#214: Take That Leap: Nigel Bennett On Adversity, Pivoting, And The Flow Of Life

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Welcome to the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and I'm thrilled to be here today. I'm just feeling really energized. It's a little late in the afternoon, and sometimes I get that late afternoon sort of lull in the energy, and I'll sit with my feet up a wall, or maybe Randy and I will do some yoga. Actually, today we took a really wonderful walk outside, and we're right on Penobscot Bay in the Central Coast, on the Central Coast of Maine. And it's in this spot, there's so much wildlife and the kind of wildlife I don't see all the time. We live part of the year in Martha's Vineyard, part of the year in Encinitas, California. And so there's all kinds of wildlife. You walk around in the hills in Encinitas, you're likely to run into a rattlesnake. I'm not seeing any rattlesnakes here, unfortunately, too, but I'm seeing a ton of foxes. Wow. And this was really, I thought, just one of those wonderful moments. Last week, we saw a bald eagle, a great American bald eagle. I've never seen one before in the wild. And to be close enough to actually really be able to see its face and its head, and then to see it take off and just sort of fall like almost in free fall for a while before it spread its wings and then just caught air. And just remarkable stuff. So, to be in nature is really doing us a great deal of good on the inside and the outside, I'm guessing, too. And today, I've got a great guest for a variety of reasons. I just am so excited to have a conversation with him. And I think we're going to track some of this conversation to where we live these days and what we're given access to if we're lucky enough, fortunate enough, blessed enough to be in or around nature. So, I'm going to get after introducing Nigel Bennett. And I'll read a little bit of his bio as always, and then we'll invite Nigel into the conversation. So Nigel Bennett is an award-winning entrepreneur, author, philanthropist, and founder of AquaGuard Spill Response, a global leader in oil control that works to protect water, which we know is the world's most precious resource, in 100+ countries around the world. Nigel donates all of the profits from his book sales, Take That Leap, Risking It All for What Really Matters. I love that title. And all of his speaking engagements to organizations that support poverty alleviation, human rights, social services, and of course, the one thing that started this podcast off, the environment. So Nigel, thank you so much for being a part of what we're doing here and being on the show.

Thanks, Adam. This is— I'm really, really— I'm super stoked. We had a little pre-chat and it was really kind of the similarities and things that we have, synchronicities that we have going. Pretty cool stuff. So I'm really stoked. I really love your I love my life because I love my life. I love my life now. I haven't always loved my life, but I really love my life now. And thank you for what you do. I love your podcast. I've been listening to it and I just, I love my life motto there. It's fantastic.

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. I'm digging the fact that you and I both got the memo today. We're wearing t-shirts that have messages on it, right? That's right. Reconnect. That's what it says on— if you're listening to this, you got to check out the YouTube video because you can see Nigel and see the shirt that he is donning that says Reconnect. So Nigel, I read your bio. What's not written in the bio that you would love for people to know about you?

Wow. I mean, there's, there's a ton of stuff, and I've just been so fortunate throughout my life. You know, I've had a lot of these moments in my life where I've had to kind of change direction. And I think you asked, was it something conscious or unconscious? And I would say that all of the big major shifts that have happened to me have been something that I haven't intended to do, but it was a reactionary type thing. I guess I'd go a ways back when I was a young guy. I'm actually right now, I'm in Whistler, British Columbia. I'm living here right now and my home is in Vancouver, but I spend a lot of time here. And like you said, nature is one of my resets. I just love resetting in nature. And so right out of high school, right out of high school, back in 1980, I was on a flight to Venezuela. And I was working for my father's environmental mapping company. We had contracts to map the coastline of various different countries. And I found myself for the next 10 years hanging out of aircraft, helicopters, photographing coastlines around the world and, and, and for environmental mapping. And the crazy thing was, is I was, I was 17 or 18. I was hanging out of a helicopter flying around Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. And we were coming up the west side of the lake and we were getting close to the Colombian border. And we had somebody hailing us from below saying, you know, move out of our area or we're going to shoot you down. And they took a couple of potshots across the front of our helicopter. And that was a really rude awakening for me. I was a guy coming from Vancouver in Canada, and I'd never really been out of the country. And so after that, I found myself in Egypt for about 5 years on and off doing the same thing. But I was a scuba diver as well. So I found myself scuba diving under the Red Sea, taking photographs of the degradation of the reefs from the oil industry, et cetera. And I had to do an air flight over the Sinai Peninsula, you know, the Sinai Peninsula.

Mm-hmm.

