How To Take Radical Responsibility With Fleet Maull

Fleet Maull is an author, renowned meditation teacher, and executive coach, who spent 14 years in prison and now dedicates his life to facilitate deep transformation for individuals and organizations. In this episode, he shares with us his philosophy of radical responsibility, and how to create positive social transformation and a more sustainable global society.

Transcript

Welcome to the Explorers Mind podcast,

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Found their purpose,

And expanded their consciousness.

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And create an inspiring vision for your life.

It's time to find your inspiration and open up new possibilities for a meaningful life with your host,

Palma Michel.

Welcome to the Explorers Mind.

Today's guest is Dr.

Fleet Moll.

Dr.

Moll is an author,

Renowned meditation teacher,

Management consultant,

Trainer,

And executive coach who facilitates deep transformation for individuals and organizations through his philosophy and program of radical responsibility.

He's a tireless and dedicated peacemaker and servant leader working for positive social transformation and a more just and sustainable global society.

His work has empowered tens of thousands from inmates to hospice patients to top level business leaders.

Fleet is the founder of the Prison Dharma Network,

The Prison Mindfulness Institute,

The Center for Mindfulness and Public Safety,

The National Prison Hospice Association,

And he's also the CEO of Windhose Seminars.

He's also the co-founder of Engaged Mindfulness Institute,

Transforming Justice Initiative,

Upayas Institute Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program,

The Rwanda Bearing Witness Retreat and Peace Initiative,

And the Center for Contemplative End of Life Care at Naropa University.

I met Fleet in 2014 at the Mindful Leadership Summit in Washington and found his story and life's work incredibly inspiring.

Fleet welcome to the show,

It's wonderful to have you here with us today.

Thank you very much,

Paula.

Great to be here.

Great to see you again.

Fleet,

I've seen that you recently wrote a new book called Radical Responsibility,

How to move beyond blame,

Fearlessly live your highest purpose and become an unstoppable force for good.

And I found this really poignant because your teachings about radical responsibility are not just powerful,

But you really walk your talk because you have undergone this amazing transformation personally.

Some people may not be aware of that.

Before you became this world renowned meditation teacher,

You actually spent,

I think,

14 years incarcerated.

And during that time,

You have undergone an amazing transformation.

And if you don't mind,

It would be really amazing and I think interesting for our listeners if you could stand by telling us a little bit more about your story and about a transformation.

Okay.

Well,

Just to give a little background,

I came of age in the 1960s and graduated from high school in 1968,

Kind of a classic angry young man,

Very disillusioned with the culture I was in and very culturally,

Politically alienated.

And really just went headlong into the counterculture of that time,

Including all the drug experimentation,

The music,

The anti-war politics,

Really the whole thing.

So that was actually a very,

Very difficult and trying time in many ways.

I mean,

There were some highlights,

Some amazing experiences,

But just really confusing time.

You know,

Basically many of us in my generation,

Probably,

I was probably an extremist among my peers,

But we just kind of threw the rule book out,

You know,

From our parents' culture and we're just trying to find something new,

Different on our own.

And of course,

We were making a lot of messes,

Making lots of mistakes.

And it was kind of glorious in a certain way.

And then eventually it kind of moved into kind of that whole counterculture kind of darkened over time.

And I eventually just to kind of escape that,

I left the country.

I left the country when Richard Nixon was reelected.

I just kind of had it with everything.

I was polarized into this us versus them thinking and seeing the whole world is kind of hypocritical.

And of course,

Myself is less so.

As you do when you're young.

Yeah,

Exactly.

So I took off for South America and,

You know,

Was living the sex bat lifestyle,

Traveling all throughout South America,

Lived out of the sailboat for almost a year and ended up down in Peru,

Living high in the Andes Mountains.

And actually my life got a bit saner.

I was really focused on learning about those cultures and I was living with indigenous people and up in the mountains and farming and doing a lot of exploration stuff.

And the drug thing was still there,

But it was really back burnered in a big way.

But then,

You know,

I ran out of money and fell in the small time drug smuggling as a way to continue to living outside his system.

I justified that with all the sus versus them thinking.

But somewhere in the midst of that,

I was also pursuing meditation and I'd always been drawn to spiritual life and,

You know,

Trying to practice out of what I could learn in books and my mind kind of gravitated towards Tibetan Buddhism.

And eventually I found out about Chögyam Chökpharmse starting Naropa University in 1974.

And when I read about that way up in the mountains in Peru,

I just knew I had to go there.

So I went there and got a master's degree in clinical psychotherapy.

It was a program that kind of integrate both Buddhist and Western psychology.

It was very intensive three-year clinical training and in the process became a student of Chökpharmse.

But I still had this other thing in the background.

I was still,

You know,

Justifying being a part-time drug smuggler to support my education,

My lifestyle.

I got married.

I had a family.

That fell apart due to the pressures of my crazy lifestyle.

I had kind of a split life,

But half the time I was studying the Dharma,

Traveling with my teacher,

I ended up having a close relationship with him.

I kept a secret life from him and the community.

So I spent a lot of time deeply involved in Buddhist practice and study.

And then I spent the other part being this kind of crazy person,

Making one or two trips to South America every year and partying a lot and all the rest of it.

And I knew that had to change.

I felt the cognitive dissonance very much,

But I was just self-medicating around that with drugs and alcohol when I wasn't on retreats.

And before I could untangle all that,

I earned my way into a 14-year federal prison sentence.

And originally I was sentenced to 30 years,

No parole.

And I thought,

You know,

I was 35,

I thought my life was pretty much over.

My son was nine years old at the time,

And I was absolutely devastated in having to face all the incredibly selfish decisions I'd made impacting his life.

And he was not going to grow up without a dad.

I had no sense that I would even survive prison.

