Speaker 1: I'm so grateful for the wisdom that I have lived through.
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful for the knowledge that I have from
Speaker 1: the things that I've read or the podcast I listened to.
Speaker 1: But I don't think something can truly be wisdom until
Speaker 1: you've lived through it and you've applied it in your
Speaker 1: real life.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 2: think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 2: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 2: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 2: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 2: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 2: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 2: and creative effort to make a life worth living. Cast
Speaker 2: is about how other people keep themselves moving in the
Speaker 2: right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for
Speaker 2: joining us. Our guest on this episode is Rachel Hollis,
Speaker 2: a multi time New York Times bestselling author, host of
Speaker 2: the Rachel Hollis Podcast, and a well known keynote speaker Today,
Speaker 2: Rachel and Eric discuss her new book, what If You
Speaker 2: Are the Answer and twenty six other Questions that just
Speaker 2: might change your life.
Speaker 3: Hi, Rachel, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Oh thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: You have such a professional setup. I mean, the video
Speaker 3: looks great. I mean everything about it. It's just it's
Speaker 3: really good.
Speaker 1: I have nothing to do with it. Justinclaire, this is
Speaker 1: all Jack. We give all love to Jack who produced
Speaker 1: their good work.
Speaker 3: Jack, good work. He gets a shout out. We're going
Speaker 3: to be discussing your latest book, which I love the
Speaker 3: title of what If You Are the Answer and twenty
Speaker 3: six other Questions that Might Change your life. But before
Speaker 3: we do, we'll start the way we always do, which is.
Speaker 2: With the parable.
Speaker 3: And in the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with
Speaker 3: a grandchild and they say, in life, there are two
Speaker 3: wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One
Speaker 3: is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and
Speaker 3: bravery and love, and the other's a bad wolf, which
Speaker 3: represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the
Speaker 3: grandchild stops. They think about it for a second. They
Speaker 3: look up at their grandparent and they say, well, which
Speaker 3: one wins, and the grandparent says the one you feed.
Speaker 3: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 3: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 3: the work that you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember the first time I saw that. I
Speaker 1: saw it as a meme or something that came across
Speaker 1: social media years ago, and that stopped me in my
Speaker 1: tracks because it's such a good reminder that what we
Speaker 1: focus on we create more of what we focus on
Speaker 1: we give energy to. And for me, that could jope
Speaker 1: in a lot of different ways. But I hear it
Speaker 1: again with you, or if I see it again out
Speaker 1: in the world, it always will come back to my
Speaker 1: anxious thoughts versus my more focused, intentional reach for the
Speaker 1: more positive things. I can very easily swirl into an
Speaker 1: anxious mindset that will lead me nowhere good, and so
Speaker 1: I have to really be thoughtful about how I focus
Speaker 1: my thought process to not fall into old bad patterns.
Speaker 1: So what it makes me think of is wanting to
Speaker 1: feed the wolf of the good stuff and the positive
Speaker 1: stuff and the stuff that I know is going to
Speaker 1: help me versus the stuff that is going to produce
Speaker 1: circular thinking in my mind and kind of lead me
Speaker 1: back to the same place over and over.
Speaker 3: Can you share a little bit about, like what today's
Speaker 3: greatest hits of anxious thoughts are like for you? I mean,
Speaker 3: I think they change for us in some different ways
Speaker 3: depending on where we are at a particular time in life.
Speaker 3: I'm just kind of curious what circulating lately. Well.
Speaker 1: To be honest, if I really boil it down, the
Speaker 1: anxious thoughts are old news. It's always about the past.
Speaker 1: It's never about what is happening in my presence, definitely
Speaker 1: nothing associated with my future. It's a fear that perhaps
Speaker 1: bad things that have happened before are going to happen again.
Speaker 1: Having been through quite a lot of trauma in my life,
Speaker 1: I will tend to gravitate back to Yeah, it feels
Speaker 1: really good right now, but what happens if it all
Speaker 1: goes wrong? Yeah? You know, well, what are you going
Speaker 1: to do if this happens? What are you going to
Speaker 1: do if that happens? And I honestly think that this
Speaker 1: is gonna sound so terrible but also as real, and
Speaker 1: I feel like maybe listeners will be like, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: me too. I would have one tenth of the anxious
Speaker 1: thoughts that I have if I didn't have children, if
Speaker 1: I didn't have worry or concern for the kids, or
Speaker 1: am I doing a good job as a parent for them?
Speaker 1: Am I leading them in the right way? Are they
Speaker 1: going to be hurt? I mean, just every time they
Speaker 1: get a little bit older, there's something else, and it
Speaker 1: can be really easy for me to just add that
Speaker 1: to the pile of worry. And it serves nothing, serves nobody,
Speaker 1: It does not help them. It certainly doesn't help me
Speaker 1: as a parent. But that is where my brain tends
Speaker 1: to go back to. The anxiety is around the stuff
Speaker 1: that I care about most and wanting to protect or
Speaker 1: take care of those things that I love the most,
Speaker 1: and feeling like it might all go awry, it might
Speaker 1: all be taken away. And that's the response from PTSD.
Speaker 1: And I've done a lot of therapy about it, but
Speaker 1: that really is what it always throws back to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a phrase. I don't know if I'll quite
Speaker 3: get it right, but it's basically that our vulnerabilities show
Speaker 3: us about our values. Right, The things that really matter
Speaker 3: to us are the things that we often feel most
Speaker 3: vulnerable around, and obviously, you know, children are that thing.
Speaker 3: And it's good that they're that important, and as you said,
Speaker 3: that the anxiety doesn't really help us be a better parent.
Speaker 3: So you know, what's your process of Okay, anxiety has arisen,
Speaker 3: I'm in anxiety. What's your process of working with it? Today?
Speaker 1: I absolutely have to interrupt the pattern. It took me
Speaker 1: a really long time to learn this because I love
Speaker 1: getting deep. I get real deep in my feelings. I
Speaker 1: love just like, oh, let's just marinate in this. And
Speaker 1: I think that I believe for a very long time
Speaker 1: that if I could just keep going deeper and deeper
Speaker 1: and peeling more of the layers away, that I would
Speaker 1: get to the root cause and then it would never
Speaker 1: bother me again. And I feel like this is a trap,
Speaker 1: and it's a trap I've only really understood in the
Speaker 1: last few years that I have to interrupt my thought
Speaker 1: pattern because my thought pattern it becomes repetitive. And I
Speaker 1: I didn't know that that's what I was doing, this
Speaker 1: sort of obsessive thinking of just circling back around to
Speaker 1: the same idea over and over, and the more that
Speaker 1: I would try and unpack that, the more I'm circling back.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think at this point I've tried every which
Speaker 1: way you can think of, and what works best for
Speaker 1: me is like we're obsessing over something we cannot affect.
Speaker 1: I mean that's the first thing to notice. Can I
Speaker 1: actually affect this thing that I'm thinking of right now?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: I cannot. Then we to do something right now in
Speaker 1: this moment to change my thought pattern, which usually for
Speaker 1: me looks like moving my body, like go on a walk,
Speaker 1: see the dogs in the neighborhood. I can put on
Speaker 1: some music, i can dance around, I can go talk
Speaker 1: to someone. I got a house full of kids, I
Speaker 1: have an incredible partner. I can reach out and just
Speaker 1: have a conversation about literally anything the groceries that you
Speaker 1: need to grab, or something funny I saw on the internet,
Speaker 1: but just anything to change the thought pattern. It really
Speaker 1: does dissipate that quickly. For me, it's by continuing to
Speaker 1: think about it is when I kind of feel trapped
Speaker 1: by it and I can't get out, breaking that pattern
Speaker 1: is really helpful.
Speaker 3: I love what you said there, and I've thought a
Speaker 3: lot about this, and I've even had conversations recently with
Speaker 3: people about this. Because there are different schools of thought
Speaker 3: on how to approach this sort of thing right, and
Speaker 3: one of them is it's sort of a depth psychology
Speaker 3: type approach. When those are happening, it's information, it's telling
Speaker 3: us something and we should figure out what it is.
Speaker 3: And I agree with that some of the time, but
Speaker 3: I also agree with you a lot of the time
Speaker 3: that to me, they feel like just habitual patterns that
Speaker 3: run and I don't know why they run. Well, actually,
Speaker 3: I do know why they started running, right, I have
Speaker 3: a pretty good idea of why they started running, But
Speaker 3: I don't exactly believe them when I think about them.
