Julien Smith: The Flinch (Powerful Seth Godin e-book project)

What's holding you back and what does The Flinch have to do with moving forward? Do you notice those times when you're flinching - and thus hesitating to move forward at the critical moments? The Flinch is a book by Julien Smith, working alongside Seth Godin, and in this interview Julien shares some different techniques on how to master the Flinch. 

Julien Smith is a New York Times bestselling author and speaker and The Flinch  is offered to to us free here: raouldify.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/2011_1203-the-flinch.pdf.​ It's short, at just 38 pages, but contains a depth of insight rarely seen in books ten times the length. If you haven't yet tapped into the wisdom it contains, you'll certainly want to do so after listening to Julien Smith in this fascinating interview!

For more information about the Catalyst Community, earning your health & wellness coaching certification, the annual Rocky Mountain Coaching Retreat & Symposium and much more, please see https://www.catalystcoachinginstitute.com/ or reach out to us Results@CatalystCoachingInstitute.com

 If you'd like to share the Be A Catalyst! message in your world with a cool hoodie, t-shirt, water bottle stickers and more (100% of ALL profits go to charity), please visit https://teespring.com/stores/be-a-catalyst

 If you are a current or future health & wellness coach, please check out our Health & Wellness Coaching Forum Group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/278207545599218.  This is an awesome group if you are looking for encouragement, ideas, resources and more!

 Finally, if you enjoy the Catalyst Podcast, you might also enjoy the YouTube Coaching Channel, which provides a full library of freely available videos covering health, wellness & performance: https://www.youtube.com/c/CoachingChannel

Looking for weekly tips, tricks and turbo boosts to enhance your life? Sign up for the CATALYST COMPASS here, a brief weekly compilation of ideas, evidence-based concepts and encouragement to improve your personal and professional life!

Info re earning your health & wellness coaching certification, annual Rocky Mountain Coaching Retreat & Symposium & more via https://www.catalystcoachinginstitute.com/

Best-in-class coaching for Employers, EAPs & wellness providers https://catalystcoaching360.com/

YouTube Coaching Channel https://www.youtube.com/c/CoachingChannel

Contact us: Results@CatalystCoaching360.com
Twitter: @Catalyst2Thrive
Website: CatalystCoaching360.com

If you are a current or future health & wellness coach, please check out our Health & Wellness Coaching Community on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/278207545599218. This is a wonderful group if you are looking for encouragement, ideas, resources and more.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

What occurrences in your life caused you to flinch, to draw back and avoid, to hesitate in the face of potential potential. That almost certainly involve discomfort, but could also lead to breakthroughs. What if you could master that flinch and move beyond it, do it await you on the other side? Welcome to the latest episode of the catalyst, health, wellness, and performance coaching podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Bedford Cooper of the catalyst coaching Institute. And today we're discussing the concept of Flint with Julian Smith, author of the intriguing and freely available book of the same title. Julian is an author CEO, professional voice actor, radio broadcaster, and consultant and speaker at some of the largest corporations in the world, including Google, Microsoft, American express, Heineken international, and more, his work has appeared in cosmopolitan, GQ, CNN, and a host of other publications. His online book on which we're focusing today has been read by millions literally. And yes, we'll provide a link to it in the description on the coaching front, the June MBH WC approved coaching certification training is likely already full when you, when you're hearing this, but you can lock in your spot for August 14th and 15th. If you'd like at this point, or for those who are already coaches the super early registration discount for the Rocky mountain coaching retreat and symposium, it's available through the end of this month. So don't wait on that. If you're, if you're looking@thatonedetailsatcatalystcoachinginstitute.com, or we're always happy to discuss these with you, anytime, just email us results@catalystcoachinginstitute.com, we'll set up a time to chat. Now it's time to master the flinch and be a catalyst as we listen in with best-selling author, Julian Smith on the latest episode of the catalyst, health, wellness, and performance coaching podcast. All right, Julian Smith man is so good to have you join us on the podcast. This is fun. Let's uh, let's jump into the thing.

Speaker 2: 1:50

Yeah, let's jam dude. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 1: 1:53

Your book free book, you did it with Seth Goden before we jump into the book itself. Cause that's the Flint and we'll provide a link so people can pull this up. Um, how did that come to be and how in the world did you end up working with Seth on this thing? I think a lot of our listeners are fans assess. He does a great job and love to hear that story and how that came to be.

