Between Mindset and Heartset: The Unseen Journey of Becoming Whole, with Pablo Sillas Domínguez
Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why you think the way you think? Or what drives the choices you make every day in your work, your relationships, your leadership?
In this episode of the Spirituality in Leadership podcast, host Andrew Cohn speaks with Pablo Sillas Domínguez, a human relations executive and author of Heartset. Pablo shares his powerful personal journey from being a successful but workaholic HR director, whom he describes as the "wolf" of his own family, to embarking on a profound spiritual and transformational path.
The catalyst for this change was a pivotal question from a coach: "Do you know why you think the way you think?" This launched Pablo on a years-long journey of introspection, unlearning, and integrating his reason with his emotions and intuition. He explains that this personal awakening mirrors a larger societal issue, where a hyper-competitive, ego-driven mindset has led to widespread stress and disconnection.
Pablo introduces key concepts from his book, including "field thoughts," (the fusion of feeling and thinking), "charisms," (spiritual gifts), and “meditaction,” (combining meditation with action for the common good). He argues for bringing vulnerability and our whole selves into the workplace, moving from seeing people as disposable resources to recognizing them as indispensable individuals. The conversation offers a practical and aspirational framework for leaders to cultivate purpose, meaning, and healthier organizations.
Key Takeaways
From ego to essence: Real transformation begins by asking honest questions about why we think and feel the way we do.
Three pillars of being: Growth requires balance between reason, emotion, and intuition.
The Heartset framework: Shifting from competition to awareness creates space for genuine connection and shared purpose.
Unlearning to become: Letting go of old patterns and roles reveals authenticity and freedom.
Vulnerability as strength: Honest openness builds empathy, trust, and deeper relationships in the workplace.
Field thoughts and tharisms: Spiritual practices that turn personal growth into collective uplift.
Meditation in action: True mindfulness lives in behavior, not just reflection.
In This Episode:
[00:01] Pablo’s awakening and spiritual transformation
[03:27] Early career, success, and lessons from overwork
[06:45] Realizing the cost of ego-driven ambition
[08:15] The question that changed everything
[10:01] Learning to feel, listen, and grow through awareness
[12:25] The system and cultural conditioning of the ego
[14:13] The missing half of human competencies
[16:30] The path from ego to self to integration
[18:14] Understanding “tharisms” and spiritual gifts
[20:47] Unlearning to be yourself
[23:10] Living authenticity within corporate systems
[25:20] Vulnerability and seniority as mature leadership
[28:26] Building trust through empathy
[32:10] Introducing “field thoughts” and new paradigms for culture
[39:19] Meditation and the call to act with awareness
[42:11] Music, food, and creativity as channels for connection
[45:12] Where to find Pablo’s book and playlists
[46:23] Closing reflections
Resources and Links
Spirituality in Leadership Podcast
Pablo Sillas Domínguez
Website: https://pablosillas.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pablosillas/?locale=en_US
Book by Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Heartset: The Renaissance 2.0 of Sapiens and Conscious Organizations
Heartset: https://a.co/d/2Z0MqN6
Andrew Cohn
Music:
Watch our Podcast episode
Transcript
[00:00:00] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: There is a great British philosopher from the 17th century Thomas Hobb that coined the phrase, man is wolf to man. So I was becoming that to my own family. I was the wolf of my own family, and when I saw all the damage that I was doing to them, I started my own spiritual journey, my own transformational path.
[00:00:22] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: My own transformational journey to be a better person and to see the things that I needed to see that were setting me apart from my family.
[00:00:30] Andrew Cohn: What were the questions that opened things up for you or helped you pivot?
[00:00:34] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: A coach that had a strong background on ontological thinking, and he asked me once, Pablo, do you know why you think the way you think?
[00:00:46] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: And I just went bananas.
[00:00:52] Andrew Cohn: Welcome to the Spirituality in Leadership podcast. I'm Andrew Cohn. Spirituality and Leadership is a platform [00:01:00] for conversations with leaders at all levels about bringing our spiritual dimensions to our leadership. Our teams, our workplaces, and all areas of our lives in order to achieve greater success and fulfillment and build and sustain healthier organizations.
[00:01:15] Andrew Cohn: If you'd like to connect with me to talk further about these topics and or about individual or team coaching leadership workshops or team alignment, please go to my website, lighthouse teams.com. Enjoy the podcast.
[00:01:35] Andrew Cohn: Welcome back to the podcast. In this episode, I'm very pleased to speak with Pablo Cis Dominguez. Pablo is a human relations executive in the corporate world in Mexico, as he has been for years in that role, also a therapist, a consultant. And speaker, and he's written a new book called Heartset, and he talks about his journey in his own personal evolution.[00:02:00]
[00:02:00] Andrew Cohn: What has led him to write the book, some of the key concepts we probe in the book. And it's quite aspirational. He talks about a higher purpose for humanity, but it's also quite practical in how he talks about what we can do in our lives, in our work as leaders in a variety of settings, to bring some of these ideas to life for greater evolution and purpose and meaning and fulfillment.
