Adam Hart - Staying Grounded When Everything Wants Your Attention

All right. My friend Adam. How are you doing, brother?

Yeah, really great. Thanks for. Thanks for having me.

Connor, how long have we known each other?

Well, I was reminiscing this recently when I met you when you were working at Apple.

Right.

And you, You, You. I was looking at the shelves and you came over and we had some mutual friends, and you just started telling me this vision for Man Talks, and I was like, this guy's.

He's.

He's dialed in. I can tell his energy. He's. He's going for it. And here you are. That's wild.

That's wild. From the Apple store to sitting in my house in upstate New York, like a decade later. That's crazy.

Well, and I love.

I love.

I love having watched you over those years, you know, when you had me at man talks for, you know, several years ago now. And so, yeah, your commitment to your craft, it. It says a lot. You know, I know what it takes. Having been in my craft for 20 years now. It takes a lot. And you've done really well with your energy around it.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And it's been likewise an honor to watch your work and watch your journey and.

Yeah, well, let's. Let's dive in. Let's dive in before we get too far in the reminiscing. So tell us a story about a defining moment in your life that made you who you are today.

Hmm. Wow. You know, obviously there's the obvious, the birth of the kids, but. And I think we'll dive into some of that for sure. But for me, it was the moment I stepped into my first ever indoor rock climbing gym. And from that day forward, my life became completely transformed.

Why the rock climbing gym?

It was the first moment of my life that I had a separation from a mind that just could not turn off. Although I didn't know it at the time, how. How bad it was. I mean, I knew I was. I was suffering. You know, I was diagnosed ADHD as a teen and, you know, told I was learning disabled and a lot of self esteem, self worth, shame. You know, I had my pretty rock bottom moment in my mid-20s and, you know, I stepped into this rock climbing gym just looking for an alternative way to feel better. As I started climbing, I realized, well, there's something I'm doing here in this sport that's given me freedom from the way my mind was operating.

Yeah, I've heard a lot of people find this. You know, our classic overthinkers are a types and are maybe for the listener, that has the constant chatter internally that never turns off. I've heard many people talk about climbing or just certain activities. Right. Mountain biking, skiing, stuff like that. That really just allows the chatter to quiet. I found for myself, like, that's why I love doing breathwork every day. And cold showers and cold plunge. I think it's in those moments and meditation as well. But, you know, meditation is a little bit of a different vibe. Working out all of those things just help to really quiet the mind. One of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the show is we talked about this notion of burnout. I know that that's something that you work with people a lot on, and I think we should probably talk about culture, you know, the sort of a culture of success and burnout and overwhelm. But is this something that you personally battled with in your life?

Yeah, I mean, it got pretty, pretty intense. And, you know, there's a really strong link to the discovery of how to operate in terms of my nervous system, relationship with my mind, that climbing was the catalyst for me to start to learn, having grown up with a real disconnect from feeling my emotions and, like, really trying to stuff them out. It kind of came to a head in my late teens, early 20s, when all of a sudden the adulthood realm of things started to. To kick in. I struggled through school, I got through university. I have a degree in sociology, diploma in international business management. And I just came out just so uncertain about my life and what was going to happen next. And, you know, I took an easy way out, took a job with family and started going through a bullying scenario with one of my uncles, and, you know, just really led to a real disconnect and a daily habit of escaping my own life. At some point, things just really, really crumbled, and I ended up in this really dark hole with having no idea how to get out. And this is that burnout piece. And it's like, okay, so what is burnout exactly? And my experience with burnout just was this moment where I was like, I can't even lift myself up to. To take even the smallest action that I know or I'm being told is what's going to help support my health and wellness. And I got, like I say, I got lucky because the climbing was what, weird enough is what woke me up and got me to understand. Wait a minute. So I can actually deepen my understanding of how stress impacts our everyday lives. And essentially, burnout is just the human experience of having an elongated experience with stress without knowing how to stop It. How to reset it, how to stop the leaking of our. Our own energy, mentally, physically.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's. I want to, like, zoom out for a moment and talk about our culture and society that we're operating in right now, because there's such a fine balance. On the one hand, I think part of our culture is like, go, go, go. Work, work, work. Never rest. You know, you need to crush it. You need to get shit done. And I definitely fall into that category of I know that my success today is a result of me working very, very fucking hard. You know, like. Like, I, you know, I'm 700 episodes into this podcast, and I'm just now starting to get the real traction, and the success is starting to pay off. But it took seven years of effort, right? You know, and so, yeah, and a lot of hard work and a lot of lessons and a lot of learning.

