With Master Arthur Levitan, a Taoist master who has battle tested the philosophy he spent decades learning. Through the study and application of the ancient wisdom of Taoism, of which he is one of the only ordained masters in the West*, Master Levitan found not only a path towards survival, but a means to living a life of contentment and resilience. Based in Boston, he is a modern teacher in a lineage that has been passed exclusively from teacher to student for over 2,500 years.

As one of the few Taoist Masters in the Western World, Master Levitan is in a unique position of having both the knowledge and authority to translate this complicated, ancient wisdom into proper modern form. His school, Quantum Tao (since 2009), emphasizes practical daily applications of Tao and the practice of Qigong with the goal of simplifying the principles of Tao in order to make them useful for Americans in their everyday life. 

Join us in this conversation for numerous pieces of wisdom that will help you in building resilience, asking for help, successfully building your team (and your business), and showing up to your life whether as a parent, partner, or leader, with deeper acceptance, authenticity, and capacity for increased personal leadership. 

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Takeaways & quotes you don’t want to miss from this episode:

• The Taoist perspective on death as a tool to define and enrich life.
• Why finding and aligning with your individual design creates the greatest joy.
• The importance of embracing limitations and asking for help to foster collaboration.
• How opposites create flow and prevent stagnation.
• The role of parenting in guiding a child’s soul while releasing control.
• How understanding natural cycles and seasons can reduce anxiety and improve balance.
• The critical importance of connection and interdependence in achieving resilience and contentment.

“Crises are an opportunity… The most amazing way to get through a crisis is by recognizing that it’s a marathon and that life is never going to change.

-Arthur Levitan

Check out these highlights:

• 16:38 Arthur shares his journey from the Soviet Union to Taoism and how he found fulfillment beyond material success.
• 32:04 What is the Taoist principle of balance?
• 41:48 Why human bonds are essential to resilience, contentment, and navigating life’s challenges…
• 52:35 Arthur discusses the misalignment of societal demands with natural cycles and how to recharge amidst it all.
• 1:14:25 Hear Arthur’s final takeaways to the listeners…

How to get in touch with Arthur on Social Media:

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below:

GGGB Intro  00:00

Here’s what you get on today’s episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business®… 

Arthur Levitan  00:05

In Taoism, we always look at death as helping us with life. We look at life from the perspective of death, and, you know, Steve Jobs actually had a beautiful graduation speech where he said, It is death that defines life. It helps us understand life, and that actually is foundational in Taoism. This is the one thing we have no control over, and that is beautiful because it helps us not waste energy on things we shouldn’t be meddling with.

GGGB Intro  00:33

The adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of guts, grit and great business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit and Great Business® podcast where endurance is required. Now, here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:01

Alrighty, welcome. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior®. I’m an attorney and legal coach based here in Seattle, Washington, serving online information entrepreneurs throughout the US and the world. Welcome to another episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business®. I am so excited for our conversation today. You are in for a treat. We’ve had to reschedule a couple times now, so all of this time has built up, and we’re finally here. I’m so happy to introduce you to Master Arthur Levitan, welcome Arthur. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:40

It’s so good to see you. And I know we just had the chance to connect. Last week, we had a lovely conversation. I already without knowing you for very long, appreciate you so much and who you are and how you are in the world. But for those of you that don’t know Master Arthur Levitan, he has battle tested the philosophy he spent decades learning. Through the study and application of the ancient wisdom of Taoism, of which he is one of the only ordained masters in the West*, Master Levitan found not only a path towards survival, but a means to living a life of contentment and resilience. Based in Boston, he is a modern teacher in a lineage that has been passed exclusively from teacher to student for over 2,500 years.  As one of the few Taoist Masters in the Western World, Master Levitan is in a unique position of having both the knowledge and authority to translate this complicated, ancient wisdom into proper modern form. His school, Quantum Tao (since 2009), emphasizes practical daily applications of Tao and the practice of Qigong with the goal of simplifying the principles of Tao in order to make them useful for Americans in their everyday life. I love it, and I missed your title up top spiritual Taoist teacher crisis management, which I know we’ve talked about, and I’m actually excited to hear more about that today, and then also a founder and entrepreneur. So you have walked many paths, Arthur.

Arthur Levitan  01:40

Thank you.

Arthur Levitan  03:27

I have, it feels like so many lifetimes. Definitely. I have no idea how it all gets packed into so few years. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  03:37

You know, that is a fascinating thing that happens. I mean, I’m in my late 40s now. I have a sister in a mid 40s, and we were chatting just this morning, and we were talking about something that only happened two years ago, but in its own way, I asked her, I said, Does that feel like a lifetime ago? And she was like, yes, strangely, it does. And it is fascinating how like you look back, I mean, I even think back about who I was in my 20s, getting out of law school. I went through a divorce in my 20s and feels like multiple lifetimes ago, right? So it is interesting. I think, how many of those transitions in life we go through where it’s like, in some ways, how have we lived all these lives.

Arthur Levitan  04:23

And their own, it almost feels like it was a different person, yeah, and it was absolutely a different person. And one of the mistakes we make is that we tend to hold on to the decisions we made in our 20s as if they’re current, right? But we’ve changed. And the way we look at life changed, and the way we make a decisions changed, and all that experience is showing us that we would have made a very different decision, but we’re still holding on to those decisions. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  04:55

Yes, so profoundly true. I think about, even what I’ve learned you and I, before we went live, just now, we were talking about the the journey of being parents and dealing with the health of your little people, you know, trying to shuttle them through those early years of life. And I was just reflecting on the fact that I had no idea how much of my time and energy and mental resources that would take and yet, the transformation I’ve gone through in the last couple years around how I view the contributors to health, or alternatively to unwellness, is so dramatically different than I saw it even four years ago, even five years ago, certainly a decade or two decades, right? So the potential for such massive paradigm shifts. I mean, it’s just amazing. I think it really speaks to human potential.

Arthur Levitan  05:56

Absolutely. And each journey is individual, right? We all look alike. We all talk alike. We eat similar foods and everything. We breathe the same air. But each journey is so individual, and that’s the foundation of Taoism, it’s the individual journey is the most important one while living among others. So you’re not running away from others. You are living among others, and you’re enjoying living among others, because that is part of our design, and taking advantage, because the most joy you get is when you’re flowing within your design, the things that you were supposed to do, right if you do something for work that you really, really enjoy, doesn’t feel like work if you if you’re moving in the right direction in your life, that is the right direction for you. May not be for the person standing next to you, but the right direction for you, it feels the most joyful. You don’t feel like you’re working or you’re struggling or anything, this is amazing, and you’re excited to wake up, you’re excited when you go to bed and everything. And a lot of people don’t take the time to actually figure that out for themselves, right? We follow the path that was prescribed for us, either by our parents or by the place we live in, and we never take the time to actually think about that. And I think that’s very important for individual contentment and just for being able to enjoy this life.

