The Business of Being Alive: How Spirituality Fuels Innovation, with Kirk Souder
What if I told you that business, not government or nonprofits, has the greatest potential to change the world? And what if the secret to unlocking that power is not in working harder but in becoming more alive?
In this episode of Spirituality in Leadership, host Andrew Cohn sits down with Kirk Souder, a seasoned branding leader and executive coach, to explore how spirituality is the missing gear for unprecedented creativity and impact in the business world.
Kirk argues that business, as the most influential sector in society, has a profound potential to create change, but it is stuck in a lower gear of creation. He shares how moving from a paradigm of "availability" (what already exists) to one of "creation" (what's possible) unlocks a higher level of innovation. Drawing on wisdom from Howard Thurman and Joseph Campbell, Kirk makes a compelling case that the world does not need more hustle; it needs more people who are fully alive.
Throughout the conversation, Kirk shares powerful stories, including how a client at Mattel trusted her sense of aliveness to spearhead the diversification of the Barbie doll, a move that laid the groundwork for the cultural phenomenon of the Barbie movie. He and Andrew also delve into the practical neuroanatomy of creativity, explaining how shifting from fear-based "shoulds" to curiosity and aliveness activates the brain's "dispersed mode" for breakthrough ideas.
This episode is an invitation to run the experiment and see what happens when you trust your inner compass, let go of outdated identities, and lead from a place of genuine aliveness.
Key Takeaways
Business as a Force for Change: Today’s corporations have unprecedented power to create transformation if they connect to a higher purpose.
The Aliveness Compass: Spirituality, stripped of labels, simply means orienting around what brings you alive and allowing that energy to guide your work.
Run the Experiment: Replace fear-based decision-making with curiosity. See what happens when you lead with trust and authenticity.
The Barbie Case Study: True innovation begins when leaders align their personal purpose with their organization’s mission.
Nature as a Teacher: Like redwoods letting go of lower branches to reach the light, leaders must release what no longer serves in order to grow.
The Paradigm Shift: Move from scarcity (What’s available?) to creation (What’s possible?). That is where innovation truly begins.
Spirituality in Action: It is not about rituals; it is a way of being that fuels creativity, purpose, and connection in every decision.
In This Episode:
[00:00] Opening reflections on spirituality in business
[01:23] Meet Kirk Souder: from branding to coaching
[04:16] The intersection of spirituality and business
[06:55] Rethinking business purpose through aliveness
[09:57] Howard Thurman’s wisdom and inner guidance
[10:45] Running the experiment and leading with trust
[12:31] The Barbie story: purpose in corporate creativity
[16:31] Neuroscience of curiosity and innovation
[19:34] Creating joy as a driver of change
[22:39] Lessons from nature and redwoods
[24:29] Rethinking identity and organizational purpose
[29:03] Emergent strategy and natural systems
[31:27] From scarcity to creation paradigm
[34:06] Living vision and designing from feeling
[35:15] The “S” word (spirituality) and “F” word (feelings)
[37:39] Rediscovering purpose beyond success
[40:57] The Barbie effect and the Microsoft mindset shift
[44:33] Nature’s perfection in innovation and efficiency
[46:01] The call to live and lead from aliveness
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Transcript
Kirk Souder: The idea of spirituality in business. I think we live at a time where it's important that those two things kind of come together and in a van, in a way of the time we live in is asking for, in my opinion, like a greater level of creation. Business has the greatest potential for creating change in the world, more than government, more than more than the other sectors. And I believe that simply because of the capabilities and scale of it.
Andrew Cohn: A little philosophical, but I think it's instructive what is missing in business. Welcome to the Spirituality in Leadership podcast. I'm Andrew Cohn. Spirituality in Leadership is a platform 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. 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 lighthouseteams.com. Enjoy the podcast.
