Transcript | PULSE Episode 10
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R. Adam Smith:
I'm here today with Dr. Stephen J. Kosmyna, the founder of The Genesis Frequency. It's a fascinating podcast that's been around for several years. Stephen, AKA Dr. Kos, is a gentleman, he is a visionary, he has a fantastic mind and heart and voice, and he is an inspiration to many, many thousands of people that are seeking to improve their lives, their mindfulness, their ability to contribute to enhancing their own lives and those around them, but as well as their companies. And Dr. Kos, in that role, he coaches many people in small businesses and helps them with their corporate journeys. He's here today with us on the Wisdom Board PULSE Podcast series, and it's a pleasure to have you here today.
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
Well, thank you so much for having me. It's really an honor, and I've been listening to your podcasts as well, Adam, and very insightful. And it's all about sharing. It's sharing that wisdom that drops in over the ages and getting it out there. And we're all in this together, and it's helping each other. So I want to thank you for the work you do. And thanks again for having me.
R. Adam Smith:
It's my pleasure. It's been a long year for all of us, and now that it's spring and we're moving into yet another year, 2021, it's timely to talk about some of the matters that you're an expert in and share those insights and that wisdom with people, men, and women that are on the frontline of leading companies. And the stress, and obligations, and duties, and work that goes into those roles is substantial. Some people are working 70, 80, 90 hours a week to make things work. Can be a small widget company in Ohio for 10 million. It can be a billion-dollar SPAC that's growing 100% a year. So I think there's a lot for people to think about and reflect. And what I'd like to share today with them is some of your thoughts on that path towards being mindful and aware of who you are as a person in the context of leadership.
R. Adam Smith:
I also think The Genesis Frequency is a great podcast because you flow through a range of really useful topics, and they also have a nice flow to them as well, covering individual topics that are quite poignant as well as different series.
R. Adam Smith:
Dr. Kos's podcast has an ocean on it because his company is called Success Ocean International. So if any of you would like to reach out to him afterwards, you can find him there. So Dr. Kos, what is on your mind in terms of leaders today, out there on the frontline and in our country and the context that we live in today?
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
Well, you touched on a couple things here to get us going today, and what comes up for me is, the word balance. It has been a stressful year whether you're an upstart, whether you're brand new, whether you're in the beginning stages, whether you're seeking that first round from family or friends, and you've been nurturing and letting your idea just get going. And it's fermenting, it's gestating and all that. Or maybe you're way along the way. And either way, it has been stressful. And we as visionaries, as entrepreneurs, as leaders, whatever you are involved in, we do tend to lose track of that self-care. And that's what came up for me when you were sharing because we have to have that balance.
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
So many leaders, so many business owners get so involved with their dream, and they should. They absolutely should. You talk about passion and I talk about passion. That's so important. But it's not about sleeping next to your desk. And we hear that if you ever tuned into Shark Tank, they're working for a deal and they're trying to impress the panel. And it says, "All I do is I sleep next to my desk for an hour. And then I get up and I start working again." We don't have to do that. In fact, that can take us in the opposite direction of where we want to go. We have to find that balance. We have to include that self-care. Why is that? Because, well, from my point of view, I'm all about taking matters into our own mind, and to further that, taking medicine to our own mind and heart, to take it into a deeper level.
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
And if we're not managing this stress, if we're not having the balance between some rest time and the doing and the going and the going and the going the going, we're not going to be as creative as we want to be. We're not going to be as fresh as we want to be. That stress is going to exude from us. That stress is going to radiate and have an impact and an influence of those that we're looking to lead. So sometimes, we can really contradict what our intention is. We can put out there the opposite of really what we want to do. So I think that's a great point is to notice that you have to step back, really notice what you're noticing. I use that term a lot with my clients, to pay attention, to the way you're feeling, but step outside. Be objective. Step outside as the observer of your day or when you lay down at night.
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
And this is a great exercise for memory, is to go back, do the last thing you did right before you got in bed, and then go through the events of your day backwards and try to recall them. And it strengthens your memory. That's another talk for another show. But when we are aware and we can observe what we're doing, we can pinpoint the parts of our day where that stress played an important part, had an impact, and sometimes in a direction that we didn't really want to go or we didn't intend to go. And that's what I think we should talk about a little bit. What happens in that time? Aside from stress, when we do go in those directions that we didn't really want to go and things turned out how we didn't really want them to turn out the way they did. And we can find that rooted in our consciousness and in these little nasty things called paradigms. So we can talk about that if you'd like.
