Keep Hope Alive Podcast
Keep Hope Alive through the power of knowing who you are as a person and expressing self-love. Life is a journey and with the blank pages we create our story. Keep Hope Alive is about the power of knowledge in today's world. ALL topics are welcomed.
Keep Hope Alive Podcast
Dallas Collins's Guide to True Self-Contentment
What if the key to true happiness lies not in what you achieve, but in how you perceive your own journey? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Dallas Collins, the insightful author of "The Gift is Present," as we uncover this profound idea. Dallas opens up about his own experiences with trauma and the path he took to transform those challenges into a deep understanding of self-love and happiness. His stories, intertwined with wisdom, serve as a reminder of the power of living fully in the present moment, free from the confines of past regrets and future anxieties.
We dive into the art of being present, advocating that happiness isn't a distant goal but a state accessible to us right now. Together, we reflect on how societal norms often mislead us into equating success with material wealth, when true fulfillment comes from within. With personal anecdotes and thoughtful insights, the discussion reveals how shifting our perspective from external achievements to internal contentment can profoundly impact our lives. Learn how embracing this mindset can transform your everyday experiences, allowing you to truly savor the moment and appreciate life as it unfolds.
Empower yourself with practical tools for well-being, health, and happiness as we discuss radical responsibility and the interconnectedness of our physical, mental, and social lives. Discover the Step System and Fit Five Life, frameworks designed to help you make incremental changes that lead to significant transformations. Dallas shares the importance of letting go of emotional baggage and societal expectations, encouraging a life where love, presence, and authentic joy become the guiding principles. Tune in for an inspiring episode that encourages you to awaken to your true self and seize the happiness that lies within reach.
Brice Harney
Life On Record
Miles of Smiles Entertainment
Richmond Punch
TK Hair Salon
Ogden Ventures LLC
CEO of Ogden Ventures LLC
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Love & Light - Keep Hope Alive
hello and welcome to keep up a live podcast. Today I have the privilege of meeting mr dallas collins. Welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm so glad you're here, thanks for having me you're welcome. We can see that you're an author. Your latest book is that a gift Present, correct? I hope I said that right. The Gift is Present. I want to say the Present it is the Present.
Speaker 2:Oh, it is the Present.
Speaker 1:Okay, gotcha, and we're going to be diving into his story, going over his journey of how he's writing books and what it's like to, I guess, be you in the world and bring joy and happiness to people. But before I get started I have a question for you Out of the past year how many weddings have you been to? Oh, zero.
Speaker 1:Zero. Okay, Well, pretend. Some friends of ours invited us to go to a wedding and we're walking into the ceremony site and off to the right. There's something there that we need to sign. What is it that we are needing to sign?
Speaker 2:That would be a guest book. I haven't signed one in 10 years.
Speaker 1:I know right, they do them all different. Well, I've seen Jenga, I've seen the picture frames, and now I see a little foil tree you can make and I was like, oh, these are all interesting, but my favorite is Life on Record. And they're one of our biggest sponsors here at Keep Hope Alive and what they do is, instead of that guest book, they do a vintage rotary phone so your guests can come up to it, pick up, leave a message, whether it's one minute, five minutes, 30 minutes, but at a wedding, do 30 minutes, yeah. And right next to it it has a QR scan code that the guests can use their own cell phones to use and scan it to leave a message before or after. Now, the great thing, a message before or after Now, the great thing. They're collecting the voice, which is a gift to us, so we get to hear it back, and what they do is burn all those messages either on a 12-inch vinyl record or they have a keepsake box they call it the little boom box that they put it on. Their plans start at $99. You get the phone number. You have to return the phone, but you get the phone number for a whole year, so you can, like I said, use this.
Speaker 1:Weddings, family reunions, maybe birthday parties, big corporate events, it All right, that's really cool. I know it is. I was like I need to plan a big party, I want to use that. So now I did use it. Last year and I even did a podcast. It was called Hush and it's the first podcast I did that I actually ever cried in, but it was about my son's football team and another team. There was a really bad leg accident on one of our team members and how coaches handled it. It wasn't our team. We were worried about the kid that got hurt, but the other team was coming right at us and fighting with the coaches' wives and parents were getting involved. It was a mess, but yeah, that one was very hard. So I used Life on Record, gave everybody in our app that phone number to call and wish a boy well for his leg Nice, so that was a good use of it. Boy well for his leg, nice, so that was a good use of it. That is my favorite story right there.
Speaker 1:So, let's get to it. I'm so excited. So who is Dallas Collis?
Speaker 2:Well, let's start just before that, because I think a great conversation needs a foundation. That because I think a great conversation needs a foundation. And the foundation for this is what do we all want? What does everyone want from their life? What did your parents want for you, what do you want for your children? And, in the final analysis, when we boil it down, it's not to be a doctor or an astronaut or someone famous, it's to be healthy and happy. So if we can agree that really human beings have one destination to try to find their happy, beautiful, loving place to relax, enjoy and just be happy.
Speaker 1:Can we go with that? Yeah, I want to go with that, because I'm picturing a beach right now, so you got me.
Speaker 2:So if happiness is our destination, what are?
Speaker 2:we waiting for? We shouldn't be waiting, right. And that's where the story happens. You are a story, I am a story, we are storytellers. I meet Nadine at a coffee bar or wherever Someone introduces me to you and I say nice to meet you, tell me something about yourself. And you start telling me your story.
