The Components of the Bleeding Edge of Leadership in the 21st Century with Ali Berlin of One Life, L.L.C.
Coaching the Life Coach
Robert Harrison
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Episode 9 - The Components of the Bleeding Edge of Leadership in the 21st Century with Ali Berlin of One Life, L.L.C.

You will learn how injecting love, joy, and connection in the marketplace and even in the boardroom itself can transform organizations and increase productivity through the increasing happiness of the individual. Jason and Ali will also discuss how the first step to love is to reveal and receive feedback about who they truly are and how they are perceived, regardless of their role and how the company is an outgrowth of the individuals, rather than the individuals being a by-product of the organization. In addition, Ali and Jason will discuss power and responsibility and what that can make possible for you personally and for your business. Finally, you will learn the difference studying and having relationships with successful people in all domains financially, personally, relationally, professionally can make in your life and in your business.

Transcript

Transcript

The Components of the Bleeding Edge of Leadership in the 21st Century with Ali Berlin of One Life, L.L.C.

Announcer:  This program is brought to you by personallifemedia.com.

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Jason McClain: Welcome to Coaching the Life Coach. I am your host Jason McClain and your guide in 21st century marketplace. Today, on our show we’re talking about leadership and our guest is Ali Berlin of One Life LLC.

Ali Berlin: We have a consent that what change is? Well, I really see change as just I am becoming more of who I am. So what happens is, an authentic life is able to be lived now. So every aspect of their lives are transformed. My company is called One Life for that reason, which is because every single part of our lives is touched when something inside transforms.

My philosophy is that a company is a by-product of the individuals. It’s not that the individuals are a by-product of the company, which is the traditional belief in our world. Vonerbility gets a terrible terrible reputation, especially in our culture. When I am supposed to be vonerble, we’re supposed to appear strong and protected and like we have it all together and I totally say, let that go. 

Jason McClain: Welcome Ali, glad to have you.

Ali Berlin: Thanks Jason. I am so glad to be here.

Jason McClain: Ali is known for her infectious energy being fiercely loving and also her ability to teach new leadership, extended leadership skills and I am really excited about this show. I think our listeners are going to gain a lot from it, and we’re going to talking about three different subjects today. The first one will be, love actually and then power and responsibility to create anything you want, and researching successful people as well as our relationship to God, as a powerful distinction for your own success.

So Ali, first I just want to ask you a few questions about love. Love and leadership, that’s a pretty interesting idea, what do you mean by love?

Ali Berlin: What I mean by love is an energy. Love is not something that we find outside of ourselves and often in our culture we’re taught that love is something we find when we have a romantic partner or a certain friendship or something that we can’t have on our own and how I see it is that love is a space inside of us that we can create and in order to share with the world, and from that place, I teach people to create a relationship with themselves, which is the foundation for leadership.

When one learns to lead themselves, that’s the only place that we can go from, in order to lead other people.

Jason McClain: And then Ali, why should people care about love? I know it seems like an odd question but really in terms of the context of leadership, why should people care? Why is it important?

Ali Berlin: Well, it’s important for success and of course success starts with ourselves. So when we have a successful relationship with ourselves, which is there’s peace, there’s calmness, there’s determination, there’s focus, there’s dreams…we’re really able to access the world and access other people and most of all, what we’re here on earth to do, in a huge way, and that really expands the possibility for success and I mean as we are talking about leadership, it expands the idea of leadership.

So again, its a little bit of… how I am speaking about it is a turn from the way our culture presents what love is.

Jason McClain: So, I am curious. Could you say more about that? How does our culture, how does it teach people what love is and how are we trained, culturally trained with love that’s different than what you’re suggesting?

Ali Berlin: Well, we’re trained that if I want love then I should fall in love with you and then I have love, and if I want love then I should achieve something or create something and then I’ll have love. It’s mostly focused on romantic love and what I am saying is that there’s a place where we just can be the energy of love, also known as open-heartedness, connection, and that connection is mostly with just who we essentially are at the core, as a human being.

Jason McClain: Yes, and one of the things that I have noticed, often couples come to me and they’re not in a relationship, they’re in a habit or they’re in an expectation or they’re in an addiction in fact with. It’s not an organic, openhearted love because they don’t have that relationship with their self-first like you talked about before.

So what are some practices or some steps that people can take to really blossom the kind of love that you’re talking about Ali?

Ali Berlin: Well, the first thing that I do with people when I start the coaching process is I work with them on getting to know who they think they are, not who they are, because who are we anyway? Who we are, is an idea of ourselves. Its’ not necessarily a specific identity, right?

So a great place to start is looking at what your thoughts are about yourself and from there, of course people’s dreams come out, what they want and how they’re living, how their relationships are going, but it all comes back to you what your programming is about who you think you are.

