Your Next Chapter

JuVan Langford is a men’s empowerment coach or as he describes himself “I do whatever it takes.”

JuVan runs the Elevation Effect, a program specialized for men that he does all over the world. He has 2 coaching programs, the Elevated Man Academy and Choose Higher, both designed to support men.

He also runs the Men Tour, where he works with middle-aged boys in schools across Los Angeles. And lastly, he has a YouTube video series called “Thought Life.”

Simply put JuVan specializes in grooming the minds of men and boys.

I brought JuVan onto the show because he has been transformational in my journey. I would not have been able to come forward with my sexuality, about being bisexual, if it was not for JuVan.

I didn’t bring JuVan onto the show for only that reason, I know JuVan has been transformational to hundreds and thousands of men around the world, and I wanted you to hear from him directly.

One of my favorite sayings that I’ve heard from JuVan again and again is:

“If you’re going to tell yourself a story, we may as well tell ourselves a story that serves you and supports other people.”

When we accept this mindset, we take responsibility for the story we’re telling ourselves.

When we take on ownership of our story, we’re forced to confront the dark and scary parts of ourselves that are no longer serving us.

For JuVan it was “I’m afraid of men”. Saying that was much easier than having to confront men.

For me, it was much easier to live in secrecy and shame with my double life than to admit I had sexual attractions to men.

When we take ownership of our story, we forced to confront these dark and scary parts of our past. By facing our past, we forced to resolve emotional wounds.

Resolution creates space. And space creates new possibilities.

This is the beginning of healing. The beginning of forgiveness.

As JuVan said in the podcast, forgiveness is:

“Forgiveness is letting go of the idea that things, including people, could have been any different than they were.”

We must come to terms with the fact that things happened exactly as they were meant to be. And nothing should have occurred any differently.

When we do this, we begin to accept. And acceptance leads to responsibility. Responsibility of the story we’re telling ourselves.

There can be no movement forward with the weight of the past dragging us down. And in the cases we do move forward, it’s highly obstructed by the weight being dragged with us.

When we become “100% responsible for 50% of anything we find ourselves in” - that’s when we begin taking ownership. Ownership leads to space. Space leads to healing. And healing leads to us telling a story that serves us.

• Key to breaking through your mommy/daddy issues, scarcity or financial barrier @ 6:20

• Website

• MenTour

“When we stop making this journey about ourselves. When we look externally and say my purpose is to impact OTHER people. When we ask ‘how do I do that to the best of my ability - without getting it perfect, so I look good along the way’. When we do THAT. Then we're ready to unleash ourselves in the world. Until then we're doing it for the wrong reasons because it's egotistically driven.”

- Philip McKernan

Philip McKernan is a public speaker who has been on the stage with the likes of Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Dalai Lama and Tony Robbins.

Philip speaks on and specializes in supporting people to uncover their gift and to unleash it on the world.

He recently produced and created his first movie, Give and Grow, and is the founder of One Last Talk.

I brought Philp onto the show to discuss how we can uncover our gifts and find our calling.

According to Philip, one of the biggest things we can do to uncover our gift is to let parts of our identity. Even if we take on this exercise temporarily it shifts us towards discovering our gift.

“Letting go of something temporarily is important. It's not saying that you can't come back to it. We sometimes build a jail around us. I'm not good enough. I don't have a gift. I'll do something I love when I have enough financial wealth. Before you know we've created a prison for ourselves.”

The key is starting looking at all the parts of our identity that define us and start to letting go of them because as long as we’re defined by them we never truly show up.

According to Philip, when we take on the journey to discover our gift, we ask the wrong questions. We ask what if it doesn’t work? That question is all about us.

Philip believes that in order to uncover our gift we need to stop making it about ourselves and our ego. Rather we need to focus on the people we’re serving.

“When we stop making this journey about ourselves, when we look externally and say my purpose is to impact other people how do I do that to the best of my ability” that’s when we get it right.

The more we can focus on letting go of pieces of our identity, even briefly and focus on serving others, then we will begin the process of uncovering our real gift.

• Why Philip turned down the president of Ireland for lunch

• JuVan Langford

• Website - www.philipmckernan.com

Mark Groves is a human connection specialist and creator of the Masters of the Universe Summit.

With over 86 thousand followers on Instagram, his practical and down to earth relationship advice is consumed by thousands every single day.

I brought Mark on for exactly that reason - to jam about relationships as I know this is a pain point for many in my audience.

