Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 201 | the secret to inner happiness and a 40 year marriage | erwin and kim mcmanus

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

Today we sat down with Erwin McManus and his wife, Kim for an incredible conversation about mental toughness, mental clarity and mental health, all premises of Erwin’s newest book, “Mind Shift.” Erwin is an award-winning author and artist and his books have sold over one million copies. He is the lead pastor of Mosaic church, based in Los Angeles, and has spent the last thirty years advising and coaching CEOs, professional athletes, celebrities, and world-leaders to reach their full potential.  To order a copy of “ Mind Shift: It Doesn’t Take a Genius to Act like One” click below: https://www.erwinmcmanus.com/mindshift Erwin’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erwinmcmanus/?hl=en Erwin’s Website: https://www.erwinmcmanus.com/ Love you guys! Shawn and Andrew  Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/AndrewDEast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Conjuring, last rites. Only in theater September 5th. what's up everybody welcome back to a couple things with Sean and Andrew a podcast all about couples and the things they go through something that I have been loving lately about our interviews with couples is I feel like when we started this show every interview kind of had the same context it was like how did you meet what's your story how did you propose but now we're just having like intentional conversations with couples that happen to relate to their marriage It kind of feels like a double date.

It does. Philosophical discussions with other couples. We should rename the show double date. Double date. I enjoyed this conversation with Kim and Erwin McManus. I wish we had another hour. Yeah. I wanted to ask them so many more questions because their story is fascinating.

Kim was an orphan. Erwin came from El Salvador and now they have formed a church called Mosaic. Yep, which I actually attended in L.A. Yeah, and actually they removed the term church, so it's just called Mosaic. And their whole life philosophy is really interesting. He came to know God as an adult, and so I wanted to ask him why. It's like so interesting. And how that affects their marriage, because they met in seminary.

Yeah. But the reason we're talking is because Irwin just came out with a new book called Mind Shift. And so we discuss a lot about mind shifts in this episode, including how powerful marriage can be with that. what it means to love deeply and we tell about their background stories well a lot of good laughs in this a lot of good laughs and i would love to interview them again so irwin kim thank you for the time for those listening that want to see and get access to irwin's new book we'll link it down below but and for those listening that want to check out irwin's new book called mind shift we'll link it down below kim and irwin thank you so much for your time we hope you listening enjoy this and

And without further ado, we bring you Kim and Erwin McManus. We can start with the fight that you guys were, you know, just coming out of because I thought that fighting would end at a certain point in marriage, but you're saying it doesn't. Now, we like to make it throughout the marriage. It's best when it's integrated. Yeah. We're celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary in January. Oh, wow.

Congratulations. Thank you. Yep, married four years. We met when we were in our 20s. We were both getting our master. and we both met at seminary of all places to me at seminary I'm curious about what the first interaction was and when you guys first locked eyes you know you are a true romantic like that when you're first locked eyes if you locked eyes with someone the first time you met them

you'd be a stalker andrew but we had different memories when we first met so the truth is that no we were we were actually first semester starting seminary going we were in a church we met there and i thought your roommate was hot wow no he was a no erwin but erwin came with fire he came with fire and i think that that's what really just drew me in was his his passion, his love for people, and then he was working on the streets with the homeless and then that was a big thing. That is a very passionate code word saying, I wasn't anything for what she was looking for.

And my first memory of meeting Kim, I had started a project in downtown Fort Worth for the homeless and for people just living on the street. streets. And I remember Kim was talking to this guy that was a pretty ruthless guy. He was really violent and very aggressive. And one of the guys came to me said, hey, that young girl, she's talking to the wrong guy. And I knew he wouldn't hurt her, but I said, it's okay, let her, that she wants to come out here. She needs to know what the streets are really like. And so they had a pretty intense conversation. It didn't go well. She comes up to me. I'm tuning my guitar and she goes can we talk and I look at this girl and I go yeah yeah just give me a minute you

know I got to get ready and then she she goes can we talk right now I said yeah just one minute she turned around and started walking away and I saw it that she began sobbing so I chased her I put my guitar down I chased her down the you know the street she's just crying out of control and I said don't cry don't cry and she said I want to cry and I said okay cry cry so that's my first conversation with kem and so i always say i met him on the streets i only heard i only heard he chased me you guys are great i i was so excited for this yeah and kim's dream was to marry a um a doctor who was going to be a missionary to africa and i'm a city guy i'm from old salvador

