Author and changemaker Shermin Kruse examines the timeless principles of Stoicism and their power to foster mindful, intentional, and empathetic living.

Grab a copy of Stoic Empathy HERE to learn more about living a Life of Influence, Self-Leadership, and Integrity

This week on Mindrolling, Raghu and Shermin Kruse:

• Embracing discomfort and challenges as catalysts for personal and spiritual growth
• Shermin’s powerful story of growing up in Iran during the wartime of the 1980s and 90s
• How Stoic philosophy transformed Shermin’s approach to work, meditation, therapy, and daily life
• The profound relationship between Stoicism and empathy
• Shermin’s Stoic inspiration mother, aunt, and cultural roots
• Understanding the Stoic ideal of the dichotomy of control
• Shermin’s mystical, otherworldly experience while giving birth
• Practicing intentional pause and mindful response to life’s stimuli
• Moving beyond the ego and awakening to loving awareness

About Shermin Kruse:

Shermin Kruse is an award-winning idea curator, global change-maker, complex-system negotiator, lawyer, speaker, and storyteller. Shermin has nearly two decades of experience working in competitive strategy and game theory applications, corporate and community advocacy, brand protection and augmentation, as well as dispute resolution for individuals, public-company boards of directors, international corporations, and Fortune 500 Companies. Shermin also has a decade of parallel experience producing thought-leadership events, including TEDx conferences and a network of salon series. She teaches Negotiating with Tactical Empathy, Global Transactions, Cross-Border Deals, and Leadership at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. In addition to her professional accomplishments, Shermin is a mother of four, living in the heart of Chicago. Her personal journey from the war-torn streets of her native Tehran to the elite corporate boardrooms of the world informs her deep commitment to fostering empathy, control, justice, and global understanding. Learn more on Shermin’s website.

“It’s a kind of resilience and a kind of Stoicism that is very counter to the image of the statue, stoic, white, male figure that we think about when we imagine Greek Stoicism. The interesting thing about Stoicism is all that it has in common with Buddhism, meditation, dance, passion—all of those things.” –Shermin Kruse

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David Silver and Raghu Markus explore the life and teachings of George Gurdjieff, the Russian-born mystic and philosopher of consciousness.

This time on Mindrolling, Raghu and David have a discussion about:

• How a teenage David Silver was first introduced to Gurdjieff’s teachings
• Gurdjieff’s influence on the 1960s counterculture and the evolution of consciousness movements
• The call to “do only what is new and fresh” and live in search of the miraculous
• Doing the work literally and figuratively; supporting oneself and moving towards clear mentation
• Gurdjieff’s view of humans as incomplete sleepwalkers, mechanically reacting to life
• Gradual awakening through self-observation, inner struggle, and conscious effort
• Shedding false pretenses to discover a unified, authentic self
• How Gurdjieff’s philosophy inspired Ram Dass’s spiritual vision
• The Seekers of Truth and The Sarmoung Brotherhood
• The transformative and ongoing practice of self-remembering

Pre-order your copy of There Is No Other: The Way to Harmony and Wholeness a profound collection of newly gathered writings from Ram Dass and edited by Parvati Markus. Ram Dass shows us how a house divided against itself—whether that “house” is our individual self or the society in which we live—can come together in wholeness. Learn more: There Is No Other Way Pre-Order

About George Ivanovich Gurdjieff

Gurdjieff, who was born in the late 1800’s, was a philosopher, mystic, spiritual teacher, composer, and movements teacher. Born in the Russian Empire, he briefly became a citizen of the First Republic of Armenia after its formation in 1918, but fled the impending Red Army invasion of Armenia in 1920, which rendered him stateless. Gurdjieff taught that people are not conscious of themselves and thus live their lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep", but that it is possible to awaken to a higher state of consciousness and serve our purpose as human beings. Learn more about Gurdjieff HERE and pick up some of Gurdjieff’s most famous work, Meetings with Remarkable Men.

About David Silver:

David Silver is the former co-host of the Mindrolling podcast. He is a filmmaker and director, most recently coming out with Brilliant Disguise. Brilliant Disguise tells the unique story of a group of inspired Western spiritual seekers from the 60s, who in meeting the great American teacher, Ram Dass, followed him to India to meet his Guru, Neem Karoli Baba, familiarly known as Maharaj-ji. Two days before he left his body, Maharaj-ji instructed K.C. Tewari to take care of the Westerners, which he did resolutely until the day he died in 1997. Silver’s #1 charting MGM/UA/Warners film, “The Compleat Beatles” is the critically acclaimed biopic movie about history’s most famous band. The term ‘rockumentary’ was first applied to this two-hour movie. Rolling Stone recently described the film as a “masterwork.” Silver’s Warner Brothers’ feature film, “No Nukes” also started the whole trend of music/activism feature documentaries.

“His father basically said to him, you must not do anything old, you must always try and do something new and fresh, you must already be honest, you must always support yourself, These were all important in Gurdjieff’s life. You must be in search of the miraculous, because what else is there?” —David Silver

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Offering a perspective of hope and unity, Danny Goldberg and Raghu Markus explore morality, polarization, and how negative media drives collective anxiety.

Pre-order Danny’s upcoming book, Liberals with Attitude: The Rodney King Beating and the Fight for the Soul of Los Angeles

This time on Mindrolling, Raghu and Danny discuss:

• The uproar surrounding the brutal beating of Rodney King by the L.A. police
• Seeing history as the study of change, and looking into how history impacts our lives today
• How the human condition largely remains the same century after century
• The inner conflict between morals: choosing what is right vs. what feels safe
• Building bridges by connecting over universal human values instead of polarizing politics
• Healing our felt sense of separation by remembering that we are all interconnected
• Those who feel they are losing power when others make progress
• The seduction of negative news media and how it feeds collective anxiety and division
• Finding perspective by remembering that every era faces troubling times
• Considering the Sermon on the Mount as a moral compass
• Learning to honor fear without being a slave to it

Click HERE to pre-order There is No Other by Ram Dass, with contributions from Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, and more.

About Danny Goldberg:

Danny Goldberg is an author and music executive who has spent decades in the business. As a manager, Danny’s clients included Bonnie Raitt, Nirvana, The Allman Brothers Band, and Sonic Youth. As a label executive he was President of Atlantic Records, and Chairman of Warner Bros Records and the Mercury Records Group – among others. Danny Goldberg’s previous books include Bloody Crossroads 2020: Art, Entertainment and Resistance to Trump, Serving The Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain, How The Left Lost Teen Spirit, Bumping Into Geniuses: My Life Inside The Rock and Roll Business and In Search of The Lost Chord: 1967 and the Hippie Idea. Learn more about Danny and his work HERE.

Check out the article Culture, Empathy and Resistance by Danny Goldberg and the book NEXUS by Yuval Noah Harari

“People always say to me, ‘It’s never been this way’. That’s just absolutely not true. We had slavery in this country. Women couldn't vote until 1920. Homosexuality, you could still go to jail up until the 60s for it. The AIDS epidemic during the Reagan period. Not to mention human history, the Crusades, and the Holocaust. There have been many, many dreadful times.’” – Danny Goldberg

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