Tonya J. Long: 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to RESET with Tonya on KPCR LP 92.9 FM. And today we have another remote edition. While I'm out in the woods playing on my Airstream, I have arranged for a podcast with somebody I met I don't know about a year ago and he's just fascinating and I've been waiting for an opportunity to get him onto the show. He's in New York City so it's not real easy for him to trot down to Los Gatos with us. So today I am just thrilled to welcome Shaun Mader to RESET.

Tonya J. Long: 0:32

Shaun is a leadership strategist, but he is also so much more. He teaches corporate executives and business people to move from friction to flow and he builds cultures around trust. But his path is not your typical corporate path, Shaun. He's a brown belt in jujitsu Just came back from jujitsu class, I believe. He's also a celebrated photographer and he captures the most beautiful images of pain and resilience in his work with the Wounded Warriors Project and some fascinating work he's done over the years in Kolkata with the Red Light District and with children. And that India connection, I think, is one of the things that brought us together, because we are both affected by the time that we spent in India. Today he also other connections. He has his own podcast, the Trusted Leader Podcast, and he's writing his first book, and he has not asked me for any advice yet, so I'm wondering why that's the case.

Shaun Mader: 1:33

It's coming.

Tonya J. Long: 1:33

But he's writing his first book. It will come, Shaun. For me, is all about resilience, connectedness, trust and creativity, and so I think we're going to have a really fun conversation for all of you. Shaun, welcome to RESET.

Shaun Mader: 1:48

Thank you so much for having me and I will take the flattery, as difficult as it is sometimes.

Tonya J. Long: 1:55

Manage Just manage.

Shaun Mader: 1:57

Thank you, great to be here.

Tonya J. Long: 2:00

Good. So talk about some of the things you did, like the friction to flow, consulting and your athletic background, the whole photography thing that I would really encourage people to go to your website because it's just beautiful. What are you working on now? That's the most exciting thing for you.

Shaun Mader: 2:16

Well, you did mention the book that I'm writing. The title called Teamware, Teamware, Teamware, Teamware and it came from a lot of coaching of groups and executives consulting, and it came out of a point of frustration actually for anybody who's a coach or works in that capacity consulting. I think we all have this experience of we start off with these grand ambitions with a client, but the reality is, is there's just some new crisis that pops up with a client? But the reality is, is there's just some new crisis?

Shaun Mader: 2:47

that pops up and there was so a lot of our, our work that we're aspiring to gets derailed by just the normal flow of things that pop up in a fast moving environment and I realized it was really ended up was coaching people just to respond better to crisis and the goal was always to get upstream, to get above that, so you could be proactive and sort of constantly feeling like a short order cook.

Shaun Mader: 3:11

You know, how do you get your teams to think more strategically? And yeah, I was working with a client and it just kept happening and it was another crisis that should have been spotted weeks or months before. Had now you know that could have been a symptom had gone into a full blown crisis and, almost out of exasperation, said well, what if I just sent your people these questions Like what should we have our eye on that?

Shaun Mader: 3:38

if we don't deal with it now, it could be a crisis in a month or two and just started asking questions about what they needed for the week. Simple things that allowed them to think out what they're looking at and report. And it was this small but very powerful insight was that there was no practice, there was no regular structure in place in order to develop leaders and to develop teams simultaneously on the work that they're actually working on their structure in place in order to develop leaders and to develop teams simultaneously on the work that they're actually working on. And that was the first insight that gave rise to this idea of teamware, which was a playoff. We have our hardware, we have our software, and if any one of those systems broke down, we'd stop the work, we'd throw everything at it, but people will come out of a two-hour planning session and nobody has more clarity than when they walked in and people aren't taking charge of the situation, and so I said, okay, there's something here, and so we created this process called TeamFlow architecture, and it's been really effective.

Shaun Mader: 4:39

To help leaders get upstream see what's going on in their team. To help leaders get upstream see what's going on in their team. We're also to develop the team's ability to take a bunch of individual contributors and get them to start to think like a team and how they're going to function, and it's just been phenomenal. So it became time to write a book and it's almost done and ready. For you to give me some feedback.

Tonya J. Long: 5:01

I've always said that people most of us don't decide to write a book. The book comes to us, and I think the book came to you. I love the concept of software hardware teamware, so so I can't wait to see it. It's going to be great.

Shaun Mader: 5:16

Yeah, I'm excited.

Tonya J. Long: 5:18

Yeah, you should be. You should be. It's a fun journey. You've been on lots of journeys, right? So if somebody looked at like just a part of you, they might see a martial artist, they might see a creative photographer, they might see this, this wow, you know, new York City leadership coach. Notice how my head started shaking when. I did that. Oh, so if they saw all those things, what part of your story would you want them to see first?

Shaun Mader: 5:55

That's a tough question To me. They're all different chapters but they all have the same theme underneath them and there's been aions throughout all of them, which is first, just like my commitment to people and my curiosity about people, and I think it used to be a point of security. I think, if I know, I struggled as a photographer in the beginning, especially being here in New York. There was an idea of what it looked like to be a New York photographer which was fashion.

Tonya J. Long: 6:29

Oh, yes, and.

Shaun Mader: 6:31

I was in that world and I kind of looked the part, but I never felt that that was doing what I thought it was supposed to do. And you know, you're supposed to carve out a look in a way that that's, you know, that's person. That's that experience. And I noticed that over time a lot of my stuff seemed a little more introspective and darker. And I'd get somebody in front of me and I was not shooting big, happy, like facade stuff, it was always more introspective stuff and it took me a while to realize that that's because that's actually what I tend to focus on and it's been the same, whether it's been my personal practices, my background in film, photography and then even with companies.

Shaun Mader: 7:16

It's always been the human side of things. There's always strategy, there's always technical stuff to focus on, but what I realize is people struggle with the messiness of human being and to me that was where the gold was. And for years I led these large transformational leadership programs where I got to be coached and then went on to lead and coach many others from all different backgrounds, went on to lead and coach many others from all different backgrounds. And when you're in a setting like that, when you have, you know, college student next to a grandma, next to a CEO next to somebody who's in between things and you start to see that they're all dealing with the same fundamental things in their own way.

