Viktor Frankl made a lot of sense!

Unlock the power within you by tossing the rulebook out the window and rising from the ashes of life’s messiest moments. Join me, Stew Darling, as I unravel the gritty and uncomfortable truths about finding meaning and purpose, inspired by Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning." Brace yourself to confront life's chaos and discover how to harness the in-between moments, not just the highs and lows, to live beyond your limits. With insights from country music's George Strait and transformative reads like Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now," we'll explore how to be truly present, leaving behind the shadows of fear and anxiety.

Expect unfiltered conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and, most importantly, think. I'll share my own story of hitting rock bottom and how it became the catalyst for my book, "Unstoppable Living Beyond Your Limits." You'll learn practical exercises to cultivate awareness of the present and find hidden potential in everyday life. So, buckle up and join us as we embark on a journey to embrace life with purpose, courage, and love, unleashing the limitless potential within each of us.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Unstoppable Force Living Beyond Our Limits, the podcast where we take the rulebook of life, set it on fire and rise like a phoenix from the ashes new and unstoppable. I'm your host, stu Darling, a former soldier and spy, turned mental wellness and personal development renegade, here to shake up the way you think, lead and live. This isn't your typical feel-good pep talk. We're diving into the messy, the uncomfortable and the downright wild parts of life to uncover what it really takes to unlock the unstoppable power within you. Expect unfiltered truths, stories that will make you laugh, cry or yell, hell yeah, and game-changing insights to fuel your next big leap. So buckle up. It is time to stop tiptoeing through life and start kicking doors in. You're not here to play small. You are here to live beyond your limits. Let's get into it. Welcome to this episode of the podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:12

I write Viktor Frankl Man's Search for Meaning. What a book. It's easy to jump back to Viktor Frankl, the holocaust, but if you've not read man's search for meaning, it's got to be on your reading list for today. Going back to nietzsche, frankl suggests he who has a why to live can bear almost anything. And then he dives into well, how do you find your why, what is your meaning in life? And Franco suggests that there are three possible sources for meaning In our work, what we do, you know, something significant In our love, caring for another person or other people, and through courage in difficult times. It is an amazing book. Without realizing it, it's actually how I started my book Unstoppable Living Beyond your Limits. The first chapter in the book is called the Space In Between and I tell about what I believe is certainly one of the lowest points in my 50 plus years on this planet. It's about let's not just live for the highs and lows, let's master the in-betweens. Yeah, of course we're going to have low times where we feel sad, unhappy, angry, embarrassed, frustrated, and there's going to be other times where we are full of joy, happiness, excited, full of anticipation. But life actually isn't in those moments, life sits in between those moments and if we're constantly waiting for the next bad thing to happen, which is human nature, or if we're constantly waiting for the next good thing to happen, well, we're missing the opportunity. I love george straight's song I saw god today. It's yeah, george straight is one of the country and western singers of well, of country and western, and the song I Saw God Today reminds us that we can see joy in everything we feel, we hear, we taste, we touch, as long as we are aware of it, as long as we become aware of our surroundings.

Speaker 1: 4:24

I am sitting in front of my desk at the moment. It's a mess. Well, it's, um, I know where everything is, but if you looked at it you would think, stew, how, what a mess. But I look at it and I can see. I can see copies of the books that I'm reading, including victor frankl's a man's Search for Meaning, including James Allen's as a man Thinketh and Stephen Pressfield's the War of Art, and my coach's Bo Eason's book there's no Plan B for your A Game, along with a whole bunch of other paperwork and knickknacks.

Speaker 1: 5:03

But if we spend our lives in that clutter, like my desk is, then we miss the opportunity to see through it and see the joy surrounding us, and that's what our life actually is. That is where the hidden potential lies. And if this is something that you're going, oh, that's interesting. But how do I get started? How do I get started on finding out what my hidden potential is? How do I get started on my search for meaning? Well, here are three exercises that you can have a go at that will bring you into the present. Eckhart Tolle's book, the Power of Now, talks about there not being any past, there not being any future. There is just this moment that we are in right now. And if that's the case, we don't have any fear or anxiety because it's this moment. And if we live for this moment, then the highs and the lows sort of disappear. We can create the high of this moment right now. So here are three exercises that you can, if you choose, you can have a go at.

Speaker 1: 6:23

I always have to say, if you choose, to the students who are a part of the Living Beyond your Limits program I'm very clear at the beginning. The program is not school. There are tasks that you might want to complete between each of your coaching sessions, which happen about a month apart. There's reading, there's listening, there's worksheets. You don't have to do them. I'm not going to give you a detention.

Speaker 1: 6:50

If you don't, if you do commit to living beyond your limits, then why wouldn't you commit to doing the tasks and getting that growth? For most people they don't do the tasks because they're a little bit frightened of what they're going to find out, so they prioritize something else, but finding your. I mean, what's more important than finding your hidden potential? 98% of the world out there don't bother even thinking about their potential. True leaders, true captains, are the ones that live in the now and always seek that little bit more. Remember the second mantra of living beyond your limits and unstoppable is always raise your standard. And the third mantra is be vulnerable. Well, it's commit to your ultimate sacrifice, which, for all of us, is actually our vulnerability. So, with that in mind, here are three ideas that you can use to unlock your hidden potential, to live in the now or, if you're that way inclined for you to see God today.

