Life in Focus Podcast

What do you talk about with a bartender gone bar owner, video blogger, documentary producer and writer?

Everything and anything under the sun. Our guest this episode is Erick Castro, co-owner of Polite Provisions here in San Diego and Boilermaker in New York. Although we did talk about the San Diego bar scene, our focus was mostly on what it takes to open & manage a great business, how to tame your fears to move forward with dreams, how to harness your strengths & passions to build something great, and what it means to be truly happy.

Notice Erick’s look of concentration in the shot above. I chose to share this picture by photographer Lyudmila Zotova because it embodies  attention to detail, focus, and the perfectionism that is inherent to everything Erick does. It’s this same focus on being great that lead us to explore a very common theme for both of us: how the pursuit of great, can become an obsessive quest for perfect and turn into the enemy of good.

Castro’s vision is on the end goal, the big dream. He focuses on long-term happiness, the achievement of excellence and adapting to his growing interests and endeavors. He is confident, driven and knows that pursuing your passion means working your ass off.

Erick is someone who understands that to live a life that is right for you, you have to know what you stand for and make choices that reflect those values.

INSIGHTS:

* When you find your angle, when you know your personality, let it imbue all that you do. Don’t do something to be like others, do it to be you.

* Perfections is extolled as some great virtue, but pushing for a standard that is often impossible to achieve is a sure way to miss the big picture, and puts us at risk of crashing and burning out.

* “Perfectionism is insecurity. It’s really just a way of you being afraid of what everyone of saying, you being afraid of being judged. eventually you just need to be able to say ‘F**k what people thinks. This is the best work that I can come up with!'”

* Good enough is great. Good enough is not code for mediocre. It means achieving a standard that meets all necessary requirements for something to succeed, and doing so with attention to detail and meticulous precision.

* Your business is only as good as the people who work for you. Erick shares the 3 rules to making sure your business runs smoothly.

* It’s not about following your passion, but being passionate about what you do.

“Try to live your values no matter what you are doing. Whether you are washing the dishes, scrambling an egg or taking out the garbage, live by your ethos in every aspect of what you do.”

* Stay tuned till the end – Erick shares his secret to happiness – he’s a pretty happy guy!

* Right for you takes into account right! It’s not about doing what makes you happy all the time, it’s about making choices that are aligned with your higher needs and values.

Another One, Please

A California native who started tending bar as a college student at San Diego State, Erick’s passion for the industry and a crazy attention to detail have garnered him high praise up and down this coast and across the country in New York. Not only is he part owner of Polite Provisions and Boilermaker, but he is tearing it up on his online series Bartender at Large, which chronicles the craft-cocktail scene, over a 3,000 mile road trip, one bartender’s interview at a time.

Erick’s life is pretty fascinating, but you’ll hear all about that on the podcast. Here is a quick interview from

 

They say that if you pursue your passion, you will never work another day in your life. I am sorry to tell you that is a myth. Following your passion can never be just about doing fun and fulfilling things. A lot of work goes behind the scenes to make a passion become a successful reality. Some of the work is fulfilling and engaging, and some is simply mind-numbing drudgery.

So what do you do when you start to burn out on passion?

That is the topic of Episode 35 of Life in Focus. Chris and I talk passion, careers, busy work, sacrifice and balance. I also share a few tips on how to make sure you stay focused on the things you love and survive the time building right for you just feels wrong.

 

INSIGHTS:

* You can burn out on your passions too.

* You have to check in with yourself often and with an open mind check: “Am I wasting my life?”

* Busy is choice, if you don’t like the ways in which you are busy it is your responsibility to evaluate your choices.

* When something is not right for you, you can step away from it. Don’t fool yourself into believing you are stuck being or doing anything long term. It is your choice.

* Figure out what you really want and what you are willing to sacrifice for that.

* Following this podcast I:  1) went to the gym, and 2) spent an hour the following morning in my garden.

