Why Following Aliveness Might Be the Smartest Business Move

Hello everyone and welcome to Heart of Entrepreneurship. I'm Jesse Pujji and talking with Dave Kashen, coach extraordinaire, and both of us are exploring how do you build businesses that are ambitious, big, but do it from heart as opposed to from fear or lack or should. And I got a fun topic today for us Alright. So I shared with you an idea last week that's gotten me really excited and I keep noticing myself, like even on other calls, I'm like jumping back into this document trying to like update it and thinking about it and just generally feeling a lot of excitement. And one of the things you kept saying to me on our call was like, I just want you to follow your aliveness. Jesse, I just want you to follow your aliveness. And so I thought it'd be a fun topic to take, like, what the hell do you mean? What is that? Like, what is aliveness? How can entrepreneurs tap into it? How do you know when you're feeling it versus something else? And how can it be a tool to support people in being the best versions of themselves and sort of following their path?

I love that topic. And as you know, I just came back from a 4-day retreat called Welcoming Fear, in which we jumped off cliffs and tightrope across, you know, 300-foot canyons. And so one might ask, you know, why would someone want to do something like that? And I think it's largely— it's very related in the sense that there seems to be a relationship between fear and aliveness. Like, it's sort of obvious, I think, for most people that, like, the times where you're a little scared, at least, you know, like, you sort of feel that buzz, that, you know, heart racing, maybe palms sweating, like this sense of excitement, energy, aliveness. And then a lot of people have times where they're a lot scared that they would describe as maybe the opposite of liveness, like, oh God, yeah, that's exactly what I don't want. So I guess I want to— it's very fresh in my mind. I want to at least put a pin in for our discussion, like the relationship between fear and aliveness, in part because I think for, for a long time I was very aware of this idea of like aliveness as a North Star and in some way as maybe the truest guide to our unique authentic path. It's like, well, why do we feel alive? And when I say alive, I think most people kind of know, energized, excited, right? Like about certain things or when we do certain things and not other things. I don't really know why, but it does seem to be what makes us, at least one of the things that makes us unique. And so it feels part of like living an authentic life, you know, and I could, I mean, I have a whole story about, you know, first 25 years when I was living an inauthentic life, trying to prove my worth and basically pursuing status and maybe, you know, safety and worthiness, not pursuing aliveness. Right. So what I like about aliveness is I think it's kind of our North Star for authenticity. It's like for some reason this unique, you know, being feels energized in certain situations and doing certain things.

And so let's start with a really basic thing, like what— how would I know if I was feeling aliveness?

I think most people have a sense that there are times when they're feeling really energized. Like literally like feeling energy in their body. Like, oh, I like—

right, we feel like your body feels tingly.

Yeah, there's some— yeah, there are literal sensations in the body. I think that's worth— it's worth putting attention on.

And it's, um, there are times I think where we just, we feel more constricted, condensed, sort of like heavy, um I always think of like the, you know, if you're a big sports fan, you, when your winning soccer team gets a goal or you get a touchdown, or there's like, yeah, that's a great moment where you just feel weightless. Yeah, you just like feel weightless. You feel like you could jump.

Uh, yeah, like energy rising up through your, you know, through your system.

Um, and you know, there's this, I think I sent you his video sometimes, but there's this guy in the UK who's a Sikh guy, my religion. And, you know, he stands a lot for like the understanding of God is wrong because we like personify God and we say, well, God's this person in the sky making— and he's like, no, no, like just replace God with life. It's the life force energy inside of us. That's why you experience it when you breathe. And that's why. And so, you know, we don't need to make a religious conversation here, but there's— I think that's for me at least, that's also like a It's sort of like an animating presence. It's like when that presence is at its most free and, and, and there, you, you feel it. And it's, it's, it's a really powerful indicator.

What's so interesting about that is, you know, as you're saying that, I was imagining, um, a dead body, right? Like, it is kind of wild, right?

Yeah, he gives that analogy.

