Latest / The Christian Reeve Podcast / Mindfulness With Matt Horsman | The Christian Reeve Podcast | #159 |
Transcript
- 0:00Hello and welcome to another episode of the Christian Reef
- 0:03podcast. Today's guest is a life, coach
- 0:06and author hailing. All the way from Canada.
- 0:08His name is Matt, Horseman, welcome to the show, man.
- 0:11Hater doing. Great question.
- 0:13Thanks so much for having me on. It's a pleasure to have you.
- 0:15My man, let's jump straight into you and what you're doing.
- 0:19So how did you become a life coach talk us through your
- 0:23journey to becoming a life coach?
- 0:26Sure. Yeah.
- 0:27Well, I probably about Six or seven years ago.
- 0:31Now, I had married into a family business at a brewery and it was
- 0:37never something I envisioned myself doing, but the work was
- 0:41pretty fun and I enjoyed it over time.
- 0:44I kept kind of rising up through the ranks.
- 0:46The point where I was kind of running the one of the
- 0:49facilities there and honestly, I was listening to a random
- 0:54podcast who had guests on. I'd never heard before, but I'm
- 0:57sure you've had one of these experiences where That person
- 1:00it's like they're speaking directly to you and it's almost
- 1:04like how the hell did you get in my head?
- 1:05And no, I needed to hear this right now.
- 1:08Her name was Martha back and she was a life coach.
- 1:10And to be honest, I didn't even know life coaches existed at
- 1:14that point. But in the back of my head, I
- 1:17had been searching and searching and thinking, hey, I don't want
- 1:19to be running a brewery, it's just not what I meant to do.
- 1:22And I want to help people in some way, but I didn't know what
- 1:24that meant. And when I started looking up,
- 1:27what a life coach was, it was just like ding, ding, ding,
- 1:29ding, ding, It just ticked all the boxes and the more I found
- 1:33out about this Martha Beck woman.
- 1:34I was just like man, I love what she does and I'd love to get
- 1:37into that Arena. And yeah, I do of straight in
- 1:40and within, I'd say it took about six months to kind of
- 1:44transition out and I started thinking about okay, how can I
- 1:48make this a reality and and made it happen and kind of drove off
- 1:51into the deep end. Let's talk a little bit about
- 1:54the brewery for a second where So, what would you say?
- 2:00Would like your suppose key takeaways from from doing that?
- 2:04Mean, you do it for several years?
- 2:05Obviously, it's part of a family business.
- 2:07So there is a heavy sort of commitment to that.
- 2:11I suppose a pressure. Almost, I did you throw any
- 2:13pressure as of doing that or? Yeah.
- 2:17Absolutely. And it's funny because that was
- 2:19what my, the first I'd say three or four months of my coaching
- 2:23Journey, that's who I coached was.
- 2:26People who grew up in a family business.
- 2:29Because I knew the insane amount of pressure.
- 2:33I mean I didn't grow up in one but my wife did and I married
- 2:35into one so I knew that yeah like we were we would have been
- 2:39second generation but I talk to people who are even third,
- 2:43fourth generation. Like that's an insane amount of
- 2:45pressure to have on your shoulders to be thinking.
- 2:48Okay I need to do this to carry on the Legacy right?
- 2:52You feel this duty but it the best way I heard a comparison to
- 2:56kind of put it in perspective. It's like A lot of people in the
- 3:00west would never consider an arranged marriage, right?
- 3:03Like that, it seems so foreign to us, right?
- 3:06But but family, businesses and arranged career and a lot of
- 3:10people don't really look at it that way, they go.
- 3:12Oh that's so much opportunity. You're having things handed to
- 3:14you don't have to work for and it's like no no when you when
- 3:17you sick like you married into a family.
- 3:19But so like okay you find this this wonderful woman you become
- 3:24because they become married. You choose to marry her but
- 3:28yeah. Like I mean, you don't have
- 3:30enough Force to get into it. Like, I mean, how how exactly
- 3:33does that work? How do you find yourself having
- 3:37to get involved in the family business?
- 3:41Well, for us, it was actually started working at the brewery
- 3:45and met her. Yeah, alright, so and we were,
- 3:49we were the last two people to know that we liked each other.
- 3:55That's kind of sweet. Wow, actually Lee this raises
- 3:59quite a few questions. We'll get back to life coaching
- 4:02in a second. I just want to kind of explore
- 4:04this for a bit because I think it's alright interesting.
- 4:09Would you say? Did it.
- 4:12Okay, so you joined this place, it's a job.
- 4:16And we've heard many times over the years, how, you know, you
- 4:21shouldn't necessarily day in the workplace, they take your
- 4:24co-workers, I mean, and it's relative that some people, you
- 4:27know, they get married and they live happily ever after there's
- 4:30no problems. Some people work really well
- 4:34together. You know, I've had it before
- 4:35where, you know, you you can work because I think that's an
- 4:38important distinction, isn't it? Being with someone and working
- 4:41with someone two, very different things.
- 4:42You can have a wonderful relationship with someone but
- 4:45you might not necessarily be able to What with them?
- 4:47Because a lot of times, it comes down to, I suppose,
- 4:49compatibility of work, Styles and attitude, several other
- 4:53factors did a thought crossed your mind like, hmm.
- 4:58Maybe this isn't a good idea especially since well, because
- 5:02especially since like, she's the daughter I suppose of the
- 5:06owners. Yeah, there are.
- 5:07Yeah. So, what was going through your
- 5:09head initially? Did that go for you?
- 5:11Oh, that crossed my mind. Almost daily for a while.
- 5:15Yeah. Is this at Terrible idea.
- 5:17But it was interesting. When we first started dating was
- 5:21actually I left the company for a year or so my back to school,
- 5:26okay? So our relationship really began
- 5:29when we weren't working together all, and to be truthful, we had
- 5:33such different roles at the company that we might as well
- 5:36been working at different companies.
- 5:38Okay, I was more on the production side of things and
- 5:40she was in marketing, so she was upstairs and I was downstairs,
- 5:45if that makes sense. As the business progressed, did
- 5:48you, or your time spent at the business?
- 5:51Was there any moments where? Because, and the only reason I
- 5:55ask this is because, like, for instance, I've seen a lot of
- 5:58shows at reality shows. I know there's a bad comparison
- 6:01because there's no reality reality TV, let's play sir.
- 6:05But you see shows like, I don't know, Gordon Gordon Ramsay's
- 6:08Kitchen Nightmares or the hotel show that he didn't you see that
- 6:12sometimes, like, couples that have formed a business together,
- 6:16There's many examples of where the couple is absolutely fine
- 6:19and it's just a business, that's the problem or the struggling of
- 6:22setting up, but sometimes you get instances where the stress
- 6:26of the business and trying to make it work, actually kind of
- 6:29Tears them apart so to speak and actually causes problems with
- 6:32their relationship. I suppose, I've got to but
- 6:35question here in the sense that I know you've already said that,
- 6:38you weren't working in the same sphere, but whether any point
- 6:41where any crossover periods, where you were working sort of
- 6:44side-by-side or, Or fairly close to one another and if so did it
- 6:50cause friction, where there any issues and if so how did you
- 6:53overcome them right now? We never really crossed fears in
- 6:59our work day but one of the things and ultimately it was one
- 7:02of the reasons I got out of it was we are always taking work
- 7:07home with us right? At that point when you're so
- 7:10involved and and, and like you said, like there's that pressure
- 7:14there, right? It's more than just a job.
- 7:16At that point. There's there's family Dynamics
- 7:19involved. Yeah it's just you can't escape
- 7:22it because you go to a family dinner it's there and even if
- 7:29you make a conscious effort not to talk about it, that doesn't
- 7:31mean everyone else is tables making that same effort.
- 7:34So it there was a we couldn't find the line and that was
- 7:38ultimately, it didn't it didn't cause friction between us.
- 7:41I think we were very lucky to be on the same page that we were.
- 7:46Both becoming disinterested in it that it was just too much and
- 7:50and she had actually decided for a much earlier age that she
- 7:53didn't want to take the business over.
- 7:56So that was kind of always on her mind and me I was less
- 8:00certain I was starting to think like okay, maybe maybe I do one
- 8:03day step into that role but then ultimately it was like okay this
- 8:07this isn't for us, we were offered the role no not formally
- 8:13and that's that's an interesting point because When I worked with
- 8:17people who grew up in the family business, succession planning is
- 8:21a conversation that often doesn't happen, right?
- 8:24There's a lot of assumptions on both ends of the conversation so
- 8:29that was something I always advised was asked the question
- 8:35is you don't want to assume something and then years later
- 8:37all of a sudden, it sold off to a cousin or something.
- 8:40The base is still going parts of it, actually, right before.
- 8:46Or we had left that actually sold off that I worked at.
- 8:50So her parents, I mean, they face that they went.
- 8:54Okay, that's not going to be sold or it's not to be passed
- 8:56down to a child. So they openly ultimately decide
- 9:00to sell it. If you could share any kind of
- 9:03lessons from that time, maybe to other people in a similar
- 9:06situation, what would they be? I think the biggest one is that
- 9:10you're not alone, the family business, it tends to breed such
- 9:16an insider versus Outsider mentality that if you're not
- 9:21part of the family, there's you're just not part of the
- 9:24group and it can be really toxic.
- 9:27But that's one thing that I really focus on making sure
- 9:31people understood is that there are a lot of other people out
- 9:34there and very similar situations, even though it's not
- 9:36the norm in the west to grow. The family business, I mean
- 9:42something like 70 to 80% of businesses.
