#165 Authenticity Begins Where Performance Ends

Today, I interview Jonathan Reynolds, who learned that voice isn’t something you perform, it’s something you live from. Growing up in a small town shaped by rigid roles and quiet expectations, Jonathan learned early on to silence parts of himself. But beneath that silence was a longing for truth, for freedom, and for something more real than what the world around him seemed to offer.

In this conversation, we explore how those early conditions shaped his relationship to voice and identity, and what began to shift as he started asking deeper questions. What does it really mean to speak from experience? What if voice isn’t just about expression, but about connection to something deeper within?

Jonathan shares what he discovered as he moved through rebellion, reflection, and eventually, mindfulness. His story invites us to consider that finding our voice might begin not with speaking—but with listening.

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Jonathan Reynolds is founder and CEO of Mindful Life, Mindful Work, Inc., a San Francisco-based leadership development company providing services that address the intersection of self-awareness and team performance. Since 1997, Jonathan has trained extensively in the discipline of mindfulness, and his work with leaders and teams emphasizes simple and practical ways to improve performance, efficiency, and workplace cultures by integrating mindfulness sensibilities.

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Find Jonathan here:
COMPANY WEBSITE: https://mindfullifemindfulwork.com/

MINDSET SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM: https://mindset-social.com/

PUBLIC EVENTS: https://mindfullifemindfulwork.eventbrite.com/

MINDSWELL MARKETPLACE: https://mindswellmarket.com/

MLMW NEWSLETTER: http://eepurl.com/geLWu1

Transcript

Transcript of Interview

Find Your Voice, Change Your Life Podcast

Podcast Host: Dr. Doreen Downing

Free Guide to Fearless Speaking: Doreen7steps.com

Episode # 165 Jonathan Reynolds

“Authenticity Begins Where Performance Ends”

(00:00) Doreen Downing: Hi, this is Dr. Doreen Downing, host of the Find Your Voice, Change Your Life podcast. For those of you tuning in today, I get to introduce you to a very special guest of mine. He’s one of my mentors.

As you know, my approach is much more about being authentic and mindful, and coming down into a deeper presence—into who you truly are—than it is about performance techniques. I would say that my friend today is somebody who not only believes in that but promotes mindful life and mindful work. In fact, that’s his business. Hi, Jonathan.

(00:42) Jonathan Reynolds: Great to be here, Doreen, and thanks for having me.

(00:45) Doreen Downing: Yes, and to be heard too. You certainly are that. Well, I’m going to read a bio you sent in, so people know what you're currently into.

Jonathan Reynolds is the founder and CEO of Mindful Life, Mindful Work Incorporated, a San Francisco-based leadership development company providing services that address the intersection of self-awareness and team performance. Since 1997, Jonathan has trained extensively in the discipline of mindfulness, and his work with leaders and teams emphasizes simple and practical ways to improve performance, efficiency, and workplace cultures by integrating mindfulness.

Well, I’m going to say that word again. Mindful sensibilities. I love that phrase. I’ve never really heard it as “sensibilities,” but that seems to be what we’re talking about—opening all of our senses and being sensible at the same time. Lots of meanings for that word, huh?

(01:56) Jonathan Reynolds: Yes, definitely, Doreen.

(01:58) Doreen Downing: Yes. Before I dive into the history—because that’s where we always like to start—I want to say a little about how I first found you.

I live in Marin County, and I was looking around for groups that promoted mindfulness. I found Jonathan, and he was leading a networking group.

Networking groups, for me, being introverted... I usually kind of cringe. I know to put the focus on the other person, but still, I have to be able to speak up and introduce, or at least promote, myself. That evening—oh my gosh—that evening, Jonathan started with a meditation where we all got quiet. It felt like the community started to gel on a deeper level.

When we went around to introduce ourselves, I felt my voice was natural. It was connected to my truth—what I really believe in terms of finding your voice and speaking up when you're afraid. I even got a really wonderful client out of that evening. So Jonathan, that’s how I met you.

(03:24) Jonathan Reynolds: Wow. What a wonderful beginning.

