In this episode of Stepping In, host Adam Klein of New Ventures West speaks with Mo, founder of Mindful Leader, exploring how integral coaching principles shape authentic leadership and personal transformation. Key themes include:

Mo’s transformative journey from tech CEO to mindfulness leader, sparked by his company’s collapse and subsequent period of profound questioning
The value of staying attuned to life’s guidance, even when it comes through challenging experiences
The influential role of integral coaching in
- Embracing discomfort as a catalyst for growth
- Integrating diverse perspectives, even critics
- Balancing action with reflection How Mo’s immigrant background shaped his desire to understand and be understood, influencing his inclusive approach to mindful leadership
The importance of engaging with divergent voices and critics in the mindfulness community, finding value in discord rather than seeking only harmony
Key elements of New Ventures West’s approach to
- Creating inclusive dialogue in the mindfulness community
- “Pulling the rug out” when things get too comfortable
- Finding aliveness in challenge and growth

The conversation illustrates how integral coaching provides a framework for both personal transformation and organizational leadership, while remaining responsive to life’s deeper invitations for growth and understanding.

Chapters

0:00 Introduction

00:01:30 From Success to Awakening
Mo’s background in computer engineering
Journey from successful startup to business collapse
Initial encounter with mindfulness and New Ventures West

00:07:30 Staying Open Through Crisis
What allows someone to remain open during difficult times
Role of family support and cultural background
The desire to understand and be understood

00:14:00 Challenging the Echo Chamber
Engaging with critics of mindfulness
Finding aliveness in difficult conversations
Evolution of Mindful Leader’s approach to inclusion

00:33:00 Building Authentic Community
Creating Meditate Together 24/5 community meditation practice
Importance of human connection in digital age

00:35:40 Personal Practices for Staying Alive
Balancing engagement and healing
Managing technology and news consumption
Finding inspiration through children and literature

00:41:30 The Right Kind of Suffering
Distinguishing productive from unproductive challenge
Growth through engaging with different perspectives
The relationship between aliveness and difficulty

Transcript

Adam Klein, New Ventures West (00:07):

Hello, welcome to the Stepping In Podcast. I’m Adam Klein, managing partner and faculty member at New Ventures West, and this is a podcast where we delve into how integral coaching can address some of the most pressing issues we face as individuals, as communities, and as stewards of our planet. Today I’m joined by Mo a, who’s the founder and CEO of Mindful Leader, which has been at the forefront of workplace [00:00:30] mindfulness for over a decade. He also happens to be a graduate of New Ventures West. And this is a really fantastic conversation about not just mindfulness, but engaging in conversations that might be sometimes difficult and really paying attention to what does it mean to be alive and listen to the life within. Enjoy. Well, hi Mo. Hey Adam. Glad you’re here and we’re talking today.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (01:00):

[00:01:00] Happy to be here.

Adam Klein, New Ventures West (01:02):

So what I thought we could get started, and we did a little bit of this in our exchange before setting up today, is really hearing a little bit about your journey into what you’re up to today with Mindful Leader and what brought you to starting it with your partner and then why you find it today.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (01:27):

Wonderful question. And there’s sort [00:01:30] of different layers I could go into as we know in the work that we do. And so I’ll start at a higher level and we might dig into areas as you might see fit. And so the quick background, my training was in computer engineering. I graduated computer engineering during the net bubble, very exciting time, had a pretty successful career in it. Went on to start a small company which bootstrapped it very quickly, got some support from Microsoft and in that [00:02:00] didn’t really have a wonderful, didn’t have a solid understanding of leadership and hired a business coach once who told me, my employees were like horses. Once that could take me from point A to B, I could put him down to get a fresh set from point B2C. Obviously it made me kind of question the value of a good coach versus a not so good coach.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (02:25):