And so I drove in with an Egyptian fellow into an old helicopter base that was manned by an ex-American Vietnam, ex-Vietnam pilot. And his name was Johnny. And he came out, he was a big fella, and he waddled out and he said to me, he said, you know, and I was young, I was probably 22 at this time. And he said to me, he said, you know, Nigel, I know why you're here. I know what you're doing, and I know what I got to take you, but I can only take you to some certain spots. I can't show you everything that you probably want to see. I'm saying, fine. I hopped into the copilot seat, put the headset on in the helicopter, and there were 2 oil execs in the back. Once I had the headset on, he said to me, he said, okay, now we can talk. What I'm going to do is I'm going to take you over to the Sinai. We're going to drop these guys off. Keep your camera between your legs, and don't let the guys in the back see that you have a camera. And he said, there's glass at your feet. You can take photographs of some of the things that you may see, but don't let them see you, because if they see you, we could be arrested and thrown in jail as spying. So I was 22 years old, and it was just a big, big shakeup for me. So I was sitting there like, oh my gosh. And we flew over to the Sinai. We landed. We dropped these 2 fellows off. We lifted off again. And then he said, okay, now you can start taking as many photographs as you want. And I was like, but of what? And all I saw was pipeline after pipeline after pipeline that were ruptured and all flowing into the Red Sea. So pipelines of oil were flowing into the Red Sea and the coastline was coated as far as you could see with oil. And that really had a massive impact on me. And we landed back at this place called Ras Gharib over on the Egyptian side. And he said, please take these photographs and show them to who needs to see them. And he said, I know you really want to make a difference as a young guy. I know that you really want to make a difference, but I really don't think you've got a hope in hell in making any difference. And that resonated with me for the rest of my life. And so I was in Egypt for about 5 years on and off working for my father's company. And at the very end of this contract, we had an apartment in Alexandria on the Mediterranean. And I was cleaning it up. Our contract was done. And I was driving to Cairo the next day to meet up with my father. And we're going to fly to London to my cousin's wedding. And I had a phone call and Alex basically said, your father's missing. We don't know where he is. I'm like, well, you guys just flew in from London together. You know, what's going on? And he said, well, I don't know. I said, tell you what, I'll be there in 3 hours, about a 3-hour drive along the desert road, this old crazy desert road from Alexandria to Cairo. So I arrive in Cairo and this guy comes down the steps of the hotel, grabs me, takes me upstairs, opens up the room, puts me in and says, sit on the floor. And I'm like, so I'm sitting on the floor in this hotel room and he turns out the light. So we're sitting there till about 3 o'clock in the morning. And then an old phone on the desk rings about 3 o'clock in the morning, like bring, bring, bring. And he goes over and he answers it. And he's like, yep, yep, yep, okay. And he goes, it's for you. And I'm like, it's for me? Like, what's going on here? So I answered the phone. It was my father. So he'd been arrested and he'd been thrown in jail. And all he said to me in code was, take the next bus and stay with Mike. I didn't even know what that meant. And then he hung up. And I sat in the middle of the floor with this other guy. And he was one of our guys that were working with us. And we figured out what it meant. Get out of the country and go to London and stay with my cousin. And I'm not leaving. There's no way I'm leaving. I'm not leaving my father. And he says, well, if they catch you and they get you, then they got more bargaining power and then we're in big trouble. So I basically escaped. I got down and we had a taxi driver that worked for us. He was out the back door. I got to the airport. And after a long period of going through checkpoints, there were no computers in those days. This was like 1982. So they weren't really able to check, check, check. So I was able to escape. And what I've found is that I went to London and then I got back to Vancouver, Canada. And my sister was working at the company and she said, you know, what's going on? I said, well, you know, there's some certain things going on that we probably don't want to be involved with. And all I can say in the podcast here is that my father and my ethics clashed. So he had been arrested for a certain reason and he was released about 5, 6 months later, but he was incarcerated for 6 or 7 months in an Egyptian prison, horrific conditions. Wow. Basically, you took a crap where you stood, you know, and you're 100 people crammed in the cell. Yeah. And he was released because the only witness against him died because they grabbed him as well. And at that point in my life, I knew that we had to make a huge change. We had to make a massive shift. So I basically grabbed my sister and we left. We left the business and we formed AquaGuard Spill Response. And my dad was not happy. I said, I just can't live. I can't live going down that path. The path that he was on, I couldn't. Unfortunately, my father kind of kept down the same path. He's 85 years old now. He was incarcerated again and he just got out of a US prison. Did 5 years again. Unfortunately, we've been estranged. We had a massive pivot. At that point in my life, I knew that unfortunately my father was a narcissist. And he was extremely controlling over us, and it was a toxic relationship. So my sister and I had to make that decision to break away from these toxic relationships. So we formed AquaGuard Spill Response, and I, I traveled to 10 countries over 10 years, and I had clients that really needed help. They needed equipment. So I went to the British Columbia Institute of Technology. I was in mechanical engineering and had another fellow working with me, and we formed this company. We started manufacturing equipment to contain and recover oil spills from like the BP Horizon in the Gulf of

Mexico,

the Exxon Valdez and all that type of stuff.

