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Coach and author Sheela Masand received the idea to interview those who had learned directly from Sydney Banks about the three principles that describe how we experience human life. That idea became Inside Out Transformation: A Revolutionary Guide for Coaches, Therapists, and Counsellors, which has been described by reviewers at ‘extraordinary’, ‘powerful, engaging and inspiring’ and ‘brilliantly lucid’.

If you’re curious about what the three principles are and how they apply to your life, and to easing your suffering, Sheela’s book is a great place to start.

In 2010 Sheela Masand was introduced to a psycho-spiritual understanding called The Three Principles discovered by Sydney Banks, also referred to as the inside-out understanding. She didn’t know it then, but her life was to be infused with its unique and undeniable transformative magic. Her coaching business slowly transformed in the same way – she couldn’t help but share the Principles in all her work.

You can find Sheela Masand at SheelaMasand.com.

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. 

Show Notes

• Seeing for the first time that life only works one way (i.e., inside-out)
• Do affirmations help create change?
• Looking upstream to see that we live in a world of thought
• What heart-centred business owners commonly struggle with
• On tackling a big project like writing a book

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• Jamie Smart
• We didn’t discuss him but I’m going to mention Tad Hargrave and Marketing for Hippies
• Jack Pransky
• George and Linda Pransky
• Chana Studley
• The Viva Event
• Uncovering the Extraordinary Coach Within with Joe Bailey

Transcript of Interview with Sheela Masand

Alexandra: Sheela Masand, welcome to Unbroken. 

Sheela: Thank you. Good to be here. It’s lovely to have you here. 

Alexandra: Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to find the three principles? 

Sheela: I don’t know how far back in time we need to go. But just to say that I live in Spain. I am British. And I’ve lived in Spain since 1986, which was a long time ago.

I was married and had two beautiful daughters. And along the way, I got divorced. That’s one thing. But along the way, I became self-employed. It’s one of those things I always knew. In the back of my mind, my dad was very entrepreneurial. 

I always had this sense that I would, one day, have my own business. I didn’t set out career-wise to do that. But it serendipitously and landed in my lap to join up with somebody become in partnership and open a British food and drink import business here in Spain, which I never thought I would do that. 

And it was very successful, like, super successful in the sense that we ended up with 20 employees in a warehouse. And, it was very, very, very successful in its day. And then, unfortunately, my business partner died at a very young age. He was only 48, and very unexpectedly left me with this business.

A few years have gone by, and I was already exploring other things that I wanted to do, I’d become vegetarian. So importing bacon and sausages and pork pies from the UK wasn’t really sitting very well with me anymore. I was weighing I need to be doing something, and I wanted to do something alternative in the helping field. And come across coaching. And I was exploring different modalities. 

We’d already decided I was going to become a silent partner in this business that we had that was flourishing. But then, as I say, he died. And I ended up with this business I didn’t really want because legally, I had to take it up, take it on, while I didn’t have to. But I chose to because there were all these people rely on me, telling me they have mortgages to pay, etc.

And then the recession hit, hard times hit, and things didn’t go so well. So I ended up with a lot of debt. And the reason I’m sharing the backstory because this is how I came into the three principles. In my journey of looking for what was my next step in terms of my career or business, I bumped into an NLP coaching course out here in Spain, and I did that I love it. I really enjoyed it.

I ended up joining Jaime Smarts’ email list because he was one of the best NLP around at the time. And little did I know at that point in time that he’d started to change paths, change courses, because he had come across the three principles. But I didn’t know that, and neither did anybody else on this email list. So this email drops into my inbox saying – and bear in mind that I was in financial distress at this point in time, lots of lots of debt, and didn’t know how I was going to get out of it.

So this email lands in my inbox saying if the secret is so great, show me the money. He’s a very clever man in terms of wording and NLP and things as well. But if people don’t know The Secret, it’s all about the law of attraction, it’s a book and a movie. And I had lots of debt so I looked in that direction as well, and nothing had worked for me. So I was curious, I thought, okay, he’s gonna teach me what he was doing. 

