Gregory Benedikt: Ready To Live A Story Worth Telling, This Toastmaster Quit His Job And Followed A Path That Lit His Soul On Fire

I do really believe 100% from every part of me that everyone has the capacity to be able to do the things that they want and not to be held back by the mental baggage that's in our head that we want to push through.

Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. In each episode, we get down and personal with people who go after the things they want to make all their wildest dreams come true. Join us as we unveil and dissect a formula for what it takes to do the thing. Here is your host, Stacy Lauren.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. So I am excited, you guys. It's really fun to be in life doing the thing and getting to meet really cool people that also do the thing. I actually have been wanting to enjoying Toastmasters for probably as long as I can remember, honestly. Finally, I decided that I actually was really interested in speaking to people that were in recovery and overcoming from major obstacles such as criminal backgrounds and things like that. That sort of just pushed me into really wanting to join, finally make the decision to do it. I ended up going to this Toastmasters group and I met Gregory, who is the president of the Toastmasters and also has an amazing podcast called Dare to Dream. I'm so excited for guys to be able to hear from him, hear his story. So. Hey, Gregory, how's it going?

Hey, Stacy. It's going great. Thanks so much for having me.

Yeah. I'm so excited to have you on and get to dive in more into what you're up to and what you're doing.

I am excited and grateful to be here.

Good. Why don't we start off and share more about you and your story?

Yeah. Well, what's coming up for me first is that I am the president of Toastmasters at the moment, but the only reason I'm president is because no one else wanted it.

Well, that's doing the thing, right? You took the responsibility over and, I mean, that's pretty cool, actually.

It's been a really cool experience of just saying yes to it when I totally wasn't ready. I had just been in Toastmasters for a couple weeks actually, and elections came up and I was kind of voluntold to do it, and I knew I'd be supported along the way. So I'm a big fan of Doing the Thing. I'm laughing because if I look to my right, I have a huge wooden sign on my wall that says, do the work. I'm glad that we finally met. It seems like we were manifesting each other.

Well, that was what the craziest thing was. I don't even remember if I told you, but I was just doing a slide deck for before I met you at the Toastmasters, I was doing a slide deck for the presentation I eventually want to do when I start speaking to the do the thing formula. And I had just written on one of the slides was regret, and it literally had a deathbed with, like, the little bubble, oh, I wish I could have done this. And then you spoke to that when we met of that regret thing. And that's what's crazy, is when you're. When you meet someone that just immediately pops and you're like, oh, my gosh, this is exactly where I'm supposed to be at the right time.

Oh, man. I'm sure we'll get into the regret stuff today. That is a huge part of my story and a huge motivator in my own life.

So before we move on, I wanted to talk more about the Toastmasters thing, because that's the very tipping point of doing the thing is the. I didn't realize you were only there a few weeks before you said yes to taking the president role on. So what did you have to go through? What was your thought process to be able to say yes to that? Even though you were voluntold? Like, you still could have said, oh, no, no, no, no, no. How did you overcome that feeling?

So I had always wanted to do Toastmasters. Like most people, I had heard about it, and I was like, wow, that's such a good idea. I'd love to improve my public speaking skills. And like most people, I put it off for weeks, which turned into months, which turned into years. And I finally had an event, a life event, that made joining Toastmasters worth it. And it was that my sister was getting married, and she asked me to give a speech at her wedding. And so I really wanted to nail it. I didn't want to get up there and do what I used to do, which is where I just sweat and stumble around and stutter. So that's why I joined Toastmasters. And then I joined it also because I love pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. I love seeing what is possible when I'm in that space of not knowing and my palms are sweating and I'm uncomfortable. And so once I was in Toastmasters already, I saw the opportunity to try and be president just as part of saying yes and leaning in even more.

So saying yes is almost like a practice that you're doing where you're just if once you see the opportunity, you're just going for it.

Yes. I'm a huge fan of seeking voluntary discomfort so that when hard things happen in life and life gets stormy, I am equipped to handle it. And a huge part of my ethos is living a story worth telling. That's this little phrase that I tell myself is like, live a story worth telling. And it seemed saying yes to that opportunity would make a good story.

