Speaker 1: If you really really think you're enlightened, spend a weekend
Speaker 1: with your family. Welcome to the one you feed throughout time.
Speaker 1: Great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 1: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true, and yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Robbie Voorhaus,
Speaker 1: widely recognized as one of the top three reputation and
Speaker 1: crisis experts in the world. Robbie's path is fascinating. On
Speaker 1: the outside, his life appeared to be ideal. A Park
Speaker 1: Avenue apartment home in the Hampton's to adoring children in
Speaker 1: world class private schools and a thriving pr agency representing
Speaker 1: world leaders, celebrities and sports stars privately, though his life
Speaker 1: was falling apart. A marriage and trouble jeopardize health and
Speaker 1: financial pressures culminated on vacation when his family asked, Dad,
Speaker 1: are you really happy? Realizing he was in peril of
Speaker 1: losing everything he held dear, Robbie followed the advice he
Speaker 1: had given clients for decades, follow your heart, choose to
Speaker 1: be happy. The result four house closed, his agency, moved
Speaker 1: his family to their small Sag Harbor home, and began
Speaker 1: anew Now transformed, healthy, happy, and celebrating a marriage with
Speaker 1: more than twenty five years. Robbie drew on his life's
Speaker 1: work and experience to write a column for his local newspaper,
Speaker 1: The sag Harbor Express, outlining a step by step plan
Speaker 1: for following your heart and being happy, which led to
Speaker 1: his book One Less One More, Follow your Heart, Be Happy.
Speaker 1: Changed slowly and here's a quick message from Eric, followed
Speaker 1: by the interview. Hey everybody, you might have heard last
Speaker 1: week that I announced that we have opened the second
Speaker 1: round of the one You Feed coaching program. We had
Speaker 1: a great first round and a lot of success, and
Speaker 1: I got to work with a lot of people that
Speaker 1: I'm now happy to call friends. We've incorporated their feedback
Speaker 1: into the program and now it's evolved into an even
Speaker 1: stronger offering. It is available now, but only until May.
Speaker 1: We've limited the enrollment window to allow me to be
Speaker 1: more focused on who we work with and to make
Speaker 1: sure we deliver an optimum experience. You can go to
Speaker 1: one you feed dot net Slash Coaching program M, or
Speaker 1: you can text Wolf to six six eight six six
Speaker 1: to sign up for more information, and when you do that,
Speaker 1: you'll get a free download of the top five mistakes
Speaker 1: people make when they're trying to change their behavior. If
Speaker 1: you're interested, don't put off looking into it. You can
Speaker 1: make the changes to your life that you've been considering.
Speaker 1: I'd love for you to be one of the success
Speaker 1: stories here, so go to one you feed dot net
Speaker 1: Slash Coaching program or text Wolf to six six eight six.
Speaker 1: That'll get you signed up. On the emails, you'll get
Speaker 1: the download guide and you'll get more information about the coaching.
Speaker 1: So I'd love to talk with you. And now here's
Speaker 1: the interview. Hi, Robbie, welcome to the show. I am
Speaker 1: doing very good. I'm happy to have you on your
Speaker 1: book is called one less, one more, follow your heart,
Speaker 1: be happy, change slowly. And if there's anything that I
Speaker 1: strongly believe in with change, it's that doing it in smaller,
Speaker 1: slower doses. So I think we're gonna have a lot
Speaker 1: to cover there that we definitely agree on. But before
Speaker 1: we jump into that, let's start, like we always do,
Speaker 1: with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson.
Speaker 1: He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of
Speaker 1: us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 1: greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and
Speaker 1: he thinks about it for a second, and he looks
Speaker 1: up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which
Speaker 1: one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. I love that parable, and
Speaker 1: that's what actually brought me to you, is because it's
Speaker 1: something that I followed my whole life. And what I
Speaker 1: discovered is is that if we follow our ego which
Speaker 1: the purpose of the ego is to separate us, to
Speaker 1: of us identity. But what it does is is that
Speaker 1: it sets up us being alone in the universe because
Speaker 1: with the ego, there's always more. And I'm rich, I'm poor,
Speaker 1: I'm white and black, I'm Jewish, I'm Catholic, male, I'm female.
