The Undeniable Leader with Rob Cressy

Creating Peace No Matter What's Happening Around You

• Rob Cressy

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How do you create peace in your life no matter what's happening around you? In this episode of Built For The Game, Rob Cressy is joined by Jared Kott as they share a relatable story of turning challenges into opportunities to embody peace.

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SPEAKER_00

If you dig this podcast and are prioritizing your growth in the world of AI and chat GBT plus self-development and mindset, then go to RobCressy.com backslash newsletter and sign up for my newsletter. I publish it every Monday and share the best tips, resources, and videos for being exceptional in all areas of your business and life, plus the free masterclasses I host every month. Once again, go to RobCressy.com backslash newsletter. How do you create peace in your life no matter what is happening around you? What's good? I'm Rob Cressy and welcome to Bill for the Game, and I am 15 out of 10 excited for this conversation with my friend Jared Cott. Jared, how you doing today?

SPEAKER_01

Rob, I'm doing awesome. I'm typically not a one-upper, but I'll tell you, being around you and with your energy, I gotta say right now, I'm at a 16 out of a 10. I'm really excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely love this. And today has the opportunity to be one of the most impactful conversations that you ever hear because of a transformation that I had years ago, but you just had a light bulb moment in your life around how to create peace no matter what's going on in your world. And you and I have been coaching together for the last few years, last few months. And one of the topics that came up in conversation was around creating peace in your life. And I shared uh my story of how I created that with my coach, and then uh this was happening around 4th of July weekend, and then you went out on your own journey, and you had the opportunity to live this and create a realization in a way that is the most normal and relatable possible. And I wanted to bring you on to share your story about how you created this peace in your life because it is very universal in the concept, as well as you turned your phone into a trigger for peace, and we're going to share how all of that happened. So, Jared, let's start at the very beginning around why in the world we had a conversation around peace in the beginning.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, awesome intro. So, on on one of our recent coaching sessions, I brought up to you that I love entrepreneurship, I love challenges, I love everything that comes with that. But equally, I also love to have moments of peace in my life, which then led to uh, well, sometimes peace isn't can can we really create it at any one moment in time? And your answer was we can. So we began to go down that uh that rabbit hole of kind of uncovering what some of those tools could be and how do we actually create that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and the the foundation for all of this became my own realization that peace is just a choice and that we can choose to be at peace with everything because you can either choose to be a victim to the story that you're telling yourself, or you can choose to be at peace, because the original uh thing for me was I had said to my coach for the last decade of my life, I've thought about my entrepreneurial journey all day, every day, nonstop, and it's just looped in my head, and I don't want to always be thinking about it. And he goes, Rob, by design as an entrepreneur, you're always growing and doing something you have never done before. Therefore, you're always going to be thinking about it. So you can either choose to be a victim at the thought that you're always thinking about your entrepreneurial journey, or you can choose to be at peace with the fact that you're always gonna be thinking about it. It does not mean that you are not thinking about your journey, but it means that you have created peace about the fact that you're always gonna be thinking about this. And man, once he said that to me, it felt so good. I was like, man, that's just unbelievable. It's like peace is just a choice. I was like, I feel it. But then the little light bulb went off for me, and I was like, Well, if I can choose to be at peace with the fact that I'm always thinking about my entrepreneurial journey, can't I then just choose to be at peace with everything going on in my life? He's like, Yeah, Rob. I was like, oh, I want to capture this and turn into a declaration because boom, it clicked for me, and he puts me on the spot and he's like, Cool, Rob, what do you got? And I'm like, I am that I'm at peace with everything in an instant. It's like my world went from black and white to color, and since that moment, I've been floating on clouds like a care bear because I embodied and understood that peace is just a choice. And this is the same story that I told you. And Jared, as the next step in this, can you share what was on the horizon for you in that specific day? Because we're heading into 4th of July weekend, and why peace was top of mind for you as a business owner or a lack thereof?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, totally. So as the conversation developed, one um there was there's a lot of emotions leading up to 4th of July, right? I one, I love that holiday. Uh, 4th of July and Thanksgiving are just two of my favorites. Uh, I love that time of year, but I also have um so I have an Airbnb that I block off for the 4th of July, the week of 4th of July. And um, I bring friends, family, and this year we decided to bring um a large part on whoever chose to come from our Marblestone team here in Chicago. We do property management. So there wasn't there wasn't stress involved with the people coming. I'm a people person, I I really enjoy that aspect of it. It was my own piece. How do I stay present in the moments so I don't miss them? Because I've got all these great people around me, and I want to be present with stacking the piece. So that's uh that's how the conversation led. Um, I don't want to go too early into the hook, but I'm happy that you can.

