The show’s guest in this episode is Sophie Mclean. She is a helicopter pilot, a teacher, a designer, a relief worker, a war refugee, a CEO, and served as a United Nations representative on The Commission on the Status of Women’s Hunger Project. Sophie talks with Melanie Parish about leading and transformation. Sophie shares her challenges as she faces taking everything online. Tune in, and be transformed!

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Leading Profound Transformation with Sophie Mclean

I am so excited to welcome you to our very first experimental leader Live podcast. I am so excited to be with you today. And I’ve been thinking about my own leadership. And this summer, I took a lot of time, I took some time off of having interviews on my podcast, I really tried to take some time, working as a coach over the last year and a half, had an emotional toll. And so I really wanted to do some deep self care. And I also wanted to reflect on my business, and my own leadership, and to really figure out what was important to me to carry into this fall. Often because I’ve kids, the Fall is a time that we really start up again, and I really wanted to think about my podcast. We’ve been doing it now since April of 2020. And we’ve been super successful, we’ve been really happy with the conversations we’re having with the learning that we’re having the with the the availability for a platform to share ideas and talk about ideas. And I realized that I had been a guest on several platforms, several podcasts that used a different platform, a live platform, and I really fell in love with it. This platform has the ability to take questions in real time, we’re able to do some new things. And so I want, I wanted to make a change. And so this is my new strategy for the podcast, I want to go live, we’re going to be going live on Facebook, and LinkedIn, and YouTube every week at 1230. Eastern time. And I’m so excited to be with you here today. My leadership is to continue to try to make our experience with our clients, and the people who we touch on social media on our podcast, more relevant, more fresh, more current. And so this Live podcast is how we’ll be doing this will continue to stream all of our podcasts on all the podcast platforms, and they’ll go up about a month later. So you’ll really get the freshest content by watching us live. It’s super exciting to be here. And it’s super exciting to be in this leadership conversation with you to talk about what leaders do on the ground to ask them questions, I really will ask them anything. There’s also an opportunity on my website to go in and send in a video I mean an audio recording for us to ask a question on your behalf of a guest. So we’re excited about this. And we are super excited to be here with you.

I’m so excited about my guest today, I want to tell you about Sophie McLean. So, Sophie was born in Algeria. She was educated in Morocco and France. And she’s had a professional career in the US and the UK. She’s had an eventful life at the age of 12. She experienced a profound transformation that radically altered the course of her life, and it marked the beginning of her spiritual journey. Today, we’re gonna find out more about her as a leader. And I am so excited to have Sophie McLean here live today.

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Welcome, Sophie.

Melanie, thank you for having me. I’m the first one on this new life podcast. Right. So let me wish you the most amazing success and fulfillment for your enterprise.

Thank you so much. It’s really it’s really fun to have you here. I’d love to I’d love to just dive right in and ask you what you’re up to in your work and your life right now.

Well, I came back to New York in November now in September 2019. And after spending 10 years on a spiritual quest, and I came back just on time for COVID the confinements.  So I started my enterprise of awareness, my company’s called access to awareness then I had to go online and redesign my programs so that it worked online and then that’s what I do. I teach people the access to remember who they really are?

Oh, I can’t wait to learn more. So, so tell me about your programs, what kind of programs? Do you have to teach people more about who they really are?

So I have been at it for 30 years, right? So they are, there is all sorts of programs, there is a free course there is a 21 day course, there is a three month course, there is really one on one courses. So I’ve made myself available for any finance level, and every desire of my students. And all the courses are based on three, mostly three principles. The first one is suffering is optional. And that is much more profound than it sounds, it is really possible to live a life free of suffering. The second one is most human being feel trapped. But the feeling of a wheel. But the trap is not. So if you try to get out of a trap, that is an illusion, you’re going to be very Goofy, right? So that is the illusion of life that you need to realize. And the third principle is that anything you identify with is not who you are. So you to be able to access authentic power, intuition, guidance, you need to remember who you really are. So my programs are all designed around those.

And I imagine there’s people listening who think, Well, I know who I am. How do I know when know that they could use your program that it would be right for them?

 

Well, you know, just by bringing awareness to who you think you are, but if you you know, awareness is the ultimate power by the awareness. I make it very simple. But awareness is when you teach your children to cross the street, right? You tell them stop, look, right, look left, and then cross the street. Okay? That’s awareness. It doesn’t take Einstein right to practice awareness. So when you stop for a second and examine what you identify with, and you play a game of Am I that? No. Am I that? No. So you can start? Am I? My job title? No. Am I the amount of money I have? No, I made my buddy. No. Am I even a woman? No, you are what we call a woman but you are not a woman? Right? Am I a mother? No, you are what we call a mother. It’s a description of a mother but who you are is not really a mother but and you go on it’s amazing exercise Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? You will finally arrive at a point where first you might get exam to exasperated, saying, Alright, fine, I don’t know who I am. And then you will actually be able to get an experience of your essence. And that moment is truly, truly magical. truly magical, you just realize that you are not to think, you know, people call it soul or higher self. But when you get an experience of who you really are. All the problems, confusion, frustration disappears. That’s delicious.

