Coaches Council Podcast Episode 34: The Power of Why

What do I really enjoy doing? What do I maybe have as a hobby? What is it that brings joy to my life?

I think it takes time. I think it takes reflection. I think it takes, you know, the, the effort of asking those questions that you asked.

There's so much pressure when it says, what's your why? What's your purpose? Well, it can be multitude of things.

That purpose is in there somewhere. It's not like you have to go out there and find a brand new purpose. Most likely it's probably within you right now. You just gotta, you know, like they say, peel back the layers.

This is the Coaches Council, made up of six elite coaches dedicated to serving and ending personal struggle for high performers in business, health and relationships. As a collective, we have built and helped build six, seven and eight figure businesses, dominate in multiple industries, coached and played in professional sports leagues, and developed some of the strongest and most intimate relationships, both professional and personal. This isn't your average podcast. It's for the hungry, the dedicated, the doers, for those that have a dream and truly want that dream to become reality. People who want to take action, leave their ego at the door and own every level of their life. If that's you, then step into the coach's counsel as we rewrite the truths to living that high performance life. Welcome back to another week at the Coaches Council. As always, I'm Justin and we got Pradeep sang on the other end. How are you doing today, Pradeep?

I'm doing pretty awesome. How about yourself?

Awesome. Awesome, I love it. Just the two lone soldiers today.

Yeah, I guess I'm wondering everybody else is kind of busy today. Drew's on his weight gaining spree. Where's John? John's in Mexico, isn't he?

John is in Mexico soaking up some sun, getting his vitamin D kick. So it's crazy how the more that we kind of come out of this pandemic and travel kind of slowly increases that we get back to some semblance of normalcy that really kind of we noticed. Everything kind of stays the same. You kind of have the same habits, the same intentions, the same kind of flow to your life and it kind of just reverts back to what we've always done and what we've always known.

Yeah, I'm a little envious of John right now in terms of where he is, because I'd like to be in Mexico myself. Man.

I know, wouldn't we all? But I wanted to chat today a lot about the power of why and what why means. And we all know that famous TED talk that Simon Sidnick did, that kind of put him on the map where why was at the core of everything. And then there was how, and then there was what. And really that when it came down to it, it was trying to truly understand what our why was, what our purpose was. Because before we can take action on something, obviously we know we need clarity. Before we have clarity, we need to know why we're doing what we're doing, what our purpose is, what the reason for that is. And as we go through this, there's a lot of people that just don't know what that why is. They don't know what their purpose is. They feel lost, they feel trapped. They feel theoretically like they're just floating through life. And I actually had four emails from some of our listeners talking about how they loved the last piece we did on consistency and loved some of what we were talking about in terms of built to last on building that business. But they didn't know what that business was. They didn't know what they truly wanted to invest time into because they didn't know what their why was, what their purpose was. And so today I really want to take you through this exercise, and if you're listening at home, it's something that you guys can do. Answer these questions with Pradeep in your head and be able to really kind of figure out what that why is, what that purpose is for you and Pradeep. I'm curious as we kind of go through this. Pradeep has not been prepped on this, by the way. This is right off the fly, so I'm excited to kind of go through and see what his answers are. But I want you to tell me something in your life that you loved being a part of. And I want it to be specific. I want it to be an actual moment that we can pinpoint and know the actual event and give details.

Well, if I look back, are we talking about childhood or just in general?

No, just in general. I just want to know, at any part of your life, something that truly you loved being a part of, something that was so ingrained in you, something that if I said, what is the best moment of your life? That's one of the moments that's going to pop up and something that you loved being a part of so much that it's foundationally built into you.

Well, I can just tell you if I say one of the best moments of my life was when my wife told me that we were going to have a baby, so that Was probably. If I look back, that was one of the most happiest times that I've ever had. And it was funny because she called me up and she was all nervous. She was like, I got something to tell you. And I was like, okay. And I was actually driving. I was in the corporate world at that time. I was doing some visits to the retail locations, and I wasn't expecting her call, so I took it. And she's. And she sounded all nervous. I'm like, okay, you got to tell me what's going on. She's like, I took the pregnancy test and I'm pregnant. I'm like, okay. And I just started laughing. And she's like, why are you laughing? I'm like, why shouldn't I be? What else should I be doing? She's like, aren't you nervous? I'm like, no, not at all. I said, this is part of life. I'm definitely excited. And that just kind of led the path to another child later on. But that was probably one of the most happiest times that I can think of vividly.

And so why specifically does that moment stand out to you?

