#131: Journey To Authenticity with Todd Kane

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. I am sitting here this morning feeling incredibly blessed. I can hear it in my voice. I still haven't fully woken up yet, which is wonderful. I love that space of coming out of sleep and not yet into the full waking state. of the day. I love it because there's this element of the dream state that's still with me. 2 days ago, I had an incredible guest on my podcast who I've been reading her work for many, many years. She's delivered these incredible affirmation emails really for probably the better part of 25 years. And one of the things that she said as she was concluding and deciding she no longer wanted to Continue that work. Actually, it wasn't so much she didn't want to continue, she felt complete. It was just woke up one morning and said, I'm complete. This is it. The season for what I've been doing is over. And I think there's such— it's so simple, but it's also so profound and true that we have seasons. And some of those seasons are longer and some are shorter. And hers came to an end after 25 years of delivering these affirmations on a weekly basis to people. Through email. And one of those things that she said that she wakes up and thinks about in the morning now and has for some time is a question. The question being, what miracles are coming today? And I woke up this morning and it was a new ritual for me. It was a new way to begin. I normally start the day and I'll share this later again, but I start the day with a certain mantra. But this morning I started with a question and that question was, What miracles are coming today? And it very well could be that the miracle that was coming is the miracle of this show right now, to be here, to be in a conversation with someone that I haven't met before this. So this is our first meeting for us, but I have a sense of this person and someone that I think is doing and has done amazing things in the world. And I'm really looking forward to the conversation ahead. And it— I love it when I haven't had a full-length conversation with somebody before they've been on this show, which is, you know, it happens, I would say, fairly often. There's so many people in the world and there's so many great experiences, it's very difficult to try to, I don't know, connect with everybody. It's already an exhausting enough experience just to connect and stay connected with the people that you've known for years, your family, your friends. I mean, it's a lot, and social media, I think, In some ways only makes it more difficult to feel like you've got to connect with so many people at such a deep level. So I will read a little bit about this gentleman and then we're going to get right into it. And as you guys are sitting maybe on the edge of your seat wondering what this podcast is going to be about, I'm in the same place of curiosity and anticipation and again, expecting nothing short of a miracle. So gentleman's name is Todd Cain and Todd Cain has spent Over 30 years developing the gifts and talents of creative people around the world. Proven leader of individuals and teams in both the military and the private sector, Todd has seen the transformative power of truth. For Todd and many others in the LGBTQ community and allies, the adaptive skills they've become so accustomed to using for protection has done them harm, compromising their integrity, silencing their voices and eroding their truth. Todd believes now is the best time to be self-focused, to find, honor, and celebrate your authenticity and live your truth. In Todd's book, Hide and Seek, he takes his readers into the hidden places to discover truth and expose fear for the fraud that it is. Todd, I'm so happy to have you on the show, and when my wife, Randi, told me that We had set this interview up and that your work these days was really about truth-telling and how the fear associated with being yourself or being in truth, living in truth, is so much a part of so many places that you've been to in the world, physically been to in the world and otherwise been to in the world. I thought this is just the perfect guest, perfect person to talk about some things on this show, and I welcome you. Thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you.

Adam, thanks for having me. I'm really excited. Well, listen, to hear you read that just gave me goosebumps. It's just, it really is a new chapter in my life, but it's just from all those old stories, stories that you eventually just let go and you start to live your life now and to do so with integrity.

Let's talk about fear for a second, if we could just get into the deep end of the pool to begin with. Resilience. It's the 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 resilience 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. What is it about fear that you've learned? And it's a big, broad question, but you You study fear on some level, don't you?

I do. And I've lived it. And we all do. There's nothing wrong with fear. Fear is real. You know, I mean, you can feel fear and it's necessary. I mean, the antelope going to the watering hole, there's a crocodile there. You fear that. But every hole— watering hole you go to doesn't mean there's a crocodile there. I wasn't born afraid. I learned to be afraid. And that was a big aha for me. And to know that fear is a liar. It's a liar. It's whatever we put into it. Usually what we put into that, what we manifest in that, is things that haven't happened yet, things that we are uncertain of, things that we don't know. And guess what? Life's full of those things.