But I adapted these and on paper we were doing well. I was kind [00:02:30] of this whiz kid point wonder, the company went from zero to 30 people. We were multimillion dollar company. I was literally a poster boy. Microsoft had a big conference in Washington DC and they put up my picture on posters across the DC Metro. I was literally a poster boy. And then the company collapsed. And in 2009 we were overextended, we were doing ecosystem recruiting, essentially overextended everything. And suddenly I found myself in a position that I had [00:03:00] gone through this process of becoming a certain type of leader, operating in a certain way that was very aggressive, very alpha male gangster like ruthless like reinforced through some of the different coaches and folks that I considered mentors at the time. And when the company collapsed, I found myself still operating like that.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (03:23):

I still had this mentality. And when I would look at myself in the mirror, I didn’t like who I’d become [00:03:30] and I was disgusted and I wanted to hang out with myself. I was like, who is this guy? But I didn’t have the company to hide behind. I didn’t have a reason to operate that way or be that way. And so I went through a very difficult time, was financially the most successful in my peer group and my family. And suddenly I got wiped out, flipped upside down. And in that journey just trying to make sense of things, I asked myself, what’s this all for? Why Chase after something where just [00:04:00] like that it could disappear and why cause so much pain and suffering chasing after this thing that didn’t really matter? So I asked myself what’s important? And I was open to exploring, very fortunate to be in the DC area and have a supportive family who really helped me together and helped me as I was sorting these things out, stumbled into a meditation class, [00:04:30] which blew my mind.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (04:32):

I have a science skeptical background and everything I was exposed to in that class resonated. Later. I found out that my teacher, Jonathan faus, was the former executive director at Kalu, the large yoga center, and his wife happened to be Tara Brock, but at the time he was just an amazing teacher that made a lot of sense to me. I also checked out a bunch of [00:05:00] books and went to Thedo Mountains. I’d hate to be cliche, but I actually did do that. And so went to the mountains, got away from everything, spent four days up there with books. One of them happened to be Coaching to Excellence by James, and I was blown away by that book among others. And I remember it was a book on leadership and it’s been a while since I read it, so correct me if I’m off with anything.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (05:29):

But [00:05:30] it started with talking about death and I was like, I’ve read a ton of books on leadership and death. That’s such a critical component of our sense of life and our understanding just gets overlooked. And I thought it was brilliant and I was very much influenced by that. I signed up for the new Veterans West course taught in San Francisco shortly after, did my first 10 day silent meditation retreat. Started consuming and looking for anything [00:06:00] that might expand my understanding. I just felt that everything I had learned up until then specifically around leadership and how you’re supposed to be effective and what I’m supposed to be was all nonsense. And that there was another way and that I just was blown away. It kind of cracked me open. And so that started my journey and to fast forward a little bit, I had bills to pay.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (06:26):

So I went back to doing IT program management for Nest and DHS [00:06:30] started, did the New Ventures West Course, got plugged in a great deal with the mindfulness community at the time, this is around 2010 eventually we launched our first Mindful Leader Summit in 2013. And fast forward to today, we’re one of the leading voices in the workplace mindfulness field, and we’re the largest provider of mindfulness based stress reduction. And I just feel really privileged to have been active during [00:07:00] those early stages that things were forming together to have been dropped on my head. And having gone through what I went through at the best time as far as retrospect to look back, and it kind of opened me up and exposed me to wonderful things that have really helped shape where I’m at today.

Adam Klein, New Ventures West (07:20):

One of the things we’re curious about, because I imagine many people may have these moments where things fall out, the bottom falls [00:07:30] out, things don’t go how they wish they would go, but something for you allowed you to stay open and hang out in that space long enough to answer or to at least sit with these big questions of like, well, what’s the point of chasing after something? What do I really want to be committed to? So in that space, if you could remember, I know it’s been a while, what allowed for you to stay open and hang out there long enough for [00:08:00] a shift to start to really take root?