Do you go through any kind of risk assessment when you're saying yes to things, or is it just literally that live a story we're telling mantra that gets you through it?

There's for sure some risk assessment baked in there. I used to be a financial analyst, and for a lot of my life, I was very risk averse. So there's definitely analysis and planning, but at some. For some instances, you have to just say yes, I think. And there's this quote that comes from Matthew McConaughey's book Green Lights. I can't remember exactly who says it. It's one of the women in this village that he visits, and she says, it's not about win or lose, it's about, do you accept the challenge?

So you were financial analyst. And then what is. What is that story like?

Yeah. So that story begins. I tell people that my life got interesting in June of 2022. And in June of 2022, I quit my job. I was working at a real estate investment firm here in Solana Beach, San Diego. I was a financial analyst, studied finance in school, thought that's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. And after working in finance for about three and a half years, I just started feeling really uninspired and unfulfilled, especially when Covid hit and I was sitting behind a computer for 12 hours a day, just grinding away in Excel. And it's actually the regret that we were talking about really plays in here. So about six months earlier, I had heard about Bronnie Ware and her research. For those of you who don't know who Bronnie Ware is, she was a palliative care nurse, and she worked with people at the end of their life. After interviewing or working with patients all ages who are facing terminal illnesses and actually passing, she ended up writing a book called the Top Five Regrets of the Dying. And it summarizes exactly as it sounds. The top five regrets people have at the end of their life. And the number one regret people have when they're on their deathbed is, I wish I would have had the courage to live A life true to myself, not the life others expect of me. And how this plays into my own story is I was in Tokyo, Japan, with eight of my best friends, sitting in the cafe of the hostel we were staying in, violently hungover. We had gone out to a karaoke hotel the night before, which is literally what it sounds like. It's a hotel with hundreds of rooms, but each room is a private little karaoke studio. And it was all you can drink. So we had a wild, wild night. And the next morning, I'm standing there so hungover I could barely move. And I was listening to a podcast that was talking about Bronnie Ware's research. And when I heard that number one regret, I honestly felt like I had been slapped in the face because I was. The only reason I was still drinking is because my friends loved Party Greg. I hated it. I was starting to shift my focus into health and wellness, and alcohol was working in the exact opposite direction of all of those goals. I was working a job I didn't like. I knew I wanted to get out of finance, but I was playing small and was safe and comfortable and didn't want to move. And then kind of the third thing I realized is I knew I wanted to work with people, helping them realize their potential, helping them set and achieve goals. And I was too afraid to pursue this life dream I had had of becoming a life coach. And so that was in the end of 2019. Fast forward Covid happens the first few months of 2020. And then I finally quit my job in June of 2020. And that's when it all started. So I walked away from my job. I ended up starting a nonprofit with a stranger I met on the Internet. Things just fell into place. People came out of nowhere. It was the most serendipitous chain of events. And that's what. That's. One of my biggest takeaways from all of this is that when you start, when you take off the mask, when you become your fully authentic self and show the world what you want and who you are, the people that you're meant to work with and meet, everything falls into place. And so I went from finance to starting a nonprofit. The nonprofit was bringing professional leadership, coaching and evidence based personal development to underserved youth. I did that for a year and a half, got exposed to the coaching world, got exposed to, like, academic research and how to actually measure things like resilience and people's ability to overcome adversity across time. And through that experience, I was introduced to coaching. And it showed me that I really loved the coaching piece, but I didn't love the nonprofit management piece. So after that, at the beginning of this year, I went all in on my passions, the things that light my soul on fire, which are coaching, writing, and podcasting.

That's incredible. It's like you've been following. I've been using this term breadcrumbs a lot lately on the podcast, but you literally are following the breadcrumbs and then that's where you're sort of falling into what you're doing now.

Yeah, absolutely.

I love the words. I just circled it and started light my soul on fire. I don't know if I've ever heard those words specifically put together. That. That's. That's really good.

It's really good. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, that's just the way I describe that is when you're talking to someone and their face just lights up and they become so animated. That's one of my favorite things, is speaking with people about the things that they're truly passionate about because I can have no interest in what they're saying. But it's such a fun conversation because they're so passionate and it, it actually makes me interested.

