How To Go From STUCK to UNSTOPPABLE | Dave Hollis

Because of the experience of feeling super stuck at certain points in my life and living inside of function certain point in my life, identify now, looking backwards, that those periods of being down were connected to times when I was not growing.

So I want to come straight out of the gate because I think a lot of people are going to not only love the book, but also it's going to change some lives. Because I think fear at the end of the day is what's holding a lot of people back. And it comes in a variety of forms. Like, how did you discover the concept of not fear itself, but the methodology of overcoming it?

Well, I found myself most recently having change choose me. Right. I was in a marriage for 16 years. Didn't imagine that not being a thing that would be part of my life forever. And a series of conversations had it going away. And in it going away, I had a really hard time. In a world where I knew who I was when I was her husband, in a world where I knew who I was when I was in my identity, co working with her in a company that we created. When those things went away, the vision for my future was compromised because fear was challenging my imagination. I had a really hard time having been handed this blank piece of paper where it's both parts terrifying and exhilarating. Right. Like you can get excited about filming, filling out what ends up being on the paper that dictates what your future looks like. But at the beginning, it was terrifying because my fear wasn't allowing me to cast as clear vision as I'd previously had. And so I really had to spend some time creating a relationship with my fear, speaking all of them out into my consciousness so that I could deconstruct which of these are real, which of these are not. Of those that are real, are there plans that we could put together to help confront them with courage. And so, so much of this ide of being built through courage is this. This idea that the life that you are hoping to live the way that you'd hope to model things for your children or show up well for the people that you love, all of it sits on the other side of your fear. And your willingness to equip yourself with that courage, to face it, is everything.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting because I feel like, you know, we. We try to tell ourselves to be courageous or maybe we start that journey that you just described and we don't quite finish that journey or we get lost in the journey, mate. You know, you kind of go in and you never kind of Come out, you know. And what I appreciate so much about your work and everything that you've done is you've done the hard work, but you've also kind of done it in such a way that there's like breadcrumbs that other people can follow to kind of get out, you know. As someone who struggled a great deal in my own life in years past, I know how important it is to have a mentor, whether it be in paper form, digital form, one to one form, you know. But courageous, I think, oftentimes is a very difficult thing to truly define. So what is. What does courage basically mean to you in this time, in this time and phase?

Yeah. Well, I mean, the conceit of the entire book is this recognition that each of us, you, Steven, every person listening, was built with very deliberate design and in mind that there was intention in our creation. And my definition of courage, especially in these last five years, where I've just gone through a lot of transition from corporate to entrepreneurship, from married to divorced. Courage for me has been walking every day one step closer to honoring the intention of my creation. Right. Like I was deliberately. You were deliberately put on this planet. And yet we push back, we resist. We have fear for stepping closer to that intention because often it runs against the cultural narrative. It might challenge the people that we are in love with or crave love from. It may run contrary to the way our family of origin or what it means to be a real man or a good girl ends up meaning inside of society. And so we stay with what we know. We stay connected to comfort. And we do so at the expense of. Of fully exploiting all of these gifts that were very intentionally and deliberately created for each of us. And so courage is about becoming comfortable in your truth, becoming comfortable to listen and honor the whisper inside of you. Whether you want to call it intuition or your knowing the voice of God, your potential, whatever that is. Courage is taking steps into uncomfortable spaces that might unlock those things that were given to you as this unique limited edition, one of one version of who you are so that you can fulfill your purpose, so you can have maximum impact, so you can feel great about yourself when you're by yourself.

Yeah, I mean, it seems like that the different. The core difference between someone who is ultimately ends up walking into their purpose or living out their purpose and the person that doesn't is whether or not they lean into the uncomfortability.

Oh yeah. I mean, the tough thing is we're programmed in so many ways for satisfying conditions. Checking boxes, maintaining comfort, the Even notion of control or the predictability of outcomes if we were only to satisfy certain things in a certain sequence trains us, since we're young, with the programming that we have to stay in our lane, to play it safe and small, to make sure that we're not being too loud or drawing too much attention or disrupting the way that other people might think about us for challenging some of the way that they've become comfortable with the status quo because of our willingness to push against it. And every single thing that you, if you, especially if you feel stuck, every single thing that you're looking for when it comes to fulfillment lives outside of your safe harbor inside of these choppy waters where you can grow. Because in the absence of growth, and not to be dramatic but growth is binary. Either you're growing or you're dying. There is no middle ground. And I have only because of the experience of feeling super stuck at certain points in my life and living inside of funks in a certain point in my life. Identify now, looking backwards, that those periods of being down were connected to times when I was not growing or said another way when I was dying. And the only way to be in that growth state is to be pushing yourself into places where you're uncomfortable, where you're not yet an expert, where you haven't yet fully developed mastery, where you can make a fool of yourself for not getting it right the first time so that you'll make a fool of yourself and learn the thing that you hadn't yet mastered. And so yeah, you got to push yourself out to the uncomfortable. Is it hard? Of course it's hard, but it's where fulfillment lives.

