Heart-Based Thinking Creates Compassion With Daniel Gutierrez

Welcome to the Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, best selling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markell. 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, it's Adam. And welcome. Oh, I'm so excited to be with you today. Welcome back to the Conscious Pivot podcast. And I'm very excited for what is about to happen, what's about to come. So if I were you, I'd be rubbing my hands together.

Go.

What's he got in store for us today? It's going to be special. But before we get there, as always, I want to remind us all to take a deep breath. Just in this moment, take a deep breath, Realize how blessed we are. I mean, my goodness, could we be any more blessed? I get to be speaking on a podcast and spending time with a beautiful soul that I'll introduce in just a moment. And you all get to be wherever you are, whether you're driving or walking, running on a treadmill, sitting in front of a computer, whatever you're up to right now, you get to be listening, and we get to be alive, and we get to be together, connected in this way, which is beautiful, because in case we need a reminder, I'll remind us that at this very moment, as we're taking our deep, conscious breath together, there are people everywhere who are taking their very last breath on this earth. And so it is a sacred moment. This is a holy moment. I can't say it enough, I can't feel it enough. I can't be reminded of it enough. And it is a blessing and an honor to be able to remind everybody else as often as I get to, of the same thing. So I am so happy to be here. I feel so grateful, and I also feel so blessed to have Daniel Gutierrez with us today. And as you guys know, I don't introduce anybody. I love to ask this question. So, Daniel, what are you jazzed up about? What are you excited about in your life? And would you share a little bit with. And listen, don't, you know, don't worry about whether it sounds like you're bragging. You've had some incredible experiences in your life. You've done some amazing things. I would love it if you'd share something about yourself. What you're excited about today and where you've been before we start our pivot discussion.

Wow. Where do I start? You know, I'll give the. I'm a speaker, I'm an author, best selling author. You know, those things, I think that, that you can find on my bio if you want to look it up. But I think what's most important is that what I'm jazzed up about being able to do what I love and do it every day. And what I mean by that is that I'm not going to work and doing something that I'm getting paid for to justify Nance. I'm not doing what that bumper says. I owe I oh so off to work I go. I always thought that was funny.

I never saw that bumper signal. That's freaking great. I o I o I o and off to work I go.

I saw it. When you're in la, that's all you could do is read bumpers. So, you know, I remembered that one. You know, I'm jazzed up about the opportunity. I love what you said a few minutes ago, and I want to go back to that because that's the essence of the way I live. And that is I am blessed to be alive in this moment. I am blessed to have an opportunity to breathe. And when you said that in this moment there is someone taking their last breath, I got chills. Because in February I watched my mother die and I experienced that moment. And it's radically changed my whole life to recognize the importance of loving what we do and doing what we love. You know, And I know that that sounds really crazy maybe to some of you, because you're going, wow, how am I going to get paid? Well, you start doing what you love and love what you do. You know, at the end of the day, I mean, I felt the same way. I mean, I come from a corporate background. You guys know the little company, Best Buy Electronics helped build that company. I started with them, they had 50 stores. I ended when they had 1700. I think they have 4000 something now. And that was my, you know, that was my grind. If you could imagine a brand new company like that opening hundreds and hundreds of stores all the time. We were constantly moving, you know, 18, 19 hours a day, flying around, you know, just craziness, you know, I woke up one day and I said, and.

What was your role with the company? You were an executive with the company.

I was helping. Yeah. And I was helping him open markets.

Wow.

So I was the guy that, when nobody would go, like, seriously, I was the only one willing to come to la. I lived in Texas. They're from the Midwest, Minnesota, you know, they're in the tundra. And they're like, we can't get anyone to go to la. I go, that's because it's crazy out there. I said, why?

Because it's dangerous.

