Episode Transcript:

[00:00:03] spk_1: Hey everyone and welcome to the Life Next Level podcast. We got your boy Ethan here,

[00:00:08] spk_0: my friend

[00:00:10] spk_1: say hi to our audience

[00:00:11] spk_0: going on, Everybody has it. How's it chilling?

[00:00:15] spk_1: It's been a little while man, you and I were just talking about this off of the camera I guess. But man, I went to uh I know you're busy over the fourth. I went to san Diego visited my niece and her husband for like five days, which was really cool. I've never been to san Diego before. I really liked that city.

[00:00:36] spk_0: Yeah. What was your favorite part? I don't know, reminded me a lot of Minneapolis.

[00:00:41] spk_1: This is like a smaller city. That's just, it's just a really nice city. People were really cool. Um I will tell you one thing that I didn't know after living in Hawaii man, That freaking water in California is

[00:00:53] spk_0: cold. It's funny. That's right.

[00:00:57] spk_1: Ice water, man, in the dead of summer.

[00:00:59] spk_0: It's nuts, wow. Even now I guess. Yeah, I have no concept of the ocean.

[00:01:04] spk_1: Yeah, it's weird because I mean people have told me that before, you know? But but being in Hawaii I guess Hawaii the water is always really nice. So yeah, it was, it was, I mean I was wondering why everybody that was going into the ocean had wetsuits

[00:01:17] spk_0: on that

[00:01:19] spk_1: ocean. I figured out real quickly.

[00:01:22] spk_0: That's so funny. Yeah, you would never expect that, right. Even like the songs about California make it sound like the water is one.

[00:01:27] spk_1: Yeah, I had no

[00:01:29] spk_0: idea. Yeah, that's fine

[00:01:32] spk_1: with me When I was getting into needless to say it and stay in it that long

[00:01:35] spk_0: Alright, right.

[00:01:38] spk_1: Um Yeah man, so I went there and then I ended up taking an impromptu trip to Hawaii for about a week. Oh really? And already had had, you know, I went to Minnesota because I was in a wedding, I went there for five days, I was like san Diego and I was supposed to have a week break and then I was supposed to go to Minneapolis for a week and ended up in san Diego, come back for a day, go to Hawaii, come back for a day. I

[00:02:01] spk_0: was just

[00:02:01] spk_1: exhausted

[00:02:02] spk_0: man, that's a trip to Hawaii isn't a short trip, right, and how long the fuck is that

[00:02:06] spk_1: from here? Probably 6, 6.5 hours. Yeah. And then, and then what really sucks is it's uh um it's almost always an overnight flight on the way back and I don't sleep too while I'm playing. So yeah, so not only exhausted but then taking overnight flights and it took really good and then it was like when I was in um the whole time when I was in san Diego Hawaii in Minneapolis, it was nonstop, always doing something, never, never like a dull moment, never any downtime. So I came back, it's been about a little over a week now and I was exhausted for like the whole first week.

[00:02:42] spk_0: Yeah, I bet, I mean especially when you're seeing people that you haven't seen in a while, you know, and like, you got to have all the same, I mean, it's fun. It's always a good good time, but you're, you know, you're always like, oh, this is what I'm doing, this is what I'm doing, you know? And just like, so, yeah, that's uh that sounds like a lot of hustling and bustling man.

[00:03:01] spk_1: It was a lot. It's good to be back. I mean, I didn't, I didn't work out for like a month and it's good to be back, just working out and getting back into somewhat of a normal lifestyle for a little while.

[00:03:11] spk_0: Yeah, but yeah, I mean, it is, it's funny too. Sometimes it's nice to take a break from working out and just have it kind of whatever, because they always, it just feels so good when you get back, you know?

[00:03:22] spk_1: Yeah, it does. You're right. Um yeah, that's what I've been up to. So obviously we had a little break in all the podcast, so it's, it feels great to be back and talking again and getting some podcasts out there. I'm excited. Yeah. How About You, Man? How was your 4th and stuff?