Speaker 2:So we are our story from birth. Everything that happens, everything we perceive and experience, we're taught, we taste, we touch, we smell, we fall down, get up, everything becomes a part of our history that we then identify as that is the self, is the story I see behind me, what I've been through, my memories, my history, and, like any human being, the start of that story building is often trauma, because the experience of coming into this world is trauma on its own. And things happen. You know, I was psychologically and physically bullied and abused as a child. I came out of my early years knowing I was not smart enough, not good enough, didn't measure up. I failed. I failed in school, I failed on tests, I failed in grades completely. So that's the message that gets put into my story and that's what we call emotional baggage. Yes, and we call it that because we carry that baggage with us, some of us for our entire lives, and there's always a nagging difficulty, stress, worry, shame, guilt, regret. We create anxiety. What might happen next? All these things come from that, what I call the story mind, this invented, created movie and a script that we follow and identify as the self. Who I am, and I can tell you who I am.
Speaker 2:Well, of course, this has some problems and, like every human being, we look for ways to deal with it and we deal with it by the education that tells us it's all out there. So our first addiction is blame. We blame what happened to us, we blame someone who did something to us, we blame school, we blame the church, we blame the upbringing, we blame a friend. We grow, and we blame our boss. And we blame the traffic. And we blame the environment, the government, politics, you name it. We blame the economy, we blame our kids.
Speaker 2:For making me angry today, I blame my wife, for it just goes on and on. And this whole I call it an addiction because what it does is it keeps us from our own self, from ever facing the baggage we carry, from ever facing the baggage we carry. We're using it like a medication, like an addict does, to not feel the pain, to not take responsibility for what I'm feeling. So of course, the blame begins to wear off if you've got a lot of pain. And so then I chose alcohol, because alcohol is a better medication. It's stronger and I go drinking and party with friends and have fun and the pain is not there. I'm having a great life. This is fine. But then you do it too long and it begins to turn on you and pretty soon you can't stop and you have to up the medication. Get stronger medication, get more, add some drugs.
Speaker 2:I'm in a 25-year marriage with my wife and she's in the exact same boat, carrying anger and pain from her trauma and medicating with drugs and alcohol along with me. And so we enable each other to stay unresponsible for our lives. And from the outside. We have a house, we have cars in the driveway, vacations, a business together, two beautiful children. We're normal, right, we're the normal, successful, middle-class family. Everyone sees, and aren't they terrific? But under that roof is a storm, a war, an absolute tragedy for our children as well, a shame you would carry forever from it.
Speaker 2:Well, I got lucky. Not long into the great pandemic, I woke up one morning with cancer the luckiest day of my life. I had started a 12-year period to the day of being diagnosed with cancer, going through treatment, losing my wife, losing my house, losing my family in any way you can imagine that being losing our business, ending up alone, broken, alcoholic and suicidal. In exactly one year, all that happened. So I call that the year of life collapse. Now, there's a good thing to that. If any one of those things had happened, it could have been a tragedy for my life, I think, because it all happened together. There was no time for it to be a tragedy. It was simply trying to hold on to the lifeboat and get through it. There was no time to actually absorb pain from it. But what it did was wake me up to this false reality of who. I believe. I was the false self and I now believe we are all a false self because we are that story. I didn't create that story. You didn't create your story. Your experience and environment and people's opinions and education and parenting that created the story. You never chose it. You became an identity that happened to you. So my entire life, my entire life, is believed to be this story, our history. One day, soon after, I'm trying to understand how to get my life back together, how to get physically healthy and stronger, how to be able to live and go forward.
Speaker 2:I'm listening to a podcast in the background making dinner one night, and a man on the podcast said one line, and you know that hit me like a ton of bricks oh yeah, I've never, I've never believed that that's sort of Hollywood, you know, struck by a ton of bricks. Oh yeah, I've never believed that. That's sort of Hollywood, you know, struck by a bolt of lightning. And I always thought that was silly. Well, I got to experience it. And what the man said was show me yesterday. That was it my brain said show me yesterday, nadine, can I go to the cupboard, pull out yesterday and go here? What do you think? I don't know, could you? No, of course we can't. We know we can't, but I had based my whole life on yesterday.
Speaker 2:Yesterday almost killed me, and now I have to see in my mind what is the reality of our yesterday, what is the reality of our story outside of just a memory? What is the truth of a memory? How could just a memory almost kill me in the real life of today? I mean that opened the door wide and said it's just a story. It's just a belief. You believe things 10 years ago you don't believe right now. You will believe things in 10 years that you don't believe right now. So what is a belief? How true is it? It's only as true as you believe it is.
Speaker 2:When that happened, my self could collapse. I could get rid of myself. I don't need a self. Who needs a self-image? There's no reason for it. It's a story we believe and the story pushes us around, directs us, gives us opinion and ideas and response. What for To uphold a story that isn't even really me? So what's the truth of me? And, I think, the truth of us? We already started there. I think the truth of us. We already started there. We are what we seek the beauty, the love and the happiness. That's as you are born.
Speaker 2:Look into the eyes and face of a brand new baby, fresh out of the oven, and what you see is love, beauty, happiness. You don't have any judgment, it just is. What you're seeing is not the baby. You're seeing your reflection of your heart in the baby. It's showing you. This is who you really are, not a who, not a self. What what you are.
Speaker 2:My mother died six weeks ago, two hours before her death, I looked down into her face and her eyes and what do you think I saw? I saw the baby. I saw love, beauty and happiness At the start and at the end. What we are is always revealed In between. We cloud it with a story and the story gives us every problem we can face in life. Every worry, every concern, every regret, every shame, every anxiety is only in the story. It's not in what we are. There's no shame, guilt, anxiety, fear or pain in love and beauty and happiness. That baby has no story. It has none of those things attached to it. And at death, almost every single person says what their only regret is the time they spent in that story and not being in where Love, beauty and happiness with their family, their friends, the important things. This is always right behind us like a clear blue sky and sunshine, but we end up staring at all the clouds and the rain and the storm and we think that's important.
