This is “Your Impact: The Podcast” Episode 8: Take advantage of fear”, and I’m April.

Today I’m diving into Chin-Ning Chu's book “Thick Face, Black Heart: The warrior philosophy for conquering the challenges of business and life”. Chin-Ning Chu is an internationally renowned speaker and bestselling author of business psychology, and champion of universal truths about the nature of effort, success, detachment and “creating luck”.

There are many key insights condensed into this book, so this title will appear a few times this season. But for today, we will focus on the concept of: being a coward.

Chin Ning-Chu explains, “before we can succeed, we must clearly understand that success means change and the risk of failure.” When you are letting years pass chasing approval or fulfilling the expectations of others, or neglecting your dreams, or being nice for the sake of appearing virtuous - you are acting out of fear and as a coward.

I was pretty gutsy as a kid - I didn’t care so much about others’ opinions, at least I don’t remember caring, but as I grew older I started to become more careful. When someone told me I looked like a marshmallow in a winter jacket, I refused to wear a winter jacket Mid-January in Canada for the next 10 years. Or that one time I got an answer wrong in class and heard snickering laughter around me, and because I feared feeling that embarrassment again, I became reluctant to speak up in class, and swore to my peers that I was just better at writing than I was at public speaking. Or more recently, when I left a safe and well-paid job to pursue a dream that failed, and I kicked and screamed and cried, and tried to blame others, or timing, or my stupidity for months - and the fear of failing again stunned me so much that I did almost nothing for what felt like i really long time.

It was only until I went through a deep reflection to understand where my fears were coming from, as well as my self-destructive patterns, when I knew I had to stop allowing fear - and my emotions - to control my life. It is accepting life’s harsh lessons and learning from them, rather than to be destroyed by them. Understand yourself so that you will know what to do in any given situation.

Fear, instead of filling us with agitation, is energy that can lead us to a state of exhilaration, or intense concentration, or love. So focus your attention on your goals and ignore the costs.

One of the core ideas to being someone with a Thick Face, Black Heart, is to be able to put self-doubt aside and refuse to accept the limitations that others have tried to impose on you, and to hold strong your inner sense of worth. There is a power in detachment and dispassion that will enable you to face life’s challenges with calm and grace. When you succeed in detaching yourself from the misery of your experience, you will see with complete clarity, the real nature of your situation.

Remember: extraordinary people don’t care what others think of them. And, the more fear you confront and conquer, the greater courage you will possess.

You just listened to: Episode 8: Take advantage of fear”. I’ll be back with new episodes every Sunday so I’ll see you there with more thoughts on how to live better and find your impact. Be well.

Today I’m diving into Greg McKeown's book “Essentialism: The disciplined pursuit of less”...

Greg McKeown explains an Essentialist as someone who knows that they have limits; someone that sees boundaries as liberating; someone who sets rules in advance; and someone who is comfortable with cutting losses. The multi-hyphenate movement, and the North American standard achievement metric of level of “busy-ness”, and our de facto participation in it, seems, to me, to be one of the biggest roadblocks to an essentialist lifestyle.

I did have a lot of pride in “doing so much” or “working so hard”. Back in 2013 I had enrolled in full-time university, was living on my own an 1h30 min away from campus, and holding down 2 or 3 jobs at a time. It went like this throughout my 6 years there, and what ended up happening every year were barely passing grades, rotating burnout jobs, starting a website, sporadically starting and ending small business ideas, and the blowing up of a chunk of my income socializing and shopping because it was where I winded down and received approval and praise for the things I was doing. Even at my last years of university, when I was finally able to get a student loan to support me and my grades spiked up dramatically, I still did not learn to slow down, and still felt the need to fill up my schedule to prove my worth to the world.

Greg explains the “Sunk-Cost Bias” as the tendency to continue to invest time, money, or energy into something we know is a losing proposition simply because we have already incurred, or sunk, at a cost that cannot be recouped. But of course this can easily become a vicious cycle: the more we invest, the more determined we become to see it through and see our investment pay off. The more we invest in something, the harder it is to let go.