Heather Pearce Campbell  07:34

It’s so significant what you’ve just said about about flowing and having it be consistent with your individual design. I was actually thinking about this yesterday. We’ve had kind of a rough week, both from a health perspective, but I will also say a parenting perspective. My number one has ADHD and some struggles that go along with that. He’s an amazing kid, right? But it just means, like some everyday things, can be quite a challenge, getting them out the door, transitioning to school, right, these kinds of things. And I was thinking yesterday because it has been kind of a hard week, like, how, how do I shift to a place where I don’t let my expectations cause this additional friction? Like how do I get to the place of just being like, this is how it’s supposed to be, because this is how it is.

Arthur Levitan  08:26

It is apparent. That is one of the most difficult things, right? And in Taoism, we have the three C’s, and they are core, clarity, contentment. It is developing a physical core, having mental clarity and spiritual contentment. And what you’re talking about right now is clarity and to understand what you’re looking at right because a lot of people look at things and because of their expectations and assumptions, but what’s in front of them does not come clearly to their brain. It becomes more confusion or distortion, like ripples in the pond, right? The pond will beautifully reflect the sky unless there’s ripples. And what you’re talking about is the struggle a lot of parents have where they mistake the soul of the child as having anything to do with them. Because as physical beings, we make the vessel, and the vessel looks like us, and it sounds like us, and it uses phrases like us. We make the mistake of thinking they’re somehow a part of us, but the soul that occupies that vessel has nothing to do with you. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  09:52

Oh no, and I’m clear on that I having been raised in a large family, six kids. And seeing, even from a soul perspective, how different our paths are, what different places we came from and different destinations we’re going to. I’ve always been clear, and it’s a little bit weird to describe that my children, in a very strange way, feel more like siblings to me than they do like children, right? It’s like I realize I’m here to shuttle them into this physical world and beyond keeping them safe and generally, trying to help them find their best and most beautiful journey themselves. They are not me. They are not a mini me, and yet I still bump into the kind of the crunchiness sometimes of everyday life where it’s like we’ve got school to go to and appointments to go to and… right?

Arthur Levitan  10:57

That’s just part of being a parent. Totally, totally, give them opportunities and expose them to different things. And, yeah, driver and a chauffeur and a cook and everything else.

Heather Pearce Campbell  11:12

Exactly, a nurse, a nighttime nurse, which has happened a lot this week, well, and it was just in reflecting, because my son, we have lots of discussions, and he has just the most amazing, different aspects of himself, and one is that he’s highly motivated. Even though school can be a challenge, he’s highly motivated, and he has enough awareness to pay attention to grades, to self advocate when he’s not feeling like maybe missed the ball on something, like he came home and reported, you know, I’ve got all A’s, but then I got a B minus in this one class. And I was like, Sweetie, you’re doing a great job. What do you know about that b minus? He’s like, I don’t know why I have that. And I said, Well, maybe you just talk to the teacher and find out and turn off. He did on his own, went in and figured and got it changed into a b, plus, he learned that he missed an assignment that in and of itself, and I have to realize like, those are really important wins for a kid like him. And so much of my entire parenting journey has just been about letting go of any way that I think it should be right?

Arthur Levitan  12:24

Right? Because you’re trying to control everything, and you’re spending enormous amount of energy trying to control life, which is uncontrollable. Anybody in the hurricane can tell you that unfortunately, and you know, in Taoism, we always look at death as helping us with life, that we look at life from the perspective of death, and you know, Steve Jobs actually had a beautiful graduation speech where he said, It is death that defines life, it helps us understand life, and that actually is foundational in Taoism. And basically, we look at death in a way like if this was my last day, because it can be right, this is the one thing we have no control over. With all our doctors and science and everything you can imagine, we have no control over this. And that is beautiful, because it helps us not waste energy on things we shouldn’t be meddling with. So the more you try to control life, the more energy you’re spending, the less you’re getting in return, right? And it never goes your way, no matter what happens, and even if it does, how do you know that was the right way? 

Heather Pearce Campbell  13:43

Yeah,well, this is it. This is it. I mean, that’s it in a nutshell. How do you know that it was the right way?

Arthur Levitan  13:50

Anyway, you don’t. You know, you don’t. My old teacher used to say, We have no idea as being very moral, these little, tiny mortals that live tiny, tiny lives. We have no idea what’s good and bad in the moment win the lottery. And it turns out that nobody who won the lottery turned out well, right? Lose, lose, lose some sort of either a court case or a situation, or lose money. And it turns out it was the best moment of your life, because it led to very unexpected, amazing things. You know, for me, personally, on my own journey, 36 I had a heart attack, and I was sure this was the end of my life as I know it, and that moment of humility gave me such access to such a path in life that I would never be able to ever experience without it. And I’m so grateful for it. And one good thing would you be grateful for I am because the life I’ve had afterwards is completely different than the journey I was on. Be. For that, and the realizations I had in those moment could not be had intellectually. They had to having been experienced, right? And it was beautiful, like not in the moment. It’s stuck at that for about a year after. But having perspective, having years and years and years afterwards, I’m like, oh my god, that was an inflection point. And that was actually a phenomenal inflection point. Right? So when we try to control life, we have no idea which way is right or wrong in the moment. And that is another way of not wasting energy, since you have no idea why bother trying.

Heather Pearce Campbell  15:45

That’s right. That’s right. And how many times have we learned that life has other plans for us anyways, right? Even when we’re striving towards something that’s good or or seems like the right path? So it’s such a powerful reminder and, and and such a guide to hang on to, even in those small moments where you’re like, Hmm, am I going to choose the crunchy path with my child in this particular instant? Or, you know, make a different choice? Yeah, I love it so much, and I think it’s something that we all need to return to way more often than we realize. I would love to hear about your roots, about your path in Taoism. Tell us a little bit about yourself and where do you come from. How you know, I know we can’t cover the whole story, but give us a little bit of the maybe your own inflection points up to this point about your own path.