It's dangerous. Yeah. I live in Texas. We leave our windows open, man. I hear over there, people getting killed, Right? That's all I knew, right? So I got to tell you this. And some of you that are listening may or may not know this spot, but I'll draw a picture. So they fly me into la, pick me up in a limousine. It's dark. And I know they did this on purpose. It's dark. And they take me down to Laguna beach to a place called Las Brisas. And Las Brisas is probably one of the most sexiest restaurants on a bluff overlooking the ocean. They wine me and dine me, and they tell me how they're gonna do this and that. And they tell me that that's la. Well, I believe. Wow, I can live in this. And my office was in Compton. I said, what happened to the ocean? Where's the ocean? Anyway, so, yeah, my life has been crazy like that. Like all of us busy, you know, I just. I just was just talking to. Just sent out a Facebook video recently because I had another friend two weeks ago commit suicide. And I really felt bad about that because I did something that I wish I hadn't done. And that was I sent out a text to this woman, and she didn't respond. So I didn't think anything about it. I thought, oh, she's busy, or I'm busy, and I'll get back to her. And then I'm in the grocery store and someone says, did you hear about so? And so? And I said, no. They said, she hung herself. And I went, what? And so I said, when did that happen? So she told me. And I looked back at my text, and it was that around that same time frame. And I realized that we live in a world where we're not present and we're not. And we're texting each other and not answering each other, not connecting to each other. And it broke my heart. And it broke my heart because we're too quick to say, I'm busy. We're too quick to say, I'm busy. What does that mean? I'm busy. I even said on the video, I said, you know what? Quit saying I'm busy. Why don't you just say, I don't want to talk to you. I would feel better about that. I would feel better because I'm busy means you're brushing me off. And I was saying that, you know what, folks don't do what I did. I gave an I'm busy signal and I lost a friend in the process. It wasn't my fault. I don't hold that, hold that guilt. But maybe I could have picked up the phone. Maybe, I don't know. Maybe. But at the end of the day, I got into that busyness because I was busy at Best Buy. Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. And I woke up one day and I was not fulfilled anymore. I was at the height of my career. I was just invited to be promoted again. The thousands of employees I had, stock at a dollar. This is Best Buy stock. I was one of the good old boys. I didn't have to go anywhere. But I woke up one day and I said, this is not my path. And I gave all the stock back and I kept what I had in my 401k and I walked away.

Two weeks.

I gave him a two week notice. That's it. And I walked away. And what are two things I realized? One, that I needed to follow my path, but two, that I was just a number to a big corporation. I wasn't as important as I thought I was because they had a replacement for me by the time I left. And that was an eye awakening thing for me. It's a business. I can't take it personal. But I had put my heart, blood, sweat and tears into it. So to me it was personal. And to see someone replace me in two weeks and be there, like, shake my hand and say, hey, I heard you did a good job. Have a good life. It really made me realize that we need to live our lives for ourselves, not for others.

Right? Yeah. That's a powerful statement right there. I can only imagine how many people who are listening to this who have already made that choice. Because we get a lot of people that are pivoters. They're side, you know, they're side hustlers, sidepreneurs, you know, they're pivoting and doing something on the side or doing something brand new and becoming business owners, many of them. And then there are a lot of people listening to this who are still working a job, are in that place and for good reasons. I don't deny that there are good reasons to stay, to be there because they provide, you know, that job provides safety and security in an uncertain World, uncertain times.

Well, you know. And there's nothing, by the way. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having a job. If that's your purpose and you're happy, great. I'm talking about when you get there and you're, like I said, your eyes are red, you're drinking your coffee, you're in traffic, and you see that bumper. So off to work I go. It's empty. If it's emptiness, there's something wrong. That's the picture we got to fix. But if you're going to work and you're fulfilled, then it's something that just brightens you up every time, which does happen, by the way. Then great. Then the practice of what we're going to be talking today is about finding peace and tranquility in that spot.

Exactly. Geez. It's almost hypnotic. I commuted to Manhattan. I was a lawyer for 18 years, and also came upon a day when I just couldn't tolerate it anymore. I couldn't tolerate myself anymore, who I was. It was too painful to look in the mirror and to look away. And so ultimately just, you know, got to that place where it said, I won't trade my soul for money anymore. I traded a lot of my soul away for dollars in the process, which is, you know, my dirty little secret. But in any event, it's. Yeah, that liberation moment is powerful. And so, yeah, like Henry David Thoreau said or wrote years ago, everywhere people lead lives, quiet desperation.