[00:03:39] spk_0: It's good, Yeah, me and my wife went out to, uh, a little west of the cities and sold some fireworks, which I know it always sounds funny, you know, But uh yeah, and I really have, no, I mean, I'm not that into fireworks or whatever, but we were just kind of trying to help out a friend who had done that often, but it was fun. It was cool. It was cool to be out there and um, it was my hometown. So, you know, there's some people that I recognized and stuff like that and uh, and yeah, you know, slaying the fireworks chilling, but, but it was good, you know, and it was cool. We got a chance to use our, our trailer and it's uh, yeah, it's fun. It's funny how, um, you know, you can get, you can feel so comfy in a little space sometimes, you know, like when you're doing whatever. And so yeah, it was, it was good and we're gonna go to colorado soon and that's always a fun trip. That's always a good time and you know, drive through the mountains and whatnot. So yeah, going to see a buddy out there too. And yeah, I love colorado man. So

[00:04:36] spk_1: I've never been actually, yeah, I've been thinking about going to Denver because it's like, uh, it's a short distance for me. Either plane or train. I think I can take a train from somewhere here. It's like, or train ride.

[00:04:50] spk_0: Oh, don't

[00:04:51] spk_1: need about going and checking it out like pick on a friday. I'm sure I can just work on the train on the way up there and then, you know, hang out there for the weekend and then and then head back, but

[00:05:00] spk_0: yeah, I'm surprised you haven't been before. I feel like it's your vibe. I feel like it's similar to Minneapolis Cut Denver, you know, I don't know about the rest of colorado. But yeah, Denver for sure. I feel like has a somewhat similar by,

[00:05:17] spk_1: I've heard nothing but great things from everyone. That's when I just haven't, just haven't. Yeah. Are you heading to Denver or

[00:05:26] spk_0: uh, we'll go to uh, we'll go to Boulder for sure. And then I have a buddy who's doing a triathlon in steamboat I think or something like that. I think that's what it's called. I'm pretty sure, I don't know if it's uh, if the city is called that or if it's just the name of the park or something. But yeah, steamboat something. Yeah, I've never heard of that. Yeah, So that'll be cool. It'll be fun to check out. I've never, I've never watched, I've never live spectator to triathlon before, so that'll be, that'll be interesting. It would be cool to see. But

[00:05:57] spk_1: you never have either. That would be interesting.

[00:05:59] spk_0: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, my buddy is excited and you know, he was, I feel like, I always hear everybody say like, yeah, the running, you know, and the biking with the swimming, you know, I feel like everybody who does translate. I'm like, you know, leisurely. It's never good. It's, I mean how many people, you know, competitively swim. But yeah, it'll be fun. It'll be fun to watch himself isn't

[00:06:19] spk_1: that don't you think like as far as the triathlon goes, like everybody is good at one of the things in the triathlon is really good at another two. They're just kind of okay, but there's one thing that they always excel at 11 leg of the triathlon or whatever you would call it.

[00:06:33] spk_0: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, no I I feel that same way, I feel like I hear that all the time. Yeah and I wonder if it's you know, a different way if you don't want to go crazy for, you know, there's that you know this is something we're talking about two which is funny because he's in colorado and so he was talking about, you know the difference in perception and so like he does he would he always does trail running and whatever and you know, the point is just that he would talk to somebody who is like, yeah I'm going for, you know, I'm just gonna do 50 miles I think uh you know today for my run or what I don't know today or whatever and it's kind of like you say just you know what what do you mean? Justin it's just like some of the distances that people do and are used to in that elevation to, it's just like, you know, I think yeah, you know it's like yeah you got 10 miles out here and that's already, I'm just like, wow, you know? But yeah, so some of these super distance runners are just crazy, but

[00:07:30] spk_1: I've just never been that into running mate for me, man, I'll do a quick workouts, like back to back to back and get my heart going and I'll do, I mean, I'll play tennis, I'll do anything like that. But running just yeah, for me,

[00:07:46] spk_0: Man. Yeah, I did cross country in high school and college for for a little bit and uh but I honestly just did it to hang out with my friends. I did not like I did not like the distance running part, I didn't track and I was down for the 800. That's about as far as I wanted to go. So yeah

[00:08:03] spk_1: I hear that

[00:08:05] spk_0: what you can do.