He was selling a DVD set he recorded a two-day event in the UK that it did in London and sold that the recording. So I send off for the DVD set and sit down in my living room with my then-partner, we start watching, and I’m expecting him to show me how to create loads of money, and I there’s some magic way of creating money. 

However, there wasn’t anything in there much like that. It was much it was all about pointing in the direction of the three principles, which actually was far more of far more value to me, far more value.

But in retrospect, I can see that’s what happened on an intellectual level. What I heard really clearly that was like, I’ve never seen that before was when he talked about life only working one way, 100% of the time, we’re creating our own experience. 100% of the time. It wasn’t that through personal development stuff that I’ve done in the NLP, and the coaching and coaching courses that I knew that money didn’t bring me happiness, I got that. 

But this idea that it’s 100% always that way. And never another way, really piqued my curiosity and at the end of the two days, he left us with, don’t take my word for it, go into your own life, look, test it out, see if it’s true, that’s what I suggest you do. So I did be the good girl that I am did my homework. 

And started it started really looking like, seriously, am I creating my own experience? At the time, I had a partner who would very often leave his socks on the floor wherever they were taken off, and I’ve noticed that I’m bringing this up because it’s women always laugh about. It’s, like, a common husband problem, right? Like, they just drop clothes wherever they are. 

Is it the socks that are creating my upset?

Is the socks on the floor? I didn’t feel like that every day. Sometimes I would just dismiss it. I wouldn’t even think twice about it. Other times, I’ve just smiled. And other days, I was really annoyed. 

So it was like, well, the fact that it wasn’t always the same reaction told me very clearly that this is really an inside out world. We are creating our own experience 100% of the time. And so here in this two-day event, Jamie had said, I’m going to put on another few of these in the next year, I can’t remember he said three or four more.

I remember turning to my partner and saying I’m going there. So when I say I was touched, it was like it was really like I’m going, and I went over to London, I think it was three times in a row. Every time he did one of those events, I just wanted to be back in the room.

And the really curious thing about that is that it didn’t say anything too much different. Every time I went, it was always pointing, talking about the principles in different ways. But that was a message, I just see that my heart kept drawing me and taking me back, thinking that there was something for me. I was so taken. And by this time, I’ve got some coaching clients. 

I didn’t know how to share it with them. The story could go on and on and on about how I’m doing what where I am today. But I’ll stop there because I think you might have something else to ask me.

Alexandra: A couple of follow-up questions. One of the things that I always find so interesting when I’m interviewing people is that so very often, and myself included, we try all kinds of different things on the route to finding their principles, and that was certainly the case for you with NLP and some other things. Was it hypnotherapy?

Sheela: I became a Louise Hay teacher.

Alexandra: I always wonder if you can describe what’s different about all those different modalities and the three principles. And then maybe a follow-up question would be, when you were doing those other things, were there any feelings in you that it was they weren’t quite hitting the mark at the time? Or was it only when you came to this that you saw that?

Sheela: Well for me, what really struck me when I came across the principles and started delving deeper was, this is the basis. So this is the building block, these are the building blocks of life. 

These three principles are a description of how life works, how we work psychologically, and who we truly are in our true nature, which is not which is formless, the formless and the form, and I just I suppose I came when I say I came at it intellectually, in the psychology route. 

Like I said, that’s what I heard first was we’re creating it’s an inside out, well, we’re creating that spirit. And then, along the way, I started really dropping into this idea, or this truth now as I see it, that our true nature is essence is unbreakable.

We are definitely unbreakable.

And so, what I started seeing was the techniques, let’s call them the modalities, like the hypnotherapy, or the NLP, those techniques, there’s nothing wrong with techniques. 

But for me, the principles felt like, and still do, if we can just see the truth, how we work, if we understand how we work. And we understand that insight is the thing that shifts the needle. And that was one of the major things I saw as well. It’s like when a person has a true insight, that’s when things completely change. That’s when transformation happens. 

