In this episode, Nick speaks with Dre Baldwin about his journey from basketball to internet entrepreneurship, emphasizing mindset, self-awareness, and overcoming challenges. Listen in to discover how his experiences shaped his approach to self-mastery and success.

What to listen for:

“You can have all the right skills, desire, motivation, and resources, but if you’re in the wrong vehicle, you will not get to where you want to get to.”

“To get to the actual issue, you really have to find out who’s the person behind the issue. Who’s the person behind the problem?”

About Dre Baldwin

Dre built Work On Your Game® to turn disciplined execution into dominance. A 4x TEDx speaker and 43-time author, Dre played pro basketball for 9 years. Today, he helps experts and entrepreneurs install mindset, systems, and strategy to scale from six to seven figures with presence and power.

Resources:

Check out other similar episodes:

Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have? https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/podcasting-services/

Learn more about our host, Nick McGowan.

Thank you for listening!

Please subscribe on iTunes and give us a 5-Star review! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mindset-and-self-mastery-show/id1604262089

Listen to other episodes here: https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/

Watch Clips and highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk1tCM7KTe3hrq_-UAa6GHA

Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]

Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”

Nick McGowan (00:00.206)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self-Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show, we have Dre Baldwin. Dre, what’s going on, man? How are you doing?

Dre Baldwin (00:11.005)
I’m doing great, Nick. How about yourself?

Nick McGowan (00:13.004)
I’m good. I’m good. I’m stoked that you’re here. I think it’s gonna be a really good conversation. I told you right up front, I missed the memo for the suit. I’m sorry. But I appreciate you showing up and looking how you are. One of the things that stood out to me when you were your team member reached out about you being on the show was your history in basketball. And being able to tie that into the work that you’re doing now, and how your pursuit of your own version of self mastery has really flexed

through every single bit of this. So I know there’s a lot of stuff that we’re gonna get into, but that’s one of the main things that really stood out to me. So I’m excited that you’re here. I always like to get things started though with telling us what’s one thing that most people don’t know about you. It’s a little odd or bizarre and what do you do for a living?

Dre Baldwin (00:59.369)
One thing that’s a little out of bizarre. once went out on a date with a woman who turned out to be a man and What do I do for a living is I hope I get to give context to that. But anyway, what do I do for a living is We have high level professionals with structured execution if I put it in the one statement

Nick McGowan (01:12.75)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (01:20.218)
Cool. I appreciate that. I’m still chuckling a little bit like who in their right mind wouldn’t give you the platform to like follow up on that? Because the first thing I want to make sure is that you’re not saying it in a really hateful way. I assume that’s not the case. And based on what I know of you, that doesn’t seem to be the case. But again, who in their right mind be like, Nope, we’re leaving that they’re just gonna fucking cliffhanger. So go on, tell us the story.

Dre Baldwin (01:27.622)
You

Dre Baldwin (01:46.739)
So this is about, I was about 19, 18, 19 years of age. So we are both from the Philadelphia area. And every year in the summertime in Philadelphia, there’s this event called the Greek Picnic. I don’t know if you knew about it. So the Greek Picnic is all these fraternity and sorority organizations, usually the black fraternity sororities, they all have this big event down at, I think it’s the Belmont Plateau in Philadelphia. Then that’s during the day, the picnics during the day. Then at night, everybody goes to this place called South Street.

Nick McGowan (02:10.392)
Mm-hmm.

Dre Baldwin (02:16.553)
And South Street is a place in Philly where everybody just goes and walks. So was kind of like Times Square in Manhattan, the Strip in Vegas, Ocean Drive in Miami Beach. You have South Street in Philadelphia. So I did not pledge in college, but every year, even since I was in high school, we would always go to South Street and 90 degree picnic because everybody’s out there. It’s kind of like New Year’s Eve, Times Square. Everybody’s out there. It’s hard to drive, but there’s so many girls out there. You go out there just to talk to girls. So we go out there and talk to girls and I meet this girl. She was interested in me. I’m interested back. So we

exchange phone numbers and all of that. And she lived all the way down there near South Street. I lived up in the upper Northwest part of the city. I go and see her. didn’t actually go on. It technically wasn’t a date. We didn’t go anywhere. I just went to her house. We were basically sitting on the steps talking, but we sat there and talked for an hour or two. She had a roommate. Her roommate came by. She went, goes into the house and another guy while I’m sitting there talking to her, another guy comes up. He goes in to see the roommate. So anyway, we have the conversation, whatever I leave.

And a couple of days later, I’m talking to this girl on the phone and I think she noticed my naivete. And she said to me, Dre, I want to let you know something. She said, I’m a pre-op transsexual. I didn’t even quite know what that meant. And I was like, what does that mean? I did know, but I didn’t know. So I had her spell it out. And she said, no, I’m guy, I’m not as endowed as you, but I haven’t had the operation yet. And I just didn’t know. My vision was not.

tuned enough to have noticed this when it was all happening. And then I was thinking, I was like, well, what about that guy who came by while we were sitting on your steps, who went in the house to see your roommate? Because a roommate was the same thing. Also preop transsexuals. said, well, yeah, he knew the deal. So I guess he thought I knew the deal. I didn’t know the deal. So this was my learning of finding out what the situation was. So that’s the story there. That was 19 years of age. I’m 44 now.

Nick McGowan (04:04.396)
Man. Yeah, how old are you?

All right, cool, I’m 41. So back then, that you really had an opportunity to be a fucking asshole about it. There’s a lot of people, especially in the Philadelphia area, that would have been so pushed away from that, even gotten violent, and really become hateful with it. And a lot of it was normal back then. There was just hatred of other people and just…

just bullshit and especially with guys from the area, we would just be douchebags to each other. And then if something like that happened, like your boys could be after you because of it or whatever. So what a cool thing for you to not be a complete fucking asshole about it. Only for years later to understand like that is, that’s gotta be a big, big life transition for people and to not even think about it from their perspective. Like that’s awesome that she said, this is what’s going on. This is where I’m at.

That took a lot of courage to even say that and a lot of courage to step out, you know.

Dre Baldwin (05:10.899)
Yeah.

I guess so, because I think she could tell that I didn’t know. So I think most of the time back then, because we would go to South Street all the time and you would see these cross dressing men walking around. And what would happen is men would drive by in cars and I say those are men and laugh and joke and all that and just drive by. And but you could tell even from across the street, like that’s a man. She had it done well enough that I didn’t know. And I had a couple of my boys with me when I met the girl. None of them said anything. So

Nick McGowan (05:25.464)
Mm-hmm.

Dre Baldwin (05:43.294)
They didn’t know. And when I told them, they made jokes about it at the, weren’t around the girl. They made jokes about it with me. I didn’t, I just didn’t even notice. But back then with us, it would be like, okay, you could tell that’s a man. We just keep going. But I think they knew the woman or the man dressed as a woman, whatever you want to call this. They would talk to men who knew the deal. And that was just, they were just cool with it. Like that guy who walked into the house while I was there, I guess he just knew. I just didn’t know.

And back then it wasn’t even a thing that we were thinking about, not the way it is now. We weren’t thinking about it in that way. Now it’s much more open. But back then for me, it was something I had never come across.

Nick McGowan (06:21.452)
I always find it interesting how people choose to answer this question and like what the thing is like I even said before we hit record like just don’t tell me your favorite colors purple or something like that so I always appreciate when people bring something up because there’s some some reason for that like that must have shaped you in some sort of way so even if it’s a subconscious thing that yeah it shaped me but you know I really think about it too too much in this context of this conversation as we talk about that how has that actually shaped you

And way that you look at not only people and their choices, but yourself and how it’s kind of folded within your life.

Dre Baldwin (06:57.577)
Hmm. It’s an interesting question. I never thought about it like that. I always looked at it like a, it’s like a funny thing to me. That’s the reason why I bring it up. Yeah. The other thing, other thing I thought about was I once was in a hot dog eating contest. I think this is a little bit more depth. So that’s why I went with that one. But for me, I never, I never really think about it except when I’m bringing it up, like, Hey, this is, appearances can be deceiving. And nowadays it’s kind of come full circle because now no LGBTQ is a big thing. But in this is what

Nick McGowan (07:02.99)
Snapple fact sort of thing,

Nick McGowan (07:11.279)
Hahaha

Dre Baldwin (07:26.665)
19, this is like 2000 around 2000 2001. It wasn’t a big thing. We knew it existed, but it was way in the shadows. Then as opposed to how it is now. I don’t know how it has affected me subconsciously. I’ve been stopped approaching girls. I kept doing that. So I don’t know. I can’t answer that question.

Nick McGowan (07:43.534)
Yeah, I appreciate. I appreciate the honest answer. You know, like even it might be something where like down the road you realize, maybe it shaped me this way. And it’s also, it doesn’t have to, you know, that might be one of those things where like, made you kind of look a little differently at things. I find it interesting how some people like your boys, your friends would talk shit or say whatever. And maybe some of those maybe

didn’t understand exactly what was going on, but we’re trying to fit within the system of things and like, let’s have these conversations. So I always think this stuff can shape us in some sort of way, because it was just a little different or abnormal or whatever. Sometimes the meaningless things in life are the things that can mean a lot to us or the like random happenstances of things. But it’s funny pointing out like, even with South Street and how South Street is like Times Square. I’ve never thought about that, but I lived on Fitzwater for a little while.

like right off of South Street for a while. Yeah, I was actually explaining to my partner recently. I was like, when we go to Philly, we’ll have to go to South Street. South Street is like a long street where you walk in their stores. She was like, that sounds like a normal fucking street. Like, but it’s more than that, you know, so I’m going to use the Times Square thing. But that’s cool. Yeah, exactly. Some people don’t know the ocean drive thing, but like, I get that. Man, so I appreciate bringing that up with

Dre Baldwin (08:40.499)
Yeah, that’s right there.

Dre Baldwin (08:56.809)
Alright, four O’s in draft. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (09:09.782)
the path that you’re on now and the business that you’re on, I think one thing that we could easily skip past is that you spent, what was it, nine, 10 years playing professional basketball?

Nick McGowan (09:22.925)
So I have never been a professional athlete. I remember wanting to be a professional, a couple different things, you know, as a kid, just like people are like, I want to be a rock star, I want to be this, I want to be that. There’s a level of discipline. There’s a level of belief in yourself, confidence, and like fucking around and finding out to be able to execute on stuff like that. Even if you didn’t get into the NBA or if you were the fucking, I don’t know, you turned into Kevin Durant or whatever, like there’s a lot that you actually went through to figure out.

what is it that I want out of life? And you started to do that early on, but you’re not doing it at this point. So I’m interested in how that shaped you. like, tell us a bit about the journey and how that actually led into what you’re doing today.

Dre Baldwin (10:04.905)
Great question. So it started with, let’s just go back to childhood, always in the sports. And I was playing, one of the first lessons I learned was getting into the proper vehicle. So I was playing baseball for several years. And I realized by the time I got to about right before high school, and this is because when you first played baseball as a kid, you had T ball, you just hit the ball off the tee. Then you have a pitching machine. You know the pitching machine where the ball goes to the same spot every time.

I got pretty good at the pitching machine baseball, but then when we had to play against real live people throwing the ball, I couldn’t hit the ball. I probably had a little bit of fear of the ball. So I was never good at hitting and my fielding wasn’t even that great either. So I realized, okay, I’m not going to go too far in baseball. No matter how hard I try at this, I just don’t have the natural inclination, but I was still into sports. So then I moved over to basketball and I started off not good, but I could feel myself getting better at basketball and I stuck with it. And eventually came to what you mentioned.

The thing is, later on, looking back, that’s when I realized this principle that I tell people about all the time nowadays is called the right vehicle. So you can have all the right skills, desire, motivation, and resources, but if you’re in the wrong vehicle, you will not get to where you want to get to. And for some people, the right vehicle is playing baseball. For some, it’s basketball. For some, it’s not sports at all. For some, it’s analyzing sports. You can be a podcaster or a YouTuber. For some people, it’s not being in the sports realm. It’s doing something different.

Not everybody can do everything even if you put the same amount of effort in. So that’s the first principle I got from sports. Looking back, I didn’t realize that when I was 13, but I realized it later. Then moving on, barely playing in high school, played one year, sat the bench. My going to college, I went to a Division III college. So anyone who doesn’t know sports, the guys you see on TV, that’s Division I. That’s football, basketball, that’s Division I. Division II is right under that and Division III is down in the basement.

And the players in Division 3 don’t usually think they’re going to make it pro. A lot of them will say they think they will, but they don’t really believe it because I’ve always been a believer in it. You want to know what somebody believes, that’s what they do. Don’t listen to what they say. And coming out of a Division 3 school, nobody’s calling you to go play pro, most players, even if you were pretty good because you’re playing against other guys who are not pro caliber. So when I got out of college, nobody was calling me. I had to go to these events called exposure camps. You ever heard of those? Know what they are?

Nick McGowan (12:18.701)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (12:25.942)
No, but I would assume it’s like a talent sort of thing where scouts get together and see what you can do. Yeah, cool.

Dre Baldwin (12:30.621)
Yeah, casting call, a job fair for athletes. And it’s rough because you got 200 guys who all think they should be playing pro, all trying to prove themselves at the same time. And that’d cool if we were playing golf or tennis, but basketball is a team sport. So you’re playing on the same team with five other guys who all think they should be playing pro too. So everybody’s trying to show off. So it’s not the normal type of basketball. It’s not like everyone’s playing selfless basketball because they’re all trying to show off. I went to several of those over the course of my career, but

Nick McGowan (12:49.474)
Yeah.

Dre Baldwin (12:58.727)
The first one I went to led to me getting on and getting my first opportunity playing basketball. And in that experience, it was really about investing yourself. Let me tell you how I ended up at that event. So I’m from Philadelphia. The event was in Orlando, Florida. And this is the summer of 2005, graduated college in 2004. The event was not free. You pay $250 to go to the event. I reached out to the event organizers about a month ahead of time and asked them, would it be OK if I pay the event fee?

in cash at the door because I did not have a credit card or a bank account at the time. So I had to pay them in cash. They said, yes, you can pay in cash at this time. I’m working at a gym called Valley Total Fitness. I don’t know if you remember them. They’re out of business now, not because of me. I made a lot of sales and at Valley that the commission checks came on a certain Friday every month. I had I didn’t even have to work that day. I had to negotiate with my boss to get the weekend off because the event was Saturday and Sunday.

Nick McGowan (13:37.775)
yeah. yeah. Yeah.

Dre Baldwin (13:55.038)
I’m in Philly. We’re going to drive me and a couple of college teammates who are also ambitious. We’re going to rent a car in Philly and drive to Orlando. That’s a 19 hour drive. For those who don’t know the geography, I had to go to my job though first and wait for the DHL truck to come because the DHL guy brought the commission checks. I needed that commission check because I had to go around the corner to the Chinese store and cash it. So I had to cash to pay that $250 at the door. That was my last $250 at this time. I’m living in my parents’ house. I’m working at Valley Total Fitness. have a college degree, but I don’t have

anything going on. I spent that 250 at the door and I had to do something over that two day camp to get my first opportunity. So that was really about investing in yourself and really putting your back against the ball. And then you got to perform when it matters. That camp is only two days. It’s not like you have a month to prove yourself. It’s two days. And I played pretty well there. Got my first job. That was 2005. Moving on, fast forwarding in this story, there that

Nick McGowan (14:42.498)
Yeah.

Dre Baldwin (14:51.751)
basketball career wasn’t some smooth up into the right process. There’s a lot of people here, professional athlete. Now you’re an entrepreneur. So they think, okay, well, I guess it was easy for you once you got on in sports. But no, there were many times that, how do I better explain it? When there are people in acting, let’s say in the movies, you have your Leonardo DiCaprio’s or Scarlett Johansson’s, they get $50 million to do a movie Will Smith. And no, they don’t do a movie for a year or two. They’re okay. Most actors and actresses careers don’t go that

Nick McGowan (15:18.509)
Mm-hmm.

Dre Baldwin (15:21.159)
Most actors and actresses in between movies, what are they doing? All right, they’re bartending, they’re working at Starbucks and they’re bagging groceries. They don’t know if they’re gonna get another job. They are going from casting call to casting call, hoping to get an opportunity to get on. And in sports is the same way. Not every athlete is LeBron James or Lamar Jackson. A lot of athletes are on the fringes, meaning you have a job then you don’t. You’re waiting for your agent to call. You have to stay in shape just in case the call comes, if the call comes.

Nick McGowan (15:24.664)
Part-time job. Yeah.

Thank

Nick McGowan (15:34.755)
Yeah.

Dre Baldwin (15:49.546)
Then when it comes, you don’t know how long you’re going to be there because you may face the squeeze on the roster and you’re the one who gets squeezed, not because you can’t play, but because it’s just a numbers game. So a lot of times in my career, even playing overseas, it can be like that. So there are a lot of times in between jobs over the course of my career, I played on a different team every year. I never played in the same team twice in a row or twice total. Every year was a different team, every year, a different country because in between job and in between jobs, didn’t know where the next job was coming or if the next job was coming.

Nick McGowan (15:58.05)
Yeah.

Dre Baldwin (16:18.569)
There are times where I had to go get a job because there was no job. So the last time I had it, I went and got two more jobs in between the start of my career. My last job was in 2007. I signed in Montenegro 2008. Haven’t didn’t work a quote unquote regular job after that. That was because I was on this new thing called YouTube. And that’s where I started to build my brand. And that’s where I realized about 2009, 2010, I was putting basketball video content on the internet. That’s when I realized.

What I’m doing here on the internet is gonna be bigger than what I’m doing on the basketball court. Even though my content was basketball, it was the internet that was amplifying my name. So if I go to the mall right now today in Miami and somebody recognizes me, it’s not because I played in Slovakia for six months. It’s because I was on YouTube for 10 years making that basketball content. That’s where people know me from, is from YouTube. And I knew back then, I said, this internet thing is gonna be bigger for me than anything I’m doing on the court. And I was right about that.

Nick McGowan (17:00.983)
Hehehe.

Dre Baldwin (17:15.625)
At that time, I finished reading this book called The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, I’m you’re familiar with. And in that book, Tim was talking about how you can take an idea and start putting on internet and make money from it. I followed his advice and I started selling $5 training programs to basketball players. That’s where I knew my future was in internet entrepreneurship, or entrepreneurship powered by the internet, let’s put it that way. Harking back a little bit in the story, about 2002.

I people can keep up with this timeline. know I’m jumping a lot here. About 2002, I got introduced to a business opportunity. It turned out to be network marketing. I did not build a career in network marketing, but I went to some meetings. And I’m forever grateful for the meetings that I went to and the dabbling that I did in network marketing, because it teaches you a lot about entrepreneurship. It teaches you a lot about how to make money other than a traditional nine to five job, which is what my parents had. That’s all I knew until then. And also you learn a lot about people when you’re…

trying to sell them into a network marketing opportunity. So you want to know about yourself too. And as a great sales crash course. in there, two things I got from that. Number one, well, three things. Number one is the entrepreneurship. Number two is that they mentioned these books. They would say personal development, personal development. You got to do the personal development. And they would just mention the names of these authors who I’d never heard of. They would say Tony Robinson, Jim Rohn, and Brian Tracy, and Napoleon Hill. And I’m like, who? I never heard any of these people.

Nick McGowan (18:17.442)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (18:29.475)
Mm-hmm.

Dre Baldwin (18:39.475)
But I remembered the names. I couldn’t afford the books. They were selling them right outside the hotel room. I couldn’t afford them. But I remember the names. So I went on eBay. So again, those of you old enough, eBay before Amazon was the place you went to eBay to buy stuff. Went on eBay and I bought two pirated copies of two books that I could remember. One of them was called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. And I bought that book. It showed me that there is a way that you could intentionally alter your conscious thoughts that would alter your behavior and thus alter your outcomes. And he was right.

Nick McGowan (18:51.47)
the

Dre Baldwin (19:08.839)
And other book I bought was called Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. And that book told me, there’s another way that you can actually be an adult and make money other than what I saw the adults around me doing. And the reason why I was so inclined to look at what Mr. Kiyosaki was saying is because my parents showed up every day, did their jobs. They never bragged about it. They never announced it. They did their work every day. The reason I am

Nick McGowan (19:19.255)
Okay.

Dre Baldwin (19:35.038)
what people will call a disciplined person to this day is because the example that I had at home from my parents. At the same time, the adults around me talked about work as a necessary evil. It wasn’t, get to go to work. It was, have to go to work. They talked about their jobs as if it was a somewhat negative thing, good because it paid the bills, but negative because they didn’t really like it. And they didn’t really like the people they had to deal with. And I was looking at them thinking, okay, well, I graduated from college. I guess I got to go do maybe a little bit better version of what they’re doing.

Nick McGowan (19:45.42)
Mm-hmm.

Dre Baldwin (20:03.431)
But when I read Kiyosaki, he said, there’s another way to do it. And anybody who’s read the book knows he’s juxtaposing his real dad who had a great education, went and got a job and his friends, best friends, dad, the rich dad. He was the one who dropped out of school, but was a business owner. He owned assets and he made money. He seemed happy about going to work. Whereas his poor dad, his real dad got kicked out of the system when he got too old and too expensive for the system. So that put me onto that. And that I got all that from network marketing. Anyway, combined that with Tim Ferriss.

seven, eight years later, combined that with the internet, combined that with social media and basketball, that’s where I started to build what became my company, which was helping basketball players at first, and it transitioned into where we are today. Let me jump again in the story. 2015, I’m looking at the end of the road. Okay, I’m going to get out of basketball. What am I going to do next? So at this point, I was starting to make these mindset videos where basketball players who are watching me,

my material was all basketball for about the first five years, 2005 to 2010. The players started asking me about mindset because they saw I was putting out videos every single day before that was a normal thing to do. Nowadays, that’s normal. But back then it wasn’t normal. So they’re like, why are you going to the gym every day to work out? Sometimes because I would tell them where I who I was. Division three, Kyle is playing overseas right now. I’m unemployed. You don’t even know if you get another job, Jerry. Why do you keep working out? How do you keep yourself motivated? Or you got cut from your high school team three times like me.

Nick McGowan (21:10.968)
Mm-hmm.

Dre Baldwin (21:28.753)
How did you keep going when you got cut and there was no right at the end of the tunnel? And I started talking about things like discipline and confidence and mental toughness and being prepared and how you had to take negative situations and use them as fuel for positive action. And I called it the weekly motivation. And what happened is a bunch of people who didn’t play basketball started finding me there. That’s when I knew, okay, I can take this aspect of what I’m doing and I can serve people outside of the realm of sports, even when I don’t play anymore.

Because I knew that if I stopped playing basketball every day and putting these videos out, my $5 products are going to stop selling. I could read the writing on the wall. I saw how it worked. I could tell you that 15 years ago. People are now realizing it now on TikTok, but I knew that back then. So that’s how I knew what I was going to do next. I need to take this mindset stuff, and I’m noticing people who don’t play basketball need it. And that’s what became what I do today. So that was 2015, and now here we are. So let me stop my story so you can get back to ask some questions.

Nick McGowan (22:04.782)
you

Nick McGowan (22:28.078)
Like a true professional, ladies and gentlemen, somebody who’s been on many podcasts. I always look for what are the main components of these things. And one of the biggest things that I have learned from being specifically on this show and running this show for four plus years is if you don’t have awareness, you can’t do anything. You just can’t. If you’re not aware of something, you can’t do anything with something you’re not aware of.

And a lot of people will push their awareness off like the people that hate their jobs, you know, I got to go to my job. It’s got to pay for things. There can be a level of awareness to go, but wait a minute, fucking time out. If I don’t like this, why don’t I do something else? You and I experienced similar things where people just bitching complain and just fond of bitching complain. Then they belly up to the bar at the end of the week and drink through the weekend and then bitching complain throughout the week and just rinse and repeat instead of going, hold on timeout. Let me do something different.

you had a lot of different iterations and things that led you to something else. Like looking back, you probably would have thought way back in the day, I’m gonna be a professional ball player and make millions of dollars. This is how my life is gonna go. Cause you’re on that path and you’re really pushing for it. Even to go spend your last $250 all the way in Orlando, which 19 hours is if you’re fucking moving.

Dre Baldwin (23:48.723)
So,

Nick McGowan (23:49.408)
Most people will take like a day and they’ll have to stop, but you and a couple of friends like taking turns asleep and I’ve done that drive before I get it. There’s a lot of different things that could have really pushed you off the path, but you kept going with the path. And that’s what I like to be able to break apart of like, actually kept you going with that? Because you’re aware enough to go, hmm, well.

I don’t know if I’m going to get another job doing this, but I’m seeing that I’m having these conversations and I want to talk about these things. Even like with you to say the new thing, YouTube back then, it gets wild to think that, I don’t know, we weren’t super young when YouTube was new, but geez, we really were. And you were early to it, you know? I talked to people about social media at times where I’m like, I had a social media marketing company in 2013 and I was fucking late.

Dre Baldwin (24:31.303)
this early 20s.

Nick McGowan (24:43.508)
seven years late and other people now that keep pushing these things, they’re still doing the same thing over and over and over instead of actually saying what’s actually working. What do I want? What do I want to do with this sort of stuff? And I’d love that you actually, you saw a positive in the network marketing. There are a lot of people that shit on MLMs and network marketing because they’ve had bad experiences or they’ve had friends that have tried to push everything on them or wrap fucking things around their stomachs or.

tell them they can make money with a light switch or whatever. But you learn a lot through that. And I think that’s a big thing that taking those steps that are risky at times, like think back to the 250, that was a risk. But you were like, fuck it, I wanna go play ball. I’ll drive all the way down there. There are a lot of people in Philly that didn’t wanna do that. They wouldn’t have done it. They wouldn’t have even cashed that check or rented the car.

or gotten into the vehicle to drive down there, let alone all the other things that you did. So you had all these little steps that you had to take. There were all these little risks pieces. So how did you tie that into not only what you’re talking about mindset wise, but specifically for yourself? Like what are you able to look back to and go, man, I was really good at this thing. Like you pointed out discipline, because your parents got up, their shoes on, got to work, did their thing, took care of their kids and moved along in life. That’s great, but that’s just one.

Dre Baldwin (26:04.835)
Mm-hmm. Bye.

Nick McGowan (26:07.95)
piece of the recipe. What are the other pieces for you that have really helped you figure out this is what works for me and what I can share with other people.

Dre Baldwin (26:16.413)
Great question. I’m glad you contextualize it that way because it reminds me of something else. So first thing I’ll say, 2013 you had a social media marketing company. I’m sure you were doing well. That was a good business to be in in 2013. Yeah, I can imagine. So speaking of a couple of things, my parents and Napoleon Hill. So Napoleon Hill and Think and Grow Rich talks about this concept of transmutation.

Nick McGowan (26:26.702)
It was, but we were still late. Yeah.

Dre Baldwin (26:39.273)
And transmutation is about how you take, it’s the law of conservation of energy. states, energy is neither created nor destroyed, merely changes forms and moves from one object to another. So my parents were traditional, basically it was called them nine to five years. My mom’s in education. My dad worked basically construction as a day job. He was a musician by night. That was his passion, but he didn’t do it full time. This was before, you know, social media. If he was around now, he was my age now, he’d probably have his own brand. Couldn’t do it in 1985, right? So.

Nick McGowan (27:07.182)
short.

Dre Baldwin (27:08.999)
So when I graduated from college, again, division three college, my parents don’t know a ton about sports. My dad’s a big sports fan, so they knew some. They don’t know anything about overseas basketball, but they know division three from division one. I come home from college and they say, what are you gonna do now with your degree? I say, I’m gonna be a professional basketball player. Now mind you, I have no prospects. I have no offers. I have no contracts on the table. My mom’s an educator. So her biggest thing was both of my kids are gonna go to college and get a degree because neither of my parents had their degrees when my sister and I got our degrees. My sister became a college professor just to give you a

some comparison and my mom’s an educator, very good educator at that. So I say, I’m going to be a basketball player with no prospects. My mom can’t believe it because I sacrificed all this, her talking, I sacrificed all this for you to get your degree and get your education. And now you say you’re to be a basketball player. It was kind of like I was throwing it all away because again, if it would be one thing, if the New York Knicks were offering me a contract, I wasn’t getting offered anything. So she’s like, well, how are you going to do it? She started asking me.

questions that any logical person would answer and there were no answers to the questions. And she essentially was saying, hey, if you don’t have any answers to these questions, well, you need to go, you’re living under our roof. You’re an adult now. You’re still eating food. You’re using the electricity. You need to go get a job. And she was right. Nothing she said was wrong. It wasn’t even highly critical. was just, she was holding a mirror up to me and my dad basically co-signed everything that she was saying. Now that even though she wasn’t wrong, the mirror being held up to me angered me.

Not that she said anything specifically that bothered me or that my dad said anything specifically. was just the reality was the reality. So the reality became one of my oppositions. And I’ll tie this in in a moment. The other thing was in college, I didn’t even play my senior year because my junior year after my sophomore year, my junior year, the coach who recruited me got fired. New coach comes in and anybody knows anything about college sports. When a new coach comes into a program, they clean house. The same way that when a new CEO joins a company,

some of upper management, middle management gets flushed out, not because you’re not good, but because they want to bring in their own people. I ended up out of the program. So my senior year, I was in school, fully eligible, fully healthy, didn’t play basketball. And this is at a division three school. So again, it’s not like I’m looking at future NBA players when I’m watching games. And that bothered me because in my mind, I knew I was better than the players who were on the team. But at the same time,

Nick McGowan (29:11.512)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (29:24.188)
He

Dre Baldwin (29:31.53)
I’m objective enough to look at myself. can step outside of myself and look at myself and say, OK, well, you think you’re better than them. But let’s look at the reality. Here they are playing. Here you are not playing. And again, this is the Vision 3 school. So how can you prove you’re better than them? Your eligibility is up. This is before name, image, and likeness. Eligibility is up. They’re on the team. You’re not. How can you prove this? Well, the good thing about back then, there’s no YouTube. There’s only one level to go after college in sports. And that’s the pros.

Nick McGowan (29:48.248)
Mm-hmm.

Dre Baldwin (29:59.422)
That story that I told you about how I made it pro and the things I was doing once I made a pro was not just off of talent. It wasn’t just off of intellect or strategy. It was the transmutation of the, if you want to call it disappointment, sadness, anger, embarrassment, frustration of those situations. That was the gas in the tank. I needed to prove for posterity sake that my career was not going to be ended by this coach and no, none of these players are going to be able to say that they outdid me. And also

Nick McGowan (30:12.163)
you

Dre Baldwin (30:28.017)
my parents, I wasn’t angry at them. They didn’t do anything wrong. They didn’t stop me. But the fact that they held up the mirror, they were the messenger. You know, sometimes you sometimes you to kill the messenger. I didn’t kill my parents, but they were the messenger. And I took it out on I didn’t I wasn’t angry at them personally. But I took that energy from both of those situations. And that was no the gas in the tank to get me from Philadelphia to Orlando. That’s a good metaphor right there. That’s right. So that’s that was a big part of what I did. I don’t even remember what your question was.

Nick McGowan (30:37.07)
Sure.

Nick McGowan (30:51.154)
Literally.

Nick McGowan (30:57.646)
It’s all good. Sometimes that’s the best. You’re like, I’m riffing in this direction. Because like you’d said, this this reminds you of some other things, you know, I think it’s interesting how, look, there are different conversations that have been had in so many circles, everybody’s had this sort of conversation, don’t let people shit on your dreams, don’t let people tell you not to blah, blah, blah. And I think a lot of that conversation misses the fucking mark in a big way, because there’s no context to it. Like your mom is an educator.

seems to be a logical person asking you logical questions. You interpret it in some sort of way where part of it was like, see it, but fuck you. But I also see what you’re saying. And I’m gonna go this route and I’m gonna go do this thing. And then there are specifically people that are like, no, you don’t wanna do that. This is gonna happen and it’s all gonna be terrible. Cause their fear and all that sort of stuff. There’s a level of discernment that you can sometimes not have the ability to have.

because you trust those people so much. And that’s where I think some of the conversation is like, don’t let your family shit out of your dreams, blah, blah. Yes, and still give more to it. If somebody’s trying to love on you and they have their own things, it’s on us to not interpret it in such a way, but it can be really hard when you go, it’s my mom, it’s my whoever, it’s this person. But some of those things will also move us in a beautiful direction. Like I think back to high school and bring this up at different times.

Where do you remember being in like 11th grade with like, we’re going to sit you down. We’re going to talk about what college you want to go to, what things you want to do. So next year we can start ramping and doing all these things. Well, when I sat down with the counselor, she was like, all right, well, you’re a musician and an art kid. Like I was one of those kids that if I didn’t want to be in class, I’d be like, I got a project. They’d be like, fuck off. And I’d go and live in the art room. And this counselor was literally like, well, we can get you into music school or art school, but you’re probably not going to make any money. So what do you want to do? And I checked out.

I was like, well, don’t want to fucking be here and talk to you because you just told me I’m going to be a starving artist. So fuck that. I ended up getting into a multi-level marketing company like six months later and you learn so much from that shit. And there’s things that I think some people learn manipulation. Other people learn how to actually be better versions in themselves. And some people use it as stepping stone and all that. Like you and I both did that where we didn’t do network marketing forever.

Nick McGowan (33:23.936)
It was a stepping stone that opened up a whole new world. But then later on in life, you start to see how systems work and how different pieces and components work with things. But you made all these different choices without letting people affect the way that you went about them while still taking some of the consideration of it. And I’m pointing it out in that sort of way, because as I said to you, even off air, the idea is for people to get something from this where they go, huh, maybe I need to think about this a little differently.

And somebody roughly our age or even in their late thirties or early fifties or whatever, you’ve been through enough of a career and have enough of a body of work in a sense where then you can look back and you can see patterns of things. What do I like? What do I not like? What do I actually want? Those are really fucking tough questions for people to ask because then they go, well, what if I don’t want my family? What if I don’t want this job that I’ve been here for 25 years? Or what if I want to do something totally different?

Dre Baldwin (34:13.513)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (34:22.688)
And there’s a balance to that. Like, there are people that are like, fuck it, I was a lawyer one day and next thing you know, I’m painting and that’s it. There’s context there. There’s many conversations they’ve had in their own head. So what does that look like with the work that you do now, specifically with different people that are progressing through their life and having those conversations or maybe shying even away from those conversations within themselves?

Dre Baldwin (34:48.969)
It’s a great question because a lot of times these days, mostly working with professionals, entrepreneurs, high performers, these people usually come to you with a high performer level surface level issue, usually based around money and or the things they need to do to make money, more marketing, better clients, transitioning, quitting my job, starting a business, et cetera. So to get to the actual issue, that is an issue. Yes, they do want to make more money. Yes, they do need better clients and they want to sell this course or whatever it is they’re doing.

But to get to the actual issue, you really have to find out who’s the person behind the issue. Who’s the person behind the problem? And noticing their patterns, noticing their mental blocks. Sometimes the mental block is they can’t see themselves charging more money. Sometimes the mental block is I know who pays me the most money. That’s the top 20 % of my clientele, but the bottom 80 % for me to drop them, they’re going to think I’m a jerk. They’re going to think I don’t value them. They may not like me.

Nick McGowan (35:35.48)
Yeah.

Dre Baldwin (35:47.758)
They just don’t have the heart to do it. Not drop them, but pass them off to somebody who’s less senior than you and your company. Sometimes that’s the challenge for people. Sometimes the challenge is just moving themselves to do the things that need to be done, the grunt work. And there is no business, no career that does not have grunt work. A lot of people think that there is one, there isn’t one. There is some type of work you have to do no matter what you do for a Sometimes it’s moving themselves to be able to do that. Sometimes when I’m working with people, sometimes it’s professionals, but there’s a personal issue.

I’m not spending as much time with my kids as I want to. My wife is not initiating sex as often as she needs to. A single man who just wants to talk to more girls, but he keeps second guessing himself and hesitating and him and in hauling when he sees a girl on the train and by the time he approaches her, the energy is gone because he waited too long. So it’s sometimes just it’s not sometimes, but all the time finding out who the person is. And once we get to that part and we get through the layers of the surface level stuff that they’ve gotten so used to telling people and we get to the personal stuff.

And that’s when we can start to make the change because even though that personal stuff, the stuff that people see in the mirror, it’s hard to sell because you can’t count it, measure it, you can’t see it. That’s the main thing most people need. But almost nobody shows up saying, this is what I want. They show up saying, I want the thing on the surface, the thing I can count, measure and check the box for. But the only way to get those resolved is we got to get to who the person is. So you have to show them this, but you got to give them that. So the metaphor I like to use is feeding medicine to a dog.

Nick McGowan (36:55.48)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (37:01.24)
the

Dre Baldwin (37:16.963)
You they don’t really need the peanut butter, but they say they want the peanut butter, but you got to hide the medicine inside of it. So you got to get them to understand. Yes, I can help you with the surface level issue. Now that they believe that what we’re going to get to without me even having to say it explicitly, Nick, is we have to figure out who is the person you see in the mirror, because until this person changes, you’re never going to be willing to confidently say that number in the middle of a meeting to get the price that you want for this project. You keep charging about our you need to be charged about the project.

Nick McGowan (37:34.838)
Mm-hmm.

Dre Baldwin (37:44.424)
Now you’re accepting $200 an hour. You need to be charging them 100K for the project for six months, but you’re not willing to say that number. So until we fix how you see yourself, I can say the number for you. I can go get the deal, but you can’t get it. You have to say the number. So we got to deal with that part. Not all this other, all these other things are just details is we got to get to who you see in the mirror because who you see in the mirror leads to how you carry yourself energetically. 85 % of communication is nonverbal. So

Whatever you see in the mirror is how you carry yourself. Other people pick up on that non-verbally. They respond to it non-verbally. That leads to them saying yes or no for reasons that have nothing to do with what you actually said and nothing to do what they actually said. So whatever reason they gave you is not the real reason. And whatever you think is the reason is not the real reason. But that is the main conversation. Most people don’t understand that. So my job is helping people understand that and understand when you get the non-verbal part right, what you say verbally doesn’t really matter that much.

Nick McGowan (38:29.166)
You

Dre Baldwin (38:41.915)
One thing you learn in sales, you can’t say the right thing to the wrong person. You can’t say the wrong thing to the right person. When the energy is right, it doesn’t matter. But most people are so stuck in their heads, especially high performance, because high performance is usually really smart. They have a lot of information, a lot of knowledge. They read a ton of books. They’ve written books. It’s hard to get them to get past the intellectual level to the energetic level. But that’s where everything is happening.

Nick McGowan (38:45.912)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (38:49.624)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (39:05.353)
I’m so glad that you got to this point of the energetic level. There are the things that were, yeah, we want the surface thing because we need the surface thing. Just like we want to sell things because really we want to do these other things. Some people, it’s a thing where, I want to sell more because I want a second home or I want a beach house or whatever. That’s an issue in and of itself. If it’s like, I just want to do this to buy this thing where I’m not going to go down that path, but…

The reason why I bring that up is I think there are times where we can look at things and say, want this because other people want me to want it. The system of the world tells me I should have this. Like showing up to a meeting in this bad ass car, like if you have a broken down car or something that actually makes sense for you to have, and you enjoy having a 2009 Accord or whatever it is, that shouldn’t dictate the type of level of service that you have. But people will think that they have to put on this facade and the charade.

because they’re afraid to be themselves when in most times, as you know, most people don’t know who themselves are. They don’t know who it is that they really want to be or what they want to do. The energetic part of it is so huge, especially in sales. I mean, you and I could shoot the shit on sales forever. I think about the people that I’ve trained over the course of time where they just have such a hard time not reading a script because they can’t embody it.

They can’t embody the framework of how to have the conversation to ultimately level the person and fucking just see if you can help. Cause if he can’t get off the phone, if you can, beautiful, continue the conversation. But the bullshitting is not going to help either one of you. But people will go, well, I have to do this. And we do it mostly to ourselves. Like if you think about how many people talk shit to themselves, like, geez, if that was a friend or somebody outside, you would have a restraining order, you know, like you’d be fearing for your life.

So getting to that level is really difficult for a lot of people, even the people that do a lot of the work, because it’s asking them to shake the boundaries and the foundation of themselves. And that can be really uncomfortable, especially for high performers that are like, I’ve been doing this at such a high level. Now you’re asking me to go backward. Now we’re asking you to actually adjust the foundation so you go forward from there. I mean, I really appreciate you being on today. Appreciate the wisdom and the insight.

Nick McGowan (41:28.056)
For those people that are on their path towards self-mastery, be it somebody who’s a performer or somebody who’s an athlete or somebody who’s just really trying to figure out how do they fit within their own little piece of the world, what’s your advice for them on their path towards self-mastery?

Dre Baldwin (41:43.546)
Biggest thing is for people to get more fully present with themselves. Everybody’s heard the term being fully present. What presence is, is not something that you learn, is not something you add on, is not something you develop. Presence already exists. Presence is what remains when you strip away all the noise, all the excess. So anything that’s coming from your smartphone is noise. Text messages, emails, notifications, any app you can get on, all of it is noise. It’s an added on. It didn’t come with you standard equipment when you were born.

