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Episode 2: No Seriously! Is this the Life You Want to Live?

We find ourselves playing games. We put on a false front of what we think people want to see and hear from us …

Rob Dale, Eric Deschamps, Trefor Munn-Venn

Hi, and welcome to the Living Richly Podcast. My name is Rob Dale, and I am here with Eric Deschamps and Trefor Munn-Venn, and we wanna welcome you and just thank you so much for joining us and being a part of this conversation around what does it mean to live our best life, the fullest version of our ourselves.

We began the conversation by, in a. Former podcast, which we do encourage you to listen to. In fact, I would encourage you to take the time to listen to that podcast. The first podcast. Stop now. Go back, stop. Now go back. Stop. Now. Hit pause. Listen to the first. We really want, do you want, we want to build on that a little bit today as we introduce the concept of what it means to live your best life.

If the notion of are you living your best life? Something that haunts you, you’re at the right place because it’s something that has haunted us and is something that caused us to really begin a journey of, of walking through that, in that initial podcast. Eric, you mentioned something that really resonated with me and I want to kind of come back to that and start with, with the conversation around that, where you talked about people showing up fully.

And deliberately. Yeah. Maybe a little bit of an idea of what, what does it mean? That’s, that’s just like such a big thought. What does it mean to show up fully and deliberately? There’s so much there, but in essence when we talk about showing up fully and deliberately, it’s getting clear on what really matters to you, what you value, what your best.

Looks like not somebody else’s version. I think a lot of folks, a lot of us end up playing like an extra in someone else’s story as opposed to crafting our own. So showing up deliberately and fully means showing up, and it means, I think, showing up. Now we’re often so stuck living in the past, right?

Worried about what’s behind us or we’re obsessing about what’s coming, that we’re missing what’s right in front of us. I think showing up fully and deliberately is the sense of paying attention to what I’m doing while I’m doing it. Being here. and now, and being my most authentic self in that moment.

I love that because when you think I’m an introvert and a lot of people don’t know that about me because I talk and yap and, you know, do all kinds of other extroverted things like the two of you do I don’t know what you’re talking about. But as an introvert, sometimes the idea of let’s say walking into a room and fully showing up, it’s like, no, no, I’m good.

We’re just hiding in the corner and just, you know, chatting with a couple of people and, no, no lime lights on me. No. You know no lights on me. All of this kind of stuff. That’s not what we’re talking about. No. When it comes to showing up fully and deliberately, No, I mean, there’s a piece here where it’s really about being present.

Mm-hmm. I, I actually, you know, as we’ve been working our way through this, I’m trying to think this through myself as well. I’m not sure we can live richly if we’re not present. Right, right. And you said like, if we’re stuck in the past or if we’re freaking out about it, the future, or if we’re trying to manage every scenario and everybody else out there, If we’re not like actually present in ourselves in this moment how are we ever gonna get access to what an experience that’s gonna feel rich or meaningful or, you know, in any way linked to what we actually care about.

If our attention, our mind, our focus is, is somewhere else, right? And that being a cast in other people’s. You know, somebody else’s show. I’m like, yep, that was me. Yeah. Probably some days are so you, you know, you said show up fully. I’m like, you know, I think I’m at, I’m showing up partially and, and that’s a huge leap forward for me.

Mm-hmm. And I’ll take that as I keep trying to make, take those steps. You know, express who I am, find more of my voice, speak more of my truth, however you wanna express that. Right? But in, in what is the here and now as opposed to, you know, being so fixated on what happened. or what I think is going to happen, which is like an infinite range of possibility, right?

Which, so of course it’s gonna consume any amount of attention I give it cuz anything is possible. And so, but all of that has taken me away from here and now mm-hmm. So that notion of truly being present, man, it, it’s so big. It’s so big. But yeah, we find moments. Right? Right. We find them, we find in that.

Peace, you know, fully is being present, right? Being in the moment, think of how many times though we may try to show up, but we show up. We don’t show up deliberately… the way that we show up is defined by the audience we’re with, depending who we’re talking to, where we find ourselves and guilty, we find ourselves playing games, right?

We put on a false front of what we think people want to see from us or what they want to hear from us living richly. Again, it’s about you deciding who you are, you choosing. Who you are, what kind of life you want as opposed to drifting, coasting, letting other people dictate your choices, your actions, living by other people’s expectations.

I mean I was talking to my girlfriend Kate, and like we were talking about how mom guilt and dad guilt is a real thing, right? Where we’re not showing up fully in the moment because of these false expectations. We don’t know where they came from. Like, you know, somebody at some. Said, you need to be this way and should behave this way.

And we live according to that, out of guilt, fear, obligation, as opposed to a clear sense of this is who I am and my choice is to show up as fully as I can in this moment and bring that person forward. Regardless of the outside influence, not an easy thing to do. It’s not mm-hmm. , and I think as you define it, the way you, it’s the understatement of the century. When you define it the way that you just did, I think that it helps so much because, you know, sometimes we hear it all the time. It’s one of the, the standing kind of statements that we, you know, for people. Oh, you want to live a full life? Be in the moment. You know, and it’s kind of like, so I’m out for that used to drive me crazy, right. I’m out for a walk and I, you know, I see a leaf on the ground and so I’m gonna pause and reflect on the leaf cuz I want to be in the moment.

