REPLAY: S1E3 with Nathan Serrato - Identity & Perfectionism

Earlier this week, I had the privilege of joining my friend Nathan Serrato on his incredible Queer Conscious Podcast, where we dove deep into a topic that’s personal to me—divorce. My divorce, to be exact. The conversation stirred up reflections on authenticity and the exhausting pursuit of perfection - being the perfect son, the perfect entrepreneur, the perfect friend, perfect boyfriend, and perfect husband. That hour with Nathan was both cathartic and healing, reminding me of the power of speaking your truth in a space where your heart and soul feel safe. Nathan has a rare gift for creating that space.

So in honor of our time together, today on Just Do You., we’re revisiting one of our most powerful episodes from last season—my original sit-down with Nathan, a Trauma-Informed Mindset Coach (PCC) based in San Diego. In this replay, we explore the tangled relationship between perfectionism and personal identity—a conversation that’s as insightful as it is liberating.

If you’ve ever wrestled with that relentless inner critic or carried the heavy expectation to always “get it right,” this episode will speak to you. Expect to laugh, reflect, and leave with a renewed sense of what it truly means to embrace peace, happiness, and joy—beyond perfection.

You can listen to our episode on divorce, here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/queer-conscious-podcast/id1786056280?i=1000720691470

To learn more about Nathan and the transformative work he offers, visit QueerConscious.com.

Thank you for joining us and we can't wait to welcome you back again next week! New episodes drop every Thursday and can be found wherever you find your favorite podcasts!  

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Want to learn more about our host, Eric Nicoll?  Visit:  https://ericnicoll.com

Transcript

0:05

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Just To You Podcast. My name is Eric Nicole, and I'm your host. If you are a first time listener, welcome to the conversation and if you're a regular, I'm honored that you've decided to join me for another episode. The Just Do You Podcast is centered around a network of conversations, which are meant to connect us, to inspire us, to find our own confidence, our own voice, and to live our own truth. And who knows, we might even learn a little something new that ultimately allows us to live in the sweet spot that I like to call the Just do you space of being. Each week, I have the privilege of sitting down for unscripted conversations with friends, family, colleagues, community leaders, and influencers that all share their own personal journeys. I hope that you enjoy our time together as much as I have. We are certainly gonna laugh, and yes, we might even cry a little, but in the end, we are gonna know that we're not alone during our life's journey. So are you ready? Great. Let's do this. Welcome to the conversation. I am excited today to be sitting down with my good friend and colleague and amazing human being Nathan Serrato. Welcome, Nathan. Hi, thank you for having me, Eric. Oh, it's my pleasure. I'm so excited. And again, this is episode number three. We haven't even really officially launched yet. So I'm just really excited to sit down and start chatting with you. But as I said to you earlier, before we hopped on, I sat down earlier today to actually record your intro and to give your bio. And I thought, You know, would I do that if we were having a conversation in my living room or at a coffee shop and introducing you to a bunch of people? So I'm going to take just a couple of minutes and just love on you a little bit while you're here. And then we're going to get into the conversation. Is that okay? Absolutely. You can love on me. Yes. Okay, cool. Cool. Well, Nathan, who I met in 2023, It's really an extraordinary human being and you know how you meet those people as you kind of go through your life and they just resonate with you and you feel a sense of this. It's cliche. I'm sure, but I feel like I've known you for a long time and Nathan was that person we met briefly. I felt instantly comfortable and connected and as I got to know Nathan throughout the course of a couple of months and You know, kind of delving into his website and his practice, and then actually having the honor and privilege of actually taking one of his courses called audacity, which I'm not sure he'll talk about today. Maybe at another time, I really got to see the power and the commitment and the true healing power of this amazing human being. So Nathan is a certified ICF certified life coach, a Reiki practitioner. I had to write this down because it was kind of. A lot. Master practitioner in timeline therapy and hypnotherapy. And the thing that really resonated with me when I sat down and looked at his website is his commitment to helping people break through these prisons, which I think is a word that he used in this dialogue, to go after the things that they really want. And we're going to talk a little bit more today, or actually quite a bit today about identity and perfectionism. And I was teasing with Nathan when I hopped on with, I'm not sure here where he got the idea to have that be a topic of conversation. Cause I personally do not suffer from perfectionism at all, but here we go. So Nathan, welcome to the just to you podcast again, it's an honor. And thank you for being here. Thank you, Eric. That is such a kind introduction, and I just want to share my, my gratitude for you as well, Eric, because I think when we met, it was at the Out Professionals event, and I was just so impressed at the way that you organized an event to be so inclusive and open, and everyone I met that day just had a spark to them, and when I met you, I was like, oh, it's because of this person right here. You organized it, you set the tone of the event, and that was great. Just showed through everyone. So I just want to thank you as well for allowing me to be on this podcast. You're welcome. I'm excited about our conversation today because as we talked a little bit as we prepped for the podcast was about identity and about perfectionism. And I think I shared with you a little bit, you know, part of the reason for doing this podcast is to tell and to talk and to express and to maybe hopefully give some people some insight or some knowledge about a particular, Practice or thing that they may not have a lot of access to. Right. Kind of like the newbie, if you will. Like I was to your course. So I'm gonna kind of turn it over to you to really kind of walk us through this concept of identity and perfectionism. And if I have a question I'll raise my hand or, or, or make a comment. But I'm really excited to kind of hit the key topic points that we talked about in our kind of lead up session to this podcast. So I'm gonna turn that over to you and why don't you please share with us a little bit about that. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, you know, I think you and I were, we're having a discussion about what would be important to talk about and something that clients come to me a lot with is struggling with this idea of perfectionism, which is how I define it is excessively high personal standards for yourself, or sense of overachievement, or being overly critical, you have a really loud inner critic that just says, Oh, you can't do that. That's wrong. That's not good enough. Okay. If it's not perfect, you're failing. I have to have the highest score, have to have the best relationship, the best looking house. So if those thoughts sound familiar to you you might have a sense of perfectionism as well. And, you know, perfectionism can show up in pretty much any area of your life. For me, it doesn't show up so much in work, but it shows up in my content creation and putting things out into the world. It can show up in my relationships. It can show up with your family and how you run your household. It can show up, you know, in your spirituality. There's so many different ways it can show up, but ultimately goes back to this idea that you have to have these high standards for yourself and anything less than that. Is deemed failure. Can I ask you a quick question before you go on? At what point do you think we create or we experience this kind of idea of perfectionism as a child? Does it come up then? Does it come up in later in life? Like when do you think we start to have that concept kind of jump in as perfectionism? I think we probably don't become aware of it until we're older, but I like to say everything that, you know, all the, the bad habits and coping mechanisms you've developed started in childhood because you're such a sponge to new information before the age of seven, you're in that development stage. And so your prefrontal cortex has so much elasticity, you're just absorbing everything from your parents and different rules and roles you have to have in life. So it starts early. So yeah, sorry, but it's, it's ingrained in you from childhood. Yeah. And so, you know, this idea of perfectionism, the downside of it is that it's actually really effective, unfortunately. You know, people who have that perfectionist mindset often achieve quite a bit in their life, and it works to have a perfectionist mindset. The downside of it is that if you do not regulate that perfectionist mindset, is that it leads to a lot of unhealthy mental health behaviors and habits. So, you can develop high anxiety depression horrible relationships. I don't know if you've ever worked with a perfectionist. But there's some of the most annoying people to work with because they have such high standards with it. You have to redo yourself. Can you work for yourself? I guess you can. I guess you can. Yes, absolutely. And so maybe you're that type of person that never gets anything done and it's because nothing's good enough for you. And so if you're working for yourself and you have these high standards and you're not getting things done, probably you need to lower your standards just a bit so that you can actually do things. So, you know, that's how it shows up and it's such, again, it's so helpful for people to have high standards, yet the downside again is unhealthy relationships, unrealistic expectations of your partners anxiety and depression isolation, and just, This deep sense of not being good enough that you'll never be good enough. So if you can relate to any of that, or, you know, someone who's like that, right. That comes from this idea of perfectionism. And so when you think about, you know, where that comes from, you know, I always look at the cognitive behavioral therapy model and it's very effective. And I think most people know this, that your results in life are driven by your actions, your actions are driven by your emotions. And your emotions are driven by your thoughts. So I'm going to give an example of this just in case anyone doesn't, doesn't, isn't familiar with this model. So if I'm thinking to myself that. I am a I'm an amazing content creator. Then I'm going to feel energized and motivated. And the action is I'm going to put content out into the world. And the results I'm going to get are hopefully views on my content. However, if I had a different thought, if my thought said nothing I produce is good enough. Then I'm going to be feeling sad and my actions will be more like inactions. I'll probably not put anything out in the world if I'm thinking nothing I produce is good enough. And so the results I'm going to get is nothing because I'm not putting anything out into the world. So, you know, when you think about that model, it's very empowering because then you start realizing I can change my thoughts. I can change my thoughts and get different results. However, there's a downside to this, Eric, and I, I, I hate to rag on CBT and cognitive behavioral therapy because it is effective, yet the challenge is we have 60, 000 thoughts every single day, 60, 000. And so when you think about trying to change 60, 000 thoughts, 75 percent of which are negative. It's a lot and it can be overwhelming for people when you're like, why is it that I have so many negative thoughts I can't even imagine changing this many and shifting my results. So, I have to ask the question is where do