Watch or listen to this episode below.

Brief summary:

In this episode of FUELPodcast, I have Scott Shute joining us. He is the Former Head of Mindfulness and Compassion Programs at LinkedIn and also the author of the new book The Full Body Yes. Listen in as he shares a big struggle he faced in his career path and how he turned the situation around.

Key insights from this episode:

• (at 2:55) Scott talks about working at Linkedin and how we became the Head of Mindfulness and Compassion Programs of the biggest professional networking site.

• (at 8:40)  Scott shares a big struggle he faced in his career path and how he turned the situation around.

• (at 11:36) SS: I do believe the meta lesson is that every challenge is filled with opportunity and it's just asking ourselves, okay, well, what else is true? What could I be doing? Nobody controls the hand of cards they're dealt, but each one of us controls how we play that hand. 

• (at 18:53) Leila and Scott discuss learning and growing from challenges and a switch of perspective in dealing with a difficult situation.

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Transcript:

FUEL Podcast hosted by Leila Ansart
EPISODE 3: Interview with Scott Shute, LinkedIn’s Head of Mindfulness and Compassion Programs
and Author of The Full Body Yes

INTRO: On today’s episode, I have Scott Shute joining us. He is the Head of Mindfulness and Compassion Programs at LinkedIn and also the author of the new book The Full Body Yes.

Scott is at the intersection of the workplace and ancient wisdom traditions. He has been an active advocate for customers and employees in the technology space for over 20 years, with roles ranging from sales, customer advocacy, and customer service leadership. Previously, he was the Vice President of LinkedIn’s Customer Operations organization. In his current role as Head of Mindfulness and Compassion at LinkedIn, Scott blends his lifelong practice and passion with his practical leadership and operations experience. His mission is to change work from the inside out by “mainstreaming mindfulness” and “operationalizing compassion.” I can’t wait for you to learn about Scott today.

Leila Ansart, Podcast host
Well, welcome Scott to the fuel podcast. I'm thrilled to have you on today. 

Scott Shute, Podcast guest
Thanks very much for having me. I appreciate it. 

Leila Ansart, Podcast host
Yeah, absolutely. I'm really excited not only because I'm always enthused by this conversation that I get to have with leaders, but also because you're the author of a new book that's coming out and I've had the chance to preview it, I'd say maybe a third or so, so far, and it's been quite wonderful. First of all, it's so many stories wrapped just right from the moment you open the cover, you're drawn right in. And I love how you've used your experiences, not even the whole story sometimes, just the really juicy part of the story to grab your reader's attention, and then paint a picture of a life lesson that we can choose to adopt if we want to.

Scott Shute, Podcast guest
Yeah. Thanks for that. It's been fun to write and fun now to talk about. It's been transformational for me to go through this experience. 

Leila Ansart, Podcast host
That's wonderful. If you would, why don't you tell us a little bit about where you've come from in terms of the last several years of your career, where you are currently besides being an author, and just give our listeners a background on what you're doing. 

Scott Shute, Podcast guest
Sure. I'm at LinkedIn, I've been at LinkedIn for about nine years. My current role is the Head of Mindfulness and Compassion Programs, and I've had that role for about three years. Before that I've had a career as an executive doing customer operations, customer service roles as the VP of Global Customer Operations at LinkedIn for six.

I've always had a bit of a dual role, a dual life. In that, I've had a practice, a meditation or contemplation practice since I was a teenager —since I was 13. I started teaching in college and it's been a big part of my life outside of work. But that part of my life which I wasn't really talking about at work, I was covering that part, so it felt like there was something missing. I wasn't quite the full person at work that I am at home. 

About two years into LinkedIn, six or seven years ago, I realized, wow, it's such an open place. Our CEO is talking about his own practice using Headspace. He's talking about compassion and management. I was thinking, that's amazing. Maybe I could bring some of my own practice to work. So, long story short, I ended up leading one practice on a Thursday afternoon, 4:30 in the heavenly conference room, which I thought was auspicious. That first time, there was just one guy there. Honestly, I'm sure he was just as afraid as I was because I never saw him again. The next week there were three, then there were five and then became a regular thing. And then I got invited to do bigger things. So as an example, the marketing team would have a big offsite and they do breakout sessions and I've led meditation for these 80 or 90 people breakout sessions. Or the CFO would have a summit of 400 finance people and I'd kick off the summit with a meditation. 