Speaker 1: There's something that always separates us. So there has to
Speaker 1: be varying degrees of which is better and not. And
Speaker 1: if you keep feeding the ego, if you keep giving
Speaker 1: into that separateness, you will always feel alone. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, as I've discovered, is that we all are
Speaker 1: born with a purpose. We all are born with a
Speaker 1: song in our heart, and are I believe and and
Speaker 1: over the course of my life and advising a lot
Speaker 1: of famous people and sports people and people who run governments,
Speaker 1: it's the ones who feed their heart. It's the one
Speaker 1: who give credence of that song, that unique song that
Speaker 1: um their place in the universe, universe one tune. And
Speaker 1: that when we feed our heart, we make everything better
Speaker 1: around us. We connect to the universe, and we find
Speaker 1: ourselves drawing to us that which we were born to experience.
Speaker 1: So that parable means to me that when you feed
Speaker 1: your ego, you will always be alone. When you feed
Speaker 1: your heart, you will always be fulfilled. Excellent. Well, let's
Speaker 1: talk first about the title of the book, one Less,
Speaker 1: one More? What does that mean? But what it essentially
Speaker 1: means is is that in every moment we have a choice,
Speaker 1: and especially as we become more conscious, and people who
Speaker 1: want to discover what their purpose in life is, how
Speaker 1: they can be happy, how to get through a crisis,
Speaker 1: what they were born to do, if if if in fact,
Speaker 1: we were really born with a purpose, and what I discovered.
Speaker 1: Of course, I've advised people who are in crisis. I
Speaker 1: advise leaders, um people who want to get themselves out
Speaker 1: of a tough situation, or people who want to avoid
Speaker 1: getting into a tough situation, or people who want to
Speaker 1: articulate what they really stand for. And there was always
Speaker 1: the question of I can tell you what I do,
Speaker 1: but I don't know what I stand for. And I've
Speaker 1: heard this again and again and again. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that I discovered was in my practice in
Speaker 1: helping people to discover how to be happy, how to
Speaker 1: feel relaxed, how to experience joy, how to be a
Speaker 1: better lover, how to be a better friend, how to
Speaker 1: truly follow their heart. And what it was was a
Speaker 1: very simple path, and that was one you have to
Speaker 1: start now. You can't start tomorrow, you you can't start later.
Speaker 1: You have to make the decision to start now. The
Speaker 1: second thing is is that what you have to do
Speaker 1: is you have to eliminate something. You have to stop
Speaker 1: doing something that's no longer working for you. That could
Speaker 1: be an addiction, It could be gossiping, it could be
Speaker 1: a negative thought. It doesn't have to be grand eric,
Speaker 1: it can just be very simple. But you stop doing
Speaker 1: it one time today. So if you catch yourself worrying,
Speaker 1: you can catch yourself and say, excuse me, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to worry at this moment. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: you have to in doing the math of one less
Speaker 1: one more is you have to be conscious about your
Speaker 1: experience in wanting to be happy, in wanting to be joyful,
Speaker 1: in wanting to be sensual, and wanting to be enthusiastic,
Speaker 1: and wanting to be passionate, in wanting to be courageous,
Speaker 1: and you have to make a step a choice of
Speaker 1: doing something more that takes you out of your circle,
Speaker 1: takes you out of your habit takes you out of
Speaker 1: your everyday life so that you can experience something new,
Speaker 1: and when you do the math of one less and
Speaker 1: one more and then stop and become aware of what
Speaker 1: your experiences now and recognize that, and again going back
Speaker 1: to changing slowly, that if you just do that every day,
Speaker 1: one less thing that no longer feels good or works
Speaker 1: for you, and that you choose to do one more
Speaker 1: thing in the direction of your heart's dream or desire,
Speaker 1: your life will change measurably and you will begin to
Speaker 1: experience the life that you were born to live. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I talked on the show about the idea that it's
Speaker 1: amazing what a series of small steps adds up to
Speaker 1: if you do them consistently over a period of time. Right,
Speaker 1: you know, Eric, My uncle who is now the part
Speaker 1: of was Martin David Crustell, Huse Einstein's protege, and then
Speaker 1: went on to run his department at Princeton Applied Mathematics.
Speaker 1: His son is a physics professor at the University of Maryland.
Speaker 1: And I called my cousin Clyde, and I asked him,
Speaker 1: I said, Clyde, is it possible to write a mathematical
Speaker 1: formula for one less and one more? And he said, well,
Speaker 1: what's the intention. I said, well, my belief is is
Speaker 1: that based on my experience that one less, one more
Speaker 1: changes when a person practices, that they changed the future,
Speaker 1: and that intentionally their life becomes better. So he called
Speaker 1: me back and he said, look, I really you know,
Speaker 1: we try to do this and there's nothing here. It's
Speaker 1: there's no math to it. I said, well, thank you
Speaker 1: very much. About two weeks later, I get an email
Speaker 1: and then a call saying can I talk to you?