- 9:44Here are family businesses, whether you realize it or not.
- 9:47So there are lots of kids out there that grew up in them.
- 9:50So yeah, there are plenty of resources out there to connect
- 9:52with people in similar situations and kind of.
- 9:56Yeah, just just help you remember that there are
- 9:58solutions and people that can help you with them.
- 10:01Spoke about toxic situations and that inside a kind of US versus
- 10:06them mentality. What can this list?
- 10:09Press on that a little bit more. What, what can you tell us about
- 10:12your experiences of maybe things that you saw the 10K or for
- 10:17instance, where there any situations where people applied?
- 10:20And it was just like, no, no chance.
- 10:22They're not getting in my wall. Can you share of the maybe not
- 10:25so pleasant areas of that. Yeah, to be honest, nothing
- 10:31nothing Insidious comes to mind, but it was just a lot of
- 10:35pressure internally, right? Because I mean, especially early
- 10:40on and even to the end I was privy to conversations that
- 10:44normally wouldn't have been, right?
- 10:47So did that, it was a lot of mental work to be able to go
- 10:50like okay, wait a minute what am I able to share?
- 10:54What am I not able to share when you started dating?
- 10:57You know, wife did you stop becoming more privy so yeah
- 11:02because yeah, right. So they were like always part of
- 11:04families that's okay. Yeah.
- 11:06I mean it took a little bit for the Of course, the warm months
- 11:09of you as much as she did. Yeah.
- 11:12Just by Nature by osmosis even just by nature of being around.
- 11:18You were kind of let in on this information that you normally
- 11:20would never have even thought to ask let alone had access to.
- 11:24So with your life coaching as you said, you help people who
- 11:28are in similar situations, so how exactly do you help them?
- 11:34Now that's that was my niece when I start it.
- 11:36So I've sent to transition transition.
- 11:38And out of that, I still have a couple of clients that that we
- 11:43met, we interface through the family business, kind of Arena.
- 11:46But there were, when I was coaching people in the family
- 11:50business realm, I realized it kind of came knocking sooner
- 11:56than I answered the door, but the the not kept getting louder
- 11:59and louder and what it was saying was the part.
- 12:02I love the most about family business coaching wasn't
- 12:05anything to do with the family business.
- 12:08It was actually revolving around mindfulness and because family
- 12:14business, you have to understand 80 to 90% of our conversations,
- 12:19actually had nothing to do with the family business.
- 12:21When I was coaching these people, right?
- 12:22Because that's just one aspect of their lives.
- 12:26It's a big one, but they're human just like everyone else
- 12:29and they have multi-faceted interests and issues, and and
- 12:34mindfulness is never anything I set out to coach about, but it
- 12:38just kept popping up in the conversations.
- 12:41So eventually, I answered the door and I was like, okay, I
- 12:44gotta lean into this. And since then, the Spend a
- 12:47complete 180 and family business essentially dropped out of the
- 12:50picture and mindfulness has been the focus one of your biggest.
- 12:56Success stories been so far with your life coaching.
- 13:01Honestly there has been so many moments where I've thought to
- 13:05myself you know what if this whole thing falls apart tomorrow
- 13:09it will have been worth it life coaching it how long you been
- 13:13doing it for Almost a year now. But that but there's but there's
- 13:19already been so many moments. This is such a unique and
- 13:22Powerful relationship. When I first heard the term life
- 13:27coach, I assumed. Like I'm sure most people do
- 13:30that life coaches are advice dispensing, machines that you
- 13:34have a problem and you come to a life coach for a solution and
- 13:38that's not the case at all. I remember when I was taking my
- 13:40training, they're actually saying like stay 10 feet away
- 13:43from giving advice, ever. Oh, was like, well, what the
- 13:45hell do you mean? Like, My supposed to do and and
- 13:50really the relationship is about creating a space where the
- 13:54client obviously brings forward, whatever is on their mind and
- 13:59really is a life coach. What you're doing most is
- 14:02listening and you're asking some powerful questions that Force
- 14:07the client to kind of think with a different perspective or kind
- 14:10of even if you just give them the space to kind of untangle
- 14:13their own thoughts. Like talking out loud to a Sure.
- 14:17But what's going on in your life can be extremely helpful.
- 14:21Just because so often we're running around with these ideas.
- 14:23Tangled up in our head, we never talked about it, right?
- 14:26And they get all twisted up. Can't make heads or tails of it,
- 14:29but just the very Act of speaking out loud, to someone
- 14:32about it who has no active stake in your situation can be
- 14:38extremely helpful to me, I can because I've had like a
- 14:43therapist on the show before and to me life coaching.
- 14:47Does seem to Bear. Some resemblance is to that,
- 14:50like what? What if any would you say other
- 14:52kind of major differences between life coaching versus
- 14:57just going to therapy? Sure.
- 14:59Yeah. Well the best analogy I ever
- 15:00heard was therapy, therapists are like, archaeologists and
- 15:06life. Coaches are like Architects.
- 15:09Interesting. So so therapy, kind of spend
- 15:11some more time digging around in the past, right?
- 15:15And as a life coach, I Frankly, I have little to no interest in
- 15:19your past, obviously, some is required for context.
- 15:24But the thing I'm most concerned, actually, chiefly
- 15:27concerned about is, where are you now, where do you want to be
- 15:31and how do we get there? Okay, and that other anything.
- 15:35What any particular ways unique to you that you've sort of built
- 15:40as your process that you kind of give to people like hey this is
- 15:44this is how it works with me. This is what we're going to do.
- 15:46Yeah, so I mean, it is a life coach.
- 15:49I always walk a fine line between having a system per se
- 15:55and I'll put it this way. I always give the client the
- 16:00opportunity to just wing it. It.
- 16:03God, I don't have to teach you anything, right?
- 16:06Just come to me whatever you want to talk about and we'll
- 16:08figure it out. And honestly I've had intro
- 16:11calls where 10 to 15 minutes in the client, the / potential
- 16:15client is already having an oh shit moment and I love those,
- 16:19you know what I mean? Like, you can see it in their
- 16:21eyes and you can hear it in the pause.
- 16:24Just I'll ask a question that really makes them go like oh
- 16:27man. Oh fuck.
- 16:28I didn't think of it that way and it just kind of cracks.
- 16:30Something open that. Helps them.
- 16:32Look at it, A New Perspective, but if it if I do have a system
- 16:36per se, the thing I've been focusing on the most with
- 16:40mindfulness is really distilling it down into something
- 16:44intimidation free and insanely practical.
- 16:47So a lot of people mindfulness and meditation are the same
- 16:51thing. When they think of mindfulness,
- 16:54they think of meditating, which is not the case.
- 16:57Meditation is a form of mindfulness, but A lot of people
- 17:01get hung up on this idea that they need to have a 20 minute a
- 17:04day, meditation Habit to enjoy the benefits of mindfulness,
- 17:08right? And what I remind them is that
- 17:10mindfulness is, it's, as simple as you let it be like, I give
- 17:14the example, like, if you walk up to a mirror, look at yourself
- 17:17and say, hi, like, that's something just weird enough to
- 17:21kind of snap you out of autopilot.
- 17:23And you're, you're very awake in that moment, right?
- 17:26You're tuned in. And that's what mindfulness is.
- 17:30It's just In little bits of time, throughout your day, to
- 17:33kind of snap out of autopilot and go like, oh shit.
- 17:36Okay, I'm here. What's going on?
- 17:39What am I doing? Do I want to be doing this?
- 17:40All right, I'm moving on. What do you think with so
- 17:48unmindful, not mine. Why would you say that?
- 17:51Many of us? Could find ourselves kind of
- 17:53stuck on autopilot? Like, what will, why are we What
- 17:58we missing the could make us more mindful, right?
- 18:02Yeah. Well, I think it's just the
- 18:04nature of our culture. Nowadays, everything is so fast
- 18:08paced. I mean, I love the example.
- 18:12You look at movies and I'm going to fudge the numbers here a bit.
- 18:15But I think today, the average shot in a film is in the S,
- 18:21right? It's like say three to seven
- 18:23seconds before they change the shot and back in the day.
- 18:27It Be like a minute and a half, right?
- 18:30And, and that's just the way that everything's kind of geared
- 18:32towards us now is trying to keep our attention and actually
- 18:37called the attention economy, right?
- 18:41So for example, like, how many of our streaming platforms, have
- 18:44an autoplay feature now, where I looked up on, I think it was
- 18:48YouTube actually read up on their kind of agreement.
- 18:51That said, yeah, we encourage a laid-back experience, so we
- 18:55press the play button for you. And again how generous of you
- 18:59right Haley doing us a service member which I pay is, maybe
- 19:03it's reels or Facebook was but there was a point where I hadn't
- 19:08had that feature turned off. So automatically skip to the
- 19:11next video after the first one was done.
- 19:12Is that hang on? I want to yeah interact look at
- 19:15things investigate. Yeah they don't cheer for me.
- 19:18I'm not a toddler but that's the way things are geared now and so
- 19:24media is a big one. There's just So much content out
- 19:29there. So it's so easy to get go down a
- 19:31rabbit hole with whatever screens in front of you but but
- 19:34media is only one of them really?
- 19:36I mean in in my practice I talk about four things that keep you
- 19:41on autopilot. So media is one of them, the
- 19:46past is a big one kind of going over regrets and what ifs?
