182. Guest: Jeff Patterson - The Yielding Warrior Method

This episode centers on the Yielding Warrior Method and its three core pillars: physical, mental, and emotional yielding. Jeff Patterson shares strategies for integrating meditation into everyday life, dispels common misconceptions, and discusses the importance of cultivating emotional intelligence through mindfulness practices.

• Introduction to the Yielding Warrior Method 
• The significance of physical yielding in daily challenges 
• Mental yielding and its role in effective communication 
• Understanding emotional yielding for personal growth 
• Practical tips for integrating meditation into busy schedules 
• Misconceptions about meditation and the journey to mastery 
• The relationship between meditation and achieving a flow state 
• Tailoring meditation practices to different audiences 
• Importance of finding guidance in meditation practice 
• Overview of Jeff’s book and resources for further exploration

https://www.theyieldingwarrior.com/book

Chapters

• 0:00 Yielding Warrior Method Explained
• 11:44 Exploring Meditation
• 24:52 Unlocking the Power of Meditation
• 31:55 Navigating Meditation for Personal Growth

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Yeah, it's Mindset Cafe. We all about that mindset. Gotta stay focused. Now go settle for the last. It's all in your head how you think you manifest. So get ready to rise, cause we about to be the best. Gotta switch it up. Gotta break the old habits. Get your mind right. Turn your dreams into habits. Don't negative vibes, don't negative vibes. What is up, guys? What is up? Welcome to another episode of the Mindset Cafe podcast. It's your boy, devin, and we are joined by an awesome guest, jeff Patterson. He is the creator of the Wielding Warrior Method, which is blending motivation with meditation and philosophy. He's helped individuals build sustainable practices for mental, physical and emotional well-being, so I was excited to bring him on because, you already know, at the Mindset Cafe, we are all about personal development and different strategies to make ourselves better, and what better way to do that with an expert like Jeff? Thank you so much for coming on.

Speaker 2: 0:53

Hey, thank you for having me, and I enjoyed your intro song there.

Speaker 1: 0:58

I appreciate it. Let's dive in a little bit, you know. So let's start off with you know what is the Yielding Warrior Method, and then you know. So let's start off with you know what is the yielding warrior method, and then you know how did you go about. You know starting that.

Speaker 2: 1:09

So yielding has always been something that has inspired me. In the meditative and martial arts we use the yielding concept in various different ways and in my most recent book, the Yielding Warrior, I've broken down yielding into three categories, where we have physical yielding, mental yielding and emotional yielding, and briefly I'll kind of describe what those three areas are. So physical yielding is the idea that I push you, you push me. Whoever's the bigger, stronger person with the most leverage eventually is going to push the other person over. But with yielding, instead of us trying to see who the bigger meathead is, when you push me, I get out of the way of that force and now I can respond with less effort. So I'm not trying to butt heads with you and see if I'm bigger and stronger than you.

Speaker 2: 2:18

Now, in athletics this is easy to understand how this is beneficial, because oftentimes you're coming up against other athletes who are bigger, stronger and faster than you and you need to be well-grounded. The lower part of your body needs to be strong and flexible so you can change your central equilibrium. The body has to be relaxed, the breath has to be calm and the mind has to be present Now, while that may be a lifetime journey to really master those skills. Day one, by integrating a meditation practice into your life, you start to be aware of these things and see these things more clearly inside yourself. And this is where it becomes very interesting because and now we're moving into what I call mental yielding because when we start seeing these things inside of ourselves, we also start seeing them more clearly in other people. So say, for example, you and I are having a conversation and I say something that unsettles you and I pick up on it right from that first sign of imbalance or that energetic shift. It's a lot easier to adjust the conversation and keep us in a happy place than if I'm not paying attention to that and pretty soon I'm so far off track you want to slap me upside the head, and so learning how to use yielding in all of our interactions is extremely powerful, you know. One, we're being more considerate, which is something that we could all do more of. And two, it allows us to be strategic and help guide our conversations to a positive outcome with the least amount of resistance, and this is beneficial in your relationships and business and sales and negotiations.