Right. Just leaf it alone Rob. Leaf it alone. No, no, no. No dad jokes. No. Dad, come on. This podcast’s gonna be full of Dad jokes. Let’s be fair. Good Dad jokes and lots of Star Wars references. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. For sure. Absolutely. Run now.

But, I love that notion of being present. It’s not that. It’s something much more deliberate about… and, and so it takes knowing who you are in order to be able to, to, to be present, you’ve gotta really understand who am I? What matters to me? You know, how do I express that? Then you can be truly present wherever you are and with whoever you are.

It’s that being true and bringing forth your most authentic self and a journey. And that, that’s a journey. Figuring out what that is, who that is because again, we, we need to understand at a really deep level that we’re more than the roles that we. we’re more than the responsibilities that we carry.

We’re more than the relationships that we’re connected to and we’re more than the results that we strive for. What’s interesting is we often talk, I mean, I love the, the phrase, you know, I’ve only got so many fucks left to give kind of thing. I love that phrase. Yeah. The, the, the reason I think that phrase has become so prevalent, I’ve only got so many fucks left to give, is because we’re giving them in all the wrong places.

We’re investing our best energy. In, in what other people expect of us. And that’s a zero sum equation. We don’t get a positive return on that. We, no matter how much we try to feed other people’s expectations, it, it, it just, it doesn’t fulfill us. It doesn’t leave us feeling happy and we never quite feel like we make the grade.

What if we shifted our energy our fucks to the things that really. Your relationship with yourself right. Getting clear about that, because actually that’s the one that sets the tone for every other relationship you have. Right? And if, and if you, if you’re you, I love it. So his approach is actually, fuck you, fuck you.

Thanks, Rob. Well, now we’re clear on that, right? Yeah. But, think about it. If we, if we’re not clear about who we are, and if we haven’t gotten settled with that, then we are constantly chasing.. One author calls it chasing sunsets. It’s like, we’re, you know, you ever try to chase a sunset?

They, you’re there and then it’s gone. And then he’s not about to sing. Adele’s Chasing You. I’m not about to sing . That’s a different show. Look for links to my YouTube channel. Then the show notes. Just kidding. But right, like a sunset. It’s like, then you wake up the next day and you’re gonna repeat the process.

Yeah. You’re gonna chase something that doesn’t last, that maybe you may get close to it and almost grab it, but then it’s gone. What do you say to some? So I, I had somebody recently say to me you know, well, I’m just being my authentic self. And what they really were was just being a jerk. Right? Right.

There was their opportunity to say, well, I’m just I’m just got my voice, so I’m gonna just say what I have to say. And, oh, well, does that hurt you? Does that bother you? I, I don’t, you know. Well, what would you guys say to that? , I think they’re doing the best they can with what they’ve got at the time.

Right? And you know, if that’s what they’ve got in that moment, that’s what they’ve got. And usually a statement like that means I’m not in a place where I can deal with the discomfort yet of being something other than what is automatic or reflex. Hmm. And you know what? That’s okay. Like I, I get that.

There’s a million reasons why somebody could end up there and, and I don’t think any of us are in a situation or a position to judge why they’re there. I, if that’s where somebody is, that’s where they are, right. In, in, in so many ways. I was thinking as you’re describing that, Eric, around like. not living into other people’s expectations, living our own life, all of that.

Well, we actually, we need to develop some pictures for ourselves of what does it mean to be a dad? Right? Or, or a Trevor, right. Or a farmer or whatever. And so we borrow from other people’s views and practices and wisdom. Like we look around, I think the, the big moment, and maybe it’s, hey, Maybe it, maybe this is about when we become adults, right, is when we start to deliberately choose, how am I going to show up in this?

Say my parents gave me this, society gave me that school gave me this, the media gave me that. Like all of that stuff. And we create all these pictures of how we’re supposed to do it. Moming and Daddying and all of that stuff. Like all these pictures have come from other places, but there’s a moment where we get to choose and say all.

how am I going to do this? How? What do I choose? Right? And I think even if we say, no, I am gonna choose to do it that way too. At least we chose it deliberately. We might find out later, it’s like, Ooh, that’s actually not serving me very well. And we decide to change it, but we also have the freedom to do that.

Right. Right. The other thing that just, you know, a as you said, I was like, whoa, what did you ? What was that? I’m not doing it again. I did it once inside and once outside, we’re gonna end up most of when we listened for a long time. Wow, bro. Good. For a good way Was way Uhhuh. So Eric, it’s so Eric. Yeah. We’re not having a conversation.

When did he get here? Authentically being an asshole, . Where’s that Mike Cord? You said it was okay. . I just edit him outta the show. I’m pretty sure I said fuck you. But the it was that POIs that, that point where you said to show up authentically as yourself. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. I’m like at, at one level. That is truly the most liberating thing you can do.

Right. But it can also be the most terrifying, right? Because, right. And I’m thinking about me right now, but I, I’m just gonna go. I’m not the only one. This is the thing I keep telling myself I’m not the only one. The, this notion that if I already feel like I’m not enough, trying every move, I’ve got to get this sense of worth and feeling of self in the world and it’s not working.

