Elaine Glass: Author of Get Quiet

Episode 529

In this episode, we are joined by Elaine Glass, Author of Get Quiet. We discuss her book and the importance of embracing silence and mindfulness to tune into the voice of your soul. She explains more about the Get Quiet Way journey—a practice of healing and transformation inspired by the classical form of the labyrinth, including how it can be incorporated into our daily activities. Get Quiet is an excellent book, and I am excited for you to hear our discussion and all the great lessons that come with it. Now, on this episode of #TheKaraGoldinShow.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be I want to be, you just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked down knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control control control. Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi, everyone. And welcome back to the Kara Goldin Show. Today we are joined by Elaine Glass, who is the author of Get Quiet. And if you have not read Get Quiet yet it is a brand new books, so you’re not too far behind. But it’s definitely a terrific guide to turn down the volume and tune into the voice of your soul. So hopefully that is exactly what what you’re needing. And more than anything, I loved this book, it was so great. I’ve known Elaine for a while and have been so inspired by her and I’m so excited to bring what she is doing, and what everything that she’s so knowledgeable about to all of you. So Get Quiet, as I said, is a terrific book. And when we make time for quiet moments, we grow our ability to hear these messages. And that is exactly what Elaine hopefully will share with us today. So welcome, Elaine,

Elaine Glass 1:43
thank you so much. It’s great to be here with you today.

Kara Goldin 1:47
Absolutely. Well, I am honored because it was such a terrific book. And as you know, our primary audience is really founder C suite executives are people hoping that they’re going to be C suite executives in the future. But definitely everybody knows that they need that downtime, that quiet time, they need that time to find their soul. And when I read your book, I was so excited that you finally wrote one. I it just made me think about how much this can be so helpful to people. So can you give us just a brief overview of the book? And also why did you decide to write it now?

Elaine Glass 2:29
Yes. Well, I believe that we all have a souls mission. And when people have come to me and asked me as their coach, I have a problem. And I need a solution. I always respond with Well, are you saying yes to your soul’s calling. And I wrote this book because I wasn’t years ago saying yes to it. I wasn’t quiet enough to hear my own soul’s calling. And the 1000s of people that I have sat with one on one. They also were not tuned in enough in a lot of ways to hear their, their souls calling. So how does that display it displays with disease, with depression, with pain in our bodies, when we are not staying true and saying yes to this soul’s calling that affects our lives. And so I wanted to write this book to inspire people to Get Quiet in the way that I show in the book, so that they can actually tune in and hear why they are meant to be here on the planet.

Kara Goldin 3:49
So you discuss the benefits of embracing silence and mindfulness. I couldn’t agree more. But what are some of the tangible ways that incorporate this practice into your daily lives and like name an example of how somebody does this?

Elaine Glass 4:07
Well, the first thing they can do is know that they are on autopilot and to wake up to the truth of our lives. So a lot of times we lie to ourselves that everything’s okay when it’s not. So the first step is to just say, Okay, I need to wake up, things aren’t working here. And the first thing that I did and I show my clients is to tune into your body, to nurture your body. It all starts with nurturing our bodies and making sure that we are healthy in the manner in which we are living in our soul. We are having our soul is having a human experience, but it needs The human to be healthy, in order for it to guide us along our way. So the first step is to nurture the body. And as you know, in the book, it’s not about running marathons, it’s not about forcing our bodies in unhealthy ways. We’re here to shake our bodies awake. And we do that in a very gentle way. It could be yoga, chi, Gong Pilates, anything, just to start moving our bodies in a beautiful, natural way. Do

Kara Goldin 5:36
you have to do that in a quiet way? I mean, is that something I know people will, for example, put headphones in? Do you recommend that? Or do you think that that is your time that you’re incorporating and helping your soul to get to Get Quiet? Do you think it’s an important time to just totally disconnect?