Speaker 2: 3:53

I mean there's many different ways that we can apply this strategy and the third pillar of yielding is emotional yielding. Emotional yielding is very much like mental yielding, but with our own interpersonal conflicts. So you think about oftentimes something will happen and we'll respond and we'll go down this path and we might get an hour a day a week down that road and realize maybe that wasn't the best choice. But with yielding and our ability to stay more present and not let our emotions get involved, because we're more centered oftentimes when these things happen, we can respond with a little bit more of an educated response and save us a lot of heartache on the other side. You know, and I've been explaining this idea of yielding now for you know, I've been running my academy for over 30 years now and one of the most common things I'll hear people say is that yielding makes a lot of sense and in fact, I use yielding all the time.

Speaker 2: 4:52

Well, I would agree in that. I think everybody does some degree of yielding all the time. However, it's kind of like, you know, if you or I were to walk into a crime scene with a detective who's been on the job for 30 years, I guarantee you that person would see things about the series of events and the timeline that I know at least I would have no clue of, and the meditative arts helps us see things inside of ourselves and inside of other people that I truly believe most people will go through life and have no clue of these signs that are being presented without this kind of a practice in their life.

Speaker 1: 5:30

No, I agree with you on that. There's certain things that can't be taught on day one or that don't just come naturally. There's things that you learn from experience. There's things that you learn from experience Having 30 years under your belt. You picked up on so many different signs and so many different things that are now part of your intuition and is almost like common sense or natural for you that it's not natural for someone else that is thinking they're doing it just by nature. So I do agree with you on that one thousand percent. Now, with someone with a busy schedule, let's say how would they maybe start you know kind of building and practicing this into their lives, knowing that, you know, even for myself, for example, I'm not the best at meditating regularly just because my my schedule can be so chaotic, right schedule can be so chaotic, right, but nowadays everyone's on the go, go, go, go. How would you tell someone essentially to yield so that they can start, you know, implementing this yielding practice into their life?

Speaker 2: 6:33

So a couple things I'd like to say to that. The first one is this quote that the Dalai Lama once said that I enjoy, in that he said everybody should meditate for 20 minutes a day, unless you're too busy, then you should meditate for an hour, and I love that quote in that so many people think that they're too busy to integrate something like this into their life. But what I've found and you know I've had just here at my academy not counting all of my online students, I've had over 26,000 students come through the academy through the years and what I've seen is that people that follow this method and start integrating a meditation practice in their life, that they become less distracted by all of these stresses and distractions and they're able to be more focused. So while they think that they're having less time, they actually able to be more focused. So while they think that they're having less time, they actually end up getting more time because they're able to be more productive in their time, because they're more focused and not trying to multitask and do 50 things at once, which usually slows you down, and so I don't really think that meditation has to take anything away from your time.

Speaker 2: 7:44

I think there's a misconception sometimes that people think that you need to retire and go live in a cave and meditate for the rest of your life in order to get any benefits from it. But that's not the case, and you know, as being a teacher for the last 30 years, I've done nothing but show people how to integrate ritual, active and philosophical practices into everything they do in life and really create an evolving life practice with the meditative arts. And that's where you really start to see all the benefits of this amazing practice.

Speaker 1: 8:16

No see, I mean that is so awesome and I mean, with that being said too, if someone thinks that they're too busy, right, it's like maybe you need to really focus on, you know, really practicing even more, because wherever there's a will, wherever there's a desire to do something, you always find a way to make it work and fit it into your schedule. Right, but what might be if that's not already? But what might be the biggest miscontraception maybe people have about meditation?

Speaker 2: 8:44

Well, one of the things that I've heard over and over again is people will say you know, I've tried meditation but it just didn't work for me. I couldn't quiet my mind. You know, somewhere along the way people got this idea that in order to be successful in meditation, you have to reach this state of nirvana and nothing can bother you. You know, and and I don't know how people got so far off track, but you know, I've been studying the meditative arts now for 36 years. I've been fortunate enough to travel around the world many times and train with some amazing meditation practitioners, and I have never once met anybody who doesn't get distracted.