Is that the fraud?

It is the fraud. It really is. And there's some fraud in us too, to put that out there and to feed it and create this thing that can be responsible for our actions, that can make us do something. We're really manifesting that.

Yeah. We're talking about we're in a greater community of the world always, and now we've got, as we see all the time, these communities are becoming sort of more and more siloed at times. It's kind of an interesting thing. Politically, there's certainly these silos that have become much more prominent and just obvious to see, I suppose. I think they've always been there. There've always been these sort of separations. We know that. And yet today, there seem to be these walls that are getting put up. So do you think it's becoming easier or more difficult for people to be authentic? Because you've written this book, obviously, I think you want to share a message, and I want to get to that message so that people can hear it out of your mouth. Is it becoming more difficult today, do you think, for people to just be themselves and be literally open with who they are?

Yes, it is. We fluctuate, right? Up and down, up and down, where we feel safe and we feel afraid. We feel safe, we feel afraid. I think we are in a culture of fear anyway. I mean, you think about why we buy things. Do we buy them because we want something or do we buy them because we don't want something? We buy something so we don't feel sick. We buy something so we stay warm. Whatever it is, we buy a big house because we don't want to be looked at as someone in lack and not successful. Our whole mindset is really about how we're perceived and how others perceive us. And we live in a society and a culture that feeds that all the time. We're constantly being bombarded with what we should be so that we will buy something or do something or be something or fit somewhere for something. And fitting in isn't always the most authentic way to be. In fact, most of the time it's not. Showing up authentically takes courage and it takes practice to leave your fears behind and to think of things in a positive way and actually make choices based on faith. Versus fear. You mentioned something earlier when you started, you said about waking up and being in that little dream state, right? I just— I got goosebumps all over because I love that too, because it reminds me that I've lived most of my life in fear. I've lived most of my life in that dream state until one day I woke up. I woke up and I realized that doesn't have to be. I don't have to think that way and I don't have to be that person. I am enough.

Todd, let's dive into your history just a little bit. If we can, I'd say, pick a place where you started to observe in yourself maybe that fear was running you or was keeping, not just keeping you safe, but keeping you from being who you really wanted to be or who you felt called to be. Where was that? Did it take place early on in your life? Was it something that happened later on? When did you first have a conscious awareness of that?

As I look back now and I write more and I reflect more on it, it was the military. I had always been—

What branch?

Army tanker, armor.

Armor.

I was a tanker.

That's sort of fitting, isn't it, when you think about it? A little irony in that, surrounded by metal.

Beautiful camouflage too. We looked alike, we walked alike, we talked alike, we did all those type of things. And I think I ran to that. I was drawn to the idea of being a part of because I felt different. forever. For as long as I can remember, I felt different. Different didn't always feel special to me. My mom always said, you're my special gift, you're all these things. Okay, but I hear these things and see people do things, and I hear you laugh and say these things are in my family and in my community. It doesn't make me feel special. It makes me feel different. It makes me feel afraid. Then you learn that this thing, this authenticity, this This uniqueness about you that's supposed to make you integral, right? Not just being truthful and honest, but also being whole, is actually not seen as a good thing by other people. And when you're young, you don't have the wherewithal. You don't have the emotional maturity. You don't have the cognitive ability to decide, this is me, I'm okay with it. So you start to adjust and you start to hide. You hide from your family. You hide from your faith. You hide from— you just don't participate. Yeah.

Are you speaking about yourself now in particular?

I'm speaking about myself all the way up till about a year ago. You know, you just, you would adapt and adjust, become a chameleon because I want to be accepted. And how, what a beautiful thing to join the military when you all look alike.

Sure.

You all have a same direction, same purpose. And oh, by the way, if you do these 10 things, this happens, you get promoted. If you do these things, I literally could step into and be guided through normality.

Hmm. Wow. I want to let that one sit for a second.

Yeah.

