From Success To Significance With John Geraghty On Identity, Flow, And Reinventing Midlife (EP 152)

We sit with coach and author John Geraghty to explore how identity, perspective, and progressive challenge build a flow-dominant life that feels meaningful and performs at a high level. We trade “image protection” for honest starting points, small daily wins, and environments that make growth easier.

• redefining success as purpose, energy and alignment
• identity beliefs as the engine of motivation
• hero’s journey vs victim story framing
• practical flow mechanics and challenge–skill balance
• compounding improvements over time
• fixed vs growth mindset in real life
• letting go of image protection and ego
• designing environments and relationships for growth
• the Prism of Perspective model for reframing
• aging as expansion, not decline
• simple, equipment-free “fitness presence” training

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Transcript

Meet John Garrity And His Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:07

In this episode, we sit down with John Gierdi, who is an optimal performance coach and author of The Prism of Perspective. John works with high achieving professionals who have done well financially, they've built a career, they've made the money, but they're realizing success alone isn't enough. He works with people that want purpose, energy, and alignment in their next chapter. We get into what it really means to build a flow dominant life, how identity beliefs shape your future, why protecting your image keeps you stuck, and how small daily improvements compound into massive transformation. This one's about perspective and how shifting it can change everything. Hit the follow button, hit the subscribe button wherever you're listening to this podcast. And I hope you enjoy the show. All right. So, John kicking things off. Who is John and how does he spend his time today?

SPEAKER_01 1:15

I'm a 63-year-old, 30-year married, happily married, couple of beautiful young ladies, 21 to 23 years old. And I am a life optimization coach who focuses my professional attention on helping mature, successful professionals reimagine their future so they can continue to live with purpose, joy, and impact. I've been a coach for 20 years. And so I have worked with people as they've moved through the careers just as I have. And what I found is that as we get to this age where we kind of thought, like, you know, I'm working toward retirement, I'm working toward this exit, I'm working toward that the people that I work with are all in the financial position to do that. But they recognize that purpose in life is what feeds us. It makes life rich. And so they are now reimagining like, what is the purpose from this solid foundation that I've built? And how do I integrate all the different roles that I play in a way that allows me to be joyful in my relationships, to be fulfilled by the work I do, to be healthy and vital so I can move through the world in a in in ways that allow me to continue to have strong lifespan, not just, excuse me, health span, not just lifespan, right? So that we can continue to do that work. And so that's really where I put a lot of my focus.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Yeah. Walk us through that. I guess how, first of all, because I can imagine a lot of folks who probably go to work every day, they probably have a really good career, make good money. They are maybe climbing the corporate ladder, they are, they have goals to be promoted and different things like that. But maybe something is missing, right? You know, maybe they don't feel that purpose anymore. Maybe, you know, especially in a job market today, folks have been laid off and they have some time to kind of reimagine what they want their life to look like. It's the beginning of a new year, top of 2026. People are reflecting, people are thinking about, hey, what do we want to do with our future? How do we want to set our lives up? How does somebody start to reimagine kind of their future and what should be kind of the most important things they should be looking at?

