Day 13: SoulDancer

October 13, 2009 at 12:01 am, Category: Inspiration

“Release the forcing.  Release the “here’s your 12 steps” or “here’s your agenda” or “here’s your goal”; releasing that need allows me to tap in to a much wider, broader, more abundant plate of resources and gifts.”

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Toni Reece: I’d like to welcome SoulDancer to the interview, and I am so grateful, Soul, that you are joining us, and before we jump into the interview, could you please tell us a little bit about yourself?

SoulDancer: Well, thank you, Toni, I am honored and delighted to be part of this wonderful launch, and introductions are always difficult for me because I never really know how to introduce myself; it kind of depends on the circumstances.  Corporate clients, researchers, and folks who are kind of in the professional field, they know me as a kind of a corporate shaman.  I get involved in corporations where they really need to dissolve office politics quickly, to build a sense of solid corporate ethics; the bottom line there is get better ethics and you are going to have overall improved morale, creativity, and profits.  I can show bottom line results there.

Publicly, I am known as a talk show radio host.  I am an author, speaker.  I lead a lot of retreats and seminars, especially on the big island of Hawaii; I love Hawaii, where I live.  If you are talking from the academic standpoint, I am a lifetime alumni member at the University of Minnesota, based on completing my undergraduate degree in human relationships, and then I followed that up with a Master’s in social work.  So, from an academic standpoint I can be known as a social worker, but most folks I think know me as Soul Dancer, the private professional development person.  I work with people one-on-one to really release whatever chains are holding them back from doing what they want to do with ease and grace.

Toni: Well thank you very much for that.  There is quite a lot of an introduction there.  It is very comprehensive and a lot going on, so thank you for that.  The last point that you made leads into the very first question of the project, which is if you think about who you inspire, okay, how do you do that?  Who do you inspire and how do you do that?

Soul: Hmm, that is a yummy question.  This is based on feedback.  I never know what to take up as far as who I think I inspire from my standpoint; that would be my ego involved, so what I am about to say is based on what I have been getting back in the way of feedback over the years from doing workshops and seminars and so forth and so on.  It seems I inspire the people who really want to grapple with those big life questions, like “Who am I?”,  What I am here to do?”,  “What is my passion?”, “What am I supposed to be doing?.”

I seem to gravitate towards attracting those types of people who are in that space ready to deal or at least begin to ponder those questions, and over the years I have enjoyed kind of the same 3-step process.  It is certainly customized to each customer, each corporation, each client, each individual, but the first step is always one that I think is the most powerful.  We do kind of a treasure hunt.  We go out there looking.  What do you already have?  Most people have really forgotten what they already have, because to them it’s mundane or it’s tucked away some place, or they have forgotten about it.

So we go on a treasure hunt, and that takes a little bit of time, depending on the situation, but it is absolutely critical.  It is like tending your garden; you have got to plow the field first.  Let’s plow it first, let’s find out what’s in that soil that we can work with.  Then, we allow that plowing, that treasure hunting to start finding out what are you really called to do.  What is exciting for you?  You know what’s exciting; you know what’s not exciting.  And after we get that kind of sorted out, we go through a sorting process to then simplify, really laser focus.  The most successful people I know are laser focused.  Once they hit that stride, once they are like boom – I love this – they are laser focused and then there are really no blocks whatsoever to them being inspired to do whatever they are called to do.

Toni: I see.  So, what I am understanding that you are saying is that who you inspire would be the clients that come to you or you reach out to that are looking for some help in understanding where they are in their life, and the how is, which I love, the treasure hunt and plowing the field, so to speak, and then also sorting so you can laser focus.  Is that correct?

Soul: Right.

Toni: Fantastic!  So, when you do this work in the inspiration field, working with your clients, is the treasure hunt and plowing the field and sort and the laser focus, is that all part of what you do to help them explore their potential, or are there other techniques that you use as well?

Soul: Other techniques I use as well, the ones that I … for example, corporations really stuck in office politics, is engaging some pretty basic root cause analysis type of work.  Put on the newspaper reporter hat.  Let’s get into the facts.  Let’s explore the facts so that we can dissolve the fictions.  So when we need to be really rock-hard from a business standpoint, I ask from more of a corporate ethicist, kind of feeding in a corporate shaman angle, compassion, gentleness, being kind in the process.  There is never a need to beat people up, ever.  It does not help anything.  So part of my inspiration tools is people adopting ways that are appropriate for them, for their gender, for their culture, for their age, ways that they can be kind to themselves first.  Ironically, I see that the biggest step is being kind to oneself first, to get that inspiration really going from within.

Toni: So the exploration of their own potential has to start with themselves; so your work with them is to find that way to be kinder to themselves, to look for that compassion, because when they get there, that helps them then deal with others.  That is what I have heard you say.

Soul: Right.

Toni: So what do you need to be inspired?  When you’re looking for inspiration, to keep that going for yourself, what do you need?

Soul: Me, if there is anything that I am greedy about, anything that I am greedy about, is my quiet time.  I really have to have quiet time every single day.  I need at least 30 minutes of absolute, uninterrupted quiet time, no matter where I am at, no matter what I am doing.  That quiet time is kind of like my pin code into my ability to find inspiration or, not necessarily find it, allow it to find me, allow it to bubble up inside of me so that I can go “Wow, okay, it is already there.  Now, what do I do?”

