Your Thoughts Your Reality
Welcome to "Your Thoughts, Your Reality with Michael Cole," the podcast that shines a compassionate light on the journey of veterans battling through life's challenges. Michael Cole, a Certified Elite Neuroencoding Specialist, dedicated to guiding military veterans as they navigate the intricate pathways of post-deployment life. Join him as we delve into the profound realm of Neuroencoding science, empowering these brave individuals to conquer universal battles: procrastination, self-doubt, fear, and more. Together, let's uncover the strength within you to re-engage with families and society, forging a new path forward.
Your Thoughts Your Reality
Making the Main Thing the Main Thing For Veterans and Their Families
"Making the main thing the main thing" sounds simple, but how many of us actually do it? In this deeply reflective conversation with Arron Lloyd - actor, director, and certified neuro encoding specialist - we explore what it truly means to prioritize what matters most in life.
Arron shares his journey from the inner city to discovering his purpose through acting and helping others. Drawing from his background and expertise in Neuroencoding, he offers profound insights into how we can cut through the noise of our "distraction economy" to focus on what genuinely matters.
We tackle the challenging question that many veterans face after service: how do you rediscover your purpose when the mission changes? Arron suggests practical approaches like asking trusted friends what they see as your gifts, noticing what activities make time fly by, and literally "breathing into your heart" to connect with your deeper wisdom.
The conversation takes unexpected turns as we explore the fine line between necessary self-care and procrastination (yes, we even discuss the importance of pedicures for well-being!), practical strategies for managing digital distractions, and the power of grounding in nature to reset your perspective.
Arron offers three transformative tips specifically for veterans: tap into your purpose, clarify what truly matters most today, and develop heart coherence by reconnecting with your emotions. His closing story about two monks powerfully illustrates how letting go of unnecessary burdens frees us to focus on what's truly important.
Whether you're a veteran transitioning to civilian life or anyone seeking greater clarity and purpose, this conversation offers both the inspiration and practical tools to make your main thing truly the main thing in your life. Visit empowerperformancestrategies.com to access free resources mentioned in this episode.
Welcome to your Thoughts, your Reality with Michael Cole, the podcast that shines a compassionate light on the journey of veterans battling through life's challenges. Michael is a dual elite certified neuro encoding specialist in coaching and keynote training presentations dedicated to guiding military veterans as they navigate the intricate pathways of post deployment life. Join him as we delve into the profound realm of neuroencoding science, empowering these brave individuals to conquer universal battles procrastination, self-doubt, fear and more. Together, let's uncover the strength within you to re-engage with families and society, forging a new path forward.
Speaker 2:Hello, hello, hello everybody. We are on here today, monday morning, with my friend Aaron Lloyd. Aaron is a director, speaker, certified one-star dual elite neuron coding specialist. He grew up in the inner city with a single parent, learning resilience and dedication, and that shows up every day with my friend Aaron. That's for sure Passionate about personal transformation and mindset mastery, and he helps individuals break through mental barriers to achieve their goals. So I'm really happy to have Aaron on here today. Aaron, if you want to share just a little bit more about yourself, Absolutely.
Speaker 3:What's up guys. My name is Aaron, originally from Bridgeport, connecticut, which is an inner city, grew up in a single parent home, oldest of three, and am primarily an actor by profession and trade and passion, and my purpose is to lead normal coding specialists and really dedicated on doing everything I can and being everything I can with this gift of life that we have, not only for myself but everybody I come across. That's a little bit about me.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, man. And you know I forgot to mention forgive me great-grandfather. Military Purple Heart recipient.
Speaker 3:Great great-grandfather. Yeah, Purple Heart, World War I. There's an extra great in there, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for that. So bless you, sir, thank you. So we're going to talk about what's making the main thing. The main thing and I love when you came up with this title, man so let's talk about that.
Speaker 3:What does that mean to you? Making the main thing the main thing to me means being able to prioritize your life. I think a lot of people live in a kind of checkbox life and you know that works for a little bit. I think what is more effective at least that I've found is what matters most. So when I think about making the main thing the main thing in terms of what your vision is, your life, making the main thing the main thing means exactly that in order to get to where you want to be, in order to be who you want to be, what's important today to help you get to that place, or are you surrounded by distractions and things that aren't going to be effective for you?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and let's talk about you know, really quick, actually, before we do that, I forgot, I got distracted. So on the top right corner there's a blue QR code takes you to empower performance strategies Again, empower performance strategiescom, specifically for the listeners on the podcast forums. It takes you to the website where we have free e-books that I've written and groups for veterans and their families. You know, be part of the mission. There's all kinds of tools and strategies in there. So reach out and be part of the mission, like I said, if you will please Aaron with that said. So what are some tips, tricks, tools that help you in your life or that you help coach people with?
