David Ian Wood - Authentically Connect

What are the things you're scared of? At least writing them down on paper puts you ahead of the game. Because now, like, oh, I guess I'm worried that they're going to yell at me, or I'm worried that this is going to happen or it's going to be awkward. And then this is so important. What's the upside? Because the mind will give us the downside all day. This is. That's the ego's job. This is all the bad stuff that could happen. But until you sit down to write, well, the upside is if I tell my boss I think the company's going in the wrong direction, I could be a contribution to the company. I could be seen as a leader. I could have a closer friendship with this person. I could have a better working relationship if I could get this off my chest.

Beautiful.

Until we write it down, we can't properly weigh it up. And I say that about 80% of mice, if you can find the right way to name it, are worth naming. And right now, most people are naming about 20%.

Welcome to the mindtrax podcast with breakthrough ideas to live your best life possible and how to make it happen. I'm Paul Schiele and today we'll be talking with David Ian Wood. After life as a consulting actuary to Fortune 100 companies, David built a worldwide coaching business, becoming number one on Google for life coaching. Based on his core values of authenticity, courage and connection, David coaches rock star business owners to double revenue, double their time off, and be a more extraordinary entrepreneur, partner, parent and leader. David is author of Mouse in the Room.

Hello, David. It is so good to have you on. I really appreciate you being here.

Paul, it's good to see you. I haven't seen you since the last TLC retreat.

Breakfast in Texas.

Breakfast in Texas. Before that, I think it was like 12 years. So we're on a good trend now.

Well, and to that point, when you showed up and gave me your book, I was very intrigued about it because one of the things that stood out for me is the idea that in order to authentically connect with other people, even with ourselves, we need to be able to name that thing that seems to be keeping us separate. And to me, that was an interesting change from how I knew you prior to the book. So I be interested in knowing what brought you to this focus in life.

Well, there's the initial impetus that, that, that led me to do this. And then looking back, I can now see the bigger picture of, of what did it. I was teaching a communication course and one of the assistants came in one morning and said to everybody, you've just got to name the thing. You've just got to name the thing. And we all stared at her like, say more. Use your words. You got to name the thing. Whatever's there in the room, whatever's there between you, you've just got to name it. You may not even have to fix it or do anything about it, but you need to name it so you can come into closer connection. And so I said, look, that's a book. Name that thing. That's a book. That's a powerful concept that people need to have in the world. And a year went by, and I kept talking about this concept. And then on podcasts, I was thinking, what do we have that's closest to this in. In our expressions in English? And I thought of the elephant in the room. We all know about the elephant in the room. You see it, I say it. No one's saying anything. Well, that's weird. And we should definitely address the elephant in the room. I could have written a book called that. But many creatures in the room are much more subtle. They're not as big as an elephant, and you may not even see it, Paul. It may be something I've been holding on to that's in between us, and that's a mouse in my world. So I wrote the book called Mouse in the Room to let people know there are lots of animals in the room, and anything you're thinking or feeling or experiencing that hasn't been named as fair game as a mouse to be named. And I remember I named a mouse with you when I saw you in. In Texas. Do you remember what it was?

I don't.

Well, this is a good example. I'd met you maybe 12 years earlier with your wife in Hawaii and really loved that connection. You guys both made an impression on me. And over the years, every year or two, I would reach out and I would try and connect with you, and never heard a word back. And I started making up a story. So this is a mouse, right? This is what we call a storytelling mouse in the book. That either I did something to offend this guy, or Paul's just not interested in having any contact outside of tlc. And then when I saw you, you showed up as so warm and friendly. I started reassessing my storytelling mouse, and I'm like, I think I'm going to take a risk and just check it out with him and see if I'm right. And you said, I have not been deliberately Ignoring you. There's nothing there that's negative at all. And I'm happy to be in connection. I'm like, oh, all right, good. And then when you. When I got the invite to be on your podcast, I was a yes. Whereas had I not named the mouse and come into connection with you, then I may have been like, I'm going to talk to that guy.

That's beautiful. Well, it's interesting is that exact story happened to my wife last night that she called a friend that she hadn't talked to since last spring, and her friend said, I'm so glad you called. I thought I must have said something to offend you. So I. I immediately said, oh, that's the storytelling mouse. I know this one.

Yeah.

