Are You Waiting for Change or Choosing It?

In this episode of Friday Feelings, Jenelle Friday sits down with speaker, coach, and podcast host Bob Mathers to ask a simple question with big consequences: Are you waiting for change, or choosing it? Bob shares the two moments that reshaped his life - getting sober after decades of weekend drinking and facing his son’s sudden brain surgery and how those experiences moved him from coasting to living with intention.

Together, Jenelle and Bob connect story to science. Jenelle breaks down the amygdala–hypothalamus–prefrontal cortex loop and how fear, habit, and chemistry keep us stuck. Bob shows what interrupting that loop looks like in real time: prioritizing sleep, scheduling “high-energy” work before 11 a.m., and adopting Morning Pages to find his voice onstage, with clients, and online. They also explore the practice of savoring positive moments for about 17 seconds to counter negativity bias, and Bob’s “Cookie Jar” — a simple way to bank proof of past wins so you can act with courage when your brain throws up doubt.

If you’ve been feeling the pull to change but don’t know where to start, this conversation gives you a blueprint. You’ll walk away with practical steps to journal without judgment, protect your best creative hours, slow down for small joys, and choose intentional action when the old pattern calls you back.

Resources:

• Connect with Bob on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/bmathers/)
• Listen to The Growth Mixtape podcast (https://open.spotify.com/show/4yJWl0GtV3wgVGzsoMysq6?si=8149fff0304c4dd5)
• Explore Bob’s speaking and work: bobmathers.ca
• Morning Pages from The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron (https://a.co/d/1J38SNc)
• Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins (the “Cookie Jar” concept) (https://a.co/d/2E75Z9f)
• Quote referenced: “Take responsibility for the energy you bring to this place.” — Oprah Winfrey

Referenced ideas and tools:

• Energy mapping your day to match work with your natural peaks
• Morning Pages: three handwritten pages first thing in the morning, no editing, no sharing
• Savoring: linger with a positive moment for ~17 seconds
• The Cookie Jar: write past wins on notes and pull one when you need courage

Whether you’re rebuilding after a hard season or simply ready to stop running on autopilot, this episode invites you to pause, choose, and lead your life on purpose.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Friday Feelings, where we turn emotions into power, vulnerability into strength, and remind you to feel everything, fear nothing, and transform your life. I'm your host, Janelle Friday, and today we are talking about living with intention. Are you waiting for change or are you choosing it? And I love this topic because literally, if one simple choice repeated daily could change the entire trajectory of your life, would you make that choice today? I think a week ago, a month ago, if you'd asked me this question, I would have struggled with the answer. Because while I do believe in change, obviously I'm I'm living proof of change and I do believe in good daily habits and practices. Um, I'm now calling them neurohacks. I'm looking at this from a completely different perspective when you apply neuroscience, gray matter, um, the mind-body connection. And then uh, due to the guest who's with us today, um, I had a little shift this week that we're gonna talk about. So, first let me welcome um Bob Mathers to this conversation. Bob, your presence here is so powerful. Thank you for your willingness um and and offering of your time to be here with me today. Uh, I'm just so grateful.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Well, and I can't thank you enough for having me on, Janelle. This is this feels like a really interesting and powerful conversation. And I don't know exactly where it's gonna go, but that's I think what makes it so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yes, that is the beauty of the unwillingness to edit.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Which is a little terrifying as well, because I have a podcast and I heavily rely on my producer to make it make me sound smart uh and take all my ums and ahs and everything out. So yeah, we're we're uh we're without a net today. So that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

We are. And you know what? I got a strong, uh, I got I got a strong presence, and I've been doing this for now several episodes, so I got you. I think we're gonna be good. Um, so first off, Bob, I would love for you to just share uh with folks, tell us a little bit about you um and why living with intention is something that you're passionate about.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Uh so great question. Yes. What I do for a living, I'm a speaker, coach, and podcast host. I work primarily with startups, but also, you know, big SaaS companies to grow net retention revenue and do all the usual customer retention, customer success stuff. That's what uh that's what pays the bills. I've had a few experiences lately that have caused me to kind of question about what question what I want to do with the last 10 years of my career. And I think what a lot of people that I talk to are facing is that I mean, honestly, I my I can't complain about the career I've had. It's been awesome. Yes, it's been bumpy, I've been laid off, I've been fired, I've got stories like that that everybody else has got. But it's been, you know, fairly straightforward. You know, get a job, get promoted, get another, get a raise, get promoted, get hired away. And I never really gave much thought to it until, um, like I said, a couple of things that have happened recently that have kind of jolted me out of my comfort zone and said, hmm, do I really just want to coast into retirement in 10 or so years, or is there something more that I want from the last 10 years of my career? And that's sort of what I've been spending more and more time thinking about. And yeah, I guess you could call it, I imagine our parents would have called it a midlife crisis, but I prefer to think of it as a uh just being more intentional about the runway I've got left.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Yeah, I I love that because again, I think at the core of this conversation is it's about making a choice, right? Living with intention, living with purpose is a choice. And it's a choice that you have to choose day to day, sometimes moment to moment, right? Because life is, if anything, unpredictable, consistently unpredictable. Well, that's the one thing that's always true about life. Um, and you know, choosing presence and purpose and self-accountability and self-leadership and self-motivation, right, are difficult when life is complicated, when life is ugly, when life is messy, when our feelings get hurt, when we're betrayed, when we lose a job, when we lose a loved one, uh, when we have trauma, right? All of that is the unpredictability of life that threatens the course that we're on. A really strong course that we've chosen and we're so certain we're on the right path. And then thing A happens and it all goes to the crapper, right? So um I would love for you to talk about, give us an example of one of these moments that you talk about where man, you're facing yourself, you're facing your life, and you're asking a deep introspective question.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