Yeah, no, I think, you know, and one of the things I love about you is you're so. It's funny, you know, you look back three or three or four years ago and you were the self prescribed as being the anti transparency person and now you're like super transparent on a regular basis. Like, you know, and I love that transition because I feel like the world needs to hear about the transparency side of. They need to hear about that journey. Because I think a lot of us think that our lives are somehow very different from other people and you know, a difficult situation, you know, matter how traumatic or how well non traumatic it might be to another person, is just as traumatic to us because we're, we're the ones living through it. Right?

Yeah.

You know, and you know, in, in the book you use the metaphor about a ship sailing through, you know, choppy waters and all kinds of stuff. We're kind of going through the seasons of life. Unpack those for us for a little bit.

Well, I, bizarrely, am not good on boats. So the idea that I wrote an entire book filled with nautical references and themes is only because my brain could connect to the analogy or metaphor in ways that made it stick. I got a tattoo on my arm at the very beginning of my journey. The tattoo here is a John Shedd quote. It says, a ship in harbor is safe, but that's not what ships were built for. And I got it as a reminder to myself that the person I aspire to be, that I was put on this planet to be, the one who will feel good about himself when he's by himself. That person is living outside of comfort that he was built to withstand the choppy waters, even though it will be disorienting, even though there will be swells that knock the ship over at times, even though it will be hard. And the challenge of leaving that safe harbor is that the safe harbor is surrounded all sides by fear. We started the conversation with fear, but there is no moat. And the only way to get into learning and the only way to get into growth is to just traverse that moat of fear. But when you decide to do it right, you start to reframe failure. You start to think differently about what you're capable of for having put yourself into situations that went beyond what you previously believed yourself to be capable of. And as you do that, you start developing confidence and pride, and this reframed, like, broader vision of what you think you can do, and it starts to make you feel like you can do anything. Yeah. So that. But that only comes again. That only comes when you start expanding your worldview, when you start trying things that trigger you, that make you actually get into a state of imposter syndrome, that actually make you worry about what other people are thinking about you. And when you survive the choppiness of the water, you realize, oh, I've become the captain.

I can float.

I've become the captain of this ship. Right. I, in the beginning of this, like, most recent journey of discomfort and choosing to make the most out of a situation that I wouldn't have necessarily hoped for in the ending of my marriage.

Yeah.

My word at the beginning was unmoored, because here I was once again pushed away from something I had been comfortable with and safe harbor oriented with. And the word that I have now is captain. Because what ends up happening in the evolution of this analogy, this metaphor that we're using, is that, yep, you start out feeling very much unmoored in that there's an unsteadiness and an easiness to the newness of anything that you haven't experienced before until you get your sea legs, until you become the captain and in that ascending to that believe now that you can traverse whatever the water might bring and whatever comes ahead.

Yeah. You know, it's seldom that a captain starts off a captain.

Right.

You know, they get on a, they get on a boat, they start working on a boat and they go to first mate and kind of continue the track trajectory. You know, as I was reading the word captain, I was, and I was, and I was kind of digesting the metaphor in general. I kind of heard choice. You kind of, you're kind of choosing, right? You're, you're taking some time to choose that. Look, I understand it's going to be choppy waters.

I get it. Right.

And as, as a result, I don't know if I'm sure, you know, you mentioned it's not super great on boats or whatever, but I kind of deal with the same thing. But I, you know, I was in Hawaii, gosh, a number of years ago and we were sailing around, there were people getting sick on the boat. But it's because they were trying to stand still and anchor themselves and not move while a boat is actually moving. Meanwhile, the people who are just having a good old time drinking their drinks and listening to music or whatever, they're just kind of floating with the water. So it seems like there's an element of just leaning into it on a consistent basis, which is why I wanted you to hit that so hard. The other thing that I really admire about you specifically, and it's because I see a lot of people who think they, quote, make it, but no one can actually articulate what make it means. Right. You've had an incredibly successful career in a variety of different capacities. But when I read your story, more and more of it, most of your unfulfillment was actually at the heights of your career. So how have you been able to, I guess have a better understanding or a greater perspective and find peace and fulfillment now.

Without tying it directly to a material or a rise or a career? Because that seems like that's counterintuitive for most people.