Whereas a lot of a lot of things that so, for example, the Louise Hay work, and I’m not again, nothing against any of these, these things have helped me tremendously. And they do help lots of people.

But for example, with the affirmations with Louise Hay, I would be helping people create their affirmations I was using affirmations. 

But at the same time, I wasn’t really believing it something to say something decided something, hoping it would change. But it wasn’t coming from wisdom, as we talked about, and it wasn’t coming from a place for me. It was something that somebody else had taught me to do.

It wasn’t from me, and it wasn’t serving me because it was something that somebody else had come across, I really see Louise Hay obviously had major insights, major shifts in her life, major transformation, and then went on to help other people. But what I did see is it didn’t work for everybody.

I would run the workshops, and people would have a lovely time. But it didn’t seem to stick. It didn’t continue with affirmations. They kept coming back for more and coming back for more. I get that because they came back for the nice feeling. And we do beautiful things like affirmation baths, which are gorgeous somebody standard people stand around you and just say beautiful things to you, so literally that. 

That’s in the moment, but it didn’t stick.

Alexandra: The other question was at the time did you notice if anything was missing.

Sheela:x Why is it such hard work? I think that was it. 

Does it really have to be this hard? That was really, everybody’s saying all this stuff? And it also felt as well with NLP. For example, blasting limiting beliefs was one of busting limiting beliefs. And so but limiting beliefs, if you like, are forever, like the never-ending. It’s like you find another one. 

And now you find another one. So it did feel like a never-ending job in a way that there would always be more that surfaced. And coming across the principles for me was the it’s more upstream than that is like, just seeing that it’s all thought, and you don’t have to believe any of it. 

And none of it means anything. It means nothing unless you get to assign a meaning to it. Just knowing that none of it. I’m not my thinking, I am the container of it, the space within which all that arises. That was huge. For me. It was huge for me, and it just, it simplified things. I think it’s really simplified things, which I love. I love simplicity.

Alexandra: Me too. And I can really relate to that hard work piece, especially having been on a similar journey myself. And sadly, the conclusion that I always came to was I must be doing this wrong.

There must be something wrong with me that I can’t get this thing to work.

Sheela: I don’t actually see any of it wasted. I think it’s no, really see now that life is working for us. And we just get presented with more opportunities and more nudges and look in this direction. That’s where I’m at now.

And just to say, and I think with a lot of the teachings that I was listening to before, and I was following before, it may just have been the way I heard it. But it was like negative emotion, bad; positive emotion, good. Positive thinking, and obviously the affirmations, it was all about turning the negative into a positive. 

And now I see, it’s all welcome. There’s all there’s room for it all. And that has been really helpful to me.

Alexandra: One of the things you offer is coaching for heart-centered business owners. I love that phrase that you use on your website.

What do you find is a hurdle that that group of people tends to commonly face in their business ownership?

Sheela: There’s more than one hurdle. But the very common one is, I don’t like marketing. I don’t like selling myself. I don’t want to talk about money, and I don’t like sales. Can you tell me how to do it without doing that? 

That would be the major hurdle is most heart-centered business owners they’re in the business of healing and helping and service. But you don’t like the idea of up sales or yucky marketing? It’s all feels very sleazy. 

That’s part of my process when I’m working with people, is to help them get past that to see that it doesn’t have to be like that. And you don’t have to do all the things that you’re being told you have to do. I mean, there are so many. 

There’s a lot of noise out there in sales and marketing. And there are lots of experts that tell you their thing is the best thing. Here’s the magic formula. This is the one, this is the only thing you need. And you will have your 100,000 whatever. And that’s just not true.

Alexandra: I heard someone say the other day, and I just love this so much that hundreds of years ago, heart-centered business owners would have been shamans, the shamans of the tribe, or the group or the community, and the community would have supported that person in exchange for the healing and everything that they provided. 

Our culture and our society just isn’t set up that way anymore. So now it’s on us to do both things, to bring healing to the people that we encounter, and to feed ourselves and keep a roof over our heads.