And you want me to trot out, right? Maybe this other version of me that’s scared to death to come out and say, listen, here’s who I really am. That’s actually for, for me, that’s, that feels riskier, right? And yet it’s the only way through, right? It’s a, the discomfort that comes with saying, listen, I, I’ve put up this surface command.

So here’s what you see, right? And here’s, and people will create that picture going, that’s who Travis is, that’s who Eric is, that’s who Rob is. Right. But then to say, actually let, let me show you the real me. This is who I am. If they respond poorly to the fake me, I’m like, of course I did. That’s okay. It’s not really me.

Right? There’s a little buffer there. Right? Right. There’s this piece around being very raw. I’m very real about going, okay, you know what? At the end of the day, I have to not care what they think because there is a sense of being stretched. So, and having so little meaning in terms of who we are. Yeah. When we keep, when the distance between authentic self and show self, I don’t know what we call that, self gets pulled further and further apart.

Something’s gotta give. Yeah. And I, I think people feel that, I think they start to sense that feeling. May, maybe that’s what they mean when they say midlife crisis. Like it gets to a point where that stretch gets so far, something’s gotta give. And then the question is, in that moment where something gives, are you gonna make good healthy choices?

I don’t mean like eat your veggies healthy, but like good, productive, meaningful choices in your life. Yeah. Or, or unhealthy choices. Right, right. Where, where we blow up our lives and then say, okay, I gotta rebuild this thing. Yeah. And you don’t get there you don’t get there overnight. No. To your point, it is a scare.

It’s. To consider redefining who you are and starting to take more deliberate steps into that authentic self as opposed to trying to be a superstar perhaps in someone else’s story or just fading to black as an extra in your own finding who you are and then living that on purpose and making those choices.

You’re gonna have to overcome some fear. And how do you do that while you do it little by little? And one of my favorite new phrase, Slowly by slowly. Yeah. It, it’s not about, I think we, we all experience seasons in our lives, perhaps where we experience significant growth or significant change. But I think the human story, most of it is about micro evolutions, little changes, one after the other.

Little steps that we take that give us greater confidence to take the next one. Right. It’s not about jumping off the diving board. It’s not about false bravado. It’s not about, All the nonsense that our culture would tell us. I, I love the, my best definition of courage is fear walking. Right?

It’s not the absence of fear, it’s not, it, it’s being able to just say, I’m gonna take this step, come what may I’m gonna learn from it, that I’m gonna take another and then I’m gonna take another. Right. And I think, you know what, what is so important, and in all of this, when we talk about be becoming our most authentic self and being that, and bringing that forward to the world in many ways.

Putting our own signature on the universe, not somebody else’s. Right. Oh. I like that. Leaving our dent, leaving our impression. Bringing, no one else can do that. I can try to mimic Trevor’s I I wouldn’t even try to forge his signature. I, I don’t Right. Anybody could. No. It’s like it is.

Yeah. But only he can do that. Yeah. And I, I can only do mine. Yeah. Maybe we’ll put his signature in the show notes and invite people. , maybe put a challenge out there. , if you can forge, you can for signature. His signature. What the hell? . If you can forge his signature. I’ll give you his checking account number.

We’d love to work with. I’m here jotting down a note cuz I’m like, that is so profound. Putting your signature on the universe and you two jokers are like . I, I do love, I love the idea though that, again, journey is such an overused word. Mm. It’s true in this case, great band that it, yeah, it is a great band.

It it’s true in this case that it is a journey. It’s not an overnight thing. You know, I think about most children, most, you know, under the age of five, you see a bunch of kids playing at a playground or whatever. They’re, they’re, they’re, they’re just completely lost in the joy and the. Play. They haven’t, again, most of the time there’s exceptions to that, but most cases they haven’t, the, the scripts haven’t been formed.

The negative experiences aren’t there. It takes often for most of us years into our, into our, you know, younger age, into our teen years, into our, our twenties, where all of all of a sudden that authenticity disappears and it’s a journey to get to where we lose our. Right. It is a journey to get back to when we find ourselves, and I think a, some key elements to that, the key elements in the journey.

And I use the, I use the language very, very deliberately. Radical self-acceptance, radical self-care, radical self-actualization. And radical transparency within a safe community. I think those four elements are so important to the journey. This notion of when I think of my own my, my own experience of this and, and what changed for me was for most of my life not believing I deserved to have a good life.

So, so how could I? Bring forth my most authentic self. How could I even entertain this notion of living my best life when I didn’t think that I deserved it? And and I think there’s a lot of folks listening that’ll resonate with that, cuz I think it is one of the. Common elements of the human species.

Where are Well, and, and let me just jump in and if you are resonating with that, I do encourage you to take a listen to to Eric’s story. Yeah. Because we are deliberately wanting to be as vulnerable and as transparent to, to, oh, wanting is a strong word. Yeah, . We’re choosing, we’re choosing, we’re choosing whether we want to we, we want to welcome you into the journey.