Speaker 3: But they go and if I'm not careful, I just
Speaker 3: go along with them, And like you said, I'm not
Speaker 3: certain that going deeper into them provides any value at
Speaker 3: this point. You know, there's a big movement also around
Speaker 3: like feeling your feelings, and I get it, like we
Speaker 3: don't want to avoid how we feel, but it's a
Speaker 3: slippery slope between avoiding what you feel and allowing yourself
Speaker 3: to remain mired in thought patterns that, like you said,
Speaker 3: aren't going to go anywhere.
Speaker 1: Yes, And I think for me, it's about are these
Speaker 1: new feelings, Are these feelings that are happening because of
Speaker 1: something that has occurred in my real life? Because I
Speaker 1: would say ninety nine percent of the time my anxious
Speaker 1: thoughts are about old stuff. It's like, remember that time
Speaker 1: in third grade you said that thing that was really embarrassing, Like, okay,
Speaker 1: well what did you say in high school that was embarrassing?
Speaker 1: And have you ever said something as an adult that
Speaker 1: was embarrassed? Like it? Really? I guess it's a balance.
Speaker 1: And the only way you can know is this a
Speaker 1: feeling I need to feel, is this a thought I
Speaker 1: need to be thinking, or is this just a habit
Speaker 1: that I'm inside of. Is to know yourself and to
Speaker 1: know what's going to be most helpful for you. And
Speaker 1: there are times where Okay, this situation's hurting me, and
Speaker 1: I really just want to have a good cry and
Speaker 1: I want to have a good wallow in the way
Speaker 1: that I'm feeling, and I'll wake up tomorrow and it'll
Speaker 1: be better because I've allowed myself to process that. And
Speaker 1: then other times, especially when it's something I've thought over
Speaker 1: and over and over again, as soon as it shows up,
Speaker 1: I'm just like, no, we do not have time for that.
Speaker 1: That is not helpful. And by being that like quick
Speaker 1: with it, I really can redirect and move on with
Speaker 1: my life as opposed to an older way of thinking
Speaker 1: for me, which was like, oh gosh, you know, no,
Speaker 1: I really need to sit in this and it just
Speaker 1: wasn't helping me to get better.
Speaker 3: Yeah, your book is all about questions, and I'm a
Speaker 3: big fan of questions, and a question that I use
Speaker 3: in that situation really is is this useful? Is this
Speaker 3: thought useful? Because it may be telling me something that
Speaker 3: I need to do. You know, there is something that
Speaker 3: needs to be done, there's a situation that needs to
Speaker 3: be remedied, there's something going on that I am like, Oh,
Speaker 3: I didn't realize that was important. You know, is it
Speaker 3: useful or to your point, is it useful in like
Speaker 3: processing some sort of emotion. But a lot of time,
Speaker 3: the answer is like no, there's no new information coming out,
Speaker 3: there's no new strategies, there's no there's just nothing. And
Speaker 3: in that point, I'm like, if it's not useful, okay,
Speaker 3: let's move on. And like you said, I love this idea.
Speaker 3: I sometimes just have to set a fairly hard boundary like.
Speaker 1: No, correct right, Yeah, that was doing this? Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I don't think I knew I was allowed to tell
Speaker 1: my brain that when I was younger, I love all
Speaker 1: of these conversations now around like you don't have to
Speaker 1: believe the thoughts that you think, yes, because growing up
Speaker 1: I thought, well, if it shows up in my head,
Speaker 1: it must be true. And now I realize no, our gosh,
Speaker 1: our mind is so bombarded with so much information taken
Speaker 1: in from so many different sources. You have beliefs that
Speaker 1: were put into you as a kid that maybe you
Speaker 1: weren't even aware. We're being programmed into your subconscious So
Speaker 1: if you don't understand that and kind of take the
Speaker 1: guidance of it a bit and take control of where
Speaker 1: you're focusing, you will unintentionally allow a bunch of stuff
Speaker 1: into your mind that I don't think is super helpful
Speaker 1: for you. And like I said, I've tried all kinds
Speaker 1: of ways, and this is the one that I feel
Speaker 1: like is most helpful, which is this a very loving way.
Speaker 1: I don't get mad at myself. I don't judge myself
Speaker 1: for feeling anxious, but I just am like, no, it's
Speaker 1: literally like course correcting a puppy. Sometimes I think my
Speaker 1: mind is a bit like a puppy, where I'm like, Nope,
Speaker 1: we're not going to do that. We're going to look
Speaker 1: over here, and we're going to move forward because that's
Speaker 1: what's best for everybody.
Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3: So let's turn towards the book and questions. I love
Speaker 3: the idea of a book about questions, and I'm working
Speaker 3: on a book and part of the core ideas about
Speaker 3: creating wise habits. And I was thinking recently, like, well,
Speaker 3: what's the ultimate wise habit, like, if you had one,
Speaker 3: what would it be? And where I landed was it
Speaker 3: would be to remember to ask the right question at.
Speaker 2: The right time.
Speaker 3: And I love that this is what your whole book
Speaker 3: is oriented around. And so I thought maybe what we
Speaker 3: could do is just explore some of the questions that
Speaker 3: you offer and just kind of see where that takes us.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Early on you say, I'm no longer looking for answers,
Speaker 3: I'm looking for wisdom. What is wisdom to you? What
Speaker 3: does that mean to you?
Speaker 1: Wisdom to me involves a lived experience, So you know,
Speaker 1: I love information. I have been reading nonfiction books like
Speaker 1: my life depended on it for fifteen years. I'm so
Speaker 1: grateful for the wisdom that I have lived through. I'm
Speaker 1: so grateful for the knowledge that I have from the
Speaker 1: things that I've read or the podcast I've listened to.
Speaker 1: But I don't think something can truly be wisdom until
Speaker 1: you've lived through it and you've applied it in your
Speaker 1: real life. I heard this quote, and I don't know
Speaker 1: who said it, but I love it that any experience
Speaker 1: you can live through and remember without negative emotion is
Speaker 1: now wisdom that you possess.
Speaker 3: Fascinating, isn't that interesting?
Speaker 1: It's as someone who can oftentimes be made anxious by
Speaker 1: past memories that felt really powerful for me. Can I
Speaker 1: live through something? Can I take the best parts and
Speaker 1: pieces with me? Can I navigate that experience without feeling
Speaker 1: triggered by it, without going to a certain kind of place.
Speaker 1: Can it just be this knowledge that I possess that
Speaker 1: I get to hold in my toolbox now, so you know,
Speaker 1: I could have all kinds of knowledge that I acquire
Speaker 1: and did as a woman. It was pregnant for the
Speaker 1: very first time and excited about having my first son,
Speaker 1: and that is very different than the wisdom I now possess.
Speaker 1: He's about to turn eighteen next month, so I have
Speaker 1: a lot of lived experience with Jackson that helps me
Speaker 1: to make better decisions about his siblings. But then I'm
Speaker 1: also living through a whole different experience with each one
Speaker 1: of them. So for me, it's actually applying the knowledge
Speaker 1: that you've gained and knowing what works and what doesn't.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a really important distinction to make,
Speaker 1: particularly for my audience, and I'm guessing maybe similarly for yours,
Speaker 1: is that she often is looking for what's the next thing,
Speaker 1: what's the next book, what's the next conference, what's the
Speaker 1: next course, What's she wants the next thing, the next thing,
Speaker 1: And you don't need one more piece of information. You
Speaker 1: need to apply what you already know works for you.
Speaker 1: I think that we constantly look for more info because
Speaker 1: we're hoping there's an easier path.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's we want a hack.
Speaker 1: Yes, and there's not a hack. There's just like the
Speaker 1: stuff you know you should be doing and are not doing.
Speaker 1: That's the stuff that you need to focus on. So
Speaker 1: for me, wisdom is about experience.
Speaker 3: I love that, and I couldn't agree more. I think
Speaker 3: that the going to the seminar, the listening to the
Speaker 3: next podcast, the reading the next book, it serves a
Speaker 3: useful purpose in reminding us of things that we know,
Speaker 3: because we need to be reminded yes, and like you're saying,
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, we keep thinking there's an easier answer
Speaker 3: than the answer that is presented to us, which is
Speaker 3: that life is challenging, it's hard, you're going to do
Speaker 3: your best to get through it. And if you're going
Speaker 3: to make a change, it's probably going to happen as
Speaker 3: a result of a lot of small actions taken again
Speaker 3: and again and again and again. Yes, And when you're
Speaker 3: at the beginning of that process, we often doubt that
Speaker 3: it actually works because you do a couple of those
Speaker 3: small actions and not much changes, right, and so you go,
Speaker 3: that's not going to work, so you don't do it right.