I was just going to ask you about the Exxon Valdez.

Yeah, yeah. So that was, I mean, that was a major shift for me. I think if I hadn't, because as I know it's really tough for people to break away from toxic relationships because there's that gnawing on them to keep coming back.

Well, what's interesting here to me is listening to you talk about oil spill and then in the same sort of breath you're talking about toxic relationships. I assume the pun is intended or if it's not—

Yeah, absolutely wasn't. You nailed it. Yeah. Yeah. So it was really tough. But then again, my life totally had a big shift. Our business, it was really tough for many, many years. My wife and I, we leveraged everything to get this little company going. But then we started thriving. We really started thriving because after the Exxon Valdez in Alaska, the US needed all this equipment and we started supplying all over the US and Canada and all over the world. Next thing you know, we're 25 years later, we're in a— we've done business in 104 different countries and involved in every major oil spill on the planet.

So where does your— that path, the path that you were just describing, lead to a lot of the work that you're currently doing now? The authorship work, the thought leadership work. I mean, I can see the seeds of it quite easily because you had an ethical dilemma. Yeah. With seeing what your dad was up to and what others at the time were up to and what it was no doubt doing to the environment and you just couldn't stand it. So you went out and found some way of contributing a solution to it. So that part I totally get. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think it was, you know, really resonated with me when the helicopter pilot Johnny told me that there's no way I could make— he didn't think I could make a difference. And I was like, I was young. I was like, I can make a difference in the world. I really believe that.

Right.

And so, you know, the years go by, you know, 2008 hits and we got smacked really, really hard. We had a fraud case inside of our business and we were basically doing everything for everybody. We didn't really have a niche. And so again, we changed the direction of the business in 2008 because we were almost bankrupt.

So oil spill equipment is not a niche?

Oil spill, yeah, yeah. It's, well, it is, yeah. We were—

I'm thinking. We got to redefine what niche is. I mean, in my world, an oil spill equipment company, I think would be a niche.

Yeah. We were basically selling everything to everybody, low margin, high volume. Store, right.

Yeah. Make it so volume. Isn't that the entrepreneur's answer to everything?

Yeah. Right. It's just, yeah, which is just ridiculous. And so we actually then focused to the offshore where it was extremely niche, extremely high margin and high value. And then that took us to basically where we are now. But I was always struggling. I had a hard time. I joined the Entrepreneurs Organization, EO, many years ago. I got dragged into it by an ex-football player, big lineman, 330-pound fella.

He literally physically dragged you into it?

Physically took me and dragged me into a meeting and I got recruited.

Yeah.

And I was a member for about 18 years. One of the best things of the peer group, joining a peer group like that when I was—

EO, YPO, these are great groups.

Yeah. YPO, EO, you know, tech, all these things. For me, it was one of the best— wasn't even a decision, I got dragged in— things that I've ever done. And my wife and I talk about it all the time. It was one of the best things that we ever did for our family is joining that and getting into this peer group, which really helped. And from that, I ended up going to a thing at MIT called the Entrepreneur's Master's Program, which is part of EO.

Mm-hmm.

And it was a 3-year program and we just kept it going. I've just went— well, I was supposed to. Our 17th year this last year, 75 entrepreneurs from all over the US and Canada. And I never forget, I don't know if you know Verne Harnish, you ever heard of Verne Harnish? So Verne's one of the founders of EO, the Entrepreneurs Organization.

He founded YPO as well.

Yeah, I think he did. Yeah. So he was our facilitator and he stood in the front of the room when I was a greenhorn, I was sitting at the back, I was very shy, I was with all these really smart entrepreneurs. ADD and dyslexia, and I really felt that I didn't belong. I had the imposter syndrome, I guess you call it. I was sitting there and I didn't belong. And Vern stood at the front of the room and he said, how many of you guys out there have a coach? And I had hired a coach about 2 months before this. So I kind of gingerly put my hand up like, I'm sure these guys do. They're all brilliant. And he said, only 3 of you out of 75 have a coach. And I looked up. I said, you got to be kidding. These guys are geniuses. They all own businesses. Super smart and only 3 of you. And that was one of the most important things that I ever did after that was having this coach. I remember when I hired my coach for the very first day, he said, Nigel, because I was having a really hard time. He said, Nigel, if somebody offered you X amount for your business today, what would that be? And I said, $1. And he was, $1? I said, yeah, $1. I just want my freedom back. I want my life back. And so what happened from then on is he helped me build up, build a life that I love. And, you know, and so in—

That sounds good, man.

