Eric Nehrlich: You Have a Choice: Creating the Relationships & Career You Want, and Why We Get Stuck

Hello, my friends. This is life coach Mike Trugman. And welcome to an episode of Mike's Search for Meaning. I'm after some big questions. Why are we here? What makes a fulfilling life? How can we grow individually and collectively? Each episode, I'll dive deep with leaders who are doing great work in the world and see how they organize their life. Books, read value systems, resources used, and stories that show how each of you can create the life and the world of your dreams. All right, Eric, we are live and welcome to Mike's Search for Meaning.

Thanks, Mike. Thanks for having me on your show. I'm excited to see where this conversation goes.

So I was just telling you before here, I used to start every conversation with what was it like at your dinner table when you're growing up? And that's an interesting question, of course, because I've asked it a hundred times. But I actually wanted to start with you. I know this was a really formative book for you, and we'll see where the conversation goes from there. I wanted to start with Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman. I know this is a book that you read when you were little. It really informed the way that you pursued your professional life and the choices you made to go to college. And I'm wondering if you could just talk about the importance of Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman, in your life.

Yeah, it's a book I haven't talked about in a long time, but I read it probably when I was sixth, seventh grade, like 11, 12 years old, somewhere in that range. And I actually had to look it up recently to find out when it was published. It must have been then because it was like, I looked at the publication date. It was like right around when I was 12 years old. So I must have read it just when it came out. And yeah, I mean, Richard Feynman was obviously a very famous physicist, but he also just enjoyed life. Like, he just had a joy in everything he did. He was infinitely curious. He would go from, like, safe picking to, like, understanding samba in Brazil to, you know, like, even nowadays, a little creepier. But, like, how to pick up girls in bars, like, talking about that, too. And as a 12 year old, I was like, what? What is this guy talking about? And he was a physicist. And I was like, wow, that's what being a physicist is like. That's what I want to be when I grew up. Turned out not all physicists are like him.

Very few, I would guess.

Very few. And he could only get away with it by Being like one of the biggest geniuses of the 20th century. And several years later, after I went through undergrad and started my graduate program in physics, I realized, like, maybe I'm not actually at Feynman's level and I should think about what else I want to do with my life, because I'm not sure I can do it the way he does it.

Would you always have described yourself as a curious person? And I think maybe I'm going to give a little bit of a more background to maybe lay a foundation for this question.

Sure.

As I go through the different citations you have in your book here, you have read a lot of the same books as me, and you seem very curious about lots of different elements of the human experience. And in researching you, it actually, it seems like that clicked later on in your life. Like a lot of the books that you've read that you cite in this book probably happened in your adult life. And I don't know if you would have described yourself as someone who is interested in psychology, human behavior, or if you would. No. So, like, when do you think you became more curious about that? Because now it's really the predominant thing that you think about in your life.

It's been an evolution. I think one way to describe my kind of journey as a person and my own personal development is I started off in particle physics, which is like the hardest of the hard sciences, the most fundamental. We can get the building blocks of the universe, and everything is super quantitative. And as somebody who really believed in that, all this psychology and human interference all seems so unbearably fuzzy, like, this is not real, this is not scientific. This is just. I don't understand it. But it's not that. And that worked really well as a student, as undergrad, and even into grad school. And after dropping out of my physics PhD program, I became an engineer. And it's like, still kind of like, let me focus on the facts. Let me focus on the stuff I can experiment with and really get true, objective data on. And then I ran into real life and found out, boy, there's a lot of important stuff that happens that's not in that area. So, in particular, one formative experience for me was my second job as an engineer was at a biotech startup with a great technical team, like some of the best people I've ever worked with, as far as engineers and scientists. And despite that, the company went bankrupt due to some terrible decisions by the leadership team. And it was so frustrating for me because I could see it coming. I would Actually stand up at meetings and tell the leadership team the mistakes they made. Because I'm like, here's the data, here's how it's working. Why can't you see this? And they were like, stop being so negative. More we, less me. No, this is not a we versus me question. This is like the real data. I'm telling you what needs to happen here, and you're not listening. And this was kind of one of those moments like, oh, I believed if I just have the data, if I just share the facts, that would be enough. It is not, it turns out it is not effective at all. Because it turns out when you stand up at all hands meeting and you call the CEO an idiot, he doesn't listen to you. I had no idea. So that started me on this path of like, okay, what am I missing here? There must be something I don't understand. And that's why I started reading books about business, about organizational development, books about psychology and sociology, because I'm like, this is how I work. I guess I'm trained as a researcher and a scientist. Like, okay, I don't understand this. Let me go gather the data. Let me understand what else is out there. And that's why I started really getting more involved, exploring that direction more. And obviously now I work as an executive coach, which is all fuzzy, organizational human behavior, psychology. And that's kind of where I hang my hat now. But it was definitely not where I

started, I would say. I mean, I would assume having a quantitative background like that it serves you very well with your clients who might be also skeptical and think that psychology is very fuzzy. And I can't hang my hat on this thing that's in the material real world. And so what good is it really? Which is. It's interesting, the arc. I find that a lot of coaches go from some sort of quantitative field or like a map of making meaning of that. Many people don't phrase it that way, but like making meaning of the universe that we live in in a real quantitative, whether it's physics, mathematics or otherwise. And eventually there's. There's this transition into. Well, if I'm going to relate well to people, I need to understand people and people aren't. It's hard to pin down at the different aspects of. Of a personality. And it's interesting, my dad and I on a walk this morning, we were just talking about how this underlies a lot of the challenges we face in polarization, the political challenges we face is that we get so convinced of our worldview. Quantitative or otherwise. Like, we try and just prove we. We know I have the answer. I am right. Let me tell you how right I am. Let me convince you of my rightness. And it just doesn't work. And I think, you know, the rest of this conversation, we can explore a little bit about how. How people might get unstuck from this type of black and white thinking.

Yeah, I'd love to jump in on that, actually.

Sure, go ahead.

I was. I was trained in that from a very young age, actually. So I grew up in a very Republican, very fundamentalist, Christian suburb of Chicago, very white as well. And I did not fit in because my mom was Korean, and she was trained as a scientist, and she raised me as a scientist and a Democrat. And she tells the story that when we. When she moved to town, she went to her first election, and she was like, I'm going to vote in the Democratic primary. They're like, do we have any of those ballots? I had to go in the back room to find them. And so I was in this position where I remember this distinctly. In high school, there was a debate about creationism versus evolution, and I was the only one arguing for evolution against everybody else, including the biology teacher. And it was this moment of like, am I crazy? Like, everybody else believes one thing and I don't because I'm coming from the science, which I've been trained by my mom, and it's like, what is going on here? And so, like, and yet, within that context, within that bubble, everything hung together beautifully. Everything worked perfectly. It all reinforced each other. The church and the school and all the community, everything reinforced itself. And, you know, like, everybody in that town, all my high school friends, are now Trump supporters, because that's where they went. And so people are like, how could anybody believe this? I'm like, I can see how they believe it because I grew up there, and I understand all the impulses and all the information sources they have that reinforce that worldview. And, yeah, it's a challenge of how do you get people to explore beyond their worldview. I am fortunate that for whatever reason, maybe it's my mom. I was brought up with that curiosity you mentioned. If I don't understand something, I want to go understand it instead of rejecting it. But I don't think that's a very common trait these days.

No. Is that. Do you think that your mom and or parents purposely seeked out living in an area where you would be in maybe. I don't know if, like, minority is really the only word that's coming to mind. But it's just this, this is something that's very uncommon too, is to be like, I'm a scientist and I'm a Democrat and I'm going to go to a rural suburb of Chicago and we're going to be surrounded by a bunch of white Republicans. You know, like, that's. Where do you think that emerged from?

I mean, I don't. I think my dad grew up in Wisconsin. He's, you know, fifth generation German American, so he fit in great. Like, and we moved there because that's where his job was. He worked for AT&T. Then there was a building named Naperville next door and that's where he worked and that was his whole career. Like, you know, I say it's, that's one way the world has changed. Like, my dad got his master's degree, went to work for AT&T, retired 35 years later. Like, that was his career. That is not a common career these days. No, but, you know, that's kind of. It was a, it was a different time back then. And so it was not, I don't think it was any kind of intentional thing. It was just like he moved where the job was and you settle down and you figure out how to make it work.

So growing up in that area, it seems like, has had an impact and has an impact on the way that you can hold space for your own beliefs and your own curiosities and for what other people might believe. And from what I've understood about you working at Google and working with lots of different. I mean, there were a lot of challenges about working at Google, but there's, there's one thing I'm really drawn to, and this is. I was considering starting in this place here, so I'm kind of doing both now. I started with Mr. Feynman, and we're going to go here too, is that you were forecasting revenue. There's, there's lots of elements of, like, how you got into that role that I find really interesting. And also this being around massive sums of money, you're working on hundreds of billions of dollars and forecasting within pretty close to like under 1% accuracy. Right on year. Year. Year on year.

Yep, that was our goal.

And, and you also. I'm going to land at a question here that I think will make you think and is. Is really engaging. The book the Soul of Money, which is actually right behind me over here. My mom and I have both read it is referenced, it's referenced in your book. And I'm just wondering what you're like if you were to describe how your relationship with money has evolved over time. I imagine working at Google and working in large sums of money, you have certain stories that you tell about people who make lots of money or companies that make lots of money. And the soul of money really unravels a lot of the stories we tell about money. So how would you describe your relationship with money over time?

Yeah, I was raised to believe money. You save money, you spend less than you make, and you save money, and you save no matter what. You spend on things that are important, things that are necessary, but most of all, you save. And that's a really valuable, frugal kind of approach to life. So even when I was a grad student making $14,000 a year, I found a way to live on less than that. And I was not like, racking up credit card bills because I'd been taught for a very no such, don't take on debt. Like, you always have to, you know, keep your cost below what you make. And it was valuable to like, really save and save and save no matter what. And what was interesting about that is I reached a point a few years into my time at Google where it's like, what am I saving for? At that point, I had bought a house. I could go on vacations. There's everything I wanted. I don't want ridiculous cars or anything like that. It was just like, I have everything I want. So what am I saving for retirement? I guess that's what I save for. But what am I going to do in retirement? A few years later is when I kind of pivoted towards coaching and started thinking that might be what I want to do. And it was really hard for me to consider how would that work? I was making this much money at Google as a coach, I make a lot less than that. And at the time I was considering it, I was about to become a father and I'm like, well, I have to provide for my son. I have to provide for my family. It would be irresponsible to walk away from Google because this is so much money. And money is good. We must always get more money so we can save more money. And around that is when a friend of mine said, I think you need to read this book. Let me give you this book called the Soul of Money. And what I love about the book is it just breaks down the capitalist, what she calls toxic myths of capitalism, which is more is better. There's never enough. And this is just the way it Is. And I was like, wait a second. Are any of those things true? For me? I haven't.