Yeah, like, it's It's a body, especially like a second after, a minute after death. It's basically the same body, but there's something that's not— it's not alive, right? But literally, but it's like, yeah, there's that animating force, that life force energy has left it. And what I think is, in a way, tragic is how many people are sort of living life half dead. They're not experiencing and cultivating and following that animating force. And so they're sort of living, but they're not like fully living.

Right. And so let's maybe pause for a second. And I think everybody who's listening, you know, I guess we're having a little bit of trouble defining it, but, but like you kind of have probably think of a moment in your time when you felt the most alive, you felt the most light, you felt buzzing, you felt the energy coming from you. Your brain probably wasn't actually that engaged is my guess. Like, cause you were feeling something. It wasn't, uh, you weren't having a lot of thoughts. You might've been having some thoughts, but you weren't,— So let's say that now, next question for you is, okay, let's assume—

Hey, Jesse, what's your version? If you think back in the last 10 years, when did you feel most alive?

A lot of mine came around in and around creation as a process. Right. And, you know, like CLG calls it like sexual energy or creative energy. You know, people don't like to use the word sexual, but, um, but like sexual stuff is like a similar feeling to me than like when I have a new business idea and I can see all the pieces of it and I'm just like, this is here. It's really here.

Um, like creating something new, bringing something new to life.

Another one, uh, deep meditation stuff like that, I've had moments, especially breathing, like certain ones that involve breathwork and that kind of thing. There's that moment. I mean, you've experienced, like, it's not even like when you're having, when my wife is having kids, it wasn't like, you know, there's obviously labor and then there's like delivery and the pushing and you don't feel it, but there's like a moment right when the baby, when they're like, the baby is here. And like, you— every single time, we weren't sad or happy or anything. We just started, like, just crying because we felt this, this, this, this force. We felt a force. We felt an energy.

Yeah, there's something about flow that you just made me think, right? It's like there's this energy literally flowing through us. And I don't think it's a coincidence that we talk about flow state, because those are the states where, like, everything is just flowing through us. We're not in our to your point earlier, we're not like in our heads thinking about it. And, you know, it's interesting being with some of the folks I was this weekend. Some are rock climbers. There was a woman who free soloed like Highline, meaning like basically imagine like a tightrope over a 300-foot canyon, like a 300-foot tightrope. And she just walked across it with no harness.

Right. And I'm sure she felt very alive.

Let's talk about— right. And present. Right. There's definitely a connection here between like your system is fully present because your literal life depends— your life literally depends on it. And I think that's why people do these things that some people think are crazy, like free soloing, or even just rock climbing, or jumping off a cliff. Or it's like there's, you know, they're almost hacks to like force you into full presence and full aliveness, right? Like all— everything's just flowing. There's not— you're not— and in a way, there's a connection between like the the now and aliveness, because you're only alive now, right? So I think when you're in your mind thinking about the past or the future, there's a way you're not fully alive because you're not in life. You're in some movie about what happened or what will happen.

Yeah, it kind of reminds me of The Power of Now, that book. The Power of Now talks a lot about basically that now is again synonymous with God or spirit or the, you know, the, that energy, because you're in it. We're kind of saying all the same things, right?

It's the only thing that's real. Yeah, I often say, like, if you really think about it, your entire life is like this knife-edge intersect between awareness and now. Yeah, like, that's it. That's, that's life. Um, well, there's something about even just noticing that I can start to feel more aliveness.

And I think the truth— yeah, I was gonna say that, like, Osho and, and Ram Dass, like, when they talk about meditation and spiritual work, again, they're like, you can do it. You could sing and meditate. You could be playing basketball and be meditating. You could be skiing and meditating. Because, you know, as long as you're in that alive moment and you're truly in that present moment, yeah, uh, you, you have that experience.

