Latest / Ambitious Podcast / EP.81: How Soul Life Balance Helped This 7-Figure Founder Escape Numbness & Depression w/ Sam Kabert | The Ambitious Podcast

Transcript

EP.81: How Soul Life Balance Helped This 7-Figure Founder Escape Numbness & Depression w/ Sam Kabert | The Ambitious Podcast · Ambitious Podcast

• 0:00
  The type of things that we're going to discuss today I used to
• 0:02
  myself be a little bit skeptical of, and that was because it used
• 0:05
  to scare me. I built up A7 figure business
• 0:07
  while working less than 4 hours a day yet I was so deeply
• 0:11
  depressed. Like that state of just numb.
• 0:13
  Sam went from fantasy football leagues and frat life to full
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  moon ceremonies and breath work. When I left the fantasy Football
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  League, my best friends pretty much disowned me.
• 0:23
  I would jokingly refer to myself as a recovering bro.
• 0:28
  A lot of us are so disconnected from our feelings because when
• 0:32
  we are expressing ourselves as a baby, a toddler, a little kid,
• 0:35
  we're told like, hey, you're making a scene, you're being too
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  much. So we're taught to not feel.
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  So many people use breathing as get rid of the feeling.
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  Now you're bypassing emotions or energy in motion.
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  There's the 92nd rule that scientifically shows that we can
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  move through as little as 90 seconds.
• 0:53
  It's free. Yeah, it's literally it's free.
• 0:56
  Hello, you guys, and welcome back to the Ambitious Podcast.
• 0:59
  So today I'm very excited to introduce to you an incredible
• 1:02
  guest who I will be very honest, the type of things that we're
• 1:06
  going to discuss today, I used to myself, admittedly be a
• 1:09
  little bit skeptical of. And that was because it used to
• 1:11
  scare me and I would often times roll my eyes.
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  And that's because today is really an invitation for those
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  who've been curious to integrate a little bit more flow within
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  their business, a little bit more spirituality, a little bit
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  more balance. And so today we are talking all
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  things breath work, soul centered practices and how to
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  integrate those within your business and within your life.
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  Today I'm joined by Sam, who's the author of Soul Life Balance,
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  a guide to igniting and integrating spiritual
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  awakenings. Sam built A7 figure business
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  while working less than 4 hours a day and was named Silicon
• 1:44
  Valley's 40 Under 40 list and had all the external markers of
• 1:48
  success. But despite having complete
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  financial freedom, he found himself deeply numb and
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  depressed, which led him on a transformative journey through
• 1:56
  breathwork, plant medicine, and spiritual awakening.
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  What I love about Sam's approach personally is the fact that he
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  bridges practical understanding with the spiritual and as
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  somebody who is like a very much a strategy and structured nerd,
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  this is something that really landed for me.
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  He is not by any means asking you to abandon logic or
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  abandoned strategy, but rather to integrate both your inner
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  world and your outer world that is happening in your life and in
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  your business to truly have what he calls soul life balance.
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  He is also a master practitioner and NLPA yoga instructor and his
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  health space in over 1000 medicine ceremonies.
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  So let's get into a little bit of what you're going to learn
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  today. First we talk about why
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  traditional work life balance is actually double Yang energy and
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  keeping you stuck in human doing versus human being.
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  We discussed the recovering bro journey, how Sam went from
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  fantasy football leagues and frat life to full moon
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  ceremonies and breath work, and with this lost friends in the
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  process. His revolutionary breath
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  framework that he's going to teach you today on how to move
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  through emotions in 90 seconds using science backed techniques
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  instead of bypassing them. He discusses the differences
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  between breath work exercises that are used to calm your
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  nervous system versus those that are used to release stored
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  trauma and why most people are doing breath work wrong.
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  And how does hell if you're spiritually bypassing versus
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  actually listening to your intuition when you want to skip
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  to your commitments. The ninja breathing technique is
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  also something he's going to teach today and how you can use
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  it in heated conversations or meetings in a way no one will
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  notice. We did this live on this call
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  together and he literally did this live this breathing
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  technique with me on this and it was incredible.
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  I cannot wait for you to learn this.
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  Brotherick, I will say has had a massive impact on my journey.
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  I used to be very skeptical, as I said, and with that, in
• 3:51
  leaning in, I've really seen the power of what this resource that
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  is free and available to you can do for you.
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  And we just talked about so many incredible things in today's
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  episode. You are going to feel
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  spiritually, emotionally lifted in a way that I cannot describe
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  after listening to this today. So without further ado, let's
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  get into today's episode. All right, all righty guys.
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  Welcome back to ambitious. I am so excited today.
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  We were just chatting before we started pressing record and I
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  was saying how many of the things we're going to talk about
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  today were things that I used to be scared of, are used to be
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  skeptical of. And so I'm really excited to
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  bring that conversation and invitation for you today of all
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  these incredible topics, a lot of them around burnout,
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  understanding, balance, tapping into our spirituality and our
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  soul, breath work and so many other things.
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  So, Sam, welcome to Ambitious. Kate, so good to see you.
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  It's been a while. I'm excited we're doing this and
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  thank you so much for bringing me on your podcast.
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  Yeah. Of course, we we did a an
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  episode on his show, which was awesome as well.
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  If you guys want to check that out, we'll we'll link that in
• 4:57
  the show notes for you so you can listen there too.
• 4:59
  Sam, I feel like I I want to dive right into the meat of it
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  because I feel like there's so many.
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  I'm a nerd for frameworks or structures and you have so many
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  incredible ones. So I'm just excited to dive
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  right in. Your book talks about soul life
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  balance. And for the woman listening to
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  this, we often hear the idea of work life balance.
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  But I would love for you to unpack what is soul life balance
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  and also for you as an entrepreneur, how did that kind
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  of come up? How did that principle kind of
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  get discovered? Yeah, absolutely.
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  You know, I remember back in high school, I grew up in
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  Northern California, just South of Silicon Valley.
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  I remember in high school and from 2002 to 2006, that's when I
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  was in high school being like, man, when I grow up, I just want
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  work life balance. I don't really know what it is,
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  but I just want that thing, a work life balance, right.
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  So Long story short, I end up building A7 figure business in
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  the promotional products industry and that was culminated
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  in 2019 when I was 31. I was named to my industries
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  rising stars, I was named to Silicon Valley's 40 under 40
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  list list of movers and shakers in Silicon Valley.
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  And this is a guy just put in logos on things in Silicon
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  Valley. You know, nothing special at
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  all. The differentiator was really
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  networking with young professionals, being on boards
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  of nonprofits and I had a media network with like 5 podcasts on
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  the network. Back in 2017, we did in an
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  annual event at ebay's headquarters called Pitch Tank,
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  kind of our version of Shark Tank.
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  So I had all these accolades. I built up A7 figure business
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  while working less than 4 hours a day, no employees.
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  Like back then I was known as the VA guy, the virtual
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  assistant guy, not anything I set out to be known for, but
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  people would ask me like how are you able to do so much?
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  Because I wrote my first three books in a year around that time
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  as well. Yeah.
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  So I had a lot going on and I'd be like V as and people would be
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  like, what's that? I'm like a virtual assistant,
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  right. So a picture that I'm painting
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  here is like literally had financial freedom with A7 figure
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  business was crushing it on all accounts and just working a few
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  hours a day. Yet I'm so deeply depressed.
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  Like that state of just numb, you know?
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  And that's when a breathwork journey first found me, then
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  Ayahuasca, and then my journey really went super deep down the
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  spiritual half, which then morphed in transition more to
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  mental and emotional health, really from a scientific
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  perspective. So it's been 6 years now and the
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  message of soul life balance came through back in April of
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  2019. And I didn't really know what
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  was I, I figured, you know, I got to figure out what this
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  thing is. I've been off with work life
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  balance. And when the pandemics hit or
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  the lockdowns hit the next year and a lot of people are writing
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  their first book, I already had the vision of writing a book
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  called Soul Life Balance. But it was actually an
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  incredibly close friend, a woman, a good friend of mine
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  that reflected back to me back then.
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  She was like, you know, maybe it's time for you to slow down,
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  Sam, with all the lockdowns, because I really had that
• 8:06
  entrepreneurial itch that was like, it's go time, put the
• 8:09
  pedal to the metal. This is time for me to write the
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  book, right? And it was so important to have
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  those like close women in my life that were so deeply
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  connected to their intuition to be those vessels of messengers
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  to me to offer the invitation of slowing down.
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  And it was very uncomfortable. Long story short, within a
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  couple of years, I end up writing and publishing that book
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  Soul Life Balance. And the basic idea of soul life
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  balance is a frame of work life balance and how I typically
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  teach it when I teach on stage, either keynotes or workshops
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  presentations, is looking at the archetypal energy of the yin and
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  Yang or Yang because most of us are familiar with that symbol,
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  right? But a lot of people don't
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  actually know what it means. And the light side represents
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  the outer world of the obligations and
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  responsibilities. It's the human doing.
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  And the dark side is our inner world, which I like to say is
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  our mental and emotional health. If you want to go deeper and say
• 9:06
  your connection to your religion or spirituality, that's great.
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  But like, let's just start with your connection to your thoughts
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  and feelings. So now if we take these energies
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  and we apply them to work life balance, it becomes so
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  abundantly obvious that work life balance is double Yang.
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  That's to say that's double outer world of responsibilities,
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  obligations and the human doing as opposed to the innate essence
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  of our human being. So soul life balance is a re
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  prioritization of work life balance where we prioritize our
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  inner world of our mental and emotional health first while re
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  categorizing work as a part of life.
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  OK. So much time back there, so
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  good. OK, I know anyone listening is
• 9:52
  thinking, were you always into this?
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  Because I like, I think as you noted there like you're like,
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  OK, I have this kind of like almost like awakening really of
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  realizing there's a whole other way that I could be doing
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  business, could be doing life. My experience of this could be.
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  But I know for many who haven't dipped their toe into that yet,
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  to your point earlier, it can feel very intimidating.
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  Slow down. You're like, it kind of scared
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  me like Sam before. What did he look like?
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  How is he operating in the in the quote UN quote work life
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  balance or lack thereof? The subtitle to Soul Life
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  balance is a guide to igniting and integrating spiritual
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  awakenings. So yes, very much an awakening.
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  And the amazing author and spiritual teacher Adyashanti
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  talks about the I got it, I lost it phenomena.
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  And the idea is like when we go through this awakening,
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  unfolding, it's just that it's an unfolding.
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  We might have like that one moment or that one peak
• 10:47
  experience, but then it's about the integration there.
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  And we're going to go through this phenomena of like, I got
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  it, I lost it, meaning, like I got it.
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  I understand the secrets of the universe.
• 10:57
  I feel awakened. But then there's going to be
• 10:59
  other times like what happened, right?
• 11:00
  So at the time of me going down this path and me shifting not
• 11:05
  just like who I am by myself and around my friends and family,
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  but also the version of myself that's showing up on social
• 11:13
  media toll 180 very, very, very different person.
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  I remember getting a message at a full moon ceremony and for me
• 11:23
  to even go to a full moon ceremony was like, I don't know
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  what this thing is. I've been doing Transcendental
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  Meditation for maybe a year or so TM and I've been going yoga
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  classes for maybe about a year or so.
