Hi, I am Samantha Hartley of the Joyful Profitable Consulting podcast. It’s the end of the third season y’all and I am excited about all of the great feedback that this show has gotten. To thank you for listening and to celebrate the holiday I am doing a give away, a chance to win a free 30 mins session with me to plan your 2021 and make it the most profitable and joyful year ahead. It’s super easy to write a positive review on your podcast app and put your instagram or twitter handle in it, if you are watching this on youtube leave a comment below this video and put your instagram or twitter handle there. We will choose the winner on December 21rd and notify you via you instagram or twitter messages, good luck.

This is season three where I'm talking about consultants and consulting. And today I have an amazing consultant with us to talk about self leadership. CK Lin helps entrepreneurs and high achievers get off the self-esteem roller coaster ride and create a life with more happiness, fulfillment and impact. The way he does that is by introducing new technologies to open the connection between the heart and the mind. Amazing, welcome, CK.

So glad to be here, Samantha.

I'm very interested in this idea of new technology. So before we get into that, I love to open with, instead of saying, like, ”What do you do? Tell us what you do,” can you tell us a story of someone that you've worked with? And we kind of hear their journey exemplifying the work that you do.

One of the most poignant examples that I have in my mind is, this young man came to me when he was twenty one years old. He's super capable, super smart, super motivated and very successful in his own right as a nightclub promoter. At the time, he was very curious about, “Hey, I no longer, I don’t want to work inside an organization, I want to venture out in creating my own business. And at that time, the best idea he could come up with was to create an ecommerce store. And from the work that we did together, we actually help him unpack. Well, why do you want to start a business? And really help him unpack his superpower, his X Factor.

And it really helped him unpack... “Well, I want to start a business because I want to make the biggest impact in the world.” So then we started to inquire about the path that he was taking on right, he has being driving his vehicle, was actually quite limiting as an ecommerce store. He actually decided to go into a whole new industry and he discovered, well, one, where he wants to go and the best vehicle to help him get there. And then from that point on, we started working together for about five years or so, he was able to get into a whole new industry, raise about one hundred million dollars venture capital. Went from an idea to 200 plus employees and have a great life. Now, that's just on the business success, right? These are the success metrics that he did but even more importantly is a drastic shift in terms of how he looked at himself as a person who wanted to start something, the aspirational entrepreneur to the newbie entrepreneur, the founder CEO to now being total sovereign as who he is as a leader in his industry.

And he's only 30 or sub 30 years old, so that’s a transformation. It's a huge transformation, I mean, I can't imagine how important it is for someone in their 20s to have that kind of self actualizing experience where you're not just like starting a successful company, but you helped them to align that with who he is and what his highest potential is.

For me it’s super satisfying to actually watch, and like I said, the metrics are the metrics because people are interested in the metrics, but it's really the palpable experience of being around him, the self-confidence that he has, the ability to actually dance in the external chaos right within his organization as well as industry, as well as doing covid. How he's able to actually just truly be himself and just force that path forward, no matter what's going on internally within the organization as well as industry as a whole. Amazing, so it sounds like a lot of the work that you did with him was in the area of self leadership. So what specific kind of technologies and what techniques did you use with him to help him achieve those results that you tend to use with your clients?