Speaker 2:We go into school and what does school teach us? To make the grade, to reach the goal, to be able to jump the hoop, measure up, get an a and you're smart, get an f and you're stupid. It's always external. We will find the happiness, the beauty and the love out there. Get a house, get a beautiful hot wife, get a beautiful hot car. Reach, grow, succeed, strive, grind, discipline. Always external, the same as the addiction to stay away from the pain, always external, the same as the addiction to stay away from the pain.
Speaker 2:And so what happens? 95% of people don't reach their goals. They don't go after their dreams. They give up. They make, do, they get a job that works, they pay the bills, they can put a roof over their head and they're satisfied and they carry on. But that pain is always there, in the background, maybe only subtly, but it's saying you're trying to get to a place that you always are and you're not looking at it.
Speaker 2:And so the journey we've created is to get somewhere, to be something, to achieve something. It's all fool's game. We have been fooled. We can just be love and happiness and beauty every single day, and people will say to me they'll say, well, you can't just sit around and be love and happy and beautiful. What about paying the bills and doing your job and looking after your kids? We only ever do that right now, in this day. We don't do it tomorrow, we don't do it yesterday, we do it right now. Every day is only right now. So where do you think you're going? We're not going anywhere. We're doing what we're doing here and now. We're not doing it somewhere else, and we get confused, thinking it's going to take us somewhere. It's going to have a benefit for us to reach. The benefit is here. You already won. Everything else is just playing towards something.
Speaker 2:I'm going to be better, I'm going to improve Self-improvement. For 100 years has been doing what? Taking your story and then, on top of it, saying, ah, I can change and be better, and it doesn't work. And it doesn't work. It can't work because the story is still there. I've written down the goal I'm going to be wealthy and I'm going to take all these steps and do this work. I'm going to get this education. I've written down the goal I'm going to be wealthy and I'm going to take all these steps and do this work. I'm going to get this education. I've written every step down. I know exactly how I'm going to do it. I've got the strategy. I've got the tools. I'm building the skills. I'm driving, I'm grinding every day. I'm imagining my future and in the back of my mind is a little voice from my story going, and in the back of my mind is a little voice from my story going you're not going to do it, you're not good enough, you're not going to get there.
Speaker 2:And so we wonder why we struggle and struggle and we fail and we go on, try the next one. And every year we've even made up a thing at New Year's to do what? To set another goal. It's this constant treadmill because we think we're going somewhere. We're not going anywhere, we're already here, your whole life is here, it's only here, it exists nowhere else. So there's my story.
Speaker 1:Take it away that is a huge story, a very eye-opening story like, yeah, we're writing our stories right now, and this is the midst of time. I'm a new grandma, so I see when my granddaughter looks at me and you know she's so innocent and sweet and I'll be getting ready to do a podcast. Put my makeup on, I go. Are we going?
Speaker 1:to do makeup soon and she'll just kind of smile and giggle and it lightens my heart. But you know, when we were younger I didn't have really full memories until maybe like five or six years old, and then from there going, you see how time flies as you get older. I'm only 47, but I knew when the forties came I was noticing, hey, things are going faster, this earth is spinning faster. Who am I? What am I going to do with my time, my purpose? And I found out what my purpose was. I'm awake, I know and I mean yes, I've told people in the past to create a vision for it, to see what you want and go after it. Having that vision but also you got me thinking and I can't believe I'm going to be saying this, but it's the real truth. Now, keep Hope Alive.
Speaker 1:What started a year ago, that's great. I think I was like at 193 episodes and I was like, wow, okay, I'm getting awarded for relationship, mental health. You know, podcast is great. And then I took a full-time job. All my time and energy went to the job and I could feel like inside of me okay, well, it's paying the bills. I like doing it. The people are really super nice I go.
Speaker 1:But my heart started hurting and I tried to do a couple, which I only landed one or two and I was like this is just becoming a lot at work, because at the end of the day, being on the phones doing like 400 calls a day, I'm tired. So I was like, okay, I can't do it. I got to just permanently put it on hold. But I was just like, what about my Sundays? What about my Saturdays? How am I going to do this? How am I going to make it work? And it just didn't come about.
Speaker 1:Now I did make a choice. I decided to leave, but my heart and soul was screaming keep hope alive, keep it afloat. And I was just like, yes, this is my mission, my goal, and I want to find either my next job being similar to this and being able to talk to people and do this kind of work. But in the meantime I was like I always wanted to write a book. I started my book. I'm on chapter eight right now and I'm just so proud of myself because usually the way when I was going to school, I'd give up so easy. But I was like, no, this needs to be heard and I know I can do guest speaking from my book. They should turn my book into a movie, hopefully. So I have these goals, and then I decided to take a course and learn all these new AI tools. So it's me creating this image of what is going to make me happy right now, and that's my story at age 47.
Speaker 2:So let me go back for a moment, because you said this sort of almost a discomfort in saying the vision board. Um, I don't want to discount the benefit of hope, of a future, of goals, of a vision. What I'm saying is you don't attach to that future vision. It doesn't become your work because your work is only ever right here, it's not in the future. You cannot control that vision board. It's just an image in your mind. A lot of people are working towards that thing so much they don't experience now. Their whole mind is there and that's where the trouble begins. That's the externalizing this thing and missing. You'll see people working so hard for their future and their family and everything that they miss their child growing up, hard for their future and their family and everything that they miss their child growing up, and they have this realization at 50 that they they missed their child's uh, childhood because they were living in a future place that they believed was the great achievement for the child. But the reality is the great achievement is being right here with the child. You can't control tomorrow. Yesterday has happened. Those places have no benefit to your life. To have a vision that you want to achieve is great, but you don't live in it and take yourself psychologically out of the present moment. And this is what we do with goals so often, and so we're not really present, we're not really conscious now. Our thought is always tomorrow. Oh, I need that. Meeting is going to help me do this. Oh, I got to pick up that book. I want to read that. We're always having these thoughts that are not here, they're somewhere else, and this is what disrupts the life. And so we think when we get to that vision board, I'm going to be happy. I know it because I feel happy when I think about it. We can't get there. There is no getting there. You're here now. Now is the happy? Not one day, not one day, it's just only ever. Right here.