Welcome back to the Spirituality in Leadership podcast. I'm your host Andrew Cohn, and in this conversation I had the opportunity to speak with a relatively new colleague of mine, Kirk Souder. Kirk is based in Southern California. He is a branding and marketing leader turned coach, executive coach, and coaches people in their businesses in different ways, but a fascinating and just a wonderful and richly experienced individual. He comes from the world of branding and ideas and possibility and that really comes through in our conversation. He talks a lot about bringing people into more what he calls powerful zones of aliveness and greater levels of creativity, what he referred to as greater gears, higher gears of creativity. And we also talked about the importance of the connection between spirituality and leadership. He talks about how business needs greater creativity and higher levels of innovation. And spirituality, as he talks about it, helps take it to greater levels. And so, okay, what does spirituality mean to him? And he talked about a quotation from Howard Thurman that I've heard before, but it was lovely to hear it again. What the world needs is people who are more alive. So ask about what brings you alive. We don't need to necessarily even use the word spiritual. What brings us alive? He shares a story of an important client of his who had been working for the Mattel toy and doll company who chose to trust her calling and she ultimately spearheaded the diversification of the Barbie doll which laid the foundation for the recent Barbie movie. And as Kirk describes it, his client was willing to move in this way and use the company to manifest our purpose in the world. We talked about the impact of mindsets and as Kirk says, to open to a greater paradigm of creation, not to focus on what's available now, but to focus more on what's possible. So it's a lovely, rich, encouraging, practical, inspiring conversation. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Welcome back to the Spirituality in Leadership podcast. I'm your intrepid host. I sometimes have trepid, so maybe I shouldn't always be intrepid. Andrew Cohn, Very pleased to welcome Kirk Souder to the podcast. Kirk is a new friend and colleague of mine, I'm happy to say, fellow graduate of the University of Santa Monica's spiritual psychology programs. He may talk about his experience with that. And Kirk's background's a bit different than mine. He grew up and took leadership positions in the branding and marketing world in his first career before moving into leadership development executive coaching, perhaps with a focus or emphasis on branding as well. As you can tell us about your work and more. And I'm so grateful you're with us and we were able to make this time work. So welcome, Kirk.
Kirk Souder: It's great to be here, Andrew. Thanks for inviting me here. It's something–the topic is one I feel really strongly about.
Andrew Cohn: Wonderful. So maybe we could start right there. So, as we've had several conversations about this topic, tell me how it resonates with you and what it means for you in your work and in your life. That sounds like a big question. I guess it is.
Kirk Souder: It's a great question. Well, the idea of spirituality in business, I think we live at a time where it's important that those two things kind of come together. And an event, in a way of the time we live in is asking for, in my opinion, like a greater level of creation. And we need to access higher gears. And I don't mean higher as a pun with spirituality. I mean higher in terms of the capability to generate more potent and scalable and innovative ideas into the world. And I think you can use any word spirituality is one way of saying it, or the defining kind of truth and physics of our reality, or how we define it. But I think it's time that we enabled the platform of business to feel comfortable in accessing those for the sake of the change that can be made. Joseph Campbell had a great observation where he said, you can tell at the time that a certain village or city was created in the world of what were the greatest powers at the time. If it was the church, the highest building would be the Cathedral. When it went from religion, the church, to government, and the Government buildings became the highest. And he says, now, of course, when you go into cities and so on, the highest buildings are the buildings of business. And that business has the greatest potential for creating change in the world. More than government, more than the other sectors. And I believe that simply because of the capabilities and scale of it. And so for it to keep grinding at the gear it's at and not have access to these other gears of creation seems like a miss for me, given what it can create with that, both energy and capability.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah, I mean, corporations still rule the world. And I don't mean that judgmentally. I mean that as I think it's a fact in terms of influence of business and businesses influence in governments, which maybe I have a little judgment on, but that's the subject of a different podcast. So this is a little philosophical, but I think it's instructive. What is missing in business?
Kirk Souder: Well, I like to frame it less as, like, there's something missing now, and just say there's an opportunity available.
Andrew Cohn: Okay.
Kirk Souder: Now, in terms of both the accessing of these new tools, new inner technologies, I'll call them the access of those, that can mean the ability for these platforms and businesses and corporations to generate in a bigger way, but also to connect first to what those human beings would ideally rather be orienting around in terms of the North Star for business, as opposed to the conditioning from the last century. And spirituality, or any word we want to apply to it, both enables leaders and leadership to access that deeper authenticity part of themselves, and then to also give themselves permission to use that North Star and what they create through the platform of business. A gentleman named Howard Thurman, who was the godfather of the Civil Rights movement, had a quote that even though he was a Christian mystic, you don't have to feel spirituality in this. It's just ask not what the world needs, ask what brings you alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is more people brought alive.
Andrew Cohn: Beautiful.
Kirk Souder: When I work with people, we don't even have to broach the word spirituality for the first time. Having them orient on what brings them alive to be in the world, to create in the world, and to trust that. That the impact of that and the positive precipitate of that in the world will make itself evident. But all they need to do at this moment is to trust that inner compass around what brings that alive. I could give that a different flavor of the soul's calling or the energy of the authentic self, but Howard Thurman, I think, put the thread through the needle in the most perfect way, which is simply what brings you alive. Or Joseph Campbell said, really orienting around the bliss in you and choosing that. And I think that's what this word spirituality can offer businesses that connection and then even greater tools for creation and what can happen through that.
