Episode 4: A Deep Discussion with Dr. Michael Brabant

Summary of Episode 4: The Smoke Trail Deep Discussion with Dr. Michael Brabant

 

In Episode 4 of The Smoke Trail, Smoke hosts Dr. Michael Brabant, an coach specializing in psychologically safe environments for transformation, for a rich, hour-long conversation blending spirituality, leadership, and personal growth. From Sedona, Smoke credits Michael’s nudge as the catalyst for launching the podcast, setting an intention to explore deep topics—spirituality, leadership, trauma healing, and higher power—fearlessly yet respectfully, aiming to inspire listeners through authentic experiences. Michael aligns, intending to serve the moment authentically, fostering a “1-degree shift” toward heart-opening and soul connection.

 

The dialogue begins with Michael’s childhood—hypersensitive and alienated in a conventional world, compounded by parental “weird stuff” and intergenerational trauma—leading to a breaking point of depression at a young age. Quoting Krishnamurti—“It’s no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society”—he reframes depression as suppressed expression, a soul misalignment that drove his search for more. Smoke resonates, sharing his own childhood incongruences—adults lacking integrity—fueling a hyper-independent, competitive ego that propelled entrepreneurial success but hindered trust and inner peace.

 

They delve into leadership’s energetic ripple effect. Michael highlights how CEOs’ unconscious need for control, rooted in childhood lack, creates incongruence between words and vibration, undermining team safety—a subtle echo of parental disconnect. Smoke reflects on his past “need-driven” deals, achieving paper wins (e.g., $5-50 million swings) but facing chaos until aligning with wholeness, now attracting others’ vulnerability vibrationally. Practicality emerges: Michael’s CEO client struggles with feedback despite seeking it, fearing trust loss, while Smoke admits resisting Michael’s input on his YPO talks (Miami, Istanbul), learning to integrate it despite ego defenses (“Perky”).

 

The episode explores ego as multifaceted—Michael breaks it into developmental “parts” (e.g., a 5-year-old needing love)—requiring specific inner “medicine” beyond generic meditation labels like “thinking.” Smoke’s “talent stack” of techniques (e.g., A Course in Miracles, plant medicine) unwound his ego, yet defensiveness lingers, now playfully acknowledged. They contrast external validation’s addictive ease with self-esteem as a verb, advocating fullness over consumption—an abundance mindset that enhances decision-making (e.g., avoiding misaligned deals).

 

Michael closes with a meditation, guiding listeners to step back energetically, breathe into sensations, and befriend a loud thought or worry as an asset, not a problem, fostering inner safety. Smoke praises Michael’s approach, sharing contact info (candorandcoherence.com) and affirming the episode’s depth charges—practical yet profound seeds for leaders to pause, probe internal causality, and lead from solution consciousness, not problem fixation.

How It Fits into The Smoke Trail Overall

Episode 4 deepens The Smoke Trail’s mission, aligning with its three content buckets—learnings, universal truths, and experiential examples—while advancing its themes of spirituality, leadership, high performance, perfect health, and bliss, as seen in Episodes 1-3.

• Learnings: Michael’s meditation and ego-parts approach, alongside Smoke’s feedback integration, offer tools akin to Episode 2’s grounding breaths and Episode 3’s presence, emphasizing self-inquiry and vibrational alignment for high performance and health.
• Universal Truths: Fullness vs. consumption, congruence as leadership’s core, and ego’s alchemy into soul echo Episode 1’s nonattachment, Episode 2’s energy management, and Episode 3’s impermanence, with Krishnamurti’s lens adding philosophical depth.
• Experiential Examples: Michael’s depression-to-purpose arc and Smoke’s need-to-wholeness shift mirror Episode 1’s healing, Episode 2’s trauma resilience, and Episode 3’s cancer reframing, showcasing “integrous” journeys.

 

The episode ties high performance to Michael’s leadership coherence, perfect health to Smoke’s ego unwinding, and bliss to their shared fullness, fulfilling the podcast’s ethos. Leadership shines—Smoke’s YPO evolution and Michael’s CEO work reflect guiding from wholeness, not need. Sedona’s calm backdrop enhances the spiritual tone, while practical calls (e.g., pausing reactivity) ground it, making Episode 4 a pivotal bridge from personal awakening to organizational impact, inviting listeners to take their first step inward.