Shaun Mader: 8:03

It really helps me dissolve the perception of these vast differences between people.

Tonya J. Long: 8:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I see that in the photography. Obviously it's core to the coaching transformation work that you do, but it's harder for me to imagine it in that jiu-jitsu athleticism part of your life. So has jiu-jitsu? Because I think I don't know much about jiu-jitsu it's a martial art as far as I need to go. But are there things about jiu-jitsu that has deepened your appreciation for the human condition or even RESET how you look at things, like in the middle of crisis?

Shaun Mader: 8:50

Well, on a personal level, it's something that I never ever ever thought I'd be doing Interesting. I had years of chronic pain and migraines that doctors couldn't figure out. I thought it was just some permanent condition I had. I got very used to just always having something wrong with me that nobody could figure out, so I assumed there was something broken with me, and I actually had some people around me who were really into it who kept telling me I got to get into this and I would go watch, and I was like there's no way in hell I would ever do that. My body was my enemy and I spent years just doing anything I could to get some relief. And so, first off, there's been a huge mental transformation from somebody who was fearful and avoidance and and and and um I mean even my relationships are like other men, you know.

Shaun Mader: 9:44

You know men don't want to be dominated by another man.

Tonya J. Long: 9:47

There's a lot of psychology that goes into the dynamics yeah, I think there's something people don't know about you you're super tall yeah, yeah, okay, so that's even worse. Yeah, six, four, but okay, and because to me that's an important point of the domination thing is when you're, when you're that tall, you don't even have to speak. They don't see any of your brain before. Most people are immediately struck by your physicality because you're taller than normal.

Shaun Mader: 10:17

Well, and you know, at this point I'm like I'm even a little bit, but back early earlier on in life, where I think we often develop our sense of who we are and who I am in relationship to other people. You know, I grew 12 inches in one year and you know, I think I was something like 6'3" 155 pounds when I went to college. I was this string bean that looked like I was 12.

Tonya J. Long: 10:40

155. Oh my God.

Shaun Mader: 10:43

I mean, it was On a 6'3 frame yeah.

Shaun Mader: 10:46

So I mean any idea of anything's physical happening, would you know, kind of gets you at your core. You know that you wouldn't know what to do. So that, I think, is a huge psychic weight on any human being. But if you think about men in particular, so I absolutely know that world in best from years of never feeling like I had that. So for me, the transformation with martial arts I mean I credit some people that I met along the way who are really great it's allowed me the confidence, confidence that comes obviously with knowing you know, okay, you can probably defend yourself and defend other people if something ever happened. But that's never what it's about. It's something that you show up to day after day. You start off. You know jiu-jitsu for anybody. We're not going to go down that rabbit hole. It's a very nerdy rabbit hole, but it's what happened on the ground. It's grappling. People call it like tests with the body.

Tonya J. Long: 11:50

Okay.

Shaun Mader: 11:51

It's kind of like a language, if you try to learn a foreign language or jump into people who are fluent speakers and you don't think of that, but with your body, and so when you start.

Shaun Mader: 12:03

it pushes every single button about your own insecurities. You're being tossed around like a sack of potatoes by people who are smaller than you and you go through that. I mean it's like anybody who's got a fragile ego doesn't last. You have to understand that. Like I'm going to gain any mastery of something, the first levels are just appreciating how little you know. You have to understand that, like I'm going to gain any mastery of something.

Shaun Mader: 12:28

The first levels are just appreciating how little you know and so, yeah, like I think we used to watch UFC and I watch all that, but it's the incremental practice of showing up every day and the kind of humility that it takes and there's such a deep camaraderie and respect for your other people who also choose to do that because it's not easy, but it becomes addictive because you're operating in service of each other and making each other better. And there's, I think, if we think about, like a lot of the you know, we have a loneliness epidemic that even the Surgeon General says is on par with smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.

Tonya J. Long: 13:07

Wow, I had not heard that stat.

Shaun Mader: 13:09

That came from the Surgeon General and you know, when we think about it, like, I look back and I'm like, oh, I spent years instead of being alone at night watching Netflix, I'm with a group of people that were working on stuff or physically connecting, and there's something that happened in that setting that is so much bigger than you know being able to beat somebody up. That's the point, yeah, and output, yeah.

Tonya J. Long: 13:38

People need to be together and they need to be in physical contact with each other. Most of my Bay Area buddies, and probably people like you, see me on LinkedIn a lot I'm known for like group selfies, but people, after a couple of years of that, have reflected. People need touch, people need to be in community, and me, you know, giving everyone a reason to compress into a small space and laugh and celebrate who we are and where we are has become like part of the fabric of a large group of people and it's how we record happiness, how we see each other, and so I do think that, like a lot of people have asked me, you're out all the time networking. How do you get anything done?

Tonya J. Long: 14:20

And I'm like networking is my family Network, how I, you know, combat the, the loneliness thing, because I always have somebody to go be with and there's always going to be somebody I know there that's happy to see me there, and I think we are all looking for the ways that we can show up and be nourished and that we can nurture, and so and just reflect and I'm like, yeah, part of me, like I have you and I talk, like you know.

Shaun Mader: 14:45

Part of me, like I have you and I talk about this. You know I have all my little things and I can go down that road, but very rooted in reality, the science that we've only been able to really generate in the last decade or so with the breakthroughs in the neuroscience and our technology around it. I had to learn this the hard way, you know I had really physical issues that had no answer and you kind of grab on to whatever starts to give you a release and over time you start to figure out like, okay, this is not just this, it's not just yoga, it's not just this. And even the science now is showing that something happens when you're around people where there is trust, where there's a sense of mutuality and camaraderie, that starts to literally light up the brain, the heart, your endocrine system and brings about healthier states.

Shaun Mader: 15:42

And you have people out there like Gabor Mate is a writer and speaker who reframed addiction, for instance that even addiction is not being addicted to the drug. It's. The drug is the thing that allows you to get some escape from the unwanted feelings of isolation, shame, depression, and so in all the work I've done whether it's been in transformational leadership programs, working with teens what happens just at Jiu-Jitsu class is that there is just a far more complex and sophisticated symphony that's going on inside of all of us. That comes about when we are together in a safe environment, even if you're doing stuff like beating each other up, and that that's a big.

