#108: Breaking Into Your Inner Dialogue with Lauren Handel Zander

Welcome to The Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, bestselling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markel. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So, please join Adam as he guides you on your conscious pivot.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and I'm so blessed to be here with you all today. I feel really energized actually this morning. I've been kind of recovering from a business trip last week that took me to the East Coast. I don't know what it was. I don't normally get wigged out by a little 3,000-mile trip. I gave a lot. It was in the role of a business mentor with a number of entrepreneurs, both experienced and some kind of startup side pivoting, side hustling people. I just gave a lot. Took its toll on me because when I got back, I was super exhausted. But today, my energy has returned. My enthusiasm is right back. And I have the perfect guest on the show today to match that because this is a woman with just, I can already tell, dynamic energy. She's done amazing things in the world. I'll share a little bit more about her and read her bio in just a second, but I want to ground myself and also help us to all ground wherever we are right now. I'm sure that life as it typically is active, dynamic. I hate the word busy, so I'm not going to cast that one on anybody, but we've got a lot going on and never a moment in my day where no matter what's going on, I can't benefit from it. deep breath. So I'm gonna take a deep breath right now. I invite you to do the same. Whatever it is that you're up to, create some space for yourself to just breathe deeply, be present if you like, enjoy the fact that you don't have to do anything right now. Perhaps you could just listen, you could just consume this as you're driving or on the treadmill, whatever you're doing. You can just be easy, let this conversation that we're gonna have be of benefit to you. And that's my intention and my hope that it is of some high benefit in your life. So Lauren Zander, did I screw that up? Did I, did I say, did I do it Handel right? Right. So funny. And right before we started, I asked Lauren, I said, oh my God, tell me how to pronounce your maiden name. So Lauren Handel Zander is the co-founder and chairwoman of the Handel Group. An international corporate consulting and life coaching company. Her coaching methodology, Handel Method, is taught in over 35 universities and institutes of learning around the world, including MIT, Stanford Graduate School of Business, NYU, and the New York City public school system. I had a little stint as a teacher there. Lauren is also the author of Maybe It's You. I actually have a copy of that book on my desk, which I'll hold up in just a moment. Cut the Crap, Face Your Fears, Love Your Life. Man, that is an awesome subtitle. Published by Hatchet Book Group, April 2017. So it's a recent publication. A no-nonsense practical manual that helps readers figure out not just what they want out of life, but how to actually get there. Action book. That's way cool. She has spent over 20 years coaching thousands of private and corporate clients, including executives at Vogue, BASF, and AOL. Does AOL still exist? Haha.

I don't know. It's like how old that paragraph is.

Lauren has been a featured expert in the New York Times, BBC, Forbes, Women's Health, Dr. Oz, and Marie Claire, and she is a regular contributor to Businessweek and the Huffington Post. Lauren, that is a beautiful bio, and it shows that— It's better.

I could even do better now. I keep going.

There's a lot going on. So my question for you is, What do you want people to know about you that's not written in that bio?

Haha! It's the thing I always tell people that hire me, but it's really not a kosher thing to say. Ready? I'm a witch. It's there is no doubt. There is no doubt.

Like literally a witch?

I'm a witch, right? Like not based on pagans or any, not coming from it, but it's like if you like

cauldron and a

big nothing. Oh, I have been known to create rituals that absolutely. Absolutely work and make you make rituals that will absolutely work. I don't need some old book of any sort. I have no past from it. But in regards to being utterly witchy, right? Like, I don't care what you write in your homework. I will figure out your lie in like 10 minutes, right? Like, do not get on the phone call with me thinking you're gonna hide your mistress. I'm sorry, don't. Like, I'm sorry, don't come near me if you think I'm not gonna figure it out in 10 minutes. Resilience.

It's unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free Resilient Leader Assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. Oh man, there are people literally running for the aisles wherever they are. They're going, I know. Can she figure it out if I'm on the other side of this podcast and she can't see me?

I'd hang up. I would. I'm a little scary. It's scary. It's actually a good scary. I work for the good guys. I only work for the good guys, which is why I have many warning labels.

And right, it's important actually that you think about it, that there's a big responsibility in having gifts. I mean, it's a segue into something that's coming up for me, but we all have gifts. Everybody has their own unique gifts.

It's true.

And they come with responsibilities. So for example, if you're the kind of person who has that type of a gift, it probably ought to come with a warning label. And certainly—

Oh yes. So that's the, like, and I also can't not tell whatever comes into my mind. That's the truth. You're like, what's the interesting thing not in the book that you tell anyone who ends up really dealing with you that nobody will know? And I'm like, that's what I always warn people. It's hysterical. That was the answer.

Well, it's good warning for me to know that, that basically, aka, she has no filter. This is good.

I have no filter. I have— now, that I will manage my clients' secrets till the day I die. I will go to the grave with them. But other than that—

So confidentiality lives in— ethics live— lives within you. Integrity.