Nick McGowan (42:04.078)
You

Dre Baldwin (42:12.829)
Your thoughts about the future is noise because you’re time traveling into the future that didn’t happen. You’re reminiscing on the past is noise because you’re time traveling into the past that already happened. You thinking about something that’s not happening where you are right now in the moment where your feet are is noise because you are not in the place that you are. You’re not grounded in the current moment. Presence is what’s left when you strip away all that excess. The challenge for many people is that presence bothers them because they’re left with the only thing they don’t want to deal with, which is themselves.

When you strip everything away, all that’s left is just you dealing with you. And that’s uncomfortable for people. And interestingly enough, a lot of high performers are uncomfortable with themselves. So what we do is we keep adding on more noise. You can listen to another podcast. You can read another book. You can watch another YouTube video. You can go gather more information. You can go give out more information. That all keeps your mind stimulated and occupied so you don’t have to deal with yourself. When you get used to dealing with yourself, you calm down that, as they say, the monkey mind.

This is what they talk about in mindfulness or yoga or any type of meditation when you get comfortable being with yourself your signal Internally that you project externally gets ten times stronger and you actually get better results The challenge is you had to deal with the withdrawal symptoms of turning all that stimulus off Doesn’t mean you can’t stimulate doesn’t mean you don’t read talk do your work But you have to be able to turn it off and control it instead of it controlling you the world that we’re in now today Nick these devices

have trained us to be controlled. We’re not in control anymore. We’re being controlled. We have to still have a device. I still got a phone. I got two phones on my desk and an iPad and a computer, but I control them. They don’t control me. Exactly. So the thing is you have to learn to control them and turn them off when you want to not be pulled in by the dopamine rush. I think that’s the biggest thing in the world we’re in today, especially for the highly intelligent high performers.

Nick McGowan (43:41.806)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (44:04.216)
Yeah, and that could be fun. Literally in those moments like where you know, like I think about myself at times. I’m an iPad kid in a way. Like I have my video games that I play and I’ll veg out and I kind of work through them are primarily like 2K games, know, NBA and NFL and stuff. But there are times where I can feel like, I’ve just been doing this for a bit. And it’s an actual lift to put the fucking thing down to step up.

move out of the energy of watching TV, even if you’re like, look, I’m gonna give myself an hour or two to just veg and whatever. When you feel it, that’s one of those moments where it’s like you have an opportunity to do something with it, because you are really present and you’re aware of yourself enough to go, all right, motherfucker, get up, get out of here, go do something else. That is one of those moments that people that have a hard time sitting with themselves miss those because you don’t see them more often. But when you see it,

You can’t not see it. Like I joke about self-awareness at times. Like the more aware you become, the fucking more aware you become. And the more aware you become, the more aware you become. Like you can’t get away from it. And it can be really tough, but I appreciate the work that you’re doing. There’s a lot when people say like, you know, you want to be mindful. Like I hear from times different, different people listening. They’re like, you can’t just mindset your way through life. Like I get it. Listen to the fucking conversations. That’s not what we talk about. It’s not about just.

forcing yourself to do a thing that either one of us are saying. It’s about actually taking this and figuring out how does it work into my life? And how do I think about things a little differently? And what do you want to do from there? So Dre, I appreciate you being on today. This has been awesome. I’m sure we could just sit here and just keep talking about things, but it is almost top of the art. Before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

Dre Baldwin (45:51.997)
They can just go to work on your game.com work on your game.com and anything you need will be found there.

Nick McGowan (45:58.262)
Awesome. Again, man, I appreciate your time today. Thank you very much.

Dre Baldwin (46:01.321)
Thanks for having me on Nick, appreciate the conversation.

In this episode, Nick explores the concepts of confidence and certainty, their differences, and how they influence personal growth. He discusses practical insights on how understanding these can improve mindset, decision-making, and emotional resilience.

What to listen for:

“If we don’t have confidence, we’re probably pretty uncertain about something.”

“Confidence in the work, certainty in the results.”

About Nick McGowan

I’m Nick McGowan, an entrepreneur, podcaster, and mental health advocate, and I’ve been on a 20+ year journey of personal development, learning to master my mindset, emotions, and the art of living with purpose.

As a Mindset and Self-Mastery Mentor, I work with ambitious men and women who want to live their most authentic and joyous lives by helping them master their mindset, emotional awareness, and authentic communication. My mission is to empower people to lead lives that feel aligned, grounded, and truly their own.

Throughout my career, I’ve built teams, streamlined systems, and improved client experiences across SaaS, media, marketing, and personal development spaces. Whether I’m leading cross-functional projects, optimizing SEO, Podcasting, designing strategies, or guiding clients through transformation, I bring a hands-on, solution-focused approach to everything I do.

I’m also the host of The Mindset and Self-Mastery Show, where my guests and I unpack the stories that shape us, challenge us, and ultimately guide us back to who we are at our core. On this show, we uncover the secret gems others have discovered through trial and error and breakthroughs, so you can fast-track your growth and master your mindset in your pursuit of self-mastery. Check out the latest episode here.

With years of podcasting and two decades of marketing experience, I’ve mastered the storytelling, interview flow, strategy, and technical production that elevate a podcast from “just content” to something truly impactful. Whether you’re a leader looking to amplify your message, a seasoned speaker and podcast host looking to sharpen your edge, or even a beginner who is wondering how to share their message, I mentor thought leaders through every step of having the conversation they’re here to have on this planet.

So, what message are you here to share?!

Resources:

Check out other episodes about our confidence and clarity

Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have? https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/podcasting-services/

Learn more about our host, Nick McGowan
https://nickmcgowan.com/

Thank you for listening!

Please subscribe on iTunes and give us a 5-Star review! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mindset-and-self-mastery-show/id1604262089

Listen to other episodes here: https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/

Watch Clips and highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk1tCM7KTe3hrq_-UAa6GHA

Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]

Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”

Nick McGowan 00:00
No matter what we’ve done in life or what we’re doing right now, whether that’s purpose work, working on past traumas and really trying to figure out how to manage our mindset on a daily, it comes down to us understanding from a confidence perspective that you may be confident in the thing that you’re doing. It’s not the exact same as being certain in how you’re going about it.

Nick McGowan 00:28
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self-Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show, I wanna talk about how confidence and certainty factor into personal growth. What is confidence, and what is certainty? Confidence is feeling like you’re able to actually get something done. It’s really the intent for the impact that you wanna have. You’re confident that you feel like you can get this thing done, whatever that thing is. Certainty is 100 % knowing that it’s going to happen.

Nick McGowan 00:58
And there’s a small little bit of difference between those and really kind of a gray area where certainty and confidence can intersect, but they can also play at odds with each other. If you go into something certain that something’s going to happen, you’re going to lack confidence or maybe you’re going to have a bit more confidence. I think about it in the sense of if you know that you want to go in and have a really tough conversation with somebody you work with, that’s different.

Nick McGowan 01:26
than a tough conversation with your partner or your spouse or somebody that you love. You may be certain going into that, that you have the facts, you have the things together, you need to be able to have the proper conversation. And you can feel confident knowing that you have those, but anything can happen at that point. Somebody could say something, somebody could bring something up that you’re unaware of, and that can knock down your confidence. That could absolutely destroy your certainty at that point.

Nick McGowan 01:55
So if you think of confidence, just being confident in moving through the world, I’m sure you’ve seen different people that seem to be super confident, but have no idea what they’re doing in life. When you’re confident and you have this internal belief that what you’re doing, you’re going to give it your all and that you’re able to move into something without any hesitation, that’s vastly different than even having some confidence.

Nick McGowan 02:21
Like if you kinda know I’m gonna move into this situation or this conversation and I feel good about what I’m doing, that’s vastly different than being able to move into something with full confidence. You’ve experienced that, we’ve all experienced that. No matter what we’ve done in life or what we’re doing right now, whether that’s purpose work or that’s working on past traumas and really trying to figure out how to manage our mindset on a daily, it comes down to us understanding from a confidence perspective.

Nick McGowan 02:51
that you may be confident in the thing that you’re doing. It’s not the exact same as being certain in how you’re going about it. Makes me think of when people talk about practicing, practice makes perfect. I’ve also heard that if you practice the wrong things, of course you’re not gonna be perfect in what you’re trying to be perfect in, which makes sense. That’s kind of a duh situation. A lot of people will actually go through life working on things that they think they need to work on and being confident that they’re working

Nick McGowan 03:19
on the things that they’re working on that actually tie to deeper core wounds and will make actual change in their life. They’re not certain about it. And finding certainty in what you’re doing can really take a level of confidence, but also a level of understanding and empathy and courageousness to be able to move through something with certainty. I feel like some of this may be a bit ambiguous and I’m somewhat trying to keep it that way because

Nick McGowan 03:48
your situation in life and your context is different than mine. Even if they’re similar, there’s still nuances and differences and things that we go through that maybe affect us differently or affect the way that we handle situations differently or the way that we view life on the daily. When I think of confidence and I think of certainty tying into and really factoring into our personal growth, I think about being confident in myself being able to do the work.

Nick McGowan 04:17
And even if I don’t always feel certain that the work will help me grow and change, I am confident in the patterns that I’ve seen over the course of time and how things work, which then ties back into my certainty. Let’s think about that. For confident in the things that we’re doing and we’re working on, certainty can come along with that as we see examples of how things work, like the work that we’re doing for ourself.

Nick McGowan 04:43
As a prime example, if you’re going through therapy right now, maybe you’ve been in therapy for years and years and years. I am certain that therapy works, but I’m uncertain if what you’re doing right now is actually working for you. The modality may need to be changed up. If you’re doing talk therapy right now, maybe it’s EMDR or DBT or something that really gets deeper to your subconscious to be able to rewrite those stories and change those. I’m certain that

Nick McGowan 05:12
Anything like that can ultimately help, but I’m uncertain of what’s exactly going to help you. If you’re confident and moving through and trying the different modalities, you can also be certain that health and happiness and growth will come from that. If we think about being able to tie the two together, if we don’t have confidence, we’re probably pretty uncertain about something. If we’re certain about something, we probably at least have a little bit of confidence to it.

Nick McGowan 05:40
and a little bit of boost that goes along with it. I just wanted to have this be a relatively quick episode to be able to get into those two topics. And I’m gonna expand upon those just throughout other episodes as I do. That was on my heart today to be able to talk about. And I want you to be able to take from this that if you’re certain about a situation will turn out positive or negative, then you can be confident in some ways that you’re right. But if you’re certain about a situation that’s positive or negative,

Nick McGowan 06:09
that will actually affect your confidence. And if you’re able to move through life with confidence based on healing and doing the work to be able to heal things that have shaped the way that you look at really life now, you will have more confidence. And therefore, I believe you’ll have more certainty. If you have questions, if you want me to dive deeper into this or you wanna understand how do I actually gain confidence in my life? How do I gain certainty in my life? And how do I see the differences in those? I’d love to be able to help you out.

Nick McGowan 06:39
Please reach out to me. Thank you, and I appreciate your time.

Thanks for listening to today’s episode. What did you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you enjoyed the episode, please jump over to Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you consume podcasts and subscribe, rate, and leave a five-star review. It’s very much appreciated and also helps other people find the show and experience healing just like us. Please also head over to our website, The Mindset and Self Mastery Show.

Nick McGowan 07:14
where you can check out all of our episodes and find additional resources to help you manage your mindset as you seek self-mastery. So with that, thank you and remember, your mindset matters and so do you.

In this episode, Nick speaks with Amber Richbook about her journey through identity, subconscious beliefs, and the impact of generational trauma. They explore the importance of awareness and the role of cultural identity in shaping our experiences and ultimately who we believe we are and what our “identity” means to us.

What to listen for:

“We all have different generational things running through our veins. What are we going to do with them? How are we going to reconcile? How are we going to bring the healing?”

“You must be willing to change identities as many times and as often as you feel led to”

About Amber Richbook

Amber Richbook is a transformational speaker and identity-shift coach who helps people move from simply existing to fully living. Through keynotes, coaching, and her podcast Meaningful Conversations, she teaches individuals to break self-limiting beliefs and take practical steps toward authentic, purpose-driven lives. She is a TEDx speaker and has appeared on PBS and corporate leadership platforms. Her mission is to become the go-to voice for mindset and identity transformation for a new generation.

Resources:

Check out other episodes about identity:

Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have? https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/podcasting-services/

Learn more about our host, Nick McGowan: https://nickmcgowan.com

Thank you for listening!

Please subscribe on iTunes and give us a 5-Star review! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mindset-and-self-mastery-show/id1604262089

Listen to other episodes here: https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/

Watch Clips and highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk1tCM7KTe3hrq_-UAa6GHA

Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]

Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”

Nick McGowan (00:00.495)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show we have Amber Richbook. Amber, how are doing today?

Amber RichBook (00:22.403)
Well, how are you Nick? Thank you for having me.

Nick McGowan (00:25.679)
Yeah, absolutely. We were just shooting the shit for like a solid half hour. And again, one of those situations like let’s just record. So I’m stoked for you to be here. I think this is gonna be cool. We’re gonna get into a lot to talk about identity, subconscious limiting beliefs and your story. And even talking about regional and generational trauma and some of the things I’ve talked about on different episodes. But I think identity is a big part of that. I always like to start episodes off with something that’s a little

Amber RichBook (00:29.846)
I know.

Nick McGowan (00:54.319)
odd or bizarre about you that most people don’t know. So what do you got for me?

Amber RichBook (00:58.19)
Okay, so one of my bizarre weird things that people don’t know about me is that I wrote about my life as a single mother of three daughters when I was in the first grade and my mom

She kept like this big bag, like everywhere we moved to, this was like this big bag of childhood memorabilia from myself and my siblings of things we drew and wrote in kindergarten, pre-K, first grade, second grade, like the little macaroni art that’s like happy Mother’s Day. Here’s a flower with glue and there’s missing pieces on it. And so, you know, in first grade when they have the writing pads with the story and you draw the little ugly picture and you think like,

Nick McGowan (01:32.655)
Yeah, of course.

Amber RichBook (01:44.014)
And it’s like Miss A takes her three daughters and the names were like J, E, A, like they were all like names with those initials. And my daughter’s names now have the initials J, A, and E. To get ice cream and they love driving in their really big truck.

and they love doing all these fun things together. They like dancing. like, there was no, was just this Miss A.

and her three daughters. And I remember years ago when I, well, my mom was like, kind of like, all right, you guys are grown, take your shit. Like I saved all of it. Let me show you guys that I actually cared about you as children. Like do with it what you want. I’m like, okay, so let me go through my stuff. And I’m just sitting there and I’m reading it. And I was like, can I curse? I was like, okay.

Nick McGowan (02:27.96)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (02:40.958)
yeah.

Amber RichBook (02:42.86)
I was like, Amber, what the fuck were you writing about in the fucking first grade? Like you’re writing about being a mom. Now, fun fact, I was the child, the friend, even in high school that used to call kids creatures. I was like, ill, be a mom. That’s so disgusting. Motherhood. So now there’s a running joke. Like every mother’s day, my friends from high school and college are like, dude, how did you become a mom?

Nick McGowan (02:45.443)
Yeah.

Amber RichBook (03:09.836)
Like that’s the joke. Like you’re a mom, bro. None of them are mothers, but I’m a mom. Dude, how did that happen? So I think that’s interesting because one of my favorite books is The Alchemist. I talk about it in my, started my Ted talk with it and it was like, we really go on this journey of life and all you’re doing is getting back to the core of who you are.

Nick McGowan (03:10.179)
You

Nick McGowan (03:14.423)
Ugh.

Nick McGowan (03:36.569)
Yeah.

Amber RichBook (03:36.992)
and your inner child, like those youthful experience where your imagination is purely untamed, not realizing that many of us have these gifts. We all have these gifts and abilities, but where were they most active? How were they most active?

and I’ll just layer it with this before I give it back to you. There was a thread that I saw recently that said, healers, spiritual people, did you have a near death experience that confirmed your abilities, et cetera, et cetera? And when I was born,

Nick McGowan (04:10.863)
Mm-hmm.

Amber RichBook (04:13.942)
I only had eight minutes to live. Eight is my favorite number. Eight is when I was eight years old. That was like my favorite age. Schoolhouse rock was like a thing when I was growing up. So it was like the figure eight song. I loved eight. When I was in school, I was always drawing eight. I was always like just fascinated with eight. And my birthday is on a 26. So two plus six equals eight. And so.

Nick McGowan (04:26.704)
yeah.

Amber RichBook (04:43.118)
start reflecting on these things and you’re like oh here are how all the dots connect in my life in my reality in my experience so yeah i’m a little woo woo

Nick McGowan (04:56.431)
I don’t think it’s as much woo woo as it’s looking for patterns of things. I’m similar in the sense where I look, like we were talking about even signs before we hit record, looking for signs. I think there’s a level of awareness. And if you’re aware of something, you can at least say, well, that’s something. I don’t particularly agree that there are like coincidences in the world. I think there are things that line up, but then there are also things that just don’t make sense. Like I remember saying,

Amber RichBook (05:07.148)
Yeah.

Amber RichBook (05:19.534)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick McGowan (05:25.679)
People saying to me like years and years and years ago like you might read something in a book or like the Bible or whatever and it doesn’t make any sense at all and then years later it punches you right in the mouth like there are times literally within the Bible or God’s like this thing today means the most thing to you and you’re like, whoa What what does that mean and you’ve read it 400 billion times? Or you’ve seen a situation or whatever. I think there’s a power of being aware to be able to see those things but then

Amber RichBook (05:36.183)
Yep.

Nick McGowan (05:53.229)
like you had even said before we hit record, and we probably should have just hit record way early, was that it’s our responsibility to do something with that. And it’s what we get to do with it from there that actually shapes the way that future generations and all of those sort of things. It’s interesting to me, like right off the bat when you said, I wrote that out in first grade and now I’m living it, because I remember people in grade school thinking or writing out like a five year, 10 year plan.

Amber RichBook (05:56.942)
you

Amber RichBook (06:01.569)
Yep.

Amber RichBook (06:09.336)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (06:21.967)
There were a couple of the smart kids in school that I can think back to, like fifth or sixth grade that did that. And there was one in particular, I forget what her name was, but she was like dead set. Like this is exactly how my life’s gonna be. And I’ve thought about that girl every once in a while of like, did life work out? Because my life was totally different than what anything I could have ever created. But what a cool thing for you to see, because it sounds like you didn’t say, well, my intention is to have three kids.

Amber RichBook (06:39.5)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nick McGowan (06:51.381)
and nobody around and I wanna do this and we’re gonna go get ice cream and all this like this is the fucking life I’m gonna live and like you pushed for it but what a wild thing for it to create, yeah.

Amber RichBook (06:53.089)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, you just lived.

Yes. And, and, and then I want to say like older years, like in my teen years, I remember being a freshman and we had the opportunity to sign up for vocational school. prior to us hitting record because Nick and I, were chopping it up. we were talking, I said, you know, even as I navigate my own gifts, I had to process, okay, am I speaking things into existence or am I speaking something that’s already into existence and it’s already the same. So even when you say coincidences aren’t real,

coincidence gets a freaking rap because if we break down coincidence, it is coincide. It is all these things that are coming together, but it’s easier to write it off like, it’s just a coincidence. It’s nothing. But if it’s really a coincidence, you should want to do the investigation of.

Nick McGowan (07:37.081)
Yeah.

Amber RichBook (07:52.246)
where is this coexistence happening in my reality? Okay, so Amber, what are you getting to? When I was in the eighth or the ninth grade, they said we could sign up for a vocational school. So school, high school, halftime, then go to a technical school. So I’m like, all right, I wanna do cosmetology because I don’t wanna flip burgers while I’m in college. Like that was what I convinced my mother. I’m like, mom.

Nick McGowan (08:05.377)
Yeah.

Amber RichBook (08:16.898)
And it was $300 and I’m like, it comes with a whole kit. And I’m like, you want me to go to college, right? Like I’m not saying I’m not going to college. So I don’t want to flip burgers. Not that anything is wrong with that. Cause I did end up working at a fast food restaurant, right? Because you’re like, I don’t want to do that. And then you end up where you said you don’t want to be because the universe source wherever it doesn’t here don’t, it just hears focus and attention. And I went through that.

that cosmetology program, graduated high school, graduated with my cosmetology license. I’m still licensed to this day. And I remember when I was in college, I had a car accident where I lost all my cognitive abilities and I had to medically withdraw. Now, once I started to heal up, I didn’t have the cognitive ability to return back to college.

Nick McGowan (08:58.361)
Hmm.

Amber RichBook (09:09.024)
Why? Because prior to my accident, had a brain contusion afterwards, but I could study with the lights on, the music on, the TV on, all these stimulators. But then after my accident, when I say I had to write things word for word, I had to have pure silence, I had to take breaks. I’m like, this is not going to work for me. So I had this cosmetology license to lean back on to create a living for myself and to work prior to returning back to school.

Nick McGowan (09:29.006)
Hmm.

Amber RichBook (09:38.88)
And so that’s where that interconnectedness of the universal law of cause and effect, right? So if you ensure, like get insurance on all these things, you’re also calling in accidents, breaks. You’re also calling in all the things that benefit from having this insurance. So that’s how interesting and coincidental life is, is when you’re preparing and creating these incidents

Nick McGowan (09:53.709)
you

Nick McGowan (10:04.836)
Mm.

Amber RichBook (10:08.784)
that get to coincide with each other. That was so crazy. Yes. Yes.

Nick McGowan (10:13.871)
I think the awareness is the glue of that though. Like if you’re aware of that stuff, you can then do something or not. Like there are certain things I think that happen. Like even with you saying, all right, mom, I’m gonna go to college, but I wanna go this route. You’re really just thinking from a perspective of the system of the world tells me that I need to make money. I need to do this on my own. So I guess I’ll go do this thing. Yes.

Amber RichBook (10:35.692)
and I need to have something to fall back on, right? So going with that intention of I need something to fall back on because something can go wrong. Yup.

Nick McGowan (10:43.833)
Just in case. Yeah. Which is such a fucked thing. So our parents went through the bullshit like that with their parents and maybe they went to college or they did something and they had something they could fall back on because their parents said, based on the current system that we’re in, in the 60s and 70s, this is what it’s gonna be like. And by the time the 80s and 90s came around, now we’re experiencing what that’s like where you motherfuckers were able to afford a house.

Amber RichBook (10:49.262)
You

Amber RichBook (10:53.975)
Yep.

Nick McGowan (11:13.359)
for $13,000 back in the day. We can’t afford that for a porch on a house, let alone, you know what I mean? But those though are stories and it’s up to us to be able to change. And I think that’s where part of the awakening is happening, where we then look back and go, well, motherfucker, some of this shit really fucked us up. And this was straight up abuse in that time or.

Amber RichBook (11:13.826)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, okay, wait.

Amber RichBook (11:26.711)
Yeah.

Yes. Yes.

Nick McGowan (11:40.751)
You told me I needed to do this and therefore I went down a different path because I wasn’t able to just be my authentic self. Now it’s not like we live in some reality where we just like unicorns and rainbows constantly and we just create whatever we want. Like the Jetsons, you go, I’m hungry, here’s a button and like whatever. I actually don’t want that anyway. Like by the time AI does that shit, I hope to be long gone. But we are not in that space where we can just play constantly.

Amber RichBook (11:47.971)
Yeah.

Amber RichBook (11:57.359)
Yeah.

Amber RichBook (12:00.876)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (12:09.721)
but how do we be ourselves with our identity to be able to play?

Amber RichBook (12:13.486)
Let’s see, Nick, but that’s the theme. I play all the time. Play is a part of it. I think also, so there’s so many different things I would jump through my head as you were talking. And I’m trying to get there. I’m going to get there. My matrilineal line, my grandmother was brought here by a white family in 1961 from Antigua to be there up here. And my mother was a first-generational.

college graduate and then I was a second generational college graduate and each my grandmother worked to get her GED coming to America. She got her GED. She worked as a maid in upstate New York. And then once she had my mom and my aunt’s and uncle, she went to school to be a nurse because that’s what she needed to or she felt she needed to do.

than my mom or CNA, right? Cause my mom went to college. then there’s me. And so it’s kind of like you mentioned the Bible earlier. I like to tell people like I am an Abrahamic prophecy fulfilled for my grandmother who came to America.

for this opportunity from her little island. And in that rate, she worked for white people. And growing up cultured, I didn’t grow up knowing that I was Caribbean because no one wanted to be, everybody wanted to be American. So I was having Caribbean experiences in the household. And I think by the time I got, cause I grew up, where I was growing up, people were like, you’re mixed, you’re not.

you’re not just black. And my dad’s family, they’re from the Virginia that’s there, we could trace back to there. And I’m like, yo. And so I was in college, I’m like, I’m not just black. I’m not just African American. I’m not just this. But also it was in high school. So why is all of this relevant? Because it leads to my life. In high school, as a ninth grader, the same year that I was like, okay, I don’t wanna be a whatever I wanna be.

Amber RichBook (14:29.528)
do here and this is the first time that I’m telling this story and I’m telling this story because of our pre-show conversation and you said I the real, I want the ball, I want all this stuff. So this is the first time I’m sharing this publicly. When I was in the ninth grade, I went to a predominantly white high school where less than 10 % of the high school population were students of color.

And I had just moved, this was in the Poconos, and I had just moved from New Jersey because my mom was like, I want you to have a better opportunity, et cetera, et cetera. And at this time, these innate things, I have to share my cultural experience, right? Because people don’t, it’s going to make sense.

Nick McGowan (15:11.865)
Context.

Amber RichBook (15:12.022)
you proximity to whiteness will help me be better. That’s why my name is Amber. How many times in high school, right? I remember where there was a substitute teacher and there was another black girl in my class, but she did. She wasn’t there for the day and her name was Shaniqua. Like that was for real her name, but she wasn’t there. So when the substitute got to her name, she’s like, Shaniqua, like whatever. And so she’s looking at me and I’m like, I’m not Shaniqua.

Nick McGowan (15:16.473)
Hmm.

Mmm.

Nick McGowan (15:40.078)
Man.

Amber RichBook (15:41.888)
My name was at the end of the thing. So she’s like, Amber Walters. And I’m like, that’s me. man, what? She was going to write me up, me to the principal’s office because she thought I was being funny. And like my classmates were like, no, she’s Amber. I had to get up and show my ID. So having that experience as a ninth grader, then being voted freshman class president, the first black president at a high school, like that was the thing.

Nick McGowan (15:42.959)
You don’t live here no more.

Amber RichBook (16:11.958)
at 14 and you got all this pressure. And so now you’re on the softball field and you’re in gym playing softball and you beat the popular girl. You beat the girl who’s been in this district since she was in kindergarten and all her friends and surrounding around. And for the first time in my life, I was called the N word and it was swing and N swing, swing and N swing.

And that was my first time. So the culture shock of going from the urban Jersey experience to this predominantly white experience, not harming anyone, just like, yeah, we’re people, we’re ninth graders. Like, it’s cool. Like, I’m just, I’m Amber. Like, we’re gonna be class president. It’s gonna be cool, like class or whatever. And I had never had that experience. And I’m like, all I could feel was like, don’t call me that.

Nick McGowan (16:44.867)
Yeah.

Amber RichBook (17:05.942)
And I remember, swing and then swing. You think you won and you think you won. You cheated, you did. And I’m like, what the fuck? And all I went in is to warrior.

And it was like my mother, my grandmother, my grandmother before them. My grandmother is a product of Portuguese colonization in Antigua, taking advantage of an indigenous woman on the island, right? So she had no home from either side. And I defended myself, but I was punished for that incident.

And I was the first, and I tell my kids, joke about it now, right? I’m like, I was the first black president in my high school, the first one to be voted in, and the first one to be impeached.

And that followed me through my whole high school career. And it was in my 20s that this particular woman reached out to me via LinkedIn. And she’s like, I just want to apologize for what happened in the ninth grade. And I’m like, girl, you fucked up my high school career. I graduated in the top 10 % of my class, but that still followed me. And that followed me. And we talked about the Alchemist early on before we came on the show. And I’m sharing this depth of, because you want the real world, I’m going tell you. It shared that depth because that depth.

Nick McGowan (17:54.403)
Hahaha.

Nick McGowan (18:07.715)
Ha ha ha.

Amber RichBook (18:23.916)
because it then took me on that journey when I did go back to college and I finished in accounting as a non-traditional student and I went to the big four as a public accountant.

the only one who looked like me. And so it was now my 14 year old self back in this swing and end swing. Go get this thing and go get this coffee and go get this thing. And you’re like, what is happening? But that’s where the world is like, where you talked about where our parents, you got to go to college, you got to graduate, you got to get the good job, you got to do what you got to do, you got to keep your head down. For me and my reality, it’s you got to work twice as hard, you got to be twice as this, don’t show your emotion, don’t show

You don’t have these things. So even as I built my career in corporate, right? I built myself to be the corporate mermaid where I tell people don’t ask me shit about corporate because I do what I want when I want how I want whenever I want but I had to heal that 14 year old girl who thought that she wasn’t enough and that thought and and and took the emotional responsibility so me as the adult going to her like we don’t

Like what Michelle Obama say, when they go low, we go higher, whatever she said, right? Like, no, that has nothing to do with you. That has nothing to do with you. And so me moving in the frequency of love.

giving people back their pain. You mentioned trauma early, giving them back their trauma. Because just like people of color have generational trauma innate in our DNA, so do Europeans, so do Caucasians, so do white Americans. We all have these different generational things running through our veins and it’s what are we going to do with them?

How are we going to reconcile? How are we going to bring the healing? And it looks like that accountability, it looks like no. And so what ended up happening and then I’ll wrap it up because I know I just gave you so much at one time.

They tried to, I don’t want to say they tried to set me up, but I live near UNC, like the museum, and they were like, we need you to go audit the museum. I’m a little baby associate. You want me to audit a museum’s millions of dollars painting and do an inventory count? I said, okay. I said, okay. And I used to have my, my Bob, my professional white girl looking black hair.

so I could be palatable. And I remember the museum couldn’t find a painting, Nick. It was $7 million. And they were like, you can leave. And when we find it, we’ll let you know. I was like, I am not leaving here until y’all find this painting. I am not leaving here. But seeing the pressure that was on me in that now moment.

Nick McGowan (21:12.921)
No, my God.

Amber RichBook (21:19.982)
think is the same pressure that I felt in being voted class president as a ninth grade girl. And I sat there and I sat there and they found it because I was like, God, they got to find this. And it was in between some other paintings. But just seeing how my inner child, the intensity that I had and so to bring it home, how

Spirit, source, universe, your life path is gonna keep putting you in positions until you get comfortable. And so I remember my mom, she was in seminary school when I was a kid. And I remember going with her and this was in Madison, New Jersey at Drew University. And we pulled up to Burger King. Again, these are things I’ve never told anyone, right? You want the depth, the raw.

And she’s like, Amber, you didn’t want to get out the car. And I’m like, what? She’s like, I don’t want to get out the car because all those white people are going to look at me. Now, my family, my mom had white friends. Like, we had a very diverse.

friend experience. was not isolated from things. My grandfather, was friends with Italians. I was in school, so it was very diverse, but there was a different energy. It was a different sense. It was a different experience. So now as an adult woman, it was like, right. When we were talking about self mastery and mindset, in my TED talk, I talked about the Oro Burrows, the loop of life, the beginning and the end being one, the death and

and the birth and the rebirth and the death and the birth, that cycle. And it wasn’t until I finally, in my adult years, got into the same space as my white peers, my white colleagues, and I stopped shrinking myself to inferiority. And that looked like my grand living and becoming my grandmother’s deferred dream that she wasn’t able to witness in her living life.

Amber RichBook (23:22.99)
Everything in life connects in that capacity. I had to learn to be confident as an eight year old. I had to learn to be confident as a 14 year old, as a 20 something year old. Now in my thirties to be like, I stand in my power. Now we know that we create our reality. And I was creating my reality at all of those ages. All of those experiences were my own personal lessons to learn. I’m sorry, y’all. Thank you for your patience. I was just running my mouth.

Nick McGowan (23:26.669)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (23:40.665)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (23:51.801)
Yeah, thank you for the Ted talk. mean, well, truthfully that’s some of the best magic that happens within podcasting. Even if we just had a few minute conversation, we probably wouldn’t get to this. And I think it’s on me as the host to be able to facilitate this and allow you to have those conversations.

Amber RichBook (23:52.944)
I know I was like

Nick McGowan (24:16.695)
and allow in the sense of like, let’s move in a direction that makes it open for you to be able to do that. There’s a lot that you put out there, obviously, and those that are gonna listen to this, they’re like, yeah, there’s a whole lot. But there’s a lot of great things and it’s all also woven together and there’s patterns to that. There’s system problem to start off with. Those white kids in the fucking Poconos, I know, yeah, it’s much different than East Orange.

Amber RichBook (24:40.782)
because you know the polka-dos, you’re from up there.

Nick McGowan (24:46.243)
and vastly different. I grew up in the burbs, but in a more diverse section of the burbs, not the higher end burbs. Like if anybody’s from Springfield, Pennsylvania, you know, you’re different than Prospect Park and Glen Olden. And there’s versions to that, but then also living in the city at times. And my mom grew up in the city in Philly as a tiny little goofy looking redhead kid.

She got picked on because she looked like Pippi Longstocking basically. And she had problems with Italians and other Irish people as well as African-American people and Latin people and like all these different groups. But all of that comes from a fucking system problem and generational trauma because everybody’s pitted against themselves. And ultimately what I’m learning is that it gets further back to the white people.

Amber RichBook (25:34.796)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Nick McGowan (25:41.753)
that said, think we’re better than you. So we’re just gonna do this the way that we think. And even with like a male and female sort of thing, like men think they’re better than women and I don’t understand it. Like I thank God daily for my partner because she’s so much smarter than I am and so much more grounded and there are things that we learn. And that’s the way that even when you think of men and women being together, let’s just use that as an example where

Men should be the leaders. That’s not correct. Women actually lead us. She leads me a lot and will lead me into a direction that then I can do my part and go from there. I think there’s awareness to this and understanding what some of those systems are. Like why are there poor sections of a city or a town? probably because they’re all pushed that direction and everything’s fucking concrete. They can’t even grow their own vegetables. They can’t even…

try to get out of the system that they’re stuck within. And even what you’re saying with your mom saying, well, we’re gonna go closer to a white direction because proximity, that makes me think of from the Irish people that were brought over here that were like, well, you’re a slave, but you’re white. And why don’t we just make you a cop? Because, know, fuck it, you’ve got a little bit of authority, but you’re not gonna have all the authority.

I’m not saying that I understand what you went through at all because really I don’t. But I can see how some of that is even within my cells that needs to be processed out. I think of the shit that I went through as a kid being a token white kid. kids would make fun of me because I was a chunky little kid and I think I’ve sized appropriately as I got older. But there are things that I remember going, well, this doesn’t feel right. But I do often think back to

there was literally just a handful of different people, a handful of Asian kids that were in the school or some black kids, but it was primarily a bunch of douchebag white kids that thought they had privilege over anybody that was slightly different than them. And again, I think that’s a system problem and it’s a generational trauma thing. So we, as the people, get to do something with it. I think it’s cool that that person came back to you and said,

Amber RichBook (27:54.594)
Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Nick McGowan (28:00.599)
I’m sorry, I’ve thought about this. Clearly they’ve thought about it for a long time. Does not make it right for what they said. However, I do think there is a little bit of, I don’t want to say grace, but understanding context of how we grew up. Because look, I’ve said some fucked up shit growing up that I didn’t understand was as fucked up. But then when I understood what it was, and that it was, I don’t know, entrenched in racism or whatever.

Amber RichBook (28:14.915)
yeah. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (28:29.537)
I could tie back to where that came from. There was an example. My mom was about to buy a house. She grew up pretty poor and had me at 22. And I don’t know, maybe like 10, 12 years old, something like that. She bought her first house. And I remember her driving, we’re driving down the street and she pointed at somebody doing lawn work. And she was like, we’re going to get one of them. I was like, a lot?

I would hope we’re gonna buy a house. And she was like, no, somebody that can basically be our slave and do our lawn work. And I remember, I don’t know, being 12 or whatever and be like, that sounds kind of fucked up. But all the rest of these assholes that I’m around kind of say similar things. And nobody’s really breaking out of that. Their responsibility was to change that so that we, as our kids, you know, like us, were able to do things differently. But it’s not on anybody else, it’s on us to do something with it.

I think really the failure would be if you and I are having this conversation and then we get off here and we’re both fucking assholes and douchebags of people and we don’t do anything from it. Because I know that I still have problems at times like I’m really impatient, especially driving. And if somebody is driving in the fast lane, going 10 miles an hour under the speed limit, I question how they even fucking put shoes on, let alone do anything else in the world. But I understand that there’s pieces of that that

Once we’re aware of something, we can do something with it. So we started this by talking about identity. Your identity was shifted at that point. Yeah, that girl kind of fucked up your high school. Also, the story that you told by yourself in your own head based on unprocessed trauma that was literally in your genetic code was pitted against you. Like any work that was done prior to you hadn’t been fully accomplished and completed.

Amber RichBook (29:58.018)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (30:23.981)
and then something came up and you needed to do something with it. It took you time. The fact that you’re doing something with it, your girls are gonna be better off. At the same time, it’s on them to do whatever happens to them. Like I had a conversation with a friend maybe about a year or so ago where they’re like, I’m gonna do everything different from what my parents did. And his parents were, they fucked him up.

Amber RichBook (30:27.714)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (30:46.859)
And he’s doing everything he can. And at one point he had a realization. He was like, and still, bet these kids are going to be in therapy at some point saying something about me because everybody’s going to interpret it the way that they want and how they do it from there. So the systems of this is fucked up, but it is what we work within. The generational trauma is fucked as well, but here we are.

Amber RichBook (30:54.54)
Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Amber RichBook (31:03.328)
Yeah, and so, yeah, yeah. And so even in your response, I appreciate it. And it is multifaceted because we have our own experiences. While your mom had her experiences, you had your own. And while my mom and my grandmother had their experiences, I had my own. So I think that…

I can’t necessarily just leave it to my generational DNA pass down trauma without acknowledging the impact of my own personal life experience and those that the things that could be traumatic had I not chose to heal and navigate through them. Right. And so there are some people who don’t have the higher mind or the discipline or the wherewithal.

Nick McGowan (31:36.461)
Of

Amber RichBook (31:58.134)
to heal themselves so they may not have been able to receive an apology from someone who has caused them harm, right? So when we think about…

the Holocaust experience, people are still apologizing for that experience. Because just because we apologize doesn’t mean it takes away the pain of that experience. And that’s the empathy that…

We have to extend to all persons who have been impacted. It does not take away. We can apologize and extend grace and those groups of people who did what they did to that particular community, they may have learned their lesson, but it does not take away the pain. It does not absolve it. I may, and that’s no different than parents, right? There’s a book called Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. As a parent, you do have the responsibility to

Nick McGowan (32:35.14)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (32:57.902)
Yeah.

Amber RichBook (33:01.8)
listen to your child and be accountable, but your apology is not gonna fix their fucked upness. It’s not gonna fix the pain. They themselves have to do the work to absolve that. And sometimes even when they do, the relationship may not go back to being the same because of how impactful the trauma is. And that’s just psychological in itself.

Nick McGowan (33:21.945)
Yeah.

Amber RichBook (33:27.328)
And so it’s just so multifaceted and I, and I can’t speak for a collective of people, but I can speak for myself and like anyone listening. One of the things that I teach my collective specifically persons of indigenous or persons of color, but anybody, right? If you heal yourself, you have the ability to heal generations before you and generations after you, which is able to have a healthy, loving, thriving relationship with my mom.

Nick McGowan (33:29.807)
For real.

Nick McGowan (33:50.319)
Mm-hmm.

Amber RichBook (33:57.42)
and healthy, loving, thriving relationship with my children while still having, and I think the other thing is too, sometimes people think that these healed relationships mean perfection and no mistakes and no disagreements and we are all holding hands and singing the Munchkin song. No, it’s how we navigate through conflict. It’s how we resolve the conflict.

Nick McGowan (34:09.251)
Yeah.

Amber RichBook (34:21.312)
Is my mom accountable for herself? Am I accountable for myself? Are my children accountable for themselves? So, this is good. You’re good.

Nick McGowan (34:33.167)
I mean, I think the big thing here is to really understand that no matter what we go through and how we look at things, there may be an interpretation, there may be things that are kind of blocking us or propelling us in one direction, but it is ultimately up to us to do. And something that has come up as you were talking about, like, I can’t speak for an entire type of people or race of people, et cetera. I think there are things where some people can say, yeah, well, the Holocaust was different than this, or we should look at

what happened with this and we should feel a certain way. Any of these things don’t take away from somebody else. The Holocaust is really not as different as what the fucking people did when they got to this country and they’re like, look at this land, who the fuck are you? you grow things here, cool.

