Case Kenny: STOP Self Sabotaging Your Mindset Now! | TUH #089

Mindfulness, for me, it's energized me to have the most difficult conversations first and immediately. And my mantra is, speak up and get what you want or get what you need. There will always be something missing in our lives.

I think social media puts us in a horrible place.

It's very easy to find negative things that support a negative feeling. I call mindfulness intentional thinking. So often in our lives, we are not leading our thoughts, our thoughts are leading us just sitting down with the intention that can make all the difference, as simple as that sounds.

You know, before I walk into a room even to speak, I'll do some breath work. I'll say, what's the intention? And then I'll say, let me visualize the outcome. Is that being mindful?

Of course. In addition to visualize the outcome, if you could vocalize the outcome as well. Mindfulness is the practice of being present in how you feel. Mindfulness is two things. Mindfulness is listening to yourself, but it's also talking to yourself.

I think that having the capacity to self solve really gives you a lot of power. So how do you have this conversation with yourself?

The key question, of course, would be.

Hey, guys, welcome back to the ultimate human podcast. I'm your host, Gary Brca, human biologist, where we go down the road of everything anti aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. And today we're taking a great deviation into the world of mindfulness. And our guest today is Case Kenny. He's a local. Well, not originally from Miami, but he lives in Miami now, so we're nearly neighbors, right?

Nearly. Yeah, I'm. I'm local now. I can't claim to be a Miami.

I almost said that. I almost said Miami native, but I actually meant to live in Miami.

I'm way too pale to for someone to think that I'm from Miami.

Do you know what? That was so sad. People tell me the same thing. Like, people come visit me from, like, New York and Michigan and I'm like, how are you tanner than I am? And I'm like, I live in Miami.

Well, you probably know a thing or two about, you know, your skin and Too much. Yeah, you probably are aware of. I like.

I like First Light. Well, welcome to the podcast, man. I'm excited. I'm excited to have you on, you know, you'll hear me say all the time, if you watch a lot, a lot of my podcasts, which I'm sure you've watched all of them. Yeah, easily all of them. Yeah. I think some of the most influential people in the world. Impactful people in the world. Maybe not as influential, but the most impactful people have solved a problem in their life or they've been on a journey and, and out of that journey or from that problem or from that pain or creating that solution, you know, came there. The impact that they're making on the world. I mean. So I'm really curious how you went from business entrepreneur to an. A mindfulness influencer. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, I feel strongly about that as well. I think, you know, people with a story and context, even if it's a simple one, even if it's not going to the moon and back, those are the most impactful stories. And you know, I'm not saying my, my story is this crazy impactful one, but I think my journey has been that.

Oh, oh, you just sort of threw yourself into it and let it kind of unfold.

If anything, I would say I was always a self help cynicist or skeptic. Like who, like who are people to tell me what to do? Or I was like a lot of men, potentially a little like, what does manifestation mean? What does vibrate at a high frequency mean? Like what do, what are they talking about? Like, what does this mean? I was always like kind of averse to that and still am not averse to it. Still don't fully understand a lot of it. And I think that lack of understanding in my 20s I was like, not for me, introspection, not for me, these things, but just the act of sitting down and just being super practical about feelings, emotions, vulnerabilities, experiences, and then speaking to it, putting it in words finally instead of just having it be these amorphous things. It was life changing and fast forward. Eventually I left that job to do this full time. Started to create these guided journals which helped me turn some of those thoughts into actual formats for people. Wrote a book, started writing on Instagram and the rest is history. But it was basically just me pulling on this thread of interest in introspection.

Super cool. You said I used a lot of I statements. What do you mean by that?

Yeah, well, I literally, I, I feel this way. What happened in my life that made me feel this way? What should I do? What do I think? As opposed to what is the common thought process on this? Or what do they say about this? Or what did my parents say about that? So, you know, obviously it's introspection on a personal level. But I don't like, I still don't, I don't read a lot of self help books. I Don't really. I write a lot of self help books. I don't read a lot of selfish. If you talk to like my lit agent or authors, they're like, to be a great author you have to be a prolific reader. And I read a lot. I just don't read a lot of my sector because I really, I don't want to just regurgitate. And that's not just like a branding play, it's a truth play to me. Like the whole reason I set out on this was I felt like I was just borrowing expectations.

You know what's interesting is when I started my journey in the wellness space, it was because I had previously worked in, in life insurance, in the mortality space. And whenever I met a client, and I'm not a physician, I'm not licensed to practice medicine, so I can't, you know, make medical decisions. But whenever I would review a case on a client or talk to them about a, you know, problem autoimmune condition or problem with sleep or whatever that they were having, I would never ask them for any medical history for the same reason, because I didn't want to bring forward somebody else's opinion or bring forward some opinion that was in the document. You know, we used to call these anchor diagnoses, right? Like 10 years ago you got diagnosed with high blood pressure. You always will be the person with high blood pressure. Instead of starting and saying, well, you shouldn't have high blood pressure. You don't fit the parameters for somebody with high blood pressure. Let's figure out what's, what's going on. I mean, I like that what you said was, I don't read a lot in my industry because I, I think most people would find that kind of odd, right? But you know, if you're, if you're a motivational speaker, you read a lot about what other motivational speakers do and say and write about. But I agree with you that sometimes you're not going to find the answers to your future in somebody else's best.