And so I do, I’m sorry I’m cutting you off in that thought, but I It’s okay. I’m used. We do this all the time. . I wanted to grab that thought against you. All of of those who are listening, that there is a powerful story that you share own your own journey. And so I think that’s so important to, to be able to talk about.

Well, and it’s why the word radical is, is, is. Important to me because it, it’s such a move away from what my ex was, such a deep sense of self-loathing, that I was flawed, that I wasn’t like everybody else, that I didn’t deserve. To experience good things. And when bad things happened, it was karma. I probably earned that.

Right. I think radical self-acceptance to me is about learning to make peace with yourself. Mm-hmm. calling a truce telling your inner critic to take a walk and, and perhaps even giving them their permanent walking papers, you are no longer required. It’s about accepting who you are at a very deep level and.

To really love yourself. I, I use the language when it comes to worthiness and, and, and loving yourself well, that I’m still becoming the best version of me, but I’m as worthy as I’ll ever be. And I think that’s an expression. Of that self-acceptance only then can you move into the second one, which is radical self-care.

Again, very hard to consider taking care of yourself when you don’t care for yourself. Right, right, right. When you don’t care about who you are and, and the sequence matters, the sequence, really absolutely the sequence really, really matters here. And for me, self-care, putting myself. That was so foreign growing up in an environment where being selfless was championed as a, a noble and a huge value.

And I’ve come to realize that self selflessness is bullshit. It literally means no self. And how can you bring forward your most authentic self when you’ve completely put self out of the picture? Now, I’m not talking about becoming selfish and self-centered and only thinking about yourself, but, but think about it for a moment.

If we are. Putting ourselves first, if we’re not putting our oxygen mask on first. That little bit of wisdom that is shared during every briefing when you’re about to take off in a plane. You know, put your oxygen mask on first before trying to help others. Why? Because if you don’t, at some point you’re gonna pass out, you’re not gonna be able to be of any good to anyone.

But when we are committed to radical self-care and we are putting our. First, then we will show up better. A better version of us will show up in every role, every responsibility, every result, every relationship. So in many ways, it’s actually like the least selfish thing you can do. It is most, one of the most selfless, if I could borrow that word, even though I don’t like it, one of the most selfless things you can do is put yourself first.

Hmm. To be self more. Right, right. Yeah. Because now when I show up, I’m showing up more fully. I am showing up more deliberately. I’m not showing up like I did most of my adult life. Checked out, obsessing about the past, worried about the future, concerned about what people think, about me feeling like I’m operating on fumes right.

And with my tank almost near empty I, my kids joke with me cuz I’m, I’m the guy who always drives and see how far can I go. Once the, the needle goes. I am so the other guy. Yeah, me too. I’m like, I’m like, the needle moved. I better fill it. Better go full. But that was a sign. We drive Jeeps and we drive Jeeps.

It’s adventure and it’s done. It moves very fast. Yeah. But this notion, that’s how I live my life, right? With with the needle on empty most of the time. But, so how can I show up fully? How can I be my authentic self? What, what how can I really love others and show up meaning? in my relationships with my kids, in my relationship with my significant other when I’m not even at peace with myself.

Right. And it takes so much energy to sustain the not you, right, right. The, the not authentic version of who you are. And yet when you start being you, it, there, there’s an energy around managing your own fear of it. Right? But the moment you start being. The amount of energy you expend, is it the flow reverses, right?

It’s energizing to be you, right? Rather than depleting you moment by moment. Right? Which is why everybody ends up so exhausted all the time. People say, why am I so tired all the time? I’m like, right, I don’t know. Yeah. May, may. Maybe. Maybe your energy’s pouring into things that don’t, don’t need it anymore, and maybe the flow of energy that you’re looking for in your.

Right. They’re not, not quite ready to reach into yet. Right? Right. So, so you go from radical self-acceptance, radical self-care. Now you can move into radical self-actualization. It’s this notion of achieving your full potential, living your best life. Some are gonna pick up on this podcast and be listening to it and start hearing us talk about living your best life.

But again, if, if you’re struggling with self-acceptance, That’s where you need to begin the work. It’s going to be don’t try and skip ahead. Right? You, the sequence doesn’t work. Sequence really matters. And for me, that’s my journey. Followed this, and, and it may be different for different people, but I just don’t know how you can possibly envision living a full rich life and consider upgrading, leveling up.

And all of it, right? When, when you, when you don’t love yourself, when you truly don’t like who you are and, and, and you struggle with that, that little self-esteem or with guilt or with shame or whatever those other toxic fuels are that we often operate out of. But self-actualization then follows self-care as I.

Learned to love myself and invest in myself. Now I can begin to reach and become even more. I can, I can, I can become that best version of me and reach my full potential. Maslow had that all laid out in his hierarchy of human needs, and it was a, again, a sequence of needs that have to be met. Right, right before you become.

the truest fullest, richest expression of self. Right, right. Well, and we talked about in the, in the previous podcast where we introduced the notion of living richly, we talked about the idea of being, instead of doing. Right. And to your point, if you take these outta sequence and you try to start with the self actualization of, of that potential, you’re just gonna do a lot more stuff.