And so, I mean, the grind is real. The grind is real. Yeah.

Yeah. And so, you know, there. There is that one part where it's like, if you want a certain level of financial success, if you want a certain level of freedom in your life, you know, if you want things to look a certain way or. Or have a certain lifestyle, you do have to hustle. But I also don't start working till 10 in the morning, right? And so, yeah, but it took me years to get here, right? So I. I just want to talk about this dichotomy that exists within our culture that pushes people into this natural state of you gotta hustle, you know, like Gary Vee, Gary V. All the time, right? Hustle, hustle, hustle, grind it out, you know, great determination, but then this other side. Prioritize your mental health, prioritize your wellness.

It's just, you know, it all comes down to adaptation, right? So as a sociologist and, you know, I really have had a focus on human adaptation in the modern era for a while. You know, you'd known me as a biohacker for many years. I've just learned how to hack into my own biology because nobody else was teaching me how to do it. And then, so when I started to understand that I can train my own nervous system to live in an optimal state, I realized that, okay, this is a lot easier than we're being told, but we are being bombarded with constant stressors that most of us don't even realize are happening. Number one is the way the brain operates. So the brain loves to utilize stress, the stress response, because it wants the adrenaline as its main source of energy, or your Habits, which is the dopamine base. So the voltage of the brain, of course. So if all of a sudden your life becomes one where you have this past experience of your life that's creating stress. And so you have these thought, like I mentioned, thoughts around self esteem, self worth, shame, then you have all the adult experiences that start to kick in, which is our finance career, our health and our relationships. The brain starts to find pattern ways of thinking about these. That continues to produce stress. We don't know how to manage that. Now, on top of it, you add in modern society with all the gadgets we have, the artificial light, the lack of connection to nature, the sedentary lifestyle, you know, we've set up in an environment now where our ability to adapt to the amount of stress that the brain starts to lock into, it's tough out there, you know, and then you start throwing kids on top of that. You know, as parents, we just need to understand that there's an intelligent way to start to look at our health in a way where we can start to adapt the amount of impact our nervous system is under from how modern society works.

I love that, I love that definition. And you know, it's interesting. Part of the reason why we even wanted to have this conversation is I've been surprised over the last few months getting questions about burnout from people. Like I, I DO Q&As on Instagram and sometimes I do them, you know, because I want to answer questions for people. But other times it's like research, you know, it's like, what are people actually going through? I've been surprised at how many times I have been, I've gotten questions around. Is burnout a thing? Like, that's the actual question. Is burnout a thing? Not how do I deal with burnout.

Right.

Not like, what is it, you know, what does it look like? But is it a thing? And so it's almost like, you know, there's, there's people who are looking for permission to admit that they're over taxed. Yeah. So can you maybe just create some parameter or framework around like what's neurologically happening, what's from a physiological standpoint when we enter into this space of, of quote, unquote burnout, what's going on within the brain and the body?

Yeah, yeah. And obviously I'm not coming from the medical profession, but I have spent 20 years learning this for myself because I just, I, you know, when I started to understand that, okay, so what is climbing actually doing for me in relation to my experience with Day to day stress. And as I really immersed in that and I, I ended up completely leaving my job and my life in Toronto, moved all the way to a small town called golden bc And I just immersed myself in becoming a rock climbing guide. I was like, this is the only thing making me feel better. And as I went into the process of training and training became not just training for the actual sport, but it was around training my nervous system to operate at an optimal level. What I realized in that process was when I'm climbing, it is a legit fight or flight experience. I have to manage my stress response in those moments, otherwise you can die. But it's not an adrenaline experience. It's an elongated multi hour immersion in stress. And so it started to teach me how, wait a minute. So I can actually utilize my breath as the primary breath will always be the access, but it's a matter of knowing, okay, so it's in the moment my brain starts to try and use certain thoughts, 70,000 thoughts a day. So it starts to loop certain thoughts wanting to trigger me. So I'm just noticing the thoughts that my mind is creating. You know, before I would never even pay attention. I just identified as all these thoughts. This was, this is my story, this is my, you know, however we had defined it, that's all that, that I was operating from. And when I started to have space from that and I began to teach my brain to let go of some of these thoughts, it started to open up a space for presence. And so biologically what I'm, what I believe is happening from my understanding of this is that I've just started to train my vagus nerve to be in an optimal state. Where my nervous system began to teach my brain to feel safe, to feel loved, to feel trust, to feel connection in a way that I could never have gotten from the medications I was put on as a kid or being told to sit and meditate when my mind just. There's no way. When I'm in school and I can't focus in school, it's like, yeah, of course it's, there's just too much disruption and a lack of understanding of how to actually nourish my own brain.

