Be It Till You See It

In this episode, Jessica Vann talks about her journey to become a successful entrepreneur despite facing many challenges in her personal and professional life. She shares her inspiring story of how she overcame self-doubt and financial struggles to launch her own business, and how she has continued to grow and thrive in the face of adversity. The episode is packed with practical tips and advice for anyone looking to start their own business, including how to find the right mentor, how to stay motivated, and how to deal with setbacks and failures. Jessica's upbeat and optimistic attitude is infectious, and her story will leave listeners feeling inspired and empowered to pursue their own dreams and passions. Overall, this is a must-listen episode for anyone looking to start a business or overcome obstacles in their personal or professional life.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] .

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• OPC is getting a mobile app!
• Why you want to use the Magic Number Calculator
• The signs that you’re not happy with yourself
• How to be kind to yourself and your journey
• Don’t judge yourself when you’re in a bad place.
• Letting go of the presuppositions of how life is supposed to be.
• The importance of getting to know your body.

Episode References/Links:

• OPC App Waitlist
• Lesley Logan’s Pilates Mentorship, eLevate
• PP Magic Number Calculator

Guest Bio:

Jess Vann (she/her) is a multi-careered woman who is a Podcast host of "Tomfoolery and Shenanigans" actor, speaker, entrepreneur, singer, all while maintaining a full-time job that focuses on service learning and civic engagement that mobilizes folks to change! She is originally from Lansing, Michigan but calls Chicago home. She received a B.S. in Theatre and Interpretation: Acting from Central Michigan University and a M.A in Training and Development from Roosevelt University. Jess has been the guest on Black Educators Matter Podcast, Feature Article with National After School Association, After School Today and a featured blog with The Chicago Inclusion Project, May 2019.

She balances her time running her business Creative Spaces, which provides arts based, anti- racism/social Justice work, leadership and professional development workshops/keynotes/coaching and consulting for emerging and veteran leaders in various work sectors and coaching. It would be safe to say she wears many hats and continues to find self-discovery.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.

Be It Till You See It Podcast Survey

Use this link to get your Toe Sox!

Resources

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!
• Lesley Logan website
• Be It Till You See It Podcast
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube
• Profitable Pilates

Social Media

• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

Transcript:

Lesley Logan 01:01

Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It interview recap where my co host in life, Brad, and I are going to dig into the multifaceted convo I had a Jessica Vann and our last episode. If you haven't yet, listen to that interview feel free to pause this now or go back and then come back. Or go back and join us. Come in. Listen to the order however you want. This is a really fun interview because she is a friend. And we we met a summer ago. But...

Brad Crowell 01:56

Was only one?... (Lesley: Yeah) Wow... (Lesley: I know) feels like we're known for a long time. 

Lesley Logan 02:00

I know, I know it's because we like random. We'd like to hang out with her again, like probably more often than some (...)

Brad Crowell 02:06

l love this circuit

Lesley Logan 02:08

And also like to be on the journey of her whole condo and all this stuff. So we definitely have had a nice journey with her. But yes, I think it was only one summer ago. I know super crazy. So what's fun about that interview we'll talk about in a bit is like we got to get into a lot of different topics about a life of hers. And I really enjoy that I think you can glean a lot from like, listen to someone else's story. But before we get into Jess Vann interview, first, we are so so close to kicking off our OPC members only challenge is the first time we're doing a members only challenge we've done the challenges before many of you are like where's the 100? Me? Well, guess what? It's with the members. That's where we're doing it. And so think 80s Members Only jacket, that's what I'm talking about. So. So if you are like, Oh, I missed an OPC challenge, well then come to OPC. And the OPC app is basically, it's happening, people.

Brad Crowell 03:04

Surprise! If you didn't know, OPC is getting an app... (Lesley: Yeah) We're really fired up about it, it's actually going to include a bunch of free content in there as well as access to paid memberships, of course. But it's going to be a really great resource. It's kind of going to be a one stop shop. And guess what... (Lesley: what?) you'll be able to listen to the podcast... (Lesley: on the OPC app?) on the OPC app... (Lesley: That's so fun) Yeah. So when you are listening to the pod, instead of wherever it is, you'll see now you can actually go into the app, which will be all things OPC and LL and all that kind of stuff, all rolled up into one spot. And you can listen to the pod right in there.

Lesley Logan 03:44

Good. So cool. I love that. What a surprise for me too. So check it out, the OPC app! Do you have a link?

Brad Crowell 03:51

Well, no, it's not out yet. It will be out in like about two weeks. So this is an announcement. It's coming

Lesley Logan 03:57

out about to publicly launch (...)

Brad Crowell 04:00

If you are an OPC member already, we will be emailing you. Of course! If you're not an OPC member, that's totally fine... (Lesley: You can get the app) But you can still get the app because it's free content... (Lesley: You can listen to the pod) you can listen to the pod. Just go to opc.me/app and we'll put you on a little waitlist and we'll let you know when we're also emailing all the members to let them know to go download it. 

Lesley Logan 04:21

Yeah, so I'm excited about this. It's a lot of fun. And we get to like make changes along the way. And you know what we could have been just like a website, it's ever going to be growing and changing and improving but we wanted an app for a really long time. Finally, eLevate Three is about to kick off in one month and at the time that this comes out there may still be some spots left. So you will want to go to lesleylogan.co/elevate If you're wondering what the hell is eLevate? It's not an elevator? although I do call the people in the eLevate group elevators. I love it. Elevate is a mentorship for Pilates instructors. You have to have done a somewhat comprehensive pilates training so at least the Mat, Reformer, Cadillac/Tower, Wunda Chair, and the rest of it I'm okay if your training didn't have that in there, we'll do a deep dive with that together. But it is we only like 12 people in the first two rounds are sold out, the third round as we speak, as we're recording this, there's a couple spots left. But by the time this comes out, it could be full, round for won't start till 2024. Because that works out that way, round for, 2024. I like the way that number works. So and again, we only take 12 people every round. So you're definitely going to want to get in on a round that you can get a spot on. So Lesleylogan.co/elevate If you are ready to connect more to your practice to your teaching to the connection to this method and have some confidence while doing it. It's for you.

Brad Crowell 05:40

It's totally for you. Yeah. All right. So this week, we had a different type of audience question. Normally, it's about like your practice, or you know, just fun things about life or whatever. But this one was like, totally a business question for people teaching corporate math classes. So if you're a teacher, and you wanted to get into, you know, like, what if you could, you know, get paid to go into a local company and teach there.

Lesley Logan 06:06

My friend used to teach at Sony every single week, and some of them taught at Paramount, like it was a whole thing. And I think they even like taught enough fitness classes there that they got insurance and I was approached to teach at Google. And I was like, oh, yeah, let me know in the West would want opens up and then COVID and we moved. But whether or not you're an in place teacher, the answer to this question, if you are in the service industry, or you work for yourself, this answer is going to apply. And so first of all, I don't know where you live, I don't know what you do. I don't know how many people and there's not enough information. And also, for me to give specific coaching on you'd have an agency member, however, the answer we give to every single person asked us how much do I charge for blank, it doesn't really matter what the blank is, you need to use our magic calculator tool, this is a free tool, you can go to profitablepiltes.com. And you can go to the free resources. And at the top, you'll see magic calculator... (Brad: Yep) And if you work for yourself, you'll pick that solo one. And you will fill in the blanks, there'll be some questions you have to ask specifically, like how much money you want to make any year gross. That means like in considering all your expenses, all your taxes, your profits, all that stuff in one lump sum, and then I'm gonna ask you a series of other questions, you'll fill that out, it's gonna spit out a number. Then if you got my book, where I'm sure you can find that on profitablepilates.com. Or you can get a paperback on Amazon. You're going to see there's a whole chapter that I have on charging for things like traveling to teach, because it is not just about your hourly rate is this magic number is it's going to have to include travel.

Brad Crowell 07:39

Yeah. But basically, you know, we can set you up to figure out what is the rate you should be charging with these tools that are already available to you right now, the magic number calculator is totally free, we encourage you to go to the site right now and just log in and use it. And it will help you clarify what you should be charging not only for the corporate thing, but your other rates for your other products as well. So whether you're teaching private sessions, or duets, or whatever it may be, this will really help you. And then we offer coaching after the fact if you're if you're not quite sure what you need to be doing with it, then you can join us an agency and we're happy to work really dig deep into your magic number with you. In fact, it's literally my favorite thing to do. I love this coaching call because I find it so revealing. And the thing that lights my fire is when people go, Wait, how much am I already making today? I didn't even realize that. And all I need to do are these steps and I can be making this other number, right? And it's really fun for me to like break it all down in a numerical way where you can logically look at things and go, Holy shit, I'm actually amazing. I love that. So anyway, that's why you should go just use the free magic number calculator on the profit body site. It'll help you dial all that stuff in. So amazing. Great question.

Brad Crowell 09:28

All right. Now let's talk about Jessica Vann, a woman who wears many hats. Jessica Vann is an actor, singer, podcast host and entrepreneur who also maintains a full time job working with civic engagement to build a more equitable and anti racist world. Jess is a ball of energy and pa... and she's passionate about sharing her journey through creative spaces, social justice and leading self discovery.

Lesley Logan 09:53

Yeah, I mean, like really multifaceted is the best word for her and I it's also really cool to see how someone can take different skill sets they have, and bring them along to other things that they're doing. And it's and also, you know, I think there's an interesting balance that we'll talk about as we go through this. So we're changing up a little bit this week, as well have a little bit more of an outline of what last episode was, and a few talking points. So if you remember just shared about how she went from Queen of the Chicago Hill, to being totally burned out, setting back and then finally, recap, recalibrating. So she can get back to being the badass, you know, she is, and she is such a badass, and she is just like, amazing. So we talked for about three things, one, identifying the problem. So specifically, the signs of mental health decline, which, by the way, so many studies are coming out that like, specifically teenage girls are like at the lowest mental health, like, like mental happiness levels ever. 

Brad Crowell 10:50

The pandemic, I mean, there's so many things coming up.

Lesley Logan 10:52

I mean, it's just all the things which, which was one of the reasons why OPC is now sponsoring a charity that helps with anti bullying. But also like just and then you go in general, just look at the rest of the age groups are like, Oh, we're all definitely doing terribly bad when it comes to our mental health. So I think it couldn't be more important for us to understand how to identify the problem number two, recalibrating aka taking a step back. And then number three, the work you do to get good with yourself again, and whatever that means to you like you. And I think like, I think too often we spend so much time trying to get good with other people. And ourselves. Yeah. So anyways, Brad, why don't you dig into like some of the stuff and then we can go back to those three points.

Brad Crowell 11:33

Yeah, so those three big outline points here. But a quick recap on her story, right? So, Jess has been holding this full time job for a long time. She's lived in Chicago for 20 years, she was also doing consulting on the side helping companies with, like business development, and also like Leadership Development Team organizational structure, development, some HR stuff. And then when 2020 happened, and there was a demand some these massive demand for DEI consulting, she got very involved in that world, to the point where she felt like it was taking over her life. In fact, she felt like she was being pulled along, instead of leading the way that she normally was. And she was losing herself in that. And it was causing a lot of stress and depression and, you know, internal turmoil. And so I don't know if she was able to like, place a finger on it and identify the problem. But she did identify the problem. And then she did actually take a step back, and then she then she worked on herself again. And those those things are pretty amazing. And that's why we kind of wanted to run through each of those points, instead of just pulling out to smaller topics to talk about, I thought this was an amazing, like, I mean, there's a multi year journey that she went on here.

Lesley Logan 13:01

Yeah, and I and first of all, it's like something I wish every guests would like do sometimes like, so tell me about this. And they're like, here are three bullet points of all the things and I'm like, I think there was more in there. And they're like, Oh, it was great. And it's like, okay, but like so I really loved her vulnerability here. But she talked about, like, you know, certain notice, like negative self talk. And you guys, I bet there's a time you can remember you didn't talk negatively to yourself, I bet it doesn't have to be like the longest years of time. But I bet you there have been moments in your life where you weren't doing that. And if you start to notice that it's like adding up and it's becoming more of a thing. That is a sign that you're you're not a happy camper in where you're at.

Brad Crowell 13:36

Especially to with her the negative self talk was around things that she formerly was like, super passionate about. Like she went on to a, an audition, and she just shredded herself after the audition was over. And in fact, she said while she was on stage dancing and singing, she was like seeing herself from a third party perspective saying, you know, you're fucking it all out. What are you doing? This is the worst. I can't believe you're doing this. And she's like, whoa, like, clearly I'm not getting this audition. But what the heck? Well, this is not how I am. 

Lesley Logan 13:57

You know, this actually brings me back to Dr. Bender's most recent episode where she talked about like, reasoning, like we try to reason and what I what I think I like about just like taking, like noticing the signs and then taking that step back to recalibrate it. It's, it would be easy for her to go Oh, auditioning makes me have negative self talk. But it it wasn't the actual, like she came into the audition to do something she loved. And then she started having negative self talk. So could have been the audition or could have been everything surrounding that what she was going through at that same time. So I think it's really important that it's that to also to say that identifying the problem doesn't mean that were the acute. It's kind of like your body, right? So I want to tangent. If you have pain in the front of your shoulder. The problem is not in the front of your shoulder. The problem is in the back of your shoulder. So Tip too often I think we we are so quick to like, identify what the problem is by like she could have so easily been like, oh, auditions make me talking to myself. I'm no longer auditioning. But instead, she like took that bigger step back and she started to notice the signs and figure out what these were. And then that allowed her to like, really start to take a look at things and figure out and it's an experiment, you're gonna be like, oh, when you do a little more over here, maybe do a little bit more over here. And you have to be kind to yourself and that journey and that recalibration.

Brad Crowell 15:31

Yeah, I mean, she also said she couldn't follow up or show up through with tasks, what's normally she's like, she she knows, I'm a leader, I execute and I get shit done. And she said she was really struggling to do that. She said, she felt like she was at the point of exhaustion all the time. She also said somehow, in the mix of it all, she was just saying, "Yes," to everything. And she's like, I literally should have been saying no to some of the stuff. But I was saying yes, because it was also, you know, like, she didn't actually say this. But I know like, when you're in demand, you know, it also strokes, your ego. It feels good. When everyone's like, I need you to help me, I need you to help me, I need you. And you're like, sure pay me. Here's my rates. And they're saying yes, yes. 

Lesley Logan 16:13

Yes. You tart to worry. Especially when you work for yourself, you start to worry that if you stay no, that though maybe it'll stop.

Brad Crowell 16:21

Especially in the acting world. That's exactly what everybody talks about. 

Lesley Logan 16:24

I mean, you, Jennifer Lawrence, how many years did she freaking film before she's like, I'm not filming for two years, I'm actually going to go marry someone and I'm going to like have a child but I'm going to do these things. And she'll completely stop. Yeah, she did, like disappear. And like, that would that's a that's you don't want to get to the point where you have to like literally stop everything, you know, so to get a recalibration.

Brad Crowell 16:46

Yeah. And I thought something was really that was really amazing was she actually was able to I don't know if in the moment again, but looking back on that she said she was being pulled by the momentum of the path, instead of leading as she normally does. And she was she felt lost in that. And that actually led to depression.

Lesley Logan 17:07

Yeah, oh, I mean, it just it just, well, of course, of course, you're going to be depressed, if you start to lose yourself as

Brad Crowell 17:15

Well, she also probably didn't feel in control, you know, like, but, but I, I suppose for me, this is really personal. Because I had a, I was in I was married before, right? And my ex kept saying to me, you need to slow down, you need to slow down, you slow down, you move so fast, fast, fast. And, you know, I know myself, I do move fast. I try to pack too many things in one day, all these things. So I embraced this idea as like my like, like a life embrace. And over, like, over like a year, I really started to slow things down. And I began to watch TV more. And I began to come home and make dinner more and all this kind of stuff. And and I did that for like a number of years. And then when our relationship ended, I didn't remember who I was. All I knew was I hated myself, I hated who I become. I was like, I did not feel like Brad. I didn't feel confident. I wasn't doing music. I wasn't doing anything. I wasn't going out. I wasn't meeting people. I like was not myself anymore. And it was really dark. And I didn't know, I didn't even realize that I had gotten to that point. You know, and it was like way past a healthy balance of slowing down. 

Lesley Logan 18:31

I think that's actually fairly normal. Like y'all, if you're, if you listen to this, and you're like, oh, this I like really resonate with this. It's, it's like a frog in the boiling water. You don't put the frog in the boiling water, you just slowly turn the heat up. And so that's what is happening. And often it's like you're boiling by the time you're like, fuck, who am I? So if that is you, or that's been you, please don't judge yourself. Like sometimes it takes getting to that point to just really go whoa, like the universe was tapping on you. It was like going Hello, hello, stop. Don't say yes to that. And like trying to get your attention. And sometimes we get in the way, our ego you said it's the way the people pleaser in us can get in the way all these different things can happen. And so if you end up on the other side, we're like, I don't know who I am anymore. You're not alone. You you you can find it. And also, you're going to find the better if you actually take this the time to repeat to to identify the problem like she had and then recalibrate and then do the work, do the work to get back with yourself. You will actually come back better than ever. This year is the 10th year where I like blew my life up and I'm going to tell you right now, thank fucking god, I did that. Thank goodness I got to that rock bottom because I don't know if I had only gotten like one level down if I would have had done the work that I had to do the climb out to get to a different view of the life I wanted to live and so on. So truly, like, don't, don't be too hard on yourself, if that happened to you, because it can actually, you can actually become the best version of yourself on on the way out.

Brad Crowell 20:07

Yeah. Well, let's move on to the next big step, which she did, which was stepping back, right? So, recalibrating, when she really identified, you know that she was in a bad space. She did something that I thought listening to her story was pretty dramatic, like, pretty drastic, but absolutely the right thing to do. She started saying no, she put things she paused a lot of things. Even so the things that normally would have fueled her before she stopped doing such as reaching out to all of her friends and organizing events and going out to dinners and bars and stuff. She just said, You know what I need? Now I need to not do that like that, you know, like there needs to be. And she she set these boundaries into place. And she said she stopped seeking clients, she stopped pouring into her personal relationships, she was rethinking even the products that she began to offer as a consultant. Right? And then really, she dialed everything back to where she could focus on two things. Number one was her actual full time job where, obviously she's getting paid. And number two was working on herself. You know, and I think, you know, that that is really amazing to be able to, I mean, that's so hard, right? You like, what are you like, hey, why don't you go out for dinner on a Friday night? No. Oh, okay. You know, like, those kinds of things, or, Hey, we're all gonna go for a hike, you know, if somebody else is inviting you, or if you are the leader, which she's a leader, you basically stop being the person, the point person to coordinate the group, you know, that can be there's a lot of that can be a lot of fear, right? That's your identity, almost, you know, like, this is who I am, this is what I do. This is how I operate. And then she dramatically changed those things because she needed to.

Lesley Logan 22:01

Yeah, yeah. And that's okay, get to do what you need to do.

Brad Crowell 22:04

Yeah. And I thought there was something really interesting in that, that he didn't want to talk about before you go into point three, which was she had, she had these presuppositions of where she was supposed to be, how she was supposed to be living all this stuff. And she had, she had to let go of those things. And this is also like, this is a massive thing to identify, right? In her, in her teens, and early 20s self she was, like, course, I'm getting married, and I'm gonna have kids, you know, and she's like, 35, who the hell knows what, like, 35 I'm gonna be old and dying, right? And today, she's older than 35. And she said, I'm not married with kids, and I don't have a house, in the suburbs, all these things that I, I expected out of life, or I thought was just how it was gonna go. That didn't happen. And so, you know, like, how do you live with that? Do you beat yourself up over that? Do you feel like you're behind? Do you feel like you're failing? Or can you actually let go of that story that we've been telling ourselves that like, this is what life is quote unquote, supposed to be? Like? What? Who? Who defines that? Like, is that really something we've taken with us from childhood all the way to today?

Lesley Logan 23:22

I mean, I think that that really lends itself to the next point which is like, under the like, do the work to get good with yourself it's like she said, figure it relation to things that you love or loved. You have to like, like you have to do the you know, runaway bride think... try all the fucking eggs. Do you really still like a scramble? Do you like them over easy? Do you like them poached? And then figure out your relationship with your passion or your job? And then ask yourself Are you mentally and physically ready to embrace your passions again, because it is a muscle like if you used to be really passionate movement and then you just stop moving, you have to be kind yourself you can't just like go back and do the runs used to do you're gonna be so sore the next day and then you're gonna feel bad about yourself so you know something like and that's an that's a very literal one but like can also be like an analogy like go in it and really test and ask yourself like, how is this working out for me? And the more we can actually get to know ourselves the easier it is for us to the easier is for us to like truly be able... Do you know when we say yes to something that's a true yes and and know that it's like yeah, that's a no no confidence in that? And then also like just so some this whole point, it's like be yourself and not to be yourself is going to take time to know yourself.

Brad Crowell 24:34

Yeah, and I but I think that Well, you just said the the thing to be yourself, you have to know yourself. And you know the time that she gave herself by setting boundaries by saying no, by focusing on only her work and herself. It allowed her to get to know herself, so that she could actually revisit even the story she told herself have I'm a creative. Is she still a creative? Did she still want to be creative after that experience? Well her answer, you know, she came back to yes, that is what feeds her. But, maybe the answer is no.

Lesley Logan 25:11

Yeah, yeah. And that's okay too, you know?

Brad Crowell 25:14

All right. Let's talk about those Be It Action Items what bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted action items can we take away from your convo with Jessica Vann? Why don't you jump in here? Because I am so good at her Be It Action Items that it wouldn't make sense for me to talk about

Lesley Logan 25:51

Yeah, no. No. So (...) Rest, oh my gosh, rest everyone, you know, we're gonna have an episode coming up with the Brain Profits and rest, Brad, is not going away. We in fact, last night, at the time recording this, I was like, no, like, I don't want you with dementia, you have to sleep more. So I was on annual dramatic eyes. Listen to your body. This goes very much back with a point number three like to be yourself, you have to know yourself, which means you have to listen to your body. Listen to it. And there's actually things that your body is going to do. There's gonna be physical reactions going to have, there's actually like, in holistic medicine, you can if you hold at least for at least my friend Karina, she holds something that our body wants, her body will lean forward, if she holds, her body doesn't want her body will lean back. So like getting really good at like listening to your body. And then she finally said at the end of the day, we are vessels. We are vessels and they need to be filled. And some of the strongest things that we need to do is fill it with rest... (Brad: Yeah) so I just, I thought that was such most people are like, here's all these things you can go do to Be It Till You See It and she's like, you gotta sleep.

Brad Crowell 27:03

Yeah, sleep and you know, eat, sleep, listen to your body, you know, all those kinds of things. Not my forte that's for sure.

Lesley Logan 27:12

We're working on it... (Brad: Yeah) we're Being It Until We See It. It's your forte, Brad.

Brad Crowell 27:19

I love it. I love the irony.

Lesley Logan 27:24

Well, Jess, thank you so much for being a guest of ours. I'm Lesley Logan,

Brad Crowell 27:28

and I'm Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 27:30

We're just so freaking grateful for you. I hope you're enjoying these episodes and by the way I did you notice we added some things at the very end... (Brad: we did) we did, if you've ever wanted to be a fly on the wall this room, we are letting that option happen for you. And you don't even have to turn into a fly to hear what's going on... (Brad: just stick around to the end) just stick around to the end and you're gonna hear some fun outtakes and also just like truly really like I am so imperfect and I hope you've enjoyed that and it gives you permission. How you would use these tips in your life? We want to know tag the Be It pod, for this episode you can tag Jess Vann. She also is like so fun to watch on her reels I really enjoy them. And send this to a friend, ask us questions to the Be It pod if you want us to answer it here on the next recap and until next time, Be It Till You See It. 

Brad Crowell 28:10

Bye for now.

Tune in for a multifaceted conversation about a creatives journey through chasing her passion in entrepreneurship, art, and a full time job that is making societal change. If anything it my be a reminder that no ones path is linear but continual self discovery and holding to your foundations makes all the difference. 

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] .

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• Do not give up the foundation of who you are 
• The signs of mental health decline 
• The healthy reason for leading 
• Leading with heart instead of societal factors 
• How you recalibrate and find your center
• Importance of investigating your relationship to your passion vs your job
• Define what you’re aligned with 
• How to disassociate for personal growth

BIO 

Jess Vann (she/her) is a multi-careered woman who is a Podcast host of "Tomfoolery and Shenanigans" actor, speaker, entrepreneur, singer, all while maintaining a full-time job that focuses on service learning and civic engagement that mobilizes folks to change! She is originally from Lansing, Michigan but calls Chicago home. She received a B.S. in Theatre and Interpretation: Acting from Central Michigan University and a M.A in Training and Development from Roosevelt University. Jess has been the guest on Black Educators Matter Podcast, Feature Article with National After School Association, After School Today and a featured blog with The Chicago Inclusion Project, May 2019.

She balances her time running her business Creative Spaces, which provides arts based, anti- racism/social Justice work, leadership and professional development workshops/keynotes/coaching and consulting for emerging and veteran leaders in various work sectors and coaching. It would be safe to say she wears many hats and continues to find self-discovery 

Episode References/Links:

• Follow Jess on IG
• Follow Jess on TikTok
• Check out the Jess Vann Creates Website
• Listen to the Tomfoolery and Shenaningans Podcast

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.

Be It Till You See It Podcast Survey

Use this link to get your Toe Sox!

Resources

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!
• Lesley Logan website
• Be It Till You See It Podcast
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube
• Profitable Pilates

Social Media

• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

Lesley Logan  

Hey, Be It. How are you? Oh my goodness. Okay, so our guest today is someone I've met in person before. I got to hang out with a couple of times. And I just totally adore her. She makes me laugh. She makes me smile and she makes, you think about who you are, what you're doing. And and she shares that so vulnerably with her story and how she got to where she is today. And I really find find found this whole interview and everything so important for us all to think about, think it's so easy for us to look at people online and think that, "Oh, they've got it all together. They've got all figured out and I'm over here like just not knowing what's what." And the reality is is like everybody is just trying to figure it out. And she is so amazing, brilliant, creative and what she shares with you in this interview is hopefully inspiring for you to take time to get to know yourself and and that takes time. Takes a lot of time. And you're going to hear all about that as you listen to Jessica Vann. She is incredible. She is amazing. You're gonna laugh and smile and if you are watching this on YouTube, you're gonna see she'll keep it interesting. If you're listening to it, just so you know we do have a YouTube channel so if you are intrigued if you want to see what's going on behind the scenes, absolutely check us out on YouTube. In the meantime, please make sure you listen to the BE IT action item at the end. I promise you it's epic. I promise you it is doable and happens to be one of those things that's free. You just had can do. So do not miss that. Check it out. Stay till the end and let us know how you are going to use these tips in your life by tagging us. Let us know in a review. However you want to do it, share it with a friend. You know the more of us that are being it till we see it in our lives easier it is for everyone to show up and be it till they see it. So here is Jessica Vann.

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started. 

All right, Be It babes. I am so excited. I I get to see this guest everyone smile when I hit the Chicago area or we hadn't, we met in Denver. So I really am thrilled to bring on a friend. I like to call her who is a woman who has the best eyeglasses and I'm gonna be honest, you're gonna love her reels I do. I don't scroll but when I see her stuff, I watched the whole thing. So Jessica Vann, thank you so much for being our guest today. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you're rocking out these days?

Jessica Vann  

Hey, what is good? What's poppin? What's Gucci? As the kiddos I'll say it is me, Jess V. Jessica Vann you know all the thing. I currently at currently Chi... I've been living, I've lived in Chicago. I'm originally from Lansing, Michigan born and raised. You know if you can if you can see me you see me putting up the Michigan hand. And the little thing if you can hear me go forth my fellow Michiganders. Originially from Lansing and I moved out to Chicago to pursue a dream life be it as an artist or however the case may be ever since I was a kid I knew I wanted to live here. So this is just where I've been. But those dreams they came, they continue coming, they manifest in different ways and you just go, "Oh okay, I guess this is what we're gonna do." So I have been in Chicago now for oh my God it'd be almost 20 years. I moved out here out of college so it was around 24. (Lesley: Wow.) ... That's relationship too, so that's what like all relationships here moved out here in 24 and I've just been here ever since just following hearts, minds and wherever the seasons take me here. I have no intentions of going anywhere anytime soon. Well, I hope not. I just hope I bought a whole ass condo. So ...

Lesley Logan  

I hope not you just buy a house. Your your you could rent it out, I guess but like that was a lot of effort to go through if you're not going to live in it.

Jessica Vann  

That's a whole thing but I guess I've been here ever since and those who know me if you listen to podcasts, you know, I wear many hats. I have a whole full time job here where I focus on volunteer engagement and civic engagement and bringing people towards building a more equitable and anti racist Chicago. I'm also an actor, I'm a singer. I'm an entrepreneur, those who know Lesley who know me, will know me as a facilitator and entrepreneur and rockin ... DEI, anti racism. There'll be better people streets.

Lesley Logan  

So, I love that you said all these things, because what I hope people are hearing is like, you are multifaceted in every way. But you have, you went off on a dream. And I think a lot of people can, you know, see and hear what you're doing today and go, "Oh, she went to go Chicago for this. And now she's doing this." And it's like, well, it's like you gave up on any of those things. But you can, you can have multiple things that you're doing, that you're passionate about, you can make them happen. And it might not always happen the way you expected them to. But I do think sometimes people put themselves in a box and like, well, this is what I'm just this. So this is what I do. And I, I those things must be nice for them or I can do a hobby. But you've managed to go off and do the things that really you really care about, and yet also include other aspects of yourself that you're really great at.

Jessica Vann  

Yeah, and I will tell this, it took me a good chunk of my 20s to understand what that meant. Just because, you know, we all we often be like, I am a multitasker, I can do all these things and wear many hats and like, yes, and but also sort of thing. It's how are you managing that time? How what energies are you getting towards? Like, what makes sense? Like, what does your personal and professional schedule look like when when you're trying to handle all these buckets, and I will say this 2020 bout damn near killed me. So I had to reassess what that means. And not give up on who the foundation of who I am. And at the end of the day, I'm an artist. At the end of the day, I am a creative, I am an artist, I am an actor, I am a performer. That is who I am at the foundation of my core. So I try to use those elements of theater and creative mindsets to like steward my other work. (Lesley: Yeah.) Be it halted, be it my full time job, be it this because that would that keeps me excited just about life in general. Right. Elements of like art, artistry, how I dress, how I present myself in the social media streets like I tried to. It's who I am at the end of the day.

Lesley Logan  

Well, I think ... I believe you brought that up, though. And I want to go back to something so hopefully don't forget it. But I love that you brought up like you're creative. And so even if like maybe you're not currently acting in this exact moment, you you are not you're allowing your creativity to decide who, you wear and how you do your hair. And like what put you out you put on social media. And I think sometimes people go well, if I'm not acting, if I'm not, if I'm not painting, that I'm not an artist, like you're not anything actually you can be you can actually include that into the life that you're able to live right now. So I just wanted to highlight that. So I want to go back because you said like 2020 almost killed you. So what, a lot of people might be like, "Yep. Yeah. Yes." I had to, I was like, I remember calling my therapist. And I'm like, so I think I'm still in survival mode. And we're like nine months into what's never looking like it's going to end so like how do I like get out of that gear? Like what does it look like? So was it because I'm gonna let you tell the story, but like, was prioritizing yourself something that was easy for you to do? Or did you like realize like, "Oh, if I don't do it right now." Like what was the linchpin to that?

Jessica Vann  

So okay, so I have to go back to who I was at the top of 2020. I was like, I mean, I'm still the same person but in a different iteration. So at the top of 2020 I was like, Oh, we got I was like booking, I had speaking gigs, I had a auditions coming up and upcoming shows like speaking at this national, like things are on and poppin and then everything stopped and change across the world come March. And I instead of like, at the top of it taking moments to be like, Oh, I guess I should take this as a time to chill. Instead, I took opportunities to like reav and keep going. And so I opened myself up as I was already like, shifting some of my content to DEI work before 2020 had happened. So it was this thing I was already like, Oh let me shift to change my content. Add some pieces here this that missin' so that when the world was like, oh wait, racism or oh wait, things are crazy. Wow. Like, oh, are you good? (Lesley: So deal with that.) Do you know that? So so when that happened, I was like, let me go on and throw my head in the bucket folks, for folks to reach out to. And then it was just like it was, you know, people were hiring me for more speaking things and more consultation work. And I was getting a lot of cool, like, creative, like everyone from the health and fitness world to like global theatre companies. It was this like broad things, and I hit the ground running. And I didn't realize I didn't realize because I'm so used to school back to my point at doing everything. And like, I can handle it. By the end of 2020, I was like, Oh, just, I'm feeling uncomfortable. Things are weird. So by the end of 2021, is when I was like, I can't do this anymore. And it was a lot of things. It was a lot of things from like this intersectionality standpoint of like, I am a black woman, you're trying to teach these predominately white institutions, why they a hot mess that can get exhausting, right? Like, that's exhausting on a personal level on all this stuff, on top of just like the triggers of the world that was going on.

Lesley Logan  

Right. Because you're still you're still who you are. And ...

Jessica Vann  

I'm still who I am. (Lesley: Right.) In this world that everyone just trying to adjust to, on top of that, which then triggers mental health things and then not so it became and then I wasn't operating from the spaces if I know how I know how to operate. Like, I'm like, I know I'm a strong leader. I know I can execute and follow through. And what I didn't recognize is when I can't follow through at my 100% authentic dope self and can get people stuff was starting to be a sign of when my depression was kicking in, or when my anxiety was kicking in. But I was looking at it as like, oh, I have to do this thing because I have to be seen and validated and bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. So I'm gonna say yes, yes, yes. I'm gonna Shonda Rhimes this. Yes, yes. Yes. Oprah, yes, yes ...

Lesley Logan  

I remember. I remember Shonda Rhimes said a Year of Yes. I'm like, "That scares the fuck out of me."

Jessica Vann  

... I was yesing all the things when I should have been telling my ass, no. But I was being driven by this concept of like, because I already struggled with that validity and being seen, and am I good enough and all that stuff. But then it was starting to exasperate because now everyone needs a service because everyone is in their own shit. And I became the thing that everyone wanted to latch onto, not only just professionally, but personally as well. So it was a lots of pouring, lots ... and lots of doing this. And it started to affect how I was operating at work. It was starting to affect how I was running my own business, it was starting to effect because I was in so many things, because I needed to see change. And I needed to get that that. And it was the end of 2021 I was I was sitting, I was on a panel for someone and and I said I'm done with leading. I don't want to lead anymore. And the other panelists was like, oh, I need to exaggerate. I mean, please tell him what you mean. I was 100%, I don't want to lead anymore.

Lesley Logan  

The period I don't want to explain ...

Jessica Vann  

I don't I don't want to be the leader anymore. I don't want to be the strong one anymore. I want to lead because my heart is pulling me in that direction. Not because I'm being pulled by these outside societal whatever what the fuck because I now I'm trying to be or feel the need that this is my space when I'm not taking care of myself. And that's what I met, I still want to be a great leader, I still want to do that. But I want to be able to have choice and I was so deep into stuff that I forgot what choice meant. I forgot what it means to say no. And so all of last year was a hot mess of just like recalibrating my life, (Lesley: Yeah.) like hey, you want to speak in Denver, and I was like do i want to come speak in Denver? like you know what yes ... let me go do this.

Lesley Logan  

I love that you like you are like you'd like took a pause and you ask yourself, "Do I?" Like they're saying do you like your (Jessica: Right.) do I and I think this is really first of all, I thank you for sharing. We can dive more into that but like thank you for sharing all of that stuff because I think no matter what, what people's jobs are or things that they're doing is that it's it's so easy if words of affirmation are your love language if the desire to be seen and validated is is there, and it can get caught up in we see it all the time with like people become celebrities, all of a sudden they become really the wanted person. And then if you don't have the things in place to keep pouring back into yourself, you just start to feel like everyone's pulling at you, everyone's picking at you, everyone's taking from you. And you don't realize that like at some point along the way you stopped making sure you were pouring into yourself. And so like it sounds like you had to do like you had to you had to hit this wall. And then kind of go back, which is hard to get to know yourself in a new place. Because it's been two years of this. And so you're like, "Well, who am I? What do I want?"