Andrew Cohn: Well, you've just left a lot of threads out there to pick up on in conversation. And I really want to talk with you about trust. Like you're saying, we just need to trust that, which is a kind of a big if for many of us. I mean, as a recovering lawyer who needed to lean into this kind of work, trust is sometimes it doesn't come easy. But before I do, I would love to read to you my favorite Howard Thurman quotation that I just happen to have here, because I intend to share it. I'm speaking at a coaches conference in a few weeks and I'm going to read this. And Howard Thurman said, there is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It's the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it all of your life, spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.
Kirk Souder: Wow. Bear gamete cuts right to the bone of.
Andrew Cohn: So if I could circle back to this notion of, okay, we have this opportunity to pay attention to what's happening for us spiritually, however we may define that, whatever that may mean to people. And again, for purposes of this conversation, I think it doesn't matter whether that spirituality is something in a church or something in nature or something in meditation or something in yoga class or something in gardening. It just as I've said before, if there's a God, I don't think she cares what the label is. They're much–God is much more interested in what we're doing. If there is a God, which I believe there is. So we develop these parts of ourselves and now how do we develop that trust to say, okay, I can bring this into my work. And in fact, my work would be better off if I did all learning.
Kirk Souder: I think the answer to your question is through the running of the willingness to run the experiments of in this next volley in my life, what if I oriented around that, that of some preconceived idea of success or what I should do, what the world says I should do. I'm going to orient around. Like, how do I move into this particular volley? Whether it's a business I'm in as a employee, as a leader, or one I own or what I'm about to create, run the experiment and see what happens when I choose to trust that. And I frequently, in that beautiful precipice moment with some of my clients, say it may be easier for the ego just to put the kind of fear based scarcity stuff and fear of failure and all those things on just say, just going to put it on a shelf. You're not saying goodbye. It's just put it on a shelf and say, okay, it's there. And not having to say, I'm cutting it away forever, but I'm going to run the experiment of what happens when I choose independent of that, based purely on kind of my aliveness and joy and sense of calling and to see how it goes. Of course, coaching is a hundred percent confidential process with the leaders that we work with. But because we published together about this, I can speak to one of my longtime clients, Kim Komoni, who's the head of product design at Mattel, who many, many, many years ago chose to trust where she felt her heart going. And to make a long story short, is the person who spearheaded, of course she did it with her team. She always makes sure that's mentioned, like did it with her team, but is the one who spearheaded the diversity of the doll Barbie, from being the least diversified, this blonde, absurdly shaped white woman to the most diversified doll and world of all colors, all shapes and sizes. And that enabled the people like Greta Gerwig and Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie to invest themselves into the brand because it had that foundation already. Then bring it into this whole other experience for people, which has become an amazing phenomenon. People that film, I had another client say they left the film with their teenage son and they came home and they hugged the mother and the wife and thanked her for the journey of women and being there. Right. And so that started with one leader saying, I'm willing to move into this. Her observation was that at the time she was on the fence because I know where her heart is. Do I start like a nonprofit to pursue diversity and equality in the world because this is a Fortune 500 company. But she had her revelation of wait a second, I see now that this company, this global infrastructure, this company exists for my purpose to come into the world. There was a flip that happened.
Andrew Cohn: Great. Yeah. Amazing reframe.
Kirk Souder: Yeah. And so leaned into it. And Greta Gerwig has a quote in the New York Times story and review about the film where she said, in my research, when I went to Mattel and I hung out with the people and the Design group and everything. I saw that what they were doing, this is her quote, was spiritual work. She used the word spiritual work, which in a sense it was, although it was not overtly called that, but it was one person's deep sense of calling that, her sense of aliveness that was trusted and created that.
Andrew Cohn: Beautiful. And Greta Gerwig directed the Barbie film. As I understand it, in case, there's one of six people on earth who haven't seen the film yet. Right. Beautiful. So following that calling, using the organization, and recognizing that the organization, perhaps if we allow ourselves to see it that way, actually exists for the furtherance of these purposes, individually, collectively, your calling may.
Kirk Souder: Say, no, I'm going to start a new thing. That's great too. That would be a directive. It's just all the options are available. And the answer really to your question is that how do people do it? Well, they run the experiment. They see what happens when I acting at this way, what happens when I transcend the polarity like a major spiritual tool like you and I know transcend the polarity that my ego's created of. It's either nonprofit or sell out. Right. And that's a baloney polarity. We can both create positive impact, follow our aliveness, do well ourselves and do well in the world for the world.
Andrew Cohn: And there are people who are looking for that. So if it's the work we do, there are clients looking for this. And in the work that she does, there are consumers that are looking for this. And to your earlier point about the tallest buildings, the government is not going to put a Barbie in the hands of millions and millions of girls, and maybe boys too, I don't know girls, but children around the world. It's a beautiful contribution.
Kirk Souder: And I think, yes, there are people looking for that, but not necessarily looking for a spiritual approach to the work.
Andrew Cohn: Right, right.