Speaker 3:Some tools and strategies in general, or about making the main thing.
Speaker 2:The main, thing, the main, thing, my friend.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think one of the most effective tools that I've found that has worked for me is every week on Sundays, typically is I plan my week for that upcoming week, and the thing that really kind of set the edge for me is that little 2% shift is when I'm color blocking and putting things in my calendar. I resource it, meaning I click on that actual thing, and what I mean by that is in the morning. If let's say I want to work out because making the main thing main thing, and we, we, where I'll speak for myself. Sometimes in the past I might say I, I want to work out because making the main thing main thing, and we, we, where I'll speak for myself.
Speaker 3:Sometimes in the past I might say I'm going to work out, but then I'm looking for my keys, and that takes about 10 minutes or five minutes. I'm looking for my shoes. So resourcing means okay, the night prior I'm going to have my lemon water by my bed. I'm going to make sure the shoes are here, so I'm not investing time on distractions or things that aren't going to be as seamless as possible. Now, am I perfect about this all the time? No, I don't want to make it seem like I'm a robot, but the idea in general, making the main thing the main thing is having that plan for my plan, so I don't have to think about, okay, what am I going to wear tomorrow, or things like that. Everything's kind of already set and helps me create my life in a more seamless way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that and I do something very similar. I you know my calendar. You know people look at my calendar, especially with three businesses, and they're like how do you do all that? But if I don't do that, everything goes awry. You know, by just by just being kind of pre organized and set up for success, right.
Speaker 1:And that sounds like that's what you're doing.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. Yeah, yeah, so so. So what do you? Let's go, let's go back one step. So how do you figure out and we're talking about, you know, specifically veterans and their and their families what would other?
Speaker 3:people say about what you're really passionate about. What are your gifts? If you're unaware of your gifts, you can ask around like what do you think I'm great at? What do you find that I'm good at? Think about your friends, your friend circles. What do your friends come to you often for? That really lights you up, what makes time pass? Really, that's important. And then, once you have that, you're keyed in on your passion. Then what do you value? Because the main thing for everybody might be something different. If you want to be like an Arnold Schwarzenegger, what you value is making sure your body's super fit. You're into fitness and health at a different level than somebody that is not at that level. But if you wanted to be like Mr Olympia or Mrs Olympia or something like that, then what you would do is you have to have the main thing be in regard to what you're into Really figuring that out.
Speaker 2:right is they don't know especially. You know a lot of the stories are different, but the patterns are very similar. Getting out of the military, most people in the military now joined for purpose, for fulfillment. They, you know, they, they want that, they, they need that. You know, in a sense. And so how do we really? I know you said talk, talk to. Uh, you know what keeps you up. I guess you didn't say that, but what keeps you up at late and gets you up early? Right?
Speaker 2:So, asking your friends and your family hey, what am I good at, what do you see in me? And this is something that happened with me actually a couple of years ago, with neuroencoding and coaching and so on. It started this whole journey I'm on now was my wife, you know. She said you know, susan, she was like, hey, that lights you up, you always like helping people and coaching people and stuff, you know, so it. And she was so right. Yeah, so let's talk about that more. Who would you say, hey, I can't figure this out, I don't know. And let's keep fear and fear, rejection, all the different things out of it right now. But what, what key elements are people when you say, hey, talk to these people specifically in your life.
Speaker 2:For me, for me personally because somebody may connect with exactly what you did.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So for me I was very blessed because I knew at a very young age maybe not what my purpose was, but I didn't know what I was interested in, what I was passionate about. So for me, when I was in third grade, my teacher, ms Patterson I was a music teacher. So my grandmother, she used to really put me on to the jazz people Etta Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong so I had an interest in music and all these things and had a very old soul. So I wanted to be a musician. Originally I would have visions of me being in New York playing a sax and stuff like that. So I got into a music class and my music teacher, ms Patterson she's the person that introduced me to acting, because in that class, that music class one day she said, hey, we're going to do a Thanksgiving play guys. And I looked left and she then asked who wants to play the lead? And I looked left. I didn't know what a lead was. I looked left, looked right, and it was like one of those moments in time where time stands still for me and I rose my hand, I said I'll do it and that became my journey of acting. That at that time it was just fun. It was something I was passionate about. I think this is going to get to the heart of what you're asking as well. So at that point I was blessed to know what I was passionate about.