I lived in New York in Miami, and I would have never been a doctorate, but I have been a patient. And so I didn't really qualify, and I knew I was going to send my life in cities. You know, and so we had very, very different pictures of the future. So we were friends, and she did like one of my friends. You actually wasn't my roommate, but she did like this guy that worked with me a lot, and I tried to set them up. and you know and really for us the beginning of it was just we were just friends and we did a lot of things together we played racquetball together she had a terrible temper and she'd lose a point and smash

the racket against the wall and and then I let up and she goes don't you let me and she get angry if I let up and then if I won the point she got angry because she lost the point and so our first date kind of together we fought on the racquetball court and after about 30 minutes I looked her and I said hey when you learn how to play like an adult give me a call it sounds like you're fiery too Kim you call you called Irwin fiery he has nothing but fire but my his comes from passion mine is it's anger I just generally anger no no you know Kim is a farm girl girl. And she grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. And she was, she won't tell you this because she's very understated. But Kim was an orphan. She was abandoned. She was around eight years

old in a government project, left starving. And a lot of her brothers and sisters ended up on the streets or drug addicts or drug dealers or criminals or adopted. And, and Kim had to survive really psychologically, at least on her own. She was in a foster home from the age of 8 to 18 and never heard the words, I love you one time, always wore clothes that were bought at thrift stores and really knew object poverty. And so she had to develop a toughness that very few people ever have to develop.

And, you know, and if I ever met anyone in my life, or I feel like God just pulled them out of a terrible story and gave them an extraordinary future, it was Kim. That's right. Wow. how far into your guys is like dating lives or marriage did you end up in your respective fields well we we still don't know what my respected field is

and she's always wondering when I'm doing this year you know we've been it's been really amazing for me I'm always trying new things and I'm always innovating and inventing and creating something unexpected and it would have never been possible for me Kim has always trusted me as a person as opposed to just trusting the idea

I think I had a lot of ideas Kim didn't agree with a lot of ideas that Kim thought were crazy and would never work but she always has always really consistently trusted me as a person and that's what makes our marriage work. And then I think from my end with her,

I just began to realize that Kim begins to die when she's on an extreme mission. And when Kim can lead a group to Bangladesh and set young girls free from the sex trade and build a school or build a school of Malawi and give a future to an entire tribal community or work in India to develop women leaders, Kim is fully alive. And so I just realized early on that I wanted to be married to the best version of Kim,

and that best version was always when she's on some extreme mission. And I'm not going to stop her, so my miles will go ahead and be super supportive than fund is. Wow. Kim, your Instagram handle is Kim is alive. When did that originate? Where did that come from? Over 20 years ago. I've had that for over 20 years.

Really? And I think that is at my essence that I really, you know, aspire to be alive. And to answer your question, Sean, just how far into it did we start living, you know, the dream? My background was education. And so just I feel like in some capacity, I've always been an educator.

it just looks differently in different, you know, in different seasons of our lives. We were raising our kids and then that looked like one thing. And then now that they're grown, it looks differently. I can travel the world and do, you know, very proactive educational initiatives. And that looks different. And then everyone's always been, you know, doing a hundred different things. And I can't keep up with them. And that's what my life of anger, you know.

Describe the effect that. Uh, Kim trusting you has on you as a man, Erwin. Yeah, I think that early on, I, I, I didn't have as much, um, span of trust. She wanted to trust me, but it was really hard. And in a lot of it is, you know, even just our faith background, Kim would say, just tell me that, you know, the God is in this and I'm with you. and I grew up incredibly irreligious and I came to faith basically as an adult and I was always uncomfortable with people who always said God said this and God said this because later on they

would change your mind and I go I don't know if God changes his mind like that and I think maybe you think God said it and so I was always super respectful of saying whether I thought God was saying something I didn't want to play that card in our marriage and and so I would say think this is the right thing or I think this is an idea that's going to have a huge breakthrough and it wasn't comforting to her you know she she just wanted me to say this is what God is saying for us to do and if I had said that she would have trusted me and I was even when I felt it was God even in when I sensed deeply inside of me and I go I you know this is this is what God's calling me to do I was always really apprehensive to speak on God's

a half that way. And so that was always a little tricky early on. And I was doing stuff that no one was doing. I had no benchmarks. And of the way I was even designing church life. I mean, I took the name church off of church before as popular. And, you know, even with mosaic, it's not mosaic church, it's just mosaic. And it put us in all kinds of heat with the whole Christian world. It's such a small thing, but it made people angry. You know, when I started bringing art and dance and film and, you know, sketch comedy into our experiences on Sunday, that wasn't something Kim was excited about. She felt at first it was really sacrilegious and it would hurt people or drive people away.