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (08:06):

That’s a really great question. And I think often in these really short recounts of stories, we present a very simplified narrative. And so there’s a lot more depth to it, layers and layers. And so one of the things I’ll mention, [00:08:30] I did have just from early childhood, I’ve always had a real kind of keen desire to understand. And I think a lot of that came from being misunderstood and just being an immigrant from Iran, coming from a country where my parents had just seen their lives flipped upside down, revolution and turmoil and coming to the United States growing up in an environment [00:09:00] where in the eighties where I couldn’t even say I was Iranian, and that there was this a real desire to be understood and to understand, and it’s something that drives me to this day, this real genuine desire to be understood and understand things.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (09:17):

At the same time, I did come from a Muslim background short from Muhammad, and there’s just a lot of beauty in Islam and a lot of beauty in the way I would say my parents would [00:09:30] interpret it at that time and sort of the depth of Persian poetry and Sufism. And so there was some of that in the air. And I think that I’d always had this openness to wanting to make sense of things. Why are we all here? Red Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, those kind of explorations earlier than some others might. So that was always there. And I decided that maybe business and kind of [00:10:00] this pursuit of technology and that might be where I could kind of explore things. And also went down the and ran founding head kind of track. And so got exposed to many things that influenced me, but I feel like I was always open to understanding and that was just innately there. During that time. I also guess I was fortunate enough, I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have real responsibilities. I didn’t have kids, didn’t have, and I had to [00:10:30] bless my family and particular my mom who was really just willing to help me take care of the basic needs while I was going through this really difficult time. And so I had some space and I had some support and I feel very privileged to have had that.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (10:53):

And so those are the components. I feel like there was a natural desire to seek and understand, and [00:11:00] I had this support that gave me the space to be fortunate and privileged enough to do this work.

Adam Klein, New Ventures West (11:09):

So what I’m hearing, the interplay of your own temperament, the way that you were so to speak, engaging with the world, but then also this context of support and not just support, but where these kinds of questions live and are entertained [00:11:30] culturally and from the Muslim background. So questions of importance and more existential questions. There’s room for that that was also in the mix for you.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (11:44):

Yeah, I would say, and that’s not to mean everyone. I’ve got siblings that have different levels of depth in these areas, but definitely there was important

Adam Klein, New Ventures West (11:55):

To highlight both that as parents or if you have siblings or if you’re [00:12:00] a parent of multiple kids, there’s always this very wide spectrum of how kids can turn out because of the temperament part. There is a uniqueness to each of us. So there was listening to yourself that was going on in addition to the support around you.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (12:18):

Yeah, I think that’s fair to say. I’ve always been very introspective and kind of contemplative.

Adam Klein, New Ventures West (12:26):

Yeah. So I’m curious now. So McKnight, [00:12:30] we can pick up the story where you left off, which was with mindful leader. So how are you finding yourself today? What are the things you’re asking yourself? What are the commitments you find yourself continually engaged in? What’s it look like to be expressing this nowadays?

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (12:50):

Well, and for me there is this, one of the things that New Ventures West really instilled in me was this sense [00:13:00] of whenever you get too comfortable, it’s probably time to pull the rug out from under yourself. And sometimes in my first experience, I feel like the rug, whether maybe there was some conscious desire for the rug to be pulled out from under myself, but it was more external. It’s much more difficult to do it to yourself, much more difficult. And I think that it’s so easy to fall into kind of a comfortable, placent [00:13:30] real easy sort of way, which then loses that, and I’m searching for the right word, I could feel it, but it’s hard to say. But that aliveness, maybe there’s an element of aliveness that we lose in that challenge and that risk, right? There’s sort of a risk that keeps us alive.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (13:57):

And with mindful leader, we [00:14:00] were fortunate to have quite a bit of early success and sort of fortunate to be at the right place at the right time. And I feel early on in exploring this idea of mindfulness, generally speaking and mindfulness in the workplace. And so we had a lot of success in our early conferences and things. People were very excited to participate and be there, and that just created a great deal of momentum that has carried us forward. Now [00:14:30] in the last few years, especially I would say since 2019, there was clearly a point that there’s an old song by the Who that, and I know this is a young enough to listen to the who but pay attention to the classics. But there’s a line where it’s something like The New Boss, same as the old boss. And it’s a brilliant song where they’re kind of talking about how easily we could kind of replace [00:15:00] one problem with another.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (15:01):

