In this episode, Nick speaks with Carl King about the intricacies of change management coaching, the challenges of identity, and the journey of self-discovery. Carl shares his experiences living in an RV, the pressures of societal expectations, and the struggles he faced in separating his identity from that of a preacher.

What to listen for:

“It was anguish, agonizing to separate myself from the label of preacher. It felt like trying to change the spots on a leopard.”

“I want people to know they can be better—not by society’s standards, but by their own definition of who they want to be.”

About Carl King

Drawing from his rich tapestry of experiences, Carl brings a unique blend of empathy and insight to his coaching practice. His own journey taught him the power of embracing change, and he’s dedicated his life to helping others navigate their own transformations skillfully.

Whether guiding individuals through personal transitions or helping organizations navigate complex changes, Carl’s approach is deeply rooted in empathy and understanding. He knows firsthand the uncertainty and fear that accompany change, but he also knows the incredible growth and opportunities it can bring.

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!

[email protected]

Thank you for listening!

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

Nick (00:01.512)
Hello and welcome to the mindset and self mastery show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan today on the show with Carl King. Carl, how you doing, man?

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (00:13.452)
I was muted, of all things. I’m doing great.

Nick (00:17.672)
I’m excited that you’re here. We were shooting the breeze before we hit record talking about lots of different things from religion, systems, the amount of podcasts we both have done, even tiny home living, all this sort of stuff. So, hey, I know we’re gonna get into a lot here, but 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.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (00:43.552)
Yeah. So, thanks for the, thanks for the introduction. Thanks for having me on also, Nick. man, I am a coach, so I do what’s called change management. And so that’s for people or for organizations helping people to change. and, oftentimes it’s accepting the changes that are happening around them and, and leaning into that. whether that be in an organization, like your organization just spent

millions of dollars on it. It’s bringing the people along into that process. So you don’t lose that investment or when it comes to individuals, it’s personal coaching. like relationships or executive coaching and that kind of thing. So that’s a lot of, a lot of different words for change management, just helping people change. And one thing a lot of people don’t know about me. I, and we were talking about this, Nick, but I lived for about a year and a half, two years in a 27 foot RV bumper pole.

Nick (01:43.752)
Obviously, I’m a huge fan of that. For those that listen to this that know, I live in a renovated fifth-year camper. For those that don’t know, now you do. And there’s a lot of different things that go along with that. Like I’d said to you before we hit record, like the amount of people I’ve talked to that are like, my God, I’d love to do that. Some people are weirded out by it. They’re like, well, I need my 5,000 square foot home that I use 180 square feet anyway, or whatever the thing is that they do, you know, like they’re just,

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (01:51.01)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (01:56.492)
Hmm.

Nick (02:13.806)
used to how things are. But a lot of people and maybe you experience this too where they’re like, man, I wish I could do that or that’s my dream. I want to be able to have something like that. Isn’t it interesting how a lot more people think that they would want to do something but they hold themselves back from it? Like what was your experience?

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (02:15.426)
Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (02:21.88)
Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (02:31.754)
Yeah, absolutely. so, I grew up in a really difficult kind of, or I should say different, different environment. So, it was the norm, not for everybody, but for a specific type of preacher. And they call, we called them evangelists and they would buy a truck and a trailer. Usually it was like the highest, of the line, high end truck, high end trailer. And they go out to different churches and they would preach. They, you know, spend a week there, set up their fifth wheel.

Nick (02:59.528)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (03:02.062)
And then sometimes, you know, a month, month, two months, three months. And so because kind of my growing up, my upbringing, my parents felt that I was going to be a preacher from like when I was a infant, right? Like five years old, I was, I was, that’s what I saw. So that’s what I emulated. And so they understood that that was my path. And so when I got to be about 27,

Yeah, bought, actually had, had some people in my life that loaned me their 27 foot bumper pull that they weren’t using. I mean, you know, they had it just go RVing, right? and that’s not, that’s not the norm to, just like change your life, put your, put your house on the market or rent it out or whatever, which we, which is what we did. We like took all our furniture, gave it to different people or sold it or whatever, and it hit the road.

And, and, yeah, we would, we run into a lot of people that were like, you my God, you know, I’d love to go to the mountains. I’d love to go on the beach. I’d love to, you know, just be able to be flexible like that. And really you can do it. You just do it.

Nick (04:11.226)
what a wildly stupid yet simple, yet incredible thing all at the same time, just the concept of those conversations where people are like, my God, I would love to, but like there’s typically always a but to that. I want to get into the background and childhood and the religious and all that sort of stuff, but to drive on this for a little bit.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (04:15.22)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (04:23.416)
Yeah. Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (04:30.989)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (04:36.024)
Sure.

Nick (04:37.2)
The people that say, I wish I could do that thing or I would like to, but I can’t. And they come up with excuses. I don’t want to negate those excuses or say that they’re not real because who the fuck am I? Like that’s on them to be able to understand what’s real for them and what’s not. But you totally can. We can do whatever we want to do. And I think more of us really need to actually look at what is it that I want to do outside of what is it that I’ve just been doing for so long.

purpose work comes into that a lot where people are like, man, I’ve been doing this thing for like 30 years. I’ve been in sales for 30 years, right? Been an engineer for this long and like, I’m doing it now and you know, I got a family and we got mouths to feed and we got this and we got that. It’s like, those are all just variables. We can really do whatever we want to do, which can be really easy. Like I can almost guarantee there’s at least a handful of people are gonna listen to this and be like, fuck you. Like you don’t know.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (05:04.067)
Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (05:15.662)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (05:30.03)
Hahaha

Nick (05:31.366)
You have no idea what sort of shit that I’ve gone through or what things I have or the amount of children that I have or whatever it is. But we can make those changes. It might not be an immediate thing or like by next Thursday. However, we can start to make those incremental steps. So let’s jump back to your childhood. Your parents were instantly like, well, he’s going to be a preacher. This is what it is. Probably.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (05:34.478)
Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (05:38.606)
Sure. Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (05:45.966)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (05:56.636)
God’s will to have you be a preacher or whatever, because this is based on what you’re doing, when in all reality, biologically, you’re probably just emulating.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (05:58.071)
Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (06:05.376)
Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of that, yeah, to your point, Nick, and I hope I didn’t interrupt you, but, yeah, I think, as I’ve gotten older, I, you know, I’ve, I’ve oftentimes reflected on those early formative experiences. And I think because of the environment we were in preacher was the label that was put on it. It could have been entertainer.

Nick (06:11.526)
No, next was going to be go.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (06:34.158)
It have been podcaster, it could have been, you know, motivational coach. It could have been so many different things that could have, been under that lake. It could have been attorney, you know, litigator or something, right? Someone that stands in front of people and talks and whether they’re entertaining or whether they’re corralling resources and ideas, whatever it is, that’s what they saw. Those were the, the, the skills or the gifts or whatever. And being able to see.

that and then transform who you are or whatever. I like the way that some high schools do it now where they have a study that young people can do and they can say, what are you good at or what do you like? Right. And then they fill in those boxes and say, okay, so there’s these 30 different career paths that you can take that will allow you to do those gifts or find your purpose in those things. Right. So instead of it being

you have to do this simple, know, this only this thing, they give them a broad range of options.

Nick (07:41.192)
Hmm. Makes sense why your parents jumped to that, you know, and I’m sure some of it was also hyper biased. And I mean that in the cleanest way possible where they were like, we would like to see you do this. That’s a cool thing about schools and there’s stuff that I’m sure we’d get into with education. I oftentimes will bring up to people that I remember being in a high school junior year when they’re like, all right, we have to start prepping you for college. And the counselor was like, well,

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (07:45.036)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (07:50.284)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (08:05.411)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (08:07.814)
you’re a an art and a musician kid. So we can get you an art school or music school, but they won’t make any money. So what do want to do? And I was like, well, I don’t want to be here. And I left and that was the end of that. And I didn’t actually officially go to college. were some random classes I showed my ass up to, but randomly. But that wasn’t it was like, well, you didn’t actually help me in that sort of way.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (08:17.486)
Hmm… Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (08:24.878)
Sure. Sure.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (08:31.406)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nick (08:32.804)
and back to your parents of like, we want to see you do this, but in all reality, it seems like you have, as you’ve pointed out, like you’re now speaking, you’re now helping people, you’re corralling people even and resources and all that sort of stuff. But how did that affect the way that your path ended up working out for you?

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (08:45.709)
Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (08:51.758)
dramatically. and I say that, man, it’s been a journey because I think the danger is, as you said, it’s one thing to tell people, or I should say it’s one thing for people to dream and say, I want to do this. I want like the hear this, man, I love that. I would love to do it. But the journey to that is.

sometimes it has to do with identity. And so because that label was put over me so many times and because in the culture that I grew up in, the environment I grew up, being a preacher was the ultimate, it was the penultimate thing you could do. You were chosen by God, you were a leader to the flock, you were all those things, right? And so because that then became my identity,

Nick (09:23.431)
Mmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (09:49.838)
I was so tied to it that it was, man, it was over a period of, was a preacher. I remember in my 30, when I was about 30, 33, 34, I started trying to separate myself from the label of pastor and preacher. And it was,

It was, it was anguish. was anguish. It was agonizing because when, when it’s not just a job and it’s not just a career, but it becomes an identity, the idea of changing is almost like the idea of, of, a leopard changing its spots or something. So yeah, I mean, it wasn’t easy and it was a lot of reading. It was a lot of, of just sitting and meditating. It was a lot of walks in the park, walks along the river. I’m, very fortunate.

Nick (10:28.071)
Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (10:47.982)
one of the things that I did when I was, or we were approaching 30, I’m 43 now. I lose no 44. Ha. yeah, I, but moved from Fort Worth, Texas to the Chicago land area. And, you know, there’s, there’s this beautiful area we live in. There’s a river and all that stuff. So, so it gives me a, you know, wonderful environment, but yeah, a lot of walks along the river, a lot of.

a lot of deep conversations and hard, hard talks. And then it’s, it’s not just something internally, but it’s everybody in society then reinforcing that and saying, this is who you are. This is what you are. And you can’t change that because that’s how we identify you. Right. And so it’s, it’s, it’s not just the individual changing. It’s them having them to interact with their family, their friends, their social circle and change who they.

then identify and work with them.

Nick (11:53.212)
That ties into so much, man. I mean, it’s, I really, I love that I can have people on the show that are in the spot where you’re at, that you’ve gone through those things, but I can feel it even when you’re like, my God, or you chuckle about it or whatever before you get into it. Cause you’re like, this is an immense amount of things. And it’s almost like, where do you start with it? Because there are so many layers and levels.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (11:53.262)
Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (12:03.764)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (12:18.563)
Yeah.

Nick (12:21.202)
But if we just look at the identity piece to that, a lot of people will put an identity to who they are in whatever realm they’re doing and being. And they think that that’s how they should be for the rest of their life. I talk about the word should at different times on this podcast. And I really listened for it because where people say, well, it should be this way or life was meant to be this way, or it should look like this, or I had a hard time because I thought I should go this route.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (12:24.109)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (12:43.246)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (12:47.022)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (12:50.79)
Like if we even look at most people go through the idea of, well, did you go to college? Did you not? Well, I was told that I should go to college so I can get a piece of paper to get a job, et cetera, et cetera. Or I was told I should go the trade route or whatever that looked like. but the identity thing is such a crucial thing that is like a, a cancerous Trojan horse at times. Like that identity of the pastor, the identity of that sales leader, that identity of that nonprofit.

leader or whatever it is, the identity of the parent and their children. Like we can have these things, but then we also need to be able to separate from those things and understand that some of the times the reasons why we’ve gotten to those spots. And this might fuck with people and sorry if there are any triggers to this, but you were born out of a system and that system created you to be how you are. And that’s not actually who you are.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (13:28.302)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (13:48.092)
Like I’ve had struggles with that at times, owning businesses, closing things down, getting a divorce in churches and as a married man who is going to get a divorce, was like, it shouldn’t look this way, but in all reality it did. And being able to separate from those and be able to work through that. So there’s a lot of different pieces to it, but just the core concept of the identity and being able to kind of extrapolate ourselves from it. Sometimes I think.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (13:52.172)
Yeah. Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (14:02.796)
Yeah. Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (14:08.878)
Mm.

Nick (14:17.274)
I often think in like animations and little movies of things, but I think about that from like a venom standpoint, like the symbiote is just all over you and you just need to pull it off of you. so those walks in the park, those walks along the river, the times are you cursed up at God, the times where you asked him why the times where you had deep conversations, I can almost guarantee it wasn’t like a week turnaround.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (14:23.318)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (14:26.894)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (14:35.906)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (14:41.746)
No, it was, it was many years and, yeah, I mean, there would, there would be, you know, nights of just existential dread, just trying to figure out if, if, at one point, so I mean, at one point I, when I made the decision, this is, this is killing me. it is, I’m broke financially. I am.

well, and let me explain. So I generally try to lead with honesty and, and integrity, but also I think I come across, I tried to be caring. Not that I’m like, you know, trying to like do some kind of meta thing where I’m, I’m looking at myself from the outside and making sure that I’m, but I, I try to lead with care because I care about people. want people to feel seen.

to feel heard and also to feel affirmed. I, you know, I want people to feel like they can be better. They can do better. and not better in the sense of what society says, but in the sense of, like you said, those shoulds, like I want to do that. Well, you can do that. Right. So the same thing you’re saying. And so I’ve tried to live that way. but I remember when I made the decision that, so I was, I was

Nick (15:59.196)
Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (16:09.358)
try to make the story really short. was 30, 31, and I wasn’t successful as a traveling preacher because I wasn’t willing to do the formula. The formula was, and I heard a evangelist tell me, this is the formula. You come in and the first night you tell the church how good the pastor is, you affirm him. And because you affirm him, then the pastor feels,

whatever, right? He feels good towards you. Right? It’s like this, it’s a game and I wasn’t playing the game, right? So you come in, you tell the church how good the pastor is, how much they should listen to the pastor. The second night you come in and you tell the church how good they are. Everybody feels good. The third night you tell them, y’all are great, but there’s a few things that you could change, a few things you can improve. And we were doing, we were doing revival. So revival would be a revival week, right? So

Nick (16:47.944)
the

Nick (17:05.362)
Hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (17:07.242)
Sunday morning, Sunday night, Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night. You get off Saturday, you come back and do it all over again. Fourth night, you point out some more things that might need to change. Fifth night, you tell the church, but everything’s great. You all are great. Everything’s tremendous. And the last night of the revival, you tell them, and your pastor, he’s so good and you got to follow him. You got to listen to him. You got to, he’s, he’s God’s man for this place. you leave.

On the last night, you’re probably going to get the revival extended, which is what you want if you’re having to pick up your trailer and move it. You want to be able to stay in town for another week. But I wasn’t good at that game. And I would come in and I would tell people the truth and I would try to truly address needs and I’d pray and I’d…

I’d seek God and, you know, and try and get some inspiration. And then I would, I would just speak. And oftentimes people would come and they say, that, we’ve been dealing with this issue for a long time and you spoke to, but, the challenge is if you’re doing that, oftentimes those are the chat, those are the issues that people don’t want addressed. Right. And so there might be one or two people that are, that are gratified, but the pastor is not happy at all. And so.

You know, that’s a really short revival and you have to go off. And if you’re traveling, you’re spending money on travel. And so after about a year and a half of that, I got invited to come to Chicago, to this church. Long story short, I accepted the pastorate. The church was on the market, like the building itself. And in order to show everybody that I was, you know, morally and ethically, I was trying to do the right thing. And, you know, my heart was in the right place. I took the church off the market.

building, which was a really bad mistake. Because about three years in, I was talking to one of the guys that was doing house visits. When we came up here, we were told there would be about 50 people at the church, that there was a congregation of about 50. There were eight, which is a major financial… It’s a big shift.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (19:29.518)
So there’s eight people. I’m sorry. I’m talking a lot, but, so I, after three years of struggling, I had put my house on the market, like lost that lost my vehicle. got repoed. you know, I was trying to find work. couldn’t find work. I was just doing whatever I could catch as catch can in order to survive and to feed my family of three at the time. And, and finally I was like, this is not working. I’m going to have to sell this church.

And so I was talking with one of the congregants in a house visit and he said, you know, you’re, trying to do all this stuff. We, don’t want the church to grow. We want to die here. And I was like, no, this is, this is a fundamental difference, right? They want a nursing home and I’m trying to build a thriving community. And so that’s when I knew like I’ve got to go.

And so that process, when I, when I started the process of trying to put the, the church on the market and trying to get out with some modicum of like not financial ruin and just be able to support my family in the transition. those, those periods were so dark because once you decide to do stuff that is not acceptable to the people around you.

Oftentimes you’ll get a lot of flak and people will start to fight you. How dare you stand up? How dare you try and change? How dare you? And so, some people in the community that had not been at the church in probably 30 years, one woman specifically kind of spearheaded the thing. They had a little bit of money and they hired an attorney and they tried to find, they tried to find, some kind of cause and tried to say that I’d done some insurance fraud.

They broke into the church and there’s police records for this, but they broke in the church and stole like four boxes of documents in order to try and create a case. was, it was so absolutely crazy. They didn’t find anything because there wasn’t anything to find. Long story short, I finally was able to get out of there. And I say all that to say,

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (21:51.124)
Yes, it was not an easy period. was not an easy process, but that process of changing, of separating, of shifting was, you know, it was so important because it allowed me to get free.

Nick (22:07.4)
And it’s, it’s not like we can just jump over that stuff and go, well, you’d sound like you went through some crazy stuff. So you’re good now, right? Like there’s a lot of, I’m sure still thoughts and prayers even at times with like working through those things. There are sometimes I think, if we look at history, even the Bible do it. Most historical books will do it. It’ll be like a 30 year period. And then this thing happened or like a 600 year period or something. You’re like,

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (22:26.54)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (22:32.184)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick (22:36.04)
So many things happen in a day or a week, let alone just like, know, like, and then 300 years later, this happened, like the fuck I’ve often asked, like, well, what happened from like 11 or 12 to 30 with Jesus? Like, where was he? What sports did he play? Who did he talk to? What were the things? but yeah, maybe. Well, the 15th century Roman Catholics are like, we can’t put that shit in there.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (22:38.584)
Yeah. Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (22:44.526)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. huh. huh. Yeah. Yeah. A horny teenage boy. Like what? How are you going to admit all that?

Hehehehehe

Nick (23:06.172)
He was going after Mary, Mary’s sister. Like we just can’t put that in there. As a side note, and look, I don’t hate on religion. I love the idea of God and just the energy of what God is, but it’s hard to not personify in a humorous way at times. There was a book that a friend got maybe 20 years ago that was about Craig Christ, Jesus’s brother, who was like, geez.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (23:21.112)
Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (23:24.92)
Sure.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (23:30.228)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (23:34.47)
Jesus gets all this favor and everything else. And like, here I am just being a ditz and like whatever. like, what a humorous way to look at it. But we don’t know what that actually looks like back then. And oftentimes I think like even with the recent election and everything else, there’s a lot of conservative Christians that are pushing things and really want to see for this thing that makes sense to them, but is actually based in a lot of hate. And if Jesus was here,

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (23:39.262)
right?

Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (23:48.75)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (23:56.546)
Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (24:00.642)
Yeah, yeah.

Nick (24:03.238)
I don’t believe that brown man would be doing the things that some of these other people are doing or can or go along with. I think I brought this up on the podcast before. So those who are listening, if you have heard this before, just keep along with it. But I read this book called The Beautiful Outlaw many, many years ago that actually breaks down the verses in the Bible. It says, let’s give context because context is so important in everything we do. And they talked about

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (24:05.794)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (24:09.624)
Yeah. Sure.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (24:27.01)
Yeah.

It really is.

Nick (24:32.936)
The story that most everybody knows Jesus went into the tabernacle went a little nuts and kicked everybody out That’s not exactly it like he went in and braided a whip that took him a probably 30 minutes or longer to sit there and braid this thing and Then turned it on and kicked everybody out at the same time. He probably didn’t say nice words to those people I’m not sure if he cursed at them or told them to all go fuck off or tried to threaten their

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (24:38.072)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (24:47.756)
Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (24:51.95)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (24:59.725)
Yeah.

Nick (25:00.988)
to yank their souls out of their nose or whatever. But I’m pretty sure he wasn’t like, please get out of here in a very calm fashion. That doesn’t make any sense. Yeah, exactly. In the words of Jay Z, he went ham. And the way that we can look at these things and say, well, this stuff happened and yeah, that happened and 10 years ago, 2000 years ago or whatever it was to really be able to extract

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (25:08.192)
No, no, he went ham.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (25:16.078)
you

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (25:25.197)
Hmm.

Nick (25:29.82)
the lessons from it, not only help us, but help other people. So those things that you work through and that you walked through, let’s say, for the people that are in a spot that are really, I guess, struggling with an identity, that could be a sexual identity, that could be a gender identity, that could be a corporate or a career identity, a family identity, all of those sort of things. We then get locked in that and say, this is who I am. And none of that is actually true.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (25:31.278)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (25:43.596)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (25:52.526)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (25:59.036)
Like even in the simple terms, like I’m a musician, but I’m really not. I just happen to like things that are stringed and like to play them. But that’s not who I am at my core. I think it then boils down to our principles are actually who we are, not our identities. So here you are years removed from this. What does that look like for you? And for somebody that’s listening to this, it’s like, man, I’m in this either as a preacher or pastor or

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (26:02.254)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Sure.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (26:10.478)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (26:14.668)
Hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Nick (26:28.806)
whatever the identity is for them, how do you help them be able to separate from that, still see it and learn the lessons and do the deep processing, but then also understand that your identity is not actually rooted in the job you do, like where people say, hey, I’m Nick, I do this. Or like, hey Carl, what do you do for a living? Like, I know I asked that question in the beginning and then instantly asked what’s a weird thing about you because that’s closer to the authentic person of who you are. So,

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (26:35.938)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (26:46.242)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (26:58.822)
when you talk to those people and you work with them, understanding that you can’t solve all of that and they have to do it on their own, but how do you help them be able to start to separate from what that identity is and really what that is an attribute to their being.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (27:13.868)
Yeah, I think, think honestly, it’s questions. It’s asking and helping. I think it’s helping people to reflect and you know, that, comes through better questions. comes through more questions. think sometimes we’re so quick. I’m not, I’m, I’m, I’m getting better at it. I say we’re so quick. That’s probably a, I shouldn’t say that. oftentimes I’ve seen it happen.

that people are quick at, making assumptions and going forward with those assumptions instead of asking one more question. And that’s something that you do regularly. You’re like, okay, well, we’re not going to get, we’re not going to skip past that. We’re going to ask this question. We’re going to, and I think when we start asking questions, we can get more understanding. can get deeper into something and truly understand why people do the things they do and, how those things.

have also enabled them and given them whether it be safety or comfort or whatever it is. I, as I, was exiting that church, was broke. was working for the post office and because I was a new carrier, wasn’t making enough money, had just gotten evicted because we were in this, you know, the situation living in the basement of the church. And, so, so not,

technically homeless, but definitely houseless on some level, right? So whatever language you want to use. And I went to this church that I was just, I said, you know what, I’m just going to go somewhere and I’m just going to heal for a year. I’m not going to do anything. I’m not going to say anything. I’m not going to sing. I’m not going to nothing. And so I started doing that. But when I was going to this church, the first week, this, this lady came up to us. She’s about six foot.

And came up to me and said, I heard you’re looking for somewhere to live. And I was like, yeah, I don’t know who told you, but, okay. And she’s like, well, I’ve, I’ve got a place that I’m, I’m looking to rent out. And, my wife at the time said, you know, well, well, you know, we’d love to see it. And we’re like, yeah, but we probably can’t afford it. We just want to tell you that upfront. We want to be honest with you. She’s like,

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (29:35.212)
Don’t worry about it. Just come and look at it. So me and, and my ex-wife and kids came and went through this house, beautiful house. amazing, right? Four, four bedrooms, upstairs, finished, finished basement. Just, just this amazing space that we could not afford. It was a dream. It was not even in the realm of, of, of possibility.

So after we walked through and everything, we’re standing in the lobby and she’s like, well, what do you think? I’m like, yeah, it’s beautiful. We can’t afford it. Sorry. You know, I hope we didn’t waste your time. I appreciate you showing it to us. And she’s like, well, you know what? let’s, let’s think about it. And if we can, you know, think about it for a week and see what happens. And during that time, yeah, a lot of, a lot of stuff happened during that week, including some really specific, like, which is wild Nick.

some prayers that I prayed, I was like, okay, I need this to happen and it’s not likely that this will happen. and it happened and my ex-wife, had prayed and those things happen, which was really, I don’t know, call it whatever you want to. but then we, met with her and she’s like, well, I tell you what, you all need a place to stay. You can stay in the basement. The first floor will be the middle ground and that’ll be like the common area. I’ll stay in the upstairs.

and let’s think about this. She said, you can do that for like three months. And then if you are able to, we’ll, we’ll work something out with rent. And she said, but, we need to talk this evening. We’re like, okay, what, what’s this all about? So we, you know, come that, that evening and sit down at the table, dinner table. and you know, I don’t know what we were expecting, but she said, well, I’m transgender. And we’re like,

And mind you, were too, I mean, we had an income, but we were broke. We were homeless and we were dogmatic. We had an ideology, a conservative Christian ideology that said that trans people are of the devil and they probably cannot be saved. They are most likely going to hell really quick.

Nick (31:47.976)
Thank

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (32:00.518)
And we were so willing and ready. If we weren’t in that situation, we would have, I mean, I’m telling you, I would have ascribed her to hell and been, you know, trying to proselytize her if, if not, you know, excoriate. but because we were in that situation and because the questions that we were presented with required us to dig deeper to principles.

as you said, rather than external, right? And we started looking. This woman has treated us like Christ. The Christians have treated us like they were the devil. They have been the ones that have persecuted us, tried to prosecute us, that have claimed that we were doing wrong, we were doing right.

And yet this woman has taken us into her home. She has offered us food, money, shelter.

who’s right in this situation. And through like listening to her, listening to her heart and listening, we ended up, we ended up praying about it again, asked for some miracles, things happened. And then over the next six months, we had so many conversations with her over dinner and just sitting there talking and learning and listening that

I was transformed, she was transformed. it, it, changed my life. So the move from Fort Worth to Chicago changed my life. The, the identity shift of not being a pastor changed my life. This in intense interaction with a trans person changed my life.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (34:05.034)
And I could keep going on, but I think being open to difficult conversations and asking questions.

Nick (34:14.818)
man, I could feel every part of that. I feel, I feel bad for the people that can’t see past the dogma and the rules to allow themselves to have conversations even, you know, like, well, what a spot for you to go off. We’re homeless, but we’re also told that people that change their gender.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (34:29.923)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (34:43.041)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick (34:43.508)
Are bad and evil and they go to hell and what do I do with that and that you didn’t go in the opposite direction of what What you actually went in and being able to have those open conversations It has been brought to my attention that potentially trans people are some of God’s most beautiful works Because they are the closest most authentic beings that we have here

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (34:56.386)
Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (35:10.387)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nick (35:11.004)
I’ve met so many people being in churches, playing in churches, being the dude standing in the background playing the soft little music while the pastor or guest pastor is talking about things and watching people actively judge people, watching people actually talk shit and just be hateful because it goes back to some Bible verse. And like, I can understand and appreciate that you want to get to that and that you have that, but.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (35:22.071)
Oof.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (35:27.34)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Nick (35:37.362)
You’re also hating upon people and not allowing people to be themselves.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (35:39.81)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nick (35:43.736)
I, what a wild thing, isn’t it? You know, where like one piece of a path will turn into something much larger. And you wouldn’t have known that. Like the craziness of those people breaking into the church, try to get things like, is that really Christ-like to try to figure that stuff out? Of course not. And is that really loving? Of course not. And then for somebody else to come up to you and say, I, I am making

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (35:52.653)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (36:00.564)
No. No.

Nick (36:11.364)
a bold statement with who I believe I am and I just love. Even if that person was kind of an asshole at times or was kind of just cranky about things or whatever, that would totally make sense. Just like the same with the super Christians of the world that are like upset about things. I feel like there are still things that they question and they try to go through. Man, I appreciate you sharing about this. I’m sure you could just keep going with all of it. And to be able to see the things

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (36:13.868)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (36:23.467)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Nick (36:40.316)
I think one thing I want to point out with this is it might sound like at times we’re talking in a negative way about religion and in all reality, we kind of are because it’s a system and that system is flawed and there are broken pieces within it. But I absolutely love and believe that prayer is a thing and being able to have that intent and watching God, who I don’t believe is a big bearded white dude sitting in the throne, but that energy of God.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (36:47.404)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (36:55.534)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (37:01.25)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (37:06.998)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nick (37:09.608)
conspiring to help us is true. And there are certain prayers like the stretch me God prayer. That’s one of those ones where like you do it and it’s like, there are times where I’ve prayed it and I’m like, just break my nose, but don’t like fully break it like smack my face against the wall. So I get the point, you know, but like help. And what a beautiful thing for you to be able to walk through that and be as open as you are.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (37:24.344)
Yeah,

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (37:33.23)
Hmm.

Nick (37:34.45)
For somebody that’s on their path towards self mastery and given all the things that you’ve gone through and all the insights that you have, what’s your advice for that person?

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (37:43.086)
Keep walking. That’s the only advice that I can… Well, okay, yeah, yeah, keep walking. think pay attention to the… Pay attention. Like, keep walking, but pay attention. I think, you know, like you can walk and you can ignore the scenes and the sights around you because you’ve walked that path multiple times.

But if you’re intentional about just looking around and noticing, there are things that will pique your interest, that if you pursue that thing, like get lost, go down that path and then come back, walk your path again and notice that, stop, smell the roses, look at the trees, all that stuff. And as you’re open to the world around you,

You will find your way and and your way, you know, may not look like everybody else’s. That’s fine. But yeah, just keep walking. Keep keep on the journey.

Nick (38:51.816)
That’s awesome. You say look around.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (38:52.963)
I know that’s simple, I’m sorry man.

Nick (38:56.136)
No, no, that’s beautiful. Please don’t be sorry about that. I think that is a beautiful reminder for us. I oftentimes will look back, even just introspectively, of all the conversations I’ve had on people’s podcasts or people specifically that have been on this. And there are certain things that are patterns. Self-awareness is one of them. The continual movement is another. Of just continuing to move on, which I think is another way of also saying stay here with us. Don’t take yourself.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (38:57.43)
Ahem.

Nick (39:25.268)
off this planet. We hadn’t really talked much about that, but I know that’s something that you and I have shared where we’ve had suicidal ideation. There are things that can get really, really, really tough and really hard and you want to remove yourself. And there’s still more that can be done. And even looking around, like I’m trying not to like chuckle about this, but you’re saying, look, look around and smell the roses and look at the trees and all. I literally have two windows on either side and it is snowing and it is absolutely beautiful out.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (39:26.499)
Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (39:32.632)
Yeah.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (39:38.189)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (39:53.794)
Yeah.

Nick (39:54.49)
And what an incredible thing to see how all this stuff ties together. There’s beauty within it. There’s beauty within these conversations. There’s also really dark and hard conversations that we need to have on our own and with other people. So before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you to potentially have some of those hard conversations with you?

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (40:07.8)
Mm-hmm.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (40:16.118)
Yeah. CarlKingCoaching.com is where I do a lot of my work. can schedule a meeting or, you know, a 15 minute consultation. We can talk and just have a conversation. you can follow me if you want to Instagram, Carly King, Facebook, Carly King. yeah, that’s, that’s generally where you can find me. I’m not, I’m not as regular as the, you know, social stuff, right?

Nick (40:34.916)
Awesome. Carl.

Nick (40:42.401)
I would never want you to be. I’m actually not really active on social media at all at this point. And that might be a different topic for a different time or brought this up in different conversations on podcasts. But I think there are things that go along with that good, bad, indifferent, all of it, but also shows how people are. Man, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you on today. I appreciate you talking about everything you have and I appreciate you doing the work that you’re doing. Keep at it, man. And thank you so much for spending time with us today.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (40:57.058)
Yeah, for sure.

Carl King (Carl King Coaching) (41:10.264)
Thank you, Nick. Thanks for having me on.

In this episode, Nick speaks with Jeremy George about the transformative power of bucket lists. Jeremy shares his personal journey of overcoming suicidal ideation by pursuing 52 bucket list goals in 52 weeks, emphasizing the importance of confronting mortality, the role of community in achieving goals, and the necessity of embracing failure as a stepping stone to success. The conversation highlights how taking small steps can lead to significant personal growth and fulfillment.

What to listen for:

“At rock bottom, I stopped caring about others’ perceptions, focusing only on what mattered to me.”

“Many people at the end of life regret what they didn’t do more than what they did—regretting leaps they didn’t take or creative ideas never explored.”

About Jeremy George

Jeremy is a TEDx Speaker and Founder & CEO of BucketMatch, an online platform that empowers people to conquer their bucket lists by connecting them with like-minded people and helpful resources.

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!

[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: www.youtube.com/channel/UCk1tCM7KTe3hrq_-UAa6GHA

Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]

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

Nick (00:00.239)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show we have Jeremy George. Jeremy, what’s up, man?

Jeremy George (00:13.153)
Nick, excited to be here. Thanks so much for having me on.

Nick (00:15.863)
Absolutely. I’m really looking forward to the conversation. I think there’s a lot that we’re going to be able to get into. I love the idea of just a bucket list. Some people have them. Some people are all over them. Some people just have grand ideas of like one day I’d like to do this thing, but it is a different thing when you start to really put it down on paper or just think about it a little deeper than just like, you know, that’d be cool at some point, but like, why, why do you want to do those things? What does it happen?

or what happens when you go do those things. So, hey, 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.

Jeremy George (00:53.485)
Sure. So I’m a founder and CEO of a company called Bucket Match. We just recently launched. So still very, very much in the early days. But what it is is we’re an online platform connects people based on their bucket list goals. So obviously, you know, happy to chat bucket list goals and all that good stuff. But I think one thing that’s a lot of people don’t know about me that was kind of the seed for why I started this company is I during COVID, I was laid off from my job and

Instead of going back and trying to enter the workforce, I decided to assume something completely different, which is I spent the next year deliberately going after a bunch of things on my bucket list. I tried to do 52 goals in 52 weeks. And the reason I did that is actually a more somber kind of catalyst than a lot of people realize. And I’m sure we’ll talk about that today. But yeah, that’s something most people don’t know is that I tried to do 52 bucket list goals in 52 weeks.

Nick (01:49.446)
What a cool thing, just right off the bat, you know, being able to say that you’ve done that, even if it’s just to yourself, like nobody else matters in that sense. But for you to be able to go, I did this thing. That’s fucking cool. I really love the journey as much as certain times I fucking hate the journey of just doing all these things. Because sometimes you’re like, this is cool. I want to do it. And oftentimes as you get deeper and you go through things, if somebody were to say, well, knowing what you know now, would you still do it?

Jeremy George (01:57.155)
One more time.

Nick (02:17.23)
That’s sometimes a really hard question because sometimes it would be no. Like this was a whole lot to go through, but I’m sure you can’t not change in some ways as you start to go through those things. So talk to us about the idea of just the bucket list in and of itself, because we’ll get into the pandemic thing, changing the way that people operate, changing the way that people look, but for you to go, all right, I wanna get out of this and actually dive into it. What was it about?

Jeremy George (02:31.811)
100%.

Nick (02:47.403)
even just the idea of a bucket list that moved you.

Jeremy George (02:50.627)
Yeah. So there’s multiple layers to my answer to that, you know, and so I’ll kind of, I’ll start at the high level and then go down. Originally, I started a bucket list when I was 19 years old. So was a freshman in college and I was inspired by this TV show about a guy, a bunch of guys, it was called The Buried Life. And they all felt like they were sort of stuck. They didn’t really want to follow the status quo. They didn’t know what they wanted out of life. So they built this bucket list and they decided to go try to do a bunch of things. As a 19 year old, I thought, wow, that’s really cool.

I like that they have direction, there’s a purpose. I’ve always felt like there’s so much to do in the world, right? How can I try to do all of it? And so that’s where the bucket list began. And then what I would do is every year I would revisit the list. would cross some things off that I’d done, maybe add some more new ideas and kind of repeat that cycle. Over time, I started adding a lot more things, but I wasn’t really crossing things off. And then if we fast forward to April, 2019, so.

The reason that date stands out to me so much is I was living in New York at the time. I had hit various milestones in my career, in my finances, and in my overall lifestyle that I thought were supposed to make me happy. Right. And it’s like such a cliche story. I’m almost embarrassed that I even fell into this trap. But I hit those milestones and I realized I wasn’t any happier. Right. And that actually put me on this very different path.

Nick (04:04.333)
Truth, though.

Jeremy George (04:15.083)
and I started to spiral into suicidal ideation because I started believing that happiness isn’t actually attainable. Once I got to that point, I wasn’t sure if I had any reason to keep going, right? Because I just thought I’m just gonna keep chasing the next thing after the next. And I struggled with that for about a year. Then in December of 2019, right before COVID, my mom,

Nick (04:30.413)
Hmm.

Jeremy George (04:43.555)
went in to get back surgery and the back surgery did not go according to plan. I wake up to a call from my dad. I’m living in New York at the time, but they’re in California. He says, Hey Jeremy, mom’s in the ICU. If you can make your way over here as soon as possible, that would be good. And I’m sorry.

She’s alive, by the way. Sorry. So, you know, it’s a good ending, happy ending. But I remember on that flight over, sort of feeling really silly and kind of ashamed because, you know, I was contemplating ending my own life. And here my mom is, you know, intubated, knocked out in a hospital bed, fighting for hers. And on that flight over, it’s what I…

That’s when I decided I was going to do something about it. And thankfully, as I mentioned, you know, my mom, she’s alive now. She’s actually doing great. She’s, you know, she’s fully mobile. Her brain did not have any brain damage or, you know, no severe brain damage. And I got the lesson without the consequence. so then, you know, going into 2020, I’m convicted to like do something. Right. And then COVID happens. And of course, we’re all forced to reconcile with how fragile life can be. And it can just be turned upside down at any moment. And then I get laid off from my job.