And so early on, we had a lot of challenges because I felt things increasingly. incredibly intensely. Like, I have to do this. This is the way I'm going to create what I see in my soul. And I know Kim wanted to trust me, but she also heard all the criticisms. She absorbed all the hate. She absorbed everyone who said negative things about me. And they would go to her. And I think it created so much pain for her. And would that be fair? And so it took us years, I think before we got to a place where Kim, like I would say to Kim, this is what I'm here, this is what I see in the scriptures. And she would say, please don't tell anyone. And I said, no, Christianity is wrong. They've been reading the Bible wrong. This is not what this passage

says. It says the opposite. And Kim would just, please, please don't say that outside of the house. And I love the scriptures and I believe in the Bible so profoundly that I think it's a terrible thing when we believe what we've been taught rather than what it says. And so I feel this deep conviction to rip through our comfortable conclusions to truth. And that would create so much dissonance in our home. And so I would say it took us years. I mean, I do think there was a breakpoint in our life where we just realized we're on the same team. and in some ways sometimes it's us against the world and it doesn't matter who joins us who doesn't

we're on the same team together always was there a turning point for you kim when it came to that of oh we are a team or i can trust him was there a moment that you can remember or a phase like what what turned the page for you i think it's you know it's sensitive the moment i i decided that this is a moment of, you know, absolute trust was when I was watching his mom see him as the high schooler or not the man that he was, that I could see him as. And I had to take my stand behind him. And I said in my heart, I will always,

whether it's in front of his mother or in front of whomever, I stand with him and it wasn't blind trust because I don't feel like I trust anybody blindly I mean I'm very skeptical with people but trust that's painless is easy but we had gone through

and we're going through and had lived a life already a broken trust so it was it was painful to say not between us not between us but it was painful to say I am going to trust this man and above all others. And I've always had his back.

I mean, even when he didn't know it. And I probably openly said, I don't have your back. But I did have his back. It's just a journey. It's the journey that we've been on that we've had to stay connected like that. Early on in church life, we would have business meetings, and Kim would stand up and oppose me in the business meetings. Oh, yeah, yeah.

And so believe me, her trust was something I had to earn. And I realized early on that Kim was always going to act out of conviction. She was never going to conform. She was never going to just be compliant that Kim was going to act out of conviction in her life. And so those are conversations that we had to have as a couple. and so that we could be on the same page when we walk out in public. Oh, so now the strategy is anytime there's disagreement, you do it with just you two and not in the boardroom.

You also know what you're going to disagree about. You do know what you're going to disagree about. You know when you're going to do something, it's to create tension. It's going to create conflict or confusion. One funny story is that about 10 years ago, I decided for the first time to go in the fashion industry, in the film industry, sort of a business. And I didn't even know if I was going to stay pasturing. And I went and got Kim, we went and got breakfast and had coffee.

And I said, honey, I'm going to pivot in the next 20 years of my life. I'm going to be an artist. And I just want to, you know, let you know and make sure it's okay and help, you know. and I'm going to, you know, go in, start designing clothes and bags and make films and create art. And I'm still going to follow Jesus, but I'm not going to do it in the same, you know, in the same way. And she said, sure, go right ahead. She was so incredibly supportive. It was like the most beautiful moment. And a year later, she says, hey, we need to talk. And I said, oh, sure, but about what? She goes, it seems like you've suddenly gone off and become this like fashion

designer and film guy and and what what about ministry what about the church and and i and she was we you've never you need to talk to me about where you're going where we're going and i said honey we did have that talk a year ago and she said that talk didn't count because i didn't believe you could do it oh i know that situation well yeah i uh but what's funny is she ended up loving it I ask about that, that moment of unification because this, this is our seventh year of marriage. Well, I guess, sorry, we're on our eighth year of marriage. And it really has been a formative year where we've felt that. Like there's just been a couple significant life events that have happened where we've just had to turn to each other and be like, oh, yeah, you're my number one team.

Like, you're my number one priority and almost explicitly say it. and it was such a profound experience where I'm like marriage is so fun and like I even view conflict differently where it is more of a of a team effort of oh hey she's disagreeing with me but it doesn't need to be super contentious and it's really just her different perspective which is highly needed to balance out my perspective and so I'm like trying to think can you front load that earlier on in a marriage as opposed to having to wait seven years, 10 years to reach that point. Because it's also interesting

Erwin, you saying, if I had just told Kim that God is telling me to do this, then she would have been behind it. But the very discipline of you not telling her that is what builds the trust over time. And it's like, maybe it is just a

result of timeliness, you know? But I don't know. Just thoughts. I do think that different personalities, I was going to say men and women, but I don't know if that's always the case. But some people move from thinking single to married faster than other people. And I find a lot of times men when they get married are still thinking like a single guy who's now married. And the wife is thinking like a married person who used to be single and has to make individual choices.