[00:08:07] spk_1: Yeah. Well, all right, let's get into it today. We're gonna talk about what would you do if you weren't afraid? And I think we'll have you start, but I just want to preface it a little bit in the coaching realm. Um I asked this to people because I think that it's uh it's a way to understand what people really want. I mean Really at the end of the day, the reason that we're not all doing exactly what we want is all for your based it's all scared of failure. Fear of not having a 9-5, not having a consistent income, whatever what people may think that's a huge one and I think that if you can just take fear away for a little bit, if you weren't afraid, what would you do? And I would ask anybody who's listening to this to think about that, like to take that and unpack it and like sit down for half an hour and maybe just write stuff down like what would you do if you weren't afraid? And then that is something that you should probably do, I'm not saying quit your job tomorrow, huge transition when you're not prepared, you always want to be prepared. But fear is what stops us from doing all of this potentially amazing stuff. I mean if you look at almost anybody who's very successful out there, they have had to go through that they had the fear that we all have, they had to blow through it though at some point and and do what they wanted anyway. And that's I think why I really like this question. Yeah, so and I will also say that obviously you and I are our way into personal growth and all of this stuff, so we probably are further along than most when it comes to this because I think we're already doing things that are scary um as you and I talk about like every week, but there's still like, you know, um you know, maybe it's what you're doing right now and that's fine, but you know, just kind of explain what you do if you're not if you weren't scared or if it's what you're doing right now, like how you got there. Yeah,

[00:10:00] spk_0: yeah, yeah man, you know, I think yeah, I was trying to, you know, think about it and I think that um I think first of all I think it's really cool question to ask like you said, I think you said it like on a regular basis, you know, like uh I think that a lot of times the answer is probably, you know, there's like the specifics and whatnot. But I bet a lot of times the answer is, you know, similar. Uh and so getting used to asking that question uh and I think is a way to just get used to asking that question first of all. But then also to um you know, answering it well and stuff. And so and then another thing that I was thinking about is just that um I think it's cool because even sometimes it can be hard, it can be super hard to like and I think that's also like sort of fear based, but I think it can be really hard to to know, you know, like when you say, what would I do if I wasn't afraid? You know, it's kind of like, you know, fight spiders or what, you know, like, you know, like, you

[00:11:04] spk_1: know,

[00:11:06] spk_0: get that you

[00:11:07] spk_1: never want to mess with a spider man,

[00:11:09] spk_0: ever ever want to fight a spider. Uh Yeah they have so many limbs. Um and so, and so yeah, but you know, I think that, that, so when I asked myself that question, I think that, I think the first obvious answer for myself is that I would do things sooner. I think there's a lot of stuff that I let percolate for. Um, oftentimes a lot longer than they need to percolate. Um, just because, uh, yeah, because I am, you know, tasking my brain with finding the perfect solution so that I won't have to deal with that potential fear, you know? And so then I'm like, you know, stringing things along and it gets to a point where it's like, you know, yeah, you're never going to get there, you know, because I just keep finding little things to be like, oh, well, what about this? And

[00:11:58] spk_1: so what if yourself to death and then it's not that you don't want to do it, but you just never get around to it. You just always another reason for you to not do something. There's always a million reasons to not do something and you just keep talking yourself out of it or you say I have to know more. I have to learn more. I have to read this book first. I have to do this first. And then there's always, you're never gonna know everything either. So sometimes you just got to jump in