Arthur Levitan  16:38

I’ve had several more, so quick. My parents immigrated to this country in 1981 from what was then Soviet Union, Ukraine, actually. And as immigrants, they bought into the notion of the American dream because it was so opposite and unavailable. In the Soviet Union and Soviet Union, the ambition or the understanding of money was villainized. It was you shouldn’t be trying to make money. You should be earning as much as everybody else, and that’s it. So when they came here and they walked into supermarkets and were astounded, and they walked into homes and were astounded, they wanted to have a piece of the American Dream, which, frankly, is wonderful. But the consequence of that is that I grew up listening to the mantra of make money and you will be happy. And that was the mantra I grew up with so and by the time I was 1819, I started my first business, and by the time I was 21, I had 50 people working for me. And I remember buying myself an apartment, and this was, this was the immigrant jackpot, right? I mean, at a very early age, having your own place. And I remember being in that apartment and one and one night, I remember thinking, I’ve made I’ve made it, I’ve got the car, I’ve got the apartment, I’ve got the business. And I’m miserable. Well, why am I miserable? Well, what is happening here? What’s wrong with this? This was supposed to culminate in happiness and inhabit now, maybe I’m just a miserable person, which is very possible, or miserable because I’m doing things that were not right for me. And I didn’t know what the answer was. I had no idea. And I had to remember, I had to start to myself, you should try the Eastern path, because the Western path you’ve done, you have the bank account to show that you’ve done it, but it’s not working the way you would want it to work, right? And the only thing I knew about the Eastern path was kung fu movies, and I remember I liked them, but who didn’t so? And I said, okay, and I went to bed, and the next day, this person comes in to an interview at my work, and I’m interviewing him and everything. And I said in the end of the interview, very uncharacteristic to me, because I usually never dive into people’s personal life. I asked, Hey, what else do you do? And he looks at me, and he thought about and he said, Well, I’m a Buddhist teacher. No, like, that’s impossible. I’m thinking my head. I’m like, somebody’s putting me on. The universe is putting me this is insane. Turns out he was so and I said, Are you taking students? He’s like I am, and I wound up studying with him for seven years. I wound up following the Buddhist path, including some of the practices like fasting and my last fast before I stopped being a Buddhist was. Was 22 days, and that was one of my inflection points in my life, where that 22 days, and I was going to go for 30, but my mother kept calling, and she was just in a horrible place. She’s like, you haven’t even gonna kill you. Said, All right, all right, all right, I’ll stop. Even though I felt great. It was an amazing, incredible experience, not that I recommended for everybody, because it took me five years to build up to those 22 days. I started with one day and built up from there, and that changed my life, because everything changed from then on, I realized I the Buddhist path was on for me. I had no idea what was but in literally. A couple of days later, I got a phone call which and a man said, there’s a house that’s available if you want to buy it, you can flip it if you want, and everything else. And I said, Okay, didn’t even ask where, and I didn’t know why. I said, Okay. And it wound up being across from a Daoist temple. And so when people say, How did you do this? You’re so wise, etc. Like, no, I’m not. They just say yes for some reason, to crazy people, which is not a great trade. And so I wound up one day, and I’m not going to get into everything, but I wound up walking across the street, and that changed my life. Because not only was there a Taoist Grand Master with a lineage that was uninterrupted, and that’s important, because in the eastern philosophy, it is the transmission from master to student that is most important. And if that gets broken, kind of all the practices and all the nuances leave and you have to start over, as opposed to standing on the shoulders of giants for 1000s of years, people doing this and expanding on it, understanding and differently, giving their own perspective on it, you have to start from scratch, and in China, because of the cultural revolution, a lot of those paths got cut. A lot of those lineages got cut. So mine thankfully survived. And not only that, but this grand master was married to a woman who was a Siberian shaman, so I wound up getting taught by both of them from the male and the female point of view. And that was an incredible, incredible experience, which allows me to work with both energies, as opposed to being stuck in one perspective. So fast forward, 2009 I started my school 2016 after traveling in China for years, I got ordained in the oldest continuously operated Daoist temple in the world in Chengdu, and found myself more and more working with executive CEOs, lawyers, founders, one of the things that gets me most excited because of my own entrepreneurial path, having built companies using using the Daoist principles, I help founders navigate the startup world. And essentially it’s all about building resilience in a way to understanding the challenges and understanding how to navigate yourself and your state through them, that that’s very obviously things happen in the middle, but that’s the 30,000 for you.

Heather Pearce Campbell  23:39

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Heather Pearce Campbell  25:22

I’m just reflecting on the fact that, you know, like, what happens in life when we say out loud, like, hmm, what about this, right? Or maybe I should look over here, and the way that things just show up. I mean, it is crazy. And for anybody who’s ever done this as an experiment or ever really taken a leap like this, you know what we’re talking about. And I think there is something tremendously powerful about saying things out loud, you know, and and being clear, or even just opening the door to something happening next. And it I think the universe loves invitation. I think it loves surprise, loves to support us, at least my belief just wants to know what we want, right?

Arthur Levitan  26:07

If we’re going in a direction that our soul is pulling us into, right, we’re supposed to experience and learn some lessons while we’re here and when we follow the path that is right for us, amazing things happen, almost by magic. And when they don’t, that’s a great sign that you’re not going in the right direction. And the most important thing in that moment, and this is the hardest thing to do as a human being, is not to judge yourself. It’s It’s so difficult because that’s what we’re surrounded with all the time. And the reason for not judging yourself or anybody else, for that matter, or anything else, is that as soon as you judge something, you subconsciously push away from it, and instead of embracing it and bringing it closer and understanding it and examining it, you subconsciously push away from it, and that then limits your ability to work with it. So then you’re not listening to yourself like you’re getting these instincts. Your instincts are telling you these little, tiny things, or maybe some big, big bells are going off, and because you’ve judged yourself, you’ve pushed those instincts away. So your greatest connection to this world and to your soul are your instincts. And you’re not consciously right. You’ve decided that they’re not right. So you’re constantly second guessing yourself. So the decisions that you think you’re making, they’re naturally not really right for you, right?

Heather Pearce Campbell  27:48

They’re driven, yes, they’re driven by this energetic, either repelling of or overly attracted to. It’s what comes to mind for me right now, is, I’ve got a dear friend who does a lot of shadow work with people, right? And it’s this idea of like, and also, if you’ve done any reading, I mean, there’s some books I love swamplands of the soul, and some that take you through the process of recognizing that what people often think of as midlife crisis is this recognition of that push or pull, or these false identities because of beliefs like this, judgments like this that create a self that’s not really the true Self, and that’s the joy of these experiences that bring us into crisis, that give us a whole new perspective or potential new direction in life.

Arthur Levitan  28:50

Crises are an opportunity. They’re an opportunity, because in in every opportunity, there’s a problem, and every problem there’s an opportunity, right? And that’s a chance for us to test ourselves out, to see what works and what doesn’t, and to, most importantly, to dispel ideas. But I’d like to get back just a second about what you said, which was, I thought brilliant, and I’d like to give you another way of looking at it. It’s the same thing. It’s just another way of looking at it. So perspective is the most important thing we do in Taoism. Being able to shift perspectives and to understand things from other points of views is very, very important. So as mammals, when we grow up, each one of us tries to answer a fundamental question. And the question is not conscious, but we try to answer it anyway. And the question is, who do I have to become to get love? Now we can say this a different way. What do I have to do to survive?

