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weLEAD Leadership Series
Exclusive
interview with
Allan Hunkin
Interviewed
by Greg Thomas
Allan Hunkin
has been an entrepreneur and businessman for over thirty years, He has led,
and managed several interesting and unique businesses. A graduate of
several schools and institutes, Allan has studied and worked with some of the
most influential people of our time including John Bradshaw, Zig Ziglar, Dr. Chuck Spezzano, Denis Waitley, Anthony
Robbins and Dr. Don Beck of Spiral Dynamics. In the past seven years he has
interviewed over four hundred life improvement and thought leaders. Known as
highly creative and intuitive, Allan has a well-developed "down home"
talent for untangling and explaining sophisticated psychological / spiritual
concepts into simple, helpful keys and principles.
Allan’s
friendly conversational style has made him popular both as a radio host and
guest expert. In 1997 Allan became one of the early pioneers of Internet based
broadcasting, founding "Success Media Group Inc." and along with it
his first Internet Radio Program, "How Good Can You Stand It". A year later he launched the SuccessTALK
Channels, providing a home for self help broadcasters focusing on personal and
professional development. Allan is the Executive Producer of the Elegant
Solution and discusses this innovative leadership approach in the following
article. You can learn more about the Elegant Solution at http://www.theelegantsolution.net
1. Allan, I recently watched your flash presentation
on the internet entitled "The Elegant Solution - Getting to the Heart of
Leadership in the 21st Century" http://www.theelegantsolution.net/WhatIsTheElegantSolution.htm. It is one of the most impressive and interesting
presentations I have seen on the web! But before we discuss the Elegant
Solution, tell us a little bit about your background?
Thanks Greg. I have been in self-help and personal development for most
of my life. I have always been passionate about psychology and why people do
things. At lot of speakers say that, but in my case it is really true. I read
my first self-help book when I was 8 years old. It was called "How To Hypnotize Yourself" and I've joked many times that
it must have worked because I spent the next 30 years un-humanizing myself.
I grew up with my adopted family on a farm in rural
In 1979 I left the self-help industry to pursue a life long interest in
sport aviation and built up a business manufacturing and distributing kit
aircraft. I remained in aviation for 13 years until cancer slowed me to a crawl
and made me take a close look at a very hectic lifestyle.
I returned to personal growth in 1991 and have has been a full time
broadcaster, social scientist, change agent and professional speaker since that
time. Beginning in 1992 I started studying worthiness as a psycho/spiritual principle.
I built an advanced model for teaching Worthiness which I taught for several
years. I have been recognized as a leading expert in that subject.
Over the years I've attended hundreds of seminars and workshops and am a
graduate of the ClearMind Institute. I'm proud to say
that I've studied with some of the most influential people of our time. Three
that have had the deepest impact on my current thinking are John Bradshaw of
The Homecoming, Chuck Spezzano of Psychology of
Vision and Don Beck of Spiral Dynamics.
In 1997 I discovered Internet broadcasting when it was just getting off
the ground. I founded the SuccessTALK Channels, which
has become a leading source of life enhancement audio programming on the
Internet. Through my Internet radio programs I've interviewed over 400
visionaries and thought leaders from around the world. The program has been
listened to by over one and a half million people.
2. What events led you to develop the Elegant Solution and has it changed
much since it was first envisioned?
There were several factors that have brought me to speaking and writing
about the Elegant Solution.
Being 50 this year I decided to do a very in-depth analysis of where I
am, where I've been and where I want to end up. I got real serious about asking
what is important to me. At 50 it is time to let some dreams go and to take on
new dreams, goals and objectives. It got me thinking about the choices and
decisions I'm currently making that have become habits and that I hardly ever
question. Some of those resulted in "not very elegant solutions" in
the past and are still generating the same results today. I considered why I
made those choices and how I could come to something much more in alignment
with who and what I am.
I, like most people, have been watching the goings on in the world and
it has troubled me greatly. Governments canceling environmental agreements when
we should be going beyond the agreements we've already made. People
warring with each other over things written in books thousands of years ago.
The franticness that a market based, just in time economy creates and the
people it doesn't seem to have any trouble leaving behind. The obsessive quest
for solutions based upon technology to the exclusion of inner parts of ourselves. The lack of commitment of
governments to deal with mental health in meaningful ways. Our
unwillingness to get serious about some of our fundamental challenges we are
facing. Our inability to lead peaceful lives in a peaceful world.
As I was considering all this I was gaining an understanding of the
Memes in Don Beck's teachings and I combined that with the higher mind training
I had gathered from Chuck Spezzano. When I integrated
these two ideas I realized that I could develop a way of understanding what are
the overall themes and patterns that drive us to decide the things we decide
and the choices we make as a result. From there the idea of creating elegant
solutions was born.
3. Exactly what is the
Elegant Solution and what type of media or medium is it taught or learned?
Elegant Solutions are multi-dimensional:
"An Elegant Solution is an action we sponsor, derived from evolved
choices, that puts in motion a contribution resulting in an ongoing WIN for
everyone involved"
Because Elegant Solutions are multi-dimensional we require more than
just a book or an article to learn and integrate the principles involved.
This is why we produced a DVD rather than a book. In the Finding The Elegant
Solution In Any Situation Learning Pack http://www.theelegantsolution.net we
provide visuals with audio to describe the principles and techniques for
creating elegant solutions. We wanted to provide a tool for people to use for
their own learning and to be able to show to their life or business partner,
their company or organization or their project team so that everyone can be
part of the process of creating an elegant solution in the challenges they
face.