Kirk Souder: But when we move into this zone in ourselves, whether we're looking for the evidence from a spiritual point of view or looking at from a scientific, physiological point of view, the neuroanatomy of what happens when we move from what I should do to curiosity of what this is calling, what would come from this to this particular opportunity or challenge that the neuroanatomy becomes much more innovation based when we move into that zone of aliveness than should do.
Andrew Cohn: You talk more about that neuroanatomy piece, both from the science of it, but also in terms of how you've seen it play out? Because what I'm hearing behind what you're saying is I've seen this shift and perhaps I have a story about it Preserving confidentiality, of course.
Kirk Souder: Right. So the neuroanatomy is looking at work by people like Tara Swift and Barbara Oakley and a recent MRI white paper done at Harvard that when the brain leaves kind of fear and job that kind of orientation to one of curiosity and creativity invention, that the brain goes from focused mode, which is oh, this is a task I should do. And it's become a very small part of the brain that is all about that. But when we let go of that and move into kind of the aliveness, feeling and curiosity, the brain goes into what's called dispersed mode, which is a few different parts of the brain become active and what happens is it's just like a very great design sprint collaboration between executive function and creative function and production function. And as a result much more creative and innovative things come through. It looks like when you look at it's not–wasn't just a variety of different races and ethnicities that came out in the Barbie thing, but there are Barbies who taught kids to meditate to alleviate anxiety in this day and age social media and so on. They're the first non binary doll line came out of that energy of the first where kids could in this world that is letting go of that binary polarity and kids could kind of create their own version of the doll that aligned with where they saw themselves.
And I think these are things that innovations that both of which became in two separate years part of Time magazine's best inventions of that year in terms of the impact they had. And that innovation comes from people who are. We did a workshop with the entire design group of the Barbie group and the practice was to first identify what brings you alive and in an event see where that coincides with the broader mission of your brand. And as a result, when they identified that they could bring that kind of heart and aliveness to what they were doing every day because they saw the connection and it in turn brought innovation that even like Amazing Woman stood up. She said I'm a personal assistant here and not a designer. And I didn't know how–what for me this was going to mean in terms of what brings me joy. Because what brings me joy and aliveness is actually bringing surprising joy to my family. And then I thought wait a second, creating this van, maybe I can create that for the people here. And maybe what I can do is as my personal impact is all the meetings I organized for you guys and people laughed about that. She goes, I will now find a way to bring joy for a moment into that meeting, and she goes, I might have the impact that the designers have, but it's something. And I. And Kim and I intervened at that point and said, wait a second. If you bring joy to a meeting, whereas before, a bunch of people would be coming in, looking at their things. Can't wait till this is over. And all of a sudden there's a moment that elevates their consciousness and their brain anatomy to joy and aliveness. And you may be responsible for the greatest innovation this company ever creates.
Andrew Cohn: Absolutely right. Because she's changing the conditions.
Kirk Souder: She's changing the conditions that are so important to innovation. And she really beamed at that understanding because it's true. And I think that's what we can offer by bringing people into this other zone that's these higher gears. You end up having people who are feeling brought alive, which is a much better workforce to have these days, especially in the era of the great resignation and the hidden resignation. And also that state generates greater possibility for your company.
Andrew Cohn: Right. And what makes it happen is that willingness to set aside the complete– the task brain. And I like the way you said it earlier, I don't think you were talking exactly about this, but it seems that the same would apply to put that task focused brain on the shelf for a moment. I can still see it. It's still there. And give ourselves permission to have this other conversation and see what happens.
Kirk Souder: Yeah, it can be pretty scary at first to leave that. That's why I won't say it's time to let go of that cut that tether and kill the ego phrase I just detest in the whole New age movement thing. But and just say, no, you don't have to do that. Just put on the shelf. Because there's a sense of. I was just watching a great documentary called the defiant ones about Dr. Dre and Jimmy Lovine's partnership over the years. And one of the pearls of wisdom that came out when someone was describing kind of Jimmy Lovine's superpower, they said, it's always amazed me his willingness to totally let go of whatever got him to this place in order to bring in what was going to take them to the next place. Whereas so many people, like, are challenged there, because, wait a second, that got me to here. And it's scary to just totally cut that away. But if we say, no, no, you don't have to cut away. It's there. You can always go back to that. Let's just run the experiment. What I love to use, and I know there's something that interests you too, Andrew, is how do we translate this in a way that makes it universal and accessible and kind of permissible. Like the S word can be kind of polarizing in a way with that. But what I find is the beautiful perpetual exampleship of this is nature. Like, when I go there in terms of looking at references and examples, it's both safe and profound because it's nature that's scientific from one lens. Or I could say it's spiritual from another lens. But like in this case, just coming back from these redwoods I love up north, a redwood tree as it grows lets the lower limbs die. Look at a redwood tree. Sometimes the canopy doesn't even start till 2/3 up the tree.