So talk about, let's go back to your job, because that's actually. I have several episodes with people on doing the thing by quitting their job, which sounds hysterical, but it's true because you. There's so many people that just get stuck and sometimes it's the same job for years and years and years. And it's fine if they're happy. Right. That's totally fine. But if, if they're not, then that's when it is doing the thing to quit your job. So, like, what did you have to. You heard. So pretty much you heard about Bronnie where you're in Japan.

Yeah.

Hungover. You heard Bronnie where you heard about the five regrets of the dying. Then you've got into the I wish I would have lived more for myself and not for others. And then you then decided to quit your job. So how did that process go? How were you able to actually make that move?

Yeah, so there's a lot of steps that get glossed over in the short condensed story. And two things are, I was a financial analyst. I was very risk averse. So I wasn't just going to walk out of the office one day and quit. I had known for about a year that I really wanted to do something else. So I was aggressively saving money. I was making sure that when I Quit my job. I would have enough money to live for a while without the pressure of having to work, which turned out that I started working on something else right away. But it allowed me to work for the nonprofit for free for that first year, which just opened so many possibilities. So that was one thing, planning financially for how I was going to make the jump and then another one. A huge catalyst that I forgot to mention was I enrolled in an online personal development program called Go for your win. It's put on by Aubrey Marcus. And it was because of that that I got introduced to Tim, who I started the nonprofit with. That was the catalyst of being in a group with thousands of other people around the world who each week we would. We started with a mission statement and then the next week would be talking about our ideal day. And each week was another writing prompt that we'd share with the group and there was exercises to go through. And that's how I started writing and posting online about what I wanted. And then the serendipitous event I was kind of alluding to was that one of the A girl in the class named Sabrina reached out to me and she said, hey, like, I know I don't know you, I hope you don't think this is weird, but I'm in a coaching certification program with a guy named Tim in San Diego. And you guys literally have the same mission and vision. Like you guys need to meet and do something together.

Wow, that's amazing. So when you open up the nonprofit, did you open that up? You and him opened that up?

Him and I co founded it and he's still doing it. It's an amazing nonprofit. It's called the enjoyable pain of growth Academy. We go by epoch Academy and www.epochacademy.org go check it out. It's so cool. It's like I said, bringing professional leadership coaching, leadership coaches. They meet one on one with students and at the same time students go through a evidence based personal development program that we built out and it's been shown to statistically improve resilience, overcoming adversity, overall well being. They're doing amazing, amazing work.

What do you think's the biggest thing that's helping them with being able to like by going through that training. What do you think's the biggest needle mover?

One of the biggest needle movers back when I was a part was leadership identity and just having being able to see themselves as a leader. For the first time we worked with in our pilot program, it was in the Houston International School District. The worst performing school district in the US and so many of these kids had never met with an adult one on one who believed in them and asked them, well, what do you think you should do? And it was a combination of just high potential students, I mean, who willing and eager to take advantage of the resources. And I think the magic of coaching, which is assuming that the person sitting across from you is whole, complete, resourceful, creative and asking questions to unlock their potential instead of giving them advice.

So that's where you got into the active listening kind of having that empathy and being able to almost doing that motivational interviewing in a way.

Absolutely, yeah.

Which then led you even more to this story. Living a story worth telling, because you're literally living it. Then when you're seeing it through their eyes and you're able to make that impact and you see the light shift.

And what's coming up is you shared earlier that you're using this language of following the breadcrumbs. And that has very much been a theme in my life, of following the breadcrumbs, seeing where it leads me. And then another big thing is being able to check in with myself and realign with what's important to me and what matters when I feel like I'm close but I'm not quite there. And the realignment piece is really hard. Like it was. It was hard to quit my job in finance to go out and I had no idea what I wanted to do at the time. The nonprofit thing fell into my lap and I met Tim like right as I was quitting. So it wasn't like that was part of the plan. So that transition was tough. But I, I know for sure an even harder transition was going from the nonprofit leaving the non profit to focusing on coaching, writing and podcasting by myself full time because I was getting so much, I mean, it sounds weird to say, but so much external praise. You left finance to work in a non profit and you're doing the thing and you're giving back and it's. I was living the dream, but it wasn't exactly my dream is what I realized. And so I had to make that shift again, check in with myself, be like, okay, we've been here before, we know what to do. Let's go out in a new direction and listen to that inner voice again.