One thing I was just thinking about is I think people could misunderstand it as like it has to be huge, right? And I think I did for a long time, so I, I empathize with that, you know, like aliveness is this big energy and I'm so excited, you know, But you could have this deep sense of aliveness in still, quiet moments. Totally. And some people talk about the still, small voice. It's like instead of listening to the voice of fear, your inner critic, or a voice in your head, can you listen to that still, small voice? That, I think for some people, can actually be a voice if you're quiet enough. Like says, go for it, or, you know, do, you know, and you're, you almost, there's people reflect back, that was so, that was so not like me, right? That was one character. I don't like, I never do that. But in that moment I quit, or I went up to that woman at the bar and like ended up marrying, you know, like there's this. So I think a lot of people have had moments, but even if it's not literally a voice, there's still a sense of like the still small voice as this. Like there's something. I don't know if it's actually guiding us, you know, and I don't know if it's exactly what it is, but there's this sense that most people have at times that like almost feeling guided, like, yeah. And that's kind of, you know, I sometimes there's this notion of like the Tao or like the way, and I sometimes think, imagine there's like a string or rope that's like the path we're, you know, meant to be on. And the way you know whether you're on it is you feel the energy of it. And when you get off it, you, you know, you've disconnected from that kind of life force path. So that's just like a fun thing to play with is like, okay, it's like your job is to detect, you know, rather than like figure out what you're supposed to be doing.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah. I mean, it's the same concept in Sikhism is called hukam. And it's often misunderstood as the commanding, like it's versus the way. It's— I mean, it literally could be translated into the way that— well, sorry, one other quick thing I want to share and then we can move forward. There's this really good tweet this morning I sent around. I'll send to you. And it was this— I don't know where it came from, but this guy is just like, I was coming home off an international trip and You know, I was— this guy was walking in front of me and he was tired and whatever, and immediately, you know, two little girls ran up to him and he embraced them and he hugged them, and then he walked 10 more steps and his wife was there, and then four of them were in an embrace, and it immediately shifted him into a present— the present moment. And then he's like, I had a few, you know, 20 minutes before my ride got there, 30 minutes before my ride got there, and I just decided to sit there because I was in such a present state, and I watched human after human color, gender, age, it didn't matter. When they came home from this international trip, you know, there was this loving, present, embracing moment. And it was like, again, in some sense, it's one of the most mundane things, like you're getting off an airplane after another. But he was like, it was just, it really, really struck him how in the small moments you find that aliveness also. And Uh, it just made me think of it when you said they can happen in very small moments too.

Yeah. I'm thinking about the intro to Love Actually, that movie where it's like all the— I think they even talks about like at Heathrow, all the people reconnecting. And, and as you're, as you're talking about that, I was, I was thinking there's something around connection and aliveness that I think is related as well, whether it's connection to ourselves, connection to somebody else, connection to the life force energy itself, connection to something bigger than us. I think, I think there's a way in which when we're in connection, we feel more alive. Um, so it's interesting that you chose those examples.

Yeah. All right, so we talked about it, what it is, as best we can.

What—

let's talk about maybe the following the aliveness.

Yeah.

And I mean, you obviously have a lot of clients, and I almost I kind of actually want to start with the anti-patterns.

Yeah, that's— I was thinking that too.

Like, when, when are people not following their aliveness and how does it show up in your experience with founders? And maybe what's a guide to know if yourself you're not following your aliveness? I mean, in some sense it's a very simple question, like you feel yourself and you know, but you feel like, yeah, it's interesting.

I was, I was with a client yesterday and he was describing this. He was at like— he's a dad. He was at like a party with another dad. And that other dad has like really esoteric, cool job. I think I could share it without revealing, you know, working on like horror films or something. Like, and he's like, I always wanted to do this since I was a kid. And like, I don't know how I knew, I just, and I did, and this is my life's work. And it's, I'm like, was clearly so lit up by it. And then, um, the client was telling him, this other dad, oh, here's what, you know, what he did for a living. And the other dad's like, oh, cool. Like, do you enjoy it? And he was like, it was quite a moment for him because he had to really face like, eh, not that much, you know. And what was cool in this case was it led to this really deep reflection on like, is it the, the job itself or is it the way I'm doing the job? Which is often the case. And, and, you know, I love this client because he's so, as soon as he gets the awareness, he just starts taking action, which I really appreciate. And so he started just— what he realized, and I can share this, I think, without revealing anything, is that he was heroing his whole team, you know, out of fear of things going wrong, you know. So if a customer was upset, he would come in and take care of everything and tell people what to do. And it was exhausting. And he was, you know, burning out. And that that was actually like, he loved the, what, like what he was actually doing, but the heroing was not enjoyable. And so that was an interesting example of, you know, I think enjoyment and aliveness are pretty closely tied together. So that could be another simple way to just ask yourself, how much am I enjoying what I'm doing? And, you know, to this example, it doesn't mean you can't do the thing anymore, but it may, there may be a way you're doing it, a pattern that's showing up that's more of a survival pattern, you know, that like you don't want to be with the fear, and so you go into these survival patterns which tend to get in the— you know, it's like if you're focusing on survival, you're not focusing on like fully living, right?