* I am now using an app based on the Pomodoro technique to create a 25-minute on 5-minute off work pace I use those five minutes to stretch, stand in my yard or practice the Art of Doing Noting.

About LīF

LīF is a three part coaching series, that is offered as stand alone Kits, individual coaching, and (this Fall) as a group coaching process.

The first phase of LīF teaches you how to identify what right for you looks like through deep INSIGHT.

In the second phase you are given a framework to see and overcome your ROADBLOCKS.

The final part of LīF is ACTION, where you develop a personalized action plan to get you moving forward and creating the life that is RIGHT FOR YOU.

 

I credit Tara Gentile with saving me at least a year in business development. She could probably save me more if I actually sat down, revisited our work together and applied myself to putting all her wisdom into action (I have a plan to use this summer to do just that).

Tara is a business strategist. This is not a title or role she started with professionally. Rather it is one she developed when, faced by a disappointment at work, she decided to make her career choices right for her. Tara is someone who thinks big, who dreams big, and this has helped her go from being manager at Borders to the founder of one of the more on-point and inspiring business strategy and development firms I know (as well as a speaker, author, podcaster and much, much more).

One of the reason I feel so strongly about what Tara does is that her approach to business development is very much in line with how I approach personal development. We both believe that understanding who you are and what you value should drive all your choices. We also agree that insight alone, without action, is meaningless.

In Episode 36 of Life in Focus, Tara and I talk about dreaming big, the limitations of just following your passion, and why insight coupled with a sound strategy is the key to success both in business and life.

 

INSIGHTS:

* Being successful in business requires an ambitious attitude and a long-term appreciation of what it takes to create your dream.

* Whether in business or life, understanding who you are can then drive choices that will allow you to THRIVE!!!

* Who you are, what you value and who you want to work “should” define your business model.

* Four main questions to ask for strategic focus:

* Who do you want to create for?

* What do you want to create?

* How do you want to connect with people?

* What kind of response do you want to get from these people?

* “[People] crave ownership, they crave agency and they crave creativity.”

* Tara’s advice on taking action:

* Set a goal, and figure out who you are going to get there instead of having a larger plan then setting a goal

* Plan for more than what you want so that you do more than what you want to do – think BIG

* Set action standards for yourself every single week!

 

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Life in Focus – Excited about LīF – Sweepstakes

More on Tara:

Tara is a business woman, an entrepreneur, a go-getter, a visionary, an author, blogger, podcaster, speaker and teacher.  This is what she does:

“Every day, you add more marketing tactics, product ideas, and goals to your notebook. You’re distracted from your purpose and drained by all the options. All the while, your big idea—that thing you really want to be working on–is waiting. And the more you lose yourself and your idea in the weeds, the more likely you are to fail.

The good news is that there’s a better way to run your business: yours. Your Quiet Power Strategy™ taps into your strengths and gives you the ability to lead yourself where you want to go. It’s a plan for What You Want to Create and How You Want to Connect–and how that’s going to lead to the business growth that brings you the income, influence, and impact you crave.

I’m Tara Gentile and I work with entrepreneurs to design their personal

 

Ah life, it has a way of keeping you on your toes (and always just on the brink of stumbling forward and falling face first onto the ground). It doesn’t have to be that way, but somehow we seem to do it to ourselves; for as much as we may say we are busy, busy is a choice. I don’t mean to pontificate, I fall prey to the curse of busy just as much as the next person.

In today’s episode, Episode 34 of Life in Focus, Chris and I talk self-care, or the lack thereof. We both share our blunders with prioritizing ourselves, and discuss the steps we try to take (sometimes fail to take) to restore balance and regain control over our day-to-day.

Chris and I both agree, there is no single right way to do it. We also both have specific markers of overwhelmed that we watch for, signs that we can no longer pretend that busy isn’t becoming unhealthy.

In this episode I share the six (6) fundamental areas that need to be addressed to maintain balance, and give you a quick mnemonic to remember them. So grab a pen while you listen and take some notes on how to create balance in your day-to-day.