And so in your marriage, you still have to make individual choices. and that are really about your unique calling or gifting or personality and now you have to make it in a different process and so we will go back and forth like I mean frankly Kim will book a trip to Malawi and forget to tell me like I will see it at the office on a calendar

oh she's leaving on Tuesday it's good to know but when she used to do that I would get angry, but not because I was really angry, but because, you know, you're playing the chips game, you know, and, you know, so now if I do a stupid thing or if I plan a trip without telling you, you can't get angry at me. And, and I realized a long time ago, oh, if I get angry, she's still going, but now she goes and she's sad. Yeah. And we're angry and we're not together. And so now it still happens now. And she'll, plan a trip and then I'll just go, I'm so happy for you. You know, I just want to know so that I can plan my life too. And and what's crazy is like my schedule is insane. If Kim wanted to live holding things over me, she could do it every five minutes of my life because, you know, she may plan that trip to Africa and forget to let me know, but I have stuff all the time that's messing up our life. Yeah. Things all the time that are changing our schedule. And if she was always holding me to

hey, you didn't tell me in time, our marriage would be miserable. And so a lot of it is just going, I'm just going to leave the other person grace. I know they're deeply committed to me. And I know when they make decisions like an individual, it's sometimes because they didn't have time or forgot to process it. Because a lot of times we're so close, we think we told each other and we didn't. And, you know, and I'll, and I said, honey, I told you. She goes, you did not tell me.

And I'm like, in my head, I'm so sure. I told her. But she's really saying whether I told her not is, you didn't process this with me. And so I'm blindsided. And so I think a huge part of marriage is realizing you have to give each other enough room to still make individual choices

and not see that as them like not respecting the marriage. And at the same time, you need to do everything you can to realize you're no longer processing life alone. the earlier you can bring them into the process, the more they feel connected. The earlier you're brought into the process, the more you feel respected.

And I think that's a really important part of it. Erwin, you've been named, titled, as a cultural architect. What do you and people mean by that? Well, it really comes out of my first book, called An unstoppable Force, where I wrote a book, about cultural movements and how empires emerge,

how movements happen. And I think early on, in my 20s, in 30s, I worked as a futurist and I worked with organizations and help them figure out how to have the kind of culture that is relevant to the world around them. And so a lot of it is because we, at that time, 40 years ago, we're not really paying attention to culture. We just like culture is something that just happened,

but culture is something that's created. created. And so I was really interested in cultural change. How do you create cultures where people are developed to achieve their greatest potential? How do you create a culture where people are highly valued and feel appreciated? How do you create a culture where there's transparency and authenticity and integrity? And so being a cultural architect for me was looking at people, not as individuals simply, but as an interconnected whole, that when we do things together, we create either a positive or negative culture. And, you know, maybe being an outsider, being from El Salvador,

and having English as my second language and American culture as a secondary culture for me, made me really aware of the fact that cultures are different. And, you know, when you go to church, churches have huge cultures. And they don't have rules. They have cultures. And, you know, so if you walk into a church and you're dressed wrong, you've really offended people or, you know, if you walk in church and you do something that isn't a part of the culture. You lived out in L.A. and you lived, you know, near the ocean. And what's interesting is that there are really no laws that say you can take your shirt off on the beach, but you can't take your shirt off once you're in Santa Monica Pier or on Third Street Promenade.

There's just a natural cultural awareness. Oh, I can take my shirt off here and I put it on here. Culture is actually more powerful than rules and laws. And so what you can know is the moment you have rules and laws, you lack culture. The moment you have a healthy culture, you actually don't need rules and laws. And that's why early on I became known as a culture architect. I would meet with organizations, helping to think through how do you create the kind of culture that creates a better world? Do you guys, Kim, feel like you've built a family culture? And if so, can you describe what that is?

Like your marriage culture, your family culture, I'm curious what the McManus household. I love that question. I love that question. I've never been asked that question. Thank you. You're welcome. We have. And I think that's been very intentional because it's not something that we ever had.

Or when, you know, broken home, broken home. And it was the intentionality of our marriage that we said we are going to create something here. that's going to last. And we didn't speak it like that. We just knew that's what we wanted. And the culture was built on, you know, creativity and learning and travel and serving people and ministry and caring and really trying to give our kids freedom to be who they, you know, were meant to be.

You know, education, because I, I came from that background, I thought, oh, we do it one way and realized the way that it's done here was not working for our children. Every time we took them, you know, on a trip, they would come back and feel the pressure of failing in class because they'd been gone for so long. And so we just realized, oh, our culture is not like every other family. We're going to take them out of school. We're going to homeschool. We're going to do something. We're going to do something different.