- 19:51The future is another one worrying about it, right?
- 19:54And trying to control outcomes and predict everything.
- 19:58And then others. So getting caught up in what
- 20:01other people think of you, their opinions expectations.
- 20:05Those four things they take you outside of yourself, right?
- 20:09Or outside of the present moment.
- 20:12And, and I always say you don't want to get rid of those things,
- 20:16right? Like autopilot itself is very,
- 20:18very useful. I mean, if we didn't like it
- 20:21would be God damn exhausting to try to be tuned in all the time.
- 20:24Like the the goal isn't to become the next Buddha, right?
- 20:28It's to kind of take moments to step back and and ask when
- 20:32autopilot is serving us, right? Because it can serve us and it's
- 20:38our default state for a reason. But if we if we let it run our
- 20:41lives and sooner or later we do check in and go oh shit, where
- 20:44did that hour or day or year ago right dude those the story of my
- 20:49life right now like I think the one no no I'm serious like I
- 20:53think And yeah I've always spoken about this with my
- 20:57friends over the years that you know as you get older your
- 21:00perception of time shifts and changes and that old expression
- 21:06time flies when you're having fun.
- 21:08I really do think that's true and I think it's also true that
- 21:11when your life sucks and things suck.
- 21:14Oh my god. Did they drag on?
- 21:16I remember like and I've spoken to it to death on my podcast,
- 21:20I'm going to but spare my regular listeners the stories
- 21:24but twice. To say I've worked in a various
- 21:27different positions, over the years that I did not enjoy.
- 21:31Let's put it that way and it felt like it would never end and
- 21:35now it's a complete 180 like I am much happier in life.
- 21:40I'm in a happier place I'm not exactly where I want to be but
- 21:43I'm very grateful to be in the position I am and get to do the
- 21:46things I get to do and I keep pushing towards where I want to
- 21:50be but the same problem I keep finding every single Day is, why
- 21:56is the time going? Where's the time?
- 21:58They're just, it's just not enough hours in the day, like
- 22:00right now, it's 6:30 p.m. my time.
- 22:03All I've done today is I went to the gym I applied for a few
- 22:08acting roles and then I think that's it, I don't know.
- 22:13Like I don't know where the rest of the day win.
- 22:15You know. I woke up pretty early.
- 22:17I woke up at like 9 10, went to the chiller.
- 22:21Where does where does the time go?
- 22:23Skate scary, it's scary. Great.
- 22:26That's what it is. Yeah.
- 22:27And it's the same feeling when, if you drive right a car, it's
- 22:33the drive home, all of a sudden you're in the driveway and
- 22:36you're like, holy shit. Like what?
- 22:38I don't remember the drive at all, you're thinking how safe is
- 22:41that within the other drivers on the road are doing the same
- 22:44thing. There's another one.
- 22:45I remember, when I was kid, I was lucky enough to meet my
- 22:50great grandparents and we would often drive there.
- 22:54Maybe once a month, I think and they I thought it was like a
- 22:59three-hour Journey because I remember sitting on my game boy
- 23:03and I did back in the day, like, when I was Game, Boy, Advance
- 23:08used to have, like, the old light thing that you plug in,
- 23:12and it would like Shine Like A Street Lamp and it was Pitch
- 23:14Black. And I remembered that on the
- 23:15nights. Back when there was no light in
- 23:18the car just doing that little memory.
- 23:20I had any way but the way to remember it would just take
- 23:23forever. I thought it was several hours.
- 23:26I remember speaking to my parents about this more recent
- 23:28years and they said, oh no, I think it's about 45 minutes.
- 23:31Maybe 50 minutes as I know what that's like.
- 23:33That felt like an eternity. Oh yeah.
- 23:36True didn't it? I mean 45 minutes to an hour now
- 23:39is nothing. I mean I don't know about you
- 23:41but I like an hour now. For me goes by in the blink of
- 23:44an eye. I might as well be 15 minutes.
- 23:47Yeah. Yeah it's that time is elastic.
- 23:49Absolutely. Baby.
- 23:50It shifts in every single sigh. I know I keep like son.
- 23:54Like a broken record now, but it seems to be the case in
- 23:57everything, like waiting for things.
- 24:01You know, I've done a lot travel in my life so any I'm not just
- 24:05around the world but like hope that home traveling trains buses
- 24:09waiting Etc, right? We all have and years ago, that
- 24:14that you should feel like forever.
- 24:16And now, I don't know, like half an hour like if if I had to wait
- 24:21for half an hour or 45 minutes for a bus.
- 24:25Say seven or eight years ago, I would have been a No-No and been
- 24:29so upset and I've been really angry and frustrated and just be
- 24:32miserable and it would drag on. But now half an hour, 45
- 24:36minutes, the first thing that comes in my head is a flyby, no
- 24:41problem, right? And it does it just and then
- 24:44before, you know it, but uh already what, right?
- 24:48Lucky, lucky man, that the dot, the time Lords, the time Gods,
- 24:52then they're messing with us, that's what it is.
- 24:56Absolutely. And and and I find that that's
- 25:00the thing about autopilot, right?
- 25:02Is that I described it as a difference between living and
- 25:05existing like, like to me. And when you're an existing mode
- 25:11or autopilot mode, things just kind of happen to you, like life
- 25:15just kind of happens to you. But when you're, when you're,
- 25:18when you're off, autopilot in your in your living, like your,
- 25:22whether I think it is, I think it's independent of time going
- 25:26by quickly or slowly. I don't think these two concepts
- 25:30necessarily overlap because there is such a thing as being
- 25:34in the zone, right? In a flow State and and that Can
- 25:39be incredibly addictive and time flies by and as a musician.
- 25:43I know that, you know, mean when you're in that flow State, you
- 25:47don't need to go to the bathroom.
- 25:48You don't need to eat like, all of a sudden, you can look at the
- 25:51clock and it's 4:00 a.m. And you're like, what the hell
- 25:53just happened, okay, I should probably go to sleep.
- 25:57So I don't think the two concepts overlap, but but I do
- 26:00feel like The quality of our time, right?
- 26:05Can be greatly improved with just checking in once in a while
- 26:10with just asking yourself some questions.
- 26:13Like when I was talking about the past and the future and
- 26:16others being things that drain our time and keep us on
- 26:19autopilot, right? If you have a bad habit or a
- 26:24habit, you want to get rid of of thinking too much about the
- 26:26past. For example.
- 26:28If you if you learn and build the habit of checking in, you
- 26:32can potentially stop one of those rabbit holes from
- 26:35happening. A few seconds in a few minutes
- 26:38in versus. If you don't check in your on
- 26:41autopilot, it could be 20 minutes, you're sitting in that
- 26:44depressed, state thinking about some regret or whatever, you're
- 26:48right? Yeah, no, you're spot-on with
- 26:51that actually. Before I came on to this show
- 26:53today, I was feeling very low and I've slept just get on with
- 27:00it, you know, do the show they'll make me feel better and
- 27:03it has they always do. But I think exactly what you're
- 27:09saying that I was thinking about this idea that you know you
- 27:11can't allow yourself to entertain.
- 27:15The idea to entertain that narrative, you know.
- 27:19Like for example your feelings are important and you got a, of
- 27:23course. Yeah, I think you have to kind
- 27:25of Trust your, your intuition, you know what your gut is
- 27:30telling you excetera, but the same time, you know, when you
- 27:33find yourself in that kind of miserable mindset, what I often
- 27:38tend to do. Oh, voice it.
- 27:42I'll be open about it and then I'll just kind of go.
- 27:45All right, whatever and move on? No, no seriously though.
- 27:49It's like you, what were you gonna do sitting, as you said,
- 27:52at waste your whole evening thinking about it, you just
- 27:54know, you get out your system and then you move on, and then
- 27:58you'll forget about it. And then you'll probably laugh
- 27:59at yourself later on, you know? But it's there's something to
- 28:04that and it's Someday, I think some days truly.
- 28:09Alright, of some days you just have a bad day and you have to
- 28:15try. And remember that tomorrow is a
- 28:16new day and you know you'll wake up and you'll feel differently
- 28:19and it's almost always true. But at the same time really
- 28:25trying to fixate on that point that you made this, this idea
- 28:28that you can't like entertain that idea that feeling
- 28:31especially when you're cognizant of it you know how you get you
- 28:36know, like This isn't quite the same thing.
- 28:38But as an example, I get particularly low and sometimes a
- 28:44bit anxious angry, whatever. If I haven't eaten it doesn't
- 28:48always happen but sometimes it happens and it all hit pretty
- 28:52hard, you know, either frustration or deep upset and as
- 28:56soon as I eat, I feel better. And I know that I will feel
- 28:59better. And I have to kind of budge
- 29:01myself, push myself to just do it because often, I don't want
- 29:04to eat it because I feel low. Those it's been like being ill.
- 29:08You just like this, want to stay in it.
- 29:11You will wear it, kind of. Yes, you don't want to feel that
- 29:13way, but the same time you can't be bothered to do anything about
- 29:17it. Mmm.
- 29:18But that's kind of the whole point, isn't it?
- 29:19It's like you're miserable. As you just heard everything,
- 29:23feels like a big deal, everything right.
- 29:25It was much bigger deal than it actually is, and then you do
- 29:29address it and, you know, okay. But what you said specifically
- 29:33about asking yourself questions, I think is very, very helpful.