Could you repeat the three again?

Yeah, the first one is more is better. There's not enough. And this is just the way it is. I may be getting this wrong. I'd have to look at it.

No, I'm pretty sure that's right.

And I realized for myself if I questioned the third assumption of this is just the way it is, well, what if it were different? I have enough, I don't need more. And I could just walk away. I was like, oh, huh. To that point about being in one self sealing bubble. And as soon as you step out of it, you're like, wait, why are those the rules? And I was like, oh, I can just stop. And I did. And I have enough. Like I don't make a ton of money, but I make enough to pay our bills and that's all I need right now. I can't say I can't put away 2/3 of my earnings into savings, but I have plenty of savings because I was at Google for 10 years. And so that was kind of interesting to realize I could change my view to money. And it's so hard. You talked about your dad. My dad, he's retired. He's been retired for many years now. He has a ton of money in the bank. He's saved his whole life for retirement and he still doesn't spend money. It's like we're out to a restaurant and he's like, oh, I can't afford that. It's like, dad, look at your bank account. You can afford anything you want. He's like, well, what if I run out? I'm like, you're not going to run out. There's nothing you could spend money on that would make you run out of money. But he's still so tightly wound into this. No, the responsible thing to do is to save. To save, to save. I'm like, there's nothing to save for dad. He doesn't get it. Kind of frustrating, but understandable for sure.

Well, this is something that could take us a little bit into coaching work and we'll see where it goes, is that we all in some way are living in our own bubble and our own reality and the myth. The notion that I'll be this way today and when I retire, I will pick up a new habit or a new way of being after 40 plus years of doing. One way of being is like, it's hard to break that. It's hard to dispel that once you've been living that way forever. And in a lot of ways, coaching is an interruption of that pattern. And it doesn't have to be money, of course, but it's usually, and you do executive coaching, usually someone who has habits and years of doing something one way and was really good at it, hence they get to an executive level, realizes that thing isn't working in the same way, or I'm overwhelmed or, you know, there's a lot of different reasons that it stops working so well.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, it doesn't have to be money. But like, I'm. I'm wondering. The conversation for the first 20 minutes or so has identified different ways that we have that we calcify in the way that we see the world and in our bubble. And you seem really good at being both. Matter of fact, about. Well, this is the choice, right? That's the name of your book. You have a choice. You're making a choice to see the world this way and that that was learned at some other point in your life, but you also have a choice to see it another way. So there's this, this matter of factness that you bring of you don't have to do that anymore. And there's also a lot of nuance and, and gentleness that you seem to bring into your approach that like, really understands the totality of a person. And you know, you, you mentioned that you read on in your beginning on ramp into wanting to understand people better. Yelling at the CEO doesn't really. It doesn't work, man. Like, gotta try something else. You started reading business books and you started reading maybe more relationship books, and you've got some coach training at an organization that I'm actually not super familiar with, but has come highly recommended to me at what it's called Aletheia. And it was, Was it created by Steve March? Is, is he the person that. Yeah. Did you work intimately with him? Like, did you have personal experience in knowing him?

Yes, Steve March. So I did my original coach training with the institute called New Ventures west, where Steve was on the faculty. And then at some point he wanted to develop beyond the New Ventures west methodology, so created his own coaching school. And I was fortunate to take some of those early coaching trainings with him when he was teaching everything himself. And so he was, you know, teaching the classes, coaching people within the class, and got to really get to know him better as a result. Sorry, I don't remember what the question was.

That was. I mean, the question was just that I didn't arrive at the big one. But I wanted to check with you what your relationship to Steve March was. But there's. There's something around and this, this relates to, like, everything we've spoken about so far around, like, how do you meet people exactly where they are and. And not try and fix it, or say it's wrong, or even if you might disagree with them morally, or it seems really obvious to you that they're getting stuck in the same pattern that you've seen a thousand times with. With 15 other clients. Right? Like, how do you meet them, where they are? And also, like, show them gently in a way that's not, hey, CEO, like, you're an idiot. It's not working. You got to try this thing. Like, what does that look like for you?

Well, it comes back to something you mentioned in the lead up to the question. We have these executives that did things that made them successful, and they keep doing them because it made them successful. This behavior worked for them. I think it's Marshall Goldstein's book. It's called what got you here won't get you there. And that's the whole idea. It did get you here. It brought you success. And the example of my dad saving money meant that he could retire at 55 and never work again. That was a fantastic output for him. He didn't know what to do at that point because his whole point had been trying to reach that point, and he didn't really have a plan for after that. But that's a different problem. So to your point about how do you have the gentleness is you sympathize with the urge. This was serving them. It has served them. It has brought them success. It has met some need for them, maybe most likely an emotional need. Love, safety, belonging. And to bring this back to Steve March and Alethea in his training is when I was introduced to internal family systems, which is a form of therapy and coaching that involves saying, we are not a singular consciousness. There are parts of ourselves that were formed often at early ages to work in this world, work in the world that we were created. So it's like saving money is important because saving money is what's going to keep you safe. When you have money in the bank, you'll be safe. That's a very powerful force. And it locks in as an algorithm. I'm an engineer, so I'll say an algorithm too. Like, this is how the world works. These are the rules of the world, and totally understandable in that situation. That is a great way to make sense of the world. But when the world changes or when your situation changes, perhaps that algorithm is not the most appropriate. So that's how you kind of I balance them. It's like this behavior worked for you, it gave you some comfort, it gave you some safety, it earned you belonging, it worked for you, it brought you success and your situation has changed. Let's look at what will serve you now. Is that behavior still appropriate? Is that still getting you the results you want? And if not, what are we going to do differently?

So, and I know from an internal family systems approach, I kind of. Not kind of. I know what the answer would be because I think every behavior is in service of something, even if it's a terrible attempt at it. But if you were to. In executive coaching, this probably doesn't happen. But since you know internal family systems, I'll go here. If someone is engaging in what would be a self destructive behavior like binge eating every single night that they're stressed, or even cutting yourself or something that would outwardly just look like, what benefit are you possibly getting from that? Do you have a sense from the internal family systems lens or from a coaching lens? And I know that I'll put disclaimer. It would probably be best for a person in this situation to work with a therapist. Right. These are not coaching situations.

Correct. And first comment.

And like, I guess there's a little bit of like I have a sense for how a therapist might address this and I think it's, it's important to know even if we're not cutting the listeners or myself, like even if we're not doing something that self destructive, how can we better understand how the behavior got here in the first. First place?

Yeah. So you're probably familiar with the work of Dr. Gabor Mate, who's worked a lot with addiction and trauma and things like that. And I haven't read the whole book, but in his book the Myth of Normal, he shared something that just like was so heartbreaking in making some of these behaviors understandable. And he was counseling a group of women who are all what we would call morbidly obese, like to the point binge eating, to the point of being unrecognizable. And when you talk to them, you discover that every single one of them had been sexually assaulted or raped. And then when you have that context like that makes sense. I never want to be attractive to somebody again. I never want to undergo that again. That was so awful. I would rather look like this than have that experience, have that trauma, have that Experience again. And it's like, it makes sense. It makes all of these behaviors make sense. If you know the whole context, that's the best option they could find given what they knew, given the resources they had. And they're awful. And yet the alternative was even worse for them in many cases.

This brings to mind there's a study that you cited in your book about immunity to change, which is Robert Keegan and Lisa Leahy's. Could you say what the study is?

Yeah. I learned about this in the immunity to change training with Keegan and Leahy, and they were studying how do people actually change? They looked at a case where it's like, motivation should be enough. And that case was heart attack patients. People that had a heart attack and were told, if you don't change your exercise and your diet, you are going to have another heart attack and you are likely to die. Fear of death seems like a pretty strong motivator. Like, there shouldn't be nothing else you need to say, okay, I'm going to clean up my life. I'm going to do things differently. And yet in their study, they found that only one in seven people in that situation actually changed their exercise and diet. It's like, wow, what could keep you on a path that might lead to another heart attack? And that's what they call this immunity to change, which is there are unconscious motivators. There are other things that are more important to you unconsciously than this conscious fear of death. And we're back to the emotional needs. Things like belonging and safety and love, like food may represent family to you. I can't give this up because this is my family. This is how we connect. This is how we bond. If I stop doing that, I'll lose my family. That's not consciously stated. This is all happening very, very, very deep in the subconscious. But that's why it makes it so hard to change. Because it's like, if I change this, what will I lose? And the fear of what you might lose can hold you in place for a very, very long time.

This is something that I don't think gets spoken about enough. And there is so much gold in everything you just shared. It doesn't get spoken about enough. That change comes with loss. If you are to adopt a new behavior, there's something you're giving up and letting go of that is really hard. That's why it's complex. Humans are so complex, and that's why we're tough to pin down. That we're both, like, super resistant to change. And Highly adaptive to change at the same time. And holding space for both of those things to be true can be hard. And those studies, they really blew my mind. And I have read Myth of Normal by Gabor Mate. I totally forgot about that part. But he might be the number one best in the world at being able to diagnose the maladies of our society, how that affects the individual, how really none of us, we're all just kind of walking, I guess, natural responses to a really ill world in a lot of ways. Right?

Yeah.

And. And the study of being shown that on the verge of a heart attack, only one in seven people, it just. It flips. It flips the tables on everything that we are taught to believe about our own free will and ability to make changes based on information that's available to us. And you started to go here a little bit around. You didn't say what we are unconsciously committed to, but just like unconsciously, we have things that we are committed to. Right. Like we do things, even if we wouldn't say them out loud, typically, or at all, we have unconscious commitments. And this is a really important distinction that you talk about in your book as well, is unconscious commitments and conscious commitments. Could you walk us through the difference of what they are and maybe examples of unconscious commitments that people get trapped in?