Elaine Glass 5:57
A lot of people think that getting quiet means sitting in a in solitary. That’s not what this quiet is. This is a very active, quiet. So for instance, if you’re in a Pilates class, and there are six other people in that class, you know, Pilates is all about tuning in to every muscle in your body and connecting to just very small parts of your body, and also mainly your breath. That’s why he was even invented. Because Joseph Pilates had a breathing problem. So Pilates is all about connecting with your breath. And so I did Pilates for years and still do it. Even though I’m in a in a place where there’s other people, it’s being present to the actual thing that you’re doing and not being mindless while you’re doing it. It’s all about presence here. When we’re present to our life, we connect to our soul’s calling. That’s

Kara Goldin 6:58
so true. So many people struggle with incorporating stillness and kind of finding time within their busy schedules. You’re a coach in your normal life, right? What do you share with people about? How do you incorporate this? Like? How do you find time to really do it? Do you tell people like the same time every day or I mean, what is sort of a strategy to get people to be able to start this,

Elaine Glass 7:27
when we wake up to what’s not working in our lives, that’s where we can pinpoint where we need to start. And so the time that you take with driving in your car, and knowing that instead, you can have the radio off, or the radio on, that’s your choice. So that would be a way to start this process. And in terms of taking time to Get Quiet. I mean, this is your life. This is your soul’s mission here. And if you can’t take the time to for even five minutes to get present to your life, then then there’s a problem. And Kara, I used to be in health care. And for over 20 years, I’ve sat with over 40,000 patients, one on one. And I can tell you that after that experience, I mean, think of it that’s a stadium full of human beings, that I was able to connect to that I was able to see what medications they were on, I was able to see their their mental emotional issues. I was able to have my hands hovering over their bodies and feeling the energy of the body. And in that moment, after that career, a coach of mine said, Elaine, what did you learn from sitting with all of those people one on one, and seeing humanity? And I said, I just want people to Get Quiet. I didn’t really know what that meant at the time. But I had a patient Jeff, who was dying from cancer. And I said, Jeff, what are you learning right now that you can share with me and he said, I just don’t want you to wait to do what you what you really want to do. Don’t wait.

Kara Goldin 9:31
Yeah, and that’s a powerful statement. So it like, don’t wait. Because I think that if you wait until it’s too late, you know, nobody wants that. So I think incorporating this into your life while you’re listening to this. While you’re, you know, figuring out that you don’t actually have any quiet time during your day. That’s such an important piece of this. One of the key themes in your book is the importance of self reflection. 10, which definitely I think a lot of people need to kind of look at in order to get in touch with their soul. What comes to mind? Or how, how do you navigate that?

Elaine Glass 10:11
Well, self reflection. I love the term contemplative learning. When we can contemplate our life and learn from our insights. And that only happens when we’re very in tuned to everyday occurrences, we have to stay awake Hara. This is what Get Quiet means is to stay awake to pay attention to our life. And so self reflection can only happen when we’re paying attention when we’re awake. And actually, I wrote this book on total self reflection for over three years. And I write a lot. And I’ve actually kept a journal since I was 16. And all of my writings, based on my reflecting of certain conversations I’ve had with someone, what were the outcomes, the positive, the negative, anything I could possibly do to reflect on the day and pay attention to really what was happening, and my involvement in any situation I wrote about, and the last three years, my soul’s mission found me. Because of that quiet reflection, it actually found me and it is here to find you, too, is waiting to find you in the quiet, contemplative learning.

Kara Goldin 11:53
So when I say the words, quiet activism, what comes to mind for you?

Elaine Glass 12:01
I’d feel like getting quiet, saves your life. I have seen it saved my life. And I’ve seen it save other people’s lives. So the activism is this urgency is this urgency to wake us up? And to know that we are here for this higher purpose? And I know there’s a lot of entrepreneurs listening, saying, Well, I’m on purpose. And I know you are? And what about even upping that? Getting to the next level of that soul’s calling. That’s my challenge. So

Kara Goldin 12:50
beyond your own story, can you share any other stories where you’ve seen that somebody really took control, and got quiet, and found their soul when they were that busy executive who didn’t know how to find time to do this, but they did and how their life changed?