Amber RichBook (35:17.666)
Nick, I wasn’t ready. But they do, right? But they do. And that’s the systemic issue that you started with earlier in the conversation. And it’s no right or wrong. It’s just we have to, for those of us that see, see.

Nick McGowan (35:20.857)
But I mean, it doesn’t take away from that.

Amber RichBook (35:39.934)
understand. And then you mentioned something earlier too that I wanted to reflect on where you were like, this stuff is fucked up. But those that know the yin and yang, the dark and the light, the ugliness, the fucked upness is here for a reason. Because there’s, there’s the balance. And that’s the fairness.

Nick McGowan (35:56.879)
Yep. And there’s a balance to it as well.

Amber RichBook (36:05.386)
of life that is a universal principle and a universal law. And then when we understand like on this mindset mastery journey of life, we have these fucked up experience based on what our soul needs to learn and understand for its own development. Who do, who did I come here to be? Well,

Obviously, I tell people, I’m like, I’m pretty sure in a past life, I was a man and I was an asshole. And then I got sent here to be a woman and specifically a black woman to have certain life experiences to humble me and give me my soul more evolutionary experiences. That’s my own self theory, y’all. That’s just my own self theory. But.

Nick McGowan (36:45.785)
Damn.

Nick McGowan (36:50.127)
I love that. I understand, you know, I get that. think there’s like there’s shit that I’ve learned over the past few years that has propelled me in a different direction where even with that sort of stuff, I’m like, I wonder what will happen next. And how faith and religion and stuff like that ties in. Now full transparency, I’m a big fan of the OG Jesus, not the Republican Jesus, because that’s strange.

Amber RichBook (37:18.23)
tables at the synagogue because he’s like what y’all doing selling stuff in my father’s house I’m throwing all this shit over okay the one who Russia released that the oldest Bible was found in Ethiopia and the oldest form of Christianity was found in northern eastern Africa that Jesus the one with the woolen hair why are you starting problems why are you starting why are you starting problems on your podcast

Nick McGowan (37:19.395)
Yeah! Ugh… Man… Yeah!

shit, even with that.

Nick McGowan (37:35.695)
Well, that’s where we all started from so even if you think of like race That’s what I’m fucking here for This is what I’m here for disrupt things I actually I talk about that a little bit at different times with that specific story about Jesus. So I read a book Maybe mid-2000s called the beautiful outlaw and a little bit context. I’d played in church bands for the better part of a decade so I was

in churches, like in Green Room style in, know, and somebody told me about that book. I read it. It was basically like, well, Jesus will show up to people in the way that they expect to see him. And let’s look at his stories that actually break down context. Like even when they say don’t eat pork, it’s because it was dirty and they couldn’t actually get the viruses out of the pork so people would die. We eat pork now and it’s different.

but people will look at things and like, Bible said this. It’s like lot of it was metaphors and parables and just trying to get you to understand the fucking story in your stupid little brain.

Amber RichBook (38:38.222)
And the Bible was rewritten, one that the Americas, okay, so since you brought this up, there is called the Council of Nicaea. And there once was a king who was upset and scared of witches because witches ruled the world. He also was abhorred by his sexuality and wrote a lot of things against himself as if it would help him. So.

Nick McGowan (38:48.306)
15th century.

Nick McGowan (38:53.039)
Ugh.

Amber RichBook (39:05.934)
What you say? Homophobic and then that. Yes. And then there are missing books because people don’t know that you have the Vatican that has all the books that were written. So.

Nick McGowan (39:06.093)
And then that became literally gospel. What the fuck?

Nick McGowan (39:18.073)
yeah. Well, they changed things in the 15th century because they were like, this is what we want this to be. This is when King James came out. Context people, context is important. And we’re not just spewing this shit to just spew the shit. If there are systems in place, yeah, but there are systems, there are things that happen. There are biases of people that say, I am afraid to be me. So I’m going to do these things. We’re fucking seeing it now.

Amber RichBook (39:22.998)
Yes.

Yeah, you can go to a library. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (39:44.525)
We’re seeing it with everything that’s happening right now. all right, so, I mean, what the fuck? We’re seeing a lot of it now, but so that story specifically, context is important. Jesus actually spent time braiding a whip and then turned it on. The man probably sat there for a while, like an hour, maybe even longer. He might’ve even braided some of the whip at home, because he knew what was going on. He didn’t just walk in and go, what in the fuck?

Amber RichBook (39:50.382)
Nick you are funny

Amber RichBook (39:57.848)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (40:13.615)
boom, and blow everything up. That’s not how it worked. That’s not what context is about. And the reason why he did that was because these people were doing something against everybody and the actual premise of being community driven. That was selfish. wasn’t just that they were doing something in God’s house and God said, no. A lot of people will just eat the shit that they’re fed and just keep consuming. Reason why it keeps going back to that is again, it’s systems.

Amber RichBook (40:25.046)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Nick McGowan (40:41.455)
And I think there are biases that people look at, which then infect or affect whichever way you wanna look at it, our identity. I appreciate that we’ve gone on this tangent in certain ways with this sort of stuff. And I think it’s important for us all to understand that the identity that we have right now is evolving and it may not actually be the identity that we want it to be. And that trauma might be a part of that, the subconscious winning strategy, which we didn’t really touch about.

Amber RichBook (40:53.698)
We did.

Amber RichBook (41:02.092)
Yes.

Amber RichBook (41:05.537)
Yes.

Nick McGowan (41:10.903)
is a part of that, these strategies that develop us. But what’s your advice for somebody who’s listening that’s on their path towards self-mastery?

Amber RichBook (41:19.818)
that there is no end to the path of self-mastery.

You must be willing to change as many times, change identities as many times as often of times as you feel led to in your residence. And sometimes in this identity self mastery journey, some people do choose to stop and land at a destination. And that’s where they want to cap their beingness on this identity. And there’s no right or wrong to any of it.

Amber RichBook (41:59.918)
That’s the biggest thing that I would say. There’s no right or wrong to this path of self mastery at all.

you get to decide this is your world, this is your reality. If you want to be a single woman today or a single man today and then say tomorrow you want to be partnered and that’s your reality and that’s the identity you want to shift into, do that. And I think the biggest thing is us being willing to look at our lives objectively, understanding that each individual is just filled with opinions and that.

is what forms the facts of their life and to respect the opinions and facts of one life as a way of you respecting and honoring the facts and opinions of your life, which is much like the namaste, right? The God in me sees the God in you.

Nick McGowan (42:48.567)
Yeah, beautiful way to put that. And I think this has been great. I really appreciate you being on. We could probably sit here and just shoot the shit for like hours and just keep recording. But before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

Amber RichBook (43:03.638)
People can find me on social media everywhere at a.richbook on LinkedIn, Amber Rich Book, arichbook.com. Put my name in Google, I’ll pop up. But thank you, Nick, for having me and allowing me to share these things with your community. Thank you all for having me.

Nick McGowan (43:23.779)
Absolutely, it’s been a pleasure. appreciate your time.

Amber RichBook (43:26.392)
Thank you.

In this episode, Nick speaks with writer and cancer survivor Edward Miskie about identity, resilience, and rebuilding life after cancer. Edward shares his journey through alcoholism, a rare and aggressive cancer diagnosis at 25, and the emotional fallout of survival. He opens up about losing who he was, shedding old identities, learning to create a new version of himself, and the power found in asking yourself what you truly want.

What to listen for:

“The question that changed everything for me was simply: What do you want?”

“Humor and fun helped me survive the darkest moments, even when it felt impossible.”

About Edward Miskie

Edward is currently celebrating 13 years as a sole survivor of a rare Non_Hodgkin’s Lymphoma with the publishing of his book Cancer, Musical Theatre, & Other Chronic Illnesses, available at Barnes & Nobel, Apple Books, Walmart, Amazon, and others.

For the last 20 years, Edward has spent his life in NYC writing, producing, and performing.

Resources:

Check out other episodes about life change from cancer

Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have?

https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/podcasting-services/

Thank you for listening!

Please subscribe on iTunes and give us a 5-Star review! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mindset-and-self-mastery-show/id1604262089

Listen to other episodes here: https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/

Watch Clips and highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk1tCM7KTe3hrq_-UAa6GHA

Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]

Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”

Nick McGowan (00:01.23)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show we have Edward Miske. Edward, how are doing today?

Edward Miskie (he/him) (00:11.107)
How are you?

Nick McGowan (00:12.376)
I’m good, I’m good. I know we’ve had just a little bit of technical issues getting things started, but here we are. I’m excited to talk to somebody who’s from the Northeast. I know when I was describing how the show would be, I was like, here’s kind of a Northeast can of how it’s gonna be. But we’re gonna talk about a pretty fucking heavy topic that sadly a lot of people either experience or know somebody that is going through it or has gone through it.

And I fucking hate cancer and I know you do as well. So man, I’m glad that you’re here. Why don’t you get us started? Tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (00:51.36)
Sure, okay, so I pay my bills working in corporate America, but outside of that, I’m a writer and I consider myself to be a producer in either live or TV film world. It’s been a long journey. I used to do musical theater and some TV and film, and here we are. Here we have landed in this kind of iteration of that life.

thing about me that is kind of weird, bizarre. actually like, and this might be a little bit mild for you, but like, I consider myself more recently than not to be an introvert. And I always thought that I was an extrovert, but that was actually just because I was drinking enough to become an extrovert to kind of like, settle the introverted, introverted want to go home. And I felt kind of

obligated to fight that and stay out and be around people and do all the social things. there is a point to which I really did like that. But it just turned me into an alcoholic. And so I stopped drinking and embraced the fact that I’m more of an introvert than anything.

Nick McGowan (02:08.718)
I don’t think that’s mild and actually man, that’s spot on with my own life. I think there are a lot of us that think, we have to do this sort of thing. Like we have to go out. Like people work in a corporate office, let’s say every Thursday night, everybody goes out to this one specific bar for happy hour. And they all talk about the one person who’s an idiot in their job or whatever else. And they all just do those things. And there are people that are like, well, I want to be part of that crowd. So I’m going to do that. I think that should even ties back to when we were kids.

Like there are certain people that didn’t experience drinking in high school, others that were like, everybody fucking come with me. I got it. We’re going to the woods, you know?

Edward Miskie (he/him) (02:37.654)
No, it-

Edward Miskie (he/him) (02:43.992)
yeah. Little column A, little column B. But yeah, is especially like having, like I said, in theater for so long. Being in New York City, it’s very hard to be introverted in New York City. I remember reading something recently that was like, I’m actually an extroverted introvert in the sense that like, I am pretty comfortable in a social setting. I am very comfortable doing stuff like this.

Nick McGowan (02:47.957)
Yeah.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (03:10.102)
But if you throw me in a social setting where I don’t know anyone, I immediately clam up and disappear. it, that’s what the alcohol was for. You know, and then, and then COVID hit and that just spiraled out of control and then, you know, here we are. So, you know, that I think that is probably the weird thing about me that people might not guess if they know me.

Nick McGowan (03:19.022)
Yeah, yeah, lube you up.

Nick McGowan (03:32.504)
Well, how long have you been sober now?

Edward Miskie (he/him) (03:35.632)
it’ll be two years end of March. So like year and a half.

Nick McGowan (03:39.822)
Cool, nice. That’s not a thing that most people kind of just bring up, you know, unless you’re like, I don’t know, being grossly boisterous about it. Like, hey, I stopped drinking a year and a half ago. The fuck, we’re not even talking about that. Yeah, like, well, okay. Or CrossFitters. Yeah, or Vegan CrossFitters, watch out.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (03:47.99)
Look at me! Right, it’s like vegans. I’m vegan.

or vegan, God, the worst. Yeah, no, I mean, it’s, I think I said to you offline, like, I literally wrote a book about my life that is not does not put me in a good light. And so I just have a very low threshold for things that like, I’m sensitive about talking about. So like being a full raging alcoholic, that’s nothing.

Nick McGowan (04:19.534)
Sure, yeah. That was the fun times. Yeah, that’s funny. I’m sure there are more people than not that listen to this that have like, at some point thought maybe I have a little bit of a problem. And maybe that was the end of it. You know, like, I realized at one point, I’m drinking a lot. And this isn’t helping me. It’s actually stopping me from doing things. Like I remember one time telling myself, I’m gonna go to the gym today. It’s like, no, you’re not.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (04:22.984)
Right, miss those days.

Nick McGowan (04:48.402)
It’s 11 o’clock and you’ve already had two drinks. I was like, I’m not going to the gym today. And the next day being like, that sucks, man. That’s gross. And I hate it or whatever. And I was like, I don’t even want to go outside because I’m making these choices to do this. So, but if you get to that door, you can then make a choice through that. Like we’d even said, kind of offline, like you had to get to a door to be able to be where you’re at today with all this. But let’s break down the alcoholism in a sense, going out and being around with people.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (04:52.277)
Oof.

Nick McGowan (05:18.094)
Excuse me, being in the industry, being in the conversations, all that sort of stuff can be weird for people if they don’t have a drink. And going out after the fact when you’re no longer drinking, it’s like, you just don’t want to stand here with this thing?

Edward Miskie (he/him) (05:34.027)
Yeah, it’s like it that that part I’m fine with. And like up into a certain point, like when people start getting shitty, then I’m that’s my cue to leave. That’s usually the barometer I go by. I’m not like triggered being in a bar. I’m like, cool to be around it. It’s not a big deal. I just don’t like it just makes me feel gross. And I just don’t want to do it. It’s it’s when I’m around people who are getting a little unruly and on the drunk scale that I’m kind of like, okay, well, that’s my cue to go because we’re no longer on the same plane.

Nick McGowan (05:36.686)
Good.

Nick McGowan (05:43.726)
Sure.

Nick McGowan (05:52.302)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (06:02.442)
Yeah, Irish exit your way on out. I’m glad that you say that there are certain people that are they’re hesitant to stop drinking or stop doing whatever that thing is that they do, because that’s kind of how they hang out with those friends. That’s how they hang out their family, you know.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (06:05.246)
Yeah, just like, good night guys, bye!

Edward Miskie (he/him) (06:20.596)
I mean, yeah, I mean, that’s that’s part of the reason why I drank a lot because that was my social social circle. And it was just kind of like, well, if I stopped drinking, like, they’re not going to ask me to come out with them anymore. And like, low key, that’s what happened in the long run. But like, you know, it was it was a huge buildup. You know, I started really kind of drinking pretty heavily in like, I don’t know, 2010.

I drank my way through chemo, I drank my way through my 20s and my early 30s. And then I just hit a point where I was like, I don’t, I want to see if I can go a certain period of time without it. And like it was during COVID, I had actually built up my tolerance, like an actual fucking champion and blew through a bottle of Jameson within like four or five hours. And I wasn’t drunk and I wasn’t hung over the next day. And that was kind of like the whole, hmm.

Nick McGowan (07:13.838)
That’s a sign. Yeah.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (07:14.71)
Okay, maybe I should stop now. And then like my doctor was like, your liver numbers are out of control. What are you doing? So we had we had to do a quick course correct, but I wouldn’t I never actually went fully sober because of that because I was like afraid of the social component of it going away. So I would do like 100 days here 100 days there 200 days was I think 210 days was as long as I had ever gone. And then this spring or spring 2024.

Nick McGowan (07:22.382)
man.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (07:43.127)
I just was like, I’m gonna do a year. That’s the longest I would have gone ever. So let me try that and let me go for a year. And then a year hit and I was like, oh, like, I should like ceremoniously break this and then I’ll never be sober for more than a year. And like, I’ll just go out and have one drink and it’ll be totally fine. the day came and went and I was like, I don’t want to. I’m good. So here we are a year and a half later and I’m still.

Still on the sober train.

Nick McGowan (08:13.358)
And that’s cool. mean, for everybody that’s listening that is having one or six you

Damn. All right.

So, yeah, well, I’m gonna start that over again, because at least now I know that there’s a problem. Because like I said, last episode, I was still like, yeah, sure, with like the laptop up. So I’m gonna clip this part out. All right, so three, two. So whether it’s one or six drinks, I mean, the people that are out there kind of thinking like, I know I have probably a little too many, but I don’t really think that there’s much of a problem. I think there’s stuff where we have to think about

Edward Miskie (he/him) (08:25.91)
It’s all good. heard one or six. Great.

Nick McGowan (08:55.03)
Like you said about your liver, like your liver enzymes are probably crazy that you don’t know that you potentially have fatty liver that you have to deal with now. And there are different things that could come up. Like, I don’t know, I don’t want to sound like somebody that’s like, you shouldn’t drink and finger wag and all that. But it’s like, in some ways, the older we get, the more that we can look at the shit that we did when our twenties and thirties and go, my God, what’s going on inside my body right now? Like you kind of just blew straight past it that you drank through chemo.

Time out, back to the chemo. Give us context here.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (09:29.534)
I had cancer. It was a very rare non Hodgkin’s lymphoma. There were only about like 900 or so cases of it reported worldwide at the time. It’s called rare and large B-cell Burke. It’s like non Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It’s very aggressive. You could watch my tumor grow. It was the grossest thing in the world. And it was a very dire emergency situation. And I think maybe like two or three rounds of chemo in and I just asked, it was two, was round two.

And I asked my oncologist if I could have a drink and she was like, yeah, just one or two, but don’t go crazy. And then I promptly left the hospital and went to my friend’s bar and went crazy and had like doubles the whole night. it was, and like she knew that I had was going through, like going through it and she was trying to help and be like, free alcohol, take it, whatever, whatever, whatever. And then just, you know.

that’s that kind of like opened the floodgates of like, you can drink during chemo. That’s fine. And and I did.

Nick McGowan (10:31.03)
I mean, for anybody that drinks even slightly, they’re probably gonna listen and be like, of course you’re gonna drink. I would drink.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (10:38.558)
Well, right. What my justification of it was like, well, you know, liver wise, like it’s not chemo. This is like water at this point. So like we’re good.

Nick McGowan (10:50.672)
the things that will justify, know, like, you know, other poison or this poison I’ve been used to for a while. Why do I use one as a back, you know, like a piggyback? Thank you. It’s a dessert. man. Because you’re piling alcohols in.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (10:53.598)
Right

Actual poison or we’re curated poison. Pick one, you Yeah, the liver is like, oh well, that’s not methotrexate. So cool. We’ll have a little a amuse-bouche

Edward Miskie (he/him) (11:16.926)
yeah yeah yeah like what a respite from chemo was was bourbon

Nick McGowan (11:19.924)
Yeah, jeez, jeez. I mean, it makes sense. Part of the reason why I have the show is to talk about those super dark times, like the times where you’re sitting there. Like, I’m sure I’m not, I’m not you, obviously. So I can’t think and remember this, but I can almost picture you sitting there with a glass in your hand, a couple fingers of scotch or whatever it is, thinking like, huh, this is where I’m at right now.

And like, what a fucking time to think about all that stuff and still put that shit in your body. Cause you, in some ways I’m sure you’re like, I just want to feel a little happy, a little something.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (11:54.433)
Well, it wasn’t even so much a question of feeling happy because like I was 25 when I was diagnosed, right? So like I was still a young person, relatively speaking. I mean, I was a young person. I’m almost 40 now. So like, you know, whatever. But it wasn’t so much about like having that introspective moment of like, I guess this is my life now. It was more like, fuck this. I’m going out and having fun. This shit isn’t going to stop me and I’m going to drink my way through this.

And it it very quickly became a coping mechanism along with a number of other things. And like, and it’s a big narrative that I carry through where it’s just like the coping mechanisms of having cancer and then again, the coping mechanisms of surviving it. You know, alcohol was certainly one of them. I had tried like pot for the first time during this period of time. And that was like pre like

retail available. So like you were just hoping for whatever the dosage was, and I didn’t know shit about dosage. So like, the friends that I had at the time, like baked brownies. And like, back then, you just like threw a little nug in some butter and hope for hope for the best. And they were bombs. Like, and they were going off, especially if you were mixing. But you know, it was like those two things that like indiscriminate sexual strangers, because I just wanted to feel like hot and normal, even though I was like bloated and bald from chemo. So

Nick McGowan (12:50.848)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (13:00.886)
Some of them are bombs. Yeah.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (13:18.526)
It was one of the many coping mechanisms that I developed during that period of time.

Nick McGowan (13:24.096)
So I don’t want people to ever go through anything like this ever. I mean, it sucks that we people go through really, really tough and difficult times, but I mean, it also shapes us. Like going through these really trying and like devastating times, you get through it, you are ultimately changed no matter what. Like I have not been through cancer personally, but I’ve had lots of family and different friends and people that I’ve known that have had it.

And it almost seems like it’s like one in like every other person at this point. But then again, like all the stuff that we go through, be it cancer, be it some drastic change, be it some career you’ve had for 15, 20 years and you go, what the fuck am I doing? I didn’t want to be here 25 years ago. Whatever those changes are, that shit can stop us from making additional changes. You were kind of forced in a sense with cancer. Like you had to deal with it. You could not. Yeah.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (14:19.604)
Right, there was no option. I was told I wouldn’t live past 30 if I didn’t do anything.

Nick McGowan (14:24.854)
But as a 25 year old, you’re right. I mean you’re a kid at that point. I can’t remember being 25. Like I know every fucking thing in the planet. Now you look back and like, oh.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (14:28.682)
Yeah. Yeah.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (14:32.992)
my god, I was a, I was a dumbass. Like what and then you give me cancer, like, of course, I’m gonna the dumbassery is going to continue through it. And in a lot of ways, even though like, even though it was awful, cancer saved my life, and it changed it in a good way. And that took a long time to kind of come to terms with that wasn’t like, my god, you’re cancer free. And I’m like, thank god that happened. I didn’t want to talk about it for years.

It just became like a thing I would drop into conversation and passing where they’d be like, where were you for the last year? Like, I had cancer moving on, you know, and it just didn’t want to, I didn’t want it to become my personality. And as I, as I’ve aged, I’ve kind of made a little mini career out of it and has become my personality. You know, I probably, I was probably fighting it to be so honest with you.

Nick McGowan (15:24.874)
Maybe you kind of knew it was coming, you know, like, yeah. Along with being an extrovert, which you’re not, and like fighting that as well. man. Yeah, that, I can’t imagine how something that drastic couldn’t change you, but I also think that there’s, the purpose that we have in our own lives was part of us being here and what we were brought into this planet with.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (15:30.378)
Ha ha ha!

Right, right, yeah.

Nick McGowan (15:53.12)
but everything will shape us. The environment shapes us, technology shapes us, all this stuff. So what a cool thing for you to tie film along with your journey. Like you and I connected because you’re looking for people that can talk about their cancer story in basically a real YouTube short clip that’s going to be part of a documentary that will ultimately help people even if they go, I’m going through this now and I don’t know what to do. Here’s some sort of

I’m not alone feeling from this. Like you unfortunately had to go through this shit to ultimately be able to do this and be able to help a lot of people. So talk to us a bit about getting up to the point of like, want to create a documentary, to create a film festival and then actually doing something with it.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (16:41.558)
Well, I’m always doing something. Friends and family know that I’m never sitting still. Grass can’t grow on a rolling stone or moss can’t grow on a rolling stone, whatever that phraseology is. That’s me. And it was right after I was told I was cancer free that I just, I think that, and I’ve learned this to be kind of the general consensus that you’d think that you’re just going to go back to the way that your life was before. And it’s like, oh great, this is done.

know, okay, we’re finished here, Wrinkle in Time, we’re gonna meet me, this me is gonna meet me back here where I am currently, and we’ll just go from there. And that is effectively not what happens. I fought that for years, where I thought that I could just shove myself back into the life I had before, and it always felt off. And maybe to the outsider, who is not me, it looked like I successfully did that, you know, I was a working actor for a long time.

And I was going through the motions of the life that I had before, but the entire time I felt so out of place and I felt off and I couldn’t figure out why. And as I started to speak to other people who had been through the cancer experience and come out on the other side, every single one of their stories was the same. I can’t stand the people I’m around. They’re irritating me. I don’t want to go to work. I mean, that’s a normal feeling, but like in a different way.

where it’s like, what am I fucking doing? Like, I don’t want to do this. And it shifts your relationship, relationships not only with other people in your life, but with yourself. And there isn’t a whole lot of conversation about it. There’s not a whole lot of resources for it. And so what I wanted to do, the more and more I talk about this independently, whether it be on other podcasts or whether it be through something else I’m working on,

it’s why I wrote my first book is that I want to have the conversation not only of like the hard parts of having cancer, because I think a lot of times people just look at you like a cancer patient, and you’re not really a person anymore. And so the conversations of relationships, dating sex really, then and, you know, body image and everything else kind of go away. Because, you’re a sick person, you shouldn’t be fussing about that. Okay, well, I was a 25 year old guy, like, and I’m very vain. So like,

Nick McGowan (18:59.734)
Hmm.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (19:06.654)
Of course, I was going to be thinking about this. and so those conversations paired with the after cancer conversations and how your life just is complete, a complete unrecognizable thing that like you’re existing in and it’s like it’s like dreams, you know, like when you have a dream and in the dream, you like understand that you’re in your house, but it doesn’t look like your house. That’s what it’s like you come out and you’re like, I recognize everything, but I feel so displaced.

Nick McGowan (19:08.853)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (19:28.778)
Mm-hmm.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (19:36.363)
and I don’t recognize anything that’s happening. And so you spend a lot of time like I did trying to grasp to get back at that desperately and in so many different ways to try and feel the way that you used to feel before you had cancer. And that’s just not going to happen. And my, I think my impression that I would like to leave with people who are maybe newly cancer free or are presumably going to be soon is that like just

fucking kill off the person that you were before early. Because the sooner you let go of that person, the sooner you can create a new one that is going to be better and have better context and better understanding of your life and your wants. And it’s very much a clean slate. It’s almost, medically speaking, I had a stem cell transplant. That’s not the case with everybody else, but medically speaking, like my immune system was a little baby.

Nick McGowan (20:08.694)
you

Nick McGowan (20:33.45)
Hmm.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (20:33.576)
And so like, in a very literal sense, like my body was infantile and like, didn’t look at but you know what I mean? Like on the inside, the actual clock running on the immune system was was a little baby. And so like, I should have really treated myself the same in the sense that there I have no history from that point on, there’s no history, there’s no context to start over. And I wish I would have done that sooner.

Nick McGowan (20:41.366)
you

Nick McGowan (20:52.904)
Yeah.

Well, it sounds like it’s almost like shedding skin in a sense. Like, but that.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (21:01.224)
yeah, 100%. And especially in almost in a literal sense too, not that your skin is like falling off or unless you’ve had radiation in which case then yes it is. there are pictures, they’re not nice. But like you don’t look the way that you did before cancer really ever again.

You know, and like, relatively speaking, I don’t think I look I’ve ever looked at the way that I did before cancer ever again. And maybe that partially had to do with my age and getting older and whatever. But, you know, you you go into it looking one way and then you get in there and you’re completely wrecked and you look very different during and then after it’s like a rebuilding stage and you bounce back and think your hair comes back curly or sometimes it comes back white or sometimes it doesn’t come back at all and

There’s so many different versions of how you change through that whole process that like on the other side, it’s just like, what skin am I wearing? Who is this?

Nick McGowan (22:07.846)
And with that, it also changes you, you know, as the soul and the being inside. What a cool thing to think about from the perspective of, if you’re changing, you’re changing. So go with it. But that’s not a thing you could have really, I don’t know, I’ve only known you for a little bit, but like, I’m sure somebody at 25 and they’re like, you’re gonna love the person you’re gonna be, probably would have started off with fuck you and.

anything after that would have just been how you felt about yourself in that moment right then and there. As a 25 year old kid too, you are still forming who you think you want to be. Even if you’re a little further ahead in where you are, like you’re still a couple of years ahead of maybe somebody who’s 22 or whatever. But you have this idea in your head of this is where I think I’m going. And then that all changes. So for you now to be able to look back and say like, all right, well,

I could have flown or like enjoyed that a little bit more and gone with it. I think that’s crucial for people no matter what age. you also have different points. Like 30, you look a little different. 35, you feel a little different. 40, your knees just fucking hurt. Yeah, exactly. And you’re like, what happened? Like, why is my back hurting? I slept for eight hours. That was the problem. But like life just happens and.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (23:20.958)
And you start to look a little different too.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (23:30.422)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (23:32.81)
I think we have to look at ourselves in the mirror differently at different times anyway. But for those people that are, I don’t know, about to go through something like that, not even just cancer, because I think this kind of ties across different major shifts and changes. What advice would you give to them to be able to say like, hey, keep on that track, but here’s how it go about it.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (23:57.653)
mean, I know several people who have written books that are like the blueprint to going through cancer. And I think that is helpful. And there’s certainly a place for that. I think I think that there is no blueprint and no guidebook because everyone is different. And every circumstance is different. And every prognosis is different. And the treatment I get is not going to be the same treatment that someone else gets. And so it’s very difficult to kind of articulate like, do this. And the only

And I mean, as unfun as the realities of cancer are, and the need to like basically force feed yourself so that you have strength enough to get through it and and like all that crap, even though you don’t want to. I think, I mean, the during the during portion, like, try to have fun, like, really try to have fun. I would invite friends over to like my hospital room and we have like pizza parties.

with hospital food. Like it was fun. Like it was a shitty circumstance. It was fucking terrible. But like we made the best of it. And being surrounded by friends and family really helped that. And it’s certainly a way to fight it. You know, like there’s only so much fighting you can do in a hospital bed and like with doctors and nurses around you and this, that and the other. like, try to have fun, make the best of it. Like that’s, and I feel shitty saying that, you know, because like facing that

if you would have if you would have said if you would have told newly diagnosed 25 year old me to like have fun and be like fuck you you dumb cunt what are you talking about? So that that’s I feel like that’s a pretty hard bill to swallow and I apologize if that comes up. Oh my god you have cancer have fun.

Nick McGowan (25:43.484)
I mean.

Well, I mean, there are things like, I think you can go through shit where you can tell somebody like, man, it’s going to be rough, but here’s what I learned from it or whatever. I’m glad that you went to them. You don’t have, I guess, the right or the authority or all the information even to be able to say, here’s the exact blueprint. Because that is never the thing. Like context and everybody’s situation is always different no matter what it is. But for you to be able to think back to yourself of like, hey, go have fun.

Okay, you probably would have told yourself to go fuck off. In all reality, like you’re still right because you’ve been through all that. And there’s still stages just like grief, just like anything else, you go through all those stages. But then with the clarity, here you are doing these things. So with the people that are on their path towards self mastery, maybe you’ve had cancer or they’re in remission or they know somebody that’s had cancer, what sort of advice would you give to them as they’re on their path towards self mastery?

Edward Miskie (he/him) (26:46.666)
Who?

I might have to just talk this one through. think my first reaction is when you have cancer actively, there is no path to self mastery because every single day is just a curve ball. And I feel like that sounds a little womp-womp and I don’t mean it to, but the last thing on my mind when I was in treatment was like, how can I self master? Self master bait, maybe, but that’s a different conversation.

but I do think that there is, there is room to like, live in the active cancer space during treatment and like, make sure that you take moments to appreciate the people around you. And to recognize those who are helping you from a from a good place, because there are certainly people that are going to show up that are not there from a good place. And that’s

much longer conversation, but I would say like be fine find a way to be present and acknowledge the people around you and Appreciate the fact that they’re there

Nick McGowan (28:00.38)
seems important kind of no matter what’s going on but probably really critical for you to look at in such a heavy time of like what the fuck I could imagine most times you can go in through cancer you just don’t want to even anything let alone have fun

Edward Miskie (he/him) (28:11.734)
you

yeah.

No, when I’m listening, I’m not trying to paint this picture that like everyday was rainbows and sparkles. Like it certainly was not. But like there, there were definitive points where I made a purposeful decision to have fun, or do something that was like really out of the ordinary from my day to day. And one thing like, maybe this is off topic, but one thing that I do want to add to the whole transitioning out of cancer thing is like, the again, the misconception of what that

Nick McGowan (28:23.702)
Sure.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (28:46.64)
looks like, right? You know, like you think you’re cancer free, you’re told that you’re cancer free, and everything is going to be amazing. And that you’re you get to go back to your life, right? But I think what people don’t understand, and they couldn’t understand, because they haven’t been in that situation, perhaps, is that like, when you’re being treated, all of the nurses and all the doctors and all the social workers and all the people running, you know, medical studies and whatnot that you inevitably get shoved into,

are like a very concrete support system. And when you’re told that you’re cancer free, all of that goes away, essentially overnight. And so that’s like, it’s another contributing factor to looking around at your life and being like, I don’t know what to do, because you’re also free falling. You’re free falling from like this network of people that have been holding you up for however long and telling you where to go and what appointments to go to and what to eat and what not to eat and how

to take your medication and when to take it and like every single moment of your life is dictated and then all of sudden it’s not. And that’s like, again, like a bomb going off, like where am I? What do I do? How do I get up in the morning? What do you mean I don’t have any appointments? And then in like a really kind of sick, twisted, fucked up way, you’re like wishing something would go wrong so you could go back to the hospital to see your doctor and be like, and feel normal because that has become normal.

And they’re like, it’s it’s a minefield at my five year cancer free appointment, my oncologist, and I didn’t know this, told me that because I hit five years, I no longer need to see her. And like, you’d think like, my god, I hit five years. That’s great. I cried because I was going to miss her. And like, she was great. I loved her. But like, talk about like an unexpected reaction of like, what do mean, I’m not going to see you anymore?

Nick McGowan (30:28.502)
Mm.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (30:39.24)
It like very much was like a weird fucked up breakup.

Nick McGowan (30:42.602)
Hmm. And a very heavy time of your life. Like these relationships that, yeah, that’s, that’s crazy. I, people that don’t have situations like that don’t think about it. that way, I mean, it can almost be like, some jobs that you’re in, you can be familial and there’s some that like push too much of that, but like you work, you work a lot with people or groups or whatever. And then somebody’s just gone or the whole group ended or whatever. Like we all have those little situations at times, but

Edward Miskie (he/him) (30:46.154)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (31:12.874)
the longer that stuff goes and the heavier it is, I feel like that just makes a ton of sense where it’s like all of that just compounds and like this piece of concrete of this is a giant chunk of your life. And these all mean a lot to you specifically now, but God going forward, you’ll have memories for the rest of your life because of all that stuff. Tevi, yeah, man, I’m glad that you bring that up. So thank you for that. And this has been.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (31:33.782)
for better or worse.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (31:39.521)
No, of course. And I do want to comment, sorry, I do want to comment to the self mastery thing. One thing I do remember doing, and I still do it now, and I actually end up yelling at people about this too, whenever you kind of like hit a place where you don’t know what to do, you you hit a fork in the road or some major thing changes in your life. And this was kind of a later on during that period of time thing, but I’ve carried it over to now and it’s like kind of the default thing that I do.

is I asked myself what I want. And it’s like, it’s like, it has to be a rapid fire response. It cannot be like this existential, like I sat down and journaled about this for five hours, like it has to be like the look at yourself in the mirror and be like, what do you want? Or just like, write it down. I want blood and the first thing that comes to your mind. And I used to, I used to journal a lot more than I do now. But I would have I have pages and pages and pages of like, what do you want? I want

I want I want I want I want and I would just make lists and it’d be stupid shit like I want a coffee. I want a car. I want money. I want better hair. I like you just write it down. And that’s like the very general version of that. But I think the more specific version of that is like if you’ve hit a crossroad, you have to ask yourself what do you want? Because so many of us end up acting

Nick McGowan (32:42.079)
Mm-hmm.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (33:02.642)
in the shadow of what other people want or what other people expect of us. And that just takes us farther and farther and farther away from who we actually are. This is something I can speak to specifically from cancer. But it’s, it’s something I can also specifically speak to because of being in the entertainment industry, where you are expected to be something you’re not necessarily or you get shoved into a box that like you have to exist in or you don’t work. And

I wish I would have had this practice a lot earlier to just be like, what do you want? I want this. What do you want? I want this. if we’re getting a job offer, okay, look at it. What do I want out of this? What is this going to do to serve me? And I think the, the, what do I want situation has really shaped the last couple of years of my life. My life now looks

Nick McGowan (33:53.718)
Hmm.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (33:56.745)
exponentially different than it did three years ago, and it’s because I just really sat down with myself and just kept asking me what I wanted.

Nick McGowan (34:05.098)
Yeah, that’s a good point. think for anybody who, trust their intuition or the people that are real heady and think about things a lot. mean, there are certain people that they have to go off their gut instincts. Like, I’m a sacral lead person, so I even do it with dinners. Like, what are we having for dinner tonight? Sushi? Nah. Thai? Nah. Burgers? Yeah. Or whatever it is. It’s like to have that. But I think even if people can just sit down,

and you have to think through things all the times or you have to feel through all of it, just asking yourself that of like, what do I want? There’s something that’s gonna come up, always. I’m glad you pointed out like the normal human shit of like, I want a coffee. Yeah, that makes sense. Cause like that’s what you fucking wanted, right?

Edward Miskie (he/him) (34:46.068)
Yeah, great. Right. And I think a lot of us, especially people who are over thinkers, I’m related to some of them. But like, there just is so much hesitation. And that takes up so much time when you think too hard about what the answer is. And I think that comes from being a people pleaser and wanting to come up with the right answer that everyone else will also be happy with. And like,

Nick McGowan (35:02.784)
Mm-hmm.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (35:13.174)
Again, I know if it’s age, I if it’s cancer, it’s probably a combination of both, but I don’t give a fuck what other people want. I don’t. This is the path that I’m going on that I’ve decided that is right for me, and I don’t give a flying fuck who has to say what about it. Like, you want to pay my rent? Great. Then you get to decide what choices I make.

Nick McGowan (35:34.144)
Hmm, man, I guess even on that note, the people that are kind of in a spot where they’re like, well, I work for somebody and I have to do what they want me to do because I also need to take a paycheck from them to pay for my mortgage and whatever else. I think we can still do that in a balancing way, but we have to ask ourselves at the basics. Like, what do I want right now? I don’t want to be at this job anymore. So start with that. Or I want to do something different or whatever. Yeah.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (35:50.198)
100%.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (35:56.151)
Great, right, then do something else. know, complaining will only get you so far until you actually have to like do something about it. Right, right, right. Well, and that actually ties into like the, I don’t remember what the prompt was in the, before when we were talking offline, but like I literally have a Post-It note on my desk.

Nick McGowan (36:06.358)
Or it’ll get you to Thursday’s and happy hour and then you can play with the group with him.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (36:25.556)
that says stop listening to other people telling you what you can and can’t do, what you should or should not be doing, what you are and are not capable of. They do not know you. Stop waiting. Start doing. Fuck them. That is literally on my desk.

Nick McGowan (36:39.926)
Period. Nice. I love how we all figure out the little things that work for us. Like, yeah, this is going to have this note right here. And yeah, like you get power from it.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (36:54.807)
yeah, I post- I post the notes all over my apartment.

Nick McGowan (36:57.44)
Good shit. Man, it’s been awesome having you on. I appreciate you being here. I appreciate you going through the stuff you’ve gone through and setting up the festival and all that stuff. It’s important work you’re doing, man. So before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

Edward Miskie (he/him) (37:13.362)
you can find, sorry, I just like glitched out. was like, wait, what? You can find me on Instagram or TikTok at Edward Miskey. Also the film festival is called the remission film festival. It is the only festival of its kind that is operating now that is specific to cancer survivors and those impacted by cancer. Everyone who submits to it has a story that they have told through film.

And you can find that at remission Film Fest on Instagram and the website as well, which is just a dot com. And that’s and we talked about a book for a hot second. That’s Cancer Musical Theater and other chronic illnesses. And the other book will be coming out later, but we’re not going to talk about that just yet.

Nick McGowan (37:57.477)
Awesome man, well again it’s been a pleasure having you on, I appreciate your time today.

Edward Miskie (he/him) (38:01.025)
Thanks anytime.

In this episode, Nick dives into the significance of our inner dialogue and its profound impact on our external experiences. He emphasizes the importance of shaping our inner dialogue to navigate life’s challenges and the ups and downs we experience each day. Nick explores the mechanics of self-talk, the role of awareness in recognizing negative patterns, and the necessity of self-reflection in personal growth.

What to listen for:

“If we understand our internal dialogue, we can then make different decisions.”

“When we have the inner dialogue that isn’t actually healed, it’s not helpful for us; then it makes the rest of our lives more and more difficult.”

About Nick McGowan

I’m Nick McGowan, an entrepreneur, podcaster, and mental health advocate, and I’ve been on a 20+ year journey of personal development, learning to master my mindset, emotions, and the art of living with purpose.

As a Mindset and Self-Mastery Mentor, I work with ambitious men and women who want to live their most authentic and joyous lives by helping them master their mindset, emotional awareness, and authentic communication. My mission is to empower people to lead lives that feel aligned, grounded, and truly their own.