Yeah. So, yeah, this is language I got from that immunity to change training and from Keegan and Leahy. But the conscious commitment is like the New Year's resolution. I'm going to work out more this year. I'm going to eat healthy this year. I'm going to stop drinking this year, whatever it is. It's like, put that on the world. That's going to. If I put the intention in the world, I will change. The unconscious commitment is something underneath the surface, the fear of what you might lose. As you said, change means letting go of something. Change means losing something that you currently have. And we are also wired to avoid loss. And until we get at the heart of what might be getting lost, or at least what the parts of our brain are fearing might get lost. And it's unspoken, unconscious. And in the Immunity to Change training and their methodology, they actually provided methodology and a series of questions to get you to what they call this icky commitment, you're like, ew, I don't like that. That's what's holding me back from my conscious commitment. And it's like, yeah, that's why it's unspoken and buried very, very deep.

Yeah,

Let me try to make it real.

You could Also, do it with me. Like, I could use my own. And if you know the real. If you know the questions, then I'm happy to bring an unconscious commitment of my own life into this, too.

Oh, sure, let's do it. Yeah, let's do it live. Let's see how this goes. Okay, so what's some conscious commitment? Do you want to make something that you want to do and that you're having trouble actually making happen?

Well, so far, I've owned this unconscious commitment a couple times. But like I say, I want to have this really big coaching practice. I want to make at least six figures. I want to have an impact. I want this podcast to have a big impact. And at any given time, I probably work with one or two, maybe three or four clients at a time and at a low fee. So I say that I am consciously committed to creating this coaching business that I do for a living and that I want to live really freely and have autonomy in my life. And I just, I haven't quite pieced that together.

Yeah. Okay, so let's pause for. So what are the ways in which you are not pursuing the conscious commitment? What are the things you're doing to keep you at one or two or three clients that are keeping you from making. Creating a bigger audience for the podcast?

There's one of the things that I, I guess I hide behind a little bit is, is this, like, if I put good energy out into the universe, it's going to come my way. And so I put a lot of good podcasts. Like, I think my podcast is excellent and I've done over 100 now. And I. There's a part of me that just really trusts, like, if I keep doing this, then people are going to find it and I don't need to go above and beyond to maybe reach out to people and say, I think you would get a kick out of listening to this or, or, you know, promote it with. I, I've definitely, if someone reaches out to me on LinkedIn and, and says, like, I help coaches build, blah, blah, blah, it's like an automatic no for me. I, I highly resistant to that. And the same with my coaching business is like, I will put out this, what I think is great content on YouTube, LinkedIn, and I think the real way to build a coaching practice that feels aligned for me. I don't know if you're familiar with the book the Prosperous Coach, but really make deep connections with people and see where they're at and see if I can support them rather than try and Reach this massive amount of people. I know I threw a lot out there, but.

Yeah. Well, I'm going to zero on a couple of things you said about the podcast because I think it applies to both, which is I don't want to reach out to people, I don't want to promote myself. I'm just going to believe that putting goods will come back to me. So let's imagine you did those things. You reached out more, you promoted yourself more. What comes up for you? If you imagine the world where you are pushing yourself out there, you're promoting, you're blasting your coaching and your podcast in 10 different channels, how does that feel?

There's definitely some fear that comes up for me.

Fear of what? What's. What. What do you imagine would happen?

Yeah, rejection. That people would find out that it's not really that, that good or the, the people that I want it, it's like I know it's good, but the, the people that I really want to their approval, they would think it's not good.

Yeah. So do you see how you're keeping yourself safe?

Yes.

If I don't put it out there, nobody can reject it. The only people that can find their way to me are the people that already accept me and think it's great. So I'm in my self sealing bubble again. Everybody in the bubble thinks I'm great. If I push out beyond the bubble, if I put it into people that might not like it, they might find out I'm not great, I might get rejected and boy, wouldn't that be the end of the world.

Yeah, to a certain extent it feels like that. I mean I have done a lot of work around this and it took me years. I actually haven't spoken about this too much, but it took me years to go from I want a podcast and I'm committed to a podcast to actually doing the thing and putting it out there. And I do feel like I'm at this crossroads right now of like I've been speaking about making the podcast bigger and creating more clients. There's something else this is actually ties to the soul of money a little bit here is that I've got, I carry some stories around what it means to be someone who, you know, like, it's like promoting is icky and making lots of money doing what I love is, would like, I don't know, I'm not, I'm too privileged to be wanting more things in my life and money is the root of all evil. Like there's, there's a lot of different things that are intersecting here. And the. The untangling of that in my own life has just been. It's really been transformational. I have grown so much from just understanding. And this all leads to me just really understanding myself and other people a lot better is just like, what are all the forces that are. That contribute to who I am and the way I'm operating right now? And, like, how do we untangle that and get to the true essence of, like, what do. What do I want to create, regardless of the story that I tell myself about it or that other people might tell themselves about it? And it's beautiful.

Yeah. But I want to kind of. I'm going to keep coming, keep holding you to the fire a little bit, if that's okay.

Bring it.

You know, I think, you know, this idea, it's icky. It's icky to promote yourself. And, like, I think there's also an unconscious connection here that, like, the people that have to promote themselves don't do good work.

Yes.

Like, there's people that reach out to you on LinkedIn. They're like, I'm going to help you build your business. Like, if I need to prove my business that way, obviously I'm not doing good work. Therefore, the inverse must also be true. If I prove myself, I'm not doing good work, and the good work will come back to me.

Yeah, that's right.

What if that weren't true? What if by letting more people hear about your good work, you could do more good work?

It feels, of course, feels really obvious when you put it that way. Right?

It does, but it's understandable because there's a lot of people putting crap into the world and promoting themselves endlessly. And honestly, I'm going to say something a little. A little out of school here, but what the heck? You know, you mentioned the prosperous coach, which is Rich Litvin, and he's a great. He has got a great methodology. He's very good at promoting himself, and he's not a very good coach.

You're right on. Yeah, we welcome that here.

I mean, at some point, I got invited on his podcast for him to coach me. And, like, I can point you to the section on YouTube where he coaches me. It's like he talks at me for 10 minutes and doesn't actually understand my situation. Doesn't make me feel held, doesn't make you feel supported. And it's like, that was terrible coaching. I did not feel I got anything from that. But he's very good at promoting himself.

Yes.

And it's like, okay, there's a connect. It feels like there's a connection here. The people that have to promote themselves aren't doing good work. And there's also counterexamples. I look at somebody like Jerry Colonna, who is an executive coach at Reboot, and on his podcast, I'm just like, oh, my God, he can create transformation in, like, 30 minutes that I would spend, like, six months trying to get to with a client. And he's promoting himself. He just wrote a book. He's putting himself out there, but he's doing it so he can help more people. And I think that's where we can kind of align ourselves internally around our intention and let go of some of these assumptions and unconscious things, like, I shouldn't have to promote myself. Okay. It feels like a rule, but it's like, it doesn't have to be that way. Let's experiment with it. What would happen if you promoted yourself? And to be clear, I might be projecting a little bit here. For the first couple years of my business, I was like, good work is enough. I'll put stuff out there. People will find their way to me. And they did. But I realized last year, I want to help more people. It's part of why I wrote a book, and it's part of why I reached out to you and said, hey, Mike, I want to be on your podcast.

That's right.

And that felt very icky to me. Honestly, I shouldn't have promote myself. If I was really great, Mike would find his way to me. But, you know, that didn't happen for whatever reason. And I'm like, well, I can reach out the other way. And you were generous enough and gracious enough to meet with me and say, like, hey, yeah, we could make this work. We could have you on the show. It created an opportunity for us to connect, and maybe that's a way you could start reframing. I'm not promoting myself. I'm looking for an opportunity to connect.

Yeah, yeah, There's. There's something around. Yes. Like, you could. We could change the way that we look at it. And promote is just a word. Right. And I could use it as connection or. Or another word that's more aligned for me. And something else that I'm in touch with here is if. If I'm clear on where I want to go or, like, the mission of my coaching business or the mission. And it. And then it becomes not about me anymore. Like, this podcast is much bigger than Michael Chargman. This podcast is in Service of people who are really. It's spiritual seekers who are looking to learn and grow. Like, why would I not want to put. Give more access to that or of that to more people? Because it's not about me anymore. And so this combination of, like, whatever the word is, that feels aligned for me. And then also, what is it in service of on a bigger picture is. Yeah, that's something that's clicking for me. And I know it's another aspect of your work too.

Yeah, the. In the service of is so important because then the fear of rejection kind of minimizes a little bit because it's like, yeah, some people will reject it, some people won't. It won't be for them. That's okay. I'm not trying to help everybody, but there's people I can really help, and I want them to know about this, the podcast, the coaching, whatever it is. In my case, the book. Yeah, the whole book promotion thing was really tough for me because I had some other thing like, well, I wrote a good book. People will find their way to it. I don't have to do anything. I'm like, yeah, but the whole wrote the book was to help more people, and the only way they're going to be helped is if they hear about the book. So how do I help them hear about the book? And yeah, there'll be some people like, oh, I can't even verbalize what they might say that we're going to reject. Like, oh, who's this person thinking he has such a great book and who the hell is he to write anything? He doesn't have any credentials. I mean, yeah, okay, that's the voice in my head. And at the same time, I have evidence. People have read the book, they have appreciated it, they've said it helped them. So, yeah, I want more people to know about it. And reaching those people is why I'm doing promotion work, doing marketing work. It's in service of helping more people.

Let's talk about energy and the nervous system here because it's. It's easy to convince ourselves that. So I do public speaking coaching as one leg of my coaching. And one of the things I hear all the time is, well, that we feel like we're gonna die. It literally feels like we're gonna die when we're about to give a speech or do this thing that's really scary for us. And one way that we can try and bypass this is in our mind, go, I'm obviously not going to die. I'm going to be safe. But but you're kind of just left with this really flooded nervous system that still is convinced that it's going to die. And what's happening with rejection for me is that, like, I have been rejected at different stages in my life where it actually felt like, not like I was dying, but just so uncomfortable in my body that it's like, of course this part of me doesn't want to promote myself. I'm going to get if rejection really hurts. And there's. There's lots of different ways that we can look at, like, how. How to be with that experience as it happens. But I love the way that you talk about the nervous system and energy and, like, kind of how. How do you navigate a situation like that?