I love that because this is this notion of having the nervous system teach or train the brain. And I remember years ago I had a gentleman named Bolo Lotto on my show and he was, he's a very prominent neuroscientist and neurologist and researcher. And he talked about the brain being a pattern recognition machine. And it really Got me thinking about the patterns that we're creating that our brain is then honing onto, you know, honing into and tuning into on a daily basis. And that we, that we need to be able to have some generative patterns for our body and for our brain, because otherwise we're conditioning it. So if we're, if we're waking up first thing in the morning and rolling over, opening up our phone, going straight onto Twitter or social media, I mean, that pattern is going to cause some disruption in the body and the nervous system in the brain. And so we can have, we can start to develop these patterns that are designed intentionally to help us, I guess, regulate our nervous system. And then in turn, that's going to help regulate the patterns that our brain is tuning into. Is that definitely what you're saying?

Yeah, I mean, my lack of connection to feeling for so long didn't give me any understanding of what was really happening in my own body. Like, I became so addicted to sugar and horror movies growing up, right? These were like my two mechanisms for connecting to some sort of sense of. Of feeling. And when I began to create this beautiful space of communication in my own body, I realized that, oh, wait a minute, I think what I'm doing here is I'm learning how to activate my parasympathetic nervous system, right? Because all of a sudden I felt this groundedness, this restful state that energetically felt so much more, so much more powerful mentally, physically than what was happening when my mind was running the show. And so my goal at that point, and this is 15 years ago, became. This is my primary focus. You know, being pre diabetic at some point and all these other health issues. I'm not chasing another diet to lose weight or have more energy or fix my quality of sleep or take try another fitness program, which is all I was ever told. And a lot of my clients, that's where they're focused on. It just creates more stress. It's. No, it's. We have to build this beautiful connection between our nervous system and our mind that is our core foundation. And it. And it's about understanding that. It's about training in your connection to your parasympathetic nervous system. And so, you know, this, I mean, this comes from training yourself in fight orf flight moments to reset it like cold thermogenesis. The reason why I do cold therapy is because I know what it's doing in terms of training myself to recognize how it feels to be present in my parasympathetic. It's Why I have my kids on slack lines. You know, I put them on in our backyard on a slack line or we have a balance board in our, in our, our living room. Because I know that these are quick ways for them to feel what it's like to reset themselves, to drop into that calm, peaceful state in a way that gives them access to how to do that in everyday life.

Yeah, it's. I mean, it's interesting because I started this practice with my son, I think I've. I've talked about on the show once before where, you know, he's hitting two. He's just wild. He's like a little wild, you know, little wild child and loves to run, loves to yell, loves to jump off of. And you know, he's entering into that state where he's emotionally volatile. Right. He's like, if you don't give him the Cheerios within two seconds, it's, you know, freak out. At first it was very interesting because I could feel my nervous system and my body move to this instantly agitated state of wanting to react of like, stop doing that. And I knew, I mean, because of everything I know, like, well, A, that's not going to help him.

Right.

Because he's just a little bundle of experience right now. And B, this is an opportunity for me to ground myself and be able in turn to co regulate him.

Oh, so, so powerful.

Yeah. And so I started this practice which I got my wife on board. Now she's, she started doing it where when he starts to get into that state, I look at him, I pause and I say, inhale.