And so often those stories that we tell ourselves are stories that are faulty conclusions. They're stories that are mythical fears. They're stories that have relevance to us because it's part of our history, but not necessarily relevance to this relationship we're having at this exact moment. Right.

Yeah. I love the movie the Matrix. I think it was definitely ahead of its time. I think we're all living in our own individual matrix. It doesn't occur like that. We don't walk around going, oh, this is my matrix today. And, you know, I believe my dog loves me, and I'm assuming that's a chair, and we don't operate like that. But I really think that's how it is that we're in our matrix. We've got our beliefs, this guy's a jerk. This person doesn't like me. This person's never going to give me any business. We got all these beliefs, and if we investigated every single one, we'd probably never get anything done. So it's. It's fine that most of those, like, this chair is going to support my weight. That's a reasonable story. Okay. But many of the stories involving humans are not accurate, and they can hurt us.

Then there are other types of mice. Of course, some of them are not storytelling mice. They're actual facts. Like, maybe I feel upset by something that someone said, and I'm feeling a bit hurt. I just had a client name a mouse with me an hour ago.

And it was a difficult mouse for her to name, and it was difficult mouse for me to hear. What had happened is she'd said, hey, can I share my. My one sheet with you for my speaking business? I've. I've drafted it. And I said, of course. Send it to me. And what I assumed was that she wanted feedback on it and how to make it better. I was not correct in that assumption. And so I, I said, you know, this is what I love about it. This is what I think you could change about it. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Which normally works quite well, but in this case it did not work. And she shared with me that she felt hurt and that she was in a space of really wanting encouragement. That was very edgy for her.

And again. And I said, once she'd shared everything, I said, how was that for you to have said all that? And she said, well, that was really difficult. And I said, yeah, I bet it was. So it was hard for her. It was hard for me to hear. But then we got to ping pong back and forth in reality and I got to apologize for misreading the situation. I got to make some requests. Hey, if you ever send me something again and you really don't want me to suggest how to improve it, if you could remind me of that, that would be really helpful because that's my bias.

There was a lot that happened in that call and I got to acknowledge her for speaking up and saying that doesn't work for me. This is what would. That was a huge win, I think, for her.

Well, the appreciation again brings you a lot closer. The fact that she appreciated you enough and saw you as strong enough to give her some valued praise was really good. It also brings up the idea is when we communicate, we need to ask permission of where do you want this to go? I really like it. I also have some helpful ads if you're interested. And yeah, because of the assumption that you had at that moment, oops, somebody gets their toes stepped on. I remember somebody saying, you know, there's the idea that we're always walking into another person's world when we're communicating. And it's a really good idea if we wipe our feet before we go into their world. So kind of wiping those assumptions or presuppositions out. So beautiful story. I really love it. Now I'd like to go to another statement that you make. It says that the goal of this book is really to move from frozen exchanges into dynamic forward moving life affirming relationships. And I love that so much. And the premise that you're giving toward that goal is anytime that you can name what it is that's keeping that from happening, whatever it is, if you can name it, then what that's going to do is it's going to transform the power of those mice from having power over us to having power within us. And I love that shift, that idea that by making meaning of this lens we're looking through, suddenly we're looking at the lens, we're naming the thing. We're actually looking at the thing that's keeping us separate. And to me, that is a transformational moment.

Absolutely. As you were speaking, what came to me was that was some sadness because I feel that most of us humans are living in a kind of a prison because most of us weren't taught as kids to really be expressive. Oh. Like, my parents did a great job of raising me. And I don't remember hearing. How are you feeling about that, David? How do you feel that we're not going to the zoo? You're angry. Say more about that. That wasn't my experience. If I was angry, I got in trouble. If I was crying, I might have sometimes gotten in trouble for crying. And I know this is not an uncommon experience. So we learned this behavior to not speak up. Because if I say to someone I felt hurt by what you said, they might start defending themselves or they might start attacking me. How can you say that? I had one guy say to me from my acting class, you know, you're probably pretty. Pretty angry with me right now. And I said, yeah. And then he surprised me. He said, why? You're the one who just said, I'm probably pretty angry with you. And now you're asking, why? All right, I'll tell you why. And then he started defending. So that's what we're used to. It's no wonder that we might be hesitant to say what's actually happening. And you do that day in, day out for a year, five years, 10 years, 20 years. What you get is the normal human experience where you say what you think is safe, and the rest of it, let's not rock the boat.

Yeah, beautiful.