Yeah, I mean, a number of things are kind of coming up. Honestly, I can't remember exactly what I said, so I'm just going to wing it here. But sure. You know, one thing that a lot of public speaking coaches says, like, yeah, anxiety feels like you're amped up. You have too much energy. Your body's kind of like, you've got too much energy. You don't know what to do with yourself. You're sweating. But you know what also feels that way? Being excited. So you don't know what to do with the energy. I'm excited to share my story with this crowd. I'm excited to get on that stage and do something. Same physical symptoms, how we interpret it is something we can change. So that's one possibility. It's like you, instead of trying to dismiss the energy and get rid of it, to use it and reinterpret it, and that gets back to the in service of, like, why am I giving this speech? If it's about me, then, yeah, they're going to judge me. It's about judging me. And that becomes. But if it's in service of. I want to share this message with these people because I want to help them. I want to help them do something different, make a change in their life. All of a sudden it's like, oh, I'm excited to do that very subtle shift. And it's not as easy as, like, snapping your fingers, but it's something that you can do with practice. I think the other point about energy is, like, our body gets activated in certain ways, and noticing that can help is a skill that helps to notice when we're just being taken over by our body. So you mentioned the nervous system. There's actually two parallel nervous systems I discovered at some point. That's like the sympathetic nervous system. Which is what we know as the fight or flight system and the parasympathetic sympathetic nervous system, which is more your calm, resting, digesting kind of nervous system. And we go into the fight or flight mode when we're under stress, when we think we're under threat. And that threat, unfortunately, is not just physical threat. It's anything that threatens our sense of self, our identity, including things like rejection. And what happens when you're under threat, your body goes into high alert, adrenaline, cortisol, all the things like, I'm pumped up to go fight that tiger that's coming in front of me. And well, obviously we're generally not fighting tigers anymore. It's not actually a helpful adaptive response. And this is kind of a side note here, but that's like an example. Like, this was helpful. This was very helpful. It kept us alive for many years. It's not actually serving us anymore. And one of the other things about the fight or flight system I learned is that it narrows your attention, which makes sense. If a tiger's coming at you, you want 100% of your attention on that, on the threat, no looking around, no creativity. It's like, survive, survive, survive. But in our modern world, not seeing the greater possibilities, not seeing the bigger world leads to, let's say, poor decision making. And that example I gave of instead of thinking of speaking as a threat, as a way to be judged and be rejected and get all those horrible icky feelings you talked about, instead of being able to see it as an opportunity to connect, that requires this wider perspective. But you can't get there when you're in the fight or flight mode. So getting out of fight or flight is a skill that's very helpful. First of all, noticing when the heart is racing and your stomach's clenching and your shoulders are tensed, that's one level of mindfulness just to notice like, oh, I'm in this state, okay, what am I going to do about it? And then secondly, how do you get out of this state? For most people, deep breathing works. It's a signal to the body like, you're fine, there's nothing to worry about. Because obviously you wouldn't be going if there's a saber tooth tiger attacking you. You could not do that. It would not be physically possible. So, yeah, so I think that's something that I've tried to do. I'm not always 100%, I'm not 100% perfect at it, but when I notice myself getting overcome, it's like, how do I take a break? Take A few deep breaths, recenter myself reground, and then come back and say, like, okay, but what do I want to have happen here? So I don't know. Now I'm actually curious, like, what. What were you thinking of from the book that you're. You asked that question.

I just. I remember that you made a reference to Deb Dana and Polyvagal theory in the book. And I know that, you know, like something that was connecting for me when I asked that question is when we might. When we. It's very common to either think of ourselves or other people as, let's say, overreacting. Right. Like that it was. That response was not in proportion to what happened or like my fear of rejection in this case. I obviously know and I've reached out to. Now I've done this a thousand times. Like, I've reached out to people and been totally fine if they. Or been on dates. Like, I've been rejected many, many times in my life. And I. And I've. I don't know. There's just like this new thing that has emerged for me of like. Well, I. I've. Maybe I've passed that part. And. Well, anyway, there's. It's still in there. It's still in there. And I can convince myself. Oh, come on. It's like, not a big deal, but it's on a deeper cellular level which you started to get to with me is like, what did you. What do you feel as you imagine doing the thing that you're really scared of? For someone that's listening right now, it might not be that, but we all have things that would be like, whoa, I don't want to. I don't want to do that. That would be really scary. It's. It's more than just like a mindset reframe. A lot of the time. It's like our nervous system is programmed to be. We've learned over time that not good, not good, not good. Don't do that. Right. So I was just. I don't remember exactly what you said, but I wanted to explore that.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, this is great stuff here because now we're going to get Back to the Dr. Gabor, mate. Stuff of trauma. When you experience a trauma like that, you hold it in the body, it doesn't get processed. It's still there. When you. When somebody has what is an overreaction, they're not responding to what's happening in the moment. They're responding to the trauma that is embedded in their body. And so, yeah, just thinking about it doesn't get you out of this. And it, you know, there's a lot of therapeutic techniques that you can use to process the held trauma, the held tension. I'm familiar with emdr. That's what I use my therapist to just use as a technique for PTSD patients to literally release the trauma.

Could you explain what that is very quickly too?

Yeah, it's eye movement, desensitization, something or other. I don't remember emdr. You can look it up on the Internet and there's something. You can either use it with eye movements and moving your eyes around while reliving some traumatic, some powerful emotional experience. With my therapist we actually do bilateral tapping. So it's like while reliving the experience. And what that does is it allows your body to actually process and deal with the emotions that are stored in the body. So to make this concrete, I had an incident when I was in second grade where I peed my pants in the classroom. Totally traumatic instant. I had immense shame associated with it. I'm like, something in me must be broken. I'm a whore. I am broken, child. Because of this experience, literally the first time I brought up with my therapist I couldn't speak about was so traumatic. I could feel the shame just as if I was still that like 7 year old boy and like frozen up with shame and like terror and heat in my face. Like the whole thing was still just as real as it was back then. And in one session it was gone and I was like, oh yeah, I made a mistake. I was seven, it's not a big deal. And because I, I mean during that session there's a lot of crying, there's a lot of shouting, there's a lot of outpouring of the strong emotions that had been built up and locked in at the time. I hadn't released them. And then something about the process allowed me to release them in that moment. And then I had dealt with them. There was nothing more to deal with. They're gone. Peter Levine in his book called Waking the Tiger has a similar approach. Somatic re experiencing, I think is what he calls it. And it's like, yeah, when you have a moment of terror, you have a response. If you want to fight, you want to flee, you want to do something, but you bottle it up. Like, it's fine, I don't need to deal with it. But the body still has that energy locked up, ready to go. And so in his therapy, what he does is he lets people run, lets people fight, like get the energy out Push it out there and like use it as it was intended to be used by the body and then let it go. Because there's this example I can't remember. Some book, some book I read, I'd have to think about it. But it's like, you know, when an antelope is being chased by a lion, it's terrifying. It's running as fast as it can.

Is it. Zebras don't get ulcers?

Yes, zebras don't get ulcers. Robert Sapolsky. And then they're done and they kind of shake it off and they move on with their day. We don't shake it off, we just hold onto it, hold onto it. And then when a similar experience triggers us, when it reminds us of that original trauma, we go right back into that energy because it's been stored up. So, yeah, there's a whole therapeutic side of this that again, as a coach, it's not necessarily. I'm not trained to do this, but it's something that I point people to when it feels like they need to release some trauma like that.

Well, thank you for sharing that. EMDR is something that I've never personally experienced, but has been. I mean, it's in the Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van der Kolk. And it's been popularized for. For very good reason. Is that it? When we have something that's stuck in us like that, it's. It's really hard to. Anytime that we get reactive about something that's happening in our present day, it brings us, teleports us right back to that moment. Right. Like if we feel embarrassment or shame in some way, we're. We're getting poked right back into the. The seven year old who never got to fully process it. And I guess from my understanding of, of it and Sim, certainly based on what you just shared, that there's a release that happens with, I don't know, there's certain patterns or tapping or, you know, eye movement patterns that release the trauma from holding the same grip on us. And it just kind of moves out the way that the antelope or, or the zebra would do it naturally. It's such a. I, I think being a human is the most interesting thing ever. I and I, you know, we've already referenced probably like 15 books in, in this episode because there's just, there's so much to understand about the human experience. It's like, it's so fascinating all the ways that like, we are shaped and what drives us and, and what, what keeps Us stuck in the same place. So anyway, I wanted to take a little bit of time just to marvel at that. Like this is, it's so cool being a human.

It is. And I mean like what's so, so interesting to me as I've done this work is I'm like, oh, all this stuff is so new and it's so exciting and all the cutting edge research and then you go read a book about Buddhism from a thousand years ago and it's like, nope, they were dealing with the same things. Turns out the human brain has not evolved in a thousand years and we're still the things that Buddhists practice is all of this, it's non attachment, it's letting go, it's learning to stop replaying traumas. All this stuff is part of that training as well. It's like, oh, this is how brains work. And getting familiar with that is very powerful. Yeah. So I've been reading a couple books on Buddhism recently and it's just like, oh man, this is basically my book except put in thousand year old language. But it's the same material, it's the same advice.

Yeah. There's a reason that Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is still so popular today. Right. So it's like the human psyche hasn't evolved all that much over time.

Exactly. Yeah.

So I mean another component of your work Eric, that I think is really valuable is the way that you bring experimentation into and this, this ties to the nervous system too is when we teach our. Or I don't know if teacher nervous system, a new way of operating is, is really the technical way of describing it, but that's how I think about it, is that if we have an old patterned way and it's deeply grooved into us in our brain and in our body, then we're going to default to that unless we take the time to notice what's going on for us. And let's make another choice here that seems really present in your work. And I'm just wondering if you could walk us through maybe an example of what an experiment would look like. Let's just stick with me for now because it's already been laid out. Right. So I want to take my coaching practice to the next level. But the thing that's really getting in the way for me is that I fear the rejection of the next person that I reach out to. So where would we go in terms of an experiment?

