Podcast: The Metaphysics of Prevention & The Quest for Presence [#31]
In this episode. we’re talking with Dr. Joel Bennett who is the President of Organizational Wellness & Learning Systems (OWLS), a consulting firm that specializes in evidence-based wellness and e-learning technologies to promote organizational health and employee well-being.
About Joel Bennett, PhD, MA, CWP
Joel Bennett, PhD, is President of Organizational Wellness & Learning Systems (OWLS), a consulting firm specializing in evidence-based wellness technologies to promote organizational health and employee well-being. Dr. Bennett first delivered stress management programming in 1985 and OWLS programs have since reached close to 250,000 workers across the United States and abroad, including training over 1,000 facilitators and coaches. He is a primary developer of “Team Awareness” and “Team Resilience,” evidence-based, culture of health programs recognized by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Surgeon General as effective in reducing employee behavioral risks. Team Awareness has been adapted by the U.S. National Guard as one of their flagship prevention programs and it has been used by municipalities, hospitals, restaurants, electrician training centers, small businesses, Native American tribal government, and in Italy and South Africa. In 2022, he was acknowledged with the "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the National Wellness Institute. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and Philosophy from State University of New York (Purchase) and his MA and PhD in Psychology from University of Texas-Austin. Dr. Bennett has authored/co-authored six books including "Raw Coping Power," "Heart-Centered Leadership," and "Your Best Self at Work" and his Google Scholar page provide links to over 30 peer-reviewed scientific studies. He was previously on the board of the Academy of Management’s “Spirituality and Religion Interest Group (MSR)” and the Board of Directors for the National Wellness Institute. He provides key-note speaking and continues to train coaches and facilitators in team (culture of health) and resilience workshops.
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Transcript
Dave: Before we start the show. I want to tell you about HueLife's upcoming prevention leaders cohort in 2023. Now the insights and wisdom packed into this learning journey stem from over 25 years of combined experience, leading community coalitions and the substance use and misuse field.
This Hue journey Is an intensive skill building experience. And it will definitely improve your facilitative leadership capabilities. In the context of coalition work. Develop facilitation methods and of course provide a fun learning environment. You will be part of a learning community and support system lasting long beyond just the five cohorts and those five cohorts they are aligned with
that strategic prevention framework that we know and love oh, so much. With intensive one being about discovering yourself the assessment, how to be an effective leader. How to facilitate conversation with stakeholders and community members. Then intensive too. You're going to move on to developing teams, building your capacity, aligning your why with the why of your organization.
Developing shared agreement with those stakeholders and shared themes. Then you move on to intensive three. That is all about leading from within. AKA the spiff step of planning. You'll learn how to solicit the voice to form goals from your coalition, from your stakeholders and avoid that. That mission drift and really start to establish what needs to be done.
As you move into intensive for. We'll talk about motivating action or implementation. We'll dig into how to motivate teams to stay on course and on task. Coordinating how the work will be done and aligning everybody's expectations with that shared plan. And then lastly, intensive five. It's all about sustaining success.
You're going to facilitate learning and reflection, learn how to adjust your plans and pivot and the most important part. Learning how to tell your story. So, if you're interested in embarking on this 15 month cohort journey for prevention leaders that was designed by prevention leaders. Check out the link in the show notes. And I can't wait to see you there.
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Hey everybody. This is Dave Closson from DJC Solutions, and you are listening to the Prevention Leaders Podcast, the show that brings you conversations with like-minded and driven prevention professionals from across the globe.
Today, oh, today we are talking with Dr. Joel Bennett, who is a president of Organizational Wellness and Learning Systems, also known as OWLS. They are a consulting firm that specializes in evidence-based wellness and e-learning technologies to promote organizational health and employee wellbeing.
We're gonna talk about everything there is to know about presence. Yes, it is a wonderful topic and might be something you haven't really spent much time thinking about. So settle in because this is going to be a wonderful and insightful conversation with Dr. Joel Bennett.
Welcome, Joel. Thanks for joining.
Joel: Thank you for having me.