[00:12:22] spk_0: and that's such a, like, I don't know if this is the right way to term it, but like, I feel like a banana, a benevolent limitation, a well intentioned limitation to put on yourself, but nonetheless, like still, you know, a roadblock because that is definitely one that I do all the time. I'm just like, I'm just like, I have to know more. I have no, you know, I want to be successful at this. And so there's your indicator, you know, first of all, it's like, what are you afraid of? And you know, it's like, yeah, I fear that you won't be successful or whatever in terms of one of them. And so you want to be successful at it. And so, you know, and a lot of times that desire to say like, oh, I need to know more before I can even start. I think a lot of times comes from comparison of other people and you're like, well me, compared to this other individual, whether I know them personally or somebody I'm just seeing online or whatever. You know, it's like, it looks like they know so much more than me and, and, and they're, they're obviously experiencing success, but I think that's probably because of everything they know, and so, to get any kind of a semblance of the success that they're having, I have to be at the exact same level of knowing, but that's something I'm assuming and perceiving and so whether, you know, regardless of what the person actually knows or whatever. Um, you know, we forget that there's like inherent characteristics of ourselves that will, you know, in sneaky ways, help us to hop over some obstacles that other people have maybe encountered. And so that's why for sure dive in and try and learn about it. But, you know, it's almost a canned response, but like the best way to learn is to do. And so yeah, yeah.

[00:14:00] spk_1: So yeah, so getting back to a couple of things that you said, first off, stop comparing, like that's uh we just have to stop comparing to other people. That's just such a huge negative thing that we all do. And the person that you're comparing to, they were where you're at one day or where you are, they were there one day, they didn't know what the hell they were doing, they just jumped in and that's how they know what they know, you know, I'm taking, take, for example, this podcast, If we

[00:14:29] spk_0: had let that

[00:14:30] spk_1: fear based thinking of, we don't know what the hell we're doing. We have to know more. We wouldn't be doing this right now. It would be six months. I mean, it already to your point, they already took me six months to do because of that. I kept putting it off based on like, I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but I would still be sitting here spinning if if we didn't just jump in,

[00:14:50] spk_0: you're

[00:14:50] spk_1: it out, you figure it out as you go.

[00:14:52] spk_0: Exactly.

[00:14:53] spk_1: Um, and then to your other point about asking yourself that question all the time. I mean, honestly, I would, I would say, right that in your phone, put it, you know, what would you do if you weren't afraid because you can use that in every avenue of life if you're, if you're at a social happy hour and you see a girl at the end of the bar that you want to ask out, obviously you don't because you're married, but you know, if somebody sees someone that they want to ask out, what would you do if you weren't afraid? Because that's the only reason that you're not going to ask her out. And then at the end of the day, like, what's the worst that happens in those situations? Right? Like, so, you know, what would you do if you weren't afraid? And then if you tell yourself that's what you like, you would go ask them out right now, go for it and do

[00:15:33] spk_0: it. Exactly. Well, I think two things that I think are really interesting and one that just popped in uh based off of what you were talking about, but, you know, I know the power of visualization and thinking of things. Um, and I know how powerful I got a, I'm not a

[00:15:51] spk_1: hermia

[00:15:52] spk_0: in this brain when it comes to thinking about, like visualizing scary stuff, you know, just, you know, no limitation, of course power there, but when it comes to uh, you know, applying that kind of, you know, imaginary um specificity, the stuff that I am excited about or whatever, it's a lot harder. And I think that it's kind of a fun or interesting way to jumpstart yourself into visualization because usually what stops me is that what I'm trying to visualize? I get to, I get all the images I'm distracted by. Yeah, the stuff that I'm afraid of and so if you throw that caveat out to your brain and you actually do it, you know, and you treat it like a game, it's like okay. I know, I know if we focus on being afraid, why we don't want to do this. If you weren't afraid then what would you, you know, whatever. And then it's like, okay, well, you know, yeah, I would probably do this. And then the answer, you know, becomes like magically kind of clearer I think in that scenario. And so I think that's really fun and that kind of ties to what else I was thinking, which is even asking oneself that question of what would we do if we were afraid can be challenging to come to an answer to. But you can track it back a little bit even by saying, well what do I do when I'm afraid? And a lot of times I think that that comes down to thinking a ton, like we talked about and you know, always trying to analyze or and what not? And so usually what happens is that I can't pick or decide what to settle on because nothing seems worthy enough in comparison to that fear that I'm perceiving. And so a lot of times when we're afraid we uh were, we struggle to, you know, we aren't seeing clearly. We have those fear goggles on as opposed to the rose colored glasses. And so I think the main thing is just that there's sometimes where, you know, even when you're afraid, you can just be like, okay, well I know when I'm afraid, I usually, you know, tossed back and forth these ideas a lot. So I'm just going to stop and give myself to, you know, that little assistance. And I think that's a cool three

