Effortless Action: An Ancient Philosophy | Juli La Rocca & Joe Polish

We go through life allowing others to tell us what makes us happy. And we people please subconsciously we act in ways to gain the approval of others and to feel like we belong somewhere dissociative. Dan wants to fit in with all these high level entrepreneurs that were able to take their business beyond 3 million a year. So he tried and he forced and he burned out. And he had a hard time embracing the truth that he was chasing someone else's dream. That he actually didn't really love running a business. But he discovered the truth that he loves building them. And that's his flow, that's his Wu Wei. That's his truth is in building.

Dr. Juli LaRocca helps entrepreneurs cure anxiety and depression quickly so they can get back to their lives when self care of years of psychotherapy have failed. Dr. Hooley helps others achieve freedom from exhaustion of anxiety and depression that limits personal lives but also the bottom line. She's a board certified. She's board certified in family medicine and fellowship. Trained in integrative and holistic medicine. She combines mind body skills, coaching botanicals and plant medicine to get clients results fast. Dr. Hooley has a unique gift of listening and acceptance. Her diverse background allows her to easily connect and communicate at an unparalleled depth of understanding. She is an expert at creating a space of utmost safety and confidently for rapid transformation. Dr. Hooley believes the greatest gift you can give the world is your own self actualization. This is why she works solely with givers and entrepreneurs so they can have a greater impact in the world with the peace of mind to also enjoy it. Her title is Effortless Action. An ancient philosophy to cultivate efficiency, efficacy and ease in your business and life. Please help me welcome Dr. Juli LaRocca.

And I'm going to talk to you about struggle porn. We've all been a part of it and some of us still are. Struggle porn is really an addiction to pushing yourself that is rewarded by with praise and perpetuated by spreading the message that struggle is good. And sure, grinding away gets results. But in the next 10 minutes I can show you a three step process so you can achieve a state of flow where you can get more done by doing less. Where work no longer feels like work. And I want to invite you all to be fully present with me because you will experience what it's like to be to be in this flow state of effortless action. Effortless action in Mandarin is pronounced Wu Wei and I'm sorry if I'm butchering that pronunciation. Wu Wei comes from a 2,500-year-old Chinese philosophy of Taoism. And I call it living your truth. To practice effortless action is really to be like water. Water is flexible, flowing, allowing, yet it overcomes with immense strength, patience and persistence. To be like water, all you have to do is see. S E A, be still, number one. Number two, embrace. And number three, allow. And I'm going to invite you all to experience this with me right now. So let's dive right in. Go ahead, put your feet flat on the floor. Get comfortable. And if it feels right, I invite you to close your eyes. And as you close your eyes, just notice where your attention is. Don't move it. Just notice where. If it wants to stay there, let it stay there. If it wants to move, let it move. Don't resist it. Embrace it and see if it wants anything. If it needs anything, listen for answers. See if those wishes can be granted. It's okay if they can't. And if you feel the need to move the attention to somewhere that feels more in alignment, that simply feels right, then allow it to move and do what feels natural. And now determine what is the next ideal action for you to take. It doesn't have to be right now. Just become aware of what needs to happen next. And go ahead and open your eyes. If you've got a pen close by, write down anything that you experienced, but specifically the action that needs to happen next. And what you just experienced is truth. Truth happens moment to moment. It can be as simple as listening to the truth of what your body needs, like a stretch or a drink of water, or as deep as the truth that you're ready to leave a partnership that isn't right for you. When you are living in your truth, everything becomes effortless. And all you have to do is see, be still, embrace and allow. I'll tell you a story about Anxious Adam. And this is a true story of a client of mine. And it may sound very familiar to you. Anxious Adam is one of the most anxious people I've ever met. He has suffered a tremendous amount of childhood trauma and physical abuse. He's an addict and he uses uppers to get him going and downers to chill out at night until he learned to become still. In that stillness, Anxious Adam discovered a deeper truth about himself and how he naturally is meant to operate in this world. He began to see, be still, embrace and accept that his truth is really that. He's an artist. He thrives on the stage, as an actor and as a musician. Going against this core truth caused him an extreme amount of mental dis ease and harm and suffering.

