Tell Your Mom You Love Her (w/Brendan Fitzgibbons)

Brendan is back with Willoughby and goes hard in the emotional paint, being vulnerable, and that stuff that gets you a TED-X talk.

Brendan dives deep into: 

• A NEW definition for confidence. (Spoiler alert: be a Jonas Brother.) 
• Why so many people are living in the familiar past and predictable future. 
• Brendan's groundbreaking conversation with his mom. 
• Michael Singer's incredible book, The Surrender Experiment. 
• And why is every beach bar named after a health code violation?

RESOURCES
Brendan Fitzgibbons
Michael Singer on the idea of Surrender
Joe Dispenza Familiar Past/Predictable Future
Beach Bar Health Core Violations 

Transcript

I think at this point it's pretty safe to say that every single beach bar is named after a health code violation, you know? It's like barefoot Benny's, shirtless Steve's. If you like piña coladas and you like outdoor volleyball, come on down to the Lost Band Aid. Hey man, we got a spring break special over in Jacksonville, Florida right now. 

It matas. If you come on down to Bikini Amputees, okay, we got a live band. And it's gonna be a good time, no shirts, no shoes, lots of service. Just once I would like to see a beach bar called The Responsible Drinker. Or a beach bar that's called Mutual Funds. 

In bed by [00:01:00] nine. With all this being said, I really kinda wanna go to a beach bar now. welcome to a brand new episode of Spiritual Asshole. I am your host, Brendan Fitzgibbons. With me, as always, I'm joined by Willoughby T. Fitzgibbons. Thank you so much for being here. I know I've been away for a couple of weeks, but we are going strong. 

I have some outstanding news to report. I will be talking to two authors very soon that I'm I am very excited about, including the author of this new book I'm reading called The Confident Mind. It's by Dr. Nate Zinsser. Dr. Nate has worked with tons of professional athletes, including most notably Eli Manning, heard of him, and a bunch of Olympic athletes. 

He also trains cadets at West Point to have a more confident mind. I'm talking to him soon. That's gonna be an epic episode. Today, it's gonna be me, and boy, oh boy, do I have a lot to talk to you about. I think about you a lot. I just want you to know that even when I'm gone, y'all are on my mind. I'm constantly thinking, would people on my podcast like this? 

I don't know, they don't tell me [00:02:00] enough. I usually do. I do want to read to you guys a passage quickly from The Confident Mind. So one of the things that I will circle back to today is is how fascinating it is that we're all approaching pretty much the exact same thing from all these different directions. 

Like Dr. Nate, and I will be covering this a lot more when I talk to him, approaches confidence, I would say from, a very rational perspective. But if I was to read you some of these passages, I think that it might be sound familiar from everything that we've talked about. And I just think it's so cool that underneath, like, no matter how you approach it, there are certain things that are universal. 

So here's, here's his definition of confidence. Confidence. A sense of certainty about your ability which allows you to bypass conscious thought and execute unconsciously. Okay. A sense of certainty. he's breaking this down. listen to what he says [00:03:00] here. It's breaking down the definition. A sense of certainty. 

That feeling of having complete faith. Interesting. You could say belief. About your ability that you can do something or that you know something. Okay. Which allows you to bypass conscious thought. Heard about it. So, well, you don't have to think about it. and execute unconsciously. So you perform it automatically and instinctively. 

He then goes on to say, confidence is the feeling that you can do something or that, you know, something so well, you don't have to think about how to do it when you're doing it. That skill or knowledge is in you. It's part of you, and it will come out when needed. 

If you let it, good God in heaven, that someone's been doing mushrooms. And man, the last three weeks, I have to say a lot has happened in my life and it's just really doubled and tripled down the knowing and the belief that I have, that I've shared with you so much [00:04:00] that. There's like a mind you and then there's a soul you and your soul you Knows everything and your mind view mind you while always having usually good intentions is often the only thing Keeping you in the way Have you guys ever played pool or ping pong or a sport that requires some level of concentration? 

And then you have one drink and all of a sudden you're the greatest fucking pool player in the world You're just slaying people in ping pong, you're smashing balls at small kids at five year olds, making them cry. I believe it's because you've taken out that little chatter layer in your brain and you're just unwrapping or just letting the real you come through. 