Speaker 2: 9:23

Everybody gets distracted with their practice, and the idea is is we want to learn to shift our mindset and the way that we think about this, because if you're doing, say, a sitting practice or a movement practice like Tai Chi or Qigong, and you're sitting for, say, 20 minutes, you may get distracted 50 times during that session.

Speaker 2: 9:45

But if every time you get distracted, you recognize the imbalance, you use your posture, your breath, the movement if it's a movement practice to help bring you back to focus now you just got 50 repetitions of being out of balance and coming back to center and if you do that every day, every month, every year, you start to develop this power and this awareness to that, no matter what happens to you during the day, if somebody says something to throw you off your game or you have a stressful day at work, you're able to come back and find that balance, and that's where we really start to benefit and really start to see the value in this, because it helps us in everything we do. It's not just about that peaceful couple breaths that you have in the morning when you're doing your meditation practice. This is stuff that we integrate into all of our day-to-day activities.

Speaker 1: 10:38

No, that is awesome. Have you ever done? I believe I mean it is a form of meditation. I don't know the exact name for it. I've just heard it called breath work, but I I do it usually like twice a year with my business mastermind group, where we have this, this this woman come in and she essentially has everyone laying down on the floor and you start doing like deep breaths, followed by short breaths, and so forth, at her kind of pace that she leads, and the whole time you're essentially trying to focus on a word that give a focal word that you're. You're thinking of the beginning and through it. Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 1: 11:18

The first time I heard it I thought it was like. I was like, oh, this is kind of BS, like you know. She was like if you can't lift your hands off the ground or it feels like you're stuck, glued to the floor, and I was like, come on, I was like who are you kidding? And then the first time I was, I was like I'll play along and I literally couldn't lift my body off the floor and I was to go through some stuff.

Speaker 2: 11:41

Right, now, have you ever heard of or have you ever tried that style of meditation? So breathwork has been around for thousands of years and oftentimes they refer to Qigong as the science of the breath, and it's one of the many pillars of any kind of a meditation program. And so when I talk about the meditative arts, I'm talking about things from sitting meditation, standing meditation, movement, practices like Tai Chi, qigong, walking meditation, yoga, all of these practices that incorporate these different methodologies, if you will, directions of a meditation practice you may follow. There's five underlying principles that everybody needs to tap into to get deep into a meditative practice, and they are regulating the body, regulating the breath, regulating the mind, regulating the energy and regulating the spirit. And briefly I'll kind of touch on what those are and I'll go a little more detail with the breath, because that was in regards to your question. But I think it's important that people understand these five pillars. So the first one with regulating the body basically it's understanding your skeletal alignment, your muscular tension in the body and how we regulate that through our activities. So, for example, if I'm sitting down at my computer and I've been there for four hours and my shoulders are rounded forward and I start feeling lethargic and depleted and maybe my neck's getting sore. And then another time when maybe the most important person in my world walks in the room and I perk up and my body, I feel like I'm on top of the world. Well, these two different energetic states I'm in 100% control of all the time. And this is a basic level of what we mean by regulating the body. On a little deeper level, it would be maintaining some kind of muscular structure in the body, flexibility, making sure that we're eating a somewhat healthy diet to keep our energy up and maintaining some kind of regular sleep pattern. But if we have this as like the core of our body regulation, this is like our foundation.