Jessica Vann  

Would I tell you, I for myself, I'd be like, Oh, yes, I can. I can do all these things at once. And yes, you know I can, I love it. I am I can, I can rock it. I didn't know, I didn't know what my threshold was. Because I've been so used to you know, seeing my mom kicking ass or seeing other women that I look up to. So my mom's dope shit, but like other people that I see, like, I personally did not know what my threshold was until I got there. (Lesley: Yeah.) And let me tell you, I have folks calling me out on stuff, I got into so many challenging conversations. It was it came to the point where I couldn't you can't use 2020 as an excuse anymore. Like, it was like, I have to own this shit because I created the shit down even though I created and I'm sitting the shit you know, and have to recalibrate everything, everything. (Lesley: Yeah.) Which which what feels like I had to recalibrate everything.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah, well, and so what worked for you? Was it like, was it like just literally turning off all the things and going and like say no to everything? Or what how did you recalibrate because I think it's easy to off. Like when you say like when I picture recalibrated, like the pendulum swung over here and now you're like it's gonna swing over here and how did you find center? What was that, what was that like for you?

Jessica Vann  

I had to, I personally had to pause a lot of things and I pause everything from I told you this when we had lunch like I said the other day ...

Lesley Logan  

It feels, you know what? It what is time anymore.

Jessica Vann  

 I um, for those watching Yes, I just changed my background on like three different times.

Lesley Logan  

... you know, what if you're not watching there's a YouTube channel you can watch. And there's a there's a third show because because Jess is a creator. She is an artist.

Jessica Vann  

... by the time I literally have to stop. (Lesley: Yeah.) But what was hard about this for me is I stopped engaging with rela... friendship relationships that I was always pouring into which was probably the hardest thing because you're talking to someone who values community but often feels like she doesn't have community. So to pause friendships or people that I thought were friendships or community because I felt like I was always the one engaging in our fellow always when my hey girl is gonna do let's go Kiki here. Let's go grab a drink ... Like always given and I had to stop. I was like, this is that's exhausting. I stopped seeking clients. I needed to recalibrate what what service do I actually want to put on it into this world? Because I don't I didn't realize I was going to get stuck in this like antiracist DEI (Lesley: Right.) bucket. When when I finally started my business was to offer professional development for all folks, to offer organizational development policy, procedural changes, HR support on across the field. And then all of a sudden, I was like stuck in this like space when that space was constantly shifting and changing. And from pedagogy to ideology, and who can say these things again. So that I had to pause that and I took my last client last year in August now I'm not saying just keep coming back because she is this is what I had I had to move first. You know, I had to get into headspace to ... figure all that stuff out. I only focused on two things .For the first time I focused on my job, my full time job and myself. I needed the income so let me focus on my my job and do that. So I did that and in the midst of that and I have got promoted or not promoted, but got offered a new job in a different organization. And that's where I'm currently at now. I had to focus on that myself, and how I was getting income. Because I knew I wanted to buy a home at the end of the year. So I was like, that's, that is all the emotions I can offer. Because I can't give this year. I'm not I can't, I just couldn't ... so much, and I was alone a lot.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah. Because also you're like, you know, you're a single woman doing this all. (Jessica; Yeah, exactly ...) I don't know if that's easier or harder if you'd had a partner.

Jessica Vann  

I told my therapist, I was like, last year was so triggering, because it exemplified the fact that I am single, like, everything that I and I also listeners and folks out here on the streets. I don't need a man. I don't need one. I am a Pisces, I am a water sign. So I welcome all the love and each adn every day. And when those things when I feel those things aren't being fulfilled, it is easy for me to be like I'm lonely. No one, no one cares about me ... all this stuff, because I'm not feeling fed in a way that I need to look at what does that actually look like and doesn't have to come from somebody or things about that. So I'm a single woman, this out here trying to do big kid adulting. When at my age and we're close in age like I'm, I'm 30 well, I'll be 39 in a month.

Lesley Logan  

Okay. But I'm 40 in two weeks.

Jessica Vann  

Like, we out here. And so, societally I'm supposed to be married, got some kids, right? Settle down somewhere, because these are the images that was told to me as a youth or young then like, I have certain age, this is going to happen. I don't I never envisioned my life past 35. Because by the time I was 35, and my 15 year old brain, actually bedtime was 25 (Lesley: Yeah.) and my teenage brain. I was like, I got that day. We was out here. Mary was gonna have some kids. I was 30. And I'm like, I know, we are 38 and neither none of those. So I don't know what my life is because I never envisioned it. (Lesley: Yeah.) Our past as a young person.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah. I think that's so interesting. Because, one yes, I just interviewed someone yesterday, who's 37 going on 38. And her two daughters are already in college. And I was like, yeah, so see, you did it right. Because like you did it while your body was young. You did it while you had the energy to keep up with them. And now you're gonna you're not even 40 and they're already in the house. Like, it's too late for me.

Jessica Vann  

... I remember having a whole conversation with my friend. I was I was still really close with some people back home in Lansing, Michigan. And I was at her place. We were like, 27. By this time she had a kid not her second kid. She married, she got a home somewhere and somebody in some suburb back home in Lansing. And she was like, Well, do you think you will ever freeze your eggs at 30 30? My 30s are damn near long ago. Going like yeah, not something I can think about it. I never thought about it again. And but now here we are. I'm like, Is this something I need to think about? Like, like in seriousness, but 27 me was just thought it was. (Lesley: Yeah.) I didn't think I would even have to be here.

Lesley Logan  

Right. Like it's an interesting I think, my gosh, I think first of all, wherever you are, it's really easy to go, "How did I get here?" And like a negative way. (Jessica: Yeah.) But like you can also see it as like the positive side like, "How did I get here?" And like looking at you now like you're in your condo that you bought like what a journey that was? And was it easy? No, nothing's fucking easy. Everything is fucking hard. Just if you can just prepare yourself you might like actually, the hard might be a little lower than your expectation go, "Oh, that was easy." But it's all like there's always a challenge. And I think what what I what I what I think is so important is that from your stories, like just really reflecting back on what you want and like having to I mean like so few people would be able to just go, "Okay, I'm just gonna stop that all." Like that is so brave and courageous and hard. There's like people might think, "Oh, she stopped everything. Well, it's easy thing." No, that is like the hardest thing because you had to like tell people no all of a sudden you'd go to a year of no basically and then really get clear on like, what do I want and and for you is like I want to have a house at the end of this year. So I'm going to do that and that's a challenge and all its own just to be a single person buying anything and also as a married couple if you work for yourself, everyone no one wants to sell you a fucking house. No one does.

Jessica Vann  

Oh my gosh ... like it's a whole topic. It was you are, you are guest. Last year was me really being like, I actually don't feel like going out, or I'm actually really sad and in a negative space right now, or I have a dark cloud over me and I don't think I need to be in anybody's space or community. I mean, I auditioned for two shows last year, two. And one of them put me in a dark space, because that's a dance call. And I get called in to do the show at one of the theatre companies here. And I'm like ... okay, can you come in for this row, we got the band, here's your side, sing this thing that that that. So I go in seeing the diddy, we do the dance call. And I middle of the dance call. I'm like watching myself dance. And I was like, "Who is that?" Like, just, I physically could not I was like, is that ... here we go. And so down the self deprecated journey that I went when I got home. And I was like, "I don't think I am mentally, physically ready to be back out here on these auditions streets, because I don't feel good about myself." And that was at that moment. I was like, realize I don't feel good about myself at all. Physically, mentally, everything. (Lesley: Yeah.) And even in it was also out of breath. It was like all this like, and I was like, "I can't I'm not going to be auditioning if I don't feel good in front of a camera, in front of the creative team. I can't do this." That's the hard thing for me.

Lesley Logan  

That's a hard. Well, I mean, for anybody who's a creative for sure. (Jessica: Yeah.) I mean, also, like, I think, I think it's good that you actually did the audition, because you got (Jessica: Yeah.) to see like, "Oh, I'm not ready for this." And also, here's more like, here's the work that I need to be doing for myself. What, what did it take? Because I some people might just take that as a sign like, "I'm done. I'm hanging my acting hat up. I'm hanging that thing up." Like, what was it that you were able to do for yourself to get past that? Because because now I mean, I feel like you're auditioning again, like you're doing stuff again. So so what was what was the what was the work that you did to help you like, get good with yourself, because that's the thing that most people listening, if you aren't good with you, like it doesn't even it doesn't matter. You can manifest whatever you want. But if you're not, if you're not aligned, it's not gonna work out.

Jessica Vann  

I had to then end up going on a, I got called it for another show at the end of last year, actually. And I was like, "I don't know." I think what I what I know I needed to do was a few things I need, I needed to figure out what was my relationship to art making in this city again, because I am no longer bushy 27 year old, like, you know, like, "Oh, my God out of college." And I'm gonna auditioned for everything, I'm gonna book this thing, booked and blessed and busy and booked and all those sayings. I was like, I don't know if that's in my ministry ... But so I had to really figure out what my relationship is to art making. And what what brings what's what makes me excited. And so instead of letting that happen, I went on and produced a little one woman show and got my friend and my band together and did a show in February of one of the theater places, though, cabaret connection, please, I did that. And that was very scary for me. Because at that point, I hadn't done. I haven't watched and played with these guys. And almost two years, I hadn't done a show like, like, I've been in a band and did my covers and do the things I usually do. Then about three years at that point my dumb ass was like, "Well, let me do 14 songs" ... being vocally physically all the way, and I was like, "I'm glad I did it." But it also was like here, here's just another space, I needed to make sure that I'm working on. Because the craft of of theater and music and monologues and all that stuff, it's a muscle. And if you don't nourishing it, you can lose it. But for me, I don't want to lose it. I just have to make sure that I'm mentally and physically ready. (Lesley: Yeah.) Academically and learning and that that that that's fine. But am I, the person who has to go put themselves out there in front of people reading and start reading because of how one is feeling about, how I'm feeling about myself? So I you know, I started to think about what does this mean as a as an artist, right. And so, and I'm still in that journey right now. I do have, like, I have an audition this weekend. And like, I'm doing this because it's part of who I am. But I'm also like, what does this digital world look like? What is you know, embracing these other aspects that I've always wanted to dabble and like, what does it mean for me to do that? Writing, I'm trying to write more. (Lesley: Yeah.) ... to your short stories or mostly short stories, and personal pieces and essays. Like, that's where I'm trying to tap in and just kind of go back to basics. And like, heal ...

Lesley Logan  

I feel like I feel like people underestimate or they don't give the credit towards back to the basics because like getting to like, the the basics are there for as a foundation for a reason. And also, they really help you understand like where you are, like, it's kind of like a pin and a map. It's like, oh, this is where I'm at. Oh, I got a little too far away. Oh, that I forgot that one. And what I hear you saying is you're asking yourself a lot of questions. And what, when you ask yourself questions, and I think it was our first guest ever, Joanna, she Joanna Vargas was like, questions, you got to put a question mark on it, because it changes how you actually engage with the information that's going on. You're not putting like if you put a period on it, like I'm an actress, period, but that's like, that's it, right? Like, it's kind of like it's very drawn in cement. But if you put what has been an actress mean to me, what has been an artist, what what is the writer mean to me. It allows you to really get to know yourself in a way that allows you to filter and what you're gonna say yes or no to. 

Jessica Vann  

Yes, yes. And, and that's like a glimpse of like, what my therapist and I would like work on it's like, what are you aligned with? What is this thing feed you? Does this thing aligned with your morals? Is it aligned with your values? Are you just saying yes, is to say yes. Are you saying this because you think there's some level of validity to it? Like, who are you trying to ...? Like, who are you trying to impress? And sometimes I had to constantly ask myself that question like, Okay, Jess, why are you doing this? Who were you trying to impress? Who were you trying, who were are you trying to gain validation from? Like, because if it's for that, or them or this person, then it ain't for you. Like it's my, you're not doing it for yourself, you're doing it to chase this space to be validated.

Lesley Logan  

... there like, like that is like events like that the best question anyone can remember from this entire episode, like who are you trying to impress? Because it has to be you at some point ...

Jessica Vann  

... if you're like, Oh, I made that then then you're not you're not doing it from a space of authenticity and you're not doing it from the foundation of you as a human person. And that's what I'm trying to get back to. I'm still the same person, I'm still going to be multifaceted, I'm still going to, I can still multitask, like I'm a boss bitch like that's just what I I can still do these things but I have to get back to back back to basics to rebuild some of the structural things that I have put into place for my lives and which is funny because then I'm like, once I can like figure that out maybe we'll add this like dating claim back into the same because like, right now we are doing not and I literally just did a TikTok because these girl these she'd be on TikTok who be getting bedazzled. To be out here and be usingTikTok as a dating app. I was like I don't know if I'm in history. I'm gonna be on the internet. I'm growing locs right now, my hair is a hot, crazy whenever I want. I don't put on makeup all the time. Now, we gon go out. Your girl gonna go out. I can I am cute. Okay. But ...

Lesley Logan  

You are, when you go out, you look amazing.

Jessica Vann  

... I don't want to be just painting in anyone else's perception. I want you to get, I just want to be Jessica at the end of the day. And if I have to constantly ask myself well who is this for? And if I say, me. Greenlight but if I have to go through a whole list of the who's and the why's and who does this benefit then it ain't it ain't for me anymore. And so that's that is my hope one wish for myself for 2023. It just kind of get back to basics just to like I got come in and 2023 hot off the press like I will slow and ease into this.

Lesley Logan  

Oh me too that's what that's how I'm doing. I'm this so this is how y'all I'm this how I eased in because this is probably coming out well after January so when we're recording it but I decided I'm taking the first week of every year off. Like I'm just so I take the last three weeks of the year. I mean I still work because I go on tour but like I'm hanging out in the van most of the time playing a video game so not that hard, but the first week because you want to know what no one else is actually ready to get started anyways, so why am I like making myself available for that and I loved it. I went to the spa. And I was with my girlfriends. I was like this is how every year should start, scrub the skin off. It was so great. And so I um another thing I do because my birthday is the end of January. I always tell people like if I make any goals for a year at the beginning of the year, which we Brad and I will typically do around the first day. I'm like trying them on the whole month. I'm not like hitting it hard. I'm just trying to because when my birthday comes, I'm like, "How did those goals feel? Do we've made some adjustments?" And then I'd like to tell people this. Do you know how many New Year's there aren't a year, there is the actual first day of the year, which should not be in the middle of winter, in my opinion ... It wasn't like it was the Roman Empire that changed that. But there's a Chinese New Year. There's also a ... New Year, there's an India New Year, there are new years and all these different cultures that you can go, "You know what I'm starting the year over right now, you can just do that. It's okay."

Jessica Vann  

100%. I'm don't have time. I just I'm gonna, I'm gonna move however, I need to move. I'm big grown. I'm a grown ass woman, I had big grow, and I could make my own decisions, just decide what I'm gonna go do X, Y, and Z. Why? Because I want to, I want to show up as the best I don't so cliche. Cliche statement coming in three to one, I want to show the be the best version of me. (Lesley: Yeah.) I, and that means so much for me. And so I need to do that because at the end of the day, I'm getting older, my parents are getting older, my dreams aren't dying, but windows of time are starting to get smaller for me to do the things that I want to do. And I'm still fucking young. And so I have time to shift and change and all that. And I still have time but don't have time. And I want to just be who my little 12 year old self thought she would be. And that's from physical to work to this, whatever. I want to know what it means to show up as who I've always envisioned myself to be. However, that has manifested because I might not be on Broadway right now winning a Tony, or out here getting any other accolades. And I'm saying that because I'm also not saying those things cannot happen. Again, key from everything all at once, who was a Donny and and Indiana Jones just fucking got his first Golden Globe after 20 plus years.

Lesley Logan  

Did you see, did you see Jennifer Coolidge accept her golden globe? (Jessica: Yes ..) Oh, my God, we've known her since we were little kids. And she was ... right? But like, but like, she's like, she's like, and I just kept doing those replays. I just kept doing them and, and now my neighbors talk to me.

Jessica Vann  

Yes ... It's all one of my good friends. I was like, I'm gonna have my teeth and turner come back and she came back in her 40s. So like, let me let me do me, you do you? And mind the business that serves you like you, I gotta be in my business. I gotta be in your purse. And we don't keep a Gucci and you're gonna live your life, how you need to live it and I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna do while you're doing your business. I'm gonna support you. I'm gonna cheer you on. I'm gonna say go forth. Live your best life. What do you need from me? How can we support one another? That's what I'm wanting? Because I will have she said, I ain't rockin a hill in my 80s like Taylor Chair.

Lesley Logan  

Oh my gosh. Okay, Jess we could keep going. But, but I just have to say like, thank you for sharing your journey because I I feel like so many people listening right now feel so seen because they have been trying to like, make it look like they're doing all the things right? They're doing all the things. It's like, actually, everybody is just fucking trying hard to do the best they can. And that is if you are doing it for you. That is so important. We're gonna take a quick break. Find out how people can find you, follow you, you know get to get to support you and what you're doing. All right, Jess, where do you like to hang out? Which ah the social media, you've a website? Where can people work with you?

Jessica Vann  

Oh my gosh, where do I hang out? If you're in Chicago, Hit me up. Let's grab some whiskey key haven't drank drank. But you can follow me on my, I'm your here on the social media streets on this side on one part of the internet's, you can follow me on Instagram @jdotjourney that is j d o t, j o. Can I spell j d o t j o u r n e y, jdotjourney, out here on these on the other end of the internet's on the TikTok, you can find me @jesssssssvann. It's a bunch of s. (Lesley: Wonderful.) You can hit me up on my website if you'd like ... she be kind of tough to work with. Just go to jessvanncreates.com. And just like shoot me a little hey, hey, hey, here's how you found me. And we can figure out how whatever support you need on the organizational level or one on one support. I do coaching in some capacity just mainly on like, just navigating workspaces. So that can go as well as just like, what does it mean to find your joy? And how to pretty much what I do? I'd like to embed on all the folks that that is your essential ministry to come forth. And those are really my my, my website, my socials, oh, and LinkedIn too. You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm over here too.

Lesley Logan  

That's people like,"Are you on LinkedIn?" I'm like," I think my team has me on there. Yes."

Jessica Vann  

I'm on LinkedIn over there. I think I'm just Jessica Vann over there too.

Lesley Logan  

But are you still hosting your podcast? Are you dropping episodes with that?

Jessica Vann  

So fun fact, thanks for bringing that up. I do you have a podcast Tomfoolery and Shenanigans. Are you surprised? I am not. So you can hit that up listen to season one. I am actually this year as part of my restart and rebuild and foundational is the goal is to bring that back by the end of the year. (Lesley: Wonderful.) So that season two is actually be up top of next year. So that whole production process will start to come through but don't see what we did over a season a lot of good time. It was in the height of a lot of things. So there's some very pertinent conversations that happen but yeah, Tomfoolery and Shenanigans on most of all your platforms, Apple and ... (Lesley: Wonderful.)

Lesley Logan  

We'll have all the links in the show notes make it real easy for y'all as you are listening to this. Okay, before I let you go. (Jessica: Yeah.) Bold, executable, intrinsic, targeted steps that people can take to be it till they see it, what action steps do you have for our listeners?

Jessica Vann  

I'm gonna say this. This is gonna be very cliche, because that's the real thing. So some actionable things that you can do is rest. Rest.

Lesley Logan  

Oh, we haven't had that one. That's so good.

Jessica Vann  

Listen to your body. Rest. Veg when you need to veg, watch TV to disassociate if you need to. That's what you need to like. Because at the end of the day, we are we are vessels and it needs to be filled. And some of the strongest things that we need to do is fill it is rest and to feed our brains what we need to come back strong. So just rest. Chill out. Breathe. Listen to your body. It's okay. You can like I get up at four o'clock in the morning if your body's like you know what I need a little extra hours. Just rest.

Lesley Logan  

Oh, that is the best. I'm, that's so great. I love to hear what these action items are because I'm always like, "What are people gonna say?" I'm like that one haven't had rest on there. So thank you for always be unique and wonderful in my life. I am so grateful to know you and have this conversation with you. Y'all, how are you going to use these tips in your life? What resonated? Make sure you tag @jdotjourney on Instagram or on theTikTok thing you can tag her as Jess and we'll have those links and the @be_it_pod. Let us know because we want to know how you're being it till you see it. Thank you so much for being here Jess and for everyone listening and until next time, Be It Till You See It.

Jessica Vann  

Bye!

Lesley Logan  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review. And follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!    

Be It Till You See It is a production of Bloom Podcast Network.    

Brad Crowell  

It's written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host Lesley Logan. And me Brad Crowell. Our associate producer is Amanda Frattarelli. 

Lesley Logan  

 Kevin Perez at Disenyo handles all of our audio editing.     

Brad Crowell  

Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianranco Cioffi.     

Lesley Logan  

Special thanks to our designer Mesh Herico for creating all of our visuals, (which you can't see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all the video each week, so you can.

Brad Crowell  

And to Angelina Herico for transcribing each episode, so you can find it on our website. And finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

How could taking 2% out of your day change your whole life? Tune in for an episode to narrow down your purpose, create space for new directions, and allow curiosity to lead. 

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] .

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• All the details for OPC insider news 
• How to connect workshops and pilates exercises together
• The first step in discovering your purpose 
• How you create space to be curious and purposeful 
• The value of curiosity

Episode References/Links:

• Be in the know with all the workshops at OPC
• Be a part of Lesley’s Pilates Mentorship
• Waitlist for the flashcards deck

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.

Be It Till You See It Podcast Survey

Use this link to get your Toe Sox!

Resources

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!
• Lesley Logan website
• Be It Till You See It Podcast
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube
• Profitable Pilates

Social Media

• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It interview recap where my co host in life Brad and I are going to dig into the purposeful convo I had with Adrian Starks in our last episode. If you haven't like yet listened to that interview. Feel free to pause this now. Go back. Listen to that one. I swear you're gonna fucking love his voice. I promise you... (Brad: Yeah) you know what? Actually, I said, narrator I want him to do those nighttime stories. He should do nighttime stories. I would fall asleep to him like reading the phone book. Absolutely wonderful, Adrian, that's a new job for you. So listen to his voice and come back and join us and let me know what else he should narrate. Because I just, I'm just like, you just keep telling your story. It's great. It's a great voice.(brad: I love it) Alright, so before we talk about Adrian, we just had the very first one day workshop situation for people on the on one on one exercise... (Brad: on OPC) on OPC. And it was so fun because we did the workout, which is kind of like what we do on OPC... (Brad: It was roll up on the mat) roll up on the mat. That was the theme. So the workout was dedicated to that exercise.

Brad Crowell 2:15  

Yeah, the replay just expired last night.

Lesley Logan 2:17  

Yeah. So when I create OPC classes, well actually when any teacher creates an OPC class actually think about an exercise or a skill set you need in Pilates, and we thread that through the entire workout. And so that's what we're known for. And so the roll up can be a very annoying, frustrating exercise. And what we did was I created a workout that would actually help you understand the roll up better in your body by the end of the workout. Then we did a little digging in deep with our OPC teachers and they share like what they struggle with and the roll up and how they got around it because everyone has a different body. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. And then we did the class again. Yeah, because of OPC you actually repeat the same class.

Brad Crowell 2:57  

I thought it was cool. I thought it was cool that you did it a second time because now you had the first experience then you discuss things and then you got a second shot at that. 

Lesley Logan 3:06  

Yeah, yeah! And so anyways, people had a lot of fun with it. And so we will we were hoping to do another one later this year on a different exercise. You want to go to opc.me/workshops to get on the what is it a waitlist

Brad Crowell 3:21  

Waitlist for future workshops. Yeah, opc.me/workshops

Lesley Logan 3:25  

Somebody might be thinking oh, why get on the waitlist, they'll just tell me about it later. No, here's why algorithms you get busy life changes and also anyone on the waitlist always either gets a special gift or a special discount or something fun fucking happens to people on a waitlist just so you know people on the retreat waitlist got a discount low. So you just want to be on waitlist because we like to give gifts.

Brad Crowell 3:45  

Yeah, so and also, we're changing the way that our companies work. We are no longer going to be shouting from the rooftops on social, buy my stuff, buy my stuff... (Lelsley: Yeah) So what will the people who are on our waitlist will find out about the really cool things that we're offering now. So just be advised. Yeah.

Lesley Logan 4:06  

And if you're on social you have less of a chance of hearing about it. So that's all... (Brad: Yeah) be be one of the insiders. Okay. And OPC members last week, we told you there's something exciting coming up, and there's still something exciting coming up and we're not telling you yet. (brad: This is the longest tease) I have no idea. I have no idea when Brad's gonna let me tell you but I've been spilling the beans to a few people.

Brad Crowell 4:28  

Yeah, we were well FYI there's something cool for OPC for the OPC community

Lesley Logan 4:36  

If you don't know what it is, it means you were not at the live workout for March and it also means you have not watched the end of the live workout for March. So now I know... (Brad: That's true) And finally finally finally, at the time of this recording, we have a few spots left in round three of my mentorship for elevate. I'm not gonna go into too much detail here because you can, you heard about last week. You can also hear about it in other ways by going to Lesleylogan.co/elevate, Lesleylogan.co/elevate, because that's what we're about to do with your practice your teaching and your connection to the method. I call them my elevators... (Brad: I love it) And because Brad's now into fourth bullets... (Brad: It's happening) If you're wanting the chairs deck, and you didn't get it during the presale, now is the time to get it. Because... (Brad: now is the time) otherwise, you're not going to be part of the first rollout. And that means you have to wait. And if we've sold out, you have to wait even longer.

Brad Crowell 5:32  

Yeah, so I mean, the reality is, we only placed enough of an order for the people who have placed the order with a little bit of a buffer and the and then it might sell out there. So we would love to include your order. When we're printing everything in round one.

Lesley Logan 5:50  

Yeah, so go to OPC. So that's onlinepilatesclasses.com. If you're like What the hell is an OPC? Hi, welcome to the podcast. I'm Lesley Logan... (Brad: and I'm Brad Crowell) and OPC is... (Brad: thanks a lot for joining us today) Adrian sorry, that's all you get, no, onlinepilatesclasses.com is our baby. So go check it out. Okay, before we get into Adrian Stark's amazing voice and all this amazing content, what do we, do we have an audience question to get to?

Brad Crowell 6:15  

We do. And so basically, this is from an OPC member, we have a private Facebook group for the OPC community. And she said, I love the way you theme your workouts and connect exercises together. I really want to understand more about how you do that how you conceptualize that.

Lesley Logan 6:35  

Yeah, so actually, like we kind of just talked about it with the workshop... (Brad: Yeah, yeah) But also like, that doesn't really help you figure out how to do it... (Brad: That's true) So one of the things that I would love to tell you is the way I do that in less than a 15 minute recap, and I cannot. So the truth is, is that well, how I theme workouts together is because of how I was trained to see the method. And I was trained to see this method. Luckily, I had a lot of amazing teachers in my journey to hear where you're listening to me now. But one of those was Jay Grimes, Sani Shimoda, who...

Brad Crowell 7:08  

We're still talking Pilates, the Pilates method.

Lesley Logan 7:11  

Still talking about the pilates method. Thank you, Brad, for, you know, bringing in Tracy from Wisconsin. So um, so my teachers Jake Grimes, Sandy Shimoda, Karen Fishman, they really helped me, like take everything I knew and like, and take it from being like pieces of information, like, like think things like a solar system, like nine planets, and actually see how they're all connected by the stars. Right. So, so effectively, I hope that analogy makes sense. So at any rate, they really helped me put that together. And then since that, since I was able to understand that, I put that into my own practice my own teaching. And that's how OPC was created. Because it was like, how do I make first of all, the classical Pilates method unique every single week? It is I do the same that order? Well, the same order, but it's an order on the mat and reformer, we just omit exercises that don't fit the theme or the time. But how do I do that? And so I started really honing that skill set in and really making it fun and, and what you experience as an OPC member, is it really connected so you can take an exercise that you may not be able to do or one that you struggle with or hate, and really understand it. So how do you do that yourself, I have to be completely honest and tell you you need to be my mentorship because it's something that's going to take time. And I need to have, I need to AC where you're at in your understanding of the method, and in your connection to the practice in your body and how you currently teach. And then help you get like, you could be anywhere on the journey and I need to make sure that we're on the same page. And then because you might even be doing half of it already, when that'd be amazing. If I go actually you're halfway there. Here's some things you could do. Or Hi, that was 1000 words. (...) takes one exercise. So let's go over here. So I really love my elevate mentorship for exactly this. It helps you see the method as like one exercise you do hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of different ways. And allows you to teach everybody in front of you based on connecting them together and also your own body. So if you want to know how I do this, basically the TLDR is sign up for elevate.

Brad Crowell 9:18  

Yeah, join elevate. .. (Lesley: Yeah) okay. Well, thanks for asking that question. 

Lesley Logan 9:23  

Yeah, you can ask any question you want is my Pilates guys, so last couple of Pilates related. It can actually be life business work or like vacation, whatever it is need to send it into us somewhere on the interwebs not LinkedIn. I'm not over there. But you know, someplace that I can actually find it. And I'll put it on here.

Brad Crowell 9:39  

Stick around. Right to this we're gonna talk about how Adrian Starks shares the Greatest Journey is the journey inward

Lesley Logan 9:45  

Right after these messages we'll be right back.

Brad Crowell 11:21  

Okay, now let's talk about Adrienne Starks. Adrian Starks is a man who decided to begin living on this planet for three reasons to learn, to grow, and then to take action. He is fully living his purpose driven life and inspires others to do the same as a speaker, narrator, entrepreneur and writer. 

Lesley Logan 12:09  

Yeah. So I actually want to jump in first, because I really enjoyed his first step in discovering your purpose, because I just, you know, we've always had, we're like, what's my purpose? Why am I here on this planet, like walking around? Like they may not know. And he said that he the history said, I'm gonna quote him, the greatest journey is a journey inward. And he said, you also have to acknowledge you don't know everything, but then start asking why. And we talked about like, the seven why's like why this? Why this? Why this, like, Why do I want to be a writer? Because that's why do I want to do that? Because that's why do i Why, why, why. And like, we talked about...

Brad Crowell 12:44  

If you're, if you're trying to discover your purpose, right? Like, why are you here doing what is it that you're supposed to be doing? Why are you here on this planet? Right? And when he started asking himself that he realized he could help other people discover their own purpose, right? And so he his pod is called your purpose, your purpose for life. Right? And so anyway, in order for you to feel fulfilled and excited about, you know, showing up for life, it really will change your excitement, enthusiasm about it, if you find purpose in the thing that you're doing, right? So, you know, it's so interesting to me, because when I was younger, I was part of a coaching group. And the one of the guys said to me, I don't care, I don't care what it is, I have to do, if I have to carry shit from one corner of the room to the other corner and put it down, but after doing it for so many times, it's going to allow me to live, you know, take care of my family the way I want to, I'm willing to do that thing. And I really adopted that. And I was like, Oh, it doesn't matter if I fucking hate showing up for my job. I'm doing this because this is going to allow me to do the thing that I really would rather be doing, which is whatever, touring in music and doing all the band thing. And after doing that approach for decades, I decided I don't like that approach anymore. Because...

Lesley Logan 14:12  

Thank God, I was like where's this going.

Brad Crowell 14:14  

I really don't like it because because you know what, I ended up working at a shitty job, working with shitty people. And I told myself, I'm just gonna stick it out because by doing this shitty job, I'm gonna be setting myself up to go do something really amazing. And my thought is, listen, there are times in your life when you have to do stuff you don't want to do? sure, I get that, but what if the thing you have to do your job you actually love? What if you find purpose in that thing? How amazing would that be? Can it be possible for them to be overlaying that you're living the life that you like you're doing something that you love, and you're getting paid for it in a way that will empower you to go do the other things that you love to do, then you can have so much more fun in life.

Lesley Logan 14:57  

Yeah. I'm so glad that that turned around. I was like...

Brad Crowell 15:03  

You should have seen her face if you're on YouTube. She's looking at me and her heads tilted to the side like the puppy dogs like: what are you doing?

Lesley Logan 15:12  

Not to say that if you are shoveling shit that your job is without purpose because the person who picks up our dog poop, I am sure feels very purposeful, and what they chose to do for themselves. And I'm very grateful.

Brad Crowell 15:23  

So that was my point is like every it's it wasn't fulfilling me the things that I was doing. They weren't doing they weren't lighting my fire. They weren't something that I'm excited abou, passionate about, like amazing at... (Lesley: Yeah) those kinds of things. I was just doing them because I had a job opportunity... (Lesley: Yeah) that could get me paid... (Lesley: Yeah) that's not enough.

Lesley Logan 15:41  

Yeah. So you know, like, I love that. I'm really glad that you didn't adopt that. It's probably when we met. You probably stopped.

Brad Crowell 15:50  

Yeah, well, it was. It was. I mean, I don't know. I think it was like, it was it was a combination of the of me leaving the music industry. Because I was betting on that to be the thing that got me out of the shit.  

Lesley Logan 16:05  

Yeah. And then, oh, I remember this, and you left the music thing. And you're like, well, now I'm here... (Brad: Yeah, now I'm just fucking here) not playing music, because like, this isn't (...). So Oh, yeah. No, it was definitely them. 

Brad Crowell 16:16  

Yeah, it was exactly when we met too. So there's that that was 100% a part of it. But, but really, like, I thought, you know, I'm gonna sell a million records, and I'm just gonna go tour the world. And then all of a sudden, when my band stopped, I was like, Oh now what?

Lesley Logan 16:30  

Yeah. Like, so I worked retail. I really thought I was gonna work in retail forever. Because I really love the company I worked for at the time we had we sold the most amazing stuff. And it's not because I love to sell the vibe purpose on this planet was help people sell. What I loved was helping people find the thing that made them leave the store the smile on their face, or like they had the gift for someone like I loved helping people, like people, you know, people when you're shopping, imagine, think about last minute shopping, oftentimes you're shopping for like, it's like, what do they call it, like retail therapy. And like they come in, and then I help them find this thing that would like light them up, or make them feel like their selves or like jewelry is like an expression of them. And so I found present now I work with a ton of people who are like this is how I pay my bills, and I can tell you right now, it doesn't matter how amazing that salesperson was, they were never the number one salesperson. They're never the number one because they were just piling up the shit from one corner to the other. So clearly, like whatever you're doing, try to figure out how it aligns with the purpose that you have on this life, or let's find a way to help you bridge the gap... (Brad: Yeah) What did you love?

Brad Crowell 17:32  

I love it. Alright, so one thing he started talking about was how, you know, now that you're asking why, you know, why am I here? What do I love? Why am I why do I like doing this? Why do I like to know, you know, and kind of going towards your purpose. He said, how you create, you need to create space and be purposeful. And the creating of the space allows you to be curious, okay, and that curiosity really opened up the opportunity to make mistakes in, you know, and to grow and learn and be better at what it is that we're doing. And, again, dial in, hone in, you know, being more purposeful in our life. And, and he actually gave a challenge, he said, Be curious enough to make a mistake, because a lot of people are unwilling to take any risk, unwilling to make any mistakes. But he was giving this really great analogy about Babe Ruth, and it wasn't Mickey Mantle, he referenced somebody... (Lesley: no, somebody else) can't remember now, but he said they actually have more strikeouts than they did homeruns even though they were, you know, the number they were top of the top of the homerun stats... (Lesley: yes). But they failed so many times. Right. And, and then I thought you asked a really great question of like, well, how do you, you know, how do you set yourself up to be curious? And he said, Oh, by being alone. And it was like, well, that's interesting, very interesting. So he figured out how to leave his mind the mental space to be curious, by setting aside time for himself... (Lesley: Yeah) You know.

Lesley Logan 19:20  

This is, this is, that right there is the problem most people have, they do not create space for new stuff. So they could they it doesn't even matter if you know what your purpose is. If you have not created the time. I don't care if it's 15 minutes. I don't care if it's 2% of your day. 

Brad Crowell 19:38  

Yeah. Dai Manuel.

Lesley Logan 19:41  

If you don't do that, it doesn't mean it doesn't none of the stuff that we're telling you matters. None of it does. And too often I see people go must be nice. I wish I could do this when I have more time. I'm telling you right now, you will never stop being the busyness that you are until you create the time for your purpose. And until you start actually like owning that and protecting that and is going to require being alone and I know my extroverts are like: don't wanna be alone. But you Brad also when you take time to go for a walk by yourself, you come up with so many ideas. But if you're like on phone calls all day, on your socials all the time, hang up people all the time.