Speaker 3: Whereas if we kept doing it so many of these
Speaker 3: things they accumulate so slowly. There's a certain amount of
Speaker 3: I think, buying into that method and that understanding of
Speaker 3: how change works that allows us to perhaps then recognize
Speaker 3: we do know everything we need to know. Like you said,
Speaker 3: how do we apply it?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think probably after the first fifteen podcasts I did,
Speaker 3: and I've done I don't know how many, seven hundred,
Speaker 3: I mean, so many of them at this point, probably
Speaker 3: after the first fifteen, if there was some soul who
Speaker 3: was capable of applying all the knowledge and wisdom in
Speaker 3: those first fifteen would be light years ahead of somebody
Speaker 3: who had listened to all seven hundred of them and
Speaker 3: only partially applied little bits of it. Right, It's more
Speaker 3: fun and easier to listen to read. And I'm not
Speaker 3: putting that down. I still do it. I love doing
Speaker 3: it said, and how do we live it? And I
Speaker 3: love that that's your definition for wisdom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a great expression, which might be John Maxwell.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure who originated it, but you know the
Speaker 1: old expression is knowledge is power, and he says, no,
Speaker 1: knowledge is not power applied. Knowledge is power. Yes, if
Speaker 1: you have all the knowledge in the world but you
Speaker 1: don't actually take any action against it, you're going to
Speaker 1: be in the same spot that you are next year.
Speaker 1: And you hit the nail on the head because it
Speaker 1: is fun. It's so fun to want to start your
Speaker 1: first podcast, or begin a business, or make a change
Speaker 1: in your life and go get together with like minded people,
Speaker 1: go have coffee with your friends, go talk about the thing,
Speaker 1: and if you're not careful, six months go by, nine
Speaker 1: months go by, six years go by, and you're still
Speaker 1: talking about the thing you want to do. Because it
Speaker 1: feels like you're making traction, and it feels like you're
Speaker 1: making change in life because you're talking about it. Because
Speaker 1: talking about its way funner and way easier than actually
Speaker 1: doing the things you need to do. So, like you said,
Speaker 1: you're writing your book right now. You know, we could
Speaker 1: talk about it all day. I could share ideas and
Speaker 1: advice and it would be exciting. And at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, if you want to publish book, you
Speaker 1: have to sit down and stack a bunch of words
Speaker 1: on top of each other, which is a slog and
Speaker 1: it's hard and nobody. I've done this so many times.
Speaker 1: It never gets easier. Yeah, it would be way funner
Speaker 1: to go talk about writing a book than actually writing
Speaker 1: a book. Though, if you don't do the hard stuff,
Speaker 1: you don't get to experience the joy of getting to
Speaker 1: the other side of your dream.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, So let's go to a question that I really like,
Speaker 3: which is what big thing is actually little? Tell me
Speaker 3: about that question? What's important about that to you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean this question came about because I kept
Speaker 1: seeing so many people in my community, the friends of mine,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to make sweeping generalizations that this I'm
Speaker 1: sure happens to dudes as well, But a lot of
Speaker 1: women just make a really big deal about something that,
Speaker 1: as my teenagers would say, like it's it's not that deep.
Speaker 1: Momb like, it's not that deep. So I was on
Speaker 1: a podcast tour like a year and a half ago,
Speaker 1: and I played this game with the audience where I
Speaker 1: would say, let's play a game of never have I ever?
Speaker 1: Are you familiar with never have I ever? Sort of,
Speaker 1: but it's like a camp game, but you would start
Speaker 1: with ten fingers and you see who you can get
Speaker 1: out first. But you would say like, never have I
Speaker 1: ever climbed a mountain? And then if you have done
Speaker 1: that thing, you put a finger down. So I played
Speaker 1: this game with the audience. But the intention is that
Speaker 1: I am naming things that people really want to do
Speaker 1: but don't do because they're afraid to or don't do
Speaker 1: because they think, quote, I'm not that kind of person.
Speaker 1: So it would be things like never have I ever
Speaker 1: gotten a tattoo, Never have I ever walked up to
Speaker 1: a stranger at the bar and introduced myself, Never have
Speaker 1: I ever applied for a job I was mostly qualified
Speaker 1: for but not fully qualified for. So it's just all
Speaker 1: these things that people especially women, think of as something
Speaker 1: for someone else. That's for a different kind of person.
Speaker 1: That's for my big sister, that's for the cool girls
Speaker 1: in middle school, that's for someone other than me. And
Speaker 1: I was so flabbergasted by how many people were not
Speaker 1: doing things that in my mind were so simple. So
Speaker 1: like in most audiences, two thirds of the room has
Speaker 1: always wanted to get a tattoo, but doesn't get a
Speaker 1: tattoo because they're like, well, I could never I'm not
Speaker 1: that kind of person. I'm like, y'all could literally leave
Speaker 1: this room and change that tonight within an hour. You
Speaker 1: could go get tattoo. I'm not saying you should, but
Speaker 1: you could go get a tattoo, and for the rest
Speaker 1: of your life you see yourself as a completely different
Speaker 1: kind of person. And I think that those kind of moments,
Speaker 1: like those before and after moments, where all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you are someone else based on a decision that.
Speaker 4: You made, is really powerful, especially for people who there's
Speaker 4: a lot of care that they give to others, with
Speaker 4: a lot of taking care of other people, and you
Speaker 4: begin to identify yourself through the lens of others.
Speaker 1: It's really powerful to do something. I mean it's so ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Cut bang, shave your head, get a tattoo, like just
Speaker 1: go on vacation by yourself. Go just It sounds so simple,
Speaker 1: but I was shocked at Albny. Women were really sort
Speaker 1: of frozen in fear over doing these things that were
Speaker 1: pretty little. And if you're frozen in fear over doing
Speaker 1: something that little, you're never gonna make a move against
Speaker 1: something that can actually change your life in a big way.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to have a conversation about what are
Speaker 1: the little things that you're not doing because you're making
Speaker 1: a mountain out of a molehill, and if you can
Speaker 1: start to take on some of those littler things. The
Speaker 1: example I give in the book is going to a
Speaker 1: concert by yourself. I love music. I'm a massive fan,
Speaker 1: and I love concerts, and I'm really blessed in that
Speaker 1: my fiance also loves music, so he's super happy to
Speaker 1: go see shows with me. But I wished earlier on
Speaker 1: in my life I would have just gone to see
Speaker 1: my favorite bands by myself instead of begging people to
Speaker 1: come along so I didn't have to go alone and
Speaker 1: then sitting next to someone who doesn't care about this artist,
Speaker 1: and then my experience is ruined because I'm trying to
Speaker 1: you know, I just wish I had figured that out sooner.
Speaker 1: So that's what it means to me.
Speaker 3: Some of the music that means the most to me,
Speaker 3: I almost prefer to be by myself, even if I
Speaker 3: know somebody who likes that music.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't want my experience diluted at all, Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 3: Or maybe it's fear of showing that much emotion, although
Speaker 3: I mean I cry all the time, so I don't
Speaker 3: really think that it's that. But I understand what you're saying.
Speaker 3: There's something that you know, I don't want to dilute
Speaker 3: the power of that moment with any sort of distraction. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think that also. You know, when I read that question,
Speaker 3: it made me also think about, like, what things in
Speaker 3: life are we making a big deal out of as
Speaker 3: real problems that maybe aren't you know. I love that
Speaker 3: idea of making mountains out of molehills, right, And the
Speaker 3: way you do that is you just get really myopic.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: If you crawl up do a little thing on the
Speaker 3: ground and you put it two inches away from your eyes,
Speaker 3: it looks really big, absolutely, And I think that's a
Speaker 3: question like that, and it's inverse that you use, which
Speaker 3: is what big thing am I thinking is little? But yeah,
Speaker 3: those are just quick ways of changing perspective, and ultimately
Speaker 3: that's what we want from a question, right, we want
Speaker 3: it to cause us to look differently at something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think again, it's sort of circling back to
Speaker 1: what we talked about at the beginning, of what we
Speaker 1: focus on. And even as you were talking, I was
Speaker 1: thinking about moments in my day where I will be
Speaker 1: distracted by something and I will turn that into this
Speaker 1: big thing and it's really not worth my time or
Speaker 1: energy to start obsessing. It's so easy for me to
Speaker 1: do that because, especially in a season like this one,
Speaker 1: where so much is going on and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: accomplish a lot in a given day, I can get
Speaker 1: really sort of obsessively focused on something. I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, here's a perfect example. I have a really
Speaker 1: full day, I'm doing this conversation with you, and then
Speaker 1: I have a bunch of personal projects that I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get done. All of these things going against launching
Speaker 1: a book, which is just a lot of work and
Speaker 1: a lot of energy. If I want to do it well,
Speaker 1: and I do really want to do a good job
Speaker 1: for my readers in my community. And I got a
Speaker 1: request from my publisher. They had an idea for something
Speaker 1: they wanted to do, and can you also write this
Speaker 1: piece for us and then we're going to push it out.