Speaker 1: I have to talk to you. I said, okay. He
Speaker 1: calls me, he says, you know my colleagues. And I
Speaker 1: started getting into this and realizing that when you do math,
Speaker 1: if you're taking things away, you eliminate things. When you
Speaker 1: add things in, then you become their their greater mass.
Speaker 1: But when there's a formula that in that one formula
Speaker 1: that the intention is to discover or to do something,
Speaker 1: and that is part of that formula is elimination and addition,
Speaker 1: you absolutely change the future. And he was very excited
Speaker 1: and I said, well, is there a formula to that?
Speaker 1: He said no, because what you're doing is you're actually changing.
Speaker 1: It's like quantum physics. You're making the decision to become conscious,
Speaker 1: you're choosing less of what's no longer working, which is math,
Speaker 1: and you're choosing more of what could work. And by
Speaker 1: doing that you absolutely exponentially change the future in ways
Speaker 1: that can't be distinguished at this point. And that's when
Speaker 1: I knew, in my heart of hearts, hearing his excitement,
Speaker 1: that that this was in fact ancient math. Because if
Speaker 1: you look eric at almost any philosopher, any religion, they
Speaker 1: all say the same thing, that you have to believe
Speaker 1: that we're here for a purpose. We're here for a reason,
Speaker 1: that our reason is unique, and that happiness is a choice,
Speaker 1: and that's ultimately the purpose of our life. Let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the idea that we fail at
Speaker 1: major life transformation usually because we try and do too
Speaker 1: much too quickly. Why is that a recipe for failure? Well,
Speaker 1: because what grows quickly in nature fire, cancer, weeds. We
Speaker 1: don't give ourselves the opportunity to transform. Because every system
Speaker 1: is built to follow a specific path. It's very hard.
Speaker 1: It's like riding a bicycle. I grew up in an
Speaker 1: area where when you there were like gutters for in
Speaker 1: the road where where the water went down, and if
Speaker 1: you got your bike in that gutter. To try to
Speaker 1: get out required more force and you had to be
Speaker 1: more focused otherwise something would happen. It's the same thing
Speaker 1: as when your scheme or you're doing anything, when when
Speaker 1: you get into a rut, when you get into a
Speaker 1: specific field to try to get out of that, if
Speaker 1: you do it too quickly, it's disruptive. So it's like
Speaker 1: no acorn would try to become an oak overnight. Nobody
Speaker 1: would try I to meet somebody and marry them and
Speaker 1: have a child within a couple of days. It's not natural.
Speaker 1: You set yourself up to fail if you want to
Speaker 1: become the boss on your first day on the job,
Speaker 1: unless you're you're a leader and that's your job supposedly.
Speaker 1: But the point is is that if you want to
Speaker 1: change your marriage, or if you want to change your
Speaker 1: status from single to married or even married to single,
Speaker 1: you need to give yourself time because we see what
Speaker 1: happens to anyone in any situation, when something catastrophic or
Speaker 1: something that just happens, it's so hard to deal with
Speaker 1: it because it's not natural. I love one of the
Speaker 1: ideas in the book, which is about not making big
Speaker 1: disruptive change. You know, I work with some clients on
Speaker 1: some things, and a lot of the internet culture today,
Speaker 1: particularly in the entrepreneurial personal development call it what you want.
Speaker 1: Space is all about, like, you know, go for it,
Speaker 1: live your dream, quit your job tomorrow, and you know,
Speaker 1: abandon everything and follow your passion. And I think for
Speaker 1: a lot of people that is just not the right approach.
Speaker 1: It's not practical. There's a lot of different things. So
Speaker 1: I love how you talk about you know, you can
Speaker 1: start to do this whatever your dream is without big
Speaker 1: disruptive change. So let's just pretend somebody wants to get
Speaker 1: from where they are, which is stuck in a job
Speaker 1: they don't like, to owning a business where they get
Speaker 1: to focus more on things they care about. How does
Speaker 1: one less one more work in that scenario. Let's first
Speaker 1: go back just a little bit further and recognize that
Speaker 1: scientists tell us that since the beginning of time, there
Speaker 1: have been if you include the seven plus billion people
Speaker 1: on the planet today, there have been approximately a hundred
Speaker 1: billion souls a hundred billion human beings that have been
Speaker 1: on the planet or that inhabit the planet and have
Speaker 1: also been on a planet, and that if you ask
Speaker 1: a scientist or a doctor, or a religious person, or
Speaker 1: whoever it is, on any level, will there ever be
Speaker 1: or has there ever been? Are you being that's remotely
Speaker 1: like me? The answer is no. We've over trillions living
Speaker 1: cells in our body, all having the ability to communicate people,
Speaker 1: and no one ever like us. So the first thing
Speaker 1: that we have to do is we have to believe
Speaker 1: that we were born unique and with the purpose. Once
Speaker 1: you accept that, or at least consider it, then you
Speaker 1: can start listening to certain signals within our body, within
Speaker 1: our experience. It could be curiosity, it could be what
Speaker 1: makes us enthusiastic. What did we dream about when we
Speaker 1: were children? What direction do we find ourselves moving in?