Brad Crowell 20:20  

Listening to podcasts all day long.

Lesley Logan 20:23  

Let your let your your let things be silent, you know. So anyways, I thought that was one of the most amazing answers loved It's so fucking much.

Brad Crowell 20:31  

Well, he talks about he's shared a lot of his story about like school, middle school, high school and being alone and working in the library and stuff. And it actually made me think about that time. And also about my time in college, when I was intentionally writing music all the time. And I had in my calendar, don't call Brad. Brad is writing, right? And I have intentional time, to be creative, to be curious, to learn, to try new things, to flop at new songs, all that kind of stuff. And when I was in high school, I remember I always wanted to be part of like the group. But I remember actually, like I would, I would walk I would walk home. And it was like 30 minutes. But I would take different routes and I would explore and try new things and know the curiosity like can I walk through this neighborhood to get to where I'm trying to go. And that that alone time, you know, I didn't have a, I think I might have had a diskman in high school, but not really. So I didn't have something to distract me.

Lesley Logan 21:37  

You're gonna have to explain it what a diskman was just in case somebody is listening to this. 

Brad Crowell 21:42  

If you were born in the 90s you don't know what a diskman is because you never needed to use one. A diskman is a CD player that is portable. That's all.

Lesley Logan 21:51  

You know, you just made me think of remember when when I left working for the fitness company. And I no longer had to commute from West Hollywood to the west side, which is by the way... (Brad: right) three miles, y'all 

Brad Crowell 22:02  

But it was like 30 to 45 minutes

Lesley Logan 22:04  

30 45 minutes, and in those 30 to 45 minutes, you could rarely get me on the phone. I literally just enjoyed I had a jeep with the top off. And even in the winter, I just blast the heat. And I drove through the streets of Beverly Hills, like like I mean it was beautiful picture as everything you see from a clueless when she's walking and clueless like literally that. And then I went from just like driving from our house to the studio, which is one mile and I could take the side streets. So I was there in four minutes, unless I hit this one stoplight, and then it was seven, but still, like no time at all. And I remember and I come home and you would have been working from home all day and you're like ready to talk. And I'm like, Ah, I haven't been alone. And like, so I ended up we got rid of the Jeep. So I could walk home. I could walk home. And it was a 15 to 20 minute walk depend on how fast I went. And it was the perfect time for my brain for me to be alone to think about thing. And that's where I actually going back to those seven layers of why the first time I could get all the way to number seven was on a walk. Because I could actually like go and I could get past number seven because I wasn't around. It wasn't in my surroundings of our house or my work. I was like walking with the squirrels and all this stuff. So anyways, highly recommend get some time by yourself.

Brad Crowell 23:22  

Yeah, I think that's great. And for you especially, it's really a way for you to energize or re energize... (Lesley: Yeah) You know, for me, I think like I have, I actually really struggle with it because I have a hard time. Like, like, it's hard. The story that I've told myself about alone time and not doing anything is that I'm not being efficient, and I'm wasting time. And I think that we need to combat that concept of I'm wasting time because the time your brain needs space and like little distraction, to be creative. And that creativity that sparks curiosity that allows you to come up with different ideas, you know, and, uh, you know, time after time, I've realized I fill every second of my day with, you know, if I'm literally like doing the dishes, I'm also listening to a podcast or maybe I've got a show on or something. Or if I'm going for a walk, I'm often again listening to a book or listening to a pod. And I don't leave myself time just to let my mind percolate. You know... (Lesley: yeah) and it's not wasting time. It's important. 

Lesley Logan 24:30  

No, it's important and 2% of your day is enough time, which is 30 minutes.

Brad Crowell 24:36  

Yes 2%

All right, so finally let's talk about those Be It action items what bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted action items can we take away from your convo with Adrian Starks.

Lesley Logan 24:58  

I'm going first again. It is my show. All right, here we go. Get curious, question people, question yourself and I don't, I think when people think question people, question why someone's, it's not to be antagonistic, it's just like, just because you have a thought doesn't make it a fact. So ask yourself like, oh, like why? Why is that? What? Like question you don't have to like question authority, or you should, but you don't have to, like, be antagonistic. It's just like, if you've always done things in one way, ask yourself, if that's still serving you, ask yourself that you'd be willing to try something different, you know, like, really dive in deep on some of the habits you have, because if they're not serving you, with time they get rid of them. And we got to get curious about that. First to understand you gotta like test things out in the water. I'm, I love testing out my morning routine, I really do. So you know, and the best way to test is like, get out of your comfort zone and do something different.

Brad Crowell 25:56  

Yeah, I do it respectfully. Part of it is something that I wanted to speak to because I was very antagonistic in my youth, about questioning authority, and not in like, I'm not like, you know, throwing rocks and started fights kind of thing, but I would challenge authority intellectually.

Lesley Logan 26:21  

You guys he literally did every single assignment in college and never turned it in. Let me just talk about like...

Brad Crowell 26:28  

I intentionally got the worst GPA you could possibly get. I failed every class... (Lesley: but he went) I went to all the classes. I wouldn't take the tests but I would do all the papers in the homework but I just wouldn't turn them in so I had a really interesting you know, it's part of my ego I think too for sure... (Lesley: Oh, you think) but but you know, the questioning people, questioning myself, you know, questioning authority that all of that really does roll into curiosity.

Lesley Logan 27:05  

Well, there's yeah, there's there's definitely been like, like curiosity is like being a detective versus like a judge.

Brad Crowell 27:11  

Yeah, we're being a dick about it. You know?

Lesley Logan 27:14  

Be a detective not a dick. Thats the new merch. I'm a detective not a dick.

Brad Crowell 27:25  

I love it man.

Lesley Logan 27:28  

Well anyways...

Brad Crowell 27:29  

We'll have to put that on like a like I don't know if that's I don't know what that goes. 

Lesley Logan 27:33  

It's like a sticker. It's sticker related, it's a bumper sticker for someone's car but not mine. Because I don't put them on the car. But we could put it on the Yeti. Um you know how at the gym people write on the walls... (Brad: Oh yeah) Oh my god some of that makes me so "no pain no gain", "sweat is just pain leaving the body" like I'm just gonna put be a detective not a dick, x x LL, Be It Till You See It. Anyways, you guys I think Adrian episode was just full of so many things. And so to sum it all up, get curious, question people, question yourself and let us know how you enjoyed this. Let us know what parts of this were really spoke to you and what you're gonna do about it and... (Brad: Let us know if you loved Adrian's voice) and how it's gonna help you have a purposeful life. And also you can listen to Adrian's voice on, for free, on his podcast, wherever podcasts are at your purposeful life. And so he has amazing guests that he puts up all the time. He's so intentional, and... (Brad: you were on there, right?) I was on there. We had a debate. We had great sweatshirt action. We both showed up in a gray sweatshirt. It was really funny. I'm like I'm going to wear a gray sweatshirt today. And I sit down he's like I had a feeling you would wear a gray sweatshirt... (Brad: you got the memo) Okay, I don't even never wear a gray sweatshirt on it. Like normally I try to like look good. Anyway, go to this podcast you can you can start with my episode and see if you enjoy the theme of his podcast which I think you will if you enjoyed this episode. So until next time, Be It Till You See It. Share it with friends and we'll hopefully see you around soon. 

Brad Crowell 29:08  

Bye for now.

Lesley Logan 29:08  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review. And follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!      

Be It Till You See It is a production of Bloom Podcast Network.  

Brad Crowell 29:08  

It's written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host Lesley Logan. And me Brad Crowell. Our associate producer is Amanda Frattarelli.

Lesley Logan 29:08  

Kevin Perez at Disenyo handles all of our audio editing.        

Brad Crowell 29:08  

Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianranco Cioffi.       

Lesley Logan 29:08  

Special thanks to our designer Mesh Herico for creating all of our visuals, (which you can't see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all the video each week, so you can.

Brad Crowell 29:08  

And to Angelina Herico for transcribing each episode, so you can find it on our website. And finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Everyone seems to be searching for their “purpose”. Is there really a way to discover what is meant for you? What are the steps that can be taken to truly step into your purpose? Adrian Starks joins the podcast as a man dedicated to helping others achieve their purpose driven lives.  

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] .

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• How living with purpose changes your life
• The first step in discovering your purpose 
• The three reasons we are here on this planet 
• How to create space to be curious and be purposeful 
• The bridge to being more purposeful and growing beyond your environment 
• What it means to be in an active state 
• Did we train our mind to accept things that please others?

BIO:

Adrian Starks is a professional speaker, host of Your Purposeful Life podcast, narrator, writer and entrepreneur. 

I am an expert in the field of success, purpose, change and challenges.

Episode References/Links:

• Watch Your Purposeful Life on YouTube
• Your Purposeful Life Website

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.

Be It Till You See It Podcast Survey

Be in the know with all the workshops at OPC

Be a part of Lesley’s Pilates Mentorship

Waitlist for the flashcards deck

Use this link to get your Toe Sox!

Resources

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!
• Lesley Logan website
• Be It Till You See It Podcast
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube
• Profitable Pilates

Social Media

• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

Transcript

Lesley Logan  

Hey, Be It babe. How are you? Welcome back. Thank you for being here. I am loving, being back in my podcast room, recording some guests, especially because all of these guests I have been waiting to interview for months. Actually, one of the things that I had, it was intentional about a few years ago was that I wanted to take December's off. And in order to do that, I had to get, you know, a 12 months of work done in 11 and kind of less. And I started that about 2020. And what that allowed me to do was have December off in 2021. And then that allowed me to have it off in 2022. Why am I telling you this? Because if you want to make change, you actually have to make a change ... I know, that's like, duh. But seriously, you actually can't expect things to just happen. So when I wanted to have December's off, I didn't get to have that December off that year, which was when I got to part of it, but I got to actually do the work to be it till I see it to have the next December off and the next December off. And so that meant, meeting amazing people like today's guests, Adrian Starks. Months ago, asked him to gonna be on the podcast months ago, and then going, by the way, you won't see anything open until January because that's all I had. I had to block things off so I could get things done. And so this guest I've been so excited to have on the show, he has an incredible podcast called Your Purposeful Life. I've been on it, you must go listen to that episode and the episodes that came out around it, and all the episodes just binge out actually. Because what Adrian is helping you do is be more purposeful with your life. And there isn't one way to do that. And I'm so excited for you to hear his words. First of all, his voice is gonna blow your mind. Second of all, there's so much honesty and vulnerability in this episode. And I really want you to listen to that. So if you're on a walk, enjoy, if you're driving your car in traffic, I hope that we help you get past any negative nancies that are out there on the road with you. And let us know what out of this podcast helps you live your purposeful life. Lets you be it till you see it. I want to know. And so you will and then make sure you tag the @be_it_pod. And if you have any questions, feel free to send those in. We'll make sure put them in the recaps. And until and you know, help you out in any way we can because we're here to help you be it till you see it to enjoy imperfections in your life and with our guests Adrian to help you live your purposeful life. And so, here is Adrian Starks.

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

All right, Be It babe. I'm so stoked. First of all, I cannot wait for you to hear the voice that's about to appear on the other side of mine. In this moment, but I have an amazing guest here. I got to meet him by being on his incredible podcast. And so when I got to know him more, and got to hear what his story is, I was like, "Oh, my God, you have to be on the Be It pod." Because if Adrian has not been be it till he saw it then I don't really know who has. So Adrian Starks, thank you for being on the Be It Till You See It podcast. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you're rockin at these days?

Adrian Starks  

Oh, well, I'm happy to be here. First of all, Lesley, thank you. And yes, I'm Adrian Starks. I am a podcast host of Your Purposeful Life. I'm a speaker, narrator, entrepreneur and writer. So I do a lot of things. And right now I'm just hanging out in the purposeful life world and just being it till I see it. You know what I'm saying?

Lesley Logan  

I do. I do. Was like, was, were you always living your purposeful life? Or like, did you come upon something that was like, "I need to be more purposeful?" How did that come about?

Adrian Starks  

Hell, no. I have to say, it took some time to get there. I used to be one of those people that would ask the question, What is my purpose? What is my purpose? And the universe never gave me an answer back. And I kept getting myself into constant messes, which I call the human mess. But I never learned for them until eventually, I decided that I was responsible for my own mess. And I had to figure out how to create a better process. And this hit me probably about a couple of years ago. And I realized I said, Oh, wow, it's not what is my purpose? It's what do I want to be purposeful towards? What do I need to do on my end to make some changes happen? What energy do I need to shift out there to create something different that I really want to experience? And it took a lot of mistakes, a lot of challenges, a lot of going through the motions. But eventually, I got to the point where I was like, "This is my sweet spot. I'm going to be here in my lane, and anybody that gets in his lane, they better be rolling with me. If they're not, then I'm gonna roll past them." And that's where I'm at now, with my life of just energetically being purposeful about what I do.

Lesley Logan  

So there's a few things that I really love there. First of all, the human mess, human mess. I'm like, aren't we all? And I also, thank you for sharing like that whole like, "What is my purpose?" Because I have a lot of people like, "I don't know, my purpose is." And it's like, I think we're expecting it to just like ... you know, like, the world stops and everything glows, and it's like, "Ah, this is it." And you're like, here's what, here's what it is. And it's actually, you know, I think that's a lot of pressure. You know, like, so much pressure, like, we're, we don't all have to cure cancer and become president of something. Like we, you're, you know, but so I love that you're like, "How do I be more purposeful?" What a, what a great way to take action in your life, instead of waiting for your purpose to find you. Or for you to be able to find what that purpose is. How did you start like with one thing at a time, like what how did you start becoming more purposeful? Like, what is that first step?

Adrian Starks  

The first step is finding out or self discovery. You got to dig in deep in yourself, you got to learn how to start dating yourself again. It's really the truth. You got to start learning how to ask yourself questions. What do I want to do? Where do I want to go next? What do I want to experience? And you have to get crystal clear on that. And I remember this quote from Thomas Carlyle, he is a Scottish philosopher. And he said that 'a person without a purpose, it's like a ship without a rudder. You can't go anywhere.' So at some point, you have to ask yourself, "Okay, what do I want this thing to be?" And you have to know yourself first. I know it's hard for a lot of you to hear that because you're like, "Oh, I know myself." No, you don't. No, you don't. I'm still learning about myself as we speak right now. And there's so many things that you haven't asked yourself about, or even decided to go in and do what we call an interrogation or or questioning of yourself. Sometimes you have to go on your own nerves and say, "What the hell is wrong with me right now? And why am I doing this? Why am I choosing this path? Why am I choosing these people? Why am I choosing this?" When you start asking that question, then you'll dial back and the answer will come in silence. So back to your question. My purpose came in many different forms and fashions. And now I've just learned to take a few of them and blend them in together.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah, I love that dating yourself. I think so often people, they do things because they've always done that way. This is how I sell. Like, there's a funny story that it will all make a point like my in laws. They, the my mother in law was making the turkey and she like, "Cut the top of the turkey off and put it in the oven." Just every year cut the top of the turkey off, put in the oven? And finally someone goes, "Why did you, why are you cutting the top of the turkey off? What are you doing?" And she goes, "Let me call my mom." And she calls her mom. And she's like, "Hey, Mom, I'm cooking the turkey. The way you cook the turkey? Why do you cut the top of the turkey off?" And she said, "Well, my ovens too small for full size turkeys." So like, I think we don't realize like we've been doing things like we do these things. Because the way our parents did them, because we've always done them that way. Because that's how everyone does it. And we've like until someone goes, "Why don't we go? Why do I do? Why do I like my eggs this way? Why do I get up?" Or like what what are those, you can't really know yourself. And then you just keep like you're walking through life. And it's a, it's this, it's Groundhog Day.

Adrian Starks  

It's a Groundhog Day. And the greatest journey is to journey inward. And I have to say this to the audience today. The longest and hardest journey is a journey inward and you're not going to figure everything out right away. So don't put that pressure on yourself. You don't need to know everything. There's some people that will say they do. And if they do say that they're very silly humans. Because they don't know everything. And if you did, what else is there to learn? And I always have this this thing too about the best version of yourself. I don't like that term. And I'll tell you why. When we say that I want to be the best version of myself. Then what else is there once you hit that ceiling? (Lesley: Yeah.) Where else you're gonna go. You're here on this planet to do three things. That's to learn. Some of us are hard at learning. We don't want to learn our lessons. I was there many times and I still am at some point. I can be a hard head. Two, we learn and then we have to grow. That means we have to take what we've learned applied into action. You talked about this be it till you see it. You'd learn something, okay, it's not there right now. What do we do? We start acting toward that thing. And then with the growth, yeah.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah. So okay. So, learning, I love that you said like, well, some of us just don't wanna be wrong. That's why I think that learning is hard. Because you could end up being wrong like you could have been how many Thanksgivings, just to, they cut the best part of turkey. Do you know what I mean? Like ... (Adrian: It's true ...) So, I don't want to be wrong, I think like we're, if we learn, we might be like, "Oh, we might have to like do it differently." And then that's really scary action. By the way, I said in the intro, this podcast, if you keep skipping through, you're skipping through a good stuff. Action is a, is the antidote to fear. So if you're scared of that, like take action, it feels really good. And then growth can come from that because you get clarity. I do love, thank you for saying that I've, because we always say I wanna be the best version of myself, but then it's almost like a period. It's like a p... I got like a peak, you know, and I have an episode that I will already have come out by the time this one does. But the guest was like, Keri Ford. So like, you know, it's a mountain with no peak. Like, like learning about yourself and growing is like, you're just on a mountain with no peak. And that can sound really depressing or could be really exciting. I'm like, what views are up here? What these are up here? And what am I gonna learn up here? So, on this journey, did you ever get frustrated with yourself? Because it's not like you can go from like, trying to, like do everything right? And like, and then going to like looking for your purpose and then getting comfortable with like, I'll never actually like I'll never be done.

Adrian Starks  

... I'm glad you asked that question, I want to address two things. When I say purpose is when I say purposeful, because I'm constantly in the action of, of dating myself and getting familiar with my purpose and putting it into the action of energy and serving. So that's why I say purposeful. What I want to get back to is the growth, I mentioned the learning, the growing, the third step is full expression. And this is where the purpose really manifests itself. This full expression is now the truth that you have and the trust you have and honoring yourself to know that I've grown so much and I love myself so much that I am willing to do this now despite the fact that may not be seen as perfect or the best. And that is what I called the cycle, learn, grow and fully express and in that is a human mess. Shit happens. Things come up. People come in, they come out, you make mistakes, but it's like this canvas of paint that you just eventually you're smearing things and eventually start seeing this reality called your life, unfolding. And like, "Oh, I can see why that happened over there? Why spilled that over there? I can see why this happened over here." And then that chaos that we call problem. So we call disasters are basically things unfolding, that we truly don't understand that eventually, at some point when they come together for the purpose of what we're doing, we will understand and be like, "Damn, that's what that was all about."

Lesley Logan  

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Like there's a situation I was going through over the holidays and I and I was like noticing myself kind of like being like a victim and like being a victim of it. Like, why is this happening? Like, I can't believe they're doing this to me. Why, like all this stuff. And it's like, then like there's this like part of me that's like, actually been learning so much. It's like, what the fuck are you saying to yourself right now, you're actually doing this right now. Like, you know, you know that this is actually going to be this is actually muscling you up for the next thing. And I don't know, when I will look back and go so so glad I went through that. But I do know that it will work out that way. Because I to this day, it will be 10 years ago, this summer that I became homeless, totaled my car. And the studio, I rented space from close, like it all happened in the same month. And I remember literally when the third thing happened, just like what else do you want to take? Because I don't want to take it with me. Like, I don't want to move into the new place with any of the shit you're going to take. So just take it now do you need a burn a fire? Like, what do you need? Right? And, and I knew in this like I had this like moment of like, this is all gonna be great someday. It really sucks right now. So it does take time to get to that spot where you can go, "Okay, what am I can learn from this? Where is this is going?" Like, and being curious in there. Were you always a curious person, or did this come as a moment? You're like, I gotta be like, I gotta figure this out.

Adrian Starks  

Oh, get out of my head. That was gonna talk about curiosity today. I've always been a curious person. Since I was a child. I was always that kid that was asking questions. And here's a little bit of my story. When I was in elementary, I had a lot of teachers that were, they didn't know what to do with me. I was very outspoken. I was very just energetic. And, to this day, my parents really were happy that they did not allow the teachers in the school system during that time. I'm 41. So I'm an 80s kid (Lesley: Yeah.) to shut me up, you know, (Lesley: Yeah.) 41 word up. They don't even use that term anymore. But ...

Lesley Logan  

It's okay. We're bringing it back. There's a lot of ...

Adrian Starks  

We're bringing it back. We are tired to being in the background. 80s kids are popping up.

Lesley Logan  

Oh, we're gonna put it on a quote card.

Adrian Starks  

We're gonna do. We're gonna bring it back. Yeah, remember cassettes, you remember CD. So yeah, during that time, I was very energetic. So the school was trying to put me into what they call medication. They claimed I had ADHD. And they really wanted to put me into a corner. My parents said, "No, he's just, he needs to be taught a different way." So it was little backlash from that. So I was remember getting my desk at this time, they can't do this. But I would have my desk placed all against against the back wall of the room. And I was told not to turn around to talk to any students. And these are the things that trauma wise I grew up with. And I shut down for a very long time as I got into my middle school years because I associated talking with getting in trouble. (Lesley: Yeah.) And then my curiosity dropped. (Lesley: Yeah.) I was no longer interested in conversations with people. I just thought that if I say this in class, I'm gonna be quiet. (Lesley: Right.) But here's the flip side of that. During lunch, I would always go to the library and eat because I became kind of, I wouldn't say antisocial, I got scared of talking to people. (Lesley: Right.) And I started reading a lot. I started dissecting philosophers, poets, I started looking at all these things of the past and I fell in love with the art of poetry, Maya Angelou, I fell in love with people like James Baldwin. I fell in love with people like Ralph Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, I can go on and on and on, Wayne Dyer. I fell in love with Earl Nightingale, all these true voices pioneers. And I realized that, oh, also Louise Hay. And I realize there was a part of me that was missing. And so I got curious again, if I started reading a lot, and that curiosity came out more and more as I got older, I started asking questions, I started poking the bear a little bit, so to speak, I started challenging people's perceptions. And I lost a lot of friends and behind that. A lot of people kind of just ... just went with the wind. And that's okay. I understood that I was speaking a part of me now that needed to. So back to your question of curiosity. That's when it started when I started going to libraries during my middle school years. But at that point, I'm still curious, like, every day I want to know something different. (Lesley: Yeah.) I'm curious to know, why are you having a messed up day right now? I'm curious to know you know, what's going on with this. You seem very happy. I'm curious to know well, why did you just tells me that this information is the only information I need to hear right now. Why is this the most important thing in the world? Why is this scaring you? Why do I feel the way I feel? Curiosity is what allows us to really be perceptive, and to see things like opportunities. And this is one way to get out to. (Lesley: Yeah.) With your purpose, if you really want to create a purpose, you got to be open to things that come up. You gotta be like, I see that door opening right there. I'm gonna go right through that damn thing. Even (Lesley: Yeah.) if it's like close, I'm gonna go through it. I might get my foot caught in it, but at least I got a little bit of it. You got to get curious that way. You got to get curious enough to make a mistake to tell you know, someone that maybe I don't know this. Can you, can you enlighten me on what your what your thought process is on this? That curiosity just never leaves me.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah. And I just want to highlight here ... Did you hear that rewind, if you're curious enough to be able to make and be okay of making a mistake like that, because that's how we learn like that is if you're listening this and you want to get into business of any kind, I'm gonna tell you right now, you learn more from mistakes you make in your business than the things that go the way you planned. When things go the way you planned, you know, actually idea of like, what of those things that you did worked, but when you have when it doesn't go the way you plan, and you can actually go, "Oh, well, here's where we actually could have done something. Here's we could have done something." Like you can learn from that. So, all of this actually just takes time, though when you open to it, we have to actually create space for this. How how are you able to create space in your life to get curious and to take time to like work on your purpose and like work on being purposeful?

Adrian Starks  

Being alone. I love my alone time. I'm what I call a hyped up introvert.

Lesley Logan  

Oh, Brad calls me a high functioning one. My friends think I'm an ambivert. And we might be ambiverts. But I hyped up introvert. Okay, I'm in. Tell me more.

Adrian Starks  

Okay, so this is what I mean by this. I love my alone time. I love quiet space. But at any point I can, I can gel with people. I can get into a conversation. I can walk into a room. I can really highlight people and really get and have fun. But I need my time to decompress. I need my time to re energize. And that comes from silence. I like to go and just be by myself. I love the ocean. I'm a water sign. So anything with running water soothes me. I go there and times to think ask myself questions. And I do a lot of I would say note taking, people call it journaling. I call it note taking because I take notes on my day and what I've been going through, that's my alone time. That's how I really learn more about myself. And I really find a way to, to re energize so to speak. So I like I like to be alone. But at the same time too much alone time. It's not good enough for me because in my brain starts thinking too many things and I need to get around other people.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah, I can thrive an alone time. But if I'm alone too much, then I actually can overwhelm myself with all the thoughts. And I ... Yes, yes. Yeah. So um, I want to go back you before you were doing all the things you're doing now, which you know, your podcaster, narrator all these things. Can you explain like, the bridge? Because I think a lot of people listen to this. They're like they're trying to work on the thing, or they have an idea of what it is that they're like way more purposeful. They want to be it till they see it. And it's hard. Like I think some people think it's a light switch. Like I closed the door on this life. And I open the door on this life. And there's actually, there's a whole hallway y'all that you had to go through.

Adrian Starks  

The hallway is long too. You can be crawling your knees at some point. And other point, you feel like you're Spider Man, you're crawling on the walls trying to avoid this door. It gets crazy. Yes, the answer to your question. Yeah, it was not a light bulb moment. Well, no, it wasn't a light bulb moment for me where everything just happened. I used to work in a call center. So this a little bit of my background here. I have a degree in exercise physiology. So I worked in personal training for quite some time, but I really loved helping people. So then I got involved into the medical field, because I don't know for some reason I thought I could do more. And I ended up in a call center in Seattle for about nine years. And here's the funny thing. The call center was a calling to the centering of my life. I learned a lot of communication skills there on the phone, I learned how to talk to people, how to help people, how to see things from their perspective. And with that, after my seventh year, I got really tired. And I was just not wanting to go in and I don't know if y'all feel this way. But if you ever went to a job and just pulling that door open seems heavy, minute you walk into the room, the atmosphere chokes you, and all you hear is just voices and you're just like, "Damn, I wish I called out today. (Lesley: Right.) I should have called in sick." That's how I felt the last two years and then I had to change something. I started looking at what I wanted to do differently. So I knew that I really wanted to get more into the self improvement world. I was really inspired by the people I've mentioned earlier and one person in particular, Les Brown really inspired me. And I was like, "I want to be a speaker. I didn't want to be a motivational speaker. I wanted to be a person of change agent, a voice." And every time I would answer that phone a call center, they would think I was some automated system, they would say, "Hey, what are you doing here? You should be like doing voiceovers or something like that. Why are you answering the phones here?" And I'm like, "No. Well, thank you for that. Thank you that." I get that all the time. It hit me like, "What the fuck am I doing here (Lesley: Yeah.) right now." Sorry for my language. But I gotta say that to express that emotion. (Lesley: Yeah.) It's like, what am I doing here right now? I've been here for too long. Where else can I go? Then I started looking at options for myself. And what I'm getting at here is that wherever you wherever you are, you must grow beyond your environment, don't have an environment, try to change you, you have to change yourself within the environment and get so big enough in your thought process and how you feel about yourself that that damn environment can even hold you anymore. Things become easier when you do that, when you start focusing on things outside of yourself, like doing things other than work. So what I used to do is during on Fridays, this is my favorite part, I would take the bus to go back home. But Fridays were happy hour. So I would always go down into the lobby on Fridays. And I would sit at the table. And I write out my list of five things. Why I deserve my dream? I write up five statements every Friday, and people will come down the stairs, the elevator, "What are you still doing here? You should go home, have fun, it's the weekend or come with us to happy hour." I would say, "No, this is my productive hour. I'm gonna sit right here. I'm gonna write out these five things. And when I am done, then I will get on my bus." And every time I did that every Friday, and this is what it took for me to grow beyond my environment. And what happened was I started getting opportunities to speak. I started traveling to Canada, right across the street in Vancouver. So I was speaking at schools, I started speaking at events. And next thing I know I'm doing some talks, professional talks. And one thing led into the other because I kept thinking about that vision. And remember y'all I'm gonna go back here, Thomas Carlyle, that Scottish philosopher I mentioned earlier, the quote, 'a person without a purpose, like a ship without a rudder. You're not going to go anywhere.' And if you ask a captain, like, "Hey, what is your next port of destination?" They can tell you because they know what it is, regardless of what kind of weather comes their way. And that environment couldn't hold me anymore. Because I knew my destination at that point. I wanted to get out of there, first of all, but I wanted to get more involved in public speaking and narrations.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah. I love this because it's like, I like a picture. This is like your happy hour, which is actually, like, the irony is like they're going off to happy hour for that moment. But you spent this purposeful hour to create happiness in your life now. Like you're like do you know what I mean? Like you're not at that call center anymore, you're doing the things that like, really light you up. And I also like I always tell people, you know, paste into the things that people are telling you all the time or asking you all the time because they actually think that you're the expert in that, like the fact that like every time someone's calling in, they're like, "Why are you, why aren't you, why aren't you reading my audible book? (Adrian: Exactly.) Why are the person helping me with my password?" You know, I think, thank goodness, you were listening, though. I think, you know, to go back, like where with that whole? Like, what is my purpose? I was like waiting for a light bulb. It's like, oftentimes, you've been hit over the head with it, y'all. It's the things that people continue to ask you about. Or to, like, share with you like that is, that's what they are seeing you as, and they're a really good mirror for for us. You know, so can you talk about some other things that you've done, that have helped you go from like growing too big for your space from that space? And then and to that got you to where you're doing today? And like what that looks like, because I know our peeps are like really big. They like to take the notes, they want to get the details they want to kind of know, how did you get there?

Adrian Starks  

Great question. Well, sometimes you have to do things for free. I did a lot of volunteer work. While I was there in the call center. I would drive up to Vancouver every other weekend and volunteer for a workshop for about two hours. And what I did was I was studying under a person who was teaching workshops, they were actually a professional speaker. I just reached out to him and said, "Hey, I really like your style. I'd like to learn from you. But I also understand too that is not for free. Is there anything that we can bargain with? Can I come and volunteer? And while I'm volunteering, I can be a sponge. And whenever you need me to do I will do." Did that for two years, went back and forth. And I was up there so much people thought I live there. So I I put in that time and I didn't get paid for it. I did free talks, didn't get paid for it. I was on social media, didn't get acknowledged for it. And this is what it means when you're in an active state, sometimes the world will not know what you're doing and that's okay. But when you start getting active enough and you start growing, people will begin to watch, they will begin to listen, they will begin to see that you're being good to you see it. And then they start saying, "Oh, this person is not going anywhere. Freakin consistent. What's going on with that? I won't check this person out over here." But there were times where Lesley I lost confidence in myself. I'm gonna say this right now. We, I think people put on this perfectionism mask, this is what you talk about, right? Is they make you like, I made it here. And this is what you got to do? No, it ain't that easy. It's not that one step. And it's like, are you gonna be here? No, you're gonna have to fall on your face a little bit. You got to get, get your elbows dirty a little bit. Is going to happen. If you don't want that to happen, then stay comfortable. But if you really want to get outside that comfort zone, you're gonna have to trip and fall a little bit and try some things out that may not work. There are a lot of things I did that did not work. I was with some people and partner with people, it did not work. So I tried something else. And I cannot say that, that I planned exactly how things are going to be. I had a plan, but I let things unfold. And as they unfolded, I decided, okay, this works. This doesn't. Let me keep this over here. This works. This doesn't. (Lesley: Yeah.) I just kept doing that over and over again until I got it right. I allowed myself to feel. I allowed myself to make mistakes. I allowed myself to, to celebrate ... that's another thing too. When I had small victories, I celebrated myself, I went out and bought myself something I really wanted. Say, good job. (Lesley: Yeah) Patting myself on the back, you know. (Lesley: Yeah.) People are saying, "Yeah, good job." But it feels so good when you tell yourself, good job. It doesn't need to be a grandiose thing, just something minor. And so if you're on a nine to five or anywhere right now, and you're trying to figure out how to get the hell out of there. Don't think about that right now, think about what can you start getting involved with that can change your energetic state, wherever you are. Because what happens is when you change your energetic state, like I did, I walked in that call center, that door wasn't heavy anymore. I walked in, like I owned the freaking place. That was like, what would it be like my own displays? How would I act? How would I be? Who would I talk to? And that and believe it or not, I got offered opportunities to move up in the echelons of command. I didn't want it though. I'm out of here.

Lesley Logan  

Well cause you change your energy and so people noticed. (Adrian: Right.) I love that you share that you did things for free. And that a lot of things didn't work. Y'all it's a numbers game. More likely than not most of the things aren't gonna go the way you ...

Adrian Starks  

Lesley you know what? They said Babe Ruth, the home run hitter. Actually, Hank Aaron had more home runs to him. But they said that with both of these two combined, they had more strikeouts, and he did home runs. But no one knows notices that strikeouts, the only notice the home runs and successes like that people (Lesley: Yeah.) only notice the effect, they don't see all the causes that created that effect.

Lesley Logan  

That thank you for pointing that out. Because that's I mean, it's I, my husband has a course called like 200 rejections to success. He's like, if you go out and you try to get rejected 200 times on same thing, you will have all the clients you want to have because eventually you'll start to learn like what peaks people's interest? What are you saying that actually people like you'll hear all these objections, you'll start to be able to pre like bust those objections before they even come at you. Like, you're going to have more potential clients say no to you than yes to you. Because you couldn't be like, that's just how it goes. Like not everyone's the right person for you, or they don't understand it, or that's not the right time. And I think we think oh, well, five people didn't like what I said, so I'm not good enough. And I'm not going to do it anymore. It's like five people? You know, like, like, out of out of 7.8 billion people on this planet, five people said no, and you're gonna stop. You know. So I think also people don't realize how much you have to do to put yourself out there that is you don't get recognized for or you don't get acknowledged for and you don't win you don't get paid. But that doesn't mean you don't learn something from it. And it doesn't actually change the course of your life and help you with that purposeful life.

Adrian Starks  

It's true. It's saying that there's over 7 billion people on the planet and out of that 7 billion there's gonna be 5% are not going to like you no matter what you say or do. Think about that 5% converting to now 500 million people that you're trying to tiptoe around. Don't do it. I tried at one point. Don't do it. Then you end up hiding. You end up hiding everywhere you end up holding your words back. As you said, you know, Lesley you and your powerful phrase, self care isn't selfish. You stop taking care of yourself because now you feel like if I do this with this person at this energy in here, that this person then they're going to like me. I stopped that pony ride a long time ago. (Lesley: Yeah.) It's like I come from a heart of intention. If you don't like that, then don't like it. I won't lose any sleep, I promise.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah, you know, I think well that's where the that's where it's, it's really hard to unlearn that you're supposed to be liked by people. Like you know what I mean? Like all these things. Like don't brag, because that's gonna make people not like you. It's not gonna make people feel good about themselves and don't. And so all these people are doing all these things like for you don't talk in class, because no one's gonna like you because that's, that's different. And like ...

Adrian Starks  

That messed me up for a long time, Lesley. Let me tell you that that mess with my psych for a very, very long time.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah, I mean, how could it not like it's like, it's, you know, I mean, the new I don't know if the new kids with all the different ways they can learn are actually in a better state. I hope that they are because but I do recall like my parents, my parents, my mom is probably supposed left handed, but they forced me right handed because we can't be different. Don't be different.

Adrian Starks  

Same thing would happened to me too. (Lesley: Really?) It is.

Lesley Logan  

So I wanted to be left handed, but I had to be on a right handed world.

Adrian Starks  

I'm a lefty. I'm a lefty by nature. So this is the funny thing just to not to hijack what you're (Lesley: No.) saying here. I just have to add to say, my mom did the same thing to me. I come from a family of left handers and my grandmother could not stand my mom did that. But here's the funny thing every time now, I'm around my mom and I'm eating. I use my left hand because I've never slept part of my brain never stopped and she's like, "You're still using your left." Like I do. I open everything with my left hand. I eat with my left hand. I grab with my left hand, but I write with this hand. Well, my right hand.

