Pro Mindset® Podcast

Master Your Inner Levers with Leadership Coach Randy Lyman

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In this episode of Pro Mindset® Podcast, host Craig Domann sits down with author, speaker, and corporate leadership coach Randy Lyman to explore the challenges of emotional awareness in modern athletics, business, and everyday life. From navigating the shift toward identifying emotional blind spots to protecting high performers from the pitfalls of burnout and choking under pressure, Randy’s insight on internal regulation, breath work, and core character provides a vital playbook for growth.

Randy shares his experiences with building intentional self-improvement habits, the critical role of self-awareness in long-term success, and why suppressing difficult emotions can derail a leader's dream of reaching their full potential. He emphasizes the importance of relational listening, managing internal drivers over short-term fixes, and maintaining emotional regulation in high-stakes environments. Randy also highlights the vital role of radical honesty with oneself and embracing the lifelong journey of self-discovery.

Additionally, Randy balances his leadership expertise with thirty-six years of deep personal growth and business building. His friendship and mutual respect with Craig shines through this conversation. It's a reminder that Craig entered this business not to guard territory, but to help people achieve their goals and dreams — and Randy’s collaborative approach to building championship mindsets is living proof of that.

Episode Takeaways: 

💡 Self-Awareness—Master Your Internal Levers 

💡 Active Listening—Build Trust Through Connection 

💡 Emotional Processing—Release Old Weights for Growth

📲Connect with Randy:

🤳Facebook: @I am Randy Lyman

👋LinkedIn: @Randy Lyman

📸Instagram: @iamrandylyma

🌐Website: https://randylyman.com/ 

🚀 Ready to Build a Mindset That Powers You Through Anything?
If Randy’s insights on self-awareness and emotional processing inspire you, the Pro Mindset® Coaching Program can help you align your potential with purpose and adaptability.
 👉 Learn more or apply at www.ProMindsetPodcast.com/coaching or reach out directly to Craig at Craig.ProMindset@gmail.com.

#ProMindset #Mindset #CraigDomann #ProMindsetPodcast #Transformation #Belief #Subconscious #RandyLyman #Coaching #Author #TheThirdElement #Mental #Success #Society #Emotion #Thought #Action #Growth



Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (00:

01.143) Hey, welcome everyone to Pro Mindset Podcast. Today we have a gentleman, Randy Lyman, who's gonna be a guest and he is a speaker, an author, and he's a corporate leadership coach. Randy, welcome to Pro Mindset today.

Randy Lyman (00:

15.8) Great to be here with you, Craig.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (00:

17.769) Okay, so Randy, and doing some due diligence on you before today, you know, one of the things that stands out is you acknowledge something that most people don't even know they have. And that is an emotional state on emotional patterns. And I see it like I'm not a big soccer fan, but I've been caught up in the whole soccer world lately. I don't, I don't pay attention so much to who wins. I pay attention to more how people respond. big moments. And so some of them come through in the clutch and some of them choke. So what is it about our emotional state, our emotional patterns that most people don't even know they have?

Randy Lyman (01:

03.21) Well, I think some people are aware they have emotions and they go out of their way to avoid them. That's what I did when I was younger. I I saw my friends in the neighborhood I grew up in. Some of their parents were very emotional and their lives were a mess. So I said, I'm not gonna be emotional. And as I started building my companies in nineteen eighty two, I decided to turn off my emotions so my I could think more clearly and I could work harder. Well, that worked for a little while and pretty soon the emotions that I pushed down kind of spilled into the rest of my life and they cloudied my judgment and they kept me from working as hard as I could. So it was the opposite of what I thought. I simply could not turn off my emotions.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (01:

43.927) So we got them. You can suppress them or you can address them. what's the benefit of addressing them? And how do you do that?

Randy Lyman (01:

54.755) Well, emotions are bigger than time and space. So whatever we didn't feel completely when we had that original emotion, whether it's two weeks ago or twenty years ago, that energy is stored like gasoline in a metal can and it just waits to be experienced. So when we find a way to go back and experience, whether it's extreme joy or extreme pain or something we push down, once we experience that that energy is gone, the first law of thermodynamics says energy cannot be created nor destroyed and emotions are the same way, but they can be transformed. And all emotional energy that we feel is in the moment part of our natural guidance system. If I am experiencing something good, my mind makes up a story, it feels good, I get a dopamine reaction in my physical body and a feeling that draws me towards that. And the energy that's going through my body is part of the hormones and everything at my physical reaction. That's all part of the guidance system. But if any at any point in time, That I'm having those emotional reactions and feelings in my body, I shut that off. That energy's trapped and it's trapped forever until I find a way to go back and feel it and release it. And you're a sports guy. A lot of people who are working out or they're in extreme sports, they have an opportunity to let that energy go. If somebody's sitting at a desk, that's hard to find a a time and place to be able to let that energy go. And that's a lot of the work I do. And that's what I explain in my book, The Third Element, is how we can identify our emotions, become comfortable with them, and then find ways to release that old energy.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (03:

36.489) Okay, Randy, kind of share your story. And in your story, weave in a situation where you experienced a lot of emotion, but you did not allow yourself to experience it at that moment. You were sitting behind the desk, you were in the office, and it it was real. And what was the the time and space between when you experienced it and when you dealt with it or released it? And what and

Randy Lyman (03:

51.202) Yeah.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (04:

05.854) Share that story, then share how you should have done it or how you would do it if you experienced that same thing today.