You’re leaking. It’s like you’re, it’s like . You’re, you’re gonna be reaching for stuff. Yeah. You’re gonna be trying to build, and, and I know I, I did it. I, I spent so much time trying to reach, let’s do this, let’s do that. Let’s try this. Whereas again, if you go back to following the sequence of, of loving of, of understanding.

Plug the holes in the boat. Plug the holes in the bowl. And now you become, it’s, there’s a it. I remember the first time I heard you talk about this was years and years ago now. When we, when you talked about the difference between transformation and change, right? Because what we are talking about when it comes to living your best life is not changing who you are.

It’s not changing behavior, it’s transformation. Yeah. And it’s this idea that, you know, and, and I think when you talked about it, the, the part that stuck out to me or stood out to me was this idea that when you transform, you can’t go back. Right, right, right. There’s no going back. It’s funny cuz I use a metaphor of a butterfly.

I actually hate butterflies. Yeah. The the, you might be the only person in the world. Butterflies. You’re an angry man. Can you just fly? Straight line. What kinda farmer are you? Exactly. Now? He loves bees. He loves bees. Screw the butterflies. I’m working on it. I’m working on it. But like the notion of the caterpillar, right?

Yeah. It goes into a cocoon. Withdrawals. There’s a withdrawal, there’s a stepping away from then it goes through this very messy, complicated exercise, usually outta sight of. Right within the cocoon and then starts to emerge really tentatively at the beginning. Right, right. But at no point does it ever go back to becoming a cat.

That’s true. Transformation. There’s no going back. Right. It is truly a permanent shift in self or in this case, I think very often it’s a rediscovery of self. Yeah. Right. We go in that messy process to connect with who we’re really, who we really authentically are and it, right. And this is where I kinda like, ah, God, I hate that.

I need a better metaphor. , it just irritates me. But it’s that, it’s that shift, right? It’s that shift to, to towards. And you know, you, you use the word radical there. There’ll be some people say, I don’t know if I’m ready for radical, radical, slow down. I’m like, okay. So, but I love that word. So you know, you guys know I love words.

So it’s from the Latin. You have the best words. Don’t say that.

So it comes from the Latin radicalus, which means to go back to the roots. Mm. It’s a return to roots, right? So like we’re looking at, we got the farm here in Suffolk. I know, I know, I know some stuff. What’s scary? I the exact same phrase. Oh, Mr. Smarty pads. I’m like, in fairness, my pig Latin’s better than my regular Latin.

But the that word like, so when you hear radical, it’s not about you’re gonna like flip tables, it’s about going to the roots. Wow. And to revisit it. To go to source. To go to source. About accepting yourself to recognizing, like recognizing the. That at the root of things, you need to care for you, you need to accept, you, like accept you care for you become fully you, right?

Like you can swap that word, but it is an act. It is a radical act because you are going to the roots. It’s just not how we normally use the words, which is like there’s a person’s radicalized. Unexpected, dangerous, scary, whatever. Right? Right. It’s different and it’s, and I hear that as you describe it is, but in the other sense, it, it is a major change.

Whenever you go to the root of things and say, I’m gonna revisit this. Things are about to change. Things are about to shift. And when you think about radical self-acceptance, if we go back to that one for a moment, the what rounds out that whole model or progression is radical transparency in a. Loving community.

I don’t think you can learn to love. Solo without having a safe place to land, without having folks that love you and won’t judge you, will accept you for who you are you know, good, bad, and ugly who will say it’s okay. And, and we’re here for you. And I know that’s certainly been our experience and the, the true growth.

It’s amazing how much pain happens within community. Most of, most of our greatest wounds happen because of relationships. Oh God. And yet . And yet it will be in life giving relationships that we experience our, our greatest healing as well. So committing to. Who, who’s in my life that I can share this journey with.

And listen. For many years I thought I was all alone. So, for anyone listening I wanna say this to you. If, if you’re saying authentic community friends who love me, safe place to land, I don’t have any of it. I feel all alone in this world. Perhaps that’s why you’re listening to this podcast. Maybe we can be that community for you for a time u until the universe opens other doors for you, but you’re not alone.

You’re never as alone as you think. You’re never as stuck as you think you are. And I think it’s good to, you know, even encourage. Those that are listening and, and those that are watching to continue to subscribe to the podcast because we will even talk about in future podcasts, how do you find that community, right?

What are some of the, what are the characteristics and the elements of a community that will, cuz that’s such an incredible. Fought you cannot learn to love yourself solo. Right? This idea. And there’s so much truth there. I think when, if you try to do that, you’re gonna get a false set. You then you go off.

That’s, you know, see people that go off on the deep, the deep end because they don’t ha, one of the things I appreciate so much about the relationship I have with you guys is you’re in some ways you’re those guardrails, right? That you. Me for, oh, God knows. You need guard rail. Oh my God. I like to rails.

That’s why we have Jeeps, . I always want to go offroad. It’s always one offroad, but, but there is that sense of your, your community, if it’s. The community has done well and is the right community is going to help guide you on that, on that journey, on that path. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. You know, you talked about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, right?