The theme of my day, I had another podcast interview this morning and that's what we were talking about, is that inner knowing. And how do you really be able to make that decision when everyone else around you is thinking you're I don't know if crazy is the right word, but like is what. What are you doing? It seems like everything's perfect for you now, but then you still have that unfulfilled desire that you want to go after. So how do you make that decision? How are you trusting your instinct?

That is such a good question. And I'm furiously going through my notes right now to find a quote that I want to share. So this quote has been a huge part of my journey, and it's by Viktor Frankl. It's from his legendary book, Man's Search for Meaning. Man's Search for Meaning. And he says again and again, I therefore admonish my students, both in Europe and America, don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you're going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued, it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself, or as the byproduct of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success. You have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run. In the long run, I say success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it. And it's that one line in there that you must listen to what your conscience is commanding you to do. That's the line that really resonated when I was grappling with, what do I do next? Do I stay? Do I go? And I think that we all have this inner guidance that is leading us towards this incredible, extraordinary life, and that we almost don't have a choice and that we have to listen to it. I think when we don't listen to it, it's when we start feeling burnout and stuck and overwhelmed, and maybe we start getting sick or things just are falling apart and everything's not working. But if instead we listen to that inner voice, that's when you meet amazing people who are doing similar things and everything seems to be flowing. And I think that's where that synchronicity and serendipity come from.

Yeah, and this is great because. So this podcast originally was do the Thing, do the Thing. And I was really excited about getting people to do the thing. But as I was starting to interview people and seeing patterns, I realized I not only wanted to help people understand the concept of doing the thing, but doing the thing out of alliance for themselves. And so that's really. What you're saying is really speaking to me, because I say that, yet I don't know if people even know what that means, But I think you're really. You're really verbalizing it in terms of that inner knowing and being able to tap into what that is even more. So what's your process for that? Let's say you feel. Because this happens to everyone, right? All of a sudden you might feel a little overwhelmed or tired, and you're like, what's going on? You know? And you realize it's because you're not following your. You on what you want. You might be following what other people want. So what's your process for tapping into that?

So one thing that stands out to me is that my intuition and my inner voice always knows about four months before my intellect catches up and realizes. So there's always some sign that manifests in the form of not feeling great physically or feeling really stressed and burnt out and overwhelmed. And I usually completely ignore that for a couple months and just try and power my way through it, and it's always through. So my method, it's always through journaling. It's always through getting deep into the big questions of, do I still like this? Am I still happy here? If I were to do this for the next five years, what would that look like? It's really peeling back the layers and sitting with that and creating the space to do that is, for me, meditation also fits in there. It's usually meditation where I start to notice things, and then I go to my journal next and articulate it and kind of put the pieces together.

And then your prompts are, do I still this? And what else do you ask yourself? How else do you kind of channel through the channel?

So those aren't like, specific prompts I use every single time. It's just really checking in with myself. And it always comes up one way or another, okay, how. How am I doing? If I'm not feeling great for multiple days in a row, I can start to see that in my journal prompts. Not prompts, but my journal entries. And yeah, there's no. There hasn't been like a. I haven't formalized the process yet into a nice, neat package. But it's through meditation and through journaling that I end up finding out what my inner guidance knew months ago.

I think it's speaking. Speaking so much to me right now, too, because it's so easy to power through. Right. And just to, like, numb all that behind you, because especially a lot of people that are doing the thing are high. High achievers in one way or the other. And so moving is. Is easier because then you don't have to think about it. But then when you lead to that exhaustion, you realize it's coming from something else. So you're really speaking to me right now. And the problem that I have is if I. When I stop, so I'm working through this a lot myself, is when I stop, then the momentum stops, and then it's potentially, then you could stop doing the thing. But I think it's better to just set up a gauge for, okay, I'm gonna just give this some space, and then let me just see where it goes. And then maybe just say, in, like, two days, I'll re restart again.