No, such a. It's such a good question. And it's something that like, has only truly revealed itself in the last handful of years, in even just the last couple weeks. I've been in a long distance relationship where the things we have to do to try and connect dynamites miles away. They go through, there's a whole list of things. And one of the things is we have discussed card game that has us asking each other questions just as an attempt to get to know each other better. And one of my questions two weeks ago was to describe myself in three words. And instead of picking three individual words, mine was work in progress. And what's interesting is I think I would have as a younger person identified work in progress as a negative. Like I hadn't yet achieved enough, I wasn't yet quite qualified enough, I wasn't somewhere in some ways enough. And instead I now see it as a mandate to continue on a journey that doesn't actually have a destination. Because work in progress will be a thing that I am 40 years from now that in no way demeans all the work that was in progress between now and then. And so that's one thing. I mean, I just think that like reframing what it means in a growth mindset kind of way, rather than a fixed mindset kind of way to always be working on better tomorrow without it in any way indicting where you are or what your past may have said about what you did or didn't completely accomplish such an important thing. But beyond that, if I had a single piece of advice to go back and tell my 20 year old self before I start my 20 plus year career in entertainment, it's that the things that I thought were going to make me happy wouldn't. Yeah, I'd also have a conversation about all of the things you're afraid of aren't real and if they are, they actually make you better. But really I'd start with the things that you, because of the way that society has placed value on status and title and money and material things, you will get these things and you will think that these are the things that are going to make you find peace or fulfillment or affirmed as lovable. And they're not. They just won't. And so there was something in this midlife moment between 30 and 40 as I'm sitting out back with my kids at the height of my career as the head of sales at the Walt Disney Company where we're playing this game. And one of my kids asked this question. In a game we usually play, ask dad anything. Nothing's off limits. And the question was, what are you most afraid of? And he's looking for tarantulas.

Maybe a.

Great white shark or something, Right.

And out of my mouth falls, not living up to my potential.

Yeah.

And What I realize as the words are coming out of my mouth is that I, because of the privilege, the luxury of working at the biggest media company on the planet with Marvel, Pixar, Lucas and Disney, the talent I was not having to work very hard to do really well. I wasn't studying for tests and getting straight A grades. And that dissonance between the full utilization of the gifts that were put inside of me and how much I had to put in because of the talents of everyone I was surrounded with had me living into my greatest fear. I wasn't having to use all of what I've been given to do well. And that was something that was like, boom. The thing that you've been looking for was not a salary and not a title. It was not any of these material things. It was the full utilization of why you've been put on this plan. You were given these gifts, and you need to live into this purpose, this intention, and honoring the intention of your creator. That's where you're going to find something in fulfillment and creating some integrity between that intention and the actions of your day. That's where you're going to feel the best about yourself when you're by yourself. I've said this line a couple of times, but for me, answering this question, how do you feel about yourself when you're by yourself? Has been in the last five years, the most single important question that I could ask in my growth journey. And when I started asking it, I first went back in time to see when I didn't feel great about myself, when I was by myself, to see if there were any things, ingredients, wise, consistent, common denominators. Common denominators, common variables. And there was in that every single time that I felt shame or guilt or lack of confidence or imposter syndrome, it was when I had represented to the world that things were great, that I was great, that I was this kind of person, but that privately I knew I'd only given a certain percent of what I was representing, or I knew that I'd been given a very specific, intentional bit of gift from my creator and I was only using just a piece of it. And that dissonance, that space between what I could have been or should have been and what I actually showed up as, that space was where that shame lived.

Yeah.

So I'm on a mission every day for integrity. Not maybe in its most conventional, traditional sense, though, yeah, we should be good and decent people. But integrity in the sense of alignment between calling and action, alignment between purpose and everyday Action. Keeping promises to myself, but also keeping promises to that intention that was put on me by my creator.

Yeah. I mean, it seems that purpose can only be found. Only be found through the sense of discovery and exploration. You know, I know for me, I've been saying this to my audience for quite some time, but, you know, it was a discovery that I had, you know, growing up, the way I grew up, and some stuff like that. Which was the greatest purpose in life you ever have is serving the person you used to be, which requires you to become more. Yeah. Because only. Only that journey, only that discovery process, only that exploration process allows you to get the empathy, the compassion, the grit, even to then go back and use that same information to help someone else. So as you're trying to, you're unraveling all of this, and fortunately, we get the benefit. Right. You get to. You get to pull it apart, and we get to digest everything you learn along the way. But what has been your purpose? I mean, what is coming up? What are you seeing? You talked about walking into your calling or into your created value. What have you discovered? What are you seeing?

Yeah. Well, what's really interesting is when I decided to leave Disney, delayed the decision to what I would call leave my career for my calling because of a worry of what other people were thinking. Right. Like I was going to challenge the convention of a box inside of which they would continue to live once I left. And my worry of them judging the way I was now valuing differently their box had me delay leaving. Only to realize after I left that they weren't thinking about me as much as they were.

Not even close. Yeah.

And that at any time delayed because of them was wasted time. So, like, first. First thing for anyone who's listening and you're contemplating doing something that feels connected to honoring the whisper, the knowing you have inside of yourself. But you're worried of what they're going to think. They are not thinking about you. There's a gift. Be free. They're thinking about themselves. And that doesn't make them bad. It just makes them human. The second thing, though, was I really had to connect to who I wanted to be before I became who I'd become.