So it turned out in,

Prior to 1987,

I was sentenced in 85.

They had,

You got a lot of good time by staying out of trouble in prison.

So I didn't know that when I got sentenced.

In fact,

It wasn't until I got to federal prison and was there for a while.

I kind of figured that out.

And I realized that if I stayed out of trouble on 30 years,

I would serve 18 and a half years.

And if you get in trouble,

They start taking it away from you in chunks.

And then my appeal went through the courts,

Took about three years,

And eventually they dropped one count,

So that reduced my sentence from 35 to 25.

And then I knew I'd have to serve 14 and a half years,

But still felt like forever,

But a lot different than 30 or 25.

Today they've gone to determinant sentencing,

And there is no more parole in the federal system.

There hasn't been for a long time.

And if you got a 25 year sentence today,

You'd serve about 23 and a half or 23.

And the only way out of that would be a presidential pardon,

Which doesn't happen unless you're very wealthy or very politically connected,

Obviously.

So there I was,

And I went through a real dark night of the soul around what I'd done to my son and how I disappointed my teacher and my community and my family and just the amount of pain I'd caused.

And I still kind of justified my involvement and my path internally in some ways,

But then I was involved in an AA group,

An NA group.

I got involved,

I knew I needed to deal with violence and substance abuse,

So I got very involved in that.

After about two years in prison of listening to one man after another,

It was a male prison,

Talk about their life unraveling around drugs and especially cocaine.

Any artifice I'd had of justification just crumbled.

And I didn't realize that I'd been involved in something very harmful.

And I developed this profound longing just to cause no more harm.

And if I could,

To really turn my life around.

So that 14 years was really kind of my very concentrated monastery time.

I was practicing like my hair was on fire.

I was literally practicing hours and hours a day.

I taught school as my day job for 14 years,

Helped start the first hospice program in a prison anywhere in the world and taught meditation twice a week.

I was very involved in 12 step work.

So I was living a very disciplined life,

Both service study and practice.

If I remember correctly,

It was also during that time where even though you were in a prison cell,

You,

Through your meditation practice,

You experienced really deep states of inner peace,

Maybe even for the first time,

If I recall correctly.

Yeah.

And one of those classic stories of there have been other prisoners have had this experience of kind of finding freedom inside.

And yeah,

Especially the more I practiced and eventually I was able to complete the preliminary practices in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and a very venerable Lama from the Kagyu lineage came and did a Abhishekapurami so I could continue as a sadhaka.

And I was doing a retreat every year and doing a lot of deep daily practice.

And I started having,

Finding a place,

Not only a peace,

But really living kind of in a very cheerful,

Almost joyful state at the time in an environment where there was no support for that,

An environment that was a constant assault on your humanity.

And it felt pretty weird initially,

And I didn't often share it with people,

But my inner state was one of calm and cheerfulness and joy.

And I just,

That became my life.

And I tried to show up there and serve that community as best I could.

Did they find it strange or weird in any way when you initially started to speak about Buddhism?

Because I imagine it's maybe not so common in prisons,

Particularly at that time.

Yeah,

I didn't speak about it generally.

I mean,

I started a meditation group pretty quickly in the chapel.

They didn't want me to start one,

But I managed to do it.

So the guys that would come to that group,

I would share the practice with them.

But otherwise I kind of just kept to myself and tried to fit in.

I was very engaged because I taught school.

So I helped a lot of prisoners learn to read or get their GED.

So I was very involved with Hispanic prisoners.

I was also very involved with African American prisoners because a lot of the students I taught in school were African American and Latino.

I'm bilingual.

I talk Spanish.

So I help people get their GED in Spanish as well.

And then with the hospice work,

I was caring for many Latino and African American patients.

And then I liked to play basketball.

So I was one of the few white guys that played basketball.

So I was on the basketball court.

So I had a much more diverse kind of connection.

I mean,

When you would go up to,

Just give you an idea,

When you went up to the dining hall for lunch or dinner,

All the whites sat on one side and all the people of color sat on the other.

Actually all the African Americans sat on the other side.

Latinos would go either side.

Some on this side,

Some on that side.

I was the only white person that would ever sit on the people of color side.

I didn't do it all the time,

But I did it periodically.

I was the only one that would ever do that.

It's a very racialized environment.

A lot of racial tension,

A lot of big culture class,

A lot of people whose cultures are just rubbing up against each other.

So it was that kind of world.

But I was very interconnected with a lot of people.

Also because of the teaching in school every day and also doing the 12 step work and the meditation class,

I worked with a lot of the guys in the site.

This was a federal medical hospital.

They had about 600 medical patients and 400 psychiatric patients.

Then about 300 inmates like myself who were in what they call the general population or work cadre who were just there to have jobs,

Right?

Working food service or carpentry or the welding shop or as orderlies or hospital workers or my job was teaching school.

So I also had a lot of contact with the men who were in the psychiatric wing because they would come to the school.

They would come to the 12 step groups.

They would come to the meditation group.

So I was probably more interconnected in that prison than anybody really.

But I did what I did.

I did my service things,

I had my engagement and then when I wasn't doing that,

I was back in my cell meditating or studying.

So it was a combination of this kind of monastic lifestyle with a lot of service.

It was kind of really where I think I finally grew up and also where I really finally established.

I've been practicing for a long time,

But this is where I really embraced practice completely without compartmentalizing my life.

And I just really became a practitioner there.

And what I find amazing as well is that you founded the Prison Mindfulness Project and the Hospice Project in the prison you were in,

But at this organization then expanded over the whole country,

Right?

Yeah,

My original,

I was very inspired by Bolen C.

Delozov,

Who started the Prison Ashram Project and later known as the Human Kindness Foundation.

