Life is a journey filled with constant transitions, and navigating through them can often feel like a test of our resilience and strength. From grappling with the emptiness of a child leaving home to grappling with the fear of starting a new job, transitions can be a lot to take in. But what if, amid this tide of change, we saw opportunities for personal growth and new beginnings? Join us as we explore how to courageously embrace life's transitions, turning uncertainty into a voyage of self-discovery.
We discuss a successful entrepreneur with a crucial decision to make, we explore the struggle of choosing the comfort of the known or pursuing the allure of new beginnings. We delve into the importance of our mindset when dealing with transitions - are they hurdles or opportunities? We discuss the power of positive self-talk, and how our internal dialogue can either propel us forward or hold us back. We also touch on the importance of not putting all our eggs in one basket; a life transition could be the stepping stone to something more fulfilling and aligned with our soul's yearning.
Life transitions are inevitable, but how we navigate them can be transformative. As we dive deeper into this topic, we discuss the concept of 'Self-Referencing' and 'Being the Change.' This means recognizing our power to be proactive, make decisions, and take steps that chart our path during these periods of change, thereby empowering us and inspiring others. We conclude our discussion by inviting you to join us in embracing and traversing these life transitions together because we're all in this together, after all. Through our conversation, we hope to inspire resilience, curiosity and a sense of companionship that makes life's transitions less daunting and more empowering. Let's journey together.
Angie Shockley mindfulangie@gmail.com
Dave Gold dave@davegold.com
Life is a journey filled with constant transitions, and navigating through them can often feel like a test of our resilience and strength. From grappling with the emptiness of a child leaving home to grappling with the fear of starting a new job, transitions can be a lot to take in. But what if, amid this tide of change, we saw opportunities for personal growth and new beginnings? Join us as we explore how to courageously embrace life's transitions, turning uncertainty into a voyage of self-discovery.
We discuss a successful entrepreneur with a crucial decision to make, we explore the struggle of choosing the comfort of the known or pursuing the allure of new beginnings. We delve into the importance of our mindset when dealing with transitions - are they hurdles or opportunities? We discuss the power of positive self-talk, and how our internal dialogue can either propel us forward or hold us back. We also touch on the importance of not putting all our eggs in one basket; a life transition could be the stepping stone to something more fulfilling and aligned with our soul's yearning.
Life transitions are inevitable, but how we navigate them can be transformative. As we dive deeper into this topic, we discuss the concept of 'Self-Referencing' and 'Being the Change.' This means recognizing our power to be proactive, make decisions, and take steps that chart our path during these periods of change, thereby empowering us and inspiring others. We conclude our discussion by inviting you to join us in embracing and traversing these life transitions together because we're all in this together, after all. Through our conversation, we hope to inspire resilience, curiosity and a sense of companionship that makes life's transitions less daunting and more empowering. Let's journey together.
Angie Shockley mindfulangie@gmail.com
Dave Gold dave@davegold.com
Hi everybody, welcome to Embrace the Journey podcast. I'm Angie and I'm here with my podcasting partner, dave Gold. It's good to see you today, dave.
Speaker 2:You too, you got a great smile. I wish I hope people can see this, because you got this really almost mischievous smile today. I don't know what you're up to today, but whatever it is, I'm glad I'm six hours away, because it looks like it could be dangerous.
Speaker 1:I'm having fun. I'm having a fun week.
Speaker 2:Me too. We should just tell everyone about how magical our week is.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Even if they don't want to hear it.
Speaker 1:You and I will have that hell of a time doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, okay. So when we started off here, angie said do you have anything to talk about? And I said yeah and she said, okay, surprise me. So I'm going to surprise you. Okay, I'm going to try to keep this story short, which is always a challenge for me.
Speaker 2:So we're talking about one of the sub themes, or maybe the impetus for this was the idea of transitioning, challenging transitioning, and sometimes you know what you're transitioning into your kids are leaving the nest, you're getting divorced, you're starting a new job, you have a diagnosis of some sort and a lot of times you're just leaving someplace. You don't know where you're headed, and a lot of this is how do we chart a path into the unknown? It's best way to say it what do we look for? How do you do that? So I just had a conversation it was a business conversation with some people, and one of them is someone I can't wait to introduce you to. I have to say that he is a very successful entrepreneur, has a half a dozen companies under his belt and has now been hired by one of his very wealthy childhood friends to run a retreat center out in Utah that is already doing high end retreats for Google and all these places and it's a great, it's just a phenomenal gig and it's like the dream of his lifetime and, at the same time, his wife. They're about to have their first child and they want to be on the East Coast Okay, because that's where all their family is. They want them to be around their relatives. So he was and I'm even thinking I might want to tell all of his story because I think he might be a great guest for us.