Yeah. And I am right there with you. I struggle with it so much because as many other high achievers know, sometimes it's your inner voice guiding you in the right direction, and sometimes it's resistance masquerading as your inner voice. And I'm a huge fan of Steven Pressfield and the War of Art. And the way he explains it is that resistance is this invisible force that gets in the way of everything you want to accomplish in life. And the more you care about it, the more you're going to have resistance. It's what leads you to procrastinate, to not do the thing when you know you should. And so it's really hard. And I'm still constantly trying to figure out the difference between, okay, is this resistance that is getting in my way, or is this my inner voice actually telling me that, no, this is not the right thing.

No, it's good. I'm glad you brought that up, because, yeah, sometimes it could be the fear or the resistance is what's coming up, and then you're painfully wanting to go through it.

Yeah.

That's interesting, huh? This is good. It's, like, exactly what I need right now. It's kind of funny.

Yeah. Like, for example, today I gave a speech at Toastmasters. I never want to give a speech at Toastmasters. Every time I think about it, I get nervous and my palm starts sweating. But I know that ultimately I want to speak. I want to share my message in that way, and I know it's part of the journey. So that instance, it's obvious that me not wanting to speak is resistance versus me not wanting to speak is like, oh, maybe that's not what I'm supposed to do.

Let's stay here for a minute. Because it's like, okay, when that comes up, what's the question that you ask? Like, how do you know that it's just resistance and not that you don't want to do it?

I think in this case, it's pretty obvious, because when I look at my vision for who I want to become and what I want to accomplish, it's. It's obvious that speaking and inspiring is part of that. And I'm trying to think of a less. What would be a less obvious. I think the answer I would give.

Yeah, because you're looking at your North. You have your North Star idea of what you want in life, and then you're like, okay, is this kind of going into my North Star? Okay, then it's resistant. It's. If it's not, then checking in with yourself a little bit more.

Yes, thank you. That is it. I fully agree with that answer because I think that's why it's so. Is what I tell people all the time, coaching clients I work with. It's so important to have a North Star, whether it's a vision statement or a mission statement, because that. That's a great way to tell if the thing you're experiencing is resistance or if it's an actual misalignment. You can use your mission statement or your North Star as a filtering mechanism to put opportunities and people and tons of things through to see if it is in alignment and if it fits.

So since you mentioned mission mission statement again, I want to. Before we move on and. Because I definitely want to talk about your coaching and podcast and stuff too, but could we talk more about the Aubrey Marcus program and that. That was a huge piece of how you're doing the thing and the way in your alignment right now. So what got you to sign up for that, first of all? Was it that. That whole situation you were in and then you. You saw it, or was there something else that triggered you to start that program?

That was just another one of those serendipitous events where a friend told me, hey, Aubrey Marcus is doing this program. We both had been listening to his podcast and loved him. He's doing this program that he normally does, but because of COVID he's offering it for only a dollar, so we gotta do it.

And so then you're doing it. And time is money too, right? So you're taking your time and then you just. What did you get out of it? What were the biggest wins for you during it?

The biggest wins were clarity on my mission statement, what I actually wanted to do. So I didn't come out of it knowing, hey, I want to co found a non profit, do that for a year and a half and then become a coach. But I did get humongous clarity on the fact that what lights me up on the inside is helping other people and that I want to incorporate that. I want that to be my life's work. It's helping other people realize their potential.

How do you think you got that clarity?

A lot of stumbling around in the dark I spent. It's really weird because in college I didn't see myself as ambitious. I just wanted to work in private equity and make a lot of money. And then as soon as I graduated college, I had this big like flip into love learning, love growth, personal development, push myself outside the comfort zone. And I spent the next four or five years trying to figure out what it was that I was passionate about through personal development and through this growth journey. And I finally realized one day that all of the tools and the medium that I was using to try and find my passion was my passion.

And it's almost once you got free from that structured educational system with college and you were sort of on your own terms with being able to learn, that sort of freed you in a way to learn now your next level of learning.

And I can see, if I look back now at college, I can see really core parts of myself that were prevalent. Like I love, I've always loved challenges and challenging myself and that manifested in doing financial valuation competitions for my senior project. Like stuff like taking the hardest finance class I could. So it was there, but it was, yeah, it was being, it was covered with so much other stuff with just a lot of being in college and living it up, you know, the, the.