[00:02:25] Andrew Cohn: He introduces some new terms that I had not heard before. For example, he talks about God's incidents. As opposed to coincidences. He talks about field thoughts. He talks about charisms, which is a word that I had not heard before, and he's quite passionate and engaging, inspiring, and again, it's a beautiful combination of aspiration and how we can grow as people to lead full and fulfilling lives and practical steps we can take in the workplace.
[00:02:53] Andrew Cohn: I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. Welcome back to the Spirituality and Leadership Podcast. I [00:03:00] am so pleased to be joined today. By Pablo Ci Dominguez in beautiful Monte de Mexico, and I've talked a little bit about your background in the introduction to this podcast, so we don't need to get into that too much other than your vast experience.
[00:03:15] Andrew Cohn: Well, more important than your experience, your learning, and your wisdom. It's not just about your work experience, but it's about your mindset and it's about your heart set, which is what I think we'll focus on. Welcome to the podcast.
[00:03:27] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Thank you. Thank you. I'm very pleased to be hearing sharing your space with you and your audience.
[00:03:31] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Thank you very much for the invitation.
[00:03:33] Andrew Cohn: Of course, it's great to be with you and maybe we could start a bit with your journey personally and professionally, because we will focus our conversation on heartset your book, but there's a lot in your experience that went into that book and I know because I've read it.
[00:03:48] Andrew Cohn: So maybe we could talk a little bit about your journey and how you came to write the book, and then we can talk about some of the key themes.
[00:03:54] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: First of all, the journey started many years ago. I was born in Monterey, [00:04:00] Mexico. It's a town like two hours drive away from the Texas border. I was raised by my mom and dad.
[00:04:06] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Each came across very difficult economic times back in those days. And I learned from them the value of discipline, the value of the mindset of continuous improvement and working hard to be someone in life. And from that mindset that was not very different from the mindset that was going around the culture and society in Mexico or even all over the world.
[00:04:32] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Uh, I end up studying for my engineering degree at a tech company in Monterey. I studied industrial engineering because basically I thought to myself that I was good at math, but that wasn't really my passion. So I ended up with my studies with my degree and my first job, Andrew was in the Salesforce in a big company, in a Fortune 100 company working in the [00:05:00] sales department, and I got an invitation from a peer, from a colleague, from the HR department.
[00:05:08] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: From the Talent and Culture department, you'll never hear from me. Uh, human resources because, and I will go in a little bit in that term because we are not resources, we are people. So the HR department, which is the human relations department, gave me an invitation. To work with them. And that's when I started my career interacting with people and knowing the value of giving ourselves for the wellbeing and for the benefit and for the growth and the potential of the people that surround us.
[00:05:35] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: So I loved being in that department, in HR, in human relations. Then many good incidents happened in my life. Not coincidence, but God coincidence because things are connected for the, for the common good and for the wellbeing of everyone. And I started to move around in different companies, so I quickly became a generalist of HR in which I managed all of [00:06:00] the different departments or areas that the functions provide to a company.
[00:06:04] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: And at an early stage in my life, I was, I believe, 27 years old or 28 years old, I became an HR director. So I tasted success very early in my career, and that had pros and cons because the pros were that I was earning money and I was having more responsibility, and I was making a difference in the company for the common good and for the wealth of our employees, of our associates.
[00:06:33] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: But the cons were that I was separating from my family because I really was a workaholic. I didn't see what I needed to see because I was totally immersed in my work and being more applauded by my colleagues at work that I cherished and applaud for my own family and that way of thinking, that mindset
[00:06:56] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: stayed with me for many, many years, Andrew, until [00:07:00] I had kids, and I saw the damage that I was doing to my kids and to my wife that I was doing to my own blood in terms of the mindset that I have of being competitive and learning more money and growing in the corporate ladder and having more responsibilities and traveling overseas.
[00:07:19] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: So I was not able to see the damage that I was doing to my own family. There is a great British philosopher from the 17th century Thomas Hobb that coined the phrase, man is wolf to man. Mm-hmm. So I was becoming that to my own family. I was the wolf of my own family. And when I saw all the damage that I was doing to them, I started my own spiritual journey, my own transformational path, my own.
[00:07:45] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Transformational journey to be a better person and to see the things that I needed to see that were setting me apart from my family. I didn't know at that time, Andrew, why I think the way I think and why I felt it the way I felt. [00:08:00] So when I finally went through my spiritual path. I answered those questions, that's when I woke up in terms of the common good, starting with myself and my family, and then for the rest of the people that surround me, and that's when I came and wrote a book about hearts.
[00:08:15] Andrew Cohn: Thank you for sharing that and just something you just said. I'd like to ask about that. When you said, when you answered those questions, things shifted for you, could you articulate if you can, what were the questions that opened things up for you or helped you pivot? The
[00:08:28] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: The main question was that I had a coach, a coach that had a strong background on ontological thinking, and he asked me once Pablo, do you know why you think the way you think?
[00:08:43] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: And I just went bananas.
[00:08:45] Andrew Cohn: It's a great question.
[00:08:46] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: And I told him, of course not. I mean, I've never in my life asked myself that question. So he told me, okay, you have a lot of work. You have a lot of homework. Go to your house. Go to your home, talk with your [00:09:00] wife, talk with your kids, talk with the people that can give you a lot of feedback.
