Transformation: A Journey Back to Your True Self with Jake Kauffman

Ready to break away from the ordinary and step into the extraordinary? Then you're in the right place. I'm excited to have you join me, your host Michelle Rios, as I sit down for a riveting conversation with the illuminating Jake Kaufman, an international transformation coach and spiritual mentor. We go deep the journey of realizing your full potential and Jake shares his insights that the true essence of each individual person lies beyond the layers of learned behavior and societal conditioning.  Living an extraordinary life thus becomes a process of uncovering and confronting the barriers within ourselves that hold us back. 

Jake takes us on an introspective trip through the landscapes of self-actualization and transformation, highlighting the intriguing contrasts between the two halves of life. The first half, filled with feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, often leads to self-sabotage. The second half, however, is where transformation reigns, transcending these self-established boundaries. And connecting these two halves is the healing bridge, a crucial step in our journey towards a fulfilling life. It's about moving beyond the constraining first half and embracing the liberating second half.

As we journey deeper into the conversation, we explore three phases life and personal growth,  including construction of our persona (Latin for mask) usually driven by overcompensation from our childhood traumas, deconstruction (driven by greater self awareness), and eventual reconstruction (driven by transformation and, for some, transcendence). Jake emphasizes the significance of recognizing when healing has occurred and the need to break free from unconscious habit patterns that limit our potential. Delving into his own personal experiences, Jake's story of self-discovery and transformation paints a vivid picture of the path to lasting fulfillment.

Connect with Jake:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/iamjakekauffman/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/jake.kauffman.923
Website: www.awakewithjake.com

Connect with Michelle Rios:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/michelle.rios.official/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/michelle.c.rios
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3ahwTlqiLU&list=PL-ltQ6Xzo-Ong4AXHstWTyHhvic536OuO
Website: https://michelleriosofficial.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hi, I'm Michelle Rios, host of the Live your Extraordinary Life podcast. This podcast is built on the premise that life is meant to be joyful, but far too often we settle for less. So if you've ever thought that something is missing from your life, that you were meant for more, or you simply want to experience more joy in the everyday, then this podcast is for you. Each week, I'll bring you captivating personal stories, transformative life lessons and juicy conversations on living life to the fullest, with the hope to inspire you to create a life you love on your terms, with authenticity, purpose and connection. Together, we'll explore what it means to live an extraordinary life, the things that hold us back and the steps we all can take to start living our best lives. So come along for the journey. It's never too late to get started and the world needs your light.

Speaker 2: 1:07

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Live your Extraordinary Life podcast. I am thrilled to introduce this week's guest. His name is Jake Kaufman. He's an international transformation coach and spiritual mentor of purpose-driven, visionary men and entrepreneurs who are seeking to grow their life and leadership. He supported hundreds of people to thrive and reach the next level in all areas of life, business and relationships, and his mission is to help people radically heal and transform so that they can achieve their full potential and fulfill their purpose. He also happens to be a new author, and so we're going to delve into his book as well. I'm so thrilled to have him. Welcome to the show, jake. How are you?

Speaker 3: 1:51

Michelle, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm doing great, and thank you once again for having me. There's background noise for give me. They're actually replacing the gutters on our house today and they showed up at our house at about nine in the morning. I was super confused and surprised as to why they were even here to begin with.

Speaker 2: 2:10

No worries, this is real life. We keep it real here.

Speaker 3: 2:13

Yeah, totally, I appreciate that. I figured you and your audience would appreciate the transparency.

Speaker 2: 2:19

Absolutely All right, we're going to jump right in. Jake, I'm going to start you off with a deep one, but what does it mean to you to live your extraordinary lives?

Speaker 3: 2:30

I love that we're starting off with this question. I'm a firm believer that true transformation is much more about unbecoming, undoing and unlearning than it is about becoming, learning or developing. I say that to say I do believe that our primary task is to not seek after success, but to seek after and uncover all of the barriers within us that stand against it. When I think about what does it mean to live an extraordinary life? It looks like going in search of and uncovering the barriers within us that stand against an extraordinary life, because when we do that, success or an extraordinary life simply ensues. It is the natural byproduct of being committed to a cause greater than one cell.

Speaker 2: 3:25

That's beautiful. I'm going to read something that you wrote and I want you to expand upon it. You and I were not put on this urge to eat out a less than extraordinary existence. We weren't born to fit in. We were meant to stand out, and to do this we've got to go inward To fully know ourselves. We have to learn to love and respect who we are and who we've become because of what's happened to us. Let's talk a little bit about what you mean with the what's happened to us part of this.