I just thought that was such a beautiful way to illustrate the change that’s happened for that type of business owner and what’s in their lap or on their plate. 

Sheela: That’s really interesting. In religion, it still works that way, doesn’t it? I mean, even government supports churches. Here in Spain, I don’t know what it’s like another but it was quite a revelation to me when I did my tax return.

And if you don’t choose to give to another social enterprise, it automatically goes to the Catholic Church as part of your tax returns. So it’s this you have to decide which box to tick. And that’s it. So it’s like pretty they get a good chunk of money from our taxes.

Alexandra: Let’s talk about your most recent book, which is called Inside Out Transformation.

Tell us about the book, because it’s a really interesting structure, and I loved learning about it. And what inspired you to write it?

Sheela: Well, thank you for saying ‘my most recent book’ as it is my one and only. But, a big achievement for me, because I always had this sense that I would be self-employed and have some business but I never felt like one day I’d write a book. It’s interesting because I don’t think I was inspired. 

Apart from I had an inspired idea. I guess that’s how it happened. So I had this idea that came in, it was literally interview Syd’s [Sydney Banks’] direct students, the first generation. That’s the whole idea was that just interview them and create a book around it. And it was one of those ideas that just kept coming back, and it kept coming back, and I didn’t do anything about it, and kept coming back. 

In the end, Jack Pransky is a friend and I’ve arranged organized retreats and trainings for him here in Spain many, many times over the years. And he’s an author authored many books. So one time he was here, I said, Jack, I’ve had this idea for a book. So I told him, and he said, I think it’s a brilliant idea, Sheela, go for it. So that was my confirmation. I was like, okay, I’ve tested the water, he thinks it’s a great idea. 

And he’s one of the direct students. He’s one of the people that I actually did interview in the end and he was very helpful, because he gave me the list of I don’t know all the names of since direct students. So he gave me a list, a comprehensive list. And basically, that’s how it happened. And it was, like, one foot in front of the other. 

Okay, well, what’s the next step? The next step is to write to these people. because if they didn’t say, Yes, I didn’t have a book, it was like, okay, ask them. And, of course, lots of them answered. And lots of them said yes. Great idea. And so it was literally just them coming up with some questions and interviewing them. 

Then on Zoom, like we are now and the audio and the video and, and then I transcribed and edited, and so it went on. So, it was published. It took me a long time, though. I remember Jack saying at the beginning, it takes me, he said, three years or four years now, three years or four years to write a book. 

And I was like, Really, but it took me four years to get from start to finish, at least I think. Out of actually reaching out to somebody and saying, will you be part of the book? Because, because he said, I remember him saying to me as well, you need to make it a full project. And that’s exactly what I had to do. 

Because it was always something that came at the end of the I was running, running my business and doing all the admin. And that would be when I’ve got time, I’ll get to the book when I get tired. And then there was never time. So, in the end, I had to make it a project that was like, Okay, I’ve got to get this done. I really wanted to get it done. As I sit on some really good material, people love to read. So, that’s how it came about.

Alexandra: What was it about? Maybe this is an obvious question, but let’s go there anyway.

What was it about interviewing those people that had been directly taught by Sydney Banks that appealed to you?

Sheela: Again, I don’t know, it’s just the idea. Literally, it wasn’t me that thought that up. It really felt like this is as like, okay. And then I could tell you. That’s a good idea. But it literally was this idea came in, I was like, okay, and now I can justify it in lots of ways. 

But one of them being, well, they’re not going to be around forever other and the three principles are not going anywhere. And in years to come, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, people will want to hear from these people. So I can see in retrospect, what a great idea that to capture something and have it in a book in book form. 

And especially, it’s directed at coaches, and counselors and therapists. So the practitioners in the field. I think it’s been interesting reading for people who are not in that field to know they’ve picked up a lot.

Alexandra: Absolutely. And it seems to me that there’s something about the linear lineage and keeping that alive. And Syd, of course, passed away. And so the next best thing is, talking to those people who were there and knew him and really absorbed what he had to say firsthand because the rest of us can’t anymore.