Lesley Logan  

Oh, that's so you're like a nice ambidextrous, it's, but it's so like, those are like the first things that actually change us to conform, and really do mess with like how we feel safe expressing ourselves in this world. And it's such a shame that this happens because we have so much unlearning to do and if you're listening to this, and you're like, "Oh my God, that happened to me too." Like, your new journey gets to be curious about using the hand that you actually probably like what will happen if that you know, like what can be what can you learn from that? What can you start to open your eyes to and other things right then that it's not your fault that these were the things that people chose to do to you and your education. But if you continue to live that journey, that is something you choose, you know, like we can actually and we can choose to live a different way we can choose to get curious and try to unlearn. It might take you years, it might take you the rest of your life on this planet. And but I mean, what else were you doing?

Adrian Starks  

Exactly. Well, be on this planet is powerful thing. What else, what else, what else are we doing here for? Right. Experience.

Lesley Logan  

Right. So I want to go into because we on your ... Y'all, if you haven't listened to the episode I did on Adrian's podcast, Your Purposeful Life. Please go back and listen to that. It's so good. But you said something to me when we got off the air. You used to call it A Purposeful Life. Am I correct? Is that I get that correct? And then ...

Adrian Starks  

... yeah, good question. It was The Purposeful Life Show. And the reason why I changed it was because I realized that it wasn't about someone coming and finding the answer to purpose. Like coming to the show. I'm like, "Oh, that's what the purpose of life is all about." No, it's your purposeful life. And when you come to the show, you're listening to amazing people like Lesley. And Lesley's energy may resonate with you that could turn on the switch for you to be like, whoa, I need to really look at that a little bit deeper for myself. And within that investigation that we talked about earlier, going deep inside y'all, then you start looking at your purpose a little bit differently. And your purpose is different for everyone else's, it's not a one size fits all approach. That's why when I when people say things, especially in self improvement world, I may, I may, I may step on some toes with this, and I'm not calling out any names, but I'm gonna have to go ahead and be wrong and say it. There's a lot of people that will say, "Well, you know, I'm going to help you live your best life. I'm going to tell you what it's like to be successful." Bullshit. There's not a person out there that has the only cure all answer. That's why less ... 7 billion people on the planet. You are designed to resonate with certain people. There's certain people I don't resonate with. I don't want to listen to. I don't care for really. And there's some people that may feel the same way about me and that's okay. That's why it's your purposeful life, because you can decide on the show who you want to listen to, who wants to resonate with you. But not one person has the cure all. I don't have the cure all. (Lesley: Yeah.) I'm still trying to figure stuff out myself. But I hey I'm willing to say it. (Lesley: Yeah.) I'm okay with that. I'm not perfect. And if anyone out there says they're perfect, run. (Lesley: Yeah.) The other direction, like run and don't even look back.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do love like the most certain person in the room wins. I think that's really important for people to know when you're trying to help people with whatever your thing is. Like you do need to know that. People are not going to trust you if you are not certain about what that is. However, if that person is certainty as they have the actual key to the kingdom for you, and they're giving that same key out to every single person. It's not possible.

Adrian Starks  

That's what the problem is. And I like how you brought that up, because I didn't clarify that. In this field that we're in we're experts in what we do. There's a thing called professional speaking and I do speak on changes and challenges. I'm an expert in that. It's what I do. You ask me questions. I can I can address, I can show you examples, I can show you action steps. But I will not tell you that this is the only way to do it. (Lesley: Yeah.) I will not do that. I will not say that, don't go to this person over here, or this person, you come to me because you've heard about me through word of mouth. That's where the action expertise comes in. But when people say something, they say that this is the only thing you'll ever need. (Lesley: Yeah.) No.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah, I mean, and that goes fruit nutrition, y'all. That goes for money management like. So you know, and I, what I why I brought it up is like the intentionality of words. And how it changes, what can what people can come. So you had 'the', and then you change it to 'your', and it really does allow for permission and freedom of people to learn from a different person's purposeful life. Without that person just like making a general statement. This is how I had the purposeful life. This is like, you know, I think I think we, as humans forget, like, you can change a word like this is happening to me, this happening for me, like you change a word, and it can actually open up possibility or can shut things down.

Adrian Starks  

Absolutely. And I like that you said that too. It's for a reason. That is your because it is your life. I can't live it for you Lesley, can't live it for you. But you can decide how you want to live it. And you need tools. Remember that cycle, learn and grow and fully express. We learned from others. We learn what to do more of. We learn what to do less of. And on that show, it's about the human mess too that we go through. And when we express that human mess, and we laugh at ourselves and say, "Damn, I don't know how I got through it, but I got through it." Someone resonates with that. Because they they're going through that too right now. Right now in the in the market in the world, we have too many people out there that are just being perfect or trying to be perfect. And if you notice that people that you think are perfect, something happens, and all of a sudden you're like, "Whoa, I didn't know they were going through that. (Lesley: Yeah.) I didn't know this was happening. I didn't know, how could that be they got a perfect life." (Lesley: Yeah.) That's not, they don't have a perfect life. They have a life that you deem is perfect, because you've been conditioned to believe that. The other day, we're all human. And we're learning.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah, at the end of the day, we are all human. And how cool is that? That's, you know, where perfect is boring, as I say all the time. And also like, I did an episode with Alan Stein, Jr. and he said, this is such a like, I like this is just such a, he said in the history of basketball, the history of the NBA, there has never been a perfect game. There's never been a game with all these, the best of the best at what they do where the there's not a player who doesn't make a mistake. There's not a foul. There's not this and so it's like we're not robots. This is not an AI thing. This is like if you when you create things, you can create perfection if you want but that's gonna be contextual, because someone else might be like, "Oh, that that strokes wrong." So, oh my gosh, Adrian, I can keep talking to you forever. I do want to have to just have other hangouts. I gotta get to the Northwest for sure.

Adrian Starks  

We have a, we have an 80s hangout. We talked about the 80s.

Lesley Logan  

Oh, (Adrian: 80s movie, 80s music.) 1,000%. On OPC everything is done in the 80s. We use 80s and 90s rap to like title classes. (Adrian: I'm telling you it's the best.) It is the best you know, all y'all elder Millennials are gonna change the world you might think that we're we're different but we're actually the best.

Adrian Starks  

We are. Just just to say it quickly here. We are the, well here's the thing. Think about the 80s. We were in the middle of everything from tube set TVs to cable to very first started the first internet when it was a dial up we had to wait like 10 minutes to go online to moving into CDs and then all of a sudden we move into the first mp3 ever this is before the iPhone. Yeah, okay, so first mp3 ever and then we moved into DVDs that we experienced a major shift and change of everything, technology wise.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah, and we all help to get rid of some low rise jeans to stop bringing them back because no one looks good enough. Just say, just say well, if you are an elder millennial listening to this or a millennial and general, celebrate that and that's the first practice and celebrating yourself, and we're gonna take a brief break and we're gonna find out what you can listen to your purposeful life and also, Adrian's BE IT action items for you. Alright, Adrian, where can people find you, follow you, listen to this voice more?

Adrian Starks  

We're gonna keep it simple. Just go to yourpurposeful.life, the website, yourpurposeful.life. It is still in motion in action. Okay, so we're still building it up. But go there. Listen to the podcast episodes, download into your favorite podcast platform, scroll down that page and join the YPO community, as well have amazing takeaways, questions that I'll be addressing, things coming up from previous guests like Lesley and reaching out to them getting some advice about some questions you may have. Go there, yourpurposeful.life.

Lesley Logan  

I love it. And also everyone just so you know, your website's never done. So if you just like you're never done learning your website is never done.

Adrian Starks  

It's true. It's very true. Oh, and go to the Your Purposeful Life with Adrian Stark's YouTube channel. Subscribe, because we have videos out weekly on that channel. But yes, back to what you were saying. Websites are never done.

Lesley Logan  

Never done. They're never done. Okay, real quick, bold, executable, intrinsic, targeted action items we can give to the be it community, what do you have for us?

Adrian Starks  

Okay, so I'm pretty sure alot of you've heard a lot of these things. But I'm gonna say somewhere at the top. Stopped believing everything you hear. That's the first step, get curious. Question people, question yourself, but do it in a respectful way. Do it in a respectful way. That's the first sign of self. That's one of the first steps to self maturity. (Lesley: Yeah.) And if you really want to change, you have to be able to change your current paradigm, your current story and how you currently do things. I don't want to make this hard for you. But you have to do. That it starts with you first. And you got to start questioning things, people and your own motives. If you can't call yourself out on your own shit. How can you get mad if people don't hear you, don't respect you? How can you get mad about that? So to create some magic out here, you got to get honest with yourself and start really challenging you. Sit yourself down and get at it. Go to work.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah, I love that. Y'all, I just want highlight like, not only like don't believe everything you hear include the things you tell yourself. We tell ourselves some woppers that are not true about ourselves. (Adrian: ... talk.) Yeah, yeah. Oh my goodness, Adrian, you're amazing. You're so great. I love that you're doing what you're doing and putting out in this world because you are helping people be more purposeful and that is only going to make this world a better place. So thank you so much. Y'all, how are you going to use these tips in your life? Please let us know, tag the @be_it_pod, tag Adrian Starks. And until next time, Be It Till You See It.

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review. And follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!   

Be It Till You See It is a production of Bloom Podcast Network. It's written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host Lesley Logan. And me Brad Crowell. Our associate producer is Amanda Frattarelli.

Kevin Perez at Disenyo handles all of our audio editing.    

Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianranco Cioffi.    

Special thanks to our designer Mesh Herico for creating all of our visuals, (which you can't see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all the video each week, so you can.

And to Angelina Herico for transcribing each episode, so you can find it on our website. And finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Recapping an unstoppable conversation with professional fighter and resilience coach Camee Adams, Brad Crowell and Lesley Logan pull out the tips to stand back up and the courage to keep going. Tune in to use and cultivate resilience in your own life. 

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] .

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• Upcoming OPC news. 
• Can you get cheaper Pilates equipment?
• The four forms of resilience. 
• Resiliency can look different for everyone. 
• The importance of evaluating your process of resiliency. 
• Create space and grace for yourself to show up in your season.

Episode References/Links:

• Get on the waitlist for the tour
• Sign up for the Roll Up workshop
• Teachers join us in a Pilates mentorship

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.

Be It Till You See It Podcast Survey

Be in the know with all the workshops at OPC

Be a part of Lesley’s Pilates Mentorship

Waitlist for the flashcards deck

Use this link to get your Toe Sox!

Resources

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!
• Lesley Logan website
• Be It Till You See It Podcast
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube
• Profitable Pilates

Social Media

• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

Episode Transcript:

Brad Crowell 0:28  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

Lesley Logan 2:07  

Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It interview recap where my co host in life Brad and I are going to dig into the unstoppable convo I had with Camee Adams in our last episode. If you you haven't yet listened to that episode, go back. Watch it, then come back, join us here or put it in your like, play next to this like back to back sandwich of Be It Till You See It. Enjoy. I really enjoyed talking with her. I think first of all, if you watch the YouTube version of that, you probably saw my eyes change and like my face just like changed when I realized that I think she's younger than me but her during college. And I was like, well,

Brad Crowell 2:43  

She's younger than your other kids in college. Yeah. And she's a fighter.

Lesley Logan 2:47  

Yeah, she's a fighter. She's all these things. And it's like, Well, what did you What did you do Lesley with your life? Yeah.

Brad Crowell 2:55  

So in prep for this, I Googled her. I just looked her up. Yeah, she's a badass. I mean, there's some amazing pictures of her. Prepping for and then actually in the ring.

Lesley Logan 3:08  

Yeah, no, I mean, totally. And then somebody tagged me in something recently. And she commented because she saw so we like have mutual friends. Yeah, it's like, in Vegas, so we have to connect. (Brad: small world)I know. I love this world. So anyways, yeah, Googled her, check her out. But also, yes, did the math. Home girl was very efficient with her younger life. We'll just say that. So before I end this interview, I do want to say, reminder, if you're watching this in real time, first of all, thank you wait to be on it, like on the real time kind of person. And then also, if you just found us and you're binging out, Hi, you're late, but you can still get an information on what I'm about to say. So in a few days, the OPC, one day, event, special, workshop, roll up on the mat. I'm saying it like it's a fight. Doo doo doo doo is happening. So on Sunday, this Sunday.

Brad Crowell 4:04  

The virtual corner we welcome the OPC one day event workshop roll up on the mat. It's pilates y'all, it's pilates.

Lesley Logan 4:18  

So the roll up is an exercise that most people really struggle with. Brad hates it. He does way better now, but if you haven't chosen...

Brad Crowell 4:25  

When I was first getting started it was...

Lesley Logan 4:28  

You came up like a vampire, you came up like... (Brad: like a vampire?!). Like straight up out of the coffin. Your back did not bend. And then if you were a vampire, you were like a, like a mousetrap.

Brad Crowell 4:43  

I was a mousetrap? like, like catching those...

Lesley Logan 4:48  

Anyways, um, so it's on Sunday. It's two hours. There'll be a short replay and we're really excited about OPC teachers are joining me to help show you their tricks and steps and strategies for helping the roll up be more embodied in their bodies. And also, what's really cool is once you nail the roll up, you can actually have access to rollovers and teasers and open like rockers and all these and this might also... (Brad: and vampires) and vampires. If this is all gibberish to you, essentially, like if you'd like to have a full body workout that allows you to stretch and strengthen your body and you don't want to work out for an hour all the time. Be at this workshop, the role up is an essential exercise you need to have in your body. We won't take much of your time, just a little bit and you will learn things that will help you no matter where you do Pilates (...)

Brad Crowell 5:36  

Skip straight to it, go to opc.me/events

Lesley Logan 5:40  

Yes, opc.me/events. Okay. And then, hello, OPC members, hello. Um, we have a little tease happening or teasing you right now, we're telling you that there is something exciting that we can't tell you. But if you were at the live class, we told you. So here's the deal. LBC members, something very exciting is happening. It's around the corner. And we will be telling you more about it next month. And we're just like over here like little Pilates elves, working on things, working on things. And then finally, finally, finally, if you are a teacher who is like, Gosh, I really don't want to burn out but I can't teach (...) teach anymore, or you're frustrated with like how to help your clients take pilates to the next level. Or maybe you have forgotten about your connection to the method. Hi, hello, I'm Lesley Logan, I am your elevate. Mentor. Elevate is my mentorship. It's nine, it's a nine month program. Our third round starts in May rounds one and two sold out. And there's only three spots left. Well, I don't know by the time this happens, there can be no spots left. But let's just say there's still the three from when we're recording, I want you in it, I want to work with you. It's my favorite thing that I get to do. It really truly is. I mean, the retreat is also a favorite thing. But like the mentorship is just really a lot of fun. We've spent a lot of time together really help you take to the next level. So go to lesleylogan.co/elevate lesleylogan.co/elevate. And yes, Brad added a fourth bullet. So But wait, there's more... (Brad: there's more) do not skip ahead, you're gonna want to hear about this, the chairs flashcard deck has a has like the printing is in the works. And you can pre order over at the OPC website. You can also check out our other flashcards there and all that we have. But if you are like itching to make sure you get this when the deck is like hot off the actual presses, like literally that's what happens and like can put into a box and then put into mail. You want to order now. Because otherwise, if we sell out, then you have to wait another eight to 10 weeks. That's just how (...)

Brad Crowell 7:49  

That's hot off the actual presses.

Lesley Logan 7:52  

Oh, if people have seen a press, that's what it looks like. Yes, it's really cool. There's also you can also go over to the OBC site and on a blog, there's actually a whole video on how these cards are made. It makes. It makes no sense to me how they keep them in order.

Brad Crowell 8:06  

It's pretty amazing.

Lesley Logan 8:07  

I'm like, how is that an order though? How is that there? How is it out of order? It's amazing. These are things I don't need to know. It's not my job. All I do is make cards over here. So now before we get into Camee Adams, can you please tell me if we have an audience question to get to?

Brad Crowell 8:24  

We sure do. So I'm just going to read it off here. I know you love your equipment. But do you recommend a less expensive mat or reformer? And this is from sincerely IG user who uses your your flashcards.

Lesley Logan 8:40  

I know, I really love this question. And trust me, since I don't actually like make money off of a lot of the referrals I send to equipment. I wish that I could like have like a list of like, here if if you want to spend the top dollar and here's middle dollar and here's like less dollars. But the truth is, is what I cannot do is tell you to buy equipment that you're going to want to replace later on. Like I'm just not good at that. So for this user hearing...

Brad Crowell 9:09  

I think it's okay that you're not good at that.

Lesley Logan 9:10  

I'm not good at that. And here's the thing...

Brad Crowell 9:13  

I literally heard your response to them this morning. And I was like okay, yeah, I agree.

Lesley Logan 9:19  

So here full disclosure, I am an authorized demo center for Contrology equipment which is made by a Balanced Body, which means I am of course going to want to send you to Contrology or at the very least to Balance Body. I love them so much. And let's just say let me just tell you why. My reformer needed a repair and the head of Balanced Body came to my hotel room and repaired my former reformer... (Brad: the owner?) the owner.

Brad Crowell 9:44  

Yeah... (Lesley: this is a massive company) who has had the company for 40 years. He was like yeah, you know what, I'll do a equipement call

Lesley Logan 9:50  

And my my friend who is has Contrologi equipement in San Diego, one of the trade show guys from the company was like, Oh, you're in San Diego. I'm going to be down there next month to I'm gonna stop by and check on your equipement, shouldn't ask he was offered. So I really am biased to them for many reasons. And I so and yes, I can and am affiliate. So for all these reasons.

Brad Crowell 10:09  

 But not only that the Contrology line was co designed with balanced body by your teacher.

Lesley Logan 10:15  

By my teacher. Yeah. So another a 14,003. The reason why I'm biased and will always send you there, there is for you can use like an eight to 10 millimeter mat to do Pilates on, it won't have handles, it won't... (Brad: like a travel or like a roll up mat). But it needs to be eight to 10 millimeters. And we used to sell them on our site, we don't anymore, you guys products are a beast, and I can't get to the post office on time. So. So we don't do that anymore and Bounce Body does have one of those roll up mats on their site. That being said, that kind of mat is not able to make the mat, like in a piece of equipment. So I'm going to send you to the Contrologi mat, because it's just the best, it's got the handles got the strap, as far as performance go, the reformers range in all prices. But my favorite reformers that really help people have the most access and to me, you won't be limited on exercises you can do because if you're too close to the floor, that's going to affect your practice. If you're too if if if it is bungees not springs, that's going to affect the the method in your body. So all the reformers that I happen to love and tell people to get are going to be about $4,000 Yes, that is a lot of money. It's true it is. But I would I highly recommend, get a little big account, call it your equipment account and start throwing money in there. You'd be surprised with my affiliate link, you could probably get the mat. If you're saving, you know, you'd probably get to that in under a year of savings and then reformer. Luckily, that's what payment plans are for. But their write offs if you're a teacher just saying. So anyways, I love my equipment, and I can't recommend stuff that I don't think you'll love.

Brad Crowell 11:56  

Yeah, and the link that we'll put in the show notes will actually save you some money on your order.

Lesley Logan 12:01  

And if you have any problems with that hit us up just like literally DM me say I'm having problems with your affiliate link and I will connect you to my lovely salesperson. She's a badass, but try the link first.

Brad Crowell 12:26  

 Okay, now let's talk about Camee Adams... (Lesley: Camee Adams) boo boo boo as a professional mixed martial artist, Cami Adams knows a thing or two about fighting. She's learned to take a punch. And she works as a resilience coach and speaker to equip others with the tools that they need to pick themselves up and keep going. And she speaks from a whole lot of experience.

Lesley Logan 12:53  

Yeah, I mean, I feel like you... (Brad: in and outside the ring) to be a fighter, you have to like literally have more resilience, because I'm gonna tell you right now, if I got hit in the face, like I need to run for cover, like please.

Brad Crowell 13:05  

Why don't think fighting, she, you know, she said that fighting wasn't really like on her agenda of like, I want to go be a fighter. No, she just got into boxing and kickboxing, and then, you know, whatever tumbling like whatever was on the mat. And then all of a sudden, it was like she was just in a crew of people who were training to be fighters... (Lesley: Yeah). And they said, You're good at this. Do you want to fight? And she's like, Yeah, actually I do. And that's how she got into it.

Lesley Logan 13:30  

Yeah. It's also like the when we work out with our trainer, like, I'm super glad that one of the people is like, like getting ready and like she's ready or up to like, do actual challenges. And I'm like, Yes, you should be the person that gets pushed to that I have not. I said that. I'm like, I just, I don't know, there's some things that to get over my fear. And so clearly, Camee is a resilience coach for a reason and not me. So one of the things that I love that she said, so there's actually four forms of resilience. And this makes a lot of sense because you can I think we've had other guests who've talked about like the there's four like four areas where like you have competence in, right? so like, So resilience, you can have mental resilience, physical resilience, emotional resilience, and spiritual resilience. And I think I can attest that my mental resilience is pretty fucking great. My spiritual resilience is not bad. You know, my emotional state that's it depends on the fucking day. And physical as long as you're not asked me to fight I think I could slay there too. But what I love about thinking about their four areas, is that you can actually like about self about like I just did, and then if you want to increase your resilience in an area that it's not necessarily as strong or if you're going through something in your life, you're like, Oh, well, I probably go into this because my mental resilience isn't there. Then you can instead of just forcing yourself to get better the thing that you're not doing great you can actually do some actual you'll take your mental resilience to the gym, so to speak, and like work that muscle out.

Brad Crowell 14:58  

Yeah, and and I mean I was thinking like, how, what's it what's a good way to kind of look at this and I came up with something that's terrifying. But as a dramatic enough example, that I think... (Lesley: Thanks for the warning). You're welcome. You're welcome. I mean, I was thinking about POWs like prisoners of war. Oh my god, we're clearly not gonna have the physical. Probably not the emotional or spiritual, but mental is where they live. They have to, if they're going to survive that experience.

Lesley Logan 15:29  

You might have all of those but mental resilience is key.

Brad Crowell 15:32  

Well, I mean, if, you know the physical, they don't, if you're not able to move... (Lesley: yeah) or workout, like you're going to lose, you're going to atrophy. Right? So you can still, you can still maintain resilience, but in a different form of it. But let's maybe pick something a little less tragic... (Lesley: Yeah). What about like, you know, being a parent, you know.

Lesley Logan 15:56  

I yeah, I mean, Gosh, I think being a parent that is emotional and mental resilience muscle, you definitely need for sure. I was even thinking just like being a business owner. Like yeah, you know, you part of like, like, if you I feel like we're pretty fucking resilient. But sometimes I've had to like lean listen to the mental resilience I have and actually go into the spiritual resilience because I'm like, if I have to tap my mental resilience one more time, I'm just be pissed that I even have this like, it's, you know, I need a fight, look at this in a different way. So I don't know, I think it it's just a really fun way to like, look at yourself and just evaluate, like, where do you think you have natural resilience? And where do you think you need to like, ante up?

Brad Crowell 16:37  

Well, that goes straight into what I really loved that Camee said, she talks about resilience looks different for everyone. She said, It's a unique skill. And it's it is refined through your own process, your own journey. And for her, you know, she, her life was dramatically changed when she got pregnant at a young age. Right.? And so she had to work through that, she also had a lot of, you know, as a young, she's a young parent, right? Not able to do the careers that she wanted to do. And she's a single parent, also. So and then she moved a couple times, you know, and then she got to fighting a training. She also was in the competitive belt body building... (Lesley: Yeah) world, right? which is like, incredibly strict and regimented in your lifestyle, because you have to, in order to be competitive... (Lesley: Yeah) so pretty intense, for sure. But, you know, she talked about if you think you don't have any resiliency in your life, then that actually means you're in the middle of a resilience process. So if, if, if like, things are crumbling around you, and you're just like, What the hell? you know, you're actually in the middle of building your resilience muscle.

Lesley Logan 18:07  

I have an example of that. It's like when I left my ex, and I was homeless, and then I (...) my car and the studio that I rented space from, was shut down all in the same week. And I was like...

Brad Crowell 18:19  

Everything seems like incredibly like despair. 

Lesley Logan 18:21  

Yeah! I literally was like, Okay, what else you want to take? Just take it. I don't want to move it with me. Like what? Take it all. So I can make sure that when I bought the apartment, I pick in the car I pick in a place I go is like, I don't have to do this again. Like I don't want to move twice. And so that was just I was building a muscle.

Brad Crowell 18:36  

Yeah, totally. And so how do you go through the process of resiliency? You know, and how do you practice resiliency is actually a better way to ask that question. Like, what does resiliency look like? So because it's a unique skill, and it also affects the four different areas of resilience, mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, it can manifest itself in your life in different ways. Some of the ones that she listed as her examples in her life, she said, look at your coping skills, evaluate past ones and adding new ones. Right. So for her she uses yoga as a place to be alone with herself and to have some like moments of peace in her mind and body. She said she's a journaler, so, writing and... but I also came up with a couple of other obvious ones what maybe you have someone you can speak to about a counselor or a therapist. 

Lesley Logan 19:45  

I think you're right. I think that also having someone in your life who's like, not like someone's gonna activate, you know, anyway, so like, maybe... (Brad: could be your best friend) But yeah, but somebody who can go, can remind you like, Oh, hey, you actually are like you just did this. Like If you did this better than last time, or actually you, you know how long it's been since this happened to you, like, I think having just anyone to like, reflect on just how far you've come is really important, you know, to like, just, it's kind of like doing a year in business review, if you'd like, take at a high level, you're like, oh, wow, okay, we actually did all these things, but it's similar for yourself, like just reflecting back and having someone there to remind you that you've come a lot farther, you know, than than you think.

Brad Crowell 20:28  

Yeah, totally. And she also had another example that I thought was an interesting way to practice resiliency, and that are the "I am" statements, right? So these are the things that you like, write in lipstick on your mirror, you know, I am confident, I am strong, I am, you know, making a million dollars, I am what blank, you fill that in. And that becomes part of your routine, your mantra, right? And that begins to help you fight through the, you know, whatever the thing might be that that you're challenged, you're being challenged with. So I thought, you know, those are some pretty practical tips. And also, you know, just some examples of how she practices resiliency, and then maybe how we can as well, yeah, so how do you practice resiliency? Maybe it's a walk, you know, maybe you like for me, I know, when I was in the shit at my job, and like, I was so stressed out all the time, I would go find a really peaceful lunch spot. And I would be alone with the koi fish in the the what with the water fountain and in the Zen garden. I mean, I needed that. And for me, that was my that was me practicing. You know, maintaining sanity, basically. Yeah, sure.

Lesley Logan 21:44  

I love it, we want to know... (Brad:yeah). Tag us in your resiliency moment. So we don't (...)... (Brad: I love that).

Brad Crowell 21:56  

All right. So finally, let's talk about those Be It action items, what bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted action items, can we take away from your combo with Camee Adams?

Lesley Logan 22:05  

I'm gonna start... (Brad: do it!) Okay. Um, my biggest takeaway is: do what you can in your current season, space and grace to yourself. So I think like, I think a lot of times, we get really obsessed with what we can't do in the current moment that we're in, you know, I still like, some of our agency members, for example, like, I have been very selective because I've been busy doing these things. I'm like, Yes, it's called implementation mode, you have nothing to apologize for you actually taking the things that you learned and you're putting them into your business. And so you only should come in here to ask questions about that and not to be a sponge for more and more, more, more more, versus maybe you're in a place where somebody reached out to me like, I don't actually know what my goals are right now. Well, then maybe you're in a season where you're actually exploring opportunities, you are learning, you're being curious. And like, what ends up happening is you're you're in the learning and curious mode, but you're seeing that there's all these people over there who like know what their goals are, and you're not honoring that you're in a different season than them. So I really love that as a Be It action, and I'm like, be in your season, and then have space and grace for yourself. Jeeze, Louise, my loves be fucking kind to yourself. You're so hard on yourself. Do you want to if we're being it until we see it, and I asked you in your future life, Are you hard on yourself? The answer is probably no. So you can't actually be that right now.

Brad Crowell 23:27  

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think also too, you know, I think there's this fear of being, quote, unquote, behind whatever behind is right? And seeing, you know, the comparison to others, and all those kinds of things. So, you know, I think that (...) something that really was eye opening, for me was when I was in school, and there was like, it didn't matter how hard I worked at music, there was always there were always people who were better than me. Right? And, but I still wanted to be better. You know, but that giving myself space and grace to acknowledge what I was doing, which was practicing my ass off, and realizing that it will just simply take time, these other musicians have obviously logged more hours than me, right? They have been doing it longer than I, whatever, whatever, you know, and I can get there, you know, I can get there. But I need to give myself the the space to practice and to achieve those kinds of things. So you know, that goes with what what in different seasons of your life, you know? Yeah, amazing.

Lesley Logan 24:36  

Well, thanks for being here, everyone... (Brad: Yeah) how fucking resilient are you? Pretty darn resilient. I bet if you actually get yourself some credit. So how are you going to use these tips in your life? What were your takeaways from Camee Adams? Tag us the Be It pod, tag Camee. Let us know. And thank you so much for being one of our listeners. We truly truly appreciate you. We talk about you a lot. We spend a lot of times with other podcasters, we're always talking about how fucking amazing you are. So Tell us more about yourself and let us know your questions or as we answer in the next recap and until next time, Be It Till You See It!

Brad Crowell 25:06  

Bye for now!

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review. And follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!      

Be It Till You See It is a production of Bloom Podcast Network.  

It's written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host Lesley Logan. And me Brad Crowell. Our associate producer is Amanda Frattarelli. Kevin Perez at Disenyo handles all of our audio editing.        

Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianranco Cioffi.       

Special thanks to our designer Mesh Herico for creating all of our visuals, (which you can't see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all the video each week, so you can.

And to Angelina Herico for transcribing each episode, so you can find it on our website. And finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

What is the road to resiliency? Are you born with inner resilience or can it be developed? Today’s guest, a true fighter takes us through four forms of resilience and how we can honor the process to resiliency.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] .

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• The journey of growing resilience 
• The four forms of resilience
• Why resilience looks different for everyone 
• How to go through the process of resiliency 
• Resiliency in more than one life area
• Accomplishing your goals is possible, no matter your life season

BIO:

• I am a former professional MMA fighter, and currently a key note speaker, yoga instructor, and resilience expert! 
• Learning resilience is the process. ™Being RESILNT is the outcome.

Episode References/Links:

• Camee Adams Website

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.

Be It Till You See It Podcast Survey

Be in the know with all the workshops at OPC

Be a part of Lesley’s Pilates Mentorship

Waitlist for the flashcards deck

Use this link to get your Toe Sox!

Resources

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!
• Lesley Logan website
• Be It Till You See It Podcast
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube
• Profitable Pilates

Social Media

• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan  

Alright, crew. So here's the thing, one of one of my friends said to me, said to me one day, she just like, "You, when I think of you, I just think resilience, I just think you're so resilient." And I actually hadn't given myself that kind of credit. And a part of me was a little frustrated, because I was like, "I don't wanna be resilient right now. I want people to actually, like, be concerned about me in this moment." And the, the truth is, it's not what I wanted. But I just remember like, being really scared in the situation that we were in and not really knowing what to do next. And sharing that with a friend of my friend is going, "I just always thought you were just like, so resilient." And I am. And I'm so grateful that you pointed it out, because once you can honor that you are resilient, once you can actually notice that you are these things. You're kind of unstoppable. And you might not feel that way right now. But what's really cool is our guests Camee Adams is actually going to explain to you that there's like four different places that you can be resilient in and how how, how you can actually honor the process of being more resilient in your life. And I couldn't think of a better person to have this like she is someone who's gone through a lot to be as resilient as she is. And she has such a gift to share this with you. So my love's Camee Adams is our guest this week. Our topic is resiliency and I cannot wait to hear how you reflect with this, how this affects your life and what it allows you to do. I love she has a quick BE IT action item that I think is really helpful and useful for us all. So I cannot wait for you to hear it. And I want to know how you use it in your life. So tag Camee, tag the @be_it_pod and let us know because it really does mean a lot to us, so we can see how these episodes are making your life easier to be it till you see it.

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started

All right, Be It babes. I am super excited. It's the first time I have anyone who's ever when you hear what Camee our guest has been doing with her life, my first one doing this. And I'm so excited. Because I just I love bringing on guests that have done different things in their life and show you that there's so many things you can do in this world. So Camee, can you please tell everyone, who you are and what you're doing these days?

Camee Adams  

Yes. First of all, I'm so excited to be here. Thank you. My name is Camee Adams. I am a professional mixed martial artist. I'm a mom of two teenage daughters, a certified yoga teacher, certified personal trainer, and what I call a resilience coach.

Lesley Logan  

This is really cool. We all need more ... I feel very resilient. I think people would say, um, when they think of me, it's very resilient. But I actually think that that's something we all need to learn if you're not, if you don't think so because life can be hard. And you're I mean, you're a fighter, so you get hit while you're down sometimes. So, you know, having that resilience is so key. So can you take us like a step back? First of all, (Camee: Yeah.) I would love to know, kind of the journey that got you into MMA and then also into being a resilience coach, like what was the the bridge that was like, "I'm this is I'm going to teach people."

Camee Adams  

Okay, so how I got into fighting, never in my life did I think that I would be a professional fighter. I grew up a lifetime athlete. But my athletic journey got cut short, when I got pregnant in high school. I had a boyfriend. I chose to have sex early as some girls do. You know, lots of other girls were doing it as well. For whatever reason, it was me who got pregnant. So I chose to keep her. We chose to get married. It wasn't the healthiest relationship, as you can imagine, at that age. But I was married for about nine years. And after I had my first daughter, I had my second one when two years later. So I was a really young mom, but I always had sports as an outlet. So when I didn't have that anymore, I actually got into figure competitions, lifting weights, bodybuilding, it was just amazing. I learned so much about nutrition, I learned how weight, you know, can shape your body. And, you know, that was kind of like the start of me being an athlete again and finding that outlet that I needed while I was a mom and a wife. So throughout that I got bored of weightlifting, I got bored of just the usual treadmill, you know, just the typical gym routine. I appreciate it now and I still love it. But at that time I needed something more.

Well and also those figure competitions can it's like very like this is this is all you get to eat. (Camee: Yeah.) This is, that's it. There's no spice. There's no, there's just plain chicken, plain rice.

Yeah, and as you can imagine, just me mentally just being a mom is just, it wasn't what I needed any more. And I recognized that. So when I was you know, younger Tae Bo was all the rage. And so I remember doing Tae Bo something about it. I was just like, yes, you know, this is it.

Is that Billy Blanks? Is that who Tae Bo was? Yeah.

You know, I did it so long, but honestly, I started doing that just at home when I was younger. I remembered kind of like how I felt when I did that. I love throwing punches and kicks. I'll rewind ... I played soccer like throughout all of, you know, my childhood, in high school. I started varsity as a freshman. So I was picked up kicks really easily during Tae Bo. So I found a college course where I could take fitness kickboxing at this rec center. So I take my two kids with me, I dropped them off. You were like hitting bags, but not not really, you know, it's not like a real heavy bag. It's kind of the one that's filled with sand and they would move and it was just like a bunch of other moms. But it was so great for me. And I was just intense and I loved it. It's just what I needed. And so there was just a little spark of intuition, knowing, you know, my inner me needed more of this. And so, once I realized, Oh, I'm actually picking this up fairly quick, you know, as an athlete, so I picked it up. My punches had a lot of power. I wanted to learn new combinations. So I found an actual fight gym in my area. You know, it was kind of grungy, filled with a bunch of dudes, but I was like, I want to learn how to do this. So I started showing up at fight gym, eventually they're like, "Do you want to start fighting?" And I was like ... Yeah. (Lesley: Yeah. Really? Yeah. Okay.) And and you know it, it just kind of evolved my first fight I actually lost. And after I lost, I realized what it was actually going to take. And honestly, I thought that I could do it. And I just continued on.