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  But I just feel I didn't even have the language to say feel
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  called. I just had this inner knowing
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  that I was supposed to go to like this full moon ceremony.
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  And then in that, it came that I needed to leave the fantasy
• 11:50
  Football League I was in. And I was 31 years old.
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  I was still in the same fantasy Football League with my best
• 11:56
  friends from college. A lot of them played like, you
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  know, high school football and like captains of their team, All
• 12:02
  Stars. And I was never like, a jock or
• 12:05
  anything like that, But like, I very much had that persona.
• 12:08
  Like in college, we were the top frat.
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  I lived above the most popular bar in town.
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  I wrapped Monster Energy drinks, a spring break trip, like the
• 12:17
  whole thing, right. So when I left the fantasy
• 12:20
  Football League, my best friends pretty much disowned me.
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  And they said like all the like, abusive or whatever type of
• 12:27
  words you want to paint in your picture.
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  And I talked to them for a couple of years and here we are
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  six years later. And I talked to them every now
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  and then. You know, point being, though,
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  as I started to integrate this all and like who I'm showing up
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  as, I would jokingly refer to myself as a recovering bro
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  because I needed to say that to be like, hey, I I was cool.
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  I am cool. I'm not like this flowery hippie
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  guy. Like, I needed to have that
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  transition piece to really help me embrace in like, that only
• 12:57
  lasted maybe a year or so, like back in 2020.
• 13:00
  Yeah. Yeah.
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  Toll, Toll one. A very different person.
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  And I feel like there's, there's just such an identity shift in
• 13:07
  that because I feel like it's also the while you're obviously
• 13:09
  welcoming all of what you could be as a person or entrepreneur,
• 13:12
  you're also unlearning all of who you were.
• 13:15
  And so I'm curious like for that, that catalyst to go into
• 13:19
  that side of you. Because I'm thinking for the
• 13:20
  person listening, they're very potentially in their masculine,
• 13:23
  the idea of maybe like yoga or meditation feels new to them,
• 13:27
  let alone diving into anything like breath work or the words of
• 13:30
  spirituality. They think, OK, like, is this
• 13:32
  religion? Is this energy?
• 13:34
  Are we talking crystals? Like, I know there's a big
• 13:36
  spectrum of what that can mean for people, but for you, the
• 13:40
  catalyst for this, would you say that there was like a situation
• 13:44
  or wasn't an experience that quote UN quote, called you into
• 13:47
  it? Or was it kind of like almost
• 13:49
  like a matter of all of these little breaks in the glass that
• 13:52
  eventually shattered and kind of led to this like evolution of
• 13:55
  who obviously you are today? It's such a great question.
• 13:58
  I mean, I had first my breath work journey, which it was like
• 14:02
  about an hour and a half one-on-one with a facilitator
• 14:05
  just breathing in specific kind of way to release trauma stored
• 14:09
  in the body. And I like to visualize it like
• 14:11
  this. When a lion is chasing a gazelle
• 14:14
  in the wild. And most of us have seen these
• 14:16
  videos, if the gazelle is lucky enough to get away, it shakes
• 14:20
  and convulses because it allows itself to release that trauma it
• 14:23
  just experienced. But a lot of us are so
• 14:26
  disconnected and associated from our feelings, typically from a
• 14:30
  young age, because when we are expressing ourselves as a baby,
• 14:33
  a toddler or a little kid, whatever it might be, we're told
• 14:36
  like, hey, you're making a scene, you're being too much.
• 14:39
  So we're taught to not feel. And then that becomes
• 14:41
  conditioned into US, right. So kind of what you're saying
• 14:44
  before about the unprogramming. So yeah, definitely the
• 14:47
  breathwork journey was the first piece of week.
• 14:49
  After that, I sat with ayahuasca plant medicine, very powerful
• 14:53
  psychedelic for healing. And those two experiences were
• 14:57
  the big catalyst and especially working with plant and earth
• 15:00
  medicines, it can really help you to do that quote UN quote,
• 15:03
  shadow work. As you know, 95% of our
• 15:06
  awareness we don't have access to, that's our subconscious
• 15:09
  mind. So doing our shadow work, the
• 15:12
  term coined by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung is
• 15:15
  basically to make the unconscious conscious.
• 15:17
  So all that 95% we're not aware of Now having conscious
• 15:22
  awareness to that, it's very intimidating.
• 15:25
  It's very scary. I was at rock bottom, so I was
• 15:28
  like, literally, like, it wasn't even a matter of like, how to
• 15:31
  surrender. It was like I was at the
• 15:32
  ultimate place. Like, I'm giving in.
• 15:34
  Yeah, I had no choice. Exactly.
• 15:37
  And from there, it gave me the clarity on how to move forward.
• 15:40
  So those were like, really the pivotal moments for sure.
• 15:44
  Yeah, I have a lot of a lot of friends and peers who've I've
• 15:47
  never done ayahuasca, but I've had a lot of friends and peers
• 15:49
  who have. And they said it was really this
• 15:51
  like life altering experience. And I'm, I'm thinking for the
• 15:54
  person listening who's maybe, you know, using this as an
• 15:57
  invitation to say, OK, maybe that nudge or that call to it,
• 16:00
  they're using this as an invitation to say, maybe I go
• 16:02
  down that. But I'm also thinking the other
• 16:04
  side of if someone's OK, maybe I am previous say I'm listening to
• 16:08
  this and I know that I want to start to integrate more of this
• 16:13
  soul life balance, but I'm not quite sure if I do I need a big
• 16:18
  catalyst for that to happen Or are there invitations for us to
• 16:22
  take to kind of say, OK, great, let's the doors a little bit
• 16:25
  open, let's explore. And if so, how do we do that?
• 16:29
  If we're coming from a place of being super masculine in the
• 16:32
  masculine, overdoing it, as you said, we've got free space.
• 16:35
  Great, I'm going to write a book like, you know, using those
• 16:38
  opportunities. How do we go from that kind of
• 16:40
  operation system to inviting ourselves into this?
• 16:44
  Or do you think to your point you need a big catalyst to kind
• 16:48
  of start down that path typically?
• 16:51
  Yeah, it's going to be different for different people.
• 16:53
  And I think a lot of times, you know, to have that big catalyst,
• 16:56
  we have to be doing the work to prepare ourselves for it.
• 16:59
  And Psyche kind of is aware of that and that's when the calling
• 17:03
  will come. Like in my example, I was
• 17:05
  already doing yoga and TM, so I was starting to build those
• 17:08
  tools. So to your point, for anyone
• 17:11
  that's trying to go from a human doing to a human being, it can
• 17:14
  be very uncomfortable and bring a lot of anxiety in to just be
• 17:19
  present and not check your phone, not be journaling right,
• 17:23
  or just like to be in the moment.
• 17:26
  And the best thing you can do to really train yourself for that
• 17:29
  is to get out in nature and just sit and be.
• 17:32
  And you know, I've worked with plenty of people, like clients
• 17:34
  that are in New York City being like, oh, but I live in New York
• 17:38
  or I live in a city. I can't really do that.
• 17:40
  And I'm like, we live in nature. Yes, we have these buildings,
• 17:43
  but all you have to do is walk outside.
• 17:44
  Like it doesn't matter if it's concrete jungle.
• 17:47
  It's as simple as seeing the bird or squirrel or pigeon or
• 17:50
  noticing the shift in the wind. Like these small little moments
• 17:54
  can have such a pivotal impact in your day.
• 17:58
  So that's a great way to go from a human doing to a human being.
• 18:02
  But for most of us, like when you wake up first thing in the
• 18:05
  morning, just take 3 deep breaths.
• 18:09
  About 90% of the time when I wake up, I do at least 10
• 18:12
  minutes of breath work in bed before I even get out of bed.
• 18:16
  But if I'm not going to do that, I can at least take 3 deep
• 18:19
  breaths. And anyone can take 3 deep
• 18:21
  breaths and ask themselves like how do I feel in this moment?
• 18:24
  What do I want to experience today?
• 18:27
  For a year I was not that I'm done with it, but I was going
• 18:31
  really deep on like learning to love myself because I realized
• 18:35
  how much like self hate I had. And I don't even use the word
• 18:39
  hate. I use the word strongly dislike.
• 18:42
  But for myself, I would use the word hate and I had to wake up,
• 18:47
  not had to, but I would wake up every morning and, and when I
• 18:49
  fell asleep, just saying I love myself and finding that
• 18:52
  gratitude breathing into it. And then some other tools are
• 18:56
  the breath process, the framework, the acronym you
• 18:59
  alluded to earlier. And the foundation of that is
• 19:02
  that our body actually has a 92nd physiological response when
• 19:07
  we experience an emotion. It's science.
• 19:10
  There's a neuroanatomist named Doctor Jill Bolte Taylor that
• 19:13
  made this famous. And it's called the 92nd rule.
• 19:16
  So it teaches that our body has a physical response when we
• 19:18
  experience an emotion. And if we don't allow ourselves
• 19:21
  to feel that emotion, then that emotion, which which is energy
• 19:25
  and motion, gets stuck and stored in the body.
• 19:28
  And then we start a new thought loop that keeps us stuck in that
• 19:31
  same emotion over and over because we're disassociated.
• 19:35
  So the breath framework teaches what you can actually do in
• 19:38
  those 90 seconds. Well, I wanted to like you just
• 19:42
  said something that I feel like is really different from what
• 19:45
  you hear a lot because when we hear about doing inner work, we
• 19:47
  think you mentioned journaling. And something that instantly
• 19:50
  came up for me is in the pursuit of someone trying to find
• 19:55
  themselves, can we also hide in the tools that could help us?
• 19:58
  And what I'm thinking about this is like, yes, journaling,
• 20:02
  obviously we know, and I've talked about journaling on other
• 20:04
  episodes, like it's so impactful.
• 20:06
  But I'm also think the distinction between the doing
• 20:08
  and being. If someone is trying to be, can
• 20:12
  we hide in the tools that might help us be but by doing them
• 20:18
  instead of being in them? 100% And this is something that
• 20:21
  I've lived experience and I think is really going to
• 20:24
  resonate with those of you listening.
• 20:26
  Like when I first learned about all this stuff, it was like, OK,
• 20:29
  I'm going to start off my morning and do some breath work,
• 20:31
  do some meditation after that journal about my experience for
• 20:35
  sure. I'm going outside to get that
• 20:37
  vitamin D and I'm going to have my lemon water with ACV, apple
• 20:41
  cider vinegar. And it became like a check,
• 20:44
  check, check, check, check, check, check.
• 20:46
  And it's like, all right, to your point, like you're turning
• 20:49
  the being into the doing. And I think that is amazing
• 20:54
  training wheels when you first get started because it's very
• 20:58
  important to explore and see like, OK, do I like yoga?
• 21:03
  Oh, I do like yoga. Will do I like this kind of yoga
• 21:05
  versus that kind of yoga Because vinyasa is very different than
• 21:09
  restorative and very different from 26, right?
• 21:12
  There's so or a yen gar and all these different styles.