- 29:36Like I, That sometimes when I need to remind myself about
- 29:42what's important, you know, sometimes I get upset about the
- 29:45fact that, you know, I'm not where I want to be or things
- 29:48aren't working out the way I wanted to, or, you know, I just
- 29:51get frustrated at things in life.
- 29:55I was having a conversation with someone today about this
- 29:56actually. And the one thing I do to try
- 30:02and change that is, I start asking yourself those questions
- 30:05and I started thinking about like, okay, okay, well, I have
- 30:08this, this is what I have. These are the things I have in
- 30:10my life. This is how my life used to
- 30:12looked five years ago, ten years ago.
- 30:14This is how it looks. Now, suddenly, I kind of and
- 30:17then I actually get to a point where I'm like, how dare you
- 30:19complain, how dare you feel bad about yourself down?
- 30:22Yeah, well kinda because you think about where your life used
- 30:25to be and you're like you should be done well grateful you know,
- 30:27and I don't think there's anything wrong with having a bit
- 30:30of a moan, you know, feeling a bit low because people will say
- 30:33that they'll be like, oh well, you know, you just moaning and
- 30:36complaining you should be Grateful and it's like it's true
- 30:38but you shouldn't feel bad for having a bit of a moan so long
- 30:41as you don't do that 24/7 and so long as you're actually doing
- 30:44something to try and change your life work towards your goals,
- 30:48then it's okay. You know, for anyone that knows
- 30:51me knows what I do or is a follower of me.
- 30:55They'll know that. Like most of the time positive
- 30:58optimistic, Etc. But you know I'm human we have
- 31:02those moments today was an example of that, but it's, you
- 31:06just have to keep Eep. keep persevering in, as you say,
- 31:10addressing it with those mindful questions and I suppose it's
- 31:16just that it's a whole process, isn't it?
- 31:18You have to revisit quite often. Yeah.
- 31:21And and you said something there, that's really important.
- 31:25I think when you said like, you shouldn't feel bad, Right?
- 31:28And and I would expand on that and and say you should feel bad
- 31:33about anything that you're feeling, right, right.
- 31:36And it's something I really pay attention to as I see it a lot
- 31:40in the coaching and wellness space.
- 31:43Is when someone will say stop doing this or stop doing that.
- 31:48And it, it triggers. I think it triggers something in
- 31:52a lot of people because say, for example, the people that are
- 31:55getting down on themselves or thinking too much about the
- 31:58past, if someone comes to you and says stop doing that, it's
- 32:00not work, it's not working for you.
- 32:04I mean, we already have a tendency to beat ourselves up so
- 32:08when you hear stop doing that, that usually triggers another
- 32:11beat yourself up. Right.
- 32:14And that's kind of a habit that that becomes ingrained and so
- 32:19feeling bad about anything you're feeling.
- 32:21I think the first step it's not an easy one, but the first step
- 32:28is to really go deep and ask yourself big questions.
- 32:32Like, do I think I'm enough, right?
- 32:36Wow, like do it. Do I do, I love myself like
- 32:39those are really deep questions. It called comfy, comfy asking
- 32:42those questions. Wait, TT, you have to, you have
- 32:47to entertain those, right? Because often that's the route
- 32:50in and I talked about when people ask me like, okay?
- 32:54Like, you're saying, maybe you should forgive yourself and
- 32:57someone saying, like, I don't know how to do that, right?
- 32:59Like, how do I even start and the first scenario I give out.
- 33:04As I say just pretend that a loved one comes to you, right?
- 33:08And they say that they're they're really suffering from
- 33:10this thing and they don't know if they can forgive themselves.
- 33:13Don't know if they deserve forgiveness.
- 33:15Would you ever tell them that they're right?
- 33:17Like, would you ever say no? You probably don't deserve
- 33:20forgiveness. Like no, you would never say
- 33:22that, right? Right immediately.
- 33:25You would tell them like, you absolutely deserve forgiveness,
- 33:27right? You deserve to feel loved and to
- 33:30be happy. And so for whatever reason we
- 33:34find that we feel uniquely undeserving, right of those
- 33:39things. Like we feel like it's almost
- 33:41like an imposter syndrome. Like if And else finds out that
- 33:45I don't deserve this stuff, right?
- 33:47It's like no like you would never tell a loved one that they
- 33:51don't deserve it. So examine, if you're telling
- 33:53that to yourself, right? And it's a little bit of kind of
- 33:57trying to take your own advice. I think Society is to blame a
- 34:01little bit for this because I'm a member had a guest on my show.
- 34:04Quite early on, shout out to Holly young and we were talking.
- 34:07I mean, we were talking more about culturally about the UK
- 34:10and how in the UK at least. Back in the day you would kind
- 34:15of get taught an extreme version of being humble, right?
- 34:20Okay. But you're almost taught in the
- 34:23UK and I don't know necessarily that it's the case anymore now.
- 34:26But certainly when I was growing up and the generations before
- 34:30that, you were kind of always taught that it's very Unbecoming
- 34:35to celebrate yourself. Like you shouldn't yes like and
- 34:38don't get me wrong. Being humble is great.
- 34:41Being modest is brilliant. But we were almost taught that
- 34:45it was just bad to even celebrate yourself at all, but
- 34:50you have to downplay yourself. You have to berate yourself.
- 34:53You know, if your core being nice about yourself, then
- 34:56everyone just thinks you're a narcissist or arrogant or
- 34:58something. I always took exception to that
- 35:01because I know I've had it, I've had people say, oh, you're
- 35:05arrogant, you're narcissistic because they don't understand
- 35:07the difference between confidence versus narcissism and
- 35:11arrogance. There is a big distinction Ian.
- 35:13It's okay to be confident and I mean it's that's okay.
- 35:17Narcissism is is like a whole thing unto itself by thing with
- 35:20arrogance. It's like you know that's
- 35:23basically just thinking you're better than everyone and I think
- 35:27certainly in my experience of confidence is its I would say, I
- 35:34don't truly 100% have confidence.
- 35:36What I have is something I built up over many years, which is
- 35:40kind of like, a going to put up. it's like a refusal to give in
- 35:51and a refusal to allow my own feelings to stop me from doing
- 35:57what I want to do. So it's not confidence.
- 35:59It's just that I understand. I have to do this and I have to
- 36:03do it in this way. Otherwise, it's just not going
- 36:05to get done, you know, and also learn as well.
- 36:08Just on a side note that in life, you have to have some
- 36:11degree of confidence just to get anything done at all.
- 36:14Like I don't know. You need a job which means you
- 36:17need to have to go to interviews.
- 36:18Which means you need to start to an interview and be somewhat
- 36:21confident. You can fake it till you make
- 36:23it, you know, you can pretend to be like this really extroverted
- 36:27great person and then you get the job and then everyone
- 36:29discovers, you're just really chill and clearly, but point is,
- 36:35you have to kind of throw yourself out there.
- 36:37Like when I remember first year university, the did it all the
- 36:40time in my my course. I mean I did management
- 36:44marketing so it's a bit different.
- 36:45That's kind of the whole point with business is networking.
- 36:48But Yeah, the many of us were very shy and didn't want to do
- 36:51it and they really had to push us to do it.
- 36:53And it really is a skill that you have to build networking
- 36:57conversation. You know it's not easy but it is
- 37:02something you have to practice and I think confidence is the
- 37:08same as something you have to practice, but there's a very
- 37:11different thing. There's a difference between
- 37:14what you project to the world and what you show, people versus
- 37:18you're in. Feelings, you know, people think
- 37:20I'm confident but they don't know how I think and feel about
- 37:23myself they don't know what goes through my head every single
- 37:25day. They don't know how you know for
- 37:29instance. Okay let's start make a video
- 37:31right music video or I put out a new podcast.
- 37:36Yeah the whole time. I'm thinking look at my horrible
- 37:39face. Oh that sounds terrible or even
- 37:42if it's a podcast but I can't stand the sound of my voice.
- 37:46Just why would anyone listen to this crap?
- 37:48There All that goes through my head every single time and the
- 37:52only thing that kind of prevents me from acknowledging that is
- 37:56just that. Well, if I did, I know, I
- 37:58wouldn't get any of this done and that would make me feel
- 38:00worse, and it's kind of like a weighing up of like, what do I?
- 38:03What's that is, like, that, that feeling about myself or the
- 38:07feeling that I'll have, if I don't do it.
- 38:10Mmm. Yeah.
- 38:12And I mean, that's completely natural.
- 38:16All right? We tend to be our own worst.
- 38:18Critics for sure. Yeah and I think when you're
- 38:23talking about the distinction between PSI confidence and
- 38:26narcissism and kind of who you are inside versus what you
- 38:31portray and all that stuff, I feel like One of the big.
- 38:37Differences there, I'd say is comparison, right?
- 38:41Like if you're if you're operating from a standpoint of
- 38:45comparing how you're doing to others and that is kind of the
- 38:51fuel of your confidence or lack of confidence.
- 38:53Then you're likely never going to land on true confidence,
- 38:59right? Like you're always the
- 39:02comparisons, always going to be there and on the other hand if
- 39:07Can remove the comparison even for little moments at a time,
- 39:12but but try to create some Harmony between what we're
- 39:17feeling on the inside and how we're portraying themselves in
- 39:19the outside. Because often what prevents us
- 39:23from, or I should say often what makes us put on a mask is that
- 39:28we're worried about what other people think of us, right?
- 39:32And and there's, there's comparison inherent in that.