Speaker 3: 3:59

Yeah Well, just so that we're on the same page and just for some context, the word personality literally derives from the Latin word persona, which means mask. So when you think about your personality, your personality is not who you are. Your personality is who you've become. Now our conscious mind is going to convince us that this is who I am, but our conscious mind is what we know. It's our unconscious mind that is who we are and it's responsible for what we do, which, of course, is what determines all of the results that we have in our lives. So, in order to achieve true transformation, we have to shift the unconscious person and we have to address the level of belief and identity.

Speaker 3: 4:50

Most coaching addresses the level of behavior. So this is where, you know, high performance habits come into play, biohacking and all of these various things. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that, because you do ultimately need to take a different type of action if you want to change the results that you have in your life. But unfortunately, 90% of people who end up hiring a coach or who go through some type of program, whether it's related to their health and fitness, and they go through a training program or they hire a personal trainer, whether it be an interpersonal coach who can support them with their personal transformation or their personal development, even a consultant, for example, to support them in scaling their business.

Speaker 3: 5:32

90% of people ultimately end up returning to their former level of behavior and results. After the coaching, the support and the accountability is removed. So to bring this full circle and to provide an answer to your question around who we've become, until we reconcile the pain from the past, we will inevitably and continually recycle it in the present moment. We will just do so unconsciously or unintentionally. So until we shift to the unconscious person, even if we end up getting support, whether it's by means of signing up for a program, going to a seminar, attending a workshop or hiring a coach, it is highly likely that we ultimately end up returning to our former level of behavior and results.

Speaker 2: 6:20

So let's talk about that for a minute, because I know often what can happen to the coaching process, and even prior, is you have your weakening, the realization awakening and I would say for many of us there are multiple levels of awakening. Right, it's not like switch goes off and we're like a new realization of who we really are, but moments of more lucidity and clarity of really who we are at the deepest level of consciousness and, quite frankly, at the subconscious level. How is it that we, through that inner journey, can get to a place where we're in there and in that space more often than not, like how to get to that place where we're not just resorting back to old habits and the old ways of living? Particularly? We have an audience here of really high achievers. So they're speaking, they're looking. How do we get to the next level? And we recognize there's several layers to the onion. How do we get to the deeper part of the matter?

Speaker 3: 7:24

So I'm going to answer this question in two parts, because I'm a firm believer that we can't ultimately go into our spiritual maturity willingly. I don't believe that, because all the work that you do in an attempt to take yourself there or develop your way to your full potential in many ways is just bogus self-help on your own terms. It's great to get you started and get you going, but at the end of the day, something outside of you that your self-discipline, that your strong willpower, that your current mental resources are simply not a match for. That's the only way that we will die to our false self, this persona that we unconsciously take on when we're very young children, which is simply a representation of who we think we need to be in order to be loved and accepted and successful, but it's not who we actually are.

Speaker 2: 8:15

And we get really good as adults, perfecting our mini bios for each other.

Speaker 3: 8:20

Totally yeah, because the primary role of the ego is to maintain the status quo, and the best way for it to do that is to hide the truth from you. And this is where we can't see the forest through the trees. We can't read the label from inside the bottle. We're so closely attached to this false persona that we can't see it and, furthermore, we don't know who we are apart from it. So the minute you finally see it, well then becomes the question of what do I do about this? And that's where most people get stuck. And this is the second part of answering your question, which is most people stop at the level of awareness, right when we think about reaching, like, self mastery for lack of a better phrase or enlightenment, whatever you want to call it. Most people get stuck at the level of self awareness when, all of a sudden, you've come into realization of your internal limiting beliefs or your compensating strategies, the adaptive traits that make up your broader, larger personality, that are in direct response to pain or in order to prevent pain from happening. You're simply aware that there are rats in the attic, but the rats are still there. But the ego is going to convince you that, like, oh, I transform because I've come into awareness of what is stopping me, what is holding me back, what is blocking me from reaching my full potential or becoming the highest version of myself. That's where most people stop.