Shaun Mader: 16:32

It's more than inside all of us.

Tonya J. Long: 16:34

You know this.

Shaun Mader: 16:35

Right.

Tonya J. Long: 16:35

It's the connections, it's that I'm going to say, it's that quantum field that exists from San Jose to Manhattan, that exists from us over to Calcutta. That quantum field feeds all of us if we nurture it in the right ways.

Shaun Mader: 16:53

Yeah, and you know I love talking about this stuff. You love talking about this. Some people might just be like, what the hell are you talking about? But whether you get it Today.

Tonya J. Long: 17:01

we're all here to learn.

Shaun Mader: 17:01

Well, right, and whether you choose to look at it through the lens of the quantum field and all of the sciences that are opening up there.

Shaun Mader: 17:07

Some people, I think, find that very practical and like, hey, that actually allows me to indulge. It explains a lot, yeah, but it's also like you know. Just look at what happens if you're at home alone and you're in your head or you're stressing out about something and you get a call from your best friend, and how quickly your biology changes. Or if you're stressed out about money and suddenly somebody says, hey, we're doing that contract, and suddenly you see a bunch of money going to your bank account. You can start to see that, whatever we think that this body and mind and whatever concoction of spirit or neuro biochemistry is, that there's a lot more going on. And I know, when I work with teams it's like well, are you just a bunch of individuals showing up to work or are you actually a team who's out to accomplish something? And when they start to identify well, what do? What are the behaviors that we, that make us to work best together? It's all obvious to them, yeah, but then you know what are the ones that make us to work best?

Tonya J. Long: 18:05

together. It's all obvious to them.

Shaun Mader: 18:06

Yeah, but then you know what are the ones that detract from that. They all know. Once they start to actually name it and start to commit to it, a lot of the technical stuff goes away. Because why? Because there's something else that starts to happen and whether you want to call it, you know resonance or we all know that feeling and I think that part of what's just happened over the years in our society is that we've all kind of assumed that that's not available and it is.

Tonya J. Long: 18:37

Yeah, yeah, I love it. We're going to do a quick station ID and a call out for Kpcrlp 92.9 fm from los gatos. I'm so proud of this community radio station. We've added six new shows in the last I don't know two or three weeks, so there's been a generation of interest in in what we do. It's a lot of creative music stuff I don't listen to, but I but I'm entertained by and wonderful people shepherding music and interviews and topics. So kpcr92.9fm and that's at kpcrorg online that you can check it out 24 hours a day and see what we're up to. We'd love for you to do that.

Tonya J. Long: 19:20

So, Shaun, I want to go back to the comment earlier. I'm not going to stick there. It's just a set about your height. I had a woman that came to work for me 20 something years ago. She was about six foot tall and she slouched, strong personality athlete, but she she slouched intentionally to not be so tall. She keep her, keep her in the South. This is when I was in Tennessee and you know when leaders would come in the room you'd stand up to greet someone. She never stood up to greet someone.

Tonya J. Long: 19:54

She did not want to tower over the at the time men who were at the top of the company and she just she confided in me because I actually coached her on. I said you know, you really should. You know, show some poise and stand up. And she said it's not about poise, it's about not wanting to put them in a position of not seeing me the way I want to be seen. And we worked through that together. We partnered on that.

Tonya J. Long: 20:20

Just reflecting that you have learned similarly, hoping strategies that may diminish you, that help other people deal with their own insecurities. Frankly, I think about you as a photographer and I think about you seeing through the same scenarios with other people that you shoot. I remember I haven't looked at your website in a long time, but I remember a beautiful black and white of an African-American woman who had had a double mastectomy. Remember that Painful shot to watch for anyone who's had anyone affected by that, and yet it was so beautiful and so beautifully shot. You saw through to her. So as a photographer, you have to notice what's not seen through the lens. You have to see into people. So how does that shape your ability to do that in remarkable ways? How does that shape how you look into organizations and people in the business context.

Shaun Mader: 21:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's tricky because there's the side about myself first right, my own relationship to myself. Yes, would I want to start there, because that kind of dictates everything else.

Tonya J. Long: 21:38

Okay.

Shaun Mader: 21:40

Like I said, yeah, everybody thinks I'm tall, born all that stuff now, but that was never my experience of myself.

Tonya J. Long: 21:47

I'd love it.

Shaun Mader: 21:48

I had somebody point out recently, who's known me for a long time, that whenever I was standing in a crowd of people I used to spread my legs out really wide because they were bringing me down to their level. And I saw somebody do it oh, okay. I saw somebody else doing it. I was doing the exact same thing that I know I used to do and it looks utterly ridiculous Because it's super wide, but it drops you by a few inches.

Tonya J. Long: 22:06

Right, it definitely drops, it's geometry.

Shaun Mader: 22:08

In the moment I'm very comfortable. It's a break down, I don't. But when I saw it it struck me as so odd that that person would do that. And yet you know, obviously I've done that many times. And also you know, look, I live in New York City now, but I'm from Wisconsin, I'm from the Midwest and I just grew up in a culture that seemed to really push back against anybody who stood out, like there's an agreement reality they call.

Shaun Mader: 22:37

You know, some people call it the tall poppy. You know, the poppy that sticks its head up gets knocked down. I have never felt that I had that wanted to brag about things or put myself to the center. So it was years of inaccurate self-perception. Yeah, like you know, I coached some people who are kind of now that I've transformed all that. I coached some people who are pretty dominant males and they're always surprised when I point out that people might be intimidated by them.

Shaun Mader: 23:10

And then somebody had to bounce that back to me one time and I'm like me, like what are you talking about? So, um, yeah and that's just the physical. The physical imposition could be a thing. Yes, yeah, but I think that because I came from such a place of insecurity, um, it was hard for me to ever get too big of a head about these things. And so in the photography aspect, um, you have the actual thinking of the camera. Is the the shortest part of the shoot?

Shaun Mader: 23:42

oh right, you know it's like, yeah, you said your likes and you do all that stuff which you know the technical side. But if you're going to do a portrait setting, and especially a creative portrait of somebody, it's imperative that they it's inherently an unnatural thing to do a photo shoot.