- 39:35And if you can Flex that muscle because it is a muscle and it
- 39:40takes some time and to make it a habit but really putting
- 39:44yourself out there and saying what you truly want to say and
- 39:48behaving how you truly want to behave.
- 39:51There's so much Freedom that can come from that, right?
- 39:55Like just imagine if you didn't have to filter anything, Right?
- 39:59If you just said exactly what you wanted to say, and behaved
- 40:03his act like you want to behave like when especially when you go
- 40:05back to that cultural era of. Okay?
- 40:08You got to keep everything in like to some people and
- 40:11especially to them. The first thing would come to
- 40:13mind, would be that just be chaos right there with no social
- 40:17filter. Like it would just be Anarchy
- 40:20and I think that's simply untrue.
- 40:23I think there's so much inherent, kindness and warmth
- 40:26and love inside of people But they really do diminish when
- 40:31they put on that mask. Like they don't let it shine
- 40:34through fully because they're concerned, they're worried,
- 40:38they're scared that they're going to say the wrong thing or
- 40:42they're going to be taken the wrong way and it certainly
- 40:46involves a whole lot of being. Okay?
- 40:48That not, everyone is going to like you, right?
- 40:52That's a huge mountain to climb. If you have people-pleasing
- 40:56Tendencies, which we all do to some extent, That's a tough one.
- 41:01That's hard 1 as well. I think the biggest thing for me
- 41:04just I can totally except when people don't like me, I know
- 41:07there are people that don't like me, but I take that stuff person
- 41:12this I'm like boom. What do I do?
- 41:15Like right? Well and what I tried to think
- 41:17about now is if the majority of people, if you find yourself
- 41:22getting on with the majority of people chances are, you're
- 41:25probably a decent person and there's nothing wrong with you,
- 41:28right? You know, sometimes you just rub
- 41:31people the wrong way. Sometimes I remember seeing this
- 41:34guy posted it took. Then he said the only three
- 41:37reasons that someone will truly hate.
- 41:39You are either because you've genuinely wrong them, which is
- 41:43the okay, fair enough? And the other two are like
- 41:46jealousy or what was the other one?
- 41:52Come and buy the other one. Now base basically centered
- 41:54around two things which are their own problems, you know,
- 41:57that's that's within then that's not within anyone else and it's
- 42:01just like okay if that exists within them then how is that my
- 42:07problem? There's obviously nothing that
- 42:08fought with me. It's not my snot.
- 42:11Yeah, so sis I don't know. It's that is a big one that is
- 42:18that really is and it's, yeah, I don't think it's easy.
- 42:21It's something that's easily solvable.
- 42:23If I think you just have to Accept yourself as you are work
- 42:28on your flaws as much as you can and just learn to love yourself.
- 42:31And you know, if people hate you hey fuck, it must be doing
- 42:35something right. But it but even I'll challenge
- 42:40you even on the working on your flaws like it.
- 42:42Like that's a completely separate conversation, right?
- 42:46Whether whether or not you need to be doing that, I think to
- 42:50view yourself as flawed kind of goes back, into that comparison
- 42:54mode. Right?
- 42:56That flawed in comparison to what like no one is inherently
- 43:00flawed right there. They're only flawed if you put
- 43:03them up against a comparison of kind of whoo-hoo, a person
- 43:07should be in society, right? Are culturally and it's a tough
- 43:12one to when you when you really think about, okay?
- 43:18What are my responsibilities right?
- 43:21As a person acting in the world and what responsibilities are
- 43:24am? I Onto that aren't mine.
- 43:27And one of them that were holding onto that aren't ours is
- 43:31the need to, please people, right?
- 43:33Like it's if I'm saying something to you, your reaction
- 43:36is not my responsibility but so often I take it on as my
- 43:41responsibility, right? Like I pre-filter what I say to
- 43:47make sure that you're going to find it agreeable or at least I
- 43:51mean suitable, right? That is not going to throw
- 43:53something off course or offend. You or in that responsibility,
- 43:57it's way too much weight to carry.
- 44:00It makes you kind of crisscross and your own mind off, too often
- 44:04it complicates things we talked about in situations where the
- 44:08majority of the people like me in a particular place, right?
- 44:11But then there's that one person that doesn't like me, and then I
- 44:15talked to other people about it and they were all surprised that
- 44:18like, what I can't believe they wouldn't like you or, you know
- 44:22what I mean? And it's It's a weird situation,
- 44:26you know, to find yourself in and I get where you're coming
- 44:29from as far as, you know, the comparison thing.
- 44:33But at the same time like there are some things I don't think
- 44:36you can account for. I think, I truly believe that
- 44:40hatred as a concept. Is an internal thing as in like,
- 44:46it's, it's something you carry with you.
- 44:52Like there are people that have wronged me.
- 44:54There are people that I'm frustrated upset angry with from
- 44:57the past, but I don't hate them because it's that, that hurts
- 45:03me. You know, because people often
- 45:06think that hatred, you know, it's it's something that, you
- 45:09know, you you have for others and it affects that doesn't
- 45:12affect that time, so they don't even know about it.
- 45:15And if they do, if you inflict hatred on to them, you punish
- 45:19them, so to speak. They'll never suffer as much as
- 45:23you suffer in within your hatred.
- 45:27You know, that's why they always talk about, it being like
- 45:29baggage and soon as you let that baggage go, you feel free, you
- 45:32feel happier. It's Of course you do, you know?
- 45:37Yeah. I think I'm gone.
- 45:39Sorry, go ahead. Well, I was just going to say
- 45:41that. I think forgiveness is exactly
- 45:42the same as well Kant. The concept of it is the same.
- 45:46Yeah. And I love the way we use the
- 45:49word baggage. There.
- 45:50Like, what else is in that bag? All right.
- 45:54There's a lot of things that were carrying around that.
- 45:57We don't need to be in. Yeah, but one thing I've noticed
- 46:04it's It started probably around the same time, that my life
- 46:07coaching Journey started and looking into these Concepts that
- 46:11I've become. I used to be so interested in
- 46:14philosophical questions, right? And, and, and studying, kind of
- 46:18society as a whole, and talking about groups of people and other
- 46:21people, and I've honestly become so disinterested in it that at
- 46:26this point if I'm talking to someone and they make some kind
- 46:31of generalization they say, like, even using the word
- 46:34people, Like not a specific group of people just people in
- 46:37general. I'm like I don't care like
- 46:40what's going on with you, right? Like are you feeling hatred?
- 46:45Like is that if we're just talking about other people it's
- 46:48like okay I don't know them right there even if they're real
- 46:52I don't know them. If they're hypothesize, I
- 46:54definitely don't know them and I just find it a less and less
- 46:58useful exercise to to create these kind of scenarios where
- 47:03you're talking about other people and how they Feel and I'm
- 47:06a lot more interested in what's going on with me and the person
- 47:10I'm talking to that makes sense, it's perfect sense, this move it
- 47:16on. I just want to talk about your
- 47:18book for a second because you are speaking of mindfulness you
- 47:21actually wrote a book called don't think of it as
- 47:24mindfulness, which given everything that we've spoken
- 47:27about. I'm very confused by tell us
- 47:31about the book how it came to be what I saw.
- 47:35But and why people should read it.
- 47:37Sure. Yeah.
- 47:38So the reason I call it, don't think of it as mindfulness is.
- 47:42I think my mom is such a loaded word.
- 47:46It's been so mainstream for so long now like you can't walk by
- 47:49a magazine stand without seeing some issue of some publication
- 47:54completely dedicated to mindfulness drives and not
- 47:57because they, yeah, they don't really know what it means.
- 48:00There'll be mindful plant a tree and there is some truth to that,
- 48:05But sure that when they hide jacket, the media always.
- 48:08Hi Jackson. Yeah.
- 48:09And it's become the, there's too much baggage, there's that word
- 48:12again, there's too many preconceptions and and so with
- 48:18my own Journey when I first started hearing about
- 48:20mindfulness and it sounded like something I should be doing,
- 48:24right? It's like, okay, the sounds like
- 48:26something that would bring a lot of joy to my life or Freedom or
- 48:29whatever piece and I linked on to meditation right away and I
- 48:35had mixed success with it over the years and I got to a point
- 48:38where I was quote unquote. Good at it.
- 48:41I mean, there's no such thing but to the point what I means
- 48:44the point that say I hadn't even meditated in three or four
- 48:47months I could sit down and within a few minutes I could
- 48:50kind of drop back in to that meditative State because I had
- 48:54practice so often but I was just getting frustrated because I
- 48:59realized that okay, if I sit down and meditate for 20
- 49:02minutes, it feels great for the 20 minutes.
- 49:05And a few minutes after work, right?
- 49:08But then, I'm right back into my day.
- 49:10I'm right back into autopilot mode whatever else is going on
- 49:14in my life. So I kept asking like there's
- 49:18got to be more to this, right? More than trusting the studies
- 49:22that if you put in enough hours, eventually you'll start to get
- 49:25those benefits, right? That just seems so kind of okay
- 49:30at the risk of sounding kind of impatient, right.
- 49:34It was like, I want to, I want to That it's affecting me now
- 49:37and that's when I started discovering again that there's
- 49:40not necessarily a direct link between mindfulness and
- 49:43meditation, that mindfulness is a much bigger word and much
- 49:48simpler at the same time and that's when I started
- 49:52gravitating towards the phrase, checking in hmm.
