Champagne Bubbles, Wiffle Ball Bats and Premature Scaling
Lately, I've been experimenting with some practices that most founders would probably think are weird.
Beating pillows with a wiffle ball bat. Sitting still and feeling 'champagne bubbles' in my body. Releasing the need to do or know anything.
But here's what's interesting—the more I lean into this stuff, the more present I feel, the more effortless action becomes and the easier it is to create the results I want. And I’m seeing more and more founder clients experience this as they scale their companies!
However, at my workshop a couple weeks ago, there was one founder who kept questioning whether you can actually build a unicorn without being motivated by needing to prove your worth. "If you're really at peace," she asked, "will you have the drive to achieve massive success?"
It’s becoming more and more clear to me that the answer is yes.
She wanted proof in the form of examples of unicorn companies run by conscious leaders. While I rattled off some off the top of my head—Shopify, Asana, Canva, Devoted Health, Gusto, Fetch, and a few others—it later reminded me of a response I got from my last newsletter on the paradox of self-improvement.
In that newsletter, I explained how the most effective leaders stop focusing on improving their self-image and instead lead from their essential nature. People were moved by the idea, but one reader asked: "The leaders I see up the org chart or world leaders don't seem to exhibit any of these behaviors, yet they're in positions of power more than others. What's your take?"
Both questions point to the same underlying doubt:
Can conscious leadership and massive success actually coexist in our current society?
Can you truly build a multi-billion dollar company from a place of love and presence?
That's a great question—one that deserves its own newsletter. I believe that the answer is a resounding yes and that it’s becoming increasingly important for the companies shaping our future to be led by conscious leaders. I think the world desperately needs leaders who operate from their essential nature for the benefit of all rather than from their ego identity for the benefit of themselves.
Conscious leadership and massive success aren't just compatible; consciousness is actually a competitive advantage and I believe will become more and more of one in the age of AI. More on that soon.
In the meantime, here are some of my most recent insights, observations and practices I've been experimenting with:
The Radiant Mind Insights
I've been diving into Peter Fenner's "Radiant Mind," and he outlines five obstacles to experiencing unconditioned awareness. The five obstacles are:
- Attachment to suffering
- Habitual need to be doing something
- Need to know (what’s happening, who we are, where we are)
- Need to create meaning (to make sense out of things)
- Projections about unconditional awareness
The one that keeps hitting me hardest: the habitual need to be doing something.
Think about this—how far back would you have to go to find a version of yourself who didn’t believe there was something you needed to accomplish or some progress you needed to make? Most founders I ask this of can't remember ever not feeling that way.
When you recognize that, it highlights something important: that urgent need to make progress you feel isn't really about your startup at all. It's a lifelong pattern that you're now projecting onto your startup.
I had a client reflect on this recently, and he realized he's been carrying this "need to do more" his entire life—long before he ever started a company. Seeing this, it allowed him to stop blaming the circumstances of his startup and start letting go of the core pattern so he could feel more of a sense of peace and flow.
Another obstacle that's equally powerful—the need to know. As Fenner puts it: "The moment you need to know something that you don't know, you feel incomplete and suffer."
How often do you create suffering for yourself by believing you should know something that you don’t know? Believing you should know the right answer? That you should know what needs to happen for your startup to achieve product-market fit? Whether or not to let someone on your team go?
The suffering isn't from the uncertainty itself—it's from believing you need to know something you don't currently know.
Both patterns point to the same thing: we suffer when we believe we need to be somewhere we're not, know something we don't, or do something we haven't already done.
But what if we don't?
The Projection Matrix
Speaking of patterns, I recently heard another coach describe a simple 2x2 framework that really resonated with me:
- Me + Good: Qualities I value in myself
- Me + Bad: Qualities I feel shame around
- Not Me + Good: "Golden projections"—qualities I admire in others but don't see in myself
- Not Me + Bad: "Shadow projections"—qualities I judge in others but deny in myself
As conscious leadership founder Diana Chapman used to say to me: “If you spot it, you got it.” Any quality you recognize in another human being is a quality you have in yourself.