Speaker 3: 9:47

There's a very, very big difference and distinction between uncovering something and undoing it, and most people never actually get to that point or that place. They come into self-awareness of their internal blocks and barriers and they think they've moved beyond them because it feels like a breakthrough. It does. It feels like a breakthrough where all of a sudden, you're like oh, my goodness, the way that I am this way is because of my relationship with my dad or because the dynamic between me and my mom, because most of this stuff goes back to mom and dad and it feels like a breakthrough. But really what's happened is that you've had an epiphany. It's simply the self-awareness, is simply the first step, self-acceptance, which is what I would use to describe the level of healing, or the stage where healing actually occurs, when you're undoing these adaptive traits, these compensating strategies that ultimately form this false persona, this false self that we closely identify, that is largely just focused on looking good and quote unquote having it all together. And I talk about this in my book, because I ultimately came into awareness of this when I shared my story of sexual abuse on social media and, all of a sudden, all these masks right, all of these personality traits that I was unconscious to were completely ripped away, that being this guy who perpetually had it all together quote unquote because that's what I started to do after I was abused is I started to act as if I had it all together, as if I was successful, as if I was fine.

Speaker 3: 11:24

And how many people do we know that do this? Right? We all do this to a degree, but that is exactly what you just mentioned. It is a coping strategy or a compensating strategy in order to not have to experience pain, and that is why, for the vast majority of us, our greatest strengths is actually an adaptive trait or a compensating strategy in order to avoid experiencing pain. I'll say that one more time for everybody who's listening, so we can really wrap our minds around that, because it's part of my language. It's kind of a mindfuck when you think about it. Our greatest strength is actually an adaptation or an overcompensation to avoid experiencing pain.

Speaker 3: 12:05

My best example for this is with my story, because after I was abused, like I mentioned, the last thing that my ego wanted to have happen was to get hurt again, to get taken advantage of again. So all of a sudden, unconsciously, all of my efforts became driven by self protection. So what did I do? How did this manifest itself? I became a super high performer, three sport athlete, excelled in academics. I was even statewide recognized artist. I became obsessed with my health and fitness. So you realize very quickly that, like this high performer persona that so many of us who are in the corporate world or who are in entrepreneurship it was really just we unconsciously took it on in response to something that happened or something that didn't happen early on in childhood.

Speaker 2: 13:02

So that leaves us with a very question, which I think I'm going to now talk a little bit about this, the Jake's book Love and Time Stops when the Truth Starts. What is one to do?

Speaker 3: 13:16

That's a great question because it's always enlightening to have this conversation Like it opens up the door for us to step into a greater degree of self awareness around not just what has happened to us, but how it's shaped us. Like my sexual abuse shaped me and that's how I came into awareness of who I had become. Because I started to repeat these various patterns and even though I didn't have language for it at that time, what I would say to my clients is that the pattern always reveals the problem. So, even though I was hyper successful in business you know I was in the healthcare technology space for a while as an executive supported this startup I'm still an owner in the company in going from virtually nothing to what is now an over 400 person company. And yet on some very deep, inherent level, I was fundamentally unfulfilled and unhappy, and that is a clear cut sign that you have unresolved wounding from the past that is simply recycling itself in the present moment that nothing outside of you, nothing external, can suffice. It was never meant to.

Speaker 2: 14:30

At the same time, when one gets to that place where maybe the status quo just going through daily existence no longer feels as spelling, as perhaps ticking off the boxes, when we're younger and we think, oh, we've arrived right, got the promotion and made the grade, I'm starting to make bank and that feels right, yep, you get to that place where there's some level of enlightenment. Let's just say we're aware that that's cracked up to be, there's got to be more right, right, am.

Speaker 2: 15:00

I not made for more, or is life's meant to be something more than this? Well a next level, or at least a beginning of a deeper conversation of consciousness or conscious living? Tell me your totally.

Speaker 3: 15:15

Yeah, well, if we think about life in terms of two halves the infamous psychiatrist Carl Jung talked a lot about this, as do modern day mystics like Richard Rohr or Thomas Merton, if you're familiar with them. They talk about life in terms of two halves, the first half being all about self actualization and individuation, which is essentially what you just described. I got the promotion, I got the job that I always was hoping for, wanting and now making the money that I always wanted to make. I got the house, I got the car, I got the things. It's all about propping up oneself and, again, not that there's anything inherently wrong with the job that you really desire or a house in a car and nice things. There's nothing inherently wrong with any of those things. It's all about the unconscious motivation beneath the conscious desire for those things and, as mentioned previously in our episode, in the first half of life, what is the primary driver beneath the desire for those things? It's inadequacy and insecurity.

Speaker 2: 16:25

Speaking of love.

