I want to bring people to their own wisdom, and I don't want to bring people to my wisdom

or somebody else's wisdom or group wisdom.

Welcome to the art of accomplishment, where we explore how deepening connection with ourselves

and others leads to creating the life we want with enjoyment and ease.

I'm Brett Kisler, here today with my co-host, Joe Hudson.

We're talking about the vow and cults, and some of the people coming back into AOA

from having done ESF and other kinds of work, and there's a tongue-in-cheek thing that sometimes

people joke about, like, oh, I'm back in the cult, or this is a cult, or this is not a cult, or

a question for you that somebody asked that was tongue- cheek was like, what if you just stopped resisting that you're a cult leader? It's funny. Like, as soon as you say this, and I know that it's being recorded, I become self-conscious. And I become, and I'm like, I don't even want to put that thought in anybody's mind.

And I don't know if it's a semantic thing.

If like what other people use the word cult, it means one thing.

And in my mind, cult means another thing.

Like, I don't know if it's even generational.

But to me, the essence of a cult is where you're handing over your power to somebody else, which is the

antithesis of the work that I want to do in the world. By the way, I don't think that all cults

are bad. And I actually think that there are things that are cults that we don't call cults.

I mean, I've definitely been in companies that have a very kind of cult-like thing

where it's like very hard to leave.

And there's only one way of thinking.

And dissent is not appreciated.

And so I've definitely seen it in places where people don't like political systems,

like some deep cult-like behaviors.

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