Yeah, I think part of the repatterning of the brain is taking new actions and seeing that you get different results than what you expect. So part of the reason you're resistant to this reaching out is you're like, if I reach out, they might reject me. And I'm going to experience this horrible shame or whatever came up in your body. Like, what does this rejection feel like? You're like, ugh, that's what's going to happen. I can't do it. So the experiment is as simple as reaching out to five people and seeing what response you get. And maybe one of them rejects you and you get that horrible response, but the other four you'll get might get a very positive response. And you're like, oh, yeah, this is exactly what I need. Thank you for reaching out. I can see how you're going to help me. And once you're repetitive, like, oh, that's actually a pleasant experience. And you pay attention to it. And attention is really key here because your brain's going to naturally go to the one rejection and go like, that's what I can never repeat. None of the others are worth it. And that's what's going to keep you stuck in the current pattern. So you need to put your emphasis, put your attention on the positive experience. Like, oh, look how I helped this person and help this person that would never have reached otherwise. That's how you start to rewire the brain by giving it positive experiences. I'm drawing here on the work of BJ Fogg, who's a researcher at Stanford. He wrote the book Tiny Habits. He's like, the way you build new habits is celebration. Your body will want to do more of whatever you just celebrated. It's like, oh, that's sequence of neurons. Whatever that just was. That got me really good feelings. I want more of that. So if you want new behaviors, you have to celebrate them. And I actually often have to do this with clients. It's like, they're like, do one tiny step. And like, ugh, nothing's done. But you took the step. You did the one thing. And they're like, well, yeah, but I should be doing it every time. And I only managed it once in the last two weeks. I'm like, one is more than zero. That's awesome. Next time, let's go for two. And I'm celebrating them to activate this whole dopamine release and activate this whole positive reinforcement cycle in their brain. So that's what I would like. If I was working with you, I'd be like, okay, let's reach out to three people and report back to me. Let's celebrate the success. Not Focus on the rejection.

Yeah. One place that I was considering going with you here is, well, what if I reach out to five people and my worst fears are confirmed? Not only they say no, but they're like, it was silly that you thought there was any chance, Mike, that I would ever listen to your podcast or whatever. And you kind of answered it already, but maybe you can elaborate a little bit. I think you would probably still have me celebrate for being. For doing the thing that I set out to do. Right?

Yep. And celebrate. Sorry, go ahead.

I know. I was just gonna say, like, what. What would I be celebrating? I guess

you'd be celebrating the experiment. Experiments are not to see, only if it's going to work. It's an experiment in learning. What you learn by reaching out to those five people is those are not the right five people. Okay. Who else could I be reaching out to? That's a different set of people that might benefit from this more. I was bagging on Rich Lipton before, but he has a great essay. It's like, no means next one. Okay, that one's a no. Okay, next one. That one's a no. Next one. And that's a great way to think about like, okay, these aren't the right people. Great. I learned that. Let me try some different people because I still know I can help people. I still know I create good work, I create good content, I help people that I coach. So if these aren't the right people for me to connect to, let me go talk to those people. Let me have my clients connect me to people. Let me find out what my clients found valuable and lead with that next time. Many more experiments we can run once we let go of this sting of like, it failed, it didn't work. Therefore I'm done to it failed. What can I learn from it and do differently?

Could you speak to the identity component of this? It's going away from BJ Fogg and at least my understanding of his work and moving more towards James Clear years teachings on. On habit formation. But I think that this is something that. I've read the book like many other people. I'm sure a lot of people who are listening to this have. Have read Atomic Habits. But it. I think it's an important learning to understand where. Where does identity fit in this kind of experimentation? Trying new things, new habit formation model.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, let's see. So identity will keep us stuck. I'm not the kind of person who does this, does that. I'm not the kind of person who practices portion Control. If we're talking about the heart attack patients, I'm not the kind of person that exercises. I'm a person that enjoys life. That's my identity. I'm not going to stop enjoying life just because I had a heart attack. I mean, that's, again, an identity that would let you reinforce the current identity, the current state of the world. And so when James Clear talks about changing habits, he's like, figure out who you want to be and then prove it to yourself with small wins. So it's not like I want to be this person that's so hard to reach and so far out of reach. It's like, I did this one thing today. I'm already that person. Look, I'm already that person that reaches out, that connects, that puts my podcast out there. I did it once. I'm that person. And then that's back to the celebration kind of aspect of it. It's like I'm celebrating these small wins because that reinforces this sense of myself as this is who I am. But I think the part I found really important about this is it's not like I will be this person five years from now if I keep going down this path. It's I did it today. Therefore, there's a small way in which I'm already this person. And I'm going to build on that because that's, to me, much more empowering.

What are some of the other limiting. I was going to say limiting beliefs that people show up with, but. So if we stick with this, I am the type of person or I'm not the type of person. There are very common ones for people who have achieved a lot who are typically very individualistic, I get it done. Other people need to get out of my way because they can't do it as well as I can. I've already kind of laid out a little bit, but, like, what are some of the patterns that people. People show up to work with you on that are. You know, they're not working for them anymore. They did work, and they don't work anymore.

Yeah. You just named them all of them.

Yeah.

The two biggest ones are, I'm the expert. I know how to solve the problem. That's a great attitude when you're in a digital computer contributor. It's even a great attitude when you're a manager. If you're running a team of 50 or 100 people. It's a terrible attitude because then you become the bottleneck of everybody in the org and it becomes like, no, I have to Give the work away. I have to give the problem away. I have to teach my people how to handle the problem so I don't have to. And it's hard because it's like, I know I can solve that problem better than that person. I will solve it at an A plus level. They're going to do like a B minus level work and I could do it in two hours. It's going to take them two days. So that's a terrible deal. I should never do that. Except there's no way to keep being like, if you, there's no way to run. You can't scale like that. So that's a really hard one for people. Like, oh, I know how to do it better and I can do it faster, therefore I should do it. I have to work with them to run the experiment. Like, okay, let's give it to that person, see what happens. Like, oh, they actually kind of delivered at a B level and it only took them a day. And I mean, I didn't have to spend any time on it. Huh, Interesting. And then you build on that. The other one that I often work with, especially here, where I live in Silicon Valley, is working harder is always the answer. I didn't get this done, therefore I should do more of it. If I just put in an extra five hours, I'll get it done again. Works really well up to a certain level. And then beyond that, it's like, no. Working an extra 5% is not going to get you to the point where you can run 100% org that way you have to change the whole system. And working harder actually only digs you deeper because you're just reinforcing yourself as the problem solver, as the bottleneck, and you're just reinforcing that system that's driving you to work harder. So that's a very common one. I have to break the cycle. This isn't working for you. Look at how it's not working for you. I know it worked for you in the past. It brought you the success. And it's time to let go of that and see if you see something else, try something else.

Another one that you share. It's coming. As the conversation keeps going along, I'm just remembering more and more things. Another really common one, and this was. Is a huge one for me, is I can't say no to people or I can't say no to my superior. Right. And yeah, what, what were you. You're about to, to jump in here? I was, I was going to go somewhere like where would you, what, what experiments would you do for someone who has a hard time saying no? Or you could pick any type of person.

Yeah, I mean for the hard time saying no, it's I, where would I go here, I guess I'll start with my own, start with my own story because I like telling the story and this is a good time for it. So I was that person. I've tried to keep everybody around me happy. That's how I earned my safety and belonging. It's like if everybody around me is happy and I always expect delivered to their expectations, nobody can be unhappy with me. Like I will belong, I'll be safe. And that worked very well. And I could do it for many years until I got into a situation at Google where that meant that I was working 8am to midnight every day trying to keep everybody around me happy. And that was not working for me, but I didn't know how to get out of it. So there's a mentor of mine, a director at Google, who was delivering amazing work and was going home at 6pm, like how do you do it? And he said, well, I come into work and I work on the most important thing first and if I don't get to the next thing, that's okay, it wasn't as important. It's like, come on, that can't be the answer. But that's so obvious. But when I looked at what I was actually doing at the time I would come in at 8am, I'd start responding to all the emails in my inbox, trying to keep everybody happy. That's two hours. I would go to all these meetings that people put on my calendar. That's the next six hours. Come back to my desk, do more email another hour and now it's 6pm and I haven't started on the one thing I had to get done that day, the one most important thing I hadn't started on until 6pm and that's why I was working until midnight every night. And when I watched what my mentor and director did, he just didn't respond to emails, he didn't go to meetings, he would just work on the one thing. And yes, that made people angry with him, that made people annoyed with him because he wasn't responding, he wasn't getting to what they wanted, but he was delivering high impact work to the CEO and CFO of Google, which was far more valuable to him than keeping every random person that was asking for things. And my point in sharing this is like getting clear on who we're going to say yes to and who we're going to say no to and who the most important stakeholders are around us. That's what allowed me to break free. I was like, oh, I don't have to keep everybody happy. These are the three people I'm going to make sure are happy. And the rest I'll try, but they are secondary.

So one objection that I. This is an edge for me instead of just like going with the flow the whole way. But I imagine, like, you know, when I first started listening to podcasts, it was I was at a not very senior level at my company that I was at at the time. And I found myself thinking, yeah, that sounds great. And like, I want to learn how to say no better. And I'm an associate. Right. I don't really have the power to do that.

Yep.

Which is something that you definitely walk through in the book. I know that you like, you know, this isn't just for executives who have the more autonomy or rank, but what would, you know, what would be something that would be worthwhile to try for, say, a first or second year employee at a company? If they're listening to this right now.

Yeah. I mean, I think as a first or second year employee. Yeah, like, yeah, this is that you do have less power and your manager does have a disproportionate control over your career at that point. So, yeah, they should be one of the people you're trying to keep happy. I think that makes sense. And if they're reaching the point of being abusive or it's like it's too much, then I hate to say it, but you have a choice. It's like, is this worth keeping this person happy or is there maybe another situation that would be a better fit for me? And I can't answer that for people. I had a situation myself where I burned out after working too many hours because my manager just kept unloading more and more on me. And I kept on saying yes because I didn't know how to, because it was my manager. I have to say yes to my manager. And then at some point after burning out, I was like, what if I said no? And I did say no. And there were consequences. My performance rating got slashed. I lost my chance of promotion. She took away half my tea. And I was willing to accept those consequences because the cost for my mental and physical health was so high at that point that I would rather live with a lower performance rating than keep going the way I was. But it took me really physically breaking down before I could actually See, that choice was one I could make. I could make a different choice if I accepted the consequences of saying no. And that's the question I guess I would pose to this early stage employee is like, what are the consequences of saying no? And how can you run an experiment on that? What if you push back on some minor thing? What if you say like, hey, does this have to be done on Friday? Or can it wait till Tuesday and then see what they say? And maybe it's like, no, you have to deliver no matter what. It's like, okay, well now you have more information. Remember, it's experiment. You're gathering data, you're learning. It's like, okay, I pushed back and boy, did that not go well. Okay, I've learned I probably shouldn't push back with this person. What else can I try? Maybe I could push back on some of the other stuff coming from my coworkers. Ooh, that didn't go well either. Okay, everybody's holding me to this standard that's really kind of bad for me is this a place I want to work. So thinking about the experiments in terms of learning is I think the key mindset shift here. It's like, yeah, it may not go well, but then you know better what the situation is. Once you know better, you can make different decisions.