Other than through his talks and recorded things and books and that things. So you had been following the principles for a while, at that point, obviously, when you had this idea. I’d love to hear about what you learned through the process. What you saw.

Was there any anything that really came to light for you, while you were recording the interviews? 

Sheela: I think for me being a coach myself, I was curious to hear. I had, for example, again, Jack being here. I’ve been through his coach training many times. So I knew his point of view. I knew how he works and how he taught and how he works with clients. 

I’d heard a little bit about it from George and Linda [Pransky] but the others I hadn’t not so much. So I was really very curious myself as a coach to see if I was doing it right. And what came to light very quickly for me, and maybe it was because I was looking through that lens of the right way to do this. 

And these people that were with him and they must have picked up on that or the ways of feeling with people.

What became very clear was there is no right way to do this.

For me, there’s just no, there isn’t one way. It’s like, you can’t say, this is how you coach on the three principles perspective, this is how you have therapy sessions with these people when you’re wanting to teach them the three principles or coach form the three principles. It just became really, really clear that there isn’t any right way to do this. 

A lot of commonalities, lots and lots of common threads in the way that they all work. pointing people back to their own wisdom, listening, always rapport is really important. And always coming back to that, but they’re not all doing this thing called coaching or therapy or counseling in the same way. They’re just not and that was very reassuring. And it has been for people that I’ve spoken to him, for people that I’ve read the book. It’s about creating your own art of coaching.

Alexandra: Well, that makes me feel relieved. I love hearing, that’s really great. I’m glad to hear that. And so I just want to do a follow-up then.

Was there anything else that you saw or learned during that process? And it could be about what the process of writing a book taught you maybe about yourself.

Sheela: I was gonna say that I’m slow. It took me so long. It looks easier than it is, that’s for sure. And there’s a lot more to writing a book and formatting a book and editing a book and proofreading a book, and getting a cover done. 

There is a lot more to a book than meets the eye. I have a lot of admiration for people who write books now and get them out some self-published and get them out to market, I’ve got a deep, much deeper appreciation of book writing, that’s for sure. And in the also, I think the again, well again, but these people that I interviewed, the leaders that I interviewed, just how generous they were with their time, and help was I wasn’t surprised, because that’s been my experience. 

But they were some of them wanted to get, I edited and sent back and had them obviously all approved their chapters before it went, they went to print. And some of them really went through them with a fine tooth comb and kept changing with them do later just want to change this line and really dedicated and committed to having the best that they could, or there’s not so much I’m not they just said yet great job. I’m happy with that.

So it was interesting as well to see the different ways of being, but I was just all of them just so grateful that they gave me their time. And they were willing to go over it at the end as well and give me their approval for the final cut and, then interviewing them or pretty much all of them, giving me more time, and they were very supportive.

Alexandra: That’s nice, must have been so lovely to talk to all those people. I get so much out of these interviews. I always feel like it’s such a treat for me every week to talk to somebody. So, must have been incredible.

Sheela: Same for me when I was I was doing those interviews with when I launched the book almost a year ago now.

Alexandra: Do you feel like it’s affected your coaching practice at all? In other words, is it helpful to have a book?

Sheela: As in, more clients for me? Do you mean? Well, it will vary in shape. I was just going to say, I’m not sure but actually, what happened and I had being a bring out what I call myself a business coach, holistic business coach. 

I knew when I was writing this book, I knew that the traditional way of seeing a book as a big business card, that’s why people write books a lot of the time to get business and all the things that I read around it when you write nonfiction, it’s all about how you can use that as a platform. This was such a different as I say, the idea is popped in. 

It wasn’t me trying to do anything creative strategy around creating clients or anything like that. I thought well, if something just bubbles up and somebody comes again if I have an inspired idea or follow it. 

I was writing a book, nothing published nothing. And then I get a message from a woman called Chana Studley, who has authored a couple of her own books, and she actually wrote me a really nice review for the book. 