[00:09:06] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Uh, do some reading and get some outside information that can help you answer that question because you have your own mindset, totally egocentric on your narcissistic being. So you need outside information. Of the people that you really love, so they can tell you the way that they perceive your actions, the way that they perceive your feelings, your thoughts, your emotions, and the way you behave, and start to meditate on those answers and try to go back also why your parents tell you the things that they told you in order to educate you.
[00:09:41] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: What's the mindset in which you grew up? What's the mindset in which you acquire from your early days back in school? Back in your career, back with your friends. So take a deep dive, an introspective dive to know yourself. You need to know yourself in order to [00:10:00] answer that question. And it took me, Andrew, I don't know.
[00:10:03] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: I think that it took me a process like about one or two years in which I constantly went back and forth. Because I mean that question, you can answer it forever because it's a continuous improvement process in your life. The transformation never ends. So basically when you answer that question, you can always come up with something different.
[00:10:23] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: So when I answer that question now, my coach gave me a new one. Now tell me why you feel the way you feel. Mm-hmm. And I went back again to listen to my body, to listen to the, the, that I have in my body, to listen to my aches, to my pain, to my scars, to take a look at my shadows and start to listen to my intuition.
[00:10:47] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Andrew, no one ever taught me how to embrace and to develop my intuition or my emotional wisdom, so I came back to him with that answer. That's when a lot of possibilities opened up my [00:11:00] life. That's when I started to feel different. That's when I started to learn about my own soul, my own spirit, which are different things.
[00:11:07] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: And that's when I started to embrace the pain of the people that surround me as my own pain. And that's when I started to grow in this transformational process, eventually erupted like a volcano in my book Heartset.
[00:11:22] Andrew Cohn: Wow, you're really saying a lot. You know what you shared about those questions. It reminds me, one of my earlier podcast guests shared a quotation with me by the American.
[00:11:31] Andrew Cohn: I think theologian would be the best description. Parker Palmer, who said, and if you choose to live an unexamined life, please do not work with people. Because this is what it's about. So you're talking about your own personal awareness, how that evolved. You're talking about once you become more clear about that, recognizing the impact on others and the need, as you said, its mindset plus.
[00:11:55] Andrew Cohn: Otherness plus the focus on others and not being limited to just myself and my own [00:12:00] myopic self-centered view. So there's a lot that you're talking about. There's a lot of places we can go. And what I'd like to do maybe is just zoom out and say, why don't we start with a kind of an overview of what your ideas have been distilled into the book.
[00:12:16] Andrew Cohn: Kind of where would you start in describing what a heartset is and how it emerged from this journey that you've discussed?
[00:12:25] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Okay. Well, my personal journey that I previously discussed, Andrew, also has great implications in the way that society thinks. I mean, I'm not the only one that passed through these situations in my life with all my shadows and scars.
[00:12:40] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: And it's a cultural thing that is driving the way that we see humanity and the way that we selves ourselves as human beings.
[00:12:49] Andrew Cohn: And in the book you talk about it as the system. You use that word system very strongly
[00:12:53] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: of the cultural matrix because one way or another, we have been raised depending on [00:13:00] our reason.
[00:13:00] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: We have three great capabilities in our essence as human beings. Our reason, our emotions and our intuition. And since Rene Dekar, René Descartes, the famous French philosopher from the 17th century in which we fragmented the way we see ourselves, we only depend on our reason to evolve as human beings. And if we add to that.
[00:13:22] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Darwinian socialism in which we need to adapt only by competing against each other. We have created the type of world in which we live in with a lot of extreme poverty, with a lot of ignorance, dogmatism, fear and hate. And, uh, we can see that. We can also see a lot of problems and the statistics are out there.
[00:13:43] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: I mean, we just need to take a look at what the wealth organization talks about, uh, chronical stress, what the rate of suicides, the rate of depression, the rate of heart attacks. I mean, we have a lot of problems in the society currently going on all over the world. [00:14:00] Even there is a great graph that I expose in the book of the International Monetary Fund, in which five of the countries on the whole planet account for more than 50% of the GDP.
[00:14:13] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: So what I was leaving in my family, it's part of a bigger picture that's going on in the world. So that's the first part of the book, exposing why we think the way we think in terms of the data of the KPIs that we are producing in the way we think, the way we do. And I also take in account the first part of the book, which is called Ego, okay?
[00:14:40] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Our ego produces this output of KPIs. Of the structural things that were going on in the world and move on to the second part of the book, which is the self. And I just gave also in the first part, in the ego, I exposed, for example. One thing that really raised my [00:15:00] attention, the World Economic Forum every five years have their annual meeting in Davos and they published the main competencies in which society companies professionals need to work on to be a better professional, a better company, to be more competitive, and to drive progress, which progress is completely different of wellbeing.
[00:15:22] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: And, um, in that competency, for example, for 2025. They came up with the following problem: solving, coordinating with others, people management, critical thinking, negotiation, quality control, self-orientation, decision making, active listening, and creativity. And one of the points that I established in the first part of the book is that they are missing
[00:15:44] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: half of the equation, because those competencies are driving the mindset that is overwhelming the world in the KPIs that we currently have as a society with extreme poverty and a lot of the chronic stress that we are going through, and they forget half of [00:16:00] that picture, which is, for example, ethics, solidarity, respect, honesty, vulnerability, uh, listening, empathy, wisdom, emotions, introspection, reflection.