Reflecting, I can see that I operated under the sunk-cost bias for over 10 years, during my time at University, at certain jobs, and other educational pursuits. I continued to put time and money into a University degree despite constantly changing my major, failing grades, and no clear end goal. I stayed at abusive jobs because I felt like it would be more of a headache to apply, interview and train for a new job during the madness of everything else going on. I was a YES-Man and committed to events, workshops, speaking opportunities, project opportunities even if I was exhausted by Day 2 of each of one. Mind you, everything I said yes to and pursued I had originally shown interest in and enjoyed, but that was the problem. I was interested in so many things! And they were all overlapping! Everything was made to be a priority.

What ended up happening was that I was decent at many things but nothing really pushed me towards a singular direction - it instead spread me too thin, and that investment of time and money didn’t end up paying off the way I thought it would.

...

Towards the end of 2020 I went from doing too much, to a grand halt. In these last couple months I have trained myself to reflect on old jobs and opportunities to research their underlying patterns, what i liked about them, and to remember when i did feel that spark and ask myself why. After that I researched jobs and careers that are in demand in the market, in depth, until I find that “aha” - that oh yes, this is the one - and then commit to that, and that alone.

Now my time is more relaxed, more open to small hobbies, and more dedicated to a singular goal and constantly asking myself as opportunities come up - if they will add a stepping stone to the direction I want to go. Don’t get me wrong, I still need to work multiple part-time and freelance jobs to get by with bill payments, but I no longer give them as much investment - 90% of my energy is towards a now clear singular end goal. The result, I suspect, is a more rewarding path and quicker progression.

Today I’m diving into Glennon Doyle's book “Untamed”. Glennon Doyle is a New York Times Bestselling Author, and motivational leader to those in search of community, change, and the breaking out of a caged life.

Glennon says that who you truly are - that spark in you - fades around the time where you begin to learn how to people-please. It is when you start to hide who you are in order to become what the world expects you to be, and then figure that's just what life is about.

But look hard at your friendships, work, values, your entire life and ask yourself - how much of this was your idea? Do you truly want any of this? Or is this what you were conditioned to want? Who are YOU before you became what the world told you to be? Questioning your foundations is the first step to creating a new identity by design, rather than living one by default.

By doing this, you bring out the parts of yourself that you were trained to mistrust, hide, and abandon in order to keep others comfortable.

Who you will become is unforeseeable, and SO specific, that you’ll need every bit of today’s lessons to become that.

When you learn that pleasing the world is impossible, you begin to learn to please yourself. To do this you need to know what your inner voice of wisdom sounds like and listen to that, rather than the voices of outer approval.

How to hear that inner guidance:

1) breathe, be still and empty your mind .. relax

2) feel for the knowing that doesn’t come from your mind, but from the root of you - the voice will tell you your next step, without question, without doubt, but with pure knowing. And even if it doesn’t make sense right now, just go with it

3) repeat forever

In order to create that new identity that’s under your terms and will lead you directly to your purpose, you need to see that voice / dream/ knowing - whatever you want to call it- as a command.

10 years ago I was incredibly unhappy with the cards I had been dealt with in my life. I was being mentally and physically abused, manipulated, robbed, had been molested, contemplated ending my life every day, and attempted twice. But amidst that chaos, I found myself one single moment of stillness. Instead of taking the path I normally did to head home, I wandered off into a bookstore, gravitated to one book on the shelves, opened it up and read a random page. Suddenly as I read, I felt this pool of emotions - of hope - I read, “3% of people break out of the poverty cycle”. In that moment I heard myself say, “I can be that 3%”.

The decision, without question, and with full confidence, was to move out. I left and lived with my partner at the time whose family I am so grateful to, for letting me in. And as I settled into the new life I forced myself into, the vision of what I wanted my life to be, one that I could not have imagined if I stayed and tolerated what didn’t feel right, became stronger.

A couple of years later I found myself in another shithole.[..]But even in the midst of the chaos those next years would be, I knew that there was more, that this was just another necessary step, and that I can imagine better than this.