Speaker 2:Just going into what I don't know what I do, I'm afraid to get too deeply involved with this, even though it's my dream job, because I want to go back and I know it's permanent and blah, blah, blah, blah. And there's some suggestions I gave him. But there's one thing that I'll kick this off with and I happen to mention a very renowned and respected Indian teacher. For those that might be from my agent familiar with the lineage, he was a student or a successor to Rama oh my God, manamaharshi Gosh. Anyway, his name is Srinir Sagadatta and I happen to mention Srinir Sagadatta. That was hilarious because everybody then held up their books of Srinir Sagadatta at the same time.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I said there's a bit of wisdom that he said that I want to kick this off in terms of transitioning into the unknown, and he said someone asked him why he encouraged people to ask the question who am I? Who am I? And he said the question who am I shows you where to look, but not what to look for. And so much of our lives, I think, is that, in terms of when you're charting into the unknown and you may get an opportunity and you're going to look at it and say wait a minute, this really seems like it's hitting on all cylinders. But right and just, in terms of how we can look at opportunities, it's not necessarily being directional rather than the endpoint, and maybe I don't know if I'm being too esoteric here maybe you can probably break it down into something that's a little bit more knowledgeable.
Speaker 2:But one of the things that I found in terms of transitioning into places is being able to look at opportunities, miracles, whatever you want to call it, synchronicities in a way that's not saying, oh, that's the thing, but know that is showing me something about life or about direction. That might be the thing. All right, you can tease that out and make it more less esoteric if necessary, which I know you're very good at.
Speaker 1:I think, first of all, what an amazing experience that your friend's going to be walking into. And, of course, timing is perfect, because I have some folks in my life that are facing similar challenges and blessings all at the same time. And the big life transitions are. They're not easy. They're not for the faint of heart. Oftentimes it's way easier to just stay where we are because we know it, it's comfortable.
Speaker 1:For a lot of folks, staying where they are is an okay thing, and in the last iteration of our podcast, we were talking a lot about how we'll stay in something that's not good for us because it's comfortable, it's known. We can stay there even if it's not good for us. The other part of that parallel path is that we can stay in something that's okay for us. It's not great for us, it may not be exactly where we want to be or what we want to do, but it's okay and so we can stay in that because it's comfortable. It's the same process Doesn't necessarily have to be something that's bad for us. It can just be something that's comfortable and okay, and so we stay there, even though our soul is yearning for something else. And then there's this situation that you just talked about, dave, where our soul is yearning for something and the universe says here's what your soul is yearning for, it's what you thought you've always wanted, and it's an incredible opportunity. On a literal level, on a soul's journey level, energetically it's an amazing opportunity. And then there's the gosh. This is wonderful, it's my dream job, it's what I've always wanted to do, and I have this whole other situation in my life, with a family and a child about to come, and how I want my child to be raised and how I want to live my life day in and day out, and it makes us go wait a minute.
Speaker 1:So what you're saying about asking the question tells us where to look, but not to what to look for. That's very much a great example of that, because the universe is giving your friend an opportunity to really decide what's important, to really decide how do I want to live my life, how do I want to raise my family? What is materialistically that I need in my life and I don't mean that in a bad way, I mean that in a survival, thriving kind of way what is it that I need in order to keep myself and my family comfortable? And what matters most, as I take this next step on my journey and I think, and I'll say this and then I'll turn it back over to you for a minute, but I it doesn't have to be in this or that situation. That's yeah, there it was.
Speaker 1:For anyone who's not looking, dave was, dave just went. Whew, there it is. I saw it. I didn't hear it, I saw it. But it doesn't have to be a this or that.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes there, that's what the transition is, that's what stepping into transition is, and when we step into transition it's scary. We don't know. We are blazing a path into the unknown and that's what your friend is facing. You know. It's very clear just from what you told me that what is important to him and what's going to take precedence in his life is his child, his family, how he wants to raise that child and what he wants his lifestyle to be like. That's going to be the most important and that's going to be the driver and the choices that he makes.
Speaker 1:But that doesn't take away this incredible opportunity of a new job, this dream job that he has in front of him, and it doesn't mean that he's not, that it's not a stepping stone to something else that might fit more in being alignment with his choices about his life. I think it's really important to just be open when we're facing these kinds of life transitions and these opportunities that come and then they start to feel like a burden because you don't know what to do about them, right? So I think it's just really important to be open to all of that. I broke it down, now. What do you think, dave?
Speaker 1:I think we should just end the podcast, because I think I hit every point that I was thinking of hitting, and also you're making me feel really smart, because what you said is pretty much what I said to him, unsolicited.
Speaker 2:it was supposed to be a business meeting, but I couldn't help myself. Well, the first thing is just what you're saying about if you could just stop the either or for a minute, because it's either or there's only two options. That said, you don't really think, oh, I'm keeping my options open because I'm doing either or, but you're limiting the universe of options to two either or. So what I suggested was just take a week and take either or out of it. Just take it out, just run the experiment of just not either oring it for a week and see if you like it.
Speaker 2:And one of the things I suggested to him which I know we know this is your either oring is limiting your full throated commitment, creativity in the job you have right now, because you're already distracted or thinking I can't really get into it, or whatever it is, so just recognizing when you're putting yourself into either or you think you're being on this time. Obviously you're caught in that situation. If you're going to stop a white, you either go after you go okay.
Speaker 1:I got that.