Yeah, and this is again, we're going to get a little bit more esoteric. So just hang in there with us so the way I will articulate this, if you think about the mind, because ultimately one of the biggest insights that I got as someone who has traveled through the journey, as well as a guy to help other through the journey as well, is first and foremost understand how my mind works, because our suffering as well as our bliss really really resides within here. So we actually don't have really mastery, they say that the mind is a great servant by a terrible master, right? If we actually don't have mastery in understanding how the mind and emotion works, it actually would tend to drive us. Why did I mention all of that? Right so first and foremost is to uncover what is true for you versus construct that you may have inherited from circumstances from your parents, from other people who have inceptioned those ideas in you that you thought it yours, right? So first, first and foremost, what we uncover is this and then here's a tool I want to give people. How do you uncover your blind spots? You eliminate beliefs to the best of your ability. So I want you to draw a concentric circle. On the very outside actually, no, let's start from the inside and the very inside, that's who you are, super consciousness, your highest self, whatever you call it, right? And right above that is write down “Identity.” Who do you think of yourself to be? And then one layer above that, it would be personality, what I want you to think of me. And outside of that would be perception, what I think you think of me right? And the very outside is circumstances, a goal is happening, your judgment, assessment, evaluation about what's happening around the world? If you literally go through from the inside and outside in approach, you can start to think and say ok, so what do I think about the external circumstances that don't serve me anymore and write those down that I'm aware of right? What do I think? Let's say Samantha think of me that don't serve me anymore. “Oh she thinks I'm too tall, too short, too whatever you right? And then personality. “Oh, I really want her, I want to impress her.”So, therefore, I got to act a particular way or say particular things, right, in order for her to like me ok, write those down.

And what I think of me behind closed doors, “Oh I think I am too tall, too short, too big, too small, whatever, too Asian, not Asian enough, whatever.

And then, after you identify those things, then you have something that you can actually work on because now you concretized those beliefs, and then you can start to use different processes to integrate and resolve them. Does that give you the idea?

Oh it's amazing, so now connect the dots between that exercise to like how would I lead myself how do we as individuals lead ourselves? How do we as leaders or, sometimes I think, the funny thing for me is that somebody asked me about leadership like ten years ago and I was like, dude, I'm a one person company and really think about my leadership. And then I kind of had this moment where I was like, hold on, I'm leading a community, a tribe, I'm leading my clients, I'm leading and then I was like, oh, and I'm leading myself, most importantly and I kind of came to the idea of it organically. But I think for some people it's still a new idea, so how do we connect that awareness that you've just had us develop and lead ourselves from that place?

Right, so let's bring back the car analogy, right? So assuming you're going through, you driving through your life in your vehicle, information is coming your way through your own perception and then if you actually misinterpret information that's coming at you because you have some misconstrued idea about, let's say, what Samantha thinks of you or what you think of yourself, you're going to give yourself a different path. And very similarly, how this relates to organization building is actually get your windshield correct. So that way you can see reality for what it is rather than just misinterpretation of this story that you made up in yourself. So I walk my clients through that experience, then for him to say, oh, I really wanted to get to a unicorn status, a billion dollar business, because I was overcompensating for whatever limiting belief that I have as a way to compensate my feeling “not enough” versus for my super consciousness. Hey, I really wanted to make a difference in the world, the end goal may be the same but the come-from place is very different. One is in order to compensate for something, the other is to be of contribution to something and it’s so slight, so nuanced that only you will know the truth of it all. And developing that awareness for me is super important, especially as the founder, as an entrepreneur, where you're responsible in building organization, in building this umbrella to to help others within your organization. Does that give you an idea?

Totally and I completely agree with that. I think there's so much stuff especially that we have to do that's hard, that's new, that's unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and like being an entrepreneur and a founder is like 95 percent of being out of your comfort zone. And I think when you're really in touch with that compelling why and that motivation, and what I'm hearing you say is like a true motivation, that isn't influenced by all of the people that I want to please, including myself and the ideas of myself that I wanted to have but when I'm looking really at a true motivation, then that'll be the thing that'll propel me. And I'm really big on internal motivation rather than any external pressure and things like that, because I think that's it's more sustainable and it's a self fueling way to be. Yeah, perfect example, I love the way they used fuel again, bring back that car metaphor, bring back that car metaphor. If you're externally driven, if you're extrinsically motivated, “I'm doing this because I want to win an award, I'm doing this because I want to be on the cover of a magazine, I'm doing this because I want to win the approval of my parents, I'm doing this so that I can show others that I'm worthy enough to be here with them in spite of my internal chatter.”