And the book here is to say you can rock the boat, and you can do it much more gently if you have a roadmap of how to do it. And so it is a roadmap.

Yeah, I would like to get at that roadmap, because there's a famous phrase I heard from a retired professor.

From the University of Kanpur in India. He said, you should say what is true and what is pleasant. You should not say what is true, but unpleasant. Should not say what is pleasant but untrue. And I thought, well, that was pretty cool. You know, I got that back when I was in my undergraduate at the University of Minnesota. I thought, that's a good kind of guideline to help manage how I show up in relationship. And it also suggests that I'm doing a bit of censoring. Right. I'm thinking about the receiver of my communication. And so I'm allowing myself to consider. And what I really loved in your book is this idea of 3D. When we think about how we're going to share that, we can think of it in terms of 3D. Do you want to cover one of those and we'll kind of explore it a bit?

Yeah, we could talk about the 3D. And I want to take a little issue with what this professor said. So I like a lot of what he said, but he also, it seems he said, do not share what is true, but unpleasant.

Yeah. And this is another point in your book that I really love, that hiding nothing doesn't equal share everything. Right, Right.

So let's cover both of those. Those are separate points.

Okay, good.

So sometimes it is going to be a contribution to the world to share what is true but unpleasant. Maybe. Maybe someone's doing something that's going to get them fired. Right. And so, hey, you've got BO and we can smell you from a mile away. And.

Let'S talk about what we can do about it. I'm not saying you'd say it like that, but that's an example of something that might be unpleasant and the person needs to hear it. There's whoever wrote Radical Honesty said.

Tell the truth, tell the hard truth, but then stick with them until they get over it.

Oh, nice.

And I distinction love that because they might have. They're going to have their reaction. It might be hurtful. And one example.

It's not about a smackdown, right?

No, no.

Giving feedback isn't a criticism. Doesn't have to be a criticism.

No. You can do it with kindness and care and with a sensitivity for how it might land. A friend of mine said something to me recently which was so hard for her to. She said, david, I don't want to hear any more about your problems with your apartment.

And she said it really well. She said, I love you. I really care for you. I'm scared to say this, but if I hear one more time. And it actually came as a contribution to me because I was sick of it in my own head. And she just asked me to. She was. Told me today she's telling everyone about that experience because she was so surprised that she shared this difficult truth. And I still love her. And she's sharing with everyone people like, didn't that hurt his feelings? And she said, apparently it. In this case, it didn't but even if it did, that would be okay. He would. We would get through it and we would be stronger.

Yeah. Stay with them. Right?

Stick with them until I get through. This one was.

That's beautiful.

This one was easy for me to hear. I've had other things that it's taken me a few days or a week. I once said to a girlfriend, you are an amazing seductress. You're incredible. You just lift your little finger and you can get someone to do what they want. That's amazing. Now, I could say that because I had no judgment. I was really, like, in awe. She didn't speak to me for two weeks.

So this is the idea of intention. And as leaders, we need to always be mindful of what our intention is. And sometimes our intention is not accurately read by the person. That's.

That's right.

Our communication.

That's right. But I think because my energy was so clean, I wasn't judging her. I was okay with it, and I didn't try and fix it. I just let her have her two weeks. And she came back two weeks later and said, oh, my God, I had not even seen it. You are right. I'm doing it unconsciously every day. I said, of course, I don't blame any woman for using what they've got. You know, you. I. I don't know what it's like to be a woman, and I've done a lot of training, but to try and get more sensitive and like. Yes, of course. So that was an example of something that did not go well initially, but it did later. Now go ahead. You put up another point, but.

Yeah, to the point of what it is that you say or don't say. Right. What is it that. How do you make the decision of what to share and how? And the idea of living in 3D when we're communication.

Good. All right, so the 3Ds. And this is a free download. I give this away for free on the website. All listeners, you're welcome to go and get it. Look at the top left of the website, and it's a free download. It's called the 3D Worksheet, and you could print off 20 of them. And just anytime you've got something a little edgy, it'll take you through discovering your mice. That's the first D. It'll help you decide if this is a mouse worth naming, and it'll help you disarm the person if you decide to name it.