Speaker 2:There's other, but the idea that when you're doing that you're limiting, you're probably limiting both. And then the second point, and this is where it got really practical, because we had another person on the with a broad end who's also interested in doing retreats. Here is with him. If this is just showing what to look for. Oh, we know we want to do, we know we want to do retreats, we know we want it to be like this. We know we want to be here and by the end of the call we're already scheduling a retreat in October in North, in Durham, north Carolina. Because just what you were saying, if it hadn't been that, this whole thing opening up to the two things he wants most in life right now, which is to do the kind of work he's doing out in Utah and to be here with his kid, you know that's informed, that's informing.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. I think that's a really good point. There's no such thing as just two choices. When you're moving in life transitions, there are always lots of choices and lots of opportunities and you're not always going to make the right ones.
Speaker 1:And I another part of going through life transitions and a lot of people who are listening know my story and I probably have the most unblazed trail in my career and life as anyone in the universe and we could argue and say it was energetically very calculated. But there have been so many times in my life where I've stepped into the unknown and one of the most important lessons I've learned through that process is that you also cannot put all of your hopes, your dreams, all your eggs in one basket, as I'm looking at my chickens running around the backyard here. You can't put all of your life eggs in one basket because when you do that, you're setting yourself up for failure. Now, that's different than I'm not going to commit fully to something. That's not what I'm saying. But what I am saying is that when you are stepping into the unknown, you're blazing a trail into a place you've never been before and you're going to have to use a big machete and cut it as you go. You can't put all of your eggs into it's this or I failed, that's the other, this or that, either, or situation, because whatever we've done to this point in our lives has been a lot of learning, a lot of success, a lot of failure successful failure because we learn from it and we're able to use the gifts of that and move on in our lives. That's failing successfully, and so we've all done that. And so now how do we take those lessons and step into this next unknown of whatever that's going to be? And this example is such a great one to talk about today because look at the situation just being open to having that conversation and all of a sudden, an opportunity in the backyard showed up for this person and in order to be able to do that fully, than being fully committed to the job in Utah may be the first step, may be.
Speaker 1:And every time we meet somebody in our lives, for me, I believe that everyone comes into my life for a purpose, and it's a two way street I am a purpose in their lives and they are a purpose in my life, and so I never say this is my only person I'm ever going to be in business with, or this is the only person that I'm ever going to count as a friend, or this is the only person that I'm ever going to, this is going to be my California friend, or that I try not to put labels on any of the people in my life, because those people are all going to connect me to someone else. Now, those connections, those are the things. You can't put all of your life eggs in that one basket, right, because everybody's on this journey of transitions through their lives, and so someone may come into my life and they may have these wonderful, beautiful ideas and I may go oh, my gosh, that's exactly it and give up everything else I'm doing and put all of my hope, my dreams, my money, my time, my energy into that one idea, and it doesn't come to fruition. Those of us that are dreamers know this journey. We've been on it, we've been a part of it. Dave's one of those people. We've been on this journey and so we've learned that everything is an opportunity.
Speaker 1:So you keep yourself open, you understand that opportunities and people come into your life for a reason, and so you explore, that, you learn as much as you can from everybody and you, at the same time, know that this is not the only highway I'm ever going to drive down, this is not the only trail I'm going to blaze, and so that might be a stepping stone to meeting somebody else or learning about another job opportunity, or finding a new house that's the right one for my family or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:Whatever we're looking for, whatever life transition we're trying to step into, being completely open and realizing that the people in your life whether they're close people or whether there's someone you meet on the street you never know there's a connection and there's a conversation and you feel pulled to explore that a little further Definitely should, because that's going to be an opportunity for you to learn about yourself and to possibly move something a dream, a plan, a business down the road a little bit further. So I think that's it's really great your friend was open to having this conversation and listening to all of the possibilities. A lot of people would say, no, this is the only dream job I'm ever going to get. This is the only opportunity. Let's go, I'll never get another one. And man, do we limit ourselves when we do that?
Speaker 2:Wow, okay, let's see which one I'm going to pick up first. Okay, two things, but I can't forget, because I had a day yesterday. That's so much is so illustrative and I don't know if people think we're just talking philosophy here. No man, you live in life with the chickens over there.
Speaker 1:This is real stuff.
Speaker 2:But I was thinking when you're talking about where to look and what to look for in the way you talked about it and putting it in your art terms, but especially yours, is like, energetically you could be led energetically but you don't know. The form is maybe and you could. Again, you could probably decipher what I'm saying. That doesn't sound. So I just remember for my own my when I was my first 20 years of really dedicated spiritual search with one teacher. He said all that matters is the yearning, and that's in all the traditions, is the yearning. It doesn't matter what form it takes, it happens on the way. It's the yearning that is answered, it's the yearning that is your connection to the divine, to God, your destiny or whatever. And if you think about where to look and not what to look for, it's okay.
Speaker 2:Like you said, my friend Rich, he has the yearning, he has these two yearnings and if he had to look at just the form that it's currently taking, he'd be so limited.
