156 Adam Markel: The Art & Science of Self-Reinvention

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Wellness force Radio episode 156 with Adam Markell.

I'm not experiencing full presence or unconditional acceptance in that moment. Unconditional love in that moment. I can't give it. But we are not robots. We get to choose and sort of the quality of our life is equal to the quality of the decisions we make. Well, what do you think? The universe gives you every conceivable proof to show that you are right. Judgments that are heaped on us or that we learn through the examples around us that are the antithesis of self love. Pause right there and realize there are people everywhere who are taking their very last breath. Unconditional self care leads to unconditional self love.

What's up, my friend? It's your host, Josh Trent. And welcome back to another episode for your weekly access to global experts in all things wellness as we discover the physical and emotional intelligence we need to live life well. In this podcast, we're talking with one of the world's most sought after speakers in personal development and best selling author, Adam Markell. I am so happy that the timing of this podcast worked out like it did because my friend, this is it. This is the last show of 2017. Can you believe 2018 is right around the corner as we move in to the new year? The impact of this episode is going to ring so loud for you if you're in a committed relationship right now or. Or if you're single like me and currently learning about the emotional intelligence to prepare you for what Adam calls the ultimate relationship, which has seven pillars, which we're diving into in the podcast today. In depth with a man who's been developing himself and millions of other people across the world for the past two decades. Sharing the stage with Tony Robbins, Guy Kawasaki, Dr. John Gray, Brendon Burchard, so many others. Adam. Actually, I got to meet him in the early stages of Wellness Force Radio. A lot of people don't know this, but in 2015, part of why this podcast came to fruition was by me facing my inner demons and making my mission way bigger than just me. Well, I happened to meet Adam when I had just broken up in a relationship of two and a half years sleeping on a friend's couch hosting this podcast in the early stages 2015 when I got to shake Adam's hand and learn about his impact in giving others the tools to love their lives and create radically connected, committed relationships. Now at that time three years ago, I I had absolutely no idea that I'd be growing myself and my skills to be able to facilitate this powerful conversation with Adam in this year of 2017. Talk about leveling up. I am so excited to celebrate this podcast with you to close out our year of growth. All the phenomenal guests we've had on the show, everyone from Rob Wolf to Aubrey Marcus and Gretchen Rubin and so many more guests that have been your favorites 2018, I promise you will not disappoint. We have some absolutely groundbreaking experts scheduled to come on the show, so stick with us as every Tuesday for Emotional Intelligence podcasts. On Wednesdays over at Wellness Force. On the Facebook page, catch a live Q and A where Ali Waddell and I dive into topics in depth. And on Fridays, our Physical Intelligence podcast in partnership with Intelliskin and our Stand Tall series. I have to take a deep breath to thank you truly from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for being a part of this community. And as a gift, I'm gonna pick one lucky person to get a 60 day supply. Yes, 60 days supply of Organifi Red Juice and GRE. All you have to do is leave a review for the podcast on itunes. You can hop over to wellnessforce.com review or just simply right now, tap your show artwork on your iPhone, hit the button in purple that says review this podcast. I'll choose the winner of our 60 day supply of Organifi Red and Green Juice on January 7th and tag you on the Facebook page. Now, speaking of breathing, this is your breath break. Before we get into this dynamic conversation with Adam, I want to thank our show sponsor, Organifi, creators of Organifi Red and green juice powders. Yeah, powders, which are so much more easy to consume than a backpack full of fruits and veggies you lug around with you all day. Let's be honest, we're the most full and busy we've ever been as a society. So we get to design our environment for us to win and take away the decision fatigue putting the delivery systems for micronutrients in our home space, in our workspace, in our car, everywhere we go. And that is why for the past two months I've been using Organifi Green Juice during the day and at night I'VE been sleeping so well this week, especially using the Organifi gold with turmeric and a bunch of other micronutrients and adaptogens to give me better sleep. So if you're in the process of letting go of old weight or getting some more energy throughout the day with the green or looking to sleep better and more soundly, hop over to organifi shop.com youm get a special discount code because you're part of this podcast. Enter code WellnessForce at checkout for 20% off all the powders and everything on the site. That's Organifyshop.com and enter code WellnessForce for 20% off at checkout. All right, onto the podcast. We're talking about the tactical everyday tools we can use every single day in 2018, starting right now, today, when you're done with this episode, to do what Adam calls the art and science of reinventing your life. And it starts with our relationships, doesn't it? With ourselves. By the end of the podcast, you'll be ready to become more intimate with yourself so that you can be present, truly present in your life and your relationships. I know you're going to love this podcast with Adam because not only are we talking about reinventing ourselves for this new year, but also how to train your subconscious mind to look for the evidence that constantly proves your life is worth loving. Let's drop in with Adam Markell. So I'm talking with Adam Markell, I believe to be one of the leading edge voices in our personal development and wellness world. Adam, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me, Josh, what a pleasure.

And this is such a fun conversation. I got the honor of being interviewed on your Pivot podcast, which when that goes live, we'll link this in the show notes. But today we're talking about something that impacts all of us in this human experience. You know, we've talked on the show that we're half beast and half spirit. We're this spirit having a conscious experience in this kind of meat suit here on planet Earth. And part of our time here, we have relationships, how we relate to each other, how the consciousness, our awareness, affects that, and how that directly impacts our wellness. So I want to start out. There's so much about you online, Adam. What's something that you don't normally share, man? Tell us something unique or something fun about Adam Markel that maybe isn't out there on Google and isn't out there online.

Thank you. I'm feeling this great liberty now to reveal all my Dirty little secrets. All right. What's not out there online, man? Is there anything out there that's not online? Yeah, I'm an introvert. I know it's gonna sound funny, but maybe this will help a few people. Because by that definition. The definition I understand of that is that when I'm wanting to regain my energy or come back to myself or just, you know, recover, I don't. I don't use the word heal, but as I'm in my process of recovery and resilience and all that kind of thing, I want to be alone or with very few people. And even though I spend a lot of time around people and I love people to death and I love to be in front of and with large groups of people, when I'm looking to recharge my battery, I don't seek out that environment to recharge. I seek out a quieter place.