In every single one of those decisions, as well as others, that inner knowing / guidance was like a command. It told me, “just do this, trust me.” And though many of those decisions felt like huge risks and sacrifices, I’d never go back and change anything. I made every one of those decisions on my call, no one else’s. Each decision was my own, it empowered me, and forced me to take responsibility for my life.

Let your wildest imagination of what you want out of this life become your plans. Act as if every decision is a command coming out from the depths of your soul fighting for a better life.

To know where you’re going and who in your wildest dreams you can become, you need to know where you are, and who you are right now. Are you making your decisions, or are you letting others drive your life?

This is “Your Impact: The Podcast” Episode 6: What does authenticity look like?”, and I’m April.

Today I’m diving into Brene Brown's book “The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone: Braving The Wilderness”. Brene Brown is a New York Times Bestselling Author and vulnerability researcher, who has spent decades studying human behaviour and emotions.

Brene Brown defines a person living authentically as someone that is deeply rooted in who they are, but allows themselves to expand and grow. They allow themselves to show up in their truth - even if it’s different from what they’ve been raised to know. What tends to rot the roots are those moments when you abandon your core values, you make yourself small, or run away from vulnerability. You need to give yourself permission to fight for what you need, and to know that asking for what you need doesn’t mean someone else will be denied it. Only concern yourself with how you act, speak, and show courage.

I’ve had many moments of inauthenticity.

Like when I made myself seem small and aloof in a room where I felt intimidated, or undeserving of being there. By the end of the day I felt empty - like I didn’t get to experience the day fully, and thought to myself - “What if I had just been brave? What would that have been like?”.

Or, like when I was starting a new job, that paid decent - or poorly - and I feared losing it, so I worked hard to make myself seem irreplaceable. Only to burn out eventually, and be replaced. Instead of taking care of myself, or listening to my body when I needed rest, I pushed until I couldn’t anymore. I neglected what I needed, because of fear.

Or like when I knew I was wrong but I was too embarrassed to own up to it, to admit it, to be vulnerable, so I kept fighting til we grew tired or I chose to dismiss it. Or when I knew I was right, but accepted taking blame. And because I denied myself of speaking my truth - instead of resolving the problem right when it started, I carried that baggage with me for hours, days, weeks.. Often ruminating about how it may have turned out if I had just said all that I really wanted to say.

When we recognize these moments of in-authenticity, we get another chance at making sure we never betray ourselves again.

To live authentically is to be brave, to trust yourself in what you’ve got to offer, and to be truthful.

Every choice you make in your day, either nourishes or poisons your roots. Set your intentions, then follow through. To be authentic is to know who you are - your core values - to know this, you need to make decisions that feel honest to you. And when everyone is being authentic, we build a community of mutual love, truth, and respect - our shared humanity.

You just listened to: Episode 6: What does authenticity look like?”. I’ll be back with new episodes every Sunday so I’ll see you there with more thoughts on how to live better and find your impact. Be well.

This is “Your Impact: The Podcast” Episode 5: How to figure out your life purpose”, and I’m April.

Today I’m diving into Benjamin Hoff’s book “The Tao of Pooh”. The Tao of Pooh is an international bestseller that has been regarded as a popular classic book introducing the Taoist concept of “effortless doing” through the characters of Winnie The Pooh.

One of my favourite quotes in the book is, “Enjoyment of the process is the secret that erases the myths of the Great Reward and Saving Time.” And when you remove arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in the way, sooner or later you will discover that Life is simple; and the freedom to be childlike will show you that Life is in its essence, Fun.

I’m guilty of taking life too seriously, and often it comes in waves of contentment and dissatisfaction. I can look at my life, and look at someone else, and see that maybe they look better, they look happier, they are richer, and it makes me look at my life and think- how can I catch up, how can I do better, how could I be so behind, how can I be so lost, what do i have to do to have that too and make it last?

But one of the key lessons here is that the control of our lives - and thus recognizing the simplicity of life - begins with understanding who we are, and letting things be as they are.

You can’t know what your next move is, if you have little understanding of yourself, have little respect for yourself, and are easily influenced by others.

Pooh says it best in a rhyme:

“How can you get very far, if you don’t know who you are?

How can you do what you ought, if you don’t know what you’ve got?