Speaker 2: 2:12

Yeah. My prior book was with Chris Brogan. It was a really well-known sort of social media. Both of us were very early on in social media, Twitter, Facebook center. I got audiences that way in 2006, seven, the second book was with him and I like working a little bit on it. And then it being really clear that it was my book, like as, as the, as the work went on, I just finished the Camino Santiago, which is like a well-known 800 kilometer, 500 mile pilgrimage route in Spain. Some people do it for religious reasons and others for non-religious reasons. And so we did that suffered a way for 500 mile, uh, miles of walking. And I was also doing poor core and I was doing like a lot of different stuff during that period. And it was really becoming clear that, uh, that, that suffering, uh, what's what you needed to learn to endure in order to sort of unlock whatever the next level, right. Not to turn it into a cliche, but, and so Godin who's editing this book at this time. He would just relentlessly drive me to, it was actually really, I remember being in my backyard with my, my now fiance girlfriend at the time. And, uh, and him saying in an email he's like, you will have one shot to make a book this visceral in your whole life. This will never happen to you again. And he goes, do you want this to be good enough? Or do you want it to beat the best thing you've ever done? 31, maybe 30 at this time, it was 2011, right? Yeah. 2011. And I started, I'm screaming, you know, Helen is there, I'm not screaming at her crew members. I remember it. Like, I don't know how to do this because, because what it's asking you more than you think that you're capable of at that time. Right. So, which is the whole concept of your book, right? Yeah. And, and he's like, keep he's like, this is philosopher moved this. And so it just kind of, it became smaller and denser and denser and denser. And you have this man, I don't even know how to talk about this. Maybe without I'm Canadian. It's like, I can't sell back organize. But like, to me, it's so important that people know that it wasn't intended to be like viral. It was, it was, it was intended to really hit one person really hard. And the only reason I could talk like that was because I was talking to myself like that. Well, actually not speaking to you, I'm actually speaking to myself. And that's the reason I can use that voice. And that voice has a unique voice that, that very seldom, you know, anyway. So all that to say that that was, that's how the book came out. And then now, uh, I mean, it's been 10 years, people still read it like viral YouTube videos get made about things where they quote me and it's, you know, I mean, it's just, it's nuts. And, uh, and so maybe it was the best thing I've ever done. I hope not. I hope I got bored.

Speaker 3: 5:09

You get a little more in the tank. Um, all right. So let's turn to the book. You start off with the definition and I've so simple yet. So powerful right out of the gate, flinch to draw back or shrink, it's like, boom, you got me right away. I haven't even opened the stinking book at this point. I'm already like, Oh my gosh, that's what I need to read. So I see this in myself, obviously from the popularity of people that have read it. So to a lot of others, they say research is more like me search in many cases. Was, was that something you were working through at the time? Were you trying to break through that barrier? You talked about doing this journey. I just had a buddy that did that. Um, w how did this topic become the focus of this project that you did with Seth?

Speaker 2: 5:53

Hi. I wanted to do a book that was like the dips, and I was very dedicated. The dip is a book by Seth Godin. Really small. Yeah. Great book illustrations, you know, and I, and so as you read it, I was like, man, this is just such a dense, simple subject. And it's really, really hard. And so actually, you know, in early on in the book, there's this, there's this talk of this boxing gym, which was actually still near my house. I mean, you start off with the boxing gym near my house. Right. And so there's a boxing gym. That's still near my house and still open and how it says VIP entrance at the top, which is still does. And it's just a regular gym. It's not special. It's a boxing gym. And it's just the visual of it's VIP entrance. And anyone who walks in there can be a VIP, which just the most amazing thing and so simple. Right. And actually like so accessible as a metaphor that it stuck with me. And I remember that that moment, there were a few moments when you're writing a book, when, when you find little moments, you're like, yeah, that's it. Because otherwise you're just hammering garbage, right. As much as you can trying to find it. And that was a moment where I really, I broke through and it was, you know, I got, I got so many things that I was dealing with and, you know, I have epilepsy. So I had this fear of seizures at the same time. So I love all these it's like fear of the body was very, like, really close to the things that I was thinking about and, uh, and trying to push past obstacles. And, uh, yeah. So, I mean, I don't know what to say. There it is. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 7:28