There are two that come to mind. Um, so the first one was when I got sober, uh, I just celebrated three years a couple of days ago. So that's kind of yeah, yeah, it's top of mind. And the reason that's important is because I mean, I really loved drinking. I started drinking when I was, I think, 17 for the same reason that most young boys start drinking. I was shy and I wanted to be cool and funny around girls. And um, and so I I could probably count on one hand how many weekends I took off drinking from the time I was 17 to the time I quit when I was 52. And um, I never drank during the week, but I but I really like to give her on weekends. And and so I know when I share my story about quitting, most people think, well, like, you know, what happened? Like, was there a rock bottom? Did you wake up under a bus? Because and I say that only because that's what I always thought when people told me they quit, because the idea of quitting was just like, why is like you're trying to explain to me what it's like living on Mars? I it's never it would never occur to me until one day I woke up and yeah, I just decided that I'd had not a big rock bottom, but a bunch of mini rock bottoms that culminated into the you know the decision that was the only decision I had left. And I mentioned that because none of this other stuff is possible without that, and so it might not be drinking or it might not even be another vice for other people, but I do believe, and I've had three years to reflect on this, that for me it was drinking, but I do think everyone has that one blocker that's kind of holding them back, and maybe has just been such a part of the way you've been living for so long that you're blind to it. And I didn't, I didn't realize it until I quit that it was like, oh yeah, this is this is the thing that's been holding me back from doing different things with my career. I I've been hiding from you know these all these other fears. Because I I love what some people say about sobriety. It's like, yeah, I didn't have a problem with drinking, I had a problem with sobriety because once you remove that blocker, it's like, oh my God, there are all those feelings and those fears that I've sort of been hiding from for at least for three days a week. And um, and that's that's allowed me to see clearly the things that were kind of just really the next barrier. Well, what's the next thing? Well, it's this fear of judgment, it's this fear of failure, and and it just things that I don't think I would have been able to see if I hadn't been sober. So that's really the first thing um that happened. And then the the second one happened just over a year ago. We had a really uh serious health scare with my oldest son, who's now or was 19 or 20 at the time, and he had been sick, he had a sinus infection uh for a while. So in and out of doctor's offices on and off medications, and we went out to a family dinner one night and he collapsed and we rushed him to the ER. I dropped my wife and my son off at the ER, and I went home, and so you're getting the text from my wife about what's happening, and he's oh yeah, we're in the waiting room, then we're in the other waiting room where we're waiting for the doctor, and then we've seen a doctor and we're waiting for tests, etc. And then I got a text that I'll never forget, and it read, There's a mass on his brain. And I don't know if you've ever received, you know, news like that before, but it's like you're watching a movie of someone else's life, right? Like it's so surreal, it's it doesn't seem real. And so they rushed him to the hospital. Um, 12 hours later, he was he had a big chunk of his skull removed and they drained uh an infection from his brain, and it could have been uh terrible, but it did turn out okay, and he's fully recovered. But I I talk about that story a lot because there were things you know, that Friday night before we went out to dinner, that Thursday night, I was I was waking up at two or three in the morning, like oh shit, worried about that email that I was supposed to send that didn't, or that LinkedIn post that I was gonna write, or just you know, the stuff that ruminates and keeps so many of us awake. And of course, when I got that text, all of that stuff just evaporates and you get singularly focused on the one thing that matters, and that's you know, his health and the and my family. And I just I vowed then to refuse to let my life snack to its original shape because I've we've we've all had those moments where we say, Oh my god, we lose a loved one or we get a diagnosis and we swear we're gonna live every day as if it were our last, and it doesn't stick. Three days later, we are waking up at three in the morning worried about the same shit that we were before, and it just it doesn't last. And so I've been really intentional about not letting that happen. And I'm proud to say that I've been I really try to stay focused every day on making sure that I that I live with more intention and and not let my life just snap back to worrying about the same small shit. But I mean, it's a daily struggle because my our default state is just to get comfortable and to just kind of go back to what we've always done.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Yeah. Well, I mean, first, thank you for being vulnerable and sharing those stories. Um, that the battle with sobriety, the decision to get sober. Um, I I've heard several people that we have in common that have talked about that journey and that decision and really how profound it is. Because again, when you talk about, I made this decision to um to face something. And when I faced that, all this other stuff rose to the surface. It was like all the things that were buried under that layer of the ocean are now at the surface, and you're skimming all this garbage, going, oh, this was here the whole time, you know. Um, that's tough. And and difficult emotions, fear, insecurity, doubt, fear of judgment, all these things, right? That is physical energy that's stored in the body, right? Negative emotions, you can feel negative emotions. They don't feel good. And so it makes sense to hide them with something, whether it's alcohol, whether it's smoking, whether it's food, hello. We all have something that we use to ward off those really dark, fluttery things that we feel, right? So um going through that, making that decision, but then here we go again into another um circumstance where you made this decision to get sober, right? You've been sober for three years. That's amazing, but you kind of addressed it. Well, I kind of went back to the routine I wasn't drinking, but I went back into the this is what it means to be comfortable, because we don't like to be uncomfortable. I like my soft, plushy chair in my office, and I like the gushy couch in my living room, and I like the the known and all the things that make me happy. And it's like what I've really come to understand is that growth and change and transformation is pretty impossible when you're comfortable. You have to get uncomfortable for change to occur. And so here now you've been faced with this tremendous overwhelming event where someone that you love desperately, your son, is at risk of dying potentially. There's an unknown factor here with a brain tumor, with a brain infection. That's a serious thing. So take me back to that moment when this whole thing went down, and you're maybe you're looking yourself at the mirror, maybe you're laying in bed, that you said, I'm not gonna go back to the same old, same old. I'm gonna choose to live with intention because the alternative is no longer acceptable.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Yeah, and I don't know that it was uh a moment. Like I said, I talk about, I think that's the first time I've told that story without crying.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Um congratulations! Yeah, that feels like growth. Tears are accepted here on Friday Feeling so both.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