The Elegant Solution Audio Series is a process
where we identify a particular challenge people are facing and match that with
a thought leader/change agent. We record it as I take the thought leader
through the elegant solution process and we make that audio file available in a
number of formats through the sponsor of that segment's website. The idea puts
solutions out into the world while at the same time helps the sponsor be seen
as a "sponsor of solutions" and to receive an expanded public profile
as a result. (WIN)
4. Tell us about the four pillars that the Elegant
Solution is built on?
On a personal level we all go through a process of evolution that
involves first understanding, followed by acceptance, then forgiveness and
finally letting go. We either go through this process over and over again or we
get stuck at one of the parts. We use this process to evolve beyond beliefs
resulting from the issues of our mother, father, circumstances, events, the
world and constructs of reality. The more we are willing to go through this
process, the more easily we will be able to generate elegant solutions at will.
Also, Part of learning about Elegant Solutions involves understanding
about three levels of mind. Subconscious (Inclusionism/Exclusionism),
Conscious (Consumptive and Contributive) and Higher Mind.(WIN)
5. Tell us more about the importance of forgiveness?
Who or what is doing the forgiving and for what actions?
Forgiveness is a word so often associated with religion or spirituality.
Our religious guides are always quoting the old books and the value of
forgiveness. Our parents often spouted the need for forgiveness to create peace
in the family. Most of us talk about it, don't really think about it much and
don't have a clue how to do it.
I speak of forgiveness as a leadership principle for both personal,
internal leadership as well as external, leadership, a way of being out in our
normal world. It is not something that is well understood, but it is easily
identified if you have the eyes to see it. You can bet the rent that the person
on your team who is digging in his or her heels on a particular issue and has
ground the team to a halt has done so because of an issue of their past that
has not been forgiven. Now, we can't all be counselors helping to heal past
issues, but we can learn to elevate beyond it for the purposes of creating an
elegant solution.
6. You have said that one of the traits of the Elegant
Solution is that it goes beyond "win/win" to a higher truth you refer
to simply as "win". Tell us more about the principle of
"win"?
WIN (in capital letters) is a higher mind activity. It's not something
you manufacture. It's a place you let yourself be in. Win/Win is the best of
the non elegant solutions. It is not yet elegant because it still involves two
sides of the table (my side/ your side) which has some degree of polarization
and therefore some degree of split mind (unforgiveness).
"WIN is a place where everybody is WINNING but nobody really feels
the need to keep score"
7. Allan, you make the comment that all the significant
battles of the 21st century will be "won with the heart". Help us to
understand this more clearly?
Human beings as a species have survived themselves physically (war,
famine). We are in the process of surviving ourselves mentally (atomic bomb,
technology) and are heading towards interconnectedness.
"The Internet is just a metaphor for our deep desire to all be
connected to each other"
Physically we fought with swords, mentally we fought with commerce. In
the realm of interconnectedness the struggle is with the part of our ego which
is unhealthy and the way to the healthy ego is through the heart.
"All (notice I said all) the problems of our world are the result
of somebody being unwilling to feel something".
This is often confused with emotion. It is not. Emotion is the clue to
our feelings but we often use emotion to hide from our true feelings. Emotion
has often been used to have us feel guilty, which is a fancy way of having
someone force an agenda onto us. This has happened to almost everyone one of us
so we have overreacted by minimizing the importance of feelings.
Traditionally, feelings have been put in the realm of "touchy
feely" and not often considered as a leadership role. But if you think
about it, one of the major places where we lead people is in feelings. We get
people to feel excitement, disappointment, courage, sometimes shame, and sometimes
appreciation. It follows that the more feelings you're willing to feel the more
you'll be effective as a leader. I think that one of the major growth areas for
leaders in the 21st Century is going to be in the areas of feelings and an
understanding of the deeper meanings of those feelings.
If we truly would allow ourselves to feel what it would be like to have
our own child die in our arms from starvation we would never allow that to
happen to anyone ever again. The path to our freedom lies in being willing and
able to have those kinds of feelings without getting lost in the emotion. This
is the path to elegant solutions.
8. What similarities do you see between the Elegant
Solution and Servant-Leadership?
I see that Elegant Solutions come through easier in Servant-Leadership.
We speak of it as the Contributive Mind and contrast that with the actions of
the Consumptive Mind. The consumptive mind is "using more for the benefit
of myself. It is fed by the deep primal belief that
"there isn't enough to go around so I have to get mine first before there
isn't any left". The quieter belief that we evolve to if we ever get out
of the consumptive mind is the idea of using enough for the benefit of everyone
including myself. The contributive mind is beyond Belief into Knowing." I
know that I am innocent at my core and have value and I know that all of
mankind is the same as me therefore my only true purpose is to be an Instrument
of Good and remind people of these truths.
I think that there can very quickly be some confusion about the idea of
Servant-Leadership and Contribution. If we attempt to go to that level too
quickly without doing some of the personal work we need to do, we will mistake
Servant-Leadership with Responsible. So many good leaders mistakenly go there
and burn out as result. If you take the time to observe you'll see that true
Servant-Leaders with a Contributive Mindset come from a place of Responsiveness
instead. It is a place of flex and flow where we let things happen
and respond from our higher mind thinking when they do. It is this higher mind
thinking that we strive to teach in the Elegant Solution.
These understandings and attitudes will fuel all good leadership in the
21st Century.
Thanks
Allan for introducing us to the Elegant
Solution!
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