"Any type of emotional frustration or anger is always a secondary response to an actual emotional need that is not being met... Once we can understand the emotional need, we can communicate what it is. Then we don't have to get frustrated, angry, defensive or start to withdrawal. And that really is LEARNING how to move from the REACTION of 'I am angry' to 'I feel it' why do I feel it?"

- Mark Groves

• The pain of being yourself is the greatest pain of all @ 4:40

• Tim Matthews

• Website: www.markgroves.tv

“The more and more you claim the wholeness of your being, the higher you will absolutely sore in your life.”

- Kelsey Grant

Listen To What Your Pain Has To Tell You.

Typically when we feel pain, our natural reaction is to turn away from it and adopt a victim mentality.

“Why me?”

“What did I do to deserve this?”

Your pain is valuable. It’s attempting to teach you. It’s trying to tell you something but you’re unwilling to listen.

This is one of the most powerful ideas that came out of the podcast with Kelsey Grant, a self-love expert.

Below is her framework to allow our emotional pain to be a teacher.

1. Make a Declaration to Yourself - it all begins by granting yourself permission to feel the pain.

2. Nourish the Body - anytime we are sick our natural instinct is to start taking care of our body by hydrating and providing it with nutrients. The same applies when we feel pain, begin to nourish your body.

3. Engage the Pain - Opposite to the typical reaction of shutting down when we sense pain, engage your body into some sort of physical activity to engage with the pain.

4. “I Choose to See This Differently” - this step is like a mantra. Allow yourself to see this pain from a different point of view.

5. The Caring Question - the last and final step is asking yourself, “what is something I could dedicate myself to something bigger than the pain I'm feeling?”

Everyone feels pain. We all understand it even when we think our pain is unique or different.

The key becomes, what can you focus on to move through this pain? Similar to a purpose statement.

For Kelsey, it was making a decision to support 500,000 people to love themselves better. Every day she woke up and dedicated herself to that ideal - if I was that person who was going to lead 500,000, who do I need to become? What do I need to face today?

From this Kelsey’s belief was born - "the degree which I can support people, is the degree which I'm intimate with my own shit."

When we allow our pain to serve a higher purpose, it’s no longer a limiting story weighing us down.

• How to transform your pain

Kelsey is a self-love and relationship coach. She helps people to uncover the blocks that hold them from connecting with self and others.

She does this by supporting people in learning who they are on an intimate level and what really makes them come alive. When we understand ourselves at a deeper level we’re able to create and show up for the relationships we want

I brought Kelsey onto the show because I wanted her talk to about relationships and what keeps tripping us up from succeeding in them.

In the podcast we do just that and take a deep dive into the pain that holds us back :)

Website - www.kelseygrant.com

Bob Proctor

On this episode, I use Gary Vaynerchuk and Tim Ferriss as a case study on who to take advice from. 

Learning who we should take advice from is important if we're serious about achieving our goals. 

Our aim should be to take advice from mentors who are in alignment with ourselves because regardless how good their advice is, if it doesn't align with our core being we won't stick with it. 

Too often the idea, or status, or the success of an individual is enough for us to put aside our own needs to try to copy somebody else's path to success. 

There are many ways to skin a cat and it's important we align ourselves with mentors that compliment our needs and personality. 

In this episode, I dive into this topic much deeper and use two of my favourite mentors, Gary Vee and Tim Ferriss as examples.

• Derek Sivers

 "When you start talking about the things that are holding you back, and lean into them, and confidently and boldly face them, it's actually powerful and not weakness."

- Zach Marcy

Zach Marcy is a mind and body transformation coach based out of Miami Florida. For over 2 decades Zach has coached people to live a healthier life.

He is also the author of Motivate Me Everyday which will be launching in January.

I brought Zach onto the show to tell you about what he's discovered in 20 plus years of working with people to achieve their goals. 

Zach shares his story about how early on in his life he would work with clients on their fitness goals only to find that they would relapse back to their old physique as soon as they stopped training with him.

Through his own experience, he's come to realise that personal training required a mind and body connection in order to create long lasting change. 

When people are unaware of why they want to change their bodies, their goals are only driven by a short-term vision and willpower. 

Zach says the key to sticking with our goals is to connect with our why. We need to have a deep understanding of what drives and motivates us in order to create lasting change. 

• The 4 pillars Zach focuses on with his students

• Website - www.zachmarcy.com

• Odyssey

"School teaches you HOW to learn but it doesn't necessarily teach you WHAT to learn. In an age of information, ignorance is a choice. You can go on Google, you can go on YouTube and learn what you want to learn. We never had these abilities ever... And the difference between a rich man and a poor man is what you do in your spare time."