SPEAKER_00

So it's like, okay, okay, so we set the intention rolling into this. You're like, hey Rob, I know what this is going to be like. Hey, I'm gonna carve out a little hour or two here and there where I can do my work away from everybody where I'm not concerned that I'm completely off the grid, but at the same time, I'm gonna enjoy this holiday and give myself the gift of peace for this. It's like, okay, boom, shot lock of 4th of July, here comes everybody. I've set the rules or like how I'm gonna be playing this game, and then what ended up happening?

SPEAKER_01

Um, so much like many things in life, it rarely does it ever go as we plan it. Um, so there was a lot of great things going on. Cars and guests were showing up. Uh, so I said to some of the folks that came earlier, do you guys want to go for a boat ride? And let me set the scene, right? So um I wasn't the best in school, so I don't remember if they were cumulus or or what series clouds, but they were nice, puffy clouds. And the humidity was probably sitting somewhere around 31-32%. There was a gentle breeze coming from the southwest, and I looked around and everyone goes, Great time for a boat ride, let's go. So we jump on the boat and we go around this lake, and I there's a couple sandbars. So I said, How how how deep do you think it would be here, guys? And most of these people haven't never been on that lake or smaller lakes and such. So some people say, I maybe it looks like it'd probably be 40 feet, maybe the depth of the lake, because we're you know in the middle of the lake. So I went out and tell them it's about four feet, and below me is nothing but beautiful golden sand. And I said, It's a beautiful day. You guys don't have to, but I'm gonna jump in and I'm gonna enjoy myself in the lake. So I did the quick, I did the pat down. All right, there's everything out of my pockets, and uh, you know, ripped my shirt off, threw the sandals on the side, popped in. I didn't realize I was in there uh enjoying the lake. Other people jumped in until I came back onto the boat. I went up the ladder, and for some reason I did a pat, and these uh these shorts had a a more of a higher pocket. So when I let's say mid-thigh is where I tapped, the phone sat upper thigh, and I went, whoa! Um, yeah, my iPhone was just in these shorts for 15 minutes. And I looked at it, there was still power, uh, you know, power in the charge of the phone, and I immediately went back to our conversation. Um, now I'm gonna be honest, I had confusion at this moment. I'm like, okay, I want the piece, but the phone was in the water, and logically this isn't gonna work well, blah, blah. So we there was a lot of ideas. Put in a bucket of rice, dry it off. I have uh in the property management company, one of the guys uh said, You should get a leaf blower, dry it off. Sorry, get back to the house, we'll go through some of these strategies. I dropped it in some rice overnight, and for the first night, I said, What will be will be. I'm at peace, and I found myself still looking for my phone, although I knew I put it in the rice. That night, let's say it was uh Thursday, I was forced. Okay, it was a choice, but I was still forced without this exterior item to disallow me peace. And I became super, super present with moments of, I wonder if the rice is gonna work. And if the rice doesn't work, will the will the blower work? But at any rate, uh that's that's where that's that's where we went to uh on the lake, in the phone, phones cooked.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so now peaceful moment has life's chaos coming here, doing strategies to rectify this, but now we're thinking about the thinking about is this thing going to work or not? So now your mind's moving, just like mine did back in the day. And then you wake up the next morning, you go into the phone, and what do you see?

unknown

Dead.