I just became known as that meditation exec, and that was great because it became my identity, which was when I could really be my full self. Speaking from experience, it's so powerful when you can be your full self to bring all your strengths and qualities to bear at work. Along with a bunch of other volunteers, I was the executive sponsor of our mindfulness program. We didn't have one. So we created one. 

For me, the tipping point was our CEO at the time, Jeff Wiener, gave the commencement address at Wharton and he talked about compassion. In your commencement address, you get 15 minutes to share your one big piece of advice in life. He said, look, if you're going to be successful in life or work, be compassionate. And then the next few times he's on TV, this is all the reporters want to talk about, this compassion and leadership. 

And I was thinking, okay, it's time. It's time for me because I'd been in my ops role for six years, I was ready for something else, but it's also time for LinkedIn because our leader just told essentially our 15 or 16,000 employees that compassion was the most important thing that they could do and then we sent them back to their desks. What does that even mean?

And so I made a pitch to Jeff and our head of HR and with their great support, essentially created this role with kind of a blank slate. My role is Head of Mindfulness and Compassion, and my vision is to change work from the inside out. So that's how we got here. 

Leila Ansart, Podcast host
I love the background and I love that you're honest in saying that at the first meditation meeting there was one person there. You took that leap of faith and exuded bravery to come outside of your professional self and bring your whole self to work and look at how it's developed. 

Scott Shute, Podcast guest
Yeah, for sure. The biggest hurdle in all of this, the biggest obstacle and it was a huge one, it was me.

I was the biggest hurdle. I had originally had a conversation with my friend who runs our wellness group and was asking, hey, do we ever do anything for the mindfulness or meditation here? And he's like, wait a minute, do you have something? Could you do something? And I got really excited and he got really excited because here's this VP who's going to lead a wellness program, but they went back to my desk and I did nothing about it for like three months because I was afraid. I think this is where a lot of us start, when we're about to step into something that's important, but kind of also puts us in a vulnerable position or that's how we feel. 

What's counterintuitive is when we go past that vulnerability or when we express that vulnerability and then live it and realize, oh, actually I didn't fail at this. Actually, it's amazing. It's so incredibly powerful. It's freeing

Leila Ansart, Podcast host
Yeah. One of my mentors said to me once, the funny thing about your comfort zone is that, just like if you could take a piece of chalk and draw a circle around you on a black pavement, your comfort zone is what you're used to, but the moment you move your comfort zone can expand. Once it expands, it's uncomfortable for a bit, but then the new larger circle becomes your new comfort zone. I think that's kind of the same thing that you're saying here, that when we're willing to be open and vulnerable with an idea, we have the potential for greatness. We could fail as we do, we're humans. It's not always shooting the rocket up to the sky successfully the first time but, I think taking the brave step to give it a try and to believe in yourself is pretty powerful. 

Scott, if you would tell us about one of the struggles that you experienced somewhere along your career path that was a challenge for you. My follow-up is going to be, how did you pull that strength from within to be able to continue to go keep going and not just keep going, but actually turn it around. 

Scott Shute, Podcast guest
Sure. There was a period, I'm not sure, 12 or 15 years ago where my job was eliminated three times in four years. At the beginning of that, it was really hard. I mean, earlier in my career I had struggled but I had found my groove and I was really rocketing up through the organization. I was a senior director really early. My boss had promised me the VP role was coming. He was like you're there, you're ready. And then instead of getting that promotion, I got ‘re-orged’ and another person, another VP got that job and my role was essentially eliminated. I went from thinking that I had climbed the mountain, that I was there to being out of a job. In this organization that I had created, like I had hired almost every manager in the whole thing. And more than that, it was my identity. My identity was wrapped up in this job, this potential promotion, this group, and all of a sudden gone.

And then, I found something else inside the company, a couple of years later that was gone. Found something else at another company, a year later that was gone. Now in parallel to all this, it caused me to step back. For the first time in a long time, I thought, wait, what am I doing? What do I really want to do? Because clearly life is trying to show me something different and I felt like I was holding onto the steering wheel with both hands while life was trying to say, now let's go over here, come on. And so for me, I ended up trying other things. I got a coaching certification because I thought maybe I would be an executive coach or a business coach.

