Welcome to Finally Friday with John and Melissa. Art, creativity and Life

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Hopefully, hopefully, if not, we're out of everything and we're just not going live. Let's stream it. There we are. Now back to Eleanor. Hey, Eleanor. Oh, how's that? It's good. Here's your notes. We'll just give everyone a chance. Hello, TikTok and Facebook and YouTube and everybody else. No, I can't hear it.

Okay.

Can you hear us, Eleanor? Yes, I can now.

Thank you.

Awesome. Great. Nice to have you here.

Thanks for coming.

Okay. We'll be kicking off in just 2 minutes. Where are you from, Eleanor? What part of the world? Um, Muskego, Wisconsin. Oh, it's near Milwaukee. You'd be, is it what we've got? 109 degrees down here today. Are you doing— Where are you located? We're in Texas.

Oh, okay.

So we got to about 84, I guess.

Oh, 84.

That'd be nice. That sounds like air, that sounds like our air conditioner in our house at the moment.

Yeah, it's great.

Good to have, where'd you, how'd you hear about us, Eleanor? I don't know. I got an email about it somewhere online. Well, excellent. Welcome everyone on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and YouTube. All you dropping in. So we're the Phoenix Collective. My wife and I started it, um, just a few years ago. How many years ago?

Uh, Phoenix Collective was last year.

We started the Phoenix Collective last year.

But we started the nonprofit about 15 years ago.

15 years ago. And with our business partners, Matthew and Michelle Einsohn, who are just tremendous naturopaths. They're actually, no, that's, let me take that back. They're tremendous friends, um, who also happen to be naturopaths. And, uh, we are blessed, sincerely blessed that we're working with them. Um, we love their energy. We love their outlook on life. And do you wanna talk a little bit, guys, about what you do before we get into it tonight? I don't know.

I don't know if I could follow that. That's, that's serious, man.

We didn't prep them for such an intro.

Man, a lot of pressure, bro.

Well, a lot of pressure. It's only Thursday.

So they're awesome. They're a lot of iridology stuff, voice reporting. I mean, they do a great program called Wisdom Always. You can find them on Instagram and social. And my wife is building them the world's best website, which we'll launch soon. So yeah, so great to have you here. Welcome to the Phoenix Collective. We do this once a month and our idea is to look at life, the phoenix rising very metaphorically. We've all been through things in life and we've all faced things that we have been in life. And some of those things may seem extreme. Some of them may not seem extreme. Some of them are just everyday things that sometimes are very difficult to cope with. And what we've found with dealing with a range of tens of thousands of people over the last few years is that there are some commonalities to all of us. And it doesn't matter what level the trauma is or the obstacle or the things you've got to overcome. There are some great commonalities that sit between those things, and they're commonalities that we can all share. So for many of you that I've connected with on social, you'll know my background— trafficked and abused for 14 years as a kid. And I understand my story is extreme. But I'll tell you what, the principles are universal, and the principles can apply to someone who's grieving a loss of a loved one. Someone who's dealing with a traumatic brain injury, someone who's dealing with a traumatic car incident. So we want to start to look at some things and unpack that. And this can be as interactive as you want it to be. You can ask questions on Instagram. You can drop a question into the chat on the Zoom call. And just before we go down that track, if you're wanting to register for our Zoom calls going forward, Please go to drjohnaking.com and have a click there, and you'll be able to register for the Phoenix Collective events. So let's get into it. I, I want to talk about a pivotal moment in my life, and we want to discuss with you a pivotal moment that we've seen in the life of many people, which is how do you reset after a tragedy? How do you reset after a major issue that you need to overcome? And what can you do and how can you go about resetting those things? How do you get back into rhythm is probably a great way of putting it. There's 3 things we want to touch on: reset, resolve, and redefinition. So the first thing I want to tell you to do is you don't need another fresh start. You do not need to start again. Well, I've been through this divorce. I've got this health thing. I, I just need a fresh start. You don't. You just stay with me and I'll explain why, why I don't think you need another fresh start. Most of us have been through seasons where we get knocked sideways. It might be the grief. It might be divorce. It might be bankruptcy, work, finances. Maybe you're just bloody tired. Maybe just living life has just worn you down a little bit. Maybe nothing catastrophic's happened, but you don't sleep anymore. You're not exercising.

You're not reading.