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But then Adam embraced his truth, used it to heal and began to live in it fully. He started bringing art into his performance and everything he does, including his work. And his anxiety completely disappeared within a matter of weeks. He transformed into a confident and charismatic person. And now he is aligned. Adam. He does less, yet he gets more done. All because he asked a bigger question that I want you to ask yourself right now. If it feels good to close your eyes, you could do so. This is step one. Think about a time when you felt like a lined atomic, when things were effortless, when you felt the most alive, when you felt the most you. What were you doing during that time? That is effortless action. And in that is one of your truths. In that stillness is where we find these answers and these truths. And the next step is can you really embrace it? And, and I'll tell you about another one named Dissociated Dan. Also true story. He really struggled to embrace his truth. He's been an entrepreneur his whole life. He started multiple businesses from a young age and most recently has been running a seven figure business for several years. But Dissociated Dan is completely unmotivated. Also riddled with anxiety, bad enough to require medication and and has to take Adderall just to get work done because he enjoys none of it. And he doesn't even enjoy life. He doesn't necessarily feel the low lows, but he definitely can't feel the high highs. We go through life allowing others to tell us what makes us happy and we people please. Subconsciously we act in ways to gain the approval of others and to feel like we belong somewhere. Dissociative Dan wants to fit in with all these high level entrepreneurs that were able to take their business beyond 3 million a year. So he tried and he forced and he burned out. And he had a hard time embracing the truth that he was chasing someone else's dream, that he actually didn't really love running a business, but he discovered the truth that he loves building them. And that's his flow, that's his Wu Wei. That's his truth is in Building. When he finally embraced that truth, his anxiety went away. Same thing. Within a matter of weeks, his dissociation completely slipped away. He got off meds, and he became peaceful, daring Dan. Now for step two of embracing. If there's any resistance within you to a truth or something that you know within you is really true, imagine right now an alternate universe where you fully embrace that. Imagine yourself allowing that truth to flow through everything that you do. Let the feeling come over you completely and put a word to that feeling. Write it down, make it physical. And the third step is allowing. If there's still resistance, then you may be like a hesitant hoolie. That was me. I went to school for 13 years to become a family doctor, only to discover a different truth. And my truth is that I am a healer at a much deeper level than conventional and even integrative medicine can touch. I embrace that truth, but only until recently did I fully allow that truth to flow through me. And I finally stopped wasting precious time and energy by leaving traditional Western practice completely. You don't have to waste years of time or energy doing something that you're not meant to do, something that you're not happy doing. You see, there is no such thing as the pursuit of happiness. There is only doing things that allow happiness to flow through you. I'll say that again. There is no such thing as the pursuit of happiness. There is only allowing happiness to flow through you. And the third and final step in allowing is to make a declaration with a powerful phrase. And you can write this down. That phrase is, I give myself permission to. And you fill in the blank. I give myself permission to. When you give yourself permission, you're allowing, you're letting it flow. And then nothing feels like work. Show me some jazz hands. If you're feeling pretty good right now, if you're feeling some effortlessness. Okay, good, good. Take this energy into everything you do. Truth happens moment to moment. See S E A at all times. And life will be effortless. And when you're in this state, it creates an energy of authenticity and a charismatic power like we were just talking about. People can feel this energy. And they know when you have a mask, when your filter is so strong that they can't even see your face anymore, and they know when you are being real and when you were speaking truth. When you are in that flow, it immediately builds connection and trust. And I don't need to tell you how important trust is in marketing. Trust is influence. Trust is powerful. Trust is delicate, like water. When you see like water, be still. Embrace and allow. That is living in truth and in harmony with everything. Nothing is more powerful than that. So in closing, I will leave you with one of my favorite poems. You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop by Rumi. So be water, my friends.

Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Hooley. So, boy, there's a lot there. Does anyone have questions? Comments for the Dr. Hooley?

I'll just say that, you know, I found myself in both of those stories and I'm actually working with Dr. Hooley right now, early into our work, and it's been. It's already been transformative in a few sessions. And that she's worked with somebody on my leadership team, which I've seen just this total. Without going into details, privacy with just total transformation. And that this work going inwards and doing this work really makes a tremendous difference in the external of how somebody shows up. So I've gotten to witness that third party and it's made a huge difference in my company. And now starting to do that work on myself and with myself even early into it, I can already see, like, firstly, just an internal state of much greater happiness and common confidence in how I'm approaching life and business, but then also seeing that actually already being reflected externally. So just wanted to give that as kind of a comment celebration testimonial. And I encourage this for everybody, especially. Well, not. I don't know what everybody. I encourage this for those who feel like, if you. If you fit in that story of that hamster wheel, that there is another way without actually getting less done or less important things done, but in a way that actually allows you to get a whole lot more of what's important you accomplished.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Let me read some of the comments. So Sashin Patel wrote, lovely, Timothy. That was beautiful. Thank you. Very calming. Denise, is this like staying in your unique ability, which. So it's a question. Is this like staying in your unique ability which gives us confidence and flow?

I would say yes. And I don't want it to be confused also with the flow state, I think. What's the psychologist name? The Hungarian? Yes, whoever can pronounce that. Good on you, chick.

Set me high is how you remember Mahali chicks at me high.

Okay, good deal. So in that flow state, that's more associated with the individual and more like in a competitive. In a challenge state. Whereas in wu wei, or really living in the truth is not just about you, but about the collective. So being able to not just tune into what's what's going on with you, but with others and everything. So slight distinction, but very similar overlap.