Dave: So I know we've got a lot to talk about. We could talk for hours and hours, but first for the listeners, I actually got connected with Dr. Joel Bennett virtually after speaking in Louisiana, I'd share my story of resilience of battling posttraumatic stress, stress disorder, my undiagnosed traumatic brain injury, following my combat deployment, and how, how I struggled
with drinking for many years, but as I tapped into my personal growth journey and focused on building my resiliency skills, I now am happy living sober. As I was sharing that story, Joel's team member, Cynthia was like, Hey Dave, we need to talk. I love your story and you need to meet this guy named. And so we've had many conversations since, and we're actually partnering to put on a resiliency workshop as well coming up in January on the 17th.
So if y'all wanna know a little bit about this whole resiliency workshop, I'll put a link in the show notes for that, but, all right, enough of that. Joel, welcome. And I know you and I know each. My audience members may not know you. Would you mind sharing just a little bit about yourself?
Joel: Well, regarding presence,last Thursday I had. A root canal. Then on Saturday, I had my wisdom tooth out all last week. We took care of the eight month old, grandchild. And so I, I have, I only did one day of the, hydrocodone and I thought, oh my God. so I have not been very present
I, I know, I know what it's like to have zero presence. You know, when we do staff meetings, I ask at the very beginning of every meeting, and we can do it here, on a scale of one to 10, how present are you? And so one is like, I'm not here. I'm tuned out. I don't wanna be here , where's my coffee? who are you people?
and a 10 is like, I'm here. I'm engaged. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for even thinking about having me here. You know, so I'll, I'll say that right now. I'm probably at a six and a half. And the point we make when we do this is that, we live in a culture that expects us to be on. , you know, everything ranging from perfectionism to fear of missing out to imposter syndrome.
Joel: I mean, it's just crazy. And so the first thing we do is we say, look, it doesn't matter what your number is, what's important is that you can just check in and be safe checking in, and you don't have to be on all the time. And it's funny because over the years we've been doing this, we find that other people who come to.
That's the one thing they take away and they, they like all the other tools and stuff we have, it's like, no, we just need to get everybody present, you know? So I'll ask you if you don't mind, Dave, what's your number?
Dave: Yes. I want to talk more about that question, but first I'll answer. I would put myself at an eight, right around an eight. my workday started at 3:00 AM today, so the later it gets in the day today, I'm sure that number will be declining quickly.
Joel: Hope, hopefully not during this call.
Dave: No, no, it's, it's still
Joel: Dave, Dave. Dave, are you there? Dave?
Dave: Right, right. Oh, I had a meeting with somebody in Norway this morning. So time zones, they are fun to work across.
Joel: Well, you know, that's the thing with the way technology has, accelerated. and the 24 7 global, communications. It's sort of had this, I'll use the word insidious impact on our consciousness and we don't know how to slow down to pause, to listen. You know, we, we talk about three steps in presence.
The first is pause. The second is show up. . And the third is listen. And when you're running a 24 7 operation, and you're waiting for the next best smartphone to come out, and you're living in a push button, stupor, pausing, showing up and listening is sort of radical.
Dave: Oh, yes, indeed. And that, that pause, one of the ways that that is showing up in my life is boundaries,
Joel: Yep.
Dave: maintain having clear boundaries and then also maintaining them. But I found myself Monday morning. Buried under a pile of emails, and the thought popped in my head, well, gosh, I could have just replied to these on Saturday, and then I wouldn't be spending an hour just on emails on Monday, and I had to just hit the brakes and say, no, no, don't do that.
It's okay. This is Workday and you're doing work. But, oh, the pressure it is.
Joel: Well that, you know, I think that's the most important thing. I mean, I know this podcast is listened to by people who are in prevention and prevention leadership, and we all, most of us, carry that internal pressure to achieve excel, be present, you know, to, make sure you show up, especially if you're an entrepreneur.
and it's very difficult because we, at least I project that. out into the world. And I think other people are asking things of me or demanding things of me and the boundaries. the work of boundary setting,
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Joel: is something that has a lot to do with the immune system. It has to do with, in Chinese medicine, the pericardium, you.
making sure that you stay away from things that are inflammatory. And so I think just to be present, you know, I've been going through so much stuff health-wise that, it's, it's hard to be present. And I think when I think about addiction, and I, I actually say this in the book. addiction is one of the greatest obstacles to being present to one's life.