SPEAKER_01

Black screen. So I went into like, you know, the seven stages of grief. I I couldn't get to acceptance right away. So I looked around for my phone charger, Rob, and I said, It's probably the phone charger. I plugged in the phone, it was still dead. And uh I tried the leaf blower, still dead. All the while, while I was working with the phone, fiddling it, blowing it with uh air blower, I was like, what if I just write this phone off mentally for a couple days? And by the way, on the 4th of July, I can't even get to an Apple store, they're not gonna be open. So I'm gonna let this be. That that for this 4th of July was the most present I've ever been for a couple reasons. One, for the conversations that we had and knowing that peace is a choice, um, because I'm telling you, I'm a pretty calm guy, but this would have really rocked me if we didn't work together and sort of talk about this. Now, I also don't believe that things uh just randomly happen in life. I just I don't believe it. I believe there's just things things happen for a reason, there's bigger signs. Um, and that became kind of the mantra of like, wow, like what are the odds here that this would happen in this moment in time? And I would actually be at peace during a holiday weekend. Um, you know, property management doesn't sleep. Tenants have issues, right? There's always things going on. Um so I also asked myself, what if I was a tenant of this Airbnb and something went wrong? An air conditioner blew or something. It would be very difficult for me on the 4th of July at say between two o'clock and midnight. No matter the resources, income, connections, you have to come to some sort of acceptance to go, it's not happening. And that's what I got to quickly uh with the phone. It's just not gonna happen and everything will be okay.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, cool. So now it's like not gonna have the phone today on the 4th of July, gonna attempt to give myself this gift of peace. And now we're gonna move on the next day to where you're like, all right, what am I going to do about getting a phone? Um, are we feeling um more in control of the story? Are we um working through the rumblings? Let's now move this along. So phone's dead, but now we actually do want to get a phone the next day. Where are we going? What's happening?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I remember it well. Um so first day is what it is. That's like called it the half day of losing it. Then there's the full day, 4th of July, where like I really didn't have even an option. But now I have a choice of options. Doors are open, uh, but like, do I really do I leave my guest and drive for an hour and try to remember all these passwords? I just said, I think I'm gonna go, I'm gonna make the choice to go another day without this phone. I still realized, have it, I was checking it, but I was okay at this point. And what the anchor of the okayness was was that, and I'm not I'm not judging, I would be one of these people often too, who um I'm gonna work on this moving forward. But as I was full, I am fully present, I have no distraction anymore, which used to be the phone. So now that I don't have the phone, my awareness to everything is exploding around me. The the awareness and the focus is no longer on, well, I gotta get to the Best Buy. And if Best Buy doesn't have the phone, I gotta go to Apple. No, no, no, no. It's just like not happening. What's in front of me? And what I got to see was people like in enjoying lakes. Uh I saw people first time catching fish. Uh I have an old school bow and arrow kit. I got to see people for the first time in their life shoot a bow and arrow. Everything that was happening around me was not being captured on the photo of my camera. It was being captured, Rob, in the photo of my mind. That that's one of the huge beauties here.

SPEAKER_00

So all of a sudden, all of a sudden now, you breaking your phone actually gave you the opportunity to see the piece that was around you that was always there, that the phone the entire time had actually been distracting you from uh in a very habitual way that we all understand. Because, as you say, the reflex of where's my phone? What am I gonna do? I'm always working, I've got to be all of this, versus the man. Look at everybody and all of these memories right there. So you finally do get to an Apple store and you get a phone, but guess what? The world's like you're not done learning lessons yet. How?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so some of the guests began to leave after call it like three days. So, like the crowd sort of thing, but there was still a chunk of people that were hanging on, and I said, guys, you know what? I'm making a choice. It just works in my schedule. I'm gonna go and make the 45-minute drive. I get to the Apple store, uh, buy the phone, customer service is great. And um, before I bought the phone, I'm like, I'm not the I'm not the best with tech. So I was one, I'll buy the phone, but you gotta walk me through like getting my stuff back, right? I got a lot of contacts and emails. They said, no problem. Um buy the phone, take it out of the box. We're all excited. And the guy was like, Yeah, so uh all we need is like your Apple password. And I'm like, You're not gonna believe this. I was like, I I don't I don't know that because I save it and I haven't had a new phone in three years, so I don't know. So I'm like, but I don't have 500 passwords, so let me go to my go-to's. So I go, put the go-to in number one, nope, fail. Well, that's cool. I got I got another go-to. Put that in fail. Now the Apple guy says, hey, um, just gotta let you know. If you put the third one in and it's inaccurate, you're gonna be locked out for five days. And I said, Yeah, no problem, it's gotta be the third one. So we're cool, boom, boom, boom, fail. It didn't smoke, it didn't blow up, but it surely said, you've been locked out for five days. So that means no, no contacts, no apps. Um, good news is like I have a couple numbers, like my wife, in case I need to call her, I can call her. But it was like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I took time out of my dad, went to the Apple store, we had this agreement, and I was gonna walk out of here with my stuff the way that I remembered it before. And it didn't happen that way. So I think, God, the universe, whatever you want to feel, was like, you know what, three days was good, but a guy like you probably needs six to eight to really get it deep inside. And uh, as I drove back to the to Michigan, uh, that's how I processed that. I was like, I'll figure it out. This will be alright. It's just not gonna happen right now.