[00:16:11] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Meditation, prayer, contemplation, generosity, kindness. I mean, there's a health of the story that in the current mindset of the system, we are not knowing about it because we don't. Go to ourselves in an introspective process to really answer the question why we think the way we think. So the first part of the book, Andrew, it's based on answering that question with a lot of data that can drive us to think differently and to reflect that type of life that we're currently having.
[00:16:41] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: And the second part of the book, the Self. It's a journey of discovering our true self, discovering our intuition, discovering our best version that we can possibly have in this life, in this incarnation. I talked about a lot of tools that we can [00:17:00] acquire in order to know yourself better, to answer the question, why we think the way we think, and why we feel the way we feel, and eventually why we act the way we act, and what's the output of our actions.
[00:17:12] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: That's the second part of the book, and in the third part of the book, it's what I call the integration of heartset, of Aness, of Living the Self with the us, and I incorporate in that third part of the book. The concept of shares, which are competencies of the spirit and the field, thoughts, which are competencies of the soul that are put together and integrated by our own intuitions.
[00:17:37] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: And by the end of the book, I try to give a framework. People have the tools so they can have a better life and they can do better to the people that surround us and living heart and giving our for the common good of ourselves and for the planet, obviously.
[00:17:54] Andrew Cohn: Yeah. Thank you. And so when you talk about tourism, charism, that's a word that I hadn't seen before and I [00:18:00] looked it up. It means a spiritual gift or that's the definition I saw.
[00:18:03] Andrew Cohn: It's the same root of the word as charisma, that internal gift of sorts, spiritual gift. And maybe you'd want to talk about those 12 tourisms, charisms, would that be something to talk about a little bit?
[00:18:14] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Yes. I love that. And you said it correctly that Chos are a gift from our spirit. If you don't recognize in yourself that you have a spirit, it will be very hard for you to understand those terms and to live by those terms.
[00:18:33] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: For example, in the current mindset, based on extreme competitiveness and the growth of the ego, you need to acknowledge your spirit in order to understand these terms. For example, in the current mindset we talked about in current society, of the growth of the self. Tourism Charism would add to that statement that you need to think or we need to think about the growth of the US, [00:19:00] of the sadness of everyone that surrounds you.
[00:19:03] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Not only you, it's integrating the other part of the equation that's been left out by this Darwinism socialism and this reason that we have been living for the past 250 years, for example. It's moving from learning from your failures. To learn about the pain of others because we eventually end up normalizing what's not normal.
[00:19:28] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: It's frequent to see someone in the streets. Someone with a lot of pain, someone asking for help, someone asking for a job, and we just normalize what's not normal because we tend to ignore them. So we need that charism to really incorporate ourselves to see each other in the people that are suffering to embrace them, and bring into the system for the common good.
[00:19:52] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: It's moving from learning to grow, to unlearning to become yourself. We need to learn a lot of [00:20:00] things. If we want to answer the question why we think the way we think in order to open up to S.
[00:20:06] Andrew Cohn: And so let me just tap for, so you're talking about unlearning, which is a concept we've talked about in this podcast before.
[00:20:11] Andrew Cohn: So it's questioning our own thinking, which is what part one is all about. What you're talking about, and if we're going to advance and bring in this other piece, we need to unlearn certain things. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes ever from Alvin Toffler who said the illiterate of the 21st century are not the illiterate of the 21st century are the people who are unable to learn, unlearn, and relearn.
[00:20:37] Andrew Cohn: And that's what we need to do. So if we're really questioning or thinking we need to unlearn certain things and relearn something bigger, broader, more meaningful, that's what I'm hearing. Yes,
[00:20:47] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: totally right, Andrew. Because if we are full of our reason, there's no place to learn from our emotions and our intuition, and there's no place to learn from the pain of the otherness.
[00:20:59] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: So we [00:21:00] need to unlearn what we learn because we are totally mindful of our own reason. I mean, that's the only way to do it because how else will you acquire new knowledge and new ways of field thinking yourself and field thinking otherness in the way that you interact with the people around you? So it's a critical point in heartset, in my heart and mythology, to unlearn to be yourself.
[00:21:26] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: One other way to put it is the following. Uh, we are raised to wear different masks in the roles that we play all over our culture and social stack. I have one mask when I come to work. I have another mask or personality when I'm at home, when I'm with my friends, when I'm traveling. And that only will take us to a lot of drain in our energy because if you are not yourself, you need to put a lot of energy to put on a different mask, and act differently in the [00:22:00] social event that you are currently living in.
[00:22:03] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: So if you just be yourself, you will save a lot of energy. You will definitely feel different and you will be able to learn different things. But you need to be yourself and stop wearing a lot of masks, depending on the role that you're playing. Just be yourself no matter where you are and with who you are.
[00:22:21] Andrew Cohn: So let me ask you a question here. It's a bit of a challenging question, but an important question. These things that you're highlighting are quite aspirational. They are sort of lifelong journey types of things, as I would describe it. There are things that could take me the rest of my life to learn to do this and to do it well, and it would be a life well lived.