these thoughts come from, in, in the first place, and it comes from our programming you touched on this a little bit already, is that it's embedded in us from childhood, we develop this sense, this sense of who we are, who we need to be for our family, what role we need to play. in order to feel love, in order to feel safety, and we use those coping mechanisms for the rest of our lives because that's what worked when we were younger. Now the challenge is When we get older, we might realize there's some problems with them. They don't serve us the same way. And so we need to shift those. So I can give you some examples of this, but I want to make sure, are you picking up what I'm putting down? Have I, is this, I know this is a lot of information. No, a hundred percent. And this is one of the reasons why I think you and I kind of started to resonate so well together. Because when you sent me this information, when we were talking about scheduling, I immediately went to my childhood. Right. So for me personally, and this is a, again, a dialogue and a conversation about the things that we're talking about. So for me with my parents divorce, it was very upsetting. And I can remember very early on starting this internal monologue that I had to be perfect. I could not be flawed. If I was flawed, then my mom would leave or someone else would leave me. And so that was Kind of that moment in time for me when I started to look for agreement in the fact that there was something wrong. So this totally resonates with me, and I'm sure it does with a lot of people, and I would be hard pressed to think that we all didn't have some Circumstance in our lives or some opportunity to experience this in our childhood because we all went through something right. That shaped us. So no, this is resonating full on. And I think I'm hoping that it helps a lot of people to really kind of connect with the process in which you're taking it through. So I'll stop you if it starts to go off the rail. And it's in it. Thank you. And it's, it's interesting. I would say a lot of perfectionist mindset comes from children of divorced parents. Because in that moment, you're like, Oh, no, something's wrong. Was it my fault that my parents are getting divorced? Maybe there's something I can do. Maybe I wasn't good enough. Maybe I can do better. Maybe I can be perfect now and hopefully solve this challenge. And my parents can be back together. And so that's one big area that I see a lot. For me personally, it came up in spirituality. So I grew up in the Catholic church. And it's so weird. I remember doing my first confession and it's like a big sacrament thing that you do and you have your rosary and everyone in the class gets up and you go one by one confessing your sins. My sins, you know, were being attracted to other boys and wearing my mom's heels. And so I go and get my penance, which is my consequence or punishment for My sins. And it was like, I don't know, 10 hail Mary's and 15, our fathers. And I had to go and pray in front of the altar. And I remember being there so long that other kids were coming and going one by one, maybe saying a prayer or two and then leaving it, I was up there. For so long thinking, wow, I am the worst kid here. Like I'm the worst of the worst. I'm so bad. This is awful. I'm sorry. And in that moment, like I'll never forget it. I was like, I need to be better. I need to be perfect. I need to be. The better version of myself. And looking back at that now, I'm like, that's so silly. I wish I could give that little boy a hug right now and just be like, you're fine. It was, it's a misunderstanding. You don't have to believe that anymore. You know, what, where you stand with your higher power. Yeah. In that moment, that's all we know. That's our entire world. So, you know, you develop these patterns and coping mechanisms thereafter that my entire identity was just people pleasing and being perfect, getting the highest score. That's the only way I knew how to be validated. And I think many, many of the clients I work with, many people out there have a moment doesn't even have to be, you know, such a traumatic event. It could be as simple as dropping and breaking a cup when you're little, and it can be that impactful to how you see yourself. And knowing that gives you a sense of empowerment because now that you know why you're doing what you're doing, now you can shift it and give yourself some grace. You can forgive yourself. For all of that and start redefining who you want to be. So what does it mean to be a successful person? And I actually encourage anyone who's watching this is to write down what is your definition of success and see if you even resonate with that anymore. Because oftentimes you realize that definition of success is above and beyond what is actually going to work for you. And. Yeah, that's step one. So if you haven't redefined success for yourself in adulthood, please start there. And I think it's interesting, Nathan, to just real take a quick second, you know, when you talked about your experience, right? And I think this is so important for our listeners to understand is everyone's experience is going to be different. Everyone's response is going to be different. So you went into that. I've got to be perfect. I've got to exceed and excel at everything. My experience was. I'm going to fly just under the radar and I'm not going to exceed at anything. And I'm not going to fail at anything. And I'm just going to do status quo. And so I think it's important for right. Our listeners to realize that there's many forms of that response, right? So it could be different for everyone. So I didn't want people to get thrown off by, well, wait, I didn't try to strive and do everything perfect. I may have completely gone inward and shut down. And again, for me, it was just, I just went like. Just under the radar and everything that I did right everything so that it was just I use the word average not as a As an indicator, but that's kind of, I was just trying to be and fit in and just exist. And that didn't work later on in life. I didn't understand like why just, just being, I can't imagine