Quiet desperation.

And I just, you know what? Let's not be quiet about it. That's why we do this podcast. That's why we, you know, got involved with the book and trainings and things. And I know you're. You're committed to very similar things. You and I are simpatico on so many levels. I just don't want to be quiet about it. Like, if you want to be desperate, be desperate. Be loud about it. Say, I am desperate. I'm desperately attached to security, to what is known, to safety, and at least then we're being honest about it. So I am not happy. I'm not as happy as I could be. I am on some level suffering, but I'm not blind to it. And I'm not going quietly, you know, because you get that choice to go along quietly or to be loud and obstreperous about it. And then I feel like if you are loud and obstreperous, at some point, your own. Your own true self, your. That courageous warrior that's inside of you, will not take that shit anymore. You just go, I'm done. Hello, I'm done. Yeah. And you did the same thing because you've been involved in politics. You got a very, very career experiences. I mean, I don't know if you want to share any of those with us.

Yeah, well, you know, I've gone from coaching presidential candidates to recently finishing up with the Obama administration as an advisor to the Department of White House Personnel, to working with the president of Mexico to get elected, from reaching out to Mexican nationals in the US to help the Mexican president become elected. And he did. I was there when he was elected, and that was President Fox Calderon and the current president, you know, and so, yeah, I've had a little bit of dabble here and there. You know, it's fun. It's fun to be alive.

Yes, it is.

It's fun to be alive. And people say, how could you have done that in your life? I said yes when I felt that my heart was saying do it.

You know, this is really important right here, this part. I want everybody to really listen carefully now because this. There's a common thread. This is, Daniel, where I want to. Will you tell us what's that common thread that's helped you to continue to follow something, to follow some guidance so that it has led you toward interesting experiences. Forget all the stuff, the pomp and circumstance. They're impressive and all that, but these are fun. You described that you've had a fun life, you've had an interesting life, and you've had a prosperous life and a productive life.

Yes. Yeah. You know, a couple of things. One is that I said yes just about to every opportunity showed up. And it goes way back. I remember the first time that I think I was 13 and I lived in a little country town, Middle Oathing, Texas. I grew up there. And this guy hired me because I was trying to make some money. And he said, would you clean out my barn? Now, what he meant was to shovel out all the manure, but I took it as literally shoving out all the manure, not getting the tractor and move. So I literally shoveled out all the manure by hand. And he was like floored. Like you did that by hand. I said, but now what you asked me to do, a lot of times I didn't know how, and it didn't matter. I just said yes, you know, another time, just move a few years ahead. I was in college and I was studying industrial technology. And so I wanted to work for this interior design firm so I could get to know their clients. And See how they were doing business. And so she says to me, well, I have this table that a client needs with this kind of Egyptian motif, but it's on a special glass. The glass is very expensive, so you can't mess it up and you can't break it. Could you do it? I didn't even know what she was talking about. I said yes. And it took me all of my. I didn't get to go home for the holidays because my whole holidays I literally painted that on this glass. And when she got it, she said, nobody was willing to do this. And you did it. And I didn't know how. I researched it. I researched, you know, and I literally painted it. Painted it. It was like a little Egyptian thing all the way around, this eight sided glass. So I never really worried about did I know how. I just decided to say yes. And I figured it out. And because of that, I got to do things. And I'll give you another funny one. I remember as I had left Best Buy and I was. There was this award ceremony in LA called the Soul Awards. And the Soul Awards were like this big to do. Four or five thousand people show up. And I had been to it a year before and remember watching the Soul Awards and going, wow. And they honored business people, community and whatever. Anyway, I just remember sitting there and at the very beginning, all you could see is the big. What do you call them? The side screens were the big ones so everybody could see who was on stage. And then. And I hear this. Welcome your master of ceremonies. And I went, oh, oh, I want to be that guy. I want to be that guy, right? Everybody's like, shut up and watch the show, right? Anyway, so I remember thinking, I said to the people that were around me, the next time I step in here, I'm going to be the master of ceremonies. They're going, you're in Hollywood. Shut up. It ain't going to happen. Anyway, fast forward four years. I get a call from the chairman of the board. And he says, hey, Daniel, we really love what you've been doing in the community. We want to know if you might be available to be the master of ceremonies for the Soul Awards. And this was at the. At the Kodak Theater, the whole nine yards. It was beautiful. Anyway, he says, I said, yes. And we made it through the whole conversation. I was like, I could barely stand it. And he says, oh, Daniel, Daniel, before you go, have you ever used a teleprompter? And I said, a tele. What? A teleprompter. And I Thought, I'm about to blow it. And I said, sure, many times. No worries. All right, so fast forward. I am on set. We're about to start this huge show, and you hear and welcome your master of ceremonies, Mr. Daniel Gutierrez. And I walk out there, and I was like, yeah. And then the teleprompter. I get to the teleprompter, and I see it, and I know I'm supposed to read it, but what I don't know is that I'm supposed that it goes at my speed. So it started moving, and I started speaking faster and faster and faster. All of a sudden, my ear. Take a break, take a break, take a break, take a break. Right? So these were, you know, eventually they got me. Said, daniel goes at your pace. Slow down. I said, oh, I didn't know that. I never used one, but I didn't even know what it was.