And the review, she actually said something like, I felt like I went through a coaching course while reading this book. And she dropped this note and said, Sheela, I know you’ve probably thought about this already. She said, but what do you think about doing a book club around your book? And it had that that floated around. It seemed like an obvious thing to do. 

But I hadn’t really inspired me, so I haven’t done anything about it. And I said, well, and I thought I was curious as one of the ways you wrote into me about that as my book thing. What is it? What, why? And she said, Because I wrote back to her. She said, Well, I’ve done a book club around my books. She’s got two books out by that time called Painless. 

She just did a book. But she said, Well, actually, I learned that other people were doing book clubs around my book, and I thought, well, if they’re doing it and I could do. And I thought, well, she’s got a bit of experience. Let me have a chat with them.

So we started chatting, and what came out of that thought was actually it would, it was there was so much more on offer than a book club. And what we did was we created a coaching course between inside that transformation coaching course was born. 

And we actually ran that by the end of last year in November, January, December, January, February, I think it was huge, so it was amazing. Now I never in a million years honestly thought that I would be teaching a coaching course. But it went really well. It filled it up pretty much and it was online, and people had really good experiences. We had some lovely testimonials from it. So yes, in that respect, yes. I almost forgot about that.

Alexandra: How great that it just came about so organically.

Sheela: I love it. I’m really leaning into that now in life is really a wisdom lead these things, these this is the way out. This is the way I’m in my intention is to live from that space. Not that I don’t get it right all the time. But I’m finding that I’m having a lot more.

Alexandra: Me too. Absolutely. Trying to live from that space. I always describe it as the other way of forcing things.

I tend to be very proud project-driven, and it was like pushing rocks up a river. Really hard work. And now it’s so much less work and so much more joy I experience.

Sheela: 100% for that.

Alexandra: You something else that you’re doing that you’ve done is you’ve co-founded the Viva event, which is coaching, would you call it like a retreat or workshop?

Sheela: No, I do organize retreats. But actually, the Viva event is a hybrid. I just think of it as a hybrid between a conference and a party. It’s more for conferences, or you sit, and you listen and ask questions or whatever might happen. But there’s an element of fun and aliveness. 

And where I live in the world, I live in a beautiful part of the world. And we run the Viva event, specifically at the beginning of November, when in Europe, the weather is not great in most of Europe, Northern Europe, so people really appreciate coming. So where I live it we have the World Health Organization’s as is one of the healthiest climates in the world, where I live, we have something like 320 or 30 days of sunshine a year. 

So it’s not incredibly hot in the winter, but it’s sunny and bright. And people really appreciate that when they live in Northern Europe. Dark. So that’s one aspect of it, and it’s up by the sea on the Mediterranean. And we’ve got mountains as well so people will go trekking so there’s a bit of everything for people. It is a holiday town, but it’s not a really busy holiday town.

There’s lots of beautiful cafes and restaurants. So people come and it’s all about connection as well connection, joy and relaxation. So we have and we have some wonderful speakers. Now when we first started soon. I think it was 2015 was the first one. So we’ve had a break because of COVID. We did five tilts 1415, 1515 We started. 

And it came about because we saw we saw, I don’t know, well, we wanted to create something in Europe, where we would bring European speakers in. Because we thought that the London conference which had been going and there was seem to be bringing mainly American speakers and Canadian speakers over. And we saw a gap, if you like, why don’t we have some European speakers?

So that’s how it started. It’s not quite, it’s not where we are right now because we do bring in American speakers. Because but we didn’t choose to do that. And that’s what I love about my journey with Viva has been, again, very organic, very wisdom led, like, the first I think the first one that asked us if they could come was Elsie Spittle. So from Canada, and she’d heard about the Viva event, I think it was year three.

And she contacted us and said she was going to be in Europe. And would it be would we she was going to come over? She was writing a book. So we’re going to be in Spain on a writing retreat. And could she come visit as Eva? Do we like? Yes. That started the trickle of Americans wanting to come over and as inviting as well. But we are, so we have a mixture of well-known practitioners. 