Say that again. That was too good. Say that again.

Everybody, grab your Twitter or your Instagram real fast.

So I had to connect to who I wanted to be before I became who I'd become. Right. I think that for so many of us, our purpose, our passions, they are cultivated before social pressure starts to shape who we should be, who we need to be for them or who we decide we ought to be, to fit into the norm or the mold of what it means again to be a real man or good girl or whatever it might be. And.

I went back to and felt called into a space of impact, but didn't, to be honest, have an imagination at the time because of feeling funky about this decision to leave. And so at the time I jumped into supporting my now ex wife in building a company with her. I knew that there was impact that was possible. I had this hope that I might be able to, with some of the gifts I'd been given, afford people breakthroughs that might, with the tools putting in their hands, afford them a better life. And that was great. And yet I also had a godlike moment, I don't know how else to explain it, where I about a year into this journey where, yep, we'd scaled a business and we're impacting thousands of people and it felt great, but not totally satisfying. Was sat on an airplane next to Dan Rather. And just to give a sense of how cool I was as a child, Dan Rather was my childhood hero.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I didn't date for a very long time in life, but.

Dan Rather was my childhood hero. And it took, you know, sitting next to this man that I'd idolized and his willingness to have what ended up being two hours of conversation on an airplane to remind me of who I wanted to be before I'd become who I'd become. And who I wanted to be was a reporter. Was someone who could take information and use this gift I have for speaking and storytelling and deliver those stories in a way that might help people think or have a breakthrough or use that tool to then examine in their own life or even tell stories with some vulnerability that in the sharing of my struggle, normalizes theirs or that allows someone else to see them in my story so that it gives permission for it to be normal. That of course, all of us are struggling. And all of that, though, like at the end came down, I get off the plane and I'm like, wow, I've really enjoyed the work of supporting my wife and the way that we're trying to have impact. But also my true like God's put me on this planet calling. My truth was quit worrying about whether you're going to be a good enough author to write a book. Quit worrying if you're qualified enough to have a coaching business or to be someone who can run a podcast, just start doing it. Even, even if you're not good at the Beginning. It's the not good at the beginning that requires the courage, but they're not good at the beginning at all. So develops the mastery over time as you keep walking in the space. And yeah, it's triggering and jarring and you know, all of your insecurities get stoked. But I was reconnecting with that 18 year old kid who, when I was going into college and got that job on the crappy local news station as an anchor, felt alive, right? Like I felt alive because it was connected to this thing that I'd grown up believing that I was put on the planet to do. And so I would just ask you as a listener, if you're feeling stuck, you know, where does your passion lie is probably the first and most important thing. Like, I just have this passion for storytelling and this passion for reporting. And as much as, thank goodness I'm not reporting in the news, in the books that I'm writing, the podcasts I do, the way that I'm doing, coaching, I'm a reporter. And so I'm connected to this passion that I've had for 25, 30 years worth of my now 46 years on the planet. Then I had to ask, where are my skills? Right. And I ask you as the listener, once you understand where your passion lies, where are your skills? What are the things that you have uniquely been equipped with that when paired with your passion, can deliver the third thing you need, which is impact for other people.

Yes.

And so, right. Finding that triangulation, if you will, of personal passion, your competencies that you can develop into mastery for the benefit of other people. That is where I think you stand closest to purpose and the way that you again, will feel best about yourself because you know you're doing something that lights your heart on fire, that you're great at it, that can help other people.

Yeah, man. Dude, that's so good. There's so many. There's so many. Like, I was too captivated. I should have been taking notes the entire time. Fortunately, we're recording this. That helps me a lot. Selfishly, one of the, one of the big thoughts that came up during that and you, you tap dance all over top of it is this, this sense of just trying to measure up to someone else's expectation rather than living out your own. And you know, you mentioned the reporting aspect and one of my favorite videos I've watched in recent days is of you actually interviewing Ford for summer camp.

Which is really funny, you know, but in doing so, now that you've had this greater sense of awareness. How has it changed you as a father? Like, because, you know, as parents, a lot of times, we're the indoctrinators. We're like, I think Jay said it best. He's like, my parents said either I was going to be a lawyer or a doctor, and that was it. That was my only two options.

Right.

So, you know, it seems like the indoctrination and the expectation comes, you know, comes through parenting first, and then we, you know, get other layers along the way. How is this. How is this, you know, this process shaped you as a parent now?

Sure. I mean, I think there's two. Two really big things. One in our card game.

Back to the card game we go.