Heather Pearce Campbell  29:58

Right, to be safe in the world, right?

Arthur Levitan  30:00

Yeah. So what happens is, as we grow up, based on our environment and everybody’s is different, we create this construct that answers, that resonates with the answer to that question, and somewhere along the way, we never, ever take that construct off, because nobody tells us so our soul is our original nature that is behind this curtain of this construct. And it takes a lot of times, it takes a crisis to challenge that construct, right? And that is part of the journey. You cannot avoid that journey that is very necessary part of it. But in Taoism, we always try to return to our original nature or to our child, like existence before the construct, yep, right, right.

Heather Pearce Campbell  30:53

Before the people pleaser, before the overachiever, right. 

Arthur Levitan  30:58

There wasn’t you to begin with, right? That’s what you had to become in order to survive to adulthood. That’s right, which is normal, which is unavoidable. And if you try to avoid it, you’re actually going to be in much worse place.

Heather Pearce Campbell  31:15

Right? And I mean, in summary, like we all do our best to get from there to here, right? And now it’s about, what do we do from here forward.

Arthur Levitan  31:25

Right. That’s exactly right. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  31:28

Well, I think this shows up for people in so many different ways, and it’s such a blessing when people realize this shadow element, this constructed self. I’d love to hear more. For folks that are listening and that you know might have curiosity, but may not know much about Taoism. I know you’ve shared a little bit already, but are there some core principles like, how does Taoism shape your view of the world of your work? I’d love to hear, you know, some of those cornerstones.

Arthur Levitan  32:04

Absolutely. I mean, you know, 2500 years in a couple of minutes.

Heather Pearce Campbell  32:08

I know we’re good, we’re good. Just pack it in, right?

Arthur Levitan  32:11

So there are fundamentally, nine main principles, which we’re not going to get into, because that’s…

Heather Pearce Campbell  32:18

Nine is my favorite number. I love it already. 

Arthur Levitan  32:21

There you go. But we’re never good ever. I mean, it will take a while. It would be a Lex Fridman show at that point.

Heather Pearce Campbell  32:29

We won’t make you sit through that, but, yeah, you can give us your favorite parts, or one or two. 

Arthur Levitan  32:35

I love to start because the original logo, or branding for Taoism is the Yin Yang symbol, the black and the white.

Heather Pearce Campbell  32:45

Yes, I know. Well, I’ve got a little kind of version. I mean, it’s different, but it’s yes.

Arthur Levitan  32:52

So a lot of people, they have some sort of cursory understanding of it, or they think it’s about balance and in the way it is, but it actually describes the whole philosophy in that symbol. And I’ll give you a quick run through the most important aspect of that is that squiggly line between the white and the black says this. This whole world is made up of opposites pushing and pulling on each other day and night, create conditions for life. And when opposites push and pull on each other, they create flow, man and woman create child that’s flow, north and south pole. Create the spin of the earth, and we can the seasons right, create the push and pull between winter and summer. Gives us the gives the ability for life to thrive here, right? So everything is based on that. There is an opposite that’s working with it, pushing and pulling. Take one away and the flow stops. Take a man away from a woman and vice versa, and there is no child. Take night away from day and everything burns. Take day away from night and everything freezes so but we do this in our daily lives, through our opinions and through our subconscious actions. We try to only work with one aspect and shunning the other aspect.

Heather Pearce Campbell  34:24

Well, this is this judgment that you talk about, right? Something’s bad, something’s good. Let’s just do.

Arthur Levitan  34:31

Absolutely. Or you can, let’s get rid of those words of judgment and say, think everything in this life has consequences and benefits or benefits and consequences. So you cannot have anything without those two aspects. Otherwise it’s not functioning right. So in Taoism, we always look at what creates stagnation or what creates flow. Flow is created when the opposite. Are working with each other. Stagnation is created when you get rid of the opposite. So if you’re going to be too masculine or too feminine, you’re getting rid of the opposite, you’re going to be rigid. And you can see this in people who do not benefit from the other energy, Oh, totally rigid in their opinions.

Heather Pearce Campbell  35:20

Well, and you can see it even, and I know we’ve talked a little bit about this, but even in the dynamics of men and women in the workplace, and putting women in industries that are highly dominated by men, and then them taking on very masculine energy in order to try to succeed, right? It’s like pushing a boulder up a hill, right?

Arthur Levitan  35:41

And while doing that, they are giving up their power, yeah? How? Because they’re giving up their original nature, the things that give them the most power, that feminine energy, they’re giving that up and trying to live another life.

Heather Pearce Campbell  35:56

Well, and similarly, men who are in leadership positions and who have that balance of you know they understand what it means to use feminine energy and balance with masculine energy, such better leaders, listeners, right? 

Arthur Levitan  36:14

But also better warrior, yes, also people who are adapted using both energies, or at least understanding where their strengths are and augmenting themselves with a team that helps them with the other side of it, they wind up being underestimated because they’re not acting like everybody else, and then everybody else underestimates them, and that gives you an enormous amount of power. You always want to be underestimated as a warrior. There’s nothing better than your opponent underestimating.

Heather Pearce Campbell  36:48

Right? Oh, my goodness. Isn’t that the truth? The number of I just think about that in the context of my legal career, and I came out of school looking like I was 14, and just was constantly underestimated constantly. So it it’s true, it becomes a tremendous advantage. 

Arthur Levitan  37:08

Yes, well, when people are underestimating you, they miss the nuances of your behavior because they’re not observing you anymore. They’ve made up their mind about that you’re weak or you’re useless, or you’re inadequate, and they’re no longer focused on you. They’re no longer observing you. And this works in every aspect of life, but there’s a whole series of practices. There’s a whole and the reason that Taoism has survived unchanged for 3-4000 years is because it was based on nature. And as far as we understand, nature is permanent, at least as far as we can tell, right? We don’t live that long so, and our civilizations are not that long, and our writings are only 5000 years old. So as far as we know, nature is permanent. And when you’re using principles from something that’s permanent, it’s like you’re building a house on on bedrock, and when you’re using values that are temporary and change all the time, you’re building your house on quicksand. And that is the difference is, where is the beginning of your thinking? Is it from a place of permanence nature, or is it from a place of very temporary society, right? Our society is constantly shifting its value system in order to keep us out of balance. That is neither good or bad, it just is in order to make it function. And our society, especially in the West, was designed for maximum interdependence. It was designed to create these very random, highly successful interdependent connections, which highlight ourselves as a species. The reason we became an apex predator on this planet is because our ability to be interdependent with each other. We didn’t have teeth, we couldn’t run. We were pathetic. As animals, we are so pathetic, okay, compared to other, we just, there’s no grace in us. Our young are pathetic until God knows when. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  39:15

Alright, we’re not powerful until we’re adults. Like everything is wrong, yes.

