In our 19th Episode of The Mindful Initiative Podcast, I speak with Uvinie Lubecki, who is probably the youngest person, I have interviewed for the Podcast.
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About Uvinie
Uvinie Lubecki is a leadership development trainer, consultant, and author. She has worked with executives and teams at leading corporations and nonprofits including Macy’s, Johnson & Johnson, Celgene, GoPro, Cooper Design, Pachamama Alliance and Google. Previously, she accumulated diverse leadership experiences for ten years in the corporate sector, from management consulting at Deloitte Consulting, to incubating startups at Aetna, and as part of the executive team for RelayHealth, a business unit within McKesson. While at McKesson, she discovered the need and personal calling to integrate mindfulness and compassion more practically and directly into leadership behaviors. She left to join Dalai Lama Fellows, where she translated secular values, such as compassion, and meditation practices from the Fourteenth Dalai Lama into a leadership curriculum. Recognizing the potential for these practices to transform leaders at all organizations, she founded Leading Through Connection in 2017.
In addition to her leadership experience, Uvinie serves on the Board and is also a certified teacher for Cultivating Emotional Balance, an emotional intelligence training created by Paul Ekman, Eve Ekman, and Alan Wallace in collaboration with the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. She is a meditation practitioner and has received training and teachings from both the Theravada and Tibetan Buddhist traditions. She co-hosts a podcast called The Buddhist and The Pagan where she tackles concepts that are central to our existence and discusses practices to reconnect to the kindness of our soul. She holds a BA in Neurobiology and Behavior from Cornell University and a Masters in Public Health from Harvard University.
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Nitesh Batra
Hello and welcome to another episode of The Mindful Initiative podcast. Today we are very honoured and privileged to have amongst us Uvinie, who is the founder and CEO of Leading Through Connection.
Uvinie Lubecki
That was the first time I’d ever seen any kind of starvation and my mother at that point in time, you know, touched me and said,” You don’t get to look away. You need to care. This child is a human being just like you.” The way that we think or I think about compassionate leadership is in three parts. (i) Understanding what you and others are going through. (ii) Feeling for yourself and others in a genuine way. (iii) Taking action for yourself and others to be successful.
Nitesh Batra
Welcome Uvinie
Uvinie Lubecki
Thank you. Nice to be here.
Nitesh Batra
So as a practice, one of the first things that we try and understand about people we speak to is a little bit about their upbringing and their background and what got them here, where they are today.
Uvinie Lubecki
So I was born in Sri Lanka, but I moved when I was two, and we moved to Ithaca, New York. So you can imagine going from a tropical climate to snow. And from there, my father received a job to work at UNICEF. So we moved to Nigeria. We lived there for six years and Jordan for four years. And I say that because was perhaps why compassion became something that was central to what I do right now. I remember, one of my earliest memories was driving to school one day in Nigeria. And you can imagine, you know, from New York to Nigeria was a big shift. We had, you know, barbed wire around our home, there was gunshots going off. And my mother, particularly, I could imagine ,was very frayed. But she never really showed that and I was driving to school one day– this is one of my early memories. And I looked out the window and there was this child. He was very skinny and distended belly– was the first time I’d ever seen any kind of starvation. And my mother at that point in time, you know, touched me and said, “You don’t get to look away. You need to care. This child is a human being just like you.” So, at that point in time, I didn’t know that’s what compassion was– to be able to witness suffering and to actually have a genuine care of concern just for another human being because the other person’s human. But I didn’t have it, at that point in time. It was very hard to access. I was thinking, well, if people here don’t take care of others, why should we? And so I have a lot of empathy for that type of thought process. And so I say that my mother taught me compassion. It took me many years to come into recognising my own compassion for others. And it was when I realised, you know, through working in corporate America for 10 years, that this is something that really needed to be had in leadership. So my upbringing was, I think, fundamental to coming to compassion and leadership eventually.