I believe that all humans have all the same qualities, we just express them to different degrees.
One of the most powerful practices you can do is look for the qualities that most trigger you in others (your Shadow, the denied qualities you judge as bad) and the qualities you most envy in others (your Golden Projections, the denied qualities you judge as good) - and look for evidence of how you possess those same qualities.
Paradoxically, the more you own the qualities in yourself, the more choice you have about how/whether you express those qualities.
Denied or judged qualities tend to leak out in unhealthy ways or we tend to overcompensate for them (e.g., I deny my arrogance, so I don’t assert myself or own what I’m great at).
The Realization Process
I've been exploring Judith Blackstone's Realization Process—learning to directly experience what she refers to as "fundamental consciousness" in and through my body.
It's not just a body scan; it's really inhabiting your body from feet to head and connecting to the ‘ground of being’.
When I connect with “fundamental consciousness” I feel champagne bubbles—this subtle, vibratory aliveness - throughout my body. What's powerful is how I feel more grounded in my body while at the same time feeling more spacious and expansive.
When I'm connected to this "ground of being," emotions arise within this expansive field and feel much less overwhelming or all-encompassing. It’s easier to just notice and welcome whatever I’m feeling.
I’ve also learned that I often have the center of my attention up and out in front of my head, and this creates anxiety and makes it more likely to get caught by my ruminating mind. When I intentionally move my attention down and back into my body, I can feel my nervous system settle down. I recommend you try it and see what you notice.
If you want to explore this more deeply, here’s a link to Judith’s book The Enlightenment Process and a free guided meditation on Attuning to Fundamental Consciousness.
The Anger Station
I'll be honest—I've been dealing with some challenges with my teenager lately. What's been incredibly useful is something my old coach Diana called an "anger station"—I keep a wiffle ball bat in my guest room. When I feel my anger building, I go bash some pillows with a wiffle ball bat.
The result? I return to presence so much faster than when I try to think my way through the emotion. There's something about matching the feeling with physical expression that lets it move through you.
Most founders resist their anger, thinking it makes them bad leaders. But unexpressed anger doesn't disappear—it leaks out in passive-aggressive comments and can transform into ongoing anxiety or depression.
A Client Breakthrough
One of my clients was struggling with three experienced managers who weren't working well together. He'd hired them thinking they'd speed things up, but there was drama and everything was moving slower than before. They were too focused on building systems that scale instead of iterating quickly.
He finally worked up the courage to let all three go. Just him and eight individual contributors now. The result? They accomplished more in two weeks than they had in the previous four months.
It's a perfect example of premature scaling—in this case thinking you need seasoned managers before you have product-market fit. Premature scaling is one of the primary causes of startup failure.
But it’s scary to acknowledge that you’ve scaled too quickly and dial it back once you’ve started.
You may not want to admit you made a mistake, or you fear looking bad. Isn’t it better to be growing the team than shrinking it? Also, what if you’re wrong? What if the managers aren’t the issue and you regret firing them? It takes real courage to acknowledge your mistake and to let go and trust your gut over what you think looks good, or what you "should" do.
What I'm Wondering
Here's a question I notice keeps arising: Should I stop using ‘scaling your business’ as a "Trojan horse" for ‘elevating your consciousness’?
Part of me wants to be more explicit about what I most love to support founders with: self-realization. What if I ran a year-long program called "Spiritual Awakening for Founders"? What I most want is to support founders to wake up to who they really are and create from that place.
So let me ask you: What interests you more?
- Elevating your consciousness so you can scale your startup
- Using your startup as a dojo for spiritual awakening?
Hit reply and let me know. I'd also love to hear if you want me to go deeper into any of these topics.
With love,
- Dave Kashen
P.S. My book is coming together really well. It's the complete Inner Game of Entrepreneurship playbook—a guide to scaling your startup from the inside out. No specific timeline yet, but we might be looking at some time toward the end of the year.