Exhale. And it's so funny because within two or three times of doing that. Inhale, exhale. He'll stop everything he's doing, no matter how bad he's melting down, no matter what he's freaking out about, if he wants pistachios from the top shelf or Cheerios or like, you know, he wants a little juice pack or whatever and he'll just look at me. And it's like he doesn't understand cognitively what's happening, but his body responds. And it's gotten to the point now because we've been doing this for a few months where now he's like, last night is a great example and we'll keep going after this story, but my wife, last night he was having a meltdown with his dinner. He's like trying to throw Mac and cheese and sausage everywhere and he's yelling and he's upset about something and she just walks over and she takes his hands and she looks at him and he goes.

So great.

You know, and he takes a big breath because he knew what was coming. Right?

Right.

And so I think, you know, we're talking about these patterns that our brain can look for and we've started to have this pattern that we've, you know, that I've brought into our family to just regulate together, you know, and the.

Opportunities to do that are everywhere. They're everywhere. And you know, again, this is the idea of the burnout side of things. It's the reason why we have this, this elongated experience with stress is because we just don't realize that we can actually support the ability to reset the response. And we were talking before we started around, around, you know, my experience with the birth of my kids, my second child. When Jacob came on, there was this beautiful presence in the experience where then what you're sharing. I know that when I create that space with my kids, it's not the words that I'm saying, it's the expression of my nervous system that's making them feel safe and making them feel loved. And that's, I mean, what you're doing. And I think that's at the primary of every parent. We have to be able to understand how to do that for ourselves in order for us to be able to do that for them. Because it's not just a one off thing, it's just how you're showing up all the time. It's powerful, it's amazing. It's, you know, and that's in my sense is that is what's going to change, you know, the generations that, that come. It's, it's us as parents, how do we hold space to co regulate our kids so that they feel safe in this environment and learn from us how to do the same thing.

Yeah, I was going to say it seems my observation the last few years has been, you know, there's been a lot of cultural shifts, political shifts, environment, you know, pandemic, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's all this, all this stuff that has happened and what I've become more and more present to is this notion that things are moving faster, you know, from a temporal standpoint, but also that because we have become connected online and the Internet, social media, that people have so much sensory data and information on a daily basis that is in the digital, digital space that they're just in this constant state of overwhelm. And then when you couple that with a disconnection from people. Right, isolation and you couple that with a disconnection from Nature. What you have left is individuals who are just in a constant state of overwhelm. And it seems like what a lot of people are struggling with is that overwhelm, that their brains, their bodies are overwhelmed. It's just inundated with so much data and information on a daily basis that we haven't evolved to necessarily cope with and handle. I mean, you think about the average person that goes through their day, if they listen to a podcast and read the news, and then they go to work and they're on meetings, and then, you know, they're having conversations with people about what's happening within work, and then they get home and they have a schedule, you know, for their kids, and they have to take their kids to soccer or whatever. I mean, it's ruthless and relentless. And so can you maybe speak to culturally what you see happening and socially what you see happening with. Within this overwhelm? Because I think it's also important to bring people into the awareness of, like, where are you feeling overwhelmed in your life?

Well, this is the intelligent health part, right? This is the idea that we tend to be living most of our lives as an external experience. It's like everything's getting filtered through the nervous system in the brain, and the brain is doing what it does, and we haven't learned how to nourish it. So it just drives us into living this. This outer experience where we, you know, bringing this back into, recognizing that. That all of what we're experiencing, unless we learn to be in tune with the communication of the body and the mind, we're going to miss out. And this is. This is based off of symptoms. Like, if you have a prolonged experience with stress, you're going to have symptoms because it's a. It's the number one way where inflammation begins. And so when we start to have an inflammatory response, you're going to have a hormonal imbalance as well. And that's mostly coming from a lot of what actions you're taking because of what your brain's up to. So you're having a hormonal imbalance. Then you're having your cognitive function decline because your executive function is shut off. Most of the time. You don't even know the difference between clear, focused thought and, you know, and having. I don't even know how to describe a motivation that is so fueled by passion. And I get the sense you. You feel that energy. But to have an energy like that, you know, so we have to start to get in tune with the symptoms in a way where then you need to have the proper solutions. And. And so most of my clients, they're coming to me with a symptom or multiple. Most of it has to do with the way that they're showing up in their relationships. They're just not feeling fulfilled. They don't, you know, everything's crumbling in certain aspects. And so then it's a matter of, okay, well, am I supposed to jump on a new diet? Am I supposed to jump on another fitness program? Am I supposed to start that meditation pract practice now? It's like, you know, you're just. All you're doing is you're adding another thing on top of all of this stuff that you're just trying to struggle through. And so again, it comes back to this idea of we just need to know that there is a. There's a. There's a right path and a roadmap for working with your own nervous system that actually fits into our lives, that allows us to adapt. And if we can just figure out what those key steps are and put them into action, the immediate result, and the only result I believe we should be going after is a sense of peace and calm for a moment, like a real deep rooted, grounded sense of peace, because that's a real feeling. And I know I would never understood that feeling until I began to strengthen my connection to it. But I think if you give people access to that right now and hold their hand for a little bit of that journey to understand how to open it a little bit more, it becomes very easy to let it take over.