• 21:14
  So finding which one within that niche of like asana of movement
• 21:19
  or, you know, journaling. OK, there's the author from the
• 21:23
  Artist's Way, Julia Cameron, the daily pages, that's what it's
• 21:26
  called. 3 pages of just not letting the pen stop for three
• 21:31
  pages or 20 minutes, whichever comes first.
• 21:34
  Or do I like journaling with a specific prompt, right?
• 21:37
  There's so many different variations.
• 21:38
  So yes, we can look at like journaling versus breath work
• 21:41
  versus meditation versus yoga or all these or ice bats, which I
• 21:45
  know you and I both love. And it's great at first if you
• 21:49
  need to approach it as A to do list and also notice if you are
• 21:56
  approaching it as A to do list. And if you find this is key, if
• 22:00
  you find that you're shaming yourself at any point, whether
• 22:03
  it's this or anything else, instead of being stuck in that
• 22:07
  frequency of shame, you celebrate that awareness that
• 22:11
  you just built around it. Then you reframe it.
• 22:14
  And as it relates to this specific example with those
• 22:17
  tools being A to do list, the reason why it's OK to do it when
• 22:21
  you're first starting off with like training wheels, like I
• 22:23
  said, is because now you're understanding which ones you
• 22:26
  like and which of those tools you would use for how you're
• 22:30
  feeling in specific moments. Well, I'm wondering in that
• 22:34
  because I'm thinking if someone's newer to this or maybe
• 22:36
  they're already dabbling in it. And even for me, like exactly
• 22:40
  what you just said, I remember I was really burnt out and I was
• 22:44
  like, like exactly like you're saying something had to change.
• 22:46
  Like I had to take time off of work I was getting, I thought,
• 22:50
  OK, maybe it's a vitamin thing. So I was going to get Ivs and
• 22:53
  the girl was like, you know, maybe it's more than vitamins.
• 22:55
  Maybe there's like some other things happening here.
• 22:58
  I think we need an overall Wellness plan.
• 22:59
  And I was OK, great. So you're going to do, you know,
• 23:02
  I think journaling would be good.
• 23:03
  I think a walk would be good. You know, kind of giving
• 23:06
  yourself these metrics, if you will have like a toolbox that
• 23:09
  you can go to. And so my super masculine brain
• 23:12
  at the time was like great wake up breath work, red light walk.
• 23:16
  Like it was like this, I was exhausted by the end of it
• 23:20
  because the the checklist was so extensive and in it I'm not
• 23:24
  present at all. I'm just like, hey, great.
• 23:26
  I journaled like awesome. I went into my breath work
• 23:28
  great. Like exactly as you said, I was
• 23:30
  checking the boxes. I would feel shame by not doing
• 23:34
  the routine because I thought, OK, well, this is what's
• 23:37
  supposed to help my burnout. It's supposed to help me to feel
• 23:39
  more aligned with my business, aligned with, you know, my life.
• 23:42
  It's going to help me with removing all these symptoms, but
• 23:46
  it actually made me more burnt out, even though I was
• 23:49
  journaling, breath work, all the things because it became such A
• 23:52
  to do less, less of a practice. And so I'm curious for you, for
• 23:57
  someone who maybe is like, OK, I want to make more of these
• 24:01
  presencing practices part of my routine, but maybe they're in a
• 24:05
  place of doing it to do it for you.
• 24:08
  Do you believe it's a matter of the consistency and the reps, as
• 24:11
  you said, almost like the training wheels?
• 24:12
  Or for you, is the success of these practices really the level
• 24:17
  of presence you can have within them?
• 24:18
  Less of how many you do or how long you do them?
• 24:21
  Yeah, the last thing you said there, that was a great way to
• 24:24
  put it. Yeah, it's really the depth,
• 24:26
  right? Quality over quantity.
• 24:28
  One of my yoga instructors out here, this is a funny story.
• 24:31
  We're doing yoga at the beach. I live at the beach now and this
• 24:35
  was several years ago. And we are in Warrior 2IN the
• 24:38
  sand. And she go.
• 24:39
  She said something about like practice makes practice.
• 24:41
  And I'm staying there in Warrior 2IN the sand.
• 24:44
  And I nearly fell over being like practice makes practice,
• 24:47
  practice makes perfect. You know, I was thinking about
• 24:49
  that Allen Iverson clip of like, yeah, practice.
• 24:53
  We're talking about practice. You know, it's famous.
• 24:55
  But anyways, I've realized within a few minutes, after not
• 24:59
  few minutes, probably like 30 seconds after that, being like,
• 25:02
  wow, just stepping back into that state of what many would
• 25:06
  call like the observer, the witness and be like, well, look
• 25:08
  how conditioned I am to be like, practice makes perfect.
• 25:12
  And I was like, what does practice make practice this
• 25:15
  mean? And then I started to adopt that
• 25:18
  into soul life balance because the philosophy or the practice
• 25:22
  of soul life balance is very different than how we talk about
• 25:26
  work life balance. How we talk about work life
• 25:29
  balance is like that perfection and that end destination as
• 25:33
  opposed to soul life balance is understanding that it's a
• 25:36
  practice. And when we get off track,
• 25:38
  instead of shaming and guilting ourself, we recognize it.
• 25:41
  Then it's an opportunity to reframe and move forward.
• 25:44
  Now the, the other part of what you were mentioning goes into
• 25:47
  habits, right? So I might derail this for a
• 25:51
  moment. So I want to get back to habits
• 25:52
  and what I was going to say to relate that to soul life
• 25:56
  balance. I'm actually a yoga instructor
• 25:58
  as well. And when I was in Costa Rica for
• 26:02
  my yoga teacher training, husband and wife teachers,
• 26:05
  they're amazing. Dakota Shea, he said he was
• 26:08
  teaching us the yogic philosophy of Sadhna, which teaches you
• 26:12
  about your daily spiritual practices, and it's really how
• 26:15
  you be in the journey as opposed to the destination.
• 26:19
  And when he was teaching us about Sadhna, he said something
• 26:22
  I'll never forget. He said to name your ultimate
• 26:25
  potential used to limit your ultimate potential.
• 26:29
  I'll say that again, to name your ultimate potential is to
• 26:32
  limit your ultimate potential. And my mind was melting because
• 26:36
  I was like, Oh my God, how many times have I named my ultimate
• 26:39
  potential and being like build A7 figure business work less
• 26:42
  than 4 hours a day, be named to this list that list this.
• 26:45
  I was like, Oh my God, I've been limiting myself so much.
• 26:49
  So I have a worksheet basically that has like at the top.
• 26:52
  It just says ultimate potential. You don't say what it is.
• 26:55
  It's just your ultimate potential than different
• 26:57
  categories like physical, emotional, spiritual, things
• 27:01
  like that. And then just like what are the
• 27:03
  daily habits and behaviors, Not necessarily spiritual, but then
• 27:07
  different habits and behaviors. Now how habits relate to soul
• 27:11
  life balance is really soul life balance is 6 years in the making
• 27:16
  and what I've come to really consider over the past several
• 27:19
  months is more than like soul life balance.
• 27:22
  What it really feels like to me is soul life mindset, because
• 27:26
  what I look at from everything is a perspective of both.
• 27:31
  Like we could call it the analytical or logic mine, and on
• 27:35
  the other side, the limbic brain, or we could call it
• 27:38
  looking at one side from like discernment with logic and the
• 27:42
  other side of intuition. So as we're building in these
• 27:46
  practices, like today would have been day three of me doing ocean
• 27:51
  plunge, then running on the beach and running up and down
• 27:53
  the stairs. But it was raining today and my
• 27:56
  dad stayed over and we had three of our dogs with us and it was
• 27:59
  just like, OK, this morning I'm not doing it like and that's OK,
• 28:04
  right. So there's definitely different
• 28:07
  scenarios that will come up where the previous self of
• 28:11
  myself, you and many of you listening where we're so much in
• 28:15
  that doing. It's like, no, I made this
• 28:17
  commitment. I'm going to stick to that
• 28:18
  commitment. It's learning to be like I'm I'm
• 28:21
  not lying to myself, I'm not breaking a commitment.
• 28:24
  I'm learning to work with my intuition and that's OK.
• 28:29
  Well, I'm wondering for that as a as a business owner for you.
• 28:32
  It was a curiosity I had diving into all your work was based off
• 28:37
  what you're saying, soul life balance is really a matter of
• 28:41
  soul and your life harmony, like working in like it's in constant
• 28:45
  development, It's in constant movement fluid.
• 28:49
  I think it's like, to your point earlier, work life balance
• 28:51
  assumes like achievement, It assumes like you were unbalanced
• 28:54
  and I are balanced. And so really the basis of what
• 28:56
  you're talking about is like this constant integration and
• 28:59
  evaluation of all pieces to make sure that it's, it's always in
• 29:02
  harmony with each other. I often talk about, like for me,
• 29:05
  I talk about work life harmony because I don't really believe
• 29:07
  in work life balance, but I think about it like an
• 29:09
  orchestra. Like you've got the really
• 29:10
  strong loud instruments and you've got the quiet flutes in
• 29:13
  the back and they're all different volumes and tones.
• 29:17
  But when it all comes together, even though they're constantly
• 29:19
  changing, it sounds beautiful. That's possible as a business
• 29:23
  owner is that you've got the highs in different areas of your
• 29:25
  life and the lows in different areas.
• 29:27
  But if as long as it's all harmony at the end of the day,
• 29:30
  it can still sound great for you and for your life.
• 29:33
  But a curiosity of what you just said is that if you are someone
• 29:37
  who's like, OK, I have to keep this commitment to myself.
• 29:40
  I think that as entrepreneurs, we constantly have this like
• 29:43
  undertone of shame of like, if I said I'm going to do blank, I'm
• 29:46
  going to do it. There's also a lot of hustle
• 29:47
  culture and a lot of that tone that comes through that says to
• 29:52
  us, OK, like you have to keep the commitments that you set and
• 29:54
  it's all about discipline and all of these things.
• 29:57
  And so I'm curious for you, how do you recommend people to
• 30:01
  balance this idea of leaning into intuition versus where
• 30:06
  could potentially we be hiding in, Oh, well, you know, for
• 30:09
  example, this situation this morning, where is the difference
• 30:13
  between I'm not doing it because the situation doesn't mean that
• 30:19
  I need to do it versus I'm using it as a reason to not do it.
• 30:23
  Where is that fine line of where people can start to kind of
• 30:25
  figure out how to listen to that?
• 30:27
  Because I think for me, I always struggle to know, am I using
• 30:31
  this because my gut is telling me I need to rest?
• 30:34
  Or am I resting because I'm using it as an excuse to not
• 30:36
  work? Yeah, a lot of people would call
• 30:39
  it the spiritually bypassing, which I define that as using
• 30:42
  your beliefs to justify a way of being or behaving or doing, you
• 30:46
  know, so being like, OK, because my dad's here today and we're
• 30:50
  still walking on the beach. But like, I know if I were to
• 30:53
  run or go in the ocean, then the dogs are going to jump out.
• 30:55
  It's just going to be a whole thing.
• 30:57
  I'm not going to do it. That's one thing.
• 30:59
  It makes sense. But then it raining like it was
• 31:02
  pouring when we're on the beach. Now it's cleared up.
