Embracing Vulnerability: Unlocking Your True Potential Ep 52

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In this episode, Eddie Isin is joined by Josh Abandonato to explore the transformative power of vulnerability. They discuss how embracing failures and being authentic can unlock your true potential and strengthen personal and professional relationships. This candid conversation offers insights into emotional presence, overcoming fear, and building supportive communities to foster growth.

Timecodes:

• [00:01] - Introduction
   Eddie welcomes Josh to the podcast, introduces the theme of vulnerability, and sets the tone for an open and honest conversation.
  
  
• [00:32] - Josh’s Background and the Genesis of "Derelict" Podcast
   Josh shares his journey as an entrepreneur and the inspiration behind his podcast, focusing on real-time discussions of failure and vulnerability.
  
  
• [02:53] - Why Authenticity Requires Vulnerability
   Eddie and Josh discuss the link between authenticity and vulnerability, emphasizing how embracing failures leads to personal growth.
  
  
• [04:05] - Learning Through Failure
   The importance of reflecting on and learning from failures instead of glazing over them is explored.
  
  
• [07:40] - Overcoming Fear and Filters
   Josh breaks down the types of fear and how past experiences shape our emotional responses and self-perceptions.
  
  
• [10:05] - Emotional Presence in Relationships
   Josh shares a personal story about practicing emotional presence with his girlfriend, emphasizing the value of staying present without trying to "fix" emotions.
  
  
• [18:34] - Insights on Codependency and Emotional Balance
  
  
• [25:00] - Vulnerability in Parenting
   Josh discusses lessons from a parenting episode of his podcast.
  
  
• [33:13] - The Power of Community in Personal Growth
   Eddie and Josh explore how supportive communities and mastermind groups accelerate personal transformation.
  
  
• [45:30] - Reframing the Stories We Tell Ourselves
   Eddie shares a powerful insight: “If you don’t like the story, change it,” 
  
  
• [54:32] - The Kinship of Vulnerability
   Josh highlights how shared experiences create strong bonds and why fostering vulnerability is essential for connection.
  
  
• [57:23] - Final Takeaways
   Josh encourages listeners to take the first step toward vulnerability by sharing their struggles with someone they trust.
  
  

Resources Mentioned:

• Podcast:  Derelict Podcast  https://thederelict.podbean.com/
• Love Is Letting Go of Fear by Gerald Jampolsky https://amzn.to/3BSqPlR
• Get Eddie’s free course 8 ways to Supercharge Your Motivation and Crush Sales
  https://bit.ly/8supercharge.

Subscribe to Transform Your Future Newsletter Where Eddie writes about personal development, reinvent & identity: http://transformyourfuture.com