[00:22:40] Andrew Cohn: So just recognizing that these are beautiful, aspirational ways to live, and many of us still work in the system. Many of us still have corporate jobs. How do we reconcile these two things? How do you advise and teach? Mentor people to grow into these principles while still working in a world that [00:23:00] is largely controlled by corporations for better or worse. I'm not here to complain, but just to acknowledge what might be, how do you work in the system while thinking beyond the system?
[00:23:10] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Yeah. Well, that's a great question, Andrew. That's a great question and there's no recipe. I will go through my personal experience and through the things that I'm currently doing, okay? The first of all is that you need to be an example of the things that you want to happen around you. You need to be an example, if you are an example, people will learn from you just by watching you.
[00:23:31] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Mm-hmm. Uh, if you wanna be an example of something different, you really need to take that into account to know yourself better. So you need to work a lot on your five dimensions. Of your body, which is the physical, the mental, the spiritual, the emotional, and the social. You need to work on those five dimensions, and you need to integrate the three great capabilities of our essence, which is reasons, emotions, and intuition.
[00:23:58] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: So with that [00:24:00] framework, you can start to know yourself better, to feel yourself different, and to act differently towards the common good. To be an example for others and what happens when you have in front of you a boss who he or she. It's definitely a pain in the, but well, your example can drive her to think differently and you can give him or her feedback, honest feedback.
[00:24:29] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: If you are true to yourself, if you really are true to yourself and you leave masks behind when you come into the office, you can say what you think. With total vulnerability, with total vulnerability, and with a lot of seniority, and that congruence shown by yourself in that feedback will be heard. I haven't seen anyone, Andrew, that when I open my heart enabling a liability state.
[00:24:55] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: That comes and judges me and just walks away. So [00:25:00] if you practice, if we practice in the system to be vulnerable and to show ourself our true self with our pains and shadows and scars, we will start to drive some type of empathy in the people that surround us and that will open new channels for their own development.
[00:25:20] Andrew Cohn: Right. One thing that I highlighted in the chapter when you were talking about vulnerability, you said, showing ourselves without the masks of motivation and commitment brings us closer to the charisms of authentic human relationships that emanate from vulnerability, affection, and appreciation for otherness.
[00:25:38] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: That's right. The essence is that we need to open ourselves because we were educated. The mindset in which we were educated, Andrew, was not to show our vulnerability. For example, you're a boy, don't cry. You need to be tough. Don't show your feelings. You need to always be tough. You need to be resilient. It's hurting me.
[00:25:57] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: I'm going through this pain, through this episode in my life, [00:26:00] with my wife, with my kids. I'm suffering. So I wanna show those wounds inside the organization because no one can separate itself from work and from home. We are individuals. Individualism comes from the root of indivisible. I mean, we are the same people, the same human being everywhere.
[00:26:19] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: And we need to show vulnerability in the workspace in order to open empathic spaces. So people can learn from that. In nine out of 10, I have the experience of working. Nine out of 10 that I'm influencing people that previously were seen as a very tough, high executive, uh, C level, uh, executive with no vulnerability at all.
[00:26:44] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: I'm seeing openness through vulnerability, through an empathing empathic conversation and through hearing each other as human beings, not as a resource. Because if we see ourselves as our resource, we will only be exploiting ourselves for not [00:27:00] the common good.
[00:27:01] Andrew Cohn: One thing you said about vulnerability, you talked about sharing vulnerability and seniority, and I thought that was an interesting choice of words.
[00:27:09] Andrew Cohn: When you talk about seniority, you're not talking about organizational position. When you talk about seniority, you're talking more about maturity. Say more about what seniority means when you say that, please.
[00:27:20] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Seniority is acting on the total confidence of yourself. Of a total confidence of yourself, of knowing yourself, and knowing what you're capable of, and knowing what you're not capable of, but you have that inner confidence you can tell to yourself, I'm gonna eat the world and I can be anyone that I wanna be, and I will draw my full potential because I believe in myself and I love myself.
[00:27:45] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: I accept myself. I love myself. I forgive myself. That's why I have a lot of self-confidence in myself. That's seniority.
[00:27:54] Andrew Cohn: Yeah, there's a lot in there. I'm not even sure what to ask next. I'm so, I'm pausing for a moment. There's so much there. [00:28:00] And how do you typically talk about this, especially in a work setting, because you still work in a corporate space.
[00:28:06] Andrew Cohn: How do you talk about it? Do you find that you can convey some of these ideas casually and informally? One-on-ones, you know, coffee machine or is it necessarily something that is more suitable for some of the conferences, for example, that you host and other spaces, or maybe both. But tell me more about how this is communicated most effectively.
[00:28:26] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: For example, in the workplace. In our previous conversation, I told you that I'm a big fan of Fred Kaufman and in one professional previous experience from the one that I currently have, I learned from Fred that term check in. In the meetings that we have, we start with a check-in and, and that check-in is based mostly on a vulnerable space to talk about the things that are currently bothering you the most or making you happy the most.
[00:28:55] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: For example, we open meetings talking about the things that we love on the [00:29:00] previous day or on the weekend, but also on the things that hurt us on the weekend or the things that happened to us that really can drive out our attention from the meeting because we have an important thing to solve at home.