Step into and guided to normality. I don't know that— wow, gosh, what a great question that is to ask anybody. What is normality? And have you ever felt in your life like you were normal? Listen, we've had very different experiences. Everybody's had very different experiences. And yet I would say that what's universal is that probably if people are really being honest, Many times in their life, they didn't feel like they were, quote, normal. There wasn't this— what's the standard for normality anyway, other than eating, breathing, growing?

A sense of peace. However, truth gives you peace. So there's a conflict right there. I want to feel at peace. I want to feel not threatened. I don't want to feel afraid. I want to feel belonged. I want to feel a part of. And if I compromise my integrity, and peace is really what truth is, really what gives you peace. You have this conflict, these incongruencies throughout your life just start to build. Back to the military thing, I was successful, I was good at it, I loved doing what I was doing, I could achieve and I could— I didn't feel so guarded. And then one day, Don't Ask, Don't Tell came into play.

Hmm.

The Army said, the military said, we won't ask if you're gay, you don't say that you're gay, as long as nothing is said or done, then there's no gay— there's— we're all good. It's all good. And here I am leading.

Yes.

And yes, married and children. I chose in the early '80s when AIDS came on and all that kind of stuff and it came on the scene and it started to just devastate the world that I couldn't live that way. I was fortunate to be able to love a woman and to be able to have that relationship. And I committed to that and chose that. And I, you know, we're still friends today and we have 2 beautiful children. However, there was a piece of me, there was part of me that had this desire to also love men, to also have that type of connection with men. And it didn't really bother me for the longest time because I was, I was living this and I felt integral and I, and I was doing the work and I was being rewarded for it. And then I was, I was seeing that everybody was acting up like, oh, I'm not gay, you're not gay. It wasn't even about the homosexuals being afraid, although there was fear. It was about the heterosexuals acting up to make sure they weren't seen as or they weren't questioned. And it just— the whole thing just went head over heels, top just turned upside down. I was confused. And I suddenly, I felt— here I was, an officer commanding men and women, leading, right? And I felt like a liar. Yeah. I felt for the first time that I did not honor what I was doing. And this armor that I had, this camouflage that I had, started to break, started to fracture. And I, I couldn't embrace what everybody saw me to be if I wasn't truthful,

right?

And eventually I got out. I made major, but I didn't take it. I went to run my father's company, and that took off on a whole different story, a whole different thing. Once I left that framework, nature started taking its course.

When did you get inspired to write this book? And, uh, tell us a little bit about what's the essence of the book as well. But, uh, the origin story is I love the origin story. So, if you wouldn't mind, start there.

Well, my second marriage, this one to a man, ended. It wasn't healthy for either one of us. I had put a lot into it and so did he, but it wasn't working. And, I felt that this marriage kind of encapsulated all the things I wanted my life to be and yet it failed. And, there were so many things, so many incongruencies with the way I thought and the way I acted and what I believed and what I perceived and what I wanted that were just not in line with the relationship they were having. And when he chose to leave the marriage, I couldn't grasp, I couldn't handle the failure that I had put so much into it. And I had created this fear. Next thing you know, I look in the mirror and I see someone that I don't like. And I realized I haven't really liked him for a long time. In fact, I've never really liked that person. I don't think I've ever loved myself. I don't think I've ever embraced my truth. And to have that moment,

That's an honest moment right

there. It was hard. It was even just— it just— to this day, it's hard because I had been so successful at the charade, so successful at the facade, so successful even times being an imposter. Yet all the beautiful things that I accomplished in my life, and I thought, what if I would have been in love with myself? What if I could have shown myself the love and the grace that I showed everybody else? What if I'd have put that energy into making myself the best version of myself? And then I got hope because I thought if I went through all that and did all these things, can you imagine what my life is going to be when I take accountability and responsibility for it? And you can't do that without integrity.

Right. I think you call it living a game of hide and seek. That's an exhausting game. I think a lot of people can identify with that because hiding from the truth or hiding the truth is something I think that a lot of people put a lot of energy into. I'll say it. I do it. I've done it various points in my life. I'm 54 now. And yeah, the idea of just not being entirely truthful, not—

Yeah.