(03:25) Doreen Downing: Yes. What you facilitate, in terms of people becoming more aware and—well, this word we started with—sensitive, sensible, seems to be your gift. I’m really glad I get to be your friend and meet with you every week, as often as I can, to do meditation with you.

(03:51) Jonathan Reynolds: Well, the feeling is mutual, Doreen. I love getting to know you.

(03:55) Doreen Downing: Good, good. The listeners are going to get to know you today too.

I know it was the Midwest where you plopped onto this earth. But if you could begin by giving us a snapshot of what that family was like, because that’s where we first go: “Hello, world. Here I am. What do you think about me?” Right?

(04:17) Jonathan Reynolds: Yes. Thanks for the question.

I grew up in a small town in northeast Wisconsin, a town of under 10,000 folks. It was a shipbuilding town, very working class. My parents were attorneys, or in the legal profession, and I grew up in a pretty standard nuclear family in the 1970s.

It was a small town where everything seemed to be on autopilot. As a kid, I did things like fishing, playing baseball, riding bikes, just the things small-town people do. There was a lot of spaciousness, a lot of nature, and a lot of slow time, because there just was not much going on in a small town in the 1970s.

Of course, I received familial messages, but also, mostly, cultural messages around what it meant to be a man in the world. All of that came to bear in setting a foundation, some of which was really positive, and some of which was not so positive. I think it is always complex. It is always a blend. That was the beginning.

(05:36) Doreen Downing: All right, folks. Already, you can hear how wise he is. The fact that he just said what is not so positive and what is possible, that’s what I have learned from Jonathan: the acceptance of what is.

And that “not so positive” is why I think people tune in. They want to know, how was it not so positive? Because they are struggling. They want to find a way, and they listen to my guests so they can go, “Oh, yes, I understand. He came from that, and so did I,” or “That same kind of struggle.”

In terms of your voice in that kind of environment, it almost sounds idyllic, but I am sure it wasn’t. In terms of being able to speak up and have a voice when you were younger, let’s say ages 10, 12, 13. What was that like?

(06:36) Jonathan Reynolds: Yes, I mean, whether it was from my family—I am sure in part—but also from the culture at large in the small town, children were expected to be seen but not heard. They were expected to play but not be in the way.

That sends a message that what you have to say does not have value or does not have space to be shared and that has to go somewhere. Either you find creative outlets, which everybody does, and self-care or self-soothing practices, whether deliberately or just intuitively, or you rebel.

I was the middle of three children, and I became a little bit of the rebel in the family. Without a space to be me, you have to figure it out. And when you are young, you figure it out in ways that are not always skillful.

I did a lot of drinking in high school. That was pretty commonplace in the Midwest, in Wisconsin in the 1970s and 1980s. But you do what you can. We are all on this path, and we all try to do our best. Even though sometimes, the ways we try to get our needs met are not so skillful.

That was really the beginning—seeking freedom. I think that has been a core value and tenet for me. Freedom, free time, and spaciousness in general has been a lifetime practice.

(08:10) Doreen Downing: It sounds like the environment felt spacious to you. However, being couched between an older brother and a younger brother, that probably did not feel so spacious. Is that what you mean?

(08:23) Jonathan Reynolds: I mean, everybody has different family dynamics, of course. Whether the parents create space or not, I just grew up in a very traditional family where the father was a disciplinarian and the mother was a homemaker.

I would not say it was Leave It to Beaver, but there were elements of that for sure. We just fell into very standard family roles that were predetermined by the 1950s.

(08:52) Doreen Downing: When you look back now and go, “Ooh, that was the beginning of me starting to feel like I don't fit here,” when did that happen? Any stories about that?

(09:09) Jonathan Reynolds: I like to say some of my first meditation experiences were in the mornings before school. The household was chaotic, and after I was ready to go, just before we left, I would say, “Oh, I need to go up to my room to do one more thing.”