Yeah. Good stuff. You bring our top. So our topic, this whole podcast is the catalyst, health, wellness, and performance podcast. You, you bring that into the mix immediately remind us that information. Doesn't equal application. As we like to say, say it a little bit more eloquently, but, um, and, and you say the flinch, that is the opponent. Like that's the opponent. We're, we're, we're not fighting knowing how do I lose weight? How do I exercise? How do we eat better? How do I have better relationships? How do I do my money better? It's the Flint that we're battling, not how to live out, what comes after the flinch. CA can you expand on that for us a little bit, because I love the way you said that

Speaker 2: 8:07

You're doing my job for me. I don't know. It's so good. You know, the, as I'm hearing it again, sometimes I'll forget about this and I'll hear it. And I'll, and I'll, I'll be like, man, I should reread it. Which is a funny thing to say, I don't reread my, and I'll read it. And so they're so proud and not mostly not embarrassed about it, which is where I am. So it's man, you just, you just see, I think I was talking to one of the heads of security of the top 10, most at-risk individuals in the United States, a dude who I'd known through a connection, or like people who have stalkers, you know, like maybe, maybe Brittany spirits used to be in this category is again, I don't know those types of people. And he wrote a gift, excuse me, I think about two different people, but it'd be like, it's those sets of people who think about fear and how fear affects you. One of them, Gavin de Becker wrote a book, gift of fear, which is an amazing book that you should all, all everyone should read. And then the other one was just the person I'm talking about. The security dude. You, you would just see how it was very important to follow the body to a point, but then beyond that to train the body. And so fear helps you and is a means of survival, but only to a point beyond that point, it becomes an obstacle. And so as you did it, and as you started to understand and get clarity, remember this was so many root rewritings and readings and Seth kind of yelling at me through emails and me going, like I had an opportunity to somewhat someone at this time was like kind of a mentor and an idol to not just me, but a lot of peers and being like, I'm not, I'm not gonna disappoint this guy. And, uh, and so suffering my way to the other side.

Speaker 3: 9:57

Yeah. All right. So let's, let's get in the nuts and bolts here. How do we build? And I'm going to come back to this a couple of times. So you'll get a second chance if you're like, Oh, I forgot to say this. What are some ways we can build flinch tolerance? If you will, into our lives, you talk about cold showers. Again, I'm going to come back for anything else that you forget later, but how do we do that? Like on a prac level, we all realize we do it. Hopefully we'll realize it more after people listen to this, but what, what are the

Speaker 2: 10:24

Yeah, it's recognition, right? So recognition is the number one thing that is a cold shower thing. That's such a silly exercise, but what it does is it points out a moment that you would typically ignore a moment where you're, you, you do have a choice what they were called between stimulus and response, right? So yes, exactly a microsecond where you have a deliberate, well, where a freewill actually like can emerge and you have a choice as to whether you make it emerge or not. So, so there's lots of different ways that you can do this. Meditation is a really common one where you will sit in. I sit in when I have sat in Zen meditation for the most part. And when I do that, uh, what you do is, are listening for, uh, for little moments where you are responding sometimes without even realizing what you're responding with and why you're doing it due to programming that you previously have had. And the idea is just to undo some of the programming, right? As much as possible. You're never, you're never going to that's. That's why maybe why the book is kind of, I dunno, it would be, uh, it would be an honor to be, could be referred to as a tunnel, but certainly the long lasting is because the site is actually never over. If you, if you, if you do work at some point, if you get lucky enough, maybe you're making enough money or you have achieved the things, whatever they are that you feel, uh, that you want to add beyond that, it's like, okay, well, what am I doing here? And, and all of, sort of the easy stuff has done now only hard work remains only the hard work that only you can do. And that is really difficult to get to the other side of, you're just, you just have to see it again. And again, one thing I will say recently, as I said, because I started a coaching software business about a year ago because my father was an exec coach for 14 years. So what I would notice recently with my co-founder is that actually very good from one person to another, because we have worked together for seven years and it'd be like, and so there was an honesty there that didn't used to exist in those relationships where he would say, you know, I gotta tell you, I, um, my, my reaction, as soon as you said that in that meeting was to fight you on it. I realized that that was an instinct, but that was what I originally wanted to do. But of course I realized I couldn't do that. So that, that kind of neutral honesty you have to, if you have two people doing it at once is really helpful. And that's the dynamic that I only recently discovered. It's, it's just an internal, endless battle and people get tired and you can't sign all the time, you know? So you just have to, yeah, we have to recognize it.