They took on Ram Dass's early prison correspondence and built this.

And they didn't make,

Unfortunately,

We lost Bo to a motorcycle accident six or seven years ago,

But C.

Does very still doing the work.

And they have a,

They sent a newsletter that goes out to 30,

40,

000 prisoners and voluminous correspondence with prisoners.

And Bo's book,

We're All Doing Time,

Is a classic of prison literature and prison spirituality.

So I was,

You know,

I ran that early on in my incarceration.

I was inspired by that.

And what happened was people started sending me letters from prisoners because prisoners were starting to reach out to Buddhist communities around,

In the US anyway,

Probably in other countries as well,

Wanting support and resources with their interest in meditation and Buddhism.

And there was no organized Buddhist prison ministry.

Most Buddhists didn't know anything about doing prison ministry.

And so,

Ma'am,

They knew about me because I'd been publishing some articles in various journals and magazines.

So I was a little bit well known.

So people started sending letters to me thinking,

Well,

We don't know what to do with this.

And I couldn't correspond with prisoners in other federal prisons,

But I could kind of get away with corresponding with state prisoners,

Prisons in state prisons and in county jails.

And at least I did it and they never stopped me.

And you know,

I would get a letter and I would,

I worked in the education department where they had a copy machine.

So I would be able to copy some articles out of some of the magazines,

Yoga Journal or Tricycle Magazine or Shambhala Sun Magazine,

Magazines like that,

And put together some meditation and try and send this off to a prisoner.

I was always just kind of in a state of bliss doing it because I knew how meaningful it would be to them.

And eventually I realized this was much bigger than something I could do on my own.

So I came up with the idea of starting this nonprofit organization.

I raised a couple thousand dollars from family and friends and a fellow prisoner who was from Nepal and his brother was in another prison,

Had a girlfriend on the outside who lived in Connecticut and she agreed to help.

And so I basically started sending things to her and then she would mail them to the government to start.

I managed to start a nonprofit organization,

Do all the paperwork,

Get it started and get a little money.

And then we started,

Of course,

Kind of a pen pal program and sending books to prisoners.

And that's where it started and just grew from there.

Yeah.

Thank you for sharing that.

Could you tell us a little bit more about radical responsibility?

What does it mean?

What does it entail?

And how can people use it to transform their lives?

Well,

It's probably good that we covered a little bit of my background because that's where I developed this model.

And while I was in prison,

I saw very quickly when I arrived in prison that it was an incredibly negative world and toxic world with a lot of pain and suffering and anger.

And that prisoners tended to armor themselves up with a lot of anger and bitterness.

It wasn't that they're walking around angry all the time,

At least on the surface.

People laugh,

You know,

They play sports,

They do this,

That,

But all you got to do is ask the right question and out comes all this victim story and anger and bitterness.

And basically because the minute you're arrested,

The whole process of the criminal justice system,

You're just immediately there's a shaming process and just you're being buried in shame and blame and demonization.

And so you're just trying to,

Even unconsciously,

Instinctually,

You're trying to survive just psychically,

Your being is trying to survive.

So you armor up,

Right?

Which the sad thing about that is it prevents prisoners from contacting the regret and remorse about their impact on others,

Which is very necessary to the process of transformation.

I felt that was really critical for me when I finally realized that everything I'd been involved in was incredibly harmful and incredibly selfish.

And I really saw that impact out and I developed this deep,

Deep longing to at least cause no more harm.

And in many ways I felt like that was the real beginning of my spiritual path,

Even though I could say I've been stumbling along the path for years,

But I felt like that was really where the real work began.

And just to jump in here for a moment,

Because I imagine some people just listening to this right now,

That they could imagine that this is a bit like blaming the victim,

But that's exactly what it is not.

Could you also speak to that?

Well that's very interesting and that's,

You know,

Most people on the outside don't think of prisoners as victims.

They think of prisoners as the perpetrators.

But there are people that have,

You know,

That feel like,

You know,

The injustice of the criminal justice system and feel they are victims and they go too far with that too.

The reality is,

You know,

We're all innocent,

We're all guilty.

We all have innate basic goodness,

Buddha nature,

Divine nature,

Christ nature,

However people want to talk about it.

And we're all in the complex human condition and we've all had all kinds of negative impacts on lots of things.

But when you talk to prisoners,

They do feel like victims and they feel they're being persecuted unfairly by the government and they talk about how their fall partner or their,

You know,

Somebody stuck them in the back or they had a terrible lawyer,

You know,

They have a whole victim story.

And yet other people perceive them as having been the perpetrator that caused tremendous harm in many cases,

Right?

And so I quickly realized,

But first of all,

I realized that I had enough training already that I knew that that world of anger and bitterness is not who I wanted to be.

And there's a lot of racism in prison.

It's just a very complex and culture clashing world and people react by in terms of kind of racist kind of stuff.

I don't know that they're inherently racist.

It's a cultures are clashing so bad.

They translate that anger into racialized kind of resentments and so forth.

And I knew I didn't want to have anything to do with any of that.

And I didn't want to come out of prison angry and bitter.

I didn't even want to live in prison angry and bitter.

And I realized that I,

The only way out for me was to take really radical ownership for having got myself into that place.

And I had lots of people I could blame.

You know,

The government broke every rule you can imagine in my prosecution.

They lie,

Cheat and steal when they prosecute you,

You know.

I had all kinds of people.

I was doing time for a lot of people.

There was a lot of people that didn't have to go to prison.

And as a result,

I got a huge sentence in prison.

So I could have spent my life,

You know,

Resenting all that and blaming all those people.

But I realized that my only way out or my only way of not be overtaken by all the negativity was just to embrace 100% ownership that I got myself into that situation.

And I had to own getting through it and getting out of it.