Tonya J. Long: 24:01

Yes, yes.

Shaun Mader: 24:02

So how do you get the person feeling natural? Just getting to know them and getting their experience and having them have the experience, that you get their experience and that they get to be human around you. They don't have to have their shield up, their pretense, their worries, their concerns, and so I don't know, in some ways maybe I come off as tall and intimidating to other people and I think other people like I would hope that I make them comfortable enough that that doesn't even show up.

Shaun Mader: 24:33

Yeah, we never really know what people think of us anyway.

Tonya J. Long: 24:36

Well, I think about you then being in Calcutta with sex workers and children who are in that region, in the red light district in Calcutta, and you have to have something about your soul that reaches people, because I see those communities as being very vulnerable in that part of the world Incredibly vulnerable and you found ways to document their resilience and their beauty.

Tonya J. Long: 25:03

And I mean, for me that's just remarkable, because it's almost like living that life is a lot of loss, a lot of dreams that never happened. And you're helping them rebuild their identity by shooting and capturing images that serve to elevate them, that serve to bring their picture to the world. So what did that experience teach you? Because there's one thing to do a portrait, and it be that contrived environment. There's another to go into someone's I'll say home, is a broad community statement. To go into someone's home that is unlike anything we've ever seen and try to bring their humanity to the photos.

Shaun Mader: 25:49

Yeah, it's been a whole process over there. I wound up there by a complete accident. One time I got really sick in India. They thought I had tuberculosis, I was down, I had finally gained some weight, but then got dropped back down. I got down from C4.

Tonya J. Long: 26:02

I didn't know TB still existed. Now I sound really naive, but it does yeah. Yeah, I had gotten sick.

Shaun Mader: 26:09

That's the whole other story about how that happened. But I wound up in Calcutta to get medical attention. I was down to 155 pounds after proudly, you know finally putting on some weight later in life. The athletes threw me in an isolation ward. They were freaked out and it turns out I was not. I did not have TB. I did have a severe lung infection and I was really grappling with this choice of I could go back to New York where I was kind of like a celeb photographer shooting fashion weeks.

Shaun Mader: 26:39

Like it was. It was starting to get old and so I could go back to that or just stay here and see what happens. And Calcutta is this. It's the former capital of India. It's really wild. It's a sleepy but massive town, millions and millions of people. It's very poor and it's also because of Mother Teresa's legacy a lot of Westerners doing service work there.

Shaun Mader: 27:05

And inadvertently, essentially going out every day to this project and through that I started to inadvertently do a bit of a survey about social impact projects what works, what doesn't, and have a document saying at heart and toward the end of one trip I met the Spanish nurses who said, oh, we're helping an organization out in the Red Light District, you should come there. And I went down and it was not a topic that I was unfamiliar with, but I'd never seen anything like this yeah these twisty turny back alleys with.

Shaun Mader: 27:44

You know, people lived in one small room. That was their kitchen, their living room, their bed, everything. And I got introduced to a woman named ormy boss, who's the founder and director of new light, which is located right in the heart in their living room, their bed, everything. And I got introduced to a woman named Ormi Basu, who's the founder and director of New Light, which is located right in the heart of the red light district. Fast forward, I'm a board member for the US organization that funds, you know, collects funds over here. I'm going over there in November for their 26th anniversary. Nice, yeah, I've been, so I'm kind of locked in with them. But in the beginning, though, we didn't know any of this. I was just this new photographer. I was trying to get a break from all of my film production work.

Shaun Mader: 28:19

Okay, and she said you know, look, I can give you my blessing, but you're going to have to forge your own relationships with these people. And it just meant showing up every day, presence, of being there. I'd be tutoring their kids sometimes, who were, you know, being housed and cared for at New Light, and it took time, yeah, and little by little, people saw that what I was doing was bringing dignity to their experience. I would make some of the teenagers my photo assistants and translators, and so that became really cool. I'm friends with some of the non-grown adults and I'm still friends with them today. I'm in touch now with kids who are full-grown adults that I've known since they were in diapers. Wow, yeah, it's really, really that's pretty cool offensive time right.

Shaun Mader: 29:11

But there was this one woman who lived right near the entrance to new life who I saw probably more than anybody. I knew her daughter, I tutored her daughter in reading. But every time I came by her to offer to take a photo, she just waved me away with disgust like get out, get out of here. And I was like yeah, no. To the point where it became a bit of a like what's up, Like, come on, what did I do?

Tonya J. Long: 29:40

Yeah, right, right.

Shaun Mader: 29:42

And one day, when I was out with his niece he's now grown and at the time he's a teenager I'm like, would you ask her what is up, what is going on? So he translates for me and he finally translates back and he says she says every time you want to take a photo, she's not dressed up.

Tonya J. Long: 30:04

See. I'm like oh my story for life, because we all think someone else thinks X of me, when the majority of the time, truth is that it's about them.

Shaun Mader: 30:18

It's always. I mean, it was so obvious. The second it was said I didn't know the difference. I was like hey, it's a gritty photo.

Tonya J. Long: 30:24

And your heart didn't care. Your heart didn't care if she was wearing a burlap sack or the most exquisite silk. You saw her, I was her, but she wanted toquisite silk. You saw her, I was her, but she wanted to be. You wanted to be seen.

Shaun Mader: 30:35

If she's going to ask me to take her photo. You wanted to be pretty and I, just once I got it, I'm like, thank God I have a trans on my car. I'm so sorry, I didn't even think of that. I will never ask you to take a photo again, but if you would like to, you tell me when. And but if you would like to, you tell me when. And you get to tell me how it goes. And I remember her. She just gave a long pause and you can see she's thinking about it and she finally just said come back tomorrow afternoon. And the next day she was all dressed up. I love it.

Shaun Mader: 31:04

I've photographed her many times now and it's funny Sometimes now, since COVID and all that, it's been a long time. There'll be gats, there'll be gaps, there'll be new people in that area. So when I show up again, again I mean the roof lines are up to here on me I'm always trying not to cut my face on all this stuff. And you know people have a curiosity about, well, who's this guy? And there's just plenty of them like, oh, no, no.