Randy Lyman (04:

07.373) Yeah. 14.082) Well, in 1999, I was basically 10 years into my journey of personal growth and spiritual growth and and understanding all that, and I'd made a lot of progress. But I sold all my companies in 1996 and started over. So three years later, in 1999, my new company still was not profitable, and I'd run out of money and I was frustrated. And so the fears of failure started to creep into. Those emotional fears of failure started to creep into everything I was doing. So one afternoon, three of my my management team, my leads, came to me and they said, Randy, we need to talk to you. Can we shut the door? I said, Okay. And they came in and they sat down and they proceeded to calmly tell me that the problems within my business were because of me. And they knew I could do better and I needed to look at myself and I needed to change and I needed to find ways to improve and be the best I could be. Well that was a tough message to hear. So I went home that evening and I asked my wife about it. And she said, Yeah, I've been trying to tell you this, but you haven't listened to me. So then I had to go

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (05:

23.222) So ten years into your personal growth journey, you get confronted with you're the problem because you're not enough and you're not being your best self. What was the gap between what they expected and where you were?

Randy Lyman (05:

38.659) Well, three years earlier, before when I started this new company, before I was running into challenges building the company and running out of money and all that, I was calm, I was caring, I was considerate, I was able to connect with people. But as my fears grew and my emotions from the past began to creep in, then I was frustrated, I was short with people, I wasn't as caring as I could be. So I went backwards. And that was great for my growth because when they pointed it out, these were people I really respected. And I had to go back and look at myself and say, okay, What's going on with me? What else can I dig into to heal old emotional trauma? And I had a great childhood, but everybody's life has a little bit of trauma in it. It's this human experience that's designed for that. So I looked at my own trauma. I worked through it using breath work and EFT tapping and journaling and such. And I became more clear. And then once I became more clear, I was able to show up more calm. But what was most important is I figured out how to connect with people at a different level. I realized I couldn't just be clear within myself. I had to create an environment where people felt safe, where people felt appreciated, where few people felt like they were contributing. And so I was able to quantify how to change my behaviors and how to change my actions and then create processes and programs in the business that supported that environment. So that that step backwards and the fact that It was pointed out and I got to see my own shortcomings allowed me to rebuild from there and build a better foundation.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (07:

18.551) Give an example of holding space for your friends and colleagues that you didn't do before. What system and process did you implement that made the biggest impact?

Randy Lyman (07:

31.267) Listening, but listening on steroids, meaning not just listen and pay attention, but listen and then a lot of times what I call the pregnant pause, just wait, sometimes 10 or 15 seconds and just wait for the person to speak or say, It seems like you have more to say. What else would you like to say? What else do you have to add? Now, as a thinking person, as a leader, we have our own agenda and we want to come back and tell the other person where we want them to be, what we want them to do, how we want them to think. But if we're just waiting for our chance to say what's on our mind, then we don't really hear the person who's speaking and they feel that. If they don't feel heard, they're not going to listen to us. So I I listened, I learned to really listen, to ask more questions, and to realize what I thought was so important is not that important. What's important is not the thoughts that are going through my mind and the message I want to deliver. Yeah, the mission for the company is important, but if I don't connect with that person. And they don't, as I already said, if they don't feel like I've heard them, they'll never hear me. And then it doesn't matter how perfect my ideas are. The group has to know that I'm there to support them. They have to know that I'm there to listen. They have to know that I'm I'm going to ask for help when I need it. So I had to learn to become vulnerable, meaning I wasn't always perfect. I didn't always have the answers. And I had to be open to people helping me. And that was scary because I thought I would lose people's respect. In the end. People respect us more as leaders when we admit to our shortcomings and when we ask for help and when we can find ways to praise the people who are helping us. It's a whole different mindset that I had to learn.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (09:

15.627) I think so many people are focused on results and not on relationships. And when you listen, your relationships get better. People feel more connected to you. you I think when you listen, they automatically soften and give you more grace on whatever you're doing. And they maybe maybe they didn't like your idea as a leader. as running the company. But if you listen you you ask them for input and you actually listen to it, they actually like your idea better.