Balance of play and, and work.

Yeah, a little too much play.

So let's fast forward now. You've left your non profit and now you're deciding to get into coaching. Start the podcast. Let's kind of go there a little bit. How did all that start?

Coaching seemed like a natural next step because we partnered with the international coaching Federation for the nonprofit. I was meeting with coaches, interviewing coaches. It seemed like right up my alley. And so I started coaching certification program. And then simultaneously one of my best friends, his name is Vinnie, he's my co host on the podcast, he was quitting his job in real estate and we were like, man, wouldn't it be cool if we just Made a podcast that was an honest and unfiltered look into what it was like to actually quit your job, corporate job, and try and go out on your own. And so we started that. We recorded, like, 35 episodes, just him and I, going back and forth, shooting the talking about what was going on. And, I mean, it started with us at a table, recording on our phone, and then we eventually bought some microphones that sucked. And we did pretty much everything wrong along the way, but just kept doing it and stayed consistent. And now I have an actual microphone in front of me. We've recorded 89 episodes. Number 90 is going to be recorded tomorrow. And it's just been this beautiful, beautiful adventure. He was one of my best friends from school, but we have become so much closer because we're both daring to dream together. We're both doing this thing that we care about, and we have different facets of our stories. Like, he just moved to Japan for a year to teach English, but we have this communal thing that we're working on and building together, and that has just strengthened our friendship so much.

Yeah. And there's something really cool about. And you know this, I'm sure, because it's. I've just. I've noticed such a different level of. Of being able to have connection from podcasting and the interviews that I. I'm still trying to work through having in real life, because it. It's like you can ask anything or something in the podcast. But it's been. It's kind of cool that you guys have that connection together, I think, and being able to grow and develop together.

Yeah. I tell people I love podcasting because you get to sit down for an hour of uninterrupted conversation and nothing's off the table. You're allowed to ask these deep, probing questions that normally you wouldn't ask for years and years. And so I feel like with some of my podcast guests, I know them better than some of their mere acquaintances might.

I noticed that with my. I interviewed people in my mastermind that I've been friends with for four years, and I got to interview each of them, and everyone's, like, learning about them now because you're getting to hear their whole story. And anyway, it's. It's been. It's. I understand exactly what you're saying, because it's such an incredible curiosity, playful connection, and then to do it with someone that you care about is really cool, too.

I think it's called the Dare to Dream podcast. Spotify, Apple podcasts pretty much everywhere. So you can check that out. But on the coaching front, well. And so for the podcast, it's. That's something we're going to do forever. We both love podcasting. We want to document our journeys, but we've recently started to take it more seriously. We joined a podcast accelerator program where we're getting coaching podcasts and our messaging and marketing and learning how to do all the things. And so it's shifted more from. It's more about challenging you to embark on the adventure of your life. That's our new slogan. It's. We're trying to make it slowly, a little bit less about us, more about our guests, more about the listener who is the person who wants to live this big, extraordinary life. They want excitement and meaning and adventure in their life, but they're kind of just peeking over the edge. They're not quite ready to make that jump yet. And so we hope that the podcast brings inspiration and fuel and helps people take that first step on their journey. I mean, so similar to do the thing. I think that's why it's awesome that we're having this conversation.

So good. And what's coming to my mind when you said, not ready to make the jump? Let's talk about that. So what do you think when you. When you actually make the jump? What does that give to someone? What's that outcome for them?

I think making the jump, taking that first step is everything, because for me, one of my biggest fears in life is that I was going to get to the end of my life and realize that somewhere along the way, I settled for safety, for normality. I just got comfortable and kind of fell asleep at the wheel. And then I wake up and I'm not doing what I want to do. And so for me, once, I took that first step, like the second I quit my job and hurled myself into the unknown. If I'm being dramatic, that's. I was already. I was already doing it. I was already successful in the fact that I at least made that leap of faith. And so I think taking that first step for people, no matter how it goes, maybe it goes horribly. But at least you prove to yourself that you're willing to take a chance for what you believe in.

