Clint 0:01
Hey everybody, welcome to Spiritual Cake, the podcast, where we talk about anything and everything that has to do with the spirit side of the human experience. My name is Clint Hufft. And with me is Wendy Dahl. Wendy.
Wendy 0:13
Hello.
Spiritual Cake Podcast: The dark side of social media comments. Spiritual orientation for leaders! on Apple Podcasts
Show Spiritual Cake Podcast, Ep The dark side of social media comments. Spiritual orientation for leaders! – Jul 4, 2020
Clint 0:18
Hello to you Wendy. Every time you say hello, I just tickles me.
Wendy 0:21
I’m happy to be here.
Clint 0:22
Well, that’s good. That’s very good. I don’t even know what episode this is. But what number this is, but I just it’s a it’s a highlight of my week. It’s really good for me. Yeah. And and let me explain why for those of you that are listening to us for the very first time. Number one, we want you to be what they call an active listener. That means that if you get moved to join the conversation, whether you have, obviously it’s going to be after the fact, but while you’re listening to the recording, you can go to our Facebook page, which is Spiritual Cake. That’s it right? SpiritualCake.com.
Wendy 0:57
I think so.
Clint 0:59
Let’s pretend It is. okay so Spiritual Cake. Or you can reach out to us on email, which is [email protected]. We will continue to develop all the different ways that you can engage with us and we would love to hear your comments or questions or if there’s something you’d like us to discuss.
Now to be clear, Wendy and I are not ordained in any formal religious organization or spiritual entity. We both were raised in a relatively conservative Christian environment, which gave us a real wonderful education in regards to the Bible, the Old and the New Testament, and then in the meantime, we’ve both have branched out in the event industry. We’ve dealt with a lot of interfaith/multicultural, and we’ve been exposed to a lot of different theologies and philosophies. I personally have self educated myself for 40 years and oh my gosh, longer than that 46 years in regards to just different ways of looking at the spirit part of our universe, I guess. So we talk about different things from that perspective. And that’s why we invite everybody else to join in the conversation. And are we got the domain name, right? We have spiritualcake.com.
Wendy 2:20
Yes. And there are blog posts that can have comments. Welcome you there, too.
Clint 2:26
Oh, that’s fantastic. And the blog is pretty much essentially pieces of the transcript of our conversation. So. Okay. Today, you before we hit the record button, Wendy, you said something that I thought was really cool, because it definitely is the world that we live in. So Facebook, for example, you can have different groups in Facebook. And, and then when you go to that group, the group I guess whoever sets up the group, correct me if I’m wrong, but whoever sets up the group kind of decides what the rules are, right? So I’ve seen different groups where Okay, don’t advertise don’t curse, stuff like that. But you made a great analogy. Say that again.
Wendy 3:06
So I was talking about right now we’re seeing a lot of troublesome communication. Let’s just say in the world where there’s a lot of anger and people are taking their anger online. And they’re posting their views on whatever it is that they’re experiencing inside of, let’s say, a business group.
And I’ve seen this in multiple business groups where you know, these are people that are well established, in some cases even famous. And there is this tirade going on in their feed or, I should say, a heated discussion, where it may start out as a post that’s just bringing awareness but then in the comments, it quickly digresses into hate speech and all the awful things. And so and ironically, it then it becomes the responsibility of the group owner to decide, do I keep this on the discussion board? Or do I remove it?
Now it becomes a very interesting, I guess scenario at that point, because then people start to move into: Am I being censored or not? And so from my perspective, I do own a couple groups or run them, I don’t own anything on Facebook, but I run a couple groups, and I do have those sorts of suggestions on behavior within that group.
And as I mentioned you before we started, I feel like it’s up to everybody that participates in a group to look at it almost like you’re going to somebody’s house, and you’re going into their home. And let’s say you’re invited to come in to visit and you’re discussing things and it’s like an open forum. And that’s an amazing thing where people grow and they learn, but then if you invite someone into your home, and all they’re going to do is come in and verbally vomit all over everything. And makes you really question, are you going to be invited back? Or are you going to be escorted out? Or how would that play out in a real world scenario? If you actually were in a room with these people, and you started behaving in that way? Well, what happened to you?