And I just saw that with absolute clarity.

And that wasting my time on all the resentment and the blaming and all the rest of it was just going to be a complete useless endeavor.

Just even in selfish terms,

It wasn't going to do me any good.

Plus I'd had enough Buddhist training and Mahayana training and Tan Lin practice.

You know,

I just knew that this wasn't going to be transformative.

I also,

The training from my Tibetan teacher,

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche,

Really always emphasized skillful means.

What's skillful?

Not so much what's right or wrong.

Not that he was without morality or right or wrong at all,

But it was instead of all these judgments about right or wrong,

It's like what actually creates benefit and what actually creates harm?

What are the skillful means to create benefit and what are the actions that create harm?

And how can you be skillful?

So my basic context of my 14 years there was always,

First of all,

I got myself here,

Nobody to blame but myself.

And it's not that I'm going to blame myself,

It's just I'm going to own it,

Right?

And there's a difference between ownership and self-blame and that's really important to the radical responsibility model.

We can talk more about that.

And so,

You know,

I just had to own it and then also saw anything I was going to be able to achieve in there wasn't going to come out of a sense of this should happen or they should do this or righteous.

It was just going to be skillful.

How can I be in a relationship with people here,

Prisoners and staff,

In such a way that I get stuff done?

And in doing so,

I was able to start two national organizations and all kinds of innovative programming in that prison,

Stuff that inmates aren't supposed to be able to do.

And I did it just by being professional and kind and courteous and persistent and skillful.

So I learned a lot of the skills that I have in life these days.

Some of it goes back,

A lot of it goes back to my training before I went to prison,

The three-year training I did at Naropa University.

I still have a lot of foundational skills there that I use in my life.

But the rest of it I really learned in prison.

I mean,

I came out and became a management consultant and executive coach.

Well,

I learned how to do that in prison because I learned how to get stuff done in a world where you're absolutely powerless,

The resistance is futile,

The other side has absolute power.

And so how do you get stuff done in an environment like that?

So I learned how to do that.

So that's really where the radical responsibility model came from.

But I think it is important to address that issue of blame.

You're the self blame,

So many people are so harsh on themselves.

Yeah,

We are.

We're a mixed bag,

You know,

It's like,

Often,

We don't take ownership of the stuff we should really own.

And we blame ourselves for stuff that's really not our fault.

We blame ourselves and feel bad and guilt trip ourselves for all the stuff that's really not our fault.

And then we don't own the stuff that we really should.

We blame somebody else for that.

So I personally feel that Western culture,

And of course,

Western culture is being so globalized these days,

But in many ways,

Western culture,

There's good things about Western culture,

Obviously,

But it is kind of riddled with blame and shame.

And I think it's a perversion of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

I don't think it's the innate Judeo-Christian tradition or the Christian tradition,

Or I think it's just kind of a perversion of those teachings.

But we've ended up with a,

You know,

There's that kind of Calvinist belief in the fallen nature of humanity,

The flawed nature of humanity,

And that human beings absent some coercive threat will not behave well.

Unless human beings are constrained by some threat,

Some coercive threat,

They won't behave well.

And so with that dark view of humanity,

What kind of culture do you end up with?

What kind of systems do you end up with,

Right?

So radical responsibility is really about stepping out of that blame game altogether.

It's not about blaming others,

Obviously,

But it's certainly not about blaming oneself.

It's not about blaming victims at all.

It's about ownership.

It's about taking ownership because realizing that's the only place we have any real power.

You know,

And this is not a new idea.

In fact,

There's been kind of a resurgence in recent years among young people getting interested in stoicism.

And there's some what they call stoas,

Which were the stoics would gather together in gatherings and meetings,

And now there's some online stoas and so forth.

And Marcus Aurelius,

One of the famous stoic philosophers,

Considered the last good Roman emperor by many.

You know,

There's a whole collection of his sayings,

But one of them,

I'm paraphrasing here,

Is something like most people believe their destiny is determined by their circumstances.

But in fact,

Our destiny is determined by our response to those circumstances.

And by what we think about these circumstances and make of them.

Yes.

Yeah.

A hundred percent.

That's how we respond to them,

Right?

So,

But most people don't go there.

Most people feel really that it's the circumstances that are controlling my life.

And also I want to say radical responsibility is really,

There'll be a second book coming out.

It's meant to be the integration of personal and collective responsibility.

It's really about social transformation and human evolution,

Positive human evolution and social trends through the integration of personal and collective responsibility.

Now,

Unfortunately,

The typical left-right political divide,

You know,

The right always wants to talk about personal responsibility.

They don't want to hear anything about causes and conditions because they feel that's a slippery slope away from people taking personal responsibility.

And then the left hates the term personal responsibility.

And all they want to talk about is causes and conditions.

For the left,

Everybody's a victim,

Except the people they designate to be the perpetrators.

But so both these extremes are not true.

The answer is always both.

For example,

When I go into prisons,

And I've been going into prisons for the last 20 years since I've been out,

There's two things that I want the prisoners I'm working with or guiding in a meditation or just interacting with that I want them to get about me and my worldview.

One is that I totally get that most of them were all but programmed to end up in prison by their life circumstances.

And that there's tremendous injustice in the criminal justice system and in our society.

And that many,

Especially the prisoners of color,

You know,

Tremendous injustice around the whole of how they end up where they are.

And even white European prisoners as well.

It's still tremendous injustice in the criminal justice system.

And most people that end up in prison have childhoods from hell.

Later on in my time there,

We were able to bring this program called The Event,

Which also had a huge influence on radical responsibility that I managed to get into the prison when we did it four times before I left and then it continued on.

And I'm an event trainer today.

I lead the event a couple times a year.

And some of the things in the radical responsibility model came from the event.