Randy Lyman (09:

53.133) They do. I had a situation back in the mid-90s where I had a guy named Bob and he just disagreed with everything. Well, I was experimenting with group problem solving. So I took this group of of seven guys. It was a small department out of one of my companies because I wanted to experiment. And I asked them their ideas and Bob says, Well, I think we should be open on Saturdays and we offer more to the customers and this and that. And so I said, Okay, Bob, I hear what you're saying. We should be open on Saturdays, and this is why. But I don't know if that's gonna work because of our our how we schedule everybody at the business who's working, all the employees. So thank you for sharing your idea, but I don't think we're gonna do that. And he said, okay. And the way he said okay, I'd never heard this from Bob before. Bob always disagreed. I said, wait a minute. You said okay, like you're okay with this. And he says, I am. I said, Why? He said, Because you listened to me and you heard me. And it was like, holy cow, if this guy who disagrees with me all the time, that's his natural response is to disagree. If now suddenly me listening to him and acknowledging what he said allows him to just accept what I have to say, that's powerful. It was so simple, but it was so powerful. So that was a life-changing moment for me.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (11:

10.839) So when people don't feel heard, one of the natural responses is to be disagreeable. That's what Bob showed basically showed me. Because when you what what you're doing by being disagreeable is you're giving the other party the opportunity to explore more. And if they don't, you keep disagreeing. Whereas if they do and engage with you, It gives you it gives the disagreeable person an opportunity to reason with whatever makes sense instead of just taking the posture of being d being dis disagreeable.

Randy Lyman (11:

49.933) And so what I've learned now is to go back and say, okay, you're disagreeing with me. Please help me understand why you disagree. And then they get to explain. And whether I agree with them or I disagree with them, that extra time for them to explain when I ask for them to explain, and I'm honoring who they are as As an individual, as a soul who has value, then the relationship changes. And the only way to get a group to respond to me as the leader is for them to know I'm there for them, for them to know I care about them. And when that's real, and when I can find real ways to praise them, real ways to help them feel they're contributing, and go out of my way to make them important, they're gonna do everything they can to support me.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (12:

36.309) Okay, so sports and business are very similar in that we have coaches and leaders and managers and general managers and people that have authority over the team. And when you look at teams, like even look at the US soccer team, there was a perceived this last week, there was some perception about unfairness. That caused Belgium to have a tremendous amount of motivation. So here's my question. When you're trying, when you're building a business and you're leading a team and you're leading a division, what is like your playbook for communication between the leader and his or her team so that they can all like they can synchronous, they can. have some more synergy, they can have more momentum and they can accomplish whatever their whatever it is compared to the the coach or general manager just not listening, not connected to his his or her team, and then they struggle.

Randy Lyman (13:

48.27) An honest sense of pride in what's being accomplished, not ego pride, but pride in what we're accomplishing and especially what we're accomplishing together as a group. People always want to be part of a group. Even loaners, it's some level want to be part of a group and be accepted. So when we can be proud of what we're accomplishing together, and we can celebrate that, when we can also be honest with each other about where we can improve, then We gel as a group. Another thing I teach is I teach people how to disagree and still get along. And that's a big part of group problem solving. And that's a big part of being a leader. Is if two people in my team don't get along, then I'm learning how to sit down with them individually first, explore some ideas with them, and then together and and do a mediation where they're able to express themselves to each other. And it turns out most of the time, with the exceptions of two times in my lifetime. That I've done this, they bond because they realize they can disagree with each other and they're still going to be accepted. So learning to disagree helps us actually work together and teaching people how to express from first person, meaning when this happens, when you do this, this is how I feel, or this is how it affects me. These are all really subtle things that are really simple in concept, but I had to learn them through making mistakes. I read a lot of sales books back in the 80s and 90s. And then I just experimented. I'm I take a lot of risks. And so I realized that let's do the opposite of what I think works. And let's see if that's any worse than what I've been doing. And most of the time, when I changed and I did the opposite, instead of pushing people, I listened, instead of demanding, I asked. Instead of belittling, I found ways to praise. And when I made those simple changes from the way that Leadership happened when I grew up in the 60s and 70s, and I did the opposite. It worked really well. And I got better results, and we built success and we had more profits.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (15:

47.982) Okay, there's somebody listening that's in a disagreement right now with a life partner, with somebody at work. most people don't know how to get along when they disagree. They pick their friends based upon alignment and agreement with different things, politics, you know, how to raise kids, whatever it is. For that person that is in a disagreement, that has shut down, ceased communication. pushed away that other person. How can you what are the first steps they need to take to get to that place where they can be back in community with that person, but not necessarily agree with that person?