Speaker 3: 13:11

Let's come back to a couple of things you said there. So the meditations, every one of their brothers talking about meditation right now. So, but, but the way you described it, that's different than how I've heard people describe. I I've, and I'm not good at it. I've tried it a few times and I will get back to it. But regardless, um, I think of it as this like silent time, trying to just clear the mind, let things you talked about as reprogram, or at least within that, the programming piece. Can you, can you expand on that just a little bit for me?

Speaker 2: 13:42

And can I just tell you, like, you don't owe it to me or to yourself or anyone? Actually, a Zen priest told me this a long, really long time ago. If you'd be a lot of comfort, you don't have to meditate. Nobody has to do it. If you feel fine where you are just be fine, it's only do it if you feel a calling towards it or something. But the reason that it's interesting is it lets you look at it's your, uh, you know, if you're, if you're a software person kind of like a little bit that I am, you see that there are layers of code. Another way to think about it as a carpenter is you got a table underneath the table. What are the underlying elements that allow the table to be built? Keep going underneath the layers, deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper layers on to realize in carpentry, it'll come down to the fundamental layers of physics in code. It'll come down to the fundamental level language. It's like what we call assembly zeros and ones. Right? And so the brain is like that the brain has layers of programming that are actually mostly not even listened to. And you're just, you're just going about doing it. You know, you're driving and you're feeling the thing that you always feel when you're driving you're in a mode. And that mode is emotionally programmed mode where almost everything is subconscious. So likewise, even when you're not driving, you have a set of things like that. And what meditation allows you to do with enough calm. And it's, it's a lot of work and it's not always fun work. Uh, it allows you to see those layers occurring and they occur more slowly and you notice that they, that they happen. And so the flinch is one of those. And the reason that it is, uh, the reason that it is it's like that for everybody is because it is biological. Is it fear is biological and an impossible to separate oneself from, unless you're a zombie. And so you can't always be fighting it, but at least to look at it and say, I know why I'm doing this is like a really important place to be, to be able to say, I recognize myself here, why I made that decision? I'm not proud of it, but I get why, why I reacted that way.

Speaker 3: 15:48

So are you bringing, uh, a topic into your meditation where you're, you're thinking, okay, you know, when I reacted that way or I, or I flinched her that whatever, and now I'm going to meditate on that thing is that, is it, it sounds like I'm a little more active

Speaker 2: 16:04

People. People can, yeah. People can do whatever they like, whatever. But even just the observations, I think part of meditation is about the recognition of the distinction, the separation between the observer and the thoughts. And so you've got the observer, it's an eye and it's looking around actually an initial thought about this book came in the idea of the eye as being a separate, a separate, I don't wanna say entity, but a separate part of you that is there watching you feel the feelings. And so that's, that is the way to think about it. It's just a, not a second superpower. It is, it is not something where you need to be a certain level or something. Anyone can recognize this. You recognize when you're angry and you're watching yourself and you're like, it's really close to you. And it's a very powerful tightening emotion. Right. But, uh, in meditation, ideally Zen is just observation. Ideally it's really just, there's no like cone collapse or there's no like other special magical whatever things it's just observations. But the objective is the watching of, Oh, here's what happens when, when I do this, I see, I see fear emerging here. I see, uh, I see greed emerging here. Right. And what it, what it makes you into,

Speaker 3: 17:18

Even though you're not in the midst of that, at that moment, you reflecting on something you weren't,

Speaker 2: 17:25

Is it, or a thought is, is provoking. And so you're like, Oh man, I got out of this meeting and it just, that you're like the meeting. And so here's, here's a set of feelings that emerged from the meeting just because you thought about it. Right. And I mean, you know, I don't know. I'm, I don't know if I'm making it sound opaque. There's all these places where you can find it accessible. Uh, Sam Harris has an app that think is good and all these other things, but it's just, you know, it's fundamentally about observation of yourself. So you can understand yourself and ideally overcome the parts that, you know, you don't, you're not in love with it. Right.