Speaker 1: What would we do if we knew we couldn't fail?
Speaker 1: Where is our heart? Where? Where are our passions? What
Speaker 1: do we love to do? So now we're up to
Speaker 1: the point of your question. We're in a dead end job,
Speaker 1: or we're in a job that we took because maybe
Speaker 1: our parents told us if this is the job that
Speaker 1: we needed to do, or maybe we're involved in a
Speaker 1: relationship that we knew we shouldn't be involved in. And
Speaker 1: that's where one less one more comes into play. Is
Speaker 1: one is come present, stop regretting, stop blaming, become accountable,
Speaker 1: and come present and say, Okay, where I am today,
Speaker 1: this present moment, this moment right here is before in
Speaker 1: the road. It's the place where I leave my past behind,
Speaker 1: where the future can be anything that I wanted to
Speaker 1: be and what makes me passionate? What direction do I want?
Speaker 1: Let's say I want to open a bookstore or I
Speaker 1: want to open a fly fishing touring company, but I'm
Speaker 1: a teacher. So as part of one less, one more,
Speaker 1: changing slowly, what we can do is one start to
Speaker 1: believe that you can have that fly fishing company. Start
Speaker 1: to believe that there really is a soul made for you.
Speaker 1: Start to believe that you really can heal. And once
Speaker 1: you believe, then you have to start preparing. And part
Speaker 1: of that slow processes is that instead of thinking I'm
Speaker 1: going to go from a teacher to becoming a fly
Speaker 1: fishing tour guy. Is if you just leave your job
Speaker 1: and try to do it, You've never done it before,
Speaker 1: so something's going to break. But if you start doing
Speaker 1: research and saying, Okay, how much money do I need?
Speaker 1: Where do I need to go, where do I need
Speaker 1: to live? Who else has done this? Who else? Can
Speaker 1: I talk to And you start doing that every single day,
Speaker 1: and you start doubting less, you stop beating yourself up,
Speaker 1: you start doing less of what's no longer working for
Speaker 1: you and more in the areas of preparation. At some point,
Speaker 1: as I write about in One Less, One More, you're
Speaker 1: going to have to come to a point where you're
Speaker 1: going to have to commit. And once you commit, that's scary.
Speaker 1: That's going to take courage. And by the way, courage,
Speaker 1: going back to what we were saying at the beginning,
Speaker 1: comes from the word core, which is Latin for heart
Speaker 1: and age at the age of the heart. And at
Speaker 1: some point you have to consciously make that decision to switch.
Speaker 1: Going back to the parable, you now have to start
Speaker 1: feeding your heart and saying, I've got to make this shift.
Speaker 1: I've got to move to Nashville. Like Taylor Swift said
Speaker 1: when you went to be a singer, I've got to
Speaker 1: quit this job. I've saved up enough money. But at
Speaker 1: some point you have to make that decision and then
Speaker 1: to continue to pursue pursue it. But in each moment,
Speaker 1: if you do it, one day at a time, less
Speaker 1: of what's no longer working and more of what does
Speaker 1: you will allow yourself to grow into that job. So
Speaker 1: it's just natural. Does that answer the question? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it does. What I like about it is, you know,
Speaker 1: start now as one of my favorite and I'm often
Speaker 1: asked for for advice if you give one piece of advice,
Speaker 1: and I'm often like, just start, whatever it is, start
Speaker 1: because you you will learn more in starting and moving
Speaker 1: forward than you ever will just thinking about it. And
Speaker 1: as you go down the path, you know, if you
Speaker 1: can if you can only see five ft down the path,
Speaker 1: if you take two steps, now you can see a
Speaker 1: little bit further and a little bit further. And so
Speaker 1: to your point, if you just believe you can get
Speaker 1: there and start taking the steps, then like you said,
Speaker 1: you arrive at a place where it's not this huge
Speaker 1: crazy thing. It's the next step. It's the next logical step.