Who have been some. I know, given that you read a lot of books, you could, you don't have to know the mentors that I'm going to ask about, but who have been some people that have been, if you had to name maybe two or three mentors, coaches who have been most influential in your life, like to help you. We actually haven't gotten so much into your story, so maybe this actually maybe is an opportunity for you to share a little bit more about your experience at Google. And you alluded to the fact that you're working 80 to 100 hour weeks and that you were confronted with what life do I really want as I start a family? But it's so easy in our society to get trapped into, like, I'm already here, I'm making good money. I, I, who am I to complain? And I would guess that there's been a lot of support around people in your life that have helped make this possible. And another maybe observation about you is that when someone said, hey, you should read Soul of Money, or hey, you should read this book, like, it just, you seemed to say yes and be open to it. And I don't know if that was always the case, but anyway, this is a mouthful. I Guess let's just start with. Tell a little bit more about what it was like to be at Google and some people who were supportive in you making the transition into your coaching business.

Yeah, I mean, so being at Google, you mentioned I joined Google in a revenue forecasting role, which I basically picked the role to learn more about how the money worked. And I had taken a class where one of the teachers said, if you want to understand how executives think, you have to understand the money. I'm like, I'm an engineer. I don't understand the money. So I saw this revenue forecasting role. I managed to talk my way into it. And even though I didn't have the requirements hold another story there, but that allowed me to really understand the money. And, and my professor was entirely correct that executives really cared about the money. So I was both fortunate and unfortunate that the time I joined Google was September of 2008, just as we slid into the Great Recession. And so all of a sudden, Google just wasn't growing at 40% year on year, every quarter, no matter what. It dropped to 5% year on year in my second quarter there. And they're like, what's happening with the money? When's it going to come back? How quickly is it going to come back? How could, what, what, what, what can we spend? Like, what's, what's the number money going to be like next year? I'm like, why am I. I guess I'm the one that has to answer that. So I'm standing in front of Eric Schmidt and Patrick Burchette and Larry and Sergey, the CEO and CFO and founders, trying to, like, come up with a story of, like, what's going to happen with the money? And it was thrilling. I mean, it's like, wow, I'm like, in the room where it happens. And I'm being in the room with all these senior stakeholders and all the people running Google, and they know who I am. That was thrilling. And that's part of why I ended up burning myself out. Because I can't let this opportunity go to waste. I have to say yes to whatever they put on my plate. You asked about mentors, so one mentor was the one I already mentioned, the guy that was like, hey, this is how you have more impact without working yourself to death. You really focus on what's most important. And he was a model of it. And he was my manager for a little bit and helped guide me to more sensible choices for a little while. And then I found another manager that was not quite so sensible. And After I burned out, I had to go find a new manager, obviously, because that was not a good fit. And I was fortunate to land what was a chief of staff role for the search ads team at Google. So that's the biggest business at Google, the most money, the most profitable. And because I'd been the revenue forecaster, I knew all the people who ran that team because I was in the room with them talking about money each week, and one of them was like, I need somebody to help me run my business. I think I want a chief of staff. Do you want to come be my chief of staff? And I'm like, what? What's the chief of staff? I've never heard of this position. They're like, you know my business, Come help me run my business. I'm like, yeah, okay. I needed a new job, so I was like, I'll try it out. And I ended up being in that job for six years, in part because my boss was a guy named Jerry Dishler, who was just a phenomenal leader. He could prioritize. He understood what the most important thing was. He genuinely cared about the people under him and looked for ways to help them succeed. And I'd had enough bad bosses at that point that I'm like, this guy's fantastic. I'm sticking with him. And I learned so much, just like being in the room with him for six years, because learned how to prioritize. I learned how to communicate more effectively. I learned how to give the big picture while also figuring out what's next. What's next? How do we keep moving forward? And, yeah, he went on to get even greater glory. He became the general manager of all the ads businesses at Google up until recently. He'd stepped down recently, but, yeah, I was with him on the ride from newly promoted VP all the way to running all of ads at Google. And that was a pretty amazing ride

for me to be on.

And, yeah, so that was my experience at Google. But towards the end of that experience, I'd started exploring coaching. As I started thinking just making more money was not the meaning I had for my life. It was not what I wanted. And what that looked like for me was thinking like, okay, what gives me meaning? What gives me satisfaction? And I realized that the main thing was helping people kind of get unstuck, helping people untangle their thoughts, see the big picture, orient themselves. And somebody said, that sounds like coaching. Have you considered coaching? Like, that's a thing you can actually do that turns out you can. I've been doing it for several years now. But I was very fortunate that my boss was very supportive of it. When I finally gave my notice, he was like, yeah, this has been clear for a couple of years. You're going to do this. I just was waiting for the moment, so. And, yeah, so that's kind of how I. It was a little more complicated than that. I ran some experiments back to the theme of experiments. I talked to some professional coaches when I was first exploring the path to say, like, hey, what is this? Like, how do you get into it? What should I know? And they gave me some advice, and one of them pointed me at New Ventures west, where I went to get trained and certified. And then even after I was trained and certified, I'm like, okay, I love this. I want to do more of it. This is important to me. The question is, can I make a living at it? So I started coaching business on the side and did that for a year to confirm, will people pay me to coach them? And once I had several clients and they were starting to refer more my way, I was like, I have proof. Okay? I'm adding value. People are willing to pay me to do it. They think I'm doing a good enough job. They're telling other people to do this. And that's when I finally made the leap. And I want to add here, like, the caveats. I had money in the bank for, like, a year or two of expenses because I was like, well, it's not going to work right away. And my wife had a stable job. She's an engineer at Apple. And so therefore, like, we weren't going to starve, so that helped a lot. Also, I could take a lot more chances. Yeah, that's a long, long, long thing there, I guess. Last thing I'll say is, as far as mentors into the coaching path, there's a few people. Steve March, we've already mentioned. He was definitely an inspiration and example that I wanted to follow. And I already mentioned Jerry Colonna, but I don't know him personally, but with his podcast, I could hear how he coached leaders and see the work he did. And I was like, this is a guy that I want to become. This is who I want to be when I grew up. And he's just a super generous guy. I reached out to him cold and asked him to read my book and write a blurb, and he did. So it's like, wow, what a generous person that would do that.

This was something that I was thinking maybe I would have asked you about, because I remember when you posted on LinkedIn sharing that you had released the book that you, I think you thanked Jerry and Michael Bungay Steiner for graciously accepting or graciously reading your book basically on a blind reach out. Was that something that was hard, reaching out to Jerry Colonna or other people you looked up to? Did you meet that with resistance?

Oh, God, yes. It was terrifying. I mean, it was back to that thing of like, oh, if it's good, they'll find out about it on their own. And back to that intentional thing. I want to help people. More people will read this if I can get some blur from famous coaches. So let me try to get some blur from famous coaches. And I reached out to people that I thought would be aligned with what I had to say based on reading their books. And like you said, Michael Bungay Stinier and Jerry Colonna were kind enough to read it, skim it, and respond to the blurb.

Awesome. Well, what are. As we look now forward and we've done a little bit of your past and we've certainly explored lots of elements of coaching and consciousness. But what are some things that you feel unfinished with or that you're currently working? I don't know if you currently work with a coach, but, like, what are the types of challenges that you're working through in your own world right now?

Yeah, I would say that my growth edge these days is in the area of presence, staying present, not getting distracted by the yearn of productivity of like always getting stuff done. And then I really want to explore. We talked about trauma and how it gets reactivated and how it shows up for people. So I'm actually enrolled in a coaching program with Thomas Hubel and Amy Elizabeth Fox later this year. The Trauma Informed Certificate program starting in March, which I'm going to go dive deep into that and learn from some of the best on how to be able to be present and be with trauma and help guide people through it. And that's not going to be just for my coaching. That's going to be for me personally. I have two young kids and I'll be honest, sometimes they trigger me. I definitely overreact. And I know that's stuff in my own childhood that is unprocessed. And I'm still working on it with a therapist. And I expect that this trauma program will help me kind of uncover some of these wounds that are still present, obviously.

Well, Eric, here's. Here's a chance to experiment right. Right in real time here and promote myself. Amy has been a guest on this show before.

And that's how I found the show, actually. Was listening to us on your show.

That's right. And if you're listening, you should definitely check out that episode and listen to my podcast, because my podcast is awesome.

It is. I mean, I discovered Amy Elizabeth Fox. Yeah. I think from this podcast, I discovered her. And I was like, I want to learn more about this person. And I was like, where can I learn more? And she was on your podcast. And I listened to the episode. I'm like, oh, not only is she great, but this Mike guy, I wanted to get to know him better. So here we are.

She's incredible. I'm incredible. Let's just go out and say it. Thomas Hubel also is incredible. This is someone who I put right up there with Gabor Mate, in just the understanding of the totality of the world we live in and the human experience of being in the worlds that we live in. And I'm really excited for you to be joining that cohort in March. And it's interesting. Amy is actually a really great example of what's possible with promoting, because Amy puts out offerings all the time. I'm on her email list, and she's always got the latest thing or this retreat that's happening for five days, and it doesn't seem like it bothers her in the slightest to be promoting something, putting it out there. And there's always the opportunity that people will resonate with it. And in some ways, that's how you ended up enrolling in this program. Right. And it's certainly in service of something much bigger than them, too. Right. Like, they. Their. Their vision for what's possible for humanity and the planet is one that I'm deeply inspired by.