It's just it probably I just got a good sleep last night because I could tell that story half an hour from now and be a total mess. Um, but it's yeah, you're right. It's it's something that I it also helped to have my wife go through it with me as well, because we were both, you know, it's obviously a just a terrible thing to go through. And she was eyeing retirement. She was she's a teacher, she's been a teacher for 30 some odd years. She was a little over a year from retirement. And after going through that, she just said, it's not worth it. Um, and so she took early retirement. We did the math, it was like, you know,$60 a month out of her pension. We're like, yeah, fine, we're not dealing with this. And so something about witnessing her courage to do that and make that decision, because she had been a teacher her whole life. Like it was who she was. She'd been a tea, it's the only thing that she's ever done. And to walk away from that and pursue her passion around painting, for example, was just something that I took a lot of strength from. And it's I I just felt this overwhelming kind of sense of urgency to do something more. So going back to the sobriety thing, like you know, a lot of people who go through that say, oh, I realized I was basically working on 40% capacity. And I started to feel that. And when you combine that with, oh, yeah, I'm not gonna be, it was just sort of a reminder, probably, of my own mortality. And what matters to me more than anything is just becoming a man that my kids can be proud of. And so I try to think about that every day and think about is this a decision that kind of feeds that intention? And so it's given rise to doing more public speaking, having more awkward, scary conversations on my podcast to get more curious, to be more creative. Because I don't know what the answer is yet, Janelle, but I know that I've got to get uncomfortable, I've got to lean into curiosity, because I think that is the path for me of finding my voice and figuring it out what it is that uh that I have uniquely to offer the world. And I don't know what that is yet. I just know that it's in this general direction. And if I follow my curiosity, I'll start getting some answers. At least that's the plan.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