Speaker 1: You know. There's a wonderful parable that we all know
Speaker 1: as a Confucius said that the beginning of the longest
Speaker 1: journey starts with one step. My daughter who we live
Speaker 1: out by the ocean and the eastern end of Long Island,
Speaker 1: and my daughter is a sailor, and there was a
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of wind and a lot of
Speaker 1: waves and it was cold. And I said to her
Speaker 1: one day and I said, you know, Molly, wouldn't it
Speaker 1: be more comfortable if you if you, you know, if
Speaker 1: you just went out to the you know where this
Speaker 1: you know, you're not going to take your sailboat out
Speaker 1: in this weather, are you. And she looked at me
Speaker 1: and she said, Dad, sailboats are meant to sail, and
Speaker 1: it's not a sailboat if it's if you're just sitting
Speaker 1: there looking at it. We've got to go out there.
Speaker 1: And if I'm going to sail around the world, if
Speaker 1: I'm going to be a better sailor in inclement conditions,
Speaker 1: I need to get an understanding of how to sail
Speaker 1: in high seas, how to sail in high winds. And
Speaker 1: it was so interesting to me because it's true, unless
Speaker 1: you start, unless you start moving down your path, unless
Speaker 1: you start preparing, you'll never have any idea. I mean,
Speaker 1: my wife's a yoga teacher. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that she was talking to another yoga teacher who had
Speaker 1: a has a yoga studio, and this woman was saying
Speaker 1: that she never realized how much went into being a
Speaker 1: yoga teacher and a businesswoman and owning a yoga studio
Speaker 1: until she started doing it, because now she learned that
Speaker 1: there's marketing involved, accounting involved, it's not just helping people
Speaker 1: with yoga, it's being a businesswoman. But she never learned it,
Speaker 1: she never realized it, and had she known it even
Speaker 1: ahead of time, she may not have even done it.
Speaker 1: So part of starting is the realization and that you
Speaker 1: have to follow your dreams. But you're always going to
Speaker 1: come up against some kind of resistance. There's always going
Speaker 1: to be some learning which will send you off in
Speaker 1: another direction, and then another direction and another direction. That's
Speaker 1: what life is. It's a constant exploration. It's a constant
Speaker 1: choice of who we are and what's going to allow
Speaker 1: us to become who we are. It's that process of
Speaker 1: becoming happy, fulfilled, joyful, enthusiastic. I mean the word enthusiasm
Speaker 1: comes from in theos in God. Look, Eric, we all
Speaker 1: want to be happy, we all want to feel peaceful,
Speaker 1: We don't want to feel afraid, But then we're not alive.
Speaker 1: That's not life. So as with your parable, what do
Speaker 1: we feed? When we feed our heart? At least then
Speaker 1: we can claim authenticity. At least then we can claim
Speaker 1: that what we're doing is worth it. And anyone who
Speaker 1: is following their heart, anyone who's choosing to be happy, joyful,
Speaker 1: anyone who's choosing to heal, anyone who's choosing to be authentic,
Speaker 1: will tell you that despite all of the storms, all
Speaker 1: of the resistance, all of the pressures, all of the problems,
Speaker 1: and however many times you feel like giving up, you don't,
Speaker 1: and even if you do, you still come back to
Speaker 1: it because it's worth it. Because now you're singing your song,
Speaker 1: now you're dancing your dance, now you're living your life,
Speaker 1: and it feels on purpose. The question that gets asked
Speaker 1: an awful lot is well, I don't know what my
Speaker 1: passion is, I don't know what my heart says, I
Speaker 1: don't know what I want to do. Um you know
Speaker 1: I've got I've got I know teenagers who are saying
Speaker 1: that very thing right now. So where do you start
Speaker 1: with this process? You start today, and you start by
Speaker 1: committing to the experience of the exploration of who you
Speaker 1: truly are. If you truly want to discover why you
Speaker 1: were born, why you were here, what's going to make
Speaker 1: you happy, fulfill you, what's going to expand you, you
Speaker 1: have to make the commitment to come present and to
Speaker 1: listen to the voices of your heart. Not to listen
Speaker 1: to what people are saying on Facebook, not listen to
Speaker 1: what people are saying on the media, not listening to
Speaker 1: what even what teachers are saying. But you have to
Speaker 1: come present and say what makes my heart race faster?