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Well, with the work I do, I have a program I work with called the Flow Cultivator. And, you know, it's the idea of like we thrive in life when we're in flow, not when we're in struggle, right? Not when we're boredom either, right? We're not looking for a life of leisure where we're not challenged to grow, but we actually function at our best, kind of in that Cinderella space, right? Where there's enough challenge so that it's forcing us to show up with our best, but we're not overwhelmed. Because when we get into overwhelm and stress, the way the brain works, right, is it goes into fight or flight and our focus narrows, our creativity shrinks, you know, our access to our highest and best is limited. We have a lot of stress. The stress hormones that are floating around in the body, cortisol and adrenaline, have us living in the moment without being able to see with real perspective. And so you mentioned it's the beginning of the year. And so we look into the future and we also kind of reflect back on the past. And so some of the work we do is around identity beliefs. Yes. Right. And your identity is really the most compelling motivator or driver in your life. And the way that we look at it is we say your identity beliefs really have a few different components. It has the component of your story. You know, are you telling primarily a hero's journey story about your life? Or are you telling a victim story about your life? Are you accepting responsibility for where you've landed and looking at the obstacles you've overcome and the skills you've developed and the capabilities you've had so that you can continue to move forward with those? Or is it more comfortable and have you decided that, you know, when things don't go your way, you're going to look outside of yourself and point? Because the habit that we get into, the default we get into is are we defaulting to accepting 100% response ability, right? The ability to respond to whatever challenges are there? Yeah. Or are we really trying to find comfort in the moment and say, hey, it wasn't my fault? You know, I couldn't have done it otherwise. You know, this is the only way it could have gone. And so once we get solid on understanding that piece and thinking about, okay, let's think about all of the obstacles. We've all overcome a lot of obstacles to get where we are. And then really connect with what are the gifts and the talents of the zones of genius that we have developed so we can bring those tools forward. And then we begin to think, okay, what is that? Right. So I do a lot of work with people that have matured a lot, but really the sooner you begin to think about this, the sooner you begin to think about like, what have I learned about myself, my gifts? What things have I overcome, whether it was a tough upbringing or challenges in school, or just really I pushed myself to the edge. Where were my gifts? And then think about like, how do you want to impact the world? Because too often there's a I'm dropping his name, Rutger. He does a little, he had wrote a book recently called Moral Ambition. And one of the things he talks about is that such a high percentage of our people that are highly educated today, you know, they go into college and university and they have really high aspirations. But typically by the time they're popping out, they're looking at how do they economically capture as much money as possible. And so you have a lot of real talent. And again, I'm everybody is right has an entitled to do whatever they want to do, but want to make sure that it's going to actually be enriching to you, that it's in alignment with your values, that the impact that you're going to be taking your time and effort and energy to create is part of the world you really want to live in. And so when we look at understanding how did I get here, the next one is like, what do I want to do from here? Like, what is my purpose? And, you know, those are those are really important questions. And they, and they're really important because at the end of the day, whether you create a ton of wealth for yourself, if you're living out of alignment with your purpose, if you're not living in alignment with your values, your life experience isn't going to be great. You're going to show up in a really nice car with a nice boat and a nice house or whatever you happen to do, but you will not actually have enjoyed the experience. And so then what's really the point? You know? And so what I encourage everybody to do, whatever that age is, to is to take time to look at what are your skills and gifts and talents, what differentiates you from somebody else? Because if you truly want to live a great life, you have to live it as yourself. Right? You have to live it based on who you are and what your gifts are. We're all wired differently. And greatness always comes out of that authentic expression of who you are. That natural authentic expression. So we do when we work with, when I work with clients, what we're look looking at is saying, okay, let's reflect. You know, we have a lifetime of challenges and opportunities that we've met and overcome and and sometimes tripped on. But what do we learn about ourselves? And in that process, you'll look at like what really matters. Like when you look at something in the world and there's a cause or a purpose or an impact of the world that you get excited about, are you taking your energy and devoting it toward the things you really care about? Because we all care about different things. But you're going to get that energy if you can wake up in the morning and feel like you're up to something that's really going to make a difference. And so it's great to do it young because the sooner you do it, the greater you can change your trajectory. But one of the things that I also believe is true is that we have told this story about aging that has so many people, you know, taking their foot off the gas, thinking, I'm just I guess it's time for me to coast without recognizing like we have a lot of time and energy and resources that we can put to and apply to the challenges that, you know, that works we that we care about. And that makes life much more fulfilling. And so that's when I think about identity beliefs is get true with yourself about your story, your purpose, your vision, your values, and your strengths. And when you lock that down and you connect to that and project it into the future, then begin living that today, right? Like, how does that future version of you that you're really proud of show up for whatever it is you're doing today? And I think that that's how we kind of bring those different senses of time back together again and bring joy and impact to the world, right? That's my experience. You know, as a 63-year-old, I, you know, I look into the future and I'm like, I'm there's what's cool is at 63, you'll literally there's physically nothing I can can't do today that I could do when I was 30. And and and I don't say that because, like, ooh, look at me. I see because I think everybody has that possibility, but most people don't believe it. So they don't live in such a way that it would be the natural consequence. Right. And all of a sudden they have this going on, and they're like, well, that's because I'm getting old or good for my age or whatever happens to be, rather than continuing to think about like, how do I continue to expand my capabilities cognitively, emotionally, physically, as long as I can through this journey? That's what I love to do.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

You know, you mentioned the word identity beliefs, right? Identity beliefs. Who do you believe you are, right? And you talked about do you have a hero's journey story, or do you have this victim mentality story, right? And also to going through what your talents are, your gifts are, your skills, and what your purpose is, what really matters, and then reflecting on all of that, right? Is that what flow is? Is that how you captivate flow or what is flow? Okay.

What Flow Really Means

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Great question. And so I'm gonna use a definition that is like the like the psychology of flow. The the term flow in psychology was coined by a guy named Mihai Chicksent Mihai. And he was a researcher actually in Chicago. He had uh he had grown up in Europe and actually was in the concentration camps. And so early on in his life in the concentration camps, even though everything was horrible around him, he found that when he was playing chess, that everything else quieted down and that he was able to be in this peaceful, productive state. And so as he got as he was released from the concentration camps and began to explore, you know, he he did some work with Jung, Carl Jung, and and and began to like really understand like how does psychology work? And what he became really interested in is how do we peak perform? And so, and and how do we peak perform? And not only how do we peak perform, but how do we do it in a way that feels joyful? Deep pleasure is really the word they used. And what they found is kind of go back to that Cinderella thing. We function at our best when we're doing work, when we have really clear objectives, right? We know what we're trying to do. We're getting immediate feedback that we're in what they call the challenge skills balance. Like the challenge that you're facing balances with your skills to do it. And when we do that, what happens is it calls upon, it's like an evolutionary response, right? It calls upon our best because essentially what in through our evolution, right, we had to be able to tap into that state. And so when that happens, we move out of that stress state, that you know, that high beta vibration of the brain, and we drop into alpha theta, which is a more relaxed creative state. Our neurochemistry shifts a lot. A lot of people talk about, you know, dopamine and things along those lines. You know, in a flow state, you get a lot of dopamine, your endorphins are hitting, you get an andamide, which is the creativity neurochemical where you start to have great ideas. And so flow is a state where you're living on purpose, the work you're doing is meaningful to you, and it's appropriately challenging and it's progressively challenging. So as you continue to move through life, as your skills develop, your challenge increases. As your skills develop, your challenge increases. And so that's really what a flow state is. And so what we try to do is say not just how do you get into a flow state on occasion, right? But how do you build a life where flow, you a f a flow dominant life where most of your life you're in somewhat of a flow state rather than a struggle state. Yeah. And and you know, when you're thinking about we want to impact the world for good and we want to enjoy the journey. And that's kind of where it is.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

So you say living on purpose, right? Yep. And appropriate challenge. Yeah. Right? And this challenge that comes, it can the challenge continues to grow. It's almost like you're hitting new levels. Right. New levels, right?