Nitesh Batra
I think that’s interesting, in many ways. I think we’re all inherently born with the sense of caring for others. And I believe we start somehow training our minds to ignore the things that are happening. This idea of common humanity with a child that you saw, just like me. And just like me, so many other things are happening in the world right now. And we tend to ignore those things. And it’s good to see that it started earlier in your life and for most people, it doesn’t. But did spirituality have a place in your upbringing in any way?
Uvinie Lubecki
Yes, the concept started earlier in my life. But the direct experience of it did not. And I think the reason is just that spirituality can sometimes feel like yet another teacher or yet another person to shame you into thinking and being a certain way that you should care. You should love everyone because that’s the right thing to do. So we bring these spiritual practices and it can be anything from teachings to actual meditation to contemplation to reflection. And they can be yet another spiritual ego, to tell you how you should be. And for me personally, my experience was that spiritual ego blocked me from actually feeling my innate sense of compassion. I was trying so hard to want to be compassionate, because that was the right thing to do. But I didn’t have the chance or opportunity to recognise it within myself. And so, spirituality both hindered and then eventually transformed. Because when I started to look at myself, later on in life with more deeper contemplative practice, I could let go of the spiritual ego, in order for that innate sense of compassion to manifest.
Nitesh Batra
So the idea of compassion– it’s rooted into certain spiritual practices and we don’t call it compassion until much later because we’re just building up our value system. And fast forwarding many years where you are today, this idea of compassion, people have started to talk about it. Why do you think in your experience, you’ve worked with many leaders across the US and nonprofit around the world. It’s a simple value, I believe, right? I mean, it’s an inherent value that all of us, like I said, are born with. But why and what do you think happens along the way that these people forget the sense of caring for another individual in a compassionate way?
Uvinie Lubecki
I’ve heard many responses to this. I think The Dalai Lama talks about how we are all born with innate compassion for our friends and family. But in order to extend that to strangers or co workers, we need to cultivate that muscle similar to Mindfulness. You know, for 10s of thousands of years, we lived mostly in tribes of 150 or so people. And we knew everybody. We knew grandparents and grandparents, and trust and connection was established. So that level of compassion was perhaps easier to access. It’s only been in the last 200 years that we’ve been working as office labourers and you know, with relative strangers across cultures and geographies. So, having a sense of what compassion looks like in the absence of established trust, is a competency that we need to be trained in but we have not traditionally been schooled in and we don’t get that in our education. Instead, we get a lot of actually counter worldviews things like survival of the fittest. Look out for yourself, no one else will. Competition, more is better. So when you think about those views, and you see them actually fueling your success as a professional, it’s harder, almost combined with that lack of competency to access compassion. And yet, without this access, you see that we’re burning out, we’re overwhelmed. We’re distressed, we’re disconnected. Our fundamental sense of satisfaction and well being comes from a trusted, loving connection with people. So, I think now compassion is becoming crucial. And having access to that realistically within an environment where we need to, of course, be productive and efficient, innovate and be creative is necessary. We need to know how to do that.
Nitesh Batra
Given what you said, why is it hard for people to help themselves? Because this is something it seems that that is just gonna outright help them in so many ways. But people are so afraid that I’m going to be better. And people are afraid to be happy. I think it’s more often than not, I see. why?
Uvinie Lubecki
I think that is what we’re discovering quite a bit with the Mindfulness movement, as the level of consciousness that we operate in, on a daily life. So the way that we form, habits and behaviours is actually based on worldviews, which then inform our perceptions, which then inform our values, what we care about, and then our emotions. And from that cycle, we create behaviours and habits. Most often than not, because we are not actually looking or examining what’s driving our worldview, we’re responding from a place of emotion. And that emotion, as you rightly suggested, is fear. Fear of failure, fear of not success. If I don’t drive myself hard enough, I won’t make it. So we don’t examine the fear, because it’s very hard from an emotional state. So the emotions continue to drive our habits and behaviours. And those habits can look like scheduling back to back meetings, interrupting people, being impatient, moving faster, being less, doing more. So in order to break the cycle of unconsciousness, we need help, first of all, and we need to examine our fears and our worldviews and see how perhaps they may not be as true as we think they are.