And one thing that's coming up for me, the— maybe you can share the 4 Pillars of Integrity that CLG use, because I would find myself explaining that to people often. Because what— one question I was going to ask, or, or maybe like I'll tie these two together, there's like I put myself in this category. Maybe you're a client. Like, there's people who feel the aliveness or they'll like get it and then they'll immediately make a shift around it. Right. And I think there's other people, some of the CEOs I work with, where it's like they're like, what are you talking about? What is aliveness? I don't even— I don't know. And the last time I felt, you know, like— and I think those four pillars—

why should I care? Because I'm busy trying to build a billion-dollar business here.

Like, yeah, I think there's that. But I experience it much more of people who kind of just go like, that's not what life is supposed to Like, it's literally like, it's a, it's a counter belief of like, you're not supposed to feel— yeah, you're not supposed to feel this like life energy. But oftentimes I think those four pillars are very, uh, helpful. They're like the blockers in my mind.

Yeah. Let me, uh, let me finish the thread and then I'll go there. So, um, we're talking about anti-patterns. So in general, I think our survival patterns are anti-patterns. To full aliveness, right? When we're trying to protect ourselves from something, we're generally not following aliveness. We're following safety and self-protection. And I think all human beings have survival, you know, patterns that we learned mostly in childhood, you know, before 8 years old that, you know, show up when we're leading a team and leading a company and having sales meetings and fundraising meetings, etc. And, um, it's essentially driven by our not wanting to feel certain feelings. That's generally what I'm finding has those patterns kick in. Um, the patterns are designed to avoid feeling feelings that were too intense and overwhelming when we were kids. Um, I mean, it's really interesting if you go If you start to look at everything that we fear, and you like follow the chain, you know, okay, well, what's scary about that? What's scary about that? What's scary about that? We always end up at a feeling like, oh, okay, what's scary about your startup failing? Oh, I disappoint all these people and I'd let them down. Oh, what's scary about that? Well, they'd be mad at me. What's scary about that? Oh, I'd feel scared. I'd feel embarrassed. I'd feel ashamed. So all of our fears ultimately are of feelings. Um, one of the feelings we fear is fear, so we can get caught in that loop. Um, and so I just wanna name this, like, one of the biggest anti-patterns, I think, to aliveness is not wanting to feel certain feelings. And ironically, back to like our whole idea of flow, like aliveness as flow, that's how we block the flow of aliveness. 'Cause we're like, oh, I don't wanna feel that feeling. And then we go into survival patterns. So instead of following the path that is like authentic for us, we do something that's more designed to survive. And maybe that a version of that for us is, oh, to feel safe, I need to have more status, or I need to, or I, or to feel worthy, I need to succeed. And so we focus on, as like my example, like focus on success and accomplishment. As a way to feel safe and whole and worthy instead of following aliveness directly. And the irony of it is, you know, again, if you, if you go on the other side of fear, like, what is it you really want, right? And you ask that, you know, what's behind that enough times, usually it's some version of aliveness. I want to feel peace and joy and freedom. And right, it's like, I want to feel fully alive. And so we end up Um, taking a path that doesn't actually lead to aliveness, um, as a strategy to get to aliveness. Yeah. So that's the big anti-pattern and it shows up, you know, day to day, largely in decision-making. That's probably where I'd see it the most. I, like, countless number of conversations with clients. I had one today or like, well, You know, should I do this or should I do that? And like, they're kind of like waiting for like, oh, well Dave, you've coached hundreds of founders. Like tell me what the answer is, right? As if I, like, I know your context well enough to like give you the answer as if I could or what. Um, and I'm like, okay, well what has you, like, how are you even attempting to answer that question?