Well, in 2010, I was having a really hard time. I felt like I was on this roller coaster out of control, like a lot of entrepreneurs

feel.

And I call it, in my book, I call it the doorknob effect. Because we would go like, I mean, I'm sure that you felt like this at times. You go to your office or wherever it is, there's that door. You got to step through that door and that doorknob's almost vibrating because you know when you turn it and you step through, it's going to be absolute chaos. And my life was like that for 20 years. I would come from home, I would take my shower in the morning, and I'd be, okay, who have I got to— who can I hire? Do I need to hire somebody? Do I have to lay somebody off? Can I make payroll? I get there, I turn the door, step through into total business. Nigel, I need this. Nigel, I need that. year after year after year.

Sure.

And it was, I call it the doorknob effect. And it was just really, really tough until I had this coach helping me along the way. And then I had another major, a major, major pivot in my life. And you asked the question of what put me on this path that I'm on now. You know, we were doing well, but my life was chaos. And, you know, I barely saw my kids in the early years and I had my coach, but then I had a company, a competitor in the UK, a big British competitor offered to buy my business. And I thought, this is it. Every entrepreneur's dream. That's what we learn in The E-Myth. In Michael Gerber's book, The E-Myth is set your business up, set up the system so one day you can package it up and sell it for a big bag of cash. And that's what I had done. So I had this British company. They gave us a deposit. And so I went. The BP Horizon oil spill was happening in 2010. I went to my class at MIT in Boston. I'm sitting there and I was having a really hard time. And this lady came and she sat, she was a speaker and her name was Lynne Twist. And she wrote an amazing book called The Soul of Money. And she'd be a great guest for you one of these

days. We know Lynne.

Oh, you know Lynne. Okay. So Lynne stood there and she invited our class to go deep into the Amazon with Lynne to experience a tribe, the Pachamama. Yeah. With the Pachamama Alliance and the Ashuar people. And so I said, I'm coming, I'm coming. And so 3 of us from my class went, but I went up to Lynn and I said, Lynn, I'd love to come with you, but under one condition, I get to bring my entire family, the 5 of us, my 3 kids and my wife. And she goes, well, it's a bit of a fundraiser, but okay, okay, bring your family. You're right. And I said to her, I said, I have this much bandwidth left in my life. I have this much influence. My kids have this and they have social media. And if they can go and witness what's going on in the Amazon, and if they can come and tell 2 friends, and et cetera, et cetera, we can make a huge impact in the world. And so we flew deep into the Amazon. We all crammed into one little Cessna. We were asked if we wanted to split our family up. And I said, no, if we go down, we go down together. It's kind of a stupid decision, but that's what we did. We're flying deep into the Amazon from a dirt runway in Ecuador onto a dirt runway. We get in canoes and we go into And we spend time in this village. And I was having a really hard time because I was in the middle of selling my business. Cause I had, the business was on the table. I had a deposit. BP Horizon oil spill was going on in the Gulf of Mexico. And I was in the, in the Amazon. I wasn't even with my company. And I lay down and we did a ceremony, an ayahuasca ceremony, which I had no idea what it was. And it was a bit of a journey for me. I had no idea what we were going to do. But I had a bit of a vision. And basically what it was, it was a face that was looking at me. And it basically was saying, Nigel, you have a great responsibility. I was like, oh my gosh, like, what is that? He says, and it was basically, don't sell your business. Leverage your business and the platform that you have created over the past 30 years to do good and amazing things in the world. And I was like, no, no, I have this huge bag of cash. I'm going to take it. I'm going to go sell t-shirts on the beach. I don't know. And then I kind of came to after a whole night of this ceremony. And then we flew back to Vancouver and it really bothered me. So I flew to London and I took the deal off the table. I said, the business is not for sale. Came back, ended up buying out my partner and bringing somebody up through my business to run everything for me. And within a year and a half after that, I was able to set it up to run without me. And I took my family and we traveled to 17 countries around the world. And we volunteered at orphanages in Myanmar. We did all this really just amazing stuff. And upon returning home, I totally shifted my life. I totally shifted everything that I do. And I will— and I said that I will only do things that have— that align with my life purpose. I won't get involved in this. I will not get involved in this. I will only be involved in things that actually truly deeply enrich my life's purpose. And so since 2012, I've actually been living this way. That's why I saw your t-shirt and I say, I love my life. And it's, you know, I wrote, I wrote the book. I started writing the book on this, uh, this journey that we had.

Hmm.

