it resolves itself because you understand where it’s coming from.
There might be emotions around it you want to acknowledge and express to be able to heal, but it gets pretty easy at that point.
And that’s what I look for. I have a two-month program, and I’m really looking for them to get to a place where not only do they recognize their highest intention, but that they’re used to challenges.
I had a client that, he’s worked with me for a year and a half. He is in transition from one high level C-suite (chief executive or marketing or whatever officer) job to another, and he caught himself going into, “These are all the reasons I can’t, these are the things I’m afraid of.”
And he was just laughing because he said, “That’s my old pattern. This is the kind of, this is a big trigger. It’s an old pattern that I fell into, but I saw it. This is another opportunity to heal on a deeper level. Another opportunity to breathe and explore and be present with what is really going on and heal on a subtler level so that I can really see what I want and who I need to become to fulfill that.”
Michael
How do you suggest that we remember to turn that frame from, “This is a bad, scary thing,” to, “This is an opportunity. No judgment here. This is my best next step is to dig into this.”
Ron
You have to gain control over your mind, real control, not holding and stifling control.
Real control over your mind comes from literally healing that inner child, doing all that work.
It only takes a couple of months once you really get into it, if you have a guide that can really take you to the inner depths of it.
It doesn’t mean that other things won’t come up throughout your life.
It doesn’t mean you’ve got it all cleaned up, but you’ve opened the doors to that inner cave.
You’ve cleaned out, it’s a hoarder. You’ve gone in and you’re not just picking through one thing at a time. You’ve had a crew come in and put everything in the dumpster and take it away.
All of a sudden, you might notice that hoarder tendency coming up again. You go, “I don’t need another tie. I don’t need that piece of paper. I don’t need to add more.”
But you’ve got to do that initial work.
That changes your life.
That creates the foundation for the rest of your life, to go in, acknowledge, express, and heal all that emotional backlog that you’ve had since childhood.
Think of how many things a child runs into that they don’t know how to emotionally handle.
Think of all the things that they don’t feel like they’re supported in dealing with or expressing.
Maybe their parents don’t express anger very much or, fear or whatever it might be. So they learn not to express those feelings. They learn to go, “I’m better off, if I start showing fear, my dad gets upset, so he moves away from me. If I start showing anger, my mom moves away from me.” So anything that creates those parents or family moving further from us, we go, “I don’t want to feel those things. I want to hide those things.”
We really create a pretty good collection in there throughout, what’s acceptable or not acceptable to feel, to be throughout grade school and, junior high school.
By the time we get out, because, when we first come into the world and we want love, unconditional love more than anything else, we look outside to our mom, to our caretaker to get that. And unfortunately, we keep looking outside of ourselves for who we should be, what we should be, how we should feel.
At some point, we need to go back in and go, “I need to clean that all up so that I can really begin to look within myself and discover who I am rather than who do I want to be.”
When I got out of the Marine Corps and after Vietnam and all that, I realized that I bought into the programming of my family and parents and dad completely. And it’s not like they were wrong for them. They just weren’t right for me. I didn’t want to kill people. I didn’t want to be killed. I didn’t want to go through the horrors of war. I didn’t want, it’s like not good stuff.
I had to go, “What are my values? What’s really important to me? What do I want in life?”
That created an entirely different life.
I still love my parents. I had perfect parents. I really did. It just took me years to heal that relationship, because it just wasn’t who I was.
We take on stuff, we hide stuff, we store stuff. It really is that analogy of the hoarder is a good one because at some point you have to literally, everybody should open those cave doors, clean all that backlog out, and so there can be breathing and being present with whatever it is.
And then, in answer to your question, it’s easy to see the opportunity. Because you’re not dealing with all that fear, all that withhold.
Michael
When we’re part way through this journey, and we get stuck, what’s a useful way to recognize we’re stuck?
Ron
You won’t be breathing, and you’ll be up in your head, and you’ll be stuck. You’ll feel stuck. And that, for me, that’s an exciting moment, because you recognize, “Oh! I’ve just, another part of me is letting me know that I’m ready to, it’s ready to be healed. Another part of me is ready to be healed and accessed, so that I can become more whole and more complete, more authentic.”
You begin to embrace those opportunities.
Those aren’t bad times; those are good times. Those are literally opportunities to grow.
It means you’re evolving.
I’m either on Zoom or in person with people every day. And what they’re always running into is that moment where they’re not sure what to handle or how to handle it. Might be an exciting moment, might be a scary one, probably both.
As soon as I get them breathing again, as soon as I help them remember that they can look deeper and really understand what’s going on, as soon as they begin to look, breathe, and look deeper, then they recognize what’s really behind that stress or struggle.