I would go up, sit on my bed, and close my eyes for about a minute—just to give myself a little bit of space and reset. I wanted to begin the day from a clear place. I did that very intuitively early on, whether it was because I was an introvert by nature or something else. I just knew I needed that quiet space in order to move forward in the best way possible.

(09:55) Doreen Downing: That is lovely imagining that. And the thread... it’s always been there. When we start our meditation programs—and I did not do it today—I usually say, “Let’s start with a breath,” at least to create a little bit of space.

Oh, Jonathan, thank you. That image of you taking that moment before school feels really important. I think listeners can take something from that. How we can all take a moment, any moment during the day. That already gives us a nugget of wisdom about how to be more present, more mindful, and how to take care of ourselves.

So, another question before we move on to journeying through life. When you went to school—and we are talking about voice here—in that kind of traditional setting, while already feeling like you wanted something a little different from that kind of lifestyle... what was high school like for you before you actually became an adult?

(11:09) Jonathan Reynolds: Yes. Even to roll back a little further, like in grade school, I was a very good student. There was not a lot of pressure from family. I mean, there was sort of an academic expectation, but not high achievement necessarily.

But I loved school. I loved learning. I was happy to spend a lot of time learning. I think that in some ways, that was a little bit of a distraction from a more afforded emotional life. I was glad to go there and sort of become intellectualized in some ways. We all know that's one way of coping with difficulty—to overthink it.

Once I recognized—and again, this was not deliberate, a lot of this recognition is in retrospect—but once I recognized that it wasn't sustainable, or that it was harming myself in some way to not know my sort of full embodied person, that's when I started drinking and started partying a lot and doing those sorts of things. Because I was looking for a distraction from an outlet that did not seem available.

By that, I mean the masculine models that I had received were not necessarily very tender, or thoughtful, or caring in a compassionate, feminine way. Not female, but actually feminine energetically. I thought that part of myself was not going to have space to be integrated, so I numbed it.

(12:49) Doreen Downing: Yes. Oh yes. That’s what we do.

I just noticed something about this thrill that it felt like you had—a thrill in learning. I would say that’s possibly also how you opened up other worlds for yourself. To see that there was more than this small-town life. Not that you were trapped in, but that you were existing in. But there was more. And that’s what I think we do when we read.

(13:24) Jonathan Reynolds: Yes. I had never really heard the word even—philosophy—until I was probably about 20. And once I found that there was a love of knowledge that was actually a practice, I just became a devourer of materials.

I went at least a year or two where I read almost a book a day. I just couldn’t get enough. And I designed my whole work life around having reading time, basically. That was after I graduated from college, actually.

(14:01) Doreen Downing: I think that is one of the threads I’m noticing. That curiosity and that interest. It happens that reading is a good way to open those doors, to see what else is out there.

So what else is out there? Let’s go to how you decided to not stay there and start a new life or start a different life.

(14:27) Jonathan Reynolds: Yes. I graduated from college, looked in the mirror, and I was feeling pretty depressed. If learning how to drive a car and balance my checkbook was all there was to life, I was going to have a very sad 80 years.

Toward the end of college, I started to ask people the question, “Who are you?” I asked them to answer in a way that they didn’t use normal descriptors, like where they were from, or their height, or their name. But to describe their awareness, really—in retrospect.

People were a little bit confused by that question. But for me, that became the central question of “Who am I?”

Which is, if we’ve studied any spiritual disciplines, that is the central question that lots of traditions sort of hold as the core. Yes, I became someone very interested in that answer. Between what is this thing that sees? What is it seeing? What is the process of seeing?

For me, it was also really central to integrate simplicity, because I found that in my own experience, this was really basic. Not basic as in rudimentary, but basic as in foundational.

(15:43) Doreen Downing: Yes. The beingness.

With you beginning to open yourself up to more of what is obviously possible in life, you stepped into a whole new environment. You moved out of that area, right? Where did you land?

(16:05) Jonathan Reynolds: I went to college for one year at a state school in Wisconsin, and then I transferred to a private school in Wisconsin for my final three years. Then I lived for a short time in Madison, Wisconsin.