Compounding Tiny Improvements

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Like your skills grow, the challenge Because otherwise it gets boring. Right. So we had referenced a little bit, you know, that you had lifted weights in the past, right? Yeah. Or you may continue to do so. But imagine that you were doing it and like I remember when I first started to lift weight when I was in, you know, eighth grade or whatever. And I went to the high school gym, and I remember, you know, you had the just the bar and the big 45 on there, 135 pounds, and you know, you lifted it. If you had said, hey, that's a good challenge for me, let me just stay here. How boring would late weightlifting be? Right. Boring. Right. And so life is very much like that. I think exercise is a great metaphor for life in general. 100%. I'm going to describe exercise in a particular way just to think about it. And then we'll think about how it connects to life. Right. So the way I define it, and I kind of stole this from Arthur Jones, the guy that who started high-intensity strength training, he's the gentleman that invented Nautilus equipment and things along those lines. And so what he used to always say is that unless you're exercising to the point of temporary muscular failure, that there's really no reason for your body to adapt, right? Unless you're failing, there's no reason for your body to adapt. I don't totally believe that today, but I think there's parts of it that make sense. What I do believe is if your environment is not asking for you to have a capacity, it will give it away. That's what atrophy is, right? When you break your arm and you're not doing anything and all of a sudden your muscles atrophy, it's because you weren't doing anything to keep the muscle around. When you're hypertrophying in your life, there's a demand that your body continues to adapt to. It's an evolutionary response saying, hey, you know what? It doesn't know that you're in the gym doing this because you want to have big muscles. It's thinking, oh my gosh, Josh is going to die because there must be a bear fighting him. And unless he gets stronger, he's going to die. And so there's an evolutionary response, whether it's strength or balance or coordination or flexibility or cardio or whatever it is. When you have that environment challenging, your body will continue to adapt. Now, what I believe that's different than what I used to believe, you don't actually have to go to failure. You don't have to go to your absolute end because there's going to be a buffer zone, right? There's going to be like as soon as you get close to the edge, they're like, whoa, it's like you don't run your gas tank till empty, right? And then go, oh, let me push my car to the next guy, right? You say, hey, we're getting low on gas. And so you can't imagine that the universe is less smart than you are about your gas tank. So if you're living your life and all of a sudden there's demands on it, they're like, hey, we're using 90% of our capability. Let's build a little more. And then so that's why the challenge skill keeps going, right? All of a sudden you're you're 90% and then you build a little more capacity. And then 90% of that new thing is a little more and a little more and a little more. And so in life, if we think about it the same way, like, how do I incrementally increase the challenges that I'm able to handle? You know, whether that's the amount of confrontation I feel comfortable with in a sales call. And confront, I don't mean like negative. Confront really just means stand in front of an issue with somebody, right? So, like, am I able to have those high-stakes conversations? You know, in your relationship, are you, you know, how good am I at listening? How patient am I? And and what I have found working with, you know, I've been coaching for a long time, that that huge radical shift on the day, I don't really see that. What I see is people get a little better, a little more patient, a little better listener, a little better communicator, a little better at strategic thinking.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

But what happens over time when you do that little bit, little bit, little bit, little bit, the compounding effect has you land in a radically different place, but it's all incremental.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Your experience is the same, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. You you look back and you don't realize until you look back and you're like, whoa, I've grown a ton. Yeah. Right. The the the change happens over time and that time is gonna pass anyway. Right. And I think a lot of times a lot of folks want to go from zero to hero, right? They want to have the the summer body right away. They want to have the the dream, whatever the case may be right away, as opposed to focusing on those small incremental improvements over time. And, you know, they trust I can't remember what yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Well, just trusting that that will compound.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Yeah, and trusting, yeah, and believing, right? And they I can't remember what book it is, but the eighth, they talk about the eighth wonder of the world is compound interest, right? Yeah, compound growth.

Fixed Vs Growth Mindset

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Supposedly Einstein said that, right? Yeah, right. But it's yeah, and and I'm gonna go back to my own history. So I struggled a lot in my, you know, my teens and twenties. I had you're familiar with the concept of a fixed versus a growth mindset, right? Oh, 100%. So anyway, so sometimes maybe some of your listeners are wrestling with this or challenged by this as well. So this is some work by a woman named Carol Twack, who's a professor, or at least she was a professor at Stanford. I think she may have moved on. But what she found is that there's a different way people are raised. And so if you're typically credited or get your praise based on like who you are, and like, oh, you're so smart, oh, you're so strong, oh, you're so athletic, oh, you're so whatever, a lot of times what happens, instead of that being an inspiration, it becomes this thing people try to protect. And so they're trying to protect their image of themselves. And so when challenges arise and it makes it appear as like, oh, this test is harder than I thought it was going to be. Maybe I'm not as smart as I thought I was, and I'm coming to the edges of my capability, they withdraw because they'd rather hold on to the pretense that their potential was great than to face challenges and grow. And like right when I got into my teens, I had a bunch of stuff going on. My parents had gotten divorced, our economics weren't great. I had run run, I went from like middle school to high school, and all of a sudden I was like, oh, I'm not the fastest, oh, I'm not the smartest, oh, I'm not whatever. Right. And so instead of what would have been great is saying I need to compete harder, I pulled back and I started drinking and doing all these things, and I kind of threw away 15 years. And as I came out of even as I got sober, like then I was thinking, like you said, zero to hero. Right. I was like, what's the thing I can do that that's gonna get me from like I'm gonna now I'm gonna just explode. And so I probably wasted another five years looking for that magic bullet. And then eventually I kind of got to the point where I just started being where I am and gradually. Compounding tiny little wins. And at the beginning, what's tough, especially if you're not in a great space, is you know, when you compound not a big thing, the compounding of that thing's not very big, right? You have a small number and you're out, you know, oh, I grew by 10%, but you didn't have a ton, it's almost invisible. And so you what happens, what happened for me is it took a little while until I had the trust that, oh, I'm continually compounding in these areas. And then the process becomes the thing that you understand that you control, right? The process, the behaviors, the habits, the mindset, how are you feeding your mind, how are you feeding your body? And then over time, the compounding really works. But what's important is knowing that we can get anywhere from where we are, but we have to accept where we are. And then even if we look out here and say, I want to be here, we have to understand, okay, so let's break that down and figure out what's that next step that I need to take today in order to be moving on that direction. I think about like Google Maps, right? Like if you were to say, hey, I want to go to San Francisco, Google's gonna go, uh, okay, where are you? You know, and if you tell it a different place, you know, like I'm in Florida, you're in Chicago, if I pretend I'm in Chicago to get to San Francisco, Google's not gonna really be able to help me. If you tell yourself you're in a different place, if you're unwilling to look at the truth, to give a true account of where you really are, because some egoic protection of pretending something that's not true, you're just not gonna be able to compound because it's not solid. Right. It's a facade. But if if we're if we're all willing to get honest, like where are we right now and get solid on that foundation, you can go wherever you want to. It doesn't mean you can be anything you want to be. Like we all have gifts and talents, right? So, you know, I was never going to play a professional football, you know, that was just not going to happen. But I might be, if that was my desire to be really close to football, then there's certainly ways I could have done that, right? I could have thought about, okay, what are my capabilities? How can I work in that area? You know, maybe I'm a coach or whatever it happens to be. Or who do I have to align with? Right. We drop the football idea, like whatever the business thing you're thinking about, I can tell you one thing. You do not have all the skills and capabilities and talents to build it on your own. There are people that have different skills and capabilities that you want to collaborate with. And so you can get to that business that you want to develop by being honest about what you bring into the table and what else has to be brought to the table and how do you collaborate in a way that's effective, right? Does that make sense to you?