Throughout my career, I’ve built teams, streamlined systems, and improved client experiences across SaaS, media, marketing, and personal development spaces. Whether I’m leading cross-functional projects, optimizing SEO, Podcasting, designing strategies, or guiding clients through transformation, I bring a hands-on, solution-focused approach to everything I do.

I’m also the host of The Mindset and Self-Mastery Show, where my guests and I unpack the stories that shape us, challenge us, and ultimately guide us back to who we are at our core. On this show, we uncover the secret gems others have discovered through trial and error and breakthroughs, so you can fast-track your growth and master your mindset in your pursuit of self-mastery. Check out the latest episode here.

With years of podcasting and two decades of marketing experience, I’ve mastered the storytelling, interview flow, strategy, and technical production that elevate a podcast from “just content” to something truly impactful. Whether you’re a leader looking to amplify your message, a seasoned speaker and podcast host looking to sharpen your edge, or even a beginner who is wondering how to share their message, I mentor thought leaders through every step of having the conversation they’re here to have on this planet.

So, what message are you here to share?!

Resources:

Check out other episodes about our inner dialogue and managing negative self-talk.

Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have? https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/podcasting-services/

Thank you for listening!

Please subscribe on iTunes and give us a 5-Star review! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mindset-and-self-mastery-show/id1604262089

Listen to other episodes here: https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/

Watch Clips and highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk1tCM7KTe3hrq_-UAa6GHA

Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]

Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”

Nick McGowan (00:00.302)
Hello and welcome to the mindset and self mastery show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show, I want to talk about shaping our inner dialogue to get better external results. And on the show, I like to get really macro with things because I think that’s where change actually happens. It’s in those moments where we work on the stuff now before the situation happens that we’ll be better equipped to handle whatever situation comes up.

I’ve learned this the hard way. Sometimes I think I’m really prepared. I’m good to go. Then I get into a situation and something happens. It’s like, my God, I didn’t expect that to happen. I didn’t know how to handle it or whatever it was. And those moments can literally make or break us because sometimes when we’re going through a situation that we’re maybe a little uncomfortable with or not as confident about, we can start to falter on the things like our principles.

or the things that we know to be true and are really consistent within ourselves. So when I think about having an internal dialogue, that’s more of a positive mindset dialogue. This isn’t something to just bypass the stuff that you’ve been through. This is about being able to understand that the moment you’re in right then and there is the only moment that you actually have. So when you’re in that moment, whatever the situation is,

If your inner dialogue is in a negative place, let’s say, then that moment’s probably going to turn out not as good as you want it to be, just straight up. But if your inner dialogue is more on a positive note, and I’m using these as black and whites in a sense, then you’re bound to have a better overall experience because of the inner dialogue. So think about it this way. If you wake up in the morning and you instantly think,

Today’s gonna be such a shitty day. I hate all these things. I don’t even wanna get out of bed. don’t wanna ever. You probably argue with your partner. You yell at your kids or your animals or whatever. You get on the road, you drive to your office and you’re shitty with everybody else on the road.

Nick McGowan (02:37.462)
if you woke up a little differently and had a overall mindset and experience from waking up, you probably, even if something happened with your spouse, your partner or your animals or the dude driving past you, you’re probably going to handle that situation differently, at least slightly differently. Now, if you wake up in the morning and you hate yourself and you hate everything that’s going on, there’s work there.

be done. It may also be part of your design. I’ve learned about myself that I will wake up in two different states. Super excited, or grumpy as fuck to put it nicely, because in those states, when I wake up and I am unsure of what I want to do or whatever it is that really determines what happens next. I’ve learned about myself that I’m in one of those two states for some reason that has happened the day before. I’ll give you a prime example.

I’ve been busy for the past few months and haven’t been able to play music as much. And I’m actively working on an album. And for me, playing music and even just working through concepts of riffs and just even drum parts for like three hours does magical things for me that helps me at a bass level feel like I’m doing something for myself.

Not just doing things for clients or for other people or even things for my business that are still for myself, but just, you know, they’re not me playing music and scratching that itch. Being able to spend a little bit of time with that has become really, really, really important to me because I understand that the more aware I am of that, the more that it’ll affect the next day. It’s not a magical pill. It’s not like, you know, I play guitar for two hours one night and then the next day it’s the best fucking day in the entire world. It’s not how this works.

But I do understand that that is a part of how I relate to the rest of the world. And I can be aware of that and do something with it. So let’s break down what inner dialogue is. You know what it is. It’s the talking to yourself. If we look at a shitty internal dialogue, you know exactly what that is as well, because I’m pretty sure you do it pretty often. We all do.

Nick McGowan (04:59.702)
Even the people that say, no, I’m constantly positive. I’m constantly this, constantly that. You don’t really know what those conversations are internally. We just don’t. And I think the people that are bypassing and toxic positivity in a sense, they’re hurting themselves. And I know that because I’ve done that before too. Haven’t you? We’ve all done something like that where we’ve said, this is how I want to be. So I’m just going to do it and not do the work with it.

When we have the inner dialogue that isn’t actually healed and it’s not helpful for us, then it makes the rest of our lives more and more difficult. I don’t want to take this down the path of saying this is the only thing that’ll fix everything because I have heard at times where people say you can’t just mindset your way through things. I know that is not what this is about. This is about setting yourself up from a better perspective.

and also being able to look at the thing and say, you know, I’m feeling real shitty right now. Why is that? If we can understand where that has come from, even just to know this is the thing, this is what happened, or this is what made me feel this way, or the reason why I feel this way, or the reason why I’m being negative, or even the reason why I’m being super positive, we can at least understand why that is to then do something with it from there. I think sometimes we as people,

just allow ourselves to be shitty, just straight up. And I get it. I am shitty at times. The people that know me the best absolutely know this. And sometimes I’ve thought that it was part of my process. That’s how I go through things. And that’s not always the case because there’s being curious, there’s being judgmental, and some of that can like overlap. But then there’s also just being really shitty about things because I don’t feel good about a situation.

or feel good in my body or didn’t sleep well enough or whatever it was. But the internal dialogue that says today’s gonna be shitty or this is gonna happen, it’s gonna be bad, whatever. Sometimes those aren’t actually even words. It’s just a feeling. So if we take apart our inner dialogue just over the course of one day and catch the moments where we’re being really, really shitty, I don’t mean to just keep using that, but that’s kinda how it is.

Nick McGowan (07:23.778)
We’re shitty, we’re being grumpy, we’re being negative about a situation and not actually working through the situation.

I’m not talking about sitting there for two hours and processing a thing, but at least understanding that right now I’m feeling this way. So what can I do now to be able to get through your work day or the situation you’re in or what have you? And it can be a mechanical sort of approach of saying, well, I’m going to choose to have a better mindset with this right now. Again, I don’t want you to think of this as bypassing.

We are never bypassing. If you need to do work on these things, do the work. But that doesn’t always mean you can do it right then and there. It’s not about just saying, all right, world, time out. I need to process through a thing. Now granted, there are some people that can do that. And for business owners, sometimes it’s easier for us to do that. Sometimes it’s straight up not because there’s just a lot going on. There are many things happening, lots of questions. And as the owner of a company, we, you know, we’re the ones.

so the buck stops with us. So we need to be able to answer those things or be on or what have you. But understanding where our internal dialogue is will ultimately shape how the rest of the outcomes are. And it took me a long time to really understand that. And it took me even longer to start to put it into action. And it’s taken me even longer for it to become part of who I am. I joke now about certain things that should have

I thought should have taken me a lot faster to get through, but that’s not how it works. So understanding why we have the inner dialogue that we do is almost as important as what we do with that inner dialogue from there. So the ongoing beliefs, the ongoing thoughts that we have, the self-talk that just running through us day in and day out, that’s our inner dialogue. But what’s the inner dialogue like?

Nick McGowan (09:27.988)
I heard somebody say to me years ago, if you had a friend that talked to you the way that you talk to yourself, you’d probably want to kick his ass. If not, take them off the planet. They’re totally right. I think about the stuff that you say to yourself. Think about it. Think about the stuff you probably said to yourself a fucking hour.

Just let that sink in. If some other human said that to you, you’d potentially have a restraining order. You would not want them to be part of your life. Now you may actually have people that are part of your life that do that. You don’t have to do that to yourself. I want to make that clear. You don’t have to do that to yourself. It’s not a penance or anything, depending on what you had done in the past. It’s being able to actually take the dialogue that you have right now and say, well, today’s this day.

This is what I have going on today. And if I don’t like those things or I want to change those things, great. Can I do it right now? Can I instantly change it, pivot to something else or what have you? And if you can, wonderful. If you can’t, then that’s what it is. You need to work through that and you need to be in that moment to do it. I think about it in the sense of people going to jobs that they hate. I can think back to different experiences I’ve had at different jobs. I remember sitting there watching the clock.

Being like, fucking hate this. I can’t be here anymore. This is nonsense. Part of it was that I knew there was a greater calling for myself. Another part of it was me just being shitty about the situation that I was in and beating myself up because I put myself in that situation. Haven’t you done that? Think about the different times that you’ve done that. Think about the amount of times maybe even today that you’ve done that. And if we just pause that and say, I understand.

And yeah, I don’t want to be in this spot right now. But I also understand that I’m just not able to snap my fingers and make a change instantly, and that things will take a little bit of time. That’s where you actually get to mechanically change your mindset and say, this is what I’m going to do. This is how I’m going to put my mind into motion in this specific situation. So if we think about inner dialogue and we think about the external results from that.

Nick McGowan (11:44.63)
you can start to look back at different situations where you say, you know, I experienced this differently than I had in the past because of the way that I thought about it going into the situation or because of the way that my way of being is now or whatever it was. If we break it down to a very black and white level, there was probably some positive or negative emotions and thoughts and feelings tied to whatever you were doing. And

Even if it was subconscious where your subconscious was like, you know what? We’ve done this before, we can do it again. And you didn’t have to really think about it. It just kind of came out. That’s fine. That’s almost like it’s how you’ve healed from it. At least to some extent. Subconscious isn’t there to make us feel better. It’s there to keep us alive and safe. So you’ve probably experienced the opposite side of that more often than not.

of I don’t really know what do in this situation. So I feel uncomfortable. I feel weird. I feel this. I feel that that’s normal. We all go through that stuff. I’ll give you an example with myself. I’ve had something recently local networking where I’ve gone out and met with different people. And whenever I get called up to the front to talk about my business, talk about myself, et cetera, there’s always a little bit underneath that’s like, Oh, do you look weird? Do you sound weird?

Are you saying the right things? All of that. That’s our subconscious trying to just keep us safe. It’s abnormal. And if it’s not something you do every single day, or even if it’s something you’ve done for a long, long, long time, that can still be there. It’s trying to keep you safe and trying to keep you comfortable. But I know in those situations, I can look at that and go, I’m just going to go out and do what I do. And I’m going to rest on me being authentic. And worst case scenario, somebody says,

You said something weird or you looked weird or you did whatever and think about it. Honestly, in most situations like that, if somebody says, I don’t like your shirt, fuck you. Who the fuck cares? Go away. It doesn’t matter. It’s all in our own heads and we’re the ones beating ourselves up about it. And for the most part, everybody else, when they’re having their own problems or thinking of you about, don’t like your shirt or they don’t like whatever it is. That’s a them problem. That has nothing to do with you. We can take that.

Nick McGowan (14:05.112)
And we can say, I can do something with it or next time I’ll wear a Hawaiian shirt because fuck you, whatever you want, you know? But being able to understand your own inner dialogue can be affected by other people, other situations, other things, but it’s really up to you to do something with your inner dialogue to then turn it into something external. Now I’m not saying that this is a hustle or grind sort of situation.

Like you need to have better mindset so you can go out and make millions of dollars because everybody needs 50 fucking homes. That’s not the case at all. What I’m talking about is being able to actually work through your own inner dialogue to feel confident in yourself to do the thing you’re actively doing. But this happens in a nanosecond, which is again why I like to break down these macro pieces because we can work on it right now.

where down the road when you get into that situation, you don’t just instantly flounder because you’re falling back on the negative mindset. You’re falling back into the mindset of, I don’t know what to do here, so I’m just gonna shit a little bit. And like, what the fuck? What do I say? What do I do? How do I act? You wanna be able to work on this stuff before you get into those situations so you don’t actually have to think about it while you’re in those situations. Getting back to my example of speaking in front of a room. I speak all the time. I talk to people all the time.

I also really love being by myself. When working on my music or going through my sports cards or reading or whatever it is, just by myself, everybody leave me alone. But I know in those moments when I’m in front of people, I have to be on in a way that is truthful to me. Now past me, years and years and years ago, I would have turned on to become somebody else. Almost like the persona, the mamba mentality in a sense.

Like I would just become somebody different. And there was always a bit of authenticity to it, but there was also tying into my winning strategy of how I could be loved and how it could be admired and how I could win and all of that. If we understand those components and those pieces, because those make up our internal dialogue, we can then make different decisions. But it’s understanding why our internal dialogue is the way that it is. Some of that may be trauma.

Nick McGowan (16:28.3)
Some of that may be somebody said something to you as a five-year-old that led you to believe a thing either about yourself, good or bad, or about other people, good or bad. And then that affected the way that you handled things from that point on. That changed the story that you lived from that point on. What I’m talking about is being able to understand why the components make up your internal dialogue and that your subconscious mind is just there to keep you safe.

doesn’t really give a shit how you feel or how confident you are in a situation. It’s just there to keep you safe. If you can understand those things and you can understand how you’re acclimated toward things, then you can do something with that. So when you’re in a situation where you have to be in front of people or pick anything that makes you uncomfortable or it’s a little outside of the norm of what you’re used to, you’ll be in a better spot at that point to be able to not only handle that situation,

handle yourself because you’ve extracted what the internal dialogue is. Now with me, like I said, I’ll wake up and I’ll either feel great or bad. That’s really black and white. And I’ve asked myself, I’ve started to ask myself each morning, how am I feeling right now? Am I feeling great? Am I feeling bad? And being honest with myself. There’s sometimes I wake up in the morning and I’m like, how are you feeling right now? I’m feeling great, feeling bad. I feel like shit.

And I can understand it’s because maybe I ate something too late the night before, or I didn’t sleep well, or there’s something nagging in the back of my mind about some project or something that’s going on or something around the house or whatever it is. But if I can look at that and say, it’s that thing. It’s being able look at that thing and go, cool, well, I see you. And deciding, do I get to do something with it now? Do I need to? Do I not? Whatever it is.

being able look at it and just see what it is has given me a lot of confidence to go, okay, cool. Well, now I know what it is. So I’m just going to move along instead of the fear of the unknown in a sense. Now about maybe, I don’t know, 15 years ago or so I was in a a rock band in Philadelphia and we had a song called white bear because of a concept that I learned where somebody said, if I asked you to not think about a white bear,

Nick McGowan (18:54.146)
Whatever you do, just don’t think about a white bear. So get the white bear out of your mind. It’s whatever you do, don’t think about a white bear. How many times did a white bear pop in your head? Pretty much every time I said it, right? So if we’re focusing on, be shitty, don’t be negative, guess what you’re gonna be? More than likely, probably shitty, probably negative. And the same goes for being positive.

Say be really positive be this and be that and be external and do all these things The the thought of that can spur that on But it’s the act that happens within it and what happens after it that is the most important Because even if I said don’t think about a white bear You’re probably gonna think about it because I put it near the foreground here you think about a white bear and then from there you get a choice to be able to think do I want to

build out what that white bear looks like. Do I want to think of that as a Coca-Cola bears or do I want to think about it as a bear that I saw when I was younger or whatever and you will start to kind of go through that path. But if you look at the negative and positive internal dialogue that we have, if you try to force yourself to push past something and bypass it, it might work for you right then and there, but it’s going to come back to bite you. So with all of this,

your internal dialogue, if you start to understand why do you typically think about X while you’re in this sort of situation, or why do you feel this sort of way when you’re in X situation and think about that now before that situation happens again, I guarantee you will at least be in a better spot to be able to handle that. I can’t guarantee that it won’t look the way that it did before, but it will start to shift a little bit. had an experience a couple of years ago where

I was doing a lot of internal work and folding inside out and it was fucking messy. And I remember having a conversation with my partner and I could feel myself welling up and there was a reaction that was about to come out. There was literally a part of me that told myself, Nick, shut the fuck up and leave the house. And guess what I did? I kept fucking talking and I didn’t leave the house and I was aware of it.

Nick McGowan (21:19.242)
And it was maddening because I thought, you know, I thought about this. I can just do this and like grab myself and leave. No, there was still trauma that needed to be worked through. There were things that were part of my subconscious that I needed to extract. I needed to reframe and needed to look through. And it took me a long time. And there’s still moments where that happens. Not exactly how it did before, but moments where I’ll start to come up and I go, I see you, you fuck. I’m not going to go down that path again.

because I was able to do that work in those moments, but I also did work after those moments to say, all right, what happened? What do I do differently? How do I do this differently? It’s sort of like in sports where they watch game tape. They’ll go back and they’re not watching it to say, you fucked up here, you did this wrong. They’re saying, what could we do differently in these situations? And there’s a reason why those people do that. In a black and white way with sports, it can be easy to say you’re tape and film from a previous game or whatever.

us. If you had a really shitty day and there was a lot of negative self-talk going through and then by the time you go home all you want to do is just watch TV and veg and look I get it. Especially somebody who’s found out that he’s more of an introvert than he ever thought he was. I really enjoy being able to spend that veg time of relaxing and just being away from people. I’ve also understood in those moments there are certain times where

I’m really escaping. We’re trying to escape from something.

I may be a little different than you. You may be a little different than me. We’re all different than each other, but we are also very similar and we go through the same sort of things. This is why I have the podcast for us to be able to talk about this stuff and actually call this stuff out because I can almost guarantee that you’ve had some sort of shitty conversation with yourself today. Even like, why did I do that? Or why the fuck didn’t I wash this thing? Or why didn’t this thing happen? Or what about this? and maybe you don’t call yourself an idiot anymore.

Nick McGowan (23:22.958)
the sentiment is still there at times, right? You know, like there are different things that come up where you’re like, man, what a dumb bastard, I shouldn’t have done that, blah, blah, blah. Again, if you had a friend or somebody else that was like that, you’d call the cops on them or you’d have a restraining order or something. So if you think about your inner dialogue and the stuff that you go through every single day and how it relates to not only the dialogues, either.

Positive or negative influence on you But how the long-term effects actually relate to you because you’ll keep doing that over and over and over And sometimes it can be so ingrained that it’s really difficult to get ourselves out of it So one of the things that I really like to do and that I find to be the easiest thing to do in those situations Yep, oftentimes it’s kind of difficult when you’re really charged. So just be aware of it. Just straight up see it

and go, man, I’m being shitty again. But catch it and don’t be an asshole to yourself. Don’t be like you’re being shitty, you dumb fuck. Don’t, be nice to yourself about it. You also want to, in some ways, of parent yourself with that. Like, yeah, don’t do that anymore. Let’s look at what’s going on. Let’s actually talk through it. Let’s work through it. So if you have that simple awareness practice of just saying, I see these things.

Maybe for you, it’s taking notes of it and saying, I saw this today, I saw this today, this happened, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe it’s just mental notes. Maybe it’s things that you’ve seen over and over and over and you actually don’t want to touch them. Oftentimes that’s because there’s a fear of the unknown or some blocker that’s blocking you from that. And that’s where professionals come into play. People that can help as therapists or different modalities or mentors or…

anybody that can kind of work with you on those things that have been through some of that. But at least you can be aware of those things. And I think there’s such power in awareness. The more aware you are, the more aware you are. Like you can’t not see a thing after you’ve seen it. Sometimes it’ll take seeing it 10, 15, 20 times or even more. But you know that you probably have bad dialogue with yourself at times, but you know, I’m better off than I was before.

Nick McGowan (25:41.826)
or whatever excuse you add in. And that’s fine, because it’s your life, you get to do whatever you want. The question is really, how long do you want to sit in that shit for? And that can be, it can be a dumb question to certain people. They’re like, of course I don’t want to sit in that shit, but yet you’re still sitting in that shit. And look, I do this as well. Every day there are things that happen. And I ask myself, do I want to be shitty about this? No, but you’re gonna fucking damn it, blah, blah, blah. like, all right, Nick.

get through it, and now let’s have the conversation. Sometimes you need to let that energy out. Sometimes you also need to go through it a bit to then understand, it’s really in these situations when this happens because I feel this way, or I think this thing. And all that inner dialogue really shapes the way that our external worlds are because we’re setting ourselves up for either success or failure when it comes to that. So I wanna reinforce.

that there’s a massive link between the way that we talk to ourselves and the results that we get in the world. And that there isn’t anything to do with hustle or grind culture or going out and making bunches of money or even the total opposite of that and like saving all the homeless people from the entire world. Talking about being able to actually incorporate this into your daily life in every aspect of life.

but it takes breaking down how are you having those conversations in your head and what’s coming out of those conversations every single time. And do you want to change that? Do you not want to change that? I want you to think about two things. Think about two situations where, and I’m super confident and comfortable in this sort of situation. Some people might be public speaking. Some people might be playing music. It might be whatever the thing is. And then I want you to also think of what are the situations?

One or two situations that make me super uncomfortable. And I’m not telling you have to go share this with the world or talk to other people about it, but to yourself. Like there might be things that you go, I really feel uncomfortable about this, but this is a major part of my job or whatever it is. Great. Look at that. And then start to write out what comes up when I think about this. What comes up in those exact situations.

Nick McGowan (28:05.838)
because we can all recall a situation and we can put ourselves back in that spot. That’s a fun little playground. It’s like a simulation in the sense to be able to go through and say, I remember being in this spot and maybe feel this way and whatever. But in reality, if you’re able to actually understand why you do the things you do because of the conversations you’re having in your head, you’re able to change the way that you move through the world and therefore able to change the way that you impact the world. And that’s what this is all about.

I don’t believe that purpose is just for us as selfish human beings. I believe that purpose actually incorporates the rest of the world and even just our small little corner of the web of life. But if we can change the way that we look at things internally, we can then change the way that we act around and toward other people and ultimately change the way that we live life. You also need to do the work of the things that are coming up that are blocking you or stopping you.

So if you have questions about this, you wanna understand what has worked for me or what you could potentially do different than what you’re doing now, please feel free to reach out. I’d love to hear from you. And if there are certain topics like this that you want more discussions on, you want me to unpack more of, I’d love to hear from you. So thank you so much for being with me today. I hope this is helpful and I hope you do something with it.

In this episode, Nick speaks with Patrick Boylan about the importance of curiosity in understanding others and navigating judgment. They discuss how asking questions can lead to empathy and a broader perspective, allowing for a more nuanced view of people’s beliefs and actions, all while highlighting the balance between judgment and understanding, advocating for a thoughtful approach to interpersonal relationships.

What to listen for:

“At the end of the day, it’s curiosity. Why do you think that? That’s the biggest question that anybody can ask.”

“We need to come together as a species and tackle our world’s issues together.”

About Patrick Boylan

Patrick Boylan is a skilled multi-instrumentalist and co-founder of MuseFlow, a groundbreaking music EdTech platform often called “The Duolingo of Music Education.” Frustrated by the limitations of traditional music education, Patrick began exploring self-directed practice, which reignited his passion for music and led him to focus on sight reading as an engaging learning tool. MuseFlow teaches bite-sized skills through sight reading, allowing students to master new concepts efficiently and enjoyably by focusing on reading and playing music at first sight, then applying those skills to songs that get unlocked. Patrick loves to share his insights on learning and EdTech, inspiring parents, teachers, and self-learners to help students and themselves achieve flow state through MuseFlow’s unique approach.

Resources:

Check out other episodes about curiosity

Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have? Send Nick an email or schedule a time to discuss your podcast today!

[email protected]

Thank you for listening!

Please subscribe on iTunes and give us a 5-Star review! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mindset-and-self-mastery-show/id1604262089

Watch Clips and highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk1tCM7KTe3hrq_-UAa6GHA

Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]

Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”

00:00
The one thing in my opinion that would turn the tides of humanity and make people more empathetic and connected to every person on this earth, that we need to come together as a species and tackle our world’s issues together.

00:23
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self-Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show we have Patrick Boylan. Patrick, how you doing, man? Doing great. How you doing, man? I’m good. I’m excited you’re here. I think I say that a lot in the intros of shows because I’m having conversation with somebody and there are certain times where like lead time to get onto the show can be maybe a month, maybe two months. Then there are people like you, my friend, who…

00:48
I joked earlier and was like, well, when you first sent your stuff in in 2009. Yeah, but it’s kind of what it felt like though, honestly. But some of those are the best. And truthfully, I’ve had two of you this week. I had one guy a couple of days ago who does drum circles and so much music. And he just disappeared at one point like two years ago and then came back. And I was like, yes, I was hoping you’d come back. So I’m glad that you’re here too. I want us to be able to touch on music, obviously, because of the business that you have and the thing that you’re doing.

01:18
but I want us to be able to get into really how all of it has worked for you over the course of life and how it’s all shaped you to lead you to where you’re at today. Before we get there though, why don’t you get us started? Tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre? I’m the co-founder of a music education app called Museflow. We teach piano in a very different way. We’re expanding to all common instruments in the next couple of years. So it’s growing, people are loving it.

01:47
and I’m super stoked about it. Something that’s weird or that most people don’t know about me, I have two tattoos. I’ve got one on my butt, on my left butt cheek, it’s called, it’s just a family emblem that my dad drew on all of our napkins for lunches and uh Christmas cards and stuff like that. It’s four bunnies on two hills overlooking a sunset, and it’s our family. It’s me and my dad and my mom and my sister.

02:14
and our cats and our dogs and all that stuff. It’s a really cute little tableau thing, right? The other one is on my upper hip and I got it in college. I got it when I just decided that truth and honesty are going to be the most important things in my life, okay? And so I got a whistleblower. I got a guy blowing a whistle. Didn’t realize how phallic that was when I got it on my upper thigh, you know?

02:43
So it’s a little weird, but like I didn’t recognize that at the moment. What I was going for was like truth and honesty, right? And then I just, got it. And then I started doing, just being blunt, being like kind of mean about it. And like, wasn’t thinking about tact and I wasn’t thinking about like what my friends would be hurt by or if they, I didn’t care. I was just like, truth and honesty. This is just so important to my life. And like, I was being brutal about it.

03:12
And so one of my friends pulls me aside one day and he says, Pat, you got to stop this. You’re just being a jerk. You’re being an asshole about this. Like, yes, truth and honesty is important. Okay. But you got to blend it with everything else. All right. Sometimes tact and holding your tongue is the right call. Cause I got to tell you, you’re ruining friendships right now. I know a couple of people that have talked about this already and they’re saying you’re just being an asshole and they don’t want to be friends with you anymore. So you got to fix yourself or

03:42
you’re going to start losing friends. And I really trusted his opinion. He was one of my best friends. And so I listened to him and I pulled it back a bit. I pulled it back. I find it really interesting how your friend will lovingly say a thing to you, but also that you trust your friend. You know, like they’re the people that, um, they feel like they trust somebody out of, uh, I guess, systemic approach. Well, my family system tells me I should trust my parents.

04:09
or I should trust my brother and sister, or I should take whatever they say, kind of as gospel in a sense. People obviously like shit upon people with their dreams or whatever else, but it’s sometimes in those small things where it’s like, that person is upset that you’re being an asshole about a thing, but for you to be aware of you were being an asshole about it. Like if you didn’t feel you were, you probably wouldn’t have accepted it. You’d have been like, what do you mean? No, I’m just being a little bit of a boast or a little bit of this, but there was a hint of you back there was probably like,

04:38
The power feels good. You know, you’re like, yes, this is wonderful. Two things there, right? Number one, this is a historical relationship. This guy has been one of my good friends for, you know, years. And I’ve been working with him in very close contact throughout many different creative projects. He was a, he’s a director and I’m an actor. And so we worked on like seven or eight shows up until that point. And so I’ve worked with him.

05:07
deeply and very closely and I really appreciate his judgment and his kind of pulse on people. Yeah, you know and so both of those things like I trust the guy with my life and I’ll I’ll I’ll do whatever he wants when it comes to a show I know he has my best interest at heart and and that’s the biggest thing, you know number two I’ve always tried my best to take criticism with as much humility as possible and

05:37
regardless of if it’s accurate or wrong or true to myself or untrue, it doesn’t matter. That’s still your opinion. And your opinion weighed against mine. It just depends on our relationship, but it also depends on how much I trust you and all of that stuff. But like, I will take any and all criticism and I will implement it or not implement it based on the weight that I give it. And if I believe, and I do weigh it against myself, but that being said, it’s one of those things that I…

06:06
pride myself on. I pride myself on my ability to say, well, what do you think to everybody and anybody? And I don’t, doesn’t mean that I have to take it. That’s critical though. You’re two different entities, you know, and even within yourself to be able to say, well, I’m going to take that and you will accept that level of information because of the context. Like context is so important in everything. Everything. But also you can still get things from people like, uh, even if somebody

06:36
walking down the street, they was like, Hey, stop being an asshole. You’re like, well, maybe I can take something from that. Am I being an asshole right now or am I not being an asshole right now? And you get to do something with it. There are, think a lot of times where we as people, and this is where the mindset and self mastery stuff comes into play, where we will take things like, Oh, who’s this random fucking person across the street yelling at me? Why are they yelling at me? And this reminds me of when I was a little kid getting yelled at and these things and that.

07:05
If you take the approach of I wanna take on information and have it my little bucket and go, I don’t want this, I don’t want that, this is kinda cool. And like, okay, you get to do something with it. That’s a level of self-awareness that comes from being healthier, maybe just in that sect of your being. Because you’re like, this is what I’ve dedicated myself to. We also have gotten a little farther away from you have principles in place of trust and truth and.

07:33
honesty and these things that are critical to your being where honestly man kind of makes sense where you’re like I’m putting my foot so far in the fucking ground it’s anchored in there and I think sometimes people will go through that almost like the people how they become evangelical about things like it can be easy to think about uh people getting a multi-level marketing company say drink the kool-aid and go ham somebody who just got into religion god forbid you talk to somebody who was vegan and or in CrossFit

08:02
And all of that, you know what I mean? And it’s like, whoa, it’s like a stage that you can go through where you’re testing it out. You’re trying it out. There is still a little bit of that. I’m sure the power felt great because you’re like, man, I’ve been wanting to say these things for a few years and one more motherfucking thing. Yeah, it was free. It was a sense of freedom for sure. Like I don’t have to I don’t have to abide by any cultural norms of tact. You know, like it felt really great. But.

08:29
Yeah, but then I just realized like, no, sorry, I was just being an asshole about it. was taking it to the nth degree and everything needs to be in balance with other things. You can say truth and honesty are your biggest tenants of life and you can strive for the absolute excellence of that, 100%. But you also have to keep all of these other things aligned as well while you’re doing that. Anything farther on the far ends of any sort of spectrum, whether that’s…

08:57
on the left side or the far, know, whatever it may be, everything is a spectrum. And if you take it way too far and out of context in isolation, it can become toxic. It really can. One of the things I try to do on the show is have these conversations where we break up these big, big pieces, turn them much larger. Like we just explode them, but then also pull them back to smaller pieces without being like, here’s two or three things for you to take away for the week and just chill out these.

09:24
But in all reality, there are certain pieces of that that even in the balance can be really difficult if there are other things that are off balance. If you are triggered by certain things that happened, you can then sometimes get stuck in those triggers. I joke with people on the show pretty fucking often at this point. The more self-aware you become, the more fucking self-aware you become. And the more crazy making it can be while you go through the healing of that stuff because you can’t not see those things.

09:53
And think about what you deal with as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, somebody managing other people, managing yourself. You said you’re married. I don’t know if you have any children, but there’s like all these things. And sometimes people can say, but you don’t understand because boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. They make this major list. Other people will use that and say, yes, it’s because of these things that I have to do these other things. And therefore others will still go,

10:23
but I then get to and it’s all our perspective with doing it. So your perspective came from something that happened years and years and years ago. That’s why you put your foot so far into the ground and almost into people’s asses about just truth and honesty. But when we sit back and think about that a little bit, let’s break that down. Like what, what is it about what you’ve gone through and what you’ve seen? Like, why do you actually care what other people think to be able to then put it your own context? It’s curiosity.

10:53
For me, at the end of the day, it’s curiosity. Why do you think that? That’s the biggest question that anybody can ask. Cool, you believe that about me? Great, what about me makes you believe that? And it’s just curiosity over, and you say that you’re judgmental, like don’t get me wrong, I’m judgmental too. But a lot of my judgment comes from this place of like, well, okay, why would they believe something like that?

11:23
And then it allows me to still empathize with them while still being judgmental and being like, well, you can still be wrong regardless of your history, you know, or you could be cruel or not thinking about something else when you probably should be thinking about something else. And you’re like in the weeds of something here. And you’re really thinking about the reason why the thing should be this is because of all of these other things. But then see, you forgot perspective, see the forest through the trees. And so if I can understand from where you’re where you’re coming from.

11:53
If I get it, if I can get into that, be curious, not judgmental, right? That is something I always try to remind myself. And it is a motto that I like to live by, be curious, not judgmental. I try my best, granted judgment still comes, you know? Well, it’s also a fine line and judgment can have a negative connotation to it, where even judging something, you’re just judging it based on what you know, the information you have, et cetera. It’s what you then do with it.

12:21
you know, if we can get real shitty with it. I know there are times where I get shitty, like it’s easy for me to talk about people driving on the road, because there are certain times you’re like, I don’t even know if you have a license. I don’t know. Are you driving from the passenger seat? Like what the fuck are you doing? But part of me is judging of like, is it safe for me to get past your dumb ass? Is it safe for me to do whatever? And I think there are things that happen within us that are almost mechanical that we’re unaware of.

12:50
Even breathing. Like everybody knows that you’re breathing and then when you actually concentrate on your breathing, you’re like, oh, I’m concentrating on it. We don’t have to think about that. There are other things that happen that we don’t think about because subconscious is there just to keep us fucking safe. And something happened back in the day or back when we were a little kid or something like that. So for you growing up, were there experiences that you had where you were like, man, this is one of those experiences that like rocked my world and changed me. Like that was one of them where your friend was like,

13:19
You’re being an asshole, other people are gonna leave you and stop. Somebody could have taken that, been like, yeah, my buddy Jimmy told me not to be a dick anymore and then everything was cool. And you took that as a critical moment where you’re like, oh, I should do something with it. Were there any others that really stand out? I think my dad was really, really great at teaching us these kind of like critical thinking skills kind of thing, or just understanding context or being creative.

13:47
But there’s two in particular that I’d love to share. And I’m curious what you think about them. Because I think you’d love them. Number one, um when we were like maybe, God, I was like maybe eight or something like that, eight or nine, I was bored. It was like summer break or something, and I was bored. And I was like, Dad, I’m bored. What can I do? uh And he’s like, oh, OK, great. One second. Hold on. Give me a second. And he leaves. And then he comes back with a mop and a bucket.

14:16
And he says, do you know what would be really, really fun? If you mopped the kitchen floor. You know it’s something to do, it’s effective. is, you know, what do you think? Like, do you want to mop the floor? That’s what I got for you. If you want to do that, go for it, please. Otherwise, find something to do. And I was like, that’s actually, that’s great. know, like, touche. You want me to mop the floor? I’m not gonna mop the floor.

14:41
But I will find a way to entertain myself. And ever since then, I don’t think I’ve ever been bored. I’ve always been able to entertain myself. And the other kind of critical, that was such a great thing that he did when we were younger, we did this kind of series of dinners where we did caveman dinners, which were, just made a

15:11
big, big thing of pasta, okay? Pasta and some meat sauce or something like that. And he had a big old butcher block table that we always ate dinner around. So he put a big old tarp, plastic tarp down on the table and onto the floor, kind of drooping down onto the floor. And he got us into our underwear, me and my sister, and we were very young, and he just slopped this big old pot of pasta on the butcher block table in the tarp and he said,

15:41
Go to town. You’re gonna eat with your hands. You’re gonna get dirty and it’s gonna be a lot of fun. We’re calling this caveman dinner, okay? Go wild. And we had a great time. Now the next night, he put us in our fanciest clothes and we sat down for a nine course meal. And he gave us all of the directions on all the silverware, right? And all the different plates and how we do it. And we had to sit there and be proper.

16:09
and have our napkins in our lap and our combed hair and use the silverware properly, right? And so I think it’s one of those things of like balance and context, balance and context, right? You can have the caveman dinner, great, but understand the context of when you need to actually sit straight and have a towel on your lap and eat with the proper silverware. Like you gotta know both those contexts and everything in between to live a happy and healthy life in our society, in my opinion. And so,

16:38
That was one of those things that he was really good at, giving us context and freedom and play, through play and freedom. While still also controlling the situation. Yes, In a beautiful way. Yeah. And educating. Think about what you do now. You have a music education company where you’re teaching people how to play music in a fun way. I wonder who in your life would have led you to do any of that.

17:07
It’s true. 100 % my father. Yeah. And well, think about like, even as you talk about, you know, I’m bored. I remember saying to my dad, dad, I’m bored. He was like, get the fuck outside, go do something. Go do this, go do that. And he would make up all these things that were really exciting to him. And I am not the mechanical engineer type or the one who wants to go out and lift heavy things and like remove shit from people’s backyards or whatever.

17:35
I wanted to go play music or create art or something like that. And there was a disconnect there. There were times where my mom or my stepmom or even my dad at times would go, well, why don’t you go draw or something? I’d be like, yeah, cool, why not? I could have thought of that, but whatever. Like, they gave me a good idea. I’d go do it as a little kid. Or like finger pain or something. But being able to understand context, understanding how people best learn, understanding about those people does come from curiosity, I appreciate that you look at it and go, well, why do you think that way?

18:05
Or why do you look at it that way? I think there’s also much deeper levels that we can get to with that. Like you’re not just curious. I’m assuming this, but I’m also, think we’re of the same elk. Where it’s not just basic curiosity to be curious. There’s a reason. Like we want to understand, like, why do you think like that? How did you get there? Who led this thing to you? How does that make sense in my head? Why does that not make sense in my head? Like what is, the fuck did we do with this information?

18:33
It’s not just the curiosity of it. I mean, it’s really just like, it’s curiosity. I think it’s just, one of those people that is just a student of humanity. I’ve always been curious about human behavior and the motivations behind it. And it’s because I grew up as an actor. was what the thing that I did after college for seven years and…

18:56
and now I’ve pivoted into a career that I really, really love, the co-founder of this music education app that’s basically built on the way that I’ve taught myself how to play piano. And now I’m a professional pianist and I’m doing the app during the day. And you’re like, oh, what a weird life. But I still think that my curiosity comes from being a student of humanity because I was an actor. And you have to get really deep into people’s motivations.

19:24
when you are trying to replicate them in a realistic way. And it’s for outside in and inside out. It’s what are the institutions around them that make them feel and think that way? And do those themes tie into whatever piece that you’re performing in? But it’s also inside out. It is what about their childhood? What about their life? What about their perspective that has really made them behave this way? And so it’s always just been a fascination of mine. Why do people act the way that they act?

19:53
I love that your level of curiosity is at, let’s say a 10 and other people may just be slightly curious. But even if we all just take that a little bit and say, well, how can I be a little bit more curious, little less judgmental, but understand why I’m curious about this thing. Somebody says anything and I go, well, what is it? It’s not just the curiosity or even the answer back. It’s, oh, I really want to know because of whatever it is for each person. So for those people that are

20:21
on their path towards self mastery and along with curiosity, just everything else you’ve been through, what’s your advice for those people? The one thing in my opinion that would turn the tides of humanity and make people more empathetic and connected to every person on this earth, because we’re going to kill ourselves otherwise, that we need to come together as a species and tackle our world’s issues together. Climate change, economic justice, like so many things are global these days.

20:51
And it’s because there are almost 10 billion people on this earth. are so just, and we are a part of the earth. We need to shepherd it to the correct place and we need to be in service of the earth to really let our species just grow and evolve the way it probably should, you know? So with that comes a deep amount of empathy that we need to have for every human on this earth, regardless of culture, race, religion. It is one of those things I need to feel connected.

21:21
to somebody that lives on literally the other side of the earth. And how are we going to do that? It’s through curiosity. What makes you you? Describe it to me, show me. Show me your world. I’m so curious. so, be curious, not judgmental. Granted, judgment does inevitably come. I look, I judge people all fucking day. But it’s also one of those things of like, well, if I really want to know and care,

21:51
Get to the heart of who they are and their behavior and you’ll allow connection to just flourish. And for people that are naturally sort of judgmental or really hyper curious, I think the judgment comes from the bias or a situation that happened to us or just a deep, I don’t understand why you’re doing such a thing. Like I’ve joked to people before, I’ve said, I don’t understand why they’re doing it. I believe myself to be an intellectual and I thought a different way. So why the fuck are you doing it that way?

