Creating A Thriving Mindfulness Business w/ Sean Fargo
Sean Fargo is the founder of mindfulnessexercises.com and has worked alongside mindfulness pioneers such as Jack Kornfield, Gabor Maté, Rick Hanson and Sharon Salzberg. In our conversation Sean shares how to get over invalidation, and how he was able to go from living as a monk, to creating a thriving mindfulness business.
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Podcast Transcript
Lou: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Art and Business of Meditation podcast. I am your host, Lou Redmond, and today we have Shawn Fargo. I am so excited to have Sean on. Sean is a mindfulness teacher and founder of mindfulnessexercises.com after deeply immersing himself in mindfulness practices as a Buddhist monk in Thailand for two years, he noticed a shift in the way that he related to himself and others, and he wanted to bring that to the communities around him. Since then, he has spent the last 15 years focused on sharing mindfulness practices across organizations, into communities and across the globe. He has worked alongside mindfulness pioneers such as Jack Kornfield, Gabor Mate, Rick Hansen, and Sharon Salzberg, and has taught mindfulness and meditation for corporations including Tesla, Kaiser Permanente, Facebook, Ernst and Young, and the US Environmental Protection Agency. Additionally, he served as an instructor for the mindfulness program Born at Google. Sean, welcome to the show.
Sean: Thanks for inviting me. It's an honor to be here.
Lou: I am endlessly fascinated when in someone's story, there is that story of going to a monastery and leaving the world that we often know here to go deep within themselves. And so I'd love to hear a little bit of the genesis of what was happening in your life at that time, and how did you come to making that decision and that big commitment to such a radical change?
Sean: Yeah, well, I was living in Asia at the time when I discovered meditation and mindfulness. I was living in Thailand and China, traveling throughout Asia, buying antiques and jewelry and furniture and working seven days a week. And it was a really difficult job. It was something I kind of wanted to do. I idolized Indiana Jones growing up. I watched that movie, like, hundreds of times. And I always had this fantasy of traveling around Asia looking for artifacts and exploring the world. And it was there that I ran into some Buddhist monks and also some Taoist masters. And I was really struck by the contrast between how they were as people versus how a lot of us live in a busy culture where we're focused on a lot of the externals. The monks and the Taoist hermits were focused on the internals. And I felt through my first meditation practices how transformative this could be if I really dove in. And I was inspired by my teacher's Way of being with their sense of compassion, groundedness, sense of peace. That was so inspiring to me that I thought that, you know, whenever I die, I want to have cultivated those ways of being. Like that was my new priority. It wasn't travel, it wasn't money, it wasn't girls. It became these values of character and the ways of being. And because I didn't know when I would die, I decided to dive in head first right then. So, you know, I don't have any disease or anything, but you know, one of the most powerful mindfulness practices is mindfulness of death. And sensing into this breath is possibly being my last. And so what better time to devote to mindfulness and meditation, compassion, peace, wisdom than right now? And because I was already living in Asia, I was familiar with Buddhist monasteries and I didn't know of anything back here in the US that could train, you know, a young guy. So I found a monastery that, you know, welcomed me and I got a one way ticket, shaved my head and, and ordained as a monk.
Lou: So you have this innate adventurous spirit, it sounds like that Indiana Jones evoked in you and while traveling in Asia, what it sounds like to me, it's less that there was something significantly wrong. Maybe there was an overwhelm, maybe you were working too much. But it sounds like it was almost more of a pull towards something else rather than a moving away from something you don't like. Am I reading that accurately?
Sean: It's interesting because at the time I would have agreed with you that it was more of a pull. The more removed I am from, from that time of my life, I recognize that there was also sort of a danger that I saw in myself that I needed to move away from. There was this sort of prioritization of the externals and wanting to like wear nice clothes and eat at fancy restaurants and date the most beautiful women and earn my way to more spending power, you know, to get better jobs. And I saw that I was cultivating a sense of greed and also a sense of sort of delusion in the sense that those things weren't ultimately what would provide fulfillment or happiness or peace. And so there was a significant amount of suffering involved in that that I think I was suppressing and wanting to, yeah, ignore by distracting myself with all these glitzy things. And so the more removed I am from that time of my life, the more I recognize that there was a significant amount of confusion, say anger and greed. And those were, I think, slowly eating away at me internally.