And so I had this unique opportunity where I said, you know what? The reason I think I’m unhappy is because I’ve been neglecting all of these things that I wanted to do and try and experience in life because I was pursuing all these vanity metrics that don’t actually matter to me. And so I said, let me just try it and see what happens. So I took out my bucket list. I brushed off the dust. You know, it hadn’t been touched in a while. I changed a few things. I pulled out the 52 things that

got me most excited and I said, all right, let’s try it. Let’s try it for a year. I’m going to do as many of these things as I can. And if at the end of the year, I still feel like life is meaningless, well then maybe I’ll allow myself to take my life at that point. And thank God, know, obviously I’m here today. It truly did save my life. And it feels so kind of cheesy to say that. And I think for folks that haven’t gone through that suicidal ideation, that sort of sense of hopelessness, it’s hard to fully grasp. But that’s the reality of it.

Nick (06:45.963)
Hmm.

Nick (07:03.179)
Well, I’m glad that your mom’s good. That’s got to be real rough, especially a six, seven hour flight, going from one coast to the next, being up in the air thinking any fucking thing could be happening right now. And that can be a heavy burden on people just no matter what. But the additional heavy burden of seeing that you were thinking about taking your life while somebody else, somebody who means so much to you is fighting. What a mind fuck, you know, but like what a beautiful thing to be able to

Jeremy George (07:05.868)
Yeah, thank you.

Nick (07:33.251)
Move from that. I’d really love for you to be able to understand that Doesn’t matter what the fuck anybody else thinks about any of this like you’ve pointed out a few times I feel a bit ashamed of this or if you’re weird with that, dude There’s no shoulds in life. There’s none of that and if anybody shitty about it like that I’ll fucking tell you something about them For you to be able to look at this and see these opportunities and go well fuck this I want to do this thing and I want to figure this thing out

I really appreciate that you are as honest as you are, because it could be easy to turn it and be like, yeah, well, things were really rough. And you know, then I did this amazing thing and everything was great. And now here I am. But that’s not fucking true. Like that’s not 100 % real. And context is so important in so many different ways. So to be able to point out that you were like, all right, cool. This is what this is going to look like. And if not at the end of it, then that’s when I’ll do this thing.

There are so many people that do go through that and don’t talk about it. I remember telling myself when I was younger, the day that I don’t cry about this is when I do it. And when you start to open up and have those conversations and people go, I said the same shit, or I said something similar. That’s why being able to understand that we do have this life, even if we have many, many, many lives, who the fuck cares? We are here right now.

Jeremy George (08:45.047)
Yeah. Yep.

Nick (08:55.625)
And if we’re going to do something with what we have right now, then we get to actually do something about it. And you’re right, a lot of people looked at what they were doing during the whole pandemic and going, well, the fuck I’m locked down. What, what is life at this point and all of that. And for you to actually step in and say, all right, I’m going to do this and I’m going to do these things. wasn’t just because you want it to explore your life was literally on the line with it. The reason why I bring that up is I think so many people don’t understand that their life is on the line.

And I don’t mean that in a negative connotation. Like think about the vanity of making money and doing these things. This is all just bullshit that we’re fed. Like you should have a successful life. You should make X amount of money. By the time you’re X years old, you should have a family and you should, and you should, and you should, and none of that fucking matters. So I wanna take a bit of a step back, but look at the 52 and look at

what happened as you started to work through a few of them, with hindsight being 20-20 in a sense, where you went through two, three, four of them and went, okay, cool, I’ve learned something. By 20, 30, 40, I could assume you were probably a different person. So what did that path look like and what are some of the pivotal things that you notice looking back at it now where you’re like, fuck, this is, these steps helped me to get where I’m at.

Jeremy George (10:04.247)
Yeah.

Jeremy George (10:18.433)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you touched on something that I just want to underscore really quickly, which is you said, I think something along the lines of your life is always on the line. Right. And I think that’s absolutely true. And I think that for a lot of folks, if you. If you aren’t confronting mortality out of fear, then I think you’re doing yourself a disservice. And what I mean by that is if you truly think about yourself at the end of your life, right.

And you hear all these stories about folks who had near near-death experiences, who have completely shifted their perspective on life. There have been countless studies done with folks, you know, sitting in hospice or, you know, laying on their death beds, basically. And there was one study, I think it was done at Cornell, that found that 76 % of people at the end of their lives, when they’re reflecting back on, you know, the time that they had on this planet, 76 % of those folks will regret the things that they didn’t do more than the things that they did. Right.

the leaps that we didn’t take, the romantic interests that we didn’t pursue, the creative ideas we never tried. Those are the things that you’re gonna regret when you’re at the end of your life. And I feel in many ways that my darkest moment is actually a huge privilege because I was 28, 29 years old thinking that I’m on my deathbed, thinking it’s only a matter of time before I just take my own life. And I wanna be clear, I wasn’t actively suicidal so I hadn’t actually made any attempts.

My biggest fear, because I’m such an action taker, my biggest fear was that it would get dark enough that I would say, dude, just do it, right? Fuck it. And that was why I was so terrified that if I didn’t do something different, I was gonna take that action. And so I had this unique opportunity where I was actually in great health, right? I was safe, I was secure. I didn’t have all these things that would force me to feel like I’m on a deathbed other than my own sense of fear. And so I asked myself, well, if I was to die tomorrow, what would I regret?

And that was my bucket list. was all these things in life that it’s like, you know, you just want to experience just for the hell of it. And as you said, sometimes it works out. Sometimes you look back and say, I would never do that again. You know, I, dyed my hair blonde. That was fun. I’ll probably never do that again. I wrote and I recorded a rap song just cause I was curious. I’ll probably never do that again, but it was such, you know, it was a great experience. and so I think that, you know, if you really think about a bucket list, a lot of people think it’s just.

Jeremy George (12:42.219)
you know, epic travel and adventures and all these sort of privileged things. And if that matters to you, that’s great. Put it on your bucket list. But a true bucket list is just literally anything you want to do before you die. And maybe that’s you want to reach out to your biological father who you’ve never met and you want to, you know, say thank you or whatever it is. Right. Tell them you love them. Maybe it’s you want to try writing. You’ve got this creative outlet, but you’ve been stuck in this nine to five job and you haven’t given yourself the freedom to pursue that dream.

Nick (12:59.58)
Hmm.

Jeremy George (13:08.525)
There’s all kinds of goals that I hear when people really get vulnerable about their bucket lists. And I guarantee you, if you just confront mortality and truly ask yourself, if I was to die tomorrow, what is the thing that I would regret? Write that thing down and then take one step towards it. Now I learned a lot of other lessons that I’m happy to share, but that’s kind of the first three that I would say really stands out to me. And for me, what I found was,

I started to rediscover my enthusiasm for life and wanting to live and finding purpose and having meaning in waking up every day. And so, you know, small steps.

Nick (13:41.415)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (13:49.04)
Hell yeah. And you’ve pointed out a couple of times like it, this sounds kind of cheesy or that or whatever, because certain people can think like, well, yeah, I hear you with the small steps or I can hear that it was a dark time, blah, Same time. It’s, it’s also really true. Like if we just be here in the moment, then we think about, can only do what we can do in the moment. And sometimes those small things that we think are like small or stupid or whatever.

that are part of our bucket list, that means something to us. Who the fuck cares what it means or doesn’t mean to anybody else? And you touched on purpose too. I think there’s a lot of times where people think, and I don’t know what the actual root cause of this is. It can be really easy to look at social media and say that it is, but that’s almost similar to saying, the guns kill people. No, it’s not the inanimate object. It’s the asshole behind it that’s pulling the trigger.

But there’s something to it where people go, well, man, if my purpose or my bucket list isn’t this big grandiose thing, then it doesn’t matter. Somebody’s bucket list item might be to make a really great meal that they’ve never done before, what might be to draw something. It might be to draw it with your opposite hand and see how weird it is or whatever. You know, it could be so many different things that are small things that don’t have any significance to anybody else.

but purpose, bucket list, all these things, we can sometimes get lost in wealth. It’s not this big grandiose thing. Then what’s the point? Did you tackle that at all, going through, even putting on your list, like, I don’t know if I wanna put this down, because this seems stupid or small or whatever. How did you mentally handle that?

Jeremy George (15:27.235)
Absolutely.

Jeremy George (15:39.169)
Yeah. So, you know, I did all of the above, right? I think there was a lot of value in having those big lofty aspirational goals too. It gave me this sense of like excitement and this zeal for like, let’s just give it a shot. One of the best things about being in your sort of rock bottom is like you said, you kind of don’t give a fuck. And that has truly become my superpower, I think, is you don’t actually care how this is going to be perceived.

purely care if it matters to you and if it’s worth pursuit. And if so, then you do it, right? And so because of that, I allowed myself to like dream big and also be totally happy with subtle things. So one thing on my bucket list is to deliver a Ted talk. I’ve always thought that would be really cool. Another thing on my bucket list is to, you know, start my own company, run a million dollar business. Let’s try that. I biked down the coast of California, which is a 650 mile bike ride.

over 10 days because I wanted to see what that experience would be like. But I also had a lot of silly things. Like I wanted to complete a thousand piece puzzle. I’d never done that before. Right. Let’s just try it out and see. I wanted to write three handwritten thank you letters because I have heard that that is a good thing to do. Right. And that it actually allows you to get out of this sort of depressive state that I was in. I meditated every single day for 90 days because, know, I have been told that

30 days to build a habit, 90 days to create a lifestyle. These are all just things that I had heard that I wanted to try. And I threw them on a bucket list and then I really spent some time looking at it and I pulled out the 52 that meant the most to me. And the one key ingredient that I realized as I was going through this process is that it’s actually about the people. And so what I mean by that is as I was pursuing these goals, I started sharing my bucket list just with people, friends, family, anyone who would listen.

And I started finding that most people were just like, cool, that’s great, right? Like, good luck. That in and of itself was helpful. But what was really awesome was when you start to see other people that wanted to join in and maybe they wanted to help you with a goal or they could connect you to someone else who would be able to help you with that goal, save you money on it, know, hooked you up with a, with an exclusive ticket, whatever it is. and I, so I made it a rule that for every single goal on my bucket list that I tried to accomplish, I would recruit at least one person to help me out in some way. And.

Nick (18:04.772)
Hmm.

Jeremy George (18:05.731)
By the end of the year, the main takeaway was it’s about the people. That’s what makes life worth living. I should say, even though I tried to do 52, I only completed 32 of them. So, you know, by academic standards, that’s like a D minus, but it was never really about actually crossing off everything on your list. It was about the active pursuit of something that mattered to me and finding other people that wanted to join in.

Nick (18:21.733)
You

Jeremy George (18:32.129)
And it’s not always easy, right? You might be lonely for a while in pursuit of something that matters a lot to you. But if you keep sharing it with other people, eventually you’ll find someone that wants to help out. I’ll give the TEDx talk as an example. You know, I wanted to give a TED talk. I didn’t really know how I would do it. I did this project. I was like, maybe this is what I should talk about. I reached out to 11 different TED events. Only one of them got back to me. The other 10 said no, or just didn’t respond at all. But all it took was that one, right?

Nick (18:52.11)
Mm-hmm.

Jeremy George (19:01.441)
And then I had this opportunity to give this talk. And then the talk came out and all of a sudden, all these people are sending me messages, sharing their stories of how they felt like they were just floating through life. They weren’t deliberately attacking it in a way that would make them happy. And that was the seed that I needed to start the company that I have now.

Nick (19:19.243)
One of the coolest things of all of this is that you made a decision at one point to take one fucking step. And that one step turned into all of these things. You could have made a different step that could have ended it. And I think for the people that really feel that and get really close to the void, they then can understand the magnitude of that, which again is like we we have that power. We can remove ourselves from this.

Jeremy George (19:29.538)
Yeah.

Nick (19:49.036)
We can also continue on and struggle in certain ways and experience all the joy and all these things, but do incredible things that we can’t even really think of right now. Like there are certain things that you can put on your bucket list that I’m sure in 10, 15, 20 years from now, you’ll look at and go, well, I see how this was actually a stepping stone to this thing. Because I started these things and I reached out to these people, led me to this other situation, which then made me think and feel that I want to do this something other.

other thing than what was originally that item number 48 on the list, you know? But you have to make those steps to be able to do it. I point that out because I think one of the big things that I know I can struggle with at times and I have over the course of time and the more that I have conversations with clients and people on the show, it’s like we can sometimes really get lost in what’s going to happen in the future. We can worry about it. We can plan for it. We can do all that stuff.

Jeremy George (20:24.003)
Yeah.

Nick (20:44.866)
We can also really worry about the shit that’s happened in the past and think that we are the sum of all those things where all we really have is the ability to take that next step and being able to see how do we make changes and what do we do from here. So you’ve gone through a lot of it and I appreciate the vulnerability and the honesty with it. Like if you came on in here and you’re like, I’ve done all of them and so many more and like all this shit and it’s like you didn’t. And really I think part of that is also showing that you have, you have more to go with the journey of it.

Like that 52 will probably turn into, I don’t know, 102, 202. But that’ll also help so many other people start with two and start to look at just a couple of things. And that’s, it seems like that’s part of your purpose in life, at least for right now, what that looks like and the way that you’re getting that out there. So for the people that are trying to figure out how do I live into my purpose? How do I take those steps but

Jeremy George (21:24.056)
Yeah.

Nick (21:42.189)
How do I take that small immediate step that I could take right fucking now? What’s that piece of advice you give to somebody that’s on their path towards self-mastery?

Jeremy George (21:50.839)
Yeah, I think that in order to truly understand what it is that matters to you, you do have to just try a bunch of things. And that is totally anecdotal from my own personal experience, right? I tend to be someone who overanalyzes and I try to like think through lot of things. And what this experience taught me, I tried to do 52 things in a year that I had literally never done before, right?

So I was constantly a novice. was constantly a beginner over and over and over again. And I think as adults, it’s really hard for us, right? When you’re a kid and you’re learning how to ride a bicycle for the first time, it’s more expected of you. As adults, you don’t want to be back in that stage where you’re a beginner, you’re a novice. But I truly think that that is what you do. And so, you know, just to reiterate, step one is confront mortality or confront the end, whatever that is, right? It doesn’t have to be the end of your life. Maybe it’s, you know,

the end of I’m gonna graduate college. So confront the end of that, right? You will never be a college student again. Or the end of my 30s, confront the end of your 30s, you will never be younger than 30 ever again, or 40 ever again. And then reflect back, right? Sitting in this moment, what am I gonna regret that I didn’t do? And then the beauty of it is you actually have time to then do it.

So then write all of that down and don’t over index on, know, is this worthy of being on my bucket list or not, as we talked about, just write everything down, give yourself a moment to digest it, and then look at which of those actually speaks the most to you. The last goal that I would suggest, or excuse me, the last step that I would suggest is, we talked about recruiting a friend, celebrate failure. The only way that you are going to make progress on anything is if you fail.

it is very unlikely that you’re gonna succeed the first time. And if you do, that probably means you weren’t pushing yourself enough. And so get addicted to failure because what that really means is you actually have taken the first step. And so what I would do is any time that I had a goal that I was trying to pursue and I wasn’t able to do it or I got rejected or someone didn’t respond to my message, I would reward myself in some way, right? Treat myself to something, give myself a high five, whatever it is.

Jeremy George (24:06.563)
Create the neural pathways in your brain to start to truly get addicted to that failure because it means that you’ve actually started.

Nick (24:15.799)
Great way to put that, you know, it can be really easy for us to look at things and even think about different people have failed over and over and over again. And like, those are great stories and can easily be just an external story where you go, that’s cool for somebody else. But it can mean so much more for us when we start to fail and get frustrated or get confused or what have you, and then go, okay, well, I see how these things start to stack up. And then being able to take the wins with that, especially being able to treat yourself.

Because soon as said that, I thought you were just like, well, I fucked this thing up. I’m going to go get ice cream. That’s what I’m going to do. You know, and that’s got that’s got a powerful thing to it. Because then instead of being like, well, shit, you beat yourself up about it, you have to go, I will. What happened? And really, what happened is all that happened. Somebody said no to you. That’s all that happened. There’s no reason to interpret anything else. It just you then get to go, okay, they said no, maybe I’m closer to a yes, or maybe I need to ship this a little bit.

Jeremy George (24:49.505)
Yeah.

Nick (25:14.25)
instead of being grumpy and upset and pissed off about it. and I appreciate you just having the mental fortitude that you have. And I’m sure there’s a lot of dark times and things that we could have really gotten into, but you’ve covered a lot of that too, where it’s like, there were some really pivotal things where we as humans just have an opportunity to make a decision. And that next step is that decision to be made. So, and I appreciate you being on today. And before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect?

Jeremy George (25:44.323)
Yeah, totally. So, you know, first thing I think I want to say there is for anyone, if you are struggling, right? And if you’re going through, you know, similar thoughts that I described before depression, suicidal ideation, I hope that you will reach out, right? Connect with somebody, feel free to contact me and I’ll give my contact information, but reach out to a friend, family member, trusted neighbor, doctor. That’s the first person I told. I didn’t talk to my family for a very long time.

I know how hard that can be to try to unveil something so vulnerable about yourself to people that you’re closest to, but tell somebody. So I just wanted to make sure to highlight that. It’s really critical. If you want that somebody to be me, you can find me on LinkedIn. Just search Jeremy George bucket match, and I should be the first person to pop up. If you go to www.whatayourproject.com, that’s where you can see more about this experience I had trying to do a bunch of random shit from my bucket list.

And then of course, if you’re at all inspired and curious to check out Bucket Match, it’s www.bucketmatch.ai.

Nick (26:54.33)
And again, thank you so much for being on today. It’s been great having you.

Jeremy George (26:58.253)
Likewise, thanks, Nick. Thanks for having me.

In this episode, Nick speaks with executive coach Ariffa Bevin about mindfulness, self-empowerment, and the discipline found in martial arts. They explore the importance of emotional intelligence in leadership, the art of teaching, and how personal experiences shape our understanding of resilience and growth. Ariffa shares her journey in martial arts and how it intertwines with her coaching philosophy, emphasizing the need for personalized approaches in both teaching and leadership.

What to listen for:

“Martial arts are a huge part of my life—they support my mindfulness practice and provide tremendous joy”

“The discipline to train with others, showing compassion for those at different skill levels, is a core value for me”

“The leadership journey requires adaptability; emotional intelligence must meet people’s varied needs in real time”

About Ariffa Bevin

Ariffa is an empowerment and executive coach specializing in guiding individuals and teams toward resilience, mindfulness, and unwavering confidence through personalized coaching. With a background in healthcare, nonprofit, and community wellness, Ariffa brings years of experience in helping clients achieve personal and professional goals. As a certified health coach, mindfulness expert, and diversity executive, Ariffa is dedicated to creating a safe and supportive space for her clients, drawing from her understanding of the complex layers of navigating resilience in both personal and professional spheres.

Resources:

Check out these other episodes about leadership and emotional intelligence

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]

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

Nick (00:01.031)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show, we have Aretha Bevin. Aretha, how you doing today?

Ariffa Bevin (00:12.334)
I’m doing well, Nick, how’s it going on your side?

Nick (00:14.887)
It’s going well and I’m sorry that I have to bring this back up but I know you say you’re doing well but you are a Yankees fan and we are recording this on Halloween the day after the Yankees had a night of horrors. So I’m sorry for your loss but the Phillies fan in me is not too too sorry. So with that being said, know I’m.

Ariffa Bevin (00:20.056)
Yeah

Ariffa Bevin (00:27.174)
Yes. Mm-hmm. I feel it.

Ariffa Bevin (00:38.52)
Sorry. Uh-huh.

Nick (00:43.767)
We joked about this before we hit record, but, it’s gotta be really tough, especially, like anything where you think about, your team or your local community, or even your country. We’re a week away from two not very good options being put in front of people to vote, to be leader of this country. And, I think the world series is a thing that we can look at and go, well, that really sucked for the Yankees, but it was really great for the Dodgers.

Ariffa Bevin (00:52.255)
E.

Nick (01:12.517)
and fans on either side are upset or really ecstatic. And there are really tough things that we as people go through, especially people of marginalized communities, people that are just not able to be themselves. And then we start to look at that stuff, not only how it affects everything else in the country, but how it affects us, our mental wellness, our mental well-being, and everything that just holds us back from being who we are. So I really want to get into…

Ariffa Bevin (01:16.291)
Right.

Ariffa Bevin (01:24.686)
Mmm.

Ariffa Bevin (01:33.964)
Yeah.

Nick (01:39.099)
the nitty gritty of that sort of stuff. But 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.

Ariffa Bevin (01:47.854)
Okay, all right. So what I do for a living is I am a executive coach. I work with individuals and businesses, particularly as it relates to mindfulness and self-empowerment resilience. So I do a lot of workshops and trainings for organizations looking to improve the work-life balance of their employees or simply just to have the conversation about it.

emotional intelligence, which is an interesting topic, but you know, we have a lot of leaders who need it, right? And so it’s a conversation that has to be had. So I do a lot of those as well. But my, what I get the most joy out of is these one-on-one conversations that I have with people who are looking for more of that self mastery and self empowerment. And a lot of them do tend to be leaders themselves. And a lot of them tend to be folks who really just want to learn a lot more about the self mastery piece, right? How to,

either start this journey or continue on this journey and learn more. And I always say that the journey doesn’t end. There is no ceiling, no end game, no end goal, but it’s a conversation I love to have with folks one-on-one. So I do a lot of that. And one, I would say it’s an odd thing about me because I don’t think many people expect it from me.

And you can tell me, if it’s a surprise to you concerning this is our first time having a conversation like this. But one thing that stands out that has come across as odd because it wasn’t expected by people is I fighting as it relates to martial arts. And I was a former kickboxing instructor. take martial arts right now, particularly samurai swordsmanship or kujutsu.

I love hand-to-hand combat. The instructor for one of my schools is a former Marine. And so we do a lot of military hand-to-hand combat, a lot of what he’s learned, knife fighting. And I enjoy that tremendously. It is one of the greatest joys in my life and has helped me in so many different ways, especially with the mindfulness piece.

Ariffa Bevin (04:06.162)
but, but yeah, you know, if, my camera was faced a different way, you would see swords on my wall that I use for my training. I eventually want to get back into, teaching kickboxing myself and then eventually be a Kenjitsu instructor and, and want to pass that knowledge on particularly to our youth and, and the self-defense that I’m learning to, to others as well. But I love it. I enjoy it. you know, I used to watch a lot of UFC as well. Could I do that?

Nick (04:11.865)
Nice.

Ariffa Bevin (04:36.78)
You know, no, no, I cannot be a UFC fighter, but if I were trained to do it, maybe I’ll have a good time, but something about it. And I think I know what the something is, but it’s just, I enjoy it. I love it. And it’s again, a big part of my life that I intend to keep going with for a long time.

Nick (04:53.873)
That’s awesome. Obviously I want to know like why, what was the thing about? But one of the things that I love about the platform of podcasting specifically, but just the overall idea of just having conversations with just anybody and people, especially people that aren’t part of your immediate circles is you never know what’s behind somebody’s eyes, either what they’re thinking, what they’re doing or what they like to do.

Ariffa Bevin (04:57.102)
Yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (05:07.726)
Hmm. Hmm.

Ariffa Bevin (05:12.334)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

Nick (05:20.795)
So it’s always awesome to me when I hear people say stuff that’s like, well, this may seem odd. And I mean, it shouldn’t because I don’t really know anything until I know the things, but we can pass judgment. And sometimes we start to go, well, that seems a little strange or whatever. And for the most part, why the fuck does that seem strange at all? Like who are we to say anything about this? God knows what happened at some point where you were like, cool, that could be it.

Ariffa Bevin (05:25.742)
Yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (05:30.883)
Right.

Ariffa Bevin (05:36.12)
Right.

Ariffa Bevin (05:40.074)
Exactly. Exactly.

Ariffa Bevin (05:48.108)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick (05:49.935)
interesting when I think about UFC and I think about anything that has to do with martial arts, because for the most part, it feels like a lot of people will think, well, you have aggression, or you just want to be able to get that energy out. Or this was something that was passed down to you for so long, or you’re a huge Bruce Lee fan or whatever bullshit like that. But from what I understand, having conversations with people that are really deep into that,

Ariffa Bevin (05:52.717)
Hmm.

Ariffa Bevin (05:57.198)
Hmm.

Ariffa Bevin (06:03.0)
Mm-hmm.

Ariffa Bevin (06:12.524)
Right. Right.

Nick (06:19.927)
It is so entwined with discipline. There’s so much discipline with it. It’s not like you’re just a fucking Ninja Turtle wielding around a samurai sword. It’s got to be more than that. But what is it? Is it the discipline? Did something happen when you’re in third grade and you got jumped by somebody and you said, fuck this never again? Was it all of it?

Ariffa Bevin (06:22.541)
Yes.

Ariffa Bevin (06:29.646)
Absolutely.

Ariffa Bevin (06:41.284)
Yeah, yeah, totally valid, by the way. mean, you know, it’s a lot of things firstly to begin. The first is number one, absolutely it is the discipline. I’ll start there first. The discipline specifically as relates to training yourself and seeing yourself elevate and fail and having the discipline to keep going and succeed.

but then fail again and then keep going further, right? The discipline also to, and the compassion, I’m gonna say as well, to be able to train with others who are both better but not as good as you, to mean that like, I’m not gonna punch as hard with this person or throw them as hard with this person because, you know, they’re either a beginner or what have you or have an injury.

the discipline to not be an asshole and just to show brute strength and just throw this person just because I can, right? I never will do that, but you have people in the arts who do. And for me, that’s not what I’m there for, right? I want folks who encounter and come across me, whether in training or in my work and what I do, to feel welcomed, right? And to not be intimidated, right?

and, but underneath that surface, if it came to me having to defend myself or someone else, I sure hope I would be able to do that. And so there’s that discipline that’s there. and, and again, the discipline also with the fact that there will always be someone better than me. even when it comes to mindfulness with martial arts as well, there’s always something to learn. There was always someone who does it a different way that I can learn from. Right. and so I love learning from other arts and other schools and other systems.

Nick (08:28.709)
Mm.

Ariffa Bevin (08:29.408)
It’s amazing, it’s beautiful. And so that’s number one, it’s the discipline. I would say, you know, going back to my youth, I always had this love for things that were quote unquote, like not girly, right? Like, I wanted to not be in this box of just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean that I like pink things. Like I loved Zena, Warrior Princess. I don’t know if you remember from the 90s, she kicked ass, right?

Nick (08:56.218)
yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (08:58.614)
I was like, look, like she’s gorgeous, but she’s fucking beating the shit out of people. And I love that. And I want to do that. And so, you know, being able to break the mold was something that I was always interested in and not being the expectation or the stereotype that people expected me to be, whether it be from what I look like or who I represent or my background that always fascinated me. Right. And so, and I saw that in so many different forms throughout.

throughout my life with Enzina being a great example of that. And so, you know, there’s that piece to it. And then there’s the empowerment piece. know, one of the reasons why I love this whole journey of mindfulness is because it is indeed that self-empowerment that comes with it. And I see that with martial arts and I have that with martial arts as well. Being able to, again, going back to defending myself or other people.

being able to fight for something if it ever came to it, right? You know, I’m learning samurai martial arts and so one may easily say, there are no samurai, but you don’t really understand exactly what I’m learning, how it applies to the way I walk and move and how I just move my body and then apply that then to self-defense and other aspects of my life. It all relates and it all matters. so…

All of that is just why these arts just called to me so strongly.

Nick (10:24.276)
I’m really glad that you brought up arts, because that is an art. I had times we’ll think about how our school systems keep removing arts, like the actual arts, music, even art classes. And growing up, I was an art kid. I was kind of one of those kids where I was like, I don’t want to fucking be in your class anymore. I got a project and they’d be like, whatever. And I’d go down to the art room and live there. But that is a thing. Like it is an art form.

Ariffa Bevin (10:26.486)
Hmm. Yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (10:32.396)
Yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (10:47.287)
Yes.

Ariffa Bevin (10:51.054)
Thank you.

Nick (10:52.113)
There are so many different pieces to life that is an art form, even mental wellness and our own mental journeys. This is an art form that we get to shape, but it is a solo mission surrounded by other people who are on these solo missions, but it’s not just solo. Like even with what you’re doing with other people, like not tossing somebody just to be an asshole or to show your strength, that’s being mindful about it. But…

Ariffa Bevin (10:55.566)
you

Ariffa Bevin (11:03.905)
Mmm

Hmm

Yeah.

Nick (11:20.039)
Even as you brought that up, I was like, I wondered if maybe at some point you’ve judged somebody like, I don’t want to toss this something, toss this person or whatever. And then next thing you know, they can flip you on your ass and you’re like, what the fuck happened here? then tables turn in a way, but to his life almost, you know, like we, we get hit with things and it’s how we not only manage through it, but in something we talked about before we hit record on this, it’s not about perfection. And it is totally about us.

Ariffa Bevin (11:46.562)
Mmm.

Nick (11:50.203)
being able to continue to move along and work through our things. Something I think is really important and it’s something I’m sure you do with any of the martial arts is being able to go through and figure out how do you become a little less bad than you were. Not about getting better as much as how do you do things just a little differently. Is that about right?

Ariffa Bevin (11:52.888)
Yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (12:05.357)
Hmm.

Ariffa Bevin (12:11.22)
Yeah, definitely about right. It’s exactly that in terms of how do we…

How do we improve, right? How do we, what are, like, we don’t just want to do a particular kata or a movement, it’s called, or a particular form, just to simply do it, right? We wanna do it with the intention of what is the purpose of why I am swinging the sword this way, or why I am turning someone’s arm up instead of this way. Like, like, further understanding the reasoning behind it, and then,

through that understanding, seeing how our body then responds. Because there’s a difference between someone who’s just doing something just to do it and get it over with, or just because they think they’re doing it right, and someone who actually moves with intention, right, and execution. And that ties also to the mindfulness piece in terms of that intention. We all know how critical that intention is to our mindset and how we shift and see things in our lives.

And that absolutely plays a role in martial arts as well, because you can see it in the body and how we respond and how we move. It’s all related.

Nick (13:21.829)
Yeah. I wonder when it comes to, you know, everybody’s, everybody’s different, even if there’s a group of people that are really similar, their differences between them. and we all experience things differently. all either interpret things or we experience it, on our nervous system differently than somebody else may, but there is struggle through it. And I think that’s a part of it. I had read man search for meaning, a few years ago.

Ariffa Bevin (13:31.502)
Hmm.

Nick (13:51.459)
And there’s meaning and suffering was the main thing that I got out of that. And that there’s a struggle that we go through, but that struggle is often the thing that actually helps us get through it. I think about the people that don’t want to do martial arts. I’m sure you’ve mentioned to people you do this and they’re like, my God, I couldn’t, I never would, or I never could or anything like that. It’s like, there’s more stuff to get down to, but I’m sure some of that is also comfort. Like you wouldn’t want to do it.

Ariffa Bevin (14:01.678)
you

Ariffa Bevin (14:08.909)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (14:17.474)
Yeah.

Nick (14:19.391)
And there’s that comfort to it, but we have to be And it sounds old and beaten like you have to be uncomfortable to go through these things But I think the more work that you do the more fucking uncomfortable that you get but the more comfortable you get and being uncomfortable So that you start to work through it, but being so fucking aware of this, especially as you work through things and go, okay How do I get through this and how do I actually do it in the way that

Ariffa Bevin (14:34.797)
Yes.

Ariffa Bevin (14:38.466)
Yeah.

Yes.

Nick (14:45.837)
isn’t pulling away your energy, but helping you. So how does that tie into the work that you do right now with people?

Ariffa Bevin (14:51.872)
Yeah, I want to respond to that real quick because you’re bringing up so many great points here, Nick. So thank you. But one of the important things that you just brought up is the fact that

When I was an a kid boxing instructor, quickly learned it and my instructors now say this all the time but I learned being an instructor myself that Teaching others is also teaching yourself like you were also learning and to exactly what you were saying about You know people receiving things differently like as you were talking I was going back to a student that I had Was her first day and you know as instructors we had like a set like day one

curriculum to go with folks just going over the basics and to just put it at a high level, this particular young lady really just didn’t, it was like she didn’t know how to use her body, right? Like what the standard curriculum was in terms of like jab, cross, know, roundhouse. Like it just, it was not, it just was not being received in the way that it typically was with our other students. And so I got rid of that curriculum for her and we just

broke it all the way down in a different way and she shined, right? And so like, and for me, it was learning for me, especially because in the beginning I was like, okay, holy shit, what am I not saying right? Or, you know, what, like, what is it? And then I was like, no, this is actually a challenge for me to, order to support this person with further understanding how to do this in a way that works for her and where she can process and understand what I’m asking her to do.

Nick (16:13.927)
you

Ariffa Bevin (16:29.494)
And I loved it, I loved that challenge, but most importantly was a learning for me on how do I shift this framework for someone that I have who’s not receiving it in the typical way, right? And so I just appreciate that you call that out because it’s so critical to this path of life. And it definitely relates to what I do on a regular basis because every person is different, like you said.

I may have a curriculum talking about self-empowerment, but at the end of the day, that is going to look totally different for the person I may see the following week, right? And that is going to look totally different when I do a group session or when I have a workshop with leaders talking about emotional intelligence, right? That’s all going to have to shift and be different depending on who I am working with. And mind you, we can totally be the type of people where we’re just like, nah, this is what it is. This is what you’re paying for. This is what you’re getting.

Nick (17:12.912)
Hmm.

Ariffa Bevin (17:25.28)
If it don’t work, that’s on you, right? Like it could, and that happens. That absolutely happens. And it could be that way. But for me and for what I do and for me to actually feel like I am fulfilling my mission in life, it just, can’t be that way. And I love the learning that I receive, right, from doing this work.

Nick (17:44.96)
Yeah, it shouldn’t. And should isn’t a real thing. Like there’s no should, there should not. But I think based on similar principles that it seems like we have, if you’re going to do something, fucking do it. Then don’t just do it to charge people money. Like there are lots of coaches out there that everything they produce is $10,000. Any student comes in, it’s $10,000 and you go through the same shit. And that doesn’t really make

Ariffa Bevin (17:57.57)
Mm-hmm.

Ariffa Bevin (18:10.594)
Yep. Yep.

Nick (18:12.653)
any sense at all. Everybody is different. Everybody comes in with their own things. Everybody has their own interpretations of things. Everybody has their own baggage, their own trauma, no matter what size. It’s a little T, big T, fucking ginormous T, whatever. There’s all these things that come into all of this and everybody does need to be treated a bit differently. And that’s, I think that’s a thing about people when they, when they don’t see that. Like I think about school.

Ariffa Bevin (18:21.4)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (18:33.102)
Yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (18:41.134)
Mm.

Nick (18:41.391)
being in school as little kid, there were people that, some teachers that just couldn’t handle some of the kids because the kids just didn’t want to be there. And there was stuff, I’m sure it’s happening at home or whatever. But there was also like, this kid just needs to be handled a little differently. And I remember seeing teachers, a few of them handle those kids a little differently and it changed everything. But that’s from a personal perspective where that person goes, okay.

Ariffa Bevin (18:43.682)
you

Ariffa Bevin (18:49.646)
Yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (19:00.021)
Yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (19:04.94)
Yes. Yes.

Nick (19:10.671)
I see that this isn’t landing. You’re not broken. Let’s figure out how to actually have it land for you. And one of the things that you brought up just a few seconds ago and even before we hit record was about executives and the emotional.

Ariffa Bevin (19:12.822)
Hmm. Hmm.

Ariffa Bevin (19:17.688)
Hmm.

Ariffa Bevin (19:25.358)
Hmm.

Nick (19:28.743)
Stability, guess, handling of emotions and overall your EQ and everything that ties into that. There are a lot of business owners that I talk to and that I’ve talked to over the years, some that I’ve worked with, some that I’ve just had conversations with that try to fix their business. And it’s typically not your fucking business. It’s you. It’s you as the owner. It’s you as the leader in your organization or whatever.

Ariffa Bevin (19:48.312)
Mmm.

Mm.

Nick (19:58.287)
or where leaders will be a certain way and go, why the fuck isn’t everybody else like this? Cause you’re a monster or because of whatever. It’s like those people, the more that we can look at, really reevaluate how we are as leaders. It all starts with us. And we’ve heard it so many times, it could all start to leadership, but it’s such a rah rah bullshit session where people are like, that makes sense. Starts with leadership. I got to fucking change everything in this company and all these people need to go. Like you’re the asshole. Maybe you need to go.

Ariffa Bevin (20:02.38)
Yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (20:26.326)
exactly what is.

Nick (20:28.635)
But how do we help those people, two different camps here, how do we help the horse get to water and then drink? And how do you help the horse that’s already there trying to drink? And it’s like, this is just a fire hose that I’m learning from and just, I feel my teeth being rattled out. Like, how do you deal with both sides of that?

Ariffa Bevin (20:36.12)
Mm.