Actually, first I moved to San Jose, California for six months. Then I moved back to where I had gone to finish my college and lived with a friend there. After that, I ended up in Madison, Wisconsin again and lived there for two separate two-year stints.

I used the university as a resource. I was not enrolled as a degree student, but I took classes pretty full-time for at least a year or two, just as part of a learning process.

(16:52) Doreen Downing: So, Jonathan, you have been on a journey to be authentic, to be aware, and to know truth. It feels like the beginnings were around reading a lot, and then those moments where you brought yourself back to a quiet time with yourself.

Then there was that question you started asking people: “Who are you?” That question still seems to be with you, in a way, is it?

(17:29) Jonathan Reynolds: I think that I have my answer.

(17:31) Doreen Downing: Yes. Okay, before we go there—hey folks, hold on, because we are going to get to what Jonathan and I are talking about today. It is about truth. It is about who we are essentially, as beings.

I'm going to take just a quick break, and we will be right back.

Hi, we are back with Jonathan Reynolds, my friend and actually neighbor. We are talking today about Jonathan’s journey to find himself and to find his voice.

Because a voice is not just something hanging out in the air. It is really inside of you somewhere. It is attached to something. Is it attached to your thought? Are you speaking from your thought? Are you speaking from your heart? Are you speaking from your beingness?

I think that awareness and mindfulness play a part in knowing how to listen to yourself and knowing where your words are coming from. Words are energy, and words have meaning. Are we aware of what that is all about?

We’re back now. Hi, Jonathan.

(18:43) Jonathan Reynolds: Hi. Great to be back.

(18:44) Doreen Downing: Yes. So now that we’ve journeyed into the past and started to open up your future as someone who's a deep inquiry person...

You laughed just before the break when we talked about the idea of knowing who we are. Let’s go there now—unless there’s something else about your history and voice you might want to say about finding your voice.

(19:16) Jonathan Reynolds: I think there’s a million things. One of the things that I studied at UW Madison was metaphysics, which is not the metaphysical element we might find in new age stores. It’s a philosophical branch that studies self, soul, substance, and God.

That was a big foundation for me—how we experience reality.

Around voice, I just want to say... I think it was Patanjali, the author of the Yoga Sutras, who said something to the effect of, we can measure our own growth by listening to the quality and tone of our own voice. That became a very central piece for me.

I fell in love with things like chanting and other modes of expression. I consider most of my work to be as a translator of subtle experience. Of course, the way we translate is through words—speaking and writing. That’s part of the reason we’re talking here. It's so central to the work that you do, this personal growth piece.

(20:23) Doreen Downing: That phrase—"a translator of subtle experience"—wow.

(20:28) Jonathan Reynolds: Mm-hmm.

(20:29) Doreen Downing: I had to repeat that so it could resonate out into the world.

Those of you who are listening today, make sure you Google Jonathan Reynolds. You have a YouTube channel, right?

There are so many ways you can continue to listen to what Jonathan offers in terms of sensitivity to life, who we are, and how we experience ourselves in this world.

I am so moved and touched by just listening to you. I think I could stop asking questions and simply say, “Go, Jonathan,” and you could just take us down a path.

(21:15) Jonathan Reynolds: That’s what you ask for.

(21:18) Doreen Downing: But I am going to ask you a few more questions, because...Let’s go back to this idea you mentioned. You said you were doing some studying and came up with this beautiful phrase—how you see yourself as a translator of subtle experiences.

Say more about that. Let’s see what opens up when you consider that as one of your purposes for being.

(21:45) Jonathan Reynolds: I think, yes. I think part of the way we make meaning is based on how we articulate the experiences we have.

Because on a world scale, English is a relatively new language, it has limitations. If any of us have studied other languages, we find that some languages have 30 words for taste, whereas English might have only 10.

When it comes to things that are psychological or experiential, we may have even fewer words. I think the capacity to articulate or give words also gives meaning and scaffolding to digest subtle experiences.

It’s like experiences are draped over concept in a metaphorical sense. But if we don’t have the concepts, or the subtle language, it’s hard to digest what happened.