You've stopped talking to people and you just don't feel like you. So you don't need a fresh start. What you actually need to do is redefine normal for yourself. A new normal based on where you're up to and what you're currently doing, not based on your old normal. A normal that you can sustain, because you can't build a sustainable life around someone you aren't anymore, or something you can't do anymore, or something you don't have anymore. So a lot of us spend time trying to define what normal is. And we spend time trying to get back to that normal. Well, this is how normal people act. And if you've, if you've suffered from post-traumatic stress, complex post-traumatic stress, if you have been diagnosed with being on this, on the, on the, on the spectrum, you often spend your life in this comparison phase of, well, this is what normal people are supposed to do. I don't live that way. Therefore, I'm lesser. Says who? So who gets to define normal for you? You know, after my life fell apart, I had recall of what happened to me as a kid. I traveled. I was traveling the world before that. I was speaking in front of tens of thousands of people on a weekend. I ran businesses. I flew all over the world. You know, I scuba dived. Here I am in Texas. I've got no chance of doing that. But, you know, I scuba dived all over the world, the Red Sea, the Pacific Islands. And then I I hit this low point, and believe it or not, I was in San Antonio, and I was in a store, and I was trying to buy sausages. And here's this six-foot man, you know, two hundred and twenty-five-pound bodybuilder, and I had a complete and utter meltdown in this store, crying over the fact that I couldn't choose between the chicken and the pork sausages. And I was standing there, and all I could say to myself was. Just get your shit together. And it's like, okay, well, that's not really helpful just at the moment. Like, getting my shit together is not gonna choose my sausages. And, and then I realized that I was at a stage in life where that was probably the biggest decision I was gonna have to make on a daily basis. I came to an understanding and a realization that for someone else, the ability to choose between a pork sausage and a chicken sausage was Really easy. But for me, it was one of the most difficult things I ever did. Now, if I'd made that decision beforehand and walked into a store, I could do it. But I was at a stage in life where I just couldn't cope. I was totally tapped out. So the question I was faced with is, what the hell is normal? Is it normal to make a shopping list? You know, obviously it is. Is it normal to break down in a supermarket? Well, obviously it is. And I went through this whole phase on trying to redefine it. Because I'd gone through this incredible rough season and I was having difficulty finding my rhythm and my stride. My childhood hasn't been normal. My life hasn't been normal. But what about you? Who is redefining your normal for you? Are you defining it? Are you living from the inside out? Are you living from the outside in? So, so what and who is redefining those normals for you?

So the first step then in our reset is what we're calling it, is to define your current normal. Who are you now? Not who you were 3 years ago, not who you were before you lost your job or lost your spouse, or not before you had some health diagnosis, but who are you right now today? What sort of things do you need? What matters to you? Um, what, uh, what helps you get through your day? What are those sort of comfort things? And so you have to take some time and define that for yourself.

So stop now, just, just take a moment. And if you want to ask questions, we can. Um, if you want to have suggestions, you're more than welcome to. But just have a little think about it. What is normal for you? What is a normal thing for you that might seem abnormal or different to somebody else? Just, there we go.

Are we actually answering?

Yeah, you can. You're more than welcome to, um, the people that are on Zoom, you're more than welcome to unmute and Chime in. Chime in.

I take a lot of naps.

Naps. It's true.

I love naps, day naps especially.

Do you find that naps at one stage, Jeanine, you thought as being lazy and now you don't? What, how you say now you take a lot of naps, how does that compare to, you know, before? What's changed?

I was really driven before, and I would just keep pushing myself and pushing myself until I probably had some kind of collapse. So like, if I go to a doctor appointment, I come home and get in bed. You know, I may not even go to sleep, but I'll get cozy and give myself comfort. And I don't think it's lazy. I think it's comfort.

Anything else? I got— I wanna, I wanna touch on this just a little bit in a moment. So I'm— oh, I just wanna give anybody else, because I think this is a really important thing I wanna come back to, Janine. Does anyone else got anything? Eleanor, Sharon, anything else? About maybe something in your life that you've come to understand is normal for you, that at one stage you felt abnormal or you felt pressured to deny it. Because other people, the normal ones, didn't do it or didn't accept it.

I mean, I will, I'll, I'll do work all night and all day. Like, I'll pull 20 hours. I never thought I would be able to do something like that or that I would even wanna do something like that.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's definitely not normal.

It's not normal for you.