I love it. I mean, and and to your point, um, there is no answer. There is no I'm a I've arrived, or I'm it, or I've landed, you know. Um, I think a lot of people view this idea of change and transformation. You picture this ideal in your head, you know, I have a vision board of, you know, what I want to look like or the kind of wardrobe I want to have someday when money is no object or the places I want to go travel, right? But from an emotional perspective, we're talking about a deep um internal decision to not follow the pattern. And I'm gonna drop some neuroscience here because I think this is the differentiator in this just being another podcast or this just being another conversation about living with intention. That when you were in the midst of your days of drinking, you had programmed the amygdala, your prefrontal cortex, and your hypothalamus. There's a pattern loop that's established with all the chemicals that were being flooded with your in your brain, right? We know the happy drugs, the serotonin, the dopamine that make us feel good. We know that um cortisol is the stress hormone that floods your body. And when you put that um that balance of those three individual parts of your brain in a holding pattern, which you had done, right? In the holding pattern, you're you've conditioned your body in a certain way that to be uncomfortable and to break that pattern doesn't it it puts your body in complete panic mode. And so you stay in the pattern, right? So now you've chosen to live differently. Now you've chosen to put the drink down, you're sober, that's amazing. You've gone through this emotional experience with your son, you're breaking the pattern. You are literally forging new neural pathways with every decision that you make that does not fall in line with the old Bob. New neural pathways. Now, I'm I'm not gonna sit here and say you probably are never gonna have a desire to drink again. That's probably not true. Let's be real, okay? You're probably gonna have moments where you forgot what it was like before your son went through that thing. That's normal, right? But but what you're doing is you've made the decision to live with intention and to break that habit loop in your brain that literally are chemicals flooding your entire body. Those chemicals are what we call emotions and feelings, and rewriting the script of your life. So I'm curious, in on days where Bob, it's overwhelming, you got a bad day, you're struggling with something, you're insecure, you're fearful, you're angry, you're whatever. Put put a label to that emotion. What are you doing from a physical habit perspective to keep yourself on track? Do you have a mantra that you repeat? Sorry, my dogs are talking. Uh, do you have a sticky note that's on your monitor? Walk me through. If I'm a listener listening to you, go, man, that's that's everything I want. But every single day something happens and I fall backwards. My point is that we have to get out of our heads in order for real, lasting, impactful change. And we need more than just our thoughts, right? So I'm curious, walk us through maybe a day in the life of Bob before you got sober, maybe a day in the life of Bob before your son went through this. And what does a day in the life of Bob look like right now?

SPEAKER_02 19:30

Yeah, it's a great question. There are some things that I've I've really come to rely on. One, it's it's not really a tip, but man, it's just something that I've that I've just become so aware of is sleep. Now, I so I've I went through I've gone through an exercise lately where I've really been conscious of my energy throughout the day, the kinds of conversations that I really need that energy for, and the kind of work that I can do with different kinds of energy. So I'll give you an example. I am kind of a morning person. I usually get up around 5:30. I do journaling, which I'll talk about in a minute. I do exercise, stretching, a whole bunch of things that help get me on um on track for the day. And if I have meetings with clients or I have clients where I really need to be on, I need to be creative, I need to be curious, I need my best self, those happen before 11 in the morning, like this podcast. Um there are and and that's the creative energy that I that frankly is kind of allows me to do my best work. The things that happen after two or three in the afternoon are things that's administrative tasks, they're things that I can kind of you know sleep my way through. And I can tell you that when something happens, like something somebody responds to a LinkedIn post of mine that's a little snarky or something, or I'm struggling with a post, or I've got a creative problem that I'm trying to struggle with, struggle, I'm struggling with with a client. I can tell you in the past, I would stay, I would sit there at my computer at four o'clock and I'd try to write it and I'd rewrite it and I'd struggle with it, and I'd just wrestle with it, and I'd get pissed off, and I'd get frustrated, and now I know it's not something to tackle now, and I can look at that at 6 30 in the morning the next day and solve it in 30 seconds. And it's it's just not worth it. So understanding where my creative energy lies, and so I've actually I've got different countly links. Hey, if you want a 30 minute coffee with Bob, you can use this link. If my pay in clients use this link, and have all got them accessed at different parts of my calendar so that I can have different kinds of conversations. For different times a day when I'm when I'm at my best or when I can, you know, kind of sleep my way through other conversations. So it's not sleeping my way, but you know what I mean. So that's made a big difference. But I would say coming back to this journaling. So my wife has been telling me for years to journal. I never put much thought into it, just seemed like a lot of work and kind of too foo-foo-y. But I was sitting, you know, it was like three in the morning. So when my son was in the hospital, we were taking turns being at his bedside for the four days that he was recovering from surgery. And so my wife would, there was a hotel nearby, and I'd go sleep there till 2:30 in the morning. I had my alarm would go off. I'd come back, I'd relieve her, she'd go back to the room, et cetera. Right. And so we had raced to the hospital. I mean, I didn't have a book or my laptop. All I had was my phone. And my God, I was just doom scrolling, and it was just um, it was the worst. And it's dark. Like all you've got is that weird fluorescent light above the ho above the bed where he's sleeping. You don't want to turn lights on, I've got nothing to do. So I opened up this journaling app for the first time. I was, you know, 53 or 54. And man, the shit that just poured out of me. I had no idea and I had nowhere else to put it. And so that's what you know, journaling kind of happened out of, I don't know, boredom or necessity. I don't know what it was. But then I started realizing how cathartic it was and how healthy it was. And so it's it's it's morphed into this thing called Morning Pages, which is from a book called The Artist Way by I think by Jennifer Cameron. Again, been a book that my wife has been trying to get me to read forever. And it's you get up first thing in the morning, three pages, single spaced, handwritten, no phone, no tablet. Um three pages eight and a half by eleven, just whatever's in your mind. Brain could be about the bug that's walking across the window. It doesn't matter, just write whatever. And what's really powerful about it is that it's purposely designed to get over this fear of judgment. Because I've I've played guitar since I was nine, but I've never written a song. And because I write two lines and I'm like, ah, that sucks. You know, that's just I'm I've never had the courage to play that in front of anybody. That's terrible. And I quit. And the morning pages is just a way of getting these ideas out and having no judgment about it. You never go back and read them and you never show them to anyone. So it does help sort of build this muscle of what would just happen if you just wrote uh nonsense, even. And what you what I find is that I it helping me clarify ideas. I'm like, oh my God, there's an idea for a LinkedIn post or a new idea with a client or a new idea for a speech. And you've got to do it with no preconceived notions of what's gonna come out the other side. You just need to build the habit of doing it and trust that it's gonna start helping you find your voice and rediscover this creativity that I think so many of us have lost.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