It's interesting because that's what's stopping people, right? Is that fear of what's going to happen. But when you can almost frame it the way you said, like, maybe it goes horribly, then it's almost, what if it goes horribly? So what? You know, at least I'm not regretting it on My Deathbed, pretty much 100%.

I just put a quote in my newsletter last week that was by Lucille Ball, and she says I wish. What did she say? I'd rather regret the things I did than regret the things I didn't do. And that just really resonated with me. It sounds weird to be so motivated by regret, but I kind of see it as a good thing because it's driving me to live this big life. Not in the sense of showing off or trying to live a store, someone else's story, but just living a story that's true to myself so that when I get to the end of my life, I can look back and smile at all the weird and uncomfortable situations I found myself in.

So what do you think is the hardest thing for people when they're doing the thing?

I think the hardest thing is not knowing how it's going to turn out. And most of the time, you have absolutely no idea. It's a lot of times the outcome is somewhat out of your control, and the only thing you can control is the buildup. And I think how you operate in that unknown, that's a huge reason I mentioned earlier. I love seeking discomfort. I'm part of this group called Men and Women of Discomfort. And it's all about seeking voluntary discomfort. So when you're in the unknown and you can't control the outcome and you're stressed and overwhelmed, you have built the character and the capacity to stay calm amidst the storm so you're not like, screaming at your kids or yelling at the guy in traffic. And so I think the hardest part is not knowing how it's going to turn out and going for it anyway.

Yeah, it's discomfort Conditioning.

Exactly. 100%.

So I went door to. I sold bookstore to door when I was in college, and it's. That's when I learned how to handle rejection. Right. Because that was my conditioning. And since then, I've done a lot of other things, but I haven't. It hasn't resonated as much because I've already been conditioned to accept rejection. And so I love the way you're reframing that with discomfort because the more you do it, the more you won't even notice that you're uncomfortable, in a way.

And you mentioned this on the do the Thing dating Challenge podcast, which was fantastic. The one where you had the panel of people on. But you mentioned, I think it was the book Rejection Proof. It sounded like you were talking about that. It's the guy who decided he wanted to go out and find a hundred different ways to get rejected and how that just built the muscle of getting uncomfortable and built self confidence. And I think that. I mean, that book fired me up so much. I love the idea of doing the thing over and over again and just putting yourself in the uncomfortable situation so that it becomes less scary and you're able to have more fun and kind of just dance with the experience instead of being so scared.

Yeah. And the other thing I'm sort of playing with is that idea of doing something hard. So it's one category where you're doing something hard, but then you're doing something else that's hard. And it's a totally different thing. It's like the same degree of hard, and then you can eventually increase. You're building your confidence each time, too, which I think is also part of what we're talking about.

Yeah. And I think when you do something successfully that you had previously labeled as impossible, you come back to your life. At least this is what has happened in my life, and I've seen it in a lot of the community members and men and women of discomfort. You come back to your life and you're like, wow, I never thought I'd be able to do that, but I did, and it wasn't that bad. What else can I do? And I think doing hard things, overcoming that challenge, really just opens up. It's almost a paradigm shift of what we think is possible for ourselves.

Let's say you have one piece of advice for the listeners on doing the thing. What would it be?

The only thing I can say is to take that first step. And there's a coach, a life coach that I'm a fan of. His name is Sean Smith, and he says, do it scared, do it unprepared, and then do it again. And that's what's coming up in this moment, is just take that first step. Regardless of how it goes, you're going to be further along and closer to your potential than if you would have just stayed. And then another quote that's coming to mind is Stephen King. It's that the scariest moment is always just before you begin. After that, things can only get better.

Dang. That is good. So good.

I love. I love hijacking other people's wisdom.

I know, it's great. It's great. What I got interviewed someone the other day. I wish I remembered this quote, compressing time by learning from other people's experience, you know, because if you're learning it on your own, it's going to Take you a lot longer than if you learn it from someone else.

So I have. I have one question for you. I just signed up for the do the Thing dating challenge, and I'm a bit terrified. What. What can I expect from that?