And we get to self-actualization. So he has an unpublished paper, like it never ended up in a journal, but authored by him where he laid in his life, where he goes, you know, self-actualization, wasn’t it? He g he said, it’s when self-actualized you and self-actualized. Start to live and work in community.

Wow. Right, because he said, how can the ultimate of the human experience. A solo individualistic, even though they’re highly evolved all on their own. Right. And it makes so much sense. You go to any wisdom tradition, faith, tradition, philosophy, or quantum mechanics, and it’ll tell you, everything in the universe is connected.

Yeah. So we think we’re going to accomplish and reveal the truest version of who we are in all. Glory on our own. No, that’s literally out of alignment with the universe. Any way you want to, you wanna tackle it, right? Right. It, it’s gonna play out where there is a piece around togetherness. You know, I think part of what we learn over time is the judgment to identify who.

Who, who, who are those people who are genuinely there to support us, to care for us, to love us. Right. And bit by bit to bring them into our lives. Right. What happens is other people start to leave as well. Yeah. We don’t always have to push them out. Some, sometimes that’s required. Right. People for the right leg of the journey.

Right, exactly. And but the point is we need others. We need others in this process. We need a community of supportive people that are on the path. Doesn’t mean they’re at the. Distance. They haven’t traveled the same way, but they’re on the path. They’re on that path of growth. I’d love to shift gears and introduce a, another concept that I think really helps us tease out this whole notion of living your richest life, living your best life.

And that’s this notion or this, the symbolism between the four elements been around from millennia. Yeah. Right. This is age old wisdom that talks about the four elements. Wind, which often represents spirit or soul fire, which represents heart water, which represents the mind and earth, which represents the body.

And as I’ve been exploring this journey a along with you guys, I came to define one of the ways I define living richly is actually having. Full access to mind, body, spirit, heart. Because in, for so much of my experience, part of those things were activated and other parts of it were dormant or neglected.

And, and it’s become a powerful model for even as, as one as I was beginning to envision what does my best life look like to be able to check in with? And say, what does my mind at its best look like? What does my heart fully alive look like? What does my spirit fully alive look like? What does my body tuned up look like?

Because I think so many and, and we’ve talked about the notion of how the physical is tied so much to the mind, how those two elements really connect together. But would love your thoughts on like your best mind. What are some things that come to mind when you think of your mind fully? Hmm. Now I want to think maybe my mind isn’t fully alive.

You know, I, I, when I hear, when I, when I hear you talk about the four elements, and I love that you, you talked about even in your own experience, how there are times when. Some cer, you know, one or two of the elements is fully engaged. The other ones are, and I think that’s probably true for, for most of us, is that we, we go through life where we set priorities around it to be based on whatever’s going on in life where we focus in.

I know that in the past, there have been times when, for me, when it came to, you know, that, that really engaging my mind, I was focused in on, on, certainly on mindset, on what I’m capable of. Did a lot of reading around the notion of mindset. The idea of changing and thinking through mindset be one of the most powerful books.

And, and we’ll link we’ll put a link to the books in, in our in our show notes as well. But it was a book by a a CrossFit coach by the name of Ben Bergeron, and he wrote a book called Chasing Excellence. That’s a good point. And he’s such a great book, and he talks about in there, he is asked the question, would you rather have.

Fleet with all the talent in the world or or a strong mindset. And he surprises people by saying, I would actually rather an athlete with talent, right? Mindset, right? Because I can train their mindset, I can work, I can help them develop a mindset talent. You’ve either, you know, to some degree you can, you can practice, you can get better at some point.

You know, he says that at the CrossFit Games, every athlete has the same talent. The ones who win are the ones with the mindset. And as a coach, that’s where he puts his focus. And I know for me, when I am. Fully engaged and fully confident in, in, in showing up as I am. It’s when I am in a strong and healthy place mentally where my mind, where I’m looking at the things that mentally fit I’m doing and being mentally fit, right?

That’s a, that’s what I’m working on. Work out that mindset has certainly for me been one of the secrets to, to getting down this road in this journey of of, of living the my best life. I think the transformation for me was a shift, certainly in my thought life. Right? I was gonna ahead as well. My thought life was negative.

My thought life was scattered. My thought life was filled with scripts and super scripts, and we’ll explore those in, in future episodes. But it, it’s, it is feeding the mind. It is about sharpening your mindset. It’s about choosing. Thoughts and your beliefs more deliberately, more carefully. It’s about facing reality with increasing maturity.

It’s about challenging the, the, the, the, the lies that we’ve come to believe about ourselves and, and to e evolve our perspective and to feed our intellect. I mean, there’s so much we can explore there. But then this, this other notion of, well, you can get your. On point. And you can be more positive and you can be more deliberate in your thought life.

But what if you’re carrying all these toxic emotions around of unforgiveness towards yourself or towards others? Like, it’s one thing to have a mind that is clear. But I, I wanted to have a heart that’s clean. I wanted to, you know, like, Learning how to, I don’t know about you guys, but I, I didn’t go to school to learn how to manage emotions and as most typical guys, you start talking about feelings and like, we basically have one.

Sorry. Did you use that plural? I, I learned and we, we joke about this, but actually all the research will show for, for men specifically. And, and obviously it’s three guys here and, and we’re gonna be bringing some female, definitely lots of female perspective to the show with some of our guests and the rest of it.