Speaker 3:So, as you explore for military anybody, as you explore your own life, what really made you feel passionate For you? With Susan? She said you like helping people. That might be your gifting, that might be your spiritual gifting. So as you explore your life and these different milestones in your life, I was passionate about this. This is a time that I really found fun all these different things. There are people that create origamis and they really are passionate about that and they have business models out of that. So it doesn't matter how small you think it is. It doesn't have to be something huge. That's your passion. That's one piece. Then the second piece is what is your purpose? And I think when you align your purpose to your passion, then that's amazing. That's something different.
Speaker 3:And that moment for me was when I went to, when I was in sixth grade, that same music class. We took a field trip to the high school I would later attend and it was basically a group of students that would student write, student direct and student perform, all these plays based to, to share with the education and the youth things that were plaguing the city. So you had things like teen pregnancy, stds, all these different things that they were educating people through performing. So then I made that association. I was like, oh, not only is this fun, but I can actually help people as well, and that's been a through line with my life. Now I have the gift and talent of acting and for me, my purpose and the why behind that has always helped me persevere, essentially because it's linked to my purpose.
Speaker 3:So if somebody doesn't know what their purpose is, what I would ask you to tune in with is ask your heart. Once you understand what you're passionate about, ask your heart, literally breathe into your heart and ask your heart because your heart has a different kind of intelligence. They say there's three brains. You got your brain, your gut brain and then your heart. Your heart has different neurons and things like that, and when you tap on what your brain, what your heart, just literally put your hand on your heart and you know. And breathe into your heart and ask what is my purpose?
Speaker 3:And if you don't know what your purpose is, who is people that really inspired you with the impact that they've made, and if you're in the military, maybe there's a general that you really like. What does that general impact Like? If you, if some, if you're telling your grandchildren the impact of that general and what they did, what, what, what impact did they create? Was it leadership? Maybe your purpose is being a leader, a leader of people, and that might be a purpose that gives you that spark, that gives you something to do, and you link that with your passion of helping people. Well, I want to be a leader of men. I'm going to leader men. I'm going to read every book on leadership. I'm do everything I can to lead myself and make the main thing, the main thing from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely Love a lot of that and I know the story with with the music teacher and things, and it's we. I think, if you look back and, like you, most people have those stories where somebody impacted them in that sense. Right, you know, that creates that passion and that drive, because they see something in you and everybody wants to be seen and, of course, when you couple that with just something that interests you, it blows it up. That's what I've seen. Yeah, so I'm super happy about that teacher because he wouldn't be here right now. Yeah, amen, amen. You need to get Ms Patterson on here with you. We do.
Speaker 3:We do. Yeah, let me hit her up, come on.
Speaker 2:We'll wait, we'll wait, go ahead, hit her up, come on this podcast. We'll wait, we'll wait, go ahead, I'll judge the flag. So you know, I think, I think it's really, you know, just, it's inspiring. First of all, you know, you, at a young age, knew there's people at 70 years old that still don't know right, and I and I wonder is it distractions? And I want to get into this um, is it distractions or is it people just not taking the time to breathe into your heart and feel your heart? What do you think?
Speaker 3:I think it can be a combination of those, and I would add, allowing other people to dictate to you what your purpose is. If somebody had, like a you know, I think you should be an engineer, or I think you should be this, and it could be parents or friends or whatever it is, and they do that because they think that's what they're supposed to do. I think that can be a distraction, which are what you're, what you just brought up, so that could be in the distraction piece. And and also for somebody, somebody that didn't want to be distracted, I think what causes that is really not tuning in with what I think, two things. I think finding a bigger purpose for life or a bigger reason for being here can always equip you with your purpose. I find and I don't know if it's true for everybody I find that if you're living only for yourself, you're probably not going to be tapped into your purpose as much.
Speaker 3:I think any purpose and any of the people, all the great leaders and all these people that we really look up to, they've all shined bright for others in some way.