On a side note: The timing of this episode could not have been more perfect, as I took a sick day today from my therapy practice. I’m not one to miss work because of illness, unless my ability to think clearly is impaired or I am horribly contagious. A bad cold, combined with too many nights of not enough sleep because of the work I’ve been putting into LīF, made it so that today I would have been a less than stellar listener and a poor psychologist. This is just the capper on what has been six months of slowly chipping away at my self-care – getting to the gym once a week is a feat, late nights in front of the computer, not enough time with friends… you get the picture, I just gave up on three of the six fundamentals of good balance.

I’m not glorifying being busy, this is certainly not a “look at me I am soooo important, because I am doing so much.” Rather, it is a reminder that even in the pursuit of the things we love we can get caught-up in unhealthy habits, and forget to meet our needs. Actually, one of the things we discuss with Chris is the fact that it is often the things we are most passionate about that we are willing to compromise ourselves for.

As you listen to this episode try to answer the following questions for yourself:

* What activities, responsibilities or ‘things’ are most likely to put you off-balance and off track with self-care?

* What markers or signs do you consistently use to let you know when you’ve dropped the ball on yourself?

* What does self-care mean to you?

* Once you know what PADRES is (listen to the episode) how well are you doing with it?

 

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Ever found yourself wondering what the hell you were doing with your life and how you got to where you are. Do you sometimes wonder what happened to all those dreams you had when you were growing up? Good, so you get how many of the Millennials feel about being all grown up. This interview explores some of the myths about Millennials, adulthood and success with author, speaker, coach and Millennial Paul Angone.

Paul Angone is a spokes person for the Millennial generation. From University to corporate talks he identifies what this generation needs to feel plugged-in, connected and engaged with their world. His book All Groan Up is a hilarious and highly relatable account of his own struggle to figure out what it means to  be a successful adult. Like me Paul works tirelessly to help people define what is right for them so they can find their place and settle into life satisfied and at peace with who they are.

This interview revealed the incredible similarity in Paul’s views/approaches and mine, and how important both of us think INSIGHT is to the whole process of thriving. It was fun talking to someone who is part of the Millennial generation and getting not just an informed, but an insider’s perspective on how best to help Millennial reach their dreams and not be crushed by the realities of adult life.

Was this podcast helpful to you?

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Take Home:

* Millennials are accused of being selfish, short sighted, unrealistic, entitled and lazy. If we reframe these to self-focused, in the here and now, hopeful and unwilling to compromise for less than stellar we may be getting closer to reality of many.

* This generation is defined by the ideal of right for me. They grew up with huge expectations and are simply not willing to stop dreaming big, but they are lost on how to execute the dream.

* OCD as defined by Paul – Obsessive Comparison Disorder. As we focus on what other’s have and do, confusion sets in, we lose sight of what we need to be fulfilled and reach instead for the dreams of others.

* ” […] Now it’s almost Keep up with the Jones in a different way  this amazing, epic, crazy big life! It’s a different framework with which we are trying to compare ourselves.”

* Social media has created a sense of isolation. The perfection of our digital lives leaves many feeling alone and lacking in their everyday existence. Whereas before we might just need to look put together a few times a year (holidays or a school reunion) now with social media there is pressure to hold up pretenses all the time.

* “The possibility for greatness and embarrassment both exist in the same place, you can’t have one without the other.”

* One of this generation’s struggles is accepting that it takes time to get where they want to be: it’s a process that requires mindful and purposeful application of effort.

 

Speaking of figuring out who you are and living and EPIC life… 

 

Have you checked out LīF (pronounced life)? This Coaching Series is designed specifically to get people from getting by to thriving. It starts with creating INSIGHT into the things that matter to you, then showing you how to overcome your ROADBLOCKS and only once you have those two things understood moving into ACTION. 