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Yeah, well said. Yeah, I mean, I spend all day writing and I do read a lot. It's just my goal isn't to just say the same thing in a different way. And I'll tell you what's really interesting. So, like, the podcast is super simple. I am, I dilute things down in such a simple way that anyone can understand it, because it's what I understand. I consider myself to be a simple guy, but I get messages so often from clinical psychologists, highly credentialed and academic researchers in, in social science and all these things. And they'll say, case, I listen to your episode about xyz, you know, so interesting to hear you talk about that in those languages. What you were describing was xyz, anxiety disorder, blah, blah, blah, like actual thing. They're like, it was really cool to see how you arrived at these very academic and proven conclusions, but through the lens of ordinary language.

I love that.

That's a little pat on the back. Sure. But I think outside of me, it's not about me. It's about how we can all get to these truths through a mindful practice. Even if the mindful practice is as simple as sitting down and just sitting down and being mindful. Yeah, like, like I, I'm a big advocate for guided journaling that forces you to sit down. I call guided journaling intentional thinking. I call mindfulness intentional thinking. Keyword intentional. So often in our lives, of course, when it comes to anxiety and overthinking and just general day to day, we are not leading our thoughts. Our thoughts are leading us just sitting down with the intention prompt that can make all the difference, as simple as that sounds. And that's what I've always done and that's what I encourage people to do. And it's crazy how it can lead you to powerful, powerful truths that, yes, a therapist can help you with, which I absolutely recommend. But you can guide yourself to that place as well through practices like that.

And I think also allowing people to find their own way of being mindful. Like, for example, for me, something I do all the time. Like when you, when you walked in today, I was actually in a cold brunch. And sorry about that, because I should, I shouldn't have taken up your time for me to cold plunge, but I was in a cold plunge. But I, I have this little exercise that I go through. I'd love for you to give me your opinion on it. And I'll just sit quietly. I'll do five or ten really, really, really deep breaths, and then I set for me, what is my intention? Like, so we're going to be on the podcast today. And I took like 30 seconds or a minute, and I was like, what's my intention with the podcast? And I said, you know, my intention is value and to have a conversation I think my, my audience would want to have if they were sitting in the room with you. And then I do this little visualization technique where I actually visualize the outcome. Right. So I, I don't visualize the process of the podcast. I visualize the end of the podcast where we like, wow, that really went great. And, and I think the audience is really going to benefit from that. And you had a smile on your face. I had a smile on my face. So I, I do just a little visualization technique. And for me, just, that takes about three minutes, maybe four minutes to do that. I've found that when I do that simple little exercise before, like a big engagement, like, sometimes I'll do it before a big dinner meeting or before I go in and negotiate a contract or, you know, before I walk into a room even to speak. I'll. I'll, I'll do some breath work. I'll say, what's the intention for me to be on the stage today? I'll come, arrive at that intention, and then I'll say, let me visualize the outcome. Is that being mindful?

Of course. I, I would even say, in addition to visualize the outcome, if you could vocalize the outcome as well. Like everything you just described. Of course. Like, if we talk about, like, what is mindfulness? Like it. Mindfulness is one of those things where I don't think there's really a wrong definition of mindfulness.

Right.

Everyone has a different way of being mindful, which is fantastic. It's in the word, right, to be mindful, to be aware of. I'd say we mostly agree that mindfulness is the practice of being present in how you feel and you take a step further.

I like that.

And it's being honest with how you feel. It's being non judgmental of how you feel. There's an element of surrender to how you feel that's like the confines from, of a mindfulness practice. It is radical honesty. It is feelings on trial. It is all these things. Personally though, I don't think that that's enough. And this is where I get like really animated and excited and it's why I like write on the Internet is because I think so often we're like, well, mindfulness is just about being present and it's feel how you feel and, and mission accomplished. And I think, of course that is the crux of a life well lived, to first be honest with yourself. But it has to be followed by something. And I think it's something specific. If mindfulness is two things, I would say mindfulness is listening to yourself, but it's also talking to yourself. And I think we miss some of that sometimes. If you think about like your example was great because you gave an intention to how you want to think about yourself. Yeah, but I think a lot of times when we're doing, you know, meditations or simple mindful practices, it's okay, mind, take it from here. Just lead me where you want to go. And if you're into, as I'm sure you are into some of the studies on the subconscious mind and Michael Singer and some of those things is like, there's a lot of understanding that a lot of our thoughts, if not most of our thoughts, aren't don't originate with us, we're simply receiving them.

Right.

So if we're thinking about mindfulness as just being present in how we feel, we're missing half the battle. Which of course then it's deciding which is real, which should be paid attention to. And I think as you know, there's lots to to handle there. The most practical way to differentiate and decide is through learning to talk to yourself. For me, I find it most valuable in writing. That's what takes words and actually makes them real. And we can talk about guided journaling, but even for you, like visualize to vocalize, I think that's what like truly.

Give me an example of like visualize to vocalize. So like I'll do this right behind the stage, right before, you know, behind the curtain. There's, you know, 3,000 people, maybe 5,000 people. I spoke one time to 30,000 people. And I find the breathwork sort of Calms my catecholamines and centers me. And then I just say to myself, what's my intention when I walk out there? What is my intention for being on that stage? And then I set that intention. And then for me, it took away a lot of the fear of public speaking when I was able to visualize the audience receiving my message. Like, I literally think about people smiling or clapping or thanking me before it's even happened. And I don't know if it just took the fear away or if it instilled a lot of confidence on me, but I, I don't get the, the pre flight jitters anymore. And I walk out onto a stage and sometimes the words just come to me. And that's just in a public speaking realm. But I think a lot of people are, they think themselves into a place where they're actually afraid to communicate. If they're, if they're scared, they lash out in anger. Right, right. Instead of in embracing that fear, like, what am I afraid of? And then sort of facing it. So how do you have this conversation with yourself?

Yeah, well, I mean, the key question, of course would be like, why? Like, I feel a certain way. Step one, mind influence, President, how you feel? Why do I feel this way? What is the catalyst? And then from there it's like I, like, I am basically a creative writer for a living. I write. So I think a lot of it is creativity. Okay, we have the feeling, we have the catalyst. What do I decide to do with it? Like optimism, hope, it's all a decision. But how are decisions made real? Decisions are made real. Not to simplify optimism, but through the words that we choose. Like, words are how we communicate with other people. The words and apples. An apple, because we know what an apple looks like. It's the same way with like how we project hope for ourselves. So like, I also used to, like, I used to be a horrible public speaker. Deathly afraid of it. Would get the shakes and the yips.

Right up there with like deep water.

And my mind was, my mind would go blank. It was horrible. It was, it was debilitating. And you know, there's something to be said about getting reps in and just getting better at it. But for me, it's always like finding a mantra or something to repeat to myself. That I have chosen human language behind that just centers me. So for me, like usually, like for this, for example, it's like if I am nervous, I'm like, I am here to help. That's all I'm here to do. Help People who listen. That's all I'm here to do. There's no agenda behind. It's just like putting some language behind these things instead of just allowing them to be these amorphous thoughts. Like I pretty much write mantras on the Internet.

Yeah, I have some, we're going to read some.

Yeah. But it's like why, why do that? Why write quotes? And you know, for me it's some, some of them are very cheesy, some of them are very simple, some of them are overly simplified. But it's like there's something to be said about human language when it comes to expressions of thought. I think so much of like wellness and self help online has been therapy language to death in a bad way.

Totally agree with you.

And that's why like I'm like a golden retriever. Use like one syllable words and I will understand it. And I bet, I think that's what we need. So that, and there's many reasons why that go deeper than just like be simple language. But it's, it's relatable, it's not ostracizing and it takes away labels. So instead of being an anxious person, it's I have an anxious thought. It's like these things that just help us move past some of these constraints that I think, you know, make it more debilitating for us.

Yeah. You know, I love what you're saying because a lot of times it's hard to go on a journey by yourself. And you know, when people are alone and they feel a certain way, I think very often what they do is they go out and look for justification of why they feel the way they do and they go seek justification from their friends or from their co worker or from their spouse. So if they're in a bad mood and they want to blame it on somebody else, they go seek a, a confidant in that anger and it just actually makes the situation worse. Instead of like, what you're saying is be very present. Why do I feel this way? What can I do about it? You could actually handle this by yourself. I think it's kind of a metaphor for life that I don't always need to be looking outside of the resources I have within my own self. Yeah, I can, I can really solve this task on my own. And if I work, quote unquote, more mindful, more present, more aware of how I'm feeling, I could start this conversation with myself. I mean, feels like the world would be a lot better place.

Yeah. I mean we could talk all day. About, like social media and the, the proliferation of negativity and these things. It's, it's very easy to find negative things that support a negative feeling. If I'm feeling an anxious way, it's easy to find more things that fuel that anxiety. On Monday, for instance, when we were in a one day recession in the stock and the Middle east issues and presidential race, I was just overwhelmed. Anywhere I went, I felt just this overwhelming dread. It was everywhere. And that's not just because of whatever happened on Monday in the US but just in general. We always gravitate towards it and we can talk about social media, how it's a choice, but we really do have this capacity within us. Um, and I, I think, you know, for me, all of, all of this practice has taught me something really important, which is, you know, to not be judgmental of myself, which is. That's a nice little softball thing to throw out there. But I think what really helped me break through there was kind of recognizing my own hypocrisy in, in a good way, not in like a beat myself up way. And it's the way that like, I am judgmental of myself for things that I would never be judgmental of other people for. Not, not in the slightest. Like, I wrote this book that's bold of you a year and a half ago. And the reason I wanted to write it was because I found this study called the Beautiful Mess Effect, which I don't even know if it's a big study, but it's basically these researchers in 2018 in Germany that were examining the idea of vulnerability and why it is that we applaud vulnerability in other people, but we cringe at ourselves being vulnerable. Vulnerability meaning a variety of things. One, for one, being honest, open, emotional. For two, being a beginner, being silly, just being different, being weird, whatever it is. In general, we say, oh, I love a weird friend. I love a unique person. I love a real honest person. But then when we're like, well, I can't be a unique, weird, honest person, people will hate that. Why do we have that level of hypocrisy? The study was really interesting too. Just to make it practical, they basically filled this room with two groups of people. One group of people doing vulnerable things. Another group of people just say vulnerable things.

Like, what's that?

Vulnerable things. So the first example was the. They said, hey, Gary, you're gonna sing this song in front of 30 people. You've never heard the song. Here's the lyrics. I want you to sing it. And they're like. And they're like, oh, by the way, before you do that, how do you think it's gonna be interpreted? And every person, of course, said, oh, it's gonna be horrible. They're gonna think I'm an idiot. They're not gonna respect it. I tried nothing. Right before they sang, they also had the other group, they said, hey, this person's gonna sing a song. What do you think? They all said, oh, that's courageous. Like, good for them. Like, I could never do that. That's, like, amazing that they would do that. They did study like that. They did any other studies, too, where they had someone do a vulnerable act, asking for help, admitting a mistake. They had people, like, kind of showcase their bodies in a vulnerable way. And every time they surveyed the people doing it and the people judging, and every time the per. The people that were doing the vulnerable act said that it would not be well received, people would hate them, they would judge them. Vulnerability is bad. So on and so forth. And every time the people on the judging end, they said, no, that was amazing. Like, these are good things anyway. Just showing the.