Right?

And if you look, most of the time they don't, again, we don't want to feel fear. So we're looking for some kind of certainty that we, that we have the right answer. Yep. And I, I think I even use distinction with you of like the right answer versus the answer that feels right. I think is a really nice distinction to think about. Like, feels right is much closer to aliveness. Like, oh, I just noticed when I think about A, my system relaxes, I feel expansive, I feel some energy. When I think about B, like, I constrict, I, you know and there's, it gets nuanced because you can feel scared and alive. And like, okay, this is, this is, this is the trickiest one I, I find for most clients, most founders is to discern between like this kind of intuitive follow-aliveness sort of, um, path and fear because we tend to constrict around fear so it can get really muddled. And is part of the reason I did this workshop is the more that you learn to welcome and be with fear, the easier it is to discern like, okay, this is, this is wisdom, fear saying this is not safe, don't do this. Or, oh, this is my system showing me that there's something to pay attention to here and still do this. Or this is an old pattern of believing that rejection means death. And so I can actually ignore this particular fear because it's an old, right? It's not relevant.

It almost feels like the first step if for founder, for especially for founder types or, you know, high-powered leaders is even just to slow down enough to notice what you're feeling. Yeah. Because most of the, you know, most I just, I picture every time we do this podcast, I picture some of my friends who are founders and I'm like, whatever, that's all cool what you just said, Dave, but I don't even know, like I actually need to, I need to slow and it's like, You know, you'll see these, these sort of, I'll call them second order solutions, which are not bad solutions, but they don't talk about it as, I mean, you're talking at the most deep levels of it, but it's like, hey, go on a walk, like get into the habit of a daily walk or, or just take, take an offsite, take a trip. And, and, and it's like, I'm giving that voice because it's almost like people now equate, oh, if you take a walk, you get clarity. Or if you take, if you go on an offsite, you get clarity, or you go on a vacation, you get like, What's actually happening is you're slowing your system down enough usually to tune in to, to the Dao or the Hukam or the energy and, and you're, oh, okay. Yeah. Now it's becoming more clear where to go and what direction to go in.

Yeah. Well, I love you bringing us back to like, okay, let's say someone's just starting on this journey cuz I, yeah. So one of the easiest tells that you're not feeling your feeling or feelings and likely blocking aliveness and flow is that you're in your head. Yep. So I suspect every human being listening to this is like, wait, what? Like that's like every minute of every day, right? Especially you're in your head spinning, ruminating, like, oh, thinking about what might go wrong. Oh, I just screwed up that meeting. Oh God, now my people are going to be upset and morale is going to be low. You know, like And what I think is really interesting and not intuitive is that all of that, all of that spinning is actually just a strategy to avoid a feeling.

Yeah. So even like, I want to add something here because this has been a really interesting one for me. I mean, you and I both come from— we went to Wharton and Goldman and And I don't know about you, but most of my friends are still living in the world, which is like, hey, thoughts are truth. Yeah, like logic is truth. And my ability to reason. And I had a good friend of mine who just did the spiritual experience, you know, and he was like, I'm just realizing my thoughts are not me. Like for the first time in his life that those are not the same thing as me. And I also, I just want to pause there. And I think there's that quote, it's probably the best quote, which is for this topic is the mind is a, is a wonderful servant and a terrible master. And so even like this idea first of like the brain, I mean, I'm going like, I'm taking a couple steps back. The brain is not your aliveness.

Hmm.