I took a couple other trainings that rounded up my skillset. I did a startup company. I moonlighted a startup company. I was an entrepreneur for a while doing these things. And so I was building towards something even if in that moment I didn't have a job that I was in love with. And what happened was I eventually got to this place where I was interviewed to be at LinkedIn and It was because of those experiences, because I had tried the startup, because I'd had these extra skills, because even the failures that I had, I was perfectly suited for what became my dream job -- the operations job at LinkedIn, which then led to my lottery job, the current one I'm in. 

I do believe the meta lesson is that every challenge is filled with opportunity and it's just asking ourselves, okay, well, what else is true? Like what could I be doing? Nobody controls the hand of cards they're dealt, but each one of us controls how we play that hand. 

Leila Ansart, Podcast host
So in the middle of losing three jobs in four years,  from what I read in your book too, that was not just losing local jobs. You had moved all over the place --international moves included. That's a huge upset. I know many are dealing with job loss in these COVID times, hopefully coming back out of it, but not all. How much did that rock your world? You mentioned specifically that your job had become your identity, so speak to that for a bit. 

Scott Shute, Podcast guest
Well, it's all about how we define our success. I think for a lot of us, we're defining success as society often define success, right? What's your title? What kind of status do you have? How much money do you make? And we're often viewed by others in that lens. So I had wrapped myself up in this career track, which was I was hoping was going to lead to this VP role that I felt almost entitled to. I had moved five times in six years. My family had moved five times in six years. I had really been instrumental to the creation of this group and all of a sudden it wasn't me anymore. I was going to be out not only not promoted but out. 

I think the antidote for all of us is to step back and really say, what's really important? Why are we doing these jobs? And ultimately our measure of success instead of climbing this mountain of title and external validation and money and all those things, what I've come to really believe, I'm still learning this, but what I really believe is that no matter how much we love these jobs, even the one I'm in, in 15 years these jobs will all be reduced to three bullets on a resume or one or two sentences on a LinkedIn profile. But it's our connections to our family, our friends, our coworkers, our loved ones, that's how we'll measure ourselves in the very end, right? We're not going to sit on our deathbed and wish that we had worked a little bit harder when we were 27, right? Or gotten one more promotion. We're not, but we are going to sit around and reflect on our lives at the end of time and be grateful or not that we have love in our life that we have people to share those things with. Figuring that out sooner than later is important for all of us, I think. 

Leila Ansart, Podcast host
From the standpoint of where you sit now as an executive in a very well-respected company in the tech world, I know you're a father, you've got children, you have a wife. What does that look like --that choice to value the relationships and the love over the next foothold on the mountain. What does that look like for you? I mean, how do you take it out of the sky and really bring it down into the practical? 

Scott Shute, Podcast guest
This is the daily challenge. I really mean that. The day-to-day, moment-by-moment challenge and we go through different seasons. And there are some seasons where things are good at home, you can invest more in the stuff at work. There are some seasons where one of your family members or you need more and we have to be aware of those things. I've had periods of time where I missed that. And it's still a painful process. What it means is being really clear on my values and using those values as a filter for every decision that gets made and realize that I'm choosing it. That each thing is a choice. We often get locked into thinking, oh, I have to be at this meeting. Or I have to go to my 8th-grade niece's graduation party. Well, none of these things are ‘really have to’, we have a choice. 

We could leave that job. We could leave that relationship. We could end X, Y, and Z. Now all those things have very serious consequences or serious consequences. Bu this first, the shift to realize that we're in charge, we're the ones making decisions about our own life, changes something within us, because then if we're sitting in a job or a staff meeting that we're not exactly excited about realizing that we chose it, then at that moment, like, okay, yes, I, I am going to go to this meeting. If I'm here, I might as well pay attention. I might as well give it my all. Or yes, I am going to stay in this marriage or I am going to do something nice for my family. It starts with us choosing, and then this balance. Creating this balance between work and life and just being aware of what season you're in, I think is then how we get it on the ground. 