Okay, so I recently I'm on a softball team I was crushing shortstop. I was like boom boom boom all of a sudden This really good hitter was up on the other team and i'm like this dude's gonna smash it at me I'm i'm ready. I got in the position and then I kept being like he's gonna hit it to me He's gonna hit to me and then as he hit it to me [00:05:00] I started like thinking about the ball coming to me thinking about how would I have to do next and I fucking missed it And I was like Only because my mind got in the way If you've ever taken a class at the Upright Citizens Brigade, which is an improv comedy theater, their slogan is literally, Don't think. 

And something I'm going to bring up with Dr. Nate when I talk to him, but this is the exact same idea. That underneath your thoughts, underneath the way that you perceive the world, is a certainty and a truth. That you have, that you can unveil in any time and use in any point in your life all the time. 

It's incredible. The only thing you have to do is, and I was talking to my friend Natasha about this, is think of your perception in your life. Think of how you see things as a lens, right? You have a very specific lens. Peter Krohn said that You're always judging everything all the time. And that's just true. 

You don't have to think judging as a quote bad [00:06:00] thing, but you are perceiving everything as something all the time. And that perception is based entirely on your beliefs, right? So if you have a belief that's holding you back when you play softball and a writer's WGA league, because you're trying to be crushing life in your, in your forties and you overthink it's causing you to not perform well, what do you have to do? 

You have to clean the lens. And so he basically said confidence is really just A bank account sum total of all the thoughts you've had about different subjects in your life. Does this sound familiar to anybody? That it's all your thoughts? That's all your beliefs. That's all your perceptions. And so why I love sports so much is allows you to get those automatic responses out more and you don't have to be in your head as much. 

It's so good. Which brings me to a book I read big time. Shout out to Kristen Homesteader. It's so cool for everybody. That's been a listener for a long time. I think you've seen me on a journey of [00:07:00] like I had definitely have trends in the way that I'm learning things and like doing this growth life You know for a while it was like Neville Goddard, and then it was like manifestation babes. 

Everyone has crystals. Maybe it's human design Maybe it's affirmations Maybe it's this and there seems to be like trends that I have and I think all of it is valid all of it Like maybe not human design I'm kidding. Love you all but maybe not zodiac signs But really, if you were to ask me what it is, at a core, what is driving your existence, what is making you, what is actually making your reality your reality, my answer is always, I think, going to be your thoughts, okay? 

It's actually that simple, and it's actually that easy. Now, okay, so, let me get into some heavy shit with y'all, because we're friends, and I love you, and you're great. But, I recently found [00:08:00] out A week and a half ago that I had a pretty intense death in the family. Okay, I was not expecting it and it was really interesting extended family somebody who I was pretty close to and it's pretty interesting because another reason why i've been away is i've been really working really hard on my tv show That's called death is normal And it's about death. 

So like I had to go to a zoom funeral and then i'm now You writing a show about this, right? And in the middle of all of this, I found out I had to go do two comedy shows, which was real interesting to be Mr. Fucking yuck yucks up there. but it really makes you reevaluate things in a good way, I would say. 

And. Yes, it's very much like a YOLO thing, but it's also very much like a What Really Matters thing. Which is what one of my family members said too, as well. So, let's get into it. This is [00:09:00] gonna get wild. I really like this. Okay, so, death in the family happens. My mom, who I know, um, I've podcast. 

She's an amazing person. We've had Our very fair share of disagreements about religion and politics, which I think has absolutely influenced me and fucked me up at times. for sure. And I'm still dealing with, and that's fine. Nobody's perfect. Okay. And I've come to a really good place with her. We have a great relationship. 

So my mom gets dispatched. She has eight brothers and sisters. And our immediate, our extended family on her side, it's like fucking 40 of us, right? So she gets dispatched after we find out this news to go to Florida. And it hit me that this is what always happens is that my mom comes in as a guardian angel and just. 

Sits there and takes care of people and loves them and she's just there like my mom is the kind of person who if you were sick, like literally if any of [00:10:00] you contacted me right now and you're like, I am sick I would be like go to go to Chicago go live at my house. You will be healed in 2. 5 days And my mom has just done this. 

She's a natural caretaker With absolutely zero expectation, zero, um, selfishness. There's not a selfish bone in her body. She just automatically does it. And she did it. So she flies to Florida. She goes to be in this situation, to be in the front lines, and to take care of everything, and to be a comfort to people. 

Which, fucking hell, man. God bless women. I will just say that and I'm hesitant sometimes to say that Because I don't want people to think that I'm like some Profound ally because never trust a straight white guy who says he's an ally He's out here just me too and everybody but seriously like Without women, I think that this world would be on fire, [00:11:00] for real. 

