Episode 29- Your Emotions Touch Everything: Leadership, Stress, and Emotional Healing- A Conversation with Randy Lyman

Most land stewards aren’t just managing land — they’re leading entire operations. They’re the CEO, CFO, COO, marketer, and labor force, all while navigating weather, livestock, markets, family life, and constant decision-making.

In this episode, Christine Martin sits down with Randy Lyman, author of The Third Element, to explore a side of leadership that’s rarely discussed: emotional capacity and emotional maturity.

Together, they unpack how unprocessed emotions show up as stress, reactivity, control, and burnout — and how a leader’s internal state directly affects people, animals, finances, and outcomes. Randy shares his personal journey from logic-driven, high-performing leadership to a more integrated approach that includes emotional awareness, healing, intuition, and trust.

This conversation is especially relevant for land stewards who feel exhausted by the weight of leadership, stuck in reaction mode, or frustrated that “doing everything right” still isn’t bringing stability. It’s an honest, practical discussion about leadership that starts within — and why your emotions truly touch everything.

In this episode, you’ll explore:

• Why emotional maturity is a hidden bottleneck in leadership
• How stress and suppressed emotions ripple through teams, livestock, and operations
• The difference between control and self-leadership
• How emotional healing improves clarity, decision-making, and long-term thinking
• Why intuition is a critical leadership skill — and how to begin trusting it
• What it really means to take responsibility without self-blame or guilt

This episode is an invitation to lead with greater awareness, steadiness, and purpose — not by doing more, but by integrating the human side of leadership.

You can learn more or connect with Randy Lyman here:

Website: https://iamrandylyman.com

Instagram: @iamrandylyman.com

Randy Lyman books: 

• The Third Element- The Missing Link to Activating The Law of Attraction: https://amzn.to/4sFahDp
• The Emotional Healing Workbook: https://amzn.to/4sFahDp

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Connect with Christine Martin:
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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the regenerative agriculture, thriving as a modern rancher, the podcast for ranchers and land stewards looking to build healthy land, profitable businesses, and a fulfilling life. Join us as we explore regenerative practices and holistic management to help you thrive in today's ranching world.

Christine Martin 0:19

I am so excited for today's episode. I found Randy on LinkedIn and then I was very bold and invited him to come be a guest for my podcast, and he very generously and kindly accepted. He also sent me a copy of his book, the Third Element. As well as this emotional workbook that he authored. And I'm sure he'll share a little bit more about that. But the reason I invited him to be on this podcast for, specifically for this episode is most of us that are land stewards we're not just managing land, we're also leading some very complex operations, and we're having to be. CEOs, COOs, CFOs, CMOs, and I don't know if that's a real acronym, but I call it Chief Marketing Officer and many times our own labor force too. So there's an awful lot that we're managing all at once, and yet we rarely talk about emotional capacity that's required to lead all of this with clarity, with with, how do I wanna say this? With ba with balance? Yes. Especially because not only are we dealing with all of that, we're also dealing with the weather, we're dealing with animals, we're dealing with markets, we're dealing with family life. As a fellow land steward, I know how easy it is to work 80 hours a week because lambing is happening at three o'clock in the morning or whatever. So today's conversation is gonna be about leadership, but beyond the strategy, it's gonna include that emotional maturity that really is the foundation determines whether our decisions create stability. or constant reaction? Are we being very reactive or are we being very purposeful in our leadership, in our management, in our decisions? Randy, for listeners who may not know you yet, can you share a little bit about your background and what led you to write the third Element Healing workbook?

Randy Lyman 2:31

absolutely. So I was a left brain physicist engineer, business owner until 36 years ago. I still am today. But 36 years ago, I was completely left brain all education and hard work and shut off the emotions and get the job done. And it brought me a lot of success, but it really also limited me. It limited my potential to grow even further in regards to my business. And it really limited me with regards to feeling fulfilled and enjoying the people around me because when I shut off my emotions, I wasn't available for family and friends and others. So I was, lucky enough to meet a woman who I spent three years with Maria, and I talk about her in my book, the Third Element. She introduced me to the spiritual unseen side of the human experience, and it was all really new to me and what the heck is this all about? That? As I learned more and more, it changed my life and brought so much more success. It was amazing.

Christine Martin 3:30

Beautiful. So your work often challenges. The idea that effort and intention alone creates results. How does that apply to leadership. Especially for people carrying all the responsibility as land stewards are.

Randy Lyman 3:46

Oh goodness sakes. Leadership for me is about connecting with people and bringing out the best in the people who we lead. And if I show up with my own worries and concerns and stress, the people I'm interacting with, they feel that, they sense that I'm not at ease, and they respond by not being at ease. They're guarded. And for good reason. They don't know what's going on in me. They just feel the tension. So when they're guarded, they're not showing up. Listening. They're not showing up, giving their best. They're not showing up 100%. And that was hard for me to understand at first, because when I was just all about information and hard work. Here's the plan, let's get it done. Put your damn feelings aside. When people don't operate like that, they just don't. And we can operate like that, especially as business owners and entrepreneurs. We can operate that for a long time, but sooner or later, that wears on us and we can't show up as our best self if we are carrying that tension. And certainly the people around us won't be the best they can be if they're sensing our tension.

Christine Martin 4:46

So how does that wear on us? What are the signs that this is wearing on you?