Speaker 3:Right Now there's there's obviously people that others centric and people that are more the self-centric, and that's okay, that's different models of world and stuff like that. If the question is your purpose, if you are more me focused, then maybe your purpose is being the best you that you can be and that can be the main thing that you make. The main thing and and you have to understand this comes back to your values and your, your, your beliefs and things like that. So if you really value that, then make sure you're not distracted by what somebody says you can and cannot do. If you want to be the best version of you, if you want to be whatever it is, then just assess and I would, I would, I also would add that anything that you wanted to create, unless something like groundbreaking has already been done by somebody or already been overcome. So seek out those people, seek out those books, those things that can help you elevate your life and get to the results that you want to get to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely love that, and you know, I think.
Speaker 1:Like you nailed it right.
Speaker 2:It's the people that stand out in the world, are the people that are really serving other people. They're not focused on them buying themselves a car. They're not the multimillion-dollar house whatever the case may be, you can have all those and serve people too. Just FYI.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yes.
Speaker 2:Let's keep that real. But when you're serving other people, that fulfillment, that joy that you bring into your life and when you do that I'm going to add to this is it takes away all of the not all of it.
Speaker 2:Let me not say that. It takes away a lot of the spinning sideways and the spin cycle in your own head when you're focused on serving other people and not focus on yourself. I agree, yeah, tell me, tell me if you will. You know, at a time and we're going to get again more into distractions we're about halfway through the show. So, uh, tell me a time that that that was true for you, that man, because you're serving somebody else like nothing else, that your little problems, you're a little like my lighting's not working right. It's like, okay, whatever you know, but give me something that was profound, if you will, if you can think of something for you.
Speaker 3:Distractions. So the immediate thought, first thought, best thought, is when I was sleeping on the floor in the Bronx and things like that I tended to, even though I'm on a soul level, I had a pull for something more. I would often wallow in my own problems, so that became my distraction, because, instead of focusing on the possibilities of what was possible, I would sometimes wallow in what was my present reality, and that's just real. Those moments, those dark nights of the soul. How am I going to get past these things? That really was impacting me. And then also more on a practical level. We live in a distraction economy, so I've definitely woken up and just scrolled on on social media and stuff like that and just let that distract me and then that's the start of your day. So then that the way you start your day is. You know, typically how it goes throughout the day.
Speaker 3:Another major distraction. So, between social media and also, I want to just be real, like at some points, just straight up laziness, not wanting to, not wanting to get up and do the things that I needed to do in order to get to where I wanted to be, cause that's the difference between the difference between successful people and people that are not. It's not that successful people like and enjoy doing the things that they have to do. It's that they're doing the things that nobody else wants to do to be able to have a better future that nobody else will have if they're not doing the things, so that I think that can be a distraction of like, oh, I don't feel like doing it. And then also, just like you know, love all people out of soul. Love we're all. We're all God's creatures.
Speaker 3:If you're around people who are just making excuses and and uh and and kind of just complaining all the time, that can rub off where I've just I don't know who, I don't know the speaker's name. I want to give this person credit, but I was watching something the other day and they mentioned that I don't know the exact statistics. They said if you want to be a high achiever, literally by you just being around high achievers, it increases your, your potential by 20% of having those kinds of things because you're around other high achievers. But for other people that that are not like that, that complain and stuff like that, it rubs off 30%. So negativity has a much more impact on us than than than high achievers, however you define that, so those can also be a distraction, right? So?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, I love. I love that you say that because you know, you, you, you are the what is it? Seven people that you're around I've heard five, six, seven, I mean people say different things, but you are, you are the average of the. I'm going to say seven people that you surround yourself with Right, and I'm always going to say I don't want to be the smartest guy in the room, I want other people to be there to raise me up to be better. And when you have the people in the room and they're negative and they're complaining and they're in victim mode, and it's this person's fault and that person's fault and they'll take responsibility for any things that they're doing, like laying in bed all day, eating funyuns or watching Game of Thrones for the fourth time. It's, it's. It's really got to think about those, those distractions. Are you the distraction? And you know what we all at some point? There's a difference between laziness and self-care.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, that's, yes so when you talk about that a little bit, because I know it's a fine line and it's what definition we give it for ourselves, right?