Wow.

Through spiritual practice and things like that.

So as much as you're outwardly energetic and affecting other people, you also require that downtime to recharge yourself, to recharge your soul. I'm thinking about this. This is about a year and a half ago. We interviewed your friend John Gray on the show, and he talked about this from an excitatory standpoint in our brain. If we don't give ourselves time, if we're outwardly projecting energy and helping other people to recover within ourselves, there's no way we can continue to show up fully present. What does that actually mean to you, Adam? To show up fully present, That's a term that gets thrown around a lot. But true presence, to be there and be focused and attentive and aware of what's going on with someone in a moment. I mean, how would you define that?

Yeah. My definition for that, personally, is that I'm unconditionally present. And unconditional presence is that I have a moment. And when I'm really fortunate, it's a string of moments put together where I feel unconditional acceptance and unconditional love. And that could be acceptance of someone else, of a situation, of myself. I'm always at the root of it. So if I. I can't give. We can't give anything we don't possess. So if I'm not in peace, then I can't give peace. If I'm not experiencing full presence or unconditional acceptance in that moment, unconditional love in that moment, I can't give it. That's how I've come to understand it is when I feel that way, I know I'm present.

And you've shared the stage with Tony Robbins. You've done so much work. I mean, at this point, do you even keep track of numbers of how many people that your voice is actually affected?

Honestly, no. And never have I, nor will I ever. That's a big thing to say. But that doesn't, that stuff doesn't actually, it doesn't impress me, and I'm not impressed by myself for it or any of the other people that are referenced in any of those things. We're all called to service in different ways. I think some people answer the call and that's a great blessing in their life. And there are those that are not yet answered the call or answered it as fully as they'd like to, and that's a part of their journey as well. And doesn't mean that when you answer the call that life is Shangri La or it's Nirvana or anything, because it's hardly the case. In fact, I think in many ways life gets even more challenging.

I think so.

Because those calls are not. They're not like, hello, bring, pick up some milk, bring home some milk on the way home. I mean, it's a different kind of call and it calls the best out of us. And I'm not always at my best.

So I love this metaphor of the calling. And hopefully today in our conversation about wellness and relationships, we can use this metaphor of the hero's journey. Because I'm thinking about a scene in the movie Finding Joe where when we get the call, it's not always at the perfect time. I mean, you used to be in law for quite some time. When did you get your call? You were an attorney for many years, and then you decided, hey, it was time for me to make a pivot. Which of course, that's the name of your podcast.

That's a great question. It's dramatic and I guess that's a good thing. But I got the call in the emergency room. I want to say it's dramatic. The way I'm intending that to land is that I don't think you need to have a near death experience or some of the other stuff that you hear a lot of people talk about in order to get the call, have the call, recognize the call, hear the call. You don't need any of that. And it doesn't even need to be that. That's the story that is compelling enough for you to be on somebody's podcast or write a book or to do your own stuff, you know, or to get out on A stage. I don't think that's, that's the case. I just happened to have had an anxiety attack one day that felt like a heart attack, a full blown heart attack. And I ended up in the emergency room. My wife drove me to the hospital. I started out driving and I pulled off the road and we end up in the emergency room and I'm laying on a gurney and sweating Prof. And feeling like my heart is going to pop, explode right out of my chest. My wife wasn't even in the room with me. She was parked in the car. And I thought, I'm going to expire right here and I won't even see her. I won't get to say goodbye to her. I won't get to tell her I'm sorry for allowing my life to get so out of control or whatever that it ended up like that. And I won't see the kids when they come home from school. We had four kids that I love so dearly. So being in the hospital and, and really seeing my life being very much out of harmony, just being out of harmony, feeling miserable and tired, exhausted, stressed out, over caffeinated, under rested, overstressed. And I'm a New York City attorney. I spent 18 years as a litigator and a very successful multi state practice and all that. And I was just unhappy. I had all this stuff, possessions and things and most importantly a great relationship with my wife and four healthy kids. And fortunately for me, I got that call instead of like the call of cancer, any other number of things that are not better or worse. I just ended up having, boom, anxiety attack, Boom. Felt like I'm gonna die. Boom. Left the hospital that day, looked up at the sky and said thank you God. And then decided in the moment I'm not gonna ignore what I just experienced.

It's like the tickle of the feather for change or the sledgehammer on the back of the head. Do you feel like that was the sledgehammer you needed?

It was definitely not a tickle. But I had been tickled a long time. I mean, I had lots of signs. The signs and the symptoms. For folks that are listening, if you're, you know, maybe have had some of these things too. I'd have trouble getting to sleep at night. I'd get up in the middle of night sometimes, couldn't get back to sleep. I woke up in the morning and put my feet on the floor and I would feel dreadful to start the day like I'm rested pretty much I'm ready to begin a new Day. And the kind of the first words or thoughts in my head are, oh, pick an expletive, pick a four letter word. And that's how I began the day.

Well, this is a really great container here because we have a lot of parents out there, a lot of busy working professionals, Adam, that are kind of balancing all of these crazy demands of this modern industrialized world, right? Whether it be stress or kids or workplace or environmental toxins, everything else that we talk about on the show. So when we look at how we love ourselves, starting with that, you have these seven pillars you talk about. You and your wife, Randy, have done an ultimate relationship retreat. Tell us about that. Because really, I want to open this big box with probably no bottom. We could talk about this subject for quite some time. But why did you formulate this relationship retreat? I mean, what does this mean to you and your wife?