Transcript

0:01

Josh, welcome to Transform Your Future Podcast. How are you doing today? I'm great. I'm great, Eddie. Thanks for having me. Excellent. Thank you for joining me today so we can have this great convo on the podcast. We've been communicating back and forth a lot of interesting things that we've been going back and forth about. Let's open it up. Just tell me a little bit about your background, how you ended up doing the derelict podcast, what that's about, and why you love it. Sure, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The way what I've been doing for work has nothing to do with my podcast, so I'll explain the evolution here in a second. So I've been in business, I've been an entrepreneur pretty much all of my life. Had my first company 18 years ago, right out of school, and pretty much always been in the financial world, had financial planning companies forever, still actually have one. But through that and going to different business conferences, talks, et cetera. What I hear more than often, Eddie, is I hear somebody get up on stage and they talk about, Hey, lemme just tell you about this company that I just sold for billion dollars. And then they kind of talk about their hardships and their struggles along the way so that you have some sort of an excitement like, great, you sold this company and you went through all this. That's supposed to be motivating. Sometimes I find it motivating, sometimes I find it the opposite. I find it debilitating because when I'm listening to this person say, I just sold my company for a billion dollars. What I often do is I go to shame or, well, why haven't I sold my company for a billion dollars? Or, I can't relate to this person because of this, but talk to me when you're going through the struggle, when you're dealing with a failure when you're in the middle of it. So that was the genesis of the podcast was what if we had a podcast where we're actually dealing with this stuff real time? We're dealing with the failures in our life, we're being vulnerable, we were being authentic. I think especially not always for guys, it's hard for maybe women as well, but I think for guys, a lot of times it's really hard to be in the midst of that and to realize like, oh man, I really am struggling with this. Let's walk through this together while we're in the middle of it. Let's not have to wait until we have some sort of massive success and then come back to it. Right. You know what I mean by that? Yeah, absolutely. So that was the genesis of the podcast, and we're pretty new. We've only been out for a few months now. It's going well. People are jumping on board, but I'm really just envisioning a tribe, a group of people coming together that can live authentic vulnerable lives and really deal with failures in the middle of it. So that's what we talk about on the podcast. We pick a different topic and then we just go for it, and it's been great. Yeah. I love it. I love it. That's why we're talking because I love the concept of just the small idea really, of just saying, let's talk about failure. Let's talk about what were challenges, what are our challenges right now, and where we're not really pushing the needle, where we are failing. Let's talk about it. And what I think is authenticity is you've got to be vulnerable. Vulnerability has got to be part of authenticity. Absolutely. You can't be authentic without also vulnerability. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think some people get turned off by the word failure. None of us want to fail, but what I've noticed is that if I'm not real and authentic and vulnerable inside of my failure, then I never learn anything from it. I never get past it. I never know what the next step is if I don't actually relate to it in that way. If I just were to say, Hey, I'm just going to skim over this, and then eventually everything will work out and we'll be fine. Well, I missed the journey. And the journey is the best. Part. We're talking about failure. We're talking about not reaching goals, and I like that distinction. You make that you've got to take a moment and you've got to talk about it. And you've got to be vulnerable in that moment when you're going through it, because that's where you're going to learn the biggest lessons. We don't want to just glaze over it and say, well, I'll just try again and I'll try something different or something, or I'll just work harder this time. You miss the whole feedback loop of trying to understand what do I learn about this? How can this help inform me? And I think sometimes too, it is just difficult for us to relate somebody that's way past wherever we are. So somebody comes in and they're teaching sales, let's say to new salespeople. Well, somebody that's been doing sales for 20 years might forget some of the basics or some of the ways that they failed 20 years ago. It might be hard to relate to that. They're so far past that to where this new salesperson, yeah, they're going to see this person that's very successful and they've made it for 20 years, which is fantastic. That's amazing. We want to look forward to that person. But I don't know how relatable they're going to be to, but I just had my first call with a family member and this is how it goes. Can they even remember what that was like? I think you do some sales too, right? So you probably Yeah, I've doing it for 20. Years. For 20 years, and I've been training people and managing people. And what's interesting is actually I had a call with somebody today and I was trying to help them out, and it was interesting to me. I recognized that I'm far removed from certain things. I Recognize that my confidence levels here and I understand things, and I'm like, okay, this is not a good fit. Thank you. And then next, but somebody else is like, oh my God, this is terrible. They didn't want to move forward or something. And he was just talking about he doesn't like rejection, so he doesn't want to engage, and he's trying to figure out a way to not engage because he doesn't want to be rejected. I'm, I mean, it's not that deep. Maybe you need to do some inner work on yourself, bro, from something that happened, some traumatic stuff that happened to you in your life that this is just bringing all that stuff up. But really they're just people and they don't want to do business with you. That's fine. No problem. You want to go, go. It's okay. I have more people to talk to. You're not the only person in the universe. Well, I think you just brought up a really good point though, Eddie. And one thing that I've found at least just even doing the podcast and speaking of different failures when they're in the midst of 'em, I think is similar to what you were just mentioning in sales. And that is, from my experience, anytime I've had a hard time dealing with somebody in the midst of it is when I'm insecure about it, I feel some sort of shame or I shouldn't be going through this, or this is too difficult or I'm insecure in myself, and that makes me not want to open up and be vulnerable and be authentic in that moment. So I understand that in a sales context. I've also been in sales forever, and as a new salesperson that's maybe insecure about the ability to sell, I don't even know what I'm selling yet. I don't really know who I am as a person. I don't know who I am as a salesman. Well, that gets, all of that stuff is in our head, and it's hard to look past that sometimes to just realize, no, no, it's okay if we struggle with this. Right. That's okay. Because that's how we learn. Yeah. I was working with