22:20
And some of it just has a little bit more air of a judgment to it, where it’s like a deeper curiosity. It’s a spectrum, as you put it. Everything’s a spectrum. Understanding ourselves and what we’re looking at, what we want, what we’re trying to do, and the reasons why we do those things, it’s also part of the balance, and we have to take it bit by bit. So man, I appreciate you being on today. It’s been great talking with you. I’m sure this is not the last time we’re gonna talk.

22:48
ah And before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you? Yeah, just go to my website musflow.ai. If you want to learn how to play piano in a different way, maybe traditional lessons didn’t work for you. We teach with sight reading first. It’s the act of reading music at first sight. We teach the fundamentals through that, through that skill, through that lens, let you master it without any repetition.

23:14
It’s always new music that is being generated for you at a very specific level and then you beat that level and then songs get unlocked after that. So we’re incorporating technology in and flow state and sight reading and gamification. We’re really bringing it all together into this one new methodology of teaching an instrument and eh it’s fundamentally different and it engages you in a much more holistic sort of way. So if you’re interested in that go to museflow.ai

23:41
Shoot me an email, info at museflow.ai and don’t put that in the show notes, just like, know, it’s for the people who are listening. Yeah, like we would love to hear what you think. I’d love to give your audience a coupon code if they want it. Let’s call it mindset, mindset 50. Anybody who uses it 50 % off for life. Look, we’re still growing. We’re still adding new features as we go. We’re not finished at all. We’re still expanding.

24:09
our accessibility. We’ve got iPad, we’ve got Android tablet, but we’re building it out for phones and any desktop app. so we’re slowly but surely growing this. We’re adding new instruments, uh adding new parts of the app. And if you want to get in that kind of on the ground floor, we just hit a really great marker. are now being able, we can pair overhead with subscriptions. And so the engine is going and it’s rolling and people aren’t churning. It’s like,

24:38
It’s actually doing it and we’re getting incredible feedback from our users. so that being said, we’re still very new. So I’d love to give your audience 50 % off for life if they want it. So it’s mindset 50. It’s great for anybody who is also just, if you’re really, really good, but maybe your sight reading is terrible. There’s a lot of professional pianists that are very good at just like the songs that they know. They have 700 songs and they’re really good at them. A lot of classical musicians are out there that do that, but they’re not.

25:07
good at sight reading. And so they use our app to get better at sight reading. So yeah, it’s good for everybody. It’s good for young people. It’s good for old people. It’s good for new people. It’s good for people that have been doing this for years. Awesome, man. I appreciate that. And I appreciate you being on. Thank you so much for your time today. Vice versa. Thank you,

In this episode, Nick speaks with Andrew Ecker to explore the cultural significance of drumming, particularly within indigenous communities, and highlights the historical context of drum circles as a means of fostering inclusivity and diversity and healing from trauma and addiction.

What to listen for:

“All of us are connected to the earth. All of us are indigenous. All of us have the air, the water, the fire, and the earth flowing through us.”

“Do something for people — and you’ll discover the truest truth of who you are.”

About Andrew Ecker

Andrew is a speaker, author, and creator of the Drumming Sounds Protocol, an evidence-based wellness intervention that blends ancient rhythm traditions with modern neuroscience to improve mental health, recovery, and community connection.

With over 25 years of experience facilitating more than 5,000 drumming and sound-based programs, Andrew has worked with hospitals, treatment centers, universities, and tribal nations across the country. His book, The Sacred 7, explores identity, ancestry, and the transformative power of ceremony—a topic that resonates deeply with audiences seeking meaning, resilience, and personal empowerment.

As a former youth outreach leader and recovery coach with over two decades in sobriety, Andrew brings a powerful, real-world perspective to conversations about trauma, healing, and spirituality. His ability to blend science, story, and spirit makes him a compelling guest for podcasts focused on wellness, recovery, leadership, and conscious living.

Resources:

Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have? https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/podcasting-services/

Thank you for listening!

Please subscribe on iTunes and give us a 5-Star review! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mindset-and-self-mastery-show/id1604262089

Listen to other episodes here: https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/

Watch Clips and highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk1tCM7KTe3hrq_-UAa6GHA

Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]

Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”

Nick McGowan (00:02.959)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show, we have Andrew Ecker. Andrew, what’s going on?

Andrew Ecker (00:13.602)
How’s it going, Nick?

Nick McGowan (00:15.649)
It’s good. I’m glad that you’re here. I’m excited for us to talk about music and drum circles and sound healing and all the things that relate to all of that. And we were gonna have a call maybe like a year and a half ago or so. And there’ve been some people that have like backed out of the show and I’ve been like, that’s fine. You can do whatever you want to do. But you were one of the people I was like, I hope he comes back. So I’m glad that you’re here. I’m glad that people are gonna be able to hear this conversation. And why don’t you get us started?

Tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre.

Andrew Ecker (00:48.769)
Awesome. So before we do that, I’d like to just take a moment and honor myself in the space by introducing myself formally in traditional language of my ancestors. This is a language called Nde Baza, which basically means the people’s tongue. So Dago Tse, Tse Nde, Andirector Yenise, Adon Dae Nshinigye, Nde Nshe, Irish Pashachin, Nde Dasha Tshe, German Dasha Nali, Kote Goe Itshliye, Portland, Oregon, Enishe.

Shama’e, Kathy Lindsay Woye, Shaza’e Del Eccorale. So my name is Andrew Eccor, my mother Kathy Lindsay, my father Del Eccor, my mother’s mother Elva Gallegos, Apache woman from New Mexico. She grew up in a little town called Capitan right outside the Mescalero reservation. Although my ancestral lines go back to the Madera Valley of Texas and Chihuahua, Mexico. The Apaches from this area are called La Pond Band Apache. My father’s mother Evelyn Beatty, an Irish woman from Pennsylvania.

She actually was very proud that our ancestor William Beatty fought in the Revolutionary War to establish this country. So I do consider myself a son of the revolution on that side of my family. My mother’s father Leroy Lindsay, a Korean and Vietnam War veteran, and my father’s father Wayne Ecker, a World War II veteran. I have a daughter Bailey, son Peyton, a beloved fiancee named Monica. I was born in the ancestral land of the Multnomah Clackamas of Malamit in Portland, Oregon.

although I currently reside in the ancestral land of the Akmal, Atom, the Peaposh and the Hohokam in Phoenix, Arizona. And very grateful to be here with you. So the thing that I do primarily is I work in healthcare and I’m a drum circle facilitator and sound medicine practitioner and also a peer support specialist, recovery coach. Most of the work that I do is in

variety of different healthcare settings. So everything from psychiatric lockdowns to memory care, skilled nursing, prisons, jails, drug and alcohol treatment facilities, I facilitated about 5,000 wellness-based events with a protocol I’ve developed called Drumming Sounds. So Drumming Sounds is a step-by-step process of creating outcomes that are wellness-based. So reducing stress, increasing immunity, lowering blood pressure,

Andrew Ecker (03:13.865)
helping people connect through music and really creating a safe, sacred space for people to come into group drumming. So group drumming is a really powerful wellness intervention and so it’s a small group of studies done on it and it’s pretty amazing what the science community has found. So yeah, so that’s what I do and also do some coaching stuff, of course, help people out. Something unique about me,

that a lot of people don’t know. You know, I grew up in a home where both my parents were addicted to drugs and my mom died of a cocaine overdose and my father died of cirrhosis of liver caused by hepatitis C. So growing up in that environment, I was around a lot of really intense experiences. And I think something that a lot of people don’t know about me is that because of that,

My relationship with PTSD as a child was something really intense and my first suicide attempt I was seven years old. I remember attempting to hang myself at seven and thankfully, you know, I didn’t succeed. But from the time of that first attempt till really probably my late 20s,

I was dealing with suicidal ideation and a severe relationship to other mental health concerns, including situational schizophrenia, depression, anxiety. These are all things I live in relationship with today.

Nick McGowan (05:01.261)
So, where do I go from here? know, way to drop everything on us. I first off want to thank you and appreciate how you started this and being able to show back to your ancestors and being able to talk from your original language. I think we can sometimes forget about where we come from. Our genetics do not.

our generational trauma does not. There’s so many things that, like you dealt with so much with your parents. I’m sure we could just tackle through all of that, but what your parents dealt with, that then they transferred along to you and what their parents dealt with, et cetera, et cetera, and how all of that was tossed to us. Most people I don’t think really think about that because they just think, well, my parents are assholes, so I’m trying to do better or whatever. It’s like, well, let’s actually take steps back generations before that.

and before that, before that. And I think we can sometimes also forget about where you actually came from. Like you rattled off a lot of family members. And as I was thinking about it, I was like, I’m making me, I maybe go like two layers deep. People beyond that, I don’t really know. And I don’t really know if they’re still around or what the hell’s going on or whatever, because of the way that I was raised. And it’s interesting to think about how we should.

actually get back to more community-based things, but there’s a lot of unlearning to do with all of that. And I’ve read through the stuff you’ve sent. I’ve seen the different things you’ve done. I’ve known about you for a little bit, but I wouldn’t have even been able to know about the things that you’ve just rattled off. And really, mean, shit, where do you want to start with this?

and thinking about from a mental health and a mindset and overall transformation, self mastery. I’m not trying to just throw out buzzwords, but like there are categorical things we can talk about here, you know?

Andrew Ecker (06:59.456)
Yeah.

Andrew Ecker (07:03.264)
Yeah, for sure. And that’s really why I’d like to share that traditional introduction because it does give us an opportunity to understand what healthy communities have looked at as self-identity, really the foundation of creating a healthy person. We’re talking about tens of thousands of years of this idea that we are our parents, we are our grandparents, we are from someplace and we live someplace. You know, these principles of self-identity.

And just like you were sharing, know, remembering that is very important because we live in a time where our earth-based identity has been systematically erased from our mindset. And this is done through systematic organization of space, you know, ideas like the patriarchy, manoralism and feudalism. You know, these really predominant institutions

systematically created a separation from us being our family and being from the earth. Yet all of us are connected to the earth. All of us are indigenous. All of us have the air, the water, the fire, the earth flowing through us. And the more that we can remember that, the more that we can validate that we are valuable just as a person. The contemporary culture has created this idea that we’re a job.

And that’s our identity, that’s our value. And that idea was really created around feudalism and manalism historically because these were the only… Well, everyone in those systems was a job-based identity other than the landlords. And the landlords were the ones who were able to have an earth-based identity. If you weren’t have land and land title,

You were a smith, a parson, a knight, a sewer, all of these behavioral based ideas of identity. And as we begin to really look at these constructs, you can see that the devaluing of the human condition is a purposeful and an intentional plot to really create what we’re faced with today. And what we’re faced with today is a lot of people

Andrew Ecker (09:26.423)
wandering around feeling valueless, hopeless, and really in a condition that promotes the use of destructive behaviors such as substances. know, myself, growing up in an environment where I remember the D.A.R.E. program coming into my school, and you know, during D.A.R.E., a lot of people don’t remember, but the D.A.R.E. police were getting children to turn in their parents for using cannabis.

and for using substances. And I remember my mom was really scared that this was going to happen. So she kind of cornered me one day and said to me, you know, if they come into your school, you can’t tell them that we use this. And it was really weird to me, because like those were the best times I remember. You know, my job as a little boy was to clean the stems and the seeds out of the cannabis. You know, back when cannabis had stems and seeds.

You know, and people rolled a joint. It wasn’t a free roll. You know, but my family used to sit around and smoke and that was when they were social. You know, nobody was drunk fighting. Nobody was in the bathroom or in the bedroom with the door shut. You know, doing intravenous drugs, they were social. And I just couldn’t understand that as a kid. But yet I remember them coming into my school and they had flags and

Nick McGowan (10:24.073)
You

Andrew Ecker (10:51.996)
guns and these were great big intimidating police officers. And I remember my heart racing and my palms getting sweaty. And thankfully they didn’t interrogate me. But what they did was they said to this group of children, if you have one drug addict parent, you’re 50 % more likely to become a drug addict. Now I’m not saying that they did this intentionally to give children this idea that they’re genetically flawed. They were trying to impart to these kids.

that, you know, don’t use drugs. That’s what, you know, is the big thing. You know, just say no, all this stuff. But what it did for me is it told me, well, 50 and 50, that’s 100. That must be who I am. And this was the first time in my life that anyone told me I was genetically flawed. You know, and the extension of eugenics isn’t something that is merely a part of, you know, the Nazi regime.

Nick McGowan (11:35.326)
Hmm.

Andrew Ecker (11:47.256)
You know, eugenics enters into childhood ideas in these sorts of systematic ways. You know, now, you know, fast forward, we’ve come to a place of understanding that it’s not just eugenics, but it’s epigenetics and really looking at how we can create environments that create successful human beings. And that’s what I’m able to do with the drum circle. You know, the drum circle is really an environment that creates a healthy human being.

as to where the destructive forces of incarceration, imprisonment and devaluing people because they have a mental health concern created those behaviors that were a part of my parents’ lives and unfortunately a part of my life. know, it wasn’t that moment that I became a drug addict when the Derikoff said that to me. But later on, as I would grow older, that seed started to take root. And when I was a teenager, I ended up

in the spoon with my dad, meaning I was using heroin with my father. You know, my mom used to use me to shoplift. I was in and out of drug houses. I mean, it was, I was exposed to things as a little boy that only makes sense today in my path of service. You know, as I’ve learned to manage these things and as I’ve learned to show up and help people reconnect to who they are, it’s all made perfect sense to me.

But as a little boy, man, I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know how to deal with it. I just wanted the pain to end. know, and, you know, thankfully I found heroin because heroin helped me through my suicidal ideation. Because I don’t know if I would be alive today if it wasn’t for heroin. You know, things got real bad for me when I was, you know, 17, 18 years old.

Nick McGowan (13:41.68)
I gotta be honest, I never thought I would hear anybody else say that thankfully I had heroin because that changed things. I overdosed on heroin when I was 19. And the people that were there in the room, I’m thankful that they wanted to save their own lives and one person like beat the shit out of me so I threw everything up. But I remember walking home smoking a cigarette after that being like, what the fuck just happened? All right. And looking up being like, all right, I guess there’s some reason why I’m here. And I think back to that.

But that wasn’t like that one moment, just like the moment that you were talking about or any of those other little moments were just a bag of moments in a sense. All these things, like even as a little kid, you don’t really know. Like, and I totally understand where you’re coming from with the parents hanging around, smoking joints, all of that. I was in parts of some of that. My mom and dad were never together and it was like totally separate ways of being and all of that.

living in and out of bars, basically, like being the kid eating a maraschino cherries and all that shit, and everyone just smoking cigarettes like a pack at a time and out around your face. There are people that don’t understand those things. Even like the dare stuff. I’ve had conversations with people kind of recently, like within the past handful of months, where some people were like, dare scared the shit out of me. And I didn’t want to touch like caffeine or anything else. Other people were like, I learned there were drugs out there. So was like, great, can I have some?

And then other people went through stuff like you where they’re like, well, you’re telling me this is how it is. I think it’s interesting how we can suspect that, let’s just say, dare wasn’t trying to brainwash. know, let’s just say that their thing was like, we want to help and we want to make sure that you have the statistics. But these are also adults that are like, well, 50 % of you become addicts. So why don’t we just tell the kids that you take it as one way. Some other kid takes it a different way.

And there’s no repercussion to that at all to then like, that wasn’t a thing that you then brought up the next day in school. It like, know what? Yesterday, I learned this thing and now I feel like the rest of my life is gonna change. That just started to grow bit by bit by bit. And then you already had the genes of being addicted.

Nick McGowan (16:02.023)
I know I have to come back to some fucking question basically. And my question at all times with that sort of stuff is like, how do we stop that from happening? Because even with the DARE stuff, it’s like, yeah, cool, thanks. Now I know there are other drugs out there and also know what the end is and I’ll fall back to marijuana because like, why the fuck? It’s a fucking plan. But all things in moderation and like all those different aspects to it. But what do we do? You know, like you move to music.

And as a musician and creative myself, I moved toward that too, but I often think of the times of smoking a joint and playing music and like those are happy moments. but to some people that might be destructive and all of that, but you moved closer into music. So I think music sometimes can be part of our addiction, you know, like I’m addicted to sound. but being able to turn that into a healing thing. So I don’t want to just jump past everything you went through.

Andrew Ecker (16:57.041)
Thank

Nick McGowan (16:59.844)
with your parents because that made you who you are. But being able to look back at some of those moments to go, now with the work that you do, the way that you were raised, what are some of those bridge points that you can look at and go, man, I was really looking for community. I was looking for ways to do this and do that. You know what I mean?

Andrew Ecker (17:18.16)
Yeah, exactly. I really believe that all addiction for me is based around relationship and filling the void of the absence of relationship with the substance. And I remember the first time that this really happened to me, me and my mom were out shoplifting all day. I was just a little guy. I was, you know, probably eight, nine, I don’t know, somewhere around there. I remember being all bundled up and maybe even younger. I was

you know, elementary school age. And she takes me to the park and she left me there at the park with a bucket of chicken. And I remember her saying, I’ll be right back and her driving off and me eating that chicken to fill the void and the fear of my mom not coming back for me. Being left at the park and knowing in my childhood mind that she was going to a dope house and there could have been something that happened.

It was just the anxiety of that entire situation I was feeling with the warmth of that chicken. And then later on, you know, as I started to grow in my own personal self mastery, I started to look back at the patterns of loneliness and grief and isolation and how every time that I found myself using, really, it was that idea. It was about creating camaraderie at first, community.

finding a judgment free zone. You know, I grew up being bounced around family member to family member. So definitely had home insecurity and really wasn’t, you know, in a place where I felt like I had a home. So I didn’t feel that sense of security that maybe most people grow up with. So when I found the security of friends that would accept me, you know, just if I got high with them, that’s all I needed. It wasn’t like I needed to be

smart, it wasn’t like I needed to be funny, it wasn’t like I needed to be athletic, you know, it wasn’t like I needed to be a great musician, any of those things. I just needed to show up and get high and you know and have money to get high or be able to hustle and that was really my first support system was the community of people that I was using with and what happens for most people that are in the struggle of substance use disorder

Andrew Ecker (19:43.015)
is that they focus on what not to do. And they never really understand what the drugs and alcohol gave to them. You know, asking myself, what was it that heroin gave to me? What was it that alcohol gave to me? And how can I effectively create a way of meeting that need? Because we all have human needs. Every single one of us is going through something. And you know, it’s a lot easier when we go through it together and building that foundation of community.

is so important in me being able to have functional behaviors today. So I’m constantly evolving in the way that I’m able to show up in community. I have my drum circle community. I have the people that I serve in the institutions and healthcare and the schools. And then I also have other activities like doing poetry or playing pickleball, going to the gym.

You know, these are ways that I definitely look at creating community where I’m at. There was a time when church was a really big part of my life. You know, now I go to sweat lodge and I have a spiritual community there. Uh, you know, I’m not opposed to going to meetings, but I, know, I don’t go to a lot now, but definitely going to 12 step meetings and all of these things are a great way that we can build a supportive community. And when you ask, you know,

Like when we think about children that have been affected by the mental health crisis, you know, how do we help them navigate? How do we help the youth navigate? And I think it’s really about creating a fortified sense of community. And, you know, when we think about drumming, oftentimes we go to this idea that drumming is this exclusive experience for indigenous communities, that it’s something that really is ceremonial and

ritualistic and yes there is definitely ritual and ceremony but drum circles began as creating a culture of inclusivity, equity and really diversity because the drum circle of North America originated in the 1700s in New Orleans and under French colonial occupation Native Americans, Africans, Europeans, people from all over the world

Andrew Ecker (22:09.146)
were able to gather with the common language of group drumming. And that group drumming created a foundation for jazz, blues, R &B, gospel, and eventually rock and roll. So when I go in and I facilitate a drum circle, it’s from the American experience of group drumming that has always been about creating a culture of diversity, has always been about creating a space of connection.

through diverse groups. And when we have that sacred space, we can know that something good is gonna happen. And we as Americans, we don’t know that the only truly American instrument is the drum kit. The jazz drum kit is really the only truly American instrument. So we have this vast history of drumming together that is hundreds of years old, literally as old as the concept of

of America, yet for some reason this sort of stuff isn’t taught in school. And it’s not taught to us about the richness of creating a culture of diversity, of inclusion, of equity, and what the brilliance of that looks like in an artistic sense. And I think today we’re threatened by a voice that is coming from a group of people that says that diversity, inclusion, and equity

is something to fear. And I’m like people, that’s the very greatest gifts that we’ve given to the world has come from us coming together as a people. And it feels good. You know, it feels good to give yourself an opportunity to be around people in an activity that you normally wouldn’t be around. And I think that that’s the power of our journey and the wellness and the brilliance of our community.

Nick McGowan (23:58.594)
Hmm.

Andrew Ecker (24:04.405)
And when we can get back to teaching each other that, when we can get back to fortifying the space of that concept of what that America looks like, we’ll have the brilliance of being the shining city on the hillside that calls the weary, that calls the hurting, that calls the desperate. And you know, the struggle that my parents went through, the pain that they were going through, and the ostracization of being

criminalized for having a mental health issue. You know, that’s what this country has done very effectively. You know, 90 % of people in our prison system have a mental health issue. And that is sad that we have done this to the most vulnerable people in our population. And we have more people in prison than any industrialized nation in the world. But if you counted the people that were in

psychiatric lockdowns, memory care, skilled nursing, and other forms of institutionalization, that number would be astronomical. And these are the people that I have spent the past 20 years working with, helping, desperately giving to, because in that space, I feel fulfilled as a human being, but I also get to see some of the most brilliant experiences and miraculous experiences

in my life, Nick. I mean, we’ll go into these memory care facilities where we have late stage Alzheimer’s patients that are nonverbal and we’ll set the drum down in front of them. The nurses sometimes will come over and say, they won’t play, don’t even bother. I mean, this is our healthcare workers and we’ll say, no, just keep it there. And next thing you know, you see them tapping their foot. And before you know it, they’re playing and they’re singing and

You know, it’s just miraculous to know that the tens of thousands of years of evidence-based practice of utilizing group drumming has not been wasted and that it’s still relevant to the healthcare conversation and it still is meaningful and it still helps people.

Nick McGowan (26:15.97)
Why don’t see how it can’t not continue that way, you know? Like, I think everybody that will listen to this will have heard at least one time, music is the universal language. And for us to be able to actually feel music, there are people that don’t really understand music. They don’t feel it the same way musicians do, let’s say. Like there are sometimes I’ll share things with people and I’m like, listen to how this happens with this and my God.

then it just does things to you. You feel that at different times. Other people don’t know that. That’s just not part of their being. Yet still, they can feel the frequencies. If we really break it down into quantum level, we are all waves and frequencies anyway. And all of this ties into everything. man, I’m sitting here like I got chills even as you’re talking about, because I’m visualizing that older person who the healthcare workers are basically like, we see them every day. They don’t do anything because we also don’t do anything different.

Andrew Ecker (26:48.163)
yes.

Nick McGowan (27:15.083)
And we’re kind of jaded and overworked and fuck, I could really use a vacation. Like they have their own problems. And then they’re just like, no, don’t worry about them. They’re not going to do it. But that frequency will still get in there. So I could imagine it’s got to be a, that’s probably one of those things like drum circles per se is one of those things that people probably won’t go to on the top list of 30 things that they’re going to do to work on themselves at first. You know, so even

Like if somebody were to say, you’re having these problems, you have some addiction, you have anything and they go, well, go to a drum circle. I would imagine most people would look at somebody like a dog would like, what the fuck does that, what do you mean? so what would you say to those people that haven’t even thought of that? This is one of those things where like, wow, I’ve talked to somebody, I went to a doctor and I’m doing these and we’re doing blah, blah, blah. What advice do you give to those people that this has been one of those things that.

was probably not even deep, deep in their mind, even as a musician, to think about how drum circles and drumming could help them.

Andrew Ecker (28:19.943)
Well, I definitely feel that a lot of that has been because of the cultural stereotypes about drumming and this idea of, you know, the witch doctor or voodoo or, you know, something along these lines. you know, it just is, it’s crazy to really unpack when you have communities that have thrived with a relationship to the earth, lived functionally for tens of thousands of years. And at the heart of those communities,

is group drumming, dancing and singing. I mean, this is literally the oldest wellness based event that we have as human beings. And somehow, you know, through the lens of religion and not even really, I would say because I was a pastor for three and half years that I can tell you that there’s a lot of reference in the Bible even of sound medicine. I mean, David, you know, played the leader for Saul who had

like mental health concerns. And it’s, mean, there’s references to the women of Israel coming out playing the drum. So it isn’t like an educated Judeo-Christian bias. It’s an uneducated Judeo-Christian bias that creates this narrative that, those brown and black people are the people, those savages, that drum. And it’s really unfortunate because even

Nick McGowan (29:21.642)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Ecker (29:48.061)
in the very progressive world of integrative medicine, there still is a void around drumming. I am a presenter at some of the most prestigious healthcare conferences in the United States. And I remember confronting a doctor that was talking about mindfulness and he had, he was a keynote and he had this tree of mindfulness and all of these branches led to different aspects of mindfulness.

One of them, of course, went to yoga, Tai Chi, but there wasn’t a branch that went to drumming and dance. And I confronted him in front of the entire group of doctors, 500 doctors. And I said, why isn’t there a branch to drumming? And he was very apologetic. And he said, there needs to be a branch on that tree to drumming. And I said, yes, we’re working on making that happen. But it is overlooked.

Nick McGowan (30:37.513)
Hmm.

Andrew Ecker (30:46.148)
And you know, I can tell you that I am a part of a community of people that have the more that they drum, they may have come to a drum circle and been drinking and smoking. But by the time, you know, a couple of years go by and they get around people like myself that are completely abstinent from substance use and I’m drumming and having a great time and dancing, the more that they start to question, well, do I really need this? And then it’s just

Nick McGowan (31:13.566)
Hmm.

Andrew Ecker (31:13.911)
a matter of them just being in that environment. And I have friends come up to me and say, Hey, you know what? I didn’t tell anybody about this, but I haven’t drank in, you know, six months. And I’m like, right on, you know, and friends come up and say, I haven’t smoked in a year and I just kind of went away because drumming as well as you know, Nick, music gives us that feeling of community connection. I mean, there is no deeper connection.

that you can experience, then when you hit a note or when you play a rhythm and everybody ends together and nobody said stop, or the thing just fades away into the brilliance of the experience and you’re just like, holy crap. This, mean, as a musician, and if you talk to musicians, they can tell you precisely when that happened in their life, because it’s one of those memories.

Nick McGowan (31:51.954)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Ecker (32:09.966)
that is embedded into you on a cellular level. It is literally like you’re touching God. I mean, it is so powerful. And every person, we have communities where that was literally the entire community experience. I was fortunate enough to go to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and meet with the Havasupai. And I did three suicide prevention programs down there. This is the most remote Native American tribe in the continental United States.

Nick McGowan (32:13.95)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (32:26.279)
you

Andrew Ecker (32:39.159)
There’s no roads to their nation. There’s no airstrips. It’s only horseback helicopter or foot. That’s the only way you can get down there. And I met with an elder named Tiny Haunan. And Tiny was playing the drum and singing. And he said, when I was a little boy, we used to drum, dance and sing for a week straight. He said the people would fall asleep on the ground, wake up, start singing and dancing again. And they would drum literally for an entire week.

Now the frequency of that, the cellular alliance, the reconfiguration of the energetic meridians in the body, like there is no place for depression in that environment. There’s no place for anxiety in that environment. I mean, you’re literally rewiring your nervous system and coming into our harmonic connection with the earth. And this is really what it means to be an earthling. You know, the music that we play,

Nick McGowan (33:21.758)
you

Andrew Ecker (33:38.14)
is something that we practice to play at the level that we can play at. But everybody knows that there’s a point where the instrument is playing you. And when you’re in that mystery, man, when you are in that mystery, like every single person deserves to experience that in their lives. Every single person deserves to be in the brilliance of that experience because it solves the issues, man. It solves it.

Nick McGowan (33:50.055)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Ecker (34:06.196)
And when you taste that, you’re hungry for it forever. And I’ll go to, you know, like I facilitate drum circles and that really doesn’t happen in a drum circle. But a taste of that does happen. Like a place of connection to the feeling of support and the intricacy of music and even the freedom that you can experience in that space, it will happen. And

You know, it does take a level of mastery to experience the depths of that. And hopefully people will be able to go on their journey with music to that place. like that is, dude, I mean, there’s nothing better than that right there. I mean, if you could take and put that into a bottle, people would spend their lives wanting to… And that’s why musicians do what they do, They will…

Nick McGowan (35:02.119)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Ecker (35:02.624)
They will literally sleep on the couch of their best friend to go experience that. They will literally not go to work to go experience that. They will do whatever they possibly can to experience that. you know, unfortunately, in a world that doesn’t value music like our ancestors did, you know, for tens of thousands of years, and even today, you know, you go to India, they have ceremonies that are a month.

where it’s just people drumming, dancing and singing for a month straight. You you go to Hopi right here in the United States on the Hopi reservation. They’re doing that same idea because the practice of living in integration with the earth promotes the quality of the earthling condition. So where you’re not worried, you go sleep in a mud house rather than go try to make a billion dollars so that you have a big old fancy house.

if you get that experience of community. You know, and that experience of community solves everything, man. And we got to get it in our schools. We got to get it in our our our health care facilities. We’re trying our best. We train 350 people now in the drumming sounds protocol. We’re out there doing it every day, you know, and just trying to live our best lives. So is it the solution? I think that we have, like I said, thousands, literally people, thousands of years.

Nick McGowan (36:17.638)
Hmm.

Andrew Ecker (36:30.459)
of evidence-based practice out there. Like, wake up, people, wake up. Like, yeah, we need drumming.

You know?

Nick McGowan (36:39.836)
Yeah, I mean, even just the community level of that, but the music and the frequency level of all of it and everything that ties into it. I love the work that you’re doing. I really do. I think it’s crazy that the arts and music especially is being taken out of different schools and everything’s being really like commodified almost, even when you think of music. For the most part, pop music.

It’s an ABA, CAB sort of situation. It’s the same thing. There was even a thing like 10, 15 years ago where somebody played a Nickelback song forward and layered over another Nickelback song backwards and it was the same. And it was like, that is crazy. But that’s what is being pushed to us instead of feeling through all of this and allowing yourself to actually get into it. I’m really glad that you got to the point where you were saying that the music is playing you.

Because any musician that’s really been in, I don’t know, in any sort of jam session or in a live band or something, even if you’ve remotely tasted that little bit, you know that that’s a real thing. And that’s a whole different level. And you’re right, that is divine. Like you are literally in it. I’d played guitar in worship bands for the better part of a decade. And if it weren’t for music, I wouldn’t have been there.

Andrew Ecker (37:54.712)
Dude, it’s fast, yeah.

Andrew Ecker (38:03.5)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (38:03.961)
I wouldn’t have ended up having a relationship with God. And I also now at this point, no, he’s not some bearded dude on a fucking chair somewhere. Like it’s much bigger than that. But being able to feel that, like there are things where you couldn’t manufacture this feeling. So I’m glad he pointed out, like if we could bottle it, that would be great. But at the same time, the rest of the world is trying to bottle fucking everything else. So I’m glad that we can’t because you need to experience that, you know?

Andrew Ecker (38:12.974)
Yeah

Andrew Ecker (38:20.322)
Yeah.

Andrew Ecker (38:28.202)
I know, I know.

You do,

Nick McGowan (38:33.743)
What a cool thing, man. And I really love the work that you’re doing. I appreciate you being on with us today. For the people that are on their path towards self-mastery, what’s your advice to those people that are walking toward that?

Andrew Ecker (38:45.772)
You know, I think first just be gentle with yourself and just understand that, you know, loving yourself is the simplest thing. I was doing my best and you know, we man, life is rough, man. I mean, we, we lose people. go through all kinds of stuff and people used to tell me all the time, you know, Andrew, you need to love yourself, especially when I was little, you know, they would tell me this and I, I’d be like, you know, I felt like I was doing something wrong, you know, like

What does that mean? And you know, it really is as simple as just saying, I was doing my best through everything, you know, through the alcoholism, through the drugs, but look at what’s going on in your life. And if it isn’t working for you, change, you know, like don’t be stuck in a pattern that is something destructive. You know, being in a place where you can manage your thoughts is a very important aspect to living your successful life.

allowing for the thoughts that don’t serve you to simply fade away and sometimes to be confrontational with those thoughts. You know, I remember reading God is love and I thought if I just focus on love, maybe all these thoughts of suicide would would leave me. So every time any anxiety came into my life, I would just simply start screaming love in my mind and take control of my mind. You know, sometimes we just have to

overpower those thoughts that aren’t serving us. And, you know, I think that for me, the greatest act of my own self mastery is the place of service. Being of service to others has brought me to a place where I feel the best, Andrew. And sometimes, you know, showing up isn’t easy. Sometimes it’s hard, but I think about the people that I drum with in the institutions and

You know, just to give everybody a really brief story before we kind of close this up. For 10 years, I went to this skilled nursing hospital. And for 10 years, this man would come out and he was in a bed and his hands were atrophied. And I’d have to pry his fingers open and put a maraca in his hand. And he would shake the maraca and say, Hallelujah, Hallelujah. You know, and he had this great big smile on his face.

Andrew Ecker (41:11.164)
And this man’s name that I’m mentioning today is Vance Gribbins. And one day I came to the hospital and I said, Where’s my buddy Vance? And they told me he went home to heaven. I was like, good for him. You know, I said, How long did he live in this hospital? I’ve been coming here for 10 years. And they said he lived in that hospital for 28 years. And for 28 years, man, he lived in a body that that he couldn’t feed himself, you know, and 28 years he was in a hospital bed.

But every single time he had an opportunity to show up for drum circle or sing along or balloon toss or bingo, he was there. And you know, today we have people that have everything in their lives. They have money, they have beautiful homes, cars, all this stuff. And to get them to go out to, you know, an art display or to go and show up at an open mic or a drum circle.

You know, it’s like the end of the world. They would rather sit in front of their TV and watch Judge Judy need potato chips. And I’m just calling people on their bullshit. You know, if we want to have a good world, we got to get out of our house. We got to connect with our neighbors. We got to say hi to people. We can’t just look down at our phone every time we see a homeless person and try to escape eye contact. You know, we need to engage with people and be the brilliance that we are.

You know, the medicine that you have inside of you is a medicine that we need as a community. And that’s what this world needs right now. We need love. We need togetherness. You know, I stopped giving money to people when they would ask me for money on the street. But I immediately will say to a person, hey, can I pray for you? You know, and sometimes people will say, you know, hell no, I don’t want that. And sometimes people will say, you know what?

I appreciate that. Please pray for me. And I remember one time me and Monica were in my my fiancee. We were in Salt Lake. And this guy had chains, gold chains on and he just put out a joint. I could tell he smelled like cannabis and everything. He’s like, hey, man, you got any money? I was like, no, but I could say a prayer for you. And I’m saying a prayer for this guy. And he’s like, that’s the good shit. That’s what he was saying. And you just never know how you’re going to impact somebody’s life if you make yourself available. So

Nick McGowan (43:34.615)
Yeah.

Andrew Ecker (43:35.493)
You know, want to be in the place of self mastery, be available for community. You know, get out there and do something that is just to be available. Volunteer, you know, go show up at the homeless shelter. Develop a podcast that’s giving to the community. Do something for people. You know, do something for people. And you know, you’re to find the truest truth of the truth that you are. And you’re going to make a difference in the lives of people.

Nick McGowan (44:02.656)
It’s hard to not clap right now and like really fucking root, you know what I mean? So thank you, dude. I appreciate that. I’ve been refraining back from the like, fuck yeah, yeah. You know, so I really appreciate it. And how that was also one of those. and by the way, one more fucking thing. Here it is. Man, that’s awesome. I think there are small things that we can do.

Andrew Ecker (44:13.013)
Yeah!

Andrew Ecker (44:23.581)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (44:32.002)
to really help us be able to start down that path? Because you’re talking about a lot of things and to some people, and I try to break stuff down to like, what could anybody be thinking about being super analytical or whatever of like, man, that’s a lot of shit. And there’s like a lot of things that are going on. I’m having really hard time with this one little thing in my life right now. So taking those smaller steps, like even saying get out and do community, do community in the way that feels right for you to do.

Like there are people that will go to church on Sunday and that’s my community time. And as soon as they walk out, they’re yelling at their kids, they’re hating on everybody. it’s like, you’re not really doing community at that point. And community can look different to everybody. And sometimes it’s just showing up literally in the neighborhood. And like you’re saying, and dude, I think we all do it. There are people around, look down at your phone. I do that at times where I’m lost in my own head and I’m thinking about things. I’m just…

going through my phone, because I’m like, don’t want to have an interaction with somebody else. And as soon as I’m aware of that, I’m like, fucking, I gotta put my phone away. Hi, you know, like, just taking that step to get out there a little bit. You obviously love what you’re doing. And this is part of your calling and a deep purpose of yours. And I think the big thing for all of us to be able to take away from that is whatever that looks like for us, just lean into it. Just get into it a little bit more and enjoy that. And I…

I love that you were talking about the amount of music and the things that go into that, like the feelings that we can get from all of that and how that opens people that haven’t been open for years and years and sometimes decades. So, Andrew, I appreciate you being on here. It’s been a pleasure having you on, man. I really appreciate it. Before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

Andrew Ecker (46:16.065)
so yeah, drumming sounds is pretty much the easiest way there. you know, if you Google drumming sounds, it’ll pull me up, but I’d like to give everybody a free copy of my book based on the traditional introduction of my ancestors, but applicable to any sort of person. it’s just a system of self identity and you can get that at the sacred seven.com. It’ll also put you into my email list and you can find out events we’re doing music festivals, trainings, drum circles, all that stuff.

Nick McGowan (46:51.511)
Again, man, it’s been pleasure having you on. Thank you for your time.

Andrew Ecker (46:54.273)
Thank you, Nick.

In this episode, Nick speaks with Lybi Ma about the importance of embracing all emotions, including those that are often deemed negative. They emphasize the need to sit with and process feelings rather than suppressing them, highlighting that experiencing emotions is a natural part of life.

What to listen for:

“We spend a lot of time negating half of our emotions. We want to feel happy and not depressed or not anxious, or we don’t want to feel anger. Feel these things.”

“People stop breathing when they’re tense and in the moment of being reactive to an unhappy situation. And when you stop breathing, cortisol goes up, and you become alert, and you’re looking for the predator. Just breathe and let your body work it out.”

About Lybi Ma

Lybi is the executive editor of Psychology Today. In addition to producing the print magazine, she also edits its website and blog platform, which hosts more than nine hundred authors, academic researchers, and journalists. She edited a Psychology Today book series covering topics such as anger, food addiction, and bipolar disorder. She has a blended family of five adult children and lives with her husband in Westchester, New York. Her newest book, HOW TO BE LESS MISERABLE, is available now from Blackstone Publishing.

Resources:

Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have? https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/podcasting-services/

Thank you for listening!

Please subscribe on iTunes and give us a 5-Star review! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mindset-and-self-mastery-show/id1604262089

Listen to other episodes here: https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/

Watch Clips and highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk1tCM7KTe3hrq_-UAa6GHA

Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]

Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”

Nick McGowan (00:00.971)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show we have Libby, how you doing today?

Lybi Ma (00:10.338)
Good. Thank you for having me.

Nick McGowan (00:13.233)
Absolutely, I’m excited that you’re here. I told you, I thought you were gonna be really academic and I think you’re gonna be able to tie that in with being an actual human. And I’m excited with all this. So why don’t you get us started? Yes, thank you. Thank you for breathing air with the rest of us. Why don’t you get this started? Tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre?

Lybi Ma (00:25.121)
breathing.

Lybi Ma (00:38.39)
I am the executive editor at Psychology Today, and I’ve been there for quite a few decades. Not gonna tell you completely because I don’t want you to know my age. And something that, well, the thing about me is that we take my ex-husband on vacation with us. There you go.

Nick McGowan (01:06.644)
So I appreciate that you basically just hold the mic there, like about to drop it and like, what do you want to do with this? I feel like there are people that would be like, and here’s some context to it. So I’ve got to ask what, what do you mean? How does that work? Does he physically go with you or is he like in a box? Okay.

Lybi Ma (01:22.222)
Yeah, he’s, he comes with us. He shows up. We had three weddings in 13 months between my second husband and me. And they’re grown kids. And he came to my stepkids’ weddings and they call him Uncle Carl.

Nick McGowan (01:44.628)
Cool. That’s really awesome. That is an odd thing that I, unfortunately that I think most people don’t experience. Yeah. Well, this is, this is a good thing to start on too. Cause I’ve actually had this conversation with somebody recently where they’re like, yeah, I’ve got a young kid and the mom and I don’t really, we don’t work, but we work really well together for the kid.

Lybi Ma (01:54.211)
I gave you one, didn’t I? I gave you one.