And as you said, I think that the first place that we lie and the most devastating lie we may ever even tell is— are the lies we tell ourselves. Yeah. The not being truthful about how— who we are or what we feel or— I mean, that was the That was the essence of waking up every morning for me in my former profession and just feeling like a complete fraud. I knew the only reason I was doing the work was because it was paying— it was providing for my wants and for my family, but otherwise, didn't love it. I wasn't inspired to it. So, it felt like a lie. It didn't feel like a lie. It was a lie. Yeah. But I was really good at playing that little game of hide and seek because if somebody walked in the office to hire me, I was as enthusiastic about their case or enthusiastic about helping them as though I had just gotten out of law school a week earlier. Yeah. I knew how to play that game. And every time I would see myself play that game, it was like it would erode a certain amount of trust. that I had in myself. And I think when you talk about integrity and something, that wholeness, that completeness, I think what really is at the root of so much misery and a lot of pain that all of us suffer at different times in our lives is that idea that we don't fully trust ourselves. Because you talk about fear, what's the antidote to fear? You could say it's love for sure. I always Can't argue that one, but it's trust as well.

It is.

When you trust, you use the word faith, and I'm just saying trust not because I think faith— I love faith and I don't ascribe any sort of a religious connotation to it, but isn't it really all about self-trust? Doesn't it all come back to that, Todd?

It is, and I've had this conversation several times and weave it in as I write. Is it trust or is it faith? Even when you go to the dictionary, Right. It says, I have faith in someone because experience has taught me. That's not faith. Faith is the unknown. And that is in a higher belief or a higher connectivity or just the unity of all of us one way or another, whatever you believe, as long as you have, you know, whatever gets you up in the morning and whatever gets you through the times when you don't have trust. And trusting yourself is part of that. You said a very important thing. People walk in the office and you go on. And you'd say yes and yes and yes. And you get in the habit of pleasing, you get in the habit of playing that game. And then guess what? Then that happens at the board meeting and then that happens at the dinner and then that happens at the dining room table. And before you know it, little pieces of you are gone. You become that person. And maybe it's just compounding as that lack of trust in yourself grows. You just continue to act this way. And before you know it, you wake up and know that's not what I wanted. Someone comes in and says, let's have dinner. And you're like, yeah. And you go, I don't particularly like to be around this person. And then you go and have dinner with a person, and then that lessens the value of that relationship, and that adds more damage to it.

It's exhausting.

It is exhausting. Just having this conversation is exhausting, but I lived my life that way, and it was like, I can't anymore. Truth gives you peace.

There's a Mike Druck moment. Truth does give you peace, but at the same time, it's something you have to work for. Even, I don't want to say fight for it, but it's not easy. I mean, we are hardwired for survival. And so, I think there's a part of us that realizes at times that we are willing to do— I'm hardwired to do what's required, to be adaptable, like you said, to make the changes that are needed in the moment, to pivot even in the moment for survival purposes, and to be willing to own that and look at it and be skeptical. What were you going to say, Todd?

No, that should be a t-shirt. Hardwired for the required.

Yeah.

You know, it just— that is the perfect statement. You know, fear is necessary, right? It's the physiological response to danger. But we are very cognitive beings. We have an intellect that is far greater than anything else on the planet, perhaps. As

far as we know.

We're assuming. We make a lot of assumptions. And we start getting in our head and we start thinking. It's so easy to sit here And experience the world in our mind through our phone and not feel it and not taste it and not smell it. And so, that imagination starts to become our reality. And you can literally go through an entire experience with someone, never see them, and think that you've been with them for 20 years, pen pals or whatever. And I think that's also part of our ability to build these facades, this alternate reality or this other person that can keep us safe. Take our shame and take our guilt and whatever, but at the end of the day, when you go to bed at night and you lay there and all that stuff goes away and you connect with yourself and you realize, wow, I did an exercise not too long ago. How many times in a day was I not integral? Oh, thank you for this. Oh, it doesn't matter. Oh, you're okay. I'm okay. You cut me off. Or, yeah, sure, I'll have dinner with you. Yeah, great to see you.