Speaker 3:That's true, everybody has their own thresholds for the amount of work that they will do. I'll start just by saying this, though, that they will do. I'll start just by saying this, though regardless of your beliefs, even God took a day off. If you're familiar with the story of God, in seven days, right On the seventh day, he took a day off. So if this entity, this omnipresent, omnipotent being, took a day off to rest, doesn't it make sense that we would need to rest too? Right, and everybody has different thresholds in terms of what they can do. So I think it's really understanding your capacity and then sometimes stretching your capacity too, for that 1% better every day, because if you improve just 1% per day, then by the end of the year that's a 365% increase in your potential and in your results.
Speaker 3:I think, listening to your body, tuning in with your body, and understanding that in our modern society we're not in always a fight or flight situation, we don't have a saber tooth and things like that. It sometimes can feel that way because of you know, whatever deadlines and this, I have to get these things done. I think by proper preparation, you can mitigate that. Not always things come up and you have to, kind of you know, do what you have to do sometimes, but in terms of just just, uh, you know, not being distracted, I think that's that's super, super keyed in on on, not on knowing that that fine line, listening to your body and also giving yourself the grace to understand that you have to recharge. If you kept your car running all day, you eventually just going to break down. You're not going to get to your destination, you have to rest, put some gas in there and that's just the ebb and flow of life. There's green lights, there's red lights, there's yellow lights. I think just understanding for yourself what that is can really be beneficial.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, thank you. Thank you for talking about that. There are so often that we how do I say that as overachievers, um, we just push and push and push, or we feel guilty for saying oh, I could have done more, I could have done more. Yeah. What if you told yourself I've done enough and tomorrow I can do more? That's great.
Speaker 2:And take that little power nap yes, you know, there's times I come home because we own multiple companies and I don't work. I love what I do. I still call it play, especially. I mean this stuff, I'm not working man. I mean this is just, this is what fills the cup, you know. And so there's times it's like, hey, honey, I need 20 minutes, I need 30 minutes, and just lay down, take a power nap, get up and you're raring to go again. But just realizing that in your body, like you said just hey, you know what, you just need a minute, you just need a minute. Take, take a breather. It might not be 20 minutes, maybe an hour, maybe a day. Yes, you need to recharge your Delco, if you will, and fill that cup so that you can do more, because you're going to be depleted and you're not going to be the best and and come out the best for people that need you. Yeah, you agree with you're with that. So what? So give me some things aaron lloyd does to refill his cup. I'm totally.
Speaker 3:Hey, man, I, I I'm the power, I, I am a sleep king. I like a good nap. I like a good nap. I definitely like a good nap at the appropriate times. There's also something called the Pomodoro, I think it's Pomodoro, so you work for like 30 minutes but then take 10 minutes to relax and do nothing and then another 30 minutes Also for myself.
Speaker 3:I like to give myself a day of just like grace, of just relaxing, and the way I kind of give myself the grace of relaxing is exactly what Joseph teaches us You've done enough like propays yourself for the small successes and I just have faith that the bigger things are going to be there and I don't have to work to prove myself to do that, just laying the gifts that God has given you and keep on moving forward. And then practically also some self-care of like, um, getting your, your, your, your sleep in getting your workout, in your fitness, in making sure I meditate, I pray, do all those different things. Those are all forms of self-care for me. Even my birthday just passed and I just gave. I said, yo, I'm going to go get a pedicure because my heels were looking a little chapped. You know what I'm saying. They were scratching the bed sheets a little bit. I had to take care of that. I went and got a nice little pedicure. Those kinds of things matter too.
Speaker 2:I love when you say that brother, I got to tell you something. Every once in a while that happens, I'm like oh my God.
Speaker 1:What's up with that?
Speaker 2:It's fine. I didn't know other men dealt with that man.
Speaker 3:Thank you. She'd be breaking and everything. My God, sitting here like razors on your heels.
Speaker 2:I'm sure. I'm sure your wife enjoys when you get your pedicures. Oh, that's funny. I just do it myself, man, I have to never mind.
Speaker 3:Let's not get into this right, okay, okay, okay, cool cool I've got a grinder that smooths that stuff out.
Speaker 2:You know, cool, all right. All right. We've shared way too much now everybody go get your pedicures.
Speaker 3:We're saying I'm joking, no right?
Speaker 2:uh, I I'll share anything. I don't care. Judge away, man the world I don't care, I got better things to worry about, like helping people, hey. So with that said, um, so let's get it back into more distractions. Let's go down a timeline here. We figured out what our thing is right, so we know what we're going to make our thing the thing right. So distractions we have phones, we have Game of Thrones, we have all these things. So what are some ways that we just stay away from?