Randy Lyman 4:54

There are signs, but most of us are good enough at pushing those signs away, ignoring them and not worrying about it, and pushing through the health problems, and pushing through the stress and just saying, no, I'm fine. I'm used to being stressed. I did that for many years. So the signs really come from looking at ourselves from an outsider's point of view with. An open mind, and this was hard for me at first to realize that a lot of the stress within my business, a lot of that stress was caused by me and I didn't want to admit it. I didn't wanna say I was the problem'cause I had all the plans and I was doing all the hard work and I was pushing everybody else. But when it really came down to it, once I was able to work through a lot of my own issues about. Anger, disappointment, loneliness, especially for leaders. We feel alone God doesn't anybody understand, I'm putting in all these hours and I'm doing the best I can and we're really alone. But once I worked through all that at a deeper level, then I was able to show up more clearly, and the people around me responded better. My thoughts were more clear, and my actions were more deliberate and more effective. So we don't always see how it wears on us, but once I was able to see that, and a lot of it I saw through my partner's eyes when Maria. Would ask me questions. She wouldn't tell me what I was doing wrong or what my problem was. She just asked me questions kindly, gently, and I would have to think about it and oh crap. This is my own, this is my fault that these challenges are happening around me. Now, there's times when we have to take disciplinary action and we have to set up boundaries and we have to take, do some extra hard work. That's all fine that's going to continue, but when the tension and the problems and the chaos. Even at a small level is caused by us. We don't want to see it. So it's really nice when somebody else can point that out for us through questions, not necessarily through direct statements.

Christine Martin 6:38

So can you share some questions that she asked that helped you start recognizing that this might be your issue and not, an external issue?

Randy Lyman 6:48

Absolutely. I had somebody, for example, who wasn't listening to me and I was frustrated. And she'd asked me how are you talking to them? Are you talking to them different than the people you get along with really well, that respond well to you? Yeah. I'm a little harder on them when I, because I'm hoping they'll hear me when I'm harder on them, or I'm hoping they'll hear me when I'm using a louder voice or I'm more stern, because that's what I was taught. I was born in 1961. It was a different world back then. And so she would ask me these questions and I would have to answer, and I would be like, damn it, she's right again. And so when somebody wasn't listening, when somebody was pushing back when things just weren't going smoother, people weren't performing at their best. A lot of times sensitive people respond to leadership. If leadership is calm and confident and caring, they respond really well. But if sensitive people are working with somebody who's less considerate, this is me, less inconsiderate. This was me 40 years ago, inconsiderate and pushy and demanding, and damn it. Let's get the job done. And that was me. And so she would ask questions and I'd realize, oh yeah, I treat this person different. And the funny thing is. I thought that I would be more effective by the way. I treated them differently. And eventually I learned, no, it's not the way it is. And it is a, it's a long process, but it's absolutely worth looking at because we can't change the people around us. We can really only change ourselves. And that was hard pill for me to swallow is Oh yeah, all the bad and the good. All is a reflection of something within me. So having a partner who can point it out, or a business partner or people we work with who we tell'em, you have permission to point this out, and they're gonna be shy at first, but once they learn they can give us direct feedback and we listen to it, then we can make improvements.

Christine Martin 8:34

A question that I've been asked myself and you're probably gonna have a much better answer than I did, but how do we select those people that we want to listen from? How do we,

Randy Lyman 8:51

oh, okay. Anybody?

Christine Martin 8:53

because

Randy Lyman 8:53

Anybody,

Christine Martin 8:55

anybody.

Randy Lyman 8:56

We have to open our mind and receive all the feedback. And then it's up to us to decide, okay, is it valid or not? Now the ego wants to say, any criticism is wrong, and that was me. If you criticize me, if you tell me what I'm doing wrong, I'm not gonna listen. I know better. And that was me at first, and eventually I learned, listen to all of it. If I have to write it down, sit with it, take my time and see what felt right, and I know feelings felt, what's that all about? Intuition. Farmers know this gut feel is important. That's a form of intuition. And so I had to learn to just listen to all of it, filter through and see what really stuck. And a lot of times, what irritated me the most, the criticism that irritated me the most was the most accurate.

Christine Martin 9:39

You sense that or

Randy Lyman 9:41

I experienced that. It took me a while to really understand that.'cause I just wanted to get pissed off and change everybody else. That's who I used to be. And so once I got to the point of realizing, oh yeah, they're right, and then I was able to make the connection between the biggest irritations actually being the biggest gifts. Then when I made that connection, then it made things a lot easier.

Christine Martin 10:06

This was your partner. And in many ranching and farming operations, the, it's generally small, there are bigger operations, but generally it's husband and wife and maybe some help if the source of the feedback is your spouse, who you have a romantic emotional relationship and you've got a history. How do we manage that?

Randy Lyman 10:31

It's hard as hell.

Christine Martin 10:32

times they trigger us the most.

Randy Lyman 10:34

Oh yeah. They trigger us the most. That's their job. That's their, that's the what at some level. We have agreed to. Have this relationship with them because we knew they would trigger us. I think the best way to do it is if we can write down our feelings first before we share them with somebody and ask those who have criticism for us to write it down first, take some time and review it, and then hand it to us on a piece of paper or send us an email. Then we hear exactly what they had to say. First of all, they're clear about what they're gonna say. If they just speak it in words, they're not always completely clear about what they wanna say, and emotion gets involved. So if they are willing to take the time to put it in writing again, pen and paper or an email, they become clear about the message. We can hear the message clearly, and whether I look at that message an hour later or a year later, it says the same thing and it has a bigger impact in writing.

Christine Martin 11:25

That's beautiful. That's wonderful. As land stewards, we have a lot of avenues of being in stressful situations, whether it's the weather, whether it's livestock concerns, whether it's market concerns, how do we manage this feedback, these emotions when we are in these stressful sit situations? And I ask it also personally because I know that when I get into financial stress. I am so focused on trying to pay the bills that I don't have the capacity to process anything else. How do we handle that?