SPEAKER_00

All right, so we're now gonna wrap about on this story because it was, I don't know, maybe a week ago. You're sharing this exact thing. So, like uh every single call, it's like, hey Jared, tell me something good that happened in the last week, and boom, we just we're right out of the gate cooking on peace. So we're now having back-to-back sessions all around peace. The first one about the discovery, now about the embodiment of it, and I can feel your emotion and the light bulb moments and how important and impactful this has been for you. And can you share this here in terms of the all right, cool? So you got your phone, eventually, all this stuff works out. It was it was a long-winded story of the piece, but there's the levels to the game because this is the most normal and relatable thing. And for all of us, that we think that peace is some sort of magic bullet, or some people have it, or some people don't. But one of the best things can actually be is your ability to create it when you least expect it, when your world is full of chaos, because the reality is when you're living everyday life, it's not always puppy dogs and rainbows that you want peace for most often when you don't have it. And this becomes a perspective that, oh, wait a second, peace is just a choice. So you came back and you're like, Rob, this completely changed my life. Why?

SPEAKER_01

Well, with your help and some self-awareness, the gift that now I have in my phone, now that I have in my hand, which is my phone, is now the anchor to when I see the phone and I see other people's phones. What does this represent to me? That story. What does that story now represent to me? Peace in chaotic moments. That's that's the that's the true that's the true gift that now I get to carry in my pocket all the time. Is the this phone has now become the gift of peace.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so what we ended up creating is that the phone is a trigger for peace, and that since peace is just a choice and it is always accessible for us, and it can be easy to get caught up in life like the way that things were three weeks ago before all of this, it goes, well, how in the world do I remind myself that peace is just a choice to give myself this gift? If only there was something that I could connect this story to my peace that I see all the time and that I touch all the time. And it's like, oh, my phone can become a trigger for peace is just a choice. So if I ever want to give myself the gift of peace, I can just look at my phone, and the next level becomes you got to experience what it was like to not use your phone in the gift that that gave you. So now not having your phone is another action you can create to create peace. So seeing the phone can create the peace, putting your phone away can also create the peace. And all of a sudden, you then say, Well, wait a second, it doesn't have to just be my phone. This can be anybody's phone because maybe you're sitting there at dinner with your wife and she's on her phone, and all of a sudden you start to get all huffy with yourself of like, why are we out to dinner? Her and she's on the phone right now, and you're like, well, wait a second, what's that in her hand right now? It's a phone. Phone is an opportunity for peace. And then you look around your life, and there are phones everywhere, people on their phones, and you're like, holy smokes! I now have an ever-present awareness that peace is just a choice because we have turned phones into a trigger. And once we co-created that together, I was like, thank you very much, Jared. I am now accepting that phone is a trigger for me for peace, because seeing your own transformation and your own story, and it's why we are sharing this right now. Because to me, it was like light bulb, light bulb, light bulb, light bulb, click, got it. And I was like, oh, I could relate to your journey of something happening to my phone. I can relate to your journey of being an entrepreneur and a business owner on a holiday weekend who's still thinking about work, yet is up in a lake house with a boat with friends and coworkers and all of this, and how we sometimes don't give ourselves the gift of peace. And then life throws a curveball out of nowhere, and it's like, boom, I was all peaceful until I wasn't. And it's like, wow, there are so many just everyday life lessons in this that we all go through. And my encouragement to everyone listening or watching right now is that audit this in your own life. Yes, maybe this is a story about a phone, but the phone can be replaced with any number of things, even though, from a trigger perspective, a phone is an unbelievable one for us to choose as a trigger for peace because you're always going to be seeing it. But instead of it being lake and phone, what is that for you? And my encouragement is honor yourself and ask yourself, where do you not feel at peace right now? And where are you choosing the story of a victim? And all this is is the way that you're seeing and telling yourself that this is what's happening. Jared, in your instance, you had the opportunity to say, my phone is now dead. I'm about to go crazy for the next 48 hours because what if something happens in my business? That is a choice of a story, that's what a victim could say. Or you also have the opportunity to say, you know what, there's nothing I can do. It's the 4th of July. I'm just gonna give myself the gift of peace. And does this mean that this is always easy? No, 0%. But this is exactly why we do it. Because it is not easy, but peace is always accessible for us when we understand it is just a choice. And once you get through all of these dominoes, we can then embed it for ourselves, and then the next level of embedding it is creating the trigger for it to say, Oh, I've got that ever-present reminder of it, because what I never want you to say on a call, Jared, is you know what, Rob, I forgot how to create peace in my life.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, you nailed it. You nailed it for any uh for any listeners out there. Um, you know, phones are relatable. If if you really want to give this a shot, my my recommendation is uh you pick your own holiday, but um take your phone on a holiday weekend and just toss it in a lake. Toss it in a lake, and then you will really find some true peace. Um, I'm kidding. I it it's it's become a um it's a story that I've told, you know, to my team here at at Marblestone, and we begin to laugh about it. But there's also, you know, a couple weeks go by. There's all sorts of stressful moments. And lately a couple of the guys have just picked up their phone and been like, yeah, but we're okay. I'm okay with it. And they just tap their phone. You know what I mean? So that the trigger is now being passed on and the and the meaning is being passed on to other people, which is really pretty awesome, too. So uh yeah, it's it's a gift, it's a true gift.