What, what, uh help me understand because you you kind of mentioned this that that journaling was a little frou-frou or woo-woo or give me a break. I'm not a dear diary type of guy, right? What was that? What was the what was the internal dialogue happening in your brain when your wife would say, Oh, you should journal?

SPEAKER_02 25:38

Well, I just didn't see the point. Um and I, I mean, like most people, I don't even but when I started writing, like my hand would cramp up after a half a page. I don't know when the what about like before I did this, I hadn't written anything more than signing my name, you know, in 20 years. I've been taking notes on a laptop forever. So it just seemed like work. I didn't get the point. It just seemed a little bit ridiculous. Um and yeah, but I think I think what what's interesting about it is if like I still don't I still can't articulate what the point is. You just have to have faith or hope that this is gonna be helpful to you. Cause I because I know my like I said, my wife was telling me for years to do it. It was like, yeah, why I don't have time for that. Um but now I know that if I don't do it and I skip it, and I did skip it a couple of days this week because I'd rather get up and watch, you know, it's the NHL playoffs, it's yeah, it's uh it's it's highlights, so I can't. Go Colorado Avalanche, I'm just saying. Sorry. Yeah, go leaves. And I just, you know, I just kind of get uh lazy and have my coffee and and watch the highlights instead of writing, and I'm just not myself for the rest of the day. So, you know, it's probably it's it's a lot like meditation, I imagine. Like, how do you convince somebody to meditate? Well, it's gonna help with clarity and it's gonna help all these things in your life. It's like you just have to do it and you have to stick with it long enough to be able to feel the impact. It's almost, I don't know, nothing that anybody could tell me about journaling would have made me do it unless I was forced to do it because I was sitting in that hotel with absolutely nothing else to do.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Well, I love that because one, right, intention doesn't mean perfection, it means consistency. And I think what you're seeing is you made a in-the-moment decision to despite your internal fear or hesitation around, okay, here we go. I'm gonna start writing things down. Okay, wife, let me know. You know, um, you made a decision and you tried it. And there was maybe not an immediate, but if you kept doing it, there was a purpose. There was relief on the other side. And however you quantify what that relief was, you were choosing a new habit with consistency. And how long have you been doing it now?

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Uh yeah, like a year. Well, a little over a year.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Okay. And give me one quantify one tangible impact for you in a positive way that journaling has done for you.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