So I think it’s really helpful to have somebody who has been exploring for a while to help do that for us.

(22:57) Doreen Downing: Where that takes me is into the listening. There’s a way to listen more deeply, without bringing agenda to a conversation, especially when we’re listening to really get what’s happening for somebody in a more subtle way. That could be around their emotions, or even just what’s going on physically.

You can ask, “Oh hi, what’s going on?” and the person might say, “I don’t know what’s going on.” But for you, being a listener, I think that’s where the gift is—to listen deeply.

(23:42) Jonathan Reynolds: Hmm. Years ago, I had started a nonprofit called Learning to Listen.

(23:47) Doreen Downing: Uh-huh.

(23:47) Jonathan Reynolds: It was all about exactly what you’re saying—that capacity to listen, both relationally and also with that inner ear, with that inner listening.

(23:57) Doreen Downing: Yes. Then the hearing of what you’ve listened to inside yourself. There’s the speaking of it.

(24:09) Jonathan Reynolds: Mm-hmm.

(24:11) Doreen Downing: Right?

(24:11) Jonathan Reynolds: Mm-hmm.

(24:13) Doreen Downing: Then come the hesitations—because of what we’ve learned. Like what you learned early on about being a man, for example.

Those are the constrictions. The ways we hold back what we’ve listened to inside of ourselves, which is something about truth. When we know how to listen to layers of truth, I guess it really is layers, it’s not just one truth. Let me ask, do you think there’s just one truth?

(24:54) Jonathan Reynolds: I think that everybody’s experience is true. And they can be very different from each other.

As experiential beings, we receive even objective reality through the filter of our experience. That’s part of the reason why I love phenomenology. I think that’s where the answers lie for each person.

(25:14) Doreen Downing: The answers lie in...

(25:16) Jonathan Reynolds: In relating to truth. There was a book years ago called Theories of Truth by Tarci, I believe, that I studied in a philosophy class. It addressed a lot of these issues around whether truth is made by concept, or by social agreement. For me, it’s subjective and phenomenological.

(25:39) Doreen Downing: Yes. Definitely. For me, it feels subjective in its essence. Some kind of feeling. But that’s part of how we arrive there.

Let’s go back to that question, “Who are you?” because I think that’s where we are right now. We had this great big smile about it, and you said, “I think I found the answer.” Let’s go there. We’ve still got some time.

(26:08) Jonathan Reynolds: Yes. First, I just want to touch a little bit on voice coming out of experience, because I think that’s a really important component.

For me, in this conversation for instance, I’m not talking about my childhood. I’m talking from the experience of my childhood. That’s a really important distinction. I’m not like a scientist studying it from the outside or remembering it as if it’s some distant or disconnected part of me. I’m touching into my body-based sensations around what it was for me—and what it still is in this moment—and then I’m verbalizing it.

I think you can hear in someone’s voice whether they’re talking about something and it’s just a mental activity, or whether they’re speaking from their experience. When they are, it feels much more authentic. I know that’s at the crux, or core, of your work too. That’s such an important distinction. If you’re ever talking to someone and your eyes glaze over and you can’t stay with them, it’s probably because they’re not tapped into their authenticity.

I like to say, why would anyone believe anything I’m saying unless I believe it? And the only way I can believe it is if I’m connected to it. Otherwise, it’s just me talking to talk.

(27:29) Doreen Downing: Oh, I’m applauding. I just feel like yes, yes, yes. Not just a feeling. It's true. What you said about experience, and how it relates to voice, that’s powerful. A voice is a felt experience. It’s not just about words. The question becomes, where are those words coming from?

I think you just answered it. If they’re coming from a felt sense of an experience, of a truth, then there’s so much more realness to it. That’s what we’re seeing.

(28:10) Jonathan Reynolds: Yes. I think it directly relates to the question around identity.

Everybody identifies or creates their identity in various ways and on different levels. As far as what serves in this context, I’m the one being interviewed and you’re the interviewer. That’s part of our identity in this context. So there’s conventional identities, and then there’s essential or ultimate identities.