Okay, that's a side note. Circle them back. So my mom goes, and she really does make the situation amazing and calm, and I'm getting, you know, phone calls, we're talking every day, I'm talking to everyone that's involved in the situation, and In the middle of this, my mom just so happens to stay at a woman's house named Sister Bridget. 

Sister Bridget is her lifelong best friend. She is the godmother to my sister, who's older, Megan. And she is one of like, two or three female priests in the Catholic Church who have been excommunicated. Because she's fighting for, and wants to, make women priests. And while she's down there, CBS Morning News does a 8 minute segment on this woman. 

My mom's staying at her house. And I was like, This is so badass. I have my issues with Catholicism. I don't need to talk about it. I don't care anymore. It's not for me, okay? But I have so much respect for [00:12:00] anybody who is standing up. First of all, she's obviously right. I mean, this is a ridiculous conversation. 

Second of all, somebody who's, she's such a badass to do this. Like, she's literally going against you guys know there's 1. 25 billion people who are Catholic in this world? And they asked the Pope, will it ever happen? He's like, no, there will never be a female priest. And obviously, There will be. 

I don't know if it'll be in our lifetime. I think they move at a glacial speed, as my friend said. But it's just so cool to see her standing up. So she's having these secret services where, heh, that makes it sound like she's protecting the president. She's the secret services. So, she's having these services where she's the priest. 

Okay, so she actually ended up leading this Zoom funeral for all of us. And, I just started, like, really thinking about my mom. This woman who's been in my life, my whole life, and who's always been there for me, and who's always kind of, you know, Taking care of us, all of us, and she doesn't get, like, any praise from Us enough like the my family is amazing. 

There's so much love there, but we're [00:13:00] not exactly the most expressive family We're from the midwest baby. Okay, we care about our lawns And but there's so much love there and it's not perfect. It doesn't need to be it's all good I had talked to myself. I was like no you're gonna tell your mom how amazing she is You're gonna do it. 

You don't talk to her like this. No one ever does Okay, so this this is where it starts getting real interesting folks So I was like, no, I have to tell my mom this. And this might not seem like a big deal to a lot of you. Maybe you talk to your parents like this all the time, but it's a big deal to me. 

And here's why it's a big deal. Number one, it's true and it's my mom and I don't know how long I'm going to have with my mom. And if I lived my whole life never telling her this or she didn't hear this enough from my family, I find that to be an actual tragedy. I'm finding myself caring a lot and lot less about, you know, Getting things and a lot caring a lot and a lot more about telling people who I care about how amazing they are How much they mean to me and having really good moments. 

I'm not saying that [00:14:00] guys I'm, not saying that I don't want a convertible bmw. Okay, but i'm simply saying that's where i'm at you guys know i've talked a lot about Tearing down the walls in your own life that when you get up in the morning every day You have this beautiful quick moment when you first wake up where you're like, I'm peaceful. 

It's all good Unless you have kids or a loud dog and you're like, oh, that's fine. And then all of a sudden within two hours 30 seconds, you get the wave of the stories of who you think you are, right? And they all start coming in. Oh shit. I have to send this email. I need to be at work in an hour. I have to go brush my teeth. 

I have to go shower. Oh my God. What's going on with this? So this is all to use dispensate terminology. This is. Familiar past, predictable future. So as soon as you get up, you start telling the stories about the predictable future you want to create in your life. So you can be present to make sure nothing bad happens to you. 

That's all your mind is doing. Okay. So think of it like this. When you first wake up in the morning, you are in a void. There is an endless [00:15:00] possibility. of a quantum potential, because you're not thinking, right? So you have endless opportunities in that moment to create. And the second that you let your thoughts, patterns, and beliefs set in, now you're setting in, like, I want to say train tracks, and I want to say even a maze of, like, how your life is going to go that day. 

And this is not a fucking judgment. My God, I have done this, and I'm still fighting this every day. That's what's going on and really quickly a side note about predict familiar past predictable future This is how intense it is familiar past predictable future. I'll tell you two quick stories I was recently on a call back for a commercial and I get on the zoom and Usually when you're on the zoom with a call back for a commercial, there's like two or three people The directors and maybe the clients, the four at most, watching you audition, okay? 

I get on and all of a sudden there's ten people on this call and they're all talking and they're all wearing sports jerseys and the whole time I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Where am I? What's going on? My brain could [00:16:00] not take the fact that I had no idea what was happening in that moment. So I was like, what's going on? 