Speaker 2:When you look at your granddaughter and you feel that warmth, you're only feeling it because you're being present with her. Yeah, you could just as easily look at her and your mind is going a hundred miles an hour about something that went wrong yesterday and not get that same warmth because you're disconnected from the moment. That is what we do so often in our life. That's why we're sleepwalking Habits and routines that we follow every day, we've repeated a million times, and they're simple. I drive home from work after a big long day. I walk into the house, slap my keys down on the counter and they're simple. I drive home from work after a big long day. I walk into the house, slap my keys down on the counter and the sound of the keys hitting the counter and I go. I don't even remember driving home. I can't think of anything about that drive. We've all had that experience. But we just sleepwalk through something and then we wake up and go, wow, I don't remember doing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is the power of being in the past or the future and being able to function. We've practiced it all the years of our life and so we think it's normal. That's the story. We believe it's normal because we live in it. But being present are those moments when you go, look at that beautiful little girl and there's nothing important in the world outside of right. Then, and the reason is there is nothing important in the world outside of that. That's the reality. Well, why don't we live in the reality all the time? There's no reason not to. That's our destination, that's what we all want, that's what we were at birth. We will be at death. Why not fill our life with it.
Speaker 1:We need to, we need to. So do you have all those steps lined out?
Speaker 2:And that's the simplicity that is so hard to do. Yeah, because you've been educated to believe. Look at this big, crazy world. It's complex, it's difficult and we have to struggle. We have to compete and fight and get what we need. We've been taught this, but it's not true. There's no truth to it. Here's a step. I just watched on the news last month during the fires in LA.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the backdrop is that just horrendous, burned flat environment, right yeah, and there's a woman, maybe 40, and a man maybe 70, standing either side of the reporter. And the reporter looks at the woman and she is sobbing. I mean she is crushed. And she says how her life is gone her house, her memories, everything she's worked for and put into it. And it's just gone. And she's devastated. Turns out the man is her father. He lives two blocks away, has suffered the same loss and he's got a smile on his face. And the reporter sees this and there's obviously a what the heck? And she looks at him and says you don't seem to be too upset, what's going on? And he goes it's just stuff. Seem to be too upset, what's going on? And he goes it's just stuff. There's the secret to life right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she was completely attached to achievement, to getting to possessing. Those things were the validation of her story, of her story, of her image of herself. And he had a detached thought about the whole thing and went that's just stuff, buy more stuff, big deal. And that's what this whole thing is about. When we attach to the outside world, that gives us meaning. We can only hurt ourselves because we can't control the outside world, because the fire can come along and take everything away, because my child could die, my child could die tomorrow. That's the reality we have no control over. So when we put all our attachment there, we're fragile, we're scared, so we put on a high visibility vest so we don't go out, because we're in fear, because we're always looking out for danger, because we're attached out. There, you are everything you will ever need all the strength, all the knowledge, all the ability, the courage. You already possess it. You already possess it, yeah, and you're pretending you need it from somewhere else.
Speaker 1:I need it. You're hitting on a point right there. I never watch news. I know my mom and my dad do. They're just on to Fox News and whatever they say, they're right. Yes, why don't you just stop watching it for a couple months and see what happens to your life? And they won't do it. They feel the energy from other people trying to report on this happening. And it could be wrong like 100%, but I think it's funny because they like the reporters and I go well, hey, your daughter has a podcast I'm interviewing. They have not watched one of my shows. I know I get you.
Speaker 2:I'm like I'm not reporting anything wrong and that points to the power of the story they believe in. Yeah, that's the power, even someone I love. I'm not paying the attention to that. I should, and I have a relationship with Tucker Carlson because I trust him and believe him and he's my friend.
Speaker 1:He's my new kiddo.
Speaker 2:That's the power of story, that's the power of our believing in this fantasy. It's a belief, it's not true. Because if you were really in trouble, you know your parents would be right there, because they'd wake up to the love of you and they would be there. But they're living in the fantasy of this created this theater, and they're watching a movie that informs them and gives them their security and beliefs, and all their trouble comes from that story. And you saw it right there in what you just said. You just exposed the whole thing.
Speaker 1:Well, I had to. I mean really Because I can't. I mean, ok, I don't watch the news and I know if something's really really important, it will come through Facebook.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and.
Speaker 1:I remember I was at work and it came through Facebook Betty White has passed, right has passed, and I was like let's see if this is really real. Like that was like, okay, she did, and it was a sad day, I mean. But you know, I will always be on the phone with my parents. Oh, did you hear what happened? It's all over the news. No, I'm working, I'm making phone calls. I don't have time to look at the news. Why don't you just tell me what's happening? So, even when COVID was announced, okay, I couldn't watch it. It's like an energy thing for me. I don't want to take in all people's energies and just me explode as a person, and that's really what it comes down to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, your environment. You can accept the environment of this crazy world and be freaking out every day, and people are. There's a massive mental health crisis. It's not because the water has changed. It's not anything to do with that. It's this immersion in the energy of fear and insecurity until your whole nervous system is bubbling with it. And, of course, doctors are there to give you a disorder and label you, because this label will somehow give you a security. And so people are out there going. I'm this, I'm that, I'm disturbed. I have a disorder like it's a badge of honor, and this only increases the fragility because we're all swimming with each other going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're all a mess, but at least we're together, like a school of fish, and what are we doing, and so all of these things are externalizing our real feelings because we don't want to know them. It's that couple that are like maybe your parents age, who are both sitting on their lazy boy watching the news every night. They don't talk to each other, they don't really converse about the news with each other, they both absorb it and it's almost an addiction of externalizing life so that we're not really together, we're not really sharing that beautiful, loving human.
Speaker 1:See, yeah, I agree with you a hundred percent. And you know, like when they say, put the cell device down, you don't need to watch it while eating dinner, like even when I go on a date, yes, I have kids, but I will tuck my phone away, and I always say you know, hey, is it okay with you that I just kind of glimpse at my phone to see if the kids wrote, and they'll say yes, and I do, and I put it back up because I don't. Well, for my belief, only if you're with someone, it shouldn't be dedicated to technology telling you all this stuff. You know, yeah, it's just, I don't know, it feels like a way of brainwashing too. I hate to say it, but it really is. Well, I mean, I mean external gratification.
Speaker 2:Someone just liked my TikTok, someone just asked for a friend request. I'm validated. I need this constant validation because I don't know myself. I only know this image of myself, this self, I think from a story that has taught me I need you to care about me, to make me more important, to make me feel good. I need your love. It's the silliest thing in the world.
Speaker 2:I can't love you. I can't love myself. I am love. I can choose to share my love with you. I can't give you anything. You can't make love. You can't produce more love. You can't lose love. You are love. We are this thing. You can't make me happy or sad or mad or anything. I can only do it. I'm the one and we pretend like something about you will make me happy, or having someone like me who lives in the other side of the world, I'll never meet. But on social media they said I like you and, oh my god, I feel so good. It's, it's pure. This, this externalized I'm almost calling externalitis. It's a disorder, a disease that we make. Our whole life is out there and we're missing it we're missing it.
Speaker 2:It's right here, right to people you are. Naveen Malone is the most important person on planet Earth, and it's absolutely true. If you weren't here, there would be no planet Earth. You could never experience a hug, you could never say I love you, you could never see that beautiful little girl. You are the most important person on this planet, and so am I, and so am I, and so is everyone else and all.
Speaker 2:The only purpose we're ever going to have is to be happy, to enjoy it and share it with one another, to find pleasure in our work, pleasure in our vision board, pleasure in our child. That's all it's about. It's not about to be uptight and hope you win and hope they like me. And oh my God, what's going to happen if they say no, that's just prevalent. Yeah, you're giving away all your responsibility to other people and circumstances and carrying the bags around and going oh, what was me? I'm tired, I'm sore, I hurt. I wish I didn't have to live this life. I hate myself. You're right. You should hate yourself, because yourself is beating you up, because it's not real.
Speaker 1:The mantra of the day in personal development is what Believe in yourself.
Speaker 2:Now think about it. If you're believing in yourself and yourself is a fake, lying to you, why would you believe in yourself? It doesn't work. You just continue a cycle. I say don't believe in yourself. Be what you are, there's nothing to believe in. You don't believe in gravity, you know it's true. Well, don't believe in yourself. Be what you are, you're happy. Nothing can make you not happy. That's what you are. Yeah, everything else is believing. You can do something to me. That person can. This event at work can my kids can get on my nerves. It's impossible.
Speaker 2:None of this stuff is real. We invented it. It we tell a story and our individual stories connect to each other and they become a cultural story and that's why the whole world lives in the externalized story, to the point where I'm afraid of you and I'll build an army and fight you in a war and kill you because of a story that isn't real. The same story that almost killed me kills people in war in the cultural story we are all living in. That silly story Between birth and death is the story.
Speaker 1:You're so right. You are so right about that. Now I got to stop you for one second and plus, you said the key word and I was all excited. You said mantra. Now one of our other sponsors is Snap Bands and they have these beautiful bracelets, this one right here. We're getting some bad weather in Texas right now and I think my video is not doing too good on my end, but my mantra word does say hope on it, if you guys can see that. And on the back it has this elastic string you can pull out and let it dump right against your wrist.
Speaker 1:Now Snap Bands is known to help with people who suffer from depression, anxiety, PTSD I say nerves, you know whatever but there's mantra words like peace, love, hope. We just they just added the word faith, but you can only get that with the code of K-H-A. You know why? That's keep hope alive. Ah yeah, and they come in all different colors. They're made out of like a vegan leather. They're very sturdy.
Speaker 1:For example, I use mine because every time I can go into the hospital they can't find a vein on me and I'll just take a tug and I'll say a prayer for the nurse who has to find it. She doesn't know. I did it, I had to confess, yesterday at my doctor's appointment. Hey, I tugged my bracelet and she goes is that Snap Vans? I was like, yeah, you need to be on the show since you know who they are. But, yeah, definitely I want one. I know, right, yeah, and you can find all their information at wwwsnapbandscom. And let me spell that for you it is S-N-A-P-P-B-A-N-D-Zcom, and I know their proceeds. If you get one, they will help different charities and organizations that work with people going through depression and anxiety. So kudos to you, Snapvans. All right, so, oh my gosh, Okay, so you're a wealth of knowledge. I really enjoy talking to you, and so are you.
Speaker 2:And so are you, and so is everyone. Everyone has it. This is not special Everyone has it. We have just hidden our natural knowledge. We all have it. We've just covered it up.
Speaker 1:Yes, I agree 100% with that. So you know what listeners, I want you to take that challenge from me and it's coming from me. If you're watching the news or anything that has this negative pull, and yes it does take it from it and see how you feel about yourself. Get to know yourself, love yourself, stay in the now. Okay, that's my advice from listening to you too. So, but you know just, I think the message I do get from you Dallas is the visions, like if we had.