It's, it's probably, you know, I mean, there are other, you know, quote, quote unquote diagnosable, mental health concerns, depression, anxiety, P T S D, and all of them. a challenge to being present to one's life, right? But at the same time, each one of those also offers, and this is that, you know, the secret that we talk about in our resilience to thriving work, each one of those has a unique problem configuration that actually actually shows you the way to being more.
So, for example, I'm just going on here for a moment. That depression
Dave: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Joel: is when you really accept it and go into it and are not fighting it, it can offer a gateway into a deeper sense of soulfulness in one's life, so that's an example. addiction. in my experience, and you could speak from your own experience offers, once you are open to it and accept it and work with it, really brings one to a great greater sense of humility, you know, and spiritual, acceptance, and so, , having a health challenge that I'm having now, it really makes me.
I have to stop, I have to pause. I can't just do everything all the time. So in terms of being present, those are the first things that come to my mind.
Dave: That resonates. And actually, I just watched Limitless. The series with, Chris Hemsworth and his quest to live a healthier, better, fuller life, in regards to wellness. Wellbeing. And the last episode, I won't really give it away, no spoilers, but they talked about sort that, that first step is denial and then adaptation.
And then acceptance. And once you reach acceptance, you're able to be more present and in that presence, find joy and happiness in the the moments.
Joel: Yeah. You know, it's interesting. thank you for that. There we talk about four soulful capacities. So there's two pieces to this. There's the, there's the universe and the cosmos and, and what I, what I like to call the metaphysics of prevention, which I hope we can talk a little bit about. And then there's our soulful capacity to be present to those universal cosmic radiant forces.
And so the four soulful capacities that we identify are acceptance.
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Joel: Being, with things as they are without pushing or pulling. It's fundamental. There's presence which we've talked about. There's also flow, which moves more into the realm of action and engaging the world. So we often engage the world and take action and use our egoic agentic, getting things done without having first acceptance and presence.
And that results in a lot of, well, that's why we're in the mess, that we're in too much action without thought. So, acceptance, presence, flow, but then the meaning and joy comes from synchronicity. . Well, it comes from all of those, but synchronicity is those magical, like, like Cynthia's showing up and seeing you speak, you deciding that you wanted to speak with me.
Here we are. Now there's a, there's a deeper coincidence that's happening here. People who are listening to this,
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Joel: some people might be listening to this right now and thinking, oh my God, this is exactly what I needed to hear right now. Right? And. Those are the, those auspicious moments of coming together in connection where we have the opportunity for joy.
Dave: Absolutely. And we're gonna come back to the, the cosmos and prevention, but as you were just walking through that, I had a, a little, Hmm. So this episode is gonna air, gonna publish the first week of January. And for many folks, many of you listeners, you're right in the thick of, all right, it's a new year, let's hit the ground running.
Let's go. You've got your goals, your resolutions. You're busy getting busy, but maybe, maybe this podcast, a quest for presence. It might be what you need right now at this very moment. So I encourage you. Hit pause on this episode and just think about that for a moment as you enter in this new year. we did not plan and say, Hey, we need to put this out the first week of January.
Just the way it's working out. That flow. Yeah. Yeah.
Joel: You know, I will say our culture, you know, the solstice, the time of the solstice is really where we come almost. As close as we can be to celestial influences, right. There's a, there's a pause, which isn't meant to sh you know, we're not talking about shopping and celebrating. We're talking about actually stopping at the darkest point of the year when we're connected to a deeper time than clock time.
and there's all this frivolity and frivolousness and having to get things done, and then we go from there to, okay, now I'm gonna set resolutions. All of that comes from this hyper focus on having to impact our future. And what people have not realized or just beginning to realize is that. With such a hyper focus on only making things happen in the future, we've actually done more damage to the planet and to ourselves and have forgotten to recognize that there are other forces at work than just cause and effect.
So cause and effect some, you know, physicists think. An illusion. There is no such thing as cause and effect because everything is causing, and everything is affecting all the time. But for us, living on this plane of reality, we're born, we're raised to be effective, we're raised to be efficient, to have a goal, to have a career, to raise children, to go on to the next, you know, it's there.