Great, thank you. And then Craig wrote, some decisions are hard to make. Do you have any advice or technique that gets you to take the plunge.

To actually take action?

Yeah, I guess.

Or to make the decision? Yeah, Yeah. I mean, I think ultimately there is a wisdom that's inside the body that we don't tap into enough. By practicing the csea, you can really begin to align. And the more that you ask the question within yourself in stillness, and you can journal, talk to coaches when there's an overwhelming yes in your body without resistance, that's when you know it's time to take the plunge. As far as you know what techniques to get you to actually do it, evaluate what's stopping you. And a lot of times it's fear and very, very often it's fear of judgment. So ask yourself the questions of who's going to judge me and if they're really going to, if they're going to judge me, are they somebody I want in my life and is it really true that they're going to judge me negatively or poorly in the first place?

Yeah. Do you think, I mean, in many cases the biggest judge is us judging ourselves. If we're worried about other people judging us.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Usually if other people, if we judge other people, then we are also judging ourselves.

Dorina from Romania wrote just a heartfelt thank you and to Julie for this beautiful moment. To Julie.

To Huli.

I said it. I screwed up.

No worries.

I'm judging myself, judging myself. So thank you, Darina and Kathy. Kathy Mok. Thank you, Hooley. This was beautiful to hear and learn. Robert, who just spoke. Thank you, Hooley. I didn't think about this in terms of producing outer results like authenticity that people can see. I usually think about these techniques as internal shifts, but forgot that they lead to major outward facing benefits. How often do you do this process? On a typical day, I try to.

Do it all the time. So when I say truth is moment to moment, there's sure, there's core truths on the bigger scale about who we are and how we operate in the world. And those aren't fixed either. But then there's micro truths I'd really try to check in with myself and with my body and what my mind and body needs. So I'll give you an example. When you're trying to, like, write a script for one of your YouTube videos, for example, and you're not feeling it, but, but you're sitting there and you've dedicated this chunk of time to write out that script, and you're just pounding away and not really producing anything. Then you close your laptop and you go and rest, and you come back when you feel like doing it, and suddenly you knock it out immediately. So that's an example that you weren't tuning in in that moment. I believe in doing what feels right all the time and feeling in this state of flow and at all times as entrepreneurs, we, most of us have the flexibility to do these things. We don't have the rigid 9 to 5. We don't have to take the lunch break from 12 to 1. We don't even have to, you know, we can work on the weekends if we feel moved to. I do kind of believe in this blending of life and work, and that's really the art of one of mastering the art of living is when there's no distinction anymore between work and play and between work and life.

Awesome. Darrell wrote. Loved it. Hooley. Gianluca, well done, Hooley. Yvonne wrote. Thank you, Hooly. That was so nice. I give myself permission to Sandra. So aligned with what I believe. Denise, well done, Dr. Hooley. And Dimitri Hooley, can you speak to a bit of the fear and resistance that people have when considering this work?

So, yeah, definitely. Fear is probably the number one reason that people don't do this work. And first of all, if there is fear within you, just acknowledge it, accept it, embrace. Doesn't need to change, first of all. And I think one of the major fears that people feel is the. The pain of looking into themselves. They're scared to actually face it. When really, in facing our fear, we are processing this pain that gets stuck in our body. And once we come out on this on the other side, we're in a much, much better place. I think also there's a fear of not being accepted, of being vulnerable, and that usually comes from a fear of. Or a lack of accepting yourself. And that's part of the work that I do is first discovering who you are, but then accepting who you are or embracing who you are.

You know, what would you say to. Because, I mean, I think one of the unspoken things from a lot of entrepreneurs and driven people, people that. And of course, I speak for myself in a lot of this. I spent most of my life being very driven, very, very functional, addict, and not liking myself very much. Not on a conscious level. I would never wake up and say I hate myself or I dislike myself. However, what I would find myself doing is constant. The level of self criticism that I had, you know, when I was in my most active times of acting out addictively was just an enormous amount of self loathing and self hatred, even though it didn't occur that way to me. But if I looked at the way that I treated myself and the level of neglect, it was pretty severe. And so I think a lot of entrepreneurs, they just constantly beat themselves in so many ways by how hard they drive and the ability to, you know, feel like they measure up. And it's almost like I want to play something for you, which I may play this actually, I will. But what would you, what would you say to the, to the critical voice that a lot of people that have that is, you know, you're never done, you can never, you can, you can't relax, you can't, you know, they're always on edge. Because I think that occurs not with the minority of very driven people, but the, the majority.