Speaker 2:But no, I know that because I love, I can see when I'm being called to do something so big and I also am being called to that. So one is just noting that, for whatever it's worth, that the yearning is what you're is where to look, and then you, the more you can follow the yearning and know what to look for, and then you'll see what appears in it, whatever. But the other thing when you were just saying and these are very different, you can run with either one of these is about getting surprises is is you know, we're doing some some real estate work up in Virginia and I went up yesterday and I had this big day plan one and there's a guy that literally owns half of the town who's taken a shine to me and he was taking me to the rotary at 715 yesterday morning meet all the pillars of the community and I was excited about that and I also had a meeting with the general manager of the casino up there, which was a big team.
Speaker 2:Is that a lot that can happen? Well, I get picked up at 715 by my friend and we go to the rotary and he had the day wrong.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know, oh my.
Speaker 2:God, I dragged. No, they had some meeting in the week and he didn't know that they had a joint meeting. And so I'm and he's over there apologizing about it and I'm just thinking, oh no, this is great. I didn't know how it was going to be great. And he said let's just drive around for 15 minutes. Two hours later he's sitting in the home we did up there with Julie and I, with two business opportunities that I never could have dreamed of, especially to be in business with him.
Speaker 2:And I'm getting texts still today. We're gonna do this, we're gonna do that, we're gonna do that. And so if it had been, oh my God, we missed the rotary. Why the hell did I drag myself out of bed? All the people I could have met and it was like no, I wonder what, I wonder what's going to happen and I'm just leaving with that to second stories a little bit also self-indulgent.
Speaker 2:But anyway, both those points of, one, the yearning, not the form, and two just the curiosity, if I wonder what bigger it's like, are you gonna trade this in for behind-what-store number two? So we're constantly saying I wonder what's behind-door?
Speaker 1:number two yeah, curiosity, man, that's a really important part of transitions, of life changes, because curiosity can be super scary too. It can be. Ah, yes, I'm curious, but I'm also I'm hesitant because I'm not sure that whatever's coming behind-door number two is what I actually want, or is it gonna take me backwards? So I think it's important to embrace the curiosity and to your rotary story, to not be deterred when things don't go the way that you think they should, and remember that we're not gonna should all over ourselves. So how things should go is often not what you've got as a preconceived notion. How things do go is exactly what you need. And so, just coming to something with curiosity rather than irritation or frustration and I can take that to the energetic about the frequency, If we're putting out the frequency of irritation, anger, frustration, why did I do this? Why did I get up? Disappointment, all of that, that's all we're gonna get back. But if we have something happen in our lives, that is what we would consider disappointing, not what we had scheduled, not what we had planned, not what we thought was gonna happen and we can just take that pause. Remember the great pause, take the pause and just get curious about it. Then look what can happen, Because with curiosity, then your frequency is higher. It's one of happiness and anticipation and being excited and just curious about what could possibly happen, and so the frequency goes higher. So then you're attracting more of that into your life. So, if we take it energetic, that's what's really happening in those types of situations.
Speaker 1:And when you have something scheduled and maybe it happens to me a lot where I have things scheduled and either something comes up that's pretty significant in my world and I have to shift it, or somebody has to cancel an appointment with me and all those, it's not anything where I ever get upset about it and I didn't think about that until you just we're talking about it, but I just always go okay, if something else is supposed to happen right now and I just move on with it. It's not something that causes me to go into any kind of panic mode or judgment mode. What it just I just always know the timing is perfect. It has taken many years for me to trust the timing is perfect. That's not an easy thing to do, and so for folks out there that have really tight schedules and you're scheduled every day, hour on the hour, and you're moving around and you have these meetings and you're sitting on Zooms or you're going to people's offices or you're waiting for the phone calls and all that kind of stuff. It can be hard to not get that. For some people it's part of their job. If they're not getting those, then they're not meeting quotas or something.
Speaker 1:So I don't want to make light of the fact that if something changes or a wrench gets thrown in your day, that it's not something to deal with. I don't want to make light of it. I understand that it can be really difficult for some people, depending on what their daily work is, but at the same time you have that choice to take the pause, take a breath, let go of the anxiety you have about it, know that there's a reason for it and then just be curious about the reason. So I think that lesson can be really taken across the board to a broader group of people in broader situations, especially when we're in big transitions. I have a very dear friend who is in a comfortable job, has had the job for a long time and really wants to be an entrepreneur and has an amazing opportunity to start a business and grow a business, and it's like the chasm between where she is and where she wants to go is giant, and it's not something to make light of, that's.
Speaker 1:These transitions are not easy, they're hard, but there's a way to build that bridge across that chasm from where you are to where you want to be. And part of that is being present in your life, and what you're talking about is just being fully present in the moment that you're in. And that's my advice for people when wrenches get thrown into your day and you're not sure what's gonna happen and you don't know really if you can keep up with your plan and all that kind of stuff. If you wanna hear God laugh, tell him your plan. Stay present in the moment, stay curious in that present moment, never knowing what could come or who you could meet in that hour, that your appointment got canceled, or whether it's just a walk in nature that gives you the opportunity to recenter yourself, or you sat down at a table with people you didn't know and you end up with two business opportunities when you walk out the door. You just don't know. And so being curious about it rather than angry or bitter or frustrated, it's gonna be your better option.