Yeah, no discrepancy between. It shouldn't be overlooked. That's. That's amazing.

It's a very simple thing.

Right.

But to me, it's just like we. We grasp onto these. These character attributes, these things, vulnerability being a broad one, but I think the most important one. And we hold ourselves to an entirely different, negative, unfair standard when we can point to the fact that we don't hold other people to it. In fact, it's the opposite. So I think there's a level of breakthrough that you could have when you recognize hypocrisy or at least just like unfair, unbalanced judgment. That I think could be a catalyst for a lot of these things that we're talking about.

I remember Tony Robbins used to talk about how you should talk to yourself, like internally talk to yourself. And we're very critical very often of ourselves. We're our own worst enemies very often. And I was. I was interested for how that kind of frequency and emotion actually affected your health. And there's hordes of clinical evidence now about certain emotional states actually being very detrimental for your health. We. I think we've known it for a long time, but I think now the evidence and the, you know, the capacity to measure it and demonstrate it is. Is really there. But he was saying that inner voice is. Is the most powerful voice. And I remember him using the example of saying, what if you started talking to yourself like a Friend. You know, if, if your friend was about to go out and embark on something really bold, like came to you and it was your best friend, and it's like, hey, I've never public spoken before, but I'm going to really try to have been invited to speak at this event. And I. I don't know what I'm going to say. I mean, do you think I should do it? You would be like, oh, you're going to crush it. Of course you should do it. You know, let's, let's rehearse it. But when it's your internal voice and it's you that's been invited to speak and it's your first time, you're like, I'm going to suck at this. This is never going to work out. But so you actually treat yourself worse than you would actually treat a third party.

And there was an interesting anecdote from the same study, too. They were like, well, why is this? Why. Why do we do exactly what you described? And they called it, it's tough to say, construal level. To construe, right, Construal level. When they basically found that at yourself you have a really low construal level. You're. You're very close to yourself and your experiences, right? You have every memory in the world under, under your belt that you could say, well, I failed this time. This was awkward. You have so many examples of things. But when you think about someone else's behavior, whether it's a friend or whether it's a stranger, there tends to be this difference in how you construe it from a broader perspective. And it's like, you know, you give them more positivity, more warmth, more. You assume more positive intention. So there's something to be said about, like, we are just, you know, you look at other people and you think like, oh, like highlight real. Or like, oh, good stuff. You think about yourself and you're like, low light, low light, low light. We just, we arm ourselves with all this negative talking about evidence. We got a lot of evidence. I could sit here and name a number of times that I've failed. And that's the first thing I think about when I think about doing something vulnerable versus someone else. You're like, well, you know, Gary's, you know, great guy. He'll probably succeed here. We, we give that benefit of the doubt, and it has something to do with what they call that construal level.

That's interesting.

And how, of course, we're closest to ourselves but what do we do with that? Like, what do we do with the closeness we have with ourselves? We could do one of two things. We can use it to, to negatively interpret our future or we could use it to, to create evidence. Let me talk to anyone in the wellness space and you talk about like confidence and self esteem and self doubt, eventually you're going to return to the idea of creating evidence to support positive belief systems. So what do you do with all the evidence you have? Does it hold you back or does it fuel future attempts? I mean, again, it's a choice.

And you know what's often true about people especially that have the anxiousness or anxiety, that are more prone to that. And I believe that there's a genetic component to that, is that they have a tendency to gravitate towards the worst possible outcome. So they consider a scenario. They gravitate towards the worst possible outcome, especially when they ruminate at night and they'll ruminate on their thoughts. They'll gravitate towards the worst possible outcome. And then they wake up. Their first thought is about something that happened in the past. So already the past is being drugged forward into their present. They kind of repeat the same cycle. So for somebody that's listening to this and you know, I like I talked about my little exercise that I do. I don't think it's something that I could teach. It's just something I kind of do myself. And I found it that it works very, very well, especially in stressful situations like before a big talk or a big meeting or something. But where's a, where's a baseline level for somebody to get started on their mindfulness journey? Like what kind of practices should they.

Yeah.

Engage?

Well, we talk about guided journaling because I mean, that's an area where I'm not afraid to like really step up and, and you know, kind of advocate for it. I mean, writing things down. I'm sure you, you have aware of the mind and body connection when we do some of these things. But it's like, why, why write things down in general? Like there's logical components and then there's like the deeper component. The first would be like, you write important things down. Like if you have a to do list, you write it down. I love a good T chart, pros and cons. Like if I have a big decision to make. I remember when I was quitting my job, working through relationships, I was like, I need to see this. I need, I need to write it down. And I think for me, and again, I'm Not a scientist, but for me, I think about, like, the brain. Like, the brain is really good at retaining information. That's what. It works over time. That's perhaps that's why you're overthinking a lot of things, running what ifs, ruminating all these things. It's really good at retaining. But if you allow your brain just to retain. Like, when are you ever focused on processing these things? I've just found when it comes to journaling, writing a thought down, you're finally freeing your brain up to actually work on that issue instead of just retaining it. So for one, it's. It's a small thing, but it like freezes a thought. And now you see it and now you work, can work through it. And not just that. It's like how we opened. Like I always call journaling intentional thinking. For you've got. Call it 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes. However long you journal now, you have this opportunity to actually work through one thing. I think journaling in general is great, and I think it's hot right now. People, people, cold plunge, red light, therapy, journal.

Oh, journals. Journaling's huge part of the thing.

I think there's a level to journaling, and I'll give you an example too. I see a lot of people. I think journaling of any kind is tremendous. Of course, I would say it's never a wasted effort, but I see a lot of people, they'll wake up, they do their, you know, their 5:00am routines, and they'll. They'll do. I'm grateful for three things, and it's, you know, friends, family, health, things like that. I think a lot of the times it gets a little performative, though. It's like, yeah, you said you're grateful for those things, but you do feel grateful. Like you actually feel on a deep level that you're grateful for these things. Well, maybe not. How can you actually get a visceral feeling from a journaling practice? Take like, gratitude, for instance. One of the prompts that I do these journaling sessions for people, I take them through. It's derived from Thich Nhat Hanh, who's a Vietnamese peace activist monk. He has a quote called the non toothache quote, where he says that when we're having a toothache, we know that not having a toothache is a wonderful thing, yet when we don't have a toothache, we're still not happy, basically saying in very simple ways that not having a toothache is fantastic. But we don't appreciate that until we have a Toothache, right?

So like, it's like you could always find something to be grateful for.

You can, but the way to be grateful is to immerse yourself in the opposite of that. So like, the prompt that I have people to do is I say, okay, think about something recently in your life that was debilitating in a sense. You're a singer, you had strep throat, you couldn't sing, horrible. You're an athlete, you broke your leg, you couldn't work out for six months, you've gone through a breakup recently, you couldn't get out of bed. And now you're a month later, a couple months later, you're free from that. You've evolved from that. In this moment, you can literally produce gratitude for yourself by going back to that debilitating moment and say, I'm grateful to not. And then describe that that is the source of gratitude comes from contrast. Right?

Do not feel like an injured athlete.

Do not describe. Immerse yourself in what it was and that you no longer have. That is to me, you can't help but be grateful for that. Like, I was sick about two weeks ago and it, it sucked. I just didn't, I had head fog. I didn't feel like I could write. It was horrible.

Yeah.

So I could sit here right now. So I'm grateful to not have that so and so forth. Just like simple contrast driven journaling prompts like that, that really force you to actually get into the feeling you're trying to conjure up, whether it's a feeling of gratitude, whether it's a feeling of clarity, whatever it may be. I think to your question, I think that is immensely powerful. Not only does it give you room to think intentionally, but it's also just a moment of presence within that feeling. And you're using human language behind it. Right. You're not, you're not forced to use therapy language or say, I'm going to avoid an attachment styles. You're. You use human language and you write these things down.

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Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. Dude, I love that. You know, I think that when people say all the time, you know, when I'm on social media, there'll be folks talking about, you know, wake up in gratitude, but nobody actually tells you how to summon gratitude. Yeah, I mean, of course you could look around and say, got a beautiful family. I have a nice car. I have a career that I'm not upset with. But, you know, using that, what you were just saying is to go back. I think people find very often their purpose in their pain. And sometimes if you, if you actually keep going back to your pain and pulling it into something that makes you feel gratitude.

Yes.

It actually, in my opinion, I mean, this is epiphany. It just came to me and I should trademark this, but I mean, you could find your purpose, right? Because you keep going back to your pain and going. I got beyond it doing this, and now all of a sudden you're like, for me, my. I know that my purpose is in the wellness space because I gave 20 years of my life to the wrong industry. And when I woke up one day and was like, what am I doing? Predicting death? And not. I'm not. I'm not impacting any lives. I'm enriching the balance sheet of an insurance company or a company. And I have all of this knowledge that could be used for good. And there's human beings on the other side of the spreadsheet. Why am I writing reports saying how long people are going to live, how soon they're going to die? And when I made that switch, I know if you didn't know about me, they're like, wow, wouldn't have come on the podcast if I'd known that. So anyway, y', all, can we just cut. But my whole point is that, you know, that journey, I am so grateful for where I am now. I'm telling you, not a day goes by I tell people all the time, like, I feel like I live somebody else's life.

Yeah.

Like I'm waiting for somebody to come in and throw me out of this condo and be like, this isn't your place. And I'll be like, you know what? I knew it was over. Let me grab my shit, you know? But I'm so grateful because of how that made me feel.

Yeah, well, I mean, there's so much there I love. I love that so much, because thinking about how I think about mindfulness and life, I think it's. It's all about the opposites, and it's all about the contrast. Like, we could sit here and talk about how, you know. You only know what love or what happiness is because you've experienced the contrast of that. Of course. Like, if you've only known love and only known happiness, do you really have a definition of that thing? Well, probably not. You needed the opposite of it. You needed a struggle. And I sometimes don't like to go there. It's a little pandering, but there is power in examining contrast, specifically in journaling. Like, I'll give you another example, if you don't mind, to really drive. Drive home the point. Like, we could do the gratitude exercise, which is taking that pain and bringing it back into the present and then celebrating the fact that you're free of that or evolved through it or healed through it in some way. A lot of the journal prompts that I encourage people, and I take these through athletes and corporate groups and people from all different walks of life, and they all center around contrast and opposites. Like, for instance, like, one of the prompts that I encourage people to do is we're all trying to figure out who we are, right? And a lot of prompts be like, who do you want to be? Describe who you want to be. I'm like, I don't feel that. That's a powerful exercise. Why don't we describe who we don't want to be? Like, let's do the opposite. So I have this journal exercise where you describe your enemy, which would be the opposite of you. Who. You. Who, what you stand for, what you're willing to do, all these things. And for me, I just found that that clicks. You work through the opposite of these things. It clicks. Another question we're all trying to figure out in life is, what is the purpose of my life? Such a important but difficult question. Because we end up doing what we do when we're young and even when we're old, which is we borrow other people's purpose and say, well, that'll be mine, because they look happy and wealthy, so that'll be mined. Mine.

Yeah, you borrow other people's purpose.