It’s not really it’s not looked at as censorship, let’s say in a live environment where you’re actively having a discussion with others, and you’re invited to leave because you’re not relevant to the topic at hand. And someone asks you to leave then what?
And so I feel like right now, from a spiritual side on things, we’re not looking at each other, like how can I lift you? How can I help you? How can I get you to see this perspective in a positive way right now I feel like we’re in that constant anger. I’m mad. I’m going to take out my Feelings wherever I go instead of it being, it’s on my page because it’s my discussion instead of taking it into a group where it isn’t my page, and it may not be the appropriate place to put it.
Clint 6:12
Okay, a couple of things came to mind. Number one, humanity is this mishmash of different types of people. And I have a theory about that. I don’t even know how long we’ve been on the face of the earth. My next door neighbor who’s an Orthodox Jew, I don’t know how it came up in the conversation. It was like one of the very first conversations I had with him. He invited me over to his house for dinner. And the the history of the world came up. And he stated an exact year count of 5000 something something. I said that that’s how long the world has been in existence?
And my attitude is I am never going to argue with somebody. That kind of thing. Right? Because all I know is what I’ve been told, right? I’m very aware of that. One of these days, I’ll tell you the story of me sitting next next to a guy that was reading the very first Ann Coulter book. And, and that was a fun experience as well.
But I have the same attitude all the time, which is, tell me more. This could be that I don’t really see the whole picture. So understanding that we have to have diversity of human beings or we wouldn’t be able to survive as a tribe.
Wendy 7:35
We would be bored.
Clint 7:41
Well, there is that.
Wendy
It’s refreshing to hear other people’s perspectives.
Clint
That’s true, but what I’m looking at is okay, I will tie it back to the spiritual side of humanity. But first we have to look at kind of the practical side of humanity. If we didn’t have a diverse set of skills, both physical and mental, then we wouldn’t be able to survive as a tribe out in the Serengeti, you know? Somebody has to hunter gatherer. Somebody has to fix things. Somebody has to be a medicine man, somebody has to obviously take care of the children, all these things. So we’re wired differently based on our our kind of primal skill set, right? First of all, does that make sense?
Wendy
Yes.
Clint
Okay, great. So I think that also is true for the way we look at the world, the way we process data, and our how our emotions are attached to our intellect. The other thing that I would like to clarify is the concept of free speech in America. The way I understand it, is that there is free speech. But there are limits, there are borders, there are boundaries to it. You can criticize the government, but the minute that you start threatening the government, you’ve crossed a line and that’s prosecutable. Does that make sense?
Wendy 8:56
Absolutely.
Clint 8:57
Okay. And the other thing is if you go to the airport, you can’t go goof around. You can’t make jokes about bombs, You just can’t. Okay, so now that makes sense, right? Because we have to take every one of the things is a serious threat.
Now, we talked about coming into your house, and I agree that you set the rules for your house. And it’s okay to ask somebody, and if not compliant, demand somebody leave your house, if what they’re doing and or saying is disruptive to the energy that you want in your house. Did I state that correctly?
Wendy 9:36
Absolutely. Perfect.
Clint 9:37
Well, thank you. Because perfection is so hard to attain.
Wendy 9:42
So, yes, but you did it.
Clint 9:48
So I think that in the context of a Facebook group, people can come and go as they please. If somebody doesn’t want to, correct me if I’m wrong, because I don’t run a Facebook group. But if I understand it correctly, that you asked to join, I’m guessing that if the person who runs it wants to they can say, Okay, here are the rules. And there’s a lot of people that just they want followers, so they’ll just take anybody. But then I think that after the fact, perhaps some people will say, okay, now that you’re in, and you just did that thing that we don’t like, so don’t do it anymore, or I’m going to kick you out. I have no problem with that. Because if somebody says, okay, you’re censoring me, the answer is only within this context, only in this environment. You’re free to say whatever you want outside of this environment, but not here.
And let me let me now go to the spiritual side. If the goal of a particular group of people or congregation if you will, no matter how big or how small, if the goal is to enlighten, comfort, grow, whatever it is, whatever is the purpose of a group of people that gather in hopes of having a spiritual experience, a communal spiritual experience? Well, you know what? It could be communal, it could be individualistic doesn’t make a difference anyway, if that’s their goal, there are certain things that are contrary to that goal. And so I think within that context, whoever’s in charge and the community would probably agree, just say, You please exit the building, whether virtual or real. Does that make sense?