Speaker 2:And so now I'm gonna tell a real life story. I was gonna tell because one thing is this may sound like, oh, this all sounds really good on the chalkboard, but it has to work when you go out on the playing field and you start to get tackled. And one point is that one, if you find yourself frustrated, or it doesn't mean there's something wrong yes, you wanna choose it, but to deny your experience because you're not sounding as calm and curious as we're talking about. And very real experience is I came home I don't know what day it is two days ago I can't remember the days. Yeah, two days ago, and I had a really busy day and at the end of the day I thought I'm gonna go to the farmer's market, I'm gonna surprise Julie and Chew gloves, fresh watermelon and cantaloupe, and I had my hands full.
Speaker 2:And when I get home I can't find my wallet and I go out and I realize I left my wallet at the farmer's market. I lost my wallet and all of us and I'm telling you I've had that and that hasn't gone anywhere. And as much as I tried to say, this is the great, what's the opportunity? What's door number two I lost my damn wallet with everything that's in it. The next day, I mentioned, I'm going up to Virginia and I have a meeting with which took some, as he was skeptical. I got a meeting with a general manager of the CISRS and I get an email from I'm up there that morning saying when you come to this entrance and bring your license, because you can't get in without your license.
Speaker 1:And I got to now.
Speaker 2:I got to say, hey, I'm making a great first impression.
Speaker 1:I don't have a license. I lost my wallet.
Speaker 2:I'm such an idiot, I lost my wallet. And so she writes I don't think I don't even get in here, or not right, and I'm thinking I'll blow it. And then I get an email saying yes, just come to the front. He said it's going to be really noisy because you're going to be in the casino and other stuff, but just come there and ask the security guard. And I said that's great, I got him 130.
Speaker 2:In another meeting it's one o'clock and on my phone it says meeting at one and I realized I had a time wrong who? So now you talk about freaking out. I've already behind the eight ball by losing my damn wallet and not being able to come, and now I'm showing a blade to the appointment and I still. So I was experiencing all this anxiety, all this thing, but what I refused to do was to tell myself I was stupid, I'm an idiot. Or here you go again, or you blew it. I was experienced. I might have had those voices, might have been swirling around, but the one thing that I refused to do was to just make myself wrong and put myself in that vibration where I was going to go in there with that energy. I just refused to do it. So one and I'll tell you this I turned out because it had a happy ending, or I wouldn't tell the story.
Speaker 1:I would tell a better story when it has a happy ending, but anyway, the point is one that you can experience.
Speaker 2:Whatever it is there is to experience. I couldn't say I am going to sit here and take a pause and then, when I relaxed and I got my energy together, I'm going to walk that meeting. No, damn it, I'm 10 minutes late. I'm not going to be 20 minutes. I'm going in just as I am and I'm showing up with it all. And there was a choicefulness about how I was going to respond to what my experience was what I was actually experiencing.
Speaker 2:And I could say, as the meeting just turned out better than I ever could have imagined Not for any reason, just that it did so. Anyway, stuff actually works in the world and you're going to get challenged in every level, not just in the cosmic level. Do I choose my dream job or choose my child? But what do I do when I lose my damn wallet? And how am I going to go through my day with everything that I'm worried about?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, that's a very practical application. Those kinds of things happen. That's real life stuff and that's also an example of failing successfully. You would consider the failure that you lost your wallet, you didn't have your license. All the things that you might in a descriptive way were against you.
Speaker 1:And I'm using error quotes for anyone who's not watching but things that were against you in that situation and had you focused on those or listened to those voices that were telling you hey, this was really stupid, you're a stupid person. There you go again. Absolutely, you could have gone down that rabbit hole of I'm not worthy, I'm not good enough, there's no way this is going to work. I can't believe you could have even blown it off. There's no point in going. There is no point in me going. I don't have a driver's license, I can't get in Now, I'm late. There is no point in me going, and I know that there was a time in my life where that would have been my choice, and I know a lot of people that's a choice that they would have made. But here, what Dave's saying, that's not the choice he made. The choice he made was to address his self-talk to say I'm going to go into this meeting just as I am. I'm experiencing some anxiety right now. It is what it is, but I'm going to go into this meeting. And so, yes, you kept your frequency high. That vibrational level was higher, so you kept that high and so you were able to attract more of the same with the people that you saw.
Speaker 1:And so I think that's an important lesson, not just in a business meeting, but just in your day-to-day life, when you have a situation with a partner, when you have a situation with employees, when you have a situation with yourself, what are you telling yourself? What's your self-talk? And we see the million quotes about self-talk. Yeah, what we tell ourselves is what we believe. If we tell ourselves that we're stupid, and here we go again and we've done it again and we've failed at this, then that's what we're. Those are the beliefs that we're going to develop in our lives and those beliefs are going to control our behavior. So, anytime that you're facing any kind of life transition, big or small paying attention to the self-talk, paying attention to what's happening in your world and that is something that you have the choice to control.
Speaker 1:You know I talk a lot about control being an illusion. The more we try to control, the less perceived control that we have, and that is 100% true. But where control does come into play is we can control our self-talk, we can control our own choices, we can control whether we take the great pause or we have an emotional reaction to something. Nobody else can control that, but we can control that about ourselves. So you did that yesterday.