But I think men, the. Real emotion that they are present to most of the time is anger is rage, is and often that anger is pointed inside, right? A baby has three emotions. , happy, sad, angry. . Right? Like happy, sad, and mad. Like those, those are the three I’m like that they, they pro. So. Right.

The risk in what you just described is for a lot of guys, like they regress from a child, from a baby who has a broader emotional range. Right. And it’s because in so many ways, like our ability to actually spend time with emotion in it, right, is the other expression people use to say, well, you know, you have to process your.

Okay, how do I do that? Yeah, right. But there’s no, there’s no how to guide around that. Like that’s something we’ve, we’ve put a lot of energy and I, I think that’s for another day as well. Yeah. But to say like, how can we actually, can you actually name. what you’re feeling. Right? Right. So feeling is a physical experience, right?

We, we, we think it’s mental, it’s emotion. It’s up to heart. Like yeah, but it shows up in your body. It release the chemicals, change of breathing, change a state, like a whole bunch of stuff happens. That creates a feeling, which we then put a sticker on it, right? And we say we name it. But then if we can do that far, that much, it’s pretty.

Yeah. If we can actually understand what is that like functionally feelings are functional. So when people are saying, no, no, no, I just repressed a feeling, or I’m not gonna feel that, or whatever. Say, I’m gonna shut off functions of my body, right? That are here to keep us alive, help us thrive, help us do all the things that we need to do, keep us safe, help us know what to do and not to do.

You wanna shut that off, right. You wanna shut that off. Right? Right. Like it’s a terrible idea. It’s emotional numbness. Right, right. Where like parts of us aren’t alive anymore. And we of numbness is often, again, we talked about numbing pain in a first episode, and so many so many of us are emotionally numb.

We have such a, a, a, a narrow rain. And think of how can we truly experience all that life has to offer when we’re so limited emotionally, right. Having access to grief, I mean, that’s a whole other how many of us do grief very well, but this notion of our heart, our, our relationships, the way we manage ourselves and self-regulate emotionally I think is an important aspect of living racing one and.

And how they tie in together. Right? Huge. Because they’re all connected. We, we hear, we hear people say this all the time, oh, you make me angry, or that, that made me sad or whatever. Nothing can control you. You, the first mindset is I control my emotions. Right? I’m the one that I think and, and I choose the emotions that I, that I have.

And so how those two tires, that’s such a, you just threw that off like it was nothing That is such a potent, dangerous, problematic. Statement. Yeah. Right. Like I, I, I love it. Like I, I, I don’t want it to go by without people realizing how, how profound that that what you just said is because you just said like, e everyone is like, yeah, that person makes me feel this, or, I’ve got all this stuff in my life.

These are all the feelings, and here’s where they came from. You just said actually you have control your feelings all over. You can control that. You can change that. You have more power than you think you have. Right, which is both a great gift, but also pretty daunting as well. Yeah. Because right, we’re, we’re carrying around heavy stuff.

Like we’ve, we’ve all been through really difficult things. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s really easy to say, well, I don’t feel that cuz of what I did. I feel that cuz of what they did or what happened. Right? It’s like life is full of they and things that happen. You still have that power and that choice. Right? The other book is like Victor Frank.

So first off, Ben Berger on Love You man. So if you ever listen to the podcast, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You’re doing good. Stuff. Right? That’s right. Love to have you on the Victor Frankl is the other one, “Man’s Search for Meaning“, where he talks about these extraordinary circumstances in you know, in concentration camps and about how people respond, saying it does not matter how much you take from people.

We always have the capacity to choose how we’re going to respond, even if that responses is about how I’m going to feel about what’s happening. Mm-hmm. and, and, you know, and he use. An example that you cannot trump, you cannot beat, you cannot find a more complete absolute situation than what he went through and what he witnessed.

And so there’s kind of a, a truth that has been tested to the extreme in that case. But to know that we always have the capacity to choose our thoughts, right? And to choose our emotional state, right. Is we’re, we’re gonna have to talk about this. We’re gonna more later, we for sure. This is so, so big For sure.

Big. Well, we do need to, let me just, we, because we are gonna start to land this plane, but we’ve only covered two elements, right, . So let, that’s where I was going next far. I was going next. Look at the other elements we talk about upgrading our mind. I think living richly, there’s this whole notion of how do I upgrade my thinking?

How do I upgrade my mind? How do I expand my. Right. Is is the, the one we were just talking about. And then there’s this whole notion about leveling up your spirit. And, and, and listen. All right, you too. Talk about spirit. Well, guys, let’s, we won’t go too deep cause we could really go deep. But listen, spirituality means different things to different people.

It could be a faith construct. That’s where I spent most of my life. And I. In that same faith, faith construct anymore. Spirituality is a means something very, very different to me now. And we’ll explore that again in a future episode. But it could be as simple as connecting to nature. It could be as simple as you know, for some a connection to the universe is, is there’s this sense of being connected to somebody.