Speaker 1:those distractions.
Speaker 2:We talk about scheduling ourselves and making sure you know we can stay focused that way. How do we give me some other thoughts on? Because this is one of the things that I find distractions become excuses, or excuses or distractions, call it, whichever way you want to right. So what are some ways to just really stay focused on the thing?
Speaker 3:I think, practically there's two things that I've done in the past. So I have a time limit On your phone. There's a way you can put time limits on apps. So for social media, for Instagram, it's five minutes for me, and then you know, it'll come up with a little alert hey, you've been off five minutes. And then you know I click it off and like, okay, that's my time for today. Or I might be like, oh, I got to do more, something else I got to do, and I'll ignore it, but at least alerts my brain that, hey, five minutes have passed, something else for, like you know, the, the colors and the dings and all these kinds of things that come up colorful, so then it's a little bit more boring to look at, you know. So that might be a helpful thing to look at too. How do you make like these apps grayscale so they look totally boring? They're not, they're not really going to be as colorful and distracting. That's another way you can do that. So that's a social media piece and a phone piece.
Speaker 3:I think something else you can do is yes, that's right, sure, you can do is, however yes, that's right, sure, I think. I think another way you can, you can do this is uh, where was oh, I had a point the dispatch, oh um, and the phones, oh okay. So like distractions in terms of putting the phone away from you, so like putting the phone in a drawer for high, high kind of quality, if you know that you have some work to do, put the phone in a drawer somewhere. And if you feel like, oh man, if people text me, they're not going to know that I'm not texting them back, you can just let all your family, everybody, all your friends know hey, I'm just going to be away for an hour.
Speaker 3:If it's an emergency, it's really a mercy. Then you know you have emergency contacts that could just you know, I think the alarm, the ring will go through the silence or whatever, but you could put things in your, in your drawer away from you so you're not as distracted. I think another way to not be distracted is to understand if you are getting antsy. Get up, do some jumping jacks, walk around, get into some nature.
Speaker 2:And that's going to refresh you a little bit so you come back refreshed and have that nice little natural energy boost. Love that, I love all those tips. First of all, you teach me how to do the gray scale thing. Okay, I didn't even know. I mean, I've seen that before, but I didn't know, I didn't even think about how the coloring and all that stuff it brings you more into it and more excited. That's a, that's an amazing point here. Um, so I also want to throw in real quick and then we're going to, we're going to close up the show. But, um, you know, aaron, get outside, listen to the birds, listen. You know I do this thing and I live on, you know, acres of of property and so forth in a very rural area and and and blessed to do that. But, um, sometimes you just go outside, you turn your phone off, you take your shoes off, you walk through the grass or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 2:And there's some amazing physical properties that happen with that. But when you're out there in nature and you just stop and look at the light that's happening around you and you can do this anywhere just so you know, I'm just talking about my experience.
Speaker 2:You take off your shoes and just be, yes, for five minutes, just be and literally slow down and look at all the life around you, whether that be a bee, a fly, a butterfly, a hawk, you know, whatever the case may be, the turkeys that are over there making noise, you know. Whatever it is In the city, there's turkeys too. So you know there's stuff all around. We have turkeys. When you slow down for a minute and just be and just be for a minute and see all the life around you, it is so, so, so, just grounding, and like Char just put up there A Char, by the way I'm grounding with nature and it's just changes everything, man, and you can literally do it anywhere.
Speaker 2:So give me just for a second some things you do real quick, for Just to pull down and be present.
Speaker 3:So I like to do exactly what you did. So something that I recently learned to shout out to Yayoi, because she taught me this Yayoi is a mutual friend there's something where you can just literally get into what's called heart coherence. We just literally breathe into your heart. So, taking moments to breathe, checking with your body, like, oh, am I feeling a little stressed right now, am I feeling whatever? It is OK, identify what you're feeling and then what would you rather feel? Then we have tools and techniques as neuron coders to be able to do that.
Speaker 3:Grounding with nature sucks in New York during the winter, so I'm not always able to do that, but during the spring and winter, spring and summer, I definitely like to go outside, get around some trees, the birds, things like that. Meditation is big for me, so I do that a lot. Prayer writing meditation is big for me, so I do that a lot. Prayer, um, writing, journaling for the. When did I start journaling? I want to say for the past, like past, uh, maybe year I've been journaling and that's really been grounding for me as well.