Arthur Levitan  39:21

But being interdependent with each other, we can take down a huge mammoth. We can conquer this planet in a way that no other species can, and that the only reason for that is because our interdependence with each other.

Heather Pearce Campbell  39:36

Oh, that’s right. Well, I just read the book humankind, and it was fascinating because it touched on some of these points of like, why the current version of humans excelled, even over Neanderthals, which were stronger, faster, bigger, they were actually smarter than we are, which is interesting, because people get that wrong. But. It, they did not play as nicely as we do. We have the friendliness gene, right? And that ability…

Arthur Levitan  40:08

They didn’t as much, they didn’t kiss as much. They didn’t, right?

Heather Pearce Campbell  40:13

Yes, this friendliness gene, this ability to be interconnected, is actually what allowed us to transmit information so quickly and come up with solutions.

Arthur Levitan  40:23

I’m good at this. You’re good at this together. We’re seeing some of the parts, right? So when you’re building a team in business, and this is what I help with businesses, is how do you create a team that could be truly interdependent, versus a team of resumes? Right? And that takes effort. That’s it. 

Arthur Levitan  40:24

Oh, my goodness. And in certain industries, takes lots of extra effort. I won’t name any names, yes, yes.

Arthur Levitan  40:58

What’s happening right now in our society, and why people are feeling anxiety in particular is those bonds of interdependence are being broken because we’re stuck on Zoom, because we’re no longer going into, well, some of us are, but a lot of us aren’t going into physical places where we’re bonding. We’re eating together at lunch, we’re walking together, we’re talking together and everything, we’re breaking those bonds, and that is leading to anxiety, and that’s why people are in a state that they’re in. They may be more productive, they may be earning more money, but contentment has left the building.

Heather Pearce Campbell  41:40

Oh, yeah, they’re way less connected, truly connected face to face, connected with people, right?

Arthur Levitan  41:48

And if anything is particularly dangerous to us as a society, that is one of the most dangerous aspects, because it’s breaking up the interdependence.

Heather Pearce Campbell  41:58

Well, and it’s like, I think that certain people get it, you know, you see the way that there are folks who are brilliant at like planning communities with a layout that actually facilitate that interconnectedness, right? We’re trying. I think we’re in a phase right now where people who know what’s going on are, in their own ways, trying to undo the damage that we’ve done in recent decades. Right with this isolationist business and in certain countries, get it better than we do, certainly in the way that the elderly are housed with the young, and there’s much more interaction and community support. And you know there’s a part of me that wants to remain hopeful that we can figure it out and create, we will create movements like that, that that help us all do better as a species.

Arthur Levitan  42:53

We seem to be following an interesting pattern, that we’re maturing as a species, as well as individuals and as a species, when we’re matured enough to create the problem, it seems that we’ve matured enough to create a solution. And it seems that this is a pattern that we’re always in. And if you look at our history, that seems to be consistent. So I’m very optimistic, actually, that our ability to deal with the climate change, our ability to deal with the dangers posed by the AI revolution that’s happening right now. And that’s a whole.

Arthur Levitan  42:54

Oh, we could have a whole separate podcast episode just on that, yeah.

Arthur Levitan  43:33

I mean, I’m not even gonna get into it, but yeah, there are. I have thoughts. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  43:39

Well, it just as a microcosm of that you look at. So, for example, you look at what happened with cell phones, with social media platforms coming online. You know, let’s call it 2006-2008 that time frame, and we’ve had enough time to see what happened. And now you have whole school districts and groups of parents moving away from phones at school, phones on kids, you know, kids even having cell phones. And so I think there are some of us who are learning from what has been done, not very well, and it’s the opportunity that we continually have.

Arthur Levitan  44:19

Well, we’re either a part of nature or we’re staring into a cell phone. One is going to bring you contentment and joy in this world. The other one not that I’m against cell phones. I’m a huge fan of being able to communicate with you, like this, like everything has benefits and consequences. If we’re aware of the consequences, if we have clarity of what the consequences are, we can work with it. If we judge him and push him away, we can’t work well.

Heather Pearce Campbell  44:54

And it’s interesting because I obviously love being with people. I love being in person with people. COVID combined with motherhood, you know, even combined with my work, it was like a collision of all these things that made that virtually impossible. And there are days that, like, Zoom saved me. I felt like I could be in the presence of people when I otherwise wouldn’t have had the opportunity at all to do that, right? So, yeah, it is totally the well, and it’s because I’m sure we’ve got listeners that are like, there’s not benefits to everything, you know, this whole conversation around around, whether you call it balance, but it really is this, this benefits. Yeah, benefits versus pitfalls, risk, consequences. There we go. That’s the word. There it was a guest that I’ve had Dr Demartini. Reminds me of the Demartini method, that which was a really great exercise in looking at what are the things in life, particularly that people have done, maybe events that have harmed you, but actually examining very carefully how many positives came out of that. And if you’re being honest with yourself, and you’re looking for them in balance to the negatives, you find that it’s in balance.

Heather Pearce Campbell  44:57

It is right. It is if you don’t judge it, and you have unconditional acceptance, you will be able to see the benefits, and you will be able to understand how to work with the consequence.

Heather Pearce Campbell  46:33

And if you’re willing to look it, is one of the ways to get to unconditional acceptance, right? Because a lot of people feel triggered around a certain person who harmed them or certain events, and can be really hard to get to that place of acceptance and doing the exercise of like actually examining what are the good things that have flowed from this can allow you to see, for example, my own role as a parent like, no doubt, even on my best of days, I will do some things that have negative consequences to my children, and I have to accept it all in balance. Like, regardless of the job I do, there will be positives, there will be negatives, right?

Arthur Levitan  47:15

And one of the issues with being a parent is you never know in the moment.

Heather Pearce Campbell  47:19

if you do which one.

Arthur Levitan  47:21

I mean, the only way to tell is to raise this child again in parallel making different decisions and look at the outcome. And that’s not possible. So relax. I mean, just do your best, and if things are moving in a positive direction, the child is thriving. Okay? You may be doing something right, hopefully, and if they’re not, you may be doing something wrong, but just change it. It’s no big deal. Don’t judge yourself for it. Just change what you’re doing right. People’s first instinct when things aren’t going in the right direction is judgment.

Heather Pearce Campbell  47:55

Oh, it’s so easy to do. Yes, it’s so easy to slip into that or.

Arthur Levitan  48:00

to blame others, and both are a massive waste of energy, not that they’re good or bad. You notice here I’m not even judging the judging right? It’s neither good or bad. It’s a way. It’s either you’re gaining energy or you’re losing energy. But it’s never stopped. You’re never in a pause. You’re moving into play in a way that your your energy is moving with you and you’re gaining energy, or you’re moving in a way that you’re spending more than you’re gaining, and that’s a negative return.