Yes. I get permission, like I granted permission who I'm allowed to talk about that I work with, and then I make it very clear Oh my God, I only work with the best clients. Oh my God, my clients are all the best, right? So you'll never hear me ever like, Lauren loves her clients, and you will be like, oh my God, I love him, right? And then there's things that I'm

allowed— I love my clients too. And when I was a lawyer, so folks know I spent 18 years in that profession, I'm going to admit right out loud, I did not love my clients because, you know what, it's an interesting thing. People years ago after Pivot came out said, Just tell me about the difference between your life as a lawyer and your life now running a training company and traveling and speaking and all that stuff. Yeah. I said, well, it used to be in my daily life, and I made a ton of money, I mean, and life was good. So I was on that scale growing up in New York. I was my mom, my mother-in-law. I was a lawyer. I had achieved what they say, you know, you couldn't be a doctor. I wasn't smart enough, I guess, right? Or motivated or disciplined enough. I became a lawyer. No, not all lawyers out there, but we all know what I'm talking about.

Excuse me, I was raised by a lawyer who built a law firm, but actually was someone who loves being— he's 82 years old, and if you're like, where is your dad right now? I'm like—

He's still practicing.

He's in the office. Of course he is. He loves it.

Oh my God. Well, he may not resonate with what I'm about to say, agree with what I'm going to say. I would never have said resonate in a court. Judge, I don't resonate with what you just said. It's like, Mr. Markel, My clients, I would see the worst in them so often. And the difference between— I would spend my days then and now I spend my days, I see the best in people. The best in people always seems to emerge in the work I do now. And back then, I would find out my client lied to me. They lied to me multiple times. Wow. I found out we're in the middle of something and over like a real estate thing or whatever, they'd be arguing about a refrigerator or a $25 item and you go, are you freaking kidding me? And I was a litigation attorney. So whenever people are getting into a fight and use the court to arbitrate their fight, be the arbiter of their fight, you're really at the low point. I mean, it's a bad place to be. Anyhow, so yeah, I don't do that anymore, which is nice. So I got that going. And we call that thing there the pivot.

I appreciate a pivot.

That's a technical term for that.

I agree. And I help people pivot.

You've had a pivot in your life?

Many pivots. I would say many, of course.

So let's dig in.

Yes.

Sometimes we have to take this little sort of a delicate path to find that we find the sinkhole along the way. With you, we're not going to do that. We're just going to parachute right to that.

All right. So I have a very big work pivot. Like, I've had 2 big work pivots in my career, and that's pretty much it, but big ones. And then I have a love life pivot that was also pretty record-performing. What would you like?

Well, one from column A, 2 from column B.

Okay. So the column A one, which is pretty radical, I'll just take the love one fast. So I was raised by Orthodox Jewish parents. Yeah. And if you go, tell me about your husband, and I'm like, well, at least he sounds Jewish. His name's David Zander. Right? His brother is Chris Xander. Okay? As you can tell, they were not Jewish boys. I had a date— and I teach about love and I teach about how to find the one and what that means to you and really sorting yourself out. But I had a pattern. And in my pattern in life, I really was trying to marry someone for my parents. And then when I was done being bored out of my mind dating that guy, the nice Jewish boy, I would go romp around and be a bad girl for a little while and then come back to try and be good. And somewhere around 27, 28 years old, I had a revelation that I was trying to marry someone for my parents, not me. And I honestly—

You had that revelation before you married the guy, right?

Oh, I broke up with my parents. I actually had a sit-down pivot where I brought my parents together and truly cried before I had ever met anyone and said, I have to break up with you guys. I love you with all my heart. But I can't promise to marry someone to make you happy. And I want to, but I am like weird. I am so weird about dating that I know who my big problem is, is I'm trying to please you people. And I don't care about being Jewish. Like, I don't care. How am I supposed to do this for you? Like, I swear to God, I have to break up with you people. Let's have the fight now.

There's a lot of self-awareness in what you just said. I know you said it in a funny way and kind of No, it

was very deep.

There's a lot of people who don't come to that realization until they've been divorced at least once and they're in their 40s and they look back and go, for 20 years I've been living someone else's life or someone else's lie. And that's rough. So good on you that you're 28?

27.

27? Oh,

27.

You're really—

Because that was the year I did meet my husband, right? Like literally after I broke up with my parents, I know this is going to sound like it was magic. I was witchy. Yes, we'll go back to that. Within 3 weeks, I met David Zander.

Yeah.

And then I am with the love of my life, right? Like, it's 20-some-odd years later, 3 babies, still playing with my husband like he's the cutest thing that ever lived.

Yeah. You created space. I mean, when we get rid of stuff, even sort of mental stuff, emotional stuff, physical stuff, we get rid of stuff. It creates space. And we know the way the universe— and this is not the woo-woo side, even though I'm on the West Coast, so I'll have fun with that with you. But it really is a universal law that you can't have a vacuum. The universe always rushes to fill things, to fill a vacuum, to fill space. So that's why space is so creative. And when we don't have any freaking space, it's no wonder why sometimes we can feel stuck in all those different areas. Yeah. So when you broke up with your parents, you created a little space for the guy to show up, right?

Well, and I had also not been telling the truth for about 20 years, right? Like, I was lying and I knew it felt—

Since 7 you were lying? You were 7 and you were lying?

I was always trying to date someone to bring home to my parents. It was literally— it really wasn't ingrained. Like, the only way to make parents happy was to date a nice boy.

So even the kid that you're gonna play doctor with, you said, hey, listen, if I'm gonna play doctor, I gotta play doctor with a Jewish— a nice Jewish doctor.

My pattern was very strict. Next door was the family from Yugoslavia that I thought was hot. And the other one were the Jewish boys where I was not that impressed. One felt like a cousin and one did not.