Excellent. So I want to. I want to talk if we could about that second step, because there are several kind of sub pieces in there that I thought were useful. One is the idea of weighing, you know, what's the best thing that could happen? What's the worst thing could happen? And what if the worst thing happened? Could I handle the cost of doing it anyway or doing nothing about it? And that was a really nice way of thinking. And it allows you to determine the investment of energy that you're willing to expend in this situation and also get clear on the edge of your own vulnerability. One of the things I've said for years is that in order to be in an intimate relationship with someone, you have to be willing to be vulnerable. And that's good thing. It's not weakness. It's actually putting you in touch with your emotions, your affect, and really that's the place where transformation occurs.

Yeah, Sharing your truth is a very vulnerable experience. A lot of the time you may lose things. You may lose the friendship. Ideally you won't if you follow the 3D process. But like, if you say, I said to a friend once, hey, I love hanging out with you, and I find I can only hear so much complaint. You seem to have a lot of complaint these days. I want to listen to you. Can we limit it to say, like, just put a timer on it. You can go to town and totally complain. And when the timer goes off, we look at something positive. Hey, wonderful. That was the last time I saw that friend. That was 20 years ago. And I got coaching on how to do that because it was edgy for me. I didn't. I was just going to stop being friends with him.

So when you get to the second D, which is about decide, it'll help you weigh it up. What could you lose? You might lose someone's friendship. You might lose your job. If you confess to doing something wrong, you could go to prison. If we're going to go to extreme examples, which is where my mind often goes, like, what's the worst case scenario your partner might break up with you? If you confess to being disloyal or confess to wanting, say you say, I don't want kids, you know, and your partner's definitely going to have kids. You may lose something. So the form was deliberately written so that you could weigh that up. What are the things you're scared of? At least writing them down on paper puts you ahead of the game. Because now you're like, oh, I guess I'm worried that they're going to yell at me. Or I'm worried that this is going to happen or it's going to be awkward. And then this is so important. What's the upside? Because the mind will give us the downside all day. This is. That's the ego's job. This is all the bad stuff that could happen. But until you sit down to write, well, the upside is if I tell my boss I think the company's going in the wrong direction, I could be a contribution to the company. I could be seen as a leader. I could have a closer friendship with this person. I could have a better working relationship if I could get this off my chest.

Beautiful.

Until we write it down, we can't properly weigh it up. And I say that about 80% of mice, if you can find the right way to name it, are worth naming. And. And right now, most people are naming about 20%.

Oh, interesting. So your experience. Well, especially in organizations where there seems to be a big cost of speaking up the chain of command.

Right.

Or even peer to peer feedback, if there's any kind of competition going on, there are a lot of negative potentials. And what I love about a work that I studied years ago, the work of Byron Katie Loving, what is she always said, you know, we need to subject those kinds of thoughts to inquiry. And what I appreciate about this naming process and also the idea of discovering, deciding, and disarming is that you really have an opportunity to take a look at your own thinking, to challenge some of those assumptions that keep you frozen. And if we could bring it all back to the basis of all of these disconnects that we have from others is fear. So there's used to talk about the fear of causing discomfort, the fear of loss, the fear of the unknown. And absolutely every one of those is a recognition of how vulnerable we can be. And when we have an open mind, we have an open heart, we have an open will, and we have an open communication with another person. What I've seen is only the best comes out as a result of that. Unlike this friend that left you after that encounter and never saw him for 20 years, it was probably best that it was time to move on, because you needed a different kind of relationship, a different kind of energy that was going on in your life. And isn't that true that as we start opening and many of us who are here on this podcast recognize we're in a process of shifting, changing, transforming our lives, and some of the social networks that we've been used to or habituated to are going to end up changing in favor of a more supportive network. That really encourages us and celebrates the progress that we're making.

Agreed. When we tell more of the truth, we allow the right people, people to come into our lives and find us beautiful. And we allow what's night right for us to drop away. The ego will resist it because it doesn't want change. So it's like, no, I can't do that. You know, if I lose this acting school, what am I going to do? You know, if I lose this partner, what am I going to do? I once went to my boss and said, I would like to resign 12 months from now.

That was a very scary conversation to have because often when you tell a company that you want to get out the door at some point, they sometimes, you know, pack up your stuff right now and you'll be escorted by security. And so I knew I was taking a risk, but it felt off that I knew I was leaving in a year and they're giving me new clients. And so I went to them with a proposal. I could have lost the job and it would have been very awkward because I needed another year in the U.S. and fortunately, it didn't go that way. They said, okay, we like your proposal. You do all the grunt work. You'll. You'll hand off all of your clients gradually to, to other people. And then a year from now, we'll part ways and you'll go back to Australia. It was great. But had I lost the job.