Why are there people there? Why is this? Why is this happening? Who's that? Who's that? Finally, like, I like lightly chimed in. I was like, what's up guys? So like, oh, cool. Like, what's everybody like? Are you guys all interns or? Turns out it was like all actors in a wait, a virtual waiting room to go audition for this commercial. 

And I was like, okay, cool. Then I could relax because I knew kind of what was going on, but my brain was like freaking out until I knew. What was happening because it couldn't take the uncertainty. We will circle back to this my friend. So, that was one. Familiar past, predictable future. I was at a concert recently and I'm sitting next to this guy who's cool, very much in his mind. 

Not really even talking to me that much, talking from the mind. You know these people, that the stories are so loud that they're almost not even looking at you. Do you know what I mean? They're just running their mouth and Directly from their [00:17:00] mind, okay? Concert starts, I look over, he has his cell phone out After every single song, he's checking a former setlist To make sure he knows what the next song's going to be Familiar past, predictable future Okay, I'm not judging, I've done stuff like this before I'm just saying, like, watch, start watching yourself How much you're trying to predict the future Based on your previous setlist Experiences, okay? 

But I want you to hear this, and I want you to fucking hear it loud. There is no future. This current moment, this present moment, is blank. Is zero. It's endless potential. It's endless creative freedom. It's endless possibility. The only reason why it's not for you, and for me sometimes, is because we're doing the familiar past in the predictable bullshit. 

Hehehehe. That's why, okay? Okay. So if you're like, why am I [00:18:00] recreating patterns? Like I watched this Instagram video of this guy and I'm like, is this what it takes to go viral? I should just do this. And he goes, he's holding a book. And the quote was like, the reason why you don't feel like you can turn a new chapter in your book is because you're still stuck on reading. 

 The old chapter. He's like, so turn the page, turn the chapter, whatever it was. 15 seconds. Good looking guy. That's all that matters. Anyways. Um, that hit me though. That hit me. And. Maybe a lot of you aren't experiencing this, but I know that the only thing stopping me is my own thoughts. 

To reach the creative potential that I want and I'm obsessed with Bursting through this so let's circle back baby to my mom. Okay So we talked the day that she was leaving to come back to Chicago and she was there for a week and I talked for 20 minutes for her about logistics logistics blah blah blah usual usual usual and then finally I'm like, you know, my mama say something to you I was like I just feel like you do this all the [00:19:00] time. 

You're always there for us all the time. And you've done this our entire lives. And like, I have taken this for granted. Our immediate family has taken it for granted, but you've always taken care of us. You've always been there for us. You've always loved us so much. And we don't even tell you. I'm going on and on and I'm starting to actually tear up. 

And, guys, let me tell you this. I am not making this up. In that moment when I was doing that, this is my mom. I saw my mom no longer as my mom. Like, all the definitions and all of our past and our stories, and there is few people in our lives that we have more emotional baggage with in history than our mothers. 

And she started even talking to me in a different way, and I could see it, and I could feel it, and I was not on mushrooms. She was like, aww, and I've never heard my mom talk like that, ever. I was speaking like [00:20:00] soul to soul, to get really real with y'all. That's what was happening, and I felt all the walls drop, and I was like, oh shit, holy cow. 

And, if you want to change your life. Y'all if you want to get out of the familiar past and the predictable future you have to jump the maze of your reality You have to jump the train tracks of your reality So whether that's doing something like that whether it's going to do to play tennis and you've been putting it off for three years Whatever that is for you watch what happens and watch how when you start to do this you start to build an understanding and like a Foundational certainty That you can overcome your own shit. 

Like, I was like, oh man, that was, that went great. And I was genuinely nervous to do that. And then I did that with someone else who I really cared about. And then I had a really hard conversation with a lifelong collaborator that was not [00:21:00] great, but it was really deep. I was like, I'm kind of good on this shit. 

But I guess what I'm saying is like, if every day you're taking the same actions and you're having the same thoughts, your reality almost fundamentally cannot change. And that's not being harsh. That's just a fact. And just know that All of those set maze walls or patterns and train tracks that are in your life, you put them there first, and they can easily be dropped. 

You put them there, you can take them out. So how do we do that? To go back to what I said in our last episode, literally start by asking, am I aware? Okay, now, let me add another little fucking sweet iron to this fire. I read The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer, and I, everyone loves Untethered Soul, I think it's great, it's great. 