I mean, this card game, I'll tell you what. But the. One of the cards said, children are right. Fill in the blank. And so for me, children are legacy. Like, my legacy is these children growing into the adults that I'd hope them to grow into, which means as their primary model, as a at least significant model of what it means to be a grown adult, I have to ask on an every single day basis, like my why for getting up and doing the things that I know will keep me in integrity with the person I'd hope to be is connected as a father for the way I'd hope to model who I hope they might also become as an adult. So my legacy, connecting that legacy to the kind of actions that are required today to make that legacy come as beautifully to life as possible is the first thing. The second, if I made a mistake when I was not yet a parent, it's that I thought that you parented your children in the same way across the board as in, you are just. I'm a utilitarian dad. The way I am to Jackson and Sawyer and Ford and Noah is the same. And that is. It just couldn't be further from the truth.

Yeah.

And so much of this ends up being a reflection now of my appreciation that honoring each of their individual talents, their specific love, language, the way that their mind works, the individual things that they are interested in, that's what ends up stoking their passions and pouring gas on those things that lights their heart on fire. And in honoring the things that they're good at. Right. You want to get a tutor for this thing that you've shown yourself to have some competency for. Fantastic. You want a pitching coach because you're good at. Fantastic. And that applies for one of my kids, but not all of my kids. And so meeting them where they are and trying to be the dad that each of them needs, even though that dad is different for each of them has probably been one of the biggest things that certainly in the last handful of years, as their individual personalities have really blossomed and shown themselves to be what they are. That's probably one of the biggest things that's different in what I thought fatherhood would be and how it applies in real time. I want to just be the kind of dad that says, I honor and celebrate the uniqueness that is you, and in that celebration, also want to really pour into and encourage your passions and competencies come together so that they might be light for the world.

Yeah, I mean, that's. That's so good. I.

It's. I think the world is in a place where we tried to compartmentalize people around us, you know, kids, team members, you know, relationships, you know, close relationships, romantic relationship, and where it's like, you know, if they fit this mold, then, then, then it works in my narrative or my world. And I think what. I've shared the same awareness with you as I've learned that everybody's uniqueness. And there's a. And there's a. There's a gift in celebrating their uniqueness. You know, I've got. I've got one son who's like, super outgoing, super. He wants to be a speaker one day and do all that kind of stuff. I got another one's like, keep me as far away from the stage as possible. You know what I'm saying?

Yep.

You know, but give me. Give me a Google sheet and some Excel stuff and let me count numbers and widgets and history and, you know, just. And it's been really interesting as a father myself is trying to bring out the best in them, you know, and work towards that. And you have this quote. I pulled it out of the book, and I love this thing. I'm going to read it word for word, so forgive me for looking down, but it says, our deepest feelings of happiness come from when we can fulfill the measure of our creation. Our deepest feelings of happiness can come when we can fulfill the. The measure of our creation. You've got to unpack that for everybody. That is. I read that, and I had to stop. Yeah, Like, I had to stop what I was doing.

Yeah, Well, I mean, I think when we feel stuck, when we feel unfulfilled, I think it's when we start to question if our life has purpose or if there was some reason behind why we've gone through the experiences that we've gone through, or why our Brain process things the way that it does or why we love the way that we do. And I just come back to, you were built with intentional design. And this line, if nothing else, is this mandate to honor the intention of your creation. To honor the intention. And you don't have to believe in the way the creator that I believe in, but you were created by something. You in that creation are this limited edition, one of one of the billions of people that live on the planet and the billions that have lived before. Not one person is wired like you, loves like you, thinks like you, has had experiences like you. And that uniqueness perfectly qualifies and equips you for a specific purpose.

Yeah.

You have to find what that is. And at the end of your life, right. You're going to. I've got a buddy in Brendan Burchard who has talked a lot about this idea of, like, what are the things you're going to ask at the end of your life? And one of them is, did I matter? Right. And I connect with this because I think on a very basic human level, all of us want to feel like we matter. But when we ask the question of do we matter? Did we matter? Did we have impact on other people? Did we make the world better around us? The more that we can connect the mattering to having taken advantage and fully exploiting that unique limited edition, one of one thing that is us and our experiences and using it in a way that no one else could have. That's when I think you get to a deep sense of, oh, wow, I did matter. I did have purpose. I was created for a reason. I did experience those things for a reason. I did have to learn that hard thing I did have. Right? And everything that I have had to go through or been through in my life, and certainly I made this bold declaration. Beginning of 2020, it's going to be my best year ever. I'm turning 45 this year. It's going to be my best year. Right? And 2020 was a dumpster fire for all of us for so many reasons. And on top of all of the reasons we all share, I also end up transitioning out of my marriage. And what I didn't appreciate at the beginning of the year is that I would not get to dictate the terms of how my best year would show itself. I don't want to relive 2020, but it was my best year ever. And I am grateful on the other side of having to go through the hardest thing in my life for the benefits that came in the experience of processing that struggle. And I think when again, you kind of come back to this idea of the measure of your creation, some of what was created in this year was done so that I could become the healthiest version of myself, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually in relationship. But also how you choose to be courageous in handling whatever it is that has been created in your life is part of how you're going to feel. That sense of, wow, I did the most with what was handed to me. Even the stuff that isn't fair, I didn't vote for. It's still something I was able to turn into good or to see it as having happened for you instead of to you and all the other things you talk about in pd like, but this is like real life.

