The Hoffman Podcast Hoffman Institute Foundation

Dorothy Holden, beloved Hoffman teacher and coach, did the Hoffman Process in 2004 and became a teacher in 2007. In this conversation with Drew, Dorothy shares her journey from the reactive patterns she learned as a child to the wisdom she's developed over the years of serving others and teaching the Process.



Growing up, Dorothy was the 3rd of 5 kids and the only girl. Her home life was stable. At the same time, there were no rules to speak of, which could be both fun and very chaotic. At a very early age, Dorothy developed a pattern of self-responsibility and learned to take care of herself. And, through this, she developed a sense of rigidity and judgment. As a deep core reactive pattern, this has both helped her and hindered her in her life. After doing the deep healing work of the Process, Dorothy's main takeaway was she fell in love with herself, without reservation.



Dorothy speaks of what she's learned from teaching over 100 Processes. She helps her students release fear and anxiety-based resistance to go deeper into their Process so they can drop into their essential nature during this transformative week. Dorothy shares about how to continue practices consciously so that life doesn't get in the way. Finally, she speaks to the power of somatic knowing as an embodied sense. This knowing can guide our lives, as is often explained through the core Hoffman tool, Be-Do-Have.

More about Dorothy Holden:





Dorothy Holden is a Registered Clinical Counselor with a therapy practice that specializes in helping people navigate transitions and find meaning in their lives. She strives to support each person on their unique journey toward self-awareness and personal fulfillment. Dorothy has an MS in Counseling Psychology (University of Calgary), a B-Ed (Dalhousie University), and a BA in Psychology (McGill University). She lives in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia.



Dorothy has supported hundreds of Olympic and national athletes in Canada with personal development and career planning. She also volunteers as a counselor and support group facilitator for an integrative cancer care agency.

In Dorothy's own words:





I love teaching the Hoffman Process and other Hoffman programs. The Hoffman vision is creating world peace, one person at a time.”





I live in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia with my husband, who is a retired lawyer and a Hoffman graduate.  We have 2 adult children and 4 grandchildren. Our daughter’s family lives near us, so I get lots of opportunities to chase those rascals around. Our son has just moved his family to Switzerland, and so we are learning how to stay connected while living on different continents.

I am an active hiker, swimmer, reader, and traveler, and still have a small private practice as a therapist. My passion is supporting people in navigating the transitions in their lives…including health, relationship, and career issues.

https://media.blubrry.com/the_hoffman_podcast/content.blubrry.com/the_hoffman_podcast/Drew_and_Dorothy_Holden_Podcast.mp3

As mentioned in this episode:

White Sulphur Springs:

For over two decades, the Hoffman Process was held in St. Helena at White Sulphur Springs. The retreat site burned in the Glass fire of 2020. The Hoffman Process retreat site was relocated to our current home in Petaluma, CA.

Read a love letter from White Sulphur Springs written in the early days of the pandemic.



Calgary, Alberta, Canada

•  University of Calgary



Right Livelihood:

"According to the Buddha’s teachings, Right Livelihood is a way to earn a living that doesn’t harm others or oneself. In defining Right Livelihood, the Buddha named five types of businesses that lay people should not engage in." Read more



Shifting perspective

This is a remarkable conversation with Blake Mycoskie, serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, and best-selling author. Blake graduated from the Hoffman Process in 2017. Before his Process, Blake had been a hard-driving athlete and a highly successful entrepreneur. He came to the Process because life had suddenly become more complex for him. He felt 'untethered' on the heels of a lot of recent life changes. Often old patterns make it hard to move with the change that comes, even when we've chosen those changes.



Blake felt a lot of resistance at the beginning of his Process. He knew that he had achieved great success in the world and believed that his patterns had helped him get there. However, through the Process, with the guidance of his teacher, Blake eventually came to see that his patterns were keeping him from living a truly authentic life guided by his Spiritual Self. Since graduating, Blake has sent many friends to the Process, as well as hundreds of people he didn't know personally but supported financially to attend.



As you'll discover, Blake vulnerably shares the truth of what he is experiencing in his life right now. He tells us that the Process was his jumping off place into spiritual work. After he graduated, he began to do many retreats and became active in the world of plant medicine. As you'll hear, Blake is in the immediate experience of a deeper call to go within. He refers to this moment in his life as a dark night of the soul. Blake knows something is here for him and he's determined to live following his Spiritual Self no matter where it takes him, despite how uncomfortable this is.



We hope you enjoy this profound conversation with Blake and Sharon.

Discover more about Blake Mycoskie:

Blake Mycoskie is a serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, and best-selling author most known for founding TOMS Shoes and is the person behind the idea of One for One®, a business model that helps a person in need with every product purchased.