Well, it was probably the emotion around it. And I don't know if I can tell you exactly why I had that emotion, but I just felt this sense of joy and happiness. It just literally just flooded through me, and all I could do was literally laugh.

And the laughter, the sense of joy, the excitement, the happiness. Where did that come from? What was it meant for? What did you know was about to happen?

Well, I knew that we were going to have a family. I knew that we were going to have a baby, and we were going to have this new life in the world. But if I take a look at it, I think it was really around family that we know that we were taking our relationship to the next stage because we were going to bring a life into this world. So I think that's where it really came from.

So basically, you have an opportunity to have a family, to lead a family, to be a part of a family, to have somebody that was looking up to you, to create something in life.

Yeah. Yeah, pretty much.

So now, going back and looking at a very specific moment in your childhood, something that is, again, very similar to that nature, something that stands out, a memory that is so vivid that you hold on to day in and day out, something that, again, just stands out from that childhood.

Well, I would say. Well, there are a series of things, but I would say some of my friends really stand out. We would. We had this Basketball team and where we would just basically play street ball all day, almost every single day. And it was kind of like the. Because it was kind of like the brown guys against everybody else, like the white guys and everything, because the brown, there's only a few of us. And we stuck together and everybody else would pick on us. But we held our own when it came to basketball. We did pretty darn good. We would, for the most part, beat everybody because we were so united and so in tune with each other in terms of how we played that we just kind of stuck together as a team.

And so specifically, talking to that moment, why does that moment or why does that memory stand out to you versus a lot of other things that happened during that childhood or during.

Yeah, because we were having fun. We were just having a blast while we were doing it. And we were basically doing what we loved. There was a challenge there. Um, it. I think part of that also came down to facing adversity and overcoming it. I think that it also was a part of sharing those moments or of winning with other, like our team players, for example. It gave us a sense of camaraderie. So there was just those aspects of, you could say, almost like family as well. So it was a combination of a number of things. So coming out of there, like, physically, we felt good because we were exhausted. But also it was like, okay, we did our best and we gave it everything we had.

And see, if you're not watching this on video, you couldn't see my face as he was talking is. You said three or four things that just brought smiles to my face. Because knowing you, knowing your business, knowing what you do now, knowing what you left. And if you don't know this story of Pradeep, you can go back and watch the one on one that we did with Pradeep back in. I think it's episode 12 or something like that that really talked about his journey. But growing up on the apple orchard and then having that goal of being a CEO to lead, how you found it really came out of ego and then all of a sudden gave it up one day to now run your own coaching company, something that you have built a culture around, a family around, something that you truly lead other men to be the best in their personal, professional lives, it gives me goosebumps because you just told me two very key memories, two very huge things in your life. One, when your wife told you that you were having your first child, which he came back to and said, you have this sense of responsibility. You have this sense of family. It was the first moment that you knew you were going to have a family. The first moment that you knew you were going to have something so tightly knit that you did. And then we talked about the first childhood or the childhood memory and it was that you had this group of like minded individuals, this group that stuck together and it was a basketball game, theoretically. You're talking about childbirth, you're talking about basketball, how they're related. It comes down to you saw them as a family, you guys were together, it was that you belonged, it was a sense, a place to be together and those two things innately, because that's how I know you, that's what you want is you want a place to belong. And for you, your why, a purpose, a mission. Would you say is fair enough to say that you want to be or create a place where other people feel like they can belong, a family, something that they can truly succeed in?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think throughout my entire life I've always tried to bring people together rather than separate them apart. It's a core part of what I do. So I would say absolutely. I think even for me, I think there's two parts to it. One is, yeah, because I grew up in a very strong family unit. I grew up in a family business, for example, where not only were my parents around, but extended family, my cousins, my aunts and uncles were around. So I grew up in a family environment that was very important. But yeah, I see that now. I just see not only family but a community. I just think it just adds that much more. It's funny you mentioned that because even in business ventures that I've done outside of my coaching consulting firm, even when I haven't had the need to bring anybody else in, I always do. I always bring in other people because it's like, okay, I don't want to share on this, just myself. If there's someone else that I can share this with, it just feels that much more fulfilling. So yeah, definitely I can say there's a massive family aspect to it. Definitely.