It actually means a lot to us because we were exploring what made our relationship strong and where it was weak as well, which is fun. But we met in college and we were college sweethearts and got married a few years later, started having a bunch of kids while I was going to law school. Randy was a teacher. And at a certain point we realized that we had something that was really working. In fact, one of the coolest things when I first started to do some training and was standing on stages and you know, all over the world, people would come up to me. A lot of young guys would come up to me and they would say, dude, mister, Mr. Markel or whatever, you are like a role model for me. Like, I want to have a relationship. The way you talk about your wife and how you talk about your kids and all that, that's what I want. And this is like a 20 something year old. And that was shocking to me that somebody that was sort of like half my age would even be that. That's where they'd be thinking. Because I don't know that I was thinking that way when I was that age. And I believe that the consciousness of our world is continuing to evolve to a higher plane. So people are more hip and more ready to receive and are, you know, every generation is more with it than the generation before. So yeah, they were thinking about that. That was way cool. And then I had another group of people that would come to me at these trainings and things where women would come up and say, I'm looking for, you know, I'm looking for a man just like you. I'm like, no, I don't know about that. Yeah, they're like, yeah, no, I just. I want to be with a man. I'm not hitting on you. I just want to be with a man that respects women. Right. How important is that in the context of what's going on in our world right now? Right.

Yeah.

You know, again, the Me Too movement showing up in such power and such force, and it's so, so needed and right timing for that discussion to get to the next level. So, yeah, this was really important work. And we created these seven pillars based on our experience. And we checked in with our kids to see what they, you know, like, we asked them, why do you think our relationship works?

Yeah.

And they all said the same thing, which is one of the pillars.

So this is so unique. And on your Facebook page, we're going to link all your social in the show notes, there's a quote from you here. And I think this can just be the sentence everyone can live. If you wake up in the morning and say to yourself, I love my life, your conditioned mind will unconsciously or consciously look for evidence to prove that your life is worth loving. This evidence piece, Adam, this is a big one. And as we dive into these pillars, I mean, we look at the evidence, we're collecting evidence all day long. Whether it's dramatic evidence, people don't love me type evidence, or I'm worthy of love evidence. How do you go about in your seminars and your trainings telling people about this, to seek out that loving evidence, that evidence that's actually going to uplift the human.

Wow. You know what, Josh? I think this is such. It's such a deep. I'm using the word deep like it's deep. The depth of the topic is so. It's so vast. It's depthless, it's bottomless. Because what we're really talking about is the power of self love and how it is that we create self love, which happens to be the first. The first of the seven pillars that Randy and I have taught is first love yourself. And we're not taught. There's no manual to how to love yourself. It's the most important thing there is. That's it. And we're not taught how to do it with a manual. And. And when I say that tongue in cheek, I mean, our parents are not modeling. Oftentimes they're not modeling what unconditional self love looks like because they don't and didn't learn how to love themselves unconditionally. So therefore, they don't model it. Their relationship doesn't model it. It's not around Us in a lot of, you know, in school or elsewhere where it's the opposite, in fact, it's all conditioned love. So if you're a good boy, a good little girl, then we love you. And if you're not, you get a C with a big red, you know, circle around it and a do over page and all that kind of stuff that we're programmed to see ourselves as incomplete or not worthy or not whole or wrong or bad or stupid or any of the other things, the judgments that are heaped on us or that we learn through the examples around us that are the antithesis of self love, of unconditional love. So at some point when we come through the, you know, the enough of our life experience, we have to relearn those things. So as you say, we have to look for, we have to get a system, get a process so we can relearn, unlearn some of the things that we've learned that are not right, not true, not true in spiritual truth, as far as I'm concerned, and then actually learn some new things and then practice those new things that we've learned. So yes, we do have to seek out evidence of who we really are.

And I think before this too, there's a huge awareness piece, right? So kind of a waking up, right? I think the millennials use woke af. So people are waking up more and more. And you're right, like not just here in Southern California. I think across the world we have more access to information than ever before. Adam, the tactical stuff that we'll go over today is vastly important. But waking up first, I mean, there's no clear answer for that. But how do people actually do that, in your opinion, to kind of wake up before they even implement seven pillars?

I like simple things because they can be used. And I like things that can be used because as soon as you use something, you get feedback and you get to experience something and then it's real for you. It's not just in the intellectual space or the theoretical space. So I'm a hands on guy, I'm from New York, I was a lawyer. I like to get my hands on stuff, do things. So here's the doing part as far as that goes. We have to relearn or learn something more about self love. That's a big domino to knock over. The domino that I like to go to, that's before, that is simply self care. So self care will result in more understanding of self love. Unconditional self care leads to unconditional self love and unconditional self love then leads to unconditional self trust. You can trust yourself, you can trust your instincts, you can trust your gut, you can trust your intuition. And in that moment that you have access to that level of trust, when you trust inside of you, you're, I believe, also trusting in the universe. You have access to information, possibilities, opportunities that are infinite because you're tapped in to infinite source, to the infinite source of everything. And I know that's a far field, but the way the dominoes work to me is care. Self care leads to self love, leads to self trust, leads to this access point. And we can't get away from ourselves. So that's the bed we're all lying in forever, eternally. So the path is always to know ourselves and to not just know ourselves, like Socrates said, but to then love ourselves. So getting up in the morning, waking up is a figurative and a literal thing. I wish for everybody I'll take my magic wand as we're doing our recording here and wave it. Because the waving of the wand is with my hope and my wish and my prayer that everybody listening to this will wake up tomorrow physically, that you will wake up. Because as you wake up tomorrow, take your first conscious breath of the day with whatever thoughts are starting your day in that moment. You could pause right there and realize there are people everywhere who are taking their very last breath in that moment. Which makes that moment special, sacred, holy. And so wake up physically, wake up spiritually, metaphorically, however you determine how you wake yourself up to a higher understanding, a higher consciousness, a higher intelligence, et cetera. You wake up is part one, part two, you're grateful, because that is a holy moment. And then part three, which is a practice, it's a ritual, it's going to sound like hype to some people. It's going to sound like, I don't know, you know, like cult language. To some people and to some others, it'll just fit perfectly for the fact that they want to work on this area. And that is to wake up, be grateful, and then say, I love my life. Because as you say those words, you declare those words, you set that powerful intention at the beginning of the day, when the soil is the most rich, your subconscious mind, and you have the most access to your subconscious coming out of sleep and the ability to plant seeds in that precious soil to begin the day. The way your mind works is the. The reptilian brain, the medulla. It will look for ways to prove you are right. Because with being right comes safety. With being wrong comes Danger. When you write you're safe. So it finds ways to prove that you are right about anything you say. So if you say, I'm fat, mine finds ways to prove that you're right about that. You say, I'm lonely, nobody respects me, or people abandon me. I can't trust people. Well, what do you think the universe gives you Every conceivable proof to show that you are right.