And ours doesn't have to be like every other family that we saw. and because I was very much about comparing our family to somebody else and hoping that we would measure up as, you know, as you do. But then I realized it's just not working. It took me years to figure that out. But all the while, Irwin is really, really good at gearing the ship. And so we found our way when other people weren't doing it the way that we were doing it. And we had to be okay with that.

And we had to be okay with the love of less people. and then but have our kids strong and and grounded and every time they felt grounded in us even though we were maybe in different places and not always home they they felt like oh okay we can we can do this we can do this and they grew up to be amazing people yeah you know Sean and Andrew you guys were in L.A and so you know that L.A. is not really a culture that has a high, high value for family. And in fact, you'd have a higher value for your pet here than you would have children.

And so it's a very different kind of cultures. When you ask that we create a family culture, I would say 75% of mosaic is single. And so you don't have a lot of family culture in LA. And then on top of that, even though they're single, they're also very disconnect. from their families. So you have an emerging environment here where families really diminished.

And in fact, you know, the idea of a husband and a wife or mom and dad is almost seen as the last worst option of human, you know, expression. And so it's been really important for us because, you know, on the spectrum of liberal to conservative, I'd say probably 95% of mosaic would be liberal, liberal Democrats or socialists, as far to left as you can go. And so here, Kim and I, we've been married for 40 years. And, you know, our kids live within 10 minutes of us because they want to be our friends. And they're adults now and they want to live in relationship with us. And we're trying to model something that is no longer really advocated or believed in. And we're not like preaching about it.

We just do it by living our life and trying to be an expression of something that's still really wonderful. And yeah, and so it's an interesting kind of dynamic here. And I think that's why a lot of the people who come to Mosaic actually listen to us is because there's a sense of aspirational nature of, oh, it's possible to have someone love you all your life. Oh, it's possible to actually, marriage isn't just an illusion. Marriage isn't just something antiquated. It's something that is real. And, you know, it's not just an obligation. It can actually become an extraordinary experience.

And, you know, I don't want people to think we've been married for 40 years because we have simply a biblical obligation to be married. And we've been married for 40 years because Kim is awesome. And we have this beautiful relationship and we keep growing. And you can experience a level of love when you fight through the heart things with someone that you cannot experience if you just keep bailing out, moving from person to person the person, the person. Yeah.

And so I think there's a deep, rich message that is really important, not just by what we teach, but what we live. We've been lucky enough on the show to interview hundreds of couples, 99.9% of which have come on the show and basically said just that. that they're in a marriage, they're happy, they've gone through so many ups and downs, but if it weren't for the marriage, they wouldn't be who they are.

Why do you think in today's culture, especially like you were saying in L.A., there's such this fear from millennial generation, Gen Z's younger kids, of, I could never do that because it will fail miserably. I think one of the reasons is because they come from a culture where parents said one thing and did the other. And they would rather not break commitments than make them.

And, you know, you can go through a divorce, but you don't also want to be a hypocrite. And so they decide, well, if there's two wrongs, I'll just pick one wrong, you know, or one lesser. And so I actually think that a part of the huge problem in the culture, everybody blames the culture that's emerged. But the reality is that a lot of people grew up in homes where even though their parents didn't divorce, their parents were miserable. And there was no love. It was a cold and indifferent space. And they watched one of the parents die inside. And, you know, the solution to believing in marriage isn't staying in marriage.

The solution to believing in marriage is. to have a vibrant, wonderful relationship with another human being that lasts a lifetime. And so I think part of the problem is that sometimes we have more commitment to the rules than we have to the essence that the rules are supposed to support. And if we want people to believe in marriage, we're going to have to figure out how to believe in love again and how to fight through the conflicts and the imperfection.

you know the reason marriages are hard is because human beings are imperfect you know the reason it's hard for our marriage to work is because i'm imperfect and i'm not going to speak on kim's behalf because i want to stay married another 40 if i'm still here and but it's it and if you if you always tap out when life gets hard you actually never grow you stay the same person and so i i think it's not just about people are willing to stay married. I don't think people are willing to grow and change and deepen as human beings. As I talk to people, the cheapening of the expression of love is with social media and with all of these apps and finding it's so hard. It's so hard

in this context to find true love. You know? And I don't know why we found it. But I know It's been hard for the people that we serve that we love deeply to find love. And it's most beautiful, wonderful, you know, expression. But all I know is I love Irwin, and he's my best friend. And that friendship has gotten us through. I want that for other people, the people that we love. I just can't make it happen. and that's very frustrating

in this culture yeah I tell people if you want to be rare like you know in LA everybody wants to be unique and say if you want to be rare love deeply because love is actually a very rare commodity in the human experience can you use a

synonym for love deeply like what is that say it differently for me I'm curious care about the other person more than you care about yourself you know that to me that's what loving deeply is and it's you're valuing the person more than you and I'm not happy because Kim makes me happy I actually experience happiness because I make Kim happy

like when Kim is happy I experience a deep deep level of joy like when Kim is fulfilled I feel a deep sense of fulfillment. And, you know, so it's interesting. It's it, if marriage is still in negotiation, where you're going, okay, I'll make you happy, you make me happy. Yeah. You know, you're still basically using a utilitarian formula to try to make a relationship work.