Speaker 3: 16:26

We all want to be accepted Correct Due to unresolved pain.

Speaker 2: 16:33

So come in. We don't want these things right. When you look at little kids, they're quite content the way things are. Some point, things shift.

Speaker 3: 16:40

Correct, right, because we've all experienced trauma, so let's just throw that out there and put that on the table. This trauma is much more about what happened inside of us as a result of what happened, compared to what actually happened, meaning the stories and the beliefs that we've made up about ourselves, other people and the world that largely shapes our actions and our decisions. We all have limiting beliefs and, furthermore, we all have a threshold in terms of what we feel safe to receive in terms of love and intimacy, financial abundance and opportunity. Anything beyond that feels like a threat to our nervous system. So what are we going to do? We are going to self-sabotage in order to return to safety. So, in order to move from the first half of life to what I would refer to as the second half of life, where in the first half it's all about self-actualization and individuation, the second half of life is all about transformation and transcendence.

Speaker 2: 17:35

The bridge between those two things is healing period and it becomes a conversation and work of the undoing, not the becoming.

Speaker 3: 17:45

Correct, which is why we don't achieve our way to our full potential. We actually die our way there. We un-become our way there. It's the great paradox that none of us want to accept in the first half of life. But the reality is is that we suffer to get well, we lose it to find it, we give it a way to keep it, we die to live. That's the truth. But in the first half of life we refuse to accept that. We would much rather get caught up in the pursuit of success, accomplishment and achievement.

Speaker 2: 18:17

Well, and we don't know any better, I think there is level of even the maturity of the young mind. You know I have a 16-year-old. He's around these conversations that we are having, so there's a lot of time they see that over there. But I've got to do this over here, right, like that we all go through and I almost feel like the journey you have to go through and what you get to the end of the other side.

Speaker 3: 18:40

Correct. Yes, I want to make that clear. There's nothing actually wrong with this stage or this phase that we're talking about, this individuation or self-actualization phase that we all go through in the first half of life. With regard to men and young boys, you talk about having a 16-year-old. They do. They do need to go through that phase where it is all about accomplishment and achievement and success, because it gives them this healthy ego structure that they need to know that I have what it takes and I can do it. The problem is, most people get stuck there. They get stuck in that phase. We were always meant to move beyond it, like this high performer persona that we all take on in an attempt to become successful. It was always meant to fall apart.

Speaker 2: 19:28

And let's just clarify Men and women. There are a lot of women I know them because I'm one of them who have a lot of those achievement right, Self-actualization through achievement. And I know a lot of folks that get stuck there well beyond midlife.

Speaker 3: 19:43

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 19:44

Well beyond midlife.

Speaker 3: 19:46

Right, because we live in a society that is largely bent on performance and achievement, which, if you grow up in religion, or if you grow up in a society like that that is bent on achievement and success and accolades it, tees you up for a life of performance. And what I mean by that is you take on these various personality traits, compensating strategies, adaptive characteristics, in order to ensure ongoing success, but it's not who you actually are. It's who you think you need to be, and that's why transformation is it's always a return home, back to your authenticity, back to your true self. That's the great paradox of life is that we're on a journey to become who we already are and to remember who we already are, we've simply forgotten.

Speaker 2: 20:43

I'm really curious, because you were coaching already, had already gotten into the coaching space before you started writing this book and before, I think, at the place you're at now, in knowing when was your aha moment, that you knew that transformation. You were clearly were in some awareness phase. But putting all the pieces together because I think a lot of people are probably initially at least, saying what he's saying resonates with me. I want to go work with him to become a high performer. You're like I'm not one. It's about yes but it is.

Speaker 3: 21:22

Yeah, I mean that inevitably ends up happening. To be clear, because the more you do this work, the more every area of your life stands to improve, whether it's your romantic relationships or simply your personal relationships, your business, your financial abundance, like your health. All of it stands to improve because you are the core of everything in your life and the core of you is your inner work, the degree of your emotional intelligence, personal development and healing. That's what dictates and determines your success in every single one of those areas. So, yes, that does happen, where people inevitably start to experience a greater degree of success in all the various aspects of our lives, between health, wealth and relationships. But it doesn't start there. The conversation can't start there. In fact, I would suggest that the first and most important question when it comes to this work, in order for it to be long lasting and sustainable, is what have you been doing with your pain? Our task is not to seek after success. Our task is to seek after and discover all of the barriers within us that stand against it.