Speaker 1: 8:00

Number one reflect on your happiest and saddest memory, just like I did at the beginning of my book. What are those two memories? Take some time, take it out for a walk and just go. Well, what was the happiest moment, what was the saddest moments, and write about them. Get your book out, write longhand, write about those moments in your journal and identify one lesson about how it shaped you the happiest and the saddest moment. Seek the wisdom in them. Seek the wisdom in between them. Second, recognize the life that you were born to live. What are the things that distract you. Is it social media? Is it chatting to friends? What are those tasks that you let yourself do rather than doing the important things? I was on a call with one of my coaches yesterday and she was talking about saying no to more.

Speaker 1: 9:06

Identify the things that you don't enjoy doing or the things that you realize are wasting time, and cut them out. Create a new habit that gives you that time back. There's an opportunity in there to find your hidden potential. So list three things that you do daily that align with your authentic self. So there's going to be the stuff that you waste time on. You know do.

Speaker 1: 9:40

Here's one of my favourites when you do the laundry and you've hung it up and it's all dried, do you just take it off the line and throw it in the basket? And then, when you get to your bedroom, wherever you store your clothes, do you then have to stand and fold it? And then, when you get to the your bedroom, wherever you store your clothes, do you then have to stand and fold it and then put them away? Well, you, there's a step there you don't need. You can take it off the line, fold it, so it just goes straight away and that might just be a few minutes, but that's a few minutes. You get back. There'll be others. I yeah, if I took time to think about it. I yeah, there are lots more. But then actually think about the three things that align with you. What are the things that make you feel great?

Speaker 1: 10:24

Mikhail Chintsenmihai, in his book Flow, talks about this as flow, those moments when time disappears. You know, with Lizzie it's painting, with me it's cooking, it's actually when I go out and run. I lose track of time. So what are those things that you really love doing? List them and recognize the importance of those things. Because actually, do you know what?

Speaker 1: 10:52

When you are in flow, the brainwaves that you're actually using and we talk about this in the book, the brainwaves that we're actually using you're in beta one, maybe even alpha waves, and that is where imagination and innovation kicks in. We're no longer in a panic state of beta three, your reptilian brain. When we're in that flow state, ideas come, ideas flow. So what are they? And when you've identified them, make time for them. It might just be a little moment to start with, but allow that to build, because it takes time and I'll do a different podcast on this, but it takes time for our brains to move from beta 3 activity to beta 1.

Speaker 1: 11:38

And then last, and this is probably the scariest one of the three, discover the power of stillness. Oh, I tell you, do you know what we're doing tomorrow, what we booked in? We've been talking about this for like years and never done it, we've never prioritized it. What we're going to do is we're going to go to a flotation tank and float in the water for an hour, an hour of stillness, a whole hour of stillness. I think one of the reasons that I've been a little bit wary about getting started on this is that the basis of flotation tanks were actually an interrogation capability that the soviet union built during the cold war. They would put people into flotation tanks to take away all access to their senses, in order to break people down, in order to start interrogating them. They're now used well, I hope they're now used for a more positive purpose, and we are going to experience that tomorrow.

Speaker 1: 12:42

60 minutes in a tank of water. We'll see, I'll report back, but start with just 10 minutes, 10 minutes of sitting quietly with your thoughts. Maybe it's meditation, maybe it's just sitting quietly with your thoughts. It's a's meditation, maybe it's just sitting quietly with your thoughts. It's a good way. If you don't meditate, it's a good way to start meditating. But just take some time. Go and sit down quietly no phone, no music, no people around about you. Just close your eyes. Actually, do close your eyes, because that removes 80 of the stressors on our system, on our earthly suit.

Speaker 1: 13:21

Take those 10 minutes, close your eyes, set an alarm so that you don't open your eyes and just sit with your thoughts. Sit with your feelings, be conscious of what your body does and see what comes up for you, and try and do the exercises in that order. So write about your happiest and your saddest memory, identify one lesson from each and how they've shaped you. You know that space beyond those moments, and then list three things that you do daily that make you feel good, that allow you to disappear into flow, and then, from there, set aside 10 minutes and sit quietly with your thoughts. Most people can't do it. There's a chapter in Unstoppable called the Boring Chapter, and it's all about taking 180 seconds, 20 minutes and three days. All I'm asking you to do is take 10 minutes to sit quietly, see what comes up, and then try and do it again the next day. It's only 10 minutes. It's only 10 minutes and through exercise two, you'll have identified places that you can probably get that few minutes back again.

Speaker 1: 14:33

It's been a slightly longer podcast, this one, but it's really, really important. The man, viktor Frankl, survived the Holocaust, survived the prison camps, survived Auschwitz in order to tell us to live a life of meaning and how to live that life of meaning. So how about we spend a few minutes this week committing to the exercises and maybe in that 10 minutes of silence you'll hear what George Strait was talking about. I'll see you next time. That is it for today's episode of Unstoppable Force Living Beyond Our Limits. If you're feeling fired up and ready to take on the world, don't keep it to yourself. Share the love. Send this episode to a friend who needs a little push, or, hey, just send it to your entire contact list and don't forget to subscribe so you'll never miss a dose of unstoppable energy. Leave a review if today's episode hit you where it feels or gave you that aha moment. Your feedback keeps this rocket fuel coming Until next time. Keep pushing, keep growing and remember the only limit is the one you refuse to break. See you next time.