Yeah, it's interesting. I was working with a guy last year who, very successful lawyer, had built this massive law firm, was pretty burnt out and pretty run down and pretty overwhelmed in his life, and had gone through a divorce, had two daughters. And when he came to work with me, it became very apparent that nothing was ever enough. And part of the challenge was that, as you're saying, he was like, I want. I want to do something to change this. And my response was, you know, what if what you need to do is to learn the skill of enoughness, of seeing what already is enough in your life? And then secondly, what if my homework for you was to carve out intentional time to go and do nothing? And not to be on social media, not to watch Netflix, not to blah, blah, blah, but to literally go off into nature to do nothing? And he was like. His exact response was, I'd fucking hate that.

Verbatim. I would fucking hate that. And I was like, great, that's what we're gonna start with, right, is just to create some space for you to tune into what's happening internally without all of these distractions, without all this stuff. And it was, you know, it was genuinely hard for him.

It was a scary place to go. It's a scary, especially, I don't know, I'm going to say especially for us men, but I just know my own experience growing up and how I, I snuffed emotion for so long. I mean, if you give yourself space to manage the stress response, that's where you're going to go. You're, you're going to teach yourself to let go of a lot of the emotional. And I'm mindful of my language, but it's a disruption of the nervous system. So you're going to, that's what you're going to teach, to let go. But it takes something because you need to be, you need to be held safely to do that. You need to be in a space of co regulation with whoever it is that you're working with, you know, and so that's another part of, you know, choosing your, your guide properly, whether it's a therapist or a coach or whatever aspect. You really want to understand the idea of what co regulation really is so that you, you can pick somebody who can hold that space for you.

So what are some of the, some of the steps, you know, you're talking about sort of walking with people through this journey? What have you found to be supportive when it comes to burnout, when it comes to overwhelm? Because I, because I think here's the thing that I, I'm just going to preface all this. I struggle with the, like, the quote unquote balance conversation, you know, and I think that when we aim for balance, we often miss the mark because we become, I see people, and I've been caught in this as well, you know, years and years ago where I was so focused in on, like, I need to be balanced, I need to be balanced. And it's like, well, walking on a balancing beam, it's this constant oscillation between being on course and moving forward and trying to correct yourself from falling off, you know. And so I think if you're wanting to be successful and, you know, build something meaningful and live your purpose, live your values, live with integrity, that's going to demand something of you. And so for me, I really struggle with this notion of balance because I've tried it before and I don't find it a worthy cause. You know, I like equanimity better, you know, Knowing that there's chaos that's going to, to happen and finding some center within that chaos and not hoping for this sort of utopian notion that I can find some destination of balance where everything will be good.

Yeah.

And I, I think that that gets sold within the personal development space sometimes. So that's my TED talk and rant. Well, you know, I mean, unsolicited.

At the core of this is, is recognizing that there is no outcome. Because if you, if you give in to the need for a specific outcome, then you're just giving fuel to your brain to utilize that as a stress response. So we gotta let go of that. It doesn't mean that you don't utilize certain energy around a vision or a goal. But if you're always stuck and it's gotta look this way, the balance for me is this and this and this and this and this. Well, there's no freedom in that.

Yeah.