I will say, like, past me, um, never slept past 5 AM. Like, I was up at 5 AM every day, like, driving hard, charging. And I have come to realize that that is not a healthy place for me. Like, if I get less than 8 hours of sleep, I am not a pleasant human. And That it is okay to order my day in such a way that I can go to bed early and sleep a full eight hours.

Oh no, I I tell her the same thing, so she'll try to keep up. And then so like I'll get up with the dog at three thirty, and then she's like, "Well, no, you've been getting up for the last ten days. I'm gonna do it," and she'll do it two days in a row.

I had a life meltdown. Not gonna happen.

Rex. Rex. And that's just getting up earlier. She'll still go to bed early.

Yep. Right.

But that's getting up earlier.

And so, like, doesn't like to start the day at 3:00.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

When I was younger, oh my God, I would sleep until 1:00 PM. Oh, I would sleep all day if I could.

And so that really is a great example of being able to know where you're up to and what you need at this phase in your life right now. And it's okay to take that time, to set time aside to sleep or to work 20 hours straight if you want.

So I want to just take this moment. I want to talk to, talk to you about a concept called masking behavior. And it's what we often talk about, hear about people wearing masks, and they might wear it in different situations. And we put on a mask for this and we put on a mask for that. There's a term that's tied in with, with people that have dealt with trauma. Or people that are neurodiverse. Masking behavior. Masking behavior is a set of behaviors that you put on to get acceptance from other people. You act a certain way, you say certain things, you do certain things. And the reason you're doing that isn't because that's good for you. It's because you want to fit in with everybody else. So you're literally living your life from the outside in instead of the values that drive you and are important to you. manifesting in your life and setting the parameters for your life, you're allowing other people to do it from the outside in. And there comes a point in your journey and your understanding where you, you have to be at peace with yourself.

That—

so Matthew and I are business partners and 2 totally different gift sets. If I try and keep up with his ability to stay up all night, it's not going to be good for me. And even in a close relationship, even in a spousal relationship, you can get into a sense. And, you know, like Matthew and Michelle, one's up and one's asleep. We're the same. And I've often talked to Melissa about not trying to keep up. And If she feels compelled to get up with me all the time, it's going to wear her out. And she's not complementing my life. She's actually competing with me so that she feels better about herself because she's doing the things over here that I do. Now, take that to your external relationships as well. You're in work. People are setting meetings and they're going to meetings all the time and they want to go to meetings all the time. I'm not just talking about not liking meetings. I'm talking about going to some of those things costs you. And when you come to a place in life where you realize the cost of that and that you've got to live your life in a different way, sometimes you can't go certain places, you can't eat certain foods, you can't listen to certain music. And but that's what all the normal people do. Well, Who said? According to whose definition is normal? And that's something that's very important we've found in the Phoenix Collective is helping people redefine that normal for themselves. So I just, I'll let you walk away with that just around 2 things is who am I now and what do I need now? And that's really important to try and understand that who am I now and What do I need now? Because that will change. That will change over time. It'll change as you go through things in life. It'll change as you come to terms with things.

And I think it'll even change when you start to understand the situations where you do sort of wear a mask. And we all can do it to different degrees, but it costs you. Like you said, it makes you tired. It costs you Like on a physical, emotional level. And as you start to understand that more, then you either say no to things like you said, or you, uh, plan some downtime like Janine does after she goes to the doctor. She's like, this is gonna cost me, so I'm gonna give myself some comfort. Um, and so as you understand more about yourself, I think your needs change.

I think that's very important. Yeah. I know even in our business relationship, go on, Matthew, you're gonna say something.

Yeah, the cost thing is always important, right? So, so for example, Michelle has a sensitive stomach. So then I'll say, okay, well then if that's the case, right, sensitive digestion, then you need to plan for that. Or like for me on the non-sleep, you know, right, I plan for that. So then what I do is Right? I will have red light therapy on my stomach the whole night. I will take a small break and do some thermotherapy of Avicyn or have the H-Wave on me, or I will go do some more supplements like the mushrooms tincture. That's really great for immune system and energy. So, it's not that I go into this and say, well, it's not going to cost me anything. And just because I'm in a good mood the next day, right, it doesn't shift my mood. But that's also because I take extra care for—

Right.

That time that I'm going to overextend myself. So you can either pay for it before and do prep. You can also pay for it during and do something there that allows you to reset. And then also you're going to pay for it after and you need, right? So it's all these things are definitely 100% cause and effect. And it's just a matter of how much more that you're going to have to use in tools or have readily available in order to feed that other side that you have completely ignored.