Ariffa Bevin (20:48.654)
You know, you’re breaking up something that I, it’s so interesting to me, right? Because on one hand, it is so obvious, at least to me, that leaders really are the key here, right? But then I will have these conversations and you’ve had these conversations with these leaders where it’s the like,

They don’t know why there’s issues. They don’t know why people are leaving. They don’t understand why the culture is ass and like why people don’t want to stay. And like it is, it is a conundrum. it, like it’s, and mind you, they are awful people, but to everyone else, it’s obvious what the issue is. But to them, truly to them, they like, they don’t understand what the problem is. Like they do not see it. And so, and I’m

I will continually be fascinated by that. I really, really will. So to your question about how do we help these people, think the first step or one of the steps I should say is understanding that, helping them to understand what being a leader actually means. Yes, you have this, this.

power and the visibility and the responsibility, but helping them to understand what that actually means. I’m not talking about you having the power to fire people or give raise, that’s not what we’re talking about here. We need to talk about what does it mean when you actually have responsibility and what does that look like in terms of how that impacts your team? For example, when your people who are burnt out,

And I’ve seen so many times, my goodness, people who are burnt out and they have unlimited PTO, but the leader doesn’t understand why people are not taking advantage of that, why they’re not taking time off. Well, have you set an example for them in terms of what that life looks like, work-life balance, or trying to maintain it? Have you set the expectation that people should be responding to emails on Sundays? Have you set the expectation that people should be on meetings outside their office hours?

Ariffa Bevin (23:06.646)
Like what type of example are you actually setting as individual responsible for this team? And so it really has to start with them truly understanding what that role as a leader means and how that ties to the impact that it has on their team. And that for a lot of folks that I’ve met with and executives that I met with has been mind blowing because again, it’s a lot of the conversation along, yeah, I’m responsible.

for writing the strategy for my organization or all of these responsibilities that yes, on paper they are, but at the end of the day, here is what actually matters when it comes to the culture of your team and the people who are working for you.

Nick (23:55.131)
I think there’s a lot of just unclean movements where people are doing things because they were taught that way by some leader in the 80s or 90s or early 2000s or wherever they are. And now they’re force feeding their team because they were force fed and this is how this should be. And this is what we do as leaders. And I think simultaneously we need to take into account that different energy types handle things differently.

Ariffa Bevin (24:00.014)
Hmm.

Ariffa Bevin (24:14.082)
Yes.

Ariffa Bevin (24:24.108)
Yes.

Nick (24:24.635)
Different people do different things. There are the leaders that’ll send out emails at dumb o’clock in the morning, and there are others that’ll send them out in the middle of the afternoon for specific purposes. And that’s part of the uncleanliness of it. I know for me, I typically don’t go to sleep till two, three o’clock in the morning, and I won’t wake up till nine, 10 o’clock. So I’ll sometimes send out an email at.

Ariffa Bevin (24:27.714)
Yes.

Ariffa Bevin (24:38.51)
Hmm.

Mm.

Nick (24:50.201)
noon or not noon, midnight, one, two o’clock in the morning. And there are times where I’m like, I should schedule this so that it goes out at a normal person time. Most times I’ll just send it out because that’s what I’m doing. I don’t have that expectation of anybody that works with me. But I can also talk about those sort of things. Like this is what my life looks like. This is what I do. When I send things out, don’t feel like you have to respond to me at dumb 30 in the morning. Like that’s just when I fucking thought about it. And I send it out to you. So

Ariffa Bevin (24:57.098)
in.

Ariffa Bevin (25:09.281)
Exactly.

Ariffa Bevin (25:13.272)
Exactly. Exactly.

Nick (25:18.149)
We all need to do our own things, but we need to be, we need to trust ourselves. And this is something that candidly that I’ve been struggling with at times and working a lot more on is how do we trust based on the bullshit that we’ve been force fed that has become just part of the norm, which is also tied into our subconscious winning strategy of like, this is how I win in the world. And then being able to break yourself out of that. So those executives that have a hard time going, well, I don’t get it. It fucking makes sense.

Ariffa Bevin (25:32.494)
Hmm

Ariffa Bevin (25:43.148)
Yes.

Ariffa Bevin (25:48.184)
Yeah.

Nick (25:48.475)
Because you’ve been force fed this, you’ve been told this is what success looks like. This is how you do it based on the mentors you worked with or the bosses you had or whatever bullshit you’ve watched or listened to. But what does it actually mean for you is such a tough question that even when we ask that, and I hope people will listen to this and just think that question and go, yeah, what does that mean for me?

Ariffa Bevin (25:53.059)
Yes.

Ariffa Bevin (25:57.902)
Yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (26:12.834)
Hmm.

Nick (26:13.531)
But I hope that they go deeper with that and keep asking and keep asking, because the first initial answer probably is bullshit. The second, third, fourth, 18th answer is a little less bullshit, but probably still smells the same. Because it’s so much shit and layers that we have to get through. So along that lines, what do you do with people to be able to get them to the point of processing through past traumas?

Ariffa Bevin (26:20.128)
Hmm.

Ariffa Bevin (26:26.264)
Hmm.

Ariffa Bevin (26:30.84)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (26:39.95)
Mmm.

Nick (26:40.173)
understanding that there was a system at play with this is how you do these things. And this is what success looks like, to be able to break free from that to just straight up be themselves in all the fucking weird, goofy, terrible glory that it is to then be able to mold themselves into what feels right for them to actually be the leader. Like, it makes me it makes me think of slowing down to speed up.

Ariffa Bevin (26:44.802)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Ariffa Bevin (26:51.47)
Mm-hmm.

Ariffa Bevin (26:55.491)
Yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (27:04.589)
Hmm.

Nick (27:04.807)
but not in a bullshit, corporaty way of like, well, we have to slow everything down, to clean everything up and inefficiencies and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, you actually go fucking time out. Let me take a step back, reorganize, and then kind of move forward. And that is a slow fucking grinding process. So I’m not asking for you to give me the secret sauce here or to tell everybody this, but those people that are going through that shit right now that are like, right?

Ariffa Bevin (27:16.376)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ariffa Bevin (27:23.968)
You’re answering it. You’re… Wow.

Nick (27:32.997)
Right? You know, like, what sort of advice do you give them? Is there like, all right, well, I can see that and I feel that, but fuck, this is difficult.

Ariffa Bevin (27:43.699)
So you’re mentioning so many amazing things here. My sticky note is full of things to respond to. You know, so for the people and the leaders, I’ll make a response for that. For the leaders, right, you’re calling out something so important that I think subconsciously a lot of leaders don’t even know that they’re doing, which is for many of the leaders, because they had struggled to get where they are.

Nick (27:49.391)
New sticky note.

Ariffa Bevin (28:10.626)
they feel like other people have to do the same. And I have heard that time and again, well, you know, I had to deal with X, Y, and Z, or, you know, you don’t know how long it took me to get here. That is totally valid. Like your experience is totally valid. However, exactly. However, that should not be the experience of someone else. Like if you had an option to not go through that, are you telling me that you wouldn’t take it? Like what?

Nick (28:34.385)
Yeah.

Nick (28:38.855)
Come on.

Ariffa Bevin (28:40.046)
What do you mean?

Nick (28:43.239)
the

Ariffa Bevin (28:43.97)
So having that conversation is really, really important to make sure that they’re aware because when you really understand some of them really do honestly, they have like great stories again, totally valid. Their experiences are totally valid, but you do not need to put that on someone else. You don’t need to put your trauma. like, again, you have, and you know, leaders tend to be sensitive. So I do very much validate what they went through. I’m not invalidating it, but

the people who are coming after you do not need to go through that as well. And so there needs to be a hard conversation about that, right? About that experience. Because at the end of the day, if you’re telling me that you don’t want to make these changes because you want, you’re literally telling me you want people to suffer, then there’s a deeper problem going on there. Because if you’re telling me that you want people to struggle, right? And have a difficult path,

then there’s a deeper problem that we need to really talk about here. And so I love having those types of hard conversations with leaders who tell me about their journey and how they got to where they are because a lot of the time it follows right up with, I felt like I had to struggle. So why shouldn’t someone else struggle like I did? So I hear that a lot. I really do. And then for the folks who are on the other side of it, really trying to manage it and deal with a lot of this,

I want to go back to what you mentioned earlier about solo mission, right? Because I resonate with that so strongly, especially when you mentioned that it’s not only a solo mission, but there are others around us who either help this journey or test this journey as well. But when I think of the workplace, especially when it comes to solo mission, it’s…

the empowerment that we have to recognize that we have, the power and empowerment. And yes, it’s important for leaders to have these conversations and talk about it, but using the exact example of emails, right? Just something simple as emails, yes, you may send them at 2 a.m. in the morning or 12 a.m. at night, but at the same time, individuals should really truly feel empowered to not respond.

Ariffa Bevin (31:01.046)
And unfortunately, a lot of people, whatever reason, may be up at that time. A lot of people feel the guilt that comes with that when they do not. And much of the time, and I have been in working environments myself, if you set that expectation of responding like that, then that is going to be the expectation moving forward. And so I talk a lot about how do you not only set up what your boundaries are, but how do you also maintain them moving forward? Because like everything else, this is a journey.

It’s not going to be perfect, but how do you work on defining what those boundaries are and keeping them? Because they will be tested. How do you keep them moving forward? Because you as a leader may have someone who absolutely can be like, listen, it’s not my fault. My leader sends me an email at 2 AM. How do I know? How do I know that it’s not OK to not respond? I feel so bad that, and I hear that a lot as well, but we have to talk a lot about that.

that empowerment, especially with the solo mission piece. So I appreciate you mentioning that because it’s a great way to summarize what this journey is. And of course the mastery piece is a part of it as well, but it does summarize it up really well.

Nick (32:00.359)
Hmm.

Nick (32:12.593)
take it a little further. If somebody feels that guilt or that shame, it’s not always, but it’s probably perpetuated from that leader, their boss. But I think most everything ties back to our formative years. Between four and seven or eight years old, you learned at some point, your subconscious specifically was like, this is what we do to stay safe. This is what we do to not be abandoned or kicked to the side or…

Ariffa Bevin (32:24.312)
Mm-hmm.

Ariffa Bevin (32:29.217)
Mmm.

Ariffa Bevin (32:38.414)
Hmm.

Hmm. Hmm.

Nick (32:42.023)
anything like that. So I, I question that. And I’ve had conversations with people at different points over the years of like, why the fuck? Why do they do this at two o’clock in the morning? Or like, why do feel like we have to respond? And why do they expect us to respond from these things? And granted, that was kind of younger years of me of like, I don’t fucking get why this is the thing. Why are you being a jerk? And that was about it.

Ariffa Bevin (32:56.514)
Hmm. No.

Ariffa Bevin (33:06.018)
Mm. Mm.

Nick (33:08.743)
But I do think that there is something that happened when we were younger that subconsciously we were like, this is how we stay safe. This is what we do. And then 25, 30 years later, you’re in a corporate environment or whatever role you’re in and something comes through and you go, my God, I need to get back to mom or dad. Or I need to get back to this person because that leadership, that authority that they have, instead of being able to understand like, I’m going to do what I want to do and what feels right for me, which gets back to the…

Ariffa Bevin (33:15.2)
Yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (33:25.955)
Hmm.

Nick (33:38.553)
unclean just being able to move through life cleanly but us getting deeper and deeper and deeper I see a lot of shit about people talking about quiet quitting or people taking naps at home or even and I’m gonna jump back to sports for a second there was the Anthony Richardson pulled himself out of the game the Colts game last week because he was tired he pulled himself out for a play

Ariffa Bevin (33:43.406)
Yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (33:52.174)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (34:05.765)
because he didn’t feel like he could be at his best to be able to do it. And now he’s actually benched. And that feels like a political move, where Joe Flacco gets tossed back in. My cousins grew up with Joe Flacco. So I kind of think that’s cool that he’s still playing in the NFL. But I feel for Anthony Richardson, where the dude was honest and was like, I’m not gonna lie, I was tired. So I pulled myself out. And now they’re all going, well, we can’t have this. We all need to have a, we need to show that we are this sort of way.

Ariffa Bevin (34:05.806)
Hmm.

you

wow.

Ariffa Bevin (34:16.366)
Mm.

Ariffa Bevin (34:20.558)
you

Ariffa Bevin (34:26.712)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick (34:35.225)
or we are men or whatever it is. And that is such fucking bullshit. And we tie it back into leaders or people in office spaces or in any sort of organization that we’re in, volunteers even. You think you have to do all these things and sometimes people are just beating upon people or just using and abusing because they went through that. They thought it should be that way. And I think that’s fucking maddening. Look, I almost died a couple of times, overdosed on heroin.

Ariffa Bevin (34:40.974)
Yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (34:49.111)
Yeah.

Nick (35:05.691)
tried to kill myself a few times, have suicidal ideation, got divorced, had different businesses fail. I don’t want anybody to go through any of that. How the fuck? How does that make any sense? I do see how if somebody goes through things and they can be better from those things, that’s cool. I want people to be able to learn and grow, but how dare even subconsciously I go, you know what?

Well, you haven’t gone through the same shit I’ve gone through. So I want you to put a couple bags of heroin up your nose. And then I want you to try to live and then go through a divorce and close down a few businesses and try to jump off condo building. Go ahead, do all that because then after that you’ll be fine. Like what the fuck kind of madness is that? I don’t think anybody would really say that vocally because that’s ludicrous. There may be a handful of fucking monstrous people that could say things like that. But for the most part,

Ariffa Bevin (35:52.512)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Ariffa Bevin (36:03.392)
in the

Nick (36:05.391)
even those leaders that you talk to, they’re probably like, No, no, no, no, that’s not what I mean at all. It’s like, but that is actively what you’re doing and what you’re saying. So along that lines, what’s that piece of advice you’d give to somebody that’s on their path towards self mastery trying to figure this stuff out.

Ariffa Bevin (36:10.51)
What it is.

That’s right.

Ariffa Bevin (36:23.03)
You said it right there. It’s, it’s, I don’t, hope this doesn’t come across as discouraging, but I want to, the first thing that comes to mind Nick is that it’s a path. Meaning that, when you, if this is the first time that you ever delving into, to self mastery and mindfulness, know that that number one, it’s, it’s what works for you, what resonates for you. It’s not going to be anything that is,

going to be immediately perfect or this path is not about perfection or if you forget to meditate for 20 minutes tomorrow that you failed. It’s not about that at all. is what you said, Nick, that the solo mission and what resonates and feels good for you and just supports you on what is truly a path. And it’s a path because…

We will always have stress. We will always have chaos and ridiculousness that happens in our lives. And some days and years and months is going to be better. But this path is about how do we respond to it, right? That solo mission. Like I’m going to keep using that because it’s beautiful, Nick. But just how do we ourselves respond to that? How do we react to it? How do we react to whatever is happening around the world? Or how do we protect ourselves even from it?

And so, you know, my advice is to start with what works for you, what resonates for you, and keep working at it, because this is something that is long-term, and things in life are going to change and shift, and, you know, again, we’re always going to have the chaos and the good things in our life, too, right? And so how do we respond to that always? And so that’s the main thing that I want to share with folks out there.

Nick (38:10.227)
I deeply appreciate that. And along with the solo mission thing, it’s kind of a mind fuck in some ways, but I do believe that purpose and our individual purpose isn’t just for our solo endeavors. It’s a community-based thing, but it does take us doing the things that we can do. And really, if you think about it, if you’re gonna be here, be here. And if you’re gonna do it, fucking do it.

Ariffa Bevin (38:25.27)
Mmm.

Ariffa Bevin (38:36.365)
Mm.

Yes. Yes.

Nick (38:39.427)
and enjoy the ride of it. Some people really love roller coasters and they love when things go up and down and their belly jumps into their throat and like everything else and we go through that on a daily basis at times and we can get better through that stuff but it is us actually come well what is this really what the fuck is this and why is this person doing this thing what do I do with it and that’s back to that at least solo start in a sense

Ariffa Bevin (38:57.975)
Yeah.

Nick (39:06.469)
And I think we could sit here and we could talk for hours and hours and hours and not bash upon your Yankees. one more little jab, why not for the Fills. On that note, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

Ariffa Bevin (39:11.054)
Fuck!

Ariffa Bevin (39:15.244)
Yeah.

Ariffa Bevin (39:21.666)
They can find me at empoweredmindfulpathways.com. I have a contact page right on there that folks can reach out to me on. I’m on social media as well. So Instagram, Empowered Mindful Pathways as well. So folks can find me on there with my handle. Either way works.

Nick (39:41.778)
It was great talking with you today. appreciate your time. Thanks for being on.

Ariffa Bevin (39:44.844)
Thank you so much for having me.

In this episode, Nick speaks with John Hewitt, a successful entrepreneur and CEO of Loyalty Brands. John shares his unique journey from playing in the World Series of Poker to founding billion-dollar companies. He emphasizes the importance of purpose, giving back, and the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, as well as the significance of mentorship, leadership, and the need for calculated growth strategies in business.

What to listen for:

“Most people only want to… improve their own lives. And so they manipulate other people. A rare minority… understand the real purpose of life is to serve others and to make a difference.”

“The more you give, the more you receive. So it’s self-fulfilling… as you experiment with giving, you get more, you receive more.”

About John Hewitt

Having previously founded both Jackson Hewitt and Liberty Tax Service, John has used his 55 years of tax experience and remarkable business acumen to develop the next stage in his unmatched franchise success: Loyalty Brands. 

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!

[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: www.youtube.com/channel/UCk1tCM7KTe3hrq_-UAa6GHA

Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]

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

Nick McGowan (00:02.684)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show I have John Hewitt. John, how you doing?

John Hewitt (00:12.78)
Incredible, thanks for asking.

Nick McGowan (00:14.574)
Absolutely. Second time you give me that answer. So I appreciate that, man. Hey, 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.

John Hewitt (00:27.246)
There’s many, many bizarre things in my life, but one thing that people don’t know is that long before poker became televised and huge, I played in the World Series of Poker back when there was less than, in 1978, when there was less than a hundred participants. Now there’s over tens of thousands of participants. But I’m a CEO of Loyalty Brands. have eight different franchise systems.

focused in three divisions. One is tax and accounting. One is roofing and siding and solar. And the third is everything pets led by our mobile pet franchise.

Nick McGowan (01:12.732)
Nice. Now this isn’t something I’m sure you turned on overnight. And I’m sure it wasn’t also like an easy transition from being in the World Series of Poker in the 70s to where you’re at now. But give us a little bit of context. How did you get started with all this?

John Hewitt (01:28.685)
I started when I was at the University of Buffalo. I took an H &R Block course, loved it. And 12 years later, I was running 250 H &R Block locations. And you’re not old enough to remember a world without computers, but back in the 70s, my dad bought one of the first Apple computers, and he was the CFO of a public company. He liked it better than the mainframe that was running this public company. And he was a visionary. He decided that we should computerize taxes.

So we both quit our jobs in 1981 and built the first tax software for an Apple computer. No one wanted it way ahead of its time. I got lucky and found a company in Virginia Beach called Mel Jackson Tax Service. We bought six offices from his widow and went public and merged the two companies, changed the name to Jackson Hewitt, and 15 years later sold it for $483 million.

And Jackson Hewitt went on to become a billion dollar company. So our first major venture was a billion dollar company. And today Jackson Hewitt has about 6,000 offices there, top 25 largest franchise chains in the country.

Nick McGowan (02:42.012)
Yeah. Do you feel any sort of way knowing that it’s a billion dollar company and it’s not yours anymore?

John Hewitt (02:48.683)
No, after that I started Liberty Times and that became another half a billion dollar company. So I’ve founded two half a billion dollar companies and again I brought in over 5200 franchisees in my career, helped 5200 families and plus they had hundreds of thousands of employees. So no, don’t, I do this for the journey and the joy and

Our mission statement says it all, and that is having fun, improving lives.

Nick McGowan (03:23.484)
Yeah. Now, let’s take a bit of a step back to you and your dad. Starting this thing off, did you have ideas of, well, this will turn into a potentially a billion dollar company and then we’ll sell it we’ll get another one. That’ll become sort of the same thing and we’ll help lots of people. Or were you kind of looking at it like, well, my dad and I get to build this thing. We have an idea. Or was it kind of a mixture of all of that?

John Hewitt (03:48.053)
Well, there were two parts to it. One is building the software. And then second was building Jackson Hewitt. The first part, when we built the software, we were just trying to sell it. So we tried it. We went to H &R Block and said, you know, I’ve been an executive at H &R Block, one of the top 50 executives in the country. I said, buy my software. This is the future. And they were so conventional and antiquated that

In an Andrew report in 1983, they said, people ask us why we don’t computerize. we say, we tried it. Customers don’t care. We’re never going to computerize. So they just were so conservative. But with the tax company, when we bought Mel Jackson Tax Service, they had six locations and Blockhead 9000. We set out in my business plan in 1982, I said, we’re going to try to get to one more office than H &R Block.

Nick McGowan (04:27.28)
Never.

John Hewitt (04:47.179)
We’re going to try to get to 9,001 offices, adding 8,995. Well, we only got to 6,000, but it did become a billion-dollar company as a result.

Nick McGowan (05:00.966)
So you talked about the mission statement, fun and inspiring people, right? Improving lives. So those should be core competencies for every human. Like we should have fun and we should improve other people’s lives. And I really believe that purpose is a community thing. It’s not a solo mission. sometimes people can get lost in that where it’s like, well, my purpose feels so deeply intimate to me that this is the thing.

John Hewitt (05:07.207)
improving lives.

Nick McGowan (05:30.906)
This feels like it was part of your purpose. Do you agree with that?

John Hewitt (05:34.651)
Yeah, well, it should be a goal for all of us. Most people only want to, they want to, from each person they work with, they want to improve their own lives. And so they manipulate other people. So it’s a rare minority that understand the real purpose of life.

is to serve others and to make a difference. so that is a rare trade, actually.

Nick McGowan (06:10.512)
Would you think that’s something that can be cultivated and learned or is that mostly internal and like a talent we come into this planet with?

John Hewitt (06:20.077)
I think there are most things can be learned. Some things can’t, like attitude. I’ve never been able to change someone’s attitude. But I think that can be learned to appreciate. And as you get older, most people, or many people, if not most, they mellow and they understand that giving back is rewarding. And if you’re…

If you pay attention, the more you give, the more you receive. So it’s self-fulfilling that as you experiment with giving, you get more, you receive more. And I don’t personally typically receive nearly as much as I give each person from that person. But good things happen to me if I give to other people.

Nick McGowan (06:51.825)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (07:11.034)
Yeah. Was that something that was kind of innately part of the way that you looked at life or was that something that came along earlier in life? Like maybe through your pop even?

John Hewitt (07:20.079)
I learned it from my parents and I watched my parents and you know, I’m lucky I had my parents until I was into my 60s. And when I was in my 40s, one of my people, father died and I said, did you have any regrets? And said, yeah, she said, there were some things I wish I had told them. And so I sat down and wrote a letter to each of my parents and I got different.

skills or lessons from each one of them, right? They’re very different people. And that was one of the lessons I got that both of them had, is they were very giving and beloved because of…

Nick McGowan (08:04.348)
That’s cool. What a beautiful thing. I mean, you can learn a lot from your parents. Sometimes it’s what to do. Oftentimes it’s like what not to do. But for you to also be able to be empathetic and understanding of the other people you work with. Look, you’ve done this for a long time and the people listening to this show are typically leaders either in their own businesses or in their careers and their ups and downs. We all get that. For the most part.

John Hewitt (08:17.415)
you

Nick McGowan (08:29.786)
the ups and downs when you look back, you can see how they tie together like the how the points all worked out together. What are some of the main things that you’ve really kind of worked on on yourself, be it internally or just the way that you kind of work with people over the course of time that you look back, if you had to give a bit of a synopsis or summary to it, these are some core things to go through.

John Hewitt (08:52.168)
I think that my philosophy is that without without downs the ups wouldn’t be as high. You know if your life just went and just had a few ups here and there then the so your ups are higher because you go into valleys peaks and valleys your peaks are higher.

And so I’ve had to change and improve over the years. And, I’m fanatically committed to winning. To win, have to have the best system. To have the best system, it has to be improving. And so I’m fanatically committed, but improvement requires change. And improvement and change are, if you’re going to be, if you’re going to do great things, you need to be uncomfortable. There’s no comfort.

in changing the norm or in being outside the box all the time. You have to be uncomfortable. And so I learned to put up, not only to put up with discomfort, but to embrace criticism.

Nick McGowan (09:52.954)
Hmm. Yeah, that oftentimes people can hear be coachable. And sometimes you can think, well, fuck off. I’m trying, you know, and other times it’s like, okay, well, I want to learn from this. Those hits at different times can trigger things out of us. There’s deeper things that have happened or, know, somebody criticizes and they’re really asking a question we can be triggered. I think it’s a separate piece of like, you need to process through that and understand where that all comes from. But being able to take those hits.

the advice that you would give to somebody, what does that look like for them to be able to not interpret throughout and go, well, I’m terrible, this is how it is and understanding and basically showing ourselves grace. Like you are here who you are right now and in the future you won’t be because there will be more time and experience through that. But what advice like would you give it to an employee or even a leader in your company? Like here’s the deal, dude, that sort of thing.

John Hewitt (10:51.016)
It’s case by case, of course. We all face different adversities and we’re all in different, we all have different skills. We all have faced different problems.

I try to be a mentor for people and to listen to people. I try to be an active listener that so many people don’t listen carefully. What they do is they listen enough to say what they’re going to say next. And they’re thinking about what they’re going to be saying rather than pay full attention. So one of the things I start with is being a

exceptional listener and then I find out what I helped them figure out what they want to be. You know, I’ve asked I asked this question in every interview and most people don’t know the answer. I say, what do want to be when you grow up? And most people, 95 % or more of Americans don’t have a five year plan or five year goal. They don’t have a goal, so they can’t have a plan because the

Nick McGowan (11:51.255)
the

John Hewitt (12:02.974)
They don’t know where they want to be. So how can they have a plan to get to somewhere that’s neither here nor there? They could be going in the wrong direction. So I counsel people to help them to a self-realization and point them towards that rainbow, end of the rainbow. Everyone has their own desire where they want to be.

at the end of the rope or five years from now or 10 years from now. So it’s one by one listening and coaching and helping people help themselves.

Nick McGowan (12:45.124)
Yeah, what a novel concept. Let me help you help you. You can’t actually fix these problems for the people. And like you said a little earlier, you haven’t been able to change somebody’s attitude, because that’s them. That’s a them issue. They need to be able to change that. And I’m glad that you pointed out, you didn’t go to, coach them through this or anything, even verbiage wise like that, but use the word mentor. I think that’s a huge, huge difference because then you’re working with them.

You’re not coaching him, telling him this is the plague at your ass back in the game. This is how you do this thing. But you’re actually working with them on that certain entrepreneurs I’ll talk to when you really get to like deeper conversations, they’re like, I don’t want to do that with people because what if they’re not going to be here anymore or what if they’re not in the right spot and I’ve screwed up or whatever. And those can be internal conversations or like deep dark room conversations they have with themselves. But have you ever been in that spot where you’re like, look, I’m, I’m here for the person.

John Hewitt (13:27.79)
Okay.

Nick McGowan (13:44.004)
And your spot is no longer in the company because of what you’re saying to me, not because of their performance or anything like that. Have you ever had to like help somebody walk themselves out?

John Hewitt (13:49.406)
absolutely and I learned a good way to say that to people that this isn’t the place where you’re going to be exceptional. God has a place for everyone where they can be exceptional. This isn’t your place and you need to go find a place that you can be exceptional.

Nick McGowan (14:14.78)
I can appreciate that you probably have a deeper conversation with those people and that you want to help them. I had worked with a previous company before where they would ask people to seek excellence elsewhere, but it was a nice way of telling them to fuck off. They would be like, well, that’s a really sweet way of just telling them that don’t ever come back and hand in their keys instead of like, let me help you figure out a way to get through this. One of the reasons why I wanted you to be on the show.

was because of the work that you’ve done and the longevity of the work and also the person that you seem to be. And I’m happy to see that you are not only, it seems to be, but you really do genuinely seem to really care about these people. And having been through all this stuff, again, the people listening to the show are leaders in what they’re doing. And I can almost guarantee that a small percentage haven’t actually built billion dollar companies. There are probably some in here, but for the most part,

These are people that are trying to work, trying to learn, trying to grow, and trying to work through their own stuff. So with that in mind, working through the personal things that you’ve had to deal with, were there some major things that you can look back at and see some shifts that happened or even some specific times? Like that was a moment in time that everything changed from there.

John Hewitt (15:31.322)
absolutely. As I said, no one gets to skate and everyone faces adversity. And the more successful you are, the more mistakes you make. And often the bigger the obstacles you’ve had to overcome. So there were lots of dark periods where, or I shouldn’t say lots, but there’s some certain tens of thousands of difficulties. But there was a couple of very dark periods that,

Nick McGowan (15:41.936)
He

John Hewitt (16:00.914)
that didn’t look like we were gonna make it almost, that it was things happen. Sometimes it’s your own fault, my fault, and sometimes it’s external. It’s the industry fault. But you’re going to face those problems and you’re gonna get knocked down. The winners just always get up.

Nick McGowan (16:20.092)
Sure. Are there any stories that come to mind that were kind of early on stories or even like really growing pain stories?

John Hewitt (16:26.494)
Yeah, we started Jackson Hewitt in 82 and six years later we had about 50 offices and we had a chance to buy over 200 locations and from the second largest prepare. H &R Block had 9,000, the second largest had about 270 and

We had 50, we were third largest in the country. And we could, they approached us in October and said, would you like to buy these 200 locations? And so it was, we made the mistake of biting off more than we could chew. And so we way over expanded. We almost went bankrupt and had a very dark period from February of that year when we

when we were running into all the difficulties until the following January when we recovered with the next tax season, it was a very dark period and we almost went bankrupt. And it was my own doing that I did it, made the mistake of biting off more than I could chew, overexpanded, which is, I’ve come to learn that’s very common in business.

Nick McGowan (17:54.666)
It’s a wild thing that people want to be able to grow and grow rapidly, but then can miss the little tweaks and things that happen to us as leaders throughout the slowness of the growth. Like I’ve seen different people like cripple themselves or literally go out of business because they’re like, well, we landed all these clients and now what do we do? How do we do it? Our processes are shit and all these other things.

But what’s that balance look like, you know, of like taking the calculated or even crazy risks. That’s part of our sadistic mentality as entrepreneurs. Like sometimes we’ll fuck around and find out. Sometimes you learn the hard way, but how do you then manage going, all right, what’s the calculated piece to it? And I get that every situation is different, but for those people to understand, and I guess really what I’m getting at is what did you take away from all of that for the people that go?

Well, I need to grow, we need to grow rapidly. We need to do all these things. What advice would you give them other than like, calm down, sit your ass down and breathe first?

John Hewitt (18:58.094)
Yeah, remember I’ve mentored over 5200 franchisees and helped them and I spent

I’ve never gone to a franchisee and said, you need to expand. I spent a lot of time talking to franchisees, you’re trying to do it too quickly. And so it comes down to the basics, right? This isn’t rocket science. This isn’t as to how fast you can grow. You need two things. You need people and money. And so with each one of them, instead of saying you’re…

Nick McGowan (19:16.198)
Hmm.

John Hewitt (19:34.181)
You can’t meet that goal. You can’t add four more offices this year. I said, here’s what you need in order to let’s determine what we need in terms of open four more offices. need X amount of people. We need X amount of management and we need X amount of money. And is that available? And then I will help you analyze that. If you’re not sure you have the proper management personnel or, or I’ll have guide you in.

hiring that many people and the money is pretty black and white, then if you’re not sure, I’ll weigh in on each of those. But first let’s decide what you need in order to do that. And then I’ll support you. If we agree, this is the number of people, this is the amount of money, then I’m here to support you and it grows fast as you want. So I learned to say no by saying yes. I said, yes, you can do it if…

And then we look at the basics of the needs in order to have that growth carefully and manageable.

Nick McGowan (20:47.26)
So it’s calculated, a bunch calculated at that point. And it sounds like you kind of remove emotion from that where I can understand that a lot of people, if they’re in a spot where they’re unsure, it’s like new territory for them, your emotions can easily seep in. And some more so than others. I know for myself, I’m a hyper emotional person. So I can feel those things happening at different times that I’ve watched different people who seem to be emotionless.

move throughout things without feeling the emotion or the empathy of other people they’re working with and they’ll abuse teams. They’re like, I don’t give a shit. We sold 100,000 of these like go. You’re burning people out. So have you ever been in one of those spots where it’s like you’ve had somebody that has extremely grown, but now they’re starting to see some of like the kind of the cracks in the hole.

John Hewitt (21:38.498)
It happens to almost everyone. You’re almost always the best people are the most successful are tested because there people aren’t in general good delegates and people are generally the same person that can run one office. Well, isn’t the same person that can run 20 offices. Well, you know, there’s the way I think of it is

there’s chiefs and then there’s chiefs of chiefs. If you think of Indian tribes, I think of a tribe of TPs where there’s one camp and there’s a chief of that camp. But then there’s a hundred camps and there’s a hundred different chiefs. Who’s the chief of all of them? That’s the chief of chiefs. Most chiefs can’t be the chief of chiefs. So they miss on the skills and the ability to do that. And so they’re

In order to do that, you need to transition and your most people hit the almost everyone hits a wall where they’re just incapable of learning enough to go to the next level. And, you know, I built a company with in 1982, we had sales of, what was it? 350,000. We built the company with sales of a billion. So we went from $350,000 revenue to a million.

3 million to 6 million to 10 million to 20 million to up to a billion. And the same, you have to have, you have to trade in new people all the time. And most, you know, I was blessed that I had the ability to run both companies. could, I could learn and improve and, and adapt, but almost no one on my staff could. I had to change out my chief marketing officer, my

chief information officer, my CFOs, we had to change as we got bigger because they didn’t have the ability to go to the next level.

Nick McGowan (23:46.204)
Yeah. In the early stages of that, how did you know you were making the right decisions? And granted, I know you made wrong decisions at times because you’re human. That’s what happens. But being able to know when to change somebody else.

John Hewitt (24:04.759)
Well, the…

And first of all, I’m only right like 60 % of the time. When I made those changes, the new person I brought in wasn’t, I was only right about 60 % of the time. The most important thing in making the changes is to move quickly when you made the wrong choice, when you haven’t picked well. It’s clear when people need to be changed out because they don’t meet their goals.

Nick McGowan (24:27.228)
Mm-hmm.

John Hewitt (24:38.156)
So we, I’m very black and white that for example, it’s easy to measure someone in bringing in new franchisees, right? If our goal is 100, it’s either pass or fail. You either get to 100 or you don’t. And so if someone is incapable of growing and our goal next year is 200 and then the year after is 300 in there.

There you have to measure their ability to train and hire and support the new staff and to be able to budget and hire as fire to get to that level. It becomes apparent to everyone, not just myself, but everyone in the executive team sees the weakness of one of the key people and.

they, it becomes obvious that they have to, we have to get someone over. Now, we often went to those people and said, you can stay and we’re going to put someone above you. But virtually no one stayed in that situation. They went on to be exceptional somewhere else at a smaller company. And they, as we brought in more and more experienced, capable people.

Nick McGowan (26:03.9)
That’s interesting, because there’s, there’s also the idea of training and building within. And that wasn’t something you really mentioned, but I wonder if that’s a piece of it too, where I understand if you’re like, well, we’re going to put somebody over you. Do you want to stay? Probably not. You might have somebody every once in a while, it’s like, thank you. I didn’t want this responsibility and then it solves it all. But there are also times where people will show themselves working through the ranks where you as an executive team can remove that emotion from it and say,

This is the person that’s doing the right thing. Let’s shift this thing around and make that call pretty quickly.

John Hewitt (26:38.217)
Sure, I moved people. I think one of my skills and one of my blessings is I was able to pick people and move them to different chairs. So at one point, I moved someone at Jackson Hewitt from my attorney, in-house counsel, to director of franchise sales. At one person at Liberty Tax, the person under the CFO.

I moved him over to be director of operations. I moved people around over the years. I spotted core competencies and ability to improve and change. And I moved them into better suited spots for them and helped the company in that way. yeah, whenever possible, we tried to…

nurture people. always had beneath the executives were superstars or future superstars that we’re continually to train and to give guidance to that hopefully would be able to take over or move into one of the executive slots at some point.

Nick McGowan (27:58.94)
I’m sure there’s a lot that we could get into even deeper with that, with those different pieces and different people, even executive teams and people’s biases or not biases and all that sort of stuff. But I really appreciate everything we’ve gotten into today. And thank you for being on the show. I know that there’s a lot of things that you have going on throughout the day and for you to peel out time to talk about this. I think this is something where the entrepreneurs that listen to this or even people that are just trying to manage their lives a little differently can really get a lot out of this. And before I let you go.

What’s that one piece of advice that you’d give to somebody that’s on their path towards self mastery?

John Hewitt (28:34.468)
My general advice to everyone in life is find something you love to do. Work hard, persevere. On Monday morning, if you’re going to work and you’re not looking forward to it, life’s too short. I mean, change. Find something you love. And secondly, everything worthwhile requires hard work. There’s no skating. There’s no easy, easy win. And then the number one most important

Attribute for success is perseverance. Everyone gets knocked down. Everyone faces adversity. And winners just get up each and every time. You gotta kill me to stop me.

Nick McGowan (29:18.268)
That’s awesome. Again, John, it’s been great having you on the show. Where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

John Hewitt (29:24.454)
I’m at loyaltybrands.com and there are, if you would like your listeners would like a copy of my book, they can get my best-selling book for free. I compete and just buy a link on loyaltybrands.com.

Nick McGowan (29:41.02)
That’s awesome. Appreciate sharing that. And John, thanks again for your time. Appreciate you being on.

John Hewitt (29:45.561)
My pleasure. Thank you,

In this episode, Nick speaks with Dan Flores, a fitness and life coach, who shares his personal journey from overcoming health challenges as a child to navigating cultural transitions as an immigrant. Dan discusses the sacrifices his parents made for a better life, his struggles in the construction industry, and his eventual awakening to entrepreneurship. He emphasizes the importance of living each day to the fullest and cherishing the moments we have with loved ones.