I actually experience happiness when I see Kim happy. When I know she's happy, that by itself is a reward to me. And, and so I don't need her then to make it even and make me happy. because I'm already ahead because when I see her living the life she wants to live I feel this incredible sense of fulfillment

and and you know there's a lot of things you do wrong in life but I'm not really sure why but I do think it's it is because when I met Kim and I knew she was an

I learned she was an orphan and I learned her life story I actually thought to myself I'm going to get the privilege of loving this person all of their life. As opposed to, I'm going to get the privilege of being loved by this person. And so I didn't marry Kim with a sense of guarantee that she would always love me. I married Kim with a guarantee that I would always love her. And then if she always loved me, that was a value added on top of that. Yeah. And I think that's what it means to love

deeply and is where that person's life and value has greater significance to you than even your own. And I know, I feel like Oprah says that's not good. You know, it's really important, you know, to love yourself most. And I understand the psychological weight of what is being said in culture. I just don't know if love works as pragmatically as that. Bank more oncours when you switch to a Scotia Bank banking package. Learn more at ScotiaBank.com slash banking packages. Conditions apply. Scotia Bank, you're richer than you think.

With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex presale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful banking of Amex. pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and vary by race terms and conditions apply learn more at mx.ca slash y annex it's interesting because i feel like it's a bit of a tugging war like the love deeply i am in my mind i think of the word commitment or sticking to it like it has to love deeply means loving when there's a lack of a reason to do so and you know you said kim is awesome and sean is awesome but the truth is sean is awesome some of the time you know

And not all the time. And so that's where like this idea of commitment or obligation does kind of pick up the slack where my feelings sometimes can't. But Andrew, you did say something about commitment and obligation. Yeah. And if I could, man, I hate the word obligation. Sorry. But I love the word commitment. Okay.

And I do think that. that what makes a difference when you talk about loving deeply is commitment. And it's not building the relationship on feelings or emotions, but on commitments and values. But not obligation. And because when you do something out of obligation, it means that you're making a choice based on external factors rather than internal factors. and what you're actually saying is that you've made internal choices that have now

informed every choice you're going to make in the future and so it's you know maybe one time when you're a kid you you know you ate or you drank something toxic and you made a decision I'm never going to do that again you're not living out of obligation because you're not drinking that toxic material and you've learned and you've made a choice that informs your whole life or you exercise when you're a kid and you decided I want to be a world-class athlete and the person who does that out of obligation will never make it to the top it's the person who does it out of commitment and there has to be a deeper fuel of that commitment which is love you know and so in your in your marriage when you're doing things out of obligation

you start tallying the points you start paying attention to how much you do and how much they do and you want to make sure they feel as obligated as you yeah when you do things out of commitment their response is not dependent on your choice i i accept and receive that differentiation i appreciate that that's that's really good uh you mentioned something earlier about staying the same person if you don't have a tool or a relationship or, I don't know, maybe like a love like marriage. Those are my words more than yours. But I feel like that lends itself well just transitioning us into your newest book, Mind Shift. Congratulations. But this is all about, this is all about, you know, this journey that begins it. Let's go. There it is. Looking good. I just got it. Congratulations. Tell us,

Tell us about this book. You know, this book to me is one of the most important books I've written in that. I began writing it actually in 1990 is when the concepts in the book began to form in my mind. I spent, well, we spent 10 years of our lives working with the urban poor, working with people in really desperate situations, underserved and in deep struggles. and one of the things I began realizing very early on is that you can give people opportunities but you cannot give them determination

that what's really important if you're going to help a person make mental breakthroughs in their life, life breakthroughs, is they need the internal mental constructs for success. And then now, you know, 40 years later, when I work with billionaires and really the top leaders in the world, I find the exact same situation.