But we would have 30 prisoners in each event.

And they just kind of by word of mouth,

They were of every ethnicity,

Every criminal background.

It's a very intense group process.

And it was just about to ask for those listeners that haven't heard about the event.

What does it actually entail?

Well,

I'll have to go into it,

Maybe in a little more detail.

People can check it out,

Theeventtraining.

Com.

It's a very intense old school group process.

It's been around for a long time.

It has roots that go into a lot of different areas of the human potential movement back in the 60s.

In its form in the prison,

It was three 10 hour days.

And it takes the first half day to get the room roped up,

Get people feeling safe,

Bonded.

But at some point,

You'd find these hardened prisoners holding each other in each other's arms as they're just revealing all this horrific childhood stuff,

Horrific childhood stuff.

And in prison,

I would say usually 90% of the prisoners in each of the trainings we did in prison had suffered from severe childhood abuse,

Physical,

Emotional,

Or sexual,

Or all three.

I mean,

Just horrific,

Heartbreaking stuff.

And you just realize,

No wonder they're in prison.

I mean,

It's lucky they're alive,

Right?

So when I go into prison,

I want them to get that I get all that.

I also want them to get what's possible for them today,

Tomorrow,

In the prison,

And to be able to get out of the prison and go on with their life has nothing to do with anything other than the decisions they start making right now.

And nobody can do that for them.

And sitting around stewing about what victims they are of society isn't going to take them anywhere.

If they're really upset about all the injustice in society,

Then get your act together,

Get your butt out of prison,

And go out and change the world.

But to do that,

You've got to embrace ownership for your circumstances.

You got to own that you got yourself in there on one level or another.

And you got to own,

Even if you can't own that,

You at least got to own that your future is based on the decisions you're making every day.

I want them to get both those things.

And that's this idea that radical responsibility is not about blaming victims.

And it's not about not acknowledging how difficult life is and how unjust life is for so many people.

It's just focusing on the fact everybody knows this.

You know,

A lot of people don't want to talk about this because they really want to hold up and I get it on some level,

You know,

Elevate people.

In some cases,

When people are terribly victimized,

They have to have that they need to have that acknowledged and validated before they can move on.

I get that.

But when it happens culturally to where it's almost creating a cult out of victimization,

I don't think it's so helpful.

And everybody knows common sense that for any individual human being,

What their future life is going to be like,

Regardless of the circumstances they're in,

It's going to be mostly determined by what they decide to do every day.

And if there is an identity around being a victim,

And that's how you define yourself personally,

Then it's incredibly,

It's basically impossible to live a beautiful life after that,

If that's your starting point.

Absolutely.

And psychologically,

I mean,

What may in psychology talk about this,

But also the spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle,

It's about very often,

Sadly,

What happens when we've experienced a lot of trauma in our lives and pain and suffering,

We create like a pain body,

It literally becomes like a body,

An emotional,

Psychological body that we sort of consulate from our pain and suffering and trauma,

And then identify with,

And then we live our life from that.

And that's not a good prescription for a good life.

That's a prescription for a guaranteed life of suffering and pain.

So it's tragic that it happens to people and we all need to have tremendous compassion for everyone's struggles,

But reinforcing people's victim mindset,

I don't think helps them.

Acknowledging and validating that people have been through hell,

Absolutely yes.

A lot of people could have a lot of arguments about it,

But the bottom line for me is radical responsibility is grounded in the recognition of everyone's innate basic goodness,

That people don't need fixing,

That there's all this surface stuff we have going on,

But underneath it all,

We're all innately pure,

Wise,

Intelligent,

Good.

It's grounded in a view of complete compassion for ourselves and all beings and the struggles we all go through.

And it's grounded in the reality that there is a causal relationship between my choices and how my life unfolds.

And the most powerful place I can stand in life is owning those choices and living from choice.

For example,

Let's say you and I got involved in some big conflict,

Some business thing or something.

We got in some big conflict and I was just absolutely convinced it's all your fault and you probably had a different view of the matter,

Right?

And we can't resolve it and we're ready to go to war.

And somebody convinces us to get a mediator.

So we start talking to a mediator and the mediator listens to you and listens to me and the mediator comes back to us and says,

Well,

You're both very convincing and I don't know what to say.

We're great salespeople,

Very convincing storytellers,

But I'll tell you what,

We do have a videotape.

So I'm going to go out and put together a focus group of very smart people that don't know either one of you,

Couldn't care less about either one of you and we'll see what they say.

So mediator does that,

Comes back to us,

Pulls us together in the office and turns to me and says,

Fleet,

Well,

I have to say they agreed that it's more Palma's fault.

More Palma carries more of the responsibility here.

And I say,

Boy,

I'm glad you found a really intelligent group of people and they realize it's all Palma's fault.

The mediator goes,

Well,

Fleet,

They did say,

You know,

You probably bear maybe 30,

40% of the responsibility.

And I'm like,

Well,

I don't really believe it,

But as long as they agree it was mostly Palma's fault and I feel vindicated.

And the mediator goes,

Okay,

All right.

I'm sure I did have some small part to play.

I will own that,

But it was mostly her fault and I feel vindicated.

Does it really make sense that I feel good about that and feel vindicated?

Because by definition,

I'm unhappy.

We're in a conflict,

Right?

I'm unhappy about what's going on.

If I'm really convinced that that's caused by you,

Even 60% or 70% caused by you,

Who have I put in charge of my internal state?

You.

I just made you the boss.

I just put you in charge of my internal state.

I don't get to be happy or change or anything until you change your behavior.

So I'm giving away my power.

So when we blame others,

We're actually giving away our power.

It's human.

We shouldn't feel bad about doing it.

It's just seeing that it's not a good use of our energy.