Click the LīF logo to find out how you can

 

Dr. Kate Hendricks Thomas is a former Marine who today balances the roles of wife, new mother, professor and author. Her latest book Brave, Strong, True: The Modern Warrior’s Battle for Balance takes a close look at resilience, stress and what it takes to learn how to face distress successfully. Pulling from her experience as a Marine and research with military populations, Dr. Kate writes an incredibly compelling account of how stress affects us, and how best to build-up resilience and cope with trauma. She very specifically addresses the issue of trauma recovery and reintegration of veterans into the civilian world, but trust me everything she writes about is applicable to anyone out there.

This interview is a must listen for anyone who deals with stress, anyone who feels overwhelmed by life and everyone else, because you know someone who falls in one of those two categories.

Was the show helpful?

Then please, subscribe to the podcast, rate, review and SHARE. 

Take Home:

* Stress vs. Distress = Growth vs. Breakdown

* Stress is necessary to build, challenge  and promote physical, intellectual and emotional growth. It’s chronic distress is what wears us down, triggers trauma and causes damage to our systems.

* Do you practice self-care? Are you surrounded by a strong community? Do you have practices that tap into your need for purpose and connection? Dr. Kate identifies these three things as necessary to cultivate strong resilience.

* Resilience is a trait that we are born with, but new evidence shows that it can also be learned later in life. We go into this in the interview.

* Distress tolerance, delayed gratification, do these words sound like psycho-babble to you? Pay attention, because both are skills that are essential to healthy living that you need to develop to thrive.

* The things we suffer from are often states. They are technically reversible, but if we don’t see them as such we shift into victims mindsets, when in truth we are powerful agents of change in our own life.

 

Speaking of being master of your own destiny,

calling the shots and deciding how you’ll choose to live your life.

Have you checked out LīF (pronounced life)?

Click the image to find out more

(COMING APRIL 2016!)

 

Meet Dr. Kate Hendricks Thomas:

Dr. Kate Hendricks Thomas is an Assistant Professor of Health Promotion at Charleston Southern University, a speaker, and the co-founder of Just Roll With It Wellness. Hendricks Thomas, also a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, helps businesses and military veterans improve their holistic health and quality of life. Her behavioral health research, published in journals like Military Behavioral Health, the Californian Journal of Health Promotion, andGender Forum, has been praised as “masterful” and “constructive.” More info can be found atKateHendricksThomas.com and you can follow her @PrecisionWell on Twitter.Finally, Tad is a great example of resilience, and the importance of building  resilience to thrive despite hardship.

 

About the Book:

Brave, Strong, True: The Modern Warrior’s Battle for Balance is a practical call to health for America’s modern military warriors and those who support them. With a unique blend of personal narratives and current research, author Dr.

You know that expression: “Be the change you want to see”? Tad Parzen, one of Chris’ mentors, is the embodiment of that saying.

Tad is a civic engineer, someone who has dedicated his life to designing solutions to issues that fundamentally undermine our social fabric. His passion is education and helping create systems that support and elevate our youth. As he puts it, a solid public education is necessary to create an educated electorate and without that we can’t build the other three cornerstones of a successful society.

Tad has been driven by this passion for social change since early childhood, and has tried to pursue it in one way or another his whole life. This is means that at times it was expressed professionally, and others through his personal endeavors. His life and path are great examples of how a single need can be met through a variety of paths and in the end all produce some level of deep satisfaction.

Speaking of being the change you want to see, if you like what you hear, subscribe to the podcast, rate, review and SHARE. It’s the socially conscious thing to do, really.

Take Home:

* Our world, our society, the quality of our political conversations are nothing more than what we expect or demand of it.

* “Systems are designed perfectly to produce the results that they produce.” If you don’t like the results you are achieving, change the system!

* The four cornerstones for a successful society are: safety, economic development (opportunity to earn and thrive), health and an educated population and electorate (to make the right choices for the other three to happen).