We'd be remiss if we didn't take this time to thank our sponsors that allow us to reach you each and every week. The coaches council is powered by Canai Brands, a lab tested all natural pure hemp CBD company without the presence of thc. They encompass our passion for health, wellness and fitness that we have on the coaches council. Visit canibrands.com and at checkout use the promo code coaches20 to enhance your wellness journey. And it is ironic that you say that, I mean, that is how the coaches council got started is when we first started talking, it wasn't about you, it wasn't about me, it wasn't about John or Craig or Brian or Drew or any one person. But it was about bringing a collective unit together and striving for a bigger purpose and striving for something at a greater level. And so for everybody listening who's gone through this, that has now answered both questions and you're trying to bring the parallels like we just did with Pradeep. It's about taking a look and seeing, okay, what do I really enjoy doing? What do I maybe have as a hobby? What is it that brings joy to my life? You heard Pradeep say multiple times, joy, happiness, those are all states of powerful being, a powerful state of being. Joy, love, passion. These are all feelings and things that reside in that powerful state of being. What do you do when you have those there? And then go back to that answer, the two answers that you have, the one of what you had, that memory that stands out, and another of one of a childhood memory, and find the parallels there. Is it that you are somebody that loves family and wants to make that sense of family wherever you are? Is it that you're a protector? Is it that you are somebody who empowers? Is it that you are somebody who creates value? Are you a networker? Are you a creator? What is that? Almost. I don't want to say a word because I don't want to narrow it down to that, but what is that area that you can now explore deeper, something that you can take a step in to begin to find that why, to find that purpose. Because when somebody says to you, pradeep, what's your why? What's your purpose? It's a very overwhelming question. Something that can really kind of throw us off sometimes and not really truly enable us to be. To show up in the way we truly want to there, because at the end of the day, we want to make. There's so much pressure when it says, what's your why? What's your purpose? Well, it can be multitude of things and it's just like asking you a question and utilizing the feedback, the life lessons that have gone on around us where we can say, hey, what events do I continue to come back to in my life? What truly stands out to me that's going to help us find that why and find that purpose? For me, it was two events that were very different. One was the day that I, I met Elise was, I'LL never forget it. I was in the pool, she was walking by, and I just knew that that was my person and jumped out of the pool. And if anybody knows what had gone on to my life up before that, there was addiction. I had gotten fired. There were so many things that were going negatively in my life. I'd just gotten divorced. And it was an uphill battle. And the day so many things were going well in my life at the same time, but it was still just like this sense of resiliency as I was like, that is my person. And this sense of faith and knowing that there was something better. And as soon as I saw her, I was like, wow, that is her. And if I take that same childhood memory, it was. And it's something that stands out to me was it was playing street hockey in late at night and sneaking out of the house after dinner and playing street hockey with all my buddies. And the sun was setting and all the parents were around. And it's something that stands out to me because it was that sense of community, that sense of belonging. And my purpose, my why, in Own it in what we do, is to empower others to be the best version of themselves. Why? Because you're a part of a community that breeds positivity, that breeds empowerment, that breeds clarity and helps you and takes you out of that sense of struggle. Because I had been in a sense of struggle. I was an overweight kid that was always made fun of, but that's where I felt comfortable. Playing street hockey with my friends. I was in a state of continual depression, addiction. Things were going negatively in my life. But all of a sudden I found this place that brought me out of that struggle. And that's my purpose. My mission is to take people out of the struggle that they feel. And so all of a sudden, you're able to start taking action on that. Your creative juices start flowing. You can start to decide, how do you want to do that? Do you do it in business? Do you do it in fitness? Do you do it in health? How do you do this? And ultimately, you start to form this business around it, this sense of where you can be a massive guiding light. Just like you, Pradeep, you've now created this massive business around helping businessmen create that sense of family, that sense of belonging, that sense of freedom, and that sense of success in their life. But it all came from knowing what your why was and what your purpose was.

Yeah, I think when you talked about, hey, look, the. Basically the whole thing around purpose can be daunting. For a lot of people. Because if you believe that, you know, you don't have a purpose, that can be tough in life, right? And trying to find it can be even tougher. So I think with the process that you've taken people through, I think that's a brilliant idea. Because if you break it down, it's not that daunting. And I don't know if this, the process you took them through is awesome. I think if you do that, you can actually put some effort into it. It's not like you can wake up one day and just be like, oh, this is my purpose. I think it takes time. I think it takes reflection. I think it takes the effort of asking those questions that you asked Justin. What, when you talk to guys, when you train guys and gals on the fitness level is like, what's, what's mainly their purpose? Do you find that they want to get in better shape because they have a purpose? Like, does it relate to their purpose in some way, shape or form overall?