Yeah, go ahead. I want to just jump in there because I think this kind of brings in a couple of themes we've talked about, about identity, about experiments. Because it's like, if you're attached to what you put in the world, then it becomes dangerous to put it out there because it's like your identity. They're going to be rejecting me if they reject this offering. But when you treat it as an experiment, I'm going to put this out there and see what the response is. Oh, I got zero response. Okay. That was not wanted by the world. Great. Doesn't affect me because this was just an experiment, and this is something I'm embracing this year of, like, let me put out a bunch of things that I don't know if they're going to work. I'm, you know, I'm trying some group classes I'm putting out. I'm applying for some speaking opportunities. I might do some group coaching later this year. I'm like, each of them individual. I'm like, if it was like, this is the next big thing that I have to do to be successful as a coach, that would put a lot of pressure on it. But when I'm like, I'm going to run this experiment and see how people respond, and if they respond well, maybe I do more of it. If they don't respond, I'll give it up and say, okay, that was a failed experiment. Learned that's not for me. Let me try something else. And that's what I see in a lot of successful coaches is they expand their offerings because they try stuff and they experiment and they're not attached to this is the way it has to be. As soon as you lock yourself in that way, whether by identity or by some of these unconscious rules, that really limits your possibilities.

This is a quality that I admire in a lot of the people who are the best in the game is an openness to try things and an openness to feedback. And those are two things I'm very actively working on as well. And presence is something that I think every person ought to be working on. It's something that's really. It's easy to. To put as like a bottom priority. It. It even feels like talk about things that are squishy and. And fuzzy and unquantifiable. Present. I've had. I've had lots of clients ask me and that maybe this is where we'll go. I've had clients ask me, like, what's the point of being present? Like, what. What is that in service of? And it's. It's actually a really interesting question. What would be your take on that?

So my take on it is when I'm not present, I react from unconscious instincts, from trauma, from unprocessed emotions and things like that. When my kid does something that drives me nuts, I'm coming back with disproportionate anger because I'm not thinking about it. I'm just reacting. When I can stay present, I'm like, oh, that happened. How do I want to respond? Instead of immediately going straight to the disproportionate reaction. Oh, I'm really angry about that. What's happening with that? Let me inspect what's going on in my own brain before I take it out on somebody else. And when you hear somebody like Thomas Hubl speak, you just see how relaxed he is. He's just like, the whole world could, like, collapse around him. He'd be, like, still talking with this gentle, compassionate voice. Yeah, the building is burning down. I wonder how I can save these people over here. Let me think about that. It's just like, it feels unrealistic that you could get to that point. But he's been doing it for decades, and I'm very new in my practice, so it's like, I think that's one of the other things I try to remind people. It's like, yeah, somebody that's been doing this for years and years is better at it than you are. And the way to get there is not to give up, but to say, like, let me get a little better at it each day. And you might be surprised how far you can get. Anyway, my answer to presence is it allows me to react more effectively.

So this might be dense, but this is something that I could easily see a challenge being made around. Like, why would I want to be calm when the building is burning down like that? I want to be going apeshit, right? Like, that's not. That's an unsafe situation. And, like, I need to be scrambling, right? I need to be activated in a moment like that. So, like, what is that in service of?

Well, I think it's in. I'm a practical guy. I'm like, it's because you're more effective if you're running around in circles screaming. You're not actually helping to stop the fire. Somebody that's, like, calm can say, like, oh, we need water. Where's water? There's not water there. Okay, let me go over there and figure out how to get the water from the hydrant or the hose or whatever. Being calm in a moment of crisis is an advantage, and we know this. This is what we call executive presence. It's people who can keep their head together. When things are panicking and everybody else is panicking, it's like, okay, let's everybody calm down. Let's think about how we're going to respond. That's a lot of what we call executive presence. And you mentioned Deb Dana before, and I loved something she said. I think on the Coaches Rising podcast with, like, yeah, change happens one nervous system at a time. When you manage your own nervous system and you can stay calm when everybody else is panicking, people pick up on it. They key off it. If you panic, everybody else panics. If you're in a position of authority and you stay calm, other people are like, oh, this is not as dangerous as I thought. And they calm down. So to your question, staying calm keeps people from panicking. Staying present lets people respond from the place of thought and intention rather than a place of pure panic. And, oh, God, what do I do? Running around like a crazy person, you know? And that I like. It's easy to say. It's incredibly hard to do. You can practice for decades and still not consistently do it. But that's the journey we're all on. Not we're all on. That's the journey I intend to be on. I'll say that.

Yeah, me too. Me too. And I love that change happens one nervous system at a time line. That's definitely worth repeating, right? And I'd say it one more time. Change happens one nervous system at a time. This is a lot of times when we're in despair or thinking about things that are much bigger than us. It's really helpful to come back to center in that way and remember if whatever change I'm seeking and I'm reacting to in the world right now, it's not happening unless I'm really connected to myself and not reactive and triggered and not just connected.

Sorry, I want to jump in at that point. It's not just connected to yourself, it's connected to the people around you.

Yes.

And talking about this is an experiment I forgot to mention. But it's like you want to change who you are, change the people you surround yourself with. Because if you surround yourself with different people, you'll have different models, you'll have different ideas of what is normal. And that's actually part of my excitement about this class I'm going to be doing is being exposed to a different set of practitioners, a different set of coaches who have this presence work, who are calmer in this way. And I'm going to be looking at them like, oh, I can be like that, too. Right now, I tend to be the most calm and most present of the people I hang out with. And that means I'm like, oh, I'm as good as it gets. But I know if I go to this class, I'll be like, oh, God, I'm like, at like 10%. There's so much further I could go, and that'll help me.

Thomas Hubel's presence is highly intimidating to me. It's like, that's why I laughed in recognition when you described the way that everyone who's listening right now, you should definitely just check out any talk and do it on YouTube, because then you can actually see his body as well. Maybe I'll just link to a random one in the show notes. Just like a Ted Hubel talk. I remember I watched one of his talks that he gave at a Mobius event. Like Mobius has an annual, I think it's called Next Practice Institute event. And Thomas, he could, he could just speak all. I mean, it's very taxing for me to speak for two hours. If I was going to do that. Like, I would need to totally recharge by myself for a couple hours. Even after a podcast, a lot of times I leave lots of space for me to recharge, to connect by myself because energetically feels draining. Thomas Hubel is. It's just like what you said. He's just chilling next to a fire next to his best friend in the world, and he's talking to this massive audience of people. It's so engaging to watch. Even if you don't understand a word of what he's saying. It's just really engaging to be in touch with his frequency and his presence. So I wanted to name that and I think almost all roads these days because it's super top of mind for me lead to like, how do we model this for our children? Because I have a five month old and he's not old enough to have a cognitive prefrontal cortex memory. But in some ways, I'm sure energetically, when he's cried, I have reacted in a way the anger out of control of he. Some part of him in his nervous system maybe, or energetically is picking up like, oh, if I cry, that's, that's not good. And then it's, it feels more important than ever. Like Mike, man, it's so important to, to be regulated when, when things spiral a little bit with your kids because it's going to happen all the time.

Yeah.

So just like, I guess what, what does that practice look like in your life? Or what are maybe what are the things that, that make you spiral? And then like, how do you come back to how I want to shift that behavior the next time? Or like, what time did I need to take for myself? You know, like those types of considerations.

It's so hard. I mean, yeah, my, my therapist, I have talked about this a bunch of times. Like, yeah, when my kid is spinning out of control or angry or throwing things or hitting me like they're emotionally dysregulated and me responding with emotional dysregulation does not help. And I know it up here, but boy, do I act on it. Not always. In my moment. He's pushing my buttons. In a very real way that bring me back to a five year old existence myself. And then I just want to hit him because he's messing with my stuff. Side note here, but I read this book, Power A User's Guide by Julie diamond last year who said that the misuse of power occurs when we inhabit a low power identity while wielding power in another identity. And I read that line, I'm like, oh God. Because that's what I'm talking about. As a parent, I have a lot of power for my kid. I am authority, I am bigger, I am sometimes scarier. And when I fall back into being a five year old and I'm wielding that power, it does not go well. It is a misuse and this abuse of power. And so being mindful and present and noticing when I'm spinning close to that edge is really important. And on my good days, I could do something about it. So there was an instance last year where we were, I don't know, we were someplace and my son had like. I came out of the bedroom and I started taking toys and literally covered the entire living room floor with it. Like you couldn't step without stepping on stuff. I look like, why did you do this? He's like, so you would come out, fall and get angry, like, I'm going to slap you into next week, child. I mean, was my first reaction. I'm like, okay, that's clearly not a good idea. I'm like, your mother's going to deal with this. So I went back, can you take over here? She came. I was like, cut it out. Clean up your stuff. He's like, okay. Simple as that. It was like he was trying to get a reaction out of me. He came very close to getting it. But with his mom, he's like, I don't need to challenge her. For whatever reason, it doesn't trigger the same sort of response. So he's like, okay, I'll clean up. It's only because I was able to pause in that moment, realize, like, I'm about to do something that's not going to go well for me and pick a more effective response to your question about. Back to the question about why is presence valuable? Because it allowed me to pick a more effective response in that moment.

Did you, B.J. fogg, celebrate that move? That's a big move that you did there.

Oh, I was celebrating that. I was telling friends about it. I told my therapist. I'm like, this is grade A parenting right there. Stepping away when I was about to do something dumb because Sometimes that's all you can do. I can't control myself enough to interact here, but I can at least step away, get myself out of.

Remove yourself from the situation is already such a big step and I'm really starting to appreciate that more and more as my son continues to grow and he's just a little baby still. But I think even just being like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm about to react is already the interrupt that stops the negative cascading other things that might happen and, and what you shared there about the line, you might have to repeat it for me. But basically when we are in a, maybe a hierarchy or like parent, kid or. I was actually thinking connecting the dots of executive and organization when an executive gets stuck in their crap, like this is a really important thing to point out for people at the executive level is that if you're reacting from your five year old, if someone did something, ignored something that you said or whatever, and then you go to your 5 year old self, that's then cast into a whole organization of people and being able to take responsibility for that and just be like, whoa, whoa, I'm just noticing my five year old's energies coming up here. And this is bringing me back to when I wasn't listened to by my or my dad snapped at me or my mom snapped at me when I was 5 and like being able to remove yourself and then come back with, with a more regulated response which is of course we're going to mess up. And you started by saying it's hard because it is hard. But even having that in our arsenal just change, it gives us so many more options and it really changes things. So that feels like a really powerful. Is there anything you want to add to my reflection there?