Jason McClain: So how specifically do you get people to catalogue that? What kind of exercises do you take them through so that they can get a profound relationship to who they think they are before you lead them into who they truly are and deconstruct that?

Ali Berlin: Yeah well, one of the things that I like to do is get feedback from those close to them in their lives and get some real, honest, in the moment experience and so you know, for instance if I were to ask you about certain things you notice about me, great or not so great? I’d really invite you in and the effect of that is that it shakes up my idea of my identity.

So you tell me, “Oh Ali, I experience you in this way and I experience you in this way”, which maybe a little bit hard for me to hear, it may be really great for me to hear, maybe things that I knew about myself but didn’t realize anybody else knew, kind of other of my secrets about my greatness or my secrets about where I feel really insecure.

So that really begins the process of outing oneself so that it’s no longer secret that I have to protect who I am with you. So now I know that you know who I am and I am getting a sense of who I am and of course, it’s all just thoughts in the process but we’re bringing them to the awareness, we’re bringing them out for both of us to share.

Jason McClain: Great, and is there a particular format that you follow or is there a questionnaire you do, are there interviews that you do with people or have them do with others? Could you say more about the actual process?

Ali Berlin: Sure, I actually do all of that. I develop a set of questions for people and something that someone who has a sense of writing, that I’ll do, there’s extensive conversations, the low-high based on certain formats, there’s often a lot of assignments, let’s say, to go out into the world and transform how you’ve been or take risks or as I said earlier, ask certain questions, tell on yourself, which is, “I know this about me and I want you to know this about me, so we can be closer”.

Jason McClain: That’s great. So then Ali, once people build a greater relationship with themselves and then open themselves in that way and then get feedback on who they’re being and as you said ‘out themselves’, that is great. What is that make possible in their life? What does it open up or allow for?

Ali Berlin: It’s amazing what it opens up and allows for actually. So how I see it is that we’re like computers. So say I want to achieve a certain dream but I have been running a program inside and the program is my thoughts. So if my thoughts and my dream aren’t growing, just like if you wanted to run a program on your…if you wanted to do an action on your computer but you didn’t have the right program running to support that, you’d have to change the program or install a new one.

So what this process allows for is for us to recognize what it is that we want to accomplish or achieve or dream or how we want to interact, the kind of life that we want to live. So then what I do with clients is we change the program. So we really look at what is running inside, inside their heart, inside their mind, the thought pattern, how their thoughts are creating the reality and we alter that in order to make space for really what their dreams are that they want.

Jason McClain: And how does that impact their relationships, their career, their sex life, their finances… all those things?

Ali Berlin: Well, it’s pretty phenomenal actually. What happens is that we have a consent of what change is. Well I really see change as just ‘I am becoming more of who I am’. So what happens is, an authentic life is able to be lived now. So people are more accessible to those that they love, they’re more accessible to those they work with. They’re more accessible to themselves, most importantly, so that their greater purpose can be lived in the world.

So every aspect of their lives are transformed. My company is called One Life for that reason, which is because every single part of our lives is touched when something inside transforms.

Jason McClain: Well thank you Ali, that sounds pretty powerful, and we’re going to take a short break to support our sponsors. This is Jason McClain, your guide in the 21st century marketplace and I am with Ali Berlin of One Life LLC and we’ll be right back.

Moderator: This program is proudly sponsored by ‘Meet the Dreamer – Alyssa’s four corner stones to living your dreams’- the new book by Alyssa Chriteman. Create the life you want at Meetadreamer.com.

Jason McClain: Welcome back, I am your host Jason McClain here with Ali Berlin of One Life LLC, and before the break we were talking about love and taking an inventory on who you think you are versus who you really are, and I am going to talk about power and responsibility to create what you want in the discovery of the best use of your life. What do you mean by that Ali?

Ali Berlin: Well, what I mean by that and this applies to personal relationships, to corporations, to executive leaderships, the process of getting clear on who you are really gives so much access to joy and what we love about life, which is for me, one of the reasons why I love being alive.

So what I love to do with people is to hone in on what are they here for and what creates the most joy, love, pleasure connection for them if they want to be of service to the world? Well, what is that?

So we discern that in the process in order to create a life for them that is in alignment with their highest dreams and purpose, in order to serve the world and themselves.

Jason McClain: And I know you do work with executives a lot. Now, can you ground that in that context?

Ali Berlin: Sure. I see a totally new opportunity right now for the world, which is why I do the work that I do. We have more connection than ever, because of the Internet, because of technology and everything like that.

So I really like to take that connection to the next level which is the human level and coming to, you know when I train boards or when I come into different companies, we really take the taboo out of love in business and invite people to be who they truly are and what that can look like is supporting someone to do the job that they love, not just the job that they think they should do.