R. Adam Smith:
I like that. Thank you. There's a couple of really interesting nuggets there for our listeners that are running companies or running the companies on the boards or around the boards or the CEOs, all of which are very accomplished people with whatever mindset they perform with. It could be a left brain, right brain combination. Can be through high achievement. Could be through high emotional intelligence. Everyone is kind of different. But in this period that we're in today, where there is a crisis, there is a recession, there is cultural and societal factors that are changing, I think that there's a great deal of information to process, and that volume of content and change can be overwhelming. It can be very distracting. And I find for myself, it can be distracting when you're focusing on your own needs, the Ayn Rand direction of self-actualization.
R. Adam Smith:
It can conflict with the space that you require to reflect around what's going on around you. It can be society. It can be your company. It can be your employees, your culture. So it's a lot to process. You talk about on your book, The Genesis Frequency and the podcast of the same name, that it's important for all of us to think about the life that we want to live for ourselves as leaders, for how we lead people, how we think about culture, and create a rhythm of life. So in addition to your thoughts on the rhythm of life and this balance you're talking about, you also talk about, of course, a quantum leap in your life.
R. Adam Smith:
So walk us through taking our lives as leaders with a rhythm and appreciating the day that we have. And not being content, not being intellectually lazy about it, but actually empowering ourselves and looking at each day as a rhythm. And how do you lead into a quantum leap and taking that balance towards greater success and greater movement in what you're going to accomplish?
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
Great stuff in there, what you just shared, because to get to that quantum leap place, sometimes we have to do the opposite of the striving and the trying and the pushing and the grinding and just driving, driving, driving. So many people think we got to do that, and it doesn't really take any more effort to make those quantum leaps, but it is about getting out of logic, moving away from intellect. And it doesn't matter the level of achievement that has been accomplished so far in your life.
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
I love a little book by Price Pritchett, and I want to go to that. Yeah. That's where I really latched onto the quantum leap method, the quantum leap process. Price is a PhD, and he writes... Are you familiar with Price, Adam? He wrote a little book called You Squared.
R. Adam Smith:
Oh, yeah. You Squared. Okay.
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
Yeah, and it's great. And he talks about achievement and making quantum leaps and how no more effort is involved with that. And I love a little line he has in there. He says, "You haven't been reaching your full potential." And he says, "So far, you haven't even come close. No matter how you wish to measure success, regardless of how you define achievement, you have barely scratched the surface of what you personally can accomplish." And let's think about that for a moment because many of your listeners and many of my colleagues are very accomplished, as you said, and have achieved tremendous things in their lives. But if we would take this or at least consider this line as true for a moment... and I believe it's true because we live in this field of infinite potential... so often, we go by what we're taking in from our five senses, the knowledge that we have, the wisdom we gained along the way. That's the input, and we base what's next on all of that input. And some of it is accurate input. Some of it is inaccurate input.
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
And regardless of whether it's accurate or not, we form beliefs around it, and those beliefs lead to feelings, and those feelings lead to behaviors, and those behaviors lead to results. See, the process is always the same. It's thoughts, feelings, plus actions equals results. That formula is always the same. It's just how we're wired. It's just how it works. And we can talk more about that in a moment. The thing to be aware of is that we have 50 to 60,000 thoughts a day and most of those thoughts are either the same thoughts we had yesterday or we're thinking thoughts about things we don't want to happen. So the key in all of this is to be diligent and vigilant in filtering those thoughts and which one we have an emotional reaction to that we allow to penetrate deeper, to move into our subconscious mind.
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
And this is important to realize because you mentioned that rhythm. There is really a natural universal law of rhythm that just says we're going to have the highs, we're going to have the lows. The tide moves in, the tide moves out. We live in a universe that just operates by this pulse, this law of rhythm, and we have to recognize that.
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
And that's why we have to be more self-aware of how we're feeling, what's going on in our body, what's going on in those we would lead. We have to be observant of this as leaders, Adam. We have to be conscious of this. We have to see that around the table and the boardroom and recognize that other people, they're involved with this law of rhythm too. And sometimes, when we're in that high where the tide is in, their tide might be going out. We might be up and they might be down. And then these things are happening. It's just part of the human dynamic and the interaction, but we're still all guided by those beliefs, by those thoughts that we attach feelings to and emotionalize because those are the ones that impress our subconscious mind, where our paradigms, where our habits are stored.
R. Adam Smith:
I think at some point we'll be speaking more, perhaps in other conversations, either you and I with some executives or perhaps on further audio podcasts around the universal laws, because there's a lot there to unpack, whether it's from you or Bob Proctor or Price. So let's pin on that. But I did want to comment on as a leader, as someone who works with many investors and founders and driven people, many of which are more accomplished than myself, is that there is different types of drive based on each person's personality and how they push themselves. And as we've seen in recent news with CEOs, often, that drive results in work workplace environments which are not healthy or they push too hard or they are not mindful and empathetic of their employees, or even their colleagues, or even their board, or the much less the company itself and the brand of the company, the legacy of the company. So I would like to talk about legacy as well down the road.