What to listen for:

“I was thinking, ‘Did my parents give up everything so that I would work a regular nine to five?”

“My parents came over here, they left everything behind… they had their degrees in Peru, but those degrees couldn’t transfer here, so they pretty much had to start from the bottom up.”

“No matter what job I transitioned into, no matter what company I worked for, I couldn’t be happy.”

About Dan Flores:

Dan is a fitness and life coach, motivational speaker, and founder of The Warrior Lifestyle. His mission is to help others achieve the ultimate life and become relentless. Whether they want to be healthier, be more driven, or become a leader for their family, they can accomplish it together.

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!

[email protected]

Thank you for listening!

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

Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]

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

Nick (00:01.582)
Hello and welcome to The Mindset, self-mastery show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show I have Dan Flores. Dan, what’s up man, how you doing?

Dan Flores (00:12.359)
Good, good, Nick. Thank you for having me.

Nick (00:14.382)
Yeah, man, I’m excited that you’re here. We’re gonna get into a lot of great stuff. 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.

Dan Flores (00:25.844)
Sure. So my name is Dan. I’m from Hartford, Connecticut. I am a fitness and life coach and a peak performance speaker. And one thing that a lot of people don’t know about me is that when I was a kid, I actually suffered from a concave chest in my, pretty much my sternum, which is causing a little bit of heart issue as well.

Nick (00:48.11)
Is that something they were able to remedy like a suction cup? Like pop it out a little bit?

Dan Flores (00:51.285)
Not a suction cup, but I wish it was that simple. But no, it required a pretty big surgery, two surgeries actually to be exact.

Nick (01:02.402)
Wow, so was that literally just pressing on your heart and on your ribs and everything else? Your lungs?

Dan Flores (01:06.972)
Yeah, so what happened is it didn’t happen until probably like my teens. Like when I was 12 years old, that’s when like the pain started. But over time, my sternum was caving inward, right? Instead of growing out like a regular chest. And obviously your heart is right behind your sternum. So over time, the pain kept intensifying, it kept becoming more frequent. And I told my mom at 13 years old, I told her, was like, Mom, I think I’m having a heart attack because my heart hurts.

Nick (01:34.488)
Peace.

Dan Flores (01:36.104)
She took me to the hospital, they did exams and x-rays, et cetera. And then they told me good news and then not so good news. You have a concave chest, the good news is that it is fixable. The not such good news is that it’s gonna be a long process, it’s gonna be a long recovery. There’s gonna be a lot involved in it, but it is repairable.

Nick (01:57.499)
So what do they have to just like basically cut everything open and crack it and raise it?

Dan Flores (02:02.875)
Yeah, so thank God it wasn’t like that. So basically what they did is they cut me, I actually have two scars on my ribs on each side. So what they did is they pretty much placed a metal bar right behind my sternum. Okay, they sewed me up and that bar kind of poked my sternum out so that it’s straight, it’s more straight. And then that took the pressure off my heart. Now I want you to imagine this because when I woke up from, in the recovery room,

Nick (02:15.138)
Okay.

Dan Flores (02:31.077)
It felt like an elephant was standing on my chest. Because you’re think about it, you’re taking a bone that’s bent and you’re straightening it in a matter of a few hours. So, yeah, I was in physical therapy, I was in hospital for about a month and a half, two months. My parents had to get my homework and drop it off at the hospital because I wasn’t going to school at that time. I had to get two copies of each textbook, copies I could keep at home and copies I could keep in school.

Nick (02:41.432)
Jeez.

Dan Flores (02:59.647)
And every week I would do all my homework. My parents would submit it by the end of the week and then pick up my new assignments. Yeah.

Nick (03:09.392)
That’s gotta be wild, especially as some kid going through that. Has that affected you physically, like as you got older and you started to put on muscle mass and all of that? Or has that actually helped? it like set a table?

Dan Flores (03:17.391)
I was gonna say,

Dan Flores (03:25.422)
Yeah, actually, Yeah, so obviously, I feel a lot better. My health isn’t at what isn’t at risk anymore. It would have been if it just if if there was no solution, right, it would have been a pretty big deal. The doctors did tell me that after the surgery, at some point after filling the pretty much the muscle around my chest that I’ve been spending the past few years working on, because what happens is when you’re when.

when your chest grows inward, it affects your muscle development in that area. So they specifically told me, listen, if you want your chest to remain normal and remain healthy, you have to start working out. So I didn’t do that until I got much older, right? This was about the first surgery to put the rod in was at 13. Second surgery to take it out was at 15. So it was in my body for two years. And I started working out when I was about 17.

I listen to the doctors and I feel great. I kind of feel like, it’s funny you mentioned that at such a young age, it’s like imagine you’re 13 years old, you feel like you’re having a heart attack. That doesn’t often, those aren’t words that often comes out of a 13 year old mouth. So, yeah, exactly.

Nick (04:36.302)
No, unless it’s drug induced. That’s a whole different story. You smoke some random stuff, got some from some random kid at school, you might think you’re dying. But that’s, man, that’s crazy. It also makes me think like there were some kid that I grew up with. I don’t remember the kid’s name is just a neighborhood kid when we were little. And he had basically like a bowl in his chest. And at one point, I remember walking into his house, probably is like nine or 10. And the kid was eating cereal.

Like he knew I was coming over so he was just being funny about it. But now I think like a few years after that, I think they moved maybe a year or two later, he probably had some sort of issues. Like if it was, it was deep enough for him to eat friggin cereal out of his chest, which is just a wild thing. But to think that you had to have that in there, I’m glad that it’s no longer in there. It almost sounds like it was like braces almost. It’s like they get it in there, put it in there, set it, remove everything. And then a few years later, you’re able to actually start to build upon it.

what a crazy thing and what an awesome thing that your parents are able to actually do that for you. You know, I think about kids that are in other countries or even kids that are in poor sections of this country that can’t can’t do that. They can’t get their cleft lip lip fixed or they can’t get some surgery that they need or sometimes they just can’t even get their feet straight because they’re pitching toed or something and being able to kind of move that stuff. Or you’d mentioned to me and

Not only in the intake stuff, but when we were talking about moving here from another country and I, I could imagine that not only as a 13 year old being stuck in the hospital and dealing with all of that and having to go through that throughout all high school, that could affect mentally things, but what about you getting over here to this country and being able to try to learn the culture and everything that went along with that? I would imagine that could potentially really.

mess with you, in an easy way to put it.

Dan Flores (06:35.294)
Yeah. Yeah. So my journey, actually, I love telling the story, because my journey actually started with my parents. Okay. So we’ll dive into that real quick. My parents, moved here because they actually had a friend who made the shift from Peru to America. Like he was already living here and my uncle and and my dad were friends with him and they were kind of, exchanging messages and phone calls and their friend was telling them, listen, there’s great opportunities down here. There’s a housing, there’s job opportunities.

I think you guys could really prosper here. And the more they talked, the more my uncle and my dad wanted to move. So they spoke to my mom, convinced her. Now, here’s the thing. When they eventually got their visas approved and they made that shift, they actually left me in Peru. I didn’t come with them right away. So I was about six months old when this happened. I have a brother who’s two years older than me. So because they didn’t know what was going to happen, they didn’t know if their plan was going to work. They didn’t know if they were going to.

come back to Peru and it just things didn’t work out, right? So they actually took my brother with them because he was older, he could eat, he walk, he could pretty much be self-efficient. Me on the other hand, I was six months old. So I stayed in Peru with my grandparents for three years. Once my parents were stable and were able to provide me with a good home, they came back to Peru and picked me up and took me to the US. About six months to maybe a year later, my grandparents who raised me in Peru,

came to America as well because at that time, obviously we didn’t have a lot of money. We didn’t grow up with a lot of money, right? Just like a lot of immigrant family or just a lot of families in general. So my parents were working multiple jobs and they couldn’t always afford a babysitter. They didn’t really feel comfortable leaving me on a daycare. I can’t blame them. So the best solution is, hey, let’s bring your grandparents down here. They can stay here and they can pick you up from school. They can drop you guys off. They can take care of you guys while we’re working, which was a

crucial part of me growing up. Right. So I transitioned into when I transitioned to America. I don’t remember the initial stages because I was still a little too young. But I do remember when I started going to school, I remember because I was still learning the language. Right. Because at the the at the time I was only speaking Spanish. So I do remember as a kid being picked on a lot when I was in school. Right. That lasted for a few years, mostly in elementary school.

Dan Flores (09:00.799)
I got over to daycare, elementary, cetera, pre-K. as I was transitioning from elementary to medical school, that kind of away, right? Because my accent got better. I started speaking more. I got more into it with the culture. But in the beginning, it wasn’t like that. I got picked on a lot.

you know.

Nick (09:20.755)
Kids can be cruel, you know, just like in general but hurt people tend to hurt other people and No matter if it’s child if it’s a high school kid or if it’s somebody in their 40s 50s 60s Whatever if they don’t actually work through the things that they’ve gone through They could just spew that on to somebody else. They can just pick on other people I’ve had a conversation recently somebody on the podcast where we’re talking about trauma

Dan Flores (09:22.457)
Yeah.

Nick (09:48.898)
being little t trauma that can turn into big t trauma just in the morning getting the hell out of your house. If there’s a couple kids and mom and dad or whatever that situation looks like if people trying to get to work, get the kids here, do this, do that, that can be traumatic. And then that you literally get into school and think about the first thing they tell you like, all right, calm down, we’re going to do class today. You’re like, Are you kidding me? I just went through hell getting the hell out of my house trying to get fucking butter on a piece of bread so I can eat something and

get on my way to school and this was traumatic. It’s gotta be tough for you and your family to be here and work through all that stuff. But it also seems like there’s a bit of an undertone of like total love. And I’m just assuming, so tell me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like your parents are trying to do the best that they could for you. Your grandparents are trying to do the best they could for you and your brother or whatever siblings and family that’s all in that house. And then being able to get into school and kind of work through things.

at what point did it start to kind of kick in where you were like, all right, I want to actually look at the way that I work on my physical body. And maybe it was because of the the surgery that you had. But then also being able to look at things different. Like if somebody grows up, they’re used to the neighborhood, they’re used to all the kids are used to school, they’re used to the American systems. That is vastly different than somebody coming in going, well, I was here for a few years, and now I’m in this new place. And I’m learning all these new things.

What sort of things do you think that you were able to actually take from that childhood whole experience into the work that you do now?

Dan Flores (11:24.78)
Yeah, yeah, I it’s funny because when I was that young, you don’t always understand the sacrifices that your parents made for you. Right. I was you know, I was good at you know, I was in fitness, I played a little bit of sports. So I did my own thing growing up. But I actually didn’t hear the entire story or pieces of the story until I got much older. I was a late teen, early 20s. This is when my parents started to slowly feed me the information about what truly happened through that transition coming here.

Nick (11:32.302)
Yeah.

Dan Flores (11:55.019)
And it’s like the more I heard about the story, the more I learned to appreciate their sacrifice and really understand, really see the whole picture. And I think at that point, that’s when I realized, okay, my, my parents came over here. They left everything behind. They left their families, their careers, you know, they, they, they graduated college over there. So they had their, their degree, whatever degrees they have in Peru, their degree, degrees they couldn’t transfer here. Right. So they pretty much had to start from the bottom up.

you know, working minimal jobs, minimal wage. So I’m thinking to myself, that’s really where, where, where something sparked that had like this burning desire inside of me. was like, man, maybe, maybe this is all happening because I was meant to carry the mission that they started. So that was like the first kind of like the first idea, the first nugget that happened was when they were starting to tell me these stories and then, graduated high school, went into college, right. And I went into college for construction management. Okay.

Now had a great, great time in school, got my degree, went into construction, been in construction industry for 12 years, left it last year. but as I got into that industry, I go, I, it’s funny, I went back to thinking those thoughts, like, you know, am I really doing what my parents always envisioned me to do? My demand that they always envisioned me to be. And working the right, not that there’s anything wrong with it for whoever does it, but for me, working the nine to five wasn’t, wasn’t it for me.

Right. I realized that about two to three years into the construction industry, that that wasn’t the case. You know, I forced my I tried to force myself to like it because I went to school for seven years, got my degree, a lot of debt. So I kind of forced myself to OK, let me give this a shot. But it’s like the more I was in it, the more I was like, man, like, is this really like my parents really give up everything so that is this it? Just work a regular nine to five, seven, seven to five, two week vacation a year. Right. Get a check.

every week or two, like that’s crazy to me. So at that point, I really started looking into entrepreneurship.

Nick (14:03.032)
There’s a lot when you think about what your parents had done to be able to set you up. In some ways it also doesn’t really matter. And what I mean by that is like they had done whatever they did because that was what their purpose and what their path looked like. It’s up to you to do whatever you want. But having that burning desire inside, it can be really easy for a lot of people. And all of us, I think, tend to fall into some sort of trap with that because of systems that are set up. Like you need to go to school and then you need to pay money to go to another school.

to then get a job where you make some money, but then you try to retire later on in life with about 40 % of what you really couldn’t live off of anyway. So good luck kid. That’s tough. But that deep inside power and that fuel that you’re feeling, I think is that that’s part of your purpose. And then it’s really up to you to be able to show it however you feel fit to be able to do that. So that’s cool that you’re.

Dan Flores (14:41.386)
Yeah.

Nick (14:57.878)
you’ve felt that like, want to do more because my parents didn’t just come here just so I can do whatever this thing is. But if that were your purpose, man, that would be it. Like that would have been your jam. You could have built some incredible buildings or been part of those projects or whatever. But when you know that I need to actually shift away from it, sounds like freedom is a big thing to you as well. Which as entrepreneurs, we can. That’s one of the F words we can use freedom.

Along with some of the other ones, cause sometimes it can get really, really tough, but if there’s that deep purpose inside of us, no matter what shit’s happening, we can go through it. So you had said 12 years that you were there. You also said, I realized after three, we can’t just skip past all those other years because I want to, I want to hone in on that a little bit because there are people that we talk to as clients as part of choose your calling and people that I talked to on the podcast and even just people I

run into and shoot the shit with where they’re like, man, I’ve been doing this thing for X amount of years. I’ve been doing it for so long. I don’t know how to get out of it. Or I feel like I’m supposed to do this thing. And then they just do this. And sometimes it takes people years and years and years because of that just linear thinking when it comes to how time is. So it can be really easy for us to look back at his history or historical data and go, well this happened. And then 10 years later, this thing happened.

Fuck, there’s a lot of shit that happened within 10 years. So talk to us about what you would actually walk, went through and walk through from your vision now, looking back at that and going those eight, nine, whatever amount of years there was where you were like, well I needed to go through more of that because that actually set me up better because I’m sure you, you and I could both agree that if you jumped at year four, even you wouldn’t be where you’re at now. There was more stuff for you to go through and work through.

Dan Flores (16:49.469)
Right.

Nick (16:52.718)
But if I gave you the choice back then, like, hey man, you can get out and shit might be a little rough, or you’re gonna get out and shit will be a little rough, but at least you’ll be better suited for it. You’d be like, well, fuck it, I went out now. Most people would, but you didn’t. And you work through all those things. So what were some of those key, I guess, lessons and really things you can look back at and be like, damn, I needed to work through that because here’s where I’m at now.

Dan Flores (17:15.485)
Yeah, when I was in construction, I was something I like to call a floater. so I started when I graduated the semester before I graduated, I had my internship and I was kind of my foot through the door. So I stayed with that company that I entered with, stayed with them for about two to three years. Really had a bad experience with them towards the end, because just the direction the company was going, I didn’t really agree with and.

And in my opinion, it wasn’t the most ethical things that they’ve done. Right. So especially for their employees. And I’m very big on the employees being a big part of the business. You know, so even though I was on the management team, I was I was kind of on their team, So what I mean by a floater is I worked for about five different construction companies. So I left that one to work for another company. Did that. We did site work a lot of.

road work, bridges, just a lot of construction, like transportation work. OK, so that was great. Got laid off from that because the company started to lose a few projects. So they laid a few people off, transitioned into a general contractor. OK, which because up to that point, I was only working for subcontractors working for a general contractor, which.

Nick (18:34.328)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Flores (18:36.637)
was not fun because I’m the type of person where I like to move around. I can’t just stay in sitting in a desk and looking at a computer all day. And that’s unfortunately a lot of that a lot of general contractors. That’s what their their PMs and their superintendents do. So they didn’t really like that position. Left that for it. Just the point I’m getting across is that I just I could never be happy. It’s like no matter what job I transition into or what company I work for, I just couldn’t be happy. So I’m just sitting there. I’m like, man.

Like what’s going on? Is it just me or is that or am I just in the wrong industry? Like what’s happening here? So over time, one of my birthdays was coming up and my brother got me my first ever entrepreneurial book. I wasn’t much of a reader. I hated reading books in school and those are really the only books I ever read. So I just, hate reading in general. But when he got me this book, I was maybe about somewhere in my late twenties. Okay. I was working for about the third construction company at that time.

Nick (19:08.312)
the

Dan Flores (19:35.642)
He bought me this book, The Tenant Show by Grant Cardone. You might have heard heard about that. So. I kind of tossed it to the side in the beginning, I’m like, all right, whatever, it’s just a book, whatever. But a few months later, I was just picked it up, read the first two pages. That’s where it started. And I was like, I like what I was reading. was like, OK, I’ll read two more pages and then two more pages. And then I ended up reading the book. And that book is kind of was sparked. That entrepreneur that that.

I described that burning desire earlier, right? So now I kind of know where to focus that on. And I’m thinking, well, maybe I should get into entrepreneurial ship, but I was still in construction. I didn’t really know how to get entrepreneurial ship. Even though I was reading these books. So from books, I went to podcasts and networking events and stuff like that. Still working in construction. Okay. But I just, I wasn’t happy there. I wasn’t happy no matter what company I went in. And here’s the thing, construction is a rough industry.

You know, you got, got to have a thick skin when you’re working that industry. There’s a lot of stuff that goes wrong. Everything’s your fault. You know, I’m in the management department, so everything’s going to be my fault, right? Cause I’m running the, I’m running the projects, individual project. There’s a lot of time away from your family. There’s a lot of early mornings at a lot of late nights. And I felt like I had no control of my life, you know, and it goes back to, this what all I’m destined for just to just be here? Did that’s it? so.

Once I read that first book and I started reading other books, that’s where I started making the transition and kind of exploring a little bit more into entrepreneurship. Got, went into networking events, started to meet people that aligned more with the person I wanted to be. That’s where that kind of transition happened.

Nick (21:22.154)
It’s so cool once you start down a path, no matter how you start it, whatever you start off with. I feel like part of that is like an external calling to us of like, hey, check this thing out. And it’s on us to be able to answer that call, do something with it. Start to read a page or two pages as you said, and then read another two pages, go try this, try that. But if we get back to the thing where you were unhappy, I think that’s a core thing that a lot of people can skip past.

because they can go, I’m unhappy because, and they rattle off whatever excuses. Instead of actually going deeper and say, well, the unhappiness is just an emotion, just a learning you there’s something here. You may be unhappy because your boss is a douchebag, maybe. That might be a real thing. You might be unhappy because you’re just not being fulfilled and you’re not feeling like you’re doing the thing you’re here to do.

And sometimes the next thing that you get into will not be the thing you’re here to do. Sometimes it’s the next four or five things. It’ll take you a while to be able to get to that point. But even just taking that first step and saying, all right, I’m unhappy, but why am I unhappy? What do I do with this? I appreciate that you look toward entrepreneurship. I feel like a lot of people look to be an entrepreneur, especially around the pandemic in 2020. Everybody was kind of shut out or.

close out of the business they were working in and they were like, well, fuck, I see people on social media that make billions of dollars, selling whatever thing and being a coach about whatever and whatever and I want to try that thing. And a lot of people got into it. I think it was the most people in 2020 that started a business. And then 21, there was like a 4 % increase on top of that. But that 20 from 19 to 20, I think was like a 40 % increase or something crazy like that where a lot of people just jumped into it. A lot of people also jumped out of it.

Because that wasn’t really the thing. They’re trying to just jump from thing to thing to thing instead of getting back to the basic of it go, well, why the fuck am I unhappy? What would be fulfilling to me? What’s the thing that I can look at? So you had mentioned even as a younger kid that there was something inside of you that was already there. There was some sort of spark. So let’s talk about that because that’s the core component to it. That actual spark, not you having a business or you being in construction or any of that.

Nick (23:42.602)
If we remove all those things and be agnostic to it, it’s realizing that there’s that spark in there and being curious about it. So what was your curiosity like toward that spark?

Dan Flores (23:52.856)
Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, the spark really came from everything my parents sacrificed. And I think a big part of that, I think a reason why it’s always been inside of me is because I come from a hardworking family. My parents work ethic is like no other, grandparents work ethics like no other. So to some extent, I kind of feel like it’s a little bit genetic. But I go back to everything they sacrificed. I lost my grandparents a few years ago. And I had

Nick (24:12.312)
Hmm.

Dan Flores (24:21.824)
a great time with them. But often I wonder, what if they never came here? You what would my life be like? You know, what would my what my mom had to stop working, which would only leave one person working. And we wouldn’t be in the house where we live. Maybe we would have been somewhere somewhere smaller, rougher neighborhood. Right. So that spark really just when this just came from everything they sacrificed for me and my brother, you know, and I grew up.

You know, my my dad didn’t even have a car when he was working these these jobs. You know, he would either ride with a co worker or he would walk. You know, at times it was snowing and he would walk to work. My mom’s days days off, she would take me and my brother to school and take care of the house. And she was getting sick, too, because my mom gets sick very easily when it’s cold out. So it was there were there were a lot of constraints. So I thank God that my grandparents were in the picture because they really

put a lot of pressure off of my parents for sure. But it always comes down to, listen, everything they sacrificed, they left their families. I mean, I can’t imagine leaving my family. can’t imagine having a kid and leaving him at six months old for three years. I can’t imagine that, right? I will never, although I understand the journey they went through, I can never fully empathize with it because I don’t know what that’s like. I never had to my kid.

Nick (25:21.528)
Yeah.

Nick (25:34.958)
Jeez. Yeah.

Nick (25:46.744)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Flores (25:49.353)
You know, so I feel like I have to do them justice, you know, and my brother feels the same way. You know, my parents carry this torch for as long as they could. Now it’s up to me and my brother to carry it the rest of the way. You know.

Nick (26:04.78)
Hmm. Yeah, and there’s really no rest of the way like there’s no end to it. You know, if you and your brother both go off and have children and that continues great. But honestly, man, it might even just be people you talk to. There might be somebody that listens to this podcast that they continue to carry that torch because of the work that you’re doing. Because of the stuff that has happened, even just a realization of like, man, yeah, leaving your kid at six months and then showing up a couple years later and

Dan Flores (26:10.203)
Of course, yeah.

Nick (26:34.316)
Like that’s got to be super tough. But at that point, it sounded like that was the decision to be made. And that’s huge. You then also get to make your own decisions and figure out how you want to impact and show up. And that support system is a huge component to it. I love being able to talk with people about whatever support system you have, whatever it looks like, even if it’s small or some massive support system, being able to see it for what it is, because sometimes that support system

is not really a support system. Sometimes it’s just, you know, people that are close to you and they’re like, well, my parents have told me this or my siblings or my friends have told me this. And it’s like, well, that’s not really support. It sounds like what you got was support and love that actually helped you propel a bit. But there were different things that happened just like everybody has ups and downs and all that sort of stuff. Were there any like key moments that you can look back at? Maybe one specifically where you’re like, man,

being here in the States, this actually really shifted everything that I was thinking. And you can look back at and say, put you on the trajectory that you’re on right now.

Dan Flores (27:42.191)
Yeah, I think when I graduated high school and I was trying to transition into whatever it is I was going to transition into, at the moment I didn’t know what that would be, my parents were really there to help support me and help me make a decision. And they were there to tell me, listen, if you don’t know what you want to do right now, that’s OK. I kind of felt like I was letting them down. It’s like they did all this stuff and I don’t even know where I want to carry this torch to.

You know, so having my parents, my grandparents were still alive at the time. So having them there with me and we kind of went through that journey together. The reason I chose construction was because when I was when I was little, I always used to help my dad renovate the houses. So I would always have like the little hammer and it would just be a good way for us to bond together. And I was always with them. My grandfather was there as well. So it really be a good bonding experience. That’s a memory that I really, really cherish.

Nick (28:30.318)
Yeah.

Dan Flores (28:37.486)
Because unfortunately, we might have some listeners where they might have lost their dad. You know, they didn’t grow up with a father figure or the grandfather or they might have lost their son or something like that. Right. So when you have those moments with the people that you love and you have that support system, it’s really, really important to treasure it because you never know when it’s going to be the last time you’re going to see them. You know, so it’s it’s they really helped me, especially maneuvering into what I was going to be that the man I was going to become.

they were definitely there to help me with that.

Nick (29:09.4)
Yeah, that loving piece is a major part of that. I was actually talking with somebody recently where certain people will spew out, like let’s say on social media or even just in a group, they’re like, my God, it’s Mother’s Day. If your mom’s around, you should absolutely go see her. It’s Father’s Day. If your dad’s around, you should go see her. It’s like, you also have to keep in mind context because if it’s safe, you should go see them. If it’s not safe, you should not.

like just black and white in that sort of way. even for you, knowing that you had that love with them that you can cherish, some people may not have that, but they may have that with other people. Or there are people that became part of another family through a friend in high school or something like that. And that became more of their family or even people that their family is really just friends that they’ve accumulated over the course of time. Like it just happens. You can have…

family in different ways, but that loving support is a core piece to it. And not just like, you have to do it because they’re your parents, like, that’s cool. They brought you into this planet. But that’s about all if they do more than that. And it’s great, cool. But you then get to decide how you want to go about that. I love that you had that love and that they did what they did. I’m right there with you too. Like I, I don’t have any kids. So I can’t imagine what that’s like to leave your kid but to leave a six month old go away like

They must have really put a lot into that. And then for them to be able to do it. And here we are years and years later having these conversations. We can’t skip past that shit. That was, that must’ve been super difficult for them, but you’ve gone through a lot. You’ve worked through a lot. So in that sort of vibe, what, what’s that piece of advice you’d give to somebody that’s on their path towards self mastery?

Dan Flores (30:55.989)
Yeah, the one thing I would say, and I touched on this a little earlier, is I found out that living each day like it was your last is a good way to cherish each day on its own, right? Because we’re so busy in our day. We have kids, we have businesses, we have spouses, we’re all over the place throughout the day. very, not too often do we actually sit down and reflect on what we’re grateful for, right? We’re always like, I’ll just do it tomorrow. I’ll do it tomorrow, right?

We live life like we have unlimited days and that’s simply not true. Right. If you’re able to, I want you just the audience that’s listening, I want you to just picture the perfect day. All right. You know, you got a 10 out of 10 in your fitness and your nutrition, spending time with your family, your business, you just you attack your day, you put all your heart and soul into it. You followed your call and you spoke your truth and you just had a 10 out of 10 day. I mean, that to me is a win. Right. But very few people can do that because typically people

will focus on one area in their life. Like they might focus on business, but they might not be there for the families. They might focus on fitness, but they’re not eating right. Right. So, holistically, I would say if you focus on each day separately on its own, just focus on that one day, how can I get a 10 out of 10 in this day? How can I put all my love and care into this day and take that with you? It will allow you to cherish each day so much more. I started to implement this about two years ago into my life.

And once I did that, can’t honestly can’t. mean, things happen, right? Things happen all the time, but I can’t remember be having a totally bad day. You know, because for me, there is no tomorrow. There’s only today. That’s the only thing I’m worried about, right? Because the way you show up today is are you going to show up tomorrow? So I can’t sit here and plan for a 10 out of 10 day tomorrow if I don’t get a 10 out of 10 day today. You know, it’s just it’s a snowball effect, right? You you carry those wins into tomorrow and that will prepare you to have a better day tomorrow.

Nick (32:34.274)
Yeah.

Nick (32:38.615)
Yeah.

Nick (32:46.176)
Yeah.

Nick (32:52.426)
I even if we break that down a little bit more to a macro level, there’s really no day. This is all just string, a string of moments. Like even with people that are like, well, it’s today’s Thursday. Cool. It’s really not. It’s just another day. It’s just a string of moments. Like even the concept of a weekend is really bullshit. Like when you think about it, it goes back to Ford being like, yeah, exactly. But it’s all, it’s each and every moment and being present in those moments and being thankful. And

Dan Flores (33:06.826)
Ha

Dan Flores (33:13.635)
Time’s an illusion.

Nick (33:22.1)
I get what you’re saying, like reading in between the lines of it. It’s not just like the bullshit gratitude of like, well, I’m grateful for all these things. It’s like, really, you gotta feel it. You gotta understand like, I’m really actually pleased and thankful for this and being here in the moment. Just like having conversation with people and not listening to say the next thing after that, but listening to go, all right, I’m here, I’m here with you. You know, and I…

That’s part of the reason why I love this platform is because it’s literally just you and I right now Yes, it is the audience is gonna listen to this but this isn’t live They’ll listen to it in a month or whenever it comes out So us being able to be in this moment string these times together and this has been great I appreciate you being on today before I let you go. Where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

Dan Flores (34:09.404)
Yeah, so the best way to find me and connect with me is on Instagram. So my Instagram handle is DanFluarezLifestyle. So just shoot me a DM. If there’s anything I I talked about that you want to touch more base of, if you want to get to know me a little bit better, if you want to work with me in the future, just shoot me a DM. I’d be more than happy to connect with you.

Nick (34:26.08)
Awesome. Dan, it’s been great having you on today. Thank you so much.

Dan Flores (34:28.795)
Thank you. Take it easy.

In this episode, Nick speaks with Cecile Tucker about the complexities of trauma, exploring its various forms and impacts on individuals. They discuss the importance of understanding trauma beyond major life events, the daily chaos that can contribute to trauma, and the significance of experiential counseling in bridging the gap between awareness and action. Cecile emphasizes the need for reprogramming the subconscious to heal trauma, the effects of generational trauma, and the importance of integration in applying learned insights.

What to listen for:

“Trauma is just being in your sympathetic and not being able to step back into the parasympathetic. The difference between trauma and non-trauma is can you choose to flow between, or are you stuck in the sympathetic?”

“When we let go of understanding it and we simply work with what is, our body helps us transform that trauma when we give it the space to do so.”

“When each person heals, we reach this point where we then want to help others heal. The healthier we become, the healthier our communities become, our systems become.”

About Cecile Tucker

Cecile Tucker is not just a trauma clinician but also the proud owner of WellMind Counselling, a trauma counseling agency. Cecile is passionate and somewhat nerdy about her love for understanding trauma and trauma healing. She aims to equip others with the tools and insights needed to navigate the complexities of trauma care, both for themselves and others.

Resources:

Check out these other episodes about trauma.

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!

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

Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]

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

Nick (00:01.257)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show, we have Cecile Tucker. Cecile, how you doing today?

Cecile (she/her) (00:11.948)
I’m doing so well. Thanks. How are you doing?

Nick (00:13.417)
I’m good, I’m excited. We’re gonna get into a lot of things about trauma, which those of you who listen to this podcast often know that that’s kind of where most of these things go, because there’s a lot of trauma that is in most people’s lives. One of the things we’re gonna get into is how some people have a lot of trauma just the first fucking thing in the morning. Like they wake up and it’s almost instant trauma. So I’m excited to talk about that stuff, but 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?

Cecile (she/her) (00:18.222)
Yeah.

Cecile (she/her) (00:31.48)
you

Cecile (she/her) (00:42.592)
Mm-hmm. So I am a clinical counselor. So I live up in Canada in BC, so on the West Coast. And I am a trauma counselor and I also own a trauma counseling agency. So Well Mind Counseling is my agency and we’re all trauma clinicians here. So, so excited to talk about trauma because it is my bread and butter and I’m super like passionate about it, like nerdy passionate. So I love whenever I can meet someone. And that would be my fun fact about me. That’s kind of weird or bizarre is.

how excited I am to learn about trauma. Like I recognize that for many people it’s this like heavy, big subject, but I’m so nerdy about it and I love learning about it and digging into it. I’m like reading these books for fun that are all about like, this is what happens to trauma in your brain and this is how your body is responding and all these pieces that other people are like, what the heck? But I just find it so fascinating to understand that connection between our biology and then our psychology and how those two things feed back and forth and kind of create these

systems or these loops that can be really positive loops that we can use to go on the right track or they can be these loops that kind of dig us deeper and deeper down and that make it more entrenched and more ingrained in our system. So there’s my fun fact.

Nick (01:41.929)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (01:54.844)
So your fun fact is you’re nerdy about your own type of company because people have problems I don’t know if it’s fucked up or not But like you are in great company here because this is this is kind of what we do I mean shit even part of what we do with choose your calling and helping people with their purpose is uncovering trauma Figuring out how trauma and systems and all of that are at play and everything that we do you and I were talking about the trauma factor

Cecile (she/her) (01:59.31)
Yes. Yes, sure.

Love it.

Yeah.

Cecile (she/her) (02:14.765)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (02:23.284)
of just how things happen too quick, too fast, too soon, all at once, everything, and how it can sometimes be the morning for everybody, for like Monday through Friday, getting the kids ready for school or getting up and getting ready and getting dressed and going to do your thing. Remember when I was in my early twenties, I wore it as a little bit of a badge of honor, being like, well, I was hammered the night before. I think I got two hours of sleep. I threw all my clothes on, got into the office and I still did these things. And it’s like, really?

Cecile (she/her) (02:32.407)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (02:51.597)
Yeah.

Nick (02:52.368)
putting your body through so much trauma. But I want to be able to expand on trauma because when we talk about trauma is specifically on this podcast, we talk about a lot of childhood trauma, really tragic, crazy, huge situations that happen like somebody got into an accident or something that was super traumatic. But I think there’s so many layers to it. It’s literally like an onion, like there’s not just one bit of trauma.

Cecile (she/her) (03:04.503)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (03:12.461)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (03:19.154)
but you can see trauma from an outside perspective, you can see trauma from being that person that had it happen to you. So why don’t you give us a little bit of how you see it and how you work with clients about it.

Cecile (she/her) (03:19.757)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (03:31.373)
And I think this is such a great question because so often clients come into my office and they have traumatic responses and they’re asking me like why Cecile I haven’t had trauma because what they think trauma count says is going to war being in a car crash or being sexually assaulted they’re like that is trauma and I haven’t had one of those three and So a lot of the work that I do in the beginning with people is exactly what you’re asking, right? How can we maybe broaden our definition and our understanding of trauma?

so that you can understand why you’re having the responses you do. Because when we have that understanding, it’s actually really helpful to then figure out, what do I want to do next? And so what I often talk about with folks is that in the most basic sense, we have two branches to our nervous system. We have the parasympathetic and we have the sympathetic. And the parasympathetic is this rest and digest, calm down. That’s where we all dream of being all the time. The sympathetic branch is the fight, flight, freeze, fawn response.

Nick (04:05.829)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (04:25.119)
This is when I have to do something in order to protect myself, in order to continue surviving. And I probably have the loosest definition of trauma ever because trauma is just being in your sympathetic and not being able to step back into the parasympathetic. We all go into the sympathetic. That’s normal. The difference between trauma and non-trauma is can you choose to flow between or are you stuck in the sympathetic? So when you’re talking about that morning routine,

Nick (04:28.135)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (04:38.982)
Hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (04:51.821)
People don’t seem to have the ability. They’re stuck in it. It’s happening. It’s go, go, go. And I don’t have the ability to stop, step out of it and move into a calmer place. I am stuck in the sympathetic and we know that that has impacts on our body. We know that has impacts on our psyche. And so when we, I think when we look at trauma from this really broad definition, it allows us to recognize that many things are traumatic. And that doesn’t mean that they have to have a long-term impact, but in that moment it is traumatic for our system.

and do need to treat it as such.

Nick (05:23.182)
be so difficult though, you know, just like any morning, some things can happen. Even if you have to run around, do some errands and stuff like that. And we were talking a little bit before we hit record that often look at the energetics of people, how they relate to things, how they work with things, even the people who are the generators of the world, like we get fresh energy every single day. Our job is to expel all of that energy. There are other people that have to wait literally like two weeks, three weeks, four weeks.

to feel into something and work through things. Then let’s take somebody driving to the office. They get up, they do their morning things, they get on the road, they’re instantly in traffic, they’re dealing with all this shit, they try to get their coffee, it’s too hot or they spill it or all these things are happening and there’s just a lot of overload but we just see it as normal. And then you’ll go into the office and you’ll attack somebody or you’re a kid in high school and you just fought with your parents.

Cecile (she/her) (06:09.005)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (06:13.783)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nick (06:19.78)
or just everybody’s trying to get the fuck out of the house because it’s the morning and then you get into first period and it’s crazy. You go back further, middle school or grade school, all that stuff happens, but we get so used to it from such a younger age. I, did you have, do you have siblings?

Cecile (she/her) (06:26.913)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (06:32.823)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

I do, I one older sister.

Nick (06:39.863)
Okay, cool. I have a brother and a sister, my brother’s five years younger, and my sister’s eight years younger. So we were at vastly different stages at points like I was in high school, the other one was close enough to it. The other one was like basically just getting into grade school. But having us all get out of the house in the morning, I remember there’d be times I’d look around and it would just be like fucking chaos. And then we’d all get into school and the teachers would be like, you need to calm down. We’re getting day started.

Cecile (she/her) (06:48.919)
Yeah, yeah.

Cecile (she/her) (07:01.153)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (07:06.438)
didn’t hit me till my late thirties. Like, wow, that was a lot of trauma that we just really didn’t know how to handle. So to ask people slow down, take a step back in that time where you’re doing these things. Just take a little bit of a step back. I can’t help but think somebody’s thinking like, fuck off. I can’t even. Yeah. Like what do you do at that point?