Heather Pearce Campbell  48:30

Well, that’s right. And even on the issue of judgment, there are plenty of instances where judgment is appropriate. For that instance, right? We have biological judgment that saves us.

Arthur Levitan  48:42

Let’s call it differently, because, because, because I that word is charged and totally so let’s call it differently. Let’s call it analysis.

Heather Pearce Campbell  48:53

Analysis, yeah, even discernment, yeah, in that moment.

Arthur Levitan  48:57

Right, as mostly prey animals. We in a jungle, we’ve developed this ability to analyze the situation in a split second, right, friend or foe, fight or flight or phrase, right and instant, and it’s a split second. Now what happens is judgment, is analysis that never ends. So now, instead of listening to your instincts and just doing creating action, you’re sitting there and you’re thinking about it, and you’re thinking about.

Heather Pearce Campbell  49:35

And you’re thinking about it, remaining in judgment. Yes.

Arthur Levitan  49:39

Now, imagine in the jungle we did that, how many tigers would eat us? All of them. Yeah, we would be the easiest prey ever, right? Because we have, there is no time, especially in the crisis, to sit there and judge, because that takes too much time analysis. I’m done. One I’m moving and that’s it, right? So judgment is really Analysis Plus emotions. That doesn’t end okay? So now we know that, now we understand where the issue is. Great. Let’s catch ourselves. If we keep thinking and saying over and over the same thing, we can try once in a while, because you can’t do it all the time. Once in a while, we’re like, All right, let’s try a different way. Now, with Taoism, we always work with 1% in other words, we’re never trying to get to 10% 20-30, 100 nothing. What we’re trying to do is help ourselves improve, like, less than 1% in one in a situation, one out of 100 that we actually catch ourselves and we’re like, oh, that’s what’s happening right now. All right, let’s move on. Got that? All right, maybe, hopefully next week, I’ll try to catch it again. And then one day, all those one percents add up to 100%.

Heather Pearce Campbell  51:05

I love that feels so much more accessible, right, and doable. 

Arthur Levitan  51:10

Well, think about in the gym. Let’s say you have a goal of picking up 100 pounds, and you tested your abilities, and you can only pick up 20 so the next step shouldn’t be to try to pick up 40 it should be pick up 21 and then next week 22 and maybe the next week 23 right? And then one day you’ll make it to 100 and if you don’t, nobody’s going to put on your tombstone. She didn’t make it to 100.

Heather Pearce Campbell  51:39

So despite what we all think, right? I love that there’s I mean, and I want to be so respectful our time, because I feel like we could just like, go a whole nother hour, but a couple of concepts that I’d love to hear you just talk about briefly, especially in the context of working with your clients. And then I want to hear more about how you do that. Is this idea around flow and seasons like this balance, right? And I know we’ve touched on this briefly. I feel like, especially if you’re a parent, that that recognition, and a mom for sure, that recognition of things happening in seasons. It’s like, right? We’re in the seasons of fall and kids getting all the colds at school and bringing them home, and also it’s the season of summer ending and people getting kind of full bore back into work, right?

Arthur Levitan  52:35

Well, let’s start with nature versus our society, and it’s not an antagonistic relationship, it’s just an understanding of how things are different. So in nature, as we get into winter, everything slows down. So spring is a time for mating, and summer is a time of abundance, right? And where we’re trying to get as much energy as we can, we’re trying to cultivate as much as we can, the bears try to eat as much so they gain as much weight as they can, right? So that as we get into fall and especially winter, we can slow down use less energy, so that it’s there to help us get through the hard winter season. So but our society, what it tries, what it’s doing is, is it’s scheduling really big holidays at the end of fall and right in the middle of winter, when we should be slowing down and seeing less people. We actually have to speed up and see more people. That is going to naturally create anxiety, naturally. Now, should we cancel the holidays? No, we’re not going to do that. It’s an act of Congress, and there’s a whole thing around and lots of people are going to be upset, but what you can do is recognize it for what it is, and understand that that this is going to drain me more than it should, simply because it’s an unnatural state. Great. What should I do? Well, walk more between those, between the time that you have to see people. See less people. Take walks by yourself. Sit in nature, look at trees, look at a lake, look at the ocean, take your time to recharge. And some of the things I love to do is, as I’m walking, I love to walk backwards, not for not a lot, but the key to it is you can’t look backwards. And the one of the reasons is because you want to get your consciousness out of your eyes. Because of our screens, too, much of our consciousness is sitting in our eyes and building up heat, and as we’re walking backwards, and we can’t look backwards, a lot of that naturally. Starts to drain into grounding and through your feet into the ground. So it’s not a lot. I take about 10 steps and, you know, and I turn around and they keep walking. And once in a while, I’ll do that one more time, and it’s the simplest thing to do, and it has the most incredible effect. 

Arthur Levitan  52:46

Oh, that’s amazing. 

Arthur Levitan  55:19

I don’t know. I’m not sure if I answered your question the way you posed it, but that’s what came up for me.

Heather Pearce Campbell  55:26

No, I love that actually. And that was a twist even on what I was thinking, but so appropriate. I mean, I think recognizing how profoundly we’re actually impacted by natural cycles, by the seasons, like so often, what comes up for me is just seasons, whether it’s like the season to play, the season to write, because summer for us is the season to play, whether you want to or not, you’ve got two kids at home, right? And how, when you work against those it’s just so much more challenging and, you know, and I can imagine, in like, the leadership roles and people that you work with, that’s a whole other conversation, right? When you’re talking about corporate cycles and stuff. I but I think that for like, the audience that we’re talking to that are small business owners, they’re entrepreneurs, they may have built, or are building small teams. They’re not the Googles of the world, but these concepts are really important, and to the extent that they can honor those cycles and some of this natural ebb and flow, even in their business, planning their you know, the way that they schedule their work, I feel like it is once you learn it, once you see it. It’s such a profound topic. I mean my sister, who I referenced earlier, we talk, we talk often about our childhood and how, like resting was not a thing we ever saw parents do. It was not a thing we did. Like this whole concept of balance and rest is something that we are learning for the first time in adulthood.

Arthur Levitan  57:05

It is the consequences of the incredible society we build. There’s incredible benefits. I mean incredible benefits, being able to turn on the faucet and not die from parasites, taking a shower and not falling prey to diseases. You know, when you do get sick, there’s people in the hospital who dedicated their whole life to helping you. And this goes on and on. There’s insane benefits to what we’ve built, and it’s it’s gorgeous and it’s amazing. And with all the benefits, there are consequences, and it’s just a matter of working with those consequences versus judging them. And I sound like a broken record. I know I do, but that’s the only way to get through.