So first-generation SIDS, Derrick students, and more unknown because just because they’re not well known, doesn’t mean they’re not great facilitators. And so, and again, we wanted to include your European. I want to be very inclusive and this year, I think we’ve got a great lineup of device, diverse speakers. 

And we want to be, so very inclusive. So we’re very excited. And it’s, we have keynote speakers, who are in the stage in the main room, then we have three breakout rooms, breakout sessions, we’ll go on in there. And then we’re what we love, what I love, particularly other surprises. So on the program that we give them as they walk through the door, there’ll be surprises and then nobody knows what’s going to happen. 

And we love that element of surprise. So it can be anything from a singer or some dancing or some games or some whatever. we just we don’t like to let on obviously people come back year after year to viva. I have lots of returners. Some of them, I’ve seen some of the things that they got an idea of what’s going to happen, but we’ve got loads of new people come in this year that have never been so very excited to meet all these new people.

Alexandra: Nice. And so we’re recording this in May 2023. And the so vivo happens in early November.

Sheela: November, before this year, is the fourth, fifth, and sixth is always before the first weekend in November in November.

Alexandra: Okay. And so while we’re on the subject, where can people go to learn about that? 

Sheela: We have a website called TheVivaevent.com. We’ve only got 30 tickets left. And then people have missed it so much because of the pandemic. Like we just want to get back in the room. So, we’ve only got a few tickets left.

Alexandra: I will put a link in the show notes to that. And maybe, people can snatch up the last few tickets. So, we’re just about out of time.

I want to ask you if there’s anything you’d like to share that we haven’t touched on today?

Sheela: Well, first of all, just to say, Joe Bailey, I think you’ve had him, you’re going to have him on one of your podcasts. Joe Bailey is one of our speakers at Viva and just before the Viva event at the end of October, I’ve organized for him to run a five-day retreat. It’s called Uncovering the Extraordinary Coach Within; it’s a five-day coaching course retreat. 

I’m really excited about that. So that’s one thing. But the other, so I think the main thing. Well, it probably ties in it sounds like I’m promoting all my wins. But Jack Pransky has been such a huge advocate and mentor in my life. And he introduced me to deep listening, and I just feel that deep listening is so it’s underrated.

I think it’s totally underrated and not just as a coach or a helper practitioner but just in general in our life generally that we were not listening to each other. Is such a there’s so much value in really giving people space to be heard, with no judgment. is nothing on our minds. That’s what deep listening, to me, means that we’re listening and not taking notice of the noise in our heads. 

But really just taking in what’s happening in the space that’s created between us and listening for what wants to be heard, versus what we think wants to be heard, right, really wants to be heard., and I’m a huge advocate for that. I really am.

So got a retreat in a couple of weeks, actually, on the 20th, to the 22nd of May, Jack and I are going to be teaching the three principles, which is called is called Perfecting Deep Listening.

Now, Jack wanted the perfecting piece in there. I’m just like, okay, Jack, let’s see how we get on with the perfecting name. There’s only one place left on that, and the power of it is it’s transformational. Absolutely transformational, where people can just sit back. It’s like people sit back and relax and just be with you.

They have their transformation in them. It’s so healing in itself, just that on its own. I could talk for ages, which I probably will be sharing quite a bit at the retreat. So wanted to say the power, of deep listening. The point that Jack in my book, the first chapter is Jack, and he shares quite a bit about deep listening. And actually, people go to my website, which you probably were going to ask me anyway. 

Alexandra: Yes. 

Sheela: SheelaMasand.com. You can actually sign up there for the first chapter for free. So you could get Jack’s chapter for free if you just go to my website.

Alexandra: Right. Well, that’s a fantastic segue, and I’ll put links in the show notes to that as well. And the Viva retreat and stuff. Sorry, event.

Okay, great. Well, Sheela, this has been so lovely. Thank you so much for talking to me today.

Sheela: You’re very welcome. It’s been a pleasure to hang out. Thank you.

Alexandra: Take care. Bye.

Featured image photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash