EP 102: Showing Up in Life | Eric Jukelevics

Welcome to Radical Responsibility, the podcast dedicated to ridding the world of blame and shame, where we explore the issues you care about from a unique perspective. 100% ownership for each and every circumstance we face in life, day in and day out. Hello, this is Fleet Mall and you are listening to the Radical Responsibility Podcast. And and we're here today with Eric Yukhelevich. How you doing, Eric?

Good this morning, thanks. How are you, Fleet?

I'm great. Great. I'm really excited to be doing the first podcast recording for the new Radical Responsibility podcast. We're not sure whether this will air as episode one or episode two or three, but it is the first one we're recording and I'm excited to be doing that and exciting to be doing it with you.

Good. I'm glad you're launching off the podcast.

So I'm going to just give our listeners a little information about you and then a little further disclosure I'll mention in a moment. So, Eric Yukhelovich is a photographer and videographer and recently began another path as a marketer and organizer in the world of personal evolution. He's been stewarding a powerfully bonded men's group for over four years and is a member of the Mankind Project and International Men's Organization. All his work these last few years, both artistic and otherwise, has been around, helping define what is authentic and true about someone and celebrating and beautifying it. So that sounds like a wonderful mission in life. And just for sake of full disclosure, Eric and I are working very closely together on getting the radical responsibility message out to the world, including my new Radical Responsibility book that's going to be released May 14, and various online courses and offering we're doing so Eric and I work closely together on that. However, I'm really excited about doing this podcast with you because you have a very extensive background yourself in personal evolution work and in creative work and being an entrepreneur. So I'm really excited to explore this today. And as you know, Eric, the theme of this is radical responsibility. And what we mean by that is voluntarily embracing 100% responsibility or ownership for each and every circumstance we face in life, day in and day out, which includes those in which we can see we maybe had some role to play, but also those that maybe just seem like they fell out of the sky and landed on our head, but nonetheless, we're going to embrace ownership for these circumstances, not as any form of self blame. It is absolutely not self blame, but rather just because it's the only place we have any real power, real self Agency focusing on what can I do, what's the most creative way I can respond to this particular circumstance I'm dealing with, whether it's an internal circumstance within myself, physically, psychologically, spiritually, or an external circumstance, circumstance in the world around me. And so that's the basic idea. And to the extent that we do see we had any role in creating or inviting or manifesting a particular circumstance, seeing that is not for the purpose of self blame, but just for the purpose of learning. Because if we see that a particular way we approach something didn't work out so well, we can try a different approach in the future. So that's the basic idea that you're very familiar with. But I'd like to talk a little bit about your background in this work in particular. So we met through a training called the Event, which is where at least some of the distinctions in my radical responsibility model arose from the Event, which I'm very grateful for. And I'm still very involved in leading the event, as are you. And you've also done a, you've been through my radical responsibility courses and so forth online and you also recently did a Tony Robbins event, the Unleash the Power within. And you've been involved, as I mentioned in your bio, in the Mankind project for quite a while. So this is a lot of personal evolution work. And I'm curious about what you see as a through line for you in terms of that kind of work and your own path through this work.

Well, for me, a lot of it has to do with a love of learning and seeing positive results after, after doing each one of those things. You know, after doing the Event, I learned a lot about how I showed up and how I could show up and things that are getting in the way. So in a way it's, you know, it's all, it's all self learning. It's all like, oh, this is possible. I'm possible of this. I can show up this way, I can serve this way. And each time I do or participate or learn, and it doesn't have to be formal structured practice or formal structured events, I learn about myself and I show up in the world a way that feels better to me and feels better to my friends and family and those that I serve. And you know, I can see it in people, I can see it in myself. You know, on the baseline I'm just a happier human being. And you know, there's part of me that's like, I show up to these things and I don't really know, I don't really know why. It just feels like the right thing to do. And after I'm finished, it's like, yeah, that was the right thing to do. It doesn't have to have a specific purpose. It's just. It feels like the right thing to do in a way.

Let's get down and dirty here. How bad was it before you began this work? I say that a little bit tongue in cheek, but to the extent that you're willing to go there, we could go there. And how bad was it? And then what were some of the core distinctions that really began to shift something for you? And why did that work?

How bad was it? I was. Well, in a way, with a lot of this work, you don't know what you don't know. And the things that have been revealed to me is how kind of scared and small I showed up in the world, and mostly in my head in the world, which is how it all works. But I was, you know, generally going through motions. You know, looking back at it now, I would say I was not really happy. I wouldn't say unhappy, I wouldn't say miserable. But in comparison to how I feel going through life now, you know, in comparison, yes, I was unhappy and unfulfilled and doing all this work, you know, happier, more fulfilled human being is the short version of it.

And the event was the first training you did, right?

Yes, that was the first training.

So what would you say was the. The core distinction you got in that training that began to shift things for you, or the core insight.

Or core insight from that first event was how much power I had, and not just physically, but as a human. Yeah, I think about that one a lot because it was the first big shift, and it was, for me, very physical and very embodied. And I think that was the first time I felt that physical and that embodied ever, you know, ever in my life. Like by the. After my first, you know, we call it the demand, after my first real big piece of work, my body was electric. I couldn't sit down for 30 minutes, you know, in a way of, you know, adrenaline and release and, you know, all of this, you know, trauma feels like a harsh word, but I guess everything is, you know, trauma releasing from my body. Yeah, it was partially a huge weight and partially, I don't know, electrifying. It's the only way I can really phrase it because I really could not sit down for 30 minutes. I had to pace, I had to move. Yeah.

So in reflecting on my question, how bad it was before, you had mentioned kind of that, you recognize now in retrospect, that you were operating from a lot of fear and kind of feeling small and being small in a sense. And in the event it sounds like what you're saying is you connected with your personal power either for the first time or in an entirely new way and in a very embodied way that.

You actually experienced in the body very powerfully.

Yes. Well said.

Yeah, that's great.

That's great. So how old are you, Eric?

I am 38.

So I just want to give people a sense of where you are in your life cycle. So when was the last time you punched a clock, had a 9 to 5 job where you were working for somebody else?

Never, potentially. Well, that's not true. My very first job was in fast food when I was in high school. I think I worked a summer as a temp, probably either a summer between college years. And that was. Yeah, that was the last time.

Yeah. So since then you've been an entrepreneur and you're a creative person. So you've been doing photography and videography has been one of your main creative endeavors and sources of livelihood. Have you had other personal businesses or livelihood adventures outside of the photography and.

Videography, outside of that field? Not really. It was all in that. In that creative work. It was all related to either either my creativity, my photography or somebody else's. I would often work with other photographers either on their shoots or afterwards and to, you know, organizing their digital workflow, because I am inclined that way. I am good with computers and I think logically and I'm pretty organized. So all that stuff works out well for me.

Yeah. So, you know, you graduated college when you were probably around 22, I assume, and so you had a couple of summer jobs where you were working for someone. Like many, many of us got our start in a fast food summer job somewhere. And really since then you've been on your own and been responsible for getting your own gigs and developing your own clients and whether it was projects you were doing directly or whether you were assisting with someone else. But anyway, you had to land all these gigs and you've had to manage yourself and your business financially and be on your own in that way with no guaranteed steady paycheck or benefits or anything like that for a long time. So see, you take 22 from 38, that's about 16 years. So how has that been?

How's that been? It's been, you know, it feels like feast or famine a lot of time, I think, as it does in entrepreneurpreneur. It feels Like, I've had good years, I've had less good years, and overall I wouldn't change it. I wouldn't change it. But yeah, definitely feels like this stress of entrepreneurship, you know, often making just enough to get by or just a little less to get by, and then some years, you know, more than I need.

Yeah. So there's times of fear, obviously.

Most definitely.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, any entrepreneur or anyone living in an entrepreneurly way is, if they're honest, they're.

They're dealing with fear all the time.

But fear can be very. Fear is intelligent. And it's just a question of how we work with fear. Right. And fearlessness is not the absence of fear. Fearlessness is our capacity to be with fear in a creative way and it can really drive a lot of our creativity and so forth. So radical responsibility is a philosophy and approach that will support anyone in optimizing their life, whether they take an entrepreneurial path or they're working for someone else in a small business, or they're working in the big corporate setting, or they're professional or, you know, a teacher or a counselor or a craftsperson, whatever they're doing. And it's just for sake of full disclosure, I have a little bit of bias towards the entrepreneurial life. And, and so just because I think it's exciting and it marries very well with the idea of radical responsibility because we are really taking ownership. But even if we're working for someone else, we're in a corporation, even we're working for the government, what have you still, you know, we're really. What I, I do a lot of coaching with people, both in the direct business setting and somewhat in the personal setting. And I really encourage everyone, even if they're working in a large corporation or working for the government, to think of themselves as an entrepreneur. They are a business into themselves and they are offering their services, their time and their talent, and they're getting compensated for that. And rather than just thinking of ourselves as sort of, you know, a dependent employee of a particular company or entity to really have that sense of entrepreneurship that we are in a business exchange with that organization and it's got, it needs to be a win win, and at any point that it's not, we need to own that and make the changes necessary. So at any rate, it's exciting to talk to someone who, like yourself, who, you know, with no guarantees, ever since college, you just jumped in there and you've been doing it and living with that fear and anxiety around financial security for Quite a while, and hopefully now on a track to really taking that whole game to the next level for yourself.

That is the plan for the future. A lot of changes in the last year and a lot of optimism looking forward.

So I know that you work a lot on your personal disciplines and your personal habits, the positive habits that set.

Us up for success. Right.

And why don't you talk a little bit about those? I know you've worked with some of even Pagan's ideas. I know you picked up some things from the Tony Robbins training. I know you worked with. What's the gentleman that does the immersing yourself in frigid water and doing breathing techniques from Sweden.

Wim Hof. Yeah, Wim Hof.

Is he from Sweden?

He is. Oh, I feel like I should know. His camp is currently in Poland.

Wim Hof. Yeah. I had the impression he was Scandinavian.

From one of the countries there.

But at any rate. So why don't you talk a little bit about some of those disciplines and how you work with your mourning period and just work with setting yourself up for success mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and so forth.

Sure. I feel like it's constantly evolving and constantly changing, but at the moment when everything gets done, my personal morning starts with a priming exercise. Tony Robbins priming exercise. I feel it's a good way to start with gratitude and a feeling of accomplishment.

Could you describe that a little more specifically for our listeners?

Sure. It starts with some quick breathing, breathing exercises, partially to get, I think, to wake you up and to feel embodied. I think of wake you up. And it goes into a gratitude practice. Then it goes into a practice around kind of healing yourself spiritually, emotionally, you know, feeling healed in whatever practice, religious way you'd like, you know, just as a healing energy. And then taking that energy and healing those around you and everyone around you, you can take it as far as you'd like. And then from that place, from that, you know, place of being healed and powerful and awake, embodied, picturing three goals that you want to accomplish, you know, in the distant future, you know, anywhere from weeks to months to a few short years. And in a way of being in a place of accomplishing those goals. So not I want to do this thing, you know, I want to put out this book. It's. I've put out this book. I'm putting yourself in a place of having already done it.

Right. Creating that vision.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

That's great. Because many different areas of psychology recognize how sometimes we're called teleologic beings. In other Words, we step into that which we can envision. So if you want change in your life, you first have to be able.

To envision it as a concrete reality.

Just as a note of caution here, you mentioned the breathing exercises and I actually use a lot myself, a lot of breathing exercises. I encourage people because it's really the quickest access to self regulation. We can downregulate ourselves when we're getting too upregulated, too emotionally activated or too physiologically activated. And we can upregulate ourselves when we need to sort of wake up and get our energy moving. So there are lots of wonderful techniques. However, I would encourage our listeners, if they're interested in that, to always explore those with good teachers and good coaches and make sure that they're doing that in alignment with their medical providers and so forth, so that you always approach it in a reasonable way and take.

Good care of yourself. So I just wanted to mention that.

But I would encourage our readers to explore those kind of things because it's.

A very simple way to.

To begin to regulate ourselves and take ownership for our own physiological and emotional state.

Most definitely. And it feels like everything comes back to breathing in some ways. Meditation, the anchor of that is breathing.

Well, we can always just stop and just take a breath. Right. And I don't think you need a doctor's advice to do that one. Right. It's very simple. Just stop and take a breath. In fact, I have a little thing on my wristwatch now that reminds me to do that. And it actually does this little vibration thing and it takes me through a minute of kind of conscious breathing quite.

A few times a day. So it's a nice little tool.

Selfishly, it's nice to know that someone with decades of meditation practice still could use reminders from time to time. Oh yeah.

Need all the help I can get. So let's continue with your morning then. What else? So you do these priming exercises, a series of the breath work and the gratitude work. And then kind of envisioning the future you want to step into as if it's already happened to set yourself up for that. And then what's next?

Then a short exercise routine where I do, I think New York Times and someone else has published like a 7 1/2 minute high intensity workout, 30 seconds activities, 10 second break, you know, over and over again.

There's a number of those supposedly advertised as scientifically determined to. I think the plank pose is one of them and. Yeah, right, crunches.

Plank pose, yeah.

And there's a number of Good apps that have that seven minute workout on it.

Yeah, yeah, I use one of those. I use one of those. And then after that one short break, I'll do interval jump rope training. So, you know, two minutes loose, 30 seconds high intensity, two minutes, you know, comfortable pace, 30 second high intensity. It's the same idea, but to get my heart rate going and to get my cardio up because I feel like I've never had a good sense or a good length, you know, where I can be at optimal heart rate and not want to pass out and die. So I always try to keep that up as much as I can because that for me drops off very quickly.

Well, that's great. And I'm envious because I was at a. I think it was a hotel gym just, I don't know, in the last month anyway, somewhere. And I'm, you know, doing various exercises with the machines and so forth. And then I noticed there was a jump rope hanging on the wall. Right. So I grabbed it and trying to do something. I almost killed myself. I almost tripped up myself and stumbled and then tried to decapitate myself with the rope. And I would have needed a lot of practice to get back into that. I've had two knee replacements, so I don't know if that's in my future, but maybe we'll see.

Maybe with comfortable shoes. Yeah. I first got into jump roping because I've been training often on Muay Thai for about 10 years, and it's the beginning of every workout. It's five minutes of jump rope with a thick Thai style jump rope. So it's heavy, it's. It's like pipe, not quite pipe, but it's, you know, kind of flexible plumbing pipe as a jump rope instead of the speed ropes.

I see.

So that was my reintroduction, other than childhood to jump roping.

I see. Well, I was about to say jump roping is, you know, the sexy thing about jump roping for me I think is it is associated with boxing and all the great boxing movies. You see them, you know, Rocky using.

A jump rope and so forth.

So that's a very cool thing about jump roping. I do remember it back to school. It seemed like it was more the girls did it at school, but I guess the guys did it too. But you jump in and out, two people would have the rope going and people would jump in and out and so forth. But that's a long time ago. Most of my current associations are with boxing movies.

And so that makes jump roping very cool.

Even though I'm not so sure boxing is really cool if I think about it. But anyway, I would like to think it's cool if I wasn't actually sitting there watching the mayhem.

Yeah, well, there's. There's a. It looks like mayhem from the outside, and it's a lot of, you know, science and a lot of finesse on the inside.

Well, Muay Thai in particular, and Muay Thai does include boxing, both boxing and kicking. So why don't you talk a little bit about that? I have a very close friend who's actually my financial advisor who just got his black belt in Muay Thai recently. So he's really into it. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your experience with Muay Thai when you got started and how that's, you know, what that's done for you?

Sure. I got into, let's see, I did taekwondo as a kid. I think it was the Karate Kid part one that got me interested in martial arts. And then I'm pretty sure I asked my parents, and shortly after that they enrolled me. So I did Taekwondo, you know, from when I was 7 to 11. Got my black belt at 11 years old, you know, at a strip mall.

That's pretty cool.

Taekwondo school master was very old school. Probably a little bit too old school if anyone got out of line. Till we got hit with a PVC pipe. So I'm pretty sure that's not allowed anymore.

Yeah, I wouldn't think so.

I think that would be cause for a lawsuit pretty quickly these days.

Yes, I would say so. Luckily, I was a pretty good listener, so never got whacked with a pipe, AKA medicine. But after that, I did kickboxing for a little while at a fitness gym. They had a class and then took only about 10 or so years off of martial arts. And then after grad school, I saw a commercial for Muay Thai gym in my town. And it was one of those. I've been interested in, you know, martial arts and martial arts films. And, you know, Muay Thai was for me, always a beautiful looking, brutal sport that there's no way I could ever do. And then I saw the commercial, I was like, well, I can't do that. I guess I have to go try and do that. You know, it's. It's almost like a Tony Robbins saying. It's like, if you can't, you must. One of his kind of felt like that. It's like, yeah, I could never do that. And then within. Within a month I was hooked. And within a month, I Started taking itself, taking myself and the practice very seriously. I was, by all standards, overweight and out of shape when I signed up. And within nine months, I lost almost 30 pounds. I was showing up at the gym two, three times a week for, I think classes back then were almost two hours and in the meantime, running in between classes. So I watched, you know, physical, emotional transformation in about a year. It was another way I was like, oh, you know, it was almost like my first event. It's like I have. I have power. I have, you know, the capacity to change. I have. I'm not who I thought I was, you know, in the best way. You know, I thought I was always going to be, you know, kind of overweight and kind of slow and, you know, in the loose term, never a badass and all of that. And after, you know, after a year of Muay Thai, it's not like I walked around feeling like a badass, but I definitely felt stronger, more confident, and, you know, in a way that I never had before.

Yeah, that's fabulous because you actually really.

Shifted your self concept pretty dramatically.

Yes, again.

Again. Yeah, that's very cool.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I know. Again, my financial advisor, Mike Brady, who's gonna be a guest on this podcast. Very interesting entrepreneurial gentleman. And he is, you know, he was.

Into the physical stuff when I.

He was at one point vice president and maybe then president with a wealth management firm that was a client of mine. And that's where we got to know each other over quite a few years. And there was a period, I remember.

When he was into doing management marathons and triathlons and got up at 4 in the morning to go work out.

And did all that and for a.

Number of years, super shape. And then he let go of it for quite a while. Long time, I think. I don't know how long. But then a couple years ago, got back into Muay Thai and he is.

A lean, mean, fighting machine today. I'll tell you, he's something else. I think he puts in like three.

Hours a day.

And he really talks.

About how it has transformed his life.

Yeah, it's. It's addicting. I haven't been back to the gym in a couple of months and I'm definitely. I'm definitely missing it, you know, in a way, it's, you know, on a daily basis now. It's like it's something I'm scared of and I show up to anyway, you know, especially not doing it as often as I used to, you know. Now every time I go back, I Feel like I'm paying, I'm playing catch up. And, you know, it's like, well, I survived another class. I grew a bit, I showed up okay. Where's the next time?

Yeah, great. Well, that's all we, really. All we need to do in life is show up, so. Well, let's explore the dark side of that a little bit. I'm saying that a little bit tongue in cheek. But you know, in Muay Thai, you get hit, right?

Yes.

You get kicked and you get hit. You usually wear head protection, right? In the gym? Not always. Depends.

It depends. And my gym is. I'll give it a little plug. North Jersey Muay Thai in Lodi, New Jersey is very old school in the best way. You know, they have. It's not about aggression at all. Even though it is, it can be a very brutal sport. The training is very little about, especially in the classes. Unless you're on the fight team. There's. There's contact for sure, and you feel it for sure, but it's not about aggression at all. It's like the people that come with, with aggressive intent get weeded out pretty quickly and they usually don't come back. It feels like a family, you know, it's like, do you want to hit your brother? You know, and I'm sure some ways you do want to hit your brother, but not, not in this case. You know, it's like everyone. Yeah, it feels like. It feels like a family. Like people show up four or five times a week, you know, to kick and punch each other, you know, on the surface, but, you know, it's a beautiful dance.

Well, that's a great segue right there. Because what I wanted to explore was associating this for all our cult followers of Fight Club out there. So big thing about Fight Club and where it initiated was, you know, just getting hit. That something about being willing to get hit and then getting into that, you know, there was, you know, that Fight Club can be looked at as a pretty dark movie and a real reflection of the despair of modernity. Even a modern version of Death of a Salesman in a certain way of just, you know, young men and middle aged men finding themselves in a state of complete meaninglessness and then having to go down into basements and beat on each other to find a sense of being alive in their life. Right. So in many ways it was about that and exploring that darkness in our culture. But there was something enlivening for them, clearly about getting hit and hitting. So do you have any associations with that for yourself? I'm sure you know the movie.

Yeah, I do. I do. And, you know, for me, it's about stepping into fear because I hate getting hit. You know, anyone has sparred with me. You know, I'm not the toughest guy in the room by any means. You know, and like we said, it's about. It's about showing up. It's about doing something that for me is uncomfortable and in a way, strengthening. You know, it's. It's a way that taking on something that is uncomfortable and hard, showing up and getting better for it and doing it as consistently as possible, you know, in some way it's. It's conscious suffering. You know, it's fun. It's good exercise. You know, physically exhausting and enlivening and also challenging myself in a way that I, you know, I don't ever get challenged. You know, I don't. I've never been in a fight in my life, you know, not a real one. It's not. It's not who I was and not my. Not my way. And it's. It's a way that I get to put myself in that discomfort in a way of feeling in some ways threatened, in a way that's uncomfortable, always safe, but in a way that's. Yeah, someone's actually trying to punch me or kick me in the head. That is happening. What am I going to do about it?

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's very interesting. Just a little disclosure. With myself, I've never been inclined towards physical combat. I've done some pretty crazy things in my life and definitely stepped into the fray. I won't go into details until I check on a statute of limitations. Most of it's like 40 years ago, so I'm probably okay. But, you know, I've never actually really been inclined to get in there and, you know, fistfight. It's not a natural inclination. And my own spiritual path is primarily grounded in the Buddhist tradition where non aggression and gentleness are very important. But at the same time, my particular lineage has a lot to do with the idea of warriorship. You know, not necessarily physical combat, but warriorship in terms of bravery and courage and, you know, being willing to live with vulnerability and your heart open, but still there's some sense of being able to show up. And so I am curious about, you know, maybe even at this latter point in my life to maybe explore something like that. It was funny during my prison years, which I'll reference here, but not go into. And that's what will be covered in another of My podcasts. But I had a series of recurring dreams for a long time, and I think I had them for a while post prison where I was into boxing, and they didn't have boxing at the prison I was in, which is what's strange about it. But I was into boxing and I was actually getting pretty good at it and had overcome my fear of combat. And I had these dreams for quite a long time. So I'm not sure what that's all about. But I remember in the dreams it felt good to be able to step in there and hold my own, you know? So I think it probably is mostly about. Probably about challenging ourselves around fear. And so what Fear tends to really reduce our lives. Right. With all the different experiences we have from childhood going forward, we just start shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. And in many cases, many of us live much smaller lives than we need to because we're trying to avoid various things that we learn to be afraid of. Right. So expanding our world again by stepping into fear. And then there's also probably something very enlivening. Right. About that physical contact and being in that place of fear and the contact. There's something probably very enlivening and energizing about that, I would imagine.

Definitely energizing and embodied. You know, for me, I live too much of my life in my head. And you can't really do that while doing Muay Thai.

Yeah.

If you're in your head, it's a forced body practice.

Yeah. If you're in your head, you're likely to get sucker punched.

Right, Exactly.

So why don't we shift a little bit here? You're a dad. You have a daughter, Ada. She's what, eight or nine, something like that?

She is six. Six.

A little younger than I thought.

Yeah. She'll be seven, actually, in about three weeks.

In three weeks.

She's probably excited about that.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah. So why don't you talk a little bit about your role as a dad and showing up as a dad and kind of how that ties into your path of personal evolution and this, you know, these ideas around personal responsibility and ownership and so forth.

Sure. It feels like the logical place to start was a few years ago when I got divorced. I had to make a pretty big decision around time with my daughter. And one of my biggest fears around that was one of the things that went through my head. The thought was, I don't want to be a weekend dad. I don't want to be weekend dad. And I assumed that was the case because that's What I knew, that's what I had seen with other working parents, especially fathers. And what's funny and feels a little obvious, one of the men in my men's group said, okay, then don't choose something else. And honestly, it never occurred to me, you know, to choose to choose something else. And you know, we were going through mediation and making these decisions at that time and you know, I was like, oh, I can choose something else. Okay, I choose, I choose half time. I want, I want to have time. And that for me has been the anchor to the last few years of my life. I get a week at a time with my daughter and I wouldn't trade that for the world. And from there, all of their decisions are made. It's like, okay, I get her from Sunday to Sunday with some flexibility, depending on schedule and vacations and what's happening, but get her, I get her for a week, I take her to school, I pick her up from school, and I am full time dad for a week. And I got all the benefits of that and I get all the stresses from that. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't have it any other way. I would, you know, I would take definitely more and more time than. Yeah. And I've become a better human being for it. Better, better father, better person, better friend. Because I've made that, I've made that choice. And I make that choice kind of over and over again with jobs I take, jobs I don't take, ways I work, you know, even decisions I make every morning. It's like, okay, do I want to do the things I need to do right now or do I do what Ada needs right now? How do I want to parent? Is a lot of my motivation around the personal growth work, the personal evolution work? How do I want to show up for her? She's my anchor and it's.

Yeah, yeah, she's your anchor in sense of. Well, I would assume it sounds like a real motivation. A real motivation to continue your work because that's directly related to how you're going to show up with her for.

Her and what you're going to model for her.

And as well as just being an anchor in the sense of keeping you grounded, you've got to be there.

Yes. Yeah, that's great. You have to do this consistently. You have to show up. Well, have to. We're going to go, you know, proper. I choose to. Over and over again, I choose to show up, I choose to do it this way.

Well, that's incredibly admirable and it may seem just logical and natural. But you know, unfortunately, there are so many parents that are not making that particular choice. And in some cases out of maybe a lack of motivation for one reason or another, or just because they don't know that they can make that choice or, or because of the stresses and challenges of their life and their economic situation and all kinds of factors may.

Be putting them in a very difficult.

Position where it would be incredibly heroic.

For them to make that choice.

But nonetheless, even though we recognize it from the perspective of radical responsibility, anyone that's in a struggling situation in their life, we know there's all kinds of causes and conditions. So it's not about blaming them for the circumstances they find themselves in. But at some point, the only way that's going to shift is for any one of us to start taking ownership.

For the choices we make.

And so, you know, you're really modeling making some really important choices here that are incredibly impactful for your daughter.

And I really think for the future of humanity, I mean, you could make.

Some pretty strong arguments that the current.

State of our culture and society and where it can be in the future has a lot to do with our commitment or lack of commitment to parenting and quality parenting. Thank you. So it's really inspiring that you made those choices and you've been able to really organize your life professionally and as an entrepreneur and as a creative person and a business person to structure it around your commitment to your daughter in that way. So it's really fabulous. And I just hope some of our listeners may find themselves in similar situations and will be inspired to do the same in one form.

There was a young man a while.

Back, sometime last year, early, been over a year ago probably, or somewhere around.

There anyway, a young man who was a graduate of the event. And so we had that connection and thank goodness he reached out to me.

Because sadly, tragically, he was going through a divorce. And. Well, it's not always tragic. Sometimes it's actually the right thing to do. But at any rate, he was going through a divorce and, and he had a young child and he was just being kind of clueless about the thing and was in danger of really losing his parental rights. So my coaching with him was to get him to step up to the plate and really get in there. And so he did. And he has a similar situation that you have today where he has his child with him as a full time parent, week on, week off kind of situation. But he was in danger of letting all that go just really for a lack of information A lack of understanding what's possible and really not having gotten in touch with who he was as a dad and how important that was to him. And once that was awoken in him, that shifted everything. Thank goodness.

Yeah, it's interesting. I only had it kind of put to me recently. It's like, I enjoy being a dad. And I never really thought about that until someone pointed it out. I was like, oh, yes, I enjoy it very much. You know, not always all the minutiae for sure. But yes, I enjoy being a dad. It's one of my favorite things.

Well, for sake of full transparency, you.

Know, when I was raising my son or not raising my son, this was my pre prison years. And although I. My personal evolution work had begun, I.

Had this kind of schizoid life, was.

Doing a lot of positive things on the one hand, and then totally involved in a completely crazy shadow world with drugs and addiction on the other hand. And the person who got the short end of the stick with that was my son. And so even though I deluded myself into thinking that I was a good dad and loved my son, and in fact I really wasn't showing up. So if I had that to do all over again, that would be a great blessing. I don't, unfortunately, today I have a good ongoing relationship with my son and.

We'Re still working through all that stuff, but we're close and he's 42 today.

But I'm grateful that you're having this opportunity to really not only enjoy your role as a dad, but really contribute to your daughter's life so that she's going to be set up to just have a lot of natural strength, resilience and confidence as she begins to move towards her adulthood life.

Yeah, that is my goal. That is my goal.

That's great.

She's a happy, healthy human being.

So let's talk a little bit about. Maybe we can just talk about this.

Together a little bit.

So you and I are together really in the process of launching a business. Right. I've done a little soft launch stuff in the past with having some online courses, a radical responsibility course and a mindful leadership course. And you know, I've had a little bit of success here or there, marketing that and done some joint ventures with people, but never really jumping into it full blown. And then we connected around this possibility of developing this online business together, which is going to be Windhorse seminars online. And we're really, we're full into it right now. And I know you've made a big commitment to it and let go of some other sources of livelihood. So you're kind of jumping off the cliff a little bit, and we're both working very hard at it. And so what's it like for you to be in the startup phase with this business and all the uncertainty that comes with that and the hard work and what's that like for you? And how has your work in the event, or the Tony Robbins training or the Mankind project, how does that support you in what we're doing?

Many layered. Question. Well, to start, it's gratifying and terrifying. It feels like starting a business or launching a business again kind of from the ground up is a little terrifying because it's the, you know, there's always something that I don't know. There's always something I need to figure out. You know, in some ways that's. That's scary. And in some ways I like figuring things out and I like solving problems. So there's. There's joy in that. It's kind of came about because I wanted to. To serve in a different way. You know, all of this growth work that I've done, I was wanting to use it in a way that, you know, would serve people, would serve others, would serve my friends and family better. You know, I considered a year or two ago even going back and becoming a therapist or maybe getting a PhD or some way of, you know, the way that I knew to serve and to do this work. And, you know, it became clear pretty quickly that having, you know, being the parent I want to be didn't really. Didn't really sit with those plans, didn't really make sense. And an entrepreneur, an entrepreneurial lifestyle would. Could do that. You know, assuming everything worked, could do that in a way that the, you know, the business serves. And that is, you know, that's what it feels like I'm doing. And we're building, you know, it's. It's a business, but yes, it is in the service of. It is in the service of others. And, you know, that's gratifying and enlivening and feel like in all the ways I feel like growing and I'm happy to serve is wrapped up in this business. And as the aim of this business is helping others and hopefully having a livelihood that supports that for me and my daughter.

That'S great.

And, you know, that's why I'm a big fan of the entrepreneurial lifestyle.

It just gives us more.

I mean, it's hard work. Anybody that thinks it's not hard work is kidding themselves. It's incredibly hard work. And in the early years of any business or entrepreneurial career, sometimes you're going to be working a lot more than if you had a regular job. But if you're on the right track over time you can learn how to get your business successful and then learn how to become a business owner and create a reasonable lifestyle and health, life, good life, work, balance. But actually you're doing that already because I know you're really dedicated to your time with your daughter and you are finding a way to balance those things and as am I, dedicated to my relationship with my partner Sophie, and to taking care of myself and the meditation and physical exercise and workout and health and all that. So I think we're both doing a pretty good job of staying balanced while we're in this startup phase with a new business. But it does take a lot of work. But it's also very exciting. And what you mentioned, you know, that it is about serving, I think is really the key for me and as I've explored and as I'm working to model other successful entrepreneurs, the ones at least that I'm really attracted to and that are super successful, really have that spirit. It's all about service. The benefits come along and the success comes along, but really as a result of, or almost a side benefit of really being in that space of service. And for me, I picked up on something during early on in my prison years. I was very involved in 12 step work just to deal with my own substance abuse issues at the time. And my early sponsor made it very clear to me that if I really wanted this to work for me, become someone who made it available to others. And over the time I've extrapolated that into a little talk I give sometime. It's called being at source. And we've all been trained to be consumers and that's one way to live our lives. And we're all going to be consumers on some level or another. But to at least at some point of our life to become creators who are making things available to others, to be at source for other people and providing something of value to other people is really seems to be one of the deepest pools and reservoirs of potential meaning and purpose in life. And it sounds like you've tapped into that as well.

Yeah, definitely gives me energy and purpose and fulfillment. Yeah, definitely.

Yeah. So we're kind of nearing the end of our time here today and this has really been great talking through these areas of your life and learning more about how you're approaching things and how the work you've done has benefited you and so forth. I'm wondering if you have a particular.

Particular.

Book or movie or something like that that you'd like to plug a bit. Not your own for commercial purposes, but just something that has gotten you excited or you think is really meaningful or somebody's work you would recommend people taking a look at or just anything you have even found particularly entertaining of late.

Man, there's a list. I feel like I'm giant consumer of all of this, so even actually have to make a living. I feel like I just sit around, read and listen to podcasts all day.

Wow.

Books. I feel like I'd have a list. I don't even know where to start.

Well, which one stands out? Just what comes first?

Either book or podcast. Something that's, you know, the one I.

Started, the one I started delving into recently was the. Was the. The Rogan podcast with all of his interviews. I mean, the one I was listening to over breakfast was with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. But the ones that, you know, I just consumed, you know, six hours straight of podcasts was the. The Peters episode and I think Jonathan Haidt episode about education and, you know, masculinity and femininity and all of kind of all of the things that are up right now, a different version of, you know, what's going on with the MeToo movement and toxic masculinity and, you know, feminism and also education and. And it was so much wrapped into just a couple of episodes. That was a lot to take in and it was so gratifying.

Well, that's a great recommendation. And not that Joe Rogan needs any promotion from us. He's doing quite well, I think, but happy to promote his work anyway. And hopefully one day maybe he'll hear the Radical Responsibility podcast and want to return the favor. But yeah, he gets some great guests on there. He's a great interviewer. And Jonathan Haidt and Jordan Peterson, both a little controversial in some ways, but very interesting people to listen to. And yeah, I think it's fascinating work. I know that you've been following Mark Manson's work as well, and even Pagan and others.

Yeah, Tony Robbins.

Tony Robbins. And did you pick up the man up book?

I did, I did. I have not finished that one yet.

But yes, very, very, very interesting book. And it is not as, you know.

As NFL football ish as the title.

Sounds, but it's really about this very same work.

And you did mention something, you know, about in the Joe Rogan interviews where they were Covering some of this territory of, you know, the MeToo movement and this whole cultural wave that we're going through right now. And. And the concerns about toxic masculinity, which have really had a lot of negative impact on our world. And so that, for me, harkens back to your work with the Mankind Project, which I'm very grateful to have recently gotten involved in myself. I've been recommending people to the Mankind Project for a long time. In fact, I may have steered you there, I can't remember. Just because I knew about it and trusted it and knew it would be a good resource for men to continue their work. And I was finally able to do a. The initial kind of weekend training, the new warrior training adventure, back in December. And it was fabulous. And went to my first I group or integration group last night. So very happy to be in that work. But, you know, people might hear the term Mankind Project or even men's groups or the men's movement. You know, wonder what that's about. But it's very much about, at least, and I'll let you talk about it, but it is dealing with these issues of toxic masculinity and not continuing to act out of our shadow, but finding a healthy way to show up in the world, but still showing up as men trying to find a healthy masculinity. So I'm curious if you'd have any more to say about that.

Yeah, it's also very kind of controversial topic. I mean, the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the term toxic masculinity is it's almost defensive. It's like, masculinity is not toxic. Masculinity is not. Is not evil or broken or aggressive or all of those, you know, kind of negative traits that get put on it, you know, as a judgment. You know, men are not evil. Men are not causing all the harm in the world. So there's a kind of defensiveness that comes up first for me. You know, sure, there's a, you know, use the term shadow. But when I think of, you know, the. The behaviors that are causing the most harm, you know, in a psychological perspective, it's like, those are not. Those are not adults. Those are. Those are children doing, you know, childish things. You know, boys. You know, it's not. It's like. It feels like toxic boyhood. It's like boys that have yet to become men and haven't learned what masculinity is and what an adult man is and what an adult man does. You know, it's about Service, and it's about, you know, strength in a way of safety. And, you know, it's about getting things done, but in a way that is for the good of mankind. You know, service, you know, with a capital S. One of the things, you know, one of the contexts around, you know, masculinity and femininity that I like the best is that, you know, it's a masculine move to create the safe space so that women can work their magic. You know, women is the transforming energy and men is the, like, stabilizing, grounding, safe energy. And I think that plays out in everything in relationship and, you know, hopefully in the rest of life, so.

Well, I'm glad you jumped right into.

That and didn't shy away from the controversies involved, because on this Radical Responsibility.

Podcast, we are not going to shy.

Away from any of these controversies. And, you know, I think it is really important as well. When I hear the term toxic masculinity, I get a little bit defensive and I don't really like the term. I understand some of what it's pointing to, and I agree with you. This is unformed. This is chronologically adult men who are still acting out of their. Their child mind and all the shadow stuff. As we know. The book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover is a great book within the men's movement, and it talks there about the kind of boyhood versions of these masculine archetypes and then how you develop into the healthy male version of those and where it goes off track and you end up with, instead of getting into being a tyrant or a bully and various things like that, or being Don Juan Lothario or being abusive around sexuality or the use of intimacy and love and things like that. So, yeah, so, you know, because a lot of what in the current, you know, political climate, and, you know, again, to be transparent, I've been on the left my whole life. A progressive, a lefty. I was pretty radical back in my college days in the anti Vietnam War movement era. But the more what I would think of as a further left area of our political spectrum these days, you know, they'll use the term toxic masculinity. And they're really just kind of talking about masculinity, if they're honest. You know, in many ways, they're just really saying masculinity is dangerous. We don't like it. It's, you know, and really generalizing it. And then, you know, I've even heard many, you know, people speaking publicly out of that space and that mindset of really associating every Socio, political, cultural, environmental problem, we have that the root cause of that is men. And so as a man, that obviously makes me a little defensive, but at the same time, I'm open to, okay, what is our part in that? But I think, you know, I think if we're really going to. Sometimes part of my brain says that we're going to talk about toxic masculinity, we should be willing to talk about toxic femininity as well, because, you know, both genders have their shadow versions. And of course, today, even what you were saying about these classic roles of the deep masculine and the deep feminine feminine, which we can find throughout human mythology in all cultures throughout time, and articulated in some interesting ways in Carl Jung's work and Joseph Campbell's work and others, that even talking about those politically, a lot of people don't even want to hear that today, Right? Just the idea that there is even any identifiable deep masculine or deep feminine for a lot of people, they would rather deconstruct all of that. And so I think there's. And you know, of course, Jordan Peterson's a big voice out in that controversy and so forth. So that is something we're going to address on this podcast, just so our listeners know that and explore that and get as many different viewpoints as we can. I hope to get some guests on.