FOR THE FULL Q AND A AND PRE-SHOW Questions Join Here on SACRED SMOKE on SUBSTACK

About Dr. Michael Brabant

Michael is a seasoned expert in fostering psychologically safe environments that lead to authentic and lasting transformation within CEOs, leaders and organizations. With a rich background in clinical psychology, leadership development and integrative practices, Michael brings a unique, precise and holistic approach to his consulting. His deep understanding and skillful facilitation of individual, relational and collective dynamics allows him to guide teams toward greater coherence, trust and performance. While strategies are shared, the potency of Michael’s work is in his ability to create contexts where people can reveal what is real, honest and true.

By exposing the elephants in the room in a playful and dynamic way, huge amounts of trust and creative energy can be tapped into in a short period of time. This reorganizes the way people think and the ways that teams communicate. Organizational and leadership development theories without embodied practice and commitment to implementation become easily forgettable. By going through a transformative journey, people and organizations evolve and embody the learning that leads to lasting and ever-deepening tangible results.

Michael began his graduate studies in clinical psychology only to find that the best-practices in the field were sorely lacking nuance and depth to help people heal their past and thrive in their present. He transferred from his clinical psychological program after five and a half years and 120 pages of his first dissertation, to a non-clinical PhD in psychology and interdisciplinary inquiry. His second dissertation studied how transformative learning, mindfulness, collective intelligence and embodied forms of education were able to qualitatively expand people’s worldview that led to a more skillful and compassionate leadership style.

Early on in his career, Michael led meditation retreats, had a private counseling practice and consulted at universities developing transformative learning curriculum. Throughout his life he has studied with shamans, meditation teachers, psychologists and indigenous wisdom carriers. Since 2017, he has been working with business leaders and CEOs, synthesizing the most potent forms of personal growth from depth psychology to integrative spiritual practices and making it accessible and practical to leaders.

His devotion to his own learning and growth is the center of all that he offers to others. He is constantly learning, refining and integrating the feedback from everyone he works with and from life itself. Michael walks and lives his talk, so his approach is a living transmission that is catalytic and transformational for all whom he works with.

What is The Smoke Trail?

The Smoke Trail, hosted by Smoke Wallin, is a journey into awakening consciousness, weaving authentic stories and deep discussions with inspiring guests to unlock high performance and perfect health. Each episode delves into spirituality, leadership, and transformation, offering tools to transcend trauma and find your bliss along the way. It’s a reflective space for achieving peak potential and inner peace in a distraction-filled world.

Smoke: 00:00

Okay. Keep going.

Michael: 00:01

So so I was on this Uber drive. She said, well, you know, what do you do for a living? Well, how deep do you wanna go? That was my response. And she said, well, you can't go too deep too fast or else you'll get the bends.

Michael: 00:14

And it was such a powerful teaching for me in that moment because there's a part of me that, you know, had a credential of, I'm super deep dude. You know? I'll go as deep as you wanna go. You know? It's kind of like spiritual ambition, you know, transferring that ambition from the outside to the inside.

Michael: 00:29

Yeah. And, and I found that, you know, like, if I go too deep too fast and people get lost or they can't follow and they lose attention or they start to feel stupid or they start to feel insecure that they can't follow and they leave, what's the point?

Anitra: 00:44

Welcome to the Smoke Trail hosted by Smoke Wallen. Join Smoke on a unique journey of awakening consciousness, sharing authentic stories and deep discussions with inspiring guests. Explore spirituality, leadership, and transformation, tools to elevate your path.

Smoke: 01:01

Welcome to the smoke trail. This is really exciting for me. You're kind of the impetus for moving forward with this. It kind of ended up being in this bucket of, well, I'm not really sure, so it's just gonna kind of, float out there for a while. I invited you, to be a guest, to have a conversation around consciousness and spirituality and leadership.

Smoke: 01:21

And and then you came back and you said, when are we doing this? And so, that helped spur me to action. So, thank you.

Michael: 01:31

You're welcome.