If you can make that distinction for yourself that the brain, by the way, is a wonderful tool. It keeps us alive and it helps us do all these cool— look at the world, it's amazing. But it's not actually the place where the, you know, the life force is. It doesn't spend its time there. And it's a great tool we've been given to do a bunch of stuff. But I think if even as a— even someone listening to this, if you're early in this journey and just to going, wait, that's not where aliveness shows up. It doesn't show up in your brain. It's not generated by your brain. It's coming from some other feeling in your body. And I think—

yeah, I don't want to go too far to say it's not there. And yeah, if you think you're just your thoughts—

not your thoughts, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. Like, your thoughts are not the thing that make you feel alive. A real feeling will occur that would —make you feel totally—

and to your point, by definition, a thought is not a feeling. And so if you're walking through the world thinking that your body is just a tool to carry your, you know, your head around and thinking that you are your thoughts, you're not going to be attuned to the intelligence of your body, of your energy, of your feelings. And you're not going— you're likely not going to, like, know what has you feel alive, sense when you feel alive, whether that's at a macro level like this life path or this life partner, or on a micro level like this little decision or this one, because you're constantly in your head trying to figure everything out. Um, no.

All right, let's talk about— let's talk about those four pillars, because I think those are really easy to hang your hat on.

Okay. So the 4 pillars of integrity are, and let's define, so Conscious Leadership Group defines integrity as essentially energetic wholeness. So it's very, it's very related, this idea of like energy, aliveness. I find it useful to imagine like a pipe through which your life force energy flows as a metaphor., and to the extent that that pipe has integrity, right, it's solid, it is not kinked, it doesn't have holes, that will determine, um, how much life force energy you feel. So there's kind of— I'll talk about it this way, it's almost easier. Um, the four ways that you tend to have leaky or kinked pipes are, um, unfelt feelings which we've been talking about, unkept agreements, um, unowned responsibilities, i.e., you're blaming, not taking responsibility. And, uh, what'd I say already? Unfelt feelings, unkept— oh, and unspoken communications or unspoken truths, right?

So I love— like, when I describe this to other people, I always think to myself Like, I think the extremes is a great way to essentially show it. So I'll be like, hey, have you ever had an experience where you're like, you knew you needed to mow the lawn and you just like, you just kept avoiding it and you avoided it and avoided it or whatever, you know, you didn't go through your mail. All of us have examples of like some form of procrastination around a responsibility. Yeah. And it feels like a weight the more time that goes on. Or if you need to tell someone something and, you know, get it off my chest. It's weighing me down because I need to— I haven't shared it yet. And oh my God, I need to share it. And it's, you know, it's— I can feel the weight of it. The unfelt feelings is somewhat obvious, I think. And then unkept agreements is another one. Hey, I told him I would do this. I never got back. Oh, I feel the stress. Like, I can— so I love those because they feel so specific and yeah, and they're extremes. They are very obvious that they hurt your aliveness.

Yeah. Right. And the unkept agreements one is interesting because people sometimes hear that as like, oh, that means I have to keep all my agreements, which is not true. Like that would make you a slave to your former self. Like you might make an agreement that makes sense in that moment, or doesn't, right? Like sometimes again, back to, you know, when we make agreements, Sometimes we're following aliveness, right? We talk about this notion of like, do you have a whole body yes? Like, do you really want to do that? Sometimes we say yes because we want to manage, you know, the other person's feelings and we hero them or we feel bad or we think we should. So there's lots of, in a way we could say, out of integrity in the deeper sense, ways that we make agreements that then the thing to do might be to renegotiate those agreements or just say, hey, I agreed to do this. I don't know, I agreed to this, you know, be in this meeting or to mentor you or, you know, or I agreed to take you on as a client. I realize I actually don't want to do that anymore. So I want to— I want to renegotiate the agreement or cancel the agreement. So the idea is when you have an unkept agreement, It doesn't mean you're bad and you should keep it. It means it's telling you something might be out of alignment. And so that's often as useful as like, oh, I got to go keep all my agreements, as, oh, I got to go renegotiate or cancel a bunch of agreements that I made that I actually don't want to keep, which often is as powerful.

Yeah. And it's funny. I mean, you gave that example of someone who didn't enjoy their job. It's just like you see people, I mean, literally there's memes about like, you're the dead corporate, you're dead inside because you work at a corporate job you don't want. That feels like a really clear example of a not aligning, you know, basically you've kept an agreement so long that you didn't actually want. And it's like, you know, you quit your job because you finally get yourself back into alignment. And I think that's a great example of like, it's such a common example.