SPEAKER_00

And that, Jared, is exactly why we're having this conversation. Uh, I don't often bring clients on to talk about something specific from a coaching conversation, except for the fact that you're like, Rob, I'm okay sharing this with other people because this can help other people because of how much it's helped me. Yes, I bring clients on um further on down the road to talk about elements of a transformational journey that we've had together in various levels. And certainly you and I have created that. And I thank you for this because this is something that uh isn't for you and I. Yes, we got to experience this together, but you saw the opportunity to say, hey, Rob, um, I would love to be able to share this. And not only are you sharing this with your team, you can now actually share this exact thing right now. This can go live inside of your culture. We can share this with other people. Um, do you have any parting shot or gift to someone who is on this journey of wanting to create peace in their life no matter what is going on, whether they're an entrepreneur, a high performer, a parent. What do you say to them of what you learn and how you'll leave them with this?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's an awesome question. I mean, I try to keep things really simple in my life. Um, and one of the one of the beliefs that I have and the anchors that I have is like truly nothing lasts forever. So, like if you're if you're in a storm and you can decide how big that storm is, like, one, it's not gonna last forever. So, like, let's get to the truth as fast as possible. And then the the second thing is like it's okay to have things in our life go a little astray. But what's not okay is to stay in like a victim mindset or why did this happen to me. There's no serving there. So, you know, I think acceptance is a big piece. Um, you know, I have it actually tattooed on my back. It's something that really is meaningful. I think keeping things truthful, not worse than what they are, right? The phone phone, like the whole business is gonna shatter. No, that's not that's not true, right? Keep things for what they are, and um, you know, it is is goofy or wacky or inspirational as these conversations may be, like share stories like this with other people when they have it because they're relatable, and I love hearing stuff like this because why? Because it strengthens my faith in humanity and getting through different things. So share it, believe it, stay with your truth, and don't overthink stuff. Things do have a way to work out if we put our best foot forward.

SPEAKER_00

Love that, and my parting shot is all around being willing to give yourself the gift of going on this journey for peace. Um, it's a very challenging one when you are not there because we feel it. I felt it for a decade in a row, that loop in my head over and over and over and over again until I had a conversation with my coach where I was on the receiving end of the coaching. I was in the exact same position as you, Jared. My own use case where I was like, hey, I'm ready for this to not be a thing anymore because there's got to be a better way for me to live than what's going through my mind right now. And boom, that domino created the domino and the perspective for me that legitimately changed myself. And it changed the rest of my life. Because once you've seen this realization and you see that peace is just a choice and you can give yourself this gift at any moment, then why would you ever not do this? So, my encouragement is if you're sitting there and you vibe with this on any level, reach out to me. Let's have a conversation about how we can create some of this in your life. Obviously, there's more layers to this, but this is a small little peek into it because Jared and I are both great examples of what is possible when you let go of the victim mentality and you give yourself that gift of peace. So, Jared, thank you so very much for sharing this. Uh, where can everybody connect with you and Marblestone and what you guys do?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you can just Google us, Marblestone Property Group, um, or you can you can hit us up um at info at marblestone pg like the movie.com.

SPEAKER_00

Wonderful. And I would love to hear from you. Is there anything that we talked about today that inspired you or caused you to think and take action? You can hit me up on all social media platforms at Rob Cressy.