Summer Series Ep 3: Just Like Me - Why Connectedness Matters

When was the last time you got an invitation to a reunion and felt something you were not quite expecting?

Not your polite reaction. Your actual gut reaction.

Whatever it was, it tells you something. And that is exactly where this episode begins.

In the third installment of the summer series, Clayton goes deep into chapter three of his new book Magic in the Moment, a chapter called Why Connectedness Matters. It starts with a college reunion, a decision to widen the aperture, and what happened when he did. And then it goes somewhere more personal than any episode of this summer series has gone yet.

Clayton has been sober for over two decades. And in this episode he talks openly about what that journey has required, what it has taught him, and why none of it would have been possible alone. There was a time when naming a struggle like that felt like admitting a character flaw. He has come to believe the opposite is true.

The neuroscience in this chapter is quietly startling. We are not designed to go through life alone. Not as sentiment. As survival mechanism. And the research on what loneliness actually costs us physically is something that deserves to land slowly.

Clayton also introduces a practice he learned from Jack Kornfield called Just Like Me, a way of dissolving the identities that separate us and finding the human underneath the label. He walks listeners through a short version of it in the episode and leaves the full practice for the book.

This one is worth sitting with.

The book Magic in the Moment is available now: https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Moment-Mindfulness-Real-Time/dp/B0H8MG5QS4/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.4SmWJV8moy8iR63vT_TseTh1kJq6eEpQWgCvHc1ceE4.dPYXB4SY_GseDD9wtTlvR3wP2jzyOA_kX6EKmjl635U&dib_tag=se&keywords=magic+in+the+moment+clayton+platt&qid=1784666804&sr=8-1

This episode is brought to you by Meditation for Leadership. Leadership happens in the space before the decision. Meditation for Leadership helps you pause under pressure, notice what is really happening, and choose how you respond instead of react. Visit www.meditation4leadership.org to learn more.