why that wouldn't work for you. Eric didn't work for the master kind of person who likes to connect people. So anyway, thank you for sharing that. So please continue. Yeah. But you know, I love that because just under perfectionism is status quo ism. And not being willing to kind of put yourself out there and, and exceed or anything. So I could see how that could challenge anyone in life, just having that status quo. And it's still a sense of perfectionism in your mind. It still is perfectionism, right? I have to be perfect, but in this perfection, it's just going to be perfectly. Status quo. So I, I agree that that's something that that perfection word. I remember succinctly as a child that I had to be perfect or X, Y, and Z. So, yeah. Yeah. And it's, yeah. And I, I just want to just acknowledge, you know, everyone's experience. Like I said, it doesn't have to be this big traumatic event, but there can be a moment where maybe your, your parents or a family member says something to you. And places this. responsibility, or so you perceive it that way. It's like the sense of responsibility, this need to step up, this need to be better. And you remember that for life. And so again, when you can start redefining success for yourself, not what was placed upon you in childhood, not what you learned from your parents or what you learned from your church, you get to decide for yourself what success means to you. You're going to have a happier life because now you're not going to be going above and beyond for, you know, these. statuses or achievements or recognition that aren't even important to you today, right? It's, it's something that you learned as a kid and you get to redefine that. And the second thing I always love telling people to do is to have fun. And having fun is the antidote to perfectionism in so many ways. One way you can do that is just giving yourself permission to look stupid. It's a perfectionist's worst nightmare, is finding a safe place to like go and do karaoke with friends or to go do an improv class, go dance, do something that just allows you to break free from this, this identity that you've placed upon yourself. And so when you can do that, you just start to shift the way that you see yourself. You stop putting yourself in this box and you just let yourself be silly. And another way you can do that too, is just in the workplace, start gamifying your, your goals, start celebrating with your team, start having fun with how you work towards what you're building your business or your organization. And when you can do that and have fun in that, it just takes the perfectionism out of it because you realize you're working together as a team to achieve a solution, and it's going to take all of you, it's going to take the mistakes to learn and to do better. And yeah, I just can't stress the fun piece enough, because I didn't do that for a very long time, and it created. Again, that anxiety, that depression, like, what am I even doing any of this for? If it's not to enjoy the people you're around and what you're doing in your organization, I mean, there's no purpose to even going to work. It's not just about the result. Yeah, go ahead. Let me ask you a quick question. So and this could be a whole other podcast episode, but do you think that it's more for and again, not to put labels, but more male, female experienced, more culturally experienced that sense of loss of play, right? Because if you look at the way certain individuals will be playful or play some or different cultures are, are playful or not, do you think it's that, or do you think it's more individualistic? I think perfectionism shows up in different ways across genders and cultures, and I think the way that different genders experience it are unique to them. However, I think it's, it's embedded in just humanity, just the nature of being human and how we learn and grow definitely in Western society with more capitalistic systems. Yes. I think we're prone to more perfectionism and achievement mindsets here. Significance. Yes. 100%. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yet, you know, when you think about how men experience perfectionism, men are supposed to be strong, men are supposed to be, you know, a tough man, don't cry, don't show emotion, provide for the family. And that's changing so much now that women are becoming more independent. Women are, you know, I think the majority now in colleges, women are becoming the breadwinners. So that's shifting for men. Women, on the other hand, have a different sense of perfectionism. That's really rooted in, in misogyny. And not only are those supposed to be breadwinners now, but they're also still supposed to do the caregiving in the family. And so it just shows up in different ways, I think, based on your upbringing. Good point. Did I answer your question? Yes. We could do another podcast on that if we wanted to. Again, full other podcast episode on gender and perfectionism. I love gender roles. Well, I'm sure you'll be back. So we'll talk about that another time. I want to, I want to stay on course with this conversation today. So I mean, I've kind of given you, you know, the, the key points to, to perfectionism. I'm curious, Eric, what you think. Your listeners really want to hear about I guess how to. Move beyond it. I don't know. I think I did give a little bit of that, but I think what's, I think what's important again in this, in this kind of dialogue and this conversation is that people can kind of recognize or pick up kind of a similarity in their behavior. And I think what's interesting as we talk about this is I think everyone can relate. There is hardly ever not a time when we are not up against this desire or this need to be perfect or to have a perfect outcome. And I think what's interesting for me is we kind of talk about as we go through on in this podcast about relationships and about dating and about Maybe work and, you know, work goals and those types of things is that we can identify where that perfectionism works for us and where that perfectionism doesn't work for us and actually causes us. And I think the fun part is really cool. And