• 31:05
  This afternoon I'm going to go back to the beach and I'm going
• 31:08
  to jump in and I'm going to do my stairs because it's cleared
• 31:11
  up. You know, if I were to say
• 31:13
  myself, well, I already missed it.
• 31:15
  I, I, I only do it in the morning, you know, and, and now
• 31:19
  I can't do it in the afternoon. Now I'm like starting a
• 31:21
  spiritually bypass and use it as like an escapism almost.
• 31:25
  So it's a delicate balance of, you know, a lot of times I'm
• 31:29
  working with more business and corporate demographics, so I
• 31:31
  don't talk about the masculine and feminine.
• 31:34
  But when we're talking about the yin and the Yang or Yang, the
• 31:37
  Yang energy is a masculine energy and the yin is a
• 31:41
  feminine. So the feminine really is the
• 31:43
  intuition. And this isn't, as you know and
• 31:45
  a lot of your listeners knows, isn't equated to actual like
• 31:49
  genitalia. It's an archetypal energy, which
• 31:52
  is why I prefer talk about yin and Yang versus feminine
• 31:56
  masculine. But point being here, like it's
• 31:58
  that masculine energy of like, OK, now I'm going to hold myself
• 32:03
  accountable and dive into that discipline.
• 32:06
  But we need both. Like if it comes to a couple
• 32:09
  hours from now when I would be doing that run and I don't feel
• 32:15
  sick at all, but like, say I felt sick or because I was just
• 32:19
  walking in the rain or something like that.
• 32:21
  It's something else came up. I'm like, no, I'm not going to
• 32:24
  push myself further because I have a flight tomorrow.
• 32:26
  I'm going on a trip for a few days and I don't want to get
• 32:28
  sick right now, right? So it's this delicate balance of
• 32:31
  really using your intuition and then your logic and just kind of
• 32:34
  going back and forth and, and noticing when you're starting to
• 32:38
  talk yourself out and of something and starting to get
• 32:41
  curious, what's what's that about?
• 32:43
  Where else does that show up in my life as a pattern, you know?
• 32:47
  That's a tough question because I feel like for many people
• 32:50
  there's a lot of patterns. Like I'm thinking if you're
• 32:53
  today supposed to go do that, run in the stairs and there's a
• 32:58
  part of you that's if you had said, OK, great, I have to go do
• 33:01
  this. I have to do it because I said
• 33:02
  as a commitment to myself and that's what I said I was going
• 33:04
  to do and I'm going to fulfill it.
• 33:06
  There's often times I find with most entrepreneurs that you're
• 33:09
  having that level of shame based action in a lot of other areas,
• 33:14
  which is part of why the experience feels so difficult.
• 33:18
  I'm curious because you mentioned before and I want to
• 33:20
  make sure I close the loop for everyone because it's something
• 33:22
  I definitely want to dive into, which is you mentioned habits
• 33:25
  and you mentioned identity. How much of soul life balance is
• 33:29
  identity versus the habits? So if I'm somebody who's version
• 33:34
  1 Sam, if I'm there now and I'm wanting to learn how to have
• 33:39
  more of the integration, you're talking about having more of an
• 33:41
  enjoyable experience in life and business, more of a harmony,
• 33:44
  more of a a spiritual experience with myself and an understanding
• 33:48
  of myself and how that integrates and all these pieces.
• 33:51
  Do you think that the majority of it is identity or is it
• 33:55
  really about the habits you're taking?
• 33:57
  Or really is it, you know, how how does the balance of those
• 33:59
  two pieces work? Is it about who I need to be in
• 34:03
  a moment, like you're saying, for example with that example
• 34:07
  you just outlined of like in the moment, those moment to moment
• 34:09
  decisions? Or is it really about practices
• 34:12
  and allowing the practices to kind of unlock the identity for
• 34:16
  you if someone wants to, Yeah. Well said.
• 34:18
  Yeah, I think the practices do unlock the identity, you know,
• 34:22
  like for a long time, they're going through the spiritual
• 34:25
  awakening unfolding. I had no idea who I was.
• 34:29
  You know, it's like Ram Dass's classic thing of his
• 34:32
  documentary, his book becoming nobody.
• 34:34
  And it's interesting because you know that the time of this
• 34:37
  recording May 2025 and I'm re watching Game of Thrones and
• 34:43
  it's so awesome to watch Game of Thrones now post like spiritual
• 34:48
  Awakening and specifically for most of your listeners probably
• 34:52
  seen it. You've probably seen it, right?
• 34:54
  I've never seen Game of Thrones. OK, bad assumption.
• 34:57
  But now, now I'm like, OK, I'm intrigued.
• 34:59
  I'm intrigued, OK. Yeah, I mean, you know,
• 35:02
  generally speaking, I try not to watch shows because I'm a all or
• 35:06
  nothing type of person. And when you're all or nothing
• 35:09
  type of person, yeah, it's so easy to get caught in the
• 35:11
  bingeing, right? So I try not to.
• 35:13
  But I am currently doing that. So one of the characters, like
• 35:17
  she goes through this training of becoming no one.
• 35:20
  And I'm like, Oh my God, this is like the spiritual evolution.
• 35:23
  And like, I went through a couple of years where I truly
• 35:27
  didn't feel attached to this identity.
• 35:31
  I felt so much more like as a soul than my egoic
• 35:34
  personification of who I am in this current incarnation.
• 35:38
  And then from there, I had to ground back in because I felt
• 35:41
  myself going a little too deep, a little too woo for where I
• 35:45
  want to be, you know, And some people, they won't go there.
• 35:48
  And that's cool too. But I won't be able to have soul
• 35:50
  life balance be to have my feet in both worlds.
• 35:53
  And I wasn't able to be grounded in the human experience because
• 35:56
  I was losing myself. So having said that, these
• 36:00
  practices really did help me to figure out who is it that I am.
• 36:04
  And then also be like, I am not the Silicon Valley entrepreneur.
• 36:09
  I'm not the breathwork practitioner.
• 36:11
  I'm not a coach, I'm not a speaker.
• 36:12
  I'm not a father. And all this.
• 36:13
  It's just like, I am me. And it's just like a practice.
• 36:16
  And letting go of the labels because those labels can really,
• 36:19
  like, keep us stuck. Which is, I think, probably why
• 36:23
  I had trouble answering this question when you asked it the
• 36:26
  first time, because I don't really get too caught into the
• 36:30
  labels. Or at least I try not to, you
• 36:32
  know? Well, I'm happy you shared that
• 36:34
  because I feel like for me, like I what was that?
• 36:37
  Probably like 2-2 ish three years ago I'd never done an ice
• 36:41
  bath, I'd never done breath work.
• 36:44
  I had never really been interested in meditation.
• 36:47
  I was like completely closed off and I at that time thought I was
• 36:50
  good, like I was fine. And I went to a mastermind, an
• 36:53
  event and it was like probably 100 plus people there.
• 36:56
  And they had the pairing together, which is a beautiful
• 36:58
  pairing. By the way, if you guys haven't
• 37:00
  done breath work paired with ice bath, it's wonderful.
• 37:02
  But they had done a 60 minute breath work and they followed it
• 37:07
  by an ice bath. And that experience of the two
• 37:10
  together cracked me open. And I'm really happy that you
• 37:14
  mentioned the aspects of habits because I think sometimes we're
• 37:18
  so fixated and like, OK, I'm going to think on who I'm going
• 37:20
  to be. And I'm trying to like, you
• 37:22
  know, get this picture of who I am now versus who I'm going to
• 37:25
  become. And we tune into it so much, but
• 37:27
  we don't actually necessarily put in the reps of the behavior
• 37:30
  of who that person would be to really feel it versus think it.
• 37:34
  And so I think to your point, even of like sitting in silence,
• 37:36
  there's an aspect of finding yourself in the practice.
• 37:39
  Like I had somebody who said you just need to be.
• 37:42
  And I'm like, what the heck does that mean?
• 37:43
  At the time I was so frustrated. I'm like, what the heck?
• 37:46
  Like you just need to be with yourself.
• 37:47
  I'm like, well, how do I know if I'm like doing it right?
• 37:49
  Like that's the whole point is you just need to go be.
• 37:52
  So they said go take a blanket and sit in the middle of a field
• 37:55
  and just go be with yourself. And I remember thinking like,
• 37:59
  for how long? Like I had all these questions
• 38:01
  for how long? And like, what am I supposed to
• 38:02
  do? Do I do breath work?
• 38:03
  Do I do meditation? Like it was still goal oriented,
• 38:06
  but I didn't have the unlock of the identity portion that you
• 38:09
  mentioned until I went and put myself in these environments and
• 38:12
  put myself in those practices. And one of the ones that was
• 38:16
  actually, it eventually became a beautiful thing, but it was
• 38:18
  difficult initially, which I'm excited to dive into is breath
• 38:20
  work because you guys have heard me talk about ice bass.
• 38:23
  I love ice bass. I know Sam, you do too.
• 38:26
  And for me, the breath work portion was kind of a love hate
• 38:29
  initially because I know that breath work is such an
• 38:32
  incredible tool for you to tune into not only your mind but also
• 38:35
  your body. But initially, my first
• 38:38
  experience of breath work, it was in this large room of a
• 38:40
  bunch of entrepreneurs. It was guided and it was very
• 38:44
  fast, quick breathing for a long extended period of time.
• 38:49
  And I'll have you kind of explain the one-on-one of breath
• 38:51
  work for anyone who's not familiar.
• 38:53
  But for myself, it was very overwhelming because it brought
• 38:57
  up a lot of emotions, a lot of physical feeling that felt super
• 39:02
  unsafe at the time. And I remember feeling like
• 39:05
  breath work's not for me, not interested in breath work.
• 39:07
  I'm good and I didn't want to go anywhere near it.
• 39:10
  And I was only once I started to understand the different types
• 39:13
  of breath work and also starting to, again, experience and play
• 39:16
  into those different habits or those different types that I
• 39:20
  realized there's certain styles of breath work that I feel good
• 39:22
  with versus others that I typically need to be guided
• 39:25
  through because of, again, what comes up.
• 39:28
  So I'm curious for you with your experience around breath work
• 39:30
  for the person listening, if they maybe want to consider
• 39:33
  using breath work as a tool. But maybe they've tried it and
• 39:36
  they're like, I did not like the experience or I feel like I've
• 39:39
  never gone through it before and I don't really know what I'm
• 39:41
  getting into. But I've heard of people who've
• 39:43
  experienced it and it feels like this, this huge experience.
• 39:46
  It could be this versus that. Where do people start when it
• 39:49
  comes to to breath work? I need a framework around this.
• 39:52
  Yeah, I love the way you teed that up.
• 39:54
  It's such a good way to frame and introduce the topic.
• 39:58
  So breath work is very much trending now.
• 40:00
  It's obviously been around for thousands of years because it's
• 40:04
  a bodily function and the yogis and Tibetan monks and so many
• 40:09
  other things. So you get some people being
• 40:11
  like, oh, it's been around forever.
• 40:12
  And it's like, well, yeah, it's kind of like the psychedelic
• 40:14
  renaissance, having a third wife.