You. You borrow you copy and paste, you rush, you do these things, and it doesn't make us bad people. We're always looking to be inspired. But how can we be more truthful? What would the opposite of that be? So I encourage people to say, what don't I want to regret? Regret is one of those feelings that sounds like a very simple question.

Yeah.

Regret is one of those feelings, though, that I really like to examine in written form. Because think of all the emotions that you might borrow or the attributes that you might borrow from other people. You might be jealous of someone, envious of someone. You might want their success, their happiness, their confidence. You don't borrow regret like you don't borrow someone else's regret. Regret is one of those things, like, I either regret something or I don't.

Right.

And I think examining your life's truth and clarity and these things through the lens of something that you say, I don't want to regret, and you find words to describe what that regret would be. I think there's a level of truth that you get from a prompt like that. Instead of, I don't want to regret.

What would be an example? I don't want to regret.

Usually it's the opposite, not doing something right. So for me, you know, I don't want to regret. You know, I used to be.

Not trying to start my own business.

Yeah. And I used to be like a commitment phobe in relationships. I was like, I don't want to regret, you know, not at least trying to be vulnerable and open in a relationship. Like, things like that. Whatever. Whatever's on your heart.

I really like that.

But it's like, yeah, it's working through these things through the opposite. And I think that's perhaps a lens that some people don't consider because you're so focused on forward, forward. And so let's. Let's go revisit something, pull it back, or think about regret, things like that.

I think, you know, the more we work on ourselves, I said this to group of folks the other day that. And I don't profess to be anywhere near a mindfulness coach, but, you know, sometimes when I'm talking about health and wellness, people ask me questions related to mindfulness or mood or emotional state or what have you. And somebody was telling me that someone raised their hand and said that they just felt kind of lost. They weren't in a particularly bad relationship and they weren't in a particularly bad career, but they just felt unfulfilled. But they were unfulfilled and they weren't unfulfilled for a reason. Because she said, it's not like there's something magnanimous that I want to do and I'm being held back from doing it. I just don't know what it is that I want to do. I just don't know that I want. I know that I don't want to keep doing what I'm doing now. And I was like, well, as complicated as that sounds, you know, my advice was just turned inward on yourself. And I wish I actually had this podcast because I would have referred her to it, but I said, just turn inward on yourself. Maybe just start paying attention to yourself and start treating yourself really well. And by treating yourself really well, maybe you, you know, for the next 30 days, you give up alcohol, you. You focus on your sleep, you stay consistent with your exercise, and you say, I'm just not gonna eat processed foods.

Sure.

And so throw a little self love your way.

Yeah.

And then I believe that whatever it is that you are missing that you can't identify, it might reveal itself to you. You know, my. My father used to say, life is what happens to you when you're on your way to doing something else. And I. It was like the. My favorite definition of life that I've ever heard. And he was just a salty old Navy captain, you know, not a man of many words. And what was cool was, you know, when he said that. Said it to me when I was really young. But I remember it now and it's true. Like, life is what happens to you when you're on your way to doing something else. And I think that having the capacity to self solve.

Yeah.

Really gives you a lot of power.

And we have that ability to self solve. That's like what I try to inspire people to realize. Like, normal, regular guy, not a therapist. I don't do coaching. I really don't have anything to sell other than a book. I really, truly don't. So you can buy the book.

The opposite of a really good influencer, dude, you gotta have a coaching program at least. You got a book.

I got a book. I saw a lot of copies of my book.

Okay, good.

But we have this ability through this introspection. It's not a silver bullet, of course. And I recommend therapy and I recommend, you know, things way more advanced than just sitting and being with your feelings. But we do have, we do have feelings. We do have this capacity. And I also think, you know, there will always be something missing in our lives. I think we'll always be able to find, put our finger on something, that there's a moreness or a better version. We could always do that. There's always a comparison.

Social media puts us in a hard place.

The. The real reason that we do this comparison and, and longing. I think there's some comfort. I find comfort in it, in realizing that, you know, life, life is life and we have this ability to have everything we want in life. I really do believe that we can. But it's not always. It's not going to be like a big pile of everything we want. Like, just in one moment, like, greatness comes in and out of our lives. Like, we might have the best health and body of our lives at one point and then we all. But we don't have our soulmate at the same time. And then we might find our soulmate and we might like, lose some of our. Our fitness a little bit or our wealth and financial security comes and goes. Like, just because those things aren't all at once doesn't mean we're not living a good life. Doesn't mean we're falling short of our potential. Like, yes, I want to live a life where I have family, wealth, health, success, impact all at once. But, like, there's something to be said about giving yourself a little bit of grace on that linear line of picking those things up one by one and bringing them with you to the next instead of putting this insane pressure on yourself to have it here and now. And then your point about social media, to assume that you see someone on social media and they're hot or successful or funny or confident and assuming they've got everything, they've got it all figured out. Look at them. Look at them.

Yeah.

Like, it's.

We do.

We don't do it so easily. And it's weird also too, how we, like, we will evolve. Oh, a hot person is also a really good person, is also a wealthy person, is also a successful person, is also a confident person. We take individual traits and blow them up to all these other traits. Whereas I know a lot of hot, very insecure, not wealthy people. Yeah, I know a lot of wealthy people who aren't hot, who aren't confident. You could just go any direction with it. Right.

Literally today I was on a phone with a client. So funny that you said that because it's making me laugh. He's actually a very, very famous actor and director. And I get on the phone with him, like, you know, of all the movies you've done and everything, we start talking and I, and I always ask him what their goals are, you know, from the outset. And he goes, well, when I was, when I was broke, I was really fit, so I was like broken fit. And now he goes, I'm, I'm rich, but I'm fat, so I'm rich and fat.