A simple idea grew into a global movement:  While traveling in Argentina in 2006, Blake witnessed the hardships faced by children growing up without shoes. His solution to the problem was simple, yet revolutionary: to create a for-profit business that was sustainable and not reliant on donations. Blake’s vision soon turned into the simple business idea that provided the powerful foundation for TOMS. Since its inception, TOMS Shoes has provided almost 96 million pairs of shoes to children around the globe.



Blake’s latest philanthropy passion has taken him into the world of psychedelics.   He’s giving about 25% of his net worth to support research into the medical and mental health potential of psychedelic drugs.



Born and raised in Texas, Blake currently resides in Marin County with his wife, kids, dog, and cat.  In his free time, you can find him outside enjoying nature. Discover more about Blake here.



https://media.blubrry.com/the_hoffman_podcast/content.blubrry.com/the_hoffman_podcast/Sharon_and_Blake_Mycoskie_Podcast.mp3

As mentioned in this episode:

Blake's adopted son, Wubetu

Blake mentions his adopted son Wubetu and an article. Read the story of how Blake and Wubetu met and the amazing journey Wubetu took to reconnect with Blake and open his life to something new.



Venture Capital



Psychedelic medicine

•  Psychedelic vs. Plant medicine



Dark night of the soul

Hoffman terminology mentioned in this episode:

The Negative Love Syndrome: 

•  To find out more about the Negative Love Syndrome, download A Path to Personal Freedom and Love.



Hoffman Tools:

•  Vicious Cycle

•  Right Road



Self-compassion:

Based on work from Dr. Kristin Neff and Chris Germer, PhD, there are two types of self-compassion.

Jen Davis, beloved Hoffman Process teacher and coach, sits down with Drew to share her journey from a heartbreaking loss to celebrating a whole new life and a brand new love.



Jen did the Process in 2016 at White Sulphur Springs. What brought her to the Process was the shocking divorce she was going through due to her soon-to-be-ex husband's heartbreaking infidelity. Jen was in great pain. She shares that her life at that time felt like a Lifetime movie, but the pain she was feeling was very real.



The Process helped Jen turn away from the details of the situation she found herself in and turn toward herself for healing. As she says, it would have been much easier to continue to blame her ex for cheating and getting someone else pregnant. But in her week at the Process, Jen was able to see her part in what had happened and then take responsibility for her own life. Through her deep and dedicated work during the Process, Jen was able to find compassion and forgiveness for both herself and her ex. By the end of the week, she had found her way back to herself and was ready to move on with her life.



After leaving the Process, Jen divorced, moved into a new home, and began to live a new life. She decided to start dating again, but this time from an empowered place of joy and self-love. Eventually, she found love, She married her new love, Mitchell, just this past summer.



Toward the end of this rich conversation, Jen shares her journey to becoming a Hoffman teacher. Her certification came at a deeply painful time when her father was dying. She was able to share with him that she was a newly certified teacher and share with him the joy she felt in her new life. We hope you enjoy this beautiful conversation with Jen and Drew.

Discover more about Jen Davis:

Jen lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with her husband (and Hoffman grad), Mitchell, and her dog, Allie. She cultivates joy through hiking, baking, live music, and a regular gratitude and compassion practice. Jen is a Midwesterner at heart, loving anything with cheese and summers on the lake. She has a passion for spiritual and personal growth, animal-assisted therapies, and women's empowerment.



Jen received her Master's of Clinical Social Work from the University of St. Thomas specializing in youth and families. She worked for five years as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with the Madison Metropolitan School District providing mental health crisis stabilization for youth and families. Jen hopes to continue building her private practice as a Child and Adolescent Therapist.



Currently, Jen works as a Hoffman Teacher and Coach, as well as a coordinator of the Hoffman Graduate Group Programs. Jen first attended The Process in 2016 at White Sulphur Springs.



https://media.blubrry.com/the_hoffman_podcast/content.blubrry.com/the_hoffman_podcast/Drew_and_Jen_Davis_Podcast.mp3

As mentioned in this episode:

White Sulphur Springs:

For over two decades, the Hoffman Process was held in St. Helena at White Sulphur Springs. The retreat site burned in the Glass fire of 2020. The Hoffman Process retreat site was relocated to our current home in Petaluma, CA.

Read a love letter from White Sulphur Springs written in the early days of the pandemic.



The Peace Garden (forgiveness garden) at White Sulphur Springs



Hoffman Faculty:

•   Jo Mattoon, Listen to Jo on the Hoffman Podcast

•   Crystal Jenkins



Hoffman Process Teacher Training



Awareness Hell:

In awareness hell, we know we are aware of our patterns and the things we do we wish we didn’t do, but we are still unable to change. We understand but feel stuck in this place of hell even though our awareness keeps expanding.  To get out of awareness hell, our work to grow and transform must include three additional steps for change to ta...