And it's just, my life has just exploded. Once I stepped, you know, I was in the business world, but once I stepped slightly to the other side, Everything opened up. I mean, I've been fortunate. We've been— my family and I have been leading trips to Mexico with Homes of Hope. I don't know if you know that group, to build homes for the homeless for about 18 years. We've been like 18 times and we take 50, 60 people at a time and probably taken 700, 800 people. I don't know. But it all came because my kids were doing presentations at school after they did one of these journeys. And it's just been absolutely incredible. So I don't know where I'm going with this, but—

No, I love it. I'm fascinated.

I rambled on. People listening to this, watching this are fascinated.

I mean, it's the pivotal moments in our lives that are not— don't often come with a neon announcement. There isn't a sign that says pivotal moment ahead, you know, pay attention. And it can be anything. It can be so many things. And in the time that we're living in now, which is this time of really prolific and even pandemic change—

Yes, yes.

I think this is providing the fodder, the fuel, the fertilizer for a lot of people's pivots, for a lot of—

I find for myself, most of the pivots, like the extreme pivots that happened in my life, have come out of times of crisis. All the good stuff's come out of times of crisis.

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 new. 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 resilience The best way to take the 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. It's hard to say that to someone who's in crisis.

I know.

And have them actually take, truly take that in because I'm sure right now somebody's listening to this or watching it and going, easy, still easy for you to say because you guys— Exactly. You landed on your feet and you bounced back and you've been resilient and all that. But you don't know it when you're going through it that it's going to turn out great, that you're going to look back on that moment and say, well, that's the best thing that really ever happened to me and I wouldn't change a thing even.

Yeah.

As much as there's pain involved, there's suffering, there's indecision, there's uncertainty. It's like, how do you leverage Uncertainty so that you, you are able to create long-term success. It sounds to me like that's what you've been able to do. You've done that. So I'm gonna put that question to you. How is it that you would define the power of uncertainty and how do you leverage that power to create a long-term life that you love?

I mean, it's really tough and I totally agree that while you're in it, it's hell. Like I said, it's the doorknob. The doorknob of like, the bees are flying around, you can't think straight. And I had a chat actually with a shaman, spiritual leader, whatever you want to call him, a friend of mine a while back because I was having a hard time with my father still. And this was, you know, my father had been incarcerated a few times. He's very that A-type personality narcissist, and I was having a really hard time. And the one thing that he said to me was, Nigel, you have to understand that your father is a really good coach to you. And I was, whoa. I said, whoa, whoa, wait a minute here. No, no, no, no, that can't— he goes, no, no, no. Just think about this. You would not be the person that you are now in this moment unless he was the person that he is and those things happened to you. Because if he wasn't like that, you'd be a completely different person. And that was really tough for me to digest. So it's the same— what I feel is the same thing is these really difficult situations for us, they mold us into something else. And I think we as humans, if we get soft, we get soft and things are— when we're on the brink of something happening, that's when all the best change happens. And I look back and I go, how can I even think about that? Because it was so horrible. But when I do look back, I look at back the time when my father was incarcerated and then I broke away and formed AquaGard. I wouldn't have done that. I look at the time in 2008 when we were going bankrupt and we had a fraud case. If we hadn't shifted and looked at totally different market for the business, we would have just followed everybody down the rabbit hole into low margins and gone out of business. And the same thing with me selling the business. I really— I've seen so many people sell their businesses for this big bag of cash and then within 2 years they are not happy campers.

Yes.

I see it all the time. I see it all the time. So the one thing, I mean, with that chat was that he was a coach. To me, although it was really, really difficult, but it made me pivot and do these certain things that has created this person over here that I am now.

Yeah, I think you're right. It— in many ways, we are molded, and molded over time in a way that almost like the way that something beautiful like the Grand Canyon has been molded. You think it's been carved out through— use the Colorado River— has carved out this great wonder of the world over thousands or even millions of years perhaps.

Yeah.

And we are molded into something quite beautiful.

Yeah.

And I don't know that there's, you know, in nature there's no complaining about it. The Colorado River isn't complaining that it's got to be the one to force the Grand Canyon to change. And the Grand Canyon isn't the one that's complaining that somehow or another it doesn't want to change. It's fine the way it is, so the Colorado River ought to leave it alone. I mean, it's You say stuff like that and you go, okay, that's sheer nonsense. And yet this is exactly what's—

And I find with me, and that's a really good analogy, I find with myself, if I fall into the Colorado River and I'm fighting the river to go back upstream, it's a hell of a battle. But if I go with the flow of the water, amazing things can happen. And I find that if I force something in my life, if I really force it, it doesn't happen. But if I kind of let things kind of go and I get into the flow, and I call it a life rhythm, I don't, I don't necessarily like the term life balance because I feel with life balance, you're giving up something for another to make things balance. I call it life rhythm. You get into that flow. It's almost like a dance and things just start happening and happening. Once you're in your sweet spot and you're able to leverage that sweet spot, amazing stuff happens.