R. Adam Smith:
But given that I was able to secure you on the podcast as a master's in metaphysical science and a doctor of philosophy and ordained minister, I'm just happy to be getting by in the conversation with you today. But I find it interesting that the psychiatrist world, the life coaching world, executive coaching world, and everything that we're reading today, is confusing for those that are seeking to enhance their way of life and create a rhythm between their personal life and their professional life. And this goes way beyond how many Zoom calls you have. It's about personal development. It's about how you achieve success and be mindful of those around you. It's about your personal wellness and your personal spirituality and how that comes through you as a person and affects others.
R. Adam Smith:
And I find that some of us often are pursuing happiness or pursuing contentment. And then there are others that say, "Well, you should not pursue happiness," because that's like you saying you're in love with being in love. It's like a sort of a shallower objective to pursue happiness because you have to go through the journey to get to happiness. You can't just grab happiness.
R. Adam Smith:
So I'd like you to comment on that. And then as an aside, you were mentioning that we don't really use all of our personal mental capacity to its fullest. I think that can be somewhat intimidating to people because they say, "Well, how do I capture, how do I utilize more of my mental capacity? And why is my brain only, only working at 3% or 10%?" As an aside, I was reading before the call that myth that we only use 3% or 10% of our brain, I think upset some of us that we wonder what's the other 90% doing. But I was reading that that's actually a myth, that in the old days, maybe 100 years ago, they said that they thought that neurons was only 10% of your brain. And then it stuck, and people think that the other 90% of our brain is just empty space. It's not actually working. But that's not true. I thought that you would find that a funny commentary.
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
That's interesting because there is a quote like that's in alignment with that, in a way, that's by George Bernard Shaw. You've probably heard it. "2% of the people think, 3% of the people think they think, and 95% of the people would rather die than think." And that can be funny and it can be true as well, and that goes along with how much of our brain are we using. If you would walk up to anybody and ask them, "How many mental faculties do we have? How many are there? And do you think you're using yours to the fullest?" I think we might be hard-pressed to find someone that can name them. Those are the intuition, imagination, reason, perception, memory, and will. Six of our mental faculties right there. And that's a whole nother show for a different day.
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
But how are we utilizing those? And this isn't just woo-woo stuff. This is stuff that affects us as leaders and in our leadership roles because it's also affecting the performance of everybody sitting around the table. And if we can work to consciously develop these intellectual faculties and then go deeper knowing that there's there is on that spiritual, deeper level, faculties as well to be developed, well, then we become even more powerful because we're more in control of what's going on on the inside.
R. Adam Smith:
When we talk about mindfulness, how does that benefit us as leaders who're responsible for tens and hundreds of people? How does that benefit us and therefore benefit others around us?
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
Well, there's a couple different definitions of mindfulness. We talked on this, touched on this at some point prior. But the definition of mindfulness is being fully present in the moment without judgment. And that's really about getting ourselves focused on this moment, which is a personal... In that context, in that definition, I think that's important for anybody to do because we spend most of our time either living our life looking through the rear view mirror or looking forward to a future that doesn't exist yet, and then balancing that out on top of it, especially in leadership saying, "Well, what do you mean? I got to plan. I got to forecast. I got to do this." You still have to be present and do that in the moment. So in that context, mindfulness is a practice that is involved in training our mind to be fully present in the moment with whatever we're focusing on and doing right here, right now, without judgment, with curiosity, and with release. And there's really seven aspects of that. Another time, another call for another show.
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
But let's take that to the second part of your question. How is that important? Because a lot of times, when people are unaware that mindfulness is a practice and something that we can develop, to use the term mindfulness really to talk about conscious awareness, about being aware of what's going on inside of us, being aware of what's going on around us, and then stepping out, and again, being that observer. How does that help the leader? Well, we have to recognize why you're making the decisions that you make. Are they all based on the intellect? Are they all based solely on logic? Or are they based on the vision? Are they based on where you want to take the company, where you want to take your team, where you want to take your growth, where you want to take your division? Where is this all coming from?
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
And again, our days are so filled with a series of reactions rather than maybe appropriate responses. So when we're aware of how we're put together, when we're fully present in the moment, we come from a place that's more rooted in a calm and peaceful nature that gives us that clarity to intentionally and deliberately make choices and decisions in alignment with what we would like to move into our field of experience, because isn't that what it's all about anyway? It's moving from where we are to where we want to be. I don't have to necessarily overcomplicate it. We don't have to overthink it. We don't have to move in too much intellect.