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 this is— when you say not integral, you mean just not being truthful about how you're—

Yeah.

You know, how you would respond to somebody if you were really being truthful, you'd say something different than you actually said. Is that what you mean?

Yes.

All right.

And look, we have societal norms. We are a culture. We are creatures that like to be a part of. So there are things that we can kind of let go. We don't have to—

Well, there's a difference between being polite and being full of shit, right?

Yes.

So if you're living a life on a regular basis being full of shit because it's either getting you From point A to point B in some way, whether it's financially or otherwise, it erodes something inside of us. And again, I think what it does is it dilutes our ability to trust ourselves.

That's a great point.

And at a certain— yeah.

And we know people that are full of shit. We know them. They walk in and we go, let me take a deep breath. Here we go and get through this 5 or 10 minutes with this guy or this person. And they leave that on you and you almost feel like, ugh. You got to ground yourself and bring yourself back to it. I hope that I wasn't one of those people. I hope that I didn't take that energy from someone, that I didn't make someone go, oh, he's here. That makes me sad if I was that guy.

I want to change the topic slightly just to talk about something I think is— well, I'm going to say I think because I want to ask you the question. How important is resilience? How important has it been to you in your life and how important do you think it is within the community that you represent, within the community of people at large that are just exhausted, as we said earlier, from having to keep up the facade in so many different arenas?

It's incredibly important. It's for survival. It's so easy to give up. It's so easy to choose the easier wrong than it is the harder right. So why? Why stay in the fight? Why stay in the game? That takes resiliency. Why put the energy into being resilient? And what do I have to do every day to get up and join the fight? And does it even have to be a fight? Why can't it just engage in my life and make those experiences more positive? I think we talk— I think when you say resilience, a lot of people think of Rocky.

Yes.

I don't particularly want to get beat up and barely make it to get the belt. Why can't I just be real smart? One hit and I'm out. Why can't I do a George Foreman? Why do I have to be Rocky? But we tend to think that we need to have this suffering because that suffering and that pain and those beatdowns and all that makes the success much richer.

Hmm.

And I think there's a lot of people in this world that look at themselves and go, why am I doing really well? I never made those mistakes. Maybe I should fail. No, keep doing what you're doing. You're taking the time, you're making good choices, you have a little grace, right? Don't apologize for that. In fact, figure it out, understand it, teach it, help us not to feel that underdog and beat down and whatever. I don't necessarily have to have a low to have a high. For me, it's gratitude. I literally started— it was to get out of bed.

Hmm.

God, thank you for my hands and my feet and my eyes and that I could talk and that I have clients and I can pay my rent and I still have friends and I'm becoming more aware. And then all of a sudden, it was like, ah, thank you for my creativity. Thank you for my passion. Thank you for my staying power. Thank you for my courage. And then when you start to change those things, you start to change your words, change your life. So, start with gratitude. And then, there's the physical, getting up and moving, doing the work to test your body and push your body because we are a physical being in a spiritual experience. And, this is what we have. To me, this physical form is really our price for free will. I'm going to give you all the choices you want for a finite amount of time. And now, ironically, when we choose the physical and we wear on our body, that time gets shorter and shorter. When we stay in the spiritual and we stay in the good and we stay in that type of thought and that experience, we get to experience it longer.

So is there a series of things, call them rituals, you know, or conscious practices, habits that you've engaged in to build resilience within yourself? Because the, um, yeah, as you said, the beatdown, the life can produce its own challenges. In many ways, we create them ourselves. There's a lot of self-sabotage that that goes on, I think. So, whether it's something that you're producing on the inside or it's something that's kind of coming at you from outside that's a bit out of your control even, what do you do to build that resilience on a ritual basis, on a regular, daily, moment-to-moment? And you shared the first one, which is obviously gratitude. It's so important. Is there other things that you do on a regular basis?

There is. I start my day with gratitude every day. I have kind of a routine in the morning. I get up, I kind of talk to myself, I drink a lot of water, I kind of do affirmations. What's this day going to be like today? What good can I do today? What can I give today? How can I show up in service today? Instead of, what can I— what do I get? Like, what can I do? What can I do? And I change that whole thing. I take the responsibility off of me and I put myself into this experience, this life experience, as a positive thing for everybody. Because if you do the work, my father used to say, don't worry about the money. Do the work, that will come.