But you know, what’s kind of dicey about that? Is if somebody is the leader of a group, they don’t really control the group. Chew on that for second.
Wendy 11:50
I am. And I’m thinking to myself, I think as a leader of a group, there are codes of conduct, there are rules. Everywhere you go, you think in business, there’s a set of rules that you follow at church. There’s a set of rules that you follow in your home. There’s a set of rules that you follow. And some of them are expressed and some are not. And I feel like while the person that’s the leader, they have to be the enforcer of those rules, essentially, as a leader, right? And I feel like right now the leaders are being pushed up against the wall where it doesn’t matter what they say, they’re wrong. And it’s a great challenge right now to be able to establish peace for people that don’t have peace in their hearts. And their brain.
Clint 12:49
Oh, wait… Yes. Oh, that’s a T shirt right there. Yeah, right. Yeah, say it again.
Wendy 12:57
I forgot what it was before the question.
Clint 13:06
Something about peace for people that don’t have peace in their hearts.
Wendy 13:09
You cannot establish peace for people who do not have peace in their hearts, something along those lines.
Clint 13:19
To me, emotional unrest is part of the human experience. And we don’t have all the answers in times that that frustration and confusion expresses itself in anger and unrest. And maybe I was, which is part of the human experience.
Wendy 13:33
Exactly. Like at a certain level, there’s an appropriateness for that. If you’re going to be mad, that’s fine. I get mad too. And I’ll tell people when I’m mad, and I’ll voice my opinion, but you also have to know when it’s appropriate.
Clint 13:51
Appropriate, is an interesting word, because it’s very subjective. I would like to suggest that perhaps appropriate could be replaced by productive.
Wendy 14:03
It is it a good replacement.
Clint 14:05
Yeah, it’s an interesting thing. And again, productive is also subjective unless you have something specific that you can measure it with or against. But I like the idea. And you know what? We’re having a rational discussion. And there are some people who get to a point where they can’t have a rational discussion. And I have recognized that at certain points in my life, where I go into a defensive mode, I feel attacked, and maybe it’s the amygdala, whatever it is where it’s hard to think rationally because I’m in a panic mode, like a fight or flight situation. And, then to have a rational discussion with somebody who’s in that state of mind is non productive. Did I explain to you, the Sunday school teacher and what i learned from him?
Wendy 15:00
You didn’t. So tell me that story. But you did say in our last podcast where you were like, if people are mad, sometimes the best thing to do is just to hear them out.
Clint 15:08
Yeah. Okay. So I did tell you the story of the Sunday school teacher. He said, Listen, if somebody is really angry, there’s no point in trying to talk to them. You got to let them get it out. You know, and so I consequently do that with my immediate family. I don’t really do it with strangers, unless I can see it’s warranted. But with my immediate family it’s kind of neat. There’s a safe haven, in certain areas where human beings can be complete human beings, which also includes anger, and what some would call the ugly side of a human being. Where you lash out metaphorically. Do I wish they were dead etc, etc, etc. And all the different angry, aggressive, violent acts that you imagine.
I was in the bar business. I was a disc jockey in nightclubs for 15 years. And I don’t drink. I have never done a drink and drugs, alcohol, anything like that. And it was fascinating to have what essentially was the best seat in the house to watch people in that environment. The phrase of well, it’s the alcohol talking, right? And so it’s interesting in regards to the human kind of entity, and how multifaceted it is, especially when emotions get involved, that it takes a while for, for what’s underneath the defensive emotion to present itself in a rational manner. Does that make sense?
So I think that where the spirit comes in, is an elevation of what we’re experiencing, there’s an elevation to a point where certain things that seem really important at one part of the intellectual consideration when you involve to a spiritual level level, a lot of things that were important are no longer important. Does that make sense?
Wendy 17:44
I agree with that. Because I’m listening to what what you’re experiencing when you establish that safe place, and I think of all the places in my life where I try to do that as I’m being in the role of the wedding planner and it’s a high stakes day high emotional day for a lot of people. There’s a lot of my gosh, yah, that happened. And and I think of all the times where I’ve given people the space to vent in the safe, the safe place to be able to say what they want to say, without other people hearing it to have an impact or to have repercussions.