There's that, that there's that old Donovan song. Who I share a birthday with, by the way, I don't know if anyone ever knows who Donovan was, but he was an old rocker folk singer. So his song goes first, there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is, right? So there's always another hill to climb.
And that's the problem the workaholism has gotten so out of kil. . So yeah, don't make a New Year's resolution until June people
Yep. I like it. I like it. And if you have, if you struggle with that, call me or read my book. No, I gotta get this done. I, I got another thing to get done. I've gotta get another client. I've gotta make sure I, you know, it's so freaking crazy.
Dave: it is exhausting. It is
Joel: Well, everybody wonders why there's such this thing called burnout, right?
Dave: Right,
Joel: not a mystery.
the power of the pause. Before we get into unpacking the, the quest for presence, tell me more about the cosmos of prevention.
Joel: the cosmos.
Dave: have not heard that. Yes. Tell me more.
Joel: Well, yeah, the, there are the four soulful capacities, but why are we, why are we developing or cultivating our ability to be more in touch with our soul or our soulfulness? Right. Well, it's more or less to, to give witness to this amazing, amazing, mind blowing. Completely, you know, psychedelic thing called life, right?
I mean, how in the world, you know, we're still figuring out whether or not there's life in the universe outside of human beings. Here we are. We have, at least we believe we have consciousness. we're awake. We know that our animals, they're just getting by. Like, I know we were intruded recently by your little puppy.
They're just going, they're not trying to make anything happen in the future. You know, they're just like, so that, so life is the most amazing, rare, auspicious thing. . And so instead of kind of like, well, let's get up and make new civilizations and conquer new worlds and take over Twitter, or whatever we're gonna do , maybe we should just remember that we're alive, you know?
And be mindful of how precious that is, right? So that means we have a relationship to the cosmos. We have a relationship to something greater than us, and it turns out. We have a pretty good idea of what kind of, you know, use the force. Luke, we, we have a pretty good idea of what the forces are. I wouldn't say definitive, but of what those forces are that are prevalent throughout the entire cosmos, at least at this physical plane that we're talking about.
Because when you go to. The Hindus and other mystics. There's so many different levels of the universe beyond this physical plane. So let's just talk about this physical plane for now. So one of, one of those, the one I just talked about, cause and effect, you know, there is such a thing, you know, you do this, this follows, there's a linearity to it and we call that time.
right? So time is being shaped. actually it's sort of, has slowed down if you look at it at the cosmological scale. but it f one thing follows from another, right? This whole event happened because you got a call from Cynthia, you responded. We had a conversation. We're doing this other work, which I'm excited about.
So it's a real thing. Cause and effect is a real thing, right? you know, the, the, the most vivid example that people think about in terms of the life of this planet was, you know, the end of the dinosaurs because of this huge, you know, meteor that hit the planet. so you know, now, We're doing everything.
I think I, I like to think we're doing everything possible to not, destroy our planet again. but cause and effect, you know, so that's the first, the first radiant force or the first cosmological force. Another one that we know is gravity. right? So there's a tendency for things to come together, to go here, to be pulled in toward each other, which is manifest as form and structure.
So we wouldn't be here doing a podcast without millions of gravitational elements at work, right? the microphone, this, this studio platform sitting on a chair, you know, I mean, it's just, very profound how gravity works and how it gives rise to form and structure. Our lives have form and structure until you get a root canal done.
and it all goes to hell. Then, now the other piece though, that people when it comes to time, don't really pay attention. Talk about denial is, what the physicists call entropy, right? Which is everything in the universe is getting progressively more random. Everything is going to fall apart. Dave Closson you are going to die.
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Joel: your puppy is going to die.
Dave: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.
and we live in this. We know that we're only here for quote a limit. I say quote because what does it really mean? Limited amount of time. And so our lives are like, well, we need to do something with our lives if we're only here for so much time. So that's where part of that pressure comes from.
Joel: But entropy is actually much, much more. about chaos in the universe and the unpredictable, and the fact that there will always be a what, what the, what the mathematicians and physicists call perturbations. There'll always be a perturbation disruption or interruption, but we act as though it's not there.
we act, we live our lives as though it's not gonna happen. and, we all have drunk this Kool-Aid of civilization because we have to act as though we have our shit together. But nonetheless, shit happens. So right
Dave: Yep.