Shaun Mader: 31:27

And she's always the first one he goes she goes, and she's always the first one. No he's one of us. He goes, she goes but it's somebody who I thought aided my guts and it was just and honestly. That was one of those spark moments that informed what I do professionally, because it's like Right now, yeah, if you think of like a lot of our coaching calls and what we're dealing with when we listen to people, yeah, most of what screws people up in businesses is a lot of the interpersonal stuff.

Tonya J. Long: 31:54

Oh, 100%. Never the technology, never the product, always the people.

Shaun Mader: 31:59

Some incident like that person did not care about what I needed. I have to now protect myself. I start to withdraw, I start looking for another job because these people don't care about me. This is for. That person always does this and people start to build these stories in their head and it starts to cause division. And well, we're told that in business that that's not appropriate and I'm like, no, you need that. It's costing companies so much money. Retention, what it takes to recruit in, get some at the speed to replace them again, what happens when the knowledge goes out the door Like these are things that are never captured in a P&L report, but it's just what's happening in between people and somehow.

Shaun Mader: 32:46

I think that's something we just lost. Yeah, we just kind of lost that. Business is not a category that absolves you from humanity. In fact, I think we're facing more and more now, especially with AI, especially with more complexity in places and more external change, that unless you actually are a unit moving forward together and know how to solve issues amongst yourselves and how you are going to function in difficulty, I mean we can't sustain the level of strain, burnout, attention, fragmentation that's been going on, and yet I think the solutions are right there in front of us. And that's back alleys of Calcutta. I never thought would be informing my coaching and consulting practice.

Tonya J. Long: 33:33

Yeah, well, I go back to this woman who didn't want you to take her photo, and I think that you have now, through many iterations of photo sessions with her, you've helped create a story around her and all the people that you photograph, to create a story around her and all the people that you photograph. But do you think that story can RESET people, that the narrative that we create visually or in our thought, leadership and writing, do you think that changing the story or amplifying the elements of the story about where people want to be can RESET people and teams?

Shaun Mader: 34:13

I mean look, I'm a perfect example. What we just talked about before my story was that my body was broken.

Tonya J. Long: 34:21

Something wrong with me.

Shaun Mader: 34:23

So when I was more of a student of these transformational education techniques stuff that I later went on to lead, it dawned on me one day. You know, we all live inside of stories. We come up with stories about who that person is and that's how we treat them.

Tonya J. Long: 34:39

If anybody recognizes this, we're having a landmark moment, we're both landmarks.

Shaun Mader: 34:43

Yeah, yeah.

Tonya J. Long: 34:44

Yeah, so it's okay, that's a good program. So it's.

Shaun Mader: 34:46

Yeah, it was amazing. I mean, it's the we, I mean it's the word. Transformation in our culture stems from them, and their methodologies are some of the best I've ever seen. But if you think about it, yeah, we all we think they're real, but really, their interpretations and stories about what happened and why I am the way I am or the way that person is, or if you listen to anybody tell you a story about a conflict they're having, you will hear that they only tell you a narrative based on the little bits of information they have, and oftentimes, and almost almost all the time, you find out, no, the story, what was really going on, was actually much more complex or very different than that story. So all that to say is we all live inside a story about who we are, who other people are, and so for me, yeah, I had to catch at one point that, oh my God, I keep saying my body's my enemy.

Tonya J. Long: 35:43

Right.

Shaun Mader: 35:43

That sounds like self-fulfilling prophecy. Like you know, I gotta, I gotta do something about that. I remember the moment I'm like well, no, I created a new story, which is my body can heal and wouldn't you? Know it, it started healing and so, you know, fast forward. You know I'm doing more physical stuff than I could in my 20s and having more fun and all of that.

Shaun Mader: 36:07

So, yes, stories operate at the individual level, relational level like who you are for me or to me my idea, and we have very little awareness that we are creating our reality. We are creating how people interact with us. All you got to do is go to a room and why is somebody's friends with that person? The other person thinks it's awful, Like well, guess what?

Tonya J. Long: 36:30

I remember I've done a thousand Orange Theory classes and I remember this new woman coming into our our you know the possessive our Saturday morning class super muscular, super well-built, wearing a weight belt, and for people that weight belt is like a wide belt that supports your back when you're lifting. That is not the scene at Orange Theory. People don't do that. You've done Orange Theory. We have so many things.

Shaun Mader: 36:59

I don't know.

Tonya J. Long: 37:00

But, yeah, but, but it Immediately like all the women you could tell we were just shooting looks at each other like who is she? And she wore lifting gloves. I mean, in orange theory you can lift like up to 50 pound hand weight so you can get pretty, or even there's bigger ones, but I never picked up bigger. But it's not a wear weight, lifting gloves, wear a belt. And people were kind of and I think we were just jealous because she was so physique wise, perfectly built, and we were all kind of giving her a hard time amongst ourselves.

Shaun Mader: 37:34

Right.

Tonya J. Long: 37:34

Not accepting her into our little coffee clutch of Saturday morning, 9.30 am.

Tonya J. Long: 37:39

People who had been together for hundreds of classes, weekend warriors, and found out later that she had had I think she was in a car accident and had massive back issues and like debilitating spine issues and had healed herself, had come and was a, I'll say, quasi-professional weightlifter. But she always protected herself because that was her sensitivity after being harmed, hurt, you know, through something you know. And so she was just trying to be there to do a workout and there we were all kind of like kerfuffled because the hen house was active, because she was wearing exercise equipment Equipment you know it's what people need.

Tonya J. Long: 38:23

So stories we create around people when we don't know their story, and that's why it's so important for people like you and me to help other people shine the light on the beauty of their stories. That's why I think we do a service to the world by helping the world see. Everybody's not what they look like. They're not the beanpole kid that's always rubbing his head. You know that there's so much more than that. If they can't amplify it, then it's our service to do that.

Shaun Mader: 38:54

You know, I had just an example of this, so we talked about the book and what I'm working on, but the methodology, team flow architecture I create custom cadences of questions that go out to team members and the leader gets the answers back.