Cecile (she/her) (07:10.957)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (07:23.332)
Absolutely, yeah, yeah, and here’s the thing. Part of your system craves that. Part of your system wants that because it’s normal. Whatever our system is used to, even if it’s not desirable, our system wants sameness because I know that it’s safe. Even though I might not like my chaotic morning where I spill coffee on myself every day and I’m honking my horn and trying to, you know, I might not like that, but it is what I am used to. And my system says, whether I like it or not, I’m gonna survive it. I know because I’ve done this.

Nick (07:31.173)
the

Cecile (she/her) (07:52.535)
And so what I’m saying, you know, just take a moment and step back. Well, of course you can’t because your system is saying, I don’t know if that option is safe. I don’t know if I can be safe having a slow calm morning where I’m peaceful. I’ve never done it. Is it safe? We think about danger as like going skydiving, but you know what? Having a calm morning is just as dangerous to your system if it’s never had a calm morning before. So it’s really about rewiring our brain and teaching our brain a new definition of safety.

Nick (07:59.586)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (08:06.276)
the

Nick (08:14.532)
Yeah.

Cecile (she/her) (08:21.631)
a new definition of this is okay and we can’t just leap into it. We need to gradually build this ability for our brain to know what safety is. If you have, let’s say, 35 years of your morning being chaotic every morning, it is not gonna be tomorrow that you can be like, and today I am calm and peaceful, right? It takes time because you are literally rewiring your brain. What’s really cool is we know that we can do it. Our brains are plastic. They can rewire, but they don’t rewire overnight.

Nick (08:51.79)
Yeah. And I think about those, those times when you’re working with somebody, you’re kind of in a safe space where you go and talk to me about these things, what’s going on, but you’re not in that heightened space. So sometimes it’s difficult for those people to take what has even been talked about or worked on. And I experienced this in different times with, with some mentoring clients, even just talking with friends at times. They’re like, man, I hear it I get it, but when I’m in that spot, it’s difficult to do. So then

Cecile (she/her) (09:01.72)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (09:07.786)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (09:18.221)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Nick (09:20.078)
bridging that gap, how do you bridge that for people to help them be able to actually take that quick second? Because sometimes, for the most part, it is often just that one little beat where if you just take a pause. But we think all this chaos and all this craziness won’t allow for that pause, where in all reality, that’s the length of the pause, just to be able to pause and take a step back. But it’s different because you can’t

Cecile (she/her) (09:30.167)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (09:45.156)
Like I’ve heard different people talk about like in sports or even as musicians, like you want to practice the way that you would play. You want to go full out. You want to do all of that. They can’t really do that with you in a session where they’re like, well, if my normal morning I’d be throwing shit around cursing like a fucking sailor and do all these things. But how do you then get them to really be able to anchor into it? Sematically so that when they’re in that spot, they go, here we are.

Cecile (she/her) (09:51.382)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (09:57.347)
Mm.

Cecile (she/her) (10:02.925)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (10:06.829)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. I love this question. And so I actually define myself as a counselor, but as an experiential counselor. And what I mean by that is that if you don’t experience something new in my room, you’re not going to go experience something new out there. You have to have the experience here with me when it is safe, when you do have time and space to experience these things. It has to happen here so that you can then go learn how to do it out there. If I just tell you, go do this.

Of course you’re going to come back and be like, I don’t know how Cecile. So I love this question because I do believe that we actually have to create a re-experiencing but a controlled and a safe. And so I like to lean on Peter Levine’s Sabam model. And so Peter Levine says that we have five parts to any experience. We have the sensations that we experience in our body. We have images. This might be an image of like your chaotic morning, or it might be a metaphorical representation of that. So it might be an image that’s metaphorical in nature.

Nick (10:46.456)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (11:06.482)
You have the behaviors, what your body wants to do. I want to hurl things, I want to swear, I want to curse, whatever it is. We have the affect or the emotion that you’re feeling in any given moment, and you have the meaning. What does this mean to me? And so you’re right that we probably can’t recreate all five of those, right? Without being in the car in the urgency of it, we’re not going to recreate all five. What we can do is tune into at least a couple of them. And generally, when we can tune into, okay, I feel a…

Nick (11:24.707)
sure.

Cecile (she/her) (11:35.858)
in my chest and I feel a tension in my shoulders, the affect or the emotion that I’m experiencing is anger and urgency and the behavior that I want to do is I want to push everyone away. I just want to like get rid of everything in my world. If we can tune into that would be three out of the five of the experience. If we can tune into those and then allow your body to move through those in a healthy way, we can actually discharge some of the energy that’s been built up in your system around this trauma.

So if I can have you close your eyes, if I can have you move into this experience and do those pieces in my office while experiencing it to some degree, it’s much more likely that the next morning you now have a bit of a pathway built in your brain that says, here’s how I do this. this is, whoop, and this is what it looks like.

Nick (12:23.201)
Yeah, it’s reprogramming the subconscious. You know, we talk about that often where it’s like the subconscious job is just to keep you alive. That’s it. So anything it’s doing, it’s like, well, this could be crazy shit, you should probably stop because we want to keep you alive. So we’re going to go this route. But being able to reprogram that and work through it, something that I think is really, really important. We can talk all the stuff about doing the work and being able to work through those things and

Cecile (she/her) (12:27.601)
Absolutely.

Cecile (she/her) (12:33.553)
Yes.

Nick (12:52.269)
being able to reframe it in your mind, subconsciously working through those things and getting it into your cells and semantically, but that’s a thing that I think a lot of people will miss out on, that they don’t understand that it’s in your cells. I think of the Bessel van der Kerk, trauma, what is it? Trauma keeps a score or the body keeps a score. Yeah, because it just literally lives in your cells. So in that aspect, what do you do to be able to help people to reprogram their subconscious?

Cecile (she/her) (13:07.514)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (13:12.219)
The body keeps the score, yeah.

Nick (13:21.133)
to get that stuff out of their cells. Do you get into deeper subconscious processing with them?

Cecile (she/her) (13:21.733)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (13:26.348)
Absolutely, I’m gonna add just another layer as well that the trauma might not even be yours potentially. That we know through epigenetic study that you might actually have the generational trauma. So you might be holding someone’s trauma that’s not your own. And you might have all the responses of it, but no cognitive understanding of that trauma. So you might have responses, you might have sensations in the body that you cannot understand at all. And…

Nick (13:31.501)
Ha ha ha. Generational. Yeah.

Cecile (she/her) (13:52.063)
Sometimes people need to understand in order to process that just depends on the individual, but often we can’t. And so often the work is actually accepting that you might never understand it because if it is not your own, if it has been something that you’ve owned and then maybe your own experiences have built onto that, you might never understand it. And I actually believe sometimes it’s fruitless and harmful to search for the why. Sometimes we, you know, if you don’t have access to your ancestors, to your, you know, parents potentially,

Nick (14:02.723)
Hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (14:21.72)
depending on your story, you might not find that and you’re gonna go on this wild goose chase trying to understand it and you never actually can. We can get maybe glimpses little moments but we’ll never understand it. Of course, if someone needs that, that might be what they need and we can work with that. But when we can actually bypass that, when we can accept that we don’t understand it, that’s huge. When we do that, we can then start to work with what our body is telling us in a metaphorical way.

So for example, someone’s trauma might feel like ice that’s crushing through their chest. We don’t have to understand why it’s ice, why it’s in their chest. We don’t need to understand what led to that. But what we need to do is go, okay, there’s ice in your chest and it’s crushing you. How do we work with this ice in your chest? And I mean that quite literally of can we move into that ice in our chest? Can we start to interact with the ice in the chest? And I come from the belief that our bodies want us to heal and they know how to heal, but our cognitive brain blocks that.

Nick (15:11.48)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (15:20.621)
but

Cecile (she/her) (15:21.057)
It’s like, that’d be stupid to do that. Like, why the hell would I do that? And so we block ourselves. But when we can feel enough safety to move into these sensations, our body tells us what it needs to do. So maybe we start working with that ice and maybe for one person it’s about turning that ice into something beautiful and they transform it. Or maybe one person it’s about melting the ice away. One person burns it. And I’m actually still being quite literal with my metaphor of ice. It doesn’t even have to be as literal as I’ve made it.

Nick (15:40.067)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (15:48.546)
But when we let go of understanding it and we simply work with what is, our body helps us transform that trauma when we give it the space to do so.

Nick (15:58.371)
It’s, an interesting thing to think about. There are a lot of people that really want to know the answer of things like they’re those informational type people. Then there are others like, I need to understand the why. And if I understand the why enough, then I don’t need the rest of the details. Like, that’s fine. I’ll just move along. Understanding how that person is how they look at things, and helping him get to that could be easier or harder, whatever, whatever that situation is. But generational trauma is a thing.

Cecile (she/her) (16:04.51)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (16:13.505)
Sure. Yeah.

Cecile (she/her) (16:23.703)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (16:26.005)
And I’m glad you took it right from there because I’m talking about it being in your cells. And you’re like, well, let me take it even fucking further back because not only is it in our cells, but it’s been passed along to us. I had an experience that I think a lot of people, if they, if they can go down this path could and should, we’re understanding how we were brought into this world and what the context of and how our parents were at that moment and what was going on. I did some processing maybe a year and a half ago.

Cecile (she/her) (16:33.173)
Yeah, yeah.

Cecile (she/her) (16:49.482)
Yup. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nick (16:56.158)
And it was specifically about getting back to being pretty much an embryo and being in the womb and then understanding what was going on. And then I was challenged by the coach I was working with to then go ask my mom. My parents are still alive. They were never together. It was basically like they went out to a party nine months later. Here I came. So there was nothing there, but there was a bunch of strife and just craziness that was going on. So then I asked my mom, like, how was life when

Cecile (she/her) (17:01.77)
Yeah.

Cecile (she/her) (17:15.658)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Nick (17:25.556)
when you were pregnant with me. And it was traumatic. So all of that lived within her cells. Even her mom pushed her away and all this other stuff and like all these things were then forced into her, literally fed to me. And then I came out and it was more trauma. But that’s not something we can do anything with. So to understand those things can be helpful, but to understand like you’re saying,

Cecile (she/her) (17:36.788)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (17:52.628)
We don’t actually have any parts of that. It’s like understanding that anything that happened to you wasn’t your fault, but you get to do something with it.

Cecile (she/her) (17:58.997)
I wanna see if I can take it back though, cause that’s a great example, but the egg that you were born into, so the embryo that your mom was carrying, that was actually developed in your grandma. So your grandma was carrying your mom while that embryo was being developed that then became you. So what was happening for grandma, right? Like that’s how far back we need to take it.

Nick (18:19.528)
even worse shit.

Cecile (she/her) (18:21.427)
Right? Exactly. And I think that we look at our present day life and we go like, hey, things aren’t so bad for us. Like, even when I was born and whatever year it was, like, the world wasn’t too bad a place. Yeah, but the embryo that you were conceived in was conceived when grandma was pregnant with mom, right? And so we do need to go far back. And that’s where you’re right. We often can’t understand. Like, that’s what I mean, that it’s…

Nick (18:31.551)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Cecile (she/her) (18:44.6)
fruitless and a lot of ways to search for that. That we might have the answers to like, what was happening for grandma at the time when mom, that she was pregnant with mom and how did that impact mom’s biology, who then all the way to me. But what we can do is we can work with what your body knows. We can work with the responses that your body is holding to help your body learn that it is safe now. That regardless of the strife, regardless of what might be happening for those people, your body is now safe. And we can teach it these pieces.

Nick (18:48.416)
Hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (19:14.014)
but we can’t do that cognitively. I can’t tell you you’re safe because it wasn’t you who questioned if you were safe. Your mom was questioning, am I safe because my mom just pushed me away and I’m pregnant with this kid and how am gonna pay the bills and blah, blah, You’re actually healing mom’s trauma in your body. So you can’t do it cognitively because you’re not cognitively holding onto that unsafety. It’s your body that’s holding the unsafety.

Nick (19:37.31)
I want to keep going a little further back with this because this is something I’ve been having a lot of conversations with, some on the podcast, but some with clients and some with some specific groups that I’m part of, systemic issues. If we really go back a few generations, there were some really, really difficult things. We’ll run with the mom thing for right now. My mom was a tiny little redhead who got her ass kicked a bunch of times, got in fights and all of that because she was Irish.

Cecile (she/her) (19:40.339)
Yeah!

Cecile (she/her) (19:49.788)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (19:58.355)
Sure, yeah.

Nick (20:05.822)
when she would get into fights with Italians or black people. And all of those had trauma that goes back specifically here in the States when people got here in a port and they were all told, well, you go this way, you go that way. There’s racism, there’s segmentation, there are all these things. And we have to keep going back and back and back and back and back. But I wonder what’s there with that. We’re like, yeah, I hear you. And I’m right there with you. like, we can’t really

Cecile (she/her) (20:06.02)
Hmm… Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (20:28.263)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (20:35.008)
fucking do anything about that. But we can do something with what we have now. Like you can only be responsible for yourself, only hold yourself accountable. But how do we then go back and actually break those things so that anything going forward isn’t actually perpetuated? And you can change that where even if I don’t know, let’s let’s say you want to have kids in 1015 years, your parents may have been great, your grandparents may have been great, but their parents before them.

Cecile (she/her) (20:37.638)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Sure.

Cecile (she/her) (20:59.706)
Sure.

Nick (21:03.456)
may have just gotten to the country, or there have been different things that happened to them, that’s still going through your body. So at some point, can we actually break that chain of trauma? And can you be that person that does that? Or is it just almost like how genetics will break off and break off and break off and break off and break off and you get like a diluted version of it? Are we just then hoping for delusion? Or, you know,

Cecile (she/her) (21:11.247)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (21:16.271)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (21:28.069)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (21:32.4)
Mm-hmm. That’s such a great question. I don’t have an answer, right? Because, yeah, yeah, because I think that it’s so, you’re right, when is it? And I like how you’re talking about it dilution, because that’s often how I think about it, of how much can I dilute for the next person? And how can I also spread that dilution outside of myself, outside of my family? And so for example, in the work that I’m doing, can I support people in doing that for themselves?

Nick (21:36.628)
Yeah, I don’t expect you to have an answer. This is a conversation.

Nick (21:54.269)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (21:58.883)
Because I think when each person heals, we reach this point where we then want to help others heal. I’ve noticed that in everyone, that when we heal, we then want to help others heal as well. In whatever way that might mean or look like for the individual, I believe we have a purpose or a drive to support and to help other people. And the healthier we become, the healthier our communities become, our systems become, and it bleeds in a fantastic way, it spreads. So I think for me, it’s also knowing that…

I might not be able to do all that healing for my family, like my generations, my lines, but can I do a little bit for the person next to me who in turn is going to do that back for me? And it goes around creating more safety because as we heal, now we’re also dismantling structures that are creating harm and perpetuating more oppression and harm to other people. So we can spread it more broadly so that then the next generation, if we shifted the systems that are causing harm, they might not have to live under those systems. And now they might be able to heal.

more deeply because they don’t have to, you know, as you were talking about like the morning routine, something that was coming up for me was capitalism. Well, of course you have to rush to work because we live in a capitalistic society and you have to earn. So can we shift these systems that are actually perpetuating this trauma so that then as we shift those systems, well, now I don’t have to rush to work because maybe I, maybe all of us in like this ideal utopia, we can live for purpose and we don’t have to worry about what time we get there. It’s more how can I live from this place of purpose, right?

Nick (23:26.022)
there’s so many pieces of that when we look at the systems of it and all. I’ve had a conversation and I think I brought this up on some podcast episodes. It’s happened recently where somebody was so proud and excited that they were like, I wake up at four o’clock in the morning now. And I have hours to do things before the rest of the world is awake and before like light even comes up. And I learned that from this group. And then the guy turned it to me and was like, what time do you get up? And I was like, well, I’ll often go to bed, maybe about an hour before you wake up. And then I’ll wake up like,

Cecile (she/her) (23:27.885)
Yeah.

Cecile (she/her) (23:53.811)
Right. Yeah.

Nick (23:55.26)
10ish because that’s how I operate. That’s how my energetics work. But that took me a bit. Literally, I had to have a conversation with my partner where she’s like, you’re a grown ass man. We own a business. You do what feels right for you. And I remember being like, what do you mean? But the systems of the world told me I have to be on fucking meetings at nine o’clock in the morning. And I’m like, OK. But I think we the collective we the people who are doing the work now.

Cecile (she/her) (24:15.925)
Yes, yes.

Nick (24:23.58)
are making those changes were also an example of what you’re talking about. Where that change has happened, if you think about parents, parents that became parents in the 80s, there was a shift that happened because their parents became parents in the 50s or 60s. And then the 80s happened and now there are kids from the 80s that had kids in the early 2000s, 2010s.

Cecile (she/her) (24:27.628)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (24:50.052)
And those kids are then going to make changes in the thirties and forties, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So we’re seeing these like chunks, but it’s hard to not want to help and change everything like now, you know, and kind of fix it all.

Cecile (she/her) (24:54.646)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (25:04.469)
But I think, you know, I have to say, think you are by fighting and waking up at 10 a.m. because that’s what works for you. I know it seems, think we all, myself included, have these grandiose ideas of how we’re gonna create change, but you saying I wake up at 10 because that’s the time that works best for my system is so permission giving. And now who are you in the world that would be different than the 6 a.m. wake or upper, right? I think who you are, I’m gonna take some guesses.

Nick (25:08.742)
Yeah.

Cecile (she/her) (25:30.512)
is probably a more compassionate person, you’re probably more patient, you’re probably more giving, simply from giving yourself permission and working through that resistance that you had. Cause your system said, I will be more accepted, I will belong if I wake up at 9 a.m. That’s what I’m supposed to do. Or sorry, if I wake up at six, so can be ready for nine, whatever. I’ll fit in better, I’ll belong more, I’ll be safer if I follow social conventions. And you said, I’m gonna test that, I’m gonna see if that’s true for me. Can I be just as safe waking up at 10 a.m. and starting my day at?

Nick (25:37.062)
Yeah.

Cecile (she/her) (26:00.284)
noon or whatever time you really get going. That work that you did to be able to push through that to then go out and live a life that hopefully feels more authentic, more aligned, you’re less likely to traumatize other people because you are taking care of yourself. And so I know it seems like a small shift, but I just think of all the ripples that those small shifts create for us and then how we show up in the world differently and create ripples for others who are creating ripples that are creating ripples and how that can all build

Nick (26:11.743)
yeah.

Cecile (she/her) (26:29.865)
that we don’t have to change the world. We wake up at 10 a.m. instead, and that is making that shift.

Nick (26:35.738)
Yeah, and it ties into purpose. You know, I talk about purpose so many times with people and when we get into conversations with clients that are trying to figure out what is my purpose, what am I supposed to do on this planet, when you actually get into conversation about purpose for the most part, they think it has to be Walt Disney level, Steve Jobs level, something like that where it’s like this big, huge thing. Like if they’re not Oprah, if they’re not Steve Jobs, what’s the point? And really your purpose can be as

Cecile (she/her) (26:39.56)
Yeah.

Cecile (she/her) (27:02.579)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (27:04.996)
huge as just being the best person that you can be in your community, making those small shifts and stuff like that. I also really nerd out about the shit similarly to like you do where like I like to test myself and feel it and understand like, well, why I feel weird like the first two weeks of doing it. I was like, this is strange and I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but I feel better. And I’m also really deeply confused. Let me do the work. Let me understand it. And I get that that

Cecile (she/her) (27:30.023)
Yeah, yes, yeah.

Nick (27:34.192)
We as people will do what we can based on systems, but we don’t understand that we’re then trying to buck the system most times, but we don’t know how to do it because we’re stuck in that system. So then we’re back to basic trauma with people, the traumas that happen throughout the day that we just consider to be normal. So when you’re working with clients and they’re like, look, I go through all these things and I haven’t hit, you know, I’ve been raped and I haven’t had a crazy car accident, like.

Cecile (she/her) (27:49.015)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nick (28:03.664)
Haven’t watched 18 people die in front of me or whatever really traumatic situation. But when they have that realization, what do you do with them from that point to help them solidify it? When it’s like, well, these things, these small things that are traumatic can really compound and become a deeper thing. And once they’re aware of that, as we talked about with the self-awareness before, like that aha moment, how do you then solidify that with them and help them to be able to move from there in a healthy way without driving themselves crazy?

Cecile (she/her) (28:07.42)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (28:21.382)
Mm.

Cecile (she/her) (28:33.08)
Mm-hmm. Well, I often think about trauma as really broadly having three phases of of trauma work First is safety building and awareness. So that’s really what we’ve been talking about Like how do I build the awareness that maybe I have been traumatized. Maybe these things are impacting me. Maybe I am struggling Maybe it’s not about my boss and maybe it’s actually about this deep childhood stuff and my boss reminds me of this right building the awareness is phase one

Nick (28:55.676)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (29:01.306)
Phase two is the processing, is where we’ve kind of alluded to of moving into our system and allowing our sympathetic nervous system to learn that we’re safe so that we can return to the parasympathetic. And then the last phase is what we call integration, which is I think what you’re now talking about, which is how do I integrate and take all of this learning and apply it? And what I find most fascinating about integration is that it happens naturally if you remove the blocks that stop people from doing it. So

When we are in a place where we can integrate, where we have enough safety, we try things, we figure it out, we keep doing, we learn what feels right for us and we trust that, we listen to that. What tends to happen though is people go, I’m gonna use yours, it’s such a simple example and such a great one. What would be right for me is sleeping until 10 a.m. And then we go, no, I’m not allowed. And we push it down. And it’s not about teaching you that you needed to sleep until 10. Your system knew that. It’s about removing the block.

Nick (29:46.971)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (29:55.577)
that says I’m not allowed to do that or I’ll be bad or I won’t be cared for. Whatever stories you were telling yourself, the integration phase once we’ve worked through the trauma is about pulling those blocks back to say, well, I’m safe enough to try. I can at least do it for a couple of weeks and I can sit with the confusion messiness of all this of, my gosh, am I okay? What’s happening? People are judging me. Can I sit with those feelings? Is there enough safety to sit with it to see what happens? So I think

The simple answer is that I think in integration, it’s more about allowing ourselves to do it, that we know what to do, but how do we stop ourselves? How do we stop what stops us from doing what our system already knows that it wants to do?

Nick (30:37.601)
Yeah. I appreciate you kind of recapping that we’ve organically moved through that. So thank you for recapping that for people because we have to go through those pieces to then to be able to integrate. And sometimes, sometimes you kind of have to just fuck around and find out, like try it. And if it doesn’t work, okay, move along and try something else. It’s, but that ties into something else. People have a fear of failure and people also have a fear of success. Like, well, what if I do it and it’s successful?

Cecile (she/her) (30:43.699)
Right, yeah.

Cecile (she/her) (30:54.177)
Absolutely.

Cecile (she/her) (31:02.371)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (31:05.805)
There are times where I have conversations with people and they go, well, what if I do this and everything has to change? It’s like, well, yeah, fuck that’s heavy, but what if? And, just being able to sit with that. And even at that point to go, well, what if, okay, well, what if? And then being able to move in that direction. There’s, yeah.

Cecile (she/her) (31:15.427)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cecile (she/her) (31:26.102)
And I would say, if I can jump in there, I would say that if you can’t try, if you can’t give it a go, if it’s truly so debilitating, then you probably need to go back and do a little bit more trauma processing. Because if the fear of, let’s say, failure is so strong that I’m not even willing to try, my guess is that there’s some underlying pieces that we still haven’t figured out. So that’s where I’m talking about, like if you’re truly stuck and you cannot move out, that’s trauma. Let’s do some processing. Because when you’re in that integration stage,

It should be scary, it should be hard, but it shouldn’t be impossible. And if it’s at that impossible, it just means we missed something. And we’re also kind of making it seem like it’s like a linear you go through once you’re done. The reality is when you do it one time, you know how deeper access to doing it a second time and deeper access to doing it the hundredth time, the 200th time. The more that you process and integrate, the more that you can build safety process and integrate and round and round we go.

Nick (32:03.769)
Not at all.

Nick (32:19.639)
You literally just took the next thing I was going to say was so many people will think, well, I’ve done this. Like, I’ve had conversations with clients where they’re like, look, I’ve talked to people before I’ve done therapy. It’s like, cool. We’ve been talking since we were little kids. Like this is fucking how this is, but that’s, that’s one piece of it. That’s oftentimes just the step to get you into other modalities. Like I’ve said to different people, that I knew weren’t ready, but like just testing the waters with them.

Cecile (she/her) (32:22.553)
Yeah.

Cecile (she/her) (32:33.249)
Yeah, I’m at once, I’m done! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Nick (32:49.421)
Like, well, I do subconscious processing sessions that can range from two to four or five hours long. And at the end of that, I’ll schedule another session in a few weeks. And they’ll look at me like, what the fuck? Like, I couldn’t even imagine doing that. Other people like you, you’re like, great, beautiful. How did the 10 sessions go with that? And what did you learn from that? Because the more that we do, the more that we’re able to do. And the more that we do, the more that we understand, like even getting into subconscious processing sessions.

Cecile (she/her) (32:56.096)
Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (33:02.182)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (33:10.272)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (33:17.856)
I know I’ve done this personally where I’m like, this is the thing I want to talk about. You get in and you’re like, how the fuck did we get all the way over here? And it’s something totally different because we need to work through it and need to do all of that. Let’s tie this up though. So for the people that are on their path towards self mastery, what sort of advice would you give them as they start to really, or they want to continue to dive deeper into their trauma?

Cecile (she/her) (33:31.22)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cecile (she/her) (33:42.535)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Lots of different thoughts, but based on our conversation today, I would say understand where you’re at in the process because what you do in each step is different. I can’t remember the URL, but I actually have a quiz that can help you identify which stage you’re in if you’re not sure. If you go to my website, wellmind.ca, it’s on there somewhere. Can’t be too hard to find, I’m sure. Because if you know what stage you’re at, you can do the appropriate work.

So if you’re at the building awareness, what you’re gonna be wanting to do is understanding, where did my trauma come from? Don’t try and understand the trauma, don’t get too into it, but like, how are these things connected and how might I be impacted by the generations before me? If you’re in the processing, then it is going to be those pieces that you’re talking about. When you’re ready for it, when you have enough safety, can I start to move into them and can I move through them? And then if you’re in the integration, it becomes, how can I challenge myself to try things that my system hasn’t done, so therefore, Deans is like a problem.

but I actually recognize cognitively that I probably can give it a try and see what happens. So identify what stage you’re at and then match what you’re trying to do to that. Because if you’re still in the building awareness and you’re like, have to have this strict routine and try these things, but your system truly is stuck in the sympathetic, it’s not going to be able to do that and you’re gonna fail over and over again. And then it’s gonna reinforce this message that I’m a failure because I wasn’t able to stick to this routine. But if instead you can recognize,

I’m still in my processing and I need to do more of that. Of course, I’m not able to do this next step. I’m not there yet. I think when we recognize our stage, we build compassion towards that and then we can actually meet our needs in that stage, which helps us move to the next stage sooner and faster.

Nick (35:23.531)
Back to self-awareness with that, being able to be aware. Yeah, for real, always being able to be aware, but also being real and honest with yourself. And I think for the people that are listening to this, if you’re struggling with that, you don’t have to just out yourself to somebody, but out yourself to yourself and say, I am in this spot. Okay, so if I’m in that spot, what do I do from there? How do I do this? And I think this has been a great conversation. We’ve gotten really deep, kind of wide with certain things, but there is the…

Cecile (she/her) (35:26.104)
Always, Yeah.

Nick (35:53.877)
the stretch that you need to go through and also understanding where you are at each phase of it. So I really appreciate that you’ve been on to talk about this stuff. Before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

Cecile (she/her) (36:05.775)
Yeah, so on Instagram and TikTok, at Cecile Tucker Counseling is the best way to find me. And then from there, actually, now that I think about it, there’s a link in bio on those two, a couple of different quizzes that folks can take that help them build that awareness. And then they’re attached to free workbooks that you can download to kind of build some of your awareness, work through some different pieces. So one of them is about what stage of trauma therapy are you at? And then one of them is about understanding how trauma might’ve impacted your relationships and how you respond in relationships because of your trauma.

and little quizzes to help you maybe understand yourself better. So I would say check those out. Go to atceciletuckercounseling. if you are looking for counseling services in certain provinces within Canada, it gets complicated in terms of regulation, but I have a whole team here of awesome therapists and we can be found at wellmind.ca.

Nick (36:51.446)
That’s awesome. Well, it’s been great having you on. I appreciate you spending time with us. Thank you so much.

Cecile (she/her) (36:54.489)
down.

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It’s been great fun.

In this episode, Nick speaks with Rich Vysion, a recording artist who recently came out as an LGBT rapper. They discuss Rich’s journey of self-discovery, the challenges of coming out, and the importance of community and support. Rich shares how music has been a healing outlet for him, especially in relation to his mental health and trauma. The conversation emphasizes the power of vulnerability, the significance of rewriting one’s story, and the importance of self-acceptance and empowerment.

What to listen for:

“I realized that fear of failure, fear of success, and fear of everything was keeping me from pursuing anything fully.”

“I internalized the negative comments about my music and didn’t have the mental capacity at the time to discern that it was probably a projection.”

“It’s a conscious decision to share vulnerability and transparency to help others realize they’re not the only ones struggling.”

About Rich Vysion

Rich Vysion, the conscious rap luminary born in the Bronx and now flourishing in Brooklyn, unveils his latest chapter as a published author, a testament to his unwavering triumph against all odds: How a braggadocious rapper overcame mental health struggles and along the way, created a platform that bridges the gap between music and mental health.

His tracks are cinematically musical—often crafted from orchestral pieces, haunting piano motifs, and ominously entrancing basslines. His thought-provoking artistry has garnered favorable comparisons to Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Common.

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!

[email protected]

Thank you for listening!

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Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]

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

Nick McGowan (00:01.359)
Hello and welcome to The Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show I have Rich Vision. Rich, how you doing, man?

Rich Vysion (00:12.504)
Good, thank you for having me. How are you?

Nick McGowan (00:14.019)
I’m good, yeah, I’m glad that you’re here. I’m stoked for us to be able to talk about trauma, writing, but also mainly music. There’s something, again, mentioned even before we hit record, there’s just a lot when it comes to music that is sometimes really difficult to be able to put into words. And I also know as a musician that it was harder for me to put things into words as a kid, but I could express myself through music and to be able to tie that together with mental health and trauma and all of that.

And it’s just such a beautiful thing that you’re doing. So why don’t you get us started to 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.

Rich Vysion (00:53.132)
Yes, so I am a recording artist. Also, I’m the website maintenance for my family business. My father is the owner of the company. We sell Western Run equipment parts for the stove. And as far as awkward, I wouldn’t say awkward, but I just came out today as a LGBT rapper. So a lot of people don’t know about me yet.

So that’s something that is vulnerable and something that I am, you know, was anxious to share because I’ve been sitting on it for so long, but I feel liberated.

Nick McGowan (01:35.758)
That’s kind of timely and huge. Like congrats for stepping out, stepping into that. I mean, that’s huge. And especially today, like, I guess right before even the podcast. So why don’t we get into that a little bit because there’s, that might be where most of this podcast episode goes. That’s a big thing. That’s a big decision to make. like, talk to us about that.

Rich Vysion (01:38.924)
Yeah, thank you.

Rich Vysion (02:00.33)
Yeah, it was something that I’ve been struggling with behind the scenes for a while. And the thing about it was the reason why I came out yesterday rather than waiting, because to be honest, I wanted to wait until next year to share it amongst people on social media. And I was challenged by my life coach to do something that was

on board or made me stand out. So I’m like, what can I do to make me stand out? Obviously to me, like I’m a performer, so I can’t just be like, you know, perform somewhere because that’s my nature as a performer. I love performing, so that’s easy. So I’m thinking like, what could I do to make me stand out today? I’m like, okay, I’m like, let’s share something that’s vulnerable. I didn’t honestly think I was going to actually do a video about it. I thought I was just going to do like

oppose a little more safer and then call it a day. But I decided to go against that psychology, so to speak. And I said, let me actually be honest and real and let me share this about me that no one knows because I feel like not only will set me free, it will also set other people free who are also struggling, you know, in their sexuality because a lot of people

feel like, you know, they will get judged or it’s found upon upon certain people. So it’s not easy to just be like, Hey, this is what it is. And what I’m getting judged, especially on the internet. so I said, Hey, let me do this for me. Not really chasing after anybody else’s validation because I needed it to set me free. Cause I was even speaking to it, speaking about it to my therapist. like, I’m struggling with this. I’m like,

I don’t know how to go about even telling people. I told him like two people and even that was hard. And just being able to just kind of shout it out to the rooftops is, I don’t know, it made me feel good. Like I did something worth, know, about and sharing because at the end of the day, it’s like, want other people to feel liberated in their truth and work in their power, just like I have.

Nick McGowan (04:22.785)
Yeah, it’s gotta be tough to get to that point. It’s gotta be really tough to get to that point and to feel like you can’t be yourself because of systems, because of different situations or shit, because of how somebody else fucking feels about their own life. That in and of itself sucks, you know, where you’re being held back. And I’m so excited that you feel comfortable to be able to talk about that.

Then you’ve taken that step to actually be able to not not just have the conversation but start to really converse about it. Like even here, you could have held this. You could have. People are going to listen to this. There are thousands of people that listen to this podcast. There are people that are going to know about this and the fact that you’ve done that and you’ve said that and that you are willing to be able to be vulnerable, be uncomfortable. But most importantly, man, fucking being yourself. That’s huge.

I appreciate you sharing that stuff and and and actually actually stepping out to say those things, because there’s so many pieces to it. I’m kind of wondering where do we even start with that? Because when you think of all the stuff that leads up to those really tough decisions to be able to step out and say those things, feel those things, be as authentically you as possible. It can be really difficult for people. So why don’t you share a bit more about that story and like

Rich Vysion (05:23.383)
Cool.

Nick McGowan (05:49.867)
what got you to this point to feel comfortable to be able to talk.

Rich Vysion (05:54.926)
Yeah, that’s a great question. I think for me, gave me comfort was knowing that I have friends and I also have family who are also struggling with their sexuality as well. for them also being out is like, although it was hard at the moment, I feel like

they’re embracing it unapologetically. And it’s like, wow, like, I’m like, wow, like my friend, I didn’t even know because I read her book and I’m like, wow, I know she was queer. And it’s like, had one on one conversation with her and it was like, she reminded me like, hey, like you do it on your time. Like, don’t worry about everybody else’s timing. And at the end of the day, I had to sit back. like, yeah, I don’t have to really rush in and you know.

shared that, especially if I wasn’t ready at the moment and I wasn’t, because I was still processing all those thoughts of like, like, what people are going to say, this person might call me, like, you know, say some kind of slur and, you know, that will demean me and, you know, and then my integrity. I said, you know, I came to a point where I’m just like,

have to do this for me. I even spoke to my therapist about it, because she was telling me, let’s baby step it. And I was baby stepping it. I was just journaling about it. Even writing about it was hard. I wrote 30 songs about this whole topic of sexuality and how I feel. it helped me really realize that, wait a minute.

There’s some layers about me that I’m still holding onto that I felt like I wasn’t being 100 % me. At the end of the day, yeah, I was being real about my mental health struggles, and that’s always the case when I put out music. And then there’s still a part of me was like, wait a minute, there’s still more stuff that you have in the closet that you’re not saying. If you’re to be 100 % real, be 100 % real in all aspects.

Nick McGowan (07:55.849)
Hmm

Rich Vysion (08:18.804)
So for me, that helped me realize that, there’s so much more to be said in my music besides, you know, the mental health piece, which is obviously is very important to me because I struggled with suicide ideation. And also knowing that now I’m stepping into my sexuality, I also realized that, you know, it’s also a part of me that that gets to be heard and that

Nick McGowan (08:46.411)
Mm-hmm.

Rich Vysion (08:47.618)
people need to see other people stepping out because it helps them step out into their own, you know, in their own journeys of like, hey, maybe there’s something that I’m holding back that I want to share and I want to feel liberated. I want to feel confident in myself. And I know it’s not always easy, it helped knowing that there was other people around that already have done it so boldly and unapologetically, which makes me feel comfortable to say, hey, wait a minute, like,

I was in a community that was LGBT without even thinking of it. And my therapist reminded me like, hey, did you know like you were just in a community that, you know, subconsciously you just went in and maybe it was something to it alluding to maybe, but I don’t know. But I know I just need the support. She was like, wait a minute, that was something there. Like you were comfortable to go into a community.

Nick McGowan (09:43.819)
Hmm.

Rich Vysion (09:44.654)
that you didn’t see yourself in because I was like on the outside looking in like, I’m not, cause I was putting straight on the actual, you know, sign in form and they were, wait a minute, this is LGBT, how can you be? So I got to kind of like a lot of questioning about that too. But at end of the day, I also feel like that helped me realize, wait a minute, I’m not, I’m not being true to who I am.

Nick McGowan (10:11.721)
Yeah, well you’d also mentioned about social media or just on the internet. Being able to talk about things and being who you are and how people could say things, can do whatever. You know, it can be really easy for people hiding behind some sort of device or screen to talk a lot of shit. yeah, trolls are gonna be trolls, but for the most part, these people aren’t, they’re not really trolls. They’re humans that are hurting and they’re unsure about themselves. They’re going through their own shit.

Rich Vysion (10:40.524)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (10:41.641)
and they’ll throw stuff at you because they feel like it might make them feel better or they don’t have to worry about something or they can shit at somebody else and not have anybody look at their own stuff. And it’s hard to not feel for them in that, you know? But for you to be able to say, well, even if that’s a thing, somebody could say anything they want.