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Yeah, 100%. 100%. And I think it takes, you know, you talked about being real where you're at. So when you are real where you're at, you're a little bit more curious. You ask more questions, right? You want to have more conversations and and and understand where other people are at. How can I get to to where I want to go? Right. And and just taking small bit pieces from other stories and and putting it into your own and adding that belief and and realizing that it took it took other people 20 years, 30 years, 10 years, whatever the case may be, and understanding that, you know, you're you're right there as well. And that, you know, also too that, you know, telling yourself that life is great right now, too. Right. I think a lot of times we compare ourselves to a lot of other people. Right. And which is why I think a lot of folks want to go from zero to hero, and they want to go fast. And if it doesn't happen as fast as we want it to go, then we quit. And I think it's a direct effect of looking at other people and seeing that maybe they have these certain results that we think that they have, or that they have these results that we want, and we look at ourselves and we feel like we don't add up or measure up.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Yeah. Talk about a few things that I think are great there, right? Gratitude and curiosity. Yeah. And working in flow, you know, one of the things that we do is really look at like what are the habits that you have. Because, you know, we can all acknowledge, like, hey, having a really healthy positive psychology is important. And so some people are like, yeah, no, I want to have this positive psychology. And then you get into it and you say, that's that's fantastic. I'm so happy for you. Please share with me the practices and behaviors that you're engaged in that are building that for you, right? In other words, like it goes back to the physical, like, wow, I really want to have a great body. Like, that's fantastic. Tell me what you're doing to build that. But it seems like we have a better understanding, like that I got to go to the gym and eat right, do the things I need to do physically. But we believe that the psychology is something that I shouldn't say we, but many believe the psychology is something that just happens to us. Like we either, you know, got the great positive psychology or we didn't. But like you said, gratitude. Be grateful for where you are and be curious, be open-minded, be that that's I think a part of go back to the fixed mindset. A fixed mindset is really stuck on the idea that you do know. Right. Yep. Like you do know. And as you let go of that and you realize, hey, I don't know. I don't know. I don't, you know, and the and again, saying the more I know, the more I know I don't know. I always, you know, when people are so certain, I'm always like, okay, that's well, I know one thing about them. They don't, they haven't been curious, right? Because if you're curious, even stuff you know a lot about, you still are, you know, you know, when I think about it myself, I'm like, I know a lot about a lot of things, but I don't know everything about anything. If I, you know, there's there's nothing I go like, yeah, I'm done. I got it all.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

It's all evolution, right? Yeah. Yeah. You brought you said something, protecting the image or yeah, the image that people have of themselves. And I think a lot of people do that, right? Right. I can even I can think about examples of my life of when I've done that a lot. And I've been f I've been scared to go after certain things because I wanted to protect the image that I had of myself. If I mess up, then the image that I have, or or maybe this perception that people have of me might change, right? And I think a lot of times in my mind I've I've tried to hold a certain perception in people's mind of what they have of me, as opposed to just going after something and being true to myself and not really worrying about it, right? Letting it go, right? I don't know. Do you have any solution for that or maybe a remedy for that, of how people or men specifically can kind of let go of that need to protect the image of themselves?

Dropping Image Protection

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Again, I don't know that there's ever a simple thing, but there's a saying that comes up to me as it relates to that. And I it's gonna play into the age game that I'm doing right now. But you may have heard the saying, but I love it. It says, when I was 18 years old, take yourself back to when you're 18 years old. I was so concerned about what other people thought about me. Right? You remember yourself kind of in high school, and you know, yeah, for sure. What are people thinking about you and things along those lines? How old are you today, Josh? 29. 29. Okay. Yeah. So the second part of the saying, as I approached my 40s, I realized I didn't so much care. Now that I'm in my 60s, this is the real key. Yeah. I realized no one was thinking about me anyway. And so I think one of the real challenges is we have this story that we're this central figure in everybody else's life and they're spending all their time thinking about Josh. When the truth is that you're a bit player in almost everybody's world.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