There's no question. And often it takes a catalyst. So in the case that we're talking about, the catalyst is, you know, in nature is sort of like the force of the river, for example.

Yeah, yeah.

In your life, one of those catalysts has certainly been your father. And another catalyst which actually has had an influence on me as well is this, the ayahuasca.

Yes.

The medicine, as it's called, the mother.

Yeah.

And I have been to Costa Rica.

Yeah.

And had ceremonies and journeys there. Actually, a wonderful retreat center in Costa Rica. It's like a, you know, a place where you can do it safely. And I won't get into the details of that. on this show, but, but I can just say ayahuasca is one of those great catalysts. It can really put you very much in front of yourself.

Yeah, I totally agree. I didn't even know what it was when we went down in 2010. They said ceremony and okay, I had no idea, but it was life-changing for me. And actually, you know how Facebook pops up, you know, 5 years ago, 10 years ago today, that's what popped up. I was in the Amazon with my family.

Yeah, with Lynne Twist.

With Lynne Twist, with Lynne.

Pachamama Alliance. And it's such a small world because, I mean, it was just that we are a part of an organization with some people that are also in the space of authorship and leading seminars and things. And Jack Canfield's one of the people that we spent some time with in that space. So was Lynne, a number of people. And Jack had actually been to the same place I had gone to, this place Rythmia. It's a really wonderful— they call it a life advancement center. But Jack was really moved, very moved by that experience as well, by the experience of seeing the kind of molding, the kind of changes that are possible when there's a really loving catalyst. And by loving, I don't even mean kind.

Yeah.

Because in the example of your father, not even a kind process, it's probably incredibly painful. you know, to be at odds with your own flesh and blood. I mean, I was a lawyer for 18 years. I represented people in disputes of all kinds, including those against their own family members. And there's nothing that I've ever witnessed more excruciating, actually, than family that are at odds with one another, especially over money. I know. Yeah. But on some level, it is a loving catalyst that molds you into the person that you see in the mirror and go, you know, I love this person looking back at me.

I do. And I love— once I realized that, things really changed because it was always this battle, this always this battle, you know, and then I realized that, hang on a second, you wouldn't be who you are unless this happened. And, you know, people, the listeners too, they wouldn't be who they are unless those traumatic things that happened to them in the past. horrible. If they're horrible, they're horrible, but it molded them into somebody, somebody different and, you know, a fighter or whatever it may be. And I know that, you know, we talk about ayahuasca and in the Amazon and all that. And I know it is tough for people to go there, but as we talked earlier, nature is one of the great healers. And, you know, I found my sister and I, once we broke off my father's company, my sister was a fanatical outdoor, like a mountaineer, big mountain climbing, you know, expedition stuff. And she got me into rock climbing and backpacking. country skiing and all this stuff. So we would leave the business and we would— she would stay and I would leave and I would go on a backcountry ski trip. She would take off on a 3— climb Mount Logan. I would take off and go to Nepal with my wife and we'd do all these. But what I found is that that was the time where processing was going on inside my head, where I would have an issue when I left and I come back and it would be solved. It was, it was my reset button.

Yes.

So I got into this, I call it a life rhythm. I get into this rhythm of getting out in nature. Now if people are living in wherever, Chicago or whatnot, go to the park, go for a walk. I mean, it's the same healing effect getting out into the trees. I mean, I'm living in Whistler right now and I go mountain biking and skiing and all that. But my wife and I go and we go for 2, 3 hours a day and it's just, it's incredible to come back and then now you're ready, now you're ready to go. Like you're ready to go.

I think this is one of the greatest opportunities. So if you constantly continue, I'll hold my—

Yeah, I think the Japanese call it tree bathing. There's actually a term for that, tree bathing. And because it clears your soul, clears your conscience, and you come back to— I mean, the Japanese work, work, work, work, work, but they go and they have their, you know, they do their martial arts and then they do their tree bathing and then they come back, right? It's a great reset.

The essence of resilience is about recovery. People think the essence of resilience is endurance, but it's not. It's recovery. And that's research-based. And just from basic experience of knowing how it is that athletes, Olympic athletes, and anyone else that's sort of really focused on their performance, whether it's physical performance, mental performance, or otherwise, that you have to be able to bake recovery into the process because if you don't, you become burned out. Burned out. You exhaust the source. You exhaust the inspiration, you exhaust the flow, and then you're out of rhythm. You're out of harmony.

I mean, I got out of the rhythm. I mean, years ago, it was— I worked. That's all I did was work. And my kids were little. I never saw them. And then my football player friend again grabbed me again. He said, Nigel, the most important thing in your life is your family. You need to spend time with your family. And so that— I made that my mantra, like, from then on, to spend as much time as I can with my kids. And we surf together, ski. We do everything. They're in their 20s now, and we do everything together. They're my best friends. And, you know, I thought, no, hang on a second. I'm building this company for my family. That was all BS.