And I think in particular it was during the sixties and this concern that the peace protest and the peace movement in some ways it had kind of the power dynamics the way power could corrupt. And so even though we’re kind of replacing, let’s say Nixon with somebody else, the new figure is the same as the old boss. And that song always stuck in my head. And I think just that natural need to challenge [00:15:30] and being exposed to different world perspectives at an early age. And I felt that in the mindfulness field too. I felt this feeling like, Hey, wait a minute, I was super excited, sort of had this honeymoon idealistic phase where just everything seems so glowing and perfect. It’s like I found the answer, found it, I found it, I found it. That’s the moment where you’ve got to be like, Hey, wait a minute, wait a minute. Exactly.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (16:00):

[00:16:00] And so that wait a minute came up and this idea of the new boss, Sam, as the old boss, and I started to think more critically about things. And it also was during a time where in the US we were going from the Trump period, which I think was very traumatizing in certain ways to sort of the post-Trump period where you had this real woke movement, which in some ways had some benefits and in some ways had its own set of challenges where it felt very dangerous to think [00:16:30] and speak outside of the party line. And I’ve never felt that way necessarily in sort of more the left leaning world. It always felt like the left leaning was where you could say whatever you wanted that was encouraging. So there was this weird dynamic happening and both internally this questioning of like, Hey, wait a minute, the new boss is the same as the old boss and things are just feeling a little bit too glowy. And then this environment that was sort of [00:17:00] starting to shape where it was dangerous to say things and it felt strange because it was within the atmosphere and environment where people typically would encourage the daringness to say what isn’t said. So it was a unique time.

Adam Klein, New Ventures West (17:24):

One of the things where you started with this was paying attention to aliveness. So I want to circle [00:17:30] back to that. That felt like, I don’t know an important part to stay in something that was alive and evolving and not just falling back into default patterns. So what’s that look like today in the mindfulness movement for you that you’re paying attention to and wanting to as you feel it, give voice to and really bring forward and be in conversation [00:18:00] about?

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (18:02):

Thanks Adam. And so I will connect 2019 to bring us up to speed, but it started in 2019. And the key thing, we had a social media post where I shared this article about a rightwing Christian fundamentalist group that was suing one of my friends’ organizations in New England that was introducing mindfulness into schools. And we just shared this post and our mindful [00:18:30] audience, and this was on Facebook at the time, we’re pretty active on Facebook. Our mindful audience went nuts. I mean, they freaked out and said, you guys are idiots. Unfollow. One poor lady kept saying, have you guys been hacked? Have you guys been hacked? And we could have presented that post maybe with a little bit more context to the credit, to the folks that might’ve been surprised by it. But the reaction was overwhelmingly negative and very unmindful and very shocking to me.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (19:00):

[00:19:00] And when I saw that, I felt kind of the spidey sense tingling, right? There was something there. I was like, Hey, wait a minute. And that feeling of like, Ooh, that aliveness. And I realized that, hey, this has got me curious and if it’s got me curious, maybe others will be curious and if not, so what I’m feeling it. So let me pursue this. And I did. And I found that the lead plaintiff was this woman [00:19:30] by the name of Ken Brown, found out she was a professor at the University of Indiana with a PhD in divinity studies from Harvard. So she was a legitimate, credible person, and I engaged with her over email. Next thing you know, we did a one-on-one interview for an online event that we were doing. She did an article for us and I was just mind blown. It was refreshing and exciting and it got me feeling alive where there was this woman [00:20:00] who disagreed with fundamentally a lot of the things that we were trying to do, but that was willing to approach things with rigor and with a level of rational intelligence and a voice that had been silenced everywhere else.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (20:17):

And I engaged her and just found, I felt enlivened by it. It challenged me, questioned some of the stuff that we were doing. And next thing you know, I invited her and she was part [00:20:30] of a keynote thing at our summit. We do a couple different keynote things, and I paired her with Barnaby Spring who at the time was running New York’s Department of Education mindfulness program, overseeing a program that would potentially a million students, one of the largest in, no one told me that this was a good idea, no one encouraged us, no one suggested it. It was you.