Smoke: 01:31

My intention with the Smoke Trail podcast is to explore deeply things that are important to me, things that I think are may be important to others, along the lines of spirituality, leadership, and, you know, all the things that are related to that, which include, you know, trauma, healing from trauma, what higher powers, all those topics, and and do it in a way that's respectful, but we're not afraid of, really any topic. And and, hopefully, it's conversations that go deeper than surface level stuff. There's plenty of that out there. So to share deeply along these, topics, ideas, and experiences I have had, my guests have had, and, hopefully, along the way, that will, help or inspire others who are on the path in some way, shape, or form. And, Michael, do you wanna add anything intention wise, to what I have said?

Michael: 02:24

Sure. I'd say my intention always, and especially in the context where there's opportunity for people to witness or be served or there's an intention for service, is to be available to the moment and to get out of any preconceived ideas or expectations of what is supposed to happen and to really allow the alchemy of both of our souls coming together and both of our sincerity coming together to really say what needs to be heard by someone out there. Hopefully, that creates a pivot or a one degree shift that helps them open their hearts and connect more to who they really are.

Smoke: 03:04

Awesome. Thank you. That is the spirit of this. I think you and I have had some really, I think, for me, deep conversations over the last more than a year now since we got introduced by our mutual friend. And those have been great.

Smoke: 03:18

And, honestly, I, you know, I wish some of those had been recorded because it I think they could have been useful, you know, to share with some people. I'm here in Sedona. You are, I know you're in the mountains somewhere. Out of Wild. Those locations

Michael: 03:30

Out of Wild, California. Nice.

Smoke: 03:32

Cool. Alright. Well, glad to have you. A short introduction, which other information, website, and everything in our in our notes. Doctor Michael Brabant is a seasoned specialist in fostering psychologically safe environments that lead to authentic and lasting transformation within CEOs, leaders, and organizations.

Smoke: 03:52

I really love that you bring this kind of understanding of the academic world's true psych psychology, clinical work, you know, the work you've done with in that side of things to the spirituality side, and you bring it together in companies and organizations, you know, with leaders. And that is very much aligned with what I'm interested in and what I'm trying to bring together. So it's a it's a natural fit in my view.

Michael: 04:22

Absolutely.

Smoke: 04:24

One of the things that I'd like to ask and just kind of start our conversation going is, you know, you know, I'd like to just kinda go back and I mean, you shared some really deep stuff. I thank you. Not unlike me, but very different for different reasons, a questioning of is there more kind of thing. And and I I know that I had that too, but in a different way. But I don't know if you could comment on that or give us a little share of of some of that perspective that you started with.

Smoke: 04:51

Sure.

Michael: 04:52

As you're asking the question, the quotation from Krishnamurti came up for me who when I first heard this quotation, I was just like, wow. This feels like a nutshell is my experience. He said, it's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. And for me, I think any sort of searching for something more than conventionality in one's life really comes when the existing operating system, the existing belief system doesn't work on the inside. And I think in the context of business, that existing operating system of achievement and results orientation and outcomes, execution, it works on the outside.

Michael: 05:39

But what works on the outside doesn't work on the inside. You know, I can't execute towards inner peace. I might engage in things that bring more of that, but I can't use that same hyper masculine linear logical approach to my interiority and accept to expect to accept the same results. So for me, I didn't have any contrasting experience or or guide or leadership other than conventionality. So as a kid, I was trying to adjust as a very different hypersensitive, soul to this conventional world that never made sense to me.

Michael: 06:20

But But because I didn't have anybody showing me a different way, that was the only option. It was just option a, option a, option a, even though my being was like option z. You know? So I remember being five years old in kindergarten looking around being like, what are these kids talking about? Like, what are we doing here?

Michael: 06:38

And, and then, of course, the weird stuff that happened at home with my parents, which I I believe all of us have experienced some weird stuff, at home with our parents because of the inter intergenerational trauma and and just the lack of of psychological aptitude that is prevalent to raise children in a good way that connects them to their soul. Of course, there's more now these days, which I'm really grateful for. But that all that stuff, it was never this is weird or this is off or this is feels like friction to me. It was like this is the way my intuition, my feeling, my authenticity must be wrong. And I think having so much of that self negation compounded over time just led to a breaking point.