Joel: the third, the third radiant force. So time shaping form chaos. The fourth one is the least understood by the Western culture, but it's as real.
and really is where prevention has its, I think, shining moment and the way that is interpreted. There's a, there's a concept in Chinese philosophy called UN or y u a N, and it means nurturing conditions, facilitative conditions. The, the conditions have been, propitious or right for something else to happen.
It's not cause and effect which involves agency, but this is like, well, conditions were either right or they weren't right. And the example I use there is if you fall in love with somebody and you're certain that this is the person you want to spend your life with and you do everything you can to make it happen, but that person ultimately says, nah.
you know, the conditions were not right for that to come. The stars were not aligned and many people suffer because they don't understand the, this idea of conditions being right. You know? there's a lot more to nurturing conditions, but prevention has to work with all four of these. And I'll tell you what the analogy is, and this is the metaphysics of prevent.
and it's, to me, it's, it's been when I consult, with people who want to change a system, not just do a train to trainer, right? but they really wanna get something done. I, I give them this model. So, very quickly, it'll be very obvious form is basically fidelity. Do it this way. , make sure you adhere to Fidelity and do it this way, and in the extreme cases only this way mofo, or I'm not gonna do any work with you.
Right Right
Dave: Right
Joel: But the opposite. The opposite or the, not the opposite, but the countervailing force is adaptation. , Where you're bringing in more of the perturbation, the openness to innovate, the openness to like, let's, how can we adapt this so that it fits better? So we, we don't run into the classic mistake, which is, well, it has to be done this way, only this way.
And I've had a hard time with some clients who say, no, Dr. Bennett, we want you to do it with fidelity. And I go, you don't understand. Part of fidelity in my book is adapt. Focus groups, stakeholder and abuse, capacity building and all that, right? So, so those are form, right, that gravity is fidelity, chaos, that entropy is adaptation.
on the time shaping side, you have the actual intervention, right? Whether it's, whatever it happens to be, whether it's SBIRT, those, the few minutes that you're delivering. screening brief intervention or a classroom training or whatever. But on the other side of the intervention is capacity building, which is nurturing conditions.
So over the years, I have said to people, it's 99% capacity building. If you really want to make big change, if you really, really are serious about social determin, in a practical level and not just speak about it in a theoretical abstract, oh my God, I wanna gag myself with a spoon. People don't understand that social determinants can only be maximized or leveraged through capacity building.
And, and so those, that's the metaphysics of prevention right there. So when you're doing this work at that level of. All you cosmological prevention leaders out there, you're actually tapping into deeper universal forces and it's the only thing that's gonna save humanity.
Dave: I think I need to go back and rerecord the intro to include, use the force and talking Physics Cosmos. And saving the
Joel: Yes, exactly. Yes.
I, I see that, I, I, I feel that those, those four forces in prevention, and I see that as having the awareness of perspective, being able to articulate and identify those a way to tap into or to level up our work as prevention leaders.
Joel: Oh, it's, it's essential because the truth is the rest of the world is focused on forum and time shaping. it's let's get this mental health first trading. Let's get this out, let's get that done. Let's get, let's get all these people exposed to this. , right? Mm-hmm. , and you know, we always talk about it in the field of wellness.
Here's a quote that I have used that it, providing an intervention, a wellness program to an otherwise toxic system is like putting whipped cream on a can of worms.
Dave: I may have pulled that from one of the, the PDFs you sent and had it on my notes as well. Putting whipped cream on a can of
Joel: Yeah. I mean I'm, it's like, and people are finally starting to talk about, the importance of culture and the importance of capacity building.
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Joel: and we have evidence-based tools that actually do it right? So I have very, I'm very impatient. I'm a gro. Maybe that's why I have problems with my health.
I've become this cantankerous, old grouchy Grinch. It's Christmas and I'm like, I'm tired of people. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. and not actually using tools that we know can be leveraged. It's not easy. It is, it is hard, especially in behavioral healthcare where people burned out. Morale is low. They only have so much energy.