You hit on such a powerful point, Adam, because the evidence is always out there. Yet I think where many people struggle, we talk about the emotional intelligence, how this intersects with the. The physical is someone gets up and you explain they're waking up, but they're waking up with. If they don't allow it to close, all the old stories, all the old fights, all the old relationships, all the old baggage, right? So there's this duality, I feel like at every second, Adam, of there's joy, there's hurt, there's peace, there's danger. Like, this duality exists in every single second. How does one become aware of the duality and then lean and grow into these seven steps of relationships, starting with that love for ourselves?

I think it begins with awareness. Everything does. You get a choice. This is the difference between, I don't know. We're sentient beings. We get to have free will. We're not robots. You know, I know we're moving toward robotics and everything, but we are not robots. We get to choose. And so the quality of our life is equal to the quality of the decisions we make, the quality of our lives equal to the quality of the choices we make. And we get to choose every second of the day. And this is one of the hardest things for people, is that they've made so many choices in their life, and so many of those choices have been the ones that have led to challenge, to pain, to suffering, to being broke, to being, you know, having inconsistency in so many areas of their life, their business or other, their money or what have you. And they may not yet realize that in this moment, in the present moment, they get to make a new choice. And their life going forward, which is. That's the only thing we're engineering, is our life in the forward direction. We cannot engineer our life in the reverse. It's like trying to drive your car looking in the rearview mirror. You know, you can't do that and go forward unless you want to hit something. So that ability to navigate forward is about you making a better choice in this moment, me making better choices moment to moment, or what I will Sometimes refer to as spontaneous right decision making? How is it that you can retrain yourself and be trained and just be open and vulnerable enough to the learning, to new awareness, to more often than not make spontaneous right decisions?

Oh, this is so good, Adam. And I think about the work of Joe Dispenza when he said in print multiple times by age 35, if we're not conscious, if we're not doing the inner work by age 35, the neural pathways are set. What do you think about that as a true statement and the route to change from that? I mean, at 35, I kind of felt like my brainwaves were set. Yet if I look at my past two years of my life, I've grown so much. I've adapted all kinds of synaptic pruning techniques, new ways of being. So I believe he's correct. But where do we go looking forward as we talk about this self love and relationships part in that change of the hardwired synapses?

That's fancier language for the old expression that an old dog can't learn new tricks. All right? And that's been around for a really long time. And it's cliche. And a lot of times cliches unfortunately become cliches because there's an element of truth in them. But at the same time, there's also an element of not truth. And what I mean there is that I am a firm believer that anybody can change their mind, change their habits, change their rituals, their practices, change their life at any level, at any moment, at any age. So I don't buy that 100%. It's true on some level for some people, and it's a cop out. And it's an easy way out for folks that just flat out don't want to change. And that's okay, man. Nobody's required to change your life. This journey is your own. Do with it what you wish.

And I think maybe he was even saying that because it goes back to your point of gathering evidence. If you want that to be true, that at 35 you can't change synapses, well, then that'll be true. But then there's the duality we spoke about. So the first pillar was loving ourselves. We spent a good amount of time on that. And I think if you're curious about that, we also did an episode with Bonnie Kelly where she talked about evidence. Hopefully she's gotten some inspiration from you, Adam. The second pillar in this loving relationship segment of loving ourselves, then showing up and loving other people.

What is that second piece, it's intimacy, or as my wife likes to say, into me.

See, that's so good.

Isn't that cool, Randy? She loves that one. And I do too. And intimacy is really, in many ways, it's physical, but it's non physical. And this is about you being able to show up as your authentic self with your partner for the most part. Again, the facade that people are carrying around during the day out there in the world is not very different than the facade that they come home with and that they have to. That they deal with in their relationships. And by facade, I mean, you know, it's the pretend you. The part of you that learned when you were a child how it is that you could get on in the world, that you could succeed if you could tell jokes, or you could succeed if you were popular or if you wore your hair a certain way, or if you were sexy or you were good in sports. So however it is, you learned how to adapt your personality and how you showed up in the world to be successful on any level or how to just survive. Right. Because a lot of people wear the facade simply to get through another day. Yeah. Because they might have gotten bullied when they were kids and they learned how it was that they could avoid getting bullied by not letting people get close to them, not hurt them, you know, hurt the person before the person would hurt them. Stay clear. You know, lots of strategies to. To protect themselves. And that's the same Persona, the same facade that they bring into those relationships, and that becomes a problem. So intimacy is really not. Not so much about the sexual part of it or the sensual part of it, but it's related. And that is your authentic self, because that vulnerable self, that real true you, is the one that will either connect with your partner and stand alone on its. On its own two feet and connect with that partner, or it won't. And there's that scene, this really great scene in Jerry Maguire, the old movie Jerry Maguire, Right. I can't believe say old movie, but it is.

It's pretty old, right?