That is a very cheap fuel, you’ll burn out very quickly versus, in my mind, coming from purpose, coming from inner truth. That's a clean fuel and it's self-sustaining, it’s always there because here's my, again bring back that car analogy. As an entrepreneur especially, this is a journey that you choose to take on and fortunately and unfortunately, it would be 95 percent left turn, right turn, you know, resistance breaking through it. Oh my God, it's awesome, oh my God, it's not good. Hence, why I said is actually not about keeping your self esteem along with the success of your organization, actually is keep your self esteem high no matter what the external path is going to take your left or right, I don’t know if what I'm saying is landing but that's what I wanted to communicate.

Totally and I think it's so much kinder to have that to be that way if you have a team and if you have clients that you're working with, because being a kind of a steady force there is much healthier for them. It's easier for them to work with them than people who are constantly, like, freaking out about circumstances and situations. So I know that you do work in the area of high achievement culture and building particular cultures. How does that fit into the work? How do you take this work that you do with individuals into organizations?

Yeah, so I want to quote Chinese philosopher Confucius. He said, (Chinese quote). He literally means self mastery, family, country, world, it's fractal right? And the reality is, having worked with a lot of different high performers, whether it be glorious entrepreneurs, beautiful people, very accomplished people around. What I notice, and this is something to be noted on, is the organization that you built would be a direct reflection of who you are.

So if you have blind spots here, if you have limiting beliefs here on the individual basis, you'll be reflected upon and magnified, amplified within your organization. And it's perfect, it's great, hence why it's so important to start with self and to then operationalize the clarity that you have, the vision that you have, and operationalize that into your organization. Does that answer your question? Oh, it's fabulous, I love that idea and you know I've done a couple of recent episodes on this topic. We talked about business as a spiritual path, and how everything really is just a mirror back to you, it's all feedback that's there for your support. The reasons are for your support is if you choose to accept it and I was, as you were talking about the expression that I use is the organization takes on the character of its leader. And so if you think about organizations, you're like really? Was Apple just all a reflection of Steve Jobs is like, yes. And so all of his advantages and disadvantages, strengths and vulnerabilities are reflected in that brand. I would say today, till this very day and you can see that with businesses of all sizes in between so I really love looking at it like that. The other reason is because, to me kind of life is but a dream and we're all just experiencing ourselves, everything is a mirror back to us and it's all really for our self development purposes and whether it's a billion dollar company you're building or a two million dollar company that you're building, you get to work on your development through the business and one of the things that we'll say is, “You can only go as high as you can go low.”

So you really got to look on at all of those blind spots as you're calling them, to be able to build anything. So I love that you're doing that can you say more about the kind of cultural challenges that you've seen and maybe how that reflected back on the leaders? Yeah for sure, so ok great, let me let me share one example, one story. So one of the founders came to me, so he had already tried to do it himself, DIY style. You know he read assignments in the next book, start with why, he tried to kind of cobble together his own implementation and interpretation of the book and but it didn't quite work, why is that? Well, because he couldn't see what he couldn't see and he was coming at it from a very cerebral basis. “Oh, it sounds good to be customer focused, it sounds awesome to be people focused, it sounds great to be innovation focused.” Let's put it all in there, So super heady and why it didn't work is it just didn't feel right, still feel like forced upon. And as a result of that, he says people at that time it was like 15 people or so are still very, very small and it didn't know quite what to follow because it didn't feel congruent. They didn't have words for it, but still you know they just couldn't follow it right? And so that high turnover rate, the employee satisfaction rate was very low and so on.