Randy Lyman 12:06

So from my experience, the answer is probably the opposite of what most people want to hear. For me, it was slow. Slowing down enough to become aware of my thoughts first. Look to see if there's any potential solutions. I'd do it on paper and then, okay, what are the emotions around this? Now, if I'm gonna take even just 30 minutes, who has an extra 30 minutes in their day? Almost nobody. But when I would take that 30 minutes and I would become more clear about the problems, become more clear about the emotions underneath what I felt, where's the stress? What am I angry about? Where am I frustrated? What's the feeling underneath? Then I could address that. Now again, this sounds silly feelings. What's that all about? Okay. As soon as I'm aware of what I'm stressed about or what, where somebody's disappointed me, or I ran into a problem I didn't expect. Now when I can take the time to take a few breaths, feel it, go for a walk, chop some firewood, I love splitting wood and get that energy out. Now when I go back to deal with the other problems, I'm more clear and that 30 minutes invested in clarity more than pays for itself in my effectiveness.

Christine Martin 13:18

I like that. And the question that came to my mind was what if you're so disconnected with your emotions that you can't recognize the feeling?

Randy Lyman 13:28

Again, this is, these are great questions. This was me. I didn't recognize it'cause I shut my feelings off. How? How am I even gonna recognize the feelings when I shut'em all off? Good, bad, and otherwise I turned off all my emotions and again, I accomplished a lot for many years. We have to have a partner. First of all, we have to be open to it. We have to have somebody who's willing to speak up and tell us the truth if we can't see it on our own, somebody has to be willing to tell us the truth, and we have to be willing to listen. So we have to. Find a time when we're not revved up, when we're not emotional, when we're completely calm and we think, God, I probably should look at this, and we talk to the partner or partners or a team. If you're really freaking bold, talk to your team. Bring'em all together and say, I wanna improve you guys. Point out my problems. You can write'em down. That's probably more helpful. If I'm really open minded, I'll say, tell me directly. And if a person thinks they're strong, try that. Yes, you can still be strong and listen to feedback, but most of us don't want to hear that feedback. And most of us do everything we can to avoid it. For me, as a macho guy, I took the approach of, okay, screw this. I'm just gonna take it on, head on. And I told my team, you just tell me what I'm doing wrong. And oh my goodness, they were slow to really start speaking up. But once they did. A lot of information came forward, and it was a lot to work with, but it helped me become better. It helped my business succeed. It helped my relationships at work, it helped my relationships at home. So emotional. Growth is messy. It's not for the week,

Christine Martin 14:55

And it is For the week.

Randy Lyman 14:56

it's not for the weak. But here's the thing. If I'm truly strong, then I should be strong enough to deal with my own my own insecurities. My own emotional wounds, my own doubts, and all those areas where I need to improve. So if I'm truly strong and I'm speaking as a man and for women, it may be very much the same. If I'm strong enough, then I can take it. And yeah, it's easy to say, it's harder to do, but that's a great place to start.

Christine Martin 15:25

I, you know how to eat an elephant, right?

Randy Lyman 15:28

One bite at a time.

Christine Martin 15:30

right.

Randy Lyman 15:30

I.

Christine Martin 15:32

Take one little bit. So what happens with these emotions when they've been, you mentioned that you were disconnected with your emotions and I also very specifically remember when I said, no, I can't trust my emotions. I'm gonna go all logic and data. What happens if these symptoms were triggered by a trauma?

Randy Lyman 15:55

They're always triggered by some trauma, even if it's something small. Sam's 16. I'm nearly an adult and I'm in class in high school, and I'm sitting next to a girl I got a crush on, and somebody makes fun of me and I'm embarrassed. That's traumatic. Okay? It's simple, but it's traumatic. And if I don't feel that embarrassment completely and there's shame around it or something stupid, we're humans, we can't really control our emotions completely, and I don't feel it. That energy is stored forever. So whether it comes back two years later or comes back 30 years later, the energy is the same. And the interesting thing, and I write about this in my book, the Third Element. God's spirit, the universe, whatever's bigger than us, wants us to heal our old emotional wounds, which at some level, we're still hanging onto energetically, subconsciously. How does it do that? How does it remind us of those old wounds? It basically throws shit in our face today and gives us problems and irritations to help us remember of what we have to let go of. So there's always trauma at, even if we grew up with a perfect childhood or some sort of trauma, for goodness sakes, when we're four years old, everything's traumatic. How am I gonna survive on my own if my parents don't approve of me? They're in a bad mood. And my dad's pissed off because one of the, all the cows got out. Now he's gotta go take care of that. And he's mad. He's not mad at me, but I internalize that. So again, we all have trauma. I don't care how tough or smart you think you are, it's there. So then we have to find a way to get in touch with it. We have to find a way to move through this. In chapter seven of my book, the Third Element, I talk about 14 different ways we can work through our trauma, whether it's journaling, breath work, going for a walk in nature, punching a punching bag whatever that might be. We've gotta get in touch with that underlying. Feeling, get the energy outta the way. And we have to do that outside of work if we're working by ourselves. Yeah, we can get all pissed off if if we cut ourselves on a fence, barbed wire, it's a great opportunity to take it farther and all of a sudden I'm mattered and I should be. And that's because there's something wanting to come out. So find any opportunity, preferably not around people who are gonna get scared when the energy is expressed. And when we ask for growth, when we ask for healing, when we set our intention, I want to get through this old emotional pain. Oh, the universe will find ways to bring it up for us.

Christine Martin 18:12

You mentioned this is a slow process. If you're managing an operation you're still experiencing the same challenges all the time and you think you're addressing it, but you're just not getting resolution. How do we manage through that?