Speaker 1:You know, mine is sea turtles. Let's use me. For example, I want to go find a place for sea turtles, so I'll quickly go on Google. Where can I go? Where can I swim with them? And I think I found South Padre. Okay, nine hours away. Well, I can do this, maybe with the next paycheck. Why not just go and get it over with? Let's go do it.
Speaker 1:And now the day we don't know how much more time we have on earth and if we're going to just sit there and waste it and just go with this routine, we're programmed. I feel like the robot, the robots that are being made right now, what they're going to take over our jobs soon and what Are we going to get paid to go have fun and relax and live our happiest life? I hope so. I mean, I would love to be paid to travel the world. Yeah, no, kidding it now and just be yourself and get that done, like there shouldn't be a stopping. You know, but just focusing on I call it the negative can hurt what you have see in the eyes of today.
Speaker 2:I would say two things come up right away. My snap band would say wake up things. Come up right away. My snap band would say wake up. When you wake up, to what you are, there's no longer time. There's no longer time. There is no time, time doesn't exist. I work with elderly people, often in the gym, working out, working on their diet, helping them to stay healthier, and I will hear so often well, my time's up. You know, I don't have much time left, all this kind of talk and I think, wow, that's too bad, because I have all day I love it, I love it and I'm always because I have all day I love it.
Speaker 2:I love it and I'm always going to have all day. Yeah, there is no more time when you wake up. If I got this, what I feel now for the last hour of my life, I am completely satisfied with my life. I didn't waste a moment. Yes, I went 60 years carrying that baggage, believing terrible things, abusing myself and others, and when I woke up, that 60 years doesn't exist, it doesn't matter. No time has gone by.
Speaker 2:That feeling of the baby and the feeling of the dying is the exact same feeling. It didn't age, it doesn't age, it doesn't change. You can't get more. You can't lose it. It's always there. There is no time when you're there. It's timeless. You are eternal. That's what you are and it's the most beautiful. That's what you are and it's the most beautiful, magical thing to discover. It's that, at 12 years old, I walked down out on the wharf to the dock on a lake on a beautiful August evening. I put my sleeping bag down and I lie down and look up at that sky and for a moment I'm just the sky. It is awe, wonder, stunning, stunning beauty that I can't even comprehend. And then you start thinking and you think oh, is that one moving? Is that a UFO?
Speaker 1:Oh the thoughts come.
Speaker 2:But for that moment, that initial moment, you were that pure conscious awareness of what you are. I'm now 66 years old. I walk down that dock, out on that wharf, put my sleeping bag down, lie down, look up into that beautiful starry night. The exact same thing happens. Nothing has changed. No time has gone by since I was 12 years old. That's just a physical body of change. That's just a plant, an apple tree, anything in change, but not the conscious reality. But not the conscious reality. Nothing changes. There is no time to worry about. You have all the time in the world because you've got all day and that's your life. This is it. When I see the turtles, that's going to be great, but I'm not waiting to see the turtles. That's not a time to see the turtles. I'm here right now and when I'm there, I'll be here right now.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So there's no change, there's no distance between it, there is no time, it's not one day. You are here, there is only one day, this day. You are here, there is only one day, this day, and when every day is suddenly beautiful and lovely, you don't have a worry, a concern, a thought, a problem, as I do, then it doesn't matter. Nothing else matters. Everything else is just made up in our minds, towing us around to places that do nothing but give negativity. Relying on someone's news, relying on someone treating me right these are all fantasies we make up. Why live in a fantasy? We agreed at the beginning. We just want to be happy. What are you waiting for? It's now this, it, it is. Yeah, wake up, this is all you get and it's everything everything amen on the hat you won, you won.
Speaker 2:You won the lottery of life. You got it. You got born into this, live it. Open your arms and embrace yourself. This is it. You're not going to improve yourself. You are already perfect.
Speaker 1:So Dallas define hope.
Speaker 2:Oh, I've never been a fan of hope, ever since cancer. I've never been a fan of hope ever since cancer. And the reason is I saw people who swallowed the pill of cancer, the pill of fear, the pill of I am going to die, not I might die, and they tried to. There was this conversation that would always be there about you have to keep hope alive, and I saw people hope and I saw people try to survive and I instantly said to myself I don't need to hope, I'm not going to survive, because that means I'm hanging on and waiting. I'm hoping I'll get through it and survive. And I realized right away that's not a good life raft. I need to stand up and punch the damn thing in the face and say I'm not ready, I'm kicking your ass, I am out of here.
Speaker 2:I watched people walk in. I watched them show up the first day of radiation and they were beaten. They had already lost and 99% of them died. And I watched people walk in with an anger and I'm getting through this, I'm going to do anything it takes and most of them live. Yeah, this thing is incredibly powerful, but but it gave me a bad taste for hope and for surviving. I didn't survive cancer. I didn't hope to survive. I beat its ass. That's what happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's how we get through any tough time.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, we have a strength.
Speaker 2:We all have a strength inside of us that we can't imagine and it comes out in the worst possible moment. Most people it just happens. It arrives. They don't decide to be strong, it just shows up. It's on their side. But you can force the loss to show up. You can decide to fail and end. You can decide to sit down and cry. You can decide to let the world beat you up. Those are easy. That's lazy, it's simple to do that, but we are so strong. It's stunning how strong people are. The weakest person in the planet is incredibly strong.
Speaker 2:They just don't find it. Sometimes they don't dig for it. They don't look for it because they're looking out there. They think out there is going to give them what they want and when it doesn't, they can be crushed because they never found what they are. They didn't open their eyes and wake up to that moment lying on the wharf looking at the sun of the stars, and they didn't connect that that was you. They just let it blow by and didn't recognize it because they weren't awake. So wake up, catch these moments and tell yourself those are the moments. That's the real me in the background, saying come here, be with me. This is the best place in the world. You don't have to fear anything. You've got it. You're the winner. This is the best place in the world. You don't have to fear anything. You've got it. You're the winner. You're the best, you're the most important. Live in it.