We could make the argument that maybe that was what was right. So it takes. It takes guts to name your mice. And I think that's where the hero word comes in. And if, if I republish the book, I'm going to add this quote that we need heroes to lead the way. We need heroes to go first.

Let's talk about leaders, you know, because leadership, you make a point that says that.

More influence.

Gives you better leaders. And the best leaders are people that you can trust.

So when we create more trusting relationships, you say that the way to a trusting relationship is to be able to show up authentically. And this is a way to be authentic. Authentic meaning clear with what's going on inside of you and being transparent enough to be seen as you are. So who you are personally and who you are socially is the same person you're not. We're all actors, you say in the book, right? But we don't have to act other than who we truly are and desire to express in the world.

And that takes practice. And as we do it, we generate more trust. People get, oh, if you're willing to say that, then I can trust you. Mark Manson said, ironically, the more we try to get people to like us, the less they do. People need a little friction to trust you. And here's a classic example of this, which feels completely inappropriate while we're both wearing jackets. But I think it really illustrates this. A long time ago, my girlfriend found a pair of panties in my closet that were not hers.

Oh, now you. You didn't say that was you in your book. You said someone.

Did I say that?

Yeah.

Oh, it's in the book. It's in the book. Oh, I thought. I said, I thought it was me. I thought I copped to that. All right, well, I'm copying that. Found a pair of panties in my closet. And I said. And she's like, whose are these?

And I honestly, I had no idea. And I had not been unfaithful. I kept all of our agreements. And I'm. It means a lot to me because I had been unfaithful when I was 18, and I learned my lesson. It was a horrendous experience. So I just knew that I'd done nothing. And I said, I honestly don't know, but I promise you, I haven't broken any of our agreements. And she's like, okay, good. Good enough. And her friends naturally said to her, how can you possibly believe him?

Yeah.

And she said, and I've got goosebumps right now. She said, trust me, if there was something to tell, he would tell me.

Oh, that's sweet.

Because I had over and over and over again, I'd shared things, even when they were difficult. So now she knew that if I had broken the agreement, I would have said, hey, I broke this agreement. Let's talk about it. I had generated that level of trust, and I'm. I'm proud that we had that kind of relationship. We. We worked it out. We worked it out that it's. Six months earlier, my cousin had come and. And her friends had all stayed in my room, and.

They must have just been buried somewhere back in the closet. That's how. That was the only thing we could come up with. But how many people would be mistrusted, Paul? How many times would it be like, I no way I'm going to trust you.

Well, it's a beautiful thing. My wife and I enjoy a trusting relationship like that. The time we're speaking right now, we just celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary. And we knew each other three and a half years before that. So one of the things that she tells all of her Friends is I can tell Paul anything. Many of them said, oh, I don't tell my husband everything, you know, and you make a point in the book about secrets, you know, and. And the difference between disclosing everything and willing. The. The willingness to also have some privacy in your life. And I wanted to talk about those. The noble truths of intimate relationships. I put a bookmark in here. I really love that. It was something I hadn't heard before. Don't expect eternal bliss. Susan Peverer describes this reality as three noble truths of love. Number one, relationships are uncomfortable. And I can tell you, my wife and I have reinvented our relationship.

10 times in those 45 years. We are not the same couple. We had to reinvent what it meant to be in relationship with each other. What was it like when we were romantic? What was it like when we had kids? What was it like when the kids left the house? You know, in each of the stages of our lives, we had to have a different relationship. Number two, expecting relationships to be comfortable is what makes them uncomfortable. Number three, meeting the discomfort together is love. So anytime there was a separation, I would say, timeout. Let's face each other. And, you know, our friend Jack Canfield gave me an idea that Libby and I have used over the years. Let's rate our relationship on a scale to 1 to 10, where 10 is perfect. And if it's not a 10, what's missing? And at first we both were a little nervous about doing that. But you know what? It's been spectacular. It's really nice to be disclosive about. What is it that could be filled in that seems to be missing in how we relate?

Yeah. Yeah. What do you want? What are your desire? Mice. What are your toleration mice? What? How do we make this better? I love that you're bringing up, you know, relationships are uncomfortable. Relationships are messy.

Messy.