You know what? I, what I became very clear on for myself was an understanding that the more I can just be present, which is a biological state, which for me my understanding, again, it comes from, from owning that parasympathetic state that I don't have to put thought into this idea of balance. Everything just flows with more ease. And as long as I'm paying attention to what's showing up, it tends to have this matching energy that continues to fuel my ability to feel fulfilled and feel passionate and feel connected. You know, like my biggest manifestations right now are by far our community. It's these connections, it's, it's a craving to continue to share in these authentic ways that I never had. For, you know, I'm 50 now. I just turned 50. So it's. So I think for, for what I teach my clients, really it's just a, it's a six step process. And the number one is you just gotta start paying attention. You gotta start paying attention to your patterns. You gotta start paying attention to your symptoms. You know, once you, once you start to understand, okay, this is the playing field, this is, this is the knowledge I need to have around what my mind is up to, what I need to focus on around my nervous system, need to start seeing my patterns. And then we, and then you gotta start working on the connection between how your brain is using those patterns and when it's disrupting the nervous system. And in the moments that it's doing it, you're teaching it to let go.

So if so again, maybe just point to some of the symptoms that people should be aware of. Right. You talked about inflammation before. Maybe you can just sort of outline how that might show up in the body or just some of the other pieces that people should be on the lookout for.

I think the number one one symptoms that show up are more around the cognitive side, like the ones that people can identify as, like, oh, yeah, that's something I need to focus on, because relationships start to crumble, whether it's in the home or, or, or at work. So that tends to be the number one that pops up, is, is starting to recognize how you are interacting with those around you, especially the ones closest to you, because there tends to be a, an emotional disconnect to feeling fulfilled in those relationships. Resentment and agitation and anger, those are kind of the key ones that most people are able to identify pretty quick. And I think that has a lot to do with the fact that we crave closer connection and we crave community. And when the brain starts to use those closest to us to utilize that stress response, it disrupts your ability to feel fulfilled in those relationships. So, so, for example, you know, one of my clients recently was telling me about his resentment when he would come down and see the kitchen was dirty. And, you know, this idea that, oh, they don't care about me and why, why do I always have to be the one to do this? And so in the practices, it's in those moments that he's feeling connected to that kind of a disruption. So, okay, teach your brain in this moment to let go. And so I utilize a breath practice that I call heart flow, which is based, based off of heart rate variability, HRV. And it's a 33 second breath practice that resets the nervous system back into the parasympathetic state.

And what is that? What does that breath practice entail?

It's. And again, I'm, I'm very mindful. Obviously, we know there's hundreds of different breath practices. This is just the one that I, I found from climbing. You know, I, I'd be in a pure panic state up on the rock, and next thing I know, I would be hands on the rock, forehead on the rock, you know, hundreds of feet in the air, just like, okay, Adam, just relax. Just relax. Just calm down. And I noticed that after a while of, of having those moments and, and learning to reset it, that it kept doing this rhythmic pattern. And it was a 4 in, 7 out, 4 in, 7 out, 4in, 7 out. And so obviously, as you know, and anybody who's into breath practice, when you start to understand what HRV is all about, heart rate variability you realize, oh my God, holy crap, there's something really powerful that I'm doing. And so I started to bring that into my own life in other areas that I knew I was feeling stressed. And I started to do this process myself 15, 20 years ago and realized that I can actually do that same practice and reset it. When I'm standing in line at the grocery store and upset, or when you're stuck at the kitchen and your mind starts telling you how your wife doesn't care about you because there's dirty dishes everywhere, those are the moments to reset it.

You know, the average I had what was, I can't remember the doctor's name, but I had like one of the leading researchers on HRV on the show we were talking about how important HRV is, you know, heart rate variability. And so people that are out there listening. One of the things that I've, I found to be very helpful for my own development, my own well being is getting some sort of a device that can begin to track hrv. And I've tried all of them, I think like whoop and the Oura ring and you know, I've got the Apple watch and, and so just finding one that you can stick to and commit to was really interesting to see how my HRV tracked with my level of stress and then being able to, you know, prioritize eating properly, getting enough sleep, working out and then practicing breath as we're talking about to allow that HRV to level out, but also to sort of be in an optimal range, so powerful.

