Jamie Lee  0:04  
Lee, welcome to risky conversations with Jamie Lee. My name is Jamie Lee, and I'm an executive coach for smart women and marginalized leaders who don't like office politics, and I help them get promoted, get better paid, without throwing anyone under the bus. And why have risky conversations, because everything worthwhile is on the other side of a risky conversation. Most people think I'm a negotiation coach, and that's because when I started doing the work I do, more than a decade ago, I started out as a salary negotiation consultant, helping women professionals negotiate their job offers, and many people still hire me or reach out to me or think of me because they want a bigger paycheck, a seat at the leadership table, or more confidence, advocating for the growth they want. But what we're actually doing in my coaching practice goes beyond chasing after money and conventional success, and this is the risky conversation I want to have with you today, because the truth is, you ready for this? I'm a practitioner of change, working at the intersection of ancient eastern philosophy and modern Western neuroscience. I happen to be a person of the Korean diaspora. I was born in South Korea, and I immigrated to the United States as a kid in the late 80s. So Eastern philosophy is what I was born into, and Western scientific thinking was what I was raised on. And now as a professional coach, I support women and marginalized leaders as they utilize these mind bending tools, tools that live at that very intersection to achieve tangible results in their professional arenas. I have to admit, when I first arrived at that phrasing, the intersection of Eastern philosophy and modern neuroscience. I thought to myself, that's got a nice ring to it. And you know what it is, super cool, and I am going to break it down for you in this episode. But on the other hand, my Asian upbringing also taught me the virtue of humility, and so I want to humbly acknowledge that being at this really cool intersection is is not actually a new thing. It's not even an exclusively me thing. I don't have a PhD in ancient Asian philosophy or neuroscience. I have to fully own that while I'm not a formal academic expert in either I simply notice the powerful interconnection between the two in the work I do every day with women, managers and executives. The beautiful thing about this particular intersection is that you don't have to forsake your life, quit your job, shave your head, leave your worldly life and become a monk to be helped by it. You don't have to memorize complex formulas, you don't have to get a PhD in neuroscience. You don't even have to be of Asian descent like me to benefit from the healing and transformative teachings found here, because what's at the intersection is simply fundamental truths articulated by preaching Asian mystics and proven by cutting edge modern scientists. For me, this realization comes from an observation through my work, in helping people negotiate, also in getting certified in life coaching, feminist coaching, integrative hypnosis. Over the past year, I started studying Zen Buddhism. I started sitting in meditation, learning about the philosophy with a multicultural Sangha in New York City. And the more I study and practice Zen, the more I see that they're all saying the same thing. My teachers and coaching thought work, hypnosis, the Zen masters and you're the three things that they all agree. Number one, we are not our thoughts. Number two, who we think we are isn't who we really are. And number three, you are far more capable of change than your perceptions would have you believe in this moment, these truths are based on the ancient eastern philosophy of no self, the neuroscience of no self. And I'll explain what that means, and the neuroplasticity that's possible because of it. And I think it's a two way street. Neuroplasticity is possible because. Of this no self and no self is possible because of neuroplasticity. And if that sounds paradoxical like, Huh, what is she talking about? You're right on point, both ancient philosophy and cutting edge science like quantum physics, neuroscience, they're all a study in ascertaining a deeper truth by dancing with paradoxes. So let's start with ancient eastern philosophy. One of its most healing teachings can be summarized into one elegant Chinese character, and that character is called mu in Korean and Japanese, and is pronounced woo in Chinese. But please don't mistake this for Woo. Woo mysticism. The character itself looks like a series of horizontal strokes over a fire. It's beautiful, and depending on the context, mu translates to non being empty or boundless. Now you might ask, How is emptiness healing? Isn't that kind of demoralizing? How can that be useful? Let me explain mu references, a realization held by ancient mystics more than two millennia ago. And yes, his name is Buddha, and Buddha described the near total emptiness of all seemingly solid matter. Fast forward to the current century, the 21st Century, and quantum physicists like David Bohm and Niels Bohr are saying the exact same thing when they discuss quantum vacuum fluctuations, the reality that atoms are 99.9999999% empty space. Think about that for a second. You me the coffee mug on your desk, the smartphone or the laptop in front of you. Science tells us that they're nearly 100% empty space. Kind of trippy, right? And here's the kicker, this concept of mu doesn't just apply to physical atoms. It applies to mind too. The ancient eastern philosophers saw through the illusions of human perception, they introduced the concept of anatta or no self, suggesting that our fixed identity, this concept of i being fixed and immutable, is Actually affection. And if that sounds bewildering, let's look at modern neuroscience. Neuroscientists like Marvin Minsky and Michael Gazzaniga agree that the human mind is not a singular fixed eye. There isn't one executive in the brain calling the shots. Instead, we have a society of mind, an aggregate of parts that constantly negotiate their conflicting impulses. Think about your own day, if a part of you wants to keep working, while another part of you wants to check your email, and third part of you is thinking about lunch, and a fourth part of you is actually kind of still processing a conversation from two hours ago. There you go. That's your society of mind in action. There is no singular permanent you that is stuck being one way forever. So what does this have to do with you wanting to grow your career, your income and your impact at face value, moo sounds like nihilism. If everything is empty, why bother getting out of bed? Why bother going to work? Why bother trying to improve your leadership? But in practice, Moo is the opposite of nihilism. It is ultimate liberation. It frees us from the tyranny of self talk that is at the root of our professional stress. So let me give you some specific examples that I have heard directly from my coaching clients. The first part is going to be the situation or