We give away our power.

The only place I have any power is with my own actions and taking ownership for my own thoughts,

Feelings,

And behaviors,

The impact my behaviors have on others and the consequences my behaviors create for me.

And that's hard to do.

I mean,

It's hard enough to influence ourselves.

We all know we're all up against all the conditioning from our childhood and all the rest of it,

But we at least have a possibility here.

We cannot control other people.

We've all tried.

Human beings are uncontrollable.

And how do we all know that beyond a shadow of a doubt that human beings are uncontrollable?

I'll ask you,

Palma,

How do we know that?

Well,

Every time I try to control someone else,

It hasn't worked basically.

And I only felt exhausted and more frustrated.

And the moment I give up,

What's interesting when I then drop into my peace or my inner quiet space,

Usually then the other person changes or the situation changes.

Exactly.

It opens up possibility.

But there's another reason we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that human beings are uncontrollable.

Even more directly,

We know it.

Because I don't like to be controlled and I'm not controllable.

Do you know,

No matter how much somebody tries to control you,

Intimidate you,

You'll find your way,

Right?

You'll find your way.

Human beings,

We are incredibly creative,

Endlessly creative in getting our needs met.

And you know,

Somebody may be able to momentarily influence control over a minute,

But we will find our way.

You can lock prisoners up in solitary confinement,

No human contact,

And they still find ways to con the guards or pass messages.

So human beings are uncontrollable.

And besides that,

Do you want your friends,

Coworkers,

Parents,

Siblings,

Partner controlling you?

Absolutely not.

I'm a rebel character.

Well,

None of us want people in our life controlling us,

Right?

None of us want that.

So why do we spend so much energy trying to control the people in our lives?

We're just that way as human beings.

What I'm really interested in is you're also bringing this work not just into prisons,

But also what is really relevant for the times we're living in,

Into the criminal justice system and into law enforcement as well.

Could you tell us a little bit more about this,

Particularly as defunding the police,

Reforming the police is such a hot topic right now.

Yeah,

It certainly is.

And with good reason.

So,

You know,

Having been in prison for 14 years,

I really saw the humanity and lack of humanity on all sides.

I mean,

There were,

I had fellow prisoners that made everybody's life miserable.

Most prisoners are just trying to do their time,

But there's always a hardcore that are just making everybody's life miserable.

And that's why prison is such a miserable place to be.

There's also a hardcore of guards making everybody's life miserable.

Prisoners guards are just doing their job,

But there's a hardcore,

Right?

And prison environment is really controlled by the hardcore prisoners and the hardcore guards.

And everybody else has to suffer the result.

But I really understand.

I mean,

I watched,

I was there 14 years.

I saw employees get married,

Grow old,

Retire.

I mean,

I witnessed 14 years of people's lives.

Most of the prisons were coming and going.

It was a pretty transient place.

But you know,

I saw the staff over a long period of time.

So when I got out and started working with the criminal justice system,

I always wanted to work with the whole thing.

I knew to bring transformation,

We had to work with all sides of it.

And so,

You know,

Mostly working with prisoners for a long time in lots of ways and developing programs that are now international and our path of freedom programs developed by my colleague Kate Crispus now in like 22 states and seven countries,

I think.

Amazing.

But we always wanted to work with the guards.

And very often when we'd go into prison,

The guard would tell,

When's somebody going to bring programs for us?

You do all this stuff for the prisoners,

But nobody's helping us.

Right.

And we're all stressed out of our minds.

And also reinforcing the process.

If the prison has become more peaceful,

But the guards are still displaying their behaviors that also comes from trauma and unconscious reactivity,

Then it's not more peaceful or not much changes.

I think a lot of people drawn to work in corrections have traumatic backgrounds,

Just like prisoners.

And I've even had guards tell me,

You know,

They come out of your class all chilled out,

And then they got to deal with us and we're stressed out of our minds.

So we finally got the opportunity to start doing that in Rhode Island and then in Oregon.

You know,

That was 11 years ago.

Now we're working with not only correctional officers,

But probation and parole and police.

We've done work with the U.

S.

Border Patrol.

We're working with sheriff's departments,

Working with the sheriff's deputies that work in the jails,

But also working with sheriff's deputies that work out in the community as law enforcement and patrol and so forth.

So the way in really was because certain,

Some correctional agencies started reaching out for help because they were having so many suicides among their staff.

I mean,

The rate of suicide among corrections professionals who have a couple of decades into their career is three times that of the normal population.

Their levels of PTSD and suicide are comparable or even worse than combat veterans.

Police are somewhere in the middle.

They're much worse than the general population and corrections is worse than the police.

So they started reaching out for help and they found us.

And we started developing programs.

We have a model called Mindfulness-Based Wellness and Resiliency.

So we're training them in things they can do off-shift to become more resilient physically,

Mentally,

Emotionally,

And spiritually to kind of top off their tanks,

Add more batteries to the battery pack,

Become more resilient.

So when they go on-shift,

They're less negatively impacted by working in a high-stress traumatic environment.

And when they go off-shift,

They more easily recover.

So that's part of what we teach them.

We also then teach them new ways to work,

To do their job,

And all kinds of self-regulation skills because most of them get all jacked up and they do their whole shift in hypervigilance.

And then when they get off-shift,

They don't know how to turn it off.

They used to just go to the bars and drink it off.

That still happens,

Not as bad as it used to be.

So we teach them to navigate and manage their own physiology so they can be in whatever appropriate state they need to be in.

If they're responding to a crisis or they're just normal routine or they're in the office doing paperwork or to be able to transition when they leave the place,

We teach them skills.

How do you transition down-regulate,

Shift your mind so you can get home and be with your family?

There's huge amounts of domestic violence and divorce because people come out of that prison environment and they bring that home to their family.