Elaine Glass 13:11
Oh, wow, there are a lot of stories. I’m particularly sensitive to single moms because I was a single mother for 10 years. And when I can support a single mother, who just wants to be the healthiest they possibly can be mind, body and soul for their children. That lights me up big time. So there was a client of mine, Lisa. And she was so bogged down in the corporate world, that she didn’t even have time to be present with her kids. And we know that kids need to be heard, to be seen, and to be valued, to be healthy human beings. And she didn’t even have time for that. We also know that kids need great imitators because they’re great imitators. So let’s show them something great to imitate. She was not able to do that. We got we I helped her Get Quiet in the pads that I explained in the book, which are nurture your body, get your environment healthy, get your mindset healthy, make sure you’re resting. And then what happens after all of that, that she experienced. She felt so much more grounded in who she was. That souls mission was coming to her loud and clear. She started to dream again even bigger, like what could be possible for her beyond just the corporate world. And then what happens to a lot of people at that point after you start when you start dreaming big is Your intuition gets elevated, big time. And that intuition is what colors in the details of your soul’s mission. So she went from not being able to be present with her kids to finding a brand new career that she had longed for, that was just wanting to find her. And she found a new career in actually being a writer, a travel writer, which was her dream for years. So she, her whole life changed when you tune in this way, her kids, their relationship got better, she and her husband’s relationship got better, her health got better. Getting quiet saves our lives.

Kara Goldin 15:54
So maybe somebody’s sitting here listening and wondering if they’ve already found this quiet, right? That maybe they’re thinking, while I listened to a meditation, every morning, I go, walking or running, but I still don’t feel like I’m quiet, what would you say to them?

Elaine Glass 16:17
I feel like they are quiet enough to hear. Because we’re talking about the fear that our minds can grasp on to that voice that prattles on incessantly in our minds. Or you can trust that even in those mid day walks, those hikes. Those times of quiet in your car, you can, you can actually tune in to these quiet voices, that are loving, that are guiding that are subtle. And that’s why it’s so important to have those quiet moments. Because the voice is so quiet and so subtle. I remember the very first time, this souls mission found me. I was at a labyrinth at a retreat center. I was walking in the desert in circles thinking I was like actually going crazy. But I was desperate to hear these messages for myself. And this is what I do for other people, I take them out into the quiet. So they can actually hear these subtle messages that are guiding us that are just waiting to find us. So that we can go on this souls journey and the souls mission. And I believe that when we find our purpose as human beings, that’s what unites us as humans. That is the unifying factor. And that is my mission in life is to help people find their souls mission to help people find their purpose, so that we can all be in it together as a humanity as humanity. And this unification that happens not only within ourselves, but then radiates outward to everyone. And I know that’s a big souls mission. But it is my mission. And when that mission finds you, Kara, as you know, because your mission is found you. It’s scary. Yeah.

Kara Goldin 18:32
Yeah, definitely. Because you’re you’re definitely I mean, it’s scary in many ways. Because I think when you have the right mission, you’re also not just serving yourself, but you’re probably serving other people.

Elaine Glass 18:47
And that’s the whole game is to serve other people. It’s not about you. Yeah. It’s about you to find your soul’s mission. But then it’s all about sharing that. That’s why we’re here. If we don’t have that, I don’t know what else there is.

Kara Goldin 19:07
Yeah, so interesting. So best advice for listeners, obviously, by the book, but best advice for listeners who are, you know, kind of in this place where they’re listening to this, maybe they’re pretty confident that they’re, you know, they’ve got a meditation practice in place, they’ve got a yoga practice in place or not, like, what is kind of the first thing that you really want people to understand that and take away from this interview. get

Elaine Glass 19:39
quiet is is not about yoga, meditation. This is very different. My process is completely different because like I said, My soul’s mission, my muse found me and created something completely unique. And so what I would tell them in As I start to read, Get Quiet, start to follow the paths that I took that I have guided hundreds of my clients on. It is a unique, prescriptive, beautiful way to be able to finally find yourself again to finally be able to tune in to who you are, so that you know your mission. When we don’t know our mission, our life is just not it just doesn’t go right. So I would say the first step, read, Get Quiet. Read the first chapter, the minute you land in the first chapter, you’re going to be able to breathe easy and sink in to knowing exactly how to find your soul’s mission.

Kara Goldin 20:57
I couldn’t agree more. And it is. So it’s such a terrific, not just inspiration, but also tool. The frameworks in there, as you discussed are a lot of what you do in your practice. But definitely is is a terrific guide to really help set you in the right direction. So we’ll have all the info in the show notes too. But thank you so much, Elaine, for joining us, Elaine Glass author of Get Quiet. Thank you.

Elaine Glass 21:29
Thank you so much.

Kara Goldin 21:31
Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would, please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit and of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin. I would love to hear from you too, so feel free to DM me. And if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book undaunted where I share more about my journey including founding and building hint. We are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening and good bye for now.