They're dealing with people who are indigent or have their own, high behavioral health risks. It's hard to change. A culture, and especially as I said in behavioral health, cuz those people, and I mean this with all my heart, ha, are some of the best heartfelt, heart-centered, compassionate people, but you can only take so much compassion fatigue.
And so the system has to change. I always say, you know, when I, when I first got the model program, back in 2000 from samsa. I went right after the ceremony. I went right up to, the acting head of CSAP at the time, and I said, sir, you know, can I deliver this training to your employees here at samsa?
And I won't go through the whole journey of that, but we, our, our institutions. Our governmental institutions at the, if you can't do it at the federal level, at the state level, need to have a healthy work culture.
because the, the potential for a ripple effect is so much greater when people are centered and aligned with each other and they're not, stuck in a workaholic, culture.
Joel: That's externally referenced and codependent. And so, it's hard though because the system does not, it's not, it's not designed to make it easy, to get into those systems. But we've been very fortunate. We have worked with state behavioral health organizations. I mentioned we work with the National Guard as well.
We've worked in a number of different states. so it's possible. So yeah, we are here to save the universe. Thank you, Dave.
Dave: I've been kind of biting my lip over here cuz ah, I'm getting fired up to you. This is something that I get just, ah, I can rant about, get on the soapbox about. But first I got a shout out to my friends in Kentucky who, with Carlton Hall Consulting, and then also my friends at HueLife.
We've been working with them for a few years now. Watching them roll their sleeves up and they are changing the culture across their prevention workforce, the whole state. And it, it's so encouraging and I just warms my heart, fires me up there. but I also, the other side of things where I get kind of like pissed off a little bit or is more about how we show up as individuals in the prevention field as prevention leaders.
We can, like you said, the ripple effect. If we focus on being our best selves, who we are, then that will carry forward to our coalitions, to our communities as well. But if we show up and we're a hot mess, express, we're not living by example, we can't lead by example. And we've gotta take care of ourselves.
And,I'm gonna hit pause cause I, yeah. I tend to, I get fired up and ramble
Joel: Well, no, there's, I mean, we have two books, heart-Centered Leadership, where we talk about the ripple effect. and our book Best Self at Work, where we talk about emotional intelligence and strengths-based approach to leadership. So the tools and technology are there, and I'm not mentioning these to make a, you know, a sales piece as much to say is that we have to take time.
The, the whole growth of podcasts are great. and we all, we also need to get together. We need to spend time face-to-face in a room with each other to help each other with our stories and spend more time to your point, showing up, pausing, showing up and listening. And, I'm here to help with that. I'm glad that you have experience with that.
Leadership,, my dissertation was on leadership. And, one of the things that we found has to do with, , based on what you said about ranting and needing to live healthy, in order to lead healthy, . That, that's actually the subtitle Live well, lead well. But one of the things we found was that the motivation is very important and there are two core motivations in leadership.
there's several, but there are two core. One is the need for power and the other one is the need for influence. And the need for power is often, although not always associated with being in the. being able to call the shots, being recognized as the leader and tends to be more egoic, egotistical, and has risk for narcissism, and also tends to be more prevalent, stereotypically prevalent in men.
the need for influence is different, and they are coterminous, I mean, , they, it's hard to separate these motives. but it's important as a leader to discern them. and the need for influence is more independent of whether you're in the position that you're able to persuade others, you're able to have an influence.
Joel: You're, you have an impact on other people's opinions. you change things and, and our culture. We are, so we glamorize power. I'm not even gonna talk about recent presidents, to the point that we think that that's the answer to influence. But the truth is, I think, and you can, I'm curious what you think prevention is all about.
Influence without power.
I mean, we don't get, you know what, less than one half of 1% of the federal dollars goes to prevention. Right.. But that's where I think people who are in leadership and prevention, you know? Yes. Having a ripple effect, but also the things we talked about earlier.
Humility, right? You're your own, talking about your own recovery. So I, I really believe that it's an untapped resource for the rest of the country that people in prevention are hiding or they're unknown or they're unseen. They're the, the true heroes, of the culture. And of course, I'm not just talking about childhood prevention here.
Right.so leadership, yeah, it's a ripple. , but it comes from the inside out, from a more genuine, soulful acceptance, presence, flow, synchronicity place. And I believe that training for prevention leaders needs to have this, for lack of a better word, spiritual component. because it's not about us, right?