Lou: For teachers who may feel a pull towards potentially joining A monastery. What for you, at least in your experience, what was a day in a life like and maybe. Or what was most challenging and what was most beautiful? And maybe those two are the same things.
Sean: Yeah, in general, I recommend it. There's more and more monasteries that are open to short ordination windows. And so a lot of people get, get value out of ordaining, even just for a week or two, just to kind of get a taste of their life. But for me, I really appreciated the amount of space and time that one has to cultivate mindfulness. And, you know, there's a lot of silence for you to enjoy, to sit in long stretches, you know, you have to be careful what you ask for though too, because that silence can drive you crazy sometimes because there are no distractions. You know, there's no music, no movies, no food after 12 noon, obviously, no women, no. No touch. I wasn't even allowed to hug my mom. But the simplicity of the life can really help to settle the mind. It's like being on retreat, but the retreat never ends. And so it's a wonderful opportunity to settle the mind, open the heart to meet all of the stuff that we might bottle up by being busy. That stuff will come out. Anyone who's done a silent retreat knows that it can be really challenging and a lot of tears can be shed. But, you know, that's where we grow and that's how we become more self aware and that's how we build resilience and self compassion. One of my favorite things about the monastery is a sense of brotherhood that grows as a result of living with other men who are going through challenging times as well. And you know, for women in monasteries where there's nuns, which there's more and more monasteries for women, that sense of sisterhood is really beautiful. And so I met fellow brothers on the path who brought me a sense of brotherhood that I didn't have growing up. And that felt, yeah, it felt really good to build that sense of intimacy with other men, of emotional intimacy, spiritual intimacy, and supporting each other along the path. That's a major part of being a monk, is that kinship that is developed with your other monk friends. And so I was ordained with people my age, men who are significantly older and boys who are significantly younger. And there's a sense of family that develops. That's really beautiful. And those relationships are, you know, cherished.
Lou: For me, it sounds really beautiful and it's reminding me and bringing up this thought of how we're all yearning for that and we in some ways maybe are Subconsciously finding it. Like, for me, I joined a fraternity in college. And that, of course, is a brotherhood. And you go through pledging, which is the challenging thing that brings you together, and there is that love because you've been through something with someone. Now, there's a lot of toxic things about that whole situation, but at the core, is. Is the same somewhat of the essence that you're. You're getting at here. And I can see it also in. In military, joining the military and going to war with someone, there's. That's such a. Just wildly connecting, intimate, scary thing that. That binds you. And to. To think of doing it in the serv. In the intention of developing spiritually and. And that challenge is. Is really inspiring and beautiful. It's almost like a different level of the same thing. When, for you, did the spark to teach come? Was that, like, did you know, as you were dropping in for those two years, like, wow, this is something I really want to share? Or was it kind of a more clickety journey after coming back and trying out other things?
Sean: Yeah, that's a great question. While I was a monk, I had no intention of teaching for at least 10 to 20 years. Part of that is the tradition that I ordained in Thai Theravada tradition doesn't allow monks to teach for at least, say, 12 years. And, you know, and I kind of dove in head first, relatively quickly. So I didn't have that much experience before I was a monk. And so when I was a monk, it was a fast track to learning. And I tried to absorb as much as I could from my teachers, who were significantly older than me. They could have been my grandpa, and they kind of were my grandfathers in a way. But I had zero intention of teaching when I disrobed when I left the monastery. Fortunately, luckily, I got a job at Spirit Rock Meditation center, where I supported the teachers and the community, sort of a liaison between the two, where I would support all the teachers with their classes and workshops and answer questions from the community. And there it was. It was another five years of learning where I started to learn how to integrate these practices into Western culture, into daily life, with work, with family, how to integrate it, you know, in men's groups, all the different facets of life. And I learned from some of the most amazing teachers, including Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg and Tara Brock. And after, say, the fourth year at Spirit Rock, I started to feel like I was starting to feel ready to start sharing mindfulness through my own lens. And I didn't really know what that was going to look like. But I felt like I had enough of a practice and enough of tutelage under some of the world's top teachers that I would be able to start helping people. And I saw a flyer for learning how to teach mindfulness in prisons. And the flyer had images of these two, like bodybuilders behind bars meditating. And. And it said, learn how to teach men in prisons. Like maximum security, death row type stuff. And I felt compelled to learn how to do that and to help these men who were in a really difficult situation. And the teacher of that program to learn how to teach mindfulness in prisons was a highly reputable, kind man who was very well respected in the Spirit Rock community and in Northern California. And so I decided to apply, and I needed a full scholarship because I was not making very good money by design. I was very happy being poor, but. But I signed up and started to realize that it's not rocket science and that if I speak from the heart and speak from experience and have a few tools under my belt, that hopefully I'd be able to help start making a difference. And that's kind of how it started.