somebody last week and after four minutes, they were shadowing me and after four minutes on the phone talking to somebody, I just realized they're really not going to do business. It's not a right fit. And so I said, Hey, I don't want to take up any more of your time today. I want to thank you for taking the time with me. If you have any questions, you know how to contact, thank you. And I hung up the phone and the guy was like, you didn't even pitch the guy I am. Why waste my time? He's not the right person. He's not going to do something. How can I convince somebody who is not the right fit if they don't have the right pain and they don't have the right motivation? I got nothing. Absolutely. The same thing happened to me the other day when somebody reached out to me to be a guest on my podcast. I said, okay, I'm open to having a quick phone call with them. They sent me basically what the topic was about, and within the first five minutes, I could tell it's not a good fit, just based on what they want to talk about. There's nothing wrong with what they're talking about. There's plenty of podcasts that would want them as a guest. And I literally said the same thing to 'em. I was like, look, it sounds like you have something really great here. I wish you all the best. Clearly it's not a good fit. Good luck out there. And it took five minutes instead of an hour or two hours, three hours. I know when I was early on in sales, I don't know if you have experience or not, Eddie, but for myself, I mean, I over gave myself at the beginning. So I would go and meet with somebody for an hour, hour and a half, two hours when weren't a good fit. And frankly, now I probably. Or chase or chase somebody for six months or a year, keep tall cooking, and you'd spend all this energy and then after a while you're like, this is stupid. Why am I doing that? It'd be better if I just find somebody who's interested. And for the same amount of time, you probably could have found five people that were interested for that one person you chase around the table, right? Well, we learned from experience. So that's what we do, and we build our confidence based upon whatever the results are that we get. We know what to expect. But what's interesting is what do people say? What do people think? What is the audience think about talking about failure and being vulnerable in the moment? I'm imagining I haven't listened to your podcast, so I apologize for that. I'm definitely going to listen to it tonight. Perfect. But do you guys, in that process, to you guys dig deep, try to figure out what it is that's coming up for this person. Is it some shame or guilt or some past experience? I read this really good book years ago called Love is Letting Go of Fear. And in the book, because I'm a filmmaker and I have a long career doing film and video, I had a production company for almost 20 years. But the thing is, he talked about how when things are happening in our life, it's like we have a projector on our head. And so we're seeing this situation right here in front of us, but we're projecting everything in our life before that has any kind of connection to this. I remember when I was very young, I went on a date and the woman, we went to dinner and I told the woman that I was interested in her, I'd like to date her. And she said, I'm not interested. You're not the right type for me. And I felt this terrible rejection. I wanted to go crawl under a rock or something. And as I processed that, I happened to be reading that book at the time, and I realized it wasn't this one woman telling me she was rejecting me. It was like every woman in my life that ever rejected me. It is what I was feeling in that moment. So I think it's exploring these kinds of ideas and talking about that stuff is a great way to uncover what some of those patterns might be or some of those negative experiences might be that we're connecting to today. I'm assuming that's what you guys do. You kind of get in there and see what it's about. Yeah. I mean, it's not therapy, so we're not doing therapy on the podcast, but one thing that you're saying is absolutely true. That is everyone has fears and filters. So what are the fears that I have? And fear can mean one of two things, by the way. So let's talk about filters first. You just referenced that we all have filters based on past experience, based on trauma, based on what we've went through, et cetera, that when you are going on a date with someone, it's almost impossible for all the other dates you've had not to go into that date. So it's a matter of just being open to that and realizing that that's happening. And then trying to have a little bit of an okay, how much of this is just a filter and how much of this is really how I feel right now? And then there's fears also, which obviously we all have. But I like to distinguish fears in a couple different ways because people use the word fear interchangeably, and I think unfortunately the English language doesn't do a very good job of this. There's two types of fears that are both fear number one is a clear and present danger fear. That would be, I'm in the African Savannah by myself with no weapons, and there's a hungry line in my face about to eat me. That's a very clear and present logical fear. I understand why I'd be fearful for my life, but the way most of us use the term fear is with something that has not happened. And there might not be any evidence that ever will happen. What. If I used to say it's the fear of losing what you have or not getting what you want? Yeah, absolutely. But one thing I think that's important to realize about that fear is it's not a lot of the times, it's not based in any reality whatsoever. It would be like the fear of watching something horrible happen on the news, a school shooting or something, and then thinking, no, I'm scared that there's going to be a school shooting at my kid's school. That would be terrible. Obviously that's a terrible, horrific event and everything else, but just because it happened somewhere else doesn't necessarily mean it's going to happen at my kid's school. Or what if she rejects me? Well, has she rejected you before? No, but that other woman did reject me one time, and then that's in my head now. So now I'm thinking, well, she'll probably reject me also. So part of what we are doing on the show is just trying to get rid of those kind of nonsensical fears Because Those may or may not happen. And what I've found is that, I heard this about vulnerability a long time ago, and I think it really rings true. Somebody has to get naked and jump in the pool first. That's what a buddy of mine said a long time ago. And his whole point with that is, somebody's just got to go first. Somebody's got to get vulnerable first. So the whole thing that I try to do on my podcast is just start with myself. Just be vulnerable, talk about whatever I'm struggling with. And then it's amazing how much people open up when you open up. Yeah, I get that. I get that. And you have that kind of personality like me, I think I identify with anyway, where we're open kind of people and people tend to tell us things because we're kind of open. We're not closed off, we're not judgmental in the way that we approach things. And so it gives people the freedom to express ideas and whatnot. Yeah, I try to be. Absolutely, yeah, I'm sure you like me and you find that people tell you a lot of things that they normally wouldn't tell people. People have been telling me things all my life. I think it's part of the reason why I got into a coaching