Lesley Logan  

That's actually really cool. I mean, it's almost like you were born with inner resilience on that, because like, most people, if they lost on the first fight, then they probably have like, "Oh, I'm not very good at this." (Camee: Yeah.) And you're like, "Oh, now I know what it takes to win." And I think that like, what an interesting way to see a loss or a failure, if like, more of us saw that, as opposed to like, you're not good enough. You're not cut out for it. It's like, no, it was your first fucking fight. (Camee: Yeah.) You know, like, if you had one, it might have actually made you think you could just like you don't need to train at all, you know what I mean? Like, it's actually kind of better that you had to learn that the hard way.

Camee Adams  

Yeah, and I really did win all three rounds, I had always trained really well, I loved working out portion. So I felt very confident in that area physically. But losing that fight, I was like, my head game was so off, my confidence was not there, I was extremely fearful, I was not believing in myself that I could actually win this fight. But physically, like, all the other pieces were there. And so from that point on, I knew the things that I would have to get good at. And it wasn't actually like physically fighting, you know, it really was building my mental game. Fighting is so much, there's so much mental resilience that goes into it so much, you know, inner confidence, just stepping into your own power, all of those things, just from just everyone has shit, you know, (Lesley: Yeah, yeah.) ... from your left, but all of these things that I was learning in my fight game, were directly, you know, applying to who I needed to become as a person. So I knew like just in my heart and my soul that it was for me and through, you know, that loss. I was like, alright, I'm not scared to get hit. I'm not scared to throw a punch. But here's all the other things that I know that I need to do to be able to start winning fights. And actually, you know, be a fighter who can sustain this fight game.

Yeah, I think that's so interesting. Because like, isn't like, if y'all haven't watched this, I, I grew up with a lot of MMA fighters in high school. And some of the people that I went to high school with are actually very famous and well known and, (Camee: Okay.) I'm really proud of them. So like, I was around and I was like, I could never do that. But I think like, right there having that as a mental heads, like, of course, I couldn't, like I've already taken myself out, right? (Camee: Yeah.) And I think like, whether or not it's fighting, or even just like a some sort of a race you want to run or something you're wanting to do. If your head is at all thinking, I'm not gonna be able to do this, you won't be able to do it. Like you're not, your body's not gonna go, let me show you how I can fight without your brain like ... Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. When you said that automatically thinking, I don't think I can do it. Your mind is filled with so much doubt, you know, especially as it gets closer to the fight, you know, you hit a point where you're like, "Am I really going to do this? Am I really gonna go fight this person?" And like I said, like, physically, I knew I was capable. It really was just me, believing, you know, that I actually could. And that's the process that I had to build over time. And that's what I call the resilience process, how you said you were born fairly resilient. Physically, I knew that I was very resilient. But there's, in my opinion, four forms of resiliency, you know, there's mental resiliency, there's physical, there's emotional, and then spiritual. And so physically as I got this, but all those other areas is what I was building resilience in to be resilience and automatically when I think a fire, I think they're resilient as fuck, like, they just are, but I didn't believe that in myself until I went through all those various resilience processes to be resilient, if that makes sense.

Oh, totally. And also, I've actually never thought of resilience has been like it four, like four types like I've actually it's almost like you are, you armed. But actually, it sounds like you can be like really resilient physically, or really resilient spiritually, but the, you know, the other the other parts could actually not be there so much. It's kind of like having confidence. At work but not necessary confidence, like, on stage. (Camee: Yeah, yeah.) You know.(Camee: Yeah.) So wait, so what so let's just like take another leap and go with this like, so you're, you're a fighter, and then also your resilience coach. What made, what made that next leap? What was the what was the journey you went on to realize like the type of resiliency that you needed to learn and then how did that translate to like what you're doing now? Because I think this is really cool. Everyone get your notepads out because how like, we imagine the things you could do if you had resiliency, you would just like you would just go okay, that lesson learned next thing. So, how'd that happen for you?

Okay, so when you said when you have resiliency I, basically what I feel like people need to understand is resilience is a skill that can be learned. (Lesley: Cool.) It's also a process. So if you don't feel like you have resiliency, you're going through a resilience process. And that's part of like what I help you understand. So I'll rewind this part of what brought me to being a resilience coach is people know me as a fighter. And if you follow any of any of my stuff on social, you also know, I've gone through some really hard personal life experiences, you know, part of my story is being that teenage mom, you know, and being a young wifey, having to leave an unhealthy relationship to take charge my own well being because I knew like it wasn't going to get better, and all of the things that go with that, but then during that time, I also lost a brother to suicide. And so these areas that I tell you that you have to build resiliency in, you know, my way of handling all of these things was through fighting. And it really was just like the universe sending me the perfect coping tool to handle all of these things that I needed to learn how to be resilient in. So looking back over all these years of all this bullshit happening, you know, whether it's my own choice, you know, and I something happened or someone else's choice in their life, you know, that caused a lot of pain or, you know, things that I had to work at work through. I was learning resilience in all those areas. But at the time, I didn't really put those two things together, you know, I just think, I think I thought that life is really hard, and you just do what you can to make it through. But now that I'm like, on the other side, I realize all of those things that I was going through, I can tell you exactly like I had to build emotional resiliency to be a single mom, and still show up as an athlete and bust my ass for that goal for me, because I knew that I could, and I didn't, I wasn't ready to, you know, let go of being an athlete yet. But also, it really was developing me to be this person, you know. So I've always used fighting as a platform to help people, you know, like, it's just has been my way, you know, and then I turned it into being a personal trainer, you know, so I just always took all of these hard things, and applied it to my life and then tried to teach other people because it was also what was helping me make it through all these years.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah, I'm so sorry to hear about your brother. That is an awful thing to have to go through for anybody, I think, and how interesting that it's part of this, like, quilt that you have that you've been building up of resilience over here and for over here, and I think you, you said something, I'm not I don't wanna misquote it. But there's like, it's almost like some people are like, okay, it's something I have to get through. But like, having a sense of resilience and an area, it's like, you don't get through it, you're just like, I'm gonna go do this. Like, it's like, it's like, so I'll, we film, pilates classes, and my teachers on my platform, I know, it kills them, we're like, you have to refilm that. So sorry, your audio was not there. Like it kills me to ever have to tell them that because I know what that means. So early December, I had like seven days to get all my filming in. And I filmed this one class, and it doesn't have the audio for half of it, just turned off. And I literally lost it. I toddler tantrum down the hallway, threw myself under the covers, and like tried to cry and I could feel my body like taking the blankets off, (Camee: Yeah.) getting backed up, (Camee: Yeah.) going into the living room and starting it again. Because the like that trained muscle of resilience was like, we're not going to let this take us down for today. Like it's not going to happen. Now, two years ago, I would be like, "Fuck this, I'll do it tomorrow." Like I would just like pity party all the way for the next day as if that was like a good use of time. But I think like we got when we develop the muscle, we have to build the resilience. And we don't have to just get through like you can't have there's a difference between like just getting through and using your resilience to like, get hit and go, "Okay, well, what did I learn from this? And how can I go? How can I continue? What is this telling me?" So you said there's a process I wondering like, with with the physical resilience, I feel like that's a little easier for people to understand. Like, there's training, you get back out like different but like when it comes to spiritual or emotional. Like how did that, what does that like? What what's how do people know if they have it or they don't?

Camee Adams  

Yeah. So this is the interesting thing about resilience in my opinion is it is a unique skill set. So the way that I process or have become resilient may be different how someone is resilient in their life. I don't live your day to day life. I don't know if you're struggling mentally all day long and you were just really trying to make it through the day. and build your mental resilience. So it looks different for everybody, you know, their process of resilience, like you said, when you had to refilm that, you know, I don't know, if you were having a lot of anxiety that day, I don't know, if you were depressed, it was just even hard for you to get out to fill your your physical portion of Pilates that day. But, um, you know, resilience is a unique skill set, like I said, that can be learned. And it looks different for everyone. And if you don't think that you have it, that tells me and you that you are in the middle of a resilience process. Most of the time, when you don't feel resilient, you need to understand you are in the resilience process. And when you make it through the other side, you will be resilient. And when you make it there, you will look back and see, wow, I was building mental resilience or spiritual resilience, or emotional resilience. And this is how it showed up for me. And this is how, you know what refilming that Pilates thing helped me build mental resilience that day, because now if you have to go refilm something else, your brain will automatically go to, I already did that. I know that I can do it again. I know, physically, I can do it. I know emotionally and mentally, I can do it too. (Lesley: Yeah.) So you'll take that experience, you've already built resilience to be resilient. Something else happens like that, again, your mind is going to already go back to I got this, you know, you can build that.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah, I'm ... So and yes your I think you're absolutely right, everyone have a different process. Because like we're all starting a different place. And I think there's a there's a lot that go into it. What, are there, are there any like exercises? Are there mantras, affirmations that you that people can use when like, you know, the going does get tough? And they're like, you know, how do they, how can they like pep talk themselves out of it? Or like, what do they need to do to kind of go okay, this is, this is teaching me something. Or I got this, how do they, how do they go through the process, so it's not just happening to them?

Camee Adams  

So, you know, for me to sit down with you. What coping skills have worked for you in the past? And can we dive back into those? Or do we need to sit down and talk through a few ways that we can start adding new coping skills into your resilience process? You know, for me, it's been yoga, yoga has been the perfect yin to the yang with fighting. You know, fighting is high energy, you have to show up wanting to kick people's asses, you know what I mean? But my, my heart, my soul is actually pretty soft. And so my yin practice with yoga is a great coping skill for me just to retreat from that, and go into myself, collect myself gets centered, to show up to be a fighter again the next day. But, you know, when I don't have that certain certain coping skill, I don't feel like I'm as good as a fighter. So it really is figuring out what works best for you. You know, for me, my mental resilience, like I said, I had to build it I think I am statements were really great for me, I have a lot of ADHD, I have a lot of high energy, I have a lot of racing thoughts. And so for me, you know, those I am statements of, I am capable, you know, I am this, I am that. Something else that I usually tell people that they can use as well is, I always tell myself, keep fighting for you. You know, being a young mom, with losing a brother with all of these things, you know, my kids have grown up and they are living their wonderful lives. And you know, my brother's gone, my family still here, but I realized with fighting like, it's always going to be me who has to keep fighting for me, people can support me, but you know, keep fighting for you is something that I always like replay in my mind a lot.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah, I do. I like an I am statement. And I think like what's interesting with I am statements is sometimes like, there's like another voice that like, says something about those I am statements and like y'all that is worth exploring, because that voice isn't gonna go away. And that voice is often not yours. It's somebody else's that told you something when you're little. And then once you can figure that out, and you can actually own that I am statement, I think that resiliency gets there. I'm like, curious, because how cool for you to be learning your own resilience and taking ownership of that while being a mom to two two girls. Because like, I mean, like, I think, you know, if more and more women could realize how resilient they are. And I think they actually I think more women already are very resilient. I think as a, as a as a group of people were like born that way. We have to fight for a lot of things. But I don't think that we I don't think many women know how resilient they are. Do you know what I mean? Like they're not they're owning that. So what does that been like raising daughters to own that resilience? Is that something that comes easy do they have to do it on their own? Do you help other moms figure this out with their children?

Camee Adams  

You know, it hasn't been so much with children, you know, but I think as your kids age, your friends, with other moms that are kids your age, so it naturally just kind of happened. But with my kids, both of them are athletes too. They're both playing college basketball and going to school with resiliency and teaching that skill set. You know, they've watched me struggle, but they may have through a lot and but they've also seen me win and succeed, and keep pushing through and keep showing up for life. And so I would like to think, and hopefully, you know, that that strength and that resiliency has rubbed off on them. But, you know, their way in college and they've had to build their own resiliency, you know, living alone, not having people around, being a college athlete is not easy. And so, I always try and show up for them, you know, of course, as a mom, but also as just a knowingness that they can do hard things that they are capable that they are in their own resilience process. And, you know, we've made it through every single shitty thing so far. And so I would like to hope that it rubbed off on them. We could ask them, but ...

Lesley Logan  

Yeah, well, I'm sure it has because like actions like we had Amy Ledin on, I think y'all she was episode five. But she says like actions are caught not taught, right? And so like, how cool for them to be raised by someone who, who could transform their life right in front of them. And then also went through this resilience process of their own. So they could see like, what is capable because, I mean, like, my grandmother was a high school mom. And my mom was 21. So like, I definitely understand like having a young mom, and like what stories that people can tell you, or you could tell yourself, but also for them to see like, oh, look, she actually didn't stop there, that didn't stop her at all. Like, look at what you had. And so I think that's really cool. What are some signs that you've seen that people may not be real, may not be using their resilience or or and be need of resilience. Is it like sign symptoms? Is it anxiety? Is it, is it down, like downplaying themselves? Like what are some things that you'd like to see? Because I'm sure like, when you're fighting people, you might be able to see like, this person's not very resilient over here. Like, I feel like there's a there's a whole game over there on on planning with another person's mindset. But Are there signs and things you see that had helped people, so if people are listening and go, "Oh, that's a sign that I could work on my resilience in that area."

Camee Adams  

Again, people show up differently in their lives. But I do think when people are depressed when they're frustrated, when they don't have the confidence that you see in them, that maybe you're like, wow, she's really good at that. But they don't even have an idea, you know, that maybe that could be their area. I think when people are disassociated from their self, like from themselves from their lives, I think I love motherhood, I love being a mom, but it does take you out of yourself. At times, at least it did for me, you know, some women love showing up being a mom every single day. And it's not that I don't. But I also knew that I had my own personal goals and aspirations and things that I wanted to continue to pursue. So when I think people are just dissociated from their own purpose in their own power, you know, those are just little hints, you know, maybe that you might need a little bit more emotional resiliency to handle all the things at home and then push through to continue to, you know, on with your personal goals, or whatever makes you you know, want to show up for life, you know, being your best self or, you know, whatever you want to share with the world, you know, (Lesley: Yeah.) besides raising humans. (Lesley: Yeah.) But I think when people have an inkling that just, they can do something more than they're not is probably a good cue that they're about to head into a resilience process to accomplish whatever goal they want to accomplish.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah, yeah. Do you, do you have like, do you do a lot of reflection, like, because I imagine, you know, one of those ways that you built up a lot of resilience is like, after every fight, you probably like look back of like any athlete does. I look at a game, you know, and they go, "Okay, I could do that better." Or I could, "Oh, there's this thing I can learn." Is this, like something that people can do for their emotional or spiritual resiliency? Like, is it reflecting back on something? Are there things that you would say to look for like, is it like looking for the good things that went well, or the things that didn't go well? What does that process look like?

Camee Adams  

Always, so I'll tell you with fighting, fighting is a little different, because they're not happening each week. You know, it's usually one, two or three fights per year. And so you're taking a chunk of time to work up to this fight. And then what happens before the fight, what happened during the fight, are all the things that I look back. And also, when you're fighting off, you also have to show up for life or at least I had to, to, you know, I still had to be a mom, I still had to do regular life. And so when I would look back and realize, you know, I should have been more competent in this area, or I could have handled this emotional outbursts better with my children or whatever. And so there is a lot of reflection, you know, in my area with biting, but also as a person, so I take every hard experience that I've been through, and just sit down, and I am a journaler, you know, I know not everybody is, but I do find it helpful, especially when I get those little hints of inspiration or just insight about myself, I always try and write that down. Because sometimes I do forget. And so when I go back and look through, and you know, I've made a little note, or I tell myself, I like how you handled this, you could have done better. Um, so I do a lot of reflecting in yoga, I do a lot of walking outside, and how I help other people, you know, reflect on their lives. I, I think there's just things that work across the board for every human, you know, (Lesley: Yeah.) I think it's getting outside. I do think a meditation or yoga practice is great for most every single person, you know it doesn't have to be yoga, but meditation sitting with yourself. And, again, going back to that disassociation, if you can't even sit with yourself and connect with yourself, I think that's a good place to start. Because some people don't even know how to reflect, you know, and how to sort through all the crap to get to what they need to get to. And, (Lesley: Yeah.) I think that is part of just the resilience process is being self aware, understanding that you are going through a resilience process. And then using those coping skills that you've either used in the past or understanding that you need to bring some new tools in to help you get through whatever you're getting through.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah, I think that's like, it sounds like there's like, first of all, giving yourself a lot of kindness and grace and space for like, being a human being. And process and trying to learn something for the next level. And then also, like, you know, giving yourself permission to own the skills that you already have, like, I think sometimes in the self development journey, it could be like, oh, I, I need to learn this better or learn this better. And we often forget that, like, we did a really fucking good job getting to hear (Camee: Yeah) and some of those tools, (Camee: Yeah) you know, I mean, there is that saying, like, what got you here won't get you there. But there's also like, owning what got you there, because you can build upon that you don't have to start all over from scratch. Yeah, I think I think more time spent reflecting I do think you're correct. Like, doesn't have, it doesn't have to be journal, like you get this pretty journal and you have this beautiful journal practice that happens every day at the exact same time. It could literally be a note on your phone, where you just continue to voice te... voice to text to what you wanted to say.

Camee Adams  

I think it's great. I like your the voice text. You know, when people can hear things out loud. It does help them get things out of their head. You know, writing, you know, helps you get all of those thoughts out too but when you speak it and then hear yourself, whatever, maybe mood or mindset you were in. I think that's great, too. (Lesley: Yeah.) You know remembering that, especially with a voice note. I do like a good voice note.

Lesley Logan  

I do too. Brad, are you hearing how many people?

Camee Adams  

... talking to yourself all the time?

Lesley Logan  

Oh, no, it's uh, this is a total joke. Because he'll he'll do a recap with us. And there's this really people love, like a voice DM they really do. And he's like, I hate to voice text. I don't like it. But he voice to text all the time. Like, he loves that. And he's killer at that I'm not so I'm much faster at like typing it out. But he is like, I hear him walking around the house talking to Siri, like getting things done, you know. But anyways, I think you're right. I think hearing yourself say that also, for people sometimes like the act of journaling can is its own resilient process, they have to learn because they have so many stories around themselves and what kind of writer they are. So just being able to speak (Camee: Yeah.) it into existence can really get people over that hump. You know, this is such an interesting topic, I think I wanted to have you on because very few people talk about resiliency in any capacity. And it's like, if you are not resilient in one or more areas of your life, it's going to be really hard to take the next step to show up for the next big thing, to put yourself in a position to be the new person or to challenge yourself in different ways. And the whole point of this podcast is so that more and more people can act like the person they want to be before I go stop waiting, because waiting is not gonna get anywhere. And resiliency is such a key part of that. So this has been a really fun conversation. We're gonna take a quick break and we're gonna find out where people can find you, follow you, learn resiliency with you and your BE IT action items. Alright, Camee so where would you like to hang out? Is there a social media platform? Is it you've website? Where can people get to know you more?

Camee Adams  

All of the above. I'm mostly on Instagram right now. It's cameeadams, camee is c a m e e, two e's usually helps people remember. You can go to my website, which is cameeadams.com. I share a lot of my story, I really do like to personally connect with people, because I think people see me where I am now. And they just really don't have an idea of, you know, what's really happened. And, you know, accomplishing your goals is possible, you know, no matter what season of life that you're in. But yeah, I am starting YouTube, it will be a very slow process, but ...

New resiliency muscle is going to be YouTube. Oh my God, I will share this with you. This is a resilient story that I have to share with you and our listeners will get a kick out of it, because people will know me from YouTube. And so and it's actually quite fun. Like, I used to teach in LA and I had all these actors and, and people would come into the studio like, oh, and they would do that. And my clients would like, like, get a little nervous because like someone's gonna recognize them while they're working out. They're like, "You're you're Lesley Logan from YouTube." And I would just go, "I am." And they look at me, like, "Don't worry about it. They don't even know who you are." But anyways, um, my first several YouTube videos, I probably cried filming every single one of them. They're like four minutes long. Like they're like not long at all. But I was so afraid of like, what people would say on the other side of it, like a so afraid of the comments that hadn't even happened yet, because it hadn't even been put out there. But I didn't anyways, they're terrible. Y'all are still up. You can still watch them. (Camee: Oh I'm gonna take a look.) Oh, yeah, you gotta go to go to my Online Pilates Classes YouTube channel. And you can go to the oldest ones. My hair is super short. We didn't have a tripod or we didn't have a mic, y'all. I was just yelling, this is back in the day when you could, (Camee: I love it.) you could just do things like that. (Camee: I love it.) Anyways, they're still up. And what is so crazy, as soon as I started getting out there, and I started to see positive feedback, it got easier to continue. And now I find like fuck up and up, I just go, "Oh, actually, I meant this." And I just don't edit it out. I just like put it out there. And it is like, it is a new muscle. But I can tell you, like if you can just keep going get the first ones out because they're gonna suck anyways, they'll be better than you. They do actually think but you'll get better once you do more.

Thank you. No, that is very helpful. It's better to do so.

Yeah, yeah, it's its own thing. It's its own game. And you know, and you all if you're like interested in that Brad and I talk a lot about YouTube and the hungry baby that it is when you start creating for it. But it is, um, it's such an interesting avenue. And it's, I actually prefer it to a lot of like, it's on a social media platform, but I prefer it to other social media platforms, because I feel like it can just, it's reach is just so different. You know. (Camee: Yeah.) Anyways, that was a tangent. We got to get to your BE IT action item. So bold, executable, intrinsic, targeted steps people can take to be it till they see it. What do you have for us?

I would say, do what you can in your current season. When I was a mom, I had no idea that I was going to be a fighter. When I was a fighter, I really didn't know that I was going to be a resilience coach. But what I did do was show up for whatever season of life that I was in.

Lesley Logan  

Hmm, that's so great. Just going back to that self awareness and being kind to yourself. Thank you so much, Camee. It's been such a pleasure. And I just found out before we got on this, that you live in the neighborhood, so we're gonna hang out in Vegas for sure. (Camee: Yeah, I'd love, too.) How are you going to use these action items in your life? How are you going to use this information about resiliency? And notice where you are resilient tag Camee, tag @be_it_pod. Let us know. Send this to a friend who is kind of struggling if you were like heard some of the signs that maybe they're not that might not be a resiliency. That'd be going through resilience process, send it to them because maybe they can go, "Oh, this is actually all happening for me on the other side. It's gonna be even better." Right. We can all help each other be it till we see it. Thank you so much, and I'll see you next time.

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review. And follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!   

Be It Till You See It is a production of Bloom Podcast Network.    

Brad Crowell  

It's written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host Lesley Logan. And me Brad Crowell. Our associate producer is Amanda Frattarelli.  

Lesley Logan  

Kevin Perez at Disenyo handles all of our audio editing.     

Brad Crowell  

Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianranco Cioffi.    

Lesley Logan  

Special thanks to our designer Mesh Herico for creating all of our visuals, (which you can't see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all the video each week, so you can. 

Brad Crowell  

And to Angelina Herico for transcribing each episode, so you can find it on our website. And finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Do you have a BOHAG, a big big ol' hairy ass goal? It’s time to stop making excuses, stand out, and see yourself achieving the goal. Once your goal is accomplished, your BOHAG can’t stop… this episode holds not only how to get to your goal but the steps to take after to chase your next thing. 

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] .

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• The insider news on upcoming events and tour
• The reason you only feel sit ups in my hip flexors? 
• What the hell is a BOHAG
• Become obsessed with your goal 
• Why you have to stand out 
• The right people supporting you matters 
• How your envision yourself to success 
• What happens after you achieve the goal
• Why you morning matters

Episode References/Links:

• Get on the tour waitlist!
• Join the Roll Up workshop!
• Check out all events happening at OPC

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.

Be It Till You See It Podcast Survey

Use this link to get your Toe Sox!

Resources

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!
• Lesley Logan website
• Be It Till You See It Podcast
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube
• Profitable Pilates

Social Media

• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It interview recap where my co host in life Brad and I are going to dig into the trivia. They wanted to say trivial but it's trivia convo. Yeah, it's trivia. It's it's a multiple choice. It's a it's a fun game show. So game show conversation I have with Phil Barth. In our last episode. If you haven't yet listened to that interview. Feel free to pause this now. Go back and listen that women come back and join us you guys. So if you are like me, you grew up with game shows. What?

Brad Crowell 2:35  

She messed up my dad joke. It's okay. We're rolling with it... (Lesley: Oh, that was i) that literally was what are you supposed to read verbatim? Because it's a bad dad joke... (Lesley: I don't even)

Lesley Logan 2:44  

I don't even get it... (Brad: you're good, you're good) Okay. Well, anyways, I am nailing it. You guys. You know what? Sometimes you have to walk around and say I'm nailing it. I'm nailing it. So I I was so intrigued by Phil, when he reached out to me on the podcast, because first of all, if you if you listen to podcasts, he was on who wants to be millionaire. And I grew up watching that show and all of the trivia shows and I really, I've never been good at jeopardy. But I used to my my roommate, and I would set the bar and watch Wheel of Fortune. And then we would like practice because someday we thought... (Brad: Wheel of Fortune!) Oh, yeah. And we would see if we could get the puzzle before anyone else would. And I really we never applied to be on the show, which is probably why we weren't on the show. But like, anyways, I just really what I loved about having Phil on, and we'll talk about more is just like, he's just so energetic and full of life. And like he's doing really big things now and we had a fun conversation about it. It was great. It was just it was just fun.

Brad Crowell 3:41  

His enthusiasm is contagious... (Lesley: Yeah, that's two in a row). Two in a row.

Lesley Logan 3:46  

Yeah, and if you're like what's two in a row? Well, you that means you missed last week, so you gotta go back.

Brad Crowell 3:51  

Listen to the history... (Lesley: do a little Be It binge)

Lesley Logan 3:55  

Wow, that's fun. Uh, Be It binge.

Brad Crowell 3:57  

Oh, it's a Be It binge. 

Lesley Logan 3:59  

We should hastag that. Let us know if you're ... (Brad and Lesley overlapping: binge alert, binge alert) Okay, well anyways, Alright, before we get into the whole Phil Barth situation, we are in well, if you're listening to this in real time, like you were on top of your episodes, it is the presale for the this workshop we're doing an OPC about the rollout. If you're listening to it a few days after it pops out well, you can still buy it for a short time only, but it's a little bit more expensive. So you know, listen to things when they come out in time that's a life lesson there. Or actually just get on our list. You hear about that? 

Brad Crowell 4:34  

So if you're Be It binging this then you missed it but it's okay we love you.

Lesley Logan 4:38  

We love you anyways and there's something for you. If you go to opc.me/events I bet you'll find something amazing there.

Brad Crowell 4:45  

Yeah, and if there is nothing there go to opc.me/workshops to get yourself on the waitlist for future events.

Lesley Logan 4:52  

But if you are struggling if you're like I hate the roll up or I hate tees or I hate anything with flexion then opc.me/events is going to take you to this amazing workshop that we're having, it's such a fun one. But you kind of it's like one of those, like, be it. You better be it or you lose out on it. I don't know, I feel there's like a theater...

You better Be It Till You See It or...

Or it's gone. That's true. That's how that's going. Okay, the next thing I have a little thing I have to tell you, if you're an OPC member, I've been teasing you a little bit, but it's getting closer, you guys.

Brad Crowell 5:25  

Well, let know that we should tell them... (Lesley: I can't tell them) No, what we're saying today is stay tuned. Because next month, we have a very, very exciting addition for every one of our OPC members. And that's all we can say.

Lesley Logan 5:42  

Well, can I at least say it's not a human?... (Brad: Yes, you can say it's not a human). When you can say there's an addition to something people are gonna think...

Brad Crowell 5:48  

You can let them fill in the blank in their own mind... (Lesley: Okay, well...) so they can explore and maybe it's a thing.

Lesley Logan 5:53  

Well, they tag me in your guesses on online and let me see if I'll let you know if you're right. And then finally, Brad and I are actually gonna be home for almost two months. I love how you said it's, it's a whole two months, it is not even close to whole two months, but it's a good six weeks

Brad Crowell 6:09  

from work. back from Mexico. Yeah. To tell when we go, maybe you're, you might be leaving to go to Texas, maybe.

Lesley Logan 6:19  

I'm not really sure where I'm headed. But I will say I don't I don't know if it's a full eight weeks, but it's close. And so we're gonna we're gonna be like really enjoying our routines. Because once it's May, it is like

Brad Crowell 6:31  

Yeah, the rest of the year from May this year is going to be like a rocket ship.

Lesley Logan 6:34  

Yes, yes. Because Brad insisted that we go on two tours. So we're doing two tours. And we're super stoked about that. And if you're like, what is the second tour? Well, guess what? This summer, we're going to do The West Coast tour. So if you are a West Coast listener,

Brad Crowell 6:49  

We're working it all out right now... (Lesley: We are working it out). It's gonna be sometime in August... (Lesley: Yeah. So hit us up. If you want) location to be determined. 

Lesley Logan 6:56  

Hit us up if you want to make sure you are on the TBD list we haven't made yet. So there isn't one to go to.

Brad Crowell 7:02  

But what we're gonna do, we're gonna make it up right now. Oh, the opc.me/tour. Yeah, to get on the waitlist for the tour.

Lesley Logan 7:09  

Yeah. Wonderful. That's so fun. Okay. My team is taking notes. All right. Before we get into the episode with Phil Barth, we had a question from you, actually, because you complain about this all the time. So I just, (Brad: all the time.)what about the other day and you can put an extra (...) you know, everyone knows our listeners know how I feel about complaining. So what is your question, Brad?

Brad Crowell 7:32  

Okay, so this is Brad submitted his own question. I don't know about y'all. But whatever it is... (Lesley: I feel like this is nepotism. It's like a Nepo. Baby?

Yeah, just won because I win. All I do is win win win in my hip flexors. So the the, every time I go sit up, I'm like doing it okay. I half feel like I'm whipping my body around. But when I try to like actually get into my muscles of my stomach and my core situation. By the time, if I've done like 20 or 30 setups, all I actually feel is hurt in my hip flexors. Yeah, every time. And it's like, I'm really doing my damnedest not to be in my hip flexors. Yeah, yeah, I'm not doing it. Right.

Lesley Logan 8:21  

And you also complain about this when you do the mat classes? With me (Brad: Oh, yeah) on the roll up, and the teaser and all of that stuff. So...

Brad Crowell 8:21  

Actually, yeah, it's teaser mostly, like roll up. I feel like I'm... (Lesley: getting better?). Well, yeah, cuz I'm starting with my upper body. And I'm not starting with my, yeah, I'm not starting with with my flexors, but the...

Lesley Logan 8:45  

To the listener at home: we have three dogs.

Brad Crowell 8:48  

Oh my gosh!

Lesley Logan 8:49  

One of them is silently letting us know that they are here? If you know you know.

So here's the thing. There are probably listeners in here who are like wanting to let you know about every single muscle review you're not using correctly. And I'm going to just like make it really simple for all of us. If you're doing situps, and you're filling your hip flexors, it is a sign that you're not really using all of the muscles of your center, you're just not. And that's not your fault, necessarily. Sit ups are a really easy exercise to bypass a lot of those muscles. Just use your rectus which is a very surface surface muscle. And then if your feet are moving around in your situps is a sign that your hip flexors are going oh, oh, you want to bring your chest, well your legs will bring your legs to the chest is the same thing, right? It's not and it so what's happening is the hip flexors are are pulling your back to the legs, because that's what they do. They pull the legs to the back, they'll pull the legs to your stomach. So um, so this is a podcast not a an anatomy class. So if you can't picture that it's just how it is. So what I do as a Pilates person, when I do sit ups is the same thing that I do when I'm when I'm doing a roll up or I'm doing teaser, I am pushing down into my feet, and energetically dragging them towards my seat. This is activating the muscles that I call the fast, which is your inner thighs, your hamstrings, your glutes. So when I come up, of course, though, there's like a little bit of like a wanting to turn off. But I tried to keep this little technical term as well. Like a hug and like I put on some Spanx, right. And I try to especially keep that on as I'm a lowering myself down. So...

Is that like, when, you when you say you're keeping that on... (Lesley: Yeah). You're talking about... (Lesley: the hamstrings and glutes, inner thighs) Are you also talking about your stomach?

Yeah, I mean, yes, I'm not. I'm not like trying to

Brad Crowell 10:57  

I'm trying envision doing a setup while I'm sitting in a chair. So it's like...

Lesley Logan 11:00  

you know, everyone who's sitting right now, if you're driving in your cruise control, you can do this too. So everybody sitting in a chair or sitting at your desk or sitting in your car, please make sure that you are with your eyes open. Press down into your feet, like like it could stand up. Obviously you're not they do push down into your feet. Okay. Do you feel like you're like you're a little taller. Your booty got a little on? So that... (Brad: Yeah) yeah?. So now pull your stomach muscles at the same time. Okay, so that's just like, that's the feeling we want to have on the way up from our sit up. And then on that way down, right. So what I don't want you to do is like bear down and grip anything. But you you're feeling your hip flexors, because you're not incorporating more muscles. And it's not your fault. Your hip flexors are very strong from you playing soccer or volleyball or running or walking the dogs like that's hip flexors, hip flexors, hip flexors. So what's happening is the other muscles that are required to sit up, they are weaker, and they're not participating as much. So there you go. That's your anatomy, your science. And if you are interested in what I'm talking about with the fast muscles, they are very important when it comes to your roll up. And if you are a person who does Pilates and you hate the roll up, teaser pisses you off, you're not even going to do hip circles on the mat, then come to the OBC workshop that's coming up. Because you're you're gonna want to hear all the ways that I don't sell my hip flexors in Pilates. It's not because I'm not using them. It's just because they're part of a big orchestra of muscles.

Brad Crowell 12:28  

Nice opc.me/events opc.me/events

All right, now let's talk about Phil Barth. As a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, a speaker and an author Phil barth is the man who specializes in goal achievement. His journey began when he found success by trying something different. And surrounding himself with the right people. Today he helps others fried chickens and overcome their barriers to success through his books.

Lesley Logan 14:17  

Don't you just love that he's just helped people find some chickens. Love it. I love it. Because when you're not going after your goals, you're essentially chickening out. So I'm in. I wonder if that's what he meant... (Brad: I don't actually know). Bill, let me know if I'm on the path.

Brad Crowell 14:32  

Well, I'm curious to see if you looked at that New Zealand bird that you were telling him about?

Lesley Logan 14:36  

Oh, he did... (Brad: Oh, cool). Yeah, um, he sent it to me. I forgot. You know, it can't keep it all in but I'll look it up. I'll look it up while you're talking about Phil.

Brad Crowell 14:46  

Awesome. Well tell us let's jump into what he said that you love today. And I saw that you have two points.

Lesley Logan 14:54  

I know. Okay, well, there's apparently a lot of birds that have expired. I put expired. It's extinct, right?

Brad Crowell 15:02  

You said expired? Oh!

Lesley Logan 15:05  

I know, it, well when you, when you, okay, when you pass away, when, when your doctor's office reports were paper you guys when it was like when you're when your doctor had a chart remember Seinfeld physical chart he'd write a note and Elaine was like "what are you writing in there?" So I used to be a chart person at a doctor's office and I would put the charts away like things like the library and putting the books away. It's very specific the order that goes into that they can find the chart literally by a person who goes... That's all your job is to pull charts. Okay, and then put the charts back. Anyways, if you die they put expired and the date on it in Sharpie... (Brad: Expired?) Expired! (...) All right, that's an inside joke, guys. Okay, so (...)

Okay. Two things, I did have two things that I loved. So the first is the bo hag!

Brad Crowell 16:03  

Bo hag? What the hell is a bo hag?

Lesley Logan 16:06  

The big old hairy ass goal

Brad Crowell 16:08  

B O H A G

Lesley Logan 16:10  

And you have to be obsessed with it. Because you guys, I think a lot of times when we aren't achieving a goal, it's because it's almost too easy to achieve. So we kind of want to do it tomorrow. But if you pick up really... (Brad: tomorrow) tomorrow, if you want to... (Brad: swap) you guys, we only get served the same ads and we stream we serve three ads. And that's one of them. I can't even tell you who the company is. I just... (Brad: Oh I can) Okay, well, we can't say that I sponsor the shots. But, um, so if you know, let us know we can have... (Brad: if you know, you know) you now. Excuse me. So, if your goal is like really big and scary, and it's it's kind of bigger than you, it makes it easier to show up. Like when you hit an obstacle because it's not. It's not about you so and then you want to be obsessed with it. And what that means is like, it's not like, like getting crazy and you just like, lock yourself in a room until it's over. But like you, you really are making sure that you're not saying yes to things that take you away from the goal. So everything that people ask you to it's like, is this gonna get me closer to my bohag? Is this gonna help with my bohag? When you're obsessed with your bohag? First of all, our friend Michael, he's been on the show. He is obsessed with his bohag, he's so obsessed (...) Yes, he is so obsessed with his bohag. He is always thinking about it. So when he meets people, he is able to immediately see how can this person connect me to like get me close my bohag or, and this is like next level bohag obsession. How can this person help someone else that I need to help me with my bohag and then it's like reciprocity? I watch him do this. I'm part of the whole thing I'm like Oh, I see what you're doing. Yeah, I see it and yes, I will help you because you helping me help me with my bohag so here we go. So get obsessed with your bohag. He also went into passion versus obsession so go back and listen to that he you know what is really cool he he also talked about standing out from your competition remember what the red marker so you guys at the the actual show and he would go to try out for for almost a jeopardy for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. they hand you a black marker and he brought a red marker so that he is card would stand out. This kind of like those who like I don't really care. I don't get how this helps me. Okay, my lovely ladies. I know we're about the same age you listen to you watch Legally Blonde. You watch Legally Blonde, right?