trigger, and then there is the meaning that we assign to that situation. That meaning the second part is the root of the stress. Steven and R and D kept me out of that email thread again. It means I'm being set up to fail. I'm the only woman of color invited to speak on stage at this event. It means I don't belong there. This anxiety in my chest is a sign that I'm not good enough for this role. The CEO responded to my input with monosyllabic utterance and didn't engage me in a deep conversation. It means. I'm not respected. Now, when we apply mu, we realize these thoughts are not the quote, unquote truth. They're just passing phenomenon in an empty space. When you realize your identity, your your actual being, is empty of fixed, permanent traits. You start seeing your fear. You stop seeing your fear as a structural flaw. You stop seeing your thoughts and the meaning you assign it as a deep, deeply inherent character flaw that you must fixed. You must fix you start seeing the storm of thoughts as temporary weather pattern. In coaching, we use this to open up the possibility of interpretation, open up to broader perspectives. We explore these situations with a curiosity that can lead to grounded authority. Let's go back to the list of situations slash triggers, and then let's review them one more time through a lens of moo so the email thread that Steve and R and D kept you out of instead of telling yourself that you're being set up to fail. What if you can open yourself up to the perspective of asking what is truly essential for me to know, and how can I engage in proactive conversations to stay informed on what's truly essential and not get lost in the noise. And if you're the only woman invited to speak on the conference stage, you can ask yourself, what common ground do I share with the other presenters? And how can I and how can I engage with them, not as a fixed identity of women of color, but perhaps there's a society of mine, within me and the other side, the other people I'm gaging, they're also simply an aggregate of parts, and they're not just who they seem to be. They're not just this fixed entity. Yeah, and how do I want to feel? How do I want to feel being acknowledged is a thought leader. And if there's anxiety in your chest, you could also open yourself up to the perspective that this is simply a sign that you care deeply. And if you don't make that anxiety wrong and you just allow yourself to breathe right alongside it, you might start to notice that it starts to dissolve all on its own and the CEO's monosyllabic response. You could also open yourself up to the perspective that there is something else on his mind, possibly and it may have something or nothing to do with you at all. And so when we open ourselves up to these broader perspectives, this is where neuroplasticity comes in your capacity to rewire, to create new neural pathways. If your self, your quote unquote self, were a solid, immutable, fixed thing, growth would be impossible, but because the quote unquote self is inherently empty, or, as neuroscientists say, a dynamic, functional architecture. It is infinitely rewritable. That's the that's the beauty, that's that is the gift of the human mind. And so we use this. We utilize this in coaching by moving through three stages. The first stage is the move phase. Or you can even think about it as when the caterpillar goes into the chrysalis and it completely dissolves. We identify the the self, talk, the narrative self, and we use this move filter to see these as simply thoughts, not the truth of your being. This reaffirms your emotional agency, your capacity to create new, more useful meaning grounded in facts of your situation, not fiction offered by the brain. And then we go into mental rehearsal, the visualization phase, we use experience dependent plasticity of the brain. Your brain doesn't distinguish perfectly between a real action and a vividly imagined one. That's how that's how infinite the mind is. So we utilize this, and we pre wire your nervous system for a new way of showing up, new way of feeling, new way of responding, new way of taking action in your career as well as in your life. And then the third part is the brave action, the embodiment phase, you stop seeing

the person on the other side, whether that's a literal person, someone who's being difficult, or, metaphorically speaking, an aspect of yourself that you think as as something that needs to be fixed, an immutable something that needs to be fixed. Instead, you start navigating a flow of energy. So the stakes drop. You aren't fighting for your life. You're simply moving and going with a flow. And so when we move through the move phase, the visualization phase, the embodiment phase, what gets built as a result is something surprising. It is the fortress of trust. Trust or self trust, doesn't come from grasping for certainties in a constantly changing, uncertain world. And that's also a scientific fact, right? The world is constantly changing, and uncertainty is the constant of a constantly changing world. Trust comes from realizing who you really are. Remember you're not your thoughts and what you think you are isn't who you really are. The fortress of trust comes from the realization that your quote, unquote, self cannot be broken because it never was a fragile, solid thing to begin with. Instead, what mu and neuroscientists all point towards is that you are, in fact, the boundless potential behind the action. And when you leave from this place being the boundless potential behind the action. You're not faking it until you make it. You're intentionally directing your neurobiology to align with the boundless nature of who you truly are. Remember, mood can be interpreted as empty, but also boundless. We use the emptiness or the boundlessness of mu to clear the path and the tools of neuroscience to build the bridge to who you are becoming, and who you are and who you are becoming are both indicating that who you really are is both the creator and the masterpiece. And so the promotion, the raise, the new business, right? The tangible results in this world, but they are. They're just artifacts of a much deeper transformation that happens within and so thank you for listening to risky conversations. The work we're doing is deep. It's more profound. It's more radical than chasing after money and success, it's redefining seeing ourselves in this deeper, more profound light that is both transformative and healing. And it is something that the ancient mystics of India, Korea, Japan, China, have taught us for millennia, and it is also something that is proven to be true by modern Western neuroscience as well as quantum physics. I think it's really cool. And so if you want to learn more about how we can work together, I invite you to come on over to Jamie Lee coach.com. J, A, M, I, E, E, C, O, A, C, h.com, if you want to learn about my executive coaching practice, it's Jamie Lee coach.com/apply. I'll talk to you soon, and in the meantime, keep having those risky conversations.