Awareness is the ultimate power. Click To Tweet

I’m so fascinated, because obviously, obviously, there are all sorts of modalities who use some of the same language you use. So Buddhism talks about suffering, which I love this. I love that language so much. I talk about it also, like, Oh, I see once you see suffering as opposed to something that’s happening. It’s really interesting to name that it’s suffering. And I also, there’s a guy named Eliyahu Goldratt, who was an Israeli physicist who worked in manufacturing. And he always talked about management attention being the biggest bottleneck. And so when you talk about the attention to yourself, I’m sort of fascinated by that concept. And so these two sort of places that are really different than what you’re talking about around self transformation are popping into my mind, you know, sort of religion and manufacturing consulting. It’s, it’s It’s quite fascinating to me what what brought you as a leader into this space, what made you want to do this work in the world.

I had the gift, a gift when I was 12 years old. And I was brought up in Casablanca, Morocco. I’m French, you can hear by my accent, but I was brought up in Casablanca, and I was in the garden, watching my family getting ready to sit down for dinner. And I spoke, I must have been in a moment of stillness, you know, just watching them. And suddenly, I had to download it was an epiphany. And there was an I just got a message, the first message was that I was being brought up in a cocoon that had absolutely nothing to do with what was happening in the world. And that I needed to go and find that, because there was a range from joy to despair. And everything, every single experience was available in the world. And I was having just a tiny little one. Oh, so I got that. That was interesting. Then the next insight came saying, and everything you’re going to discover, everything you’re going to discover is an illusion. So that was a bit more complicated. And then the third one was more like a command. It was like, Alright, now you know what to do with your life, go and tell people. And I ran to my parents, right? And I said, Okay, okay, I’ve got my instruction, I’ve got the secret. It’s all an illusion, and with even a cocoon, and my parents looked at me and said, Okay, we have a crazy one. And that nickname stayed with me all my life. And with love, right, the crazy one, but when I left home at 18, I, you know, little by little, I just discovered the amazing gift I was given. It was like a blue eyed you say, you know, a map for me. So that’s how I started, I never looked back, I then have services impulse for me to discover the illusion of life and tell people about it.

 

The Elegance of Simplicity: A Wisdom Teacher’s Epic Journey to Awareness

And what challenges did you face taking everything online? What were some of the challenges? What did you do? How did you experiment? You know, as a leader, how did you experiment as you looked at changing the format, you know, for delivery in the last couple of years?

Oh, well, I was concerned only by one thing, right? For me going online was really good. because that meant that I could have an international audience, right. So that’s brilliant. But I didn’t know instead of having three days weekend, how to have a two hour session. So it was a little bit of trial, trying what worked, what didn’t work. And it took me about a year, year and a half to find out the good format. But my students are very generous. And I don’t hide anything, right? I said, Listen, we’re going to see what you know how to find the right platform and the right things and how to do have assignments and, and answer questions and all that. And then the other thing was, was I able to transmit because part of my teaching Melanie what makes my teaching powerful is that there is a transmission to what I say it’s not so much. What I say is my students report to me is that there is an energy transmission, somehow they can walk out of a session, not remembering a word of what I’ve said, but something stays with them and opening and lightness. So I wasn’t sure that I could do it online. But what I did is that I recorded I wrote a book called the elegance of simplicity. I recorded it on audio. And then I listened to it which is not pleasant, you know, to listen to yourself, but I listen to it. And after about six or seven chapter, I realized that I was being impacted by something. So I thought okay, the worst thing so that’s what I had to deal with.

What makes my teaching powerful is that there is a transmission to what I say. Click To Tweet

That’s so interesting that even even the words use speak and and I have the same sort of feeling sometimes that things just come out of my mouth. They come through me, and it’s not something I talk about much but occasionally I will listen back to something I’ve recorded and be like, wow, that was better than I could have thought I would. And it’s an interesting phenomenon like how there’s these moments of brilliance. And if you’re recording when you save them, you know, you may not actually have access to those all the time.

No, that’s it. That’s my favorite thing about leading right and teaching is that at one point you are so for the other person, so much in the space of the other person with an intention to really contribute to the other person that you as an ego disappear. And when you disappear, your character disappear, your personality disappear, you have this direct connection to guidance and intuition. And really amazing things come out of your mouth right at that point where you just say, wow, I mean, I even sometimes told people things about their life that I had no way of knowing.

I somehow believe that about you, Sophie, meeting here today, I just believe that about you. Tell me how you like what do you do for self care? As you’re doing this work? As you’re bringing people to deep transformation? What do you do as a leader for yourself?