Randy Lyman 18:32

We have to be bold enough. We have to be brave enough to dive into the pain and embrace the emotional pain that's coming up. And it's scary for me who I had turned my emotions off for so many years, opened Pandora's Box. It was scary, but I. My brain made up the story that all this was gonna overwhelm me and I was gonna lose control. That's not reality. Reality is we're guided through one step at a time, and as big a bite as we can handle at a time, we're not going to be overwhelmed. We'll be overwhelmed if we don't feel the emotions. So once we surrender to it and say, okay, I wanna do this, the human experience is set up so we get exactly what we need when we need it. That we have to be willing to feel that pain. And again, this is gonna sound crazy, but that's one reason I wrote my book, is to explain to people, especially people like me and you who are logical and hardworking, how it works through my own stories, through my own experience. So we can give people light at the end of the tunnel. No one's going down a road, no one's going into a tunnel. It looks dark and there's no good answers there. And nobody's told me what to expect and. My life has become so much better after learning how to work through my emotional trauma and let it all go. I'm still a logical guy. I'm still hardworking, and I get it done. That doesn't go away. That doesn't change. But now I'm more balanced. And when issues come up, when things irritate me, I know how to work through them and the results are better. And that's what I want for everybody out there in the world, the whole freaking world. Now, not everybody's gonna respond, but those who do, I want'em to find a way for more clarity, for better life, for better relationships, for better business success, for God's sakes. All that.

Christine Martin 20:09

We're disconnected to our emotions and that drives our relationships, that drives our management. And when we start recognizing it, how do we manage the possible guilt we feel? Because you see how. Horrible. You've been, and now you're trying to do better. How do we take responsibility for that?

Randy Lyman 20:33

There's many layers to that and I've been working on on that for a long time, and I made a lot of progress a long time ago, but I can tell you less than a year ago. I was going through shame, and I had shame about having shame because we are taught we need to be perfect and in a lot of ways we need to be perfect. If I'm making airplane parts or medical equipment, then things need to be perfect. But usually perfection is not as important as the intent and the effort and the willingness to go through a messy situation to get to the other side. So it's not about doing any of this. Perfect. And I. Shame is not a bad thing. When we feel it, we can let it go. When we just touch the surface of it, it lingers and it affects us whether, even if we wanna be strong, because what am I gonna do? I'm gonna turn off my feelings. Now when I'm interacting with my partner, when I'm interacting with the people I care about and I show up without feelings, and I'm just a cold calculated guy with a brain. That's not a relationship, that's not life. We have to be bold enough to make mistakes and admit our mistakes and dive into all this, and it's gonna be messy, but it's worth it. I can tell you it's worth it.

Christine Martin 21:46

How do we get through that ego, because

Randy Lyman 21:49

Oh

Christine Martin 21:49

gets so big.

Randy Lyman 21:51

yeah. Okay. First of all, we have to be, we have to be curious about what the possibilities are, and we have to be interested in. A deeper relationship with the truth. Deeper relationship with ourselves and how we are, but with the truth. And so once I set my intention, then I can learn to partner with two different parts of myself. One is my higher self through my intuition, that higher part of my soul that knows better than I do God, the universe, whatever you might think, guides. Spirit's, angels, whatever. There's something bigger out there than just us. So when I say I, I want to listen to my intuition, my gut feel, and I wanna partner with my higher self. I'm gonna get guidance. I'm gonna get support. Then the other thing we can do, and this will sound really weird, but it works. I can tell you, as a scientist, it works. Getting in touch with and being a partner with our inner child, that part of us that is not just childish, our creativity, our joy, our enthusiasm, our deeper experiences. Okay? So for a guy to go shoot clay pigeon or hunting or long distance rifle, or I got a hot rod car or truck and I wanna go do a burn off and burn the tires. That's inner child. Okay? We're not gonna shut that down, okay? We think, oh no, I can't be in touch with my inner child. I'll look childish. No, that's not the idea. The child doesn't run the show, but the child brings the creativity and the enthusiasm, and that's what makes life better. So we learn to partner with those two. And some people say, oh, we gotta kill the ego. You never kill the ego. We don't wanna kill the ego. We wanna partner. So partner with your higher self, through your gut, through your intuition. Partner with your child self, your inner child, through your enthusiasm, through joy and creativity on a farm. You gotta be creative to find solutions. That's inner child. That's not bad, that's not shameful. That doesn't mean I'm, there's something wrong with me because that's still alive within me. So that's how I learned to do it. And a little bit at a time I learned to partner.

Christine Martin 23:53

So what changes with leadership when you bring in the human side, when you bring in the emotions? Does that mean you're never stressed, that you know how you're gonna handle everything? Does getting in tune with your emotions and managing them and understanding them make you more effective? And is it something that is always consistent?

Randy Lyman 24:15

In time, we do get to a place where we've got our own trauma out of the way. It takes years, but it's worth it. And we don't we don't approach problems like they're a problem. We approach problems like they're a learning opportunity, like they're a gift, like they're a part of everyday life. And they don't bother us and they don't stress us. Now along the way, it takes a while to get to that and goodness, I think I lost track of your question, but one step at a time, you have to do it one step at a time. We can't expect overnight results and we can't be hard on ourselves. We have to be open-minded in order to step towards that place of eventually, I dunno, somebody drops a chainsaw out of a tree and breaks my nice, my favorite chainsaw. What good does it do to get pissed off? Okay, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna fix it and I'm gonna learn something, or I'm gonna take it in and let somebody else fix it. I'm gonna meet somebody interesting on my trip. There's a gift in every situation. We just don't see it at first.

Christine Martin 25:14

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And I resonate with that. I know that I've done a lot of work on myself, but I keep finding that when I get into stressful situations, whether it's finances, whether it's weather, whether it's a relationship, that

Randy Lyman 25:34

It all comes up.

Christine Martin 25:35

it all comes up and it's I thought I was grounded. I thought I had it all taken care of, and now. Now this is just highlighting that I still have more work to do

Randy Lyman 25:46

I've been working on this for 36 years and I hope that I'm halfway through.