Shaun Mader: 39:07

Yep, and I was dealing with a client who they said hey, we're coming out of bankruptcy. People have been really stressed out doing double duty. We would like to do something about that, but I don't know what I said. That'll be some of the question. And so the first week we did it, one of the questions was stating what I just did we're coming out of this period. We want to check in with you on a scale of one to 10. What's your stress? Immediately, one of the replies came back nine out of 10.

Shaun Mader: 39:35

On my coaching call with the leader, I said what did you do? Well, I went and spoke to her and she said the first thing. She said well, thanks, just so much for even asking. He's like well, great, what can we do? Talk to me, you know he's really great with her and they had their conversation and he tells me, like, but the funny thing is, later that afternoon she came back to me and she says you know I was thinking about our conversation. I think I might create a lot of that stress myself and it was just this moment of like just to be asked, just to have it dignified.

Shaun Mader: 40:08

Now, what ended up happening? I just found out because I visited a group of these folks on a Zoom call recently. That woman was on the call and she told the story from her perspective because it turned out that just the notion of being asked and listening and having her experience she had not told anybody, but she started giving my questions out to her team because she realized I want to be that person for other people too, and she started telling her own stories of what her team came to her with when she started asking them and again, it was just in that asking. They're now talking about their relationships and working out how they work together and it was just a simple, fundamental thing. That is, and it goes back. There's a guest I had on my podcast, rob T, wrote a book called Leading with Questions.

Tonya J. Long: 41:02

Yep.

Shaun Mader: 41:03

We talked about that a few months ago, yeah, and you know there's also a couple other books out there and you know a lot of our background is inquiry based, socratic inquiry, that the question that she oftentimes more important than the answer, and so we, I think we're oftentimes in a work circumstance or a family dynamic or a relationship dynamic, yep, where we just interact with. Well, this is the way that it is and we don't really think that it could be anything different. Sometimes it's because we get a big payoff for keeping our complaints there. We love to have our complaints and we love to be up here and these dumb people or whatever it is. When you start asking questions, things start flowing and start moving, and it's funny that that quality we're talking about between people, when the things we really love is just asking those questions, to be such a fundamental access to that and it's just so simple.

Tonya J. Long: 42:07

I love it. All right, it's time for another station break. So, everyone, you are listening to KPCRLP 92.9 FM out of Los Gatos, but also a couple of sister stations. You're listening to us today on KMRTLP 101.9 FM out of Santa Cruz, which has to be beautiful today because it is a gorgeous day. Day because it is a gorgeous day. And, as of just recently, you're listening to us on KVBELP 91.1 FM out of Portland. Portland, we opened up a station in Portland, so it's very exciting to be expanding our reach, and especially for the musical programming we do and the people programming that I'm so fond of that we're able to share that with such a broad audience, that I'm so fond of that we're able to share that with such a broad audience.

Tonya J. Long: 42:55

So back to you, shawn Mader, on RESET with Tonya. I like a lot of your thought leadership that is not just about people or teams, but it's about society, because I think you have a fundamental belief that working more at the root level causes shifts in society and that's why you do what you do. So what do you think the RESET is that society needs right now? Because clearly, I think most of us think we're headed to one and that we need it. I'd be curious about your observations about the RESET that you think society needs in order to be the best we can.

Tonya J. Long: 43:37

Yeah, it's a profound question, so I don't know if I'm going to nail it on the first take here, you know, Because whatever you see and whatever you think has value, and you study this and you study people, so you have a more informed opinion than most.

Shaun Mader: 43:51

Well, so thank you, and yes, I do think about this a lot and I think to answer that question, we have to recognize that society has gone through an incredible amount of change in a very short amount of time.

Tonya J. Long: 44:07

Absolutely yes.

Shaun Mader: 44:08

But that it's not just about the internet and about the iPhone and all that stuff. If we back up just another hundred years, you talk about humanity that was largely agrarian, where people's rhythms were more in tune with factories and a more machine world. So in addition to the changes that we've personally witnessed in our lifetimes, we kind of came into this world already a bit disconnected and with what I like to call like a limited menu of what we even have to choose from. So if we start to now fast forward to today and we look at let's take, for instance, how much time we spend on devices it's hard to appreciate the limitations in what we can even see and interact with. Like, where would we even look for a RESET? Most of the places we would look that seem logical will provide no answers.

Shaun Mader: 45:18

And if anybody's ever heard the term, the medium is the message by Marshall McLuhan. It's one of these kind of like phrases that I think I've thought about for decades now and it just keeps getting deeper. But if you think about it, the internet is still all ones and zeros. There's only certain things that can be digitized. And it's a two-dimensional look, it's an audio and visual format. So we're now in this world of AI, which is now compute, taking in all of the data on the internet, which is vast and wide, but it's still just a very narrow spectrum of experience of life. Okay, it's just the audio and visual component.

Shaun Mader: 46:02

So oftentimes I find that when we think of like what's the RESET that we need, we look to what we can see, we look to what we can know, but how we come to know things has become very engineered and narrowed down. So imagine it's kind of like I think life is like this with blinders on, I don't see a solution inside of these blinders. I don't know that I have blinders on, but I don't see anything. And so for thinking from that perspective, you're like well, what's the RESET? What do we really need?

Shaun Mader: 46:33

Oftentimes it's never going to appear to us because we think it's going to exist inside this very limited spectrum that our life and culture has whittled us down to and, at the same time, I would say that the solution is staring us right in the face the entire time and the RESET is us reconnecting with ourselves and each other. I have an unconventional educational background, but one way to talk about it has been very heavy on the humanities.

Shaun Mader: 47:05

And we can look at the last 30 to 40 years, where the humanities became a throwaway term that most people would mock. You know, when I went, when I became a literature major, going to college, the joke I heard most was do they teach you how to say would you like fries with that? Because it was so disregarded and we qualified to do anything, is very dismissive. But as we find ourselves now in a place where we are repeating things that have happened historically time and time again and you watch as a population that is fundamentally illiterate about those topics go make classic mistakes over and, over and over again and fall for the same tricks of manipulation and propaganda and we've been here before. But how would you know that? Well, these fundamental questions are in the humanities, and somewhere along the way we gave up on the idea that we could have a say in how our society goes, and so I think the first part of a RESET is the recognition that most of the world we as humans have created for us.