Brad Crowell 18:40  

I have watched Legally Blonde.

Lesley Logan 18:42  

Remember her resume? Smells nice, doesn't it?... (Brad: Oh yeah). Smells nice. Y'all have to find a way to stand up. She is one of how many people going to Harvard. Like that she's fighting for like one of these spots. So her resume had perfume. Right? So you have to think about how do you how can I stand out amongst the crowd of people. When I was doing commercials... And when they call you in for a commercial, they're like every redhead. Okay, so like, how do... I am a redhead, How do I stand out? Well I had the red lipstick. I also made sure I found a way to laugh out loud. Even if the commercial was something so depressing. I wanted to find because my laugh is something that people remember, you have to find a way to stand out especially for things that are very subjective. You're getting chosen as one of these people... It's pretty subjective right? So anyways, when it comes to your bohag, How can you stand out a little bit more so don't be a tulip rise above sunflower style

Brad Crowell 19:37  

Don't be a tulip y'all!

Lesley Logan 19:42  

You know, you know how the tulips are, the tulips are all the same height... (Brad: I did not know that) you've never heard of like the tulip problem, the tulips sit... like there's like it's a whole thing someone has to look it up but it's like an actual saying that like there are people are raised to be a tulip but no one wants to stand up higher. So all the tulips are like you'll rarely see a tulip like, up higher, you know what I mean? people, someone is nodding along with me. 

Brad Crowell 20:07  

 I love it. I love it. I'm not this is a new new analogy for Brad. But that's a great. I love I love that idea. You definitely have to stand out. And I think, you know what, like when Less and I coach pilates instructors, you know, a lot of people come in to the program, and they're like: "Well, how is this person that I'm in this group with not my competition, because I teach Pilates and so do they? so wouldn't it just be like, I'm actually empowering my competition. And our response is always no, you are just teaching Pilates. You are actually you have a very specific niche, you niche down, you have to get into the space where you know exactly what you're doing for this one specific thing. The more you niched down, the more diehard your clients are going to be, the more you're going to be able to help people fill out their schedule. So basically the, like if you were doing let's say, you know you came from a back injury, right? And you were helping people get over a back injury themselves. It just so happens to be that you're using Pilates to do it. You see oh, you're not selling Pilates anymore. You're actually helping people with back injury stuff or maybe whatever it is that your specific thing your niche may be that is going to help you stand out from the crowd because it's going to be Pilates for back injuries.

Lesley Logan 21:31  

I'm becoming more and more commenced with all these bots that are coming out that the more specific you are going to get on your website, the more likely that these bots are going to say this is the pilates teacher for you because of some, because now people are being told that they can say oh, I want a low impact workout with a female instructor who specializes in taller bodies. You better better have that that word on your site otherwise they're not going to pull you up because gone gone gone are the days of the old search engines pretty soon so anyway I don't know this is a theory I have.

Brad Crowell 22:05  

It's very interesting I know with the with the new chat bot searches things are going to shift here y'all

Lesley Logan 22:11  

Don't worry we will keep, we will keep our agency members... (Brad: agency members will know) they'll be first. Before you go into what you love is the MOA. That's the one that extinct

Brad Crowell 22:22  

Yeah, magically got a text message from... (Lesley: from me) who's truly...

Lesley Logan 22:27  

Look at it, babe. It looks like, it looks like an ostrich slash a Brontosaurus.

Brad Crowell 22:34  

MOAS... (Lesley: I might be saying that wrong) Oh, MOA sorry, Moas is plural. Moa is the singular. MOA.

Lesley Logan 22:40  

Yeah, if you're in New Zealand, and I said that wrong, you can let me know. I'll work on my accent. Okay, what did you love?

Brad Crowell 22:48  

It's worth looking up... (Lesley: It's such a cool bird). It's pretty... (Lesley: I'm so bummed it's gone). It's like a tall. It's like a it's like a different type of ostrich but it's not an ostrich at all.

Lesley Logan 22:58  

No, I think it was a mammal. I don't know. (...)

Brad Crowell 23:02  

All right, here's what I love y'all, we're gonna get to it. I also had two things. So first is he talked about having an accountability partner? Okay. So he said, for him, it was his wife. And the reason that he had an accountability partner was so that he could get this scary goal, this like, potentially, like impossible goal of getting on a television show out of his own head and out of you know, in front of somebody else, because that helps with accountability. So having the right partner is really important, because his wife was very encouraging. In fact, he literally said, Oh, the last city that I drove to, so that I could be in an audition for this show, which obsessed y'all, he almost didn't go it was to Cleveland. And he's and his wife said, hey, you've been focused on this for so long, you might as well go. And he's like, You know what, you're right. I almost didn't go. So he went, and then he was able to get on the show. Right? So you want to pick somebody who's really going to have your back who's going to be understanding, and that could be your friend, your parent, your spouse, your, you know, teacher, whatever it might be one of your classmates, you know, so having an accountability partner is super beneficial. And the second thing that I really loved what he said is, you need to see yourself to success, which is super be it till you see it, right. He practiced him, like, in his own home, he practice seeing himself envisioning himself in that seat on the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire platform. He practiced himself sitting there when the lights went around, and then the audience goes dark, and it's just him and the host.

Lesley Logan 24:42  

They put like very stressful music.

Brad Crowell 24:44  

Yeah, the whole thing. I mean, and you know, it's so, so funny because it kind of sounds hippie dippie. But I grew up in sports, and my coaches always used to say: See yourself putting that ball in the net. See yourself winning the game. See yourself, you know, like completing the past or getting the gig if you play volleyball

Lesley Logan 25:03  

In softball, I'm sure the same as in baseball, that you want it, you watch the ball hit the bat, you didn't look where you're running next you like, you like we're swinging and you're like, I'm gonna see that ball and that bat hit even before they hit, and you're gonna watch that you have to, you have to see that otherwise, you're gonna swing and the ball's gonna go somewhere else.

Brad Crowell 25:22  

Yeah. And when because he was practicing that at home, when he was in the greenroom, and the stress was on, he was like, okay, deep breath, he closed his eyes and he's like, just remember, it's just me and the host. There's nobody else there. And what I'm doing is I'm seeing myself in the seat answering the question correctly, I'm seeing myself in the seat answering the question correctly. And that helped him through a very stressful, you know, experience of being in the green room for two days before it was his turn to finally be on the show. And then being on the show, and he didn't freeze up. So yeah!

Lesley Logan 25:56  

I mean, I mean, what, you guys I'm sure... If you are like the hooligans, The Millionaire wife, she interviewed this person, but like, can you see all the different ways you've been until you said, like, I had to have him on to show like, like, this is how you do it. Like this is the roadmap. This is it. Anyways, I'm obsessed. We have to get to the Be It action because this one made probably the best.

Brad Crowell 26:20  

Love it. Stick around!

Alright, right, so finally, let's talk about those Be It action items. What bold, executable intrinsic or targeted action items can we take away from your convo with Phil Barth?

Lesley Logan 26:40  

I know you're gonna jump in first, but I can't believe you sold this morning. Because you're not a morning person. But like this. This is (...)

Brad Crowell 26:49  

This is hilarious. This is, I love this. Phil specifically said, hey, you know y'all have a bucket list. Love that you have a bucket list. But you also need a fuck it list... (Lesley: Yes). Yeah, a fuck it list. That's right. And if you said if you're not okay with that, just call it a chuck it list. Okay, the whole idea here of a fuck it list is basically look at you. Okay, and this is what I thought was really interesting. (Brad and Lesley overlapping) no, no, no, you need to be looking at yourself internally. This is what was very challenging for, well, everybody, nobody likes to analyze themselves, okay? But the things that go on your fuck it list are things that are no longer serving you, things that you no longer want to be, things that you no longer want to do, you no longer want to have. Right? And that can be tough to decide, you know, maybe it's like, let's pick something that's obvious and easy. Maybe road rage, you get really angry when people cut you off. And you're like screaming and yelling and cursing. And what happens to that it like, actually builds this tension in you, and it can affect the rest of your day. Right?

Lesley Logan 28:07  

Yeah, exactly. It's gonna be harder to go back into like, like, like dreaming up and being creative, that's for sure.

Brad Crowell 28:14  

Totally. And so maybe you, you want to get rid of that, that thing could go on your fuck it list, right? And that's like, you know, it might take practice and time to like, allow that stuff to roll off of you. But when you identify it, and you put it on the fuck it list, now you're aware of it, right? And that will allow you to let go of that thing. Whatever that thing might be. He actually said he had a volcano drawn on his whiteboard in his office, and everything that he didn't want anymore. He wrote it into the inside of the volcano, it became a checklist. So cool, he chuck those things into a volcano!

Lesley Logan 28:52  

This could be like and it's like people that no longer serve you, things that no longer serve you. Maybe, maybe, like, Netflix binging is no longer serving you, like, you know, and maybe you have to get rid of streaming subscriptions just so you really don't go back to them. But what are...?

Brad Crowell 29:08  

Well, he specifically said, here's why, obviously, it's going to benefit you from that perspective. But really, it's because you're the things that end up in your chuck it list. They're actually taking up space. They're taking up so much space that they might be getting in the way of your bohag. Or your next bohag. Right? So when you are able to clean houses at work, it's gonna really tee you up to knock the next one out of the park. Yep. How about that?

Lesley Logan 29:38  

I love it. And then as if that wasn't enough, like I mean, he could have just stopped

Brad Crowell 29:43  

 He could have totally stop there.

Lesley Logan 29:45  

He's like, yo, just start your day right? And this is a, you know, you know who I am. So he actually quoted a Harvard University study that said those who started their day with negative news versus those who start their day with a solution based news. So if you had three minutes of negative news, it lead you to have a 20% chance greater... (Brad: 27) 27% greater chance of having a bad day. Just three minutes.

Brad Crowell 30:09  

Yeah, that's that's like a quarter like times a quarter more. You're basically setting yourself up to have a bad day. Yeah, if you're taking on negative news, right in the morning.

Lesley Logan 30:21  

Right in the morning, so I love that that this one is coming after D thing. So like y'all, you can actually take this Be It action with last week's action item and like, really, truly make sure that you are doing your 15 minutes a moment, your five minute meditation and then your 10 minutes of self development... (Brad: Yeah. So yeah, working on you) working on you, before you get all involved up in that new shit. Because you have to start your day out right so you can go after your bohag.

Brad Crowell 30:52  

I can I can personally attest to this, that before the last election cycle, November last year, so it was like probably September, October, November. I was so personally invested in you know what was happening? Like with the news that was very seriously affecting my mental state.

Lesley Logan 31:15  

Oh, we weren't you weren't? With work not getting done on time. Yeah, whenever there's an election, I think we should have a team rule where all political podcasts and news podcasts are paused for three months. Like, we just might need to do that. Because of the bu... we have to put the fuck it list just for 90 days, just because it gets a little distracting.

Brad Crowell 31:33  

Or maybe it's something that happens during lunch instead of first thing in the morning because that's, I was waking up in the morning, plugging right into the news. And that was what I was focused on.

Lesley Logan 31:42  

Oh, yeah, yeah. So anyways, well, let's check in with Brad if he decides to this, we have we have a year off of for before election. So you got a year to get on that fuck it list, but put it on that. Put it on next fall's fuck it list page. You guys, Phil is so fabulous. I really like wish that we were like all related. And I bet you that salary unions are so great with him. Anyways, he has a book out already called Great Things Happen Every Day. And he has another book that he's working on one called Fryer Chickens. So go check them out. Yeah, and if you if you're like, Oh yeah, yeah, remember this stuff like, well, if you aren't going after your bohag, then you need better reminders. So you just do. We all need it. We all have those days. I'm Lesley Logan,

Brad Crowell 32:27  

and I'm Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 32:28  

Thank you so much for being here. We truly are so grateful for you and also to those of you who take time to hit the stars and leave a review over on Spotify and Apple. It is the reason why this podcast gets out. Here's the deal, podcasts take a frickin long time to grow. This is a bohag I'm obsessed with. It's true, but I need your help. I need reviews and I need you to share it. And if you don't know how to share it on social media, I don't care you can share it with a friend at lunch, (...) hear it is, text to them, all the things, and we can't wait to hear how you use these tips in your life. What bohag are you obsessed with? Let us know and until next time, be it till you see it. 

Brad Crowell 33:01  

Bye for now.

Lesley Logan 33:02  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review. And follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!      

Be It Till You See It is a production of Bloom Podcast Network.  

Brad Crowell 33:02  

It's written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host Lesley Logan. And me Brad Crowell. Our associate producer is Amanda Frattarelli. 

Lesley Logan 33:02  

Kevin Perez at Disenyo handles all of our audio editing.        

Brad Crowell 33:02  

Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianranco Cioffi.       

Lesley Logan 33:02  

Special thanks to our designer Mesh Herico for creating all of our visuals, (which you can't see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all the video each week, so you can. 

Brad Crowell 33:02  

And to Angelina Herico for transcribing each episode, so you can find it on our website. And finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.

Transcribed by https://otter.

As a past contestant from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Phil Barth shares his journey through getting on the game show, chasing down his goal, and now helping others achieve their dream. 

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] .

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• The journey through Who Wants to Be a Millionaire 
• Become obsessed with your goal
• Why right people to support you matters 
• The value in celebrating wins
• How to see yourself to success
• Find the next thing, even if it's something small

BIO:

Expert in Stress Management, Goal Achievement. I recovered from a heart attack by a daily social media practice.

As a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, speaker, and author, Phil Barth is a man who specializes in goal achievement. His journey began when he found success by trying something different and surrounding him self with the right people. He now helps other fry chickens and overcome their barriers to success.

Episode References/Links:

• Phil Barth's Website
• Sorta Best Seller book :)

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.

Be It Till You See It Podcast Survey

Use this link to get your Toe Sox!

Resources

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!
• Lesley Logan website
• Be It Till You See It Podcast
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube
• Profitable Pilates

Social Media

• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan  

Okay loves. So, I can't get really nostalgic about certain things. And I grew up watching Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune with my family. And then obviously, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, which is going to bring us into our guest this week. And it's not because I want to talk about Who Wants to Be a Millionaire on the show. But I actually want to talk about someone's journey to achieving their big ass goals. And I think that sometimes we can get a little, a little like in the weeds with things or we can also maybe not actually push ourselves to actually go for the things we think. We've just started to listen to other people or ourselves and think it's never gonna happen to us. And so our guests, Phil Barth, he actually had a goal. He got curious about something, decided to do it. And then he worked his ass off for several years to make it happen. And I just wanted to share his journey, what he learned along the way, what he did after and what he's doing now. And I think it's so fun to hear stories like this because hopefully you can picture yourself in in the same situation with whatever it is you're going after. And so, now let's listen to Phil Barth story.

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

All right, Be It babes. Oh, I'm really excited about this. Because our guest today he is, will he'll tell you his story. But when I saw what he has accomplished his life, I was like, "Oh, I've watched that show." I like ... and so I was like taking it out of memory lane. And I I just like I have to talk to him. Because first of all, not only has he accomplished a lot, but he has learned so much along the journey. And I wanted to share that with you all because I think sometimes we get so obsessed with the goal, we forget that the journey has a lot to teach us. So Phil Barth, thank you so much for getting on the Be It pod. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you do?

Phil Barth  

Sure. As you mentioned, my name is Phil Barth. I am a speaker author. That's that's my side gig gig. I still work in the computer world, in the IT world as a as a geek, basically. It's this the show you're talking about was Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. I'm sure we'll get into that. But you probably don't remember the episode but but that's okay. Yeah.

Lesley Logan  

That would be hard. There was a lot and ...

Phil Barth  

Oh, I know, right?

Lesley Logan  

It's still on. I think it's still on.

Phil Barth  

It is still on. And what I've seen now they don't do it for millionaire but some game shows. I don't know why you do this, except for the game show nerds like myself. They're putting episodes out on I believe it's Amazon Prime video. So you can see old episodes of the 70s game show Match Game and and and there's a couple more. So who knows someday I might be out on Amazon Prime.

Lesley Logan  

That's amazing. You have to put that on your on your your, you know your resume.

Phil Barth  

I totally will. That's all there here's, here's the link. Go check it out.

Lesley Logan  

I love that so much. I would tell people like when I was getting started and doing commercials and everything like, oh, I'm gonna dro... I was in a Dropbox ad, which is true. It was not ever on TV. It was only an add on on the internet, though. So but who knows? It's they have it forever. So it could be used in different ways.

Phil Barth  

Still count. It actually count.

Lesley Logan  

So okay, so first of all, like what got you into even being wanting to do the show? Like, I feel like we have to go back a second.

Phil Barth  

Yeah. Yeah. Good idea. So it was the show came out August of 99. And I had read articles and papers, "Oh, that's interesting." And so August of 99, I remember I'm at the Marriott in Stanford. And I walk into my room I'm like, "Oh, it's almost time for that show I read about." So I turned it on. And I'm watching it, I'm thinking. "You know, I can try to do this." Because it's multiple choice, right? You always have a guess. Jeopardy, I sit there watch the games ... How they know that.

Lesley Logan  

I know. I can only watch teen Jeopardy and even then I get a half ...

Phil Barth  

I only watch the first half before the questions get too difficult and like, I'm out here. But but I was like I can do that. And that was the thought right? And then at the end, they said, "Hey, if you want to be a contestant on millionaire, dialed this 800 number. Well, that's easy enough. So I dialed, in every night they had a, an audition, basically, three questions, you had to put things in order from oldest to newest, newest to oldest, east to west, whatever. And if you got them, right, you went into a drawing for one of 10 spots on the show. Now, every night 200,000 people were calling in. So the odds are one and 20,000. (Lesley: Yeah.) But that that didn't stop me, right. All of a sudden, I had this, I had this vision that I'm gonna be on that show. And I know part of it was because my grandmother loved the show from the start. And when she passed away, like, oh, you know, this would be a great way to remember my grandmother, great. But if it had been who wants to be 100 air, I don't think I would have ... had that drive. Right. (Lesley: Right.) There was that promise of riches. And the other thing that happened was, of course, I watched the show every single day, because that's part of I wanted to see myself in that in that hot seat. So how ...

Lesley Logan  

That's such, that's such an interesting thing, because I would think people would watch it just to like, get used to the question, but you are also picturing yourself being in the chair. Yes.

Phil Barth  

Exactly. So one night, I'm watching it, and somebody wants $250,000 and quit at the half million dollar question. I knew every single question, including the half million dollar question on that particular set. And I'm like, holy cow, now I can really see myself you know, doing the backstroke and all these dollar bills and so on. Right. So ...

Lesley Logan  

I love that you visualize, you're gonna swim in the money.

Phil Barth  

Throwing the dollar bills. Right. So so I, it became an obsession and I when I speak on this subject, you know, I say there's a fine line between being obsessed with something. I forgot the other half of it, (Lesley: You mean, passionate.) that's it. Thank you. Fine line between passionate and obsession, right. And obsession is got a bad rap, you know, your, your obsession, you're going to, you're going to be put it they're gonna have to put a restraining order on you, blah, blah, blah. But if you're really obsessed with something, and you cross over that line, there are payoffs when you make it your goal. People call it a bolhag, big ol hairy. Look, I call them big ol hairy ass goals. Other people ... (Lesley: Yes.) nicer name for a, but that's what it is. Right? It is your bolhag, you want it so bad. And so I watch the show every day, every time there was a phone audition to call in. I, I was in there, right. And then eventually, I never passed on the phone, I never passed the audition, never made it to the finals to get on the show. So the next thing that happened was they had in city audition. So I auditioned in Chicago, and failed. And then I drove to Indianapolis for an audition and failed. And I always tell the story of on the way home, I stopped at Taco Bell. I don't recommend this for anyone, and had a Taco Bell Grande burrito and a Mountain Dew to fuel me on the way home. And I got home at two in the morning and threw up the Taco Bell. And (Lesley: Yeah.) so in my mind, it's like, well, I have suffered for the cause they're going to give me the, I'm gonna get the little card in the mail that says, "You made it." (Lesley: Yeah.) That's not how it worked.

Lesley Logan  

We don't need to, we don't have to suffer for the cause to get the car. We don't have to. (Phil: No, no.) Quickly to interrupt. I just want to say like, (Phil: Sure) I think I think correct, there is a there is a downside to obsession that can be a little bit but like if you're obsessed with a goal, and that isn't that is something that you that isn't going to hurt anybody else. It's just awesome for you. (Phil: Right.) Like there is a difference. I think sometimes people are more of a bystander in their own goal. They're they're passionate, they like it, that it would be nice to have it. But there's the jumping over that line to be like so focused on it to actually drive to two different cities to do in person. You make me think of the kids who did like American Idol. And they edition like seven times, you know?

Phil Barth  

You're right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And, and you're going after it. And so when I did finally, there was a space of time between the Indianapolis and the next audition, which was in Cleveland, Ohio. And I learned, right, I went up to Google wasn't huge back then. But there were message boards, etc. And so I was like, "I'm gonna find out what people are doing to pass this audition. Because obviously, what I'm doing isn't working." And so I spent some time, I investigate and learn. And what I learned was a couple things. The first thing they do with any Who Wants to Be a Millionaire audition is they give you a set of questions, multiple choice questions, all of which have already played on the show. So I was able to pass the test because I just remembered what I had watched. Then they take you into another room those who pass the test, and they give you an audition form, which is a bunch of small, small answer questions as a question types and a pencil. And so what I learned was just because they give you a pencil doesn't mean you have to use the pencil. So in Cleveland, I came there with a red marker, a highlighter, a four color pen, etc. And I dropped them on the table when they did it. And the guy sitting next to me, looked at that, looked at this pencil, they literally ah shit. Yes, and you cannot borrow my stuff. Right? So what ... And the second thing is you write on their what you want them to know about you. So when in between questions when Meredith Vieira is asking you a human interest story type question, you've got something that will play. And so I wrote that in red ink. And the producer comes in looks at the red ink, asked me about question, we have a great conversation. Two weeks later, I got the card in the mail, you're in the contestant pool. And I want to put on the show.

Lesley Logan  

That, so first of all, this is okay. So you did something different than what they were suggesting. And everyone I think you need to it doesn't matter what you're trying to do. This is very key a couple times I can think about it in my own life is one, we were trying to get a global entry card. And, you know, and Brad, the way he filled out the applications, he did all of our stuff in all caps. So we went in for the interview, they knew we were together. So like they did. They're like, "Oh, you guys are together." They liked it the whole thing. Here you guys go. It was like really this interesting thing. He's like Brad's a guy, always do it all caps, because it'll stand out amongst the list of people when they're going through. So if you're filling out some online, you can do all caps, it's not going to affect anything. The other thing that I did was when I got my, when I got my first commercial, I had done zero auditions. I had done zero classes, I just went and the only thing that I did was I heard of them ordering lunch, as I was walking in to, to do the audition. And I just said, "Oh, that place has really great waffles." Just so happened. I knew the place. I just it just and I know it's lunchtime, but like, who doesn't want to have a waffle? So anyways, I got a call back, you guys, I cannot cook, I booked a commercial being a chef. Because they liked the conversation. And so sometimes we are, you get a little like, you get too much in the weeds of something you forget that like actually, there's a you got to get through the door first. And to get to that door, you've got to be different. You got to do something differently than everyone else. This is so cool. Red ink, I love it.

Phil Barth  

Absolutely. Yeah, I love that story. You gotta be a little different. The other thing and this goes right into the keynote is you got to have a way I call it a frying the chicken, right? There's all these voices inside, but you can't do it, all the answer the other one and 20,000 ... And you got to fry him, you got to have ways to just get that the voices inside. If you can't calm the voices and, and the negativity, the fear, the negativity and the self doubt inside of you, you're not going to be able to get there. And so I had to do that. And I've done that in multiple things. You know, I was afraid to ask my wife out on a first date. And I had to calm that down. And oh, you're gonna get friends on ... And and what I tell people is, there's a bigger chicken that you need to worry about than anything you're putting yourself out there. And that chicken is regret. You're lying on your deathbed and it didn't happen. You know, I couldn't, I shouldn't, I wouldn't. Right. (Lesley: Yeah.) I didn't give it my best. And that's the thing you need to be afraid of. Be afraid of having regrets at the end. And when you put it in that way, it's like, okay, that's a way worse thing to avoid bigger chicken. That's a turkey ... (Lesley: Yeah.) Right. (Lesley: Yeah.) I need to be afraid of that. I need to take care of those chickens that are holding me back from doing my best and hitting that goal.

Lesley Logan  

Oh my gosh, I want to take a step back but I love this. It's like you, you're talking about talk getting the voices down because it can be your own, or it could be others and like wanting 20,000 to me sounds very doable. It's like it's way different than a lottery. Like I would never, I don't play the lottery because it's like, even when it gets really big. It's like it's one in a 500,000 person chance. Like, I could get struck by a plane first. Like, I'm not gonna bring it on myself, but like, truly, so I but when I'm 20,000 sounds doable. But yes, it's your voice or the people around you because you're gonna have those negative people, like I'm sure as you're studying, and you're not getting further, I'm sure you had other people in your life where like, "You're gonna keep going, Phil, like, like this, let this go."

Phil Barth  

And the thing was, I told everybody, you know, you need, you need to at least have an accountability partner for whatever you're doing. And that was, of course, my wife. But I told everybody I'm like, and again, that was I didn't want to have to go back to everybody later and say, "Well, I quit." And into your point, some of the people were kind of like, "Oh, okay, that's nice." You know, patting you on the head. It's like, okay, I know, you're someone I can't count on if I'm gonna go all out for this. And other people, like, "How can I help you?" Right. And it was really good and then I had somebody ... you know. Everybody talked about those wild goals that could have. You did it. And it was like I could tell and believe you, but you did. (Lesley: Yeah.) And so yeah, I had this whole army of people, I felt like they were all behind me. But you're right. Some of them like ... right. But but you gotta know. Right. Who's gonna who's really got your back?

Lesley Logan  

I think that's so key if you and like, also being really kind yourself to protect yourself I'm going to those people who don't when you've got something going on. And I think it can we can slip into this like, out of habit. Well, I always go to my sister about things so I'm gonna go but if your sister not, not my sister, but other people's sisters might be like, the person who says the thing that you are most afraid of like, aren't you? Like, aren't you afraid to like wasting your time, like that was a waste of money like whatever and like you can go oh, you know, so you you haven't built a muscle up yet to protect your your vision, your dream, your goal, you really have to make sure you are clear on who you're telling it to.

Phil Barth  

Exactly, exactly. And a lot of times, people I don't want to sound sinister, but there's some people who don't want to see you get ahead, because then it makes them look bad, right? Oh, you did this and I never had the nerve, right? So they're gonna pull you back down. I want to pull you back down to my level so that I don't have to do anything big. (Lesley: Yeah.) So you just need to ignore those people and say, you know, I'm going to find the people that are going to help pull me up.

Lesley Logan  

I love that. So what happens next? You put the reading. You got the call back. How did it .. Well, I'm sure our listeners like, "Did he get on the show?"

Phil Barth  

Oh, yes, he did. Yeah. So it was summer when I got the, "Hey, you're going into contest the pool." And it was November. And I remember I was working out at the Y. And I didn't have a cell phone. This is pre cellphone days. That's how long ago was. And my wife called the Y and said he needs to call the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire contestant lineback. They want him in New York. And like the Y's like, "Holy cow!". And so they come and find me. And I tried calling them back. And eventually, I connected with them. And they said yeah, here's the here's where where you gonna fly. They flew you up at the time, they put you in the hotel. And here's how it's all gonna work. And it's cool to come walking off the plane and have somebody with Mr. Barth on the ... "Your limo is ready, sir." Yes. (Lesley: That's so fun.) I know, right. And so yeah, you spend a couple of days there because they shoot four episodes per day when they're shooting. So the first day, you're just in the greenroom. And they're telling you, look, unless we got a run of people who crap out, you're not gonna get on today, but we just need to have enough contestants so that we can shoot the four shows. (Lesley: Right.) So first day, yeah, you just back there, you're making friends, basically. Second day, they okay, here's the order. And a new group comes in because just in case we all crap out. And so one at a time in the greenroom is like two buildings away. They, they don't want any cheating. Right. (Lesley: Wow) So you're in the greenroom. And all you're doing is talking or watching the show. And what happens is, you've very quickly made friends of these people that you're in the room together with, and so you see somebody that you're like, I think it's seeing no, no, no, don't say it, don't say you're gonna go home with $1,000. The final answer like oh, man, right? Or, or somebody else gets six figure payoff. You're like, Oh, that is so cool for this person.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah. That's so fun.

Phil Barth  

Yeah, eventually, it's like, you're up, right? And you're actually in the behind the scenes, because they don't know when the person in the hot seat is going to stop. So they bring you out and you talk with Meredith Vieira. And this is where the be it till you see it really, really helped me because I saw myself in the hot seat, looking at the questions, answering the questions, and, and being able to do this, and I over and over and over again. I practice that. And so what happened was, I mean, I think you could really get freaked out, right? If you stopped to think that a million people are gonna watch a show. And this is real money, etc. You can get freaked out. So what I did was before each question, she's asking it and the cameras on her, I closed my eyes for a second. And the thought was, as soon as I open my eyes, this is just like the practice at home. There's me, there's a question, there's nobody else. And it helped and it calm me down. And so I got on a roll. I needed the all I asked the audience like 4000 I think. Made it all the way to 32,000. And every time this was this was where you know, fate, lend the hand. Every time the question came up. I knew the answer before I saw the choices. It just happened to be stuff I knew. I was like, yes. So it was over two days. Because so it's like, Okay, we're done with this show. You run to the dressing room, change your clothes, come back and it's a new day, because you got a new outfit on obviously.

Lesley Logan  

Right. Right. Same audience. Same, yes. That's all it's, y'all this is how the sausage is made.

Phil Barth  

This is it, right. Guess what, it was not the next day. But we came you know come ... and I had the $32,000 question which I got. And I had two lifelines for the $64,000 question. It was a free guess. Here's the backstory. When I was in high school, I was on a, we had a quiz team that played other people in the Toledo, Greater Toledo, Ohio area. And all year long my senior year, the advisor said, this team is really good. But we need somebody who knows Greek mythology, you both need to know Greek mythology, and I'm a senior in high school, give me a break. So I didn't study it. And we still made it to the final four. There was never a Greek mythology question. So I showed him right. You know, you know, you know, right now, what the subject was for the $64,000 question is.

Lesley Logan  

Oh, my God. Ah, no. And so you're done. You didn't have anything ...

Phil Barth  

I, I had two lifelines. I not only didn't know Greek mythology, and that was the question. I hadn't made any friends who knew Greek mythology in ... in the 20 years. And so I took a guess. The phone friend didn't know it. 50 50 gave me a 50 50 shot, right. There were two I guess the wrong one because it was a free guess. Yeah. I walked out with $32,000.

Lesley Logan  

Right. And also like, that's more than most people because if like most people did drop out, they didn't make it past that 1000. And so like, all of your stuff, I think, obviously really helped you. I do have this question, though. Because I always wondered, do they do that music and lighting like in there on you like ... like, you know what I mean? Like, that's all I remember, like, oh my God, the stress of that.

Phil Barth  

100%, 100%. And that's why I close my eyes. And here's the deal. And I just remember thinking this like holy cow. At $64,000 they take it down a notch. I mean, you can see nothing, but you and Meredith Vieira. I was like, I'm thinking as the question goes, holy crap, it got really dark in here because they don't want any kind of signals from the audience all the game shows, gamble's and all that 64 grand is concerning real money and it is (Lesley: Yeah.) and so it got it gets really dark and the music is there and and the horn when it goes off. It's all that's all how it is.

Lesley Logan  

Oh my goodness. So okay, devastation that you missed that question, but you did get 32,000 which is like amazing. So after all this time, imagine at least over a year of your life like getting preparing yourself to be on this show. What happens next like, did you have like a hangover from like that? Like all the expectations that you had for it? Did you move on to another thing like what like what what ended up being the next thing for you?

Phil Barth  

I love that question. I know the answer ... that's an wesome question. (Lesley: Thank you.) So immediate ... immediate disappointment for if only I'd say Greek mythology, right. And, and when I called because my that quiz team advisor was one of my four different possibilities. He said, I would have laughed at you for 30 seconds. I don't know Greek mythology. I just told you you needed to learn it. But anyway, disappointment, right? Disappointment, and like, Oh, crap, I beat myself up. My wife comes back and she goes, we just got $32,000. Like, oh, yeah, I guess I don't need to be disappointed. Right. So so yeah, there's that. It was actually a three year quest, from 99 till 2002. So there is that like, Oh, what am I going to do next for a little bit? And what happened was a while later, a friend of mine came into my office at work, he said, "Hey, you want to run a triathlon with me?" I'm like, "Hey, you want to go get drug checked?" But I did it ...

Lesley Logan  

You did triathlon after that. You got you just like moved on to a new thing.

Phil Barth  

Eventually, the new thing presented itself and and it was a mini triathlon. Yeah. (Lesley: That's good.) 6 miles, 6 miles of running. Yeah. It is nothing. Six miles ... six miles running, 18 bike. But but yeah, and so it's like in the back of your mind. Okay. I have had a couple of really big ideas. Number one, asking my wife out what it was nervous as hell. Number two, the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Okay, I'm gonna try a triathlon and, and so yeah, eventually, your next bolhag presents itself. Now what I tell people is, you may not find the bolhag right then. So look for a low hag or some little hairy ass goals ... (Lesley: Yeah.) And make those little checkmarks and get a victory log, write it down, put it in there. We, a couple of years ago, I got frustrated with my favorite football team. But if they do every year, the Cleveland Browns. But anyway, you know, they were in the middle of a suck streak. And I said this year is going to be different. And you know, normally I make it through the first half of the first game and it was different. I made it through the first quarter. It's just like, no. And so I told my wife, I said, "Look, every Sunday from here on out, I'm not going to watch football." She's like, "Right." I said, "No, I'm not. Every Sunday afternoon, we're going to have a little project and we're going to do something together in some way make our house, our family, whatever better." So a whole series of low hags and I need to tell you, and this was 2019. So again, fates gonna play ... We painted, the repainted the basement, and then I build a home office just because I wanted to have a home office in the basement. I'm upstairs right now but I have a home office in the basement. (Lesley: Yeah.) Pre pandemic, we just happened to put together a nice home office in the basement ...

Lesley Logan  

That is amazing.

Phil Barth  

But I mean, every ... every week, it was this little, little thing. It's just checking off obviously, that is so cool.

Lesley Logan  

I think that's amazing. Because I think people get a little upset, like, they are down on themselves when they can't think of what they want to do in a year when they can't think of what they want to be in 10 years. Like, there's some people just like, have this block around it. And like, I have to figure this out. And it's like, like something like, like, I gotta find my purpose isn't it's like, what if you like, if it's that hard? And if it stresses you out that much? What if you just found something small to do? Like, what if you figure what would want to do in a month? And what if you figure (Phil: I love it) so that's so cool. And I love you guys did that. Also way good timing for that. But I just really think that like what a great point to make because it can be tricky. If you're if you're listening to this right now. And you're like in a valley right now. And you're like, I don't really know what my next thing is, it's like, well, then just pick a little thing that really interests you and try it out. Like I think we forget that we can try things on for size. You know what I mean?(Phil: Oh, absolutely.) Like we forget, you used to go to the store, used to load up a dressing room and used to try things on, come out, look at it and see if you liked it. Like you used to do that. Now we're like, I gotta buy it online, it comes to me and I better like ... ship it back. (Phil: Right. Right. Yeah.) So I think we forget that, that that's an option. I love that so much. So, um, so I also want to highlight your wife celebrated with you. Because I think a lot of times we do get disappointed in what we worked so hard on if it doesn't meet the things we want it. But if you have someone around you to help celebrate, it really does make it easier to move on to your next thing.