Yeah. And I think it's important to talk again about fear because Well, there's a definition of empowerment that I heard from Joe Hudson that I really liked, and it was, um, empowerment is being authentic regardless of the consequences. Hmm. And I, there's a lot of connection here between being authentic and integrity as we're defining it, right? Mm-hmm. Speaking your truth, right? Versus withholding things because, well, you know, what will people think of me? Right? Making agreements, choices, You know, that are really enlivening for you saying no when you actually don't wanna do something, even though someone might be sad or disappointed. Um, and almost by definition, right? Like when you're authentic, when it's easy, like that's actually not that empowering, you know, it's like hanging out with my kids and like I'm joking, you know, it's, it's great. It's lovely. But when you're authentic, when it's scary, like, I think it's, it's interesting, like the connection between empowerment. I was telling you, like, like jumping off this cliff, I was terrified. And I was interestingly, I was really playing with all this stuff. Like, okay, can I welcome my fear? Where in my body is it going through? And I got to a place and I was experimenting with, can I find that pleasurable? Like if I really stop resisting it, And it was cool to be like, wow, I'm terrified and I'm kind of enjoying being terrified. But my point in that was most of the time what keeps us from following our aliveness is some fear we don't want to feel. Right. And like, I like this idea, like fear lives at the edge between the familiar and the unfamiliar. Right? The known and the unknown, including parts of ourselves. So like, everything that we've done to date, like, feels safe. But if we haven't been living an authentic life up until now, which most people haven't because they're not following their actual aliveness, right, authentic aliveness, um, then by definition it's going to be scary because you're going to have to access parts of yourself that you haven't in the past, be ways you haven't been, do things you haven't done. And so I do think it's important to just acknowledge that being with fear and like building the capacity to be with fear, I think, is pretty critical to actually following aliveness. And how do we understand, like, I don't—

one confusing thing for me is we've talked on this podcast a lot about being fear motivated or like dirty fuel and not wanting to be fear motivated, but then now you're turning around and you're saying, wait, fear is this light. Oh, the fear. Go to the fear. You gotta follow the fear. So which one do I do? And how do I, how do I understand those appropriately? Yeah. I love that you asked that.

Cause this was one, this was a newer insight for me. Cause I, I used to think that way. So I've probably done some disservice by speaking that way. Like, oh, Fear, like, like as if fear is bad and you should be motivated by inspiration and not fear. And what I realized more recently, um, well, really, I mean, this weekend realized just how, how enjoyable fear can be, which is really a wild new idea. But specifically that it, the issue is not fear. The issue is resistance to fear. Hmm. So The reason when we talk about fear-based motivation, what we really mean by that is I'm motivated by not wanting to feel scared. Right? So, oh, fear arises about my company failing. I don't want to feel that fear. So I just whip myself You know, my inner bully comes out and I just whip myself and I work and I work and I work to avoid feeling that fear. Right. Which is a very different experience than, oh God, I, you know, I'm really scared to fail. Whoa, my heart's racing. You know, welcome fear, really feel it. And then once you sort of feel it, you can then choose, okay, what, you know, I'd like to succeed. What's the next thing to do? Which is how you sort of shift from that dirty fuel to clean fuel. But the thing that I think I didn't explain clearly and didn't understand clearly was one, that it's by being with and welcoming the fear, right? Like that you can no longer be sort of limited by and motivated by having to avoid it. Yep.

It's almost the, the word shame keeps coming to my mind. Like maybe that word we used to call fear. I know, I know, like Conscious Leadership calls it toxic fear or whatever, but really it just feels like shame. It's because if I think I'm bad and I'm trying to, I'm trying to push away from that, then I need to go build a big company to prove myself that I'm, you know, that I don't have this shame. Like, isn't it like this differentiation of guilt is I did a bad thing, shame is I am bad, and it's like I'm trying to prove I'm not bad. But maybe they're related because when you feel that fearful thought, to stop it, you go and try to accomplish something or achieve.