Hey, but it's real, though.

That's.

That's the crazy part is, you know, principles govern promises. And life lessons or life truths are life lessons and life truths. You know, we share a couple of mutual friends. And, you know, and of course, you know, you and I haven't got to know each other super well yet. And, you know, one on one. But, you know, one of the things that they share with me is that this journey that you've been describing throughout the entirety of the show, this journey of becoming, which I, at our heart of hearts, I think we're all trying to become, right? We're all wanting to get unstuck. We're all wanting to break from shackles. We all want to let go of other people's expectations and the comparison and the imposter syndrome. Like, that's all of us, right? But one thing that everyone shared with me is that you have become more of the person you wanted to be like. And fortunately, sometimes the only way to get there, and you and I talked about this just a handful of seconds off air, but the only way you get there is by going through the hard experiences. And it is the refiner's fire. It sucks. It's not fun. Like, I don't want to do it.

Yep. No, it sucks. And it's necessary, you know, and it's like I say, it's not a thing I want to necessarily relive. And I can yet hold gratitude for each of the experiences because when I was on my knees, I also drew closer to God when I was. You know. In the book, I describe how struggle refined so many of the people that we admire today, whether it's companies or leaders of companies. But in that list, I also include a handful of people out of the Bible. I'm a person of faith. And one of those people was Lazarus. And I referenced that, like, Lazarus had to die to be brought back to life. And what it provoked in my hardest season, as I was holding this truth, was that so too, was there truth in things having to die in my life so that I might be brought back to life as well?

Yeah.

And as much as, man, I didn't like the death of identity or ego or comfort or normalcy or the vision of the future that I knew. And as much as there was grief associated with those deaths.

Yeah.

In those deaths, there was also freedom.

Yeah.

There's a. There's a Tyler Durden quote from Fight Club that I use in the Come on, who doesn't? But it's only when you lose everything that you're free to do anything.

Yeah.

Right. And there was something beautiful in having so much of what I thought would always exist go away, that has me now appreciating this. The reality that we don't know how long we have. We don't know how long we have with any individual relationship. We can't take for granted our time on this planet.

The byproduct of that. Right. And that piece of paper being handed to me where it's now blank. It's fresh, clean slates. Dave, where do you work? Dave, what's your primary identity now that it's not husband? Dave, what does your new sense of normal look like? Dave, like all of became this more exhilarating thing over time because of my ability to write out what that vision looked like in a full freedom from anything that previously dictated what my sense of normal or comfort actually looked like.

Yeah.

And part of what it also opened up was for me, like a season of yes, where I had. I had a voice in my head that negotiated against saying yes to things that I hadn't previously done because of them feeling uncertain or scary or potentially embarrassing. And instead, I just started saying yes. And so.

I ran a marathon, and I ended up getting into a triathlon, which, by the way, I said yes to, and then didn't prepare well enough for and didn't complete in a way that I got to feel great about because of needing some help in the dang open water swim.

I am so grateful, though, for the willingness to start saying yes to things that would help reframe what I believe myself to be capable of in the face, even at times of embarrassing myself or letting myself down, for having not kept promises to myself, for the things I said I was going to do and being prepared to handle Them because there's learning in that. I just yesterday. This is such a random thing, but in a world of throwing out things that, like, historically would have likely been embarrassing, I've been on this fitness journey and I am in strength training and this coach that I have, along with this person I am dating and Heidi, who just has lived in fitness forever, they said, you know, you have got a frame musculature, your body's developing. We think you could stand on a stage in a physique competition. And I was like, oh, man, what a nice thing to say. You guys are crazy. I don't know what you are talking about. And they said it a couple of different times. And I am in this season of saying yes. So I agreed to put myself on a stage for a physique competition in November, which means I'm just like 90 days away from having to get the spray tan and learn to pose. And that is. It triggers every single insecurity that I have. I've never been in this space. And yet there was something beautiful 18 months ago in everything that I thought I knew would always exist going away that changed the way I thought about saying yes to things because I don't know how long I have. Yeah, I don't know. I don't even know. Maybe part of it, too. Sorry. This is such a rambling answer.

Come on.