It's helped me find my voice with my clients and on LinkedIn, for example. So if for anybody that's started got on is on LinkedIn or is struggling with it or has always wanted to do a podcast or always wanted to write a book, the first thing is what do I have to say that's different than the millions of other books that have already been written or the five million podcasts on Spotify? What have I what have I got that's unique to offer this world? And that has helped me find that voice to uncover things and stories and perspectives that there's no way I would have gotten that. What staring at a screen, sitting there going, hmm, what's unique about me? What's special about me? What's my superpower? It just comes out because you start uncovering these things that you've forgotten or maybe never even knew.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Yeah, that's so amazing. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna drop a little more neuroscience, if you don't mind, because I really want to quantify what's happening from a chemical, neurological perspective, because this is where our bodies physically are translating and storing what we perceive to be normal and um important, right? So one, your amygdala. It's we we're gonna call it the alarm system. So the amygdala in your brain is the brain's early warning system. It detects threats, real or perceived, and sends out signals to activate your body's fight, flight, or freeze. And there's another F-word that I heard somebody use fight, flight, freeze, or ah, I can't remember. Um, that response, right? It's hypervigilant, it reacts fast, and it's emotionally charged. So when the amygdala is set off, right, all of these emotions that are flooding your body, whether that's the serotonin or dopamine you get from doom scrolling or having a drink, whatever it might be, your the amygdala is telling your body that those emotions are there. Um, and it bypasses rational thought when it senses danger. So think of it as an emotional reflex. When it's a downward spiral, the amygdala can actually hijack your brain. It exaggerates threats and floods your body with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. Okay. So when we relate that to what you've been uh talking about, right? Pre-sobriety, your amygdala was responding to fear and overwhelming and insecurity and and and, right? That's what you programmed your mind to do. The other piece of this triad is the hypothalamus, the command center. So the hypothalamus is the bridge between your nervous system and endocrine system. It actually responds to the amygdala's distress signals and tells your body what to do. Increased heart rate, shallow breathing, tense muscles, sweaty palms, weird feeling in the gut, lump in your throat, you name it, right? It actually executes survival instructions to the rest of your body. It regulates sleep, hunger, body temperature, and emotional reactivity. And if the signal keeps firing, like anxiety, panic attacks, or prolonged rumination, fearful thoughts or memories, um, it keeps your body in a state of stress. Okay, so there's the hypothalamus. There's the hypothalamus. Now we've got the last piece of which is the prefrontal cortex. This is the CEO of your brain. The prefrontal cortex is the seat of rational thought, problem solving, impulse control, and decision making. It allows you to refract, uh, reflect, reframe, and regulate. It's the wise mind that can assess, plan, and take intentional action. And when the amygdala is overreactive, the prefrontal cortex can basically go offline, making it harder to think clearly or see options. That was the loop you were in, Bob. You were in a loop between all three of these um pieces in your brain that were basically managing, reacting, and telling the rest of your body and your thoughts and the chemicals in your system that create emotions what the status quo was, right? Pre-sobriety, pre-your son going through this experience, you created a habit loop subconsciously because of the years and years and years that you spent doing all these things that for you were normal, comfortable, survival mode. It's what you knew to be true. So now, here fast forward, here's where we are today, right? Um, this is the downward spiral loop that you basically chose to interrupt. There was a trigger. Whatever that trigger was, it was fear of judgment, it was insecurity that you might say the wrong thing. It was the need for alcohol to feel brave or to feel funny or to feel desired, right? Um, you activated the amygdala and your hypothalamus command to stress response system happens. The body reacts. So you've got all of these physical things happening in your body that are already pre-triggered from the amygdala. Your prefrontal cortex is impaired because we basically told it to stand down. There's nothing it can do about it because the amygdala and the hypothalamus are running the show, right? And so the negative thinking deepens, rumination, hopelessness. You grab another drink, you go back to your daily routine, and it reinforces, you reinforced the amygdala's fear signals. All you did was tell your brain, yep, this is what's true, yep, this is what's true. And that prefrontal cortex was given a back seat. You are no longer subconsciously in command of your brain, of your thoughts, of your emotions. So now we're talking about breaking that spiral, which is through living in intentionality and tactical application of things that we know are physical disruptors to all of those chemicals and brain signals, right? And so um you talk about journaling, which is literally getting the thoughts out of your head onto paper and sometimes physically seeing what's in your head. So when you write stuff down in this app or you write down your, you know, your three pages of the eight by ten double spaced. Do you ever moment when you're writing where you look at what you wrote and go, oh, I didn't know that's how I felt? Oh, I didn't know that that thought was there. Wow, that's really interesting. I had no, I had no clue I was thinking that. Do you ever have those moments?

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Oh, all the time.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

Right. Okay. So so that's the point, right? Is just because it's in your head does not mean it's a thought you created. Your thoughts are not always your own. Sometimes your thoughts are the imposter syndrome or the inner critic. Sometimes your thoughts are echoes of what other people have said or something that you've heard and you your subconscious latched onto, right? So your physics, what you're doing from a from a physical and chemical perspective is you are showing your subconscious what's happening inside. And then your conscious person, Bob the conscious Bob is going, Oh, I don't think I like that. Oh, I didn't know that that was happening. Oh my gosh, I need to write, I need to take van, I need to, right? You're you're you're literally interrupting the habit loop and the subconscious thought patterns that all of those years created within you. Okay. So we know that getting it out of your head on the paper is a physical disruptor of that habit loop. Um, I'm curious, what are the some other things that you do that are helpful to you that you find are things you have to choose intentionally, but massively contribute to your day-to-day of living with intention?

