December 29, 2019

041 – Presence, Mindfulness and Facilitation – with Amaranatho Robey

Part one: Learnings from the life of a monk

Part two: Presence, mindfulness and facilitation

PDF | 706 kb

Intro

On episode 041, I speak with Amaranatho Robey, who was a Buddhist Monk for 15 years and now applies his learnings to coaching and facilitation. He has run over one hundred retreats, workshops, and public talks around the world, impacting thousands of people.

Our interview comes in two parts: The first part introduces Ama's major learnings from his life as a monk for facilitation and coaching. In the second part, we explore what presence and mindfulness can teach us to hold space for our workshop participants and to control our ego. During our conversation, we touch upon many other topics such as anger and jealousy, about play and about leadership.

Don't miss the part when Ama tells the story why the monastery bought him a punch-bag and what that taught him about dealing with anger.

Although I highly recommend keeping a pen and paper at hand, you may also just download mine!

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Questions and Answers (Part 2)

[1:05] What have you learned about presence during your life as a monk and how do you apply it to facilitation?

[4:39] what have you learned about conflict?

[8:43] How would you apply this technique to an organisational and leadership context?

[10:17] How can we work with impatient leaders who would not allow time for grief?

[12:15] How can you help leaders to become more mindful of that difference?

[13:53] What would be your advice to these leaders to be more self-aware?

[15:53] What would be your advice to these leaders to be more self-aware?

[20:35] How can we help groups to transition from their busy lives into a calm mindset when entering the workshop?

[22:12] Can you give us an example of your favourite play?

[23:59] What would you then do with the energy you created?

[26:30] How does a group drawing look like?

[28:38] What makes a workshop fail?

[37:15] Is there anything you would have wanted to speak about, that we haven't mentioned yet?

[40:41] What is your definition of ego?

Links to check

Amaranatho's business page: www.playfulmonk.net
My 12-steps checklist to prepare successful workshops
Rod Young, global CEO of Cartridge World
Brené Brown's TED talk about vulnerability and courage
Don't just do something, stand there by Marvin R. Weisbord and Sandra Janoff
Our sponsor Session Lab - An online agenda builder and exercise library
Rein Sevenstern from Experiential Learning - This episode's featured SessionLab user

Connect to Amaranatho

on LinkedIn