So when we started working together at that time and because I'm meeting him where he is, I have to compliment from a very heady space as well. But we were able to develop as we said, you know uncover like these type of awareness or constructs that he didn't know that he didn't know right? Circumstances, perception, personality and then self identity. Then he was able to get to more and more of the truth of who he is or I stand for health and I stand for people, I stand for blah, blah, blah right? culture first and so on. Then we can get to the tactical because most people, if you really think about it, most people start from haptics, if they're smart, then they get into deeper strategy, if they're smart, then they get into corporate identity or brand or whatever you call it right? And that truth of what it is, so the work that we do is we do our best to keep them as close to that truth, that core of who they are, the X Factor, the intangible things that allowed us to say in the Tao the gene, if you can speak it, is not the eternal Tao. So, but we do our best to get to that core truth of who they are, so at least through the discussion of it, with touch on that truth and operate from the outside and then inside approach. Does that give you an answer to the question that you asked me?

Yeah and how did this people respond? Because it sounds like what you came back with was something much more authentic than what he had been. It sounded like his response, what he had come up with was in the concentric circles, it was in the way I want to be perceived rather than an authentic truth and what you're saying. So when you got the authentic truth, how did his people accept it? Yeah and let me answer this question, so short answer, his people first responded with skepticism, but through his commitment and iterative process, we got to a place where he was able to raise a hundred million dollars, you know, 20 people so on, so on this is the same person that I'm referring to right? But one caveat I want to say is, this is not a silver bullet, this is not like, oh, I did this thing check, moving on to the next thing, this is a lifestyle, this is a practice right? It's a commitment, again bring that car analogy. Driving your car towards the north star towards the horizon, and unfortunately and fortunately, you will never reach the horizon. The horizon is always moving, so through each the process and the experiments that we do, we get closer and closer to who they really are as an organization. Which is great and I think it's true right? An organization is a living organism and it's kind of changing all the time. And so the high achieving piece of that high performance is that you making a car out of everybody in the organization and helping them all to improve? Or is it work specifically more with leaders? How can you make that happen most efficiently?

Yeah, yeah, yeah so I had a change of heart during my journey with that organization as an example. When I first started, so my background is engineering. Biomedical engineering, to be exact right? So when I first started, I think of very engineering terms. Let me just put up the framework and drywall and then, you know, here's the operating system and then you know the rest of the employees, you follow these steps right very engineering centric, top down approach. And then the more I do this work, the more I realize actually is not a engineering project. It's more of a gardening project, right? And it's very biologically driven and then I also realized after we started growing from 15 to 50 to 100 to 200, “Oh, it's actually not a gardening project.” because gardening project can still select, you know, what planet plants want to put in there and so on and so forth. It’s actually a ecosystem. I need to think more pluralistically and what kind of environment can I put in such that the ecosystem with thrive by itself? And in my mind that's a path from my garden to ecosystem. How do you actually make this ecosystem grow by itself so you don't need to be the constant gardener, you know, trying to manage everything yourself? Because if you want your organization to be scalable, it can be all depending on you to be the architect of the whole thing. Does it answer your question?

It does, what are some things that you can put in place so that a thing is self growing? Yeah, so going back to confucius quote, self mastery, family, country, world. So start from knowing who you are actually having a statement and operating system statement that clarifies what your vision, what your core values are and then that's on the individual executive level and then, have all of your executives come together with their own personal operating system and then come up with the company wide core value statement. And from that place then you come up with operation plans you know, for example, you say you stand for health ok, what does that mean in terms of employee benefits, in terms of vacation plans, in terms of dividend distribution, in terms of, you know, promotion, demotion, letting go all these policy type things and then also so that now we're getting more and more further away, right? And then what kind of stories do you want to highlight that embodies this core value that you so choose to say that you stand behind? Does that make sense?

Totally, I love that you brought the stories in because that's when I see the engineer and like, you're building according to these concentric circles and it's like very consistent and then I hear the part of you that is like, oh, I'm working with people. And then you bring the stories and so I think that's really nice like I hear the evolution in your work with your clients.