Toni: So when you become centered in your quiet and you’re looking for the inspiration to find you, are there ever any resources or places that you go to seek inspiration?

Soul: Nine out of ten, I have to groom the environment to allow that to happen, and what I mean is, I am kind of a traveling, nomadic teacher.  And so when I am in a new situation, people are unfamiliar with what my needs are, and so, of course, I doubt they can read my mind.  I certainly can’t read theirs; I need to groom them.  I need to say “Look, some time through today, I need 30 minutes of quiet time, or don’t schedule me back-to-back with calls or appointments or interviews.  I need this much time blocked out for me.”  And so by seeking out that permission and having that permission granted, it makes the whole process work much easier.

Toni: Okay.  And when you’re seeking the quiet and the ways to be inspired for yourself so you can help others, what do you need to explore your own potential?  How does that happen?  What do you seek for that?

Soul: That’s a fabulous question; it is one I have been pondering on ever since you invited me to this interview, and it really dawned on me, I need less analyzers and more explorers.

Toni: Can you tell me what you mean by that?

Soul: Analyzers:  Analyzers in the Western world generally are concerned with getting to their destination.  They have something to prove; they want to make it happen.  If what it is that they want or seek doesn’t fit in nicely, they force it.  Now for me, what I need to explore my own potential is to release the need to make it happen.  Release the forcing.  Release the “here’s your 12 steps” or “here’s your agenda” or “here’s your goal”; releasing that need allows me to tap in to a much wider, broader, more abundant plate of resources and gifts.

Toni: When you say release the need, does that mean that you release the ownership of the outcome?

Soul: Bingo.

Toni: Okay; and that is the difference between the analyzers and what was the second term that you used?  The seekers?  The explorers?

Soul: Yes.

Toni: Okay.  So there is less investment in the outcome for you as an explorer.  How do you think that links to how you become inspired?

Soul: Very much so.  It is a wonderful, nurturing ying-yang sort of thing.  As I release the need for the outcome, I release my tunnel vision.  As I release my tunnel vision, all of a sudden, anything that was a problem, anything that was not inspiring me, phew … gone … just gone; blown away.

Toni: Wow.  And then do you ever use your needs for how you inspire yourself and explore your own potential?  Does that translate into how you inspire others and explore potential in others?  Do you ever transfer that knowledge and those ideas to others?

Soul: Most definitely, and that is where I get myself tingling all over.  I get my goose bumps on my arms here.  When people walk up to me and they look at me and they think what a new-agey, way out there, cosmic sort of dude, it’s like yeah right, get a life, you know.  They look at me like I am just some sort of an alien.  I chuckle, because years and years ago, I wrote this in the back of my book … years ago, if you were to approach me and tell me I’m doing what I’m doing now, I would have laughed you silly.  I would have told you get out, you’re a good sci-fi writer, go have fun!  I never would have believed I am doing what I am doing right now, and the only way that I have been able to do that is to get out of my own way.

Toni: Excuse the recording of the motorcycle that just went by … as we said, this is going to be a very authentic project!

Soul: I love it!  Works for me!

Toni: So you had to get out of your own way in order to keep this real, in order to help others, is that what you mean by that?

Soul: Exactly.  Here’s a live example.  Within minutes before this call, I firmly thought I would be accepted to attend an event where I thought I would literally pole vault what I am doing into the international limelight.  It is rare that I am declined, especially when you are paying to attend that event; it is rarely that you are declined.  You have the money, you go.  Well, to their credit, I got a decline email stating that basically what I am bringing to the table so overlaps what other more earlier registrants have brought to the table, that at this point they could not really accept my application; there would be too much overlap, and they just pole vaulted in ethics for me.  It is like, wow, here is a corporation that isn’t concerned with just the dollar bills.  They actually are concerned with the outcome.  This even gives me more inspiration that should this event come up again, I will apply earlier on in the process to see if I want to go to that.

Now, I released the outcome; I could have been devastated.  I had a lot of plans, blah, blah, blah, but it is like wait a minute, no, there is a reason for this.  I may not figure it out immediately, it will be made apparent, and who knows what will become as this door closes.  Another door always opens, always.

Toni: Which I would believe fits into the way that you explore your own potential by saying that you are more of an explorer than an analyzer, because you have released the outcome or the ownership of that outcome of whether or not they would accept or decline your offer to go to this speaking engagement.  So, if you release the outcome, I would imagine that great things are going to happen, based on this interview.

Soul: I am thinking as well.

Toni: I absolutely cannot tell you how we appreciate your participation in this Get Inspired! Project, and we are hoping by people reading the needs and approaches that people like yourself  and others are doing and having, and sharing, that this will inspire others to do the best work that they can do.  And your words of the treasure hunting and plowing the fields and sorting to finding your compassion and kindness, to being more of an explorer, I believe has been such an outstanding interview and answers to my questions, and I so appreciate that.

Soul: Well, mahalo.  Any time that there needs to be follow-up, I am game.  Make sure people know how to get in touch, and happy to help.

Toni: Thank you so very much for this interview.

Soul: Thank you, Toni.
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For more information about SoulDancer:  www.souldancer.org

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