if anyone knows how to have fun and how to infiltrate fun into a situation, it's you. So talk a little bit, if you can, about this. I mean, this not a concept, but this ability that you have to just be fun because let's face it, everyone's going through something at various times in their life. There's always something going on that can distract us and pull us into the significance. But how do you as this Magnificent human, this practitioner, this person, this healer, how do you generate that fun for you in the moments that you aren't feeling it? I think that's something that could be kind of fun to talk about. Yeah. Well, I'm going to give you the long answer because that's just who I am. I think fun has been ingrained in me as well. I think in childhood you can adopt negative coping mechanisms, but you can also adopt positive coping mechanisms and positive habits. And one of those was that I was surrounded by a big Mexican family and we would celebrate something every weekend, you know. One day my cousin lost a tooth and we'd celebrate. The next cut, a weekend my cousin's being baptized, then a birthday party, then it's Christmas, then, you know, the day after Christmas we celebrate. So there was like so many celebrations that I just learned that life is just one big party and there's so much to celebrate in life if you just look at it. You know, once I stopped being as connected with my family, I had to sort of relearn it in a way because I lost that, that habit and pattern of just always celebrating. And, you know, part of it was just mindfulness and being present to things in nature. And so I spent a lot of time in, you know, on hikes just sitting and looking at the ferns and the way that the ferns grow spores underneath the leaves, and I was just so fascinated that I'm like, you don't have to, you know, have sex or you don't have to have a male partner or female partner to Procreate and create new little fern babies. You just drop these little spores in the earth and then the spores create new baby ferns. And I was so fascinated about that. I just wanted to celebrate that. And I think the more that we pay attention in life to things, we realize there's so much to celebrate out there, but you can't celebrate it if you're not paying attention. And so it's about shifting your awareness to that and any chance you can get to celebrate. I think it does a couple of things. One, it raises your mood, it raises your energy, but two, it's telling your brain that something has been achieved, something has been accomplished, and it reminds you that you're doing a good job. And if that's, if there's one thing I think we all wanted to hear from our parents or people in our lives growing up is you're doing a good job. And so if you're listening, I think you should know as well, you're doing a good job. Give yourself a pat on the back. And find a way to celebrate all the things that you've achieved in your life, because that's really, really important. How do you think, given this last four or five years that we've been through, how do we create and generate this level of fun when we Let's face it, there are CDC studies out about it right now about this disconnection, about this isolation, about this kind of introvertedness that we're all experiencing. I talked about it in the lead up to my first episode and that it's affecting our overall health. It's affecting our wellness. It's affecting our longevity. How do we in tough times or how, what do you suggest and how do you encourage people when they're going through tough times, whether it's. a global situation or even something very personal to you in the moment in your own world to break past the apprehension or the hurdles they may be going through to have some fun because I've noticed with you and a couple of the actual projects that you work on that there is a fun element we're working on a project together and there were fun elements that kind of built into this schedule and I thought As a planner and as somebody who plans these meetings and these, I never planned fun really in these corporate meetings. They're very significant. And I love that, right. It's definitely kept me and my company open for 20 years, but I thought, would it be cool to just inject this like level of. Fun into the significance of this day or this weekend. So talk a little bit about for you, because I think this comes from you personally, is how do you generate that fun moment when you're just not feeling it? That's when I think you need it, right? When you, when you don't want to do it, it's when you need to have it, right? It's. I allow myself to feel my feelings because there's a reason I'm not feeling fun. There's a reason I'm not feeling excited when I'm not feeling excited. And when I give myself space to just feel the sadness, to feel the grief of the world in an intentional way and let it move through me in tears or through action or through something, I just, I have to feel it. And once I let that emotion flow through me, it creates so much more space then for me to actually have fun and have joy and not fake it, because the worst thing about not having fun is trying to fake fun. You can't. And, and what's getting in the way I think is You know, we kind of dissociate, and we don't actually feel what's happening, we'll doom scroll, we'll just pile on a bunch of things on our to do list, we won't pay attention to what's going on, or we suppress our emotion too, we just pretend it's not there, yet when you can open up your body as a channel for these emotions, and yeah, there's some you. terrible things happening in the world right now. Yeah, of course you want to cry. Who wouldn't want to cry? There's some terrible things happening in your life. Let yourself feel it. And I think the more I allow myself to feel and cry, the more space I have just to be present with the good things. And we're not taught, I don't think, effectively, at least my generation and this could be true for everyone. We're not taught how to meld the two. I don't think we're taught how to, to feel those emotions and the sadness and the, the maybe hardship or the heaviness of that