It

was all BS. I had no time for them.

A million great rationalizations a day, probably. But right now, this is such a really— in the midst of all this change, there's some great opportunities for people to redesign, literally redesign their lifestyle because the ability to work from anywhere and earn from anywhere, to work remotely, in other words.

Great opportunity.

To work remotely. And to have your kids even in school or being educated remotely gives you the opportunity to be anywhere. Like, we are in the central coast of Maine and we're leaving here in a week and we'll be on this little island off Cape Cod for a few months and then we'll head back to San Diego in November. It's like, well, you know, that's great on some level, but it's not great for us because we're different than any other entrepreneur or any other small business even. It's— the option is there for everybody to live this, to live in and around the places where they feel they can be in flow. They can get in flow. They can get in rhythm. And for— I think for many of us, that means being in beautiful places, being in beautiful areas in nature, being able to carve out the time in your day to recover so that you're not— you don't have to be tied to the, you know, the ball and chain of the office.

Yeah.

Or any of those sort of ball and chains that we've come to accept as the normal way that a professional gets ahead in the world no longer exists. Every one of those things has been called to question. Every one of those things has been turned on its side or inside out. And now more than ever, more than any time ever, never has existed before, anybody can— you can be in St. Kitts, you can be in Barbados, you can be in Whistler, you can be anywhere, Nova Scotia, wherever.

Yeah.

And, uh, my, um, later be somewhere else if that's We can, we can.

It's an interesting thing, as my good friend Jamie Alvarez told me. We had a chat a little while ago again. He says, now is the time for us to come home. And I said, what does that mean? He says, well, now is the time for us to come home. We've been for generations, we've been go, go, go, go. We've been flying here. I mean, we'd be on a flight from Chicago to Milwaukee to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, back for a night off. We'd be go, go, go. We'd be vibrating out here. He says, now is the time we come back and we spend time with our important people in our lives, our family. And now it's the time for us to clear our heads and think. And now is the time not to sit idle. Now is the time to create because we're able to create. We're in this space that we can create. So this is the time. This

is actually—

This is absolutely the time. And my wife and I said just before this call, she looked at me and she said, you know what? This has been a really good time for us. I mean, our kids are out. They're out of that. It's just the two of us here.

Same as us. My wife and I have never spent— Grandmasters now.

Are you guys?

We are. We are so luxury in this concept of the kids are out and they're on their own and there's, you know, and speak to them regularly.

How old are your kids?

Everything from, well, we've got 19 on up to 28.

Yeah, like us.

And they're all independently living either at college or on their own, all in California. And we are walking around guilt-free.

I mean, we love our kids dearly and we see them, you know, a fair amount but, you know, just this has been, you know, for us to be here and then have them come and visit occasionally, it's just—

That's the same thing with us. We just have the ability to create those resets.

Yes.

And I think that's what nature does. That's what being living on your terms, to have that freedom to live on your terms, whatever that looks like. So, if you wanna be in the city or be out of the city. Whatever's going to nourish you is what literally nourishes you, what replenishes you. So as you say, when you can really turn the tide, so to speak, I think the tide has been sucking, literally sucking creativity out of most people for the better part of their whole adult life. And now when that tide is coming back in and filling you up, the possibilities are sort of— they're limitless. Yeah. And what an inspiration that is.

It is. And we, you know, we sit inside our own head and it's like, we can't do it, can't do it, can't do it. And I was exactly the same way. And my coach, I had this list of these asteroids I had to break through and goals that I wanted on my list with my coach. But then I got everything done. But there was one thing left on the list and that was take the year and travel with the family.

Right.

And did I ever make up every excuse in the book. I can't do it, my business, with this, this, you know, all these things. We got a dog, you know, all this stuff, whatever. And he said, well, what about your wife? Does she want to go? And I said, no, I don't think so. It's too much for her. So, I asked her right then and there on the phone. She was over in the kitchen or something and I said, Raiko, do you still want to? She goes, absolutely. So, we had it together, out the door, 3 months, no planning at all, zero.

We just— No plan plan, which is my favorite.

For a year and we just— because you meet so many people along the way on your journey.

Oh, man.

You got to go here. And the thing was, is it wasn't that expensive. I mean, I could go to Myanmar or wherever and live for like $5 a day. And like you said, with technology now, we could use this.

With good internet, you can be anywhere at any time, earn anywhere.

You can do it and we can all do it. And I just, I believed that I couldn't do it until my coach really twisted my arm and said, Nigel, this is your goal. This is what you wanted to do. You wanted your life back. You wanted your freedom. This is what you wanted to do with it.