Come on, you’re gonna say greater than yourself. Say it being in connected. Jedi Jedi. Well, so come on. I have to say part, even as a kid, even as an adult, this, this, this notion of being connected to something greater than yourself, that there is a force or there is an energy that can’t be explained, that one can tap into and really fuel your efforts and fuel your best life.

And, and I’ve always told people I you know, I’d love to be two things. One, I’d love to be a Jedi and I’d love to be a ninja. If you could combine those two things. I would be a really happy character. Me? Don’t think so. Me. Don’t think so. . I just ruined Star Wars. Yeah. Right, right. Had this podcast. Yeah, exactly.

And, and in the interest of time, let me move to the, so there’s this notion of being connected to source or, or, or are leveling up your spirit. And then this ver this is where most of us go, usually when we talk about up upgrading our lives or making changes, tuning up our bodies. This is the notion my new mantra, my newest mantra.

My goal is to live. And live strong, right? To, to eat well, to exercise, to, to move my body, right? We talk about movement being medicine. Again, it’s a place that it’s the easy place most people go to cuz they want to feel better. They wanna look better. It, it, there’s so many benefits to that, but this notion of tuning up your body.

So when you, you look at that model as. And begin to envision again, what would upgrading my mind look like for me? What would expanding my heart look like? What would leveling up my spirit? What would tuning up my body? All of a sudden now when we talk about creating a vision for your own life and then visioning it engineering a life that follows that model.

You’re, you, you’ve got a construct there that can help you paint that picture. You know, when you think about those four, there’s probably one if, if anybody had to go through the list saying, where do I wanna start? I would say, go to the last one you want to do. And it’s probably the one you need the most

Right. But because the other thing is these are all, you’re making these really hard for our listeners. Listeners. They’re all linked. They’re all linked. Right, right. So it is, how many people do we know live in their. Right. Or are so focused on the spiritual that they ignore other parts of of their lives.

Right. And yet, like and the physical part, the physical, like everything we do is a physical expression, right? What do, what do you think you’re using to think with, right? Those are still cells and like the body system, like what the container matters, but all of these things are fused together, right? So to your point around, we’ve gotta bring those pieces together so that we can move towards wholeness, right?

Because if. We say, we’re gonna put all my chips just on this one and not on those. Like best life, you know, you’ll get some pieces of it, but you’re not going to. Get the, the whole thing. Right. Natural systems. So that’s why the elements, yeah. You need all four. What do you want to take rain out of it?

How do you think this is gonna go? Like, you know, if, if you say we’re gonna double down on fire and and ignore the rest, how do you think it’s gonna like there, there is about. This ongoing tension between them, but recognizing all of them needs, need your presence, your deliberate view about how do you express this, right?

How do you live into it? I think you’ve given some really beautiful ways to do. Again, it’s that to, to wrap up that, and then I know we’re heading into sort of closing thoughts here, but it’s having. Full access to all of the resources that mind, body, spirit, right. Heart have to offer and I think mind, body, spirit, whatever that other one is, whatever end other thing, , right?

Having full access to that. I mean, I, again, it’s this notion of there’s so much waiting to be discovered, so much waiting to be. We we are originally talked about maybe doing a 15 hour podcast , and then and then we thought that maybe it would be better if we did, for your sake, if we did 15 one hour podcast or 1645 minute podcast.

So there’s so much that we have to, to look at and to explore and to, to really each of these, each of. Each of these elements deserves a podcast all to itself, right? To be able to do that. And so we do want to just, again, these conversations are so rich and we thank you so much that all of you are part of this goal.

One more thing. Alright, one more thing. One more thing. All he’s doing is really quickly. One more, one more thing. . The time is now. Stop waiting. The time is now. Stop waiting. Most of us have been living our lives cause and effect. We’re waiting for something to come into our lives that’s gonna make us feel better, make us feel hap cause and effect.

It’s time to start causing effect. You start making those choices, taking those steps, making those decisions, that happiness, that joy, that fulfillment that you’re looking for is an inside. The time is now. Stop waiting. This boy is preaching. I was just gonna jump in and say, you know, you can wait if you want.

No, no, no. . I guess I won’t. Now we, the pressure’s on we want. I, I do want to thank all of you that are, are taking part of this journey with us taking and listening and, and what can you do? What can you start doing right now? One of the things that I would love for you to do is to. This podcast with the people that are in your community or the people that you want to be in your community, and maybe even add a comment when you share that around the four elements and which one is the one that you are making a choice to start to explore more deeply and what that might look like for you.

And so that is one of the things that you can do right away to help get started on the journey. To open and be vulnerable by sharing the podcast with others and letting them know that that you are taking this journey and inviting them along with it as well. Don’t, don’t forget though, to hit first, hit the subscribe button, right?

Both on the podcast and on our YouTube channel. Yeah, absolutely. And the, the third part is, We’re gonna keep providing resources that we find that are resonating for us or that other people are finding working really well. So we’re gonna put ’em on the website, living richly.me/act Act cuz it’s all about acting like we need to act.

As you say, we need to introduce this cause into our life, that you are that cause. Join us there. Use those tools, they’re there for you. There’ll be a host of things, but that’s all there waiting for you. Thanks again for following and for listening, and for participating in this journey with us, and we look forward to the next conversation.