It's, it's beyond us. It's beyond our time. we are planting seeds, right? But the world doesn't because it's so into time shaping and goals and objectives, and showing me outcomes and metrics. It's so hard to convince people about return on investment.
So I'd love to do a survey of people who listen to this and ask them, how important is spirituality to you? How important is a relationship with a higher power or transpersonal or transcendental themes, whether it's hope, optimism, or whatever. So that's what we're talking about here, I think, when it comes to how time and the quest for presence and prevention come together.
So I hope I don't ramble there. I hope that that helps people as they consider you making their New Year's resolution on June.
Dave: Yes. June 15th, mark on your calendars, y'all for a reminder so you don't forget. Set the New Year's resolution.
So listeners, we started off this episode hinting at the quest for presence and talked about how the busy, busy hustle bustle. It can take us away from being present, but there's a new book coming out, and there will be a link in the show notes where you can get a free copy of the ebook so yeah, let's close out this episode. Tell me, tell me about it.
Joel: Thank you Dave, I appreciate this. the book is called The Connoisseur of Time. , it's the preview to the Quest for presence collection. So the collection book one, I think will come out in March, around that time. So the connoisseur of time is, short, maybe 60 or 70 pages. and it's designed to orient people to this broader cosmic
notion of time and getting us to realize that that, clock time, has resulted in most of the problems that we're facing, how we've related to clock time, and how our only view of time has become saturated with the clock and other devices. So the point of the connoisseur of time is to start to recognize that maybe we can have a different, healthier relationship with time. And that begins with, we talked about pausing, showing up, listening, but that there's a choice to be made and, and I, I call that the threshold. You have to decide, is this a journey you're gonna take? And to some extent what people have been calling the great resignation of, employees recognizing that they can't do time pressure anymore, is people crossing over that threshold.
Joel: My concern, and one of the reasons we've written this book is that threshold into what? what are we going to? And so what I've done is I've developed a language , new language of time that, begins with the four radiant forces and the soulful capacities, and also includes being able to be more mindful of, as I mentioned, how precious life is and how.
I mean, why do we do prevention, right? So that people can have more access to a well-led life and that only, that only includes preciousness, but things like savoring fulfillment, awe, momentousness, spontaneity, there's so much that life has. And so instead of focusing only on the problem, in clock time, let's focus on the solution in this much more incredibly vast, rich notion of time that the ancients , the quantum physicists know, time is mutable time could be whatever we wanna make it.
And we forgot that, you know, thanks to. Ben Franklin. Time is money. That is a metaphor. People, it is not an equation. Time does not equal money.
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Joel: or assimilate or a metaphor, I don't know. It's one of those
the. Book the, the first book, the ebook for this series. Folks can go and
Joel: Yes, presence quest.life
Dave: Presence Quest,
Joel: presence, P R E S E N C E. Quest, Q U E S t.life.
Dave: All right. Marvelous folks that will be in the show notes and. I don't know about y'all, but talk about just intrigued and I just wanna have a moment of pause to, to reflect on this conversation we had and I encourage all of you listeners to at the end of this episode, hit pause. Take a few minutes for yourself. It's okay. It's okay. There's time now. Before we close out, I just want to open the floor up any, any final, if you're gonna remember one thing. Remember this for our listeners.
Joel: Yeah. What's your number now? Are you still at an eight?
I am probably at a seven to 7.5. I have a puppy right between my legs trying to nudge me to go play, so I'm being pulled away from being even at an eight to be present. She's now walking through the room whining cuz she wants to go outside.
Joel: Yes, so that's what I would. That, that's it right there. If everybody's listening, remember that, that this is it. This is life is a process.
Uh, I, I don't wanna leave you with any kind of tidbit or aphorism that'll make you think, aha. The aha is the puppy. What's the puppy's name? What's the puppy's name?
Dave: Basil. Basil. And she is almost 10 months old. And January she'll be 11 months. Yeah, 11 months
Joel: All right.
Dave: I like to ask questions, not do math, especially in my head,
Joel: Thank you, Dave.
thank you very much. It has been an absolute honor. Listeners check the show notes for the book for Joel's website and socials and remember together is better.