* There is no single path to what you want to do, but if you know where you are headed, you can get there with whichever path you are on now.

* Know what your ideal looks like, but don’t wait for the ideal to materialize in order to act.

* Resilience is the critical characteristic necessary to thrive.

Speaking of change, have you check out the latest infographic from Life in Focus? It’s all about figuring out where you are in your stages of change. 

Click on the image to get to the larger interactive version (if you click on bubbles at the bottom of the page to get the resources you need).

More on Tad Parzen:

Tad is a civic engineer, he is entrusted to design solutions to issues that are persistent, complex and significantly undermine our social fabric. He is someone who is actively engaged in creating a better world and elevating not only our standard of living, but our standards.

Tad works mostly in youth development, an area he feels really should be our focus right now. He strives to realign current resources with the strategies we use to attain the ultimate goal – an educated, informed, empowered and autonomous youth.

Tad’s passion for activism, change and global leadership started in his childhood and grew with him. As a child, an early adult and now a man he lives true to what matters for him. He has found ways both in his personal and professional worlds to embody that drive for change and proactive shifts.

Finally, Tad is a great example of resilience, and the importance of building  resilience to thrive despite hardship.

 

Some people are lucky to know exactly what they are supposed to be, and yet, they ignore their calling. Why? Fear, thinking that right is better than right for you and any and every other roadblock you can imagine. Episode 30 of Life in Focus introduces us to Katy Helen Stockinger, her story, her art and her path to right for you!

 

Katy Helen Stockinger knew from the time that she was a little girl that art was her passion, but she was told that she should pursue a career that was safe, profitable and easier to break into. Dissuaded by others to follow her true calling, she found comfort and pleasure in challenging herself and learning about business, but something was missing. A need was not being met. Luckily for her, she decided to listen to herself, and took a major leap. She dropped out of the corporate world and into art in 2008. It was art or bust and ART won.

 

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Take Home:

* Just because you know what’s right for you doesn’t mean you have everything you need to pursue it. You gotta face your ROADBLOCKS.

* “I still today am inspired by the business side of things… It made me appreciate this part of journey even more […] I played both sides of the field, and now I get to be creative.”

* Right for you doesn’t need to be a hedonistic pursuit. It is about finding the best way to live your dreams while still taking into account your responsibilities and the realities of life. You can approach it cautiously and with care and reason.

* Work is a part of life, it’s unrealistic to think that just because you love what you do you will love every part of it. Living the dream is not always a dream life.

* We need to be careful to not assume that what is true for us, is right for other.

* There are so many ways to meet a need and express a dream. Likewise there are ways to rediscover your love and passion when right for you becomes a chore (amen to that!).

* You can’t have certainty in life. You HAVE TO be able to move forward based on what you know now, understanding that it will never answer all your questions. “When you create a situation for yourself where failure is not an option, then you better not fail!”

Portrait of Katy Helen:

Art has been a part of me as far back as I can remember. I grew up in Prior Lake, Minnesota and I was always the artsy kid in class. Despite my passion, I didn’t think art could ever realistically be a viable career. I decided to shelf that dream and made the more practical decision to study Business Management and Spanish at the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. After earning my degree I spent some time traveling Europe before settling in Barcelona for the better part of a year. Upon my return I moved to San Diego & have been living & working here since.

In January of 2009 I was working as an Account Executive for a software company. I had a comfortable work environment, comfortable travel schedule, ample time for friends, great benefits, and a healthy paycheck.  Yet there was a nagging feeling of being unfulfilled bubbling within me that I couldn’t ignore. Without a real plan, I decided to start pursuing art. I rented a studio at the GlasHaus, an amazing artist collective founded by Greg Brotherton and Matt Devine. My time in the GlasHaus played a huge role in my development as an artist and opened my eyes to the fact that art could indeed be a viable livelihood. This began a very prolific period for me, I went nuts.

 

 

It’s a leap year, and why not use that as motivation to take action, move forward and take a personal leap in life.