Speaker 2: 13:51

And then we have regulating the breath, and regulating the breath is a science. There's literally hundreds of different breathing strategies. You know I mentioned Qigong is often referred to as the science of the breath, and because there's so many different breathing methods, we kind of categorize them. They're great for stress reduction, anxiety, for panic attacks, they're great for boosting your creativity. An example of a yin-oriented breath would be if you've ever listened to somebody sleep, you'll notice that their natural breathing pattern is a longer inhale and a shorter exhale, and this is the body's natural way of bringing your conscious mind into your subconscious mind, which is where we are when we're sleeping and dreaming. And so, if you want to emulate this style of energy work in your meditations, we can lengthen the inhale, make retentions at the top of the inhale to help bring that energy inward, and then, on the flip side of that, if you are doing the yang side of the breath and an example of that would be if you've ever had to push your car, maybe you pick up something heavy your natural instinct is to use the exhale side of the breath, which we can do through putting tension in the breath, maybe making it audible, to help generate power. And by doing this and understanding the yin and the yang side of the breath, we can use the breath as a regulator, if you will, to help control our physical, mental and emotional well-being throughout the day. You know, and everybody goes through the day with emotional ups and downs. Some people may be like a roller coaster, others a little more balanced. But when you start to see these imbalances, say, you're starting to get excited. We can use the yin side of the breath to help bring us back down and make us more settled and if we start feeling depleted, we can use the yang side of the breath to help build us back up. And so one of the ideas of this, you know, as we start to integrate the meditative arts into our life, is how do we apply this stuff in everything we do? And the breath is a very important strategy. And then we have regulating the mind. Regulating the mind, like the breath, is a very deep topic and something that you'll work on for the rest of your life if you're doing the meditative practices. And we already kind of touched on this a little bit with just our mental strategy and meditation, where, when we get off center, we come back to focus.

Speaker 2: 16:37

You know, there's this story that I really enjoy about these two old monks, and they're walking down this dirt road after a huge rainstorm. It's muddy everywhere and wet, and they come up to this big mud puddle and on the other side of the puddle is this beautiful little girl standing there in a white dress and she's crying. And the older monk. He yells across the puddle and says is everything, okay, can we help you? And she says I need to be somewhere, but if I walk across this puddle I'm going to get my dress all dirty. So the older monk he rolls up his pant legs, he walks across the puddle, picks her up, puts her on his back, takes her to the other side, sets her down and she's off on her way. Well, him and the younger monk are walking a couple miles down the road and finally the younger monk is just furious and he says you know we're not supposed to touch girls, but you did back there at the puddle. And the older monk looks down and says you're still thinking about that girl. I left her back there at the puddle.

Speaker 2: 17:36

And how many times in life do we have to get two miles down the muddy road before we realize we need to let go of that, you know, and move on and find a different focus.

Speaker 2: 17:45

And so the meditative arts helps us see these imbalances and these distractions and not get too far down that muddy road. Then we have regulating the energy, and regulating the energy is an extremely deep topic and something that we could literally talk for hours about. But the basic idea of the energy regulation is once you've reached a competent level in regulating the body, the breath and the mind, you now have the tools to circulate the energy in the body, to lead it inward, to extend it outward, to get different outcomes and energetic expressions within our practice. And then the last regulation is regulating the spirit, which is a very profound idea, and it's something that Qigong practitioners and meditation practitioners will spend their entire life's journey working towards that ultimate stage of enlightenment. But, as you can see, by having these fundamental principles and being the foundation of your practice, that by nurturing these and getting to a deeper level of sensitivity and feeling within the practice that it can affect anything we do in life, which makes the meditative art so powerful.

Speaker 1: 19:01

No, that's awesome and I, honestly, I really do like that story.

Speaker 1: 19:04

It's it's kind of like I try to tell people you know my thought process on problems or issues, right, because I mean, as a business owner, you face problems and issues every single day, or obstacles or setbacks, right, you know big or small, and sometimes people that I, you know, my business partner or the employees, but are you worried that you don't know?

Speaker 1: 19:26

And they're like what do you mean? You know and I'm like there's nothing I can do about it right now, so I'm not going to worry about it right now. Right, If for me, like my whole thought process, if there's nothing I can do physically or call someone to do something about it, then I just don't worry about it. I cross each bridge as I get there, right, and otherwise you'd worry about so many things in a day or you know that person that cut you off, and it's like there's so many things to focus your, your time and your your mind on that. Why focus it on the things that you either have no control of or that already happened, like it took five seconds from your day, but you're letting it affect five hours of your day, right?