Speaker 1:You practiced your self-control by not allowing the negative self-talk, even though it was there and Dave made a motion like it's spinning around his head right. So, even though it was there, he chose not to embrace that or to allow that to come in to be the belief from which he was operating in that moment. The belief from which you were operating in that moment and correct me if I'm wrong was I am worthy of this meeting and I am good enough to sit at this table with these people, and I have a lot to offer and bring to this table. So, with that as your controlling belief system, you had a successful meeting, right?
Speaker 2:And then the other yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1:No, go ahead, because I was going to roll into something else.
Speaker 2:No, I want to go back because there's another piece that I realized too about the right mindset or whatever the heck right energetic set, because one of that's me yeah, before I'd have been intimidated that I'm meeting, I would have been intimidated walking in there because I think this guy's separate from me and better than me and whatever, and so there's a lot of it's gone out, and so I went in there with the confidence of who I am and that the external part of that is, or the other side of that is that I wonder what the opportunity is here. I wonder it doesn't matter what this. These are all my old ideas. Julie, kids, me I never, I'm never late for a meeting because you're giving some you're starting bad impression. You always show up, you always do this, you're always, and these are just all old ideas that I grew up with that I put in business and seemingly made me successful. But they don't. They're not. That's not how life works now. You don't want to show up late, but it doesn't. It's not disqualifying, it's not the currency's different that we used to be, the currency of what's spent. Yeah, what I'm talking about now is a whole new currency of prosperity and success and abundance and everything else.
Speaker 2:And part of my mindset was I was just I go in and thinking there's going to be a little crack. I don't know what that crack is going to be, but it's going to be a crack. And what happened was all the ideas I had. No, can't do that, no, we're already. No, it wasn't like he was personally shutting me down, but I went in I said these are the ideas and none of them are going to work. And then I discover he's up there, but he lives in Chapel Hill where I live, and out of that we're going to meet on my home turf and he just moved here and he doesn't, and I wasn't. So it's wow, this is better than I ever could have imagined. But if I had just said either, like you say, to squall, squall, find myself going in and everything and oh my God, this ain't working. Oh, it says constantly listening, listening and then bing.
Speaker 1:There's the bing. There it was yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's, and those, I think, are the two pieces, as now is, we both go through life that aren't just like the keys to success, but they're just the keys to going through life with joy. I'm cool, life's cool.
Speaker 2:You get those two together I'm cool, life's cool, it's even when you lose your wallet, which I just. That's not cool, I can't put a panache on that. That's great, it doesn't matter, I still, yeah, yeah. So those the internal and the external piece, and I think again, I feel the people who are people listening to us are just really fortunate and I don't say that you know in any way that superiority that they have the benefit of all this wisdom that you and I have accumulated over life and that we didn't necessarily start out with.
Speaker 1:Oh, for sure yeah.
Speaker 2:Life really brought it into us and now we're living the experiment and it's going very well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's interesting to say that we're a living experiment, I think. I think that's a great way to look at life and that kind of takes us back to the beginning, when we were talking about the all or nothing, the either or. So many people think that there is a culminating experience, and I don't see life that way. I see life as every day is an experience, and what will it culminate in? Maybe nothing, I don't know, but I don't. And I guess that kind of goes to what you were talking about with current, the currency of life and growing up with a certain mindset and certain beliefs about how you work and how you live, and all of that. And it has changed. The world has changed, the people of the world have changed and what people want in their lives has changed, and so we have to change to adjust to that. And that's for people who own their own businesses and are trying to build a business based on an old belief system and can't get staffing. We could go right to that very specific problem that I know is nationwide right now, if not worldwide. And so how do you shift? Again, there's that chasm from where you want to be, and then there's all the butts that I'd love to do it that way, but and same, I am a business owner. I get it. I understand it. It's not an easy thing to get through. I just think that, for people listening, if you really are looking at a life transition, if you really are looking at how you want your life to be different and what steps you want to take to get there, all of these things that we're talking about are very practical applications in your daily life right now. One of the great secrets of manifesting that's a buzzword these days. I see it on everything manifest your best life. And secrets to manifesting all the things. And I'm not poo-pooing any of them, because everyone that I've read I'm like yep, that's accurate.
Speaker 1:But in my opinion and in my practice, one of the greatest things of manifesting your best life, or the life that you want, is to know what that feels like before you step into it. You can't choose if it's going to be this dream job in Utah or is it going to be a dream job in North Carolina. Those are the things that you can't say, oh, it's going to be here, it's going to look like this. This is very literal stuff, but if you go more to the level of your soul's journey and what you want your life to be. If you start out with I want my life to feel this way. I want every day to be full of joy, the hard times to be able to come and may, move through them with ease and with grace. The challenge is to be exciting and for me to look at them with curiosity. And how do you want that to be? What do you want your daily life to be? Your daily life to be like. That is, in my opinion, where you start any kind of big life transition. If you can't feel the vibration, the frequency of what this dream looks like, this new part of life looks like, then there's no way to cross the cat, there's no way to blaze the new path, because we're going to totally blind. But if we're looking at, okay, we want the feel of it to be like this. So if I go back to your friend who's got this incredible opportunity it's a great job and then a child on the way, what he's done, even if he's not aware of it, is he's looked at how do I want my life to feel? How do I want my days to be? Who do I want surrounding me. How do I want my child to experience the world? How do I want to experience the world? That's the thought process that he's in of saying I want to be on the East Coast, I don't want to be out West. That's not going to fit what I want my life to look like.