There are two main reasons people come to Life in Focus for coaching:

1) They know something needs to change, but they have no idea what it is, and therefore, how to go about making a change. These are the folk who really need to work on INSIGHT. Their first task is to discover what they want/need deep down inside and only then start talking about taking action.

2) The other category of people know what they want to do, but somehow, they are stuck. Stuck because they face ROADBLOCKS that they don’t understand. Stuck because they are scared to take action and make a mistake. Stuck because they want to know for sure that their choices are right, but certainty is unattainable in these matters.

Episode 29 of Life in Focus is about taking action. It’s about taking a leap and committing to the things that you want and need. Chris shares his recent choice to quit his job, and together we explore what it took to overcome his fear, and look at whether it’s panning out for him.

Take Home:

* There is no such thing as certainty in choice.

* You can’t know for sure if something is going to work out for you before you try it. If you’ve done your homework (INSIGHT) you can at least be sure that the choices you are making are the right fit for you for now.

* Right for you is not about following your heart while ignoring the realities and responsibilities of life. Right for you is about expressing your dreams in the most realistic way possible, taking into account every factor of your life.

* Right for you is rarely impulsive, although taking action on right for you might be.

* Before you take action, you need to know where you are going. Why did you sign up for the email series? What made you decide to join that gym? What are you looking for as you listen to these podcasts?

* Check out the INSIGHT BUILDER SERIES right here – Sign-Up for FREE.

Want to know more about CHRIS? Check out his blog, The Adulterers!

Click here for more on taking action.

We all have that room, drawer, or desk that just seems to accumulate clutter. No matter how often we clear it up, somehow things always seem to end up cluttering it; enter the Declutter Dude, Lars Thurfjell. Lars took what could have been a devastating situation – the loss of his tech industry job – and turned it into an opportunity – the creation of his own, now thriving decluttering and home organization business.

In episode 28 of Life in Focus Chris and I talk to Lars about his leap of faith and the chance he took in pursuing something that was meaningful to him, but has little to no relation to his former professional career. Lars shares his story, the journey from tech industry to becoming that guy who comes into your home and your life to create clarity, space, and order. Although he focuses on decluttering your physical space, Lars will be the first to tell you that creating order in your environment creates huge shifts in your mental and emotional well being.

Take Home:

* We are profoundly impacted by our environment. Your physical space can be a reflection of your mental space. Clean out that cluttered garage, attic, room, drawer, or desk and you might just find peace of mind was buried under the clutter.

* “People know that there is stuff they want to accomplish in life, and all this stuff they accumulate is just a ROADBLOCK to that.”

* Decluttering is both a curative process and a palliative one – in other words you can clean out what you’ve over accumulated or you can practice not bringing new clutter into your home.

* When you think about decluttering, consider physical spaces, but also virtual and mental spaces. If your attic feel overwhelming, how about cleaning out your inbox?

* What social pressures act on you to create mental and emotional clutter?

 

We have featured Lars twice before in the this post and this second one written to satisfy the huge response we got the first post.

 

More on Lars:

Meet Lars Thurfjell! Originally from Sweden, Lars moved to the U.S. at the age of five, after a short stint in Brazil. He grew up in the Bay area and spent the last 15 years of his life working in the high technology industry, mostly in sales.  Being in Silicon Valley, Lars lived through the exciting dot-com rise, and precipitous fall, seeing fortunes squandered combined with overworked lives in the rush to gain.

He eventually moved away from the tech industry and founded his own business (Declutter Dude), in a true Life in Focus moment. Declutter Dude is the result of Lars applying the principles in his own life to minimize possessions, and eventually shifting priorities from making as much money as possible, to living as simply as possible.

Lars works with people in their homes to begin decluttering, eliminate the overwhelm of  “where to start”, while making it fun and non-judgmental experience so they can live in a home that brings them peace and calm.

FIND HIM:

Online

On Instagram

On Facebook

On Linkedin