Lou: Was the teacher Vinnie Ferraro?
Sean: No. I know of Vinnie, and I. I think he's amazing. But the. The teacher is Jacques Verdun, who has been instrumental in bringing mindfulness and meditation to prisons around the U.S. vinnie. I never co. Taught with Vinnie, but. But yeah, I really like his style.
Lou: Vinny. I was on a. My first silent retreat was with Vinnie, and for those that don't know him, I recommend just listening to a Dharma talk because he's so hilarious and down to earth and also really powerful and loving. And he. I fell in love with Vinny during that retreat, which it's sometimes easy to fall in love during a retreat, at least in my limited experiences.
Sean: Yeah, he's so authentic and poetic and real.
Lou: Yeah.
Sean: But he also walks the talk, and you really feel that. And yeah, he's really inspiring.
Lou: Since you brought up the making money piece around this work, I can imagine going from being in a monastery where I didn't know exactly if you give up all your possessions and. And money, it's not really a thing there. And then coming back into our society here and having to make a living. What. How is that relationship to money transformed? Or how. Or. Yeah, just how is your. That relationship been from kind of leaving a place where it's so not a part of the conversation, or maybe it is in different ways, but to having to like, okay, Now I have actual, you know, needs, and I need to support myself.
Sean: Yeah, great question. Yeah. And this comes up all the time with mindfulness meditation teachers, like, how do I relate to money here? Yeah. So at the monastery, I wasn't allowed to touch money, ask for money, spend money, have a bank account and zero possessions outside of a alms bowl, robes and some medicine, basically, and maybe a pair of sandals. I wasn't even allowed to ask for food. You know, the only thing I could ask for was water. When I worked at Spirit Rock, I was, you know, know, my salary was very, very low. Obviously, I. I didn't work there for the money. I worked there to support the teachers and the community and to learn and to practice. And I was very happy with that. I had zero intention of making a lot of money. I really liked that. You know, Jack Cornfield told me once, like, spirit Rock has kind of been your halfway house after the monastery. And he was right. And then I met a girl and I fell in love with her, and we got married. And then this instinct kicked in. It's like, oh, I need to help provide here, and my salary at Spirit Rock might not cut it, you know, and she didn't marry me for money, but an instinct took over where I felt like I needed to help pay the bills. And then we had a baby, and that instinct doubled. And we got a puppy. It's like, oh, know, I need to afford dog food. And so there were the sort of necessities of, you know, needing to help take care of a family. And this instinct to provide was very strong for me, I think, partly because of my upbringing. You know, my. My parents were very hardworking, and they did everything they could to kind of help lift us from, say, lower middle class, that's, you know, if that towards middle class. And they wanted to provide me with a college education, which they didn't have. And, you know, I'd like to do the same for my daughter. But this instinct took over. I read an essay by Ken Wilber. I'm pretty sure you're familiar with who he is, partly because of your Alethea training, but probably because of your involvement with so many self development arenas. But Ken Wilber wrote a essay called Write Bucks, which I encourage mindfulness meditation teachers to look up sometime. But it kind of makes a case for charging money for your teachings if you. If you want to, and kind of outlines the history of how people have related to compensating teachers who share these practices, these teachings, and makes a case for mindfulness teachers making A living doing this in modern society. Working at Spirit Rock was very helpful for me in the sense that they're very generous. They don't turn people away for a lack of funds from for 90% of their offerings. They have scholarship opportunities and they have sliding scale donation practices. And so when I started teaching mindfulness, I adopted a lot of their ways of, of charging. So when I started teaching mindfulness, I had a philosophy of leading with generosity, leading with heart. If people couldn't afford things that was fine. I would still teach, I would still share. I would invite people to make donations based on what they felt would be doable for them or fair to them. I would have scholarship applications, which I still do. I had sliding skills payment windows. And for people who wanted to pay more if they had the means, I would certainly welcome it with gratitude. And so I think that's really important to not move into this field and start charging a lot of money from everyone, excluding people based on their ability to pay, but rather have a mindset of generosity, of compassion, providing value to anyone regardless of income and finding ways that feel fair to both sides as much as you can.