Then they always recognize, “Oh, I can resolve that by really acknowledging and expressing those feelings that are around that, and that’ll allow me to breathe and move forward in my life. But I’ll be breathing and moving forward from that more whole place, more self accepting, loving place.”
Michael
How do you, how can we, differentiate between “I’m stuck” and “I’m paused?”
Ron
Say that last word again.
Michael
“I’m paused.”
So there’s, “I’m stuck, I can’t move.” And there’s, “I’m moving, and right now, moving isn’t right, so I’m taking a rest.”
Ron
The one constant in life is change.
Life does not pause.
Nothing in life pauses.
Everything is constantly changing.
That scares the death out of most people, scares the life out of most people.
But the truth is, when you recognize that change is all geared towards you healing and becoming the best that you can become, then you’re open to that change.
You breathe into it.
You’re open to it.
You explore it.
You’re excited about it.
You live.
The traits of the highest level leaders are very clear. What makes them a highest level leader is very clear. They have really turned, most aspects of their life are very mindful. They might eat mindfully, they might communicate mindfully, they might play golf mindfully, they might relate, make love mindfully.
In other words, they’re present enough to be aware of what they’re feeling, and what the other person’s feeling and needing, that type of thing.
It’s really that level of mindfulness and making it a key part of all aspects of your life that prepares you in extraordinary ways, both neurologically, you’re developing your mind and all. But it’s also then they have significant personal transformational experiences in their life.
Those might be something that just happens in their life. That somebody died, somebody was born, some transition significantly enough that they really have to take a look at things.
I facilitate those experiences for people in my more advanced work. Probably in the two-month program, it’s all about that.
Rather than playing in a comfort zone, you want to initiate significant personal development. Opportunities where you’re really going to grow, where you’re going to shift into a level of consciousness that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to reach just by gradually poking around with your life.
You’re living mindfully, you’re having these significant moments, and that doesn’t mean your life’s chaos and it’s going on every day, but you certainly want to be doing it often enough to keep things moving.
That allows you to develop a mindset, a mind capability, that allows you to be present with the rapid change and increased complexity of today’s business world with the world of all of life.
It’s moving fast.
If you’re quiet inside, then that doesn’t affect you.
Michael
What’s your number one tip for helping people deal with change?
Ron
Other than brave?
If you’ve done the inner work, if you’ve done that preliminary work, then that change, you’re either looking at it as from a place of fear or a place of opportunity.
If it’s from a place of fear, that’s not bad or good. That’s just an indicator to you. I know I’m repeating myself on something earlier, maybe I’m just not very bright. I have to simplify things so much that I don’t have to ramble around trying to figure things out.
All I need to do is breathe.
All I need to do is look deeper.
All I need to do is be present and conscious.
If I don’t know the answer to something, all I need to do is raise my level of consciousness to find that answer.
That’s our capability. That’s not, “Ron’s amazing.” That’s the capability of human beings.
We cut ourselves off from those capabilities by being afraid, by having a noisy mind that doesn’t ever allow the forebrain to develop and give us access to big mind, which only comes in the silence of being present.
Michael
This has been so much information already today, Ron. What else should I ask you?
Ron
Support them in recognizing that all the armor that we put around our heart as we were growing up, all that armor that we put there to protect ourselves, was probably perfect, was probably extraordinarily reasonable, and exactly what you needed to do.
But, I’m old enough that I know that armor will now kill you.
As much as that was your way of protecting yourself when you were younger, you reach thirtieish, and all of a sudden, if you’re not getting rid of that armor, you’re really physically and mentally deteriorating and limiting yourself considerably. You look at any statistics, men retiring from a job are tending to die within 18 to 24 months, and that’s because they don’t have a purpose for their life, they don’t have meaning to their life, they don’t have this bigger, higher intention in their life.
Find out what your life’s about.
Clean up this emotional backlog so you have the foundation to see that vision, and that’s when the vision does come, and you see that vision of what you want, and you see that vision of, “Oh, this is my, what I want to breathe into. This is my aspiration. And who do I need to be to do that, to be in that life, to create that life?”
Then it’s a journey.
You begin to go, “Everything that’s coming into my life is supporting me on that journey.”
And it is.
The worst of times, the worst year of my life was when I was in the Marine Corps.
It became the best time of my life, because it redirected me completely into a life that I otherwise wouldn’t have even known existed.
I would have been a, God knows what, selling widgets.
If you really want to know who you are, you need to be willing to explore and into the possibilities.
You need to clean up enough so that you can even be present and then begin to open up your mind.