[00:29:13] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Or because my dad is in the hospital or because my daughter is passing through a disease. So if we start to practice the check-in, starting by our own vulnerability, wonderful things will happen. A lot of possibilities will open. And then suddenly people will tell you things that they never in their life have told you, and you will know them as a person, not as a professional.
[00:29:40] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: You will know them as a person, not as a resource. And that's the real transformation in the cultural transformation that we need to drive in every company to really see each other as persons. Enable vulnerability space to work together for the wellbeing of ourselves, of the otherness, not only just in a mechanical [00:30:00] transactional way of doing business.
[00:30:02] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: So we start with a check-in, and that has opened great possibilities in the way that we see each other and we embrace each other.
[00:30:08] Andrew Cohn: Some of these ideas, of course, do creep into sort of mainstream organization development. I'm thinking about vulnerability based trust and hetero len and the five dysfunctions of a team, and how do we develop trust?
[00:30:20] Andrew Cohn: We're vulnerable with each other. Now, of course, that's a very difficult thing to do when philosophically we're operating in a system where we may be competing with each other. So it can be a tough hurdle. I work with a lot of teams to develop trust within teams, and often I'm finding I'm not quite as direct and bold as you are about the need to think more broadly, but bring it a little bit more gently because just as a functional matter, whether we understand what trust means, when we experience what trust means, we know the difference and we recognize the impact of that.
[00:30:50] Andrew Cohn: But yes, it's all about being vulnerable. And that could happen in big ways. That could happen in small ways. It could happen in major ways. When a senior leader is in a town hall and shares a personal [00:31:00] story about a personal loss or something like that, and that can change the culture in a moment, or it could be something very small if, for example, that senior leader is not comfortable being that vulnerable in front of a large group and misses out on that opportunity, but perhaps can happen in a smaller setting.
[00:31:14] Andrew Cohn: But I hear what you're sharing about even in these small interactions, can be very impactful. What's interesting too is that, so Fred's first book Conscious Business was followed by his second book called The Meaning Revolution, where he's talking largely about meaning as a key leadership, I don't wanna say moral competency or leadership focus.
[00:31:33] Andrew Cohn: What has meaning for people at work, and to the extent that we can activate that authentically with the people in our organization, that's leadership, right? Because real leadership does not engender loyalty to the leader. It engenders loyalty to the mission or some dimension of the work that has meaning for people.
[00:31:50] Andrew Cohn: I thought there that was an excellent book. I actually did a review of that book on my website, and so I appreciate the evolution of that. Thinking from the individual [00:32:00] responsibility and responsibility as Fred talks about it, and you talk about it in your book to the larger, how can I help activate and elevate and prioritize meaning for others
[00:32:09] Andrew Cohn: in the workplace?
[00:32:10] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Yeah. Andrew, and I want to add to that the terminology of the field thoughts that I talk about. In my book, I dedicated a whole chapter to the field thoughts. Mm-hmm. The field thoughts. It's a term for when you start to know yourself better. You start to feel your thoughts and you start to reason your emotions.
[00:32:32] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: And the way to do that is through intuition. And when you incorporate in your capabilities the fearful and the intuitions, you are in a better position to connect the dots from what's going on with yourself and with otherness, and to see them differently. For example, one field that I talk in, a book that helps to nurture the organizational culture with a different purpose, with a purpose that you [00:33:00] just mentioned with a higher meaning for the common good.
[00:33:02] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: The current mindset is that no one is indispensable. That's the current mindset. You are not indispensable, and if you don't gimme the results well, sorry. I will let you go. That's the way life works. Well, the field thought. It's the other way around. You are indispensable. Just think of the emotional impact that an employee has when he's high.
[00:33:26] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Executive person goes and tells him from you, no one is indispensable and suddenly goes to your indispensable. In the first phrase, we feel that we are a resource, that we are disposable. Now here we are just to do some work and to go back to our house. But if someone tells you you are indispensable, you start with empowering yourself and you start to be out motivated to do something different because we are indispensable.
[00:33:58] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Okay. For example, [00:34:00] another way of seeing it, another field that I wrote in the book is. That you need to earn my trust. That classic that you need to earn my trust. And I talked about, well, I trust you from the beginning. I don't need to earn the trust of no one because I'm not the judge. I'm not in a higher position than anyone else, so I will trust you from the beginning.
[00:34:19] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Okay? For example, another field thought is that moving from, I won, I earn, I was promoted to, I gave, we need to talk more about the things we give to each other. To start to recognize the otherness and help them in the development process. We need to go from judging to, I will help you because we currently judge a lot.
[00:34:42] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: We need to move from firing him to I believe in second chances. We need to move from living our problems at home to embracing our suffering. So these field thoughts will help us develop a different organizational culture in our companies for the higher good. For the purpose you just [00:35:00] mentioned.
[00:35:00] Andrew Cohn: In the chapter you talk about feel, well this word feel thoughts and feel thinking, and obviously it's a combination of feeling and thinking, but as you talk about it, it's feel thinking is someone who's capable of thinking while feeling and feeling while thinking.