Randy Lyman (16:

34.153) For me, I had to start looking at anytime I blamed, anytime I judged, either judge myself because I wasn't doing well enough or judge somebody else because they had an effect on me. That's formal blame. Then I learned to say, How does this feel? And and that seemed really crazy to me. I'm educated as a physicist. Feelings aren't part of physics and they're not part of engineering. But when I learned this from a partner I had back three years back in the 1990s, and she would say, Okay, how does this feel? And I would say, that was crazy. Why does it matter? Well, just do it and let's talk about it. And so I would get more in touch with anger. And below anger was resentment and disappointment and betrayal and abandonment. And once I got to feel those feelings, then I realized there was a whole nother story going on under my surface, under the surface level. There was something else going on. So becoming aware of it happens if we can stop when we start to blame. And say how might I be able to feel something from the past? And I had to suspend my doubt because I had doubts. I s I doubted any of this would work. Now I have no doubt whatsoever. I know 100% that embracing our emotions and finding a way to feel that energy and release it was is helpful. But at first, any logical person is gonna say, No, that doesn't make sense. So something that I I'll jump to is Wim Hof has made breath work really. popular. He's brought it to the mainstream. And breath work is really simple, but it's a combination of mindset and being in touch with our body and working through emotions. And so we have to be willing to look at ourselves at whatever level we're ready to. And that was the hardest thing for me, is to realize that I was the problem and to realize that. I had to change. Now, what really helped me was somebody explained responsibility is the ability to respond. And they said, the only way you're gonna ever gonna find power and control, Randy. And I'm all about power and control because I want to get things done. The only way me, Randy, would ever find a way to have control over a situation is to have control over myself.

Randy Lyman (18:

43.117) And that happened through self-awareness and through that idea of finding control and realizing it would only come through looking at myself, my ego engaged with that process.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (18:

54.893) So let's dive into breath work for a second. For someone that's never done it, maybe hasn't even heard about it. How does how does it work? And how what's the besides you know, like more regulation, maybe more calmness, maybe see things with a little bit different perspective. What are the what are the major benefits to doing breath work?

Randy Lyman (19:

18.863) We'll start with one of the simplest processes that's easy for anybody to do, which they which is referred to as four square. So I'm going to breathe in for four seconds slowly. One, two, three, four. I'm gonna hold it for four seconds. I'm gonna breathe out slowly over four seconds, and I'm gonna hold that out breath for four seconds. So it's a pattern of four actions, four seconds each. It's easy enough for somebody to do. But in doing that, our thinking mind then becomes aware of our body. And the only way to become aware of our emotions and to find calm. Is to sense something in our body. And the breath is the fastest way to become aware of the feelings in our body because we can't be aware of our breath without feeling our mouth, our throat, our lungs, our chest, our stomach. And in that physical, that mental awareness of our physical situation, that brings us into the present moment. So everything fits. Everything in the universe fits into one of three categories, in no particular order. The first one is is our mind and thoughts and information. The second is our physical body and the physical world we live in. And the third one is our emotions. And Emotions are bigger than space. They can only come through our physical body, and our physical body is only available to us in the present moment. I can't feel my body yesterday. It's like trying to cook on yesterday's hot stove. That's gone. But the moment moment to moment I live moment to moment in my physical body. My thinking mind is never in the present moment. I'm thinking about the past, I'm thinking about the future, I'm thinking about a stream of thought. But emotions have to come through my physical body and physical sensation. So I can never connect with my emotions and the physical sensation through my thinking mind. So for anybody who's smart and has strong will, that makes it even harder to get in touch with their emotions. And breath work makes us aware of our physical body in a way that our mind is guiding the process and feel safe.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (21:

19.469) Okay, now let's go to big moments. In a big moment, one of the most effective things is to be in the moment, during that big moment. And if your mind is in the future, like what's gonna happen if I get this deal, what's gonna happen if I score this point, and your body's feeling maybe some pressure, stress, because you're thinking about what happened the last time. How does how does this all relate? Because those three concepts of mind, thoughts, body, circumstance, you know, surroundings, and your emotions are all there. And, you know, like think about making a speech and somebody asks you a question or heckles. Think about making a presentation and you're going through your PowerPoint, and somebody in the conference room Ask a stupid question that gets you off your game. Think about being in a game, a sport. And the official makes a call that it's not fair. Everybody's everybody knows it's wrong except for him. How does this all how do these three things all help you perform at an optimal level or choke?

Randy Lyman (22:

40.953) So I'm gonna go to sports analogy and I I'm not an expert on sports, but I understand enough about it. So if we're gonna learn a play and I've gotta run that play, I'm not gonna learn that on the field. I'm gonna learn that ahead of time in practice. I'm gonna practice it over and over again. And so it's the same with emotions. I need to be able to identify what emotions can come up, and I need to practice those before I get in the game, before I give the speech, before I stand up in front of my team as a leader. I have to take the time outside of work, outside of the game, outside of that point where the pressure is on and the results really matter. And I need to set it to aside and invest. Invest is a keyword. I need to invest the time in becoming aware of my emotions and then finding a way to. Get in touch with them and work through them. So for me, the the biggest key moment in my life happened when happened in about 1991. I was at a four-day business communications retreat. On the third day, I had a huge emotional release. We were going through an exercise, and there's something that somebody had said to me, a family member had said to me 12 years earlier that hurt me deeply and I didn't feel it. So we go through this exercise called the seven levels of truth. And I cover this in my book. And I talk about this epiphany in my book, The Third Element. And suddenly, man, it hit a nerve. And I just break down in front of like 15 people. I'm crying. I'm just sobbing and letting all this energy out. And it was a big relief. And it felt good and it was pure. So I wasn't embarrassed. And I went back to work four days later. And the people in my life who were incompetent, I'd been having this issue for months, and by trying to think more competently and act more competently, I wasn't able to fix it. But when I got in touch with the emotions around feeling incompetent in my family members' eyes, and I had that huge release, then the issue went away at work. So outside of work, I stumbled across. I was given the gift of being shown this experience so I could release this emotion. And then being a scientist, I look at cause and effect. Well then every time I have

Randy Lyman (24:

46.265) To this day, to this very day. If I have an issue I can't solve quickly with my thoughts and my actions, then I have to say, what emotion do I need to feel? And I do my breath work or journaling or whatever that is. And that helps me find a solution in the physical world. And it's like magic, but it's not. And I explain this in the book how it works. But it always has to be done again, off the field. Outside of the boardroom, outside of my leadership group, I have to invest that time and look at myself. I have to realize that I hold the solution. I can change nobody outside of me. I can't change anybody outside of me. And then I dig in and I make some mistakes along the way and eventually I find solutions.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (25:

28.365) Okay, so you were talking about the seven seven truths or the seven levels of truth. Okay, sh give us a little bit more about that.

Randy Lyman (25:

33.881) Seven levels of truth. 39.92) Okay, so people in my business were incompetent, and why'd that bother me? Well, because then they're not going to do their job well. Well, what if they don't do their job well? Well, then we won't be profitable. Or we'll look incompetent to our customers. What if we look incompetent to our customers? Well, then our customers won't trust us and they won't buy. What if our customers don't trust us and don't buy? Then we're not profitable. But if we're not profitable, then I can't keep the business going? What if I can't keep the business going? Then I look like a failure. What if you look like a failure? And here was the key. Then I look like a failure to my family. So I went through all those levels, and it's not always seven, it's however whatever number of levels it turns out to be, it's often seven. But it came down to at the deepest level, then I don't look competent and my family will disown me. And at an instinctual level, If you go back 3,000 years ago, if I'm not part of my family, if I'm not part of the tribe, then I'm thrown out into the wilderness and I'm gonna die. Now that's not reality today, but in our our first brain, our emotional beingness, that still feels real. And that's one reason people like team sports and they root for their team is because they want to belong to something. And the belong sense of belonging or the fact that maybe I won't be accepted by my team, by my family, by whoever that is. That's the level that we I would often get to, and I still get to today. So that's what the level seven levels of truth does, is it gives us a somewhat logical path of, okay, that's your reason. What if, why is that reason not really the answer? What's below that?

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (27:

17.291) Digging deeper. Okay, I like that. My brain's going in a lot of different places here. why does why do a lot of people struggle in their big moment? And doesn't matter, you know, what field you're in, sports, business, you're interviewing for the dream job, you know, you're going out on a first date with your dream partner.

Randy Lyman (27:

25.852) We're covering a lot.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (27:

50.528) And you choke. You you you just don't you don't show up like you were hoping to show up. You're actually disappointed in yourself. You didn't do what you knew you were capable of doing. Is that an emotional issue? Cause it's certainly not a capability issue.

Randy Lyman (28:

09.911) It's usually not a capability issue. It's an emotional issue. And it goes back to acceptance and it goes back to what I'll call inner child. I'm gonna preface this by saying: I am a very accomplished, 64-year-old, capable man. And as a as a business leader, as a capable masculine man, I can tell you the most important part. That holds us back is the inner child that's afraid of failure and rejection. The inner child is where our creativity comes from, our connectivity, where we look forward to winning a game or driving a fast car. That's the inner child. That's a part of us that we don't want to kill. Now we're not gonna let the child run the show. We're gonna make decisions as an adult, but that emotional drive is that child wanting to be accepted and wanting to be happy and wanting to share the joy of life with others. So when we choke, it's because we're afraid we're gonna disappoint that child. And that f child is afraid failure is gonna lead to being pushed outside of our tribe.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (29:

16.429) So it doesn't matter how old you are. Everybody's got an inner child.