That is a good distinction there. All right. This is the relationship pivot. Is that—

That was a very big relationship pivot that I have been smooth sailing ever since. And then in regards to my career, There was 2 pivots. The one when I was 22. So I got a degree in environmental science from George Washington University. I was an environmental studies major. I was save the trees, kill the people. Okay? I really— and the more I cared about the environment, the more unhappy I was to be alive a little. Like something was really like I was mad at society, mad at people. Like the more— Makes sense. And I got the job of my dreams and was really unhappy. And then had this revelation, honest to God, 22 years old, had a revelation crying that the trees weren't the problem. It was that people couldn't see the trees, right? And that I was working on the wrong issue altogether.

All right. So say that again. Yeah. I want to let that drop in for myself and for others that are here that want to hear it.

So the revelation I had was I was so mad at humans for burning or not taking care of the trees, seeing like I was so And I was trying to save the trees, but the more I tried to save the trees, the more I was pissed at the humans.

Yeah.

And truly was like, and I was so not happy no matter how much, because it just was never going to be enough. And then I had a revelation, like, this couldn't possibly be my dream because I'm hating, like, this makes me hate. And then I had the revelation that the trees are going to be fine. It's the humans that are going to die. It's the humans that don't see the trees. And I'm not fixing the thing that has the problem. I'm not helping humans see the trees. And it was like a mess because my poor daddy paid for college. I was full of shit. I went from like, I'm an environmentalist, to like, I want to work in self-help. Trust me, they didn't exactly line up as well as I can pitch it now.

Yeah, interesting.

So that was me.

So this is a pivot that takes place while you're in college or it happens afterwards?

No, I got my dream job. I was working at the United Nations Global Environment Facility. It's like getting a job at McKinsey, right? It's like you finally arrived at the place you thought it was always meant to be. And I was miserable. I mean, I'm not saying miserable, hated the work, like Needed a cigarette, right? Like really unhappy.

Yeah.

And then—

How long did you stay in that state before you— it got to be, you know, the pain was great enough to do something about

it? Probably around 18 months. Within 2 years, I really was okay with— when I realized I was miserable, I filled out an application for the Peace Corps and said, I'll either go to the Peace Corps, like I'll either get out of Dodge or— and I didn't want to go to the Peace Corps, just let's be clear. But I'll go, or I better come up with a better answer before that. And so I went to work. I found the only self-help company I'd ever heard about at the time. Which one? Oh, I ran away. That's okay. No, thank you. My line is I ran away screaming.

I don't really talk about my former job. I don't want to talk about it.

I don't want to talk about that much. You can look it up if you want to figure it out with

me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But nonetheless, I worked there for a bunch of years till I ran away screaming and decided I'd rather Help one person at a time to see if I could actually make change and really start to develop because nothing was comprehensive enough. Nothing was actionable enough. Okay. So then here's my next pivot. So I left, went out on my own. I don't even count that as my pivot. The next pivot was, imagine that I did that for 5 years and I was having a ball. And then I had this lawyer moment, which was, what am I going to do? I'm very successful. This is really working well. I can keep raising my rates all I want. No problem. And I'm going to grow, live, and die, and have done 649 people.

Yeah. Mass transformation.

But okay. And then someone I had trained, like literally took— and this is so cute. I don't mean to be funny. Someone I had saved from being a lawyer and turned them into a life coach and executive coach and trained her, loved her. Her name's Mel Robbins.

Mel. Oh my God. Yes.

Do you understand? Like I took her.

I took her.

I

took her

from being a lawyer who was unhappy and taught her everything I knew. And then before you know it, she was getting a serious radio show.

Yeah.

And I had to confront that I was home with my very 2 cute babies doing 649 people for the rest of my life, doing very well and being like, if this was it, I was gonna still be unhappy. And that was the next big pivot. Well, I realized that that was not big enough, that I was a chicken.

I want to pause you there for a second to interject a question.

Yes, I'll be quiet.

I was on a show yesterday with Stuart Emery, and I don't know if you know Stuart Emery. I met Stuart, so I'm a part of a group called TLC, and I won't get into all that. He was partnered with Werner Erhardt, so he created Estée Lauder. So he was a co-founder.

That was the company I wasn't gonna mention.

Okay. Gotcha. Which then morphed into Landmark and anyway. So, wow. We were talking yesterday about how it is that the outer world things that we seek, that we're constantly sort of seeking things to get to feel happy. Right. So it's the change of a job. If I get my dream job, like you said, if I work at McKinsey, boom, I'll be happy. If I live in my beautiful Victorian home on 2 acres in Westchester or in Chappaqua or wherever, I'll be 11. There we go. And I'll be happy. If I move to San Diego, California and live in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I'll be happy. And you fill in the blank for yourself, whether it's money or it's people, it's relationships, it's anything. And yet more often than not, especially both in my own experience, having been in the training space for a lot of years, 10 years at this point, been around a lot of people and I've stopped doing the listing of the number of people whose lives we've impacted, yada yada, because I think that's bullshit. Because I'm just not buying that whole mass transformation thing anymore. But regardless, that at a certain point you've been around enough people to realize that the finding the thing, including the purposeful thing and the this thing and that thing, that doesn't create inner peace or what we might call happiness, contentment, a feeling of just being— Yeah. comfortable in your own skin, peace of mind, body, and spirit and all that. So, I'm just curious what your thoughts are about that because you did, you worked with a lot of people and you've been in that space and you have been successful. And yet finding those next things, you didn't want to do the 649. You didn't want to have these 649 life-changing testimonials. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You wanted something else. Have you pivoted into a thing or was there a curve?