Adam Klein, New Ventures West (20:56):

The opposite advice.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (20:58):

Yes, exactly [00:21:00] like why. But at the event, the people who experienced that, they felt that spark that I felt, they felt alive, they were energized, they didn’t agree necessarily with everything, but they felt alive. And for me, it was a sign that, hey, there’s something here and that this is something that’s going to become part of my own exploration in mindfulness and mindful leaders. [00:21:30] And so to fast forward a bit, that was the spark of initially the series, the blog series that now we call whack, where we explored the silly sometimes unexplored side of mindfulness, taking a critical look at this work in a time when it was kind of dangerous to do so. And still a little bit trying to provide different perspectives, different voices, to do exactly what we learned to pull the rug out from under us, whether it’s individually or as [00:22:00] a community, to bring in the perspective, to bring in this stuff that makes these pause and say, Hey, wait a minute.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (22:06):

I don’t agree, but there’s something here worth exploring. And so to fast forward to where mindful leader is at now, exploring the critics and taking a critical view has been really essential to how we’re looking at mindfulness and looking at the future and really providing a vision for mindfulness with the work that we’re doing where we’re able to look at the past and look at [00:22:30] the wonderful contributions of people in the past, the frameworks and the different areas, and for us particular MBSR, but then also looking to the future and figuring out how does this work evolve? How do we create the right atmosphere, structures and frameworks where we’re able to carry this work forward for generations and generations to come and address some of the baggage and address some of the unaddressed things from the past and create something that truly, [00:23:00] I believe connects with the original passion and reason I got involved with mindfulness. And I think a lot of the original promise and excitement around mindfulness that maybe has been lost with some of the things that people have experienced in seeing out there now.

Adam Klein, New Ventures West (23:19):

I mean to me what I’m hearing is it’s a move of stepping into controversy or you use the frame of pulling the rug out from under of you, but also what’s it like to [00:23:30] include more voices here that aren’t just singing the same note? We’re playing this note about mindfulness, someone else is playing a different note. What happens when we bring those two things together and there’s going to be some discord, but is there any harmony that we can create or learn about by having those two things exist together, which in our world, especially today, that doesn’t really happen, that level of open engagement with something that we’re [00:24:00] using the word aliveness, but sometimes can feel like just charge.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (24:06):

That’s a great point. And what I’ll say, there are times when it is harmony, but there are times where it isn’t necessarily harmony. It is critical. It’s the kind, it’s like it’s you’re a keto sensei, sort of say, Hey, that’s not the way you do it and correcting. And so sometimes it’s a critical [00:24:30] hardening and sharpening that helps the argument. So in the conversations with candy, the areas we didn’t agree, what I found was that she helped me. I identify myself and my points better. I had something to push against. And by doing that, things got crisper clear, my conviction was stronger, but I had more of a sense of exactly what the heck I was talking about [00:25:00] and believing. And so it’s kind of having that partner that you could joust with and that you could spar with to sharpen your thinking and your understanding. Whereas sometimes in harmony, even though harmony is beautiful, you don’t have that same kind of energy that

Adam Klein, New Ventures West (25:18):

Sharpens. Totally. And are you able to recall one or two things that have become more crystallized as a result of some of these conversations?

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (25:30):

[00:25:30] Boy, there’s quite a lot. And I think one of the things that was very clear to me was that in our field, and one of the things that I’m always afraid of is being a hypocrite. And I feel like that’s a good gauge because when you stop hearing being a hypocrite, then you instantly very easily could slip into it. And so kind of challenging myself like, wait a minute, how does this feel and the feel? There’s areas that constantly where we could approve, but in our field we talk a lot about inclusion, [00:26:00] and I believe inclusion and diversity is a fantastic, wonderful thing. And in conversations with folks like Candy and folks like Ron and Glen Wallace, and there’s quite a few others, this idea of inclusion was being challenged. How can we be inclusive if we’re not willing to include voices that we disagree with?