I think that. I think there's so much in being connected to passion, and yet we get so comfortable doing the things we've always done that we lose places where we have passion. And if there's something that came out of this blank piece of paper, your world gets turned upside down. It's hard, but you're now discovering who you are in the absence of who you've been getting to say yes to a bunch of things and trying a bunch of new things and trying to figure out, like, what do you like and where does passion live? And just toe dipping in a bunch of different pools of curiosity has been life giving because it's actually introducing me to these new areas where passion might exist in my life that now is rekindling the idea that passion can be an abundance in my life in a way that it hadn't been for some length of time, just not that long ago. So anyway, just say yes. Go do crazy, crazy things. I'm not saying you got to do a physique competition, but if you're worried about whether or not people are going to make fun of you for getting spray tanned and posing on a stage, no one cares. Who cares Just go do it.

That's right. That's right. Well, speaking of saying yes, you know, you've got this amazing 90 day challenge that I think we should all say yes to. So let's hear about the 90 day challenge.

Well, I am excited about this challenge. So the book Built through courage comes out October 26th and I was challenging my team, like, how can we give people $500 worth of value in exchange for their 15 to $20 book purchase? And so we developed this 90 day challenge. In the challenge, like you immediately get access to a couple of great courses. One about finding your why, one about resilience and mindset. But you also get jumped into 13 week coaching community with me. We have got like 5,500 people unbelievably in the launch team already. Awesome, man. Every Monday night, congratulations. Well, thanks man. But every Monday night we dive into a different topic. Last week we got into fear and limiting beliefs. This next Monday we're diving into stillness and the importance of cultivating peace. So you can actually hear the things you're meant to hear for who you're meant to be. But if you're interested, right, you pre order the book and immediately you get access to these courses, this community, the coaching, and it's all on my website@mrdavehollis.com so shameless sell. But also I think, but see, it's.

Not, it's not shameless. It's not shameless because people keep saying, I need somebody to help me. I want people to help me transform my life. Right? That's, you and I are in this space. We want it, we genuinely want to say we suffered a lot to get this, get this information. We want to give it to you and help you. All you've got to do is read or say yes. Like that's all you have to do. Like stop waking up like 2am like, oh my God, I got to do X, Y and Z. Like slow it down and do some work, read some pages. I'm telling you right now, I mean, I've, I got some advanced information on the book just because, right, because you're generous and you know, I wanted to make sure that I knew what was coming. And I'm telling you right now, it's going to bless people, man.

Thanks.

It's going to bless in a big way.

I appreciate that. You know what's amazing too, this is like, it's a side note, but.

When you jump into this challenge, you get into this community page, that's a private page, but you know, like I say, lots of people in there. And what I'm noticing is, like, how much we have missed community because of the disruption of being able to get together normally, quote, unquote, normally. And, like, just to be able to watch people put up a post like, hey, I'm struggling today. This is the thing I'm going through and see hundreds of people jumping in with encouragement. Like, it truly, like, it makes me want to cry a little bit because, man, there's beauty in the willingness for people to just be able to raise their hand and say that they're going through a hard time. But also, just, like, such grace and wonder of all these people jumping in and to say, it's okay. Like, me too. I've seen it. I'm there, and we're walking through this with you. Anyway, it's a cool community, but it's also. I just. In a. In a Gary V. Kind of jab, jab, jab, right hook kind of way. Like, I just wanted to jab for 90 days and then give you the right hook with the book at the end. And I think it's. I think it's mad value.

It's definitely mad value, for sure. You know, it's funny, you know, again, I come back to this. This concept of freedom, you know, you and myself, other people like us that have gone some very difficult journeys, got to a place of contentment, regardless of fame and fortune and all that stuff. We're just. We're content. We know what it's like to experience freedom on the other end. And I'm speaking for me. But in getting to know you more and more, I feel like you share this. You just. It's a gift you want everybody to have.

Oh, yeah.

You know what I'm saying? Like, it's like, everybody should feel this. This is amazing.

Like, now I was talking to my buddy Dean Graziosi. We were talking about. He's just, like, such an amazing salesperson. People have such a hard time selling things. And he broke it down one time for me in just, like, such a way that I was like, oh, man, this changes everything. He's like, when you believe in your heart that to not try and give someone the benefit of this breakthrough, the benefit of this learning, the benefit of the community, whatever, if you know that, it would be doing them a disservice to not have a conversation with them about it, that's when you have the freedom to tell people that, hey, this is something I want to invite you into. And that's the way I feel. I mean, like, this book is the proudest accomplishment of my professional career. And I. It's a signature piece, ran sales at Disney for seven years. Like I've had.

You've done some pretty amazing things.

Cool things happen in my career. And this is just like, it's not even close. It's just not even close. So I just get fired up getting to talk about it. And I love the fact that I get to create even deeper relationships with people like you because of the book and the opportunity to come on, just have a conversation.

It is so much fun, man. You know, I've. I've. Again, we share a lot of mutual friends along the way. And the more and more I. The more and more I get around my friends of friends who are also friends, the more and more I just want to go and like, sit beside the campfire and just chat it up with them on a day in, the day out basis. You know, I know we're a little bit over on time, but I, I wanted to hit this one. This was lingering my mind from going back to the Lazarus piece because I think everybody needs to hear this.