Speaker 1:And we all have that part of us that's adventurous and goes, oh man, be awesome to move to another state, it'd be awesome to live in a different place, it'd be awesome to run a business in a whole different setting. That's that part of us that gets excited. That's that same part of us that loves the birthday mornings. Oh, it's my birthday today. I wonder what's going to happen today.
Speaker 1:Even if it's the same old day, we still have that excitement. And that same excitement happens when we think about moving out of the box that we've been in. So you take that excitement so super excited about this incredible job to lead retreats at this huge space in Utah Amazing opportunity. Think of the excitement that came with that. Take that excitement and you hold it because that doesn't go away, and then you apply it to what you want your life to look like. What is your whole life going to look like it's not your job and your life. It's your life and what you do is your job, is your career. However you want to phrase, it is part of your life and that is the change that we're experiencing right now, and that is how we have to adjust in order to help everyone be more successful, in my opinion we have to make that shift.
Speaker 2:And I just hope people go back and rewind three minutes and hear that, because there's so much in there. And I have just a really practical one again and it's one of the interesting things. When we're talking to Rich, he said and we were telling a story of the other people that were in this meeting, I had my spiritual side and I had my business side and then I decided, hey, it was just going to be one life, I'm not going to put it, we're talking. So all these lessons we have I've had my lessons in retreats and on Zen, this and but now it's all, it's just in life. And an example let me just set it up and go back to the context. It's like following the feeling right and realizing that feeling is going to bump up against old ideas. It's not going to be. There are going to be times where wait a minute, this isn't how I think. I feel like I want to do it this way, but Harvard Business Review says you do it that way. And a real, just an example is we were.
Speaker 2:Someone introduced me to someone she's very successful in the pharmaceutical world and is also just very articulate and she looked over all our, our, our website and our stuff. And she said, oh, this is terrible. And I said, are you right? And I said let's work on it, we'll do it better. So we just had a call just a couple of days ago where she looked everything over and she was going through all of her stuff and every she was spot on with everything. It was just, it was so brilliant. And we were just yeah, that's right, we'll change that, we'll change that. And I want you to know. She said we did a great job. It's not like we're stupid as I'm making a sound. We knew when we put together the first, we had to just get something fast, but this was great. And so she's got all the authority, everything is going great. And then she's looking over our pitch deck was just what she put together. When you're asking for money and she says you don't mention your business plan here. And I said we don't have a business plan.
Speaker 2:She said you got to have a business plan and we listened and she just kept doing it. And then she did it. I got angry, I started to lose my, I started to lose my. Not like I was getting furious with her, I just saw myself getting impatient and resistant and all of the things you got to have. When you can't do it. There's nobody's going to give you money without a business.
Speaker 2:By the way, people have given us money without the business plan, but that's the point. But anyway, I just, and I'm thinking, okay, am I just lazy? Now? I just don't want to do what.
Speaker 2:My hate doing business plans. I've done so many. Am I? Is this just me? And no, because wait, and everybody says you can't get money without a business plan. But my whole yearning, my whole thing is I don't want to do that. I just, I have such a resistance to it. And finally I just said, okay, thanks, that's great, I'll get touched with the way to do it. But I came over there just thinking, no, that's an old way to do it. Maybe sometime we'll need it, sometime we'll do it. But the fact is, at that point I trust my own intuition, or my own yearning or my own allergic reaction to something, enough that once I go through and make any try to factor out laziness, predilections, oh there you go again. You may, whatever. Once you get that all out of the picture as much as you can, then do you have the courage to say the new world doesn't need a business plan? The new world needs me. Following my bliss.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know how I feel about a business plan.
Speaker 2:I sure get you and me. Both Dave and I are on the same page.
Speaker 1:with that, I feel like I've wasted an awful lot of time in my life writing five year plans, 10 year plans, business plans, all these plans that end up not being what you do, and so what was the value in the first place? Yeah, so I follow your bliss. I think that's a really good way to talk about being present in your life, because where do we get the joy? We get the joy in experiencing the moment that we're in. We get the joy in not comparing ourselves to others, which is self referencing. Which is what you're talking about is being confident and steadfast in your knowledge and your wisdom and your intuitive knowing that you don't need someone else to tell you what to do. It's always great to balance ideas and get information from other people, and I do it all the time and I value that in my life, my personal life and my professional life but I also am very self referencing and I know what to take and what to leave on the table, and that's really what you're talking about. And I think, for the folks that we've mentioned in this podcast, folks that I'm working with, folks you're working with who are going through life transitions, that part of being self referencing is a huge part of being able to make the transition. That's a huge part of the bridge that goes across that chasm from where you are to where you want to be is knowing that you are right and you can make that decision, even if the whole world tells you that you're wrong. If you know you're right, then you're right and you make that choice and you take that step, and you don't do it out of spite or to prove somebody else wrong or to prove that you can do something. That's never the reason to take the step. The reason to take the step is because you know it's the right thing to do. Period, end of story doesn't include anybody else. And so you saying thank you to your consultant, basically, and thank you for your input and all the wonderful things that she told you that you're acting on, etc. Etc. Wonderful. You get to choose what you leave on the table with those kinds of comments and those kinds of inputs.