Speaker 1: And I just immediately like I got so anxious because
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't wait, I don't have time, and
Speaker 1: I'm already so overwhelm and can I write something? I'd
Speaker 1: know I don't I've time to write anything. And I
Speaker 1: really was sort of spinning before I got on this
Speaker 1: conversation with you, and an older version of me would
Speaker 1: just completely go off the rails with that. I would
Speaker 1: give incredible meaning to I have too much and I
Speaker 1: don't have enough time, and I'm not supported, and like
Speaker 1: just all these stories I might tell myself, and then
Speaker 1: it just popped in like, oh no, you just tell
Speaker 1: me don't time. It's that easy, Like this is actually
Speaker 1: you need to not make this such a big deal.
Speaker 1: You're allowed to just say no, thank you and move
Speaker 1: on with your life. That truly would have taken me
Speaker 1: a whole day, if not hours, in the past, and
Speaker 1: it ended up taking eleven minutes took me eleven minutes
Speaker 1: to figure out that I was allowed to say no
Speaker 1: and to move on, and it really just wasn't that
Speaker 1: big of a deal. I love the reminder that the
Speaker 1: meaning that we give to things is a big determining
Speaker 1: factor in how we're able to navigate life. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: if you're giving this big meaning to something that's actually
Speaker 1: quite small, it's going to make everything seem way more
Speaker 1: serious than it actually is.
Speaker 3: Yep. Yeah, That's another favorite question of mine, which is like,
Speaker 3: what am I making this mean? And what else might
Speaker 3: it mean? We are creating meaning all the time. You
Speaker 3: can't not do it. The brain simply will do it
Speaker 3: no matter what. But recognizing that there is a construction
Speaker 3: process going on in there and that just that which
Speaker 3: we just generally don't do, right, we think that the
Speaker 3: meaning is what we think it means. You believe it
Speaker 3: so thoroughly. Y I watched this with my partner, Ginny's
Speaker 3: mother when she had Alzheimer's, and I watched her like
Speaker 3: arrive at conclusions that were preposterous that she believed absolutely.
Speaker 3: When someone's brain is not working that well, you sort
Speaker 3: of get to see the process that we all go through.
Speaker 3: It's just so exaggerated that you can see the little
Speaker 3: bits of it a little bit better. And I could
Speaker 3: see that in her. It would just the brain wouldn't
Speaker 3: be like, well, I don't know, it doesn't do that.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, it just fills in a meaning and
Speaker 3: then you buy it one hundred Yes, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: And I think an expression I heard someone say this
Speaker 1: years ago. I don't remember who, but they said, the
Speaker 1: very first thought your brain has is what you're programming
Speaker 1: tells you is true, And the second thought your brain
Speaker 1: has is who you actually are. And the example that
Speaker 1: I always think of this is seeing another woman walking
Speaker 1: down the street and she could be in maybe her
Speaker 1: outfit's really sexy, or maybe her outfit's like crazy, or
Speaker 1: maybe it doesn't even matter what it is. But before
Speaker 1: I can think anything else, my brain will supply a judgment,
Speaker 1: a judgment of her outfit, a judgment of who she is,
Speaker 1: a judgment, and then immediately I'm like, oh, gross, no, man, like,
Speaker 1: we are not that person, Like we don't judge, and
Speaker 1: who cares what she's wearing? And maybe she feels fabulous
Speaker 1: and like that color looks great on her. And the
Speaker 1: second thought I have I think is who I really am,
Speaker 1: and that first thought is just the subconscious programming that
Speaker 1: tells me that I should judge another woman because that
Speaker 1: is something I saw modeled a lot growing up.
Speaker 2: Yeap.
Speaker 1: So I think it's okay what your brain supplies as
Speaker 1: meaning if you can catch it, if you.
Speaker 3: Can notice the thought precisely because you can't stop it. Yes,
Speaker 3: I don't think meditation is for everyone by any stretch
Speaker 3: of the imagination. I think everybody should try it, though,
Speaker 3: and the reason is because you will realize very quickly
Speaker 3: like you are not the author of the thoughts that
Speaker 3: are coming up. They just come up whether you want
Speaker 3: them to or not, and you're not really even controlling
Speaker 3: what they are. It's happening on its own.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I think that's really good for us to be
Speaker 3: able to do what you say, which is let the
Speaker 3: first thought come recognize its condition. I'm not bad because
Speaker 3: I have it, it's just what the brain does. But
Speaker 3: is that who I want to be? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I think again, going back to this idea of
Speaker 1: training our thoughts to catch it and redirect it in
Speaker 1: the same way that I would do with my children.
Speaker 1: I watch my kids say something or see something or
Speaker 1: focus on something, and I know that the thing that
Speaker 1: they're thinking is like, maybe it's my daughter and she
Speaker 1: says something rude to her brother, and then they're you know,
Speaker 1: I want to redirect or I want to give her
Speaker 1: information about how that might feel to the person who's
Speaker 1: receiving it, even if he is your big brother, and
Speaker 1: even if he did bug you. And you know, it
Speaker 1: shows up a lot with my kids of trying to
Speaker 1: make their siblings human in their mind, because in their
Speaker 1: mind like, oh, that's my brother and he's the worst,
Speaker 1: but to oh, how would that feel if someone said
Speaker 1: that to you? And how you know, would that hurt
Speaker 1: your heart? And you know, just I think it's the
Speaker 1: same thing that we need to do with ourselves. Parents especially,
Speaker 1: I think are really we're so much more compassionate to
Speaker 1: our children. We're so much more graceful with our children
Speaker 1: than we would ever be with our internal monologue. So
Speaker 1: if you can begin to think through that lens of like, oh, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: we did think that, but here's what we actually want
Speaker 1: to think. Or I think a really good example of
Speaker 1: this is if you catch yourself, let's say you see
Speaker 1: someone who's in your industry, whatever that is, whether it's
Speaker 1: another mama like you say, oh mama, or it's someone
Speaker 1: who does what you do. You see them and you
Speaker 1: judge what they're doing, or you think something unkind about them,
Speaker 1: And if you're really honest with yourself, that judgment or
Speaker 1: that criticism is coming from a place of jealousy, like
Speaker 1: when you see that kind of oh, that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: And it's really hard to admit because none of us
Speaker 1: want to admit that we're that person. But if you
Speaker 1: can notice that and actually I have taught myself to
Speaker 1: do this and it's so annoying, but it really does work.
Speaker 1: Is to stop the unkind thought or to stop the
Speaker 1: judgmental thought and force myself to say a prayer for
Speaker 1: more success for that person. Man, she is an example
Speaker 1: that success is possible, and look at what she's getting
Speaker 1: to do and like, wouldn't that be so amazing? Number one,
Speaker 1: to pray for more success for the person that you
Speaker 1: are judging, for the person that you're if you're being honest,
Speaker 1: a bit jealous of. And number two, to see that
Speaker 1: jealousy as a clue for things that you wish you had.
Speaker 1: So so often I think like the internet is filled
Speaker 1: with people who are actually jealous of the people they're judging,
Speaker 1: but they don't realize that's what it is. I think
Speaker 1: that that signal it's manifesting maybe in unkind ways, you know,
Speaker 1: trolls tearing apart people in the comment section. But I
Speaker 1: think what's really there, don't I don't think it's like
Speaker 1: an evil person who's like waving their pitchfork. I think
Speaker 1: it's someone who like has some untapped potential, some untapped desires,
Speaker 1: and they're not even in touch with themselves enough to
Speaker 1: know that that jealousy is a signal like, well maybe
Speaker 1: I could write a book. Well maybe I could learn
Speaker 1: to play guitar. Maybe I can try and do that thing.