Even if I was the only person on the planet, I've got all my own stuff with myself, Right? You got your own issues. And then when you add one more person, say a good friend or a partner, now you've got that when you start talking about groups, like an organization. I was just on a movie last week. I flew to Atlanta. I don't think you know this yet. I just got in my first feature film and acted in it in Atlanta. Thank you. And dude, you know, my God, being a director, I had a bit more of a sense of what they got. All these different people, all these personalities, people being like a fish out of water, not feeling appreciated, not Getting what they want and what they need. And you're trying to like, lead people.

So whenever you've got a play or a movie or a company or a family or a community, then it's going to get messy. And I wrote the book to encourage people in the direction of kindly sharing more of what's true for you. And Brene Brown says, let's rumble. I love it. She came up with a word and dare to lead. Let's Rumble. Yes. This book is like how to rumble as kindly as possible with the people that matter to you.

So one of the things that I really appreciate about your book is that you really go through a lot of nuanced distinctions. You really lay it out, not just the basic concepts, but ways to live into it. And it's a nice guide and it also has quite a few enrichment steps, additional skills that can take you through a lot of pretty gnarly situations that can emerge as parents.

In relationship with intimate relationships and as leaders. And I just want to use my appreciation mouse to say nicely done. It's a, it's an easy concept to grasp. It allows us all a transformational moment to take a look at that thing that's keeping us where we are when we really need something more dynamic, more fluid, more unstuck, more able to get to the outcomes that we're truly in relationship with others for. So nicely done. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate hearing that. I, I didn't want to write another book after my last one 10 years ago. I said, don't ever let me do it. But I want, I want the world to come closer together. And here's a simple concept. If we just keep practicing mouse naming, we will grow. We will have more influence. We will have the right people want to work with us. We will have our kids connect with us closer. We get all the good stuff that we really want in life and that we watch movies for. The miracles that happen in movies are available in our day to day life. If we're just willing to be that hero to go first in naming something because then we model it for everyone else and give them unconscious permission to do the same.

Gorgeous. And if you look at the arc of any rom com, for example, it's always somebody's unwilling to tell the truth. And that's what creates all of the problem, all the disconnect, all the discord, right? All the messiness.

Watch friends watch. I love friends, but when I watch them keep a secret, I'm like, I know you had to do that writers to set up the drama. But that's how you create drama. You want drama with whole stuff until it finally blows up. That's how to do it. This book is about something else. Take it on the chin up front. Be way less drama down the track.

Well, I'm going to ask you to solve global issue as you wrap it up and we say adios for now. It's been a pleasure to be with you, David. It's really been fun. So I want to say, you know, in the world where there is so much conflict and divisiveness, what is your parting thought to our audience that will encourage them to.

Take it on? I believe, David, that we're all here at this moment in human history because we are called to be transformational leaders to transform the human family into a benevolent presence and also one human family. So what are your thoughts and how can we start the healing process?

I think that we come back to our own mice. So if you're feeling afraid of what's happening in the world, then that's a mouse that you have. And acknowledge that you're allowed to feel afraid, maybe even lean into it instead of trying to cover it up or hide from it and just go, this is how I feel. If you've lost your faith in humanity, then that's a mouse. That's the truth. I know some people are really worried for humanity. I'm personally not, because I think we encompass everything. Even if everything was perfect out there, I'm still all the good, all the bad, all the evil, all the up, all the down. And I think we're here on the planet to have an experience of everything. So it doesn't really matter. If things got better, I'd still find problems. Things got worse, I'd still find problems. I'd still find joy. What are our mice? What are we truly feeling? Can we be honest about that? And then we see what's possible from that.

Excellent. Let's all show up authentically. We're brilliant as we are, right? Thank you for sharing your brilliant statement.

Yeah, if you're afraid, you're afraid. It's totally okay. You'll have a lot of company. I'm afraid not about the world, but I get afraid about noise from upstairs or, you know, I'm going to Vegas this week. Like, am I going to sleep? Well, I. I have the human experience and I keep listening to my coaches and teachers and work in doing Byron, Katie work and evolving. If I ever give the impression that I'm a guru with everything handled, please slap me about because it is I'm a student of this work and I plan to be for life.

That's a beautiful thing. I don't think you need the slap. How about a big hug? Thank you very much, David. Peace and blessings. Foreign.

I hope you enjoyed our conversation with David Ian Wood. You can learn more about david@focus.CEO. that's f o c u s.c e o and now in the second part of the podcast, it's just you and me.