Yeah, yeah, 1994 or something. And Jerry's coming in to the house where, you know, is. Is, you know, where Renee Zellweger lives. And there's a divorce group meeting and he's walking in to apologize and blah, blah, blah. And he starts going on and on and on. And, you know, he says, you complete me. And then he keeps talking, right? And she says, ah, yeah, stop, stop. You know, you had me at hello, right? And I remember looking at Randy and I said to Rani, honey, you complete me. And I knew what her answer was going to be. And it was my answer too. She was like calling BS on that.

Yeah.

And I don't complete her. That's crap. She doesn't complete me. And too many people in their intimate relationships and a lot of other relationships too, they're expecting that other person to fill them in, fill them, you know, round them out, complete them, fix them, make them the person. You know, I wouldn't be the man I am today without that, you know, the good woman behind every great man and all that kind of nonsense. And it's not that those people aren't a part of who you are and how you show up and how you can be successful or more successful, it's that your job, my job, all of our job, is to complete ourselves and not lean on other and put that others and not put that burden on someone else. It's hard enough to deal with yourself. How are you going to put it on someone else and make it their job on some level to make you or turn you into or complete you? That's nonsense.

So this intimacy piece, the second step in loving ourselves, that's a big one. I think that is probably. Adam, would you say that's one of the most powerful pillars? Because if we're trying to fill a hole with no bottom, because there is no bottom in that way, what else really matters?

It's the difference between taking responsibility and standing in your own power, which is so freaking sexy. That's why I say it's related to the intimacy thing. Because a person who stands in their own power is sexy, male or female, as opposed to being needy.

God, that's so true. And what's more sexy than a man or woman on point, on purpose, not needing someone to, quote, complete them? That's the sexiest thing, I think, for women.

Do you agree with looking at women? My wife to begin with, she stands in her own power. I just think that's bomb.

Yeah, bomb.com on that one. So if somebody's seeking out relationship and they're wanting a committed relationship, by the way, I'm raising my hand. You guys have listened to the show for a while. You know that I'm on mission, I'm creating the castle, but I'm also open to relationship. I mean, that's where I'm at, Adam. So someone like myself or somebody listening, that resonates with that message. What is the third pillar? I mean, how do they grow this third pillar within themselves?

To me, the third pillar after that is. Is being able to hold space. And I was thinking about how I wanted to frame that, because I typically say building up. And Randy says holding space. So I want to use the term holding space because I think in this community especially, people understand that this isn't about fixing someone. So you, you know, you're in relationship, and you decide, yes, yes, I. I get it. I. I'm gonna work on myself now. Right. It's not your job to fix someone else. It's. And which is a male thing. Right. I know that when I'm. My first instinct is to want to fix a problem, whether it's with the kids. The kids came to me with a problem or any. Came to me a problem, or even in my work, you know, leadership roles, et cetera, want to fix things. Whereas holding space is really about giving people the space and the love to see them work out their stuff. And on some level, it's an act of prayer. It's an act of faith in someone else while they work through their stuff. And they could always say, you know what? I really do want you to help me or please lend a hand or tell me how I solved this problem or help me to come to the solution. That's one thing versus sort of interjecting, this is how you do it. And this is, you know, and trying to fix it kind of thing that's building, you know, that the holding space, the building up piece. And where Randy and I have taught this is that when I was transitioning out of being a lawyer and I was really unhappy and wanted to pivot, you know, that we wrote the book Pivot the art and science of reinventing your career in Life. That was about my story and a lot of other case studies of people pivoting, changing direction. And that's a really difficult time, really tumultuous time to be making change and dealing with change. And Randy didn't sort of interject herself and say, don't do it. You know, this is crazy. You want to get out of the law. We have houses and cars and kids to take care of, man. You know, like, you can't do that. That would be irresponsible. She held space for me. That's how she terms it. The way I term it is. She was building me up, and she was always looking at me with the eyes of, I know you got this, and by the way, I got you, and we got it together, okay? So even if. And I remember this is. This is one of those moments, I wouldn't typically share this, but I'm called to say it. We were sitting in a car. In the course of my being miserable with my work and the fact that it wasn't purposeful for me, I started to try to find a way out of the law. And my first instinct was, I'm a business person. I'm an entrepreneur, I'm an investor. So I started investing a bunch of money in businesses that I didn't have to run. And so I invested in a number of those businesses. And the people I had invested in were not really worthy of my trust. They really weren't, because they hadn't proven they hadn't earned the right. But I gave my money anyway. And at a certain point, a few of these investments were going upside down, and it was seven figures worth of losses kind of thing. And I remember sitting in the car with her, and she looked over at me and she said, you know what? It would be an honor to go bankrupt with you. And I. I cried, you know, in that moment. And. And just thinking about it now, I think, gosh, that was just. That was her telling me in words, but I felt it already. But then she knew to say it, that we were together on this, no matter what it looked like, no matter how good, bad, ugly, like, you know, the. Like the vows you take when you get married, but you soon kind of. They're out of view after a while. And she reminded me of that. And, yeah, I mean, so to me, the building up and holding space is a huge piece in that what creates.

A great relationship, all the men listening. I just got chills from your story, and I just want to acknowledge how powerful that was. Not everybody has moments like that in life, so that's a really special thing. On top of that, a lot of men have challenge holding space. Adam, we look at holding space as a term that many people have heard. But how about holding space and feeling the trigger and still holding the space? That's the hardest thing. A lot of men right now are triggered by MeToo, but it's also something that's really necessary. When you look at this third pillar of holding the space, how do you define this in regards to the hashtag MeToo?

That's interesting. Gosh, these subjects are so. They're so intriguing because there's really not a black or white thing here. You know, it's. It's gradations of color in between. So from my perspective, I'm a girl power guy, raised three daughters. I love and have respect for young women, old women, girls. They on no level should ever have to endure the uninvited, unwanted advances of a man that is despicable. The older version of me from New York is the guy that, when I even think about that, my fist clanks. And I'm looking to take some guy out that somebody that's. That somehow thinks that he's. He's above that. That's my energy on that piece of it. And I also feel like any guy that kind of gets offended by that, you know what. What's really coming up for you there? Do you somehow think that that's appropriate? No. You know, it. Does this deserve the airtime that it's getting in social media and elsewhere? It does, because it's unacceptable, and it's got to stop. So let's get it to stop, and then it doesn't have to take over the world, you know, with hashtags.