I'm doing great. Weather, it was much— so that pivot, right? If I wasn't going to be a chicken and I was going to dare to do my greatest dream on earth, right? I would build the company I'm in the middle of building now, right? So weather's great. Jumped into the vortex, left. And have I—

What year was that when you left?

2005.

Okay, got it. Yeah.

And I'm in love with what I'm building. I'm in love with who I get to reach. I'm in love with what we get to— like, it's break into education, teach real life. Okay, so I care deeply about teaching real life and language so that kids can talk, think, and interact, right? So I did that. I'm doing that. My concept is do it at MIT and Stanford, not because that's where I care about doing it, though I'm very happy to be there, It's so that by the time I bring the method into where I'm teaching at foster care, when they— right? Like, so I want to close the gap on language from the top to the bottom, right? In the language that really matters in being able to impact inner dialogue. So you go, what do you— right? And then get to the richest companies in the world, find the best people in the world who can make the difference. And then you ready for something very funny? I know. It's my kind of humor. I once had a vision, really witchy vision. There was a huge turkey.

Which involved eye of newt or?

No, nothing. Actually, there's a great shaman lady who does open heart in Costa Rica. No drugs, 9:00 AM, and I am tripping, truly.

No newts.

Nothing.

Right? No newts.

But her, she's quite a scene. Okay? You can't beat her. Okay. So anyways, I have a whole entire vision and the vision really is, watch, it's kind of bizarre. A huge turkey, like for Thanksgiving, like the biggest turkey. And I couldn't understand why I saw the biggest turkey. Like what? A turkey in my dream state? And then what I got was there was a spatula that was made up of about 100 humans. Like there's the right 100 humans, and that you have to flip the bird because dark and meat, like the evil money is on top. You need to flip the bird. It's a Bachelor. It's the right 100 to 150 people that have the power and the money that are good. Get to them, Loren.

And flip the bird.

In all ways. Flip the bird!

Now, this is great because folks who are not watching this on YouTube, you got to go find this one. So, and listen to the end of the podcast, go find it on YouTube, right? Go to adamarkel.com, find it right there. You got to see Loren literally flipping the bird with both of her Extended—

Right.

Dorsal fin fingers.

Dark's on top, like evil's running the money. It's not millions of people. It's not the turkey. You don't have to get to— like, because I cry because I want to get to every little person. That's not the problem. It's not every little person. It's who's in control. Like, if you heard my roster of who I'm coaching and who my company's coaching and what we're doing and what we're infusing in them as different ways to think, take over their inner dialogue, have dreams for the world. Right? Care, deeply care. We got some odds before the planet burns.

We got a little time. We got maybe 11 years is what we got.

I think we're going to be— I'm going for it. That's why meeting people like you is epic fun, right? We're all in the same game.

I'm going to hit you right between the eyes and say, so all that's great and yes, good on you in every way possible.

Every way possible.

And so how lovely that we get to Have this conversation and even reach that many more people with the idea that we could flip the bird. Why couldn't we? Of course.

We are. We better.

And this book's been out, Maybe It's You. I love this book. I'm just holding it up right here. So Maybe It's You. Thank you. Cut the crap, face your fears, love your life. I want to talk about the book in a second, but before we go there, how is that contributing to your own personal peace, to your happiness? Because I'm wearing a shirt that says, I love my life. And one of the—

Yes.

Part of the subtitle of your book was Love Your Life.

So—

It really is a big deal to us given the fact that we know that suicide, whether people realize it or not, is a real issue. And it's not an issue among people that have mental illness or among people that you can't relate to on some level. It's an issue that affects all of us. I think there's a lot of people out there who've been impacted directly by suicide, and that might be that it's somebody in your family or some friend that you know. But it's also the fact that most people have thought about it at some point or have maybe even attempted it at some point. In many ways, the things that are disturbing most people, I think, are really at the heart level that we inside don't feel right. Not right feeling is epidemic. Yeah. I'm not saying we have an epidemic of people thinking about driving off the side of a road or something else. But I'll tell you what, everybody I've met where I've asked this question, said, have you thought about it? Did you ever give it serious consideration even for a moment? Most people say yes. And that's, I think, one of those things that we get to make a choice in every moment how we experience this moment. And we either love our lives even if we're in the middle of it, even if the thing that we started and we had all that energy about it— I mean, there's a lot of entrepreneurs, more than a billion people are entrepreneurs. Yeah. freelancing or sidepreneuring these days and people are working more remotely and will continue to do so and there's lots of entrepreneurs and we know that that is not an easy space to be in. Let's just call it right. Like, you're a successful woman, you've created a successful business and I want to hear about exactly what you're talking about and there's a lot of people out there that have started off with that, yeah, baby, I'm going to change the world, right? And I'm going to flip the bird to all the people that deserve to have the bird flip to them, right? And they're running out of capital or they're running out of energy and they're exhausted. Those folks that I think we have to speak to as well because loving your life means loving your fucking life, period.

Right.

Loving your life means not when the sun is shining and when it's warm, the money is working, and when things are right. It's loving your life even in the midst of a storm. Wow, the pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about, and it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are.