So we're teaching them new ways to work.

And it's incredibly gratifying because you just see people's lives transform.

They're sleeping for the first time in their career.

They're transforming their relationships with their spouses and children.

I mean,

Really immediate powerful change.

People just soak it up like a sponge.

And so we know,

We make it all about them.

We don't come in saying,

We're going to change you so you'd be nice to those prisoners.

That wouldn't go anywhere.

But we know that if they become better self-regulating,

More mindful,

More thoughtful,

More conscious correctional officers,

They're going to do a better job because there's this cycle of re-traumatization,

Right?

It's a chicken or the egg thing,

But you got traumatized staff,

Traumatized prisoners,

Constantly re-traumatizing ourselves and across a divide of mutual demonization and conflict,

Right?

But we're trying to get both sides to bring it down.

And now we're working with police,

Probation and parole and lots of different forms of law enforcement and public safety,

Fire,

EMTs.

Right now,

During the COVID-19 epidemic,

Seeing what the frontline healthcare workers are going through.

I mean,

They're going to need a lot of support.

A lot of them,

I'm sure now are suffering from PTSD and have unprocessed grieving and they're going to need a lot of support.

And public safety professionals are on the frontline all the time.

And unfortunately,

The tragic killings we've been seeing,

The tragic murders,

If you will,

Have a lot of different causes and conditions.

In part is because of recruiting the wrong kind of people into law enforcement,

Poor training,

Allowing a law enforcement culture to be created that becomes kind of like seeing the public almost as a threat and being suspicious of everyone.

And then allowing implicit bias and racism to exist and all these kind of things.

And then police in the moment not having the self-regulation skills to not make stupid decisions.

Now,

What we saw with the George Floyd killing was so disturbing because this guy was just sitting there looking bored with his hand in his pocket and a knee on George Floyd's neck,

People standing around.

And it took time.

I mean,

Many of these other things,

You can see somebody makes a split second decision,

Right,

And makes a bad decision.

And if they were more mindful and better self-regulated,

They probably could have made a different decision.

Because you got to keep in mind,

Anybody who ever gets pulled over by the police should realize that that policeman back there who's getting out of his car and approaching your car is afraid.

They're afraid.

They are really afraid.

They don't know what they're walking up to.

You can say that's right or wrong,

But they're afraid.

They don't know what they're walking up to.

So you got to keep that in mind.

You're dealing with somebody who's afraid,

And you don't want to make them more afraid.

And of course,

There's a lot of injustice.

And I have many African American colleagues,

And we've been talking a lot about this,

That they have to train the horrible thing that they have to train their kids how to act out in the world so that they don't become the object of this police violence.

And that's absolutely true and unjust and terrible.

However,

I would teach my kid the same thing and have taught my kid the same thing.

And that's not to justify the racism and the injustice.

I'm just saying any human being should realize when they're in touch with law enforcement,

Especially when they're approaching a car,

Or especially when they're approaching you in a way that they can't see that clearly you're unarmed and clearly,

You know,

But they're afraid.

Particularly in the US with the weapons.

Yeah,

They're afraid.

And so you don't want to make them more afraid.

But also police need to be trained in how to manage themselves.

They need to be able to manage themselves,

Use breath regulation and mindfulness techniques,

So they can approach the situation and not be get triggered into making bad decisions.

But then we also need to just get the people like the guy who did the killing in Minneapolis,

He just never should have been in the police force to begin with.

He clearly should have been taken out a long time ago because he already had 18 complaints against him from the community.

Clearly the whole world of policing needs to change the way to recruit people,

The way to train people.

Personally,

I understand the defund the police rhetoric,

And I understand the rage behind it.

And I understand it's kind of like challenging the power because especially for African American people,

They feel the police have too much power vis-a-vis their lives.

So if we defund them,

They have less power.

And some other people are talking,

Well,

We should redirect resources from the police into social services.

Well,

Yes,

But actually,

They both need more resources.

You know,

We need to fund all the social services.

And if we did that,

We maybe would need less police,

Right?

But we also need to do a better job of training police and paying police better,

Recruiting higher level,

You know.

So I don't think defund the police is the answer,

But I think it is transforming the police and then doing the work to deal with intractable poverty and all the other social causes and conditions,

Addiction and alcohol,

You know,

All the stuff that is the reason why we have such,

You know,

Why we start moving in the direction of a police state,

Right?

It's because we get the whole thing backwards.

I mean,

What's been going on for so long is instead of putting all the resources at the front end of the system with children and prevention that would keep people from ever getting into the criminal justice system,

We've been putting all the resources at the back end of the system,

Building prisons and warehousing human beings for profit.

I mean,

The whole thing is completely insane.

And that's what created the phenomenon of mass incarceration.

And there's a huge racist element to it because of the way that African Americans,

To a lesser degree,

But also Latinos are incarcerated at a much higher rate for much stronger sentences and all the rest of it.

So the whole system is just asked backwards and totally needs transforming.

But it's not just the system.

And that's what,

From the radical responsibility perspective,

I would say there's never a them.

It's us.

We are the system.

We are the people who've allowed this to happen.

We're all complicit.

And if there's going to be a better society,

A better system,

We all have to co-create it together.

So my second book is going to,

The first book focused on personal responsibility,

Because I believe that's the ground.

And not just be personally responsible,

But how to.

I mean,

It's all about the psychology of how you actually do that.

It's not an admonition.

It's actually understand how can I get more in charge of myself,

Even for my own self is good.

How can I actually be more in the driver's seat of my own life?

That's what the first book is about.

And I believe social transformation can't be done.

You can't do collective responsibility with a bunch of personally irresponsible people.

So I believe that's the foundation.

The second book's going to be about collective responsibility.