Speaker 3: 17:59

Good. The other thing you mentioned that I want to, I don't want to let this get away getting to the work that only you can do. I love that phrase. I don't think it was in the book necessarily, but love that phrase. Talk to us about what you mean by that a little bit and where the flinch comes in.

Speaker 2: 18:17

It's so weird because you watch other people be successful, right? And so you watch other people be successful. If you're in my space, like the industry that I manage here, all you see is all around us. There's like these people that do amazing work and make piles of cash and, and they get recognition of neurotic stage and like all these other things and you can kind of, it's never, it's not always going to be you. It might never be you. Right. But there is this, uh, there is this work that is a combination of maybe your experience with your voice or things like that. It's kind of like a recognition of your voice in a sense, right? The flinch is an example of a book that I wrote with my voice. And, and so it's only with time and a lot of effort and distinction that you're going to find whatever that work is. And it's really challenging because it might not like you're not going to be doing your, your quote unquote, God-given work every day of your life. It might not happen until later. Right. And as I say the same way we started earlier, but this idea of, I hope is something the best thing that I've ever done, because it's a really good work, but I was 31 when I wrote it. And I'm still working on things that I think are interesting to decks. And, and so, uh, you, you go out there looking for like, why is this mine in startups? We talking about this whole lot because you have to do startups for a long time to be successful in, in a buddy of mine, just, uh, did a fundraising announcement for a company that's reached a certain success. He's been at it for 10 years. If you're not in love with the problem you had better just get quit now. Like, so, so doing other people's work is sometimes easy and it's attractive, but I it's fundamentally going to be meaningfully less. What's hilarious.

Speaker 3: 20:09

Yeah. Good point. Good stuff. All right. So since I read your book and it's been, what two weeks probably, uh, I'm more aware of my flinches. Like I'm seeing it in other areas that the shower was an obvious, uh, easy low-hanging fruit. But then that allows me, I think, to expand on that flinch tolerance. Uh, w what else are you hearing from readers? Is that, is that a common response? When they read that? They're like, Oh my gosh, I didn't realize I was flinching.

Speaker 2: 20:35

Yeah. And people read it during, during times in their lives where they're like, not everyone, you know, but they they're like, I I'm 18 and afraid of whatever afraid of the world. Right. Why don't recently a dude on Twitter too, as a very successful company. Now I was like, this book was super influential to me and none of that's. And so you just see, I mean, I don't know, man, like people find people and I think works, find people, you know, like I'm actually, I'm a, it's a book was really influential to me after I wrote the flange, but it's a book called Titan. It's 900 pages of John D Rockefeller crazy books, and I'd read it. And there's such an impact on me when I read it, uh, nine, 10 years ago that I bought up a hard, like, serious version of it, even though I didn't need to, because I want it to sit on my shelf because that was such an impact on me. So I feel like work finds, work, finds people and people find people for not, not necessarily for reasons, but that give a unique Mo allow a unique moment in time to occur. One of the things that I wish that I could do that I actually haven't done. I think people go out there looking for this book now, like I get emails. I get mentioned like, how, how do I, how do I find this thing? Never, we've never, we never in a million who knows, like it used to be the only free book on Kendall next to the Bible, but the idea in 2012 and cause that's a deal to go to an add-on with someone at Amazon. And so that's one of the reasons why people read it other than the natural thing that you're talking about. And so, yeah, there's something about to be able to, to have work, find people at a given time. I think maybe the physical object helps. I do. I do think it's in my house. Like I, I have a Daryl muddle, which is a Japanese thing actually that I got while I was in a Zen temple in Japan around the same time. And, uh, and this, this idea of a roly-poly doll and I'll every time it falls down at all, it always comes back up. Usually in Japan, students have it and they do it as sort of the case. They have a bad exam. They always remember to keep trying. And that's why that's the subject of these little roly-poly dolls, which are really well-known. And, uh, and so similarly, I think that there is a reaction, an opening where you watch when you read the book and you're like, I see myself doing this all the time, but to keep that open, you need some kind of practice. And meditation is a good practice for that. Having the book in a Cisco location might be a good practice for that. I just see myself doing it all the time. I was recently driving somewhere and I thought about one of the exercises that a book, which was like, just give, give any random panhandler, the largest coin that you, the largest money you have and just do it because you see the resistance and, and because you have that resistance right there, that's lynched just be like, I'm bigger than this. And then this initial reaction I have free will in a book, in a re in a way this book is a, uh, a, almost like a recognition that you do have free. Will you have a choice, no matter what it is, you can do something. Even if it doesn't make sense, even if there's no real reason for it, just do it because you have a choice to do it, prove to yourself that you have a choice. And once you do that, that you're