You know, Lazarus, although he passed away and then obviously he was resurrected, his entire family, people around him, didn't understand why the resurrection didn't happen before the resurrection. So when I'm outside looking in, I'm like, you're going to have people, when you step out on faith to start walking in your created values and walking towards your purpose. You're going to have people who are not going to understand and it's going to be okay. They get to see the resurrection when the time comes to give them the courage to do the next thing. Would you say that that is accurate?

100%. And here's the reality, because it is a choice. Either you can keep every person in your life comfortable, or you can honor the intention of your creator. But you cannot do both because people have become accustomed with the version of you that hasn't fully stepped yet into your calling. And as you decide to, they will actually get the very, very best version of you, but will not completely accept every piece of that best version of you immediately because of what they've become accustomed to.

Yeah.

And, and so, and there's man. Such like, people pleasing runs so deep in so many of us that we delay. We use it as the excuse. We don't like to make people uncomfortable or disrupt. And yet we feel stuck. And there's an answer, right? I mean, the idea of being built through courage, you know, like there's a whole section on the courage to confront the worry of what other people are going to think. And oftentimes there's a small group of people, but like this group of people, I'd say like 10% of the people in your life who truly love you, who you love and you crave love from. And they are not going to understand what you're doing and their worry. Right. The way that they will give you advice or their doubts or the way they might talk you out of anything. They will, they will convince you. They'll attempt to convince you that they are coming with love. But what it is is their fear wrapped as love.

Yeah.

And so you have to be able to distinguish what stories they're telling themselves that are informing what they are representing as truth. But it's not your truth. It is. It is their truth as distorted by their fear or their family of origin or the way that society has told them that there's a certain right way to be. The way that religion maybe has played an impact in something that they, but like all of us have these stories and you have to get to the bottom of your truth. Like I for so many years took the truth from people that I love or crave love from without testing the hypothesis myself. And it is only in, oh, this isn't actually true for me. Like their values, their vision, their worry, their things, they're connected to their experience, but are not connected necessarily to mine. They might have had relevance two decades ago when I was being raised, but maybe it's not the way I need to raise my kids. Or they maybe do have something that makes sense for them because of the way that they believe. But I don't believe that way anymore. And I can be free from it because of the difference now. But you're going to make people uncomfortable. And if you can see them and it's okay, and it's okay, it's okay. They're going to get the best version of you if you're standing fully and completely in your truth, even if it's disarming at first for them to get accustomed to who you really are.

Yeah. I mean, my own father tried to talk me out of starting my first business that turned into, be the flagship of all the businesses I own now. And he did it from love. He legitimately was like, I don't want you to get hurt. I don't want you to deal with, you know, some, some failure. And because my father's, unfortunately, his first business failed, he was the first person six or seven years later when I started making A decent amount of income and started, like, doing some things to come to me and tell me how proud he was of me and how he knew. Always knew I could do it. Right. So sometimes it's just. Just stepping out on faith and doing exactly what you've been talking about. Sometimes that is what gives somebody else the courage to try.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? It's like somebody's got to say, enough's enough. I'm going to step out. I'm going to do it. It's okay. I realize everything's gonna be crazy around me. I know it's not going to be fun. I know it's not going to be comfortable, but I'm going to do it. And I'm telling you, man, we're about to start a forest fire, dude. Like, we're going to start a forest fire. I know we are. But anyway, I know I've kept you longer than I promised, but I couldn't help myself. I'm such a great conversation.

I love this conversation. We can go all day.

We really could. We have to start some other stuff together or something. We'll have to figure this out. But. Well, look, man, again, thank you so much. Everybody's got to go get the book. Everybody joined the challenge. You're going to love Dave Hollis. You're going to love everything he's doing, because again, and I'll say this for you, so you don't have to say this, because it's true. Right. This is not a shameless plug. This is somebody who's legitimately gone through hell in recent days, come out the other side and wants to help you get out of your own internal hell, so to speak. And I know that's kind of extreme words, but you and I both know what some of those things were and how difficult those things are. And for me to you, thank you for taking the time to write the book. Thank you for the time of getting to that place of transparency and vulnerability and, like, being okay saying my stuff is. Was messy and it's okay.

Yeah, Right. We all got our stuff, and whatever stuff you're handling right now, you are normal. But don't let your stuff keep you stuck with it. There is a way to leverage the things that you're dealing with into great, great stuff in the future. And it just starts with the courage to believe that you can do it. And I want to encourage you to believe that, man. I appreciate you, Steven, so much. Thank you for having me on today. It's such a good conversation. We got to do this again.

Yeah, man, you got it down anytime you want to. All right, man. Take it easy, Audi. See you.

Thanks, dude.

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