Speaker 1: So just understand that the jealousy, again, if you can
Speaker 1: look at your own foibles without judgment, is a really
Speaker 1: good indicator of maybe something that you want to make
Speaker 1: change on in your life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, You've got a question later in the book around
Speaker 3: the same idea, which is why do you believe what
Speaker 3: you believe? And I think, you know, kind of going
Speaker 3: back to the jealousy thing and other things. You know,
Speaker 3: I think it's good to always question your thoughts. You know,
Speaker 3: why do I think this way? Why do I feel
Speaker 3: this way? And we've talked about like not believing your
Speaker 3: first thought. I think there's a corollary of that to me,
Speaker 3: which is the more strongly I feel it, the more
Speaker 3: suspicious I know I am of it.
Speaker 1: Oh that's good.
Speaker 3: Right, Like the more it's just because it feels even
Speaker 3: more certain. Yeah, and I go, wait, hang on a second,
Speaker 3: Like sometimes it's it's spot on, but sometimes that's a
Speaker 3: real sign to me that like I'm going off the
Speaker 3: rails on something because it's that emotionally weighted.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's such a good one too, because the emotional
Speaker 1: piece is when I feel something that strongly, it is
Speaker 1: my emotion. It is not like my smart brain talking.
Speaker 1: It is not the rational part of me. It is
Speaker 1: usually my most emotional self. And she never makes good decisions.
Speaker 1: She really does not. She makes decisions out of fear.
Speaker 1: She makes decisions and anger. She does a lot of
Speaker 1: things that end up hurting me and that I then
Speaker 1: need to clean up later. So a great thing I've
Speaker 1: learned over the last ten years especially, and I think
Speaker 1: this just comes with getting older, is to sit, to
Speaker 1: sit and not make a move, to not do anything,
Speaker 1: to wait and see if this very strong and intense
Speaker 1: feeling I am having dissipates because then it's not sort
Speaker 1: of rational thinking, it's just my emotional side wanting to
Speaker 1: show up and have an opinion. Yeah, yep.
Speaker 3: I sometimes think I'm too good at that, meaning that
Speaker 3: I'm so good at like Okay, just let the emotional
Speaker 3: energy settle before you do anything, which is really good generally,
Speaker 3: but I think that what it can turn into for
Speaker 3: me is that it's hard for me to broach difficult
Speaker 3: things with people, and sometimes I need that emotional energy
Speaker 3: to do it. And if I let the emotional energy settle,
Speaker 3: what ends up happening is my brain comes in and goes,
Speaker 3: that's not really important, that's you know, Oh, it's just
Speaker 3: it talks it away and then you know it's a
Speaker 3: big thing that actually does need addressed. That I talk
Speaker 3: myself into making it a little thing.
Speaker 1: And I think that's.
Speaker 3: Why with all this stuff, it's so helpful to know,
Speaker 3: like you said it very early on, to know yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it's why advice is not a one size fits
Speaker 3: all thing, and you talk about that early in the
Speaker 3: book also, that like if you think someone else can
Speaker 3: give you all the answers, you're going to be disappointed.
Speaker 3: I used to coach people a lot, and you'd end
Speaker 3: up giving people completely different advice because they were different
Speaker 3: people they needed different things, you know. And so I
Speaker 3: think that these questions are it's good to know your
Speaker 3: tendencies and yourself so that you can go, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: you know what. Maybe I'm the person who swallows it
Speaker 3: all the time, so instead I need to actually use
Speaker 3: the emotional energy, where on the other hand, you might be,
Speaker 3: like you're describing, I end up saying stuff all the
Speaker 3: time that I should not have said, right, Like, I'm
Speaker 3: always getting myself in trouble. Maybe I need to, you know,
Speaker 3: pause a beat. And I think we all have some
Speaker 3: of both in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good one. The understanding and knowing myself.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's a lifelong journey for all
Speaker 1: of us, but it really is something that I've only
Speaker 1: leaned into in the last decade. And I think that's
Speaker 1: because I was raised in an environment. I was raised
Speaker 1: a really religious home and a religious community, and so
Speaker 1: there really wasn't a lot of concern about knowing yourself.
Speaker 1: It was just about knowing the rules of our church community,
Speaker 1: and it was about you know, doing things that would
Speaker 1: make God happy, and not making mistakes and not being
Speaker 1: a sinner, and just like this whole litany of rules,
Speaker 1: and it was really just how can I be the
Speaker 1: best at following these rules and very little awareness of
Speaker 1: like who am I and what do I like and
Speaker 1: what am I interested in? And so it's only in
Speaker 1: the last decade that I've understood that that's a very
Speaker 1: important piece of being a human being, is knowing who
Speaker 1: you are, and that it's not something that you're just
Speaker 1: going to snap your fingers and immediately figure out. It
Speaker 1: is a journey inward. And questions for me have always
Speaker 1: been this great way to find answers, and I thought
Speaker 1: if I could just share some of those answers with
Speaker 1: anyone who might read the book, that it could be
Speaker 1: helpful for them, and it didn't require me to know
Speaker 1: what was best for someone else, which obviously we can't do.
Speaker 1: I used to think that I could learn enough that
Speaker 1: I would know what was best for everybody, And now
Speaker 1: I understand, Oh, gosh, how ridiculous that you know. I
Speaker 1: can only speak from my perspective, my worldview. But I
Speaker 1: love that there are questions, and gosh, there's twenty six
Speaker 1: in the book, but probably a million in life that
Speaker 1: we would all come to with completely different perspectives and
Speaker 1: completely different opinions. And my dream, my hope is that
Speaker 1: anybody who does read the book actually does not read
Speaker 1: what I wrote about the question before they consider the question,
Speaker 1: because it's very possible you hear the question and you
Speaker 1: didn't equate it to you know, family boundaries at all.
Speaker 1: Like maybe it took you in a completely different direction,
Speaker 1: but I see it through the lens of dealing within laws, right,
Speaker 1: So that's a the beauty of a great question is
Speaker 1: that it might take you in a completely different direction
Speaker 1: than it takes me.
Speaker 3: I think that's a great aspiration for the book. And
Speaker 3: back to what we talked about earlier, this idea of
Speaker 3: applying versus learning, answering the question ourselves as honestly as
Speaker 3: we can as the application of the knowledge. And I
Speaker 3: know myself that I tend to go through books like
Speaker 3: that and it'll be like contemplate X, Y and Z
Speaker 3: or write this, and I'm like, okay, well just.
Speaker 1: Keep reading, right, yes, keep reading.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know exercises are good, but now some of
Speaker 3: that As a profession, I get through these books in
Speaker 3: order to do interviews on them. If I sat and
Speaker 3: answered every reflection question, I'd never get anywhere right. But
Speaker 3: I do think it's a tendency of all of us
Speaker 3: in general, because it is easier to just keep reading
Speaker 3: than it is to actually ask ourselves a difficult question
Speaker 3: that causes us to go uh, I don't.
Speaker 1: Know, yeah for sure, because it's a going back to
Speaker 1: this idea of you could just get a bunch of
Speaker 1: ideas and not actually have to hold a mirror up
Speaker 1: to yourself. I am such a huge fan of journaling.
Speaker 1: It is a massive part of my life and has
Speaker 1: been for decades and decades, and I think because that
Speaker 1: was my first form of therapy, Like writing in a
Speaker 1: diary as a little girl was how I got things out.
Speaker 1: And in my diary I was allowed to say that
Speaker 1: this was hard and that this thing happened and I
Speaker 1: don't feel safe, and like I was allowed to say
Speaker 1: all those things I couldn't say to my parents. So
Speaker 1: I still carry that with me today, And sometimes I
Speaker 1: don't like what is coming up when in journaling. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm like, well that's a bummer, like or god,
Speaker 1: I were still in this thought pattern, or dang it
Speaker 1: that's not who I want to be. That's not the
Speaker 1: kind of attitude I want to have around things. But
Speaker 1: for me, that journal is it's my mirror. It's like,
Speaker 1: this is what is really going on. And I love, love,
Speaker 1: love journaling every day. But I know that's not for everybody.