Yeah, it really, this is going to get a little woo woo here, sort of. But at the core of it, it's a drive to feel love, right? It's a striving to fit in, to ultimately to receive love. And when we can begin to love ourselves and tell ourselves that we are enough every day and that we are deeply loved every day, those negative thoughts begin to fall away. And then the other thing I would say is begin to ascend. And what I mean by that is I view consciousness and emotions as a swinging pendulum back and forth like this. And you've got your weight here and you've got your string and it's all going like this, right? When we're in the emotions and we're in those negative thought patterns, that's the bottom pendulum, the weight. But in meditation and practicing mindfulness, when you begin to ascend, then those swings of the emotions aren't as high highs or as low lows. And just like Eckhart Tolle says, don't take your thoughts too seriously. They're just thoughts after all. So it's yes, you can change the thought patterns with affirmations, but also you can learn to just even rise above thoughts. Because I'll share something, you know, very intimate. I've tried to commit suicide twice and I have suicidal thoughts all the time. I think it's just now a programming within me because I've struggled with depression so much my life. And sure, I could change that programming probably with a lot of effort, but sometimes I just allow it and I, and I recognize that it's, it's just a thought, and I rise above it and I find that inner truth within me that says that's not the truth. I know what my truth is. I know who I am and I know what's real. And the negative thoughts, they're just thoughts.

Yeah. And that's. That's a great way you framed it. And I, and I do love that Eckhart Tolle line. All the time is spiritual practice for you. Don't take your thoughts too seriously. Because, yeah, I've had thousands of suicidal thoughts in my life, and it's never attempted suicide, but it's definitely been this willingness to escape. And that's what led me to a lot of the recovery work, because it's like when you get to the point where you don't want to exist anymore, at least you're telling yourself that. And what's interesting is to go back to Dimitri's thing about. Can you speak a bit about the fear and resistance that people have when considering this work? I mean, people will do almost anything to avoid if they're, you know, to get. Eckhart Tolle is here. When they're stuck in the pain body, you know, they. They're committed to staying in that pain body. And when you're, you know, when your mental apparatus is keeping you thinking and not in the present, you will, you know, it can get very dark. It can get very dark, and it can get very painful. And so, you know, silent battles are the hardest battles to fight. And so it's. So I was. I have a friend who's a doctor, and I'd met with her yesterday morning before she was heading to San Diego. We're talking about ifs, you know, Eternal Family Systems, you know, Richard Schwartz's work. And I played this little audio that Steve Ozanich had sent to me because I've been having physical pain, and I know what causes physical pain. In most cases, it's myoneuro syndrome. It's oxygen deprivation caused by repressed emotions. And usually I can make the pain disappear. And I've had it lately because I think a lot of just what's been going on in my world. And it's interesting. And so this is from Gabor Mate, who I had come to Genius Network a couple years ago. And it's a short little audio, and I'm going to play this, and it's about workaholics and it's about him being a workaholic. But just listen to this. It's a low volume, so hopefully everyone hear it all.

You got the message that you're not good enough, that you are not worthy enough, then you might spend the rest of your life trying to prove that you are. And how you do that, by being very nice to everybody, by never saying how you feel because they might not like how you feel, by never expressing healthy anger, by when somebody's crossing your boundaries, by working too hard to prove that you're worthwhile. That's why I was a workaholic, doctor, because I got the message as an infant, as a Jewish infant under the Nazis in the Second World War. I got the message that the world didn't want me, I wasn't good enough. Well then you spend the rest of your life compensating by taking on too much and you're stressing yourself. And those stresses have an issue impact on your physiology. They have an impact on your immune system, they have an impact on your cardiovascular system, on your heart, on your nervous system. They can cause disease. You get the message that you're not good enough.

So if you get the message, you're not good enough. So the whole key is we have to give ourselves different messages, you know, and if you have a coding that you know you're not good enough, you're going to do everything you can to compensate, to try it. And nothing is ever good enough. You know, I mean, I'm sure everyone here has that's ever experienced some sort of depression or whatever, can be in the middle of paradise with money well fed, not in the middle of a war torn thing, not in the middle of a pandemic. And everyone around you seems to be like they're enjoying yourself and you're freaking miserable, looking for a way to escape out of it. And that's not a happy place to be in. Because the hardest part with that is you have to be like, what the hell's wrong with me? And unfortunately, most very driven people here have experienced that more than most people.

Yeah, definitely. And I will share there's, you know, an interesting way to view the world. And really it's a Buddhist practice of not attaching to anything in the physical. And when you think about it, when you wake up every morning, you can wake up not attached to anything at all. Everything is an option, everything is a possibility. And so then when you choose into your life and you make every single choice, that thing that you have, that experience, that taste, that interaction becomes so sacred because of all the possibilities that exist in the universe. This is what you get in this one day, in this now. And so when nothing is sacred at the beginning of the day, everything that you have going through that day, every experience becomes extremely unique and very sacred.

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Thank you. Watch them.