Day 351: Richard Barrett
“What inspires me now is what my soul wants me to do. I feel so connected at the soul level, it’s almost as if I’m receiving constant messages about what I need to do. And when I’m in alignment with that and I get my fears out of the way, when I get my ego out of the way and I’m in that alignment, magic happens all the time.”
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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Richard, for being part of this Project, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?
Richard Barrett: Yes, I’m Richard Barrett.
Toni: And Richard, what do you do?
Richard: What do I do? I work with change agents. I work with business leaders. I work with consultants in the field of business to help transform individuals and organizations, and more recently working to help transform nations.
Toni: Richard, when you think of the word inspiration, who do you inspire, and how does that happen?
Richard: I inspire people who are interested in transformation, personal transformation, organizational transformation, and cultural transformation of nations. I inspire these people because I provide them with ideas and methodologies and tools that allow them to do their work. I provide them with the tools that allow me to measure consciousness by mapping values – individual values, organizational values, and national values. And so these people pick up on these tools and they use them, and they feel inspired because of what these tools and methodologies enable them to do.
Toni: Richard, can you give an example of your work? The work that you’ve done, let’s say with a nation that you’ve worked with to talk about this type of methodology. What happens in that transaction between you and the people you’re working with?
Richard: It begins with some commitment at that national level by the leaders to build a better society. Let me give you an example of Latvia.
We worked with Latvia several years ago, and we first of all did a survey of a sample of the population of Latvia, which involved just asking three questions: Which of the following values or behaviors most represent who you are, which are personal values. Which of the following values or behaviors most represent how your nation operates? Which of the following values or behaviors represents how you’d like it to operate?
So we have people’s personal values, the values they see in the nation, and what they would like to see in the nation, and we do that by different demographic blueprints, different ethnographic groupings, different age groups, different gender. We analyze that data and then feed it back to the government or the people who are asking us to do this survey.
What happens then is they take this data and they go out into the communities and they say, “Look, here are the gaps. This is what you say is happening right now.” Usually, there are a lot of negative things going on, and this is what you want. The question now is how are we going to get from here to there?
So just the whole process went through Latvia, and it was instrumental in helping the Latvians, the ethnic Latvians and the ethnic Russians, where there were a lot of tensions, shall we say. It helped them to see that they were wanting very, very similar things, because one of the things, one of the mantras that I use is that “Beliefs separate and values unite.”
Once you ask people what their values are, you begin to see that you can have a discussion around the values where it is difficult to have a discussion around beliefs. You can have many people from different religions gathering together to talk about their beliefs and they won’t agree on anything. If you now ask them to have a discussion based on their values, they enter into that realm of what connects them at a deep human level, and they’re able to have that discussion. That’s what happens in nations. It happens in organizations when people use this tool.
Toni: How does going through this methodology, or the work that you do, help others to explore their potential?
Richard: Well, when you do this at a personal level, it’s enormously transformative. One of the tools we use is you go online and pick 10 values about how you operate as a leader, and then you invite 15 people to do the same – people you work with. Also, to talk about your strengths and what you need to work on.
We map these values against the Seven Levels of Consciousness model, and you see where you stand, and then you see where other people see you, and often there are gaps. That forms the basis of a two- or three-hour coaching session from a professional coach, and the results are just amazing, how people take on board this feedback and are able to change who they are. It didn’t happen to everybody, but for very many people it does. So they evolve in consciousness by getting that feedback.
Toni: Richard, what inspires you?
Richard: What inspires me? That’s a really interesting question. It’s changed over the years. What inspired me originally with this work was to support leaders in building values-driven organizations, and that then shifted to building a value-driven society; I sort of just stepped it up a notch. That’s what began to inspire me.
And I can’t say now that … I’ve moved on beyond that. I can’t say that those two things are the source of my inspiration. What inspires me now is what my soul wants me to do. I feel so connected at the soul level, it’s almost as if I’m receiving constant messages about what I need to do. And when I’m in alignment with that and I get my fears out of the way, when I get my ego out of the way and I’m in that alignment, magic happens all the time.
It’s as if I live a charmed life. Everything I touch turns to gold in the sense of it becomes something that involves or makes things happen in a positive way. I can’t explain that, other than to say that living in that sense of alignment, you don’t need any other inspiration than to follow that sense of mission that comes through you. It isn’t about you. It’s coming through you.
It’s almost beyond inspiration. It’s like being guided. I call it being guided by the one mind. It’s as if you’re an instrument for good in the world, and as long as you can stay in that space of being an instrument for good in the world, you live an amazing life, and it means being not attached to outcomes. It means loving what is, and not being fearful about anything. Whatever wants to happen, you look at it and say, “Hmm, that’s interesting; I wonder where that’s leading?”
Just staying in that space of no fear, no attachment, no need, just allows you to live this life of flow.
Toni: Richard, that was incredibly powerful, and I know that we have … we reach a lot of people that listen to these interviews or read the transcripts all over the world, and one of the unintended outcomes of the Project has been people talking about their passion and purpose.
