Best Of The Aware Show With Jim Selman and Dr. Srini Pillay: Create Your Reality Through Existential Confidence

What does it meant to create a new world? Would you like to escape limited ways of thinking and find your power?  Our guests today are executive coach Jim Selman and psychiatrist Dr. Srini Pillay. Together they invite us to create a new mind, so we can create a new world. Jim Selman talks about futuristic thinking and who we have to be as we navigate a changing world. He is the founder of Executive Coaching and author of many books. Dr. Srini Pillay is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist who works within the corporate, technology, and government sectors. He is also author of several books.

Jim and Srini believe this is the greatest possible time to live. Many of the ways we’ve been taught to live may not stand up to old beliefs. Why are the problems of the world continuing? How can we shift how we relate? We live in a world of uncertainty and there’s been a long tradition of “how” to do things, especially in the self-help world. When you ask “How?” it doesn’t give you ways to work in the future. We have had pandemics, wars, and a history of conflict. Jim and Srini decided to study the ways in which successful people don’t follow a particular formula. We are being asked to shift our mindsets to come up with different results.

Jim moved from management and consulting to executive coaching. He continuously asked why it was so possible to come up with answers, but so challenging to implement them. There is a belief that it’s hard to change. This led Jim into the idea of transformation in the 1970s, when he worked with Esalen Institute.

He determined that managers tried to control the result, yet in the worlds of art and sports, coaches do not try to control the performance. They don’t control the behavior of others. This opened the world of coaching to him, so he learned to work with others to offer results without control. This was an alternative to management, especially in the corporate world.

Srini teaches that you don’t need to follow the herd. We can look inside for the answers. He talks about the definition of leadership and how it involves “becoming yourself.” A lot of people think there’s a way they are “supposed” to be. This involves competence, autonomy, and social relatedness, yet in order to have a sense of purpose, we must be and become ourselves.

Jim and Srini explain about their idea of “Existential Confidence” as a way for people to transform. Joining philosophy with neuroscience and psychology can help you to access yourself. Successful people are not mimicking others. They are expressing from the self. Who do we need to be to create change? They talk about confidence, commitment, and possibilities. Ordinary confidence is based on our experience. We’ve either done it or seen examples of it.

We accept that the world is changing at an extraordinary rate. Our grounding and realities are breaking down. Common sense is not so common or reliable. We need to reinvent our relationship to what’s going on. We don’t have maps to get there. This is Existential Confidence. It’s a confidence that rises within us, that is absolute self-trust. People may tell us it’s impossible, but we know we can undertake what needs to be done. It’s the kind of confidence that allows you to enjoy the journey and not constantly question. It’s what you need if you are going to create or co-create the future. If it’s truly going to be a future that works for most all of us, it’s going to require that level of Existential Confidence. It encompasses the wholeness of who we are as human beings. It’s our relationship to the future.

Jim and Srini deeply discuss that is possible to pivot and create possibilities. You can change your identify from being a follower to being a creative leader. You no longer copy others. You develop your own way. We can create the reality we want to see. We can create the future.

This interview was originally taped in August of 2020, and we air this show in honor of Jim Selman who passed away recently. Jim was an executive coach and pioneer in the field of personal and organizational transformation. He is the author of numerous books including “Leadership” and “Living in a Real-Time World: 6 Capabilities to Prepare Us for an Unimaginable Future.” Info: jimselman.com and drsrinipillay.com.