And he's like, exactly, exactly.

Been broken fit or rich and fat, and I don't know which one I like more than the other. And I started laughing and I go, so I guess your goal is to be rich and fit. He goes, yeah, that's great.

The Venn diagram. He wants to overlap right there.

Yeah. It's like the hot crazy chart or any of those things, right? Yeah, but it was, it's just so funny because that was literally a conversation I just had a few, few hours ago. And I think that, you know, mindfulness and being aware and being present, even if it's not something that, you know you're doing constantly, at least you know, in the morning to wake up that way kind of get in touch with yourself and sets. It sets a better tone, you know, for, for the rest of your entire day. It's like when I cold plunge in the morning, feel amazing. Yeah. And I'm, I haven't started journaling. Practice. Should I, Should I start journaling?

Yes. Okay.

Not just because you sell a journal, but.

No, no.

Because you don't even sell it anymore.

No, I do. I sell the journals. I say, buy my journal. Buy someone else's journal. It doesn't come up with your own prompts. Like, there's so many different types of journaling. There's bullet journaling, stream of consciousness journaling. There's guided journaling. Yeah, it's all different types. I, I always just think it comes down to the power of the question.

How does yours work? Is it like a page divided up, met a client? And I'm, I'm not a physician. I'm not licensed to practice medicine, so I can't, you know, make medical decisions. But whenever I would review a case on a client or talk to them about a, you know, problem autoimmune condition or problem with sleep or whatever that they were having, I would never ask them for any medical history for the same reason, because I didn't want to bring forward.

Yeah. So I've got a couple focused on different areas of life, from overthinking to general clarity. But usually it's a couple warm up questions like intention, setting, and then it's one big deep question that should take up most of your time, 20 minutes max. But, you know, it's like warming up a little bit, getting in the right headspace. But whether it's my journal or someone else's journal, it's about the power of the question. That's why, like a lot of journals that do the same questions every day, I think are good as like a kind of, you know, just like mobility and stretching. Where is the, the, the powerful question, the question that makes uncomfortable. Right, the, the, the gratitude question, the question that draws you into something uncomfortable. I think the danger of. There's no, no danger. The, the potential downside of kind of performative journaling mindfulness is that it just reinforces things we're not here to reinforce. We're here to break through the contrast, to come up with new evolutions, new inventions, things like that. And if you're only asking yourself the same question and you're repeating, I'm grateful.

For health, wealth and family, somebody else's opinion or bring forward some opinion that was in the document. You know, we used to call these anchor diagnoses. Right. Like 10 years ago, you got diagnosed with high blood pressure. You always will be the person with high blood pressure. Instead of starting and saying, well, you shouldn't have high blood pressure. You know, 50 parameters for somebody with high blood pressure. Let's figure out what's, what's going on. I mean, how are we going to.

Get to the next level? Yeah, we have to be willing to get really uncomfortable and reinvent ourselves and burn the bridges and like, do some dramatic things. Like, I love mindfulness as a soft, vulnerable little butterfly, but I also like it as the Kool Aid man running through the wall. Like, I think there's an element to mindfulness that is, that is action oriented. Of course, you know, mindfulness on its own, in a vacuum, listening to yourself, talking to yourself, immensely helpful. But if it's not coupled with action.

Yeah, I totally.

What are we doing here?

And I think it's a metaphor for life because you know what, there was a business book written years ago and I'm not sure I would even recommend this. I like that what you said was, I don't read a lot in my industry because I, I've, I think most people would find that kind of odd. Right. But you know, if you're, if you're a motivational speaker, you read a lot about what other motivational speakers do and say and write about. But I agree with you that sometimes you're not going to find the answers to your future in somebody else's past because of the basic premise was this. It was called put the moose on the table. And it was essentially that the greatest businesses, partnerships, relationships, marriages are those where you put the hard things you shine the brightest light on. The hardest thing to talk about. Right. Because, you know, marriages are breaking up because, you know, one spouse, for example, doesn't get aroused or feel the sensation of libido, but the other spouse interprets that as they don't love me anymore. They're not attracted to me. So now there's a perversion in what's going on. One has a viewpoint here, the other one has a viewpoint over here, and you end up actually splitting up, not over the issue at hand.

So we've had so many amazing challenges this entire year that I decided that August we're going to take a break and it's just going to be the strongest August ever. And it's just going to be all about giveaways. I'm going to give away five more of the ultimate human swag boxes. These things are really cool. It says aging is the aggressive pursuit of comfort and.

But because of your lack ability to talk about the hard things. And I've really applied this to, to my business, you know, my, my partnerships and relationships. Like, if there's ever friction that I feel, it's the first thing that I talk about.

Yes.

Right. And, and it puts, it puts that to bed because I've been some good partnerships. I've been great partnerships. I'm in average partnerships. I actually got, just got out of a terrible one from, from a business perspective. But in every case, I, I think that just like training for a sport, if you woke up every day and you actually asked yourself a hard question, and then it's only you, so you don't, you don't have to pose for anybody else. And then you really pondered on it and you sort of, as you call.

It, you get an ultimate human T shirt in your size. You get our ultimate human protein bars. You get a full month's worth of the perfect aminos, which I think you should be taking every morning. These are all eight of the essential amino acids. You get the Baja gold sea salt. One of my favorite ways to mineralize the body. You get the stir rod because sometimes these don't mix well with water. I'm also giving you a full echo.

Goat introspectively looked at that and, and responded that question. Then out in the outside world, it doesn't become as hard to handle conflict. Yeah. It's almost like you woke up and handled some conflict and now you should.