And we're we're sacrificing our ability to grow because we're thinking like they're really focused on that bit player. They are the stars of their own lives. Right. So we must be the stars of our own lives. And another really important thing, I think, are you familiar with Brene Brown? I am. Yeah. So anyway, all the work she does on vulnerability, right? And one of the things she talks about is that when you think about people and you think about what do you really admire, like something about somebody, it often ties into their vulnerability, their authenticity, their willingness to be real, their willingness to take a risk, right? She wrote the book what is it, Dare to? I forget, but it was based on the quote from Teddy Roosevelt, The Man in the Arena. Man in the arena. So it was based on that idea, right? Like you have to be in the arena to have a shot at it. There's another really good book that is called Be Your Future Self Now. It's by Dr. Benjamin Hardy. Are you familiar with it? Yes. I am actually. So what what he talks about in there is that if you're not in the arena, you fail by default. And he also says it's better to fail as your future self than to succeed as your present self. Right. And so what happens for so many of us is we get attached to this persona that we've created and what we believe everybody sees in the world and that it's their main focus. And so we stay in a career that doesn't really fulfill us because we're like, well, what if I wasn't? I used to be a financial planner, which is a great career. It just wasn't totally lined up with who I am. And so, but there was a part of it that you had had to separate, right? Had to say, hey, you know what? That's a great career. Lots of great people are doing it. That's not what I was born to do. But you also run, you know, the scary, like, I'm going to do this new thing. Am I going to be successful in this new thing? And so again, it comes back to you can get anywhere you want to go if you get honest on where you are and think about like what does that future look like? And then think about all the different elements and begin to collaborate and partner and let go of the need to have all the credit. Right. I think that's one of their real challenges when people are, you know, I know that this person has some expertise that would be helpful for me, but I'm going to protect my ego. Or, you know, if I get him involved, maybe everybody's not going to just think I'm the only one that did it. I was a self-mate. And so really thinking through like you get a chance. This is Mary Oliver has a quote that says, What are you going to do with your one wild and beautiful life? And I think that's a really important question to ask, right? If you go through your life living it for other people, one, you're inauthentic and you're never going to have the deep joy and gratitude, you know, greatness in your life that you could have otherwise. And so, you know, being willing to be vulnerable, be authentic, be curious, look to where your gifts and talents and passions are, and know that they are totally valid. Whatever you're passionate about, whatever your desire is, the way you want to impact the world or the way you see the world, right? Your perspective may be different than someone else's. And it doesn't mean that yours is right, but it's a valid perspective. And you get an opportunity to live your life, right? Your one, your one wild and beautiful life. And how are you going to go about that?

Purpose, Alignment, And Aging

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Yeah. 100%. That I mean, that that quote about being 18 and worrying about what other people think of you. I remember seeing that quote a while back, and I forgot all about that. So I'm glad you brought that up. Right. And, you know, you mentioned earlier you said the best life you can live is a life that is yours, right? A li a life that's true to you. Right. And, you know, I I definitely have been caught up in following other people's path because I saw the money that they made, right? I saw the kind of the financial, you know, stability that they had. I think that was one of the main things that I saw. And I just kind of chased that. I kind of went into that direction as opposed to really thinking about what are my values, what kind of life do I want to live, what is my purpose, what lights me up, you know, what actually do I want to do, and who do I want to be? Right. A lot of times I just kind of chase the money, especially early on living here in Chicago. You kind of see people riding around in nice cars and they look good and they smell good. And, you know, I chased that. I know for a fact I did. Right. And, you know, now that I'm, you know, kind of approaching my 30s, yeah. I'm getting old. I'm getting old. I'm approaching my 30s. You know, I'm in a space of thinking and reflecting and kind of understanding the skills I've developed, the people I have in my life, what am I truly aligned with? Right. You know, you you can make great money and then you realize, like, okay, I've made great money and that's good, but it's something there that I'm not truly aligned with. And so looking to find that alignment and that flow in life and not just coasting through the day. You know, I think a lot of folks kind of coast through the day. They have a career that's really good, and then, you know, they have meetings and they're on their phone during the meeting, and like it's just not lighting you up, you know? Right. And so, no, I definitely I love all of that. I love all of that.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

Yeah. And as a 29-year-old, congratulations. That's when I was first getting sober, you know. So, I mean, you're in a lot better place than I was. And and I and there's we're clearly there's nothing wrong with making money, but it's not as fulfilled, it's not fulfilling if you're not doing it while making an impact and using your natural gifts.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

And and again, when we look at purpose, right? If we go back to purpose and you say, you know what, I want to make an impact on something that really makes a difference, whatever that thing is. Like one of, you know, one of my big purposes from this moment forward is to shift the way society thinks about aging. And so I believe that we have this misperception about this decline that we're going to experience that's inevitable and it's going to start when you're 40. And and so for that reason, there's so much talent and capability and resources that we as a society have available to us that we're basically casting out into the field, right? And so that's my purpose. And so if I think about, okay, well, that's a big challenge, right? There's a ton of resources and capabilities that enjoy and pleasure and impact and connection, all of that is available. And there's a huge need to help people shift the way they think. To say, hey, maybe that belief system I had before about what was going to be possible at these different ages is wrong. And if I can play a role in shifting that perspective, I help to influence and solve a big problem. Financial resources have to come. That's the way the universe works, right? When you use your gifts and talents and passions to make a contribution to solve challenges, resources come. Now, there are some places you could choose to do it in a total non-for-profit and things like that. That might be a choice that you make to say, you know what, I have zero interest in that. And I'm, this is my whole purpose, and I'm gonna, you know, Mother Teresa this. Right. But there are also ways to really think about like, where what do you think makes a difference? You know, is it with young men that you're influencing and saying, you know what, if I can be a voice where people can see me as a 29-year-old who chased that, not that there's, you know, evil or wrong in that, but it didn't fulfill me. And I can help young men recognize, like, hey guys, take the time to think about what you really care about, what's your purpose, and you can influence that, then you're going to have a big impact and you're gonna get rewarded. And you're gonna get rewarded doing what you want to do, fulfilling your purpose, rather than just chasing money and then thinking you're gonna buy your joy through material possession.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you talked about perspective, right? And I think a lot of this is perspective, right? And thinking about I'm thinking about life's challenges, right? I'm thinking about, you know, how we see those when they come up and how we handle it, right? And for example, you know, you talked about just getting sober at 29, right? And how, you know, probably in the moment it was it was a struggle, but now when you look back on it, it is something that you can use to give people confidence in their own journey, right? To share that, hey, look at look at me now. This is what I was then, and you can change too, right? You can grow too. Perspective, right? Right. How can people start to, I guess, take a step back and have a better perspective on things?