Hmm.

So, don't worry about the happiness. Do the joy. Be positive. Be a good influence on other people and you'll get that back. I go to the gym. Half the time, I don't even know what I do because when I'm there, I can organize my mind. It really takes me out of the space. It allows me to kind of connect with myself physically. And in 45 minutes, I'm out the door and I'm set for the day. And I really think a good start is important. A good start of your day is important because how you start, it doesn't necessarily determine how you finish. But it does help. It does help. Like, you get up every morning and take some deep breaths, right? You say, I'm blessed to be here, and it changes the way you think. And I think the final thing that I do, I believe it's meditation. I've tried to do meditation before and I struggle with it. I want to be better at it and I'm working at it and I'm going to guided meditation for that. But I actually just quiet my mind. I connect with myself and I set an intention every night before I go to bed. And lately, in this last probably 8 months or so, it's been about what I'm writing. You know, I really want to address this thing. I want to have the words, you know, bring me the words, allow me to reflect. Let me dream about it. Connect with me, talk with me, share with me. And I would wake up at 2:30, 3 o'clock in the morning, grab my phone and speak into it. Right. Uh, or I, yeah, I just hit the little voice thing and I speak into it. Sometimes it was all garble in the morning when I looked at it.

2, 3 in the morning.

I'm like, I'll turn the light on, find my glasses and do it. That's being 50, right? I can't see anything. So I'm doing this and guess what? I would receive it. And another thing about in the morning is that you're not even in your head yet. Exactly. I don't— it's not 9. I have an appointment at 9:30. I have this at 4:15. And I know as long as I can keep from connecting with that part of my day, I'm just being filled with all these wonderful things.

There's something about not being in your head. It's actually a really— it's a really nice thing. It's a rest. It's a break. It's a gift. I'm so glad I'm not in my head right now. I'm not in my right mind at this Wow. So again, the book is called Hide and Seek. Is it complete? Are you finished with it?

No, I'm not finished with it. Still working on it. I'm right at the end of it.

Because I know people are going to want to go out and get it in any event. But so where are you in the phase of it? And this is actually really great because I've never had a guest yet who was at the place where they were in the book, but we're talking about the book, but it's not done yet. And I think there's a lot of people out there working on a book or working on something Of that magnitude, and they're in the process. So, you're in the mix of it. How's it going? In the flow?

I'll tell you what it is. An interesting thing happened. I went to a writer's retreat back in November, and I just was going to show up. My friend said, hey, come. You'll like this. I'm like, fine. I throw some clothes in a bag and I go. And then, we do some meditation. I'm looking at these people. I'm like, what? And then, he says, let's tap into your fear. And I wrote this thing in like 2 days.

Wow.

Most of it. And then I started to clean it up and start— wow, this is an amazing thing. This is a divine thing. And then at Christmas, a couple months later, my brother struggled with addiction most of his life, decided to share something with me, something that happened to me that he came in on and took action on. And it was a big thing in the family and I didn't remember any of it.

Yeah.

I disassociated from it. It was traumatic for me. And as he was telling me, it trickled in. And I, I was sitting right here. It was December 27th. And it, it changed everything. I had written all of this from a perspective of that never happening in my life.

Right.

And as it came in, it made me question everything. And to go back, to go back and fold that in has been one of the most difficult things. I'm learning it as I write it and I'm sharing it as I write it. And I'll tell you what, it's easy to write with emotion, but it's difficult to write in emotion, especially when that triggered me to go back and hide. So, for the last 6 months, I've gone in and I've changed and adapted and I've modified. I've left the core in there, but to weave in the fact that I was speaking to you from a whole different place, a whole different reality, from another perspective, it's been difficult, but it's also been beautiful.