Heather Pearce Campbell  57:50

No. People need to hear this, and they need to hear it applied in different ways and different circumstances. I love it. I think it’s such a powerful thing that once you once you see it, you just can’t unsee it, right?

Heather Pearce Campbell  58:03

Well, and this piece, what you just said, because I love this reframe around limitations, and I don’t think we’re in a society that naturally wants to think of it this way, but is seeing actually how positive it is to be at that point of recognizing your limitation, and also from an energy expenditure standpoint, this idea of like, oh, what else can I let go of? What else can I you know, whether it’s a thought process, whether it’s an energetic pattern, whether it’s something related to work or parenting, right, it’s really makes you feel like you can take a bigger breath.

Arthur Levitan  58:03

And it’s the same thing in business, whether it’s a founder or an executive, is, how do I show up, right? And it all starts not with what you’re doing, but who are you, right? What are your strengths? And one of the wonderful things about Taoism is one of the principles is limitations. Embrace your limitation. And why is that, when you are in the space of humility and understand that you reach your limitations? Yes, you can gently push on them. You can never break them, but you can push on them, you can expand them. That takes a lot of effort, or you can recognize that I’ve reached my limitations, and this is where I ask for help. And asking for help is one of the most important things you can do in an interdependent society, because once you understand that this is out of your control and no longer your ability. You can go looking for a team member that is actually really, really good at what you suck at, and they will go, hey, I’ll solve one second. I’m done with that. Awesome. So I don’t have to go and spend God knows how many hours trying to get better at something I’m still going to suck at, right? But that’s why limitations are so important and but in English language, though, we hear negative connotations when we see limitations and they’re actually the opposite. It’s a very positive thing. It allows you to ask for help so you can get whatever you need to get done faster. And the person that you’ve asked for help is going to be your friend, because people love being asked, especially what you’re good at, like you were asking me questions. I love you, because I am really good at this, and I want to share. Share that, because that’s the way I get to express it, and the way I derive value from it is when I share it, right? So I’m a huge fan of you now because you asked me about things that I that I’m good at. So you make a friend, your stuff gets done, and you’ve spending a lot less energy on it. How is that not a win win?

Arthur Levitan  1:01:00

Yes, yes, and I’ll give you an example from your profession. One of the things I hear from lawyers that I work with the most is my clients don’t listen to me. I mean, they could be paying you crazy amount of hours and me per hour, and they’re not listening. And they’re not listening because they haven’t actually embraced their own limitations and understanding that they don’t know better. You have spent your life doing this. You know better, and I should be all my ears, all my senses should be trying to understand you and follow you, because that is what you do best. And I have, I have my limitations. I am not a lawyer. I do not know these things, and I have not spent years in the courtroom or around other lawyers and seeing things from different angles. That’s not possible. I’m going to have to have like, 10 more lifetimes, right?

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:01:54

Yeah. 

Arthur Levitan  1:01:55

And that always amazed me is that that is the number one thing I hear lawyers always talk about is their clients just don’t listen.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:02:02

You know? It is a challenge. I luckily love my clients. I have had to fire just a couple in 22 years of practice, I’ve probably only fired, I don’t know, less than one hand two to four, you know. And so I’ve had very good luck, but when you recognize that in a client, I’m very quick to be like, I’m sorry, I’m not the one to help you, right? It’s just I’m not the one to help you, if this is how it is. And so it’s also, again, very powerful to recognize the truth of that and your own limitation and being able to put more effort into that client that is going to take too much effort and too much time and too much frustration, or…

Arthur Levitan  1:02:46

Maybe it’s not even possible. You’ve done your best. Everything beyond your best is not possible. So when you recognize that, right when you recognize that I’ve done my best with this client, you are free. That is freedom right there, because you no longer have to try. You have done your best, and you are at the end of your limitations when it comes to this process, whatever it is, and now you can, with a clear conscious let the client go, because there’s nothing more you could have done, or you could keep hitting your head against the wall.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:03:21

Oh my gosh. And how many people listening like, in whatever their version of their work life is that recognize this feeling of like, oh my gosh, that’s exactly what it is, right?

Arthur Levitan  1:03:32

And that’s all the journey inward. So in that was we never really, I mean the outside world, we look at for flows and understanding what the environment is, but all our cues we take from ourselves, there’s nobody ever to blame. If I wind up with a business partner that did very unpleasant things, I’m the one who chose to be with a scorpion, and then I chose to expect that Scorpion to have a different to go against their nature.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:04:02

It’s so true. Silly here. It’s so true. Like when my clients have a rough interaction or scenario with their own clients, I’m always helping them look like what. Let’s talk about the red flags that you saw that you just ignored. They’re always there. 

Arthur Levitan  1:04:19

Didn’t see them, or if you didn’t see them. Let’s talk about how you can get better at seeing them.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:04:24

Totally. But often it’s a often they saw them and then they looked away. That is most often the pattern.

Arthur Levitan  1:04:32

I pay him so much. It’s probably my own experience. Why I’m saying this. I’m paying him so much, he’d never go behind my back. I mean, why would he want to lose all that money? Oh, he went behind my back. Oh, okay, see, this is me now, talking from my experience, but it takes all those experiences to understand that how what is the right way to go? And when I was young, like everybody else would, I would blame mothers. Yes, and then I learned that I’m the one who’s picking these people.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:05:06

Oh, it’s such a profound learning. I would love to hear how you work with I know you do a variety of things and supporting your clients like and I know in a variety of areas, leadership, you know, transitioning through crisis, which is significant, and I think a lot of people have faced that in their own way in the past few years, or are still facing it. Talk to me about who your clients are, how you work with them, right? Who are your favorite people to work with?

Arthur Levitan  1:05:38

Well, because they most reflect my journey in life, obviously entrepreneur, because I have the most language in common with them, and a very close second are CEOs executives. I really enjoy working with lawyers, because I work with their clients to help them through a crisis. And I actually wrote a book. It’s called Outlast, on how to get through crisis. And I wrote it from my own experience. I had a legal crisis, I had a health crisis, and I had all those so you don’t have to.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:06:23

Right? If it were only so easy, we all just get to skip our own crises. Yeah.