Right.

These are things that. That, you know, I mean, having those experiences were. Because I said, yes. The other thing I want to. I want to make note of. And this came later in life. I always tell my son, my father was killed when I was 5 years old in a car accident, so I never knew him. And I always tell my son very often. He's 16 now. Said, Son, don't worry about your dad. Your dad has lived an incredible life. No matter what happens and when it happens, I'm good. I'm really good. If tomorrow was my last day on Earth, I would be absolutely excited that I got to do what I did, because for all practical purposes, I shouldn't have even had the opportunities I said, so don't worry about that. And the reason I say that is because I've made peace with death and I made peace with life. And I'm good with both of them. And I can live every day knowing that no matter what today holds, like you said at the very beginning, that this breath I'm taking right now is sacred. And I'm good with that. And I think those two things, saying yes and being okay and not fearing death. I mean, there's one thing that we definitely know, that everything comes to an end either by death or separation. So if we know that through death or separation, everything comes to an end, what do we have to worry about? And I think that's where my willingness to say yes came from, is that I was just willing to say, hey, what have I got to lose?

Wow. How has it informed your current work? Because I know you are. You have a new book coming out, or you write, or you have a Writing project. I'm not sure if it's in big book format, so I'd love to hear more about that as well as mindfulness. And, you know, there's a lot of people interested in mindfulness these days. It's gotten into fat, it seems like.

You know, I just picked up a copy of Time magazine. Mindfulness is on the COVID Right?

Say no more.

Yeah. And I'm looking at this, and a little bit of a concern about that. But, you know, today, you know, I'm writing a book, and the working title of the book is Radical Mindfulness. Now, let me share with you what I mean by that. For those of you that maybe have a practice already, you might say, I already know that. Okay, well, that's fine. Here's my concern with the flavor of the month mindfulness that we're seeing out in the world today. We're seeing it on tv, we're seeing in commercials, we're even seeing it in sitcoms. People are talking about it, which I think is a beautiful thing because it awakens the level of consciousness in a human that we need to wake up. It started with Avatar, the movie, and now we're into mindfulness. Avatar did what? People don't know what that was about. That was all about mindfulness. That was all about spirituality. That was all about the corporate giant. That was all about Apache Mama. It was all about Mother Nature and how we play in that whole thing and how we treat each other. Now, we come today as mindfulness. Well, my work today is around mindfulness, what I do today. And that's why when you said earlier, why am I excited? What excites me? It's everything I do. I don't go to work at Best Buy, and I work on mindfulness. That's what I used to do. Today I work as a practitioner of mindfulness. And I am what I teach. And that's what makes it so exciting. I don't have to put on a veil and become someone else, because that's what I'm getting paid to do.

Between nine and five.