[00:35:14] Andrew Cohn: I appreciate that, the tone of these things because. Even if you talk about the move from judging to I will help you. Some of these things are, to me anyway, they're not black and white. Well, in an earlier chapter, you talk about the power of words and how words create reality, but there's a big difference between judging and evaluating.
[00:35:33] Andrew Cohn: Yeah. Right. So to me, as a leadership coach for years and working with leaders, a leader's job is to evaluate performance, to evaluate what's working and what's not, and to make decisions on that basis. That's a leader's responsibility 'cause she's responsible for the resources of the organization, which could be wasted if there's holes in the boat because performance is inadequate and we need to evaluate what's working and what's not.
[00:35:57] Andrew Cohn: That's different than judging, which to [00:36:00] me just, uh, philosophically is right and wrong. Right? Yeah. The person is wrong. There can be a person who is underperforming in the role. Maybe they're not in the right role. They don't have the skills, they're not ready for some of these tasks. That doesn't mean I'm judging this person.
[00:36:14] Andrew Cohn: It's certainly judging their character or something like that, but I can evaluate that they're not doing a certain task with a great degree of competence. I'm just running this past you, and then I want to hear what you think about this. I can evaluate that performance and still move to that other place if I will help you.
[00:36:33] Andrew Cohn: I will help you and I will help the organization helping you could be providing the skills, giving you a mentor to show you maybe how to do something a little bit better, a balancing workload or job tasks so that someone's more capable of performing at a higher level may even be. I will help you by helping you figure out what's a better role.
[00:36:51] Andrew Cohn: But the mindset is not one of judging you as wrong. Hey, you're on your own. You're out. Disposable. Mm-hmm. Come back to the indispensable dispensable thing. [00:37:00] But to me, the words do have power, and we can still be in roles of leadership. We are making decisions based upon resource use, et cetera, but not shutting out our hearts because it's very practical.
[00:37:13] Andrew Cohn: And I think you point that out in the book. It's very practical to engage. Our hearts and our feelings, as well as our intuition, informs our decision making. Does that fit you?
[00:37:23] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Yes, that fits. I will only have the following, Andrew, in the evaluation of the people that we have in the companies.
[00:37:29] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Normally the evaluation comes from results and competencies or from results and potential.
[00:37:35] Andrew Cohn: Totally.
[00:37:36] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Yeah. So I think that we need to add to the equation. Hmm. The person as a whole sees the bottom of the iceberg that is setting up those results in terms of competencies and in terms of the output of the evaluation that we are having.
[00:37:51] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Because for example, we can have a nine box profile, A person that is right, targeted at the nine box. But we don't know the fear [00:38:00] in which she or he's acting because she or he doesn't want to lose his job. Because he struggles to wake up at four in the morning for the situation that he's passing at home, and we just go right away and think that he's a super high potential, but we don't know really the problems that he's having at home and the scarcity and the wounds and the shades and the shadows that he's going through, and all the effort that he needs to imprint at work.
[00:38:27] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: The same thing goes to the people that we evaluate with a low performance. We don't know what's going on in their lives because we don't have this time, this space to empathize with tolerable vulnerability to really know what's happening. Because I mean, I have heard cases in which people were fired and the boss didn't know that his wife was in the hospital treating her for cancer.
[00:38:50] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Eventually. He will have a low performance because his head is in the hospital in the treatment of her wife, and he just showed up with a low [00:39:00] performance. And was evaluated for that. Mostly judged by that, unfortunately, yes. And he was let go. So we need to add the personal aspect to every evaluation and every conversation that we have in the workplace.
[00:39:14] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: I will just add that to round up the conversation with the concept that I'm bringing up with a few thoughts in the book.
[00:39:19] Andrew Cohn: Beautiful. And another term that I would just want to be sure to include here is you talked about feelings, and then you also had this term, which I have not seen before, called me, which is a combination, right?
[00:39:31] Andrew Cohn: A combination of meditation and action, which again, just as we're bringing the feelings into the thinking to be broader and more effective and more whole as human beings, we're applying the meditation and bringing action to it. But could you say more about that term?
[00:39:47] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Yes, I brought that term in the book, Andrew, because I've seen that in the West, the movement of mindfulness has driven society to a more [00:40:00] egocentric posture than a wellbeing posture for the common good because I've heard a lot of.
[00:40:06] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Teachers and masters and coaches talking about that. You first, you first and you first. And when you are feeling good, then you can do something for others. And I go, that's not right. I mean, you can always do something for others. You can meditate and bring that to action. For my wellbeing. Even though you are in the hospital lying in the bed of a hospital, you can give a smile to the people that attend you.
[00:40:30] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: You can call her by her name or by his name, and you can share a small story of your life. I mean, the meditation is bringing to action your few thoughts, but integrating them with the people that surround you, not only being full about yourself. So mindfulness has been wrong, driven to, I'm full of mind.
[00:40:52] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: We need to unlearn and we need to go to this space of being nothing in order to be able to capture new [00:41:00] knowledge that can drive us to different possibilities with humankind, with the people that surround us. That's the main essence of my detection towards ourselves and towards otherness. Always in a balance, always in a balance, not only always yourself or always the otherness, but to have a balance in the actions that you have through the meditations that you have in the reflections of your day.