And knowing which tools and things balance in the other direction.

Yeah.

And that's the important part of it. And I think Matthew said an interesting thing. What he's outlining there, he's very comfortable with as his normal. You don't have to listen to that and think that it's normal for you because it's kind of not.

You know what?

It's not normal for me. And he doesn't need some of the things I need. And you've got to surround yourself with people. At some point, you have to get so serious about being authentic that you have to have people around you. I don't mean cocoon yourself, but your inner circle has to be a group of people that you can have very honest conversations with about what you can do and what you can't do. And it's understanding limitations. I often hear Christians misquote a scripture that says that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. So if that was the case, a literal application of that scripture means jump off a building and flap your arms and you'll fly. You know, you can't do all things. You are not designed that way or created that way. And we have that mindset in the West that if we can believe it and we nut through it and we just get there, we can achieve things. There's a difference between tenacity with planning and just being bloody-mindedness. And what you heard was a brilliant example from Matthew about being tenacious with a plan. So if you need to achieve this goal, you just can't say, I'm going to go out and run a marathon and somehow God's going to give me wings. No, why don't you get like an 18-month plan to run the dang thing and you'll have a chance of doing it? So, well, is it normal to run a marathon? No, I think it's stupid. Only stupid people run that. Not normal for us. But if you're one of those abnormal people who want to get a 26.2 2 sticker, then plan for the bloody thing. Just don't go out and said, you know, God did loaves and fishes one day and somehow he's going to give me super feet to run around the block. Not a normal thing. So that redefining of normal for you is something that you have to do. And that's why it comes back to something that's a tenet of what we believe with the Phoenix Collective, is authenticity is the most important thing that you can work on in your own life And the relationships that you surround yourself with. So the first thing we looked at was something that I forget the name of, the reset. So let's have a look at resolve as point number whatever. 2.

2.

Resolve. Motivation is totally overrated. It's totally overrated. I know you've got all those memes you save on Instagram or you spam your friends with and you feel, you know, you get a little bit of dopamine and you send it to it. To your friends about it, and they are good, and they give you a hit and make you think. But motivation is actually very unreliable because it is it is emotionally based. Rhythm or discipline will outstump motivation every time. You have to train for the long, and discipline will get you there because discipline is there when the emotion. of motivation is no longer there. I remember it when I was boxing. So I was boxing. Well, I've been fighting something all my life. Old rugby player. We're smart but not clever. So rugby, if you've never seen rugby, it's 80 minutes of running around without a helmet playing hockey. And you just run around and hit each other with your head. And then you go and have beers and you spend another like 2 or 3 hours hitting each other with your head, but you're doing it drunk now. And then like in about every 4 or 5 weeks, you meet up at different locations and you do that to each other. Rugby, smart but not clever. So I've always been a bit of a fighter, like a scrap. And I was having a fight. I was 43. I had a— I was in a gym, 115 degrees, brick boxing gym. We had an Olympic-sized thing. I had this old gnarly coach. And there was this kid down the road. He was 26 and went on to be the The Everlast Junior Pro.

All right?

And he heard about this old man who had this boxing gym about 40 minutes away. So this kid turns up and telling you, it's like something out of like a bad Rocky movie. His entourage came with him. One of them had a beatbox that was playing, and this guy just jumped in with his you know his Terry Towling outfit and his little you know shiny um you know budgie huggers, and he's jumping in there doing his thing and da da da da da da da da da. And I'm just standing in there chewing my mouth guard, you know. But my coach said something very interesting to me. He said, this kid's going to come after you and he's going to come after you hard. He said, but here's one thing: he's trained 2-minute rounds, you've trained 3-minute rounds. He's trained in 70 degrees, 76 degrees heat, you've trained in 120-degree heat. He said, when I tell you to go at 2 minutes, he will be at the end of his round and you'll just be starting yours. And he said, what I want you to do for 2 minutes is tuck your chin and accept the fact that it's going to really hurt. But when you come out of that and I say go, I said, you go and you don't stop and only one of you will be. And he was right. You know, I beat the daylight out of this kid. Absolutely beat the snot out of him. It was fantastic. It was great. I even think about it just sitting here makes me feel warm and fuzzy towards the universe. But I am clever, not smart. But There is a point to this story besides it just being a great story. It's better with cigar and a bourbon. And in 2 or 3 years' time, it'll be a 15-round boxing match. Is that the discipline I had training in 115, 120-degree heat for 3 years for longer rounds is the very thing that I needed in that ring. I did not need more motivation in that ring. You don't need motivation to get through a hard time. What you need is resilience. You need resilience and you need the ability to keep going when everything comes against you. So if you're gonna reset after a disaster, you're gonna have to do whatever the first thing was, redefining normal, and then you're going to have to reset things.