Christine Martin 25:50

halfway through.

Randy Lyman 25:52

Yeah, but it's great. Life is so much better today. And when I look back at myself 36 years ago, I was miserable and the people around me were miserable and it takes time, but I can guarantee it's worth it. All the hundreds of people I've worked with who have been willing to look at themselves and say, okay, how can I improve? I guess I am creating every bit of my reality, even those things in my reality, I don't want to take ownership for somehow I created these. When people get to that point, their life starts improving. Their success, their health improves, their wealth improves, their family relationships improve. What do we need to do? Change the people around us. Good luck with that. Nobody around us is gonna change. We can only change ourselves. So it's it's a long process. It's a messy process, but the results are absolutely worth it. A hundred percent worth it.

Christine Martin 26:45

You've mentioned that this is a lengthy process. Those of us that are land stewards, we tend to be. Long-term visionaries. We have an idea of what we're gonna create with the land and what we're gonna leave the next generation to pick up from. Me personally, I want the land to be healthier, more productive, more profitable so that the next generation is attracted to coming back to the land instead of going into the city to take a job. Have you seen a correlation between the emotional maturity and being able to plan and implement long-term thinking and planning

Randy Lyman 27:25

Two things happen. One is I can look at the end goal, write it down, be clear about it, and now instead of planning every single step, I set milestones. I plan the steps I need to plan when I need to plan them. So I plan a little less and I trust a lot more. And when I'm listening to my intuition, I'm guided to great solutions and I have a great scientific mind. But usually every time I hit a dead end, I just say, okay, show me the answer. Some somebody, God, my neighbors, whoever, gimme a sign. Show me the answer. And the answer shows up. Now, I'm still focused on my long-term goal. I'm still in charge of my life. I'm not saying I'm not giving up my hopes and dreams and goals, and I'm not stumbling through my day without planning, but I'm not spending all that extra effort, overthinking and over planning. I plan what I need to. I take the action I need to. I set my long-term goals, and I allow myself to surrender to the process and be open to the guidance that I receive every day through signs through nature. Through people I interact with through my own gut feel.

Christine Martin 28:37

Lovely. You mentioned overthinking. I was, I have been accused of overthinking things because I was coming from a very controlling environment. Is what we're talking about imply that overthinking doesn't occur as often.

Randy Lyman 29:01

Okay, so when we think everything has to be exactly our way or it's not gonna work. That's ego and that's not always true.'cause I've learned so many things from so many wonderful people I've worked with. I know a lot because I got to a point where I was open-minded, said, okay, teach me something new. I don't know it all. And as long as we hold on to our ideas and our ways being the only solution, we limit ourselves. So we have to surrender in order to have more control. It sounds really odd, but in order to get to the outcome we want, we have to surrender. Controlling every step of the way. We have to surrender everything working out the way we want it to because if we just insist on our own way, we're gonna disappoint ourselves now because I'm a pretty smart, successful guy 36 years ago, now we're doing it my way. I know best'cause look at me, I'm successful. That was bullshit.

Christine Martin 29:53

Tell it how it is.

Randy Lyman 29:54

Yeah and so then I was able to start hiring people who were smarter than me, whether it was in accounting or whether it was in marketing, or whether it was in. Quality control or whatever it was. And then I said, okay, I'm gonna learn from them. And when I put my ego aside, it wasn't easy. I had a big ego. Some people tell me I still do. I don't know. We'll see. But when I put my ego aside and I said, I wanna learn something new, suddenly I was learning new things and I was more effective. And I was truly the smarter person that I told myself I was. By surrendering, I actually became smarter. I actually had more positive influence over my reality in my business.

Christine Martin 30:30

So you're saying by surrendering you, you actually expanded your leadership capacity because

Randy Lyman 30:35

Thank you.

Christine Martin 30:36

you've allowed others to, to help you along with this.

Randy Lyman 30:40

Exactly, because the ego and our own personal experience is limited. I don't care if I'm 24 years old or I'm 64 years old. I've only seen what I've seen. I've only experienced what I've experienced When somebody else comes along and says look at it this way, and they've had an experience that I have not had. I get an opportunity to learn something new without making all the mistakes. And I've made a million mistakes and I've learned that way. But sooner or later we wanna learn in some way other than our own mistakes, and that's, that requires that we have an open mind.

Christine Martin 31:09

Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned that, because we're in nature as land stewards, we can't help but recognize that we're not in control because nature always wins. But that ego is always fighting it with respect to everything else. Maybe with what we're doing on the land, we recognize that we need to be in relationship, do we need to be in relationship with. With the money, do we need to be in relationship with, the spiritual side of our life I have learned that, especially coming from corporate onto being a full-time land steward, I have to be in relationship. Nature, God, the universe, people are always giving me feedback. And if I'm not listening that's generally when I get frustrated and when I get angry.

Randy Lyman 32:03

Yes. So first we listen to ourselves first. We have to have that relationship with ourselves. What am I feeling Silly as it sounds. It's so effective. Am I angry? Am I frustrated? Okay. Why? What can I do to change it? Do I have to take action to change it, or do I need to feel something underneath to feel that old emotion, embrace the pain and let it go. Then things can be better, but I have to be in a good relationship with myself now when I become more clear, I can improve my relationship with nature, I can improve my relationship with my team, with my family, with my community, with everything I'm interacting with on my farm. Try and walk up to a horse on a bad day when you're all pissed off.

Christine Martin 32:46

Or cattle for that

Randy Lyman 32:47

Or cattle. Yeah. You think that people can't feel you.

Christine Martin 32:50

Yeah.