Between nine and five, this is who I am. And it's on. So mindfulness. Mindfulness is the practice of being still being present. There's many ways to get there, many ways to get there. Some say yoga, some say meditation, some say taking a walk. You could be mindful of eating. Mindfulness is a broad range of things. It's a practice. The problem with it is that if I go do yoga for 30 minutes or an hour and I leave there and I get on the freeway. And also I'm flipping off the guy next to me. That's not very mindful. It's not. It's not even a practice.

I thought about it. I flipped him off on purpose.

On purpose.

There was nothing that wasn't conscious about it. I was entirely conscious. When I flipped that dude the bird, he cut me off, for crying out loud.

Exactly.

He deserved it.

Coming. Yeah, they're coming. Right? This is what I'm talking about. Right? And we're all human. We all fall into that. Sometimes I get on an LA freeway, before I know it, I'm laughing at myself. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you I'm perfect. But radical mindfulness is the practice of mindfulness on a moment by moment basis set toward an intentionality followed by commitment. So that when you're in the middle, listen, if the practice of mindfulness is to get present and you call whatever you do a practice and you get stressed out for whatever reason, the boss comes in, the wife comes in, the traffic, the kids, and you lose it, you have no practice. The practice of mindfulness is to be radically mindful and be still before you act. It can be seconds, folks. I'm not talking about you got to get in a white robe, you don't have to hang. You don't have to do like me and you and have our head shaved.

You don't have to join an ashram, you don't have to, you have to go sit on a mountainside.

You don't go have to do any of these things. It's just about, you know, being mindful in the moment, being present in the moment. And I call it radical because radical, what it takes to get to do it moment by moment. And even if, let's say throughout your day, you got 50% of it done, you did well.

Whoa.

The benefits are crazy. The benefits of being able to stay centered is bigger, which is what I'm teaching corporate today. I'm not going to ask you to go sit on a mountain, do what I did, or do what I do, which I do three times a year, four times a year. I want you to learn to be mindful. And you know this being in Manhattan, in the middle of Manhattan, I want you to take 60 seconds and take that stressed out cubicle and make it a place of a sanctuary of peace and tranquility just by closing your eyes. And that's what gets me excited. So today I'm the same person. So I have a beautiful spiritual practice. I take people on spiritual journeys around the world as you know. And I get to go. I'm speaking at Carnegie hall later next year. Actually, it was going to be next month, but next year on mindfulness. I'm working with corporate on mindfulness. I'm teaching people in the mountains mindfulness. Wow. Isn't that beautiful? Everything's in alignment now. Let me say this before anyone gets all crazy and thinks, oh, he's perfect. No, I'm not perfect. I'm far from perfect. Right. I'm far from perfect. But I would say that the percentage of time I stay in that space is just a little bit higher than the average person. Not because I'm better, but because I practice it. That's it. And I'm just a little bit ahead. Not a lot.

It's just like any other skill. Right, Daniel? I mean, anything that you practice. We did an event at our home over the weekend where we're Talking about the 10,000 plus hours it takes to be able to speak authentically and all that kind of thing and deliver content in a way that is very empowering and real. And that's not something you learn overnight. That's not a seminar, that's not a three day thing. It's a, it's a commitment to practice. And you can't get around that. And it is, it's. But it's, but it is a practice that is accessible to all of us. As opposed to like, if you wanted to be a great golfer, you'd have to spend, you know, 10 hours on the golf course every day. Yeah. And a lot of money. And that's not accessible to everybody. But to be able to be mindful moment to moment and pause, especially as you and I talked before the recording session started about somebody that I spoke to just yesterday who had a thing come up and got her all kind of twisted in a bit of a knot about something. And I said, well, do you have a grounding practice now? I didn't use mindfulness. I said, grounding. She understood what that was. And she said, yeah, of course I do. I said, do you teach that to other people? And she says, yeah, that's the, you know, a big part of what I do with people is help them to get grounded, get centered, get present. I said, so what happened during this thing where, you know, what happened to your practice? And it was a big, it was a big pregnant pause, man. She didn't have anything to say. And she goes, yeah, I didn't use it. And I say, well, so what? What is the good of having it if you Didn't.

What's not a practice if you don't use it?