You're gonna have, have resolve.

Resolve.

That's right. Resolve.

The other R.

Yes. You need something to carry you in the motivation.

Have any of you found that? Like, have there been times in your life where you've tried to gut it through on motivation, but it really didn't work? Like, go to a Tony Robbins course and just realize you wasted $1,000 because you came home broke. Or like you joined up in multi-level marketing. What the hell are those things for? Like, you gotta be joking. That's a waste of— everyone wastes $1,200. Oh yeah, it's easy. You just, you know, prostitute all your friends and family and make $1 million and get a gold Yeah, you gotta turn up every day, friend.

I think about your boxing story though. There were things that carried you through and those things were training every day for 3-minute rounds in the heat. Those things put you in shape to then win the match.

I might have been motivated to win that match.

Yeah.

But the only way I got there was by discipline and the training of those things. And if you want to get over whatever you're facing, I, I really hope you're emotionally excited about it. But the thing that's going to get you there is relentless resilience.

And so you turned up every day, you trained 3-minute rounds. So every day first.

So you turn up regardless of what you're feeling. Yeah, you turn up.

But those things are what anchored you when it came to that fight. Um, and so in, I think in all of our lives, we can have those things that every day anchor us. They are our pillars that keep us rooted in moving forward.

Yeah.

They keep us in our resolve.

Yeah.

Um, so do we wanna talk about anchors now? I guess that's where our next— yes.

I don't know. I just forgot all the notes.

Okay.

Just started telling stories.

So, so those things that anchor you in where you wanna move forward. And so the, the sort of exercise—

This is the good day, shitty day story.

Yes.

Yeah, this is good. You'll like this, folks. This is a good day, shitty day anchors.

So we recommend that people pick 3 anchors.

So if you're having to reset your life and you don't know what the hell to do and you're trying to redefine normal and your life's a whole bloody mess, You've got to have some anchors, some of those things that are going to move you beyond the need for motivation into decisional activity.

Yeah, into discipline, basically. Um, and so 3 anchors: something that helps your body, so pick one that helps your body; something that helps your mind, pick a thing that helps your mind; and then something that reconnects you with your higher purpose, your faith, spiritual, you know, whatever matters to you. Um, and for each one of those anchors, you also describe a rough day version. So here are some examples. So for example, on a good day for my health, I might walk 3 miles. But if I'm having a really bad day and everything's just gone sideways, I might just walk around the block.

I just walk to the fridge.

On a good day for my mind, I write, I might Read 30 minutes. I got a book I'm reading. I read 30 minutes. On a bad day, I might read 2 pages. On a good day, my thing to do to connect with the universe is maybe call somebody and have a proper conversation with a friend of mine. On a bad day, yeah. On a bad day, I might just send a text. So if you have that shitty day version of every anchor. Then you never lose your rhythm.

Yep.

Because you're keeping your promises to yourself even on the bad days.