[00:41:20] Andrew Cohn: Beautiful. And what I love about that is just the, your focus is on the application. I mean, yes, this book has a lot of concepts in it, a lot of references to a lot of philosophers, some of which I'm familiar with and some of which were new to me. But I appreciate the focus on application and that's hopefully a consistent focus on this podcast.
[00:41:38] Andrew Cohn: And I appreciate your help. Bringing these ideas because it's not just about, oh, I think this is a good idea. Conceptually, these are things that we can do. We will do it. I can talk about what we can do and what the impact is on a very practical level to make our lives better. All of our lives are better.
[00:41:53] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: That's right.
[00:41:53] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Yeah. And just gave a seminar. I told you I gave a seminar this past weekend, and it was based on the ideas and how to apply these [00:42:00] ideas. So I applied on my experience and on the experience of many people that I have worked for and that I've seen in my life. So. There's a way to apply them for the common good, and obviously for your own development.
[00:42:11] Andrew Cohn: Yeah. So two things I wanna highlight about the book that are not conceptual. Well, three actually. One is the how. Every chapter begins with a soundtrack, with a song that you think thematically goes with the chapter. So how did you come to that creative, interesting idea as part of the book?
[00:42:30] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Well, I love music and I love food.
[00:42:33] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: So in every chapter you will find a piece of music and some dishes that I love in my life. Yes, and I came with the idea because heartset wants to go deep into an emotional state of connection between us and music. It's a very profound channel to bring that emotional space, to have a different reading of the concepts that I'm bringing in the book.
[00:42:59] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: So [00:43:00] that music sets up the tone in some emotional state that is describing that chapter because every single piece has a connection with a chapter that I'm writing, and also wants to set this emotional tone so we can be in a better perspective to unlearn and to learn new things.
[00:43:20] Andrew Cohn: No, beautiful. And music does alter our awareness, our consciousness.
[00:43:24] Andrew Cohn: I'm just looking at the list of pieces here from Billy Idol to Frank Sinatra and Queens Reich, and of course Rush. That meant a lot to me. When you included them in addition to some classical pieces as well, did you create a playlist on Spotify or something else that can be shared? 'cause I'd love to see it.
[00:43:42] Andrew Cohn: Okay.
[00:43:42] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Yes. I have two playlists on Spotify. One is called the Heartset Meditation Suite. It's like more than two hours of music so we can relax and meditate. And the other playlist is called the Jobs Party, uh, regarding this biblical person [00:44:00] from the Old Testament job. Mm-hmm. Which is my hero in terms of the ability to respond and responsibility in the way to give things to everything that happens to us daily no matter what.
[00:44:10] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: And the second list is regarding the job body, because. The words and the music in those songs are words that program us to be responsible and to integrate ourselves in our five bodies, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social, and to drive our creativity, intuition, and emotions. Also with our reasons.
[00:44:30] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: I love those songs. And they have a lot of very nice and clear messages in the lyrics that we can learn about them.
[00:44:38] Andrew Cohn: Beautiful. Thank you. I will add those to mine and yeah, so you talk about Job's party and in the book you often earlier in the book about the suit of job and coming to situations, wearing that suit of responsibility and making that distinction between Job and Adam.
[00:44:52] Andrew Cohn: Another biblical reference, but I will leave it to the listeners to read the book to learn more about that. And speaking of which, how do people learn more? [00:45:00] Where can people get the book? And when we're talking about this, it will be a few months between now and the time this is broadcast. And by that time the book should be widely available on Amazon and English.
[00:45:11] Andrew Cohn: Is that correct?
[00:45:11] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: That's right. It will be available in Amazon, in English in a month or so. The hard copy and also on the digital copy.
[00:45:19] Andrew Cohn: Right? And if people want to learn more about you, where can they go?
[00:45:23] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: They can go to my LinkedIn profile, or they can go to my Instagram or to my Facebook or to my website, pablo seas.com, and they can find me through those channels.
[00:45:34] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Andrew.
[00:45:35] Andrew Cohn: Beautiful. Well, I hope they do. They would be wise to do that. So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, your experience, these materials that I can go back to and we'll go back to the music and yes, I did wanna highlight also the way you have accented food. I just thought it was one, it brings a certain element of family and connection and joy to me, while at the same time talking about some very aspirational ideas that can seem [00:46:00] sometimes.
[00:46:00] Andrew Cohn: It's a little out of reach. Oh, but wait, I can almost smell the dish that you're describing in the book. So I appreciate the balance of those two types of inputs and the energy that brings to the book. So thank you for all of it.
[00:46:12] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: Thank you, Andrew. Thank you. Thank you. I really love talking with you and I love this space.
[00:46:15] Pablo Sillas Domínguez: And thank you very much for your time and having me on your podcast. I really love
[00:46:19] Andrew Cohn: it. Of course. I look forward to continuing the conversation. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to Spirituality in Leadership. If you want to access this wealth of knowledge and insight on a regular basis, please subscribe to the show.
[00:46:32] Andrew Cohn: Join the network of leaders who want to do and be better. You can go to the site, spirituality in leadership.com or your preferred podcast platform. To catch all the episodes and learn more. Until next time, take good care of yourself.