Yeah. And. And then it becomes a thing where you're teaching something or sharing something that you're not actually embodying or living. And that doesn't feel good either. Right. We all want to feel congruent.

Yeah. And I don't think that we all have to be perfect. I think that if we're going to be teachers, I think we're held. No, let me back up. I think we should. Or let me back up one more time. I hold myself to a higher standard because I am a teacher. I hold myself to a higher standard.

Because that makes you a leader of leaders.

Yeah. You're not asking me to. I'm doing it because we're talking about this also before the show. That I want to be an authentic alignment with my message. Now I'm gonna share some dirty. Some dirty stuff here, some dirty secrets. Because I think it's important to understand that I've not always been this way. You know, I've been a powerful speaker for a long time and I used to speak on diversity and I would speak on who knows. Whatever they paid me for, I was willing to do it. Sold my soul to the devil, just like you did. Do you know anything about marketing? I'd go to the Internet. Yep, here's three points.

Sure I do.

Ten grand. I got it. I got it. I didn't care. And I would speak and I would get the rah rah reads and the whole thing. And you're awesome and thank you very much. And they would find me in a bar three sheets to the wind. Because that's where I went there to have a drink and some of the buddies. I remember this one time I was speaking on Wall street and I left there, you know, and I'm in my fifteen hundred dollar suit, I'm doing the whole thing. You know what it's like. You've been in Manhattan and I'm at a bar and I'm doing tequila shots. That was my thing. Not shots, but sipping on tequila, but sipped a lot of them. And the group that I was speaking to on leadership walks in. I did not get a good review. I did not get a good. The review. The power that I hit in that room and what I did so well was thrown out the window. And I say all this because this is, you know, I just came back from a four or five year break and I came back from a four or five year break because those things made an impact on me. You know, And I'm not saying at all that drinking is bad. I'm talking about me and nothing else. If you take this personally, maybe you should look at it. But if you don't, don't worry about it. At the end of the day, for me, it was, how can I get out there? Especially. Especially when you're talking about spirituality or mindfulness and live the talk. Even if I'm not cool, even if people are uncomfortable because I'm drinking water. I mean, that's just the way it is and it's okay. But for me, I needed to get really cool and really right about what I wanted to do if this was the path I was going to choose. Which is why I say that mindfulness is a slippery slope right now. Because right now you can go to any university or online university and get a diploma and you can even get a master's and a doctorate in mindfulness. And I just have to ask, how do you do that? Mindfulness is not an intellectual process. It is not an intellectual. As a matter of fact, the mind and the ego work together, and the mind and the heart work together. And the mind and the heart is where mindfulness lives. That is where we get that beautiful, juicy connection to life. And if we're going to intellectualize this, then we've totally missed the boat again.

So when you say the mind and the heart work together, say a little bit more if you could, about that.

Yeah. So if the mind and the ego work together, that I'll give you an example. That's competition. That's one word that would fit there. If the mind and the heart work together, it's cooperation. It's still the mind working, but it's being inspired by a different. A different space. When we're mindful of our actions, when we learn to come from compassion. You know, I had this conversation with a corporation the other day. We have been told in the corporate space, I don't care if it's lawyers or retail or whatever, that soft skills are not needed. Soft skills are not things. And soft skills, by the way, for those who don't know what that means is anything to do with emotions, feelings, intuition. I mean, that stuff was not accepted in the corporate space. So peace, love, compassion, understanding, forgiveness, forget it. That's not useful. Well, they're changing their mind now because they're recognizing that those things, those soft skills which live in the heart need to be brought to the forefront in order for the human experience, experience to be able to validate itself and to prosper and produce that's the way we're designed. We've done the mechanical thing, you know, and we got nowhere. We almost destroyed ourselves. So at the end of the day, that's what I mean. The mind and the heart. So when the mind and the heart get together, then your thought process, your intuition, your thought process, your conscious mind and your super subconscious mind are trained to come from peace, love, compassion and understanding, not competition. Not to say competition is bad, but if the. And you. And I'm about to say something, I hit home for a lot of people. But when competition is at the, at the, at the price of your own soul, at the price of your own beingness, you, it eventually pay the price. Somebody's going to pay the price. And we end up paying the price.