I see that a lot with people who say they wanna get fit. And when they're on a good day and motivated, they'll go to the gym. On a bad day, they'll literally stay in bed. On a bad day, you know what you should do? You should go to the gym and have a cup of coffee in the foyer. That's what you should do because you set a goal to go to the gym. Well, I'm only gonna sit there and have a cup of coffee in the foyer. Yeah, but what you did is you got your ass out of bed and you went to the gym. So what you have to do in these situations, you have to make the decision beforehand, because when you're under the gun and life is caving in, don't make those decisions then. No, you don't ever make a decision in a trough. Don't ever make a decision in a high. You have to try and be wise enough to realize that somewhere between here and here is reality. And you have to make those decisions not when you're feeling bad, not when you're feeling too good. You have to realize, okay, I want to go to the gym. It's a good part, good habit for me to be in. And I learned this the hard way. I noticed after probably 4 years of spending at least 6 to 8 months of every year for 4 or 5 years in surgery or having broken something, ripped a pec. I ripped both my biceps in this one period. I broke Um, an ankle. I broke, I broke something else. I can't remember. Collarbone. I teared, tore both biceps. I tore both, uh, pec muscles. I fell off a bicycle at 25 miles an hour in the middle of a 4-lane side street. Hamstrings. Did both hamstrings. So all of this was in a period of time. And I noticed this one thing. Every one of those accidents happened when I was in an emotional trough. And I thought that the way that I could get out of it was by going to the gym because the gym made me feel good. And when I worked it out is that I was going to the gym on my good days, the endorphins was making me good. But when I was going there and I was in a bad emotional state, one day, for example, instead of putting 600 pounds on a leg press machine, I put on 1,200 pounds. I don't know how you accidentally like double it. And the result was I dislocated a hip. Now, you know, you could hear that for 2 miles once I did that thing. It was very, it was somewhat painful. The lady thought the swearing was somewhat painful too. So, so what I learned was that even though I have to keep up the rhythm of activity, the activity is allowed to change within that rhythm because it's about this promise to myself of being regular. Promise to myself of moving forward. And sometimes you can walk forward and sometimes all you can do is fall flat on your face and crawl forward. But either way, it's all forward.

Very good.

Any thoughts?

It's a game of inches. That's definitely one.

Life is, uh, for sure.

And then the second thing would be the anchor thing, I think is really cool because You know, one of the aspects of the anchor is just your awareness and how you're defining things, right? So it's like even in when Janine was sharing that when she gets into bed, it's it's comforting, and that and that's an anchor kind of concept. You know, for me, I never even thought about it that way. I have always thought about it. Yeah, you know, like if you're taking day naps, you're lazy, and then I just was like, I don't care. I love day naps. So yeah, but I didn't think about. anchoring it into a different perspective of like, yeah, but it's really comforting and it's relaxing. Like, why wouldn't you want to be there? It's either that or the couch. And why pick the couch? Your couch is definitely never going to be as comfortable as your bed.

I know somehow you feel better about taking a nap on the couch because you haven't gone to bed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's really weird.

It's weird.

Yeah, yeah, I got no problem with it. But it was something I had to decide, you know, but it's like anything like that. You just have to decide, like John just said, you have to decide what you can and can't do. And that's what I'm working out right now with just about everything.

Yeah, but the discipline—

Sometimes I eat, but I try not to do that too much.

I feel like discipline focus is, uh, is how many times a day can I feel comfortable, right? I mean, maybe sometimes it's I feel comfortable in this situation or out in the groceries or out with friends, or maybe I don't. And maybe the only time that I felt comfortable today was, you know, with a pillow and blanket. Which is great, you know. I mean, I just think that should, you know, it doesn't have to be going outside or to the gym. It can be how many times can I feel comfortable in the day?

So let's talk about going to the gym.

Let's talk around that then. Let's talk about redefining identity and let's tie to discipline because discipline isn't punishment. Often many of us were raised to believe that discipline is punishment. It's a form of punishment. And discipline isn't doing hard crap just so you feel morally superior. So, you know, I'm awesome, I went to the gym and you're disciplined and, you know, you're just lying at home in bed having naps, Matthew. So it's not that at all. It's like, well, rough seasons don't just disrupt your schedules, they can screw up your entire identity. And when you're going through a rough patch or a life crisis or a change, It'll affect how you think about yourself, feel about the world, how you view yourself, how you believe that you're going to make it or you're not going to make it. And eventually your identity actually gets built around everything you've lost. People that have gone through divorces or bankruptcies or deaths or grieving or illnesses, they become, I'm a cancer survivor, I'm an ex-alcoholic. Oh, can't you just like not be an alcoholic? Or can't you just like be healthy? Because when we, when we label ourselves with that, we're not labeling ourselves with an ex-anything. We're labeling ourselves with, I am an alcoholic, alcoholism is my identity. Now, if you're an AA person and whatever, man, like, just be a grown-up and just walk with me on this thing. You, if it's important for you to identify that you were an alcoholic so other people don't tempt you, do it. Or if it's important for you to identify yourself that you were a drug addict so you don't fall into that again, do it. But don't allow your identity to be in what was, because your past will either refine you or define you. I don't like people talking about being a cancer survivor. If you survive cancer, you're just a healthy human being. I don't know if I want to keep saying that over myself, because every time I talk about surviving cancer, I'm actually talking about cancer, or I'm surviving this, or I'm surviving that. I've never seen myself as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I've just seen myself as a man who had to turn shit into fertilizer. You know, I'm not a survivor. I'm not, I'm not a victim of anything. I never have been. And I don't— I just think you've got to take time to reframe your world, world with your words. Because words are the only thing of any substance that build anything. Everything in life is framed by the words that come out of our mouth.