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
Yes, in leadership and big companies and corporations, but even in small businesses, when there's one guy doing it all, there's a lot of moving parts and there's a lot of moving pieces, but it's still going to boil down to what's going on within the individual mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. And we have to be aware of all these things. The simplest way to look at this, Adam, is [inaudible 00:22:49]. And I've had my issues this week. Any of our electronics. Sometimes we just grind away, and they work over time, and we fill them up with memory, and we fill them up with knowledge, we fill them up with wisdom, we fill them up with intellect, and guess what? They just stop working sometimes.
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
And what does every tech, no matter how much he's got degrees falling off the end of his business card, it doesn't matter. Microsoft, Google, HP, what do they tell us to do the first thing? Unplug and restart. And you know what? That's pretty good advice for us as individuals, as leaders, as team leaders, as business owners, as, as drivers, to unplug, step back, and just take a look and observe what's going on in our life and where our decisions are coming from.
R. Adam Smith:
Thank you. I love that. I appreciate that, tying those pieces together for us at a time when it is difficult to be mindful in the present because there's so much going on. And that focus on the present, whether we're focusing on a board meeting or listening to somebody with their corporate conversation, we're presenting to an important audience, or we're just doing yoga and trying to reconnect with ourselves, I think that is related to the theme that you mentioned of your thoughts lead to your actions. But in between your thoughts and actions or the way you feel about what you're doing. You can't just jump from a thought to an action. And that mindfulness is that time between the moment you have that thought and the action you're taking, and then you want those actions to have the results that you're talking about.
R. Adam Smith:
So I'm really, really happy for our conversation. I think in the future, we will be talking more about some of these universal laws. As an aside, Dr. Kos has a book, which is The Genesis Frequency. You can find that online at Amazon and so on. That's also another book which I thought might be another good read. And I'm sure that you have read it as well. I've really enjoyed reading Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by Peter Diamandis. What do you think of that book? How does that relate to your views on abundance? What is abundance? And just to wrap that up, how do we pursue abundance without being intimidated in that pursuit?
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
Well, to be honest with you, I don't have Peter's book in my collection right now, but I definitely [inaudible 00:25:32] the intention to do that and move that in there. I have so many. And to answer your question, I think it's about seeing the abundance. It's about knowing that we live in an abundant universe. And again, we take all this information in from our five senses. We call that sense consciousness. And we take all this in and we look to our bank balance, we look to our checkbook, and we look to that to see if there's abundance or not, to see if there's supply or not, and that's not where it is. We have to look to the totality of everything and see the abundance. We have to have a mindset, a consciousness of abundance, that we live in an abundant universe.
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
And we can do that. I challenge anyone to not see abundance when you stand in the field of lavender that goes on for miles in every direction, or look at the grains of sand on the beach, or the amount of drops in an ocean. And we can move that and come from that consciousness and start to think thoughts centered in abundance. If we think thoughts that are always focused on lack, guess what? We're going to attract more of those thoughts. Here's the thing. And it ties in with your last statement. We can't move from thoughts to action, but guess what? The thoughts don't usually take that course anyway.
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
We move from thoughts to feelings. The feelings impress the subconscious mind and the subconscious mind is the direction of the actions we take through the vibration that creates within us. So what are the thoughts? That's the one thing that we can effect change. The one area we can effect change is in our thoughts. So again, it's really important to be vigilant and to ask ourselves, what are we thinking? What are we thinking and what are we attaching feeling and emotion to? Abundance is a state of consciousness that we can move into when we train our mind to focus on the abundance and not the illusion of lack. And that's another deeper conversation for another time.
R. Adam Smith:
I agree. Well, thank you, Dr. Kos. It's a pleasure to meet you, to enjoy your podcast, to receive your wisdom here for our audience at Wisdom Board and my friends and clients, and many of those that are seeking to excel in their lives, in their corporate lives. We should all keep in mind we have the tools necessary to reach part of our own quantum leaps, and to get there, as Dr. Kos mentioned, is to think positive and to empower yourself to create positive attraction, vibes, and energy for those around you. And by being mindful about the moment, you create a personal rhythm which is more balanced, and that in turn has effects on others. So definitely more to talk about with Dr. Kos. And Stephen, thank you for your time today. You can find more about him at Success Ocean International as well as his website and The Genesis Frequency on Spotify and other areas. And I'm sure you'll be hearing more about him and enjoy his podcast as well. Stephen, thank you for your time today and enjoy this lovely spring weather, and thank you for all of your wisdom as well.
Stephen J. Kosmyna:
Thank you so much for having me, Adam. It has been a pleasure, and love to just take some of these things further again sometime.
R. Adam Smith:
Have a great day.