Yeah, there's a lot of layers here. So yeah, I do think, well, one way we could look at it is what is it you actually fear? Back to that earlier. Okay. I'm scared. I'm terrified to fail. What is it I'm actually scared of? Okay. So if I imagine failing, then what? Oh, well, I'll feel, I'll feel shame. Right. So I think you're right that often it is the fear of shame, avoidance of shame, avoidance of shame, the desire to avoid shame, because I think that if I fail, that means I'm bad and I'm worthless and I'm less than. And/or, well, that really only happens if you already have a belief that you're bad and worthy and less than, because otherwise, you know, you wouldn't likely— it wouldn't likely be a possibility that your worthiness would depend on whether this company, you know, that you happen to create succeeds or fails. But I think it's an important point that shame and the idea that I'm somehow broken or bad or unworthy, um, is like maybe like not that, but a little bit hidden behind like the thing that we're actually scared of that we're running away from and trying to accomplish all of these things.

One other connection for myself I just made was also like, then it— that's also when you, at least for me, when I start thinking a lot about the outcome and like, as I'm thinking about this next chapter for myself, I'm finding myself like not caring about the outcome and caring a lot about like, oh, this would be really fun to do. Like, if, if you really suspend the outcome and like, because I'm no longer— if I'm no longer— I, I'm sure I still am at some level, but I've worked a lot on shame and I've worked a lot on knowing I'm a good person no matter what happens. Then I have not caught up this next venture in needing to be something that's gonna relieve me of that shame that, or like prove that I'm not a bad person. So now I'm just like, well, cool, what do I want to do? Like, oh, this would be so fun. I want to, you know, and I'm trying in some ways it's like connecting back to aliveness, which is like, yeah.

And by the way, if I was a betting man, I'd say if, if you follow the thing that you're actually lit up by, alive by, love to do, you're probably going to be pretty successful at it and you're probably going to see some amazing outcomes. And it's such a paradox. And what I almost hesitate to say it because then it, you know, as a listener, you could be like, okay, so that's the key to being successful. I gotta be alive to follow aliveness so that I can be successful so that I no longer have to feel the shame of being unworthy. Um, that won't work, you know, cause that, you know, the shame will, will kind of eke in and, or the fear of shame. Um, And I do think it happens to be fairly true. And again, we can define success broadly. Like if you, if you only had an amazing, joyful, wonderful couple of years building a business and it, whatever, it was like modest financial success versus you crushed yourself and stressed and ground and was more financial success, you know, we could, have a conversation about which actually is more successful. But I think there's something important to name here, which is I do think most people have a limiting belief that it's one or the other, that success requires sacrifice. It has to be hard. And the skeptics will hear this conversation and think like, oh yeah, that's nice. Maybe like post-exit or great, Jesse, you guys are, And I just, I want to name or invite you to reflect on, is there some limiting belief you listener have that it's one or the other, that you can't like follow aliveness and be wildly successful in all the ways that you want to? Because I actually think it's more likely, you're more likely to be success. There's no guarantee, you know, but you're more likely to be successful following aliveness. For a whole host of reasons. Um, and, um, even if you're not, you'll have just had this wonderful enlivening experience. Um, I'll say one other thing. I had this conversation recently with someone who was like, well, what if I like followed aliveness, you know, in this choice, and then it didn't turn out the way I expected? I'm like, well, that's— there's still a little bit of a trap there, as if like your ego mind knows how things are supposed to go, right? Like, I don't, I don't necessarily hold that following aliveness will lead to you succeeding in the exact way your mind thinks you should succeed. Right. But I do think it will lead to your most authentic path of self-discovery and, um, whatever's kind of most here for you and your experience of being human. So that, that's an interesting, um, dance to play with a little bit because if you're attached to the outcome and then you hear Well, this may or may not, you know, it might make it more likely, but also you might realize, um, I actually don't want to do this anymore. And that can be terrifying. Right. And, um, Diana Chapman used to ask this question I love, like, what are you willing to risk for your full aliveness? Right.

It's a great, great one to end on. Yeah. What are you willing to risk for your full aliveness? Thank you, Dave Kashen.

That was fun. All right. Bye.