So working with the organization in this way actually is a reflection on my own understanding of how life works, because as we go from a very reductive approach to life, then I get to be even more holistic in this awareness. Because at the end of the day, what is culture? If you really think about it, culture is this intangible experience that you have when you walk into an organization. It's intangible, you can't be just like doubts is that, you can't capture it with words, but you feel it palpably right? So how do you cultivate this energy, this feeling, this morale, you know, internally as an employee as well as externally as you do client facing type things is an energetic transmission. So it gets more and more esoteric as you really dive deep into it, it does, it does, and that's an amazing description of that work. So who are your clients and how do they find you?

Yeah, so my clients are high achievers, entrepreneurs, founders, and how they find me, fortunately for me, lots of them through referrals and I also have a podcast called Noble Warrior, where I interview other like minded high vibration entrepreneurs like yourself. And then they get an experience of who I am and what my work is and really how I think, so that's how they find me. Awesome, I love that and I wanted to ask you about the title Noble Warrior, because I love it and I know it's really appealing to me. And so how did you choose it and to who do you find who is drawn to it? Sure short story or long story? Long story.

Long story ok great. So I was a burning man in 2018 and in my mind, burning man is symbolic. It's a microcosm of the planet and there was a piece of artwork that's about, I don't know, four story high, it was a Mongolian warrior with a full plated armor overlooking the entire playa. And I really felt called to it, I was sitting with it one of these days and it occurred to me that, hey, I've been searching for a place where they talk about entrepreneurship as well as spirituality, things unseen, the intangible things, the esoteric things. And I couldn't find anything, and in my mind, just click like hey, why don't I if I couldn't find it as an entrepreneur, why don't I start it? So noble means for me the highest version of ourselves, that truth, that inner core, the super consciousness right. That actually wanted to be of contribution, to be of support to others around the world. And warrior what it means for me is the willingness and the courage to lean into the discomfort, to break through that construct of identity, of personality, of perception, of circumstances so that we can actually bring our full sovereign being, right, my body and spirit, to be of contribution to the world. That's what I chose to wear, Noble and warrior.

I love it and I think it's really amazing. You know, I've talked in the past about how when I called my company Enlightened Marketing. What I notice is that a lot of the feedback I would get, people would say, oh, that was very enlightening. And they would use that word a lot because I had seeded that in their mind. They had an expectation that things would be enlightened or they would be enlightening.

I was going to say and that's my experience of you, because every time we engage, I mean, first of all, I was a fan from far away. We didn't really know each other but every time you open your mouth on video, I'm like, she gets it. Like I so vibe with her and the time when we started to engage with each other, and then I'm like, yeah, she's my people. I really appreciate how she looks at the world and yeah, so every time I do get a little bit more enlightened when we engage with each other. I'm so glad and that which is the payoff of that brand and I feel the same way when I, I think of you like those words are like right there in my mind.

And I want to point this out like this is just a marketing lesson, because I can't stop being a marketing teacher for five minutes. If you're going to choose a brand name or if you choose to name things, choose things that you really want that are you and they're your people. Because a lot of times people will just choose to say the thing that is themselves like marketing expert or something expert, well, that's you. But do your people want to be that? And if you have a thing like Noble Warrior, then when I hear that I feel like, oh yeah, yeah, that's me. And I'm glad you defined Noble because I felt like I want to hear what you mean when you say noble, but I know, I know what I mean when I say noble and I know what I mean when I say warrior. And so we can get aligned around those things. And that's the power of a brand name is that it should do and can do some of the work for you in drawing your people to you and I would say, most of all, it's just energetics like, as you said, like we had conversations through Messenger for years, I think, before we ever had an actual conversation, and the vibe still comes through. And so I think that's really important and how people be, how we are being when we're doing really everything, you know. Everybody is going to be, if they're your people, you're going to feel that pretty much instantly.