Nitesh Batra
Asking for help. A lot of us don’t even think about it. We just assume that we know everything since we’re adults. And we try everything until there’s a health scare or something like that. Do you have a spiritual practice that’s rooted in compassion in your life? And the reason why I ask that is, I believe compassion has a lot to do with embodiment. And it’s sometimes harder for a teacher or leader to make it part of their system and then propagate it further and in different ways, whether it’s an organisation, whether it’s family or other systems. So that’s why that question. Is that something that’s part of your practice?
Uvinie Lubecki
I think it’s interesting. The two things you mentioned which is; asking for help, and is compassion a practice for embodiment. I think they’re connected. The reason for asking for help, usually comes out of unfortunately, suffering. We find that the way we’ve been pushing ourselves as taking us away from our family, our values, and when we do ask for help, that’s the point by which we recognise our humanity. That we suffer. And we need help. In fact, one of the biggest blockers to compassion is not recognising our human, our human-ness, especially for leaders, which is who I work with. They push themselves, they sacrifice, because thinking or recognising that they can’t do more is very scary. So they go to the very extreme until they burn out, and then they say, I need help. So I think one of the core principles of compassion in its embodiment is to recognise continually that you’re human, that you have imperfection that you are doing your best, and that you actually deep down, care. That’s what motivates us to do anything. So having a practice of self reflection, and knowing oneself is one of the first components of embodiment, or else you are operating from a place of superiority or a place of trying to be perfect, right? It’s actually coming from a source of imperfection. The other practice, I think is crucial for embodiment, within compassion, I think first, compassion is about feeling for someone in a genuine way. It’s different from empathy. Which is sharing what someone else is feeling. And that’s the very distinct an important difference, because what we’ve seen in studies and this is coming from study that Tanya Singer did at the Max Planck Institute, is that when people train in empathy, they actually in the face of suffering, get increased distress and negative effect. But when they train and compassion, they actually decrease their distress in the face of suffering an increased positive effect. And different studies have also shown helping behaviour. I say that because that difference between empathy and compassion is the distinction between feeling for someone else and their suffering and feeling with taking on their suffering. So the second part of an embodied practice is to actually pay attention to and recognise your innate, instinctual desire to feel for. And that can be in small things you can see an animal when they’re scared. I told you I was babysitting my friend’s dogs and seeing this animal be triggered and in states of fear, and seeing my innate sense to love and care for this being that’s scared and can’t control their emotion. It can be just seeing nature, looking outside, that innate love for life. It doesn’t have to be only in the face of suffering.
Nitesh Batra
Yeah, and I think the distinction that you mentioned between empathy and compassion. At the end, if you’re feeling burnt out, because of empathy, the positive and the negative effect. That’s the most important distinction because you have to keep continuing as an individual, as a human. You can be a leader or not, it doesn’t matter. But I think as an individual, if you continue in that direction, I think that’s the key. And given that, you know, some of these things that you were mentioning. I feel there is still a break between what’s happening in real life, how you apply those things, and what you understand. So from a theoretical standpoint, yes, all this is great. But when you go out in the real world, when you’re in that situation where you have to make a decision right away of, let’s say firing someone or make a decision about a very difficult thing. These tools may or may not be applicable in certain cases. So I just want to get your thoughts, you know. Are they really applicable? Like, can we use them?