I'll tell you how to use the.

Paralliminal sessions in the MindTrax app to easily handle obstacles and move toward the success you want. If you're new to the relaxing paralyminal audio sessions, they use breakthrough technologies to activate your whole mind in only 20 minutes to help you improve any area of your life.

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Welcome to my follow on session, having just had a conversation with David Wood, the author of Mouse in the Room because the Elephant Isn't Alone. Lot of fun, a lot of cool ideas and I would like to share with you a few add on concepts that could help you integrate and actually activate the key ideas that he brought about. Let's start with some of the more difficult situations that we can find ourselves in with interpersonal relationships. I wrote down this idea of discomfort and vulnerability. You know, when we're in a relationship with another person, it could be uncomfortable for us wanting to speak out or even tell the truth about what we're seeing or feeling because we've been taught throughout our history to stuff that into a bag and just don't bring it up. Just don't make anyone else feel bad. Just be careful, just don't open your mouth, don't rock the boat, as David was saying. And very often that keeps us frozen or stuck in our relationships. But this is a tough thing to break the habit and that's a great paralympical to use. If you find yourself in the habit of censoring or suppressing or withdrawing out of fear, then it's a really good idea to listen to break the habit and establish the habit of saying, you know what, I'm going to speak my truth. I'm going to show up authentically as I am, and if something's going on, I'm going to create a safe environment in order to be able to say what I'm recognizing what I'm feeling. I'm going to name the mouse that seems to be getting in the way at this moment. Another one that's very helpful is anxiety free. Because if we know we've had A history of situations coming up where we have spoken our mind and you know, it really didn't go well. It may be because you didn't have a lot of the skills that David is helping you learn in his book. So if you have anxiety around it, anxiety free was going to be very helpful. Letting Go is another one. The recording I did with Hale Dwoskin, Letting Go says when those feelings of hesitation show up or when those feelings of foreboding are there, welcome them. As David said many times during a session with me, the idea of actually being able to recognize and welcome that this fear is present, this fear can be your teacher. But you have to be able to not resist it, actually have it come so that you can recognize the value in it and then be able to let it go. The new option generator is a great one. Think about being on the job. You see something going on, you need to say something. But you're between a rock and a hard place anytime you're in that situation. The new option generator is ideal because you take each of the endpoints of whatever is going on and you allow a communication to happen internally where you can generate possibilities. And David Wood's book gives you a number of key possibilities that could help. Now can you implement those new option generator will help you do exactly that. Another one would be fresh start. And this is especially important if a relationship has gone wrong and you feel guilty or ashamed about the way it's been up until now. New History generator could help also. This idea of fresh start that every day is a moment. There is a moment where you can start anew. And this is a recording I did with Bill Harris, a very powerful session. If you haven't used it, it's great in resetting relationships. Another really good one is when you consider the or another really big issue that we talked about during our session together was this idea of the 3D of.

Living in the moment in an effective connected relationship. And the second of that 3D. And it was decide.

Get my notes here. The 3Ds.

This is really a cool idea. The 3Ds are.

Discover your mouse, right? Be able to name it, decide on what it is you're going to do, and then disarm the situation so that you can move forward. Forward. And it's in the deciding. That is the key idea that I would like to talk about using a paralyminal form because it's a subtle distinction that we're trying to make. It's a discrimination of information that we might not be used to making.

We're not used to naming our mice. We're not used to really weighing the options of being able to call it out or bring it forward in an authentic communication with another person. And so I'd recommend the Intuition amplifier because it really helps you use that internal guidance system. Notice more of what's happening in the world around you. Let your inner mind, your non conscious mind give you the guidance that would help you establish a new way going forward.

Another one which is really fun is called Finding Treasure. A point that David made during our talk together was this idea that every opportunity has something of value for you. The good and the bad, they both have value. You can learn from negative situations that occurred. You can celebrate the good things that have occurred and really help.

Show and appreciate somebody else for being there and being present in their relationship with you. So the idea of using Finding Treasure will help you in all of your relationships to be able to see the good stuff and to be able to notice the value of even the most difficult times in relationships. I talked about my marriage with my wife and how many years we've known each other. I can tell you that the toughest times we've been through have always been very supportive in getting us to the next level in our relationships.

The.