And there's no right answer. There's no blanket statement like, oh, I should always choose my family over work. Or I should always choose my work over family. We can't make statements like that with every situation at every moment in time is different. So it's building that awareness and having the courage to take action towards that awareness. 

Leila Ansart, Podcast host
Interesting that we're circling back around to courage. The first story you shared it was about big courage, doing something very public and putting yourself out there, kind of giving yourself a title of meditation exec, and now talking about the smaller choices that make up the reality of our lives and that it takes just as much courage, at least that's my view on it. To stop and say, I chose this situation so I'm going to make this decision as my next step. 

Scott Shute, Podcast guest
That's right. We often get trapped into thinking of all the things that we should do or that we have to. So maybe you have a work meeting and as an exec or climbing the ranks, I had lots of work meetings and maybe have someone at home who needs my attention. We have these stories in our heads about all the bad things that will happen if we don't do something, right? Like If I don't go to this work, I'm expected to be there and my boss is going to be there. But if you told your boss what was going on at home and you were vulnerable and said, hey, I really need to be there for my family. I'm sorry, I can't make this. Then probably 99% your boss is going to be like, totally understand. And that's great, you don't have to be here. It's not that big a deal. But we get stuck in our own stories about what everybody else is thinking about us instead of just taking the courage to do sometimes what's hard, but shouldn't be that hard, but we make it hard because of our story. 

Leila Ansart, Podcast host
Yeah. I want to read a quote that I saved from I think it was even the intro of your book. It's a book about the things that you learned and you said, “This is where the development happens. It's usually not the actual events in life that we're learning from. It's in the shaping and changing and thrashing of the mind where our growth occurs.”

It just got me down to the core because it really is true. I find that the universe tends to repeat the lesson to you if you don't get it. It's not so much about what's actually happening, the work situation, the loss of a job, the family strife, whatever it is that you're wrestling with. It's less about that. It's more about where is the lesson in here? That's my verbiage. Where's the lesson? What can I take away from this to help me grow in some way so that I can learn the next lesson instead of the universe orchestrating my whole life to have this one happen all over again. 

Scott Shute, Podcast guest
That's right. There's lots of research that shows that happiness, generally, is not necessarily the stuff that happens to us, but how we react to the stuff that happens to us. In other words, what's going on with the mind. There's a powerful shift when we move from this feeling like a victim, feeling like, oh, life is happening to me. I'm just a leaf on the water or cruising along. If we shift to the point where now life is happening for me. Even if that's not your mental structure of how the world works, what if you approached it as if that were true? Like, what if life had put this mess in front me just so I could learn some lesson, how would I respond then? It's like, oh, well then you can feel your back stiffen a little bit. You get more courage. 

You're like, okay, well, great. And then there's the next step which requires a really deep commitment and that is, what if life is happening through me? Meaning, what if I was a co-creator, a partner with life to say, not only am I not a victim, but I'm part of this thing. How could I serve? How could I serve all of life from that perspective? And that's where the magic happens.

Leila Ansart, Podcast host
Wow. That last question just blows my brain. I mean, to think what if I'm a co-creator not only in my own results, that's kind of the obvious first choice, but then what if my role is here in this, a co-creation role, to make something amazing happen, or even just to make life experience happen for others and to serve them in some way. That’ll make you stop. 

Scott Shute, Podcast guest
This is the essential point that I'm trying to make in my book. I wanted to write a book about being compassionate, but really, I think it's 99% about getting out of your own way. Because when we're out of our own way, then we can be more of ourselves, our own development, and then we can really serve. 

One of my favorite stories is at the end of the book, I tell the story about going to baseball. My son is 23 and when he was 10 or 12, I coached little league baseball. I found myself one day leaving work early, like at 3:30 or 3:45 in the afternoon because I was the manager of the team. I had to go get the field ready, drag it with a tractor type of thing. My inner talk track had gone really dark. I was frustrated, I was angry. I had a mountain of work and my inner track was like, oh, all the stuff I have to do. Why did I sign up for this? Why can't somebody else drag the field? There's so much work and I'm leaving this giant pile that's going to be there and probably grow by the time I -- just over and over. Even on the road, I was stuck in traffic and just super frustrated at all the other drivers and cars. Life was dark. I caught myself and I stopped myself. I'm like, hang on. What else is true? And so if I started making a list, a lot of other great things were true. First of all, I had chosen to be a manager, I had chosen to coach this team. I love my son, he’s my favorite thing in the world. 