Attorney, Junior (Elbert) Smith, generously shares his journey to, and at, the Hoffman Process. In doing so, he gives us a view into how patterns and trauma affect how we see ourselves and how we journey through the world.



Content Warning:

This episode contains graphic descriptions of trauma. Please use your discretion.



Junior shares his life story beginning with his parents' journey to a better life taking them from Mississippi to Compton, California. With great fondness, he shares his memories of those early years growing up in Compton. These times were filled with connectedness, community, and joy. In the '70s, though, things changed in his hometown. There was more discord and violence in his community and he began to take in that trauma. He responded by going more into his schoolwork and joining the ROTC, eventually, years later, graduating from law school.



Through the process of sharing his stories, Junior weaves his way to coming to Hoffman. He then takes us to the heart of his time at the Hoffman Process when, in a profound moment, "Spirit was able to enter into him."  After doing deep, hard work to release the patterns and trauma, he found joy and radiant light. And, as he says, he felt love, real love, for the first time. Junior articulates this profoundly intimate moment of opening to his Spiritual Self in such a way that you can feel the depth of his transformation. 



We hope you enjoy this beautiful conversation with Junior and Drew.



Discover more about Junior (Elbert) Smith:







Elbert Smith, better known as Junior, was born and raised in Hub City, Compton, California.  Junior cultivated grit, resilience, and the dream of a better life while growing up in Compton. His lifelong spiritual journey inward led him to the Hoffman Process, where he was able to heal his intergenerational trauma and reclaim his life and joy. 



Junior is a licensed attorney and serves as a senior advisor for a technology company in Southern California. He enjoys caring for his three cats (POTUS 44, Kenya, and Pelusa), reading poetry, learning to play the electric guitar, and his newfound appreciation for nature. 



Follow Junior on Instagram.





https://media.blubrry.com/the_hoffman_podcast/content.blubrry.com/the_hoffman_podcast/Drew_and_Elbert_Junior_Smith_Podcast_Final.mp3

As mentioned in this episode:

The South, Mississippi, in the 1950's

•   Jim Crow

•   Ku Klux Klan

•   Slavery

•   Racism



Compton, California, aka Hub City:

•   Compton is known as the “Hub City” because of its position as almost the exact geographical center of Los Angeles County.

•   Changes in Compton during the '70s



Colorism:

•   The brown paper bag test



White Supremacy



A Near-Life Experience:

"We’ve all heard of near-death experiences, but what is a near-life experience? I would define it as a life characterized by distraction, disconnection, and dissatisfaction. It’s a life that doesn’t feel fully lived; a life that we are not completely engaged in and present with; a life that leaves us feeling that something is missing, despite how relentlessly busy we are." Chris Kresser. Read more... 



JROTC - Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps

"JROTC offers valuable lessons in leadership, character-building, and citizenship." read more...



Tony Robbins

•   Firewalk



Funnel Cake



Vania, Coach, and Jeremiah, Therapist



The murder of George Floyd



Ron Settles



Post Traumatic Stress Disorder



Janelle Martin, Marriage & Family Therapist, MA, LMFT, | EMDR

•   Reiki

•   EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

Technology and finance executive, Carsten Sorensen, had a powerful transformation during his Process in 2014. Over the next five years, Carsten worked diligently to transform his core negative patterns. Using his Process tools and doing the deep work, Carsten was able to profoundly shift his life.



The Hoffman Process was recommended to Carsten by his therapist, Rick Hanson. Rick said this was a way to take that last step of moving down from the head to the heart. Carsten shares that he had achieved everything in his life through "pure intellect and raw power." He would just power through it and get it done." But in mid-life, he knew this way was no longer working for him. And so, he signed up to attend.



A few years after his Process, as a CEO, Carsten began to invite employees to attend the Process to experience their own transformation. He knew for certain that the Hoffman Process is a great leadership development tool.



Listen in to hear this powerful, articulate, promising conversation about what it takes to be a great leader and how you go about doing so. Some of the areas that Carsten and Liz discuss are how to create safety at work, how to invite employees to attend the Process without pressuring them, his own journey to become more authentic and vulnerable, what he says are the two most necessary qualities and capabilities as a leader, and how you can't separate work life and home life if you want to be a great leader and happily successful.



Carsten is interested in having a conversation with other leaders on how best to use the Hoffman Process as a leadership development tool in the corporate setting. If you'd like to converse with  Carsten about this, please reach out to him at carsten@xaccorp.com.