So to be honest, where people often come from is there is a. There's a under, there's something deeper. There's always something deeper. Their wellness is a interjecting point. And I know I've talked to you about this before, about the eight pillars that we operate off of, which is wellness, career, faith, relationships, finance, self, care, network, and legacy. And by looking at all eight of those pillars, it's often that wellness pillar that people are hiding behind. They're hiding behind saying, well, I don't feel good in myself because I have this extra 10 pounds on me, or I don't feel good because I don't eat very well, my diet's not very good. But in actuality, it's so much more than that because they've got their identity tied up in something greater where their relationship isn't good and they need to try and mask it, or they don't have a faith that they can just truly rely on that everything's going to be okay and they've got anxiety through the roof or their finances are an absolute disaster, but if I lose the 10, 15 pounds, that'll kind of correct itself as well. And so what I find is that people often come in with a misnomer, thinking that if they handle this one aspect, it's going to correct everything. But in actuality, they find truly who they are through this. And that is, it's who they always have been. It's just that they haven't been able to find it before because there was something masking it, and it's that they were resilient, they are strong, they are powerful, they're perfect just the way they are, but they're too good to stay there. And finding those next steps are the keys to being able to unlock, as you asked in your original question, that true purpose. That true why? And oftentimes it's happened probably six or seven times now, as we've gotten them to this level of confidence and transformed either their bodies or more so, their minds and their life. In that span of those eight pillars, they've been awoken to a new purpose, a new mission, a new reason why they've been put here and why they were struggling so hard so that now they can take that. And it often leads them to a new career path as well.

That's really interesting that you say that. I think when you were talking, something just spurred up for me, because even the questions that you ask, I think innately we have this desire, we have this meaning internally that can play out in a purpose that. But we're so overloaded with day to day stuff, day to day activities, plus the social pressures that people put onto us, whether it's a spouse or work or children, that that purpose is in there somewhere. It's not like you have to go out there and find a brand new purpose. Most likely it's probably within you right now. You just gotta, you know, like they say, peel back the layers or, you know, even of the onion to get to the real core of what that purpose is. One of the books that I'd like to recommend to the listeners out there is by Ken Keys, and it's the Quest for Purpose. And we had a great chat on my podcast and something he said actually really resonated with me. And he said, you know what? When you don't have a purpose, one of the things, one of the purposes that you can immediately tackle is finding your purpose and spending some time just looking for that purpose. So having a purpose of finding that purpose is actually interesting. So I thought that was cool. And I think that might be a good book for the listeners to listen, listen to, or watch, because it's important to find that purpose.

I mean, at the end of the day, it comes back to the emails that we got from those listeners about wanting to take steps forward, but feeling like they were held back by not knowing their purpose, feeling like they were limited because they didn't know what direction to go. But now all of a sudden that you have an action step, just like you said in that book, is actually going and finding your purpose, going and doing these action steps, being deliberate, being intentional, asking yourself the question of what is something that I truly loved being a part of what is an event, something that stands out so vividly. Write down every single thing that you know, Every detail, every emotion that you went through, every specific feeling that you had in being there, the reason why that stands out to you. Write that down. And then go to that same point in your childhood where whatever event it is that it just. It shows up in your mind over and over and over and over again. Write down those same emotions, the same things it brings up for you now, the thoughts around it, all of those things, and find the parallels. Because life gives us little treasure, other little pieces of bread to follow. It's a little map. And the more that we are able to go back and pick up those pieces of bread and connect the dots, the closer we get to finding that treasure time and time again. And I don't want to make your why seem like the holy grail because your whys will continue to change. They will continue to evolve. Your why today may be different than it is 10, 15 years from now simply because you've learned more, you've had more experiences, things have happened, but it won't be exponentially different. It will just be tweaked in some way, shape or form. The core why is always the same. But how you were able to change it or how you were able to articulate it or how you were able to see it, verbalize it, that will slightly change. Remember, it's not perfection that matters. It's inconsistent. Perfection will get beaten by consistent imperfection every single time. But. But that's the. But that's the whole thing about just showing up day after day and asking yourself those questions and being in that space to truly find what your why truly is and what level you can take action on.

Yeah, I couldn't have said it better, man.

So with that, guys, take that. Take action on it. Be okay being imperfect, but show up consistently with that imperfection, and you'll find that at the end of the day, you have a purpose and a mission to go forward on it. Stay hungry, stay humble, and we'll see you next week. Thank you so much for joining us for another week of the coaches council. If it wasn't for you viewers and listeners, we wouldn't have a platform. So again, it's all about you guys. And we want to give you a reward just for listening. We want to give you access to each one of our coaches for a little bit deeper intimate experience. So if you go to coaches-counsel.com coaches-council.com subscribe and like to whatever platform you're viewing on. You're going to be entered to have that one on one experience. So be sure to go coaches-cell.com and really interact with us because we would love to interact with you. Until then, stay safe, stay hungry, stay humble and thanks for listening.