And I want to play a different aspect, too, because everything you said is 100% truth. I mean, look, I don't know what it's like to be a father. I have these two young nieces that I go watch sometimes. They're 2 and 4. I can't even think about if someone were to disrespect them in that way. However, we see kind of an emotional contagion, as Gretchen Rubin explains, where this does deserve airtime and it does deserve respect. Doesn't the solution also deserve respect? Doesn't the actions and how angry do we become as a collective before we're willing to take action and solve that problem?

I mean, I couldn't say it any different. It deserves everything, deserves our energy, our attention.

It deserves both. So then this holding space, the evolution of men holding space, what would you say the difference is between women holding a space and men holding a space? What are kind of the anecdotes between those two?

Well, in this moment, men holding space looks like supporting women doing what they're doing right now. And that means to stand clear, at least on some level. Allow it to unfold. And if you have an opportunity, you have a platform, you have the ability to speak into it, speak into it, to support it, or don't speak. Let it just unfold and hold space that, you know, more men earlier on in their lives get the point of it, right? You wouldn't treat your mother. Would you treat your mother like that? I mean, that's a whole other level of conversation. If you would somehow. Right. But most men would say, no, man, I wouldn't. I wouldn't tolerate another man talking to my mother like that or touching my Mother, in a way. Unwanted. Yeah. So why on earth would you do that or think that's okay, you know? And look, we know alcohol and drugs plays a role in this. We know lots of things play a role in this. And that's. That's a whole other component to it.

Sure.

But I just think holding space is praying for this thing to go according to spiritual plan, which is that we all get to be more awake and more conscious as a result of it, and therefore we all get to be better humans as a result of it.

So we're doing our inner work, men and women, by the way, to love ourselves. Step one, then we're going into intimacy, looking within. We're holding the space in the best possible way we can within every moment. What do we do after that? What makes sense for us after that?

For us, we have something called basecamp. So we know that in the midst of challenge in our lives, we've got to be resilient. We've got to be able to bounce back. And relationships are probably where your resolve gets tested the most when you live with somebody or when you're with somebody ongoingly for days, weeks, months, years, etc. Right. So how is it that you are able to bounce back and not just recover, but bounce back to a higher place with each other, in spite of the challenges, whatever those might be? And we use the term base camp as a way to explain how it is that you move up a mountain and you get to certain places on that mountain where you've plateaued and now you've got to learn something new. You've got to get grounded. You've got to spend quiet time in reflection so that you can get strong, get ready to make the next climb to the next higher plane. So just like if you were going to climb Mount Everest, you start at base camp, which is, gosh, I don't know, 14,000ft or something for base camp. You know, at that quote, Base camp, people are getting acclimated. They're getting themselves mentally, emotionally, and spiritually ready to do something, you know, that is going to call upon them, call out the best in them. So for Randy and I, we have rituals that we use that we call upon to create basecamp. So it's places we go, it's things we do together. So just doing a crossword puzzle in bed at night is where we create bit of base camp. We go away to a house that we own on the east coast in Cape Cod, and we go there to quiet our minds, to be away from all the noise. Of a lot of other things. Just taking a walk with the dogs at night is a ritual where we get to quiet and change our environment and create this back to base camp kind of a practice. It could be yoga, it could be walking, it could be being in conversation, having a dinner together. But basecamp is a specific thing. It could be sitting in bed or on a park bench or in the grass, just reading. You know, you're reading your thing and I'm reading my thing or whatever it is, and we're there together. And that is the way we create a place for us to get strong again, to be resilient, to build and. And not just build or rebuild, but to really come back even stronger from things you talked about.

The base camp, the rituals. It's easy to let one day go, which turns into two, which turns into three. Do you have a practice where, no matter what, I mean, every day you hit that base camp and the rituals are in place?

Yeah. Well, we do. And it's not so ritualistic that we can't go three or four days or something like that. It's kind of a. You again, train yourself to do certain things unconsciously. Like, you don't think about breathing. You just breathe unconsciously. Well, you're unconsciously competent at breathing. Well, when you work on these things that we're talking about, like creating base camp rituals, you don't have to think about them. You feel them. You feel when it's inappropriate or when it's the necessary time to take your honey out and sit by the fire pit and watch a sunset and drink a glass of wine. You just know it's time for that. You know, it's. It's time to put the freaking cell phones away. Right? It's time to get rid of the technology and just spend some time, you know, eye to eye. And you just. You intuit it. When you've trained yourself by practicing something that might seem mechanical at the beginning, but then it becomes intuitive to you.

I felt you New York right there, where you're like, put the cell phones away. I mean, that's so true. That's one thing that I see all the time, is just people kind of when with this bent neck, even in conscious relationships, that's a struggle. This device is probably, I would say, in the top 10 top five of things that get in the way of human connection. Yet paradoxically, it's kind of how we connect in this digital age. What's the balance there? Because we're looking at this base camp, these rituals. The phone can Kind of get in the way of that.

Yeah. Well, here's the thing. It's a two edged or double edged sword. And that's the fun of it, is how do you use that phone as a connection device and at the same time not have it become a crutch or something that gets in the, that interferes with your innate or even practiced ability to connect with others. Right. So we're all seeking intimacy, we're all seeking connection. Ironically, we use the phone to connect to information, to other people, et cetera. And then when we get in their presence, were actually in their presence. You see people at dinner not talking, but on the phone, looking at their Facebook page. I mean, it sounds funny, but they're probably, you know, in not too distant future, they'll be texting each other at the dinner table. And so sociologists are going to have a field day looking at this thing, you know, 30 and 40 years from now.