Discover more about Carsten Sorensen:

Carsten Sorensen is a technology and finance executive with a broad background in a variety of industries and extensive European work experience. A former software engineer, he has over 25 years of experience combining Technology, Mergers, Acquisitions, and Finance, as well as a deep operating background in the organizations he works with. Carsten has worked as a senior executive in fast-growing companies, both private and public, and is comfortable balancing the conflicting needs of high-growth and long-term strategy within the organizations he runs. He is a keen steward of a company’s culture and understands its importance for long-term financial and strategic results.



Carsten spent a decade as a partner in private equity, where he was a member of the team overseeing portfolio companies. While working in the private equity field, his responsibilities included turnarounds and technology strategy development. Carsten holds a B.S. from the University of California at Berkeley in Business and Finance and lives with his family in San Francisco.



Discover more about Carsten on LinkedIn.



https://media.blubrry.com/the_hoffman_podcast/content.blubrry.com/the_hoffman_podcast/Liz_and_Carsten_Sorensen_Podcast.mp3

As mentioned in this episode:

University of California at Berkeley



"The last foot and a half are always the hardest." Rick Hanson, Therapist

(the distance from the head to the heart.)



Lisa Wenger, Hoffman Teacher and Coach, Founder of the Istituto Hoffman Italia, Milan, in 1990.

•   Listen to Lisa on the Hoffman Podcast



IDEO, a global design company

•   Read articles on introverts from IDEO.



Hoffman Leadership Path at Harvard



Simon Sinek



Brené Brown, Professor and Writer

Entrepreneur and Mediator, Sisi Maw Takaki, completed the Hoffman Process in February 2019. As a child of parents who immigrated to the US for a better life, Sisi shares with Sharon how the sacrifice her parents made for her affected her and the patterns it created in her. As Sisi shares, we can both adopt and rebel against our parents' patterns. For Sisi,  rebellion was how she reacted to her parents' expectations of her and her future.



What really stands out from this conversation, though, is how deep a transformation Sisi made in how she relates to others and to what now brings her happiness. What used to be a more transactional way of relating transformed into relationships that are based upon mutual dignity and equality. When meeting new people, Sisi now consciously listens and wonders what larger force has brought them together. When she meets people, she now wonders, "How can we help each other?"



In the spirit of Love's Everyday Radius, the name of our podcast, Sisi became a mediator as a way to bring this new relational way of being into her work and her life. She no longer defines success in the same way. Rather than trying to find happiness through material things and financial success, she now finds it through serving others and relating to fellow human beings through her heart. Sisi speaks so beautifully of her experience of work through this new way of human-to-human relationship.

More about Sisi Takaki:

Sisi Maw Takaki is an Entrepreneur with a few businesses. She is a Residential Real Estate Broker in Hawaii, a Real Estate Investor in Hawaii and on the Mainland, and a Mediator and Founder of Mindful Mediation Matters (M3).



Everyone has a story and here's Sisi's in her words:



"Sisi was born in Myanmar and immigrated to the East Coast in the late 70s and grew up in a household with two parents who were both Physicians. They worked long hours and Sisi was an only child so she stayed at after-school care or was a latchkey kid when she got older. Their family moved from Staten Island, Virginia, to Washington DC, Maryland, and back to NYC where she lived in all the Boroughs except the Bronx. Sisi finally found stability at the United Nations International School in Manhattan. She only applied to one school for college, the State University of NY in Binghamton. She went there after her parents realized Harvard might be a reach for her. Sisi moved to Hawaii one year after she graduated college and met her "wasband" to whom she was married for 17 years.



In February 2019, she decided to go to Hoffman because she felt completely empty even though professionally and materially things were better than ever. It was the emptiest existence she had felt and from the outside things were amazing. Her journey to and through Hoffman was really when she felt she started connecting to who she truly is. Sisi wonders how she survived those years of unconsciousness for so long."



You can follow Sisi on Instagram at Mindful Mediation Matters.



https://media.blubrry.com/the_hoffman_podcast/content.blubrry.com/the_hoffman_podcast/Sharon_and_Sisi_Takaki_Podcast_Final.mp3

As mentioned in this episode:

Hoffman's definition of a Surrogate Parent:

•   A surrogate parent is somebody who provided significant parental responsibility for you prior to the age of 13. These responsibilities may have included:



Providing emotional or physical care

Disciplining

Providing safety, supervision, or control

Being a role model



These responsibilities may have been in addition to or in place of the care provided by your birth parent(s). Examples of surrogates can include stepparent, grandparent, relative, nanny, boarding school, significantly older sibling, full-time daycare, live-in partner of parent, etc.