Yeah. Yeah, Todd, it feels like— I don't know that I've ever thought of it this way, so I want to say thank you for this insight about truth, about the fact that there are layers of truth. I mean, we always think— I guess I always thought the truth is sort of a black and white thing. There's truth and there's something that's not true. And as a lawyer, of course, I was trained to be able to find these degrees These very gray areas, these slight distinctions between something so that we could make our case or what have you. But I guess inside of myself, I thought, yeah, well, there's true and false and that kind of thing, but there's a lot of perspective and perception that we're unaware of. There's just a lot that is even within our own consciousness, or let's say within Within ourselves, because again, I don't know whether consciousness emanates from within us or whether it's outside of us. I think there's a good debate going on about that. But regardless of whether it's within us or whether we're tuning into it, if we're not consciously aware of something, what do we do with it? How does that integrate into our understanding of the world and how we operate in the world if we're not aware of things? And that's why awareness is— it's so key that we— Just continue to experience more of that, but it changes everything at the same time. So here it is, you're having an entire life experience making heads and tails of things and creating your conclusions and making your mistakes and correcting and continuing, and then this information is given you, a perception you didn't have that you didn't recall, and that whole picture has changed. So the truth of things is altered in that moment.

Yeah.

So the book is altered in that moment as well.

It is. It's full of integrity.

The big book. Yeah.

Particularly being gay or bisexual or lesbian or transgender or being different in any way. Being abused, being an alcoholic, being whatever those things that we have these secrets. And to fit in and to make choices to keep yourself safe, to provide a safe space, and to have a life that's fulfilling, that's a lot. And then to create that and then to start to share what you did and the choices you made, to share with other people how to make their life better, realizing that all those choices you made can come back to that. A lot of the mistakes that I made in my marriage with my ex-husband, the mistakes I made, or the lessons I learned with my ex-wife, the choices I made throughout coming out and experiencing a new culture at 33, but really being a baby.

That's when you came out at 33?

32, 33.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And so, and you're doing all these things and you're trying to make sense of it and you're feeling this, oh, I got this truth. And you go, wait a minute, I didn't have the truth. Now what does this mean? And it really, it just was like, this is exactly what it means. We don't always know the truth and we don't always know what someone's going through and we don't always ask. And you know what else we don't do, Adam? We don't articulate our truth. What do I believe? Because if I do that and someone says, I don't agree with that, you can get accosted at a coffee shop. You can get kicked out of a meeting. You can be separated from a project. So, you talk about that culture of fear. So, what do we do? We just try to— there's an opportunity. Yay! No. If you don't stand for anything, you're going to fall for everything. It goes back to those basic things. What are you? Who are you? You know, the 2 most powerful words in the English language, I think, are I am. Not I'm kinda, or I wanna be, or I should be. You know, the I can't, I won't, I don't, I'm not. I will, I can, I do, I am.

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 assessment tool. 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 am.

Yes.

And to hear you say that and you affirm who you are says something to me, and it should mean something to all of us. And to respect you and acknowledge you for that, even just acknowledge. Maybe respect's too far. Maybe tolerate's the wrong word. Acknowledge.

Yes.

And then make the next best choice on what you believe. That's integrity.

That's beautiful, brother. Well, I've enjoyed this conversation. I didn't know where it was going to go.

I'm sweating a little bit.

Hey, listen, you never know where any of these things are going to go, right? It's just such a great— I love it when we can And live a life— if I can live my life just sort of trusting in myself, trusting in my instincts, trusting in God, and I'll use that word, but it could be universe, it could be trusting in yourself. But I just feel like you can just live a life trusting and not having to control or try to control everything, which again is that fear that drives us to want to figure it all out ahead of time. Yeah. So that it'll work out perfectly or work out how we think we want it to work out. I think we're so much more free and in this moment to be able to have a conversation and not necessarily even know how we would— where it would go was freedom. So I feel free in the moment. I feel blessed in the moment. I feel lucky. I know our community will also feel the same way, Todd, because we're all hiding. Everybody's hiding. People have trauma and have experienced things in their lives that they don't necessarily choose to speak about and have moved past. But ultimately, we have to be truthful with ourselves.