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (26:22):

Are we just trying to make ourselves feel better by just sort of doing this? But what does inclusion really mean? And [00:26:30] in that exploration, it got clear to me what that means for mindful leader and what diversity inclusion means for us. And that was very crisp and probably one of the places where I feel we diverged where for us it’s inclusive of all religious beliefs, whether it’s fundamental Christians and Buddhists and atheists and non-believers. And then also this element of, and this was a hard one for me, but being politically [00:27:00] inclusive and for us early on, especially coming out of the trauma without getting political, but the Trump presidency was very traumatic for many and including myself. And so it was hard to be willing to welcome and invite that. And so in my thinking, it got very clear like, Hey, this is what it means to us.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (27:27):

And in that jousting a bit [00:27:30] that helped. And then I’ll share another example with Ron Perr, for example. He does a lot of its exploration around make mindfulness and this idea of how mindfulness has been really commandeered by capitalists. And Ron has a very clear, and there’s many others who have explored this idea of how mindfulness and capitalism shouldn’t be mixed. And in my thinking, it got very clear that, Hey, wait a minute, I don’t believe that Buddhism and capitalism [00:28:00] should be mixed. Spirituality and capitalism should be mixed. However, if mindfulness is not Buddhism, and it is what we claim it to be, sort of this universal humanistic approach that could help people through awareness and nonjudgmental presence live more gracefully and react to things more gracefully. For me, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that being offered in the workplace and government institutions and educational institutions [00:28:30] in a capitalistic framing. And so in some ways we don’t agree, but what he said helped inform what I’m thinking. And in a strange way, we do agree because for me, if mindfulness is Buddhism, I agree with Ron, but my point is that in the direction we’re heading towards is that we need to be quite careful and what we are presenting and what it is truly underneath.

Adam Klein, New Ventures West (28:57):

And as you look forward, what hopes [00:29:00] do you have?

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (29:04):

It’s a combination of hopes and there’s other sometimes despairs to be quite honest with just everything that we’re seeing out there, right? Include

Adam Klein, New Ventures West (29:11):

Both. What are your hopes and what are your despairs

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (29:15):

To keep it positive? So I’m thrilled and frightened by ai, and I think a lot of folks are, and we got pretty active writing and talking about AI early last year just as chat GT was starting [00:29:30] to be adopted. And I’m super thrilled about ai. And I know, again, there’s obviously the counter of it. I could see just profound abundance, profound in our lifetimes, just a transformative level up. I can’t even think of how to describe it. We’re going to take a huge step. And in that, again, [00:30:00] a lot of folks are talking about the potential for unlimited abundance, all sorts of our needs being met. And so on one side, I’m really excited about that. On the flip side, I do think, and sometimes when I talk about ai, it’s like there’s two extremes. There’s the Terminator where we just all get destroyed by ai, which I don’t think is going to happen.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (30:19):

And the other extreme, which is Wally, the Disney movie where we’re just completely overweight, being carried around, indulging in everything, having no purpose, having no meaning, having no struggle, having no challenge. [00:30:30] And I do believe that suffering and challenge is part of life, that we might not have our sense of liveliness without that. So I’m concerned about purpose and existential risk, and on top of that, all the political power dynamics, what happens with the shifting of power, the concentrations of power, and all the things that are happening in particular in ai. And so I feel like AI is really exciting, and I do see a real potential for just [00:31:00] understanding of consciousness and a lot of questions within AI and within ourselves to be addressed, to come back to our field and make it a little bit more relevant. I do think we’re going to go through an extraordinary, we’re already in it, a mental health crisis, it’s just going to get worse.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (31:16):