Very good.

So, all right.

Well, that was a perfect segue into the next.

Let's segue.

So the part 3 is about—

I didn't even think about that.

That's good.

Yes. And Melissa, go ahead.

Redefining who you are and discipline is part of that. Discipline is simply doing what you've said to yourself that you're going to do often enough that you trust yourself.

Well, that's very good.

Yeah, you said it. So, yeah.

So that's very good.

That's why we have the, uh, the, the 3 anchors with the good day and the shitty day, because you need to be able to still keep your word to yourself Yeah. On the shitty days.

And if you think about that, I'm going for a walk, well, 3 miles or around the block. I've kept— I'm going to the gym. Well, I said I was going to the gym. I didn't say I was just gonna not have coffee, right? Yeah, that's very good.

So you need to keep your word to yourself enough, and you start to build that momentum, and then we're ready to talk about, um, the words we want to say over ourselves. Um, I am someone who blank. I'm some— for example, I'm someone who takes care of my health.

Okay, awesome.

Or I'm someone who stays connected to people, or I'm someone who finishes things. So we start, um, describing ourselves as that person that we want to be, and we, we let our anchors our 3 anchors every day line up with that statement. Um, so I'm, I'm someone who takes care of my health. Great. What does that mean you're going to do tomorrow? Well, my anchor for tomorrow is to walk 30 minutes.

That's very good.

And if I have a really shitty day, it might only be 3, but either way, I'm someone who takes care of my health. So, so you move through that process of Redefining normal. What do I need right now? What are my 3 anchors that are going to, uh, give me what I need right now in a way that is sustainable for me to keep my promises to myself and become that person that I'm describing? The person who takes care of my health, the person who connects with their friends. Um, so there is a worksheet for this, guys. There's a homework sheet that you can—

You're gonna get your homework sheet. And look, if you've got— we've got people on Facebook, we've got people on YouTube, we've got people Instagram, the people here in the room with us. If you've got a question, drop a question and we'll try and get to it. So, um, so where can— how can they get the worksheet?

Go to drjohnaking.com, and then there's a huge button on there that says Masterclasses. You click that Masterclass button and you can— it takes you to a page where you can see the replay of all of our events that we've done this year and the replay of tonight's event. And the worksheet download is with the replay of tonight's event.

Yeah. So register because like, you know, it's awesome. That's what I'd say. You get to hang around with us.

You are able to register for the rest of the events coming up for this.

There'll be some date changes on those events because I've got to talk to Matthew about that tomorrow. But, but, uh, so because he stays up all the time and I just go to sleep, like, what can I do? What can I tell you? That's why I'm glad, like, there's 30 years between us. I'm so Grateful.

So questions?

That my Jewish brother doesn't sleep. I mean, I am so grateful. So questions? Anyone got questions? Janos, good to see you on Facebook, man. Good to have you here. And Kate's in from Australia. Nice to have you here too. This is our friend Janine, and Eleanor's in the background there somewhere. So any questions? Any suggestions? Cries of heresy? Highly offended because you wanna run a marathon. So sorry, I offended your sensibilities. Yeah, that's awesome again, isn't it? That's great.

Awesome.

Anything else? Any questions? Finally, Friday. Every Friday afternoon, we celebrate the fact that it's Friday. 4 PM, we stream that as well. You're more than welcome to come. We talk about life, love, and creativity, and there's a whole bunch of people come on and talk about that stuff. So we'd love to have you there. And also, I would recommend you follow Wisdom OS on Instagram and find out about all the workshops we do. And we're going to Tennessee and Indiana. We're gonna have some live in, in May. And again, tomorrow after I get Matthew's help on changing the dates, I'm gonna talk to them about doing a live event in Dallas at a chiropractor's place or at the Timarron Country Club. We've gotta try and work that out. So we could have a live event in Dallas, a live event in Indiana, a live event in Tennessee. So that would be good, and you should come.

2027.

It's gonna be awesome.

Yeah.

Thank you everyone for coming.

Yeah, I'm going now. All right. Cheerio.