Phil Barth  

Yeah, and somebody to support you because it took a fair amount of time to do all the studying and everything I wanted to do and she supported me all the way. And, and the day of the Cleveland audition, I was getting ready to drive and she said, "You know what? I'm not gonna go." I've I've tried this what why am I gonna fish and said, "Get in the car and go, it's your dream, go get it." And you know, that was the final push. So ...

Lesley Logan  

That's why we need, what's why we really do need to have a few good people around us to remind us because we can get in our own way. You just it's so easy to to get in your own way. I love that so much. So so what are you, so now that the little, you did the low hags? What are you working on right now? Like, what are you being it till you see it right now? What's that look like?

Phil Barth  

A book. I wrote the we ... I don't know if we can talk about the book. But I wrote a book we call it a best sort of selling book. It's called Great Things Happen Every Day. And and it's best sort of selling because we put it out on Amazon, we put it out on the free Kindle book list. And in five days, it 1000s of copies. Right. And I remember waking up I was in Seattle and I looked at my phone. I was like holy crap. I did over 1000 free copies yesterday. Right? And so I went and that just blew me away when it went to number one on the bestseller list of free Kindle books about stress management. And I said, is that a best seller? You know, Kindle says yes. But my bank says no, because I earned sold 1000s of copies or in zeros of dollars. So I say it's the best sort of selling ... (Lesley: I love that so much.) Yeah, everybody say their best selling author, I'm a best source on international because somebody in Canada took when to international best sort of selling author, right? You go, but then I thought about it was like, okay, 1000s of people have taken this book and the book was to help people with their stress. Holy crap. That's a win. Right? (Lesley: It's a win.) It didn't get me a new convertible, but it's a win. (Lesley: Yeah.) And so the new one, the next one is another book, and it's going to be called Fry Your Chickens. And it's about it's what we've been talking about, and how to calm those voices inside. Find your bolhag, try some low hags etc, and just how to get the life you deserve. And I hope this one is a best seller. But hey, if I'm a two time international best selling author, and a few 1000 people read it. I'm good with that.

Lesley Logan  

You know what I think? There was I'm trying to think of the author. But it's not coming to my mind right now. But she got so famous off this one book. And she had written all these other books before. And everyone's like, "Oh my god, this is the best book." I can't like, "This is amazing." Like, "How did you even get to writing this best selling book?" And she's like, "Well, I wrote four other books that very few people bought." (Phil: Yeah.) Like, she's like I have, they're actually selling really well now because people like this book, but like I've been, I didn't just this isn't my first rodeo like (Phil: Right.) I have other ones. So I do I do love that. I think um, you know, it's, it's so hard to no matter how old we are or what we've gone through. It's so hard to remind yourself that like, no one's an overnight success. It's 10 years of work that got them to where it is. And you know what? I think when you say your best sort of selling author actually makes people listen ... Like, wait, what did you just say? So that's so cool. Okay, I can talk to you more. I mean, I would love like I mean obviously just to get to stress, but we'll definitely make sure our people can hear where they can buy your book in just a moment. All right, Phil. So where can people find you, follow you get your amazing, best sort of selling book?

Phil Barth  

So easiest places, just go to www.philbarth.com. I love the website. All I did was write a check. So it's good if I had developed it. I know I mean ... but no. But philbarth.com. It's also available on Amazon. And those are the easiest ways I'm on Facebook, ... like for a second? But but all of the links come off at philbarth.com.

Lesley Logan  

Perfect. That's so easy. And then is that where the people can find your book?

Phil Barth  

Yes, yeah, it'll take you to the Amazon page, to get it. Or philbarthbooks.com will take you right to my author page.

Lesley Logan  

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Okay, before I let you go. Bold, executable, intrinsic, targeted steps people can take to be it till they see it. What do you have for us?

Phil Barth  

Okay, so, so here's the, here's the ones. And everybody talks about having a bucket list and you need to. But you also need to have and it was an Irish guy that introduced it to me. And he always say that you need to have a bucket list. Things that you no longer want that are not serving you, things you no longer want to be, things you no longer want to do, things you no longer want to have. And if you don't like that, where you can call it a chuckit list because I have a whiteboard in my home office. And I get the big ol volcano drawn. And then I just list, here are the things that I'm going to chuck into the volcano. (Lesley: Oh, I love this.) You need to make room for what's on the bucket list. And for the next bolhag so that you can throw yourself at that one and not spend time and everybody knows the things they do that it's like you look at it and I go too, right. It is playing this game on my phone really taking me to where I need to be and nothing wrong with an occasional game. But but what are you going to get rid of what is no longer serving you so that you can focus on the bolhag? That's the biggest one. The second one is, and this goes for stress. This goes for goals. You need to start your day right. There's there's a study done by Harvard University, Sean Achor, Google the study, they divided people into two groups, those who started their day with negative news, versus those who started the day with solution focused news. Three minutes was all it took, 27% more likely the people with the bad news, 27% more likely to have a bad day. If you want to get after your bo hag, you need to start your day off positively. You know, pet the dogs, enjoy a cup of coffee and read a book, meditate, little exercise, yoga, something at the start of the day to get yourself off on the right foot. And you're going to be after that. Bo Hag every time.

Lesley Logan  

I love that. That's such an interesting, I forgot about that study. That's such a great reminder. Because I do I do agree. Like I think you can even even if you're like but I need to listen to the news. It's like okay, great. But before you hit play, take three to five minutes to listen to something really good. So that you already have like, something in there to combat that stuff because it's so important to be informed. But sometimes that information can actually make you make decisions about your bolhag that the news has nothing to do with.

Phil Barth  

Exactly. 100%

Lesley Logan  

So you're such an amazing storyteller. I can't wait to read your next book, Fry Your Chicken. I will say this, you should look up there's a bird, it's a bird in New Zealand. It's an extinct that looks almost like an ostrich dinosaur and it can be the big bird that you're trying to like picture like, so I'll you've got to find it because when I was in New Zealand I went to the bird thing in Wellington, sorry for my New Zealanders you're like, "Lesley it's called this." It's a it's a sanctuary, it's amazing. I went this tour and they show this prehistoric bird that I'm so sad is gone because it's pretty ugly, but it looks really fucking cool.

Phil Barth  

I'm gonna totally look that up.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah, you can just for pictures, just for people to pick their, to pick the thing that they want to fry the chickens to get towards.

Phil Barth  

You can fry this bird is already extinct. It's a bummer that it's extinct but you don't really frying it but it doesn't gives you the visualization. I pulled stork out of the ... I guess ostrich is also pretty big bird.

Lesley Logan  

Yes, there are big birds and they run very fast everyone, their eggs are very pretty. (Phil: I love it.) Anyways, a fun fact that I know. Well Phil, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Everyone how are you going to use these tips in your life? Please share them with Phil, share with the @be_it_pod. Let us know and do us a huge favor. If you know someone who should be reading his book or who needs us every reminded of the story. You need to share this podcast with them. If you don't know how to do on social, you can send it to them through a text message, you can send it to them an e mail. Like we can help you but it is so important that more people hear the good words from our guests and from you people that they know like and trust. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, Be It Till You See It.

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review. And follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!   

Be It Till You See It is a production of Bloom Podcast Network.

It's written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host Lesley Logan. And me Brad Crowell. Our associate producer is Amanda Frattarelli.    

Kevin Perez at Disenyo handles all of our audio editing.    

Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianranco Cioffi.   

Special thanks to our designer Mesh Herico for creating all of our visuals, (which you can't see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all the video each week, so you can.  

And to Angelina Herico for transcribing each episode, so you can find it on our website. And finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

It’s not “just do it”, it’s a “just did it” mindset. Tune for the way you create lasting change, take action and celebrate your wins for success. 

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] .

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• How you get to Cambodia. 
• Can you do Pilates on the wall? 
• Acknowledge and be very specific.
• Where the problem lies in change.
• sustaining change is where the problem usually lies.
• The importance of celebrating your wins 
• How to set your non-negotiable everyday 

Episode References/Links:

• Join us in Cambodia!
• Pilates Exercises to do on the wall
• The Whole Life Fitness Manifesto

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.

Be It Till You See It Podcast Survey

Use this link to get your Toe Sox!

Resources

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!
• Lesley Logan website
• Be It Till You See It Podcast
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube
• Profitable Pilates

Social Media

• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

Episode Transcript:

Brad Crowell 0:00  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

Lesley Logan 0:09  

Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It interview recap where my co host in life Brad and I are going to dig into the enthusiastic combo I had with Dai Manuel. Well, in our last episode, if you haven't yet listened that episode, feel free to go back and listen that interview, and then come back and listen this one or you can just let it play backwards. And you can see if you resonate with it (...) do however you want to do it... (Brad: how everyone do it) You know, it's I'm actually struggling with that kind of like doing it backwards situation. I'll tell you why. So there's a podcast I'm listening to and they actually dropped like two or three episodes in a day. And so which is, because of... 

Brad Crowell 0:44  

Episodes, or they're adding to their, it's a whole new episode?

Lesley Logan 0:47  

It's a whole new episode... (Brad: Oh that seems like a lot of work) it's like part one, part two, it's like way too much work. And they also have way too many ads. And like not like we have ads look, a lot of ads is how things go. But they had like four minutes with the same ad and I'm gonna say it but I have it memorized at this point. It's just like repeats, but I want to know what's going on. And you cannot go from the back to the front. You have to start with the front and it just too much work. Well. That's feedback for them. They're not listening. It's okay. Anyways... (Brad: Nailed it). Well, I'm so happy you're here listening to this one.

Brad Crowell 1:17  

Yeah, we won't have four minutes of the same ad. Don't worry.

Lesley Logan 1:20  

No, no, we have different ends... (Brad: Yes). And, and also, it's so exciting. So we just got been back for a bit from our Mexico vacation... (Brad: Oh yeah!) which was so much fun. But what's (...) what's coming up next was like, we're definitely in March Matness now. Yes, M A T not M A D. The M A D starts later in the month, which always baffles me because it's not really March Madness, because it goes in April, but March Madness is where you do the Pilates classical mat exercises one every day for the whole month of March. And so, in honor of March Madness, we are doing a workshop on the roll up this month... (Brad: Yeah) Yeah, I'm really excited. I got my OPC teachers joining me. And we're gonna do this amazing workshop where we actually really dial in all the different reasons why you might be struggling with this exercise, how to help you do it. If you're like, what's the roll up, it's the one where your legs are together, you try to sit up from off the floor, and usually your legs go flying around.

Brad Crowell 2:21  

It's so hard.

Lesley Logan 2:22  

It's so hard. Even if you have like a six pack, it's actually even harder for you most likely. So you'll want to definitely check out our workshop on that if you have been wanting to understand the roll up in a better way. If you've been wanting to dive into your mat, if you just wanted to have like someone, you know, teach you, don't be a teacher to do it, then that's workshops happening this month. You can go to onlinepilatesclasses.com to get on that waitlist. I'll put the link in the show notes. And we are on the countdown. This monthly countdown. We are less than we're like six months, seven months away from literally seven months away from being in Cambodia. That's right. Yeah. But I don't think we told people the story about in Monterrey when we ran into a girl from Cambodia.

Brad Crowell 3:06  

Oh my gosh. So this was the most fun. We were, so very, whenever we go to these big events, and there's like hundreds of people and stuff, we're always with everybody. Well somehow like very randomly, we found ourselves like ready to go to dinner. And we hadn't made any plans with anyone. And there wasn't like a big party standard. Like we just were like, oh, let's go to dinner, just the two of us. So that was actually nice. And we're like, well, where do we go? So I just Googled gluten free near me and found a burger joint. And it was like, okay, you know, that's fine. Gluten Free burger buns. And so we walked over... (Lesley: It's only a block away). So we're like, that's right there. And they had kombucha on draft.

Lesley Logan 3:48  

That hard kombucha on draft which I was like done. And then I saw they had sweet potato fries. I was like, Well, this is just the most amazing thing. I was so excited... (Brad: Yeah). And the girl behind the counter was so excited to see how...

Brad Crowell 3:57  

She was super cute, she was like really enthusiastic... (Lesley: Yes). And behind her on the wall was a whole bunch of money... (Lesley: It was a bunch of foreign money, I should say) Yeah... (Lesley:And so...) I saw Costa Rica, India, England, Canada.

Lesley Logan 4:10  

Yeah. So I looked at Brad and I said, Do we have any of our Cambodian money in your wallet? And he was like, looking at me like, I don't think we have I don't think I have any from this last trip. And she is like, you have Cambodian money.

Yeah, she's like, Why do you have Cambodian money? 

Yeah, I'm like, Oh, we go there all the time. We lead a retreat. She's like, I am Cambodian. I am Cambodian... (Brad: Yeah). And so we had the most amazing time. We started speaking to her...

Brad Crowell 4:33  

Not only that, she only moved to The States like a year and a half ago and only been in Monterey for six months or so. And so suddenly, we began to just talk to her and khmer.

Lesley Logan 4:42  

Yeah, we started talking khmer, and she was so impressed with our khmer. Of course our khmer was actually this from the same area that she's from. So the dialect is very similar, and we could understand, and chat with her.

Brad Crowell 4:54  

She speaks way faster than us. Way faster... (Lesley: Yeah), it was so much fun

Lesley Logan 5:00  

It was so fun. And so a got us like really even more excited to go back to Cambodia because, you know, it's just that's not every day that we run into someone who actually can speak khmer so anyways, we're going to Cambodia we want you to come with us, lesleylogan.co/retreats to get information.

Brad Crowell 5:15  

Right, yeah, slash retreats, we'll add you to the waitlist so lesleylogan.co/retreats. And then that will trip an email that'll show you what's going on right now... (Lesley: Yeah), we would love to have you come with us if you're like, ah, Cambodia? No. It's not as scary as you think it is. It's actually...

Lesley Logan 5:35  

It's the most beautiful place.

Brad Crowell 5:37  

Oh, it's a beautiful place and the trip getting there is actually really easy. I know, it's on the other side of the world for most of us. But, you know, when you fly internationally, they give you free booze and lots of movies, good to go.

Lesley Logan 5:48  

Yeah, yeah. And then also it's been it's been a week together at my house, at our house. And it's always a small group. So it's just like, it's truly a retreat. It's like (...). It's so much fun. So, join us on this next one, because we're only doing one this year and we want you on it... (Brad: Yeah, bursts). Alright, before we get into Dai's interview amazingness. Do we have an audience question?

Brad Crowell 6:10  

We sure do. We, somebody very laughingly asked: wait, you could do Pilates at a wall?... (Lesley: Yeah, I've been getting) Wasn't really actually a question. The question would be, can you do pilates at the wall?... (Lesley: Yeah), the answer is yes.

Lesley Logan 6:25  

Well, because my mom. And I think three other people in our family have sent me an ad of like people doing Pilates at the wall. And you can see it a lot is an air quotes at the wall. And then it just anyways, the ads that I'm seeing replies at the wall are awesome exercises that are not Pilates but they are low impact, they are body weight, and I don't think they're gonna make your butt look like that. I definitely think that that takes some more squats in that. But please, by all means, if you'd like to workout and make you makes you go have fun. But you can do Pilates with the wall, their actual place exercises that you can do at the wall. And I have been doing them at the wall for years, and teaching them and even Joseph Pilates top people pilates at the wall, there were squats at the wall, there was a roll down at the wall. There's like a lot of things you could do that are really amazing. And so when you only are an airport or at a hotel and you're afraid to be on the floor there, there are a significant amount of exercises both Joseph Pilates approved and on ones that I've taken from being on the ground to be at the wall to challenge our balance and our asymmetries. Some of my teacher taught me and so if you go into the show notes, there is a link.

Brad Crowell 7:36  

Yeah, we have an entire blog post all about Pilates exercises you can do with the wall over at onlinepilatesclasses.com

Lesley Logan 7:43  

(...)

And you would do them to really better your posture and help you work. A long lifted tall spine. It might not be as accessible for you on the floor as it is on a wall, there's the sometimes more feedback on how squishy your mat is (Brad: squishy) squishy. So what what's so funny is ever since people been sending me this and asking me like, can it like do I have these exercises in a class? My blog post about this these exercises has been going through the roof it is taken the number one blog post off it's thrown, everyone's doing this. So I love that people are googling it. I love that they're coming across our exercises because they'll keep you strong, safe and they'll actually be super effective for you having an awesome tall spine, better digestion, better posture, better life.

Brad Crowell 8:31  

100%... (Lesley: Yeah). Okay, now let's talk about Dai Manuel. Dai has your back when it comes to sustaining personal change in your life. As a change advocate and coach, he shares how his personal story led him to change both externally and internally. And to maintain that change. That's the big part. The Sustaining of it. Die has been proudly dating his wife for 23 years. He's the father of two girls and a and he's also a lifestyle mentor. As a digital thought leader, author, lifestyle mentor and Ted Talk host, he engages and challenges people to live healthy lifestyles.

Lesley Logan 8:33  

Yeah, I really enjoyed our conversation... (Brad: Yeah, his enthusiasm was contagious). Yeah, it was so it was, very bubbly energy and then he was like, I was just going off of your and your energy and I'm being real honest. Like, prior to hitting him, like come into that same class. I was like, Okay, here we go. Got this. So you know, so like, so like, maybe it was mutual, but it was, I think we just like kind of fed off each other. So that was a lot of fun. He said so many things that we could talk about forever, like, just go listen to the podcast. But I love this because this is something that I also saw in BJ Fogg's chapter on, like getting your family to have better habits in your life that you wish that they would do. And so I was I'm out, like how to support other people in their change. So you know, it can be hard to be a bystander when people are trying to make changes, or there's changes you want to make in their life. And we just want to like do it for them and like, tell them but what Dai was saying is like, complement the things that they're doing that you want them to keep doing. So like if they're, you know, if they're doing something that you're like, Oh, yes, they made their bed. It's like, acknowledge that and be very specific. Don't go great job this morning, like, loved how you made your bed this morning. That is amazing. That's so great. Like, it's just Isn't it so nice when your beds made?

Brad Crowell 10:49  

He was specifically talking about his daughters and how, how they encouraged and applaud the positive aspects of the things that they're doing.

Lesley Logan 11:00  

Yeah, yep. And, and then try to catch them in the act of doing something right. So you can support them. So try to actually like be around for that. And so yeah, so so there was a whole chapter on this in in BJs book. So I love this part. And it happened to do with like this father, who just would like just butt heads with the son. And he would just go, like, can you just clean out the espresso thing and the coffee when you're done using it? And the kid would like, grunt like of course, and and so one day, he didn't actually, like completely clean it. But he did, like, partially clean it. And he's like, Hey, thanks for doing that thing. And the next week, it got better. And then it's so common to the next step. And and it's like those baby steps. I wish that it worked on August, I wish that when I complimented him on not barking he would stop but it's fine.

Brad Crowell 11:46  

He's so good at not barking.

Lesley Logan 11:47  

I saw that. So you just left him alone. And he's like, Oh, I left him alone wof wof. But at any rate, um, I just I think that this is really important, whether it's a child that's in your life or a partner in your life, or a sibling or a parent.

Or someone on your team at work.

Yeah, well, because people like the way our brain works you guys is that we're going to do everything to lean into what it feels good and get away from what doesn't feel good. So you're getting mad at someone or you like, making conflict around something isn't it going to make them go: You know what I should do right now? like do the thing that like I want my brain wants to vis like run away from so anyway, I just thought it was a really great part of the conversation that we could all use. Because who doesn't want to like be told good things about themselves?

Brad Crowell 12:31  

Yeah. And and I think I think you mentioned something in the convo. In the when you as the supporter of someone going through change. We often just have this tendency to see only the bad shit. Why didn't you do this? You did this terrible thing again, oh, hey, bla, bla, bla bla, right, and we focus on the negative. And when instead you're focusing on the positive, you're, you're passing that perspective along to the person who's effecting change, because one thing he shared about his personal story was how he felt trapped in his downward spiral, spiral, you know, where he started putting on weight, and he knew he's putting on weight. And then what did he really just want to do? He's gonna play video games, watch movies, and eat junk food. So he binge, he would binge eat, which just makes the problem even worse, and they feel even worse about himself. You know, and then everyone's commenting about him, and he's feel even worse about himself. Right? But when, if you are able to start sharing the positive "hey, nice job". You know, like, that sandwich looks really great, you know, if to the sandwich that would be beneficial for them, you know, kind of a thing, then that lets them go. Oh, there are good things that I can focus on... (Lesley: Yeah. Yeah), I think we're just (...) trapped to you know, we're getting so stuck on the negative. 

Lesley Logan 14:01  

Oh, well, of course, because that's what our brains are conditioned to do. But I just mean, like, when he you know, when he told us that he wanted to bicycle his dad didn't go. Well, you're just gonna play video, you're not going to use it. Seriously video games anyway. Said let's go get a bicycle... (Brad: right). So like, just the people in your life who you can tell are trying to make change. Help them if they're asking for it in that moment, if you can, and if not, like at least like tell them when it's going. Yes, someday or this weekend? Like, how about three o'clock on Friday? Like I you know what I mean? Like, the more we can inspire each other, the more people will do it for us. It just that's the way the world works. What's one thing you love that, that he brought up?

Brad Crowell 14:39  

Yeah, so we were talking about this during his his bio, but sustaining change is where the problem usually lies. Because, you know, at first you have this enthusiasm and this excitement around it. And so your willpower is stronger. But he said, and I thought this is really interesting. He said that is a depleting resource, right? So imagine a pile of gold. If you keep spending it, the pile goes away. It's a depleting resource where your enthusiasm to embrace the change that you may want to see in your life. Right, he said, so some tricks, some tips that you can use to maintain the change is to decide, he said, it all starts with a decision, but get the hardest thing out of the way first, so he talked about the book Eat The Frog... (Lesley: Yep). And if the hardest thing you have to do that day is eat a frog, then you should do it. Absolutely. The first possible thing you could do is eat the frog. Because in the rest of the day, that the hardest thing already, right? And he said, the initial steps to take the most amount of motivation, and activation, and what are you most likely to have the most motivation and activation? It's probably, you know, in the earlier in the day when your brain is the freshest. So and then he also talks about smart goal setting, which I've heard before I thought this was really cool. In fact, I'm sure we talked about it on the pod because I think another guest talked about it. I can't remember now. But SMART is an acronym. It stands for Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, time based goal setting, right? So what would be a SMART goal? That someone who wanted to become more physically active? What would be a SMART goal that they could set for themselves? So specific...

Lesley Logan 16:32  

Something that's specific... (Brad: measurable) I'm gonna go for a run. It's like, actually, I'm willing to run one mile.

Brad Crowell 16:38  

Okay, then measurable?... (Lesley: Yep), one mile... (Lesley: in the mornings), in the mornings, actionable. So that's something that you can do. It's not necessarily something that you're relying on others to do for you, you can go do it. What's realistic? Is one mile realistic?

Lesley Logan 16:53  

Well, it depends on the person. But if I add my dog, probably a little bit now I've got the dog exercise in there at the same time.

Brad Crowell 16:59  

Okay. And for me, I can tell you right now running a mile. Maybe that's not realistic... (Lesley: Well, you know) for me (...)

Lesley Logan 17:06  

(...) try to run a 5k So I guess I'm gonna figure that out.

Brad Crowell 17:10  

I can slowly walk, jog, trip, stumble a mile, but running a half a mile? I could certainly do.

Lesley Logan 17:16  

And then time based for this month.

Brad Crowell 17:20  

Yeah. When do you want to do... (Lesley:Yeah) said goal.

Lesley Logan 17:23  

But also like, like, there's got to be a time setting. So like, when is it starting? When is it ending? Or when you're evaluating it, so that you, it's not like I'm doing this for the rest of my life. That's overwhelming.

Brad Crowell 17:34  

Right? Yeah. So start now stop when you know, or you're going to do it before X date? Yep. Yeah. So anyway, that's, that's great. So these are, these are some pretty straightforward, you know, action items that we could be taking in our own lives... (Lesley: Yeah, with anything we're doing). Yeah. So whether that is, I know one thing that you really started doing with your, you wanted to change your mornings up?... (Lesley: Yeah). And so you made a decision to get your own workout in, you know, so you had to make time to do that. And to do that you've moved your clients so that you actually have the time in the morning, right. So there's, these were small steps. Okay, I gotta move this quiet. Okay, that gives me this time. Okay, now I have to make the decision to actually do my workout. And what's been happening. Now, you, how long have you been doing your morning routine?

Lesley Logan 18:28  

Forever. And also, I just changed an order of it again, because one of the thing that I was wanting to do, I was like, I could tell I was talking myself out of it. So I lit, I literally was like, Okay, well, we're just gonna move it up in the morning routine, so that we actually can do the other things that we want to do that we're not negotiating beforehand. It was just like, you know, it's the pu... it's the handstand, push ups and things I had these goals on, and they're fucking hard. And I don't I want to I want to be the person who can do them. I don't want to be the person doing them. So it's problem right now. But at the same token, like I just moved them up earlier in the morning routine, so that they get done, so I eat the frog.

Brad Crowell 18:29  

All right. So finally, let's talk about those Be It action items. What bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted action items can we take away from your convo with Dai Manuel? I'm gonna hop in first here. He talks about celebrating your wins... (Lesley: You know, I'm about that). Oh, we know you are all about that. And I know when he was telling his story about the hill and his bicycle when he was in his early to mid teens. You know, one day he finally got to the top and he was like I did it. Just did it. Right. And the just did it thing is so funny. I think it's really clever. And I hope he makes merch out of that checkmark a checkmark instead of a swoosh. And instead of just do it, I just did it.

Lesley Logan 19:59  

Yeah, Um, if he can do that, though, I want to just be it. I'm just saying, I just I'm fighting with you all, I want to just be it. I just want to just be it. 

Brad Crowell 20:07  

Just be it.

Lesley Logan 20:07  

Yeah... (Brad: I love that). Okay, anyways, back to the...

Brad Crowell 20:10  

You know, and the celebration of it. Just like you were just talking about with your morning routine as you are making those adjustments to your morning routine, you feel good about it, right? And if you acknowledge Oh, I felt good about this today, because what you're gonna want to do tomorrow, feel good again, and it helps build momentum.

Lesley Logan 20:29  

Yeah, you got to, and I know it sounds hilarious to say it out loud by yourself. But you have to, you have to find some way of actually celebrating in that moment. And maybe (...) to check a box off. Or maybe there's an app you use that like cheered Monday does this little like confetti thing for done. You know? So you got to find something like that.

Brad Crowell 20:49  

I mean, you could do this after you leave a workout. I don't really, I never liked going to the gym, right? And I don't always enjoy the workouts like sometimes I'm angry at the end of the workout because I hate that I just did that to my body. 

Lesley Logan 21:04  

I really hate when I look at the board. And I'm like, No, these aren't moves I want to do today.

Brad Crowell 21:07  

Right. But at the end of the workout, I literally tell myself, I'm glad that I worked out. You know, and I think when I used to work in the restaurant business, when I was in my early teens, my friend always told me, and I don't know how I remember to do this. But he said when we're in the kitchen, if you're gonna walk out on that floor, he said, when you walk through this doorway, you have a smile on your face.

Lesley Logan 21:28  

Oh, we had that. Also, like with work. It's like when you walk through the door. It's showtime, like, you know, like, leave your problems at the door. This is the time to like, have fun. And like, even that can help you feel like you're celebrating a little bit.

Brad Crowell 21:40  

But when I would go out on the floor with a smile on my face, I would have fun on the floor with my guests. Yeah. And then by the end of my shift, I was enjoying my shift... (Lesley: you were being it until you see it). Yeah. And so you know, this momentum this celebrating that win, will will benefit you in all sorts of aspects of your life.

Lesley Logan 21:59  

All right, um, my biggest takeaway was, this is just like, I love this non negotiable everyday 30 minutes for yourself. So even if you're like, you guys, I cannot at all get up any earlier. I cannot do these things, whatever, blah, blah, 30 minutes for yourself non negotiable everyday 30 minutes by yourself. 

Brad Crowell 22:16  

Okay, so he casually slid in there. The statistic that you know, all sudden turn my head and I was like double checking his math. He said 30 minutes a day. It's only 2% of your day. I was like ball... (Lesley: 2%) But it is it's 2%... (Lesley: 2% of your day). 15,400 minutes in a day. 30 minutes? Is only 2% of 15, 40.

Lesley Logan 22:36  

Brad, are you gonna start taking 30 minutes every day?... (Brad: I think that I can) I mean, it's like it's 2% of your day... (Brad: It's only 2%) He says move for 15, 5 minutes of meditation and 10 minutes of personal development. Yeah, and so like even that like if you are someone who's like what do I do for 30 minutes or myself? Five minutes of meditation, 15 minutes to move, 10 minutes personal development.

Brad Crowell 22:59  

Yeah, he said the 15, he said do it in in the order of movement, that meditation and then the personal development because when you do

Lesley Logan 23:06  

This podcast can be a personal development by the way.

Brad Crowell 23:09  

Yeah, absolutely. He said, you become a sponge. After you've worked out your body. You've given your mind some space and then you learn about you, you work on only you, he said not business development. Personal Development. Yeah. Then you become a sponge.

Lesley Logan 23:24  

Yeah. And so if you are like absolutely in love with the enthusiasm that Dai had I mean, Brad: It was contagious). Contagious. The good kind, the best kind, the kind you want. And you're like yeah, I need 10 minutes of personal development, guess what? Check out his book, The Whole Life Fitness Manifesto. You could absolutely set a timer for 10 and get a kitchen timer. And check that out. And let me know if you do.

Brad Crowell 23:46  

I love it. My name is Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 23:59  

I'm Lesley Logan.

Brad Crowell 24:01  

I'll see you next time. Thanks for joining us today.

Lesley Logan 24:04  

Thank you for joining us today, Brad's trying to do my job so I do my own job. We are so grateful that you're here. We really really are. I hope you enjoyed this interview. I hope you enjoyed this recap. Let us know how you can use these tips in your life. Let's know if you get and then Dai's book, and until next time, Be It Till You See It. 

Brad Crowell 24:20  

Bye for now.

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review. And follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!      

Lesley Logan 24:20  

Be It Till You See It is a production of Bloom Podcast Network. 

Brad Crowell 24:20  

 It's written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host Lesley Logan. And me Brad Crowell. Our associate producer is Amanda Frattarelli.

Lesley Logan 24:20  

Kevin Perez at Disenyo handles all of our audio editing.       

Brad Crowell 24:20  

Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianranco Cioffi.       

Lesley Logan 24:20  

Special thanks to our designer Mesh Herico for creating all of our visuals, (which you can't see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all the video each week, so you can.

Brad Crowell 24:20  

And to Angelina Herico for transcribing each episode, so you can find it on our website. And finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

A man who knows the grit it takes to make a sustainable change, Dai Manuel joins the podcast to talk about what it takes to shift your lifestyle. He is a proponent of mentorship, celebrating your wins, and doing hard things for maximum results. 

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected] .

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• Why we need help navigating change 
• How to support people in their change 
• How to sustain change 
• Celebrate the wins
• Why you need to start doing hard things
• Where you should start to make change 

BIO 

Dai Manuel is a super dad, dating his wife, leading by example way of living. He’s a contagious personality who is on a mission to positively impact one million role models around the globe to lead a FUN-ctionally healthy life through education, encouragement, and community. 

He is an award-winning digital thought leader and author, Distinguished Toastmaster, TEDx speaker & edutaining keynote speaker, former partner and Chief Operating Officer of a multi-million dollar retail company, and a sought-after lifestyle mentor executive performance coach.

Dai knows the struggle of the juggle and keeping his health and happiness a priority. He models his work based on the 5 F’s: Fitness, Family, Faith, and Finances with an overarching roof of FUN, built on a rock-solid foundation of Health. Nuggets of wisdom and inspiration to take action to be your best self are guaranteed when you connect with Dai!

Episode References/Links:

• Whole Life Fitness Manifesto
• Dai Manuel Website
• Dai Manuel on IG

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.

Be It Till You See It Podcast Survey

Use this link to get your Toe Sox!

Resources

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!
• Lesley Logan website
• Be It Till You See It Podcast
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan
• Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube
• Profitable Pilates

Social Media

• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan  

Hey, Be It babe. Get ready to have a dose of like excitement, enthusiasm like. If you are feeling like your vibration is low, it is not going to be low after this interview. I am definitely so pumped. And I just finished talking with Dai Manuel, he is an incredible human being, he is a trainer, he has been dating his wife for 22 years. He is a father of two amazing daughters who are almost out of the house. And we go through a lot of things about change. And like really welcoming change, and then also celebrating your wins. And I don't I'm just I don't want to keep going because I want you to hear it from his perspective. But it's so fun. It is I mean, it's one of the most fun conversations I've really had and I really enjoy his like zest and zeal for life and so you're you're gonna love it too. Also, also the end of course, you know, every week I said the BE IT action items but seriously the BE IT action items, seriously the BE IT action items. There's so much fun and I know you're going to just really nerd out with with Dai and all he has to say and then you're probably going to buy his book because I'm going to, I want to read it. It sounds really exciting to me. So anyways, without further ado, well there's that little ado that happens and then Dai Manuel.

All right, Be It babes. I have an amazing guest for us today. Dai Manuel is here. He is from Canada right now, currently, but I think we're gonna get into an amazing story of how his life has gone an amazing journey around this world. I'm really excited because we, you know, I was reading about what he does in this world on how he dates his wife for 22 years like and you know, I was just like, anyone who can say they're dating their wife that long. I think we have to have on because I definitely think you're gonna inspire all the people listening to maybe date their partners more. Or maybe we'll go into some other thing. So, Dai can you tell everyone who you are? What you're what you're rocking out these days?

Dai Manuel  

Well, thanks, Lesley. Well, let's see. Yeah, I'm rocking it out in Vancouver, Canada. And it's a nice place. It's a nice place. It's a nice place to call home. It's always been a home base for us. And I'm a dad first and foremost. I have two teenage girls while okay, they're almost 20 and 18 now. So, as I say it's karma. And I've been dating my wife. We're going on 23 years. And yes, I'm very intentional with that language around that, I'm sure will unpack that in a bit here. But yes, dating my wife and, you know, I just help people navigate change. I like that, you know, like we all I, as you can tell, I got some of the posters and stuff behind me. I'm a kind of a movie buff, comic book guy. But Indiana Jones remember Raiders of the Lost Ark? (Lesley: Yes.) You remember the beginning scene where he's got like, you know, Harrison Ford is barreling down that cave, and there's that massive boulder chasing him? (Lesley: Oh, yeah. Oh, totally.) Most of us feel like that boulder has changed in our lives. And we're running from it. And we're like, "Yeah, I gotta get out here." And so I tried to put the script on that and make people be more advocates, or champions of change for their own lines, you know, and, and so because often we feel like victims, you know, we get bowled over. And we had nothing to do about it. And it came at us whether we liked it or not. And, and so that relationship was changes what I really helped support people with and yeah, that's me in a nutshell.

Lesley Logan  

That is so cool. That's a beautiful description and a great visual. I love going to Disneyland. And then there's Indiana Jones, right. And they have that boulder moment. And when you said that there's another thing that like that I've heard people say like sometimes they like see a light at the end of the tunnel. But sometimes that light is just a train coming at you. (Dai: That's right ... Yeah, yeah.) Sometimes I and it's and you're kind of like, I feel like people can be like this again, like, "Why is this happening to me again?" You know, and I think especially, especially I think 2020 definitely was like, and this happened, you know, all my millennials listening, Hello, I'm an elder millennial here. And we're like, then there was 911 went to college, there was a recession, we got out and there's COVID when we got back on our feet, and it's like, yes. And I think my, I think everyone's generation can pick like all these devastations. So they don't actually have to be these boulders that are following us down the road. How did you get started in helping people like champion change? Like I don't even know how you how did that become a job for you.