And if you don’t know which to do, of all things in front of you, then what you’ll have when you’re through is a mess without a clue.”

In the story of the Ugly Duckling, when did the Ugly Duckling stop feeling Ugly? When he realized he was a Swan.

Instead of comparing myself to someone and trying to alter the course of my life to their path because I’m attracted to it; I need to figure out what I like, what I don’t like, who I am, and work with what I’ve got, following my own path.

Each one of us has something Special, hidden somewhere. But until we recognize that it’s there, instead of flailing around, work with what you’ve got figured out right now about who you are, trust your intuition, and then don’t lose sight of it. And remember, it is not a race, and enjoy that process of self discovery.

You just listened to: Episode 5: How to figure out your life purpose”. I’ll be back with new episodes every Sunday so I’ll see you there with more thoughts on how to live better and find your impact. Be well.

Script: This is “Your Impact: The Podcast” Episode 3: How to stop giving a shit”, and I’m April.

Today I’m diving into Don Miguel Ruiz’s book “The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom”. Don Miguel Ruiz is a best selling author, known to have transformed his near-death experience to realizing the essence of personal freedom.

To stop giving a shit, is to stop taking things personally; to be aware of what controls how you live, and to know how to love yourself.

He says that when you take things personally, you are acting as if you have personal importance - you are assuming that everything is about you or that you are responsible for everything. When you respond in this way, you think that people know who you are. But really, they can only project their own beliefs, feelings and opinions of themselves. No one can know you, like you know you.

When you don’t take what people say or do to you personally, you break out of the habits and routines that become like a nightmare in your mind that cause you to suffer.

If someone is not treating you with love and respect, take it as a gift if they walk away from you.

One day I was tidying up a meditation studio prior to an event, and many of the early arrivals of attendees were standing by the lobby while I was cleaning. I was softly asking each person I came across to quiet their voices and not block the doorways. One of the women staring down at me said aloud, “well you’re a shit leader”, rolled her eyes at me, and at some points during the day as the event went on, she asked me why I even had my job in the first place.

At another event, towards its end, a woman came up to my desk and asked me for a refund because she did not like the teacher, and after receiving a no, she howled, said some crude things under her breath and left my desk saying, “what a fucking bitch.”

I’ve had a few of these experiences, some worse than others, and at places I don’t expect. People coming after you with wild shitty energy, and you don’t understand what you did to cause that kind of reaction. I used to run these scenarios over and over again in my mind just to make sense of it. Most times when confronted by these people, I am too shocked and out of words to react and I feel like my seemingly aloof or dumbfounded facial expression triggers them to react more. I used to think there was some truth to what they said.

But as Don mentions, when you take in what people say about you or to you with blind trust, what you are doing is absorbing all of their personal garbage.

Don’t turn their garbage into yours.

When it comes to who you are, you do not need to trust people as much as you need to trust yourself.

You just listened to: Episode 3: “How to stop giving a shit”. I’ll be back with new episodes every Sunday so I’ll see you there with more thoughts on how to live better and find your impact. Be well.

This is “Your Impact: The Podcast” Episode 2: How to do better in relationships”, and I’m April.

Today I’m diving into Susan Gillis Chapman’s book “The five keys to mindful communication: using deep listening and mindful speech to strengthen relationships, heal conflicts and accomplish your goals”. Susan Chapman is a therapist and mindfulness teacher who developed the stoplight “we-approach” to transform our conflicts into mutual self-discovery.

What tends to happen when we get into an argument is that anything goes; whatever it takes to defend ourselves, our pride, our actions, or what we said, even if it means taking jabs back at them. When this happens we follow a domino effect of emotions triggered by fear, and when it goes too far it threatens the relationship. When you are reacting with fear, it distorts your view of the person and you replace your reality with mental projections and put yourself into the mental seat of “it is not safe to be vulnerable right now” and then you shut down.

What Susan asks us to do is to use the stoplight method. The Green Light is when the argument starts - instead of going full swing with insults, pause, pay attention, empathize with what they are saying, and then pause until you can be honest, curious and insightful with your response. This is how you genuinely protect yourself.