The Prism Of Perspective Model

SPEAKER_01 40:29

Well, great questions. And so if we look the way I look at perspective, um, I actually have a program called the Prism of Perspective. And for those of you who are familiar with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, I think you're the album cover, right? So that the white light comes into the prism and then it's refracted into the colors of the rainbow. So the mental model that I want people to think about, the metaphor here, is that your life is like white light. And that just like white light contains all the colors of the rainbow, your life contains all of the different opportunities that you that are out there. And based on your beliefs and your energy and your presence, it determines how you live your life. Right. So you can have the same raw materials coming at you. But based on, you know, if you believe that you're incapable of growing, you believe other people are untrustworthy, and you believe the world is scarce and dangerous, you're not going to see the world the same as somebody else who believes that they are capable of meeting challenges and growing and developing, and they believe others are trustworthy and collaborative and caring and loving, and they believe the world is safe and that it's abundant. You're that different set of beliefs is going to bring totally different raw materials into your world to engage with. And then it's really the habits that you have like how do you generate the physical energy, the psychological well-being, the emotional resilience to continue to work with that raw material to create the life that you want. So you're a co-creator in the universe and a partner and a collaborator rather than feeling like you're a victim or you have to fight for everything you have. And so perspective, your perspective creates your reality. There is, we are not seeing the reality. We are seeing the reality we've created based on our beliefs coming in, right? There's they estimate to be billions of bits of information that we could process any given moment, but our sensory perceptions limit it to about 120 bits. And so you've got billions of bits, you're seeing 120, and then you're going, I saw reality. No, you saw some tiny little fraction of it that you manufactured that was a confirmation bias on what you already believed. And so, unless you want to be able to shift that, you have to step back and challenge what you believe to be true. Well, like you said, curiosity, right? You have to be curious. What might I be missing? This is how I'm seeing the world. How am I framing this? Or what are other ways of interpreting this? And then as we begin to loosen that, we get to see other things and begin to move up, right? So when that fixed, we'll go back to the alcoholism, right? So even coming through that, if we think of the hero's journey, right? You go into the cave and you know the treasure you seek is in the cave. Well, I was often over that 15 years of drinking fearful of going into the cave, right? So I would go right up to the edge of the cave. It wasn't like the first time when I was 29. I thought, hey, you know what, this drinking thing's not really working for me. There were a bunch of times along the way. You know, and then I, but it wasn't like I had I didn't have the courage to stay with it. And I backed out and I went to what was comfortable. And it it was comfortable, but it certainly wasn't great. And there was actually a fair amount of discomfort in it as well, right? I mean, just not lack of. Growth. I didn't have a I was under a bridge kind of alcoholism. I just couldn't control my drinking, right? I would go out drinking and I would be drunk, and that's not a really great thing. So, but it's difficult to build something when you have lack of confidence in your ability to show up, right? If you tell yourself, I don't want to drink anymore, and then you go out and drink again, you don't have a whole lot of confidence that anything else you tell yourself you're going to do, you're going to do. And so part of it is allowing yourself to weaken that hold that you have about what your limiting beliefs tell you and say, that's that's a way of looking at it, but it's not the big truth. And having that curiosity. And then also taking gratitude. Part of what helped me get sober was I was doing a self-evaluation near New Year's. I got sober on this is 34 years on New Year's Day. I was kind of looking at my life and I was, you know, I'm a fairly good communicator. I was in the sales field. I was, you know, so I was having some successes. But I then I asked myself the other question, you're like, what's going to get in the way? And it was like I could not not see that that was going to be continue to be a problem. You know, and then getting honest, like, where does that really take me? You know, where does that take me? And instead of going, oh, it's going to be fun. I'm going to be the fun guy at the party and I'm going to whatever, I realized, like, hey, you know what? Hey, DWI is definitely possible. Right. Ending up in jail is definitely possible. Doing completely inappropriate things when I was drunk is definitely possible. And so I think it's part of like looking at where you are, being honest, and then recognizing I'm not going to die that way.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Right.