Andrew Cohn: Right.
Kirk Souder: And it lets the lower ones die as it grows, one’s higher up, closer to the light, closer to the moisture of clouds that it uses. And it's perfectly fine with letting go. What got it to this level to adopt something that's going to get it to the next level. And that's in my theorizing that something that is true in that undiluted energy of nature.
Andrew Cohn: Highly successful, tried and true.
Kirk Souder: Highly successful. Like 14 billion years of iteration, right? So it's going to be true for us because we are a part of nature. And similarly, we get to let go of what got us to where we are discerningly on what might still work, but be open to a new higher len for us.
Andrew Cohn: Right. Yeah, and discerningly and perhaps with guardrails or whatever we may do in order to lean into it. And I'm reminded of a few things. One is this metaphor that I've heard and then use many times with clients about including decision-making about our own thoughts and what am I going to believe? And that's to recognize that if we are the tree, are we thinking in terms of the protection and flourishing of the tree or of my individual branch? Because if you're in an organization and you're working in a department that's the market is no longer there, whatever you want to call it, or you're still making film at Kodak, you're that branch. You got to recognize where you are in that branch. And maybe you want to build your nest in a different branch or something like that, or leave or otherwise. But recognize that decisions need to be made for the benefit of the organism, not of that particular branch.
Kirk Souder: In that case, like, it's a great example, what is the real mission of this organism? Right. Is it to be that branch or is it to be the oak tree or the redwood. Right. And if it's that, then the analog here is. If it were Kodak and it's about film, and we think what we're about is film. Even this giant digital age is emerging. Right. Then we're going to be In trouble. But if we let the go that he said, wait a second film was one vehicle. Like, I'm making this up now. Maybe we're about. Is human expression and whatever forms that it takes. That's our business. That's our brand, not film. Let's create new limbs that are owning that particular positioning and mission for us that can move from form to form as the world changes. Human expression will probably always be a constant.
Andrew Cohn: In some form or another. Absolutely. Yeah. But making those decisions, just in terms of the work that I think you and I both do, working with leaders in decision making is very difficult. When we've been in the film business for 150 years and letting go of our own individual point of view that we become identified with. I'm reading a wonderful book now called Quit. I'll come back to the subtitle in a moment by Annie Duke, who talks about how a point of view is connected to our identity. The harder it is to quit it, which makes perfect sense. And similarly, you know, when Adam Grant, in his book Think Again, talks about the need for us to question our own thinking and the long body of research that supports the conclusion that the more expert we are, the harder it is to let our point of view go. Because how could I possibly let it go? Me let it go. I'm an expert. I'm a something. When in fact, that may be the most necessary. And also just to throw into this conversation the body of research that's about how we think better. Well, let me make it more clear. When we are in nature, we think better. Doesn't mean we should always be in nature. But when we go to nature, we think better because our brains are activated in a certain way via nature. So we can learn from the systems of nature and we can benefit from the system of nature and being in that place as well. Again, just in terms of decision making and listening to that voice within that Howard Thurman was speaking of.
Kirk Souder: Absolutely. It is always just a relentless reflection of systems and processes that can work for us. And we're willing to see what's really happening in nature and what's happening. And I think the distinction that I think that you're describing, that person is. Or the brand leader or whatever it is who's really attached to that thing. It's usually somehow moving the conversation to be able to see that there is form and then there is what is motivating form. Like Simon Sinek's why versus what. Right. And if I can move the conversation with that person from I hear you that like you love this form that you've been creating so far. And it is an awesome idea. And form. It's just what excites you about that. Like what excites you about that particular thing. And that ideally the question of what it is and what's the why for them in terms of unites them back to. Oh, because I love to see the joy in people's face when they get their photographs back. What if there are more ways to create that joy in addition to that particular form? Other forms. And then that can open up a conversation that where they see their identity isn't really at stake. Oh, it's just an opportunity for that identity to express itself more fully.
Andrew Cohn: Beautiful. There's an opportunity to pick up another tool or experiment with another direction that will serve that bigger purpose more directly.
Kirk Souder: Yes, exactly.
Andrew Cohn: Beautiful. Before I forget, the full title of that book is called Quit: The Power of Knowing when to Walk Away by Annie Duke, who talks about just the amazing biases that keep us persevering and grittily marching along even if we're marching off a cliff. And the need for us to question our own thinking and recognize these biases at work. And there are many. Wow. Very, very interesting.