And if there's a hiding, hiding in the mirror kind of thing, it doesn't help. It doesn't help us get to that place of greater truth. So—

No.

I love the opportunity to bring this up because it's something that doesn't get talked about a lot. It's just perpetuating a certain kind of a fraud on ourselves.

Last night I went to bed with— I was thinking about what am I going to say and I just relaxed. And the word that came to mind to me was allow. So I went to bed and I woke up this morning and it was allow again. And I was allowing myself. And what I realize now having this conversation with you is what we all should do is you allow, you create a space that allows me. To be integral. I make the choice. Yes, it's ultimately my choice. But we can also choose to allow other people to be who they are, to allow them to have integrity, not to scare them, not to persuade them, not to whatever, but to just sit there in your own truth and allow— you've allowed me to share in a way that I am still getting used to. And I thank you for that. And I think what you do and what all these ways of communicating and all these Situations where I've been able to sit and talk to you. I just appreciate and I hope that other people will follow and we will all just start to allow each other a lot of things just to be ourselves. Thank you.

Thank you. I want to remind myself at this moment and all the incredible people that are part of this community how important it is that we wake up, that we wake up just like Todd, as you said earlier. This is a biggie. And I'll ask you this question I love asking anyway. So, Todd, did you wake up today?

I did wake up today. I did wake up and I showed up today and you allowed me to do that. I appreciate that.

You woke up and you showed up. I am still in the process of waking up physically, mentally, everything. And I truly do believe that that's our greatest responsibility, or at least I'll just leave it on myself. My greatest responsibility is to wake up a little bit more every day and I believe if we all do that, if that's what we're engaged in doing, just waking up a little bit more every day, that awareness, that heightened sense of sensitivity even to the fact that we don't live on an island, we're not alone anyway on whatever this island floating in space is that we all share, that we are here together. And the ability to allow is one of those heightened levels of sensitivity. It's a heightened level of awareness. Yeah. that we can just allow. And I agree with you, the words are used and thrown around a lot, whether it's tolerance or it's acceptance or it's— I don't know. Words are important. They have meaning and they're important.

They're powerful.

Allowing is a great one. Allowing is a really important word, that we allow ourselves the space and each other the space to be real, to be truthful, and to show up. As you said, showing up is so key in our own lives. So today I woke up and tomorrow is my prayer, it is my hope, it's my expectation that we all get to wake up again tomorrow and just a little bit more so even. And in that waking moment, we have an opportunity to follow Todd's advice from a little earlier in the show when we talked about resilience, and that is to wake up and even take a short 10-second moment to feel gratitude for something, for anything at all. It's, you know, I stubbed my toe in the middle of the night, go to the bathroom, and I woke up and it stopped throbbing. It doesn't hurt. You know, my little toe works, my feet work. I mean, what a blessing that is to have family, to have people around you, to have people that you love, to have people that you want to love, to have the anticipation of love, to have the anticipation of success, the anticipation of Every good thing that we want for ourselves and we want for others is something to be grateful for ahead of time. And the words that I say, and I'll ask if you want to repeat these too, Todd, are really important for me as a way to remind myself just how much I mean to myself and that I mean in the world. And those words are, I love my life. I love my life. What are the words, Todd? I love my life.

I love my life. I love my life.

Awesome, brother. I hope everybody who's been listening and maybe even watching this on YouTube that you've really appreciated this conversation. And I would love to say that Hide and Seek is available in stores at the moment, but it is not. But

October,

October, October will be here around the corner. And so in the show notes, there'll be some information about where to be able to get it. Obviously, you can go on Amazon. We know that for sure, but we'll have some Other URLs as well, and you can find out more about Todd Cain and his life and this incredible book. And Todd, I really appreciate you being on the show today. This has been a real pleasure, and thank you.

Thank you. It was a gift.

Yeah, way cool. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a comment at adamarkel.com/podcast. You can leave a comment there. You can leave a review on iTunes, and of course, you can join our Facebook community at Start My Pivot. We will see you very soon and lots of love, everybody. Ciao for now.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. 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. Join our community on Facebook at pivotfb.com. Pivot.