SPEAKER_02 36:04

So, yeah, so all that's so fascinating, Janelle. Um, there's a couple of other things. One, I was on a walkout this morning, and I think it was during the pandemic I read about this idea of savoring. And so if people haven't um heard of that, you know, we know that, you know, we have a we're sort of like wired for fear and anxiety, right? Like, and we have a negativity bias, yes, which is sort of our default state. So the you know, our ancestors that lied in the grass staring at the clouds, thinking about how wonderful life is, they got eaten. And the people that were afraid of everything, they stayed alive long enough to have kids and pass their DNA on. So, you know, there's uh evolutionary advantage to being kind of anxious and afraid all the time. And so we're attracted to negative things, which is why I can write something on LinkedIn and I can get 50 comments about people telling me what a genius I am. And one person says, Bob, I think you're full of shit. And that one thing will stick with me and bug me all day long. And so coming back to savoring, I think the idea is that, and I don't know the exact seconds, but I think it was 16 or 17 seconds. So when you come across something positive, you really have to soak and reflect on that positive thing for 17 seconds for it to basically have the same impact as one second of a negative thing. And just a very simple way I use this is I, you know, like I've heard people talk about this as I gotten older. I don't remember seeing a bird until I was 50, but now I love birds. I see them everywhere, I love the way they sing, and so and cardinals are my kind of my thing. We've got a bunch of them around here, and every once in a while you'll see a cardinal on a clear against a clear blue sky sitting on top of a white birch tree, for example. And these are things I'm sure I've walked past a million of them in my life. But every time I hear a cardinal, I will stop on my walk and I will sit up and I'll stare and I'll just kind of enjoy the song and and take in the visual beauty of it for I don't know, I don't time it, but I'm like, okay, that feels like 16 seconds. And God, it's amazing how weird I'm sure I look as a grown man, just sitting there staring at a bird. And it just always strikes me how long 16 seconds feels and how unnatural it is, like how my body just wants to be like, oh, interesting, a bird, and spend like one second on it and keep walking and not just sort of bask in the beauty of that moment and how unnatural it feels to just, you know, look at something beautiful for 16 seconds and not get back to, oh shit, gotta get back to work, gotta get on with my day. And it really, really, I've taken trips with my kids and we try to do that. And it's a muscle I think we all need to get better at building at because it's the only way, or it's at least one quick and easy and kind of fun way to balance that negativity bias, because in the absence of that, all we pay attention to is all the negative shit.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

That and that, I feel like that could be a whole other podcast episode all by itself of the frustration we all feel that we default to the negative. You're right. I I am someone who I can have, you know, 10 different people text me and say thank you for something they heard or an episode podcast they just listened to. But the one person who makes a negative comment comment can completely derail me if I don't get my head around it and acknowledge. But I think to your point, right, you're moving into this um place of you're not surviving day-to-day. You're leading and living with intentionality and with purpose. And so, Bob, if if there's a listener, and I'm guessing there'll be at least one, if not many, that are listening to this going, yeah, great, Bob, that sounds awesome. I don't really know that I'm a writer. I don't really, I don't have cardinals to look at. How do I, where do I start? Give me some some place to just pick a lane, pick a thing, pick an item that I can try today that potentially is gonna help me get to this uh place mentally to live intentionally and not just survive with a status quo day to day. What would you say to that?

SPEAKER_02 40:27

There's one other idea that I've loved. I recently read the book, uh, I forget what it's called. Um, I think it's called Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins, who's a ex-Marine uh Navy SEAL and ultra-marathon athlete, like just the guy the guy would just do a 100-mile race in 24 hours with basically zero training, like run four marathons without stopping in 24 hours. So that's the kind of crazy shit that he did. Yeah, of course, we would all die. The point is how but the point is how how much more we're capable of than we than we believe. And he doesn't recommend you do that, but it's just an example of all of these things that are holding you back, they're all in your head. And he's got what one idea that I pulled from that book is this concept of a cookie jar. And so you just, you know, just exactly what it sounds like, take cookie jar and you take post-it notes, and on each post-it note, you write something that's happened to you, a time where somebody underestimated you and you overcame it, or achievement that you um that you had, or uh a time where you failed and you got back up. And you know, if you told me to do that right now, I could maybe come up with five or six. But as you start sort of putting that intention out there, it's like, oh yeah, right. And then you'll you'll add maybe one or two a day because you're just these ideas come to you. And the point is that uh when I, you know, when I wanted to do more public speaking because I did it earlier in my career and I wanted to get back into it. And my initial reaction is, oh God, what am I gonna say? What if I screw up? What if I forget what I'm gonna say? Like all of these obstacles. And you go into that cookie jar and you pull out any one of those things, and you realize that I've already in my life done a hundred things that are a thousand times harder than getting on stage and telling stories. But we don't think about that. We conveniently forget about all that amazing shit that we did. Yeah, sometimes because we had no choice. And it's just a great way to remind yourself, and that's something that anybody could do, and remind ourselves that we are so much more capable of doing virtually anything we want if we can just get past these stupid lit not stupid, but these these obstacles that our brain automatically throws up because our brain wants to keep us safe and comfortable and doesn't want us to do scary things and doesn't want us to be embarrassed. And uh they're never as scary as our uh you know, as our brain wants to uh think they are. And we've got a lifetime of evidence that proves us, proves that we can do this and so much more.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

