836. Dave Hollis On Finding Inspiration Through Hardship, Rediscovering Yourself & His New Book

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I was built to handle the choppy waters that exist beyond my safe harbor as I am pursuing the full exploitation of my passion, my competencies in an effort to impact other people.

Welcome to the Earn your Happy podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of Light Pink, bestselling author, three time fitness world champion, and I'm a crazy, multi passionate entrepreneur. My journey has taken me everywhere from being a broke waitress, barista, retails associate and personal trainer with massive anxiety and no belief in myself to later becoming a multimillionaire in love with my life. In 2007, my husband and I lost everything. We found ourselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt at rock bottom. We had no ideas and I had no education to fall back on. This is when I found personal development and learned everything I could about business. Not by choice, but because I realized no one was coming to save me. The conversations on this podcast are going to let you know that you're not and that we all feel like we don't know what we're doing. We're going to give you the tools to help you face your fears, take action, start your business, and grow those massive dreams that are keeping you up at night. It's time to create a life that you can't hide from and put so much on the line that your higher self is forced to come out. You're going to stop waiting for someone to approve of you, and you're going to anoint yourself because I'm obsessed about building businesses that give women a platform I want feature you. So if you text the word podcast to 310-496-8363, you can get your questions answered on our Q and A segment along with a shout out. And if you rate, review and subscribe to this podcast, we're choosing someone every month to get coached and featured on our show. It just might be you. So let's get started. Get ready to feel all the feels and get all the chills and have all the breakthroughs. Because I definitely did on this podcast. I am thrilled to be interviewing Dave Hollis today and he has a new book out called Built Through Face youe Fears to live the life you were meant for. And and it is available now. You guys, I literally, I didn't really.

Know what to expect with this Podcast.

And I had a podcast with Dave a few years back and I loved it.

But I feel like this man has.

Gone through so many different things and has so much wisdom and lessons that apply to right now, this time in history, your big vision, your big dreams.

And how to find the courage that you need.

So he is a New York Times bestselling author of get out of youf Own Way. He works to inspire others to take control of their lives and create a future of fulfillment and purpose. He's a former president of distribution for the Walt Disney Studios. He's seen both the negative consequences of limiting beliefs and the positive power of imagination, dreams, and believing in oneself. So if you're feeling like you need a dose of courage and you want to feel like you're ready to run through a wall, stay tuned into this podcast. Let's get started.

Dave, I'm so excited to have you on the show again. How are you?

Oh, Lori, I'm doing well. Thank you for having me back.

Yes. Let's talk real life about how literally we weren't sure if this was going to happen because you're coming from, I think, a bookstop, A million interviews. Like, I literally know what that feels like. How do you reset? Because I literally asked, did you go to the bathroom? Did you get a drink? What do you need? Because it's really back to back when you're getting something out into the world. I've been talking a lot about just even book writing and what it looks like when you're on the. Trying to get through the atmosphere when you are pushing something out into the world and it's sprints in marathons. Right. So how have you been on this book journey? How have you been feeling? And how are you kind of taking care of yourself along the way?

Yeah. What's interesting is I am now on the back end of having woken up in the sixth different city on six consecutive days.

Oh, my gosh.

And today feels amazing. On the back end of it. I'm energized. It has overwhelmed me. How much. As much as it wasn't what I was expecting to do this week, it turned out to be exactly what I needed. Connecting with people on the ground, in smaller venues where it afforded some eye contact, some hugging, some listening to stories. It was just so affirming that, oh, yeah, hey, there's good here. This work matters keep moving forward as the book now has been out for what, four days? People have actually read some of the words and are now saying, like, oh, my goodness, that one part. It just was absolutely written for me. And that as a creator, to hear that something you created is actually having the impact that you were hoping for is also affirming. When of course this week was also a blend of self doubt and hope and want for impact, but questioning if you were hoping for more impact than was even reasonably possible. It ends up being somewhat of a roller coaster and the back end of something chaotic. Five city, five day tour. I feel so, so grateful that it happened. And I am also now transitioning into a weekend where I will be with all four of my kids and my parents who, God bless them, were here helping with the kids while I was on the road. And we are going to watch a movie tonight. We are going to have a slow day tomorrow. I got a golf date with my dad on Sunday morning. Like I now have the weekend that you'd hope to have after sprinting because I'm going to get back into that sprinter's position as soon as Monday comes back around.

What were some fears that you had going into this? Like, I think book tours are always a big deal, but for anybody who has anything coming up that feels really big, especially if you're writing because you're always writing from your soul and that's scary. And there's probably a lot of things that you shared that you're like, oh my God, how is this going to be received? So what were some fears that came up for you before this?