Now, you’ve mentioned when I asked you originally what inspires you and you said you’ve moved through different parts of things that have inspired you – do you have any idea of what’s moved you into this place where you are today, that you’ve gotten to this place where you can say, you know, “I am in a completely different place” where it’s coming from your soul?
Is there anything that you can speak to, that you can touch on at a point in your life where you were like, “That’s when I knew I moved from this to the soul inspiration?”
Richard: There are lots of points in my life where I felt this shift, but the most significant one was around 1994 when I was working at the World Bank, and at the same time I was writing a book on personal transformation. I was doing weekend workshops for people, and I was talking to some people one weekend. I was helping them find their mission in life, and the second afternoon of the workshop, one of the people said to me, “Well, what’s your mission?”
I had a very well articulated affirmation, which was, “I’m an internationally recognized speaker and author in personal and organizational transformation.” The moment that the person asked me that question, I could not remember that answer, and it was a little embarrassing.
I closed my eyes, and I said, “One minute.” Fully five or six seconds went by, and out of my mouth came the words, “I’m an architect of global transformation.”
It was at that moment that I realized that my soul had spoken to me and that this was the path. I also realized very quickly thereafter there was nothing to worry about, nothing to get excited about in the way of being fearful about doing this. It was simply, I could stand back and watch this happen as long as I could take fear out of my life, and that’s what I did, step-by-step.
And that, I think, is the critical factor for living in inspiration is to take every form of fear out of your life so that you can live fearlessly, without fear. The moment that you can do that, you can almost take “courage” out of your vocabulary, because you don’t need courage if you live without fear.
And so living in that space of fearlessness with no needs. When I say no needs, I mean not actually wanting anything, but just trusting that everything that you need will be supplied to you so that you can continue down the path that you’re going down – that’s what I mean by “no needs.”
When you get into that place of no needs, you get into the flow, and when you’re in the flow, everything is so easy, and it just happens around you, and you don’t have to get excited and fearful, because everything is working for you. It is perfect. Even those things that don’t seem to be perfect are perfect, because they’re teaching you something. Just staying in that flow is what it’s really all about.
Toni: Richard, what are you doing now to explore your own potential? Where do you go with this now?
Richard: I’m just watching it unfold in front of me. I just had a very interesting year; an amazing year, actually.
My mother, who lived in England … I lived in America and my mother lived in England, and she was 99 and she went into a home. I decided that I needed to be able to be close to her, and so I came back to England, not knowing how long I would be here. I gave up all my traveling and everything. I was able to work and to get my book done.
There were many blessings given to me by … well, this is but a sacrifice. It was something that I felt that I needed and wanted to do. So I came to support my mother. I visited her every night for the last year, and at the same time, I was able to spend my days getting my New Leadership Paradigm book finished. It will be out in October. I was able to sign up with a personal trainer and get as fit as I’ve ever been in my life. I couldn’t do that before, I was traveling so much.
I also got this one-year period of being able to reflect on my life up to this point. I’m now 65 years old. I feel like a spring chicken. I’m ready to do whatever it is that I’m supposed to be doing, and this year of reflection allowed me to recognize that I needed to change what I’m doing and to move into more teaching and more writing around the illusion of consciousness, so I’m now preparing two more books. One is going to be called Practical Consciousness. So this is a real gift to me.
My mum died three weeks ago, and it was absolutely beautiful in a way, because she died around six o’clock in the morning and appeared to me in my dreams and hugged me. For the next three or four days, I felt this sense of joy – profound joy. My mother’s joy. She lived to be 100 and 15 days, and the profound joy came from her release from pain and the suffering that she was going through at the end, and it was just an absolutely beautiful experience. It even deepened my sense of connection to whatever I considered divine.
Yeah, so this whole year, although it seemed like a sacrifice, was a huge blessing, which turned up my own transformation another whole notch and allowed me to move even deeper into that space of acceptance of whatever is coming along, and is what my soul is guiding me to do. It was just an amazing, amazing year.
You know, once you get on the path, you really don’t have to … there’s nothing you have to control. It happens to you and through you. You don’t do anything, you just be. When you get into that mode of being, things flow, especially when you invite your soul to be part of your life, and actually to take over your life. Surrender to your soul, and you’ll have the most amazing gifts for the rest of your life.
Toni: Well, the surrendering to your soul sounds like an amazing journey, and just your interview has been a gift – truly a gift – to the Get Inspired! Project, Richard. It has been an absolute pleasure to meet you, and I know that there is so much in this interview that people are going to be going, “I need to listen to this again!” So it’s really been amazing. We’re pleased and proud to have you be part of the Get Inspired! Project, and we cannot thank you enough.
Richard: Whoever the “we,” is, I thank the “we.”
Toni: Thank you, Richard. Please take care of yourself and we will post your website and your books at the bottom of the transcript so that people can learn a little bit more about you as well. So thank you again for being part of the Get Inspired! Project.
Richard: You’re very welcome.
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For more information about Richard Barrett: www.valuescentre.com, richardbarrett.posterous.com
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