profession, because I'll go somewhere and somebody just opens up to me and I don't know why. Honestly, I can't really explain it. I just think that there's some people that happens with and some people that doesn't, and people tend to do it with me. So I see that as an honor and a privilege, and I haven't always treated it that way. I've definitely not done as well in the past. And there are still days if I'm upset or we were just talking before we aired here about how much work you've been going through and everything else. If I'm exhausted and I have so much stuff and I just want to shut down, I'm not always in the best space for that. So I still fail at that for sure. But just being present and being open to whatever vulnerability is happening in that moment is what I don't know. I find a lot of beauty in that. I just don't hear a lot of people doing it. I just hear a lot of people kind of okay with that vulnerability. As long as there's something where we can hang our hat and be like, well, it's going to be okay. Right? It's like a Disney movie. We can deal with the difficulty during the movie. We know it's going to end well Because they're all going to live happily ever after at the end. So we can kind deal with this. But how do we deal with the stuff in the middle when we don't know if everybody's going to live happily ever after at the end? Give me an example of, I mean, I could make one up if you want, but just give me an example of kind of a story from the show and how you guys processed it and what was the outcome. Sure. So lemme just think of the most recent episode. So our most recent episode was on emotional presence, and it was all about being emotionally present with someone when you're with them. So we did one on just actual presence. Presence would be, I'm speaking to you right now, I'm not staring at my phone, right? Texting while I'm doing this with you and sending an email and looking over here. That's just me trying to be present with you in our conversation because I want this to be good for your audience. I want people to get something out of this. You do as well. And the more present we are, the better emotionally though, am I just present here with you or am I really feeling what you're feeling? Am I really understanding emotionally where you're at? And if something changes emotionally, do we adjust to that? So I actually decided to have my girlfriend on this episode. I was like, who's going to be better. To talk about? You want that to get triggered or you wanted to test yourself? Exactly. I was like, look, if anyone is going to talk about how much I suck an emotional presence, it's going to be her. So might as well bring her on this show. So it was really interesting. There was kind of a relational dynamic talking about that emotional piece and both of us going through stories of when we were more present with each other emotionally and when we weren't, and kind of just what to do about that. So yeah, that's what we talked about recently. Yeah, I find that interesting. Certainly I believe in being present. I have a practice that I do throughout the day to make sure that I'm really here and now involved in what I'm doing, not drifting somewhere else. I dunno if you ever read Napoleon Hill wrote a book about meeting the devil, and the book is supposed to be about his conversations with the devil that they had and a big theme. And it is about drifting how these things in society are set forth just to occupy your time and make you waste time and take the focus off important things, obsessions and compulsions and things like that. And this is the problem and how it's also set up in society from the time you're going to school. School is a metaphor for the workforce, and you're going to school and being told, sit down, be quiet, get your pencils ready, getting you ready to work, to be in the workforce and take direction. But anyhow, in the book when he talks about the drifting, the idea is can we really be here and be present? And when I'm here present with you, I'm actually thinking about us and this moment and what you're communicating, not thinking about my appointment that I have at six o'clock or what I'm going to have for dinner or whatever. As far as emotionally goes, I think that's an interesting thing, talking about emotional presence. Well, and another thing on that too, just to add to that, Eddie, is that I would identify as a recovering codependent myself. So I've definitely had codependent tendencies in the past. I still deal with them, et cetera. And one of the things that, it's hard to define codependency. A lot of people have a lot of different definitions for it. But one of the ways that I think about it is when you need somebody to feel a certain way so that you feel a certain way, I need you to feel a certain way so that I feel a certain way. So in other words, I need to get you happy to make sure that there's no drama in my mind so that I can be happy. Make sense? I think that relates a lot to emotional presence as well, because I think there's a few different things that we could look at. I could just as we're having this conversation right now, I could just not care at all about your emotions. That's one option. I could say, Hey, look, if Eddie's angry or happy or sad or frustrated or whatever he is, I just don't care. I'm going to be apathetic towards that. That's one thing to do. I don't think most people usually are doing that unless they're so in their own head that they can't process it. I don't think a lot of people do that. Another way to do it is to avoid that emotion. Again, codependents do this. Sometimes if you are angry and you're visibly angry at me, I might just want to avoid you. I might just want to be like, look, I can't handle that emotion, so you go have your emotion somewhere. I'm not ignoring you, but I want to avoid you now. And then the other way is that you could also just get enmeshed with the emotion. So again, this is what codependence do a lot. You are angry. So that rubs off on me now all of a sudden, even though I was in a good state, I was happy, et cetera. Well, now I'm angry or I'm agitated because you are angry. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You take it on, they had some terrible thing that happened to them, somebody betrayed them or whatever, and then you're like, oh my God, I can't believe it. They did that to you, God, and you're all now feeling betrayal that happened to you. And there could be an empathetic reaction to that. Like you said, somebody is angry because they have betrayal, and now you're sitting with the betrayal with them, and that's healthy. But if I'm angry just because you're angry, probably not. So what I found for emotional presence, I acknowledge and I understand, I can feel you. I have an idea of what you are feeling emotionally, but then I also know what I'm feeling emotionally, and it's okay if they're two different things. So one of the things, a story as an example that my girlfriend said on the podcast that I thought was a good one, is she was talking about how, I don't remember what action I did off to go back and listen to my own podcast, but I did some sort of action. And by that action, she was hurt. Now to clarify, there was nothing wrong that I did so to speak, but just whatever it was, let's say we couldn't spend time together something, I don't know what it was. So I had an action. She had hurt from that action. And then a codependent would respond to that by trying to get rid of the hurt and try to make sure everybody's okay so that I feel okay. So we had