• 40:16
  You know, it's, it's a big trending topic right now.
• 40:19
  And there's so much to draw upon.
• 40:22
  And that makes. Is it confusing?
• 40:24
  And a lot of people think of breath work, Maybe not your
• 40:27
  listeners or the way you just described it, but a lot of
• 40:29
  people will think about breath work or be like, Oh yeah, I've
• 40:32
  done breath work because I've done meditation or I've done a
• 40:34
  yoga class. I've tried box breathing and
• 40:37
  what you just described is very different.
• 40:39
  So for that reason, I like to simplify things.
• 40:43
  For a while, my YouTube channel was called Spirituality
• 40:46
  Simplified. You know, I'm a big fan of just
• 40:48
  breaking down Make it simple. So breath work, let's put it in
• 40:52
  two different buckets. There's one breath work
• 40:54
  exercises to help you to shift into the parasympathetic nervous
• 40:59
  system, which is rest and digest.
• 41:01
  The autonomic nervous system makes up the parasympathetic and
• 41:04
  sympathetic. Parasympathetic is rest and
• 41:07
  digest. Sympathetic is fight or flight
• 41:09
  or we could also think of it as a more alert or, and or
• 41:14
  energetic state. We can think of states as
• 41:18
  they're only being 2 states of being.
• 41:21
  There's a powerful state of being which which is empowering
• 41:24
  and there's a primal state of being that is not serving you.
• 41:28
  So with breathwork exercises being to shift into rest and
• 41:33
  digest. This is when we would utilize
• 41:36
  most of the things most people are familiar with.
• 41:38
  Four, 7-8 fox breathing, cyclic sigh, anything like that.
• 41:43
  That's going to be calming to your nervous system.
• 41:46
  It's great before a meeting, before a call, before a tough
• 41:50
  conversation. It's going to help to down
• 41:52
  regulate your nervous system so that you feel better, more
• 41:56
  clear. Now on the other side, we have
• 41:59
  breathwork journeys. This is intentional to get into
• 42:03
  that sympathetic nervous system of fight or flight, which can be
• 42:06
  that traumatic release of a deep cathartic breathwork journey,
• 42:10
  say 60 minutes, like what you experience on that side.
• 42:15
  There's also like little mini journeys, which is usually what
• 42:19
  I will lead where it's, I wouldn't say it's a micro dose,
• 42:23
  meaning that it's just like a very small portion of that.
• 42:26
  It's it's a micro dose plus like you're going to experience
• 42:29
  emotions that have been buried. But it's more of like the daily
• 42:32
  compartmentalization type stuff. And more typically it wouldn't
• 42:36
  be those deep, deep, deep traumatic events that you might
• 42:40
  not be ready for. And that's typically the sweet
• 42:43
  spot where I like to take people.
• 42:45
  And how I do that is anywhere between 10 to 20 minutes.
• 42:49
  So it's quick too. And we have of a free breath
• 42:52
  club community every week I lead live breath work sessions and
• 42:56
  typically with this framework using utilizing the breath
• 43:00
  method, the acronym breath. What we'll start with is
• 43:03
  grounding breath. So that's going to help you
• 43:06
  access rest and digest. And by doing that, you're going
• 43:10
  to start to feel more safe so that you can release.
• 43:13
  It's really important to start off with grounding breath work
• 43:16
  exercises. Then you mentioned the orchestra
• 43:20
  earlier, like we're building up towards a crescendo and we do
• 43:23
  that with activating breath work like circular connected breath,
• 43:26
  which is typically the style that would be utilized to get
• 43:31
  you into those deep releases. But we're not going so deep that
• 43:35
  you know, it's going to release a lot of DMT in the body and
• 43:39
  give you that hallucinogenic trip that breath work journey
• 43:42
  could get. So then we bring it back down
• 43:46
  with rest and digest. And I am happy to go through all
• 43:48
  the different steps and talk about the scientific terms like
• 43:52
  transient hypofrontality that gets you into flow States and
• 43:55
  what's happening with the prefrontal cortex.
• 43:57
  But for right now, that's like a good place to start, you know?
• 44:01
  Well, I'm thinking like, it's really helpful to have those two
• 44:04
  different categories because I think often times for most
• 44:07
  people, breath work is just looped into like breath work as
• 44:09
  this umbrella and there's just different styles or frequencies.
• 44:13
  And you think, OK, well, how do I know which one's a good fit
• 44:15
  for me? And I'm thinking for the person
• 44:17
  who's looking to put this into a practice.
• 44:20
  Like for me, I kind of swore off breath work, if I'm going to be
• 44:23
  honest, after that experience because it was so like, it
• 44:25
  wasn't intentionally negative. They meant well by it, but I
• 44:28
  think I just wasn't ready for understanding what was going to
• 44:32
  come up. But I also think to your mention
• 44:34
  earlier, even with soul life balance and the fact that you
• 44:36
  had to go into releasing trauma and releasing things that were
• 44:41
  hidden within you to be able to step into this version of you.
• 44:45
  I also recognize as part of that experience, while very
• 44:47
  uncomfortable, it was the invitation for me to be like,
• 44:51
  whoa, there's a lot sitting here that I have never touched.
• 44:56
  I've never had an awareness up to your point of the 95%.
• 44:59
  There was so much like literally waiting underneath the surface
• 45:02
  for me to tap into and to feel. But because I've been so much in
• 45:06
  the doing and I had never really sat with myself or my emotions,
• 45:11
  I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing.
• 45:13
  And then it felt like in those moments, it took 5 seconds worth
• 45:17
  of breath work for it to all come to the surface.
• 45:20
  And it feels like a lot to to navigate.
• 45:22
  So I'm curious for you, when you start to kind of go into your
• 45:25
  journey with breath work, or maybe if someone's wanting to
• 45:28
  kind of unlock that aspect of themselves, They know that
• 45:31
  there's, you know, emotions that are sitting there or there's
• 45:34
  tension that's sitting there or experiences that are underneath
• 45:36
  the surface that maybe haven't had enough acknowledgement or
• 45:39
  time to really work through those.
• 45:42
  How did that impact you and processing that to help you to
• 45:45
  move forward? Was it a, to your point, like a
• 45:47
  daily individual breath work by yourself?
• 45:50
  Or do you think that someone really kind of needs those deep
• 45:53
  let's get into it experiences to kind of, you know, pick the
• 45:57
  scab, if you will, to be able to make full on progress to step
• 46:00
  into that new identity? I think we all need these deep
• 46:04
  experiences and we get into it'll come to us when it's meant
• 46:10
  to. And I don't believe in like bad
• 46:12
  experiences. And another way to think about
• 46:15
  is the presupposition of NLP. There is no failure, there's
• 46:19
  only feedback. Like that's more from a success
• 46:21
  point of view. But like whether it's plant and
• 46:23
  earth medicines or just anything in life, like even the traumas
• 46:27
  that we experience, if we see them as a bad experience, then
• 46:31
  we're stepping into victim consciousness.
• 46:33
  But if we can see it as an opportunity for growth and start
• 46:37
  to get curious, which is uncomfortable and scary by
• 46:39
  design, then we start to grow. But it's in the mindset of being
• 46:44
  like this was a bad experience or this traumatize me that can
• 46:49
  keep us stuck. For me personally, I adopt A
• 46:52
  game time mentality and like 2023 was one the hardest times
• 46:57
  in my life. This was four years deep into
• 46:59
  the spiritual journey, a year and a half after I published my
• 47:02
  4th book, Soul Life Balance. And I felt like, you know, again
• 47:06
  in a different kind of way, like I had figured it out, but from a
• 47:10
  more spiritual point. And then my whole reality
• 47:13
  crumbled and it became one of the hardest times in my life.
• 47:16
  And what I adopted was a game time mentality.
• 47:19
  And what that looks like is like if I am not only curious for
• 47:23
  where I'm at, but like for your listeners, you're obviously at
• 47:26
  least curious because you're still listening to this episode
• 47:29
  and you show up for Kate's podcast, which talks about, you
• 47:31
  know, growth. Well, if you're at least the
• 47:35
  little bit curious, then when it gets hard, adopt A game time
• 47:40
  mentality as like, this is the big game.
• 47:43
  Why would I just study or learn about this stuff and not
• 47:45
  actually apply it when I need it most?
• 47:48
  And then what's really wild is like the everyday stuff where
• 47:52
  you're just feeling that everyday stress.
• 47:54
  You know, your kids, your job, your bills, whatever it is, it's
• 47:58
  really hard to go deep with the everyday stress.
• 48:02
  But when your life turns upside down, it becomes so much easier
• 48:06
  to go deep because you have no other choice.
• 48:09
  So in those really challenging times, if you can adopt that
• 48:12
  game time mentality, it's so empowering.
• 48:15
  I'm not sure I entirely answered your question, but that's what
• 48:18
  came up for me, you know? That's OK.
• 48:20
  Trust the journey. Trust the journey.
• 48:22
  Yeah, no, I agree. I think the hard part for me has
• 48:25
  always been do I need to have? I find I am this way as an
• 48:29
  entrepreneur. I need my back against the wall
• 48:30
  before I move. And I, I find that, you know,
• 48:33
  like I had to go to like the depths of burnout before I was
• 48:36
  like, OK, fine. And I would go into a new way of
• 48:40
  adopting something. And so I think for me, I was, I
• 48:42
  was curious with the basis of soul life balance, if kind of
• 48:46
  someone needed to dive into like the depths in order to see
• 48:51
  movement or can this be like a small little planting seeds each
• 48:55
  day And over time we progress Because I do think sometimes
• 48:59
  there are those experiences that it's like, Hey, this is not a,
• 49:03
  you know, scratch the surface, chip away at it thing.
• 49:05
  This is like we're going deep into all the things we're
• 49:07
  unlocking it, reframing it, and then giving you a new basis from
• 49:10
  which to build. And then there's other pieces
• 49:13
  in, in business and in life where if you want change, it is
• 49:16
  about those small seeds being planted.
• 49:18
  So I think, you know, even for example, with breathwork, I'm
• 49:22
  wondering how much of this is like if someone's feeling like
• 49:26
  version #1 of both of us, like, but for many, for myself as well
• 49:30
  as you, it kind of came from this like I've got no other
• 49:33
  choice experience. And I wonder with the practices
• 49:37
  you integrate with, you know, entrepreneurs and people in
• 49:40
  business, do you kind of feel like that's almost needed, we
• 49:44
  need to get you to that place to unlock it?
• 49:47
  Or is this a matter of like I can plant seeds each day and see
• 49:50
  change? I mean, I, I do think that we
• 49:52
  need to get our society as a whole to this place and I don't
• 49:57
  think we should force that upon anyone, which is why to me it's
• 50:00
  kind of like a yes. And you know, for the person
• 50:03
  listening, it's it's like if you're feeling that resonance,
• 50:06
  if you're feeling that call for whatever it is and you're not
• 50:11
  answering that call, you're not stepping into the heroes journey
• 50:14
  to use Joseph Campbells 12 step journey archetype.
• 50:18
  And it's at the beginning of going deep, but on an everyday
• 50:22
  practical, like let's just keep it practical, right?