Shaun Mader: 48:16

We serve it. We created markets, we created quarterly profits. Now we built a system where we serve the market. The market does not serve us. We created this technology, but we serve the technology. The companies making money off this need our attention to feed its algorithms to make its profits. It's not necessarily there to serve us and so, right in front of us, I think, is this really obvious but hard to grasp concept that the only way quality of life gets created and built is when we see that our lives gets better when we're not as focused on ourselves and that we're operating in service of others.

Tonya J. Long: 49:02

Right, right and I agree.

Shaun Mader: 49:05

There's this video. I recommend everybody go Google this and look it up. It's called the long spoon allegory. I don't know what the background is on it, but it's a maybe a two minute long video uh, animated. And it's these emaciated, bleak, sad looking people all around a cauldron of soup, but they have these massive, massive spoons, so big can't reach their own mouths and no matter how much food they have, they're wasting away until one person has the idea to take a spoon and the other people help support that spoon as he reaches across and feeds the person across from him. And then everybody gets the idea Wow, suddenly like wait a second.

Shaun Mader: 49:46

Amazing. These spoons aren't just for me, they're for feeding other people, and as I feed others, I too get fed and see the whole thing come into color, fill out, and I kind of think it's a really fitting metaphor for our modern life that has we somehow created the means to sow our own separateness, our own isolation, our own anxiety, our own depression? And I think people often find it. They resist admitting that, they resist reaching out to people, like there's some shame in staying.

Shaun Mader: 50:20

I want more connection in my life, I want more love, I want more friendship Like I'm working so hard but I'm not seeing the, I'm not actually any happier for it, and that's almost like a point of shame in our culture to say like something's wildly off here. So I think when we start to start there, then people as individuals can start to see like wait a second, I have gifts to contribute here. I'm really interested in. Like look, I teach jujitsu once a week but I know the difference it's made for some of the students and it's something that gives me so much pleasure.

Shaun Mader: 50:54

It's like you can give in so many different ways and boost the quality of life, and that's what we're built for. You're supposed to feel good when you make other people feel good.

Tonya J. Long: 51:04

Yeah. So one of the ways that you're giving back is writing your book. I don't think any normal people we're normal people I don't think normal people go on the journey of writing a book unless there's something they desperately want to say and to share. And writing a book, it forces clarity. You know, when all those things rolling around in your experience need to be clear for you so that you can clearly deliver for other people.

Tonya J. Long: 51:34

So I'm curious what have you discovered about yourself in that search for clarity as it relates to writing your book?

Shaun Mader: 51:43

Oh, I mean, it's been another. It's just been another process of I talk about the white belt you know starting out and you're all over the place and you're Yep. Classic white belt you know starting out and you're all over the place and you're Yep. Classic white belt is like they expend a ton of energy accomplishing that a lot. Right, and that's how this was just yet another topic where I had to start at the bottom and figure it out, and what I had to first grapple with is there's certain things that occur to me very naturally, that are obvious, and but that is a product of connecting a lot of pieces from a lot of different influences and it's simply not enough to have that thought in my head and it doesn't actually amount to anything unless I can make it accessible to other people.

Shaun Mader: 52:27

Yeah, and that became the kind of guiding discipline. In writing the book I get all this stuff, but the second I start writing it's all over the place. Well, it's a little bit of this, and then if you connect that to this and that would be completely unintelligible for somebody, so there's the way that I might speak about it to somebody who I don't know is into the same area where you can kind of just have these strange little meta conversations and be tangential. That was just completely insufficient to make something that I could put in somebody's hand and say hey, here's a blueprint for you as a leader and your people.

Shaun Mader: 53:08

So, boy, it was a humbling process. I'm in the home stretch, I think I've at least got a blue belt here you found your path of clarity.

Shaun Mader: 53:17

Yeah, yeah, and but it really, and it is in service and it's totally in service, and but that's what I had to keep in mind, like how this I can't be entertained with my own ideas, but that's really. It's entertaining to me, but somebody else can't grasp it. I've failed and that became the discipline and I hope we're in the home stretch here. I hope that, with regularity, if somebody, if I put this in somebody's hand and they read it, that it's going to be, it's going to make sense. It's going to be obvious they're going to be able to incorporate into their life and because that's what's going to make sense, it's going to be obvious they're going to be able to incorporate into their life, and because that's what's going to make a difference.

Tonya J. Long: 53:58

Good, good, but humbling. Yes, have you done improv? I don't remember if we've talked about that.

Shaun Mader: 54:02

No, but I technically have a theater degree. I love comedy and improv. I hope we're not doing it.

Tonya J. Long: 54:06

You give a lot of gifts. I know you're familiar with the improv concept of gifts. When you give people a hook to continue the conversation and you naturally give gifts in continuing the conversation. Oh, thank you. I was hoping we weren't going to get in. The spot Was leading to I think it was the in-service of concept, but I like to end my podcast with a lightning round. That's something.

Tonya J. Long: 54:34

I've been doing for a bit now. So I ask quick questions for you know, hopefully quick answers, but the way I build relationships, they're never quick, they're always a little bit of a dialogue. So let's hit maybe I don't know four or five lightning questions for you.

Shaun Mader: 54:47

Okay, I'll do my best.

Tonya J. Long: 54:51

Clearly, I love your photography because it's so differentiated. So what's the picture that you want to take that you've not taken yet?

Shaun Mader: 55:00

I don't know, because the part that is so pleasant to me is can I tune in enough to discover it in the moment, and it revealed itself versus me facing it, and so I don't know, maybe it's yet to be created.

Tonya J. Long: 55:26

I'll take that. I'll take that, and it is the art of expression. So it's not just the, what I like to call the coffee table books and the photos that are just these big, picturesque views off the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. That's not the photo I'm looking for. The photo I'm looking for is it's indescribable, because it's the. It's the one that absolutely captures the essence of someone's soul. And I'll tell you this you can't plan for that.

Shaun Mader: 55:53

I'll tell you this I always used to look at the people who I look up to and assume that they just had something that I didn't that they had and that everything that. There's a particular photographer, albert Watson, whose work I've just loved forever. You look at his work. You're like, wow, like I could never do something like that. And so this thing that really lit, opened it up for me, was that a famous photo that he has was by accident.