Speaker 2: 20:06

And you know that you just hit the nail on the head with that. It's like, you know, we all get distracted and we get frustrated when something happens sometimes. But it's like how much time is it going to take you to come back to focus? Are you going to let it bother you? 10 minutes, five seconds or five hours, like you said? You know, it's like we want to recognize these imbalances when they first happen and be able to sit back as an observer and realize what's happening, because so many times we get caught up in our emotions that we don't even realize that we're caught up in the emotions until it's kind of gained so much negative momentum that it's a little harder to let go.

Speaker 2: 20:46

But by having that awareness and that sensitivity and that ability to stay more present, you know it's a lot easier to if you're up on a side of a mountain and you drop a pebble to bend over and pick it up, but if it starts rolling down the hill and creates an avalanche, it's a lot harder to stop. And so our thoughts are the same way if we start letting one negative thought lead to another, to another. So eventually it's kind of hard to let those things go. But in the beginning. By having that awareness and that ability to be more present, we're able to control the outcome of our emotions.

Speaker 1: 21:23

No, that is so awesome. I think it's one of those things where meditation, or you know your ability to essentially yield, it's almost the increase of your emotional intelligence, right, you're increased to be able to respond to situations and not let that response again affect the longer part of your day. But I do want to ask you know, how do you feel about because I just talked about some someone else about this with business, now, with meditation, right With business, you go to your desk, you sit down and you're in work mode, right For meditation. Do you think that it's important to have a space to do it in or like a ritual, or do you get where I'm going with it, like, almost like a meditation area?

Speaker 2: 22:07

Yeah. So with a meditation practice and integrating these ideas into your life, I think it's important to have a ritual practice that you do every day active practices or reset practices and then also philosophical practice. So your ritual practice would be a time where you set time aside, you shut down any audios, any videos, you're not distracted by anything, you're using that time to turn inward. And then the active practices are great because these are things that you can do when you're walking down the street or standing in line at the grocery store, and it could be as simple as counting out 10 deep breaths as you're walking down the street or doing in line at the grocery store. And it could be as simple as counting out 10 deep breaths as you're walking down the street or doing some spinal rotations or a simple movement practice.

Speaker 2: 22:54

And the idea with these are is that, say, you're disciplined and you're meditating every day. Well, you might feel great during your meditation session, but then the rest of the day you're stressed out and you're distracted and you're off balance all day long. Well, integrating these active practices into your day, they help us maintain that sense of awareness and flexibility and present state of mind. So now we're starting to live the lifestyle rather than it being a hobby that we do once in a while. And then, lastly, we have philosophical practices, which are a very valuable part of the practice, helping with the strategy and our awareness and our ability to see things from different angles. And when we can integrate these three things together and start building that evolving life practice, you know, it's really the sky's the limit on the amount of benefits you're going to receive from it.

Speaker 1: 23:46

You know. That's awesome. Now I do want to ask are you, do you think that you know what the flow state is right when, like an athlete or something is, or even anyone in general, it's just in the zone right, they're in that like almost flow state? Do you think that's a form of self meditation or the result of some form of meditation within self?

Speaker 2: 24:09

So that's a great question and you know there are so many athletes these days who are turning to the meditative arts because it helps them be more present and reach that state where they can be more in time and be more effective in their in their play.

Speaker 2: 24:25

You know there's, you know I don't know if you know this but when Phil Jackson was coaching the Chicago Bulls and the LA Lakers, he was having his athletes practice Tai Chi and meditation because it helped improve their mindset and their performance out on the court. You know, and here you got the best athletes in the world, michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant they're out there practicing these things because it helps improve their game and you know at their level, you know they're already so high, even if it improves at one or two percent. You know that's a get to a deep level of a meditative practice. It doesn't matter if it's Tai Chi or yoga or sitting meditation, whatever it is. What has to happen is you have to get to a deeper level of feeling and by that awareness and that deeper level of feeling now it doesn't matter if we're playing basketball or football or whatever it is we're able to find that connection and that place in our mind that helps us reach our most optimal level of performance.

Speaker 1: 25:37

No, see that that's awesome. So kind of diving into that a little bit, is there different techniques or different adaptations to how you would teach someone meditation practices for different audiences, such as a business owner or an athlete, or you know, just an everyday, you know the average mom, right, you know? Is there different styles for implementation?