• 50:24
  You know, like the small stuff. So I mentioned shifting into
• 50:27
  rest and digest with breath work to help with like a meeting or
• 50:31
  something like that. I think this is where most
• 50:34
  people get it wrong with breath work and where most of the
• 50:37
  messaging with breath work, they just get wrong.
• 50:40
  It's like if you're feeling that emotion or your thought that you
• 50:42
  don't want to feel, well, you need to do a calming breath work
• 50:45
  so that you feel good again. That just contributes more
• 50:48
  compartmentalization. And if you're starting to use
• 50:51
  breath work to be like, no, I'm feeling or thinking something I
• 50:54
  don't want to feel, so I'm just going to do some cyclic size or
• 50:57
  box breathing so I can feel good again.
• 50:59
  Now you're bypassing. So instead of like doing that
• 51:02
  deep, deep, deep dive that you and I are talking about, it's
• 51:05
  like start with those little things.
• 51:07
  Be like, oh wow, I feel an emotion, call it anxiety or
• 51:09
  whatever it is coming up. Instead of using breath work,
• 51:12
  they just like settle myself. Why not do some circular
• 51:15
  connected breath to shift into sympathetic fight or flight so
• 51:20
  that you can actually move, move through it.
• 51:21
  And that's where my breath framework comes in.
• 51:24
  And just real quick, the the B is breathe to slow down.
• 51:26
  The R is relax to feel. The shadow work comes in the 3rd
• 51:30
  and 4th step. So step #3 is energy to reveal.
• 51:34
  Because remember, emotions are energy in motion.
• 51:37
  There's the 92nd rule that scientifically shows that we can
• 51:40
  move through them and as little as 90 seconds.
• 51:43
  So with the third step, when you're starting to really feel
• 51:46
  those emotions and this is like, you know, the Wim Hof style
• 51:49
  breathing that's going to help those emotions, emotions up to
• 51:53
  the surface. The question that we're asking
• 51:56
  ourselves is what is this energy revealing to me?
• 52:00
  Is there a story on repeat limiting belief, whatever it is
• 52:04
  the A in the breath process is except to surrender.
• 52:07
  Because most of us when we truly ask that question, we're like,
• 52:11
  no, no, no, I can't see that right now.
• 52:13
  I don't want to see that. I don't want to be with this.
• 52:15
  And this isn't like, you know, that deep cathartic release
• 52:19
  that's going to bring up trauma. This is just like the little
• 52:22
  small thing. So it's a good training ground.
• 52:24
  Be like, Oh no, no, I am safe. I am safe to breathe through
• 52:26
  this. Surrender, surrender, keep
• 52:28
  going. And then in the 5th step, we've
• 52:32
  now earned the right to invoke the power of positive thinking
• 52:36
  because we're toxic positivity comes in is it's about
• 52:39
  disassociating from how you feel and be like, no, never feel a
• 52:43
  negative thought or thinking, feel a negative emotion or think
• 52:46
  a negative thought. Always be positive.
• 52:48
  That's disassociating. So by doing the shadow work and
• 52:51
  bringing it up, we now earn the right to invoke the power of
• 52:55
  positive thinking. So with the 5th step, we
• 52:57
  transform it. That's the T transform into an
• 53:01
  empowering belief. And then H finally habits to
• 53:04
  integrate and that looks like as a result of what came up, what
• 53:08
  action, habits or behaviors can I take?
• 53:10
  And I know that's 6 steps and it seems a lot to remember.
• 53:13
  So all you need to remember is the 92nd rule teaches you, you
• 53:17
  can move through emotions in as little as 90 seconds.
• 53:20
  And here's what you do. Three things, breathe, feel and
• 53:24
  think intentionally. And if you can just do that as
• 53:27
  your training grounds to start, that is such a Safeway to start,
• 53:32
  to begin into this work. And when you're ready for that
• 53:36
  deeper release, it will come and you'll be primed and ready.
• 53:41
  Well, I think like what you just said of even the box breathing,
• 53:45
  like you're feeling a negative emotion.
• 53:46
  Everyone's like take a deep breath because it's basically a
• 53:48
  matter of like if you breathe through it, it will go away.
• 53:52
  And I think that that's such a perspective shift because so
• 53:55
  many people use breathing as get rid of the feeling.
• 53:59
  And so I'm wondering for someone who's not familiar with breath
• 54:03
  work or maybe doesn't have a lot of experience in it, you talked
• 54:05
  about like the typical box breathing versus what you would
• 54:08
  recommend. So for someone who's having
• 54:11
  maybe again, regulation is a huge part of entrepreneurship.
• 54:14
  You're having one of those moments where you're
• 54:15
  experiencing an intense feeling, whether it's sadness, if it's if
• 54:18
  it's grief, it's if it's anger, frustration, whatever it may be,
• 54:21
  and they're in this moment. What is the thing not to do
• 54:26
  breathing wise versus the way that you would want them to
• 54:28
  breathe in that moment? Yeah.
• 54:31
  So I'm happy to link prerecorded exercises so you guys can try
• 54:35
  them as well because I have a bunch on YouTube.
• 54:37
  But typically it would be any exercise that's going to get you
• 54:41
  into rest and digest. So if you're not familiar with
• 54:43
  breath work, box breathing is probably the go to that most
• 54:47
  people are familiar with, and that's inhaling up for four
• 54:50
  seconds, holding your breath at the top for four seconds,
• 54:54
  exhaling for four seconds, and then holding your breath for
• 54:58
  four seconds at the bottom. That's one round.
• 55:01
  Just keep doing that, maybe 5 to 10 rounds and see how you feel.
• 55:04
  Inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four,
• 55:09
  continue. That's a box breath.
• 55:11
  Now there are three basic rules of breath work exercises, which
• 55:15
  we now know. Breath work exercises are to
• 55:17
  shift you into rest and digest. The first is to breathe through
• 55:21
  your nose as opposed through your mouth.
• 55:23
  It doesn't matter if you exhale through your nose or mouth, but
• 55:26
  if you want to get into that restful state, breathe through
• 55:29
  your nose as opposed to your mouth.
• 55:31
  The second is what's called belly breathing or diaphragmatic
• 55:34
  breathing. And that just basically means to
• 55:36
  let the belly expand on the inhale.
• 55:38
  Imagine that you have a deflated balloon and you're putting air
• 55:41
  into that balloon. The balloon expands as you put
• 55:44
  air into it. So as you inhale, let your
• 55:46
  belly, your diaphragm expand. And then the final one is allow
• 55:51
  your exhales to be longer than your inhales.
• 55:54
  That can help with rest and digest.
• 55:56
  So the most common form of box breathing is an even box, 4
• 56:01
  seconds all the way around. But if that's not really doing
• 56:05
  it for you, maybe you inhale for four seconds, maybe you hold for
• 56:09
  six seconds, maybe you exhale for six.
• 56:11
  And that's something you can play with, but allowing the
• 56:15
  exhales to be longer is going to help you to get into that rest
• 56:19
  and digest. Now, having said that, box
• 56:22
  breathing can be a little bit confusing if you're just hearing
• 56:24
  it right now and I'm not really guiding you through it.
• 56:27
  So the breath work technique that I teach the most is
• 56:30
  actually called the cyclic side. And there was a study by Doctor
• 56:34
  Andrew Huberman's lab at Stanford a few years ago that
• 56:37
  studied different forms of breath work versus different
• 56:40
  forms of meditation to discover what's going to be the most
• 56:44
  beneficial to overcome stress and anxiety.
• 56:46
  Not only right now, but to have lasting impact throughout my day
• 56:50
  as well. They found that the cyclic side
• 56:53
  is more effective than anything else.
• 56:55
  And why I love the cyclic side, not just because it's backed by
• 56:58
  science from that study is because it's the easiest form of
• 57:03
  breath work to do. Kate, for you and me and all of
• 57:05
  you listening right now, like if you're running, you're on a jog
• 57:09
  or you're driving your car or whatever, like you can breathe
• 57:12
  with us. Don't close your eyes, but just
• 57:15
  sit up straight. If you're sitting down, or even
• 57:17
  if you're, just take a big inhale through your nose.
• 57:21
  Sip in a bit more air at the top, through the nose and
• 57:25
  through the mouth. Exhale.
• 57:29
  It's so easy. That's one.
• 57:30
  Just keep doing that. It's about inhaling all the way
• 57:33
  up through the nose, sipping a bit more at top than exhale
• 57:36
  through the mouth. Now, I'll get into everything
• 57:39
  else in just a minute here, but here is a ninja secret.
• 57:43
  This is the ninja version of the cyclic sigh.
• 57:46
  And when you're in conversation with someone else and you're
• 57:49
  either having those racing thoughts about what you're going
• 57:52
  to say next, because we all do it.
• 57:55
  Yeah, I was like, guilty, Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we all do it.
• 57:57
  And or you're in in a heated conversation, right?
• 58:01
  What you can do is what we just did the cyclic side.
• 58:04
  But instead of a big inhale through the nose and a exhaling
• 58:08
  through the mouth, do it like a ninja, be very subtle.
• 58:11
  So right now, Kate, for you and for all of you listening, I
• 58:14
  invite you to just do a subtle inhale all the way up through
• 58:17
  your nose, sipping in a bit more at the top, then through your
• 58:21
  nose, exhale and continue to do that.
• 58:24
  And notice as you continue to breathe like that, just like
• 58:28
  that, your thoughts start to slow down, your nervous system
• 58:32
  starting to feel relaxed. That is a great way to overcome
• 58:36
  those racing thoughts. It's a great way to regulate.
• 58:38
  And he had conversations. And what's really fantastic
• 58:42
  about this is you are retraining your nervous system to breathe
• 58:45
  in this way because most of the time we have choppy breaths.
• 58:49
  And so that contributes to fight or flight.
• 58:52
  So all of that to say, when we are first learning breath work
• 58:58
  and working through these different emotions that come up,
• 59:01
  you can utilize something like the cyclic side and or box
• 59:05
  breathing or something else that you may know of that gets you
• 59:08
  into rest and digest. There's a lot out there.
• 59:10
  I'm not going to go through them all right now for the sake of
• 59:13
  time. Now, a lot of times that's not
• 59:16
  going to be enough to access your subconscious mind.
• 59:20
  I mean, NLP is amazing, my master practitioner and NLP and
• 59:24
  Mer and hypnosis and all those things.
• 59:27
  And what I find with myself and some people is like that stuff
• 59:31
  to reprogram the subconscious mind isn't enough if you're not
• 59:36
  actually getting in your body. So for those of us that need a
• 59:40
  little bit deeper, I love to stack nervous system regulate
• 59:43
  regulation through breath work with subconscious mind
• 59:47
  reprogramming. And that's what we're doing in
• 59:49
  this third and 4th step. So now we're going turn off the
• 59:53
  analytical mind of the prefrontal cortex.
• 59:56
  This is where we're putting our our glasses on, getting a little
• 59:59
  nerdy with some signs. Yeah, I love it.
• 1:00:01
  But this, Yeah, it's so good. Yeah.
• 1:00:03
  This, this term transient hypofrontality, it means to
• 1:00:08
  temporarily shut down the prefrontal cortex.