Uvinie Lubecki
Absolutely. And we’re actually getting more studies now showing and demonstrating the impact of what’s called compassionate leadership. Where leaders who demonstrate compassion, or who operate from a sense of compassion, have increased retention, engagement, followership. It makes sense if you care about your employees, they will care about you. Surprisingly, as well, they’re seeing that there’s also an increase in productivity and profitability in companies. And the reason is that for a short game, if all you want to do is build a company and sell it very quickly, compassion is probably not the most optimal strategy. You were probably likely to succeed by turning and burning through your employees. But if you want to build a sustainable business, and you want to create long term value, then investing in your employees and understanding them becomes crucial and a differentiator. Secondly, we’re not in an economy right now where it’s about producing more. We’re an economy right now where it’s about creativity and innovation. So collaboration is going to be and is continuing to be and we hear this in the fourth industrial revolution, the core of what’s going to propel a company forward and to create these solutions for these very complex challenges. So compassion becomes the heart of that. And I wanted to find what I think is because it’s not actually out there with the definition of compassionate leadership. It’s still a very nascent idea. The way that we think or I think about compassionate leadership is in three parts. (i) The first is, understanding what you and others are going through. (ii) The second is feeling for yourself and others in a genuine way. (iii) And the third is taking action for yourself and others to be successful. Now you’ll notice that my definition is not in the context of suffering. That is what we most often hear. And the reason being is that I think that when we define compassionate leadership around suffering, it narrows the extent by which we can use it. We only recognise its potential when someone is….when you’re firing someone or something is really horrible happening to a coworker. But in fact, when you look at that definition, compassion is possible in almost every interaction. And when we talk about this definition with leaders, almost all of them say that’s what it looks like when they’re operating from their best, but it’s very difficult to know how to come into them which is I think the core of your your question and it’s possible because what is very unique and different about compassion, as opposed to some of the tools… similar, actually, not opposed to… Mindfulness, is that its power is in its application. So that can look like in interactions, understanding someone else, recognising perhaps when they’re operating out of fear, feeling for them, you know, so putting yourself in their shoes, but understanding also that their stress is not your stress, and then having an honest conversation, providing truth with kindness, so they’re able to receive it. That is an application of compassion.
Nitesh Batra
Yeah, I think I heard you talk about by giving an example and I don’t know if you remember that example that you talked about. That, if you’re running late to a meeting. If you could share that. I think it has a complete applicability here as well.
Uvinie Lubecki
Yeah. The example is that perhaps you know, this happens very often. You’re running late to a meeting. You’re in the hall and a coworker stops you with an issue and says, “Oh my goodness, I really need to talk to you.” What do you do? How do you act with compassion? The first step in compassionate leadership is understanding yourself, as well as the other. If all you did is to repress the need the fact that you need to run to your meeting, and you just stay and talk to this coworker, you’re likely not to be present. And you’re likely to be thinking about getting to the next meeting. But if you can start with that first step and say, “You know what? Right now is not a good time for me to listen.” Then, you can still stay connected and feel for them. And perhaps what you might say is to say, I would really like to listen and I want to give you my full attention. Can we talk after this meeting? In that way, the coworker feels heard, respected. You’re also having compassion for yourself, so you’re honest and feel good. And it comes to a mutual benefit for both of you, because you actually will give advice that will perhaps be more intentional than if you’re trying to make your meeting.
Nitesh Batra
Thank you. I think it’ll help people to relate because a lot of us go through it, and things are happening in our life. The other thing which I find interesting in the world of leadership is gender. And with the past year with so much happening in the “me too” arena, I think the practice of compassion is so important, because not only highlights the problems that we’re dealing with. But it somewhat suggests that by practising or at least, embodying some aspects of compassion, you might be able to overcome some of the issues that we’re dealing with. I just wanted to get your thoughts because we’re in the Bay Area, and there’s still a lot of division and differentiation between genders and inclusivity as well. So I want to get your thoughts if you had experience on how compassion can help, and can it change the status quo?
Uvinie Lubecki
Yes, I think compassion, particularly compassion training can help. Many of the existing trainings or solutions to help us be more inclusive– Implicit bias training, diversity and inclusion offerings, focus quite heavily on cognitive frameworks, things like data that shows how you know we hire women versus men, how we treat one gender over the other. And that is important to know these things. But to shift behaviour, we need to get to a place of what I call affective or emotional understanding, which I believe compassion is crucial for. Compassion training entails connecting to a genuine sense of caring for someone else based on them being a human being. You can’t fake caring. Similarly, you can be aware of your bias. But what I hear from leaders is I’m aware of it. But now what do I do? How do you transform it? How do you make it shift behaviour? That is through understanding and training and compassion. When you can connect in a genuine way, not in a should or shamed or blamed way, but truly connect to someone else’s situation. Then that, which is the basis of compassion, combined with the bias training can be powerful. But until we actually embody that compassion, this type of inclusion doesn’t actually get to the heart of the issue. The inclusion work is good. It’s good to be aware of, but we need to go further. So compassion is, I think the next step.