Speaker 2: 26:01

Yes, there is different styles that help us reach different outcomes, and that's why it's important to understand the science behind the movement and the breath and the strategy and all of these things. Because, you know, I break meditation down into kind of five paths that you can follow. There's, like, the physical or performance side of the path that a lot of athletes will get involved in. There's the therapeutic side that help with longevity and working through injuries and building our body awareness. And there's the medical side of the training, which all of Chinese medicine is based off of Qigong theory. Then there's the philosophical side of the practice and also the spiritual side of the practice, and you could follow any one of these paths and study it for the rest of your life.

Speaker 2: 26:45

And so you know, I always tell people it's so important when you're getting into a meditation practice that you have to find a guide and somebody to help you navigate through these ideas, because you know there's so much stuff out there. You could go onto YouTube and see a million videos on how to do this practice and that practice, and this app will tell you this and this other. Do this practice and that practice, and this app will tell you this and this other app will tell you something else. And you know, I've I've been fortunate enough to see a lot of people through the years and I've had students come into the academy that have been self-taught and they've been training for 15 years doing a meditation practice and they're not any deeper in the practice than somebody who's had a guide that's been around for six or 12 months. You know, and our lives are short and your time is valuable and having somebody to really help show you the shortest path to get where you want to go is extremely valuable.

Speaker 1: 27:41

I think that's awesome. Now, two parts right. First part is I know you wrote a book, right, the yielding warrior method, correct, yes, right, so in. And if you guys are listening, if you guys want to dive even deeper in this, I do highly recommend that you guys go get a copy and that will be in the show notes. But in that, in your book, the yielding warrior method, do you dive into some of, like, the strategies of implementation? That's part one, and then part two would be be if someone is looking to start their journey today, right, what would be the first step you would recommend for them to start building a practice that maybe that sticks for them?

Speaker 2: 28:19

Yeah. So first, in the book we cover a lot of different strategies. However, you know, it's something to kind of program you and give you the mindset it's good to have somebody to help kind of navigate through that with you. You know, for somebody looking to get into a meditative practice, we already kind of touched on one of the most important things, which is finding a guide.

Speaker 2: 28:41

The second one is and this is one that I always tell new people is think about why you're interested or why you're drawn to this practice. Do you want to stay healthier into your old age so you can watch your grandkids grow up? Or do you have a stress disorder and you're looking to feel more comfortable when you're in public? Or maybe you're an athlete and you want to improve your performance, and then not just that surface level, why? But if you do accomplish this and you do integrate this into your life, how is that going to affect you in a positive way in many different areas? And then also flip the coin and think if I don't do this, how is that going to affect me in a negative way? Because we want to have that fuel, so we're motivated to stay consistent with the practice and what. That is.

Speaker 2: 29:30

The second thing as well is that consistency is key. You know it's you. You've got to do this on a regular basis and make it part of who you are to really get any depth in the practice. You know, and through that consistency we develop this discipline and integrity and perseverance that bleeds over into everything you do in life. And so you know, as a teacher for over 30 years, you know one of the hardest things I have to do is to get people to see the value in this practice and get them disciplined enough so they do it consistently, and get them disciplined enough so they do it consistently. And you know the ones that do and the ones that take my advice and do a 20-minute-a-day ritual and integrate some active practices and philosophical practices into their life. If they keep that up for a year, I bet 95% 97% of them will do this for the rest of their life, because they'll see so many amazing benefits from the practice that they would be crazy to stop. No see.

Speaker 1: 30:29

I think that's awesome and I do have you know. One last question for you and this might be, I feel like we can go into it. You mentioned the science of this, right. I had someone on you know not too long ago and they were in like the hypnotherapy space, but the conversation took a turn into brain weights, right, and getting into the subconscious mind and so forth. Right, and knowing that 90, 95% of the mind is really the subconscious mind and we really only act on 5% of the mind, right With meditation, is there a way we can really dig into or dive into the subconscious mind and really get the understandings of it within self? Or are we able to reprogram the subconscious mind from maybe limited beliefs, if that makes sense?