Speaker 1:And I also just want to touch on the fact that you felt yourself feeling anger, resentment and getting short tempered, basically with it, getting frustrated. When we feel those things, that's when we really need to pay attention what's going on inside of us. And you also did the next step of all of that, which was review where it was coming from you, which is shadow pieces in the energetic world. Is this causing me to feel this way? Because there's a shadow piece in me that this brings up that I don't want to deal with. I'm too lazy to do it, or I'm going to procrastinate, because that's me, that's my shadow piece. I'm going to procrastinate, I'm not going to do this till the last minute. So is it bringing up a shadow piece? So we have to ask that question and then, once that one is ruled out, then it's no, this is the right thing to do, and I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do, and that's it.
Speaker 1:And that's being self-referencing and not needing someone else to validate that choice or that opinion that you have. That is a huge part of blazing a trail, making a big life transition, no matter what it is, no matter what that life transition is knowing that you're right about yourself, your choices, what you are going to do to move yourself forward. And, man, sometimes you're taking those steps without a net. That's part of it. That's just part of it. And we could do a whole podcast, and probably will, on the fear of transitions and how you recognize those fears and transition them and integrate them and move on so that you can continue to build that bridge. But we'll save that one for another day.
Speaker 2:And it reminds me of something too, and something to Keith are who is the power behind the throne or I don't know what to call him. Such a beautiful man in every way, and Angie's well what I describe him in terms of your relation.
Speaker 1:No, gosh, he's my work husband. Yeah, okay, cool, that's the best way, that's great.
Speaker 2:Good and. But he and I talked that. We talked about the hero's journey. It's something we share and what we're doing this is the hero's journey. Just to hear us journey because you're being heroic, it's because there's a way of saying oh, things are changing, I need to react to the change. We in this sounds so trial. I hope I can come away to say it we are that change, the change we are.
Speaker 2:When we take the step of saying no, I'm not going to do a business plan, then that's the experiment and it works out. Now there's a groove they get. Who called a groove in consciousness. It's not really, it's just a little bit of a groove. Now that you've made, someone else can come and someone else come.
Speaker 2:So, yes, there's the way that this makes our lives work so much better. But there's also a sense you get you're just part of something so much bigger that you're serving by making these small things and you don't have to get all up on your horse and thinking you're saving the world or anything like that, but just recognizing it's. There's a proactive piece of this where you're not just responding to a change that's happening in culture or consciousness or something, but by taking the step yourself. You are creating that change. How else is it going to happen? Right, there's nobody up there just calling the strings and saying let's do it this way. No, we are the agents that are making the agents of the divine, or what do you want to call it Actually making it happen to the choices that we make. There's a nobility to it, there's a sacredness to it that infuses these small moments of losing your wallet or not freaking out when you're late for a meeting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. We are living in a time of incredible change on our planet. We all are living in that right now and we are that change. You're absolutely right, dave. We are that change and how we step forward in our lives is going to be different and we're going to create a small groove and then there's going to be someone come behind us who widens that groove out a little bit and encompasses a little bit more of the world. And it's not up to any one of us to change the whole world. It's up to each of us to change our parts and then, as we move and we shift and we adjust and we walk this world in a different way, then that's how the change occurs.
Speaker 1:In my mind, it's not about who's right or who's wrong or who's what side, or any of those kinds of things. That's not what this is about. What this is about is recognition and awareness that we are in a changing society right now. And how do we want to live our lives within that structure of a changing society? It's an incredible opportunity and if we can come at it with curiosity, that's where the magic is.
Speaker 2:And the last thing I'll say and then I'll turn it over to you for the last words inside the first word, and approve that I can let you have the last word. That's an ongoing experiment Is that I can't prove this, I'll put the judge once said to me, I'll put this in the for what it's worth department and I'd like to everyone but the fact that you're here listening to this podcast and you haven't turned it off, you know, you're part of this. I don't know what this is, but it's. This is an ode. They're living their lives. I'm going to take my advice and apply to mine.
Speaker 2:Yes, there's that, but honestly, you're part. We're all doing this. Whatever this is, I don't know what it is, I don't pretend to know, I can't tell the parameters and power of it, but there's a way that, if you're part of it, if you're listening to this and it's hitting a resident as a resonant, we're running this experiment together. I want to acknowledge that and invite you. It doesn't mean we'll ever meet or anything. We'll ever even know each other exists. It just means that, no, that you're not alone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm actually going to let that be the last word, because I think that's a great one to end on. You are not alone, and we are here, and we're all going to embrace this journey together, and that's what I beautifully said.
Speaker 2:Got the last word.
Speaker 1:Thanks everybody. We'll catch you on the next one.