Talking about improving communication and relationships. I can kind of separate interpersonal communications from relationships, but it's hard to when you agree when we're in relation with another, we're in communication of some kind. But just to separate them artificially. If I am trying to communicate effectively, I would like to be able to listen to talking to win. It's going to help me in my presentations that I'm making. Also sales leap. It's going to be very helpful. I remember a number of people who were going on radio or tv when they would get ready for a show, they'd listen to sales leap because they know they're going to be able to show up and be authentic and present the very best best of themselves.

Another one that's very helpful in terms of interpersonal relationships is creating sparks, which is really about intimate, personal, interpersonal relationships. And I like to use the word intimacy as into me. I see. So creating Sparks really lets you look at your own vulnerabilities in a relationship with another and being able to really be there and know that you're safe in that situation. Very powerful session. And creating sparks is a great way to keep a long term relationship moving forward in a sizzling way.

Overall. Certainly when we talk about interpersonal communications and relationships, the Number one, go to Paralimal. Is called positive relationships. There are two sessions to it. Session A is about dealing with interpersonal conflict. Very helpful to be able to.

Know that you have choices and if you've just gone through a conflict or you know you're coming up into a situation where conflict could occur, that session A is so powerful. And session B is about attracting to us the supportive relationships that are going to help us move forward or get to those goals and objectives that we have in our lives. Another one, which is I want to bring up, is called active listening.

Because active listening is based on this premise of building relationship capital. And when others know that we care about them, then they're more willing to care about what we have to share. So active listening is a very powerful way to move and improve interpersonal relationships. Now, the other type of relationship that I haven't talked about because we could think about intimate relationships, leadership and work relationships, we could talk about parenting, relationships with our children, our family members and so on. But how about our relationship with ourselves?

Probably the most important relationship you'll ever have. David referred to it when we were talking about this idea. If no one else was even on the planet, I'd still have to deal with the messiness of my relationship with myself. So I really love that and there are several that could be really, really helpful. My all time most favorite one in this category is called self love, where you take that younger you and that older you, the elder, the inner elder and the inner child, and we bring them together so that you actually have a relationship with all three of those parts of you, your now self, your past self and your future self. Very cool. It's really amazing. Very helpful also is the self esteem supercharger. It's not about self image, it's about self esteem. It's how you care and love unconditionally yourself, just exactly the way you are, always doing the best that your current awareness permits. And as you support, acknowledge, recognize and allow yourself to be a learner, your self esteem continues to improve. Very helpful. A paralympical that I did with Lisa Nichols called you deserve it. Super sweet. I mean, just it really works on that relationship with yourself and what you would call your inner coach. It becomes a much more expansive internal environment of self support. Super powerful. To be able to understand yourself better and going from your past, your future.

Is to think about a life of purpose and meaning. But how do you understand your life's purpose without an examination of the path you've taken up until now? And that's where finding yourself paralyminal comes in. It really helps you understand your purpose. It also understand helps you understand your gifts, your talents that you're here to contribute to the world. Another very powerful self actualization, which is more than just becoming self actualized. It's about becoming self transcendent. It's being able to reach your very best wherever you are and certainly in terms of our relationship with others, to be able to get to that highest spot that we could ever possibly achieve in our lives. Super great self actualization. Another one really good.

Instantaneous personal magnetism to bring about that sense of interior charisma and bring it out into the world. And two that I really love that are more about your internal emotional state. One is called joy and that's being able to be at peace with yourself in the world, wherever you are. And you've heard the statement that wherever you are, there you are. You're always with yourself. Why not be in joy? Have a sense of that passion, living passionately and wholeheartedly in the world. And finally, the paralympical called gratitude, which is recognizing all the amazing gifts and resources that are yours to enjoy. Well, that's it. Well, it's probably not all that I could recommend, but it's a pretty good start. I think you could see how to use the spectacular resources of paraliminals to help elevate and express the full potential of your life. So enjoy focusing on what can take you to the next level of your expression.

Foreign.

Thank you for joining me today.

I applaud your willingness to maximize your potential. You can easily use the paralyminal audio sessions in the Mind Tracks app to stimulate your non conscious mind, that is your inner mind, to reduce any resistance in your life and to propel you toward the success you want. Visit mindtrax.com to learn more. These amazing audio tools have helped millions and I encourage you to bring them into your world today. Be sure to be back for more episodes of the mindtrax podcast. You'll find insightful conversations with authors, experts and thought leaders all devoted to to improving your life's experience. Thank you again for being here on our MindTrax podcast.