Randy Lyman (29:

19.139) God knows. Absolutely. And we want that inner child. Again, I don't want the child to run the show, but I want to enjoy the positive aspects of the creativity and just look at how a child looks at the world and everything's beautiful and everything's a new experience and everything is fun. I want to keep that alive. And that's really where the challenges come as we grow up, and especially men going through junior high and high school, we have to shut that off because if we're caring and compassionate or we're childish at all, then we're ridiculed, we're verbally attacked, and often we're physically attacked as part of growing up and going through becoming a man and just the testosterone and human process. Now when we grow up, we don't need to be when we're going through college or we're in our twenties or thirties. We don't need to hide that beautiful part of us that we want to share of loving and comparing, excuse me, loving and compassion and connection and all those things that are wonderful. But when we're growing up, we have to turn all that off and we don't realize that we get to turn it back on again and live a full life as we get older.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (30:

29.997) Okay, hypothetically, I have a problem and I got a block. I'm blocked. I I can't I can't see a reasonable path to success with that problem. Is that because I've turned off minor child and I don't have any creativity? Is it because I'm suppressing an emotion? What is causing me to be blocked?

Randy Lyman (30:

54.137) We'll leave it as simple as possible. We're suppressing an emotion. Now, the emotion can come from inner child, but we don't need to go that deep. We just know that there's something from the past that we didn't feel completely. So, an example I use is if I'm in the eighth grade, I'm and I'm sitting next to a girl I have a crush on, and somebody makes fun of me. And I'm embarrassed, but I'm not going to feel embarrassed because I'm 13, I'm a man now, and I'm not going to be embarrassed in front of this girl and I don't know what to do, but I have that emotional energy of embarrassment. I push that down. Well, 10 years later, 30 years later, if I'm embarrassed, it is what I call the law of attraction, which runs everything at a nuclear level, reminding me that I have something from the past to feel. That energy within me resonates with the world around me. And says, hey, I need to feel this embarrassment and let it go. So then new situations where I'm embarrassed show up. I mean, think about young kids, and now they don't want to be embarrassed in front of the coach or in front of their teammates. What pressure there is on young kids in sports who are stumbling through the learning process. And then what pressure is there on kids in college or at a professional level? What if I fail? What's the consequence of that? That's all emotional. Because we know we can go out and get another job. We know we can talk our way through the situation. But when those old emotions come up, those are not easy to navigate unless we've talked about them ahead of time and we have some tools to work with.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (32:

26.221) Okay, let's talk about burnout. How does burnout connect to your your your research, your knowledge?

Randy Lyman (32:

35.919) So we start out motivated by wanting to feel good through financial freedom, through time freedom, through whatever that might be. We we have goals that are emotional goals. I don't want to accomplish just because my mind thinks it's important. I want to accomplish something big because it's gonna feel good. Okay, so we start down that path and we we work on our thoughts, we work on our physical reality and our physical body, and in order to do that, we shut off our emotions. Well, along the way. We get tired, we get mentally tired, we get physically tired, but we shut off the emotions where our drive was coming from. So if that internal drive is a desire to feel good, to support our family, whatever it is, that's that those things that drive us are emotional. And when we turn off our emotions, the bad emotions, the painful emotions, we also turn off the good emotions that provide. That motivation, that drive. And so we have to then open Pandora's box and deal with the combination of the painful emotions and the good emotions. They all come pouring through. Not enough to kill us, but they come pouring through in a way that's messy. And when we work through the messy ones and we work through some of the pain, then we get in touch again with those goals we had of success, those goals of safety and sharing and taking care of our family. But if we turn off our emotions to find success, Eventually we lose the motivation. That's where burnout comes from.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (34:

05.005) Let's talk about dudes for a second. We're both we're both men. What is the most common emotion that men experience that they suppress? And then how does it typically manifest and show up later in an ugly way?

Randy Lyman (34:

26.489) Blame is the cover for other emotions. And blame and anger. Anger for me was the cover up for other emotions. And so what comes up for a lot of leaders is loneliness and abandonment. And we just feel so alone because we're clear on what our mission is and nobody around us understands us, partially because we don't understand us ourselves. And then another one that I just worked through last year is shame. And I had shame about my own shame. Because shame at some level says, okay, I'm up I need to be held accountable and I should have some healthy level of shame or embarrassment because I know I could do better. But if we over do that and we internalize shame and we don't own it and feel it and release it, that shame from I didn't catch that touchdown pass, I didn't pass that that test I needed to pass, I just didn't do as well as I could have done, and I have what should be. a healthy bit of shame, if that becomes an unhealthy level of shame, then we as men are tough. We're not gonna admit that we have shame. So that's been a big one for me. And that was hard for me to swallow.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (35:

39.245) So you can actually have shame about shame?

Randy Lyman (35:

42.593) Absolutely. And that was what held me back from getting through my old shame. 49.084) As silly as that sounds, that was real for me. So it was about a year ago when I went through that and I really got to a deeper level. I've been working on myself for 36 years, and as I like to joke, I hope I'm halfway through. But after 36 years of personal discovery and working on myself, I've still went through shame last year and I still went through levels of deservedness because the human experience is so complex and It's designed to irritate us. So you go back to you talk about relationships with our our domestic partners, with our husbands or wives or spouses or partners. One of the main aspects of that relationship is to bring up our shit and to show us where we have things we have an opportunity to improve on and feel. So when we get upset with our spouse, we're missing the gift in that irritation.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (36:

37.185) Hmm. What how how do what's a lot of guys are angry. You know, I've gone through anger. What is the root cause of anger?