particular circumstance while at the same time creating joy in our life. And I think we're not taught that the two can coexist, right? We don't know how to do that. And I think that's the part that's so. interesting and so necessary that there may be circumstances that are going on. And I noticed this when we were going through 2020 and 2021 for me. And as an empath I was taking everything on everything that was going on in the world, everyone's problems, my neighbor's problems, the world's problems. And I was taking it on and I was even dealing with my own, right? I'm dealing with my separation and my divorce and moving to a new city. My own business came to a halt as so many other people's did. And I really struggled to find that joy and to be able to find that experience and have the two exist together. Because even though I've done a lot of personal development and a lot of work on myself and have, have coached people and been coached by people, it was really difficult to kind of find the joy in that. And again, I don't think we're necessarily taught that, right? Something happens and we're supposed to feel this and, and bury it. And then. What's even more interesting, I think, as we start to come out of that sadness or out of that breakdown, that I like to call them, is what the amount of effort and energy it takes to recreate that joy and to bring that joy in because you're dragging around this kind of heaviness, right, and this kind of weight on your shoulders. So, I wish that we were much better at teaching this at the school level because I think, you know, especially elementary school where we are that, sponge and we're absorbing all that information and we're dealing with all the things that we're dealing with. I couldn't imagine being a teenager in today's world with all the social media and all of the things coming at us. And, and I'm, I'm not one to say it shouldn't exist, but I wouldn't. know how to navigate my teenage years now with all of the information and all of the kind of thoughts and judgments and associations that come at us. I had a hard enough time dealing with that without all that stuff in school. Do you agree? Do you find it really difficult to to know how to meld the two and have the two be there? Because the joy is the one thing. And I'll, I'll give one more quick example that I want you to answer the question. I find incredible joy. And one of the reasons I wanted to start this podcast was sitting down and having a cup of coffee with you and talking, right? We've done that a couple of times now, or going to lunch with a friend and putting the phone down, putting the phone away, turning it on airplane mode and actually having a conversation. Is the joy in the beginning of the joy that I've missed so much over the last couple years is that connection. And I think when you deal with it on your own and you don't reach out, the whole part of my intro was that I wasn't reaching out to people to talk to people to have conversations. And those conversations may be heavy. Those conversations may be deep, but as we have those conversations, then we can start to uncover the ways and the access to joy is that am I, I'm obviously not as, as trained as you, but is that something that you see as, as truth? Absolutely. And I think what you're describing in putting the phone away is you allowing yourself to be present and it all comes back to, to mindfulness and being aware of what's happening in your body. And I think there's a misconception too, in personal growth that you, you do this work on yourself so that life is perfect and you only feel the happy, positive emotions. And, and no, that's not the case. It's. Life is about being present with the peaks and valleys in your life. There's going to be ups and downs. And the more that you're present throughout them, the more you're going to enjoy the peaks, the more that you're going to learn from the valleys and the dark parts. Yet it's not about making them disappear. It's learning about taking the best from life and being present throughout. So that you don't, you know, wake up on your deathbed wondering, what the hell happened? What the hell did I do? Did I even have a say in where I went? Or did I just let life happen to me? Right? So it's just about having more choice and more presence throughout your life. But I think it is hard when we have these standards of, you know, what it means to be, you know an evolved human or what it means to be happy and mentally healthy. It's, it's not about the having this perfect, joyful mindset. I think it's about presence. So I think that's what you're. I think the presence, I think the presence is a huge part of it. And I think that's very eloquently put in something that I observe. I love to watch people. I love to go to coffee shops or, you know, shopping malls or, or I know, really taking notes. But I love to observe people because I'm fascinated. I'm probably going to get some flack for saying this, but I'm fascinated by People, individuals, couples, even families, again, gender is not the defining topic here, but that will go to a restaurant for dinner and they're all on their phone. There's no engagement in conversation or I'm watching people walk through a store on the phone, glued to an app or a social media platform. And the lack of presence is something that I think has us derail. our goals and our objectives without even really knowing it. I don't necessarily know that everyone understands this concept of presence. And that might be something that we can talk about in a future podcast is really how do we stay present, you know, because there are thousands of distractions, right? So I think that's really what I see as a fundamental need is, is to be present. And you say it so well What I want to jump back just real quickly because again, I think you and I could probably talk for hours, but I want to jump back real quickly about this identity because we talked about one thing that's kind of interesting and that's the shedding of this attachment to this perfectionism or this identity. You are obviously a practitioner in many forms. What are some of the. Practices and some of