So first of all, I am incredibly happy. Really, really. I was up at 5:30. I was at a spin class this morning with my sister and her husband. So I was up at 5.

Are they having marital difficulties?

Not at all. I mean, we're like—

Why were you having a spin class with your husband? Oh my God.

5:30.

5:30.

And then they picked up their sister-in-law, right? So we are— and we're going on Sunday morning, right? So we're—

You're abnormal is basically what you're about to

say. What I've built and what I teach, I preach, practice, and absolutely follow. And I really do think that the most important thing is how do you love yourself? You respect yourself. How do you respect yourself? You respect what you do. Right? You jerked off 5 times today, you're not going to like yourself very much, and you're going to blame your family, and you're going to blame your food. Right? So, there really is an inner dialogue. The whole book is about breaking into your own inner dialogue in 12 different areas of life. My shit is so comprehensive. It is a reaction to what no one addressed back in S days.

Hmm.

Right? It was like none of that went deep enough to break into the inner dialogue to get a person to design their life. to design what matters to them. I don't need what matters to me to matter to you. But boy, oh boy, if you don't tell the truth about what matters and doesn't matter— the reason a person is depressed is because they're depressing. Why are they depressing? Because they're usually lying. What are you lying about? Let's discuss that starting now.

Hmm.

Right? And so my ability to break into depression that isn't mental illness, If it is mental illness, I will have a very hard time breaking in, right? But if it's the type that isn't mental illness, it has everything to do with how somebody talks to themselves, hides shit, lies, and isn't dealing with their moment-to-moment life. And I can literally take that over and become a sponsor to what they need to be doing all day long. Like, how many emails do you get where someone's telling you what they're accomplishing in the day, including their food, including their exercise? Including their actions, but not just their actions, their attitude about their actions, and then rating themselves. I'm like, see, we will be working on having great lives, right? This is not to be left up to chance.

My question to you is still, what is it that brings you your own inner peace? What's the thing that keeps you or has you loving life, loving your life, Even when things are not going exactly how you want them. Look, you're talking about when you bring your fingers up like this—

I love everything I do. Everything.

Flip the bird, right? When you say flip the bird, that's not just you playing or being cute or funny. I know. There's energy there. Like, you're good and pissed off about it.

I had a whole new pitch for women. Ready? It's terrible. You want it? That we should all

have

it. Ready? So I was so upset about Kavanaugh and everything that's going on, like, just So messed up. Like, my world's a mess, right? And I was like, what does this make me feel like? Right? And I'm like, oh my God, it brings up shame for me. What's the shame it brings up? I want to go menstrual. Right? Like, when I get hairy mad, right? Like, I've been spending my whole life being ashamed of getting menstrual, like getting a little cray-cray when it happens. And I'm like, oh my God, women actually need to go menstrual. I'd like— if it was aimed at the right thing and we all united together,

maybe it

could work.

You could create a walk for this.

Wait, wait, wait, ready? And then I decided it would take back the red tie, right? If we like really went for it and went menstrual, it just might mess up the bloody tie, right? That's how upset. So you're like, do I get upset? I'm like, oh wait, But I have to turn it into something I can live with and then share exactly like I did. Like, you're like, how many times do you tell this menstrual story? I'm like, oh, I've told it about 15 times now. And it makes me feel like I'm doing something about it.

Exactly. And that's the essence of— and I'm glad we could extract that because you get angry, we combine, dig down, get that wisdom, right? That you're turning your anger into something that also feels— is an authentic feeling.

Yeah.

You don't want to just feel angry. None of us want to just feel angry. What we want to feel is resolution at the end of that anger.

Productive with it.

Want to be heard, want to be seen, want there to be some difference that it makes in the world.

Yes.

And it is frustrating as all hell when you are angry about it, but you stuff it or you don't do anything productive with it.

How about we made a Trump joke on my blog about his hair like a year ago. And the amount of people that left my blog.

Yes.

I had to vote if I was going to have my humor or take care of my clients. Right. Like that happened. I'm not political. Like, I like— forget his hair jokes. Right. Like, I'll be okay. I'm taking care of people's whole lives. I don't even get to make political jokes. Right. Okay. Right. So there's compromises all the time that don't feel just right.

Yeah. That's an inauthenticity when we don't speak how we feel like speaking. I mean, look, but we've got to also deal with the consequences of it, right? Because you say something— look, if you said the wrong thing to my mother, she'd flip you the bird. Actually, she wouldn't. That wouldn't be her thing. She would say something or choose not to, but she would leave. She would just like be silent. Yes. And then we might not speak to her or see her for 3 months. Something like that. So there's always consequences for our actions anyway. And sometimes the fact that there's consequences doesn't mean you shouldn't have taken the action to begin with. Like,

yeah,

it's not that I wouldn't want to get the 3 months back. I'm just making this up, although in the past we've had that happen. You know, it's not like I wanted to lose 3 months of connection with somebody, right? Whoever that was. But when I reverse the tape and go back to it, I got to say, okay, so did I need to say that? That need to happen the way it did? Would—

Right.

You know, if I could change that, would I have changed that? Because just recently I was listening to Marie Forleo was interviewing Brené Brown on her podcast, and they had a really interesting a great conversation actually about this topic because, you know—

Oh yeah?