Environment, Friends, And Friction

SPEAKER_01 45:46

I still have a chance to evolve. And when people bring up, you know, they say, Well, I'm just this. This is how I am, right? You get that a lot, you know? Oh, but but I'm this. And I one of the things I often say is, That's cool. I said, Do you want to die that way? You know, like whatever their little limiting belief is that they're attached to, that they want to tell me, well, this is it's because I'm this thing. And I'm like, oh, cool. Do you want to do you want to die with that being true about you? And they're like, well, no. I say, oh, okay. So when do we begin to let go of that and move into your vision of this, you know. What one of the other things that like the name of my company is courageous authenticity. And when I named it, it wasn't really true about me. You know, this is it was aspirational, right? Right. I mean, I was what you want to. Yeah, I was authentic as long as it was safe. Right. Like as like if I was in my own group of people that thought the same way I was, I was. But if I was going to be in a situation where who I was might not be fully embraced, I would not be as courageously authentic. And so I named my company that. And over the years, I have, I feel like I show up as me. You know, I show up as me. And there's people that love me, and there's people that think I'm whatever, you know. But the only thing that I know is the only way for me to really live a passionate life is to be me. I can be a really, really, really good me. I cannot be a great second Josh Dillingham. Right. I'm just not going to be, you know, second rate version of you. You're going to be the best you. And if we can trust that that we all are have awesomeness inside us and it's going to express different ways, but trust, like, who am I really? How have I really been wired? What's inspirational to me? Because my causes aren't everybody else's cause and they shouldn't be. You don't have to choose the things that I believe in or that you believe in. Choose a thing. Yeah, I mean, choose the things that you, whoever's listening, really care about. And think about like you are this, and there's a, again, we'll go back to be your future self now. There's a there's a quote in there that I love. It says, from your future self's perspective, you are sitting on a gold mine. Right. And so, like, you have all of us have this incredible capability to create amazing things. And from our future selves, right, if I were to look at it 20 years out and I'm 83 years old, you don't think I would kill to have the physical capabilities I have today at 63? Right. Right? To be having my children be nearby, right? To have the all of the things that you have. And so you, as a 29-year-old, have even more of a gold mine, right? Um I'm not sad about my goldmine, but you know, you look at it, everybody listening, you have this incredible capability. If you lean into who you are to create whatever that really matters to you. Yeah. And be patient and allow it to incrementally compound. And then just like interest, right? If you ever see those like start investing when you're 20, here's what you have, you know, that's what happens, right? It it and again, there's not a day where you're like, wow, today was the day that I radically changed. But the compounding effect. You ever hear that thing like if you get 1% better every day, you're 300, you know, whatever it is. 165% over the year. But it's even more, it's compounded, right? So you have a bigger, even bigger. But sometimes you look at it and go, can I really get 1% better every day? I don't think so, right? I I that that's that but you can maybe get one tenth of 1% better or whatever that thing is. The compounding effect of tiny little improvements every day is transformational, right?

SPEAKER_00 49:55

It's it's it's and I mean, I mean if you think about it five years from now, right? It's even crazier. Totally different place. It's even crazier. Yeah. You know, you talk about being courageously authentic, and I think, you know, uh a lot of folks can struggle with it, right? Hey, I, you know, when I'm around my friends, I'm this way. When I'm here, I'm this way. But a lot of folks don't even understand who they are authentically are, you know. You know, you think that when you're with your friends, that's who your authentic self is, but it might be a version of you that just shows up around them, right? But if you really don't reflect and understand who you really are, you won't even know who to be or who you want to be, right? Who you want to become, right? And I think authenticity is something that is some, you know, I think through my 20s, right? Something that I've learned and something I think I continue to learn of like who, you know, who, who am I really? And what do I want to engage in? How do I want to spend my time? You know, how do I articulate myself? How do I who who am I? Right. And then I think the number one key is to understand and trust myself, right? Trust that who I am is amazing, right? I like myself at the core of it.

SPEAKER_01 51:19

Absolutely. And and you talked about friends, and I think that's a really important thing, too, because absolutely we want to be authentic and the environment we live in does matter. Yeah. And so you don't want to put yourself, like for me. I don't want to put myself in a situation or situations or surround my have the people that are most dominant in my life have a radically different belief system and value system than I do. Because you're probably familiar with a quote from Jim Rohn, right? You become the five people you hang out with the most. You spend the most time with, yeah. And and so part of the great authenticity is being courageous enough to let go of some relationships or to alter relationships, you know, that aren't serving you. You know, there that's what has to happen in order to continue to evolve. You have to be around other people that want to continue to evolve. Because if somebody in your world or you surround yourself with people that want to are really kind of committed to staying stuck, they don't want you to grow. Right? They don't want you to pull away. And so they're, you know, it's more difficult to be that authentic self that says, hey, you know, I'm not going out partying tonight. I got a big project due tomorrow, and I'm really pouring into it. Oh, Josh, you're just whatever, you know? And you get the negativity rather than, hey, that's awesome, Josh. I'm so proud of you, man. You're really evolving and becoming this awesome expression of who you are. Let us know how that went, right? How different is that going to feel? And like we want to make the environment, we want to think about frictionless to the behaviors we want, friction between the behaviors we don't want. You want to set up your environment so that it's encouraging you and making it easier to be who you really want to be. And that takes thoughtfulness and it takes courage and it takes uh recognition that not everyone you grew up with is going to be on that journey with you, and that there are amazing, wonderful people that you can continue to bring into your life that are gonna collaborate with you and partner with you and support and encourage you, and you're gonna do the same for them on that journey.

SPEAKER_00 53:42

Yeah, right. Yeah. And and I I don't think people realize, you know, because a lot of times we have friends who aren't bad people necessarily, right? They're they're good people, right? But maybe they don't they don't multiply what you're looking to do, right? Right. You know, and I don't I don't know you you you talked about finding people that collaborate you on your journey, they collaborate with you on your journey of growth. And when you're living in flow, you have these people that kind of come along your journey, and you don't realize how much they maximize you, how much they uh help you grow and see things differently, and pretty much kind of knock the the the lid that you have, right? And a lot of times we want to hold on to our friendships and we say, you know, these are good people and they've always been there for me.

SPEAKER_01 54:37

Right.

SPEAKER_00 54:37

Yeah, we got a lot of memories and different things like that, but you just don't realize how much you can grow if you can let go, right? And a lot of times it becomes apparent, right? You feel like, hey, I'm starting to outgrow this uh, you know, routine that we have of going out all the time, right? I'm starting to feel uncomfortable now because I'm growing and I don't feel comfortable with this anymore. You know, you start to want to say no more than yes, right? And make your friends.