Clint 18:22
Yes, yes, yes, yes, exactly.
Wendy 18:25
And that’s, I think, one of the gifts that I that I bring to the world and that’s perhaps why I have the opinion for people where I’m thinking, Okay, so if this is such a critical role for me, in neutralizing situations, why aren’t other people doing this? Why aren’t other people creating that safe space for other people to just let it out and then move on?
Clint 18:54
Well, I think there are other people. It’s just that there’s so many people, that sometimes the peacekeepers are lost. They’re kind of swallowed up. And they can only work one person at a time. Right?
Wendy 19:07
It’s harder on an online forum. Because they don’t hear your tone. They don’t unless you’re recording a video, they don’t hear any of it. All they hear is opposition.
Clint 19:18
That’s where in an online forum, I think what we’ve done is moved this conversation into the idea of what is one of the benefits of thinking of the spirit and the spiritual side of humanity. And that is, it gives us a higher perspective. Yeah, and but we also acknowledge that it takes a certain effort. And if you’re experienced, if you’ve practiced it, the level of effort gets shorter and shorter every time because it’s almost like when you exercise, picking up a certain weight as you continue to exercise recover and heal and exercise the more than that weight becomes less burdensome, it becomes easier. And so I think that the mental process that brings us to a spiritual state becomes shorter from a time perspective, shorter and with less effort, the more we exercise it.
And so that includes how do we get people from an irrational angry state? This is where I think you and I would probably agree, not with our choice of leaders specifically because you and I’ve never talked about it. But I think that if a person has a platform to reach a lot of people simultaneously, and they carry the responsibility. What do they call that? With great power comes great responsibility, the Spider Man quote. I think that’s a real thing. And I think it would be wise for training to be incorporated.
You know, it would be great. I heard a podcast where a guy said that if you look up in, I don’t know, Amazon or whatever, there’s over 3000 books on how to be a leader of people. But if you did, how to lead yourself, he could only find three books. Okay, over 3000 if you lead people, but only three, to learn how to lead yourself.
Wendy 0:31
And isn’t that more powerful to be able to lead yourself?
Clint 0:35
Well, yeah, but not everybody can see the connecting beads, you know what I mean? Right? I mean, there’s all of that. I have to admit to you that there are so many times almost on a daily basis, where I think I could teach that. But then I’ve been trying to discipline myself to reel it back in and say teach yourself first.
You know, he reminded me of It reminded me of professional sports. So Major League Baseball and the NBA, basketball and what else? Baseball football. Yeah, yeah, the NFL. I don’t know, if the other professional sports do this. I think that they would because it’s such a big business, especially those three major sports, baseball, basketball, football. I mean, billions and billions and billions of dollars anyway, they have for the rookies, they have a week long orientation. And it’s where they teach them how to be a professional in that league. They talk about money, they talk about press, they talk about things that could go wrong, and they have veterans that will come in on both sides of that spectrum. You know, here’s what I did that makes me rich today. Here’s what I did that ruined my life. And everybody goes through that and, and I think that it’d be great if there was some sort of a kind of a some kind of a camp that people could go to in terms of leading themselves. But now that I’m saying that out loud. I mean, politicians need something like that. Teachers need something like that. Coaches need something like that.
Wendy 2:16
Parents. There’s no parent training when you have a baby. You know, there’s no manual.
Clint 2:22
Well, there are those books. I mean, you and I have both been through the infant situation.
Wendy
Yes.
Clint
It’s very different for a mom, I will tell you this as a mom, but for a dad. My Bible for that is happiest baby on the block. By Dr. Karp for dad. Oh my gosh, it gives us a way to bond. But the point that I’m saying is that there’s a lot of content out there where people are getting advice. I mean, certainly for newly expectant parents, there’s tons of books and advice that you and I both know that you do. You prepare the best you can but Then it’s just on the job training and you make it up.
Wendy 3:03
yes. In fact, absolutely.