Speaker 1: And I think that even if all you do is
Speaker 1: sit down when the mood strikes you, maybe it's once
Speaker 1: a week ideally, or even once a month, and just
Speaker 1: give yourself a time limit, say I'm going to write,
Speaker 1: no matter what, for fifteen minutes without stopping. Give yourself
Speaker 1: a prompt, like the things I want to improve this
Speaker 1: year are or something I'm really struggling with is, And
Speaker 1: just promise yourself that you will not stop writing until
Speaker 1: the timer goes off, and you don't even think about it,
Speaker 1: don't question it. Just like free form, just everything that
Speaker 1: comes out, and then go back through and read what
Speaker 1: you wrote. You will surprise yourself. It's where your inner
Speaker 1: thoughts sort of bubble up from. It's where intuition will
Speaker 1: show up. It's where the truth will come out. Because
Speaker 1: we're really good at putting layers in and muting things
Speaker 1: and numbing things and not facing the truth. But if
Speaker 1: you just let yourself sort of get it out, some
Speaker 1: really incredible truths emerge and you can't unsee them once
Speaker 1: you've seen them. I always say, you don't have to change,
Speaker 1: you don't have to take a step, you don't have
Speaker 1: to do anything. But once you have the knowledge, you
Speaker 1: can't unknow it. Yeah, and even if all you do
Speaker 1: is kind of sit with the knowledge for a while,
Speaker 1: I think that's a fantastic first step to understanding that
Speaker 1: change needs to happen.
Speaker 3: I agree. And if you look at the scientific study
Speaker 3: of change and the theories of change, one of the
Speaker 3: most prominent is called the trance theoretical model, which we
Speaker 3: call the stages of change model, but it talks about
Speaker 3: different stages that everybody's probably heard of this on some level, right.
Speaker 3: But the first phase is called pre contemplation. It just
Speaker 3: means that you're just starting to have the slightest awareness
Speaker 3: that something needs to change. You're not ready to change,
Speaker 3: you don't actually think you should change, You're just starting
Speaker 3: to have a whisper. And then comes the contemplation where
Speaker 3: you start to think about and contemplate the change. And
Speaker 3: then there's a planning stage, and you know, the action
Speaker 3: stage is way down there, and I think there are
Speaker 3: times where the answer is like, just do it. It's simple.
Speaker 3: You don't need to give it a lot of thought,
Speaker 3: like you were talking about some of these things that
Speaker 3: were making a big deal out of but sometimes certain
Speaker 3: changes they need time to percolate. And what you're describing
Speaker 3: is the ability to just you start to see it.
Speaker 3: I mean, I know my journey as an addict was
Speaker 3: a long one. I mean there were initial whispers early
Speaker 3: in my drinking and drugging career. You know, by the
Speaker 3: time I got sober at twenty four, listeners will know this,
Speaker 3: I was a homeless heroin addict. And it's easy to
Speaker 3: point to like the moment that I went into treatment
Speaker 3: that last time and got sober, But there were so
Speaker 3: many moments before that where I just got a glimpse
Speaker 3: of the truth for a minute and it made me uncomfortable,
Speaker 3: and I got another glimpse of the truth.
Speaker 1: Was it a moment of awareness of oh this is serious?
Speaker 1: What did those glimpses look like for you?
Speaker 3: They could range from just a general like, h something's
Speaker 3: not right about this. And when I say this, I
Speaker 3: mean my use to you know, full awareness, like you're
Speaker 3: out of control. You can't stop. This is killing you.
Speaker 3: They were just different ones, but it took a certain
Speaker 3: amount of them, and it took a certain amount of
Speaker 3: attempts at change that failed to get to the moment
Speaker 3: where you know, if you were going to film the movie,
Speaker 3: you'd see me walking into this treatment center in December,
Speaker 3: cue the triumphant music. But that moment in reality, you
Speaker 3: can't separate it from all the moments before that led
Speaker 3: to that moment that were me thinking about and learning
Speaker 3: and feeling uncomfortable and trying, nor all the moments after
Speaker 3: where I made the right choice again and again and again.
Speaker 3: That moment would be meaningless without both of those things.
Speaker 1: That's so good, and I feel like such a good
Speaker 1: reminder for people that we think the change is the
Speaker 1: instantaneous light bulb moment, like you said in the movie,
Speaker 1: it's making that decision, everything goes right from here, But
Speaker 1: it actually is sometimes the stacking of a thousand bits
Speaker 1: of awareness that finally got us to the moment where
Speaker 1: we could change everything. You know, Like I know you're
Speaker 1: into personal development too, and you read all of these books,
Speaker 1: so I'm sure you've had this moment which I've definitely
Speaker 1: had where you have heard an expression or a quote
Speaker 1: or a line a thousand times and just for some reason,
Speaker 1: I just got chilled. I don't even have a quote
Speaker 1: in mind, but just for some reason, on one random day,
Speaker 1: you hear a line, you hear a scripture, you hear
Speaker 1: a poem, you hear something you've heard a million times before,
Speaker 1: but on this day, that fast, it just reorients the
Speaker 1: that you see the world. Yep, it's not because everything
Speaker 1: changed in that instant. It's because everything has been stacking
Speaker 1: to lead you to the moment where everything could change
Speaker 1: in a mist it.
Speaker 3: That's a beautiful way to say it. And I think
Speaker 3: it's that belief in understanding that also makes anything that say,
Speaker 3: you know, you just wrote a book, I'm working on
Speaker 3: a book. To believe that there's any point in saying
Speaker 3: these things that have been said a thousand times before, right,
Speaker 3: is to just have that hope that the way that
Speaker 3: I'll say it will appeal to this particular person on
Speaker 3: this particular day, for this particular like right now. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think if you're trying to be like, well, I'm
Speaker 3: not saying anything new, nobody's gonna say anything.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, right, for sure, I definitely, I am not
Speaker 1: saying anything new. Oh my gosh, I don't think anybody
Speaker 1: who is in this space is saying anything new, because
Speaker 1: the Stoics had this that we're just all repeating the
Speaker 1: things that they said so long ago. But I have
Speaker 1: personally experienced those moments of rehearing something or I used
Speaker 1: to go to a lot more conferences, personal development conferences
Speaker 1: or business conferences, and sometimes I would go to one
Speaker 1: more than once. And some of those conferences are very repetitive.
Speaker 1: It's like, be for beat, They're saying the same thing,
Speaker 1: but I have There's one in particular I'm thinking of
Speaker 1: where I have my notebooks from each of the three
Speaker 1: times I went, and it is the same content, but
Speaker 1: my notes are completely different because two years removed from
Speaker 1: the first experience, I am a different person, and so
Speaker 1: the information I'm taking in is for who I am today.
Speaker 1: And I really just don't think we can undervalue how
Speaker 1: long it may take us to get to the point
Speaker 1: where we can hear what we need to hear. And simultaneously,
Speaker 1: for anyone who is doing work where you're trying to
Speaker 1: teach or lead conversations or help other people, you maybe
Speaker 1: will have to say the same thing five hundred times
Speaker 1: to get to the one moment where it sinks in
Speaker 1: for somebody. But it happens again and again and again.
Speaker 1: I experience it as someone who consumes the books or
Speaker 1: the content, so I know that it must also happen
Speaker 1: for the people who consume the things that we create.
Speaker 3: Hey, friends, it's Eric. Let's talk about something hard. How
Speaker 3: many times have you made a promise to yourself and
Speaker 3: broken it. You said you'd go to bed earlier, start exercising,
Speaker 3: or stop reaching for that late night snack, but when
Speaker 3: the moment of choice came, something pulled you in the
Speaker 3: wrong direction. Those those choice points are where everything happens,
Speaker 3: and when we keep failing at them, it doesn't just
Speaker 3: derail our goals. It chips away at something deeper, our
Speaker 3: trust in ourselves. But it doesn't have to stay that way.
Speaker 3: In my upcoming free workshop, the Six Saboteurs of Self Control,
Speaker 3: we'll explore what happens at these choice points, why they're
Speaker 3: so hard to navigate, and most importantly, how to approach
Speaker 3: them differently. This isn't about willpower or trying harder. It's
Speaker 3: about understanding the hidden forces that lead to making the
Speaker 3: wrong choices and learning the tools to rebuild your confidence
Speaker 3: one choice at a time. Imagine trusting yourself again, knowing
Speaker 3: that when you say you'll do something, you actually follow through.
Speaker 3: That's what this workshop is about. Join me and let's
Speaker 3: turn your choice points into moments of strength. Go to
Speaker 3: good Wolf dot me slash self control. That's good Wolf
Speaker 3: dot me slash self control to register for this free workshop.
Speaker 3: When I got sober, I got sober in AA and AA. Essentially,
Speaker 3: they've got one main text called the Big Book, and
Speaker 3: the first one hundred and sixty four pages of it
Speaker 3: are like the instructional part. After that it's all stories.