Speaker 1: What is it that I find myself drawn to? What
Speaker 1: am I curious about? Maybe it's magic, maybe it's pecans,
Speaker 1: maybe it's blankets, Maybe it's traveling, maybe it's exploring another
Speaker 1: form of sexuality or another place on the planet. But
Speaker 1: there's something that all of us are drawn to. I
Speaker 1: can tell you that I can't. There are so many
Speaker 1: people who say that when they were eight years old
Speaker 1: and they went to visit Sea World, they knew that's
Speaker 1: what they wanted to do. Or friends of mine who
Speaker 1: are pilots who said, I knew when I was ten
Speaker 1: or eleven, they even though my father was an engine mechanic,
Speaker 1: that I wanted to fly airplanes. And I was giving
Speaker 1: a speech up in up in Boston. I was speaking
Speaker 1: at a school, and I was talking to the college
Speaker 1: students about following your heart, being happy and changing slowly
Speaker 1: walking them through the book, and this kid came up
Speaker 1: to me and he said, Mr. Warhouse, my parents are
Speaker 1: going to hate you. And I said, well, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Why you know? He said, because they spend a lot
Speaker 1: of money to send me to this school. And you
Speaker 1: know my parents because my dad's a very successful hedge
Speaker 1: fund manager. He's always on the news. My mother is
Speaker 1: very successful also, And I was always told and I
Speaker 1: always thought that I was going to go into finance.
Speaker 1: But I'm listening to you, and I'm realizing that that's
Speaker 1: not what makes my heart sore. That's not what I'm
Speaker 1: curious about. That's not what I dream about. What I
Speaker 1: dream about is being in music. And my parents, as
Speaker 1: I said, are not going to like you because I
Speaker 1: realized today that I don't want to be a finance
Speaker 1: major anymore. And he listened to his heart. He listened.
Speaker 1: In that short period of when we talked, I have
Speaker 1: a friend who was an entrepreneur who said, you know,
Speaker 1: I always wanted to go to divinity school, and is
Speaker 1: he's now a divinity candidate at Yale. So Eric, again,
Speaker 1: you have to be willing to come present, to start today,
Speaker 1: to listen to your heart, to listen to the feedback
Speaker 1: that you have of of saying what am I? What
Speaker 1: am I curious about? One of the one of the
Speaker 1: exercises that I do with adults, as I asked him,
Speaker 1: when you were young, what is it that you want
Speaker 1: wanted to do that your parents told you you could
Speaker 1: never make a living doing. And I hear everything from
Speaker 1: I wanted to be an elevator operator, so I wanted
Speaker 1: to ride horses too. I wanted to do this, And
Speaker 1: I say to them, well when did that dream die?
Speaker 1: And say it never died, I just never pursued it. So,
Speaker 1: in my belief, if, as with the parable, if you
Speaker 1: continue to feed your heart and recognize that you were
Speaker 1: born or at least consider that you were born with
Speaker 1: a unique purpose, that you're song, that your dance, that
Speaker 1: your purpose is to be experienced and expressed, and you
Speaker 1: take the time to do less of what's no longer
Speaker 1: working and more of what is, and that if you
Speaker 1: do that once a day, you become conscious, you start
Speaker 1: moving in the direction of your dreams and desires, and
Speaker 1: you will you will find that your life becomes more authentic.