Clint 3:05
I have a story to tell you. So my oldest, when we brought her home from the hospital, the room was full of people. And none of them were directly connected to me. They were all directly connected to my wife. And I just had this huge thing, right? I’m 46 years old, and I now have my first child, my daughter, this beautiful baby girl. And I know that I’m on a different path. And I just had to talk to somebody. So I went upstairs and I called my mom. And I said, we’re home. And she said, How are you? And I said, I don’t know. She said, I’m going to give you the best advice I ever got. And, here it goes. So when she brought my older sister home, so same scenario, infant, the advice was, you’re going to get all kinds of advice. People are going to tell you what to do. How to Do it and they all have good intentions. And you nod your head and you say, thank you, that’s excellent advice. Then do what you want. And I said, that’s what I needed to hear. Because I have instincts, you know what I mean? And if I pay attention, and I know you know, and it took all the pressure off of Am I doing the right thing? Does that make sense?
Wendy 4:22
Absolutely. It’s ironically, I had the same conversation with my mom after I brought my first son home. And it’s like, You’re, home as a mom, and you’re like, Okay, now what? I don’t know how to do any of this. And so I call my mom over. She wasn’t the one that gave me the advice, the same advice that you had. But I think for me, my firstborn was colicky. He was a very difficult baby.
Clint 4:50
Okay, wait. Listener, you need to understand how funny that is. Because before we hit the record button, Wendy was talking about that same child, who is now 22 years old. And not a lot has changed.
Wendy 5:05
But I will tell you that there are some very good qualities in him as well. They dwell within the same person.
Clint 5:10
Oh, you don’t have to do that.
Wendy 5:11
Yes.
Clint 5:13
Okay, listen, here’s what you do. Happiest Baby on the Block. First thing you do is you swaddle him. Right? Yeah, there you go.
Wendy 5:23
Yeah, but but it was the one thing where I was reading about what other people were doing with their children. But my son was colicky, so he didn’t qualify on any spectrum of what you do to keep your sanity and make your baby happy. And at the time the internet was brand new, I’m dating myself now, the internet didn’t exist with all of the wonderful forums and advice blogs and mommy blogs and all those things. And so I was pretty much on my own. And so I kind of came to that same conclusion of like, Look, if I am going to be a good mom, going back to the whole training the leader to be a better leader for them. What did I need? What were the tools I needed to be that good mom and number one was sleep. I actually slept with him on my chest with like pillows all the way around me. So I wouldn’t roll over. But there was no way he would sleep unless he was on his stomach on top of me. And so we learned how to sleep like that until he got through the colic stage, and then he was fine.
But, in the beginning, it was one of those great challenges of how do I get through this as a mom. Like a leader would go through what they’re going through, like, Okay, I’m facing this new scenario, how do I approach it that way?
And we can look at our spiritual leaders in that same frame of reference. I’m sure a lot of them do go through training. In my particular religion, there is some training for the leaders. They’re actually called in my religion. I’m a Mormon. They actually call people. So that means that you’re asked to become the bishop. And so it’s not like they’ve gone to school to become a bishop. There’s nothing in their background that ever said that they were going to be a bishop one day, it was that they were asked to be Bishop, and it’s a temporary thing. So they are a Bishop for four to five to six years. And so there is some training that happens there.
But we see the unique difference. And we talk about it a lot in our family about the differences of the leadership abilities of a bishop and how that impacts the congregation. And, if we have the kind of thing where it was a scenario driven training that helps people be more compassionate.
I also I do a lot of leadership talks where I’m talking about how to show up as a better leader, how to be a better business owner. And one of those things is that you’re simply compassionate towards others, that you have empathy towards them. Instead of from your head all the time that you get into the heart a little bit, and that you’re connecting with them on the human level, instead of it being like by the book, or, based on something that you read. When I was back in corporate, in the six years I worked there, I had five different presidents. It was like you were on a pogo stick, and you didn’t know where you’re gonna land next, based on the different leader. In most of those cases, they weren’t there long enough to establish that head/heart thing. They were only pretty much in crisis mode, which was a really hard thing to be to be part of. But I love that and I would love to be able to, as a person who encourages good leadership, to be able to be like, let’s connect you back with your heart because a lot of leadership training is all head stuff.