this moment where I was trying to stay present with her emotion of hurt without trying to fix it, which I often do as a guy also, without trying to change it and just realize it's okay for her to feel hurt. I don't have to feel hurt, and I don't have to change her hurt. I just want to stay present with that. And if I can stay present and allow her to be who she is in that hurt, It's a beautiful thing. Yeah. It's interesting. So emotional presence, I can relate, especially in intimate relationships, especially in intimate relationships where your partner may share some emotion and then, do I shut down? Do I ignore it? How do I respond to that? Am I here for that or do I just like. Yeah, we, or. Do I go to the old men's standby? Is there anything I could do to help you with that? No. Okay. Right, right. Exactly. I'm off the hook. Yeah. If there's nothing I can do, then why am I even here? Right. On one of our, we've done several episodes on parenting. I am a parent, and one of the people that was on one of the parenting episodes, they asked their kids. So one of the questions we ask hosts all the time is kind of, how are you failing? Or how are you working through this issue in your life right now? And they asked their kids that question, and one of their daughters told them basically that he was failing because he was on his phone too much. And then he had to deal with not being present with his kids on his phone. And that's the other thing that, I mean, I was hit pretty hard when he said that. I was like, yeah, maybe other people can do it, but I can't be on my phone with my children and be emotionally present with them. I can't do it. It's impossible for me. If they're going, I don't think anybody can actually. I don't think so. I can't. Yeah. This whole idea of multitasking that's in society today, it's not real. It's like a fake thing. It's true that you can take 10 seconds here and 10 seconds there. You can take two seconds here, five seconds there, but you can't actually be in two places at one time. Right. Yeah. Right. Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. I saw, just as an aside, there was an artist. I'm into art. I went to graduate school for fine art. My wife's an artist. So we follow a bunch of artists and always talking about it. Interesting to both of us. We enjoy it anyway. There was this artist that all of his work had to do with not being available in society today. And so it was like a couple in bed at nighttime, and they're both on their phones next to each other and just different ideas like that because of the way that in society today, people are so glued to the screens all day. Yeah, scrolling. Yeah, I love watching. I mean, they don't even have to be that old anymore. I want to say old movies, but I mean, you could pick a movie from the nineties, which isn't really that old, I love watching old movies for interactions because of the change of technology. I always think it's fascinating. My favorite show of all time is Seinfeld. I'm not the only one I know, very popular show. But one of the things that of the reason is it's so timeless. All of the humor in there is so timeless. The only humor in there that's not timeless is being able to get ahold of somebody because there were no cell phones. But it's just interesting to watch a show when cell phones didn't exist and how everyone responded to each other and interacted with each other Versus how we do today, or I don't know if you ever do this, but every once in a while I'll go to a concert or it happens sometimes with standup comedians, depending on how popular they are, that they'll lock your phone away and you cannot take it in the venue. And it's almost like reversing time. It's almost like going back before cell phones existed, because you look around the room and people are engaged, they're talking to each other, they're looking eye to eye, and you're like, what is happening right now? It's only happening because they don't have their phone. They can't distract themselves with anything else. Which man I'm capable. I do all the time. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I think probably, I'm just thinking back in time, I've had the great benefit that I've grown through so much technology changes and I've been around. I'm just thinking, although people weren't on cell phones back then, they were just as occupied with other things. Just didn't happen to be a cell phone in their hand. Yeah, absolutely. So going back to the topic of emotional presence, you don't need, none of us need any sort of electronics to make us not present emotionally. I could be not present up here. In other words, even though I look like I'm present with you right now, I could be thinking about so many other, and I'm a DHD too, so it makes it even worse. I could be thinking about so many other things. Even just waiting to know what I'm going to respond to you, that I'm not staying present. I could be thinking about my to-do list, my task items, all the 8 million other phone calls that I have after you this afternoon, what I need to do to prep for those, so on. So on. 8 million is a lot. It is. I'm sure you have nine. No, no, sir, I do not. But I understand that you were just using some colorful language there to. Case I wasn't that at all. I don't. Exaggerations. Lot of phone. Calls. Yeah. Yeah. I've never made 8 million phone calls in my life, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned earlier you were talking about the show and about coaching. Tell us a little bit about the coaching. Sure. Yeah. So I've done coaching in the financial space for a very long time. I've mentored a lot of people in various areas. Anything from church to 12 step groups to you name it. I've had a lot of experience with that. Coaching for the business is new. This is a newer endeavor for me. But really the coaching is coming down to the exact same thing the podcast is talking about. If somebody is, and a lot of it's just dealing with people's own which I have a lot of as well. And what I found is that I've been to therapy, I've been to coaches, I've been to a lot of different people for various things. All of those are good. There's nothing bad with any of them. But where I find that a lot of them don't hit, at least for me, is that dealing with, like I said, that vulnerability piece along the way. How are we dealing with whatever failure we're going through right now and figuring out what that means for the next chapter of our life. So really this coaching is more focused on groups. Groups of people that where we can figure this out together, where we can actually be honest and pure and understand, okay, what is the next step of where we need to go and can we do that while actually living a really honest and vulnerable life? So that's really where the coaching's coming from. Again, it's brand new with the company, so I'm just getting it launched. But the idea is we have this tribe of derelicts that are willing to just be open and honest and deal with our failures real time. And then, well, what if 20 of us are going through divorce at the same time? Well, why can't we have a group of 20 of us that are constantly talking about that one specific item? We're feeling like we're failing. And then maybe for some people, 20 people's too many to be a hundred percent authentic. Or maybe there's one thing that I don't want to share. That's where the individual coaching comes in. Yeah, I see this beneficial. I mean, in my life, it's always been, I talk about this a lot, that we need each other. We are social creatures, and we