Arthur Levitan  1:06:29

But what it taught me was, is how to get through those using the Taoist tools, and what it taught so what I when I wrote the book, I wrote it there. The whole book is really Taoist tools, not talking about Taoist tools. So no Fight Club. I love it, and I use them to get through the crisis. And they talked about how to get while being in the middle of it, while being on the other side of it. So I enjoy working with people who are in crisis, not because they’re in crisis. That’s not the enjoyable part. The enjoyable part is helping them realize the opportunities in this situation. And it is very much counter intuitive how to win in a crisis. So everybody wants to get out of the crisis as fast as possible, and that is the best way to lose the most amazing way to get through a crisis is by recognizing that it’s a marathon and that life is never going to change. This is the way it’s always going to be. So what do I have to do to adapt to this situation if it’s never going to change? And that’s the opportunity in it. And the person who can last in the crisis the longest will last to, I guarantee, I’ve seen this over and over, including my life, will last to get to an inflection point where things go their way. Yeah.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:07:55

Well, it is when you think about, like, I think about some of the physical crises I’ve been in, you know, and those moments of like, and the interesting thing is, I’m having a shift right now of you saying, like, you actually need to adopt this like, what if it’s this way forever? How do I adapt? And the mantra that I had is, like, you know, what? Maybe this is the wrong way, but it, it won’t be this way forever. I don’t know when it’s going to change. It won’t be forever. How do I just get through right now? How do I just the next step close, right? 

Arthur Levitan  1:08:30

The reality is, it won’t be forever. You’re 100% right, but you want to set your system into not looking at the future, because then you’re diverting your energy.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:08:40

That’s well, and this is it for anybody. And I think a health crisis comes to mind because it’s so poignant when you’re in those moments in your body where things feel terrible and you’re like, I really don’t know if I’m going to survive this. Like, all you have is the moment right now and then the next one and then the next one, right? 

Arthur Levitan  1:09:01

And it is the 1% what was the 1%. Yeah, totally. Don’t look with 100% for everything to change. What can I do right now? They can achieve Me a 1% difference. And that’s very achievable.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:09:15

Yeah, but significant. But I think it is one of the skills that actually help people get through in a way that they can be proud of, right? That they can feel like they didn’t have to sacrifice themselves or their sanity or their, you know, their belief.

Arthur Levitan  1:09:38

Not for a long time. Good birth, yes, yeah,

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:09:42

Totally. We all do in some ways, but yeah, first of all, I love the title of your book, Outlast. We will be sure to share that and any other links that you want us to share. I think that it’s super appropriate. Since you’re on the podcast, Guts, Grit and Great Business®. I do really, personally love stories about perseverance and how people get through because it’s absolutely essential for entrepreneurship. It’s absolutely essential for being human.

Arthur Levitan  1:10:10

Absolutely in everybody’s life. There’s no such thing as you’re not going to get into a crisis, because you may not recognize it. But in fact, it was really interesting when the people helping me with the book editing, it said to me at the end of the book, he goes, I never realized that wasn’t a crisis until I read your book.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:10:34

Isn’t that fascinating? 

Arthur Levitan  1:10:36

That’s because it sneaks up slowly over time and we gently adapt to it until we’re in a full blown crisis without really understanding it, because it’s like, what is that? Boiling?

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:10:48

Boiling the frog? Well, I think particularly in the context of relationships, you see that time and time again. I think you probably can see it in employment as well people that stay for a very long time and realize, like, I’m completely unhappy doing this work, right? Yeah, yeah, right.

Arthur Levitan  1:11:10

Or you see it in teams where a certain person no longer belongs in that team, but because of whatever loyalty or history, or anything else, we allow that person to continue to the detriment of both the person and the team.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:11:26

And the team? Yeah, absolutely no. It’s so significant. Well, we will pop the link of that book out last into the show notes. And folks, if you’re listening, you know where the show notes are. Go to legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast, find Master Arthur Levitan’s episode, we will have a link to your website, your book, Arthur, are you on social media? Do you show up other places online? 

Arthur Levitan  1:11:54

Not really. People are trying to get me to post more.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:11:59

It’s a good answer. I really love people who don’t show up on social media, because secretly, I would like for that to be me as well. I’ll get there. I think I’ll get there. 

Arthur Levitan  1:12:08

But one of the things that I can offer is I’ve started my series of Qigong on Zoom, yes, yes. And for those who are interested, it’s an amazing it’s the practice is 1000s years old, and the reason it survived is because it’s worked. It’s a female energy practice to counteract the stress of the male energy world, um. And it does amazing things. And even once a week, it is incredible what it does for health and for peace of mind. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:12:46

Well, I’m looking forward to trying it with you. I know I was going to show up this week, and then, speaking of health, my daughter’s health threw us a little curveball, but the way you described it, which I loved, and I want people to hear if they’re not familiar with Qigong, is how it elongates your breath. And just that concept of elongating breath like as a mom, as a worker bee, some days as an attorney, I know how much and how, how easily I can get into a place of not breathing as deeply and as fully as I should. 

Arthur Levitan  1:13:19

So I’m super excited. Yeah, we all do. There’s nobody.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:13:24

Welcome to Modern life, right? 

Arthur Levitan  1:13:26

And that’s the consequences and but we can work with it if we…

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:13:29

Right. I love it, so I’m super excited about trying that out. We will share that link as well to the Qigong. Or do they just get in touch with you? Did I maybe say that? Is there a link to it? Because

Arthur Levitan  1:13:43

I think the website quantumtao.org.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:13:48

I think it has a sign up link or something.

Arthur Levitan  1:13:51

Sign up or it should. We’ll find out.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:13:55

We’ll find out regardless. We will let people know how to find it in the show notes, which will be super fun. 

Arthur Levitan  1:14:01

And my email is is in your notes, so they can get it perfect.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:14:05

So yeah, pop over to legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. We will share access to Arthur’s book. We will share links to the however you get there, to the Qigong practice. If you would like to test it out. I’m super excited about that, Arthur, it’s been such a joy to have you here and to talk about, you know, all everything that’s come up, is there anything on your mind? A final thought, a quote, a takeaway. You’d like to leave our listeners with?

Arthur Levitan  1:14:35

Don’t be alone. That is the first chapter of my book, and I try to live by it. Don’t be alone. You’re not designed that way.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:14:45

No, no, I love that. Don’t be alone. It’s again, cons, I mean, a topic for a whole other episode. All the studies on longevity about what really matters, right? Is it that you drink buttermilk or beer? Or is it that you are surrounded by friends? Yeah, right, totally, totally. 

Arthur Levitan  1:15:05

You can walk with a friend. That’s the most loveliest thing, or your child, that’s the loveliest thing ever.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:15:10

Yeah, I love it. Arthur, I so appreciate you. I am grateful to have you in my world now and know about your work and who you are in the world. So I’m super excited to introduce folks to you and send some new followers your way. So thank you very much for your time today.

GGGB Outro  1:15:29

Thank you for joining us today on the Guts, Grit and Great Business® podcast. We hope that we’ve added a little fuel to your tank, some coffee to your cup and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. For key takeaways, links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more, see the show notes which can be found at www.legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so others will find us too. Keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.