You know, it's like you start to give your nervous system the space to heal you the way your nervous system wants to heal you. We're just so stuck in our heads trying to fix everything that we never give it the space to show us what it could do for us. And so practicing with like heart rate variability multiple times a day to continue to train the vagus nerve to be coherent so that you can actually feel the difference. And, and you know, the other few steps that are critical, at least from my experience, is one, you know, so you're starting to notice your patterns, you're starting to reset them in the moments of life. Then you kind of have to know what you do want. You have to know what the energy, the emotion is based off of how you would like this to be. And so there's all this vision work. That final step is the optimization which for me it's like you can't look at your diet, you can't look at your sleep, you can't look at, you know, Nutri, all these pieces until you've got this dialed in. And when you got this dialed in, now you can optimize with all those other areas.

I agree entirely. I think that's such a helpful approach. How would you say I'll shift gears a little bit. We can come back to sort of like the tactical practical stuff. But how would you say we culturally or socially need to talk about things like overwhelm? Because I think one of the things that I've started to notice within culture is this hyper therapeutic way of talking about life. Like everything passes through the filter of therapy and, and mental health nowadays. And you know, and I feel very cautious about that. And I, I just recorded something that I think will be coming out soon about this. But how do you think that we can begin to approach talking about overwhelm and burnout with friends, with family, with our partner? Because I think there can still be a stigma. You know, I see some commentary online of like burnout is not a real thing if you're, if you're burnt out, like you're just a fucking pussy or you know, that kind of conversation, you know, when I know people who have had real genuine breakdowns and collapses because they've just run themselves into the ground. So I know it's a fine line, but where do you think that we begin? How do we shift the cultural lens and conversation? And how do you recommend people discuss these things if it's something that they feel like they're dealing with in their own lives?

Yeah, I appreciate that. My daughter comes home and talks about how everyone in her school talks about their anxiety.

And so again, it's just part of the lack of adaptation where our, our communication, our language is very one that creates, creates the energy around it. And so for me it's, it's understanding that. And I said earlier, my number one manifestation right now is community. But it's community in this authentic co regulated experience where that focus on, on the, and I'm mindful again, I don't want to make it into such a negative, but it's got a, a dark friction to it. You know, it's like, well, I don't want to shine more light on that. And if we're, you know. Yes. Are we experiencing a lot of burnout and a lot of anxiety, A lot of depression? Of course.

But in, in how things are showing up for me and how I communicate, it's all about the light. It's like, okay, yes, this is what's happening. But how can we Continue to bring dialogue back into the space where we can communicate from a grounded place. We can communicate from a place that has a connection to what's real. It's not easy, but it comes from facilitating the interaction of that with others in a way where they feel it in you. They go, wow, there's something about the way you're communicating that that's how I want to communicate too. So then you just find yourself. My coaching program is a group based program. Because of this purpose, it has to be facilitate in a way where we get to come together and just be together in this way.

I co facilitate the weekends that I run now with a gentleman named Dewey Freeman and he's like 72 years old and he's been doing gestalt work and equine therapy for 40 years. Just wonderful human being. We've talked about, I think in the last men's weekend that we ran, we talked about how in these groups one of the priorities is for men to see what it actually feels like to experience co regulation with another man. Going through some hard times, going through, you know, talking about a divorce or losing a child or the death of a parent or, you know, the collapse of a company and having somebody who's very firmly grounded and rooted in that moment while you're being able, while you're going through something or discussing something that's incredibly challenging and disruptive to your, your brain and your body. And so that extension, I think is something I, I've said this, I don't know if I've said this before on the show or if I've said it to a friend, but I think we're entering into a time where dysregulation from a nervous system, space and from a cognitive standpoint is going to become so common within our culture. I think we might already know we.

Are so far beyond it now, it's crazy.

It's crazy where like that is just the normal state that most people are operating in where if you are a grounded, regulated human being, there will be something magnetic about you that people will just naturally be drawn to. And so somebody asked me this the other day. It's like, what do you think has made you successful in your work? And I'm like, well, I'm not particularly smarter than anybody else in my space by any means, but I think I've really put in the effort to embody being grounded and practicing the principles that I talk about and staying regulated in the face of challenge, in the face of disagreement, in the face of being attacked online, in the face of all the stuff that comes along with the type of work that we do or just the world that we live in. And so I think this is the utmost priority, especially for us as men. It's like, what does it look like to lead yourself? What does it look like to lead your family? What does it look like to lead your relationship? For me, it all comes back to regulation. How do you ground yourself as a man? Because if you are dysregulated and you're ungrounded, I mean, it's just going to be very challenging for your wife or your kids to be around. And that's going to emanate out through the family.