need people, we need to look in each other's eyes and we need to connect the magic that happens out of that. Well, there's so much magic that happens out of it. I think we could talk for hours about it. Absolutely. We could. Yeah. But one of the things is that when you meet some people and they're doing some things that are different than what you're doing and you like what they're doing, and you want to be doing things like that, and you listen to the way they describe it, and you start thinking, yeah, maybe I could do that too. And you're open and honest and you talk to them and you say, I'm lost, or I don't know how to do that, and where should I start? And they start helping you. Suddenly they believe in you. It's like when I went to the program, I have 36 years clean. When I went to the program, it was like, I remember somebody told me, you don't have to believe that this will work out for you. You just need to believe that. I believe that it'll work for you. Yeah, that's a really good point. Absolutely. And so I think just the fact that there are other people that I can connect with who believe in me, that's amazing. That just opens the door. And I think so much of what you're talking about has to do with people's lack of confidence, people's lack of belief, people's thinking that they need permission from somebody. I'm very proud about the way you talk about things. It's very honest and authentic, and you're not really concerned about how it makes you look. Right. And I think this is an important part of life. I went through most of my life worrying about how I looked all the time, Eddie, I'm. Past. That point in my life. Yeah, it's about the insides. It's about doing the inside work, not the outside work. My friend used to always say when I was younger, you got to save your ass, not your face, But just the people being in a little network, a little group of people, like a support system people. We have some similar things, like maybe we're all focusing on making seven fingers or whatever. Or maybe it's a certain type of business or a certain kind of problem, like you were talking about, everybody's going through divorce. So, but those kinds of connections with people who believe in us, who we can trust, who has our best interests at heart, those things really, really are how I've made such great leaps in my life at different times because of. That. Yeah, for sure, for sure. I agree. And I've been a part of different groups that have specific focuses, like you just mentioned, 12 step would be an example. People find this at their church or mastermind groups, et cetera. There's a lot of different areas, and at least for me in my life, kind of the reason why I started the podcast and that in my life I might have a friend or two that's going through something similar to me, and that's great. And we get to keep each other accountable. We get to be there for each other. We get to empathize with each other, et cetera. But I know that there's 500 other people going through the same thing. So I love my buddy over here and all the advice and everything else that he's given me, but I also want that from the other 499 because then if we're pooling all these resources together and bringing this together and having this collective community where we can actually be honest about this stuff, how's that worse? It's only going to be better because before I get this one person that I get some insight from, now I get a tribe of people that I'm getting stuff from. So that's really what we're trying to create and what I'm so excited about, to be honest. Yeah, it's a worthy goal. I think it's a worthy goal. Thank you. I would like to see you succeed in that goal. Thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate the. Best in that. And if you need any help, let me know. And I give you a good swift kick in the ass. It's perfect, Eddie. It's good. I love it. I love it. But all joking aside, I've been to many, many masterminds and I have done some great things in my life and went through incredible obstacles and came out the other side, a different person. I feel like I've reinvented myself six times, and it's only been because of being part of a community of this mastermind of these other people and all of us working towards some common goal that it's come true. Whether that was building my two businesses that I cashed out, or even finding the right woman and fixing my life so that I feel like my life is fulfilled. So anyway, it's good stuff. It's good stuff. So I have a question for you then, Eddie, what do you think? Just because I always like asking people this question. We all have these struggles. We all have these failures. Everybody fails, nobody doesn't fail. We all go through these things. Why is it difficult, would you say? Especially if it's not just, maybe it's different if we're just having a conversation with one person, but why would you say in general, from your experience, is it difficult for us to be vulnerable about that when we're in the middle of it? Why do we have such a hard time, and maybe I'm putting this on you, maybe you're this, I dunno. It's okay. But why do you think people in general have a hard time dealing with it? Being vulnerable with it when you're in the middle of it? Yeah. Well, I mean, I have opinions about it. I'm happy to share my opinions. Yeah, curious. Everybody has two opinions. Opinions are like armpits. You have two of them, and they both stink. But I think. That I've heard belly buttons and butthole for that same exact expression, by the way. Yeah, I know. Depending on how grotesque you want to. Get. But I think there's two issues that we come across, and this is what's been true for me. First denial. So if I'm in denial about things, then naturally I'm not going to talk about this stuff because what I'm going to do is say, this is not happening because it's Josh's fault. If Josh would've just done things the other way, then everything would've been great. The reason we failed, it's not because of me, it's because of Josh. That's one thing. The other thing within that that's kind of similar is many people just don't want to take responsibility for their own lives and actions. That's how they live. And then the other side of it is, many people have trouble. Because they don't want to look weak. They want to perpetrate this fraud. They've got their shit together and everything's great. You mean every social media post ever. Right? Yeah. I have to keep sharing all this. Wonderful. I'm so proud of my life. Here's me in front of my car. Here's me in front of the house. Here's me with my daughter. Here's me with no shirt on. I'm going to dinner. Here's my drink. Just trying to, I had the same thing when I was dating. You have all these people using glamor shots and makeup and hair and wonderful lighting to make them look not real than who they really are. Absolutely. And then you meet them and you're like, holy shit, why didn't you, you look totally different. Right? Right. For sure. For sure. And not in a good. Way, I think. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think going along with what you're saying too, is that I think because we're so trained to present whatever the story is, and we're so trained by our society media. Exactly. It's the propaganda, right? The spin. Here's my story, here's my narrative, et Cetera. Where when somebody, you're right. But if they move past the denial part, they realize that they're dealing with some sort of failure. They know that there is. I think some people just don't know where to turn. Also, I know where to turn if I need to show that my life is perfect, social media, news, friends, family, business, whatever, I know where to turn. But what about where I turn when I'm actually going through this shit? Excuse my language, and I don't know how to deal with this in the middle of it. I'm not going to go on Instagram and make some posts about how I'm struggling with this. People rarely do that. I mean, sometimes they do, but rarely. When somebody dies or something or they get into a car accident. When it's somebody else, when it's not, when it's with me. If it's somebody else, that's fine. Somebody else died. I can post that. But if I am going through this failure, I don't feel comfortable posting. Well, I mean, I don't even know if that's appropriate. Anyway, what that means and what kind of feedback you would even get on social media trying to post something real like that. Anyway. I don't know. But I think that if more people were authentic about it, then it would probably change things. Myself. Well, the reason we talk about authenticity in the world is because people are not authentic. And the reason so many people, they're fake. They're just fake. They have a fake business. They have a fake idea, fake idea of things they like. You see it in marketing, a lot of times the marketing is just all hyperbole and all nonsense. And it's like, what does that even really mean? Right? And you could watch an hour video, set up a call, set up a call, set up a call. I'm like, for what? I don't even know what the hell you're talking. About. And then in the call, it's the same stuff. And you still don't know exactly what is happening because it's just hyperbole. After hyperbole, after a hyperbole, after I. Had a guy on the phone and I was like, dude, you said the word business. Let me just explain to you. I understand business. Business is about evidence. It's about statistics, it's about information. It's about standards. So what are your standards? What is the evidence? What does somebody really expect? And all he had was more flowery, hyperbole, bullshit about belief and reaching for your goals. And I'm like, what is this a Wheaties commercial? I mean, come on. Yeah, I agree. I, it's part of the reason why I will refuse to have some sort of three steps to success on my podcast ever. Because it's not about that. It's about trying to figure out how to learn through the journey. It's not about, people are always going to walk away with three steps of how to be a better parent. There's enough of that. If you're looking for that, go find it somewhere else. I'm not interested in that. I'm. Think probably the most overused one is secrets. That's the most overused one. The secret of this, the secret of that, the secret of this. I'm like, dude, there isn't that many secrets about these things. Please. And especially after you see 58 people advertising the secret to social media success on social media, you're like, really? If it's the secret, why am I getting so many ads about it? Exactly. Yeah. But I really do understand what you're saying. The question that you're asking, the overarching theme is you understand that people can benefit from being for, from authentic, from talking about these things so they can get a different perspective on stuff. So they could start working on changing those limiting beliefs. They could start making a new story. Me, I always tell people when I'm working with them, so you don't like that story? And they're like, no, I hate that. I don't want to be that. I don't want that to be real. I said, well, change the story. Absolutely. And they're like, what do you mean? I'm like, it's your story. You could change it right now. Just change the story. It's like, I used to watch that show. I won't go into it anyway. People probably have feelings about it. But the thing is, the guy says in the show, he says, if you don't like the way the table's set, turn the table upside down. And this is a reality. We have the power to do that. Yeah, absolutely. And like you said too, it's all about story. And there are no things that happen. There's just the way that we interpret the way that they happened. So there is no just one universal truth of something that happened. It's our experience of that event. Just like in a court case, why could there be six witnesses of the exact same event? And they all have an exactly different story because their interpretation of it is different. It's going back to what we were talking about with fear before. Most fear, it's not fear of anything. It's some story that we told. It's not evidence based. Yeah, correct. It's some story that we told. So now we're fearful, but what are we fearful of? We're fearful of our own story. We're not actually fearful of anything real. We're just fearful of, well, what's up here? Yeah. It's like I walk home from school and there's a big rotweiler on a chain right near the edge of the sidewalk. And so I go walk around and take the long way home all the time because he barks and runs and the chain snaps. And he's like trying to get to the sidewalk. And then one day I say, you know what? I'm not going to be afraid. I'm going to face this. I'm going to do it. After all, he's on a leash. He's not going to be able to do anything. And when I get close to her, I realize the dog's got a big, big, big bark, but no teeth. Yeah, there you Go. That's a great example. I love it. It's a great analogy. But I do think that I feel in my life. First of all, I'm a God-centered person. The center of my life is this God presence. Everything translates through my faith, right? Since I believe that there's something beyond me and you, beyond the dollar bill, beyond this place, that there's something more that I'm connected to in some way. Call it whatever you want, that has always kept me grounded. And then because I believe in these things, I listen, I observe myself. I'm like 10 feet above myself looking down, and I'm observing what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, why I'm doing this, why I'm doing that. And I listen, that voice of reason, that God voice or whatever. And through that process, it's led me to have these situations that come in my life where I open my mouth and I say some things and suddenly I'm being vulnerable and I'm learning something, and I'm getting a different perspective on stuff. So I think it starts from the individual. And if they don't believe that there's something more, if they don't believe that they need anything, if they don't believe that they need other people, if they don't believe that sharing is a helpful thing in life, then they're not going to do it. They're not going to do it. Well. And even if they do believe all those things are important, maybe it's never been modeled to them and maybe they just don't know how to do it. That's possible. Yeah. I can't tell you how many, again, specifically guys, this is not a guy only problem, but specifically guys that I could think of throughout my life that are going through stuff, and they just don't know how to talk to other guys about it. It's just never been presented to them. It's never been shown to them. And like I said before, I think sometimes it just takes somebody being vulnerable, getting naked, jumping in the pool first. That way we can all talk about our struggles. I mean, one of the things that you mentioned before is you said it sounds like you're clean from something, some sort of addiction or something. Else. Drugs. Okay. Okay. Got it. And if you've been to any sort of addiction recovery groups, 12 subgroups, et cetera, one of