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 cata...