• 1:00:11
  And the prefrontal cortex of the brain is the analytical and
• 1:00:15
  logical part of our brain. So while we are breathing in
• 1:00:19
  this circular connected breath, it's going to help to shut down
• 1:00:24
  that analytical chatty mind so that we can.
• 1:00:27
  Access the subconscious mind and ask the question of what is this
• 1:00:31
  energy revealing to me? Now it's a little bit trickier
• 1:00:34
  to teach real quick, but it's just inhaling and exhaling
• 1:00:38
  through your mouth. No pause between the inhale and
• 1:00:40
  exhale. And it's called circular
• 1:00:43
  connected breathing because the circle is like when if you're
• 1:00:47
  just doing this for the first time, all I want you to do is
• 1:00:49
  breathe in and out of your mouth and let the belly expand on the
• 1:00:53
  inhale and bring the belly back to the spine on the exhale.
• 1:00:56
  As you can continue to do this, you'll find like a wave circular
• 1:01:00
  like motion. Now the connected part is
• 1:01:03
  because there's no pause between the inhale and the exhale.
• 1:01:06
  So as you're breathing this way for just a couple of minutes,
• 1:01:09
  nothing too long, this is when you're going to be able to drop
• 1:01:12
  into your body and access your subconscious mind and you can go
• 1:01:16
  deeper. Then at the end after getting
• 1:01:19
  that clarity and we start to transform it into an empowering
• 1:01:23
  belief and find out habits to integrate.
• 1:01:25
  Now we're going to go back into rest and digest.
• 1:01:27
  So it's kind of like, you know, a bell curve of like starting
• 1:01:30
  off restful, doing the deep work, you know, hitting the
• 1:01:34
  summit and then coming back down, then exiting out feeling
• 1:01:37
  restored, more clarity, more energy and knowing what our next
• 1:01:42
  step is. OK, that practice, someone's
• 1:01:46
  listening like, OK, I'm going to take this and I'm going to
• 1:01:48
  integrate this. I love also by the way, the
• 1:01:52
  breathing you can do midst an argument and the person doesn't
• 1:01:57
  know because I'm like, I was doing that as you were talking
• 1:01:59
  and I'm like, wow, I just feel so great.
• 1:02:01
  So I love that. But I'm, I'm thinking for the
• 1:02:03
  person who maybe doesn't have a lot of experience with breath
• 1:02:06
  work, anything that they might experience because you mentioned
• 1:02:11
  in your framework the aspects of of surrender.
• 1:02:14
  And I think that at least for myself, I can speak for myself,
• 1:02:16
  I found that very difficult with breath work because I could feel
• 1:02:19
  myself getting to a place where I was starting to feel not
• 1:02:23
  uncomfortable necessarily physically, but I could tell
• 1:02:25
  that emotions were coming up. And I was like, exactly as you
• 1:02:28
  said in your explanation, I was like, I don't want to feel this
• 1:02:32
  right now. I don't want to deal with this
• 1:02:33
  right now. I don't have time for this.
• 1:02:35
  And you're doing, especially if you're doing, let's just say,
• 1:02:37
  listen to this and you do the breath.
• 1:02:38
  We're going to Tuesday or on a Friday morning and you're like,
• 1:02:40
  I have calls today and I have this.
• 1:02:41
  And I don't want to feel this right now.
• 1:02:43
  When someone feels that coming up, what do we do?
• 1:02:48
  Because obviously there's a natural, there's physical
• 1:02:50
  feelings that can come up with breath work.
• 1:02:52
  There's obviously the emotional side.
• 1:02:54
  So if someone's never done this before, what can they anticipate
• 1:02:58
  with this style of breathing? And also, should they feel
• 1:03:00
  something come up, what would be your recommendation to navigate
• 1:03:03
  that? I wouldn't do this on your own.
• 1:03:07
  OK. If you're doing on your own,
• 1:03:09
  like just taking what I just said and being like, oh, I'm
• 1:03:11
  just going to like piece meal together, like like reach out to
• 1:03:15
  me. I have a ton of pre recorded
• 1:03:17
  videos that you can do on your own because they're guided.
• 1:03:20
  So it's not really on your own. Or you can join my breath club,
• 1:03:24
  which is free and I lead breath work sessions every single week.
• 1:03:27
  And I mean, not to just say I have the solution.
• 1:03:30
  There's a lot of other solutions out there.
• 1:03:32
  And it's important to find the person that resonates with you,
• 1:03:34
  that is. Well, there is a huge.
• 1:03:36
  I do want to add there's a huge difference between, in my
• 1:03:39
  opinion, doing breath work alone versus guided, especially at the
• 1:03:42
  beginning, because I find when I was guided, I would start to get
• 1:03:46
  uncomfortable and they'd say you're probably starting to feel
• 1:03:48
  uncomfortable right now. And I'm like, oh, so like it
• 1:03:50
  kind of normalizes a little bit of what's coming up.
• 1:03:53
  So I just want to add that too, that I think having it guided
• 1:03:56
  really is such a compliment to the experience.
• 1:03:57
  But yeah, sorry. No, that's great.
• 1:04:00
  I love lived experience. It's it's great for people to
• 1:04:03
  hear that. And you know, when I went
• 1:04:04
  through my yoga teacher training, I remember I was the
• 1:04:08
  only guy there, one other guy there because his wife was doing
• 1:04:11
  it probably like 20 people and everyone there said, you know,
• 1:04:15
  you would be really great at restorative yoga.
• 1:04:17
  Like you have such a relaxing, calming voice.
• 1:04:20
  And I, I've held space in over 1000 medicine ceremonies and I
• 1:04:23
  was kind of like tapped on the shoulder because of my energy.
• 1:04:26
  And I'd never really thought of myself as like being a space
• 1:04:30
  holder, right? And I've come to realize like
• 1:04:33
  that's a superpower of mine. So when I first started
• 1:04:36
  facilitating breath work, if a few years ago, like I would go
• 1:04:40
  to yoga studios and do breath work journeys like what you
• 1:04:43
  experienced earlier, what you were talking about.
• 1:04:45
  And a lot of people didn't have that experience of like that
• 1:04:48
  explosion. And I would get down on myself
• 1:04:52
  being like, man, why aren't, why aren't people having these big
• 1:04:55
  releases? Like what am I doing wrong?
• 1:04:57
  And it took me a while to realize, oh, I need to cater to
• 1:05:01
  my superpower and I have like an innate essence of helping people
• 1:05:05
  to feel safe. So my thing isn't those big
• 1:05:09
  explosions, It's helping people to feel safe.
• 1:05:11
  So I know where I'm powerful. And that's why I'm like, really
• 1:05:15
  like, hey, if you're interested, join the breath club.
• 1:05:17
  Check out these pre recorded videos because I get a lot of
• 1:05:20
  feedback that people do feel really safe.
• 1:05:22
  And you know for yourself when you're breathing, whether it's
• 1:05:26
  guided or you are doing on your own, whatever it is just saying
• 1:05:30
  something as simple as I am safe, I am safe.
• 1:05:34
  That sends a signal to your nervous system.
• 1:05:37
  And that can be so helpful for you to surrender.
• 1:05:41
  And remember, surrender isn't the white flag.
• 1:05:44
  It's not giving up. It's it's about accepting what
• 1:05:47
  is without resistance without resistance.
• 1:05:53
  When you say accepting what is without resistance, the instant
• 1:05:59
  thing that I came up with is as a question or curiosity is do
• 1:06:03
  you find that you ever have struggled to accept the emotion
• 1:06:06
  without accepting the event? Like I'm thinking when it comes
• 1:06:10
  to breath work, often times you can have.
• 1:06:12
  And again, there's different levels of breath work.
• 1:06:13
  So I also want to keep that as a mental note here for everybody.
• 1:06:16
  So I don't want you to feel like if you're just doing box
• 1:06:18
  breathing that any of this is going to come up.
• 1:06:19
  But when you're doing breath work, sometimes you do have
• 1:06:22
  experiences or really intense emotions that can come up.
• 1:06:27
  And I'm curious for people, when you guide, do you ever find that
• 1:06:31
  people struggle to accept the the feeling without accepting or
• 1:06:37
  processing the actual thing itself?
• 1:06:39
  Because I think sometimes we can struggle in the moments when
• 1:06:42
  we're, you know, doing breath work or even just doing any
• 1:06:44
  inner work experience to say, OK, well, if I'm accepting this
• 1:06:48
  right now, it means that I'm kind of accepting the larger
• 1:06:50
  thing. Do you feel like breath work
• 1:06:53
  when you say acceptance, When you say surrender, would you say
• 1:06:56
  it's really about surrendering to the physical feeling and
• 1:06:58
  experience? Is the biggest thing that you
• 1:07:00
  mean with that or more of a mindset or perspective or
• 1:07:02
  philosophy of surrender? Yeah, the feeling, I mean, it
• 1:07:05
  can be both for sure. But if we're talking about
• 1:07:07
  trauma, which I think we are, when you say like the event,
• 1:07:10
  yeah, Gabarmante said it best. Like trauma isn't what happened
• 1:07:14
  to you, It's what happened inside you as a result of what
• 1:07:18
  happened to you. When we get latched on to the
• 1:07:21
  event, it keeps us in avoidance place and from good intentions,
• 1:07:26
  right, and safe intentions. But to really like move past it,
• 1:07:30
  we have to move past the event and realize like this is within
• 1:07:33
  us and how am I feeling towards this event and how do I want
• 1:07:38
  feel about it or moving forward. You know, with plant and earth
• 1:07:43
  medicine ceremonies, they say 90% of the work lies in the
• 1:07:47
  integration. The the experience itself of the
• 1:07:49
  release with the medicine is 10%.
• 1:07:52
  If we're talking about deep cathartic breath work journey
• 1:07:55
  like that release, I approach it the same way. 90% of the work is
• 1:08:00
  in the integration. So you had this peak experience
• 1:08:03
  in breath work. Maybe you felt what the yogis
• 1:08:06
  would call samadhi and ultimate bliss.
• 1:08:08
  Most people do at some point in the journey.
• 1:08:10
  Maybe you experience a suppressed or repressed memory
• 1:08:13
  of a traumatic event. Whatever happened, So what?
• 1:08:16
  That was an experience. It was another experience.
• 1:08:19
  What are you going to do differently moving forward in
• 1:08:22
  your life? One of my favorite words is
• 1:08:25
  embodiment. And it just keeps everything to
• 1:08:28
  the forefront of my awareness of like, how do I wash show up for
• 1:08:32
  myself and how do I wash show up for others?
• 1:08:35
  If I am prioritizing these things, if I'm talking about
• 1:08:38
  these things, am I truly embodying it?
• 1:08:41
  And when I can focus on embodying my own values,
• 1:08:46
  everything else just falls into place because I'm not out of
• 1:08:49
  alignment, which means I'm not out of integrity with myself.
• 1:08:53
  And when you focus on that, you're not bypassing or, or or
• 1:08:57
  avoiding the traumatic event or whatever it was coming up.
• 1:09:01
  You're doing something about to improve upon yourself.
• 1:09:05
  And I think one of one of the, at least I find the powers of
• 1:09:08
  breath work is the fact that it kind of helps you to see things.