Speaker 3: 23:58

One. Once you do that, then it begets more, you know, you're fighting gravity a little bit and it creates that. All right. So as I was, as I was going through, I, I thought it kind of comes down to the, wow. I came up with three RS. I didn't do that on purpose. Um, the Keith application three-step process and change this if it's not accurate, but I thought it was recognition of the flinch reflection is the flinch there for good reason, because sometimes it is, or is it just a visual? And then when it's valuable reset, the response to that said flinch. So would you agree, and what guidance would you give to maybe more effectively dial in that trio of recognition reflection and then reset,

Speaker 2: 24:43

Uh, recognition. This happens all the time. The reason it needs a name is because it's such a common reaction. And when you feel it, it's just a feeling. People have difficulty with a feeling and they tend to ignore that. So naming it, calling it the flinch calling of what it is. I didn't want to go on that call. I thought I was going to have a hard conversation. I don't want to have that whole conversation. Just it. When you recognize it, then your ability, as you say to reflect, when you're talking about reflection, one of the important contexts of the book is we're in the same world that we'd ever been outside of the context of maybe a global pandemic. Sure. We're in the safest environment that we've ever been in our entire lives. Dying is hard. Don't jump in front of a train, but even if you did do that, please don't do that. But even if you did do that little disclaimer here, you would be saved somehow, you know, go, why do I know this actually it's I know it because I have seizures. I know it because I have, I have fundamentally things to that. I mean, this is a crate, right? Like she should kill you, but it gives you an impression of just how safe you are and how difficult it is to really do permanent damage. That said permanent damage can be done. Yeah. Don't have unprotected sex, whatever. For the most part, almost everything is safer than you imagined it is. And that's super important. And then beyond that, that ability to reset and say, what, hold on a second, what is happening? What am I feeling and why, where did it come from? And is it useful to me? Exactly. It's a deliberate choice.

Speaker 3: 26:23

All right. So flinch forward, love that term. I'm going to read a brief section that literally just jumped off, jumped off the page for me. Um, train yourself. And I want you to comment on train yourself to flinch forward. And your world changes radically you response to challenges by pushing ahead, instead of shrinking back your world, a series of obstacles to overcome instead of a tax that you have to defend yourself from you go on offense instead of defense, you can change the world instead of protecting yourself from it. Now, I don't know what Seth thought of that section, but you had to work a long time on that paragraph because there is so much in there.

Speaker 2: 27:02

Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's uh, I could go back into the Google docs to find the edits, to see what embarrassing things for that. He's like, what are you doing with it? He would go in, he would go in paragraph by paragraph and you'll be, would just look for the densest possible. Another thing that we did as we thought about it as the entrance of a movie where something needed to be said verbally. And so I would read it out loud to myself in order to find out if it resonated to the ear. And if it didn't resonate, resonate to the ear, I would cut it. And I would find something that would resonate into the ear. And I think that's right. You, if you recognize that, even if it's a situation where it's neutral, hide, flinch back or flinch forward, if it's all the same to you, just flinch forward. Cause who cares just to do it in order to see yourself, be able to overcome the feeling and be able to overcome the obstacle and perhaps even the illusionary nature of the obstacle. Right? You don't know that until you do it. Right.

Speaker 3: 28:10

All right. Kind of bring it to a close here, but I don't want to miss anything from, from your resume. I did a little homework before this. It doesn't seem you do a lot of flinching. My friend, has this been, has this been a growth process for you over time or is that just the Julian Smith path? If you just kind of, that's kind of just who I am. Brad.