Randy Lyman 32:50

do. They feel you the same way as cattle or goats or anything. We are all spiritual beings on a human path and the energy that we feel at an emotional level, it's how we connect with our soul. It's how we connect with each other. It's how we connect with the divine and we become the best version of ourselves and create the best version of our own life. Sorry to break it all you guys and gal, those are emotions. Now. Emotions aren't gonna run our life, but to be aware of'em, that's how we create a better life.

Christine Martin 33:22

That reminds me of a time that my now ex-husband and I were working cattle and, we had an argument that morning and then we had to go work the cattle. It was an absolute fricking disaster. It was the animals weren't doing what we needed them to do, we were yelling at each other. And. I can't remember if it I did or if my ex-husband, he's let's just take a break. Let's just let these

Randy Lyman 33:50

Yeah.

Christine Martin 33:50

out and we'll do it tomorrow when we're in better. And the following day we did it and it was so much easier and so much more pleasant and didn't take as long as what it was going been the day before. Yeah.

Randy Lyman 34:05

Our energy touches everything.

Christine Martin 34:07

Yeah.

Randy Lyman 34:08

Positive ripples are negative ripples. So when I had my distribution business, if I was in a bad mood, it took me a while to realize this. If I was in a bad mood and I walked down through my sales floor, I had about 25 people on sales floor. It was all phone sales back then, and I didn't even have to talk to anybody. I would make$10,000 less that day in net profit.$10,000 for one simple minute walk through the sales floor because salespeople interact with people and connect with people'cause they're sensitive. They would sense my stress and it would spin them out. And after doing that several times, I realized, wait a minute, if I'm in a bad mood, I better stand my office. I go out for a walk outside. And if I'm in a great mood. Then I'm gonna go interact with people. But that's how I experienced it. That's how I learned. And I haven't had the, as much experience around a livestock and horses and such. But man, it's real. And so you walk into even a board meeting. If I walk into a board meeting and I'm still on, on a board and I walk into a board meeting and I'm stressed, or I'm worried, or I'm pissed off at somebody. That meeting doesn't go as well as if I deal with my own emotions ahead of time, at least take a breath, maybe write it down, acknowledge it, and I can get back to it later. But that wave, that root hole, that's real.

Christine Martin 35:21

No, it's real. Are you familiar with EFT or tapping?

Randy Lyman 35:24

Oh yeah. I love EFT Ting. It's in my book even actually, if I can tangent for a minute,

Christine Martin 35:29

Yes.

Randy Lyman 35:29

actually dedicated the entire appendix in my book, the third element. To EFT tapping because I tell people how they can write their own tapping scripts.'cause people, oh, what are you doing? What's going on here? I dissected it all. I did everything I could to understand it completely and I explained it in the book so people can write their own tapping script and fix their own challenges without having to go to an expert. We can be our own expert. So yes, go ahead. Thank you for letting me share that.

Christine Martin 35:54

Tapping has been a life changer. I was brought up in a British household that, we weren't allowed to express emotion. Tapping has allowed me to feel that emotion and to process that. leads me to the next question, Randy. Are you familiar with the book Body Keeps Score?

Randy Lyman 36:12

A little bit, yes.

Christine Martin 36:12

Yeah. And we hold onto these emotions and this is why many veterans of military engagements suffer from PTSD and have health concerns, did you? Have to deal with any health concerns or issues like that you've seen improve because you've been processing your emotion and getting in touch with that.

Randy Lyman 36:36

Several of'em. Yes. I still have challenges around. Worry about the future. It's the reason I have neck problems myself. It's emotional, I know that. But through EFT tapping, I've been able to work through a lot of it through acupuncture, through a lot of different things. And as I explained in the book, emotions are bigger than time and space. So our physical body is only right here and now I know my body to now. I don't feel it yesterday. I don't feel it tomorrow. It's right here now. And our thinking mind is never in the present moment. It's thinking about the past. It's thinking about the future. It's a stream of thought. It's never in a moment we can observe in a moment, but not our thinking mind. And then emotions do not know time or space. They're bigger than time and space. So if I have emotional energy stored within me from something a year ago or 40 years ago. It's like storing gasoline or as you would say in the UK, petrol, right?

Christine Martin 37:25

Yeah.

Randy Lyman 37:26

gasoline in a metal can, and I can pour it out 20 years later and it'll burn. But emotions are also like gasoline'cause I only have to burn them once and they're gone. Now. There's layers to the onion. But once I burn off each layer, that energy's gone. And it's out of the way and I feel better. And here's the thing that's really interesting still to me today, the space where we hold the tension, the worry, the pain, when we feel that emotion completely and let that go. Whether it's through tapping, whether it's through physical exercise, whether it's through tears and sometimes as a grown man, I'll cry, tears of release. I'm not ashamed of that. I'm human. It's part of it. Once I let that old pain go, then a feeling of warmth and love comes and replaces the pain that was there. And it helps me be more calm and clear and it's just a beautiful feeling. It's just part of the process. There has to be a physical component because the emotions that we need to release can only come through our physical body in the present moment. They can never be processed with our mind.

Christine Martin 38:24

So in the. you worked with, have people come to you? Come, let me rephrase this. Have people come to you because of symptoms that they're feeling that you start asking questions and listen to their answers, you determine it's an emotional issue.

Randy Lyman 38:43

I always know it's always an emotional issue, anything.