Lou: Of that you mentioned that write books article. It's one that someone shared. Maybe it was in your newsletter, maybe not. I feel like I've clicked on it within the last two months and I'm like I can't wait to read this. And then it's one of those things where I click on it and then I totally forgot about it and I haven't read it. So for those interested, I'm going to make sure that it's linked in the show notes and I'm going to look forward to reading it after this because Ken Wilber is in a fascinating teacher and his body of work I think takes a big devotion. I heard a friend kind of explain it and it felt right on where he didn't even want to start getting into Ken Wilber because if he did, he would feel like he'd have to devote all of his time to what he's his integral theory. It's really fascinating. So if that calls to you, definitely check him out. I loved his interview with Tammy Simon on Cosmic consciousness that they did for Sounds true. I think that gave like a good introduction and overview to what he's all about. I want to come back to business in a second. I think that's really helpful for someone thinking about teaching and how to go about starting to charge and grow and have offerings that are free, have offerings that have scholarships that have flexible payments. There's a. A question. I'm a part of a teacher training right now, meditation schools. I'm a co teacher in. In there with David Gandelman, and there's a student in there who is having a lot of doubt around being a teacher. And she listens to this podcast, so I'm pretty sure she'll listen to this. And she asked me to do an episode on this and I. I haven't yet, but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on it. And her question is, in. In a broad sweep is, do you have to go through something in order to help someone with that thing? And her example is I feel she feels unqualified to help someone or to do meditations around work, life balance, family balance, to help someone if they have family relational issues because she is single and doesn't have a family. And so she's just in. Just in that one specific example, she's feeling this sense of unqualification because she feels like, well, I don't have kids, I don't have this. How can I provide any sort of support for someone? So I'd be curious to hear your take on if someone needs to go through things and have experiences in order to help someone.
Sean: Yeah, I think not necessarily. I think, you know, that's the power of reading and research and interviews, that you can learn a lot of the fundamentals and experiences sort of secondhand and then share the learnings with others. I think the level of rapport may not be as strong as it might be with someone who's actually gone through, you know, family life and work life balance, juggling everything for me for a little bit. You know, I think in that specific case, the, say, the teacher trainer would probably want to lead with lots of questions to really empathize with the student or the mom or the dad, whoever it is that they're helping to lead with lots of questions to build empathy, context, and rapport. But I think that person can certainly learn a great deal through reading podcasts and then share learnings that can be supportive. I think with mindfulness, it is a little bit different though. You know, work life balance is one thing, mindfulness is another in the sense that when we teach mindfulness and meditation, I think it's important and crucial that we have that firsthand experience that we know how to meet, what comes up with presence. And, you know, you can share a lot of the bullet points. You can regurgitate what you read or what you've heard, but it will soon become apparent to your students whether or not you can meet what's here with non judgment, with curiosity, with an appropriate response, with grounded presence. And you know, so with mindfulness and meditation, how we are and how we teach can often say more than our words. And it's this like being the example that can teach more than what we say. My first teachers barely spoke English, like barely spoke English. And yet I learn more from them by their way of being. And I felt it my bones like that is it that presence? And so, you know, some things I think you can teach without having gone through it. But I think mindfulness and meditation is one of the exceptions.