Yeah.

My feeling is, why don't you be a sociologist in your own life and take a look at how that, how you think at 30,000ft that looks to you and leave the freaking cell phone in the car when you go to dinner. If you're worried about the kids calling, you know, figure that out. Have one cell phone on vibrate at the table and it doesn't get touched and it's just for the emergency that the kids might call or whatever. Yeah.

And we can't blame the technology, Adam. We look at being conscious, being present. The technology is a tool. So is a hammer. You can build a house, you can hurt somebody. So the cell phone, I remember Gary Vaynerchuk a couple weeks ago, he said technology just brings out more of who you are if you're an asshole, if you're disconnected, it's just going to be a tool for you to be kind of more of an asshole and more disconnected. What do you think about that?

Yeah, it sounds like Gary actually. It's fun. Yeah. You know, I don't know if I entirely buy that. I just think technology is a tool like you said. I forget it was Maslow that might have said this. I may get that wrong. But you know, if you're, if you're a hammer, then everything you see is a nail. Okay? So the problem with technology is it has become such an addiction that we see it as a solution for everything that it's applicable for everything. So look, I'm a surfer, man. I'm not taking my effing cell phone out on, on the waves. And yet, you know, there's Technology out there, people with GoPros and stuff. But I'm not going to check my Facebook page while I'm waiting for the set. Okay, so there's a line. We all have to find where the line is for us, where we go. Here's not an appropriate place for technology to be. Right. You're in bed with your significant other. I mean, you really. You gonna Google something while you're in the throes of it? Because if that's where you're headed.

Yeah.

How's that work? Let me know how that's working for you.

And this so relates to base camp because if you're bringing a phone that interrupts the base camp in whatever ritual you have, it's probably not gonna be a very successful base camp. What do we do after the base camp? So we're getting to the end of these pillars, which, by the way, all of these will be linked in the show notes. We'll also link Adam's information there as well. But this pillar 6. What is 6 after the base camp?

And base camp, by the way, can be your meditative practice because I want to remind folks that you're in relationship with you first. We're talking about how people can relate to others, but your first relationship is you. So what are your basecamp rituals for yourself? Do you have stillness practice, for example, to create base camp when you begin the day? We spoke earlier about that ritual of waking up and being in gratitude and saying, I love my life. That's a ritual. That's a basecamp ritual. So after, after that, we've got something called rules for engagement. And rules for engagement is the way in which we engage other people when we're. When we have dispute. Because we believe that healthy conflict is a good thing. So this is just a question of what are the rules for how you have healthy conflict with somebody. And I remember we were in Australia and we were doing a. We were actually doing a seminar, three day seminar on this topic. And the driver was taking us from the airport to the hotel and he asked us what we were doing and we told him. He said, oh, yeah. He says, I'm married. I'm married to my. To my sweetheart from, you know, like they married like 40 years. And he's Italian, of course, right? That's an awful Italian accent. But he's. So we said to him, well, do you have. Have, you know, certain rules by which your relationship is kind of governed in that kind of thing? He goes. He goes, yeah, he goes, my wife is. She's Sicilian and Like, we're supposed to know what the heck that means. Yeah, see, my wife's Sicilian. And it was like a pause, and we didn't know what to say. And he goes, well, so, you know, she has a temper. He goes, so when we have an. We have a fight, and, you know, he goes, I have to. I have to get out of the way because she take out of the machete, and she cut to my head off. She goes right for the jugular. That's what he was saying. Goes. As soon as an argument started, she would immediately go in for the kill. So Randy and I were like, well, so what do you do about it? He goes, well, we created a rule. And we're like, oh, what's the rule? He says, yes, first we talk about what we agree about. We only discuss what we agree on. And then. Then they would discuss what their disagreement was. So by talking, by getting into what it was that they agreed about, it sort of took the charge of the disagreement away on some level. That was such a great strategy for engaging. And so whatever your rules for engagement are like our rules in our house, we just don't say things we don't mean. I grew up in a house where there was a lot of sort of things that were said, and they could be angry things, even though there was a lot of love, but there was an angry statement. And then later on, the person would take back the statement or say, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And look, a lot of people do that. And I'm not saying that's the death knell. That's a bad wrong or bad thing. But in our relationship with Randy and I were both volatile. And so we just don't say something. We walk away. Yeah. So the words that we teach are healthy pause, take a healthy pause, and if you can just stand for one second longer, to not be right, to not have to be right long enough for you to pause and breathe, even though you're so effing right. You can just go, hmm. What do I really want to say? How do I want to respond in this moment versus react.

Man, this is such a muscle of the brain. This deserves practice all the time. I can remember in my last relationship, what triggered me the most is she'd be like, can you take out the garbage? I'd be like, yeah, I'll get there in five minutes. She'd be like, you're just like your father. Or some kind of, like, bomb that would ignite five minutes later. Right. And it had nothing to do with the thing. It was like, you know, there's a book called the Untethered Soul. I don't know if you're familiar with this book. And the author talks about the thorns that we have. So someone might say something in an argument or whatever it is, and it activates all the old thorns. It pulls against those old wounds that we have, and that's how we kind of flow out in anger in that moment. Have you found a way to circumvent that where we're not abusing kind of our old story and putting it in the present moment?

The Untethered Soul is one of my top five favorite books of all time. And Michael Singer is an incredible, incredible author. That book is worth the read again and again. I think I've read it three or four times. And the audible is so. So I know the audibles.

Thanks for the truth there. Yeah.