And that could be really hurtful. It could be really painful to read or listen to or whatever. But for you to be able to step out and say, this is what feels right to me, you’re totally right. I believe you 100 % that other people can look at that and they can say, well, maybe that’s something I can do. Maybe it’s a conversation I can have. If we take a little bit of a step back and you think about the conversation you had with a friend, the conversation you’ve had with your therapist, conversations you’ve had with yourself.

other people are going through those things. And it’s a little crazy at times how we can think as people like, I’m all by myself. You don’t get what I’m going through. You don’t know what I’ve done or what has happened to me. And we’re never actually alone. There’s always somebody out there or a group of people or a handful of people at least that have gone through some similar things. And sometimes it just takes us stepping out or raising our hand to be able to actually show like I too.

Rich Vysion (11:34.51)
Mmm.

Rich Vysion (11:43.192)
Right.

Rich Vysion (11:50.498)
Bye.

Nick McGowan (12:04.105)
could really use some help. Then you talked about community. You also talked about some family that are going through some of that. But then, again, if we look at overall systems of you can’t be who you are because the world tells you you can’t be, or because people will look at you differently. And I love that you’ve done that for you and for the other people that not only gonna listen to this podcast, but everybody else you talk to through the rest of your life.

Rich Vysion (12:19.916)
Mm.

Rich Vysion (12:26.092)
Thank you.

Nick McGowan (12:34.217)
that just you being you, that’s an important thing. So let’s talk about a bit of the mental health that goes along with that too, because that’s not an easy thing. It’s not like you’re like, you know what? Today I think I’m gonna wear a pair of the blue shoes instead of the red shoes. Wait a minute. It’s totally different than that. This is like, I’m going to tell people who I really am as opposed to yesterday when I was still shielding that from people or holding back from that and how that must have affected

Rich Vysion (12:36.554)
Mm.

Yeah.

Rich Vysion (12:47.662)
Mmm.

Hmm… Yeah.

Yeah.

Nick McGowan (13:03.417)
at least aspects of your mental well-being. So talk a bit about how not only you’ve managed through the mental health and you’ve used your music to be able to get your words out, but also how that all ties together with what and who you are out in the world today.

Rich Vysion (13:23.906)
Yes. well, so for me, when it comes to, you know, especially being out and also now, like I’m actually like, I will be putting out music about it in the future next year. I also realized that, you know,

It affects me mentally because like I kept internalizing what people would say. So because of that, I started to play, play some more in a sense of like, I didn’t want to like, you know, you know, share it in my music or even speak to my therapist about it at one point, because I’m just like, this is a little too heavy. Even yesterday when before I was even about to

do the video, had second, I had this thought in my head of maybe I shouldn’t do this. It’s not the right timing. And then I kept on thinking I wanna be committed to my commitments and I said I was gonna do this thing. And it was like a battle within, it was like a tug of war. like, I wanna say it, but then I don’t wanna say it,

I struggled with validation for several years, which is the reason why I wanted to give up on my music, because of the fact that a lot of people weren’t approving my music. So I fell into that validation paradox trap that kept me suicidal, kept me depressed. And I realized that I had to do a lot of inner work on myself to get to the point where I am now, where I feel confident in what I’m doing.

as far as my mental health advocacy with my music and through my, also through my book. I also realized that yesterday when I actually thought about not doing it, I said, wait a minute, like, if I don’t do this, I would never will. Because I kept on prolonging it for so long. And I’m thinking like, it’s time to be bold. And that’s my theme for next year is like,

Rich Vysion (15:41.07)
be bold. And I’m like, I’m not going to wait till next year to be bold. I’m going to be bold now. Like, why wait till 2025 January to do something that’s bold? And it’s like, and it’s crazy because fear has always been something that’s been, you know, I don’t say crippling, but you know, it’s been, you know, it’s been a word that has been in my psyche for so long. Fear of failure, of success and not really knowing, you know.

the directions to go with my life and just being scared of everything and not really pursuing nothing, just doing things haphazardly, I realized that, a minute, I have something to say that’s important that I feel like is gonna set me free because if not, I’m just gonna end up in a spiral, spiraling.

Nick McGowan (16:37.427)
Yeah.

Rich Vysion (16:40.332)
I woke up, even yesterday when I was actually saying it, I was like so nervous and anxious, but I’m like, wait a minute, like I’m doing it. And then like today.

had this whole different feeling. Like, yes, I did feel liberated, but then I felt like, damn, like, I can’t believe I just did that. And then, like, I woke up, like, anxious. I woke up crying today, because I’m like, my goodness, like, this is so… I think this is, really the most vulnerable I’ve been in a long time. And, you know, that was, you know, that was very, very scary for me.

So all that to say that I’m just stepping into it fully now and I’m grateful that I am stepping into it more fully. at the end of the day, I feel like it’s a conscious decision to be able to share that vulnerability and that transparency to make other people realize that they’re not the only ones who struggle with this.

and I want to be able to help other people navigate those, mental hurdles, especially when I’m thinking that I’m not enough to be an artist and also be out. Cause that was also a thing that I struggled with too, like, if I’m an artist and I’m out, like, you know, what narrative will people paint for me?

Nick McGowan (18:14.437)
Hmm.

Rich Vysion (18:15.606)
And would that affect me being able to perform my music? Or would it keep me stuck in a rut, so to speak, of not wanting to put myself out there to help other people with my music because I’m afraid that someone’s gonna be like, you’re out or stuff like that. You’re not supposed to be out. You’re supposed to be straight or X, Z. You know, just projecting their false narrative upon me and me actually believing that narrative.

Nick McGowan (18:43.033)
Yeah, it’s too easy at times to just let it absorb into you. know, people will push things upon you and certain people will say things with such conviction and such emphasis that it’s hard to not go, okay, well, yeah, you must be right. And I think about oftentimes us as being kids in our formative years, how we just learned things and we’re like, well, I guess this is what you do.

Like the things you learned from your parents, the things you learned from the community you’re in, how people operate, all of that. You don’t know. You’re sponging things up. But then those stories become something that shape you for fucking years and years. There are people that I could talk to in their 50s, 60s, 70s at times that are like, I just learned how to be myself because of all the stuff they’ve worked through. People in their teens or 20s or 30s that are working through things, they think even

Rich Vysion (19:33.186)
Hmm

Nick McGowan (19:40.707)
You can get into the topic of transgender and how kids want to be able to change and how some people are really anti that because of systems and ways that they look at things and the way that they’re unsure of how to handle a certain situation or what to do. But then there’s also the person. It’s just all about that person. Where do they feel they’re at? What do they feel is true to them? And who the fuck are you to tell them any different for real?

Rich Vysion (19:51.342)
Mm.

Rich Vysion (19:58.177)
Yes.

Rich Vysion (20:07.573)
huh.

Nick McGowan (20:08.025)
But sometimes it takes us a long time to be able to get to that point where we go, time out, fuck off. Here’s me, here’s really me. And a lot of times it can take us that time to be able to be ourselves, to actually be okay with ourselves, to then say, this is what feels right, natural for me. And I appreciate you being just open and vulnerable with all this stuff, especially even with getting up this morning and instantly feeling anxious and crying. Like, I can pretty much guarantee that you’re probably not the only person who’s ever done that.

Rich Vysion (20:13.581)
Yeah.

Hmm

Rich Vysion (20:22.113)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (20:38.329)
who has said such a large, vulnerable thing that makes them feel liberated and fucking scared shitless at the same time, that then will wake up crying thinking, I did that, but I did that, but I did that, but I did that. Like all of that can be true simultaneously. It’s then what you do with it at that point. So from the music perspective of what you’re doing, honestly, man, I feel like it’s probably gonna open up so many additional doors for you.

Rich Vysion (20:50.22)
Yeah… Yeah…

Rich Vysion (20:58.861)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (21:06.786)
because you will be able to feel into it. Plus, there’s so much bullshit when it comes to how things should be when it comes to, and let’s just live on the music and artist path for a second. There’s so many ways that they’re like, you have to do it this way because so-and-so got big doing it this way, and you have to be perceived this way. But I think some of the best things, even watching different artists as they go through the course of their transformation as a group or as a

Rich Vysion (21:17.806)
Mmm.

Rich Vysion (21:22.115)
does.

Rich Vysion (21:27.118)
Mmm.

Nick McGowan (21:36.771)
band or as a solo artist. Like it’s typically the third album where they start to figure the fuck out. Like third, fourth album. And I’ve seen different interviews at different bands and I’ve had conversations with people where they’re like, well, at one point I stopped giving a fuck or didn’t want to listen to the label anymore or said, well, this is what we feel is natural. And I love when you can hear that stuff. There’s a, there’s a band that I listened to called

Rich Vysion (21:43.816)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Rich Vysion (21:54.85)
Yes.

Nick McGowan (22:06.596)
Bring Me the Horizon. They were a hardcore band, like almost grind metal from the UK in the early 2000s. And they had a handful of albums and then you could start to see them shift. Even in one or two of their songs from like an album 2019 or 2020, there was a verse in it was like somebody in the front row was talking shit about us while they’re wearing a black Dahlia murder shirt saying we’re not heavy enough because now we’re poppy. And this album they just put out

Rich Vysion (22:35.159)
Mmm.

Nick McGowan (22:36.787)
is by far the best album they’ve ever put out. And you can tell they figured it out. They are them. And in interviews with them, because I could hear it and I could feel it, like it’s palpable with that. In interviews, they talk about how this is where we feel we are. This is them standing on their path. So for you to be able to be open and be you 100 % you, from an artist perspective, man, whole fucking world’s gonna open up at this point.

Rich Vysion (22:42.146)
Mmm.

Rich Vysion (22:49.462)
Mmm.

Rich Vysion (22:57.966)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (23:05.036)
And if there are those fears and the times where like, yeah, well people could say things, people are going to say shit no matter what, because those people have their own fucking problems. But for you to be able to step out and do it, even the fact that you wrote your book and that you poured your heart and soul into each one of those poems, that’s a big thing that a lot of people only wish that they could do and would rather talk shit about than actually do the work to be able to do it. throughout the poetry and the things you talk about,

Rich Vysion (23:15.138)
That’s right.

Nick McGowan (23:33.805)
throughout your writing as an artist, talk a lot about trauma. talk a little bit about what trauma has led you to where you’re at, but also how you incorporate the lessons you’ve learned from trauma into the work that you do, and especially with who you are out in the world right now.

Rich Vysion (23:54.386)
That’s a great question because trauma, a lot of my trauma stemmed from this, be honest, stepping into the music industry. I, when I out my first EP, which was 2015, over 10 years ago, when I first started, I was just a rookie in the game and I didn’t really know that.

by me putting myself out on the internet that I was gonna get so much destructive criticism, if you will, about my music. cause I was just, I was just a beginner. I didn’t even know about what criticism is or what, you know, negative comments were. So I was just like taking it all in and I didn’t realize that

by looking at those negative comments about my music, I didn’t know it would do something to my psyche. I also didn’t know that I was gonna internalize a lot of the stuff that people were saying because I didn’t have the mental capacity at the time to be able to know or discern, you know, this is not pretty much directed at me. It’s probably a projection. What I realize now, you know, so much years after, but I learned, you know,

Nick McGowan (25:12.94)
Yeah.

Rich Vysion (25:20.246)
after the fact that, a minute, like people are dealing with their stuff and they’re projecting, but you know, stuff that they’re going through from their past. And when I got into it early on, didn’t, I didn’t know the difference between, I didn’t know how to like process that. And so I turned into, I turned that trauma into, self harm. turned that trauma into music. I turned all that trauma into

you know, tears, times where I was, you know, contemplating, you know, if I should be here or not, like all that trauma, you know, from putting my worth, my self-worth into somebody else’s hands, you know, particularly strangers hands. That’s where a lot of the trauma came from was when people started talking, you know, smack about my music because I associated me as a person.

with my music. Outside of that, I did not know who I was. Music was such an integral part of my journey. So when people disrespected my music, I took it personally. I said, no, you disrespected me. I did not know how to differentiate the two until years later. And I realized that, wait a minute, there’s a…

Richard, you know, and then just also Rich Vision, like there’s two different sides. And, you know, I realized that after, you know, going through that trauma, what I learned is like, you know, that trauma helped me. And then also I was going through mental abuse, you know, at the time with a mentor of mine that helped me with my music career, which I had a falling out the year prior. And, you know, it ended up…

where I wanted to commit suicide the year before because of the fact that I was, you know, it was taxing mentally in my psyche. And what I learned from all that trauma and all that pain was I learned that like this can serve someone else. When I was in my room reflecting, doing meditation, looking at motivational videos,

Rich Vysion (27:46.22)
attempting to process all these things I was going through. like, at the back of my mind, I’m like, there’s something here for someone else. I kept on thinking like, this is going to serve someone else, you know, and they’re not going to even know it. It’s going to serve other people. And I kept on telling myself that like, wait a minute, like your words are powerful and it needs to be told. So I started thinking like, okay, I could write a, you know, a book about all these struggles and

I can write it out and process it. Because this book, From Victor to Victor, Transforming Trauma into Triumph, it’s not just a book of just empty words. It’s what I’ve been through in my life. it’s about, even though I felt victimized by a lot of the traumas that I’ve been through, I decided to write a new narrative for myself. And that was the thing that I decided to do.

that helped me heal was like, I learned to forgive my mentor. I learned to forgive myself because I thought I was in the wrong. And all these key things that I learned from that trauma really helped me navigate the mental health space because it helped me realize that my mental health is so important. And that’s when I called the therapist. I’m like, I need help.

Cause I did and it’s like, I didn’t want to say it cause I was so, I was had so much pride and that’s a stigma too as guys men are supposed to get therapy. They’re not supposed to take it in the chin. I, and I heard that so much. And I’m like, man, I’m like, there has to be another way to handle my emotions without taking it to the chin and just dealing with it and making it seem like I’m strong, but I’m not. I’m dying inside. I’m wearing a mask. You know, have shades on to cover.

Nick McGowan (29:19.424)
You

Rich Vysion (29:38.67)
up my eyes because I don’t want to cry in front of people. Like all that stuff piled up, that does something for someone. You know, for me, it did something for me. It kept me low, kept me not asking for help. It kept me wanting to commit suicide because I didn’t think I had anyone to speak to. And now I’m able to actually speak boldly about my trauma with a therapist and say, let’s work this out because I want to be here for my family.

Nick McGowan (30:04.318)
Yeah, big steps that take those small steps. I you have to take those little steps within yourself while you’re by yourself in your room or sitting on your couch or whatever. And those things start to add up. It sounds like you’ve grown a lot. You’ve learned a lot. There’s a lot of things that you’re still working through and trying to understand, especially with this fresh new being of who you are. So out of everything you’re working on and what you’ve learned so far, what’s that one piece of advice you’d give to somebody that’s on their path towards self-master?

Rich Vysion (30:35.139)
For me, I would say…

Rich Vysion (30:40.6)
see community because that helped me really master my mindset because I had such a defeatist mentality at the time years ago. And I realized when I stepped into accountability communities and also, you know, life coaching and things like that, I realized that people have so much

different perspectives that I had that challenged my limited beliefs, self-limiting beliefs, and helped me realize that I have so much potential and purpose in me. And it helped me really change that victim’s mentality to becoming victorious. And then I’m able to hold myself in a more higher regard versus

looking at me thinking I’m trash or I’m a waste of space, I started to really develop a stronger mental capacity to actually be able to write a different story for my life and say, a minute, I am enough versus I’m a failure. And that’s what I would want the person who’s listening to really take is that you have the ability to write your own story.

No one can write the pen for you. You’re the author of your life. if you don’t like anything in your life that you don’t want or you feel like it’s lacking, you can always pick up the pen. You can always rewrite a new story, one of resilience, one of courage, one of faith, great tenacity. You can write your own story, whatever that word is.

be able to overcome any struggles that comes their way.

Nick McGowan (32:41.12)
That’s great. I appreciate the advice and especially being able to understand that we all can pause and rewrite or continue to write the way that we want to write instead of what other people are telling us we should be writing. So Rich, I love where you’re at. I really appreciate and encourage you to continue to be who you are and nevermind what anybody else is saying, but keep doing the work that you’re doing, especially the internal work so that you can be the outward version of who you actually are.

and show other people that it’s okay to be them. I appreciate you being on today and for everything you’ve talked about. Before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

Rich Vysion (33:18.092)
so much.

Rich Vysion (33:21.826)
Yes, I appreciate the privilege of sharing my story. Of course, it’s really important to know that I’m not the only one struggling and that the person who’s listening can get the help that they deserve. If anyone wants to connect with me, I am RichVision. So that’s going to be R-I-C-H-V-Y like yellow S-I-O-N on all social media. So it’s going to be

R-I-C-H-V, like Victor, yellow, Y, S-I-O-N on all social media platforms. I have my single out called I Am Enough, Yes As I Am on Spotify. You can listen to it and feel empowered as a reminder that you are enough as you are and you don’t have to chase anybody’s validation but your own.

Nick McGowan (34:14.005)
Again, man, it’s been awesome to have you on. I appreciate your time today. Thank you.

Rich Vysion (34:18.51)
Thank you my brother.

In this episode, Nick speaks with Pauline Jones (PJ) to explore the profound effects of trauma on personal development and healing. They discuss the importance of self-awareness, the impact of generational trauma, and the necessity of understanding how trauma manifests in the body. PJ shares her journey through therapy and alternative healing modalities, emphasizing that healing is a unique process for everyone. The conversation highlights the significance of mindfulness and mental health strategies in overcoming past traumas and achieving self-mastery.

What to listen for:

“I left the abuse, but I didn’t leave the trauma.”

“I was just here to be abused because my mom taught me that, and society reinforced it.”

“And it was just kind of messed up because we were going to church every day with this man. My mom let us live this life, but he abused you, and you didn’t think he was trying to abuse us?”

About Pauline Jones

Pauline Jones “PJ” is a trauma survivor, coach, and the host of “Insights of a Survivor,” a podcast where she share stories of resilience and growth to inspire others. After overcoming significant challenges in her own life, she now helps individuals heal from trauma and rewrite their personal narratives. Her mission is to empower others to transform their pain into purpose and embrace their inner strength.

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!

[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: www.youtube.com/channel/UCk1tCM7KTe3hrq_-UAa6GHA

Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]

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

00:00
Okay, well, this gets kind of juicy now. My grandmother, rest in peace. She was my father’s mistress and it’s kind of a generational thing. So she was kind of fucking with my dad. My dad’s a preacher. My mother, my stepmother, she kind of knew what was going on, but he was really abusive. He knew he could control whatever. she kind of just, my stepmom kind of just kind of stayed in her place and my dad did what he wanted.

00:33
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show, we have Pauline Jones, who we know as PJ. PJ, how are doing today? I’m fine, how are you? I’m good. I know there was some technical stuff that we were dealing with and just life things that are happening. It is the life of an entrepreneur. There’s always stuff that’s going on and stuff that’s happening. But I’m excited for us to be able to get into everything we’re gonna talk about, because I think even some of that ties into

01:03
trauma, the experiences that we have, how things shape us, how we handle, how we react and respond to things at different times. So 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? The oddest thing about me that I tell everyone is that my dad, my birth biological dad is 111 years old if he was still alive. He was born 1913. I am 45. My mom’s 59. So that kind of

01:32
Wow, everyone like, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, you have a dad that is that old. My grandparents were slaves. It was just like my, my oldest sibling is in their nineties and my sister, I have a 70 year old sister. it’s, it’s definitely a conversation topic that we kind of go in. It’s wild when, when certain people will have kids older, like my mom was the youngest of seven. And I think her oldest sister was like,

02:00
a year or two years older than my dad’s parents. And she has nephews and nieces that are actually older than her. So growing up that way, that must have been wild. Did you experience kind of the same thing? Yeah, my nephew, I have a nephew that’s two weeks younger than me. I have, I only have the one nephew I have cousins actually that are my mom’s age. So yeah, it was kind of weird growing up with cousins that were

02:29
I’m babysitting their kids, you know, and we’re kind of just, they’re telling me what to do. And I’m kind of yelling at them or my sister who’s 20 something years older than me. Like, can’t tell me what to do. You’re my elder, but you’re not, you’re my sibling. So shut up, you know, like shut the hell up. can’t tell me shit. Yeah. Wow. What a, what a thing. So did you say that your dad is still alive or he is not? No, no, he passed away when I was 11 years old. It was, um,

02:55
It’s a funny thing to me because I didn’t realize the situation, but he was kind of the source of everything that I went through with the abuse because he was my mom’s abuser. So that’s kind of I know it’s weird. I was raised with him. It’s a it’s a weird story. I mean, I love them. He I was the youngest. He treated me like an angel, but he was not the person I thought he was, you know. So that’s kind of how that happened. Dive into that. Let’s let’s explore that a bit. OK, well, this gets kind of juicy now.

03:24
My grandmother, rest in peace, she was my father’s mistress and it’s kind of a generational thing. So she was kind of like my dad and my dad’s a preacher. My my mother, my stepmother, she kind of knew what was going on, but he was really abusive. He knew he could control whatever. So she kind of just, my stepmom kind of just kind of stayed in her place and my dad did what he wanted. And my grandmother had 10 daughters and three sons. And my dad was like, OK, any, many, many more. I want her, her, her, her. And my grandmother’s like, whatever you want, I’m giving it to you. So he.

03:54
So she started letting him molest my daughter, my mom, and two of my aunts. He kind of took to my mom. So she made my mom move in with him and he molested my mom from like eight until after I was born. And my mom’s like 20 years older than me. It turned into a Stockholm syndrome situation where my mom really felt like she belonged to her abuser. And it was just kind of fucked up because we were going to church every day with this man. My mom let us, let him keep us. It’s like, he abused you. Like he didn’t think that he was fucking trying to abuse us even though he never did.

04:25
So she, she hid that from us, me and my sister. She had two children with my dad, me and my older sister. She’s only two years, a year and a half older than me. And they hid it from us until he was about 70. He was almost, he was about to die. He had kidney failure. And they were like, Hey, you know, this is your dad. What the hell? thought my dad’s name was Johnny, you know, he was. That’s why we had to call him daddy. We didn’t understand because we were kids. Like why this isn’t our father. So she kind of explained her story, told us what happened to her.

04:54
And what he did, so we kind of sitting here confused me and my sister like this man treated us better than you do. But after he died, I guess that was where my protections stopped because my mom decided at that point she’s going to start like just beating the shit out of me on a daily basis. I looked like him. I looked just like him. I looked like my sister that he has with my stepmom. Yeah, my stepmom. So she just like took all that shit that he did to her out on me.

05:21
And it was just like, the hell? know, won’t be waiting. She waited until he passed. I said, I guess he would never let her touch me. And then once that started, I just, kind of said, no, this isn’t right. I started running away from home. I ended up in the streets, back and forth to the streets and in the streets. You know, was like 13, 14 years old. So in the streets, I’m, now here. being raped by guys. I’m being attacked by people being jumped. I had to join a gang because like,

05:47
just to get them some protection from what was happening to me when I was in the streets. And it helped a little bit, but not a lot. So I’m back and forth between being beat by my mom and being beat by the streets. I even went to child protective services and like, hey, I’m being abused, please take me in. And they were like, no, sorry. Yeah, I was fucked up. I was really fucked up. that’s when I, when I was 16, I met my ex-husband, my first marriage. He was seven years old. The reason was like 23 years old.

06:15
And he tried to make me feel safe, you know, got me a hotel room. Of course, I’m going to lie, I was 14 years old. I had to sell drugs to do something. I wasn’t going to sell my body. They were taking it from me a lot of the time. So was like, no. So I started selling drugs just so can get a room to put over my head. know, I he was he was not a good guy. He sold drugs. So he basically got rooms in his name. I sold drugs.

06:41
He beat the hell out of me. He tried to solicit me. When I wouldn’t do it, he would beat the hell out of me. And he got me pregnant. So my family, again, they may have their secrets, but they’re the biggest church folk you’ll ever meet. So you can’t have any bastard kids. You’re pregnant by this man, marry him. So I married him because I still respect my grandmother because even though she did this to my mom, she was a very good grandmother. The people that abused my mom, they treated me and my sisters like royalty. We didn’t understand what my mom went through at all.

07:10
because they didn’t do that to us. So when she said, need to marry this man, I respected my grandmother’s words and I married this man. And it put me in 12 years of him beating me, stotamizing me, torturing me physically, sexually. He did so much to me that I just kind of felt like that’s what my life was. I was just here to be abused because my mom taught me that that’s what was going on. That’s what the society taught me. I called the police. They were like, well, you’re out here in the streets.

07:39
you that this is what you want. like, I mean, back in the day, they didn’t really have a lot of protection laws for kids. That’s kind of new. So we just kind of got less to fend for ourselves. And that’s, I did the best that I could. So when I had my children, I said, okay, no, I’m not going to be in a relationship with a man who’s going to do this. So I’ve tried to get away. I’m a runner. If anything, you know, I’m not going to stay and get my ass. I will leave even as a kid. I don’t care if you’re going to beat my ass and you don’t want me around. I’ll just go. So when he started to do it, I tried to try to get away.

08:09
Of course, abuser, want they want their victims to stay home, right? So he come, he follow me, you know, slit my throat, kidnapped my kids, try to drive me off the road in the car. If I can’t have you, we’re all going to drive off this cliff. Like he was crazy. So I would always go back, you know, like, OK, but then the next time I’m away from you. So I left the state. My mom told him, well, he’s knocking at my door. OK, I let’s move to Vegas. I moved to Alaska. They met. He’s finding me, you know, and I was just I just knew this shit was not cool.

08:39
Why am I being abused? I’m trying to get away. I’m trying to get away. So finally I got away. I got away from him and I was in Alaska. And that’s when I reached the moment of freedom, but I still didn’t get the help. So I was still fucked up mentally, emotionally. I did not go to therapy. I had a friend who I thought was a friend who actually was the one who got my ex-suspect to Alaska. know, I’m like, I’m in California. She flew him to Alaska because she thought she was being a friend to me.

09:09
And when I finally got away from him, she’s like, well, come on, let’s go get drunk. Come on, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. So I’m like, OK, I’m going to go party. I’m free now. I don’t have anyone beating my ass and telling me what to do as long as I’m working three jobs and providing for my children and not giving them any kind of trauma. I’m good. I never sought any therapy. And so now I am now causing my own trauma because I’m out here making very toxic decisions. I’m getting drunk on the weekends, but not during the week because, you know, alcohol to drink every day.

09:38
Yeah, no, that’s not true. So, and my kids are not being abused. They’re, you know, I’m spoiling them financially. So I’m a good mom. No, not really, because I should have had them in therapy, but I had no support system to tell me what the fuck are you doing? What the fuck are you doing? So years go by with me acting this way. I’m still being stalked by guys and women, know, so they’re, because I’m not understanding that I’m making the wrong decisions.

10:04
because I have no support system. My sister, of course, she grew up in the same household as me. What is she going to help me with? You know, the elders in my family, they all knew what was happening. They knew what happened to my mom. They knew what was happening to me. So they just kind of shunned me off. You’re the bad one. You’re the black sheep. So I had no help with them. My dad’s side of the family, the cousins that I did know, you know, at a certain age, once they realized I found out who I was, they kind of shied away from me. They were around me when I didn’t realize they were my family.

10:32
when I realized they were my family and then they just kind of walked away and left me and my sister in this big mess that we didn’t cause. So I didn’t have anybody. And I should have gotten therapy for myself and my children because it ended up with my son, son, started fighting a lot. The reason why I left, I’m going too fast. The reason why I finally left my ex-husband is because he started to beat my oldest son. If you’re going to beat me, I choose to stay in this. I’m a grown ass woman, but these are children.

10:59
And my mom didn’t protect me. I’m going to protect my kids. So I left, got a divorce. He didn’t care. He tried to burn my house down with me and my kids. then like, it was a lot of shit. so fast forward, my son has a lot of anger in him, but he has anger towards bullies. He doesn’t like anyone trying to pick on people he loves that he values and he calls a friend. So in 2017, he was defending a friend and he got shot and killed.

11:28
That was when I realized like, what the fuck, why am I still going through this? Like I left the abuse, but I didn’t leave the trauma. That’s what it was. I never left the trauma. The trauma still festered inside of me. It was still very much a part of who I was. And I had to stop and it wasn’t even when he died. It was when I got his death certificate and I’m sitting in my car and I’m crying. Like who the fuck can I call? I can’t call anybody. I have not one person that I can call. Cause I’m in the city where I don’t know anyone. I was.

11:56
dating my now husband and like his family did not like me at all. They were like, they, and they knew my son died, but they were like, we don’t give a fuck. We don’t like you, her, whatever. So he was really the only person I had him in my two children who just lost their oldest sibling, who for a long time was their father. Because when I left their dad, he took over as the male adult role in their life while I worked three jobs, you know? So their life was shot. had nobody. So I had to stop to say, the fuck? I’m going to.

12:25
I’m going to find somebody else to talk to. So I had to cut off everybody I knew, except for like maybe two or three people. I cut off every single person, including a friend of mine who I actually moved to that city before because she was dating my husband’s brother. And she kicked me out three days after my son was born. I mean, was killed. And so I didn’t even have her. So I did. I’m like, you know, I think I’m not even a therapist. So it took me about a year after my son’s death. I dropped out of college. At this point, I’m trying to pick my life up. I’m going back to college.

12:55
I’m trying to do better with my life and getting the certifications that I need. I’m getting the jobs that I need. On paper, I look, but internally I was still all jacked up. So I went and got therapy and I realized that I had a lot of untreated trauma that I had to address. So the traditional therapy did not work completely. It was kind of the opening door to my healing journey. So I started therapy and

13:25
I thought that I was doing well, know, we through the treatments, went through the treatments, but they didn’t address the actual trauma. They just gave me a bunch of coping skills and said, here, this is what you need to do. It helped. It did. And you take this anti-anxiety medication, take this depression medication, you’ll be just fine. And it was okay. It did somewhat of what it needed to do. I was able to manage until I wasn’t. And then one day, about two years ago, I couldn’t take it anymore. I was in jobs that I hated.

13:54
I worked for, you know, I guess on paper, good government jobs, working for the state. I worked for CPS because I felt like they were full of shit with how they did. It means that I never wanted to do a child like that. So I got a job for CPS, but I understand they have so many rules that confine you from being able to help. So I was miserable. I had a gun and I was going to shoot myself. I couldn’t take it anymore. It was right before the anniversary of my son’s fifth year of him being gone. And I was just.

14:23
severely, severely depressed. My husband, he got the gun for me. He had everything, made sure that I didn’t do anything. And I started to see, she was more of, she was a therapist, but not in a traditional form. She’s not more spiritual, but she’s just kind of, she kind of does her own thing. Her name was Dr. Robin, Paula, Dr. Robin. And she kind of talked to me, like, your trauma hasn’t been addressed. And she made me, she made me face my trauma. She made me write letters to myself, letters to my mom, not to go send to her, but to my…

14:53
and made me look at what happened to me. And she said, now tell me what you see. And I said, I see that I got myself in all these situations. She’s like, no, you’re blaming yourself for shit that didn’t happen, that happened to you. So the first thing I had to do was understand that the things that happened to me was not my fault. And the actions that I took after I left trauma was because of how I was learning behaviors. I didn’t know any type of healthy skills. I didn’t understand.

15:18
that my mom was an alcoholic as well. Our house was the party house. She got drunk, partied. That’s the only time I ever actually seen her happy. So that to me, partying makes you happy, but it didn’t really make me happy. It just kind of put a bandaid on it. It made me think that I was doing adult things when what I should have been doing the adult thing would have been seeking help for myself and my children. Would that have helped my son? I don’t know, but it couldn’t have hurt. So that’s kind of.

15:46
what started me on the path to trying to heal myself. And then I started to do more alternative medicine. I thought of meditation. I started breathing, deep breathing treatments. I neuro linguists. I cannot say that word. Neuro linguistics programming. And that kind of got me into coaching. I’m like, I can do this because I can build my own platform and help people who in the way that they need to focus on the actual problem.

16:13
not telling the count to take these purpose, not purpose, this, uh, Sarah quill and go to sleep, face your problems and hold yourself accountable for the things that you could have changed. Now we do the best we can, but some things I knew was flat out wrong. And I try to blame my trauma, but it wasn’t, it was because of the actions I chose to take. So that’s kind of where I am today. I’m just trying to continue my healing journey and use my story to possibly help anybody who might feel like they are.

16:43
new to trauma and don’t know where to go, you know, because it doesn’t stop when you leave. It stops when you start to heal and healing isn’t just, it’s not, it’s not easy. like you have to go through a lot of stuff. I’m still dealing with a lot of stuff. I still deal with a lot of hurt, but I’m willing, like even with the platform that I’ve built, I’m using that as another method to heal because it helps me to help other people know that the things that they’re going through can be resolved if they take the steps to

17:13
choose to be healthy and choose to heal. So that’s kind of my little story. That’s definitely not a little story at all. And I really appreciate the honesty with all of it, the directness with all of it and the willingness to not only look at this shit, but fucking do the work. It’s so fucked when we think about the systems at play, the generational trauma, the things that have just become norm. I can’t help.

17:42
but think about the bullshit of the religious system that allows somebody to do what they did while still going to what is considered a holy place to be able to speak on divine topics. It just screams hypocrisy, but it also screams much deeper than that, that there’s trauma. There are things that are just not taken care of, they’re not addressed. Some of that’s generational, some of that is that person where it’s like,

18:12
We can’t say it’s okay that any of that happened, but we can say it happened and this is what can be done from here, like what you’re doing, the work that you’re doing, the things that you’ve gone through. Because think about, even in what you had just said, you rattled off kind of a quicker version, obviously, than what really happened. But there were so many little points on that, even the journey that you just took us through, that you could have gone left instead of going right.

18:41
or you could have gone a different direction instead of going the direction that you did. And even when you think like you’d mentioned at one point about, and then a year later I did this, it’s so easy to just say that sort of thing now. Like if we look back at history and we go on this 15 year span, this thing happened. But so much shit happens within that amount of time that it can be really easy to almost just downplay it. Like, well then that year happened and then after that I did this thing, which is a big part of why.

19:09
why we have this platform for this show to be able to talk about the macro pieces of it of like, you go through this stuff as a person. And I say you as in like the general you who goes through let’s say similar things. And you have choices to make that can either take you further down that path or away from healing, or you can take steps toward healing that just feel fucking weird and awkward and so contradictory to where you’re at because you’re so used to this thing.

19:39
and trying to break away from what you have been taught. This is how this is. This is how this works. This is what this looks like. This is what you’re meant to be. You’re supposed to be abused and you’re supposed to be used up and you’re supposed to be all these things because generational trauma and because of the bullshit that they haven’t actually worked through. I’m so sorry to hear about your son. That in and of itself is just an awful thing. Thank you. That could have fucking crumbled you.

20:08
it. Yeah, I’m sure. I feel like in certain ways, like, if you hadn’t done the stuff that you had done to that point, it probably would have. Like if it happened sooner at a different time, if he wasn’t that age, and it was a few years younger or whatever. And, and I also appreciate that you’re like, maybe it could have helped maybe it could have like, because we don’t know.

20:34
And we don’t live in an alternate universe. Even if they are out there, we don’t live in those. And you can’t really do anything specifically with that, except for what you’re doing now and being able to actually heal yourself and help other people. The reason why I pause with that is I think there’s so much when we look at trauma, that I think a lot of people are unaware of. And I was in the same same boat where

21:01
I didn’t know that it was a thing until it became a thing, which is why self-awareness is such an important piece to it. gives, if you’re not aware of a thing, how the fuck can you be aware of it? And people listen to podcast probably are just close to nauseam with that because that happens almost every podcast episode where it’s like awareness, awareness, awareness. And I think we can actually build that. It’s like a muscle. The more you do, the more you understand there’s more to do, but the more you also understand you get to have grace with yourself and life.

21:31
doesn’t have a should to it. It’s not like life should look any sort of way. I would hope that we’re able to make these changes because even at one point you said back in the day, you’re only a handful years older than I am. So back in the day was really like the 90s. Right. Early 2000s, which is crazy to think that there was shit going on like that. But then again, they’re going to be kids that are like Generation Alpha and Generation Beta that are

21:59
30 years down the road, like, you know, back in the day in 2023, or whatever, you know what I mean? Be like, what? But how wild it is to actually understand that the trauma is not just, it’s not just the thing like, oh, well, this traumatic experience happened and okay, now we can move along from it. That shit is in our cells like white and red blood cells. So talk to us about

22:25
understanding the concept of the trauma lives in yourselves and then the work you went from the therapy into the deeper modalities because therapy is a thing and it’s great. I have a coach that I work with and I have therapy and I suggest, yeah, exactly. Everybody does the thing that works for them. Some people talk therapy is the big thing that helps. Some people it’s literally just a step. Some people it’s a thing that you do along with other things.

22:54
but for you to understand that there was more that you needed to go through, what did that look like from the perspective of somebody who else is going through those things or is far past that? Like, look, I’m in a better career, better life, I have family, I have this, I have that, but that shit still fucking happened. How do they understand about the trauma that lives in their cells and to be able to work that out of their cells?

23:18
I mean, it’s kind of hard to understand if you don’t have the right teaching. When I went to therapy, they didn’t help me understand. I had to actually face like right now on I’m doing what I call 100 day transformation challenge where I have to go back. I had to go back and relive every single like you say, I went through the cliff note version, but I had to deal with everything that was in me. I had to look at it. It means to look at every single thing that you have gone through and it means to

23:47
kind of acknowledge and feel it. You have to feel it because we have a way of blocking what is inside of us, excuse me, blocking the trauma that has happened to us, the things that we have gone through and we don’t allow it to be a part of us. It is who we are. Like you said, it’s like red and white cells in your body. It’s about acceptance. And once I was able to accept that that was a part of me, I was able to kind of release.