I see just the mass use and real glorification of using drugs in a way that I didn’t like the DARE program when I was growing up. And you might’ve seen the Dare bear. I don’t know if you guys had that where you say no to drugs, it was extreme. [00:31:30] But now on the other side, there’s this real romanticization, and I’m excited when I’m seeing more the sober and clean movements. And so whether it’s prescribed or recreational, I feel like there’s been a lot bit too much. And this romanticization of it is dangerous, the real kind of push for all vice. And again, [00:32:00] all the betting sports apps and all that stuff that’s happening, all the poker apps, there was a point where we were too extreme and we were told You’re going to go to hell, and it’s sinful to do these things. And now we’re in the other extreme where I feel like it’s become too normalized and that as we’re seeing with the research and the psychology, there’s a real danger to these things and they take us away from there’s an escapism.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (32:26):

And so for me, there’s a mental health crisis and a [00:32:30] lot of these things that we’re doing and that we’re allowing in that, that are being deregulated and adapted and glorified and normalized are making things worse. On the flip side, I feel we need to find true connection, true meaning true community. And I saw a great talk, I think it was Michael Pollock who said one of the biggest challenges we’re going to have, and this has been talked about for some time, but is the loneliness epidemic. And I feel like people are going to be more and more alone, more and more isolated, [00:33:00] and the power of ai, we don’t need, we have so much freedom and power at our fingertips with our phone that we almost need to be forced to deal with other people and deal with all the things that we have to deal with, with what we deal with other people, things not being instant and actually having to care about someone else’s needs and kind of be patient and having to listen and understand. So I’m concerned about how [00:33:30] we really form community, and I believe community is the answer and all the stuff that we’re focusing with and mindful leader, it’s how do you really integrate community into every piece of this and really get people to sacrifice what we need to in order to be part of a community. There’s giving, there’s, you have to give something up. You have be willing to participate and serve.

Adam Klein, New Ventures West (33:56):

Yeah, and I know that’s an important aspect for you guys, and [00:34:00] I know of one clear example that you’re doing, which is being able to practice together. Do you want to say a little bit about that?

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (34:09):

Sure. Glad to mention. So we have a program called Meditate Together, which is entirely based on community, 24 hours a day, five days a week, people drop in on the hour and they join a group where it’s 20 minutes of silence. So we’re not prescribing anything you could believe, whatever you want to believe, you could practice whatever you want to practice. It’s very Quaker in terms of just kind of this [00:34:30] silent time for contemplative or meditative practice. It’s hosted by a member of the community, so there’s no real hierarchy. It’s very egalitarian, and the hosts aren’t guiding or doing anything. They’re really just holding the space. At the end of the 20 minutes of silence, there’s a checking question usually to evoke a sense of appreciation and gratitude. But all sorts of questions that we’ve vetted as a community, people share if they like to, [00:35:00] and there’s an opportunity simply to listen. And that community has been running four years since the pandemic. Every week. We have 120 community members host these sessions, and somehow we’ve managed to do it for four years, but it’s completely community. That’s incredible. Thank you. And it just has this wonderful energy. There’s something special about that space and highly encourage folks, folks to check it out. It’s been wonderful and just maintaining a practice for me myself, it’s almost [00:35:30] having a 24 hour a day meditation center, almost like seven 11. You could just drop in anytime and meditate with other people.

Adam Klein, New Ventures West (35:40):

Yeah, that’s one of the things I was wondering about. If we were to come back to you personally in these times, what are you doing to stay open to the aliveness within and be open to these conversations and how things are unfolding? What’s that look like for you?

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (35:57):

Boy and for me, [00:36:00] and sometimes it’s hard. So I would say sometimes I do go through and I’ve gone through a lot of personal stuff the last two years, and there are moments where I realize that I need to heal and I need some space. And so there are times where it’s good, where you need a little space to be strong enough and where you need space to have the ability to engage. So I just want to be honest about that. So there are times where I [00:36:30] kind need to pull back and heal. And the images, I’m not Superman, but the images, like Superman’s Cave comes up where it’s like sometimes you have to go back and heal before you could step out and deal with things. And I think I’ve learned over time wisely to sort of gauge that and know when I need to heal and when I need to step back and when I’m ready to step out there and engage in ways where sometimes you deal with things coming at you that sometimes are very [00:37:00] negative and loaded.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (37:04):