Look forward to it.

Yeah.

Honestly, I'm glad you brought that up, Stan.

Let's talk about that.

Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, realistic. I mean, it's like mindfulness is the catalyst for other things in life. It's not the end goal. Like, being mindful is an end goal. Mindfulness is to give you the clarity that makes you just brim with energy to do the thing that is a result of that clarity. Like, I talk a lot about communication. I written books on dating and relationships as well and how to apply these ideas. One of the ones that I come back to all the time, that for me really has changed myself. I used to be very passive. I would rather plus hydrogen water bottle.

And our ultimate human shaker. So these are going to go out to five people that just subscribe to the YouTube channel, and I'm going to pick five lucky winners and I'm going to send you an ultimate human swag box right to your front door.

Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast.

Watch and listen than speak.

I think most people are.

I would rather let a relationship die than break up with her. I used to be very passive in that sense. Mindfulness, for me, if we're putting practicality on the table, it's energized me to have the most difficult convers first and immediately. And for me, it's. It's all. It's all it's mantra ized for. It's a mantra for me anytime now. I'm like, shoot. Like, I, we need to talk about this because we're getting separated or this business deal is going to fall apart. Whatever. My mantra is, speak up and get what you want or get what you need. Get what you want. Get what you need. Anytime you speak up, you're going to get one of those two things. What you want, you speak up.

Yeah.

Well said. Yeah, I mean, I spend all day writing and I do read a lot. It's just, I'm. My goal isn't to just say the same thing in a different way. And I'll tell you what's really interesting. So, like, the podcast is super simple. I am, I. I dilute things down in such a simple way that anyone can understand it, because it's what I understand. I consider myself to be a simple guy, but I realize you're on the same page about the libido issue, for instance, and you solve it and you're great. Or you get what you need and you realize there's. There's a chasm between you. There is no resolving this. And you move on you get what you need, you get the freedom, the flexibility there. But either way, you win every single time. That informing that need and want and freedom is informed by mindfulness every single time.

Yeah.

So for me, it's like mindfulness, you know, outside of the way that, yes, it makes you feel more connected to yourself and vulnerability and truths and all these things. It informs action specific. And it could be as simple as a conversation, as an action or. I left my job, I worked at this company for eight, nine years. My whole identity was wrapped up in it. And finally I was like, I'm just gonna leave. I'm just gonna do this thing. Because I'd worked through it in that sense. So I think really a mindfulness is the catalyst for action. It's not the end goal, that the action is the goal.

Right. You know, we were talking about social media before we. We came in here, and I think most people are aware of the perils and the pitfalls of social media. Obviously that the lives you see on social media aren't necessarily the lives those people are living, but also the. The envy or the jealousy or, you know, the sensation that I'm missing out on something or I'm not as fulfilled as that person, obviously can have the opposite effect. And there's. Which is why one of the reasons why I said I really wanted you on the podcast, I told you this before this, because I was like, this guy deserves a voice. Because, you know, you already have a voice. I mean, like, I found like a little stray dog, you know, like, you have a very powerful voice. But I'm like, you really deserve a voice because there doesn't seem to be an angle to what you're doing other than to put great information out there and maybe have a repository for a little bit of a. More of a positive place. Like, even in my industry, there's a lot of mindset that I'm good because everybody else is bad. Right.

And.

And they spend all their time posting about how bad other people are instead of how good they are.

Yeah, right.

I feel like if you're going to be good, go be good. Go be great and tell people you just pointing out how crappy other people are doesn't make you better.

Yeah, two different schools of thought for sure. I mean, for me, I'm no angel. I'm trying to be the man I portray myself to be.

We all make mistakes, but if there's.

Any reason to just be kind and put out goodness and do good things and spread optimism is it comes back to you and I know that's foo foo and I. But I've seen it. I don't really ask for much. Buy my book, whatever. Don't buy my book. Who cares? Be inspired by myself. But any. I've been living that mentality for the last six years, and do you know how many crazy good things have happened to me as a result? Same year, the Today show came to me, Forbes came to me, Fortune came to me. All these deals, money, books, deal. All these things have come to me just because I just put it out there and didn't expect anything in return. And, you know, I think, you know, talk to me. In 30 years, I'm gonna. I'm gonna write a book about, you know, what happens when. When you give without expecting in return.

Oh, my God.

When you could be kind without it being a tactic or a strategy. And I'm gonna have specifics. We'll have some research in there too, and it'll be nice and meaty. But right now, this. At 36 in my life, yeah, being different than when I was 30, and I always had an angle to things. Being a sales guy, I always had an angle. I couldn't truly be your friend if I thought I can get money from you for an ad deal or whatever, whatever it was at the time that I was working. And now it's just like I've just totally transformed that. And I think there's an opportunity, whether it's on social media or as a person, or hopefully both of them, to just be real and kind and genuine. And then also it's like, I do think a lot about social media and how we always get fomo. In fact, I, like a year ago, I put up this story. I wanted to see something really specific. I said, what are you lacking in your life? Put it out to all my followers, maybe half a million at the time. What do you like in your life? And I got a ton of great answers, powerful answers, things that I give empathy for. People said, I'm lacking true, deep love. I'm lacking friendships. I'm lacking financial fulfillment, I'm lacking, you know, creative fulfillment, whatever. But I didn't really so much care about the answer. I wanted to see their profile. So I would go to the public profiles of the people answer, and I would look at it and I would compare what they said they lack with how they portray themselves. And, you know, it's a simple exercise. But you would. I would see a girl say, I lack, you know, deep friendships. I would look at her feed post after post of their post of her and her girls going out doing fun stuff, smiles everywhere.