Randy Lyman (36:

48.291) Because we don't understand the rules of the game. We're taught that if we show up and we follow the human rules of society, that we will find success. And that's not how the reality works. Reality works through everything as a reflection of A combination of our thoughts, our actions, and our emotions. And I clearly describe this in my book, The Third Element. That's one reason I wrote the book because I want people to understand what buttons to push, not to irritate people, that those kind of buttons, what control levers to pull, what buttons to push to make our reality work around us. And it all comes back to looking at ourselves. But if we don't understand the rules of the game, One reason that kids around the world play soccer instead of American football is American football rules are too complex for a five-year-old to play. So they go out and they kick the ball around, kick the ball in that general direction, and they can play soccer and they can find success because they under basically understand the rules. Well, if you take a five-year-old and you have him play American football, they're gonna be really frustrated. Well, that's most humans, including myself forty years ago, trying to understand the rules of the game of life. And I just get angry because the rules I was taught about be a good boy, show up, do your homework and get a good job. Those rules are not enough.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (38:

06.263) So I see unfairness as a as a root cause for anger. 'Cause you

Randy Lyman (38:

13.089) Yeah, that was me. The world's not fair. That it's their fault. They're not treating me fairly as according to what I was told were the rules. And then angry people attract angry people. And I got stuck in misery of complaining with people who wanted to complain. And so 40 years ago, my friends were people who complained. And finally, when I broke out of that and I found a partner who said, that's not helpful. Let's look at this differently. Then slowly I changed my mindset and my reality changed. But I had to work through those levels of anger. And I had a partner who held the space for me and allowed me to feel the anger without trying to shut it off. And she was comfortable with me being angry and saying, okay, now that you've felt that and you've kind of run out of steam because you're tired, because you she let me express. Now what do you feel? And I got to the next level of anger, or excuse me, the next level of emotions under the anger. And the biggest challenge for men is when we get angry. We feel empowered, but it's really a distraction from what's underneath.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (39:

14.123) You'd mentioned that, you know, especially in first world countries, most of us grow up in reasonably healthy households. Most people have a let's just call it an a quote unquote normal, you know, youth. But everybody deals with some type of trauma. What happens when people spend too much time focusing on their trauma?

Randy Lyman (39:

42.968) If they don't get into it deep enough, if they just touch on the surface, they'll be stuck there forever. The key is to get to the deepest core of the pain. And in chapter seven of my book, The Third Element, I outline 14 different practices to do that, 14 different exercises that help us get to that deepest level. So if we're just touching on it and it brings up our anger, then the anger is a distraction from the underlying pain. We're stuck at that level forever. And it may take a hundred years, it may take a thousand lifetimes to get through that issue. But when I can surrender and I say, okay, this is gonna hurt emotionally, this is gonna hurt. And I don't wanna feel this, but I'm willing to suspend my doubts. I'm willing to there's a trick I use. I tell myself, I'm willing to die. Now I'm not gonna die when I start to feel my old emotions, but when I say that, my ego laughs and says, okay, we're not gonna die. Let's try this. And then I get to a deeper level of the emotional pain. And I don't always cry tears. Sometimes I do, and I'm not embarrassed about that. Sometimes I just have to go on a run. I have to go punch a punching bag. I have to work out in a way that I feel that energy come through me associated with the anger, associated with the disappointment, associated with the betrayal. And so when I can do a physical activity while I'm feeling the emotion, then it will pour out of me, it will transform.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (41:

03.895) Means. Okay. if you could, you said you were 64. If you could go back and be 24, and you have your business career all in front of you, what's one thing that you know now that you wish you knew at 24 that you would implement that might elevate your game and your standards and your success that you just didn't know when you were 24?

Randy Lyman (41:

33.164) Everybody, including myself, is doing the best they can with what they know and where they are and their own personal evolution. And it's not that they're against us. They're only working to protect themselves and taking care of themselves in the way that they learned how from a dysfunctional family, from a dysfunctional neighborhood, from dysfunctional schools. They're doing the best they can. They're not out to get me. They never were. I took it personal like they were. And the way it's personal is it's a reflection of an opportunity to heal, but it's never a personal attack because they don't like us. They either don't like a part of themselves, they don't like what we expose within themselves, or they're simply trying to survive.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (42:

15.573) A lot of athletes struggle with rule following. What is the what is the connection to wanting to like refute authority and and you know, skirt the rules and bend the rules and all those types of things?