Right.

We can do this. And we did it. And it was the most incredible experience of my life.

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.

And I love my life. So there you go.

It's really about your own personal rituals. So yeah, it's funny because when you and I started right before we turned on the camera, we were just chatting about the fact that we're both in places where You know, I was just looking at, as we were walking, Randy and I went out and took a walk. It was one of the things we do to recharge every day is to walk together. And we were on a walk and saw a family first of wild turkeys, then we saw a family of foxes, of these—

Yeah.

Beautiful red foxes that with just, I mean, you don't even know it. I mean, I didn't even realize how much it was just filling me back up so that as soon as I came back in, And I knew I've got things that I want to be creative doing today. I knew we were going to be podcasting and all that kind of thing. It's like my energy was so high and it was high from just 30 minutes of refilling the tank again and being in an environment that made me feel more at home, to use the words you described earlier. Yes. I was more in rhythm, more in flow, more in harmony that other people call balance. And the thing about balance that we know is it's It's fleeting. So, to try to aspire for something that you know is fleeting, it seems like a fool's errand, and yet that's the language that we're constantly telling ourselves. We want to seek out this work-life balance. There's no such thing.

Yeah.

But there is harmony and rhythm.

Harmony and rhythm.

It is possible and flow. So, I think what's great is we've described a few of those things in terms of what we are currently doing. My last question for you has to do with Daily ritual. Is there one particular daily ritual that you're gonna share with the world right now? What's that one ritual that you think people could learn from? Well,

I'll tell you what I do within the first, like, the half hour when I wake up. I wake up, I have a shot of beet juice with ginger, cleanses my system, really good for high blood pressure too. And then I take a cool shower, like a cold shower for 5 minutes, not that long, 5 minutes. And then I do what is called, because I've been having a little bit of lower back, I do backcountry skiing and all this, so my back, I do something called foundation training. 12 minutes. It's absolutely amazing for my lower back. And then my wife and I are into Wim Hof. So Wim Hof breathing. So we'll do 12 minutes of Wim Hof breathing and then we'll do 20 followed straight into 20 minutes of meditation. And we do it together every morning, which is really cool. And we're just, that's it. And we're just jazzed for the day and it's just absolutely incredible. And like getting into that rhythm, like you said, it's just, it's like liberating. You know, it's, Yeah, that's my morning. As soon as I wake up. Brilliant.

So my morning is different yet similar. The ritual that to me is the foundation for everything is the one upon waking for me personally. And so that involves waking up, part 1, being grateful for that waking that we're not guaranteed. So it's just, it's a blessing every day we get to wake up. That's part 2. And the third part is that I say something out loud every morning, which is written on my shirt today, which is, I love my life. Love myself. Yeah, because I really truly believe and have the experience of seeing this play out, that we speak our lives into existence. So, we've got to be really careful about the language we use and watch our language like the way an eagle would watch its prey. And so, I watch my language. I think if people had a little recorder strapped to them all day long, which we do, it's called our cell phone, and you just recorded all day long everything you said for the day, you probably— most people would cringe to listen to themselves, to hear what came out of their mouth.

Right.

So to me, to just be really careful to curate so carefully everything that you say to the extent that you can, and I know that's difficult. So people hearing this now, I know that's not easy, but what you can do to begin with, to just start the domino effect of what that even looks like, is to Just choose something that you say at the beginning of the day. One thing upon waking, once you've hopefully felt grateful for the fact that you've been given another day. What's the words that come out of your mouth? And so that's my question to all of you as you're interacting with us and you leave your comments, and you can go to adammarkel.com/podcast to leave your comments about this episode. Put there, what are those waking words? Mm-hmm. Is there one thing that you say more readily than another? Is there, as I'm asking you?

Well, myself, it's like, yeah, at night my wife and I, we lay out here and look at the stars and then we just do a little prayer to the universe and I just thank the universe for being able to have everything and meet everybody and yeah. There's another guy I'm sure you probably know. Do you know Brother David? He had the Gratefulness Institute. He's a monk and he, I think he lives in Argentina now. He was also at my— he, he, it's called the Gratefulness Institute and he talks about just gratefulness.

Yeah.

It's amazing. He's like 95 years old and he's an incredible human being.

The science of gratitude is totally fascinating.

So gratefulness. Yeah.

Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, listen, I so appreciated this conversation. Thank you for being a guest.

Thanks, Adam. I really appreciate being on your show. This is great.

People can find out more about your book and your work and the things that you're up to, including Including those groups that you are supporting. All of that's in the show notes, so folks, please check that out. Click the links and find out more how you can support some of the things that Nigel's up to. And again, Nigel, thank you for being a guest on The Conscious Pivot today.

No, thanks, Adam.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. And you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com.