For me, the only ultimate identity is awareness. That ultimately is each of our identities. Part of what we do when we practice relating to awareness is we recognize that we don’t actually create awareness. It’s just something that’s always there that we tap into. It’s available, and it’s always present. Sometimes we mask it or confuse it or layer over too much conventional identity.

We all need conventional identity. We’re in a physical world where we relate together and we have to get our work done, and we have to be in relationship to others. But when that’s connected to, or informed or infused by, our ultimate identity—which again, in my experience has borne out as pure awareness—then everything we do is informed by that information, or that relationship, or that expression.

I’m open to that changing, or my definition changing, if new direct experience reveals otherwise. I just haven’t seen it in three decades of practice.

(29:46) Doreen Downing: Oh, fabulous. I feel like I got my answer.

Hey folks, did you hear that? It was really fabulous to have Jonathan anchor in the sense of awareness being what is truth. And how—I mean, it’s just so layered, isn’t it? The sense. But it’s also, it’s also so clear. Just absolute awareness is not anything other than here. And then we’re talking about presence.

(30:18) Jonathan Reynolds: When I was studying truth in the early days of my philosophy studying, everyone seemed to think the truth was hard to find. So everybody was looking for truth.

Then I realized, oh, the reason nobody can find truth is because everything’s true. Everything’s true in the degree and to the quality and in the way that it is true. Once you really sort of make that internal pivot, and it’s not a cognitive pivot, but it’s a felt sense, embodied pivot, you’re like, oh, I’m done looking for truth. Truth is everything.

You can’t see anything but truth. Now the way that you interpret it, or the way that you digest it, there’s a science called hermeneutics, which is a study of interpretation. That falls—I mean, part of my exposure to that came through study of Buddhism.

So how we actually make meaning from it or interpret it then determines whether it’s going to be useful or helpful to our growth in some way that we want.

But yes, truth is everywhere. Truth is not hard to find. Even if somebody’s lying—well, the truth of what they’re saying is they’re lying. There’s a truth in that.

On a conventional or superficial level, the stuff they’re saying isn’t valid. But that doesn’t mean that there’s not an embodied being truth about what’s unfolding.

(31:45) Doreen Downing: Yes. In the moment, and noticing.

So we're coming to an end, and I want to make sure that people get a chance to find you. I also want to open up these last few minutes to whatever seems to be arising at this point, after our conversation here today. So, Mindful Life, Mindful Work dot... what was the—

(32:16) Jonathan Reynolds: MindfullifeMindfulwork.com is our root website.

Maybe for your listenership, I would think that Mindset Social, our new mindful social media platform, which is MindsetSocial.com, might be a really good starting place if they want to integrate these sorts of sensibilities into their life and work.

There are a million other places. We're on all social media. Yes, find us and connect.

(32:45) Doreen Downing: Mindset Social is a free networking place so that we gather and we have events. There are also books that people sell. It's just a really fabulous, growing network of people committed to mindful life and mindful work.

So, Jonathan, here we are at our moment of coming to a close of this time together. What comes through for final words that you are listening to?

(33:24) Jonathan Reynolds: What I’ve found most important is beginning. What’s hardest for folks is to begin a practice of self-awareness, because we can be really hard on ourselves.

I think it's important for everyone to know that everyone who has practiced—no matter how long they’ve practiced—started as a new beginner. I've been meditating for a long time, but I like to say that for about the first three years, I pretended to meditate. Because that's how people start. Nobody knows what they’re doing in the beginning.

You just think there's some value there. It’s about running the experiment, being committed to the experiment, surrounding yourself with other people that are interested in it.

It can be really difficult, but when you step into the new way of being, there are others there who are kind and will want to support you on your practice path.

(34:19) Doreen Downing: That’s beautiful. The step into a new way of being. I might just title our episode Stepping Into a New Way of Being. Thank you so much, Jonathan.

(34:32) Jonathan Reynolds: Wonderful. Thank you for having me, Doreen.

(34:34) Doreen Downing: Yes. Bye for now.