Oh, my gosh. It's going to be so much fun. So pretty much, I mean, I've integrated the do the thing formula into the challenge, so it's got little pieces of the formula to help make it. I almost want to show people that they could do anything after they're able to do the challenge, because you're going to be in a community of people that are all doing the scary thing. And our world is made of apps right now. And swiping right and swiping left. And so this challenge, I don't know if all the challenges will be this way, but this one, I decided to have it be a no app challenge because just like anything in life, the more you can step away from it, the more you'll. Like you were saying, with drinking, until you get outside of that thing, then it's hard for you to really dive into it. So, yeah, between the community of people mindset, and then we'll be giving different dares to get you to do different things, and then you're. It's going to be a shared experience, which will make it easier because anytime you can share something with other people, it makes it fun. So, yeah, I think. I think it'll be a lot of fun.

I'm so excited. Yeah, there's some. Something magical about going through strange, challenging, hard things with other people. It's like the ultimate team building bonding formula.

And I just posted. I'm interested if you end up listening to it, but I did a. I decided the one thing that people should do during the challenge is to say something they love about themselves every day. And at first I was a little, oh, what's. What are the guys going to think about this? But then I realized I ended up having a guy on the panel that, when we explained why it was important, and I realized it's. So that's where a lot of people are. I wouldn't say struggling, but needing certain attention or I have an example like this bucket. She talks about this on the panel, where this bucket, the more you put in, if you're not loving yourself, then it's gonna just seep out. And so regardless of who you are, it's like first loving yourself. So unconditional love for yourself, and then you'll be able to feel the love from other people. It's almost like a mirror, if that makes sense.

Absolutely. And I'm all about self love, so I love it. I'm also a guy and I think it's a great idea. So I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, I'm huge on the I don't know if you're familiar with Marissa Pierre and the I am Enough movement, but I mean, I have on my wall over here, it says I am enough. I am bold, I'm creative, I'm charismatic, I'm unstoppable. I'm unlimited. So I'm. I'm all about it.

Yeah. And that's pretty much I went back to my like what we talked about earlier, going with what I felt. Right. I'm like, I don't care if people are gonna like it or they're not. And I just felt like that was going to be the number one thing for them. So. Okay, question for you. Is there anything I did not ask you that you wish I asked you?

My inner voice is telling me that I needed to talk about my coaching more and promote it and all of that. We're not going to do that. But if anyone is interested in learning more about my coaching, you can find me. And honestly, the podcast coaching. I write a lot online. I write on medium. You can find all of that@gregory russellbenedict.com Benedict is spelled similar to the eggs Benedict breakfast dish, but it has a K instead of a C. Perfect.

And who do you help? So why don't we just talk about that for a minute.

I help all people right now. My so I've been trying to find my niche and zone in on it. My latest one is I help burnt out millennials banish the Sunday Scaries. And out of all the people I'm working with right now, I think maybe two or three of them fit that category and then there's a bunch that are outside of it. So I love helping people figure out what it is that they actually want to do with their life. We only have one shot at this grand adventure and living a life that's true to yourself so you don't get to the end of your life and realize, oh man, I was wearing a mask the whole time. That's what I'm passionate about. And an idea thought I had the other day is that if things aren't going the way you want them to be, if you're trying to manifest things and it seems like it's not working, it might be that you're manifesting the exact things that that mask calls for. And if you take off the mask, that's when you can start manifesting the true stuff. So long way to say I love helping figure. Helping people figure out what they're passionate about, how to get more excitement and meaning into their lives. And that's usually through creating a mission statement, visualizing their ideal self, and then really just making the game plan and, you know, step by step, making those small baby steps.

So awesome. Well, it has been amazing getting a chance to talk to you and I can't thank you enough for coming on.

Thank you so much for this opportunity, Stacy. I'm excited to continue to interact and see you in the dating challenge and just surround myself with people who are doing the thing and pushing themselves outside their comfort zone.

Thanks for listening to the do the Thing podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. But even more, we hope you'll be inspired to do the Thing. Do you have a burning question on Doing the Thing that you'd like answered? How about an inspiring do the Thing story of your own that you'd like to share? We'd love to hear all about it. Just leave us a voice message at dothething callcast co or email us@helloothethingpodcast.com.