When people start to, when everyone starts to do the job they love, everyone starts doing the job that they love, which in turn creates so much more success for them personally, so much more success for the company, because people are joyful and using their time productively because it comes from their passion, rather than doing something that they think they have to do, for whatever reason, because someone told them that, because they didn’t realize they had a choice, or something else along those lines. That would be out of the space of power and responsibility.

So really what I do is come in and introduce people to their access to their own power and to take responsibility for the choices they’re making.

Jason McClain: Great, fantastic and then how do you do that? What practices or exercises or talks or presentations, what do you do specifically? You talked about training boards, so I assume you mean board of directors, is that right?

Ali Berlin: Yes, that’s right.

Jason McClain: And so then how do you do that?

Ali Berlin: Again it’s funny because it’s so simple but really what I do is get people in touch with who they are and get to know themselves again, because as I said a few minutes ago, we’re more connected than ever, technology is advancing so much and so fast, people are getting really disconnected though from themselves.

So the more people get to know who they are, we discover who they are, then as I said before, the more access they have to transform their own being with the coaching process as well, in order to transform the workplace, transform the success of the company. My philosophy is that a company is a by-product of the individuals, it’s not that the individuals are a by-product of the company, which is the traditional belief in our world.

Jason McClain: So Ali, what results have you seen when you work with boards and you work with executives, in terms of really hopping their way that they are viewing the company, viewing their relationship and opening up all those taboos? What results have you seen in companies and with executives in their personal lives etc.?

Ali Berlin: Yeah, the results have been tremendous. I mean I for one can attest to it myself, of course, right? I take on the work. I am the work. So my life has absolutely become even more than I ever imagined or I dream pretty big but my own personal life has just become so extraordinary in terms of how close I feel with people, how much love I feel everyday, the amount of gratitude I route for.

Jason McClain: And what are your client’s report, in terms of the results that create in their lives, for the bottomline in their business?

Ali Berlin: Well, their success offers respond about their personal lives. It’s been really amazing and I mean so beautiful to watch actually, the amazing transformation that people feel when they go back into the same situation, let’s say marriage or partnership or friendship, family relationships that they’ve had for obviously for years and years, they feel so different, they feel so much more accessed to love, to connection, to vonerbility, which is such a key to having an intimate relationship, and they’ve really seen things transform.

Jason McClain: Let me stop here, as can you say more about that, because you vonerable, love connection, that’s all sound like great things but they might also sound like really scary things for people. So why are those things important or another way to ask is, for what purpose?

Ali Berlin: Great, sure. It’s funny. You say that because you know vonerbility gets a terrible terrible reputation, especially in our culture.

Jason McClain: That’s right.

Ali Berlin: We’re not supposed to be vonerable, we’re supposed to appear strong and protected and like we have it all together and I totally say, “Let that go”, because the results I have seen as I said, in my personal life and especially with my clients, the more they’re able to be vonerable, which is just being their authentic self, softening their heart, letting someone else see into their heart, feel into their heart, they have just experienced like marriages are on the brink of ending, completely come back with a vengeance, for love and passion and transformation.

People’s relationship with their children, with their parents, with friends, as I said, by being vonerable, by revealing the true self, they’ve given other people access to who they are as well as learning, “Oh, if I reveal emotions or a truth about myself that I didn’t think was safe earlier, I am not going to be okay”, and they’ve really written it through to the other side to realize how much stronger they feel and how much more solid as a human being they feel now that they’ve let people know who they are.

Jason McClain: And to turn that back into power and responsibility, how is that system in being responsible for in creating their lives?

Ali Berlin: Well, the way to be responsible for your life and the way to be powerful in your life, is to have an authentic life because that’s where true power really comes in, is when one’s living from that place. So it’s a pretty simple formula and it’s a pretty big task. I don’t suggest to people who aren’t committed to having an authentic life that they try this on. It wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t be for you but the people who want an authentic life, they realize the power and responsibility they have every single day, for every thought they have, for their interactions, they like of being a victim, they like of blaming circumstances, they realize that they’re in charge.

Jason McClain: Blame and responsibility can’t co-exist, at least that’s what I tell my clients.

Ali Berlin: I tell mine the same thing. I actually don’t even know in the last summer I used the word ‘blame’ was, because it just doesn’t work. It doesn’t exist. I don’t think it exists. It can exist as a thought but it’s not real. It’s not real.

Jason McClain: Yeah, so for me, blame is a loss of power but there’s a short term like they think they have power over somebody or something or a situation but the true power comes from taking responsibility every moment of every day for everything that you’ve just said, your thoughts, your results and how the patterns, great. Thanks Ali.

Is there anything else you’d like to say about that?

Ali Berlin: I just want to say you one more thing as I didn’t finish the part about, business and how it’s really transformed business. It’s made it so much easier for people, I love working with people who have been really successful and it’s been really hard and they come to me and they say, “I want to do it again and I am doing it again but I want it to be easy. I want it to be more fun. I want it be more connected with people. I want to be more connected with my family. I don’t want to sell my soul just to have another success in business”.