- 49:55And that's something that it just makes a lot more sense to
- 49:59me. It doesn't have the same baggage
- 50:01as mindfulness, right? And I talked About why I already
- 50:05mentioned like looking at yourself in the mirror and say,
- 50:07hi, right. That's a couple seconds to be
- 50:10checked in like, that is mindfulness.
- 50:14It's as simple as being present, those two words, right?
- 50:19That's the whole concept right there, but knowing that and
- 50:23actually put it in your life or two, very different things,
- 50:25right integrating, it can be difficult.
- 50:28So, in the book I talk about finding your own check-in
- 50:31method, I call it right. I have a story in the book.
- 50:35It went on some vacation and we found this little like Alice in
- 50:40Wonderland type gift shop on the side of the road.
- 50:42And the sign said, open, if we're home, it's okay.
- 50:46We gotta pull over and check this out.
- 50:48And it was this guy. He, he had this hobby of
- 50:51essentially, collecting old and broken things, and repurposing
- 50:54them into art, and, and something useful.
- 50:57And he loved woodworking to, and raped by the cash register.
- 51:01He had a box of wooden bow ties. And I was like, okay I've never
- 51:06seen one of those before. I got to hear the story, right?
- 51:08This guy's already interesting. Let's add another one on and he
- 51:12said that he made them for his kids.
- 51:15They played Sports growing up and I don't know if you've ever
- 51:18played Sports competitively but there's a formal component to
- 51:22it, right? Like if you have to kind of wear
- 51:24a shirt and tie say for a game so he made these as a way to
- 51:28kind of have fun with that formal component, right?
- 51:31So he would make these little wooden bow ties for her son's.
- 51:34Ha 18 for example and I know you have.
- 51:38I know you do the video podcast. So actually that way I keep this
- 51:43in my pocket here it is. That's pretty good and it's on
- 51:46the cover of the book because honestly for whatever reason
- 51:51like three weeks after I had that vacation I realized like
- 51:56man this thing still in my pocket like everyday I would put
- 51:59it in my pocket just like my wallet, right?
- 52:01I didn't know why I was doing it.
- 52:03I was just doing it and then It was just around the time.
- 52:05I was doing all this work on checking in and finding a
- 52:08check-in method and I was like, well damn, like there it is
- 52:10right there. So I associate the Bowtie now
- 52:14with checking in. So at first I was keeping it in
- 52:18my back pocket, so every time I sat down it would annoyingly
- 52:21remind me that it was their right?
- 52:23But when I, when I took it out, I went oh shit, I was just on
- 52:27autopilot, right? I was just in the middle of some
- 52:30tasks or I was down some rabbit hole either with Or thinking
- 52:36about the past, the future. Whatever.
- 52:38And this was a little reminder, just take a second to go.
- 52:42Okay, what was I just doing? Was that serving me?
- 52:45Whatever. I was just doing because like
- 52:4780% of the time, the answer was no, right?
- 52:50I was down some rabbit hole that I didn't want to be down.
- 52:55So it was almost like giving me a little exit on the highway,
- 53:00right? And I was creating those moments
- 53:02throughout my day. So in the book, I talk about
- 53:04Out, you know what, I'm not going to sell you a wooden bow
- 53:07tie. I only have one.
- 53:09I'm not giving it to you. You have to find your own
- 53:11check-in method, right? It can be something you carry
- 53:14around with you. It can be if you're a visual
- 53:16person leaving Post-it notes around the house or work, let's
- 53:20say something like check-in or wake the hell up, whatever you
- 53:23want it to say. Setting an alarm on your phone,
- 53:27whatever it is. Create those little moments in
- 53:30your day to give yourself an opportunity to check-in.
- 53:34And every time you do that you're being mindful.
- 53:37Like that is mindfulness, right? You don't need a magazine.
- 53:41You don't need a course. You know how to do it already.
- 53:45I know we spoke about time earlier but that's what it took
- 53:49about a little bit more. Cuz something you said, kind of
- 53:51a reminder, being something I work, firstly, I will say that
- 53:56for me. Looking at the time is how I do
- 54:01that. Like being cognizant of.
- 54:03What's the time? What's the time is a bit of an
- 54:05obsession with it and I remember listening to a podcast.
- 54:08There was another Quite prominent person who said the
- 54:15same thing. And they kind of talked about
- 54:19how it got obsessive to the point where, you know, they
- 54:21always had to have like, a clock Within Reach.
- 54:24Be an alarm clock on their phone, watch, whatever.
- 54:29They always need. Two new need to new need to new.
- 54:32Need to know what the time is at any given time.
- 54:36And they kind of said, just like it was ER, their own little
- 54:38quirky thing. I think they explained it as
- 54:41like a, they didn't really go into deep too much detail about
- 54:44it, but I saw it and I can connect with it as being like a
- 54:47Say you need to be in control. We need to know what the time is
- 54:50need to be cognizant and aware. And I think that's key is, as
- 54:55you said, like, we're all capable of being mindful, I
- 54:58think many of us don't realize the association's, we make such
- 55:03as the one that you did with the bow tie.
- 55:06There are different things that we do day to day.
- 55:09That keep us grounded. Maybe keep us aware in the
- 55:12moment and then that is in a nutshell, kind of War.
- 55:16What mindfulness should be about.
- 55:17Well, or at least it seems as about is about just making sure
- 55:22you're aware as you've kind of outline.
- 55:23Making sure you're in the moment.
- 55:25Living it I can't count how many times especially in more recent
- 55:30years, where I'll just be sitting there, I don't know who
- 55:36will, maybe I'll be with someone, maybe I'll be on my own
- 55:38whatever. I was be in the moment and
- 55:40experience the moment and thank you for instance, if I ever take
- 55:45a picture of anything, I make sure to do it really quickly,
- 55:48then put it away and not even think about that anymore right
- 55:51now. Just so you can take you out of
- 55:52the moment. We, yeah, it's just a quick
- 55:54thing, you know. So I got it for later at be a
- 55:56nice. Reminder.
- 55:56But I want to be in this and experience this like to give you
- 56:01an example. I I'm not really a big football
- 56:04fan, but I saw Manchester City here in Manchester do like their
- 56:08parade throughout the throughout the city and my housemates, a
- 56:13man united fan, as I was quite surprised when he turned around
- 56:16and said, hey, you wanna go see the parade?
- 56:17And I was like the, you sure isn't that like turncoat stuff?
- 56:20And he's like, oh no, it's because it's an experience.
- 56:23And he was right because like, you know, when are we ever going
- 56:25to get to do that again? You know, we're both here,
- 56:27living in Manchester, it's an experience.
- 56:31Let's go, let's go see it, you know, and There's been a lot of
- 56:34that lately, very much. We connect on that level of
- 56:37wanting to experience things. And so we were there and, you
- 56:40know, he took a few videos and he was a bit more, he likes to
- 56:44document things quite a lot and I do it, occasionally, but I'm
- 56:47less inclined to do so, I'm quite lazy with it.
- 56:51Especially if I know he's around because I know he'll do it.
- 56:53So I just say I've loaded, it says, send me the stuff later.
- 56:57No. But I didn't take a photo at
- 56:59all. I was just there the whole time,
- 57:02observing it. And it felt very surreal.
- 57:09There's a nice moment and as I give you every moment that's
- 57:13been some Way Pleasant or more or strike or striking if you
- 57:18like You just feel it? Yeah, the feeling maybe that's
- 57:25the more important thing is less than images and memories to
- 57:28speak with the feeling of when you're there.
- 57:30Like it's amazing. Sometimes sometimes how you can
- 57:33think about something that happened years ago and you can
- 57:34remember the smell or what it tasted like or how it felt or
- 57:40you know that's even more intriguing to me.
- 57:43It's almost like you can put yourself back in that.
- 57:46Moment. All right.
- 57:48Yeah. And and it's It could take a lot
- 57:52for us. In today's culture of go, go go,
- 57:56right? And you need to be doing more
- 57:58things, and you need to be constantly improving yourself.
- 58:02And there's so much pressure, right?
- 58:05That you almost feel guilty for taking moments, right?
- 58:10Exactly, like you were talking about just going to that pray
- 58:12and just being in it. Yep, right.
- 58:14That wasn't necessarily contributing to some goal you
- 58:18had some future set your enemy. Like it was not like you were
- 58:22going to the gym or going and handing out resumes for acting
- 58:27and things like that. Right?
- 58:28It was we need to remember and almost convinced ourselves
- 58:34because it's not in the mainstream culture at this
- 58:36point. That those things are so
- 58:38important to take those moments because they recharge us, right?
- 58:44They they I mean it almost sounds like a cliche to go this
- 58:50far but it make life worth living and fright like to have
- 58:54those moments and to be able to to take them and not feel guilty
- 58:59and not feel like it's a lack of being productive or like I often
- 59:05talk about the idea of taking a break, right?
- 59:08So often we don't really take a break.
- 59:11Like we might walk away say, from our task, but we're still
- 59:15thinking about it, right? Right.
- 59:17Well, we're not taking a break, we're just working remotely
- 59:20point. So to give ourselves permission
- 59:24right to to Really and it doesn't have to be a long, like
- 59:29the duration has nothing to do with it, right?
- 59:31A half-hour break spend thinking about something is less useful
- 59:37than a two-minute break. If you really kind of checked in
- 59:41or you kind of just something as simple as, you know, means
- 59:45smelling a flower for Christ's sake or or looking at the the
- 59:49scene around you or Focusing on the different sounds you hear,
- 59:52whatever takes you out of your head for a second and allows you
- 59:56to just be present can be so recharging and I mean if that's
- 1:00:01not productive I don't know what it is.