Lou: I think that's an important emphasis that our beingness is, is felt and it's where we're speaking from that ultimately matters more than what we're speaking of. And I think of like Ramana Maharshi, I don't think he had much of a teaching. He was just. And even like Nareem for Baba, like Ram Dass's guru, like these, these high master beings that they, it was just being in their presence, being in that love that was a reflection of the love that it was within their own essence. So I think just always, especially in this, you have to be embodying it and practicing it. And I know this one person is practicing and continuing to practice. But of course we have our own unfolding, we have our own journey that, you know, that we have to go through in different ways. And I have a theory. I don't. This might be misguided in some ways, but maybe someone who isn't as, let's just use a term that we can all someone understand as awakened as a Ramana Maharshi, right. To just, you know, I don't want to go super, super far, but would you say that there's an opportunity to help someone at a different level? Like someone might be attracted to this person even though they don't have a high level of embodiment, but it's still helpful to that person, right? And as that person continues to like unfold in their journey, that they, they start to be able to support different people at different levels of their journey. So it's almost like, yes, we don't have to be a Jack Cornfield when we start. And the teachers that go to Jack, right, are, are going to be different than the people that go to me, for example, or, and, or whoever it might be. So does that make sense? Do you like agree that at some level there's potentially like, you could still help people, but there's also, I can also play my own devil's advocate that, like, healed people, heal people and then hurt people. Hurt people. So there's also, like, the potential. Yeah. Like, you know, the blind can't lead the blind. So I. I'll. I'll play both arguments in my head and then hear what you have to say on it. Speaker 1 33:43 Yeah. Yeah, I think, well, even Jack Kornfield will say in a very humble way that, you know, every day is different in. In terms of how present we are or how much we can help another person. Like, you know, even teachers have good days and off days. You know, just before this podcast, we took a moment to settle and practice because if we don't practice every day, then our teachings may be impacted. And so, you know, so. Yeah, so even with Ramana Maharshi, I'm sure he had moments where he may not have been well suited to convey that presence, you know, 100%, you know, utmost respect to him. Maybe he. He was fully capable 100 of the time. But. But yet, to the essence of your question, I think that we don't need to wait to be fully awakened to teach that if we have, first and foremost, a sense of compassion for people and that when we're teaching it, that it's not about ourselves. It's not about impressing people. It's not about fulfilling a contract. It's about helping them. And so, say beginners or intermediate practitioners may have some very valuable tools and teachings to help people who are just starting out, who are just learning about mindfulness. And, you know, you can share some of the fundamentals of mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful eating. You don't necessarily need to perfect those before you start sharing those practices with people. I think it's important not to overstate your practice or your experience or promise the world, but you can certainly share a lot of the fundamentals, even if you're not a Jack Kornfield or a monk, that if you have been practicing what you want to share and have explored it and have been ideally trained on how to teach it, then you can certainly help a lot of people who are just starting out and who want to do what you've done to that point.
Lou: Sean, you named my blind spots of Impressing People and Making It About Me and as an enneagram. Three, as the achiever, as the. The. I don't know if you're familiar with an enneagram, but it's. It's a constant looking at motives and intentions and super helpful for. For me in doing this work because, yeah, we have to look at those things. And sometimes there's some hard pills to swallow when we get honest with ourself of what we're doing here and how we've been doing things. So not to. To get into that's too far down a rabbit hole. I'd love to spend the rest of our time talking a little bit about mindfulnessexercises.com and what you built, because it is. It is very impressive. And. And there's so much that I could ask you about it, but I guess just first, the genesis story of, like, what. How did that start? Like, was it. How did even it start? There's so much that you have. There's so much content, so much, so much that is there. And to someone that's just starting out, they may look at this and be like, wow, like, this is a huge body of work. This is a lot, like, how did it begin? Like, what, What. What was the genesis?