Christine Martin 38:45

know. But they don't know that

Randy Lyman 38:46

They don't know that, so you have to guide them there slowly. So I can tell you the a hundred percent certainty, any irritation in our life is linked to an underlying emotional wound from the past. That's just the way it is. So I ask questions, I try and take people back to, how'd you feel when you're six or eight or 18, or what's your oldest memory related to this? Or, what's this remind you of from your childhood or your family? And, okay, so I'm very intuitive, so I'm always guided to the right questions to help people. And when I kindly with compassion and caring, ask people these questions and they know they're safe to feel it and speak up if they're ready. They get the visions, they get the thoughts, they get the words, they get the feeling, and they work through it. And I do it through questions and I'm guided as to what questions to ask for people. And yeah, there could be a series of the same questions every time. But. The bottom line is when they're ready and I ask the right questions, they're able to get in touch with that and it surprises them.'cause the problem they're facing today is related to the old trauma, but not directly. So all this old trauma comes up outta nowhere and God I thought I was through that. I don't, didn't even remember that until you brought it up. Told me you asked me some questions, then outta nowhere. They remember it. They feel it. They express some emotion and they feel better, and their life improves.

Christine Martin 40:03

And that's how I felt. I shared this before we recorded, but I'll share it again. I went to a workshop and we were offered an acupuncture session. And through this acupuncture session I learned that my scoliosis that I've been dealing with for the last 47 years was a symptom of. UNPROCESSED trauma, and when I went back to the ti to the timeline, it turns out that my trauma was my parents' divorce and how I chose as a 13-year-old to process that trauma and how I chose to take some responsibility that wasn't mine to take. But I've been holding onto this for 47 years and it just about floored me. Because I can't tell you how many back specialists I've gone to and I've done chiropractor sessions and I've done Rolfing and Egoscue and all these different modalities to try and help me with the scoliosis, but addressing the trauma has been what's fixing me. I don't know that I'll ever be straight, but I'm a lot straighter than I used to

Randy Lyman 41:18

And you're still young and you still have plenty of opportunity to work through that. It's, it was always a surprise for me when things came outta nowhere. When I get to the underlying emotion and suddenly I'm remembering something from years ago that, first of all, I didn't even remember, and then when I did, it's oh, wow, okay. I guess that did happen. I guess that is affecting me. Afterwards it becomes clear. Before we feel the old trauma, before we work through that energy, it's never clear. Afterwards, it becomes clear. And then we can also forgive. And that's another thing that I just I kinda wanna touch on is as long as we're holding the trauma and we're holding the pain, then we're blaming ourselves at some level. Subconsciously. Unconsciously. We're blaming ourselves. We're blaming God, we're blaming our family. But when we get through the pain and we release the pain, then it's easy to forgive everybody. And then our relationships change.

Christine Martin 42:09

Yeah, forgiveness is very important.

Randy Lyman 42:12

Forgiveness through our mind is not enough. We have to feel the underlying pain and let it go before we can truly forgive.

Christine Martin 42:20

I hear you on that, and I struggled with it, and I'm sharing this because I did struggle with it and the clincher for me was is not about the other person.

Randy Lyman 42:33

There you go.

Christine Martin 42:34

is about yourself.

Randy Lyman 42:36

Because it's like they, they, whoever said it, they say Buddhist said it. I don't know who said it. I wasn't I graduated high school a little after Buddhist I didn't hear all his words directly, but he says anger, the opposite of forgiveness. Anger is the same as taking poison and thinking it's gonna affect the other person. It just doesn't, our ego wants to think, oh yeah, something bad's gonna happen to them and they're gonna learn a lesson. Do you think God needs us to teach somebody else a lesson? Do you think we're bigger than all the forces of the universe, the law of attraction, will bring that person their lesson when they're ready for it. And it's none of our damn business, our businesses. What am I feeling and how do I get better? And how do I have more positive thoughts and find emotional healing? And we gotta just let the rest of the world do what they do.

Christine Martin 43:18

I love that. Thank you for sharing that. I agree with you. We started mentioning that land stewards or CEOs, CFOs, CMOs, COOs, and labor and everything else, and all of that implies that there's many decisions that need to happen all the time. What's one internal practice that we can implement in ourselves that supports decisions?

Randy Lyman 43:51

Develop a relationship with our intuition, whether you want to call it gut feel or intuition. At first, it was weird to me. What do you mean I'm getting these answers outta nowhere. It I'm not hearing it. I'm not seeing it. Once I got in touch with my intuition and I knew that intuition does not argue for its position, it does not justify the point it's making. It'll say, turn left. And you'll say it quietly, our ego will say, turn right. For all these reasons, and our emotions will say, turn this other direction and go straight. For all these reasons. When we can actually learn to trust, hear our intuition, and trust our intuition, then decisions are simple. So the last God, 25 years, I've made probably 90%, 95% of the decisions in my life through my intuition I've made. Several multimillion dollar decisions based on my intuition. Now, if it doesn't make sense, I'm gonna think about it. I'm gonna try and make sense of it. I'm not just going to make a dumb decision because I thought it was my intuition, because if I'm emotional, I can't always tell what's my emotion speaking? What's my intuition? But once we get in touch with that, through practice, through listening, through learning to be quiet, and recognizing when it's our mind, and recognizing when it's our intuition, oh, decisions become simple. Really easy. Because. The more we trust our intuition, the louder it gets and the more clear it gets, and the more it's right there for us. And then it just all becomes flow. It's just a dance with the universe. It's a dance with my intuition and I never worry about making the wrong decision. I just know the answer will be there.

Christine Martin 45:18

I'm not quite there yet, but I would love to

Randy Lyman 45:20

I.

Christine Martin 45:20

there that I can trust my intuition. For me personally I'm an emotional authority. I make decisions based on emotions and those of us that have emotional authority, have emotional waves and I have learned because of the school of hard knocks that if I make an emotional decision when I'm in a high or in a low, in that emotional wave, generally I regret it. So I have learned. That I need to sit on something for a while. I can't make spur of the moment decisions I need to sit on it.'cause I need to make sure that emotional wave has gone through its cycle. And if it's still there 2, 3, 4 days from now, then that's the decision I need to make. So I personally am struggling with determining intuition with that emotional wave.