Speaker 2: 31:21

Yeah, so you know, there's different stages of meditation that we go through and they take us through different states of awareness, and so we can definitely tap into some more of the yin oriented practices that get us a lot closer to that subconscious mind, but without falling asleep hands-like state. It allows us to program these positive thoughts into our mind as well as just be present in the moment and see what it has to teach you. You know, some of the most beautiful moments I've ever had in meditation are just getting to those deeper states of mind and that awareness and just listening to what's presented. You know it's, you don't. You don't really need to have a strategy behind it. You, just once you understand that and and can listen, you're able to take that mask off and really stay connected to who you are, which is something that we really need in in society today.

Speaker 1: 32:21

No, I think that is so true. I mean, when I was doing the breath work, at each time, you know, you you start if you open your mind up to it. Right, you can't be closed minded. You have to be willing to, you know, be open to the idea of something happening or digging in or opening up your mind, and each time it was almost like watching a mini movie and going through these like doors as the process was going on, and before we, everyone was telling me about it and I was like this sounds made up. And then when you're actually going through it and you actually let yourself be vulnerable to it, like it's crazy what you can actually achieve by meditation, by opening the mind, by really digging into your spirit or, you know, into yourself, and so I do.

Speaker 1: 33:04

I align with everything that you're saying. You know thus far and I think it's so amazing that you've been able to do the things that you've done. Where can, before we get into this, actually before I have you drop where people can connect with you? I do like to leave with one last question, and I don't like to tell you ahead of time, because I want it to be organic and authentic, the first thing that pops to your mind right On Jeff's Jeff Patterson's legacy wall. Right, it's not a tomb stone, it's a legacy wall. You get to leave one lasting message for the up and coming generations. What would that message be?

Speaker 2: 33:40

Stay considerate and follow your passion. Okay, can you explain a little bit passion? Can you explain a little bit? You know, I believe that in order to make true connections in humanity and with our brothers and sisters and everybody around us, that we have to have this consideration. You know, so often we get stuck in. You know, I see it all the time. You're having a conversation with somebody and they're not even listening to what you're trying to say and they're thinking about how they're going to tell you the next thing as soon as they get a break. And whatever you're done, and it's like, you know, we need to listen to other people and realize that there's a lot of similarities and a lot of beautiful things that we can connect with and not get so caught up in thinking about the differences and finding reasons to argue with each other. And so this consideration, I think, is essential.

Speaker 2: 34:34

And you know one of my old meditation teachers. He told me that the most important love potion out there is consideration. And you know, while I think it also works in a romantic situation, but it also works in, you know, any relationship as well. Following your passion, I think it's staying true to your heart, bombarded with these day-to-day things and these busy to-dos, when we sometimes drift away from what our core, what our soul, what our heart is telling us. And I think that keeping that close to center is very important.

Speaker 1: 35:19

That's so awesome. Well, where can people connect with you? And I know I'm going to drop a link to the book and stuff but if people want to connect with you and learn more about what you got going on, where can they find?

Speaker 2: 35:28

you. So the yieldingwarriorcom is my website. If you'd like to get a free copy of the book, you could go to the yieldingwarriorcom forward slash book and just pay for shipping and handling. We'll send you out a book. It's also available on Amazon. On that website we have our Yielding Warrior program that teaches you how to integrate the meditative arts and build an evolving life practice, as well as our teacher training program. So for those of you that maybe have a martial arts studio or yoga studio, or maybe you're a life coach and you want to learn how to pass down the meditative arts and show people how to integrate some of these practices, there's that available as well.

Speaker 1: 36:11

Awesome. Thank you so much, jeff and guys. If you got anything from this which I don't know how you could say you didn't, make sure you guys share this episode with a friend and make sure you guys leave us that five-star review. It really does help us out and spread the message to other people. You know we're out here just trying to make your life better and others' lives better by having a positive impact. So again, jeff, thank you so much for taking the time out. I hustle hard. I go against the current Cause. I know my mind is rich to be collected.