Everything I do, if you really want to know the bottom line, everything I do is about neurologically rewiring your mind so that you can access levels of thinking that are more supportive.
People’s minds are incredibly noisy.
All of that noise is really the result of that emotional backlog that they’re trying to control.
Most people, and these are high-level, high-functioning people that I’m working with, and they have maybe 50 to 60 percent of their energy going towards the gas pedal of life, moving into life.
Well, 40+ percent of their energy is really being on the brake of life, guarding that emotional backlog and holding themselves back.
No wonder they don’t feel like they’re enough.
They’re not accessing all of who and what they truly are.
No wonder they don’t feel like they’re living up to their full potential, because they’re not accessing that full potential from within themselves. They don’t even know who they are, what they’re capable of.
Until you heal that inner child, until you really clean out that emotional backlog, it’s like my mentor Joseph Campbell said, the treasure you seek is… something about cave, anyway, you’ve got to enter the cave within to find the treasure that you seek.
Good recovery, huh?
And of course that treasure in that cave, is that cave within your gut that you have those doors so tightly closed around.
The treasure, of course, is yourself.
It’s that unconditional love that you wanted ever since you were a little child.
It’s who and what you are.
Because knowing who and what you are, being an authentic human being, allows you to be absolutely clear of how to take care of yourself and be kind to yourself, to love yourself, to make the best choices to take care of yourself and others.
That’s where empathy, that’s where emotional intelligence, that’s where self-aware, that’s all of those things come from, clearing out that cave.
But, I really want you to hear this, that only touches on how it opens up the capabilities of the mind to access, the highest levels of thinking. What I call big mind. Not the highest levels of consciousness, but in terms of practicality, in terms of business or whatever.
I call it big mind, and that comes from when I need a design, a solution, an answer, that the only, the best thing for me to do is to quiet my mind completely, put out that need, and watch it come in, and trust that it will, and it always does. That could be creating a one-acre Japanese garden, that could be what should I do for vacation, it can be whatever.
The quieter your mind, the more absolute control, real control you have over your life.
Michael
And you have a couple great tools to help people on that journey to gaining that control.
Ron
STOP.
The S stands for stop. The T stands for taking several gentle deep breaths. The O is observe. Observe what you’re feeling. Observe what your best option is. Observe what’s really going on with yourself and others. What do you, what’s needed. And the P is see that best next step and proceed on that best next step.
Iif you keep doing that moment to moment to moment, even if you don’t come up with the ideal answer, do it again. Stop again. Go through the process again. What you’ll be doing is developing the ability to be and live mindfully, because that’s all mindful living looks like. You don’t stop.
Eventually you’re just breathing and being present and seeing your best option and moving forward again and again, moment to moment. That innocent little tool that I introduced everybody to quite early, 10, 20 years later, they recognize their entire life is built on that one little tool.
Michael
What is the best way for people to connect with you, if they’d like to learn more about mindfulness and grieving and applying all this in the crucible of business.
Ron
I would just go to my website, ronstotts.com. There’s a few free things, right, I think they’re right on the homepage. There’s discovery questions, there’s nine insightful questions, more business oriented.
Those are things that you can really invest some time and energy in. They’re free. And what they do is begin to support you in looking inwardly, giving you the questions that you can ask yourself that’ll support you in looking deeper for the answers that are really going to be helpful for you.
Unfortunately, people don’t usually want to talk to me until they’re so frustrated and challenged that they don’t know what else to do. But, when they’re ready to talk to me, if they’re really excited about creating an amazing life, or they’re really excited about becoming a leader who’s supporting others and bringing out the best in others, then get on a discovery call with me.
What we’ll be looking for is what’s your biggest challenge, what’s your biggest dream, what’s holding you back from that, and what do you need to do to resolve that so you can move forward in a powerful and empowering way.
Michael
Great. Thanks. What would you like to leave our audience with today?
Ron
Learn to accept and love yourself.
For goodness sakes, learn to be kind to yourself and love yourself, because all of your challenges are going to be resolved by that. Because as you fall in love with yourself and learn to accept all those different parts that that you hid from others or tried to design so others would accept you, let those go.
You’re the one that you need to love and accept.
You’re the one that needs to decide who you want to become.
That’s going to create the most meaningful, purposeful life that you could ever imagine.
Michael
Thank you, Ron, for that wisdom and for being here today.
Ron
Appreciate your time. I hope everybody got a little bit out of it.
Michael
And please let us know, audience, what did you get out of our time with Dr. Ron and me today? We would love to know.
Thanks, and have a great day.
Ron
Thanks, Michael.
Michael
Thanks, Ron.
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