Eventually because we always pay the price.

Yeah, we can't keep it up.

No.

They did that study at Yale of a hundred rich people like crazy, stupid rich on their deathbed. And it was one person or two that disagreed. But the study showed that they asked them, what would you like, what would you want more of time, love, family, friends. And it wasn't money, it wasn't money, wasn't more prestige, wasn't another thing on the, on the wall. None of that. And so that I look at those things and in my life, you know, because, you know, like you, I'm well accomplished. I've got plaques at the yin yang, I got awards, you know, but if you look at all that stuff and you don't and you sold your soul to get it, it doesn't feel good. Matter of fact, in my office, it's not even hanging anymore because I said, let's put new stuff up, let's see if you can do the same thing, but from heart based thinking rather than how you got there. Right there, that's, that's a challenge for me until the day I die. You know, know, for me it's about how much good can you do and if someone does recognize you, not that I'm looking for it, then you can be proud that they acknowledge the work you did. But until then, just keep doing your work.

Yes, right. We refer to it sometimes working in heart space. I'm working on a book on that topic, heart space. And it's, it is a path and it's, and it's a, it's a minute to minute, moment by moment. Last night I was delivering an online training and I was quoting from a book by Osho from years and years ago. And I. It was a book on courage and living courageously. And he said in that book, I believe that you can forgive every moment. And I thought, man, because forgiveness is so important. Letting go and forgiveness and, and the idea that you can forgive every moment, every moment has the opportunity for forgiveness. It's. And that is again, a mindfulness. Yes, it's practice. Exactly. And even with the woman I was talking about earlier, where, you know, she, she had a tool available to her and didn't use it. Well, great. Because now she has the keener understanding, having felt the pain, having felt the suffering of not utilizing a tool that was available. Now next time she gets to make a different choice. Sometimes we make the same choices again and again. Right. Sometimes we get it. Yeah. Until we get it. So we suffered enough on some level. But yeah, this, Daniel, so fascinating, this topic. And I agree, I think, you know, when things become popular, it's a bit of a double edged sword because we want the consciousness to be there. We want people to be hip to it and want to do it and want to, you know, kind of get into it. And yet we don't want it to become like a Disney version of it or something. And I don't want to throw Disney under the bus because they do such a beautiful job, but, you know, this sort of franchised version of it that.

Is my work's all about. Because I'm not looking to evangelize the world.

Right. It's not proselytizing to tell people or share with people the benefits of being present and giving yourself access to your heart to think.

Yeah.

In a moment before you flip somebody the bird or you allow your mind to go to the, to the dark side of, you know, all the what ifs or the fears or the doubts and worries and things that, whether, you know, regret from yesterday or fear about tomorrow.

Well, you know what's interesting? If we go back to earlier in the conversation. Let's go back to the car thing, the flipping someone off or getting upset or they deserve it. They cut out in front of me. Damn their whole family, right. Someone asked me, so, Daniel, what do I do when that happens? Do you expect me to start meditating? I said, no. I said, quite honestly, try this. The next time that that is about to happen. They go, okay, let off the gas. If you let them in, they're not cutting you off. I said, does that resonate? And I saw the look on his face. He was like, huh? They'll quit cutting you off when you let them, man. It's you who are disturbed that someone's getting ahead of you. It's you that's disturbed that you might be a second late. What if you just allow a car or two to come in? And if all of us did that, we wouldn't have a problem with traffic because we wouldn't be stopping every five seconds. But for us. If you want to practice mindfulness, let off the gas. What's the big hurry? You know, in traffic, you're not going anywhere. That's what causes the problem, is that somebody decides, not me. Not today.

Not this time.

Not this time. And we rev it, we go forward, we hit our brakes, whatever we do. Let them in. What if. What a practice. Let them in.

Let them in. There's an old Paul McCartney tune. If I could sing, I'd sing it. You know, Let him in. Let him in.

Let him in. That's right.