Speaker 2: 22:36

At what point and I think this is so indicative of the paradox we go from the doing to the coming and the becoming, to the healing, and the receiving and the attracting, and not to say I don't want to overuse the word manifesting, because I know it's kind of fullerizing, but to the extent that when you work on yourself, it's not that it becomes easy, but things become easier in the sense that you're in alignment and there's a flow perhaps, and you feel a little bit more a return of self, there's a level of authenticity that exists. That's the great paradox. Also, right Like for the first half of life or more, you're out there accomplishing and conquering and doing, and it's overcompensating.

Speaker 2: 23:22

It's draining, it's a good bomb thing.

Speaker 3: 23:25

It is, but that's the path Personal development, spiritual development. It all follows three phases Construction, deconstruction, reconstruction in order to address the three various stages of life, which is overcompensation, which you just mentioned, decompensation, recompensation or proper compensation. So in the overcompensation phase, we do exactly what you just described, which is like we reach, we strive, we overextend, overexert ourselves in the name of establishing ourselves, propping ourselves up and developing ourselves. As I mentioned, all of that needs to fall apart, like this identity, this high performer persona that we unconsciously take on in an attempt to become successful. That is not genuinely authentically us. That has to fall away. That happens during the deconstruction phase and that's where we go through growth and healing. And then, after we've come out of that phase, is when we go into this reconstruction phase, where it's much less about ourselves and much more about others and stepping into giving and contribution, being of higher service to humanity and a purpose that is so much bigger than ourselves.

Speaker 2: 24:39

How does one know when the healing has fully occurred or does it ever fully occur? Number one and number two, that deconstruction phase. How does one know when hey, I'm guessing there's overlap, right, you're going through deconstruction and reconstruction. Probably at some point there's a little bit of happening at the same time, totally yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 25:04

There's always this wobbling phase that we go through, where we're trying to find our legs. We're almost learning how to walk again, because we're no longer self-identifying with these personality traits that used to describe us. But we unconsciously go back to that because it's what we're habituated to, Because if you're 3035, it's very likely that a lot of these adaptive traits or compensating strategies you've taken on and reinforced for 25 plus years.

Speaker 2: 25:37

Because 70% of that I would make that phase. You're humming at a really good rate challenge, right, oh, totally yeah.

Speaker 3: 25:44

And so all of this starts when we're around two years old, and so, by the time you're 30, you're completely unconscious to the fact that these various personality traits that you have are actually compensating strategies or adaptive traits that are not genuinely authentically who you are, but who you think you need to be. That ultimately keeps you at odds within yourself and separates you from not just your full potential, but a higher power and a higher purpose. Those are the only things that can bring lasting fulfillment. To be clear, and that's why all of this work, all of this transformational personal development work, if it doesn't put you on the path towards a higher purpose and a higher power, you need to get rid of it. I don't care if it's working with a personal trainer, I don't care what the focus of it is. If you're hiring a business consultant to help you scale your business not that there's anything wrong with those things but if you are not actively, consistently, working towards a relationship with a higher purpose and a higher power, you need to reevaluate what you're investing in, because that's ultimately where we all have to get to if we ever hope to reach lasting fulfillment, the piece that surpasses all understanding. That's the only thing that will do it. Nothing outside of us will ever be able to suffice.

Speaker 3: 27:09

I coach a lot of highly successful people because I have a corporate background just like you who come to me who have achieved a lot and yet, on some level, they are empty and wanting, and they don't know why. Why do I feel this way? I've accomplished everything that I've put my mind to or set out to do, and yet here I am, having achieved it, and on some inherent level, I'm unhappy and I'm unfulfilled. That is a very dark, lonely place, especially if you don't know what to do about it, and that's where someone like myself comes in.

Speaker 2: 27:47

Where were you, Jake Coppen, when I was 26 years old, going to graphic school and working full time, going 150 miles an hour and realizing that all the things that I had been told quote unquote be grateful for? You are the it girl. That's all I'm putting for you. It is amazing. You are doing it. You've left a small town, You're in the big city, You're conquering, and why? And?

Speaker 3: 28:13

that's great and that's great.

Speaker 2: 28:14

And that was really great for a little while. Correct, and I was quite young so could not reconcile. Then why do I feel so empty? It can take a very scary toll on somebody who isn't yet in the emotional maturity phase of understanding that this is the way.