Speaker 2: 28:29

I, uh, while I was writing this, I then said, I became really, I had a great idea for a business. Russia didn't turn out to be a pretty good business. And, um, uh, and I had never raised money before and I had actually never really run a company except that, you know, out of my own basement that like had internet things, right. I'd never had employees like never fired anyone. And, um, I was working with a coach at the same time, which of course I still do. I always have. And, uh, and I was looking at this book and I was like, who am I, if I write the sport? And then I don't do this thing that I'm afraid of. It's like, and so, you know, in a way, uh, this, uh, this book has called me out forever, right? Like nobody wants to be a hypocrite. Totally. And I'm not saying that, so this is, can I, can I just, this is not a natural thing. And it's not a natural way for people to be the natural way to people to be as right. Yeah. And, and so you have to train it and you'll have to figure that out, but you have to do it from a place of safety and figure out what your safe place is. If you have no sense of safety, you will become a paranoid wreck. Right? Trust me, I ran the hypergrowth startups. I know what I'm talking about. And I, and so without your sense of safety, whatever that is, I'm actually about to go on a coaching call, where I talked to someone precisely about this issue that they're dealing with. You, you need a safe place to step away and to feel like you're not your company that's failing, or you're not this hard thing that you're dealing with. If you do not have that, you have to find it so sacred ritual, whatever, five minutes in the morning, a big one for me is I free write every morning. It is my sink, my sacred place where I will sit I'm owed. I owe no one, anything it's mine. And then from that place, I can reset. I can begin my day. People need that safe place. And when they get that, then they become more powerful and they have a choice to take back that power that they maybe couldn't that they were relinquishing before. So I think that that's a major thing. And if I can leave someone with that, uh, that get that sense of safety from somewhere. And then from there, you can recognize, uh, the real hard work thing you need to do wherever you are in your life.

Speaker 3: 31:03

Nice. Nice. How do people keep track of weight? I know you're on Twitter. Um, other places, if people are saying, Oh man, I want to keep up with this day. W what's the best way for them to keep track of you?

Speaker 2: 31:15

Yeah. So, uh, on Twitter or clubhouse, you would follow me at Julian's. I am, I run a software business that supports coaches and the work that they do, which is at practice dot O uh, I, um, you know, I, I'm a little bit place. I've been doing a lot of different things and I would urge you, if you have any questions at all, just send me an email. My name is Julian Smiths. You can email me@julianpracticedotdioorjuliansmithatgmail.com.

Speaker 3: 31:43

Perfect. All right. Let's uh, final words of wisdom, folks that want to make the most of their time here on earth. You've given us a lot. Is there anything else that I haven't peeled out from, from the book or other thoughts or things you've learned over the last 10 years since the book was written?

Speaker 2: 31:57

Yeah. Find a sacred place now. Yeah. It's if you don't, for me, it's out in nature, it's out like on the ocean or, or just find a place where you're, you're more than the problem that you deal with. Go and find that place I'm going off on a surf trip, like right after this and the next couple of days. And for me to be able to just gotta be out there. I it's nice. You can't, when you're, you can't worry about your problems and your personal life when you're fearing death. And so anything that will get you out of your personal issue, whatever that is, go and seek it out and then find out what it is that you're put on the earth to do. Perfect.

Speaker 3: 32:40

Julian. Thanks, man. Really appreciate it. And folks, he does respond quickly. He, I think he got back to me within a few hours to get this thing set up. So read his book. It'll take you like 25 minutes. It's 38 pages long. It'll get you fired up. So Julian, thank you so much, man. This is fantastic. Yeah. Thanks for having me too.

Speaker 1: 32:59

Flinch forward. A powerful process. We can all apply in our path to be a catalyst. Thanks again, Julian Smith for the outstanding outstanding book. You've got to check it out and for taking the time to do a deeper dive with us. Thanks to you for tuning into the number one podcast for health and wellness coaching. Next week features two time Ironman, world champs, Scott Tinley. One of triathlon's big four, along with Scott Molina, Dave Scott and Mark Allen. The stories he shares are fascinating, but we go way beyond that as always feel free to reach out to us with any questions about your current or future coaching career results@catalystcoachinginstitute.com, or you can tap into additional health Wallace performance resources@catalystcoachinginstitute.com. Now it's time to be a catalyst making a positive impact in the world without burning ourselves out in the process. This is Dr. Bradford Cooper of the catalyst coaching Institute. I will speak with you soon on another episode of the catalyst health wellness performance coaching podcast, or maybe over on the YouTube coaching channel.