Well, I mean what's interesting in part is I, yes am launching a new book. But I'm also interestingly because of the way that the last two years and five years of really changed who I am identity wise and how I think of myself, how I present myself, how I do what I do. In some ways I'm also unveiling me and introducing this person who believes himself to be called into space to teach or report in this area. And so when you create something new, yeah, there's the hope that that creation connects, that it helps afford others breakthrough. But also in being as transparent or vulnerable in the way that I hope people can see themselves in my stories, I'm also introducing myself to them in a way that says this is me, this is all of me. And of course at like a basic human level, I, like any of us, is interested in being seen fully and truly as myself and being accepted, being loved, being seen as worthy or enough. And as much as it needs for me to start inside, I have to see that and believe that in myself. I don't want to be someone who depends on outside sources to provide me that affirmation or validation. There is still part of my humanness that has the way that people might respond to me or my work in a way that creates something of insecurity when I'm introducing it or unveiling it on a stage or platform that feels as big as this does when a big book comes out. So for this last week, where. I mean, the genesis of this week, though I've talked about it a bit on Social. I thought that I would be in New York for a press tour where I had previously, as a New York Times bestselling author, had been invited into town to do big national TV shows. This time around, those plans were the hoped for outcome that didn't pan out. And when I got the news of that not being the way things were gonna go, my ego was devastated because I'd created a bunch of worth and value in which couch you were sitting on on the day that the. And I started to spin Tuesday before, like a week before the book is coming out, started to spin. And Heidi, this person I'm in a relationship with, who is fantastic as a human, kind of grabbed me by my shoulders and was like, hey, doors closed. How do we get through the window? Like, what's the next thing we're going to have to think up to having impact and meeting people maybe on the ground or having local press opportunities present themselves because of your willingness to come to market. And thus this five day tour was born, but was born in like a 48 hour window where it didn't expire.

Oh my God, that's amazing, right?

So in so many ways, we were building an airplane while we were flying an airplane. And part of this, to answer the question you asked long ago, I'm sitting in the parking lot of a venue where we didn't get 100% permission that we were even allowed to set up a table to do a meet and greet with our local community. And in that there was some nervousness. Are we actually going to pull this off? Ask for forgiveness? Forgiveness, not permission. But beyond that, there wasn't even the promise necessarily. The people were going to show up. And so where I'm already smarting a little bit from what felt like things not going my way, I have those voices now telling me a story of how they would likely go. And as it turned out, not getting the thing I wanted was exactly what I needed. I had the most incredible week ever, period. It was life affirming in so many ways. But also as a person who believes himself to be stepping into each day this purpose for why he was created to be here. Stories from the people that have been walking alongside you in community are the things that you need sometimes to remind yourself of your truth. And those were the things that every single stop would actually come up unsolicited and in a way that felt like an answer to prayer.

I know when we're writing and a lot of it's so therapeutic when we write. What did you think this book was? What was the idea? And now what are you seeing that it is like? How are people receiving it? What are the messages? I always find this so interesting of what is coming through the most that people are relating to.

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What's interesting is I started writing it in the beginning of 2020. I'd made this declaration that I was going to have the best year of my life in 2020. I made this bold, I love that for you, I mean declaration at the end of 2019, December, at a holiday party in front of my team and my peers and the humans that were most important to me in life. And what I didn't appreciate was that I did not get a say in the conditions through which my best would present itself. Right. My best came forward in having to go through the hardest thing I'd ever experienced in my life, where this marriage I'd been in for 16 years came to an end. My primary identity, husband to Rachel, was now gone. My one of my, I'd say, tertiary identities, not secondary, because I'm certainly a father to these four kids. But the work that I was doing in a business that we'd helped each other create was now going away. And so my work identity and my biggest primary identity as husband were now gone. And so I found myself with a completely different story than the one I started writing at the beginning of 2020. What's interesting, though, is one of the first things I wrote in the book was this line. In the rush to return to normal, let's use this time to consider which parts of normal are worth rushing back to. Right? In a way that I hope I didn't inadvertently conjure anything for anyone else. When I made this declaration that 2020 would be my best year, I also had no concept of how the thing that I wrote in March would take on completely different meaning. At the end of May When I had a conversation for the first time in life about divorce and what I ended up writing about in the book and had an appreciation for then was that there was this question that I asked in the midst of healing early on. And it was a big question, what things might have to die to bring you back to life? It was a reference to Lazarus, a character in the Bible who dies and is brought back to life. And what I recognized was there were a lot of things in my life in 2020, very important things, as it turned out, that would have to die in order for me to be brought back to life, in order for me to become the strongest and best version of myself, a better F. A person who loved himself in a completely and fundamentally different way. A person who connected to purpose and honoring the intention of a creator who had designed very specifically me to do the work that I do on this planet. I didn't come to this place that I am or feel as strong as I do, or love myself as much as I have now. Come to finally, finally come to love myself in spite of the things that I've gone through. I ultimately am there because of having to have gone through those things. So to answer your question, I started writing a book as a follow up to get out of your own way. Hey, if you can get out of your own way, that's a great start. But now it requires courage to take the steps that are necessary to walk toward purpose or calling. Because where you're currently moving from is safe, it's familiar, there's less risk. There aren't as many of your fears that will be triggered for you to stay in this place. But you've been called to greater things. You were designed with intention. And our work is to every day honor the intention of this creator. Well, taking those steps requires courage. It requires the courage to cast a vision, the courage to believe enough in yourself that you can get there. The courage to embody your truth in a way that challenges someone who has become comfortable with how you have historically presented. Because the true you is probably different than that that has kept them happy at the expense of your truth.

Yes.

And so it really, you know, as much as that was, of course, the intention of the book, it took on wildly different meaning when I was also then grappling with identity change, when I was grappling with who am I now that I'm no longer who I've been, when I was grappling with the way that hard things create the best growth, even if we don't like it, the Way that my faith, having never been tested, was a thing that made me think I had great faith until it was tested. When I realized it was because of the test that you were able to actually see what faith really means. And so, in a beautiful way, I don't know that the spirit of the book necessarily on the biggest arc changed, but the depth and the meaning of what I might write in an attempt to allow people to see themselves in my stories and relate to how this constant of change and the courage that's required to make our way through it and make the most of it is a thing. I had many examples of change that I'd chosen, but few of change that chose me. And now I have the examples of both change that I chose and change that chose me in a way that I think says, hey, if you are human, as much as I'd love to think that you can preempt change choosing you or hard times coming, we can't fill a quota. You can't check enough boxes. There is no way to preempt hard. It's a common. So if it is, how do we have a conversation around preparation for it and how to make the most of it when it inevitably shows its face?

I have so many questions for you, so many beautiful points.

Let's go.

So I find when I'm in conversation with people and also for myself, that one of the big reasons that we, number one, don't live who we authentically are, that we don't go for what we know we're created for is ultimately fear is ultimately being cast out of, you know, our families, our tribe, our friendships is also public lessons. Right? Public, shaming, public. Oh, my God. Just this scary thought of learning your lessons in public. And this is like what majority of fears come from, Right. If those things were gone, you'd be like doing the do and you wouldn't care if you failed because it's like, you'd be fine. So I want to know about, you know, you had said that change chose you. What can you see now? First of all, I'm going to dig into that a little deeper too. What can you see now that you are really clear that you couldn't have even created this type of change for yourself? And also, what was that super challenging thing that you wouldn't wish upon anyone else, but now maybe you would because you are a totally different person because of the challenge?

Yeah, I mean, I have an appreciation for the courage that it took for the person who made this decision to make it in a way that I Could not give credit for it. But while I was in the depths of pain, in the depths of grief, I didn't understand what was happening. As much as I appreciated the question that initiated all things. Rachel asked me, do you think that you can be the man that God created you to be married to me? The floor fell out of the building, right? Like it was a thing that I truly had not necessarily contemplated because I never entertained the possibility of that being the inhibitor to me being the person that I was created to be. How could. How could that even be a possibility? And there was something in her knowing that I had no connection to. I did not know it at all. I was. Whether it was denial or an unwillingness to even contemplate what she knew, that was so painful that I, like, refused to accept that this was the answer until I had a moment of recognizing in a lot of therapy conversations that one of the things that I was grieving most was the idealized vision of what I wish we could have been. I was mourning a future that was this. It wasn't cartoon esque, but it was this. Wouldn't it have been wonderful if we would have been able to have this as a future? And that was disconnected from the practical realities of our present and the nature of who each of us are as individuals in a way that doesn't demean either of us, but was just reality. And so what I realized is, oh, man, I'm mourning something that is more fantasy than is honesty. And when I was able to get to honesty, it allowed me to move closer to acceptance. And that, just as a thing, was a gift. The thing, though, that I wouldn't wish on anyone because it was the hardest part of the beginning of me. Being inside of the dark part of the forest was one of the first casualties in divorce for me, was my imagination. I'd never, ever considered a life that didn't include me as her husband or us working together. I'd left Disney for this pursuit of building this company, thinking we'd do it for the rest of time. And now that that certainly was not the case in both instances, I had a really hard time with this blank piece of paper that had been handed to me writing down anything that was now going to be me as the author of what next looked like. I didn't know what next was because I'd never really thought about it. And my fear was really the thing that was the accomplice or complicit in my imagination having been taken away. And so it required first that I had to really deconstruct and understand, make a deep relationship with my fear to understand what is it about this unknown that is so scary that I can't see a version of how I am thriving inside of it. Where I am now in truly what I can see now is there is liberation in my ability to write whatever is on this piece of paper. I've described it as both terrifying and exhilarating. But I could only see the terrifying until I deconstructed my fear. And once I did, it started tipping and tipping and tipping until one day it was exhilarating because I now in the agency of writing whatever it is that I wanted, whatever it was that felt connected to purpose or calling, that I could get super excited about it and see the meaning in the hardest experiences that I've ever been through. But there was still that moment where I didn't know who I was if I wasn't who I'd been and I couldn't see where I was going if it didn't look like it had. And that's a thing that's hard. But also it was in that hard that I found myself. It was in those ashes that I was able to rebuild. Few people are going to quote Tyler Durden from Fight Club, but it's not until you've lost everything that you're free to do anything there is if you can create a relationship with all of these components, Freedom in what comes next when you're world completely falls apart or burns.