Sean: Yeah. So when I was at Spirit Rock, part of my job was to record all the teachings and meditations from the teachers onto audio files and share most of them freely on a website called Dharma Seed, which I recommend to everybody. Dharma Seed, though, was Buddhist in flavor and a little hard to navigate sometimes. And I wanted to create something for people who may not necessarily resonate with Buddhism, but who wanted to learn from these amazing teachers. And so I asked Dharma Seed, you know, can I share a lot of these recordings on my own site for free? They said, sure, as long as it's still free, that's totally fine. So I created Mindfulness exercises dot com. I. I went in debt paying for it for the URL, but it started as just wanting to share these practices freely. I had zero intentions of, like, starting a business out of it. And so I started sharing and started creating posts on. On the website. And then over time, I started thinking through, well, what about in written form? What if people wanted some simple practices to do that they could print out? So I started creating PDFs of mindfulness worksheets using practices I had been learning over the years. And those are free. I just let people download those for free. And then I started learning a little bit about entrepreneurship and business and scaling things. And I said, well, what if I started collecting emails, like email addresses in exchange for letting people Download these free PDFs? And then I started creating an email list. Then I started a newsletter. And then I thought, well, what if I kept all these worksheets for free? But I said, you know, like, if you want to download, say, a couple hundred of them, Then maybe I'll charge like $40 or $30. And surprisingly, people paid like 30 bucks, 40 bucks for this collection of downloads. And that's kind of where the business side of things started, which helped me to afford the website and graphic design work and an email platform. And, you know, I wasn't really making profit, but I was making enough to kind of sustain the website. What year is this? It's kind of started 2013, 2014.
Lou: Got it.
Sean: I started learning about marketing and business and just kind of kept scaling from there. But it really started as a way to share as many of the teachings from my teachers as widely as possible. And then it kind of segued into offering coaching. You know, I went to New Ventures west and studied under Steve March. Thank you. And started to share other kinds of things on the website. Letting people download my own audio, wrote more blog posts, started thinking about ways to support people with their own mindfulness journey as well as people who wanted to share mindfulness with others. One of the common complaints I would hear from being at Spirit Rock, where I interfaced with hundreds of thousands of people, it's like, well, I want to share these practices, but I don't know how or where, like how to. How to do that. And at that time there weren't many teacher training programs out there. And so, so I started to create my own certification program to help meet that need to help people teach mindfulness in practical ways without, you know, spending $10,000 or wanting to teach MBSR specifically wanted to create something new for people who wanted to share mindfulness outside of those circles.
Lou: There's so much to ask around business. I know we're coming up a little bit on our time, so I'll broad sweep a question that you talked about in. When I asked about like what you've learned about business and you've mentioned a couple things about keeping things simple, focusing on the actual challenges of the customer, speaking to the end goal. I'd love to hear you expand on. On any of those. And also in learning marketing and learning email marketing and scaling. Like also, are there other teachers in the business world that you found helpful for people that might. Looking for more. More of those resources, you know, courses or books to. They could. They could find. So long question, multiple questions. But I'll let you take it. Where. Wherever the, the spirit moves you.
Sean: Sure. Yeah. And we can go longer if, if you wish to.
Lou: That'd be great. Yeah, sure.
Sean: I think it's important to ask a lot of questions from the people who you're wanting to serve. I think it's important to share surveys and request feedback and ask people to fill out forms about what their pain points are, what they're looking for, what their goals are, and to try to think of new ways of serving your students or your clients. And for mindfulness teaching and teaching meditation, I think it's important. I think the most important thing for people to consider when they're searching for their own teacher is a sense of trust. So when you're looking for a mindfulness teacher, it's not about how famous they are, it's not about how many books they've sold. It's not about whether everyone else likes them or not. It's about, do you trust them? Do you trust them to help guide you through this journey of being present with your experience? So trust is crucial. And not every teacher resonates with everyone. You know, not everyone loves Jack Kornfield or the Dalai Lama or Ramana Maharshi, because everyone's a little bit different. They have their own preferences, their own styles. And so to help build that trust, it's important to share your voice. So, you know, if you're in the business of sharing mindfulness and guiding meditations, it's important for people to get to know you, for them to hear your voice, for them to get a sense of who you are, what you're about, how you teach, how you guide practices. And I think it's really important to share your voice, allow people to get to know you freely before they invest. And so that can look like, you know, all sorts of things. It can be recording a webinar, that. That's kind of how I got started, really, with scaling the business is just recording 90 minutes of myself, sharing about what I care about, who I am, ways that people can grow, and then how can they work with me? And that was. That was key. And people got to know me that way. Not everyone likes me, that's fine. But those who took the time to really hear me, and if they resonated with me, then they would contact me and want to work with me in different ways. You know, recording videos for YouTube, podcasts, putting audio and insight timer, sharing, even blog posts, you know, I do recommend audio and video as much as possible for them to really get a sense of you. But being generous with your teachings, I think is a powerful way for growing a business and also being generous at the same time. So I think that would be my main suggestion for people, whether they're starting out or just wanting to grow, is to put yourself out there. And people who like you will want to work with you.