the specialties that you deal in that can help people. Obviously there are multiples dimension, but what's the number one practice that you do to help people really get in touch with that kind of identity and perfectionism and then the process of shedding that obviously a multi layer process, but I know that that probably is a very loaded question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Yeah, it is because it's not just one modality that I use or one that's important. And I'll, I'll try and explain this in the most simple way possible. But I would say foundationally, I use my practice or base my practice on the ICF coaching model. So the coaching model, what I love about it is that it trusts that every single person that I work with has the answers for their life inside of them. And all I have to do as a coach is just be curious and ask them questions and help them come to the answer that is going to work best for them. And what that does is helps empower them and help them be more independent and where they're going in life. But the challenge with that is that. It's very heady and it's just talking about your problems sometimes and talking about solutions. Yet emotions and stuckness is so ingrained in our bodies, especially for people who are more empathic and more kinesthetic with their emotions. So I layer that with timeline therapy. somatic coaching and breathwork. The somatic coaching and breathwork helps to move that energy out of your body, helps you identify your emotions, helps you breathe through it so that it's not just, you're not just overanalyzing yourself and overthinking it, you're giving yourself permission to feel. And the timeline therapy piece helps you to go back and look at those moments that we talked about the moment where you know your parents got divorced or where you were embarrassed at a school function or and helps you redefine those moments on your timeline, all the way back to now so you can see yourself. In a new way, a new, more positive, empowering way. And so, I combine all of those together because what works for one person doesn't work for everybody and it's kind of just having that mind body spirit modalities, using all of these together. So, is that, is that too much of an answer? No, it's perfect, it's perfect. So I'm going to ask you another, as we, as we begin. I, I definitely will have you back because there's a lot to talk about and I think that we can, we can definitely give some insight to a lot of things, but I want to ask you, given that what you just said, there are many people out there who may be new to this kind of idea of Having a coach, using a practitioner, going to something called somatic, right? All of these words that we use, that we're very comfortable using in our training and our developments and our certifications. What would you say to the person who has never been to a breathwork session, which can be very powerful and very enlightening. What would you say to the person who's never been that would give them the comfort in trying something new? Because I think that's the part that keeps most people from trying something new is their Lack of awareness or their lack of understanding. So can you encapsulate that into if someone's listening that may want to try this breathwork or try this type of therapy, what's the first thing that they need to do? And what is that process of getting there? Well, first thing I would ask them is what you're doing working for you, because if what you're doing is working great, you don't need to try anything new, keep doing what you're doing. But if it's not working and you're trying a bunch of different things, you know, what's stopping you from trying the next thing? Start doing some research. Try some somatic therapies. Try some somatic coaching. Try some breath work. But You know, sometimes it takes seeing multiple therapists, multiple coaches, multiple, you know, life changing events for you to really have the shift that you need. And once you find the thing that works for you, then keep doing that. You know, that's because again, we all learn and heal in different ways. We all experience our trauma in different ways. So it makes sense that we all might need a unique path to healing. So, but you used a great word. And that is, you've got to try it. Right. You're not going to, so cliche, right? You're not going to know until you try. Huh. Right? Yeah. But it's true. The first time I ever did breathwork, I was in this stranger's house. She came highly recommended. I'm doing this breathing technique. At one point, I wasn't sure I was going to make it through, but the process of getting to the other side was so profound and so. Beautiful, right? And, and experiencing it with you a couple months ago. And I just encourage people, if you have a question or you have some inquiry into doing yoga, even meditation, breath work, reach out to someone. And Nathan's the perfect person to do that because the way he, or I should say the way you walk people through the process is really comforting and beautiful and also very safe. And I encourage people to just try it the first time I ever did it. I was nervous, but on the other side of it, I'm glad that I did it. And it gave me also a tool to use, because I think I shared with this year, we are having coffee a couple of weeks ago, is that I've been told by a lot of massage therapists and practitioners that I don't breathe. I hold my breath a lot and I do it as a protection. And so that breath work, your session as well as this one that I did many years ago, reminds me to stop and breathe because the breath is obviously incredibly important. So that, you said it perfectly, right? And I encourage people to check it out. So as we kind of wrap up this conversation, I want to do two things. Encapsulate if you will just one more time to kind of bring it all home is this concept of identity and perfectionism and what we can do and what would be some of the ways that we can maybe catch ourselves in that potentially self deprecating conversation of that perfectionism and how it runs us today. Yeah. Yeah. So if you really find yourself living your life