- 1:00:03Yeah I know I totally agree with that concept.
- 1:00:06I think one thing that always blows my mind when I see a crowd
- 1:00:12and it was there, when I was at that, Manchester City thing was
- 1:00:15just, everyone is just watching through their phone. righteous
- 1:00:20intriguing to me, you know, they're not even watching
- 1:00:23through their own eyes and It's a shame.
- 1:00:28I don't know. Because You know, I remember, I
- 1:00:32remember life before phones and I grew up with technology, but I
- 1:00:36always kind of saw it as I still see it as a useful tool, but
- 1:00:42nothing more. And that that the phone is not
- 1:00:45life. I'm not going to know.
- 1:00:46It's great to be able to interact with social media.
- 1:00:48It's a fantastic tool such as the internet to it's useful, but
- 1:00:54I don't look at that as life and it's ironic as well, because a
- 1:00:58lot of it isn't, you know, like you'd go on Instagram, you see
- 1:01:00it. Was in photos and none of them
- 1:01:03are really depicting life that depicting an idea of life.
- 1:01:08It's almost like everything is an advertisement these days
- 1:01:10everyone. But you know showing you a
- 1:01:12snapshot of their life but it's not really their life, it's a
- 1:01:16moment from their life maybe even a good moment but it's not
- 1:01:19their life. You know, they never show you
- 1:01:21the bad things and fair enough like you don't have to but a lot
- 1:01:25of the time it does kind of feel like people are trying to sell
- 1:01:28you some idea and and fool you You almost.
- 1:01:32Yeah, I remember being a university in first and second
- 1:01:36year and they showed us this really old video documentary
- 1:01:41style thing for the 1970s and this guy and it still applies
- 1:01:45today, is that of the expression, the more things
- 1:01:48change, the more, they stay the same.
- 1:01:51It was, it was talking about advertising and how advertising
- 1:01:54sells us the idea as opposed to the actual product, you know,
- 1:01:59right there selling, you know? colors not 7, you Coca-Cola,
- 1:02:02they're selling you the lifestyle, there's something you
- 1:02:06like, you know, the experience and That has kind of infiltrated
- 1:02:13into us now. Now, you know, doesn't matter if
- 1:02:18we buy products or services or not, like we're still the whole
- 1:02:22social media for it feels like a lot of the time that people even
- 1:02:25if they're not trying to become success.
- 1:02:28Like okay, I use social media because I'm trying to promote
- 1:02:32what I'm doing. You know, that's an
- 1:02:34occasionally, I use it for fun, but mostly, I'm looking for
- 1:02:37opportunities, trying to advertise myself, trying to
- 1:02:40reach people. That's what I'm Day.
- 1:02:42But there's a lot of people that I know that I'm trying to do any
- 1:02:45of those things but they're still kind of selling an idea of
- 1:02:49their life and I don't know who that's for.
- 1:02:52Is that foreign audience? Is it not?
- 1:02:53Is it for themselves? I don't know.
- 1:02:58It's weird. Like I get the whole memories
- 1:03:00thing and wanting to capture that and but you got be in the
- 1:03:03moment, you know, like like I can think of tons of shows that
- 1:03:07I went to where, yeah, we recorded a little bit there but
- 1:03:09then I put my phone away. As I said before you, no, I'm
- 1:03:13not. I'm not really invested in this
- 1:03:19idea of recording the whole thing looking for a phone
- 1:03:21because that's not experiencing it in the same way and I don't
- 1:03:26know. Sorry, I'm probably just sound
- 1:03:28like an old man at this point but it just doesn't it just
- 1:03:32doesn't make sense to me. You're like when you get it was
- 1:03:36like I was talking to my house made the other day and you know,
- 1:03:39we sometimes we like to go to the pub and just sit there and
- 1:03:42chat and you know, there's no phones out But we were funnily
- 1:03:47enough talking about this, and I've remarked that as we walk
- 1:03:50into that Pub, but we walked past a restaurant, and there
- 1:03:53were like three or four boots with couples and they were all
- 1:03:58on their phones, so they're sitting opposite each other in a
- 1:04:01romantic setting. They got the nice lighting and
- 1:04:03everything. That's a Friday Saturday night
- 1:04:05and they're just on their phones.
- 1:04:06All sigh, what's the point? But really what's the question?
- 1:04:09No, but seriously, what is the pet is the restaurant necessary.
- 1:04:13Yeah, you can just sit and stay at home.
- 1:04:15Just pull up the table and just sit your phone on the table and
- 1:04:18save yourself some money. I don't get it.
- 1:04:20I don't please someone out there saying this to me.
- 1:04:24It doesn't make any sense and it's also this this kind of fear
- 1:04:27like, oh, if I don't look at what's going on on my phone, I'm
- 1:04:30going to miss something like something big is happening over
- 1:04:33here, and I'm not part of it, and I'm going to miss absolutely
- 1:04:36everything. It's like no life is here right
- 1:04:38now in front of you. That's what's happening now.
- 1:04:41Well, I think for me the the difference that huge difference
- 1:04:49is what you said earlier about it being a tool, right?
- 1:04:52Right and like anything like any tool it's not inherently good or
- 1:04:57bad, it completely depends on the person using it and what
- 1:05:01they're using it for sure. And to me it goes back to such a
- 1:05:05pivotal question. I ask myself this all the time
- 1:05:08and I've already mentioned the key word a few times say in the
- 1:05:11conversation. The Of, is it serving me?
- 1:05:15So when you're using Instagram or social media, Checking in
- 1:05:20once in a while and asking the way I'm using this right now.
- 1:05:23Is it serving me right? Because if you're honest with
- 1:05:27the answer, a lot of times the answer is no.
- 1:05:30Like we all know that feeling of, I don't even remember a
- 1:05:34consciously opening up Instagram, where the hell did
- 1:05:36that 20 minutes ago? Right.
- 1:05:39You're just like, scrolling scrolling scrolling, right?
- 1:05:42If you were to check in five minutes into that.
- 1:05:44And go as this serving me undoubtedly, the answer would be
- 1:05:47no. Right.
- 1:05:48And at the same time, there are moments when it is serving,
- 1:05:54right? The the idea is a never throw
- 1:05:56out the champagne with the cork, right?
- 1:06:00So you use Instagram to promote yourself in those cases.
- 1:06:04It's serving you. It's serving a purpose, and if
- 1:06:07you find it, genuinely unwinding to scroll on Facebook for a few
- 1:06:12minutes, right? Just to get your mind off
- 1:06:15something that's serving you to, or if you're Thing with a
- 1:06:18friend, you haven't talked to in a while.
- 1:06:20If you're sharing a memory that you really want to share with
- 1:06:23specific people, those are that's all it's serving you.
- 1:06:26It's it's allowing you to do something you want to do.
- 1:06:31But there's always that potential that rabbit hole
- 1:06:34potential and it exists all around us.
- 1:06:38It's like they're it's like we're in a Minefield, right?
- 1:06:41And if we don't pay attention, they're going to snap off at any
- 1:06:44second and we don't even realize it.
- 1:06:48So it's building that habit. I think to ask yourself that
- 1:06:52question because the answer is so immediately obvious but we
- 1:06:55always forget to ask the question.
- 1:06:58Speaking of asking questions. Nice, nice, thanks.
- 1:07:05What's the best advice you've ever received?
- 1:07:10Yeah the it wasn't directed Vikes, it was a quote but it was
- 1:07:16a quote that meant a lot to me and it shifted a lot of things
- 1:07:20for me. It would it said that in the
- 1:07:22pursuit of knowledge every day something is added.
- 1:07:27And in the pursuit of Enlightenment, every day,
- 1:07:30something is dropped. And I heard that quote, at a
- 1:07:36time of my life that I needed to hear it like so much advice and
- 1:07:40like, so many well-meaning quotes.
- 1:07:43If it's the wrong time in your life, it's going to mean jack
- 1:07:46shit to you, right? You're going to blow right past
- 1:07:48it. You might hear the exact same
- 1:07:50quote, two years later, and changes your life.
- 1:07:52But I heard that quote, when I needed to and the reason I
- 1:07:55needed to hear, it was all through my 20s.
- 1:07:58I was a self-improvement chunky, right?
- 1:08:01I was always trying to do the things that would make me,
- 1:08:04quote, unquote, better But but that, quote me realize, the
- 1:08:08reason nothing was ever working, the reason why the frustration
- 1:08:11was always still there because I was always piling things on, I
- 1:08:15was always learning more, and trying new things, and try, new
- 1:08:19techniques, and all this stuff, but the foundation was crumbly,
- 1:08:24it was a shaky Foundation because I was resting on this
- 1:08:28Foundation of not really knowing who the hell I was.
- 1:08:30I was just running on this life script to write of other
- 1:08:35people's. Stations and opinions.
- 1:08:37And so no wonder why everything I added on didn't stick or just
- 1:08:41made me more frustrated. So when they when the quote says
- 1:08:45in the pursuit of Enlightenment every day something is dropped.
- 1:08:48That's when I really latched onto the idea of unlearning of
- 1:08:52of letting things go, right of asking questions like does this
- 1:08:57advice is this idea again? Does it serve me?