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Oh my goodness. Okay, so I think that some people might be freaking out right now because of the question that you had. I think that some of Them are literally having a moment over the question, can you be the person that you were created to be with me? So what if we have moments in our life when we ask ourselves that question, either about our partner or whether it's in a career that we're like, wait, I went to school for this. All the money's in this. My family expects me to be this. I need to show up and provide and be this person. And so many people are relying on me that we feel trapped in our life and trapped in our identity. And some people are probably breathing in a brown bag right now because they don't know what comes next. Or maybe their partner is not spurring that question for them, you know, to actually be a deer in head lice and be like, well, shit, I have to answer this now. Like, what came after that for you? And what is something that you can tell them if that question just jarred them? Because I was like, oh, my gosh, I want to ask that question in my life in different areas.

Yeah, I mean, a few really big questions came out of that initial question, right? Like, one of them was, who am I? Separate any modifier. Who am I? When I'm not considering who I am as a father or a husband? Like, who am I? Who is Dave beyond Dave, as described by the relationship that he has to other people? And that's hard because when you get asked who you are, often you are going to talk about who you are relative to the work you do, the relationship you're in to the kids you have. But rarely do we start with, this is who I am. This is how I'm wired. This is why I'm here. This is my purpose, my calling, my meaning. And it took doing that kind of work, which is scary, especially if you've only ever thought of your value or worth as it pertains to or is related to other people. So that's one. It took a long time. I ended up jumping into an amazing therapy called Internal Family Systems, where I was trying to understand self. I had lost myself. I wanted to find myself. And this therapy has helped me, over the last 18 months, really develop a relationship with who is Dave separate from how Dave interacts with or defines himself relative to other people or places that he works. So that work has been really great. But. But one of the other big questions when it came to work or vocation that I had to ask a question of was who did I want to be before I became who I've become? Because in some ways, right, Like, I had this great Career in Entertainment. I'd spent 17 years at Disney, decided I needed to leave when I realized I was not living up to my potential and the decision to leave my career for my calling, I felt called to leave a thing that checked every conventional box when it came to status and salary and safety and access and all the things. But that was not a recipe for fulfillment the way that growing and honoring this intention for why I have been placed on this planet might ultimately afford. And so when I jumped into entrepreneurship, my thought was, oh, I will come here for impact. Because the missing ingredient must be impact. If I could just work in a space where my could go to helping other people, that would be me connected to purpose. And I got close. I got real close. I partnered with Rachel in something I absolutely believed in. But it wasn't until I'd been in that business for almost 18 months worth of time that I still had this tug inside of me that was like, listen, there are still things that you can do, should do to best utilize the gifts that you've been given. And so I'd been very much happy to be a supporter and integrator to her visionary as an operator for the business. But there was still this whisper of like, you got to write a book, man, you got to stand on a stage, you have some things to say, you have a voice that needs to be heard. And I tried to bat that away and not listen to it. Whether it was self doubt or wanting to honor the way that I was playing a supportive role and it just wouldn't go away. And one day I had this opportunity. Serendipity of Providence. I was sat on a plane next to Dan Rather. To give you a sense of how much of a nerd I was growing up was my childhood hero. Like I wanted more than anything to be Dan Rather. I didn't kiss a girl for a long time in my life, but I loved Dan Rather. And I in loving Dan Rather, getting the chance to sit next to him was this gift. Because for the breaking of airplane protocol, my indulging him in conversation and he generously giving two hours of time reminded me of who I wanted to be before I'd become who I'd become. And as much as I can't explain to my 99 year old grandma Lee what it is that I do in conventional terms, she's asking all the time if I have a career. Because her mind is wired for business cards and traditional conventional business. The the closest thing I can tell her when she asks what do I do? I am a Reporter. I take my stories and experiences. I take the things I've learned from other people and consolidate them into the words that I write in books and the words that I use in podcasts and the coaching I put into my courses as I attempt to report something that might afford other people breakthroughs. And I'm on fire for it because it's who I wanted to be before I became who I'd become. And when I had that moment on the plane, it was this reminder to believe enough in myself to have the courage to trust the instinct, the voice, and step away from running the inside of a business to stepping out in front of a business to use the gifts. And that conversation was happening at the same time that the rest of my life was falling apart. And it was this gift that happened to remind me of, all right, this is your way out. This is the thing that you are going to continue to pull on the thread of. Because as much as every other thing now looks a little more uncertain than it had previously, there is certainty in this calling. You know, that this is the thing you're here for, continue down this path.

So good. I think maybe some questions that are arising in some people's minds because they're arising in mine because I didn't fully actually follow it. I was praying for your situation. What was a sign for you? Or how did you know you actually had to leave the relationship to become that? And is there ways around that? If it's like, I'm not the person that I want to be, I'm not sure that I can do this here. I'm sure you went through all the conversations. I work with my husband as well. I'm sure there's a lot of different couples that are like, whoa, what if we're going through, like, a rough patch? What would you say to that?

Yeah, I will say I 100% didn't think I needed to be outside of the relationship to become my, my best self. I absolutely would have and I would still be today, probably to the expense or at the detriment of me becoming the best version of myself. I'd still be fighting to stay inside of the marriage. And it's. It's a thing that I now have such clarity on. I have such objective, appreciative, gratitude filled perspective on for everything having having happened exactly as it did. But I don't know that I had an ability, ability to connect to the answer outside of going through it in a way that allowed the answer to present itself. I don't know that. I don't know how like, how did she know how like. And I, and I, to be honest, I don't know. You know, the thing is, I was raised to believe in the sanctity of marriage. I was raised in a world that said that when you make a commitment, you stick to it, you're going to fight no matter what. And I also, at the same time, have appreciated being on the outside of a choice that was made for me that has saved my life, that has fundamentally and forever changed my life. The man I will be known as at the end of my life was born in 2020, and I will have a legacy that in so many ways is better, impacts more people, and is closer to the intention of why God put me here because of it. And I can't reconcile those two things. And so, you know, I don't want to suggest. Oh, if you're having this question come up, then the answer is you should definitely not be in a marriage together. Because, man, I still honor the sanctity of marriage and believe that people should fight to try and stay inside of it or deconstruct it in a way that helps them understand if there's any way to have it be a thing that can keep going. And I also am the best version of me in my entire adult life, period, because of the way that these things having happened forced me to do an inventory of what mattered and didn't. Forced me to take care of my health on a level and at a level that I hadn't ever previously forced me to my knees to bring me and draw me closer to God in a way that really showed me the power of faith in the midst of it being challenged. So I wish I could give an answer that was just black and white, cut or dry. Then. It's just not that because life's not that way.

But why? Why isn't it? Oh, man. What is a belief that you had about yourself, let's say 2019, that you have now has been completely, maybe a belief about life, about just how you view life that has now been completely shattered. And what do you believe now?