Kirk Souder: There's another great book called Emergent Strategy by I think it's Amy Marie Brown. It's definitely Brown. And what it is is using emergent theory, which is the looking at natural systems and how they work from simple basic choices at a molecular level that then create these beautiful complex systems. But they're working on a certain kind of code what they is to be done. And then different systems get created. A human being or redwood. And the idea is bringing that wisdom into the worlds of business and activism and all sectors and looking at the core tenants of emergence on the planet as the cues for how we can create amazing things and great change. Because it's just there's evolution happening on the level of natural systems. And what we're going to create is also we're natural systems that get to create this and be just as evolutionary in that sense.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah. And I appreciate the sort of zoom outedness of this conversation to look at what's happening in the world that is successful. What are those systems that we can learn from which is just so important particularly if we're locked into some conference room like finite period of time, binary decision making model. The opportunity to zoom out and say from where else can we learn of some potential options, approaches. So this field of biomimicry and what you're talking about is a piece of that certainly. But just opportunities to see what else can inform our decisions so that we can really stay on course. Even if that on course is not necessarily the track I'm in right now.
Kirk Souder: Yeah. And how do we at this point in our evolution create even more expansively in order to address some of the challenges that we have? And I think I was working with a client yesterday and I became aware that they, because they're at this kind of cusp of having been a pretty known leader in their industry and everything else. And is like at this point they felt like it's really about me now creating my own thing out there. But there was something holding back. And I realized that what it was their consciousness was still in like an old outdated idea of the universe of a mechanistic. That there's a final set of everything in this universe is a bunch of marbles and there's only that bunch of marbles. And we have to grab the marbles that are there and find out how do we fit into the marbles. And so naturally it becomes a very confined, narrow aperture possibility when we're looking at things from. And so many of us do of there's only so many jobs and only so many opportunities and I have to make sure I fit into that. And we started to talk about what if he ran an experiment of leaving that concept of how reality works to a different one, which is it's actually not a finite set, but there's this field of kind of quantum potential that my intentionality and my actions actually impact that generate limitless possibility for me in that direction. And so I'm actually moving from a paradigm of availability to a paradigm of creation which is I don't orient around what I perceive as available right now.
For me, I'm going to move into actually every moment is its own new total blank slate waiting to see what my intentionality and actions is and then bring forward new things for me to choose into to create whatever it is that I'm here to create. And it's so much fun to watch someone go there and then begin to see even in that short amount of time how the new possibilities that occur to them in terms of what I can create versus what I need to fit into shows them right away how much on track they are. And then they get to see how many great leaders out there didn't orient around what is available, what do people want from me right now, and just said, no, this is going to be something amazing that people are going to want to participate in. Steve Jobs, et cetera. People who said, you know what? This brings me alive, I'm going to create in this direction. There is not a personal computer market in the world right now will be. And here we are on a Mac, right?
Andrew Cohn: Yeah. Different world. And in my experience, that type of thinking need not be a world changing, physical, tangible product. It could be the way I think about something, or the way our team addresses something, or the way it could be as much about the how as is about the what. In my experience, think differently about the how for example.
Kirk Souder: Exactly. In fact, that's where I always start in my work is a tool I know you're familiar with called a living vision, where they're writing in the present tense a day in their life and this is what they want to create. And I encourage to not move into form so much. Not move into, oh, it's this role, this company and this much money. But to not take that detour and go rate what they're really here to have in this planet, which is an experience, a qualitative experience of life that has been missing so far, of camaraderie, joy, creativity, aliveness, all those things. Building that into that becomes kind of the trellis work then of co creation. That form begins to form around that as they live into creating that experience. That's what's important.
Andrew Cohn: That prompts me to talk about how you say, sometimes we don't talk about the S word, presumably spiritual, and sometimes we don't talk about the F word, which is feelings. And what you're talking about is how does it feel in that vision state? What are you feeling and what's prompting those feelings? What's happening around us that's prompting those feelings, and then have that desired future state pull us forward. So I'm feeling the need to back up just a little bit and connect some of what we're talking about with what this podcast is about. And so let me just kind of hold where we are and say, okay, so what's the connection between this type of thinking, where we're thinking in terms of new possibilities, we're thinking in terms of new paradigms, we're willing to not believe everything we think and move in new directions, in terms of creativity and just how we might approach problems and make decisions what's the connection, in your view, between that and the spiritual dimensions of ourselves?