Randy Lyman 46:12

Everybody processes differently and everything fits into three categories, and everything in the universe fits into three categories. Our thoughts, our physical body, and our emotions and our intuition comes through and. Thoughts or feelings that can come through both the mind and the feelings, but again, it does not justify its position. But when we're emotional and we're all emotional, I still get fired up about things from time to time. I did earlier today, I got fired up about something and I'm just laughing at myself after doing this for so long and still things come up. Was it a quiet answer or did the answer come with a paragraph or a sentence or a justification? And I can't listen to those answers that come with justification. And for people who are intelligent and they're used to doing it all with their mind, they're gonna think that's crazy. But just try making smaller decisions with your intuition. Try playing games with, am I gonna take this route or that route when I'm driving somewhere and I'm not in a hurry? And I talk about this in the book. One day I needed to find something and I didn't know where it was and my intuition was clear enough. Every left and right turn I did with intuition. It took me to exactly where I needed to be. Now, I don't know if I've ever been that clear again since then, but when we play a game with our intuition and we start listening, then we'll understand how clear it is. And then there's no high stakes, then there's no stresses, then there's no worry. So make it a game.

Christine Martin 47:35

I like that. I'm gonna have to try that.

Randy Lyman 47:39

So here's,

Christine Martin 47:40

the only problem I have is that I always need to get someplace. I never

Randy Lyman 47:43

okay,

Christine Martin 47:43

that time to be adventuresome.

Randy Lyman 47:45

here's something I've done for 30 something years. When I go into a restaurant or anywhere when I go to order, I look at the menu. And whatever speaks to me first, whatever pops out. Now, I'm not gonna have I'm not gonna have dessert for dinner,

Christine Martin 48:00

Why

Randy Lyman 48:01

but okay. But I look at the menu and I think, okay, and I see, I feel this is what I'm gonna order and what's the worst mistake I'm gonna do? I'm gonna get something that's not perfect. It works for me a hundred percent of the time, and that was the way I built up my trust with my intuition, because it's low risk. If there's seven entrees, which one speaks to me? Oh, wait a minute. That doesn't seem right. That's too expensive. Or, I don't like chicken. Okay? When I just surrender and say, screw it, I'm gonna follow my intuition, and I try it, it's low risk, and that's one way I built up my trust with my intuition is ordering off the menu.

Christine Martin 48:33

Seems like an easy thing to do because many of us go out to eat all the time.

Randy Lyman 48:37

Yeah, what's the biggest thing that's gonna happen? I'm going to, I'm going to spend 30 bucks on something. That wasn't what I expected. That's never happened to me, but it could happen. So what? Play, make it a game. Life should be fun. Make it a game, for goodness sakes.

Christine Martin 48:49

I love it. Wonderful. I've asked you a whole bunch of questions. Is there anything that you particularly wanna share in on this topic that I haven't asked you?

Randy Lyman 49:00

Yes. So we don't have to do everything perfect as fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, farmers, community members. We're never gonna be perfect. We just do the best we can every day. We do it with intent, we do it with caring, and we make a mistake. Don't be hard on yourself. Learn what you can. Make your corrections. Admit it to yourself if you have to admit it to the world, admit it to the world. And move on, and don't be so hard on yourself and know that mistakes are how we learn. And when we surrender to the process of admitting our mistakes, fewer mistakes will happen. So we don't have to be perfect.

Christine Martin 49:41

Lovely. That's beautiful. one. Last question. For those land stewards that are listening who just feel exhausted by all of the decisions they have to make the weight of leadership, would you like them to hear right now?

Randy Lyman 50:00

Feel your pain. Don't be hard on yourself. Just because we feel doesn't mean we're not men or grown women and responsible adults. We are designed to be emotional beings as part of who we are. We have our mind, we have our body, and we have our emotions and our emotional connection with the land and with God, and with our family is the most important connection. So the pain comes through the same place as love does. Don't fight it. Stop fighting it, surrender and know you don't have to be perfect. And know that when we surrender to a beautiful source that's bigger than us, the answer will come through.

Christine Martin 50:38

Beautiful. That inspires me, Randy. Thank you. So on the show notes. I'm gonna list your website and reference the two books that that I've already mentioned, the, and that you've mentioned, the third element and the emotional healing workbook. Anything else you would like to share with the listening audience?

Randy Lyman 51:00

So the book is wonderful, but it's, there's a lot packed in there. The workbook is great. I wrote this workbook for myself three years ago because I wanted to get through my own challenges and I wrote it just as a white paper and my marketing manager turned it into a workbook. But it's great'cause I can get in touch with my thoughts, with my patterns, where I learned it, and I can make improvements and I can take my time and I don't have to share it with anybody. And if you're done with it and you don't like it. Burn it. But I can tell you that workbook is really very powerful. I've been through mine about 13 or 14 different times, different exercises, and I'm not doing this to make money. I'm not looking to make money selling workbooks for goodness sakes. I hardly make, I don't make anything. I'm this whole project. That's not the goal. The goal is for people to find clarity and peace and improve their lives. So I really recommend my emotional healing workbook.

Christine Martin 51:47

Yeah, I've taken some of your questions in the workbook and I'm ruminating on them. Thank you so much for your time with us, for sharing your experience and your wisdom. I'm feel very blessed to have had you on here.

Randy Lyman 52:05

Thank you, Christina. I love your questions. Your energy is so beautiful. Your caring just shines through in everything that you do. So thank you for all that you bring to the community and to the world.

Christine Martin 52:15

Thank you so much.

Randy Lyman 52:18

You are welcome.

52:20

Thanks for listening to Regenerative Agriculture, thriving as a modern rancher. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, share with fellow ranchers and leave a review. Together we can regenerate our lands, our profits, and our lives. Until next time, keep thriving.