the things that I think is very, very powerful about those is the fact that they create a safe space for somebody to say whatever they want with no judgment. So if you've ever been to a 12 step group before, anyone that's listening, that hasn't been one of the main rules is that when you share, you cannot comment on somebody else's share. And the reason they do that is because it gives you the space to be able to be open and honest and vulnerable without somebody else attacking you. And that's essentially what I see with the derelict tribe, to be honest, is more of that with more people and not just focused on drugs and alcohol. That I have thought deeply about these things because I've been affected by so many things. And then it's almost like I reverse engineer my life. And Josh, I'm writing this book right now about reinvention. It's all about reinvention and identity, and I'm breaking down what was my process? How did I do that? What did I think about? What information did I gather? What were some of the routines that I did to get there? And as I'm doing that, I'm thinking about how the real foundation for all of these reinventions of how I changed, and I went from being a depressed, angry, low self-esteem person to somebody who was living his dreams and going out there and speaking in public and connecting to others, and getting hired to do all these great gigs that I only fantasized about. And working with John Travolta and Andy Garcia and Steven Bauer and all these sports personalities and all these people, it was like a dream come true. I was like, it wasn't work. I didn't work. It was. Just a lot of fun all the time, right? Yeah. Just having a blast. And I think about what was really the foundation of all these things. And in many ways, I feel like that first time when my back was against the wall, when I wanted to blow my brains out when I was trapped, and I couldn't change. I didn't know how to change. I tried to change. And then I always went back to doing drugs. And how somebody introduced me to somebody in my family, they said, I want you to talk to this guy. He's been where you've been, and he's going to give you talk to you for a few minutes. And I was at a point in my life, it was a low point, obviously. I wasn't in the money and out there running right now. It was like, for sure I was stuck and broke and thinking about how am I going to get on my next run. Anyway, so I talked to the person and I immediately realized he knew what he was talking about. He was just like me. And the things he told me started to change what I was thinking about myself, the possibilities of maybe I'm not crazy and maybe I'm not really a nut job and trying to kill myself. Maybe I'm really do have an addiction problem. Maybe that's really what it is. And maybe like him that he hasn't done it for so many years, maybe I could do that too. Maybe it's possible. And so in that, because I'm just kind of going back a little bit. I know I'm being a little long-winded and I apologize. But the idea is, have you ever heard the term like the lifeboat, right? So it's like because we go through a terrible or ordeal, and we are in the lifeboat together now, afterwards, we have this incredible bond with each other because we both survived. So I like to talk a lot about survival and understand that we have survived and we have a survival mechanism, and that as survivors, we can do anything. I mean, if we could survive those things that were challenges in our life, these bad relationships, bad situations, losing everything, and we could come out the other side, we have the capacity inside of us to do anything that we want. There are no limits. But I think that's the answer to the question is you have to feel a kinship to other people in order to be open and authentic like that and vulnerable. Yeah, I agree. And again, kind of back to what we were saying earlier, I think for a lot of people, because I've definitely been through this before, I do feel a kinship, or maybe people do feel a kinship to others, but there might be so much in their own head to where it just, I might just be lost. I just might not know how to connect with that person. Even if I do feel like I can connect with that person, or maybe I feel in my own head that whatever I'm going through is not as bad as what they're going through. My divorce is not as contentious as theirs. My kids' health problem is not as serious as their kids' health problem. My marriage isn't on the rocks as much as their marriage is on the right, whatever the comparison is to where Maybe we just minimize it sometimes and just convince ourselves it's probably not that big of a deal. I'm just going to keep going and pick myself up and try again, and hopefully it'll work until one day it all comes crashing. And then people have what they now lovingly refer to as midlife crisises because of this reason. People are trying to do the same thing for 20 years in their working career, and then all of a sudden one day they're like, oh, man, this isn't working anymore. What do I do? And then they freak out and go buy a car and get a new spouse and all the things people do. Sounds like a learning experience. Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, listen, I've appreciated our time together. Absolutely. I've got a lot out of it. I'm going to listen to the podcast, please. I'll probably see if I could be a guest on your podcast one of these days. That'd be great. And we're going to keep in touch. But before we wrap up, is there anything that you haven't talked about that you would like to share before we wrap up the. No, I don't think so. Appreciate you having me on. I appreciate you giving me a time for us to have a conversation. It was really good. I really enjoyed learning more just about your podcast and what you're doing as well. I think it's fantastic. And no, I don't think so. I think the only thing that maybe I would leave your viewers or listeners with is take a chance, maybe today there's something that you might feel like you're failing at or that you're struggling with, or that you're in the midst of. My encouragement to you would be just find one person that you could just be a little vulnerable with. Not even all the way, just a little, just share a little bit about what's going on in your life. I just know that every single time I've done that, hence the reason I'm starting this podcast or have already started it, I should say. But every single time I've done that in my life, I've found that people have a lot more that they're dealing with than we ever know, And they don't really want to talk about it, or they might as long as we talk about it. So I'm kind of a point in my life now where I think that I'm trying my best just to be that person first and create that space. So I guess what I would encourage other people that are listening is just be honest about what you're going through, that failure, that vulnerability, that thing. And if you don't feel like you're going through something like that, be honest about something else. Because guaranteed, there are people around you that are hurting, that are dealing with failures, that have hard stuff going on and they don't know how to bring it up. They don't feel comfortable bringing it up. They might be minimizing it, thinking it's not a big deal. Maybe I won't bring it up. And they're all around us. So that's it. A problem shared is a problem. Cut in half. Yeah, there you go. I love it. That's great, Eddie. Alright brother. Thanks again. We'll be in touch. Yeah, absolutely. Have a wonderful one. You too.