[00:17:54] spk_1: two. Let's, that's just an awesome thing to be self aware about is like, yes, this is what I do when I'm afraid I procrastinate. I never start anything because I'm always looking for other information to have her. I don't think I'm ready. And uh, so I think that's just a very good self aware thing to, to know and understand about yourself. Is that, is that, is that every everything that every, almost every excuse that you have is fear based when you, when you're thinking about doing something big outside of your comfort zone, right? Always fear based. Um, for one reason or another again, like what do other people think? What are they going to think? What if I fail, what if I don't have the money to do this? What if the list is endless, but it's, I think it's good to be self aware. That's a good point. So, so can I ask you then, what would you do personally if you weren't afraid? Like right now, if you look at your life, what would you do? Maybe you're doing it? You know? I don't know.

[00:18:53] spk_0: Yeah. Yeah. Well I think that uh that yeah, I'm trying to, you know, like one example is just low key with the trailer that we have, you know, like, I like to, I feel like I'm a handy person, whatever, but how true that is or not, you know, I don't know. And so uh, there's some, you know, long story short, you don't want to cut into a trailer if you don't have to, so you don't have to deal with potential water damage issues and in pursuit of addressing a potential water damage issue. We had to cut into the trailer, we

[00:19:28] spk_1: did all weekend.

[00:19:29] spk_0: Yeah, that's what we've been, we've been messing with them. It's all good. You know, it's okay. We, we found out that uh, we don't have damaged like we thought, and so that's cool, you know? But then it's like, okay, I wish I would've known that before. We cut it open, you know? And, but whatever. And so, so that, but that was something that we probably wanted to do a year ago and just didn't feel very capable. We what we were afraid that we wouldn't be able to handle um the scenario, whatever we found or whatever we didn't find, and so kind of just let it sit and it was okay. That's that's all right to, you know, whatever, but but we did do it and so that is one of those scenarios um Yeah, where after a bit, you know, one of one of Caroline's friends uh is where we have the trailer at that we're working on right now and something that he said, just, you know, it was helpful uh and it's something that we talk to ourselves a lot about before too. But he just said, you know, sometimes you got to dig in, you know? And if something about saying dig in was just kinda like, yeah, all right, I got it. I got you. I feel you know, you're right, you just got to uh see, see what's inside and sometimes you find the treasure, you know? So yeah,

[00:20:38] spk_1: yeah. I feel like um I feel like one thing that you guys are doing or gearing towards doing is you want to travel the US a little bit with this trailer and be able to have personal training clients while you're traveling,

[00:20:50] spk_0: right?

[00:20:51] spk_1: And so you're already making steps in that in that direction because I think that's what your ultimate plan is with the trailer, if I remember our conversation correctly, I mean that's a huge thing. That's a scary thing to do, you know? Um and I bet you you guys have still, you talk about it, but you're still procrastinating about

[00:21:10] spk_0: it

[00:21:11] spk_1: is um so I have, I've written down here what would I do if I wasn't afraid? A lot of it I am doing right now, but I will tell you just getting back to the fear based stuff like I should be further ahead than I am right now. Some things you just put off and find other things to do, it's like when you're working throughout the day and then you know, you like, I'm trying to create a class right now, I'm writing an e book and then creating a class out of this for personal growth and then just start like, um I should find the tag line, so it starts like a business that people love, right?