For me, I do have a nice regular meditation practice, and that’s just become just pretty regular. I do consciously try to avoid feeding my mind things that will disrupt me in ways that aren’t productive, I would say. So the news, for example, sometimes the news is a bit much, and I’ll take [00:37:30] the right dose. I’ll try to take it in ways that I know will be less negative on me and I’m looking for the right words, but sometimes reading things is a lot easier to let my mind kind of interpret it versus being bombarded by images that someone wants me to be bombarded by. And so I found that very, very helpful, continuing to be inspired. And over the last few months, I have kids, and so kids are really [00:38:00] a wonderful source of that aliveness. And so we’ve been reading a lot of rolled do, and I found that Charlie into the Chocolate Factory, Matilda James and the Giant Peach.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (38:13):

And so going through these stories, which came from a different era and some of the language, and it’s pretty hard. It’s not like Bluey or Paw Patrol, there’s some stuff in there. And so really enjoying that with the kids and just remembering, [00:38:30] there was a point where I just felt like AI would replace books and technology would replace books. But now I’m just remembering how wonderful it is to disconnect from it all and just settle into a good book. And with the kids are on my own, and how wonderful that experience of just being with someone else sort of in their mind and their thoughts and their story, and going on a ride with them while not having all this insane [00:39:00] attention programming that’s trying to hook us and sell us and take us for a trip. And so, yeah, I don’t know if that helps answer, but being very conscious of technology and how it could mess with me and finding simpler ways to digest and explore and entertain.

Adam Klein, New Ventures West (39:18):

Yeah. Well, it’s helpful. I like asking that question of people on the podcast, just so listeners get a sense of what are all the possible ways of staying open [00:39:30] in life, staying open to this aliveness that there isn’t any one, here’s the recipe. So I think hearing from different folks about what it looks like and as you started off hearing about Yeah, and it’s not easy all the time. It’s hard. And so the reality of that so that we can really feel companioned when we’re feeling that way ourselves.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (39:55):

Exactly. I think it’s dangerous to feel guilt or shame [00:40:00] around those things. I should be this or I need to feel that way, and to find how to get there, but in a way that feels that’s more organic.

Adam Klein, New Ventures West (40:11):

Yeah. Well, I’ve appreciated our time. Is there anything you want to say as we’re coming to a close here?

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (40:21):

Not a whole lot outside of the fact that I have a lot of respect and appreciation for the work that you guys do, and it has been fundamental [00:40:30] in my journey and in my path. And of course I’ve had other influences and things, but quite often, especially in those really difficult moments, a lot of the lessons and experiences that I had with New Ventures West have been really invaluable. And so just my sincere appreciation for that. So I’ll leave it at that.

Adam Klein, New Ventures West (40:53):

Yeah. Well, we also, I think one of the things that stands out to me in your work is a lot of what you [00:41:00] talked about in this episode, entertaining and including and welcoming difficult conversations around things that it’s easy to be in an echo chamber around. And I think that kind of inclusion, while it may not always find harmony in it, enriches our own views, our own understanding, crystallizes things. And it’s an easy thing, easy thing to ignore because it’s easy to find echo chambers, especially in today’s world. So [00:41:30] we’re inspired by your commitment to engaging in those conversations and having them really inform how things go, because my sense is it really does inform it and enrich it and help it to really be of benefit to more and more people.

Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader (41:48):

Absolutely. And one of the things I think about is that to feel alive, there is an element of suffering that sort of really engages us, but to find the right suffering. So sometimes we [00:42:00] find the wrong suffering. There’s all sorts of terrible ways people do that, but the right suffering sometimes it’s like that workout, that kind of pushing or that engagement with someone who you don’t agree with and challenging your ability to be with them and hear them out. But that’s just one little thing I wanted to mention.

Adam Klein, New Ventures West (42:20):

Yeah. Well, thanks Mo, as do I. Thank you. All right, Mo, take care.

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