- Rob Fajardo

Rob is the president and one of the co-founders of Leave Normal Behind. Leave Normal Behind is a movement that brings together like-minded human beings who are self-motivated and looking to lead a different lifestyle. 

Leave Normal Behind is an ideology is for those who are continuously learning and inspired to live a life of passion, become the best version of themselves and create things that matter.

Rob is also a writer/contributor to Influencive and an advisor to Fownders started by Gerald Adams. 

Rob will inspire you to start playing a bigger game. If you're reading this, you're either looking to leave normal behind or have already begun on your journey.

The podcast is full of quotes that will help you to play a bigger game. Quotes that will challenge you to reflect on your life and ask yourself, are you truly going after that big vision you have for yourself? 

In the podcast, Rob shares his personal behind what inspired him to create Leave Normal Behind and why he's driven to make an impact. 

• What is Leave Normal Behind @ 10:25

• Leave Normal Behind

• Facebook - Rob Fajardo

• Instagram @LeaveNormalBehind

Being reactive has an impact you, me and everyone. 

The definition of reacting is to respond or behave in a particular way in response to something. When our goal is to grow but we continue to react in the same manner as we always have, we can't expect new results. 

Einstein said this brilliantly with his definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. 

The reason why we react is because our emotions trigger a specific response in certain scenarios.

If we deconstruct the word down to its original roots, the word "re" comes from 17th-century latin meaning intensive force or reversal. And this is exactly what happens. When we react our emotions force a response that we don't have conscious control over. 

Sometimes we may not even want to react that way, but we do because it's our default pattern. 

I've recently been spending more time becoming aware of how I react in certain situations, with certain people and with myself. 

Identifying these automatic patterns is essential to allowing ourselves to grow.

By observing my thought patterns and being in the moment I am able to start choosing new ways of responding to situations. I've been playing with this a fair bit with my Dad in Aruba as I find we have the exact same conversations again and again.

It's easy after years of repeating these to fall into the same automatic response. By choosing not to do that I'm finding we're able to have new conversations and move past our hold-ups. 

I recorded this podcast to talk more about this point. Check out the episode and do let me know what you think.

And if you liked this episode tell me on Twitter @filipsierpinski or facebook! I love hearing from you :)

• Giordana Toccacelli episode

Hello Ladies and Gentleman,

Here is the short version podcast of my interview with Giordana Toccaceli. Typically these short podcasts are between 5 to 6 minutes, this one is 12 which says a lot about the quality of the content I felt was in the episode.

You can check out the full episode here.

One of the things that I love which Giordana said, is how we're reactive. We keep react the same way again and again to our patterns.

When we continue to choose act in this manner we're unable to grow and move forward in our lives, whether that be in relationships, our personal life or business.

We need to be willing to expand the way we perceive in order to accomplish the growth we seek. 

If you enjoyed this podcast jump on my email list at filipsierpinski.com to get the latest episodes sent directly to you or subscribe on iTunes. And if you liked this episode tell Giordana & me on Twitter @filipsierpinski or facebook.

Cheers,

Filip

I recently had a phone call with one of my favourite coaches JuVan Langford, and during the conversation, he said, "are you selecting anything or being selective?"

This question resonated with me a lot and thus I decided to create this podcast. There is a huge difference between selecting anything and being selective.

When we select anything we take the next thing that shows up in our life - the next relationship, the next job, the next friend, the next boot camp and we don't select the thing that we WANT at our deepest desire.

This is a major distinction. Let me say that again. This is a major distinction.

Your goal can be to get fit or find a new healthier relationship but if you take the next workout that comes your way it's probably not going to be specific to the fitness goals you're trying to achieve. 

If you take the next man/woman who shows up in your life, they will probably not be the exact partner you dream about.

This is where we must honour ourselves. Honour our needs, our wants, our deepest desires and be selective.

Only when we're selective are we able to create the life we truly want. 

This will require two things of you - knowing what you want and saying "no" to all the distractions along the way. This will reinforce your new boundary. You will be tested again and again, tempted to go back to your old ways.

You will be tested again and again, tempted to go back to your old ways.

Friends will challenge your newfound convictions and you will question your new found beliefs. It's in these most you must hold strong. This is the moment where you are selecting what you want versus taking what shows up at your front door.

Think of like an adventure where you get to find exactly what you want ;)

Check out the podcast to hear more about being selective vs. selecting anything.

With Love,

Filip

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And if you liked this episode tell me on Twitter @filipsierpinski or facebook! I love hearing from you :)

• JuVan Langford