Well, this isn't a belief specifically, but one thing that definitely has fundamentally had a completely new look on it for me is my look control and the illusion of it. Like, I, I think I like, had an intellectual appreciation of the absence of control, but I now have a practical, lived through it appreciation for how little control there ends up being in a way that previously would have generated fear for its absence and now creates freedom for me, appreciating the agency that I have to make the best choices that I can, knowing that none of the decisions are necessarily going to preempt the bad things from happening. And maybe they might engineer some good or reduce some of the pain that comes in the hard, but things are going to happen that go outside of or beyond our control, bad things that we don't like. So I guess that's one I have been someone who certainly has cast a vision or made these declarations of this will be my best year or prayed. And whether you do one, two or all three of those things, I think sometimes we have this hubris that suggests that not only do we get to make the declaration, but we also get to declare the terms through which these things are fulfilled. And the reality is all of my prayers were answered, all of my vision was made true. The declaration of my best year ever came to pass. And it all, all of it happened through means that I did not like, would not have chosen and have no desire to relive. But that's the thing about prayers, that's the thing about vision, that's the thing about manifesting anything else. You can absolutely have your eye on what you'd hope to have the outcome be, but you may not get control over what ends up being the means through which it comes to pass. And you have to decide if you are going to be okay getting the outcome, even if ends up meaning that there's pain and failure and potentially embarrassment or resiliency that's built because of the number of times you have to get back up or any of these other things. I just have an appreciation that, nope, this is the thing that has produced my best. Now what's great is that the evidence that's been collected in my both best and hard year happening at the same time is that I know I'm going to have more hardcome, but I also know the good that can come from hard. And so I'd like to think that the attitude with which I'll walk into that next hard season is just going to be different because I have evidence of having become such a better prouder of myself, closer to my kids, stronger in my faith, more emotionally and mentally sound because of the work I was doing in therapy or with the books I was reading or the community I was surrounding myself with. Like. Like all of the good that has come was produced by conditions that I did not want and would not. I'm not, I'm not interested in going through them again. And yet they're the reason. And so, you know, for anyone who's going through something that's hard, I hope that you can have some appreciation. If you can see it this way, if you look for it, you'll find the good that is being built and the muscle being broken down so it can be, you know, come back even stronger. And I think the last thing I'd say, like, I have an appreciation for something that I think I, again, like, intuitively hoped was real, but now have proof that it exists. Faith. And yes, I mean, I have a religious faith in the midst of this heart season, but when I think of faith, I had. Someone recently described it as delusional optimism, right? Like, I had faith that the things that I would need would present themselves when I needed them most. Which sounds maybe a little bit foo foo, but I just went into each day believing that this was the case, this was the reality of life. What I thought was that the things I needed, at first I thought, well, the things that I. That I need, they will come when I. When it's most convenient for me, hopefully, or when it would be nice for them to show up. And that was not the case. They came when I needed them most. But I would start each day with this delusional, optimistic belief that they would show up. And then I went out into the day, even in the midst of grief and even in the midst of the hardest times, looking for proof of these things appearing. And since I was looking for them, sure enough, they would show up. And it was little things. The text that came consistently from a pastor who, with 11 words every day for eight weeks, said, the most beautiful thing you can have in the midst of grief. What small piece of sadness can I hold for you today? Those are good words when you need to be reassured that you are not walking through this valley alone. The neighbors who moved in down the street that I might normally not have taken my earbuds out to introduce myself to on that day when I needed them most, I took my earbuds out, introduced myself, they became barbecue therapy. Laughing, distracting shoulders to cry on, people that were an emergency salve and a miracle in a season when I needed one most. And I, like, there are 30 examples. I mean, I invited Heidi earlier on in my journey to come and do a podcast about divorce. Could not make it through, you know, a second without blubbering and crying. And instead of recording a podcast, we sat and had a conversation for four hours that became months of a friendship that then grew into something more. But all of these things, they were just. They were there, and I just had to go into each day believing that they would present themselves. And because I was looking for them, I found them.

Oh, that is so beautiful. And I had so many questions that you actually answered through that around, you know, faith and what, what does that actually look like? And what does that feel like? And you know, we can live our lives in such fear of the bad times or in such fear of the hard times. And it's really just like, it's such a reminder to sink into the joyful times and know, yeah, you're going to hit hard times, but my God, they just. There's never been proof in any of our lives. I'm sure if you can really look that you haven't gotten better, smarter, stronger. Yeah, more people needed more people. Like all of that pain made you need people who you actually didn't even know you needed in your life. And yeah, I think that's something that I just really picked up on from you talking was how much it actually attracts people that we can rely on for the rest of our life and how few people sometimes that strong people have in their life. Yeah, sometimes the really weak points bring in those beautiful people.

I think too, as much as like the people you surround yourself with are who you become five or whatever the number ends up being, I also think that when you are going through something that you have never been through before, your ability to access someone who has and with their expertise or perspective can normalize a little bit of what journey you are on or point out, hey, I know you're in this dark part of the forest, but let me bring some light to some of what might sit in front of you terrain wise, because I've been there. It was so, so important. I know when I went from Disney into entrepreneurship, I came from a place where 72 countries worth of people, thousand plus, expertise to the max. These people just had a nose for smoke. Like they could sniff out where fire might show up before it did, preemptively put it out. And most of my leading was understanding places where they'd smelled smoke, taken out the extinguisher, had the fire stopped before it started. And I moved into entrepreneurship where we were in places where we had never ever even smelled smoke. Forget having a nose for it, we'd never smelled it. And so without having an ability to know what that thing was that was in the air, there was just fires all the time because we didn't know how to put them out before they showed up. And I had this opportunity right around the 3, 5 month mark of really being in this entrepreneur thing where I was, like, losing my mind a little, like, imposter syndrome is now creeping in. Like, am I the right person cut out for the job? And I found myself backstage at an event that Rachel was speaking at with John Maxwell, and we're sharing, like, man, there's a lot of fires here. Are we doing this wrong? And he said something in, like, this very stately, seen it all kind of way that was, hey, you can have multiple good days in a row or you can be a small business owner, but you can't have both. Right. Like, normalizing the frequency of fires. Right. So it wasn't so much that, you know, something was being done incorrectly. It did require that I adjust what worked there. Because of the nose people had for smoke and not having one here, a different style of leadership was necessary. Roll your sleeves up, get your nails dirty, be involved in helping put fires out, as opposed to hearing reports of how fires never started. But if you're moving into something new and you're experiencing something disorienting, having someone who's experienced that disorientation for so long, it's normal to them, is part of how it becomes normal to you. That was, you know, in that transition for work. There was that in this transition of relationship. Finding people who were further along the journey to make me feel normal and seen in the experience of grief or the processing of which pieces of normal are worth rushing back to, allowed me to not feel crazy. And in some ways, it allowed me to expedite just a little bit the grief process. Because some of that grief was uncertainty. Some of that grief was wanting so desperately to feel normal again. And there was an ability to feel normal when I was able to sit with someone who could see me in that empathy bridge, have me feel like I was going to be okay, because they, a little further along the journey, were themselves.