Speaker 3: So it's been the same since like nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 3: Nobody wants to change it, and I think there are
Speaker 3: some good and bad things about that thing. But the
Speaker 3: point here is that you go to meeting after meeting
Speaker 3: after meeting, and you keep reading the same thing. It's
Speaker 3: only one hundred and sixty four pagies, right, But if
Speaker 3: you're engaged in the process for real, you are like,
Speaker 3: wait a second, it said that, Yeah, it's something comes
Speaker 3: alive because you're not the same as you were the
Speaker 3: last time.
Speaker 2: You read it.
Speaker 3: The text is exactly the same, but we're not the same.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I also think sometimes I just need to
Speaker 1: be reminded of truths I already know. I will re
Speaker 1: listen to nonfiction books that I love again and again.
Speaker 1: You know, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People one of
Speaker 1: my favorite. Yeah, just phenomenal, And once a year I'll
Speaker 1: just re listen to that audiobook because he's also his
Speaker 1: voice is also very soothing, and I feel like my
Speaker 1: Grandpa's giving me advice. But I'm like, thank you. They
Speaker 1: I've got distracted, But you're right, that is the truth,
Speaker 1: Like just being reminded again and again. It's all sort
Speaker 1: of coming around to the same conversation today, which is
Speaker 1: just focusing your thought process. And sometimes you can do
Speaker 1: it yourself, and sometimes you need tools that other people
Speaker 1: have created to help you focus on what you know
Speaker 1: is true or what you need to be reminded of.
Speaker 1: But as long as we're aware that we can just
Speaker 1: keep coming back and try and again, try again. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go again. We're gonna do these things again.
Speaker 1: We're gonna see where we are. Instead of thinking that
Speaker 1: we're supposed to all have it figured out and that
Speaker 1: we're supposed to get it the first time, and that
Speaker 1: we should be perfect or we should, you know, give up.
Speaker 1: This is this journey of just like reorienting yourself, coming
Speaker 1: back again and seeing where you are today.
Speaker 3: Yep. And life just keeps changing. I mean I've certainly
Speaker 3: had this sense many times, like, don't I have this
Speaker 3: figured it out yet? Yeah, you'd think by now some
Speaker 3: of it is. Yes, I did have it figured out
Speaker 3: for that version, but now my son's eighteen and he's
Speaker 3: not twelve, and he's not four. Yeah, I'm using your example.
Speaker 3: In my case, I would say my son's twenty six
Speaker 3: and not eighteen. And I'm in my fifties, not my thirties.
Speaker 3: My parents are aging and ill, and they weren't. Like
Speaker 3: life never stops changing and presenting us with new challenges,
Speaker 3: and there is a certain amount of this stuff. We
Speaker 3: have to keep answering these questions again and again for
Speaker 3: ourselves because the territory is not static.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, for sure. And I feel like even
Speaker 1: some of those lessons that we learn ten years ago,
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago, twenty years ago, maybe you haven't considered
Speaker 1: them as a potential to help you with what you're
Speaker 1: doing today or where you're at today. And then the
Speaker 1: reminder you know, coming back, or oh wow, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a really great piece of advice, and I need to
Speaker 1: remember that small, simple steps are going to add up
Speaker 1: and six months from now things can look very different
Speaker 1: than they do today. And just all that stuff again
Speaker 1: and again. I don't know. I find it so helpful
Speaker 1: to keep revisiting, and it's just so helpful, and it
Speaker 1: calms down the anxious thoughts that tell me I should
Speaker 1: have figured it all out by now.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: So back to your questions. We've only gotten to a
Speaker 3: few of them, and there's so many good ones. I
Speaker 3: wanted to talk about one that says, what is your floor?
Speaker 3: Tell me about that one. I was very intrigued when
Speaker 3: I read this one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is really for me, trying to find a
Speaker 1: clever way to encourage readers to raise their standards. I
Speaker 1: grew up believing that I was limited only by my imagination,
Speaker 1: Like if I just had opportunity, if I could just
Speaker 1: imagine something bigger and better and greater, then I could
Speaker 1: work really hard and make this happen. And if I
Speaker 1: look back on the last twenty years of my life,
Speaker 1: especially the massive jumps that I've made that have helped
Speaker 1: me to get closer and closer to the version of
Speaker 1: myself that I want to be when I'm you know,
Speaker 1: ninety five. Are not when I imagined a bigger future.
Speaker 1: It's not when I elevated the ceiling. It's when I
Speaker 1: raised the floor. It's when I put a line in
Speaker 1: the sand and refuse to go backwards from here. It's
Speaker 1: when I made decisions that are you know, from now on,
Speaker 1: I will never do this thing again. From now on,
Speaker 1: I am a person who does this. It's making those
Speaker 1: changes that change who you are and the standards that
Speaker 1: we have for every area of our life. The standards
Speaker 1: we bring into romantic relationships, into our health, into the
Speaker 1: way that we conduct business. Those standards are the quality
Speaker 1: of our life. If you have low standards for yourself,
Speaker 1: you're in a community of people who don't have any
Speaker 1: standards at all. Your ability to like move up and
Speaker 1: evolve and grow is going to be so freaking hard,
Speaker 1: because even if you go through seasons of great opportunity
Speaker 1: or great growth or something amazing happens, if you're like
Speaker 1: floors all the way back down here and you can
Speaker 1: backslide that far, you're going to at least that's my
Speaker 1: experience in life. I can't say, oh, just one more time,
Speaker 1: or oh it's just one X y Z, or it's
Speaker 1: just this, or it's just that. That's just not how
Speaker 1: I'm wired. Maybe other people can do it, it's not
Speaker 1: how I'm wired. And for me, I really learned about
Speaker 1: this through nutrition, which maybe sounds like such a silly
Speaker 1: example to use, but I grew up just no idea,
Speaker 1: like just abysmal abysmal nutrition. And you know, our parents
Speaker 1: can't give us information that they don't have. Neither one
Speaker 1: of my parents were raised in homes that were healthy
Speaker 1: or understood you know that junk food and Cheetos and LEDs,
Speaker 1: all of that stuff that doesn't Yeah, it doesn't just
Speaker 1: affects us physically, it also affects us emotionally and like
Speaker 1: our cognitive ability. And they just didn't have that info.
Speaker 1: So I didn't have that info. And then I got older,
Speaker 1: got into my teenage years, in my early twenties, I
Speaker 1: sort of jumped headfirst into diet culture and trying to
Speaker 1: do things to lose weight that were like super unhealthy,
Speaker 1: and I just went on the seesaw this yo, yo,
Speaker 1: this just all of this stuff, and it was a
Speaker 1: really very it's gonna sound so stupid, but it really
Speaker 1: was the first time in my life that I ever
Speaker 1: made a from now on decision, and that was giving
Speaker 1: up soda. So I used to drink diet coke like
Speaker 1: it was my part time job. I drink it all
Speaker 1: day every day. I love diet coke.
Speaker 5: I still would like to have a diet coke and
Speaker 5: I have an ad one for like fifteen years. I understand,
Speaker 5: but I just realized one day, and this was I
Speaker 5: still was like not great nutrition, but I knew that
Speaker 5: there were chemicals and diet coke that were not good
Speaker 5: for my body.
Speaker 1: I just knew that, and so I thought, what does
Speaker 1: it look like if I just never have a coke again? Ye,
Speaker 1: And I had truly never made a decision that I
Speaker 1: didn't fall back on, Like I would always start something
Speaker 1: and then say, oh well it's Saturday, or oh well,
Speaker 1: you know. So that was the first thing for me,
Speaker 1: and I think that felt like a safe choice because
Speaker 1: I also was like definitely drinking too much wine at
Speaker 1: the time. I was definitely making decisions that were way
Speaker 1: harsher for my body. But giving up soda was just
Speaker 1: it was one thing I could do. It felt hard
Speaker 1: but not impossible, and I thought it was going to
Speaker 1: be this whole thing, and within a week I was like,
Speaker 1: over it. Yeah I missed it. I still I really
Speaker 1: would love a diet coke when I'm having Mexican food, especially,
Speaker 1: But what I yeah, it's been fifteen years. I don't
Speaker 1: put that into my body. And it was the first
Speaker 1: decision that I made that I was like, WHOA, what
Speaker 1: else could I remove? What else could I change? Where
Speaker 1: else could I raise my standards? And I don't know.
Speaker 1: I love stacking that kind of stuff, like one thing
Speaker 1: on top of another, because if you say, okay, well
Speaker 1: the new standard is, then I don't consume that I
Speaker 1: don't take that into my body. What else does it change?
Speaker 1: If you, for instance, if you're listening to this and
Speaker 1: you're like, I really want to make positive change. I
Speaker 1: really want to take in more information. I would love
Speaker 1: to read more. It's something I get a lot from
Speaker 1: people in my community. How do you read so many books?