Swift has come out recently to speak some political stuff or express her opinion, and Brené Brown said some things, and there's a lot of people out there who are hating on folks or responding to them to say, listen, I'm done with you now. You know, once you went there, I'm kind of done with you. And that's a consequence. I mean, you just have to be willing to go back and say, you know what, am I okay with the fact that half my listeners or whatever have decided that this doesn't work for them because now suddenly you're not who they thought you were or you can't be aligned. It's like saying, I'm a Giants fan. You know, it's

a really— but I actually—

Patriots fan, you go, oh, that means I can't listen to you, I can't talk, I can't look, I can't enjoy, I can't interact because, you know, like you're on the wrong team. That's disturbing to me. That's the essence of it because you can certainly have Your reaction even to someone else's opinion. But why does that have to poison the well entirely, which is what it feels like at times?

Yes. But I honestly, even now, don't go political, right? Like, I just won't because I really don't—

Yeah, just except on my show. Right.

Well, I'm sorry. No, if anybody's chasing Lauren Zander, this is not the handout group,

right?

I hope you want to just talk to me. Like, I don't know, right? Maybe you're right. I'm defecting. I've defected. I've defected. I think it's a really complicated question because I don't think it's my place to be political when I really am helping people in their personal lives. And I really am about figuring out what's true for you and figuring out what's true for me. And I can understand if you had a voice and I didn't like what you were saying and now you're true for yourself was like wiping it on me.

Yep.

Right? Like, that's not my job. Right? Like, my job is to create a platform for you to think through, and my method has philosophies but not opinions like my democratic nature and my East Coast style.

Yeah.

Right?

Was it personally—

I think I'm actually wrong.

Long ago? No, no, no. I think what's really important here is that we learn how to speak our truth, and also at the same time that we speak our truth, that we realize it's not the truth. It's just Right. Which means your opinion, it's your perspective on something. And there's nothing wrong with that, sharing your perspective. I mean, there's a part of it which is like if I started to rant about or talk about opine on the topic of dentistry and I don't have a clue except having been in a dentist's chair to get my cavities filled and my teeth cleaned, but I'm going to start to talk about dentistry like I know what I'm talking about, people would probably stop listening to me because they'd say, That guy's a fool. Like, he's got— or that there's a—

You know what? I have a better question.

They're leading you in the wrong direction.

Where this question gets really messy, oh, it's gonna be terrible. It's the Bill Cosby concept. Like, did he ruin all of his comedy?

Oh, we're gonna go there? Oh my goodness.

I'm sorry. But it really is behind— how much does it matter the way a Guru Mai runs her business or someone? Like, there's worlds of behind the business. And is the message and what they taught— is Michael Jackson ruined because of his perversions? Or maybe perversions, right? Like, how do you feel? And I think every individual has to separate it out and go, do I care about the man behind the art, or can I just love the art and not give a shit about the man?

So you've worked with thousands of people, or a lot of people. I've worked with thousands

over the years,

and right now You work with people who've been very, very successful, some celebrities.

Very famous, very famous, everything. Big company, all of the above.

You may not be able to answer it, and I'm cool with if you want to punt on this one too. But if you do have an answer, I want to know what is the deeper truth in all this? Because when I'm describing this, like if I was talking about dentistry, people would go, everybody would be sort of like, yeah, Adam probably isn't qualified to talk about dentistry. Right? But if I was to talk about politics and I have no clue about politics either. All I know is what I've seen and what I've been told and my— what feels right inside all that. So if I do that, I talk about politics, it's not a lot different than me talking about dentistry. So it's easy for people to look at me and go, yeah, not so much. Not really getting it so much. He really hasn't earned the right to really be, quote, you know, like an expert in that topic. Right? So we get it. That's what's happening. And there's all this violent discourse and it really is violent discourse. It's very uncivil discourse.

That's true.

And you wrote a book where like 12 different areas you're getting at the truth, you're getting at the lies, you're digging into the inner dialogue of things. What is the deeper truth behind why it is that there are women on blue and women wearing red and men wearing blue and men wearing red that might as well be standing on opposite sides of the Mason-Dixon line? I mean, seriously, this is like Civil War rhetoric that's going on in our country right now?

What I pin it to is epigenetics. Epigenetics is you are so not— like, you don't just have your dad's green eyes, you have your dad's wandering green eye, right? And you wish you didn't have the behaviors behind it. So given who your parents are, given who their parents were, given the dynamic of where you grew up, It is very difficult not to end up with a bit of verbatim from your reaction to your parents or ending up exactly like them. We think we should be further ahead than we are, and we're really just not. And I'm devastated by that. We had a Black president. Come on. Yeah. That was something else, right? Like, it didn't even remotely deal with what was in the underbelly of what's not working about being human still. Right. And so you go, where did it come from? I'm like, their parents and their parents and their parents and their parents, right? Blame society, blame the environment.

So this is the nature-nurture argument, or at least some part of it, right? That there's the genetics piece of it, because I want folks who maybe just don't know what epigenetics— they've heard the word before, but they maybe just don't know what that is. So if you'd explain that a little bit, because genetics obviously is clearly our DNA we get passed down from generations.