Here that come from that.

More what is now, I would say the further left end of the political spectrum. But. And I hope to get, if I can get so lucky as to get Jordan Peterson on here for an episode, we'll do that. But it is an area we're going to explore. And it's not that I certainly don't want to assert that I have any of the final answers, but my biggest concern is that we keep the conversation going, because what I experience, the frustrations I experience from some sectors, really on the left and the right, is they want to prevent the conversation from happening and use various forms of intimidation and shaming to shut down the conversation. So this podcast is going to be very much about having that open conversation just for the sake of continuing to grow as humanity, as our collective destiny as human beings. So I'm really glad that you were willing to address that. I think the last thing here is I want to bring up a particular creative project of yours that I know a little bit about. You've mentioned it in passing to me several times, but I believe you're working on a photographic book and that it has to do with tattoos, and I think it also has to do with people who identify as being transgendered. So could you say a little something about that?

Sure. Those are actually two different projects sometimes overlap. Yeah. So the first one is. Yeah, a book I feel like I've been working on for. It's been over 10 years. It's a book about first tattoos, but in the context of, you know, skin and our bodies as being a canvas for art, you know, so it's the, you know, using. Using your body for self expression, using your body for, you know, in some cases, self empowerment and telling your own story, and sometimes to have no story just because you want. You want to be covered, you know, So I photograph, you know, the. The body and the pieces as artwork in a way to show how. Where it is on the body, to beautify it. You know, in some cases there are portraits, and in some cases there's faces. But it's not about that so much in this case. And my hope, as soon as I continue to. Well, I will commit to having this book out by the holiday season in some shape or form. And a gallery show.

That's correct. Now, that's the Radical Responsibility spirit there. So you're saying you will have it out this year in 2019, before the holiday season.

Great.

Meaning it needs to be finished by summertime so I can get it printed and published properly.

All right, great. So that's a closer goal. You're going to have it finished by. You're going to have it ready to go into production by sometime this summer. Great. So we're going to hold you to that here on the Radical Responsibility podcast.

Good, good. The more people that could do that, the better. This has been a long labor of love, and my attention to detail and perfection often gets in the way of this one. Yeah.

So you mentioned there were two possible books there.

The second one at the moment is it's going to be a gallery show. It's. I think, actually we slated it to go up in Brooklyn. I believe it was the first week of May. I'll have to come back to get final dates. It'll be a gallery show, and it started out as a program, as a project, photographing mostly drag kings. You know, women, typically women who dress up as men, although it could be someone who's transgender dressing up as men. It could be someone who's essentially any. Any identifying factor even. You know, it doesn't matter. Like, a woman could be a drag queen, a man could be a drag king. It just depends on how they want to present themselves in the show.

You mentioned drag kids.

Is that what you Said.

So this is mostly younger people.

Sorry, sorry. Drag kings.

Oh, you said drag kings.

I'm sorry.

Right, Yep. That's all right. So as opposed to queens who get a lot of, you know, they've actually in the media in the last probably five to 10 years, a lot of prestige and a lot of play because they are glamorous and they're very showy.

Has her. Her own show, which is fascinating to watch, actually.

Most definitely. Most definitely. And someone in the. In the Brooklyn scene has actually won that show, I think, last season. So that's great. So essentially, this book is about kind of the same idea we talked about in the beginning. It's about taking what feels real unauthentic for those people and beautifying it. A lot of people discover themselves on stage, and I've not been bold enough to do a show. I've never put myself out that way. And I have a lot of respect and admiration for the people that do and my friends that do. And it feels like they. They discover more and more about themselves every time they go out on stage and perform and they can experiment with themselves, you know, this identity, that identity, this way of showing up and, you know, kind of like the tattoo project and even the growth work, it's, you know, celebrating and beautifying, you know, in the way that I do who they are and what they stand for and what. What they're all about.

Great. So is there a website where people can find out, you know, keep track of your book coming out or the show that you're going to have in Brooklyn?

The show, when I get a final date, I will make that public. The book. Right now, the work for most of the work for that book is on my. My photographic website, which is ericukalevich.com I will spell because it's complicated. Eric. J-u k e l e v I c s.com and there's a button for illuminated ink and you can see the photographs there. Along with those photographs in the book, there will be quotes from everyone that I've photographed. Those are not on the website, but they will be in the book and in the show and part of the final project because it's about how they feel about the work and what it means to them.

Great. So erikukhelovich.com and we'll have that on our podcast website. We'll have next year bio.

We'll have your website so people will be able to find it there as well.

Well, this has been great, so thank you very much, Eric. And it's great to get this very first podcast in the can or something like that, as I used to be the expression or something. And so congratulations to both of us for doing this and really exciting. And I can't wait to get this episode on the air. I think people will find it very interesting and inspiring.

So thank you very much for your time today.

You're welcome. And offering. Offering the space for me. Thank you.

Great.

So.

And thank you to all of our listeners. So this was Eric Yukhelevich, and I am Fleet Maul. And you've been listening to the Radical.

Responsibility podcast and wish you all the very best.