Speaker 1: You talk about the fact that pretty much every moment
Speaker 1: we choose whether we feel good or we feel bad,
Speaker 1: and that has not been my experience or the experience
Speaker 1: of a lot of people I know, particularly people who
Speaker 1: have dealt with depression or other things that were that
Speaker 1: they're just able to change from I don't feel good, right,
Speaker 1: don't I feel bad to feeling good by just making
Speaker 1: that decision? What do you mean when you say that? Well,
Speaker 1: in fairness, I have suffered from depression over the course
Speaker 1: of my life at different points in my life. I
Speaker 1: also know there are times when I'm in a bad
Speaker 1: mood and my wife Canis will say to me, well,
Speaker 1: you're not acting very spiritual, and I feel stuck. And
Speaker 1: I know that, as I say, happiness is a choice
Speaker 1: and we have the ability to choose. My point is
Speaker 1: is that as we become conscious, as we become more aware,
Speaker 1: as we take responsibility for our own dance, for our
Speaker 1: own life, for our own future, that in each moment
Speaker 1: we become conscious of that. I mean, in any religion
Speaker 1: or spiritual practice, the purpose of meditation is to quiet
Speaker 1: thought and to allow ourselves to become so what I
Speaker 1: mean by it is is that if we choose to
Speaker 1: truly live the life that we were born to live,
Speaker 1: if we truly choose to be happy if we want
Speaker 1: to allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to allow ourselves to transform,
Speaker 1: to allow ourselves to experience the ecstasy of those moments
Speaker 1: of perfection when we feel and know that we're really
Speaker 1: here for a reason and that we're loved and that
Speaker 1: our lives matter. It means that we have to choose
Speaker 1: as often as we can, and it's not a perfect existence,
Speaker 1: but as often as we can to choose to feel better,
Speaker 1: to choose a thought that if every every time that
Speaker 1: we keep thinking about what it is that we don't have,
Speaker 1: we'll feel bad. If you start to think about what
Speaker 1: it is that we do have, you'll feel better. So
Speaker 1: the process eric is not that there is perfection, not
Speaker 1: that in every moment we should be happy. But what
Speaker 1: one less one more is about is the process of
Speaker 1: coming and allowing ourselves to at least see, well, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm acting like a butt head here, or I allowed
Speaker 1: my anger to get in the way. I mean, I
Speaker 1: have a short fuse. I'm not very patient, but I'm
Speaker 1: better at it. And again, I don't think that it's
Speaker 1: important that we're better than anyone else. It's just that
Speaker 1: what I try to do is be better than I
Speaker 1: was yesterday. Yeah, I love that. I think what you're
Speaker 1: you know, really what you're getting at there, And what
Speaker 1: I believe is that our moods are moods, and there's
Speaker 1: sometimes and emotions are very difficult to sort of directly
Speaker 1: move there. They're not a lever that you can grab
Speaker 1: very easily. But our thoughts and our actions, those are
Speaker 1: levers that we can move. And if if we do,
Speaker 1: you know, if we move those in the direction that
Speaker 1: you're talking about, then we give ourselves the best chance
Speaker 1: for our moods to follow suit. Yeah, I mean, one
Speaker 1: last one more. My book it is not it is
Speaker 1: not meant. It's not a bible, it's not, it's not
Speaker 1: a perfect formula. It's it's it's a primer for anyone
Speaker 1: whether they want to, you know, if you want to
Speaker 1: change jobs, change marriage, does be better in your meditation, um,
Speaker 1: you know, just even to explore the possibility of being happy.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you one of my favorite parables. There's
Speaker 1: a zen monk who's on a hill and he's crying,
Speaker 1: and one of the students comes up to him and says, Master,
Speaker 1: you're crying. You you preach detachment, you preach happiness. You
Speaker 1: preach joy, You preach us to be unaffected by life,
Speaker 1: and you're crying, why is that? And he said, because
Speaker 1: my son died and I'm sad. And it's like that's
Speaker 1: always struck me because as much as we would like
Speaker 1: to be on that path, as much as we would
Speaker 1: like to consider ourselves to be elevated on any level,
Speaker 1: the reality is is that we're still human beings, and
Speaker 1: we still have bad days, and we still get piste off,
Speaker 1: and we still allow people to rattle us. And someone
Speaker 1: once said, if you really, if you really really think
Speaker 1: you're enlightened, spend a weekend with your family exactly. One
Speaker 1: of the things in the book that you talk about
Speaker 1: that I think is interesting and worth exploring is you
Speaker 1: say that sometimes when we go to make these changes,
Speaker 1: you know we've made all you know, one less one more,
Speaker 1: we do this for a while, we've really sort of
Speaker 1: changed a lot of things about ourselves, that a lot
Speaker 1: of times those changes are either not noticed or often
Speaker 1: not even appreciated by those around us, and that that
Speaker 1: can be a trap we fall into. And that's what
Speaker 1: we're looking for. So why is that and how do
Speaker 1: we work with that? Well, that's a fabulous question, because
Speaker 1: it's something that in my practice and advising people every
Speaker 1: day is people will say, well, I'm a better person,
Speaker 1: but people still call me an asshole or or I
Speaker 1: was you know, even though I was the class slot
Speaker 1: and I know that I screwed around and I did
Speaker 1: terrible things. I'm not that person today. And that's part
Speaker 1: of the problem is that in our society we seem
Speaker 1: to judge people either worst possible bull moment, I mean,
Speaker 1: whatever is their worst moment, that's the label that we
Speaker 1: give them, which is why I say and again, even
Speaker 1: in the Bible, it says that Jesus said that you
Speaker 1: can't be a prophet in your own town. You know
Speaker 1: what do they say a consultant is someone who has
Speaker 1: to travel in over a hundred miles before they can
Speaker 1: give any advice. I mean, the reality is is that
Speaker 1: you can't allow anyone to define who you are. You
Speaker 1: can't allow anyone to say I knew you when you
Speaker 1: were this, and you're still this. That's why you have
Speaker 1: to recognize that in following your heart, in pursuing your path,
Speaker 1: in singing your song, in in in in dancing your
Speaker 1: own dance, you have to be committed to that quiet
Speaker 1: voice inside that's moving you in that direction. And it's
Speaker 1: some point. I mean, we all change, Eric. I mean
Speaker 1: I started I was a newspaper photographer and writer, and
Speaker 1: then I went into radio, and then I went into television.