So every day I spend one and a half hours working in nature, right? That’s very important. I have my dogs, my dogs. I know I’m a 60 year old woman with two little dogs, but I they, I take them out. And that’s my biggest nurturing moment. I don’t know, it’s pure love. You know, it’s like being with children, nature plus my dogs, then I physically have acupressure, every two weeks. I meditate every day. And what I do, I am constantly like about two or three hours a day, constantly seeking other teachers, Masters, mystic philosophers, I constantly look to expand my experience. As a teacher, I would only teach what I have personally experienced because I stay away from concept and description, I just want to transmit something. It’s my experience, right? So I spend half of my day or a third of my day, expanding my space learning, inquiring discovering?

Well, and I’m really fascinated by this idea of transformation as business. And you’re obviously partaking in other people’s transformation or spiritual businesses. How would someone discern How do you discern whether someone’s for real or is? Yeah, in it for something untoward? Or has a not a good intention?

 

Well, I have a system, which I trust very much. It’s, I’ve been doing it for 30 years, and it really works. So first, you need to have awareness, right? You need to have awareness, but you, I can always trust what moves me. What inspires me, or what touches me. If one of those three happens, then I will trust and take the risk. Because then you know, then I just consider that my soul is reached. And that cannot happen through lie manipulation agendas. And so that’s how I proceed.

And what are you excited about for the next year, in your, in your world and your leadership and your business?

You know, I’m excited with the shift that is happening in leadership, right. And this shift has been predicted since the 16th century. I think that there is a shift that is happening from homo sapiens to Homer spiritus. homo sapiens is being connected to your five senses and using your five senses to connect to what is external to you and to look for power outside of you, right that’s a homo sapiens that’s called the ego you identify and look for energy on things, external to you, almost spirit is, is when you look for energy for authentic power, internally connecting to your soul and that shift is truly For me a celebration because it is a possibility for new culture for humankind. And it’s happening in leadership. I speak to people at the United Nation or in leadership position and the traditional leadership of working hard more hours going to the office, producing with management and all that is elevating, in the most thrilling way, for me, it’s awakening, people are going from silly sleep Walker to awakening. And so that’s what I’m looking for. I think it’s a very difficult and very exciting time to be alive.

And how can people find you, Sophie?

I have made it very simple. The best way to find me is my website. It’s my name is sophiemclean.com. So on the website, you have everything I provide all the links or the expression or the videos, the book, the blog, the everything.

Amazing. It has been such a pleasure to have you. Thank you so much for being my first live guest. I think that one okay. I’m it’s been really fun to be talking with you. And, and it’s just been a pleasure.

Thank you, Melanie, and I am so proud. I was the first one. I shall subscribe to your channel and see what happens.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

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Well, that was so much fun. I love this idea of leadership and transformation, digging into the idea of suffering. There’s so many different ways to get to innovation and using things like religion and spirituality, as a way as teasers or flirts from the world, to enliven our leadership to deepen our leadership. And to think about the idea of alleviating suffering is a really interesting way to take some of the charge out of the ways that we need to change. I challenge you to look in your own life and over the next week, think about how you are suffering. And notice when you’re suffering and notice why you might be suffering or how you might alleviate your own suffering. I’d love to challenge you to take this on and go experiment!

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Sophie Mclean

Sophie McLean’s mission is to contribute to the creation of a new culture for humankind; or the shift from Homo Sapiens to Homo Spiritus, as Dr. David Hawkins so beautifully wrote. Born in Algeria, educated in Morocco and France, with a professional career in the USA and UK, Sophie has led an eventful life. She has been a helicopter pilot, a teacher, a designer, a relief worker, a war refugee, a CEO, and served as a United Nations representative on The Commission on the Status of Women’s Hunger Project. She has been shot at, shipwrecked, and widowed. She has lived on a farm, a boat, a penthouse, and in an ashram.

As a wisdom teacher, Sophie has spent decades leading transformational seminars to over 80,000 people around the world, of all ethnicities, ages, religions and social backgrounds – all engaged with the universal existential questions of “Who and what am I?” and “What is my life about?” Her seminar and podcast topics span both human and metaphysical dimensions – exposing and deconstructing the automatic ego, consciousness, freedom, love, stress, anxiety, fear, relationships, health, sex, money, ownership, leadership, spirituality, creation and evolution, the feminine and the masculine, responsibility, and making an effective, actionable difference in the world.

Sophie engages people in a rigorous review of their life and a systematic questioning of their conclusions on the basis that without examining our network of ideas, beliefs, social and cultural judgments, and our assumptions about the world, those are transformed into constraints. Her interest is in the nature of what it means to be human.

Sophie’s book, The Elegance of Simplicity: A Wisdom Teacher’s Epic Journey to Awareness, is a compelling, thought-provoking work of autobiographical fiction, one that communicates life-altering concepts proposing an effortless pathway to awareness. It’s a deeply authentic and dramatic story of self-discovery, about what is possible when you take responsibility, own your power, and become one with life. In Sophie McLean’s life and work, she strives to bring elegance, worldly experience, grit, courage, and insight leading to revelation and transformation.

 

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