[00:21:44] spk_0: Oh yeah,

[00:21:45] spk_1: so the tagline will be something like, you know, make a living doing, doing the work or creating a business that you love, type of thing. Um and that's one thing I'm doing, I'm also doing a marketing course, but the marketing courses almost done, that's going to probably launch next week, but the one I really am and pumped up about is the personal growth because this is kind of leading into personal growth growth to creating a business that people love that you're passionate about, that you, you know, because you work more than half your life, right? And so I'm really passionate about that, but like, I should be a lot further along than I am right now. You know, just things keep pushing it off, I pick other things to do and I shouldn't and I know I'm doing it, but I do it anyway. Um so I know I'm doing it though, and so what would I do if I wasn't afraid? Well, that would be done by now, and but I would do, I would start businesses and I would help people and that's really ultimately what I'm starting to do, but it's still, you know, the fear based stuff doesn't go away just because you know about it, you just have to you just have to know about it and take that knowledge into consideration when you're doing what you're doing. So it's interesting because I see it happening and I see it happening in other people and I can coach it out of them or coach them with it, but I see it happening to myself and it doesn't stop it from happening, you know?

[00:23:07] spk_0: Yeah, yeah, because it's already so specific to there's always that well, but this is just that one thing that whatever, just that one thing and it's just hard to bust out of a narrative that you're spinning to yourself and and that fear is such a good, you know, holding you're holding your gaze to the movies and just keep watching, you know, you gotta keep looking at this this way. And and, and yeah, so it's beautiful to have those, those questions that can help you to say, oh, okay, there are, there are other narratives that do exist. This isn't the only thing that's true and I have utility over deciding what I put my energy towards, you know?

[00:23:56] spk_1: Yeah, and really, I think if you, once you start to realize all the fear based stuff that comes up, it can be a good thing, because that means you're getting out of your comfort zone and you're not just you're not just, you know, you're getting into the growth zone, you're growing because you will always feel fear when you're stepping outside your comfort zone. So that's a good thing. Ultimately, it's just important that we recognize it and say, okay, so, again, the question that always ask yourself is what would you do if you weren't afraid in any situation, in any situation, honestly. So carry that around with you. Um uh anything else on that Ethan?

[00:24:34] spk_0: I uh yeah, I don't, we know one thing, I think I like to think about the idea of uh fear chiming in kind of like an alarm, you know, in terms of that it's helpful when it goes off and it makes you aware of the thing, if it keeps going off and off and off and office when it starts to not serve its purpose at all. And so that just to speak to what you're talking about about. You know, fear is a tool that we can use to assess things and pay attention to stuff and it's just about remembering to use it in a balance. So yeah, that's my final piece.

[00:25:06] spk_1: Yeah, I guess my final thought on that is going back to something that you had said was positive visualization and you know, how good that is and how like positive visualization, you have to like try to do it. You have to set aside time and you have to force yourself to positively visualize five years in the future, whatever it is, whatever you're doing now to visualize a positive outcome. You have to like force yourself to, you don't have to force yourself to think negatively or to because like it just comes at you all the time all day long. These negative thoughts come at you and they and they um suck frankly, you know, so you have to like almost force yourself to positively visualize and then when that the negative stuff does come at you and all times throughout the day, you have to be able to let that go and just keep moving forward.

[00:25:56] spk_0: Right?

[00:25:58] spk_1: Um, yeah, man, well, I don't have anything else on this one. I think, I think we talked at, um what would you do if you weren't afraid to death a little bit, but ultimately very important thing for people to ask themselves?

[00:26:09] spk_0: Yeah, I do, too. Yeah, we definitely, we nailed it.

[00:26:13] spk_1: All right. Well, this is jane Ethan signing off from another episode of The Life Next Level podcast and we'll catch you all next

[00:26:21] spk_0: time I see you.