Speaker 3: 28:32

Yep, that's normal. It's normal. All of these things have to end up proving to be incomplete and insufficient in terms of helping you establish and achieve happiness, because that's what then forces you to go on this further journey where you all of a sudden pursue a higher purpose and a higher power, because it's only those things that offer a higher force for living and being. That's why they're so important. I mean, how many people do you know have achieved an incredible amount, and it wasn't until they found spirituality that, all of a sudden, they started to become happy and achieve fulfillment. Right, because spirituality, which I'm using more as a blanket term to describe a higher purpose and a higher power, that is the only higher force for living that seems to do the trick for us in terms of long lasting fulfillment.

Speaker 2: 29:32

So you just set me up to go and cut this path for a little bit, because I want to hear about how it happened for you. Here I was literally on the verge of. My health was deteriorating, I was burning out, I was feeling empty and lonely. What is the purpose? What's the meaning? It's all for nothing. I've given it all and I'm in a place Ultimately.

Speaker 2: 29:53

I won't give you away the punchline here, but ultimately it did turn into an inward journey very young for me and that was sort of the advent and this is going back a while now when we had the Deepak Chopra was coming out and Wayne Dyer starting and Marianne Williamson was just out with like, and it spoke so resonantly to that place I was. Now it wasn't like we talked about this earlier. There was no light switch that completely went off and stayed on. This feels so radically different and authentic and real and, like me, this is some space where I can coexist. This feels better Again. I went on a very long journey, even beyond that moment, but that was probably the beginning for me. When was that moment for you and what was happening? Because, god knows, this guidebook does not exist. He handed the life manual of. Here are the three stages of life we're gonna go through.

Speaker 3: 30:48

So just try this as normal, all the stuff that dark place you find yourself in.

Speaker 2: 30:54

Don't fret, it's okay. That would be helpful.

Speaker 3: 30:58

Yes, would be very helpful.

Speaker 2: 30:59

We should probably talk about that.

Speaker 3: 31:01

Maybe that's your.

Speaker 2: 31:01

But you have so much insight and you're in a place of knowing. That is not common and I'm very curious how did you get here, what was it for you and how did you connect all these dots?

Speaker 3: 31:20

Great question. And well, my book literally starts off with me. So this would have been in my mid-20s when I started to notice that, despite my current level of success, I was repeating these various patterns that prevented me from getting to the next level. Simply put so intuitively, I was like, okay, I need to figure out what's behind this, like what is driving these various behavior patterns that's preventing me or blocking me from being more successful than I already am.

Speaker 3: 31:50

And that's when I started going to therapy and seeing a counselor, and it was in our first few sessions where we ultimately came into a relationship with the fact that I had been sexually abused when I was roughly 12 or 13 years old, which at the time was simply treated as a joke. And so what did I do? As a 13-year-old? I treated it as a joke, so I didn't label it for what it actually was that being abused. I just brushed it under the rug and just ignored it, until in my mid-to-late 20s.

Speaker 3: 32:24

Here I am kind of bumping up against this glass ceiling and I'm having this like upper limit moment where I've achieved a certain level of success, but I'm having a difficult time going beyond that and reaching the next level and being that much more successful. And I'm like what is going on here? I can't figure this out. And so that's when I was finally able to connect the dots, because I was like, oh, this experience created a very deep-seated fear of intimacy and connection Because, as you can probably imagine, after someone experiences abuse or assault, whether it's sexual, physical or otherwise oftentimes the result is feeling fundamentally unsafe with regard to deep connection, vulnerability and intimacy, all of these things that are kind of required to create or experience success in relationship, whether it's a romantic relationship, whether it's a professional relationship or a personal relationship, platonic relationship.

Speaker 3: 33:25

And so, finally, I was able to connect the dots and be like, oh, it's because of this that I have become this way. I've taken on these various compensating strategies, survival strategies, personality characteristics and traits that is blocking me or preventing me from being more successful than I already am. And that's what sent me down the path of transformation, because it was this catalyzing moment of coming into full relationship with who I had become, in response to pain that was preventing me from stepping into more purposeful living and reaching my full potential, the moment I started down that path, like you mentioned, this growth journey that we all talk about. It's very much peeling back the layers of an onion, like the moment you think you've figured it out, it's like, oh, and there's another layer which is In that role in the example.

Speaker 2: 34:17

Yeah, Exactly?