Speaker 1:Yes, agreed, agreed. I know, in the book I'm writing, it's about taking an initiative and being strong, and it's about you being strong because nobody, nobody else, was going to do it and I had to learn that for me no one can? Yeah, definitely now, dallas, I see the four books and I want to learn about these books from you, okay well they are the journey back.
Speaker 2:Okay, you know, the first book right here is Combat Cancer, and I wrote that as I started to come out of the year of collapse, because cancer meant I had to rebuild my body. I was physically broken down and so I had to learn I had to see cancer as this fight, not as something that happened to me. I recognized I gave myself cancer and that's a huge turning point in responsibility. I know it's not genetic, it's epigenetic. My genes, all our genes, are disposed to have cancer as a possibility. But what triggers it is epigenetics, is how I live my lifestyle. I spent 50 years crying and worrying and in pain and struggling and regret and shame and anxiety. That alone can cause it. Shame and anxiety, that alone can cause it. Then I added alcohol and crappy food and bad relationships and anger and fighting. That alone could cause it. So when I realized I gave myself cancer, what an empowerment. If I gave it to me, I don't have to keep it. If I'm the one who gave it to me, I can fight it. If it just happened, if God did this to me, if my genes did this to me, then I'm not responsible. So I can lie down and cry, and this is the difference. So for me, radical responsibility is the building block of it all. And that's what that was. And then I had to take the actual steps. So the second book is called the Step System, because I realized I couldn't bite a great big chunk of get my life back. I didn't want my life back. I did not want the life I had. That would be another disaster. So I knew somewhere I'd take small steps in a new direction.
Speaker 2:One little step. You wake up in the morning. Don't sit down on that couch and throw on YouTube and drink your coffee. Go for a 30 minute walk, just do that. And that was all I did. One step Go for a 30 minute walk, just do that. And that was all I did. One one step Go for a 30 minute walk.
Speaker 2:Then I added I have a sticker right here on my TV. You can just see it right there, gotcha. What does it say? It says get off your ass. I like that. The TV knows I'm sitting there staring at it and I shouldn't be. I like that. The TV knows I'm sitting there staring at it and I shouldn't be.
Speaker 2:So then I put a sticker on my fridge. A small step. The sticker says what's going into your mouth. To wake me up when I get to the fridge, Instead of sleepwalking and grabbing some junk and throwing it in my mouth, it made me go oh yeah, I should eat something a little bit better. And so every day started filling up with little stickers I'd put around the house. To do what? To keep me awake, to keep me focused on now, my life. The only way to really make life better is to be here, not in the goal in the future, not in the fear of the past. To be here and not in the goal in the future, not in the fear of the past. To be here and take those little bites, yeah.
Speaker 2:So this led me automatically to the third book, which is called Live Long with a Fit Five Life. I came up with the five basics of fitness, and they are physical fitness, food fitness, mental fitness, social fitness and sleep fitness. Let me start with sleep. Sleep is a huge issue today. Many, many people don't sleep well. I didn't sleep well for 25 years. As soon as I got physical fitness, food fitness, mental fitness and social fitness figured out, sleep was fixed. I sleep like a baby every night. I didn't sleep for 25 years and I tried the pillows and the mattress and all these techniques and you name it. You know evening routines and all sorts of things. It was when I got my head right. All that baggage wasn't being taken to bed. My mind didn't race, it just said everything's great and boom, sleep like a baby.
Speaker 2:So that book led me into working in gyms. People would see me, they saw the change. They'd come up to me Pretty soon. You're coaching, you're helping other people, and this roadblock kept coming up with almost every single person, some of them in great shape, eating really well, have great friends. But this one thing kept cropping up in the background their emotional baggage from their story. They were doing everything they could, but they weren't dealing with the story. So when I go to the gym and work out, I don't work out to look good, to hope someone will say wow, you look great for that age. I'm impressed. That's the danger of the story. I go to the gym because it makes me feel good, because I enjoy it, it's for my pleasure. Right then, it's almost meditation to me. I am completely focused and in the moment. And that's the difference. I'm not in a story, I'm in my life, doing it. So this led me to this problem. Why has everybody got this problem? What's in the way they've got all these pieces? They seem to be right and they're still not happy. And that's when it began to trigger in me that the happiness is this thing and it's being covered by this story, we believe. And so then I wrote the gift is the present, as in the present moment.
Speaker 2:Yes, the move for me was if my life collapsed, I need to collapse my life, and what that means is life isn't a great big event. It isn't a great big story If I have 24 hours in a day and I sleep for eight. 16 hours is my life. And so if I just collapse my life to one day and say, in this one day, can I eat a little better, collapse my life to one day and say, in this one day, can I eat a little better? Yeah, I could probably do that for one day. Could I go for a walk, do some exercise? Yeah, I could probably do that in a day. Could I go to my work and really focus on it and do the best I can? Yeah, I can probably do that in a day. Could I phone a friend or a loved one and tell them I love them. Yeah, I could probably do that in a day. The day is simple and it's everything. Just do it for one day, like Alcoholics Anonymous would tell me. Just do it for one day. Just don't drink one day.
Speaker 2:One day at a time is your life yes, agreed I quit alcohol like that, after 10 years of trying and struggle and pain and violence and anger. I quit like that, not because I tried to quit, because I put down the baggage that I was drinking for. I was drinking because of the pain. When the pain disappeared, I had no reason to drink. So it ended no withdrawal, no, nothing. Because it wasn't real, it was a medication.