- 1:09:00It is it for me because so often the answer was no and it was me
- 1:09:05taking Something on because I felt like I needed to to oppress
- 1:09:09someone or to fit in or whatever it was and man it was extremely
- 1:09:15hard to start letting things go. But so freeing when I got in the
- 1:09:21habit of it and I got better at recognizing when something
- 1:09:24wasn't serving me and getting easier to let it go and it's
- 1:09:27just, it's completely changed. The way I look at things, a lots
- 1:09:31of this is wrong because I really relate to this,
- 1:09:34especially lately. I find myself kind of looking at
- 1:09:42every single day and trying to take the positives from it, no
- 1:09:47matter how small they are, sometimes, there's big
- 1:09:49successes, but mostly it's small little things.
- 1:09:52And I try to remind myself of those things, but it's not easy.
- 1:09:55Especially when, you know, you're not achieving your goals,
- 1:09:57you're not where you want to be cetera, right?
- 1:10:00Harkens back to what you were saying about the pressure thing.
- 1:10:03Constantly place this pressure upon yourself, but you have to
- 1:10:05take a step back and look at okay, one of my one of my proud
- 1:10:10of what I've achieved. Remember where I was a few years
- 1:10:13ago, six months ago, even now I'm in a better place.
- 1:10:19In all aspects, you know, spiritually emotionally, maybe
- 1:10:24even career-wise. But I think this idea of trimer.
- 1:10:34constantly compare yourself to what others are doing and
- 1:10:39everything else can kind of just cause you to just lose.
- 1:10:44Who you are and lose what you're about and this idea of letting
- 1:10:49things go as well. I mean it's What one thing I've
- 1:10:54learned to do which is not quite the same as letting things go
- 1:10:58but it's it's more something I've discovered.
- 1:11:03About myself recently like you spoke of you know, the struggle
- 1:11:06of understanding who you are in your 20s, right?
- 1:11:09I've just turned 29 and I can say that.
- 1:11:14I only really started to discover who I was a few years
- 1:11:17ago and I'm still learning in many response every day,
- 1:11:21there'll be something new in a mall, okay?
- 1:11:23Now I know that about myself, but something I've learned
- 1:11:27which, and this is just for me. I know, I realize everyone's
- 1:11:30lives are different but for me, My life is a bit like an ocean.
- 1:11:39I kind of live my life according to that, old Bruce Lee quote,
- 1:11:42which I've said on the podcast before, sorry for repeating
- 1:11:44myself. But, you know, be like water and
- 1:11:48adapts change yourself to it, go with the flow, you know, you
- 1:11:52there's many different ways. People say the same thing, but
- 1:11:54that's essentially what the lesson is. and I realized the,
- 1:12:01That has to be my attitude. Towards most things like I have
- 1:12:05these ideas and I'm an organized person, I do.
- 1:12:08And I always will be, but when it comes to an idea, I do what
- 1:12:13you just said. I try to let go and go.
- 1:12:16Okay, I have my plan, but let's just see what happens, you know,
- 1:12:21that all like evens, even, it doesn't even have to be work.
- 1:12:23Sometimes it could just be like going on a night out, you know,
- 1:12:26used to be that I would travel at all, we need to do this, then
- 1:12:28we do this and then this and put it at it.
- 1:12:31I tried to just kind of go, let's just go.
- 1:12:35Let's just see what happens. Yeah, and that's always
- 1:12:39infinitely better. Sometimes it's something good.
- 1:12:42Sometimes. Just all right, sometimes it's
- 1:12:45bad but at least then there's no pressure.
- 1:12:48Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And one thing I talked about a
- 1:12:52lot in the book is is the concept of whether you're hoping
- 1:12:57for something or you're worrying about something, they're really
- 1:13:01two sides of the same coin. Like we grew up thinking.
- 1:13:04Well, no hope is good. It's necessary and worries.
- 1:13:07Bad fear, you want to get rid of it, but hope and worry.
- 1:13:10They're both placing bets on the future right there.
- 1:13:14Trying to reduce the infinite, possibilities down to one or
- 1:13:19two. So like, say, say a scenario,
- 1:13:23even when there really is only two possible outcomes, like you
- 1:13:26go and interview for a job, you're going to get the job.
- 1:13:28You're not right. So you hope you're going to get
- 1:13:31the job. You were you're not.
- 1:13:33But really in reality you have no idea what that job is going
- 1:13:36to mean for you, right? It might be the best thing in
- 1:13:39the world that you didn't get the job because there might be
- 1:13:42an opportunity right around the corner that blows your mind or
- 1:13:45that the flip side, right? Might be the worst thing that
- 1:13:48ever happened to you that you do get the job, it might make you
- 1:13:51miserable like, you never know. So when we hope our worry, and
- 1:13:55when we try to plan and control, everything we're walking around
- 1:13:59with our blinders on. Right?
- 1:14:02And if we can remember, just like you said to go with the
- 1:14:05flow and kind of surrender to the idea that we have no idea
- 1:14:09what's going to happen. We take those blinders off and
- 1:14:13it's amazing. The opportunities that you see
- 1:14:17that were hiding right around the corner, right?
- 1:14:20That this magically show up all of a sudden.
- 1:14:22If you remember to go with the flow, Couldn't put it better
- 1:14:26myself. What's the biggest life lesson
- 1:14:30you've learned so far? That's a tough one.
- 1:14:35I've been so many. I think something we already
- 1:14:39touched upon that. The idea that there is a
- 1:14:45quote-unquote cultural script That if you're not careful,
- 1:14:50you're going to find yourself following without knowing it
- 1:14:53that that was certainly the truth for me again, when way
- 1:15:00early in the conversation, we talked about family business and
- 1:15:02I said, I was very lucky that my wife and I were on the same
- 1:15:05page. We essentially went on a life
- 1:15:10script burning mission after we left that the family business.
- 1:15:14Like we just started looking at everything in our life and
- 1:15:16going. Am I doing this?
- 1:15:18Because I want to or am I doing it?
- 1:15:20Because it's the thing you're supposed to do.
- 1:15:23And yeah, I mean we left those jobs, we had an income property
- 1:15:29and that was by all accounts, the smart thing to do.
- 1:15:33Right? Passive income, blah blah.
- 1:15:35We didn't like being landlords. So we sold that right?
- 1:15:39We got, we got rid of that and there were so many those, the
- 1:15:42career in the income property were big ones, but there are so
- 1:15:45many other small ones that we just got more and more used to
- 1:15:48the idea of not giving a damn about the script.
- 1:15:53Or about what we should be doing or if we're following our
- 1:15:56parents advice or cultures, advice, just doing whatever,
- 1:16:00damn, well made us happy and living with the consequences,
- 1:16:04right? If if if it turns out to be a
- 1:16:07mistake then you learn that lesson and you move on but at
- 1:16:09least you tried to do the thing. Yeah, right.
- 1:16:12You didn't let fear get in your way and go.
- 1:16:15Well no that's too risky or that doesn't make sense or people
- 1:16:18don't think it's a good idea. So again it was a muscle we had
- 1:16:22to kind of build but But in and to be honest it's still
- 1:16:25something we have to think about right there.
- 1:16:27I don't think there's any point in which that script starts
- 1:16:30stops imposing itself on you. So you got to stay kind of if
- 1:16:35you're going to do the water analogy again you kind of kind
- 1:16:37of stay on the wave sometimes and and stay ahead of it and go.
- 1:16:40Okay. Like again am I doing what what
- 1:16:42I want to be doing because it makes me happy or am I following
- 1:16:46a script bring in stuff as we draw things to a close today?
- 1:16:51Do you have any upcoming projects or Final thoughts you'd
- 1:16:54like to share with our listeners.
- 1:16:57Yeah, honestly. Well I mean you mentioned
- 1:17:02already the book that came out fairly recently right now.
- 1:17:05It's a completely free resource, it's not going to be free
- 1:17:09forever, but right now I have it up.
- 1:17:12You can download the PDF, you have links in your show notes, I
- 1:17:16can send you the link so go check that out.
- 1:17:20I've been very active on Instagram lately and sharing a
- 1:17:23lot of content there. You can find me at don't think
- 1:17:26mindfulness. Is my handle there and we just
- 1:17:30launched a Facebook group of Facebook Community which is
- 1:17:34called, don't think of it as mindfulness, the same titles as
- 1:17:37the book and yeah, creating a space there where it's really
- 1:17:42about reminding people. That I mean, you're not, you're
- 1:17:45not alone in anything you're doing and if mindfulness is
- 1:17:49something that you want to incorporate in your life, but
- 1:17:51it's been damn frustrating or you think like, you haven't
- 1:17:55gotten it or am I being mindful enough, my do.
- 1:17:57It right and they're wanting to ask those questions because
- 1:18:01again it's as simple as you let it be.
- 1:18:04And that's what I want. That Community to do is to be a
- 1:18:08space where you can come in and share your experiences and say,
- 1:18:11what's worked for you, what hasn't read other people's
- 1:18:14experiences and just help each other out because we could all
- 1:18:17benefit from from having a little bit more mindful time in
- 1:18:21our lives. It's an easy thing to do.
- 1:18:23We just need to remember to do it.
- 1:18:26Put it better myself, pretty and stuff.
- 1:18:28It's been an absolute pleasure, having you on the show and
- 1:18:32speaking with you and getting to grips with the real meaning
- 1:18:36behind mindfulness, just want to say a massive, thank you.
- 1:18:39And yeah, wish you all the best. Awesome, thanks for having me on
- 1:18:44Christian. Thank you.
- 1:18:45And to the listeners of the Christian re podcast, as always
- 1:18:49be safe. Be well, and I'll see you in the
- 1:18:52next one.