No, I think it's spot on. And I mean this is, you know, I mentioned Jerry Colonna. Like he always starts radical self inquiry. Why are we responding in the ways we say we don't want? Oh, I'm not that kind of person. It's like, well, in these interactions you are. So what's going on there? What memories are coming up for you? What feelings are coming up for you? What does that remind you of? This is something I did with the C level startup leader in coaching and he was like, I can't talk back to my CEO. I was like, okay, why not? He was like, well I was like, what do these interactions remind you of? What feelings come up for you? He's like, oh, he actually started the other way. What feelings come up for you? He's like, oh, I feel little. I feel ignored. I'm like, what does that remind you of? He's like, my dad. Okay, that's some powerful stuff there. And once he recognized it, like, wait, why does my relationship with my dad affect my relationship with my CEO? He was like, maybe I could try being forceful and speaking up to the CEO and see what happens. Try the experiment. And he did. Then CEO was like, great, thank you for pushing back. That you're right, maybe that wasn't a good idea. It's like, oh, this is welcomed. I got celebrated for it. And then he was able to lean in more in that direction and get past that block. But it took recognizing, like, this is a completely different situation that I'm mapping onto the one in front of me. What was I going to say? Oh, and just one more. All this stuff is actually helpful as you raise your kid. Like my 5 year old. I do a lot of this work with him also. It's like, hey, boy, you just threw that plate and it broke. Can we talk about what was happening there? What were you feeling? I was feeling so angry. I'm like, great. Can we stick with that and just say, daddy, I'm feeling so angry because you made me eat something I didn't want to eat. Instead of throwing the plate. He's like, I could try it. And he started doing that sometimes, not always, but, you know, sometimes. And he recognizes there's one time when I lost my temper. It's like, daddy, calm down, take a deep breath, count to five. Don't need to be angry here. I'm like, like, good advice.

Kids are the best.

A little embarrassing that I'm getting coached by my five year old, but, you know, like, you know, he was spot on. That is what I needed to hear.

Kids really are the best. I love that

they will take in what you say and they'll give it right back to you. We are examples for them in everything we do, and it's a heavy burden, but boy, is it a privilege when they take up your good habits.

Is there anything, Eric, that we haven't spoken about so far today that feels important to bring into the conversation? And if not, I have just a couple more questions for you.

I guess the thing we've kind of touched on this in a lot of ways, but I just want to make it explicit. It's like I mentioned the idea of, like, it doesn't have to be this way. Like, this is not just the way it is. It doesn't have to be this way. And part of that is recognizing how you are contributing to the situation that you say you don't want, that you are keeping yourself stuck in some way. And there's always a lot of external factors. And you can always say, well, it's a manager's fault or my partner's fault or my kid's fault that I can't do what I want. But you're also giving them the power over you by listening to them and not willing to the consequences of saying no to your kid, to your boss, to your partner. So in my book, I sum this up as saying, how are you the problem? Because until you recognize that, you can't see what to do differently. But if you understand the ways in which your actions and behaviors are contributing to the situation, then you can start running experiments, try something different. See if I do something different than what I normally do. If I say no instead of yes, if I push back instead of resenting, you might see different results and the world will change. So that's the whole message of the book. You have a choice when you don't think. You have a choice when you think you're stuck. Notice the ways in which you're contributing and try an experiment.

And we actually haven't talked about your business name, so I'll give you an opportunity. Too many Trees. I know what it means. You could share with the listeners why Too Many Trees? Why is that the name of your business?

Well, there's this saying that you can't see the forest for the trees. And it's like you can't see the big picture when you're just like, everything is kind of like coming at you fast. And so when I was looking for a business name, I was riffing on that, and I came up with the idea of, yeah, I can't see the forest because there's too many trees in the way. I'm like, oh, that's good. And this domain was available, and it's catchy, and it's a lot easier to spell than my name. So that's why I went with that. That's why I went for that.

Awesome. So I'll definitely, of course, link to that. I'll link to your book. You have a choice in the show notes and your LinkedIn page, I think. Are those the best places to. To connect?

Those are the best places to connect.

Okay, so now just a couple more for you. One is, I guess, what's. What's the metric? It's a funny phrase question, but, like, what metric are you paying most attention to in your life or Maybe another way to think of this is like, what value are you most closely looking at in your life right now?

Yeah, it's funny you ask that. I just went through my end of year review and set my intention for 2024 and the intention was create moments of connection. And what I like about that is it's not like I want to get this much revenue by the end of the year or this many coaching hours or have this many great experiences with my kids. It's something I can evaluate on a day to day basis. I can lie down at the end of the day. It's like, what did I do to create moments of connection today? When did I pause to interact with my kid? When did I slow down and connect with my client or in this case with somebody talking to me on a podcast? Those are the that. So that's my intention right now is moments of connection. And if I pile those up, I'm pretty sure all the other things I want fall out of it. Closer connection with my kids, closer relationship with my partner, better coaching with my clients. But the presence to stay in connections, I think where my focus right now.

And I loved. There's a part in the book that you mentioned in 2022 when you are feeling loneliness, right? And I think at the time you might have been reading. I haven't read the book, but Vivek Murthy's work is outstanding and I just, I love every podcast he's ever been on. He's been on Tim Ferriss, he's been on, on Being. He's. He's been on a lot of the big ones. And, and you wrote this really interesting way that, that he says to combat loneliness. Do you, do you remember what you said?

I don't, but I can look it up.

Well, I'll share. I wanted to give you the opportunity to say, but I hadn't quite heard it this way before. And I think that they said the number one thing. Vivek Murthy and I think it was Johann Hari. Is that right?

Johan Hari Lost connections.

Go volunteer or get involved locally in your community was the number one way to create connection if you're feeling lonely. And that's. It's something that I've been thinking a lot about in my life especially. I don't think you knew this, but. Or maybe you did. I'm on parental leave with my son, with Nathan right now and I'm in month 2 of 3, so I'm almost, I'm in the beginning of the second month. I'm almost Halfway through, and it's been beautiful. And there's been lots of great moments of connection with him. And there's been a lot of personal loneliness for me. And I've had the thought several times to get more involved in the area that I live in, Hoboken, New Jersey. But this was the nudge. It's like, man, if Vivek Murthy and Johann Hari, and I dig what Eric's doing. I see a lot of overlaps in our personalities. This would be a really good way for me to create more connection. That's something that's really important in my life as well, and I share your love for it. Not being tied to, like, this is going to help me get more clients or build my business. Right. There's. There's no ulterior motive or, like, outcome I'm looking for other than the thing itself, which is beautiful.

Yeah, Yeah. I was really struck that that was the advice, because it. It's so easy for us to, especially in America, to collapse down to this individualistic point of view. Like, we're all alone, lone wolves fighting for ourselves in this unforgiving world. And most people really want to be part of community. Humans are tribal animals. And so volunteering in some way reminds you, like, yeah, most people want to just work together to do stuff that matters. And when you are reminded that, like, oh, I connect, I am part of something bigger than myself, and that's so valuable and so important.

So, Eric, the final question that I ask in every interview is, what does it mean to you to live a meaningful life?

I mean, right now, like I said, my focus is connection, but I guess what it means to live a meaningful life is making meaning of each day. And there's a. I know I'm referring to him a lot, but Jerry Colonna talked to Parker Palmer on one of his podcasts, and in that they shared, said, yes, the way to measure your life is to be kind, show up and be kind, and help other people. And Jerry quoted the poet David White, who has a line, good work, done well for the right reasons, and with an end in mind. It's like, that's a meaningful life. If I've done good work towards a cause I believe in, I've done it well. That's meaning I can lay my head down at night and say, like, yep, I did good work today, did it well, did it for the right reasons, and that was a meaningful day. So once I heard that line, I'm like, that's it. That's the definition. I'll Go with the deer.

I love that definition. That's a. That's a beautiful answer. So, Eric, thank you so much for being a guest on the show. I'm glad that you. You pushed past your resistance and said, you know, Mike, Mike should. You didn't rest your laurels on Michael find me. If it's good work. You. You reached out to me and you found me. And I really enjoyed reading this book. And I think I shared right before we jumped on the actual recording here, the way that I wanted to acknowledge you. There's. There's a couple of things and one of the things that I wanted to acknowledge in you. And if you're watching on YouTube, it's very evident. There's just like, what is it? A hundred books right behind you there. There's just like. Your approach to this work is both really simple and practical and. And can be accessible really for any single person that's interested in getting unstuck and realizing that they have a choice in creating the life that they want. And it's also really nuanced and factors in lots of aspects of what it means to be human, what it means to be a leader today. And you modeled it in several different ways in this conversation. I really appreciated that you shared that moment of shame when. When you peed your pants when you were in second grade. And I think that I have lots of moments like that where I internal. I did a thing, it got criticized or had a negative reaction, and I learned that it was really bad. I didn't share that. But anyone who's listening now has more permission to share a part of themselves that they maybe didn't and. Or didn't feel that they had permission to before. And the way that you modeled the way that you're living your life relationally and more than just business in your romantic partnership as a father in your community. Right. There's just. There's all these different ways that you're applying, like mapping out this work to all different types of relationships that I am really drawn to. Like, the reason I have fallen in love with coaching is very aligned with the way that you're putting it out there in the world. It's that it helps us be a better person in every single domain and area of our life and helps us live the life that we really, truly, deeply desire, both individually and collectively. And I think that, you know, the work that you're doing is a really good guidebook for people at various points in their life journey to take a look at where am I right now where is that not in alignment with where I want to be? And like, how do I. How do I make that thing possible in really actionable ways? And so it was, it was really a privilege to be able to spend two hours with you today and drop into that metric that we're both paying close attention to, at least in these present times and probably forever. Connection.

Yeah. Thank you, Mike. I really appreciate the opportunity, I love the opportunity to geek out with somebody that's read all the same books I have. And yeah, I appreciate you taking the time not just to be with me now, but clearly taking the time to read the book and do some get into my life before the podcast and prepare. I appreciate that as well. So thank you.

My absolute pleasure. And to everyone who's listening, thank you so much for joining. If you're watching, well, it doesn't matter what platform, if you're on Spotify, if you're on Apple, if you're watching on YouTube, please subscribe. This is my chance to step more into promotion. If you're getting value out of these conversations, please leave a review for the podcast. It helps reach more people and I think that what I'm creating is awesome. So I want to reach more people. So how's that for some self promotion to end it? I'll do some BJ fog celebrating as I jump off here. Right. And sending everyone who's tuned in. Lots of love. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen to Mike's search for meaning. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe, Share this episode with your friends and leave a review. I look forward to seeing you next time, my friends. And until then, stay safe, stay well, and keep living with purpose. Peace.