I love playing baseball with him. And baseball I play when I was a kid. When I'm out there, I get to be 12 years old again. I even love the statistics. I love keeping the stats on an Excel spreadsheet and sending out batting averages and pitching whip and all this cool stuff. 

And I had chosen my job. I had chosen to be a leader at work and to have that responsibility and how grateful am I to work at a company where it's cool that I leave at 3:30 in the afternoon to go take care of what I need to do. And I was thinking, wow, okay now imagine these two scenarios: in scenario number one, I spend 40 minutes in the car, just dark, right? Just yelling at other drivers and being mad about being there and mad at myself, disgusted with myself. And then I get out of the car with that cloud around me. What kind of experience are these kids going to have with me as their coach and the other coaches and the parents and the umpires and the other cars on the road? Or what if I spend 40 minutes in the car having gratitude for my situation. Gratitude that I have a son that I get to play baseball with, gratitude for this job that I love, gratitude to serve my community in this way. Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. And then bounce out of the car and imagine the experience that these ten-year-olds are going to have with me and the parents and the other coaches and the umpires and the drivers. We are shaping not only our own lives but everybody else's life around us with every choice. And those choices happen in almost every moment of the day of which version of us shows up. 

Leila Ansart, Podcast host
Yeah, that's really beautiful. I know when I came out of a pretty dark place in my early twenties and was in just a season of real disgust with several authority figures that had been in my life and some of their behaviors and actions. I was just angry a lot and it totally clouds your existence because your brain is just on that never-ending loop of thinking about it and how could they, and they're so disgusting. I can't believe they would do that to people. I remember one day when someone said to me, what do you want? And I tried to kind of shift that inner dialogue. Then they were trying to help me. I just couldn't get there because I was so focused on the wrong. What had been happening, what had been done. It had been done to me and had been done to a lot of people that I knew. 

I was so focused on the wrongness and I couldn't stop and look at anything in gratitude. I know from myself, I had this internal war that if I was grateful for it, it somehow meant that it was okay that it happened. And I'm not saying I wanted to be grateful for the bad thing that happened. I mean, I'm being very vague here, but it's not important for this conversation. But grateful for who I became because of it, grateful for the support I had within it, even though it wasn't what I would've liked. Those kinds of things I could not let go of. If I acknowledge anything positive about this experience, then I am saying that this was okay, and this was not okay. 

I remember something that helped click for me was when someone used the word pretend, I don't even recall who this person was at the time because I was working really hard to change my mental state. I was listening to the CDs and the podcasts and all that, trying to change my internal dialogue. 

Leila Ansart, Podcast host
But somebody used the word pretend. They said if you can't get there yourself if you can't shift that perspective, try just pretending. For me, that helped because it took it out of the realm of reality. It didn't have to be exactly as I was saying it because I was pretending like a little kid who thinks that dragons are real and unicorns can fly and all of those things, I could take it out of that realm of reality and I could say, okay, I'm going to pretend that despite what happened, I am going to pretend that I got stronger in some way. That it built resilience in me. I'm going to pretend that I'm going to actually make it past all of this and turn my life into something of value. I'm just going to pretend for a minute. What if. And I think that what if helped be a bridge from the current stark reality to a potential for something better. And I feel you're saying the same thing here that you're saying, what else is true? And I love that question by the way. That's really powerful. What else is true here? [It] helps you say, okay, not just the thing I'm pissed off about, but what else could be true? 

And another friend of mine, Dennis Hodges always says, what else is possible? I think that helps to unlock part of that brain pattern that's running. Release the amygdala from doing all of its searching for danger and say, okay, let's cross the bridge to a different place so that we can get back to serving both our own futures, but also the features of everyone we care about. 