Speaker 1: I'd love to read. I'm like, I don't watch TV.
Speaker 1: I don't And I know if it's like every once
Speaker 1: in a while, there's something amazing, like I think the
Speaker 1: Diplomat was fantastic. I loved the Diplomat. They're like, I
Speaker 1: don't consume television. So every night for fifteen years, not
Speaker 1: every night, say ninety eight percent of night for fifteen years,
Speaker 1: you will find me in bed, probably on a eating
Speaker 1: pad because it's my favorite reading nonfiction. And that is
Speaker 1: how I'm able to read. That's how I'm able to
Speaker 1: get ideas, that's how I'm able to like, Oh, let
Speaker 1: me take this concept and see if I can rework it,
Speaker 1: or maybe I can interview this person on the podcast.
Speaker 1: But that's a standard that I set for myself. It's
Speaker 1: what are you willing to give up and to never
Speaker 1: touch again in order to have a life that feels
Speaker 1: more like the life that you want to have. So
Speaker 1: that's what it looks like for me. Is it's not
Speaker 1: about can you give yourself more opportunity? It's can you
Speaker 1: raise the bar for yourself so that you're not backsliding?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've heard some version of that. That's a little
Speaker 3: bit like what really matters is not who you are
Speaker 3: on your best day, but who you are on your
Speaker 3: worst day.
Speaker 1: Oooh that's good, right, that's good.
Speaker 3: It's the same idea. And you know, I think this
Speaker 3: idea of like drawing a line in the sand and
Speaker 3: saying that is it can be really effective, and for
Speaker 3: some people it's very problematic because they're not yet capable
Speaker 3: of making that and I'm thinking about things like addiction,
Speaker 3: and yeah, that like it's just black or it's white
Speaker 3: can be problematic for those people because it is an
Speaker 3: incremental process of improvement. But I do think there's a
Speaker 3: lot to be said for this idea of you know,
Speaker 3: like you said, it's not that I have to keep
Speaker 3: aiming higher with everything. It's that I need to bring
Speaker 3: up the parts of my life that are low. As
Speaker 3: a friend of mine, Jonathan Fields, who has a podcast
Speaker 3: called The Good Life Project, and he wrote a book
Speaker 3: a few years ago and then I don't remember it,
Speaker 3: but he basically talked about like we all have these
Speaker 3: four different buckets in our life, like contribution and connection,
Speaker 3: and his point was that the lowest one of those
Speaker 3: buckets is the limiter on everything else.
Speaker 1: WHOA, that's so good, right.
Speaker 3: So, like you say, you want to raise the floor.
Speaker 3: You know, if your connection bucket is completely everything else
Speaker 3: in your life is going to get dragged down around it.
Speaker 3: So you've got to focus there on bringing that up,
Speaker 3: and so when I read that floor piece it it
Speaker 3: really resonated with me. And you know, certainly I do
Speaker 3: think for certain things for me, there has had to
Speaker 3: be a very clear line, like no mind altering substances. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the answer is no. There's no debate, there's no question.
Speaker 3: Of course it comes up, but the answer is always no.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It took me some attempts till I could get there.
Speaker 3: But now, like you say, it's pretty easy, isn't.
Speaker 1: It interesting too? When having made decisions like that and
Speaker 1: I know that you've experienced this, something different occurs when
Speaker 1: it's a forever choice and I don't even know how
Speaker 1: to properly explain it, and I don't know how to
Speaker 1: like do these three things and it'll be a forever choice,
Speaker 1: but you feel it in your body. You're just like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's done, okay, And I I don't know how to
Speaker 1: explain that in the right way. But even giving up
Speaker 1: like nutrition as I talked about, has been this evolution
Speaker 1: for me over a long period of time, and even
Speaker 1: getting to the place that I am now, I never
Speaker 1: ever would think that this version of me, if I
Speaker 1: went back fifteen years, that I could imagine a world
Speaker 1: where like I can't even tell you the last time
Speaker 1: I had fast food. I can't tell you the last
Speaker 1: time I had junk food. These were not like side
Speaker 1: dishes of my life. This was the main event. This
Speaker 1: was all I all I lived off of. And now
Speaker 1: it's not even I don't even think about it, but
Speaker 1: I wish that I could bottle up whatever it is
Speaker 1: that you hit a place where all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's just done, and you know it in your spirit.
Speaker 1: You're like, I don't have to worry about this anymore.
Speaker 1: This is just not something that I care about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think if any of us could come
Speaker 3: up with that, you would cure addiction, and you'd be
Speaker 3: the wealthiest person in the planet because you would solve
Speaker 3: a completely intractable problem. These things that we know we
Speaker 3: probably shouldn't do, but we still keep doing. You know,
Speaker 3: they plague everyone to something. They plague everyone, but you
Speaker 3: can make progress. I tell this story, listeners are probably like,
Speaker 3: oh God, here he goes again, but I don't know
Speaker 3: if probably not. I don't tell it that often. But
Speaker 3: a few years ago my mom fell and broke her hip.
Speaker 3: So I was a primary caregiver and every week I
Speaker 3: would go to the pharmacy and I would pick up
Speaker 3: her medicine, and I would get her groceries, and i'd
Speaker 3: bring him back to her. And it was about a
Speaker 3: month or a month and a half into that that
Speaker 3: I realized I was carrying oxyconton from the pharmacy to
Speaker 3: my mother, and not only had I not wanted it,
Speaker 3: I hadn't even registered notice what it was. And I
Speaker 3: would have probably robbed you at gunpoint for that in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety four. And again that's not a bragging. I
Speaker 3: think that the point of that story for me is
Speaker 3: something that seems so intractable today can become, as you said,
Speaker 3: back to wisdom, can become an experience in my past
Speaker 3: that has been drained of its emotional energy to a
Speaker 3: certain degree. That's the hopeful story of change. And that's
Speaker 3: a lot of years and a lot of effort to
Speaker 3: get to that point, but it is possible.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It also makes me think just vibrationally, because I
Speaker 1: love the idea of energy and what vibration we're living
Speaker 1: at vibrationally, like, do we just get to a place
Speaker 1: that it doesn't even come into your awareness what you
Speaker 1: had in your possession because you are not at the
Speaker 1: vibrational frequency of that substance anymore, Like you're just you've
Speaker 1: gone to a different level and so you can't even
Speaker 1: feel that thing. I feel like it's like so beautiful
Speaker 1: that we've kind of found our way here in this conversation,
Speaker 1: this idea of like a million you know, chips up marble, Yeah,
Speaker 1: to get to the place where you hit that moment
Speaker 1: where it's just not something that affects you anymore. You know,
Speaker 1: it's chipping things away, but it's also sort of climbing
Speaker 1: your way up the ladder so that you're just at
Speaker 1: a completely different level than you used to be, and
Speaker 1: so the things that are at that lower level that
Speaker 1: you used to be they can't even touch you up here.
Speaker 3: Yep, Yeah, I love that. I think that's a beautiful
Speaker 3: place to end. And Rachel, thank you so much. I've
Speaker 3: really enjoyed this conversation. I really enjoyed the book. I
Speaker 3: loved all the questions you and I are going to
Speaker 3: continue in the post show conversation where we're going to
Speaker 3: explore a couple other questions, things like are you the problem?
Speaker 3: And how old are you right now? Which is a
Speaker 3: great one. So listeners, if you'd like access to the
Speaker 3: post show conversation, ad free episodes, come to our monthly
Speaker 3: community meetings, and all that other great stuff you get
Speaker 3: as being part of our community. You can go to
Speaker 3: one you Feed dot net slash join. Thanks again, Rachel, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's been such a pleasure. And we'll have links in
Speaker 3: the show notes to where people can find you and
Speaker 3: find your book and.
Speaker 2: All of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so much for the time.
Speaker 2: If what you just heard was helpful to you, please
Speaker 2: consider making a monthly donation to support the One You
Speaker 2: Feed podcast. When you join our membership community. With this
Speaker 2: monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members only benefits.
Speaker 2: It's our way of saying thank you for your support.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: We are so grateful for the members of our community.
Speaker 2: We wouldn't be able to do what we do without
Speaker 2: their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted.
Speaker 2: To learn more, make a donation at any level and
Speaker 2: become a member of the one You Feed community, go
Speaker 2: to oneufeed dot net slash join. The One You Feed
Speaker 2: podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting
Speaker 2: the show.