Nick McGowan (02:10.919)
And that was really important. Like I could see him almost like put his foot in the ground. Like this is what we’re doing specifically for a child. That’s not how I grew up. Like my mom and dad, they’re still basically like a town or two apart from each other. They’ll see each other at a bar somewhere and like snarl at each other. Like I am 41 years old, calm down. It’s been a long ass time. However, my dad and his ex-wife are great friends because of the relationship that they had and all that. My dad actually…

Lybi Ma (02:29.613)
Okay.

Nick McGowan (02:40.827)
met her husband, shook his hand with a hundred dollar bill and said, thank you. It’s your turn. I’m like, the kahones on that man for that. But that’s an interesting thing that you can actually have that. Now I would imagine, look, you work for psychology today. You’ve probably done a lot of work on yourself and through your relationships and healed through things. But can you give us a little bit of context of like how the heck that works?

Lybi Ma (02:48.59)
I like that. That’s funny.

Lybi Ma (03:07.8)
So in the beginning when I first got divorced, I thought, I’m never speaking to this person again. And that lasted for a little while. And I actually worked through his second wife. I needed her to pick up the kids. So as you know, we had a very friendly situation. And I thought, well, this is not really good for the kids. So I think I better.

start being more amenable to the whole thing. And I got this job and it helped me. This job, I read a lot of information. Constance Ahrens did research. She did a good book on divorced kids. And basically divorced kids can do well if

The parents get along and there’s no conflict in their household. And as long as each parent has a good relationship with the child, they’re probably going to do well. And I will have to say that my children did very well.

So yeah, it worked out. And yeah, and it also helps when you have a person like my ex-husband who is very amiable. He wants to be friendly and he has a crazy romance with my husband, a bromance, sorry, not romance, a bromance. They have a thing going on. So there you go.

Nick McGowan (04:28.454)
awesome.

Nick McGowan (04:48.86)
Ha

Nick McGowan (04:54.473)
Which you probably didn’t think like we’re getting a divorce at some point I’ll be married again and he’ll be great friends with my then husband. Like could you have written that you know?

Lybi Ma (05:01.13)
No, no, I had no idea. No idea. No. Getting along is better. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (05:06.097)
Yeah.

That’s interesting. Yeah. But I, I find it interesting how sometimes we, people can say, there was this period of time and then a period of lapse. And then I realized this thing and then another period and here we are. There was a lot of time in between then and this conversation right now. And even the times where I’m sure you were super frustrated, upset, pissed the whole nine and then maybe I could do things different. And I think sometimes we blow past that because

Lybi Ma (05:33.25)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (05:39.312)
Maybe context isn’t always important in all the situations. However, I want to say it’s pretty much always super important. And that’s really what the purpose of the show is to be able to kind of talk about those tough times. Like you went through a divorce, but you saw it as I’m going to help with the kids. And this is more important for my kids. And now you’re seeing your kids in action from the result of what you guys have done. It’s really hard for people to see the stuff that they need to work on and be open to that, especially when they’re in a really, really difficult time going through it.

or post divorce or something like that. Now, how does that tie into the work that you’ve done and worked with for maybe just a couple decades? Don’t need to know your age. But being able to actually go through that stuff on your own and then literally work with psychology today and the psychologists and other people doing important work and you being a researcher yourself.

Lybi Ma (06:33.026)
Well, I’ll be honest with you. First of all, I’m not a researcher. take the researcher’s information and try to put it in accessible language so that people can relate. So you see all this information coming through and everything makes a whole lot of sense.

Nick McGowan (06:53.02)
sense.

Lybi Ma (07:02.38)
And I started to apply it to my own life. And it was very helpful. I became a wiser person because I work at this magazine. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (07:15.751)
Sure. Were there things that you can kind of look back to? Like kind of hovering around the same topic here, because I know it’s important, divorce kids and families and all that, but for you to be able to look back to and say, you know, if I wasn’t in the job that I am in, I probably would have been in different spot because you learn certain things because of the information you were seeing coming to you. And then just putting it into action. Like, is there anything that really stands out to you? Like, if I didn’t learn this.

Lybi Ma (07:23.95)
huh.

Nick McGowan (07:45.233)
I didn’t learn it this way, it would have all been different.

Lybi Ma (07:48.259)
Well, I think that when I was younger and the kids were little, I was newly divorced. I fought with life quite a bit.

And I think that is a main message in my book is fighting with life, it just doesn’t work. We have to plug on and not fight with it. I turn to, also turn to, you know, spiritual thought a little bit like Buddhism.

Buddhists accept things. This is how it is. So let’s just take this. You can’t change it. So let’s just try to make it work. Work with what you have. So that’s what I did. I worked with what I had. So I take a little bit of psychology and I mix it. My family.

Nick McGowan (08:56.134)
Little bit of this, little bit of that.

Lybi Ma (08:57.198)
Yeah, right. My family comes from the Tibetan, Ching Hai Plateau. And it is, Ching Hai is next door to Tibet. And actually, my grandfather was a trader, he had a donkey, and he put all his tea and shoelaces and whatever, know, spices on his

Nick McGowan (09:26.704)
Yeah.

Lybi Ma (09:27.032)
donkey and then he would go back and forth from Tibet to Qinghai. And they are, and these people in that area, there’s Tibetan Buddhists and they’re also Hui. The Hui are Chinese Muslims, which my family are Chinese Muslims. They come from that area and they’re very similar. They have a very similar sort of way of thinking.

and acceptance is a big part of it. And that didn’t work out. So we better turn over here and see if this is gonna work out. That’s the way it is.

Nick McGowan (10:09.637)
You

yeah. So let’s, let’s talk about that for a bit. Cause that does tie into even just being miserable or not miserable, let alone less miserable. So if we think of like, it’s funny cause I struggle with that at times. I, I curse like a fucking cartoon at different times. Like this thing doesn’t work. I’m like, just making noises and shit. And my partner on the other hand will go completely calm, silent almost and just methodical.

Lybi Ma (10:22.67)
Yeah, right.

Nick McGowan (10:42.717)
And it’s a thing that’s, I believe is actually part of her design, how she is. And I can get up at E and Nancy and all that. But then there are also layers to this where there’s trauma involved. There are different experiences, even things back to how our parents related to things. Like my parents would throw their arms up in the air about things. And I learned, I guess I do that. Like I get upset and pissed and like throw my arms up and flail. And my body still reacts at times that way where it’s like, yo, calm down. It’s totally fine. Being able to accept a thing.

Lybi Ma (10:57.44)
Nick McGowan (11:13.172)
in the split second and then start to move in a different direction can be harder for people because of the things that they’ve gone through and even the way that they are. But how have you found to be able to work within the way that you best operate to say, all right, well, I can find acceptance and I can move on from here. Because I think that’s really where, that’s where the change happens is those macro moments where we actually do something. Cause it’s easy for you and I to shoot the shit and talk about this stuff.

Lybi Ma (11:22.881)
yeah, certainly.

Nick McGowan (11:42.073)
But it’s in that moment where you’re like, and how you don’t do that. You know what I mean?

Lybi Ma (11:42.126)
Yeah.

Lybi Ma (11:48.493)
You know, I never had a moment of epiphany. It just sort of moved along in the right direction. So I’m not going to say, wow, I had this aha that I had to accept things in life. No, was in my mind, I was hanging this guy up by his toes for a long time. So, and I don’t think there’s wrong, there’s anything wrong with doing that.

if you have to feel it, then feel it. We spend a lot of time negating half our emotions. And that is something quite important and well studied. We want to feel happy and not depressed or not anxious or

Nick McGowan (12:19.897)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (12:36.866)
Yeah.

Lybi Ma (12:46.362)
We don’t want to feel anger or I don’t know. Well, you feel these things and okay, feel them. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to lash out and burn a car. No, you’re just going to feel them. Sit there and feel it and watch it. Watch it.

Nick McGowan (12:57.507)
Yeah.

Lybi Ma (13:05.102)
with you and then okay well I gotta get up and cook dinner for the family so I gotta get moving here so I’m not gonna sit here and dwell about it. Maybe I’ll make an appointment and that’s another therapy tool. Make an appointment. If you need to feel crummy then okay I felt crummy at 4 30 to 5. I’m gonna do the same thing tomorrow 4 30 to 5 and I’m gonna

Nick McGowan (13:13.365)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Lybi Ma (13:33.772)
sit with my feelings and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it.

Nick McGowan (13:36.109)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (13:40.544)
I’m right there with you. I think it’s important for us to feel that stuff where if you think about where we’re at right now, almost 2026 with technology and the amount of information, like we see all these things like social media, for example, you hop on, you see somebody doing this big thing, but you don’t have the context of all the other things that have happened before that or even 20 minutes before that when they’re screaming at somebody to get out of their way in the grocery store or whatever. And it’s like,

This is what I said to you, I appreciate you being human because that moment where you’re like, this really hurts. I still got to make dinner for these people. We all got to eat tonight. Let me do that. And let me not also then just drag that out. And I find having the amount of conversations I have with people on the podcast and outside of that with clients, just random people that I come into contact with, it’s always interesting to me how somebody will, we want to always put up a better face than what’s really going on.

Lybi Ma (14:17.102)
Yeah

Nick McGowan (14:38.499)
And you also don’t want to just be completely shitty and just the world is on fire and totally. people have seemed to have a hard time finding equanimity within themselves to then be able to have a conversation outside of that. And it sounds to me like what you’ve experienced that a lot of us have, where it’s like over the course of time, the rock just gets smoother because the water was going over it. You finally go, okay, it’s been six months. I’ve been upset about this for so long, but some people still.

Lybi Ma (15:05.486)
Exactly.

Nick McGowan (15:07.296)
they still just keep going with that hatred for it, which I guess is kind of a different topic. But your book with being less miserable.

Lybi Ma (15:15.404)
No, think hatred is, no, hatred is important. I mean, if you’re gonna wallow in it, that’s probably not good, but sometimes anger, good anger used constructively will make you do things that are important in life. But hating people outright, I don’t know. I’m not too sure about that.

Nick McGowan (15:25.954)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (15:35.394)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (15:43.811)
Yeah, there are enough of those people that are sitting in an office. The rest of the government shut down right now. yeah, it’s interesting because I think that’s where I was headed with the wallowing in it. Like any of this, you don’t want to wallow in it, but you do need to sit in it. Like I’ve had conversations with people that they have a really hard time. It’s like the stove is too hot to even get close to touch it. And then there are other people that like they can put their entire body on it.

Lybi Ma (15:50.894)
my goodness.

Nick McGowan (16:13.142)
They can roll around on it like a bed of needles almost, you know, and just sit there. I find that that’s an interesting thing because that’s part of maybe their design, but also they’ve gotten to a point, some of them, where they go, look, I can’t do anything outside of the stuff that’s happening. So I can only do something with what I have here. So why waste my time anymore? Like they’ve wallowed enough or they’ve gone through enough of it.

Lybi Ma (16:36.031)
Right, right, right, right. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (16:40.054)
But how does this tie back into the stuff that you talk about specifically with miserable? Like that was part of the reason why I wanted to have you on here. was like, the word miserable is one of those things where there’s not really anything pleasant to it. It’s just fucking miserable. Like here we are.

Lybi Ma (16:54.638)
It’s the truth. Because we put the Western society puts a lot of weight on happiness. Happiness has to be a goal. And everybody runs around with their bucket lists and they have to do this and that to be happy. Well, no. Sure, you’re gonna go and see the Northern Lights. That’s nice. And you’re gonna be happy.

But then you come down to your set level of mood that is well studied. We go up, we come down. grumpy people are in a certain spot. More upbeat people are up here and they move higher, but they always move down to their set level. And that is a hedonic adaptation. We just come back down to where.

where we are in life. So the word happiness is not on my book cover because, you know, it’s, we should feel okay about not being happy all the time. That’s all there is to it. We’re not going to reach that crazy happiness all the time. It’s just not, I don’t think that’s realistic. I would rather be.

Nick McGowan (18:22.177)
Great.

Lybi Ma (18:23.02)
I want to be practical. And the other part is when we judge how we feel, I’m not happy, I must be a loser. any time you judge this feeling that you’re having, well, guess what? People have studied that and you kind of feel worse. You feel worse because you’re judging it.

Nick McGowan (18:25.141)
Yeah.

Lybi Ma (18:50.766)
It’s a funny thing. Yeah, I think it was came from UC Berkeley, researchers there. Yeah, you’re gonna sit there and say things about yourself that are not true. You’re making them up really. You’re gonna feel worse. So I don’t think we should try to be happy all the time. We can just.

Nick McGowan (18:51.403)
Yeah.

Lybi Ma (19:18.604)
be practical and just own up to all these things that we feel and not judge them.

Nick McGowan (19:26.305)
Obviously easier said than done for a good chunk of people. But that is, it’s such a critical piece where it’s like, if we, if we spend that time, like I know I’ve done this personally, where being angry or upset about something, you feel like you’re being active in it, but you’re just being animated in it. And you just keep going deeper and deeper down. I would spiral in that many, many years ago. And then learning from it, you go,

Yeah, you can reach a point where you go, I’m just kind of bored with this. And this doesn’t make any sense to do this anymore. So why would I do that? But we do see stuff where people are talking about all the success that they had and the 15 year overnight success sort of situations where it’s like, if this person’s happy constantly, cause that’s all they post or whatever. And stepping outside of that, actually being within ourselves. I’d love that you’d said that you’re more in the country than you are with

everybody else and being by yourself and being away from people, I would imagine you then have more time to actually be able to say, how do I feel right now? And do what you want with it instead of saying, well, I’m told I need to do something different, you know?

Lybi Ma (20:39.95)
Right, right. Well, who’s telling you to do it, first of all? Which one? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

Nick McGowan (20:44.794)
Yeah, well, sometimes it’s, Yeah. One of the voices, one of the many up there. So what actually led you to start the process to write the book? Did you just get so frustrated within yourself of like, have to put this out there? Did this kind of come up organically?

Lybi Ma (20:55.69)
Yeah, I don’t know.

Lybi Ma (21:07.944)
No, well, you know, I got over my…

Lybi Ma (21:17.366)
negative feelings about divorce and all that. And I moved on and plugged on. So that was good. I just, every time I read a new piece of research, I would squirrel it away. And I thought, yeah, that goes with the feelings that I had back then of being miserable. So I would squirrel it away. And then when COVID happened, I watched people.

and they were interesting to watch. Some people did very well. Some people did very poorly. And I don’t want to get into a conversation about the introvert and the extrovert, whatever. I’m just talking about emotions and sitting with them generally, because even introverts need people. We’re all social. So that’s not really part of what I’m talking about.

I just watched all of it and I thought, you know what, I think I have enough information here to write a book. So COVID sort of pushed me a little bit.

Nick McGowan (22:31.231)
Thanks, COVID. Yeah.

Lybi Ma (22:32.398)
I guess so. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know about that. Yeah, people were, I watched people and they had a lot of, you know, negative reaction to a negative thing that was happening. They were told to stay at home and then, and then get into a loop of bad feelings. It just went on and on and on.

And I found that the thoughts that they had were quite irrational. And that is something also well studied. The brain is not very logical. It also has a very negative bias. are evolved into thinking negatively.

Yeah, ancient man needed to be worried about predators and being eaten. They needed to be alert. is that a bad thing around the corner that’s going to eat me? Well, we the human brain has not changed that much. And we still do it. did that person insult me? And we got

Nick McGowan (23:56.958)
Yeah.

Lybi Ma (23:57.535)
And then you start doing this thing and it’s very, very not rational. It’s not positive. It’s pretty negative. And you just keep going in this distorted fashion. these negative things have a lasting impression and positive things are less important. And there was an interesting study where researchers

Nick McGowan (24:03.496)
Yeah.

Lybi Ma (24:27.102)
showed study subjects photographs.

people on a roller coaster maybe or something neutral like a hairdryer and a gun pointed at you and people remember the gun. So negative things have a lasting impression.

And this bias that we have, it makes sure that we hold on to our insults and grievances. We do a lot of things in our head that are irrational. Jump to conclusions, my date hated me, a fortune teller. Why would they even call me back anyway? Mind read.

Nick McGowan (25:09.854)
Yeah.

Lybi Ma (25:22.39)
I know that you’re thinking about me and it’s bad, all or nothing. I will not be happy until the end of time. Those sort of things. We do these things over and over and over to ourselves. really it doesn’t seem to be helping.

Nick McGowan (25:44.625)
No, but we all, I think, are somewhat addicted to it. And we don’t think that other people go through it. It’s almost like when we say, well, this person’s looking at me or what are they thinking about me? They’re probably not. And if they did, they noticed something and then they’re thinking about themselves. Like, I had that same jacket. Do I look like an asshole in that jacket? Is that me? And they’re off thinking about themselves. Meanwhile, both of them are like, my God, what are they thinking?

Lybi Ma (25:49.761)
Yeah, yeah.

Lybi Ma (25:59.139)
That you’re right.

Lybi Ma (26:09.368)
They’re so right. You are so right. They’re too busy thinking about themselves like we are too busy thinking about ourselves. It’s just we’re worried about how we look, how we appear. Did I say that? was it stupid? Did I sound stupid? whatever.

Nick McGowan (26:19.911)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (26:27.71)
I think there’s a bit of a caveat though, because there are also times where we can grow from that stuff, because we can say, the situation in this whatever office or this call or whatever didn’t go the way that I wanted to, what could I have done differently? Like sort of watching game tape in a sense on yourself, but not beating yourself up with it and not in every single situation.

Lybi Ma (26:51.278)
Yeah, that part.

Nick McGowan (26:54.235)
Yeah, and being like, all right, well, what can I learn from this? What can I do a little differently? There’s a power within that, but then also removing the nonsensical shit. I’ve gotten to the point where I probably talk to myself more so than I did before and be like, easy there, asshole, calm down. Because like, random noises will come from other rooms, it seems, in the back of my head. Like, you can’t do that. You look like an asshole, that jacket. I’m like, shut up. Like, let me just kind of go.

But being able to understand that there’s a balance to learning and growing and being able to review things and say, could I do a little differently? And beating yourself up can be a razor’s edge. But what kind of advice do you give for people that are trying to figure that stuff out? And they obviously don’t want to be miserable, but they’re also sort of addicted to that feeling of it because they’re so used to it, you know?

Lybi Ma (27:50.062)
One of the main things that I’ve read

We have to be more aware that we’re doing it. and speak to ourselves.

maybe in the third person. Libby’s doing that again. She’s disappointed and it’s turning into this thing. And now that distorted thinking is taken off. Okay, Libby, stop that. We have to be aware and point it out. So great research from University of Michigan.

Nick McGowan (28:12.177)
Yep.

Lybi Ma (28:35.15)
you observe. And that’s Buddhist to me. You observe this thought and meditation is a little like that. there’s a thought, watch it go by. That’s nice. Whatever. It’s a thought. It’s not real. And a lot of times our thoughts lie to us. So don’t do it.

at least if you if you keep doing it, know that you’re doing and then in addition to that, you label it. So if it’s a feeling, well, Libby is angry at not right now because XYZ happened and she’s going to hold on to this grievance and nurse that grievance until whenever. Okay, that’s nice. You know, you’re doing that again. So

We label how we feel. I’m feeling sad right now. That’s good. I’m feeling angry right now. And talk to yourself a little bit, but not in a, you say, beat yourself up mode. And then you turn to self-sabotage. So you want to numb yourself. It goes into this cycle of…

Nick McGowan (30:02.747)
Yeah, vicious cycle.

Lybi Ma (30:04.502)
Yeah, yeah, turns into a cycle. You beat yourself up and it leads leads to this negativity and you’re not very nice to yourself. So that’s another thing. Self-compassion is very important. Water research on that. You want to count right. You want to be compassionate to your to ourselves and breathe while you’re being compassionate.

Nick McGowan (30:21.915)
Yeah, grace with ourselves even.

Lybi Ma (30:34.626)
People stop breathing and when they’re tense and in the moment of being reactive to an unhappy situation and when you stop breathing, well, cortisol goes up and you become alert and you’re looking for the predator. No, you know what? Just breathe and let your body work it out. It’s not bad.

Nick McGowan (30:36.815)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (30:52.165)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (31:03.226)
I love this sort of stuff. I love that we’re able to get into this because I know there are other, I don’t want to talk bad about any podcasts or other people’s interviews or anything like that. But there are conversations out there that are very surfacey where it can talk about, yeah, you want to be aware and you want to look at these things and then do some with it. You want to show grace to yourself. And we also need to talk about when it’s really difficult to do that because even in like the moment you just said where you stopped breathing.

scientifically, that takes oxygen away from your blood. Your blood is no longer moving oxygen through the rest of your fucking body. And your brain is a part of that. So it’s like science-wise, that makes sense. I think there’s also a balance of not just saying, I’m aware of this thing and if I’m shitty again, then so be it. I’m aware of it. It’s doing something with it, not beating yourself up and still being able to understand that I can’t bypass this.

Lybi Ma (31:37.538)
Right.

Nick McGowan (32:02.521)
Because I think that’s where the happiness stuff comes in. If you’re feeling bad, just go be happy. cool, great. Fuck the trauma and all the other nonsense that I absolutely need to process out of my body. Let me just go be happy. And then you go be happy and you do a thing and you go, like you said earlier, right back to your own little status quo and you go, shit, I am still a miserable bastard. What do I do from here? Let me look for another happy thing. And you’re like, off to do it again. Just bypassing the bullshit, you know?

Lybi Ma (32:10.574)
I

Lybi Ma (32:28.846)
Right. doesn’t really, you always go back to where you were.

Nick McGowan (32:37.294)
Yeah, awareness is such a big thing that my logical and smart-ass mind thinks, well, that makes total sense to me. Because if you’re not aware, how the fuck are you aware? Like if you don’t know a thing’s there, you can’t do anything about it. But that’s really when the work begins. Like you’re aware and you go, I’m aware of this feeling. And I’m glad that you brought up the next part of that being naming it. That is really difficult for a lot of people to name.

Lybi Ma (32:41.046)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (33:05.24)
what their emotion is. They go, I’m just angry. Really, maybe you’re grieving or maybe you’re really upset that’s not just anger, but it’s a betrayal that happened or something like that. And actually being able to call what it is instead of just going, just a sticker almost. You’re like, and I’m shitty right now and push it off to the next thing and just move along instead of actually doing that work. But that, I don’t know. I feel like I can go.

Lybi Ma (33:29.944)
Right.

Nick McGowan (33:32.557)
deep with it because that’s where systems come into play that tell us, don’t do this, just keep working, just keep hustling, keep grinding, keep blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It makes me almost just wanna fucking throw up in my mouth every time I even think about it. Cause it’s like, we are hurting ourselves, we’re hurting each other and we’re perpetuating it because none of us are just going, time out. Give me a fucking second. What is this? What am I feeling? So talk to us about how the book relates to that.

Lybi Ma (34:02.349)
Lybi Ma (34:06.018)
Sitting with our emotions, you mean?

Nick McGowan (34:08.677)
And understanding like if you’re feeling miserable and being less miserable is still taking away that but it’s not bypassing it. It’s not letting you bypass it.

Lybi Ma (34:17.386)
No, no, you have to feel what you feel. Otherwise, it’s not true. You have this feeling and it’s a true feeling and you should feel it. once you do that, you let yourself do that, you will probably break through a bit more to get beyond and be less miserable.

You know, you will probably thank yourself. I do. I do. You know, it’s an interesting thing. My husband and I don’t fight very often, but we’ve been through tense, you know, when you move and all that stuff. And yeah, it’s not easy. And I can catch myself.

Oh, wait, I’m being reactive at this moment. And I’ll just stop and think, wow, that’s interesting. I’m doing it. I’m doing it at this very moment. And I start talking out loud. all right, hang with me for a minute here while I think about why I’m having this reaction. Why am I having this reaction? What is bringing this up?

Nick McGowan (35:39.383)
Yeah.

Lybi Ma (35:46.219)
I think we need to stop because you start spinning in that in a certain direction of negativity and you might as well just stop it and just ask yourself, what’s what is this and observe and instead of being in it, just step outside and and look at it. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (35:54.274)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (36:07.256)
and look at it. Yeah. Huh. And that’s, that’s a simple, like incredible thing though, to say live in the moment, like, hold on, give me a second. I’m feeling something. Let me work through this and come back to you. it’s almost like having a conversation, a heated conversation and saying, I need a second and stepping away. That could be really, really difficult for a lot of people in that moment because you’re so in it, but

If you think about any time you’ve ever said that, even to yourself or to your husband or anybody else.

Lybi Ma (36:40.942)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (36:45.816)
Probably most every single time they’ve respected it.

Lybi Ma (36:49.686)
Yes. Yes, you’re not, you’re not trying to run from the situation. You’re just trying to understand what’s going on inside yourself. And a lot of times when you’re in a fight with a partner or someone, usually it’s person closest to you, because they’re the ones who are gonna forgive you. But usually it’s just sort of,

you know, not, it isn’t about that moment. It’s about something else. Something else is going on. Yeah, it brings up some, yeah, go ahead.

Nick McGowan (37:33.815)
And it’s not… Yeah.

It’s not just those people. We often will take it out on the people we love because they’re the closest and they know us the most. And yes, you said they will forgive us, but that doesn’t give us a license to abuse the shit out of them because you’re angry that somebody took the last fucking piece of bread at whatever grocery store or whatever happened earlier. And you’re like, God damn the person closest to me. It’s like, but what do they do? what? Yeah.

Lybi Ma (37:51.246)
to do that.

Lybi Ma (38:00.303)
Yeah.

Lybi Ma (38:04.682)
nothing. They’re just standing there. They’re standing there. I don’t know. They’re just standing there. Yeah. I think one another way to, since you’re looking for ways to counter it, I mean, you know, there’s many things to do, you start being more mindful. So I try to call out my reactivity with being mindful, breathe, I write things down.

Nick McGowan (38:10.327)
Yeah.

Lybi Ma (38:34.67)
And I try to be grateful in the moment. You’re having a fight and I try to be grateful to the person I’m fighting with. If you show them grace and your self grace and you’ll get through the dumb fight, whatever it was that you’re, and just go with the flow of things. I don’t mean lay down and just die. What I mean is,

Nick McGowan (38:44.47)
Sure. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (38:54.548)
Yeah.

Lybi Ma (39:04.301)
You.

get into the flow of life. And there’s been quite a lot of work on the topic of flow for decades. we move with what is happening. Flow is more complicated than that. mean, it has to do with…

Nick McGowan (39:13.056)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (39:26.208)
Yeah.

Lybi Ma (39:33.132)
being very, very engaged in what you’re doing. So a writer would feel flow when they’re writing or the piano player is really into the music or even listening to music, you running, you get in the flow, but you can apply the flow theory into life, everyday life. Just go with it. I think that’s important.

Nick McGowan (39:58.038)
That’s really important. And I appreciate that you point out these things that in some ways, and as I said earlier, there are other conversations that get real surfacey and they go, yeah, go with the flow. Cool. Let’s stop there. Just go with the flow. Being able to be mindful, to talk about these things, even with the gratitude. Like I’ve heard for years and years, people are like, just be grateful and gratitude this and gratitude that and have a gratitude journal, blah, blah, blah. It’s like all those things can be good and helpful if they are good and helpful. If you’re just being

Lybi Ma (40:24.192)
Right.

Nick McGowan (40:25.065)
grateful and you’re like, I fucking had this and God, I’m grateful for it. But even in that moment of being grateful that you have a partner to be able to argue with and, and yeah. And then that’ll automatically just disarm you a little bit. Like even as you’re saying that I’m picturing it and picturing, you know, me with my partner arguing about whatever. And to think of that, I just want to hug her because I love her. I love that I have the partner to be able to

Lybi Ma (40:29.518)
All right.

Lybi Ma (40:35.778)
Right? A lot of people don’t.

Lybi Ma (40:42.755)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (40:53.737)
bitch can complain about things with or whatever. And it’s like, if we can be aware of that and actually show the grace and do the thing in the moment, instead of just saying, just be grateful and gratitude this and gratitude that. It’s like, fuck your gratitude unless you’re actually gonna do something with it. Because then it’s the moment, that moment right there where you do something with it instead of just saying, well, I’m just gonna go back to my old ways and just be kind of shitty about it. So for the people that are trying to be less miserable.

Lybi Ma (41:09.23)
Ha

Nick McGowan (41:23.375)
or trying to just wrap their head around how they can give themselves grace and kind of work through life at their pace instead of just what the rest of the world tells us we should do. What’s your advice for somebody that’s on their path towards self mastery?

Lybi Ma (41:40.275)
Give yourself a break, please. Good Lord. I don’t know why we have to be so hard on ourselves. And we run around looking for solutions to everything. Well, sometimes, you know, life does work out. It does work out. And I think we don’t have to make it harder.

Nick McGowan (41:42.793)
Nice.

Lybi Ma (42:09.774)
We make it harder, we fight with life, and I think we can watch it a little. Doesn’t mean that we should not be proactive and move forward and reach our goals, but we can calm down a bit about how we treat ourselves, and you will be less miserable.

Nick McGowan (42:35.093)
I love that, especially like the come down. Like that’s the vibe I got like right off the bat. Chill out, give yourself a break. Just relax. It’s not the end of the world. And yeah, just chill out.

Lybi Ma (42:39.95)
Yeah.

It isn’t. It is not the end of the world. Bad things do happen and it feels like it’s going to be the end of the world, but actually things do work out. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right.

Nick McGowan (42:55.379)
Yeah, divorces. You know, the people that have gone through it, you understand that. I had different people when I got a divorce, they were like, man, I was in bad shape for years. And I was like, well, that sucks. I don’t want to go through that. And I’m like, well, I didn’t get a, I didn’t get married to get a divorce, but I didn’t get a divorce to die. So, and I’m thankful it happened. I mean, I wish her the best, but I wouldn’t have my partner now. I wouldn’t have my business and all the other things that have come from it.

Lybi Ma (43:06.296)
Right, right.

Lybi Ma (43:14.927)
Right.

Nick McGowan (43:24.777)
But I want to touch on something you pointed out where it’s like, give yourself a break, the things will work out and things happen. I was actually sort of joking, but sort of like, this is just a mind fuck of a thing with my coach recently, where I understand that the right things happen at the right times. Always. It’s actually an affirmation of mine. It’s the anxiety before and the anxiety after that exact one moment. Because that one moment is where like, these things happen at the right time. Like, look.

Lybi Ma (43:50.828)
Okay.

Nick McGowan (43:54.45)
And I’ve seen it happen. Like it lines up where it’s like, I couldn’t have scripted this. God was like, this is how this thing’s going to work. And it’s like, that’s incredible. But there’s anxiety for the 98 % before and all the other stuff after it, where it’s like that one moment. But that one moment happens and happens more often than not, know? So it’s just a weird little situation that we can get lost in all the other minutia of it.

Lybi Ma (44:17.825)
Right, right.

Nick McGowan (44:23.912)
So I appreciate you being as real as you are. I’m like, just calm down, chill out. It’ll be okay.

Lybi Ma (44:24.152)
Right.

It’s gonna be okay. I wish I told my, knew that when I was younger. It’s gonna be okay. It will be.

Nick McGowan (44:36.616)
Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. And just like, if you could go back and talk to your 18 year old self, what would you say? And I think most people probably say it with a fist and then shake them a little bit with whatever, like whatever you’re going to do, don’t. but that’s what this podcast is for. Like, let’s talk about these things because we’re all going through it. Like, let’s not shy away from that. We all go through this stuff. So, Libby, I really appreciate you being on today. I appreciate the work that you’re doing.

Lybi Ma (44:51.224)
Hahaha

Lybi Ma (45:03.894)
All right.

Nick McGowan (45:05.208)
and you’re putting out the books that you are and just that you’re able to work with that information that’s coming to you and help spread that out and being as real as you are. So thank you for being here. Of course, and before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you? And of course, where can they get the book?

Lybi Ma (45:14.882)
Thank you.

Lybi Ma (45:22.478)
Well, of course, I’m on Psychology Today. You’ll find me there on the website. And you’ll find my book on the, you know, any major source like Amazon or Barnes & Noble, that sort of thing.

Nick McGowan (45:44.541)
Perfect. And I’ll have some of those links in the show notes too. So again, thank you so much for being with us today. Appreciate it.

Lybi Ma (45:50.933)
Thank you.

In this episode, Nick speaks with Anne Wallen to dive into the intricate relationship between maternal health, psychological preparation for parenting, and the impact of childhood trauma on parenting styles. Anne shares her personal journey as a maternal health professional and mother of six, emphasizing the importance of meeting a baby’s needs and the psychological aspects of parenting.

What to listen for:

“Unhealed wounds don’t disappear when you become a parent; they show up.”

“Safety is the foundation of healthy development.”

About Anne Wallen

Anne is a respected figure in women’s health with over 30 years of experience and is a leading voice on global change in maternity care – particularly for those at greatest risk. She continues to educate and empower birth professionals in more than 20 countries, contributes to a variety of curricula, and shapes the future of maternal health through her impactful role as a speaker and mentor. Anne is the Director and co-founder of MaternityWise International, and her legacy lies in inspiring generational changes around and elevating women’s healthcare worldwide.

Resources:

Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have? https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/podcasting-services/

Thank you for listening!

Please subscribe on iTunes and give us a 5-Star review! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mindset-and-self-mastery-show/id1604262089

Listen to other episodes here: https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/

Watch Clips and highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk1tCM7KTe3hrq_-UAa6GHA

Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]

Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”

Nick McGowan (00:00.91)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show we have Anne Wellen. Anne, how you doing today? I’m good. I’m really excited to get into this. I think this is going to be a different conversation than what we typically have, but we were just talking and talking and at one point you’re like, you’re not recording? I’m like, no, let’s start this now.

Anne Wallen (00:10.602)
I’m good, how are you?

Nick McGowan (00:25.614)
So this will be great. And why don’t you kick us off? Tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre.

Anne Wallen (00:34.382)
Okay, well, I am the director of Maternity Wise International, which what we do is we train doulas and childbirth educators and lactation support people. I’ve been doing this for 23, 24 years now, and it’s pretty much my life. I love maternal health. It’s so, important to every human on this planet. And maybe the…

An interesting factoid about me is that I have six kids. A lot of people, when you tell them you have six kids, they’re like, my gosh. And yes, I birthed them all. But five of them are adults. I have a little nine-year-old as well. She was a surprise, like the best kind of surprise. But yeah, so my six kids and yes, that’s really the main reason why I got into the work that I got into when I had my first at 17.

and didn’t feel like I could be the mom that she deserved, loved her so, so, so much. And I had some family friends that I grew up with who actually babysat me who had been struggling with fertility issues. And so I chose to let them adopt her. And we have had an amazing, beautiful extended family relationship. And she recently gave birth to her first daughter just this summer. So I am officially a grandma in addition to all the other things that I do, but

Yeah, that’s a little factoid that most people don’t know. But she’s part of the reason she’s the main reason why I became a mental health professional or a maternal health professional. And a lot of the way things have gone through my life, not just how I was raised, but experiences thereafter have gotten me very interested in mental health. And so I like to kind of create this intersection between the both worlds. And I look at things from a very psychological perspective. So this is

This is gonna be a fun one.

Nick McGowan (02:29.229)
Yeah, I think everything ties back into that. It’s not even just a physical thing. Like I even said to you, somebody has a baby and they go home and how their partner reacts to whatever’s going on or the chaos or whatever the thing is, how does that then tie into the baby and how does the baby move throughout life? Even with you having a kid at 17, you are a child at 17. Though I’m sure we can both think back to 17 years old and thinking I’m grown ass adult and I can do all the things in the world, but you are not. You’re a child.

Anne Wallen (02:50.412)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (02:59.039)
And the fact that you had somebody that you could hand the baby over to that you knew, you trusted, and you were able to have a relationship, it sounds like that could almost be like an ABC sitcom, you know what I mean?

Anne Wallen (03:05.325)
Mm-hmm.

Anne Wallen (03:13.356)
Yeah, well, I mean, my life is, I always joke that, like, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. But I always joke that, you know, Hallmark probably wouldn’t agree to make a movie because my life is so far-fetched. But yes, that’s, that was such a, such a blessing because I really knew that I was not going to be able to do what she needed as far as mothering. And I’ve, you know, hadn’t even finished high school yet. And

my wonderful, wonderful and she was my next door neighbor growing up. And I just knew that they were the right people to take care of her and they raised her and she’s an amazing human being. And it’s just really wonderful to have this open relationship at this point, especially, you know, now that she’s having babies of her own. it was really cool too during COVID. She took one of my doula trainings because she was going to be a doula for a friend of hers. So

Just a really cool, you know, like sometimes things just come full circle and you just, little blessings, little surprises. So.

Nick McGowan (04:22.764)
And you wouldn’t have been able to script that. Like, I love when that stuff happens in life where it’s like, I’m gonna have a baby, hand it over to my neighbor, because I love them. And then years later, like, really? Somebody would be like, that’s crazy. Get out of my office, you know?

Anne Wallen (04:24.863)
No!

Anne Wallen (04:37.355)
Yeah, well, I I knew that I didn’t, I knew that I probably wouldn’t be okay with just never knowing. know, some moms, and I’ve supported moms as their doula through giving their baby away. I’ve supported adopting families as well. it’s, I am really, really fortunate because I don’t think that most people could go through that experience and it would be, I mean,

Don’t get me wrong, it was heartbreaking. It’s still heartbreaking that I wasn’t able to raise her myself. I mean, I’ve had five other kids since then and I know what it is to be a mom and I know what things I’ve missed out on. But being able to have an open adoption is really, really something special and I know some people don’t have that option. And so to be able to give your baby to someone that you think that you can trust and then hope that they’re doing what you would want them to do.

That’s a whole level of, yeah, that’s tough, that’s hard. So, yeah.

Nick McGowan (05:43.52)
could only imagine. I have no idea what that would be like. I don’t have kids, not gonna have kids. And I couldn’t imagine what that’s like just handing a child over. I’ve talked to different people that have had either abortions or they’ve adopted, they’ve handed kids off to be adopted and then just haven’t ever talked to them again or people that have had some kid that are like, hey, by the way, about 30 years ago, you and my mom on a beach.

And here we are, we’re like, you and my mom at a party or whatever. It’s like, but I, one of the big reason why I wanted to have you on is to be able to talk about how the psychology of that ties into not just people that have kids, but people that were kids. Cause even your emails back in the conversations, you were like, yeah, everybody was born. And then what we do from there and how that all ties into it. So why don’t, why don’t you kind of get us started off with like, not only what you see with, people that are having kids.

but also the people that are concerned about having children and what that ties into just the rest of life.

Anne Wallen (06:53.121)
Well, kind of as we were talking about before we started recording, getting ready for having a baby, well, having a baby, you really need to put in the work, you need to prepare. And it’s not just about eating the right foods or avoiding the wrong foods and getting enough water and whatever else. There’s a lot of psychological preparation that people need to do. And we all walk around with our own traumas. We all walk around with our own disappointments and wounds.

you’re gonna carry that into your parenting. And if there is one situation that you’re gonna find yourself in as kind of just this automatic robot, it’s as a parent. You don’t realize all these scripts and all this just unprepared, you know, in the moment reactions that you’re going to have to your own child until you’re there. And then you’re like,

Nick McGowan (07:26.218)
Hmm.

Anne Wallen (07:52.961)
I sound just like my mom or my dad used to say that and I still sometimes even you know I’m on kid number six at this point she’s nine and I still will say things you know two wrongs don’t make her right or whatever little sayings that you grow up with and I realize wow I got that from this scenario or I learned that during this moment when I got in trouble or whatever and it can it can really make a difference

Nick McGowan (07:54.515)
Ha ha.

Anne Wallen (08:22.669)
being aware and intentional with your parenting. And when I say aware, I just mean if you’ve got wounds or if you’ve got trauma or if your parents were abusive, if there was something else going on, you know, in those immediate, the first weeks, months of your life, it is really, really important to meet that baby’s needs immediately or as quickly as possible, right? So,

There are things like crying it out. There are things like scheduled feeds. And they’re actually, we’re not just talking about a physical experience that this baby’s going through. It’s a psychological experience. And so we can get deeper into that if you want to, but a lot of people, they’ll hear from their parents when they become parents, they’ll hear things like, put the baby down, don’t spoil that baby. Or, they should be sleeping all night and they should be doing this or they should be doing that.