And you just don't get the opportunity to feel what it feels like to be embraced with a sense of full fulfillment, like real deep fulfillment. I mean, it's my own personal definition of what I experience. That's the only word I know I could put on it. I guess it could put growth or there is a desire for that energy to expand 100%. It's like all of a sudden you find yourself feeling in a way where, like I say, I'm 50, but I'm stronger mentally and physically than I ever have before. And I know it's because of how I hold my space. And, and I don't need to go to the gym, you know, six hours a day and be on all these crazy diets. And it's like there's a way to do this that's got more ease and it's tipped over to the point where, you know, as far as adults go, we all know people who are suffering. You know, whether it's our co workers or our family members or our kids. So that's the extension is now we're at a point where all our kids aren't being raised by parents who know how to co regulate or know how to regulate themselves, but then provide space to co regulate. And so you see the rise of all sorts of mental illness and addiction because we don't know how to hold space energetically through our nervous system for our kids and the two things that they turn to, and we know this, and the two things that are not illegal for them to have access to, but act very much like that on the brain in terms of the way the brain ignites from the screens and from sugar. That's why, you see, that's their main coping habits until they get into their teens. And so we owe it to our, our next generation to be a little more committed to finding some smart ways. This idea of intelligent health. And I. I strongly encourage anybody who hears this, who's looking for a fresh approach around this. It's here, like there is a way to do it. But nervous system for me is the access.

So what are some of the things like, are there certain rituals or routines that we can allowed to be habitual within our lives that are going to support us? I mean, I talked about this sort of ritual or habit that I have with my son. I have countless for myself that are all geared towards what we're talking about. I'm curious to get your take on what are sort of simple things and maybe more complex things that people can do on a daily basis to prioritize this. So it's a way of being.

Yeah, well, that's it, right? So that's the sixth step, the idea of optimizing. So, you know, the way that looks for me is there's six areas that are focused are called the energy accelerators. So that's essentially your sleep, your nutrition, how you move your breath, which is initially the part of the first part, but your relationships around you and then your environment. And so we as a group go through each of those sections and we learn multiple ways to work with our nervous system within sleep. Okay, how do we use nutrition to optimize our nervous system? Okay, how do we use fitness to optimize the nervous system? And give. Give us. Give everybody a toolbox to then be able to start to play around with, manifesting what's fitting for them. And this comes down to. To teaching yourself how to. How to shift cravings, so how to crave things that are actually providing you with fulfillment and purpose and passion and presence. And you start to build out what we call these wellness stacks. So it's like fingerprints. Everybody's are a little bit different. You start your morning and you're playing around with this kind of a stack of I'm going to ground myself barefoot. I'm going to practice heart flow. I'm going to visualize who I'm choosing to be today. Boom. I go in. First thing I'm going to do is give anybody I see a nice big hug. If they say it's cool, give them a nice big hug. So we start learning how to take all these beautiful different things and stacking them. But always at the core of understanding that we're working with this relationship between how the brain is working with the nervous system through it.

Love that. Love that, man. Well, if people are wanting to learn a little bit more about your work, the. The work that you're putting out in the world. Just sort of follow along with your journey. Where can they go? And obviously we'll have the links for this in the show notes, but. But where would you direct them?

Yeah, I appreciate it, Connor. Yeah, I actually, I have a free download for anybody who's interested in those six steps. Super easy to kind of get a recap of what we talked about today. And that is at my website. It's clearimpact IO clearimpact IO awesome.

Awesome, brother. Well, I thank you for your time and for your wisdom and for everyone that's out there tuning in and listening to this one. You know, whether you are a parent or not, whether you're single or in a relationship, this is certainly one that you might want to men it forward to share and listen to with a partner and have a little bit of a dialogue around. So definitely do that. Hit me up at Man Talks on Instagram. If you have any questions or further thoughts, make sure you share this. Tag me in it. I love to share that. And until next week, this is Connor Beaton signing off.