Speaker 1: And every step along the way, people always remembered me
Speaker 1: by what I was prior to that. And you know,
Speaker 1: someone people would always say, you know, this is my
Speaker 1: first book, and they would say, oh, well, this is
Speaker 1: your first book. And there's always some label, but you
Speaker 1: can't allow it to define you. What you have to
Speaker 1: do is you have to believe in your heart of hearts.
Speaker 1: If you're an electrician and you want to act, then
Speaker 1: you need to start preparing to do that. But what's
Speaker 1: more important is is that you can't be looking to
Speaker 1: other people two validate you until you start to do it,
Speaker 1: and then you have to recognize it. Even those people
Speaker 1: who validate you only know you from the outside anyway.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the things I think that's really
Speaker 1: important in our life. We have to decide are we
Speaker 1: going to be dust at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: Are we going to be ash? Dust is an accumulation
Speaker 1: of waste. It's something that you've sweep into a corner
Speaker 1: and throw away, and so many people at the end
Speaker 1: of their life. I can't tell you how many people
Speaker 1: who I've advised, who are fabulously wealthy, fabulously famous, fabulously
Speaker 1: well known. They go into any restaurant, people see them
Speaker 1: and say, come this way, and they say, I am
Speaker 1: a shell. I don't know who I am. My kids
Speaker 1: don't know me. I have all the money in the world,
Speaker 1: I don't even know what to do with it. I
Speaker 1: am an accumulation of everyone else's crap, and what do
Speaker 1: I do now? Versus saying I want to be ash
Speaker 1: when I die, and Eric, I think that's probably you
Speaker 1: two knowing how you know. If I'm a fan and
Speaker 1: I love your work and I hear what you have
Speaker 1: to say, I think you feel the same way. We
Speaker 1: want to be ash. We want to be all burned up.
Speaker 1: We don't want there to be anything left to us.
Speaker 1: We don't want to die with the music in us.
Speaker 1: But in order to do that, you have to commit
Speaker 1: to being your own person, regardless of what anyone else
Speaker 1: says about you. You have to be authentic, but at
Speaker 1: the same time, and at the same time, you also
Speaker 1: have to in follow in your heart recognize that we
Speaker 1: are all part of this universe is one tune, and
Speaker 1: that we're all connected the same energy that beats your
Speaker 1: heart beats my heart, and that in order for us
Speaker 1: to make this planet better, to make the world better,
Speaker 1: to make our lives better, our families better, we have
Speaker 1: to give more than we take. We have to offer more.
Speaker 1: We have to be authentic. We can't we can't allow
Speaker 1: ourselves to be reactive. We have to be responsive. We
Speaker 1: have to be open, caring, loving. Going right back to
Speaker 1: the parable again, what are you going to feed exactly? Well,
Speaker 1: I think that is a great place to wrap up.
Speaker 1: But this has been a great conversation. I think our
Speaker 1: listeners are going to get a lot out of it.
Speaker 1: We will definitely have links to your book in our
Speaker 1: show notes. And it was really a pleasure having you on.
Speaker 1: It was my pleasure in my honor. And again, um,
Speaker 1: follow your heart, be happy and change slowly. Great advice.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Robbie, Thank you, Eric. Okay, take care Bye,
Speaker 1: Hey everybody, it's Chris. As a quick reminder, go to
Speaker 1: www dot one, you feed dot net, slash coaching program,
Speaker 1: or text Wolf to six six eight six to learn
Speaker 1: more about the coaching program. There's just over a week
Speaker 1: left until the window closes. Thanks. You can learn more
Speaker 1: about Robbie Vorhaus and this podcast at one you Feed
Speaker 1: dot net slash Robbie. That's r O B B I E.
Speaker 1: Thanks