And so what's interesting to me is the same things I saw when I was working with the poor, the same things I see now working with incredibly affluent and successful, it's internal mental limitations that actually hold us back. And if we don't pay attention to our internal structures, we will actually become our own worst enemies. And so the book is really focused not just on developing the structures to survive failure, but the internal structure is to survive success because the weight of success can be more destructive and crushing than the weight of failure in people's lives. What do you mean? How? It comes off as so

hard to believe. It's like, what do you mean? If I had a million dollars in the bank and a nice house, why would I struggle with that? So when you were an NFL player and you had your best day, did you still wonder if your life mattered? Yes. All right, that's what I mean. And, Sean, when you were at the top of your Olympic career, did you ever feel like you still were not worthy of love or this wasn't going to last because you didn't deserve it?

Absolutely. And that's what I'm talking about, is that you cannot have enough success to outgrow the internal structures that become self-destructive, that actually limit us, that actually hold us back. And why this became so important to me is that I'm a person of deep faith. I'm a person who believes deeply in Jesus. And I've been working with people for, we've been working with people for 40 years together. And I wish I could tell you that believing in Jesus instantly changed a person's internal mental

structures, but it does not. You can believe in Jesus and still have destructive internal narratives. You can believe in Jesus and still have bad thinking. And it's so important to understand that God designed you a certain way. And so when you believe in Jesus, you still have to drink fresh water. You still have to breathe in oxygen and you still need to eat food. If you believe in Jesus and eat unhealthy, you will get fat and unhealthy. If you believe in Jesus and eat food that makes your cholesterol go up, you still may die of heart disease. You don't eliminate the consequence of bad decision-making, even when you have a deep belief in Jesus. And so if you want to washboard stomach, you don't pray more and read the Bible more,

you do more sit-ups, or you eat less carbs. And for some reason, there's a superstition that has attached itself to our faith, where we go, all I need to do is believe in Jesus, and then everything else works out. And really the reality is, no, God designed you. a certain way. And you still need fresh water. You still need good food and you still have to breathe clean air if you're going to be a healthy human being. You still need proper mental structures if you're going to live an optimal life. And this book is committed to destroying internal limitations. And I think it's one of the most important conversations you can have

with the person when you realize bad thinking leads to bad choices, which leads to the life you do not want. And then you wonder, why did God let this happen to me? Wow. So we mentioned this last nine months or this year has been really formative for Sean and I and have has caused us to look towards each other and strengthen each other. One of the things that has happened is just a person in our close circle who had all the things, you know, just couldn't deal with the success. Couldn't deal with the success. And it's interesting, Kim, and I'm curious what mind shifts you feel like you've made going from an orphan to living the life that you have now and unlocking these things. But I realize, like, in some situations, when you're going from

a difficult situation to try and get out of it, it's trying to deal with, you're trying to get out of that, you know, bad situation and look towards something different. But on the flip side of the coin. There's some people that just can't deal with peace or stability. And it's this weird human quirk where I have to change something or let me swing bigger, you know, take, take an unnecessary risk. But anyway, it's been interesting to observe. I'm curious your journey, though, Kim. I think you're right as far as success being very difficult. Or even in my mind, And sometimes I wonder, do I, am I worthy of that? Can I even attain that?

Is it, you know, from where I came from, it was never in anyone's imagination, I have nine brothers and sisters, no one's imagination that anyone would graduate from high school. Therefore, as a child, you know, number six child, I was the first to graduate from high school. probably in generations. The first to go to college, the first to go on. To get her master's degree. And so there were already things set up in my brain before I went to foster care.

And even in foster care, when my foster parents were not, they were farmers, they were people who were very simple. They had also dropped out of school. So education was so undervalued because they didn't value human potential. And I struggled with that and with a lot of other issues. I think he wrote the book for me. He's trying to help me.

The man is trying to help his wife out, you know? Because he's had to live and sleep with this all of his adult life. Just my, the things, the constraints I put on myself. the constancy of those things that I have to say oh those are that's a belief that belief isn't right I got to go back I got to do this over I got to start thinking right and even recently I think I just told him where I said I don't see the value in positive thinking I think it's so overrated it is my giving up you know am I just giving up at 64 and because Irwin is such a positive person I'm like I'm owning my own

negativity thinking, you know, if I was a brain surgeon, if I see the tumor, that I have to, I can't just respond positively. I have to say, I got to take it out. That's a positive response. I can take it out. See, but I'm like, why are you always so positive? Why do you have to be so positive? So I'm my own worst enemy in my head is what I'm trying to say. It's really funny is we had COVID a few weeks ago. And I tested positive three times over a week. And you, Kim tested, even though she was so sick, she tested negative four times in the week. And she looked at him and she goes, this is proof that I'm always negative. I mean, it was another kind of an indicator.