Speaker 3: 34:18

yep, absolutely, and so that's very normal. But it wasn't until years later, through the process of this unfolding, because most people will hire a coach for three months or go see a therapist for a year and then they're like I'm good and it's like well, you've spent two or three decades overcompensating. You've just been doing it unconsciously and further reinforcing these personality traits that are not actually you, that are blocking you from getting to the next level or reaching your full potential. Like it doesn't work that way. This has to become a lifestyle if you wanna hope to achieve some relative level of self mastery. I was actually talking with a client about this yesterday. One of my clients is he's a natural bodybuilder, and the before and after picture that he uses because obviously that's what he supports his clients with is their physical fitness. The gap is 12 years between before he found fitness and where he is at today, because you look at him and you're like, oh hey, clearly this guy he's won bodybuilding competitions and all of these various awards, so one would say that he has reached a certain level of quote unquote self mastery. But the gap is 12 years. That's a long time, and so this has to become a lifestyle. Let's just get that out on the table.

Speaker 3: 35:37

First and foremost, it has to become a lifestyle, but for me, it wasn't until four years in to my growth journey. So here I am. That entire time, I've been consistently working with either a coach or a therapist. I've been consistently attending workshops, seminars, experiential group programs all aimed at personal growth and development that I posted my story of sexual abuse on social media and my nervous system collapsed as a result of that. Because the level of connection was too much. Ah, because all of a sudden, I started to receive all of these messages from people like close friends and family members and coworkers, but also people I didn't even know and had never been connected to, because I shared it on Facebook and Instagram, so it was public, so anybody could see it. So I'm receiving an abundance of like text messages and phone calls and DMs from my closest friends and family members, all the way to clients and people that I've never met before who have experienced something similar. So the level of connection was just too much for my nervous system, and so the way to think about it is I essentially experienced a panic attack on steroids.

Speaker 3: 36:55

So here I am, four years into my growth journey again and I'm thinking like, okay, I've got this right, I'm pretty far along. I really know myself and all of the different limiting beliefs and interpersonal blocks and barriers, and I've worked through a lot of those things and now, all of a sudden, I feel like I'm at the beginning again, because here I am, having shared this incredibly shameful part of my story that I mean, yes, for 15 years I was very unconscious, too right, and I wasn't properly labeling the experience for what it was. But here I am, four years into having identified that experience for what it was, and I still haven't shared it with really anyone outside of my parents and a very, very close friend. That was it. So in many ways it was still very, very much a secret, and if you're familiar with the work of Brinette Brown, she says that shame needs three things to thrive, and that secrecy, silence and judgment.

Speaker 3: 37:57

And so, despite my progress because I had made a ton of progress, of course that's when I started to get into healthcare and the company exploded.

Speaker 3: 38:07

And here I am as this equity owner like making a lot of money, more than I ever had before in my life, and we're achieving an incredible degree of success. I think we had just successfully raised a series, a round of funding, so over $7 million. Here I am thinking I've got it all together and I share my story on social media, which was very much inspired by wanting to inspire other people to step into their own growth and healing. And here I am feeling like I'm a beginner yet again, because now I'm starting to experience all of these health problems as a result of, like these recurring panic attacks that came from the level of vulnerability that was created when, all of a sudden, I shared my story and I just couldn't take it, because all of these masks that I started to unconsciously wear at 12, 13 years old, this guy that has it all together quote, unquote. That's quote unquote successful or quote unquote fine All of that was ripped away in that moment.

Speaker 2: 39:02

At the same time, I'm curious. The level of connection and resonance that you created by sharing your story had to have just had this ripple effect out in the world. You able to be in receipt of any of that connection, or was it overload for you?

Speaker 3: 39:22

It was absolutely overload. Conveying. That is defined as anything that's too much, too soon, too fast, or too slow, too little, not enough, and so for me it was definitely too much, too soon, too fast. I never could have predicted that that would have happened because, again, I had been working on myself for like four years now and I thought that I had reconciled this experience in a very big way, and I had. I had simply done so within the context of my relationship with myself. But transformation isn't complete until it's integrated within the context of our relationships and community, and that's what happened is, all of a sudden, I shared this shameful secret with my broader network, my community, and that's where my next layer of growth and healing revealed itself.

Speaker 2: 40:13

Thank you for sharing that. Tell me a little bit about, maybe, the misperception or the lack of awareness or understanding that people have about the coaching journey when they start with you, because I'm sure they go in thinking it's one thing and then they find out during the process that it's not necessarily what they thought.