Lou: What would you say if someone response to that is I just hate social media. I just, I don't want to be on, on these apps but I want to, to get myself out there. I'm just starting out. I just took your certification. Now I'm trying to like okay, what do I do?
Sean: Yeah, you know there's lots of opportunities for teaching people in your neighborhood. Libraries are typically open to people sharing meditations and mindfulness teachings. Community centers, there's lots of in person opportunities. You know, you can teach some of your friends, some of your neighbors kind of get your feet wet. You know, you could have your own website. You don't necessarily need social media but I've invested a lot of my time learning search engine optimization and learning how Google can refer people to you and so you could rely on SEO for scaling your website presence and attracting people there. You don't necessarily need social media. You can also outsource it to people through work exchange or finding people on Upwork.com or Fiverr or something where you can ask people to take care of that for you. When I started teaching mindfulness for companies and attracting say higher profile names, I started by sharing free workshops and I, I just told people word of mouth through you know, my friends list on my email, you know, I'm happy to give out a, a free keynote, a free day long workshop, even a free two day workshop to any team or company out there who could use some mindfulness training. And just through my friends list I lined up like four different free trainings that I gave out. And in exchange for those free trainings the professionals would give me feedback. They I asked them to take my photo, teaching them that I could use for sort of publicity. I asked for referrals, endorsements, testimonials and based on those free trainings then I started to gain momentum and confidence teaching others. So you don't necessarily need social media, but I also encourage people to sense into why they don't want to use social media and certainly there's plenty of valid reasons for not supporting certain companies that may not be that wholesome for our culture. But I also encourage people to sense into possible fears that they have of being seen, fear of judgment, sensing into whether they feel any self confidence around being a teacher or being seen as a teacher, to sense into the feelings that we have around self promotion and work with that with mindfulness and really get a feeling for why we're averse to social media and to work with that with a sense of care and curiosity to explore that in a visceral, somatic way and see, like, what are the layers of this? What's at the core of this? Perhaps this is stemming from something from childhood where our parents said we're not good enough, or from fear of a friend saying, who are you to teach mindfulness? Or, you know, who knows? There's. There may be a plethora of reasons why we're avoiding social media that we're not really tending to at their core level. So I do encourage that exploration and work with that. And then we may feel like we're ready to share these practices with others with this motive of helping people. And I think that's. That's something really important to focus on, is that it's, again, it's not about you. It's not about how many likes you get or how many followers you have, or whether you think you know what you're doing on the paid ads front or organic ads, but rather, how can I reach people who need help, who are struggling, who could really use some head space and self care? Like, how can I reach those people and help them? Because it's not about the money, it's not about the fame, it's not about you. It's about how can I reach people to help them.
Lou: That sounds like a mic drop and some really profound wisdom and guidance to. If you're one, you can do it without social media. You can. I love you saying that of offering free workshops, getting a company now you have some testimonial support, you can go to another company and say, hey, I just did this workshop with so and so. You know, I'd love to bring this to you. I charge. Maybe you just do a little bit. You charge a little bit, right? Just getting over that hump sometimes is an energy psychologically to be like, oh, wow, I'm actually being supported. And then kind of take it from there and to look at ourselves and question, yeah, what's really happening here? Is this about not liking Instagram or is it that, like you said, that one person. I remember there was this one teacher and I would feel so insecure sharing stuff on Instagram thinking that this other person was going to see it. And I just imagine that person. Person's view looking at it and it would. And it can really block us and it's. It's a thing. So that's an important reminder for us to check what's really coming up.