24:17
the things that it had, what it made me to be. That’s the only way I can put it. What I allowed it to make me to be after, but what it made me to be when I was growing, like you’re beat, you’re beat, you’re told you are nothing, you are not shit. You’re gonna be a whore, you’re gonna be a bitch. That’s embedded in your whole psyche, your whole who you are. You have to understand that that is not who you are. What happened to you was who you are, but not what was told to you. And…

24:47
I kind of know I’m answering exactly the way you asked me is just kind of.

24:53
It’s, I’m trying to find the words to put it in. Cause it’s not, there’s no one answer. It’s kind of based on your journey. Like you said, some people therapy is, that’s the business. You can go and you can talk to someone about everything that you go through. And that’s just the end of your journey. But for me, that wasn’t, that was not, I did have the good job and I did everything right. I was a good mom. I,

25:19
I was a good wife. I was a good girlfriend. I was a good everything. But the things that were deep inside of me, called that my, well, the inner child. The inner child, it wasn’t nurtured. It wasn’t taken care of. the part of me that was neglected was the part that kept coming out. It’s gonna come out. It’s gonna come out. And when I learned with Dr. how mine is journaling, I had to write. I have to write. When I was younger,

25:48
I used to write a lot and I wrote a book about my life. It’s not necessarily my name. I had to change a lot of things to protect my family, but when I wrote it, I wrote it down and it made it real. It made what happened to me, but I didn’t look at it and I had to look at what was done to me and I had to feel the anger because first I got mad. Then I became really sad about everything I went through.

26:12
Then I became determined to never ever, ever allow that to happen to anybody again. So I had to find my purpose in this mission. Why? Why did I go through this? I didn’t go through this just to feel sorry for myself. I didn’t go through this just to live with all of this anger and hurt inside of me. I went through this for a reason. And in the journey, I had to find my purpose. And that’s kind of what is my healing. My healing is the purpose that I found. I still have people that I talk to. still, like I say, you have your coach. I don’t.

26:38
Since I moved to Costa Rica, I don’t have my coach anymore, but I talk to her every once in a while and I get advice. But I have a community of people that I can go to who can help me on the bad days. And it’s knowing that you’re going to always have the bad days because again, it’s etched inside of who you are. It is never going to go away. And you just, like I said, I have to get to a point where I’m accepting it. My husband says sometimes I’ll sit up and talk about things that’s happened to me and I’ll laugh. And he tells me like some of the stuff you went through, it was like,

27:08
on a movie like I’ve seen people get shot in my face. I’ve had to take off my shirt and wrap it around someone’s leg because again, I was in a gang. So he’s like, you go through this stuff like it’s nothing. You wear it like it’s armor around you, but it kind of is. It protected me for years. And I had to release that armor and I had to break those barriers to get to the source of who I am. And that’s what I’m doing right now. It could be interesting when you take it as like a badge of honor or armor. And we can break that down.

27:37
bit by bit, you know, where certain times you could be like, well, I did this, so it’s made me stronger. But you also then use that as a shield, instead of using it as something that can help you continue to grow. And, and it’s really interesting to be able to actually expand upon those ideas. But it’s really difficult when you’re in those spots to be able to see that and feel that it’s, it’s life, though, it’s our lives, our lives are going to be how they are.

28:05
Like if we if you and I were able to go back to being kids, like little little kids, because again, we’re only a few years difference here. And and people were like, Alright, so here’s what life is going to look like up to 45 and 40. Do you want to go that route? I’m sure both of us be like, Get the fuck out of here. Like, No, no, I don’t want any fucking parts of that. Like, I can I check out now? You know, and but this all shapes the way that we are. And it’s wild how certain people

28:35
will attach to something and they’ll detach from other things and use something to be able to help them grow where they won’t. And everybody’s life is just how it is. There’s no shoulds, it’s no like you can have a five, 10 year plan, everything’s gonna work out how it’s supposed to because it’s just going to be what it’s going to be. But the fact that you’ve taken the work and taken the time to be able to do that work, I’m glad that you brought up that everybody’s path is different, everybody’s healing is different, modalities are different.

29:05
there are multiple pieces to it. As you kind of work through stuff though, what are the things that you’re learning? Because you’ve learned that therapy was a thing that helped you in a certain spot. There are different modalities that helped you in certain areas. But what are the things for your energetics right now that you’ve found that really help you to not only be able to solidify those things, but heal through them and feel them differently when stuff comes up where you’re not as charged as you were before? I’m going to say with the neural

29:33
Linguistics Program, NLP, I’m just gonna call it what it is. You nailed it, that’s right. Right. Changing the way I think about things that has happened to me, because I allow the thoughts of those things to control my emotions, instead of allowing it to teach me the lesson behind it. So I had to basically change my whole thought process. I had to take myself out of the victim mentality and put myself into the survivor. And even calling yourself a survivor can put yourself into a certain

30:02
classification, I’m trying to break chains of being classified as something and kind of broaden my horizons and look at myself as just PJ. I’m just me. So I’m learning how to reprogram the way I think, to reprogram the way I allow things to make me feel and because I am in control of my emotions, I can choose, like if you say, I could have went left instead of going right. And that’s what taught me I could have gone left, but I didn’t.

30:28
So I can continue to choose to not allow it to change or not allow it to break me. I can continue to choose to not allow it to make me into something that I don’t want to be, but I can also stop allowing it to cause me the trauma. Now that’s easier said than done. And I’m still working on that. are definitely processes, again, like journaling and facing your trauma and kind of breaking down each little thing that’s happened to you and express how that makes you feel.

30:58
how that makes you look at yourself. Why do you look at yourself in this way? Giving yourself affirmations to say, okay, this is how I felt, but this is what I’ve overcome. And this is how I’m gonna look at it now. Yes, mama, like my mom. My mom did do those things to me, but I have to look at it as my mom was a victim herself at one point. And in a sense, she allowed the abuse to make her go less because she allowed her to turn into an alcoholic. So now that’s not her. So am I angry with her for who she is today?

31:27
because of what happened to her. No, I’m not angry with her. forgive her. I love her. Do I speak to her? No, because she is still the alcoholic and I still don’t want to allow certain things into my life. But the anger that I had for her, I allowed myself to release it. I love there was a phrase my daughter sent me and me and I talk about it all the time. It’s like I release you with love and I have to learn how to release all of that bad with love and look at it in a different way. So that’s kind of how I choose to help me in my healing and change my mind frame and kind of get me to where I need to be in life.

31:57
There’s such power when it comes to just the overall mindfulness and how we mentally handle things. I think there are some basic components to this. There’s a subconscious that is there just to fucking keep us alive. Its only job is to make sure that we’re alive. Our mental capacity allows us to put thought together to then say, well, I’m going to do something or for us to then take action. And then semantically, we start to move upon those things.

32:25
But those three things have to happen. There are obviously more pieces to it than that. But I think from a very black and white aspect, but people will get to the point where they think about the things and I’ve heard this from different people like, hey, man, you can’t just mindset your way through life. It’s like, I fucking get that. That’s not the point of this show. Mental health and wellness is a major component to it. Because if we look at those three aspects, truly, the subconscious is what needs to be reshaped or

32:54
spoken to in a way to be able to understand that the story changed, how that affected me no longer needs to affect me. But then we get to actually put the mental work in to then semantically be able to do something and move about this life in a different way. So there are those layers and those pieces to all of that and all that has to work how you have it working for you. I love that you’ve went through and journaled, you’ve looked at those things.

33:20
You’ve talked about those things, you’ve worked through those things, and you’re working through processing those things. What’s that piece of advice you give to somebody that’s on their path towards self-mastery that you think could help them along a similar path that you’ve been on? Just keep going, you know? Even if you’re gonna go less sometimes, don’t allow whatever you’re dealing with to stop you from trying to strive for better in your life because it is a possibility, it is out there. You can…

33:49
be a better person than yourself. Do not allow what has happened to you to define who you are. Because what happened to you is not you. That’s not you. That’s someone else. That’s their healing process. You need to find who you are and don’t let the trauma be who you are because you’re not the trauma. The trauma is what was done to you. Great way to put that. Hey, I appreciate you being on today. I appreciate you going through all that you’ve gone through and the work that you continue to do.

34:16
And before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you? They can find me at Soulful Resilience on IG. It’s just Soulful Resilience Journey. That’s my coaching company. on Facebook, you can find me at PJ Jones. I don’t really go on LinkedIn, but it is also Pauline Jones, Soulful Resilience Journey. But that’s the best, the best, best way to get a hold of me is through Facebook at PJ Jones on Facebook. Perfect.

34:44
And we’ll have that stuff in the show notes. Again, PJ, it was awesome having you on. Thank you so much for being with me today. Thank you so much. Thank you.

In this episode, Nick speaks with Deborah LeBlanc, a certified clinical hypnotherapist and paranormal investigator. They explore the intersection of hypnotherapy, personal growth, and the paranormal, discussing how external energies and generational trauma can affect mental health. Deborah shares her journey into ghost hunting, the importance of recognizing and addressing external influences, and the power of hypnotherapy in healing.

What to listen for:

“I have a very strong faith. I think you have to have faith in order to be a paranormal investigator.”

“I have a right to my own way of thinking. That is one of the most difficult things to teach people.”

“To what end will this bring to you? Suppose it never happened… Then what are you gonna blame? What needs to be healed then?”

About Deborah LeBlanc

Deborah is a certified life and business coach as well as a clinical hypnotherapist. She is the owner of Mind Path Therapies LLC and Five Star Leadership LLC. Deborah lives in the heart of Cajun country with her husband and four dogs.

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!

[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

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Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]

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

Nick McGowan (00:04.819)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan and today on the show we have Deborah LeBlanc. Deborah, how you doing today?

Deborah LeBlanc (00:16.418)
Doing great, Nick.

Nick McGowan (00:18.851)
I’m excited for us to get into the conversation that we’re going to talk about. There’s a lot that we can get into. So without me just blabbing a little bit, let’s 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.

Deborah LeBlanc (00:34.744)
Let’s see, what I do for a living is I am a clinical, a certified clinical hypnotherapist. I’m also a business and life coach, certified business and life coach. What most people don’t know about me, unless they really know me, is that I do paranormal investigations. So I ghost hunt, just like what you see on television.

Nick McGowan (00:59.143)
Well.

Deborah LeBlanc (01:02.25)
things, you know, what you see is what I do.

Nick McGowan (01:06.749)
Well, I think that will mostly be this podcast episode then. I think that’s one thing that some people, different people live in different camps with that sort of stuff, where they’re like, I don’t believe in it. Other people have seen and felt things and they’re like, how in the fuck can’t you believe in it? Some people are really not receptive to it. They just don’t, they’re not open enough to be able to see or understand those things. And that’s not the throw shade at anybody. But I think there are also some people that are closer to the void that

Deborah LeBlanc (01:10.775)
Ha

Deborah LeBlanc (01:17.272)
Sure.

Nick McGowan (01:35.783)
can experience those things a lot easier. So let’s get into that a little bit because I also really, really enjoy that sort of stuff. What led you to that? Like what happened to open your eyes?

Deborah LeBlanc (01:48.46)
Actually, my middle daughter, who’s since passed away, my middle daughter contacted me one night and she knew of a guy who was a producer of the Fear program that MTV was doing at the time. yeah, she says, she says, hey mom, we’re going to…

Nick McGowan (02:06.941)
Yeah, Rogan. What was that fear factor? Yeah.

Deborah LeBlanc (02:17.578)
It was Fort Gaines. And she said, we’re going to ghost hunt. said, would you like to come? And I’m always up for an adventure. So I said, sure, ghost hunting, that’s cool. Let’s go. So we got out there and I got hooked from then on. I mean, I started ghost hunting with a disposable camera, a compass, and a set of brass balls. That’s all you needed really to get started.

But ever since that particular night, I’ve been hooked since then. I’ve hunted with groups all over the US, but I’m tied with one group here in Louisiana, and we go to different locations where people contact us and say, I’ve got spirits in my house, I have this demon in my house, can you come and help?

we normally do, especially if children are involved. But you can normally tell by the person that’s sending you the email whether you’re dealing with something that’s viable or something that really needs medical attention.

Nick McGowan (03:18.163)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (03:30.81)
Yeah.

That’s an interesting thing to think about with the psychology of it, the medical or the mental attention, or the actual, there’s something that’s outside of this realm that is part of this realm at this moment that is affecting. And I think there’s a lot of layers to it. I often think about when I watch different things, some of the stuff we see on TV has to be BS.

There are some things that are actually real and there are certain pieces of it. Like I like to go deeper and find out like I like when people go into different places that have had like mental institutions from the 1920s or 30s that have been shut down for 60, 70 years. You can’t tell me that there’s not energy there. You just can’t. But how does that then affect somebody and how does that tie into how the person works and moves through things?

Deborah LeBlanc (04:02.188)
It is.

Deborah LeBlanc (04:22.219)
you’re right.

Nick McGowan (04:30.387)
And at what point is there a psychological difference? And then there’s a psychic difference. And then there’s an actual entity or some sort of energy that is affecting you. think in a, an easy way to think about it, we’ve all been in a place, probably everybody, I don’t want to make an assumption for every single human, but we’ve probably all been in a place where you just feel a little off. Your intuition is telling you this is a little off. That may be a thing of like this person you’re with is.

not the best or there might be something you can’t see. I’ve been in different spots where I’ve felt things and then I’ve seen things and they tie together. It’s like two and two literally equaled four in that moment. And then there are other times where I’ve noticed that things have happened that I’ve asked, was I a part of that? Was my energy was my trauma was my whatever a part of this and how it all mixed together. Then wondering how people are affected by that. I’ve seen different things where people

go into situation like you’re saying with kids, or kids are widely susceptible to being open to these things, especially in their formative years, between four and eight. But then when they start to get a little older, and like the tween years, I experienced things in my tween years that were really unexplainable. But then how does that affect that person? And how does it tie into our mental health and our healing, which is a thing that honestly, we haven’t actually talked about on this show in close to 150 episodes.

We talk often about trauma. We talk about how people go through things and then how they effectively work through it. But what about the unknown things? Yes, trauma is an unseen thing. You can’t see it, especially generational trauma. You can’t be like, well, my grandpappy from 1842 had this problem and now here it is. But then how do you tie in if there’s an actual entity or a spirit or some sort of energy that’s also infecting you? I guess with that, go.

Deborah LeBlanc (06:23.992)
Well, you know, there are some people that have to this day and I’ve been I’ve been ghost hunting now for I would say going on 29 years. So I have met a lot of people. I have seen a lot of things that were unusual. I have seen a lot of things that were not that unusual that somebody really was blowing out of proportion.

But I did see some things that.

Deborah LeBlanc (06:59.309)
I can’t say they were generational, but I could tell that the person that was experiencing them was messing with things that they shouldn’t have been messing with, like a Ouija board. I’m absolutely against using Ouija boards. Or they were heavy into tarot cards, and that’s how they lived their life, by the tarot cards, instead of just living life.

I mean, there’s certainly for it to be something that’s generational, then you’re talking about an exorcism of sorts, know, something that breaks the ties of that’s followed from, say, one ancestor was cursed and it’s passed on from generation to generation. For example, and mostly it’s not people, it’s land. There are oftentimes people who live on

Nick McGowan (07:40.019)
Hmm.

Deborah LeBlanc (07:58.648)
old Indian burial sites. Their homes were built there and they didn’t realize it. So the land is cursed, quote unquote cursed, until they bring a shaman in there who does his rite of passage for that couple, that piece of property, or whatever it may be, and to appease the spirits that are there. And then everything goes back to normal. So it’s not…

Nick McGowan (08:01.341)
Mm-hmm.

Deborah LeBlanc (08:26.872)
It’s really hard to say how do you get it to stop if it’s generational. One, you always have a choice. You have a choice on how you react to what you think is affecting you. Let’s say somebody always has bad luck and they go, well, my mother always had bad luck. My grandmother always had bad luck. And I heard she was cursed by some gypsy and that was passed on to every female ever born.

Because they believe that, it typically brings that to pass. I believe whatever we put out there in the universe, our own energy, whatever we believe really strongly, we’re going to get. So they believe it, it happens. And it’s a matter of changing their mindset to you have control over your life. It wasn’t your mother or your grandmother.

Nick McGowan (08:58.707)
It’s true then.

Yeah.

Deborah LeBlanc (09:24.958)
I have yet to come across an authentic case of possession. I’m not going to say that. I used to hunt with Ed and Lorraine Warren. And if there were ever demonic cases on this planet, they were around wherever that couple went. They were into really the hardcore. And I knew then that I limited the

types of investigations that I did, because places or people that are demonically possessed, there’s demonic infestation, that takes a certain jeunesse quoi, know, lack of a better term. It’s not at my cup of tea, all right? I know what mine is. I have a very strong faith. I think you have to have faith in order to be in

paranormal investigator, but not to the point where I’m going to be expelling demons or, you know, calling them to the forefront to say, you know, now that you’re here, go. That’s not me. It’s not me. So I can’t say I’ve never seen it. I have seen some wild stuff where Ed and Lorraine were concerned, like a refrigerator completely disappear before my eyes and wind up in the garage.

Nick McGowan (10:37.874)
Mm-hmm

Deborah LeBlanc (10:55.488)
Yeah, yeah, teleportation was, it was, was crazy. And, but I think our own energy has a big part to play in what we manifest in this lifetime. Our own energy, our own beliefs.

Nick McGowan (11:12.615)
Yeah.

Hmm. Hmm. I feel like we could go on so many, so many paths with this that there are certain people that listen to this, this podcast that’ll write, they’ll be in line with us and others might be like, this is a little too far off the beaten path. I think a lot of this really also ties into how we manage our mindset. Cause it is a story, you know, if somebody says this is what

has happened. This is how it is. This is just what we do. This is how you are, etc. We then believe those stories or subconscious says, well, this is what it is. So this is how we roll. We get to change those, we have to be aware of those things to do that. But there are also rather I should say, and there are also other things that can come into play. I appreciate what you’re saying about the demonic sides of this. That’s different than what can seem like a

a looping memory where somebody had this memory in a spot and you can see where they’re like, there’s this little girl that runs around or what have you. That can be one of those looping memories. I had a situation in a building that my grandparents and my aunt owned that was 110 years old. By the time we sold it a few years ago, it was literally the first.

like a town hall place, it was a school, it was a wedding hall, it was all these things in the town and had so many different stories and energies and situations. And there was a woman in a white dress in the back of the, back of one of the basement portions. People would lose their minds, they’d be crazed about it. I saw her twice and I saw her do the same thing. Saw her go back and forth and it was like a looped, a looped memory. That’s much different.

Nick McGowan (13:04.467)
And then, and I even have chills now thinking about it because that was one section of the 10,000 square foot building and the other side of the building, I couldn’t ever even walk down there unless I had another adult with me. at that point I was in my 30s. But there was something deep and dark that owned that piece of the land, of the space that can affect you in so many different ways.

I had one night in that building where I literally was tormented all night long, couldn’t sleep at all. But I know I did some of that to myself by some of the things that I watched and some of the things that I entertained and then calling the fucking thing out, which is not ever really a good thing to do. But I got upset. I walked downstairs, me and my big ass britches and was like, listen, you motherfucker. And it was like.

Deborah LeBlanc (13:50.828)
No.

Deborah LeBlanc (13:55.17)
Yeah.

You

Nick McGowan (13:58.203)
without actually audibly hearing it, I pretty much felt that, no, you’re gonna listen to me. And that was a real moment, but that is a deep, dark entity that then needs to be handled and dealt with. We ultimately ended up bringing different people in to be able to handle and deal with it. And I think it pushed it back a little bit, but I don’t know, we no longer have the building and I’m literally 2000 miles away from where that place is.

Deborah LeBlanc (14:03.507)
Mmm.

Deborah LeBlanc (14:14.892)
Yes.

Nick McGowan (14:27.495)
but there’s a difference between a looped memory and the actual entity. But like you’re saying, we get to decide on how we react to those things. I appreciate that you’re like, I don’t wanna go down that path, but let’s explore that path a little bit for the people that maybe aren’t in the same kind of mindset of what this is or open to these things as much, but can understand that there is something that can attack us.

or attached to us even. And then how do we actually work that along within the standard way of living, of just managing our mindset, trying to be disciplined through life and finding our own path that’s based on our energetics. If there’s something else that’s like tugging at us, because I think there’s a piece of, we need to do our own internal work for our subconscious. But if there’s also an energetic storm that is attacking at us, how can people see that?

Deborah LeBlanc (15:25.792)
They’ll know it in their gut. You’ll know it in your gut that it’s something beyond yourself. Just like you knew when you walked through that building, it was tangible. It was that real. It wasn’t something that had to present itself, you know, with a big red face and horns and, you know, spiked teeth, but it was just as real for you.

Nick McGowan (15:39.293)
So, yeah. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (15:49.341)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (15:53.843)
Yeah.

Deborah LeBlanc (15:54.218)
And so I think they have to use their gut instinct to know something is off here and then contact somebody that has, they may need to just go through a cleansing. It may be where they’re working, where they’re living.

It could be, for example, somebody that was messing with a Ouija board just for fun. And you don’t know what spirit you’re actually calling in, if any, you know, but you really don’t know. Calling somebody in for them to get cleansed, know, just them to go through a cleansing, not an exorcism, but a cleansing and to release that spirit back.

to where it belongs, trapped in that board or wherever the heck it came from. But I think the most important part is acknowledging the fact that this is something different. This isn’t my mindset. This is something different. I can feel it taste it. You don’t have to see the red horns. You just feel it in your gut. It’s like you were saying, you’re thinking about it and it brought goosebumps to you.

Nick McGowan (17:00.861)
Yeah.

Deborah LeBlanc (17:08.152)
That’s how somebody knows this is something very different. Call for help. You know, it’s not like you can go to the, it’s not even the phone book anymore, but if you Google psychic, you know, or medium, you’re just sure to come up with 10,000 of them. Now the legitimate ones are different, but, you know, I have been, I have been called to cleanse quite a few houses and,

and places and sometimes it’s other people that’s playing on you, playing on your imagination, playing on your recording of whatever is going through your mind. I’m going to give you an example. I got a call from this mother asking me to come on Christmas Eve and cleanse their house.

because a daughter who was nine years old was saying that she kept seeing a man in her room who told her she was going to die Christmas day and he was going to be the one to kill her. so the mother, mean, anytime it’s involved, that children are involved, I’m usually there. Whether I sense it to be legit or just this woman overreacting.

I need to see the child because I mean, this child’s freaking out. So myself and one of the other team members went over there and I saw right away what was happening. The father was so caught up in telling his neighbors that he had a ghost in his house that his eyes would actually light up. He was so excited to show us what, like he’d say this chair moved.

from this point to this point. And I said, did you physically see the chair move? Well, yeah, yeah. And his eyes never could meet mine. So, you know, I’ve just said, well, that’s one tick against you. And so he said, and then we hear this big racket like pots slamming all over the place at night. Somebody’s in the kitchen cooking. And I said, really?

Deborah LeBlanc (19:34.582)
And asked the wife, said, did you hear the same sound? She said, I didn’t hear a thing. And the husband just looked at her like, come on, man, you can’t just kind of give me some backup here. So all the while he’s telling me this, I see the daughter’s right there and her eyes are this big, you know? And I know what’s happening is that the father caught wind of something, some odd

something that because I’d sense nothing in the house, nothing.

Deborah LeBlanc (20:12.404)
She was picking up the father’s energy, that nervous energy, was projecting that to her. That’s what was projecting itself. So what I did to cleanse the house, I didn’t do crap, okay? I took the child and took some sage and took the little girl by the hand and had her hold the sage stick.

Nick McGowan (20:23.997)
Yeah.

Deborah LeBlanc (20:40.504)
while it was smoking and I’d tell her what to say. And we’d go from room to room and especially around her bed where she said she saw the man. We’d have her walk around the bed and all through the house. It was a trailer, a mobile home, so it was really small. And walked all the way through the house with her with a sage shaker. said, when we met back in the living room, I said, how do you feel now? She said, like he’s gone.

I said, really? I said, well, you did all the work. You did all the work. So I tamp out the sage stick and I told the mother, said, would you please give me a call tomorrow Christmas day and let me know how she spent the night. I told the little girl how strong she was and really reiterated that. I said, no matter what you hear,

or see, you just remember how strong you were tonight and that you told that whoever it was to go away and because you told him that and you said it in the name of Jesus, he can’t come back no matter what anybody says. I kind of gave her that little oomph because I knew the father wasn’t finished yet. There were neighbors gathering in the yard because we had showed up. So he was waiting for confirmation, you know.

Nick McGowan (21:59.069)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (22:03.539)
It’s a spectacle.

Deborah LeBlanc (22:06.572)
that yes, your house is way haunted and they’re going to put a sign at the road and charge 10 bucks. I don’t know what they plan on doing. But the mother did call me and said that was the first time the daughter had slept peacefully through the night. Christmas Day had been beautiful. She called me that Christmas evening and just thanked me. You know, and I said, really, there really is no thanks needed.

You need to kind of keep your husband in check. said he, you know, because he’s affecting your daughter. And she goes, I kind of suspected that was the case. I said they were you were spot on.

Nick McGowan (22:47.495)
Yeah. So many layers to all of it, you know, and it’s like, it’s so easy to look at the skin of things and the surface of it just say, well, yeah, you’re feeling this thing. The energetic piece to it is so important because there are, there are times that we can affect people. I think for the most part, a lot of people will think about the positive version of that. Like somebody walks into a room and they’re

Deborah LeBlanc (22:51.052)
Yeah, yeah.

Nick McGowan (23:10.885)
and extrovert and have all this energy and they’re so excited and therefore everybody else in the room just feels excited or they’re thankful that person’s there or maybe they’re even triggered and they’re like, well screw that person because I have insecurities slightly different but you can still feel that palpable energy. If somebody believes something so much, that energy can be given off that energy can be shared, especially when it comes to a child, that child is actually open to being able to experience and feel those things. They’re also super susceptible.

to be able to be influenced by that. And what an interesting piece of like, how do you extract from all of that? How do you work within that? And I want us take a little bit of a step back. You talked about being able to feel those things. The mom had even said, I kind of suspected that was a bit of the case. I wonder how often that actually happens where people suspect it, but they don’t do anything with it because you can make up whatever excuses you can.

Deborah LeBlanc (23:43.01)
Right.

Deborah LeBlanc (23:59.032)
You

Nick McGowan (24:08.125)
confirm it to something else or maybe this person’s right. I can appreciate when somebody is at least open, you know, instead of like, nope, that’s not the case because science says or my faith says or whatever. But there are also deeper pieces to it that it’s not just an energetics thing. But there can be an energetics thing from something else. So I wonder how often those things happen where a lot of things are kind of made up because they’re real to that person like that, that father.

Deborah LeBlanc (24:36.344)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (24:37.893)
one of those things to be real for reasons that aren’t clear to us at the moment. They could probably not be clear to us for years of therapy with that person or processing with that person. Depends on that thing. There might also be something in certain cases that are actually affecting people. You pointed out that it’s up to us to be able to handle how we react to those things. I think we also get to see like, how would we react to those things? You mentioned about the horns and all big and red.

full transparency, if I actually saw that, there would be shit in my pants, straight up. And I would be running with that to get out of there. But then again, there have also been things that I’ve seen that I have not felt a piece outside of that, like I had felt in that moment. I saw some little kids at one point when I was younger playing like a merry-go-round sort of thing.

Deborah LeBlanc (25:16.205)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (25:36.295)
just like moving around with each other. And I remember being at such a peace with that. And the kid that I was with was scared shitless and he ran. But I remember just being like, huh, well, that’s wonder what context was, you know, like, how did they get there? What’s their deal, but feeling at peace with it, which is vastly different than that feeling that I had in that basement, which is like this thing could rip us all apart and implode the entire house. You talked about the land though.

Land is an important part to that. I often wonder about the systems of that stuff. Let’s think about where we live in this country. This wasn’t our land. Really none of ours except for the indigenous people whose land it was. And other people got here and they’re like, look at this beautiful land. Who the fuck are you? Well, this is our land. No, it’s not. It’s our land. And they decimated those people. So I kind of understand that there’s a deeper energy to that.

Deborah LeBlanc (26:13.517)
Right?

Deborah LeBlanc (26:22.474)
Right. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (26:33.831)
part of me also wonders like, should we just allow that? I mean, think about land back, like you should give the fucking land back your house shouldn’t be on their, their land, specifically with those things. But I think I’m getting a little off topic here, because there’s a lot to it. But if we tie this back into how we as people can extract the energies that are within us, the traumas and the things that have shaped us to who we are, but also understand that there are also external energies.

And to bring it away from the paranormal and into the, I say normal, there are also energies of other people. That kid and her dad, her dad was affecting her. There are partnerships and relationships and friendships where people can be affected by somebody. They can either be susceptible to just saying, well, I trust this person. I trust what they’re saying is not least remotely true. There are other times where you can just get really inundated.

Deborah LeBlanc (27:12.002)
Yes.

Nick McGowan (27:30.961)
And I see that happening within people just throughout the country. Hell, even with politics right now, there are people that are on the right or they’re on the left or some think they’re right in the middle, but you’re picking a side because of an energy that you’re feeling from something. So in the work that you do with people, how does this all relate to what you do and how you help them through that?

Deborah LeBlanc (27:52.824)
It affects them significantly. For example, if they came from a traumatic childhood, that’s one energy I’m having to deal with. Past energy that they’re still holding on to. If they’re married to a narcissist, that’s present energy that they’re holding on to. If their boss is a real asshole, that’s something that they’re…

you know, they’re having to deal with. And they wonder why they have stress or why they have emphysema and have never smoked before or, you know, a lot of physical ailments have to do with our mental processing of some issues. So it has quite a bit to do with past, present,

And for all intents and purposes, the future of where their mindset is, who is affecting their mind, who is affecting their way of life and dealing with that. For them to feel the strength in themselves to stand up and say, I’m my own person. I don’t have to follow what you think, believe, know, whatever it may be. I have a right to my own way of thinking.

That is one of the most difficult things to teach people.

Nick McGowan (29:19.731)
You’re breaking a lot of things apart at that point. Again, with the systems of it, there’s a lot of systems at play of education, family, how we believe we should be, and then breaking apart from that to actually be able to look at the raw components and go, well, how do we put these components together? Fuck, what are some of the components I don’t want anymore? How do we get rid of these things and what do I do? So how does hypnotherapy tie into that?

Deborah LeBlanc (29:22.646)
Yeah.

Deborah LeBlanc (29:45.846)
Hypnotherapy can go into…

We do do age regression though I don’t like to do it. Age regression and past life regression. One, because you don’t know if that person is actually sensing that. Let me clarify that. Somebody will come to me and say, I think I was sexually abused as a child, but I don’t know for sure. Can you do age regression?

so I can find out for sure. And the first question I’ll ask is, what makes you think you were? Well, I have issues around sex.

Okay, well, that could, those issues could be around some major issues. Maybe their spouse is a lousy lover or, you know, maybe they have a physical issue and, you know, that’s involved. But if the father, if they think they want to pin it on the father or an uncle or cousins, and those people are still alive, I do not do age regression.

Because you don’t know if what they’re picking up is some movie they saw, a book they read, or a story someone told them. They can’t differentiate the truth in their subconscious. What was read, heard, or seen on television is as true to them as though it had actually happened. So I don’t do age regression very often, unless…

Deborah LeBlanc (31:31.48)
unless the father is, they suspect the father, they have confirmation from siblings that they had been abused by the father and the father’s passed away. And then I’ll always ask them, what end will this bring to you? Well, they say closure. I said, to what? Suppose it never happened.

And suppose it did. How does that affect you today? Well, I can get healed from it. I said, but what about if it never happened? Then what are you going to blame it? What needs to be healed then? You see, I try to get them to logically peel that onion down themselves before we get into the crux of things.

Nick McGowan (32:23.365)
Makes sense. mean, even with the paranormal side of it, I think I’ve seen different, again, shows where those are shows. Those are syndicated. There are things to it. Some of it’s kind of almost funny. Like there’s a one show that comes to mind where they always, I forget what the name of it is, but the guy’s name is Zach. He’s the main guy. Then he has one of his other dudes. He always throws them to the wolves. He’s like, do you got to go do this? And he’s like, why is it always me?

Deborah LeBlanc (32:49.964)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (32:52.467)
Like, well, part of that is because we enjoy seeing the doof like get tossed in the mix. But I’ve also seen different things, YouTube wise or some deeper researching of things, home movies of things where you can tell that there’s something, but there’s also potential for exaggeration. There’s like you were talking about, and I think that’s really important to be able to call out that the subconscious does not care what’s

quote unquote real or not because it’s all real. It’s how we relate to it and what we do with it. How we can also then be able to do something with that and being able to be logical about it. At least let’s be scientific about it. How could this actually be the case? It’s interesting that we’re having this conversation now because for some reason, I don’t really know why, but about a week ago, I started to rewatch the X files.

Deborah LeBlanc (33:49.922)
yeah.

Nick McGowan (33:50.117)
just at the end of the night and all watch an episode or two. And I love the X Files as a kid. But I didn’t fully understand it. Because honestly, I was born in 84. And I mean, the X Files were their early 90s. So like, I didn’t fully grasp. But being able to go back and see how some of that is and even the difference between Mulder and Scully where Scully is like, scientifically, this is what it is. Mulder is like, I want to believe in all of that. And I think there’s a mixture of both of those people.

in most people that can feel and see these things. It’s really important, I think, as a takeaway for us all to be able to look at and say, all right, if I step outside of this, paranormal, normal, quasi normal, abnormal, all the types, to be able to say, well, logically and scientifically, how could this be the case? Is it an abnormal or paranormal thing? Or do I just want it to be because I’m bored?

or I want a little bit of spice in my life, or is it literally just a scientific thing that’s happening right now? Like I’ve enjoyed, and again, this is just funny that this is the time of life that I have right now. Watching some of these episodes where some of these things are just strictly scientific in that moment, like even stuff with the Bermuda Triangle. So many people talk about all these paranormal things and all that stuff that’s happening. I have a feeling that a lot of it’s actually electromagnetic and where it’s at within the globe.

Deborah LeBlanc (35:06.082)
Right.

Nick McGowan (35:14.801)
and also the things that are under the water that are pulling on those things. And it’s not just like there’s some sea monster under there that just swallowing people up. But then again, we also like the fantastic, the things that are abnormal. Look at the TV shows, look at the movies, look at all this stuff that’s out there. It can influence us in those sort of ways. But I think from a basic human level, we want to believe that there are things that are outside of us.

Deborah LeBlanc (35:19.564)
I agree.

Deborah LeBlanc (35:25.708)
Right.

Nick McGowan (35:43.101)
but we also want to be comfortable and we want to understand that we can control these things, which we really actually can’t except for our actions and the ways that we go about things. So when you go through with your clients with hypnotherapy, what sort of stuff do you give them to work on after the fact so that they can continue to do the work and actually integrate with it?

Deborah LeBlanc (36:07.096)
Well, typically I’ll send them an MP3 of the session, the hypnotherapy session that we’ve just done. So I’ll have them listen to it at least two or three times before we meet again so that it just reiterates what we worked on and helps to strengthen that in the subconscious mind. I do a lot of Ericksonian hypnotherapy and

So it reinforces hearing it over and over again. It’s just like me telling you a story. If I told it to you three times in a week, you’d remember that story by the end of the week. So that’s one of the things that I do. Anything other than that, then I’m usually getting into CBT or DBT treatments, know, with it, depending on their situation.

Nick McGowan (37:05.905)
Yeah, no, I think that’s awesome how we can tie and kind of have a modality stack almost. Like even as you’re talking about it, there’s also acupressure, where being able to state these things over and over and how you feel how it feels in you reshaping that story and then stating it again and having a different feeling with it and being able to then expand upon that either from hypnotherapy or whatever the modality is, and then stacking things upon it. Something that I noticed different people say at times, they’re like, well, I’ve done therapy.

Deborah LeBlanc (37:12.93)
Sure.

Nick McGowan (37:36.915)
like that’s the end of it. I’ve talked to people before and it’s like great. We’ve all been talking since we were kids and learned how to actually speak. But that’s different than processing through it. And that’s different than finding out how do you actually work with that. One of the big reasons why I wanted to bring you on was not only for hypnotherapy, but being able to expand upon that modality as an option for people. Some people have a thing with hip hypnotherapists.

Deborah LeBlanc (37:39.085)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (38:03.089)
some people think I can’t ever be hypnotized. I’ve seen some people I went to some seminar and like, I don’t know mid 2000s with a hypnotherapist and this one dude was like, I could never be hypnotized. 10 minutes later, he was up on stage barking like dog. And I remember busting up laughing and being like you were the dude who basically called yourself out in a room full of 400 people to then be up there. And he didn’t have any recollection of it because he was hypnotized, but he didn’t believe he could be that goes back to our

our belief in what we think we can do and how we can go about it. So in that sort of sense, with somebody who’s on their path towards self mastery, what sort of advice would you give them?

Deborah LeBlanc (38:43.628)
Well, where hypnotherapy is concerned, I’ve never yet in all my years of training have made anybody bark like a dog or cluck like a chicken. don’t stage hypnotists give hypnotherapy sometimes a rotten name, you know? And when Hollywood gets involved, it gets worse, you know, because people think it’s mind control. And it’s not. It’s not. It’s…

bringing you to a point of relaxation where you can actually hone in on what your real issue is and work through that particular issue. Sometimes we get so busy with life and the noise that life brings that we keep that distraction or what problem we have on a shelf and it comes back to bite us in the butt all the time.