Yeah, I'm so in that place. So this is super helpful. Just like the whole forest is on fire because it's new.

Yeah.

What path do we just put out for now?

I will say this just because you're there. I mean, what I also came to appreciate was I used to demonize fire. And I came to appreciate that every good thing that was created in process, structure, product design, customer affinity, all of them were born out of fire. And so, especially at the beginning, inside of an entrepreneurial journey, preempting fire isn't the goal. Learning as much as you possibly can from every fire so that you can contain them faster is. And so it, like, just even, like, Appreciating that over time changed the way that I had an emotional reaction to something not working well. It was like, it's not working well. Fantastic. What can we apply to customer service or what can we apply to product design? Or what can we apply to price or, or time that it's available or whatever it was. You're not really celebrating it, but you just think differently about it when you know, oh, this is good because this is going to actually make us better next time.

Oh my God. So good. And I don't know if you ever had this coming from like a very, you know, thinking positive and wanting to manifest good things and praying for the blessing. And sometimes when that blessing feels like it's not coming, and it is coming, but it's coming in the form of, you know, crap sandwiches. You're like, what am I doing wrong? Like, I must be, maybe I'm out of alignment. Maybe I'm not praying for the right thing. Maybe I'm. And you're like, it's, it's that flip that you just said that's actually game changing because. And being able to sit with someone who's like, this is normal. You're actually going to make it there if you don't learn from the fires.

Yeah. Well, what's interesting too, just when it comes to praying, specifically when you're in the midst of the thick, the real, like in the tunnel, suck. I found myself not just on my knees, but yelling from my knees. Right. And what I appreciate now, that I didn't appreciate then was God can handle my screams, he can handle my frustration, he can handle me being very, very angry at Him. But he also was able to help me appreciate that I don't have the optics or I don't have the ability to see the things that, that were in play, like kind of a tunnel visioned version of what is really all at play. And now, right, this, this length of time removed from the situation, I of course, can see pieces that were just completely obscured when you're the very beginning of a journey. And so if it feels better to scream at the sky, fantastic, God can handle it. But also maybe as you're screaming, you might be hit with that whisper that you don't actually have every single piece in clear view at this stage because you're just so inside the dark part of the forest that you have to get to the edge of it to see a fuller picture of what's actually going on.

Oh, man, needed that today. Okay, so your book talks so much about this. I know that we brought so many points that are actually in here. You talk a lot about stories, beliefs, things that you attach yourself to your identity, which is huge. We got to chat about that. Adjusting goals, accepting failure. That's one question I think I want to end on is just, first of all, how do we find ourselves? How do we know if we're making these goals for ourselves? What have we made them from? Like, how can we adjust our sales if we find ourselves in someone else's goals?