But in any event, it's the. It's the things that you try to hide that are the thorns. Right. It's the things that you avoid, or as Michael Brown in the Presence Process talks about, it's the things that you sedate. You try to sedate or control. So the message, you know, that that pain point, that pain body is. Eckhart Tolle speaks of the thorns that are exposed when you try to sedate them, when you try to control them, when you try to, you know, keep yourself safe from having them get triggered, touched, et cetera. You really, really vulnerable. You're really walking on eggshells, and then everybody around you is kind of walking on eggshells, too. And the whole thing just perpetuates this life of, you know, having to protect your vulnerable spots, which is a life that's committed to avoiding pain. That's a life of pain all by itself. That's a life of suffering all by itself, because pain is a part of life. And Michael Singer so elegantly expresses this in that book, that pain is just another thing in the universe. Like anything. It's just another thing in the universe that if it runs you the way, you know, some people, like, even that word milk probably triggered some people just now. Right. But. But whatever it is, if it runs you, how present are you? I mean, how peaceful are you? How loving are you when you're being run by the avoidance of pain? So, in any event, yeah, I think that these things that we're talking about so that, like, the next pillar is communication, and it relates to that because we've got to be able to be effective and authentic in our communication with other people, which is to call out your dirty little secrets. That's authentic. To say, you know what? I do have this thorn. It sits right here and I'm working on it. And you know what? For the life of me, I just. I'm no longer willing to tolerate myself, you know, building up all the walls and barriers around that little thorn so that it doesn't get touched.

Hell, yeah.

Instead, I'm going to call it out and say, that's my little thorn, and have that kind of open, vulnerable communication with other people and see how that. What. What the change in the circumstance is around it. Because I. And I can't predict that for you. I just know that when I call out my dirty little secrets, the energy around them changes.

It's relieving. It's so energetically taxing to not tell the truth. We're holding on to that energy, almost like a radio flyer behind us filled with concrete. We're just like walking around the world with that not telling the truth, man. Take us to the end of these pillars then, so people are feeling deeply inspired by you. What's the wrap up on the pillars?

Always the same one. Gratitude. And this was the one we asked our kids about, right? So we said, you know, like, hey, ask them each question privately, assuming you think that our relationship is good, positive, healthy, all that kind of thing. You know, maybe what is the one thing that you say is the most important part of it? And they all said the same thing. Gratitude. We express gratitude as a part of our family rituals. We express gratitude to each other as often as we can be conscious of it. We walk in gratitude. We even have a jar, gratitude jar. And people coming into our home, friends or strangers, ask them to just deposit their love notes, their notes of gratitude into this jar because it's such a blessing to us. And so it's a prayer. It's the highest form of spiritual practice as far as I know, and it's a blessing in our relationship.

So someone's feeling you inside their heart, inside their body. What do they do tomorrow morning or right now when they put down the phone and. And they're finished getting this download from you? What's that first step they take to really take a deep look at these pillars?

The loving yourself practice is the first one I come back to it. It's always the bookends of my podcast too, because I want to start there and finish there that it's so important that we practice self care. So what does self care look like? It could be that today, you know, you're going to take a 20 minute walk in the middle of the day just because it feels good, so good, you know, whatever it is that will make you feel cared for by you, that you do that thing, it doesn't mean being so self absorbed that you don't see or care about anybody else. It's about you learning how to give something that you want to give to the world. We all want to be giving and yet more often than not, we don't know we're serving from a half empty cup. So the goal, as far as I see it from an abundance versus a scarcity perspective, is that we fill our cup up, our cup overfloweth so that we can serve from that place of overflow, not from a place of scarcity. So you cannot give love that you don't understand. What we will always do, I'll turn it into a positive statement. What we will always do is serve and give what it is that we know. And so we are giving ourselves away in every moment. We are reflecting out into the world our true beliefs at all times. So if we are in judgment, if we judge ourselves, the offering that we're making to the world is judgment. If we have conditional love for ourselves, the offering we're giving is conditional love, conditional acceptance. And the inverse is true as well, which is that when we understand more fully what it means to accept ourselves unconditionally, the good, the bad, the ugly, that we can forgive ourselves unconditionally for all of our screw up and still in this moment intend that going forward, that that forward moment is a spontaneous right decision, that we make that decision with love instead of fear. In this moment, for example, that's the offering we're providing. That's the peace that we give to the world. Our foundation. We've got a foundation that's called peace, feels like. And the message of that foundation is that as we give ourselves inner peace, we create peace in the world we create. We create world peace when we take responsibility for our own inner peace.

So powerful man, I'm feeling full. I feel like I just had an emotional meal right now with you. This has been so special. The last question for you is, at this intersection of physical and emotional, how would you define wellness with all your past as a father, as a speaker, as a podcast host, as an author. I mean, you've done so much, but yet now you find yourself in this moment. I mean, how would you define wellness as you sit here with me in this moment, this moment, what does wellness mean to you in your life.

Wellness in this moment is a peaceful deep breath. That's how I define wellness in this moment.

And that's interesting because I have that written on my arm in Italian. It's one of my tattoos to make me take a deep breath. So thank you for reminding us of so many powerful things today. Adam. The Conscious Pivot podcast with Adam Markel. We'll link in the show notes as well as you can find everything about Adam, AdamMarkel.com but if they want to find you on social, Adam, and they want to get more information about you and some of the offerings that you have, I mean, where can they go?

We have a community that is on Facebook and it's a free community and it's just glorious how people are showing up in this space. It's called StartMyPivot, the StartMyPivot community on Facebook. And you can get there@pivotfb.com but what we're seeing there and what, what's being incubated in that space and people, how people are supporting each other and the vulnerability and the things they're practicing is just glorious, man. That's what we're jazzed up about these days.

Well, I want to acknowledge all the work you continue to do for the wellness world, not just in wellness, but also in just allowing people to step into their power. Adam, thank you so much for what you do, man.

You have a beautiful interviewing style. I love how prepared you were for it. You have a fine skill there, sir. That was beautiful.

Thanks, man. Beautiful to watch such a blessing and just really grateful for just having this hour with you, man. What a cool hour.

It's been blessed. Thanks for having me, Josh.

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