Shaun Mader: 56:19

He said I've been shooting for two days and didn't like anything, and then the model was actually offset and she just happened to see her head in a shadow and saw this outline and he's like that's the shot over there after two days on a vogue shoot. And I was like, okay, two days where he's not even liking anything. And I'm like, and that's how it's gone, is that everything I planned? Yeah, great, you can fulfill on it, but it's always the shot that I could never see coming. That is the one that actually meant something the most. But you kind of had to be in there and you kind of had to be open to something unexpected happening.

Tonya J. Long: 56:52

Okay, I love it Back to our shared, beloved India. What's the moment that is the most indelible memory? You have that kind of opened your heart in India.

Shaun Mader: 57:07

I used to go and live like a monk's period of time in between shooting gangster hip hop videos and weird stuff like that.

Tonya J. Long: 57:14

Whatever I could do to pay the rent in New.

Shaun Mader: 57:15

York City. I remember I was living in an ashram and I had an opportunity to do something cool. It was like a motorcycle trip up to the headwaters of the Ganges. It sounded cool and badass. But there was another option to go do a 10-day silent Vipassana meditation.

Tonya J. Long: 57:33

Oh, wow, and.

Shaun Mader: 57:34

I was like that was a moment where I'm like what kind of man are you going to be? You're going to go do this flitty you know thing where you're probably breaking your legs on a motorcycle, or are you going to do the thing that terrifies you, which was actually sitting for 10 days in silence? And I'm glad I chose the latter. It led to many years of doing that and but I remember that being like that was probably more of a rite of passage in life than a lot of the other things.

Tonya J. Long: 58:01

Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure, and we could have a whole episode on that.

Shaun Mader: 58:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't even want to hold the one up in two words yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tonya J. Long: 58:09

I don't even want to open some worms at the late hour, it's all good. It's all good. Tell me about a book that changed how you look at changing society.

Shaun Mader: 58:19

I remember specifically Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent was a pivotal book and then I don't even know if this is available, but they made a documentary off of it. And then there was another book made off the documentary that was expanded and it was in college and it was. You know. I look at the media landscape that we're in right now and frankly, I think it's designed so that you can't really tell what's true and what's not anymore.

Tonya J. Long: 58:49

I understand, can't really tell what's true and what's not anymore.

Shaun Mader: 58:51

Um, and I think back then it was so helpful to have somebody dedicated to how we take information in, how it interacts at a societal, governmental level. And I look back now and see I'm very grateful for that because it's allowed me to observe the transitions over time and also just be able to make sense of the world in a way that gives me some grounding and some foundation.

Tonya J. Long: 59:20

Love it, love it All right. So who's the best? No, not best. Who's the most trusted leader that you've ever had visibility to? I'm not saying who have you met, but I'm saying, as you look out across what we know about leaders in society for centuries, who's the most trusted leader? You?

Shaun Mader: 59:45

know. That also just comes to mind in somebody that very few people will know. It's somebody that I've known through my transformational education. They're not a public figure, but I'll give her a shout out here. Her name is Angie Mattingly. She's a profound leader, a leader of leaders and a healer.

Shaun Mader: 1:00:02

I don't know if she knows, but I have a nickname for her, the Diamond Cutter, and it's because I love it in a rune of chaos she could create a space that called everybody to with whatever was going on, but that people really discovered who they were in the process and people got to be bigger than they knew themselves in her presence, and I was fortunate to spend a lot of time around her and it was. She was a true master, Somebody who took it very seriously, had an incredibly high level of integrity and was very serious and aware of her role in providing that. There's few people who I've seen who have reached that level of mastery.

Tonya J. Long: 1:00:58

Yeah, I love it. And people may not recognize the name, but the way you've described what differentiates her style of leadership, her style of leadership I think everyone would recognize and value and wish that we all could be a little bit more of that. So beautiful, beautiful description of her. You'll have to make sure that she hears about this episode so that she can take some joy in what she has modeled for others.

Shaun Mader: 1:01:28

So thank you, I hope she will yeah.

Tonya J. Long: 1:01:30

Yeah, yeah Good. So we've covered the gamut of you. You know, from martial arts, photography, leadership, india, storytelling, all those things and you said at the very beginning that the common thread for you across all those was your deep curiosity and interest about people. So I think it shows. I think it's part of your narrative. I love that we've had a. It's part of your narrative. I love that we've had a chance to talk about it today. For other people who want to eventually buy your book, but for other people who want to watch you on your journey and be part of it in some way, how can people get in touch with you or see you operate?

Shaun Mader: 1:02:06

LinkedIn is S-H-A-U-N-M-A-D-E-R.

Tonya J. Long: 1:02:10

We'll put that in the show notes.

Shaun Mader: 1:02:12

Yeah, purchasingtoflowconsultingcom is the website.

Tonya J. Long: 1:02:16

Okay, good.

Shaun Mader: 1:02:17

I grudgingly do social media, so I am available. But reach out to me through either one of those and, yes, there's anything I can provide. We can definitely start the conversation there. I love it. We'll put all those in the conversation there.

Tonya J. Long: 1:02:31

I love it. We'll put all those in the show notes. Awesome. Today on RESET with Tonya, we've seen Shaun Mader for the fullness of who he really is, from brown belt jiu-jitsu master to photographer, to leadership. You said you used the word mastery with Angie, but I think that you have mastered the skill and the art of amplifying others through your connection to them, so it has been absolutely wonderful to spend time with you talking about the art of Shawn Mader and all the different ways that you build resilience and purpose, not just for you, but with others. So thank you.

Shaun Mader: 1:03:10

Thank you, Tonya. It's been such a pleasure. I appreciate it.

Tonya J. Long: 1:03:14

It has been wonderful. So, everyone here signing off from KPCR 92.9 FM in Los Gatos, as well as KMRT LP 101.9 in Santa Cruz and KVBE LP 91.1 out of Portland, we are so happy to have spent some time today with you, with Shaun Mader. We do this, Shaun, we do this little heart thing. So this tells everybody that's what we're sending out Good heart, good heart. I bet you don't do that a lot. Get your flexibility going. So, everyone, have a wonderful rest of your day and we'll see you soon. Take care.