Dai Manuel  

Let me give you the short version, you know, and okay ... So I have my first really big change in my life that felt like it was that boulder that ran me over was when I was like nine, you know, and I'm not here to talk about trauma and all that stuff and trauma release. Trust me, I've worked with therapists and my psychologists for a bit to work through all that. And I the big proponent for that, by the way. But all being said, at nine, you know, my parents, which I thought I lived in idyllic life, you know, and, and I remember this one day coming home from after school, my dad's like home at like three o'clock. And it's like dads go home at 3, really like what's up, and they lead us into the living room. And my mom and dad sat down, you know, on opposite ends of the couch and basically just said, we're getting a divorce, you know, and I'm gonna date myself right now, you know, this is back in the mid 80s. You know, I'm like, not even 10 yet. And back then. I mean, we don't have the internet. We don't have support groups, we don't have resources that really talk to that aspect of life, you know, because back then, you know, I was in a class of 30 kids, and there was only one other kid in that class. It didn't have his original parents together still. So, you know, (Lesley: Yeah.) a minority situation. And ...

Lesley Logan  

Yeah, now now people are like, most of the kids parents are divorced ...

Dai Manuel  

It's true. No, it's true. Which is, you know, that's a whole nother conversation, obviously, to say like, what's going on? But but yeah, it was it was a bit of a bomb, you know, it was that boulder that ran me over and, and at that time, I didn't know how to handle it. I really didn't. And my dad was already working a lot. So he wasn't around a ton. He was just a workaholic, to be honest. And, and, but he had lots of enduring and loving qualities. And I know that he loved us, you know, and but after, you know, the divorce, it's like, you know, the every other weekend often would turn into once a month, or sometimes longer, you know, so just I didn't have that strong male figure around me, which I can unpack later. Because just means lots of other changes that I wish I didn't happen, but would have been nice if I had some more mentorship in my life. And but, you know, I sort of spiraled a bit. I figured out how to escape some of the pain that I was feeling and some of that loss and that isolation, and I did it through food. And I also did through video games and movies, you know, so I was chasing dopamine, you know. (Lesley: Yeah.) I was chasing instant gratification and yeah, emotional stress eating you call what you will. I did that for about five years. And by the time I got to 14, I was at doctors offices in my own, the doctor's like ... that's morbidly obese. And I'm like, I didn't know what morbid meant nor than I know what a obese meant, but I figured that can't be good. You know, (Lesley: Yeah.) I knew how I felt inside, you know? (Lesley: Yeah.) Anyways, one day, I just had sort of a moment, and I won't go into the full gory details, but there was this realization that I was more afraid of not changing than the idea of changing. You know, I was I was 2015 and I was like, gosh, man, life sucks. Everything's hard. And also, you know, kids were mean as you know ...

Lesley Logan  

Oh they're all mean. I was a kid at 80s too. I mean, they were they said some mean things.

Dai Manuel  

Yeah nasty, you know, but But you know, what's even worst is like, as I got into high school I was like, man, teenagers are cruel. You know, like it was went from one extreme to another and, and I just wasn't enjoying life, you know. And obviously I can talk about the depression and social anxiety and other things that stemmed from that. But, you know, I wanted to rise above all that I didn't want to be where I wasn't even. I wanted change, and I had no idea how to get it. But I knew that I didn't want to stay as I was, because I was like, okay, well, it took me five years to get to this place of not feeling very good. And if I'm honest with myself, in the next five years, that's I'm 20, if I haven't done anything different, it's not gonna be better than it is right now. (Lesley: Right.) You know, and, and so, I just came out of the bathroom, like, literally after bawling my eyes out and found my dad in the living room, we were at his place for the weekend, that weekend, and I was like, dad, I don't want to be like this anymore. I want to be healthy, I want to be fit. You know? (Lesley: Yeah.) And, and also, you know, people say, what is the motivation and like, I actually wanted a girlfriend, you know ... (Lesley: The things we will do for love.) Listen full disclosure and I mean, we can unpack that I really did want to feel that someone saw value in me that somebody (Lesley: Yeah.) for me, and you know as a kid I couldn't have articulated that way. But you know, in retrospect, now, you know, we'll unpack that, you know, 30 years later. Yeah, I totally get it. You know, and, (Lesley: Yeah.) so I set in motion. I went to the library, got books out on fitness and nutrition, and my kids are still like, "Why don't you just Google it, dad." I'm like, "I'm older than Google." You know, like, so those are listening. Yes, I'm old. But but it was cool, right? Like, I started to educate myself. But I also took immediate action. I you know, I asked my dad, he was like, "Hey, what do you want to do?" He's like, "Gym membership, you know?" And I'm like, "Hell no." I'm not going in that place. It's all that steel, all those mirrors and back in the 80s. They ...

Lesley Logan  

Oh, mirrors everywhere. Yes.

Dai Manuel  

... spaghetti strap like, tank tops.

Lesley Logan  

Yes, the tank tops that don't cover anything, even though they say they have to cover something. They still do it in West Hollywood gyms because I actually had to work at one. So it's still there as like eyes like I I'm a teenager against the same things. But yes, I think gyms are very intimidating for most people because of the mirrors and because you have to know what you're doing. And so then when people do they just get on the treadmill, and they just walk.

Dai Manuel  

That's right and and then you wonder why you come back to after a day and they're not seeing the results. Right. (Lesley: Right.) And that's the one thing that's always frustrated me that I tried to support people with not falling into that trap. Right. But but I get why they fall into it. (Lesley: Yeah, yeah.) Especially when we just, gosh, so much misinformation out there. Right. So I mean I get it, people are doing the best that they can with what the ... (Lesley: Yeah, yeah.) And you know, so I said, I like to have a bike, can we get me a mountain bike? Because I used to like biking as a kid. That was one activity, I knew I used to love doing and I would do it for hours. I go in the backyard and I just cycle around, you know, and and so he said, "Sure." That and literally that afternoon, we went got me a bike. And when we got back, I went for a bike ride. I just went up for cycle because there's also I lived in rural Ontario, so just outside of Toronto a couple hours. And it was literally farm country. You know, it was like all apple orchards and stuff. And so it was very remote.

Lesley Logan  

It's also the 80s so you could your kids were allowed to go on a bike.

Dai Manuel  

That's right. I mean, we were practically like, I think we had two traffic lights in the town. Right? So I mean, now it's like a booming metropolis of at least 80,000 people, you know, (Lesley: Yeah.) like. So, it's different now 30 years later, but back then, you know, I had the opportunity to just get out. And my dad and this is really funny. Okay, I'm totally dating myself here. So for those that aren't familiar, Sony used to have a thing called the Walkman.

Lesley Logan  

Oh, yeah, I didn't even get to have one of those. They were too expensive for my family.

Dai Manuel  

My dad had one. And but he lent it to me, he let me borrow it. And this is the cool thing about the Sony Walkman. You put a tape in there, and it would get to the end to one side, and it would automatically flip to the other for you. You didn't have to take the tape out and flip it, it would do the autoplay so you can literally put a 90 minute tape in there we'll play 45 minutes and this is one side and it would start playing the other 45 and this is how I knew when it was time to go back. One way I would listen to Tragically Hip and on the way back and listen to Alice in Chains, you know and like this is like the one tape that I had and I would just do it. I know that 45 minutes out okay, I'm at the end I gotta turn around go back now. (Lesley: That's so cool.) Yeah, and that's what I started doing it and then I just started changing our feeled about myself and literally it took about 20 months ish (Lesley: Yeah.) to release that way to get into a healthier lifestyle, healthier mindset. But took 5 years to put it on but you know less than half of that take it off. So you know change can happen pretty quick. We (Lesley: And also ...) when you try to make it happen. You know.

Lesley Logan  

Also what I love is it like you did what you could with what you had and also in a way that made you feel safe and feel comfortable. And I also love that like the person that your father was there to go, "Let's go do that. You want to change it, we're gonna change it." And like, I think that like, what a great for all the parents listening like he didn't go well we'll do it next weekend. Like he said we're gonna go do it right now and I know that like kids want a lot of shit to I don't even know how people are parents now it sounds very expensive. But when it comes to encouraging things that are actually behaviors that you want like for them to follow through with a goal that they have, or for them to feel seen and feel confident in their bodies, like those are worthwhile, like, at least find a way to take action in a moment, it doesn't have to always be buying something, maybe it's just like, let's look it up, let's Google, where can we go get this thing before we go and get, you know, just get like giving taking that first action is like such because your it is how is clearly how you got used to like taking action and seeing change and welcoming it. Whereas other people where it's like, oh, maybe we'll do it another time? Ah, you know, no, we can't do that right now. If you don't encourage that next step of action, then people just become pretty, like complacent and okay, well, I'll just do it someday, there'll be some day.

Dai Manuel  

And you know, full disclosure. My parents, you know, over that five years, they obviously saw that I was hurting. They saw the sadness, they saw that withdrawal. They just saw that I isolated a lot, right? Like, I wasn't a very outgoing child a lot of times and I would avoid really big social situations, especially with people I didn't know because they felt so subcon... subconscious, (Lesley: Yeah.) self conscious, and, (Lesley: Yeah.) and just low self esteem. Like just all the usual cliches or stigmas that we attach to someone in that state of unhealth, trust me, that's just what I was living in, and, but they would often come to me, and they would offer different strategies and things to help me, but you have to understand they were coming to me and offering these these ideas, you know, like, my mom wouldn't be like, I've got a good friend, this nutritionist, we can have you sit down with her, you know, and I remember my dad, like, "Hey, why don't we get into karate classes." You know, and, or, my mom at one point is like, "We can get you a personal trainer." You know, and this is like when personal trainer is kind of a new thing, right? Like, (Lesley: Yeah.) your own trainer. And but here's the thing, every time they came to me, and they made that offer, I was like, "You think I'm not good enough the way I am." That's what I thought like, now, you know, that wasn't their intention. But I took it as like someone's trying to force change on me. (Lesley: Yeah.) And and I would act out accordingly. You know, I would not be very nice. And but this is where the things switch, when all of a sudden it came to my dad, you know, and I'm like, "Dad, I want this. I want to do it." And I think he saw them. I was like, "Okay, we got to strike. This was hot." You know. Let's do it. (Lesley: Yeah.) And I think that's the thing, we have to remember that we especially as parents, and this is something we've my wife, Christie, and I've tried to take note of with their own kids like, of course, of course, we tried to encourage good behaviors, and try to catch them doing things right. You know, and make a point of applauding that. But also, we do know better, because we have life experience, you know, and, but when we see them doing things really well, we do want to acknowledge that, you know, (Lesley: Yeah.) be present for that. And because if you're constantly reinforcing the good habit and behaviors, they actually start to realize, Wow, this is good. This makes me feel good. You know? So yeah ...

Lesley Logan  

Absolutely. I just love to catch them doing things, right. I think that like, so often people are so worried about what they're doing that's wrong, that they're only looking for what's wrong, right? Like our our brain is like looking for like the you know, the the reticular activating whatever RAS is like looking for evidence that your kid could be hurting themselves. So you're like, only seeing that when like, if you actually can really encourage the good behaviors. People definitely want to feel seen. So they're, whether this is your kids, or if you're like me, I don't have kids, co workers, partners, friends in your life, like complement the things that they're doing that you want them to keep doing. And they'll keep doing them. It's like a pet. If I'm like have a positive voice, my dog does good things. If I have a negative voice, you know. It's the same way.

Dai Manuel  

You have a cat and the cat just looks at me. He's like, "f u." You know, he just ... attitude. (Lesley: Cat's attitude.) The one thing I love about dogs you talk them nice they treat you well, you know (Lesley: They do.) they just look like, "You're an idiot." You know like ...

Lesley Logan  

Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's there's so many comedy shows about like dogs versus cats. And like, I have friend, my mom has two cats. And we have friends who've got cats and like, love them. But they're they're like when you're having a bad day. The cat's not like, "Oh, let me take care of you." My dog if I'm having a bad day. He's like, "Oh, you want to lay in bed with me? This is great. Okay."

Dai Manuel  

They gave you that unconditional love. I don't feel that for my cat. I really don't. I'm like, yeah, anyways,

Lesley Logan  

Anyways, that's a side note. Sorry. If you love if you love your cats and you have a different opinion, you can ... great. That's wonderful. Go ahead and keep it.

Dai Manuel  

I'm like, "He is my cat. Please." You know.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah. So okay, so I love this like you had this like moment of like taking in change for yourself. And I think that this is key because whether or not you're 15, or like, anytime in our lives there are these moments where we are, you said it, you're like, you are more scared to not change than for the change. And I think, I think sometimes we end up waiting until it gets that bad before we like, take action. Have you noticed in your life since then? Or with of coaching that you do that like? Is it possible to make the change before you get hit rock bottom? Or do we have, do we have to hit the rock bottom to make the change?

Dai Manuel  

Well, as I always say, sometimes you get to rock bottom, you realize there's a rock there that you can crawl under, so I've been there. So, you know, the rock bottom is definitely subjective. But, you know, we can learn to adapt more quickly. But you're right, you sort of hinted at the reticular activation system, but more importantly, this thing called confirmation bias. And what's really unique, you know, is like, when we're feeling positive, or looking for positive, especially affirmations, or confirmations, we have a tendency to find it, you know, it's like, we want to find the successful stuff. But equally, if we're looking for bad stuff, we're just as good at finding that to to confirm our position or beliefs. And this is just psychology, and we all got to deal with it, unfortunately. And, and so that mental health piece is so critical, you know, in any sort of well being conversation, that's sort of where everything starts, because it's our self perspective, right? It's that as Maslow, he says, you know, like, you know, he talks about this hierarchy of needs, and (Lesley: Yeah.) you got all these basic pieces on the bottom about feeling safe, you know, I'm gonna roof organic food in your belly, you know, quality relationships, but at the very peak, there's this thing, this elusive thing called self actualization. What the hell does that mean? You know, and but it really is that idea of aligning our vision or purpose, or our integrity, those passions like that, all the things that really make us uniquely us, and having them go in one direction, you know, so (Lesley: Yeah.) I'm feeling good about that. And it's not easy to tap into that. But doesn't mean we shouldn't look for, you know, and so change, though, is very much a proactive thing. You know, like, when you want to make change, we're pretty lucky. I mean, there's podcasts like yours, Lesley, there's amazing TED Talks, there's, I mean, the amount of books and literature that it's out there that talks about ways to empower ourselves for change. It's just a matter of going and tapping into it, you know.

Lesley Logan  

Thank you for this, it's such a now that now that there is a Google and ... (Dai: Yeah. Thank you Mr. Google.) But like, like that's yours, do you make it so true, like, if there is a change you want to make, you can make it at any time, you know, we tell our the businesses we coach, like if you don't have your website up at 11pm, when somebody is like at their, their bottom, like I'm ready for this change, and they're Googling a solution to the problem that they have. And if you don't have a website, they're not going to find you, they're gonna find someone, they're gonna find a solution that they think is going to work. But you might be the best ones, you have to be on that line. And so what's so cool about Google is like, any one of us can go, you know, what I really want to learn right now I'm actually I need to change and do this. You can join a gym online, you can find therapy online, you can like, join a new club, I'm like, oh, I want to take this class, I already found a place down the street, signed up on Saturday, they don't even know who I am, or how I found them. Like we have right now is like the best time to live. Because if you want to make a change, you can make it within a minute.

Dai Manuel  

That's right. Absolutely. It's like flipping a switch. Now, sustaining change is where the problems happen.

Lesley Logan  

Yes. So how do we do that? It's really easy to beginning like this, because I think people rely on motivation and motivation only gets you started. It doesn't actually show up. It's a it's a fickle friend.

Dai Manuel  

It really is. Well, it's a depleting resource, and it depletes every day, you know, we start in the morning, sure, we feel great, we feel motivated, we feel excited about the prospect of the day ahead. And I mean, if you're not a morning person, maybe it comes later. But regardless, we have this sort of amount of energy that we start with and focus and it does deplete and the more taxing are the things that we're trying to do, the more uphill we feel like we're going, it depletes more quickly. And, you know, there's books out there, there's one that I always loved called Eat the Frog, you know, and (Lesley: Oh, yeah ...) The whole idea was the premise of the book. I mean, I can, you don't have to read it. But here's the premise, right? (Lesley: Yeah.) Like, the hardest thing you had to do in a day was eat a frog. The idea is do that first. Then you got the rest of the day to do the things that actually won't require as much energy or focus or particular motivation to do. And, and also you feel really accomplished because you got the hardest thing done first, you know, the rest (Lesley: Yeah.) of the day might feel easier. And so we have to remember that if especially I work a lot of people in the fitness in the wellness space, because I've been doing it for like 28 years, you know, so (Lesley: Yeah.) I tend to have a lot of people that want to make changes physically, emotionally, spiritually, also psychologically, and everything's tapped in. Right. But the physical is an easy one to tap into first, you know, is just moving our body a bit more. And and it takes consistency and frequency. But for some people, it's really hard to get started because they've been at rest for so long, you know? (Lesley: Yeah.) And we know based on physics like that the most amount of energy it's going to take to move a body at rest. Is that initial inertia (Lesley: Yeah.) to get it started.

Lesley Logan  

Yeah. Oh, this is ... So one of the girls I follow, she's like, some prospect champion. And she was like pulling a car. So like a rope, and she's pulling a car and I was like, "Oh, my God." And my dad goes, "It's actually just really hard to get started. Once she gets it started. It's not that hard." And I was like, "Don't take away her win. But that's also very good information."

Dai Manuel  

But it's true. Because that's exactly how it works. Like with almost any sort of change that we come up against, it's the initial first few steps to actually take those initial actions will be the most challenging moments, it's going to take the most amount of energy, the most amount of motivation. But the cool part is, as soon as we start seeing results in the direction that we want to see them, it's self fulfilling, you start to feel like this motivation starts filling up again, a little bit more readily, you know, or quickly, like you just, it's, it's nice, because I can all honestly speak to this because I remember making that change at 15. And it was within the first I'd say about six weeks, I had a really big physical win. I remember I was riding this bike, you know, for like 90 minutes, right. And I was doing it at least five times a week just getting up for these rides. It wasn't like super intense. I'm not like a motocross kind of guy or anything, right? I was obese kid on a mountain bike. And, but there was this hill. And it felt like a mountain, right? It felt like an Everest to me. I mean, it could have been a molehill, but it still felt like this Everest. And I remember the first time coming to it, I made it barely a third of the way up. And like the bike, like literally just stopped. Like I'm pedaling, I'm trying to move it and you just make stop, it was like done and, and I got off the bike. And I had a moment there where I was like, "Well, I failed. I might as well just turn around and go home. This is dumb, I can't do this." But I knew that was like, "I don't want that. I don't want that. I want this. I want to make some health changes." So I walked the bike to the top and I continued on my way. Now, I didn't deviate from this route. Okay, I kept doing this route for those six weeks. And every time I'd come down hill a little bit more, a little bit more. By the end of six weeks. I just remember coming to it this one day and I, I kept my head down. I just kept going. I felt like that little train that can. Right. I think I can. I think I can. And you know, all of a sudden it got easy again. And I looked up and I'm like, "Holy crap. I'm on the top of this mountain. I did this." And six weeks ago, I couldn't do this. And I was like, hello, changes happening. And it's happening because I'm I'm making it happen. You know, that was the moment for me. That was it. You know.

Lesley Logan  

And you also like something I point out here for my perfectionist and overachievers listening is he celebrated the win. Like there was like, "I did it." And I don't think that we all most, maybe as kids, we do it. But once we get older we can more of adult, we actually get to the top of the hill and we're just like, I didn't get there fast enough. No one was there to help me like we look for all these. We'd look for ways to take the win away or we just move on to the next hill without even reflecting on what it is that we did.

Dai Manuel  

I you know what? Okay, and I say this all the time. I wrote a book like a few years ago and in it I maintain that Nike's got it all wrong. Okay, so here's some clickbait right, what he's saying, you know, I mean, Nike, one of the most well recognized brands globally, right? "Just do it." I mean, it's very motivating. But here's the thing. Why not say, "Just did it." Like why can't we celebrate the act of completing what it is that we set out to do? You know, because that's actually where all that self self efficacy comes from that that ability to tap and say, "Holy crap! I did it." You know, I'm like much more of that mentality. I'm like, adopt not to just do it but it just did it mentality, focus on the results that are creating the feeling you achieved by completing the thing that you set out to do? You know, like ... (Lesley: I love this.) It's possible, right?

Lesley Logan  

I love this. This is so good. Oh my gosh, they did. Gotta say, oh, y'all, I mean, I'm sure you already have this like you have adjusted it hashtag like that. You need to like, you need to adjust it sticker, people need a (Dai: And it's a checkmark. Not a ... Right. So where do you go? You know.) Yeah, this is cool. So what are what are some ways that you have helped people like, either welcome to change or and also like, what do you have them do once they've like, done it? Like what is their you have to do the adjusted it? Like, what are the other ways that you have them celebrate? So they can like, keep it going? Because it's like, it's the momentum of once you keep going, like it's easier to keep going, right?

Dai Manuel  

That's right. You know, I love the acronym SMART, right? Like it makes sense Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, Time based goal setting, right? Because we have these big lofty goals and I think we should. As human beings, we have this natural ability in us to strive to be greater than we are, you know, we do we just have this in us, it's in our DNA. And the cool thing is, is, yeah, there's gonna be a lot of hard stuff. And I mean, that's just living a life, you know, you're going to encounter hard stuff is not a matter of 'if'. It's a matter of 'when', you know, and it's common, like the boulder. Right? Is coming at us no matter what. But there's this cool little thing called resiliency. And, um, you know, my climate change, friends are like, yeah, humanity's way too resilient, you know. And fair enough, we populated this planet, and we over consume, sure we can go down that path, but look at some of the conditions that we've overcome the suffering that we've overcome, and yet, there's like 8 billion of us on this planet. Like that's, that's impressive. I mean, yes, it's evolution. But it's because we have resilient in our DNA. And I think when you really accept that we haven't we also accept something that Buddha said, like 2600 years ago, which is taking science a little time to catch up, but but they have proved this now that nothing in our entire known universe is permanent. Everything's in a change flux, right? So everything's changing, always changing. So it's like, okay, we're resilient. And change is a given. All right, let's figure out how to navigate change and be a bit more resilient tap into this DNA that's allowed us to do this. And, and I think it's just a matter of trying to do hard stuff. I don't care. And you know, for me, it was like, that little hill, which wasn't very big, by the way, but for me at that time, and my level of fitness, and where I was at, it was an Everest. But every time it came out, it was just a little bit better than the day before. (Lesley: Yeah.) That's all it takes. And we're not talking about massive 100% improvement here. Unless you're trying to do a pull up for the first time. By the way, you know, if you go from doing zero, pull up to doing one pull up is the only time in your fitness career, you'll be able to say I had 100% improvement, okay, and after that it's diminishing returns. But regardless, that one time, it was like, that's 100% better than I was yesterday. But other than that, you know, it's just find that thing, and then figure out the little intervals and celebrate those wins, as you said before, and lastly, you know, like, break it down and celebrate the little victories along the way. (Lesley: Yeah.) Because you just did it. Like, hello, like that's in itself self fulfilling, you know.

I love that you said, like, you know, doing some hard things, I think that a) we avoid them. So then anytime a hard thing happens, while people say to us, but it's happening for them in some way. Like, it's almost like it like hit you like, like a cold shower. It's like, what is this thing? That's hard thing that I have to do, it's like, but if you are more, if you're accustomed to doing hard things, often that you have that of your choosing, it makes it a little easier to take on the hard things. You're like, oh, this is just, I got to do this now.

That's self belief, right? Like, I can do this. I've done other hard stuff, you know. (Lesley: Yeah.) And to be fair, you know, it was nice that I learned that lesson early on. (Lesley: Yeah.) It wasn't telling my early 30s, I realized that, you know, I'd actually exchanged sort of the food escapism, with alcohol escapism, alcohol, in which it would often leads to similar narcotic use as well. And you know, I had a very poor relationship with alcohol, you know. And then in my early 30s, I came to sort of this halt again, this moment where it's like, I don't want to be like us anymore. And it was because my wife, actually she, she, we were looking at going sideways, she was like, This is not a healthy environment to raise our kids. And you know, they're both under the age of six at this time. We've been together for almost a decade. And yet, I'd had this perpetuating habit, you know. Because I still often thought of myself as that morbidly obese fat kid, because I didn't actually do any of the internal work at that point. (Lesley: Right.) I focus on the external, and eventually came to a halt, where my whole life was being turned upside down, because I was valuing alcohol over everything else that I had. And she sat me down this one day, and she was like, "Okay, we're done." And we're both bawling her eyes out, we're trying to figure out well, how are we going to co parent, you know, because we both loved each other still. Like, we didn't (Lesley: Yeah.) really want that. But she's like, looks at me, she says, "Dai, are you being the type of man that you would want to marry your daughters?" And I'll tell you, honestly, that question, it was like, I got kicked between the legs and punch the nose at the same time. Because it was instantaneous, where I was like, hell no, if someone like me, at that moment in my life at 33 years old, showed up on my doorstep, I'm like, get the hell out of here. But that's what I was mentoring and modeling to my closest relations, (Lesley: Yeah.) you know, and, and so in that moment, I made a commitment to go when you went out drinking, and a lot of people were like, only a year what you're talking about, that's not long, and I'm like, hey, the longest I've ever done is like a dry January, okay? And those like 15 years, that was the longest I've ever done. And so I committed to that year, and I realized in the first nine, six weeks this is gonna be a hell of a hard thing to do, you know. And that's when I broke down with my wife and I got really vulnerable with her for the very first time in our relationship after 10 years. I finally opened up and actually poured everything out. She's like, "You know what? Thank you. I think you need some help. Legit, I'm just being honest." Like, she was like, "Okay, yes. Thank you for entrusting me to share this, but I don't know what to do with this." You know, and to be fair, I didn't expect her to know what to do. I just, I needed to share and (Lesley: Yeah.) and then I found help, you know, found a psychologist, found a therapist, did I did the work, like I went all in on the work for six months. And after that, six months, I everything shifted for me. And we got to the end of the year, and I'm just going to end the story here. We got to the end of the year, because people probably wonder, "What happened at the end of the year?" Well, my wife's looking at me, she's like, "Holy crap, you did it." You know, like, you just did it. You know, like you did a whole year and I got to be fair, like she didn't think I could. Honestly, if I'm honest, I periods didn't think I could. And, like, well, you did it. Do you want to celebrate? Let's watch the sun go down tonight? And share a bottle of wine. I'm like, that's sound really nice. No, no, I started thinking I was like, so much in my life has changed in these last 12 months, like so much. (Lesley: Yeah.) What if I keep going? Anyway, I just celebrate 14 years, 14 years, you know like ...

Lesley Logan  

That's amazing. (Dai: Is that crazy? Like ...) Isn't that crazy.?(Dai: Yeah.) But it's also, it's also amazing, because like, you figured out well, first of all, you had someone put a front of a mirror in front of you like, this is not like, do you really want to be like this? Do you want to be this person? Because this is what your kids are seeing is like a man. Right? And then and then you challenge yourself. And then you found out like, that isn't work for you. I'm like you and you've gone on. And I think sometimes people doubt that. I think sometimes people, you know, do the dry January and they like I feel so good. Or they do a sugar detox, which and they'll and then they you know, whatever, and then they just go back. And so which some things y'all like your body does me a little bit of sugar, like don't fucking remove a whole thing without talking to your doctor and making sure it works for you. But you know, like, you don't need to villainize something. (Dai: That's right. No, you're right.) But you know, like, oftentimes people don't realize, you know, I have someone in my life is like, oh, whenever I have dairy, like I break out, I'm like, so why do you keep having like, what are you doing? You know, but I think it's, sometimes it's too hard to keep going. But if we actually just celebrate that, like, this actually worked for me, I did this. And I feel really good. So what if I just keep going and give yourself that permission to continue find out what that changes. So I imagine that is what, like, bird the dating the wife, and so you've been dating your wife this whole time. And that is gonna be really fun and interesting. But also, like, how cool for your kids to see that because now they're gonna have high standards for the partners in their life.

Dai Manuel  

Well, and be honest, you know, this last week, we moved my 20 year old or soon to be 20 year old and with her boyfriend, and I was still processing to be fair, but it was, you know, they've been together almost three years. So the long time ends, and they're just very mature. And just, it's been really cool to just sort of experience this and support them with this, but at the same time, it's like, wow, wow, you know, and but that's the thing, you know, we modeled and mentored, you know, because the two most effective ways every single one of us on this planet learn is through mentorship, and modeling. And so you do have to look in the mirror and say, "Well, what am I mentoring? And what am I modeling?" You know, like, "Oh, and also who's mentoring me?" you know, and then what am I modeling to those that are closest to me, but also, you know, we think about how we show up for our work, you know, into our communities? And do we have that integrity to do the things that we, you know, say what we're gonna do and do what we say and to be fair, there's been lots of years of my life where I haven't felt integral, you know, that feeling sucks. It's ...

Lesley Logan  

I mean, I think it totally sucks. And I also think that a lot of people listening you can maybe even right now are like, out of integrity. And that is if you don't own it, you're just gonna get more and more pissed at a lot of things and it's really like that you're out of alignment for what is like integral for you and that's, it's not fun, but that's good change to like make in your life that's a great place place to start making change.

Dai Manuel  

Perfect place to start, perfect place because all it takes is a day. That's all it takes is one day. You know, like I always joke with people but I'm like, I know I'm only ever one workout away from feeling better than I am when I'm not feeling in a good place. You know, like I just those good endorphins I get from just getting a little sweat on you know, even just going out for a quick 30 minute walk outdoors, like, instantly my mood shifts, my mental health shifts. (Lesley: Oh) You know, instantly.

Lesley Logan  

Instantly. So, oover this normally when we're on a holiday trip, we want to tour over the, around the whole country, the US everyone and, and normally, the weather is fine enough for me to walk the dogs every day, I can actually get a little workout in, it's not my normal work, it's not my normal morning routine, because I'm not in my home. But like, I can do a mini version of it. And I really am like, so proud of that, I coach people on that, I feel so good. Well, this particular Christmas was like the worst weather ever. So cold, there was no, the dogs didn't even want to be outside. You know, like every was there was no, it was just miserable. And by the time we got home, I just remember like going, like, I just don't even feel like myself anymore. And I was like, go just go do the thing. So I like sat in from my red light. I took the dogs for a long walk, all of a sudden, I'm like, oh my God, like, it's so crazy. Like when you're out of integrity out of align with yourself. It can feel like, why is this happening? But it's like, oh, just go like, what are the tools that you have used to make yourself feel good. And boom, you're like, right there again. So yeah, it can be a workout, it can be spending time by yourself, it could be reading a book. There's just, we have to have that you have to know the tools that make you feel good, so that you can use them when you don't feel good.

Dai Manuel  

And you know, to add to everything you just said because I saw yeah, I'm like drop the mic. Well, don't drop out. It looks expensive. But but you know what I mean? Like this, that was so well said. But here's the thing. Ask yourself, you know, what are the things that I would never regret doing? And here's the thing, right? Like, I've never had a client message me and say, you know, you asked me that big healthy salad with like some cedar plank salmon on it for lunch today. Well die. I really regret doing that. You know, like, I've never received that message. I've never had someone message me. You know, the work that you programmed for me to, yeah I rude regret doing that. Like, no, it there's certain things that we do for ourselves. We'll never regret doing. So just do more or less, you know? And remember that feeling that you get by completing that and celebrate that and realize that was on you. You made that happen. You just did that. Like good on you. You know, it's good on you.

Lesley Logan  

That is awesome. I love this. Okay, well, we could clearly keep going forever. But we got to wrap this up because our people's commutes are probably ending. So we're gonna take a quick break, we're gonna find out where people can find you, follow you, learn more from you and your BE IT action items. All right, Dai. So where can people find you, work with you? Where do you like to hang out? Is it socials? Do you have any thing that they can download, learn from?

Dai Manuel  

Well, I'm most active on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. And I've been trying that TikTok thingy, but not not not super consistent or whatnot. My kids, they're definitely trying to help. But you know, the cool thing about having a unique name, you know, thank you, Mom and Dad. You know, this is all pre SEO. But now I'm like, I get it. I get it. They were visionaries, you know, but Dai is a Welsh name for David, D a i. Manuel is Portuguese. So M a n u e l, you put those two together, you got me. And you added the .com on the end of it, you'll find my website. Okay, so (Lesley: Perfect.) easy to find, shoot me a message. I love just having conversations and hearing about, you know, triumphant and changes that people are achieving. And believe me, it doesn't matter how small or how huge it's all triumphant. Okay, it all is. It's all relative, because the way you do anything is the way you do everything, as they say. So you achieve one little triumph, trust me, you can achieve big triumphs too. And, and that's it, you know, I'm not here to pitch anything other than say, jeez, you're not living your best life. You got room to improve on. You know, getting good at it, you know?

Lesley Logan  

Oh, my goodness, I love that so much, Dai. Okay, before I let you go bold, executable, intrinsic, targeted steps people can take to be it till they see it. What do you have for us?

Dai Manuel  

Okay, this is the simplest thing I can give you. Well after being in the fitness industry for 20 years, you can imagine I've heard a whole lot of excuses. Okay, I've heard a lot. I mean, like, everything, you can throw it at me. I've probably heard it. Now, here's the thing. We've all got 30 minutes a day. All right. I know there's people thinking, "I don't have 30 minutes a day." I'm like, You know what, give me your smartphone. We're going and go into the settings and you're going to look at the thing called screen time. Okay, I know you got 30 minutes now. You know, like, don't tell me you don't. Now here's the thing, that's only 2% of every 24 hours. So what I want you to do is make a commitment to yourself that you're going to commit 28 days straight. That's four weeks, where you're going to make non negotiable every day, 30 minutes for yourself. And in this 30 minutes, you're going to do something very specific. You're going to move your body with purpose for 15 minutes. Okay, you're just going to move in. I don't care how you move it, just move it any way you want. As I always say always, always okay, like, move your body for 15 minutes, get your heart rate elevated, you'll enter your body. So if you did something good, then you're going to immediately follow that with five minutes of mindful meditation. All right, now that's 20 minutes. Now for the last 10 minutes, you're going to feed that muscle between the ears. Okay? And that brain of yours was something positive, intentional, focused, personal development, not professional development, personal development. Okay, we all get lots of professional development that I want you to work on yourself personally. So you can listen to a podcast like Lesley's, you know, you can listen to a TED Talk. By the way, I did a TED x Talk a year ago on vulnerability and men. (Lesley: That's so cool.) So there's a little little plug there. Self plug, sorry, sorry, sorry. (Lesley: I love it.) Also, you know, whatever it is, but feed your mind something positive for 10 minutes. And you'll find that after exercise in that mindfulness meditation, you're ready to receive and you become a sponge. But that's just 2% of your 24 hours. Okay, and in that if you cannot do that for four weeks, I've never had anybody come up to me and say, I didn't experience a big shift. I know you will. Body, mind and spirit you'll shift. And in case you're wondering, the Whole Life Fitness Manifesto is the name of the book where I shared the whole protocol for that. So I guess (Lesley: That's your book?) it was one little plug, one little plug, okay, (Lesley: That's your book? The whole what?) The Whole Life Fitness Manifesto ... to maximize 2% of every 24 hours to see improvements in body, mind and spirit.

Lesley Logan  

I love it. We'll put the links all in the show notes, y'all. Okay. (Dai: Thank you.) I expect everybody listening in the next 28 days to be tagging Dai and myself and letting us know your big shift. I mean, I also I'm instant gratification kind of person. So like maybe somewhere along the first few days, let us know how it's going. So I can hold you accountable. (Dai: Love it.) Dai, this has been a wonderful conversation. I feel like I've a dose of energy from your for your enthusiasm for life. So thank you so much for sharing everything about you, your journey, how you got here and sharing that with us so we can learn from it. And also y'all 2% of your day to be it till you see it. I can't think of a better way right. So thank you so much and until next time, we'll see you soon.

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review. And follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!   

Be It Till You See It is a production of Bloom Podcast Network.   

Brad Crowell  

It's written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host Lesley Logan. And me Brad Crowell. Our associate producer is Amanda Frattarelli. 

Lesley Logan  

Kevin Perez at Disenyo handles all of our audio editing.    

Brad Crowell  

Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianranco Cioffi.    

Lesley Logan  

Special thanks to our designer Mesh Herico for creating all of our visuals, (which you can't see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all the video each week, so you can.

Brad Crowell  

And to Angelina Herico for transcribing each episode, so you can find it on our website. And finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai