Grammy-award-winning artist Rosanne Cash and coach, facilitator, and and author David Baum invite you to join them for Standing in the Spirit, Living Out Loud—an intimate, extraordinary weekend to explore the choices we make, the character we bring and the practices we need to deepen the quality of our lives.

In this episode of the podcast Seeking the Extraordinary David and host Michael Nathanson discuss some of the adventures David has had around the world, why he was given the nickname “Lemayan” by a Maasai warrior in Africa, and why creating a “connection without dots” motivates his work as a Conversation Architect.

It may feel like what we are going through has never happened before, and yet historically we are not the first to experience global pandemics. The Antonine plague, The Spanish flu of 1918, the bubonic plague, the cholera pandemic, AIDS, SARS…there are many. And now Covid-19. In each of these cases we came back—with resilience.

When you think about the pandemic, how do you “hold it”? That is, what is the context you use to think and act? Do you see it as transitional—as something to get through? Or do you see it as transformational—as something that is to be worked with and used for your personal and our collective betterment?

Join David for an Executive Education Program in Morocco exploring Collective Intelligence. Find the best ways to resolve conflict within your organization, motivate and inspire your collaborators on a daily basis, understand your leadership style and how it can work with others, and lead your people and organization through critical changes.

When we walk and talk versus sit and talk, the quality of communication feels different. In the act of moving forward together, something in our nature is affected. If we’re lucky, we can be reshaped or deepened by the conversations that happen when we move. If we are really lucky, we can be transformed.

Because each of us is wired differently, as a consequence we have different motivation needs. With all this difference, however, there are five basic motivational preferences. Gary Chapman calls these preferences, "Really Personal Motivators" or RPM’s. They can help guide us in being more effective.

"Let it go" is rooted in the Buddhist philosophy of detachment, and means we do our very best in the effort. That regardless of what happens, we detach from the outcome. “For us there is only the trying", said Alfred Tennyson. "The rest is none of our business.”

People positively respond to those who create frames of trust, hope, compassion and stability. As I told one president, who was complaining about the drama on his board, "Feelings are fine. Just don't be a co-producer of the play. Embers are everywhere. The mark of your leadership will be whether you fan them."

There is a quality that exists in the natural world that many of us seek. It is the way things happen, a divine order, which has a sense of “this is the way it should be”. We can call this quality “is ness”; as in “it just is”. Everything in nature, unlike what is created by humans, occurs without personal agenda. By being in this larger field, we reset our own basic truths; we realign beyond agenda and ego to a deeper place.

Many times we think through the consequences of an action, but rarely do we consider the consequences of inaction—of not doing. Consider where you have placed yourself—relationships, work, and friends—all of it. Now ask yourself, "Is the price I am paying from inaction larger than the risk of taking action?" Are you brave enough to act on a truth that probably already exists?

In my own coaching work, one word can help move a client into a more optimistic mindset. It's the word "Yet." Put "yet" at the end of any statement and it immediately turns a negative point of view into one of hopefulness, of something more.

One day Rabbi Schneerson got a letter from a man who wrote, “I must see the rabbi. I need the rabbi’s help. I am deeply depressed. I can hardly go on. I pray and am not fulfilled. I am not moved. I feel no satisfaction. I need the rabbi’s help.” The Rabbi sent the letter back, and circled the first word in each sentence in red. The lesson was clear. You live a life of misery because you are focused on yourself.

“Taking someone’s balance” is an effective strategy when positions are rigid and inflexible and not in spite of it. Taking someone’s balance means we step out of the way of the attack and effortlessly respond with the opposite posture. This means if asked an irresolvable question reverse the query by asking for the statement. If you are the target of an aggressive statement, flip instead to a question.

Too much of our time is spent focused on what is not working, no longer alive or has little vitality. We have become addicted to the negative, fueled by feelings of fear, doubt and an almost pathological attention to frenzy. There is a Maasai proverb that says, "Home is not far away when you are alive." If you want to feel more at "home" in your work and relationships, then focus your gaze on what has life, not death.

I have a Ph.D. in psychology, which apparently is useless when looking in a mirror. That I could not have seen my reason for leaving tennis is astounding to me. But then again, that is the nature of the unconscious. If I could see it, I suppose, it wouldn't be unconscious. Suddenly aware, I now feel blessed, grateful for the events that conspired to awaken me from my past. This awakening has reinvigorated a passion of something I once loved so much.

Southern New Hampshire boasts many natural treasures but one of the finest is Mount Monadnock. Between 1810 and 1820, local farmers, believing that wolves were living there, twice set fire to the mountain. And now today, we live in uncertain times with an acceleration of anger that is faster than any I have ever witnessed. The response must be to turn one’s back on rage, walk away, and creatively quiet the voices of fear to promote our better natures.

Mistakes? We all make them. If you're not making mistakes, chances are you are not growing and developing. If you're not growing and developing, then chances are you are shrinking. Personally or organizationally there is a word for this. We call it dying. Mistakes are actually a sign of life and vitality. The secret is not whether you make mistakes; it's whether you make smart mistakes.