Michael: 07:26

For me, it was earlier than most, I would say, but it just led to a place where it's just like, I can't do this. And that's where I wrote in the in the question, like, there was a time where I was just like, I cannot live this way. There has to be another way or I'm over it. And we could call that, yes, it was depression. It was labeled that.

Michael: 07:45

I I got medication for the for major depressive disorder. But for me, depression is a, a lack of expression. So I didn't have a venue or an avenue or safety to express what was true for me, so my truth depressed me. All that accumulation weighed me down. And I think that that's the case for most people.

Michael: 08:10

When they're doing something that's not aligned with their soul, there's gonna come a point where it it doesn't work anymore. And we can label that all sorts of mental disorders, but, essentially, that's the mechanism that I see.

Smoke: 08:22

That really resonates with me. The inconsistency or incongruence between what we feel inside and know to be right or just have this sense of, like, you know, this is not what I'm seeing, what I'm experiencing. I can relate very well to that. And then and as a young child, you know, now I have these memories that have come back, and I'm like, there's something wrong with everything in my world. And I knew it.

Smoke: 08:49

And I you know, it doesn't matter, you know, what what the story is, frankly, at this point. But there was just fundamental things where the adults in my world were incongruous with integrity, with truth, with, you know, with what how any child should be treated. And it's not a woe is me thing. It's just that I knew that it was off. I knew it was like, woah.

Smoke: 09:10

You know, something's completely wrong here. For me, it turned into, like, this hyper, independence streak of I I have to break away and I have to do it on my own. And it was very much a it formed a lot of what my ego, you know, became is, you know, going from this horrible frightening threatening situation with incongruousness around me to okay. If I excel in the world, whether it be in sports or in something in school or, you know, I can escape I can escape that world that I came from and but I can only do it by, like, beating everyone else. Like, it was a competitive thing that got like, somehow, like, that I that's how I translated it internally.

Smoke: 10:04

It served me well in many ways, you know, in my career as an entrepreneur and doing lots of things, but it didn't serve me in other ways because it was so it was so much of an ego mind centric kind of positioning where I couldn't trust anyone out there. So I the only one I could trust was myself, but I really didn't trust myself either.

Michael: 10:29

Yeah. It's a it's a tricky paradox, and I I think that I really appreciate the intention of this podcast to go deep and and to go nuanced. And I also wanna really, like, thread the depth with the application, you know, throughout our conversation so that it's really relevant because I think there might see knowing your story and knowing that you're a pioneer in a lot of your circles, and I certainly feel that way in my circles, to kind of weave it back to the practical as well. And I know you're probably gonna do this anyways, but I just felt the impulse for that. And I think that there's something about, I mentioned in the in the q and a beforehand that'll be in the notes around, like, you said, what's the shadow that you're working with right now?

Michael: 11:14

And I said control. And I also said that the shadows that I'm working with, I feel that we're all working with consciously or subconsciously. And my my experience is that when I'm a little person and I have these adults around me that are incongruent with their words and actions or what's actually an integrity and what they're what they're doing, I don't think, wow. My my mom or dad's messed up here. I think I'm messed up.

Michael: 11:43

I'm wrong. I'm being treated this way because I'm bad, and I'm abused in that, and I go into shame for that, and I'm out of control. So as soon as I get out of that, that fixed hierarchy of of big person, little person, I I notice in myself and others people that have ambition and people that are achievement oriented, It's all about reestablishing control. How do I I was out of control, so I'm gonna get in control through winning, and I'm gonna get in control through accumulation of resources and accumulation of external validation. But the issue that I find oftentimes when I'm working with CEOs is that even though if somebody has a good heart, if they're still motivated from this, I gotta be in control and I have to be right, even subconsciously, the words they're saying don't match up with their energy.

Michael: 12:36

They might have, like, I wanna create this really inclusive environment, but, unconsciously, they're like, I need to win, and I need to be right. And what I find is that incongruency, however subtle compared to the things that we're talking about from our parents and childhood, evokes that same lack of safety in other people from their childhood when the big people were incongruent with their words and actions. And so it's, it's a really high standard, I think, that you and I hold for what integrity and congruence really looks like, but good leadership and and generally out there isn't isn't that deep integrity between words, action, and energy, but it's still effective in getting results. It's just not effective in cultivating consciousness in people and and cultures.