Randy Lyman (42:

31.119) So I'll I won't name the name or the time period, but I had a long-term relationship with somebody who grew up in a household with a mother and a stepmother who were always wrong. And the way that this person made their decision was to disagree with their mother or their stepmother. And that was the right decision, that was the best decision. And they that became ingrained in them. So once they grew up, they're out of the house and they're an adult, they still had that pattern of disagreeing because it served them when they were a child. And if somebody's father or mother or caretaker is wrong and we see them make wrong decisions, then we learn, all I have to do is disagree and it's gonna take me on the right path. But that doesn't last a lifetime.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (43:

14.423) So in a small sample size, you might go, yeah, I'm gonna do the opposite of what my dad did, 'cause he did some dumb things. But over a lifetime that that's not a good strategy.

Randy Lyman (43:

24.825) That's a perfect way to say it. I agree 100%. In a small sampling, it worked. And when we grow up, we grow up in a small environment and a small sampling. And then we think that what we learned is going to apply to the rest of the world. And it really doesn't. And then there's also a part of us inner child level that wasn't acknowledged. And sometimes the only way we get acknowledged is by disagreeing, because as you said, then we engage in dialogue. It might be ugly dialogue, but at least we're getting attention. And so it always comes back to emotions at some level.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (43:

54.85) What is your what is your morning routine to set your day? I find that most people that are successful, they have one. Do you have one?

Randy Lyman (44:

07.821) I have when I do a few supplement, I do a supplement drink, I do a few healthy snacks I like, and then I listen to music that motivates me. Because music does a couple things for me. One is it it sets the mood, but it can also get me to a place of deeper emotion if I want to feel. So my day, every day, I set one goal. I want to either cry a tear of joy because life is so freaking beautiful and so amazing, or my connection with somebody is so beautiful that I have so much gratitude. It's just I'm overwhelmed, or I want to get to a place where I heal some old emotion. And it's not about bawling or sobbing or being emotional. It's about feeling at the deepest level. And that's when we have our deepest experience. If you talk to people who have great families, then their deepest experiences in life are their kids graduating or their cre kids appreciating them or reconnecting with their father before they pass on or whatever that might be. And so I want to feel every day. I still guide my day through my planning and I still write out my goals and I still take action. But I set the tone for positive emotions before I start my day through music.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (45:

20.459) I've had 250 some of these things, and I've never had somebody say they set a goal for an emotion, which is really awesome. Heal from an old one, experience a new one. That's awesome. Randy, this is your time to interview me. Ask me one question that you would like me to ask you, but let me answer and then you answer.

Randy Lyman (45:

51.791) Okay, it's gonna take me a moment to grab that concept, but I understand what you just told me. And I'm glad you didn't tell me ahead of time because then it's fresh.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (45:

57.354) Okay.

Randy Lyman (45:

59.514) Let's go back to when you're twenty-nine or thirty years old and you're having to make decisions about your life. How what big decision did you make that took your life on a good trajectory?

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (46:

12.491) I decided to start my own business at at 29. I was finishing up law school. And instead of working for a law firm, I decided to start my own agency. it was harder, took me longer to get competent. the internet didn't exist and some things like that that make it really easy today. it gave me empowerment for the rest of my life and rest of my career because I did it. It took me four years to become profitable, but I did it. And so at that time it was I bet on myself. That's what I did. I bet on myself.

Randy Lyman (46:

56.301) You stepped up and you took on a the the bigger challenge and you decided you would do that. You would take on life head on. And I've seen several people at that age who made the decision to take the easy road and you took the hard road. And that's why you've had the success you've had, in my opinion.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (47:

14.185) Okay, so back at you. What was your what decision did you make?

Randy Lyman (47:

20.151) I opened my mind to there was something more to life than just science. I had achieved a lot, I had national awards, and I was very successful due to my mind and my hard work. And I opened my mind to the possibility there's a power bigger than our my human mind and my human body. And that's love and whatever way we look at it, God, spirit, source, whatever we call it. And I opened my mind to that. And fortunately I had a great partner who showed me how to incorporate that into my life through changing my thoughts and changing my actions and becoming aware of my emotions. Otherwise I just would have been a a miserable person with mediocre success. I I had that choice and I'm glad that I opened my mind.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (48:

06.145) Randy, thank you so much for being on today. I just looked at our time. it flew by. Hey, if somebody wants to find you, some corporate person wants to bring you in, somebody wants to have you be a speaker, share with everybody. Randy Lyman, where can they find you?

Randy Lyman (48:

26.851) My website, randyliman.com and my r-n-d-y-l-y-m-a-n.com, they can get access to my book, to my coaching programs, to a lot of free offers that I have. I'm doing this not because I need money. I'm doing this because I want the world to be a better place and I want people to find freedom in their life and business success. So my website is the best place to start. Also, LinkedIn and and Instagram are my primary social media.

Pro Mindset - Craig Domann (48:

51.649) Thank you so much, Randy.

Randy Lyman (48:

54.083) You're welcome, Craig. It's great to be here.