You know, we let that baby cry it out. We gave you formula. You turned out fine. Whatever it is, right? Whatever this thing is that might be the response to whatever the parents are wanting to do. You know, the grandparents and well-meaning aunts and uncles, they’ll have some retort usually, right? And advice from your elders is always helpful. And having, just having elders around to…

support your efforts is beautiful and helpful, but sometimes they don’t know what’s best for your baby. And the only person who really knows what’s best for the baby is the parent, especially the parent who’s bonded to the baby. Usually that’s the mom when they’re really, really small. And that’s usually because there’s breastfeeding going on or whatever it is, the main caretaking duties usually falls to the mother. So if that mother is well attuned to the baby,

baby’s getting their needs met, this is teaching the baby that they can trust, right? It’s teaching the baby about relationships. It’s teaching the baby that I’m valuable. I am worth listening to. I am protected. I’m safe. All these different things, right? If you’ve got a baby who is routinely put down after, you fed for 15 minutes, now we put you down. You cry? Too bad, baby. We read the book that said,

Anne Wallen (10:47.18)
put you down, right? Or we heard from grandpa that said put you down, whatever it is. That baby crying so desperately, that’s their only way to communicate that they have a need. So if they’re crying so desperately, I’m still hungry, I’m cold, I just want to be held, I’m scared, I’m alone, whatever it is, I have gas pains, whatever it is, they’re trying to communicate that they have a need. And if we ignore that, if we say, no, I’m going to spoil the child if I pick them up again.

This is programming their brain, right? This is programming their mind to say, no matter how hard I cry, I’m going to be ignored. What does that, for you, Nick, what does that translate to? What does that, what would that tell you?

Nick McGowan (11:17.928)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (11:31.148)
Trauma as a little kid, you’re just instantly, you’re shoved to the side it feels. And that’s, I think that’s an interesting thing to be able to point out, because look, babies are not gonna listen to this podcast. They will when they get older, but like they’re not listening right now. In fact, none of these episodes are for children at all, primarily because of my mouth at times, I’m sure. But the parents, or the new parents, or the people that are thinking about having kids.

Anne Wallen (11:34.102)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (11:58.088)
or the people that feel like they have to have kids because the system tells them, their family system, you have to, which that’s another thing that ties into the psychology of it. Like if somebody says, you, hey, you have to have a kid because you have to keep our lineage going. You have to keep our last name going. You have to do this. You have to do that. okay. And then they go and have the kid and then put everything onto that kid or there’s already some pain that goes along with it. I think the big thing you pointed out that stood out to me and especially for the show,

Anne Wallen (12:01.015)
Mm.

Anne Wallen (12:14.614)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (12:27.61)
is the work that has to be done before that. I’ve talked to different people that have had kids and they’re like, hey, we planned. We did all these things. We read all these books. We then got pregnant when we wanted to and shit was still crazy because they’re parents and like life and people and like things happen. And then there are people that just accidentally had a child and you know, it’s all, it doesn’t matter if you plan it or not plan it, it seems, but going into a big situation of having a child and

Anne Wallen (12:30.572)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (12:57.552)
sticking it through for at least 18 years or so, it doesn’t seem to me like a lot of people really think about the work they need to do until like after the fact. Like I met with somebody recently who’s got a young kid and he was offered to go on tour with some band and he was like, I can’t because I am attached and I can’t leave my child. And I can see that he’s such a good dad.

But he had said to me, like, things changed as soon as I had the kid, as soon as the kid came into my life. And I hear that from a lot of different people. Like as soon as this happened, then I changed. I stopped smoking or I stopped doing this or I started doing more of whatever it was. And that’s great. But what about the deeper work that’s unseen? Like the trauma that comes from your parents or your parents’ parents or the things that happened that you were a kid that was just crying because you wanted to be held and your parents are like, I can’t.

Shut up in there. How does that then tie into we as people that could potentially then have kids and not see that stuff needs to be worked on?

Anne Wallen (13:54.688)
Mm-hmm.

Anne Wallen (14:05.161)
Yeah, so having a baby is a great motivator for lifestyle changes, right? So if you are, if you have unhealthy habits, having your baby might make you think about your mortality and how, you need to eat better or stop smoking or whatever it is so that you can live longer so you can be there for your child. When you are going through pregnancy, even, you know, no matter what the family dynamic, mom, mom, mom, dad, whatever you’ve got going on.

both partners, or even if you’ve got a single mom going on, the person who is in the relationship thinking about when this baby gets here, what are we gonna do? The kind of deeper work that they really need to be doing includes psychological preparation for just how they feel about themselves, number one, just simply because whether they feel worthy, whether they feel rejected by their parents, if there’s any kind of abandonment issues,

Which abandonment issues start with, you know, crying it out in the crib? We, let me go, can I get a little sciency with you for just a second on that? So, crying it out, they’ve actually done brain scans and they see that crying it out creates a change in the brain structure. So our frontal lobe is the solutions, you know, forward thinking we call it, right? The creative, ambitious forebrain. The hindbrain is the survival primal,

Nick McGowan (15:10.31)
Please.

Anne Wallen (15:30.955)
aggressive, it’s the hunter-gatherer brain. And when you have a baby who is, who their needs are met consistently, their forebrain grows and their hindbrain does not grow. Not that it doesn’t grow, but it doesn’t, the balance is more forward-thinker, right? A baby who is left to cry it out, a baby whose needs are not met consistently. And that’s this, we’re not talking about a baby who has like just a crying spell and we put the baby down.

for safety’s sake, you know, and we walk away so could take a breath and then we come back, you know, we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about a routinely left to cry baby. That hind brain actually grows and the forebrain can shrink. So now you’ve got a kid who’s got the more aggressive, primal survival skills, more violence prone, more prone to, you know, ADD and some other issues that are, you know,

really all about them feeling that they need to survive, right? It’s just such primal, instinctual behavior. So now you have a kid who physically, chemically is growing up with this need to survive, this like fear, right? It’s like I’m on alert, I’m hypervigilant all the time. Now you make them a parent, right? They go through life and they probably have

Nick McGowan (16:55.877)
Hmph.

Anne Wallen (16:58.187)
plenty of issues, right, because of that hypervigilance, because of that, you know, fear that’s kind of like their root chakras in like a high alert mode all the time. So you get into this parenting situation, you’ve got a baby coming, right? You need to be able to say, I’m okay, I can advocate for my needs, I can prepare for the birth experience itself, because the birth experience could be traumatizing. And then,

how am gonna care for this baby once it’s out, knowing that, or subconsciously, knowing that they were treated with a neglectful-ish, not that parents always are neglectful intentionally, but they don’t always know that the baby is just trying to communicate. And there’s a lot of, we’re not gonna go religion, but there’s a lot of religious.

Nick McGowan (17:47.951)
Mm-hmm.

Anne Wallen (17:54.09)
books out there on parenting that talk about babies, you know, being manipulators and things like that. You got to train them to be good, right? Which is ridiculous. anyway, that in itself is traumatizing just to just to read that if I was a, know. Yes. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (18:09.252)
Yeah, basically calling your baby a little demon. Don’t you do it little demon. It’s like, I just want some love. I don’t understand.

Anne Wallen (18:17.267)
Honestly, and there are books out there that have caused babies to become really, really, really sick and even pass away because they’re telling parents, like, you need to have this regimented feeding schedule and you shouldn’t be holding your baby, etc. And, you know, the abandonment issue is huge in our culture. If you go to other places in the world, you’re not going to see people with abandonment issues quite like you do in America.

But in America, we have the Juvenile Manufacturing Association who really, really promoted getting babies out of your bed and using all these furniture pieces, right, for baby swings and cribs and, you know, bouncy seats and all these things that are not the mother, not the parent. And the only thing that a really a baby wants when they come out is that relationship.

They are looking for a face when they come out. They’re looking for a face and if they don’t get a face to connect to, they’re three months behind in their developmental milestones on average. So the face, the connection with another human being is so important. It’s so important just to their brain development. It’s important to their psychological development. And it’s really important for the parents’ development too because when you create this bond,

There’s something in you that softens. And even if you’ve had a ton of trauma, it’s like this little, I don’t know, it’s like this little knowing wakes up inside of you. And you just know, this instinct just shows up and kind of helps guide you in how to meet the baby’s needs in a way that’s healthy and appropriate for the baby. And a lot of times when you look at and you study mom-baby dyads, there’s this,

unspoken language between them, right? It happens during sleep. Dr. James McKenna wrote a bunch of different studies over the last 20 to 30 years on watching moms and babies sleep. And when babies, know, vitals go too low, mom stirs and sometimes they even wake up and touch the baby and the baby perks back up again. It’s very SIDS preventive, you know? So like,

Nick McGowan (20:41.197)
Hmm.

Anne Wallen (20:42.58)
there’s these things that we have these superpower abilities to connect with other human beings and we don’t even realize it. And the thing that oftentimes gets in the way of that is trauma, other people’s well-meaning but bad advice. And how do we like get ready for all of that? So that’s where pregnancy, thank goodness we have nine months.

to get ready for when the baby comes, right? We have nine months to work through our core hurts and figure out how did our parents’ parenting style affect us? And do we want to repeat that or do we want to have a different parenting style, right? And what is best for a baby? And a lot of times, you know, when you just read mainstream information, you know, there’s some real…

Nick McGowan (21:10.945)
Hahaha

Anne Wallen (21:37.873)
Sorry, Nick, I know you’re a man, but there are some masculine solutions or frameworks for very feminine processes and that’s not always the best way to go, right? And you can say your baby needs to eat every three hours. We wanna keep baby alive, right? So we’re gonna make sure baby eats every three hours. But what if baby’s hungry before that? You can’t make them wait. Hunger is one of those things that psychologically, if you are left to be hungry,

Nick McGowan (21:48.419)
Does it make sense?

Anne Wallen (22:08.154)
It actually causes so much stress on the body. Adrenaline goes up, cortisol goes up, like all these things, chemical reactions that really are trauma reactions. If you look at it that way, they happen in the body when you’re left to be hungry. So just something as simple as the baby needs to be fed can cause lifelong impairments, psychologically speaking.

Nick McGowan (22:36.93)
I think something to point out here for people that are listening to this, and if you’re about to have a kid, don’t let her scare you off the ledge. Like go do it because it seems like, look, no matter what happens, people are going to make the decisions they’re going to make. But I think the biggest thing you pointed out is the human aspect of it. That the mom or the parents just in general that are connected with their children can feel that, can be connected with their kids.

Anne Wallen (22:39.22)
Yeah.

Anne Wallen (22:46.419)
No!

Anne Wallen (22:55.732)
Yeah.

Anne Wallen (23:02.664)
Yes.

Nick McGowan (23:05.474)
The fact that you pointed out like, well, capitalistic society was like, how do we make money off this? Well, we want to get the kid out of the bed. We can get them into a whole plethora of their own little suite over here and we can make a whole bunch of money and we might as well push this thing. There’s information that comes from the external world like that. Like, oh, well, baby shouldn’t be in your bed for longer than X amount of time. We should have a crib and like all people have that stuff basically when they have their shower at this point and they get it and they…

Anne Wallen (23:17.962)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (23:35.381)
have like three to $10,000 worth of stuff that just sitting in there for the baby, when the baby probably needs to be deeply connected with them, but every baby is different. And it’s wild to think about how those systems, the family system that tells us, well, when you were a kid, this is what we did. You made the decisions you made. And that’s to be said that way. But then the other systems that say, you need to have this, you need to have that, you need to have that.

Anne Wallen (23:47.092)
Yeah.

Anne Wallen (23:57.15)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (24:05.024)
themselves to block all that madness out. Like, thanks for your feedback, grandma. Thanks for your feedback, Capitalistic Society. That person needs to be so deeply entwined with themselves and to understand about themselves. So based on the research you’ve done or the information that you’ve seen, how many people are actually doing that deeper work? Like, hey, I’m pregnant now. I wonder how fucked I was as a child based on the dumb things that happened. How do I not deliver that onto this child?

Anne Wallen (24:10.814)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (24:33.963)
how many people are actually doing that work? Or is that part of the reason why we’re having the conversation? Because more people need to have that internal conversation.

Anne Wallen (24:41.096)
We really need our society, especially in America, to be doing that work more. Because a lot of people are just, like I was saying before, you’re kind of in this automatic robot mode. If you don’t do the work and you don’t have any kind of self-awareness, you’re just gonna do the things that you don’t even realize you learned to do. So like as an infant, even though you’re not

sitting there taking notes on how your parents are parenting you, you’re learning how to be a parent by experiencing their parenting. And if you look around, we have a lot of entitled people walking around and a lot of broken people walking around who are really just living out their traumas and trauma reactions day to day, rather than looking at them, understanding that that’s what it is. You know, it took me till I was in my 40s

to even understand what narcissistic abuse was, because it felt so familiar. Walking around the planet, being raised by someone who was narcissistically abusive. Now back then, 50 years ago, they didn’t have those words, right? But a lot of people have experienced that and they don’t know what it is. And they’re kind of, you know, either perpetuating it as the narcissist in their relationship or

continuing to be used by the narcissist for their supply, right? And this is such a hot button, like, I don’t know, like a really popular terminology nowadays and everyone’s gonna, you know, everyone walks around kind of saying, I know a narcissist or that guy’s a narcissist or whatever, right? So it’s word that gets thrown around a lot. But the deeper issue is when you are not cared for,

Nick McGowan (26:12.609)
Hmm.

Anne Wallen (26:36.859)
in a way that shows you that you’re valuable, right? Then you grow up trying to prove to yourself how valuable you are, your whole life. And so that’s gonna put you into two camps. You’re either gonna be more like a narcissist, right? Trying to get source from people, trying to get that love and acceptance and to prove yourself worthy, right? Or you’re gonna become more of the enabler, more of the empath type.

Nick McGowan (26:57.066)
Yeah.

Anne Wallen (27:05.925)
Sometimes it’s just how we’re wired when we’re born, but a lot of it’s learned, right? And so you walk around trying to fix everybody else, trying to pre, what’s the word I’m looking for? Like you’re anticipating what they need, right? And you’re jumping in and taking care of everybody else. And neither one of those makes a good parent. So when you have a kid, you’re going to…

Please don’t get me wrong, public, okay? Not all babies are coming out as narcissists, but all babies do come out needing someone to meet their needs. And so they look like little narcissists, right? Because they’re calling out, they’re crying, you you have to do everything for them. And as they’re growing, you’re trying to boost their self, right? And if you have additional kids around between age two and three, that’s a huge hit to the self-esteem of the toddler.

You know, so then you’re trying to like fix that and soothe that and so there’s this whole chain of events that happens between zero and about seven, eight years old. And there’s ways to feed the little narcissist monster that you might be growing or there’s ways to help the child become self-sufficient and self…

Nick McGowan (28:03.466)
Yeah.

Anne Wallen (28:31.529)
self-aware, but also, you know, like help them to develop empathy and help them to develop compassion for others. But a lot of this is not by word. It’s in modeling. And again, we go back to if you haven’t dealt with your shit before you have your baby, it’s going to walk around showing your child how to not be a grownup, but they’re not going to know the difference.

Nick McGowan (28:51.529)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (28:58.527)
And just keep going. Yeah.

Anne Wallen (29:00.167)
Right, and so even though trauma can be passed on from DNA, right, and it can be passed on cellularly, right, but it’s also passed on just by modeling. Modeling what that reactivity looks like, modeling what that unhealed wound looks like. So, go ahead.

Nick McGowan (29:16.329)
Yeah. Well, it’s interesting with how the, think about often how the body keeps the score. Bessel van der Kerk wrote about that and there are other people that say, I don’t agree with it and that’s fine. You can say whatever you want. I’ve experienced it. I’ve experienced what it’s like to be able to have bodily reactions at things when my mind’s going, the fuck are you doing? Like, what is this? And it’s like, that ties back literally to my mom as I was a little kid.

Anne Wallen (29:24.349)
Yeah.

Anne Wallen (29:39.315)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (29:45.596)
and watching and going, she seems to fly off the handle of things. Note to self, guess that’s how it’s done. Cool, that’s what I’m gonna do. And then you learn later and you’re like, no, that’s not it. she was coming from generational trauma and chaos and wondering how do I pay for this thing? And what the fuck are you crying about? And what’s this? And sometimes that would come out of her mouth. Like, the fuck are you crying about? To go, I don’t know. And maybe she’s just overwhelmed. So even pointing out that people will look.

Anne Wallen (29:51.922)
Right?

Anne Wallen (29:58.568)
Hmm.

Anne Wallen (30:09.831)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (30:11.727)
and say like, yeah, a lot of people are calling people narcissists at this point because it’s like they learned a new word and they go, well, this looks similar. I’m glad that you’re pointing out that it’s actually deeper and not exactly the same thing at all, but sure, there are tendencies to it. Like the babies need us. Aren’t we like the only organisms that really do that though? Like all other mammals basically are like, cool, you’re born, go get it, have at it. And we need people.

Anne Wallen (30:26.728)
Mm-hmm.

Anne Wallen (30:38.844)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (30:41.606)
And those people also need the babies because of that connection. It’s wild to think about how things that’ll happen just on a day to day that a parent might think, I was just a little upset or a little cold or whatever, that could change so much with that child. And especially in the formative years. I learned a handful of years ago about a theory called the subconscious winning strategy.

that we develop a strategy as a child to go, oh, note to self, this is how I win. This is how I get love. Like my core wounding personally is to not be abandoned or unloved. That comes from being a child. So I figured out, oh, I can make people laugh and I can do these different things that then show up in a certain way. And I learned that about myself, I don’t know, at 38 years old and was like, oh my God, my entire life I’ve been doing this because it just deeply ingrained in us.

Anne Wallen (31:15.784)
Mm-hmm.

Anne Wallen (31:36.914)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (31:39.891)
You pointed out self-awareness. That’s one of the biggest things I’ve noticed in every single episode I’ve had on this show, every conversation I’ve had that’s peripheral to the show. If you’re aware of something, you can only then become more aware of it as you’re more aware of it. But you can also push things to the side. I’ve watched parents go, I can’t. I’ve had friends that are parents that they’re like, man, some nights I just fucking can’t even. Anything. Like everybody needs to leave me alone and I just need to stare at the ceiling for a little while.

or they dive into some vice, alcohol or something else. So what advice do you have for people that are trying to figure out, I either have a kid and I need to and want to be a better parent, or we’re thinking about having kids, or I’m still kind of reeling from being a kid, and how do they then work through their stuff?

Anne Wallen (32:33.106)
So I think you could, you know.

Anne Wallen (32:39.752)
I’m hearing some interference. Are we still together?

Nick McGowan (32:42.974)
We’re good.

Anne Wallen (32:45.128)
Okay, this could go off on so many, you’re like the tree trunk just now and there’s so many branches and things that we could just go into off of that. I think one of the things that you have to understand is that narcissism, for example, is a spectrum, right? And so,

one end is kind of it’s a healthy self-awareness, self-love, self-protecting, self-serving, right? The other end is where you’re using people in a malignant way. Now, a newborn, I always make jokes with my students, like the newborns don’t read the books, right? They don’t know what the parents think that they’re supposed to be doing. But when they are little and they’re trying to communicate, right? We can, if we’re cold,

for example, we can go and manipulate the thermostat, right, to make it whatever we want. If we’re hungry, we go and manipulate the refrigerator door and get a snack. Babies can’t do those things, so they’re not manipulators, right? But what they are is desperately trying to communicate with us, and we have to put aside, and you see many a mom who’s had sleepless nights, dads too,

Nick McGowan (33:41.842)
Mm-hmm.

Anne Wallen (34:04.029)
where they’re just doing whatever it is that the baby seems to be needing and it might just be an overnight, know, shit fast story. You’re just, nobody’s getting sleep, everybody’s crying, like everybody’s crying. And you just have to get through it, right? But the fact that you are trying, the fact that you haven’t just put the baby away and said, I can’t do this anymore, you know, good luck kid, right? The fact that they’re not doing that,

Nick McGowan (34:30.332)
You

Anne Wallen (34:33.224)
the baby and informs the baby, I am worth trying for. And so even if they aren’t fixing it, I can see they’re trying. Right? Now, do you need to step away? Do you need to be able to eat, you know, shower, take a crap by yourself? Yeah, of course. Right? And you need to be able to take care of yourself in order to take care of somebody else. And you need to be able to set boundaries and say, you know,

Nick McGowan (34:37.445)
Hmm.

Anne Wallen (35:02.464)
I am, and we talked a little bit about personality types before, but I’m an introvert, right? And when you’re looking at the Myers-Briggs, introverts need time alone, away from everybody, away from touch, away from sound in order to rebuild their battery. Extroverts, they need other people to recharge their battery. And so if you’ve got babies who are almost all extroverts in that

Nick McGowan (35:15.846)
Mm-hmm.

Anne Wallen (35:30.638)
stage of their life. They need somebody else for something at all times usually. And you’ve got an introvert parent who’s like, I am all tapped out. I’m in the negative. Like kid, I can’t help you right now. I cannot do anything right now. I need to go, you know, just take a bath or something in silence. Everyone leave me alone. Knowing that about yourself and knowing that this whole scenario is going to change. Because before baby came,

You probably had self-care mechanisms or habits or whatever in place that you can say like, okay, I am drained. I went to that party. I’ve been at work all day. I need to just have like an evening of quiet. Well, when you have a baby, there’s no such thing. So being able to plan ahead for stuff like that, knowing yourself, being self-aware enough to say, I know what my needs are in a general way, putting a person into this

know, sphere of my everyday life, what do I need to do to keep myself sane while still caring for the needs of this other human being? And being able to build some kind of structure around that. It could be, do I need to live closer to my parents so my parents can help me? Does it mean I need to hire a postpartum doula or a nanny or somebody that’s gonna be able to help take care of the child so that I can take care of me?

You know, just, and that’s not selfish. That’s not being a bad parent saying, well, I can’t always meet the baby’s needs 100 % of the time. Who can? Like we have this really unrealistic expectation, this leave it to be for mom mindset, right? Where it’s like, she’s just gonna do everything. She somehow wakes up with makeup on, with her clothes pressed and you know, like she never spent any time on that, right? Well, that’s kind of what we’re expected to do as parents is we’re expected to just

be up and ready for the world and ready to take care of this baby 100 % without having any kind of prep or any kind of get ready time? No, that’s not how it really works. But then you have that expectation which makes people then feel like they’re failing. And that’s not fair either. That’s where if you look at postpartum depression, it has gone up and gone up and gone up and it’s in its highest

Anne Wallen (37:57.818)
in places where, or in family dynamics where nobody’s getting sleep, you know, there’s sleep deprivation going on and there’s no social support. And those are the two key factors. And a third key factor is babies who cry a lot. And babies don’t just cry a lot. So if you know how to meet your baby’s needs, you can understand your baby’s language, if you can anticipate their needs and just kind of, you know,

Nick McGowan (38:04.699)
Hmm.

Anne Wallen (38:27.781)
Be prepared as we just keep, I keep saying preparation, preparation, right? But being prepared and understanding what does this cry sound mean? Does it mean hungry? Does it mean pain? Does it mean sleepy, right? What do these cry sounds mean? And then being able to appropriately respond to the baby’s needs and making sure that the baby’s needs are met quickly. These all feed into a satisfied, healthy, happy baby, which,

creates calm, satisfied, happy, healthy family, right? And then if you are dealing with trauma triggers where maybe the baby crying is a trauma trigger for you, right? And you haven’t figured out what this baby’s need is, you’re gonna be spiraling and that spiral’s gonna, you’re gonna have anxiety, you’re have the depression, you might even develop other issues. And let me just say one really quick little piece.

Nick McGowan (39:08.922)
Yeah.

Anne Wallen (39:26.823)
The news a lot of times says, you know, when a mom kills her babies, right? The news will a lot of times say, oh, she had postpartum depression. That’s not postpartum depression, that’s postpartum psychosis. So postpartum depression and anxiety and OCD and all these other different kinds of mental health disorders, they can turn into psychosis. But psychosis is when you have suspended the connection to reality

in such a way that you would do that heinous act, right? And why does it get to that point? Because we’re not getting enough sleep, we’re not supporting our families, not, you know, we’re not like creating this wrap around care for families. And dads need it too, you know, like we think, mom’s got postpartum depression. Dads get postpartum depression too.

Nick McGowan (40:09.091)
Yeah.

Anne Wallen (40:22.797)
sleep deprivation will do it to anybody. You don’t even have to have a baby. You sleep deprived somebody for long enough and they’re gonna experience depression and anxiety. And so being aware, preparing for having that help afterward, understanding what is it that your personal wounding might look like and how might that affect the way you’re gonna care for your baby. So for example, you mentioned abandonment. A lot of people have…

Nick McGowan (40:30.456)
Yeah.

Anne Wallen (40:49.807)
abandonment issues because of the whole put your baby to cry it out in the bed philosophy that was taught for a long time. It’s not taught anymore, shouldn’t be taught anymore, we know better now. But there’s a lot of adults walking around that that was the way they did it and they’re gonna hear from their mom and dad and everyone, you know, that’s how you should do it. So it feels really unnatural for a reason.

Nick McGowan (40:54.585)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (41:09.026)
Mm-hmm.

Anne Wallen (41:14.435)
It’s that little instinct, that little knowing that awakens in us when we have a baby that tells us, no, that’s not okay. My baby needs me, my baby. That sound is really grating on me. Why? Because it’s meant for us to do something about it. And so being able to look at, there’s a tool that I sometimes will use, it’s called the self-redemption cycle.

Nick McGowan (41:27.543)
Yeah.

Anne Wallen (41:39.705)
And you’re really, it’s like this little circle, right? It informs who you are. It informs yourself about who you are. But it takes the core hurt. Have you ever heard of this? So it takes the core hurt and then it looks at what emotions are drawn from that core hurt. And then it says, what are you seeking? What do those emotions tell you about what you’re seeking? And then what kind of behaviors are you gonna do to meet the thing or find the thing that you’re seeking? And then a lot of times those are unhealthy behaviors too.

Nick McGowan (41:57.016)
Mm-hmm.

Anne Wallen (42:08.398)
So then you create a new core hurt for yourself, only to do it all over again. And so it’s important for us to really be aware of what are the triggers, right? What are the things that make us feel abandoned or unloved or whatever our thing is, right? And then be able to work through those things because first of all, going into a birth situation,

Nick McGowan (42:08.546)
Mm-hmm.

Anne Wallen (42:36.91)
You have to advocate for yourself. You have to be able to speak for yourself. You have to be informed enough because we live in a profit driven medical society and you cannot, it’s not that you can’t trust doctors as individuals, but you can’t trust the system to have your back. The system is not built to your wellness. The system is to profit and wellness doesn’t bring profit. And so,

Nick McGowan (42:55.81)
Mm-hmm.

Anne Wallen (43:06.616)
You have, you know, a whole system that I don’t want to say is like designed against you, but you have to be wise going into that. If you’re going to have your baby in a hospital, which not everybody’s having babies in hospitals, I’ve had three at home myself, but if you are going to go into a hospital, you have to know what you’re getting yourself into. You have to know how to handle it. And it’s not the time to be defending yourself or standing up for yourself.

you have to feel so safe to be vulnerable, to be able to open your body to let your baby out. And if you don’t, your labor will be dysfunctional. And that psychological piece, which is, I was saying before, like 80 to 85 % of your whole birth experience, it’s not physical. Physically, we breathe, we digest our food, we use the bathroom. We don’t need anybody to coach us how to do those things.

We don’t need to read books on how to do those things. Our bodies know how to do it. And it’s the same way with birth. Our bodies know how to give birth. But there’s safety mechanisms built into the process, survival mechanisms. And one of those survival mechanisms is, is it safe out there? Is it safe for the baby who’s super, super vulnerable? Like you said, you know, we’re the only species that’s like, our baby comes out and they are completely and utterly dependent upon us for everything.

Nick McGowan (44:30.444)
Yeah.

Anne Wallen (44:32.068)
And so if our subconscious says, it’s not safe for that little vulnerable person to come out, it will shut down labor. And you can give it all the drugs you want. You can give it all the pitocin you want. It’s not gonna receive it. Your brain’s gonna shut down those pitocin receptors and say, nope, it’s not safe out there. She doesn’t like the doctor. Or the lights are too bright. Or yeah, or whatever the reason that’s triggering her.

Nick McGowan (44:51.03)
Politics.

Yeah.

Anne Wallen (44:58.884)
you know, making her feel unsafe. And it could just be there’s a male doctor and she doesn’t feel comfortable around males in that way, right? And so it could be all kinds of things. As a doula and as a doula trainer, I have seen thousands of different scenarios where, you know, she might love her doctor and feel super safe with her doctor, but she gets to the hospital and guess what? It’s the person on call and she’s never even met them.

Right, and now we have a hurdle to get over. And does she feel strong enough and confident in her ability enough to not let that affect her? Or is she, or does she not feel that way? Right, and in the moment, you’re just trying to hang on for dear life. You’re just having labor. You’re just trying to get through it, right? And so all these other psychological factors are really tough to have to.

Nick McGowan (45:50.678)
Peace.

Anne Wallen (45:54.488)
navigate, that’s why you’ve got to prepare ahead of time and really have somebody there, whether it’s your partner who’s very well versed and really, you know, knows what you want and is willing to stand up for you, or a doula, or you’re home with your midwife, you know, whatever your scenario, but it’s definitely not for the faint of heart, but it’s also not for someone who is

just kinda coming at it willy nilly like, yeah, I got pregnant, yeah, I’m gonna have a baby, and yeah, we’re gonna do this thing called parenting. I mean, you can do it that way, but you’re gonna be on autopilot the whole time. Your reactions to things are not gonna be intentional and worked through the way that they should be for the betterment of your baby, right?

Nick McGowan (46:32.246)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (46:41.731)
yeah.

Anne Wallen (46:44.803)
The best way to change life on Earth is to change the way we start, right?

Nick McGowan (46:50.324)
Yeah, what a good way to put that. And especially all of this ties in to so many different pieces, but it’s all similar. Like you go into some big situation, you have to be prepared, but you also need to understand about yourself. And there are people I’m sure that try their best to be as prepared as they can be. Again, I’ve had a few friends that are like, I’ve read every fucking book I could. I talked to everybody I could.

Anne Wallen (46:58.522)
Mm.

Anne Wallen (47:14.777)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (47:16.278)
And I still expect to screw this kid up in some sort of way, because I’m going to say something weird or whatever. it’s like totally, like you’re just going to do what you’re going to do and your kid’s going to go how they’re going to go. But that’s the sort of like anti-matter in the middle of it. That’s like, well, all that stuff is just going to happen. But as long as you’re best prepared, you’re going to do what you can. Those people that are kind of wandering around that are like, well, we had a baby and like, I still don’t know my stuff or what’s going on. That.

Anne Wallen (47:36.558)
Yeah!

Nick McGowan (47:45.714)
level of self-awareness takes many, many, many blocks to get through to be able to get to that point. So the whole purpose of this show is to be able to help people on their path towards self-mastery and really figuring themselves out and living the best life that they can. So for the people that are on that path towards self-mastery, wanting to have a kid or have a kid or are still kind of reeling through the stuff that they’ve been through as a kid, how…

What’s your advice for somebody that’s on their path towards self mastery that’s kind of going throughout all that?

Anne Wallen (48:19.747)
So the number one thing that you can do is to just nurture yourself, right? Nurturing and making it okay to get things wrong. Having self-forgiveness, having self-grace. Because as you go through these blocks, I could tell you just from my own personal experience that going through different, you know, looking at what has happened to me and saying, okay, this event, and I’m gonna sit with how this event makes me feel.

until I can take away the power from it. And some people use counseling for that, some people use EMDR. I found EMDR super helpful. I think too, know, alongside having self-grace and having self-forgiveness, being with other people who are healthy psychologically is really important. If you are in a situation or a relationship that is kind of keeping you in

I don’t want to say in abuse because maybe the relationship isn’t abusive, but maybe in a situation where you are constantly triggered or you are continually kind of repeating bad habits, right? And you’re recognizing that, but then you’re in this situation where they’re just triggering you and triggering you and triggering you. You got to get away from it to be able to heal it. It’s so tough.

to be able to heal something while you’re in the midst of reaction. And honestly, you know, we talked about the word narcissism and the word trauma and things like that. One of the most powerful ways that I feel like people can heal from stuff and actually keep digging into their past and finding the next thing, right? Like, okay, well, I healed from this and now what? What’s the next thing?

Nick McGowan (50:17.15)
Mm-hmm.

Anne Wallen (50:17.325)
You’re subconscious, two things. One, I really believe that your subconscious will always answer you. And before you even finish the sentence, right, you know the answer. That’s your intuition, you can trust it. Right, so being able to say, what’s the thing that is really holding me back right now? You know it, your subconscious just told you what it was, right? And then going through that, working on that, focusing on that. The other thing is, is that for people,

A really powerful tool for us to get understanding about something is labeling. So when you are, let’s say narcissism, when you are looking at narcissism, you can say, hey, here’s a behavior. This makes me feel uncomfortable. What is this? Why does this make me feel uncomfortable? it’s gaslighting. I’ve got a word for that.

Nick McGowan (50:52.861)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (51:08.148)
hehe

Anne Wallen (51:09.977)
Right? I’ve got a word for the bandwagoning technique. I’ve got a word for flying monkeys. I’ve got a word for all these different things. Right? And so being able to look at your shit and having a label for the different things that you’re experiencing, having a label for the different reactions that you might be having. Number one, it helps you to understand it. It helps you have a little more power over those things rather than it having power over you. But then also, you know, we can Google it.

If you have a word that you’re like, my goodness, you know, this thing is really just triggering me. Why does it trigger me? Okay, comes, I can see that it’s stemming back from this thing that happened to me. And like I said, just ask yourself the questions. Just keep asking yourself the questions. And when your subconscious tells you this is what it was, then you can look it up, right? One of the reasons why I learned about narcissism is because I was Googling, why doesn’t my husband like me?

How sad is that that you got to ask that question? But I soon found out that it’s one of the list of things in the narcissistic playbook. And so then you start to realize, this behavior happened at this point in my life and at that point in my life and at that point in my life. And because you have a label for it, you can start to identify the root cause. And that’s where you can kind of start taking your power back.

Nick McGowan (52:35.719)
Yeah.

Anne Wallen (52:38.456)
and you can rework the programming that’s going on in your head. And so then you’re no longer a robot, just on autopilot. You can have a moment, you could take a moment to pause and say, I’m not gonna respond like that anymore. I’m gonna, I look, I see it for what it is now. And I’m not gonna let that do this thing to me. And I’m not gonna let that do that thing to my child, because I’m not gonna respond the same way anymore.

Nick McGowan (52:54.547)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Anne Wallen (53:08.132)
And I’ll tell you what, every kid, I really believe this, every child is born to bring the balance. So like if you have, and I apologize for all the noise in the background, I am in New York City. I don’t know if you hear the sirens. They’re about to come right in front of my building, I could tell. All right, they’re gone. Okay, so.

Nick McGowan (53:08.231)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (53:30.483)
Alright.

Anne Wallen (53:35.074)
give them a second. So when you have, you know, these, this labeling and when you have this balance that the child is bringing into the family, you know, you, you might say, that kid’s a, that’s a wild child or whatever. A wild child compared to what? Maybe you have very placid parents, right? And then the child’s just bringing the balance. They bring in the party. Or you have parents who are, you know, maybe really

Nick McGowan (53:35.155)
They’re good.

Nick McGowan (54:00.989)
you

Anne Wallen (54:05.061)
just super extroverted and then you get this little introverted child because they’re bringing the balance or you have two kids, right? I’ve had my two boys, they’re kind of like in the early middle of the six of them and I had one that was like large muscle. You tell him to dig a hole, he’s gonna be like, how deep and how big and tell me where to go and I’m on it, right? And then you got the next kid.

who was very small motor skills, very artistic, you know, just like super minute focus, right? And you tell him to dig a hole and he’d be like, I don’t know how to dig a hole, right? So like they’re opposites, but this is what happens in family structures. It’s like the kid comes in and they fill the gap of what’s missing. This can get tricky if you have stuff that you haven’t worked on in the past, because guess what?

Nick McGowan (54:48.443)
Mm-hmm.

Anne Wallen (55:02.852)
Kids also bring the triggers. So for example, my nine-year-old, love her to pieces, she’s really different from me. It’s a challenge sometimes to be her parent because I don’t know what to do with her half the time because she’s just so different from me. And so that in itself is a little bit of a trigger. And so as a parent, when you are trying to learn, because a lot of times we think, oh, we’re here to

Nick McGowan (55:18.096)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (55:24.272)
Yeah.

Anne Wallen (55:32.696)
you know, mold and shape this person. But I want to challenge that perception. I think we’re really here to figure out who this person is and help them to be the best of whoever it is that they’re supposed to be. And we’re not really supposed to be directing that all that much at all. Right. And so that also can be really tricky if you don’t know who you are. Right. If you’re if your stuff

Nick McGowan (55:57.893)
Yeah.

Anne Wallen (56:01.496)
goes into identifying as, I worthy? Should I speak up? Do I have to fight for stuff? All the different things that go on as a child inside of you, your child, it’s gonna be mirrored back to you. And if you haven’t figured those things out, if you didn’t figure them out as a child, how are you gonna have answers for your kid when they’re going through the same thing? So.

getting into and really just there’s actually a book for if you’re pregnant now or if you’re looking at getting pregnant, there’s a book called birthing from within. It’s kind of a whole system. I really like it because it kind of digs into the psychological aspect of, you know, this labyrinth of how were you created mentally, emotionally, and then how are you going to walk or step into parenthood, you know, as a person who can

be there for your kid in all these different ways that you’re gonna have, it’s gonna be demanded upon you whether or not you have the skills to meet the needs or not, right? Yeah.

Nick McGowan (57:05.967)
Yeah, whether you like it or not. man, there’s so much to that. And again, I’m not going to have kids ever. I’m no longer equipped to. And I can think about how these things relate to us as people without kids because we were kids at one point and this ties back. Even the two kids that you have that you talked about, you literally just described my brother and myself. And my dad was like,

Anne Wallen (57:25.112)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (57:34.359)
I understand the one who can dig the holes. I don’t understand why you’re building things and you’re painting. What the hell is this about? I’m gonna stick with the one over here because that makes sense and parents can go to that. They can look at that and they can do those things. But I really appreciate that you’re challenging people to understand the most about themselves and where their things have come from so that they don’t really bring them into anything further unless they go, hey, I learned this before cause I went through some shit.

Anne Wallen (57:56.334)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (58:03.077)
Here’s how you go about it a little differently, but you do you kid and I’m here to support you. I think that’s a crucial thing that you really pointed out and I appreciate you pointing that out. This has been awesome to have you on today and I appreciate you being with us. Before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

Anne Wallen (58:08.109)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (58:27.194)
Did I totally cut out there? Awesome. So I’d asked where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

Anne Wallen (58:36.484)
Well, I am like I said the director of maternity wise you can find me there. That’s easy maternity wise calm just like that And you can also find me. I’m a contributor to brains magazine So I have several articles published there and if you want to find me on LinkedIn, I’m Anne Wallen. So hey

Nick McGowan (58:58.896)
Again, Ann, it’s been great having you on today. I appreciate your time.

Anne Wallen (59:01.988)
Thank you.

In this episode, Nick speaks with Damon Cart, an NLP teacher and coach, about the transformative power of self-concept coaching. Damon shares his personal journey through depression, the importance of understanding one’s values, and the pitfalls of self-worth.

What to listen for:

“It has everything to do with your beliefs… Most people don’t believe they are the value that they’re seeking.”

“If you’re adamant about being a happy and fulfilled person and you’re willing to work for it, you will get there.”

About Damon Cart

Damon is a world-leading expert in creating lasting internal transformations using the Self-Concept model™. As a master NLP practitioner and co-founder of The Self-Concept Research Group, he transformed his own life from a struggling insurance agent to a globally recognized authority in personal development. Mentored by NLP pioneer Steve Andreas, he has spent nearly eight years helping thousands achieve identity-level change. Based in Santa Cruz, California, Damon combines deep theory with practical application to make transformation effortless and permanent.

Resources:

Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have? Send Nick an email or schedule a time to discuss your podcast today!

https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/podcasting-services/

Thank you for listening!

Please subscribe on iTunes and give us a 5-Star review! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mindset-and-self-mastery-show/id1604262089

Listen to other episodes here: https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/

Watch Clips and highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk1tCM7KTe3hrq_-UAa6GHA

Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]

Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”

Nick McGowan (00:01.436)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show we have Damon Cart. Damon, how you doing today?

Damon Cart (00:11.266)
Good. How are you?

Nick McGowan (00:12.828)
I’m good, man, I’m excited. As I told you, this is the first episode of Brand New Office. So if people watch the video and I’m looking around, it’s other stuff in the office. I’m excited that you’re here, man. We were just shooting the breeze a bit before we got started and I’m excited to get into things. So why don’t you kick us off? Tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre.

Damon Cart (00:23.182)
you

Damon Cart (00:35.694)
Hmm. Well, I teach NLP and I coach it as well. I do one-on-one coaching and not just NLP. I focus on a specific model called the self concept model. And it was a model that was taught to me by my mentor, Steve Andreas. He created it. And it is a model that models our identity, how we create our sense of self and how to transform that. Most people are not living the life that they would want to be living. And that’s rooted in them not being the person they want to be.

And we think that we have to go conquer mountains or defeat dragons until we’re worthy of that. And that’s just not true. It has everything to do with your beliefs and how you organize that information into those beliefs and what in fact you believe about yourself. And most people don’t believe they are the value that they’re seeking. And as a result of that, they experience lower self-esteem, lower confidence and overall just lack of fulfillment.