Kirk Souder: That's such an important understanding, which is, I think a lot of times when we have the thing of spirituality and business, we think, well, okay, so I mean, like bringing meditation in for everybody in the morning and then gratitude, a gratitude circle at 4, which are all great things. But what we're talking about is a way of being, as opposed to the doings of spirituality. And this core thing of helping people move into their aliveness inside, move into what brings them that energy in this life, which is the only thing we're really here for. In the end, it's all we have is our experience. And so the beautiful thing is that energy, that feeling is the compass that's been implanted in us to know what we're here to express individually on the planet. And that energy actually fuels all the cohesiveness and serendipity and everything else that goes into creating anything meaningful. And as opposed to defaulting into the mechanistic way of being in the universe, which is. It's not what brings me alive. It's what one does at this point in. In being a human being. And it's such a sad thing to me that people, through that sense of perhaps fear and scarcity, kind of move into that default zone when this other thing is so available. A lot of my clients, of course, are amazing leaders who got to that summit that was going to be the summit and where they said, that's where I know if I I made it right that place. And they get there and it's like this beautifully wrapped gift box that they've been eyeing for a long time. And then they get there and they open it up and it's like, where is the there? And the realization is, at some point along the journey, they flip the ends and the means. Like in the beginning of our lives, we know that it's about being as much as we can in a sense of joy and aliveness and loving, whatever those qualities are delighted. And we say, okay, for me to have those, I'm going to move in the direction of being kind of this and doing this. And so they start that, and in the midst of it, they lose touch with that. They were really going for the experience and they think they're going for the form. And they get there and they realize they defaulted out of that qualitative experience the whole journey. And they frequently come and join me in the context of, like, this time. I don't want to lose sight of what I'm really here why I was doing all, which was to have the experience of aliveness and purpose and mission and impact. And that's the, I guess, long winded answer to your question Andrew, for me, in terms of what does spirituality really mean in this context when we move the cloaking of that word and just look at what the opportunity is for us and embracing those other dimension, those other gears that are available to us, but we just haven't thought of those as real or pragmatic, as practical, as the default mode. When in fact, from my point of view, if our, if the purpose of us being here is to have this qualitative experience, those other dimensions and gears are infinitely more pragmatic and practical than the ones we were taught are the important tools here.
Andrew Cohn: Right. So to connect with what brings us alive. I think and maybe just as I look at this, maybe as we sort of wrap this conversation a bit, as I look at that and consider what brings me alive, perhaps it gives me the courage to run the experiment that you're talking about to connect with that aliveness. And I hear the way you're connecting that aliveness with that spiritual sense, whatever that may mean, however we may access it, but a recognition and a discovery, not creation. I think it's about finding what's already there. Right. But just discovering that where that aliveness lives and having the courage to bring that into our work. And to your point, the world needs it.The world needs. And to Dr. Thurman's point, the world needs people who are alive and businesses need people who are alive.
Kirk Souder: Yeah. Because what happens like in the statistics and the research on things like productivity and impact and innovation, they all jump through the roof when people are feeling and ignited by a sense of purpose and other words for it. Right, right. And so the data is there to support this thesis and I think we just, to get over it, doesn't have to be called spirituality. And at the same time it's okay if it is because the outcomes for the individual and for the broader organism are outstanding.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah. And the research supports that. Just like the research supports what we're talking about in terms of nature, in terms of thinking in different ways, then the research around bias just supports the conclusions that we need to do things in ways that may feel counterintuitive because our minds are biased in certain ways.
Kirk Souder: Bias is another word for I've adopted the conditioning of some pre existing modality and that's just outdated now.
Andrew Cohn: And there's an opportunity and the Barbies of the world, or let me be more clear because there's a lot of Barbies in different parts of the world right now, but just the Barbie experiment, the Barbie experience is such a beautiful illustration of what can happen when one trusts that and uses business in a way to. And then essentially becomes the zeitgeist of important conversation. Not necessarily easy, but important conversation. No important conversations are ever easy, but it's just beautiful. And I'm so grateful you're able to share from that experience so directly.
Kirk Souder: Yeah. One of the examples I love, I just read in the Harvard Business Review is the story of Microsoft right now. And the CEO came on sometime around 2018, somewhere around there, who identified that the organism of Microsoft had become so emblematic of status quo and that the reason was that the organism had oriented around that one suite of tools and programming. And they just. How do we keep protecting that? How do we keep holding the ground of that instead of going back to their original thing of Microsoft innovation and opportunities? And he went on, he called it moving the paradigm of the company from defense to offense, which for me again is moving from the paradigm of availability. That is what do we have to the paradigm of creation. That is, what do we want to create? Right.
Andrew Cohn: Well, essentially looking forwards versus looking backwards.
Kirk Souder: Yeah. Unlocking the engineers to think that way and go that way and spend money in new directions. Not just innovating, but buying innovative companies and having that become a part of their thing. And when this study was done on companies that had what's called perpetual innovation, that is they don't just think, well, let's innovate and come up with our thing and then we'll just keep pushing everything.
Andrew Cohn: Let's innovate 12% or 15% of the.