Yeah. So I forgot the original question, but I was raised to have a mindset that thinks always in the dark. When you're poor, you're oftentimes raised with a very fixed mindset. And so you think there's a limited amount of everything in the world and limited amount of intelligence or talent, but a limited amount of money and food. And one of the things you really have to shift in your mind is this idea that if someone else has, they just took away from you. And they begin to have an abundance mindset where you begin to realize that someone else's

success doesn't get in the way of my success. us. What someone else has doesn't take anything away from me. In fact, if anything, it's an indicator. If someone else succeeds, I can succeed as well. And so there are like these subtle, they're almost granular, small shifts. They're not massive. But they're so significant that when you make that small shift that changes your life. And like one of them, I think in chapter three, the chapter is you can't take everyone with you. One of the great challenges, you know, both for Kim and I, was that whenever we would make choices that would change our life whenever we'd make choices to grow there were people who were

not happy they were not happy for us they felt like we'd abandon them because we were growing and changing and we'd invite them to come with us but they didn't want to make the sacrifices and take on the discipline to change and one of the hardest things for kim is realizing that people she loves people in her family people who were in the church that um she wanted to take with her and that they didn't want to come with her and you have to have a mindset that says look you know people matter the most because that's the opening chapter

it's all about people but then two chapters later it's you can't take everyone with you and that's one of the great tensions in life is to realize that if you stay around people who are underachievers you will be an underachiever all your life if you stay around people who are

your drinking buddies you're going to be drinking all of your life if you're going to actually change the internal structure of your life, you have to be committed to change the external circumstance of your life. Golly, I got the chills when you're describing the subtle shifts that can make such a drastic impact. And I think I immediately thought of the several mentors that I've had that have made those shifts for me. And actually, I mean, one of the lessons that I've learned in marriage is

Sean will have some insecurities sometimes. that are really like a barrier to allowing me to love her or like it hinders the furthering of our relationship because she's just like some in some things and it's been really cool to see that grow out and I have my own things but like it caps how close and intimate our relationship can be and I know we've had the opportunity to interact with some billionaires And it's such a fascinating experience to sit there and listen to them, you know, describe their vision for how they're going to construct this property or change this city. And the point is not that money solves problems. It's just like their canvas is more easily materialistic things.

But maybe your canvas is family. Maybe your canvas is your marriage. Maybe your canvas is, you know, your church or whatever it is. But it's like, gosh, we are made in God's image. and when you realize there's this beautiful creative aspect or like this oh man like the the sky is the limit type thing it's a really profound kind of thing kind of experience that we've been fortunate enough to confront several times in our life so thank you for the book and I think it's incredibly powerful this episode is brought to you by Defender with its

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And, you know, one of the little tweaks, you actually sent us a note about these three phrases, mental toughness, mental clarity, mental health. But I actually wanted to throw a fourth one in there that I think is maybe the most important, and that's mental agility. You know, Kim is much younger than me, but I turned 65 a couple of weeks ago. And I've never felt more mentally agile in my life. I've never felt more curious, more inventive, more imaginative. And one of the things that you need in life to really destroy every ceiling is not just mental clarity and mental health and mental toughness. You need mental agility. You need the ability to keep thinking differently, to think outside the box, to think inventively, creatively, to adapt to new environments, new circumstances, new cultures, a new world.

and in this study it's interesting i've worked with three neuroclinics over the years and in one of them they said hey we we've discovered the lubricants of the brain the ingredient that actually keeps the human brain pliable and adaptive and it's not world it's not word puzzles you know it's it's not reading it's and even though racket sports are really important it's not even just racket sports. The lubricant of the brain they discovered is this thing called gratitude. And gratitude from a scientific perspective is seen as the lubricant of the brain. And when you remain grateful and you posture your heart to be thankful for your life of the people in your life. And I actually think it's interesting because worship, whether a person is a person who believes in God or not,

worship is a recurring act of gratitude and who would have ever guessed that the experience of worship where you're expressing thanks and gratitude will would actually have a neurological effect on keeping your brain agile flexible and pliable which makes perfect sense because when you connect to god you're going to be most open to the uncertain unexpected and chaotic future which is really a really wonderful thing. And so one of the things I really hope that this book does is not just give people tools to know how to survive life, you know, or tough it out,

but to actually begin to thrive and enjoy life to the fullest level. Well, hopefully we can all be like Kim and have an Instagram handle like Kim is alive and thrive like that. But it's the best one. It is the best. it's the best i have about a million more questions that that i want to ask you all but maybe it's a it's when your next book comes out and we could do this in person i'm so grateful for the time that uh kim you and you and irwin have given us and for those listening that want

to get access to irwin's new book called mind shift we'll link it down below um it's important stuff so thank you for the time glad to know you and hopefully they'll be in next time it's great to meet you guys and there will be next time take care thank you guys bye take care