And we can transform that and sometimes as simple as one hour session just by transforming beliefs, restructuring that information. So instead of taking years of willpower and discipline and all of those things, it’s really in how you think about it. And there’s an exact organization to that. And once you understand it, then you can change it. And something about me that is, I don’t know if I’m, I don’t know, I feel like I’m a pretty open book about things, about myself.

And I don’t know of anything that I would call bizarre. would say something that probably not a lot of people know about me, unless you really know me very well, is that I’m a rather emotional person. And that can be anything. That can be anger. That can be watching a movie and, you know, feeling emotional because of it, because it’s sad or it’s a great love story or something like that. I tend to be very emotional and be

The older I’ve gotten, the more comfortable I am with just being emotional and vulnerable in front of people. But I don’t really show that in my videos. In my persona online, it’s just not, I don’t think it’s really relevant. And it’s not that I’m ashamed of it. It’s just, I don’t see the value in doing that. I’m a teacher and it’s for me, it’s about getting the information out there.

Nick McGowan (02:51.884)
Interesting. I want to go down that path a little bit because I am emotional. If you watched any videos, you can see some of the emotions come out. There are often times I’ll blame, I’m from Philly, so I’ll just blame the Northeast. I’m like, it’s because of Philly. Like, yeah, yeah. And that’s what everybody thinks about Philly people anyway. They’re crazy or they’re loud. It’s like partially, but some of that’s also generational trauma and they don’t really know how to handle it. And

Damon Cart (03:03.854)
Why not?

Nick McGowan (03:16.787)
It’s interesting because also as we get older like you can watch a commercial and you get over 40 and you start crying and you’re like I don’t know why like what the fuck was that what a good 12 second clip of something but it’s interesting that you put that to the side when you make your videos and it sounds really conscious like you’re like I’m not gonna allow myself to be not vulnerable but emotional because you don’t want it to block the message is that about right?

Damon Cart (03:43.691)
You know, got a comment on one of my videos recently and that one of the live streams I did was very academic. And I was like, well, like as opposed to what, how do you, because they’re, and you’ll hear people throw this word around when it comes to NLP teachers. like, this person’s very academic. And to me, that means like more theory-based and not experiential, but NLP is very experiential. So I was just like, well, you know, how do,

Nick McGowan (04:03.638)
Mm-hmm.

Damon Cart (04:09.358)
As opposed to what I’m giving you the steps of a process that you have to go and do and experience and he was like no No, not like that. You should put your personality into your videos more and he referenced a podcast and I went and looked at the podcast and it was one of those kind like bro podcasts where It was a young man and he’s you know, kind of putting a little bit of arrogance out there No judgment on him. Like this is what plays this is what sells and So I haven’t responded to the person yet, but on my video, but basically it comes down to this I

I don’t see myself as the brand of what I’m doing. The information that I’m getting out there is the star of the show, not me. And there have been times where I put my personal life on there. I’ve done vlogs and things like that. And you will see me get emotional in those. But I’ve never found it to be like why people are coming to my videos. And if my personality overshadows what I’m teaching, which is you see this in like Tony Robbins, you know, and

Nick McGowan (04:46.008)
Mm.

Nick McGowan (05:06.915)
Yeah.

Damon Cart (05:06.926)
Then I feel like I’m not doing my job. I feel like I’ve the message and what I’m teaching is the most important thing, not who I am. I don’t want my, if I get emotional about something, I don’t want that to hijack the video. I want the information I’m teaching to be the thing that people are coming for and that they’re getting it.

Nick McGowan (05:20.653)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (05:26.553)
That makes total sense. And I guess to people that don’t know that, they’re just going to interpret how they’re going to interpret because we are people and we’ll interpret things how we want and make up a story and go, here’s what it is. But that’s a great way to put it. You’re stewarding it. You’re basically just letting it come through you and kind of work through you. Do you feel like some of it is also channeled in that sort of way specifically? Or are you just saying, I’ve learned this information. I want to package it in the right way so you can get the information and

Damon Cart (05:38.466)
Yeah.

Damon Cart (05:41.826)
Yes.

Nick McGowan (05:56.342)
Never mind how I feel about

Damon Cart (05:58.735)
So definitely yes to the second part, when you say channel, what do mean by channel?

Nick McGowan (06:04.412)
There are certain people that channel information from a higher level, from God or from the universe or whatever, and they feel that comes through them. It’s almost like how creatives or artists can say, I don’t really know where that came from, but it just came out of me and it was kind of channeled through. And I’ve seen different people and I’ve talked to different people that are like, I don’t let my vessel really, or like the being get in the way because it’s being channeled through.

And it sounds like you’re taking more of the conscious approach of like the information is the information. So take the information and me being yelly or emotional about it or whatever is not going to do you a bit of good. Here’s the information. But it also sounds like that person who’s like, I want I want you to be emotional because they probably are, you know.

Damon Cart (06:46.668)
Yeah, and yeah, so I’ve had those moments on, because I like to do live streams. So yeah, I’ve had those moments where I felt like, yeah, I was just channeling. But majority of it is, I’ve felt this my entire life. If I was struggling to solve a problem and I solve that problem, I know that there are other people who are trying to solve that problem and they’re really frustrated. And I know what that frustration feels like. So I just want to go to them and say, here’s the key or here’s.

Here’s the information you need so that you don’t need to struggle with this anymore. And I feel like that’s really my job. My channel started with one of the things I realized very quickly when I was going to like one NLP training after another, especially getting into more and more advanced NLP trainings that I was attending, not teaching, was how many people didn’t actually know basic NLP. And it was like, okay, they’re spending thousands of dollars learning all this. And it is true. Like you just don’t really get a lot of practice in NLP trainings because that would make

Nick McGowan (07:34.966)
Mm.

Damon Cart (07:43.299)
the training’s extremely long and that wouldn’t be very competitive in the market. So people aren’t really practicing and then they hand you a certificate and say, now you’re certified. And it’s like that is completely meaningless. You have to go and practice it. And so what I was doing is I was practicing every single day on myself. was practicing, I had a practice group and I would practice with them once a week and had a practice partner who I practiced with once a week. And I was practicing on people and they didn’t even realize it. I was just making the world my NLP classroom.

Nick McGowan (07:44.983)
Yeah.

Damon Cart (08:11.054)
So I was understanding NLP rapidly. And a lot of this, was not getting the help of a teacher or a mentor up until I met my mentor, Steve Andreas. And so I started my YouTube channel being that the whole point of it was I’m going to teach people what they should have learned in their NLP training. And actually to this day, when I’m going, when I’m speaking at conferences, actually when I’m shoulder to shoulder speaking with other people who are presenting at these conferences, they will come to me and say,

When I was taking my NLP training, I didn’t understand what I was learning and I had to turn to your videos because your videos were the videos that actually taught me what I was supposed to know. And so I get this compliment to this day, which is a huge compliment because that’s exactly what I was set out to do in the beginning. So yeah, I’ve always, the spotlight has always been the information that I’m teaching, not me.

Nick McGowan (08:46.155)
Nice.

Nick McGowan (08:59.383)
And it sounds like with everything you’re saying, you’ve just solidified it more and more and more. Like if they were like, you know, it’s a little dry, you would probably open up a little bit in that sort of way. But the fact that you keep getting like, this is what you set out to do and this is what it’s about. That’s awesome, man. And again, I think people are gonna interpret how they want. Like I wanna hear more emotions.

Damon Cart (09:17.378)
Yeah, and I do share, I’m happy to share like one of the reasons why I’ve had a lot of people come to me for coaching is they would say like, you know, I heard some of what you were saying and it didn’t really speak to me, but when you talked about your depressions or you talked about your divorce and things like that. that is something that I think it helps feed what I’m trying to do here. When I, when I don’t pretend like I’m this perfect person, I think when people are trying to really build a personality brand, that’s what they’re doing.

Nick McGowan (09:30.69)
yeah.

Damon Cart (09:45.133)
And there are people who want to follow that. want to believe that there are these sort of like higher than human people that they can follow. I just, that defeats the whole point. So yeah, I want people to know that I’ve worked through problems. I’ve worked through depression. I’ve had a divorce. I’ve had to deal with, you know, trying to maintain relationships with my kids.

Nick McGowan (09:45.216)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (09:55.851)
Yeah.

Damon Cart (10:06.222)
you know, in these tough times of going through a divorce and moving out of the home, you know. So I do talk about these things because I want people to understand that I’m not just like coming from a place of like, had this all figured out from the beginning. It’s like, what I’m giving you is things that, problems that I’ve solved, things that I had to figure out for myself. that’s how I know that it works. And so now I’m giving it to you. So you don’t have to stay in that frustration.

Nick McGowan (10:18.443)
haha

Nick McGowan (10:31.273)
Wait, so there aren’t perfect people on the planet? Like there’s not somebody wandering around? Like all these people on social media?

Damon Cart (10:36.426)
you would be amazed you would be amazed at how people really buy into that stuff and i just like yeah

Nick McGowan (10:41.716)
my God, well they want to, you know? Like they really want that. And I can understand like really wanting that, but it’s like self-awareness. Like once you see it, like you can’t not see things. So if you’re like, I want this, why would I want this? Well, you know, and then you kind of work through your stuff. But big thing you’re saying with this is context. Like setting the stage, giving some context to it. Like if you just talked about all these things and you’re like, went through a divorce, but I’m totally good. And like everything’s totally fine. And like everything’s all right.

for the people that are out there that would just be like, cool, see, he’s totally good. Like you’re actually hurting those people at that point. And it’s interesting, cause I think there’s a lot of like, there’s a lot of hurt that’s being given out from coaches because they’re not actually working through this stuff that they’re working through. You told me before we even got started, like you were doing the work and kind of almost tripped into this because it made sense to do it when it made sense instead of like where I think

2020 and the whole COVID thing is an easy thing to look back to because a lot of people were like, well, what the fuck do I do now? I guess I become a coach for what? I don’t fucking know. But I guess I’ll do it because I see these other people doing it and like, why the fuck not? And at that point, they’re just like spewing things. I kind of tripped backwards into coaching because I went through a divorce and I had friends that were like, man, you helped me. Can you help a buddy of mine who’s also going through shit? Can you help somebody else? And it’s like

Damon Cart (11:46.635)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (12:05.334)
Yeah, but I need to do so much more work because the more that you learn, the more you understand. Like there’s more to know about it. And likewise, I’m sure with the NLP stuff, like as you started to go into it, I’m sure you got three weeks, three months, three years into it. You’re like, oh my God, there’s so much that I’ve learned from it that you’re then able to turn around. And it sounds like you’ve got a good, I guess mindset, a sense of like, I’m going to help. I want to deliver the information instead of like pushing it upon people. But why don’t we take a little bit of a step back.

How the hell did you get here? I know a little bit of the story, but why don’t you share that? Because again, context is important.

Damon Cart (12:40.153)
Yeah, so I became, well, I had my first depression right after I graduated college and it was, 9-11 happened. It was the first time I was out of school in my entire life. I guess I started going to school like at three and now I’m like 22 and I’m out of school for the first time and just, you know, facing that the rest of your life. Like, what do I do now?

Nick McGowan (13:06.409)
Yeah.

Damon Cart (13:06.734)
Yeah, 9-11 happened, which really shook me up because you feel like you’re living, you don’t even question your safety and suddenly something like that happens. And then I got arrested for something really stupid. And it’s really stupid to the point where it’s like, I mean, if you want to get into it, I don’t mind talking about it, but it’s not, I don’t know, I don’t find it that relevant. anyway, those three things happened in one summer. And I just was like, I don’t even feel like walking out my front door. It just feels dangerous. Like, who knows what can happen?

Nick McGowan (13:22.1)
I’m down.

Nick McGowan (13:26.206)
Fair enough.

Damon Cart (13:35.047)
And I gradually just kind of like pulled in more and more and didn’t process the feelings, the negative feelings that I was experiencing. And I just suddenly I realized I’m in a really bad place. And I’ve actually been in this place for months now. And I don’t know how to get myself out of it. And I remembered that I had a professor who taught a class called the philosophy of psychology. And he went through different therapeutic modalities, including hypnosis and gestalt therapy, which NLP is based on. And then at the end, he

Nick McGowan (13:57.267)
Mm.

Damon Cart (14:04.856)
pulled out NLP and he said like, this is the mother of them all, because it takes the best of everything that whatever works. And I was just amazed by what this guy could do. And I was, I remember thinking to myself, I got to learn this NLP thing one day. So that was in college and then I was graduated. Now I’m experiencing depression. I don’t have health insurance. I’m a bartender. And so I can’t, I don’t even have the money to hire a therapist.

Nick McGowan (14:16.2)
Mm.

Damon Cart (14:27.502)
So I remembered my professor and I called him up and told him what was going on and he said, well, come into my office. He said, I don’t believe in a free service, but I also don’t need your money. So he said, donate your time every time you come to see me to charity or money or whatever. And he’s like, I’m not going to check back with you. I’m just going to trust that you do it. Come back next week and we’ll get to work. I come back next week and in one hour session, months of depression is gone. And I just, my logical mind said, no, no.

Nick McGowan (14:45.971)
That’s cool.

Damon Cart (14:57.056)
No, cannot even be possible. But every other part of me was just like, I’m free, like I’m not depressed anymore. And I remember leaving his office and just like I had to stop and sit at a bench on the campus and was just like looking around. like, I walked in there a different person. I walked in there depressed and I’m walking out and there is no depression. just didn’t, it seemed crazy. And so I didn’t get depressed for another 10 years. And when I finally got depressed again, it had nothing to do with what I had gotten depressed with the first time.

Nick McGowan (14:58.13)
Hehehehe

Nick McGowan (15:19.816)
Yeah.

Damon Cart (15:26.926)
But I can say now, knowing NLP, that it was a way that I would think about things. Depression is a process, not like a thing. So, you know, 10 years later, now I’m living in Santa Cruz, California. I have an insurance agency. I’m married and I have two really young kids, like two kids under two years old. And everything is going wrong. And so I slip into a depression again and then even realize it. My wife at the time, ex-wife now, she’s a therapist and she just said, you need help. And I remember

Part of me was like well, no, don’t and then I just stopped and I was like, yeah, actually I do I’m not good. And so I found a therapist and this was traditional therapy So I went to traditional psychotherapy and it took me an entire year to come out of depression So we’re talking one session with somebody who knew NLP versus an entire year with someone who’s doing more traditional therapy And when I started to realize even though I was out of that depression I was thinking maybe I can make some progress and some advances here

But no, he only knew how to get, this therapist only knew how to get you out of the hole. And then once you were there, then he kind of like kept you there by asking more and more about problems rather than trying to move you to solutions. And I was like, okay, this isn’t working for me anymore. And so I stopped going to see him, but I knew if I didn’t do something different, I was going to end up right back there again. And that’s when I decided it’s time to learn NLP. And there was a training that might still happen here in Santa Cruz where NLP was created up at the university every summer.

Nick McGowan (16:31.538)
Mm.

Damon Cart (16:56.52)
And so I went to that training and it just felt like I came home. I was like, this is what I’ve been looking for. And I wasn’t even thinking that I was going to be a teacher or a coach at that point. I was still thinking I’m going to fix my insurance agency and I’m going to fix my marriage and everything’s going to be great. And I just couldn’t stop doing NLP. I would just try to get into a training every chance that I could. Like I mentioned before, I was practicing all the time. And by the time I came back a year later,

Nick McGowan (17:00.627)
Hmm.

Damon Cart (17:22.79)
About 75 % of the people who were there the year before returned for the, it was a master practitioner training. And they just kept coming up to me and they were like, why are you so much better than us? And I was like, I don’t know. said, so I started asking them questions and they were like, you we went, we got the same certification you did. So we, you know, we should be at the same level as you. And I was like, did you practice? Have you practiced at all since the last training a year ago? And they were all no.

Nick McGowan (17:28.528)
Well.

Damon Cart (17:51.343)
I was like, it’s not a secret. If you don’t practice, you’re not going to get good at it. And that’s why I’m better than you is I’m not, I don’t have any special talents. just practice. And, uh, so, and that’s when people started saying, uh, and then when I go to other NLP trainings, people would be like, well, how long have you been a coach or how long have you been a teacher? And I was like, I’m not, I’m an insurance agent. And they were like, what are you doing here? Cause mostly coaches and you know, teachers go to these trainings. And, uh, so yeah, by that point, after a year had passed, I was like, yes, I’m going to.

Nick McGowan (17:53.212)
Yeah.

Damon Cart (18:20.216)
I’m coaching, I’m gonna do teaching. And even still, was more about I wanted to be better at NLP and that was was driving me to wanna do that. So I started just teaching workshops and when that didn’t go very far, that’s when I decided to get on YouTube. A friend of mine actually said, hey, you’ve been to film school, why don’t you try YouTube? And so like, okay, I’ll give that a shot and I did. And yeah, I realized in that whole process that my marriage was not salvageable. was…

just, you know, we hit that inroads and it was nothing that was going to make it better. And I also realized that being an insurance agent was making me absolutely miserable and there was no changing that. So it was like, you know, it’s not, I always thought that it was something about me not being good enough. And that’s why I wasn’t succeeding at the insurance business, but it was like, no, it’s just not a good fit. The crazy thing about it, once I realized that, and I realized that it was just going to use the business to keep me afloat until I transferred into this other business.

I actually was able to make it successful at that point. was really strange. It’s like when, you know, this thing you’re trying so hard to do and then you finally say, fuck it, I don’t care anymore. Then it, you know, then it was easy. And then it was like, I want to say it easy, but it was, it was working a lot better. And so I was just basically, I moved my office in with another agent. said, can you babysit this while I transition out of this? And he said, yeah, absolutely. And so I was, you know, it took me a few years to kind of figure out this new business. But once I did, I was, I jumped and haven’t looked back since.

Nick McGowan (19:20.817)
the

Yeah.

Nick McGowan (19:46.162)
I love all that and especially the I mean the real side of it like I joked like yeah You were overnight success took nine years like the amount of stuff that people see that they think like this is Whatever they make it up to be in their own heads and the fact that you were doing the work I mean there are little principles that are through all of this stuff where it’s like You did it in the sense that you just wanted to learn it and you were you even said to me that it was your calling

When we feel that and we go in that direction, things will start to get easier, even if it’s the other stuff of like, I need to get this away. And I don’t know the answer to this question, but is it safe to assume that you’re living a better life and more happy life than you did when you had the agency, when you were married, at least to her and like where things are now, is it better?

Damon Cart (20:33.742)
100 times over. Especially thinking back during the times that I was depressed and I was just like, I guess this is just kind of how life is going to be for the rest of it. And that was depressing to even think about. And that’s what I like to tell people because when I come across someone who’s either depressed or kind of close to that.

I want to be respectful. You don’t want to just say, your life is so much better than you. That will make it worse. what I do want to communicate to them is it will get better. It can get better. If you’re adamant about being a happy and fulfilled person and you’re willing to work for it, you will get there. You’re not stuck. This is not how the rest of your life has to be.

Nick McGowan (21:02.095)
Yeah.

Damon Cart (21:25.708)
Because yeah, like at this point, it’s like it has exceeded the fulfillment I experienced now has exceeded what I thought was even possible. And still it’s getting more and more fulfilling. So my take on it now is just like, well, how, how good can this get? How deep can I take this? And it’s not like a, it’s not like a greedy thing. It’s more of like a potential thing. What potential do I have to be even more fulfilled and

Nick McGowan (21:43.877)
Yeah.

Damon Cart (21:52.844)
more engaged in life and I’m curious to see how far I can take that.

Nick McGowan (21:58.124)
What a cool aspect of it. Like, well, fuck, let’s see what happens. And like, cool, let’s see how far we can go. And I think to call something out here too, for the people that are listening, isn’t, Damon’s not saying like, well, I was in a shitty spot. I learned this thing and everything worked better. Like that’s just not how life works. Like the amount of work that you had to put in that wasn’t just like curriculum work, but also work on your own. if you…

Damon Cart (22:01.698)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (22:26.232)
If you actually sat back and thought about the amount of hours that you spent just even pondering on it, thinking about it, looking at other people, how they relate to life and what they do. Like you literally enveloped yourself in it instead of saying, well, I really want that. And the reason why I say that is there are people that I hear from the times that are like, man, I’ve tried therapy. I’ve tried this. I’ve tried that. It’s like, great. So what’s next? I’m like, if that didn’t work or if that was a piece of it, like talk therapy, everybody will go into talk therapy and they’re like,

This was great and it led me in some direction or it was bullshit and I just yammered to somebody about my problems and they were, they would ask me, how does that make you feel or whatever? It’s like, that’s a part of all of this, but not just the end thing. I think a lot of people do want, they just want that like, what’s the pill that I can swallow and like push all this stuff away instead of trying to break down one barrier to break down another, to break down another, like they’re.

There are visuals in my head at times where I’ll climb a mountain only to get to the top of it and go, what the fuck is that? Jeez, it’s another, all right, cool. And you get to a point where you just, you keep trucking along with it. So let’s talk about some of the really tough times where obviously going through a divorce can be a tough time. And for somebody who’s a divorced, it’s one of those things like congratulations or I’m sorry, or a mixture of both, you know? But that can be one of those things that really shapes you in a beautiful way. Like I used to tell people,

Damon Cart (23:44.2)
All right.

Nick McGowan (23:51.65)
I didn’t get a divorce to die. I got a divorce so I could live and actually change things. like, I look at life now and think, my God, how did I have that same sort of question that you did of like, well, is this it? I guess this is it. So I guess this is just what life is gonna be like. And it doesn’t have to be that way, but there were still dark times he went through. So were there any that come to mind that you were like, man, that was one of those like super pivotal moments?

Like I went through that within my NLP journey and that changed how things shifted.

Damon Cart (24:23.212)
Yeah, there were a few. When I got a divorce, I was dating for the first time in 15 years. And in my late 30s, that was scary. Things had changed quite a bit. Now there was online dating, and I tried that. And that didn’t go so well, because on these apps, it’s like 70 % men and 30 % women. So the odds are really stacked against you. So I also had my own business, so I wasn’t going to date my employees nor my

insurance clients. so I started saying, realizing that I needed, if I saw an attractive woman, I was going to have to go and just talk to her, you know, and that was really difficult to do. And also wanted that choice because I was kept slipping in the relationships, even some of the rebound relationships that I went through, kept slipping in the relationships where the women would turn out to be very passive aggressive and playing a lot of games and really trying to control and manipulate me. And I remember coming to like a choice point thinking, wait,

Nick McGowan (25:16.247)
Mm.

Damon Cart (25:23.126)
Is this all women are all women like this or is this just the women I’m attracting? And so I had to be really like honest with myself and I was like, you know what? I’m going to take this on. This is my responsibility. I know that there are good women out there. And so there’s something I’m doing that’s attracting this type of woman. And I want to figure out what that is. And so I just decided I was going to just date and date and date for an entire year. And at the end of that year, if I found someone that I was going to settle down with them.

And I did find someone and it was coming up to that year and then the red flag went up and I saw she was doing the same thing. And I was like, oh man, I spent a year doing this and I almost missed it again, almost got slipped into this relationship with this person who was basically going to, it was going to be a rerun of all my relationships. And so was like, I need another year. And so I went another year and I dated a lot. could catch these red flags very quickly.

Nick McGowan (26:01.954)
Hmm.

Damon Cart (26:16.366)
And I started realizing that I was putting a certain kind of vulnerability out too early and certain women, was attracting certain women because they thought that they could control me. But once I made it clear that I understood what they were doing, because the last thing a passive aggressive person wants is to be called out. That’s why it’s passive aggressive, right? So I would start calling out what they were doing. They would disappear very quickly. And then I started to develop myself along that way and started attracting much better women. But I do remember like, I was getting to the end of like,

Nick McGowan (26:24.066)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (26:30.517)
Yeah.

Damon Cart (26:46.178)
I was getting into the third year and I was like, I’m not really finding anyone. was just, I was really getting a bit cynical about it. And I just thought maybe I’m not gonna find someone to share the rest of my life with. And so I quit dating for six months. Like I quit approaching, quit dating. And I was just like, I really needed to focus on my business. Cause that was something that was lacking as well. And I had another big failure in that.

Nick McGowan (26:51.243)
Hmm.

Damon Cart (27:11.756)
that I was able to overcome. I was like, you know, less dating, more attention on my business. And that started to work out well for me. And six months later, I had like zero social life. I hadn’t been on a date in, you know, six months. And I was like, OK, I was just finishing up this online training that I had created. I was like, I really need to get out. I need some sunlight. I need some fresh air and I need to see people. And I’m walking down the street downtown here in Santa Cruz. And I just see this really attractive.

really young woman and I was trying to talk myself out of talking to her but I was like you know actually no I’m gonna go do this and I just walked up to her and told her I thought you know she was really cute and that I wanted to know her name and possibly go out on a date with her now I’m married to her and you think about those times where you know you almost didn’t do something but you did and then how that changes the trajectory of your life

And then that opened a whole new can of worms because she’s from a different country and we got separated by COVID. And she also got her visa taken away. we basically, we eloped in Istanbul, Turkey. The media picked it up and so it was broadcast live in Turkey, our wedding. And then we still couldn’t be together. And so it went on for two more years where the only way we could be together is if I traveled to Romania or we traveled to a country where we could both enter. It was a…

Nick McGowan (28:37.42)
Mm.

Damon Cart (28:38.508)
That was another dark time, but with a light at the end of the tunnel. but yeah, that’s, I threw a lot in there all at once. And I also, another dark time was a time that, I, my, business that I have now, had a major failure. And I just thought that was the end of it. All this work that I had done on YouTube for, you a year of doing videos. did a video every single day for eight months straight. And that was a lot of work. And I, that’s how I started to build.

Nick McGowan (28:45.366)
pain.

Damon Cart (29:07.232)
my following and then I put out my first training after doing youtube and it just was a spectacular failure and I thought that’s the end of it all this work that I had done and six weeks of I didn’t publish a single video and for six weeks and then suddenly I started getting all these emails and these messages hey we haven’t seen you put a video out in a while we’re worried about you are you sick are you dead let us know you’re okay and I was like you wouldn’t come to my

Nick McGowan (29:30.154)
Thank

What? Yeah.

Damon Cart (29:35.235)
fucking training and you just want me to keep putting free videos out there. Is that what this is about? So was a little resentful, but then I started making videos again. And then I realized what that was all about. It was, I was promoting a live in-person workshop for a different trainer. And it was like, they, my following didn’t know who he was and didn’t want to see him and didn’t want to show up to a live workshop. They wanted on, they found me on a screen. They wanted me and they wanted me on a screen. And that’s when I realized.

Nick McGowan (29:41.654)
Yeah.

Damon Cart (30:02.734)
that they wanted digital products, digital trainings. And so I didn’t know that at the time, but I just thought nobody really wants to know what I have to say and that’s the end of it and it’s time to go move on to a different business. It was quite a relief when I realized the mistakes that I’d made and that actually people did want what I was offering. yeah, so it was a interesting learning curve and very frustrating at the time, but it all ended up being really good.

Nick McGowan (30:31.084)
So in what was that five minutes seven minutes, maybe you’ve just chunked all this stuff in and I I laugh at times because I think it’s funny how we can we can look in like history books and they’re like from this period to this period like 600 years these three things happened. What the fuck do you mean? Like there were so many other things that happened. You had all these dark times even the six weeks off. I’m sure you still had the body feeling of like why I got to sit down. I could do the video. Wait a minute.

And then people come back, be like, are you all right? Are you dead? And be like, what the fuck do you mean? Where have you been? And you’re like…

Damon Cart (31:04.15)
No, and was so cliche, like whenever that failure happened, had trouble getting out of bed. I stayed in my pajamas most of the day. All the blinds were closed. They had very little light in my apartment. it’s like, because it was so weird. Like, I look back on it now, but it was like, that’s what you would see in a movie because you have to like show, you know, what’s going on inside the character by lighting it the right way and all that. And it was like, that’s what I was actually living through. And I didn’t even realize it at the time, but I was like, yeah, it was a

Nick McGowan (31:24.479)
Yeah.

Damon Cart (31:33.773)
It was a dark time and it was literally dark in my home. And that’s the way that it all felt. And finally, I remember just kind of emerging from that. And it was almost like opening the blinds and letting the sunlight in. it was like, you know what, I’m going to pick up my camera. And, yeah, I was just like, you know what? I’m a teacher. This is what I do. So I’m going to put that camera back up and start teaching again. And then eventually shortly thereafter, it led to one of the biggest successes that I had that still creating a training that I’m.

Nick McGowan (31:37.685)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (31:45.215)
Bird singing.

Damon Cart (32:02.956)
you know, still selling to this day because I put so much effort into it. And, but if it hadn’t been for that failure, I would have never discovered that. And so, you know, it’s how these things often work.

Nick McGowan (32:14.994)
It’s how life works. Like you have to fail through things. You have to fuck around and find out. You also have to bash your head into the wall, the wrong wall sometimes to go, well, shit, that’s the wrong direction. Let me go back. And you still can learn things from it. I think, I think we can sometimes understand, from an intellectual perspective, like, yes, I get that you need to fail. You need to do this to do that. But then when people get into it can be really, it can be hurtful in a way that isn’t just to

the timing that they’re in, but there are so many other things that they haven’t worked through or processed through that it feels like they’re just stacking it on. Like, and now this, and now that, and my God, and now my shoes, and now this. It’s like, you’re just adding things to it. But it can be really easy to do that when you’re in that dark spot. Now, obviously you’ve been through these different things. You’ve fucked around, found out, but you’ve also learned through all this stuff. And I joke with the like, well, here was this short little thing.

Like how they even do it in movies. Like all this chaos and craziness happened and like 15 minutes later, it’s like, no, there was a lot of dark times, but there’s still that momentum and that movement. Even if you’re slowing down and you’re resting, you’re still moving in that direction. So the fact that you just didn’t give up, like, let’s be real, man, you had a lot of different times you could have just totally checked out. You could have been like, no, this is too much. I’m not doing it. And now, like, have you thought about that? Like, what have you checked out?

You wouldn’t be where you’re at. You wouldn’t be doing what you’re doing. You know, maybe you’re selling insurance again and like, fuck this, I can’t.

Damon Cart (33:47.039)
And I, you know, when I had that major failure, that’s what I thought. I was like, okay, do I have to go back into insurance? And I was seriously considering that. And, man, it was so painful to just even think about that. what I see with a lot of people, the real difference between people who are living the life that they want to live and really fulfilled by that and experiencing the kind of freedom they want is…

They stuck with what they were doing, even if that like evolved, you know, because you try things, they fail, you keep trying new things. And so it evolves, but you’re still sticking with it. And what I would say is, you know, the really important thing is not to be so fixated on how you’re going to get there because I, if I had actually gotten what I wanted the way that I thought I wanted it, it would have been a lot more restrictive. I would have been having to show up, you know, just to keep

my money going out, to actually physically show up in many different places and be teaching constantly, which is, you know, that’s what my teachers were doing. So I thought, well, that’s how it’s done. But they hadn’t really tapped into the Internet and YouTube and all that. So now I get the choice if I want to do that. I don’t have to like do that all the time. So I learned enough about, you know, business and everything to make it work the way that I make it work now. But that only came because the way that I thought I was going to do it failed miserably. So had to try to had to find a new way.

Nick McGowan (35:06.633)
Hmm.

Damon Cart (35:08.192)
When I think about like, had this weird experience earlier this year, was, so my wife and I, also my wife’s Romanian and we have a home in Romania. So we always go there in January and then we went to Cambodia and then we went to Vietnam. And I remember just like it really hitting me how much I was driven by freedom. And this is another thing that I think is really important to understand is when you, when you focus on values, then you’re not so focused on how you think it has to happen. You become more flexible and you know what.

the values are that you’re after. And for a long time, freedom was such an important thing to me. And I remember earlier this year being in Vietnam and just being like, more freedom is not going to make me happier. More freedom is not going to make me more fulfilled. I have really hit that level of freedom that was far more than I expected to ever achieve. I can travel anywhere and go anywhere because I can run my business off of a laptop. And also have a great team of people who I work with who, you know, I don’t have to do everything.

Nick McGowan (35:50.761)
you

Damon Cart (36:07.598)
They’re there for that as well. So I have the money I need and I have all the freedom to travel and do whatever. And that was both a victory in that moment that I realized that, but it was also like, okay, so where do I go from here? And it was like a real question for me to sort of contemplate. And that’s, I that might sound a little arrogant, like you achieve all that you want and then you’re kind of like, okay, well, what do I do now? Like that’s a…

a first world problem that most people would want to have that don’t even get to that point to have. it’s be prepared for that. Like if you really believe you’re going to be successful and you’re not going to stop until you become successful, be prepared for those moments that you have where you go, wow, OK, I really have it now. What now? And so I thought about all these different things that I could do from that point on. And I was like, well, wait a minute. It’s not about doing something different. I’m so happy with what I’m doing now. I don’t need to do anything different. I just want to do more of what I’m already doing.

Nick McGowan (37:05.094)
Yeah.

Damon Cart (37:05.26)
and I don’t need more freedom to do that. And it was a realization of I don’t need to be pursuing freedom so hard anymore because more of it actually can, at this point in my life, would probably be more nihilistic or more escapism. And it’s like, that’s not worth that either because that’s not gonna fulfill me more. So it was an interesting realization to come to that. And it’s like, yeah, okay, freedom doesn’t have to be the main thing here anymore.

Nick McGowan (37:22.481)
Mm-hmm

Nick McGowan (37:33.874)
Well, I think we’re also taught in this world with all the systems we have that you have to have a destination. Like think about even being like in high school and they’re like, we, need a five or you need a 10 year plan. That was always so difficult. I remember somebody even years ago was like, well, what’s your five or 10 year plan from now? It’s like, fuck if I know, because anything I come up with is going to be like half-hearted and like what I kind of want right now. But as you’ve moved through things and you do things, you start to see, well, I really want this. I want that. Like freedom is a big thing. I think a lot of people want freedom. I.

Damon Cart (37:43.822)
Hmm. Hmm.

Nick McGowan (38:03.706)
I love the freedom that I have. I’m right there with you where it’s like one of those things where you go, well, cool, I have it. Well, that’s cool. But like what’s really fulfilling inside is the thing that actually just drives us and pulls us from basically our chest. So for the people that are on their path towards self mastery and with everything you’ve gone through and especially with NLP, what’s your advice for those folks?

Damon Cart (38:26.318)
Keep your attention on what’s most important and what’s most important is your values. A value is a generalization about an experience that is important to you. So if happiness is important to you, success is important to you, authenticity is important to you, always keep your eyes on that. And then any goals you set need to be aligned with those values. Most of the time people have no idea what their values are in a particular context and they will be different from context to context. And they just set a goal because they think, okay, like you said,

You have to have a destination, right? So here I’m going to set this goal, but they don’t really understand what’s driving the motivation to have that goal. And a lot of times it’s more external values. Well, other people value achieving this, so it must be valuable. Or if I achieve it, then these people will think very highly of me and respect me. Those are, you know, if you’re accomplishing something that does those things, there’s nothing wrong with that. But if that’s why you’re doing it, you’re probably not going to be fulfilled.

by accomplishing that. And so a lot of people are chasing goals that are not even fulfilling to them. And whenever they fail at that, because really there’s that inner wisdom that is holding them back, like the inner wisdom that helped me back from succeeding as an insurance agent, because that would have been the golden handcuffs. It would have been really hard to walk away from a very successful business with a lot of money. And I would have probably tolerated that misery. you want to be careful. know, like when you quit at something because you run out of motivation for it.

Nick McGowan (39:45.318)
Hmm.

Damon Cart (39:52.345)
Check in with that is that a deeper wisdom that knows better that that’s not really going to fulfill you. But what most people do is they beat themselves up and they say, I should have had more discipline or I should have had more willpower. I’m just not good enough. And they go into this whole self-worth thing, which is not real by the way. It’s something that holds a lot of people back. And then the people who do succeed at it and they get there and they go, wow, this isn’t fulfilling. This feels rather empty. thought it would be great if when I finally

Nick McGowan (40:03.791)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (40:08.454)
the

Damon Cart (40:21.39)
Achieve this but again, it wasn’t aligned with their values. So no, it’s not going to be fulfilling and Because they feel lost without a goal They set another goal and get back on that treadmill and they do the whole thing over and over again and people come to me for coaching now who are very very successful on paper you would think they would be extremely happy and fulfilled they have all the money they have the family they have the cars the house and everything and they’re coming to me because they feel like imposters or they’re coming to me because

they feel so unfulfilled and they can’t understand it because they’ve accomplished everything they’ve ever wanted to accomplish yet they feel so empty inside. And it’s like, yeah, you’re good at accomplishing. The problem was you never really got in touch with what do you truly value? What is really important to you? And so that’s the most important thing is what’s most important to you. And the better you understand that, the more clarity you have around that, the more you’re naturally going to be drawn to that and motivated to do that. The other thing I would say is

There is no such thing as self-worth. How this problem comes up is feeling like you’re not good enough, feeling like you deserve it or don’t deserve it. It goes both ways. And so what most people are feeling is a low sense of self-worth. And they feel like if I go and try to achieve something and I fail at it, I will lower my self-worth and I’m already clinging to what little I have. So most of the time people won’t do something and they’ll sit back and say, well, I’m waiting for the right opportunity. what they’re waiting is

to feel of higher self-worth so that they feel like they can go do something and if they lose some self-worth, they’ll still be okay. Well, here’s the thing, there is no such thing as self-worth. There is no way to measure your value, which is what worth is. It’s really a metaphor and there’s a lot of problems that happen when we try to apply metaphors literally. And we see this in the Bible. Fundamentalists are people who are trying to apply metaphors in the Bible literally and it causes a lot of problems. So what people do is they have this idea of self-worth.

And so they think, well, how do I measure my worth? Well, first of all, there’s no way to do it. There’s no objective scale or person who can be objective and measure people’s worth. So what do we do? We compare ourselves to others and that will destroy you every time. If you compare yourself to others to make yourself feel better about yourself because you think they’re less than you. Now you’re engaging in the superiority that’s going to bring you down. And if you play that game, you can’t only play it in one direction.

Damon Cart (42:45.87)
when you encounter someone you think is of higher worth than you, now you’re gonna feel bad about yourself. The whole thing, you can kill the whole thing just by stop comparing yourself to others. Now this idea of self-worth, it usually comes about very early in life and we just pile more and more beliefs on top of that whole idea. So the two things that I would recommend is get clear and clear about your values, basically what’s important to you.

What does that actually look like to you? And you’re not going have it all figured out. And you’re definitely not going to figure it out all out on paper. You need to take action. And action is the best way to get that clarity, experience. And then the other thing is to dismantle the whole concept of self-worth entirely. When you do that, when you do those two things together, you’re just on the path to living a very fulfilling life, a life of being who you want to be and therefore creating the life you want to live.

Nick McGowan (43:38.213)
That’s awesome. And I think a lot of people can anchor into like the understanding of action and motivation too. Like you have to take action to be motivated, continue to do the thing. It’s likewise with what you’re saying where you have to take those actions, but you have to understand why you’re doing those things. And it is interesting how a lot of people don’t know what their principles are or they are somebody else’s principles. Like, well, my wife and I, or my partner and I, or

my family and I, have these principles. Like, well, where did those come from? Well, you know, they just kind of came up and like, we don’t really think about that or don’t think about it throughout their day to day life of like, well, how do I move about this? And why do I want to do such a thing? I’m really glad that you touched on those two things, man. It’s been great having you on. So I appreciate your time. Before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

Damon Cart (44:27.852)
Yeah, the easiest place is my YouTube channel. It’s just Damon Cart, Damon Cart NLP. And we’ve got a lot of videos been doing this for quite a while, almost 10 years. So that’s, you’ll find not only my videos, but in my videos, I give a lot of free resources so that you can get started usually on the topic that I’m giving you or the solution to a problem. You can access like free PDFs and things like that. so also I have my website is selfconcept.com.

Like I said, I do general NLP, but I also really focus on this one model because your beliefs about yourself determine your beliefs about everything else, you the world around you. And if you haven’t realized already, it’s your beliefs that govern your reality. So what you believe is possible, what you believe is true. lot of, most of our beliefs are deeply unconscious. So when you can understand what the beliefs are, especially the deeply unconscious ones about who you are, when you understand what those are,

you understand their limitations and then you transform them so they don’t have those limitations. Then you become that person you value. Your self-esteem goes up, your confidence goes up and you naturally gravitate toward creating that life that you want to live that’s reflective of the value that you are.

Nick McGowan (45:45.38)
So wait, you putting worth to that? No, I’m just kidding. I’m only kidding. Awesome, man. Well, again, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being with us today.

Damon Cart (45:48.052)
It’s different, worse than the measurement.

Damon Cart (45:55.246)
Thank you for having me on.