Okay. So there's this amazing— I explain it this way. Because there really have been studies done. This is— science has done studies. If you look it up, here's what happens. And I picked it up this way because it makes it really simple. There is a little bunny rabbit watching its sister bunny rabbit get eaten by a bear. That little bunny rabbit who hasn't had any babies yet, okay, not only knows to be scared of bears, but its babies know to be scared of bears. The bunny behind me who saw nothing, my brother who saw nothing, yeah, didn't get any of that. So genetics are literally shaping as they're happening and learning as they're happening. So as you think, whether you know it or not, what happened to your parents, whether you know it or not, is infused into your DNA, right? So as you're on your 3rd marriage and you're like, wow, my dad had 4, do you think I'm going for one more? So literally when I deal with humans, I make them go study their parents' financial situations. They're like, go find out, like you would want to know the DNA of their genetic, like did they have cancer? Are they diabetic? Whatever is going on in their DNA, you would go, I really need to know that. Well, I'm letting you know, you don't just need to know that. You need to understand their sex lives, their financial situation, their relationship with their siblings, how they fight with business partners. But it's actually significant events in their life, right? It's the way they interact with Black people, with like— it's the way they come from, they see the world. You don't have it maybe, you have it some way or other, right? So if your dad's an alcoholic and was, you may not drink, but you're a workaholic. It isn't, do you have it exactly like he has it? It's, how do you have it? Are you the opposite, some exact, or it's leaking into some other area of your life? The ability to start to play tic-tac-toe with your parents to yourself will spook you out. And if you think what's happening in your life didn't happen before somewhere in your lineage, the odds are that maybe it did in some variation, but not that far from the one.

Yeah. And it's interesting to take a look at the things that have happened in your life that didn't work, whether Like, so for example, if your relationships have been shit and that's been the history, you haven't been able to keep relationships or people have abandoned you or they betrayed you or you betrayed people, there's the looking back not only at why you made those choices but where it is that other people that have been close to you in your life, influential people, made similar choices or created similar results. Is that what you're saying? And those don't have to necessarily even be your parents, but they could be your older brother or your grandfather or other people that you learned from. Yes.

Here's what happened. This is when it triggered me to start studying this. Many, many years ago, I saved a client who was trying to figure out if she should get divorced. We have the most beautiful divorce. We really figure out we're getting divorced, right? And very successful woman, beautiful, having a great divorce, husband, they're raising the kid together. It's fabulous. I get this witchy feeling that I don't know how she's doing. Where is she? I send a text, like, what's happening in your life? She's about to move in. She is a 37-year-old, very successful woman. She's about to move her 27-year-old Latin dancer—

Into her home.

Who needs a green card into her home with her child. Like, I'm about to go— I am not okay. Okay, like, you're back? How's this back? Okay, ready? That was not the problem. She gets to my couch, right? We're like, sit down. What's going on? Her father was very happily married now with his 4th wife. Mom was on her very happily married with her 3rd husband. 3rd husband, it was like 17 years. 4th wife, really long time, actually figured it out in the end. Which one got the green card for somebody?

Mm-hmm.

The dad. Spanish. Green card. The only thing different was it wasn't a dancer, right? And we literally stopped the trait. Right. And got her to see how spooky it was. She knew nothing about the depth of her parents' dynamics in love. That's not true anymore. Right. It was like weird voodoo. That's how spooky epigenetics can be. That's when I started figuring out I better study this closer. Yes. In about 9 sentences, y'all should be spooked out.

Indeed. Indeed. You mentioned the word rituals earlier. So I'm very much a believer in the power of rituals. Rituals in particular for recovery.

Yes.

Because I think we're also epidemically, not epigenetically, but epidemically exhausted. I think we're living in a very exhausted world. In many ways, a world of burnout. So to me, it's not exhaustion that kills us. It's not stress that kills us. It's the lack of recovery from stress.

Okay, got it.

Leads to the things that ultimately make us miserable or exhausted or not well. What kind of rituals do you have? What are the things that you do on a ritualized basis to help you maintain?

Very simple. My favorite ritual, which I owe money if I do not keep it, right? So I owe— I could lose $20 a day if I don't do either side of this ritual. So before 10:00 AM, I design my day. It's called a DD, Design Day. And I send it to someone.

That's so complicated.

DD. DD.

Is

it?

Yeah. Well, the acronym

is

very, very complicated. People are going to write that down right now.

It's my design day. Okay. Whatever.

It's either design or default. Without the design, what do you do? It's a default.

It does. So, and it is not a to-do list. It is very much a magic list, a being list. Like I have the best time today. Like I ask for things, I play with things, I get laid by my husband. Like my kids are happy. This one says something. So before I start my day, I create my day that way and I send it. Many people send it to a lot, like their gang. I make sure I send it to one person who's my accountability buddy. Right? And then at the end of the day before I go to bed, I literally yes, no, yes. I account for it. And if there— watch this, this is extra woo-woo, right? If there's anything I wasn't happy with, missed, or want to create, I think going to bed into your subconscious, right? I like going into bed thinking I had the best day and anything I want to rewrite to happen that I say really happened that day. I write right before bed, and it's basically the last thoughts I have before I go to sleep.

Beautiful.

And if you go, could I keep track of my DDs and show you how the magic in my life has happened? The answer is yes. Like, I don't need anything else. I can make everything. It's like a playbook. I'm creating a playbook and designing my own playbook every day, and it includes whatever I want, and it includes getting up and enjoying getting up at 5 in the morning.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. I love that. It's a being list because in so many ways, the quality of our life is equal to the quality of how we experience living. I mean, it's not more complicated than that on some level because at the end of the day, the long day that is our life, we'll have not much to take with us. I don't think we're going to take pretty much anything with us other than the experience of being. And we get to—

I have some woo-woo. I have some opinions on that. I actually feel like I think you pick up and drop people off here and continue with them.