Nitesh Batra
Yeah, I feel these trainings have been going on for such a long time. And since they’ve been part of our lives, our organisations for many, many years, I think people should understand it. So we’re missing something of course. And I feel in schools as well. If they’re starting to understand their emotions better, I think over a period of time, it’ll help them to be more aware in ways that they’re acting, in ways they are doing things. I think that will be the key. We’re getting towards the end of our time here. If someone has to practice compassion, right? And if they want to make it part of their life, their family and their organisations, how do they start?
Uvinie Lubecki
I think, the place to start with compassion is truly with oneself. If you cannot generate compassion for yourself, it will be very difficult to generate compassion for others. It’s the lens by which we treat ourselves is the same lens by which we treat others. I mentioned earlier that motivation is such an important part of this work and bringing it into our life. I think we can all be motivated for our own happiness. And if we can look at without fear and without judgement, how we suffer, just look at it. That can be a powerful recognition, the small step and it can be something very small. Perhaps it’s how you suffer because you don’t have the time to spend with your family. It can be how you suffer because you don’t know the answer, always. It can be that you try so hard, and yet things don’t happen. Whatever it is, just paying –the small practice, mini practice– attention to that, not to feel down or desolate or depressed. But just to see, wow, being human is hard. And other people also are having hard worries and concerns too. So starting with oneself.
Nitesh Batra
I think that’s a great step. great starting point. And I think that’s a great way to get towards the end of our interview.Before we end, what we do is, we do a small rapid fire with the people that we interview. Are you up for it?
Uvinie Lubecki
I don’t know what it is, but let’s do it.
Nitesh Batra
You can choose to answer in one word, one sentence or as long as you want. So our first question is, if there’s one place in the world that you would like to go, what would that place be?
Uvinie Lubecki
Where all my family is together.
Nitesh Batra
Good answer.
Nitesh Batra
If there someone in history that you would like to go meet. Who would that person be?
Uvinie Lubecki
Does this person have to be dead?
Nitesh Batra
No.
Yuvini
I would love to meet The Dalai Lama just maybe five minutes with him. I’ve met him and shook his hand, but I would love to spend five minutes with him.
Nitesh Batra
What is being mindful mean to you?
Uvinie Lubecki
It means being aware of my thoughts, judgements and perceptions, in every moment.
Nitesh Batra
One childhood memory that sparks joy in your mind.
Uvinie Lubecki
I think, getting …wel,l rescuing a puppy, rescuing a puppy.
Nitesh Batra
Okay. The last question, do you like listening to songs, watching movies or looking at artists, pictures, pick anyone.
Uvinie Lubecki
I love writing. So I love writing stories, fantasy and science fiction.
Nitesh Batra
Oh the, that’s an easy question. A book that you live by that this is you can just you know as soon as I You know, your favourite book that comes to your mind?
Uvinie Lubecki
Oh, goodness. That’s a hard one.
Uvinie Lubecki
I would say The Mahamudra book I’m reading is pretty crucial for my life right now.
Nitesh Batra
Okay, who’s it by?
Uvinie Lubecki
Mahamudra by Dakpo Tashi Namgyal
Nitesh Batra
Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much Uvinie Lubecki. This was very enlightening for me. I learned a lot of things and I’m sure our listeners will learn a lot as well as they go through this interview. Thank you so much for being a part. Thank you for spending the afternoon with us and being here. Thank you so much.
Uvinie Lubecki
Thank you.
Nitesh Batra
Thank you, everyone who tuned in to listen to our podcast. You can listen to us at iTunes, Google podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Please remember to rate us on iTunes or Google podcast and share it with your friends and family if you like us. Thank you so much.
Editing: Juan Pablo Velasquez Luna
Transcription: Gita Venkat and Madhusmita Misra