Yeah. Let him in. Wow, Daniel, I have. I have enjoyed this talk so much, and I really appreciate. I appreciate you on so many levels. And we're new friends, so this is. This is really wonderful. This beautiful lady, Theresa de Grobois, introduced us. Yeah, yeah. Very cool. Shout out to her. She's spectacular. And any final thoughts or things that would just help you to bring this conversation to completion. For.

For you, I think the biggest thing is we're all human. And that's why I try to explain to people, don't put me on a pedestal. I'm just like you. I'm one step ahead of you. That's it. Not a bunch. Just one step. And just by the grace of the divine, I get another day to try to do it right. And so this is not something that you get right. This is something not. This is all we're advocating is peace and tranquility. And I remember someone asking me once, they called me from corporate, an executive, and he was like, daniel, really? Peace and tranquility, really. I remember saying to him, I didn't call you. You called me. And, yes, peace and tranquility, we can all have it. You don't have to go away. As a matter of fact, you can find it right now. And in the moment that we shared that he opened the show, if that's the only thing you did today, your life got better because of it. And that's all we're saying. We're not advocating that we're perfect and that we're angels and whatever. I think that people make a mistake of correlating that with, I have to be that good. I choose for my life to do things the way I do them because it makes me feel better. And so whatever that is for you. Never let someone make you feel less than or more than, because their actions doesn't matter if they're good or bad, you know, and that's the beauty of life. That's. Enjoy life, have fun. You can have fun. It's permitted. Go fly a kite, ride a bike, go out with your kids and get money. And don't worry about the expensive clothes they have on. You know, let them get money, jump in the water. You know, we just. We live in a stressful world. We do. I'm not going to deny that it is crazy. Just give yourself some peace and tranquility. I mean, because if we end on the note that we started with, someone's taking their last breath, and that will be you someday, everything comes to an end, either through separation or death. We're not here forever. Just make sure your forever is not tomorrow.

Daniel, thank you. I really believe in the power of rituals. So the mindfulness rituals, big. It's big benefit and has been a big benefit in my life. And I am a recovering anger management guy. I'm a recovering attorney, litigator, flipper offer, you know, all. All of that. And. And I feel like what I get to do now is not only enjoy. I love what you said at the beginning. I'm. I'm working on certain things in my life and I get to teach those things as well. So that's the beauty of it. So, yeah, it's. I get to clean. I use this process for myself, and if I clean my karma in the process, too, then it's a. Then it's a bonus. It's a bonus. So thank you so much. I want to remind all of our listeners that the Conscious Pivot podcast, of course, is, you know, an ongoing process, ongoing discussions about this topic. So if you dig this, if this is something you're interested in on a regular basis so that you can be reminded and can practice, then go ahead and subscribe. You can check us out at StartMyPivot as well. The community on Facebook is StartMyPivot. Or you can go to pivotfb.com that gets you right into the group, right into the community. We vet that group. So don't expect to be in right away, but for the most part, everybody that wants to be in is usually the right person to be in at any event. So love the time that we spent together and give you one final ritual practice as a reminder to bookend how we began this podcast, which is Ingratitude. So tomorrow, I wish for all of you my. If I take out my magic wand. I'm going to wave my magic wand. It will be that you will wake up tomorrow. That you will wake up. That we will wake up just a little bit more even than we are today. So both literally and figuratively, that we wake ourselves up, wake up our consciousness, and in that moment where we are taking our first breath, our first sacred breath of the day, the acknowledgement that there will be people in that moment taking their last breath, that you can be grateful for whatever it is that you've got in your life, whether it's stuff that's challenging or it's things that are really a blessing, you can be grateful right then. Grateful for anything and everything in that moment. So wake up. That's part one. Be grateful. That's part two. And if you're inclined to stand up, put your feet on the floor, or just declare from your bed, even arms up in the air, hands on your heart, however you want to do it. I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. Blessings to all of you. Until we. Until we chat again or get to spend this time again. I wish you every one of your heart's desires. Ciao for now, everybody. Bye bye.

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@adammarkel.com podcasts for more tips, strategies and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, join our Pivot community on facebook@pivotfb.com.