Yeah, Well, I mean, going back to that question, those two questions, like, who are you separate from your modifier descriptors? And who did you want to be before you became who you've become? I'd really like to spend some time there because I think those are great places to start. But if you're stuck and you're like, gosh, I want to try and get a little bit closer to purpose or understanding calling, I would say that there are three things that really have to be present for anyone to feel like they are connected to something greater than themselves, that they will, at the end of time, be proud for having dedicated their life to. Number one, you gotta be passionate about the work that you are doing. It is maybe the only of these three things that you cannot build over time. I'm gonna argue that you are either passionate about something or you are not. And if you are, right now, and I've been in seasons of my life where I could not even tell you what I am passionate. Dave, what do you like? I don't know. I am so in this relationship or so in life for these kids, or so working for this job, that my answers tend to be whatever they want or whatever serves them best or whatever. And I've struggled to know what I have personal passion for. If you're struggling right now to find passion, I write in the book, I had this great conversation with Steven Kotler about the power of curiosity. And the more that you can dip your toe in a bunch of different places where you have some curiosity, the pools of curiosity lead into passion. And so the more that you can just try a bunch of things, many of them, you're going to decide, this is not for me. I don't have any passion for this. This is boring. But every once in a while, you're going to stumble into something like, whoa, hold on. I do have passion for this. That's great. You got to be passionate. Second thing is that you have to have an ability to develop mastery for something. Right? Has to be something that you're passionate about. But if this passionate thing is also something that you can, because you have competency in it, you've got a set of skills, some wiring of the gifts that you've been given, this is one that over time, with enough work, enough failure and learning from that failure, enough trying new parts or aspects of it, you can over time develop mastery. Mastery is where pride lives best and most. Mastery is something that makes you feel like you are using potential in the best kind of way. So. So finding something you're passionate for, but that also you're really good at, those two things are really important. And as you can then direct what you have passion for and what you are good at to impacting other people, how can you then serve that trifecta is the place where you tend to find connection to purpose. One of the things that is like at the core though of that is this appreciation, the courage to believe that you were designed with deliberate intention in mind that you, Laurie, me, Dave, any of our listeners that we have, only us has gone through our experiences. Only us has a way of thinking and a way of feeling and a way of loving and a way of doing life that is our way. And that that uniqueness, Our Limited Edition 1 of 1 version of U.S. comes with a responsibility, a mandate, I will argue, to honor the intention of our Creator to do what we can every day, to lean into the spaces where we have that passion and mastery, to have impact that only we could have, that only we could have. Because only we have been given our experiences. And the stories that we tell are the ones that other people might be able to see themselves in. Because only we can tell those stories the way that we might think through and problem solve or feel and connect in the way that we have empathetic bridges to offer other people. Because of our experience being unique to us. It is something that only we can do. And our impact then has to be a reflection of our uniqueness. And that takes courage. Because a lot of times the decision to lean into what you were uniquely called into runs in opposition of something that you have historically been. The stories that you've told yourself of what is possible or not possible for you. The way that other people that you are in life with feel comfortable with you, in the way that you are currently showing up, which is in some ways a denial of who you actually are. And so you getting comfortable in a place where you have passion, where you can build some competency or mastery and direct those things towards impacting others in a way that honors what you can uniquely do. To me that's like, the secret, but all of it just. It takes a little bit of time to give yourself the permission or to conjure enough of the courage to believe that you can handle the assignment. I mean, I got the tattoo. That is, like, the mantra of my last five months. I talked about it the last time I was on the show. A ship in harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for. And I had to get it for myself as a reminder every day that I was built to handle the choppy waters that exist beyond my safe harbor as I am pursuing the full exploitation of my passion, my competencies in an effort to impact other people. It's hard, but I was built for this. It's choppy and disorienting, but I was built for this. It's unmooring and disorienting and sometimes embarrassing when I fail publicly, but I was built for this, and you were built for this, too. And so if you can connect to the mandates, hey, you were designed with intention. And, oh, by the way, that intention suggests that you were built for this. Now it just takes the courage to believe it. Now it just takes the courage to believe that you were so that you can go out and do it.

Oh, man. Yep. So good. God is good. Right on time.

Oh, right on time. Come on, let's go.

Right on time. Thank you so much for this, truly. I feel like this was such a gift to be able to chat right now in my life, and I know for so many people, I'm sure it hit them right where they need it just to live without that fear of bad things happening, especially just after the last year or whatever people are wanting to do, and especially if you are ready to step into your big call, there's a lot of underlying fear there what could happen. And, oh, my God, now that it's good, the shoe can drop. There's so many spirals to go down, and I really feel like, like, you gave us a lot of beautiful tools, and I know that these are in your book as well. Tell me where we can get your book. Built Through Courage.

Good news. Built Through Courage is available anywhere books are sold. Though I will say with what seems like a little bit of supply chain, interesting stuff with Barnes and Noble and Target in real time. Amazon has been very dependable of late. And if you like the sound of my voice, I do read the book Audible, and I've just put up a sample 45 minutes or so in my podcast, Rise Together. So if you want a little taste before you buy Fantastic. But I am positive that this book has something in it for you, that there is something that you will hear that you cannot unhear, see that you cannot unsee that will help you cultivate the courage necessary to take a step toward purpose, take a step into growth. It will require that you face your fear because your comfort zone is surrounded on all sides by your fear. There's a moat around comfort. There's no drawbridge. You're going to have to get courageous to step into it so that on the other side of it, you can have that learning and growth, help you become this person that you were placed on this planet to be. But like I said before, you were built for this. And this book is somewhat of a field guide for how to get there. If you have the courage to start. To start to try to believe that you are worthy of something more.

Oh, so good. Thank you so much for coming on the show. And you guys, I hope that you get this book because even just from the words that you shared with us and the wisdom, you know, there's. There's so much richness that comes from that pain. Fertilizer. So there is.

Yes, there is, Laurie.

So thank you so much for sharing this journey with us. I know I got so much out of it, you guys. One of the biggest things that you can do for our guest is to tag day Dave. What's your Instagram Dave? Mrdave Hollis to tag mrdave Hollis on Instagram and let him know what your biggest takeaway was. If you had an aha moment, if there was something that you're willing to hold on to that's going to help you go for it or shift or do the thing or become the person that you know that you are meant to be. And we always love to shout you out. So definitely give us a tag. I will reshare your stories. Go grab his book. And until next time, earn your happy. Bye, everyone.

Sa.