Scott Shute, Podcast guest
That's right. I was recently reading about Nelson Mandela, and he was imprisoned in South Africa for his politics, for the color of his skin and spent almost 30 years in prison. As he was being released, a journalist asked him if he had hatred, if he had anger towards his captors. Now 30 years is pretty much his entire adult life separated from his friends and family. Probably not great living conditions, et cetera. He said, no, I don't have anger or hatred because hatred is like drinking poison and hoping that someone else will die. As you were describing your situation, we all find this. We get really frustrated and we get fixated on someone else and the wrongs they've done to us, but it creates a prison for ourselves. We don't have to agree with the other person. We don't have to agree. We don't have to say it's right. 

What you were saying is spot on. When we focus on the wrong, we create a prison of that wrong in our own minds. I think of it like a lighthouse, if we just shift the direction of the lighthouse and ask ourselves what else is true and focus on the good for just a bit, because it's there just as well as the hard things, then that makes us stronger to be able to deal with the hard stuff. I call it pothole management. You can have a thousand miles of perfect road and one pothole. Where does our attention go every time? Whether it's ourselves or someone else, it goes to the pothole. Now I'm not saying we don't focus on the pothole. Yeah, of course, we need to fix that thing, but let's not spend 99% of our time and efforts on the 1% that is the pothole. 

Scott Shute, Podcast guest
Let's focus on the good stuff. That I think is true with our own lives. It's true at work. If you've been in staff meetings, if there's a pothole in your work environment, where do you spend all of your time talking about? You are talking about what's wrong. But when we do that, we lose track of celebrating what's good. We lose track of the people who created the 999 miles of perfect road.

There's a couple of studies on parents and grades. Their kids bring home a report card. If there's three A's and a C, they split it into two groups. The parents who were like, what? Tommy? What's going on with the C?  They focused only on the C versus the other parents that are happy that Jill has got three A's and they only focused on the three A's. Which one do you think is more powerful? Well, the parents who focused on the A's ended up with the kids ended up getting more A's further on, versus the parents who focused on the C’s, ended up getting more C’s later on. Lots of research to show that if we move away from the pothole and shine our light on the good stuff, it makes us strong to be able to deal with the hard. 

Leila Ansart, Podcast host
Absolutely. Well, this has been amazing. Scott. I've really thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. Thank you again for your time spending with us. I want to ask you one question in closing. Give us one of those fun facts that not many people know about you. 

Scott Shute, Podcast guest
About me, let's see. Wow. Well, I like motorcycles. I grew up on a farm in very rural Kansas, and we grew up with dirt bikes. I love things that have two wheels. I once did a motorcycle trip from Kansas to the east coast and up through Canada and back. My son and I, at one point in our lives, had dirt bikes. We used to race BMX bikes together, and I still mountain bike and road bikes. So anything with two wheels. 

Leila Ansart, Podcast host
All right. That was a good one.

Scott Shute, Podcast guest
Alright, if you are interested in my book it’s called the Full Body Yes and you can find it wherever books are found online, in Amazon, bookshop.org. You can support your local bookshop by going through bookshop.org.

You can also follow me and find out more information about me and my book at ScottShute.com and also The Full Body Yes. And for daily updates, if you want to join my daily meditation sessions, follow me on LinkedIn. That’s where I spend most of my social time. Thanks very much.

Leila Ansart, Podcast host
Wonderful. I signed up for one of your meditation sessions and then had a doctor’s appointment so I’m going to need to do it again. I’m going to sign up again because I never made it. But yeah, that sounds wonderful. I look forward to enjoying that.

Scott Shute, Podcast guest
Excellent. I’m on Insight Timer, as well, every couple of weeks so you could find me on Insight Timer live too.

Leila Ansart, Podcast host
I’m not familiar with Insight Timer.

Scott Shute, Podcast guest
Insight Timer is a meditation app. If you’ve heard of Calm or Headspace, Insight Timer is a little bit like the Youtube of meditation teachers. People can post their own meditations and some teachers are invited to come to do things live. I’m one of the live instructors.

Leila Ansart, Podcast host
Wonderful. I will certainly look into that and I’m sure our audience will as well.

Scott Shute, Podcast guest
It’s good stuff.

Leila Ansart, Podcast host
Awesome. Well, thank you again, Scott. Wishing you a wonderful day and we’ll talk soon.

Scott Shute, Podcast guest
Thanks very much.