Sean: For me, I always had a certain teacher from Spirit Rock come to mind and I was afraid of him knowing I was starting to teach mindfulness. And I thought, if once this person finds out I want to teach mindfulness, I wonder if you know what they're gonna think. And I was afraid of their judgment and them saying, who are you to teach mindfulness? And I remember I had a dream one night where I imagined myself, or I was dreaming, that I was in a grocery store, and I was pushing my little shopping cart around, you know, putting things in my cart, and then I was rounding the corner of an aisle in the grocery store with my. My shopping cart, and my shopping cart hit his shopping cart. This. This teacher who I was afraid of knowing that I was a mindfulness teacher. And our cards collided, and he looks up at me and says, hi, Sean, I heard you're wanting to teach mindfulness. And I felt like, you know, paralyzed, like, oh, no, like my worst nightmare is happening. And then something happened, right? I looked up at him and I said, yeah, you know, there's so many people struggling right now. And I know enough that I can share some tools, some teachings to help some people. And if they need help and if I help them in some way, then who am I not to help them? Who am I to refrain from. From helping them? Who am I to avoid sharing these powerful practices with people who are asking for help? That feels like a disservice to people who are struggling. I want to step up and help them. I may not be able to help them with all of their goals or all of their struggles perfectly, but I know enough to help them a little bit. And when I said that in my dream, he could not help but agreeing with me. He saw the point. And at that moment, I felt more confident and more free, and I kind of felt like I was allowed to do this. Not only allowed, but encouraged to do this, because it's not about me. It's not even about mindfulness, in my opinion. It's about helping people. And as long as I can help people in some way, why not do it?
Lou: John, there's no more words. That's so beautiful. What a powerful dream and message and reminder, right? Of really what we're doing this for. And I think we always need those reminders because they can help us get out of our own way. And there's some real things to. To work with, but it's something I know so many people struggle with, with judgment from their. Their teacher, judgment from. From others. And so, yeah, that question of what was it? It's, you know, who am I not to. Or it's not about me. It's like, am I making it about me or is I'm making it about how I look, or am I really doing this? Because maybe that one person, when I started my journey, I was like, you know, if. If one person gets something valuable out of this, then it's worth putting myself out there and facing that fear. And, you know, before we get to many, we start with one. So, Sean, maybe we can have around two, because there's more practical, technical kind of business stuff that I think would be helpful because you've, you've done a. A solid. You've birthed something pretty powerful, it looks like, from the outside at least. So maybe we, we. We save that for round two. And for now, I think this is a great place to end this conversation. So I thank you so much for, for joining and just getting a chance to connect with you.
Sean: Likewise, Lou. It's a pleasure getting to know you and thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
Lou: Yeah. All right, everyone, take care. Hey, guys, it's Lou again. Sean has left, but wow, that was such an amazing conversation. I was so engrossed in that conversation that I forgot to do. What I love doing at the end of the conversation is let the people share where you can find more, where you can find what they have going on, what they're creating, if you're interested, to learn more from people like Sean. So I sent an email to Sean and I said, hey, I'm so sorry. I was so into our convo that I didn't give you space to share what's going on. And he responded to that and gave me some things to point you towards. I wanted to come back on here and share it with you. So two things that Sean said is to check out his podcast, mindfulness. Mindfulness Mindfulness exercises dot com. And I will be a guest on his podcast soon. So I'm looking forward to that. And then if you're looking for. For a affordable go at your own pace mindfulness meditation teacher certification, he has one at his website, mindfulness exercises.com and I'll make sure to link these in the show notes. So that's it. I was so happy and engrossed and present and just loving our conversation and I knew that we went over time, so I totally forgot to get give Sean some time. But I hope you can understand and maybe appreciate me coming back on and sharing with you. So thanks again for listening. And since I'm speaking here and I don't normally do this at the end of interviews. If you like this podcast, please take a moment and share a five star review. You don't even have to write anything. You can just scroll down and hit five stars. And if you think it's four stars, hit four stars. Do whatever stars you think. But you, you can leave a rating without actually writing anything. So it's super easy to do that. And if you want to write something that's amazing too, I would take that too. But if you like the show, if you appreciate it, if you're still listening to me rant even after the podcast is over, please take some time and leave a review. I'm so excited where this podcast is going. I have lots of amazing guests line up lined up. I can't speak right now. That's okay. Yes. Thank you for listening and I will see you all again soon.