This is where we keep it. We always jack the radio up, you know, whether we’re in the house, it’s a television on, it’s a radio on, it’s, we have to have noise, noise, noise, noise. We can’t deal with the silence. And the silence is where we need to find, is where you find your inner self, where you find the answers to a lot of the problems that they’re going to other therapists to find. That’s, you’ve got the answers within yourself.

And as a hypnotherapist, all my job is to help you listen.

Nick McGowan (40:18.767)
You’re right. I mean, there’s a lot of noise that’s out there. And we do like the noise. And noise isn’t always just actual noise. It can be a distraction of social media can be a distraction of a thing that we call to be a hobby. That is a, it’s a thing for I think, a lot of people that probably don’t really want to talk about it as much where what do they do when they’re just really silent? How do they actually break through?

the barrier of the monkey brain that just throwing random fucking noises and thoughts at you and actually get deeper than that. And I appreciate that hypnotherapy can help with that sort of stuff. This has been an interesting conversation, because it’s not just about hypnotherapy. There’s paranormal to it. There’s a lot of different pieces to it. But it is also really related back to our overall mindset, the stories that we tell ourselves and our subconscious.

Deborah LeBlanc (40:59.17)
Yeah, it does.

Nick McGowan (41:15.099)
So I appreciate you being on today. Before I let you go though, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

Deborah LeBlanc (41:21.666)
They can go to mindpaththerapies.com and click or Deborah at mindpaththerapies.com and contact me that way. Or they can reach contact at five star leadership.co.

Nick McGowan (41:41.427)
Okay, perfect. And we’ll have that stuff in the show notes. Again, Deborah, it’s been great to have you on. I appreciate your time today.

Deborah LeBlanc (41:48.236)
Thanks a lot, Nick.

In this episode, Nick speaks with Utkarsh Narang to explore the themes of self-mastery, personal development, and the importance of deeper conversations. Utkarsh shares his insights as an executive coach, emphasizing the need for awareness, acceptance, and action in the journey of self-discovery. They discuss societal pressures, the superficiality of modern interactions, and the significance of finding one’s values and purpose.

“Change is inevitable. Whether I do something about it or not, things are going to change outside of me and inside of me.”

“We need to spend 2% of our day—just 28 minutes—connecting with ourselves. Sit with your thoughts. It may be uncomfortable at first, but something will emerge.”

About Utkarsh Narang

Utkarsh is a Learning Consultant, Executive Coach, Facilitator, and Content Creator based in Melbourne, Australia. Over his 16-year career, he has transitioned from being a physiotherapist, and a good one at that, to filming and editing 400 hours of content for a Columbia Business School professor. He has also scaled a startup and led sales, and now, he focuses on helping individuals and teams outperform themselves. Throughout his journey, he has learned to make fear an ally in living a courageous life.

He has a passion for understanding human behavior and uses his diverse experiences to build programs for organizations across the globe. He lives by his 5 core values: Discipline, Excellence, Growth, Freedom, and Love. When he’s not helping others get better, he enjoys working on himself through reading, meditation, exercise, and raising his two boys with his wife in Melbourne.

Resources:

Check out these other episodes about self-acceptance:

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

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Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]

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

Nick McGowan (00:01.583)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self -Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan, today on the show I have Utkarsh. How are you doing today?

Utkarsh Narang (00:12.779)
I’m doing very well, Nick. Thank you for not butchering my name. And the name has a very important significance because it means to progress. And I always say that hopefully the next 45 to 60 minutes that you and I spend together, both the first progress, but also our listeners.

Nick McGowan (00:26.99)
Absolutely. What a great transition with that. You’ve clearly done this before and you’ve had people butcher your name. Obviously we talked a little bit about that before we hit record. Our names mean a lot to us, but they can also mean whatever we want them to mean. It’s not just, this is what our parents named us and this is how we are. We get to actually put our own flavor to it and what it means for us. I know there are some people that have names that can tie to somebody in history that has been really a negative person.

but they get to be able to change that and shape that. And like you’re saying, it’s progress. There’s slow progress. The progress just takes the time it takes. So, hey, why don’t you start 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.

Utkarsh Narang (01:12.467)
Absolutely. So I’m an executive coach and a learning consultant and I live in Melbourne, Australia. Nick, so I’m in the future. It’s six or five on a Wednesday morning. We’re on Wednesday already. And so looking forward to this conversation, I help organizations, help the managers become future leaders through coaching workshops and whatever it takes. And my whole idea is that that this human life is really beautiful. And yes, we have our fears. We have our limiting beliefs. We have our challenges.

but we need to walk through them and make sure that we make the best out of what’s been given to us. And one thing that people don’t know about me, I have two boys now who are about to be 14 and 10. I really was super afraid of becoming a parent about 15 years ago. I would have never taken the responsibility, but I think…

That’s one role in my life that’s given me the most joy that it could. that’s something that I sometimes share, but sometimes don’t fully. Yeah, that’s what you do when you ask that question. I don’t know why.

Nick McGowan (02:16.558)
I love those sort of things. The reason why I ask that question is to find out what somebody thinks is kind of an odd thing or a little weird or what have you. But I really love that you went with the intuitive approach of like what came to you first may not be an odd thing to others, but it might be something that we can really expand upon. I don’t have any children, but I could imagine that shifts and changes the way you look at things. Am I right?

Utkarsh Narang (02:35.359)
Yeah.

Utkarsh Narang (02:41.035)
Absolutely, it 100 % does because you’re almost wanting to take ownership of these two human beings but the point is that you don’t have any ownership over them. And I don’t know why as you were speaking about the word odd just kind of started to resonate in my head and another odd thing that I can share is which might irk a few people is that I don’t like watching Netflix.

Nick McGowan (03:06.156)
Why’s that?

Utkarsh Narang (03:08.681)
I feel like people are continuously creating so much content in the world. How much can one consume? And it just gets so exhausting for me to then remember the details of that and then have conversations with friends about that. So I better not like not even watch it.

Nick McGowan (03:22.923)
Yeah, it’s interesting. We could probably just go down that rabbit hole a bit. There’s societal pressures with being able to shoot the breeze with somebody around the water cooler in a sense of like, hey, what did you do this weekend? Why binge watched whatever. It’s like, those are surfacey level conversations. Let’s be real here. What we’re doing right now is we’re creating content. We don’t actually use this on social media to push against the algorithms or try to get in front of people in that way. Cause

Utkarsh Narang (03:42.741)
to it.

Nick McGowan (03:49.793)
we don’t actually believe that that helps. There’s no real reason to fight against the algorithms, but having a solid list, an email list, and people that are followers that want to actually listen to this, that’s a huge piece of it. So if you think of things like streaming, Hulu, Netflix, whatever else, they are there for people to be able to binge. And for the most part, I think a lot of that can be an escape. Now granted, we all need downtime. We need rest. I am part of the anti -hustle culture.

because I’ve been through the horseshit of the hustle culture where it’s like, you just keep pushing and pushing. And then ultimately at some point you just want to stop living. Not cool. So being able to step back from that, but we do beautiful way of saying, I don’t want to be a part of that. What led you to that point to think, well, I don’t want to be a part of that. And what do you do on the opposite side of it?

Utkarsh Narang (04:18.677)
Hmm.

Utkarsh Narang (04:36.117)
Yeah, I think you’ve said a lot of very thoughtful things there. I’d start with first the water cooler conversations, Nick, because I think they really define what and I work a lot of with organizations. So that’s going to come up. But even in our conversations with our friends, with our colleagues, with our partners.

We’re having these very superficial conversations where I’ll ask you, how are you doing, Nick? Or how was your weekend? But I’m just waiting for you to finish your answer so that I can say something that’s very meaningful. Or even worse is that, like you and I were speaking just before the start of the show, the black coffee, the cold brew. I want to retain and remember those things because they mean something to you and to me. And that’s why we’re sharing those things. I think the deeper conversations have gone.

Nick McGowan (05:03.327)
Mm

Utkarsh Narang (05:21.695)
drastically down over the last few decades, I would say. And yes, we can blame technology, can blame our focus being dispersed all the time, distracted all the time. But we have a choice. And I don’t know what’s stopping us from

from asking Nick, how is he doing and really listening because that’s so important and how it will make Nick feel is going to be amazing. So I think we got to get back to being deeper on our conversations. That’s one. Second, when I coach people, Nick, I see them that they would feel, we procrastinate or we are going through an anxiety phase or we’re going through a divorce or something that’s very challenging in the workplace or personally. And then they’ll use this as an

I’m using a bigger word, but use this as an addiction. Where they’ll say, I’ll start at like nine o ‘clock in the evening because I don’t want to sleep. I cannot sleep. And I’ve scrolled like for three hours. What did you gain out of it? Nothing at all. Nothing at all. But we still go back to it every single day and we choose to spend our lives that way. And I’m not saying it’s wrong. I know people go through that, but I think it’s it’s a choice that we need to shift that. And then third, final thing that was coming through through what you were saying was

The hustle culture, the 70 hours a week. I’ve done that too. I used to take pride in sending the 3 a email and like, what the fuck was wrong with me? Why was I doing that to myself? And then the societal pressure comes up, which is something that if so right now live in Melbourne, Australia, but I’ve been brought up in India and I’ve been people ask me often on conversations, Nick, how is your childhood? And and as soon as that question comes up,

Nick McGowan (06:38.889)
Mm

Utkarsh Narang (07:01.781)
part of me feels like, I wish I had some dramas in my childhood.

because then I would have been able to to kind of sell those and to share those and this and that. But I did not have any traumas. I had parents who were doctors, but they never told me that with Kash, when you grow up, you have to become a doctor. Over the journey of my lifetime, it became clear that I wanted to become a doctor. So I studied and did a master’s in orthopedic physical therapy, got into into private practice. All that happened. But there was not that societal pressure.

But I would see my friends who were going through this that you learn because you have an exam to cross. You do this because your parents want you to do this. And that’s just unfair to, again, human life.

Nick McGowan (07:44.427)
Yeah, wow, there’s, I will have conversations with friends, people on the podcast, clients even, where we talk about where that stuff comes from because there are things that have become tradition in a sense, where it’s like, this is what we do in this family, this is how this is, but it’s really just based on trauma that has stemmed back from those people. It’s great that your parents didn’t do that to you. Hopefully that’s because they learned from watching from other people when they were younger going,

It doesn’t sit well with me. We’re not gonna do that when we have our own kids. And I’m sure you now are able to transfer that to your own children, or at least be loving and respecting. Like you said, right up front, you feel like it’s your job to help them. It is, but it also isn’t because they are their own human. They get to live their own life. They’re gonna make their own mistakes. They’re gonna have their own successes, all that sort of stuff. But for you to not…

compound upon what societal pressures and consistent traumas will lead to, you get to then be a refuge for them to be able to help. There’s a lot when we look back at where things stem from, like even the people that don’t have those conversations that are deeper. Somebody, and I think from the water cooler perspective, I don’t know how many water coolers are actually in offices these days, but let’s say the coffee bar in a sense where people are like, all right, I’m getting to the break room. I’m gonna grab some coffee.

and they’ll shoot the shit with somebody for a minute. For the most part, they will just ask, how was your weekend? It good, cool. Well, my weekend, I… And they just go into their own thing, or they don’t really care at all. I think some of that ties into what we see within social media, where people expect this big, big, big thing to be the thing to talk about, and you can’t really talk about the mundane or the smaller things. And especially, it can be difficult for people that don’t have these conversations often to then talk about the work that they’re doing internally.

Or the work that they’re they’re struggling with or the things that they’re struggling with and there’s also kind of a balance that like you see people on social media Talking shit about it. But at same time they’re trying to expand like how do how do I have the conversation and they’ll just complain But what are your thoughts?

Utkarsh Narang (09:55.913)
Yeah, you know, part of me feels like it’s a it’s a really strange scenario. And I’ll tell you what I mean by that is it’s you see posts on social media where someone’s being vulnerable and that goes viral. And then you feel like that’s the right path to take. Then you see certain things that that make you feel like, this is also superficial. And then you feel like that’s the path to take. You have these water cooler or coffee pit stop moments in the office or wherever.

but we’re forgetting the humanity that we have within ourselves. And I think that’s the big challenge because we’re not having these conversations for a deeper purpose or a deeper meaning. And just in that moment, I’m not saying that we should now start having conversations for like some larger purpose that will be achieved out there in the universe at some point, but we need to make sure that we connect with each other on a human level. And I think that’s not fully happening.

Because it’s really hard, Nick, to let out your own fears, to let out your own vulnerabilities out there in the world, because it seems that everyone else’s life is so damn perfect. But it’s not. It’s not. And what I often say, Nick, is that the world is nothing but eight fucking billion perceptions and each one trying to prove that mine is better than yours. It is not. It is not.

Nick McGowan (11:12.573)
Mm

Utkarsh Narang (11:18.859)
And who knows? I’m sitting here in Melbourne. You’re right across the world. There are 100 ,000 people in some city in Europe and there are a billion people in India. Who the hell cares what do I do with my life? Really no one, right? And my sphere of influence is really small. But I’m still so worried about the societal pressure. I don’t know why. And on that, when I tell my children to study hard and to do this and like an Indian parent that comes up on certain days.

which wants them to excel in their studies in meaningful ways. I think about that, that Utkash, you spent six years studying medicine to become a doctor, and here you are 20 years later, you’re not even using that degree anymore. You’re not even using that skill anymore. So who are you to predict a future for them? 10 years down the line, maybe AI will do everything, and all they’ll have to do is go on a vacation to moon or to Mars, or Elon Musk will build something

that will take them to another planet. And so why worry about it too much, which is so far in the future. And so I think what is coming up for me in several conversations, Nick, is that if we can have these human conversations better, if we can build these skills of wanting to know a little bit about Nick, wanting to share a little bit about wanting to connect on a deeper level, then I think then that’s to me, me, victory.

Nick McGowan (12:41.936)
Absolutely. I think there are a lot of times where people get really hung up on their own shit, that it’s hard to ask somebody else about their own stuff, where they don’t care as much because they don’t know how to deal with it on their own. Let’s go back to Netflix. I watch Netflix. I watch different shows. I watch different things. And there are times where you rest and there are times where you just watch a movie because you like the cinema or whatever it is of it, you know?

But then there are also times where if you can become aware, knowing that you are actively trying to escape something, once you’re aware of that, you can then do something with it. You make the choice to go, fuck it. I’m not gonna go anywhere near it. I see you, but I don’t want you right now. Or, yeah, you’re right. And I’ve had that intuitive pull where it’s like, I am actively trying to escape right now. What am I trying to escape from? But I think it takes people being able to slow down.

and being able to have that moment with themselves instead of just being stuck in a spot where it seems like everybody in the global economy is just doing well enough or not hurting bad enough where you’re just doing a little bit of enough where I got other shit to deal with. Like I think of politics and I’ve said this before, like I can’t even with that because I have these other things to do. But we at ourselves, we have to be with ourselves to the rest of our lives. We came into this world.

and we’re gonna leave this world and we’re all gonna be by ourselves, but we can do it with other people. But it starts with us having that conversation. Now, how do you coach people to become aware of that and then have those internal conversations with themselves that are, let’s be real, they’re fucking difficult conversations.

Utkarsh Narang (14:26.251)
They are now we’re talking now this is this is my sweet spot. I love talking about this this fluffy stuff that that you could imagine but this is what is really meaningful because see what I often say is I have a rule that I often share with my coaches and when I speak to people it’s a 2 % rule and what that stands for Nick is if I had to ask you what is 2 % of 24 hours and I did not tell you the answer beforehand so I’ll do the drum roll myself and I’ll answer it 28 minutes.

So 2 % of 24 hours is 28 minutes. What I ask people is to start spending that time on hopefully a daily basis, but at least a weekly basis with their own selves. Just sit down in a corner in your house, looking at the blue sky, the green grass, and just sit there. It’ll be very uncomfortable for the first few minutes. You’ll feel like, what the hell am I doing? What’s wrong with me? You will want…

certain stimulus, you will want your phone back, will want your Netflix back, you’ll want someone to have a conversation with, but just sit there with yourself, with your own thoughts and give it a few minutes. It’s like, it’s like if I were to take water, Nick, and then stir a lot of sand into it. The sand takes a while to settle down. And that’s what we’re doing. And that to me helps us craft that self mastery, that mindset that you and I will hopefully speak about once we once we get through everything else. That’s that’s important.

So that’s one idea that I want to share that spend that time with yourself because it seems very difficult at the start, but by the end of it, you’ll feel that something is emerging. The second is, which I do often my coaches is to find really who you are. think that’s a question that’s really complex. It’s very difficult to answer that question, but it’s really important for us to understand who we really are. And this word again, authenticity, misused, abused and overused.

There’s no end to it, but you have to find your own authentic self to be able to then express that out in the world. And I think it’s the inner work that all of us need to do, Nick, to have a deeper impact on ourselves first and then people around us.

Nick McGowan (16:40.167)
Yeah. And it’s not enough to just say for us to do it. We should do it. We should do that. Somebody should spend that 2%. They should do those things. It’s taking those first steps and having grace with ourselves to be able to go, all right, I’m going to start this. I meditate for 30 seconds. I’ll sit here. I’ll put my fucking phone across the room for two minutes or whatever it is. And being able to see that you can have those little successes that help us, but then also understanding

how the energetics of ourselves work within that. Like even being able to set ourselves apart from everything else that’s going on, there are different ways that we can find time to be able to integrate with the things that we’re learning. But when you work with clients that are having a really hard time just settling down or understanding that they need to shake that stuff off and kind of let the sand settle to then do that work, what are some of the steps you walk them through to be able to do that?

Utkarsh Narang (17:35.819)
Absolutely. So I feel it’s always a five step process that we go through Nick. The first one is awareness. And sometimes it takes time to build that awareness, but it comes through a conversation. I walk into these coaching conversations as a coach who’s not an expert because for me to then come say and Nick you do one, two, three, and your life is going to be bliss is not going to work. If you’re going through a toxic work culture.

If you feel hustle is the right path to take, if you feel that entrepreneurship is for you, if you feel that’s that’s how you feel about it. And who am I to come and say that, Nick, no, that’s not the right way to think about it.

So instead of doing that, I just walk into the conversation with a lot of questions, with a lot of deeper introspection for them to think about what are they really doing with their life. And one thing that I’ve always seen work for individuals is, this conversation Nicky and I are having, this could be the last conversation we have. I could die after this. I could have an accident or you could have something. I could have a heart attack. And I know it sounds grave to be talking about this, but that’s actually the truth.

And so if something were to happen to me, will I be happy? Will I be fulfilled? Will I be satisfied? Use whatever word that works for you. Living the kind of life that I’m living right now. And sometimes I tell my coaches because I don’t want them to think that they’ll die today. I tell them, imagine 10 years, 20 years, 30 years down the line. There has to come a day when you’ll pass on from this planet. If that day is happening right now, how would you want to live your life from now?

to then. And so start to consider this your day one to the rest of your life. And now you tell me what makes sense. And so that allows them to start to settle things up. And that’s like the first step, the awareness.

Nick McGowan (19:25.469)
awareness is the biggest thing that I think a lot of people, full pun intended, they’re unaware of, you know, they just don’t know to know. But once you become aware of something, again, you then have the opportunity to do something with or not do something with it. It, we, I want to go back to the societal pressure, because there are a lot of times where people will think, well, I’ve been doing this thing for so long, and I should be at some stage now, like,

I should at 30 years old, I should be doing these things at 40 or 50. I should have had all these things done. And it’s really difficult to understand that should is just a bunch of bullshit because we are taught that we see that through everybody else. And people say, this is what it should look like. And it’s really just passed along trauma. But when somebody becomes aware of that, I oftentimes will get asked, well, what if everything has to change? That’s one of my favorite questions. Cause I’m like, fuck yeah. What?

If, but what if everything doesn’t change? And here you are 10, 20, 30 years down the road, but still showing yourself grace as you move through it because it doesn’t all have to happen today. But at least you do something a little different today than you did yesterday.

Utkarsh Narang (20:39.347)
powerful. I think a few things come up as you were speaking about that. One is these are just distortions of the brain. This shitting, this shitting that we do, not shitting, this shitting that we do all over ourselves. I think who the hell cares about the shits and the words and the money and the goods. It’s just immaterial. So that’s one thing. So we need to kind of overcome these distortions. And then the question that you beautifully asked is

Nick McGowan (20:46.884)
Mm

Utkarsh Narang (21:07.019)
our brain and I’ll give you an example from my life. this was back in the times of the COVID seems like I know how many years ago it was, but it was very recent. I was in a full time job doing really well, hustling it through very purposeful, very well being, loved the team, grew the team from two to about 50, 55 globally. So it was, it was home. It was home that that place was home for me, but I decided to quit that job in the middle of the pandemic.

Now brain started to tell me, Utkash, what if you fail? Utkash, what if you go bankrupt? Utkash, what if nothing works out? And those are the questions that the brain asked me. But what if we reverse the question ask? But brain, what if everything goes right? What will open up for me by making this change? And that’s the shift that we need to bring in our thinking. So that’s one. Third, you spoke about change. Change is inevitable. I mean, whether I do something about it or not.

things are gonna change outside of me and things are gonna change inside of me. If I can be a little bit more intentional and deliberate and accepting of that change, it’s gonna actually change our fucking lives. And that’s the only way to go about it. We can resist it. that, I I see people telling me, Utkash, Aya is gonna take over this and Aya is gonna, so what?

What are you going to do about it? Because that’s going to happen. It’s inevitable. Technology is going to grow. It’s getting faster and faster with each day and time. The phone is always going to be there. Netflix is always going to be there. What are you going to choose to do? French fries are always going to be there. What are you going to choose to eat? So it’s a choice. And when we give up that choice, that’s where it hurts me the most to see.

Nick McGowan (22:28.152)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (22:52.16)
Yeah. And if we take that a little deeper, because yes, we have that choice and we look at why people make those choices that they do or why they choose to not make the choices, we can then figure out where the root problem is because something happened when they were younger or some situation happened and told them that they couldn’t, they shouldn’t, they wouldn’t do it anymore. And they stopped looking at that. I think everybody knows that change is inevitable. Everything’s changing. Even

Now, you know, the seasons change, life changes, policies, like all these different things change. And still people will push away and go, well, that’s fine, but that’s over there. But we do get to control whatever we have inside of us. And the reason why I’m saying it like that is because I want people to understand that no matter what you think, you still have control of that. There are times where I’ll think about the book, Man’s Search for Meaning from Victor Frankel, game changer.

Utkarsh Narang (23:48.841)
Love that.

Nick McGowan (23:50.732)
total game changer. That man literally was in a concentration camp that was like, I’m here, this is the spot that I’m in right now. And I can only do what I can do, but I can manage myself appropriately. And throughout the book, or at least that first half before he gets out and does all his talks and all, he talks about there are other people who just couldn’t, they couldn’t handle it. And we as people will go through that throughout different situations. I thoroughly believe that we’re equipped with

what we can handle and you can’t handle any more than what you’re given. But there are certain times where things will happen. Like there are people that are like, I never thought I could do that until it fucking happened and they did it. It’s like, well, now that you’ve done that, what else is possible without being like, cool, I can take over the entire world or I’m the next Steve Jobs. We even look at purpose of that. Like your purpose may be specifically working with the people within your community. It might just be you being the best fucking parent you can be, but being okay with that.

How do you work with your clients to be able to grasp that and then really dive into it?

Utkarsh Narang (24:56.211)
Yeah, yeah, I think this idea around choice

I think again, it’s over the last hundred years that it’s been made us like that has made us believe that we don’t have the choice or we don’t have the ability to choose certain things. I think it’s again a lot of unlearning that needs to happen, Nick, for us to get there. And as I was telling you, like the first step is awareness. The second is acceptance that yes, something screwed up here. Something’s not right. I don’t know what that is. I feel it in my bones. It shows up as burnout. shows up as…

anxiety it shows up as just like feeling that life’s not worth it.

So I gotta accept that something needs to shift here. And that’s where I tell my coaches is to find what’s that desired sweet spot looking like. At least you can visualize it as you can dream about it. Who’s gonna say, come and tell you like, and I see that very often Nick, where this childhood trauma that you’re talking about or something someone said in the past to us, you had a bad marriage and a few years.

You were just blamed every day for everything that you did. You tend to then get into a state where you feel like that’s how I am. That’s how it is. But my question to you then is what’s stopping you from letting go of that weight? Because it’s not your husband, it’s not your partner, it’s not your wife. They’ve gone. You’ve separated from them. But there’s something else that’s stopping you. And more than often, that something stopping you is within you. And if you accept that,

Utkarsh Narang (26:32.895)
that’s when you’ll be able to move forward from it. So that’s the second piece. The third piece that I think is really important and it’s where, as you were saying, I think we need that internal compass and internal metric, something on the inside that anchors us on this journey of life because, and the word that I often use is for number list. You, me, all of us who are listening.

We’re all phenomenalists. Now, a tongue twister word, the first time I heard it, I had no idea what that means, even though hopefully my English is okay. But when I Googled it, it means to be a tightrope walker. And all of us are treading this tightrope of life. There’s no going back. We cannot step back. There’s only one way that’s forward. And we have to choose the small steps that we take on this tightrope.

The tightrope is going to be wobbly. It’s going to be trying to throwing us off the cliff and into the unknown. But we got to take that one step at a time, one step at a time. And that’s where having an anchor within you helps you go through that journey. So I tell my coaches is to do an experiment where think about your closest friends or think about, again, your life in the next few years. What do you think are certain values that you want to live your life by?

that will guide your journey to wherever that desired future is. And they start to kind of think about it at the start. It’s mostly… I don’t want to kind of demean that word, but it’s mostly superficial that I want happiness. I want a good family. I want good health. But what do need to do to have that?

Nick McGowan (28:05.418)
Yeah, of course.

Utkarsh Narang (28:14.579)
And then what emerges is I need to have discipline. And these are my values. So discipline, excellence, growth, freedom, and love. These are five values that I operate with. And they’ve been quite useful, I would say, in the path of this life.

Nick McGowan (28:30.56)
Yeah, that anchor is a big component to what we do. And if we don’t have that anchor, it can be easy to just feel lost and completely undervalue yourself because you don’t know where that is. That’s part of the reason why we as a company really love to be able to help people with subconscious processing, to be able to uncover those things, work through those things.

get that out of your cells and to be able to reframe it and shape it in a way that is a better story to be able to actually work with and understand that you can have that core. If somebody has that core and that anchor and they feel this is what I’m here to do, things start to open up. But even with you’re talking about like, yeah, we’re honest with this. A lot of it is surfacey where it’s like, well, I want happiness. Cool. At least that’s a start. What does happiness look like for you?

I find when we ask that at times, people will go, well, happiness looks like this, because my parents told me that’s what it looks like. Or my manager, my job tells me that that’s what it looks like. But if you really start to get deeper and deeper, they might go, well, happiness looks like me sitting outside being in nature all day long and talking to people specifically about nature. We start to then get closer to what is part of our core and our purpose. And what a beautiful thing when we get there.

It sounds like you probably get into a lot of that with people, but it’s not right off the bat. It’s not first session. It’s probably not even first 15 sessions. Like by the time you really start to unpack those things, because there are so many doors that we get to and then we go, shit, there are 40 other fucking doors. All right. And I start to move through those other things, right?

Utkarsh Narang (30:13.831)
Yeah, absolutely. And again, the choice is ours. What do you want to knock on first and whatever comes out of it, how do you want to tackle it? And I think sometimes I even tell people like, let’s just start with the groundwork and you don’t have to trust me at all. You don’t have to trust the process at all. You don’t have to just, just go through it for the sake of it because you’ve already paid. So let’s just do one session today and just speak about your values and then be like, are these going to work? And I’ll say, don’t worry about it.

Nick McGowan (30:20.243)
Yeah.

Utkarsh Narang (30:39.913)
You don’t have to trust the values yet, trust Utkarsh yet. What I tell them to do is get the values out in, the first few sessions, Nick. I ask them to put them onto a Post -it note and stick them onto the mirror where they brush their teeth, assuming they brush their teeth every day. They put it onto the mirror. And then I ask them, before you sleep at night, just go through a quick reflection. Which of the values did you compromise on today?

And sometimes one week later, two weeks later, they come back and say, it’s changing. Something’s changing. What is changing? And that’s when the bloody dam opens up and it’s all they all let go of whatever was holding them back. And then it’s a journey. And again, coming back to we cannot predict that damn future. I can tell you the lottery numbers right now. And hopefully someone is listening and they can go and buy that ticket.

Nick McGowan (31:28.072)
Mm

Utkarsh Narang (31:36.521)
But when the future really comes, it’s going to be changing. It’s going to be ever evolving. And so don’t worry about that future too much. Yes, plan for it. Yes, it’s important. Yes, you have to earn the money. Your purpose is not going to pay the bills. Not at all.

I cannot tell my internet provider that, I’m having very purposeful conversations with Nick. Please don’t charge me for the internet. That’s not going to happen. So you have to go through life with all of that shit. You have to pay the bills. You have to make a life for yourself and your people around you. And that is super critical. Start with yourself. Start with that inner work, because then it might become a little easier.

Nick McGowan (32:14.268)
Yeah, and I’m really glad that you got on to that. There are people we’re a purpose driven company at choose your calling. It’s what we do is we help people figure out what their calling is and their purpose. And so many people think, well, it has to be the next Steve Jobs, or it’s not worthwhile. And your purpose can look vastly different, but your purpose is uniquely yours. And it’s how you want to be able to show up and be able to do it. It can be really difficult for for people in general to be able to slow down to understand what are they like? What are they not like?

Just like there are times where people are stuck. Like, I’ve been doing this thing for 20 years. How do I get out of it? Or I’ve been in this relationship for so long. What do I do? But it starts with us to be able to do that. It’s interesting how even the stuff that you were talking about ties back into awareness and acceptance. No matter what. you’re aware of it, you can then do something with it. If you’re not fucking aware of it, you can’t do a fucking thing about any of it. But you then can accept and go, cool, well, here I am. What do I do from here?

Utkarsh Narang (32:59.903)
Yeah, no matter what.

Utkarsh Narang (33:08.863)
the executive.

Nick McGowan (33:13.851)
And how do we do this? I have different conversations with people, different ways about specifically the stuff that they’ve gone through because some people are more open to going, you know what, I fucked up. Here I am now. I’ve learned from that. I don’t blame you for looking at me that way and expecting a pattern, but I can do something different. And there are other people that need to have deeper work to go through because…

Utkarsh Narang (33:19.306)
Mm.

Nick McGowan (33:38.587)
I had a conversation with somebody recently who went through a subconscious processing session for hours and were like, this is what I thought I was going to get into. And what I really got into was something else because your subconscious needs to work through those things and you need to be able to work with it because in all reality, subconscious is just trying, just trying to keep you alive. Like it’s not there to support you in that sense outside of like, don’t fucking kill yourself. Let me keep you alive. But being able to unpack those things, do you get into that sort of stuff with your clients?

Utkarsh Narang (33:57.331)
Exactly.

Utkarsh Narang (34:07.977)
Absolutely. And I think it’s really important for us to go through that stuff. But the question that always comes up is there are things that you cannot change. Why are you trying to change the uncontrollables? Change what you can control, like Victor Frankl did. And this idea about Steve Jobs, I adore and love Steve Jobs. He’s on my wallpaper on the screen, iPhone, iWatch, everything. But do I want to be another Steve Jobs?

Nick McGowan (34:22.535)
Mm

Utkarsh Narang (34:33.855)
I mean, first question the brain asks, can you become one? Maybe yes, but do I want to? No. And there is enough evidence that Steve also has shared through his biography and other sources that he did not die a fully happy man. And I think it’s always there are these balls where almost like tossing in the air. We cannot do everything. And so you’ve got to choose your calling. You’ve got to choose as you were saying, Nick, you’ve got to choose your calling.

And that calling could be just being a great parent, just being a good friend, just being a good business owner who can have like 10 people, 15 people on the team and help them have good families and good work ethics. And that’s about it. It could be trying to touch lives like you and I are trying to do. And so we all have different means and paths. We’re all in our very unique journeys. And so there’s, there’s inspiration that we can take from each other, but there’s no need to try and replicate what the other person is doing because that’s not how I work.

And then as we’ve spoken about awareness and acceptance, the third step is take action. Without action, nothing’s going to change. mean, and the whole challenge, Nick, is if I want to raise my hand, only I can raise my hand. You cannot force me to raise my hand. And so that’s where personal growth, that’s where self mastery, that’s where the mindset comes. If you don’t act upon it, if you don’t want to change it, we can do whatever we can.

But nothing will happen because ultimately you got to choose to act upon it. And I think that happens only when that clarity starts to emerge.

Nick McGowan (36:08.412)
Yeah. Yeah, what I think that in and of itself when somebody goes, well, I don’t want to make this change. It should be somewhere where pause and say, okay, I need to do work here then. Why don’t I want to do that? What am I actually afraid of? Because again, the subconscious is like, hold up, hold up. There’s some shit you’re about to get into. So let’s deal with that later. Like the amount of times I’ve even said in the past, like I’ll let future Nick deal with that. And future Nick is like, motherfucker.

Like if past Nick had dealt with this, we’d all be okay at this point. But being able to take those little steps bit by bit by bit, I think it gets back to the awareness. And I really appreciate that that’s what we stem from, the awareness and the acceptance. And of course, action needs to go with it. Why don’t you finish that off? are the last two steps?

Utkarsh Narang (36:38.335)
Yeah.

Utkarsh Narang (36:56.587)
So the last two are, once you start to act, you have your system there, you know what actions need to be taken, then you stack them up. And that’s your acceleration, where you accelerate your journey, where you achieve whatever you have to. And then the final step is achievement, where there’s this, it’s almost like a beautiful Zen space, where you feel that, yes, there are parts of your life that are screwed up. Yes, there are parents you cannot talk to. Yes, there are siblings. Yes, there are jobs. Yes, you’re in a toxic culture.

but you’re so aware of it that you’re taking small steps to changing that. And it’s almost like the state of bliss where you appreciate the green grass for what it is, you appreciate the water that you’re able to drink, you appreciate the conversations you’re able to have, you appreciate the impact that you’re having in your lifetime, but you also know that things need to keep changing. And so you keep going through that five stages. And I think the big shift that I feel…

I made for myself and I want others to also and I have my own challenges right now. Like it’s not it’s not a blissful journey where everything’s figured out. I know what’s going to happen over the next 10 years. None at all. I think what’s really important is that there’s this Maslow’s hierarchy that was given to us a few decades ago Nick, which said that you need to meet your physiological needs to then go up the pyramid to reach a stage of self actualization. What I say is self realization, self actualization. Can we start with that?

And that’s where the awareness lies. I technically won’t need a million dollars to be self -actualized. I could have no money or all the money in the world and still be actualized or not.

And that’s where the awareness piece comes back in. That’s where that 2 % rule. Let’s sit with yourself for about 28 minutes a week, 28 minutes a day, and see who you are because you’re very unique. You’re very beautiful. There are challenges, but those challenges make you who you are. So what the fuck, man? Let’s bring it on. Let’s just bring it on.

Nick McGowan (38:48.279)
Yeah, fucking have at it. Yeah, that’s good stuff. So on that note, what’s your advice for somebody that’s on their path towards self mastery?

Utkarsh Narang (38:59.721)
It’s going to be hard path, but you got to choose your heart. It’s going to be a lot of choices that you don’t want to make, but you got to choose and don’t choose because someone said that you should take a cold shower. Don’t do someone that you should go to the gym. If you feel that that’s the right path to take, do it. If you feel meditation is the path to take, do it. If you feel that it’s not, then find something else. Just, just don’t sit on that bum watching Netflix the whole day. Just, just move your bum out and achieve whatever your life’s.

Nick McGowan (39:10.01)
Mm

Utkarsh Narang (39:29.129)
like Skoll’s art.

Nick McGowan (39:29.902)
That’s awesome. And that kind of goes back to the self -awareness and the acceptance of it and taking those little steps. Like I’ve had different conversations with people at times where it’s like, this thing really works for this person, but it may not work for this other energy type, or it may not work for this type of person, but trying it out, like give it that try. And if it doesn’t work, great. There are some times where you can try something and realize that didn’t work because I really want to do this thing. And you possibly wouldn’t have gotten there hadn’t you gone through that other bit.

So it takes that action like you were talking about. And I really appreciate the conversation. I think this has been great. I think there’s a lot that we’ve gotten into, but for the most part, the big takeaway is really being self -aware, having that acceptance and then taking action with that, but allowing the cycle to keep going and keep working through it. Is there anything else you wanna add to that?

Utkarsh Narang (40:01.226)
Absolutely.

Utkarsh Narang (40:19.379)
It’s an endless journey. There’s no there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel is dark. That’s great. Tunnel has light. That’s great. You want to change the bulb. Go do that. You want to carry your torch, your iPhone. Do whatever the fuck you want to do in life. Just stay stay aware of where you’re going, what you’re trying to achieve. If it happens immediately. Great. If not, it will soon happen. But be on that journey. It’s worth taking that that beautiful journey.

Nick McGowan (40:45.984)
Well look, it’s been great having you on. Before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with

Utkarsh Narang (40:51.753)
I think the best place right now is LinkedIn, which is where we’re trying to conquer the algorithm. As you were saying, Nick, we post a lot of valuable content on LinkedIn. So search me up on LinkedIn. Nick’s going to be putting all the links in the show notes. I give a TEDx talk, Nick, that I think we’ll put the show notes in the show notes that people would enjoy going through that TEDx because there I speak about my fears and how I’ve been able to embrace the fears and allow me to move forward on this tightrope.

Nick McGowan (41:18.871)
Yeah, that was a great talk and we’ll definitely have that in the show notes. Again, it’s been great having you on. I appreciate you today.

Utkarsh Narang (41:25.265)
Absolutely. Thanks so much, Nick. Take care of yourself.