Jason McClain: Right, right.

Ali Berlin: So that’s really where the power and responsibility comes in there, is taking responsibility for the fact that they can have anything they want and we start with them.

Jason McClain: Thanks Ali. We’re here with Ali Berlin, talking about leadership and we just go her talking about power and responsibility in that context and we’re going to take a short break to support our sponsors and we’ll be right back.

Moderators: Listen to living dialogues, thought leaders in transforming ourselves and our global community, with Duncan Hamble, visionary conversationalist, bringing you the best in new paradigm thinking on PersonalLifeMedia.com.

Jason McClain: Welcome back and I am your host Jason McClain and we’re speaking with Ali Berlin of One Life LLC, and before the break we were talking about power and responsibility in the context of leadership and Ali, now I am going to ask you what you tribute your success, because I know you are wildly successful, what do you contribute your success to as a coaching consultant?

Ali Berlin: Well, the first thing is my commitment to my own personal evolution and it’s been my life path, it’s something intuitively I always knew, was what I am on earth to do but some of the ways that I have applied them in my life are surrounding myself with really incredible people who are totally honest with me. I am open, I would say pretty much of the time to really see who I am and whether it’s for my own intuition, if it’s feedback from others, paying attention to signs around me, and part of that also is my relationship with God, and I have so much trust in my path and I have so much trust in how things happen because I know that I think, believe, act according to my highest values in my life.

Jason McClain: So a couple of things, when you say evolving yourself, what do you mean, and when you say God, what do you mean?

Ali Berlin: Sure, when I say evolving myself, it’s not about I need to change myself, I need to get better, I need to do this, I need to be this, it’s about who am I and it’s about breaking down my ideas of who I am. It’s about getting to know who I am, how I love, what I feel, what’s right for me, cultivating more trust with myself, and it ties right into the idea of God because for me it’s religion, let’s say, my religion is love and so the more love or the more God I can find in myself in the form of trust and faith and right action, that’s how I am able to live a life of a deeper sense of evolution.

Jason McClain: That’s great, because I do have personal evolution with people, I’d like to think if it is unfolding greater depths which you know, that came in well God is who the hell, right?

Ali Berlin: I love that. I love unfolding greater depths, that’s really beautiful.

Jason McClain: Now why is evolving yourself in your relationship to God so important to you in your business? I mean for those coaches listening out there, why is that so important?

Ali Berlin: Well, it’s really important because we’re changing beings, let’s say. So it’s not like we’re a bull of plastic that is pretty much going to be the same for it’s life as a bull made of plastic. We’re beings, we feel, we think, the world around us changes and for me, in order to be most engaged with my clients, with the world around me, keeping my commitment to seeing who I am everyday, is really what has me feel most alive and what has me be able to contribute most of the people around me as well.

It’s also for me, a place of integrity and to really be the work.

Jason McClain: Thank you Ali. We’re almost end of time but I just want to ask you one more question before we get into what services you provide and things of that interest, actually before we enter to the final question, where are you geographically?

Ali Berlin: My office is in San Francisco in Presidio Heights.

Jason McClain: And what services do you offer and how can people reach you?

Ali Berlin: Well, the services I offer are various forms of coaching and one of the things I do is leadership training, going into offices and training a board or training a staff and I do personal executive coaching and I also do a limited number of relationship and personal coaching clients.

Jason McClain: And how can people reach you?

Ali Berlin: My information is on my website and it’s onelifesf.com, [email protected].

Jason McClain: So as in One Life San Francisco, sf?

Ali Berlin: That’s right, yeah.

Jason McClain: And then just a final question is if people were to walk away with one thing you would recommend that they do for their own success, what would that one thing be, that one really critical distinction or approach, what would that be?

Ali Berlin: Well, one of the things that I found extremely useful for me, in my life and in my profession, was to research successful people and to be around successful people. So as I said earlier, success can mean many different things. People can be ultra successful in business, ultra wealthy, ultra successful at love and relationship and for me, I surrounded myself and researched people of all of those variations, in order to gather really incredible information on success and in advancing life and career, and just one more thing on that note, in terms of ‘the one thing’ or the one point five thing to do, is to love, is to find a place as deep as you can inside of yourself and to open up the love for you to feel every single day and to trust, to trust your intuition and to trust where you’re guided and act accordingly.

Jason McClain: Thank you Ali, thanks for being here.

Ali Berlin: Thank you so much for having me. It was so much fun to be with you.

Jason McClain: Join us next week on coaching with the life coach- strategies to grow your transformational practice. I am your host Jason McClain, your guide in the 21st century marketplace and you can reach me at [email protected].

For text and transcripts of this show and other shows in the Personal Life Media Network, please visit our website at PersonalLifeMedia.com

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