Smoke: 13:24

I I love that. And there's no chance that we're not gonna get too practical, and I think this is this is really a great a great aspect of it. The the idea that you can go say something, but not but it not really be everything all the way down to your vibration, it was kinda foreign to me, honestly. Like, I didn't understand what you just said. I wouldn't have understood what you just said five years ago.

Smoke: 13:54

Now kind of at one level, I would. Right? Okay. Well, you gotta be consistent. But at another level, like, the fact that the energetic signature that we put out is what is true no matter what we say.

Smoke: 14:09

Did I didn't understand that. Like, I didn't understand, like, their their vibration is real. And so we can if we aren't consistent with our internal core values and kinda what's driving, what's our motivation, what's our intentions, and what we're saying externally in any situation, whether it's a conversation or it's leading a group or company, it doesn't matter what you say. People are gonna pick up on it at some level, some more directly than others, but everybody at some energetic level knows if you're being if what you're saying is integrous with what you mean.

Michael: 14:51

Yeah. Absolutely. And and I think what I found too for myself, you know, you were asking questions around mentorship and how do you receive guidance from others. And I've come to learn, and it's been so humbling, you know, because I was I was given a pretty good CPU above my shoulders, you know, and I can be successful in a lot of ways in academics and in business and so forth. But what was so humbling for me is that I could be checking all the things and all the metrics of am I in alignment here that I could see with my mind and my perception, and I could still be missing things.

Michael: 15:29

I could be sincere. I could be willing. I could be checking off all the boxes and still miss things. And and what I find is that when someone's charismatic and intelligent and carries influence, it's scary to give them feedback. You know?

Michael: 15:49

It's scary for people sometimes to give me feedback, or I've seen other people get oh, no. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open for feedback. But it's like, yeah.

Michael: 15:58

But is there actually an a space where somebody can fumble their way into something that they sense that's off, that they might not have clarity intellectually to name and pin down? And does my field welcome that? And do I reward that as a leader when somebody takes the risk even if it's imperfect? Or do does my unconscious defenses be like, well, I hear what you're saying, but, actually, I'm gonna counter it with this, that, and the other because it's not totally, you know, meets my standards.

Smoke: 16:30

Well, that's great. But, you know, we we lived it. Right? So I I invited you to give me input onto one of my first talks where I I shared kind of a little bit of my journey and some of the trauma and kind of what what I'm what I'm learning. I shared that with you.

Smoke: 16:48

I think I did a good job. You know, I felt pretty good about it, but I, like, I wanted feedback. And then you gave me feedback, which was at a level that no one else had given, which, you know, thank you. And then I did then then in preparation, it and some of the feedback was like, did that feel very good? It was like, like, I thought I did better than what I think I heard, but I understood it.

Smoke: 17:08

I sat with it a little bit. My instinct was to counter, like, yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but. Exactly what you're saying. And then fast forward, you know, I gave the YPO talks in Miami and then Istanbul, and I shared those with you after the fact, which I I did take in a lot of what you said and redid it. But it was still a canned TED like talk on stage because it so it was planned and and organized.

Smoke: 17:35

And you gave me some other feedback around that. And I found myself, you know, just wanting your feedback, but also resisting a bit. And you called it you even called it out at one of our conversations and not in a bad way. Just like, hey. I'm sensing that you asked for this.

Smoke: 17:50

I gave you this, but did, you know, did you really want it? And so I I can relate and lived experience, and and that's it's not it's not easy. You know?

Michael: 18:02

And one

Smoke: 18:02

of the hardest things as a leader in a position of of leadership, big organization, small organization, whatever, doesn't matter, is you have to be the person who's, like, setting the example that you're the reality is you're just a human also. That you're in that position for a reason, possibly, and or for sure, but, you know, there's lots of ways to get there. But it doesn't mean that people around you don't have tremendous things to give you, but you've gotta be able to receive it, and they have to feel