based on that perfectionist model where nothing's good enough, where you have to have the highest score, you have to, you know, do everything perfectly before you put it out and it's impacting your life, it's impacting your productivity, it's impacting your relationships in an unhealthy way, then really take a step back and start looking at the thoughts that are creating those results for you and start shifting those. More so, if you can take a look at where did that start in your life, what's that, where did that identity of perfectionism start for you, and are you willing to give it up? Start by redefining success for yourself. What does it mean to have a successful relationship, a successful career, and a successful life? And once you put it down on paper, Now, you can start bringing attention to rebuilding your new identity and how you want to show up in those, those places. And the last piece really to, to have fun and be present in life. And you can do that again, through dance, through going to a comedy show, anything that's just going to break you out of this mundane routine that you've been living in. And the last thing I'm going to say about this, if you're someone who's working towards your healing journey is that you deserve to trust yourself. Again, back to the ICF coaching model is everybody deep down has the answers within themselves and you know exactly what's going to be best for you. So trust that. Wow. Seriously, that's like, I get it. And I think for me, and as again, we're having this conversation, I know for me and what works for me, is that when I went into that kind of. quiet place, right? During that kind of time in our lives where we were sequestered, that I didn't reach out to people. I didn't reach out to friends. I didn't reach out to family. I didn't reach out to practitioners to help me through the process. And so for me, I'm one who says, I need my team around. I need my coaches. I need my people. Because for me, if I sit and think about it in my own head, Again, for me, I don't always get to the other side of that, so I am grateful for people like you. I laughed when I was doing my intro because I get a lot of flack for watching a particular reality show on Bravo that deals with a lot of housewives, and the fact that they all have these glam squads. And I love it because I don't have the glam squad, but I have a LifeSquad, and my LifeSquad consists of my practitioners, right? The people that I know are going to hold me to account. It's my personal trainer. It's my breathwork coach. It's the people that I know can walk me through the process and get me to the other side. And those that are committed listeners. So for me, it really helps to have people in my corner. And I will wrap this up by saying thank you for being in my corner and thank you for coming into my life and thank you for breathing literally life into a conversation that I think is so impactful and powerful and I'm so grateful to you. I think we are going to do this a lot. If you'll come back, I'd love to have you. I think we have a lot to talk about. How do people find you? What's the best way to find you and your coaching program? Give them your Instagram all that. And, and I'll make sure I put it in the. In the yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you, Eric. And I'm going to have to get myself a, a glam squad because again, I I've got my own coaches too. And I want to like organize it like you do, but that's awesome. So if you want to find out more about what I do you can go to Nathan serato. com or find me on Instagram. It's Nathan underscore Serato. And those are my YouTube channels. I love it. Nathan, thank you for being here. Thank you for being one of my first guests. I could just again talk to you for hours. Super blessed to have you on. Thank you for your insight. Thank you for your work. And thank you for who you are in the world. And I thank that little person, that little child back in your, in your early years that Kind of stood up one day and said, I'm going to go out and make a difference in the world because you certainly have. So thank you for your time with us today. And I look forward to seeing you back. You're welcome. Likewise, me too. Wait, wait, Eric, hold on. Yes. Don't you have a question to ask me? Oh, well, you kind of answered it. So I was going to, I was going to ask you, but you actually answered it early, early on. I thought, damn it. Darn it. So here's the question. I'm just going to ask you, so again, I believe, as I said, that I think a lot of this happens when we're children. So if you could go back to that little boy who had that first experience of, oops, there's something wrong or there's something not right. What would you tell him about his life? now. Oh, yeah. See, this is a different, different question, Eric. I'm not even prepared for this one. What did I do to myself? What would I tell him now about his life? Oh, that I was going to say that he was, won't even remember this, but he totally remembers this. He totally remembers this moment. But here's what I'll say is that this moment will no longer have any power of your, over you. And you're going to do amazing things. You're going to have so much fun and you are going to be so successful. You're not even going to know what to do with it. That's what I said. I could not have said it better myself, my earplugs falling out of my ear. Thank you, Nathan. And we'll see you again soon. All right. All right. Thanks for being here. Everyone. Bye. Alright, everyone, thank you again for joining us on today's episode. I hope our conversation resonated with you like it did me, and I cannot wait to sit down with you all again next week. Remember to subscribe to the Just You Podcast on your favorite platform so you can make sure not to miss a new episode, which drop every Thursday. If you like what you hear, you can easily share the podcast and episode. Directly with your friends and if you would rate us and leave us a review, we'd love to hear from you. You can also follow us on Instagram at just Do you pod as you go out into the world today. Remember to just do you. Alright, talk next week.