Speaker 2:So it's journaling and doing those kinds of things yeah, I, I love journaling, and then when you look back um on your thoughts and where you were and stuff like that, it's kind of twofold for me. I love that Great, great tip there. So, aaron, we are so over time now. Well, man, great conversation though. Man, I love organic conversation, my friend. So how do people reach you, my friend?
Speaker 3:People can reach me at AaronEmpowerscom. Tons of different services on there as well. So if you want to reach out, be happy to happy to connect.
Speaker 2:Excellent. And then, aaron, I know you do some things monthly and so on for groups to help actors and and and other people as well, so tell us just real quick a little bit about that.
Speaker 3:Yes, so I have a service called audition trackerscom and for actors. What you can do with that is you get to track your auditions because what you measure gets done. So you're able to do that. And what's empowering about the system is that each month, biweekly, for active members, I give them two world-class trainings, either bringing in experts or coaching them, to help them on their journeys in life and in their careers. So you get that included with your auditionition Tracker subscription for just $12.99. Or if you want to just get the replays of some of these, it's just $9.99 or $27, depending on if you're inactive or active.
Speaker 2:Excellent, very cool. So if we can give us three tips to get veterans and their families further faster, Three tips for veterans getting further, faster.
Speaker 3:One tap into your purpose. Tap into your purpose. If you don't know your purpose, identify it. Get heart coherent. Get clear on what you want to do If it's more self-centered. Do you want to be a great leader? Do you want to be the example epitome of grit? What is it that you want? Get tapped in with that. That's going to give you life purpose. It's going to give people around you purpose as well, and you can find ways to do that and have something to live for as well. And you can find ways to do that and have something to live for.
Speaker 3:The second piece is, I would say, make the main thing. The main thing which this has been about, and I know I don't have too much time to share this, but I'm going to share a quick story. There's two monks, two monks that were walking home from the marketplace to the temple, and as they're going to the temple, they had to cross a river, and along this river they came across a bum, and this bum had sores all over their body, sores on their feet, and the bum said please, please, gentlemen, I need some help, I need to go see my family, I need to cross this river and the older monk, without even thinking, picked this guy up and brought him across and set him down. The bum was very happy, very, very grateful. As they got to the temple, the younger monk said you know, you're not supposed to do that. How dare you? You're not supposed to do that. And then immediately the older monk said you know, the challenge is I set that man down after I got off the river. The challenge is you're still sitting with him. He's still on your back right now.
Speaker 3:So when you're making the main thing, the main thing, be clear about what it is that's important. What matters today, Not the checklist. You can have the checklists, as that's what you need to get things done. I think the more effective question is what matters most for you to get to where you want to be. The third piece is get heart coherent, get into your body a little bit.
Speaker 3:In the military I'm not an active veteran myself my understanding from half military is that it's very body intensive. You got to be in your body. You got to be hypervigilant. You are disciplined. You got to do what you need to do because you're protecting and serving right. That's important. I think you can still maintain that and also get into your body a little bit of your heart and your emotions, because that's going to make you even more effective. And what do I mean by that? A father's love I'm not a father myself, but a parent's love for their children that's going to activate something pure, very strong in you that comes from a heart space. I believe, when you are in tap with your emotions, when you're working on yourself, when you're doing everything you can to be a more effective leader, not only for the men or women that you're leading, but also for your family and the people that need that side of you as well.
Speaker 2:Love it, absolutely love it, my friend. Thank you so much again for being on. We'll schedule you back because I think we need to talk about grit. Something's telling me that just came up. We Something's telling me that just came up. We need to talk about grit. Let's do it, amen, man. So time, most precious resource we have as human beings. Aaron, thank you again for coming on and sharing your wisdom, your brilliance and your light Always, always a pleasure to have you on, my friend, thank you. Thank you, brother. All right, man, we're out, we're out. Peace.
Speaker 1:Peace. Thank you for joining us on another insightful journey of your Thoughts your Reality podcast with your host, michael Cole. We hope the conversation sparked some thoughts that resonate with you To dive deeper into empowering your thoughts and enhancing your reality. Visit empowerperformancestrategiescom. Remember your thoughts, shape your reality. Visit empowerperformancestrategiescom. Remember your thoughts, shape your reality, so make them count. Until next time, stay inspired and keep creating the reality you desire. Catch you on the next episode.