• 1:09:11
  And I find that typically with, through moving through it,
• 1:09:13
  through breath work, you're able to see it typically in a safe
• 1:09:17
  environment. And then you come out of it.
• 1:09:19
  And I feel like at least for myself and for a lot of my
• 1:09:21
  peers, we've talked about it. You can't Unsee like once you
• 1:09:25
  have this, this aha moment of whatever it may be, it could be
• 1:09:28
  a clarity piece about business. It could be trauma.
• 1:09:31
  It could be, you know, that blissful moment as you spoke
• 1:09:33
  about. But once you have that light
• 1:09:35
  bulb, you kind of come out of breath work and you go into the
• 1:09:37
  rest of your day and you just have this level of awareness and
• 1:09:40
  understanding of something or or you know, an event or something
• 1:09:45
  and you try to move forward and you kind of can't Unsee.
• 1:09:47
  You kind of almost, to your point, have constant invitation
• 1:09:50
  after that to embody, to heal yourself because you've brought
• 1:09:54
  something to a different level of awareness that you didn't
• 1:09:56
  have before. So I found for myself and a lot
• 1:09:59
  of my peers, we were talking about it, about the fact that
• 1:10:02
  like breath work is so revealing because there's so many things
• 1:10:05
  that brings to the surface for you that you then can't Unsee.
• 1:10:07
  And so you have this constant decision each day of like, I'm
• 1:10:10
  going to actively not do anything about this or I'm going
• 1:10:13
  to use this as an invitation. It's OK.
• 1:10:15
  Exactly to your point, where can I like deeper embody this within
• 1:10:18
  my life? Yeah, and asking, looking at
• 1:10:21
  those patterns, you know, I think it's awesome that you use
• 1:10:24
  the word revealing 'cause as I mentioned, that's the third
• 1:10:26
  step, right? Like energy to reveal.
• 1:10:28
  What is this revealing to me? It's learning about yourself at
• 1:10:32
  a deeper level and doing something about it for sure.
• 1:10:35
  It's free. Yeah, it's literally it's free.
• 1:10:38
  Like obviously you could pay for a breath work coach, but aside
• 1:10:41
  from that, like your breath is free, which is why it's so
• 1:10:42
  exciting. So OK, today, high level,
• 1:10:45
  obviously we've gone into unpacking your story, which is a
• 1:10:48
  great showcase for so many people who may actually be at
• 1:10:52
  that pre, you know, version you right now going into again,
• 1:10:56
  having those invitations and how we can dive into this
• 1:10:58
  understanding soul life balance, the different habits that are
• 1:11:01
  integrated breath work being one of those someone feels like, OK,
• 1:11:04
  like I am very activated from everything you guys talked about
• 1:11:07
  today, but I also feel very overwhelmed because maybe I've
• 1:11:11
  never done breath work. I feel like I am in version one
• 1:11:13
  or I'm exploring version 2, but I don't really know where to
• 1:11:16
  start of all the things. I know you have so much in your
• 1:11:19
  book and by the way, guys, we are giving away copies of his
• 1:11:22
  book in our free community. So as a side note, if you want
• 1:11:24
  to dive into all of his things, we will be doing that.
• 1:11:27
  But if somebody is wanting to start to kind of, I guess have
• 1:11:32
  an action plan and I know that kind of defeats the whole idea
• 1:11:34
  of being because this is back into the doing bucket now, but.
• 1:11:37
  If. We're wanting to make this
• 1:11:40
  practical for somebody after listening today and you're, you
• 1:11:45
  know, think of her as a really driven go, go, go female, you
• 1:11:50
  know, entrepreneur. Where does she start?
• 1:11:53
  Because she has this pull. She has the calling to a
• 1:11:56
  different way of doing business in life, but also feels like
• 1:11:58
  there's a million and one tools. She's very low on time and
• 1:12:02
  already has felt like she's tried things before, but yet
• 1:12:04
  still kind of, you know, circles around burnout from time to
• 1:12:07
  time. So where do we even start to
• 1:12:09
  integrate this work and make it really practical?
• 1:12:13
  Number one, put it on your calendar because as you know and
• 1:12:16
  you probably live by, if it's not on your calendar, it doesn't
• 1:12:19
  exist. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:12:20
  It's not happening. So put it on your calendar.
• 1:12:23
  And a great business coach taught me this years ago.
• 1:12:26
  Just reschedule if you don't do it at that time and hold
• 1:12:29
  yourself accountable to it. I think the best thing you can
• 1:12:32
  do though, is put it on your calendar early morning.
• 1:12:35
  You know, if you have kids or whatever the situation is, maybe
• 1:12:38
  wake up a little bit earlier. I would definitely recommend
• 1:12:41
  doing this like before really on and in mom mode or boss mode and
• 1:12:46
  get diving into your work. And I would do that cyclic side
• 1:12:50
  for two minutes. Like there's absolutely 0 excuse
• 1:12:55
  why and you know this listening like there's no excuse why you
• 1:12:59
  can't try either box breathing the cyclic side or something
• 1:13:03
  like that. That's a breath work exercise.
• 1:13:07
  Nothing activating, nothing scary, just something to start
• 1:13:10
  your day with, even at the very minimum, 3 deep intentional
• 1:13:15
  breaths, but put it on your calendar for the next three
• 1:13:18
  days. Notice how that feels.
• 1:13:20
  And then because the the women listening to your show take
• 1:13:24
  action. You all know how to do habit
• 1:13:27
  stacking. You know how to build on these
• 1:13:29
  habits. If you just get started, then
• 1:13:31
  you can do more and more and more and more, you know?
• 1:13:33
  And then obviously if you want to join my breath club
• 1:13:35
  community, it's free, right? Another breath works free and
• 1:13:39
  I'm teaching you for free. So yeah, there's.
• 1:13:41
  Literally no excuse to not do do it at this point, yeah.
• 1:13:44
  Totally. Yeah.
• 1:13:45
  And then I have a I'll send you a video, Kate.
• 1:13:47
  It's on my YouTube channel. It's like 8 minutes guided
• 1:13:50
  breath work. It walks through those 6 steps
• 1:13:52
  in 8 minutes. That one I do myself, which side
• 1:13:56
  note, I didn't get having done like probably 1000 of my own
• 1:14:00
  podcasts over the past eight years and listening to more.
• 1:14:03
  I was early on like I'm a little bit better like with listening
• 1:14:06
  to my own voice like on a podcast.
• 1:14:08
  But it did take me a while be like, man, this is weird to
• 1:14:11
  listen to myself lead breath work.
• 1:14:13
  And I'm like, man, if people knew this, they probably think I
• 1:14:15
  was weird too. And I was like, you know what?
• 1:14:17
  Let all that go. And I was like, I do my own
• 1:14:21
  breath work because I like the style, right?
• 1:14:23
  You know, I, I don't find anything else out there.
• 1:14:25
  So anyways, put it on your calendar cuz it's not on your
• 1:14:29
  calendar. It doesn't exist.
• 1:14:30
  Yeah, and I think the biggest thing that that tells me also
• 1:14:33
  too, which is the great part about it is that you can start
• 1:14:35
  small. Like I, I will be honest, when I
• 1:14:38
  I first got introduced to breath work, I remember being at the
• 1:14:41
  event and I was like Amazoning like what is that called?
• 1:14:44
  Like a, like AI, I'm like an eye mask.
• 1:14:48
  Yeah. Like an eye mask or an eye
• 1:14:50
  cover. And I was getting like a yoga
• 1:14:52
  mat. And I was like, I'm going to
• 1:14:53
  like, you know, have this like, little situation in my house.
• 1:14:56
  Tell me how I never used any of that.
• 1:14:59
  And I would start doing breath work, like you're saying, in the
• 1:15:00
  car on a walk. Like, you just realize how much
• 1:15:05
  it can be integrated with in your life.
• 1:15:06
  And I think part of the thing that kept me when I first got
• 1:15:09
  introduced to it from integrating it regularly, was
• 1:15:12
  making it this big thing. And I think one of the beautiful
• 1:15:15
  parts that I love about anybody that teaches breathwork and
• 1:15:18
  about introducing it to people is how accessible it is and the
• 1:15:22
  fact that you literally need nothing.
• 1:15:23
  You don't need to spend on anything.
• 1:15:24
  You can join Sam's free community and you can learn how
• 1:15:28
  to use this tool that you're going to live with for the rest
• 1:15:31
  of your life as a tool to regulate, to tap into emotions,
• 1:15:34
  to heal yourself. Like it's just, there's like an
• 1:15:37
  endless opportunity with it. So I really, really recommend if
• 1:15:40
  someone is wanting to, to make this part of a practice, also
• 1:15:43
  being around other people who normalize it.
• 1:15:45
  When I did breath work, I came home and people are like, you're
• 1:15:48
  doing what? And I was like, I'm deep
• 1:15:50
  breathing in my basement to a guy who prompts me on breathing
• 1:15:54
  and they're like, OK. And so I started to do it in the
• 1:15:57
  morning and then I would do it before bed with my headphones.
• 1:15:59
  And it was something that so many people didn't understand
• 1:16:04
  because it's I wouldn't say it's super straight like Wim Hof
• 1:16:06
  definitely made it more streamline than I think it was
• 1:16:09
  prior to that. But I think it's also really
• 1:16:11
  helpful to have, just like anything else community wise, a
• 1:16:14
  community of people who are looking to integrate this as
• 1:16:18
  part of their life as well. Because it starts to really help
• 1:16:21
  you to have a place to go work on that.
• 1:16:23
  Because it's not something I feel like a lot of people are as
• 1:16:25
  educated about, at least in like most of society.
• 1:16:28
  Totally couldn't agree more. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:16:31
  So, Sam, this was so good. If somebody wants to dive more
• 1:16:35
  into your work or learn more about your frameworks and your
• 1:16:37
  approaches, like where is the best place for them to connect
• 1:16:40
  with you and to dive in? Yeah, my website has everything.
• 1:16:43
  So Sam, kabert.com, samkabert.com, that's KAB as in
• 1:16:47
  boy ERT and real quick, I'll give the summary just a quick
• 1:16:52
  little take away. So if you didn't write this down
• 1:16:55
  already, now would be a great time to pull out your phone,
• 1:16:58
  your notepad, or whatever and write down the 92nd rule.
• 1:17:01
  Your subconscious will remember what that is.
• 1:17:03
  Just think emotions or energy in motion, and then write down,
• 1:17:07
  breathe, feel, think intentionally.
• 1:17:09
  So when emotions come up, remember the 92nd rule and to
• 1:17:12
  breathe, feel, think intentionally.
• 1:17:14
  That summarizes pretty much everything we talked about.
• 1:17:17
  Amazing, amazing. All right, you guys.
• 1:17:19
  Well, you have your homework. So as a side note, as I
• 1:17:21
  mentioned, we are going to be giving away a couple copies of
• 1:17:24
  Sam's book inside our Ambitious network.
• 1:17:26
  So it's a free community. If you guys love all the
• 1:17:29
  conversation today and you want to dive more into his stuff,
• 1:17:31
  we'll be giving away a couple copies in there.
• 1:17:33
  But as always, you guys, we'll see you next week.
• 1:17:35
  And, as always, stay ambitious.