Clint 8:57
Well consider this. If we’re talking about kind of the the purpose of Spiritual Cake is to have conversations about the things of the Spirit. But I don’t know if we’ve ever really clearly defined what that is because I don’t know if it can be defined. But it is a concept of something that’s beyond the physical and the intellectual. There’s something above that. And if you use the word, this is where words become insufficient, because words are just symbols. They’re just symbols of a thing or a feeling or whatever. We do the best we can. And so if you can introduce the concept of tapping into a spiritual level of leadership, without getting into what some people would think is the woowoo, right? Spirit or spiritual is a trigger word for some people. Immediately they’ll react. It’s almost like back in the day that somebody would get up in front of a group of people, and they would say “sex”, everybody would get quiet. And then the follow up joke, and this became obligatory, now that I have your attention.
But what I’ve noticed is that if you get up a bunch of people and you say, let’s talk about God, oh my gosh, the silence is deafening. Everybody’s in panic mode. Where’s this going? Now that I have your attention. What I’m saying is that if there’s a way to communicate the space that is above the intellectual and the physical, and be able to communicate to a leader to be in that space, as they deal with what’s in front of them. I think that the impact, not the impact, but the results and process would be so much more efficient. If we were able to get them to that place, without anything getting in the way, like Words. Does that make sense?
Wendy 11:02
It does. And I feel like that is the kind of leader that people follow. And it’s almost in a way where it’s so easy for people to follow somebody like that because they feel connected. And there’s that sense of trust. It’s almost like a human drive to want to connect to somebody like that. Instead of the other kind of leader that’s Do as I say.
Clint 11:27
Yeah, my way the highway type. Yeah, this is fascinating. I think I want to explore this in future episodes.
Wendy 11:35
I agree.
Clint 11:36
Yeah, I just heard an interview with a guy who’s in his 80s now and he wrote a book about learn how to play tennis or the inner game of tennis, and became this huge multi million bestseller. And then he got hired to coach things that he knew nothing about. I mean, he went to a Philharmonic and, the only person that was willing to have him coach him right there in front of the rest of the musicians was the tuba player. And it was amazing. He didn’t know anything about music or tubas or any of that kind of stuff. But he talked to the guy about how he felt and what he was concentrating on. And then the tuba player played. And the rest of the orchestra stood up and applauded, because they could hear the difference. Right?
Wendy
Right.
Clint
And then he went into a corporation. And there are certain types of corporations that are in a box. In other words, they’re closed in. And so whoever’s at the top, they have the power to say my way or the highway. And he was complaining to the coach, the CEO has complained to the coach about the culture of the corporation. And the coach said, your fault. Mm hmm. And that was hard to hear, right? It’s your fault. You got to change what you’re doing. And I just think that simple thing, there’s got to be a way and I think that maybe it would be the Same process, packaged in different words and procedures, but it all has the same basic goal of getting leaders to rise above and be able to see, you know that. Okay, I want to end on this. People talk about when they come back from the dead, where, okay, my heart stopped and I was floating above the room and all that kind of stuff and then all my cares went away and I was just really at peace and filled with love and da da da. There’s got to be a way to to create that sort of situation.
Wendy 13:37
Yeah, it’s almost like giving them that 30,000 foot perspective on what they’re doing, where they can see themselves and their role inside of it and the ripple that they create, yeah, and how they could change that for the for the betterment of both their organization or their congregation or their family, whatever it is that you’re leading or Even yourself. It kind of comes down to self mastery, where it’s how would your life be different if you showed up for yourself mentally?
Clint 14:12
Well, my football coach in high school used to say, the saying is, practice makes perfect. He said, No, if you’re practicing the wrong thing, you’re gonna do the wrong thing. It’s perfect practice makes perfect. So, that’s a little something that we can explore a little bit more, because you know what? The guidelines for what we’re talking about already exist in all of the Scriptures. That’s why they’re scriptures. And so then it’s a matter of how do we present it in a way that doesn’t immediately put up blockades?
Wendy 14:44
That’s interesting. I agree.
Clint 14:48
Oh, this is so good. All right, everybody. That’s the way this works. And we encourage you to reach out to us we our Facebook pages up our email is up it’s spiritual cake podcast at gmail. Spiritual cake on Facebook. Spiritualcake.com. Reach out to us and we would love to have you involved in the conversation not necessarily on the podcast directly but we definitely will bring up what you think is important. Because we’re gonna do this for a while. Alright that’s it for this episode of the spiritual cake podcast. This is Clint and on behalf of Wendy, we will see you next time!