SPEAKER_01 55:12

When you're saying yes to your authentic best version of yourself, you are by definition having to say no to other things.

SPEAKER_00 55:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:20

Right?

Where To Find John & Fitness Presence

SPEAKER_00 55:21

We can't say yes to everything. Yeah. 100%. 100%. Yeah. John, man, I I feel like me and you, we can talk for for five, we can do one of those five, four-hour podcasts. But what where can people find you, right? I I know you have the pop podcast, Prism of a Perspective. You know, obviously you're in performance coach as well. Where can people find you, follow your journey, and and and learn more about what you have to offer?

SPEAKER_01 55:48

Well, Prism of Perspective Podcast, and I wrote the book Prism of Perspective, so that's an area. My website is my name, JohnHyphenGarritty, right? And so you can find me there and coach John Garrity, Instagram and LinkedIn and things along those lines. And uh, I just want to express my appreciation. You know, I think that you know, you're a wonderful, mature, thoughtful 29-year-old, and I have great expectations for you. I I really appreciate the thoughtfulness and the work you put into being prepared. Yeah. You know, I I think you found, you know, and it's gonna continue to grow and evolve, but you found a really great place for what seems natural to you. And uh real pleasure to have this opportunity to have this conversation. So thanks for the invitation.

SPEAKER_00 56:41

Yes, I appreciate you. And you know, I'm I'm looking at your website, and you look like you lift some weights too. So you fool me. I actually don't.

SPEAKER_01 56:50

I I'll I'll take a moment to describe something. Um so are we good for a couple minutes? Yeah, I'm good. Okay. I'm good. So I I mentioned that I had worked with the guy that invented high-intensity strength training, Arthur Jones. I don't know if that was our pre-call or whatever. But so I yeah, I think we talked about it. And and so what I have done, so I'm 63, and that was 40 some years ago. And and I've been working out since I was 10. And so for the first until I was 45, I did. I lifted a lot of weights, I, you know, lifted hard. And and I, you know, my genetics never are gonna end up having me look like you, right? I'm like, I'm the wide receiver and you were like the running back or the, you know, the strong safety or whatever it was you were, right? You can tell by the way something's genetically built. But what is really cool that I believe to be true is that when we exercise, we just want to think about creating the environment that makes it challenging for our bodies. And so I do I create a form of exercise called fitness presence. And it's a kind of a combination of like yoga, tai chi, contemporary dance, and isokinetic exercise where you're basically fighting yourself, right? Your resistance is all internal and it you don't even really have to touch because you can have your back fight your chest and your lats fight your shoulders and you know, hamstrings and your quads in battle. And so when you do that, it does the exact same thing as strength training, right? It does the exact same thing as building muscle because your body has no idea what's creating the resistance. Well, and what's cool about it is you can do eccentric and concentric contractions at the same time, right? So you're this is a concentric contraction for my shoulders and an eccentric contraction for my lats. And so when you really are thoughtful about what you do, like my workouts take me 15 minutes. I don't use any equipment. And as a 63-year-old, I'm like when I was working in the health club industry when I was back in the day, I'm just as fit as I was then. And it's kind of cool. So I I have nothing against strength training. I with weightlifting, the reason I don't do it is because it's more mentally challenging to create the resistance internally. And a lot of why I work out, or a significant piece of why I work out, is I want the cognitive benefit of forcing my body to do something demanding, right? So that I'm continuing right again, you make an environment that you have to adapt to. And so by doing this exercise, fitness presence. So if, yeah, fitness, if you look that my website up, you can also look into fitness presence. And it's it's a I I believe, and my kids always tell me I can't say, I think it's the most effective way to exercise because it's reverse-engineered exercise and it does everything in 15 minutes and requires no equipment.

unknown 59:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 59:33

And it's super simple. You got a lot of time on your hands to do everything else, right? 15-minute workout. Man, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:41

I always say, because people will say, you know, I wish I worked out, or, you know, how do you do that? And I they I don't have the time. I said, yeah, man, that's a bummer. Like if you could get it done in like, say, just 1% of your day, would you do it? And they're like, oh yeah, if I could do it 1% of the day, yeah, of course I would do it. You go, great, that's 15 minutes. Here we go. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:00

Man, this is great. This is great. I'm taking a look at it now. This is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:04

I'll send you uh I'll send Yeah, send me some.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:07

I I would like to, I would like to give it a try.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:09

Yeah, and any, yeah, I'll send you like a little video thing that I do on it. And at the beginning, I teach the principles that I think about when I'm doing it. Right. So, like, what am I thinking as I'm doing this to make it challenging? So there's 10 principles that I I I have built into this, and then there's in in this thing, and I'll give it to anybody that wants. If you go to like my Instagram and or LinkedIn and just write fitness presents, I'll send you this, these two videos. And and and I again, uh, you know, there's lots of ways to get there. But if we're gonna think about what is the true definition of effectiveness, it's like how much of an output do you get for an input? And if I can spend 15 minutes and I don't, I can do it. And the other cool thing is like if I'm on a I'm on the top of a mountain somewhere and the sun's coming up, and you know, whatever, I'm in a waterfall, I can do my workout, which I love because I love to move. You know, I'm usually doing it to move music, you know. So it's this thing that's like a self-expression and it gives me incredible results in a brief amount of time. So uh thanks for asking.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:13

No, this is I mean, I'm taking a look at it, it's it's amazing. So yeah. Uh it's been a fun little yeah, it's one of my passions.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:20

And that's again, when I look at it and people are like, oh, you know, for my age, I'm like, don't tell me that. Peace out, my friend. Really enjoy it. I'll send that out to you. All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:32

A hundred percent. All right. Take care, buddy. Yep, bye bye.