I think it's okay, actually. I don't think it's great. I don't really remember. Surrender Experiment is one of the best books I've ever read in my life. It's insane. It's insane, guys. Guys, it's [00:22:00] insane. What is like one thing that people say to criticize spiritual people and meditators and stuff? You can't just meditate in the woods and expect things to happen to you. 

You gotta go out and take action. Well, buddy, I want you to read the motherfucking Surrender Experiment. Surrender. Surrender. Because guess what that guy literally did in all he wanted to do? Meditate in the woods. He literally bought acres of land to be away from everyone so he could meditate in the woods. 

And do you know what happened when he cleared his mind and surrendered into everything? Everything came to him. The entire book, it's like, you all seen Forrest Gump? Where it's just like one crazy coincidence after the other? That's this entire book. It's like watching a much smarter Forrest Gump navigate life in Gainesville, Florida. 

Michael Singer ends up becoming a CEO of a company that makes, that made over 300 million dollars a year without any formal training at all in anything. And a [00:23:00] guy who just wanted to sit in a hut and meditate. Okay? Heh heh heh heh heh heh I won't spoil it for you, but literally the entire book is like, As it turns out, that office building will not just be my future office building, but it's a site Where Lyndon B. 

Johnson was born. It's just like one crazy Insane coincidence after the other and his underlying premise is he surrendered to life His initial mission was to get rid of the voice in his head that was telling him How things should be people call it the ego you can call it whatever I think it I see it more as your subconscious programming trying to keep you safe people like to call it the ego Okay, so his whole first goal was to shut down and kill and murder the ego. 

Fuck you ego Then he realized like I can't really function as a person if that's all I care about like I do need to kind of be Out in the world a little bit, but again, if you read the book, you'll see he was taking the least amount of action Humanly possible today you sent out ten resumes I don't think Michael [00:24:00] singer sent out a single resume in his whole life and actually he often refused jobs refused money refused stability Multiple times. 

Multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple times. And the only thing he followed was following what he called the flow of life. Following what he called surrendering. And it made me realize how much I have been fighting the flow of life. And fighting like, hey, maybe you don't need to figure out everything. Hey, maybe today you don't need to sit in front of your computer and be on your email for 900 goddamn hours praying to get a job. 

And maybe I can just release it and trust the flow of life. This book fundamentally changed me. I have so much more to say about it. But that, if you're also looking to your current reality somewhere higher, highly, highly suggest reading The Surrender Experiment. And highly, highly suggest reading it. 

Trying it out. And one way to try it out is like, think of yourself, This is a Wayne Dyer [00:25:00] thing, but it's something that's so impactful to me, as a palm tree. Not as like a rigid branch, or a rigid tree. And when something happens to you, instead of wanting to fight it, which we all do, you just bend a little bit, and you're like, alright, this is gonna pass. 

Like Michael Singer kept saying in his book, I just relaxed into the feeling. I relaxed into the feeling of the discomfort of this thing. And every time he did that, he followed the flow. Like imagine you're just, you're on your back, and you're surfing down a water park in the Wisconsin Dells, and you're wondering why is that guy wearing a t shirt that says honk if I fucked your wife. 

That's not what What are we doing here? Go to the Wisconsin Dells. Anyways, I just want you guys to think about that. And this is the last thing I'll say. Yes, this is great. One thing I've been doing when my mind's spinning out of control and, like, it still absolutely is, is something I've been telling myself is right now, [00:26:00] in this current moment of my life, nothing is going wrong. 

And for most of us, That's really true. For most of us. I would say the majo overwhelming majority of us. I'm not talking about five minutes from now. I'm not talking about your job interview tomorrow. I'm not talking about the fact that your company's laying off people or that you're going through a breakup. 

I mean, right now, in this current moment, things are going pretty good. Things are good in this moment. And the more that you can ground yourself into that and say, right now, this moment is perfect. Right now, I don't have any problems. Cause you don't right now. And the problems that you think you have, you're bringing in with your mind. 

Right. No one else is bringing those problems in. That's what's happening. So if you could just say right now, I'm feeling pretty good. I don't know what's going to happen. Five minutes right now. I'm feeling pretty good. So keep that, hold that. You guys are amazing. Next week we're going to kill it. I love you all. 

I believe all your dreams can come true. I believe there's so much love here for you. I believe you should contact me and talk to me on Instagram at the underscore Brennan Fitzgibbons. And [00:27:00] I believe right now for you, it's pretty magical. You the best.