And I hope the two books will give a pathway beyond this extreme left-right divide.

Right now,

In my view,

The left is in the ascendancy,

Obviously.

And I've been a lefty progressive my whole life.

I'm not very on board with the extremes of it now.

I understand it,

But you know,

A world controlled by that mindset.

Well,

We know where that goes.

Tyranny.

It always has and always will go to tyranny.

So we need that balance.

And right now it's on the ascendancy.

And what I think is we really need a balance of all the best ideas from all people.

And nobody has all the right ideas,

Not the left,

Not the right,

Not anybody,

Not the middle.

We all need to bring our intelligence and wisdom and goodwill to it.

I'm hoping the two books eventually will point to a possible pathway for it because this idea that once I can win,

I mean,

That's just going to create the other side coming back to take over again,

And then the other side and then the other side.

And I really feel that in many ways,

And my fellow leftists and progressives don't like hearing this from me,

But I feel they bear a lot of the responsibility having gotten Trump elected in the first place.

And there's a real danger that we'll continue to elect more Trumps because of the backlash of trying to stuff an agenda down the whole country's throat.

There's a good part of the population that's going to say,

Hey,

Wait a minute.

No.

And somebody who's going to feel angry and marginalized and left out and politicians like Trump will appeal to that.

And we're seeing that the world over.

We're seeing all these authoritarian leaders arise.

So we have to find a way together because we don't,

We're going to end up in extremism,

Which is going to lead to tyranny.

That's absolutely fascinating.

And I couldn't agree more.

We all need to come together and stop being so polarized and finding a solution that works for everyone really and includes everyone because in the end we are all one and any solution and excludes some of us is creating pain and suffering.

I know you have to go,

But if there's any final words from you or how people can get in touch with you,

Please let us know.

Well,

I just want to make it clear that everything I'm saying in the radicalist possibility is not to gloss over any injustice at all.

We all need to do our work,

All of us.

And you know,

People with more privilege carry a greater burden.

And here in the West,

White Europeans carry a greater burden and other parts of the world,

Other majority populations carry the burden.

The whole dialogue here in the West seems to be all about white people and whiteness and go to Asia.

It's a whole different dynamic,

A whole different dynamic.

There's other minorities who are suffering at the hands of majority populations,

Right?

So we all need to do our work.

And some of us carry a larger burden because of we get majorities are having privilege of various kinds.

So we all need to do the work.

And what I'm talking about is not to gloss over any of the injustice or the deep pain.

And it's not to invalidate how people have been victimized.

And when people are victimized in ways,

Especially when people are victimized of violence and whether it's children or adults,

They may need to have that validated for a long time.

And it's not for me to say what their pathway to healing is at all.

But I don't want to get in the way of it.

And if somebody stays stuck in a place of victimization,

It may be very understandable.

And that should bring nothing but compassion from us.

But at the same time,

We know it's going to be very limiting to their life.

If they can't find some way to say,

Okay,

This happened to me,

It should never have happened to me.

It shouldn't happen to anybody.

But here it is,

It's in my life.

What am I going to do with it?

Am I going to let it take me down?

Am I going to find some way,

Some creative way to work with it and maybe make my life about keeping it from happening to other people or whatever?

There's incredible human stories all over the world about people who've gone through horrific things and have found a way to transform their life and go out and bring good into the world.

And that's heroic in many cases.

And if people aren't able to do that,

That's no judgment on them.

We should have tremendous compassion.

But at the individual level,

The message for any of us as individuals is it's up to us.

Ultimately,

It's up to us what we're going to do with our life,

Whatever cards we got dealt,

Right?

It's up to us.

And hopefully,

All of us who do manage to kind of get ourselves out of a place where we're just at survival,

Then we focus our lives on trying to help more and more people get out of that place as well.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much,

Fleet.

And I imagine if people want to follow your work,

The best place is your website,

Fleetmall.

Com.

That's a good starting point.

And I will also direct them to another website,

HMI,

Which stands for Heart Mind Institute.

You mentioned Windhorst Seminar before.

I've changed the name now,

Heart Mind Institute.

So that's HMI.

Fleetmall.

Com.

But you can also just go to Fleetmall.

Com and eventually find your way there.

But HMI.

Fleetmall.

Com is where all my online courses are and so forth.

In fact,

There's a radical responsibility online course.

And then people can find out about the book at radicalresponsibilitybook.

Com.

I'm going to include all these links in the show notes.

You can find all about the book there.

And then you can also choose who you want to buy it from,

Whether you want to do Barnes and Noble or indie books or Amazon or whatever.

Yeah.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much,

Fleet.

Yeah.

Thank you,

Paul.

Thank you for the work you do.

And thank you for inviting me to be on your podcast.

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Fleetmall.

As always,

I invite you to reflect for a moment on this conversation and to ask yourself if there is anything that you see fresh or new after listening to Fleet.

Is there anything that you see fresh or new?

Let's apply this framework of radical responsibility to your life.

Fleet spoke about taking radical responsibility for each and every circumstance in our life.

Those circumstances that we know we contributed to and those that we feel just happened to us and to realize that our destiny is not defined by those circumstances but by how we choose to respond to them.

I invite you to reflect or journal on the following questions.

Is there any situation in your life where you blame yourself,

Someone else or outside circumstances?

Then ask yourself,

What is my part in creating my situation and my part in creating my future?

And lastly,

What choice can I make today to step out of the blame paradigm and take positive action?

If you find it hard to accept whatever circumstance that you find yourself in,

Then you might find my YouTube video on the power of acceptance helpful.

Thank you for joining us.

Next week I would speak to the immersive filmmaker Karen Palmer about moving beyond fear,

Including how AI can help us hack our fears.

I look forward to seeing you then.