Yeah, I love that. I I think I think this could be very similar to a gratitude journal. So every morning I get up and when I before I start my day at work, I write down three things that I'm grateful for. I've heard it called a joy jar that you put bubbles of things that you've experienced, something someone said to you that uh creates this feeling of joy. And at any moment you can pull out um a comment from that joy jar. Um I want to talk forever. I don't have forever with you. Um, so really what I'd like to do is um, Bob, if there's someone who's like, man, I gotta get to know Bob. And you should. Where can they connect with you? Tell us about the podcast. Just give us a little idea of what you're working on and all of the different avenues people can reach out or connect with you.

SPEAKER_02 44:11

Yeah. Well, the easiest place to uh find me is on LinkedIn. Um, and yes, the Growth Mixtape podcast is available on all platforms. And it was really just my way of chasing my curiosity and talking to people that I'd otherwise never get to talk to, to hear amazing stories, to see what I could learn. And what I've recently, it's interesting. This thing that was never really supposed to be much about your customer success and what I wanted to, you know, that would kind of pay the bills. It turns out that it's one of the most rewarding things I've ever done when I just had, you know, the courage, a bit like writing, to just be curious and not have to worry about, oh, what how does this fit into my brand? And how are you going to monetize this? Like, no, you're ruining it. I just want to be curious and have amazing conversations. And yeah, it turns out that it's given rise to some keynote speeches that I've written around curiosity and creativity. So if you're interested in learning more about that, you can find it on my website at bobmaters.ca. But uh yeah, and hey, it's a work in progress. I'm sure I will look at it, you know, a year from now, go, oh my God, remember when I thought this was the most important thing in my life? It's it's a you know, it sounds straight, but it's a journey.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

Yeah. And it will continue to be a journey until the day you take your last breath.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

Yeah. Um, well, any last minute quotes, tips, advice that you want to give to someone who's listening very intently today.

SPEAKER_02 45:48

Uh no, if they've listened this far, I feel like I do owe them some inspirational quote. I don't have something, but I do what one of the things that I got written on my whiteboard just above my head is a quote that I stole from Oprah. And it says, and I think she had it written in the green room backstage for her show. And it says, Take responsibility for the energy you bring to this place. And I have that written on my on my whiteboard because I think about that virtually before every meeting. There are times when I look at that and it's three o'clock in the afternoon, and I've had it with this day, and I'm not interested in this conversation. And it really just reminds me that every one of these conversations is an opportunity to learn and connect with someone a lot like this conversation with Janelle. And it's up to you to bring the energy and make the most of it. And it doesn't matter how tired you are. Um, you've always got just a little bit more to get the most out of it.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

Man, that that is I couldn't have said it better. And um, let me just say before I wrap that this has been an incredible conversation. I feel like we could have gone forever. I feel like we should do a version two. Um, I'm just so grateful for your leadership, for your inspirational um approach to how you live life with purpose, your willingness to share and be vulnerable. It's a brave thing to do. So thank you for that. Um, and I'm just so grateful to have had this time with you today.

SPEAKER_02 47:15

Well, it means the world to me, Janelle, and I love the neuroscience angle on it. And yeah, we could we could have three more of these. There's so many different threads we could have pulled on. So thank you so much for doing this.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

Yeah, you bet. So as I wrap up and reflect, right? We we've talked about living with intention, that it means showing up for your own life. It begins with a and a willingness and an awareness to build through action and transform through consistency that every day you get to choose the life that you live. And so, as a reminder, remember to be inspired to feel deeply. Feelings are good, feelings are bad, feelings are neutral. They are simply feelings. You are not dictated by them, you are not owned by them, you are not a victim to how you feel. You get to have a choice. I'm gonna encourage you to live fearlessly because, as I've said before, everything you've ever wanted, and I mean everything, is on the other side of fear. The quote that my stepson has tattooed on his arm: fear withholds, fear lies, fear keeps us from moving forward. And so when you live with intention and you live fearlessly, it means that there's nothing out of reach, there's nothing that's impossible for you, and there's no circumstance that you're not able to overcome. And to stay authentic, truly staying authentic to the reality of the life that you've lived, the traumas you face, the difficulties you're you might be facing right now, um, and the authenticity of asking for help and admitting that you're human and admitting that you have flaws and you make mistakes and you're not perfect. That's the human condition. Uh, keep leaning into those feelings because as we've talked about, transformation, real transformation, starts from within. It starts by showing up for yourself and choosing to live intentionally. Thank you so much for being with me here today, and I'm gonna see you all next Friday.