Speaker 3: 40:36

Sure, well, I'll be honest with you, I'm fairly transparent with my clients that this is ultimately the path that we need to take in order for you to accomplish your goals, get to the next level, reach your full potential.

Speaker 3: 40:51

This is the path that we have to take, because reconstruction without deconstruction will always be incomplete and insufficient.

Speaker 3: 40:59

It will be like building a house on sand, and there's no greater evidence to reinforce that fact than what I mentioned earlier, which is, 90% of people who end up hiring a coach or a personal trainer or a business consultant, they ultimately end up returning to their former level of behavior and results. We see this very predominantly with binge eating and yo-yo dieting, for example. Most people simply rubber band back after the coaching. The support and the accountability is removed, which is why yo-yo dieting is such a pervasive problem. So, in my mind, that's all the evidence that you need to know that you have to start with addressing the internal blocks and barriers that are preventing you from getting to the next level or reaching the next level of success in your life. Remember that looks like for you, because everyone's definition of success, of course, is different and it's very subjective conversation, but you have to start there if you actually want it to stick, if you want it to be long lasting and sustainable.

Speaker 2: 42:01

I'm curious because you said something earlier that makes me think that this is what you were suggesting.

Speaker 2: 42:07

But the pursuit of that success, but however you want to define it, is insufficient in itself for that piece and the piece that surpasses all understanding that we all want in our lives that it really is about that greater impact, your purpose for being what you're going to do out in the world, whatever that is higher purpose, correct?

Speaker 2: 42:29

I'm assuming it's different for everybody and how it manifests. But the focus on that versus the building of the next thing and the reconstruction phase, I'm very curious because I see a lot of people going. I'm just focused, now that I am in this personal development space, on becoming the best phone blank entrepreneur sure, all that I can be. At the same time, I'm curious whether there's a different way of approaching it, which is in the pursuit of impact and purpose. Maybe that becomes the way rather than, as you I think you were saying even earlier people get really caught up and I got to build this business and it has to look this way and I have to do these things. And how do you reconcile that pull and that tug as we go through that transformation process?

Speaker 3: 43:21

Well, I do think that on some level, the desire for more is natural and normal. In many ways, I think that desire is expansion seeking to express itself. I think Victor Frankel sums this up really perfectly. If you're familiar with him, he wrote a book called Man's Search for Meaning. Some background Nietzsche his philosophy was will to power, that man is driven by his pursuit and his desire for power.

Speaker 3: 43:51

Freud came along and said I don't think that's true. His philosophy was will to pleasure. Man's primary motivation is the pursuit of pleasure. Then Victor Frankel came along and said I don't think that's true. I think it's will to purpose, that man's primary need is for meaning and significance and purpose. So he wrote this book called Man's Search for Meaning, and I think this quote sums it up perfectly, which is don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you're going to miss it.

Speaker 3: 44:23

For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued. It must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself, or as the byproduct of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success. You have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscious commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge and ability. Then you will live to see that, in the long run, success will follow you, precisely because you have forgotten to think about it.

Speaker 2: 44:59

Well, that's a mic drop moment and while I would love to spend the whole day with you, I'm very conscious of the fact that we're probably out of time, but I thank you previously for everything you've given us today. Let people know where they can find you. We obviously are going to have the links to your activity and your book in show notes, but why don't you go ahead? For those that are listening right now, they can get it and do a quick search for you.

Speaker 3: 45:27

Yeah, so the best place to interact with me is on my Instagram, which is imjakecoffman. That's K-A-U-F-F-M-A-N. Otherwise, you can always go to my website, awakewithjakecom. You can sign up for our newsletter and then, like you mentioned, you can find my book on Amazon. Let Love In the Painstops when the Truth Starts, by Jacob Coffman.

Speaker 2: 45:47

Jake, thank you so much. This has been such a wonderful conversation. It was everything and more than I was expecting. I hope that you'll come back so we can continue, and I feel like we've just scrapped the surface and there's so much more to uncover. But thank you again for everything for your honesty, for your vulnerability and for your light. You really are a true light in this world. Thank you.

Speaker 3: 46:11

Thank you, michelle, I appreciate you having me.

Speaker 1: 46:18

Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you enjoyed this podcast episode, please take a moment to rate and review. If you have recommendations for future topics, please reach out to me at michellereosofficialcom. Lastly, please consider supporting this podcast by sharing it. Together, we can reach, inspire and positively impact more people. Thank you.