I think we're eternal beings, so I don't think our light is extinguished, but our bodies—

I agree. But I really do feel like you meet people here that you can leave with, and you can dump people in this life that you don't have to take care of.

Are you sure about that? I am absolutely sure. You can drop people off?

I think that's what a part of what's happening here is aligning and leaving and realigning and leaving. And getting more evolved. I do feel like I have, not with your parents or your family, like not those people. They were like God's particular. You come with those, but the ones that are deep friends and relationships, right? You get to choose.

Do you believe in forgiveness?

Oh, yeah. I teach it. I love forgiveness. I mean it.

To me, I think that's the way that we end if we were to use the word karma, you know, sort of karmic Repetition of things that people that you have real intense feelings for, either way, love or hate, that these are people that you might not be able to drop off so quickly. You know, that you might have some extra work to do with.

Yes.

You know, some point later. But forgiveness is this wonderful way that I really think you can cut that cord and not necessarily have to drag around that baggage with you. So That would be nice, wouldn't it? I have so enjoyed our chat today. This has been fun.

This is awesome.

I swear to God, I wish we were sitting at a big kitchen table like for coffee now. Like we need another— it's gonna turn into a Seinfeld episode. So I'm gonna pull up to your house in a vintage '65 Porsche to pick you up for coffee. What do you think?

Oh my God. I really love coffee and I would get in that car with you immediately.

No, you'd get in that car with Seinfeld.

No, I would get in that car with you and I don't And you are delightful and charming and awesome and could be the guy that signed up, right? Like in a self-help sort of way.

Way cool. Thank you so much for being a guest. And for our community, if you've loved this episode, I can't imagine that there hasn't been something in this particular show that you didn't laugh about or smile or just go, what are they talking about? Please leave a review. iTunes is a great place to do that. Or you can go to adamarkel.com/podcast and leave a comment. And that way we can actually reply. I'll reply to your comment, which would be really lovely. Our Facebook page or the group that we've got set up for all of our interactions about pivoting and to be around other people pivoting and different things and the vulnerability, the authenticity, the brutal honesty about where people are at is really spectacular. And so if you want to get access to that, just go to Start My Pivot Community on Facebook or pivotfb.com is the front door as well. And of course, it's been a blessing just to spend time doing this. I can't imagine anything I would have rather been doing for the last hour or so than just what we've been doing. So rah rah for that.

Me too, me too, me too.

I wore this shirt today on purpose because I knew I wanted to feel even more, more love for life. And I want to leave us with a prayer. And it is a fun thing for me to— I think a lot is accomplished through prayer. I'm not a religious person. I was brought up Jewish, but I've studied religion. I've studied people that have been just incredible, have given great gifts to the world, whether it's reading about Gandhi and reading his autobiography. And he was a lawyer, which is interesting to me. And I love reading the Bible these days. I love reading Emmet Fox, who's a long-since-passed spiritual teacher, metaphysician. And, and he did some great work interpreting the Bible because a lot of the words that were used in those stories that have been told for so long and have had such massive influence in the world are sometimes misunderstood. And so there's just great opportunities to interpret things, like even the word righteousness, which has been used as kind of a stick to beat people up sometimes. Righteousness, at least my understanding of that, is a way to say right thinking. And really, if you think about what we ought to be judging, if anything, it's let's judge right thinking. Let's judge how it is that we are thinking rightly or not thinking rightly. And That's really all about our own accountability, self-responsibility. So my prayer is that we all get to wake up a little more tomorrow than we are today. I think it is our— all of our spiritual path to just be a bit more conscious each day. If we can do that, we're on the right path. And it starts by waking up physically because that's not a guarantee. I mean, there was no guarantee that either of us, that any of us that are watching, listening to this would wake up today. And in fact, There are many people who did not. So when it is that you realize tomorrow morning, as the alarm might be going off and there's responsibilities to take care of, and maybe it's the kids or it's the commute or the job or whatever it is that starts the wheels of our minds working the moment we realize that we've got a new day ahead of us, that you could take a pause for a moment and take a breath, as we started the show with a breath. And in that breath, realize there are people right then at that moment taking their last breath. There are babies being born taking their first breath. So there's something sacred or special at any rate about that moment, and that's something to be grateful for. So if it's in 3 steps, and I like to keep things in order that my simple mind can wrap around, the 3 steps would be that we wake up tomorrow, that we're grateful in that moment of waking for anything and at all. And that if you're inclined to say something out loud to set the tone for the day, as it was so wonderful, Lauren shared her DD. I'm very much a believer that we design or we default. So, the design for us could be tomorrow morning that we, no matter what's happening in our lives, that we love our lives regardless. The good, the bad, and especially the ugly, that we still love our lives. So, To say out loud, I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. I hope you absolutely have an incredible rest of the day, the evening, wherever it is we're finding you. And again, Lauren, thanks so much for being a guest. You're amazing.

Oh my God. This was so much fun. You're awesome.

Thank you. Cheers, everybody. Ciao for now.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own path. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over at adammarkel.com/podcasts. For more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, join our Pivot Community on Facebook at pivotfb.com.