Kirk Souder: Time and stop there. It's no, it's like we never stop the process that gave us that. And much like a living organism in nature, an oak tree doesn't stop at, oh, an amazing acorn cool, right. Or amazing dappling cool. It's like it just keeps saying, what does it mean to be an oak tree right now and proceed in that direction? And I think Microsoft living example in that the research done on perpetual innovation companies, they now scored higher than Google.
Andrew Cohn: Wow. Well, in some sense, I have to say I have met Satya Nadella and I worked at Microsoft in the mid 2000 teens, 2015 or so, working with leadership, talking about growth, learner mindset. What does that mean right in there? And it is an uphill climb for sure. It's very, very difficult because, I mean, I've heard this saying, and I believe it's true, and I've heard it's true from my clients in a number of different places that efficiency is the enemy of innovation. And when you get to a point of maturity with this world leading suite of products around the world, et cetera, all you want to be is efficient.
Kirk Souder: Yeah.
Andrew Cohn: If you're leaning on efficiency, then you're sacrificing innovation by definition. I don't want to be too binary about it, but as I've seen it, it's like you're either going to lean this way or you're going to lean that way. How can you find the happy medium?
Kirk Souder: One has to be the servant, one has to be the master. Right. Like yeah. And so that's the important thing. It's like sure, innovation can serve efficiency, you want innovating more ways. But the lifeblood of companies like that is making sure that those who are tasked with efficiency are doing it for under the idea that how does that, the broader mission innovation that we're doing as opposed to just how does that like make sure as many marbles as possible are in the castle, not outside the cast.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah, well, and it can take on a life of its own, particularly if an organization driven by quarterly revenues or something like that. It's like, let's just keep pulling this thing because this is what gets us, this is our moneymaker. Very, very difficult.
Kirk Souder: We can look at natural systems and say like there's amazing efficiency out there. I mean, you can't look and see something that's kind of out of place or extra in nature. It's just that it is in a congruent system of creation. Because talk about perpetual innovation, whatever is behind what we call spirituality or nature, the one thing that we can say emphatically and empirically that is important to it is innovation and that it's never repeated itself once in 14 billion years. It has the same snowflake twice. And everything that ever comes into being has never existed before and will never exist again. You, Andrew Cohen, Kirk Souder, those Personas, these forms, it's like you could say we're so insignificant in the terms of 10 to the 22 stars. Yes, that's one of the part of the paradox. But at the same time we are infinitely precious because our expression will only be a part of this for this particular amount of time. And how important it is like to follow natural systems. There's that level of maniacal ness with regards to innovation in it. But it is also finds a way to have efficiency make sure that as much energy as possible is going into that as opposed to what's not needed.
Andrew Cohn: Anymore or what does not bring us alive.
Kirk Souder: Yes. Everything. You walk into a redwood forest or the Ansepuego desert near whatever it is like, everything that is thriving out there is spending every moment. And what brings me alive right now.
Andrew Cohn: In this moment, without thinking about it.
Kirk Souder: Doesn't need to think about it just needs to trust that sense of how do I respond in this moment in a way that brings me the most alive, whether I'm a. A cholla cactus or a redwood tree or a fern or a piece of algae or human right or a brand manager at X Brand Corporation.
Andrew Cohn: We must continue this conversation in some form. I think this may be a logical sort of breaking point here. I invite you to come and continue this conversation with me in the beautiful nature of northern New Mexico, perhaps having a seat around some of our horses and feeling some of the inspiration of that. So do come. Just a little plug. But before we wrap, I would like to ask you to please share. If any listener would like to learn more about you or your work, where could they go for information? What's the best way to learn more about you?
Kirk Souder: Well, there's my website, kirksouder.co, and can look around there and contact information's there for me. But maybe the most true and relevant way to kind of explore my work is to go inside yourself and look at what brings you alive and how trusting that and moving in that direction. What would that mean right now in your life and work and everything else? That would be probably the best discovery process.
Andrew Cohn: Beautiful.
Thank you. Thank you for that invitation. It's a grand, lovely invitation. Thank you for expressing that so succinctly and appealingly. And I look forward to spending more time in that place you're kind of inviting me into. Okay. How can I do more of this for what's available? So thank you so much and thanks for being on the podcast and taking the time. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you.
Kirk Souder: Thanks, Andrew. Thanks for inviting me. Thanks for doing this as a theme and an important vector in our world at this point. So I appreciate that and I've had a great time. Thank you.
Andrew Cohn: Well, it brings me alive.
Kirk Souder: You too.
Andrew Cohn: All right. Thanks, Kirk.
Kirk Souder: Thank you. Take care.
Andrew Cohn: 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. Join the network of leaders who want to do and be better. You can go to the site spiritualityinleadership.com or your preferred podcast platform to catch all the episodes and learn more. Until next time, take good care of yourself.