Can I actually say something about that, too? That reminds me of something. Please do. So the founder of Transformative Technology Conference, Nicole Baffour, she said we make what we are. So essentially the same thing that I said earlier, everything that we do or say or behave or act is actually very transparent to anyone who is watching. And the energetic transmission when I receive from you because I'm aware and because that's what I look for, I'm like, oh, she's my people right away. Even though it was through a very limiting medium, like instant messenger, I still felt you so I want to say hence, why bring him back to self mastery, self leadership? It’s so important because in my mind, that's where everything starts, self, family, country, world. It's so simple, Confucius said, but is so profound and important.

It's very profound. And I think it's also the thing that we have the most control over, so why wouldn't I work on the thing that when I meet people who are overwhelmed with the situation in the world, are overwhelmed with anything?

What I always feel like is the opportunity is for them to take that, that I want to do something about this feeling or like I'm so beaten down by this and instead say, what can I do with myself today? I've mentioned this to a few people because I work peripherally, but in animal rescue and a lot of times that's a space where people can get very bogged down and emotionally burned out. And when people say, how do you do that? One of the things that I'll say is that when I see all of those animals that are out there to be rescued, the thing that I will say is, but I can take care of these two better, so I take care of my animals. When I feel this call, it's not that I'm not doing something but when I feel like I have to do more, I can't possibly do enough. I'm like, I can take care of these animals and I need to do that and what have I done with them today? And to me, that's bringing the things back to what is self and what is in my control and I think my mantra is I heal all animals by healing my animals, I care for all animals by caring for my animals, because that's what we can do.

Exactly, I really love that it's anything beyond our capability if we dwell there there's a sense of hopelessness like, oh my God, there's so many people that need my help, many animals that need my help, but I can't do it. And again, bringing back to the fuel analogy, right in my mind, that guilt is actually, it could be motivating, but as cheap fuel. But if when you recognize, like, hey, I'm doing the best I can within my capability, all of a sudden there's lightness, there's like, oh, I don't need to, you know, carry the burden of the world on my shoulder like Atlas does. And you get weighed down, my mind is just not decisive to driving this vehicle that I have to the best of my ability.

Totally and having that being sustainable. No, I completely agree with you, there's a lot that we can get short term motivation, your cheap fuel idea. We can get that from a lot of different things but long term, that's not going to sustain you. CK, I love your podcast and so I highly recommend everybody look it up and listen to Noble Warrior podcast. I skip around events, I don't do them in order, but I skip around and I always find really good things to listen to. And we did a recent road trip and so we have to sit in the car the whole time and can't get out anywhere. We listen to Noble Warrior podcast back to back, so that was super fun. Oh, thank you. It was really great. Well you know, we paused because we had a conversation about what we'd heard and things like that. So what's a good next step for people to take to learn more about you?

Yeah. So if you enjoy my energetic transmission, if you like the way I think about things, I like to, yes go after the esoterics at the same time, keep them grounded, keep in here and in this realm. If this is an approach that you like, go to noblewarrior.com/group and that's where we actually meet other noble warriors and engage in practical advice to really help people reach their highest self, lean into the discomfort and create the life that they love and their business and they help them thrive.

Ok well, we will definitely put that in the show notes. So it's noblewarrior.com/group and then that will take us to your group awesome, super duper.

Well, thank you so much, it's been amazing to talk with you and I just know that everyone will be more profitable and joyful when they engage with your ideas. So I hope they will make the effort to track you down.

Samantha, I just love you. I mean, any time, any opportunity, I got to engage with you. So I'm so glad we get to do this in a public way. But for me, to you as a fan, I just really appreciate every time I read your email and watch your video. I wanted to say to your audience that you are so fortunate to have a teacher like Samantha, who actually not only show you how to be successful as a business owner at the same time, she's also sharing techniques and principles, actually enjoying this whole rollercoaster ride we call the human experience.

Thank you so much, it's so great to hear. I really appreciate you, CK and I can say all the same things back to you. So I do appreciate you so much.