Speaker 2:It was that externalizing everything in our life that we think is so important. I need you, I need your appreciation, I need you to be with me. This is the mistake. You have it, you have it all. You get to share it with love, and then I just love being with you. Not I need to be with you. Exactly me. Different. It does not feed a purpose, because they have everything they need. You have everything you need. That's the understanding that makes us one the same. We are each other. I am the baby. I am my mother's face when she's dying. We are everything. We have it all. We are everything. We have it all we do. We do. The next, the next book, which is almost there, is going, is going deeper, is going deeper into this and is purely about the story, mind and transitioning, understanding it and working our way out of it to just be happy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm glad you have another one coming out and I want to see more and more. I don't decide to.
Speaker 2:You're going to do it. They're not a goal or anything. I just open my mouth or pick up a pen and it just comes out Good, good. I can't even tell you where it's coming from. I couldn't tell you. I wasn't even tell you where it's coming from. I couldn't tell you I wasn't a speaker. And then I got back on my feet and found this door and this light poured in and I opened my mouth and this is what comes out. It's not planned. I don't go, this is what I'm going to do, it just happens, it's just here. Yeah, you have the same thing. You couldn't do a podcast if you didn't have it all already. Your best podcasts are when they just happen. Right, you don't try and make them happen, they just develop, they just go, they just, they just spill out all over the screen, and that's the beauty.
Speaker 1:And it is Like none of this is pre-scripted or anything. I interview with my heart and soul, so you never know what's going to come out of my mouth, but I do think our listeners would want to know. Well, first of all, on my website at keephopealivepodcastcom, there is a storefront so you will be able to get his books after watching his episode and everything. But let's hear from you, like if somebody wanted to connect with you what are your socials and how do you go about that?
Speaker 2:if somebody wanted to connect with you what are your socials and how do you go about that? Well, you know, nadine, in this day and age, if they have your name, there's no place to hide. So I just tell them Dallas, call us at gmailcom. It's an email, that's all you need. Connect, connect, let's talk. Anyone can talk.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's nothing to fear here. That's awesome. Yeah, so definitely make it simple.
Speaker 2:It's all simple.
Speaker 1:Make it simple just like picking up the telephone back in the day. Do you remember all that before all this internet stuff, my goodness being attached to the wall, and is my mom listening?
Speaker 2:she's gonna know. So often, so often I have this thought that if we've never had that telephone back then and we only had the internet world, and then today someone invented this telephone on the wall. You just pick it up, dial seven numbers and there's your mom, we would go, wow, wow, what technology. This is way better than a cell phone. I get you right here, right now, live in person. It's funny how that evolved into a strange social system. That's much, messier.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know, I know A lot of changes and everything we think it's advanced.
Speaker 2:I know, I know a lot of changes and everything, so we think it's advanced.
Speaker 1:I know, I know, I mean, I think it's funny. I was talking with a person I interviewed a couple days ago and she was a librarian and I said, well, do you still have the card catalog?
Speaker 1:And she's like no, everything's digital now and they just scanned the barcode and I was like, oh, and she goes. But some of the kids will open up the book and see that placeholder and be like, whoa, this is an antique book. Yeah, I'm not feeling old. Oh, that's funny. But I'm glad records came back out. I'm just kind of done with.
Speaker 1:You know what is it? The cds and stuff and everything. And you know I I take pride of trying to learn what's new, but sometimes I need my little son, who's 12, to help me and I'm like I remember I really think.
Speaker 2:One of the conflicts here is we are analog beings and we're trying to live in a digital world, and there's a conflict in our brains. Because we're analog, we need to touch each other, smell each other, taste each other, be a part of each other, and that's analog.
Speaker 1:Yep, gotcha, yep, definitely Well. Dallas, I want to say thank you so much for coming on, keep Hope Alive today, and thank you for having me Telling us about your journey, the books that you've written and the new ones that are possibly coming out, and yours. Well, I'm not going to say I'm just happy. I'm just happy with myself at this time because, overdoing interviews of different authors and everything I knew, I was a better talker and interviewer and podcaster. But I also knew that what happened to me in my life should be shared and I just had, there was a fear. I'll tell you, there's still a little fear.
Speaker 1:What happened to me was not easy for anybody to read or hear. It's very, I don't know, it's life-changing. So but when I sit down in the morning and start writing, I sit down in the morning and start writing. It's taken that and putting it out there into the world and how it was seen. And you know, I think, just when it does come out, I'm hoping and well, I got to learn about author life because I know I'm not the best of writers I'm going to have to send it up and have somebody read it or something.
Speaker 2:It's art. It's art. You're doing your art. You have no choice. Don't try and evaluate yourself. Judge yourself, compare yourself. You are great the way you are. Just go with who you are.
Speaker 1:Just put it on by just sticky notes and send to the world. Go for it. Yep, definitely, I sure will. But you know, one day there might be, hopefully, a podcast. Yeah, I just that's going to be something I got to build into because it feels like I'm opening a whole new door into this whole new world with this book and everything. I'm excited for the journey. Take the baby steps. Take the baby steps.
Speaker 2:Keep going. Yes.
Speaker 1:I will, I will, I definitely will. So thank you so much. And like I was about to say, I want to bring you back next year.
Speaker 1:I want to see how time has progressed with you and what's new out there and everything and other than that, guys, wherever you guys find your podcast, you'll find Keep Hope Alive also the website at wwwkeephopelivepodcastcom. If you would like to be a guest, let us know. And if you do have questions for Dallas on the website there is a little side button. It says leave message. Anything that you leave I will send over to Dallas and we'll get that answered right away.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Nadine, I appreciate you, you're welcome, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you Until our next show. Guys, love and light, bye-bye.