I recently asked my little sister to look after my apartment for a couple of weeks while I was away. During that time, I got a text saying that my apartment had a small flood. This is the green light, but because I felt so afraid of what was happening to my apartment and felt helpless, I went straight to yellow and red.

The Yellow Light is giving yourself power to not make things worse. Susan says that this is the moment where as soon as the other person opens up, we can feel a bubbling of anxiety coming up within us and then we can quickly lose sight of what is actually happening, and go straight to mental storylines of how worse it could possibly get, and project my own fears and thoughts. To recognize this, you need to pause. Then acknowledge where your mind is going, and then return to the conversation.

Initially, and honestly, I sent paragraph messages about how she could be so dumb to do that, and to clean it up asap, and there were multiple back-and-forths. But then I paused. I paused realizing that this was her first time living alone, and then I remembered how many mistakes I made my first year living by myself. Only when I became open and more receptive to what she was telling me and not in a blind rage, was when I found out that the flood didn’t even exist during our conversation. She had already cleaned it up before she told me, and just wanted to let me know what had happened.

The Red Light is that blind rage and often what snaps us out of it and puts us in yellow, is the pause. It is the quick exit from the momentum of the argument, to reconnect with the present moment.

What the We-approach means is that under all circumstances, including conflict, we must remain open and maintain respect for the person we are communicating with.

If I wanted to decimate the relationship, I would’ve continued running through the red light, until something I said crashed and burned everything. But instead I remembered that I valued our relationship and put my insecurities and pride aside to listen - to relax, and try to find a solution, together.

What Susan mentioned that will always stick with me is: if what they say about you is not true, then it is a projection of themselves.

You just listened to: Episode 2: “How to do better in relationships”. I’ll be back with new episodes every Sunday so I’ll see you there with more thoughts on how to live better and find your impact. Be well.

Script:

This is “Your Impact: The Podcast” Episode 1: What it means to live in the moment”, and I’m April. Welcome to the first podcast of this season where I bring you books and general thoughts that have inspired my spiritual and personal development. Delivered in a casual, local-barista-giving-you-unsolicited-advice-type-of-way.

Today I’m diving into Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. Eckhart Tolle’s books gained notable popularity across the globe, for a common central message which is essentially, our thoughts of past and future are disrupting our more very-real now (the present moment).

He says that as long as you are living outside of this present moment - you will make yourself unhappy in two ways: by not getting what you want and by getting what you want.

I remember when I didn’t get the job that I needed to pay my bills on time or I got that failing grade that meant I had to do the course all over again the next year. The feeling was bitter and heavy, and I felt anxious and angry. And it made me spiral into thoughts that put me into an existential crisis like, “what f__ am i supposed to do now? Where am I supposed to get this kind of money? Maybe I can send the professor a letter to get my grade up or get extra credit?! I just wasted so much time and money!!” and it goes on and on, and usually I’m stuck with that feeling until things start to turn alright again.

How about momentary happiness, how is this supposed to make me unhappy?. Getting into University, signing the lease of my first apartment, adopting my first pet. I used to go on and on to my friends about reaching these highlights. But keyword here is - momentary - paying for university and rent was an all-time high on my stress levels, not to mention maintaining my grades. At times I thought about what it would have been like if I didn’t go to university or move out. And my beloved first pet passing away put me in a deep state of depression.

So, I guess he’s right. As long as I kept attaching a judgement to my experience, I will continue to be unhappy.

To nail it closer to home: How do you know when you are not living in the present moment? When you are reactive to the experience. The more reactive you are, the more disconnected you are.

Because I kept clinging on to the drama of the experience, I extended the life of that unhappiness. But if I look at each experience in a neutral kind of way, I see that they’re all quick, fleeting, and short-lived - like a dream.

Ever wake up and say to yourself, “oh it was just a dream” and then go on with your life? That’s exactly how you need to think about every experience. You don’t need to become addicted to the dream, the thought, the experience. Like a dream, it will and has passed; do not judge it. Leave them as they are.

You just listened to: Episode 1: “What it means to live in the moment.” I’ll be back with new episodes every Sunday so I’ll see you there with more thoughts on how to live better and find your impact. Be well.